NEW FIC IS UP

“So, how long have you been on Earth?” asks M’gann and Kaldur doesn’t have time to think of a response before she carries on, “I only got here a couple of weeks ago but my Uncle’s been talking about how cool this planet is for ages and I’ve always wanted to come here.”

“I-” Kaldur starts, “Uh-”

“Ooh! Have you tried ice cream? I’ve heard it’s the best.”

“I’m from Earth.” Kaldur says before M’gann can bond with him any more over their non-existent shared status as extraterrestrials. Her eyes widen and she takes a step back.

“Oh my God I’m so sorry! I didn’t know humans could have gills!”

“No they- I’m not-” M’gann blinks at him in curiosity and Kaldur feels off guard in a way that’s foreign to him. “I’m not human. I’m Atlantean.”

M’gann’s curiosity turns to worry.

“Sorry! Sorry I didn’t mean to assume anything” she stutters, “everything’s just so new here and, well, I’m still learning I guess.” She smiles nervously and Kaldur can’t help but smile back.

“Well, I haven’t been living on the surface for very long either, so if you want we could learn things together?”

M’gann looks relieved and Kaldur is certain that he’s just made a new friend.

“Hobie did more for Miles after knowing him for ten minutes than Gwen did” my brother in christ one of these characters was presented as having very little fondness, one might even say some derision, for spider society while for the other it was their entire support system they are not the same

@elowenp hands over 🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️ demoncat is actually my greatest weakness and this piece referencing this part (below) of their fic!!

the outfits r kinda generic but i was rlly happy how selina turned out. i will make more pieces based on their series “stay” but drops this n runs for now! this is my first time trying this layout, i didn’t rlly enjoy it but i was too deep to not not finish it 🫥 but i hope it is still not too bad!

fic is linked here, please give it a shot!! damian is rlly cute there but the demoncat dynamic hits like … rlly good.

new fic cause apparently i’m on an absolute roll

Word count: 1,524

Summary:“It’s a conspiracy!” Danny cries, jamming an accusatory finger close enough to Jazz’s face that she has to go cross-eyed to look at it. “You’re conspiring against me with my arch-nemesis!”

Jazz brings her hand up and pushes the finger still pointed between her eyes back down. “Oh no.” she deadpans. “You’ve foiled my evil plot. Whatever shall I do?”

She goes back to reading at her psychology textbook.

Danny lets out a strangled yelp of frustration and stomps out of the room.

“I would like to suggest a temporary truce.”

Luz has no idea how Hunter got in.

From the looks of bewilderment on Eda and Kings faces Luz is pretty sure that they’re in the same boat. The same very confused, very concerned boat that’s being tossed by the whims of the boiling sea.

Luz turns back to Hunter who’s looking at the three of them expectantly, waiting on a response.

“Hootyyyyyy,” Eda calls into the house. Hunter keeps just standing there and Luz pinches herself to make sure she isn’t dreaming.

Then there’s an owl coming out of the floor. At least some things are normal.

“Hello!”

“How is he here?” Eda demands, “Why is he here?”

“To offer a truce? It’s a very good truce, and I said that I would recommend it, and what better way to recommend it than letting him tell you all about it himself!” Hooty pauses to check if anyone’s nodding in agreement of his clearly very sound decision making process. He’s met by a stony silence and expressions of particularly strong disapproval.

For once he seems to read the room.

“Okay, you guys have lots to talk about, bye!” His face shoves itself through the floorboards back the way it came and a hole is left in the floor between Eda, King and Luz and Hunter. Luz imagines the hole widening into a chasm, it feels more appropriate.

“As I said,” Hunter continues slowly, “I’m here to propose a truce.”

Eda scoffs. King growls. Luz glares.

“And what common ground could we possibly find to build a truce over?” Eda asks icily.

Hunter takes a breath. “I was hoping we might work together to kill Kikimora.”

Huh.

“Okay then,” Eda starts, voice full in equal measure of interest and surprise. “I’m listening.”

“You’re gonna do it, aren’t you?” the Joker says, quiet. When Bruce doesn’t answer he starts to laugh. He laughs so hard and so long that it becomes the only sound that Bruce can hear. He laughs so hard that he has to spit out blood before he speaks next. “You’re actually going to kill me. Aren’t you Batsy?” he grins.

They both know the answer but Bruce says it anyway. For the finality of it.

“Yes.”

It’s an ending.

~

Jason’s death is where it starts.

Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe it starts in a circus where two dead bodies lie broken on the floor and their son breaks in a very different way above them. Maybe it starts when a man decides that to take justice into his own hands is the only means by which his city will survive. Maybe it starts with a different set of dead bodies in an alleyway a lifetime ago.

Maybe it started when the first brick of the city that would become Gotham was laid.

But Jason’s death was certainly a beginning. Not of anything good, of course, but a beginning none the less.

~

Dick doesn’t talk to him anymore.

It hurts Bruce. Touches him in a way that few things since his parents death have. It opens him up to a loneliness he had thought was in his past.

He might have done something about it if everytime he looked at Dick he didn’t see a waking corpse. If Bruce hadn’t watched from the sidelines as his son morphed into a reminder of all the ways the universe is yet to use to make him suffer.

Dick doesn’t talk to him anymore and Bruce lets him.

~

Tim keeps popping up. Trying to convince him that he’s going to cross a line. It seems like he can’t quite comprehend the fact that Bruce doesn’t care anymore.

“Go home.” He says. Tim’s energetic and untrained and very much neither of Bruce’s sons. Bruce is grateful for the way his eyes shine with enthusiasm since it helps him remember that the boy he’s talking to is alive.

Tim smiles as he says no.

“Go home.” Bruce insists and Tim continues to refuse.

The way he sees Tim all the time, the way the boy makes it his business to keep Batman company, feels like the middle of a story. Bruce knows it in his bones. That something was the beginning (Jason’s death or two bodies on the ground or the grate of bricks on bricks on bricks) and this is the middle. He also knows that there’s going to be an ending far too soon.

“People don’t finish growing up and stay near me.” He tells Tim, trying to get him to go away with different words this time. “Your endings are leave me alone or die.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “Says who? You and your grand sample size of two?”

“Go home.” He repeats, returning to his default response.

“No”. Tim repeats. He sounds like he’s enjoying this.

Bruce despises the fact that it only makes him like the boy more.

~

There’s an Arkham escape. The Joker gets out. He’s currently killing people.

None of these facts are surprising.

Bruce fights him and takes him down after he’s only ruined a couple of lives. It’s still far too many but it’s also far fewer people than he would have destroyed without Bruce there to stop him.

On the other hand he wouldn’t even exist if Bruce hadn’t made him. So people are dead and it’s still the Batman’s fault.

Afterwards Bruce watches as the Joker is taken in from a rooftop. He doesn’t even notice Tim sidle up beside him. He takes a moment to be annoyed at how proud he is of the boy for being so good.

“Are you okay?” Tim asks, because he knows how seeing the Jokers smile cuts into Bruce like few other things can.

“I’m fine.” Bruce says. It’s sort of the truth. Pain like this has become routine for him since Jason died. It’s just a byproduct of his existence. It’s just the price of his failure.

He looks over the crime scene, taking in the blood and the bodies and the relatives crying just like he did over his boy. He takes in the Joker as he’s tied back into his straight jacket. As he’s looking, the Joker tilts his head up. Bruce knows that the man is searching him out.

Instead of leaving or moving or doing anything useful, he freezes.

The Joker’s gaze alights on him. Pausing in its scan of the roofline. Then his eyes move a little down and to the left and Bruce feels Tim take a step back as he meets the Joker’s eyes.

Bruce is no longer fine.

He unfreezes and takes Tim in his arms, swinging them as far away from the scene of the crime as he can. He hears the Joker’s laughter behind them, starting out quiet but growing loud enough that Bruce doubts he’ll ever be able to outrun it.

“It’s fine.” Tim says from where he’s held tight in Bruce’s arms. “Bruce, I’ll be fine. He doesn’t even know who I am. I’ll be fine.”

He sounds scared and hopeful and absolutely certain that nothing will be able to hurt him while he’s under the Batman’s protection.

Bruce doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he’s wrong.

~

The body of Tim Drake is buried two weeks later.

Bruce spends the whole funeral thinking about how this is going to keep happening. About how children are going to keep finding him and squirming their way into his heart until he can’t bear to push them away any longer.

He realises that he can’t take a third tragedy of this magnitude. And if he can’t take it then Gotham certainly can’t. Batman is the only thing propping the city up as it attempts to crush itself under the weight of its cruelty.

Bruce makes a decision. As he does so he realises that they’re almost at the finish line.

~

There’s an Arkham escape. The Joker gets out. He’s currently killing people.

The relief Bruce feels when he hears what’s happening is extraordinary.

“You’re gonna do it, aren’t you?” The Joker says once Bruce arrives and they look each other in the eye. He laughs hard enough to gently choke on his own blood. The wheezing sounds like victory. “You’re actually gonna kill me. Aren’t you Batsy?”

Bruce shoots his grapple gun through the Joker’s chest. It punches right through him, filling the room with an awful cracking squelching noise, and lodges in the wall. The sound the Joker makes as his throat fills with blood is more of a gurgle than a wheeze now.

“Yes.” Bruce replies.

It’s the ending.

UPDATE: My general ‘what the shit’ feelings are transferring to Joanna cause I mean wtf did she just stab out her baby???

Just started mr robot and what the absolute sHIT is Tyrell

Just started mr robot and what the absolute sHIT is Tyrell

this is genuinely just me trying to be @shanastoryteller

From the very first time Adora transforms she feels a power sing through her and knows it will be there till the day she dies.

Then she realises that that might not be true, because maybe she can’t die any more. The concept of mortality seems small now. Something for lesser people, the ones she can squash under her heel like ants. Eternity doesn’t seem like such a long time with the power of the hidden stars that are as old as forever humming through her veins.

She wonders if she should mention any of this to her new friends, how even when she isn’t transformed she can feel the universe revolving around her. She thinks back to Catra turning away from her (because somehow somehow somehow Catra just knew). Instead she just hopes that the life she could spend with these people might last an eternity all on its own.