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#things my friends write
butchfalin · 5 months
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the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again
#yeehaw#1k#5k#10k#posts that got cursed. blasted. im making these tag updates after... 19 hours?#also i have been told it should say speech loss bc nonverbal specifically refers to the permanent state. did not know that!#unfortunately i fear it is so far past containment that even if i edited it now it would do very little. but noted for future reference#edit 2: nvm enough ppl have come to rb it from me directly that i changed the wording a bit. hopefully this makes sense#also. in case anyone is curious. though i doubt anyone who is commenting these things will check the original tags#1) my friend did not do this on purpose in any way. it was not intended to distract me or to hit on me. im a lesbian hes a gay man. cmon now#he felt very bad about it afterwards. i thought it was hilarious but it was very embarrassed and apologetic#2) “why didn't he use 🫵🏼?” didn't exist yet. “why didn't he use 🆗?” dunno! we'd been using a lot of hand emojis. 👌🏼 is an ok sign#like it makes sense. it was just a silly mixup. also No i did not invent 👉🏼👌🏼 as a gesture meaning sex. do you live under a rock#3) nonspeaking episodes are a recurring thing in my life and have been since i was born. this is not a quirky one-time thing#it is a pervasive issue that is very frustrating to both myself and the people i am trying to communicate with. in which trying to speak is#extremely distressing and causes very genuine anguish. this post is not me making light of it it's just a funny thing that happened once#it's no different than if i post about a funny thing that happened in conjunction w a physical disability. it's just me talking abt my life#i don't mind character tags tho. those can be entertaining. i don't know what any of you are talking about#Except the ppl who have said this is pego/ryu or wang/xian. those people i understand and respect#if you use it as a writing prompt that's fine but send it to me. i want to see it#aaaand i think that's it. everyday im tempted to turn off rbs on it. it hasn't even been a week
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theoldaeroplane · 7 months
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worried that thing you put in your art or writing or game or music is too self-indulgent, too self-referential, too niche for anyone but yourself? fear not! you can do whatever you want forever. and you should.
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inkskinned · 10 months
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME#there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing#and the writing is what i need to be doing#writeblr#this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to#edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol#i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!!#my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means#i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her)#hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong#i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet.#i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse#i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!!#i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO#i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness#and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it#im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us#i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer#and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art.#i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work#even if it means being miserable#but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.
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olive-riggzey · 9 months
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I made this to combat my current issue:
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its-tea-time-darling · 8 months
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im sorry, we turned your boyfriend into a mole. yeah and all of tumblr‘s interested in him now. sorry
edit 9/12/23 11.22 CET
and so it begins…
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fic1, fic2 @pathsofoak ao3 tag. Mole Poem @thaliaisalesbian . fic by @tourmelion .
update:
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ao3 link. please vote for mole scene in most underrated goncharov scene poll
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imfinereallyy · 6 days
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Steve walks into his and Robin’s shared living room in the middle of the night to get a glass of water.
Mid gulp, Steve’s hears a soft “hey.”
Steve has only four years of the Upside Down to thank for not dropping his glass and shattering it everywhere. He knows the dangers of a little cut.
It doesn’t help the startled scream he releases.
Steve stares at his couch in horror as the intruder turns the light on.
Robins feet pound quickly into the living room, a metal baseball bat in her hands, “What do I need to kill?”
Steve says nothing. Instead, he points at their couch, where Robin turns and lets out a small gasp.
Because in the middle of their living room is Eddie Munson, famous rockstar and, more importantly, ex-best friend of Steve and Robin, who they haven’t heard from since 1991, sitting on their couch.
Shit.
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cracklewink · 2 months
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Harmony Syndrome Part 5/5
The last chapter of my mlp infection AU! Thank you to everyone who followed along. Some final thoughts on my twitter @cracklewink if anyone's interested : )
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frownyalfred · 10 months
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I cannot emphasize this enough: sometimes the draft sucks because you keep looking at it. It doesn’t actually suck. You just need to post it and stop beating yourself up.
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starrystevie · 23 days
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eddie’s going on a tinder date with a cute guy named steve.
he likes his freckles, brown eyes and cheeky grin. they don’t have much in common but the conversations they have in the app messages flows suspiciously easily. he’s a bit in love and antsy at the table as he watches the door anxiously for his date.
he sees person after person walk into the bar and his beer is dripping condensation onto his hand as he grips it, nerves shooting through the roof. eddie glances at the table and then back up to the door when a guy walks in and if eddie wasn’t waiting for his date, he’d want to go talk to him.
he’s cute, hot even, floppy brown hair and a charming grin, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat as he looks around the bar. his shirt clings to him in just the right way and his jeans fit him a bit too perfectly. eddie can’t help but stare and then the guy is staring back while he waves, ducking his head as he walks over.
“hey, eddie,” the man breathes out, his cheeks tinged pink from the wind. “sorry i'm late. parking was a bitch.”
and eddie’s confused. because this guy has brown eyes but not the ones he expected. freckles that are more spread out and distinct, trailing down to his neck instead of blanketing his face. his smile is perfect and he’s looking at eddie like he knows him. eddie’s a bit stunned, gaping at the guy with a slack jaw, because he’d remember someone as handsome as him if they’d met before.
“…hi?” he says like it's a question, taking a sip of his beer to do something with his hands.
he watches as the man’s eyebrows crease in confusion and the way his shirt stretches over his chest as he takes off his jacket. “it’s- i’m steve? you are eddie, right?”
eddie can feel his own eyebrows raising, wiping off his damp hand to fish his phone out of his pocket. he quickly finds steve’s profile, ignoring the messages they've sent each other over the past weeks that leave his stomach filled with butterflies, and pulls up the profile picture steve uploaded.
looking at it closely, he glances at who he thinks is steve, at the freckles dusting over his face and the toothy grin he's flashing at the camera. he's not exactly they type eddie usually goes for, but he's witty and sweet and knows about dnd, apparently, so what's not to love?
but then he looks at the other person in the picture that's slightly out of focused next to ‘steve’. looks at the two moles stark on the side of his neck, his pink tinted cheeks. the floopy brown hair and the pretty brown eyes and-
“steve?!” eddie exclaims, looking between the man in front of him and the picture on his phone. “you’re steve?”
the guy- steve- grins sheepishly, leaning on his elbows over the table to look at eddie’s eyes phone. he’s close, too close, close enough that eddie wants to-
“ohh,” he says and scratches at the back oh his head, eyes downturned with a blush trailing up his neck. “yeah, maybe i shouldn’t have used a group photo for a dating app.”
“so who did i think you were?”
their eyes meet and even in the dim bar light, eddie finds himself falling into the specks of green he sees. steve looks at the phone quickly then back up with a smirk. “my best friend, tommy. he’s kind of an asshole, though. you’re better off with me.”
“is that so?” eddie leans back, taking a sip of his beer, and really takes in his date that he now knows is steve. his toned arms, his broad shoulders, his pretty pink cheeks and pretty pink lips.
“what, are you disappointed?”
steve smiles gently and it lights up his face in a way eddie isn’t expecting. between the way he looks in a dingy bar and the way talking with steve is easier than any date he’s had before, he can’t imagine what disappointment he could ever possibly feel knowing that his date is who he is.
suddenly there’s a foot hooking around his ankle and it sends goosebumps tingling up his spine. steve’s smile softens just a bit and eddie can feel himself mirroring it back, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“i don’t think disappointed’s the right word.”
crossposted on twitter!
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urfriendlywriter · 4 months
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things me and my bestfriends have said to each other that would make a list of heartbreaking prompts:
(found family trope but irl haha, feel free to use <3 tag me when yall writee, 1,9,11,13,24 has a spcl place in my heart)
"i don't feel seen at times." "it's not true. i see you, [name], i always have."
"thank you for listening to me, thank you for being here for me."
"i love the family we've found for ourselves :( "
"i want to hug you.."
"you, you can always come to me when you're happy and when you're sad."
"you make me become the best of me." <333
"i can never forget when you did ___, God i almost fell in love with you then."
"no, i don't want to rant-" "no, no, hey, it's okay. rant. I'm here to listen."
"whenever i ask you, you say I'm ok, but whenever you ask me i bare my heart open to you. i just want you to tell me if you're having a hard time so i can lend you a shoulder in silence!"
"just--just come with me, please ! I'll take care of you, please leave that hell hole you call home !"
"it hurts, [name]." in a weak murmur and they just rest their face on your shoulder, leaning on one another as they whisper, "it's okay to hurt. cry if u have to."
"should we just run away from home and live together?"
"you are a good person, [nickname]." ✯
"rant, love, go ahead."
"i was very proud of you. i still am."
"you're the positive blueprint/sunshine to my fucked up life, [name]" (ok but they said this to me while we were both in our LOWEST)
"we were enemies before weren't we?" "yeah, haha, if you were a boy we'd have become lovers!!"
^ "[nickname], are you GAY?? YOU ARE GAY- OMG" "stop it lmao" (all in texts lol)
"i wonder what good i did to deserve you " </3
"how lovely of you :)" "ilysm" "shut up, dude, you're so adorable."
"you are devastatingly beautiful, [name]."
"i can never forget what you looked like at your happiest... you glowed. " :((
"hugs, please :/"
"I'd love to nom nom you TT" (we were acting cute and actually melting)
"we'll become the parents we never had."
"we are walking through this life together, aren't we? let's do so till we are together in the paradise, too."
"you mean a lot to me."
"together, in this world and in the here-after too."
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ao3-crack · 2 years
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becca-e-barnes · 3 months
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The need that I have for early morning, tender sex with Dbf!bucky that gets a little frantic and really passionate 😵‍💫
Especially if you tend to drift apart in your sleep. It feels so much nicer to curl up against him again the next morning, stealing some of his heat and enjoying the way that he smells so familiar to you now.
You can't help but feel a softness in your chest when he sleepily pulls you closer, placing a gentle kiss on the top of your head with his eyes still closed. If nothing else, you feel incredibly safe with your bare chest pressed to his and your limbs tangled together comfortably.
The sunlight has just managed to creep through a gap in between the curtains, illuminating the few grey hairs peppered across your partner's hairline and you swear he's never looked more beautiful.
He's more awake than he'd lead you to believe though. His eyes are barely even open before he's tilting your chin up, making it easier to capture your lips with his.
"Good morning." He mumbles in his deep morning voice when his lips part from yours.
"Hi." You can't help but smile, wiggling your body against the bulge in his underwear. "It's a great morning."
He can't help but roll his eyes at your enthusiasm.
"Didn't I take good enough care of you last night? You still want more." He pretends he's insulted but secretly, he's pretty damn pleased. You want him; plain and simple. You don't dress it up or play it off. Don't we all want to be wanted?
"See, that's the problem. You were too good to me last night. And now. I'm all worked up." You slip kisses to his neck and shoulders in between your sentences, hoping that it really drives your point home.
"You're a handful." Bucky teases, tilting your chin up once more, letting his lips collide with yours before allowing his tongue to do the same. It feels like his hands are all over your body at once, teasing and rubbing and gripping you, getting you even more worked up.
It's not long before he's got your leg hooked up over him and he's slipping his cock into you. The glide is that much easier given that he finished inside you just a few hours ago and the thought of that alone makes you even wetter.
Bucky's low groan as he slides into you is addictive. He's clearly still sensitive but it feels too good for either of you to stop now.
"Such a good girl. You take me so damn well." He's babbling already, eyes rolling back as he presses as deep inside you as possible, giving you a chance to take a breath before he starts to work your body in a way that no one else has ever managed.
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Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.
Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU
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inkskinned · 9 months
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you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.
you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.
he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.
a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.
he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.
you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.
people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.
wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.
also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.
he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."
you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.
"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."
he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.
you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.
is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?
you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.
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dreamofbecoming · 1 year
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listen i know we all love steve “completely ignorant of queer culture to the point that bisexuality is a surprise” harrington being roasted and educated in turns by robin and eddie, yadda yadda, good stuff. i read “they made a horror version of rocky?” in a fic recently and cackled. also a big fan of “he knew he was bi from the start and just never talked about it” as a trope, love it excellent well done
but what about steve who realizes after starcourt that the most important person in his life now has this thing that’s a major part of her life that he knows nothing about, and what if he fucks it up? what if he says something ignorant or rude by accident, and hurts her? what if he loses her because he didn’t know the right thing to say? what if he can’t keep her safe because he doesn’t know what to look out for? absolutely fucking not, this steve says
and listen she’d never say anything, because she can tell that he can tell how much she likes teasing him and teaching him things, so he plays dumb, and she thinks it’s very sweet. but she notices when the zines she keeps under her bed that she buys at that one secret bookshop in indy when she can sneak away on family trips start going missing, always one at a time, and replaced in a few days with another disappearing. and she finds the new ones he must have gone to buy the weekend she was at her aunt’s house hidden in the back of his closet when she goes to steal one of his sweaters. and she notices when he slips more of her queerer movie recommendations into his personal take home pile rather than the movie night stack when he thinks she’s not looking.
she doesn’t notice when he drives to indianapolis after she tries to explain to him why she can’t just ask out a cute girl, tries to impress on him the fear attached to every moment of attraction that he simply has never had to feel, but later she finds a crumpled receipt from a diner in one of his jacket pockets when she’s looking for his keys, and the address is across the street from the bar the gorgeous woman at the bookstore told her about, the one she memorized the address of but hasn’t worked up the guts to think about visiting, and she knows he must have gone looking for a place like that, must have been trying to understand, must have been scoping it out to make sure it was somewhere she could feel safe, after she told him she never had.
so when eddie nearly pops a blood vessel when they clock each other and she mentions that steve is the only person she’s ever come out to before, her hackles come up. because she gets it, she does, he’s only known king steve until recently, so it makes sense that he would be afraid, be concerned for her safety.
but steve is her person, and no one- no one- has ever made her feel as protected or as cared for as he does. no one has ever tried as hard to understand her, no one has ever put so much work into making her feel safe and seen and loved. and she thinks maybe even if no one else ever does, that’s ok. because she has steve, and more importantly steve has her, and that means no one gets to question his ally credentials in her presence without a dressing down to remember, no matter how well they mean or how recently they helped save the world.
(and maybe she’s not as surprised as she could be when he figures out bisexuality all on his own, because she’s been reading all the same pamphlets he has, after all. and she’s seen the way he looks at eddie, i mean come on. maybe no one else has noticed, but then, nobody knows steve harrington like she does.)
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starry-bi-sky · 3 months
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(Part of this post with older brother danyal al ghul)
...Okay, look. Sam knows she's staring. She knows very well that she is staring. And that if she doesn't stop staring it's gonna draw her unwanted attention, and that will only have to make her explain why she's staring. Which she doesn't want to do.
She's trying not to stare, which she thinks she should get brownie points for. She tries to look away, to find a spot on the wall to stare lifelessly at, maybe she can burn holes into some of these annoying socialites' heads. But eventually her eyes drift, and suddenly she's back to staring again.
Can you blame her though? Damian Wayne looks like a very close mini-me of her fucking best friend. Seriously, it's like looking into a mirror to the past. If that mirror to the past had green eyes rather than blue and a distinctive lack of a facial scar.
The first time she sees him when her parents drag her over to Bruce Wayne to butter up to him she has to do a doubletake. Then a triple take. Then a quadruple take, just for good measure that she was seeing what she was actually seeing. She was sure she looked like one of those stress toys that when squeezed had their eyes pop out comically like a Saturday morning cartoon, that's what she certainly felt like anyways.
Look, Danny's come a decent way from being that scowl-y, jerkish little ten year old she first met when he arrived like the wind to Amity Park five years ago (even if he was still occasionally scowl-y and jerkish), but one thing that's stayed the same is how reserved he is about his home life prior to being taken in by the Fentons.
He doesn't talk about it much, and Sam's come to know that he's very good at changing the subject when it gets brought up. Even after being friends for nearly four years, the only thing she and Tuck know for certain is that he has a little brother that he refers to as 'starlight', whom he cares a lot about but left on really bad terms with. And that he's never met his father, but wants to and knows who he is.
He's never told her or Tucker who he was though, and glancing at Bruce Wayne, Sam is realizing why. She can begrudgingly acknowledge all the good he's done for Gotham, but... well, if Danny told her that Bruce Wayne was his dad, she wouldn't have believed him at all.
But she's starting to see the resemblance, as subtle as it is.
And she sees the resemblance to Damian Wayne, her eyes dropping back down to him as he wears a very Danny-like scowl on his face, arms crossed behind his back as his eyes swept around the ballroom. He was five years younger than Danny, and god it was so, so weird.
His eyes turned on to her, and they locked gazes for a moment.
Involuntarily, Sam makes a startled noise and looks away. Fingers tap against her purse, black and purple and unfortunately a clutch that only held her phone and her wallet in it. She would have kept a knife on her, but her parents put their foot down and there was a security detail at the door. Only in Gotham.
Silently, she was hoping that the little Danny-me didn't say anything. Or at least, he hadn't noticed her staring. Which was a tall order if she ever heard one -- and unfortunately, her silent prayers went unanswered as her mother's eyes dropped down onto her.
"Did you say something, Samantha?" She asks in a sickeningly sweet voice, a sound that makes Sam's skin crawl. Her dad and Bruce Wayne's attention also turns onto her, and she glowers at her mom from the corner of her eye.
"I didn't say anything." Sam says, barely keeping her tone polite as she turned her head away. Her mother clucks her tongue, disapproving, but from her peripherals doesn't pester her more
Bruce Wayne, the bastard, takes that time to turn to Sam and grace her with his dime-a-dozen billboard smiles. "I've been talking with your parents this whole time, Miss Manson, you must be terribly bored. How is your schooling going?"
Sam eyes him up and down. On one hand, she immediately wants to be snarky. It's none of his business what her school life is like, she doesn't care for his fucking small talk.
On the other hand, this was Danny's whole father. Someone who she knows that Danny has wanted to meet for, what she's assuming, his whole life. He's never brought it up much, but she remembers that very quiet, solemn conversation she and Tucker had with him where he admits to having never met his dad. But god does he want to.
And... wait. Sam's eyes narrow, and she meets Bruce Wayne's eyes. Does this man even know Danny exists? She drops her gaze down to Damian, who was staring at her suspiciously, and then back up to Bruce, and she alternates between them.
Why was Damian living with Bruce, but not Danny? Why hasn't Bruce done anything to reach out to him - what was going on with Danny's biological family that Danny had to be separated from them, but not Damian? Danny's always been kinda mysterious, but now things weren't adding up.
Was Danny given up? Does Bruce just not want Danny, but wanted Damian? Why the fuck does Bruce Wayne know about Damian but not her best friend -- or does he know and just not care? He's fought for custody for his adoptive kids before, does he just not want to fight for his other biological son? Does he think Danny's not worth it?
She's never cared much about the Wayne family before, other than to hear about the advancements on WE's eco-friendly tech, but Sam thinks she's gonna have to look into why Damian Wayne was living with the Waynes.
Slowly, with a protective anger beginning to burn in her gut and crawl up her throat, a scowl slowly curls at the corner of her lip as she redirects her glare from her mother onto Bruce. "It's going fine," She says curtly, jutting her chin out defiantly. "Me and my friend Danny started a petition to fix the leaky faucets in the girls and boys' bathrooms in order to conserve more water for the rest of the city."
She eyes his face, waiting to see if anything like recognition flashes through it. And- and nothing. Sam breathes in slowly through her nose, trying to quell the red that's blurring the edge of her vision -- does he just, not know where Danny is?
Her parents however, make vaguely displeased expressions. "Our Samantha is... quite passionate about her pet projects." Her dad says, laughing low and nervously, "she's very vocal about silly things like that."
"Her friend Daniel is perhaps even worse than she is sometimes." Her mother adds on, fanning her face with her perfectly manicured hands with a sigh. "I swear, he's the one that keeps dragging her into these things."
Sam's anger turns on its head, and she whirls on her heel like a fire-breathing dragon. "It's Danyal." It rolls out like instinct. Danny's told them both that he hates the Americanized pronunciation of his name, but in a rare moment of restraint, puts up with it for reasons unknown to her. "And Danny doesn't make me do anything, it was my idea."
The name, Danyal, seems to ring some kind of bell in Brucie Wayne's head, because she sees him and Damian quietly perk up like two cats pricking up their ears. Her eyes flick onto him immediately, something dangerous rearing its head. So Bruce Wayne knows about Danny. And he's not reaching out to him. Is he? She's not sure.
She does know that she's gonna rip his throat out if she finds out that he's known about Danny this entire time and has been ignoring him while favoring his little brother. She'll hunt down Aragon herself and steal his dragon-shifting amulet and wreck house on Bruce Wayne if that's the case. Batman and his league of vigilantes be damned. Her parents don't notice her slowly turning head towards Bruce.
But Bruce does, and she makes direct eye contact with him. His smile doesn't falter, he just tilts his head like a curious puppy and looks at Sam's parents. She hopes Bruce can read minds, she hopes he can hear her threatening him.
"Danyal?" He asks, and Sam doesn't know if she hates the fact that he said it correctly or not. She just continues burning holes into him and hoping he might spontaneously combust.
Her mother waves her hand dismissively, tilting her nose up poshly into the air. "Our dear Samantha's little... foster friend from school," she says, not even bothering to hide her disdain, "a creepy little boy with the most garish scar on his face. He's a rude little thing, not good for polite company."
Scratch that, Sam mentally alternates between ripping into her parents and Bruce. She whirls on them. "Do not talk about Danny that way." She all but snarls, and they all but ignore her.
(She's tearing up the upholstery when she gets home. She's going to paint over the fine china. She's going to do something to make them pay for this.)
"Oh yes, he was taken in by that freaky Fenton family a few years ago." Her dad continues in lieu of her mom, and they both shake their heads disapprovingly. "It's just what our city needs, another menace."
"Danny is not a menace." Sam continues, raising her voice while her hands shake with rage. Her parents finally look at her, but she can already tell that they're going to scold her for raising her voice. She bulldozes over them and jabs her black-painted finger at them. "He's got a bigger heart than the both of you combined."
"Samantha, please." her mom says, exasperated. They both give her disapproving looks, Sam thinks about grabbing champagne off the tray of a nearby waiter and throwing it in their faces. "You defend that boy far too much. What do you actually know about him and his family?"
Sam sets her jaw, puffing herself up like a dragon protecting its hoard. She steps into her mom's space. "I know that he loves the stars; you can ask him anything about astronomy and he could give you an entire lecture on the formation, class types, and various gasses that stars are made up of. He can tell you how the Earth was formed, he can tell you about the visible light spectrum and about light curves, and a whole ton of other stuff that I don't really understand. But Danny loves talking about it."
Her face twists and scowls, "I know he cares a ton about the environment and about fixing light pollution, and preserving the forests and natural habitats of animals." She nearly jabs her finger into her mom's chest, "I know he loves dogs, and that there's one he feeds every day on the way to school that he calls Cujo, its a St. Bernard puppy and Danny carries him around whenever he sees him after school, and is in the middle of training him."
It's not a total lie, but it's not the whole truth either. Cujo doesn't need food, but Danny gives him it anyways. "I know he likes spicy food and loves movies but specifically only sci-fi and horror, and he hates most martial arts movies. His favorite superhero is the Martian Manhunter, but Batman comes in at a close second." For reasons to her that were pretty unknown, but it didn't matter.
"I know he loves wordplay and making puns, which I would have never expected from him when we first met, but it's so unbelievably Danny-like that I can't imagine him not making puns." And she smiles a little to herself, she remembers the first time Danny intentionally made a pun once and it got startled laughs out of both her and Tucker.
Her smile suddenly falters, and she swallows. Her lips purse up, wobbling, and she very quickly glances over to Damian Wayne, of whom is watching her with a vaguely bewildered expression alongside Bruce.
She turns her eyes back onto her parents. "And I know that he worries a lot, even if he has a shit way of showing it. I know he had a little brother that he hasn't seen since he was adopted by the Fentons, and he doesn't talk about him often but when he does he he calls him 'starlight'." From the corner of her eye, she sees Damian jerk.
"So- so, so what if he's not 'good for polite company'." Sam's voice, embarrassingly, cracks down the middle. But she's so angry over Danny's behalf that she doesn't really care. "Or that he can be mean, and critical, and stubborn. He's learning, and he's becoming kinder by the day. That's more than I can say about you."
(She remembers when Danny finally admitted to her and Tucker being his 'closest friends'. It was sometime before the portal incident, and it felt like a milestone because beforehand he only really referred to them as his companions or allies.)
(At the time, he'd looked unsure of himself. Skittish like a stray in the back of an alleyway, almost shy in his own way. It had come out stilted, slow, like an infant taking its first steps, and it would have been endearing if it hadn't been heartbreaking.)
Her parents rear back like she'd struck them, and her mother holds a hand against her chest in aghast. Sam doesn't care, she blinks the sting out of her eyes. "Samantha." Her mother starts.
Sam cuts her off, "I don't care what you have to say, you-- you pricks." she snaps, around her, there are gasps. Belatedly, she realizes she's grown an audience, but again she doesn't care. "Danny might be an asshole, but he cares. And I'd rather be around someone whose mean but cares, than someone whose nice but doesn't."
With that, she whirls on her foot and turns on Bruce Wayne, who has been silent the entire time with a surprised expression on his face. He starts to shake out of it when Sam turns to him, but she doesn't give him the chance to speak. "Enjoy your party." She snarls, and then stalks away.
#dpxdc#dp x dc#dp x dc crossover#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dpxdc crossover#dpdc#danyal al ghul au#older brother danny#sam is one protective gal. this scene went differently in my head. way differently. but alas. i am not complaining.#sam: if bruce wayne abandoned my best friend i'm gonna physically transform myself into a dragon and incinerate him. how dare he.#bruce and damian got to watch in real time as a random girl who knows danny suddenly realizes he's related to them. which is comical to me#because she suddenly goes from being disinterested but weirded out by damian. to suddenly looking at bruce like she's gonna kill him#which is very funny to me bc from their pov at first its like this random girl just speedran hating bruce. and then her parents bring up he#friend danny and then she calls him danyal. and suddenly its starting to click into place like 'oh fuck wait we may just have a lead on --#-- finding danyal and his whereabouts.' especially after sam's mom mentions the scar on his face. like wow. what a crazy ten minutes.#not seen but def happened: sam gets her phone out to go text danny in the corner. she's not gonna bring up the bruce thing yet. she needs#a pick me up. related note: danny and tucker know she's gone to some gala thing with her parents but not to a wayne gala. if danny had know#he may have told her that he was related to damian wayne. just to prepare her for that. not so sure on the writing in this one folks#but i also dont wanna go through and edit anything its like half past one in the morning and i also dont wanna wait until morning to post#when i can just do it now. and get instant serotonin. i thought of this scene in various ways. like sam calling damian 'danny' out of shock#and then quickly correcting herself. and then excusing herself very quickly. or her mentioning that damian resembles her friend danny a lot#so she was just thrown off by him. because i def think that could happen if sam has no reason to think that she needs to hide danny from th#waynes. i also thought about her parents mentioning that damian resembles danny a little bit. only for one of them to go 'oh no no couldn't#- be. how insulting to damian since the daniel they know has this horrid scar on his face.' and then go from there. either way i thought#a scene like this would be fun. get to also kinda explore how danny looks like from his friends' povs. of which he is#'our lovable jerk who is an ex-cult member and whom we will maim someone over.'#not a scene that was added but i wanted to: sam mentioning in parenthesis that she and tucker think danny was part of a cult prior to the#fentons. and that sometimes danny will say something alarming and sam and tucker will stare at him until he frowns and goes#“that... isn't normal. is it?” and tucker will clap his shoulder and cheerfully go “no buddy. no it isn't” bc i think the idea is funny.#sam is so focused on the idea that bruce abandoned/ignored/was unaware of danny's existence that she momentarily forgot that bruce may have
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