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spacetimeacetime · 1 month

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Things Always Go Wrong Pt3

Pt1 Pt2

Gotham was truly testing her abilities. Usually she could vibe check the building and be good but the vibes of Gotham were rancid everywhere she went. Every building and street had some varying level of unsafe and she could feel Danny slowing behind her. He wasn't going to stay on his feet for much longer. Thankfully there were plenty of alleys they could probably hide in and even though it was already midmorning the thick smog on the city made it look like the dawn had only just broken. The alleys were still dark and as soon as she paused at the back of the alley she felt Danny collapse into her. His breathing was ragged and he was slick with sweat. She tried vibrating her core at him and the response she got was uncoordinated and harsh. It was as if two things were trying to respond to her, attempting to drown each other out.

“Shit.” she said. Jazz would be mad for her language, you know, if she didn't kill her for killing her brother.

“Found you, wretch.” A voice said and Dani shot up into a fighting stance. The entrance of the alley was blocked by five people, all dress head to toe in white and aiming several weapons at them. They were all men and significantly bigger than her. That would be fine in her ghost form but transforming in front of them was risky.

Danny groaned from the cold alley floor and Dani grimaced. She growled, inhumane and low, and punched her palm as she went ghost. Showing her transformation was a small price to pay to protect Danny and they probably had her, or Danny’s, ecto-signature if they had managed to follow them cross state lines so accurately.

Their weapons hummed as they charged and Dani caught a glimpse of color above them. Praying she had seen right she took in a breath and shouted her words.

“I am the princess of the Infinite Realms. Any harm that comes to me is a direct attack on the entire dimension of the Infinite Realms and cause for a war between our worlds!” Internally she cringed at her words but she prayed they had the right effect.

“Ha! Like you could fool us, you manipulative ecto-sum! You’re coming with us. If you're lucky you might even make it in one piece” The leader, she assumed as he was standing at the front of the group, said. She tensed in case her gamble went south and prepared for something to hit her.

Thankfully she didn't feel anything and a yellow hero came crashing down on the agents with a ferocity she wasn't expecting. He used what she thought were escrima sticks but they were connected together with a long wire and looked modified. He downed the panicked agents in seconds and turned to Dani. Unconscious agents littered around him.

His sudden movements made her drop into a defensive stance and he froze. Gently putting away his weapons as he raised his hands to show he meant no harm.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I was just trying to help.” The man paused as he looked over the two disheveled siblings. The white haired girl was glaring at him but looked more wary than aggressive and the dark haired boy on the floor looked incredibly ill. “Would it be ok if I helped you? I can call some friends and we can get you to a safe space.”

Dani stared the man down. He could fight, and right now she wasn't confident she could take him. Not while protecting a very incapacitated Danny. He had a black bat symbol on his chest which was good but also bad. Good because Batman was a hero and helped those in need. Bad because Batman was famous for not liking metas and while she and Danny weren’t metas she doubted Batman would care enough to make the distinction. Hopefully if she played up the royalty bit she could get maybe some leeway.

“Ok, bumblebee, but I want you to promise you wont hurt me or my… ambassador,” Danny was going to be so mad when he woke up, “or I will bring the entire Infinite Realms down on this world.” She did her best to sound threatening and maybe using some energy to make herself scarier but she wouldn't admit it.

“Of course, your… highness?” Bumblebee asked. Dani frowned, she didn't like ‘your highness’ but she couldn't give her actual name…

“You can call me… Elle.” She felt her insides crumple up at how cringey that name felt and she was very glad Danny was out cold for this conversation. The bumblebee hero nodded and said something into what she assumed was an earpiece. After a few minutes of discussion he went quiet and began watching the roofs. Dani floated off the ground slightly, trying to see what he was looking for. She didn't notice the surprise that flitted across his face at her show of power or the silent black hero who landed gracefully beside Bumblebee.

“Hey Black Bat. Can you help me gather these guys up? Batman should be en route but might take a minute to get here.” Bumblebee said. Dani whipped around to see the new hero, black bat apparently, silently working her way through the knocked out GIW.

“Batman is coming?” Dani asked, anxiety making her fidget with her hands. That wasn't good. She couldn't pretend to be a princess around him, he could practically smell lies, or fear, and maybe she could be the princess of the Infinite Realms but she wasn't officially! Not yet at least. And Danny definitely wasn't her ambassador. Shit, maybe if she played up with the sad little girl image? Batman was known to take pity on kids… or was that one of his allies. She should’ve listened in on the conversation the bumblebee had had earlier, maybe she would have had something to work with then.

Black bat and bumblebee worked together to tie up the GIW and leave them in an easily accessible spot for when the police came around. Black bat touched bumblebees bicep and he looked up to see the scary shadow of Batman looming over the alley. Dani notices him too and landed in front of Danny, spreading her arms to block him from Batman's view as he landed beside the other heroes.

“Report.” Was all he said as he looked over the scene. His gaze lingered on the unconscious boy and Dani had to resist growling at him, in case that ruined her case for receiving help. Bumblebee took a breath and nodded.

“I found these two as they were about to be attacked by a group of people,” he gestured to the tied up men in white, “it looked like meta trafficking and I stepped in. Elle,” he gave a smile to Dani who cringed internally, “gave the men fair warning about their attack being against royalty and at risk of ruining dimensional relations, they refused to back off.”

Batman responded with a noncommittal ‘hn’ and narrowed his eyes at Dani who prickled under the gaze.

“For the record,” Bumblebee added, a little hesitant, “I believe her.”

Batman nodded and took a step closer to Dani and this time she did growl. The man stopped and regarded her. She glared back. He wasnt coming near her or Danny. Not in his state.

“Would you like to come with us?” Was all batman said. Stern and quiet. Dani didn't move, she looked over Batman’s unmoving face and then back at the bumblebee and black bat. The bumblebee hero looked worried but more for Batman than Dani and the black bat seemed relaxed as she watched.

“Where are you going to take us?” Dani asked. Batman frowned slightly and Dani worried he would just try and grab them.

“A place where we can keep you safe and confirm your royal status,” he said. Dani didn't really like the sound of that but she could feel Danny getting worse and she was running out of time to make a decision. When he chose that exact moment to let out a pained groan Dani almost smacked him. Batman’s frown deepened and Dani felt her throat bob.

“We might even be able to help your friend.” He offered.

“My ambassador,” She corrected, if she was gonna sell this she had to go all out, “And I don't want you to lay a hand on him.”

Batman gave her the slightest, stiffest nod she had ever seen and she relaxed. Batman nodded to the other heroes and black bat vanished, bumblebee paused before leaving himself. Dani felt her anxiety come back threefold at being left alone with the big bad bat but in a few seconds a fancy black bat shaped car skidded to a halt outside the alley. In the passenger seat was the familiar bumblebee, he grinned and waved at them. Batman stared at him in what Dani thought could be disapproval but said nothing. The doors to the suped up car popped open and bumblebee stepped out.

“You can get in the back seat. Do you need help with your ambassador?” He said as he stepped back into the alley. Dani shook her head and Batman made a grumbling sound.

“Signal.” he said. Bumblebee, signal apparently, shrugged and continued towards Dani until she stiffened.

“I just wanted them to have a familiar face so the journey wasn't too stressful. Black bat and Spoiler are covering me while I stick with them.” He said, smiling at Batman and then turning back to Dani. He moved to help her pick Danny up but she shook her head at him and he stepped back. Batman made another ‘hn’ sound before retreating to the driver seat of the car.

Dani moved Danny around and picked him up by throwing him over her shoulder. He wasn't heavy but he was bigger than her and it made him difficult to carry. Signal, she preferred bumblebee, hovered around her but was careful not to touch Danny as she carried him to the car. They managed to get Danny securely in the back seat of the batcar and Dani slid in next to him. He looked worse. Maybe moving him wasn't the smartest idea but Dani didn't know what else to do. If the GIW had their ecto-signature there wasn't a safe place to hide. Maybe Batman would be able to protect them but it would only last so long. She pushed aside her fears and gripped Danny’s too warm hand. The scenery went passed too quickly for her to see and the drive was silent. She was starting to hate road trips.

This is short but the next one is gonna be LONG I got distracted anyway I love that people are enjoying this, i like writing it :)

#danny phantom #dp x dc #fanfic #they're really going through it

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spacetimeacetime · 1 month

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Good to know! It's a great idea, hope more states adopt it.

Current states according to the article- Maryland, Maine, Minnesota. Not yet with Virginia but they're working on it

ABOUT TIME!!! for those out of the loop homeowners’ associations in the US 1. suck horrendously in every way 2. were the beginning of the end of urban biodiversity

#low impact landscaping #legislation #bird law #HOA

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spacetimeacetime · 1 month

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ponder ferret variant (feriant)

#art #digital art #my kind of guy #ferret

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spacetimeacetime · 2 months

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Thinking about college! Danny again

#danny phantom #like the style

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spacetimeacetime · 2 months

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yes btw i am catching up on murderbot. drew a poster for da first book for fun :^)

#art #murderbot #all systems red #very cool!#looks like a book cover #beautiful

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spacetimeacetime · 3 months

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Nest Swap ch 1

Little Tim wakes up in big Tim's apartment.

The idea came from this chain started by @ew-selfish-art and the contribution by @faeriekit

(repost of something that's currently just in a reblog chain)

His first observation was that this wasn't his house.

Tim was new to detecting, but he thought that was a pretty dang salient observation.

He didn't actually remember going to sleep. It didn't feel like he woke up here, either. He just suddenly noticed he was sitting somewhere he'd never been in his whole 9 years of life.

Very weird! Pretty neat, though.

Tim prowled around in his socked feet in total silence, investigating by the little light that came in through mostly shut curtains. He wasn't in his own clothes, which was kind of scary. He had to keep hiking up his sweatpants to keep them on, and he rolled down his socks three times to tighten them up. At least the floors didn't creak at all, even when he stepped on the dark wood panels in between dark red rugs. It made him feel more secure to move around quietly.

He was in an apartment that seemed relatively expensive but new, no antiques or family heirlooms. It was an open plan, with floating stairs and a white sofa. It was also sterile, as if no one really lived in it. It was clean in the same un-lived in way his house was. Someone professionally cleaned this apartment.

Tim was really, really careful not to make any mess.

Theory one: he had been kidnapped. It seemed pretty sound. He went to bed at home, and he woke up sitting on a strange sofa. Danger alarms were going off.

He looked around for a house phone to call for help. There was none. Troubling.

On the other hand, Tim opened the apartment door to the hallway and stuck his head out. He could see sunlight coming in through the huge lobby windows.

…Okay. He was going to consider that a viable escape route. He glanced at the side of the door where there was a pair of shoes. They were big but he could probably use them in a pinch.

So. He could just walk out at any time. He frowned. That wasn't very good kidnapping practice. He would plan a much better restraint system. Like, a rope would be a good place to start, or maybe breaking the little bones in his feet?

“This is so disappointing,” Tim muttered to himself. “I'm not even being ransomed?”

Just… Some effort would be nice.

Hmm. He didn't want to believe anyone that incompetent had managed to transport him into Gotham proper from Bristol while he slept. So. Tim formally recategorized his kidnapping theory to a suspected no.

It was undeniable that he'd been moved in his sleep, which was pretty classic. But the counter evidence? The new location looked pretty easy to escape, if he was willing to get his socks dirty outside.

Conclusion: This probably wasn't a conventional kidnapping. What else was there?

Theory two: he hit his head or fell asleep while he was out birdwatching, and some good person took them into their house to keep him safe.

That neatly explained why he was in the actual city. Tim ran his fingers through his hair looking for a bump. He wasn't sure if he found one or not. Maybe his head was just kind of oddly shaped. Troubling. Maybe he should go to the doctor about that.

It would have been helpful information either way if there had been another human being around to talk to.

There were signs that someone lived here. Tim poked around in the closet and in the fridge, building a mental profile for the resident.

One person lived here, and they were clearly kind of a loser because they had no photos of friends or family up. The jacket hanging by the door told Tim they were either an average sized woman or a small man. They couldn't cook at all, which was excellent because that meant there was a really great variety of ready to eat food. Tim snacked on string cheese and a can of soda while he flipped through the books on the shelves. He pulled a couple off to check for secret compartments. Nope. Just books.

“Boring,” Tim said to himself.

They were all books about things like business and management. It was the type of self-aggrandizing garbage that his parents made fun of: memoirs that you knew damn well that person hadn't written, manifestos on the virtues of hard work from someone born into the financial elite, and how-to's directed at an audience who had no personal shame.

Momentarily, he entertained the fantasy that he had been kidnapped by someone who was going to mold him into the ideal Drake Industries CEO, someone who wouldn't jet off across the world to follow a passion. The suspects were the entire board of directors.

Kidnapped theory redux: the Board of Directors did it. Evidence?

Tim sat down and made a chart for his thoughts, quantifying how much each person had been inconvenienced by his parents’ absence in the last fiscal year. He concluded that Mr. Morrison might hate his parents enough to do it, but the projected timeline was beyond his scope. Tim didn't think he had it in him to plan that far out.

So, the apartment owner was just a boring person. Tim made a note. Theory two was looking pretty good. The person who lived here kind of sucked at life but they were probably really nice.

Something started beeping. That was interesting. He followed it to the bedroom that he hadn't been brave enough to poke around yet. There was a weird tablet on the bedside table. He picked it up and it unlocked automatically. Wow, the security was so bad. He felt embarrassed on behalf of the absent apartment owner.

The screen showed an email from someone called Tamara Fox.

“Tim, can you get me the numbers from the acquisition in Peru?”

He blinked at it. Was the person who lived here also named Tim? Surely she wasn't actually asking him. He looked around uncertainly.

There was still no one else. The blinking display on the alarm clock told him that it was half past noon, and no one else was in the apartment.

…. poor Tamara probably really needed that information, if she was asking for it in the middle of the workday. Tim sat down on the bed and started putting together context clothes to figure out what Miss Fox was talking about. Her email signature had her title at Wayne industries listed, so that was a pretty big clue. He had access to a team calendar that showed meetings and ongoing projects, which he used to narrow it down.

When he figured it out, he sent her back an email and sat back in satisfaction. A moment later, he realized that the email account had an attached auto signature. It claimed to be Tim Drake-Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises.

What.

He stopped breathing and momentarily considered that he had traveled to the future and this was really his apartment, but the name was impossible. There was no way he was going to marry either one of the Waynes. Bruce and Dick were kind of old. Tim wrinkled his nose at the thought. Gross.

So, no. He wasn't Tim Drake-Wayne. “...It must be an inside joke,” Tim decided. “It seems really unprofessional.”

Tim was a little disappointed that he wasn't the boss of everyone, but at least he wasn't in a troubling marriage with a huge age difference. He had another cheese stick about it and the feeling went away. Ah, good. Maybe that was how Mom dealt with Drake Industries: she distracted herself until she didn't feel bad about putting it on the back burner. It was a good tactic. He'd need more cheese sticks. He made a mental note to figure out how to replace these ones.

He found a loose blanket on a side chair and tied it around his shoulders, because the apartment was pretty chilly.

The email dinged again. Tim dragged his blanket cape back into the bedroom and stared at the tablet, lost in thought.

He didn't mean to be annoying. He really didn't. He knew people hated it when you got in their stuff. But the thing was: this guy got a lot of emails. And he wasn't here to answer them, which was pretty rude of him, honestly. It seemed like his job needed him a lot.

Maybe when he got back, he would be mad at Tim for looking at his stuff.

On the other hand, maybe he would appreciate it. Tim told himself that it would be fine, and he manned that email account until the end of business hours at 5:00 p.m. Then he gave a luxurious stretch and went to find something interesting in the freezer that he could microwave.

His feelings about the email account had changed, after the hours spent together. It was their mutual email account now. Tim was willing to fight about it. He was emotionally attached to that email. People asked him all sorts of questions there, and he got to answer. It was pretty fun.

The apartment looked a little friendlier in the early evening light. He crossed it again and pushed a chair up against the deep freezer so that he could root around inside.

“Omigod, lasagne!” Tim ripped the package open in his excitement. Today was the best. He liked this place. Maybe he'd get to stay there when the owner came back to look at their shared email account.

While the lasagne heated, he went back to checking for fake books on the shelf. They were all disappointments. He did finally notice that there were pets here.

“I should feed you,” Tim told the fish, because he was really fixing this guy's life. The fish didn't pay him any attention. The microwave beeped completion, so he went back and got his lasagne. He held it in one hand and ate while he searched for fish food. When he found it, he stuck his fork in the lasagne to free up a hand and shook flakes into the water.

A secret compartment in the floor opened up.

Tim froze. He took a step back. He looked around the apartment, as if someone was going to materialize.

“…I might as well go see,” he told himself. “They're already gonna be mad that I answered our email.”

Down he went.

#dc fanfic #tim drake #tim is back on his bullshit #but smaller this time

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spacetimeacetime · 4 months

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different language editions of All Systems Red

#murderbot #murderbot diaries #martha wells #oh wow these are beautiful

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spacetimeacetime · 5 months

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The thing I love about Hbomberguy’s latest video essay on plagiarism is it really gets to the root of why someone plagiarises, which in turn reassures the audience of the soundness of their own creative process and that of the creatives they love. He spends so much time praising and analysing the difference between derivative works (non-negative) and plagiarised works that it reassures and broadens the knowledge of other creatives and of the audiences consuming their works, which in turn helps assuage any unconscious reactionary feelings of “But this other creative I love does something slightly similar”.

As someone who writes, and as someone who went through the churn-em-out of the modern university degree system and all the plagiarism anxiety that comes with that, the topic of copying and mimicking other creatives is a heavy and ill-understood topic in so many spaces. The education system, at least in my country, went from encouraging rote-learning and copying by rewarding those who best memorised answers previously learned (e.g. exam answer schedules, memorising the wording of pre-practiced essays) to encouraging original thought in extensively-written about topics for essays. It’s very hard not to feel like you’re plagiarising when you’re one of 300 first year law students writing about a a topic from one very in-depth source that you’ve studied in class and three smaller ones, and Turnitin has put in your mind that the MOST important thing you can do for this essay is not to pass it, but to reword it well enough not to get caught up in this plagiarism detector. And I can recognise my behaviours in what Hbomberguy identifies - I remember minute-before-the-deadline essays where I was guilty of padding out my biography with sources from my sources, and can think of phrases or techniques of writing I’ve read in books that I sometimes worry might come through in my writing in a way that feels like stealing.

Plagiarism anxiety is real, and it’s fed by a lack of understanding around what plagiarism is and where it comes from. Hbomberguy is so right for complimenting a bunch of lame youtubers for the enthusiasm with which they openly bounce off of other people’s ideas. This collaborative method of creating where ideas are taken and passed on due to love of the craft can feel derivative eventually - but taken within a body of work where the creator is riffing or paying homage to and not merely regurgitating others success is at the heart of where any meaningful success and love for the medium lies. Creators need to be coming from a place of genuine enthusiasm and respect - it’s when they dont, when they’re looking down on others, that we see these behaviours emerging.

And that helps identify the urges within ourselves, and know more firmly whether what we’re doing is tribute or theft, including the many not just acceptable but positive ways of referencing back to sources and inspiration. It helps us tell when we ourselves are genuinely trying to pay homage and when we are treading the more murky waters of unfair attribution. So thanks Hbomberguy for dumbing down this topic in the most relatable but inaccessible-by-length way possible, as per usual.

#hbomberguy #I agree #discussing plagarism isn't nearly as helpful without discussing what real creative inspiration looks like for comparison #in my experience at least #universities should emphasize positive examples of inspirations way more than they do #it would have been so easy for hbomber guy to leave that out as well but the video was much more impactful because he didn't

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