#third class mail

[pitch-and-moan]

Letters to Iwo Jima

An AI-penned script that's supposed to be a remake of the Clint Eastwood 2006 film Letters from Iwo Jima, but because they already did the letters of Japanese soldiers that never made it out, this film focuses on the letters that never made it to the Japanese soldiers. Except they can't secure the rights to reproduce or use any actual letters sent but not delivered to Japanese soldiers, so instead they mock up a bunch of fake Japanese junk mail that wouldn't have reached the soldiers anyway. And without actors to read the letters, the film is just three hours of Japanese product recall notices and the 1940s Japanese equivalent for fliers about tree trimming services and window replacements.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

The White Star Line built three Olympics-class ocean liners; the lead ship RMS Olympic, the famous RMS Titanic, and the oft forgetten RMS Britannic. With a naming convention like that, there was a plethora of possibilities for sister ships

RMS Fanfic was way ahead of her time.

RMS Carcinogenic and RMS Septic never could attract as many guests as their sisters...

RMS Basic was the world's only third-class exclusive ocean liner. Nothing but the dregs allowed on this boat! Every deck is packed with steerage, and if they make eye contact with any of the officers they get thrown overboard.

[riikiblr]

You're still and inch taller than me 🥲

5'4" for the win 🦾

[unknownmads]

CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT INMATE TOJI AND CUTE LITTLE Y/N WHOS SO NAIVE TO BIG BAD TOJI

CW: Slight smut (mentions of his pp🤭)

☆☆☆

thinking about Prison toji who you met when your college has you do a little project in your criminal psychology class. The project was make a penpal get to know them ask why they are in prision, what their lives before was like, do they regret what they did etc. basic questions of course all you had to do was get the most information out of the penpal about their personal lives as you could.

Prison Toji who only signed up for the program because it was part of his latest court order saying he ‘needed more understanding’ so a penpal would give him a friend while they stay safe😭 he ofc hated the idea and thought it was the dumbest shit ever. until he got his first letter, from you (duh).

Prison toji who got mail for the first time and it was a little white envelope with a cute little sticker sealing it. He deadpanned *is my penpal an idiot these letters are for a prison not a daycare* he silently judges examining every detail as he opened the letter. i read the letter taking in every little personal detail you shared with him, your cute little name, how you loved your cat, how you’re new to the city only just moving for school, of course the boring questions for him as well. But at the very end of the letter he noticed an extra little note.

Ps. i left a few photos of myself along with some of my cat! i think it’s only fair since i got to see your photo on the website

Prison toji who grabs the envelope he previously had thrown to the side and pulls out 3 polaroids. One of you and probably your cat you’re dragging it into the photo with a big grin on your face. the second is a photo of your face a soft smile on your lips meant for whoever took the photo but Toji couldn’t help but wonder if that little smile was for him. Until he pulls out the third photo it’s a full view of you, you’re out in the city dressed all out, and Toji couldn’t help but know you chose that photo just for him.

Prison Toji who can’t wait to finally get some alone time so he can truly appreciate your pretty photos. And immediately goes to write you back answering all your cute little questions. Telling you where he lived before, how he ended up there, telling you what he did for work before (Surprise he sold drugs😍), telling you what he does to occupy his time here (he works out he just wanted an excuse to tell you how strong he is), and he asks you some questions.

Prison Toji who has been relentlessly flirting with since you started writing to him, asking if you had a boyfriend, how your school was going, why you moved to the city, how a cute lil thing like you is still single. You had been writing each other for a few weeks now which is a lot less than you think when you know how long mail takes. But your letters to each other are long. answering every little thing each other asks, learning about one another more and more. You had really connected so you finally ask him the big question he read the words as clear as day.

~Do you think i could come pay you a visit? ~

Prison Toji who had to immediately write back answering the most important question first.

~ And doll, you can come visit me anytime id love to finally meet you and see your pretty face in person~

he wanted to be nonchalant.

Prison Toji who was sitting in bed looking at your photos when he was called

“Zenin, you’ve got a visitor. away from the door.”

Prison Toji silently followed standing on the other side of the cell while the guard came in to handcuff him and bring him to the visiting area. Once he was in the room his cuffs connecting him to the table he waited. until he heard the door open again. He felt his cock twitch in his pants as he saw the guard guide you in. You were wide eyed taking in the new environment until they landed on him.

Prison Toji was large, you knew he was tall and muscular thanks to his letters and photo but nothing could have prepared you for the real deal. Eyes widening even more when you fully take him in. seated At the grey metal table his hands on the table as the guard had told him to. his hair poking at his eyes which were staring drinking you in. his lip in a smirk helping you notice the scar on it which you couldn’t really see from the grainy prison photos. His shirt stretched against his muscles showing off a few tattoos hidden along his skin. the view making you squeeze your thighs together to release some of the pressure building.

Prison Toji who took in as much of you as he could as he watched you shuffle into your seat across from him, enjoying how you squirmed slightly within his gaze, his smirk growing into an almost full smile.

“hey doll it’s good to finally meet you.”

[danieyells]

@mayoigotokurousagi LAST ONE OF YOURS here's Jin!!!

Jin is. . .he's a lot sweeter than you'd expect once his affinity gets high lol. . . . I FEEL LIKE I ENDED UP WITH A LOT OF COMMENTARY HERE. . .he just acts very different as affinity goes up, i have to point shit out haha

I've also amended this one to be all of his voicelines now!

Hello: (the first time the game is opened after that character is set as home screen NPC. Only happens once per day, unless the character is switched out and back.)

"Where the hell do you think you're going? Quit dawdling and help me get ready." お前、どこほっつき歩いてたんだ？……さっさと支度を手伝え

You've Got Mail: (whenever there's something in the inbox, usually Arena rewards)

"Hey, you've got mail. Don't tell me you're not going to open it. What if it was for me?" おい、手紙。放っとくつもりじゃねぇだろうな。 俺宛があったらどうすんだ？ あ？

Jin, why would your mail be in my. . .whatever

Default: (requires no affinity, has no time constraints)

"...Get to the point. The trash here is so long-winded." チッ……さっさと要件を言え。ゴミどもはこれだから面倒くせぇ

"A party? I don't waste air on bootlickers. Try Tohma." 社交界？　肩書き目当ての奴らに構うつもりはねぇよ。塔真をあたれ

"Don't just stand there like an idiot. Hurry up. ...What? You got a problem? Spit it out." おい、ぼさっと突っ立ってねぇでついてこい。 ……何だ、文句でもあんのか？

"Kneel! Tsk... Where's {PC}? Bring her to my room." 跪け！ 　……チッ。あの女はどこだ。今すぐ俺の部屋に連れてこい

"What? Your schedule's not my problem. Just arrange it around me." あ？　お前の都合なんて知らねぇ。黙って俺に合わせてりゃいいんだよ

Affinity 1: (between 5am and 11am)

"...Huh? I don't want to see your face at the crack of dawn. Get out." ……あ？寝起きから、その面見せんな…… 下がってろ

given how vulgar his speech is sometimes i'm surprised he didn't say "asscrack of dawn"

Affinity 2: (between 11am and 4pm)

"Tell the chef I'm not in the mood for meat today." ……シェフに伝えろ。今日は肉の気分じゃねぇってな

Affinity 3: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"I'm not wasting my time fooling around with those brats today. If they're really that bored, just make them go on a low-ranking mission or something." ガキの遊びに付き合う気はねぇよ。そんなに暇なら、適当に低ランク任務でも行かせておけ

he's just barely avoiding making iPad kids out of Kaito and Lucas lmao

Affinity 4: (between 8pm and 5am)

"Put my dinner over there. I'll eat later if I feel like it." ディナーはそこに置いておけ。気が向いたら食っておく

i am once again asking the ghouls to FUCKING EAT PROPER MEALS.

Affinity 5: (between 8pm and 5am)

"I need more data for this case...  Go find Tohma, servant." 任務の資料が足りてねぇ…… 下僕、塔真を呼んでこい

Affinity 6: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"A Class C anomaly? Miss me with that weak shit. Why do you think we have a Vice Captain?" あ？　Ｃ級怪異？ つまんねぇことに俺を巻き込むな。 何のために副寮長がいるんだ？

MISS ME WITH THAT WEAK SHIT I AM IN TEARS WHO TAUGHT YOU TO TALK LIKE THAT. . . .

Affinity 7: (between 11am and 4pm)

"What about class? Ha. What makes you think you can lecture me? Worry about yourself." ……授業の時間？　ハッ、俺に説教とはいい度胸じゃねぇか。お前は自分の心配でもしてろ

Affinity 8: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"You don't even know that? What do they teach here?" ……そんなこともわからねぇのか？この学園の教育はどうなってんだ

I guess Jin has a good handle on the material and everything he'd need to know, as a third year. I say 'as a third year' but Alan didn't understand some of the basics so--

Affinity 9: (between 8pm and 5am)

"Bianerus! ...I'm not feeling it today. You can go." ＜ビアネルス＞ …………チッ。調子が悪い。今日はもう下がれ

Affinity 10: (between 10pm and midnight)

"It's late. We're done here. Leave." ……もう遅い。話は終わりだ、下がれ

Affinity 11: (between 5am and 11am)

"You're late. You've got some nerve making me wait, servant." ……遅ぇよ。下僕ごときが俺を待たせるな

Affinity 12: (between 11am and 4pm)

"...I'm hungry. Go order lunch. For two." ……腹が減ったな。おい、ランチの手配をしろ。２人分だ

i guarantee you the pc did not consider that he meant "i want to eat lunch with you" the first time this happened. she probably just thought "damn jin's hungry today."

Affinity 13: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"You have plans? Take a second and really think about whether your plans are more important than me before you open that mouth again." 今日は都合が悪い？ ……俺より優先する価値があるか、よく考えてから口を開け

Affinity 14: (between 5am and 11am)

"...Why are you so chatty today? Just pour my tea and get out of my face." チッ……うるせぇ。いつもの紅茶だけ淹れて失せろ

'stop trying to befriend me and go away' lmao

Affinity 15: (between 5am and 11am)

"You should be grateful I'm giving you the time of day this early in the morning." 俺が朝から相手してやってんだ。ありがたく思え

Affinity 16: (between 11am and 4pm)

"Why do you look so worn out? If you're going to serve me, learn how to take better care of yourself. Tohma, take her to the infirmary." おい下僕、なんだその顔色は。俺に仕えるなら体調管理は万全にしろ。 塔真、こいつを保健室に運んでこい

why the infirmary. . .i don't think she needs a doctor i think she needs a nap. You're overworking her didn't Tohma tell you not to break her you donut

Affinity 17: (between 10pm and midnight)

"It's still early... You want to practice the waltz? Bold, aren't you? You're going to be sore tomorrow." まだこんな時間か。 ワルツの練習？……生意気に催促しやがって。 覚悟しろよ。お前は明日、筋肉痛だ

are we still. . .talking about the. . .dancing. . . .

Affinity 18: (between 8pm and 5am)

"You want to dine with me? Ha. All right. Show me if you've learned anything." お前と俺が、ディナーを一緒に？ ハッ、面白ぇ。お手並み拝見といこうか

impromptu lesson on table manners!?

Affinity 19: (between 10pm and midnight)

"It's quiet tonight... Sit here, next to me. We're playing a duet. Don't give me that look. You'll know this song." 今夜は静かだな……隣に座れ。 連弾だ。そんな顔すんじゃねぇよ。 ……お前も知ってる曲だ

I previously used the expression names to describe his expression as 'pouting' and 'like a spoiled child' but he mostly just looks irritated lmaooo

Affinity 20: (between 5am and 11am)

"Waking me up every morning was your idea, so I'd better see you here tomorrow too. That's an order." ルーティンにしたのはお前だろ。責任取って、明日も起こしに来い。 ……これは命令だ

how quickly we go from "i don't wanna see your face first thing in the morning" to "i had better see your face every morning". . . . (it's not quickly at all. it's actually an incredibly slow process getting affinity up.)

Affinity 21: (between 11am and 4pm)

"...I was too active yesterday. Massage me, servant. ...What the hell was that? Put some muscle into it." チッ。昨日は体を動かしすぎたな。 下僕、次はマッサージだ。 ……足りねぇよ。もっと強く押せ

i love this one he's just like bitch what the fuck kinda weak ass massage is that put some back into it?????

Affinity 22: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"You don't know about dining etiquette? I don't have time for this... If you want me to teach you, I better see that nose on the grindstone." テーブルマナーがわからない？ 面倒くせぇ……俺に教わるからにはそれ相応の覚悟があんだろうな？

we are reaching critical levels of "i need to make you presentable so you can meet my father" also I find it funny that this is after the "you wanna eat with me? let's see if you've learned anything" line. WHEN WERE THEY SUPPOSED TO HAVE HAD LEARNED OR DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO STUDY YOU AS YOU EAT

Affinity 23: (between 8pm and 5am)

"What's that? My helicopter, obviously. Quit gawking and get in." 俺のヘリだ。見たらわかんだろ。……いいから、さっさと乗れ

get in servant idk where we're going but you are going with me

Affinity 24: (between 10pm and midnight)

"I've got plans early tomorrow. Your house is too far. Stay here tonight." 明日は早朝から用事がある。お前が寝泊まりしてる寮からじゃ間に合わねぇかもな。 今夜は、ここに泊まれ

another expression note. . .he's looking away and putting his hand on the back of his neck here. He's shy, almost. Because he's not asking you to stay over to perform some task. It's not your usual master-servant dynamic. He just wants you close to him. As close as possible. He really is rather sweet.

Affinity 25(max): (no time constraints)

"Never learn, do you? I don't take you being here for granted. I know it won't last forever. That's all I'm going to say." 懲りないやつだな。言っておくが、こうやってお前が隣にいること…… 俺は、永遠に続くとは思ってねぇぞ

Jin makes a kind of sad face when he says it won't last forever. well, as sad as he can manage.

He knows that once your curse is broken you'll probably go back to your ordinary life. If your curse can't be broken you'll die. And if you, for some reason, continue to stay at Darkwick even after being cured, he'll be a fourth year next year--he's gonna go off to do field work. Eventually he'll work in the highest levels of the Institute and eventually he'll take his father's place as the president. With all of this, there's no way you'll be able to be together, no matter what. This is a short lived burst of happiness and attachment for him. It means a lot more to him than you realize.

Spring: (March-May) (between 5am and 11am)

"(yawn) What's with that look? I'm not allowed to yawn?" ふぁっ…… あ？　何だその顔は。俺があくびして悪ぃか？

(between 11am and 4pm)

"The flowers you can see from the balcony? Yeah, I had them planted. ...My mother liked them." バルコニーから見える花……？ああ、俺が植えさせた。 …………お袋が好きだった花だ

the balcony bg and the front of frostheim background don't have flowers visible in them(i mean the balcony has potted plants but no flowers). . .i wonder what kind of flowers his mother liked. maybe the pc will grow them when they turn into a Kyklos.

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Sunset's supposed to be nice this time of year. Come on, servant. Before I change my mind." 春茜か……おい下僕、少し外に出る。 俺の気が変わる前に付き合えよ

(between 8pm and 5am)

"You're going to see the cherry blossoms tonight with the brats? Suit yourself. I doubt any of you can appreciate them." あ？　ガキどもと夜桜を見に行く？ 勝手にしろ。お前らに、あの風情がわかるとは思えねぇけどな

'you guys are too poor to appreciate nice things'

Summer: (June-August) (between 5am and 11am)

"Those little shits are so loud this morning... They're worse than the cicadas. Tohma, go exterminate them." クソ、朝からガキどもがうるせぇ。 塔真、あのセミより鬱陶しい奴らを駆除してこい

MODS, PUT 'EM IN THE BLENDER.

(between 11am and 4pm)

"What kind of moron chooses to go out in the sun this time of year? Unless you want your brain to melt, stay here with me." わざわざこの時期、日を浴びようなんて奴は馬鹿しかいねぇ。 お前も脳みそ溶かしたくなきゃ、ここにいろ

jin. . .this is frostheim. it is PERMANENTLY WINTER here, even to the point of that the day-night timing doesn't change. It's not hot unless we leave the boundaries of frostheim. . . . THIS IS A THINLY VEILED EXCUSE TO GET YOU TO STAY WITH HIM.

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"You've got tickets to a fireworks festival? The view's better from a helicopter. ...You've got guts thinking you can show me a good time, peasant." あ？　花火大会の観覧席チケット？ 花火はヘリから見るもんだろ。庶民の分際で俺を誘いやがって……

'peasant' is worse than 'servant' in my opinion. . . .

(between 8pm and 5am)

"Haven't heard the sound of waves for a while... Get the speedboat. I'll drive." しばらく波の音も聞いてねぇな…… おい、今すぐクルーザーを出せ。操縦は俺がする

jin just shoving you into various vehicles to take you places is really funny to me for some reason. you're like his purse dog. he just wants to take you everywhere even if it doesn't really benefit him to do so. also he can drive a speedboat????

Autumn: (September-November) (between 5am and 11am)

"I overworked myself. Go get Tohma. I was right having him get that PT license. I should have you get one too." 塔真を呼べ、オーバーワークした。 あいつに整体の資格を取らせたのは正解だったな。 下僕、お前も取るか

. . .doesn't that take like three years minimum in japan. . .how did you get him to get that. . .didn't he only meet you like two and a half years ago and you weren't even in the same house then. . .is that a darkwick offered course. . . .

(between 11am and 4pm)

"A pumpkin spice latte? I'm not drinking this saccharine garbage. Give the rest to the brats." あ？　パンプキンスパイスラテ？ こんな甘ったるい茶は飲まねぇよ。残りはガキどもにやっとけ

what do you think he is, a basic bitch like you? Not a big fan of sweets. Noted.

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"My favorite family vacation? Don't have one. This conversation is over." 行楽の思い出？そんなもんねぇよ。 ……この話は終わりだ

(between 8pm and 5am)

"I don't play the piano because I like it. It's just force of habit." 別に、ピアノが好きで弾いてるわけじゃねぇよ。ただの惰性だ

Winter: (December-February) (between 5am and 11am)

"...Don't fucking wake me up. Come back later." ……起こすんじゃねぇ。話なら後にしろ

he hates the heat he hates the cold. . .well he also hates mornings in general. . . .

(between 11am and 4pm)

"Why is my name on this snowman? Tohma, give me your gloves. Whichever half-wit made this has shit for eyes." なんで雪だるまに、俺の名前が？ ……塔真、手袋を貸せ。これ作った奴の目は、確実に腐ってやがんな

"is that supposed to be me. . .? aw hell no i am fixing this shit"

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Tell the chef and the brats we're having a roast dinner tomorrow. Kobe beef. They know how I like it." 明日はローストディナーだ、シェフとガキどもに言っとけ。 肉は神戸牛でな。焼き加減はわかってるはずだ

i like that the frostheim ghouls eat dinner together like a family. . .jin looks at Kaito and Lucas and goes 'those are my idiot sons. i cannot stand them.'

(between 8pm and 5am)

"You're staying here tonight, servant. I'll show you an aurora you couldn't even dream of." 下僕、今夜は泊まれ。最上級のオーロラを見せてやる

see how this is worded differently from when he asks you to stay over because 'your house is too far away'? even when he's trying to be sweet to you, as long as he maintains your power imbalance he feels comfortable--he has something over you here--but trying to lay his feelings bare, just saying 'i want you to stay with me', that's so much more than he's used to saying.

His birthday: (August 31st)

"A birthday party? This has Tohma written all over it, that asshole's always using me to— You're planning it? ...I'll think about it." 誕生日パーティー？　塔真の奴、また俺を客寄せに使って…… 違う？お前が主催？ ……気が向いたらな

'that asshole tohma is trying to make me go outside aga--oh you're planning the party. oh. okay. maybe.'

Your birthday:

"The song I just played? It's G. F. Handel. He wrote it for the queen's birthday." さっき弾いた曲？……Ｇ．Ｆ．ヘンデルが、女王の誕生日に送った曲だ

in case you don't get the significance of what he's saying here. . .lemme fetch one of Tohma's lines for you--

"I'm no more than a servant. Frostheim is ruled by a king, you see." 私はあくまで小間使いですよ。フロストハイムには、キングがいますから

my dude I think jin just called you his queen--only for your birthday though don't get cocky, servant

New Years: (January 1st)

"Hope you're ready for another year being at beck and call, servant. First up, my New Year's courtesy calls. Go do them for me." おい、下僕。今年も俺専用の女中として必死に尽くせよ。 まずは新年の挨拶回りだ。代わりに行ってこい

'happy new year! your purpose is still serving me.'

Valentine's Day: (February 14th)

"What's that sad-looking box you're holding? ...Oh. No, don't throw it away. I'll take it." なんだ？　この貧相な包みは。 ……ああ、そういうことか。 捨てなくていい。受け取ってやるよ

jin is one of those characters who probably gets a mountain of chocolates given to him by admirers, all brand name and like from famous confectioners and shit. real nice fancy packages. so he sees your shitty little unprofessional homemade thing and is like 'tf is that' before he realizes it's for him and it's made with love and he just. . .ah. no, i want that, actually.

White Day: (March 14th)

"Keep your schedule open tonight. You're having a meal your peasant taste buds couldn't even dream of." おい、今夜は予定を開けとけ。庶民じゃ一生出会えねぇような美味いもん、お前に食わせてやるよ

April Fool's Day: (April 1st)

"Hey, are you all right? ...Tsk. If that was a joke, it wasn't fucking funny. I've changed my mind. Cancel all my plans for the day." おい、お前大丈夫か？ 　……チッ。質の悪ぃ嘘だな…… 気が変わった。今日の予定はすべてキャンセルだ

i feel like Jin is about to put together the most elaborate prank and it's gonna hurt someone's feelings or get somebody hurt and no one will find it funny and he'll end up feeling super shitty. like that one spongebob episode.

Halloween: (October 31st)

"Where the hell's Tohma? Asshole sent the brats to my room to beg for candy. Next time I see him I'm going to wring his fucking neck." クソ……塔真はどこだ。俺の部屋に籠持ったガキども寄こしやがって。 あいつ……ぶっ殺すぞ……

okay but did you give them candy?

Christmas: (December 25th)

"Go tell Tohma what color dress you're wearing tonight. Why? Maybe I'll wear a matching ascot tie. If I feel like it." 今夜着るドレスの色を塔真に伝えておけ。 あ？　理由？ 気が向いたらアスコットタイの色を合わせてやる

Idle: (about 20 seconds without interacting with the game) (below 13 affinity)

"...Where the hell did she go?" ……あの女、どこ行きやがった？

(13 affinity and above)

"Shit... This is throwing me off. Who does that servant think she is?" ……クソ……調子が狂う。 下僕の分際で、舐めやがって……

he feels so wrong without you next to him aw

Absent: (logging in for the first time in 2 or more days?)

"...You've got guts abandoning your place at my back, servant. I'm going to have to retrain you." …………っ、おい……下僕は常に主人の後ろにいるもんだろうが。 お前は再教育だ

ONCE AGAIN IT FEELS LIKE I PUT NEARLY ALL OF THEM IN IT'S ALL OF THEM NOW! The way he treats the pc in so many different ways but it makes sense with his character and feelings. . .as far as the home screen lines go, Jin definitely loves you in some capacity. He's actually quite clingy. . .i'm a little too sleepy for more coherent thought haha

[starry-bi-sky]

Childhood Friends Danny and Jason

(cw underage smoking / smoking as a form of bonding) (cw Jason thinking Danny killed himself but its only for a moment) (cw depictions of murderous intent? Danny wants to murder the Joker and he's a little descriptive about it)

Now on ao3 :) (and with a response and a third one)

AND ALSO A REMASTERED VERSION THAT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GO CHECK OUT BECAUSE I WORKED VERY HARD ON IT.

This is… aha. Massive. Word count check: 9k+

this has probably been done before but hey, everyone loves a good trope and I wanted to share my take on this idea. 👏👏 So, Danny Fenton and Jason Todd being childhood friends. The Fentons lived in Crime Alley for a good long while during Danny's childhood. Nobody wanted to fund their research and Jack and Maddie struggled to keep any form of work for a multitude of reasons. Jack worked in construction due to his big build and Maddie had another job elsewhere.

Danny and Jason were friends during that time, really great friends. I'm not super solid on how they met yet but I do know it involves Danny committing petty crime and Jason deciding to jump in and help when he sees Danny struggling. Danny was distrustful (as all crime alley kids ought to be) but they eventually became thick as thieves, committing petty crime together.

While it's all too easy to make Danny the weaker one of the two with Jason protecting him, I actually really like the idea that they protected each other. Growing up (essentially) on the streets means Danny forcibly had to grow a backbone unless he wanted to get trampled all over. He is just as willing to scuffle with the bigger kids as Jason is, and he and Jason regularly fought each other whenever they needed to let off steam, or just because. They were a duo, having each other's backs in tough situations.

(Sometimes the pair of them would sneak out at night and try and get a glimpse of Batman and Robin while they soared through the air. It was like a game between the two of them to see who could spot the dynamic duo first. When they were a little older, Jason would steal his dad's cigarettes and share them with Danny while they searched for Batman and Robin)

So when Danny has to move away when they're eleven years old, it's pretty safe to say that Jason didn't speak to him for a week afterwards. Nothing Danny did could persuade him to otherwise, even when Danny insisted that it wasn't his fault and that he didn't want to move away either, but he didn't have a choice in the matter.

When the week was over, Jason climbed through Danny's window and sat in his room, dead silent and looking upset. he didn't speak until Danny fished out a stolen pack of cigarettes from his bed and handed one to Jason.

(It was a ritual they had where if one of them was upset about something but wasn't saying anything, the other one could then hand them a cigarette -- whether it be the one they were using or a new one -- and that would be an open invitation for the person to vent. The other one who handed him the cigarette wouldn't speak until the venter handed back the cigarette. Then back and forth it would go until the cigarette was gone.)

Jason ranted about how pissed he was about Danny moving, and they promised to try and stay in touch after he leaves. Neither of them had phones, but Danny was determined to send him a letters.

Danny moves to Amity Park and it's... an adjustment, that's for sure. He's angry, grumpy, upset, and every other negative feeling under the sun. He was going to a new middle school with new people he didn't know, away from all of the people he did know and away from his best friend.

(He does however keep his word about sending letters, and mails one out to Jason at the first opportunity.)

He refuses to get along with anyone, butts heads with the teachers, is combative, rude, and openly smokes in class -- which gets him plenty of detentions and a bad reputation. He speaks in a thick Gotham street accent and wears hand-me-down clothes that are too big and baggy on him. (His parents have yet to replace any of their wardrobes as they settle into their new life, and Danny is hesitant to spend the money to get new clothes.)

He only manages to befriend Sam and Tucker because one of the football kids was bullying Tucker and Danny stepped in. It was some blond jerk named Dash and when Dash threw the first punch, Danny broke his nose. Tucker found him later that day and reluctantly thanked him for his help.

Sam and Danny do not get along for the longest time. Sam questions Danny about his upbringing, his accent, his smoking. She judges him for talking back to the teachers despite doing it herself and for ruining his lungs with cigarettes. Danny tells her to fuck off, and when she tries to judge him and Tucker for not being vegetarian, he calls her a privileged brat.

Sam doesn't even look at him for two weeks after, and Danny refuses to apologize. Tucker is caught between a rock and a hard place as his old friend and new friend are feuding with each other.

They... sort it out eventually.

Danny and Jason send each other letters near religiously. Danny complains about Amity Park, and Jason complains about how Crime Alley isn't the same without him. Danny talks about the school and what he's learned, about Sam and Tucker, and how he's been getting into the astronomy books in the library. He steals Jason a book and sends it to him.

When Jason tells Danny that he was adopted by Bruce Wayne, Danny calls bullshit. There's no fucking way Bruce Wayne would even look at Crime Alley, regardless of his charity efforts towards it. But when he checks Gotham news later that week, he's hit in the face with every single news article announcing Bruce Wayne's newest ward; Jason Todd.

Cue freaking out. Jason talks all about living in Wayne Manor and what it's like there. He says that there's a monster library in a part of the house that Bruce says he has free reign over, and that Jason can have anything to eat as long as he asks Alfred to make it and it isn't a desert, and that he has his own monster-sized room that he got to pick out himself and decorate.

(When they both get phones, the first thing either of them do is add each other's numbers.)

When Sam complains about having to go to a Wayne Gala that her parents are dragging her to one weekend, the first thing Danny asks is if he can go with. It surprises Sam and Tucker; Danny was the last person they would have thought wanted to go with. HE hates the rich even more than Sam does. Danny stands firm in his decision, and refuses to elaborate.

"Besides." He says to Sam, with whom he's begun to get along with via 'the enemy of my enemy is a friend'. "Would you rather go alone or with someone you can tolerate?"

She brings him with and convinces her parents to allow Danny to come along, citing that she'll be on her best behavior if they do. They agree, and buy Danny a suit when he says that he doesn't have one of his own.

(He discovers that he hates wearing suit jackets and ties, but vests he doesn't mind. He doesn't like that he has to comb his hair back, but he does to make Sam's parents happy. They give him a crash course in etiquette that Danny's going to forget the next day, and soon enough off they go in a private jet to Gotham)

(he does not tell Jason he's coming.)

he feels mischievous and nervous as they touch down, his stomach swirling as Sam's parents usher them to a high-profile hotel that Danny's only ever dreamed about going into. He feels largely out of place as they walk through the lobby, and falls back on old habits: square shoulders, set jaw, make yourself look like the biggest person in the room.

They get ready in the hotel room, Sam's parents primp and preen for the night incoming, and Sam is dragged into it by her mother. Danny does only what's required of him, and fiddles with the sleeves of his fresh-ironed button-down that's been tailored to his body. He's itching for a cigarette, and didn't bring any with.

Sam's dad helps him with his tie, a bout of kindness that Danny doesn't think is one. Just obligation to prevent Danny from looking like a mess. Sam pesters him again about wanting to come, and his reasons for it, and Danny keeps mum.

He's stone-faced with anxiety as they get closer to the gala, and before they leave the limousine the Mansons rented Sam links arms with him. A form of solidarity that Danny needs as he squeezes their arms together and smiles weakly at her.

The paparazzi are loud, bright, and demanding, shouting questions over questions at them like overlapping tidal waves. Danny ignores them all and focuses on the front doors instead. Sam's parents whisper at the stairs that they are to greet the Waynes first, and Danny's heart leaps to his throat.

His heart is in his ears as they drift closer, Mister Wayne is preoccupied with another rich couple, smiling that charming billionaire smile that Danny saw on every billboard in Gotham, and then some in Amity Park. Getting so close to him feels unreal.

And there by his side is the one and only Jason Todd, who isn't even trying to hide the bored look on his face as he watches Bruce interact with the other adults. He's gotten taller in the year they've been away, and healthier. His hair looks like its been cut professionally and he doesn't look as street kid skinny.

Danny's arm, hooked with Sam's, tightens up, and he resists the urge to rush forward and hug Jason. He watches Jason's eyes sweep left, away from him, and then right, towards him. The air stills for a moment as their eyes lock.

Danny grins toothily at him, lopsided and playful in nature, and sees the moment Jason processes the sight before him. His arm starts slipping out of Sam's at the same time as an ecstatic smile stretches across Jason's face.

His lopsided grin fills out on the other end. "DANNY!" Jason yells, cutting off whatever Bruce Wayne and startling everyone within earshot. There's barely a moment for Bruce to look down when Jason shoves past him and runs at Danny.

Danny yanks his arm out of Sam's, "JASON!" He yells with just as much enthusiasm, and Jason nearly topples them right over when he collides with Danny. His arms wrap around Danny's shoulders, holding onto him tightly, and they're both laughing, spinning around like tops out of joy.

"You didn't tell me you were coming!" Jason cries, sounding accusing. Danny hugs him just as tightly, and laughs when Jason pulls away momentarily to punch his shoulder.

"I wanted it to be a surprise!" He defends, laughing between words as their spinning comes to a stop. They're both reluctant to pull apart, but they do and clutch the sleeves of their elbows tightly. "How could my best friend be adopted by the Bruce Wayne and have me not come confirm it with my own two eyes?"

"I sent you newspaper clippings!" Jason says, narrowing his eyes while his smile betrays his face. Danny quietly notices that his Gotham street accent is faded slightly.

"Oh that's what it was?" Danny's grin turns again, edging into a smirk. He feigns innocence, "I thought that was fire kindling." He has the newspaper clippings hung on the corkboard in his room, proud beyond words about his best friend.

Jason punches him in the shoulder again, hard enough to leave a bruise. "You jackass." He says, ignoring Danny's laughter even when he's holding back his own.

There's a soft, sharp clearing of someone's throat, breaking their attentions away from each other to the one that made the noise.

Bruce Wayne was a tall man, taller than Danny expected, and he looks exactly like his billboards. If less promiscuous than his perfume ads. Danny expects him to be upset with them both for disrupting his pretty rich gala, but instead he just looks gently amused, with an arched eyebrow. Overall though, he just looks fond.

Danny would be the first to admit that Bruce had taken in Jason as a charity case, something to fill the void after his other kid Dick Grayson finally moved out. But Danny’s a good judge of character — or he likes to assume he is — and those are not the eyes of a man who would take Jason in as a charity case. Those are the eyes of a man who actually, genuinely, cares about one Jason Todd.

The wriggly protective thing settles in his chest.

He doesn’t let go of Jason, but he does twist his smile into something a little more polite. Mister Wayne’s eyebrow arches higher, and he turns his blue-blue eyes onto Jason. “Who’s this, Jason?” He has that fancy Gotham Elite accent -- something that sounds like a mix between old transatlantic and faintly British -- that Danny's only heard in passing when he and Jason snuck up to the nicer parts of Gotham.

Jason stares at Mister Wayne, his grip on Danny tightens as his eyes flick to the other onlookers in the room. “This is Danny, B.” He says once his eyes turn back to Mister Wayne. “We grew up in Crime Alley together, he moved to Illinois last year."

Danny can see the uncomfortable expressions cross every rich person's face, murmurs sweeping across the room as soon their uncomfortable gazes turned judgmental and flinty. He's kept track of the tabloids after Jason's adoption, the ones calling him a charity case and looking down on him for being a street kid.

He inches a little closer to Jason, straightening up instinctively, as if they were back in Crime Alley and facing a pack of kids that didn't like them. He can see Sam's surprised expression from the corner of his eye -- he never told Tucker or Sam about where he grew up, although he's sure they had their suspicions.

He looks back to Mister Wayne and meets his blue-blue eyes, his smile has slowly begun to fade. Mister Wayne doesn't miss a beat however, and his smile stays plastered to his face. If anything, it gets a little softer, a little wider. "It's nice to meet you Danny -- Daniel? I'm so glad that Jason has a friend here." He holds out a hand.

Danny eyes him unsurely, and then takes his hand. "It's jus' Danny, Mister Wayne." He says, some of his old accent slipping through as he shook his hand firmly. He would have done it harder, but this was Jason's new guardian, and from Jason's letters he didn't sound too bad. "It's, uh, nice to meet you too. Jason's told me lots about you."

Mister Wayne's brows jump momentarily, he looks intrigued. He looks between Danny and Jason, and claps his hands together softly. "Well, Jay, how would you like to stay with Danny for a while, hm? I'm sure you too have a lot to catch up on."

Hope simmers in Danny's heart, and he glances to Jason to see that same hope on his face. "Really?" He asks, and Mister Wayne nods with a laugh.

"Of course! How could I keep two friends apart? Go on ahead, chum. I'll come get you when the gala ends."

And just like that, Bruce Wayne leaves Jason with Danny, diving back into a conversation with one of the rich gothamites and taking the attention with it as if he were the sun and everyone else a planet orbiting him.

Danny and Jason share grins, and throw their arms around each other with laughter. Danny is on cloud nine, pressing his nose into Jason's shoulder and breathing him in, fingers digging into the back of his suit hard enough to leave wrinkles in his jacket.

Sam demands answers when they finally, for real this time, pull apart. Why didn't he tell her that he was friends with Jason Todd!? Danny slings his arm around Jason's shoulders and keeps him close, and tells her that it was because he wanted it to be a surprise.

Sam's parents have unreadable expressions on their faces, part greed -- Danny is their in to the elusive Bruce Wayne -- and part disdain -- a Gotham street rat. Danny ignores them, they're unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

He introduces Sam to Jason, and Jason to Sam. And off they go to a corner of the room near the buffet table where they can eat and shit talk everyone else in the room in peace.

At some point in the night Sam is called back to her parents to meet some other fancy rich kids her parents want her to get along with, and Danny and Jason go off to the west end balcony to avoid anyone who may try and approach the new Gotham ward.

Danny hops up onto the balcony railing, kicking his feet as Jason pulls a cigarette pack out of his inner jacket pocket, and grins. "Don't tell Bruce," he says, handing the box to Danny first. "He's been trying to get me to quit."

"Hah!" Danny takes one just as Jason slips out a lighter. "That sounds like Jazz. She's been trying to get me to stop since we moved to Amity." Granted, she's been trying ever since she found out before they moved, but now she was even more insistent. "She hasn't found my stash yet."

At the end of the night when the Mansons are leaving and Danny has to leave with them, he walks back to Mister Wayne with Jason to tell him that he's leaving. Mister Wayne mourns his going, and tells him that he's always able to come visit.

"Any friend of Jason's is always welcome to the manor." He says with a blinding grin, pulling Jason close to his side and squeezing him tight. Jason's nose scrunches up, but he doesn't push away.

It becomes a new routine for them. The Mansons are all too happy to bring him with to the Wayne Galas (of which they start receiving more invites to due to their connection with Danny) and Danny is all too happy to spend the evening with Jason again. No matter what, they always end up on the balcony at some point in the night.

And, eventually, Danny is invited to stay at Wayne Manor either for a weekend or for a break. He jumps at the chance when winter break rolls around and his parents start their debate over Santa Claus again.

Danny and Jason stay up late into the night talking or playing video games during their sleepovers, and in the warmer nights they climb out and onto the roof to stargaze. Danny points out constellations - - things he can find in neither Gotham or Amity -- and rambles on and on about space.

There are plenty of times during the Wayne Galas that the event gets attacked by a rogue. More often than he'd like he loses Jason in the crowd, and has later stopped Robin or Batman in his panic to find him.

The first time it happened, he was in tears with terror. He grabbed onto Batman's cape, stopping the man from going back in as he babbled that his Jason Todd was still inside, that he disappeared during the chaos and he couldn't find him. Batman took his hands and calmly told him that he'd find Jason for him, and that he was sure he was okay, but he needed to calm down.

He found Jason later once everything had calmed down, and he screamed at him for disappearing during a rogue attack, if he ever did it again he'll kill him. Then he cried.

The second time it happened, Danny didn't even realize that Jason was gone until everything was already over. They'd been separated before the attack happened. He stopped Robin and Batman before they could leave, trying to keep his breathing under control as he asked again, if they had seen Jason Todd.

"That- that asshole keeps fucking ditching me when these things happen." His voice has an embarrassing wobble in it. "Please-- please tell me you've seen him, that he's alright."

Robin this time steps up to reassure him, that Jason Todd was out of the building. He got him out. "He's probably looking for you too, uhhh..."

"Danny" Danny says, and eyes him up and down. "You're the new Robin right?"

Robin stilled up, and Danny could understand it a little. He'd seen the thoughts on the new Robin online. He wasn't very popular at first. Robin nods curtly, and Batman was shuffled a little closer to him, almost protectively.

Danny grins at him. "Cool." He says, "Me and Jay used to sneak out onto the rooftops sometimes to try and spot Batman and the first Robin, we made it a game." He holds out a fistbump, "Thanks for doing what you do, man. I might not live in Gotham anymore, but I mean it. You're a living legend."

Robin looks like there's something stuck in his throat, and after a beat he returns the fistbump tentatively. "Th- uh, thanks." He stumbles out awkwardly, and then turns away, "Me and B- uh, better go."

Before Danny could even respond, Robin already had his grapple in hand and was grappling away. "You too, Batman." Danny says before Batman can follow.

When Danny sees Jason after that, and weight lifts off his chest and he hits him in the arm again. And then complains that he should have gotten Batman and Robin's autograph, it would have been epic.

By the fifth time it happens, Danny is cussing up a storm when Robin saves him, cursing out Jason and claiming that he needs to put that boy on a fucking leash. "We're a duo!" He scowls when Robin gets him outside, "I got his back, he has mine! I can't have his back when he's got no back to fucking have."

The eighth time it happens, Danny gets held hostage by one of the henchmen. He's become a recognizable friend of the Waynes, and when the Waynes are nowhere to be found, then the next best thing was up to offer. Danny isn't even mad this time around -- just relieved that Jason was fucking off somewhere where he couldn't get hurt.

Robin, however, seemed furious when he arrived, and broke the hostager's jaw with a single flying kick to the face. Jason found him rapidly quick soon after the situation had settled, and apologized over and over again.

Danny slings an arm around his shoulder and laughs that it was fine, Robin saved the day! His legs were shaking with the worn off adrenaline, something he tried to hide from Jason. "I'm just glad it was me instead of you, Jay." He grins. Jason looks like he swallowed a toad.

Jason stops disappearing as often after that, sticking close to Danny's side until the attack was over.

When Danny is fourteen, Jason dies, and his world unravels.

He calls the manor on a late night in April after Jason had stopped responding to his texts. Danny knew that Jason was just recently in a fight with Bruce, but he knows that Bruce loves Jason. He would know where he is, right?

When he calls, Bruce answers with a hoarse "hello?" as if he'd been crying all day, and Danny's blood turns to ice. The anxiety he'd been feeling beforehand doubles in size, and he feels himself stammering.

"Mister- uh- Mister Wayne? Um, I'm calling because Jason--" he hears Bruce inhale sharply on the other line, and his anxiety skyrockets into fear. "--hasn't been answering any of my texts and- and I'm gettin' real worried."

There's silence on the other end, and Danny feels a rock forming in his throat, gross and heavy like he was on the verge of throwing up. "Mister- Bruce? Mister B?"

There's a shaky breath, and then Bruce's voice crackles through the phone. "Um-- Jason, he, he's--" there's a sound like rustling, "he's been killed."

Danny's vision whites out with skyrocketing terror, his mind skidding to a stop. His body rapidly grows hot, and then chills, like a blacksmith striking a heated weapon. "What?"

When the phone call ends, Danny screams himself hoarse. Jazz and his parents come running into his room, his parents equipped with ghost weapons. Instead, they find Danny curled up in his bed, sobbing hoarsely.

Danny almost -- almost -- refuses to attend the funeral, nearly paralyzed with grief. Jazz coaxes him to go, to find closure if anything else, and he drags himself out of bed to go.

He feels numb the entire time. It's closed casket, so he can't even see him for one last time before Jason is buried in the ground. He's silent, and if he think he looks bad, then Bruce looks even worse, like he hadn't slept since Jason died and worse.

Danny grabs his sleeve before he leaves, and when Bruce turns to him with a dull look in his once vibrant eyes, he clings to him tightly. And cries. Bruce clings back just as tight, Danny feels tears drip into his hair.

"Who did it." Danny whispers, voice too hurt to speak any louder, when he pulls back. His fingers curl around Bruce's jacket tightly, desperately. His eyes hurt with tears. "You said he was murdered, B. Please, who did it."

Bruce looks down at him, and for the first time it really does feel like he's looking down at him. His face is blank, and his eyes close in grief. There is no answer, a silent no.

Danny's face twists up all ugly like, and he shakes Bruce's jacket. "Bruce, please. Tell me who did it."

Bruce refuses, his face full of grief.

Danny never returns to Gotham.

Prior to Jason's death and post their reunion, Danny had slowly begun to improve in school. He started caring more, he was putting in more effort, he was doing his homework and was actually enjoying class. There was the bullying from Dash and the A-Listers, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle, he was ignoring them for the most part.

Come Monday after the funeral, and Danny breaks Dash's nose when he starts up with his shit. He withdrew into himself, and it was like he was back to square one again, except this time it was much worse.

Everyone knew Danny was close friends with Jason Todd. So when news of his death finally reached the ears of Amity Park, the students of Casper High School kept their distance.

That following Friday, Danny dies in the portal and comes back. A month later he becomes Phantom, the ghost-fighting ghost. the ghost Phantom wears his hazmat suit partially undone, showing a tanktop he didn't wear in death under the initial suit while the sleeves are tied around his waist. Vicious, glowing lichtenburg scars travel up his arm and neck and torso, covering half of his face while a pair of scientist-like goggles covers his eyes. He's bitter and angry, showing off his death.

Look at me, Phantom's form says, I am a dead child. Look at me look at me look at me. Mourn me. I am a dead child. LOOK AT ME. MOURN ME.

A few weeks later he enters the ghost zone and realizes that he could find Jason. And he spends a weekend scouring the ghost zone for him. He finds Gotham in the zone, and rather than finding Jason, he finds Robin.

Danny didn't know he'd died. And he flies towards him, asks him if he's seen Jason, reveals that it's him, Danny Fenton. Robin stares at him, mouth agape, and peels off his mask to reveal Jason Todd.

They both cry, and when Danny tells him how he died, Jason looks pale in the face. "You didn't- you didn't kill yourself because of me, did you?"

Danny fervently denies it. No, no. He didn't, he didn't. It was an accident. Totally unrelated. But enough about that, what the hell happened? Bruce wouldn't tell him anything at the funeral.

Jason clams up, his ghostly face losing its color, and Danny curses himself. He tells Jason that he doesn't have to tell him, he doesn't have to say anything. They sit in silence.

"It was the Joker." Jason says.

That's all Danny needs to know. He nods quietly. 'I'll kill him.' He thinks to himself, a stubborn set in his jaw. "Okay."

It had always been a plan; a thought wriggling in the back of Danny's mind ever since Bruce told him that Jason had been killed.

Not died. Killed.

Danny wanted the fucker dead the moment he realized it. He just needed to know who did it. He thinks Bruce knew it too, could probably see it in his eyes the moment Danny asked him who did it. He isn't sure if he should hate Bruce more for keeping it from him now.

They spend hours together, just soaking in each other's presence. Danny tries to take him through the ghost portal, to bring him back to the land of the living. But much like Kitty, Jason's form is tied to the zone. Danny promises to visit every day.

And he does. Or he tries to. The grief doesn't go away, but with the comfort of knowing that Jason was on the other side, Danny feels a little better. He tells Jason about being Phantom, and Jason helps train him. It feels like they're kids again and are fighting just because they want to. Its a bout of familiarity in a place that feels unfamiliar. All they need are cigarettes.

And then six months later he loses him again. Danny scours the ghost zone for him for the second time, and this time he doesn't find him.

His haunt is still in the zone though. He didn't move on. He's still here, somewhere.

Danny is convinced that Jason was in the Elsewhereness, and looks for him in between ghost fights and his social life. He visits Jason's haunt every day, knowing that Jason should be able to feel when another ghost enters his home. He does not show up.

(He never thinks that Jason came back to life, and Jason doesn't remember his time in the ghost zone)

When Danny is nineteen, Vlad Masters blackmails him into going to another Wayne Gala. Begrudgingly, Danny goes. He's taller than he used to be, having inherited his dad's monstrous height and his mom's leanness. He has piercings, some of them he got after a lost bet from Sam and Tucker, and he's given himself an undercut.

He still prefers vests over suit jackets, and he still smokes. A little less than before, he sneaks a pack into his pocket before he leaves, along with a lighter. Vlad gives him a dirty look the whole time - he knows.

"Don't give me that look." "That stuff kills, you know" "I'm already dead."

It's like deja vu when he arrives; an awful bout of deja vu, that is. The paparazzi is still as bright and loud and annoying as it always was, and they don't recognize him at all. Something he thinks of as a soft mercy up until one of the reporters asks Vlad who he is.

Vlad smiles and tugs Danny into the camera frame, "Why, this is my godson!" He crows, and shoots Danny a look that is downright smug I'm sure many of you may know him as Daniel Fenton?"

If looks could kill, Vlad would be ash. Danny isn't quite sure why he still agreed to this -- blackmail or no. He felt itchy being in Gotham; jumpy. He's never forgotten his vow to kill the Joker, in fact it was something he still desperately wants.

But the threat of Rath, the name he chose for his evil future self, haunts him just as much as his murderous intent. If he kills the Joker, would he stop?

Danny's almost afraid of what he'll do if he ever lays eyes on the Joker in person. He doesn't think he'll be able to stop himself from wrapping his hands around that stupid clown's neck and watching the light leave his eyes.

He pushes the thoughts to the side, and smiles lopsidedly as cameras and microphones flood his face, reporters yelling over themselves as they clamor to get a shot of the old Wayne family friend.

Danny turns and walks inside without answering a single question, flexing his fingers in and out of fists. Vlad gracefully hurries after him, and Danny can hear his glare burning into his back.

"You told me to come," Danny hisses to him once he's beside him, meeting Vlad's gaze piercingly, "not that I should play nice."

"Don't embarrass me, Daniel." Vlad hisses back, trying to look the upmost calm as eyes turn onto them. "I'll make you regret it."

"You embarrass yourself, fruitloop." Danny shoots back, walking away before Vlad could get a retort in. He sees Bruce Wayne on the other side of the room.

His heart seizes with nostalgia. He hasn't seen Bruce since Jason's funeral, hasn't spoken to him either. He doesn't know how to feel about him, but he'd been keeping tabs on Bruce both as himself and as Batman.

Danny's feet carry him forwards before he can think about it, silently weaving between the throng of rich people vying for his attention. It's only when he gets closer does he see the little shadow clinging to his side: Damian Wayne.

The newest little bird, Danny realizes, and stifles a smile at the surly expression on Damian's face as two older women coo over him. He reminded him of Sam, who had long since stopped coming to these things the moment she was able to.

The feeling of eyes on him turns Danny's attention away from Damian, and instead finds them back on Bruce's, who stares at him with a little furrow between his brows. As if he recognized him, but he wasn't sure from there.

Danny grins crookedly the moment he's within earshot. "Mister B!" He exclaims, slipping into what remained of his Gotham street accent. Recognition flashed in Bruce's eyes, and the man smiled widely. "Long time no see, old man."

"Danny," Bruce says, his name breathing out like relief. He slips between the crowd surrounding him -- who are now watching Danny -- and pulls Danny into a close hug. "It's good to see you again."

Danny hesitates for a moment -- he wasn't expecting Bruce to hug him -- and returns the gesture. "It's good to see you too, Bruce." He admits. Bruce was still using the same cologne that he did when Danny was a kid. He blinks heavily.

He pulls away quickly, clapping Bruce lightly on the shoulder as Damian quickly latches onto his father's side again. Damian glares daggers at him, fingers digging into Bruce's pantlegs like a possessive little kid.

He made Danny's ghost sense tingle in the back of his throat, creeping up slowly like a spider before stopping suddenly before it reached his mouth. It hummed, and then disappeared.

Danny smothered a frown. Since when did Batman work with ectoplasm? “This must be Damian." He says to Bruce, and holds out a hand to Damian -- he doesn't crouch, he had a feeling that Damian would be less than appreciative if he did that. "You've really expanded the nest since the last time I saw you."

Damian's eyes narrow at him. Bruce laughs lightly, "Ah yes, Tim is around here somewhere. I'm sure you'll see him soon."

"Father," Damian says, his voice layered with an accent. He glares up at Danny with piercing green eyes. "How do you know this man?" He sounds distrustful, Danny respects that and drops his hand.

"This is Danny Fenton." Bruce says, and Danny lets him introduce him. "He was Jason's friend."

An expression similar to bewilderment flashes briefly over Damian's face, and he eyes Danny in disbelief. "Todd had friends?"

Oh. So that's how he wanted to be. Bruce had a little elitist on his hands. Danny's smile drops like a deadweight, and any lingering endearment he had hardens like ice in his chest, fury slowly taking its place like a flickering candlelight. "It's not polite to speak ill of the dead, Mister Wayne." He says coldly, his voice made of chips of ice.

Damian blinks, the disbelief disappearing from his face. The closest thing to a recoil Danny thinks he's going to get. He doesn't care. No one speaks about his best friend that way.

"I grew up with Jason, actually." He continues, breathing in slow and deep, trying to keep the ghostly possessive-protective-rage under control. "I was his best friend."

He turns, almost robotically, towards Bruce, and tries not to look so angry. "I'm going to go find Tim, Mister B." He says, and tries to offer up a weak smile for the man. It comes out as a grimace instead.

"And..." he pauses, flicks his eyes towards Damian, and then looks at Bruce. "I'll... try and keep in contact, B. Tell Dick I said hi, alright? I'll see you in a little bit."

Bruce nods, looking vaguely disappointed and sighing slow through his nose. Danny walks away as Bruce turns to address his youngest, and doesn't bother listening in on what he has to say.

He does, eventually, find Tim Drake. He spots him in a crowd instantly - it's hard not to, and he makes his way over to him. He's not sure Tim Drake would recognize him, Bruce didn't at first and Danny had been around him constantly.

Except Tim Drake does recognize him, much to Danny's surprise. They lock eyes and Tim immediately makes his way over to him. "Danny Fenton!" He says and stops in front of him, "What a surprise, we weren't expecting you tonight."

"Tim Drake," Danny replies, smiling a little as his earlier hurt begins to fade away. "I'm surprised you know me."

"There are pictures of you in the manor with Jason." Tim explains, stuffing his hands into his pockets with an easy-going smile. "It's hard not to know you."

"It’s hard not to know you too,” Danny retorts, a sly smile slowly spreading across his face. “Although you’re a lot taller than you used to be, when you were lurking around Bruce and Jason and I.”

Ohhh Danny recognizes him alright. One part due to all the news articles and tabloids on him after he was adopted by Bruce, and the other part because he remembers the little shadow lurking near plants pots and table legs that used to follow him and Jason around at galas just like these.

Knowing that Jason was Robin, he wonders if Jason knew he was there too.

The effect is immediate: Tim’s eyes grow comically large, and a red tint glows at the tip of his ears as he shrinks back like a turtle trying to hide into its shell. “You— you noticed that!?” He hisses.

“I did!” Danny grins, large and wide, stifling a laugh as the red tint spreads over Tim’s cheeks and nose. He looks mortified. Danny coos. “Aww, I thought it was adorable that Jason had a little shadow. I’m sure he would have loved you if you had just come over and said hi. He had a big soft spot for kids.”

Tim snorts and it— it almost sounds derisive? “Sure he would.” He looks sad, and the mirth in Danny’s chest shrivels up like a flower without light. The smile fades from his face, and all that’s left is a strange, staunch reminder that Danny and Bruce weren’t the only ones that probably mourned.

He touches Tim’s shoulder lightly, “Hey, I’m sorry.” He says, trying to look as apologetic as he feels. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m sorry, I miss him too.” Like a fucking limb he missed him.

There’s something that flickers in Tim’s eyes, passing through too fast for Danny to realize what it is. He assumes its gratefulness, because Tim relaxes a little and offers him a weak little smile. “I wish I had talked to him.”

Danny sees an out and takes it, he forces out a short laugh, grinning widely. “I can tell you all about him if you’d like,” he offers, “I told Mister B I’d keep in touch anyways. I’ve missed him and Alfred quite a lot in the last few years.”

“Not Dick?”

“That dipstick wasn’t around often enough for me to form any sort of emotional attachment to him.” Danny says in a half-complaining tone, placing his hands on his hips. “Although I did like his puns.”

Tim snickers, “I’ll tell him you said that then. Nobody likes his puns.”

“Go on ahead,” Danny grins, laughter swirling in his chest and making his core thrum with warmth. Damn, he’s missed this family. “I stand by my decision. Puns are funny.”

“Let’s get a photo then.” Tim says with a hand already fishing in his pocket for his phone. “He’ll be devastated to know that you were here and he didn’t get to see you.”

“Sure.” And Danny sidles on next to Tim, throwing an arm around his shoulders — and making a noise of surprise when his arm was able to fit comfortably — as if he was just resting it on a counter.

He totally forgot how tall he was compared to Tim. Forgot that he’d been looking down the entire time they’d been talking. “Why’d I get my dad’s height.” He complains, and bends his knees as Tim raises the phone with the front-facing camera on.

Tim snickers under his breath, and takes the picture while they’re both smiling wide. Danny immediately stands up, and peers over Tim’s shoulders to look at the picture.

It’s a good one, with the fringe of Danny’s curls falling slightly over his left eye and making the dimple on his right cheek more prominent. He could see the barely-there smattering of freckles he had across his nose, the ones that became more prominent when the sun was out. His smile was lopsided, Danny’s favorite kind of smile.

He whistles lowly, “That’s a good one,” he says aloud, and smiles impishly at Tim when he looks at him. “You should send that one, I look hot in it.”

Tim snorts, his ears reddening as he looks down at his phone. “Yeah sure, no problem.” He says quickly, and Danny looks away when he pulls up the messenger app. He’s never felt comfortable looking over people’s shoulders when they were on their phone.

“I’m gonna go take a smoke break.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and curls his fingers around the box and lighter inside. “I’ll—“

“Be on the west-end balcony.” Tim finishes, the red in his ears darkening as he glances up from his phone to smile embarrassedly. “I know.”

Danny snorts, “Okay.” His voice is thick with amusement. “Let me know how Dipstick reacts, alright?” He backs up slowly, awaiting Tim’s response. Tim merely waves a hand at him, a weak gesture of “yeah yeah” that makes Danny grin before he flips around and marches towards his favorite smoking balcony.

———————

(Tim pulls up the family group chat and loads the selfie into the text bar. His face feels warm with embarrassment even as his thumbs fly across the screen.

Tim: look who i found at the latest charity gala :) [image]

Hee awaits eagerly a response, and finds he doesn’t have to wait long. Dick’s thought bubble appears on screen, then Cass’s — of which it only exists for a moment before disappearing.

Dick: holy shit, is that who i think it is?

Tim responds quickly, and his message sends.

Tim: yep. He wanted me to tell you that he thinks your jokes are funny.

Dick: they are funny

Tim rolls his eyes and thinks for a moment, really thinks. He weighs his pros and cons. And then his fingers fly across the screen again.

Tim: hey Jason are you not gonna say anything?

There’s no response for all of thirty seconds — of which it stretches on to an uncomfortably long minute — and then Jason’s thought bubble appears.

Jason: what do i have to say to a bunch of idiots blowing up my phone in the middle of patrol?

Tim: harsh. do you recognize the guy in the photo?

Jason’s response is instant. Too fast for him to have actually looked at the photo itself. He’s just trying to spite Tim then. Tim doesn’t care, he has the upper hand here

Jason: no and I don’t care, i have patrol

Tim knows he didn’t look at the photo, and yet he can’t help stifle a shit-eating smile and feign innocence

Tim: really? You and Danny used to be so close, color me surprised

His teeth dig into his lower lip, he doesn’t need to in order to hide a smile. But it gives him something to do. Jason is worryingly silent for a long, long time, and Tim can almost imagine him staring long and hard at the selfie. Tim knows he will be later.

Finally, Jason’s text bubble shows up. It exists for a long time, before finally Tim’s phone buzzes with his message alert.

Jason: that’s danny?

Tim feels all too gleeful. Smugness swirling in his chest like kicked up sand as he types his response: yep! Apparently he showed up today, although I’m not sure with who since I don’t see Miss Manson around here.

Damian: Father says to get off your phone, Drake. We are at a Gala and your behavior is most unbecoming

Tim: can it demon spawn, I was just telling Jason that his friend Danny is here

Damian: He can’t be too important if he doesn’t even know Todd is alive

Tim: how would you know that?

Damian: When Father introduced him as Todd’s friend, I expressed my surprise that Todd even had friends, considering how unpleasant he can be. Fenton became quite cross with me after that and quickly excused himself thereafter

Dick: you said what!? Damian that’s not okay

Damian: Father made that quite clear after Fenton left in a huff. My mistake for thinking that Todd had told his ‘supposed best friend’ that he was alive.

Dick: he didn’t even tell us we were alive at first

Damian: He did eventually, didn’t he? Clearly Todd doesn’t seem to care too much about Fenton if he hasn’t even informed him of his being alive at this point.

Jason’s thought bubble quickly pops up, and then dissipates, then pops up again. Tim quickly pockets his phone before he can see Jason’s response. He doesn’t feel smug anymore, just uncomfortable.)

———————

Stepping out onto the west-end balcony feels like a blast from the past. A painful one at that. Danny’s fingers dig into his cigarette pack, and he pulls it out with a sense of bittersweet familiarity.

It feels like a lifetime ago that he once stood here with Jason. The package clunks dully as his fingers scrape against the side, and he fishes a cigarette out of the box before stuffing it back into his pocket.

“Quite the night isn’t it.” He says to nothing, to ghosts of the past, to himself. He turns and sits on the railing, sticking his legs out like a tripping hazard while Gotham’s hot city wind blows through the air.

He looks up and only sees the ugly pollution yellow sky looking down at him. It’s an unfamiliar feeling to him. He loves the stars and yet when faced with a smog that covers it, he feels more at home.

Danny’s fingers find the lighter, and with a few clicks a small open flame appears in existence. There’s a poem here, he can feel it. But he feels too tired to find it.

The cigarette lights, and the lighter dies in response. Returning back to his coffin-like pocket until he needs to use it again. He pulls a leg up, resting his chin on his knee with a heavy, tired sigh.

He soaks in the sounds around him. The ugly city warmth nips at his jaw. The music inside is muffled by the force of two glass doors and walls on all four sides, and Danny can hear late night traffic coming by on the road nearby. It’s a special kind of ambience you can only find on the west end balcony.

Half a decade ago, Danny had played a part with that ambience with Jason. Now it was just him, and Jason was nowhere to be found. It left a hopeless kind of feeling in his chest. An all-suffocating kind of fear that filled him head to toe with an intensity only ghosts could have.

His body winds up like a spring, and Danny holds his breath. When he exhales two minutes later, the spring stutters and jolts, and his body relaxes with a tremble.

He misses Jason. He misses Jason.

Ghosts are emotional creatures. They feel it from their crown to their soles. And emotional wounds never really heal. They scab over and fester, waiting to be picked at again and again so it can bleed as fresh as it did when it first opened.

Danny’s grief is never going to go away, he thinks. It’s clung to him like a parasite; shaped him and molded him. The wound was too close to him when he died, and now it will stay with him forever.

He opens his eyes when his ghost sense tingles, a heavy feeling in his throat that is neither nicotine nor grief. It’s just like Damian’s, but stronger. Potent. Older. It reaches the top of Danny’s throat and sits at the base of his tongue, like a hand about to suffocate him.

He looks up, cigarette hanging off his lips, and the Red Hood drops down beside him. He stands in the same spot Jason once did, and that alone makes the ghostly core in Danny seize possessively.

Don’t you dare stand where he stood, it hisses, coiling around his lungs like smog. Danny grits his teeth and feels his ghost sense evaporate. He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, and nicotine smoke pours out like a cheap version of his ghost sense.

“Red Hood.” He says plainly, his free hand coiling and uncoiling like cat’s claws against the railing. “A surprise to see you here.”

Danny knows through process of elimination who most of the Gotham vigilantes are: Dick is Nightwing, Bruce is Batman, Tim is Red Robin, Damian is Robin, and Cass is Orphan. There are a few who he doesn’t know, however. Like Batgirl and Red Hood.

It’s fine, he doesn’t need to know. Danny of all people understands the importance of a secret identity.

Red Hood doesn’t say anything, just stares at him as if he’s a deer in headlights. His body all tensed up like he isn’t sure what to do now that he’s here in front of Danny. Like he wasn’t expecting Danny to be here at all.

Danny’s brows furrow. “Sorry, am I in your spot?” He asks, and begins to push off the railing. “I didn’t think vigilantes used the Wayne Hall west-end balcony, I can leave if you want.”

He’s already begun to move towards the door.

The Red Hood lurches in his spot, “No!” He yells, and Danny stops in place with raising eyebrows. Red Hood’s fingers cringe, and he straightens up.

He’s shorter than Danny, he notes. Which isn’t much of revelation. Everyone is shorter than Danny.

“No,” Red Hood repeats, sounding sturdier than before, “No. You’re fine. I’m just stopping here for a quick rest before resuming patrol.”

…Danny doesn’t question it. It’s none of his business about other vigilantes and their practices. He shrugs and breathes out more smoke, “Alright.” He says, and walks back over to the railing to sit on it. “I’m Danny, by the way.”

The Red Hood nods, and a silence falls over them. Danny doesn’t care enough to make it feel uncomfortable, but the Red Hood seems unsettled by something. Lost in thought. He leans his back against the railing similar to Danny, and then switches a few seconds later to a new pose.

He does it again, and again, and again. Until finally he flips over and leans his stomach against the railing, arms resting against it. It is starkly like what Jason used to do, and Danny stares at him long and hard.

He frowns. And says nothing.

When Danny’s cigarette is nothing more than a butt of nicotine, he crushes it in his hand and watches the ash flutter down to the ground. The heat stings his hand, but its nothing his ghostly healing can’t fix.

The Red Hood is already holding out another one when Danny’s hand drifts to his pocket for the box.

Danny stares at him, sudden wariness opening up like floodgates that sit at the bottom of his stomach.

His frown deepens, his eyes flicker up and down at Red Hood. His hands hover over his pocket. “I have my own.” He says, and watches subtly as the Red Hood hides a wilt. As if he’d been expecting Danny to take it.

“Alright.” The Red Hood says, trying to sound unbothered. He retracts the cigarette away from Danny, quiet all the way. He’s looking away.

Danny plucks the cigarette out of his hand, startling the Hood enough that Red snaps back to look at him. Danny yanks his lighter from his pocket. “I won’t say no to a free cigarette.” He says, slightly muffled with the stick between his teeth. It lights.

Silence falls over them again, and when one minute stretches into five, whatever hope that had been digging into the shoulders of Red Hood finally pulls away and leaves him slumping subtly.

‘A ciggie for your thoughts?’ Nine year old Jason Todd whispers one night with an impish grin, holding up a cigarette pinched between his two fingers. ‘I stole it from my old man. He won’t even notice its gone.’

Danny is halfway through it when he speaks. “The Joker killed my best friend.” He says, and watches from the corner of his eye as the Red Hood flinches. Is he startled by Danny speaking, or startled by the bluntness of him starting?

“He beat him to death.” Danny continues, staring stone-faced away from Red Hood. His grief claws up his lungs and burrows into his heart again. His fingers dig into the railing. “He beat my best friend to death.”

The Red Hood is silent, his body as still as the grave. Silence stretches out between them both, and like he’d been thinking, the Hood finally speaks: “How do you know?”

He’s not holding the cigarette, he broke his and Jason’s rule. Danny bounces the stick between his fingers. “His ghost told me.” He says, taking a trembling breath. “His ghost told me so, before he disappeared.”

The Red Hood says nothing, and Danny gathers his thoughts. The ones that had been buried deep next to his core, shoved down ever since Danny learned of Rath and a terrible future where a world is destroyed by one ghost’s hands.

Danny has never said it out loud before. His face scrunches up briefly, and then smooths out when his eyes squeeze shut. “I’m going to kill him, Red Hood.” He murmurs when he opens his eyes, turning his face toward the vigilante. The sound is sucked out of the air.

The Red Hood stares at him, but he doesn’t say a word. Danny pushes on, teeth grinding into teeth as he flips his silvery scarred hand back and forth. Palm up, palm down. “It’s why I haven’t been back to Gotham in a while.” He admits, voice still quiet. “If I see the Joker I will kill him, and I won’t feel bad for it.”

“Not today though,” he says, and closes his hand, “today I’m here on a favor to Vlad Masters. Then after this I’ll go visit my friend. I need to apologize for not seeing his grave in a while. I’ll have to stop by a florist to see if they have any zinnias. Jay likes those.”

He takes out the cigarette in his mouth and breathes out one last cloud of smoke. And then he crushes the cigarette stick under his foot and walks back inside.

[astonmartinii]

love love love these social media aus. i am obsessed. would love to see a soft launch with carlos maybe of him showing her spain and his home? carlos just screams old money european vibes and i love it

old money | carlos sainz social media au

pairing: carlos sainz x reader a class in soft launching 101

carlossainz55

liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc and 301,671 others

carlossainz55: some much needed time at home

view all comments

username WHOMST?

landonorris so i see my invite was lost in the mail?

carlossainz55 i thought you were tired of third-wheeling?

landonorris touche

username was deluding myself that it was maybe his sister but the third-wheeling comment just slapped me in the face

charles_leclerc ahhhh my favourite sainz

carlossainz55 thanks mate you're my favourite leclerc too charles_leclerc i meant the dog mate arthurleclerc that's not what you said to me at imola sainz

yourusername

liked by carlossainzz5, yourbff1 and 21,761 others

yourusername: let's go explorin'

view all comments

username i'd eat her last when we eat the rich

username what i'd do to be her friend? assistant at least?

username i saw her in madrid the other day and omg she's even more graceful in person

username her posture is insane i need it bad

username while she looks great and you're all right - are we ignoring that a MAN is driving the car?

username i am ignoring it because i don't want to think about it username she can't be the coolest person in the world and be in a relationship it's not fair

carlossainz55

liked by yourusername, landonorris and 359,561 others

carlossainz55: blood is thicker than water

view all comments

username my favourite pastime is watching the old money aesthetic overtake carlos' entire being as soon as he sets foot back in spain

landonorris oh he's getting braver

carlossainz55 you gonna be bitter under all my posts cabron? landonorris until i'm wifed again, yes.

username so like why is y/n here?

username is that defo her? username i was referring to her liking the post but now you say it, the girl on the horse does look suspiciously similar

charles_leclerc mommas boy

carlossainz55 didn't know it was a crime to love my mum

username so yall be yelling about y/n but not telling us who she is and why she matters

username y/n y/ln is a spanish socialite whose family own a lot of the high end restaurants in madrid but she's most known for her poetry and style username so do we hate or love her? username i like her, and a lot of people do, just usual dislike for being grossly rich but from what i've seen she's pretty down to earth

yourusername

liked by carlossainz55, charles_leclerc and 29,871 others

yourusername: keeping the operation smooth

view all comments

username THIS ISN'T FUNNY

username stop playing with us please

username i feel like this is all the confirmation we'll get

username y'all i know he's an f1 driver and everything but we all know he's PUNCHING

username i need her haircare routine STAT

f1wagsupdates

liked by username, username and 1,249 others

f1wagsupdates: it's all but confirmed!! after a pretty solid soft launch from both carlos and his new lover y/n y/ln, her latest post was captioned "keeping the operation smooth", playing on carlos' iconic theme song. our sources state that the driver and socialite poet have been together for as long as six months but after other relationships and relative platforms, both were determined to take it slow. what do you think?

view all comments

username they're very cute and i can't wait to see her paddock looks

username bestie i fear you'll be waiting a while she's notoriously private when it comes to event appearances - really only going out for her family or her own events

username they're annoyingly sexy like save some for the rest of us

username this soft launch feels like its been going for about seven years

username f1 drivers defo have a type

carlossainz55

liked by landonorris, yourusername and 720,778 others

tagged: yourusername

carlossainz55: mi hermosa

view all comments

username AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

yourusername you live in my heart

carlossainz55 and i never want to leave landonorris free real estate yourusername my favourite third-wheel carlossainz55 stay out of grown people's business landito

username they're so lana del ray coded

yourusername

liked by scuderiaferrari, carlossainz55 and 71,230 others

tagged: carlossainz55

yourusername: life with you feels like poetry in motion

view all comments

username NOOOOOOO WE LOST HER

username but does this mean new poetry ??

carlossainz55 you make me crazy baby

yourusername crazy in love

username when will it happen to me?

landonorris finally i can interact without having a year long argument with carlos

lando.jpeg

liked by carlossainz55, yourusername and 301,285 others

lando.jpeg: a study in third wheeling, a six month project by yours truly

view all comments

username i'm obsessed with this couple actually

carlossainz55 as much as you are annoying landito, thank you for these ❤️

yourusername we love you landito landonorris so i can use the boat yourusername i don't love anyone that much carlossainz55 eh? yourusername other than you obviously

username lando just starts domestics in these comments and i love that for him

note: sorry this one is a bit short, but i hope you enjoyed anyway!!

[theocddiaries]

Wade: Thank you. Logan: Bub, you don't have to say thank you every time we have sex. Wade: Oh. Okay. Tomorrow you're going to get a card in the mail. Just throw it away. (clattering) Dopinder: Good morning, guys! Wade: …What are you doing here? Dopinder: I thought I'd come over here and make you guys scrambled eggs and salami. It's the perfect meal for après l'amour. Logan: Oh, kill me. Dopinder: By the way, I couldn't help overhearing your big finish. Bravo, Wade. Logan: …See, if you had killed me when I said "kill me," I wouldn't have had to hear that. Dopinder: What do you guys think? Want to take in a matinee, maybe go rollerblading, catch a step class? Logan: Do something. Wade: Okay. Um, Dopinder, we need to talk. Dopinder: Sure. 'Sup, Holmes? Wade: Uh… Please understand that it's not that we don't want you around, But Logan and I occasionally need some… Alone time. Dopinder: Oh. I--I get it, I'm the third wheel. (chuckles). Sorry, I should have seen that. I'll get out of your way. Uh, you're gonna want to eat those eggs while they're still hot. Wade: …Thank you. Dopinder: There's lox and cream cheese in the fridge. The bagels are in the oven, I was… warming them up. Logan: Great. Dopinder: I'm just going to hang out with my mom That's always fun… Logan: Good. Dopinder [leaves the house] Logan: …Are we terrible people? Wade: I don't know. What do you want me to do? Logan: Get him; bring him back. Wade: Are you sure? Logan: Yeah. Wade: Okay. Dopinder come back. Dopinder [walks in the house in a second]: Oh, you guys had me scared for a minute!

[himegureisu]

Homesick

Summary: You are a continent away at work and miss your husband.

A/N: Yes, two in one day. I refused to study. The third in the Mail Mini Series. Though, you can read this without the other two.

It was breakfast once again.

The Great Hall was lively in chatter and energy from students who were most interested in the latest scores of the Quidditch World Cup. It would also mean that they’d be distracted from their lessons. A prime time to deduct house points.

It was then the conversation was interrupted as the owls flew through heads delivering mail once more.

Your tawny barn owl has become a regular visitor of the great old castle since the move. They didn’t see you as often as they did your owl but it meant that their Potion’s professor would be a little less grumpy and hostile throughout the day.

They could at times coax a smile out of their professors’ faces before being deducted five house points for the attempt. For others though, it was worth seeing the man’s usual frown turn upside down.

This day was one of those days.

Your tawny barn owl alongside the other professors’ owls landed above the plates of their owners, delivering their journals, newspapers, and or packages. In Severus’ case, beneath the Potions’ Journal was a letter from you.

It has been a week since you left for a conference in New York.

As one of the Representatives for the British Ministry of Magic (MM) to the Magical Congress of the United States (MACUSA), you were occasionally sent to such events whenever your partner could not. This time, however, you owed him, and he’d collected. Though, you were sorely starting to get why he didn’t want to go because it was long and could go on and on.

He’d missed you and was bearing it as much as he could. You were never gone for this long and it was starting to grate on him.

Though, it seems that it did get to you.

Sev,

I am livid at the fact that this conference seems to go on forever when all I want is to go home and bury myself in your embrace. I miss you. I miss waking up beside you. The bed feels so empty and cold without you in it. I miss your gentle kisses trying to wake me up from slumber. I miss your warm cuddles and our gentle morning sex.

Ugh. I hate this job sometimes and I hate that I agreed to go to this but I owed my colleague one. When I get back can we get a lazy morning in, where we’ll do just all that? And maybe more? I need to wrap this up someone is calling me, god it makes me want to cry. I just want to go home at this point.

Next time don’t ever allow me to go on a trip so long, okay?

I miss you, I love you. I’ll hopefully see you soon.

His lips slowly curled into a smile, pocketed the letter, and sideswept the journal, to eat quickly. This did not go unnoticed by his colleagues, especially Hagrid, whose foot became the landing piece for his journal.

“Aye, professor, what has ye in a rush?” Hagrid asked,

“I need to send a package before the first period,” he briefly answered, finishing his meal, “If you’ll excuse me,”

If he runs, he will get enough time to send his cloak and change, before his first class. Yes, that would do.

And so, through the empty halls of Hogwarts, he ran.

[idontliekmondays]

excerpts from a daily mail article released shortly after her arrest

When members of the Geneva High School role playing club asked 16-year-old Lindsay Souvannarath to choose a character they were expecting an elf, a sorceress or perhaps a female warrior.

But the shy, clean-cut teenager opted for a rather more unsettling choice, presenting them with a detailed pencil drawing of her chosen persona - the 'Nightmare Nazi'.

The trench coat, jackboots and gas mask were unmistakably those of an SS soldier; the skeletal hands clutching a vast dagger more akin to dark fantasy art.

Former classmates at Geneva High recall Lindsay Souvannarath as a shy, withdrawn youngster, who had few friends and instead sought out after-school groups and writing clubs to express her creative side.

But she was also prone to bouts of anger and violence - allegedly stabbing another student with a pencil in one outburst and occasionally letting slip an alarming infatuation with the Third Reich.

'On first impressions I didn't think there was anything too strange about her,' he told Daily Mail Online.

'She could be funny and intelligent but most of the time she was quiet and not very warm or outgoing.

'One year her character was a sort of Wonder Woman-type heroine, then all of sudden she tells the group she wants to be a Nazi ghost.

'You choose your species and come up with a back story. Hers was that her character was a guest from a crazy, dark Nazi universe.

'It's supposed to be a game in a medieval, fantasy setting but she would just argue if she didn't get her way.

'So we went on our quest with a robot, a couple of elves, wizards and this weird Nazi.

'Aside from the character's background he didn't do anything racist or too alarming. We didn't know about her interests at that time so we just got on with it.

Ms Szigeti recalled how Souvannarath began to idolize black-death metal bands in her mid-teens.

She became particularly infatuated with Varg Vikernes, a white supremacist musician convicted in 1994 of killing a rival guitarist and burning down three churches in Norway, describing him as 'cute' and writing essays about him.

'Her work was always dark and full of violence, there were soldiers and Nazis and all this weird stuff,' Sabrina said.

'She acted normal on the surface. She was never physically violent but she would get aggressive and upset if you criticized her.

'Everyone was uncomfortable but we just avoided trying to start a fight with her. 'If you asked her straight up 'are you a Nazi?' she would argue that she wasn't.

As far back as 2007 - when she was just 15 - she allegedly wrote 'free speech is dead' in one forum, adding: 'That's why we need people like David Duke to bring it to life again.'

In another warped entry, writing that same year under the pseudonym Snoopyfemme she wrote: 'They use sex in commercials all the time to sell products. Why don't they ever use violence?

'Wouldn't you love to see a bunch of guys tearing each other apart with machine guns to get a bowl of Cheerios?

'Sure, it might traumatize our children, but in my opinion, children aren't being traumatized enough.

'The only reason for Americans to breed is to create more soldiers to fight for freedom. We need to weed out the weaklings early on. Survival of the fittest, man.'

'She was very odd to the point among a lot of our classmates that no-one was surprised by her arrest.

'She was a very lonely person - but she isolated herself. 'From what I remember she was even suspended for stabbing someone with a pencil in middle school.'

'She was known for putting spells on people. She would do it by saying weird things and then putting on a curse - obviously we did not take her seriously.

'She would break out into laughter in the middle of class for absolutely no reason.

'When we saw that Lindsay did something like this, nobody was surprised. She was the one most likely.'

source

[shesoutofhere]

Meet Me In the Corner

(Definitely gonna be multiple parts)

Literally ignore typos or I'll cry

Warnings: None

Pairing: Peter Parker x reader

Summary: You get paired up with Peter for your final project in a class. You're ecstatic, Peter? Not so much.

Pt.1, Pt.2, Pt.3, Pt.4

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You’re zoned out in a lecture when suddenly, your professor claps his hands together to catch everyone's attention.

“Right guys, before class is over, today you’ll be getting assigned your partners for the last final project.” Dammit, you thought, you completely forgot about the partnered assignment. It's not like you didn’t have any friends in the class, it was just that for the final assignment, your class would be paired up with the film class.

You told yourself that you were going to at least try to get familiar with some of the students from that class, but it completely slipped your mind.

“Okay, I'm gonna put your pairs up on the board, your job is to email your partner and start coming up with some ideas for your story idea form, speaking of story idea form, that'll be due this Friday. On that note, I’ll see you all on Wednesday.” Everyone around you groans, yourself included, Of course, the form is due Friday. You snap a photo of the board and head out of the lecture hall.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your nose and hands are freezing by the time you make it to the library. Once you find a nice cozy spot tucked away in the corner, you take your phone and laptop out.

You look at the picture you took of the board and zoom in on it to find your partner's name and email.

You squint until you see It, Peter Parker. Oh, you know him, well you don’t know know him, but you know of him. Now and then he’ll take photos for the school. They’re great and you can’t help but feel a little excited knowing that he’s going to be taking the pictures for the project.

You type a simple email to Peter.

Hey, it’s your partner for the final conjoined assignment. Would love to get in touch to start planning what we want to do.

Thanks!

A couple of minutes later you hear a ping go off, It’s your mail.

You open the notification and it's from Peter.

Yeah, do you have time right now?

You reply to the thread,

Yeah, I'm currently in the library on the third floor, in a corner.

You don’t receive a message back and assume he got busy. Twenty minutes go by, and you’ve finally focused in on your work when all of a sudden the chair from across you gets pulled out. You look up right away to see who it is. Now sitting in front of you is Peter.

You sit up with a small gasp, in all honesty, you didn’t expect to see him.

“Um, Hi”

Peter speaks up “Hey.”

There's an awkward pause. To try and ease the tension you say, “I didn’t know you were going to show up.”

 Peter starts to take his laptop out of his backpack,  “Well I did ask if you had time” His tone is dry.

There's another pause, this time Peter breaks the silence, “Do you want to start outlining this thing?”

You jump to answer “Yes!, so this is just what I was thinking, and feel free to throw in your ideas, but I know that the campus art museum is doing a night exhibition for the donor's gala,  and I have a friend who could get us in after hours if we want to get any shots without the big crowd.” You pause for a moment to see if Peter has any questions but he’s just staring right back at you, so you continue.

“I can write the article and you can take the photos and I don’t mind bringing an extra camera just in case you want some b-roll, So, thoughts?”

Peter has a look on his face that you can’t decipher, “So the gala, It’s at night?” You give him a nod, and for a split second, you swear you see him grimace.

“ Uh, nights don’t really work for me, sooo” He trails off.

“Oh, well we don’t have to go with my idea, it’s just something I was throwing out there.” For some reason you feel like you’ve been shot down, maybe you got ahead of yourself, and you start to feel embarrassed.

Peter lets out a sigh, “Well it sounds like you had it all planned out”

You throw your hands up, waving them back and forth, “No, no, was totally just free balling it, really anything you want to do, I’m totally fine with it.”

Peter doesn’t look convinced, he lets out another sigh, “If I'm being honest I’m completely blanking on ideas, so if you want to go ahead and do the gala I'm sure I can work something out.”

You try not to look overly excited, so you reply with a cool “All right, works for me.”

You’d hoped that talking about the assignment would make the atmosphere less awkward but now that you’ve stopped talking, the air feels heavy again.

Peters typing away on his computer and looks as if he’s in his own world.

Throughout this entire interaction, you haven’t been able to read Peter. He hasn’t been mean or anything but he hasn’t been talkative either.

Your internal monologue is interrupted when Peter stands up from his chair. He looks at his things and then looks back up at you “You mind watching over my things for a bit.”

“No, I’ll watch them for you.” With that Peter walks away.

You’re a bit confused now. Are you guys supposed to be working on the project? Is he working on his things? Should you head out when he gets back? Curiosity gets the best of you; you lean over the table to get a look at his laptop. You hover just far enough to touch the keypad to wake up the computer. On the screen, you see a bunch of math problems, or maybe science? You honestly couldn’t tell. You quickly sit back down in your seat.

OK, so Peter isn’t working on the project, this doesn’t help you feel at ease. If he’s not working on the project then what's the point of sitting here? You’ve decided that you’ll leave when he gets back.

Wait.

 Why do you have to leave? Technically you were here first, also, you happen to like this spot. Now you're really conflicted.

Your thoughts get interrupted by the sound of chatter. You frown. This is the quiet floor. The noise seems to get louder and closer. A little bit away from the table you see Peter, talking to some girl. Interesting, you think.  You can't make out what she’s saying but you see them both nonstop giggling. Peter gives her shoulder a rub and starts to head back to your table and you quickly look back down at your laptop.

When Peter makes it to the table, the smile he had previously is now replaced by the same dead-like stare he had earlier.

You start to get upset. So, Peter can smile, he just doesn’t want to smile around you. You try not to think too negatively, you try to rationalize the fact that he may just be shy around new people.

Not being able to take this back and forth with yourself, you decide that you’ll head out. You start to pack your things up. Peter clears his throat “Heading out?”, you give him a nod “Yeah, but whatever I work on I’ll email you” Peter just nods back at you.

You can’t help but feel peeved by his nonchalant attitude. Zipping up your backpack and slipping it on your back, you head out without a goodbye. You make it just outside the library when you realize you don’t have your beanie. You must have left it back at the table. Well, no chance you're going back, so you start heading in the direction of your dorm. You don’t get very far before you feel someone grab your shoulder. You turn quickly, startled by the hand on your shoulder. When you turn around you see Peter and your beanie in his hand.

He still has this dry look on his face when he extends your beanie towards you, “You left this behind.”

You reach for your beanie and immediately put it on “Thanks, I completely forgot about it” You didn’t but there's no chance you were telling him the reason you didn’t want to go back and get it was because you didn’t want to interact with him again.

Peter rocks back and forth on his feet, he looks like he's about to say something when all of a sudden someone yells from behind you.

“Yo, Parker!”

Peter tensed up for a second before a smile spread across his face. The guy who yelled comes into view as he walks in front of you to dab up Peter. You just stand there; not really sure what it is you're supposed to be doing.

The guy turns and looks at you and offers a hello, you give him a hi back. He faces Peter again and asks, “Is this a friend of yours?”

Peter Replies with a “No, partner for an assignment.”

Ah, not friends, that's fine, definitely the truth.

The mystery guy just nods his head. You feel even more annoyed with Peter. He has clearly shown that he is more than capable of being chatty and friendly with those around him. It dawns on you that maybe Peter isn’t fond of you. Before this revelation makes you spiral you decide to leave for real this time. Peter and the mystery guy seem wrapped in a conversation, so you decide to just start walking away. Peter sees you walking and puts a pause to his current conversation. He yells your name. You act as if you don’t hear him. At this point, you really just want to get out of the cold and back in your dorm away from Peter and everyone else.

 You hear Peter yell your name again and turn around, letting out a small groan.

Peters in front of you once again “Is there any way we can get into the Art Museum before the gala?” You can't help but squint your eyes at him. He wants to ask this now? Why didn’t he just ask earlier?

You reply, “Yeah, I’ll just have to text my friend and see when he can get us in” At this point, you start to feel yourself shiver, you want to get somewhere warm, like, immediately. for about the third time today, you and Peter are stuck in a silent stare-off. Having enough you speak up first “Okay Peter, I'm gonna go now, I’ll send you an email when I get an answer” Peter doesn’t give a reply so you choose this as the moment to walk off before he can think of something else to add.

With your mood ruined, you begin your journey back to your dorm.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

omg Hi, Hello. My apologies for the slow start but I promise It'll pick up, I got big plans for these two.

[coochiequeens]

Doctors and nurses who are not willing to listen to their patients should be replaced

BY VICTORIA SMITH

The third time I went into labour, I was determined to avoid getting told off. With both of my previous births, I had somehow managed to get things wrong. My errors the first time: going to hospital too early, then, when I returned three hours later, “leaving it so late”. The second time: ignoring assurances that I didn’t need to come in yet, then giving birth in the car park — an event I later discovered was being used in antenatal classes as an example of women “not planning ahead”.

“My previous births have been fast,” I said, when I went into labour with my third, “so I’d like to come in now.” I was speaking to the woman at the midwife-led unit that is the only option where I live. (If you need a caesarean section, you have to be transferred to next town.) “Third babies are notoriously difficult,” was her response.

What an odd thing to say to a woman already in labour. The “notoriously” suggested it wasn’t based on any actual evidence, but rather a kind of folk wisdom. It felt as though I was being warned not to tempt fate, not to assume that this baby would just pop out. I saw myself being categorised as one of those arrogant women who presumes to know her own body, only to be taught a harsh yet much-deserved lesson. “Third babies are notoriously difficult” sounded not unlike “third-time mothers shouldn’t get above themselves”.

In fact, I have never been particularly cocky about childbirth. When I was pregnant with my first child, back in the days when the Right-wing press were still obsessed with famous women being “too posh to push”, I wondered if I might be able to get an elective caesarean myself. I did not particularly care about childbirth being a wonderful experience, or about “doing it well”. I didn’t care if the Daily Mail thought I was a joke.

What I cared about was not having a child who would face the same difficulties as my brother, who was starved of oxygen at birth. This has had serious consequences for him, and for the rest of my family. Just how serious is hard to gauge. He was born traumatised; there has never been a before to compare the after with. What there has been instead is the hazy outline of an alternative life, one that runs parallel to the one he has now. It’s a life that began with the problem being identified sooner, with him being delivered quickly, perhaps by emergency caesarean. The difference between this and his actual life comes down to something small: mere moments, mere breaths.

I was born three years after my brother, in a larger hospital, where my mother was induced and monitored carefully. There is something very strange about being the sibling who had the safe birth. It feels as though I stole it. There is a constant sense of guilt, as if my life — my independence, my choices — constitutes a form of gloating. “This is what you could have had.” Everything I do feels like something owed to my brother (do it, because he can’t) but also something taken from him (you shouldn’t have done that, because he should have done it first).

Still, my family were fortunate, insofar as my brother didn’t die. Current reports on the Nottingham maternity scandal reference 1,700 cases, with an estimated 201 mothers and babies who might have survived had they received better care. What strikes me, reading them, is the enormous gulf between the cost of a disastrous birth and the trivial, opportunistic way in which childbirth is so often politicised — with mothers themselves viewed as morally, if not practically, to blame if anything goes wrong.

As a feminist who concerns herself with how the female body is demonised, my interest in debates about birthing choices is more than personal. I have read books railing against the over-medicalisation of childbirth, aligning it with a patriarchal need to appropriate female reproductive power. I have also read books protesting the fetishisation of “natural” birth, suggesting that it infantilises women, that it implies women deserve pain. To be honest, I find both arguments persuasive and dismaying. Both are right about the way in which misogyny and professional arrogance can shift the focus away from meeting the needs of women and babies. I feel a kind of rage that we are told to pick a side.

Representations of the labouring woman are so often negative: the naïve idealist, the “birthzilla“, the birth-plan obsessive, the woman who is “too posh to push”. This latter stereotype has gone hand-in-hand with a veneration of vaginal births, and stigmatisation of caesareans, that has had sometimes disastrous consequences. Midwives at the centre of the Furness General Hospital scandal were reported to have “pursued natural birth ‘at any cost’”, referring to one another as “the musketeers”; at least 11 babies and one mother died. But their approach was sanctioned by their employer: the 2006 NHS document “Pathways to Success: a self-improvement toolkit” explicitly suggested that “maternity units applying best practice to the management of pregnancy, labour and birth will achieve a [caesarean section] rate consistently below 20% and will have aspirations to reduce that rate to 15%”. Proposed benefits to this included “a sense of pride in units”.

Responses to maternity scandals now express horror that such an anti-intervention culture ever arose — responses in the same press that denigrated women such as Victoria Beckham and Kate Winslet for not giving birth vaginally. Instead, newspapers now stoke outrage over “natural” treatments during NHS births, such as burning herbs. Women have been shamed for having caesareans, but they have also been shamed for wanting births with minimum intervention — as though they are selfish and spoilt for seeking control over such an extreme situation.

In his memoir This Is Going To Hurt, former doctor Adam Kay writes disparagingly of women who arrive at the delivery suite with birth plans:

“‘Having a birth plan’ always strikes me as akin to having a ‘what I want the weather to be’ plan or a ‘winning the lottery’ plan. Two centuries of obstetricians have found no way of predicting the course of a labour, but a certain denomination of floaty-dressed mother seems to think she can manage it easily.”

Wanting to have some control over your experience of labour — which will hurt you and could kill you or your baby — is not akin to some messianic aspiration to control the weather. And in his mockery of the woman who wants whale song and aromatherapy oils, ironically, Kay deploys the same silencing techniques that might intimidate a woman out of seeking the very interventions he so prizes. What he and others do not seem to grasp is that their arrogance is a problem, regardless of which course of action they champion. It makes women feel they can’t speak, for fear of inviting hostility at their most vulnerable moments. It’s true that none of us knows our body well enough to know how we will give birth. But, looking back, I find it utterly insane, not least given my own family history, that one of my biggest worries during labour was “please don’t let anyone get cross with me”. Then again, I don’t think that fear is unrelated to the desire to remain safe.

Birth is not a joke. It is not a place for professional dick-swinging or political one-upmanship. I cannot describe — and, as I am not my mother, cannot fully understand — the shame of feeling that you “let down” your child before they drew their first breath, that they will forever suffer because of it. You watch an entire life unfolding and that feeling is there, every single day. This is the fear of the women in labour who are characterised as either idiots mesmerised by fantasy homebirths or cold-hearted posh ladies who can’t take the pain. If things go wrong, they are the ones who will bear the consequences, reflecting every day on what might have been, if they’d only done more.

When people discuss their siblings, my mind does wander to the one I don’t have, the one who was born safely. Perhaps he would have a job he loved, or one he hated, but in any case a job. Perhaps he would have a partner. Perhaps he would have children, and I would be their aunt. Perhaps we wouldn’t get on, wouldn’t even speak, but he’d have a life of his own. I know he thinks about this too. I wonder if the professionals who presided over his birth have thought about him since.

My third labour was not, by the way, “notoriously difficult”. My third son arrived into the world safe and well. No one can say why him or me, and not my brother. Mothers may long for control over birth, for which we are mocked; but we do not have it, for which we are blamed. Politics still takes precedence over our needs, and the needs of our babies.

[smittywing]

WIP Wednesday: Marriage 101 (Part 3)

It's been a DAY on my side, so enjoy some fic.

Earlier parts here: | 1 | 2 |

From last time...

“Okay, yeah,” Jason conceded. “I guess I’ll have to stop by for my mail now and then.”

“You’d better,” Tim told him. “If Gotham U sends you a ginormous envelope, you have exactly one hour to get over here and open it or I’m doing it for you.”

Jason dropped his head back and laughed. If Tim watched the ripple of his throat, well, he was married to the man. “Fair,” he allowed with a grin. “So, uh, see you around, I guess?”

“Yeah,” said Tim. “See you around.”

And that was that. 

$

Tim didn't tell anyone. He was aware that Jason had some kind of conversation with Alfred that resulted in a hell of a lot of side-eye, but no commentary. 

Patrol happened. School happened. The occasional global crisis happened. Tim saw Jason maybe three times. 

Then, the envelope came. 

ONE HOUR, he texted. 

Jason showed up on his motorcycle, in his civvies, in fourteen minutes. 

“Where were you?” Tim asked as Jason took the envelope out of his hands and tore the flap. 

“Close,” Jason answered and yanked out a sheaf of paper. “Holy shit.”

“You're in,” Tim said, so confident that it didn't need to be a question. 

“I’m in,” Jason breathed. 

“Yeah!” Tim grabbed Jason’s shoulders and shook him hard. “You’re in!”

“I'm in!” Jason whooped. He wrapped Tim in a bear hug that might have cracked a rib of a less sturdy person. It tipped him off his feet and he let Jason whip him around in a half circle before releasing him. “Wow.” Jason said, straightening awkwardly. He ran a hand through the front of his hair and then settled both hands on his hips. “I wasn’t sure this was actually going to work,” he admitted.

“I was,” Tim said confidently. “Want to see your room?”

“I have a room?” Jason asked, his eyes meeting Tim’s. “Of my very own?”

“Yeah, we’re that modern kind of married where we each have our own space,” Tim joked. “C’mon.” He led Jason upstairs to the third floor where four bedrooms filled the corners of the narrow townhouse.

It was the second best bedroom in the place, with an en suite bathroom and a pair of windows that led to a fire escape. The walls were painted a warm white but it was neither as big nor as elegant as one of Bruce’s penthouse rooms would have been. The king-sized bed had a blue comforter and the dresser and nightstands were cherry wood.

“The closet has a false back for your suits and the wifi password is on the desk,” he said. There was a laptop on the desk, too, a low-end Wayne Tech one appropriate for a college student with a pre-loaded search history and secure messaging platforms hidden in a second operating system.

“Pretty sweet base,” Jason commented. “This mine?” he asked, tapping the computer.

“Already loaded with everything college student Jason Peterson could need,” Tim told him, “and a few extras.”

“Nice. Mind if I leave a few books up here?”

“What, no, you can leave yourself if you want,” Tim said. “I’m all by myself here and you’re supposed to be my husband, so you know, move in already.”

“Yeah, but.” Jason looked thoughtful. “It’s nice and close to campus. You don’t mind a roommate? For real?”

“For real,” Tim swore. “I mean, also it would look weird if you didn’t have some stuff here, right?”

“Right,” Jason said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll bring some stuff ‘round. So does this place have a kitchen?”

$

Since he wasn’t living on campus, Tim hadn’t planned to attend any of the freshman orientation events. This wasn’t high school. His plan was to get in, ace his classes, score his degree, and move on to Wayne Enterprises full-time. 

He had not accounted for Jason’s plan.

“The English department is having a sundae party,” Jason said, leaning in the doorway of the kitchen. It was a good lean, the kind that made his shoulders look extra big and his waist look extra narrow. “Come with me in case I don’t know anyone.”

“Of course you don’t know anyone,” Tim said, looking up from his case file. “It’s freshman orientation. The whole point is to meet people you don’t know.”

“Are you unfamiliar with the concept of wingman?” Jason asked. “C’mon. It’s ice cream. And toppings. You’re not going to get a better offer today.”

Jason had a point.

$

Banana Karenina. James and the Giant Peaches & Cream. One Flew Over the Coco’s Nut.

“They don’t have neapolitan,” Jason complained, studying the long table of thematic flavors. 

“No one could come up with a good pun,” said one of the grad students standing behind the table with a scoop. “Skor and Peace?”

Jason shook his head. “I’ll go with the Crazy Rum Raisin,” he decided.

Tim edged down the table looking for something…else. He wasn’t sure what but he was staying far away from the Grape Gatsby float, which was vanilla ice cream floating in a vat of grape soda. He paused in front of something called, The Coffet.

“Is this coffee?” he asked. 

“What book is that?” Jason asked, leaning up behind him.

“The Prophet!” the grad student said, already scooping out a serving for Tim. “By Khalil Gibran! Get it!?”

Tim did not get it.

But he did want coffee ice cream. 

“That’s a stretch, my dude,” Jason said, but Tim was already making off with his cup to top it with hot fudge.

With Tim as his wingman (or emotional support sidekick, Tim figured), Jason met some of the grad students and talked about the different classes they were assisting. Tim ate his ice cream and nodded at appropriate points. He was a tiny bit antsy about the reading he had to do for the first day of classes but he was a fast reader and watching Jason talk about the female authors in the 1800s was pretty amazing. After his dish of The Coff-et, he got a scoop of something called Parable of the (Elder)Flower and sprawled under a tree next to Jason who had withdrawn to try Banana Karenina.

“I’m surprised you wanted to come to this stuff,” Tim admitted. “I thought you would find it…” Tim considered the right word. “Frivolous.”

“Oh, it definitely is,” Jason agreed. He tilted his head to the side and ate a spoonful of ice cream. “But it’s nice, pretending I’m a real boy sometimes, you know?”

Tim snuck a peek over at Jason’s face. Jason was smiling a little and he looked young and - 

Jason was only two years older than Tim. It was easy to forget that sometimes when he was acting like an edgelord hatched from a Lazarus Pit. Tim had been a precocious kid, but he’d been a kid, with school and chores, and hobbies, even if those hobbies had included stalking Batman and Robin. Jason’s hobbies had included stealing tires so he could eat and dying at the hands of the Joker.

“Yeah,” Tim said. “It is.”

$

“You have actual food in your refrigerator,” Stephanie accused. 

“Ooh,” Tim said, abandoning the radio receiver he was dismantling and going to peer over her shoulder. “Anything good?”

“Somehow it makes me feel better that you don’t even know what kind of food you have,” Steph said. “I think those are deviled eggs?” 

“Oh, yeah, get them, and some of the spinach dip,” Tim advised. 

“There’s spinach dip? With actual spinach?”

“There’s chips on the top of the fridge.” Tim pried a transistor loose and said, “I told you Jason was staying here, right? For school?”

“Yeah, for school, and for cooking you amazing shit,” Steph said. “Speaking of, did you get your schedule?”

“Got it this morning,” Tim said, sliding a whole deviled egg into his mouth and meeting Steph’s fist-bump.

By “this morning” he meant the early hours of the previous day, hacking into the registrar’s office and rearranging his classes into a more ideal schedule as he munched on some post-patrol cereal and ran an upgrade on his phone. For the most part, he had received the engineering classes he had selected earlier in the summer, skipping over the courses he had taken while he was in high school. However, Gotham U had freshman requirements and one of them was an English class. Technically, Tim had tested out of that but it occurred to him that Jason would not have tested out of anything. So, he had hacked into Jason Peterson’s registration and committed to memory the course and section numbers of the two literature classes Jason had picked. One of them fit nicely in his schedule. It would be good to have a class with Jason. 

For…reasons.

$

Reasons he couldn’t necessarily remember when he slid into that particular class thirty seconds before the bell.  Jason was sitting in the front row, dwarfing the kids sitting around him, and holding court on the works of Jane Austen.

“Tim!” he waved. Tim made it a policy never to sit in the front row because it was too obvious when he inevitably had to skip out of class for crime fighting, but he slipped into a seat in the row behind Jason, which worked out because Jason was sitting sideways in his seat. “Guys, this is my husband, Tim,” he told the others.

Tim widened his eyes at Jason. He hadn’t expected they’d be introducing themselves as a married couple to the other students. Or to the professors. Jason widened his eyes in response and then *winked* at Tim. 

“This is Greg, Daniel, and Rebecca,” he introduced his - Jason had *friends* already? “They’re in my Classical Lit class that met yesterday. Greg, Daniel, and Rebecca murmured hellos to Tim, who murmured something back but was saved from further socialization by the arrival of the professor. 

She was a tall woman with pale hair swept back in a French twist and pince nez glasses perched on her nose, who introduced herself as Professor Worthington. She seemed a little formal compared to professors in Tim’s advanced engineering class, but Tim assumed riding herd on a required freshman English course did that to a person.

“When I call your name,” she instructed, “answer with your hometown and your favorite author.”

What. Tim didn’t have a favorite author. At least he didn’t think he did. He tried to remember reading for fun but that was something that happened pre-Robin. Next, he scanned back for required school reading and what was the least tedious to read. 

“Timothy Drake?”

“Uh. I’m from Gotham and uh, my favorite author is - “  Crap on a stick. “Sun Tzu?”

“Interesting choice,” Professor Worthington said skeptically. She squinted through her glasses at Tim for a moment. “Are you a chess player, Mr. Drake?”

“When I have time,” he said. He so rarely did have time, but yes, he saw the connection. He let out the breath he’d been holding as quietly as possible. Sun Tzu was a good choice. He’d only written one book, it was short, and Tim had read it. 

Professor Worthington nodded and moved on. There were about a hundred and twenty students in the class so it took her a while to get to Jason. Long enough for about a dozen Austens, a few Orwells, some Bronte’s, a handful of Vonneguts, and one Stephen King, which earned that student a general snicker.

“The best novels are those we can engage with,” Professor Worthington said mildly in his defense.  “Jason Peterson.”

“Gotham born and bred,” Jason said. “And Mary Oliver.”

“Mary Oliver,” Professor Worthington said thoughtfully. “The Night Traveler?”

“Wild Geese,” Jason countered.

Tim, who had never heard of Mary Oliver, tried to Google her work on his laptop without moving his hands very much. He had seen Jason read Austen and Bronte, was she in that era?

“‘You do not have to be good,” Jason said and wow this was poetry. His voice was deep and mellow and curled around the words in a way Tim had never heard. “You do not have to walk on your knees; for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body; love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on.’”

“And you’re Mr. Drake’s husband,” Professor Worthington said dryly. “Interesting pairing, you two.”’

She moved on but Tim felt the words of the poem, in Jason’s voice, jammed up in his head.  He kicked the back of Jason’s chair and mouthed, “That was great,” when Jason turned around.

Jason flushed across the bridge of his nose and the highest part of his cheeks, summer freckles popping into view. “Don’t you dare tell anyone,” he hissed in return.

Tim shook his head no. He wasn’t going to tell anyone. This was too perfect, too precious, to share.

$

[leftshoeuntied]

Quick lil tf141 x reader scenario but also I haven’t studied the U.S. amendments in however many years so if there are mistakes give me grace hahah

I’ve been thinking about a situation where the reader is home and all of the sudden there is a forceful knock at her front door, and when she opens the door, she is met with four gruff men staring back at her.

“Hello” she says apprehensively eyeing each of men individual “can I help you?”

“This is 32 Spearhead Road, right?” one of the men asks her.

“Yeah” she responds with a nod, still a bit wary of the group of men before.

“Brilliant, thanks love” The same man says leaning down to pick his rucksack back up and begins to push through the slightly ajar door and shoulders by the reader, and the other three men begin to follow his lead into the mudroom and kitchen.

“Bi-huh, excuse me!” the reader exclaims after a moment of shock, turning to follow the men, hot on their heels “what do you think you’re doing?” as the four start to disperse into the house, too casually.

“You said this is 32 Spearhead, no?” the original man pauses, turns to look over to the reader, sliding the rucksack off his shoulder and dropping it onto the tiled floors, “we’re here for the housing”.

“Excuse me? What housing?” The reader exclaims, still shocked at the men who barraged into her home and with growing frustration at their casualness of the situation.

“Temporary military housing” the man says plainly with a nod towards the reader and a raised eyebrow, like she should already know what he is referring to, “Captain John Price” he says stepping closer to the reader and sticking his hand out.

The reader ignores his hand and looks at him with a look frustration and confusion, “I get that you say you’re here for housing, but I have no idea what you mean. I’m not military”.

“I was told you should’ve received prior notice of our arrival” Price drops his outstretched hand. “Something in the post?” he adds after noticing the even more growing confusion on her face.

The reader eyes the pile of mail in the basket in the middle of her kitchen island. She had been meaning to get to the ever-growing pile of mail from the last couple of weeks, but the anxiety of the red stamps stating ‘past due’ and ‘action required’ on a majority of the envelopes kept her from digging through it.

Pulling the basket closer to her, she starts rifling through the envelopes to see one envelope inconspicuously labelled as federal first-class mail from an address in Virginia. When she rips open the envelope, a plain typed letter falls out with the heading of ‘Central Intelligence Agency’ and the CIA’s seal in the top left corner. 

As she quickly scans the letter, a few things stand out to her, the ‘ask’ but more like demand that she houses an American ally’s soldiers for an indefinite amount of time, an offer of a weekly stipend for her support, and ending the letter thanking her for doing her part in support of the American military and our allies, that we could not win this war without the support of Patriots like her. She would have scoffed at the last comment if she wasn’t spiraling at the moment.

“No no no, I know my rights” she says pointing to her chest, finally getting her thoughts straight. “The third amendment says I can’t be forced to house any soldiers in my house against my will” the reader argues looking back up from the documents with a furrowed brow, but drops her gaze again, using her finger to scan through the document quickly one more time. “Especially not British soldiers” she mutters.

“Sorry love, I don’t know anything about your laws, I just followed the orders” Price says leaning against the kitchen island, watching as she continues to scan through the document, looking for an out.

______

TLDR: My thoughts are that the US has to formally declare war but during the formal war declaration process, congress slips through a law through that allows the U.S. military and intelligence agencies to override the 3rdamendment (there is some debate on if the U.S. could actually do this, but with the right scenario it could be pushed through only during active war), and with the average American focusing more on the formal declaration of war, the overriding of the 3rd amendment is purposefully missed on the formal announcement to the news from the American government because there would be so much outcry over it.

Is this anything? It’s been banging around my brain for the last week or so, so it’s nice to get it on paper at least hahah but let me know your thoughts, I would greatly appreciate it! 

[maleyanderecafe]

Bleeding Canvas (Visual Novel)

Created by: Frogcake

Genre: Horror

I think it's pretty fun when yandere games have a twist that slips right under your nose. It makes playing the game a second or even third time more interesting when you go "oohhh, that makes a lot of sense!" Bleeding Canvas does this pretty well and not quite in the way that you would expect, and you can really see the various foreshadowing of this in some of the more weird interactions.

The story starts with You (yes, you) in class sleeping, and having a dream about your crush, Mikey. The professor wakes you up, and while walking home, Mikey asks if he can walk you home. The next day, you go back to attend your art lessons class as people come in. It seems that you and your best friend Julia had an argument recently and rumors are starting to spread. Mikey interrupts and the two talk about art for a bit before heading to your other classes. Mikey wakes you up after you fall asleep in class today and brings you home. Worried about the events of a serial killer in town, you decide to follow him to make sure he's safe- only to come back into an alleyway to watch him killing your friend Julia. Freaking out, you run back home, with Mikey there to see you. He admits that he's enamored with you and that he wishes that you were to be his muse, despite feeling unworthy (good, I love yanderes with self esteem issues), asking if you love him back.

If you admit that you do, Mikey will be incredibly happy, and you can either ask Mikey to drag the body back to your place or to go mourn the body at the alley.

The next day at Art class, a bunch of students ask you if you know what happened to Julia, to which you contemplate about throwing Mikey under the bus, but decide not to. Mikey thanks you for this and the two of you continue your classes, cooking and then finding out that one of your professors was found dead. You end up going home afterwards and the next day you are painfully hungry with no food to eat. On the news, it seems like the professor who died's body was tampered by two different people. You receive a poem from Mikey in the mail, which deeply disturbs you. While at class, you notice that Mikey isn't there and due to your lack of food, you nearly pass out, eventually being called out by one of the professors to go home and sleep. At night, Mikey breaks into your home and when you awaken, you see Mikey on your couch. Mikey seems remorseful for killing someone. Mikey finds out that you are actually a cannibal (and a murderer), explaining why you wanted Julia's corpse. He is incredibly happy about this, believing that the two of you are meant for each other. Mikey seems to have started killing because of your murders. Mikey gives an ultimatum, asking you to be his muse, and stating that if you refused, he would turn both of you into the police.

Rejecting his love initially can lead to actually being able to throw Mikey under the bus. To which afterwards, Mikey drags you into an alleyway and kills you.

Rejecting walking home with him the first time and going to mourn your friend Julia will instead lead to Mikey at night coming into your house and waking you up. We see that he's trying to get some blood out of you, and in a panic, you freak out, causing you to impale yourself on his knife. This leads to a panicked Mikey as you slowly bleed to death.

Rejecting him entirely will lead to Mikey simply leaving, no longer coming to class and you having mixed feelings on him.

Personally, I always think it's really cool to have a MC that is evil or otherwise pretty twisted. Not only does it give them character, but I think it also makes their relationship with the yandere that much more interesting. There are actually quite a lot of hints that the MC is a cannibal, though most of them are not super obvious. The MC seems to eat food at a generally very animalistic manner, and when they do run out of food, they don't seem to go buy things from the grocery or eat a snack or anything. There's also the detail that they are really good at cooking class, the fact that it seems there are two killers on the loose, the fact that they are self conscious about smelling bad (and the fact that their apartment also smells bad a lot of the times), and of course, asking Mikey to drag the dead body into their apartment, and then never mentioning what happened to it again. There are also a lot of other small details, but there are a lot of hints that there's something up with the MC that isn't normal. I can assume that the player constantly falling asleep is likely a product of not being able to eat that many people, considering the effort to kill and then consume an entire person without getting caught. I honestly only caught on that something was off about the MC when they asked to drag Julia's body back into the apartment (since... who would do that?) and the fact that they just very casually accepted Mikey as their boyfriend, stating that "well, all guys have a few flaws, right?". It's pretty neat that Mikey seems to have fallen for the MC because of the murders and has their murders based off of theirs, making them a perfect killing duo. Honestly, I really hope to see more games with a more twisted MC because it makes the story much more interesting.

Mikey as a yandere seems to just be the player's crush until they catch him murdering their friend. From what I can tell, aside from being a muse type of yandere, he also is a worshipper type, sending mail to the MC and eventually finding out that he was inspired by the player themselves. It seems pretty obvious that he would responsible for the killings, considering we see that he kills our friend Julia, but as a turn we do actually find out that there are actually two killers on the loose! While Mikey does seem to not want to hurt the player, he will if he is threatened, as shown in the ending where we do out him to others, and that he has been stealing the player's blood for his own art projects. I am curious what happens after the true ending when Mikey outs the player for being a cannibal, and I kind of hope that they end up being a duo and just going from town to town killing and eating people because that would just be cool. Not exactly sure what happens in the "Good End" when he kinda just disappears, though I'd like to think that he simply just watches the player from afar and continues to stalk them. Plus, his design looks pretty cool and I'm a sucker for his lovestruck face when he confesses to the player.

Overall, a solid and pretty fun game with a twist. The saving system is a bit weird though since it only allows you to save at the end of every day (and I think the game would really benefit from a skip button for players who want to get all endings, like me), but overall, very fun.

[olderthannetfic]

Have you ever had a kink awakening that was completely ruined by someone who would never know that they ruined it for you cos they’re a dead historical person?

Yeah, so when I was 9-11 y/o my favourite trope are cold CEO tropes. You know, slightly emotionally abusive, overly possessive, ultra-dominant, maybe a bit physically forceful, super rich, eventually fell madly in love with you.

THEN I decided to read up on psychology. AT 12. Cos I was a kid and I want to be crime-drama writer. (slightly concerning ages to read these things, but that’s not the point, dw abt it)

Sadly, I read about Freud’s ‘a man will eventually marry his own mother’ and the consequential ppl’s opinion the ‘a woman is attracted to a man like her own father’.

My dad is a distant patriarch with white-collar job, and that’s too close of a read. So for a few years I can’t look straight at cold CEO type characters properly and had to avoid them because of damned Sigismund Schlomo.

In this chance I would like to air out some funfacts about Sigmund Freud because digging up his grave and telling his dead skeleton that he ruined a lot of smut for me will get me diagnosed with hysteria by his ghost.

His birth name was Sigismund Schlomo, but he ended up using the name Sigmund for most of his life because his actual name isn’t catching on

Sigmund’s 40y/o dad kinda mail-order-bride-ed a 20 year old woman from Vienna as his third wife. They had a daughter—Sigmund’s little sister—and Sigmund just kinda headcanon-ed that his sister is the child of his step-mom with his older brother because they looked like a better fit together since his own dad looked too old for his step-mom.

Sigmund’s dad (a jewish man who escaped to the east bc of the nazi) once said that he was pushed to the curb while walking in the sidewalk and his hat was stepped on. Freud was like ‘so did you do anything to them? fight back, spit on them or something?’ and his dad was like, ‘uh, no, i took my hat and walk home’. Then Freud thought to himself like ‘YOU ARE SO FUCKING WEAK, FATHER!’.

Tangentially related to this, not long after, in class, Sigmund performed a monologue of Brutus from The Robbers where a character wanted to kill his own dad.

Sigmund, as a young teenage boy, once urinated in his parents bedroom IN FRONT OF his parents. So his dad was like “You’ll never amount to anything” (mind you, he was usually his parents’ golden child). So everytime he recounted this story he always followed it up with his achievements.

As part of research into what is now psychoanalysis, he attempted to dig up his childhood memories, and apparently the earliest memory he could remember is seeing his own mom naked.

He had a crush on a girl when he was a teenager, but as an adult he said that he probably actually love her mom, but projected his feelings on to her daughter.

He wanted to become a natural scientist for a sec, but through his own reflection he said its probably bcs he read an article that kinda hone in on the ‘maternality’ of mother nature

source: Freud by Peter Gay

--