My Heart Is Nuclear

DOESN'T MEAN HE'S NOT HER FATHER

I also really fucking love SOME SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

I love this show?? This is so good??

And so much better than the movie it's kinda based on??

Like, yeah, fuck that guy.
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PLEASE LET THIS END WITH SOPHIE AND HANNA AS A THING

P L E A S E
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"You're the best thing in my life."

"You're the only thing in mine."

OH MY GOD

For the love of everything, if you have even the slightest want to see really good Horror/Thriller Sci-fi please see this movie. 

I was expecting it to be good, just from how much effort Mark had put into it over these last 3 years but it was FANTASTIC. The expanded lore from the game, the acting, the set, the effects, the design!! Just, it was SUCH A FUCKING GREAT MOVIE.

“Why am I not surprised you're from Gotham?” Tucker asked as he lined up his shot.

“You'd think it was my accent, but I bet it was my bike that gave it away, huh?” Johnny 13 responded, leaning on his club. Tucker snorted and then hit the ball, watching it soar through the air before it landed in front of the small windmill with its annoying creaking hinges.

“You call that a shot?!” Kitty asked loudly from her spot atop the dome keeping a group of teens contained. The eight other kids all went to Casper High and were a part of the wrestling team.

“Do I look like someone who plays white kid golf?!” Tucker shouted back.

“Putt Putt is not white kid golf!” Johnny whined.

“You're right – it's rich white kid golf!” Tucker snapped back.

Tim had to admit – this was one of the weirder ways to find out multiple cases spread out across the birds and bats were interconnected. Not the worst way, but definitely the weirdest.

“I didn't even think they were legit.” Duke said with a mix of hopelessness and dismay.

“I wouldn't have thought to connect some of these cases if not for those guys, so...go team?” Dick responded, equally as mystified.

“To be fair, missing bodies and missing persons is an easy connection to make. Combining those with grave robbing, identity theft, environmental dumping, and weapons running? It's no wonder we didn't notice how close out individual cases were getting until Signal brought the string connecting them to our attention.” Jason pointed out.

“The sheer amount of dumb luck...” Barbara said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“It is impressive how it was incompetence that unmasked such a travesty.” Damian commented idly.

“I can already tell I'm going to love this debrief.” Bruce said as he came up from the part of the cave dedicated to their vehicles.

“Yeah, it's going to be awesome. Definitely not something we're going to have to bring up to the wider Justice League.” Tim said sarcastically. He was already mentally writing up the report they'd need to give about this fuckery. So much for taking Bernard out for his birthday; he'd better come up with a good apology gift.

“Joy.” Bruce deadpanned as he want to the changing area to start dismantling his gantlets to take his suit off.

“I'll go up and tell Alfie we're gonna be late for dinner.” Stephanie said and leap for the stairs, kicking off the back of the chair Cass was sitting on.

“Timothy, come check this – I think I found another shell company.” Damian announced from his place at the Batcomputer.

“Oh, c'mon, really? Why the fuck do government agencies do this? It's doesn't actually hide shit!” Tim complained as he set down the lab analysis of the water from Sprang River back where it went. Barbara would skin him if he fucked up her organizational system.

“Bet the shell is for the energy weapons.” Jason tossed out.

“Nah man, it's totally to pay off the officiants for the grave robing around the country.” Duke countered.

“Drugs.” Cassandra tossed out.

Tim looked over the paperwork Damian found, mentally cross referencing names, locations, account numbers, and time frames. It was definitely a shell company – the money leaving was flowing into one they already found. And the head of this company – judging by the paperwork, some kind of land evaluation company – was the same as the head of a third shell company.

“Yeah, this is another shell for the Ghost Investigation Ward. What's interesting is the date it was incorporated – we'll need to check if it was backdated digitally, but if not, this might be one of the first shells created. Good catch, Robin.” Tim said and he pretended not to notice when Damian's shoulders pulled back a little in pride. Damian was still prickly when perceived.

Here is chapter four of of my current DPxDC fic. Posting here and on my Pillowfort first, then will clean it up and post it to AO3, as is my ~process~. 

There is a character in the last half of this chapter that is racist towards Signal, otherwise known as Duke Thomas. He, a white middle-aged man, repeatedly calls Signal, in full uniform, "Boy". If you do not know why that is racist, here is a quick reason for that before the chapter begins: Historically, white people routinely described black men as boys to suggest they weren't on equal footing with them. This goes back to the slave trade and has made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court on if the use of the word is considered a racial slur. They decided that it wasn't, in and of itself, but they did acknowledge that if it's used in the right context, it can be. Feel free to google for more information if you'd like. 

Gotham has an International Airport. This both makes perfect sense and no sense at all – Gotham was the home city of Wayne Enterprises, which was an international conglomerate that has branching fingers in so many industries and countries it was a name known worldwide. Strader Pharmaceuticals  had their main lab and North American headquarters in Gotham; Drake Industries operated out of Gotham as well. Strader Pharmaceuticals worked primarily in South and Central America, dealing in medical drugs and research, and Drake Industries was known for selling their medical technology at loss in conflict zones or developing nations. It didn't matter that Drake Industries was currently in free fall and their CEO under investigation for all sorts of felony white collar crimes – what mattered was the near fifty years of history of the company needing multiple flights out of the country. It made perfect sense that a city like Gotham, which had at one time three major international companies with international business and clientele, would need an international airport closer than Newark or JFK.

However, Gotham was also a hotbed of organized crime, super villains, and held the title of the most unsafe city in the United States. Anyone who knew anything about Gotham would naturally assume an airport would be out of the question to have anywhere near that powder keg. But, against all odds, Gotham International had been an operational airport since the 1930's when Broderick Drake commissioned to have it built. And it had been opened to commercial flights since the 1950's.

All this to say, Gotham International's TSA were not fucking around on security. Danny was so thankful he didn't have any bags because the bag search looked intense. Jazz had a backpack that contained their documents, her phone, a textbook, her wallet, a toothbrush, and a pair of emergency undies. He knew that because the TSA had taken every little thing out of her bag to inspect it. It had taken them an hour to get through security screening. All Danny had, in comparison, was his school ID (brought by his sister), his ticket, and the phone Tucker had pushed into his hands before he was summoned away. And out of that hour, his individual screening took about thirty minutes. 

“No wonder almost no flights end or start here.” Jazz grumbled as they were finally let through to the rest of the airport.

“Yeah, that was crazy. I thought the guys in white were intense about letting people leave Amity, that made them look lax!” Danny responded.

“Did any of them give you any grief? I know we were separated for our individual searches, none of them touched you, right?” Jazz asked, looking him over as she radiated concern and terse anticipatory anger in his direction, pulling him to the side a little ways away from the checkpoint. He noticed they were still close enough that if need be, his sister could march back in a few steps. He grabbed her hands from his shoulders to squeeze them reassuringly.

“No, they were fine. Over the clothes pat down with no bad touch or creepy looks. A lady TSA agent did my pat down and talked me through all her actions. You?” Danny asked in return.

“Same. I'm glad I actually looked up Gotham International's website before coming out here, they weren't joking with saying that people flying out of here should take four extra hours instead of two to get through security, jeez.” Jazz said as they resumed walking.

“Mammoth Park is clear. I sent Red Robin home, since it's a slow night.” Dick reported.

“Still think them calling that space Mammoth Park is peak rich people bullshit.” Red Hood responded and there was the distant sound of metal on metal in the background.

“You good, Hood? That sounded ominous.”

“Finishing up for the night. I missed the rack's rear handle but my baby is unharmed.” Jason said smugly.

“You absolute nerd – who calls their shitty bike their baby in this day and age?” Dick teased.

“My bike is awesome and tricked out; it has a place for a bazooka. I will call it my baby until I can no longer repair her.” Jason retorted.

“No, go back – did Hood just say the naming committee of Gotham were on rich people bullshit and then talk about his very expensive, custom motorcycle? Did I just hear that right?” Tim cut in with an audible grin.

“Fuck off, trust fund, I pulled my baby's broken body out of the scrap yard myself.” Jason said and Dick wondered if he should comment on how calling any of them out for having a trust fund was straight-up bullshit, considering that Jason himself still had a trust fund.

“And who helped you build that damn thing out, huh? This trust fund, that's who.” Tim snapped back, sounding pleased more than annoyed.

“Watch it, Bleeding Bird, I know where you're nesting tonight.”

“Bleeding Bird? Oh my god, that sounds so metal and so cringe all at once.” Tim laughed.

This is a rough draft of the background for an idea that I has been in my head for at least the last month. If I ever do more with it, it would be a Danny/Sam/Tucker fic of them in Gotham after the Justice League is rather suddenly notified of what they think is a government agency violating the Meta Protection Acts and that agency apparently taking over an entire town?? What the actual fuck?

There would also be the DP part of the team settling in Gotham and how the Batfam is handling these refugee metas?? Who are known to them from the JL and also seem to be nice kids. But also Danny is...pregnant? A host to something? They're not even sure.

(Danny has a destablized Danielle's core inside him, Tucker jammed it in while stitching him up below. He's not pregnant, he's acting as an incubator until her core is more stable and she's able to re-form a physical form. But, it is taking up a lot of his energy and the rest of the group frequently jokes about him "eating for two" and stuff. They also lean into the idea of "you need to rest to let yourself heal from being unethically experimented on" by using "think of the baby" jokes. It's a joke that, to the people listening, doesn't sound like a joke. Misunderstandings FTW!)

If asked, Sam would have guessed that she'd die in some far future as an old lady. She's thought about it, in the abstract way of a child who was exposed to death early and loved all things Gothic and macabre. Before the portal, she would have guessed she'd die in some distant, nebulous future either in her home or at a protest. Right after the portal, when Danny was still learning about his new powers, she'd have nightmares where she died via electrocution – that Phantom, somehow separate from Danny, would murder her in revenge for indirectly causing Danny's accident.

Thankfully, she got over those as more ghosts came out and she regained her conference in herself, in Danny's love for her and Tucker, in the understanding that accidents were just that – accidents.

When the Ghost Investigation Ward first came sniffing around, she thought back to her vague ideas of her death and silently eliminated the idea of her passing in her bed as a wrinkled old woman. Even with the GIW being incompetent, the idea of her dying in a protest was becoming more of something she could imagine. The GIW were comically incompetent, like the Fentons in their comic neglect of their children. What kind of parent loves their children and work so much they simultaneously send their kids to summer camps, keep the electricity running, know their kids' dream colleges, and contaminate their house with insane levels of radiation?

Maybe that was the root of the problem. Jazz said that when children were brought up in extreme circumstances, their ideas of normal were not the same as what actually was normal. For instance, a child brought up in a cult wouldn't know that one adult shouldn't be in charge of everyone else's actions, down to their thoughts. That would be normal for that child.

Sam was brought up to be seen, to be paraded around, and then put away at the end of the day until the next gala, the next interview, the next high profile outing. She was brought up with parents that spoke at her; dismissed her interests and personality in favor of their “ideal daughter”. Parents were people that kept the lights on, that kept the fridge full, that handed over cash or credit card in exchange for attendence at some event where you wore what they wanted you to, said what they wanted, and smiled at the flashes of the camera.

It was normal to get into yelling matches with your parents over your diet, your clothes, your jewelry, your books, your room, your religion, your friends, your time, and more. It was normal for the yelling matches to devolve into cold shoulders and snide comments; normal to be ignored for days on end until your grandmother comes out from her wing to speak to you about little sacrifices to keep the peace and just give them what they want and you can get access to the grocery order again.

That was normal for Sam. Her parents went through so much to get her – they always told her so, always talked about how painful the IVF treatments were, how often they had to have them, how expensive, how many “false starts” they had. And then they had her and they couldn't have more children after that. They loved their daughter, they just didn't like Sam.

That was her normal.

 It actually seemed more efficient that Jazz kept an accounting of their parent's bank accounts and sat at their kitchen table on the sixth of every month to write out checks, put them in envelopes, and then mail them on the way to her part time job. Sure, Danny had chores but wasn't that normal? She'd seen television shows and all of the teens in those had chores, so surely his list of chores was just how things worked?

This story is told through the perspective of Madeline, called Linda (amongst other names), recounting her childhood growing up in the middle of nowhere in Rural America right around the time when she was involved in a case of parental neglect that ended in the death of a four year old. She was involved because she spent months as a babysitter to the child, named Paul, and slowly being groomed by his mother Patra as she discovered more about her sexuality. Patra and Linda never move their relationship to the sexual, but it seems clear that it's more due to the fact that Paul ends up dying and that destroys the relationship rather than Patra, as the adult here, realizing that she's getting too close to this literal child that she lets babysit her son.

If not for the fact that the story seems to just stop, this wouldn't be that bad of a novel, all things considered. The ending is very abrupt and it very much feels like the author just said “I'm done writing this” as opposed to finding a good ending point. I think a lot of that has to come from the fact that they went into this story with the idea that the main theme was going to be about the nature of human evil instead of letting the story evolve and that informing what the main theme is. We get to the end of this chapter of her life, the death of Paul and the consequences of that, and then the story just ends. Even though by that time, the novel has different themes that are just left dangling there.

I really enjoyed the slow dread of the beginning, because it opens with telling us that Paul is going to die, and so seeing Linda get closer to Paul and starting to get more emotionally open with Patra while starting to think about a future with her and her son, was like watching the beginning of the Titanic. You know what is going to happen and it still makes you want to cry when you get to the actual iceberg and all the death.

I also like how every male relationship Linda has, other than the relationship with her father, is built around either making her feel less than or makes her feel bad. The teacher she tries to seduce because she's managed to pick up that he's a predator is her exploring what it means to be “a young girl” and also trying to get his attention away from another classmate because she clearly has a crush on her. She tries to re-connect with his as an adult for the sole purpose of making her feel like she's the kind of person she thinks she is – someone who let a child die right under her nose instead of doing anything to help, as opposed to a child who didn't have the agency or know-how to realize that a child she cared for was in danger and that she should get help. (she's a product of parental neglect herself, she's not used to being able to ask for help and receive it.) Leo, Patra's husband, who comes home after months away and intrudes upon her fantasy of having a life with Patra and Paul alone; who she resents because Patra stops treating her as a peer and goes to him for emotional attention and support; who is overbearing and patriarchal to a woman who seems to shrink around him, who Linda is clearly starting to develop feelings for. Rom, her boyfriend as a young woman who psychoanalyzes her badly and seems to think that means he knows her better than she knows herself; who wants to get closer to her emotionally and try for a long term, serious relationship, which she goes out of her way to sabotage and then bails on the moment she has an excuse to go back to her hometown.

Linda is clearly a lesbian and also a bad person. She's a stalker, has been since a teen, and at least as an adult settles for social media only stalking and not physical (anymore) and also a little mean. She's lonely, depressed, and very in need of therapy and I wish we had more time with her. I wish her novel was more focused and had an actual ending instead of a stopping point.

Yukito's parents are the leaders of a cult. After he gets sacrificed, he gets reincarnated into another world where religion doesn't exist and adult books are akin to a child's doodles. He finds that it's also a world where your life and death is decided by the country. While obstructing his friend's execution, both of them lose their lives. Just at that moment, the god of his religion comes to their world and revives them.

Oh, that sounds interesting! I think I'll try that -

 Of course she is also a naked loli.

Nevermind.