Robin landed on the roof next to him and Bruce could already feel the headache building. They were looking down on a young blond man with pointed ears and a large halberd on his backriding on a white horse. The guy looked like he had come straight out of a fairytale. He knew that if this was a new rogue Damian would argue about keeping the horse. Actually he would probably want to keep the horse even if he wasn't a rogue.

Deciding the guy had gotten close enough they swooped down to confront him. The man, startled, stopped his horse and pulled the large halberd off his back. He held it in front of him, as if in warning. The man looked wary of them but not afraid. They stared at eachother for a moment before the man spoke in a language neither Batman not his Robin knew.

---

Link was having a wierd day. He had literally just saved Princess Zelda a week ago (and for the second time) when he encountered some kind of demon in black and white. The Master Sword glowed in the demons presence which was all Link needed to know before chasing after the being. The thing, looking like a teen in odd clothing that reminded him of links own rubber suit, bolted into a green portal it had created.

Not hesitating he had his horse leap into it. And now he was in a strange place with no sign of the demon. After getting attacked by a man yelling in a language he didn't recognize, he switched out his sword for a halberd for that extra reach on horseback and continued on his way, leaving the unconscious man on the road side behind him.

This place was odd. Parts of some walls would light up, showing images of people and places he didn't know along with a written language he didn't recognize. He came across many people who looked at him oddly...or at least he thought they were people. They looked like Hylians but most of them were taller than the average Hylian and to Links horror they had short rounded ears. How could they hear thier gods with such tiny ears?

He was scared, but he carried on anyway. Eventually he gets confronted by someone dressed as a monster and a child. They manage to settle thier...dispute?...without violence so that was nice. He pulled a few apples and swift carrots out of his tablet-to the curiosity of the duo- and hands them to the child. The kid caught on quickly and raced off to feed his horse her favorite snacks.

Link will have to figure out how to overcome this language barrier

Bruce however, has discovered this was not a man, but a teenager lost in a foreign world and is set on adopting him.

Projectiles, Aliens, and You.

I guess I'm making this my niche, huh?

Anyway, a thought occurred to me. Since humans are quite literally built from the ground up to throw things, we naturally started by throwing rocks, and then spears, and eventually that blunt and pointy technology grew so advanced we could launch projectiles using explosions out of a rifle to kill something hundreds of feet away.

What if that thought just. Never occurred to aliens?

If their biology isn't specifically made for something, I doubt they would try to do it, especially if they're from worlds far more cushy than Earth. Instead of using projectiles, might they only know combat using their bodies? Would humans, and humans alone be the only sapient species using projectile weaponry?

If so, how would this affect things?

Not very polished because I'm just whipping this out, buuuuuut. But. David scowled. "Is this a bit? Some kind of name pun? This has to count as discrimination. I am Jewish you know. HR is going-" Captain Alweiss waved off the complaint before it could be voiced. "You played baseball in college, David. It's on your resume. The name thing is just some kind of cosmic irony."

My life functions by "if it looks stupid but it works, it's not stupid." My brain does not like routines, and if something's not enjoyable to do, wrangling myself to do it takes up so much energy that it's usually not cost-effectice. Wrangling is a limited resource preserved for things that only need to be done Just This Once. I cannot run routines by wrangling. There has to be another way.

I have, however, figured out that I can turn things that should be done regularly but not necessarily exactly at the right time every time into "filler activities", things that my eyes land on when I got up to do something and forgot what it was, or when I get that vague feeling of "hmm, I should be doing something" and can't remember what. My eyes land on the dishes in the sink or the pile of cardboard boxes that I should tear up for recycling. I could never stick to a Clean The House Once A Week routine on a certain day, but I get the random urge to shred cardboard or fix something often enough that I can manage by just setting myself loose to wander around the house in a completely disorganised manner, starting something, fixing it, and wandering off to a random direction to do something else like a chore-completing roomba.

Did you know that you don't need to brush your teeth at a specific time of the day? You can just randomly do it at some random time of the day, which is what I do. I'll procrastinate going to the bathroom for an unreasonable amount of time until I simply have to drop everything I'm doing to just pop in real quick, 3 minutes max, and when I'm washing my hands and get the urge to linger to pick on my face for 15 minutes, I may remember "ah right, might as well brush my teeth now that I'm here", and do that instead.

And once that's done I suddenly remember that I left my ink jar open, my ink nib has probably already dried up to all fuck, I was in the middle of a business call with my accountant and I can't remember if I left something on the stove. I didn't, but I manage.

If your brain's a constant storming sea, the best you can do is buy a surfboard.

prompt: "murder is good actually" au

danny moves to gotham and is actually shocked by how many ghosts were born there due to violent deaths, still lingering and waiting for their murderers to be put down for good. he starts a "can we have a little murder? as a treat?" campaign to convince batman that nobody in the city would think less of him if he let the joker die. it gets popular real fast

No one knows how the poster known as GhostsOfGotham solves his cases. No one even knows what he looks like. All they know is that every single piece of information that he's posted on a quickly-spread, blog-like website is accurate.

The location of bodies who have been lost for years? Posted.

The wishes of the dead for their families? All names were correct. All desires were in character.

And he kept a death-count.

As the weeks went by and Oracle and Red Robin tried to track down the elusive Ghost in their system, the map filled in.

All the dead of Gotham, given voice.

Honestly, they almost didn't want to find the Ghost. He had given hundreds of families closure.

But he was calling for the Joker's death, and Batman wanted Ghost found.

When Oracle recognized names from cases her father had specifically lost sleep over, individuals whom he had never been able to give answers on, she knew she wasn't going to turn Ghost in, even if she found him.

He was right.

The Joker needed to die.

And Batman should let it happen.

It's nearing two months since the website appeared when Batman learns who Ghost is. Or at least, where to find him.

There's a video on the computer in the mostly-bare apartment that begins playing when Batman opens the door. It starts playing on the website at the same time.

~~

"Oh good, it looks like our guest has arrived," says an individual, looking at the camera, quickly going from looking bored to a look of set purpose. "Batman, please continue to watch this. I want to show you something. To those following my cause, yes, the video is live."

The Ghost is tall and lithe with muscles befitting a gymnast. His skin is green-tinged and ears pointed, and his eyes glow green under a mop of pure white, gently swaying hair.

He wears a black suit of leather armor, trimmed in white, and a sword rests in its scabbard at his hip.

He turns and steps to the side of the video screen, showing a large, empty warehouse.

"Alright, everyone, visibility please."

And the screen is filled with the echoes and images of the dead as hundreds of ghosts become visible. A faint green glow comes off Ghost, siphoning out to the crowd as if he is giving them the energy to become visible.

Several watchers recognize faces amongst the spectral crowd.

"These are all victims of murder within Gotham city," Ghost continues. "If you were killed by the Joker, please remain visible."

Several within the crowd fade to invisibility. Far too many remain seen.

"If you were killed after," and here Ghost states a date. A date Batman recognizes as an opportunity he had to kill the Joker. "Please remain visible."

Too many remain.

"If you were killed after," another date. Another opportunity for the Joker to have been killed.

Too many remain.

This continues for a few more dates.

There were still at least a hundred ghosts visible.

The Ghost of Gotham returns to the center of the camera stream. Batman has the stream pulled up on his display as he searches for the warehouse.

"There is a point where inaction is as loud as any action," the Ghost says.

Perhaps...

The camera turns, and a bound and gagged Joker comes into view, Ghost walking calmly into frame and pulling the sword at his hip. Icy light exudes from it, mist condensing around the blade.

"As King Phantom and voice for the Dead, I sentence the Joker to death. Batman. I am at," he lists an address. "I am ending the stream before acting, as this is not a bid for publicity, but for justice. You have twenty minutes to make your decision. If you arrive within that time, I will turn the Joker over to you and the mortal police, though I can not promise his safety against the shades of Gotham now that I have granted them the energy to physically manifest for a time. If you do not arrive, he will be executed by my decree. The choice is yours."

So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.

I'm going to try it.

I love the lawyer metaphor, because whenever I see “John knew that...” in prose writing I immediately think “how?  How does he know it?”  Interrogate your witnesses.  Cross-examine them.  Make them explain their reasoning.  It pays dividends.

All of this, but also feels/felt. My editor has forbidden me from using those and it’s forced me to stretch my skills.

Show, don't tell

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistant. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowing. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME#there is no replacement here bc i am not filling  a position. i am just writing#and the writing is what i need to be doing#writeblr#this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to

Y’all, the Archive admins are made up of VOLUNTEERS. And they have been working for 12-13 HOURS STRAIGHT.

I better not hear any complaints when donation period comes around. OR ELSE.

EDIT: How do we show appreciation to the volunteers? For me reading these deep dives on OTW issues u guys apparently it's been said multiple times that one of their objective statements is to have paid staff for ao3 and there's a surplus of donations they haven't used up or the other community solutions that needs to address. For those more financially literate feel free to analyze, snipe me or add to the discussion etc. linked here by deepa. They’re cool and these yearly analysis they did aint no joke.

But Seriously what can we do for these volunteers? The probable burn out from this entire fiasco would be no joke. @ao3org

The mighty alien race comes to the human leaders, pledging their unconditional surrender, and even offering peace gifts of immense monetary and technological value. The only problem is that we had no idea we were at war, or that aliens even existed.

Look.

You have to admit it’s kind of funny.

We had no idea we were even at war, let alone that we were winning.

Soon after we first ventured out into space, we met the races of the Coalition. They were mostly nice folks. Some weren’t oxy breathers like we were, and others were silicon based, but they all had a live and let live mentality. We signed onto the Coalition and they told us that everything was copasetic except to “watch out for the Griznetck.”

We had no idea what they meant. We asked everyone we came across who the Griznetck were but everyone either didn’t know who we were talking about or parroted the Coalitions line to watch out for them.

This went on for years - cycles is what they call it - and we thought it was just like, a translation error, or maybe a hazing. You know, like going to get a jug of headlight fluid.

Maybe a century after we joined up, someone finally asked us if our Flip drive - we don’t use the same FlashWarp technology the rest of the Coalition uses - causes us to pass interdimensionally. We explained that of course it does, that’s how we get across the galaxy.

They made a noise like the sound we make when we suck air through our teeth - they did it with their rear legs, but the meaning was the same. “So you’ve met the Griznetck then?”

“Ha ha, very funny.” We were getting tired of the joke. “Everyone has been telling us to beware of them since we joined the Coalition. We assumed it was just hazing.”

“What?”

“Hazing. Like, a task or game to make us look silly as part of an initiation into a group?”

Their frill rippled worry. “That’s not normal. You know that right?”

We were adamant. “It’s not weird. Stop making it weird.”

They lifted their rear legs in surrender. “We’re getting off track. The Griznetck are inter-dimensional beings. They’re not officially part of the Coalition because they don’t exist in our dimension all the time. You probably see them when you Flip.”

“We… don’t… see anyone….”

But that wasn’t true was it? There were always reports of Things in the Flip. People, explosions, planets, you name it. There has always been reports of Things in the Flip. Nobody could ever prove anything and nothing was ever damaged, so we assumed it wasn’t anything.

Now that we knew to look, we adjusted our Flip drive. Instead of just dipping into the other dimensions to jump across space, we… paused there.

Friends, what we saw would cause your fur to fall clean off.

We were met by a Griz delegation. They had assumed we had finally come to claim their space as our own. For centuries we had been Flipping into their space, causing havoc. One time, apparently we destroyed a planet. A whole planet!

I promise. We had no idea.

We apologized profusely when we learned what we were doing, and we worked with Griz technomancers to adjust our Flip drives so that we only Flipped outside of their populated areas.

In exchange, they showed us how to improve the efficiency of our Flip drives as well as showing us new Flip reactors. We were able to “borrow” energy from their higher levels to power our stuff in Realspace. It was effectively free energy!

Honestly, we felt really bad about the whole thing, but it worked out in the end. We stopped destroying their settlements, and they showed us how to spend less time in their dimension.

You know, they never found it as funny as we did though.

There needs to be 400 hours in the day so I have more time to do fuck all

8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 384 hours for what we will...

When you know more about a thing, you’ll take more risks. Once you’ve owned enough unreliable cars, you can better sense when something is going to leave you on the side of the road. Maybe you let things slip a little bit, because you’ve gotten lucky so far. This explains why my doctor eats nothing but ground-up pork rinds and four bottles of Olde English 800 for lunch.

Those of you who are particularly attuned to reading the DSM-V for fun will notice this as a gambling impulse. Me, I only like to read DSM factory service manuals, which is also a good way to diagnose mental illness. Us humans want to play it risky, we want to pit our wits against the angry whims of nature. It makes the triumph so much sweeter, even if we had to go through hell to get there.

Let me give you a more concrete example: most cars need oil to run. However, oil is expensive, so having a car that burns it means that you are both spending a lot of money on oil, and also maybe a lot more on a new engine when life gets busy and you forget. Only a weirdo would go across country, constantly topping up their oil at every rest stop. Only an idiot would offset this by spooning leftover liquid oil out of the exhaust pipe and muffler, and feeding it back into the engine.

I wanted to see if I could do it, is my defence, and it turns out that I could. When I arrived on the other coast without having destroyed my (admittedly near-death) Soviet tractor small-block, I was overjoyed. The next morning, that engine was seized up and wouldn’t turn over. While I was sleeping in the back seat, the engine had cooled down overnight and reduced itself to a large chunk of useless iron in the vague shape of an engine. Did I lose? Not at all. I bought another ticket, and by which I mean I made sure to sleep outside the local U-Pick-It junkyard. Within an hour, I was already walking out the front door with some other atrocious piece of engineering that kinda sorta looked like it might fit into the engine bay. And now I’m back here, telling you my story.

The important thing is not to be afraid of taking dumb risks. Sure, there’s dumb dumb risks, but those are often done by people who don’t know what they are doing. In order to take smart dumb risks, you should spend your entire life accumulating knowledge of a niche field, so that you know what you can safely ignore, and what you can put off for another couple thousand miles to save thirty bucks, tops. And with that, I would like to congratulate this group of elementary school children for having graduated from grade six of Miss Maple’s class.

Anyone have recommendations for sci-fi that isn't just depressingly dystopian? I'm not saying I'm against hardship or character growth but I'd really like it interspersed with joy and wonder about the universe. Like @marlynnofmany 's short stories about Paint & Zee and their onboard human. I read a novel that had this planet where the people were less biological and more metallic. Like - they were immortal, because they were basically living rocks, unless they got cold enough to lose all their energy. They saw light to all ends of the spectrum- called humans "brightbloods" because warm-blooded = heat = IR radiation. Their idea of a "soul" was a unique electromagnetic radiation signature, and it was just a really cool take on non-terrestrial life forms and I want More.

The HFY genre generally fits this - it's just science fiction that's devoted to showing humanity excelling at something. This story is literally just goofy fun. I've got a whole masterpost of just the ones that I've written, and you should be able to tell the goofy ones just by the title. R&Deeznuts is not subtle. There's a twelve part, unfinished-but-still-excellent series on Reddit written by a falconeer about a birdlike species of alien. The series is called "Feathers Asunder" and I highly recommend it. There's another series, The Karl Jenkins Experience/Jenkinsverse that is admittedly and obviously a build-the-plane-as-you-fly-it type of serial, but it has a couple hundreds parts and a ton of different authors within it. It's holds that most alien life has pneuomatic or hydraulic based movement, which means that humans strength-weight ratio is unusual cosmically.

Hi!

I write like that! You can check out some of my shorts or long form. If you're looking for something novel length you can check out Just A Little Further, it starts here.

There's one way to make your electronic product very popular: make it tiny. Now, you might be doubting me, and that's okay. You were probably raised in an era where giant TVs were desired by those gathering for "The Big Game," and so the size, the communal experience, the authoritative largeness over all your friends, is what matters. And yet: look at a tiny TV, a really small one, and tell me you don't want it. You can't.

For years, this demand for small devices made sense: they're more portable. Smallness also reflects technological superiority, such as the Nipponese miracle of miniaturization, or the weird racist dude who invented the transistor out of his employees' tears. In the future, though, portability is everywhere, and yet we still all – all of us, don't you lie to me – crave a nine-inch black-and-white cathode-ray-tube television hanging in the bowels of our post-apocalyptic recreational vehicles. There has to be something else to their lasting appeal than just the convenience factor.

And there is. These devices are cute. They work their way into our hearts the same way that baby animals do. We want to stack them next to the full-size TVs, and take a picture, and label that picture something like "my television and his son." This probably isn't news to you. Holographic metamind statistics indicate that 99% of the people who read this article give pet names to their obsolete technology products (I don't judge, but maybe also you should adopt a cat.)

All this is to say, don't feel guilty about rescuing any obsolete piece of teeny-tiny hardware that you find at a Value Village, Invaluable Invillage, or Screaming Void That Consumes All Microplastics Which Once Had Worth To Our Society. Just as long as it's not too big.

Ouija Board Prompt Idea

A/N: A late night Idea that came to me instead of sleep and I wrote this down during lunch break

Danny was just in Gotham because the city spirit had asked him for assistance with a rather persistent unruly Ghost that didn't understand that this was her haunt and she did not want them there.

So when he got the notice he did his kingly duties and made sure the Ghost was no longer annoying Lady Gotham. He was the Ghost King but even he didn't want to anger a spirit as old as her. He had watched the spirit take a ghostly club and hit Clockwork the Ancient of Time with it without remorse the first time they were introduced. So yea, no messing with this one.

He had been about to portal back home when he felt a strange pull one that was close to when he got summoned but yet it didn't feel as demanding but more like a little kid pulling on his shirt hesitantly. So he checked it out…

… and came across a group of vigilantes investigating an occult side.

Invisible he watched them, curious. He used to do the teen hero stick too before the whole Ghost King business allowing him to get some semblance of a normal life with his rogues, might as well see how others to that hero stick. Besides the pull he felt appeared to come from that tall one wearing a red helmet something was up with that guy.

"Come on, ask the ghosts a question or are you too chicken to do it?"

"I will not participate in this nonsense, Red Hood."

"Come on guys it will be fun!"

"For whom? You, Spoiler?"

"RR aren't you curious?"

"We just gotta ask the board a question and if a ghost is around they will answer by moving it, right?"

"Ghosts don't exist."

Okay Danny was not taking personal offense here but he was a half ghost and he ruled the Ghost Zone filled with ecto-entities that could count as ghosts. So yes, ghosts existed. It was a simple decision then as he floated down invisible crouching next to board still invisible and out of the way from them.

Making sure he made a lot of scraping noises as he moved the small wooden piece on the board to 'YES'.

Stop Having a Concussion and Get us Home!

Tim works as the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Tim has a secretary, and then he has another one to help her because holy shit, the amount of crap Tam puts up with is insane and she needs an assistant of her own.

Tim's second secretary is one Danny Fenton.

Tim, Tam, and Danny are the last ones in Wayne Enterprises, as the building had to be evacuated due to Superman being mind-controlled and targeting major corporations.

Superman targets Wayne Enterprises.

Tim looks out the window as he his secretaries make their way towards the emergency exit, and there he is.

Floating there.

Staring at him.

Tim swears he can see his Uncle Clark sobbing as his eyes heat up.

Then Danny grabs him, yanks him into the stairwell, and just as the building starts to crumble around them, shoves both Tim and Tam into a glowing green portal.

Danny takes a blow to the head.

They land on a floating island, in a swirling vortex of green, and the one who got them there is unconscious on the ground with a nasty headwound.

Meanwhile, after the Justice League manages to snap Superman out of it, the man throws himself at Batmans feet and just...sobs.

Breaks.

They get the story in bits and pieces.

Tim was in the building, still. The burning, twisted wreckage of Wayne Enterprises.

And Clark can't hear his heartbeat anymore.

Batman spiraling is something all the batkids except Dick are experiencing for the first time. And then someone mentions how it’s not actually as bad as after Jason because technically Bruce still has the rest of them kind of anchoring him.

But consider this, maybe he’s worse than when Jason died. Not only Is this the second son he’s lost, in a burning building, but it was at the hands of one of his best friends.

Bruce can’t bring himself to kill Clark because he knows he was mind controlled, doesn’t stop him from attacking Supes though. The Bat boys have to use every ounce of strength and training to pull him off Clark while Cass grabs at the kryptonite knuckle busters. He allows it but doesn’t return to the watchtower and Supes stays clear of Gotham. Batman hits Gotham’s streets even harder than after Jason. Cutting all communications with the Justice League, even Diana can’t get through to him and had to leave Gotham in a rush.

Tim was also the one who brought him out of his spiral and continued to be the one who stayed with him the longest even with all the bumps along the road. Tim also risked his life to bring Bruce home after his stint in the time stream.

So my point being, Jason has a front row seat to Batman’s brutality and Dick is there to witness it first hand this time instead of Tim’s reports. Damien is shocked to see Bruce using, not only near lethal strikes but also the league training coming through the longer Bruce spirals. There is also no body found so they are all worried about the implications and possibly another Jason situation.

Jason has to reevaluate his thoughts on Bruce’s strict no killing rule and why he has it. He also has to think back to Tim’s stories from back in the early days after he was found out as Red Hood. Tim had told Jason once that Bruce had almost killed the Joker, thought he had at one point but the bastard came back, but Superman had stoped him. Tim had also tried to get him to understand that if Bruce killed as Batman he wouldn’t stop. Jason hadn’t believed him but he was starting to realize that it may be true.

Dock knew Bruce had been bad after Jason’s death, felt guilty for not seeing it past his own anger, he had heard Tim’s stories and had taken them with a grain of salt because Bruce couldn’t have been worse than before he became the first Robin. He was wrong. Oh , he was so much worse and the guilt tripled knowing he had left a young Tim to deal with this alone.

Damien is shocked. And after being away from the LoA and growing used to his father soft but firm guidance… he hates to admit it but he is afraid. Thoughts of the League and the possible threat of his father becoming like Ra’s, even just the slightest… poor boy is starting to wish for Tim to still be alive, somehow, someway, just so he can return to the comfort of a storm but loving father, not this cold blinded by rage being. He also has a new respect for Tim, to be able to deal with and handle Bruce in this state, from what he’d heard from the other, after Jason’s death. Tim was either extremely brave or plain stupid to blackmail Batman in that state.

Everyone can understand Bruce’s grief but they are all worried about him. With Clark out of the picture and Diana having no luck… no one knows how to help or stop him. From hurting others and himself.

bonus if they still haven’t found out who was behind the mind control.

Alfred is in the background watching and supporting them all as best he can, all the while grieving the loss of another grandson and the potential loss of the man he views as his son. He will continue to provide food, comfort and medical attention as he always does. And pray by some miracle, Tim comes home to them. Be it a body or alive. Alfred’s last shred of hope is resting on the capture of the one responsible and the lack of a body or rather bodies, as Tam and her assistants bodies were never recovered just like Tim’s was never found in the wreckage. All three will remain as missing, in his mind, until solid proof of death or life is found.

I don't know why, but I just had this idea of Tim trying to reach out to his family and friends from the Ghost Zone and it coming across...off.

Danny is still out cold, and Tim & Tam are pretty sure even if they do get him back from...wherever the hell it is he took them, he isn’t going to survive. His pulse keeps slowing, his body temp keeps dropping and even though the wound itself seems to have healed disturbingly fast Danny's just not waking up.

They're on a floating island in an endless world of impossible geography and mind fuckery, but they're not totally without luck. There's a building on this island, a brownstone like what they'd see back on earth but with some strange additions to it. A giant green and chrome... observatory? It looks like a flying saucer but that's definitely a giant telescope poking out the top of it. There's also a giant sign attached to the side of it claiming the building "Phantom's Lair" which is...concerning. but it's not exactly like they have a lot of options.

The front door is open and thankfully (?) it looks like no one is home. They manage to carry Danny inside and lay him down on a large couch in a fairly normal looking living room. Tam finds a kitchen stocked largely with junk food and seemingly endless vials of what looks concerningly like Lazarus Water.

Tim searched the place from top to bottom, which takes much longer than it really should. The building is larger on the inside, with endless rooms and halls and stairs. He's worried about getting lost but every time he thinks he might have lost the path he finds himself right back at the living room where he left Tam and Danny - which is impossible, considering he was on entirely different floors during some of those mix-ups. Good news at least he finds some medical supplies - normal, human medical supplies - and even better, various bits of tech that he's pretty sure he can use to try and contact his family.

They decided to hole up in the living room - the couches are big enough for all of them, access to the kitchen and living room and easy enough to block off from any potential unfriendles that might show up - and Tim gets to work. Some of the tech he finds boggled the mind a little, it looks like whoever made it is powering it all with Lazarus Water somehow, but he's figuring it out.

He knows, logically, that chances are slim that he'll get a message out. That even if he does the odds are it won't be his family or the League that gets the message - he's pretty sure they're in an entirely different dimension at this point - but he has to try. He records a message and starts playing it over every frequency he can remember the Bat Clan or Justice League ever using, using his own comm as a means of trying to anchor it all down somehow.

Back on Earth, things get...strange.

Barbara is monitoring the city, trying to keep everyone going while Bruce spirals, and for a moment - just a second - she sees Tim's face on one of her monitors.

Damian is in his room, comm in his ear listening to those of his siblings that are out patrolling, staring blankly down at the sketch of Tim he'd just completed. A crackle of static and then he hears Tim's voice, faint and tinny, "-here, - here, -here"

On all channels that the BatFam and Justice League uses, Tim Drake in quick, half-realizes seconds, appears as a ghost. Haunting those left behind.

"Here...here...here..."

Tim's voice echoed through the comms, tinny and distorted, and Bruce felt his heart break a little more. One of his children must have been listening to an old recording of Tim, and the comm had picked it up. That was the only logical conclusion.

He couldn't bring himself to go out, not after he'd nearly snapped a man's neck in front of Damian.

He knew he wasn't the only one mourning, he knew that. But it was so fucking hard to remember it in the middle of a fight.

He kept...forgetting.

He would allow himself to go just a little too far, a little too violent, in the faint hopes that he would hear Tim crop up and scold him. Like he had done after Jason. Like he had done after Jason came back.

But Tim did not pop up.

It was just Damian, his youngest, staring at him in horror after being forced to come between Bruce and the criminal they'd been trying to apprehend.

And then it was Jason, who looked too tired to say anything beyond a quiet "Just...go back to the cave, B."

Bruce had done just that. He'd gone back, sent Damian upstairs with Alfred, and then locked himself away.

He couldn't take his anger out on Clark. He couldn't. The man was already guilt-ridden and Superman hadn't been seen since the incident.

But he was Bruce Wayne, the Goddamn Batman; he would find out who had forced his best friend to murder his son.

And then.

Well.

He had plenty of contenders for the title of Batman, and Cass, while quiet, was the best option for a successor.

He would go after the culprit as none other than himself, not Batman. He would kill them. And Cass would fill the cowl he left behind.

~~~~~~

Clark buried his face in Jon's hair, hands shaking as he clutched his son to him. Lois ran her hands up and down his back, and Jon not only humored him, but clung back.

Ma was down in the kitchen, stress-baking.

Pa was down in the barn, stress-fixing.

Clark was home, was so far removed from the city where he'd...

Where he'd...

After, when they'd pulled Bruce off of him, he'd gone to Lex. Had begged Lex to put him down.

Only for Lex to raise an eyebrow at him, pity in his eyes, and tell him no.

Tell him that he had to live with what he'd done, and what made this time so different from the others anyways?

Clark hated the man even more after that.

That hatred had turned on himself when Lex had a gleam of understanding and told him to go home. To mourn without dragging a city down with him.

To grieve the way so many families had to every time Clark lost himself.

So Clark had fled.

He'd run home, grabbed Lois and Jon, and ran all the way home to his parents.

Kon had passed him by on the way, and his....eldest hadn't even looked at him.

Clark couldn't blame him.

His breath caught in his throat, and Lois leaned fully against him.

God.

He'd killed Tim.

He'd killed his nephew.

He could still see the shock and dismay in the boy's face, the absolute second he'd realized he was going to die.

Clark couldn't do this. He couldn't. He had to...he had to be put down, or-

What if he hurt Lois next? Jon? Kon?

How many more people would he be forced to maim or murder?

He-

His phone rang.

"Leave it, Clark," Lois muttered, glaring at the device, "Whatever, whoever, it is; it can be handled tomorrow."

But Clark could not.

What if it was Bruce?

What if they'd found the body?

Oh God, what if it was Kon?

Clark shakily let go of Jon and picked up the phone, holding it to his ear.

"Hello-?"

"Not....fault...Clark! Clark, it....fine...help...trapped-" The phone went dead, battery completely drained.

Clark kept holding it to his ear anyways.

"Dad?" Jon asked quietly, eyes wide.

Clark didn't say anything.

That had been Tim. That had absolutely been Tim. It had been staticky and faint, but it was Tim.

Tim had said he was trapped.

The phone shattered in his grip and his hand went back to cradling the back of his sons head.

Not only had he killed his best friends son, but said son was trapped and unable to move onto the afterlife.

~~~~~~

Damian felt like...well. Damian did not know what to feel like.

Watching his father utilize lethal moves on a civilian, one improperly armed, had struck a chord in him.

Damian would not say he was afraid. He was...cautious.

Whenever Ra's had been infuriated enough to fall back on training otherwise unused, it was only wise to vacate the compound until he had settled.

So Damian had asked Alfred for a lift, and let himself into Grayson's apartment.

He knew that Grayson would have known the second he let himself in, and decided to pass the time waiting for patrol to end by sketching.

But his hands would only draw one person.

It was Drake.

...

It was Timothy.

Eyes crinkled as he laughed at something, mouth in the middle of telling a stupid joke.

And Damian could not stop making it more and more detailed.

He and Timothy had not...gotten along in the standard sense of the word. But they had gotten along in their own way.

After he had settled from his....brainwashing. It had been brainwashing, and he had to refer to it as such lest he be tempted to fall back to it. After he had settled, he and Timothy had struck an antagonistic accord.

They did not wish death or severe injury upon the other, but they were free to snipe at each other with words.

Damian refused to acknowledge the moisture gathering in his eyes, just like he refused to acknowledge Grayson sliding into the apartment and draping himself over Damian's back.

Grayson let out a choked off breath and hugged Damian.

"Mind if we get that framed, Dami?"

Damian did not answer.

Words...were not enough to encompass what he desired to say.

Talking was an impossibility, though he did not know why.

Instead, Damian turned the page and started sketching Timothy anew.

~~~~~~

Jason had resorted to using real bullets again.

He knew that he was sliding back into old habits, but he really, really could not bring himself to give a shit.

He hadn't killed anyone.

Yet.

The night was still young, and perhaps some of them had bled out after he'd left.

Oracle wasn't saying anything one way or another.

She'd stopped saying much after Damian had requested help. Help to stop Bruce from killing some rando criminal.

Which.

Jason did not know how to deal with that.

When he'd answered the call, hed been furious. Where had this murderous revenge spree been when he'd bit it? What, was he not good enough to warrant it? Was Damian not good enough?

He'd stepped in, fired a rubber bullet square at Bruce's spinal surgery scar under all that armor, and just...deflated.

The man that had turned around to face him...had not been Bruce.

The lines of grief were too stark. His hands shook, his shoulders hunched, and the man looked three steps away from collapse.

In the end, Jason had told him to go home.

There really wasn't anything else to do.

"Hello? Anyone there? I'm here! I'm right here! I'm trapped, but I'm here! We need a pick up!"

Jason froze.

Clear as crystal, that had been Tim's voice.

"Oracle, did you-?"

"Yes, although it wasn't very clear. B might be...watching a recording."

Jason could hear the disbelief in her voice.

"It was clear," Jason muttered, standing on the rooftop of a half-finished building as he looked over at where Wayne Enterprises used to stand tall, "It was loud and clear. Tim's trapped. He's-Kon!"

It only took a second, but Tim's little Super maybe-boyfriend was suddenly there.

He looked wild, unhinged. His hair was a wreck, he was covered in dirt, and Jason could tell just by looking at him that his powers kept incrementally shorting out due to stress.

Good to know that falling into insanity with the absence of one of them wasn't just a Timmy thing.

"Take me to Wayne Enterprises; I think Tim's alive."

~~~~~~

Tim threw the toaster at a wall.

"Danny, sweetie, focus," Tam goaded their semi-conscious meta, "We need to go back. Can you get us back?"

Tim was reminded, rather abruptly, of Dora the Explorer.

Unfortunately, toddler TV-show talking verbiage had nothing on the headwound his second assistant had sustained.

"Frostbite..." The man whined, before forcibly pulling his face out of Tam's hands and trying to stand up.

Tim went back to disassembling what looked like a PDA. There had to be something, anything, to get a message back home.

The massive, migraine-inducing banging on the front door distracted him.

"Punk, open up," Someone called out, "I know you're in there. You, and the two illegal entries you brought in with you. That's against the rules."

Tim felt a chill go up his back.

"And you know what happens when you go against the rules."

They laughed at me, but I knew in my secret heart that I was having the hottest import night of all. The year was 2000, and owners of Honda Civics were watching their own cars duking it out with the cops on the nightly TV news. Lisa Kubo had just struck a blow for women’s rights everywhere by being the first lady in history to replace four head gaskets in one evening.

Front-wheel-drive, high-horsepower compact car drag racing was finally in style, and I was right there to enjoy it in my fibreglass-and-neon-clad 1984 Cadillac Cimarron. Totally stock, of course. Sure, the entire NHRA-mandated roll cage was filled with nitrous oxide, and the original engine had been gone over a few times by GM’s in-house performance team called “the Tim Hortons dumpster,” but basically the same car that Grandma Hitler picked up in late 1983.

There were a lot of differences between traditional NHRA drag racing and the new breed. For one thing, nobody would race a Cadillac over at the traditional tracks. And if they did, they’d know instinctively that any weirdo showing up in a rebadged Cavalier is either really slow, or extremely fast. Here, I was surrounded by racers who could quote every line of Vin Diesel’s most famous role, and knew a Honda Civic factory service manual back-to-front, but were completely unaware of the power potential of my humble luxobarge J-body, even clad in neon stripes and with a then-new Garrett ball-bearing turbocharger sticking out of the hood where the windshield washer bottle used to be.

Of course, even the best-laid plans can go awry. The Christmas tree had barely blinked the green when I saw a set of the parts store’s finest Corvette roller rockers go flying past my windshield, followed by about three-quarters (by volume, not area) of the cylinder head. That night, my chances of becoming an international compact-car racing celebrity came to an abrupt end. I did get the phone numbers of some import models at the after-show, but all of them hung up on me when I asked them if they knew anyone selling any fresh 2.2 litre blocks.

Voiding The Warranty

Lauren was running back and forth across the ship, searching for something.

After a demi-cycle of this, Captain Shimmering Heat finally called her over her personal comm. "Lauren? What is it you're doing? You are running around like we're under attack from a Gren Warfinder and yet we're just cruising."

Lauren looked up and toggled her comm. "Sorry Captain, I'm looking for my toolkit, I could have sworn I left it in Engineering but it's not there."

"Who?" The human at the window barely looks up from her pad.

"Her name was - is - Lauren Ingram."

The person behind the counter at the embassy looks bored. She sighs. "Missing people cases are to be sent to the local station authorities."

"No, you don't understand, she's not missing, she's gone."

shaking six year old me by the shoulders YOU WERE RIGHT. YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT LOVE AND ABOUT FAIRNESS AND ABOUT SHARING IS CARING. YOU WERE RIGHT. THE ADULTS DON’T KNOW ANY MORE ABOUT TRUTH THAN YOU DO. KEEP BELIEVING IN THE FAIRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN. NOTHING IS “JUST THE WAY IT IS”. I AM SORRY THEY EVER CONVINCED YOU TO FEEL SHAME. YOU ARE REAL AND A PART OF THIS WORLD. YOU WERE RIGHT.

Danny runs for Mayor P.2

kgned3Part 1

Some more snippets of the Gotham Mayor Danny AU!

…

Danny would absolutely try to hire some of the Rouges as his Mayoral Cabinet, I can just imagine Waylon Jones, the Killer Croc, in a Suit and Slacks sitting in a the Mayors Office while awkwardly holding his resume.

Danny: So, Mr. Jones, why do you think we should hire you? Waylon: Well sir, I have something of a reputation and I feel like I would be an amazing Bodyguard. Danny: OK, one question though. What is your opinion on Clowns? Waylon: I don’t like them. Danny: Hired!

…

Danny: Now, Mr Nygma, what do you think you would bring to my office? Edward: Well sir, I am fairly well known for my expert planning and timing skills. Also I can give you fun riddles whenever you want! Danny: Hmmm, that’s definitely a good point. One question, if needed, will you attack a clown on sight? Edward: Yes? Danny: Hired!

…

Danny: Now, I can see that you used to have a very reputable resume Mr. Dent. Harvey: Thank you sir. Danny: I can’t see any reason to refuse your application, but I do have one question. Do you like Clowns? Harvey: Uhm…yes? Danny: I am sorry dir, but I am going to have to reject your application for a job in the Mayors office. Mr Jones, please escort this man out 

…

Danny would absolutely do an amazing job in decreasing the crime rate, just by virtue of the fact that his very presence is destabilizing the Curses put on the City.

But at the same time, his policies are also very efficient, based on Gen Z Humor/Ideas

Danny: As my new Law states, every year the most rich person in the City will be forced to give up 70% of their assets to Charity. You can avoid this by donating as much as possible in the weeks leading up to the Sacrifice Day, whoever donates the most is exempt from the choosing even if they are the Richest, we will then move on to the second Richest, and so on Reporter: Sir, isn’t this just the “Winner Of Capitalisms” Prompt from Tumblr? Danny: Yes.

…

Batman: Why did you just pass a Law that states that all Vigilantes are given the right to kill? Danny: Because I accidentally hired every villain in Gotham, so now there is nobody to try and bribe me. And if nobody tries to bribe me, then nobody realizes that I will only accept bribes if the Joker is dead, like I said in my Campaign. I know that you guys have a no-kill rule, but I know at least one of you who would jump at the chance  Batman: *realizes that Dick has already killed the Joker once, Jason is actively attempting to every day, Tim is chaos incarnate and would do it to feel included, and Damian just really wants to let loose* Well played…

…

Danny: Vlad, I am serious. Leave me alone or I will put you in Soup Jail for 3 months! Vlad: FINE! I’ll just go possess another Billionaire to force them to give me their company again Batman, listening from outside the window: What the f-

…

Danny in every conversation with the Batfamily: I re-respect your decision to not tak-take a life…but I must insist you kill the Joker…for the good of the peephol-People! He is not a good inf-influence on this city and he must be des…troyed. Batman: *Wondering why he sounds like he is reading from a script* Um, I don’t think thats a good idea? Lady Gotham: *Standing behind Batman with some Cue Cards, trying to communicate with her Knights through Danny* *Thumbs Up* Danny: Also I wanted to say that you need to- oh um, ok- to get over the deaths of your parents and grieve in a healthy way instead of adopting every child you see. You are doing a great job kid, parentheses, do not read this par- Oh-Oops. Batman: Hm. I’m not even going to question that anymore.

…

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Danny runs for Mayor

Simple Prompt: Danny runs for the Gotham Mayor position

Extended Prompt: Danny is an absolute little shit throughout his entire campaign but still manages to win because he is legitimately one of the best candidates around

Just imagine the crack that could come from this!

Reporter: What is your stance on Vigilantism? Danny: Well I agree that Vigilantes are helpful for the communities that need them, and they should work with the police at every opportunity, I feel like the idea will always be a city where Vigilantes are not needed. Also I fail to see the relevancy of the question, there are no vigilantes in Gotham Reporter: What do you mean? What about the Bat-Family? Danny: No, Batman isn’t a Vigilante. Batman is a Crime Lord.

Or

Danny: As mayor, I promise that I will not be infected by corruption. Not because of my moral standings, but because I absolutely fucking hate clowns and I will never accept a bribe as long as that guy is still alive. Yes this is me putting a hit out on the Joker. Crime Bosses, if you want to try and bribe me, you gotta kill him first or I won’t even consider it!

Or

Batman: Why is a Meta-Human running for Gotham Office? You know this city doesn’t have a very good track record with people like you. Even the Signal had a rough start. Danny: Well, I just had a strong compulsion to help this city reach the peak of it’s potential *looks over Batman’s shoulder to see Lady Gotham holding up Cue Cards telling him what to say. She promised to help with his paperwork for the next 50 years if he became Mayor and helped fix her city* Danny: Such a strong compulsion…

Or

Penguin: Look kid, I don’t care if you have enough power to destroy me at the subatomic level, I have enough money to ruin you, your sister, your parents, even your uncle! Danny: Oh really? I could get the souls of every person you have ever killed to get confessions out of them. Or I could give them the power to rip you apart. Or I could even just possess you and donate all your money to charity.

Or

Danny: Oh god dammit! Vlad: Hello Badger! Glad to see you followed in my footsteps instead of your fathers! Danny: This wasn’t because of you! Lady Gotham asked for help! Vlad: A WIN IS A WIN!