#when does this all take place chronologically? who is Robin? is there a Robin? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

brucewaynehater101 · 8 months ago

Note

Inspired by the Secret Robin AU by dragonpyre on Tumblr and the genderqueerness Tim has going on with the Jane Doe AU, I've got a Mahou Shoujo Jihen AU for ye! (mangaka, Zero Akabane)

Snippets are occasionally non-chronological/flashback and unreliable narration ahoy lmao

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Okay so the Graysons', unbeknownst to them, have bloodline of ★magic★

A magic newly-orphaned Grayson has to learn all on his own, for the ward hardly entrusts his legal guardian so new to his life

And he wants something all to himself, something nobody can take away or order him about

Waltz's World he calls it, warping the lines between boy and girl, barriers receding

Aka Grayson can don a Magical Girl form that essentially trans his gender while she's formed, at least at the start

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Obligatory "Anon is cis and playing with gender through Batkids like dolls, her highest apologies for any fuck ups" Disclaimer

And also tw for small moments of misgendering by characters who have yet to be informed on batkids genders & pronouns

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

When Robin hits the streets, all Batman knows is that she is a child, one he brings under his mentorship and despite all his efforts, is impossible to find the civilian identity of

When she confesses to how new her magic is to her, that she's self taught in it all, he and his colleague find dead end after dead end to see if anybody else knows about her type of magic

If there exists others like her they're niche and hidden

Thus trial and error and the scientific method is their only way to help Robin come into her own

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Robin is tactical; hammered in by Batman, by Bruce, his guardian and her mentor

If Zucco dies, and it's so obviously linked to her, it could implicate Robin or both of her identities

She has to be smart about this

Murder had no place in Batman's care for her. Dick has to be careful about his search history on computers and what people catch him reading

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Bruce Wayne worries endlessly over Robin, now a teenage girl

Others too; nobody knows her identity

Dick is a blend of interested and not in the vigilante, opinions ever shifting. They both chalk it up to not knowing the young girl at all

Still, he dreams of a time he does have Robin under his complete care, newly adopted like Grayson, safe from crime fighting

When the news comes out that the killer of Dick's parents are dead, a weight is off his boy's shoulders.

"I have to say thank you to whoever did it." "It looks like it might've been an accident more than anything according to the cops."

Robin has been tense for a time, and still is

"Something happened in my civilian life, nothing major but I'm just waiting for the effects to pass by."

His poor girl . . . "I'm here for you Robin, no matter what happens."

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

The air and earth makes way for Robin's acrobatics, lights turns to her direction, and she's too nimble to be human

Too high, too far, too quick, too lasting are her movements

A cameraboy will never confess that whereas Dick shined with his quadruple somersault, Robin revealed it childsplay

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Jason is adopted right after trying to rob Bruce Wayne's car

In time Dick and he get along like a house on fire—

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

It's Jason who discovers Robin sneaking into the Manor, into his brother's room on the day he snuck into his closet for a prank of all things

It's Jason who sees Dick take Robin's place and screams

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

—And then it's like they've reached an understanding friendships with nobody else will ever challenge

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Little Wing hits the streets, partner of Robin

And he's as human as Bruce

"Listen, listen, he's just like me! Powers or not he's going to fight for Gotham, best we can do is prepare the bird!"

So Batman trains the vigilante Jason's age just as he did for Robin. He doesn't try to find his identity

The young duo only trusts each other with the truth

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Robin set ship for that off-world mission on the promise that Batman would protect Little Wing with his life

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"I'm gonna be visiting some friends dad, and I'm gonna be off grid during our stay so . . ."

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

there's A Death in the Family alright

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Bruce's eyes tore into Robin's, her face vomit and tear and snot stained

"Why did you never tell me who he was?"

Dick could only mouth "B— hiccup B—" He retched again

He looked away from the girl

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"I have a boy your exact age Robin, I think you could be twins, identical ones even, without sharing any blood."

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Grayson is the saving grace that keeps Batman from losing himself to grief

Bruce sits on his couch, looks down at the despondent boy's head in his lap. eyes hollowed out. hears neither of his boys laughter

He sees Robin's grief polluted face on his boy, and remembers not just what, but who he's fighting for

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"I never want to see you on the field again Robin. Not after how you've broken my trust"

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Batman does everything to find who Jason trusted more than his own father, who could have trusted his boy just as much, who was the Robin that dragged his youngest into the night

Not once does he think to ask his eldest what he knew

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Precious Robin photos are locked away where only he and Jason know

Because Robin is magic

Robin is useless

She has no place upon Little Jason's altars

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Cross-reference reliable articles and testimonies, and even a boy will learn that Batman is just barely putting in the work to not transform his justice into a suicide mission

Cross-references testimonies, and even a boy will learn that Nightwing puts nothing into holding back against Joker or Harley anymore. Dead or alive, she wants them gone

Even a boy will learn that Nightwing hardly patrols anymore

Everybody knows Batman and Nightwing ties back to Little Wing

Nobody knows where Batgirl went

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Not bullets nor fallen buildings, but grief losing three all in a fell swoop grounds Robin

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Distinguishing themselves from the rest of Gotham's upper class, the Drakes adorn their manor with artifacts of all over

Tim has too much time on his hands to not poke and prod at them all

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Once upon a time Timothy Drake threw away a wish to be treasured more than artifacts, to be loved and adored far beyond relics resilience, to last even longer than objects to get it all

Still he wishes for Little Wing and Robin back, for Bat Girl's return and the quartet of heroes he stalked night after night as they once were

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

She It puts its hands off of the mirror and peeled off its mask

The Drake couple's son sat there again

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

It's not a monkey's paw — it's close enough

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Tim's plan was to blackmail Batman, pick out its name, and leash the Dark Knight until he was mentally fit again

What it didn't plan for was for Nightwing to apparently know about its magic and track it down

It didn't think it would take this long to pick a name either. Heck it thought Nightwing and Batman cut contact

"Last time I trusted you with a child he died B!"

"I know better now, and unlike you I have the resources to train him to his fullest potential. Little Wing is proof!"

"How fucking dare you?!"

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Nightwing looks down at Timothy Drake, tears in her eyes

Dick Grayson-Wayne tastes salt on his tongue

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Between the fact Batkid would be forced to reveal his identity to Batman and statistics showing his increasing violence, how quick he was to put his hand on Robin's throat, versus to Nightwing, the first Robin, his answers is always the same

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Everybody agrees that the Second Robin looks delicate and precious. The birdie shouldn't be giving up their childhood for Gotham

That is all

Anybody can tell you what good the bird does, leashing the Bat, breaking Nightwing out of her grief, giving whatever the little child can for civilians in need, sinners or not

People can hardly agree on how Robin looks; she looks like my dead daughter, no he's a clone of my son! You idiots they look like those sweet kids I always babysit

All they agree on is that Robin looks as if they must be protected and treasured by their loved ones, not fighting crime

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Where Nightwing can hardly be touched, Robin recovers too quickly, even by its predecessor's standards

All but rarely, bullets, crushing weights, and strikes may all well be nonexistent the way Robin hardly scratches

Unless one has a meta's intense strength, they will find more progress attacking it's mind or delaying its goals

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Nightwing blows a fuse Robin hadn't even known existed when she catches wind of all the work its putting into bringing Batman back to the ideal hero he used to be

She doesn't let it overhear the fight this time

From then on she is always with Robin when it patrols

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Tim huffed as Dick clung to him and Bruce got to arranging himself as his guardian for whenever his parents were out Gotham

Apparently his magic was a filthy traitor! and made a link with Nightwing so that if he was ever in major danger, the heroine who pick up on it

Not only that, but it's been working as a tracker for Nightwing this entire time, the first time around wasn't just an ordinary magic thing like they thought

And they both found while Robin was calming down Batman

But why was Batman insisting on becoming his not-parent if he didn't have a link with him? Nor know about his double life?

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Batman and Nightwing are certain they know what Robin looks like. A perfect blend between Batgirl, the first Robin, and Little Wing, their greatest failures all in one

It's when they disagree on the more precise details of Robin's costume and it's features do they realize it wasn't civilians and rogues being tricked by the darkness

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

It looked into the mirror in its room in the Wayne Manor

Scrutinizing it's reflection, it looked the same as always, a perfect blend between Batgirl, the first Robin, Little Wing, and Nightwing

Androgynous if leaning on the feminine side

That ideal the Batclan perfectly displayed at its brightest, a living, breathing altar of their glory

It's teammates agreed with it, until last night it seemed

It didn't understand

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Jason Robin comes back magic

Talia's son and daughter tells her otherwise

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"Great work Robin," Oracle praised, tucking in some of its loose locks as it turned from its computer to her

The younger hero beamed

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Well then, if neither of them can be Robin yet . . .

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

It's funny how Nightwing learns she isn't the only one with Waltz in her bloodline. At least, she thinks they both got it from genetics. It was alway an assumption on her part

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Spoiler becomes the reason criminals and rogues alike flail about uselessly, making long reaching swings whenever. Nobody spots him until it's too late, if at all

Invisibility his beloved 💜💟💜

Even better are the freebies that come before he fights anybody. Little spoilers that make taking his dad's and other villains men down less of a trial

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Red Hood's violence is distinctive even in Gotham

Yet blowing an entire warehouse to cripple the Joker for good seemed extreme

Then again, it was Joker, extreme measures called

When word spreads of a Little Robin Hood under her care? It explains enough for those without intention to stick their dick in crazy

And thank the Waltz, because the two will never confess it, but it was a trauma-triggered accident

All because the dollar store clown was pissy over names

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"Dad—!" Bruce's hand ruffled his hair again as the other arm wrapped itself around Tim

Yeah Tim wasn't ever coming out about being Robin if Batman fussed over the two identities this much already. It was a wonder Dick somehow outdid him. He giggled

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

'Big W for Gotham queers' a merry goon tweets on duty, not that she'll confess it over her dead body

'What happened?' another twitter user comments

'Red Hood uses she/they, said so themself'

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Bruce couldn't have been faster in adopting Stephanie after Spoiler spilled Cluemaster's identity

"Holy, your dad is suffocating. I'm not complaining but how do you get anything done when he's bear hugging you?"

Tim sipped his coffee, "That's sort of our fault for dangling two too many kids he can't adopt and treasure in front of him for years on end. Follow me." She quirked an eyebrow

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Every blow Red Hood lays screams how that bomb did

Their strikes keep her targets down, and the impacts of her attacks have a larger area of effect than they should

There is no keeping them down

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"Our dad is Batman?" Stephanie ran around the room

"Not just that, you're brothers—" It watched its sister turn to it and she squinted.

"Are queers," it choked on its coffee with her comment

"Me too Robin!" Spoiler said, running up to it to bearhug it in his own way

"Let me go!"

"Nope! You look way too adorable like this!"

"You guys are the worst!"

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Little Robin Hood is the most elusive of them all, no doubt hiding herself from his mother when out at night

The greatest of Batman's heirs he strives to be; She doesn't rest until she is the pinnacle of Human, the pinnacle of a Waltz

he doesn't rest until he's picked up his predecessors own unique magics set as a prodigy would, even as the learning curve fights against her mastery of it

She won't rest even after becoming better than his siblings

He must surpass them so much they could never hope to outdo their superior sibling

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"Yo," Stephanie said, as if it wouldn't make Tim shriek and leap from his couch

"How did you get here?" He made sure this safehouse was the most secure and secretive of them all, how?

"Stalker tracker." She grinned

Her too?! Tim sat back on his couch and screamed into his pillows. His sister laughed

"Want a spoiler on my dad's next puzzle?"

"Give it," wait shit the magic word, "please Steph."

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Cassandra fisted and unfisted her(?) hand

It was more of a man's now. Except she didn't feel like a man, she felt like— scratch that, she didn't feel like a girl either in this form

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Robin gasped as its legs carried more broken bones and injuries than it ever had on its body all at once before

This time the wounds weren't sliding off like water but clinging onto it

"Hood—" a blow to its stomach

"Replacement," the woman hissed at it, then screamed

Robin shifted to its side, resisting the urge to cry out in pain, Nightwing now sat on Red Hood, laying blow after blow on the intruder

And she was yelling herself hoarse

Its sister unlatched and threw the helmet—okay bomb, wow its ears were ringing—off

And then Nightwing was on top of a man

"Little Wing!" its sister shrieks, arms wrapped around the stranger. "Why— why— how?"

"Baby on board! Baby on board! Ack!" Spoiler screamed holding up who might be Little Robin Hood trying and failing to escape his hold. both of them were covered in blood and blows

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Nightwing sat them all down, "Here's what's happening, we're going to keep this to ourselves. I've lost all trust in Bruce with any of your well beings."

"We're going to make it look like Red Hood fought Robin and then fought me as I bought time for my mentee's escape. When Spoiler comes into the scene fighting Little Robin, Red Hood is going to retreat for his sake.

"Robin, you're going to scrub and altar the data in the towers to make this believable; Spoiler, you'll alter or remove any evidence showcasing otherwise; and you two."

Red Hood's grip tightened on her knees.

Nightwing passed a piece of paper, "You're staying in contact with us, I refuse to lose my family again."

A weary smile, "And we'd love to get to know our new sibling."

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

A ballerina becomes Gotham's latest sensation

It's a wonder he— "Gender neutral, they/them" They didn't get hired to perform at Brucie's galas sooner

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Robin blocked Little Robin Hood's katana with its staff. the latter swung at its legs. it latched its hands onto her arm in retaliation and knocked his blade from his hands

Pinned to the ground, the boy could only try and reach for her fallen weapon as the staff was planted right next to her head—

"That's enough training for the day," Red Hood cut them off, "and your final scores are . . . "

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"Big bro, big bro, big bro!" Stephanie dragged a girl right to Dick

"Guess what," her grin couldn't get any wider

"You kidnapped a staff member?" her grin got wider

"I kidnapped a sibling" she pointed at the girl, or rather, the ballerina their father hired for the gala

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

He took his face mask off at the worst time

"Jaylad," Bruce's grip all but clawed at Jason's arms

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

When Jason declared they wouldn't reunite with his father, period, Damian was incensed

Now he may just give anything to go back before they did. But since he can't do that, the next best thing is uppercutting Todd for getting them adopted

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

"No more heroism Jaylad—no more Robin—no Little Wing," Bruce said between sobs

Oh he's not a hero anymore alright

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

When Batman found Robin sore all over, more wounded than he'd ever seen, his heart fell

Robin admitting it already healed from most of its injuries by the time he found it flew him into a rage

He threw himself into detaining Red Hood, trying to sieze Little Robin Hood from him, and upping security so his kids, civilian or vigilante, wouldn't suffer like this again

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Assassin, Talia, the League had trained a boy, a child to be an assassin. They did the same with Jason

Bruce refuses to let his children—vigilante or civilian—suffer again

Thankfully, with how the chaos of legally reviving Jason, and adopting three children in one fell swoop has cooled down, it seems maintaining a healthy relationship with his civillian family is all it will take to keep them from the streets

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Duke stumbled to his feet, and rushed to a window

They blinked and rubbed her eyes several times over, but its reflection never agreed with what they looked like

Actually, looking down at her hands, it felt and looked more like she was constantly shapeshifting; even his clothes, or hero costume, as was the theme but it never felt uncomfortable keep changing form

This was their meta power? He almost wanted to call out how lame it was but she had to maintain a secret identity somehow

Hold on, she—?

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Don't get Duke wrong, he was endlessly grateful for Bruce

But if Bruce was as good and smothering of a parent like his siblings said, We Are Robin would be down a leader

Everybody had noticed just how much Batman was gunning for Red Hood. Nobody knew why; was it a consequence of her killing his nemesis Joker? Because they stole the name of Little Wing's killer?

Whatever it was, the streets felt less safe when people could gamble on the Bat's activity in accordance to Hood's and be less fearful of the hero, and somebody had to do something about it

Even if it was an army of powerless youth, led by a meta

Duke prayed to every confirmed deity that Bruce never caught him sneaking out

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Dick stood in front of Duke. Duke who was in their Robin costume, oh shit, this was the worst time to not have enough light to flashbang somebody, he noted down to always a source of light or some absorbed for now on

Her brother clasped his hands and smiled, "well then Robin"

Duke's breath hitched—this was the end of everything it worked for

Nightwing, the original Robin took Dick's place, "welcome to the family"

WHAT THE FUCK?!

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

We Are Robin's leader becomes Signal

⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅ ✩⏝̅⏝̅⏝̅

Damn did I run out of steam at the end

"But nonnie, why is Waltz's world accessible through so many different means?" Idk XDDDDD

Everything I touch becomes a fic I have an actual problem lmao

Extra Notes and Clarifications, apologies for the mess, I'm jumping from section to section as I write and copy and paste

Batman and Bruce have a clearer line dividing the two than canon since only Barbara and Alfred (and others I may not know/forgot from canon) are in his inner circle and aware of his double life—to his knowledge

Speaking of Barbara and Alfred, I haven't done them any justice, nor given them much attention

How the batkids having Waltz's World affects them by consequence alongside other AU elements, I did not account for, well I did so for Barbara but hardly at all

I just implied that Oracle and Waltz!Tim have a relationship, and it goes without saying Barbara and Alfred has different relationships with the Wayne kids than Oracle and Agent A do the Batkids

Back to Bruce---

Knowing multiple kids, most of them feminine in gender identity and/or appearance, fighting crime with only him as a well-off adult figure in their lives makes him concerned

Partly because he doesn't know how they are doing out of costume or what trauma they've covered up with the faster magical healing of their bodies

And also partly sexism since he'll have biases subconsciously at the very least

Honestly an entire fic made of this AU could have a focus/subplot tackling sexism, queerphobia, and other biases, how they intersect, + exploring internalized biases on the Batsiblings part

Bruce wants to have his mentees safe under his roof, siblings with his own kids, and full-time civilians for their own wellbeing

This pushed him to adopt Dick and everyone else unlike/quicker than canon from a subconscious want to make that dream a reality even back when it was just the first Robin around

Bruce abusing his vigilante kids as he does in canon, plus more if you want him to abuse them more than canon, is arguably even more fucked than in canon

Because I imagine compared to canon, here he would be investing even more into his relationships for his kids on the civilian and vigilante side due to guilt from hiding half himself

He expresses his love for them both even more, which will fuck with said kids coming to terms with their abuse. It's even more of an uphill battle

"Wow, look at that plothole-topia!" I say sipping my abuelita knowing damn well who architected it (me)

I never established how Dick learned Bruce = Batman or if he knew at all RIP

Hey maybe Dick and Jason never learns that Batman = Bruce until Tim comes and spills the tea. That could be fun

At first I was gonna have everyone's Waltz form be the "opposite" gender to theirs but then I got to Tim, thought about how I set him up to wanna be loved just like the Drake's did things over their son

I thought about how back when he was just taking photos, he had an idealized picture (pun intended) of the Bats, an idealized image. a concept; a thing

And how that could lead to his own Waltz form being one that used it/its like people do for things

So then I got experimental with it

Methinks Tim would be agender &/or gendervoid in Waltz

Dick eventually settles on the fact he's genderfluid, and later on occasionally using she/her as Grayson and he/him as Robin/Nightwing

Lets say it's cuz he always wanted to be like both is parents that his Waltz makes him so

He views the change in gender identity and pronouns as him tossing a coin; whenever he flips the coin to the Nightwing side, she sees herself female, when flipped to Dick's side, he's male

Rarely the coin tossing itself without his input and lands on the thin side; that's when Dick identifies as the gender she does in her other identity

Jason accepts that he falls under solidly cis since even they/them is dysphoric for him; he once experimented with they/she cuz he wanted to be like his older brother-sister

Then the lazarus pit happen, she winds up using they/she in Waltz form and he/him as Jason

Views himself as a cis as Jason; a demigirl as Red Hood. Maybe she's still figuring things out? idk

Since he had the Waltz World magic just like their sister who was Nightwing now, she could be Robin now!

Then she learned about Damian and Tim calling dibs before her and that made them and Dami fight

Damian and Jason call truce on the grounds of Tim being a common enemy and obstacle in being Robin, so Damian goes to Gotham with Jason

Damian was dunked in the same pit as Jason here, hence why he also got a Waltz form

for plot convenience, they are the exception and not the rule when it comes to lazarus waters and Waltz's World

He wanted to inherit the Robin or Little Wing mantle as Bruce's heir, and fantasized about donning both, thus his Waltz form is bigender, she/he, boy and girl; maybe Damian decides he's also she/he and boy and girl as a civilian as well

Damian's Waltz form is the perfect balance between first Robin's and Little Wing's fem and masc gender presentations, so when you know what to look for it's obvious she's bigender, boy and girl

I made Steph and Cass have Waltz in their bloodlines just as Richard does because I couldn't come up with creative ways for them to join Waltz's World like the boys, lo siento :(

But you can do fun stuff with three non-blood related people sharing the same magic in their genetic history

For Steph I decided to make her intergender, mostly female as Steph, mostly male as Spoiler, but uses he/him as Steph and She/her as spoiler more often than Dick

Steph views her gender as a seesaw; being Steph the saw in pointed towards she/her, and being Spoiler points it in he/him, but sometimes the saw does the exact opposite and sometimes the saw tips a bit less than his form's typical gender so she feels a bit more like a boy or a girl when in civillian or Waltz

She thinks she will reach a point where the saw begins to perfectly balance itself or get close enough that she feels more like using they/them instead but she doesn't know if her guess is accurate yet

Cassandra I think would flip flop trying to figure out if they're Gendernuetral or Genderless in Waltz form, maybe eventually deciding that using Orphan and other (nick)names is preferable to pronouns and discards pronouns

An idea I had for Damian, where he used the pronouns and gender identities of all the other batkids, got given to Duke instead

Since Duke is basically the motherfucking moon with how he absorbs light and We Are Robin is all about taking on Robin's name and duties, I tweaked his own Meta abilities to copy and paste their all the batkids Waltz schtick and genders since that's bascially his desire at the moment

Also his meta power converted itself into Waltz Magic 100%, no refunds, so that's gonna be a fun surprise when he claims to just be a Meta copying their magic and he's proven wrong, he's magic too

But an AU of this AU where his meta abilities truly are just duplicating the magic would be fun to check-out

Oh yeah, idk shit about the time periods the batkids grew up in or what it'd be like be growing up coming to terms with being queer even in modern day so I'm useless on that part

But let's just say that;

Dick grew up traveling plenty and was introduced to queer identity at a young age, so while awakening his power freak her out a bit, she takes it in stride

Jason has a more rigid understanding due to a lack of education on the streets, but after learning about Robin, Dick teaches him what he knows about queerness

Tim grew up as a rich kid taught cisnormativity by both his parents and others he grew up around

As a result he expects himself to be a man through and through. It's a bit of a learning curve on his part

+ in Waltz form it thinks its a she because it looks feminine, only to unconsciously correct itself while freaking out after transforming for the first time

For all Tim knows, his stalking did not lead him to learn about Robin's magic including ✨gender✨

So when the artifact grants his wishes, concious and subconcious?

Tim is confused about the Waltz stuff, hence why it defaults to its/it and doesn't try to force itself to use she/her pronouns, cuz its still figuring stuff out and more focussed on the Bats than gender identity

Then comes in Dick to teach Tim about queerness as he once did for Jason

I dunno jack shit about the cultures Damian grew up in under the league so I dunno how Damian would take the whole Waltz thing at first

I think Jason would fill in some gaps in the case Damian has more to learn about bening genderqueer; maybe the League and Dami even teach Jason their own understandings of gender

No clue how Steph or Cassandra or Duke would take the Waltz thing before joining the bat siblings

I should get into clarifying the magic

Dick's magic is all about acrobatics and enhancing her body in ways that ascends her ability to preform them

Tim's is all about being wanted; being the perfect image of what kind of person those seeing it want to protect and treasure above all else. It's outfit and features craft an illusion different to everybody else's eyes

Tim's Waltz form is to itself, an idealized all-in-one combo of the vigilantes it worshipped and followed on the streets

Continuing the "Treasure me" theme, Tim also makes Links with other Waltz's World people it trusts that alert them when it's in serious danger and allows them to track it down whenever

Plus it works when in its Waltz and civillian identities 24/7

and he can't control them, much to his annoyance, a wee bit of karma for his own stalking tendencies

Additionally Tim's wanted to last the elements and foes like ancient artifacts did, so it becomes a tank in the face of hurt

Stephanie can turn invisible whenever he wants alongside what he has in hand and whoever he touches; plus he get one trailormade spoiler per enemies to give him an advantage

Maybe in time the number of spoilers he can get per enemy increases, and

Jason is also a tank that can't be kept down and every assault they lay have way more power to them than other humans could hope to do

Damian has the power to copy the magic of other Waltz users, the problem lies in that it get exponentially harder the better he gets at their magic

Because again, she's trying to take in magic not not made for her, and as the family grows, he's run himself thin trying to master multiple magics fighting against it all at once

That could be an interesting conflict

Once he does master a copied magic, he's good to go, it comes to him as easily as if it were his own magic

On top of that is the much more natural body enchanting magic that make her a perfect assassin

Cassandra's magic lets them learn at a rapid pace. She had to as an assassin. Through it, they learn how to speak, cultural norms and other nessecery life skills

It also enhancing their ballerina skillset, launching their fame

Outside of Duke duplicating all his siblings gender identities, her magic is just like their canon meta abilities; it's just Waltz magic instead of meta abilities

Oh yeah, Duke also shapeshifts endlessly in Waltz form without pause, to look like one batsibling to the next, the most consistent part of her form is their Signal costume which still alters in appearance all the time

Other stuff I didn't adress oh frick

How does those a part of Waltz's World keeping it a secret too themselves affect the batkids relationship with everyody else?

How does the Waltz World stuff affect everybodies relationships period?

What affect does knowing Jason was an is formerly Little Wing have on Bruce, Alfred and Barbara throughout the storyline? On their relationship with eachother

Since Batman and Oracle are two of the few wholly human heroes in this AU unlike canon, Little Wing's death probably cause a huge reaction in the super community cuz one of the very rare human heroes fucking died

On top of that, back when it was only Robin and no one else, Batman and co. tried to find others with the same magic as the sidekick, only to come out emptyhanded; Is anything ever done with any knowledge acquired during the failed investigation?

Because Robin likely told Batman what little he knew about Waltz's World at the time, alongside other investigators when they tried to learn more or find other like Robin. That data is saved somewhere

After Jason's death, Nightwing distanced himself from Batman and went back to self-teaching, so Batman would no longer have Dick as a resource to learn about Waltz's World; he, Barbara and Alfred would have to piece together clues by themselves

And I think they'd have to learn all on their own Nightwing's inner circle so-to-speak are also part of Waltz's World

Batman is pulling his hair out because where are these Waltz users coming from all of the sudden? Where were they when he was looking for them?

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if that became the name of the squad since as far as they know, only they have this very magic; Waltz's World

How does Waltz magic interest with sciences or other magics or divinity, etc etc?

oh yeah another thing, Waltz's World in Mahou Shoujo Jihen canonically ceases the aging process, but let's tweak it and say that Waltz's World pauses a person's age at the moment their body reaches their physical peak, meaning the batkids will eventually discover themselves unaging, unlike their father and countless other people dear to them

Forgive me if I'm wrong I've got a poor memory

Also I dunno much about the actual Waltz dance, but a quick google search (ruh, roh, that cooked engine) says it used to have strict roles for men and woman

That's what Waltz's World is named after in the manga, it grants men a woman's body and vice versa, the two genders needed for the dance

But in modern day, where societal constructs of gender are being demolished and rebuilt in front of countless eyes (not to say that it never was before modern times, its just way more accessible to witness with the internet) the way people view and preform the Waltz would and has changed as well

This is all to say I thought I threw the Waltz symbolism from the manga into the bin when I decided "lets experiment with MORE genders!" only to realize it never went anywhere at all

By the Waltz, now my brain is cooked

My final idea unless I realize I wanna send another ask with ideas I only came up with after pressing [Ask] is that the Waltz dance itself could be used in a fic of this AU as a motif; so imagine a hypothetical fic with me---

Every batkid and batkid duo and three-or-more batkids all preform the Waltz multiple times throughout the fic

As their own understanding of their gender identities grow and change, the way they preform the Waltz drifts away more and more from how couples did the Waltz long ago, and they add their own personal flairs to the Waltz dances. the way they preform the Waltz becomes more and more their way instead of the tradtional way

It reaches a point where once they can confidentally answer "Who am I?" the can dance their Waltzes to the fullest of their ability and euphoria as a metaphor for the very gender euphoria they feel all together at the moment; maybe they even swap between civillian and magical forms during their dance

Hell maybe the non-existant fic ends with a scene of the batkids preforming that very Waltz preformance I described

I think I'm out of ideas at last

Go crazy, go stupid with this AU people, play with it however you wanna

I can't even begin to describe how ecstatic I was reading this. A gender queer batfam fic rules, but to add on it/its pronouns? Fuck. Gods, I'm so happy with that.

Alright! So, I have no idea about the Waltz World source material, but I'm chill with that. I like the concept as it's described.

Because gender is a social construct, it is completely okay to have different gender identities/pronouns depending on the social environment (or, like this AU, the vigilante and civilian personas having various gender preferences).

So, let's create a list to make the pronouns clear:

Dick: he/him (sometimes her), Nightwing: she/her (sometimes he)

Jason: he/him, Red Hood: she/they

Tim: he/him, Robin: it/its

Steph: she/her (sometimes he), Spoiler: he/him (sometimes her)

Damian: she/him, Robin Hood: he/her

Cass: no pronouns

Duke: all pronouns (does this include neopronouns?), Signal: all pronouns

Bruce: he/him, Batman: he/him

Barbara: she/they, Oracle: she/they

Alfred: he/him

I like the idea of no pronouns for Cass since Cass was taught language later in life and thus doesn't associate Cass or Orphan with pronouns. I also gave Barbara she/they pronouns because being gender queer is not exclusive to Waltz World. That magic affects one's gender expression (and also affects how the individual may perceive their gender identity in different forms).

Alfred is definitely in the background, ironing out a plethora of pride flags based on whatever he figures out about others' current thoughts on their LGBT labels (he's discrete to those who haven't come out or told others yet). He also makes rainbow cookies, multicolored drinks, and displays photos around the house with subtle pride flags incorpated in their colors (like those sunset LGBT photos). The pride flag photos are as many as Alfred can find, regardless if any of the flags relate to one of the family members. It's the dealer's choice on whether Bruce knows the specifics or if he knows, from Alfred's actions, that at least one of his kids is queer.

Might I add that I love that you addressed that Bruce probably has some subconscious sexism that affects him attitude.

As far as queerphobia and all the discussions they can have about that, there is so much to interact with there. For instance, their socioeconomic background would affect their queerness (as far as how they are treated within the community, by those outside it, by those within the various minority or majority group they belong to, what it's like for those with more or less money, etc). They could also discuss their specific issues regarding their particular gender identity (Tim with the it/its pronouns, Cass with none, Duke with all of them, Damian with using both she and he, Jason with considering himself cisgender outside of Waltz, etc).

Because I want to have more representation where queerness is normalized, imma hc that Gotham (besides Bristol) is accepting. There's various levels of understanding/knowledge into distinct labels, colors, history, etc., but it's normal to use whatever pronouns (or lackof) that people say to use. There's no reaction at all to people's various gender expressions, partners, etc. It's normal to just be chill with it in Gotham, but it's debatable whether the person quite knows all the details (like that interview: "How many genders are there?" "I don't know. I just got here").

Outside of Gotham and online, there's the horrid shit. There's also other pockets of full acceptance around the world like Gotham. Metropolis is one of them (which is another reason why Gotham and Metropolis have such a rivalry).

The JL typically doesn't care about gender standards. A lot of them are not from Earth, so those societies (or other ones they have been exposed to) might not follow a binary gender structure. Those from Atlantis are around sea creatures that can switch their gender. Wonder Woman and those of her similar background grew up around the same myths that talk about gods and people switching into all kinds of stuff (animals, different genders, trees, etc). There may be a few that aren't aware initially of the many possibilities, but they either become accepting or get kicked out (fuck queerphobia).

There may be some subconscious shit in these more safe spaces, but overall people don't give a fuck what you identify as or who you get with (or if you don't get with anyone).

At the same time, I'd love for Batman to have to give an HR-similar presentation on queerness to the entire JL. Maybe they have one every year (including ones for different minorities [which incorporates metas and various alien species]) to discuss how to help folks of different background and how to be respectful of their culture/identity/behaviors/etc.

Anyways! Love the AU

#dc comics #dc universe #bruce wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #dc au #damian wayne #steph brown #duke thomas #cass wayne #barbara gordon #thank you for the ask!!!!#alfred pennyworth #don't like don't interact

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officialgleamstar · 3 months ago

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ive been taking some haphazard character notes on the wyrdwood PCs for my own reference (mainly was trying to figure willowfine out, lol), and i figured i would share my observations for any other fan writers who has been struggling with characterization :] these notes arent in any particular order, not even in chronological order of me adding them, just kind of random XD

obviously i am not Word Of God, these are just my interpretations of what we've seen!! ive been of the opinion that capturing somebody's way of speaking is more useful than their personality ultimately, but i'm bad at explaining my observations for that, so i guess ignore that i said that and just read my personality notes hfkhdkjhfgfkdg and also, spoilers warning for up to episode three

Cressida

Wizard: Quite smart, had to learn her magic

Learned magic from her family, mostly used to prevent robbers at their family bank

Lawful evil confirmed :]

Haughty and spoiled, judgmental

SNARKY. INSTIGATOR. (affectionate)

However, lied and said that Robin’s “wine” was alright

Self-confessed as nosy, and is quite observant

Likes wine, fresh fruit, roasted vegetables

Easily disgusted, was alarmed by the violence in episode one, startled by the weevils in episode two

Panics easily, seems unused to hardship, and is cowardly

Ellen had to really consider if Cressida had ever been in a working kitchen before

Tries to use charisma often. Does not tend to work despite her stats

Will accumulate magic debt to not sit on mud, but has glamped!

Happen

Ranger: In tune with nature, has sprites

Sharpshooter, has a good eye and a steady hand

Very trusting, probably sheltered

Places a lot of faith in his goddess, believes in fate

Praise Cadence!

The only thing that he has to begrudgingly be okay with is his sprites getting captured

A little freak. Actually a pretty big freak.

Obsessive, gets attached easily

Doesn’t get upset, really, even when people are rude to him

Doesn’t think much about consequences, or perhaps isn’t meant to care

Very soft voice, a bit scratchy

Just kind of says things, very little filter

Lug

Barbarian: Passive-aggressive <3

SO unlucky. So so so unlucky

Very in tune with nature

Isolationist and quiet, but not bad with people (when they’re not hunting him for being a firbolg)

Doesn’t know other firbolgs

Seems naturally protective

Comes to Cressida’s aid without question, jumps out of the wagon to protect Michael and his dad whose name I cannot spell (Yophie?)

Lives in “an extremely small hovel in the woods”

Very knowledgeable, generally the most aware of what’s happening

Comes with the pass-agg of it all but he’s very grumpy, a bit mean (affectionate)

Takes the jobs he’s given quite seriously

Morven

Sorcerer: Her talent is natural, might be used to things going her way

Likes coffee. Probably more for staying awake than taste, but asks for it over other options

Does not like letting Robin take control

Inquisitive; first one to say that they should stay in Oakburn and investigate

Very stubborn, may have a problem with moving on from things

Was executed for dark magic by zealots

Immediately takes charge when given the option

Does NOT care about debt, does not think about consequences

Self-confessedly impatient. Called cranky by the others

Absolutely BRUTAL but takes care of her party members

Robin

Commoner: Just some guy

Likes honey :)

"Cress" he's so cute <3

Defensive of ostracized people, dislikes zealots

Impulsive and follows his heart, hops into conflict without much thought

Just a good guy!

A little desperate to be helpful

Does not like letting Morven take control

Distressed at the thought of murder

Easily impressed

Curious about others, starts the wagon talk in Howls In The Night

Good with kids, generally sweet to most people he meets

Willowfine

Cleric: Follows a goddess

Is open about thinking her goddess is more useful than Cadence

Strong feelings about the well-being of magic

Sweet and caring

Looked pained at having to agree that Cressida insulted Oakburn’s food

Can be blunt despite this, doesn’t mince her words

Somewhat stilted and quiet, possibly sheltered or under-socialized

Intense with her care

If she’s asked to do something, she just does it

Quick thinker, resorts to lying/acting her way out of things

From a matriarchal society

#mine #oxventure

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somefanficrecomendations · 1 year ago

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December Monthly Roundup

Here's December's fic round up!

DC/BATMAN

Worlds Saddest Breakfast Club by motleyfam (gen)7k, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd-Centric Following a couple of Very Bad Weeks™ (which may or may not have involved being kidnapped and mildly tortured), Jason decides the best way to cheer himself up is to break into the Manor for a 3 a.m. snack. Turns out he isn’t the only one awake.

Batstream by RandomReader13 (gen), 6k, Bats on social media, Humor “I want it on record that I think this is a terrible idea and I’m only doing this to mitigate the damage." AKA Red Robin decides it's a great idea to livestream patrol while Batman's off-world. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

cards on the table by wesslan (gen) 67k, WIP, Fortune Teller AU, Tim Drake-Centric Tim's parents faked their deaths and fled the country years ago, but neglected to take him with them. He spent some time on the streets, and now at 16, he makes a living as a fortune teller, stalking and hustling the shit out of Gotham's elite by telling them eerily accurate fortunes based on the information he gathers about them. His life is peculiar but he wouldn't change a thing. When he gets booked for the big Wayne Halloween party, however, he finds himself getting all tangled up with the Waynes, and the more fortunes he tells, the tighter the snare becomes. or: Tim just wanted to scam Gotham's elite, not end up on the Batfamily's watchlist. But it seems they just won't leave him alone..

(a not so) lonesome town by wesslan (gen), 10k, 2-part series, Sentient Gotham, Jazz music. Two works in which Gotham City is sentient and adopts enough kids to rival Batman himself (Batman is one of them).

Banshee in a Well by liverobinreaction (bugbee) (gen), 43k, Meta Tim, Resurrection Powers Tim is five years old when he drowns in his parents' pool. He dies quietly, waiting for parents who love him, but will never be there, to realise that something is wrong. They never show up, and he sinks into oblivion. When he wakes up and claws his way out of the water, the sun has set, and the lights of his house are on. He is cold and wet and his lungs burn. But most of all, Tim is alone. (If you die and no-one is there to see it, were you ever alive in the first place?)

HUNGER GAMES

right here in the old therebefore by californianNostalgia (Katniss/Peeta) 14k, Canon Divergence, Ghosts There’s a ghost at the Hanging Tree. Katniss sees him first when she’s six, her hair in braids, the song about the growing gallows fresh in her mind. This changes nothing. This changes some things. (In which Lucy Gray killed Coriolanus at the lake.)

How Rue Became the Mockingjay by aimmyarrowshigh (multi) 5k, Different 74th Victors AU Katniss Everdeen and the girl from Eleven are ruining their best-laid plans – the Capitol’s and the Rebels’. So Caesar, they say. Announce the change. An alternate chronology for The Hunger Games.

CROSSOVERS

Annabeth and the Nine Step Career Plan by feeling_the_aster_9145 (Annabeth/Percy), 76k, PJO x DCU, Annabeth gets Lex Luthor arrested, BAMF Annabeth. Annabeth Chase does not accept limitations. Everyone knows that. If she wants something, no matter how impossible, she will find a way to make it happen. Though, perhaps she will allow Bruce Wayne and his ridiculous paranoia-induced company restrictions a small portion of the credit. Actually… now that she thinks about it, the man may have had a point in his worries. Wayne Technologies does not accept college interns. Annabeth always has a plan B.

A Lesson in Superiority by Nation-Ustria (gen), 96k, WIP, Batfam x Harry Potter, Damian Wayne is Harry Potter, Wizarding Politics “The good news is, he’s not cursed,” Constantine says. “And the bad news?” Dick asks sharply. Constantine squints. “I wouldn’t call it bad news so much as, er, news.” He turns to Damian with something like a grimace. “You’re a wizard, kid.” “...I’m a what?”

#batfam fic rec #hunger games fic #percy jackson fic rec #harry potter fic recs #fanfiction #Tim Drake #Jason Todd #katniss everdeen #batfamily #damian wayne #Batman #monthly roundup

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g0ldenboi333 · 11 months ago

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spicy take time: Ace Attorney 5 is not THAT bad

Dual Destinies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly -- An Opinionated Review (not spoiler free, hehe)

As I was progressing through the series, I noticed that fans really seemed to dislike Dual Destinies, so as I finished Apollo Justice, I was worried about what I was going to come across and, it wasn't terrible. I've begun to replay some of the game and compile some thoughts.

The Good

Characters

Whether it be the complicated, the quirky, or the downright enjoyable to be around, Dual Destinies has all sorts of new characters to fit this bill. Some of my favorites include:

Athena Cykes -- The newbie lawyer with a loud and colorful personality and a neat little game mechanic involving her being able to hear emotions Simon Blackquill -- The prosecutor on death row who's very… persuasive (why does he get to have a sword?) "Bobby Fulbright" -- The game's eccentric detective. While he's no Dick Gumshoe or Emma Skye, he actually managed to grow on me, making the twist that the final antagonist was disguised as him the entire time all the more impactful to me.

Some other characters that I really enjoyed: Juniper Woods Jinxie Tenma Aura Blackquill Orla Shipley (the orca)

And some of my favorite puns, for fun: Candice Arme Robin Newman Sasha Buckler

The Introductory Case

Case 5-1 is one of my favorite introductory cases after 2-1, AAI2-1, and TGAA1-1. Its twists and turns had me on edge the entire time. I've seen some crazy shit in Ace Attorney -- exorcisms, cross-examining animals, children that are victims of murder attempts -- but a terrorist bombing was not something I would expect, weirdly enough.

I also think it's fascinating how it's the only intro case to span over multiple days and the second to chronologically take place after the main filler cases (after AAI1-1).

And I really like how it ends by leaving these two questions in the back of my mind: "What's wrong with Apollo?" "Who exactly is Athena?"

Prosecutor Blackquill

Out of all of the prosecutors in the series, Blackquill has one of my favorite concepts. The idea of a prosecutor being able to continue his job while awaiting the death sentence for a crime he did not commit, but rather, took the fall for is just soooo… AAAAAAA. I love it. How he also utilizes psychological mind games opposite to Athena's own.

I was originally terrified of Blackquill and his unique "Silence!" callout, but as case 5 progressed, I actually almost cried learning Simon's true colors. How he willingly went to prison to protect a young Athena and Athena's mother, Metis', work, refusing to accept help despite Athena's and Aura, his older sister's, pleas. He was genuinely willing to be executed for the sake of protecting Athena.

Athena and Apollo's relationship, Apollo's Skepticism, and Athena's Trauma

Throughout the course of cases 2 and 3, it was demonstrated how Apollo and Athena grew to trust each other. To me, they gave off sibling energy, which was made even better by the fact that, in Greek mythology, Apollo and Athena are siblings (half-siblings, but siblings nonetheless).

So when Apollo started feeling skeptical towards Athena regarding the whole Clay situation, it kinda hurt, Apollo even willingly wearing a bandage over his eye to prevent himself from perceiving Athena's suspicious ticks. (I love this concept and wish more could have been done it.) And Athena had a past of her own that wasn't helping the situation that she herself wasn't even sure of, traumatized by the idea that she might have killed her own mother.

This is what I would say to be Dual Destinies' strongest feature.

The Phantom

Like I've mentioned before, the twist of "Fulbright" being the final antagonist really got to me. And his whole breakdown with him being in a mad panic, questioning who he really was before getting sniped, has to be one of my favorite breakdowns in the entire series (second to the exorcism)

Turnabout Reclaimed

The concept behind this DLC case is a fascinating one. The defendant being an… uhm… orca and the murder being an accident makes this case really unique.

3D Models

While the models take a bit to get used to, I think, ultimately, they weren't a terrible idea. I love the sprites but there are some things that the models did that the sprites couldn't -- and vice versa. And I believe it was a great gateway into what we got with The Great Ace Attorney and Spirit of Justice.

The Bad

Phoenix's Role

I have problems with Phoenix in this game in general. His model, his voice, but overall, I think the biggest downside about him in this game is his role. How him losing his badge was basically ctrl-z'ed and he's back to basically steal the spotlight. His role in Apollo Justice was great. He was there, but not on the front lines, helping Apollo from the side. I was hoping that, with the introduction of Athena, she'd get help from him like Apollo from Kristoph in his own game or Phoenix from Mia in the first game, rather than being essentially sidelined herself.

Yes. Dual Destinies is a Phoenix Wright game, but with how much focus it gives to Apollo and Athena and their… Dual Destinies… it's a bit frustrating with him in the picture as much as he is.

Turnabout Academy

I don't believe in the "3rd Case Syndrome" that goes around in the fanbase (4-3, 6-3, AAI2-3, and TGAA2-3 were pretty good). However… replaying Dual Destinies, I can't bring myself to replay this case. The concept was okay, but, that's all I can really say. The characters were… eh? I like Junie, Robin, and Mirriam, but Hugh is insufferable and what they did with Klavier was… (I don't wanna be harsh but)… ew. How Robin was treated before revealing she was a girl, was kind of gross (in the initial 2013 release). Overall, it was an… okay case. I don't really have much else to say about this case other than I didn't really enjoy it.

Turnabout Reclaimed

I love the concept, but that's about it. I had a bit of trouble staying awake while playing this one. It felt a little reminiscent of 1-5, which best sums up my feelings about it. The characters were okay and the idea is great, but this case is just… there.

The Ugly

Main Menu

That menu is boring. There's nothing... here. At least previous releases had the gall to put an image in the background, whether it be a courtroom or silhouettes of the main characters. I can't tell if that's supposed to be a bulletin board or a closeup of a basketball, but it's likely neither of those are right.

Voices

I understand replacing the older VA's because of cutscenes and all that, and I'm okay with Apollo's new voice, but when it comes to the other characters with NEW voices, they kind of miss the mark. Apollo and Phoenix sound virtually identical, Klavier sounds… wrong, and I don't think anyone told Edgeworth's VA that he's only 34 because he sounds twice that.

3D Models

When it comes to characters being translated into 3D, that's where the models miss. Apollo's, and Klavier's models are … not the best and Phoenix's is actually disgusting. They got a much-needed update with Spirit of Justice, but they don't compare to the beauty of their sprites.

-----

Overall, I personally think that Dual Destinies is one of the weakest in the series, but it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It's different and takes a bit to get used to, but it's fun :)

#had this thought in my mind for a year and decided to finally get it out #i am aa5's biggest defender #ace attorney #aa #aa5 #dual destinies #phoenix wright #apollo justice #athena cykes #simon blackquill #bobby fulbright #random thougts hehe

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891movies · 11 hours ago

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Top 25 films (of the second 250 I watched for this project)

Around two years ago I posted a top 25 list of the first 250 films I watched for this project. Since I have now watched another 250 films and discovered many new favorites, the time has come for a second top 25!

Without further ado, I present them in chronological order (because if I actually had to rank them this list would never get out of the editing stage):

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, dir. Michael Curtiz, William Keighley) This movie is a storybook adventure come to life, charming, entertaining and beautiful to look at (I miss you, technicolor!). Errol Flynn has an unmatched energy as the titular character and Olivia de Havilland is the picture perfect leading lady, with the exact right mixture of grace and fire. This is may not be a particularly complex or groundbreaking film but it does what it does perfectly and taps into that childlike sense of wonder that few films manage so well.

A Matter of Life and Death (1946, dir. Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell) One of my most delightful discoveries since starting this project have been the films of Powell and Pressburger - I'm not sure what other directors could boast releasing three of the greatest films of all time in three consecutive years (those being A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes). This film mixes a deeply moving love story with a metaphysical court room drama to great success and this strange mixture is mirrored in the film's form, with some experimental but mostly conventional cinematography.

Ace in the Hole (1951, dir. Billy Wilder) As grim and cynical as it is sharp, this movie plays out like a feverish nightmare. I was honestly shocked at how dark this movie got, considering the time and place in which it was made, but that is absolutely what the story needed and I'm glad Wilder got to tell it this way.

A Star Is Born (1954, dir. George Cukor) Has there ever been another star to reach the heights of emotional intensity that Judy Garland did in her time? I was lucky enough to see this movie on the big screen and I can't imagine watching it at home, because Garland is so larger than life, I can't see how a smaller screen could contain her. That's not to take anything away from James Mason, who gives a tragic and intense performance for the ages.

Johnny Guitar (1954, dir. Nicholas Ray) Joan Crawford in your butch black shirt save me. Save me, Joan Crawford in your butch black shirt.

Bigger Than Life (1956, dir. Nicholas Ray) Surprise, it's another Nicholas Ray melodrama! Ray had this habit of creating highly emotional stories that hid some sharp social commentary, but the commentary is barely hidden this time and it is shockingly subversive. Mason gives another intense performance but here it tilts fully into unhinged territory and he is terrifying to watch. The ending feels a little slapped on but it also feels like the only way Ray could get away with everything that came before.

Mon Oncle (1958, dir. Jacques Tati) This movie feels like a precursor to Playtime, one of my all-time favorite films (incredibly novel opinion, I know). The sets are meticulously designed and a delight to behold, and Tati's performance as Monsieur Hulo (the titular uncle) is charming as always. I especially adore the contrast between the traditional and modern Paris, as well as the unconventional sound mixing that refuses to privilege dialogue, leaning into cinema's strengths as a visual medium.

Jules and Jim (1962, dir. François Truffaut) This is by far my most recent watch on this list and it's still kind of percolating in my head but I loved it when I watched it and my fondness for it has been growing daily. It has that charming, youthful irreverence that the French New Wave is so known for, as well as one of the most complex depictions of a female character I've seen in french cinema.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962, dir. Robert Aldrich) Bette Davis is one of my all time favorite actresses and this is one of my all time favorite performances. She puts everything into this role and the rest of the film compliments her perfectly; it's funny and dark, tragic and absolutely unhinged. And Joan Crawford is good too, I guess.

Tokyo Olympiad (1965, dir. Kon Ichikawa) This blew my mind when I first watched it, seeing what incredible feats documentary filmmakers were capable of so early on in the genre's history. It is also the perfect counterpoint to Riefenstahl's earlier documentaries about the Olympic games; where she emphasized nationalism and feats of strength, Tokyo Olympiad focuses on the humanity of it and the power this event has to bring us together. Probably my favorite section of the film focuses on an athlete who was the sole representative of his newly independent country and who did not qualify for the finals in his field (unfortunately I don't remember the country or the sport). But just the fact that he made it to the Olympics, that he got to represent his country on the world stage, is an incredible feat in and of itself, and the film recognizes this.

The Wild Bunch (1969, dir. Sam Peckinpah) This movie is everything a western should be - exciting, violent, and deeply critical of the ugly history it is depicting. The characters are not good people but they are compelling and incredibly fun to watch.

Woodstock (1970, dir. Michael Wadleigh) Another mindblowing documentary that pushes the ability of the medium to its limits. It captures a unique moment in time, a spirit of rebellion and hope for the future that unfortunately feels worlds away from our current cultural landscape. It is also an incredible display of the emotional power of music. I cried during Janis Joplin's performance and it felt impossible to match, but then it is immediately followed by Jimi Hendrix and I could feel my soul descend to a higher plane of existence. It is my life's goal to see this film in the theater.

In the Realm of the Senses (1976, dir. Nagisa Ōshima) Everything is sex, except sex, which is love and beauty and death all intertwined and impossible to separate.

Atlantic City (1980, dir. Louis Malle) Rarely has a setting felt so integral to a film. Everything from the story, to themes, to the characters revolves around and is subservient to the setting of a declining Atlantic City whose glory days are far behind it. It is also a microcosm of American society at large, at least as people were experiencing it in 1980 (although it's pretty relevant today, I would say).

Gallipoli (1981, dir. Peter Weir) This is the movie that definitively convinced me that anti-war films are indeed possible to make, just not in Hollywood (Come and See had me thinking this, but Gallipoli proved to me that it wasn't a unique feat of just one film). We barely see the war in this movie but it is all about the incredible tragedy of it.

Koyaanisqatsi (1982, dir. Godfrey Reggio) I was completely expecting this movie to put me to sleep and instead, it was one of the most viscerally intense and haunting viewing experiences of my life. It is hypnotic in the very best way and somehow captures the ennui of modern life without a single word being spoken.

Paris, Texas (1984, dir. Wim Wenders) This film is an intoxicating mixture of tenderness and brutality, and a deeply moving depiction of our longing to reach out and connect to one another. This is the other film on the list I got to see in the theater and the cinematography was absolutely breathtaking on the big screen.

Trust (1990, dir. Hal Hartley) This is such a delightfully strange film, almost but not quite set in our reality. The strangeness makes the gentleness of the love story all the more touching; this is one of those movies that makes me happy to be alive.

Safe (1995, dir. Todd Haynes) I have been kind of obsessed with this movie since I saw it, so much so that it will actually be a focal point in my master's thesis. Everything in the film, from the cinematography to the soundtrack to, especially, Julianne Moore's performance, builds to this overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread, and Haynes' refusal to give an easy answer (or any answers at all) makes it all the more unsettling.

Scream (1996, dir. Wes Craven) I do like scary movies, yes. I especially like movies that are scary, funny, and feature a bloody final girl and (more than) a touch of homoeroticism.

The Blair Witch Project (1999, dir. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez) Look at that, another scary movie! I am probably more susceptible to this movie's attempts at scares than most viewers, because I've only very recently started to build any kind of tolerance for horror, but it got me so good. The simplicity just makes it better; it may only do one thing but it does it very, very well.

Dancer in the Dark (2000, dir. Lars von Trier) I'm always kind of hoping when I watch a new Lars von Trier movie that maybe I won't like this one, because I don't know what it says about me that I enjoy his films so much but I know that it can't be good. But this movie belongs just as much to Björk, who gives an incredible acting performance and an all-time great vocal performance. I was left a sobbing wreck; to this day, just humming 'The next to last song' to myself brings a tear to my eye.

Volver (2006, dir. Pedro Almodóvar) Penélope Cruz is a revolution in this movie, my god. She brings the emotional sincerity that the film needs to keep its elaborate plot grounded. As always, I appreciate Almodóvar's clear love for strong and complicated women, as well as the often messy relationships between them.

Phantom Thread (2017, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) I love a good twisted love story and it is beautifully told here. Form also compliments function to a tee; a story about an obsessive compulsion to create perfect art is mirrored in the absolutely meticulous cinematography and costuming. Daniel Day-Lewis gives the performance of a lifetime here and while I do miss seeing him in the theater, what a film to end on!

Roma (2018, dir. Alfonso Cuarón) This is one of those movies where nothing happens, in that there isn't a traditional plot (events still take place, obviously), because it's about life, man. It's a type of film that needs a deft hand and a filmmaker with something to say, and Cuarón has both in spades. Funnily enough, this movie reminds me a lot of Paris, Texas; it has that same mix of tenderness and harshness that compliment each other.

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cosmicmordecai · 10 months ago

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I’ve said this before but just to expand what I was saying earlier regarding Zatanna’s not necessarily being “de-aged” to be with Dick Grayson in YJ. In comics, Zatanna was moreover aged up to be closer to Batman.

Dependening on the stories, Zee starts off her heroism at 18-21. Sometimes she joins the JL after years of searching for her father or around the same time.

[Secret Origins v2 #27 - Recounted through Dr. Mist, who reveals being the mastermind behind her father & her upheavals in life by force via Felix Faust. In the story, he does realize how fucking creepy and patronizing his actions were.]

[ Justice League of America #51 - This story places her at 20 years old when she finally reunited with her father and joins the JL a short time later. But this story makes it seem like she was an orphan rather than raised by her father for a chunk of her childhood.]

[ DCU Heroes Secret Files & Origins #1 - This timeline would imply that she joined the JL first at 21.]

All these sources came prior to her history with Batman, which would naturally move her timeline to make her adjacent with him prior.

[Compared that to Dick, whom she met alongside the Titans in Tales of the Teen Titans #4 in the 1980s. By then, Dick was already college bound with high school graduation [Batman #217]or a teenager depending on your context, placing him roughly 16-18 give or take. This same series in which the picture above has him retire the Robin name in #39, which modern stories typically have that done at 18 years old.]

I think it’s very important to note that Zatanna’s character has changed overtime and that there’s no definite “Justice League generation” vs other generations of heroes. There’s not this neat little box where every DCU character conveniently fits in.

The Titans might fit in the “heroes in their 20s” box and the Teen Titans feature heroes younger than 18 but even then, some TT reached 18+ [Red Devil] and there’s been a plethora of heroes in their 20s in the JL [Kyle Rayner, Khalid Nassour, Ronnie Raymond/Jason Rusch]. Just like the JSA has younger members & successors who join, the JL features membership of varying ages.

[I literally forgot the source of this.]

I understand the basis makes it seem like Zatanna is infantalized but that’s not necessarily true. The character wasn’t always Bruce’s childhood friend and at one point, only met significantly in the JL to Batman’s own recollection. & one other time where she was disguised as a witch unknown to Bruce himself long before the retcon that made them childhood friends came to be.

It’s also hard to say “Zatanna has to be around this age bc she hangs out with so-and-so” because characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman has had their histories altered in many ways. Barry Allen’s age has never been stated so using his interest in her as an age gauge is iffy and honestly, in real life, people have relationships, flirtations, and friendships with people older and younger than them. Part of adulthood is meshing with people & it’s not always convenient that you’ll be friends with people your own age. Interpersonal relationships are also multi-faceted and complex.

I also think it’s sets a bad precedent to not examine the character’s history and go off of the “idea” of where characters are instead of their history. Various DC characters already get this:

Billy Batson is always like 10 or 12 when people think of him but like he’s been 15 & 16 too. His relationship with Courtney Whitmore for example happened when he’s in high school himself. He is also chronologically older than Jon Kent regardless of space bullshit.

Raven & Beast Boy’s character get de-aged to the point they’ve been in Dick, Tim, and Damian’s version of the Teen Titans in media & comics.

Jaime Reyes remained eternally in high school until recently and it took a movie to budge him from that.

Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Caín are out here having Damian be closer to them in age because editorials, writers, and fanon completely forget both characters have been 18 far longer than anybody thinks.

Khalid Nassour debuted in 2015 already 23 years old & a year older than DICK GRAYSON IN THE SAME YEARS. Nowadays, he’s drawn as a teen/college age guy and his timeline either implies he’s in his 30s now or in 2023, all his 100+ appearances took place in ONE YEAR so therefore, everyone he interacted with also progressed one year overtime?

Long story short, it’s really important in my opinion to consider a character’s history and not just go off of whose their friend is, what you think their idealized version is like, and do not use the characters whose timeline DC & Didio has outright played Russian Roulette with accommodate their idealized version of the characters as a placeholder.

#dc comics #zatanna

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silverwhittlingknife · 1 year ago

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Hi! I’ve been reading your tim & dick reading guide, and I just had a quick question.

For the BIG LIST, is it chronological by when the comic was released, or chronological by when the comic takes place in-universe? I was just wondering because I saw Dark Victory way down but I thought that was a sort of Robin!Dick origin story?

Hi! <;3 It's chronological by when the comic was released!!! It's sorted by cover date - the date on the comic cover when it's published.

And YES, Dark Victory is a flashback origin story. If you like reading Dick origin stories - AND WHO DOESN'T - there have been a ton of them, and @dynamic-duo-deposit has a really cool chart where you can find all of them here.

A bit more rambling about comic guide organization:

A lot of guides will try to reorder the comics by presumed chronological order in-universe (this is e.g. what dcuguide.com does), but I'm weird and I hate this, because I like to read the comics in the order that they were written and published.

And that's sort of because hmmm how to put this.

As a fanfic writer (or meta writer), it can be fun to try to pick and choose stories in order to try to unify a long stretch of comics into a single consistent whole. But as a comic reader, I think of these kinds of projects as more a creative endeavor than a strictly accurate one. I don't think of the DC 'verse as unified - I think of comics as very strongly defined by IRL eras with very different tones and writers. So e.g. characters in the late 80s tend to have very very fraught parental relationships and the overall tone is often jaded and gritty and tense; this affects how Dick and Bruce, Jason and Bruce, Jason and Dick, Tim and Dick, and Tim and his parents are all written. By the late 90s, a lot of this starts to soften. So I like the different origin and flashback stories to stay in the same era they were written, because I feel like tonally that's where they "belong."

THAT SAID, if you'd also like to look at an in-universe chronological list, dcuguide.com has some dsfdsfs

I AM GLAD YOU ARE ENJOYING THE GUIDE <333 :D

#ask tag

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msfcatlover · 1 year ago

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Hello there! This is the first post I’ve made for the Talon!Jason AU; it’s been sitting on the list in my pinned post for a while, but I always have so many ideas for stories that I have a hard time knowing where to start talking about them; it’s a lot easier to make my thoughts feel coherent when I have something to jump off of, even if that something is just someone else asking “Can you explain this concept?” Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, that I do a better job writing a pitch/summary when asked than I do when trying by myself, but. That’s just how my brain works, I guess.

Questions answered beneath the cut!

Shiela absolutely dies from the explosion. She knows too much, plus it helps explain why “Jason” didn’t manage to escape the bomb. She’s even still alive, just barely, when Bruce arrives from chasing down the false lead the Court planted to keep him away from their meeting. Her last words are, “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t know…” and it’s all Bruce can do to keep from shaking this dying woman when he demands to know where his son is. Shiela is too far gone to be coherent at that point, just echoing Jason’s name before mumbling another apology and slipping into unconsciousness. Leaving Bruce to dig through the still smoldering rubble for a boy who isn’t there. (There’s enough charred meat to roughly match Jason’s body mass, plenty of it fused to the remains of the Robin costume. The blood that was left on the floor is a mix of Jason’s & Shiela’s, with gloved handprints in about Jason’s size with much more of Jason’s blood than Shiela’s on them in the area where the bomb was set. The arm they hacked off was placed in front of the bomb, so that it realistically dispersed when the explosion went off. The whole thing is set up to look like Jason died trying to save his mother.)

How Dick was captured is one of the holes I still haven’t filled. He himself doesn’t know how long he was down there, between the drugs & lack of time markers, and I think the family isn’t 100% sure how long he was gone either (he was taken right after something came up where they wouldn’t expect to see him for a while; a big fight with Bruce, maybe, or taking on an undercover mission.) It took a few days for them to realize Dick had completely fallen off the map. To give my own estimate, I’d say he was down there ~2 weeks, give or take 4 days in either direction. (And oh boy, does the family feel awful that they can’t pin it down further than that!)

Gonna be real with you, I am going vibes-only for how I’m handling Cobb & the Talons in this AU; I might tweak things when I actually get around to reading the Court of Owls plotline/s, but I am halfway through Knightfall right now and I’m going chronologically. So that is a long ways off. I’m going with the popular fanon interpretation where Cobb sorta straddles the line between Owl & Talon. He was the first Talon, and he’s the highest ranking; he’s also so old & so knowledgeable about the Court’s history that he gets a lot of respect from most modern Owls—or at least fear, over having a Talon around who was never broken the way the others are. I couldn’t tell you how many of the Owls have realized Cobb only defers to them because he chooses to (and are too concerned about being seen as trouble if they ever spoke up about it,) and how many are so far up their own asses that they don’t realize he is, in fact, capable of defying them. So Cobb is several steps above every other Talon, but theoretically lower than even the lowest Owl. Except for how he’s an infinitely more valuable resource than almost any individual Owl, not to mention a status symbol for the Court itself, and those who are smart enough to be worried about him are also smart enough to figure that out.

Can you tell me the about the talon jason au?

YES! Yes, yes, yes, yes yes!!!

The Talon!Jason story is really heavily inspired by All Birds Have Talons, a fantastic little oneshot which got my gears churning with possibilities (as well as Talon’s Grasp, my all-time favorite Talon!Dick fic, specifically for how it handles the conditioning & Dick’s escape.) I just… snipped the Joker out altogether, and had Shiela betray Jason to the Court directly. They wanted Robin, after all, and she’d been out of Gotham for so long that even if she had contacts to know about the “wanted alive (or else)” bounty on Dick’s head, she probably wouldn’t know any of the details. She’s embezzling funds, she’s being blackmailed, she’s kinda on the run, and here’s the son she never wanted offering to help her with whatever problem she has, insisting they won’t even need to get his rich new dad involved if she doesn’t want to because Jason can handle himself; she doesn’t need to worry about him, because he’s Robin.

The Joker isn’t involved at all. Shiela calls her old contacts herself.

(CW: heavily referenced if not described brainwashing, torture, medical abuse, dehumanization, and depersonalization ahead.)

They’re not happy. Jason’s not the Robin they want, but he’s seen/heard too much once Shiela tricks him into the meeting, and they might as well get something out of this meeting. They fake Jason’s death with Shiela, the bomb, flesh too charred to get a DNA reading off of, a dangerous amount of blood, and hack off one of Jason’s arms before pumping him full of experimental healing drugs so they can stick a new one on and don’t end up with a one-armed Talon. (It never connects quite right, and Jason is always a little clumsier and a little bit number on that side.)

Jason wakes up in the labyrinth, fighting off the drugs & shock, with an arm that looks dead, doesn’t move right, and that he knows he should not have anymore. He’s not ready, his body isn’t chemically prepared for the procedure, so they keep dragging him back to the medical area, talking over him like he’s not there, and when Jason fights back, the punishments are brutal. There’s also plenty of classical conditioning, trying to train him to do what they want one step at a time. (He loses fingernails & teeth, because those are easy sources of extreme pain that won’t damage him in the long term, but he does piss them off worse. Jason learns that broken bones hurt worse when forced to heal too quickly. Spitting in one of the doctors’ masks cost him color in his right eye. The shock collar was just to make him put on the hood originally, but eventually they just… left it on. Food can be bought only with cooperation, and it’s a hefty price indeed.)

Jason does hold out for an impressively long time. First it’s because he thinks he needs to wait to be saved; they break that hope by showing him his own funeral. Then it’s because he needs to escape, though his attempts all come to naught. In the end, Jason hangs on because he listened when the Owls talked over him, and he knows they’re just using Jason as a trial run; he knows they’re planning to go after Dick. The longer Jason holds on, the longer his big brother will be safe. Conditioning corrupts that, though. Memories fade, names slip through his fingers, he’s… he knows he’s here for a purpose. Protecting someone. Someone the Court will also make Talon if he fails—no one should go through this, and that person is (warmth & sunshine, bright smiles & sky blue) is important, and he can’t… he can’t fail. He can’t let them down.

If he can just be a good enough Talon, that person will be safe. (This is what carries him through the training, the treatment, the cold, humiliation, and death, death, death, death, death. He can do it. He can be good enough. He’ll keep them safe.)

And then. The Court gets what they want.

Jason doesn’t realize it at first (of course not, who tells a Talon anything?) He doesn’t realize it until the base is under attack, all the Talons are woken up and sent to defensive positions, and he finds their newest prisoner in the middle of an escape attempt. He freezes for just a second, hands on his knives, trying to make sense of this. His voice is still hoarse from scarring and flat from disuse when, for the first time in well over five years, he says, “Dick Grayson?” (He didn’t even know he still knew that name.) Dick has been fighting Talons since he got here (and is pretty drugged up himself,) and acts on instinct. Dick strikes out, and it’s not until he knocks the Talon down that he realizes it’s only fighting defensively—and only because it stops fighting altogether. It just lays there one the floor, staring at him through that blank hood. “Dick Grayson,” the Talon says again, and this time Dick can make out what almost sounds like confusion in its voice, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Dick doesn’t know what to make of the Talon that helps him escape. Dick does try to help the Talon back (raiding a bat-safehouse to check both of them for trackers and to change their clothes. The Talon seems hesitant to change out of the uniform, even when Dick turns away and promises not to look. Dick still catches just a glimpse of the old scarring on the Talon’s neck out of the corner of his eye, thinks of how hoarse the Talon’s voice was, and feels sick.) The Talon stays with Dick all the way to the back entrance of the Batcave, but when Dick turns to ask if they want to come in, the Talon is gone.

(When Dick tries to explain everything that happened to the rest of the family will be the first time he realizes: “The other Talons, they were very formal, full names only. ‘Richard Grayson, the Court of Owls commands’ blah-blah-blah. The Owls just called me Grayson. But the Talon who helped me called me Dick.” “Do you think it was someone you knew?” Tim asks. Dick manages a weak, humorless laugh. “I don’t know, Tim. Maybe?” Dick thinks of the scars again, the breathy rasp of the Talon’s voice, and swallows. “Gods, I hope not.”)

It’s not the last time they meet, though. Not by a long shot.

(The Talon cannot go back to the Court, not after having the greatest failure possible dangled in front of its face, stealing the Court’s prisoner, and… and what if they try to take Dick again? No, no, can’t let that happen, can’t let this happen to Dick too, not after everything. Never, ever, ever again.)

(And gradually, the Talon begins to find Jason Todd in the graveyard of his own mind.)

I have several scenes I really, really love drafted (the moment when Dick convinces the other bats to see Jason as an ally. The moment Jason realizes what his connection to Dick actually is. The entire sequence where Dick finally realizes who Jason is, who Jason has been this whole time.) I also have a few concepts that won’t seem to go right on paper, like a final confrontation with Cobb, and Bruce finally seeing his second son face-to-face for the first time in years.

And it is, like most of my stories, full of holes I’m still trying to fill; I can’t promise this will ever resolve into a cohesive, fully narrative fic one day. But! I’m happy to ramble, and nothing helps me fill in the holes faster than getting to talk through things with people! So please, feel free to ask more if you’re interested.

#talon jason #talon!jason #my writing #mine

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bigskydreaming · 3 years ago

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Headcanon that everyone within the family may think of Dick as the one most in their father’s favor, but Dick is keenly aware that the general public thinks of him as their father’s ‘Consolation Prize.’

After all, when from their perspective he’s the one Bruce raised since he was eight as his ward, with that dissolving when he was eighteen and very little perceived contact between the two of them for years after that, while Jason was adopted soon after being taken in and Dick was then later adopted years after Jason’s death, without any public fanfare.....

What does that look like other than Bruce ‘settling’ for the son who didn’t appear to be his first choice, just chronologically first, once he lost Jason but still needed/wanted an heir, as he was getting older and the general public still didn’t know yet how closely tied Tim was to the family or that it wouldn’t be long after this that Bruce adopted him too?

Now granted, you can definitely perceive the above as overly angsty and not the only way this situation was likely to be perceived outside the family, but my point is more that like.....nobody ever presumes that the general public are overly kind or generous in their views or assumptions about the Wayne family behavior. I just don’t buy that people assumed there was some optimistic explanation for the way things appeared here, or that people just went “oh its probably because the kid who grew up in that house the longest just doesn’t WANT to be adopted by the billionaire and have all the security that brings, and that’s also clearly why he lives in Bludhaven of all places and a shitty apartment building at that.”

I mean, no matter what WE the readers may know of Dick’s personal priorities and how little he cares about where he lives or that Bruce would have willingly paid for him to have a better place to live if he really wanted it, is that what people are most likely to assume, based on appearances?

Anyway, I’m just saying, I bet it bugs the crap out of Dick to hear his siblings casually refer to him as so obviously enjoying favored son status and being the clear apple of Bruce’s eye, as he’s like, cue internal monologue: gee, sure wish I was as confident of that back during the years he seemed to want nothing to do with me.

Like I’ve said before, I think Dick isn’t actually super insecure and his insecurities such as they are mostly revolve around how his family and friends perceive him, not the general public.....BUT I do think that with as high profile as the Waynes are, there’s no way that nobody picked up on how little contact Dick and Bruce had in the continuities where they literally went over a year without even speaking to each other....and like, felt free to draw their own conclusions.

And I do think this is also part of why I default to thinking a lot of canon takes and headcanons tend to gloss over how shitty Gotham public could be in their views/treatment of Dick. Like just because Dick was basically trained from birth to be able to work a room and entertain people while in their direct presence, that didn’t actually make him ‘one of them’ in their eyes, and I reeeeeeaally don’t think you can actually underestimate the pettiness and jealousy one percenters feel when they see someone they inherently view as lesser than them - as they would’ve viewed both Dick and Jason due to their lower class births - like....’leap frogging’ over them into greater wealth via being taken in by Bruce.

Like, idk, maybe it just comes from having been a scholarship kid who went to a richy rich private high school attended mostly by the children of senators and hotel-chain owners, lol, but like.......I can not for a second picture Gotham’s upper class actually LIKING Dick or being as charmed by him as they frequently are depicted as, just because Dick knows how to be charming and likable. Like they might play it that way when in public at a gala, for appearances or whatever....but the second he turned around they’d be badmouthing him at juuuuust a high enough volume to ensure he’d be able to HEAR them but not be able to call them on it without it looking like he went back and provoked a scene over something ‘nobody else around them heard them say’ or whatever. Just to make sure that no matter how well he came across in public social settings, he never ‘forgot his place’ or whatever or forgot that they were all too aware of it too.

And also also, it always kinda bemuses me that as much focus as the Court of Owls and Talons get in Dick’s narratives in canon and fic, that we’ve barely ever seen any examination of what the Court retroactively means for Dick’s years growing up around upper class Gothamites who likely included more than a few Court members.....like, we KNOW years later that like, all along there were these people who even without knowing who Batman and Robin were, like, knew Dick Grayson was their ‘Gray Son’ and intended to claim him as their weapon someday, and you can’t tell me that wouldn’t have factored into how they viewed and interacted with a child and teenage Dick Grayson as they attended many of the same social gatherings and functions. OR that Dick himself in the aftermath of the Court of Owls reveal, didn’t look back at his OWN childhood and reflect on how many creepy or uncomfortable encounters he had with various socialites that left him feeling decidedly skeeved out and not a fan of how they were looking at him or things they might have said to him, thinking themselves oh so clever for alluding to things he had no idea about......like, I imagine there had to be more than a few encounters from his younger years that always stuck with him, and after the Court of Owls revelation like....looked TOTALLY different to him, especially if he happened to know for sure that some of those very people were in fact Court members. BUT I DIGRESS.

All in all though it all circles back to the same thought for me.....people might have been polite to Dick’s face when he was growing up, but they most likely had plenty of shit to say the second his back was turned, and I doubt they were afraid to be overheard by him. Especially in his later years, once people noticed how distant he and Bruce seemed to be, and thus perceived that as meaning that nineteen year old Dick Grayson wasn’t as ‘protected’ by Bruce the way he was when he was younger.....meaning the people who were most jealous of Dick’s ‘catapulting’ up the social ladder and eager to knock him down a peg because of that, like....probably would have looked at the relative lack of contact between he and Bruce as far as anyone could publicly tell, and felt emboldened enough by that to up their snide whisper game with shit like gossipping about how oh, the Grayson boy may be back in Gotham again, but we all know he’s just poor Brucie’s consolation prize anyway, why, if he really cared all that much about the boy, he’d hardly have ever let him run off to Bludhaven of all places, without even making sure to staple the advantages and opportunities granted by the Wayne name to him the way he made sure to right off the bat with the younger one.....

So yeah. There’s my angsty musings on how Dick likely is perceived by Gotham public at large, and how his interactions with them - especially when NOT around Bruce and Jason and the rest of his family....probably very much does not match up with what they assume public perception of Dick is, given that in their eyes ‘everybody loves Dick Grayson,’ but in Dick’s experience ‘everybody may be charmed by Dick Grayson while he’s doing his best to be charming,’ but don’t mistake that for acceptance. Not when Gotham’s public are just as likely to dismiss him as the second choice Wayne heir and consolation prize to make themselves feel more important/elevated than him the second their own insecurities have them feeling intimidated by the wealth, power and prestige Dick does actually share in by virtue of being part of Bruce’s family.

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soultronica · 4 years ago

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Law’s -ya suffix

“How many people have you killed, Drake-ya?”

About Law's verbal quirk of adding -ya at the end of the names of the people he's addressing -- fairly unique, yeah? Chances are this is something you've never seen before, at least this was the case for me. This post is an attempt at a comprehensive explanation and overview of the way he uses it.

(obligatory blanket warning that my japanese level is around jlpt n2/cecrl c1 - i understand the stuff i research but i'm not a native speaker. i can be mistaken.)

The suffix -ya (屋)

Let's start off by saying that while it's a strange way to address people, the suffix in itself isn't unfamiliar.

The basic meaning of "ya" (屋) is shop, essentially. You add it to a noun to turn it into a profession, especially ones related to shops and traditional trades, though usually with the polite address marker -san, even in third person.

So for example:

pan = bread ⇨ panya-san = baker kutsu = shoes ⇨ kutsuya-san = shoemaker

This includes “invented” occupations that would therefore be instinctively understood as such. For example, an anime I just watched (durarara) has:

joho = information ⇨ johoya(-san) = information broker hakobu = to carry ⇨ hakobiya(-san) = transporter

And then by extension, it became used in nouns to define a person by a trait of theirs:

ganbaru = to do one's best ⇨ ganbariya-san = someone who always tries their best hazukashii = to be embarrassed ⇨ hazukashigariya-san = a shy person

This last bit is relevant here because Law's terms of address includes not so much occupations but attributes. So you'd understand "Strawhat-ya" as "Guy with the strawhat" for example.

Where it gets a bit confusing is that Law's terms of address also include just tacking on the suffix to names, which makes less sense intuitively... Which is where Oda's own explanation comes in handy.

Historical background: yago (屋号)

Straight from the source - this is an SBS answer from volume volume 62 (page 84), which was replaced in the official English edition.

Reader: Law-san uses -ya to address people such as in "Strawhat-ya", does that mean that if someone is named Tsuchiya he'd call them Tsuchiyaya? Please tell me Law-san ❤ Oda: Law-san! Someone's asking for you! ... Yeah, he's not coming. I'll answer in his place, shall I? In the past in Japan, maybe around Edo era? There was a thing called "yago". If for example in a village you had two people called Tomekichi, folks would use -ya instead of their names to refer to them (by their trade), such as "Tomekichi the toolshop (doguya)" or "Tomekichi the cooper (okeya)". Have you never heard "Tamaya~!" in the context of fireworks or "Nakamuraya!" in the context of kabuki? It's something like that. Right, Law-san? Law: Yeah.

If you're not familiar with yago at all, maybe the wikipedia article will help (link). I'm sure you can make the link with what I've explained above. The gist is that a commoner would often be addressed by their trade or shop name for differentiation (as in Oda's example) or convenience. And if they made a name for themselves, said name (including the -ya bit, the same "ya" as in "yago") could be used the same way their trade name would be, and they'd pass that name from generation to generation, making the name a yago. The Nakamuraya Oda mentions here is a famous yago of kabuki actors stretching back to the 16th century (link) and the Tamaya are, you guessed it, a hanabi (traditional fireworks) yago from the Edo era (Japanese link).

So there we go! Law's -ya suffix usage is actually pretty traditional.

Law's usage

Law of course does not use the -san polite address marker, because he's a rude little shit. This brings me to what I believe is the first time he uses it, chronologically, which (provided you consider it canon) would be in the Law novel which takes place right after Law runs away from Minion Island where Cora died. He doesn't use -ya at all during his manga flashbacks. In the novel however he's saved by a man, Wolf, who creates mostly worthless inventions. Which leads Law to call him Garakuta-ya, where "garakuta" means junk, rubbish. Implying that his occupation is to create junk. I think this is a pretty good in-context illustration of how the suffix works? And if you consider the novel canon, you get the added characterisation bit of this habit of Law's being originally a kid's thing, which fits nicely.

Regardless of how it started, he clearly got used to addressing people like this. In the manga, these are the addressed characters I'm aware of, including Oda's own compilation from a volume 72 (page 46) SBS answer:

Luffy - Mugiwara-ya (Strawhat-ya) Zoro - Zoro-ya Nami - Nami-ya Usopp - Hana-ya (Nose-ya) (lol) Sanji - Kuroashi-ya (Blackleg-ya) Chopper - Tony-ya Robin - Nico-ya Franky - Robo-ya Brook - Bone-ya Smoker - Hakuryo-ya (White Chase-ya)* Caesar - Caesar-ya* Drake - Drake-ya Kidd - Eustass-ya (* = are also addressed without the -ya)

There's not really a pattern here. For some of these characters he uses an attribute + ya, which again makes instinctual sense when you're used to the regular meaning of -ya. For others he uses surname + ya, which is what originally confused me until I found the SBS yago explanation. Notably this includes characters who aren't usually referred to by their surnames (Chopper, Robin, Kid). But then you've also got Zoro and Nami who are addressed by their first names.

Despite those two I'd still say that it's overall a particularly offhand term of address, and a non-polite one at that (which is why the "Mr" translation that was in Sabaody-era scans for the ones he addresses by surname doesn't really work, but I can't fault a week-by-week translator for having no idea what to do with that, with no characterisation to go on).

It's worth noting that he doesn't use -ya at all for members of his crew: Bepo, Penguin and Shachi are all addressed by just their names.

Signification

So why this particular verbal quirk for Law? It's all up to interpretation of course, but I'd say this leans into his casually rude way of speaking, especially pre-timeskip Law.

Another point that I've seen raised in a Japanese meta, and one that I agree with, is that it serves to make him more Japanese. I know a lot of us have our headcanons about the ethnicities of various OP characters and for me Law is one of the particularly Japanese-coded characters: his Japanese sword, his not eating bread, his use of a traditional suffix as a verbal quirk... (and also just because I've met sooo many japanese guys his age with exactly that terrible facial hair/sideburns combo what's up with that lol)

But of course all this is open to interpretation. I'd love to hear anybody's thoughts about his characterisation! And I hope this helped shed light on some of it.

Bonus

Rule 63!Law does use the -san polite address marker lol.

"How many people have you killed, Drake-ya-san?"

#one piece #japanese #trafalgar law #i typed most of this on my phone at work and edited it on 5 hours of sleep i hope it makes sense #my op posts

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consumeconstantly · 4 years ago

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Bring Me To The Precipice of Victory

1| 2 | 3(you are here) | 4 | next

Summary: When Batman departs— just for a short time, just to patch things up in Gotham— things go horribly, horribly wrong in Paris.

He doesn’t know if he can come back from realizing that Marinette and Ladybug are one and the same (and that his daughter has died more times than he can count.) (all biodad bruce are posted in chronological order but can be read as stand alones)

______________________________________________

The moment of peace, of solidarity, that Batman shares with Ladybug up on that rooftop at night means the world.

After a minute or two, Ladybug pulls back, tear tracks down the sides of her face, eye and nose red. She takes another minute of silence,hugging herself in the muggy Parisian air. When she next opens her eyes, Batman can almost imagine that Ladybug never cried at all.

But he knows that's not true. Ladybug seemed so fragile in his arms. He can imagine— he can imagine Dick in her place, broken over Jason’s death. Tim losing his parents. All of his children facing insurmountable odds with no team by their side. Alone.

Ladybug is not alone, but functionally, she may as well be. He’s watched the fights. He’s analyzed them. Ladybug is always, always the leader. She strategizes with Ryuko and Viperion, but Ladybug is who everybody looks to for an answer when things don’t work out the way they want them to. She’s the one with the plan, the backup plan, the out. She’s the one who swoops in to save the day.

She’s also the one who has racked up the most hours on the battlefield. Even Chat Noir, her partner, only has three quarters of the hours that she’s put in. For most of the other members of her team, she puts in double, sometimes even triple of what they do. Over the course of six years, there have been a little under two thousand battles, lasting from under an hour to over five hours. Ladybug has shown up for every single one, without fail. That’s not even counting the patrols that they do; although Ladybug is given a lot of flack for not patrolling as often as Chat Noir, there’s a fundamental difference in how they patrol. Ladybug is methodical, Chat Noir is volatile.

He’s not a bad superhero when it comes down to battle, but the two of them are fundamentally different. Ladybug sees her time as a superhero as a duty. Chat Noir seems to view it as a time to unwind— and while that’s worrying, considering the information he’s gathered on the Miraculous Team so far points to the majority of them beings teens or young adults— it’s not what is needed to deal with the Paris situation.

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to see these differences is during patrol. Chat Noir uses patrol time almost seems to be an outlet for stress. He entices whoever he’s on patrol with to race to random places in Paris with no rhyme or reason. Whenever he comes across crime, he stops it, but Ladybug— Ladybug searches for crime.

Ladybug has a team and she trusts them with her life, but she cannot trust them to be responsible. That is perhaps the worst possible thing that can happen. And through the videos that he’s watched, it’s clear that the hours she puts in do affect her, and fairly heavily.

Whoever she is, she’s young. Too young to be in battle untrained, because they are untrained— despite being in the field for years, all of their basic form lacks and tells anybody with an experienced eye that they’ve never had formal training in martial arts.

When Batman and Ladybug leave the roof, they leave on a better note than where they started. Batman is still upset that Tom and Sabine are dead, but he cannot attribute it solely to Ladybug’s negligence. He admires the young heroine for rising to the occasion when there was nobody else to help. He has no doubt that with the resources and training that he can provide him and his operatives already on the case, Hawkmoth will be revealed in no time at all.

He’s right, but in the worst possible way.

It’s largely a mistake on hiss part-- he gets a notification that the Joker broke out of Arkham again, and Hawkmoth and Pavona are missing for the time being. Though Ladybug has made a mistake in not taking Pavona out immediately, she and her team have won every akuma and sentimonster battle. The logical course of action is to go where the most danger is.

Bruce does not have any predictive powers. There is no way for him to know what’s going to happen. But when he and his team finally catch the Joker and put him away again-- a feat that takes just a little under twenty four hours, extreme concentration, and a good number of injuries-- Batman finally gets a chance to breathe. The adrenaline from facing off against the Joker’s latest scheme fades. Batman reclines in a chair as Alfred binds his wounds and passes him pain relieving pills while he gets stitches in his abdomen.

He checks the news in Paris.

He almost drops the device that he’s using to view the news.

Marinette’s existence has been hidden from his family. With Dick, he was more concerned about his existence as Robin, rather than informing him that he had a sister. As soon as he started contemplating bringing up Marinette, Batman and Robin had a bad break. Then Jason came along, troubled and angry. Bruce didn’t want to introduce Marinette into the mix then because he was volatile.

Jason died due to Batman’s incompetence. Bruce grieved the loss of his ward; Batman was never allowed to mourn the loss of his second Robin.

Tim felt unworthy as the only child Bruce didn’t pick up off the streets, and Damian-- well, Damian was Damian. First he had a superiority complex the size of the Grand Canyon, and once he got accustomed to how they handled things in the Wayne Manor-- though Tim would argue that Damian is still not used to this kind of lifestyle-- he overcompensated every single mission and needed a remedial course on How to Interact With Other Humans 101. Add the overarching concern of Marinette being exposed to his vigilante life style and being unprepared for it, and he was never able to tell his children that he had another biological kid. A daughter.

When the news that Sabine and Tom died reached his ears, he told everybody he had business in Paris without elaborating what. With Wayne Enterprises opening a Paris branch of their R&D specialising in European artifacts, it was easy to draw connections that weren’t there.

“Bruce, you need to relax. Business in Paris can be dealt with later, you need to take the time to heal,” Tim says.

A clip in his shoulder from a bullet, knife wounds on his torso and legs, a sprained wrist. Whatever chemical experiment the Joker got his hands out still pumping through his veins. “I need to go-- it’s important--”

The pain relievers Alfred gave him earlier were also a sedative.

Tim catches him before he passes out.

He wakes up three hours late through sheer force of will.

“Paris!” Bruce jolts upright, still in costume, lying prone on a medical cot in the Batcave.

The first thing that catches his eyes is the red and black flying across the screens.

Ladybug.

His kids are all watching the screens with abject horror.

“Is this,” Tim wets his lips. “The business trip that you were on?”

Bruce drags himself out of bed, adrenaline washing out any residual pain. He doesn’t have the capacity to respond, he needs to get to the zeta tube, he needs to get to Paris, Ladybug is bleeding, the city is in shambles, and Marinette--

One of the news sites up on the screen declares the arrondissements that are obliterated. The one that houses Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie is amongst their number. An approximate death toll fills the static.

-- Marinette is likely among those lost. He has lost another child due to his inaction. Due to his inability to push through, to look forwards and predict the future and the consequences of his actions. Marinette is another Jason, but if Ladybug doesn’t get it together, she’ll be gone permanently. And Ladybug is little more than a child. She can’t handle it, not by herself, not with her team. She needs an experienced hero, and Batman will be there for her, be the one leading the charge against Hawkmoth as the civilians hide in their homes and pray for her Miracle Cure to reverse the damage.

Dick places a hand on his shoulder. Bruce tries to shrug it off, but his fingers dig into the place where the bullet clipped his flesh. The pain is just a reminder that if he does not get to Paris now, there will be thousands-- no, millions-- more who feel this pain. How did Marinette die? Was it an akuma? Did the rubble of one of the destroyed buildings fall on her? Did Ladybug even try to protect her?

“I need to go,” Bruce growls.

“You can’t. While you were out, the majority of the Justice League prohibited all travel via zeta tubes. Nobody can get into Paris right now.”

Bruce knocks Dick’s hand off his shoulder and turns to his eldest. At the very least, Dick and the rest of his children look solemn. Damian’s gaze is fixed to one of the screens that shows Ladybug. “A city is in danger, millions of lives are at risk, Marinette--”

His daughter is dead. He can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Standing by idly is the last thing he’ll let himself do.“Who put out the order? I’ll get them to reverse it.”

Dick moves so he’s between the zeta tube and Bruce. “B, you don’t understand. If you go to Paris right now, you’ll get akumatized.”

“I can handle my emotions.”

Jason points at the upper right section of screens that’s replaying past footage. “I wouldn’t bet Paris’ survival on it. Not when more level headed superheroes got on the scene first and failed. They really don’t need any heavy hitters getting akumatized. Not when Superman put three members of their team out of commission.”

Superman arrived on the scene first; it took a matter of seconds for him to get akumatized. He was responsible for razing down three arrondissements in no time flat. Ladybug had to call for a Lucky Charm in order to get her hands on some kryptonite, which forced her to recoup after her time ran out.

Black Canary arrived next. Then Red Tornado.

Both were akumatized in mere minutes.

“After Red Tornado got akumatized, Wonder Woman led the charge to put the rest of the zeta tubes on lockdown,” Duke says, grim. “All we can do now is hope that these Parisian superheroes can pull off a win.”

Bruce stumbles over to get a better view. He remembers Ladybug, small and slight in his arms. A child, crying over the loss of her pseudo parents.

A warrior, bloody and bruised and broken.

She is one of the last ones standing.

King Monkey and an ox themed hero both died at Superman’s hands. The former got in the way of his laser beams, the latter a victim of super strength and getting thrown through two buildings and having their necks snap at an unsightly angle. Chat Noir was also sent hurtling through the air, and the only reason he was still alive was because Ladybug alighted from the sky and grabbed him before he got sent through a building in his unconscious state. Black Canary came shortly after, apparently informed of the Superman situation and carrying kryptonite.

She didn’t last for long either. Almost immediately after helping Ladybug and Ryuko bind Superman in such a way that he couldn’t escape,

Pegasus got hit by Black Canary’s sound waves and Chat Noir’s residual injuries from his fight with Superman forced him into a state of unconsciousness. Queen Bee and Carapace were able to pull off a win against Black Canary, but not without serious injuries. Ryuko faced off against Red Tornado alone, which normally would have been a thing of awe, but in the grander scheme of things, was a huge issue, as without her, the Miraculous Team functionally lost all of their heavy hitters. Rena Rouge and several Miraculous users that clearly had never been in battle before were the ones left to hold their own against the scores of akumatized Parisians.

The only ones left to hunt down Hawkmoth and Pavona were Ladybug and Viperion, and the former was already on her third use of Lucky Charm.

Ladybug pulls out her communicator, dodging an attack.

“Can we get sound on this?” Jason grips the closest table.

Dick shakes his head. “Zatara says there’s already enough interference just trying to get these images. And for some reason, Dr. Fate refuses to get involved with any of this.”

Bruce’s phone rings. He doesn’t pick it up on the first ring, too focused on the ongoing battles. He does take his phone out of his pocket to silence it the next time, but when he presses the sound off, an image comes through.

“Bruce.” Ladybug’s image comes through crystal clear, and it doesn’t make him feel any better. Ladybug, blood dripping from her mouth, costume torn open, hair burnt, wild eyed.

He opens his mouth to speak, but the image goes blurry as she moves to avoid several attacks pointed towards her.

“Before I go, I--”

“Watch out, LB!” Bruce lifts his eyes to the screen that displays Ladybug and Viperion in battle. The spotted heroine gets pushed out of the way of a laser, but the snake themed hero takes the hit.

The ambient noise coming from his phone is strong; he can hear blades clashing in the background as Chat Noir, already on his last legs attempts to hold off Darkblade. Screaming from civilians, a strangled sob from Ladybug. “Viperion.”

Ladybug comes back into view. Blue eyes filled with rage.

“If this doesn’t end in our favor, you need to make sure that Hawkmoth and Pavona do not acquire both the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous. Do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.” She blinks, retreats into herself, and Bruce wonders if he’s seeing the girl behind the mask.

“And If I don’t get to see you again--” If I’m dead, the words go unspoken, “I really did want the chance -- I-- you’re a good man. A good father. Your daughter-- she loves you. She really, really does. Stay safe.”

The transmission cuts off. On the screen in front of him, Ladybug closes her communicator, closes Viperion’s open eyes, and strides to the epicenter of the akumas. Blue fire flashes in her irises, and for a moment, she’s staring directly at the screen. And Bruce knows those eyes. He knows them.

The next second, all of the computers simultaneously die.

Bruce is numb. No-- no.

He is nothing.

All his children-- no, not all his children, Marinette is missing, Marinette is Ladybug, and she’s out on a field that he can’t see grappling with magic forces strong enough to incapacitate Justice League members like their powers and abilities are inconsequential-- stare at him.

“That was… Ladybug?” Tim’s brow furrows. It’s clear that he’s thinking up a hundred different reasons why Ladybug and Batman are connected, why he’s the last person she calls before going into a battle that could very well cost her her life.

“My daughter.” The words are ash on his lips. An existence he’s never acknowledged. Not out loud. Saying it brings a sense of finality to the room. An impending death. “My daughter.”

Nobody asks how long he’s known or when he met her or why he’s never brought it up before. Everything is fuzzy. Floating.

For a while, there’s silence.

“Zatara says there’s too much interference to get the picture back up,” Dick opens his messages, frowning.

Damian still stares at the screen Ladybug looked at directly, frozen.

Bruce picks himself up and moves. He may not be able to use the zeta tubes, but he has a private jet and a license, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do something.

It takes two hours too long to get to Paris. He shaved five hours off the flight length due to superior technology, and another hour and a half off due to sheer force of will.

The landing is not a pretty thing, but Paris is already in shambles, and there’s no way that the ATC will approve his landing, so Bruce picks out the flattest looking spot of rubble before his jet meets the ground.

According to Tim and Duke, who stayed behind in case this turned out to be an attack spanning multiple cities, the battle ended mere minutes before they landed. Dick manages to get Zatara to broadcast the image in the cockpit of the jet, and on the screen lay three prone bodies. Gabriel Agreste, whose body type fits that of Hawkmoth, Lila, and a third that Bruce does not recognize.

A bone sticks out of Marinette’s arm, the connected hand crushed and hanging limp. The opposing ankle is twisted almost fully backwards. She is covered in blood and ash and filth. There is no victory in her eyes. Only weariness.

In her good hand, she holds her yoyo.

She raises her eyes skywards-- the roof of the Agreste mansion is blown clean off-- blinks slowly, and throws the yoyo into the air.

“Miraculous Cure,” her lips read.

The corpses in Paris rise from the dead. Rubble reforms into buildings. The ashy haze that covered the city disappears.

Ladybug looks like she wants to disappear, too.

She collapses, instead.

Nobody is there to catch her when she drops to the floor.

@biodad-bruce-month

Maribat tag list(to be added onto this pls send me an ask/dm): @our-precipreciousss @my-dear-friend-anxiety

Who Are You (and what will you become) tag list (to be added here just comment): @anjuschiffer @theunquiet-dead @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @cresentmo0n @allulily @myazael @zalladane @rebecarojas07 @keepingupwiththemalfoys @frieddonutsweets @all-mights-asscheeks @thornalchemist23 @trippingovermyfeet @jiso-lee @redscarlet95 @ira-sairain @screechingflapbiscuitpeach @ramos123 @cutechip @theunquiet-dead @sleep-deprived-aroace @enternalempires @lilkymilky @woe-is-me0 @officiallydarkgeek @miyla-lokidottir @queencommonsense @demonicbusiness

mb for not doing tag list right away i forgot i had these cued up already

#bio!dad bruce wayne month 2020 #maribat #what are dates #what's going in order #time? i don't know her #i'm always late #marinette dupain cheng #bruce wayne #bio!dad bruce #angst

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arrowsandbats · 4 years ago

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Tim’s Complicated School History

So I’ve noticed there seems to be a fair bit of confusion on where Tim went to high school, whether he dropped out or not, if he went to private or public school, etc., so I thought I’d create a general chronology of (Pre-Flashpoint) Tim’s tumultuous high school career. The confusion about this is deserved, as Tim has literally gone to no less than FIVE high schools and also homeschooled for a bit, so it’s a LOT to keep track of. Tim has attended both private schools and public schools, and has gone to school in Gotham and Bludhaven (and almost Keystone!), ultimately ending his school days when he dropped out of Gotham City High School during his senior year to go search for Bruce after the events of Final Crisis.

Here’s the breakdown:

Pre-High School: Tim attended private boarding schools until he was about 13-14 years old. To my knowledge these schools are never specifically named, but 13-yr-old Tim mentions in Batman #441 that he attends a boarding school just outside Gotham. In Robin III #4 Tim angrily tells his dad that him and Janet “shipped [Tim] from one boarding school to another and nobody paid any attention as long as [his] grades stayed high.” This seems to imply that Tim attended a number of different boarding schools, when there’s really no reason for him to have attended more than two (an elementary and middle school), and even then a number of private boarding schools are actually K-8 (if not K-12) so I don’t know why he attended so many schools?? Nevertheless, from K-8 Tim attended private boarding schools, primarily in the Gotham area presumably.

Tim was probably still in middle school in his earliest appearances (Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying, Batman: Rite of Passage, etc), but he starts high school right around the time he finishes his Robin training (around the time of the first Robin miniseries).

High School #1---Gotham Heights High School: The first reference to Tim being in high school comes from the 1991 Robin II miniseries. Tim has recently started at Gotham Heights High School as a ninth grader. This comic takes place after Tim’s parents were kidnapped and poisoned, and so while Jack is in the hospital Bruce is acting as a guardian of sorts for Tim. It’s at Gotham Heights that Tim befriends Sebastian Ives, as well as his friends Hudson and Callie Evans. When Ives asks Tim about the fact that he seems too rich for public school, Tim explains that he used to go to private school but that Bruce had him transferred into public school because he thought it would be “more broadening.” Even after Jack gets out of the hospital he allows Tim to stay at Gotham Heights HS, although Jack clearly has a low opinion of public schools. Tim presumably started at Gotham Heights HS at the beginning of the ninth grade and attended for about a year and a half.

Interlude---Keystone: After the events of Cataclysm, Tim’s family moves to Keystone to avoid the chaos going on in Gotham. (They only end up staying a few weeks at the most, but they moved with the intention of living there permanently, meaning that Tim was transferred out of Gotham Heights HS.) In Robin #63 Jack mentions trying to get Tim into Keystone Academy, but that it’s tough in the middle of the school year and that he was working on getting him a tutor in the interim. Tim was supposed to meet his new tutor the same day that he went back to Gotham to be with Steph while she had her baby. He left without telling his dad, and so Jack and Dana come back to Gotham to get him and they all decide to stay in Gotham after all. It’s unclear if Tim returns to Gotham Heights HS briefly or if he just doesn’t return to school until he’s enrolled at Brentwood.

High School #2---Brentwood Academy: After the events of No Man’s Land, Tim is enrolled in Brentwood Academy, a boarding school in Bristol Township (a wealthy suburb directly to the north of Gotham, where the Drakes and the Waynes both live). After missing so much school, Jack forces Tim to go to a boarding school so that his grades will hopefully come up. (I think the reasoning here is that if Tim lives at school then he’ll have no good excuse for missing class?) In Robin #75 Tim refers to himself as a “new sophomore,” and he transferred to the school some time after sophomore year started (almost definitely after winter break, but I can’t find an issue that confirms this?) but before spring break. Tim’s main friends at Brentwood are his first roommate Ali, his second roommate Wesley, and his classmates Buzz, Kip, and Danny. Tim isn’t at Brentwood for very long though. After only a few months (maybe even less) of Tim being at Brentwood, Jack finds out he’s lost a good portion of the Drake family fortune in bad investments. He’s forced to withdraw Tim from school as he can’t afford the tuition anymore, and the Drakes sell their home in Bristol Township and move into their townhouse in inner-city Gotham.

Interlude---Rest of Sophomore Year: When Tim left Brentwood it was rather late in the year, and it was apparently too late to re-enroll him in public school, so he took the rest of the school year off. That summer he has to take a placement test that will keep him from having to repeat the 10th grade. He passes, so when he re-enters public school he does so as a junior.

High School #3---Louis E. Grieve Memorial High School: Tim starts his junior year at Louis E. Grieve Memorial HS, where he quickly befriends Bernard Dowd and Darla Aquista. He doesn’t attend school here very long, probably for about 3-4 months (he’s only been at Grieve Memorial HS for a few weeks when he’s forced to quit being Robin, Steph takes over for about 2 months, and then it’s only another couple weeks until the events of War Games). During War Games, Tim’s friend Darla is targeted by several mobs (because her father is an Italian mob boss) and mobsters take over his school and end up killing several students, Darla included. Darla’s funeral is one of three that Tim has to attend in as many days, his dad being killed during Identity Crisis and Steph “dying” at the end of War Games.

High School #4---John Wayne High School, Bludhaven: After War Games and Identity Crisis, Tim moves to Bludhaven to try for a fresh start. He picked Bludhaven specifically for an in-patient facility that will help his stepmom, Dana, process her grief over Jack’s death. Tim moves to be close to her and starts attending John Wayne High School. He probably only attends for about two weeks though, before he has his (fake) Uncle Eddie withdraw him from the school to start homeschooling. Tim withdraws with the intention of homeschooling until he can test out of school early. But it isn’t long (maybe another month or so) until Infinite Crisis, and then Tim and Dick go on a nearly year-long training journey with Bruce.

Interlude---OYL: During the missing year* between Infinite Crisis and One Year Later, Tim isn’t in school at all, as he and Dick and Bruce are travelling the world and training.

(*Also, with the nightmare that is comics continuity and the passage of time, Tim really couldn’t have been gone for more than like,,,,6-8 months, as it was late winter/early spring when Infinite Crisis happened---at least according to the Robin series---and it’s summer when he returns to Gotham. He’s still 17 early in the Red Robin series so it couldn’t have been a year and a half that he was gone, therefore he could only have been gone for like half a year.)

High School #5---Gotham City High School: After the OYL time jump, Tim starts attending Gotham City High School. He starts during the “summer session” (presumably to make up for the semester he missed during OYL?) before his senior year. His main friends here are Zoanne Wilkins (who he starts dating), Jared Walton, Craig Pulaski, and then both Ives and Steph transfer to GCHS during Tim’s senior year (altho Steph is usually a year older than Tim in Pre-52 canon, so it really makes no sense for her to be there??). This is the high school Tim is attending when he drops out of school in his senior year to travel the world looking for Bruce. In Red Robin #17, Tim and Ives meet for lunch (after Bruce has returned and Tim has moved back to Gotham) and Ives mentions Tim not finishing senior year. Tim asks Ives how senior year is going---implying that the events of the first arc of Red Robin only take a few months---and catches up on how Ives and Zoanne are doing.

Some general Tim school stuff: Tim is a very smart kid, but not a very good student. In the Robin III miniseries both Jack and Tim’s school counselor make reference to the fact that before high school Tim had always been a straight A student, but that his grades and attendance have slipped considerably. He is routinely too tired to pay attention in class, he’s constantly missing weeks of school, he fails to complete homework assignments bc of Robin missions, etc. Several times he even references in his inner monologue that he thinks he might fail a specific class. And honestly, Tim just doesn’t care about school. He often makes irritable inner-monologue comments about preferring practical application over learning things in a school setting, he tries to get himself out of school permanently when he lives in Bludhaven, etc. That being said, he’s never been noted to actually fail a class and even with all the school he’s missed he’s never had to be held back, so presumably he’s still earning like Cs in most classes.

#tim drake #timothy drake #robin #batfam #meta #dc comics #our posts #i hope this is useful #i plan on making more of them at some point

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marmolady · 4 years ago

Text

New Horizons

Main Pairings: Estela x (f)MC, Graleister

Summary: Endless Ending. Liv and Reggie are starting school in San Trobida. Notes at the end!

Word Count: 9695

Chronology: After 'Growing Pains', before 'How the time escapes me...'

Tagging: @saivilo, @edgydepressedchoicesthot, @sceptilemasterr, @greengroove @mauvecatfic

Thanks for reading!

San Trobida, July 2035

“Hey, Auntie Grace!”

Reggie looked up from his book at the sound of his cousin’s voice, and hastily placed aside his shiny new copy of ‘A Guide to San Trobidan History’ so he could rush out into the hallway.

Grace was already wrapping Liv in a hug. “Hello, sweetheart.” She kissed the side of her niece’s head, before her eyes wandered down to a bloodied knee. “Did you have a mishap on your bike on the way here?”

“Yeah… I clipped the kerb and crashed,” Liv said, offering her aunt a better view of her wound. As she heard Reggie’s footsteps, she looked up to meet his eye and smiled.

“Youch!” Reggie offered sympathetically as he came close enough to peer over Liv’s grazed knee.

Liv shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

Grace, though, was more concerned. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head when you fell?”

“No, just scraped my knee. It does actually sting a bit.”

“Hmm. Well, I think we’d better put some anti-septic that knee just to be safe.”

The new house was a mess. Boxes and misplaced furniture filled every room, and the twins-- six years old-- had been making forts with the packing boxes that had been emptied so far. The family had been in the house for just over a day, and some good progress had already been made. There had been a lot that had been left behind. Neither Aleister nor Grace put too much value on material possessions, so most of what had come with them and the children to their new home in San Trobida had been essential furniture, and the mountains of photo albums and memorabilia from a life with the kids.

Grace sat Liv down on a wooden ottoman, and, after a little bit of rummaging, found the first aid kit.

“Okay, this might hurt just a little,” she said gently, and she carefully dabbed Liv’s graze.

Liv yelped, “Fuck!”, causing Reggie to gasp, looking to his mother for a reaction, and Erin and Immy to burst out giggling from inside their box-fort.

Grace raised an eyebrow, but her warm smile didn’t shift. “It stings that much?”

“Yeah…,” Liv said, flushing a little. “Sorry about the language.”

“I’m sure I didn’t hear a thing.”

There was the usual bustling around as Aleister got the girls into their shoes; Immy and Erin had decided that swapping one shoe with one another was the peak of humour, but eventually, their father managed to get them each into a left and a right-- even if they didn’t match. Six-and-a-half-year-old sisters, Reggie had come to realise, made just about everything more of a headache than necessary.

Eventually, though, they were on their way. His mom and dad, walking beside the twins as they pootled along on their bicycles, had the address, but Reggie rode ahead with Liv, taking her lead as she zig-zagged through the streets of Valle Brava. Having only set foot on San Trobidan soil as a new resident some twenty-four hours ago, everything aspect of his environment set his senses alight. This wasn’t like being back in America. Perhaps it was the tropical climate, but he was reminded much more of La Huerta-- of home. Liv certainly seemed right at home here. She and her mothers had settled a few weeks before, and Liv had been coming here pretty much all her life. There were just a few blocks between their respective houses, and the wide cycle paths along the bitumen roads made for an easy journey. This, Reggie had been told, was a newly developed area; much had been re-built since the war he knew his Tia Estela had been involved in. The cycle paths ended as they came nearer to Liv’s place, a little way out of the main township. The foliage on either side of the road became thicker, and there was less street noise, more birdsong.

“Beat you!” Liv announced as she planted her feet into the ground, forcing her bicycle to a stop.

Reggie grumbled, pulling up beside his cousin in front of a humble bungalow-style house with outer walls a vibrant azure blue against yellow accents. The sound of a dog barking-- unmistakably Liv’s Robin, was further confirmation they’d arrived. “You didn’t beat me, Livia. I was following you. I didn’t even know where we were going.”

“Jeez, dude. No one likes a sore loser….”

“I am not a--!”

The door swung open.

“Reggie!” Taylor wasted no time in sweeping her nephew into a hug. “It’s so good to see you! I can’t believe you still have the energy for cycling over here-- didn’t you move house, like, yesterday?”

Reggie laughed. “Hi, Auntie Taylor!” There was something about seeing a familiar face in this new environment that made the pieces seem to click into place. Family made it home. “I’m a little bit tired but mostly just excited. I did sleep in today, so I guess I won’t crash until later.” His sisters on the other hand… there was no way they’d last the evening without overtiredness rearing its ugly head.

“I’m guessing your mom and dad are on their way with the girls?”

“Yeah,” said Liv, “but they’re pretty slow. I don’t have to wait to give Reggie the grand tour, do I?”

“Knock yourself out, kid. Hang on, Liv? Walk your bike through the house, please.”

“I was gonna!”

Reggie could only smirk. Like hell you were….

“Aaaand,” Liv finished off with a flourish, “this is my room!” She opened the door to a good-sized bedroom. It seemed to Reggie that what floor-space wasn’t taken up by the bed was piled up with boxes.

“I mean, I can’t say the mess wasn’t a clue.”

Liv gave her cousin a look as she flopped into her bed. “Hey-- moving house is hard. You’ll see soon enough. You get started all excited, but once you start living your life, you kinda get… stuck. Mama Taylor says we’re going to just blitz it all next weekend, and throw ourselves a pizza party as a reward.”

Reggie got up onto the bed and crossed his legs. “Do you like it here?”

“I love it here! I always liked coming here when I was little, so I guess it doesn’t feel like something completely different. I reckon my tio abuelo is over the moon that we’re here for good; it’s like I’ve got a grandparent now.” Liv’s cheeks flushed pink, and she glanced away.

Understanding, Reggie nodded. Together, they’d grown up in a family that didn’t take the traditional shape. There were some things that simply couldn’t be explained to other friends; like why Reggie’s grandma could help him with his homework, but could never come in for grandparents’ day, and why Liv had a whole side of the family with no grandparents at all-- not even dead ones.

“And,” Liv continued, “people don’t really look at my Mama Estela funny. I noticed that years ago. I guess ‘cause of the war, people don’t look twice at someone who’s maybe a little bit banged-up. I got so sick of it back in America. Every time we met someone new, they’d put on that ‘God, what happened?’ face. Maybe Mom doesn’t want to explain the whole ‘revolutionary in a civil war’ thing to every random person who can’t mind their own business. Some people have scars-- big freaking deal. It’s better here.”

“Yeah, that would be a nice change. The amount of times I’ve seen you and Auntie Taylor look at a nosy idiot like you want to deck ‘em--”

Liv burst out laughing. “True, that.”

The sound of excited barking rang out from the backyard. It seemed pretty likely to Reggie that his parents and sisters had just arrived. When he and Liv arrived in the backyard, Erin had already joined Estela at the barbecue, desperate to be involved, while Immy was passionately talking to Nicolas about goodness-knows-what. Reggie made a mental note to rescue him in a few minutes; that kid could be intense, and the poor old guy had come out here for a relaxing lunch with his niece.

Nicely, but firmly, Reggie nudged the wriggling, writhing form of Robin the dog to the side so he could join his mother and Auntie Taylor at the large alfresco table under the porch. And Robin returned to his favoured position at the feet of the barbecue-- Erin was just a kid, surely, she’d drop something….

“Do you need a hand with the salads?” Reggie asked as he greeted his mother with a hug. He’d been seeking a lot of those. With so much changing, familial comfort meant a lot, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

Perhaps more than anything, though, he was grateful to have Liv by his side. It was the way it had always been; from their toddler days on La Huerta, through elementary school, to their adventures in home-schooling. Some things might change-- some things might change immeasurably-- but he always had his cousin.

___________________________

La Huerta, 2028

Liv yelled out as she splashed down into the shallow surf. “Reggie!”

“I got her, Xiraana!” Reggie cried, and soon he was joined by a young Vaanti girl, who helped restrain their victim.

“No, no!” Liv squealed as she struggled. Vaanti kids, she’d long ago realised, were strong. “You’ll never take me alive!”

“Five-- four--- three….” Xiraana counted down, not letting Liv out of her grasp.

“Two-- one!” Reggie finished triumphantly, and he let his cousin fall unceremoniously back into the water. “The klaawyi ate all the meat off your bones. You’re one of us now!”

Liv pouted, but admitted defeat. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen; she was pretty good on Team Klaawyi anyway. Or, she would have been… had she not seen the figure of her favourite uncle descending onto the beach from the great tree of Elyys’tel.

“Tio Diegoooooo! Hiiiii!” Liv ran across the sand, almost tripping in her desperation to reach him.

“Hey, Livia!” Reggie cried out, indignant at being suddenly abandoned. “You’re meant to help us catch them!”

But Diego had crouched down to wrap Liv in a hug, and Reggie might as well be talking to a pile of rocks for all that was being absorbed.

“Tio, they got me! Reggie and Xiraana got me, and now I’m a klaawyi!”

“You?” Diego laughed. “You’re no klaawyi-- I’ve never seen a klaawyi that was ticklish!”

“Wha--?” Oh no. Once again, Liv was shrieking with mirth, this time dodging the tickling hands of her tio.

Still standing in the shallows, Reggie stomped his foot, which achieved little but splashing himself in the face. The game went on without them; games of Klaawyi Chase didn’t stop for anyone. The usual fun on the beaches outside Elyys’tel would go on like this every day… whether Reggie and Liv were there to join in or not. And Reggie didn’t want to miss out now.

“Come on, Livia!”

She just shook her head, not letting her adoring gaze up at Diego slip for so much as a heartbeat. “Nah,” she said. “I’m done.”

Torn, knowing that whichever direction he ran in, he’d lose out on precious time with friends, Reggie admitted defeat and rushed back to Liv’s side on the shore. He looked back over his shoulder and waved goodbye-- for what he’d been told would likely be a long, long time. Engrossed in their game, his friends gave just the most fleeting of farewells before continuing to race through the small waves that lapped the beach.

Liv, in contrast, had eyes only for her tio. She clasped his hand tightly; if she held on tight enough, perhaps he’d have no choice but to come with her to wherever her mothers were taking her in the big aeroplane.

Where exactly she was going, Liv didn’t quite understand. It was away from La Huerta, but they weren’t going back to live with Tio Nicolas, they were going… someplace else. Someplace with no Tio Diego and Varyyn, where all the other kids would be boring shades of pink and brown rather than blue and green, and where no one knew about the yeti-bear, or the magic crystal alien that made her mom, or about The Story of the Year the World Stopped.

“I want you to come, Tio Diego…,” Liv softly beseeched.

Diego’s eyes grew misty, her earnest words having tipped him over the edge after what had been a long period of emotional build-up. Goodbyes were never easy, and Liv’s family was his family. He squeezed her little hand gently.

“I’ll visit you, Livi-- I promise. Cross my heart. And your mommies will bring you over to visit us here too; you are going to learn so many new games at school that you can teach Xiraana and the other kids.”

“But I’ll miss you…”

Having rejoined Liv, Reggie peered up at Diego’s teary face with concern. “Diego, you’re making your glasses all foggy.”

“Ha. I know, I know!” Diego wiped his eyes. “You might have a point there, Reggie; I want to spend this last night with you guys actually being able to see you!”

Liv giggled and wrapped her arms around her uncle’s legs, only to be peeled off and hoisted into the air. “We can still have fun until bedtime, can’t we? Will you tell us a story?”

On the ground, Reggie danced around, his arms waving. Diego-time was the best story-time.

In the arms of her tio, her playmate since she was a baby bouncing on his knee, Liv was a mess of emotions; of fear and excitement, of merriment that competed with the looming sorrow. It was more than her little self had a clue what to do with. She was only five.

Sensing his cousin’s turmoil, Reggie reached up a hand and took hold of Liv’s, hanging down by Diego’s side. “Don’t worry, Livia! If you worry, you won’t enjoy story-time.”

Liv stuck out her bottom lip. That little nerd-face could be pretty smart sometimes. Tomorrow night, there would be no goodnight story from Tio Diego, but tomorrow night was not now-- now, everything was as it should be. Her wavering grin returned, and to her delight, it brought matching smiles to the faces of her companions.

“Do you think Varyyn, and my mommies, and Auntie Grace and Uncle Alli, and Auntie Grace’s tummy babies want to listen to the story too?”

“Yeah,” Diego said, letting Liv back down to the ground, where she immediately found another hug in Reggie’s arms, “I think everyone would really like that.”

_____________________________

San Trobida, August 2035

“I don’t get it,” Liv said thoughtfully, as the car rolled right on past the turn for her Auntie Grace and Uncle Al’s place. “It’s right on the way; wouldn’t it have been easier for us to pick up Reggie?”

“Hon,” Taylor replied, “I think Reggie wanted his mom and dad to take him to orientation. They’ll probably be better at helping with his jitters than we would be.”

“I guess.” Liv looked out the window, watching the surrounding vegetation thicken once more as the car followed the road up out of the valley. “Orientation Day shouldn’t be too bad, right? Just, like, meeting our teachers, learning where stuff is, that kinda thing?” And you’ll have to try and make friends. That would be a laugh.

By the time they pulled up at the Las Selvas Secondary School, however, Liv fully understood her cousin’s nerves, and realised that was probably why she’d been so disappointed that he didn’t share a car with her. Through every big change in their young lives, his presence had been a reassuring constant.

“Uggghh,” she groaned. “Can I change my mind? Home-schooling was all right; more of that, please.”

Estela leaned from the front seat and gave Liv’s knee a squeeze. “You know, I don’t think he’d ever say it, but I’m pretty sure Reggie would be really scared if he had to walk into this without you. Besides, you were so excited about starting here; you owe it to yourself to at least giving it a shot.”

Again, Liv groaned, this time even louder. “It’s so annoying when you’re right.”

“Story of my life,” Taylor laughed, while Estela smirked.

When they pulled up at the school, Reggie was already waiting, standing beside the car-park while his parents fussed over him.

“You have your phone?” Grace quizzed, checking for the fourth time since they’d set off.

“I told you, yes!” Reggie replied, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket to wave around for good measure. “I’ll send you a message when I’m ready to be picked up, I promise.”

“In that case, you just have a wonderful time, darling.” She wrapped him in a hug-- already Reggie was easily as tall as her. “Go well, and have fun.”

Liv rushed over, all smiles. Her own nerves were a whole lot less bothersome when she had the distraction of friendly faces.

There were a few more rounds of hugs exchanged-- and then, suddenly, Liv and Reggie were on their own.

“You wanna head over? Looks like people are already crowding around-- it’s probably gonna start soon.”

Reggie’s expression brightened, as if he’d been just waiting for a little push for his confidence to surge back forth. “Well, it will hardly be an auspicious start here if we miss the principal’s address. Get a move on, Livia!”

The morning passed relatively quickly. Liv placed herself next to Reggie at all times-- they’d been put in the same Grade Seven home room as requested, making him one of the eldest in the class, and her one of the youngest. The whole set-up wasn’t entirely different to the school they were accustomed to, other than the bilingual approach. They were given a small pile of boring paperwork, and outlines of what to expect in their new classes; as English was their first language, they’d be taking ‘Spanish as a Second Language’, and Liv was also excited about ‘Nature Studies’, a subject she’d never been offered in America.

As far as Liv was concerned, the most traumatic part of the session was being expected to stand up in front of a room of strangers and give a short spiel about themselves. The perfect opportunity to officially balls-up any chance they might have of making new friends, or at least that was how she saw it. She mumbled down into her chest; something about enjoying hiking and gymnastics, something about liking Batman, and animals, and then she hurriedly sat right back down with flaming cheeks. Reggie, she observed, handled the brief foray into public speaking with rather more poise. Even though he was shy-- perhaps even more than she was-- he seemed able to go into ‘school presentation’ mode, and breeze through. When he sat back down, though, his hands were shaking-- but that was for the eyes of his trusted friend only.

When the lunch break came along, Liv was ravenous; a new and challenging social situation could do that to a person. While Reggie sloped off to the bathrooms, she tested out the school canteen, emerging a little while later with a hot empanada. It wasn’t quite as good as her Mama Estela’s, but it was definitely a step up from what was on offer at her old school. Maybe she could get used to this place….

Liv watched this new world go by all around her as she ate, cross-legged beneath the tree she’d told her cousin to meet her by. Kids moved in their little circles, talking loudly, laughing. Most of them coming into Grade Seven had come from the local primary school, and many knew each-other. Liv and Reggie would be starting out on the outside… and that was daunting. She could not be more grateful that she wasn’t taking this on alone.

Or… at least, she shouldn’t be. The lunchtime queue moved on, the gaggles of kids spread out, and still Reggie hadn’t returned.

Damn, constipated on your first day. Sucks to be you, Reggie.

Tentatively, Liv approached the boys’ bathroom and, having ascertained that no one was watching, slipped in. Her footsteps were unheard, drowned out by the loud, frantic breathing of young Reggie, slumped over the sink. Alarmed, Liv rushed over. Tears were spilling down his cheeks.

“Reggie… it’s okay,” she said gently. A little unsure, she reached out a hand to rub his back, and to her surprise, he didn’t flinch away. Slowly, he seemed to regain control of himself.

“Liv…,” Reggie panted. “You know you’re not meant to be in here; this is the guys’ room.”

“Hey! Like it’s my fault you didn’t take your anxiety attack into the unisex bathroom. That’s on you.” Hmph. Ungrateful, much?

Reggie scowled, and dragged his cousin out of the toilet block by her arm. He slumped down by the wall, and scooched over to encourage her to join him.

“You’re a pain in the arse.” He was still shaking.

“It’s been said, yeah.” Liv huddled a little closer. “You don’t need to worry, okay? You’re not going to have any trouble making friends. Did you see they’ve got a chess club, and a photography club as well? At least that’ll get you talking to people.”

“That’s,” Reggie said quietly, “not exactly what I’m worried about.” When Liv looked at him expectantly, he continued. “When I was in a room with all those kids, my head just went back to being at our old school… and what happened. I know this place is meant to be progressive and all that, but that doesn’t mean that everyone’s okay. What if I think I’ve made friends with someone, and they find out about Erin, and they make it a big thing, and then some arsehole finds out….”

“Man, you’re really spiraling,” Liv observed, not especially helpfully. She wasn’t exactly surprised by what was troubling her cousin; getting into a fight in defense of his young transgender sister had completely unseated Reggie from the comfortable life he’d had at the last school. It had changed everything.

“You would too, if she was your sister!”

“Probably. But I think you should at least give people a go. It sounds like they’re really strict on any kind of bullying against minorities. Swinging back hard in the opposite direction after that fascist dictatorship.”

“Those are some awfully big words for you to be throwing around there, Livia; watch you don’t hurt yourself….”

“Hey! I know my stuff!” Liv demanded. “Do you think my tio abuelo would have it any other way? But anyway, I’m right. All the people who didn’t fit in before have come to this part of the country. Probably a lot of the kids have parents who saw really horrible things in the war; they wouldn’t want to send them somewhere that was bad like before. My Mama ‘Stel gave the principal the grilling of her life, and I bet she hasn’t been the only one. People are gonna want to make sure their kids are being looked after.”

A smile quirked on Reggie’s face as he imagined his aunt on a school tour. “I bet Tia Estela left Principal Sanchez quivering under the desk.”

“Yeah… after what happened in the last school, there’s no way they’d let us go anywhere unless they were sure it was a place that treated people right.”

Reggie knew that much. But his parents, and even his fierce aunt, could not shield himself, his sisters and his cousin, from everything. He contemplated silently, grateful for the patient companionship.

“I guess,” he said at last, “if no one gave anyone else a chance to be anything but the worst, then we’d be pretty lonely.”

“Yup. We should at least give it a shot. And if it all goes in the crapper, I’ll sic my moms on the fools that mess with us. And the freaking yeti.”

Reggie couldn’t help but roll his eyes. That had always been Liv’s answer to everything. “Livia, I hate to break it to you, but if you go around threatening people with yetis, everyone’s gonna think you’ve got a screw loose. Except me; I know you’ve got a screw loose.”

“So damn rude,” Liv growled. “Anyway, you really should eat something. It probably won’t help you feeling crap and light-headed if you’ve got an empty stomach. They’ve got arepas!”

“...I could eat an arepa,” Reggie admitted. There was only so much a young boy of thirteen could control; he couldn’t wave a magic wand and guarantee that his little sister would never be hurt by cruel, ignorant words, but he could look after himself, so that he was the best him he could be-- and the best brother.

_____________________________

USA, 2028

“You did a great job, sweetheart,” Taylor said kindly as Reggie delicately placed his knife and fork atop his small plastic plate, signaling that he’d finished. Immediately afterwards, the little boy’s small hand had dropped to his side to get a reassuring touch of his teddy’s scruffy fur. “It was nice of Big Bear to join us for dinner. Does he like lasagna as much as you do?”

Reggie yawned widely as he nodded to his aunt. He hadn’t known it was possible for a kid to be so full of yawns, but living with newborn twins had shown him just how big a tired feeling could be. “Big Bear likes to watch from the floor.”

“That’s nice of him to let you have the whole plate for yourself. We’re gonna have plenty to bring over to your mommy and daddy for them to eat tomorrow.”

Lasagna had been Reggie’s choice. This whole sleepover was to be all about him; giving him a welcome break from the stresses of being a new big brother to two babies at once. He’d been on many, many sleepovers at Tia Estela and Auntie Taylor’s place before, but this time felt different. Reggie knew that at home, his parents were busy with their other children… and in his sensitive state, it took no time at all for him to miss them.

Twins, Reggie had come to realise, were very hard work. They cried a lot… and his mommy cried a lot, and his daddy cried a lot, and he cried a lot. All crying and no sleeping was not a whole lot of fun. Reggie wanted so badly to get away from the babies, but at the same time he longed to be with his parents. However much fun it was to take a break at his aunts’ place, the worry in him just wouldn’t go away.

Side-by-side, he and Liv changed into their pyjamas. Five-year-old Liv, true to form, nattered away to him the whole time. Babies, of course, were the subject of choice.

“My moms say we’re probably not gonna get another baby. Maybe ‘cos you have two I can borrow one if I get lonely. Do you have one that you like best?”

Reggie shrugged.

“Maybe next time your mom and dad will have three. You could have all these babies like a baby army, and if someone’s ever mean to you, you will have like a hundred poopy diapers you can throw at them. No one likes poop.”

“I don’t want lots more babies,” Reggie said softly. I want no more.

“If you don’t like babies, you can come and live with us forever!” Liv suggested brightly, oblivious the the wobble of her cousin’s bottom lip.

When Estela popped her head around the corner to check on the kids, Reggie was in tears and Liv looked totally bewildered.

“Mommy, Reggie’s crying…,” she pointed out, rather unnecessarily, for her mother had already scooped the little boy into a cuddle.

“It’s okay, mijo,” Estela soothed as she gently rocked her nephew in her arms. “It’s okay to cry. This has been really hard. You know what? You have been such a good boy for Mommy and Daddy.”

Liv, not quite sure what to do, but nothing if not well-meaning, draped herself over Reggie and patted him on the back. “There, there. It’s okay.”

Estela took Reggie into the lounge room for some cheer-up time, and Liv took Big Bear. Taylor quickly joined them, and pulled Reggie into her lap for a cuddle.

“Are you feeling a bit sad, sweetpea?”

Reggie nodded. “Uh-huh. I liked it better how things were before. Everything’s different.”

Taylor gently rubbed the little boy’s arms. “Change can be really tough. It’s like you’ve got to figure out how life works all over again!”

“Yeah, it’s not nice.”

“So, it’s okay to have a good cry. We will give you as many hugs and cuddles as you need.”

“Reggie,” Liv piped up, “do you wanna play a game? That could make you feel happy?”

Reggie sniffed and nodded again. Pleased-- she had this cheering-up business down-- Liv plonked herself in Estela’s lap and leaned forward to her cousin.

“Do you wanna play… ‘Klaawyi Chase’?”

Estela intervened quickly. “Maybe something with a little less running around. It’s nearly bedtime, Livi.”

“Okay. Ummmm…. ‘Duck, Duck, Goose’?”

“Livita.”

Well, you’re no fun. Liv gave a soft huff and pondered. By her best guess, ‘Hide and Seek’ would be a ‘no’ too… especially as last time she’d hid, no one managed to find her for a full hour.

“How about,” Taylor suggested, “we have a game of ‘Fortunately-Unfortunately’?”

“I wanna play that one!” Reggie said enthusiastically. “Can I start? Fortunately, we all had ice cream for dessert.”

Liv bounced in her mother’s lap. “Unfortunately, the ice cream was smelly-feet flavour!”

“Livi!” Taylor exclaimed, rolling her eyes. Why was everything smelly-feet with that kid? “Okay, then-- fortunately, Robin Dog likes smelly-feet, so he ate all the ice cream for us.”

“Oh!” Liv cried. “I’ve got a really good one!” Hehe, Robin with smelly-feet farts….

“Unfortunately,” said Estela. “It was Mama Estela’s turn, and Miss Livita just had to wait.”

Liv turned and poked her tongue out at her mom, making Reggie giggle. He snuggled in against his Auntie Taylor’s chest, his mind far away from worries about his new role as big brother to a pair of very needy twins.

“Fortunately,” he said, smiling, “Furball was visiting, and he made us some new ice cream with no yucky flavours in it.”

“Unfortunately….”

_________________________

San Trobida, September 2035

It was the last weekend before school started, and a lazy warm day at the Montoya house. Estela was up a tree, hammering boards into what would soon be a playhouse for the kids. She’d already finished up a two-storey-high climbing wall on the other side of the yard, which, at Liv’s request, would eventually be connected to the new tree-house by a zipline. Then, there’d be a slide, and monkey bars, and a tyre swing, and a fire pole. Basically, Estela had made it her mission to put together the best backyard playground on the Costa Libertad. Taylor, meanwhile, had been busying herself with a vegetable garden, with the help of a fascinated Erin and her parents, who turned out to be quite clever when it came to soil chemistry.

Liv had been up and down her new climbing wall like a yo-yo, leaving her dog, Robin, running rings around the base and all but tripping Reggie up as he tentatively took his first steps towards ascending.

“Are you coming?”

“I’m trying! Your dog’s getting in the way.”

Eventually, Reggie managed to clamber his way up, with a little help from Liv who hauled him over the top.

“See; piece of cake.”

Reggie couldn’t quite agree, and now that he was up twenty feet, he was already dreading his descent back to solid ground. Keen to distract himself from the dizzying height, he passed Liv the rope that he’d carried slung across his shoulders.

“What do you want me to do with it?” she demanded. “You’re meant to drop one end back down….”

“I’m not going near the edge!”

“Fine. Immy! You down there still?”

On the ground, and trying to wrestle a squeaky toy giraffe from Robin’s mouth, Immy craned her neck up.

“Yeah-- but you’re lucky I am, Reggie was so slow.”

“Careful. I was careful. You should bloody well try it sometime.”

Immy rolled her eyes dramatically, but nonetheless took the rope end that Liv had lowered to her, and ran it over to Estela so the distance could be measured.

“There we go,” Liv said, after having marked the rope at the edge of the platform. “Done. Reggie, if you’re just going to look down, you might as well be on the ground. Come on-- check out the view!”

Begrudgingly, Reggie sat up properly and looked around.

“Woah.” Maybe he could see the appeal of being up so high, even if he was immensely grateful for the safety rails around the platform. “You really can see everything up here.”

“Isn’t it cool?” Liv beamed as she pointed her cousin towards the paddock behind the yard. “You wanted to see our horse? Right in there at the side of the sheltery-shed thing….”

“Oh, wow! Okay, fine, I believe you now. I guess she was just hiding earlier.”

“That’s Miel. She’s like, older than dirt; Mama Estela used to ride her when she was a teenager.”

“And she’s still alive?”

“Just about. I think she’s uh… nearly thirty? Pretty ancient. Mom found out she was all on her own after her friend died, and she bought her so she could retire here with us. She’s kind of a bitey asshole. Uh, the horse-- not Mom.” Liv quickly amended, glancing to the in-progress tree-house. “So, we’re keeping her, and if she wants to make friends with the new horses we’re getting, she can, otherwise at least she can, like, neigh rude horse words at them from over the fence.”

Reggie snorted. Weirdo.

“I’m super excited. I know Mama ‘Stel was kind of nervous about us moving over here because of how things were when she was a kid-- but it actually… feels nice. I love our new house. I love cranky Miel. I love that we’re gonna get chickens, and maybe a new friend for Robin. Even the school seems pretty good.”

Swallowing his fear, Reggie joined Liv at the railing, dangling his legs over the side of the platform.

“Yeah, I think I like it here, too. Mom and Dad seem really happy; Dad says he can make more of a good difference in the world here than in America. So, I guess that’s got to be good. Did I tell you we’re going to put a pool in?”

“You might have mentioned it. When you’ve been whining about the heat, for the hundredth time.”

“It’s so humid!”

Liv giggled. It was like being back in the tropics of La Huerta, and to her, that felt right. Granted, it might have been nicer if they could just pop on over into a neighbouring alpine region that was inexplicably right next to the hot, sticky jungle, but she really loved it.

“Well,” Reggie said, “it’s going to be great. And it should be done by the time Quinn and Michelle come to visit.”

“Do we even know whose house they’re staying at yet?”

“It should be my place.” Reggie puffed out his chest, as if to emphasise the rightness of his point. “You’re definitely getting Jake and Sean and Mikey. You can’t take all the visitors. And besides… we’ll have a pool.”

That was hard to argue with. “It’s up to the adults anyway,” Liv conceded. In the end, it didn’t matter; she was going to make the most of having her La Huerta family around even if it meant camping out in Reggie’s back yard. “But, I will be a much better San Trobida tour guide than you. I’m still showing you around.”

Reggie hmphed, and Liv laughed.

“Come on, Reggie,” she said, dropping gracefully down the side of the wall and taking up hand-holds. “I’m getting hungry.”

It was at that point that Reggie made the sobering discovery that going down, was rather more intimidating than going up a sheer vertical surface.

“Um, Liv…,” he said quietly. “I, uh, don’t think I can do that.”

“Oh!” Liv responded. “Sorry, I forgot you’re new to this. Maybe you should’ve started smaller. But don’t worry, I’ll get you down….”

“Okay…,” he murmured, clearly not remotely convinced.

“Mom!” Liv hollered, all but making her poor cousin topple over the edge in surprise. “Reggie’s stuck!”

Reggie felt heat rise in his cheeks as his sisters, hanging out on the grass below the wall at the worst possible time, burst out laughing. Like they could even get up this high to begin with.

Up in the tree-house, Estela looked up and wiped off the paint from her hands. Rescuing kids from scrapes had pretty much become her specialty at this point; twelve years with Liv had seen to that. “I’m coming,” she called back.

“I’m not exactly stuck,” Reggie muttered defensively, as his Tia Estela easily scaled the climbing wall to join him and Liv, who’d already rejoined him to offer moral support. “If I really wanted to, I could climb down; I just feel I should practice climbing up a few more times before I try that.”

“You’ll get there,” Estela said kindly. As far as she was concerned, the fact that her nephew had a realistic view of his own capabilities was only a good thing. “I’ll have that zipline going in no time anyway, so you’ll have no hurry to work it out.”

With his aunt’s back offered to him, Reggie took the cue and wrapped his long arms around her neck, and his legs around her middle. Getting rescued by one of the team of protective grown-ups? Basically, the story of both his and Liv’s lives.

“Hang on, Regito,” Estela laughed.

____________________________

La Huerta, 2034

The frigid wind howled against the cabin door, and it took all of Liv and Reggie’s combined might to wrestle it closed. Both kids were panting heavily-- and shaking like leaves-- as they nervously stepped away.

“Thank god this little hut was here, really,” Liv heaved. “I dunno about you, but I’d rather be stranded in a snowstorm with walls around me.”

Reggie said nothing, and just shivered, wrapping his arms around his own torso. He’d wrapped up-- as if his parents would let him go wandering into the colder pockets of the island without a heap of layers-- but the snow had wet his gloves through, and a chill was now spreading through his body.

“Hey,” Liv said, “we should… we should get a fire going. You look like you’re halfway turned into a popsicle right now.”

As his cousin busied herself at the fireplace-- thank goodness there was some firewood left-- Reggie fiddled with his emergency phone. His heart sank. No signal. His mom and dad were going to be so worried when he and Liv never came home….

“Uh, Liv… I think the storm’s screwed up the reception here. It won’t let me phone Mom and Dad.”

Liv looked up, and for the first time, she looked truly fearful, her usual intrepid spirit extinguished in a flash. “They’re really gonna panic,” she said softly. She shuddered. If their parents came out looking for them, it meant walking out into a blizzard, and all the danger that came with it. If she could just tell her mothers that she was safe, that she and Reggie had shelter… they could wait out the storm. Anything could happen, anything….

“Are you okay, Livia?” Reggie asked, and he handed her a heavy blanket as he sat down cross-legged in front of her feebly burning fire. “You look kind of spaced-out.”

“Hng?”

“They’ll find us; it’ll be okay.”

“I don’t want them to come and find us,” Liv snapped. “I want them to stay where it’s safe. They could get hurt or, or worse because we were stupid enough not to turn around when the weather changed.” She placed a stick too roughly, and her firewood tower collapsed, extinguishing the flame. “For fuck’s sake!”

Reggie, wisely, stayed quiet, letting his cousin fix up the mess and get a new fire started without interference. He watched her with concern as her eyes welled. “Livia…?”

She huddled close to him, but for a long while, didn’t speak.

“Reggie,” she murmured at last, “something really horrible happened a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t want to talk about it with you, ‘cause… ‘cause I didn’t even want to think about it…. It just made me feel too bad. But, uh.... I was… I was playing in the sea with Mama Estela. Just like we always do. We were just goofing off. Then, um, I got all tangled up in those freaking weeds. They grabbed me and held me under.”

“That must have been so scary….”

“Of course, Mom got me out of there. B-but there was a sea-snake in there. It bit her. It happened so fast… I hardly even saw what happened, but she suddenly just... could hardly even get out of the water. I somehow managed to haul her up out the water, but she was all limp and… and I gave her the anti-venom, and she just started having some kind of fit.. Like her body was jerking around, and her mouth was all frothy.” She gasped through a sob. “Then she… she stopped breathing, completely.” Liv shuddered as the memory filled her mind, vivid as if it were yesterday. She could feel Reggie’s wide, horrified eyes upon her. “I screamed. I screamed for help. Mama Taylor was up the beach, she couldn’t hear me. S-so I did CPR. My hands were shaking so-- so bad. And all I could think was ‘I’m gonna screw this up. I’m gonna screw this up and my mom’s gonna die’.” Her voice cracked and she sputtered through hot tears that she wiped away with her arm. Before she knew it, Reggie had his arms around her and was holding her tight. “I don’t know how long it was,” she said. “It felt like forever, but it was probably only a few minutes. Then she started breathing and I just… I cried, and cried, and cried.”

Reggie gently rubbed Liv’s back, and it soothed her.

“I, uh, I guess I always thought Mama Estela was invincible. To me, she always was. There was nothing I couldn't do either, because she would always be there to protect me. It was so close, Reggie… it looked like she was gone.”

“I… didn’t know it was as bad as that. My dad told me she’d been bitten but…,” Reggie mumbled. “You must have been so scared. Have you… have you talked to your moms about it much?”

Liv sniffed, and wiped her face again. “Yeah. You know what my Mama Taylor is like; we’ve talked it through lots, I’ve told them how I’m feeling. But I haven’t… like… had a big cry since it happened.” Until now. Now, she just couldn’t seem to stop the tears from coming. Reggie didn’t seem to mind; he just sat with her, and rubbed her back, and told her it was okay.

After what seemed like an age, her tears slowed.

“It is going to be okay, you know?” Reggie said gently. “Obviously, they’re going to come out looking for us, but they’re smart. They’ll be prepared; just like your Mama Estela was with the anti-venom.”

“Yeah…,” Liv said, her voice small. You could be as prepared as you wanted, but sometimes the world managed to stay one step ahead. The storm outside was wild and furious, battering on the roof and walls… and it was frightening. Liv could only snuggle under her cousin’s arm, and trust that whatever search and rescue party was out there would come through.

The two kids huddled together beneath their blanket, speaking little, but making their mutual support known without words. Just the squeeze of a hand through the most blood-curdling howls of the wind, and the simple offer of presence.

Somehow, the creak of the door shoved open cut through the dull roar.

“Oh, thank goodness!”

“Dad!” Reggie leapt forward and flung his arms around his father, his face lighting up further when Grace followed in behind. “Mom!”

Grace put her shaking hands to her son’s face, gently sweeping hair from his eyes. “Darling, are you all right?” Then she pulled Liv into a fierce hug, and in a moment Aleister had his arms around all three of them. “We were so worried!”

Liv whimpered against Grace’s shoulder. “Are my moms out in the storm?” She knew the answer already.

“Yes, honey. They’re out searching for you. Don’t you stress, okay? We’ve got a flare to set off so they’ll know we found you here-- and Varyyn and Diego too.”

“Woah,” Liv murmured, “you got a whole search party out.”

There was a buzzing, and the flickering of blue light, then Iris materialised.

Reggie beamed. “Hey, Grandma! So, a ‘whole search party’ is pretty much correct.”

“I will say, being able to scan for nearby lifeforms is quite handy in situations like these.”

So, find my moms and Tio Diego. Liv hugged tighter to her Auntie Grace, with no words pleading for help.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Grace said gently, stroking Liv’s face, while Aleister saw to setting off the flare. “It’s going to be just fine. We’re not far from Elyys’tel; we all fanned out from there, so no one is going to be too deep into the mountains.”

That… actually made sense. It was enough, just enough to keep Liv a step above panic-mode. She headed back to the fireplace, but as her backside hit the floor, a guttural roar rocked the cabin, and she leapt back to her feet.

“What the--?”

“You two stay back!” Aleister ordered, his voice shaking. Why, oh why, did the children want to go gallivanting out in the frozen wilderness when there was a perfectly serviceable tropical paradise right outside their front door? He was going to be old before his time at this rate….

Grace, though, was already hauling open the door, to reveal the hulking figure of the Mountain Guardian.

A growl rumbling in her throat, Arktos loomed in the doorway, looking down at Grace with a questioning gaze.

“Hello…?” she said cautiously. The gigantic bear-like creature was generally reasonably friendly…. “Did we… did we disturb you with the flare?”

Arktos grumbled, her furry ears flicking with curiosity.

“Our friends are out there in the storm,” Grace continued, certain that the yeti would understand; her past experiences had only supported the fact that this creature was incredibly intelligent-- and benevolent. “The flare was to bring them to this cabin.”

With a soft huff, Arktos shuffled backwards, and all of a sudden, it seemed as though she was surrounded by a force-field… a bubble that the wind and blinding snow couldn’t penetrate.

Understanding, Grace turned to Iris. “I think we’re going hiking again-- with a little extra help this time. Al, you’ll stay and watch the kids?”

“I--I--” Aleister stuttered. “Well, of course. Stay close to the… the bear thing.” Scrambling a little, he pulled off his outer layer and offered it to her. “I won’t have you catching hypothermia.”

And Grace stepped into the snow, Iris hovering behind her, and found shelter in the yeti’s protective shield. She looked up at the beast, now rearing up onto colossal hind legs to scout for signs of nearby human activity. “Thank you, Arktos. I guess… I guess, you choose the direction, and we’ll start the search.”

The unusual trio headed out into the storm, and within moments, they were invisible for the wind thick with snow. Aleister, a look of dumbfoundment upon his face, closed the door, and again, the cabin was quiet.

“Damn. Auntie Grace is a fricking badass,” Liv breathed, face alight in awe.

Aleister, recovering from his wife’s shock exit quickly-- he’d seen her steely courage in action enough times to just about take it in his stride, nodded. “Indeed.” He brushed the last flakes of snow from his coat, and looked around the room. “Well, I don’t suppose the wait will pass any faster with us standing around here. Reggie, did we leave any board-games here last time?”

“Uh, looks like we’ve got ‘Scrabble’?”

Well, Liv thought, I don’t have a hope in hell against these people. Should’ve left ‘Twister’ here….

Reggie sat himself down in front of the crackling fire and started unpacking the box. “Hey, Livia-- team up with me?”

He was clearly still a little worried about her. If there was an opportunity to thrash her at something, Mr Pedantic-Always-Right would take it without fail. Or so Liv had believed.

She plonked down cross-legged beside him. “Yeah? Yeah, all right.”

The two kids exchanged a high five, and Liv couldn’t help but grin. You are going down, Uncle Al.

___________________________

San Trobida, September 2035

As the car pulled up the neatly paved pathway to Aleister and Grace’s house, Liv excitedly rolled down the window.

“Reginaaaaald!!!” she hollered.

“How,” Aleister wondered aloud, “can such a small person-- and the offspring of Estela and Diego of all people-- sound so eerily like a bloody foghorn?”

A beaming Reggie followed his father out the front door. He exchanged hugs with both his parents-- and his two little sisters-- and then rushed to join his cousin on the back seat.

“Are you ready to go, mijo?” Estela checked in, suppressing a laugh as Taylor all but did a contortion act to give her nephew a hug from the front seat.

He had Liv, didn’t he? So, basically, he was ready for anything.

The short drive to the school saw the return of those pesky jitters, and Reggie knew from the way his cousin jiggled her leg the whole way there that he was definitely not alone in that. The school ground, filled only with kids their own age when they’d been there for orientation, was swarming with adolescents of all sizes-- and just about all of them were bigger than Reggie and Liv.

With an awkward hug and a kiss to her mothers in the front of the car, Liv bit the bullet and, bulging backpack in hand, stepped out into a brave new world. There was only one thing for it; Reggie would just have to take the plunge. He swung his backpack over his shoulder, and followed after his cousin.

“Welp,” said Liv, “here goes nothing!”

Reggie gave a nervous laugh and playfully bashed Liv with his backpack, putting a reassuringly silly grin on her face.

We’ve got this.

_______________________

NOTES

Little Xiraana is @mauvecatfic's baby. Check out her stories; you won't regret it!

If you read 'A Ride to Remember', you might remember Miel. She's the very same horse.

Aaaaand, the incident Liv is recounting during the snowstorm is the one you can read from Estela's perspective in 'Teething Problems: Part Two'.

#endless summer #playchoices #liv montoya #reggie hall #graleister #estela x mc #estela montoya #grace hall #aleister rourke #diego soto

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