strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.
(fics that inspired this at the end)
If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:
The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died
The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.
The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.
(actual idea snippets under the cut)
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Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?
The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.
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Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.
"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."
He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.
There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.
He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.
"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."
He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.
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Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.
He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).
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Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.
Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.
Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.
Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.
He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.
If if if if if--
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Inspirations:
Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion
Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm
Verisimilitude by mutemelody
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Sorry-not-sorry I'm back on my normal 'Kevin and Argit were so small' bullshittery.
Because they fucking were. Kevin was twelve when Servantis tossed everybody, and Argit couldn't have been far off. They were middle school aged. 'Puberty would be starting about now if we weren't wandering the Null Void and therefor likely not eating near enough' aged.
A pair of children, with minimal education, no paperwork, no homes, no guardians. Wandering the Null Void and then the Milky Way, on their own. One a prime target for the slave trade, both prime targets for adults looking to take advantage of them (*coughcoughOttocoughcough*). With only as much security as they could provide themselves and each other. Only able to rely on themselves for the basic necessities of life.
And then this show has the audacity to try to tell me that they turned to crime due to poor morality. That they're money focused because they're just naturally greedy. That they don't trust people and look out for themselves because they're bad people that either will always be bad people or will only improve because of the power of Tennysons.
What options were there for them? What jobs are there in the Null Void? What jobs are there in the galaxy that'll hire barely-teens, if even that, with no paperwork or educations, that wouldn't ruin them as badly and pay worse than the crime they already had experience with? Will keep them fed and clothed and sheltered? When one of them already has a criminal record, for violent crimes at that? When there's nobody there to stop even the 'good' adults from taking advantage of them?
The show will sit there and tell you that Kevin's violent crimes were the result of a rough childhood, but he and Argit's non-violent ones? Totally on them, no excuse, wholly a matter of greed and not giving a shit about other people. Fucking bullshit. This is a pair of kids who had to grow up way too fast, up against an existence that saw at least one of them as easy profit, with nothing but themselves and each other, and no opportunities. They're a pair of traumatized kids who grabbed the opportunities available to them with both hands and were molded by the problems they faced.
Of course they're money-focused, unlike the Tennysons they don't and haven't had anybody making sure they had enough to get by. They've had to support themselves and live with the constant worry that something is going to go pear-shaped and they'll have nothing.
They spent years with anybody and everybody being a potential threat (even between the two of them, Argit's noting that Kevin's snapping while he worked for the Rooters was the worst he'd seen 'before or since' makes it quite clear he's seen him on and passed the edge at least as much if not more than we have), of course they're going to be slow to trust, quick to toss people aside, and unwilling to help their enemies without some sort of payout, they've been burned before.
Just- Damnit these two come from some shitty fucking situations, the effects they had on them are obvious if you bother to fucking look, and they both deserved better than the series just going "oh yeah they're assholes what do you expect they're criminals" and moving the fuck on. Like, for fuck's sake at least acknowledge that they're like this because life was a fucking lead pipe to the teeth to them! We know Kevin's situation was shit even before they met, we got to see it, but even if Argit had a perfectly good life beforehand (unlikely) the earliest we see him is being held captive for illegal experimentation purposes by law enforcement! These two have been through shit! At least acknowledge it!
Fuck, they could've replaced Color of Monkey with that, hitting on the differences between how Kevin and Argit adapted to their circumstances, give us upfront the Tennysons being a safety net that let Kevin heal (rather than just 'oh the Tennysons taught him morals because they're the Good People') while Argit's issues and lack of security kept him stagnant. It would go better with what we see of him over the course of OV leading up to the Rooters arc, and what we're shown in the Rooters arc. Give us him still being far from great or on the up-and-up but improving with the stability that comes with his 'hero' status, a repairing relationship with Kevin after that arc, and a flourishing, above-board business. Rather than backpedaling on any good the writers had thrown at him like they'd realized they were coming up against a cliff.
Shit that makes you want to get the writers by the shoulders and shake them mercilessly.
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I have a secret fixation I won't say the name of out loud because it's pretty... on the nose with writing in spite of being compelling with the concept and world building. It has flaws, undoubtedly, but I love it nonetheless. It is an indie production and falls prey to the "has so much to say but sacrifices clarity in fear of early termination". And it's 3D animated which often gets flack, which I find unfair due to the effort such a style requires. On top of it all, the same production company released a pilot that went viral very recently.
And yet I find myself hesitant to share my love for it, something I find odd given my tendency to embrace unbridled joy even when the subject doesn't seem to warrant such a thing.
Being vague because I see the main characters as my kids and I didn't know what to do about it- and the parents were just shown more in the latest episode and um.
I think I might want to, I dunno, be the third in this ???? My age is starting to show. I don't want kids, I don't want to have kids, I don't want to be a parent. But... consider... polyamory. Consider, they aren't my kids, but I am the partner of a parent.
I hope this makes sense, I'm having a moment evidently.
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tell me why i’m thinking of a byler parental control au… an entire fucking mess
karen and ted don’t approve of mike’s choice of partner so they convince him to try out the show. this could go 1 of 3 ways:
1. mike is dating el. neither of them are really happy in the relationship but for whatever reason have stayed together. they also both love pissing off mike's parents. they agree to do the show and bc mike's bi, his parents choose a guy and a girl as mike's dates: will and max. obviously mike picks will and somehow elmax happens, too
2. mike is dating will. his parents don't approve (maybe bc he's bi? maybe they're that brand of biphobic where they're okay with casual relationships but when mike starts hinting at marriage, they freak out bc they always assumed mike would get over his "phase" and settle down with a "nice girl".) and they choose two girls for mike's dates. mike and will only agreed to this bc the money mtv is paying will help them put a down payment on a house/apartment. the girls are el and max and again, they fall in love lmao
3. mike is dating el, they're again unhappy. mike goes on dates with two people, and on both dates, will just so happens to be there. maybe the first date is at his job, and the second date is at his other job. both dates are a nightmare and when the cameras aren't rolling, will and mike get to talking and turns out they have a lot in common, will casually slips mike his number with a wink and goes back to work. in the end, mike chooses to stay with el but as soon as the camera shuts off, he's like, "i think we should break up" and she's like "oh thank god" and then mike calls up will
someone write this so i don't
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(while I think too hard about the OC asks you sent me) - for noya & kala (ofc) : something your muse could never forgive ; is your muse a fitful or a quiet sleeper? ; what calms your muse down after a bad day? ; (and if you want, just one random fun fact?)
[ask game]
Thank you sm for the ask Birch!! :)
Something your muse could never forgive
Kala
Hurting a loved one. She considers herself a rational person, (...mostly), but you hurt a person she is loyal to, and she will hunt you for sport.
Also, cruelty for the sake of it. Be it because they get a high from it or because it makes them feel better about their own miserable existence or ancestors know what else the reason is, those sort of people get no sympathy or mercy from her
Noya
Abuse of power. People like Vaughan or Howe who know they are privileged and use it for their own gain and amusement at the detriment of other people.
On a more personal level something she will not forgive is being taken advantage of by people she trusts (/trusted)
Is your muse a fitful or a quiet sleeper?
Kala
Absolutely not lol, she's almost eerily still when she sleeps
Noya
Pretty average I'd say? Except when she's on edge, in which case she's a very restless sleeper
What calms your muse down after a bad day?
Kala
Quiet mundane downtime with a loved one; She's not good at talking about issues, but taking care of one another or doing chores while chatting about trivial things (she does less chatting, but listening is just as good) always helps her to unwind and ground herself. Depending on who she's with there is more or less lighthearted ranting, cos once you're conspiring and talking shit with someone about it, whatever was so bad that day feels half as big.
Noya
If it was something that's genuinely upsetting and taking up a lot of brain space, she'll often retreat and vent by drawing, just to get it out of her system and untangle everything, at least a little. If it's something that causes frustration or pent up energy of some sort, she needs noise and people and action.
One random fun fact
Kala
She is lactose intolerant (not severely tho), which she did not realise for a very long time, and elected to ignore after she did find out about it
Noya
related to above, when she noticed that Noya's had a rough day, Shianni would sometimes start a brawl or a silly argument so that Noya had an excuse to shout or hit something. It was all in good faith and both of them trusted each other not to escalate things, and they did both have fun with it lol
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