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genius-species · 1 year

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What I Read in 2022

I read 88 books in 2022. Mostly romance (37) followed by adult science fiction and fantasy (13).

I also read a vast amount of fan-fiction, but I don’t track fic on my reading list (which I’ve kept as a .txt file on various computers since 2006).

Best Romance:

Husband Material by Alexis Hall - a lot of folks hated the ending of this one. No spoilers, but I adored it. The ending was perfectly in character for Luc and Oliver. I’m really looking forward to Hall’s upcoming 10 Things That Never Happened (which features Jonathan, an mildly unpleasant minor character in Husband Material) which comes out in October 2023.

Evie Dunmore’s historical romances were a new find for me this year, and I liked them a lot. Grumpy men! Spunky women! Hot sex! What’s not to like? The fourth book (about Catriona! My favorite, as she too is deeply introverted and has uncontrollable hair!) has no publication date on Dunmore’s website, but Amazon says it publishes in September.

KD Casey’s baseball romances were also very fun. I’ve long been a fan of Taylor Fitzpatrick’s extended hockey romance universe; I enjoyed athlete romances for a difference sport.

Most Likely to Effect Actual Change in My Life:

400 Friends and No One to Call by Val Walker - everyone who is lonely should read this book. It’s the first self-help book I’ve read that provides concrete advice for expanding your circle of support/socialization.

Out of Thin Air: Running Wisdom and Magic from Above the Clouds in Ethiopia by Michael Crawley - an anthropologist and 2:20 marathoner goes to Ethopia to study running. Hoping to put lessons from this book into practice in my own running in the coming year.

Honorable mention to Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Calms. I’m still thinking about “humanure” and admiring the depth of his commitment.

Recommended:

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas - The world-building is superb. Yadriel’s family doesn’t accept him as a brujo because he’s trans. When Yadriel accidentally brings Julian Diaz back from the dead, everybody is going to Learn Something (especially Yadriel’s family). Also (I feel like this is not a spoiler since the book is published by the Swoon Reads imprint) Yadriel and Julian’s romance is delightful.

See No Stranger by Valerie Kaur - Kaur is a Sikh American and an activist and filmmaker. I wish I could have 1/10th the compassion and grace under pressure that she does.

T. Kingfisher - Ursula Vernon is going on my short-ish list of authors who I will read based on name alone, i.e. the “I’d-read-their-grocery-list-writers.” She consistently delights. I adore the Paladins.

Goals for 2023

A more balanced book-diet. I’d like to read more broadly across genres (I read very historical nonfiction this year) and across time (the majority of what I read was published in the 21st century).

I’d also like to improve my (very rudimentary) Spanish language skills by reading picture books en español.

What did you read this year?

Romance:

Isn't It Bromantic? by Lyssa Kay Adams

Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne

One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

A Delicate Deception by Cat Sebastian

If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy

Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

A Rogue of One's Own by Evie Dunmore

The Duke Who Didn't by Courtney Milan

The Devil Comes Courting by Courtney Milan

After the Wedding by Courtney Milan

The Turner Series (An Enhanced Box Set) by Courtney Milan

The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

A Novella Collection by Courtney Milan

Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain

The Heiress Gets a Duke by Harper St. George

One Dance With a Duke by Tessa Dare

A Sedition Affair by KJ Charles

Any Old Diamonds by KJ Charles

Gilded Cage by KJ Charles

The Sugared Game by KJ Charles

Subtle Blood by KJ Charles

Slippery Creatures KJ Charles

Husband Material by Alexis Hall

Fire Season by KD Casey

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

Unwritten Rules by KD Casey

Selfie by Amy Lane

Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian

The Missing Page by Cat Sebastian

Tommy Cabot Was Here by Cat Sebastian

By the Book by Jasmine Guillory

Mr. Malcom's List by Suzanne Allain

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev

Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev

Nonfiction - Self-Help:

Indistractable by Nir Eyal

The Home Edit by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

It's Not You: 27 Wrong Reasons You're Single by Sara Eckel

400 Friends and No One to Call by Val Walker

Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independent Through Simple Living by Elizabeth Willard Thames

Nonfiction - YA

The Radium Girls: Young Readers Edition by Kate Moore

Awesome Ospreys: Fishing Birds of the World by Donna Love and Joyce Mihran Turley

The Puffin Plan: Restoring Seabirds to Egg Rock and Beyond by Stephen W. Kress and Derrick Z. Jackson

Nonfiction - Memoir/Personal Experience/Art

From Field and Forest by Anna Koska

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West

Mergers and Acquisitions by Cate Doty

Out of Thin Air: Running Wisdom and Magic from Above the Clouds in Ethiopia by Michael Crawley

I Never Thought of It That Way by Monica Guzman

As Simple as That: Collected Essays by Edie Clark

The Maine House by Maura McEvoy, Basha Burwell, and Kathleen Hackett

Best. State. Ever. A Florida Man Defends His Homeland by Dave Barry

See No Stranger by Valerie Kaur

Sci-Fi/Fantasy - YA

Dark Rise by C. S. Pascat

Terciel & Elinor by Garth Nix

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon

The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

Sci-Fi/Fantasy - Adult

Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

Captive Prince by CS Pascat

Prince's Gambit by CS Pascat

Kings Rising by CS Pascat

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

A Marvelous Light by Freya Marske

Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell

The Angel of the Crows by Catherine Addison

Provenance by Ann Leckie

Nonfiction - Craft

Craft in the Real World by Michael Salesses

Nonfiction - History

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels by Jon Meacham

The Women Who Saved the English Countryside by Matthew Kelly

Nonfiction - Science/Environment

Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Calms

What If? by Randall Munroe

Science Matters by Robert M. Hazen

Microadventures by Alistair Humphreys

Zero Waste by Shia Su

Expecting Better by Emily Oster

All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures by Roger Tory Peterson, edited by Bill Thompson III

Black and White Styles in Conflict by Thomas Kochman

Mystery

The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray

Classics/Poetry

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

#what i read in 2022

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putridcowboy · 2 years

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the most important step in the hero’s journey is the gay sex

#mine #i was. higher than i thought i was last night #nooo post dont go out of my immediate circle u r so sexy #someone just tagged this as naruto wrote this. no he didnt i did #update now sherlock rp blogs are commenting on this. girl it is 2022 what are you doing #leave im going to attack you with wasps #fr if another person comments on this post itself again and it isnt funny im sending the bees after u #never in my life have i felt that one post that is like some of yall are so annoying god bless #more than i do now #this isnt about anything but if it was it would just be about gilgamesh #the more yall add to this post the more obvious it is that some of yall straight up dont know what the heroes journey is #yall need to stop assuming the hero is the protagonist of the stories yall read/watch/consume or whatever the fuck

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rantsintechnicolor · 1 year

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I love books: what i read in 2022

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson

Once and For All by Sarah Dessen

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood (worst book I read all year)

The Ballad of Candybomb & Grief by Keith Helinski

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

The Icepick Surgeon by Sam Kean

On Writing by Stephen King

Not Your Sidekick by C. B. Lee

Not Your Villain by C. B. Lee

Not Your Backup by C. B. Lee

I’m Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum

Strange Bedfellows by Ina Park

The State of Affairs by Esther Perel

This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan

How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Let’s Talk About Hard Things by Anna Sale

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

The Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle

Useful Delusions by Shankar Vedantam

So, what do you do with the book that is half read? Does it go on last year’s list or this year’s list, or both?

To summarize, all these books were amazing, except the one. And then there are the books by Michael Pollan. I mean, they are good books, but sometimes he bores me to sleep and I just crawl to the end...

#2022 books #2022 reads #what I read in 2022

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astrophilip · 4 months

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why does dan sound like he's reciting his tumblr dot com poetry

#this is 100% shitposting #i don't know what this is but it makes me laugh and also a bit soft when read out of context #dan and phil #wdapteo #wdapteo 2022 #daniel howell #phil lester #amazingphil #dan and phil games #dapg #danandphilgames #my stuff

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stil-lindigo · 1 year

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floor _

a short comic about struggling to find yourself.

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kaitcake1289 · 2 months

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IMPLIED TVC SPOILERS !!

"[...] so she could stay in the same flat-chested, hairless-crotched 14-year-old baby doll body as her mind and spirit turn 19, 20, 25, 63, 358..."

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aestetet · 1 year

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"Do you see how ruthlessly I am in love?"

playing with lighting after i finished reading iwtv while being totally unaffected, sane, and calm.

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pokeberry5 · 4 months

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your tim is soooooooo beautiful i can’t stop looking at him 😍

do you have any good tim whump fic recs? like the classic comm cuts out when he’s in trouble or really anything

(thank you!! im glad u like my tim art)

(in reference to this, where i mentioned liking whump fics where tim ends up on the ropes alone and his comm cuts out)

i was digging through my reading history to try to find some recs and it seems??? i may have extrapolated fics based on what i wanted to read rip

i did still put some fic recs together! but these are slightly to the left of your original requests. i'm gonna put them in order of relevancy. broad warning to please read the tags on all of these

Little Pig, Little Pig, Let Me In by nierembergia

tim's on the line with damian when suddenly a harmless-seeming interaction at a gala turns sinister (wip)

buy the ticket, take the ride

wherein tim is attempting to deal with things on his own after finding himself alone in vegas, at some point calls jason to "consult" him about blood spatters, and then has to hang up on him because he's getting shot at

the days of theft (no more) by SilverSkiesAtMidnight

gen omegaverse, jason takes tim and in the process snaps the bond between bruce and tim. including this one because the pack bond snapping between bruce and tim has, to me, the same emotional impact of a comm getting caught (wip)

Into the Brighter Night by shoalsea

the set up of this fic is tim manipulating the bats into following a plan he misrepresented and then purposefully going dark, although the majority of the fic deals with the interpersonal fallout of tim's actions (complete)

children of the stars by Scarlet_Ribbons

jason takes tim in because jack drake's a piece of shit and ends up doing his own growing in the process. not sure how to explain why i'm including this without spoiling it, but there is a Big Moment later in the fic that to me is equivalent to tim purposely cutting his comms off to deal with a situation himself (wip)

Call to a Lonely Earth by Drag0nst0rm

in the midst of brucequest, tim ends up on an earth where there are no longer any children and bruce has lost both his sons. i'm mostly including this one because i like it a lot, but—mild spoiler—tim does make a call explaining what he presents as a hopeless situation that he can't be saved from and then hangs up! (first fic is complete but sequel isn't)

also, while it doesn't quite have the same emotional force of what i was looking for, detective comics (1940) #698-99 is where i originally got the idea from and it does feature protective dick and alvin draper!

#tim drake #dc #fic rec #asks #red talks #THANK YOU FOR THE ASKS THO #i hope these are still ok #i love all these fics!! they're just not as relevant to what i originally wanted #i would kill for a fic like what i was thinking about #also this took a bit to put together bc i read an obscene amount of tim-centric fic in a three month haze during the summer of 2022 #and i never bookmark anything #AND THE RANKINGS OF FICS HAVE CHANGED SINCE THEN #this was very close to becoming a rec list of tim centric fics containing emotionally charged “phone calls” but i held myself back #im also pretty sure have of these are quite well-known already #i would also recommend silverskiesatmidnight and scarlet_ribbons more broadly for their tim-centric angst

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catmanbowser · 2 years

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Help ive succumbed to bman the knight gays—i mean guys—[explodes]

#bruce wayne #minhkhoa khan #ghostbat #batman #ghost maker #dc #scrimblo doodles of men as usual #i’ll be normal abt this one i prommy ^^#catman's art #sorry i didnt do justice w khoa’s face ;;;;#im figuring out new faces as usual i will study his face further <3 #trying out new brush too bcs im tired of using the good ol procreate pencil #yknow what i like abt bman the knight is how similiar it is with the batman 2022 novel. how they kinda have the same vibe too #its not the same thing but i just felt the same ‘WOAHHH’ when reading it #this comic’s fun you guys im vibrating with excitement

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bongo-clash · 1 year

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Even when you don't know what it is your job knows what it is

DP/DC week prompt: There was something off about them

'Danny Phantom, alleged several-thousand year old ghostly entity, has a feeling something’s not quite right with Captain Marvel, alleged several-thousand year old champion of magic. He reckons there's no time like the present to confront his hunch.'

Look, Danny’s been working with the Justice League for a while now, and he likes to think he knows them all pretty well. Some of them are more open about their civilian identities than others, but even if he doesn’t know who everyone is behind the cowls, he’s got their personalities down pat at least.

Everyone except, perhaps, Captain Marvel.

Maybe that’s not fair to say. Captain’s a friendly enough guy- nobody’s ever had a bad conversation with him that Danny knows of- but he’s weirdly flaky. The longest he’s stuck around post-mission is probably about five minutes tops, and no one actually knows anything about the man; the League have a habit of hanging around after missions for drinks and talk, and the Captain’s been offered a place with them several times and not taken it once. In all fairness, neither has Danny, but he has an excuse. They think he’s about several thousand years older than he actually is and also a full ghost, so they’d probably expect him to drink and he doesn’t want to have to go through the awkward process of refusing and nor does he want Jazz to go ape on him for giving into peer pressure.

…That’s another thing; Captain Marvel is allegedly several-thousand years old, but when Danny looks at him there’s a strange sense of camaraderie that makes him think maybe they’re both liars.

The longer he’s spent thinking about it, the more sense it makes. Their behaviours probably have a lot in common from an outside perspective: coming across awkward around the other members of the team, passing on every event outside of work, sharing very little about their personal lives least of all a civilian identity- which neither of them are even suspected to have. After all, Phantom’s a ghost, and Captain Marvel’s the champion of magic, it seems reasonable to assume their have some other plane of existence they return to when they’re not in the Watchtower. But Danny just goes back home to Illinois and tells his parents he was at Tucker’s again, and he really doesn’t believe that the Captain just sets up shop by the ‘Rock of Eternity’ or whatever he’d mentioned it was called.

He doesn’t know how to bring it up, though, because what if he’s wrong? There’s a non-zero chance that he’s just projecting his own issues on the man (and that sounds so much like something Jazz would say that it physically hurts), and if Danny tries to confront the man about a lie that isn’t there, then the Captain will know he’s lying, and he’ll totally get booted off the team or placed with Young Justice. There’s nothing wrong with YJ, but it’d just hurt to have worked side-by-side with them proving his reliability for so long only to get pushed away because of his age.

So he doesn’t say anything, figuring there’s not much choice other than to wait for some kind of confirmation. Until, of course, the opportunity for confrontation arrives in the aftermath of one mandatory League check-point meeting.

Check-point meeting with the Justice League are really just contractually obligated gossip sessions regarding their recent heroic endeavours that quickly descends into normal conversations. Contrary to the usual progression of these meetings, however, Green Lantern is prodding at Captain Marvel to tell him about what it was like visiting ancient civilisations before they fell.

It’s one of those weeks where the other members are being a bit more insistent on finding out more about the Captain. They’ve made their peace with the fact that they’re not going to get much in terms of a civilian life out of him, but every single member of the League (with the exception of maybe Martian Manhunter) is invariably nosy, which obviously leads to their more mysterious members coming under scrutiny every now and again. This also includes Danny on occasion, but Phantom has a brilliant out for interrogations in the form of making people uncomfortable about the fact that, even if he’s an ancient entity, he clearly died young. All he has to do is pull out some wistful bullshit about wishing he’d lived long enough to experience mortal romance or something equally upsetting and he’s home-safe.

The man across from him, however, taking the form of a very much full-grown adult, has no such excuse.

“Come on, Captain, surely you can tell us something! I thought you were around for ancient Egypt?” Hal exclaims, leaning just slightly over the meeting table to scrutinise his colleague. The Captain is looking increasingly uncomfortable.

“Of course I was!” Marvel agrees quickly, accompanied by a nod of the head that could almost be described as frantic. “Ancient Egypt was around for ages, probably couldn’t’ve missed all that if I tried! I wasn’t around for all that much of it though, I- uh, I caught the tail end of it- when Cleopatra was pharaoh, if I remember right- but I was… I was a little busy somewhere else during that, uh, era.”

Green Lantern raises an eyebrow behind the green domino mask. “Busy? Busy doing what?”

“Well-“

The Captain is making a very particular face, the kind that Danny imagines he himself makes when he’s scrambling for any reasonable excuse to get out of the hole he’s dug himself into by lying. And Danny looks at him from across the table, the man catching his eyes with a look he can only describe as odd and desperate, and he makes a decision.

“That was around the time all those conferences were being held to sort out the mess between the newly-formed undead societies and the natural ghosts, right? There was some involvement with living mages, if I recall correctly; I’m sure I saw you at one of those.”

In terms of lies he could’ve told, he figures this one is pretty low-risk. There were a lot of diplomatic meetings held between natural ghosts and the ones existing post-mortem when proper civilisations first came about and people from them started dying, after all (though he knows for fact the living weren’t involved in any way), so it’s not like he’s pulling it out of his ass. If he’s wrong about the Captain and the man admits he doesn’t have a clue what Danny’s talking about, then he can just say it must have been a realms-exclusive thing- hard to remember the finer details when it was all so long ago- and they’ll be none the wiser.

But if he’s right, and he’s really beginning to think he is, then-

Sure enough, the man across from him nods vigorously, clicking his fingers together as if his memory’s just been jogged. “Right!” He chirps, sending Danny a brazen smile. “I don’t know how I forgot about those! Man, those conferences dragged on, didn’t they?”

Bingo.

“Don’t even worry about it- I honestly would’ve thought the first ones were around the revolution at the end of the Qin dynasty in China if you hadn’t reminded me- my memory was way off. Speaking of that though, have you spoken to Pandora since? I figured you two would get along pretty well, but I know there wasn’t much time for small talk and dimension hopping wasn’t half as easy as it is now.”

Captain Marvel shakes his head with pursed lips. “Can’t say I have; not a lot of free time between everything, like you said. Would love to be introduced properly though!”

“Well, I did say I would- couple thousand years later than I thought it’d be, but better late than never.”

The tension easing from Marvel’s shoulders is probably obvious to everyone in the room. Superman looks to the both of them curiously. “You never mentioned knowing each other?” The Kryptonian questions. Phantom laughs the way he sees his mom do during those weird adult get-togethers.

“Oh, we’ve crossed paths a lot,” He declares with a wave of his hand, brushing the notion to the side, catching the gaze of the Captain in his peripheral even as he keeps his eyes on the other superhero. “Can’t say we had the opportunity to get to know each other properly between it all, though. Relations between the magic living and the restless dead have always been a little… fraught. I was just planning to keep things professional on my end unless the Captain wanted to seek a friendship outside of work since I wasn’t sure how appreciated it would be, especially given how much fuss ghosts have been giving the mortal plane recently.”

Marvel’s laugh mimics his own. “That’s what I was thinking! I guess no amount of time can time will change how weird it can be trying to made work friends.”

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), Captain Marvel is waiting outside the hall for him when the meeting is adjourned and each member of the League goes their separate ways. Wordlessly, Danny follows him deeper into the Watchtower, floating behind before phasing them both into one of the locked rooms everyone knows there’s no cameras in, for the sake of being allowed confidential discussions in at least one area of the place- when approved, of course, but these walls don’t hold Phantom just yet, given that the ghost-proofing paint doesn’t quite stick over the lead-lining.

“So.” Danny starts, when they’re both inside the office and the silence begins to creep thick into the air.

Captain Marvel looks nervous. “So.”

“You weren’t at those conferences.”

“No, I wasn’t.” It seems almost painful for him to admit, hands flicking slightly like he wants to fidget with them but doesn’t want to be caught doing it. “I’m grateful you, uh, that you said I was there- thank you, Phantom- but why’d you cover for me?”

For the first time today, and maybe even the first time in the Watchtower, Danny levers himself down from the air, putting both feet on the ground. He hopes beyond hoping his face comes across sincere. “Because I wasn’t there either.” He admits gently, watching for a response.

“I- what?” The man doesn’t appear to know what he’s meant to say. Well, time to rip the bandaid off.

“Captain, you’ve not been around for six thousand, have you? I’m willing to bet you haven’t even been around for 18.” The reaction is immediate. Marvel’s eyes widen, pupils shrinking with alarm, arms coming up as if in defence as he splutters some kind of excuse, and Danny interrupts before he can spiral too hard. “Dude, don’t worry. I seriously won’t tell anyone if you are- I’m not a snitch.”

The Captain’s expression looks utterly lost. “Why?”

Danny thinks it’s probably best to just bite the bullet here. He stands still as the transformation washes over him, bright silver-blue rings parsing over his form, exchanging gravity-defying white hair for scraggly black, hazmat for jeans and a sweater, and Lazarus-green eyes for a gentler blue. When the light finally dissipates, he gives the Captain a second just to process, before sending him a wry grin.

“Hi, Captain Marvel, I’m Phantom- otherwise known as Danny Fenton- Ambassador for the Infinite Realms and sixteen year-old half-human-half-ghost boy.”

The other hero stands still for a long, long moment, mute with shock, before muttering a quiet ‘Shazam’ and allowing the room to fill with the sudden crackle of a lightning bolt. Where the hulking form of Captain Marvel once stood, a boy is left in his place- eyes and hair the same, if a little less put together- but only just coming up to Danny’s shoulder, wearing clothes that have clearly seen a few years go by. If Danny had to guess, he looks about eleven or twelve

“Hi, Phantom,” He says, a little quieter but with more confidence than he’d had before, staring him resolutely in the eyes. “I’m Captain Marvel- also Billy Batson- champion of magic and twelve year-old and world’s mightiest mortal.”

Danny cannot resist reaching over to ruffle the kid’s hair. “Amazing to meet you,” He beams. “And if anyone asks, we’ve known each other since the Early Dynastic period of Egypt and are in no way human or related to any living humans. You good with that?”

Billy looks up at him with a gap in his teeth and mischief in his eyes.

“Phantom, I am more than okay with that.”

#dp/dc week 2022 #Billy asks afterwards what all the historical evidence of Danny is about and Danny explains his time travel shenanigans #And invites Captain Marvel to join in on a few too just to really buff up their alibi #Billy discovers the joy of vandalism in Ancient Rome #Fun fact: I have no idea what happens in this fic because I finished it 1 minute ago and I'm too tired to read it over #If there's any mistakes we can all just ignore them and that's cool and fine!!#Title is from Let's Get This over With by They Might Be Giants because I was struggling for a name and it's just what I had on #dpxdc #dp au #danny phantom au #Bongo's Writing!!!

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