I hc Dick will be non-verbal for a bit when Bruce first adopts him
*camera starts recording. A shadow appears on screen, and in the abyss where a face would be stars twinkle on the other side of a black hole. They wave at you.*
Hi everyone, my name’s Andy (they/them). I am the ghost of-
*lights flicker, not because of anything paranormal but bc someone broke in off camera and started chucking salt everywhere and tripped over the lights* not that kind of ghost, god fucking damn it not aGAIN-
*camera glitches. The lighting is fixed. The only human thing about the Void is their frustration. The nebulas floating across their form manage to convey the utmost annoyance.*
Hi. I’m the Void, or the Abyss, and you can call me Andy. I’m the ghost of universes that once were. *squints at someone off camera, celestial orbits clearly raising a frying pan just off frame* if you mention the multiverse I swear to god-
*camera glitches*
So yeah, I’m travelling around, dipping into different stories and fixing them up, trying to give them a happier ending, y’know?
*if the Void had eyes, they would be sad. Instead, there is only the constant drift of broken planets and colliding stars.*
I’ve seen so many things end badly for the people, or characters, involved, I want to try and make it a little bit better, one story at a time. Like the Good Place, except in the found family sense and not in the making me bawl my fucking EYES out at the end-
*camera glitches*
-just a silly little nerdy cosmic mess trying to have fun. I hope if you are interested, check out my blog for talking about my stories, to the writing process, to just generally fun things to talk about. I hope if you do put some faith in this Not-Universe, you enjoy reading or chatting, and that it makes you smile. If you do, come talk to me! I’m always looking to meet new people whenever I drop in on another world.
Even if you don’t say anything, have fun, and remember: you are never alone, even if you can’t see all the stars surrounding you.
*The sweet moment is interrupted by the thumping footsteps of a large animal of some kind, and something knocks into the camera, sending it to the floor as the Void, meteors flying, tries to shoo the beast*
Sorry, Ghost gets a little over excited when he meets a new friend- Ghost, quit slobbering all over me you oversized bread basket-
*camera glitches to a close up of a very ruffled Void, dwarf planets askew and stardust swirling as they hurry to say farewell* Ok, enjoy! Bye!
*camera cuts*
Batman: Remember, we’re on Justice League business. Be on your best behavior
Robin!Dick: Watch yourselves, everyone! Batman: This applies mostly to you
Robin!Dick: Oh- You bite ONE guy and suddenly no one trusts you! Batman: You bit his finger off.
Robin!Dick: I SPIT IT BACK OUT-
Justice League: *stare in concerned silence*
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
Content warning for death, blood and description of injuries
Another slice to my throat. More stains running down my armour, rivers feeding the nutrients I no longer need into the ground. You stand frozen, gaze blank. You always do when we die. Blue already lies, eyes vacant and staring, neck angled horribly wrong. I can’t see Yellow’s face. Their back took the worst of their injuries, as they tripped and did not get back up.
My knees crumble, throat gasping out one last time. I didn’t see Green go down, I heard them like I can hear myself. Their cry cut off, because their brain was targeted. Not their throat. My brain is still stuck trying to make broken vocal cords work.
I blink for what should be the last time.
It won’t be.
“Everyone understand?” Purple looks around at us, all jostling in the belly of the plane, trying to break the tension before our last mission. “We only get one shot at this. We’re counting on you.” They look directly at you as they say that, before turning to where the doors will open.
I don’t know why we don’t get one shot. I don’t know why the gods keep rewinding the clock. You’re the only one that initiates change, so you have to know. I think you’re the only other one who does. The fifth try, you took out a guard I hadn’t spotted. They killed me last time. The seventeenth, you found another way in, after the previous one kept leading to traps and dead ends.
I don’t know why I’m granted so many second chances, and I know I’m alone in remembering what came before. I tried to mention it to Green once. It distracted them, got them killed earlier. I stopped talking after that try. I didn’t want to mess anything else up.
We’re getting close, we have to be. I don’t know what try we’re on, but you get better, stronger every time. Sometimes there’s a stupid mistake from one of us, or a weirdly placed guard, but generally, we’re improving.
Out the airplane, land on the roof, take the fire escape to the fourth floor even though it goes down to the third because there’s too many guards on the third, sneak through the vents, avoid the alarms, climb into the lift shaft and into one of the lifts, ride it down to the basement.
Yes, I can feel it. The death by gravity as I was pushed down the empty shaft. Bones crunching, not able to move my legs. Internal bleeding got me that time. A shot through the window of a corridor, so quick I didn’t have time to be surprised. The phantom pains following me into the next try, aches where my body expects to still find snaps.
This try, we get all the way down the final hall to the vault before the tripwire catches you out. We can still make it, we’ve made it past this point before. Footsteps rumble like thunder above as we dash towards the vault door, weapons and equipment flickering through your hands as you search for something we can use. The vault door creeks as it begins to swing slowly, a ticking clock for our team. Blue makes it in, sliding their backpack off immediately to search for the lock picks they will now need. Yellow whoops as they make it in, keeping an eye on Blue while taunting the guards and hurrying us up. The vault door gets closer to shut. Green makes it in, preparing to take up cover fire through a narrowing field of vision. You’re right behind, squeezing through the shrinking gap. The vault clicks as it closes, Purple slamming into it unable to stop their momentum, and me skidding to a halt beside them.
There’s a small glass window through the vault door, and you walk right up to it, staring at us while you try to slam anything into the door. Looking for a trigger to open the metal lock. Running to get Blue or the others to help, but they shake their heads, already moving on. You return to the window, and I smile back. It’s ok. You might be able to make it this time. This could be the one. You could do it.
The door we came through shatters open as guards pour in. We ready our weapons for a fight, turning away from you, who has gone so still. You never stop moving, not unless one of us is dead, but you can’t do that now. You can make it, you can complete our mission and save the world. We signed onto that, weeks of training and trusting each other before we committed to our shot. Helping people, or die trying.
The stench of blood taints the air as Purple and I engage, holding back the guards to give you as much time as we can. Every second gives you more of a chance to make it. Please, you have to make it. You can do this. Dodging a knife and twisting away from the action, I see you, still frozen on the other side of the glass. A jolt in my back, my breath catching and your blank express do the rest.
I blink.
“Everyone understand?” Purple looks around at us, jostling each other. I smile at you, because you are already moving, already checking weapons and ammunition and equipment again. You could have made it that time.
It’s happened quite a bit. Your chance for freedom, for success, very clearly in reach. But then Yellow will get taken out as a warning that we’ve been spotted. Green succumbs to previous injuries. Blue can’t break the locks in time. Purple gets caught in a triggered trap. I stay behind to buy more time. It resets every time. And although it hurts, and the hollow pain in my stomach has me checking the wound really did disappear like they do everytime, I will smile at you. Because you are going to get us through this. You’re going to make sure one of these times, everybody lives. Every death, every injury, is nothing compared to losing any of us.
It may be selfish, and painful, and at times threatens hellish hopelessness, but whenever it gets too much, whenever the danger gets too close, I know you will save us. You will stay with us, and I know you will keep doing so until one try, we all make it out ok. And I would rather that ending than any other.
Player keeps reloading trying to save every ally in a mission, one of their allies remembers every attempt.
My favorite fics go something like
Jason: the Joker killed me, and you refuse to kill him! You should love me enough to do that!
Bruce: I can't kill! Batman can't kill!
Jason: If you don't, he'll kill again and again, and that's on you!
Tim w/ a gun, who formed an intense parasocial relationship with Robin and Batman as a small child, super smart, with zero adult supervision, about to explain the Joker isn't just "missing in action": well this is awkward
The dragon appears to be currently having a tug of war with a rogue tooth fairy over the coin it meant to leave under your pillow (the academy’s been dealing with a bit of a problem at the moment so it’s become routine to check you still have all your teeth when you get up), and eventually gives up on the coin.
The tooth fairy, cloaked in cracked tooth enamel, makes the brief mistake of blowing a raspberry at your new familiar, believing to have won the fight. As it turns out, tooth fairy makes for a good morning snack, as your dragon crunches on its wings. It then tries to eat the previously abandoned coin. Ok.
The Academy is very grateful for your familiar’s help with the tooth fairy problem, and looking after it keeps you on your toes. Life goes on. Twig (named for the one food the brat refuses to eat no matter how much you insist it’s good for her fire breathing-) grows big enough to rival the average rocket of energy that is a Labrador. You’d almost thought the conversation with the Goddess was a dud.
You were telling Twig off for trying to eat your scarf, again, because you really didn’t think you’d be spending the same amount of money on winter clothes as an academy textbook, but you know, favourite chew toys and all, when in a huff, Twig takes a bite of the sludge coating the pavement, never breaking eye contact with you.
You stare as your dragon eats. It’s not snow. It’s too late in the winter for snow. The footprints in beautiful pristine perfection were replaced by grey and brown mush melting into gutters two weeks back. You don’t let her eat things found on the side of the pavement (how horrible of you, you know), so she’s doing this to be difficult. She clearly never tried sludge before, because despite trying to be difficult, her face twists in disgust, and she opens her mouth again to let the sludge fall out. It only looks marginally less appealing than before.
Twig sneezes then, and instead of her usual purple fire, violet ice comes snorting out, encasing the partially chewed sludge. Oh good. That won’t complicate things. A dragon that can breathe whatever it’s recently eaten, and that dragon is Twig, whose first instinct in every situation is to see if she can eat something. Without fail.
In the end, you really wish the Goddess of Magic could have just spouted one of those ‘the power was inside you all along’ speeches, because Goddess knows raising a multitalented dragon and preventing it from eating everything in sight was throwing you in the deep end on that front. Turns out, when you’re constantly practicing spells that track down where your dragon has wandered off to in the middle of a farmer’s market, or realising you really need that fire resistant spell after you snuck wood into Twig’s diet cause you thought she wouldn’t be able to taste it but you clearly thought wrong- well practice makes perfect, and you get a LOT of practice.
But even becoming one of the most powerful mages won’t get Twig to leave your scarf aLONE GODDAMN IT TWIG-
You are the weakest mage of your academy, so weak that you even fail to summon a familiar. After another dreamed discussion with the goddess of magic, you’re surprised to find a tiny dragon curled up on your chest in the morning.
what if someone started a kitchen fire and then got yelled at by everyone else over twitter?
MHA tweets- special edition 😤