No I’m not attracted to you. Quit your evil putting your finger under my chin to make me look up at you. I know I’m your nemesis and all but we really need to set some boundaries when you’ve got me tied up like this.
No look I get it. You’ve got your evil plan, you’ve gotta get me out of the way but you also want to see me suffer as I watch the world burn, I know. But like, I’m not into this. Sexually or otherwise. Wait, you thought I was doing this because I liked you? I’m trying to stop you from using a death laser. No I don’t think death lasers are sexy what on earth are you talking about
Wait. That’s why you dress like that? I thought that armor was impractical. No I don’t find our relationship to be homoerotic I find it to be tedious. Look, man. We all keep trying to get you into therapy. No I’m not kink shaming you I’m saying you’ve completely misinterpreted this relationship. I actually do think you should answer for your war crimes. Yes, really. No you’re the one not listening to me in this situation. Yes that is the alarm the others will have cut all your wires and called in the fbi by now.
What do you mean you thought we had something special? I have other enemies. You’re not the only one. No I’m not doing kinky things with them either I blow up their nefarious devices. Speaking of which, you might want to move like… ten feet to your right.
The henchmen in the tags who have been assuring the villain since the beginning that “of course he likes you back, why else would he keep coming to destroy your death lasers”
since becoming a barista i have noticed a few very distinct typologies among my customers. such as:
the woke left: young and fashionable. visible tattoos. often enjoys matcha, lavender flavoring, oat milk, and cold foam. pretty decent customers.
sweet old man: drinks very sweet iced lattes, pays in cash, puts all of his change in the tip jar. sometimes orders hot coffee and i get scared that his shaky old man hands will spill it and he'll get burned but that has not yet happened and god willing never shall.
evil old man: only wants drip coffee and declares it ridiculous that any other form of coffee exists. some variants only want americanos and these variants are even scarier. watch out.
sweet old woman: might need her daughter's help to order but is very bubbly and open to trying new things. compliments baristas freely and frequently.
evil old woman: does not want coffee and only wants sweet tea or soda. will not tip even if she spends three hours in the shop repeatedly asking baristas to fetch things for her.
errand husband: either stiltedly recites an order to you or shows you the order in their texts/notes app. needs to step out of line and make a phone call if you ask any follow-up questions.
grindset girlie: always wearing scrubs, an apron, and/or a name tag. orders the exact same thing every day and knows the exact change she'll need to pay for it. her regular order is both extremely caffeinated and extremely sweet.
#mamabear: is actively wrangling two to four children while ordering. order changes repeatedly because the children cannot decide if they want a muffin or a cookie or apple juice or chocolate milk etc. for some reason these women are always wearing an article of clothing or carrying some personalized item that says "mama" on it.
schoolchildren: band of two to eight adolescents hanging out after school. extremely indecisive but generally quite polite and tip well.
amnesiac in love: grown adult who needs their partner to tell them what they like. gets asked a question about their own preferences and turns to their partner to answer for them. generally acts like a shy child looking to their guardian for behavioral cues if you try to interact with them and only wants to talk to mommy i mean their wife.
this of course is not an exhaustive list but those are just some of the most consistent Types i get. ok bye xoxo
Okay no I need to talk about the book version of Howl's Moving Castle. I love the movie but the book has such a different vibe and you, yes you, should read it.
Movie Howl is a soulful and quiet. Book Howl is a drama queen and Causing Problems and has a long string of jilted exes and couldn't shut up if you paid him.
Sophie and Howl drive each other up the wall at the beginning and it's really funny. Sophie and Howl are (despite themselves) very much in love by the end and they still drive each other up the wall and it's even funnier.
In the movie, Howl has been ordered by the king to participate in The War, and Howl is avoiding it because he is a brave conscientious objector. In the book, Howl has been ordered by the king to rescue his lost brother from the Witch of the Wastes, and Howl is avoiding it by any means necessary because he is a cowardly weasel who wants to stay as far from the Witch as possible.
In the movie, the Witch cursed Sophie because she was jealous about Howl speaking to Sophie for five minutes. In the book, the Witch cursed Sophie because Sophie had been doing surprisingly powerful magic for years without knowing it and it was actually starting to cut into the Witch's plans. (Sophie does not discover any of this until nearly the end of the book, but the reader can start to pick it up much earlier and the way Sophie's magic works is pretty darn cool.)
In the movie, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens, but this is implied to be nothing but nasty fearmongering. In the book, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens because Howl started the rumor so people would stop asking him to do wizard junk all the time.
The book lightly parodies a couple of tropes from Western fairy tales. In particular Sophie has internalized that, as the eldest of three sisters, her "destiny" is to fail so that her younger sisters will look cooler when they succeed, which is why she's so resigned to the hat shop at the beginning. (Sidebar: Sophie's sisters come up much more in the book and they're great.) There's also a really funny bit where Sophie attempts to operate a pair of seven-league boots.
In the movie, the fourth and final location that the magic door connects to is some sort of black void / mindscape / time portal dealy. In the book the fourth location is Wales, in the UK, on Earth, so that Howl can visit his family, because from Howl's perspective this is an isekai story.
Bruce: Yes. His name is Clark Kent. He can be trusted.
Danny: Okay. *Writes note down* What about the woman next to him?
Bruce: That's Cat Grant, and no, she can't be trusted. Everything you say to her will turn into a gossip-lifting, life-ruining article.
Danny: Got it. *writes more notes*
Jason, watching the two from a few feet away: Say, who's that kid Bruce is media training? Is he a new ward he took in?
Tim: No, that's Danny Fenton, the face of Fenton Works. They signed up as a sub-company of Wayne Enterprise. Originally, they were a paranormal investigation and capture company- yes, I mean ghost hunters- but it was discovered that almost all thier tech can be used on metas. Bruce wants to make medical equipment that can be used by our enhanced citizens.
Jason: I see. But why a kid so young? He's your age, right?
Tim: Hmm, apparently his parents, the owners of Fenton Works, made him CEO so they could focus on ghost hunting and the occasional meta medical machines for Bruce. He got here a week ago to shadow me for CEO training, and Bruce stole him after they met outside my office. Danny hangs onto his every word, and I think Bruce forgot what it was like to have a kid actually listen to him.
Jason: Ah thats makes sense. What do you think of him?
Tim: Well, he's a little naive, easy to trick, and has way too much empathy for the cold world of business. I'm gonna have him in my bed.
Jason: Ah....well that took a turn. One I do not like so I'm gonna....*walks away*
Tim: He will be ✨️mine✨️
Bruce overhears everything from the bugs he planted on his kids: Danny, go ahead and change Tim's status. He can not be trusted.
To be fair, from a purely business perspective Bruce is cool. For a mentor.
Remarkably competent (because he wouldn't hide that from a "student" the way he does from the wider public) and unusually chill. Most are one or the other. By now he has a LOT of experience explaining things to all sorts of people, so he's good at it and adaptable.
Yeah he started out inheriting a LOT but he also tries very very hard to do well by ALL employees AND the city AND give away as much as possible, he just has to do it via setting up his own damned charities because Gotham was corrupt as sin and its the only way to make sure at least most of the money actually does what its meant to.
And both Gotham and a lot of the world love him for it, so he never goes bankrupt despite his mega charities. (In most continuities.)
...Also it is VERY difficult to be quite as embarrassing a mentor as the Drs Fenton are as parents, so. Danny has a very different threshold for Cringe. XD
Yeah, Danny is used to his parents everything. Even then he's only embarrassed the same way a teen would be towards any parent. His threshold for cringe is off the charts.
Bruce has a little shadow trailing his every step and hanging off every word. He even has the right look. Bruce is feeling all nostalgic about when his kids respected him.
Also you have to love how pissed Vlad probably is. He should be the mentor! Maddie should have signed a deal with him! (Rage ghost noises)
Tom, buddy, reel it in a bit. No one wants to hear you 25 step plan to seduce Danny. Not even Steph, she is only listening to fuck you over
Tucker: Go on vacation they said. Gotham isn't that bad they said. Slap me hard and call me Daniel Fenton because what are even the chances of me getting kidnapped?!
Cass: 1 in every 2 people.
Tucker: Wait seriously?
Cass: mhm!
Tucker: Ha. Haha. Hahahahaha.
Cass: you ok?
Tucker: I'm just plotting my best friends murders. Well i can plot Sam's. Danny maybe not.
Cass: Didn't come with?
Tucker: No. The love birds paid for my trip here while they went who knows where.
Cass: Bad friends. Gotham is never safe.
Tucker: Well I'm dumb for believing them before doing my research. I swear I can hear them mocking me from here.
Cass: You're not scared about this?
Tucker: Nah, I mean realistically I should be but like I've been through worse.
Cass: Like?
Tucker: Oh where do I even start? Being held hostage? Dragons, undead pirates, rockstars and like several other things that don't even come close. These guys are human and their knot work? Needs better work. *Jazz hands*
Cass: Pff. Yes it does. *also free*
Tucker: I knew you were cool. We should just leave. These guys might not even see us slip out if they aren't paying attention to us now.
Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don't want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for the 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago. Nobody who wants to play something for the purpose of retro gaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we're certainly not going to let the original dissappear. They're crying about opportunity cost for a product they're not even selling.
op i know you're probably talking about like, video games, etc, but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company's out of business, or the company decided to not maintain it, and it's a fucking nightmare. we have two windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware. one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research. part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make it difficult-to-impossible to convert those file types without their specific software. by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so that i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can't be converted.
for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.
so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post here and go "well op just wants old video games to play" (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and then close it off) but also this is critical for like. biomedical research. if y'all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.
you wanna see some badass shit from the early 20th century?? The Lumière brothers created the first full color photograph… in fucking 1903! So these dudes dyed potatoes (in red, blue, and green), mashed them down into just pure fuckin’ starch, and used these dyed potato starches as filters to block out/let in certain wavelengths of light. They coated one side of a glass plate with the starches and sensitized the other side with a mixture of gelatin and light sensitive materials (silver nitrate) and loaded these plates in their cameras.. This is a really simple explanation of the process and I may have missed some things
A few of my favorite autochrome photos:
but lets not forget sergei prokudin-gorskiy, who developed a similar process in 1902, published in 1903 and then toured russia to take hundreds of color photographs:
AND the guy developed color slide processing as well. as a person fairly familiar with modern b/w processing at home, but never EVER stepping into color (negatives or slides) territory, i’d say, BAMF to the highest degree.
Here are a few more Prokudin-Gorskiy / Gorskii shots, and a reminder once again that these aren’t recently colourised BW images but original colour photos taken about 120 years ago. Many colourised pics don’t look this good. Some modern colour pics don’t look this good (as I know all too well. “Delete image Y/N? Y!”)
This is Leo Tolstoy, author of “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”.
Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara…
…and his Minister of the Interior.
A Type B-15 steam locomotive…
Another of those peasant girls with guest-gifts of berries…
The Church of St John the Baptist at Staraya Ladoga…
…and a Sergei Prokudin-Gorskiy self-portrait.
Unlike some current selfies ;-> he’s not dominating the image, so here’s a closer shot.
Danny Fenton has no plan for when he gets overpowered in a fight. He always assumed that if he lost, he be killed in battle.
His enemies made it very clear they did not expect him to walk away alive. So imagine his surprise when the one ghost who could beat him didn't finish him off. It was an odd blacksmith-themed ghost, going by the name of Forger, who used heated-up metal in deadly attacks. Coupled with his ability to puppeteer suits of armor, Danny found himself slowly being pushed back, having to fight a miniature army at once.
He had been taken down when he got careless and rushed to rescue a few civilians who were caught in the crossfire. He was sure Forger was going to execute him, what with his suits of armor holding Danny down on a mental box, which he had mistaken as a chopping block.
Danny had struggled with every inch of his strength, but he wasn't able to break free from the metal hands holding him down. One of the suits had raised an axe, and for a moment, the young ghost thought this would be the end of him.
He hadn't even noticed them ripping the top half of his jumpsuit, eyes fixed on the axe angled above his neck. His struggle intensified, but more empty armor suits appeared and made quick work of flattening him.
Forger had strutted up to his detain form, giving some grand speech about being the one person who decided the winners and the losers. That his weapons were the real reason wars began and ended. That it was he, Forger, who took down one of the best threats of the Infinite Realms, and this would be the last time anyone heard of Danny Phantom.
In the distance, over the villain's monologue, he could hear his friends and family screaming. They were attempting to break through the row of guards to reach him. He knows they won't make it in time. He was going to lose his head.
Tears stung Danny's eyes, sured he was about to be executeded before everyone.
Instead, Forger picked up a mental pole and burned a mark on his body. It was a scorching white pain the likes Danny had never felt before, even when he had half died in his parents' portal. He remembers screaming so loudly that the street they had been fighting on had been blown away by a ghostly wail.
Forger stood strong against the yell, but his army of suits not so much. The blast rendered them all into hulks of broken metal, and his allies, once able to climb to thier feet, were rushing across the battlefield ready to save Danny.
Forger cursed, obviously knowing that it would take a while to defeat everyone now that his army is down. He grabbed a half-delirious Danny by the back of his neck, agitating the burn mark now taking up most of his back, and flung him into a portal that he created with his hammer. He had been using that to smack suits into existence. Danny didn't know its name, but he knew it was a smithing hammer.
Danny had a few minutes where everything was white, as pain raced from the burnt flesh of his back to every inch of his body, and it took longer than it should have to regain awareness of his surroundings. Phantom didn't have super healing per se, but he did have a side effect of being dead, where his ghost body returned to its original state of death.
If Danny got injured in his human form, he had to wait out those injuries like a normal human. If he got hurt as Phantom, then in a few hours after the injury, whatever level server it was, he would be back to his original ghost-forming body, thankfully without the electric shot. That didn't happen now, because the burn had somehow transferred over to his human form.
Danny had very little recollection from that point on. He remembers the portal flinging him for what could have been hours or mere seconds in a glowing mixture of green and black, he remembers slamming into what looked like a dirty dumpster, but instead of landing inside, he bounced off the metal with a scream, he remember laying on the ground chocking through his own tears and pained breaths, and he remembers what looked like a gaint dark shape bat flying towards him from above, somehow glowing in the rain.
He woke a few days later in Gotham General Hospital, in one of the intensive care units. Apparently, he had been a John Doe that Batman had dropped off, and Bruce Wayne had stepped in to fund all medical expenses. His back, from his shoulder blades to the lower curve of his small back, just met his pelvis, was branded by the metal that Forger used on him. It had not been taken care of, and it suffered heavy bleeding and melted flesh.
The staff and social services, seeing as Danny was only fifteen, were very interested in how and who burned a mark across his back. He hadn't been forthcoming because he literally had no idea what was going on besides being pumped with heavy painkillers. He also realized on day two, between doses of medication, where his mind fog cleared slightly, that he could not transform into Phantom. Every time he tried to call upon his powers, his burn mark flared up like it was renewing, and a nurse had to burst through the room door upon hearing his echoing screams.
His spiking pain had them convince his burn was getting infected- it was- but only because Danny aggravated it. That was because he was trying to be Phantom. He decided to wait until he was healed enough to go ghost and settled into a routine in the hospital. He spent most of his time lying on his stomach, with the nurses coming in and out, each helping with feeding and basic needs. Every day felt worse and worse, not just because of the pain or his trapped mobility, but because Danny never felt as alone as he did then.
The medical staff didn't even know his name (His fault for refusing to say it), and the loneliness was eating him alive. The only thing keeping him going through those horrible two months in the hospital was the knowledge that Bruce Wayne (whoever that guy was) paid for everything and his new favorite show on the TV in his room.
Nail Artist Road Race. A show where nail artists crossed the country, doing challenges and getting eliminated as they tried to be the first to the finish line.
It was likely an old show, since they tended to do reruns for hours on end, and Danny was pretty sure he eventually watched the entire show twice by the time he was able to sit up and start physical therapy in a recovery center. Mr. Wayne once again footed the bill, and Danny- now allowing them to know him as Danny Fenton but playing the animisa card after a scan showed signs of it- was asked if there was anything he would like to make his private room better.
The facility was already one of the best in the country, and Danny honestly felt it was more of a hotel than a recovery center. He didn't ask for much, but he did ask to practice nail art, wanting to try it after watching so many hours of it. Mr. Wayne did not disappoint, and within three days of his request, a miniature studio was set up in a corner of his private room, complete with fake hands for him to practice on.
At first, Danny wasn't the best, but with the laptop Mr. Wayne sent him and a few free video tutorials, he was off. By the sixth month after his fight with Fodger, Danny had realized that he was A. in a completely different world and B. really good at his new hobby and C. He could not go ghost without Forger's mark flaring up. He spent nearly a year before he was finally able to be released from the recovery center, and at age sixteen, Danny was shipped off to the foster system.
Due to being in a new world, Danny had no proof of identity, and it was quickly concluded he might have been trafficked. Likely by a cult or something similar, thanks to the blasted mark burned into his flesh. He had no reason to correct the misunderstanding, yet he pretended to be a scared young man. He couldn't go Ghost and likely never will again, so he had to make sure no one found out about his origins.
Who knows what they would do with a boy so easy to make disappear? Over the course of a year, despite his limited movement, Danny had come to realize Gotham was not safe. Much less for a person with little to thier name. His only saving grace was that Bruce Wayne seemed to have taken an interest in him, and, despite never meeting the man in person, he was under Mr. Wayne's protection.
This is how Danny ended up with Mrs. Hoang, a widow of fifty, who may not have treated him with warmth but made sure he had everything he needed. She wasn't like his parents, who always openly expressed thier love in both actions and words, but she didn't treat him like Danny was a criminal or a slave like the many horror stories he'd heard about Gotham's foster system. Instead, she regarded him as if he were a chore she had to put up with.
He didn't mind too much, since he was able to continue school and found that the world's material was far easier than his, despite the many technological advancements they had. What happened to the academic levels?
He also found a part-time job through Mrs. Hoang, who eyed the nail set he had brought with him from the recovery center (he was able to keep all personal items, though there weren't many) from day one. She knew a nail salon run close to thier house, was a regular client, and was able to sweet-talk the owner into hiring him for weekend overloads.
Danny was overjoyed, even though they had him do mostly pedicures with simple designs, but he was good at what he did and was eventually given his own table to start doing designer manicure sets. As the only male, underage, and non-Vietnamese speaker, Danny felt isolated from the staff, despite how friendly and well they treated him.
He was happy that he eventually started getting his own clients, whom he gossiped with as he worked. This is how he met Rose, a girl one year above him, who had come in with her mom to do a mani-pedi, and had been so excited that he had taken her request, making her nails look pretty with her pride flag, demisexual, that she begged him to come to the next GSA meeting in school and do the other club members.
He didn't see anything wrong with it, and had taken his nail kit to school the following Friday, working on the students' hands as quickly and as creatively as he wanted. He charged him half the price they would have paid at the saloon (after all, most of his equipment was a gift, and thus he didn't pay for any of it) and had found himself with ten loyal customers.
Rose decided she would get him as many customers as she could. She spread the word that he charged very cheaply, regardless of the design, and soon girls (and a few boys) were messaging him to book appointments. Danny had bought himself a phone at his job at the saloon, and it was a great investment for him.
Most of his clients were beyond excited that he was willing to place rhinestones and special metallic effect on the nails for the same price as a regular gel set, and since he only charged twenty, he had almost all of his afternoons booked weeks in advance. His boss at the saloon heard about his increasing popularity, but she didn't seem to mind, only reminding him to push their other services to his clients if he had a chance.
Eventually, Danny turned eighteen, two years after his fight with Forger, and Mrs. Hoang was quick to remind him he had to leave. He didn't hesitate to go because she felt more like a landlord than a caregiver, but he was worried about where he would live. Danny had saved as much as he could over the course of two years, which sadly wasn't enough to live on.
He had enough to find a cheap apartment for about four months before he had to worry. The saloon he worked for offered him a full-time position on his eighteenth birthday, which helped with the extra hours, but it would be a while before he could live comfortably.
He thought a lot about his family, on nights when the walls were so thin he could hear his neighbors drunkly singing at two am, or when he had to duck his head and walk quickly in the street to work or the bus stop (He hoped to buy himself a car before a permanent house). He mourned them often, the lives they could have had and the memories they could have made, while also wondering if they ever stopped looking for him.
If they ever looked at all.
It was a pain that had dulled over the course of the two years, but every once in a while, he was reminded so violently of his parents and sister that his whole day was ruined and nothing could pick up his mood. It was the kind of grief that attacked when he was unguarded and invaded his waking thoughts about what life used to be.
Other times, he just tried to get through the day.
But despite everything, Danny wasn't too sad; he made a life for himself. He had his coworkers, who slowly erased the distance between them. Rose had become his new best friend and often spent time in his apartment when she needed a break from her roommate (she went to Gotham U and hated her roommate). He had a passion for it and was good at it, which made it possible to pay bills and buy himself little treats.
He never met Mr.Wayne in person, but that wasn't uncommon in Gotham. The man sponsored many people for a few years without ever crossing paths with them. It's why so many knew about the rich man despite him not being a formal celebrity.
Forger's maker was still on his back, like an ugly, unwanted tattoo, but at least it was shaped in a cool circle with pretty interesting signs and symbols that might have made a fantastic design were it not the reason his life had fallen apart. No one really saw it, because Danny refused to go topless in front of anyone, but one night, Rose had caught a glimpse of it and had gasped so loudly that he had avoided her for nearly a week in shame.
She apologized a dozen times, feeling horrible about her reaction, and then asked if Danny wanted her to pay to have it covered up. She swore she knew a great tattoo artist- Rose was that type of person who had contacts upon contacts of various people who could do odd jobs for her- and after a month of thinking it over, he accepted. That's how he found himself venturing into Crime Alley (he had been poor but not that poor. Thank the heavens Mrs. Hoang never demanded any of his hard-earned money) following a drawn map to an apartment building.
The man who opened the door was a few years older than him, somewhere in his mid-twenties. His arms were covered in tattoos, the one most eye-catching being the Scorpio on his upper shoulder. He was muscular, in a way that said he could and would break a few bones, but he had a friendly smile stretched across his face.
"Hey there, you're Danny, yeah? Rose sent you to have something on your back covered." The man tilted his ballcap back, peering down at Danny with sparkling green eyes. There was a certain rise in his pitch that told Danny he wasn't originally from Gotham either. Though he couldn't tell where the stranger had originally lived.
"Yup, that's me," Danny laughed, hunching his shoulder and shifting his feet. He tried not to show how uncomfortable he felt with his surroundings, even though he was hyper-aware of the cracked hallway walls and the low lighting that made it look like a horror movie opening scene.
It did help that the redhead in front of him was sinfully attractive. Only a little.
"Great. I'm Roy. Come on in, I have my stuff set up in the corner of the room." Roy stepped back, holding the door wide open for him.
Danny carefully moved through, eyes landing on a corner that looked to be made up of a portable tattoo table and shelves covered in various colors. A little rolling table was nearby with a tray and a few markers. He didn't see the tattoo gun, but Rose said this first meeting would be just to design and see how the scar looked so they could work it into the cover-up. He felt more relieved when he noticed the license and credentials for tattooing hanging on the wall behind the chair.
The second thing Danny noticed was the man on the other side of the room, lifting a bar of weights in arm curls. Danny didn't do much working out, but he could tell that he was lifting a lot of weight just by the size of the circles. If Roy was muscular, then that man was the size of a brick house. His sweat had his sleeveless undershirt clinging to his back- the part facing Danny- and highlighted all of the muscles currently being used as the man lifted the bar back and forth.
A studio was blaring a rock song near his feet, nearly covering up the soft grunts and clanking of the metal as he worked out.
Danny felt his stomach drop. He did not feel safe. Why had he listened to Ross?
"Rose said your scar is big and raised. Do you mind if I see it? We need to know whether the skin can be worked on." Roy said, dragging Danny out of staring at the back of the dark-haired stranger. When he turned to look at the tattoo artist, he found himself at the receiving smirk, obviously having noticed his staring. "Don't mind Jason, he can leave if you're not comfortable showing it here."
"I wouldn't want to make him quit midset." Danny babbled, waving his arms in the air. Who knows if someone like that won't react violently if someone like Danny demands that he leave.
"I don't mind," Jason called over his shoulder. "It's almost time for a break anyway. Besides, Roy told me hours ago you were coming. It's my fault for waiting so long to start."
Danny blinked in surprise even as Roy nodded, "There you have it. It's really all up to you."
"Well....in that case, can he leave?"
Jason didn't need to be told twice. He set the bar down gently on the rack nearby, gathered his speaker and his water before turning around to face Danny for the first time. "You got it. I'm going to hit the shower and watch a movie in my room. Let me know if either of you needs anything."
Roy called out some gratitude for him moving, but Danny couldn't hear anything above the sound of his racing heart and possibly angels singing. Because right there, that man, was the most gorgeous person he had ever seen, and really, it only made sense that he had an angelic choir traveling with him everywhere he went if he looked like that. Even his one streak of white hair didn't seem off-putting; if anything, it gave a striking aspect to his already sharp and handsome features.
Danny was pretty sure the world had slowed down, as Jason wiped the sweat off his forehead with a red hand towel and then took a sip of his bottle. He gawked after the man until the door of what was presumably the bath closed behind him, and it was only Roy's clearing his throat that brought him back.
Flustered, Danny scrambled to sit on the chair beside the tattoo table, attempting to get his red face to cool down.
Roy didn't mention his obvious reaction to Jason, though he did have a teasing edge to his smile now, but that quickly fell away when Danny revealed his back. Then the redhead was nothing but business as he considered the design and the damaged lines, eventually claiming he could make it work, but they had to pick something that favored great detail to get all the symbols.
They discussed a few ideas over the course of an hour before Danny settled on the story of Icarus, specifically the moment when the man fell from the sky, as a sort of ironic explanation for why he was stuck in this world. He did not share that part of his reasoning with Roy.
They decided Icarus would be at the center of the artwork, with clouds and scattered feathers around him, and the man stretching out a hand towards the sun, which would be the majority of Danny's shoulder blade area. Roy promised to work on a few designs for Danny to review, which he would email, and, depending on the one he picked, they could schedule the number of seasons needed to get it done.
Danny winced at the price amount, even with the friend discount Rose was getting him, but Roy was more than happy to trade a few sessions for Danny's services at his daughter's birthday party. He was to do the nails of all her little friends using the princess designs Rose had shown him, and a full set for his current girlfriend. She wanted something dazzling with rhinestones. He also wanted Danny to do a full set for Jason's sisters, whose birthdays were coming up.
Seeing as the tattoo sessions were a hefty price discount for a few sessions of nails, Danny was quick to agree.
He left the apartment as quickly as he could, a little frightened to walk Crime Alley in the dark. Thankfully, it wasn't pitch black when he left, but it was pretty late still, and he all but ran to the bus stop. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched, despite being unable to pinpoint where it was coming from.
By the time he got home and threw himself onto his bed, he had half the mind to send Rose a message to complain about not receiving a warning of the location or the attractive men that were in it, but decided against it.
One did not simply threaten Rose Wilson without having a death wish.
Instead, he sent her a bunch of gasping cats and an all-caps message that contained only four words: Those guys were hot!
She replied in three seconds.
I know. I figured you deserved some eye candy, as a treat.
Danny rolled his eyes, curling on his side, trying to hide his smile and smother his racing heart. It would take him days before he realized that whenever he went to his tattoo session, he would feel watched. It would take even longer for him to notice the two figures, one with a bow and another with a helmet, dashing over the rooftops in the same direction as his home.
to an extent i think discussing how anti-trans legisliation will affect non-trans people is good because it highlights that we're not actually that different and our problems will always have overlap. unfortunately like 90% of the time i see this come up it has the tone of "this is an outrage, this law that violently restricts trans rights might make things harder for NORMAL people too!!" and i want to start killing.
Tumblr is the reason why I have something I call the cashier test which is, if i told this to a random cashier at the grocery store, would they think you're crazy at best or at worst would they be warranted in leaping over the counter and beating the shit out of you. Karl Marx mpreg is crazy, but not beating the shit out of you crazy. The cashier will probably talk about you to their coworkers and it might even make their day. Telling someone they're complicit in their own oppression by working a minimum wage job at a grocery store makes them warranted in leaping over the counter to beat the shit out of you.
Alfred: Family emergency meeting! Family emergency meeting in the main sitting room! NOW!
Bruce, running out of the shower: What's going on?
Tim, half-dressed in a wizard costume: I don't know!
Dick covered in flour and tomato sauce: I wasn't trying to cook a pizza in my room!
Jason wearing a bear onesie: No one believes your lies, Dick! But it has to be bad if Alfred called all of us and not just one to yell at!
Damain running by in a prince charming outfit: Reinforcements are on the way, Alfred! Hold the line!
Cass sprinting by with snakes wrap around her entire body: HOLD THE LINE!
Steph, in a star suit that lights up to the beat of her favorite rock song: Bruce, do you know what is going on!?
Bruce: Apparently, I don't know what's going on at any given point in this manor. Why are you all....dressed like that?
Dick panicked: Not to make illegal pizzas in our rooms after Alfred banned us from cooking! Ha ha ha!
Bruce: Right. The rest of you?
Tim: Wizards are cool
Jason: I was taking a nap
Steph: I'm going dancing tonight.
Bruce: None of those answers justified your appearances but we don't have time. Alfred needs us!
Everyone in the sitting room: What's the emergency?!
Alfred: That came back to our doorstep.
Baby Danny Fenton in a basket: *Happy Babbling*
Alfred: It speaks evil.
Bruce: What? Alfred not this again. It's not a evil spirit its just a baby!
Cass: What do you mean, Bruce? Alfred wouldn't let Damian or me get close to the baby.
Alfred: That thing has been attempting to enter the Wayne household for twenty years! It always appears in a basket, trying to play with the strings of employees' hearts to bring it in. It's the same face, the same basket, the same intelligent eyes following every sentence! Its not a human baby! Its A thing of evil!
Damian: I forgot you're from the parts of England that fear the Fae
Alfred: Don't call their name, boy! I always leave it outside, but today someone brought it in. It was here in the sitting room! It can't come into the manor without someone helping it!
Bruce: Because its a baby....
Alfred: Who did this!?
Duke walking with a warm bottle of milk: Oh you guys are all here. Perfect! I found this little guy outside-
Alfred pointing at him: TRAITOR!
Bruce: Alfred please....have you taken your medication?
Tim: Bruce wait, the baby, it's eyes are glowing.
Duke: The baby is a boy Tim.
Tim: Right sorry. His eyes are glowing.
Alfred: It's bonded to the land! We're DOOM!
Dick: Alfred, please calm down. How about a snack? Would some pizza make you feel better?
Jason: Um, the baby is floating.
Steph: They do that sometimes.
Damain nodding: Martians' infants levitate out of their cribs. It's possible for infants.
Bruce: Alfred put down that fire poker.
Alfred: I will sent it back to hell!
Duke: Woah woah! Don't you come near my baby!
Tim: Alfred, don't make me tackle you. Please. I know you will hurt me. I want to avoid that.
Alfred: Out of my way lads. I must do this.
Bruce: EVERYONE ATTACK ALFRED
Dick: aghhhhh we're going to die!
Jason: The baby just went through the ceiling. Anyone else keeping a eye on him? Anyone?
The rest of Waynes in a bar brawl with Alfred: Agggggggggghhhhhhhh
Jason: I guess not. I'm going to go look for the none human baby.
* Bruce does not simply unleash eight vigilantes into a pool and hope for the best. He arrives with sunscreen, extra towels, a first aid kit, electrolyte packets, and enough snacks to sustain a small athletic conference.
* He makes everyone put on sunscreen.
* Every. Single. One.
* Jason tries to argue.
* Bruce silently holds out the bottle.
* Jason puts on the sunscreen.
⸻
* Dick is in the water within three seconds of arrival.
* Nobody actually sees him enter the pool.
* One moment he’s standing beside the chairs.
* The next he’s somehow performing a perfect dive.
* Bruce doesn’t even look up from unpacking the cooler.
* “Good entry.”
* Dick immediately looks delighted because Bruce noticed.
⸻
* Tim insists he’s “just relaxing.”
* Five minutes later Bruce confiscates three phones, a tablet, and a waterproof e-reader.
* Tim somehow produces a fourth device.
* Bruce doesn’t ask where it came from.
* Bruce simply holds out his hand.
* Tim sighs and surrenders it.
⸻
* Damian takes swimming very seriously.
* Swimming is a discipline.
* An art.
* A test of physical excellence.
* Steph splashes him.
* Damian declares war.
⸻
* Cass is terrifyingly good in the water.
* Nobody knows why.
* She just moves through the pool like gravity forgot about her.
* Bruce watches her do an impossible underwater turn and quietly smiles because she’s having fun.
⸻
* Steph’s primary objective is not swimming.
* It is causing problems.
* She convinces Duke and Dick to help her build increasingly elaborate pool games.
* Bruce allows it because they’re all laughing and nobody is in danger.
* Yet.
⸻
* Duke spends most of the afternoon soaking up sunlight like a very happy solar panel.
* Bruce packed his favorite sports drink without being asked.
* Duke notices.
* Bruce pretends he didn’t deliberately remember.
⸻
* Jason claims he hates pool days.
* Jason spends four consecutive hours in the pool.
* Bruce hands him a drink the second he climbs out.
* Jason takes it automatically.
* Neither of them comments on it.
⸻
* Bruce actually gets in the water.
* This shocks everyone.
* Bruce is a surprisingly strong swimmer.
* Of course he is.
* There is absolutely no reason for him to be this good at swimming.
* Yet here they are.
⸻
* At some point somebody challenges Bruce to a race.
* Usually Dick.
* Sometimes Jason.
* Once Steph.
* Bruce wins exactly often enough to remind them he’s Batman.
* Then loses on purpose often enough to let them celebrate.
⸻
* He keeps track of everyone without making it obvious.
* He knows who’s hydrated.
* He knows who’s getting tired.
* He knows who skipped lunch.
* He knows who has been underwater suspiciously long.
* Tim discovers this and calls it “parental omniscience.”
* Bruce calls it “paying attention.”
⸻
* When Damian and Jason start arguing, Bruce redirects them into a relay race.
* Somehow this works.
* Nobody understands why it works.
* Not even Bruce.
* But it does.
⸻
* Near sunset, everyone is exhausted.
* Towels everywhere.
* Wet footprints everywhere.
* Half the snacks gone.
* Steph is still talking.
* Dick is floating on his back.
* Cass is smiling.
* Tim is finally not looking at a screen.
* Damian is pretending he isn’t having fun.
* Jason is pretending he doesn’t want another pool day.
* Duke is glowing with contentment.
* Bruce looks around at the chaos and feels that rare, quiet certainty that all of his kids are safe, happy, and together.
For a second I didn’t realize it meant “high” as in a stoner--I thought “High Geologist” was like a rank of geologist or something and he was insulted you would challenge him to naming stones
“pls stop summoning me i just want to pass calculus” (dpxdc)
Danny hates being summoned. He can’t stand it. Now, it’s not all that common- after all, who knows how to summon the King of Ghosts? But when it does, it sucks.
Imagine your heart being tugged out of your chest, and you have no choice but to follow it if, you know, you want to stay alive. Imagine being shoved in a tiny little cylinder and being thrown around like you’re the ball in a game of “Monkey-In-The-Middle”. Now multiply those feelings by 100. That’s how it feels to be summoned.
So when Danny feels the familiar tug in his chest during a calculus test, he groans. He finally discovered what Stoke’s Theorem was (despite its many inconsistencies), why does he have to leave now, of all times? He gets out of his seat and quietly asks his professor if he can head to the bathroom. The professor gives him a stink eye, but gives permission anyway. Danny darts out of the room like his pants are on fire and finally allows himself to be swallowed by the metal cylinder of darkness that is a summoning.
He lands gracefully, feet first, within the confines of a decently drawn chalk circle, clearly meant to protect the summoners from his wrath. Unfortunately for them, however, Danny is strong. Freakishly strong. The measly summoning ritual before him does nothing to stop him as he smudges it with his foot before walking through without so much as a twitch of a finger. He finally glances up at his summoners, already exasperated. Danny knows this abandoned warehouse like the back of his hand, after all, he’s been here countless times - all for the same thing.
“Guys, you gotta give it up. I’m not granting y’all immortality or resurrecting your loved ones. Please leave me alone, I just want to pass multivariable calculus in peace,” Danny sighs out in poorly concealed frustration. He left his calculus test for this?
The cultists’ leader steps forward confidently and recites his practiced speech as if it’s gospel.
“My Lord, the Ghost King, please grant us, your loyal followers, the gift of immortality so that we may follow you for eternity. Our souls are pure and will-”
Before he can finish, he’s cut off by a boot to the chest, followed by a flash of metallic red. Red Hood stands in front of the leader’s body, dusting off his leather jacket smugly (though it is quite hard to tell what the man feels, Danny thinks, what with the helmet and all). The vigilante turns to face the rest of the cultists, and by extension, Danny.
“I got tired of hearing his voice,” Red Hood (in Danny’s opinion, he should be called Red Helmet) states cockily, clearly smirking under that helmet of his. Danny calls back to him, “You got tired? Imagine hearing that spiel at least twice a month for a couple of years. Fucking Jeff, man, he won’t let me pass calculus in peace.”
He nudges Jeff’s prone body on the ground. “Get up man, you didn’t even get hit that hard. Stop playing dead, you’re no good at it.” As he speaks, however, the rest of the vigilantes drop from the rafters to the ground. They’re quiet- they’re trained by Batman, of course they are- but Danny senses them anyway.
Red Robin - Tim Drake, Danny’s mind fills in - walks up and cuffs Jeff, who is now miraculously awake. Batman sends him a reproachful glance, but Red Robin shrugs and says, “He already knew we were behind him, no use in being sneaky here, B.” As RR steps away to call GPCD, evidently to pick up Jeff and the other cultists who’ve just been standing there like a bunch of lost ducklings, Danny stops him.
“Hey, any chance you can get the police to go easy on them?”
“Why? Didn’t you say that they’re the reason you can’t pass calculus- which in itself is a really weird statement that I’m choosing to ignore,” Nightwing questions. They’re taking the reveal of an omnipotent, all powerful god pretty well, Danny thinks. He responds out loud, though, saying, “Yeah, but Jeff’s a pretty nice guy outside of the cult stuff; we get coffee sometimes. Plus they’re a nice break from the whole ‘I killed 50 people for you now give me power to take over the world’ nonsense that I get from others.”
“Anyway, is there any chance y’all could get me something like a doctor’s note for my calc class? I was in the middle of a test and I was crushing it, trust me, but I had to come here or I’d be ripped into a million pieces and I really want to finish that test because my grade depends on it,” Danny rambles, bulldozing over Red Hood’s follow-up question. The room, now clear of all cultists, is silent for a moment. Clearly, the vigilantes haven’t processed this situation as well as Danny thought they did. Then finally, Danny gets to hear Batman speak.
