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vandaliatraveler · 2 years

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More late summer treasure from a short hike around Messinger Lake (a.k.a., trout pond) at Coopers Rock State Forest.

From top: the nearly ripe berries of frost grape (Vitis vulpina)*, whose fruit reaches full maturity just before the first frost of October; sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale), whose dried leaves were once used as an ingredient in snuff; Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), also known as ghost plant and corpse plant, a parasitic plant that derives nutrients from trees via a mycorrhizal relationship with fungi; Appalachian ladies’ tresses (Spiranthes arcisepala), a late summer orchid found growing at the moist edges of wetlands; white wood aster (Eurybia divaricata), a late-summer perennial of Appalachia’s rich woods and clearings; a pair of eastern destroying angels (Amanita bisporigera) hiding in the ferns, an idyllic spot for these deadly beauties; a young sulphur shelf fungus (Laetiporus sulphureus), also known as chicken-of-the-woods, at prime edibility; and Appalachian oak-leech (Aureolaria laevigata), also known as entireleaf yellow false foxglove and smooth false foxglove, a partially-parasitic plant that attaches to and derives nutrients from oak tree roots while also creating energy from photosynthesis.

* Corrected the scientific name from an earlier post.

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elodieunderglass · 1 month

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Hi! I was wondering if you could help me out with a word I've forgotten? I'm trying to remember the name for a concept that (I think) talks about how people better understand or process Things once they have vocabulary to describe it - I've heard it talked about in regards to the colour orange, or coercive control, etc.

long story short i've just read a paper saying ancient Greeks and Romans weren't racist bc they had no word for racism and am trying to form an argument against!

(no worries if this is unanswerable, i'm aware its a bit of a long shot but you struck me as a person who Knows Things)

That’s extremely kind and funny of you. i don’t know much but i am ok at synthesis.

I think you might be thinking of the concepts loosely called the “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis”, which describes something called “linguistic determinism.” This idea has been “disproven”, as it is just too reductionist as a concept - people are clearly perfectly capable of having experiences that are tough to describe with words. There will be plenty of papers showing how this reasoning is applied.

but it is still commonly thrown around and still considered a useful teaching framework. That’s why you’ll see it referenced online as if it is fresh, new, and applicable - people learn about it every year in college. Also, elements of the framework are probably perfectly sound. It definitely seems to be the case that language shapes brains; it just doesn’t seem to be the case that humans who don’t have specific words for them can’t experience orange, or the future.

(Many things in college are taught using teaching frameworks that may not be, technically, true; the framework is intended to give a critical structure for interpreting information. Then, when we later find evidence that disproves the hypothesis, that single piece of information doesn’t destroy our expensive college education; what we paid for is the framework. This is mostly frustrating in the sciences, when fresh crops of undergraduate students crash around on social media, grappling with their first exposure to (complex concept) and how it’s DIFFERENT to what they learned BEFORE and their teachers LIED TO EVERYBODY and they’re going to save the world from POP SCIENCE by telling the TRUTH. You’ll notice that these TOTALLY NEW INFORMATION reveals map along the semester schedule. The thing here is that getting new information, or information being different from what you were previously told, does not cancel out the fact that you are getting what you pay for - an education. Learning new facts that change our relationships to hypotheses isn’t a ✨huge betrayal ✨ , but the expected process of academia. Anyway.)

You have an interesting response here, and can start by looking at the ways that Sapir-Whorf has been disproved. There will be loads of literature on that.

However, it would be interesting to look at the argument as an unpicking of the other side’s rather weird, ritualistic superstitious belief that a behavior doesn’t exist if the creatures doing it can’t describe it. It is not on the ancient Greeks and Romans to categorise and interpret their behavior for a modern educated audience. They do not have the wherewithal to do so. They are also fucking dead. We can name the behaviors we see, and describe their impacts, however the hell we like.

Sure, the ancient Greeks used “cancer” to refer to lumpy veiny tumors. We can infer that they still had blood cancer, because their medical texts describe leukaemia and their corpses have evidence of it - they just didn’t know it was cancer. But we do, so we can call it cancer. Just because Homer said “the wine-dark sea” in a flight of girlish whimsy doesn’t mean he was unable to distinguish grape juice from saltwater, which we know, because we can observe that he was an intelligent wordsmith perfectly capable of talking about wine and oceans in other contexts. We are the people who get to stand at our point of history with our words, and name things like “this person probably died of leukaemia” and “poets say things that aren’t necessarily literal” and “this behaviour was racist” and “that’s gay” and “togas kinda slay tho” despite Ancient Greeks having different concepts of cancer, wittiness, prejudice, homosexuality, and slaying than we do today.

Now just to caveat that people do get muddled about the concept of racism. Our understanding of racism from here - this point of history, with these words, probably from the West - is heavily influenced by how we see racism around us today: white supremacy and the construct of “whiteness,” European colonial expansion, transatlantic chattel slavery, orientalism, evangelism, 20th century racial science, and so on. This is the picture of racism that really dominates our current discourse, so people often mistake it for the definition of racism. (Perhaps in a linguistic-deterministic sort of way after all.) As a result, muddled-up people often say things like “I can’t be racist because I’m not a white American who throws slurs at black American people,” while being an Indian person in the UK who votes for vile anti-immigration practices, or a Polish person with a horrible attitude about the Roma. Many people genuinely hold this very kindergarten idea of racism; if your opponent does as well, they’re probably thinking something like “Ancient Greek and Roman people didn’t have a concept of white supremacy, because whiteness hadn’t been invented yet, so how could they be racist?” And that’s unsound reasoning in a separate sense.

Racism as the practice of prejudice against an ethnicity, particularly one that is a minority, is a power differential that is perfectly observable in ancient cultures. The beliefs and behaviors will be preserved in written plays, recorded slurs, beauty standards, reactions to foreign marriages, and travel writing. The impacts will be documented in political records, trade agreements, the layouts of historical districts of ancient towns.

You don’t need permission to point out behaviours and impacts. You can point them out in any words you like. You can make up entirely new words to bully the ancient romans with. You are the one at this point of history and your words are the ones that get used.

Pretending that “words” are some kind of an intellect-obscuring magical cloud in the face of actual evidence is just a piece of sophistry (derogatory) on the part of your opponent here. It’s meant to be a distraction. You can dismiss this very flimsy shield pretty quickly and get them in the soft meat of them never reading anything about the actual material topic, while they’re still looking up dictionary definitions or whatever.

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bitchfitch · 2 years

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ok imagine this. You live in a kingdom and the king dies by choking on his own spit or whatever, and the only heir to the throne is the kings step son that his wife had by fucking a bull, and who was locked away in the giant murder maze, ok. Normal stuff so far.

Now Imagine that rafter the kings death a new non minotaur ruler was chosen to be king. A reasonable decision given that the actual heir eats people and loves murder. Coronation day comes and this new king is struck by lightning so many times that there is no corpse left behind. Ok, so the gods said no to that guy, the state thinks. And so they try again.

And the next guy is gored to death by a boar seconds before he can be crowned (nobody is sure where the boar came from, probably the same place as the lightning). and the state say ok! that one was a mistake, and they're all a little sweaty now, nervously looking between eachother because they know who the gods want on the throne. They know the gods sense of humor.

So they say ok, One more! and they go and find the bravest most noble hero and ask that He be king, and he is gored to death by the bull that fathered the prince. And they all sigh and start planning how to get the giant murder monster out of the giant murder maze.

And shenanigans do occur but they occur within the walls of the murder maze until Finally the prince emerges and everyone collectively sucks in a breath between their teeth because Fuck he is hot. Big fucker with battle scars and a Lot of muscle. guy looks like he can crush a man's head in one hand.

Ok, and he's crowned king. He sits his throne and everyone expects things to immediately go to shit. That the big murder monster would start demanding sacrifices or take ultra aggressive policies or something else. But no, the big bull man is actually a really good king. Focussing on protecting his people and ensuring resources are shared between them. When one noble or another offers him riches or tries to sway him to less noble rulling styles that benefit them and not the lower classes he pops their heads like grapes in his big meaty hands.

Great King ok. Seems real unhappy but is otherwise reasonably competent and happy to delegate responsibilities to people more suited than him. Great King.

So then one day he gets this cat. Ok, it's a sphinx, the sort that tell riddles and have wings not the sort you need to put little sweaters on to keep them from getting cold. And it's from the murder maze, and it's clearly his favorite person. They mock fight a lot in the arena and multiple scholars have been hired to come up with puzzles and problems difficult enough to be entertaining to this weird cat. Ok, normal stuff.

And then you here that the cat and the king have fled the castle. Back to the murder maze for the sole reason that they both like it more than being royalty. And now that the king has a sphinx helping him the two are basically impossible to catch. So, instead of trying to catch Them the state orders as many monsters slaughtered until the king comes back to save his monsters. And the king does. and after much deliberation it is decided that the king would rule from within the maze. ok, all normal so far.

So a party is held in the King's honor and he has the sphinx (a creature you aren't sure is 100% a person) declared Queen at the party. Which, what ever, all normal.

So you go to this party this big beautiful gilded event held within the maze and by sheer chance you run into the sphinx queen. and it looks at you, and smiles and asks "Do you know of the philosopher who goes by Ligma?"

The plan with the ligma joke was that they knew this party would almost exclusively be attended by stuffy nobles who were all some level of scared of the both of them. Because they had both killed people in front of most of the folk there. Their friend, an alchemist/philosopher was also going to be in attendance. They knew she would give a funny enough answer to satisfy the 'riddle' and so would win the contest to be their heir. Aetius is a shit. It doesn't care to come up with actual riddles, they're all some level of insult or ligma style joke.

secondary edit: Reblogs are going back on bc my desire to ligma people is greater than the irritation I was dealing with + the original rb chains of this are thoroughly dead, probably.

edit: turning off reblogs bc some of y'all don't know what original content is and it's getting annoying. This was a direct summary of my OC's story but from the perspective of someone who did not see it. The sphinx's name is Aetius. Its not a woman, the minotaur is Serapis. Aetius was named queen when it and Serapis married, because as the eldest child of a queen(mother cat) it was technically legally qualified to be a queen(monarch) when it married Serapis. because the law books didn't say Anything about what kinds of queens did or did not count for that. The next step of their plan was to point out they are both male. They can't produce an heir and obviously since they're married now they would have to use the clauses regarding infertility to pick an heir.

Anyways the final step of the plan was that as soon as she gave her answer she would be crowned their heir, and then they would graphically, and publicly, gore eachother to death. so that they could death warp to the center of the maze because neither of them want to be royalty, they want to fuck nasty, be nudists, and kill stuff in the giant murder maze.

Since they died, and nobody outside the maze knew the monsters could death warp, and they already had a 100% legally named heir, they successfully legal loopholed their way out of having to be royalty.

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queenimmadolla · 5 days

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eddie, "angel", and fluff

𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩

Eddie takes an aggressively long pull of the joint clasped between his fingers, dark brown eyes focused on where you occupy the other half of the couch. Your arms are folded over the arm, head using them as a makeshift pillow for the weed induced nap that came over you.

It’s dusk, the trailer park bathed in the warm copper glow of the sun’s last few minutes. The streetlights are due to come on when it disappears. Until then, the park kids run rampant, eager to play before the dark sends them home.

Crickets are already chirping, Cicadas and their annoying screams are reverberating from various parts of the park, all the sounds of an approaching summer night.

The heat had been bearable today, a nice breeze sweeping through Hawkins and encouraging most of the Forest Hills residents to keep their doors and windows open so their homes could air out.

You’d slept over the night before, and with some languid kisses, Eddie had easily persuaded you to stay. You practically lived with him already, anyways. Had your products mingled with his on his dresser, your clothes in his closet and drawers and his pillows smelling of your shampoo and perfume. It felt wonderfully domestic and Eddie was hooked on the sensation. Loved having your presence all around him.

With a summer day as nice as today, the two of you decided to wind down with some light reading and sharing a joint, some grapes, along with some water out on the porch couch.

Eddie was sitting on one end of the couch, while you were splayed out on the rest of it, bare feet resting on his lap. The two of you read your separate choices, enthralled in the last voyage of the dawn treader and a corpse, made from various beings, brought to life.

The soothing stroke of Eddie’s hands over the skin of your leg, coupled with the heat, breeze and weed had eventually lulled you into a slumber, with Eddie noticing only after he’d finished the chapter he was on. He entertained the idea of reading further, you just proved to be far more alluring than any structure of the English language.

Your face is a little shiny, obviously due to the weather, but it only makes you glow and your lips are pouty as a result of half your face being squished against your arm. You look so peaceful, so beautiful. His angel.

Eddie exhales the smoke he was holding in, head feeling even fuzzier than before. It’s nice.

Despite popular belief, Eddie doesn’t get high often. Nothing against smoking, he’d just already gone through the phase of constantly being high and it lost its novelty. Been there, done that.

Now, he only really smokes with you, more so to relax and enjoy rather than to get high out of his fucking mind and unlock an ability to understand animals or some shit. No, Eddie just likes to use it as another way to bond with you.

Eddie’s an affectionate person, he’s aware. He’d been starved for affection as a child after his mom died and his dad could barely clap him on the shoulder, he was doomed to crave it in his relationships. Always the Romantic in them, even if it left him the fool in the end.

Despite many ends, he never stopped. Maybe he held back a little, but never fully stopped, Always wanting to tuck someone into his side, moon over them, map his kisses out over sweet smelling skin, and even sweeter tasting lips that would later scorn him with hurtful words when he inevitably proved to be too much or too little.

Then you’d come into his life. You’d been present for a lot of it, a background character if you will. Sometimes sharing the same friends, sometimes exchanging pleasant greetings and maybe a short interaction.

Eddie thinks about one, in particular. He thinks about it a lot.

It had taken place at a nice little kickback with Harrington and co. Just a tight knit group of friends, some closer than others. Eddie had his then-girlfriend at his side, and arm slung over her shoulder as he conversed with your then-boyfriend, who you’d attended the event with. The conversation had been pleasant but lacking any genuine common interests or passion, until you spoke up, from your place in his arms, in defense of Michael Jackson’s discography.

Eddie enjoyed all kinds of music, dabbled in it, and while he didn't despise Top 40 music, it did become repetitive so he didn’t listen to it often himself.

After that night, and a heated debate on whether or not songs being overplayed meant it took away from the brilliance of them—Eddie found himself ducking into the local music store to pick up a tape of Dangerous.

That had been the first night he used weed for the sole purpose of enhancing an experience. It had also been the night he’d acknowledged his current relationship would not be ending with wedding bells, which granted he’d already known prior, but since it was you plaguing his mind that night (and every night after) and not her, he knew it’d have to end sooner rather than later—lest he wish to be the douche that longs for another instead of his girlfriend.

Eddie’s hands trail along your skin, a little prickly from re-growing hair but that kind of turns him on. It’s definitely the weed hyping up his senses, your skin is so fucking soft and pliable. You’re always so delicious, he just wants to bite you.

So, he does.

You jolt awake with an Ow! and a laugh once you’d realize what had disturbed you from your nap. Eddie grins, barking out a laugh as you sit up and swat his arm. You don’t have to rub over the bite mark on your leg, Eddie’s already doing that for you before he yanks you by it even closer, until he’s pulling you onto his lap, lips searing against yours. He never has to hold back with you.

You hum against his mouth, a hand moving to tangle in the curls at the nape of his neck and he sighs as he melts.

Amongst the crickets and the cicadas, Eddie swears he can also hear wedding bells.

#Queenimmadolla’s smokesesh #eddie munson x reader #boyfriend!eddie munson #eddie munson x reader fluff #eddie munson #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson blurbs #eddie munson fanfic

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starry-bi-sky · 4 months

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sO i got to part two of the daniel jason todd fenton au :)

>:) word count 8k+

So, first, taglist for folks who asked for it: @blep-23 @mikyapixie @isnt-that-grape @randomenglishmajor @illryiannightmare @the-navistar-carol

SECOND: this part needs a trigger/content warning list: - CW Mild Swearing - CW Slight Psychological Horror - ^ CW mild depictions of being haunted by your own ghost/death flag and not realizing it (other people do though) - CW Brief Emetophobia (Danny throws up during a second nightmare) - CW Danny has nightmares of dying - except its of Jason Todd's warehouse death. It's not explicit but it's implied - TW Mild mentions of perceived Blood - TW Depictions of Corpses (first is non-descript, and then second one is slightly more descript but its not anything uh, super descriptive) - TW Mild description of burns (the descriptive part above) - TW Depictions of Panic Attacks (Danny's nightmares)

I mentioned that this au was inspired by a song lyric from Jann's 'Gladiator' here is that line:

I know your addiction's attention, Let's start a show Is it everything and more than you were hoping for? Show us something we ain't never seen before

The day after Danny meets himself, he's downstairs having breakfast in the dining room with the rest of the family, listening idly in on their conversations. Tim Drake is talking about something about Wayne Industries with Mr. Wayne - and wasn't that a startling surprise to learn the first time? - and Damian was slyly trying to feed Ace under the table. Duke Thomas was mid conversation with Cass, much of it audibly one-sided as Cass swaps between ASL and verbal speech.

(Danny comes across her a fair few amount of times in Wayne Manor. The first time was in the library. She hands him a book about planets, smiles, and walks away.)

(He hasn't talked much to Duke Thomas yet, but he plans to - he seems cool. They just haven't had the time to run into each other yet. Danny might just have to corner him, he thinks.)

And finally Dick Grayson on his left, his Dick Grayson, was talking away with the other Dick Grayson - who had stopped by from Bludhaven for the morning for his day off. He was a cop, ew. They were comparing lives, specifically college lives. There wasn’t much to talk about in their childhood, it seems. Danny was quietly listening in.

(They both gave their Bruces headaches as children, apparently. Climbing the chandeliers and sliding down the staircase banisters. Flips and tricks only a child raised by the circus could do.)

All-in-all, a very quiet morning, Danny thinks. That is, until the other Dick Grayson turns to him and goes; "I'm sure you've been asked already, but what do your parents do, Mini Jay?"

Danny squints at him, and releases his grip on his spoon to raise a pointed finger. "First off: only my Dick Grayson can call me Jay, you have your own." He says, slightly playful and nodding to Dick - oh that was going to get confusing, fast. He should come up with a nickname for one of them, probably - "And second: you're the second person to ask me that, actually. Jason - er, myself? - asked me yesterday. My parents are ectologists."

Apparently, mentioning that he met himself is a set of magic words, because the whole table stops what they're doing, and Danny's half-sinking back into his chair when all eyes turn to him in varying degrees of surprise. Dick - Richard, he’s going to call him Richard - looks at him with wide eyes and furrowed, confused brows. "You saw Jason?"

(Danny sends Bruce a confused look, but he's not paying attention - looking at everyone else with threaded eyebrows and a faint frown. Well, at least Danny isn't the only one confused by the reaction.)

(What a comfort.)

"I guess that nickname is a dimensional constant." He mutters under his breath, and straightens up, eyeing the room warily. It... doesn't bode well to him that the Waynes were surprised by his other self's appearance -- was hisself estranged from the family?

...He hopes that doesn't happen in his world. Dick and Bruce may not be his adoptive family, but he likes them quite a lot. He wants to stay in contact with them when they get home.

"Yeah, he was in the library." He says, frowning at Richard Grayson. "He was sitting in my armchair." He supposes it was Jason's armchair first -- god, that was so weird to refer to himself in third person. "We talked for a little bit, and he asked me what my parents did. They're ectologists, by the way."

He turns to Mister Wayne and tilts his head, "Did you really not know that he was here?" He asks, narrowing his eyes. He wouldn't expect Richard to know, he doesn't live here. But Mister Wayne looks just as surprised, perhaps even a little remorseful.

(There’s a pit in his stomach that’s growing bigger.)

(His neck burns with a new pair of eyes, ones that he can’t see.)

Mr. Wayne looks thoughtful for a moment, and then carefully, he goes; "Jason is rather... independent. He comes and goes from the manor when he feels like it." And the way he speaks sounds like he was choosing his words carefully. Danny suppresses the shiver of unease.

Something was not well in this house. Something unspoken was haunting the air.

(Jason would know about hauntings, wouldn’t he?)

He hopes history won't repeat itself, he likes Bruce quite a lot.

"...Alright," he says after a moment of silence, not hiding his wariness as he slowly turns back to Richard. His eyes flick towards Bruce, and then to Ricard. "Anyway, my parents are ectologists, as I've said for the third time now."

Richard, for his effort, takes the topic change easily, and his surprise shifts into one of curiosity - as does everyone else. (Did Danny really not mention what his parents did? Even Dick and Bruce look intrigued.) "That's... new." Richard says lightly, Danny commends him for the way he sounds non-judgmental. "What are ectologists?"

Danny quirks a dry half-smile, and deadpans; "Studiers of all things dead and afterlife."

...And there is that reaction again. A ripple of surprise and intrigue that spreads throughout the room as everyone looks at him, like a bunch of cats perking up their ears.

On the other side of the table, Damian scoffs quietly, a sound much like the one Jason - the other one - did when Danny told him. Danny's eyes snap over to him in an instant, he stares at him, trying to study him. Why that reaction - again?

He lets himself frown, briefly, before addressing Richard again. "Everyone just calls them ghost hunters, but the 'official' term is ectologists." He drawls, air-quoting the word 'official' with his fingers as he rolls his eyes. "They've been obsessed with ghosts since college. We even have a lab in the basement, and they keep liquid ectoplasm samples in the fridge."

Danny's been in the lab a handful of times, he and Jazz both have, either to clean it as part of their chores, or to listen to a lecture from their parents for their newest invention. The lab is cool, kinda, but Danny thinks it wouldn't look out of place in any evil lair of a Rogue with a doctorate.

…He’s glad that the Fentons weren’t stationed in Gotham. They would have blown up a street. He’s surprised they haven’t already.

"Ectoplasm?" Dick asks, leaning over to catch Danny's eye. Almost by instinct now Danny smiles at him, and then nods.

"Mom and dad say it's the stuff that makes ghosts." He explains, leaning back against his seat, his arms crossing. "It's invisible in its natural state, and it makes up everything. Kinda like the Force from Star Wars, or just, matter in general."

That cracks a few quiet, laugh-like sounds through the dining room. Danny halves a smile again, a swelling of pride in his chest that lingers for a moment. "My parents say that when ectoplasm condenses enough in one area, it can start taking on visible properties," he continues, "they say that ghosts are just the memories and emotions of a dying person or animal being imprinted on a concentration of ectoplasm, and that the ghost itself isn't actually the person or animal, just matter trying to mimic it."

Which Danny guesses makes sense, even if the way they talk about ghosts made him really uncomfortable. His parents insisted that ghosts weren't actually people, but he just couldn't shake the idea that they were. How close to ‘human’ does something get before they actually are?

Well, no, that wasn’t fair. Superman wasn’t human, and yet everyone treated him like he was. Let him rephrase himself:

How human-like must something get before they are considered as such? Before they’re considered sapient and sentient, and real?

"That's... quite interesting." Someone says, and Danny turns to see Bruce leaning his elbows against the table and putting his chin on threaded fingers. He looks genuinely engrossed in what Danny's said, and pride once again leaks into his heart. "You mentioned they kept ectoplasm in a liquified state in their... fridge?"

"Oh yeah," Danny says, putting his full attention to Bruce, "it's crazy. They keep little test tube racks in the freezer full of liquid ectoplasm, and it's this - uh - glowing, bright green stuff. It used to be the weirdest thing in the house."

(From his peripherals, Danny notices the room tense up again at his description — and he bites back the urge to slow his talking down and narrow his eyes. Suspicious. Suspicious. The Waynes weren’t scientists - why do they react to something like they are?)

(Nobody knows what ectoplasm is. To the scientific world, it's an unconfirmed theory of a state of matter. Why do the Waynes act like they know what it is?)

(Danny is not stupid. Even if his scientific family makes him feel like it, sometimes.)

Bruce gives him this half-tilted, confused smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. "Used to be?"

Danny opens his mouth, the answer already on the tip of his tongue -- and then he freezes. His jaw clicks shut as he frowns. Should he say what his parents' latest pet project was? Surely, surely, it would be fine? Their inventions never work - and a life-sized portal is just another thing on his parents' crazy ideas list.

His teeth sink into his bottom lip, chewing on the skin as he rolls the answer over in his head. ...Surely, it would be fine. His face turns in hesitance, and his shoulders scrunch and twist to his ears, like he's about to admit something that could get him grounded by his parents.

"They... may, or may not, be building an inter-dimensional portal in the basement?" His voice steadily pitches upward nervously the longer he speaks. By the time he finishes, his voice is close to a squeaky pitch.

There is a horrified silence that follows him, sitting in the air so still-like that Danny could hear the whoosh of a pin drop. He should have expected that, nervously surveying the ranging horrified expressions on the Wayne family's faces. "...I promise they're harmless... to the living." He hesitates, "Mostly."

Bruce stares at him for a long moment. "Mostly?" He repeats, his brows arched high and pinched together. Danny cringes back a little.

"Dad's a little clumsy, that's all." He says, shrugging with a helpless smile. It doesn't help, he thinks, and the silence is strangling. Sitting up, he's a little frantic to add; "I really, really, doubt it's going to work, Bruce. Their inventions never do. Mom and dad built a mini portal in college and it didn't work either!" There's a moment of silence following him, before he quietly adds, wincing, "It- it did hospitalize the guy who was helping them, though."

He only heard about that when he asked his parents about the portal - it was still in production when they picked him up. Jack Fenton claimed it was safe as safe could be - they’d make sure that the ‘college’ instance never happened again.

Bruce - both Bruces actually - looked vaguely ill at the thought. Mister Wayne’s face was blank, his face sunk into his folded hands, and Bruce’s stare burned into Danny, intense like concentrated fire.

Danny for some reason - either through his panicked urge to make things better, or through temporary insanity - laughs forcibly. "The worst thing that could happen is that the portal could explode, but that never happens."

Next to him, Dick makes a stressed sound. "That's not better, Jay." He forces out. He looks even more horrified.

Danny sucks on his bottom lip for a long beat. Then lets out a breath.

"Yeah, I know." Danny sighs, deep and long while his shoulders slump. He watches the room for a moment, with their various stony-like expressions, and looks back at the very concerned-looking Bruce. "But Bruce, I swear it's fine. Nothing's gonna happen, please don't call the Justice League on my parents. They really are harmless."

Bruce looks conflicted.

"I was being dramatic when I said the portal could explode, it won't." He continues, giving Bruce what Jazz has called his 'cheating puppy eyes'. "My parents are eccentric about their line of work, but they understand lab safety. They'd never do anything to put me and Jazz in danger."

...Actively or on purpose, that is.

He and Bruce stare each other down. One second, two seconds; what feels like thirty seconds pass in silence before Bruce relents, sighing deeply and uncannily dad-like. He drags a hand down his face, and rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "When we get back to our universe, you are giving me your phone number so you can contact me if anything happens."

Danny beams, nodding hurriedly. "Thank you, Buzz."

Bruce isn't able to hide his smile - small as it was - quickly enough. "You're welcome, Danny."

—-----

Danny has a nightmare that night. He doesn't remember most of it. There's a ticking sound, and high laughter, and there is a thumping heartbeat in his ears. Everything is dark and he is in agonizing pain.

He wakes up in paralyzing terror, a scream lodged in the back of his throat. His head pounds like a concussion and there is a shallowing ache in his ribs, like someone's kicked him, and kicked him, and kicked him until all air has been knocked from his lungs. He can't breathe.

Danny's hands scrabble for his throat, and even though he can hear himself gasping for air, it doesn't feel like he's taking any of it in. There is no relief in the action, no reassurance, and everything is so hot. He kicks at his blankets, his panic growing higher as they tangle around his legs.

He needs-

He needs--

He needs to move. He needs to get up. He needs to free himself. He needs to prove that he's not dying. He feels like he's dying. He feels like he's burning. There are tears swelling in his eyes as he finally gets the blankets off his feet, and he rolls - quite literally - out of bed.

He tries to catch himself, he does. But he doesn't. He hits the floor with a heavy thud and can hardly bring himself to care -- he catches himself on his elbows, and the sting it causes makes him feel worse. The air is knocked out of his chest again.

The ground is cold though, blessedly cold. And before Danny can realize this, he lifts his head and, disoriented, looks for the door. It's too dark, it's too dark. His head swivels blindly in search of it. He needs to get out, he needs to escape.

"Bruce." He croaks, still trying to force air down into his lungs. His call comes out raspy, weak, and hot tears blur his vision.

"Dick." He tries instead when a minute passes and no one comes, and he thinks he can finally start breathing. No one comes to find him - his voice is too quiet to wake anyone up. The tears in his eyes bubble and pop, and stream down his face.

He makes a distressed noise. "Jazz?" He whispers, his voice shaky and uneven with an encompassing want for his sister. It's nearly been a month since they got here. He wants Jazz.

No one hears him. He's alone.

God, he doesn't want to be alone. Please don't make him be alone.

Danny eventually gets himself calmed down. But he is curled up on the floor, trembling with the lingering traces of fear from whatever dream had woken up. His fingers dig painfully into his arms, leaving crescent-moon indents by his nails. The contents of the nightmare are already fading further into his mind, slipping out of his hands like water. Like ash.

He feels no need to chase after it.

The back of his shirt is damp with sweat, and in between the trembling he is also shivering, goosebumps lacing up his arms. His eyes have adjusted to the dark, and he stares with wide, crying eyes at the side of his bed. His breath comes out in short, shaky pants.

He doesn't know how long he lays there, trying to comprehend what happened as his mind still hangs onto the edge of the dreamworld. It feels like there is something in the room with him, crawling along the walls.

Danny forces himself to get up, and the sudden standing makes his vision blacken and swim as blood rushes to his head. He stumbles, slightly, and lurches halfway across the room for the light switch.

He squints as the room is drenched in light, chasing away the lingering paranoia in the back of his brain. He is still shaking. His head still hurts. He still looks, wide eyed, around the room for anything out of place.

There is none.

But he still feels unsafe. He needs- he needs to find someone, or go somewhere else. He grabs a firm pillow off the bed, and leaves.

(He ends up in the library alone. He turns on the lights and grabs a book Dick recommended to him, and he curls up tight in his armchair. He ends up falling asleep just as the sun is rising.)

(He doesn't tell anyone about the nightmare.)

Progress in getting the three of them back to their home dimension is slow. Dimension Hopping is a rare experience, and what update Bruce gets he relays back to Danny and Dick: they're trying to figure out a way to send them back safely, from the exact time they disappeared, and to find what dimension they're from. It's complicated magic.

It's been three weeks.

Danny, for one, is getting homesick. He misses Jazz, Sam, and Tucker terribly, and his parents. Bruce and Dick are great, really, and Danny kinda wants to keep in touch with them after they return to their own world, but they aren't replacements of his sister and friends.

His nightmare from a few days ago still haunt his steps. He closes eyes, and that high-pitched laughter and blood-rushed pounding burns itself his ears and fills a level of unseen terror into his heart. Danny thinks that if he was hit with Scarecrow's fear gas, this is what it would feel like.

He tries to avoid falling asleep by reading in his room, by stargazing, but the place sets him on edge; an unsettling reminder of that nightmare. So he goes to the library when it gets too much, he's run into Bruce twice now doing it, and they both do reading.

Danny thinks Bruce can suspect something is up with him, but he doesn't want to tell him about that nightmare. Dick either, for that matter. He just wants to forget it.

They spend afternoons in the gym, they have it mostly to themselves - Tim Drake is at Wayne Industries, Damian Wayne is at school, so is Duke Thompson, and Cassandra Cain is... doing whatever she does during the day. Danny's not totally sure.

Dick in that time, tries showing Danny how to be more flexible. He says he's a fast learner, but Danny knows he's been slacking lately with his lack of sleep.

There isn't much they can do outside of the manor - Bruce and Dick can't go outside because they'll catch the attention of the paparazzi, and they are both significantly younger than their counterparts, and Danny isn't allowed out without a chaperone.

Which has its own unique set of problems because rumors could rapidly start if he's seen with any of the Waynes multiple times. The paparazzi aren’t dumb enough… okay, most — some — of them aren’t dumb enough to make a tabloid claiming there’s a new Wayne kid just because they see the Waynes interacting with one kid, one time. Multiple times however? That’s another story. And, he has the same issue as Bruce and Dick - he's a baby-faced Jason Todd. Who is Bruce Wayne's adoptive son in this world. He could be recognized.

And how do you explain a tiny Jason Todd to a world where Jason Todd is a full grown man?

So all three of them are... stuck inside, so to speak. And making do with what they can. Danny spends most of his morning and early noon with Dick, and then they both separate after to have time to themselves before dinner.

Bruce is in one of the studies, doing... something. Danny's not sure and he keeps forgetting to ask.

Dick likes Danny - Jason? - Jay. Danny said that he can call him Jason, and he doesn't protest to being called Jay.

Point is: he likes Jay. He's a delightful kid to be around; he's funny, and clever, even if he doesn't realize it himself. And Dick's a little upset that Jay isn't his brother in his world, he would've loved to have him around the manor. He probably would have visited more if he was around.

Something that he and Bruce were still slowly trying to fix...

He likes spending time with him - getting to teach him his acrobatic tricks was not something he expected, but he loves showing Jay how to do them. He thinks this is probably how Bruce felt when he was training Dick how to be Robin, all those years ago.

Speaking of which, Dick was still not over the Robin jacket that Jay wore. The origins of it weren't the best - Jay started wearing it to take back the insult the other kids at his school were throwing at him - but isn't that what part of what being Robin was about?

Cheesy, he knows. But his point still stands.

He thinks that if he had to pass the Robin title down to anyone, it would be Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton. Or perhaps just Jason Fenton-Todd? Jay doesn’t seem all that attached to the name Danny.

(“Mom and dad just started calling me it when they picked me up.” Danny — Jay shrugged when Dick asked him about it, the two of them swinging from bar to bar. “I wasn’t tellin’ ‘em my name at the time, so they gave me a new one.”)

If he had met Jason before the Fentons had, Dick thinks maybe he would have adopted him instead. And what would that future look like? Would he have been able to, when he had to go to college and classes? Would he have been able to keep going out at night, and keep that secret to himself?

He’ll never know, he supposes.

“I think that’s it for today.” Dick says, swinging off the jungle gym and landing on the mats with a cat-like thump. Behind him, Jay groans, and drops with a less graceful thud as Dick stretches out his spine. There’s a satisfying pop-pop-pop of his back as he leans back.

He turns, and sees Jay going for his water bottle. He looks tired — from what, Dick doesn’t know. But there are dark bags under his eyes and a sleep-distracted look on his face. He’s been distracted, and their lessons have been suffering from it.

Dick wants to know what’s bothering him, but Jay hasn’t said anything, and Dick doesn’t know what he could say to make it better.

“I can still keep going.” Jason insists, but he tiredly slumps over to grab his water, and straightens up sluggishly. It’s probably not a lie, but anything Dick shows him he doubts that Jay will retain it. “You don’t have to stop.”

“Oh but I want to.” Dick says, walking over to grab his own water. “I’m human too you know—” and Jay snorts at him with a grumbled ‘doubt it’. “—so I also need my breaks.”

“With the way you can bend I really don’t think so.” Jason mutters, eyeing him up and down. Dick laughs quietly and takes a long sip of his water. “Seriously, circus boy, what do they feed you? Actually - what did they feed myself?”

Dick’s laughter doubles as Jay’s eyes grow wide and wild, his head shaking with spasming arms. “No, seriously! I don’t know if you’ve seen the other me yet, Dick, but he- he’s fucking huge!” He exclaims, and jumps as high as he can as his arms try to make a silhouette above his head. “I- I’m almost as big as Jack Fenton, and we’re not even biologically related! I don’t know where he got that much height to him, ‘cause- ‘cause Willis, that drunk bastard, was never that big!”

Dick hasn’t seen the elusive other Jason Todd, and he’s been so curious about him. Both he and Bruce have — especially considering that everyone else doesn’t seem to want to tell them about him. He tried stopping his other self to ask about Jason Todd of his world, and his other self just said that he was his little brother and the second robin, and that he did a lot of his own stuff.

It was a whole bunch of fucking nothing. And he and Bruce were growing suspicious about it. They hadn’t thought of it before because, well, they were busy adjusting to being in a new world and trying to figure out a way back. And then Jason was never really brought up, but neither was Dick Grayson unless Dick asked about it, and he didn’t think to ask about Jason Todd before.

It was all just strange.

But Jay’s exclamation over the size of himself distracts Dick long enough that he forces himself to put the mystery of Jason Todd on the backburner for now. “I’ll- I’ll have to see him for myself, Jaybird.” He says when his laughter subsides, and he straightens up.

“Seriously,” Jay stresses, and he starts to make his way towards the gym door. “He’s fucking massive, Dick. Built like a brick shithouse.”

Dick almost starts laughing again, “Where did you even learn that phrase?”

Jay rolls his shoulders back and grins at him slyly, “I read.” He says, and it’s so clearly not how he learned that word that Dick barks out a laugh.

They reach the door, and Jay holds the door open as Dick reaches for the light switch. He looks behind him, surveying the room quickly to make sure that there’s nothing they could have left on the floor, before turning off the lights.

Bright green eyes stare at him from the mirror. Right where Jay is standing.

In an instant, the lights are back on. Dick’s heart has been kickstarted into fifth gear, suddenly and loudly racing in his chest as he darts his head around the room. It was only two seconds, perhaps only even one, but fear has been shot like an adrenaline needle into Dick’s veins. An inhuman, skyrocketing fear alike to Scarecrow’s fear gas.

What was that?

WHAT WAS THAT?

But there’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. There is only Jason where the eyes were.

From the mirror’s reflection, Jason turns his head — he hadn’t been looking at Dick, he hadn’t been looking at Dick — and stares up at him. There is confusion written on his face as he glances up at Dick, and then at the mirror. He meets his eyes - Jason’s blue, blue, not green, eyes — and Dick forces himself to look away from the mirror and down at Jay.

“What was that for?” Jay asks him, perfectly normal and perfectly confused.

Dick feels like he just ran a marathon. He’s panting, he doesn’t know why, and he forces himself to sound like he wasn’t as he wets his lips and furrows his brows. “I thought I saw something.” He says, frowning.

He didn’t think. He did. He did.

What did he see?

It was standing where Jay was. Those eyes. Those green-green eyes. It was where Jay was. He forces himself to shake his head, his frown deepening, unsettled. Jason peers around him as if to see what he had, and Dick puts a hand on his chest, stopping him. “It was nothing, let's go.”

He turns Jay around, and ignores his bewildered look. That lighthearted mood he had earlier has plummeted, replaced with an eerie paranoia as he takes the door from Jason’s hand and flicks the lights back off.

When he looks over his shoulder at the mirror, there’s nothing there.

—------------

Danny has another nightmare. It’s the same one. It’s dark again. That high pitched laughter fills his ears. The ticking is louder, louder, louder. It’s counting down, but to what - he can’t see — he can’t see what it’s counting down to.

There is still so much pain. His head hurts, his body hurts. He has a body now, he can remember he has a body. He’s in so much pain. He looks down at his hands and pooling around his knees is a bloody yellow cape, it’s torn and bloody and his hands are bloody and torn and he’s wearing green gloves.

He wakes up just before the ticking stops. He doesn’t know how he knows that the ticking stops.

Danny rolls over and hangs himself sideways off the bed, gasping for air that doesn’t come. He wants to scream again, to shriek with such terror that it sends everyone in the manor running into his room. He doesn’t, he can’t, he has no mouth and he must scream.

Danny gasps for air instead, and then dry heaves until he throws up onto the floor. His head is spinning with the fadings of a dream-made concussion, again. His chest hurts deeper, more, it’s no longer shallow and as if someone was sitting on his chest, like someone had beat him in the stomach and chest and head.

He feels like he’s choking. He is, he’s choking on what bile he can’t get out of his throat, and he forces himself to swallow it back down. He’s crying, he realizes, and dragging in air down into his lungs to the point it hurts.

What is going on? He thinks through the haze in his mind. With what lucidity he has he brings a hand to his head to make sure he’s not bleeding. His palm swipes against sticky skin, and all that comes back is sweat. He’s not bleeding. He feels like he is.

Make it stop. His inner mind wails as he finally, finally, starts to calm down again. He’s still crying. The tears burn down his cheeks, and he absently sticks out his tongue and licks the ones that gather at his lips away. He wipes at his face again, and when he looks at his hands, all he sees is skin.

He’s not wearing gloves.

His hands reach for his back, and grasp his sweat-soaked shirt instead. He’s not wearing a cape. It soothes him, just a little bit. But not enough to keep him feeling safe.

Danny peers over the side of the bed, and through his dark-adjusted eyes he sees the sitting puddle of throw-up on the floor. He cringes, sniffling. He can’t keep that there. He needs to — he needs to clean that up.

Alfred must be sleeping by now — what time is it? He doesn’t know. He can’t wake him up. Where does Alfred keep the cleaning supplies?

Danny throws his legs over the side — they’re not broken, he thinks dazedly — why would he think they’re broken? — and he stumbles to the door. He avoids, somehow, the sick.

(He passes by a mirrored vanity on his way to the door. He doesn’t see his reflection staring at him with green-green eyes. He doesn’t see those eyes following him.)

He runs into Bruce in the hallway. He should have guessed it so. Danny freezes in his tracks, fear shooting up into his throat as Bruce turns towards him, already a smile pulling on the older man’s face.

It drops immediately when he sees him. It twists down, and his face burrows into concern. “What’s wrong?” He asks, and Bruce is kneeling before him before Danny can blink. He looks worried. Danny must look awful then.

(He does. He looks pale as a ghost, and his face is splotchy red and shiny with tears.)

Danny blinks at him numbly, trying to get his thoughts in order. Bruce’s hands are on his shoulders, Danny throws his hands over them, squeezing the knuckles and blinking widely. “I had-” he licks his lips, “a- uh, nightmare. And then I threw up.”

Fuck, he feels like a toddler. His eyes burn with embarrassed tears. He’s fucking thirteen. He’s not a baby. But he feels like a little kid going to their parent’s room. Bruce isn’t even his dad. He shouldn’t feel this way.

But Bruce doesn’t make fun of him, or scold him, and Danny didn’t really expect him to, but the concern that melts over his face as his eyes soften makes him feel all warm and fuzzy anyways. “Okay,” Bruce says, expression softened but no less worried, and stands up. “Okay, we can go find Alfred then.”

Danny’s lips press together, uneven and wobbling. “Please don’t.” He says before he can stop himself, and his voice cracks. He feels like such a baby. “I can clean it myself. We don’t have to wake him up.”

“Do you even know where the cleaning supplies are, chum?” Bruce asks, and in the dark hallway he can see him raise an eyebrow. Danny’s lips press tighter together. He doesn’t. But he can find it.

They wake up Alfred. Dany feels like shit the entire time.

“I’m sorry.” He croaks as he follows Alfred and Bruce down the hallway with a mop and a bucket. He’s so embarrassed. He’s going to cry again, and he hates it. “I can do it, Mister Pennyworth. Please.”

“You sound,” Mister Pennyworth starts, his voice soft, “just like young Master Jason when he started living here.” He turns to throw Danny an endeared smile, and Danny thinks it’s supposed to make him feel better. It does, a little bit, and it also makes him feel worse.

“I am Jason.” He says, and tears spill down his face again. He is Jason. That’s his name. It’s not Danny, it never has been. The time he’s been here has slowly been pointing that out to him. He may be Fenton, but he’s not Danny.

Alfred gets it all cleaned up, and Bruce sticks with him after he leaves. Danny’s grateful and resentful of it — hasn’t he embarrassed himself enough tonight?

Bruce leads him to the library, a funny parallel to the first time. “We can ask Mister Wayne —” Bruce’s face scrunches up slightly, and Danny laughs under his breath. At least he’s not the only one still weirded out by it. “— about getting you a new room tomorrow.”

Danny sniffs dryly, “How’d you know?” He didn’t think it was obvious that he didn’t want to go to sleep in his room. Bruce smiles knowingly at him, sadly, and they both sit down in the lounge chair next to the fireplace. It sits across from Danny’s armchair.

“I know a thing or two about nightmares.” He says softly.

Oh.

Yeah.

That’s right. His parents.

He probably had nightmares about that.

Danny looks away from him, his eyes drop to his hands. His bare, non-bloody hands. He leans into Bruce’s side. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” He mumbles. He doesn’t want to talk about dying. Or what he thought was dying.

“And you don’t have to.” Bruce says, slinging one arm around him and slumping against the curve of the chair. Danny reluctantly follows his falling, and finds himself trapped between the back of the chair and Bruce’s side. His ear is pressed to Bruce’s heartbeat. “We can just sit here, and talk about something else.”

Danny blinks at the empty fireplace. “Okay. Tell me about films again.”

Bruce’s fingers dig gently into his hair, and scratch slowly against his scalp. “Okay, Danny.”

Danny frowns. “And don’t call me Danny. It’s Jason.”

He doesn’t look up to see Bruce’s smile, but he can hear it as the man thumbs over the shell of his ear. “Okay, Jason.”

(Danny falls asleep halfway through Bruce’s telling of the history of the Grey Ghost. Bruce knows by the way his breathing slows into a steady rhythm and his eyes don’t open.)

(He smiles for mite a moment, before it drops and his eyes turn to the bookshelf in the corner. Standing there is a small black figure, with two burning green eyes.)

(They stare at each other for a long, long minute, Bruce’s heart rising slowly. The figure tilts its head, and disappears. Bruce doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.)

—-------

Danny stares down Bruce. Bruce stares him down back. It’s morning. It’s breakfast. Everyone is at the table eating, and he and Bruce are having a silent staring contest. Danny has to ask Mister Wayne about moving to a new room, he thought he would be able to do so after breakfast.

(Who was he kidding? He wasn’t going to ask at all - why bother Mister Wayne about something he can get over?)

(Bruce, apparently, wasn’t having it. With that stupid knowing look on his face.)

But Bruce wants it to be now. Danny narrows his eyes at him, and Bruce raises an eyebrow back. Dick Grayson, his world, was going to notice soon. He was sitting next to Bruce this morning. That traitor.

If you don’t do it, I will. Bruce’s face says. Bastard. Danny was going to take away his Jason rights.

Danny’s the first to relent, pressing his lips together into an annoyed, thin line, before he lets out a silent sigh and turns to Mister Wayne. “Mister Wayne?” He says, cringing slightly when Mister Wayne looks up at him - as with most of the room.

“Yes, Danny?”

He spares one last look at Bruce, who nods curtly at him, and Danny throws him one last annoyed look before turning back to Mister Wayne. “Would it, uh, be fine if I changed rooms?” He asks.

Mister Wayne tilts his head, slightly, to the side with a look of interest. “You can, but what brought this up? Is everything okay?”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Danny was expecting that question. He glares at Bruce from the corner of his eye. And then smiles shakily at Mister Wayne. “Um, uh, yeah. Everything’s fine— it’s just, it’s stupid. Some, some stupid nightmares keeping me up.”

Mister Wayne’s brows furrow, and Dick looks concerned from Danny’s peripherals. “It’s not stupid, you can change your room. I’m sorry you’ve been having nightmares.”

He doesn’t even ask what they’re about. Bruce didn’t either — he thinks he would’ve, maybe — but fuck, jeez. Danny laughs uncomfortably, scratching his jaw. “Yeah- um, thanks. It sucks.” He just barely stops himself from blurting out that he was dreaming that he was dying.

That was not a can he wanted to open. They would have questions, he knows they would, and he doesn’t want to think about it. The image of his bloody, torn hands are already seared into his mind.

Everyone goes back to eating.

(Dick keeps looking up at him with a shadow of a frown on his face, like he’s keeping an eye on him. Quick enough that Danny doesn’t notice it. Bruce does, and watches his son from the corner of his eye.)

(Danny doesn’t see it, but his reflection turns its head. And peers around the back of its chair. Its eye burns green and it stares at Dick. The next time Dick looks up, it catches his eye.)

(He doesn’t straighten up, he forces himself not to react. He just keeps staring at it, his breath locked in his lungs, his limbs filling with a low, buzzing static. He doesn’t know what it is. It’s terrifying him.)

(The reflection doesn’t react to him, but its eyes seem to… glitch. And an eye appears next to it, and another one appears in a line. The pupils slowly turn to look… at Danny.)

(The window begins to crack.)

“JaSON!” Dick suddenly yells, standing up so abruptly that his chair falls back and slams against the ground with an echoing bang. Danny jerks back in surprise, and stares at Dick, who looks at him with equally wide eyes.

Dick looks like he’s seen a ghost, his face pale as a sheet. He looks ill. He’s panting, there’s a sheen going over his forehead, like he’s just run a mile. But he’s gripping the table like he may just vault over it.

And everyone is looking at them both once again. Bruce looks incredibly concerned.

“I— what?” Danny says, pushing his back into the chair as far as he could go.

Dick blinks, and heaves a breath. Like whatever trance he was in was just… snapped out of. His brows furrow, and he moves, suddenly, peering over Danny like he’s trying to look around him. Left, right, and over, and then back again.

“You—” he pauses, breathing in, “you looked like you were about to disappear.”

Danny stares at him in disbelief. And he looks behind him, laughing nervously. There’s nothing there but his own reflection in the smooth glass window. “What- what kind of fucking—” he turns back around to look at Dick. “Why would you say that?”

“There was something in the window.” Dick says immediately, and Danny is immediately rising to his feet and rushing around the table. Nope - nope, nope, fuck that. He’s by him and Bruce in an instant, as the other Waynes stand up and turn to the window as well.

Dick’s arms are around him the moment he’s within reach, tugging him into his side as one hand presses down against his chest, keeping him close. Dick hasn’t taken his eyes off the window, brows furrowed and serious.

Everyone looks so serious. It’s freaking him out a little bit.

“What was your nightmare about, Jay?” Dick asks when he finally tears his eyes away from the window and looks down at him. He’s got a protective hold on him, something so similar to Jazz whenever their parents set something on fire upstairs.

Danny swallows dryly — does he have to say it? Saying it might bring him back to it, and he doesn’t want to go back to it. Twice was enough for him. “I was dying.” He admits anyways, and regrets it immediately when half a dozen heads all snap to look at him.

In a panic, his mouth runs. “I was- I don’t remember anything- I just, it was dark and I was in pain and-” He presses his lips together, “I— I was in so much pain. There was this laughter—” Laughter. Familiar laughter now that he thinks about it. From the news. Danny’s lips curl downwards, and he whispers to himself, “Joker?”

“Joker?” Dick repeats, his voice hard. When Danny looks up, his face is unrecognizably stern. “You had a dream that the Joker was killing you?”

“I— no— yes?” Frustration bleeds into his chest, fear pooling up his throat as the nightmare pulls on the edge of his memory. “I don’t fucking know. I didn’t see anything, all I heard was ticking and that stupid laughter. And I was bleeding, and I was wearing this yellow fucking cape, and- and I was dying.”

He pulls himself away from Dick, his breathing picking up. “I just- I was— there was this ticking sound and I woke up before it stopped, and I- I don’t know why I knew it was about to stop — but I know that when the ticking stops something bad was going to happen— and it was just a nightmare.”

Danny grits his teeth, and looks back up at Dick, forcing himself to calm down before he works himself into a panic. “It was just a fucking nightmare, Dick.” He says forcibly, and then he marches out of the room to the library.

His appetite’s been ruined.

—---------

Danny’s — Jason’s — asleep next to him. Bruce would think it was sweet if it weren’t for the fact that Jason’s been having nightmares about dying of all things. Nightmares that weren’t, he suspects, completely unfounded.

His other self looked ill in the face as Jason marched out of the room that morning after Dick’s outburst. Outburst. That’s all he can think to call it even if it sounds juvenile. Like it was unfounded as Jason’s nightmare.

His other self has been hiding something from him. Something about Jason Todd of this world, who he hasn’t seen at all since they arrived, but Danny — Jason — has. He would’ve thought the other Todd was a ghost if his other world’s… children… hadn’t confirmed seeing and knowing him recently.

(That was something he still hasn’t fully comprehended. Children, plural? He adopts more after Dick? He has a biological son?)

He’d be interrogating his other self on this if Jason wasn’t asleep next to him. It would be remarkably easy, as they were all sitting in the living room for the afternoon. All his other children were vigilantes, he wouldn’t need to keep pretenses.

But Jason is asleep next to him, and he doesn’t know. So he resolves to staring holes into his other self’s head, who was going through documents. A case, he bets. His other self doesn’t pay him any mind, but Bruce knows he knows that he’s staring at him.

(“What have you been keeping from me?” He growls the moment Jason is out of the dining room, rising to his feet. The look on his other self meant that he knew something about those nightmares that Bruce didn’t.

His other self looks at him, “Nothing that concerns your world.” He says, all of the kids looked tense as well, but now they were staring between the both of them like a fight would break out.

“Bullshit.” Dick snaps before Bruce can speak, he walks around him and points an accusing finger at his other self. “You looked like you saw a ghost when Jaybird said he was dreaming of the Joker killing him. You know something.”

He did not tell them anything.)

Whatever it was that his other self was hiding, Bruce would find out before they went back to their world. This concerned him, and it concerned Jason’s safety. If he wasn’t safe and his other self knew something about it, Bruce would be furious.

Jason’s ragged gasp cut through the air like a knife, and Bruce’s gaze snapped down to his face as the boy’s eyes flew open and he jerked sharply. Jason’s hands were latched onto his shirt before Bruce could react, his nails dragging into his skin like he was trying to claw himself up.

It was another nightmare. Jason was clawing at him, trying to sit himself up while jagged, awful sounding gasps filled the air. He wasn’t looking at Bruce, he wasn’t looking at anything, his eyes glazed over like he was still trapped in the nightmare.

Bruce wrapped his arms around the small boy and pulled them both down onto the ground, ignoring his other children standing up and looking at them until he had Jay in a cradle.

The boy was still gasping for air, hyperventilating. His hands drop from Bruce’s shirt and scratch at his throat, his arms forming an ‘x’ while he tilts his head back and desperately tries to draw in oxygen. Bruce tilts his head back up with his hand, and leans him against his shoulder.

“Breathe.” He murmurs, pushing damp black curls out of Jay’s face. It was a poor command - Jason’s eyes were squeezed shut and his face scrunched in pain, Bruce doesn’t think he can even hear him. “You’re safe.”

“Bruce.” Dick hisses into his ear, and Bruce doesn’t look at him. He grunts to let his son know he heard him. “The mirror.”

Bruce’s eyes fly up.

There was a floor length mirror sitting in front of the couch. A mirror that Bruce was conveniently, coincidentally, sitting in front of. A mirror that should have been working as all mirrors do.

A mirror that, instead of showing Bruce his reflection back as he was, showed him in his Batman suit. Jason was in his arms, but in a torn, bloody uniform. A uniform that looked like a Robin suit. Jason - his Jason - wasn’t a Robin. But here he was, dressed as one, his black-yellow cape pooling beneath him and covered in blood.

The Jason in the mirror, the Robin, wasn’t breathing. His head lolled over Bruce’s arm lifelessly.

Bruce’s heart skids to a stop, and he looks back down. Jason was still breathing, his hyperventilating was beginning to slow, but he was breathing. The pained crease of his face was softening, even as his brows were still furrowed.

When Bruce looks back up at the mirror, the reflection has changed. It wasn’t back to normal, Jason was just in a different suit. He was wearing a white hazmat suit now, and he was burned, horribly. The suit was melted to his skin in patches around his body in black, charred splotches, what wasn’t burned was torn, and the skin he could see was cauterized. The only part of him that was bleeding was his head, and it soaked his black hair red. What of his face he could see, there were bright green lightning figures going up his neck, burning the skin around where it glows.

The mirror cracks down the middle, severing Jason from Bruce.

He forces himself to look down, terrified to see the reflection a reality right in front of him. But Jason was alive, uninjured, and breathing quietly. Bruce presses two fingers to his throat, and feels a steady pulsepoint thumping against the pads of his fingers.

Jason’s eyes open and blue stares up at him.

When Bruce looks up at the mirror, the reflection is back to normal.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc au #dp x dc au #dpxdc au #dpdc #dpdc crossover #Danny is Jason Todd au #i didn't think of anything beyond the ending point howEVER #this post is totally open for additions if anyone is interested #i love seeing add-ons to posts #anyways EVIL LAUGHTER #THIS IS THE PART I WANTED TO GET TO. PYSCHOLOGICAL HORROR #ANGST #if this was a fic i would have ramped up the horror more #alas tis a ficlet #starry terrorizes the waynes with the fact that jason is going to die in his world and there's nothing they can do about it.#he doesnt know he's going to die. but they do :)#fun fact jazz was going to be here and she was going to be the one to see the ghost #if this was a fic that ending scene would've occurred after more build up of dick and bruce and co seeing the figure following danny around #in the original variant au the waynes dont meet danny until he's already died and is a ghost #and i was gonna have one more jason appearance but couldnt fit one in #merry belated christmas folks #have some angst after two consecutive clone^2 posts of fluff #i tried to picture what danny's body would have looked like before being ghosted and #extremely burned was the first thing that came to mind. his suit is also almost entirely melted. something to kinda resemble his ghost half #but also i couldn't stomach making him completely unrecognizable because he WOULD have been #genuinely think danny's body would have been like. half melted at least

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slavonicrhapsody · 8 months

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Let’s talk about Mt. Gelmir

Mt. Gelmir is one of my favorite locations in the game because of its striking environmental storytelling… the minute you start exploring the slopes of the volcano, you can just FEEL that something awful happened here. The imagery is so potent that I wanted to go through every detail of the region and explore how it supports and expands the story we’re told through dialogue and text. Let’s start with the text on the Mt. Gelmir sword monument:

“The Assault on Volcano Manor

The squalid, the sick, the blasphemous;

A wretched, unending war with no glory”

This dismal description refers to Leyndell’s attack on Praetor Rykard’s forces at Volcano Manor. After the Shattering war broke out, Rykard declared his intention to take up arms against the Erdtree itself: this was not just treason, but blasphemy, marking him as “an enemy, never to be forgiven.” We can conclude that Rykard’s blasphemy was so unacceptable that Leyndell made it a priority to silence him as quickly as possible, sending an army straight to his doorstep. I believe it’s implied that Rykard had the Mt. Gelmir Minor Erdtree burned as his first act of blasphemy; we find the tree destroyed amidst a smoking ruin:

The assault on Volcano Manor, introduced to us by Gideon Ofnir as “the most appalling battle in the entirety of the Shattering,” was the site of some of the most horrific violence in the entire story. Traveling around Mt. Gelmir, we can observe the gruesome aftermath of the battle and the remnants of the armies continuing to struggle — some scattered groups of Leyndell soldiers remain, while the only troops left to Rykard are his marionettes and iron virgins, since his knights have long since deserted him after his hideous transformation. (Side note: I love the detail that Rykard uses marionettes and avionettes, which were “crafted to serve the sorcerers;” it further cements his identity as a sorcerer and his connection to his Liurnian heritage.) Despite having no real soldiers though, Rykard’s grim constructs seem to tear through the remaining soldiers of Leyndell with ease, which we can observe in real time:

The death toll of this conflict cannot be overstated — the slopes of Mt. Gelmir are literally piled high with bodies.

Within a pit of corpses, we can find the spirit of one of Rykard’s men, who says this:

“Lord Rykard… If this putrid field of death is what your blasphemy would bring, then I can no longer abide. No one can.”

These unspeakable horrors are enough to make Rykard’s followers question if the cost of resistance is too high a price. Leyndell’s armies are just as badly affected — stranded on the mountain with no hope of reinforcements, we can observe several soldiers feasting on the bodies of their fallen comrades:

These soldiers have long abandoned any hope of achieving glory, and are little more than mindless husks at this point. Furthermore, if we return to the sword monument, something you’ll notice as you make your way over is that there are several Leyndell soldiers who are affected by the frenzied flame. At the same time, the troll soldier guarding the door to the Manor is also affected by the frenzied flame:

The frenzied flame is affecting soldiers of both sides of the conflict here, which tells me it wasn’t being used as some kind of weapon, but that it took hold independently… I believe that the frenzied flame was embraced by the soldiers here due to the sheer hopelessness of those who have experienced this uniquely horrific battle. The ethos of the Three Fingers is essentially that the world is full of unendurable pain, so it must all be melted away so no one will suffer ever again: “the Greater Will made a mistake. Torment, despair, affliction... every sin, every curse. Every one, born of the mistake. […] Those who gave me grapes howled without words. Saying they wished they were never born. Become their lord. Take their torment, despair. Their affliction. Every sin, every curse. And melt it all away.” (Hyetta)

The soldiers who fought on Mt. Gelmir have experienced untold suffering, the very worst of humanity… it makes perfect sense that such people would be susceptible to the essence of the frenzied flame; to want to burn this tormented world to the ground.

#elden ring #elden ring lore #mt gelmir #rykard #rykard lord of blasphemy #i’ve seen people say before that this battle was a victory for leyndell which is completely insane to me #no one has achieved anything they set out to achieve #rykard never made it past mt gelmir. leyndell never broke volcano manor’s walls.#there are no winners here #only suffering #’a wretched unending war with no glory’

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jp---v · 11 days

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Chapter 420

So close to actual 4/20 and yet so far

Kurogiri dropped them on a tiny rock, in the ocean.

Feels like a place AfO would've sent a younger Tomura for timeout, nothing to Decay except the only thing keepibg him from drowning.

Present Mic has been really stressed recently, and he's taking it out on the reanimated corpse of one of his highschool friends... admittedly said corpse has been a potent source of that stress

"I see tears." "Nuh uh."(he says while crying.) "Not you."

Official age, I don't remember if it's actually been established before or not.

We're not students anymore, we're teachers. This is a student that got lost, let's do our jobs.

Is Oboro gonna poke his face out?

Friendly warp gate aquired.

First stop, status update and reinforcements. Bonus: Civilians giving up extra supplies

Your shirt may be torn into bandages. Don't expect it back, and I hope you have something else to put on

Next stop: Back to the frontline

This poor child cannot get a break can she?

Ectoplasm blames Aizawa's parenting

Eri wants to sing, excuse everyone as they go and cry

Let's hope there's enough energy stored in that shard of her horn to bring back all of his arms. We'll see about whether or not her quirk is permanently damaged

"You can't die until you've heard her sing." Damn right.

Listen, listen Kaminari's already half gone, he might be more of a liability than an asset, and Momo's gotta be running low on reserves after everything she was doing to keep UA in the air

Some of Mineta's grapes didn't grow back

Kouji looks pretty cool with his head all open like that ngl

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #manga spoilers #midoriya izuku #deku #aizawa shouta #eraserhead #yamada hizashi #present mic #eri #kurogiri #shirakumo oboro

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nothomegal · 7 months

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“Sharks or dolphins?”

Jason Voorhees x GN Reader

Summary: it’s been a couple of days since the masked man kidnapped you. The atmosphere was a mixture of awkward and terrifying, but you knew that for the sake of your own sanity, and possible future survival or escape, you’ll have to interact with him and get on better term. So why don’t start with a simple question?

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: tipical mentions of murder and violence.

It’s a relatively nice and calm evening inside of an old cabin. The fire inside of the fireplace gently cracked and flickered at times as it shared warmth and light.

(Y/N) was sitting on the couch as they read some animal encyclopedia they found in one of the old shelves. Not too far away, on a large wooden chair, was sitting their captor, Jason Voorhees himself.

The man was casually patching up his jacket that got damaged by one of the victims that day. It was a pretty large cut on the shoulder part which could hint to a serious injury he may got in that area, key words could and may, because this beast of a man was moving his arms perfectly fine and with no hints of discomfort. Hell, he even lifted (Y/N) like they're nothing but a bag of grapes when he wanted them to sit closer to the fireplace. Of course Jason didn't like the idea of touching them and scaring them further, but sometimes it's just easier to take them wherever he needs and let them figure out the message themselves.

While reading, (Y/N) would glance at his large frame, but these weren't just casual or fearful glances. They've been having the idea that maybe they should start getting on better terms with their captor since escaping is not an option right now, they're in the middle of the forest, with traps distributed in the most efficient and unexpected places. Not only that, but having this behemoth of a man, who's stong enough to skin a person with his bare hands and even rip their head off with a single punch, chase them through the woods is not an appealing idea neither. Attempting to escape now is an equivalent of juggling with raving chainsaws, basically asking to have a limp cut off.

So that's the main reason of this little idea, now the issue is to find enough courage to execute it. Like... What do they even say? What if he get's annoyed? Jason seems to be very easy to aggravate... Or maybe he'll think they're an idiot or attempting something? What if he becomes even stricter? Ties a chain to their ankle again? Acts cruel? Use their corpse as decoration for his mother's shrine?!... God, were there always so many terrible outcomes?!

Jason at some point noticed the glances, he subtly observed (Y/N) for a while and easily noticed their hesitation. He may never interacted with anyone beside his mother, but he's rediculously good at reading people through their body and behavoir.

When yet another hint of hesitation appeared in them, Jason took it as enough and decided to give them a little push of encouragement... In his own way. He puts the nearly fixed jacket down and slowly walks towards (Y/N), his movements slow and careful to avoid scaring them.

The closer he got, the more they shrunk in their place, their expression a mixture of sheepish and afraid, unsure what to expect from him. When practically in front of (Y/N), the man crouches down so he doesn't loom over them and simply stares.

(Y/N) let's out an anxious sigh as they glance at their book for a moment, eventually they sigh again, now more collected, and finally ask.

—"Do you prefer sharks or dolphins?"—

The question took Jason completely off guard, so much that it took him some good ammount of seconds to process it and tilt his head, clearly wanting them to elaborate.

(Y/N) notices his reaction, but when there are no hints of aggression they continue.

—"It's just... I'm reading about sea animals right now and I've noticed how little people know about sharks and dolphins, and how misunderstood the first ones are..."— you say as you point at the page with the picture of a shark. —"I personally like sharks more, sure they're scary, can bite people and have protagonized many scary and bloody movies, but they aren't that bad. They actually very chill and some species, like the Lemon shark, can form bonds with their favorite diver, and even get jelous if they give attention to another shark!"—

While (Y/N) talked, Jason listened to them closely, sharing glances between the book and their face. The more they talked, the more on ease they seemed to be, for a moment it was like they were talking to a regular person, a friend. Seeing them so relaxed and even excited to share this random knowledge made him almost smile, since the moment he revealed himself to them all he saw in those eyes was fear, fear towards him... And now, now he can finally see something else in their pretty eyes, warmth.

—"The dolphins on the other hand... Well, I admit, they're cute and very intelligent and all, but also very disturbing. They are one of the animals who intentionally kill other creatures for fun, even other weaker dolphins just for the spite! So yeah... I very much prefer sharks and-... "—

(Y/N) suddenly stops talking, as if becoming self conscious of how much spoke and how annoying and nerdy they probably sounded.

—"S-Sorry...! I uh... I got a bit carried away."— you shrink in your place a bit. —"It's just... I like to share some random facts I've learned, but people rarely bother to listen or straight up shut me up, so when you did nothing to make me stop I... "—

They slightly flinched when the man put his palm on their knee. They hesitantly look up at him and relax just a bit when they saw his single visible eye, which expressed warmth and understanding. This is one of the reasons why he and mother took liking of (Y/N), their genuine desire to share something as innocent as an animal fact was both adorable and heartwarming to see, a great contrast with other campers, who always behaved like the filthiest scumms on earth.

He softly careses their knee with his thumb, the act holding nothing shady, just a genuine attempt to soothe them. With his other, hand Jason points at the picture of the shark and then at himself before nodding.

(Y/N) observes his action silently, a bit confused, but eventually puts the pieces together.

—"Oh, you like sharks too?"—

Another nod, which causes them to smile a bit.

—"Heh... Guess we have something in common now."— you say as your smile grows a bit wider.

Jason doesn't reply with any movement, but by his visible eye they could tell he smiled a bit. Somehow, he looks way less scary than before, fact that made (Y/N) feel at ease, even proud of themselves that they're making some progress.

—"Uh... Would you like to hear another fact? I can read outloud so you can listen as you finish your task."— you say as you gently point at his jacket.

The man simply nods, agreeing with their suggestion. He stands up back to his full height, which suddenly made (Y/N) remember who they are trapped with. As if sensing their dread, he moves his large palm to their head and gently pets them, ruffing and messing up with their hair a bit before returning to his previous sit.

(Y/N) blinks a couple of times and let's out a breath they've instinctively held, a bit impressed to still be alive. With a shake of their head they retrieve their composure, and as promised, they began to read the encyclopedia outloud, gazing subtly at Jason time to time to see any signs of annoyance. And suprisingly to them, there were none.

They weren't aware but Jason was genuinely enjoying such interaction, he liked the sound of their voice and how at times it would switch from shy and hesitant to a more confident and calm tone. It's a beautiful process to him, like witnessing a little kitten show more and more trust to their owner. And of course, Jason is not stupid and deep down he knows what (Y/N) is trying to do, but he won't do anything to stop them, not now at least.

Who knows, maybe at some point they'll realize that he's not that awful of a person, not towards them at least. This is actually the reason why he said he liked sharks too, because just like these sea creatures...

He is also quite misunderstood...

#nothomegal fic #nothomegal oneshot #jasonvoorhees #jason voorhees x reader #gn reader #slasher x reader

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kaylikestodrawlittlenightmares · 1 month

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@tea-the-not-understanding

DRABBLE TIME… EVIL LAUGHTER

Tw:Gore,Murder,reanimation mentions,Talk of corpses, Tosuni is not ethical in the work place /j

“Like I said I’m not interested. I’m just going to bring him back on my own. And I won’t share.” Tosuni said her gaze now cold “has time turned you bitter bunny? How funny…” she said circling Tosuni, Tosuni held the cursers close. “Lower your guard scorpion.” Pomegranate said plainly “master wants her unharmed.” “I don’t give a flying FUCK what your Goddam master wants.” Tosuni yelled holding the cursers close. “What if we rip those cursers apart? Scorpions nails… are quite good at taking fabrics.” Pomegranate said the jingle of the bells on her mirror jingling. Tosuni stared at pomegranate “how about a hug? Maybe then I’d get along with you more.” She said to pomegranate with what looked like a genuine smile “I suppose…” said Pomegranate stepping forward and hugging Tosuni with a stone cold face. “Are you that naive…?” Tosuni said with a hiss as she shoved the artificial claws she had made deep into the other cookies chest. “Your heart will suffice I suppose. “ she said before ripping it out in front of pomegranate and plopping it into a jar she hid in her dress “that will do!~ I’m not the same bunny as before. “ she tossed pomegranates shocked and still on the last living seconds corpse to the ground. “You tell your Goddam glorified mother to get the fuck out of my face. Or I’ll take red velvets arms and your sisters eyes.” She spat at pomegranate before looking back at Scorpion “I am so sorry! It just makes me so angry when cookies interfere with my projects! Come on I’ll make you a cake as a sorry. And if you try to poison me I’ll harvest your organs one by one and keep you alive obviously!” She said with a grin- scorpion had… seen worse, but this cookie had changed “what are you?” She said repulsed by the others actions “My names Tosuni silly! And I’m a scientist! Get that in your very pretty head! Now come along I have to feed the cursers their strawberries! Wolves will eat your sisters corpse and if they don’t I’ll just burry her. Maybe ill join if you I’ll help you tell your mother to help me bring back my only true friend and I’ll join the cookies of darkness. How does that sound?” Scorpion was repulsed but intrigued “lets talk about this more… I’m curious as to your views of reanimating…. Him would be.” She said as she followed Tosuni “and why you haven’t killed anyone else.” Tosuni turned around with a confused look “Do you know what a corpse is? How many there are… and how little time it takes to dig them up? My father did it to eat it as tradition but I don’t eat them!~ He was scum I harvested his cat pelt and it’s a nice blanket for my cursers now- oh my babies… my sweet little babies… I’d kill for my cursers you know? They’re my children after all!” As the two were walking off, in a far land someone knew something happened. “Another star has broken. At this rate how many will we have left for the prophecy.. red and pink. Two in one day.” murmured starfruit who was dressed in a blind fold and darker clothes “you knew well she was to go insane.” Red velvet said as he laid on a former alter eating some grapes “considering she killed your wife-“ “she isn’t dead just yet. I’ll bake her another heart.” Said starfruit cutting off red velvet strictly “You were the first broken Star remember Starfruit cookie?”

Charlie sat in the far end of the temple- knowing on a dead mouse- before peeking up their little ears. They shrugged, it was probably just rum Licorice after all… she did get hungry often for other cookies considering she was still cursed. “I’m shocked we have four broken still..” said starfruit “Rum licorice, pomegranate,Me,Now Tosuni….how many remain? “ red velvet looked up at the sky light pointing his hand “ten. We only need four.” “We must not shatter any more for the time being… or she will be displeased…” “Yet why is that dam rabbit taking her time to become one of us?! She’ll get her own land.” “Because we can’t forcefully reanimate her friend. I refuse to do such things.”

#broken stars Tosuni #hehehehehe

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jakkon-and-rose-topic · 22 days

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CW: Mentions of Forced Cannibalism, Eating disorders, Suicide, and Alcohol abuse

The world felt cold. Empty. No one left to talk to besides Rose who was too worried about him to be any fun in a conversation. He hadn't told her yet. He hadn't told her that he'd found out what had happened to Eveny's corpse.

He hadn't told her that he'd had to listen to Rune and Eveny's screams for hours that night. Not that he'd been tortured every day for weeks before it happened. Not that he'd only be there to protect Rose.

Nothing. She knew nothing.

He stared out over the city, glittering lights below and faint voices in the distance. It was peaceful. But the silence let him think. And he wouldn't think about anything but what had happened. About how the massive scar stretching over his whole torso still hurt though it was healed. About how he still remembered the feeling of ropes around his wrists and ankles.

About the feeling of skin in his mouth, the taste of metallic blood. He closed his eyes, trying to force it out of his mind. But it kept returning. The dead eyes of so many he knew. The way their corpses would be more desecrated each night as he was forced to dispose of the evidence, unable to move or even cry out for help.

And he especially hadn't told her about the last of the ten corpses. About the familiar twisted purple wings. The Burnt remains of grape vines, the shriveled petals of pink lilacs. He would never tell her. He would never tell her that he now knew how wings tasted.

He remembered every second of it as vividly as if it had been his last. The scratchy sting of Eveny's faded magic as he thrashed in the ropes and his mouth was jammed shut around it. The crunch of shattered bone, the ashy sting of burned flesh in his throat when he wanted to scream, spit it out, or even tear his skin open to get it out. But immovable and in agony, he'd just had to accept that this was what had happened.

He hadn't told Rose any of it. Not how only a week ago he'd had to listen to Rune and Eveny's desperate screams in his head One he'd killed as a mercy, and the other he'd eaten against his will.

The screams for hours with the threat that if he left, it would be Rose too. He hadn't told her that he'd tried to kill himself that night. How he couldn't even look at food anymore without being sick.

The Satyr wrapped his arms around himself, hollow and terrified. He should do it. He wanted to. To jump over the edge now and finish what he'd started. But for some reason, watching the lights and clutching a bottle of wine in his hand, he didn't.

Dated one week after the Incident where Rose Found him, and one month after he found a way free of the ropes.

Happy Fuckin Angstpril everybody (Eveny is his Wife, Rune is his son, and Rose is his Sister-in-law)

#creative writing #fiction writing #writeblr #writer things #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writing #writing community #whump #whump series #whump writing #whump prompt #whumpblr #whump community #whump tropes #whump scenario #whump stuff #because whump

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heartfullofleeches · 1 year

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Gumi Pop

Yan Candy Twins + G.N Reader

[Vaguely implied cannibalism, but they aren't human so it's up to interpretation]

"Cherry orrrrr blue raspberry? Neither really match with what I'm wearing, but they're pretty popular and I live to impress."

The soil is nice this time of year.

"Oh, oh! What about grape?... Mm, nah - Dunno if they changed the recipe, but the flavouring tastes like cough syrup now."

Moist and wet - the perfect place to hide... Let the worms and other nature forces find use for this sticky shell.

"Lemon is good.. but it feels too formal for a first date."

How could there be another place for him? How could you possibly love them after all he's done?

"Strawberry is another fan favorite as well as mine. Dress for the job you want as they say.... Gigi, I swear if you're doing that self deprecating monologue shit again I won't let you pick their locks like we planned."

The man immediately dries his eyes - a red smear ran across his translucent cheek as his sleeve covers his face. "Sorry, Lollie. It's just....we we've gotten so close to meeting them and I messed things up with my... accident."

Hopping off the roof of the car they arrived in, the woman pulls her brother into a hug - relieving him of the shovel in his hands. "Don't sweat it. Mistakes happen, and as soon as Y/n gets a taste of us it'll all be a thing of the past."

Giggling to herself, she pinches his cheek and plants the tool in the fresh mound of dirt - dumping the disturbed earth over the frozen face below. The pile lands center to his chest, soil and small pebbles filing the three, cylindrical holes punched right below his ribs. They'd be the first to claim his death was accidental. Readying a gift for the one they admired most in the human world, twins stopped by a convenience store a block away from your home to pick up the remaining products on their list. There really was no simple way to ease you into the idea of two sentient beings made of candy stalking you for years to learn the ins and outs of human society and falling madly in love with you along the way - but a gift basket was a start.

While Lolotte was gathering butcher knives and cards, her dear brother was in the back making himself presentable for the big meet. Unlike his siblings glossy shine and hard shell, poor Gumi was completely see through from a certain angle all the way down to his sugary skeleton. He was fortunate enough to not have any organs besides a heart, but for any unsuspecting person his appearance may still cause a fright and he didn't want to scare you away at first sight.

Gumi wanted to be cute and cuddly, just like the animal and snack his name derived from. Taking references from both, Gumi stitched together his own costume. It was really just a plush sweater with some ears and a tail sewed on, but the cute factor was high. He also fashioned a pair of paws out of his own bones and some gloves. The outfit was so adorable he couldn't help but put on a little show for himself in the mirror. Looking like a character right out of a picture book, Gumi took the liberty of acting like one as well. No way you could reject something so cute - right? Haha.. Haha.. ah..

Shit.

Turns out - mimicking bear noises in a store a location were they were apparently common wasn't such a good idea. Startled, the on staff clerk went to check out the noise fully unprepared for what he found. Equally as terrified, Gumi committed to the only logical course of action and slashed at the man before fleeing the scene. In another twist of events, solidified sugar was a lot harder and sharper than he thought and the cashier was dead by the time he had dragged his sister back to the scene of the crime. Without skipping a beat, Lolotte loaded up their items and the corpse into the trunk of his car for a quick drop off before they headed your way. The death count could've been a million times the size, and it still wouldn't have gotten in the way of her plans to make you theirs.

Gumi checks the time on his new phone. "It's getting late. We should hurry.. Plus the smell is getting to me."

"Not to worry, brother of mine." Lolotte fishes a knife out of her inner pocket and throws it in his direction. "I'll finish things up here while you go cut out your heart so we can finally wrap up Y/n's basket. You should be patched up and healed by the time I'm done, right?"

"Think so.... Thank you, Lollie." Clutching the knife to his chest, Gumi grins so hard his cheeks feel like they've spilt. "I'm so excited to finally meet them!"

He turns to the car - a sharp whistle preventing him from going far."

"Before you go, why don't you give me a preview of what you were doing in the bathroom?"

Wiping the newfound annoyance and former grief from his face, Gumi raises his wrists and bares his teeth - claws forever stained and a few missing their talon still buried in the organs of the man laud to an untimely rest as their feet. He quickly lifts his hood over his head as he puffs his chest.

"Rawr."

Sporting a grin of her own, Lolotte chuckles. "Oh, they are going to eat us alive."

#yandere twins #yandere oc #yandere x reader #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere scenarios #yandere insert #yandere headcanons #yandere x you #yandere blurb #yandere drabble #male yandere #female yandere #yandere monster #gumi my oc #lollie my oc

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catcas22 · 1 year

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So I’m Pretty Sure Hyetta is Vyke’s Maiden

Or at least her reincarnation. Maybe this was already super obvious and I’m just late to the party, but I’ll write it down anyway.

Let’s start with the Shield of the Guilty description.

Shield made to venerate a maiden whose eyes were crushed by Briars of Sin before being reborn in these lands.

Given it’s placement on the Weeping Peninsula, we seem to be meant to assume that the maiden in question is Irina. According to her dialogue, her eyes have been weak since birth. After her revival (?) as Hyetta, she says the same, her blindness was a congenital condition, not the result of an illness or injury. Based on the Dung Eater’s questline, we know that killing someone in a specific way (or tampering with the body after death) can inflict a curse that persists into the next life.

(Side note -- I’ve seen some theories proposing that “Hyetta” is actually the corpse of Irina being possessed either by Shabriri or by the Three Fingers. However, unless she is a phenomenal actress I think we can rule out both of these options based on her horrified reaction to the truth about Shabriri grapes. While I do think that Irina is dead and her body is being possessed, I think that the entity in question is one of her past lives, not Shabriri.)

So who was this maiden who was executed via the Briars of Sin? I think we can make an educated guess.

Assassin's Approach Description

The assassins were charged with eliminating Tarnished who had strayed from guidance.

Crepus’s Vial Description

A ritual implement used by Roundtable Hold assassins. There was a time when Tarnished who had strayed from guidance feared nothing more than utter silence.

Confessors are tasked with hunting down and assassinating the enemies of the Golden Order, with a special emphasis on Tarnished who strayed from the guidance of Grace. They almost certainly would have gone after Vyke, a very high-profile Tarnished who chose to follow in the footsteps of the most reviled man in history.

Fingerprint Set Description

No other Tarnished was closer to the throne of the Elden Lord than Vyke. But without announcement, Vyke traveled far below the capital, and was scorched by the flame of frenzy. Did he make his choice for his maiden, or did some other force lure him with suggestion?

We find Vyke’s berserker shade guarding the Church of Inhibition, within which we find the body of a dead finger maiden. At this point in Vyke’s journey, I think we can confidently say that he did not intend to become the Lord of Chaos, and still hoped to control the Flame of Frenzy to serve his own purposes.

The description of Vyke’s War Spear (which we gain by defeating the berserker shade) describes Vyke as “tormented by the yellow flame of frenzy from within.” And the ghostly figure at the base of the hill has this to say:

Ahh, Lord Vyke, it seems that you were no lord, after all. Then where is he? Our true Lord, our Lord of Frenzied Flame. We beg of you, incinerate all that divides and distinguishes. Ahh, may chaos take the world!

Clearly, this man was a worshiper of the Frenzied Flame. When he says that Vyke was “no lord, after all,” he is not referring to Vyke’s failure to become Elden Lord -- he is referring to Vyke’s refusal to become the Lord of Frenzied Flame.

So, my proposal:

Wishing to spare his maiden, Hyetta, Vyke accepts the mark of the Three Fingers. However, he keeps his armor on during the Fingers’ embrace, hoping to blunt the effect and maintain control of himself.

The Roundtable Hold hears of Vyke’s heretical actions. Assassins are dispatched to kill him.

Vyke and Hyetta are ambushed at the Church of Inhibition -- or, if you want to get really tragic, Vyke sent her away after his meeting with the Three Fingers so that she would not be incriminated by her association with him, only for the Confessors to hunt her down anyway.

The Confessors execute Hyetta via the Briars of Sin. Vyke proceeds to lose his shit so hard that an echo of his rage (the berserker shade) still guards the church centuries after. For the first time, he gives in to the Flame of Frenzy.

After massacring the Confessors, Vyke attempts to rein himself back in. He finally manages to wrest control back from the Flame of Frenzy by tearing out his fingerprint eye (which we can later find) and throwing it away.

He rejects the influence of the Three Fingers and heads for the Mountaintop of the Giants to finish what he started. Vyke remains in control -- for the time being.

Many years later, Hyetta is reincarnated as the maiden Irina. Due to the manner of her death, she is born with damaged eyesight. After Irina’s death, Hyetta slips back into the driver’s seat (albeit without any memory of her past life) and more or less picks up where she left off, acting as a finger maiden to one who would become the Lord of Frenzied Flame.

#elden ring #elden ring lore #elden ring theory #roundtable knight vyke #festering fingerprint vyke #lightseeker hyetta #vyke's maiden

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