This Jewish American Heritage Month, I would like to spotlight an incredible Jewish woman that I think more people should know about: Judith Love Cohen.
Judith Love Cohen was born in Brooklyn in 1933. As a child, she loved math and was often the only girl in her math classes. She would go on to study engineering in college while also dancing in the Metropolitan Opera ballet company. She received her bachelor and masters degrees in engineering from USC while working for an aerospace engineering company. She stated that she never once saw another female student in the engineering program. She went on to work on some major projects, but she is most well-known for her work on the Apollo 13 mission. She helped create the Abort Guidance System which would ultimately save the Apollo 13 astronauts after an oxygen tank exploded on their way to the moon. While she was working on the AGS, she went into labor with her fourth child, while at work. She took the problem she was working on for the project with her to the hospital, solved it, and gave birth to Jack Black. In 1990, she retired from engineering to establish a publishing company dedicated to inspiring children, primarily young girls, to pursue STEM and learn about the environment. She wrote and published a series called "You Can Be A Woman...", starting with engineer, with illustrations by her husband. Her son, Neil Siegel, is a computer scientist and engineer who has invented many systems used in military technology and consumer electronics. She passed away from cancer in 2016, but Neil wrote that "she must have influenced tens of thousands of young girls to become interested in professional careers of one sort or another."
Judith definitely deserves more recognition for her work and legacy as a pioneering woman in STEM and an absolute icon in Jewish-American history.
You would think the longest lines at the theme park would be for lines inside the park. But as Mark and I were waiting for the tram service to get back to the safety of my car, it felt impossibly long. My eyes darted around at the people around us, wary of any suspicion of my boyfriend's strange behavior. I held tightly to his arm, hoping to keep him balanced. "T-travis... I don't know how long I can kee-p function-al." The breaks in his vocal patterns were a bad sign, a very bad sign.
When I first built my Mark bot, I knew various tests had to be made before I could take him out in the world. Thanks to my degree in mechanical engineering and life as an absolute friendless loser, it took nearly 5 years to craft the perfect artificial man. Molding the most advanced persona core to fit my idea of the type of guy. Manufacturing simple steel, silicone, and well-placed electronics into a perfect body; even inventing my own form of realistic yet breathable skin for the CPU to exhaust the internal heat from its body. Then, spending all that time teaching the bot how to act in a completely human way. He could barely even walk on his own or simulate a conversation, but eventually his A.I. managed to pick it up seamlessly. Still, maybe it was overzealous for our first public outing to be somewhere with so many people, so many warm bodies, on a particularly hot summer day.
As we arrived at the front of the line waiting for the next tram to whisk us away, I could feel his joints stiffening up, a clear indication of his shutdown process. "Come on, baby," I whispered into his ear, hoping reassurance would do anything to his technological system, "Just a little bit more and we'll be home." The next tram finally arrived, and I hurried as fast as I could. Mark's legs were losing motion, and with each step, he was becoming heavier and heavier. His large, muscled form was now a major hindrance rather than a perk.
Finally, I was able to clamber both of us into the seats. Mark, losing all tone of his smooth voice, spoke out cold and robotic. "Error. CPU overheat shutting down..." And in a small flash, the color in his eyes faded blank, and his body became unmoving like a statue. A visible steam escaped from the microscopic pores on his body, trying its best to vent the pressure of heat. I shut his eyes, trying to hide the fact of his complete malfunction, trying to play it off as a person exhausted from walking and fun rides.
'Damn, this is not good,' I pondered to myself. Hopefully, by the 5-minute parking lot ride, he can cool off just enough to turn back on and return to our car, but if not, we might be in for some trouble and a lot of confused onlookers...
I will need to do some serious maintenance to ensure that next time Mark and I go out. To be fair, a similar malfunction occurred the other night in bed, but I chalked it up to the long and steamy lovemaking. I'll have to go back and implant some kind of internal cooling system so that he can maintain his internal temperature instead of constantly running hot.
Fandom: Batman (Arkham Knight)
Pairing: Edward Nigma x F!Original Character
Rating: +18 Explicit
Tags: Verbal violence, slight gross stuff, mention of childhood abuse
✦ All Chapters
✦ Read on AO3
While Edward’s paranoia and obsession consume his sleepless nights, he does everything he can to ignore the decay, ignore what’s left of his humanity.
Meanwhile, he digs deeper into his new hire’s life. But tension festers, mistakes are made, and her incompetence forces him to reconsider everything.
The computer screen casts a cold glow over Edward’s face, sharpening his focused expression. His eyes, tense and rimmed with exhaustion, study the myriad of folders and windows on display meticulously. One hand absentmindedly massages his chin while the other navigates through photo galleries, bank statements, address logs, harvesting passwords and locations.
Her name is Amelia. Former Gotham University student. Degree in art history. Currently residing on December Avenue; not bad, not great. One cat, recently deceased. A mother, living on Greywoods Street. Five thousand photos, not one worth keeping. Five lovers, none memorable. Three regular contacts; two local, one abroad. And a nearly empty bank account.
Edward leans back in his chair, and exhales deeply. She is perfectly ordinary, unremarkable in every way that counts. She’s not even a suitable profile for an assistant, really. Despite her petty burglary attempt, and her basic knowledge of tools and problem-solving, nothing in her past or present suggests any real engineering skills, or any meaningful ties to the criminal underworld.
A doubt creeps in; he doesn’t believe she’s competent, not really. Or familiar enough with crime. Burglary, it seems, was a necessity, not a vocation, judging by the state of her laughable finances. Her bank account is nearly drained, and reminders of overdue payments are stacked in her inbox.
Perhaps solving the Puzzle Room was a fluke. Luck.
Then, he sees a blank icon, hidden into a folder labeled “Utilitaries”. It’s disguised as a calendar app, something innocent and innocuous. Clever. With a tap, he opens it, the screen immediately shifting to black. White text flickers like a bad omen, blinking into the void. A hidden browser. Encrypted and private, a network buried deeply beneath the surface of the web,a portal to her alternate life.
Edward smirks.
“Oh, little mouse,” he whispers, delighted. “Your secret world, hidden neatly in your pocket, not even encrypted properly. How adorable.”
The browser opens to an interface he recognizes, a notorious, repulsive website. An illegal marketplace buried so deep in the web it pulses like a rotting corpse. Weapons, narcotics, counterfeit documents. Technology, components, circuitry torn from labs and God knows where else. But also far worse. Putrid tokens harvested from cadavers. Organ listings written in coded euphemisms. Snuff, torture, gore videos that claim to be fake, but aren’t.
Edward rarely lingers in this particular Hell, but he knows the place all too well, having found his stolen parts and circuitry here before. Though, he never thought to look for her.
Perhaps he should have.
He studies the account linked to her alias, an active seller profile. There’s a series of sold-out listings. Electronic lockboxes, thermal sensors, motion detectors. He recognizes most of the items. Some are his, others are not; the compact incendiary bomb that reeks of Garfield Lynns, a cryogenic tube probably stolen from one of Fries’ ruined labs, and even a glowing vial, Jervis Tetch’s signature hallucinogen, if his memory serves.
The corner of his mouth twitches in amusement, laced with intrigue. And possibly a faint whisper of something worse. He may have underestimated her.
One final listing, not yet active, freezes his blood.
Coming soon: Riddler Trophy, authentic.
His smile falters, dissolving into something frigid and corrosive. His hand twitches over his desk, his jaw clenches, and his mood sours nearly instantly. So arrogant, this little mouse. He closes the tab with a sharp, final click. He has seen enough.
Edward walks through the rotting halls of the orphanage, shaking his head as if to dispel the lingering, unnecessary thoughts. Already, his glasses come off, his protective goggles sitting on his forehead in their place. Then, he slips the stained, worn gloves over his hands with the practiced motion that borders on ritualistic. Each movement is precise, known by heart. He’s done this a thousand times before, and will do it a thousand times more.
With an encrypted key, he unlocks a hidden door, more occulted than the others, more precious as well. It opens to a narrow staircase sinking in the depths of the orphanage, a place buried and forgotten years ago. Dim lightbulbs buzz overhead like dying stars, casting weak, sickly glows against the decaying walls. Each step echoes like whispers in the dark, until he reaches a steel, stained door.
It reveals a massive hangar that is part laboratory, part garage, part nightmare. Everywhere are workbenches cluttered with tools and torn components waiting to be fixed and completed. Thick electric cables lay inert on the ground like ill snakes, giant blueprints are pinned on tall boards, painted over, commented with obsessive precision. The air tastes like oil, metal dust, and neurosis.
And, in the center of the iron clad arena, waits a mechanical titan.
A Golgoth of iron, held in place with strong cables and scaffolding, inert like a dormant beast. It has two piston-powered legs thick like metal pipes, and two arms taller than his entire body, threatening like two wrecking cranes. The hands are more like claws, built with the sole purpose of destruction.
The entire frame adorns the Riddler’s brand in toxic green painted streaks and engraved question marks, with thick cables slithering underneath the metal like monstrous veins, glowing emerald under the ceiling lights.
And in its heart, embedded in the armored chest, is a fortified place protected by a translucent green dome, the pilot seat. From here, Edward will control it, speak through it. Conquer with it.
This is not simply a machine. This is the answer to what has been haunting him since Arkham City. His final exam, built from rage, brilliance, and obsession. His masterpiece.
His eyes grow wide, pupils blown with anticipation, his heartbeat drumming in his chest. This is where it will all end, he thinks to himself. This is where he will defeat the Bat, crush him into nothingness. In his head, he already pictures his victory. Something grand and glorious, just like everything he does.
For hours, Edward works in isolation, buried in the hangar’s stale air, underneath layers of grime and dust. Hunger fades, thirst is a distant memory, and exhaustion sinks its sharp teeth into his mind, but he shrugs it off, ignoring its whispers. He traces new lines over geometrical blueprints, welds complex circuitry into the machine’s armored spine, reconfigures the control board’s calibration with neurotic precision.
His throat is parched, bone-dry. Raw. His breath rasps slightly, his eyes are rimmed with sleepless tension. There’s a tremor in his fingers now, faint but persistent, as if his nerves were trying to bargain with him. Even his pulse beats unevenly in his chest, a wordless plea from his heart to please slow down. But he does not. Will not. He ignores the signs, his biological needs, ignores what makes him human.
With stiff, trembling fingers, he opens his shirt, sweat pooling in the hollow of his back. A weak grunt, then he swipes his forehead with his torn, filthy tank top, caked in oil and grime, spreading more dark streaks over his fatigued skin. His whole body feels heavy, feels wrong. As if his work was devouring him slowly.
His breathing is labored, not just from exhaustion, but from the deep, heavy pressure in his chest. Not quite panic, of course not, but something quieter, slower. Something creeping, gnawing at his spine, crawling in his heart.
Excitement, he tells himself. Anticipation, perhaps. Or stage fright, something like that. But he knows better. Deep down, where even he won’t look, there is a feeling he won’t name out loud, won’t identify.
There is a cruel truth buried deeply behind his design. He is not young anymore. He’s closer to fifty than forty, now, with a nervous system eroded by decades of stress, obsession, and self-medication. His body is slowly breaking, his mind gradually collapsing, and even his brilliant intellect cannot outsmart decay.
Of course, he would never admit it. So he ignores the pain. Ignores the palpitations. Ignores the biological clock ticking inexorably in his bones, like a countdown to his own doom.
But sometimes, when the anxiety grows too big, when the tremors turn to shivers, and the world tilts just a little bit too much, he hears the small voice whispering to him. This might be your last chance.
And that thought, final, absolute, like the blade of a guillotine, hits him with catastrophic intensity, steals the breath from his lungs, dims the light in his mind. He knows it. Failure, this time, is not an option. Not now, and not ever again.
Hours have passed, or perhaps days. Time has dissolved into a thick blur.
His limbs tremble too violently to go on, every muscle burning with a stubborn ache. Frustration boils low in his gut, hot and sour, as he stares at his shaking hands as if they betrayed him. When did he become so weak? He refuses to answer. Doesn’t want to know.
The gloves come off, almost painfully so. His fingers are blackened with soot, his knuckles are split, nails cracked and purpled with bruising. A smear of dried blood marks where a hammer hit a knuckles. Sloppy work. He didn’t even notice it, didn’t even register the pain. He runs a hand through his greasy, disheveled hair, and exhales a long, broken breath.
Then, slowly, he lifts his eyes to his Titan. It towers quietly, still unfinished but already magnificent. It reminds him of a monument, perhaps to his genius. His brow furrows, his eyes beam with fragile emotions; weariness, pride, and even fear.
He stares a moment longer, then turns off the lights, sinking the hangar into a pit of darkness as he leaves.
Edward yawns, the weight of exhaustion finally pressing heavily against his chest, each step dragging through the orphanage's dim corridors. The walls throb slightly around him, or perhaps it’s just him.
In the distance, a sound breaks the stillness of the place. Booted feet pounding fast, erratic and urgent, someone running toward him. His name echoes in the walls of the main entrance, barked in a loud, smokey voice.
He exhales through his nose, already annoyed, already fatigued. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, before turning his gaze to the monstrous silhouette of Adrian, one of his henchmen, waving frantically in the distance.
The man slows his cadence as he approaches, stopping in front of Edward, only leaving a polite distance. The kind of distance one keeps from a wild animal, unpredictable and rabid.
He’s larger than Edward by a wide margin. All meat and steel, his shoulders broad like a bull, thick muscles rolling beneath the taut fabric of a black sweater. His face is tattooed; a thorned rose snaking up from his temple, curling around his brow. His heavy, angular traits are enhanced by his perfectly shaved head and square jaw. He’s a Golgoth, made of muscle and leather.
And yet, in his dark, sunken eyes, fear and apprehension beam faintly, though, not faintly enough that Edward doesn’t catch it.
Edward cocks a brow, unimpressed, the faint throb of a headache already flaring in his skull.
“Well?” he asks, voice dry.
“Boss, it’s– The Puzzle Room, the one near the docks, it’s been–”
“Broken into? Yes, Adrian. I’ve known for days. But I do admire your efficiency.” Edward’s tone is pure venom and sarcasm, like poisonous silk.
Adrian’s jaw clenches, tendons bulging in his throat. He says nothing, but Edward sees the light in his eyes turning into something dull and colder. Angrier. A restrained rage brushes his features like a menacing shadow. But it doesn’t phase Edward.
“It shouldn’t have happened. And it makes me question, not for the first time I fear, why I bother surrounding myself with you all,” Edward continues, standing still in front of him. His voice is surgical, dripping with bitter disdain.
Still, Adrian doesn’t reply. Simply stands there, teeth clenched, muscles pulled taut, fury barely restrained. He knows better than to talk back, knows that punishment doesn’t always come immediately. And Edward sees in his eyes the wrath, the desire to hurt him.
But knows he won’t.
With a dismissive flick of his wrist, Edward turns his back.
“Go, now. Stop wasting my time. I have this under control. And do try not to disappoint me again. I’m running low on patience, and I do not have time for your incompetence.”
He walks away, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the corridor. Right now, all he really wants is ten minutes of silence and a warm meal. But just before he reaches the next hallway, he hears a scoff. Then something petty muttered under breath. Something low, filthy and undignifying.
Edward stops, stone still. His eyes twitch. His blood boils. His lips tighten, the muscle in his jaw tensing with rage. He works his tongue inside his mouth, slowly, like testing the edge of a blade.
Then, he turns. Walks back to Adrian. Closes the distance with slow, precise steps, until he’s standing directly in front of him, squaring his shoulders. Edward’s emerald eyes drill into the man’s face as if dissecting him.
In his mind, he remembers everything. Where Adrian lives. The name of his pregnant girlfriend. His exact nightly schedule. Thinks of all the ways he could make him suffer a slow, painful torture. Tearing him apart, piece by trembling piece.
At first, Adrian meets his stare with a look of pure rage. His chest rises with something feral, fists clenched at his sides, his body language a perfect threat. But then, something shifts in him, as if he could read Edward’s mind. As if, suddenly, he remembered who he is exactly. What he’s capable of. What he’s already done.
A veil of fear brushes over his features like a shadow, the colors drain from his face. Then, his jaw loosens, the fire in his eyes dims.
Edward gives a single, sharp nod.
“I think you should go now, Adrian. Before I regret my misericordia.” Edward whispers in a low, surgical voice. The words are fragile, unstable. Like the blade of a guillotine, barely hanging in the air.
Adrian nods, backs away, mumbling a hollow apology. Then, he vanishes through the entrance without glancing back. Edward stares at him, daggers in his eyes.
Disrespectful. All of them.
With a final huff, Edward makes his way to the orphanage’s cramped kitchen. Once, this place was perhaps reserved for the caregivers. A private space, calm and quiet. But now, it’s just another distant memory, a forgotten vestige of the rotting building.
The tiles are caked in layers of grease and dust, the grout stained in a brown film. The badly ventilated air is thick with the scent of cooked meat and organic waste, the kind of smell that clings to the room, never truly leaving. The decrepit stovetop has one burner permanently broken. The countertop is dented, the wood split and swollen from the humidity. The dying fridge hums ominously, the door yellowed and stained with unidentified spills. The sink is rusty, streaked with various deposits.
It’s grotesque, but it works.
Once, a lifetime ago, Edward used to enjoy cooking. He remembers the quiet nights in his old apartment, back when he still worked at the Gotham City Police Department. When he was still somewhat part of the world. He used to make elaborate dinners, experimenting with herbs, spices, plating techniques. He enjoyed being creative, this comforting pause in his erratic days. It all felt human.
Now, cooking is purely methodical. Functional. It answers to one purpose only; to keep his body alive, to fulfil his biological needs. He aims for efficiency. Everything is simple, assembled easily and without any curiosity. There is barely any variety or novelty, it is simply sustenance. And that’s enough.
But sometimes, when exhaustion tugs at his nerves and his mind wanders, he remembers that one particular Italian restaurant on 5th Avenue. He thinks of their melanzane alla parmigiana, baked perfectly with its golden crust. Their cacio e pepe, creamy and flavorful. He could almost taste it on his tongue, the memory still strong and vivid.
One of these days, he tells himself, he will go back, under a false name, dressed in civilian clothes. Once he will make enough progress in his work, of course. Then, maybe he’ll sit by the window, and order wine. But not today.
In the dying fridge, he retrieves ingredients like he picks components for his machines; even they serve a purpose, not picked for their taste, but for their properties. Fats, proteins, made to last him, give him the energy he needs, because if the body fails, then the mind will collapse. And this would be unacceptable.
Four eggs, potatoes, half a sausage. In an oily cast-iron pan, his meal bubbles and crackles, singing in tune with a buzzing lightbulb. He leans against the counter, staring at the wall as it cooks slowly, gathering the remnants of his scattered thoughts.
In one fluid motion, he retrieves his phone from his pocket. His stained gloves and protective goggles lie discarded on the small kitchen table, replaced now by his round, slightly askew glasses. The screen blinks with a blinding light. Thursday, 9:36 PM. He has been working for over two and a half days without interruption.
Edward exhales, a slow and weary thing. Perhaps it’s time to call it a night. But first, there’s one last thing he needs to do.
His fingers tap the string of coordinates of the hidden underground entrance of the orphanage, followed by a time, 11:00 PM sharp. No further message or explanation, but instead the singular letter E for a signature.
Finally, he presses send, the command clear and unambiguous. The mouse has been summoned.
Placing the phone down on the table, Edward picks up his fork, and sinks it into a golden slice of potato, still hot in his mouth. He hums, satisfied.
✦
Edward puts the cracked plate in the sink after giving it a quick rinse, then dries the old cutlery with a stained towel. Only the soft purring of the dying fridge breaks the quiet of the room. For a fleeting moment, the cold silence feels like a truce. A short-lived one, however.
His phone chimes. A single, blinking notification glows green on his screen. One of his men is requesting access to the encrypted communication channel.
With a swipe on the screen, he authorizes the connection. Then, a hiss of static crackles through the air before he hears the low and rough voice of Adrian.
“Boss, I’m at the underground entrance. Got an intruder here. Says you’re expecting her?”
Edward smirks. He glances at the time; 11:13 PM. She’s late. How impolite.
Each step brings Edward closer to his destination. In the distance, he hears faint grunts, breathless protests, and the sharp yelping of a cornered animal. The sounds curl his mouth into a satisfied smile.
Down the stairwell, sprawled in the center of the main hallway, the little mouse is pinned to the hard, cold concrete. Face down, body twisted, she flails her limbs as violently as she can, while Adrian straddles her thighs. One massive hand presses against the back of her neck, pushing her face into the dusty floor. She thrashes underneath him, snarling, cursing, her body contorting against his weight. Exquisite.
She doesn’t hear Edward approach, not with all the noise she makes. Not until Adrian lifts his gaze.
“Feisty one, this one. Been fighting like a wild cat since I caught her. Want me to put her down?” Adrian grunts, his hand now fisting her hair viciously, dragging a harsh hiss through her clenched teeth.
Her head snaps toward Edward, her face flushed with effort and streaked with dust, rage burning in her eyes like two sharp daggers.
“Tell your fucking dog to get off me!” she spits, voice breaking.
Her lip is split, probably from the impact, and blood trickles down her chin in a thin, dark smear. Her bag lies discarded a few meters away, its content almost entirely scattered from the fall. Her hair is wild and disheveled, her breathing ragged. And still, she fights with her eyes, a fire that does not die.
Edward grins, cruel and burning with delight. He doesn’t crouch, merely tilts his head, a vicious light in his eyes that only aggravates her.
“Ah, there she is– my remarkably incompetent new hire,” he states flatly with a cold smile. He then glances at Adrian.
“This is the one you failed to catch near the docks. But we’ll pretend that didn’t happen. Off of her, if you please, I have plans for that one. Now go.” His tone is frigid, surgical. He catches the corner of Adrian’s mouth twitch in contempt, his grip tightening over her neck, eliciting a weak yelp from her mouth.
Then, he releases her. Without a word, he rises, statuesque and massive, like an old tree, and walks past Edward, disappearing down the corridor. As soon as his footsteps fade, Edward’s smile falters.
Amelia sits up, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand, the other swiping the blood on her lip. Her breathing is uneven, laced with rage and humiliation. There are unshed tears glistening in her eyes, and when she looks up at him, her gaze is dark, furious.
“You’re late,” Edward says, jaw tight, voice cold.
She lets out a shaky breath, slowly pushing herself to her feet, brushing the dust from her pants.
“You can’t just message me out of nowhere and expect me to drop everything and come running,” she snaps. “I was on the other side of the city. You’re lucky I showed up at all…”
“Lucky?” Edward roars, so violently the word echoes like thunder in the room. She flinches, takes a step back, choking on a gasp.
He walks forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat. He stops just short of her, so close her body heat brushes his skin. His eyes are wild, unblinking. His smile is entirely gone, replaced by a raw and burning snarl.
“No,” he spits. “No, no, no, my dear. You are lucky I didn’t pulverize your pitiful existence the moment you trespassed my domain. Lucky I didn’t paint the walls of the room with your atrophied, ridiculous brain.”
His voice breaks, more beast than human, feral and spiralling.
“You’re lucky I even entertained the thought of letting you fix the situation. But make no mistake, you are not irreplaceable. You're just what’s available.”
The words pour out of him like an acid torrent of hatred, uninterrupted and cataclysmic. She says nothing, doesn’t dare to.
“I’ve seen your little black market profile,” he growls, voice dropping to a dangerous hush. “Filth. That’s what you sell. Filth and obscenity. You were selling my trophy, my design, my precious work like it was a vulgar accessory. How dare you?”
His eyes lock onto hers, drilling in, his gaze hateful and devastating in its intensity.
“So let me make this crystal clear, little mouse with your little brain: when I say come, you come. When I say crawl, you crawl. And if I say beg…”
He leans in. His voice drops to a whisper burning with poison.
“You beg. Like your miserable life depends on it.”
Silence hangs in the air, thick and heavy. His breath is hot against her face, huffing like an enraged bull. But she doesn’t speak, doesn’t even move. Her eyes shimmer, glassy and wide. Her body is frozen in place, not daring to move a single muscle.
Her gaze drops to her feet, shrinking on herself, nodding sheepishly. Her voice is a weak little thing, barely above a whisper.
“I… I’m sorry, Mr. Nigma. Living in Gotham… it’s rough. I’m just trying to survive.”
Edward scoffs, unmoved and dismissive. But the fire behind his eyes dims, his breath calming down. A dull headache begins to throb at the base of his skull, exhaustion gnawing at his bones.
“You’ll go back to the docks and clean up your… mess,” he says flatly. “Then, you’ll repair the keypad you burnt. It should be simple enough, even for you. I’ve seen the components you’ve dismantled and sold.”
He gestures vaguely toward the far end of the room.
“Gather what you need from the workbench. And when it’s done, report to me immediately.”
His tone is composed, but final, not leaving any room for discussion or protest. She nods quietly, turning away.
From the corner of his eye, he watches her rummage through the tools, cautiously and focused. Her hands hover over the options, hesitating, adjusting her choice. She’s already thinking of what she will be doing next, picturing the steps in her head. She’s slow, though. Hesitant. She’ll have to learn. And quickly.
After long minutes, she closes her bag and glances back at Edward. He cocks a brow, tilting his head ever so slightly, like a man giving a dog permission to leave. She presses her mouth into a thin line, mutters something low. A faint “I’ll be on my way,” he thinks. He isn’t sure. All his brain registers is the lingering pulse of his anger, still simmering, still pressing tight in his chest.
A moment later, he hears the motorcycle engine rumbling in the distance, probably hers. Only when the room falls into silence again does he finally move, his body suddenly heavy with the weight of sleeplessness.
As he walks through the hallway, his bare hand grazes the ancient abandoned walls, fingertips dragging through a fine layer of dust. Beneath the grime are faded lines, remnants of children’s drawings. Ghosts made of crayons and dulled with time. Stick figures, sceneries, and perhaps even a house, here in the corner. Cheerful scribbles of lives long gone from this place. Edward yawns slowly, loudly, exhaustion seeping in his bones like rot.
He passes in front of one of the old dormitories. It was once lined with bunk beds, but is now transformed into another workspace. The walls are eroded, the smell of mildew gnaws at the edges of the doorframe.
A few skeletal iron frames remain, consumed by rust. Torn sheets pool inert over eviscerated mattresses. There is even a broken nightstand, lying on its side, one drawer missing, the other still open. It’s filled with what might’ve been paper dolls, or candy wrappers. Edward stares silently.
He tries, just for a moment, to picture the place as it once was. Children crying from nightmares, and whispering under the covers. Coughing into pillows, or lining up in the common room for grey, tasteless meals.
He imagines all of it, but feels nothing. Neither discomfort, nor guilt; neither sadness, nor grief. Simply emptiness, a hollowness so complete it seems abnormal.
For half a second, he wonders why nothing comes to him, why his heart, or his mind, is incapable of conjuring any emotion. Why the memory of childhood, even borrowed, feels like watching dust floating in the air.
And then, he thinks of one particular little boy.
Sitting on the edge of a narrow bed, back straight, hands on his knees. Silent, like he promised his mother he would be. His limbs are covered in bruises. Fresh blooms of deep red and violet, and older ones fading to sickly shades of green and yellow. A constellation of pain and neglect, spread over pale skin.
He doesn’t look at them, doesn’t cry. He just waits for the noise to stop. From the next room, he hears the shouting voice, soaked in alcohol and rage, of a man tearing through the drywall. A woman’s voice, pleading and frightened, barely audible in contrast.
The screams fade, collapsing into a fog of nothingness, his mother’s voice dissolving before it becomes a clear memory. Only the boy remains, still and listening.
The thought lingers, but Edward chooses not to follow it. He lets it slip, lets it rot, like some bruised, shameful fruit left to spoil in a decaying garden that he refuses to harvest.
Only the ghost of broken emotions remains, pale and frigid, lodged in the back of his mind like something sour, something that shouldn’t exist. Emotions he doesn’t know what to do with.
The child isn’t here. The dormitory around him is dead quiet. So are his thoughts.
A faint orb of pale light punctures through the night, casting a frigid glow on the dormitory floor. Edward turns his head to the dusty window, covered in spiderwebs so thick they resemble torn gauze, shrouding the frame like old bandages.
He steps closer, his chest tightening when he sees the shape looming over Gotham like a bad omen. A blurry bat, projected high above the skyline, like a symbol of wrath and misery, a threat and a promise all at once, glowing in the clouds like a disease.
His jaw tenses, his eyes twitch with fury and disgust. The taste of bile rises in his throat, bitter and metallic. He glares at it, the shape dripping in the sky like a plague.
His fist clenches at his sides, his breath shortens. Memories flood his mind with vicious cruelty, sensations coming to him with the taste of vengeance. The phantom pain of a knee driven into his spine, the whisper of the sharp concrete against his ribs, the never forgotten pressure of leather fingers closing around his throat.
The dark cowl, the iron fists, the shame, the humiliation; he remembers it all, it never leaves his brain, like a cancer spreading, metastasing.
He slowly backs away, until the signal disappears behind the fogged glass. His legs feel unsteady, his fingers tremble despite himself. He leans against a rusted workbench and falls heavily on an old chair, one hand pressed against his sternum, searching, steadying, reassuring.
Just breathe.
His phone chimes.
Edward doesn’t look up at the screen at first. Instead, he exhales a long, weary sigh. When will it end? The incessant demands, the constant interruptions? When can he finally, just once, rest?
His throat constricts, frustration claws at his chest viciously, throbbing behind his eyes like a migraine.
Another chime follows. Then, another, each one shriller than the last, bursting like screaming bubbles. By the fifth alert, something in him snaps. The tiredness instantly evaporates, triggering a cold spike of disbelief. His brow furrows as he angrily snatches the phone from his pocket.
His eyes turn wide and owlish, a constellation of red notifications blinking on the screen. The broken alarm system is going erratic, the keypad encryption was crudely bypassed, triggering the electric tiles trap… of the Puzzle Room 12R, near the docks.
Of course, the docks. A sound tears from his ragged throat, half a scream, half a snarl. He curses something vile, something nasty. Incompetent, braindead, filthy rat.
The phone trembles in his vicious grip, his pulse growing frantic, his mind already racing with practical thoughts. He thinks of the layout of the room, the voltage losing its calibration, how close it is getting to setting itself on fire. He can’t afford this, not right now.
Immediately, Edward begins typing a string of commands into his phone as he storms down the corridor, boots thudding against the floor. A burst of static fills in the room as he opens a communication line to the Puzzle Room’s speaker system.
“What have you done?!” he roars, his voice trembling with rage.
“I'm– I don't know! I just– I opened the main panel to fix the burnt keys, but I must’ve touched a live wire, or connected the wrong terminals, or–”
Her voice is shaking with panic, the broken alarm shrieking in the background.
Edward snarls loudly and runs faster, nearly slipping on the final turn before descending the stairwell. He slams a magnetic key against the door of a secured operating room.
Inside, the space is small; one computer on a cluttered desk, and a chair he doesn’t even bother using, already typing furious lines of code in the console system.
“You insufferable, fumbling creature!” he snaps into the phone. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? You could have burnt the entire place down!”
Behind the screen, he reroutes the power, kills the current and silences the alarm. Then, he launches a diagnostic sweep of the entire room system. Information scrolls down the screen in a cascade of flickering green code; motion sensors, temperature indicators, voltage amounts, but thankfully no critical damage. It should be an easy fix for him.
Edward exhales sharply through his nose, a hiss more than a breath. His temples throb, his hands still shaking with adrenaline. A new notification flickers across the screen, the keypad terminal is finally connected and operational. Seconds later, a voice crackles through the phone, far too pleased with itself.
“I did it! I fixed the keypad!”
He closes his eyes, rolling them so hard into the back of his skull it feels like they might stick there permanently.
“Ah! Bravo!”, he barks, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Congratulations on completing one singular, elementary task, and in the process, corrupting the alarm system, triggering the death trap, and very nearly reducing my Puzzle Room to a pile of ashes! Truly, truly, you did a remarkable job!”
He slams a hand down on the desk, the metal frame clanging beneath his fist.
A heavy silence hangs between them. Edward sits hunched in the chair, his forehead pressed into his palm, his breath sharp and labored.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Nigma…”
Her apology, weak, useless and miserable, ignites something feral in him. The urge to scream burns like poison in his throat. He wants to throw, destroy something, preferably her bones, wants to shatter the screen, break her skull open and paint the room with her incompetence.
He’s furious, no, enraged. But more than that, he’s tired. Properly, utterly exhausted.
He massages his temples, drawing slow, tight circles against the burning skin. Hiring her was a complete mistake. She’s careless, clumsy and dangerous, and there’s no point in keeping her. She should be replaced, perhaps tonight. Perhaps…
A chime. In the Puzzle Room, the lights activate, but it isn’t the main pattern, not the usual alert. He narrows his eyes, types a quick command and opens a feed. The camera blinks.
There, he sees the little mouse, curled on the floor with her knees pressed to her chest, her face twisted in quiet anguish. But Edward barely registers her, doesn’t care for her. What does catch his eye is the light.
Soft green pulses through the room in a symmetrical, geometric pattern, elegant even. The light cascades in a delicate gradient across the walls and the floor, carving shadows over the cages, bathing the room in a low, reverent glow. It moves, as if the room was breathing, like a silent worship.
His eyes narrow.
“You changed the lights. Why?” His voice is calm, collected, but curious. She hesitates for a second.
“I thought… it would elevate the room. Sublime your work. I wanted to… fix my mistake.”
Edward cocks a brow. A slow warmth blooms in his chest, with a swelling pride he doesn’t bother to suppress or restrain.
Yes. Yes, his work deserves it. And the accents, he notices now, are careful, tasteful and measured. She understood the logic of the room, the geometry of the architecture. She respected its shape, its meaning. Respected him.
He leans back in the chair, chin lifted.
“Come back tomorrow. Same time,” he says at last. His voice returns to that flat, dismissive tone, but the venom is drained. “I’m not done with you. And try not to destroy anything on your way out.”
Then, he cuts the line. But the camera stays turned on.
He watches her rise slowly, dust herself off, gather her things. But, right before she leaves, she pauses. Looks at the keypad, tilts her head. Then wipes a faint smudge from its surface with her sleeve.
He squints, the corner of his mouth twitching, then leans back deeper into the chair.
The Puzzle Room, now intact, glows on the monitor. The new lights bask the floor in a gentle hue, throwing soft shadows over steel and glass like a caress, like something sacred. His work is framed in an emerald veil, like candles in a cathedral.
I finally finished my engineering project yesterday!!! nerdy rambling below the cut
We had to build a fire-fighting robot (yes, this is an actual thing that exists), with variable speed track technology and a warning system. It also had to have a tilt and rotate feature. I decided to just make a vaguely tank-looking thing.
Making the body of it wasn't too difficult. It's made of aluminium. The top part (the turret) is made of acrylic . Though it's a much more complex shape, I just designed it in CAD and laser cut it. I then bent it into place using a strip heater (which was quite easy since they're all 90° bends).
Here's the inside of the turret. It's on a hinge and is able to be opened, as one of the requirements of the project was that all electrical components have to be visible without dismantling. The motor there powers the 'tilt' and there's also a buzzer that serves as the 'warning system'. Getting all of the holes to line up with the components was a bitchhhhhh.
On the underside of the vehicle, there's a motor that powers the 'rotate'. It allows for 360° degrees of rotation. I also have a motor each for the wheels. Initially, I was going to have each wheel controlled by their own DPDT switch. This would have allowed for the vehicle to turn left and right, and move backwards. In the end, I decided against it as it felt unnecessary - and I was right. The tracks barely function and tend to slip off. Creating the ability to change direction of the wheels rotation would have just caused more problems.
I made a controller that houses all of the switches. Electronics took me about four or five hours to do yesterday. Braiding the cable itself took about three hours - but I'm happy that I decided to do it, because it makes the wiring look pretty clean. I was so so worried that the electronics wouldn't work. I had individually tested all components beforehand, so I knew that they all worked. However, I started wiring the electronics by attaching all of the switches to the controller, and then braiding the wires. I had to hope and pray that once the wires were braided, they would correctly correspond to each of the components. I am so unbelievably bad at understanding how electrical circuits work, that it's genuinely a miracle that it managed to work out.
The project isn't exactly what I had envisioned. A lot of things changed from my initial design. Honestly, I'm just happy that it's finished. Many people in my class weren't able to say the same. I managed to finish about two hours before the project was due. When I left school, there were still a few people working.
I was in the engineering room from 9am to 9:30 pm yesterday. I didn't even take a break unless it was to go to the bathroom. It was the biggest lock in of my life. Being on only one hour of sleep didn't really help, I felt so out of it towards the end. My eyes and back hurt so fucking much. I'm just happy that it's over.
I wish I could say that I can now take a break, but that's not even true. I still have to write up my report for the project, and make CAD drawings for some of the parts, as well as write a report for my computer science project. It's one thing checked off of the list, so I'm happy about that.
For the Benefit of All: Assistive Tech Developed from NASA Tech
What do modern cochlear implants and robotic gloves have in common? They were derived from NASA technology. We’ve made it easier to find and use our patented inventions that could help create products that enhance life for people with disabilities.
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which highlights the contributions of American workers with disabilities – many of whom use assistive technology on the job. Take a look at these assistive technologies that are NASA spinoffs.
Low-Vision Headsets
The Joint Optical Reflective Display (JORDY) device is a headset that uses NASA image processing and head-mounted display technology to enable people with low vision to read and write. JORDY enhances individuals’ remaining sight by magnifying objects up to 50 times and allowing them to change contrast, brightness, and display modes. JORDY's name was inspired by Geordi La Forge, a blind character from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” whose futuristic visor enabled him to see.
Cochlear Implants
Work that led to the modern cochlear implant was patented by a NASA engineer in the 1970s. Following three failed corrective surgeries, Adam Kissiah combined his NASA electronics know-how with research in the Kennedy Space Center technical library to build his own solution for people with severe-to-profound hearing loss who receive little or no benefit from hearing aids. Several companies now make the devices, which have been implanted in hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Robotic Gloves
Ironhand, from Swedish company Bioservo Technologies, is the world’s first industrial-strength robotic glove for factory workers and others who perform repetitive manual tasks. It helps prevent stress injuries but has been especially warmly received by workers with preexisting hand injuries and conditions. The glove is based on a suite of patents for the technology developed by NASA and General Motors to build the hands of the Robonaut 2 humanoid robotic astronaut.
Smart Glasses
Neurofeedback technology NASA originally developed to improve pilots’ attention has been the basis for products aimed at helping people manage attention disorders without medication. The devices measure brainwave output to gauge attention levels according to the “engagement index” a NASA engineer created. Then, they show the results to users, helping them learn to voluntarily control their degree of concentration. One such device is a pair of smart glasses from Narbis, whose lenses darken as attention wanes.
Anti-Gravity Treadmills
A NASA scientist who developed ways to use air pressure to simulate gravity for astronauts exercising in space had the idea to apply the concept for the opposite effect on Earth. After licensing his technology, Alter-G Inc. developed its anti-gravity G-Trainer treadmill, which lets users offload some or all of their weight while exercising. The treadmills can help people recover from athletic or brain injuries, and they allow a safe exercise regimen for others with long-term conditions such as arthritis.
Wireless Muscle Sensors
Some of the most exciting assistive technologies to spin off may be yet to come. Delsys Inc. developed electromyographic technology to help NASA understand the effects of long-term weightlessness on astronauts’ muscles and movements. Electromyography detects and analyzes electrical signals emitted when motor nerves trigger movement. Among the company’s customers are physical therapists developing exercise routines to help patients recover from injuries. But some researchers are using the technology to attempt recoveries that once seemed impossible, such as helping paralyzed patients regain movement, letting laryngectomy patients speak, and outfitting amputees with artificial limbs that work like the real thing.
To further enhance the lives of people with disabilities, NASA has identified a selection of patented technologies created for space missions that could spur the next generation of assistive technology here on Earth.
Want to learn more about assistive technologies already in action? Check out NASA Spinoff to find products and services that wouldn’t exist without space exploration.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Name (Earth-Prime ID): Calvin R. Dent
Date of Birth: October 21, 1991
Origin: Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States
Occupation (2025): Electronics retail manager, part-time online engineering forum moderator, Reddit pseudointellectual (user: QInductanceKing91)
Profile Summary:
A middling intellect wrapped in delusions of unrecognized brilliance. Calvin Dent was one of those unfortunate minds just sharp enough to understand how average they were. Obsessed with legacy, crippled by reality. Held a community college degree in Electrical Technology and enough bitterness to power a regional blackout. Most notably: kept a hand-sketched mock diploma with the name “Delft University of Technology” on his wall. In Comic Sans.
II. ATTEMPTED TEMPORAL INSERTION (INTERCEPTED)
Alias: “Henrik Van Deleur”
Target Year: 1893
Destination: Leiden, Netherlands
Projected Field: Theoretical and Applied Electromagnetism
Planned Persona:
A quiet, pipe-smoking Dutch polymath with impeccable academic Dutch and a suspiciously modern understanding of circuit theory. Dent’s goal was not to become a celebrity—he knew better than to aim for Maxwell-level fame—but rather to surgically insert himself into the timeline just ahead of Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, with the express purpose of preempting Lorentz’s 1895 articulation of what would become the Lorentz Force Law.
Dent’s Intended Claim:
He aimed to publish the fundamental description of the electromagnetic force acting on a charged particle in a magnetic field—a cornerstone taught in every first-year electrical engineering curriculum today. He planned to submit it to the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen under the name “Van Deleur Force Dynamics,” anticipating decades of textbook immortality.
Neural Modifications Requested Pre-Jump:
Intelligence enhancement via cortical remapping (unauthorized patch build: “Savant.h2”)
Accent overlay (Dutch/Frisian hybrid)
Ego isolation chamber (so he could “contemplate deeply like a real genius”)
Ancestry implants to falsify Dutch-Jewish heritage (presumably for added gravitas)
Analyst Note:
“Lorentz wouldn’t be erased—he’d just be demoted to a bureaucratic footnote. ‘Assistant to Van Deleur’ in some patent office’s annex. And Dent? He’d get his name embossed on every undergrad's third week of suffering.”
III. INTERCEPTION EVENT & FAILURE POINT
Catch Location: Rotterdam Warp Canal, Node 7.3
Temporal Lag Window: 1.1 seconds (he whispered “Van Deleur... now.” right before reversion)
Containment Class: ECHO/THIEF – Intellectual Property Time Theft Attempt
Subject was apprehended during final insertion formatting. The cortical upgrade had just barely initialized—he was already attempting to recite the Biot-Savart law like it was poetry. Tragically for him, he never even made it to Leiden. Still drooling Cartesian coordinates when we dragged him into chrono-custody.
IV. FINAL REASSIGNMENT
Redirected Identity: Leonardo “Leo” Monteiro
Year of Placement: 1962
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
New Occupation: Midfield Utility Player, Brazilian National Football Team
Biological Recode Profile:
Height: 5'10"
Build: Athletic, toned but not exceptional
Hair: Coarse black curls, cropped to FIFA code standard
Skin: Medium-brown, light sheen from programmed constant perspiration
Smile: Mild, polite, disappears when the ball is gone
Feet: Size 28EE — anomalously large, tagged for cross-timeline tracking
Psychogenetic Rewrite:
Intellect: Recalibrated to 102 IQ
Interests: Women, futsal, guaraná soda
Temperament: Competitive but humble; known for saying “I’m just happy to play, you know?”
Memory Layering: Born in Vila Matilde, trained by uncle João, idolized Garrincha, once kissed Pelé’s cleats
Neural Hooks: Increased dopamine response from group celebration, zero response to textbook diagrams
Jersey Number: 16
FIFA World Cup Impact (1962):
Two assists
One yellow card
Notable praise for “clean passing and general likability”
Timeline Integrity Note:
Leo Monteiro is remembered in small footnotes as “a dependable contributor to Brazil’s 1962 campaign,” and in one particular São Paulo tabloid as “the quiet player with the big heart—and feet to match.”
V. SUBJECT STATUS: FINALIZED
Cognitive Dissonance Residue:
Occasional flickers of magnetic field vector drawings in dirt with his cleats (flagged as harmless)
Mild frustration at not understanding how transistor radios work (“just magic, I guess”)
Once stared at a schematic in a toy store for four hours. No thoughts recorded.
Analyst Commentary – Vexillia Rhune:
“Calvin Dent wanted to be remembered as the man who gave the world the Lorentz Force. Instead, he gives clean passes in 90-minute intervals. He breathes in chants instead of equations now. The Force is still Lorentz’s. History remains intact. Dent? He’s sweaty, sore, and sometimes smiling.”
Projected Death:
Date: June 19, 2004
Location: Campinas, Brazil
Cause: Heart failure while coaching youth players
Epitaph: “He loved the game, and the game loved him back.”
VI. FINAL NOTE
“Legacy isn’t earned by cutting in line. Dent believed if he looked smart enough, sounded Dutch enough, and sabotaged one quiet physicist, he could steal a force of nature. Instead, he got naturalized. Into Brazil. Into football. Into mild mediocrity. There is no ‘Van Deleur Force Law.’ There’s only a sweaty jersey in a box somewhere and a man who once almost changed everything… but now can’t explain a capacitor.”
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH TO THIS WONDERFUL COMMUNITY FOR HELPING ME RISE FROM ALL HURDLES AND ACHIEVE MY DREAMS <3. I have been provisionally admitted to an Engineering College and I am so excited!!! I’ll start studying for my Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree from August. Currently I have been admitted for the Electrical Engineering degree but I want to go further and pursue the Electronics and Communications Engineering degree. So, I am waiting for it a bit. But the good news is most engineering degrees have the same course in first year. So, to stay ahead (and because I am bored) I will be starting 100 day study challenge from tomorrow (23.06.25).
...and I'm so sorry for those who are over these kind of AUs.
I have a Discord server where I write little fanfics and stuff for myself, and have been adding to it for years. One of the repeating ones is a College AU that involves characters from a few different shows.
Since I've been feeling down, I figured I'd make a little post about it in case anyone is interested.
Check below for character art and blurbs.
This whole thing started with the fearsome four, so I'll start there.
Fearsome Four
They've been friends since the beginning of college (and some longer). While they don't always have a lot in common, and may bicker often, they do genuinely enjoy being around each other. They like to meet up sometimes to share a meal and complain about their lives or talk up a recent project.
Shy, lonely, kind, gets bullied. He spends most of his time in the nature center and greenhouses. Students in his (and similar) degrees/programs have reserved spaces around there, and his happens to be in one of the greenhouses. He spent a long time working out a special process that could give people plantlike qualities, and eventually succeeded (on himself.) For the sake of keeping him in the college storyline, he has the ability to believably make himself look "normal," but it's not something he likes to maintain for too long.
Bud Flud (Or is it Flood?)
Business Administration & Management
Manipulative, stubborn, selfish, still cares about his friends. He's the sole heir to his family's company. When his mother died, she left the company to him, but his father has been finding every delay or loophole to keep it all in his own hands. One day he's invited on a full tour of the main building for their biggest earner: bottled water. An executive (or at least someone hired to look like one) takes an excited Bud around and they eventually end up in the lowest basement floor, where he's pushed into one of the vats. Bud's father ran stories in all forms of media asap saying Bud was dead. Just outside the city, he reforms on the side of a river and sneaks back to his dorm. similar to Bushroot, I wanted him to be able to actively participate in college things, so he can hold a more "normal-looking" form that takes advantage of his watery abilities (and maaaybe makes himself look a bit stronger/beefier.) Eventually, he does get revenge on his father and takes over the company, but attempts to stay in college, because he doesn't want to leave his friends.
Chaotic, fun, kind, impulsive. All he's ever wanted was to make toys and games (not the electronic kind) for people of all ages, but every time he had ever proposed his prototypes or ideas to companies, they had shot him down. Every time they'd become more and more harsh about it. During the final presentation the representatives he was presenting for told him he'd never get into the industry, and that's when he snapped. With his skills in engineering (and sewing), he created a toy army in secret as well as his signature costume, and proceeded to take down the companies that told him he'd never succeed. After his revenge, he is the first one to lead the group into becoming supervillains and tends to take on the leadership role more often than not (although, Bud takes charge in a few instances.)
Socially anxious, guarded, has a hard time showing emotions, but genuinely cares for his friends. He started off college as the smartest one in class, always participating (even if he hated his fellow classmates), and doing extra credit often, even though he never needed it. He proposed his ideas on electricity and generation of it, and his professors laughed him out of the room. That's when he knew he was going to prove them wrong. Once he started making some real progress on his life's work, he stopped doing it in his reserved space in the science wing and started working on it in his dorm (which is against the rules, but no one's stopped him yet.) As he continued his work, he started getting into tunnel vision, his friends occasionally dropping by to bring him food and things. After an experiment, he found that he's become a living battery. Instead of his brain immediately being fried by the process (like in the show), his brain gets more jumbled as he continues to use his abilities. At some point he shows his new successful invention to his professors and they refuse to acknowledge his work, but still look into what he did. At a later date, he found out that they stole his work and put it out as theirs. Jackie suggested getting revenge so they go get back at them together.
The Theater Kids
While not a particularly tight-knit group, they do end up spending a decent amount of time together. They all are in majors in the Theater wing of the college, but Jim, Drake, and Duckula tend to get put on projects together (generally to Duckula's dismay.) Meanwhile, Drake, Duckula, and Daffy are all major players in the Event Planning Committee, mainly because they all want to host and be the center of attention.
(Warning: there's a lot of "and he's the son of..." in this part)
Jim Starling
Acting
Selfish, guarded, standoffish, but serious about his work. He's secretly the son of the actor who played Darkwing Duck in the old show, but hates Darkwing for that exact reason. While it's a secret, Drake knew immediately and wanted to meet him, only to find Jim threatening him to never tell anyone. Before Drake showed up, he used to get every hero/protagonist role in major productions from the college, but now he only gets villain/antagonist roles. It angers him to no end that his roles are being "stolen" by this new guy. Through one means or another, he ended up meeting the actual Negaduck (90s) and while they're trapped together for a bit, Negaduck helps inspire him to play the best villain he can.
Drake Mallard
Acting
Kind, stubborn, arrogant. One of the founding members of the college's Darkwing Duck Fan Club (the other being LP, but he doesn't actually go to college there.) His dorm room is filled with Darkwing merch of all kinds. As a member of the Event Planning Committee, he's the only one willing to do the paperwork and early prep for events. While sitting at a computer filling out forms and doing expense sheets isn't the most fun, it does give him more freedom to slip in a few Darkwing events and episode showings without running them by the rest of the committee. At a later point, Negaduck stalks the college campus and another character (Buck) suspects Drake and Jim. It's revealed soon after that Drake is the son of the actual Darkwing (who existed alongside the show.) His mother is Morgana Macawber and his older sister, Gosalyn, is Quiverwing Quack, local beloved superhero. His parents retired from superheroing and are traveling the world (though we all know DW is likely still running into problems, lol.) His father left him all of his old gear so Drake could take up the superhero mantle, but he's been too scared of ruining DW's legacy and being in his father's shadow. During the investigation, they find out Negaduck had put a tracker on DW's old suit and was back for revenge. Drake tried to pretend to be his dad to trick Negaduck, but it didn't work. Afterwards, they confide in Jim and get him to play DW, and he successfully convinces Negaduck long enough to get him trapped. Once Negaduck is turned over to the police, Drake rethinks his situation and slowly learns to be his own Darkwing, eventually making his own suit to fit.
Count Duckula (or just Duckula)
Drama / Dramatics / Theatre Arts
Arrogant, dense, vaguely evil, but also very lonely. Unlike most students, he doesn't live in a dorm. Like his previous incarnation, his castle can warp wherever he wants to go, so he just warped near campus and set up his castle so that it wouldn't leave (for Duckula fans, I assume he just had to remove his cuckoo clock.) Out of the Event Planning Committee members, he's the best at event prep and technical stuff. You need a projector? You need a fog machine? You need a DJ setup? He can get it and set it up easily. He doesn't even seem to be aware of his skills in prepping sets and equipment. That being said, as they were deciding who got to host the biggest party of the year, he won and was super excited to host. It was definitely his favorite part of the year and made everything else worth it. Meanwhile, his skills in acting could definitely use some work. He once had to play a damsel in distress for a group exercise and Duckula's work was so bland, Jim came out with a chainsaw and scared him into saying his lines right. This mainly worked because his only lines were basically "help" and "save me!" One problem for Duckula is that he's a vampire, which is one reason why he wants to do theater so much, no cameras required. There are cameras that can capture his image, but they are unbelievably expensive. His dream is to get a bunch of those cameras and fulfill his family's dream of becoming famous. (For Duckula fans, this version is based on the 18th, who can show up in cameras, but this was added for more drama.) At one point he gets it in his head that animation would mean he doesn't need cameras, but he decided to hypnotize the entire animation wing to make him an animated pilot he wrote (and not a very good one.) After the hypnosis wore off, they chased him down, ready to stake his heart with styluses (styli?) and pencils until he agreed to bring them snacks for a year and donate to the animation wing.
Daffy Duck (Jr?)
Musical Theater
Arrogant, aloof, chaotic. He's the son of the original Daffy, and a big Duck Dodgers fan. Since he's rarely paired in a group with Jim, Drake, and Duckula, he tends to tease their group a lot and give them grief when they use the stage too often for their practice. As a member of the Event Planners, he focuses on the decor and aesthetic for events. He also bothers Drake often about doing Duck Dodgers showings and bugs him about Dodgers being "better" and "more beloved." He'll slack off sometimes during event work when it comes to actually putting things up, but his decorating plans are actually pretty solid and eye-catching. He'll occasionally do social media stuff for events, too (especially if he's the one who gets to host them.)
The Rest
Other characters I didn't really have a group for, but are still important.
Buck McDuck (Aka Young Scrooge McDuck)
Business Administration & Management
Stubborn, clever, impulsive. He took on the alternate name of Buck because he thought it would sound cool and give him the chance to separate his college life from his family life prior. His first year at college, he decided to take on a job as a part-time security guard, which he soon found was going to be very high stress. Catching small time security stuff was easy and boring, but soon a costumed villain (Negaduck) showed up and started causing problems. He never watched Darkwing and wasn't in the area during Darkwing's time as a hero, so it wasn't until way later on that he found out Negaduck was the criminal messing with campus (and constantly escaping him.) Eventually he had to work with Drake (and later on, Jim) to catch Negaduck and turn him over to the police. Buck was already becoming worn out from this madness, but it wasn't until a later incident involving Birch (Badboy) Goodman that made him quit his job and instead focus his efforts on selling homemade study guides (similar to Azul Ashengrotto of Twisted Wonderland) and doing odd jobs around campus (like helping the event committee) for extra cash. Luckily, these jobs also ended up paying better. Sometimes he likes to do his schoolwork while hanging out with the animals in the veterinary area, but he'd never tell anyone about that. I had an idea for his brother (from Italian comics) Gideon McDuck to show up and jumpstart the newspaper / reporter club, but that wouldn't happen until Buck was at least in his second or third year. Also, the possibility of Glomgold meeting him during some kind of international competition, losing, and transferring just to be able to beat Buck at things in his own classes.
Sylvester Pussycat
Graphic Design & Illustration
Creative, sneaky, aloof. He's an ex-delinquent with a love for graffiti, who wants to become a muralist. Instead of a dorm, he saved some cash by renting a studio apartment nearby. It's a bit run down, but he knows a guy so he gets it at a steep discount. He's definitely butted heads with Buck on a few occasions (when Buck worked security), especially when he got a hold of Black 4.0 paint — he painted cartoonish holes in parts of campus, which really messed with people (imagine walking into a room that's now just a black void.) After he was forced to clean it all up as punishment, he promised not to paint all over campus again (but the city is fair game.) As one of the best resident artists who also is strapped for cash, the Event Planning Committee hires him often for poster, banner, and flyer designs. As an extra bit of fun, if he sees Duckula trying to hypnotize someone, he'll jump in and stop him— usually by pushing his beak up towards the ceiling. Duckula obviously gets annoyed at it, but Sylvester tells him that's what he gets for hypnotizing people.
Birch Goodman (Badboy)
Neurobiology & Behavior
Kind, sweet, polite, cinnamon roll who must be protected.
(Rude, selfish, uncouth, punk rocker)
Thee original Birch is transformed by his machine (and a thoughtless Danger Mouse) into a villain, but this version is instead semi-transformed through an accident while testing it. Through that accident, he gets stuck in a sort of Jekyll and Hyde situation where both versions of him share the same body (For Disney Comics fans: Think Gyro Gearloose / The Mad Ducktor.) Birch wanted to make a machine that could help the world learn to be more polite and peaceful, while Badboy wants to use it to make everyone embrace rudeness. Birch has a reserved space towards the back of the science wing, so he doesn't talk too often with others, especially since the accident. Whenever Badboy takes over, he avoids classes in favor of causing chaos around campus with a smaller, more temporary version of the machine, in the shape of a megaphone. To Buck's dismay, Badboy always slips away without leaving a clue as to who he really is. Birch wants to finish the main machine in hopes it can undo his situation, and he hopes he'll be the first to use it. Unfortunately, Badboy is the one to finish it and immediately unleashes it on the campus (with plans to unleash it on the world.) Luckily, Buck and the Fearsome Four were off-campus during the initial blast. They come back and realize they're likely the only ones unaffected, which leads to them working together to take Badboy down and deactivate the machine. As Buck, Quackerjack, Liquidator, and Bushroot distract Badboy (who ends up being more of a challenge than they expected), Megavolt works to rewire the machine. Once reactivated, everyone on campus returned to normal, including Birch. Though, even with Badboy gone, he sometimes falls back into his ruder ways.
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If people like this, I can do occasional run throughs of other AUs and things from my Discord.
Also, for anyone wondering "why these characters?"
I picked a few of my favorite characters at the time, and since this was written over the course of a few years, it ended up being a random assortment. I also run through a certain rule that characters must be from the same generation, if that makes sense. Since I had added Buck, I didn't feel comfortable just bringing in Donald, Della, Daisy, or other characters from the younger (duck cousins) generation. Another application of this was picking which generation Gosalyn and Launchpad would be a part of, which is why I went with Gosalyn is from 90s DW, so she's an adult (who is only ever mentioned, tbh), but LP appears occasionally at the college as a friend (or more) of Drake.
Sorry for any spelling or grammar errors, I typed this up real quick before bed.
