#while I write other stories

[shootingstarwritings]

"You're Not my Son!"

"Wh-Who are you really?" Hank pointed at his son, who was now wandering outside the house in just a skimpy pair of briefs with little shame to the world.

Michael looked over his shoulder. Sighing, he insisted, "I'm your one and only son, dad. C'mon, no need to be weird."

"My son would never do any of the things you're doing!" shouted Hank, his face turning red. He was angry, but the fear in his eyes betrayed any sense of authority he might've had. "Bringing home all those men, ignoring his passions, breaking up with his girlfriend like that! He told me he was planning to propose." Hank was the verge of tears as he spoke.

Michael raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. In fact, he almost seemed to smirk at Hank's desperation. Now burning with a protective anger, Hank said, "Now you tell me what happened to my son or I'm calling the police."

Eyes rolling, Michael sighed and held his arms up. "Fine, fine. I'll tell you what happened, old man." He smirked when he saw Hank grow stiff, fists clenched. "Watch this." In lightning-fast motion, a stream of energy burst out of Michael's mouth, flowing in the air as its host body collapsed.

Hank stumbled back in fear. All he could do was cover his face with his arm as the energy creature rushed towards him, entering him through his eyes. His glasses fell to the floor as Hank stood erect, howling and gasping as he lost control over his body.

~0~

"Stupid human," 'Hank' said to himself as he put on his glasses. "His eyes don't even work properly."

'What a shame. I liked that body.' The Explorer, as he has taken to calling himself, regularly hopped between body to body, drinking in all that life has to offer to humanity. Michael had been a good catch to have fun with, but his father had caught on.

The Explorer, now Hank, glanced over at his son. He was sleeping soundly on the sofa inside the house. Michael would remember the past few days but have no idea it was another entity forcing him to make those decisions.

"Guess I'll have to make you my little plaything," the new Hank said to his reflection as he explored his new body in the bathroom. It would take a few days to build up enough power to leap into a new body. But at least this one still had potential.

"Least you got a bit of a 'daddy' vibe." Hank bit his lip as he felt up the aged yet still fit flesh. "Oh yeah, I think the college students will like this one very much," he said as he rubbed Hank's large cock through his briefs.

[tomfrogisblue]

i forgot to post this during june but i think one of the reasons qsmp was so important was how unapologetically Gay it was

for starters, the number of creators and admins involved who are irl queer of some variation, just chilling in a place where any kind of phobia would get Philza's legendary ban hammer faster than you could say "rainbow jelly"

and then the characters.

i remember showing up that first day and being shocked that somehow foolish had an ex-boyfriend already (I had missed the squidcraft lore apparently)

that server. gay. all the gay. all kinds of gay.

govermentally assigned platonic husbands that stayed together the whole time (despite one of them being gone for months at a time), not a chance in hell of infidelity. Proud fathers of two wonderful children.

governmentally assigned partners who yelled full volume at each other about cheating any time they were in the room together and between the two of them killed two children.

a grieving father and ex-convict becoming one of the most solid couples in the server, with a beautiful wedding and consistent public displays of affection via the in-game chat.

a demon ashamed of who she was and a lonely detective struggling with family trauma, now with a lil girl of their own, to love together and take care of, with more moms than could ever allow the little girl to ever be lonely herself.

a 2b2t warrior coming to terms with his sexuality with the support of his beautiful baby boy at his side, slowly but surely opening up to his eventual Brazilian Boyfriend. Where they went from the most cautious couple (baby steps) to the most sickeningly sweet couple on the server.

- and this list doesn't even scratch the surface.

gay characters, trans characters, ace characters, aroace characters, gender fluid characters, all kinds of relationships and families.

all presented without negativity or shame.

the point of the server was to exchange languages and cultures, without the biases and barriers seen so much in both the content creator scene and the wider world.

it also had a beautiful little side effect, practically by accident.

our lgbtqsmp.

[lilybug-02]

You’re making a lot of promises there Chara…

Part 24 || First || Previous || Next

—Full Series—

I enjoyed doing this little Flashback scene. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled freakout session soon. Having monochrome color is very nice.

Here is a gif of Chara spilling their water because YES. And I spent way too long on it :)

Wow technology is so cool.

[notbecauseofvictories]

because I rent a car to get out to my office, sometimes I'm confronted with a radio that has wildly different preset stations than I would ever select. mostly this means I have to suffer through a lot of country, or christian talk radio, before I run out of patience and switch over to the stations I like; but other times, it's someone with a thick accent reading a very lengthy advertisement for the Chicago Public Library in an almost....computerized way? and then long carnatic music, with a celtic fiddle breakdown in the middle? with absolutely no explanation for why this is what it is.

.........only afterwards did I discover that it's the station for a nearby university. then it made sense.

[landwriter]

Hi! I hope you feel better soon!

This is a great prompt by @academicblorbo about Hob Gadling being the landlord of the Dead Boys. It has a wonderful fill already by @omgcinnamoncakes but I’d love to see what you come up with for it!

Alternative prompt from me if that doesn’t work for your brain: remember the date between Jenny and Maxine? How about one between Jenny and Esther? Poor Jenny is going to really question her taste in beautiful blonde women 😭

Thank you! I saw ‘landlord’ and ‘decades’ and blacked out. I love Hob having them as tenants. Maybe even before the modern day meeting in Sandman.

The Sandman/Dead Boy Detectives, 2.4k, G Dream/Hob, pre-slash, alternating/outsider POV, found family, a reunion and revelations etc.

---

Hob did not, strictly speaking, have tenants. It was more of a minor haunting. Pun intended.

The small room above the pub and below his flat wasn’t worth charging anyone rent for; when he first bought the building he had put a handsome oak desk in there and some bookshelves before wondering who he was possibly keeping up appearances for. Who was he going to take back upstairs that would stop and say, Wait, can I see your office? So he’d left it as more or less an abandoned room.

When he realized a pair of boys were using it as their clubhouse, he didn’t do anything at first. He saw them quietly coming and going a couple times, disappearing around the corner of the first landing. Brazen things. He meant to call after them, but the shout had died in his throat. He’d been young once. He still remembered the need to get away from it all. It was only when he went to check if they’d been making a mess of the room that he discovered it was still locked.

He’d crouched down and inspected the latch and found no marks at all. Huh, he’d said, and jiggled it again, and been a little more interested in whatever clever way they were getting into it after they disappeared up his stairs. Then he didn’t see them for weeks, and assumed they had gotten bored and stopped.

Until they came back. In the middle of an argument, striding through the pub like they owned it. Hob straightened up as they passed him.

“I cannot believe you broke the mirror.”

“I was in a rush! It’s not my fault you forgot you needed Arcana Incantatum after we arrived at the church. And found the demon.”

“I hardly forgot, I only made the mistake of assuming you would know to pack it by now.”

Hob raised his eyebrows. The boys disappeared into the back hallway. He followed them as they went upstairs, too preoccupied with their drama to notice Hob. They turned onto the landing, still carrying on. Even as they walked through the door. The locked, closed door.

Hob blinked. Then he drew his keys from his pocket and opened the door. The boys were still inside. One of them was pulling a mirror out of a backpack that was several times too small for it. They didn’t even look up, and Hob wondered how he couldn’t possibly have put it together earlier. He cleared his throat.

“Hello, boys.” That caught their attention. Hob grinned. “Seems we’re neighbours.”

---

Edwin abhorred getting involved with the living. He and Charles got along perfectly well on their own. They were a duo. An intrepid pair. Best mates, like Charles often stressed whenever he was about to ask something particularly ridiculous of Edwin. They were solid together. As solid as two ghost boys could be. The living, though, were messy and unpredictable.

Perhaps the most salient fact at present: Charles invariably became attached to them.

“He’s sad, mate. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You said those exact words in ‘94 about a dog. At least ask Hob himself.”

Before you decide to adopt him too.

Hob Gadling, irritatingly, was unobjectionable on every ground Edwin could think of. He had made no imposition upon them. When he found them, he only asked them their business, and then told them he was usually downstairs, or upstairs, if they needed anything they couldn’t procure themselves. He had an interest in rare and old books, as it happened. In explaining this, he had also hinted at being far older than his looks would suggest, which vexed Edwin twice over. He knew his curiosity would not be slaked until he talked to Hob, but then he would be the one getting involved with the living, and Charles would hardly let him forget it.

“Do you think he’s really immortal? Mate’s far too calm. Last week I saw him stop a fight downstairs by stepping right between these huge blokes. He just said something and smiled and they backed right off.” Charles lit up. “Do you reckon he’d teach me how to do that? Conflict de-escalation, innit? I could show him some moves with the cricket bat, I bet. Oh, do you think he’s a cricket fan?”

It was obviously a hopeless case, and since the Dead Boy Detectives never took on hopeless cases, there was only one course of action that remained. Edwin had long since disabused himself of the notion he needed to breathe. He had no beating heart, yet when he was startled, he would find himself clutching his chest. Now, he exhaled slowly through his nose in an entirely superfluous sigh of resignation. “Well, Charles, shall we go talk to him?”

---

When the millennium came around, Hob found himself celebrating it with his accidental tenants. There was something gloriously satisfying about being able to make a toast to the next one and have it taken seriously. He’d asked them if they had something better to do - spectral trouble to get into et cetera - and they both looked at him with almost identical put-upon and incredulous expressions.

Hob had a terrible suspicion they thought they were taking care of him as much as he thought he was taking care of them.

Edwin, with his insatiable curiosity and, deep underneath it, something Hob thought he recognized from himself: a sharp animal ferocity and a refusal to go until he’s good and done, natural laws be damned. Charles, still brightly, painfully alive for a ghost - who should be alive still, by all rights, but nothing of this life was fair - who joked to cover up hurt in a way Hob knew too, and glowed any time Hob turned so much as a kind word to him.

He wondered what they saw when they looked at him.

The year ticked over, and technology kept working. Charles grinned innocently and said he could probably possess the telly and break it that way if Hob wanted?

Hob’s heart twinged. He knew they weren’t his, not to keep, but it seemed that teenagers didn’t change at all over the centuries, even if the boys were only sort of teenagers in the way Hob was only sort of in his thirties. It didn’t change that they’d been punted from the mortal coil before having a chance to grow up, and figure out the kind of men they were, and make their own choices and fuck up and try to be better than their fathers, and everything everyone deserved. Hob had made more than his share of mistakes. They hadn’t been given the chance to make nearly any at all.

So they made toasts to the new millennium, to the detective agency, to themselves, all stuck out of time in different ways and refusing to move on for different reasons, and Hob allowed himself to think of Robyn and privately pretend that they were his all the same.

---

A week later, Hob was reminded of the other universal traits of teenagers when he mentioned his stranger and both boys began to grill him with terrifying alacrity. Before turning to his dating life, like ravening bloody wolves. When Edwin had asked, in a specifically nineteenth century manner that Hob remembered all too well, if Hob had always been unmarried, he’d nearly put his head in his hands.

“It can be hard for me to associate with the living too, you know. For obvious reasons.”

Charles had turned to Edwin and hissed “See? I told you.”

Right in front of him. Nobody had taught them manners.

“Manners, Charles,” replied Edwin loftily. “We will, of course, respect your privacy. A man is entitled to his secrets.”

“You’ll go upstairs and rifle through my personal things, is what you’ll do,” said Hob.

Charles coughed to hide his laugh. Edwin flushed and looked away. Hob snorted, and told them about Eleanor and Robyn. Properly. It was a strange relief. He’d told the story wrong for plausibility’s sake so many times he had been worried he’d forget the truth of it one day.

They had listened, and been remarkably quiet until Charles piped up and offered to set him up with a ‘really fit’ ghost. Hob had roundly shut that down. Woefully, not all explanations were satisfying enough. Charles cornered him again the next morning while he was cleaning the bar.

“No, mate, I still don’t get it.” Hob was about to say he no more wanted to be with someone who couldn’t feel pleasure from his touch than someone who would grow old and be taken from him while he stayed the same, when Charles went on, bafflingly, to ask, “Why don’t you meet your mysterious friend more often than once a century?”

Hob sighed. “Adults are often busy, Charles.” Nevermind that he had begun to wonder the same since the eighteenth century. He’d always just assumed time passed differently for his stranger.

Charles just laughed and perched himself on the bar top. “Ooh, low blow. We’re busy too, you know. Plenty of cases to solve.”

“Really,” said Hob. “You’re busy. Right now.”

Charles waggled his eyebrows.

“Charles, I am not a case,” said Hob, sternly as possible. “I’m not even a ghost. He’s not a ghost. No ghosts.”

“We could investigate. Maybe ghosts are involved. What even is he? Why every hundred years? Is it some sort of Persephone situation?”

Hob bit his lip against shouting I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Instead, he tried to smile, and felt it come out as a wince instead. “He’s very private.”

Charles scowled. “Yeah, obviously. You don’t even know his name. He can’t be that good of a friend if he’s too busy to see you more than once a century.”

Hob couldn’t see the expression on his own face, but he saw Charles’ shocked reaction well enough. It was so long ago for him, and still Hob knew at once what Charles saw now: that first time you manage to visibly hurt a grown-up’s feelings, people who seemed too old and too stern to actually feel pain, when you’d been going around kicking at them like a new foal, just to stretch your legs.

“Sorry,” said Charles, instant regret chasing his surprise. He was a good kid.

“It’s alright,” said Hob. He meant it. He looked down at the shining bartop. His hands were restless with the urge to light a cigarette. He gave in. It wasn’t like Charles would be dying of lung cancer any time soon if he decided to follow Hob’s example. “I don’t think he would say he’s very good at being a friend either. Truth is, I’d love to see him more often. But we had an awful fight the last time we met. If he forgives me, I’ll have to ask.”

“Mates always make up,” said Charles earnestly. He was such a good kid.

“I suppose they do.” Charles still looked sorry, and Hob clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. Thanks for looking out for me, Charles.”

Charles beamed at him. “Always. We’ve got your back, me and Edwin.”

---

Charles couldn’t bloody believe it. Hob’s friend was here. There was nobody else it could be. He and Edwin were watching from a nearby table, pretending to be absorbed in their own conversation. Neither man noticed them. They were too busy looking at each other.

He couldn’t imagine spending more than a century apart from Edwin. The way Hob had talked about him and his stranger over the years, it sometimes seemed like they were best mates too, no matter how little they saw each other. He was dead sure that’s what had Hob looking so gutted when he thought nobody was looking. He had known they would make up, though. Maybe now Hob would be happier.

“Charles, we really ought not eavesdrop,” hissed Edwin. Right as he scooted his chair closer, the cheeky hypocrite. Hob and his friend were talking too quietly to properly hear, their heads bent together. Lots to catch up on, Charles reckoned. A hundred years. He couldn’t stop thinking about the number. It seemed impossible. Funny, he couldn’t imagine that long away from Edwin, but he could imagine spending that long being best mates. There was nobody he’d rather hide from Death with.

Hob’s face was doing something strange as his long-lost friend talked. Then Hob moved and grasped him by the shoulders, so tight that his knuckles stood out in relief. The man said something in low tones and Hob shook his head, and then pulled him in for a hug. The man stiffened and then relaxed, and his arms came up around Hob’s.

Their cheeks both looked wet.

Charles swallowed and it felt suddenly a little like he was choking. He should look away, only he couldn’t.

“They must be great friends,” said Edwin softly.

“Yeah,” he managed to croak. We won’t ever need to have a reunion like this because I’m never going to lose you, mate. I won’t let them take you. It was stuck behind the phantom lump in his phantom throat. His hand, without him telling it to, reached out and grabbed hold of Edwin’s. Edwin squeezed it hard, and Charles knew he didn’t have to make his voice work after all.

Then the man pushed Hob away, but only far enough to grab his face and pull him back again, thumbing over Hob’s cheeks, and beside him, Edwin honest-to-god gasped, and then Charles momentarily forgot how thoughts worked too.

---

It happens thus: in the New Inn, just next door to the White Horse, some 639 years after they first met, Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless share their first kiss. Neither, if they had bothered to think about it, would have intended to have an audience, but it’s a well-known fact that some kisses cannot wait, and theirs was chief among them, being that it had so much to say, and was so very long overdue.

I missed you, it said, and I came back, it said, and Please don’t go away from me again, and I could not.

And atop them, like blankets, were laid invisible the daydreams of those who saw them, including two long-dead boys, whose dreams were woven from the fresh and unaccounted-for possibilities of Hob kissing his mysterious stranger. Another man, thought Edwin. His best friend, thought Charles. Dream was the only one who could have heeded this, but he did not, because Hob Gadling was holding him tight and daydreaming loudly of this kiss and more, of this today and tonight and tomorrow, ever greedy and ever easily pleased, and Dream could hear nothing at all over their clamouring and comingled joy; the bright gold daydream between the scant space of their bodies that sounded so much like at last.

[shrimpchipsss]

read Living With a Tiger by x_los !

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

"Mary, bless her, had rightly guessed where I had been and with whom. Yet she had no more than to accuse me of marrying her under the false pretense that while all the world believed she held my heart, in reality, it belonged to Holmes."

– Sherlock Holmes BBC Radio 4 Audio Dramas, The Red-headed League (1990)

[frownyalfred]

Things you might not realize are affecting your ao3 readership:

Putting unrelated fics into one compilation instead of series or collections

Not tagging your fics/“haha I’m so bad at tagging!”

Tagging all of the ships in a fandom instead of the relevant ones to the story

“This is my first fic ever”/ “I’m really not a good writer” / “sorry if this is crap”

Summaries that say “sorry don’t think I will update much” or “might be abandoned idk”

Tagging “r@pe” or “unaliving” etc instead of the actual tag so people can filter/exclude

NOT tagging major, relevant tags or kinks without using the “creator chose not to use archive warnings” option

Telling people how bad your writing is and how you hate it so much and how they shouldn’t even be reading your fic (self deprecation)

Weird punctuation: not starting new quotes or descriptions on a new line, and/or putting extremely long blocks of text on the page without a break

[numbuh424]

I just love it when death note adaptations get meta. When they point out that this story has already been told before. Deep down, L and Light know they're bound to their roles, that they've done this all before, and that this story can only and will only ever go one way for them.

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine looking at a character whose entire premise is that in every stage of his life, he's made every version of himself into someone that inspires people to such a degree that EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF HIM has people wanting to literally follow in his footsteps in some way or another.....

And coming to the conclusion that like.....the most important things about him are the sum of all his trappings. His entirely homemade developed from scratch could not exist if not for what he already was and brought with him BEFORE crafting this newest version of himself trappings, with his greatest trait throughout all of it being his adaptability; his ability and willingness to roll with the punches and not try to simply weather any opposition or changes to his life but instead reshape himself as needed to better fit INTO whatever new shape his life and the world around him takes. All while managing to carry the most innate, fundamental and necessary aspects of himself from one version to the next. Thus every single version of himself is different but simultaneously every single version of himself is also undeniably the same person.

The strength of this character, to me, will always be that he can be so many versions of himself, he can become so many things, all without ever actually losing or discarding any of the aspects of himself he considers most essential, the things he's not willing to lose or give up just to keep going. Finding that road not taken by most, usually because most never even think to look for it as an option. But one that he's always able to find because the one trick he's mastered in his tumultuous life is threading that needle of not just digging in his heels in an unproductive way but rather being selective about when and where he makes a stand and decides "this is not a thing I'm willing to compromise about" but here are places and ways I can and will change and evolve and adapt in order to make it possible for me to hold onto these parts and keep them as they are.

And that's why its always so mind-boggling to me that so many writers can't seem to think of anything else to do with Dick Grayson other than invent some new reason for him to just....not be that person, or to like just take the character whose most basic fundamental trait he's NOT about to compromise on is willingly giving up his spot in the driver's seat of his own life.....and make him just a passenger in his own life and stories.

Dick Grayson at age nine....at age nineteen...at age twenty nine....the one core thread running through all versions of him is the only way he's standing back and letting you call the shots for him or putting him on the sidelines in some way is over his dead body.

HOW he goes about that, what that looks like, who he becomes and what aspects of himself he plays up at some times and what traits he lets fall by the wayside at other times when they offer less in service to his primary goal here....that changes constantly. He changes constantly.

But those changes are almost always (or at least they used to be/should be IN MY OPINION) made with the intention of keeping certain things about him or his life as consistent as possible.

That's the duality of Dick Grayson that I'm here for. The inherent contradiction of him that COULD allow for endless conflict and breaking new narrative ground in all sorts of ways if mined properly:

His eternal willingness to compromise....but only ever in pursuit of doubling down on the ways he's not willing to compromise.

Forever walking that tightrope in ways that only a kid born and raised in a circus could ever hope to.

[abdy-18]

Just a random question: [Redacted] had the Twilight eyes from before the war as a result of the parenting his dad used to have on him or is it a look he got once the war took away everything he loved?

At first I interpreted that he got his eyes after seeing the horrors of war, but come to think of it, even when Twilight was a little child he didn't live in complete “peace”, he had to listen to his parents argue quite often and his father was violent with him.

Also, most of the skills that make him a good spy were not learned in any training. He was born that way, naturally very intelligent with great logical thinking and a great ability to perform.It is a pity that his father never realized his talent.

[bonefall]

This AU is basically the Dungeon Meshi of Warrior Cats. This is a high compliment.

It's so funny, I get that a lot and I totally see it + appreciate it, but BB actually predates me being a fan of Dungeon Meshi! I've been getting that compliment since even before the anime dropped.

It makes perfect sense though. Dungeon Meshi uses food as a metaphor for communication across individuals, class, and most relevantly culture. It's something that brings people together, even when that's being addressed as a sinister thing when.......

Ah. No spoilers. You should go and read the manga to find out what I'm teasing ;)

I do something with a lot of overlap in BB. Food is an extension of the culture of the five Clans. I use it to characterize individuals too and as a metaphor for things at times (like Darkstripe's growth or cultural friction in Heartstar's Rise), but most of all, I try to emphasize the food as the product of the society that makes it. The biome, the diet, the behaviors of its chefs... so Dungeon Meshi and BB are naturally going to draw some interesting similarities.

Plus, Dungeon Meshi's a good ass series man, it's downright awe-inspiring. I hope I can make a narrative as satisfying as Ryoko Kui can, lmao. I love how much that girlie loves food

[on-the-clear-blue]

Welcome to Gotham pt1

Inspired by Baby Birds and Bat Caves written by IzzyMRDB

Tim was always a tad strange.

At least that was what other people told him when he did something they thought was "weird" or "concerning for his age"

Like really, was following a girl he thought was a subject abuse home in the guise of having a crush on her to get evidence really that wierd?

His court ordered therapist said it was but she didnt know what she was talking about.

And he was right by the way, he was able to place an anonymous call a wellfare check, and he was proud to say that after a little digging he was able to say that the girl was safe with a foster family!

Though now all of Gotham Elementary thought that he made the girl switch schools because he was "creepy and stalkerish"

That last one wasnt even a word, he had looked.

All of this lead to him having a lot of free time and people trying to avoid him, and unlike what his therapist said he wasnt lonely, he was just feeling left out.

Such is the reason why Tim was now standing 3.649 meters behind Batman and Robin wearing a oveesized black hoodie with said hood pulled up, a bandana tied around his face his fathers old film camara weighing heavily in his hands

The camarea was something he wasnt allowed to touch, having a place of honor on the high shelves in his study, but with a bit of reaching and a small jump, it had ended up in Tims small hands.

Peering through the view finder, Tim felt his jaw slowly fall open az he saw more than just Robin and Batman in it, more than the glittering lights of the city, what Tim saw..

Was...

Magic.

Colors like a kaleidoscope swirled around the two of them, the darker and more neutral of them curled around the Dark Knight, like wrapping him in shadows and camouflaging him into the city

There were a few dark blacks and reds that clung to Robin, but the boy wonder was like a blinding star, shining with brilliant greens, yellows and blues as he adamantly spoke to the Bat about something.

Tim sat staring at the two for what felt like ages, only remembering to flutter the button to capture the two of them at the last moment, catching the two of them swing off the building.

After taking that picture, Tim could well..

He could see the colors around everyone all the time, most of the people at school was a mix of green and blues, some deep reds, but most of the people had dull empty colors, none of them had the same vibrant colors of Robin, or the browns and grays that hung onto Batman, he wanted to see them agian. He needed to see them again.

It took a few weeks for Tim to find them again, Miss Mac had almost caught him twice sneaking out and he had to wait late for his live in nanny to pass out for good.

Tim didnt put any sleeping pills into her late night scotch, totally not.

Once again dressed in his "Recon" outfit and the camera in hand, Tim camped out on a rooftop of a gastation outside of Bristol, it had high sightings of the Batman through the years and was a likely place for him to stop early on in his routes.

Set up behind a noisy fan, Tim heard a pair of distinct thumps, he was lucky, he had prepared to camp out for hours...

Moving silently up onto his knees, the young boy licked his lips under his tied on mask, raising his fathers camara, Tim spyed through the veiw finder once agian, only to frown at what he saw.

Robin wasnt shining as he should, the dark that clung to Batman was swelled up and swirlling like an angry storm, it lashed out and the dark blues and blacks around Robin lashed back out in turn.

Both were stiff, looking as if they had just finished an argument...

Tim watched helplessly from the sidelines, Robin was supposed to be bright, the Light of Gotham, and Batman waz supposed to be soild, like a rock...but both of them were not, and Tim didnt like it one bit.

He still took picture of course, even if they were fighting they were still THE Batman and Robin...

...

Three weeks later and Robin was different.

Not just in his colors which had gone from burning scarlets to cheerful reds, depressive navys to a brilliant periwinkle, it was drastic...it was different...

Tim loved it and was worried at the same time

Robin was shorter, gone was the muscles and tricky flips and spins, now Robin was small and had one hell of a right hook

Tim had gotten a great shot of the Riddler getting socked in the face...

But this all made Tim worry, had Batman replaced Robin? Was this a new boy? Tim didnt know.

And Timothy Drake hated not knowing.

...

The processional dark room his parents kept in the basement was a true blessing, the red light washed everything out, leaving the world in shades of scarlet. It was Tims little safe space, ever since he looked through the camera the lights around people had started to hurt his eyes, and the single color of the room was so nice...

Shaking the devolped photo, Tim smiled as he hung it up to dry, even now, he could see the static hues around Robin 2, he was less bright than the first Robin, but Tim was sure that would grow as he did...

Sighing as he picked up the old camera, Tim slowly made his way up to his fathers study, Miss Mac would notice if it was gone for too long after all, slipping through the heavy door of the dark room, Tim blinked a few times as he made it through the piles of boxes and items that had been stashed at home by his parents.

They sent things home from their travels all the time, Miss Mac had to sign for them all the time, he had never really paid them too close attention, they made his stomach twist and that pesky part of his brain cry because his parents care more for trinkets and artifacts than for him...

Tim had to stop and squeez his eyes tightly closed as floods of emotion swept over him.

He had done so well...why did he have to think about it, why did he have to think about them now, he had been happy...why why now...

His eyes stung as he opened them again, spots swam all over his vision for a few seconds, the dakrness of the basment lighter now, and while most of the spots left, some grew brighter around his vision

And some of his parents boxes were glowing.

Not unlike how people glowed, but where people had swirling colors, the boxes glowed with a bronzish gold

Dumbly stalking over to one of the glowing boxes, Tim set the camera down as he clawed at the cardbord, trying to get it open before the old tape gave way and dust flew into the air.

After a flurry of sneezes, Tim looked down at the box of ancient looking wires and electionics, most of them glowed softly, but what shone brightly was...

It was a cricle of chipped and rusted steel attached to a stand, brass sprigs attached a silvery mesh ball to the center

A old timey mircophone and broadcasting setup, it crackled as he picked it up softly, small hands holding it carefully as he lifted it up, the microphone had a golden halo around it, it was...special...

---

Two nights later, a small voice echoed out on a long dead channel of the radio.

"H-hello? I-is this thing on?" The voice was muffled, distant and quiet, it was young, far to young.

"I-I dont really know what i am doing but...um..." there was a long pause, the faint sound of papers being shuffled before the voice returned "M-My name is Wyvern and...I want to talk about well...everything to anyone that will listen."

There was only static in return, but the Silence listened, and the Darkness watched.

---

Tim started a radio show, kinda. He was only really talking into the microphone about useless things, about what he saw happen with Batman, the weird glows he saw around town, but today was the third day he had been broadcasting and he finally had something more interesting to talk about!

Plopping his school bag down by his door, Tim trudged through his dirty room, kicking his clothes out of his way as he made it over to his desk, once covered with homework, but now held his set up.

Climbing up onto his chair, Tim worried his bottom lip as he flipped through his prewritten pages, he needed to sound more adult, more professional.

Clearing his throat a few times before he clicked the old broadcaster on, Tim waited till the small light blinked green, smiling Tim started his written intro.

"The lights flicker off, and the moon casts its lights down on the city, men like rats scurry under its rays, something is afoot tonight. Something calls out, and hopefully, you listen, Good Evening Gotham, I am your host Wyvern," Tim felt a rush as he got through his script wirhout stuttering, he was almost lightheaded, and lights swirled in his vision, "Tonight I have more than my usual broadcast, I have seen something, I have been made witness to plans of wickedness that i can not stand for."

Breathing was hard for Tim as he slowly spoke, his body felt cold and strange but he had to finish...

"This is a message to the citys protector, to our Lady Gotham's Dark Knight, the one who does riddles has plans of harm, and she bids you to heed this warning, He shall be found where Sterling meets Beck along the twisting turns of her streets..."

As the last words slipped from Tim's mouth, he felt like a marionette with its strungs cut, his limbs were heavy and his body ached, he was corvered in a cold sweat.

Why did he talk about that? He didnt mean to talk about that, he didnt know anything about the Riddler...he was going to talk about...w-what was he going to talk about...

Drawing in a deep breath, Tim drew himself up slowly, "S-Sorry listeners, um, d-dont know what that was all about um...L-Let me catch my breath ugh...h-heres some music..."

Fumbling around for a moment, Tim pulled out his Ipod, turning the volume up, Tim hit shuffle on it as he struggled to pull himself together.

---

John Constantine grimaced as he heard tinny music pour our from the small radio sat on a side table by his chair, the cigarette between his lips staying unlit as he leaned back into the stiff cushions.

As much as he tried not to care, the kid on the otherside of the radio had started to worry him, he clearly didnt know what he was doing and tonight was proof of that, what ever he was using had magic and was sending it out in droves...

Tonights "episode" was thankfully not that bad, simply invoking a city spirit as its host isnt something that could kill him, but it was still worrying that said spirit was Gotham, where Gotham was involed, it attack dog not far after it.

Eyes flicking between the radio and his phone by it, John gave a grumble as he grabbed it, flipping it open, he punched in a series of numbers knowing he was opening a can of worms...

Or in this case. Bats.

[rebouks]

Previous // Next

[Brodie flicked through the mail, instantly recognising the scrawling handwriting of a certain redheaded little boy. Scaring a few birds in the process, he bellowed up the stairs: ALEEEEX!] Alex: [breathless] Is it for me?! Brodie: Nah, but I could do with some help carrying this super heavy envelope upstairs. Alex: Who do you think you are, Johnny Zest? Brodie: I’m better than that guy, c’mon…

… Hi Alex! Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply to you, I promise I didn’t forget! I guess I just didn’t really know what to say cos I’ve sorta not felt like myself recently. My mom says I disappear into my own world sometimes so I sorta did that again and found it hard to think of anything fun to say. I don’t think I’d mind if you wrote to me about the less fun parts of your life though n’ my dad says you shouldn’t really keep everything to yourself all the time cos it ends up hurting so I thought I’d write anyway n’ just force myself not to worry about being boring or whatever. Your letters and your life always sound so exciting compared to mine though so sometimes it’s hard not to!!

I got in a fight at school which sounds like it should be an exciting story, but it wasn’t really. There’s this kid called Levi in my class that always picks on me (don’t worry though, I don’t care about that) and I couldn’t be bothered listening to him anymore so I hit him a couple times, I thought he’d hit me back but he just freaked out so I sorta felt bad about it afterward. He still makes fun of me but he doesn’t get up in my face as much so that’s a plus. Who says violence doesn’t solve anything? Hahaha I’m kidding! It wasn’t nice of me but maybe he should know better than to push people around so much.

I’m looking forward to summer so I can wander off a bit more and maybe it won’t rain so much! My mom doesn’t really like it when I go too far but as long as I’m back before curfew she tries not to freak out about it which is nice of her cos she knows I like to explore n’ stuff. I shouldn’t complain about my family cos I love them n’ stuff but I like being on my own sometimes and it’d be nice to have a bit of peace now n’ then. I’ve got SUPER good hearing so it’s hard to find anywhere quiet in my house, especially cos there’s always something crazy going on. My aunt Alma is sorta similar to me so she’s been helping me block out the noise with this meditation sorta thing, I guess it’s hard to explain but it’s not as lame as it sounds, it’s kinda fun to see how long you can stay in your own brain without people interrupting you. That probably sounds really weird but maybe you sorta get what I mean?

I finally have a treehouse now too!! It reminds me of your watchtower in some ways, but I guess it’s no way cooler than that, even though I know you’re bored of it by now. I wish we could hang out in it together cos it’s super awesome! Mom n’ dad don’t really bother me when I’m up there n’ my brother n’ sisters can’t manage the ladder yet so it’s all mine! It’s right at the bottom of the garden and looks out over the whole Bay too! Mom said she might let me sleep in it once it gets a bit warmer! It’d be cool falling asleep to the sound of the waves.. I hope it doesn’t end up making me need to pee all night though haha!!

Wren’s been obsessed with watching me play on the computer recently and I keep tryna teach her how to play herself but her little fingers can’t really reach all the buttons on the keyboard too well and she gets stupid mad when she dies so she just makes me play instead. She’d kick me if I told anyone but she’s a bit scared of some of the monsters too lol!! Mom told me I shouldn’t let her watch those ones but they’re the only ones she WANTS to watch and she jumps all over me until I give in so idk what they expect me to do other than lock her in the pantry, but I got told off for that so I guess I shouldn’t do that again haha (Wren thought it was funny though so it’s all good!) It’s a shame you don’t have a computer in the tower otherwise we could play together! Jude n’ Jacob aren’t really into that sorta thing so I usually just play on my own. Do you have a computer back home??

Oh! I got another badge for my swimming lessons too! I’ve almost got em all now which is neat but I sorta wanna avoid getting the last ones cos anyone that gets them all or has good attendance n’ whatever get an award at the end of the school year. They save em all up to give out at some stupid last year disco thing they put on before summer for the last year kids n’ it’d be so cringe to get called out in front of everyone like that. Some people think it’s gonna be amazing like my friend Jude, but I’d rather not go at all. Mom n’ dad keep saying it’ll be fun n’ everyone else is excited about it too but how fun could something be if you’re technically at SCHOOL? Bleh! I know you said you hate it sometimes, but being homeschooled sounds awesome to me lol.

I keep tryna bug my parents to go camping again so we could maybe see each other but they won’t take me out of school for a holiday n’ dad’s too busy with some work project so I guess we’ll have to keep writing to each other instead! Maybe if I keep annoying them about it we can come back in the summer! I hope so anyway but I guess I don’t wanna piss em off TOO much just in case my plan backfires or something.

I still feel really bad about not writing sooner but my dad said better late than never so hopefully you’re not too upset with me! I’ll try my best to write faster next time so you don’t have to wait as long. I’m looking forward to hearing about everything you’ve been up to!! Love Robin c: ps. my dad’s friend finally helped me fix that old polaroid so I’ve sent you some random pictures I took to test it out! I’m still getting used to it but the next ones will be better, I swear!

… the treehouse! it even has cool lights on it!! the back of our house! it’s so big it’s hard to fit in a picture.. it sorta looks fancy but it’s not really n’ dad said it was cheap cos it was a shithole a rare Byrd! (grumpy too – dad tried to take his dummy off him lol) he’s not supposed to be on my bed… the Bay! Jude says I sound girly for saying it’s so pretty here but I don’t care I could take a million pictures of this place n’ never get bored (I’ll stop now though cos mom says these polaroid things aren’t cheap for this model.. oops lol!!)

[bookshelf-in-progress]

No matter how many times it happens, I'm always shocked by how reliably all my problems with any given story are solved by making it shorter. If I go into a story with the idea that it'll be long, that I should use as much detail as I want to craft a full-length and fully-fleshed-out story instead of a short one, it always turns into this rambling, meandering, soulless thing that's no fun to read, and I get tangled up in so many flimsy, sprawling layers of character and worldbuilding that the plot becomes unworkable.

The minute I tell myself, "Let's make this as short as possible," the problems fall away, I find the heart of the story again, the pacing is brisk, scenes get multiple purposes, the world feels deeper because I'm implying things that spark the reader's imagination rather than trying to put every threadbare, boring detail on the page. Every time. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

[auriidae]

goofy hermit doodles!! because uhh why not!!