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You meet god and she's mostly dead fish. You ask her why and she says most of the world is dead fish, and she's made herself to appeal to the most common denominator, the everyman funnyman comedy show that runs for eleven seasons but with the entire universe in mind. You ask her how much of the dead fish is your fault, she says it's far less than you'd think, in the grand scheme of things. You ask her if you matter at all. If you can do anything. She shrugs her rotting shoulders and says mattering is a made-up concept, like life, but sure, you can matter if you want to, on some scale. She has many scales. She doesn't know what you mean by 'anything', but you can do everything you can. You ask her if it's enough. She says there's no base requirement for deserving to exist. She's smoking a joint and the smoke filtering out of her gills gathers and forms gas giants and red dwarfs. You ask her if there's any hidden secrets of the universe you should know and she says it's not a secret if she tells, plus it's fun to let you figure it out yourself. You ask her if any of your questions were right questions and she says you worry about being right so much it might keep you from fucking around, which is as close to meaning of life as she ever bothered to make. You don't ask but she says she loves your hair, also your whole being, also your planet. She says she figured out what love is yesterday and is trying it out, which explains the ten thousand rainbows and sudden influx in rains of fish. She offers you a drag of her joint and you wake up half past midnight behind a chain restaurant clutching a smoked salmon. The new stars are winking like they're in on some joke and you're sure if you try hard enough you'll remember what it is.

A thought I've had lately regarding Royal Magic: I would really love it if we see Greylock teaching at Charmswell as part of his community service for trying to take over Rudistan.

A So Called Tamaranean

Danny falls through a portal leading to a world full of superheroes. Unfortunately, he happens to bare an uncanny resemblance to a certain race of aliens here-Tamaraneans.

So my post about Danny being mistaken for a Tamaranean is being seen by more and more people, so I’ve decided to finally post this one-shot I’ve made around the time I made the original post. I have no idea if I’ll continue this or not, I kinda just wanted to write about my little idea for a bit and figure out how to write Nightwing. I think he would good with kids. I also only refer to Dick with they/them pronouns because it makes it so much easier to differentiate who’s who when referring to someone.

☁︎

The last thing that Danny remembered was green. Lots and lots of green ectoplasm. And before that? He was trying to escape from one of the many dangers of the Ghost Zone. He couldn’t even see what it was, but he sure as hell could sense it. Both with his ghost sense, and by being beaten up by it.

He never meant to go so far from the portal, so far from his home. And he definitely didn’t mean to get hit right into a different portal.

When he woke up, he couldn’t sense any ectoplasm at all. Death and decay, however, he could sense. And smell. He mostly smelled burnt rock, just like all the other times he got slammed into the ground by ghosts. He really needs to learn how to dodge one day.

His eyes fluttered open, then closed them just as quickly as dust went right into his eyes. He had seen smoke and rock, just like he expected. He groaned, trying to push himself up, but fell in an instant. He was so tired. And yet, he could tell he was still in his ghost form. How could he still be in his ghost form when he had no energy left? He had no idea.

So Danny laid there, trying to think about where he could be and why was he stuck in his ghost form. At least he thought he was stuck in his ghost form as he usually turns back into a human when he passes out.

Then he heard something. Something other then the ringing in his ears. It was a voice, maybe a masculine sounding one, that had an “are you okay?” tone to it. Danny would know because he’d been asked that hundreds of times before whenever he’d gotten injured. Instinctually, he tried to say that he was fine, but all that came out was a whimper.

Then the ringing in his ears got quieter, and he could hear the stranger’s footsteps coming closer.

“Hey kid, are you okay?” Danny could finally make out the person’s words. His eyes fluttered open again, revealing the person to have black hair, a pale face, and what looked to be a long black sleeved shirt with some blue on it, and a domino mask.

Was he in the 18th century again? Wait, had he’d ever been to the 18th century before? Well he couldn’t be now, not with the striking blue the guy had. Pretty sure they didn’t have blue dye like that back then. Oh god where the fuck was he? He had heard from all his ghostly friends-mostly Frostbite and Clockwork-that the Ghost Zone could bleed into other universes and timelines. Danny really hoped that was not the case. Danny had to get up.

He was in so much pain, his entire body stinging. But he pushed himself off the ground anyways, like he always did. When he sat up he saw the stranger stretch out their hand to him. Danny hesitated for a moment, before scrambling away from them because he did not trust them one bit. Well, maybe two bits but nothing more.

He hovered a bit off the ground, a good few feet away from the masked guy. They looked surprised, and looked at him rather analytically. Danny looked back at him analytically as well. The person seemed to wear this one-piece suit with black gloves and boots, with the wings of a blue bird-like symbol on their chest going across his shoulders and extending to their hands. They were lean and muscular and could probably take down many normal humans in a fight. And Danny.

Danny only hoped that this guy wasn’t some sort of weird murder or something. Maybe they were normal for this world’s standards. Maybe he was normal for this world’s standards. Probably not to be honest.

And then Danny was taken out of his questioning by a question posed by the stranger, “Are you a Tamaranean?” they asked. They weren’t speaking English, Danny could tell by the way their mouth didn’t match their words. Hurray for ghost speak.

“May-“ Danny coughed, his throat sore, but it was fine, he’ll get over it, he always does. “Maybe I am, why do you want to know?”

The guy smirked, making Danny feel a bit uneasy, “You did answer my question back in fluent Tamaranean.”

“So I did, again, why. Do. You. Want to know? How do you know about Tamaraneans? Who are you?” Danny was so confused about everything in this situation and he thought he asked decent enough questions. He had no idea what theses “Tamaraneans” were but he’ll play along as long as he won’t get shot.

“I’m called Nightwing,” they said calmly, “And I want to know what you are because I want to help you,” then they took a step forward. Danny was not expecting this and instinctively shot at them with ectoplasm. Danny yelped, both in surprise that he shot at them and at the fact pain almost immediately shot up his left arm. He could almost feel the nerves in his arm burn. That’s not good.

And yet Nightwing dodged it easily, skillfully, and didn’t seem too bothered by it. In fact, they seemed more concerned for Danny’s well being.

“I’m not going to fight you,” they tried to talk to Danny, “And I know how to help you, I’ve met other Tamaraneans, Tamaraneans who have powers like you.”

Okay so these Tamaraneans could also shoot green beams and fly, duly noted. And not all of them had these powers. God this place was weird. Danny couldn’t care about how weird he was or how weird his world was, but this place just felt weirder.

“You have?” Danny asked in a whisper to put less strain on his throat, floating down to the ground, holding his arm. “Who?”

“Starfire and Blackfire for one, those two have powers,” Danny noticed them happily say Starfire’s name and the tone of distaste they had for Blackfire. So Danny had an idea for which of the two was probably evil. Not really because the guy he was speaking to could still be evil and not to be trusted.

Nightwing then started to list more names of Tamaraneans, which Danny tried to pay attention to so he could give a good enough fake name to them.

“So kid, again, I just want to help you,” Nightwing bent down to one knee, like every non-teacher adult does when they want to talk to a small kid. “I may not know exactly what happened to you, but you don’t have to be alone.”

Danny didn’t expect to feel so...touched. Maybe this guy wasn’t too bad. Maybe he should just tell the guy what he was-actually that could still be a bad idea. Danny didn’t know if they would just flip like a dime and turn around and try to rip him apart. Molecule by molecule.

“What’s your name?” Nightwing asked. Their voice and face was soft, Danny noticed, but their body seemed alert, just ever so slightly tensed, ready for combat on a moment’s notice.

“My name…” Danny mumbled, looking away from Nightwing to think. In a moment of panic and many racing thoughts, he was able to think of something.

“Nightgale,” Danny said, a mirage of a smile on his face, “A bit like your name, isn’t it?” He was somehow able to remember that his last name used to be Fentonnightingale earlier in his family line, and got the name ‘Nightgale’ from it. Thank you infini-map.

“Yeah it does!” Nightwing laughed, “Well, it’s nice to meet you Nightgale.”

Danny really should’ve expected them to stretch out their hand again. He really should’ve been a bit less on edge then he was at that moment. And yet he shot Nightwing in the face when they tried to outstretch their hand.

“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to-oh no no no no,” Danny panicked, looking around to see where he could escape to and he was in a goddamn field with a city surrounding the entirety of the park. Danny just now realized that he had absolutely no idea where he was. He just shot his only hope at figuring out how to get home-probably, knowing his luck, definitely.

And yet Nightwing practically brushed it off. Yeah they stood up, stumbled backwards, swore in pain, and had to remove their mask for a quick second to rub their eyes, but then blinked a few times and seemed okay.

“Well that wasn’t as bad as when the other two did that,” Nightwing muttered in English, “Did the other two do that? Yeah probably. Anyways” -Nightwing switched back to speaking in Tamaranean- “It’s fine kid, you can calm down.”

So Danny did calm down. Mostly. Not really as he was still muttering apologies. His arm hurt even more now.

“I can ask Starfire to teach you how to control your powers,” Nightwing started. Danny has heard this spiel before, but this time he actually had a bit more trust in this random, and honestly somewhat terrifying stranger than he had with Plasmius. And Danny did not want to wait through it.

Danny grabbed Nightwing’s hand and looked up at them with the most pleading eyes he could muster. It worked as Nightwing’s face softened and they had finally shut up.

“Okay Nightgale, we’re going to go somewhere safe, then I’m going to get Starfire over to help you out, does that sound good?” When Nightwing asked that, Danny didn’t felt like he was being talked down to, unlike when other people said similar things. Maybe it was their tone.

“Where are we going? Where are we now?”

“Oh, right, I probably should’ve said that earlier. Well, for one we’re on the planet Earth, and right now we’re in Blüdhaven, New Jersey, the town I protect.”

“Protect?”

“Yeah, I’m a vigilante, which basically means I fight crime and protecting people who can’t protect themselves.”

Ah, now things started to make sense. This guy is a superhero. No wonder Danny felt oddly safe being with Nightwing. They just radiated safety-ness. Danny’s eyes lit up with glee, someone he could finally related to!

Even while slinking into the dirty, bloodstained shadows of Blüdhaven, Danny was skipping around Nightwing. He was in a weird place and situation, but he felt like a giddy kid. Nightwing moved with precision and grace that Danny wished he had.

Danny saw billboards and signs that seemed to mention other heroes as the two went. Random people calling out to Nightwing when they saw them, Nightwing sometimes giving them a little wave. Danny mimicked them, and each time the people gasped at him. Danny was able to pick up that these Tamaraneans that Nightwing thought he was weren’t common, so that’s probably why they looked so shocked.

It was nice, and for a moment, Danny forgot that he was a stranger to this world-that he wasn’t supposed to be here. This place was new and exciting, yet familiar all the same. Maybe he’ll stay a little longer, it’s not like he could just will himself to leave anyways.

For now, Danny was just a kid, exploring a world similar to his own, yet alien at the same time.

don’t even talk to me about how much i love wings man

i love them so much.