#though I don't mind still being an amateur photographer just for fun

[ckameley]

Tomorrow morning I'm going to an animal photography workshop at the zoo. I've had this Canon 60D since at least 2015 (I brought it with me to my trip to France that summer) but I haven't really made the time to truly familiarize myself and use it

I only have the 18-135mm lens that came with the camera, and although I don't have a fancy telephoto zoom lens I can still apply whatever tips/tricks the instructor shares to get better images of the animals. I've never taken a photography class in my life and never was serious about improving my photography skills so I never bothered to think about investing in another lens. Maybe one day once I get more serious about developing this skill

[theygotlost]

come play venture bros postcanon tuoys with me? :)

hank isnt interested in higher education or a full time career and he literally wrote down his dream job as "drifter". I see him taking up a lot of odd jobs and sporadic minimum wage stuff but really i believe he was meant for the stage. shallow gravy never makes it big time but they get like the weirdest most random gigs ever and eventually they release a full album and everyone fucking hates it and hank gets called a nepo baby. which is true. but going beyond the music hank is always dressing up and playing characters and ofc there was the time he called himself destiny and refused to take off the strength suit you see where im going with this YEP Destiny is his drag name. and im imagining destiny playing shallow gravy gigs so she'd have a kinda gothy alternative amy lee aesthetic going on and she would slay.

in case you havent noticed I hateee that dermott joined OSI it just feels forced and his buzzcut is ugly. dont worry though I can fix this. the thing about dermott is that he talks a big game but in reality is a pathetic loser. it's like that episode of malcolm in the middle where reese joins the army but crumbles as soon as he's faced with combat training. dermott either drops out or gets kicked out for doing something stupid but either way they probably have to wipe his memory and its like it never happened. outside of shallow gravy i see him doing random blue collar stuff and like... riding dirtbikes and shit. also he was probably lying about having a pilots license but idk maybe he does have one. i think he should have one

dean says he doesnt know what he wants to do with his future so his major at stuyvesant is probably still undeclared rn... but remember that for a while his dream job was "boy reporter" and he even printed that adorable little home newspaper so that points to a career in journalism. in the second half of the show dean's vibe is "im probably transgender but there are supervillains trying to kill me so i don't have time to worry about that right now" and being able to have a (relatively) normal college experience away from home around people her own age would be the final push she needs to start transitioning. also i have this vivid image in my mind of dawn becoming a photographer and i have no idea where it came from but that would fit well with the reporter stuff and she could be a photojournalist! but I also see her being interested in fashion photography and doing all of destiny's glamour shots and stuff so that's her hobby that does outside of work .and she NEEEDS to be an obnoxious twee amateur photographer living in NYC she deserves it she's earned it !!!!!

triana's probably an accomplished sorceress by now!! goddd i miss triana i just want her back. idk if she would move to new york permanently but she would come visit her dad and get to hang out with dawn again. and she's realized shes a lebian and they get back together PLEASEE? :3 im not really sure what she would do with her sorcery powers but I guess she could be a low level superhero? she wouldn't be interested in anything crazy like saving the world but she would have fun busting up low level bank robbers and classic stuff like that and she and jared could hang out. or perhaps she's available for hire and will do magic stuff for whoever

[the-rhyme-witch]

I'll be totally honest with you, when I sent the minions to Roger Restrange's house to kidnap a family member, this wasn't what I'd had in mind.

"Lurk, Munge, explain."

"You said family, boss!" said Lurk. He's got a surprisingly high voice for a six-and-a-half foot wall of muscle. Jack The Nightowl fired him for being too chipper, though Jack The Nightowl is an amateur (last month he tried to kidnap the prime minister and kidnapped a cleaners gran instead). Since I've seen Lurk remain upbeat while feeding a corpse through a wood chipper, I usually consider him a bargain hire, but honestly.

"I did," I said and let the silence stretch while Munge and Lurk fidgeted like naughty school kids. Munge cracked first.

"Well, dogs is family, see?" they said, spelling it out. Munge is the most average looking person I've ever met and until they got into minioning, they didn't seem to realise what an absolute corker of a gift nature had given them. Munge is identity-parade immune and it's bloody excellent but good grief, dogs are family? I'm trying to take over this ridiculous island country, not applying to be the next Battersea Dogs Home.

The dog was ...well. It was a dog. Four legs, tail, fur. It was one of those little happy hairy ones with the face bred all mashed in so the poor thing can't breathe. This one looked like someone had booped it's snout so vigorously in that it's eyes squished out a bit. Perhaps that's why there was so much white of it's eyes showing.

Still, I'm a professional. I'm no Jack The Nightowl. I was professional enough to bin my initial "recorded plea" idea. Unless this boggle-eye Joe has a particularly unusual bark (he hadn't-Lurk rang the doorbell a few times and yelled "walkies!" to check), a Your-Loved-Ones-Frightened-Voice classic wasn't going to cut it. You don't get to call yourself a supervillain around here if you can't adapt and as The Viperess, I've got standards.

So I sent a photograph to Roger Restrange. Not to Rogers home, obviously. I'm not an amateur. Not to the newspapers either because this is the 2025, not 1995. No, I had the techmonkeys create a few new social media accounts, spend a few days hard-liking and spamming them with content, joining every local community Facebook, Insta, Tumblr, X and Tiktok they could find. Then one sent the photo back and forth between them to muddle the trail, standard confusion stuff, then hit up the community pages with the photo.

I'd staged the dog in a shut LandRover electric kit coversion, windows closed, no water, with a box of Cadburys Milk Tray, some onions and a bag of chocolate raisins for good measure. The little squash-faced oddity certainly looked pitiful. I'd put my signature calling card next to it's foot, a little sand filled toy snake, just so Roger had no confusion. The Viperess had his dog.

Let me tell you, that post blew up like the homemade bomb I made in my shed when I was twelve. Boom! With one glorious photo, I'd hooked the attention of animal lovers, car fanatics, the climate deniers, the electric car haters, veterinary staff, dog lovers, dog haters, the fun police, the danger police, the good old reliable internet trolls and one very frantic Cadbury intern who had picked the wrong week to move to their social media team.

I sat back and waited.

And waited.

Lurk informed me that the dog answered to Tofu. He and Munge took it for walks.

I waited some more.

The social media post was gathering steam, if anything. The techmonkeys said it had been shared, reblogged, retweeted and reposted so much that it was a meme now. Munge informed me Tofu was using the lair office as a bedroom now, which beat it's previous role as the hairy little gits toilet paper. The fug in there was eye watering.

I waited for a week and a half.

Something stank about this and it wasn't just my office carpet. Was bloody Roger Restrange, the definitely-probably-not the Red Rescuer honest himself, on a tech detox? Why hadn't he dropped into my lair, guns blazing, to rescue his pooch? It was very inconvenient.

So I went classic. The minions dropped Roger a ransom note.

And I waited some more.

Okay, in the interest of honesty, it wasn't just a note. We broke into his backup-headquarters. Any villain wannabe can break into the main secret headquarters, it's entirely cliché, but the backup, meant-to-be-safe, B-headquarters? Now that's bloody genius. But if you know hero-types, you'll know that they don't go to the backup until all is lost.

So in a fit of nostalgia, I blew up his main headquarters with the bomb recipe from my childhood. Happy memories. Left a Viperess calling card in the B-headquarters with the ransom note. And spywear. Obviously.

It went to plan, bombed headquarters discovered, boohoo, hero Roger at rock bottom, nowhere to turn, blah blah blah, "oh what about the old base", etcetera etcetera. You know how it goes. Then he goes to his b-base and finds the note and then it all went weird.

The techmonkeys were livestreaming from the spycams and it was all to script, hero sees a note on the floor in the supposedly safe space, realisation dawns, horror, blah blah, then you know what that bastard did? He read the ransom note and he laughed. He laughed. Not even in a start-of-descent-into-evil-arc way! He laughed like I'd stolen his broken washing machine from his garden.

I will admit to having had a bit of a temper tantrum. An itty bitty little one.

Anyway, once I'd calmed down enough, I sent the minions round to Roger Restrange's place. Not Lurk, I sent Munge with Gabby from HR....what's that? Yes, I've a HR department. Of course I do. Obviously. I'm a supervillain, not an accountant. I've got a Human Remains department to sort out payroll, ensure minions that lose an arm fighting sharks get proper physio and counselling and flamethrower prosthetics and know how much they matter, check in on sick staff, that sort of thing. What else am I going to do, be midway through cutting up a hero with a laser and then ask them to wait there so I can ensure I process the monthly bonuses on time and make sure no one's birthday has been forgotten? Don't be absurd.

Anyway

Off went Gabby, who dresses like a Barbie and smells like talcum powder, and Munge, who wouldn't stand out in a crowd of two, and they did some digging. Not at the "secret identity" home of the Red Rescuer himself but around the neighbours.

Now, Roger lives in a not quite middle-class suburban street. The Neighbourhood Watch sign was a giveaway. So I'd sent Munge and Gabby to speak to the neighbours, claiming to be staying with a relative locally and concerned about a dog barking (now, see? This is what sets a supervillain from the dregs. Know your audience!) Those nosy neighbours were happy enough to gossip.

It turned out the story was this.

Mr Restrange had inherited the little dog from his late aunt who he promised on his deathbed to look after, even though the poor man had a raging dog allergy and the poor little dog was so traumatised by the loss of it's previous owner it barked all night.

Of course, this wasn't the true story. As soon as Munge retold me this, I made the connection, and I sent Lurk calling on a few folk in the villain business to make sure.

Tofu wasn't Rogers aunts dog, obviously. He was an old lady's dog. Specifically, the gran of the prime ministers cleaner. The old lady Jack The Nightowl bungled kidnapping last month when the Red Rescuer had busted him. Apparently, the shock had put the old lady into hospital and she'd left her dear little pet with the nice man in red.

Now, Roger is a hero, isn't he? Not great for the public image to say to a dear, sweet old lady that her smelly little mop dog should probably go into the kennels, is it? Not when the old dear has asked him specially.

And Roger, sorry, The Red Rescuer....well. I knew he didn't like wolves. I kept some on hand especially. I didn't realise it was because he was allergic.

The more I thought, though, the crosser I got. In part, yes, it was because I had removed a carpet-scooting little bug eyed earsore from the home of my nemesis to clutter up my lair but it was hard not to get attached to Tofu. The thing was a genetic monstrosity and my carpets would never be the same but still. Roger didn't know that I knew that he didn't like the dog. As fair as he knew, I thought I knew it to be his dearest pet. And he very well knew the collateral damage that occurs in a hero Vs villain, "I got your loved one" standoff. For all he knew, I was carving bits off Tofu to drop in the shark tank.

I got cross.

Lurk and Munge came to see why I was shouting. I explained. They got cross too.

The techmonkeys came to whisper for us to be quiet. They got sucked into the indignation vortex.

Gabby came in to ask if this counted as something she needed to book a councillor for to mitigate minion trauma post Supervillain Boss Temper Tantrum and bought in some tea.

Tofu came in to bark and lick people's shoes.

We decided that Tofu had been Unfairly Abandoned. Munge and Lurk were particularly invested. We decided that Roger Restrange, The Red Rescuer, had left a little dog to his enemies without a backwards glance.

We decided that Tofu deserved revenge....

You are a super villain and for your latest diabolical scheme, you’ve kidnapped the hero’s dog to lure them into a trap. Except it turns out the “hero” doesn’t care about the dog. You take offense to this.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Was chatting with a coworker the other day and two things crossed my mind...

that I've been at this weeb shit so long that I forget what I just sort of take for granted and what might not be commonly known little factoids, and

that VIZ's attempt at a monthly Shonen Jump magazine has been gone so long most people probably never saw them. (nevermind the old RAIJIN Graphic Novels that tried the same thing)

So, here's some fun little things you might not have known about manga if you've only ever read English publications and/or digital scans...

For one, there's the matter of print formatting... In general, Japan actually uses their own standards for print that tend to differ from those in the US; The JIS(Japanese Industrial Standards) series A and B. Magazines like the typical anthology format manga are printed in JIS B5, which is comparable to the US Letter standard, or the ISO A4.

This was the same format that RAIJIN Comics printed in as well, and although I don't have a copy of the old English Shonen Jump for reference, if memory serves they printed in the same format as well in an attempt to really sell that "authentic" manga feel. Sadly, I don't know that the effort or attention to detail was much appreciated. Neither published a volume comparable to a Japanese weekly or even monthly serial magazine, though --not by a long shot. But this might not be the most practical for comparrison, since there actually just isn't much of an English language equivalent format. (unless you count actual magazines that happen to include comic illustrations or miniscule comic strip segments)

Despite the mammoth size of a serial magazine, Japanese tankoban are actually smaller than the North American equivalent. But notably the Japanese small book format isn't just a matter of contending with nearest print standards... What I believe is the JIS B40(although I could be wrong) tends to be the standard print size of small books in general, not just manga, and it's a print size that is only marginally smaller than VIZ's standard size manga, but with the very particular benefit of being deliberately portable. The small difference in size is the difference between a Japanese manga fitting in my coat pocket where as the English equivalent can't.

(I realize I photographed a copy of Shonen ACE, and not Weekly JUMP, but I measured a copy of Weekly JUMP for the thickness and not the copy of ACE; the copy of JUMP was around 506pg, while the copy of ACE was 570pg. Those are both older though, and the most recent digital copy i have of Weekly JUMP actually had around 520pg)

And I don't think it's always addressed just what a difference there is, culturally, in how Japan approaches the print medium. It's kind of an old cliche by this point, and I don't know how accurate it's remained in the past decade or so, but the quintessential image passed around between comic nerds has always been the Japanese bullet train; A place packed with commuters all passing their transit time with isolated preoccupation with music and/or reading, with manga being the king of this time killing arena. And its not just about sheer popularity driven by interest, American comic vendors have long envied the sheer accessibility of manga in Japan.

Here in the U.S. we used to have a thriving newsstand retail scene for comic books, and a kind of similar ease of grab and go comic purchase, rather than the explicitly niche interest driven "direct market" model that has been slowly but surly strangling the comic market ever since. But in Japan serialized manga has remained in relatively quick, impulse friendly, arm's reach of readers on the go. And what lubricates that business model more than anything is price.

I still remember a time when VIZ dominated the English manga market by offering at $7.95(and am I crazy or am I remembering a time when it got down to $6.99?) but now'days it's settled on a low end of $9.99. You know how much the recent vol.29 of My Hero Academia goes for? ¥484. That's less than $4.50.

You know how much that big ass magazine with 500+ pages and 21 different series goes for? Do you think it's more or less than the little pocket-size tankoban? Did you guess something close to ¥290? That's less than $2.75. But how does something bigger in both page size and page count managed to sell for less???

There are a few secrets to that, but one is that the things are packed to the gills with ads. But that's the boring answer. The other feature contributing to keeping an accessible cost on weekly/monthly manga is something we don't think about much in the U.S.; it's the paper and print quality.

The nice little books are printed in what you might expect as far as starch white paper and clean black inks, but those big honkin' phone book(do people still know what phonebooks look like??) size magazines are printed on cheap recycled pulpy newpaper with typically rough print jobs. This is most noticeable in the quality of solid blacks, and when scanning the texture of "white" space.

(I tried to take individual photos of different series chapters to show off the fact that the paper is differently colored... but my phone's camera seems to be smart enough to auto balance that kind of thing when there's no other context to anchor it to. (It doesn't help that it's night and my lights have a harsh yellowing glow to them.) but on th left you can still kind of see the different paper colors; this particular issue alternated every 3 chapters between pink-ish, green/gray, a kind of off-white/gray, and sepia, but I've also seen blue-ish, oranges, and a different shade of yellow different from the sepia-ish one.)

Back in ye olden days when it came to fan scanlations, more slapdash teams and projects would often stumble over levels in photoshop (too much black and the pulpy paper texture shows up as grainy shadows, but too far white and the edges of lineart get crunchy and ugly) but those who had more robust readership and a regular streamlined flow of work, we'd actually go in and touch up the solid blacks and whites by hand. We'd also redraw art to erase overlaid text so the type setters could lay the new English in over top.

(Weekly Jump: Left, Bleach tankoban: Right)

They do however keep a few coveted color pages in better quality paper and ink. In contrast, the standard quality tankoban actually don't include color pages at all, and just print what had been color pages in grayscale. There are also all kind of irregularities between publishers and special editions and such, but on the most basic level this difference in quality both keeps serial prices down, while also incentivizing tankoban purchase.

In the U.S. we might still have the draw of an ad-free reading experience in our TPB, but the print quality between a biweekly issue and a TPB are basically the same. Incidentally, even though manga are generally drafted at a much larger scale than even the serial magazine proportions anyway, the scaled down size of the tankoban also serves to sharpen the image. When put side by side the nice clean tankoban print looks noticeably better than the serial.

Now'days the English scanlation scene seems to be conducted almost entirely through ripped digital releases (at least as far as I can tell with popular, regular weekly titles) which is great for quality, frankly, but it does kind of lack the charm and personal touch of a band of amateurs finding round about solutions to a convoluted bootlegging pipeline. But obviously I'm a little biased.

[edit]: Oops i posted this without really ending it in any sensible ro conclusive way... I feel like ive lost sight of the point since i first drafted this but I guess its mostly just me pining after if we could just get super cheap, disposable quality, bulk manga in that classic Japanese magazine model to work here in the states. I already tend to sell manga in big runs, even at $9.99+, and frequently I'll have customers put volumes back, or clearly want the next volume but just can't afford it and wait to come back. If I could sell these customers more volumes, and more importantly more titles, at the same price, I would love to. I would love to see these things fly off the shelves. I would love to see people keeping up with multiple series. I would love to see someone look at a 44vol long series and actually feel like that's a number of volumes they can afford.

[boyy-wonder-grayson]

Winter's Weather // Dick Grayson Au!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Warnings: nothing other than some swearing and maybe a little angst if you squint (?)

A/n: chapter 2 it's finally here!! I don't know how to feel about this since I've hit writers block quite a few times while writing this,I wanted to make it longer than the first one, which it is, but I don't know. Sorry about the moodboards they're easy and fun to do, so I'll probably do more lmao. Thanks for reading and feedback is always appreciated :) anyway enjoy!!

The first night at her father’s cabin was spent reminiscing of all the times she has been there when her family was complete. Her father was a fisherman, so he usually would wake the girls up and take them to the lake to teach them how to fish. Y/n was quite good at it, her sister Remy on the other hand was not kin of the early activities her father would take them to.  Y/n found her father’s old fishing roads at the back of the house; she’d probably end up selling them or donating them to the local shop back in town.  It wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be.  It’s been five years since her father had passed and the wound was still fresh; her father had been her best friend through life.  He was a kind man with a wicked sense of humor, he was the backbone of their family, so when he passed it was harder and harder to go back home to her mother who apparently didn’t took him long to find someone else to spend the rest of her life with.  That was something Y/n wasn’t happy about; is not that she didn’t want for her mother to be happy, on the contrary, it was that her father’s death was still very much fresh on her mind and she was not ready to move on from that just yet.  That was part of the reason why she moved back to his old cabin; to make peace with his death, and try to live a happy life just like her father had wanted for her.

So far she wasn’t doing a good job at it. 

In the mess that her father had left on the basement of the house she found more and more stuff that belonged to him and it was hard for her no to cry; being surrounded by her father’s presence was something she wasn’t quite ready to do apparently.  She found his old camera inside of a box.  The box was filled with Polaroid’s of her, some with her sister and her mother and some of the house.  His father was an amateur photographer and that camera was a gift from her in his 50’s birthday.  He loved It so much that he took it everywhere with him.  He used to say that a picture could tell a better story than words could muster, which it used to annoy her given that she was a writer; writing was her life and for her father to say something like that would make her roll her eyes, but now looking at the photographs she realized he was right.  There he was smiling at the camera hugging her closer to his body, laughing because he was squeezing her so hard that her face could barely be seen, nevertheless her sister took the picture.  She sniffed looking around and drying her tears, it was going to be harder than she thought.  She grabbed the box and the camera and took them upstairs with her, promising that tomorrow she would organize everything and would set her life in motion.  After all she would do it for her father, if not for her.

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

It was seven a.m. when she heard a knock on her door and groaned, hoping that whoever was brave enough to disrupt her sleep would just go away, but of course she wasn’t that lucky. The knocking intensified until she threw the covers of her bed and shivered when the cold morning air hit her warm body.  Apparently sleeping with a short sleeved shirt and some shorts wasn’t a good idea in winter.  She opened the door without looking who it was; she was already in a bad mood, one: because who the hell comes all the way to the middle of the woods to wake someone up at the crack of dawn –overdramatic as always—and two: nobody knew she was back in town so who the hell was banging on her door so early? Her question was quickly answered when she was face to face with non-other that the annoying man from yesterday.

“What are you doing here?” she asked confused “and so early in the morning” she added bitterly trying her hardest to show her distaste of his visit.

“Good morning to you too” the guy replied sarcastically. “Like I told you yesterday, your father put me in charge of his place and since you’re here now, and since I’m sure you’re not aware of how a cabin is run, I thought I’d explain to you, so you don’t tear this place down” he said smiling at her now, showing a cute smile that made her stomach turn but not in a good way. He was cocky and she didn’t like that. Not that much at least.

“Is it necessary that you come here at 7 a.m. to do this?” she asked through gritted teeth. She couldn’t believe the audacity of this man.

“Yes, because unlike you I can’t lose my time with people who decided to come live in a cabin in the middle of the woods because her life in the big city wasn’t working for her” he said dryly, almost as if he was angry about it.  Y/n was taken aback with his response and look at him in disbelief, partly because of how quickly his playful and cocky attitude changed to a more serious and dark one, and partly because he was right about her reason for coming back to Mystic so suddenly. It was true that her life in the city was not going well and she thought some fresh air from the small town that saw her grow would be a good change, but she wasn’t going to give this stranger man the satisfaction of knowing he was right. He was so right.

“Excuse me Mr. Grinch” she said, earning a glare from the boy. “I don’t need you here. I’ve spent years in this cabin; I know exactly how to keep this place running okay? So you can go now and steal Christmas or whatever that Grinch’s like you do” she said turning around leaving the boy standing at the door.  It was her second day back in town and she was already infuriated with this man. Who the hell does he think he is to talk to her like that?

The man on the other hand was fuming; he didn’t like her attitude, and he certainly didn’t like to be compared to one of the most famous grumps in the world, especially by someone who didn’t even know him. He had his reasons to be that way, to be guarded against everyone and everything; that was at least his justification for his shitty attitude, but Y/n was not going to put up with that.

“Listen city girl, I’m not here to discuss how you should or should not do, your father gave me explicit instructions to keep this place intact, and unlike you, I plan to follow them” he said walking closer to the girl. Y/n was angry now. She didn’t even have her morning coffee and she was already arguing with a man, her morning could not be better. Before she could start spewing insults at the boy he started talking again.

“Do you know how much firewood you need to survive the winter? Because no offense but I don’t think chopping wood is one of your strong suits. Or do you know how to properly clean and dry the wood? Or do you know what kind of stain you need to use in this particular house? I’m sure you do right, since you’ve always came here?” he asked question after question making the girl fell smaller with each one. It was true that she didn’t know much about what it took to keep cabin running, but she was stubborn as hell and was not going to back down from an argument, not when her pride was on the line.

“I don’t need some lumberjack wannabe to tell me how to take care of my house, I can always talk to someone else, or hire someone to the maintenance for me” she replied smugly, enjoying the way his face contorted with each word she said. He scoffed and ran a hand through his hair trying to calm himself down, it wasn’t ideal that he was stubborn as hell too.  Their personalities collided and no one was going to back down if that meant admitting they were wrong.

“Your father asked me to take care of this place, and I will do it whether you like it or not” he said looking straight into her eyes.  She would be a big fat liar if she said that his stare wasn’t doing things to her.  Her stomach twisted and her heartbeat accelerated looking at the man in front of her. He was hot and handsome as hell, his brown eyes became darker the more frustrated he got and she imagined herself in a different situation with those brown eyes staring at her with such intensity. She quickly shook her head to get rid of such sinful thoughts and cleared her throat trying to come remember what he said last.

 The brown eyed boy wasn’t too different from her. His eyes darted towards her chest, he noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra and the cold air of the morning made her nipples hard, but she was too engrossed trying arguing with him to notice. But he did notice my god.  He removed his eyes quickly from her chest and the next thing he noticed was her long legs; he imagined himself in a different situation where her legs would be wrapped around his waist. He shook his head gently removing those thoughts from his head, hopefully she wouldn’t have noticed the way he was checking her out. She didn’t, but she did ask him a question.

“What?” he said feeling stupid for thinking about taking the woman in front of him against the nearest wall, instead of listening to her.

“I asked what your name is, or should I call you Grinch?” she asked with amusement dancing in her eyes.

“I’m Richard, but everyone just calls me Dick.”

------

The following day Y/n woke up early that day with the intention of doing some work around the house.  She wasn’t sure yet what would happen to the cabin; she thought about selling the place once she finished with the maintenance and some remodeling.  A cabin in the woods would give her some good money; but detaching herself from the house where she spent half her childhood and teenage years was hard.

She still had time though.  She was taking some time away from the city so spending time away from everyone and being on her own would do her good. Or at least that was what she said to herself.  She decided after having her second breakfast –which consisted of some coffee—that she needed some groceries if she was going to spend the winter in the woods.  The stores weren’t so far from the cabin so she grabbed her wallet, keys and wrapped herself in her warmest clothes to go out and face the winter of Connecticut.  She made it into town in twenty minutes.  It was snowing slightly when she got out of the car, she had park just in front of Mrs. Bradley old market. That place was already when she was a kid and apparently was still standing strong. Mrs. Bradley was the nicest woman she had ever met, the woman would always sneak a candy or two for her and her sister when they were shopping with her dad, her mother didn’t like that and scoffed whenever that happened but Mrs. Bradley would pay no mind and do it whenever she could.  The bell atop of the door dinged when she entered the shop, making the old woman lift her gaze and when she recognized a smile stretched across her lips.

“Y/n! Oh look at you!” the old woman beamed at her making her smile even bigger. The woman moved from her spot behind the register to hug the girl, which the later reciprocated with as much enthusiasm as the woman.

“You look so beautiful; look how much you’ve grown!”

“Thanks Mrs. Bradley you’re looking good too, didn’t age a day.”

“Lucky for you flattery would get you everywhere with me” the woman said, making the girl laugh. One thing she loved about this town was the people.  Most of the town had seen her grow from a little kid to the woman she is today. She had a special place for everyone in this town, especially Mrs. Bradley, she was like the grandmother she never had.

“Well lucky me then” she said giggling with the old woman.

“I haven’t seen you in what? Five years? ” Mrs. Bradley asked rubbing her hands along her arms in a comforting manner “I’m sorry about your father, we were all very sad to hear that he was gone, I can’t imagine how you must’ve felt. You were so closed” she said smiling sadly.

“Thanks, and yeah it was…hard, that’s why it took me so long to come back here” she admitted; it was easy for her to talk to this woman, easier than with her mother for sure.

“I know sweetie, I know. But you’re here now, and that’s what matters.” She was so grateful to have someone like her that she could confide in about pretty much everything.

“Yeah, and I’ll be around for a long time I think,” she confessed. The old woman hugged her once again and professed how happy she was that she had decided to stick around for a while promising that they would have a chat whenever she was free.  The girl nodded excited to finally be back somewhere where she felt comfortable enough to call it home.  She apologized to the customer that was waiting for the women to finish chatting and made her way to the back of the store to get some groceries.  She was halfway done with every item on her list when she found herself in front of the cereal aisle; she scanned the shelf looking for her favorite brand, she smiled triumphantly when she found the last box at the top of the shelf. She stood on her tiptoes trying to reach the box before someone snatched it out of her grasp. Her head snapped quickly to find the body attached to the hand that took the last box of cereal and of course it had to be no other than Dick.

“Give it back” she said, already annoyed by her presence. Dick looked down at her acknowledging her presence and chuckled when he saw her frowning like a child.

“No” he said, trying hard not to laugh at her expression. Her mouth was slightly open, her brows were furrowed and he knew she was ready to retaliate.

“I saw it first, I even grabbed it first before you literally took it out of my hands” she explained “So technically it’s mine” she said crossing her arms across her chest.

“Technically it’s in my basket, so it’s mine,” he said. He would never admit it but as much as he was annoyed by her, he still enjoyed pissing her off.

“You stole it! So give it back now” she reached a hand waiting for him to return her cereal.

“Nop” he said and turned around leaving her with her mouth open. She was trying to think of a good comeback but dick was halfway across the store by then.

“At least he does justice to his name” Y/n said grabbing a different box of cereal, sighing she continued her shopping hoping not to bump into Dick for the rest of the day.

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

Dick’s phone rang the second he sat inside his car.  He sighed when he saw the name on the screen.

“Bruce” he said coldly. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture now; he had shit to do other than to listen to what his dad had to say.

“Son, how are you? I wasn’t sure if you were going to answer the phone” Bruce said making Dick roll his eyes and his passive-aggressiveness.

“Yeah, well I did. Can I help you with something?” he was already stressed about this whole thing. He moved from Gotham to avoid everything and everyone; but apparently Gotham did not move on from him.

“Not really I was just checking on you, since you don’t seem to call much these days” Bruce said sounding a little…sad. Dick felt a pang in his chest. Guilt.  He knew Bruce was not doing this on purpose, despite everything he loved his dad and Bruce loved him too, but being reminded every week or two how he seemed to forget about his family stung. 

“I know, and I’m sorry it’s just…it’s still hard,” Dick confessed over the phone. He heard Bruce sighing on the other line.

“I know kid, I know it’s hard. But I thought moving there was supposed to do good to you. What happened?”

“Nothing happened that’s the thing” he said not making much sense “Nothing happened. Things just stayed the same as it was back in Gotham and I honestly don’t know what I was expecting when I moved out here. I guess I’m just mad that my feelings didn’t change after all the time I spent here” he pinched the bridge of his nose; he didn’t know why was he saying all this now, he spent so much time lying to himself and his father about being okay and now the words came out of his mouth like a damn breaking after holding the water for far too long.

“Look Dick, I know you don’t like when I give you advice but listen to me son” Bruce said in a serious tone “Things won’t change unless you make them change. Moving out was just the first step, maybe it was a good one or maybe not. But things won’t be different because you don’t want them to be different.  Starting over is a big step in life, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad one.  You need to start thinking less and start acting more.”

As much as Dick hated to admit it, Bruce was right.  He wondered many times if the only reason why he wasn’t moving out in life was because he was subconsciously sabotaging his own life; and the answer was yes.  He had many opportunities to forget about her and find someone new to help him heal his broken heart, but he refused to take them because he was afraid. Afraid of being hurt again, afraid of opening to someone only for that someone to leave him like it happened the last time. He knew it was stupid to hold onto the pain from the past, and that not everyone was going to hurt him, but the fear was there and he spent so many years being comfortable inside the wall he built around himself, that thinking of going out of them was scary.

“I know, and I try but…I can’t”

“I know son, but being scared it’s just part of the healing process. You can’t throw your life away for one misstep. It’s not worth it. She wasn’t worth it” Bruce said trying to lift the boys’ spirits.

“Thanks dad, I kind needed this long overdue conversation” he said sincerely. He missed his family.

“No problem kid, I know I haven’t been the best example when it comes to relationships, but I know a thing or two” Bruce joked. Dick smiled wide, missing the old man and his antics.

“I have to go, I’ll talk to you later dad” he said, turning the engine on.

"Okay kid, take care, and please don’t hesitate to call. We miss you, I think even Jason does”

“Tell him I miss him too, and maybe one of these days you can come visit, if that’s okay with you” dick said suddenly worried about his father’s answer.

“I’d love to Dick. Very much.” He hung up the phone and smiled genuinely in what felt like years of not doing it. He was unaware of someone else looking at him from the other side of the street.