Latest Posts by elowenp - Page 6

I just finished writing a 20k fic and anyone who says drugs are a better high than this is a liar and a fool

Morgana and Merlin are in a cave together and they’re not fighting.

Neither of them are quite sure why. They’re definitely supposed to be fighting, but maybe that’s a reason in and of its self. Both of them have always been terrible at doing what they’re supposed to.

“We used to be friends.” Merlin says.

“You used to have a crush on me.” she snorts.

“Well you had a crush on me too.”

“I did not!” Morgana snaps. She manages to inject just enough offence into her voice that Merlin smiles at her a little like he used to before she learned how to hate.

“Well you would have if you’d known me.”

And, well, Morgana can’t say that he’s wrong exactly.

They keep not fighting. Morgana wonders if flirting is another word for truce.

Gwen would be characterised by anyone but herself as a prodigy with a sword. That would be, if she let anyone see what she can do.

She started beating Elyan when she was six. It took her far longer to beat her father for the first time but whenever she lost he would tell her that she just needed some time to get a little stronger. Some time to grow up.

Gwen beats her father for the first time when she’s fourteen. He smiles from where he’s lying on the floor with a knowing look.

“I told you so.” he manages, despite how winded he is.

She rolls her eyes and let’s the glow of pride set a fire in her chest.

~

Gwen is twenty-two years old and has been the Lady Morgana’s maid servant for a little under a year. She’s a prodigy at it and this time she does let people see. She spends all the time she has with Morgana and all the rest of it practicing with a sword in the forge’s yard.

It takes longer for anyone to notice than she thought it would.

She’s practising behind her father’s forge. Moving through the same jabs and cuts she’s repeated a thousand times before. It feels good, like it always does. It feels powerful.

“Well aren’t you full of surprises?” Lady Morgana calls wryly from the forge and Gwen almost drops her sword.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” she hisses, forgetting just about everything she’s ever learned about how to treat those of higher stations than hers. “Sorry.” she tags on the end, like that would stop a regular noble from having her beheaded for such words.

“Don’t be.” Morgana smiles slyly. “You could probably put Arthur on his arse with moves like those.”

Gwen is immensely lucky that Morgana isn’t a regular noble. “I’m sure that he would be a formidable opponent.” she says diplomatically.

Morgana grins, because she loves Arthur just like Gwen loves Elyan, but she isn’t meeting Gwen’s eyes and seems hesitant in a way that’s unlike her.

“Yes, milady?” Gwen prompts.

“I don’t suppose-“ Morgana’s eyes dart to the sword rack in the corner of the yard. “I don’t suppose you could teach me?”

Gwen smiles, relief flooding her. “Of course”

After all, it would hardly be proper for her to refuse a request from the Lady Morgana.

Crew Swap AU

Commander Lovelace is having one of those few good days on the Hephaestus when Hera tells her that something’s docked at the airlock five

The crew scrambles, something they’ve been getting better at recently.

Those with firearms training head to the armory while Victoire and Kwan and Selberg go to the airlock where Lovelace knows they’ll be doing whatever they can to figure out what’s happening. In under three minutes the entire crew of the Hephaestus is gathered outside airlock five, mostly armed and entirely ready for a fight.

Hera can’t communicate with whatever’s on the craft but she can tell that there’s only one life form on board. Lovelace’s choice is either to let what just docked into the station, or to leave it hanging onto them like a leach on their oxygen.

Throughout her time on the Hephaestus Lovelace has grown to hate unknowns. They always lead to someone dying. It means that they have to deal with whatever’s clinging to them before they’re in the middle of the next emergency. Lovelace tells Hera to open the airlock.

Instead of aliens or monsters, what comes through the airlock is a man. He looks exhausted. His cheeks are sunken in and one arm is wrapped around his waist in an attempt to hold together what he can. His other hand holds a gun, shaking.

For a moment he looks confused, like he’s expecting people other than Lovelace’s crew to be there. Then his eyes lock onto Selberg and his expression turns murderous.

“You.” he rasps.

Lovelace lets herself look away from the stranger and at Selberg for a millisecond, it’s all she needs. Selberg looks scared. He looks terrified. The man that Lovelace can barely get to listen to her is stood, staring in abject horror at a man who’s barely holding himself upright.

“No.” Selberg whispers, eyes wide. “No, you died. I watched you die.”

“Really Doc?” says the man through gritted teeth, “I thought the whole point was that I wouldn’t be able to do that any more.”

And then his eyes start to glow.

Well, Lovelace thinks, cocking her gun as Selberg drops in a dead faint, maybe it is an alien.

It’s definitely been said before but at least I’m right

Wally: magic doesn’t exist

Kaldur: have you seen my glowy tattoos?? My tattoos that glow?? That allow me to magically control water?? With the magic I use literally every time we see each other???? Have you seen those???????

DC Super-Heroes by Gabriel Picolo.

Hi there! If you feel up to it, would you be willing to expand a bit more on the idea of white creators creating poc characters who are ‘internally white’, especially in a post-racialized or racism-free setting & how to avoid it? It’s something I’m very concerned about but I haven’t encountered a lot of info about it outside of stories set in real world settings. Thanks & have a good day!

Hey, thanks for asking, anon!  It’s a pretty nuanced topic, and different people will have different takes on it.  I’ll share my thoughts on it, but do keep in mind that other people of colour may have different thoughts on the matter, and this is by no means definitive!  These are things I’ve observed through research, trial and error, my own experiences, or just learning from other writers.

The first thing I guess I want to clarify is that I personally am not opposed to a society without racism in fiction.  It’s exhausting and frankly boring when the only stories that characters of colour get are about racism!  So it’s a relief sometimes to just get to see characters of colour exist in a story without dealing with racism.  That being said, I feel like a lot of the time when creators establish their settings as “post-racial,” they avoid racism but they also avoid race altogether.  Not aesthetically -they may have a few or even many characters with dark skin- but the way the characters act and talk and relate to the world are “race-less” (which tends to end up as default white American/British or whatever place the creator comes from).  Which I have complicated thoughts on, but the most obvious thing that springs to mind is how such an approach implies (deliberately or not) that racism is all there is to the way POC navigate the world.  It’s definitely a significant factor, particularly for POC in Western countries, but it’s not the only thing!  There’s so much more to our experiences than just racial discrimination, and it’s a shame that a lot of “post-racial” or “racism-free” settings seem to overlook that in their eagerness to not have racism (or race) in their stories.

A quick go-to question I ask when I look at characters of colour written/played by white creators is: if this was a story or transcript I was reading, with no art or actors or what have you, would I be able to tell that this character is a character of colour?  How does the creator signal to the audience that this is a character of colour?  A lot of the time, this signal stops after the physical description - “X has dark skin” and then that’s all!  (We will not discuss the issue of racial stereotypes in depth, but it should be clear that those are absolutely the wrong way to indicate a character of colour).

This expands to a wider issue of using dark skin as a be-all-end-all indication of diversity, which is what I mean by “aesthetic” characters of colour (I used the term “internally white” originally but upon further reflection, it has some very loaded implications, many of which I’m personally familiar with, so I apologize for the usage).  Yes, the character may not “look” white, but how do they interact with the world?  Where do they come from?  What is their background, their family?  A note: this can be challenging with diaspora stories in the real world and people being disconnected (forcibly or otherwise) from their heritage (in which case, those are definitely stories that outsiders should not tell).  So let’s look at fantasy.  Even the most original writer in the world bases their world building off existing things in the real world.  So what cultures are you basing your races off of?  If you have a dark skinned character in your fantasy story, what are the real world inspirations and equivalents that you drew from, and how do you acknowledge that in a respectful, non-stereotyped way?

(Gonna quickly digress here and say that there are already so many stories about characters of colour disconnected from their heritage because ‘They didn’t grow up around other people from that culture’ or ‘They moved somewhere else and grew up in that dominant culture’ or ‘It just wasn’t important to them growing up’ and so on.  These are valid stories, and important to many people!  But when told by (usually) white creators, they’re also used, intentionally or not, as a sort of cop-out to avoid having to research or think about the character’s ethnicity and how that influences who they are.  So another point of advice: avoid always situating characters outside of their heritage.  Once or twice explored with enough nuance and it can be an interesting narrative, all the time and it starts being a problem)

Another thing I want to clarify at this point is that it’s a contentious issue about whether creators should tell stories that aren’t theirs, and different people will have different opinions.  For me personally, I definitely don’t think it’s inherently bad for creators to have diverse characters in their work, and no creator can live every experience there is.  That being said, there are caveats for how such characters are handled.  For me personally, I follow a few rules of thumb which are:

Is this story one that is appropriate for this creator to tell?  Some experiences are unique and lived with a meaningful or complex history and context behind them and the people to whom those experiences belong do not want outsiders to tell those stories.

To what extent is the creator telling this story?  Is it something mentioned as part of the narrative but not significantly explored or developed upon?  Does it form a core part of the story or character?  There are some stories that translate across cultures and it’s (tentatively) ok to explore more in depth, like immigration or intergenerational differences.  There are some stories that don’t, and shouldn’t be explored in detail (or even at all) by people outside those cultures.

How is the creator approaching this story and the people who live it?  To what extent have they done their research?  What discussions have they had with sensitivity consultants/readers?  What kind of respect are they bringing to their work?  Do they default to stereotypes and folk knowledge when they reach the limits of their research?  How do they respond to feedback or criticism when audiences point things that they will inevitably get wrong?

Going back to the “race-less” point, I think that creators need to be careful that they’re (respectfully) portraying characters of colour as obvious persons of colour.  With a very definite ‘no’ on stereotyping, of course, so that’s where the research comes in (which should comprise of more than a ten minute Google search).  If your setting is in the real world, what is the background your character comes from and how might that influence the way they act or talk or see the world?  If your setting is in a fantasy world, same question!  Obviously, avoid depicting things which are closed/exclusive to that culture (such as religious beliefs, practices, etc) and again, avoid stereotyping (which I cannot stress enough), but think about how characters might live their lives and experience the world differently based on the culture or the background they come from.

As an example of a POC character written/played well by a white person, I personally like Jackson Wei and Cindy Wong from Dimension 20’s The Unsleeping City, an urban fantasy D&D campaign.  Jackson and Cindy are NPCs played by the DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, who did a good job acknowledging their ethnicity without resorting to stereotypes and while giving them their own unique characters and personalities.  The first time he acted as Cindy, I leapt up from my chair because she was exactly like so many old Chinese aunties and grandmothers I’ve met.  The way Jackson and Cindy speak and act and think is very Chinese (without being stereotyped), but at the same time, there’s more to their characters than being Chinese, they have unique and important roles in the story that have nothing to do with their ethnicity.  So it’s obvious that they’re people of colour, that they’re Chinese, but at the same time, the DM isn’t overstepping and trying to tell stories that aren’t his to tell.  All while not having the characters face any racism, as so many “post-racialized” settings aim for, because there are quite enough stories about that!

There a couple factors that contribute to the positive example I gave above.  The DM is particularly conscientious about representation and doing his research (not to say that he never messes up, but he puts in a lot more effort than the average creator), and the show also works with a lot of sensitivity consultants.  Which takes me to the next point - the best way to portray characters of colour in your story is to interact with people from that community.  Make some new friends, reach out to people!  Consume media by creators of colour!  In my experience so far, the most authentic Chinese characters have almost universally been created/written/played by Chinese creators.  Read books, listen to podcasts, watch shows created by people of colour.  Apart from supporting marginalized creators, you also start to pick up how people from that culture or heritage see themselves and the world, what kind of stories they have to tell, and just as importantly, what kind of stories they want being told or shared.  In other words, the best way to portray an authentic character of colour that is more than just the colour of their skin is to learn from actual people of colour (without, of course, treating them just as a resource and, of course, with proper credit and acknowledgement).

Most importantly, this isn’t easy, and you will absolutely make mistakes.  I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that you will mess up.  No matter how well researched you are, how much respect you have for other cultures, how earnestly you want to do this right, you will at some point do something that makes your POC audience uncomfortable or even offends them.  Then, your responsibility comes with your response.  Yes, you’ve done something wrong.  How do you respond to the people who are hurt or disappointed?  Do you ignore them, or double down on your words, or try to defend yourself?  Just as importantly, what are you planning to do about it in the future?  If you have a second chance, what are you going to do differently?  You will make mistakes at some point.  So what are you going to do about them?  That, I think, is an even more important question than “How can I do this right?”  You may or may not portray something accurately, but when you get something wrong, how are you going to respond?

Essentially, it all comes down to your responsibility as a creator.  As a creator, you have a responsibility to do your due diligence in research, to remain respectful to your work and to your audience, and to be careful and conscientious about how you choose to create things.  It’s not about getting things absolutely perfect or being the most socially conscious creator out there, it’s about recognizing your responsibilities as a creator with a platform, no matter how big or small, and taking responsibility for your work. 

In summary:

Research, research, research

Avoid the obvious no-no’s (stereotypes, tokenization, fetishization, straight up stealing from other cultures, etc) and think critically about what creative choices you’re making and why

Do what you’re doing now, and reach out to people (who have put themselves out there as a resource).  There are tons of resources out there by people of colour, reach out when you’re not sure about something or would like some advice!

Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility

Thank you for reaching out!  Good luck with your work!

been watching young justice

rough sketch - lineart - color

New fic oop-

If you like the young justice one shots I have on here it’s just more of them but compiled better. Also I’m trying to keep them all in the same continuity so you might get some followups to previous ones.

When is a person not a person?

It’s a question that plagues Zatanna. Or, maybe not even that. When does a person become a different person? When does the helmet on your head twist and twist you into someone new and old and different who doesn’t have a daughter at all.

Zatanna wonders if the word orphan applies to her. She wonders if she’ll ever figure it out.

“I don’t know.” Robin says when she asks, because during one of their chats he let slip that he really is an orphan. Two whole parents buried in their graves, no waking up. The whole shebang.

“I want to know.” She answers. It feels like a big question, the kind you need someone to answer before you can move on and do anything with your life. “I want things to start making sense.”

The word orphan makes sense. She even looked it up in a dictionary, all very clear cut.

“Whatever the answer is, you have family.” He smiles and Zatanna thinks about how sweet he is.

“Wally’s a lucky guy.” she says, half because she wants the conversation to turn a little less serious, half because it’s the truth. Robin turns a bit red and Zatanna absent mindedly  starts thinking about what colour bridesmaid dress she would like.

“Shut up.” he groans, before turning serious again. “I don’t know what the right thing to say is, Z, but you’ve got to know that you’re one of us.”

Zatanna’s heart breaks a little even as she smiles. She does love the team, really she does. They’re bright and fast and beautiful and kind. They’re strong and clever and righteous and she does love them. It’s just that before she didn’t only belong with them. She had two places. She had a room in the mountain and a place by her father’s side.

It had made her feel whole, the duality of it all.

Maybe that’s why she packs a bag the next morning and conjures up a means of escape.

Every day with the team her soul shatters again. Every time she sees her father’s body, reduced to a vessel for a being that isn’t even kind, her heart breaks in two. Staying so close to reminders of all the things she’s lost isn’t doing her any good so she decides to leave.

Where’s the line between running away and escaping? she thinks, and finally there’s a question she doesn’t want the answer to.

“I trained someone once.” Shadow Weaver says, in a rare moment where they aren’t actively fighting each other. “Before you. Before Adora.”

“What were they like?” Catra asks, unsure.

“Powerful.” Of course she says that first, it’s the only thing that really matters to her. She thinks on it a moment longer. “He was a decent student, but sometimes lacked motivation.”

It’s possibly the most personal information Catra has ever learned about about Shadow Weaver and she feels herself grow tense. It must be building to something, Catra has never known Shadow Weaver to do something without purpose.

“You are all the things in him that I hated.” she spits like the words are acid in her mouth and the sudden sharing mood makes more sense now. Hurting Catra is the one thing Shadow Weaver actually does do without purpose.”It’s important to me that you know that.”

Catra nods and keeps thinking about all the ways she can make everyone who’s ever hurt her feel like she does.

Lucius Fox doesn’t really know Tim Drake.

Sure, he’s had an awareness of the boy’s existence for a while, but Lucius has an awareness of most things that happen in Gotham. That doesn’t mean that he needs to look into all of them.

Now Tim Drake is stood in Lucius’ office on slide thirty-two of a powerpoint on all the things Wayne Enterprises should be doing to improve their profit margins. Lucius takes a moment to regret not looking into Tim Drake.

How old is the boy? Ten? The suit makes him look adorable and tiny, the seriousness with which he discusses the company only heightens the effect. It all contrasts rather awfully with the hard logic coming out of the boys mouth and Lucius would consider putting his head in his hands if that wouldn’t mean missing some of the show.

His mind flashes to all of Tam’s pleas for a little brother and he wonders for a moment how much Jack and Janet Drake would miss their tiny genius.

“You’re not paying attention.” Tim snaps with a severity that he must have learned from Janet.

Lucius leans forward and makes sure he looks properly chastened because, really, he could have missed some good points.

“My apologies, please proceed.”

Tim gives a curt nod and launches into slide thirty-three.

After Conner finds out about where the other half of his DNA came from, once he knows that Superman might actually find a valid way to hate him one day, it would have been easy for Lex to slip into the shadows and leave the secrets Conner learned to torment him.

He doesn’t.

Instead he starts to visit. He texts Conner and asks if he would like to go to a diner after school. He calls Conner to ask how his day’s going. He smiles when Conner tells him that he taught Wolf a new trick.

If Conner didn’t know better, he might think that Lex was trying to parent him.

He assumes that Cadmus must have gotten something wrong. He guesses that he misunderstood what it meant when they put the thought that ‘parents look out for you and give you advice and forgive you when you yell at them’ because if he didn’t then-

Then Lex Luthor would be a significantly better dad than Superman. Which wouldn’t make sense. At all.

~

After about a month of visits and kind words and pats on the shoulder that make Conner feel embarrassed but so full of happiness he might burst, he decides to confess to the team. Partly because he hates lying to them more than anything in the world. Partly because he knows this is wrong and he knows that he has to stop before he says something he shouldn’t and screws everything up but if he’s ever going to stop he needs someone to tell him he has to.

So he confesses. And very pointedly doesn’t look at anyone as he waits for them to start yelling.

“But-” starts Artemis, soft in a way Conner’s never associated with her before, “but you’ve been happier.”

He finally looks up and instead of angry they just look sad and understanding and Conner loves all of them so much.

“Conner,” Kaldur says, calm and measured, “If Lex Luthor is your blood, and you want to get to know him, I don’t think that any of us would feel comfortable taking that away from you.”

Wally steps forward like he wants to reach out. “We all have adults we can talk to about all of this, it’s not fair that you don’t. We won’t tell on you man.”

Conner squeezes his eyes shut because if he keeps looking at all their earnest faces he might start crying.

“I’d never-” he struggles to get the words out, “I’d never choose him over any of you. I like him and sometimes he feels important to me in a weird way. But he’s nothing compared to you guys.”

“We know.” M’gann says.

‘We know’, they all say with their trust and their kindness and all the ways they’ve tried to make him feel at home since they came together.

Before he can leave to calm down somewhere with fewer people and more things to break he’s swamped by a tangle of limbs and reassurance and forgets why he wanted to leave anyway.

He really does have the best family.

In young justice lex and conner should have had the same relationship as danny and vlad in danny phantom in this essay i will-

gotham never really understands the waynes. the waynes are, by far, the most interesting people in gotham, the elite who spent more time in crime alley than any of gotham’s rich ever dared. 

the waynes are supposed to be fumbling, clumsy rich people who got kidnapped a lot and bought ridiculous stuff. 

the waynes are supposed to be the star darlings of gotham city, and they are - but not for the reason you’d think. 

well, they’re all pretty as hell, but none of them have truly tried the influencer angle and the media is so, so enamored with the way they act. you can watch old video recordings of public appearances, and the same thing happens and each. 

dick grayson. age 9. his first press conference. suit is too broad for his shoulders and he trips over the stairs, but he looks at home standing taller, above the crowd on a pedestal that should’ve been out of reach. truly, an acrobat’s son. 

dick grayson. age 11. fourth unwanted conversation at a gala. his eyes skim along the room looking for ever exit and you can never hear his footsteps. he appears at your side and smiles and talks so easily you almost forget the way he gathers information with no discomfort. 

he disappears from the public eye for years. no one ever asks why. growing pains and growing up, wayne says.

_

jason todd. age 11. first public appearance, looking at everything in wonder and scowling when the other public figures treated him more than an object than a child. a petutulant child, stubborn, but just another of bruce wayne’s orphans club. 

Keep reading

She looks out across a world in chaos and frowns.

“It was brash”

“It was bold”

“It was impetuous”

“It was inspired”

They grow silent. An acknowledgement that no agreement is to be found in this place.

~

She says that she should kill him. She says so often, without humour. She says so as a woman who has killed hundreds across her lifetime and will no doubt kill hundreds more.

“You know more of me than anyone else does.” he confesses.

She hums.

“I could say the same to you.”

He grins and she can’t help but pity him. Connection was never necessary for her, but to watch this child suffer without it must be a tragedy beyond measure.

~

She tells him that she put poison in his drink. He sighs, tired, and walks outside. She hears him throwing up in the ally behind the abandoned building they had chosen for their meetings.

He comes back in with clothes just as clean and hair just as neat as when he left. He frowns at her but is happy to continue their conversation as it was.

“I’m going to hurt you one day.” she informs him. He rolls his eyes.

“You hurt me constantly,” he gestures to some bruises for effect, “At least this way I might be tough enough to survive what’s to come.”

She nods. With the sorts of enemies the boy tends to make he has a point.

Everyone in Gotham loves Bruce Wayne.

He’s loved in the slums, in the overlooked places, for his charity. For his way of giving aid that only ever comes across as a little patronising because, as he’ll tell you himself, what else is he meant to do with all that money?

He’s loved in the high places, the penthouses and mansions on hills, for his charm. The rich see him and something in his smile dazzles in the way they wish the jewels that drip from their clothes could offer even the poorest imitation of.

He’s loved in the in between places for a combination of the same things. In the evening he appears on talk shows where his confidence is appealing to watch. In the morning, if you’re lucky, your child might get a scholarship or your insurance might finally be compelled to pay out and you’ll thank the stars for the cheerful man you saw on telly the night before.

Everyone in Gotham loves Bruce Wayne.

But something about his kids is a little… off.

~

First there’s Dick Grayson.

He sets the bar for the other kids, and no one can deny he sets it high.

He makes himself obvious, seeks out attention in the endearing way that only people born for show business can quite manage. He seems perfectly adjusted despite the tragedy everyone knows landed him in Bruce Wayne’s care and the papers only ever print the nicest pictures of him.

But sometimes…

Sometimes he laughs too hard and it smells like he’s leaking the Joker’s awful gas. Sometimes he frowns and the room grows quiet and scared until he remembers the role he’s playing and smiles. Sometimes someone will point out flawless he is and he’ll look at them strangely, as if to ask, ‘how could I dare be anything else?’

He starts a pattern.

~

Jason Todd is next, and God help anyone who expected someone with manners.

He’s utterly unlike Dick in a way that might seem forced if you never met him. He’s rude and brash and has absolutely none of the patience it requires most people to survive in delicate the circles of the Gotham elite.

But then he’ll say something and will leave whoever he was talking to with the smallest inkling of how clever he really is, even if it isn’t in a way any of the people that fill those ballrooms could ever understand. His rough edges will catch on something and pull until the lies and lies and lies that Gotham is built on unravel in his wake and whoever’s lucky enough to watch is left a little unsure of their place in the world.

Whatever. It’s not like street smarts do anyone that matters any favours.

~

After Jason is in his grave and poor, poor Bruce Wayne is all alone again, Tim Drake comes along.

Everyone’s a little confused about this one (doesn’t he have parents? They’re dead? What happened to their company?) but he fits the pattern of Bruce Wayne taking in only the oddest of boys.

His under eyes are permanently bruised in the way only insomnia can quite manage. He talks business with the other CEOs like he could do their jobs better than they do, and only the cleverest realise it’s because he could.

He sleeps through school but his grades are perfect. He comes across as antisocial but always seems to have plenty of friends. You would assume him to be the least tragic of Bruce’s boys but then he’ll get that look in his eye and you’ll wonder…

You’ll wonder if he knows everything and then you’ll try not to wonder what it cost him.

(take a look at his scars, maybe you can guess)

~

Then comes Damian Wayne, the blood son.

He fills the chatter of families all over Gotham like none of Bruce’s kids had since Dick. A true son! One made out of old Brucie’s blood and flesh and bone! Surely this one might be liked as well as his father?

He is not.

In his first TV appearance he insults the interviewer. Then the audience. Then Gotham in general and the people know their city is the dark thing that lurks in the shadows but it’s theirs.

He looks down on people in a way that’s almost otherworldly, a level of contempt you would think impossible if not for having seen it in the twist of the child’s brow. At first he even shares it for his brothers, turning his nose up at them in same way he does everything else in the city.

The only thing he doesn’t appear to hate with his whole four foot being is his father.

Damian’s scorn for his brothers softens with time, growing into a respect you would think endearing if the kid wouldn’t clearly break your kneecaps if you called him cute. But from the moment he arrives in Gotham it’s clear he loves his father, and even if no one can say they took to the kid at first, at least there was always one aspect in which they could find kinship.

~

Everyone in Gotham loves Bruce Wayne, especially his kids. And even if Gotham finds them a little odd, at least they have something in common.

margaret atwood // doom days - bastille // azra t. // carry on - rainbow rowell // romeo and juliet - william shakespeare // cruel summer - taylor swift // gregory orr // red, white, and royal blue - casey mcquiston // romeo and juliet - william shakespeare // cruel summer - taylor swift // erica jong // sober ii (melodrama) - lorde // romeo and juliet - william shakespeare // the raven king - maggie stiefvater // ghosts - florence + the machine // tamerlane - edgar allan poe // the raven king - maggie stiefvater // cruel summer - taylor swift

friends to enemies to lovers is actually something that can be so intimate. i know you i know everything about you i have told you all my deepest secrets and you have told me yours and now i am trying to kill you literally or metaphorically because hate and love are separated by a very thin line and i don't know which side i am on

“Did you hear that?” whispers Callum to the more hardened criminals around him. They snort in derision at his caution, just the new guy being on edge about the job, but he keeps his gun held tight in his hand.

“I heard it too.” says Tony, the other new guy. He doesn’t look as worried as Callum because fine maybe Callum is a bit nervous about this whole ‘becoming a criminal’ thing but he can see that Tony holds his gun with just as tight a grip. “Sounded a bit like laughing, yeah?”

The rest of the gang goes very still and Callum feels like he might be missing something.

“Yeah,” Callum agrees cautiously, “like a little kid.”

Someone swears. Everyone turns so that someone else is defending their back.

“What’s the problem?.” Callum asks, also turning to keep someone at his back.

The laughter sounds again, clearer this time and that’s definitely a little kid. It makes even some of the more hardened men in the room flinch.

“Anyone here got a problem shooting a kid?” asks the member of their group that Callum thinks might be in charge.

What he really wants to say is yes I do have a problem shooting a kid that really isn’t what I thought I was signing up to here but Callum thinks that saying any of that would be a very good way to have the guys shoot him instead of the kid. He doesn’t want that either so he stays silent and pretends that he’s cool with everything that’s happening here.

Turns out that he doesn’t need to worry about shooting any kids.

Turns out that kids are more likely to shoot you.

They don’t even see the boy before there are sharp things knocking the guns out of their hands and, just as Callum tries to pick his up, tiny fingers are around his neck and he’s blacking out before managing to put up even the imitation of a fight.

~

Callum wakes up he doesn’t know how long later. He’s in the ally behind the warehouse he’d been in when he got knocked out. A kid in a domino mask is perched on the street light across from him.

“You should get a different job,” the kid says to him, “you’re too scared for this one.”

Callum would have loved to have said something cutting back, the kind of one liner the real bosses can come up with in an instant, but his throat is sore from being squeezed shut and his head is swimming so all he comes up with is a raspy, “am not” as he tries not to puke.

“Your hands are shaking.”

Shit, they are. Callum sends as scathing a look as he can at his traitorous hands. The effort of that actually does make him puke and he’s forced to ignore the somewhat pitying look the kid is sending his way.

“Yikes, you really aren’t suited to this kind of thing, are you? Maybe you should try and get one of those construction jobs going at that place round the corner. Oh! Or you could be a chef! I think you’d make a great chef.” The kid looks behind himself at something Callum’s vision is too blurry to see. “I’ve gotta go, but it was nice meeting you. Hopefully see you never, yeah?”

The kid backflips off the street light for no discernible reason.

Callum lies on his back and stares at his hands for twenty minutes until they stop shaking. For the whole time he thinks about how the construction place round the corner already rejected him and there aren’t any jobs for chefs in this part of town.

“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.

If Mrs. Monroe, head of maths at Gotham Prep, had to describe Dick Grayson in one word it would be ‘prefect’.

If she were allowed two she would say ‘worryingly perfect’.

She didn’t keep up with the media storm around Bruce Wayne’s ward as it happened, but when she heard that the kid would be in her class she decided that she had better catch up with it. She reads about how the boy came from a travelling circus and how his parents died in an accident (or was it a murder? She isn’t quite sure). She reads that after coming from a working class background he’s just been placed with the richest man in the city during a particularly traumatic time. Everything she sees worries her to no end and as she walks in on Monday she braces herself for a boy to turn up made up of grief and fear for being in this strange, strange place that’s nothing at all like the circus where he grew up.

Instead, Dick Grayson walks into class seeming like a perfectly well adjusted young boy who she would never have guessed had endured anything particularly awful in his life.

All lesson she waits for him to slip up, to show that he’s going through something terrible. Then he doesn’t and she waits for the rest of the week. Then she’s left waiting for the rest of the month and, after that, the rest of the year.

Dick Grayson never slips up. He has plenty of friends, even though he never seems that close with them, he’s the best in her class, even though he never had formal schooling before, and he never seems at all out of place at Gotham Prep.

She’s mentioned it to the other teachers, that something about how good the kid is bothers her, but none of them seem to pick up on it. They all just offer testament to how well Dick’s getting on at Gotham Prep and how it just goes to show how much potential the boy has.

So Mrs. Monroe waits for Dick to slip up and tries not to worry too hard.

~

During the summer after Dick’s first year of school (having placed first in all his classes, naturally) Mrs. Monroe sees him outside of school for the first time.

It’s a nice day and her husband is away on business so she decides to take the time to go on a walk by herself. As she’s turning onto one of Gotham’s nicer streets she almost runs directly into Dick.

He’s with three other boys. They all seem older than him but it only surprises her a little since one of the many things on Mrs. Monroe’s list of ‘reasons why Dick Grayson is a very worrying boy’ is that he’s oddly mature for his age.

When Dick sees her he stops and smiles, and Mrs. Monroe can’t help but smile back.

“Hi Mrs. M,” he says. She notices that he’s leaning closer to the boys than he does with any of his school friends.

“Hello Dick. I hope you’re having a good holiday.”

“Totally Miss-” he starts, but then one of the boys, with brown hair and a confident gait, stops him by landing a heavy arm around his shoulders.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we’re having a boys night.” he says, “So we’ll just be on our way.”

The other three let out long-suffering sighs and Mrs. Monroe feels like she’s missing out on something.

“One, it’s daytime.” says another of the boys, black with close cropped blonde hair, “and two, the only reason the others aren’t here is because they’re actually having a girls night and kicked us out.”

The only one who hasn’t spoken yet nods seriously.

“Well I wouldn’t want to keep you,” answers Mrs. Monroe, not quite sure what else to say, “I’ll see you again when school is back in session, Dick.”

Dick nods happily while the rest of the boys wave goodbye to her and make their way onwards.

As Mrs. Monroe walks home she thinks about the encounter. She knows that none of those boys go to Gotham so they must be friends from something else. The way they had acted around each other though, well, she doesn’t think that she’s seen Dick that close with any of his friends at school.

Thinking about it, he’d seemed a little more human in that group. Less like the perfect student and popular kid he always was at school.

Whatever it was seemed good and after that encounter, Mrs. Monroe worries about Dick Grayson a little less.

Adora being op series: 1  2  3 

~

“I didn’t mean to leave you behind!” Adora cries as she dodges a punch. She’s so caught up in the rhythm of the fight that she almost misses the look of hurt on Catra’s face.

“Leave me behind?” she shouts, “Leave me behind!” She throws herself into a kick aimed at Adora’s face and Adora swats her away with the flat of her sword. “Like that would ever be enough for you!” Catra yells, “You’ll outlive me by centuries! No matter what I do, you get to watch me get old and weak and dead. You get to move on with your new friends and laugh until you forget I exist.”

Adora stares at her wide eyed as Catra pants from the exertion. She senses the other princesses come up to stand beside her and her thoughts of how utterly awful that must make Catra feel overshadow her relief for having more backup against the person that makes her weakest.

After staring at the group of them Catra shouts “Retreat!” to her troops, seeing that they’re outmatched. She turns to leave the battlefield with them but can’t seem to resist turning for a parting remark.

“Hope you enjoy eternity, princesses.” she snarls with all the nastiness that Adora knows she can muster which never used to be pointed at her.

As the Horde troops retreat they stand together in silence, attempting to present a united front against the enemy.

“I mean, she’s not wrong” Mermista whispers to whoever’s beside her. Adora sees Glimmer elbow her in the side in her periphery.

Adora watches her old family run away and thinks a lot about crying.

(she doesn’t)

Wirt and Greg learn magic: 1, 2

It becomes clear fairly soon after Greg starts learning magic with Wirt that Jason Funderburker is his familiar.

No one is surprised by this revelation, except perhaps Jason Funderburker who Wirt still thinks is acclimatising to the fact that his stomach glows now and can be used for mind control.

When Wirt finally meets his familiar he’s far more surprised than he probably should be by the fact that it’s a bluebird.

Greg is extremely excited the day she arrives. The weight of magic in the air had been heavy all week and the two of them had suspected that Wirt’s familiar would show up, either that or they would die again, but what are the chances of dying twice?

When she arrives she flies in through the window, takes a shit on Wirt’s head and flies out again.

Greg is, of course, charmed, and although Wirt doesn’t appreciate the bird shit he has to get out of his jumper the attitude reminds him of Beatrice and he can’t help but feel something pull on his chest at that.

The bluebird comes back and Wirt decides to call her B. He isn’t sure what it’s short for, or if it’s short for anything, but he thinks that it fits and Greg agrees.

~

In the future, when he meets people who know the same words as he does and keep their familiar perched on their shoulder like he does, Wirt gets asked what B is short for.

Every time someone asks the question he gets more defensive than he means to, goes over the top in explaining that it isn’t short for anything (he thinks) and people should be allowed to call their familiars whatever they want to. People give him odd looks after he inevitably goes on this particular tirade but Greg always nods in understanding at why he has to say all those things.

It helps.

Watching young justice and nothing is funnier than the justice league telling off the kids and captain marvel standing in the background trying not to act sus

Wirt and Greg learn magic: 1

~

After speaking the words of his first spell, Greg decides that he doesn’t like magic.

It’s a hard decision for him to make, because magic makes Wirt happier than almost anything else and Greg’s fairly sure that all the things that make his brother happy are good, but Greg doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. When he says the same words that he’s heard Wirt mumbling under his breath for the past few months something in his gut stirs with a feeling of wrong which makes his brain go fuzzy and scared until there are tears in the corners of his eyes.

Wirt doesn’t talk to him about magic after that. It makes Greg a little sad, because he worries that he’s ruined one of the only things that Wirt’s enjoyed since getting home, but he’s also very relieved. As long as Wirt keeps all of his magic away from him then maybe Greg won’t ever have to feel that awful feeling of wrong again and everything can go back to normal.

~

Things change a month or so later when Wirt asks him to read a spell.

“It’s different from the last one.” he says, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand he probably doesn’t realise still has sigils smudged across it, “I found it when I was looking into Auntie Whispers, not Adelaide, and when I read it I felt-” He shudders.

“Did it feel wrong? In your tummy?” asks Greg, so his brother doesn’t have to say it.

Wirt nods. He still looks worried even though he really shouldn’t and Greg takes the paper.

“You don’t have to!” says Wirt, panicked, “this was a bad idea, I shouldn’t have shown you this, I don’t want anything to-”

Greg starts to read.

He reads and instead of feeling something in him turn foul like he’d half expected, he feels… good.

As he speaks something that had been shaken out of place when he read that first spell slots back into place, something he didn’t even realise he’d been missing. He speaks the words and he likes the way they taste in his mouth and the way that as he says them he feels braver. He finishes reading and looks up at Wirt who’s smiling broader than Greg thinks he might have ever seen before.

“I’ve decided that I like magic.” Greg says with finality and it make Wirt smile even wider.

It all starts in English, as a surprising amount of things in Wirt’s life do. They’re reading poems and eventually come to one called ‘The Beast’ by a woman named Adelaide which is too familiar for Wirt to ignore.

The moment he gets home he starts to research the author. He reads about how she and her sister almost died when they were young, around the same ages as Wirt and Greg are now. He reads accounts about how both of them changed after the accident, how they became estranged but always shared an intense interest in the occult. He reads about the children found in Adelaide’s basement after she died.

That last part makes him cry for a long time.

Even though he hates Adelaide, and he now knows that it’s the same Adelaide as he met in the Unknown, he can’t help but keep reading about her life. Finding out that someone other than himself and Greg made it out makes him believe that a life after the Unknown might be possible, that this isn’t just a dream and he’s going to wake up any moment to fire and heat and smothered in the Beast’s soul.

And then there’s the witchcraft. As far as Wirt knows, Adelaide and Auntie Whispers are the only people in the Unknown who could do magic. Finding out that they went there when they were younger makes him wonder if maybe having escaped the Unknown in the past is what gave them their abilities. He wonders if the same rules apply to him and Greg.

So Wirt looks into the occult. He tries not to get too interested in it, he doesn’t want people to think he’s some kind of weirdo, but he likes it. He likes the patterns and the sounds and the way that when he reads the words out loud they make him feel powerful in a way he never has before.

Wirt asks Greg if he wants to read the words as well, once. When he repeats the same words that Wirt has said to himself a thousand times his eyes go watery and he has to spend the next hour hugging Jason Funderburker close to his chest.

Because of this, along with a thousand other things, Wirt worries. He worries because his brother is the best person he knows and he wonders what it says about him that something that makes the best person in the world cry makes him want to shout out in exultation.

Wirt worries so much that he thinks his head might explode and leave everything dripping with the black sludge of fear and unease and worry that lives in his head.

But he doesn’t stop.

~

Wirt is in his room, alone in a sea of hand-written notes and books on the dark things in the woods that he used to be more afraid of. He sits in front of a mirror covered in sigils drawn on in whiteboard marker and encircled in candles.

He waits for the clock to strike midnight and recites the same words he’s said a thousand times before.

The air in the room gets warmer as he speaks. The air twisting and writhing with the forces upon it. It’s all confusing and chaotic and not at all how things in the real world tend to be.

It’s how things in the Unknown tend to be.

Wirt tries to keep his focus, he tries so hard to make the words do what he wants them to that for a moment he forgets to be scared or nervous or worried at all.

The candles burn brighter. The mirror cracks.

Wirt smiles, and manages to picture a life for himself after the Unknown for the first time since he got back.

I wrote a fic based on this!

The link

Amity joins the Emperor’s Coven

Amity Blight is perfect.

She has perfect grades and a perfect family and is exactly the kind of person that’s going to grow up and fit in perfectly at the Emperor’s Coven. When Lilith isn’t busy being proud of her she can’t help but feel a little jealous of the child for never having to be second best to anyone.

That’s all until the human arrives.

Before Lilith can even begin to process the situation Amity is deviating from the careful path of perfection Lilith has so painstakingly laid out for her. She still has perfect grades and she’s still the youngest daughter of the Blight family, all that prestige and none of it tying her down, but suddenly her allegiances are questionable.

She’s spending too much time with the human. Too much time with Eda. Too much time with people who could steer her away from the path she must take.

So before things can go too awfully, before Eda can ruin this perfect little girl like she ruins everything else, Lilith makes a proposal.

“How would you like to become the youngest member of the Emperor’s Coven?” She says, all warmth and approval in the way she knows the girl’s parents never are.

Amity’s face lights up and Lilith tries not to think too much about how the guilt churning in her stomach makes her feel a little like when she cursed her sister.

being gay is just

*consumes podcast* *yearn**consumes podcast* *consumes queer coded kids cartoon* *consumes podcast* *yearn* *consumes podcast* *yearn**consumes queer coded kids cartoon* *consumes podcast* *consu