“I don’t understand why you’re so adamant on asking me this, Hal. I just mentioned to Barry that I talked with the head Easter Bunny once and now everyone keeps asking me if I think the Easter Bunny is real! Why do people keep asking me? I’ve met them. I don’t understand why I have to ‘believe’ in the Easter Bunny for them to be real! They exist!”
Hal put his hands up and stepped back, clearly not expecting the frustrated and somewhat hostile response of Billy who slumped back into his seat, which was slightly less satisfying in his bulkier body, and began running his hands through his hair.
The repetition of being interrogated over a simple comment was not only bewildering but had gotten increasingly more annoying to answer as somehow the members of The Justice League, the literal most powerful group of people on earth, didn’t seem to understand a piece of basic knowledge.
Billy was not only very tired of being asked the same thing but even more-so he wanted the laughing at his ordinary response to stop.
He paused and looked Hal dead in the eyes then began to speak in the most dead tone Hal had ever heard from the usually cheerful man.
“Hal, I know the Easter Bunnies are real because I had to spend two, very long weeks personally overseeing the creation of their union that made sure they no longer routinely experience unsafe working conditions and helped establish 8 hour working days so they no longer get overworked or are required to do 80 hour weeks prepping for Easter and get punished for doing less or don’t get paid”,
Billy’s previously slow, blank tone grew more rushed and frustrated as he went on,
“I mean, I didn’t even do much other than sit there and look intimidating by throwing around lightning sometimes and make sure the Easter chicks didn’t do any funny business or tamper with the legal process!
It was in all the papers in Fawcett! I had my picture taken with them and everything. But Hal. I can guarantee you that the Easter Bunny exists. Please. Please stop fucking asking me.” Finally done, Billy slumped onto the table with a loud clunk.
Hal stood there shocked for a moment. “Marvel, did you just imply there’s multiple easter bunnies and they established a form of government?!”
Billy, with seemingly tremendous emotional effort, lifted his head from the table by a few inches and looked Hal in the eyes with a pleading tone, “If I just say no, will you please stop asking me?”
“Absolutely not, now I have even more questions”
Billy let his head fall back onto the table with an even louder clunk and groaned.
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I've been checking out the OC tags for a little while, and I can say the state of OC sharing on tumblr is in absolute misery.
We've all discussed how bad the ratio of reblogs has become, how the amount of them have been dwindling those last couple of years, but I think an extra important emphasis has to be made on original creation.
Though everything is hit by the lack of sharing, fanarts at least have a tag people will look for, improving their visibility - fandom OCs are sadly shared less than fanarts, in general, but they still enjoy that same visibility.
But what of the purely original? People who have OCs belonging solely to their own world, with a tag nobody will look for?
I've been seeing awesome OC art that has been sitting for days and weeks with 0 or 1 notes, sometimes 5 or 6 with luck (though most of the time only likes)... And though there are exceptions, overall, it's a frankly saddening sight.
The way for someone to get attention on their OCs is to already be a well established blog or to produce fanart on the side to build a following. Blogs solely creating original content sit at the bottom of the note pool with no escape in sight.
As much as we praise tumblr for its tagging system and the fact it doesn't kill old posts the way other social media does, it still does fail in the way of uplifting creation that isn't fandom-based.
I don't have a solution to this.
It is merely a sad observation.
It's only natural that people would look for what they already know and love.
But in a world where all of our interactions are linked to consumerism, in a world where automation replaces human imagination, I'd love to see a community of people willing to actively search for, and uplift, the creatives that are trying to peek out of the water.
One reblog may lead to another may lead to a follow, may lead to a creator feeling like their work matters.
So I'm doing it, one reblog at a time.
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Preview of Angsty In-Progress TRT What If fic
Right so there won't be a chapter cause I'm still in Covid Brain Fog Town, Population: Me which is affecting my writing (I've gotten a bit written but it's slow going). But I have found time to edit that sad thing I'd been working on BEFORE getting sick and I'm planning to release that because I think it works as a really good illustration of just what the stakes are in TRT if they get this wrong. AKA: a what-if, in which all their preparations fail and Jane is taken (spawned by an ask in my box that's been chewing at my brain for months now).
This will be a really dark and angsty side-fic, and the ending won't be happy per se, although I'm planning to give a little hope at the end since I'm not a COMPLETE monster, but I don't expect everyone to read it regardless and am designing it so there's no need to if you'd prefer to stick to TRT canon. BUT if you DO want to read something like this, here's a preview of the first section.
Warnings for: angst (obviously), blood, reference to shock collars.
Preview wordcount: around 1k
Putting this behind a cut.
Sad Matt gif cause this part's from his POV and it will not be fun.
There should have been a fight.
That had always been the plan, an unspoken agreement the moment you’d decided to stay. You’d all known the Man in the White Coat, Cyrus James, would come to town eventually. It was an inevitability, a reality, and it was one you’d prepared for. Slowly, you’d gathered in your allies, armor composed of S.H.I.E.L.D., of the Ferryman, of the Punisher and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and even Spider-Man, had you asked. There’d been plans and backup plans, alarm systems and fail safes. And just in case that still wasn’t enough, you and Matt had taken to practicing, over and over and over again, all the ways you could signal him should your hunter slip through the cracks.
It was foolproof.
It should have been foolproof. That was what you’d all believed.
You were all wrong. So terribly, terribly wrong.
This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.
There was no battle.
It’s my fault.
No war along the familiar streets that had become your home.
I should have sensed him.
There’d been no signal given. No warning, no alarm that rang out, not when you were walking home after a late case.
Caught alone in the dark.
Where are you, sweetheart? Please, just give me something, anything—
You didn’t even have time to scream, they said.
Not physically, anyway.
He’d felt your fear before on occasion, when you reached for him psychically. Then, your presence felt like the frantic bite of your nails in his skin, tasted like the sharp tang of cold sweat and burning adrenaline, sounded like the stuttered racing of your heart, a drumbeat in his ears that never failed to set his own heart racing as he cast his senses out, hunting for threat-threat-threat and for those that dared to harm you. He’d felt your fear when you woke in the quiet dark of the apartment, and when you’d been trapped beneath the warehouse in a cruel, dusty cell. He’d felt it, too, that night Frank had chased after you.
He thought he’d known the flavor of your fear.
But those moments were nothing compared to the moment your deepest, darkest fear became… real.
The deafening psychic scream that tore through the thread with all the force of a hurricane was like nothing he’d felt before, or ever would again. That storm was all-consuming, the world around him gone in a heartbeat as the sudden wave brought him to his knees, his mouth shocked open on a silent shout. He could barely breathe through that terrified tide, one cold as bitter ice, your panicked heartbeat less a drumbeat than a constant roar in his ears as your panic rolled through him. This was the tremor of muscle and blind, animalistic instinct, the last, desperate sprint of a doomed hare just before the hawk’s talons cinched shut against the back of its neck.
This wasn’t fear. That was too small a word.
It was sheer, absolute terror.
And in that terror, you managed only a single word.
“Matt, h—”
You never got a chance to finish. Instead, he was struck by a blinding surge of electricity, white-hot coils of lightning snaking around his throat before locking tight. That shock raced outwards from there, traveling along lines of hidden nerves and thick muscle until his whole body locked up in agony. It was impossible to writhe, to thrash, to fight. All he could do was scream, mindless and furious, your terror matched only by his surge of rage, rage that covered his own wave of terror. Because he knew. He knew, distantly, what this was, and what this meant.
The collar.
Just as quickly as it came, the connection was gone, leaving him with nothing but the steady drip of blood from his nose and a ringing in his ears.
He wanted to retch, his stomach roiling, but there was no time.
It can’t end like this.
The directional signal he’d gotten from you was worthless. Even when he found where you’d been snatched off the street, they’d left him nothing but droplets of your blood and a fading snatch of cigarette smoke, a poor cover for the faint chemical scent lingering in the alley. Tranquilizers, he’d learn later, meant to knock you out, make you tame enough to be bound, collared, and forced into the back of a van. From there, your scent vanished into the night.
Caught.
Collared.
Taken.
There was supposed to be more time.
More time for him in your arms and you in his.
More quiet touches in the early morning, and laughter in the kitchen, at Fogwell’s, on warm rooftops and cold ones, too.
Time for him to slip a ring on your finger, and for his name to twine with yours, joyful tears in both your eyes as he pressed his lips to yours on the day you finally became his wife, the keeper of his soul, and he the keeper of yours, for all the rest of your days.
Why hadn’t he asked you?
He should have asked you.
Our rocking chairs should be red, you’d said sleepily last night, when we’re old.
He should have been faster.
Stronger.
Smarter.
“All this, all this that we have here, that you love, is at risk. It always is when I stop. He takes this from me every time, Matt."
He should have protected you.
He’d promised you he’d keep you safe.
“No one will take you. I won’t let them, no matter what I have to do to stop them. What happened before—you didn’t have me. I’ll hear him coming from a mile away. We’ll be prepared for him."
“Ciro promised me the same thing. And he was wrong.”
He’d… promised.
“I promise. I’ll find them before they even get close.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, D.”
And he’d failed.
The Devil’s roar of anguish, of grief, and of absolute agony shook the very bones of the city.
By that point, you were too far away to hear it.
It would be seven months before he found you again.
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