#Some of these apply to the Nox AU as well

[demaparbatxgorillaz]

Do you have any cute 2nu headcanons? I'd love to know more about your Gorillaz universe!!

Hello! And yes, I have a few — some settled in The Nox AU, while the rest can work nicely both in canon and any other AU that includes them both as a couple, and really good friends.

Noodle has nicknames she uses to name the boys, ones she came up with when she was a child, and uses regularly to either express her care and appreciation of them, or try and convince them to do anything she wants. She always succeeds. These nicknames are Japanese words that remind her or define the rest of the band. Murdoc is Karasu — Crow. Russel is Haku — White, due to his eyes. And 2D is Chi, which means Blood.

2D's eyes were the first thing 23 saw when she met the boys. They are her favorite thing about Stuart, and likes to get lost in the red of them. They are made of warm Blood and, as such, that became his name.

Both Noodle and 2D share a tattoo of the Chi Kanji. They also have a tattoo of the name of the other — 2D for her, 23 for him.

They love to read The Sandman together. Stuart introduced the comic to Noodle when she was young, and she became obsessed with it. They usually cosplay The Endless, Death being Noodle's favorite.

The mask she used during Plastic Beach (the same one she wears in The Nox AU) used to belong to Stuart, who used it in carnivals when he was a child.

Noodle steals 2D's clothes, and refuses to give them back unless he buys more. That is, of course, so she can steal more.

Noodle's mother was a woman named Sora Misaki. When they found out about this and couldn't contact her, Noodle decided to travel back to Japan and search for her. 2D goes with her.

2D has Marfan Syndrome, which means that his vision is nearly nonexistent — the accidents and the hyphema did not help with this. He has glasses, of course, and he needs them permanently. However, after years being bullied, he decides not to wear them in public. It's a silly thing, really, but also a scar and Noodle tries to heal it. So, she helps him walk without bumping into anything and acts as his eyes when they're in public.

She has made her mission to help 2D understand that he is not alone, that he is not useless, that he is worth more than most people and that he is strong. Anyone who dares to speak a word against him because of his looks or personality will face her anger.

No one wants to be the target of an angry Noodle.

Due to his condition, 2D needs to take beta-blockers to keep his blood pressure in check, along with the pills for his headaches and pain. He usually forgets, so Noodle reminds him to take them every day.

She takes care of him and this, eventually, drives them closer. Noodle knows every need of his, and 2D tries to make it up to her in every way he can.

Their feelings develop naturally, and it takes years and help from their friends to accept them. It is hard, with the life they live and everything they've been trough. Sometimes the differences between them feel abysmal. But they grow and learn together.

When they finally tell the rest of the band they're together (which comes as no surprise) Murdoc frowns and gives two hundred pounds to Ace, who smiles deviously and says "I won".

2D, surprisingly, is a master of the art of flirting. No one can believe it when he decides, all in good fun, that Noodle makes a good teasing target. To his own amazement, she flirts back.

Every Saturday night, 2D and Noodle visit a club downtown and play a little game of theirs: Who can get more phone numbers through the course of the night, both from boys and girls? Noodle wins. Every. Single. Time.

Rachel Pot loves Noodle. They are both passionate, they both protect those they love fiercely, and they both command Stuart to put on his glasses at the same time and with the same posture. Murdoc fears the women, Russel is amused by them and Stuart is torn between hiding from their gaze or hug them both and thank them for their care.

Every once in a while, 2D and Noodle listen to old disco hits all the way from the 70's to the early 2000's — and they listen to them loudly. And dance. A lot. Ace loves to join them, as does Russel, if only to see them make a fool of themselves. Murdoc, however, never joins. Expect for that one time when they all watched, terrified, as he danced to the tune of Barbie girl with all his might.

#Well this got out of hand. #Sorry if it's too long and if it got a bit angsty at the end. They just have so many potential! Especially for headcanons. #Some of these apply to the Nox AU as well #2d gorillaz #noodle gorillaz #gorillaz #murdoc gorillaz #gorillaz headcanons #2nu #2nu headcanons #ace copular #russel gorillaz #stuart pot #23 #The Nox AU #The Nox #Sora Misaki #gorillaz oc #murdoc niccals #russel hobbs #dema answers #Headcanons #ms2d #marfan syndrome

[zekrom-sword]

this blog is no longer active

Hello! My name is Felix! I'm a Hunter. Uhm... I'm not sure what else to say...

I guess i can talk about the fact that i have three tamed Pokémon, that's pretty cool!

There's Aurora, he's a Scyther! He can sometimes help me on the hunt.

Then there's Tornado Warning. Tornado Warning is a Pelipper, and he helps me deliver my wares if i get requests from outside the village. I actually didn't tame him myself... he is from the big city, where they breed Pelipper for some postal network.

And lastly, there's SNEEF. She's a Chikorita and she mostly helps with tracking Pokémon. But she hates hates hates being in the middle of things and also can't see blood. So... kinda awkward. She mostly hides in my bag when it's going down

ANYWAYS i'm now here! If you want to request some pokémon materials, hit me up! Tornado Warning can deliver them, probably. You gotta feed him though, that's part of the service fee.

I have some spare part right now by the way

Oh also here's a picture of me!

I got the feathers from a Staraptor!

OOC below the cut (please read)

RP/Worldbuilding rules

- Felix is not a villain character, please keep that in mind. That doesn't mean he's right about things or he's a "good person", but he's not like, Ghetsis or Lysandre. Being mean to him is allowed tho.

- This blog treats the world as if pokémon were real, so this is a general #unreality warning. I will NOT tag every post with it

- This blog will deal regularly with darker themes such as injury, pokémon injury and pokémon death. These things will be tagged accordingly with a #cw [trigger], other triggers will be tagged in this format as well. Posts I'm not sure which trigger applies to will be tagged with #cw pokemon hunting. This means things like implied dismemberment, talking about using specific pokemon parts for things and so on. Explicit posts will also have this tag.

- Please don't hesitate to reach out if you want something be tagged. This goes especially for things considered "high stakes pokereality", i'm very unsure what would fall in this category.

- Felix is accepting "hunting" requests for all Pokémon (except legendaries)! This can also be about certain materials, which can possibly be obtained without hurting the pokemon (like mareep fur).

- Felix lives in some sort of AU or Region or so where Pokémon are actually the wild beasts they are made out to be in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. There are only a handful of exceptions. Hunting Pokémon for food and survival is important in his community

- the exact place he lives in will remain undisclosed, you can decide for yourself if it's a different region, a different time or a complete alternate universe

- this blog is pretty obviously inspired by franchises like Monster Hunter, D&D and the Studio Ghibli movies (like Nausicaä). However this is NOT a crossover blog, and i actually would like to keep crossover interactions low.

- no sexual NSFW, full stop.

// Also: Hi, hello. I run this blog as a side blog, so I’ll like and follow from my main @fire-water-grass-core . If you need to address me (the player/mun), I’m okay with any pronouns, and if you need a name you can call me Kama, Nox or Cheese. My main RP blog is @koffing-time, feel free to look at stuff there. The rules from the pinned there also apply here.

// if i'm talking ooc, it will be marked with // and usually also be colored pink

//ask games (tagged with #ask game) are usually open indefinitely

#pkmn irl #pokeblogging #pokemon irl #pokeblog intro #intro post #ooc

[kmurpads]

Khan-McMahon University is as prestigious as they come. Located in San Diego, CA you can expect many students wanting to enjoy the beaches as well as even take the hour drive to Disneyland. As they are high in the academic scale, there's always a little party.

Dare to apply? Come join the newly opened Discord AU RPG that is not only inclusive, but accepts wrestlers from any company, independents, and even OCs! This is a college AU where you can let some of your creativity fly!!

most wanted males: roman reigns, ricky starks, wheeler yuta, jey uso, jimmy uso, sami zayn, ethan page, matt jackson, nick jackson, kevin owens, jungle boy jack perry, bron breakker, solo sikoa to name a few!!

most wanted females: alexa bliss, mercdedes mone, toni storm, tegan nox, tay melo, allie katch, scarlett,dakota kai, skye blue,maxxine durpi, sonya deville, ruby soho, carmella, bianca belair, shotzi, thea hall, emma, chelsea green, jade cargill to name a few!!

#aew rpg #wrestling rpg #wwe rpg #aew rp #wrestling rp #wwe rp #rhea ripley #damian priest #dominik mysterio #dakota kai #iyo sky #jade cargill #ruby soho #toni storm

[awlwren-writes]

OC ask game: 16, 18, 28 for Daphne (if you want)

For those who don't know, Daphne is Nyx's mom's sister and Clarus's wife in our Uncle Clarus AU!

I appreciate the chance to flesh her out some more!

16. do they have any pets? what do they call their pets?

She didn't before now, but now I'm gonna say she was sent with a pair of black and white coeurlaki (what I call the tiny tame coeurls seen in the Galahd concept art) that she named Nox and Luna as a kind of tease to her nephew and niece. Nox is called "Knocks" by everyone in Insomnia, though, as that's her favorite trick, and Luna is "Lookie Loo" and the like, because she's so curious. It started a brief trend in Insomnia for the cats, but most realized quickly that it takes too much energy to train them when they're kittens to not shock people or electronics. Daphne mainly gets away with it because she's used to training them and the Amicitia house is both large and old enough they can run around without hurting much.

Gladio does not remember that Luna and Nox are the coeurlakis' real name, and so never makes the connection with Lunafreya and Noctis, though Noctis does because he asked Daphne once about their names, and it makes him more determined to befriend them and give them treats.

18. their opinion on lying, stealing, and killing?

Putting a cut, because of course I always get long on this question...

She's generally against all three, but willing to make exceptions when it comes to protecting the people she loves.

She's come to accept that a little bit of social lying is normal in Insomnia, and is willing to pass along some white lies to help Clarus's operations or to cover for him or the kids if they have to duck out for something, but generally frank honesty is her go-to, especially one on one. She accepts that not everyone feels the same way, but she keeps track of lies she catches and slowly freezes out the habitual liars unless she has figured out a reason for the lies. (Lying about being abused, for instance, is unfortunate but understandable, and she often gives signals that she knows you're lying, but she doesn't hold them against people the same way. At least not after the first one, when she realized with Clarus's help what the cost was. Wisdom sometimes doesn't come easily. Abuse happens in Galahd as well, of course, but she knew fewer people there and generally knew them better, and that made spotting it and dealing with it different.)

Stealing is divided into two types: stealing from within the group and from enemies. Stealing from within the group is either an act of hatred/retribution against someone else or part of community sharing, where things just circulate as needed, especially within a cohort. You just go gather the tupperware that accumulated at your friend's house from the parties when you run low, that sort of thing. Sometimes you leave a riddle teasing them, and that can start decades long jokes and trying to figure out who it was. Stealing from enemies is just part of survival, and usually a demonstration of cleverness. Alternative warfare. In-cohort stealing/sharing gets applied in Insomnia as sharing information, equipment, and jewelry, etc with Aulea and Regis and Cor (if possible). Revenge/Enemy stealing gets applied to getting funding for the Crownsguard and worthy causes from other groups who also want the funding.

Killing beasts and food animals is normal, if sometimes difficult. Killing humans is something she's been able to avoid. She considers defense as generally a good excuse, if it has to happen, and she thinks she would kill for her kids or her family, but she's glad she doesn't really have to think about that much in Insomnia. It's safe, after all. She knows Clarus has killed, and that even though he'd do it again it bothers him, which sort of solidifies her opinion.

28. how do they show that they care about someone? how do they express that they don't like someone?

Daphne is a defender. She defends her loved ones from teasing, from ignorance, from loneliness or feelings of inadequacy. She's always right there, beside or in front of you, when she sees you struggling. She's had to learn to blunt that or do it indirectly in Insomnia, but she's adaptable. For her marriage, this usually takes the form of fighting on the fronts Clarus can't, because he's only one person.

She's also definitely the feeding friend. Food solves a multitude of problems. She doesn't always make the food herself, but she makes sure you get what you need.

For acute offenses, she'll tell you directly what she didn't like and why. If she just doesn't like you and can afford to, she freezes you out. You get no information about her or her family. She ignores your jokes and offered points of connection. She is more willing to defend others against you, even if she doesn't know them, she assumes you probably deserve it. If she can't do this because of politics, she just sabotages whatever of yours she can get away with, sometimes quite pettily. She does try to account for the splash damage, though.

Okay! Not sure how much of that made sense, but it feels right so I'm sticking with it. Daphne is very brave and sure of herself, and even though those traits don't always work out well for her in Insomnia, she learns quickly. She does her best to support her friends and family by fighting for them where she can with what weapons she has. She is also a little bit of a math nerd and is good at accounting and following number trails and uses that to her advantage, especially to balance her tendency toward bluntness.

I think Iris tried to go the proper lady, indirect action route partially because she saw that her mother struggled when she was blunt and had more success being sneaky, and partially to reflect well on her father, who leans into protocol as a general rule, especially after her mother died. She does grow to be more like her mother as she gets older, though, for good or for ill.

Gladio followed Daphne's footsteps of blunt communication with important people in his life (ie Noctis) and just...working around people who don't seem to want to cooperate (also Noctis) but as a younger kid didn't get that bluntness needs kindness as well to temper it, and working around people is for enemies rather than allies, and by the time he learned that had damaged his relationship with Noctis somewhat. As they get older, the boys start to work it out, though. Gladio got his love of reading from his dad, but he enjoyed sitting with his mom while she poured over ledgers, muttering to herself, and reading beside her, and she learned a bit of literature analysis to help him tear the stories apart for what he liked and didn't like, because it was where she could meet him on reading.

Thanks for letting me ramble. I really do enjoy Uncle Clarus, and look forward to writing more of it with you!

#and get some answers #ask games #Uncle Clarus #whumpwriterforlife #<3 #OCs #ffxv #speculative fiction

[darling-archeron]

Hi! I'm kind of new to the fandom and I'm looking for good Feysand fics. Do u have any reccomendations for fics/authors? 🍓

Welcome to the fandom! I've read so many amazing fics by so many amazing people over the years, so this list will by no means be comprehensive, but I'll do my best and it'll definitely get long anyway! I hope I didn't bother anyone by tagging them because I'm not mutuals with everyone on this list.

@illyriantremors on both Ao3 and Tumblr has some of the best fics I've ever read. Unfortunately, they left Tumblr and the fandom several years ago, but they have some serious gems. Some of my favorites include a nearly-complete rewrite of ACOMAF from Rhys's POV, and my personal favorite feysand fic of all time, Beneath the Stars, (And its sequel, Between the Stars!) which is a fantastic modern AU.

@quakeriders on both ao3 and Tumblr has so many good one-shots and some multichapters that live in my head rent-free! One of my faves is her demon!rhys AU; and if i get burned, at least we were electrified.

@writtenonreceipts on both ao3 and tumblr has a lot of great fics with really interesting premises. If you're into throne of glass they also write quite a bit for that fandom!

@themoonthestarsthesuriel on both tumblr and ao3 has so much amazing writing! Their fic The Bet was such a wonderful ride.

@mmvalentine on both ao3 and tumblr writes fantastic feysand AUs. I'm still working my way through a lot of their writing, but their tattoo artist au The Bargain is terrific.

@the-lonelybarricade/TheLonelyBarricade on Ao3 has so much amazing writing for a variety of ships! I recently devoured her A Court of Faded Dreams, which is a really unique concept involving Feyre being sent back in time to the beginning of ACOTAR.

@bookofmirth/ABookandACoffee on Ao3 is one of my favorite sources for levelheaded and sensible opinions in this mess of a fandom, and she is also a talented writer! Her fic Turning A Page is so well written, and she has quite a few oneshots for a variety of ships including Feysand.

@arrowmusings on both ao3 and tumblr has a lot of great content that will absolutely destroy you in the best way possible I promise.

@live-the-fangirl-life has so many wonderful feysand fics, as well as a lot of throne of glass writing if you're in that fandom.

@thesurielships has a ton of feysand fics that I adore! If you're a swiftie she has an evermore songfic collection.

Another writer who left the fandom and is also now inactive (to the best of my knowledge) is @sarahviehmann / sv_you_know_who_I_am on Ao3. Before ACOWAR came out they wrote their own version called A Court of War and Starlight that I personally haven't read, but it was immensely popular around the time. Their modern AU My Fair Warrior is really well done as well.

Since you're familiar with my blog, I'm guessing you've already checked out my writing if any of it interested you, but I'm WordsAndWishes on Ao3.

I also went down by bookmarks list on Ao3 and picked out a few of my favorite fics.

Dear Darling - penpal AU!

Going for Gold - Olympic AU - this one does focus more on Nessian but there is plenty of feysand goodness, also a lot of great sisterly relationships.

It's Nice to Have a Friend - Incomplete but a gem! A Modern AU

The Castle of Dreams - Feyre ends up as a tutor for Rhys's sister who just so happens to be a princess.

Don't Look Back - a hs AU that is so much fun and an absolute ride!

What Happens Under the Stars - feysand finds healing together in a modern au. Feyre and Rhys and their journey are written in a very unique way that I love.

If You Hold Me Close - fake dating at an elucien wedding!

Nox Industries - Rhys is a CEO and Feyre applies for a job at his company.

I just know I'm forgetting a ton of people but I hope this is a good starting place!

#kate talks #acotar #fic rec #feysand

[rolerei]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Final Fantasy XV, Transistor (Video Game) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Crowe Altius/Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret & Ravus Nox Fleuret Characters: Crowe Altius, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Ravus Nox Fleuret Additional Tags: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Crowe Altius Lives, Well… Sorta, Angst, Declarations Of Love, Action & Romance, Transistor AU Summary:

“Hey, Luna… we’re not getting away with this, are we?”

-

When the signing of the peace treaty between the Kingdom of Lucis and Niflheim Empire went awry, Luna accidentally awakened an ancient and powerful entity that was guarded by generations of Lucian rulers - the Transistor - and had to live with the consequences.

(Written for Femslash February 2021)

#ffxv #final fantasy xv #femslash feb 2021 #crowe x luna #transistor au #transistor game #lunafreya nox fleuret #crowe altius

[boysenberrybrew]

7-Year D.A.D.A. Syllabus (Professor!Harry AU)

I’m a sucker for details, so I made up a syllabus for all seven years of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts (as I headcanon Harry would teach it) for the fic I’m writing. Figure that, since I already made it, I might as well put it out there. Feel free to use it — or parts of it — for fanworks of your own.

Two things!

For each year, I list topics to be covered and group some learning objectives or specifications/suggestions under each topic — but they’re not in order. Professor!Harry wouldn’t cover solely one topic at a time, but most likely group topics together and teach the necessary spells as the class went through activities. 

I also made two lists of spells under each Year — one which lists the spells students would learn while in DADA class, and another which lists the spells that students might use in DADA class but which would be learned in either Transfiguration or Charms.

More essay-length notes included at the very end of the Read More, since this is already getting too long.

[Syllabus begins]

Year 1: What kinds of danger are there in the wizarding world? And how do you know something is dangerous?

“...Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain! Why didn’t you show the diary to me, or your mother? A suspicious object like that, it was clearly full of Dark Magic--”

“I d-didn’t know...”

(HP&CS, ch 18)

Topics to Cover:

Detecting Danger

Identify potentially dangerous objects

Identify suspicious situations

Common Encounters

Ghosts

Poltergeists

Hags

Vampires

Ghouls

Doxies

Calling for Help

Shoot red and green sparks from wands

Describe what Aurors are and know when to call them

Accurately operate the Floo network

Physical — Reflexes and Speed

Snowball fights with low visibility, catch a practice snitch

Tag, races

Spells to Learn:

Human-presence Revealing Spell (Homenum Revelio)

Jinx Revealing Spell [not canon, as far as I know, but it should be!]

Green Sparks Spell (Verdillious)

Red Sparks Spell (Vermillious)

Smokescreen Spell (Fumos)

Spells to Use Besides:

Wand-Lighting Charm (Lumos)

Wand-Extinguishing Charm (Nox)

Year 2: How do wizards fight with magic? And what do you do if you’re hit by a spell?

“I don’t think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?”

“I’ve used it against him [...] But if you think it’s beneath you, you can leave,” Harry said.

Smith did not move. Nor did anybody else.

(HP&OotP, ch 18)

Topics to Cover:

Dueling — Introduction

Rules to formal dueling

Stances

Healing — Introduction

Basic principles: clean the wound, stop the blood flow, don’t sleep in case of head injury

Potions and salves interlude: identify which substances are needed in the healing and care of different types of wounds, including bites, stings, lacerations, and blunt trauma

Chocolate

Uncommon Encounters

Banshees

Trolls

Zombies

Pogrebin

Yetis

Kappas

Dragons

Physical — Accuracy and Coordination

Target practice, both spellfire and nonmagical, still and moving

Spells to Learn:

Full Body-Bind Curse (Petrificus Totalus)

Leg-Locker Curse (Locomotor Mortis)

Knockback Jinx (Flipendo)

Trip Jinx [incantation unknown]

Freezing Charm (Immobulus)

Disarming Charm (Expelliarmus)

Spells to Use Besides:

General Counter-Spell (Finite Incantatem)

Dancing Feet Spell (Tarantallegra)

Tickling Charm (Rictusempra)

Year 3: How do you defend yourself against dark creatures? How do you defend when at a disadvantage?

The screwt was inches from him when it froze — he had managed to hit it on its fleshy, shell-less underside. Panting, Harry pushed himself away from it and ran, hard, in the opposite direction — the Impediment Curse was not permanent; the screwt would be regaining the use of its legs at any moment.

(HP&GoF, ch 31)

Topics to Cover:

Dark Creatures

Red Caps

Grindylows

Hinkypunks

Boggarts

Werewolves

Acromantulas

Lethifolds

Dementors

Basiliks

Inferi

Physical — Endurance and Teamwork

Mock-battles in teams

Activity after performing magically-exhausting spells

Obstacle courses

Dueling — Creative Thinking

Use physical surroundings to an advantage

Apply spells to surroundings as distraction, obstacle, or shelter

Charms and Transfiguration encouraged

Create viable strategies in various terrains

Spells to Learn:

Boggart-Banishing Spell (Riddikulus)

Spider Repelling Spell (Arania Exumai)

Patronus Charm (Expecto Patronum) — incorporeal

Freezing Spell (Glacius)

Banishing Charm (Depulso)

Spells to Use Besides:

Fire-Making Spell (Incendio)

Softening Charm (Spongify) 

Lumos Maxima

Severing Charm (Diffindo)

Engorgement Charm (Engorgio)

Shrinking Charm (Reducio)

Avifors [turns small objects into birds] 

Reparifarge [un-transfiguration spell, undo wrong castings]

Locomotion Charm (Locomotor)

Year 4: When is the law on your side? Can you talk your way out of a dangerous situation?

“Cruc—”

“NO!” shouted Hermione [...]

Ron froze, his eyes wide; Ginny stopped trying to stamp on her Slytherin captor’s toes; even Luna looked mildly surprised.

(HP&OotP, ch 32)

Topics to Cover:

Legality

Identify when it is legally advisable to defend using magic

Identify the types of magic that are illegal and why — the Unforgivables, necromancy, muggle-baiting, etc.

Conflict De-escalation

Think critically even while provoked or afraid

Identify hostile entity’s POV and immediate desires, and use these to stall, lie, reason, trap, compromise, bargain, and/or flee

Reason-able Entities

Review: Vampires, hags, banshees

Sphinxes

Giants

Merfolk

Counter-Curses

Understand theory of counter-curses

Describe what counter-spells work for which curses

Physical — Competitive Dueling — Reading an Opponent’s Style

Apply different spellcasting and dueling strategies

Identify strategies used by opponent and counter them

Use opponent’s characteristics and habits against them

Spells to Learn:

Shield Charm (Protego)

Stunning Spell (Stupefy)

Reviving Spell (Rennervate)

Impediment Jinx (Impedimenta)

Reductor Curse (Reducto)

Deprimo [blast hole in floor]

Patronus Charm (Expecto Patronum) — corporeal

Spells to Use Besides:

Summoning Charm (Accio)

Ventus [strong gust of wind]

Year 5: What does DADA look like in the real world?

“You don’t know what it’s like! You — neither of you[...] You think it’s just memorizing a bunch of spells and throwing them at him[...] The whole time you’re sure you know there’s nothing between you and dying except your own — your own brain or guts or whatever — [...] they’ve never taught us that in their classes[...]”

(HP&OotP, ch 15)

Topics to Cover:

Review!!!!

All Common Encounters

Zombies, inferi, banshees, werewolves, boggarts, and hinkypunks

Dueling rules, stances, and common strategies

Legality

Counter-curse theory and practical

Knockback Jinx, Disarming Charm, Boggart-Banishing Spell, Shield Charm, Stunning Spell, Impediment Jinx, and Patronus Charm

Passive Defense

Understand warding theory

Describe the use and purpose of various wards

Physical — Competitive Dueling — Fighting as a Team

Apply all previous Physical and Dueling objectives in a team competition, in both dueling platforms and challenging terrains

Survival Skills

Apply all previous knowledge to survive various dangerous hypothetical situations

Student presentation!

Spells to Learn:

Salvio hexia [deflects hexes in an area]

Cave inimicum [conceals presence within an area so caster can’t be seen, heard, or smelled]

Intruder Charm [alarms caster]

Caterwauling Charm [loud alarm]

Shield Charm variants (Protego Maxima, Protego Totalum, Protego Horribilis)

Patronus Charm (Expecto Patronum) — corporeal against pseudo-dementor

Spells to Use Besides:

[literally any spell they can think of that might help them in the hypothetical situations posed]

Year 6: What does dark magic look like? What can it do? And what can we do against it?

“The Dark Arts,” said Snape, “are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal[...] You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible[...] Your defenses,” said Snape, a little louder, “must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo...”

(HP&HBP, ch 9)

Topics to Cover:

Dark Arts Case Study — Curses

Students choose a specific dark curse/spell and research how it’s been used in the past, what it does, how it works, and most importantly, how to counter it

Curse-Breaking

Recognize common curses, identify them on objects or locations

Know how to remove said curses

Safely handle the cursed object or location while removing the curse

Healing — Spells

Know when to use foundational healing spells and in what order

Understand the danger of incorrectly-cast healing spells and avoid such situations [not canon, but headcanon of mine]

Dueling — Nonverbal Casting

Emphasis on being able to cast the General Counter-Spell, Shield Charm, and Disarming Charm nonverbally with confidence

Introduction to spells that work better when nonverbal

Spells to Learn:

Episkey [heals small lacerations]

Anapneo [unblocks airway]

Bandaging Charm (Ferula)

Vulnera Sanetur [heals serious wounds]

Confundus Charm (Confundo)

Patronus Charm (Expecto Patronum) — nonverbal

[ideally, I’d list curse-breaking spells here, but I can’t find any canon ones, so... insert spells that break curses here]

Students will inevitably learn dark curses, though they are not expected to (are in fact, expected not to) use them

Spells to Use Besides:

Tergeo [wipes clean]

Switching Spell [incantation unknown]

Silencing Spell (Silencio)

Year 7: How have wizards used dark magic? And how do you defend against esoteric magic?

It’s gone wrong, he thought… it’s drowned… please… please let it be dead…

But then, though the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron […]

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

(HP&GoF, ch 32)

Topics to Cover:

Review!!!!

Dueling strategies and nonverbal casting

All Dark Creatures

Counter-curses

Curse-Breaking

Passive Defense

Shield Charm, Disarming Charm, Boggart-Banishing Spell, Stunning Spell, and Patronus Charm all nonverbal, plus [spells that break curses, whatever your headcanon is for them]

Dueling — Nonverbal and Competitive

Strictly nonverbal competitive dueling, applying all past lessons

Dark Arts Case Study — Dark Wizards

Students choose a dark witch or wizard from history and research how they gained influence, what sorts of dark magic they were known for, and how one might defend oneself against them

Mind Magic

Understand Legilimency and how to apply Occlumency against it (practical challenge optional and with consent)

Identify being under the influence of mind-altering curses and potions (including the Imperius Curse, Confundus Charm, love potions, and Veritaserum) and practice techniques to fight against them (practical challenge only with consent, highly encouraged)

Understand the theory of possession and how to throw it (no practical)

Spells to Learn: 

Patronus Charm (Expecto Patronum) — completely mastered

Students will inevitably learn dark curses, though they are not expected to (are in fact, expected not to) use them

Spells to Use Besides:

Focus continues to be using previously-known spells nonverbally [so, once again, any spells can be under this category]

[Syllabus ends]

Notes

When making this, I tried to keep in mind

What Harry, based on his life experiences, might believe students need to learn

How difficult spells are to learn, canonically

What the Ministry expects Harry to teach them (and what will therefore be in their OWLs and NEWTs)

The purpose of the DADA class in general, and

How the rest of the classes in Hogwarts have been impacted by the yearly change in DADA professor

What do students need to learn?

The closest we can come to answering that first question is Harry’s experiences teaching Dumbledore’s Army. Unfortunately, we don’t see much of these lessons. What we do see tends to be combat-oriented — Harry tells the DA about a spell and then gives advice on their casting as they practice on each other. It’s all practical, no theory at all except for the books on the shelves in the Room of Requirement, and nothing on magical creatures (though this might be because he felt Lupin had already done a good job on that front).

Harry’s lessons to the DA were cut short, besides, just as they had reached the Patronus Charm — so we don’t know for sure what Harry would have gone on to teach them. I like to think that, if he was the professor, the answer would have just been — everything.

Everything he knows. Everything he’s used to defend himself.

He knows first hand that it’s not just about knowing the spells, that there’s a lot more to surviving than being a good duelist — he even says so outright when discussing the DA with Ron and Hermione. And I think that, as he continued to teach, his lessons would begin to reflect that.

The first thing that comes to mind — besides spells and combat — is physical activity. Learn how to dodge, get used to running, hone your reflexes, etc. DADA would be the PE of Hogwarts with Harry as professor. The second things that came to mind were wards and healing — things that are, admittedly, used far more creatively and often in fanfiction than in canon smh. Still, the canon use of them is there, and Harry relied on that knowledge during his camping trip from hell, so.

What’s on the OWLs and NEWTs?

Apart from just the things Harry would want to teach as part of DADA, there’s also whatever the Board of Governors expect him to teach — what will be on the OWLs and NEWTs.

Sometimes (most times? depending on your interpretation of Harry) this coincides with what Harry would teach anyway. However, I explain in this post why I think the Ministry would want to emphasize defense against magical creatures. I also imagine they would want the Legality section above taught at some point, though we know Harry found it horrifically boring in the fifth book.

The Review!!!! section in Year 5 is comprised mostly of whatever I deemed the minimum a student should know to not immediately die by the time they step out of Hogwarts + whatever the Ministry might want all students to know + the bare bones of defensive spells that one might use against a wizard.

All students take a DADA OWL because it is a required class for the first five years. At this point, students who are not interested in the subject and/or do not need a DADA OWL for their intended career will drop the subject. I tried to reflect this on the syllabus by making NEWT years more specialized — on the assumption that careers that require a DADA NEWT will also require specialization within the field.

How difficult is this class?

Harry would be a demanding teacher. I know a lot of people headcanon him as the fun teacher — and I do think a lot of his lessons would be fun, and he would try to make them fun — but I can easily imagine him getting annoyed when people don’t take his class seriously. The DA was voluntary, and everyone there wanted to learn and practice defensive spells; a lot of children in a time of peace would not see it that way. Many would drag their feet at the physical activity and complain about the hard work, the hard spells, and when are we ever going to use this anyway?

So I do think that, even when he isn’t actively trying to push his students, Harry’s DADA class would be hard. He sees himself as an average wizard — even though his teachers called him bright, even though people tell him he’s exceptionally good at defense — he thinks he’s nothing special, and he knows that if he can do it, you can too! So yes, he’d have high expectations and his class would be especially difficult if you’re not that into it.

Which is why some of the spells above are listed one year (or more!) earlier than the DADA class in canon presented them. Not that many, honestly. (The starkest difference is Homenum Revelio, which I listed as a Year 1 spell, but we only see Hermione use it canon in Deathly Hallows. But hey — canon spell difficulty isn’t mentioned; it could very easily be the case that Hermione simply hadn’t known the spell until then, or hadn’t thought to use it.)

We just don’t know very much about what makes a spell difficult. A recurring spell throughout this syllabus is the Patronus Charm — it’s listed under Spells to Learn in Year 3 and then continues being listed all the way through Year 7. That’s because it’s supposed to be an especially difficult spell (”beyond NEWT level”)... and Harry mastered it in his third year. So of course — if you’re following my interpretation of Harry — he would start teaching it in Year 3.

He might make allowances, given that apart from him, we only know of a few people who managed to cast it before their fifth year (Luna, Ginny, while in Dumbledore’s Army) and not while suffering the effects of a dementor, at that. So next to every reiteration of the Patronus Charm in the syllabus, I included what I think would be Harry’s minimum expectation of success.

DADA vs. Hogwarts

Why is the Knockback Jinx canonically taught in Charms class? This is complete speculation, but Flitwick (and maybe McGonagall) probably had to pick up the slack after a few years of the DADA professor position being cursed.

As the years went by and as Hogwarts expended all the competent teachers and scared away the rest, OWLs and NEWTs continued demanding the same results. Student performance on these tests must have steadily dropped, and I think spells that would have usually been covered by the DADA professor gradually shifted unto Charms class.

That might explain why Harry learned some offensive magic in Charms class instead of DADA — but the only reason I’m mentioning this right now is because I included a lot of charms in the Spells to Learn list that I’m quite sure were canonically covered in Charms class, but which I wanted Harry to cover earlier that Flitwick did. Oh well.

Concluding thoughts

This took way longer than I thought it would. Just... the sheer amount of time spent referencing the wiki, the Lexicon, the books... I checked the wiki’s specific references, too.

...But, hey, I had fun thinking about Harry Potter.

#harry potter #hp meta #hp headcanon #hp fanfiction #defense against the dark arts #professor harry #text #headcanon #listen... if you read all the way to the end... you're a warrior #long post #yes i DO take constructive criticism #talk to me about your prof. harry headcanons #and btw #i would be ECSTATIC if someone used this syllabus as a reference for their own fanfic #because then that would mean i didn't do ALL THIS WORK for JUST ONE FIC #(my own) #i mean it would be fine #but i am sharing it for a reason #(and that reason is selfish - I want more prof. harry au fics) #please #thanks #and you're welcome

[absolutelynoct]

Chapters: 17/17 Fandom: FFXV - Fandom, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XV Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia Characters: Prompto Argentum, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus Amicitia, Ignis Scientia, Cor Leonis, Cid Sophiar, Cindy Aurum, Regis Lucis Caelum, Verstael Besithia, Ardyn Izunia, Iedolas Aldercapt, Loqi Tummelt, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Ravus Nox Fleuret, Clarus Amicitia, young iedolas aldercapt, Somnus Lucis Caelum, Aranea Highwind, Nyx Ulric Additional Tags: AU, mermaid au, merman au, Gay, Yaoi, True Love, More tags to be added, Fluff, Love at First Sight, Sex, Little Mermaid Elements, Promptis - Freeform, Gladnis, Niflheim, Under the Sea, gralea, Singing, Sirens, siren au, Siren, Angst, Domestic Violence, Assault, Cute, Prompto Being Cute, prompto is always cute, interpersonal violence, Sea, Ocean, ardyn has tentacles in this, Tentacles, Trauma Summary:

Mermaid/Merman AU!

Noctis is a prince and a land dweller who enjoys an easy life with his sworn shield, Gladio, and his advisor, Ignis, by his side. Betrothed to Lunafreya, he has an inquisitive mind and is always wondering if there is more to his life that he is missing. Prompto is a lonely merman with a rare fin color that is coveted by some and feared by most. He is fascinated by the life above the surface, even though it is expressly forbidden by the King. During a daring rescue that puts his own life in jeopardy, Prompto finds that the moment he decided to ever venture beyond the surface may have given him more than he bargained for... And the sea witch, Ardyn, is ready and waiting to take advantage of it.

Definitely has some Little Mermaid feels, but I've thrown some twists in there because I didn't want to exactly follow that plot!

For mermay I’m being a bit lazy since I’m working on so many projects at once, but I wanted to share my fic Part of Your World as my contribution to the mermaid/siren genre! I hope those who have read it already like it, and those who haven’t read it and decide to like it as well! It was fun to create some plot twists in there! 

#ffxv #final fantasy 15 #final fantasy xv #mermay #ff15 #promptis #gladnis #prompto #noctis #gladio #ignis #prompto argentum #promtis #noctis lucis caelum #gladiolus #gladio amiticia #gladiolus amiticia #ignis scientia #amitiel writes #amitiel on ao3 #mermaid au #siren au #ffxv fanfic #ff15 fanfic #ffxv au

[mummykink]

Chapters: 35/35 Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia Characters: Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Ravus Nox Fleuret, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Foster Care, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Past Character Death, Mental Health Issues, Childhood Trauma, cursing, Family Feels, Eating Disorders, Slow Burn, Running Away, Child!Luna, Child!noctis, child!prompto, Kidfic Series: Part 1 of Patchwork Family Summary: Ignis Scientia is a successful restaurant owner at thirty three years old, owning three separate high end businesses. Finally, he thinks, he can dedicate some time to more personal endeavors. Prompto Argentum has gone through four homes in half the time, and he doesn’t have much hope for the fifth. It doesn’t help that he’s now eleven years old, and no one ever wants an older kid, even if they think they do. Gladiolus Amicitia is thirty four years old, and thinks he’s doing pretty good at life. The flower shop he co-owns with his sister is doing well, and—Okay, his adopted kid might be a pain in the ass, but he isn’t a criminal, so that counts for something? Noctis Caleum-Amicitia is eleven years old and so, so tired. If his adopted family wouldn’t let him withdraw into a shell of himself, he might as well be the biggest pain in the ass they’ve ever known. Or, That one domestic found-family AU no one asked for.

#I asked for it and I am happy #final fantasy #I’m so soft #‘I’ll be an old man and still be calling him my baby #UVU #OWO #UWU #ALL THE WUWS #gladiolus amicitia #ignis scientia #prompto argentum #noctis lucis caelum #ravus nox fleuret #lunafreya nox fleuret #gladnis #fanfic #fic rec

[bladesandstars]

100 Ways Challenge - Prompt Fill #93

I found an inspirational song that dovetailed really nicely with this prompt. I had a lot of fun writing this - thanks for prompting me!

Prompt 93: “I believe in you.”

Fandom: FFXV

Pairing: Corqi (Cor/Loqi)

For: @asoeiki

Rating: T

No Warnings Apply

Mafia/Organized Crime/Modern AU

I don’t fuckin’ believe in people, but I believe in you

The club is dark, and throbbing with music. It’s been this way for the last several hours, and the incorrigible son of the boss and his friends passed drunk a long time ago. They’ll probably leave together, and Cor nods to Altius to tail them until they’re back safely. She shoots him a look that says you owe me one, but nods brusquely, giving an apologetic glance to the vivacious redhead she’s been grinning at. Crowe lets out a resigned sigh and slips something into the redhead’s hand with a sideways smile and a shrug. The redhead arches a fiery eyebrow and winks, then leans over to whisper something to Crowe that makes her blush. Cor laughs, and drains his whiskey. Making Altius blush is no small feat, and he almost regrets putting her on duty for the night.

Duty calls for them all, and Cor looks again at the back room where Regis and Clarus are engaged in a high-stakes “card game”—really, it’s a negotiation over territory. He’d seen the various captains arrive with their protective forces, but Cindy had made sure each had left weapons at the door. Cor exhales. Three in one room is enough, but adding the fourth was a big risk. Fucking Queens. The waiter comes by, and Cor motions for another. He’s well within his limits for tonight, even if shit goes down. Clarus has assured him it won’t, but Cor isn’t one to relax, especially in these circumstances. The door to the room in question is in his line of sight, and he knows down to the number of seconds how long it’ll take him to get there if he’s needed.

He catches sight of Nox Fleuret making the same assessment, standing idly and trying to look charming, and gives him a look of grudging acknowledgement that isn’t quite a smile.

Cor watches Noctis entertain guests from the VIP area. It’s Amicitia who’s entertaining, really, pouring drinks and flashing that grin of his, drawing people in, making them feel comfortable. Noctis just blinks luminous blue eyes from his seat, clinking the occasional glass, riding on his delicate good looks like he always does. Scientia meets Cor’s eyes, all business, sharp gaze flicking around the room. The usual. Argentum is—well, at this point in the night there’s no graceful way to say it. He’s all over Noctis, and laying a claim that’s obvious to onlookers.  Lunafreya is doing her best to bookend Gladio’s social performance, but she’s clearly distracted by Noctis’ hand, dangling casually between her knees. Cor watches a spiky blond head dip close, styled hair tangling with Noctis’ long, dark strands, and a hand passes its way into Noctis’ unbuttoned shirt. Cor’s pretty sure how this night is going to end for them, and he’s glad he had the foresight to send Crowe after them.

Another diminutive blond approaches Cor, but without Argentum’s nervous energy. No, this one is all confidence—too much confidence, really, for someone who’s essentially behind enemy lines. He’s slim, but graceful, and almost obnoxiously self-possessed.

Not expected for anyone from the Aldercapts to be at a club this far north of Midtown. Not wise either, he ponders. They’re not one of the invited families, and they’re quite frankly playing out of their league here, in his opinion.

A deep, slow bass note rumbles, and Loqi’s chin tips back just the slightest bit as he walks - swaggers, really - over to where Cor’s sitting. Cor’s eyebrows pucker ever so slightly, wondering at the display of confidence here. He’s here alone, the only one from their group. Why so confident? Is he carrying? Shouldn’t be, with their own people at the door. Cor will have to have a chat with Cindy about that later.

Loqi’s head turns, pale-blond strands wafting over his cheek. Cor follows the graceful line of his neck over to where he’s looking, and hears the low ripple of a woman’s laugh from the dance floor. It’s unmistakably Highwind, and she appears to be intoxicated. Cor narrows his eyes in skepticism, and notices her crimson-tipped nails dug into the denim-clad ass of…

Ulric. Supposedly his second-in-command tonight, and he appears well and truly distracted. Cor meets his eyes, wordlessly communicating that there better be a goddamned good reason for this, and is treated to one of those ridiculously charismatic grins, complete with dimple. Cor rolls his eyes. At least Ulric seems to have some of his wits about him, as he leads the swaying Highwind off the floor. Nyx affects a drunken laugh himself, but his sharp glances toward the exits and behind the bar give him away. Cor does the math, quickly; Tummelt’s not without allies here, apparently, but unless this is an act, Aranea is no good to him. Cor doesn’t put pretense past her, though, and it becomes one of the many calculations he’s making tonight, seemingly impassive in the comfortable chair on the balcony overlooking the dance floor.

Cor accepts the refreshed drink from the waiter with a nod and a $20, and swirls it around idly, more as a fidget than a necessity. He’s surprised at himself; he’s not usually a fidgeter, but there are too many unknowns in the club tonight.  

As he takes a sip of the whiskey, rolling it over his tongue appreciatively, another one of those unknowns makes its presence known again. Loqi takes another step forward, and it’s enough for Cor to feel the heat of him, enough to smell the clean, assertive green scent of his cologne. Cor looks—up, which isn’t something he’s used to with Loqi. He tosses back more of the whiskey in his glass. He doesn’t get up from the comfortable leather chair, though, and as he’s looking over to check on Noctis, Loqi inexplicably starts moving to the beat.

Cor moves his ankle from the opposite knee it’s resting on, and Tummelt takes the opportunity to slot himself in between Cor’s knees, without invitation. Cor feels his eyebrows dart upward in the smallest tick of expressed surprise, but he allows it. Probably against his better judgment, but he allows it.

Cor would be annoyed, but he admires Loqi’s confidence. It’s not like he hasn’t had a lap dance before, but he’s hardly expected one from one of the lieutenants of Staten Island.  That’s fine—something deep in Cor’s chest warms and relaxes at the sinuous twist of the man in front of him, and he feels a slow smile creep across his lips in spite of himself.

Slim hips undulate between Cor’s thighs, and for the first time tonight, he just takes a moment to enjoy. The music rolls over him, and his gaze travels up, sliding over the still-swaying hips, up Loqi’s narrow torso, and lingering on the collarbone that’s barely exposed inside his unbuttoned shirt collar.

Cor wants to grasp those hips in both hands, retreat into a shadowy corner, and finish what this tease of an adversary seems to have started. He doesn’t, of course, but mentally notes the desire.

“Why are you here?” Cor sets his drink down. “There are about four people waiting to take you down right now.” He gestures, vaguely, at the various corners of the nightclub.

Loqi grabs at Cor’s hand as he waves it, too quickly for Cor to jerk it back, and suddenly Cor finds he doesn’t want to. Loqi takes the back of Cor’s hand and drags it slowly down the curve of his jaw. Cor feels soft skin and evening stubble both, and draws in a sharp breath as Loqi leans impossibly closer. There’s a pause that hovers, indefinite.

“Two weeks.” The whisper feathers over Cor’s captive fingertips, almost too softly to be heard.  

“What?” Cor’s grip on the hand grasping his own tightens in surprise.

“Aldercapt’s making a move on Lucis Caelum territory. Two weeks from today. I thought you should know.”

His voice rasps a little, and Cor tips his head, confused.

“Why tell me? Why rat your boss out? You got a death wish?”

Loqi laughs, and tosses his head back. Cor’s eyes follow the fall of hair back, and he’s distracted again, until Loqi leans close again, ghosting Cor’s lips with his own.

“I don’t want more bloodshed. If anyone can avoid it, it’s you. I believe in you.” One slight shoulder shrugs, and gin-scented breath tickles the skin of Cor’s lips before Loqi withdraws in one swift motion.

For once, floored, Cor stares after narrow hips swaying their way through the crowd. A quick jerk of Loqi’s head toward Aranea, and she disentangles herself from Nyx, as alert as Cor suspected she’d been this whole time.

Cor narrows his eyes, picks up the tumbler again, and takes another sip. The whiskey burns in his chest—or is it the memory of this mysterious lieutenant? He’s not sure. But he is sure that the next time he finds himself in Aldercapt territory, he’s got a debt to repay.

Cor shifts in his seat and waits for the rest of the evening to play out. The music continues to pulse. The smells of clean green cedar and gin, and the blurred traces of tossed pale-blond hair, haunt the edges of his consciousness until morning.

Read on AO3

#corqi #ffxv #cor leonis #loqi tummelt #hope writes #hope's 100 ways #mafia au #nyc

[dominodebt]

nox ruit

“I am at the end of my father’s bloodline / A legacy on its deathbed” -Ashe Vernon

(Helena Wayne is stranded in a parallel Gotham—one where her parents are alive, she was never born, and there are quite a few more bats than she remembers. AU.)

dcu | 6,559 | ao3

There are a handful of hereditary traits in the Wayne bloodline.

Height, for one—at twenty-one, Helena doubts she has any growth spurts left in her, but she already stands at a respectable five feet, ten inches. It's dwarfed by the looming presence of her father's form, but in a pair of dangerous heels, Helena can split the difference.

Blue eyes are another. The opaque lenses in Helena's old domino mask had not only offered her infrared and nightvision, but concealed arguably one of her most recognizable features—irises to shame a diamond's own blue.

"Like a pair of stolen sapphires," Mother used to joke, ruffling her hair fondly, and Father would snort from his desk, not even looking up from his paperwork to quip back, "Why do they have to be stolen, Selina?"

The list goes on—slightly upturned nose, sharp jawline, high cheekbones, deathly pale skin that Mother's darker complexion had overruled. There is undoubtedly a Wayne look, and Helena fits it to a T.

But beyond the physical, there is a unifying trait passed down from generation to generation in the Wayne family—unseen but no less potent—and that is the unique ability to get mixed up in the most fucking ridiculous, stupid shitshows known to mankind.

Such as the one she's in now.

Helena loiters like a ghost in the shadows of an alleyway, one hand on the curve of her crossbow, an annoyed cut to her jaw as she tries to figure out where the fuck she is.

She knows where the fuck she's supposed to be—Apokolips, the hellish, high-tech industrial wasteland that Darkseid rules over. Since his invasion of her home—since the death of her parents and near-every member of the Justice League—Helena has been working nonstop to find a way to take the fight to him. If she can find a way to lure Darkseid back to his godforsaken planet, she has the power to keep him there.

Well, she thinks she does, anyway. Constantine and Zatanna had sworn up and down that the little plan they'd hatched would totally work, we swear but Helena tends to take up Father's point of view when it comes to magic and those who use it, and that point of view is miles and miles of mistrust.

Then Darkseid had wiped out a quarter of the people living in Old Gotham with a sweep of his hand, and Helena had gotten on board with the pair's shaky-at-best plan pretty fucking quick.

But none of that explains why she's currently in an alley at what—by her estimation—is ass o' clock at night. She leans back against the graffiti-laden brick, finally sliding her weapon back in its holster. As big a fan as she is of problems that can be solved with a crossbow bolt, she knows that's not what she's faced with now.

Her instinct is to say she's still in Gotham—that the interdimensional transportation method that had been given the ungodly unfortunate name of Boom Tube—had failed. Their plan failed. She failed.

And while Helena Wayne is usually first in line when it comes to blaming Helena Wayne, even she feels the need to take a breath. Give herself space—perspective. She can handle this—she's the goddamn Huntress.

Even thinking the name of her chosen mantle has her standing up a little straighter.

So she's not in Apokolips—fine. That much is obvious. But she's still somewhere and despite the odd sense of familiarity granted by this dingy back alley, she knows she's not in Gotham. She can't be. Nights there have been different ever since Darkseid came—and Helena knows in her bones that genocidal alien monstrosity isn't anywhere near her.

Taking a breath, Helena pushes off the wall, easing out of the shadows and feeling more like Father with every step. When she'd run with him as Robin, she'd been so damn chipper about the whole thing—so bright and shining and eager to please. She used to love Gotham's nights, sprinting across rooftops flanked by her parents, utterly unconquerable.

And then dawn never broke, and night lagged and loitered until Helena quite forgot what daybreak looked like. Her parents passed like so many others, and the mantle of Robin faded with them, leaving Helena behind to gather up the ashes and from them fashion the Huntress—a dark, distorted reflection of herself left lingering in her father's footsteps.

Still, she moves out of the alley, forcibly reminding herself that she isn't Batman as she begins to carefully pick her way along the street the alleyway empties into. The familiarity is blinding—everywhere she looks reminds her of Gotham, and it only frustrates her further as she continues along, boots scuffing along cracked concrete.

She wonders if homesickness is clouding her judgment, but she can't really be homesick for a place she was in not five minutes ago, right? Besides, it looks like Gotham—the feeling is just off.

She suddenly goes very still.

Has she gone back in time?

The thought draws mixed emotions. On the one hand—elation. Gotham before Darkseid is all she's ever wanted and exactly what she's never allowed herself to pine for—an impossibility impossibly out of reach.

Her hope—in typical Wayne fashion—quickly falls apart, reassembling itself into doubt and scrutiny. Stranger things have happened, it's true, but possibility is not probability. Just because it can happen doesn't mean it has. Members of the Justice League have dabbled with time before, but those were very precise instances prompted by very precise circumstances. One does not just stumble ten years into the past.

She hears footfalls far before she suspects the owners of those footfalls thinks she does, and coolly holds her place, tilting her head to the side just enough to sharpen her hearing.

Two sets, two figures. One lighter on their feet than the other. Low, anxious chatter shared between them. Helena holds her breath, listening.

"Hey!" a masculine voice calls. "What the fuck you doin' over there?"

Helena subtly shifts her weight, evening out the distribution, preparing to move in any direction.

"Listen, this is our turf, alright?" a high voice—rather youthful as well. Helena frowns. "If you wanted in, you shoulda been here when they were carvin' it up months ago."

A gun cocks, and Helena narrows her eyes.

She may not know exactly where she is, but she's under no illusions as to who she is, or what her purpose in this life is.

She throws herself into a back handspring, twisting midair and kicking out with her leg at the peak of her arc with a satisfying crunch from the heel of her boot as the woman's face snaps sideways, jaw thoroughly broken.

Helena's landing—spectacular as it is—lasts only a moment before she's rolling away as the man's gun cracks twice, splintering the concrete where she'd been a moment before.

Batman typically fought with batarangs. Catwoman favored the whip.

Their daughter had taken to neither of them.

Her hand-crossbow is drawn in a moment and before the man can reorient his shot, Helena's taken hers.

Two bolts—one for his wrist, one for his shoulder—and the man rears away from her with a howl of pain, dropping the gun in favor of curling in on himself, cradling his wounded arm as he dissolves into explicit babbling, eyes wide with pain and shock.

Helena dives forward to catch the falling weapon—her first night patrolling as Robin she'd let a gun drop and it'd discharged at a civilian—and turns the maneuver into a somersault, using her momentum to throw herself forward and knock the man to the ground, effectively pinning him beneath her, forcing him to look down the barrel of the gun he'd held on her the last time he'd blinked.

She offers a jaunty smile as she settles astride him, adrenaline making her feel like a bit of a shit, as it always does.

"First time getting hit with a crossbow bolt?" she asks pleasantly, deftly disassembling the gun and throwing the guts of it off to the side, disinterested. She notes that his eyes have drifted away from her face to settle on something over her shoulder, and she arches an eyebrow.

Helena lifts her crossbow and—without looking—fires off another bolt directly behind her. The woman with a busted jaw goes down hard in a flurry of curses as the shot hits her just above the left knee.

She holsters the crossbow and notes the man's attention is most definitely back on her. "You were saying?" she asks, blowing an errant black curl out of her eyes with a quick huff.

His chest is still heaving, and Helena accidentally-on-purpose shifts forward, planting her hands on both of his shoulders and maybe applying a bit more pressure than needed on the one with ten inches of razor-sharp aluminum sticking out of it. He hisses with pain and she smirks.

"Ow, yes, okay? Yes. Who the fuck—a crossbow? Really? What the fuck?"

"Effective, you have to admit," she tells him conversationally.

"Who the fuck are you then?" he snarls at her, remarkably aggressive considering the position he's in. "Huh? You don't have a goddamn bat on your chest so you're—what?" His eyes sweep her uniform, taking in her mask, utility belt, and the stark white cross that almost burns against the pitch of her suit. "Fuckin' cross girl?"

Helena's eyebrow climbs higher as she digests this information.

One: Batman—or some masked vigilante with an aforementioned goddamn bat on their chest—exists in this place she's in now.

Two: His inability to identify her means that for whatever reason, Huntress does not exist in this place she's in now.

Three: Criminals still have abysmal imaginations. Cross girl? Really?

Still, she has a situation to settle before she tries to solve anything else, and looks around for something to restrain her would-be gunman with. When a quick sweep of her surroundings leaves her empty-handed, she just sighs, leveling a look at him.

"Look, we're in Gotham, right?"

He pulls a face. "Are you serious? Of course we're—where the hell else would we be?" He squints at her then. "What are you, patrolling drunk? Is that why you forgot your bat? Huh? Grabbed the wrong Halloween costume?"

Helena rolls her eyes, flexing her fingers where she grips the man's shoulders and drawing a low string of "owowowowow ok-ay," from him as she does.

"I'm going to leave you and your friend here for the GCPD to find," she tells him, eyebrow still lifted seriously. "And I'm going to leave my crossbow bolts, because the alternative is a bit messier than what I'm in the mood for right now. But if you make a break for it, the next one's going ten inches deep right here."

She taps him lightly between the eyes. He flinches.

"Good, now that that's settled." Helena flashes another cheery smile as she swings off of him, allowing all of her weight to bear down on his gut for one moment and smirking as the air is forced from his lungs in a strangled wheeze before rising fluidly to her feet.

She runs a gloved hand through her hair to settle her curls, idly tossing her gaze around as she decides her next move.

"Well, who are you then?"

Helena freezes, looking back over her shoulder. The man hasn't moved—because he can't or because he won't, she can't quite tell—and he glares up at her with all the indignity he can muster.

Considering the events of the last three-and-a-half minutes, he can muster quite a bit.

Helena peers down at him. "Pardon?"

He gestures at her profile with his good arm. "Your name, you masked jackass. Or are you leavin' it up to me? Because I'm more than happy to—"

"Huntress." She cuts him off coolly and holsters her crossbow. "My name is Huntress."

"Never heard of ya," pipes up the woman from a few feet away, words jumbled due to her busted jaw. Helena throws her an annoyed glance and sees she's hauled herself up to sit against they alley wall, content to wait for the GCPD to roll up, apparently.

"Well then, I'll rent out some fucking billboards next time, alright?" Helena snaps back.

"I liked Cross Girl better, to be honest," the man tells her, drawing Helena's gaze again. He shifts on the ground, preparing to settle in. Clearly, this is not the first time they've been apprehended and told to wait for the police. He nods helpfully to her suit. "Suits your costume better, too." He mimes the sign of the cross in the air, like some kind of ragged, back alley Pope.

Helena smiles back tightly. She's in hell. The Boom Tube took her to fucking hell. Unbelievable.

"I'll take it under advisement," she tells him stiffly.

She leaves the pair to their own devices—after convincing herself that shooting him again would be a waste of a crossbow bolt—and slinks off to ponder her situation.

She isn't in hell, as charming a thought as that might be. Gotham isn't hell to her—it couldn't possibly be. Even her Gotham, the one under Darkseid's thumb, is still where she wants to be, above anywhere else. She loves Gotham more than anything else—can't even picture her city without herself in it.

So why did neither of those delinquents recognize her?

Maybe the Helena of this Gotham never became Huntress? That makes sense, actually. She took up that mantle because her parents had been killed and she'd needed a new identity—she couldn't be Robin if Batman was dead.

So, if this version of her never became Huntress, then this version of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle-Wayne must still be alive, meaning she's still—

A whisper—the softest hiss of leather-on-concrete—has Helena whirling around, crossbow drawn, lips pulling back in a snarl at whoever has the goddamn nerve to try and sneak up on someone they just watched take down an armed criminal with hardly any effort—

Helena's eyes go wide behind her mask. What the fuck—

A boy stands before her—and she truly does mean boy. She can't see him too clearly—his features are cast into shadow by the hood of his cloak, and a domino mask guards his eyes—but it's obvious he clears five feet by the narrowest of margins

Her eyes rove over his suit—familiar shades of scarlet, gold, and emerald—and settle on the patch over his heart that bears a capital R.

Helena's world goes sideways.

Robin. Holy shit.

Helena can only stare—crossbow still trained on him, though she doubts she could muster enough brainpower to make her finger pull the trigger.

A boy. A boy in the middle of this maybe-Gotham, in the Robin uniform. No—in her Robin uniform.

Helena's cold shock melts to white-hot anger in a moment.

"Why are you dressed like Robin?" she snaps, taking a step forward and milking her height for all it's worth and more as she looms over him. She's grown to be so much like her father—probably too much, if she's being wholly honest with herself—but with some boy wearing her goddamn uniform she's not exactly worried about that right now.

He sneers at that, and she watches—stares, really, Wonder Woman herself could come waltzing in from stage fucking left and Helena's not sure she'd be inclined to redirect her gaze—as his hand disappears behind his back to reach for—

I'm sorry, is that a fucking sword?

"Because I am Robin."

Helena is a woman who has seen shit—she watched her mother die in her father's arms, then watched her father die in her own arms. She'd seen Darkseid march into Gotham—her city, her home—and kill sixty-odd civilians in a heartbeat. She's been locked in Arkham Asylum, pursued through The Narrows, beaten within an inch of her life in the Burnley District. She's been witness to countless assassinations, deadly explosions, acts of terrorism—for god's sake, she had a ringside seat to the death of fucking Superman.

And yet—and yet—the cruelty that coats this boy's simple sentence gives even her pause.

Helena's mouth is bursting to speak but her mind is absolutely blank. She is completely thrown by the course of events that have transpired and doesn't quite know what to do about it.

She works her jaw for a moment, sizing this—her mind flinches to even think it—Robin up as she tries to figure out how to salvage the situation.

"And you are?"

His voice is totally void of any kind of Gotham accent—not the arch lilt of the Diamond Distract or the coarse drawl of Crime Alley. It makes Helena frown.

"I'm Huntress," she tells him shortly—because fuck she has to say something—and for once she's wishing her chosen costume offered a bit more identity protection. It never mattered in her Gotham—a place where Batman was dead and the world teetered on the brink of annihilation—the line between Helena Wayne and The Huntress hardly existed. No one cared if Bruce Wayne's orphaned daughter prowled around at night with a crossbow—they only cared if they survived to see morning.

And so few did, these days.

But now, with this boy staring at her incredulously from behind his domino mask—Helena has to catch herself from thinking her domino mask—she longs for a cowl to vanish beneath. She settles for sinking deeper into her cloak, allowing the garment to swallow her form as she regards him coolly.

"You seem dissatisfied," she notes, arching an eyebrow at the boy's continued silence. His uniform isn't quite like hers had been, she notes, unsure how that information makes her feel. She'd never been allowed a hood, and she certainly never carried a sword.

"Tt," the boy scoffs. "I suppose that's not the worst moniker I've ever heard."

Helena's eyebrows climb—if possible—higher. Because one: rude. So rude. Unbelievably rude. Two: what ten year-old has the word moniker in their lexicon?

"I wouldn't throw stones, Boy Wonder," Helena replies icily, because she has no idea who this tiny bastard is—a younger Dick Grayson? No way—but she knows it's insulting and she's banking on there being enough similarities between the Gotham she knows and the Gotham she's in for it to sting properly.

His expression sours magnificently. Helena tries not to feel too proud. He is still a ten year-old.

"I'm no Boy Wonder," he growls at her—yes, growls, sounding more like a dog than Helena thinks some actual dogs do—and his words are accented by the shriek of his sword as he starts to draw it again.

"Hey hey hey," Helena says quickly, stepping forward, crowding him, hands up in surrender. She swears his hackles raise, like some kind of alley cat, teeth bared in a sneer at her approach. "Easy, Robin—" she gives herself a gold star for not vomiting at calling him as such "—just…no swords, okay? I can't believe I have to say that, but no swords. We're not enemies."

He looks utterly unconvinced.

"Oh?" His tiny little ten year-old fingers are still wrapped very firmly around the hilt of his sword, but he's no longer actively drawing it, so Helena scrambles to continue.

"We're not," she insists. "You're Robin. You—" she breaks off, suddenly. Because holy shit—what if she's wrong? What if this is some kind of parallel universe? Where up is down and right is left and Robins carry swords and—and fuckin' kabob people or whatever it is people with sword do. Helena wouldn't know. The weirdest weapon she's ever seen is Aquaman's trident and she's willing to give him a pass on that one.

"You're—you're one of the good guys," she forces out, desperately hoping he's not about to, like, scoff at her words and slice her hand off, even though she's kind of totally prepared for that to be his next move. Her fingers itch to reach for her crossbow, but she resists.

Robin can't be bad. He can't be.

Batman and Robin are a team—the epitome of partnership. And not just because when she'd been Robin, it'd been a father-daughter deal. Even when Dick had donned the uniform, it was like a switch was thrown. A connection that ran bone deep. She and Mother had always been inseparable, but every time she threw on that cape, she was wholly and singularly Batman's partner. That's how it worked.

If Robin's evil, that would mean—it would mean Batman—

Helena sets her jaw. Squares her shoulders.

Nope. Not evil. She's not buying it.

"You're good," she tells him firmly. "And I'm good too. So that makes us…" she trails off, half-forgetting where she was even going with this.

"…not enemies?" he prompts, voice absolutely dripping doubt.

Helena nods stiffly, trying to convince herself she circumvented a fight by using diplomacy instead of acknowledging the fact that a child wearing her old uniform was a just a moment away from running her through with a sword.

Silence falls between them—it's awkward and tense. Helena is about to turn and leave just to break it, when the boy speaks.

"Batman isn't very fond of civilians trying to join in," he tells her, and god she wishes he'd choke on that harsh, posh lilt to his voice. He's only ten, Lena, she reminds herself, again.

"Well, I'm not very fond of children carrying swords," she snaps back because yeah, she hasn't really forgotten that he's still actively drawing one of those. "What's Batman think about that?"

She hadn't really meant to say it—she was actually trying to avoid the b-word, if she's being wholly honest with herself—but to her surprise, Robin looks away, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Curious.

"You still shouldn't be out here," he insists, turning his glare upon her once again. "You could get hurt."

Helena cocks a brow at the peeved disinterest he speaks with. Yeah, he sounds like a concerned superhero alright. Robin, her ass.

"Show me your permit to prowl around at night in a costume and I'll show you mine," Helena retorts, annoyed.

He snorts at that—she's not sure if it's in humor or irritation, but given all she's gleaned from this boy in the delightful ten minutes she's shared his company, she's betting on the latter.

But he finally releases his sword, and Helena lets loose a soft sigh of relief at that.

It's not that she wouldn't have fought him. It's not even that she thinks she couldn't have. But goddamn—show her someone who'd willingly engage in a sword fight in the twenty-first fuckin' century and she'll happily pass her mantle on to them.

Still. While she's glad there are no sword fights on the horizon, she knows she's overstayed her welcome here, and she feels her gaze playing across the surrounding rooftops, searching.

Wherever Robin appears, Batman is soon to follow.

She still has fuck-all idea where she is, but that's as good as a law of physics. She needs to move. Now.

"Well, not that this hasn't been enchanting," Helena drawls, taking a step back and watching him closely for a reaction. Mostly his sword hand. Or what she assumes is his sword hand, anyway. He's probably ambidextrous, the little shit. "But it's time for me to go. So."

Holding his gaze for just a moment longer—the boy radiates pain and anger in a way that would make her heart ache for him if it weren't for the fact that he's baring her sigil on his chest—before she turns around with the casual grace lent to her by the Kyle side of her lineage, carelessly giving him her back.

She hopes he sees the simple action for what it is—a silent declaration. An allegorical middle finger.

Yeah, I'll turn my back on you, Boy Wonder. And I won't fuckin' think twice about it.

She hears that "Tt" noise again, harsh with anger, and smirks to herself. Good. So they're all on the same page.

"I will find you again." It sounds like a threat.

"Not unless I want you to," she returns, voice cold with confidence as she draws her grappling gun.

She can feel his gaze on her as she vanishes into the night, scaling a nearby building and hunkering down in the shadows among a set of gargoyles that guard the overhang. She waits until the icy sharpness of the boy's eyes leaves her, and peers over the edge of the roof to catch the gleam of his cape's golden lining as he too takes his leave.

Helena sighs, leaning sideways up against one of the gargoyles and letting her feet dangle off the side of the ledge. She props her elbow up on the head of the one beside her, turning to give a sidelong look of exasperation to its neighboring statue.

"This sucks," she tells it conversationally.

The gargoyle continues to sneer malevolently down at the city streets below. Helena just sighs again as she tries to figure out what the fuck she's going to do.

Her first instinct—unbridled and immediate—is home. Wayne Manor. That's where she'll find answers.

But it's also where—statistically speaking—roughly sixty percent of her problems are probably lurking, not to mention the fact that after meeting this Gotham's Robin, she's not particularly keen on meeting its Batman.

Very clever, her subconscious coos sardonically. Call him Batman instead of Father. That'll keep you emotionally stable.

Gritting her teeth, Helena rises to her feet, giving the gargoyle an affectionate pat on the head before smoothly descending back down to the streets below, making it a point to stick to the shadows. She'd talked a big game with Robin, but if he's actively looking for her, she's at least not going to make it easy for him.

She wanders through the city, finding that this Gotham is as rife with crime and violence as hers is as she breaks up two muggings, a robbery, and a violent domestic dispute. Those she rescues all have the same reaction, she notes—extreme gratitude, followed by slight confusion when their eyes sweep over her suit and apparently don't like what they see there. Or rather—what they don't see.

You don't have a goddamn bat on your chest, the man back in the alley had snarled.

Helena puts it out of her mind. One thing at a time.

She finally emerges into the Diamond District—home to Gotham's wealthiest citizens and most upscale businesses—squinting slightly as she finds herself blinded by a gargantuan neon sign that tops the several-stories tall building across the street from her, its wattage impressive enough to cut through Gotham's signature gloom.

Helena pauses, disoriented for a moment. The Gotham she'd just drifted through had been fairly familiar—she'd passed under the shadow of Old Gotham's Clocktower, ghosted through the abandoned subway beneath the Burnley District, listened to the lull of the ocean at Midtown Pier, and even scaled an apartment complex to get an eyeful of Arkham Asylum across the Gotham River.

She knows the Diamond District as well as any part of Gotham, but as she scans the building, she finds herself at a loss. Granted, most of the buildings of her Gotham have long-since been destroyed or abandoned, and this Gotham is far from identical to hers, but something like this ought to have stuck with her.

Brushing hair out of her eyes, Helena tilts her head back to see what it's advertising—maybe the name will tip something back into place.

WAYNE ENTERPRISES stares down at her. Helena works her jaw, rocking back on her heels.

Well, that certainly tracks with the kind of day she's having, now doesn't it?

Quickly lowering her eyes, Helena stalks out of the sign's electric-blue glow and sinks back into the familiar comfort of the city's shadowy fog. She's going to sew a hood to disappear beneath onto her cloak before this shit show is over. She just knows it.

Still, unsettling as the sign is, it's information she can't afford to waste. The Wayne Enterprises of her Gotham was undoubtedly impressive, but on a much smaller scale. Still easily the largest and most successful business in the city, but that thing she'd just seen was positively monstrous.

For the first time, Helena doubts the presence of her Mother here. Batman exists, so Bruce Wayne is here in one capacity or another, but if her mother is married to her father in whatever world she's in, it hasn't been for very long—Selina Kyle-Wayne wouldn't let something like that stand for a second, thank you very much.

Thankful for the late hour and absence of pedestrians, Helena steps out of the shadows a good distance away from the looming Wayne Enterprises to approach a trashcan. She paws through it, pushing aside a handful of coffee cups, receipts, a busted umbrella and other miscellaneous items before coming across what she'd been hoping to find.

Sidestepping to better situate herself beneath a nearby streetlight, Helena extracts the item of interest and tries her best to mop off the coffee it's been soaking in as she scans the back of the magazine, which includes some credits for the publication in her hands: The Gotham Globe.

Tabloids. Possibly the worst source of actual information, but bursting with the kind of news she needs right now. She's Bruce Wayne's goddamn daughter—her face hasn't left the front page of a gossip magazine in all her twenty-one years. If she exists in this Gotham, she'll be here.

Flipping the magazine over, Helena's eyes skim the cover and she very nearly hurls into the conveniently located trashcan.

Bruce Wayne stares back at her. He looks exactly as she remembers him—looks exactly like her.

Tall. Piercing blue eyes. Pitch black hair. Sharp, regal features.

Helena swallows and tastes bile.

She takes a moment. Then another. Her eyes track a stray cat as it scampers about nearby, waiting for sense and rationale to return to her. Her hands shake where she holds the publication and she pretends not to notice.

The cat seems to sense her gaze, and its eyes snap to her in the gloom of the night, wary, before vanishing into the darkness.

Helena forces herself to look back at the cover.

Inside the glamor of the annual Wayne Gala the headline blares, which pulls a frown from Helena, because she's never heard of a fucking Wayne Gala, especially one that occurs on a yearly basis. It sounds like something she and Mother would invent and then gush about in horribly posh accents when they got bored at whatever social event they'd been forced to attend this time, and Father would give them his I'm amused but you still need to knock off your shit look.

Chewing her lip, Helena flips to the suggested page, and a glossy, full-page photo falls open in her hands.

Helena can only stare.

Gotham's Princes is the title, apparently, and is it ever an eyeful and a half.

Her father sits, flanked on all sides by…boys. Helena squints. No, seriously, who the fuck are these guys?

The caption very helpfully names them for her, and her eyes drift over their faces, committing them to memory.

Timothy Drake-Wayne is listed first—he stands to the left of her father, looking roughly her age, perhaps a bit younger. At a glance, he could pass for a Wayne, but Helena can see in his face he's not. Features too soft, frame too willowy, smile too unpolished. He's no more a Wayne than she is a Kent, but he exudes the confidence to at least play the part. The last name snags her—Drake-Wayne—but she tries not to dwell on it or the roughly one hundred and six meanings it could have.

Richard Grayson is next, and despite everything, Helena smiles softly. He's younger in this timeline—older than her, she guesses, but a few decades off from the somewhat harried ex-Robin of her Gotham. He's taken up post over her father's right shoulder, all lean muscle and effortless finesse. He offers the camera a winning smile, and Helena can't resist the urge to smile back at her adoptive older brother. She'll take the familiarity, even if she knows it'll haunt her later.

Jason Todd looks just as tall as Dick and twice as sturdy, Helena notes when her gaze finally travels to him. He stands opposite Dick over her father's left shoulder—dark haired as the rest of them—with a curious swath of white curling through the pitch locks. The skin beneath his eyes is bruised dark with sleeplessness, and Helena tilts her head as she assesses his poor posture. If Timothy Drake-Wayne had been unpolished, this Jason Todd is downright unrefined. There's a look of self-assurance in his eyes though—just a spark—and it's enough to make Helena withhold judgment.

Last is Damian Wayne, and Helena's eyebrow quirks as she stares down at what is possibly the angriest looking boy she's ever seen. He stands ramrod straight at her father's side, arms folded stiffly behind his back, giving the camera a severe look. His young features clash terribly with the stern cut to his jaw, and she can't decide if his perfectly fitted suit looks like something he'd wear to First Communion or a court case. Helena's eyes get caught on his last name: Wayne. He must be a blood son—he looks almost as much a Wayne as she does. But what is he doing mixed in with all these interlopers? Why does he look so cruel?

And just who is his mother?

She very skillfully and pointlessly skips over her father's name, skimming the rest of the article for anything else that might lend itself as a clue. It's nothing but walls and walls of text overflowing with praise for the gala's signature opulence, gossip about which celebrities showed and which didn't, commentary about the boys' suits—

Helena curses under her breath, flipping ahead to scan for more pictures. All she finds are more images of her father, Gotham's Princes—she rolls her eyes every time she reads the phrase—and one particularly artful shot of Wayne Manor that elicits so many emotions, Helena just snaps the magazine shut.

Nothing. No mention of a Helena Wayne. Or a Selina Kyle-Wayne, for that matter, which only winds Helena's anxiety tighter.

None of those boys had the Kyle look, either—not even in passing, like she did. Damian and Jason could pass on skin color, but they lacked any of her mother's other telltale features—cheekbones sharp enough to cut a man, full lips prime for smiling and shit talking, eerily bright green eyes—

Helena catches herself, cursing lowly as she flips the magazine open, gaze flickering back to where Damian stands stiffly beside her father. His eyes are green. Really fucking green.

She stares hard. Could it be? Could he really be the son of Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne? Her brother? Was this Gotham's Helena Wayne swapped for Damian Wayne?

The thought unsteadies her at an uncomfortably intimate level—unseats her very sense of self.

Was she...not good enough?

Nope. No. Absolutely not. Helena grits her teeth, tossing the gossip column back in the trash and pulling a mental E-brake. She has enough going on right now, she doesn't need to create more problems for herself. If anything, she's the only thing she can truly count on right now—the only trustworthy being in the bizarre, parallel Gotham.

She's Helena Martha Wayne—only child of Bruce and Selina Wayne, heiress to Wayne Enterprises, beloved daughter of Gotham, and the Huntress. Nothing—not a bunch of boys in fancy suits, not an enormous neon sign, and not a ten year-old asshole with a sword—can take that away from her.

Emboldened, if just for the moment, Helena turns her back of the sprawling sign of Wayne Enterprises and grapples back across the city, putting as much distance between herself and her lack of self as she can.

Back in the familiarity of Old Gotham, Helena spares a moment to check in on the criminals she'd apprehended earlier. The alleyway is a bit more crowded than she'd left it—two uniformed GCPD officers are in the process of cuffing them, and as Helena skirts by on the rooftops, she catches snippets of the conversation.

"No, no, Officer, you aren't listenin'. It wasn't Batman, it was the Huntress. Ain't that right, Marsha?"

Marsha gurgles something vaguely affirmative, and Helena steals a glance to see her jaw getting checked out by a paramedic.

The officer being addressed just scoffs. "Huntress, huh?" he drawls, using his free hand to open the rear door of his car. "That's a new one."

The man splays his cuffed hands as far as he can. "Right? That's what I said!"

Helena watches as the two are piled in the back of the cop car before swinging across the street to the building she'd climbed earlier, smiling softly at the sight of the gargoyles.

"Hey boys," she greets them lamely, holstering her grappling gun. "Late, huh?"

She sighs, leaning against the statue and frowning moodily down at the streets of this Gotham But Also Not Gotham she's found herself in.

She's alone, she's broke, and her fucking cellphone doesn't even work.

But still…Gotham. Some form of it, anyway. One where her father is apparently not married to her mother and is instead the guardian of four boys. One of which may actually be his son.

His son. Not daughter. Because she doesn't exist here.

Helena wonders idly if she's in some personal circle of hell. A world that's just enough like her old life—the life she'd loved, the one before Darkseid—to make her bask in the familiarity, but so different in so many ways it makes her heart ache and her head spin.

A Gotham without Mother and Father—without them ever having existed together—isn't one Helena is interested in occupying, thank you very fucking much. Not to mention a Gotham she was never born in.

But fine. Fate thinks this is the worst it can throw at her? What a fucking joke.

She spins on her heel sharply enough to make her cape flare out behind her—a needlessly dramatic move she'd unconsciously picked up from years of watching her father—and stalks across the rooftop, destination decided.

If she can't be Helena Wayne, she'll have to go to the place where Waynes go to die.

A light drizzle begins to fall as she steps off the ledge and drops down into the inky blackness below. For a moment, she just falls—gives herself up to the pull of gravity and lets the wind rip through her hair and her cloak—relishing in the brief sensation of weightlessness before she's firing her grappling gun and swinging—

Crime Alley rushes to meet her.

so uh. I kinda really like Batman.

anyway, Helena Wayne is a canon character (though I wouldn't blame you for thinking she's an OC) who is the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle from Earth-2, which is like DCU's parallel universe. this fic is kind of a take on the World's Finest comic run which featured Huntress and Power Girl in this exact scenario. Power Girl doesn't make the trip in my fic, because I'm going to be focusing more on the Batfam, but most of the bones of that original story are still in place.

hope it wasn't too confusing. and yes, if you were (somehow) unsure, that Robin she met was of course our own Damian Wayne. you'll need a fair amount if DC knowledge to get through most of this fic, I'm afraid, so if this isn't really your thing, that's totally fine—but maybe pass it on to someone who would like it?

I wasn’t even gonna post this on tumblr but it did surprisingly well on ao3 so I thought I’d slap it up. if you like it, the rest of the chapters will be updated over there!

 hi I'm Duch and I'm so scared to write fic for a new fandom holy shit oh my god

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#Batman #DCU #Helena Wayne #Huntress #Earth-2 #god what do I even tag this as #Batfamily #not my circus not my monkeys

[thenameisfame]

Chapters: 1/? Rating: Mature Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Multi Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus Amicitia/Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia/Prompto Argentum, Prompto Argentum/Ignis Scientia, Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia/Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia Characters: Prompto Argentum, Gladiolus Amicitia, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Ignis Scientia, Ardyn Izunia, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII, Iedolas Aldercapt, Aranea Highwind, Iris Amicitia, I’m not gonna list all the names but pretty much everyone is in here at some point  Additional Tags: Fix-It, I literally rewrote the entire fucking game everyone, Prince!Prompto, MT!Prompto, based on pigeon princess’ au!, regular updates, Arranged Marriage, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Slow Burn, like really fucking slow burn, Guaranteed happy ending, highkey ot4, centers on promptis, Established OT3, Canon-Typical Violence, so some blood and injuries but nothing graphic, Spoilers, Minor Character Death,  Deviates from canon lore

Summary:

What a Match, I’m Half Doomed and You’re Semi-Sweet

Their gazes snag on each other and the world stops – or rather, they stop and the world continues on. It feels as though they’ve been caught up in a tumultuous storm only to find a brief respite in the eye of the hurricane. Bound by the promise of a union between warring nations and sent out on a tour of cities, time is running out for Prince Noctis to discover the truth behind the treaty and for Prince Prompto to follow through with the plan he’s a part of, but it’s hard when their future is clouded by the memories of their shared past. As the daylight continues to slip away and new dangers threaten the world as they know it, they find themselves trapped in an ever-growing, sticky web of political design and unexpected divine intervention. One wrong move, and it all could come crashing down. 

BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUPS

I am not kidding when I tell you that this is a monster. Initially I wrote the first draft of this fic for camp nanowrimo in July and over the last few months have slowly been rewriting and editing it. The plot completely ran away with me and now it has almost tripled in size?? and somehow along the way I pretty much rewrote the entire mcfucking game (beware: here be spoilers). And now, I am pleased to say that it's finally ready to be shared with you guys!! It's not finished entirely yet, but I have enough of a head start that we should be alright. This fic is my baby and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it.

Everything is based off @pigeon-princess' au here and the scene used in this chapter is here. I want to thank her deeply from the bottom of my heart, as well as ffxv in general, for inspiring me to write my first fanfic in years and then continuing to inspire me in our conversations <3 (also we have some surprises in store for yall ;D so keep an eye out)

Also there's a playlist! that I'll be adding to with each update. Title song is Divenire (meaning 'to become') by Ludovico Einaudi. This chapter's title comes from Disloyal Order of the Water Buffaloes by Fall Out Boy.

Big thank you to my betas/cheerleaders Juli, Venesa, Ducky, and Sidney y'all are the absolute best <3

Enjoy~

(please support by reblogging!)

#niflheim prince prompto #prince prompto #ffxv fanfiction #promptis #final fantasy xv #polyship roadtrip #yall fuckin better get ready #this is a long one #i cant believe im finally posting this #my writing #divenire

[kmurpads]

Khan-McMahon University is as prestigious as they come. Located in San Diego, CA you can expect many students wanting to enjoy the beaches as well as even take the hour drive to Disneyland. As they are high in the academic scale, there's always a little party.

Dare to apply? Come join the newly opened Discord AU RPG that is not only inclusive, but accepts wrestlers from any company, independents, and even OCs! This is a college AU where you can let some of your creativity fly!!

most wanted males: roman reigns, ricky starks, wheeler yuta, jey uso, jimmy uso, sami zayn, ethan page, matt jackson, nick jackson, kevin owens, jungle boy jack perry, bron breakker, solo sikoa to name a few!!

most wanted females: alexa bliss, toni storm, tegan nox, tay melo, allie katch, scarlett,dakota kai, skye blue,maxxine durpi, sonya deville, ruby soho, carmella, bianca belair, shotzi, thea hall, emma, chelsea green, jade cargill to name a few!!

Wanna apply? Drop a DM and we'll direct you to the discord to apply!!

#aew rpg #wrestling rpg #wwe rpg #aew rp #wrestling rp #wwe rp #wrestling roleplay #wwe roleplay #aew roleplay #wwe au rpg #wrestling au rpg #aew au rpg #pro wrestling roleplay #pro wrestling rpg #pro wrestling rp #toni storm #dakota kai #iyo sky #rick starks #wheeler yuta #the usos #roman reigns #ricky starks

[ninemoons42-lestallumhaven]

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Prompto Argentum & Noctis Lucis Caelum, Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ravus Nox Fleuret Characters: Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prompto Argentum, Ravus Nox Fleuret, Aulea Lucis Caelum, Ignis Scientia, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Dance, emotional tension, boys being incapable of expressing themselves with words, but hey give them some credit they try, Unrequited Love, Love Confessions, and the aftermath thereof, First Dates, well neither of them know it's a date, Late Night Conversations, up all night for feels and conversation, Inspired by Music, Cliffhangers, Slow Burn, Slow Build, bad reactions to hospitals Series: Part 2 of dance for your heart Summary: Noctis tries to use his words sometimes, he really does, and sometimes he succeeds and sometimes he doesn't.

(FFXV dancers AU continues although there is -- actually no dancing here. But Noctis gets to use his words. Ravus is here for feels and understanding and compassion, and Prompto is here for -- well, he’s here for the cliffhanger and I am not sorry there is one.)

(For dear @voxiferous.)

#fic: mine #dance for your life AU #voxiferous #character: Noctis Lucis Caelum #character: Ravus Nox Fleuret #character: Prompto Argentum #pairing: promptis

[moonraccoon-exe]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ravus Nox Fleuret/Ignis Scientia Characters: Ravus Nox Fleuret, Ignis Scientia Additional Tags: Fluff, Bubble Bath, It's cute not smut, But it has hints of it, Nude dudes in one same tub, I guess this has to be some AU in which Ignis is Tenebraean

Second go at proper Ravnis writing rather than headcanons. It’s small, originally requested here, but I found it cute. :)

I can’t tag your for some reason, but I hope you don’t mind I posted it on AO3 @mehandbleh. Thank you for triggering me to this.

Why am I sharing this if I’m lonely in the ship bruh wth...well hope dies last so I’m sharing anyway that’s why, I love me

#ravnis #moon raccoon did it again #awmanyes #fanfic #ravus x ignis

[kmurpads]

Khan-McMahon University is as prestigious as they come. Located in San Diego, CA you can expect many students wanting to enjoy the beaches as well as even take the hour drive to Disneyland. As they are high in the academic scale, there's always a little party.

Dare to apply? Come join the newly opened Discord AU RPG that is not only inclusive, but accepts wrestlers from any company, independents, and even OCs! This is a college AU where you can let some of your creativity fly!!

most wanted males: roman reigns, seth rollins, ricky starks, wheeler yuta, jey uso, jimmy uso, sami zayn, ethan page, matt jackson, nick jackson, kevin owens, jungle boy jack perry, bron breakker, solo sikoa to name a few!!

most wanted females: alexa bliss, toni storm, tegan nox, tay melo, allie katch, scarlett,dakota kai, skye blue,maxxine durpi, sonya deville, ruby soho, carmella, bianca belair, shotzi, thea hall, emma, chelsea green, jade cargill to name a few!!

Wanna apply? Drop a DM and we'll direct you to the discord to apply!!

#wrestling rpg #aew rpg #wwe rpg #wwe rp #aew rp #wrestling rp #wrestling roleplay #wwe roleplay #aew roleplay #wrestling au rpg #wwe au rpg #aew au rpg #pro wrestling roleplay #pro wrestling rp #pro wrestling rpg