mossing-around

Latest Posts by mossing-around

I really want to give baby Damian Martha Waynes eyes.

And then take them away before Bruce has a chance to see them.

Just like for one reason or another the Batfam ends up having to go to the League and Damian is sent off by Talia to join his peers in morning katas while the elder family members meet in her office for something.

And of course all of the Batfam are little snoops so they walk around her office and look at the documents and few pictures she has. And then suddenly Tim notices something.

"I thought Damian had your eyes Talia?" Tim says staring down at a picture of a 3 or 4 year old Damian with muddy green eyes rather than the bright almost toxic ones the family is used to.

"No, not at all, I don't even remember what color my eyes originally were." Talia responds barely digging through some files that Bruce needs.

"What does that mean?" Dick asks harshly.

" You didn't truly think the Al Ghul eyes were truly the Al Ghul eyes did you?" Talia scoffs "They're Lazarus eyes, why do you think Jason's eyes match ours?"

"I. I didn't think of that, huh" Jason mumbles dragging his hands along the different books Talia keeps.

"So... So when did Damian die?"

That brought silence to the room.

Jason stopped walking, Dick stopped breathing, Tim was looking sadly at Talia, eye shifting to Bruce as he stared at a wall.

"About 3 months before his 5th birthday, it was before my Father and I started to actually train him. An assassin snuck in after infiltrating the guard for a few months. Apparently he wanted Damians death to be slow. He perforated a lung, I managed to get there and kill the bastard, but Damian couldn't be saved without the pit." Talia says robotically.

"I do miss his eyes though, such a soft green" she almost whispers.

Bruce walks over to Tim, lightly taking the photo.

His breath shuttered for a moment.

He stroked his fingers over the eyes that he will never see again, that were taken from him far to soon. Both times.

"Those are my mother's eyes." He says

"He had my mother's eyes."

He stares, unable to do anything but mourn what he didn't know he lost again.

"Do you have more pictures from before?"

"Of course beloved, I'll make you copies"

The room remained silent spare the shuffling of papers and the drag of Bruce's finger over the glass frame

Dannymay day 4 - Eyes

Tumblr hates me and does NOT want me to upload this and idk why :( why does the fps keep getting fucked up 😭

every single time i see one of those ‘pov you forget to mute yourself on discord’ tiktoks i think of the batkids. i just fucking know they’ve spent so long boredly fucking around on comms during patrol that they have honed the skill to acapella any song they want on the fly just to entertain themselves during slow nights.

Bruce will be dealing with a group of muggers when out of nowhere about 6 different voices will perfectly team up with NO verbal planning before hand just to serenade him with Meghan Trainor or Britney Spears and they will Not Listen when he tells them it’s distracting.

one time Damian got smacked in the head with a brick during a group mission and he was collapsed on the ground trying to get his bearings and not throw up while Bruce and Dick were fighting to get to his side, and STILL despite the concussion they could hear the little fucker providing the background beat to Jason Tim and Stephs performance of Fallen Kingdom by Captainsparklez.

Tim: Batcomputer, how would you gently break it to your family that you accidentally got married on a mission a few years ago, and now your husband, whose name you don't even know, has requested to spend a summer with you through his undead servants? Batcomputer: Here is an example of an elopement announcement. Tim: Scandalous and dramatic, I love it. Could you order two dozen elopement announcement business cards with the following information? Batcomputer: Understood. The shipment will arrive in four days. Alfred, four days later, going through the Manor mail: What the bloody hell? Bruce: What is it? Alfred reading: To whom it may concern, this card was just handed to you because you'd like to know who the man hanging off of Tim Drake's arm is. The answer: He's my husband with whom I eloped in the year of our great lord, Clockwork, 20XX. Much love and kisses! Mind your own business, the happy couple, Tim Drake and He of Glorious Darkness, Ghost King of the Infinite Realms. Bruce rubbing his eyes: Why does he do these things every time we take our eyes off of him? Alfred: I don't know, Sir. I sometimes wonder if the universe sent Master Tim to either test my will or punish me for a past life.

wow, I love how you portrayed their grief. it doesn’t feel over done or in your face but it’s undoubtedly there.

amazing job op!!

Wasted Potential

Dannymay 2025: Day 4 - Eyes

An eldritch horror!Phantom au in which Danny's boyfriend is a monstrosity beyond human comprehension and he makes that everyone's problem lol

I just love the thought of everyone else being horrified when they see Phantom yet Danny is so nonchalant. He just wants to cuddle with his boyfriend why is everyone screaming??

How I imagine the dynamic:

You know those posts about one of Bruce’s kids getting kidnapped and him having no idea which kid they have based on the vague descriptions he’s given? Well now I can’t only imagine Bruce getting the dreaded call and immediately pulling out a guess who board filled entirely with his kids. Like

kidnapper: we have one of your children

Bruce: I have so many of those you need to be more specific

kidnapper: the loud and annoying one

Bruce, flipping down Cass and Duke: that does not help as much as you think it does

kidnapper: well he has black hair?

Bruce, flips down Steph: keep going

kidnapper: uhhhh? He’s short?

Bruce, flips down Dick and Jason leaving Tim and Damian: more specific

kidnapper: he’s been condescending and judgmental since we got him

Bruce: yeah they both tend to do that

kidnapper: he keeps throwing around words I don’t understand

Bruce, realizing that Damian and Tim are significantly more similar than he thought: uhh more specific?

kidnapper: more?? look just wore us the mon— WHERE’D HE HIDE A KATANA???

Bruce: ah you have Damian

Clark opened Batman's contingency plans, how you make a contingency plan for yourself he didn't know, but Batman managed to make two dozen. The league looked on behind him nervously, if this didn't work they'd have to make a plan themselves. Making plans was something Batman had always been the best at and a skill he'd retained mind contolled.

The first contingency plan only contained 2 things; a phone number and... Another phne number. Barry voiced the words all of them were thinking "Just two numbers, That's all? Whose are they?

Dinah sighed "only one way to find out." Clark called the first number, on the third ring someone picked up.

"Who is this and what do you want?" The voice was young, way too young.

"This is the Justice League-"

"What happened to Batman?" The voic- no kid, it had to be a kid. But why would Batman put a kid's number on his own contingency plan? -asked, taking on a more urgent tone.

Oliver spoke this time "He's being mind controlled, your number was in his first contingency plan"

The voice gained a little tone of surprise. "My number was in the contingency plan? Was there anything else?"

"Just another phone number, ____"

"That's agent A's, I'll make my way over now" The whole league was stunned. Did the kid just hang up? Since when did Batman know kids? Batman would have a lot of questions to answer when this ended.

---

Sure enough, half an hour later a kid walked into the watchtower. The kid was wearing a red, yellow and green costume and sported a domino mask.

Barry felt very dumb at the moment. "Are you a hero?"

"I'm Robin, Batman's partner"

"Doesn't Batman work alone?"

"Batman is in denial about being a big softy and doesn't like telling you anything." Did the kid just- "Also you should annoy him more, he keeps telling me I should stop and he uses you lot as an example" This kid must have no survival instincts.

Robin walked up to the big computer and logged in... How did this kid have access? The next thing they knew footage was pulled up- Was that from Batman's cowl?! "The footage got cut off, what I saw before that suggests Batman didn't lose any of his intellect under the mind control.

"Is that bad?" Superman didn't know why he trusted Robin's analysis but he did.

"He'll be a harder opponent to deal with but it might be easier to break the mind control or anticipate his next move" The boy's eyes kept darting across the screen, taking in information- Communications offline, Villain Profiles, Street footage -before he stood up.

Robin looked at each of the heroes individually with a calculating eye. "I have a plan, but I'd prefer to have your help than do it without" The members of the Justice League shared a hesitant glance.

Bonus:

"Don't ever make me have to fight you again!"

"I can remove you from the continge-"

"That's not what I meant! ..I'd be more worried if i couldn't do anything about it"

"I'll try to not get mind controlled again."

"...I forgive you"

I do actually think that might solve a lot of your problems with him.

(Batman: The Brave and the Bold 009)

Common misconception: “Damian doesn’t give a shit about people/is heartless/hard to understand.” WRONG!!! *incorrect buzzer noise*

Damian gives too much of a shit, in fact! Every reaction, every action, he has is because he gets emotional! (And then processes those emotions in non-“normal kid” ways.) He’s pretty easy to understand even, but people’s perceptions of him always range in the negative rather than positive so they complicate things + Damian obscuring what little he can behind League-isms and quick jabs/sarcasms. (Still, it doesn’t take people like Tim or Dick long to clock his insecurities/“need to be accepted.”)

The real problem Damian has is 1) bad first impressions 2) his reluctance to appear vulnerable, at a cost 3) good old parental (mommy/daddy) issues + child of divorce vibes

Few people know this, but Danny is a great cook.

He had to be. He was living with neglectful parents who sometimes forget about their children and forget to eat themselves. Sam and Tucker love his cooking as he cooks both meat and vegan dishes.

Amity Park has a yearly cooking competition and technically Danny's won it 4 years in a row.

The first year Jack and Danny entered the competition. Danny did the cooking and Jack added a "Fenton secret ingredient". That secret ingredient being ectoplasm. That day the food tasted the judges just as much as the judges tasted the food. The Fenton family was banned from the cooking competitions from that day forth.

The second year Danny entered the competition under a fake name. Unfortunately Dash had heard about him entering the competition and stole Danny's food for his own and winning the competition. Fortunately Sam stole the ribbon from Dash and gave it to Danny.

The third year Danny made sure that Dash couldn't steal his food but Cujo had also followed Danny into the competition and the bully had spread rumors about Danny putting dog in his food. And again Danny was disqualified. Sam bought him his own trophy because she knows he'd win, but it wasn't the same.

The fourth year Danny entered again, but this time so did the lunch lady and when the food was being judged people ran due to the lunch lady being a ghost the competition was canceled and no one won.

This year Danny was going to win. He had always used the recipes provided to him by his pen pal Alfred pennyworth and he was going to win fair and square and prove he was a good cook.

god. i forgot that wei wuxian appointed jiang cheng specifically as his backup. on purpose. he told wen ning, if lan zhan and i don't come out, go get jiang cheng. the guy who just harassed me into unconsciousness and insulted lan zhan and hates your guts. he's the guy i trust to save my ass when i get into a bad situation. hello???

i’ve been on a damian-jason brotherhood kick lately but specifically like. weirdly close damian and jason. codependent to the point where it’s starting to get on the rest of the family’s nerves. they’re used to relying on each other in the league and now that they’re in gotham together they just revert back to their oddly dependant ways and everybody else just watches them coexist in slightly jealous fascination.

-jason tastes every piece of food damian is given to check for poison. even if alfred makes it. its not even a belief that damian could be poisoned, it’s just second nature and damian’s used to handing over a small bite and waiting for the nod to go ahead and eat.

-damian uses jason’s body like a climbing frame whenever he feels like it. they don’t exchange words half the time, he just decides he wants to sit on jason’s shoulders so that’s where he puts himself. jason’s used to being halfway through making himself a coffee and suddenly having to readjust his weight, or hold out an arm so damian can use it as a branch to climb up with. they don’t even notice they do it.

-jason picks damian up from school every day. they go out afterwards just the two of them and never bother inviting the others to eat with them. dick has literally ran into them when they by chance ended up in the same cafe and he watched the two pick a booth as far away from him as possible.

-when people are checking for if jason is around the manor they don’t even bother calling for him, they just ask if damian’s home or not, because if damian isn’t home then jason won’t be either.

-damian knows how to cook exactly one dish and it’s jason’s comfort food.

-one time damian crashed the fuck out at school and refused to come out from under a table, and when the teachers eventually gave up and called his guardian to help handle him, bruce just sighed and said ‘you want his brother’s number, i’ll email you it.’

-damian only ever falls asleep on jason. one time after he fell asleep next to jason on the couch, jason got up to grab a drink and when he got back tim had taken his spot, so he sat on an armchair instead. seven seconds later damian woke up, kicked tim in the side like a rabbit, moved to the armchair with jason, and fell asleep again.

-duke once saw jason tie damian’s shoelaces because damian didn’t want to pause reading a case file to do them himself

-Damian: can somebody help me reach this shelf?

Dick: sure i can-!

Damian: no.

Dick:

Damian: *stares at Jason pointedly*

Jason: ……yeah ok. coming.

Dick:

-one time alfred asked if anyone needed anything from the store and damian declared ‘todd needs new socks.’ and jason just went ‘oh do i?’ and when damian nodded he said to alfred ‘yeah i could do with a pack of socks?’

-jason has kept all of damian’s baby teeth. they’re in a tin kept under his ammo stash.

just those two having a connection that continuously baffles yet resigns the family to the fact that they have to deal with those two codependent idiots 24/7

DPxDC Put on A Show

TW: suicide attempts but for fun

After a few years of doing the whole vigilante thing, Danny gets bored of his quick and simple transformation act. He gets bored of doing the memes along with it as well — the 'I guess I'll die' was funny at first, but there's really only so many times it works.

The solution? He starts staging his own deaths. Throwing a toaster in the bathtub, comically falling down on a knife, slipping on a banana peal and hitting his head, all that jazz. He has his own list of preferred suicides, ranking from the quickest to slowest and from the least to most painful, and another one that goes from the least inconvenient method to most troublesome one. The first one on the latter is getting shot at. The last is getting suffocated in a swarm of bees so far.

His friends are long used to it — they are all Amity kids, honestly, their idea of humor is really twisted. They laugh their asses off when Danny attempts to strangle himself with one of those sour candy strips. They laugh even harder when he succeeds.

But then Danny moves for college and realizes that most people outside Amity Park don't think performed suicide is funny.

And, well.

Sucks to be them because Danny does not plan on stopping any time soon!

The absolute culmination of it comes one dark November evening, when the Fenton luck strikes again and Danny finds himself being a hostage in Joker's old as time performance: making Batman choose between saving Robin or saving a helpless civilian, both of them hanging over the tanks full of acid.

Only, midway through the madman's pathetic speech, they all get to see said civilian wake up, look around to realize what kind of situation he ended up in, and then excitedly say, "Sick, a jacuzzi!"

And happily, eagerly wiggle his way out of the ropes to fall in, screaming, "Cannonball!"

Danny has found a small-ish floating island in the Zone that isn't claimed by anyone. Dibs.

He starts altering it, and finds out that for ghosts it's like, super easy. He's literally just grabbing bits of ecto and forming it into what he wants, like putty.

He takes inspiration from his favorite Animal Crossing save, and shapes this floating island to be a place for him to just...go chill.

He names it the same thing he named his Animal Crossing island; Potato.

Danny loves Potato Island. It's his new favorite place to go to unwind.

The blob ghosts like his little ecto lakes and ponds, and will take the form of random fish to play in them. Some of them like to pretend to be caught when he goes "fishing", and are very proud when he takes photos with them and tells them what a big catch they are.

There's his house, based on the Animal Crossing one he designed, and there's a few other empty ones as well.

There's shops, based after the ones on his islands, that have no wares and no one to run them.

But that's fine, this is all just so he can relax.

Except one day, a ghost he hasn't met before asks if they can have one of the houses. That in return, they'll run one of the shops.

Danny agrees! He was getting kind of lonely anyways, and he's not on the island all the time.

Then another ghost asked. Then another.

Now his little project island is a bustling avenue of shops and locals, with celebrations for Ghost holidays he's never heard of planned out, and a small city council to gather up concerns and bring them to his attention if the city council can't resolve them.

Usually it's infrastructure, since no one but Danny can make alterations to the island. The political stuff stays firmly in the hands of the elected officials.

Potato Island is a small, peaceful hub of trade and Danny is Very Proud.

~~~~~~

Meanwhile, the Justice League Dark is very happy that there's an interdimensional, peaceful trading village in the Infinite Realms that they can do their shopping at with ease.

The locals like to barter, which is ideal for Magic Users, and Potato Island (wild name but whatever) is protected by a very powerful spirit, so JLD members don't have to worry about being attacked while there.

Billy, though; Billy has a whole other reason to seek Potato Island out; he needs a place to live as a human. He can open his own portals and go back to Earth, and he's not stupid, he knows not to eat food from the Realms, but he's...a little tired of being homeless.

As Captain Marvel, everyone thinks he's an adult and that he has a secret base to live in.

But as Billy, who no one in the hero community knows, he's been living on the streets, and he wants security.

So the next time he goes to Potato Island, he explores it, searching for the Island's guardian; Phantom.

He has a favor to ask.

Comic Commission for @frootysparkycakes

Someone with the ability to see when people die meets someone who already died a long time ago.

one thing i absolutely adore from the first part of this run is something i wish i saw more

Damian having an actively different accent

Damian having perfect voice mimicry is cool and all, but the idea of Damian still having an accent that is 100% identifiable as being 0% gotham when being comfortable and acting casually is so good.

he's arab chinese and taught in multiple languages since he was a baby so I'd imagine he'd have a mix of stuff

one of my favorite subtle implications in the series is that it seems the Titan Army was fully banking on Percy being the host of Kronos. Why else would they make their main base a cruise ship if their primary enemy is a son of Poseidon? Named after Andromeda, the wife of Perseus? Why would they work on Oceanus specifically being free so much? Side notably with other children of Poseidon? Why plant Zeus and Hades' items of power on Percy when Luke already had them? Why only Zeus and Hades' items, not Poseidon's? Well because they really need Percy as Kronos' host, that's why. (and Poseidon siding with them because of that would be a bonus as well)

I like to imagine Luke's cabin on the Princess Andromeda is fully decked out with like "WELCOME PERCY" and sea-themed sheets and everything and he hates it so much cause it's a constant reminder he failed and he was Kronos' second choice. Also then he gets his super special pegasus not even exactly stolen by Percy, but the pegasus willingly defects to be Percy's personal steed instead, which must just be insult to injury. Luke has immense one-sided beef with Percy and Percy has no idea.

I'm almost disappointed that in all of the Danny Phantom fics I've read I've never seen Danny meeting an immensely powerful god/ghostly being and be all "And where were YOU when Pariah Dark was released from his Sarcophagus"

Bonus points if someone who has no idea what Danny's deal is is watching the confrontation in horror

I think anyone that studies medicine with Damian would lowkey hate his ass.

Not in a mean way, but in a petty why-aren't-you-struggling-like-me type of way. I mean, thanks to Robin and the league Damian is light years ahead of everyone on terms of experience and it would show.

Half the class is puking their guts out the first time they see a patient with an open fracture. Damian has been there, done that, seen that and worse. He's eating m&m's in the back.

They're all practicing making sutures until late. Damian is like "No, I don't need to join you. I could suture with my eyes closed" and then when someone is like "prove it, rich-boy" that mf actually blindfolds his eyes and sutures perfectly using four different techniques.

He also passes everything with flying colors! Because of course, the guy can't just be rich, good looking and famous, he has to be smart too.

And it just gets worse when he starts his actual residency.

Nothing shakes him! Thirty hour shifts? He doesn't even yawn. Extreme stress during a surgery gone awry? Damian is the one telling the other members of the surgical team to stay calm. Violent patient? They don't even get to call security, Damian has the guy pinned already.

And it would be easier to not get jealous of him if he somehow was a souless blood sucking asshole. But Damian is a good person, awkward and standoffish but always willing to help. He's there for whatever people need. He aids nurses, listens to patients, conforts victims. He sits with people for the bad news and when someone dies he gets this sad faraway look that shows he cares.

And it's just so unfair.

I got to work with @kinglazrus​ for their Invisobang fic “Blossoms on Her Tongue” that you can check out here –>(ao3|ffn)  :)!

The Batfamily knowing military hand signals is a hilarious concept to me. Cause like, you can not tell me Damian wouldn’t be constantly drawing his hand across this throat at every mild inconvenience and person with Dick trying to hide the fact that his ten-year-old brother is telling him he wants to eliminate 80% of the guests there

Damian standing next to Bruce who is in full on Brucie Wayne mode: *eliminate that man*

Jason: *say again*

Dick, taking notice of the gestures: *emphatically gives Damian a negative*

Steph sneaking up on the man with Cass: *assault assault*

Tuck's Labyrinth

[Phic Phight Phill Phor @mistythefifth!]

Tucker was a lot of things.  A genius.  A first-rate bachelor.  A carnivore.   A snack.  A geek.  Unbelievably handsome.  An Esperantist.  God’s gift to women (and men of good taste).  A gamer.  Cool beyond cool.  A hacker.  Eminently eligible.  A ghost hunter.  Drop-dead gorgeous.  A hobbyist archer.  A magnet for Cupid’s arrows.  The reincarnation of an ancient and possibly evil pharaoh.  Bootylicious. The best friend of the personification of memento mori and also Danny Fenton.  And, most importantly, too fine.  

He was not, however, in any way equipped to deal with this.  

“It's so obvious,” said Wes.  “If you'd just open your eyes–”

“You're the one who needs to open his eyes.  Or at least get checked for colorblindness.”

“Do you hear yourself?  If even you think it's reasonable to mix up Fenton and Phantom just by swapping colors–”

“Uh, one, it isn't, and, two, I was talking about coming to school wearing… that.”

Paulina pointed a manicured fingernail in the direction of Wes's clothing, which was, in her defense, a particularly eye-searing combination of flannel plaid jacket, striped t-shirt, novelty camouflage pants, and bright orange boots.  Even Tucker didn't dress like that.  Regularly.  Wes hunched in on himself.  

“It's laundry day,” he said. 

“Your mama's washing your shoes too, huh?”

“Shut up,” said Wes.  “I don't need to take this from a necrophiliac.”

“You–!”

Tucker couldn't take much more of this.  “You guys do know that there's an actual evil ghost in here somewhere?  You know, the one who turned the school into a maze and trapped us in it?”

“I don't know what you're worried about,” said Wes, “Fenton's not going to leave you here.”

Paulina scoffed.  “Fenton's hiding in a closet somewhere. Mi amor, Phantom, on the other hand, will beat up that nasty ghost and sweep me off my feet at any moment.  You can thank me now.”

Tucker loved Danny like a brother, but these guys had way too much faith in a guy who'd once lost a fight with a grocery bag.  (Long story.)

“That's great,” said Tucker.  “But may I remind you: giant maze.”

Wes rolled his eyes.  “Mazes are easy.  You just have to make all right turns.  You can stop the performance already.”

“My what?”

“You know, hyping up your lying friend.  Being a ghost doesn't make him cool.”

“Nothing could make any of you cool,” said Paulina, “but Mr. Delusional is right.  Mazes are easy.”

“You're calling me delusional, when you're–?!”

“Okay, okay,” said Tucker.  “So, three things.  One, the right hand turns thing is only good for getting out of a maze, not for finding people in it.  Two, it only works if you start with a wall that connects with the outside.  And, most importantly, for it to work, you have to actually be doing it.”

Tucker was definitely channeling Danny, or maybe Sam, but there was such a thing as being too laid back.

“Well, we're not stopping you,” said Paulina, examining her fingernails.  “Go run off and do whatever.  I'll tell Phantom when he comes to rescue me.  Probably.”

“Hey, wait, no, Fenton's coming for him–”

Yeah, Tucker wished he could leave.  But these two had no ghost fighting experience, would throw themselves at a ghost if they thought it would get Danny's attention, and would throw themselves at each other if Tucker wasn’t here.  Heck, they were doing it with him here. 

Sam probably would have left, which meant that he was channeling Danny.  

This was terrible.  How did Danny do this?

“Look,” said Tucker, interrupting the argument.  “Even if you think that we’re going to be rescued, we don’t know when and we don’t know if there are other ghosts around who could attack us.  We need some kind of a plan.”  

Paulina and Wes stared at him.  

“Other than just waiting to be rescued,” clarified Tucker.  He waved at the ‘room’ around them.  “We aren’t even somewhere we can barricade, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a drinking fountain or a bathroom anywhere.”  They were, in fact, in a fairly featureless stretch of hallway, complete with lockers, slightly-cracked linoleum, and buzzing fluorescent lights.  The locker numbers were non-sequential and had three more digits than the highest-numbered real lockers at the school.  

“I never go to the bathroom at school,” said Wes.  “That’s where they get you.”

“Dude,” said Tucker.  “Like, how?  Do you not drink or what?”

“I don’t drink at school.  If I did, I’d have to use the bathroom.”

“No wonder you’re so crazy,” said Paulina.  “I’d say that you should just go to the bathroom with your friends, like a normal person, but you don’t have any of those.”

“I do too!”

“Yeah?  Who?” asked Paulina.  

Tucker listened, too.  And took out his PDA.  This would be good data for his all-school relationship map.  

(Hey, it was an important multi-function tool.  How was he supposed to know who to ask out without it?  Or who to blackmail with what if someone more credible than Wes Weston found out Danny’s secret?)

“I’m not going to tell you.  You’ll just say that they aren’t real.”

Ooh.  That was just sad.  Tucker put his PDA away.

“Well, now I am,” said Paulina.  

There was a sudden, startling chime from the PA system.  Tucker looked around, trying to find the speaker.  

“Hi, so, first off, don’t panic,” said Danny’s voice.  

That… was maybe not the best way for Danny to start.  Jeez.  

“Oh!  Oh!  It’s Phantom!” said Paulina, bouncing distractingly.  

“It’s Fenton,” said Wes, “and it’s about time.”

“And, secondly, no, I haven’t found the office.  I’m possessing the PA system.  And, no, I can’t hear you, unless you find one of the PA buttons and–”

There were a series of beeps, followed by shouting, followed by a screech of feedback.  

“--ough of that!” said Danny, getting control of the system again.  “So, if you can get to a button, I can hear you, but I can’t teleport you out, so that’s kind of pointless.  Unless you’re being attacked or something.  Which could be happening.  This guy named himself Daedalmouse, which sort of implies the existence of a Mousotaur, and I’ve been fighting a lot of ghost rats trying to find him.  I’m pretty sure that finding him and beating him up will undo the whole labyrinth thing, but I don’t know how long it will take – yes, I know about the right hand wall trick, but that only works for getting out of mazes that are, you know, following the laws of physics, and not finding crazy ghosts that aren’t following the laws of physics.  I’ll try to check in by possessing the speakers every couple of hours, but in the meantime, hang tight, find places with water, all that survivalist stuff.  If you find a way out, go for it, but no Icarus stuff.  Icarus,” mumbled Danny, sounding distracted.  “Icarus.  Icar-mouse?”  The PDA system chimed again, and then fell silent.  

Except for everyone mashing the buttons, but that was just unintelligible noise and didn’t count.  

“The ghost is named Deadmau5?” asked Paulina.  “What a rip off.”

“He said Daedalmouse.  Like Daedalus?  From Greek mythology?  Ringing any bells?” asked Wes.  

“Whatever,” said Paulina.  “I bet you don’t even know who Deadmau5 is.”

Tucker breathed in slowly through his nose.  “Let’s at least find one of the call buttons so that we can, you know, call for help?  Hello?  Wes?  Paulina?”  Tucker sighed and adjusted his glasses.  “Or so that we can call Phantom when he gets on next?”

“Please, like you need the announcement system to call your best frie–”

“Yes, and then once Phantom knows where I am, he will come and rescue me,” said Paulina, skipping down the hallway.  

“Sure,” said Tucker.  He started walking.  He didn’t want Paulina to get too far ahead.  “Are you coming, Wes?”

“You could just call him,” said Wes.  “On your phone.”

As a point of fact, Tucker had already tried that.  It didn’t work.  “I don’t have Phantom’s number, Wes.”

“I hate you so much.  All of you.”

“I know, Wes.”   

.

“Oh!  Look at that!” said Paulina, pointing around the corner.  

Tucker ran forward - well, jogged, they’d been walking for a while, vainly searching for a classroom door - thinking she’d seen a ghost.  She hadn’t.  

They all looked at the vending machine, hungrily. 

Paulina ran forward and punched in a number on the vending machine keypad, then stopped and turned back to Tucker and Wes.

“Do, like, either of you have any money?”

“Aren’t you rich or something?” asked Wes.  

“Which is how you know I’ll pay you back,” said Paulina.  She flipped her hair over her shoulder.  “I can’t believe that the one time I leave my purse in my locker during school, this happens.”

“Is it still school property if it’s in a nightmare ghost maze?” asked Tucker, because there was jerky in there, and his ultra-predator instincts needed fuel, darn it.  “We can always say the ghost broke it.”

“Okay, but, like, how?” asked Paulina.  “I’m not breaking my nails on this thing.”

“Just move,” said Tucker, pulling out his PDA and nudging Paulina to the side.  He probably had some dongle or other that would connect to the vending machine.  Not this one…  Not that one…  There, he could slide that into the card reader and then just run the program.  He hadn’t tested this before, so he had no idea if it would–

Tucker didn’t have Danny’s ghost sense, but after over a year of ghost hunting, he’d picked up a few things.  Like when a ghost was about to cream him.  Unfortunately, he still didn’t have much of a skill set when it came to what to do when he noticed a ghost was about to cream him.  He looked over his shoulder.  

Yep.  That was a giant ghost rat, all right.  

He dropped his PDA, then threw himself to the floor as the rat jumped straight at his head.  It hit the vending machine, sending it crashing to the floor.  Paulina screamed and ducked around the corner.  Wes stared, frozen.  

Tucker shoved his hands in his pockets and pulled out his lipstick laser.  He spun the top and started firing.  The rat yelped.  He loved this thing so much.

But giant ghost rats had thicker skin than the typical animal ghost, because it jumped on Tucker, knocking the laser out of his hands.  He and the rat rolled around, wrestling.  

Man, all this scene needed was some fire, and then it’d be straight out of that one mov–

Paulina came screaming back around the corner, carrying a large cork board over her head.  It was covered in motivational posters with slogans like ‘If someone tells you that you cannot become immortal, they are liars,’ ‘Doesn’t it make sense that a lot of witch hunts are witch hunts because it’s your birthday?’ and ‘If we all work together we can make the north pole collapse under its own weight.’  

She slammed the board down on the rat’s head and it sort of staggered off Tucker, twitching.  It was a good thing it was too stupid to go intangible.  Paulina had used enough force that Tucker would have some broken ribs if the rat was smart.  

But the rat’s disorientation was momentary.  It turned back to Paulina and Tucker, teeth bared.  Which was when Wes started shooting the rat with the lipstick laser.  The rat yelped and twisted to face him, levitating up into the air, which in turn gave Tucker enough time to roll to his feet and activate his wrist ray.  

He didn’t like the wrist rays as much as the lipstick laser, they were harder for him to aim, but at this range, that hardly mattered.  After being hit a few dozen times, the rat ran away, squeaking.  

“Thanks,” said Tucker.  “That was–  Thanks.  Can I have that back?”

Wes, pale faced, handed the lipstick laser back to Tucker like it was a loaded gun…  Which wasn’t exactly inaccurate…  

“That was so gross,” said Paulina, holding her hands out in front of her as if they were contaminated.  Tucker didn’t know what her problem was, she hadn’t even touched the rat.  

“Yeah,” agreed Wes, who hadn’t even been near the rat, breathlessly.  He was getting some of his color back, though, so that was good.  Tucker never knew what to do when people passed out.  Unless those people were Danny, in which case what to do usually involved evacuation, ghost first aid, and deciding how many days to tell Danny he’d been out for when he woke up.  

“Could’ve been worse,” said Tucker.  “Luckily, you had me.  Tucker Foley, too fine.”

Paulina and Wes stared at him, lips starting to curl.  Tough crowd.  

How did Danny do this?

Tucker shrugged, discarding the thought, and walked over to the vending machine.  He rescued his PDA - the reinforcement upgrades were really paying off! - kicked the machine to shake off some of the broken glass, and reached in to pull out a packet of jerky.  It had his name on it.  Metaphorically speaking.  

“Are you really going to eat that?” asked Wes.  “That thing was all over you.”

“Well, yeah,” said Tucker, peeling open the packet.  “But it was dead, so…”

“It could have the plague,” said Wes.

“Then I’m already dead,” said Tucker.  “Since it was all over me and all.  Ooh, this type has cheese in it.”  He took a bite and the walls shimmered.  The next thing Tucker knew, he was standing on the front lawn of the school, along with the rest of the student body.

“We’re out?” asked Wes.  

“Phantom saved us,” said Paulina, clasping her hands together, her previous disgust forgotten.  “I knew he would.  Next time, I’ll have to give him a hero’s reward.  Fate is so cruel, to keep us apart.”

Wes scoffed.  “He literally sits two rows behind you in almost every class you have.”

Tucker took a deep breath, anticipating the argument, then turned and walked away.  They were out of the maze.  It wasn’t his problem anymore.  He could enjoy his jerky.  

High overhead, Tucker heard Danny scream.  “It was about the ‘mice’ finding the cheese in your stupid maze?  Why the heck are you Ancient Greek themed if you’re just a mad scientist?!”

Tuck's Labyrinth

[Phic Phight Phill Phor @mistythefifth!]

Tucker was a lot of things.  A genius.  A first-rate bachelor.  A carnivore.   A snack.  A geek.  Unbelievably handsome.  An Esperantist.  God’s gift to women (and men of good taste).  A gamer.  Cool beyond cool.  A hacker.  Eminently eligible.  A ghost hunter.  Drop-dead gorgeous.  A hobbyist archer.  A magnet for Cupid’s arrows.  The reincarnation of an ancient and possibly evil pharaoh.  Bootylicious. The best friend of the personification of memento mori and also Danny Fenton.  And, most importantly, too fine.  

He was not, however, in any way equipped to deal with this.  

“It's so obvious,” said Wes.  “If you'd just open your eyes–”

“You're the one who needs to open his eyes.  Or at least get checked for colorblindness.”

“Do you hear yourself?  If even you think it's reasonable to mix up Fenton and Phantom just by swapping colors–”

“Uh, one, it isn't, and, two, I was talking about coming to school wearing… that.”

Paulina pointed a manicured fingernail in the direction of Wes's clothing, which was, in her defense, a particularly eye-searing combination of flannel plaid jacket, striped t-shirt, novelty camouflage pants, and bright orange boots.  Even Tucker didn't dress like that.  Regularly.  Wes hunched in on himself.  

“It's laundry day,” he said. 

“Your mama's washing your shoes too, huh?”

“Shut up,” said Wes.  “I don't need to take this from a necrophiliac.”

“You–!”

Tucker couldn't take much more of this.  “You guys do know that there's an actual evil ghost in here somewhere?  You know, the one who turned the school into a maze and trapped us in it?”

“I don't know what you're worried about,” said Wes, “Fenton's not going to leave you here.”

Paulina scoffed.  “Fenton's hiding in a closet somewhere. Mi amor, Phantom, on the other hand, will beat up that nasty ghost and sweep me off my feet at any moment.  You can thank me now.”

Tucker loved Danny like a brother, but these guys had way too much faith in a guy who'd once lost a fight with a grocery bag.  (Long story.)

“That's great,” said Tucker.  “But may I remind you: giant maze.”

Wes rolled his eyes.  “Mazes are easy.  You just have to make all right turns.  You can stop the performance already.”

“My what?”

“You know, hyping up your lying friend.  Being a ghost doesn't make him cool.”

“Nothing could make any of you cool,” said Paulina, “but Mr. Delusional is right.  Mazes are easy.”

“You're calling me delusional, when you're–?!”

“Okay, okay,” said Tucker.  “So, three things.  One, the right hand turns thing is only good for getting out of a maze, not for finding people in it.  Two, it only works if you start with a wall that connects with the outside.  And, most importantly, for it to work, you have to actually be doing it.”

Tucker was definitely channeling Danny, or maybe Sam, but there was such a thing as being too laid back.

“Well, we're not stopping you,” said Paulina, examining her fingernails.  “Go run off and do whatever.  I'll tell Phantom when he comes to rescue me.  Probably.”

“Hey, wait, no, Fenton's coming for him–”

Yeah, Tucker wished he could leave.  But these two had no ghost fighting experience, would throw themselves at a ghost if they thought it would get Danny's attention, and would throw themselves at each other if Tucker wasn’t here.  Heck, they were doing it with him here. 

Sam probably would have left, which meant that he was channeling Danny.  

This was terrible.  How did Danny do this?

“Look,” said Tucker, interrupting the argument.  “Even if you think that we’re going to be rescued, we don’t know when and we don’t know if there are other ghosts around who could attack us.  We need some kind of a plan.”  

Paulina and Wes stared at him.  

“Other than just waiting to be rescued,” clarified Tucker.  He waved at the ‘room’ around them.  “We aren’t even somewhere we can barricade, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a drinking fountain or a bathroom anywhere.”  They were, in fact, in a fairly featureless stretch of hallway, complete with lockers, slightly-cracked linoleum, and buzzing fluorescent lights.  The locker numbers were non-sequential and had three more digits than the highest-numbered real lockers at the school.  

“I never go to the bathroom at school,” said Wes.  “That’s where they get you.”

“Dude,” said Tucker.  “Like, how?  Do you not drink or what?”

“I don’t drink at school.  If I did, I’d have to use the bathroom.”

“No wonder you’re so crazy,” said Paulina.  “I’d say that you should just go to the bathroom with your friends, like a normal person, but you don’t have any of those.”

“I do too!”

“Yeah?  Who?” asked Paulina.  

Tucker listened, too.  And took out his PDA.  This would be good data for his all-school relationship map.  

(Hey, it was an important multi-function tool.  How was he supposed to know who to ask out without it?  Or who to blackmail with what if someone more credible than Wes Weston found out Danny’s secret?)

“I’m not going to tell you.  You’ll just say that they aren’t real.”

Ooh.  That was just sad.  Tucker put his PDA away.

“Well, now I am,” said Paulina.  

There was a sudden, startling chime from the PA system.  Tucker looked around, trying to find the speaker.  

“Hi, so, first off, don’t panic,” said Danny’s voice.  

That… was maybe not the best way for Danny to start.  Jeez.  

“Oh!  Oh!  It’s Phantom!” said Paulina, bouncing distractingly.  

“It’s Fenton,” said Wes, “and it’s about time.”

“And, secondly, no, I haven’t found the office.  I’m possessing the PA system.  And, no, I can’t hear you, unless you find one of the PA buttons and–”

There were a series of beeps, followed by shouting, followed by a screech of feedback.  

“--ough of that!” said Danny, getting control of the system again.  “So, if you can get to a button, I can hear you, but I can’t teleport you out, so that’s kind of pointless.  Unless you’re being attacked or something.  Which could be happening.  This guy named himself Daedalmouse, which sort of implies the existence of a Mousotaur, and I’ve been fighting a lot of ghost rats trying to find him.  I’m pretty sure that finding him and beating him up will undo the whole labyrinth thing, but I don’t know how long it will take – yes, I know about the right hand wall trick, but that only works for getting out of mazes that are, you know, following the laws of physics, and not finding crazy ghosts that aren’t following the laws of physics.  I’ll try to check in by possessing the speakers every couple of hours, but in the meantime, hang tight, find places with water, all that survivalist stuff.  If you find a way out, go for it, but no Icarus stuff.  Icarus,” mumbled Danny, sounding distracted.  “Icarus.  Icar-mouse?”  The PDA system chimed again, and then fell silent.  

Except for everyone mashing the buttons, but that was just unintelligible noise and didn’t count.  

“The ghost is named Deadmau5?” asked Paulina.  “What a rip off.”

“He said Daedalmouse.  Like Daedalus?  From Greek mythology?  Ringing any bells?” asked Wes.  

“Whatever,” said Paulina.  “I bet you don’t even know who Deadmau5 is.”

Tucker breathed in slowly through his nose.  “Let’s at least find one of the call buttons so that we can, you know, call for help?  Hello?  Wes?  Paulina?”  Tucker sighed and adjusted his glasses.  “Or so that we can call Phantom when he gets on next?”

“Please, like you need the announcement system to call your best frie–”

“Yes, and then once Phantom knows where I am, he will come and rescue me,” said Paulina, skipping down the hallway.  

“Sure,” said Tucker.  He started walking.  He didn’t want Paulina to get too far ahead.  “Are you coming, Wes?”

“You could just call him,” said Wes.  “On your phone.”

As a point of fact, Tucker had already tried that.  It didn’t work.  “I don’t have Phantom’s number, Wes.”

“I hate you so much.  All of you.”

“I know, Wes.”   

.

“Oh!  Look at that!” said Paulina, pointing around the corner.  

Tucker ran forward - well, jogged, they’d been walking for a while, vainly searching for a classroom door - thinking she’d seen a ghost.  She hadn’t.  

They all looked at the vending machine, hungrily. 

Paulina ran forward and punched in a number on the vending machine keypad, then stopped and turned back to Tucker and Wes.

“Do, like, either of you have any money?”

“Aren’t you rich or something?” asked Wes.  

“Which is how you know I’ll pay you back,” said Paulina.  She flipped her hair over her shoulder.  “I can’t believe that the one time I leave my purse in my locker during school, this happens.”

“Is it still school property if it’s in a nightmare ghost maze?” asked Tucker, because there was jerky in there, and his ultra-predator instincts needed fuel, darn it.  “We can always say the ghost broke it.”

“Okay, but, like, how?” asked Paulina.  “I’m not breaking my nails on this thing.”

“Just move,” said Tucker, pulling out his PDA and nudging Paulina to the side.  He probably had some dongle or other that would connect to the vending machine.  Not this one…  Not that one…  There, he could slide that into the card reader and then just run the program.  He hadn’t tested this before, so he had no idea if it would–

Tucker didn’t have Danny’s ghost sense, but after over a year of ghost hunting, he’d picked up a few things.  Like when a ghost was about to cream him.  Unfortunately, he still didn’t have much of a skill set when it came to what to do when he noticed a ghost was about to cream him.  He looked over his shoulder.  

Yep.  That was a giant ghost rat, all right.  

He dropped his PDA, then threw himself to the floor as the rat jumped straight at his head.  It hit the vending machine, sending it crashing to the floor.  Paulina screamed and ducked around the corner.  Wes stared, frozen.  

Tucker shoved his hands in his pockets and pulled out his lipstick laser.  He spun the top and started firing.  The rat yelped.  He loved this thing so much.

But giant ghost rats had thicker skin than the typical animal ghost, because it jumped on Tucker, knocking the laser out of his hands.  He and the rat rolled around, wrestling.  

Man, all this scene needed was some fire, and then it’d be straight out of that one mov–

Paulina came screaming back around the corner, carrying a large cork board over her head.  It was covered in motivational posters with slogans like ‘If someone tells you that you cannot become immortal, they are liars,’ ‘Doesn’t it make sense that a lot of witch hunts are witch hunts because it’s your birthday?’ and ‘If we all work together we can make the north pole collapse under its own weight.’  

She slammed the board down on the rat’s head and it sort of staggered off Tucker, twitching.  It was a good thing it was too stupid to go intangible.  Paulina had used enough force that Tucker would have some broken ribs if the rat was smart.  

But the rat’s disorientation was momentary.  It turned back to Paulina and Tucker, teeth bared.  Which was when Wes started shooting the rat with the lipstick laser.  The rat yelped and twisted to face him, levitating up into the air, which in turn gave Tucker enough time to roll to his feet and activate his wrist ray.  

He didn’t like the wrist rays as much as the lipstick laser, they were harder for him to aim, but at this range, that hardly mattered.  After being hit a few dozen times, the rat ran away, squeaking.  

“Thanks,” said Tucker.  “That was–  Thanks.  Can I have that back?”

Wes, pale faced, handed the lipstick laser back to Tucker like it was a loaded gun…  Which wasn’t exactly inaccurate…  

“That was so gross,” said Paulina, holding her hands out in front of her as if they were contaminated.  Tucker didn’t know what her problem was, she hadn’t even touched the rat.  

“Yeah,” agreed Wes, who hadn’t even been near the rat, breathlessly.  He was getting some of his color back, though, so that was good.  Tucker never knew what to do when people passed out.  Unless those people were Danny, in which case what to do usually involved evacuation, ghost first aid, and deciding how many days to tell Danny he’d been out for when he woke up.  

“Could’ve been worse,” said Tucker.  “Luckily, you had me.  Tucker Foley, too fine.”

Paulina and Wes stared at him, lips starting to curl.  Tough crowd.  

How did Danny do this?

Tucker shrugged, discarding the thought, and walked over to the vending machine.  He rescued his PDA - the reinforcement upgrades were really paying off! - kicked the machine to shake off some of the broken glass, and reached in to pull out a packet of jerky.  It had his name on it.  Metaphorically speaking.  

“Are you really going to eat that?” asked Wes.  “That thing was all over you.”

“Well, yeah,” said Tucker, peeling open the packet.  “But it was dead, so…”

“It could have the plague,” said Wes.

“Then I’m already dead,” said Tucker.  “Since it was all over me and all.  Ooh, this type has cheese in it.”  He took a bite and the walls shimmered.  The next thing Tucker knew, he was standing on the front lawn of the school, along with the rest of the student body.

“We’re out?” asked Wes.  

“Phantom saved us,” said Paulina, clasping her hands together, her previous disgust forgotten.  “I knew he would.  Next time, I’ll have to give him a hero’s reward.  Fate is so cruel, to keep us apart.”

Wes scoffed.  “He literally sits two rows behind you in almost every class you have.”

Tucker took a deep breath, anticipating the argument, then turned and walked away.  They were out of the maze.  It wasn’t his problem anymore.  He could enjoy his jerky.  

High overhead, Tucker heard Danny scream.  “It was about the ‘mice’ finding the cheese in your stupid maze?  Why the heck are you Ancient Greek themed if you’re just a mad scientist?!”

I hc Dick will be non-verbal for a bit when Bruce first adopts him

he was hardly monstrous then

ares slays his daughter’s rapist

Ares, Protector of Women

Article link at the end of post. Hi all! I recently downloaded Substack and wanted to write about a pretty messy topic that I have a lot of feelings on: Ares' unofficial title as 'protector of women' in modern cult space. While I personally use it and find there to be enough history to back it up as a UPG title, it's not super black and white when you look back into historical records and mythology.

So naturally I wrote a little article about it! I discuss myths that are usually used as sources for this title along with generally looking at how Ares interacts with gender norms and how that can influence the discussion.

I hope it's a fun read and please let me know if something went horribly catastrophically wrong on the actual posted part as I am not tech-savvy and not used to Substack. Link below!

open.substack.com

Ares: Protector of Women

A look at the semi-historical semi-title of the god of war.

Take a picture, it will last longer