FaceTime! featuring Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake
Sum: Just some fluffy FaceTime moments with the batboys.
Warnings: Mild swearing in Jason's, fem! reader. mdni.
đŁ˛. Dick Grayson áŻáĄŁđŠ
"Are you on top of a building?" You ask, leaning closer to the screen as if that will somehow help you see past Dick's face and the glowing stretch of BlĂźdhaven behind him. He looks unfairly good for someone halfway through patrol - black hair windblown across his forehead and the domino mask hiding those blue eyes.
"Yeah, so, like - hold on." He flips the camera around and immediately starts walking, boots scraping lightly over concrete while the screen swings between buildings.
"You live there," he says, pointing down toward one apartment tower, and then turns toward another. "And there's my place. Wait - " The camera flips back to him, his masked eyes narrowing slightly as he thinks. "Have I seriously never taken you up here before?"
"Must've been one of your other girlfriends," you tease, sinking deeper into your chair as you tug the sleeves of his sweatshirt farther over your hands.
Dick's smile drops so fast you nearly laugh. "My other girlfriends?" He plants one gloved hand against his chest like you've wounded him. "Wow. Okay. That's crazy, actually." You can hear the grin coming back into his voice before you even see it, bright and dazzling. "I have one girlfriend. One. She's mean to me, actually. Borderline abusive. Steals my clothes, teases me, a real mean lady"
"I am NOT mean, Grayson. This has been my hoodie for like ever."
"It says Gotham University. Pretty sure," he drawls out loudly, ever teasingly, "you didn't go there, baby. I would've never missed someone as gorgeous as you."
You laugh before taking a sip of your water, and Dick laughs with you, the sound softening when he drops down onto the ledge of the building. He sits as if gravity has never particularly applied to him, one leg dangling over the side while the other bends beneath him, phone balanced casually against his knee. For a little while, neither of you says much. You answer an email and fix the cuff of his sweatshirt where it's starting to fray. Dick watches the city below, shoulders finally relaxing now that patrol has slowed down. Every so often he looks back at the screen just to make sure you're still there, and when you catch him doing it for the third time, he doesn't even pretend otherwise.
"What?"
"Nothin'." His mouth curves into that softer smile he saves for you, chin resting against his fist. "You look cute. I miss you." There's a pout at the end of that. He's almost hinting to come over afterwards to steal your entire morning.
You roll your eyes and take another sip.
"You can come over later."
"I was already planning on it." He grins before putting in his earbuds. "How about I bring breakfast?"
⊠Jason Todd áŻâ
Jason Todd has never played Stardew Valley in his life, yet somehow he has become deeply invested in your little playthrough. You've got Discord open on your laptop while your phone sits propped on your desk, giving you an excellent view of him midway through a workout.
Shirtless, broad shoulders and old scars shifting every time he moves, the white streak at the front of his hair damp with sweat and falling into his eyes. "So you gotta greet every chicken every day?" he asks from the floor, forearms planted against his mat while he holds a plank.
"Yes." You continue to clack away, occasionally showing him the coop.
"Sounds needy, like you. You need me to check on you every day"
You glance over and catch him looking at the phone instead of the floor. Specifically watching to see whether you're looking at him. A bead of sweat runs down his chest, and Jason's grin only grows more when your eyes linger half a second too long.
You immediately turn back to your laptop.
Cocky asshole.
"Well, this one's named after you." You circle your character around a fat brown chicken wandering through the grass, and Jason's attention snaps over immediately, squinting at the screen.
"Which one?"
"This one."
He cranes his neck toward the screen without breaking his plank. "Yeah."
You stare at him. "Yeah?"
"Handsome little guy." His timer goes off and Jason drops flat onto the mat with a grunt, cheek pressed to his forearm for a second before rolling onto his back. His chest rises and falls while he reaches blindly for his water bottle, takes a long drink, then wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist. "How long've you had me?"
"The chicken?"
Jason lifts his head and gives you a look. "Careful."
You grin a little, biting your lip before looking away. "Like two in-game years."
"So we're serious."
He pushes himself back up and slings a towel around his neck while you move onto the next creature in your coop. "And this one's Grayson-"
Jason's brow furrows "Why's he blue?"
"Because he's a blue chicken?"
His face suddenly fills half your FaceTime screen, green eyes flicking between you and the game while one hand braces against his hip. "Yeah, but those are the rare ones."
There's a pause, and you slowly turn toward your phone. Jason realizes his mistake approximately one second too late.
"How'd you know those are rare?"
He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek to break the smile forming on his face before looking down at you.
"Answer my question first."
You immediately start laughing.
"Nah, don't laugh." Jason points accusingly at the laptop. "Why's Dick special?"
"He's just blue!"
"And I'm brown."
"Jason. Wait - I can explain - "
"Regular-ass chicken." He announces loudly. You can hear a small giggle from Steph in the background.
"Damian is the dinosaur! I just pick what makes sense."
That shuts him up for all of two seconds. Then Jason's brows shoot up. "Okay, that's bullshit. I should be the fucking dinosaur, and you know it."
You're laughing hard enough that your character starts running useless circles around the coop. Jason finally cracks too, shaking his head as he grabs his phone and carries you through the manor toward the kitchen.
"Alright, what'd you make Tim?" he asks, pulling open the fridge. You go suspiciously quiet. Jason pauses with one hand still on the door. You cover your mouth.
His eyes narrow. "You made Replacement a rabbit?"
You immediately start laughing again.
"Of course you did." He snorts, digging through the fridge. "Lemme guess. Steph's a duck? Loud as hell too, always yappin'. Yap, yap, yap."
"You can't say things like that!"
"What?" He waves a hand around the kitchen, completely unbothered. "Tell me I'm wrong."
He props your phone against the fruit bowl and starts pulling leftovers from the fridge, still complaining while he works. He's stirring something on the stove while giving you increasingly unsolicited farm advice from YouTube videos he's been watching.
"Have you been Googling this?"
"No. And you tell nobody about this." He takes a bite straight from the pan and points the spoon at you. "Eat your dinner."
A week later, you get a notification from Steam that Jason Todd has purchased Stardew Valley. Two weeks after that, there's a dinosaur wandering around your shared coop named Jason.
The first time you mention it, he threatens to sell the void chicken he named after you.
ۜৠTim Drake :ęŁ
Tim almost always calls you through Discord because Discord is practical. He can share whatever nightmare of a spreadsheet he's working on, you can stream your screen, and neither of you has to hold a phone for four hours straight. FaceTime is different. FaceTime usually happens when you're in bed and Tim is still very much refusing to be.
"Should I mute myself?" he asks, glancing down toward where his phone is propped against a stack of case files beside his laptop. He's hunched over his desk in an old Gotham Knights shirt, dark hair hanging over his eyes until he pushes it back with one hand. The shadows beneath them look almost bruised in the bluish light from his monitors, and there are at least two empty coffee mugs within arm's reach.
You can barely keep your eyes open anymore, cheek mashed into your pillow. "Why?"
"My keyboard." Tim types another line, pauses, then looks back at you. "It's probably loud."
You listen to the rapid click-click-click coming through the speaker. "No."
"Okay."
And that's apparently all he needed.
For another twenty minutes, the two of you barely talk. You watch him through the phone, eyes already half-lidded with sleep while Tim works through case notes, shoulders curling tighter whenever he gets particularly focused. Papers shift. His chair rolls backward. Every few minutes he mutters something under his breath, deletes an entire paragraph, then starts typing again. You're somewhere between awake and asleep when your phone slips sideways against the pillow.
Tim notices immediately. "Hey."
You blink. "What?"
"Can't see you."
You stare at him with a deep sigh and fumble around until the phone is upright again. "There."
"Thanks."
And then he goes straight back to work as though that wasn't deeply pathetic. You watch him for another second. "You got something for watching people?"
"Mhm... mostly for watching you, though."
Your eyes start drifting shut again, and Tim continues typing until he catches you rubbing your face into the pillow. "You tired?"
"No." Your eyes betray you by closing.
"You sure look tired. Want me to come tuck you in?"
"Shut up."
He smiles without looking away from his screen and reaches for one of the coffee mugs. Your eyes open immediately at the scrape of ceramic against his desk.
"Absolutely not."
Tim freezes with the rim halfway to his mouth. "What?"
"Put it down."
"It's coffee."
"It's almost two in the morning. We have a nine a.m. lecture together."
Tim looks from you to the mug, weighs his options, and then very intentionally takes one loud sip.
"Timothy."
"Don't government-name me."
You groan and roll onto your side, propping yourself up with one hand while the other reaches toward the red button. "I'm hanging up."
His head snaps toward the phone. "Nooooo. I'll miss you... stayyyyy."
You start laughing into your pillow because the whine is so dramatic and so completely at odds with the expressionless little detective who's been staring at case files for three hours. "You cannot be serious."
"I like watching you sleep."
"That sounds horrifying."
"It helps me relax."
"I'm sure YouTube has sleeping ASMR, Timothy."
"Not the same."
You reach over and turn off your lamp, leaving your room dark except for the faint glow of your phone. Tim's face is still illuminated by three monitors, one hand resting against his cheek while the other keeps scrolling through reports. "Goodnight. Please actually sleep tonight."
"Mhm."
"Tim."
"I heard you."
"You'll hate yourself tomorrow."
"Not if I see you."
You settle farther under the blanket, looking at him through half-closed eyes. "Goodnight."
His expression softens a little, a pout pulling at his mouth before he turns back toward the screen. "Night."
You hang up. Your room stays quiet for approximately twelve seconds before your phone buzzes.
I mean, yeah, valid! but but but I also want to add on the fact that lotr AGGRESSIVELY rejects the âgrimdarkâ and âgrittyâ settings that is so prevalent in fantasy (and also in general) right now, because I physically can not shut up about it
It is hope and love and compassion that saves each character individually, and because of that, the world. Frodo fails in the end, but his acts of compassion from earlier in the story save the day. And even as the world is saved, it is acknowledged that Frodo failedâwithout judgement, without blame. He fails, and he is still loved.
And like what can happen in the real world, he is still irrevocably changed by his trauma. But there is still hopeâhe has to leave, but he leaves with the promise of healing, and the promise that his ever-faithful Sam will follow.
Aragorn, Boromir, Frodo, Sam; each and every one of the characters are driven by their love of the people around them and their hope for the future. They cling to that love and hope throughout their trials, and that bears them through.
Of course people are watching it for comfort!!!! Lotr is eternally consistent in its promise, which Sam articulates so clearly in The Two Towers: âEven darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, itâll shine out the clearer.â
Things are dark and awful and terrible, but it will not be that way forever. That is the promise of LOTR. A promise of hope, and the reminder that it is love and compassionâfor our friends, for our families, for the strangers weâve never even metâthat will save us in the end.
LOTR was the last time anyone in Hollywood was blisteringly, truly genuine. The good guys were good and kind and noble and the movie creators understood that this didnât make them boring, it made them bonkers-ass compelling and wonderful. No one winked at the camera at any point.
YOUâVE GOT MAIL (1998)
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989)
PRETTY WOMAN (1990)
JERRY MAGUIRE (1996)
NOTTING HILL (1999)
THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987)
THE PARENT TRAP (1998)
LOVE, ACTUALLY (2003)
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993)
darcy doesnât sing a single note even during conversations where everyone else is singing at him that is until the argument following his first attempt at proposing to lizzy where you can see his restraint fall away
his first big solo is the letter he writes her
gelsey bell is mary and the unofficial narrator and she sits down at her piano to describe whats going on but before she can ever reveal her feelings on the matter, starting with that gelsey bell scream, mr bennet comes over and does the whole âthatâs nice dear but give someone else a turnâ
mr wickham has this huge ballad about how darcy ruined his life and its super melodramatic and touching
mr collins proposal to lizzy is an absolute bop that he gets so into he forgets for a moment what heâs doing heâs just owning the stage
wickham has a song where heâs trying to seduce lydia but sheâs not even listening sheâs just monologuing about how excited she is to get laid
during darcyâs second proposal he keeps hesitating waiting for lizzy to interrupt him like she has done every time before but she doesnât say anything until heâs finished
at the end mary sits down at the piano and right where sheâd usually be interrupted, kitty joins her and harmonises
 jane and bingley have the adorable upbeat romantic duet which is just them being super polite like âoh so nice to have you hereâ âso nice to be hereâ interspersed with their inner monologue which is just them being like fucking jesus Iâm so in love
the bingley sisters probably have a really cool mean solo
lady catherine has this terrifying disney villain song in the garden
vaporwave
stormborns
jimmyeatworldofficial
tangentwithtanner
origamiaround
