Brightly Burning

Why can't I leave messes for retail workers if I were a nepo-baby? This is so unfair.

I mean I probably would do that if I hadn't had the summer work experience lol. I'm an awful spoiled teen whose destiny is to be a burden on society with the attempts at nurture trying to turn me into a passable human being.

You've been talking about AIs and stuff for two hours straight to the camera.

I feel like I should get her to stop or something.

I don't even understand the subject. Something yadda yadda about perception and sense and how it shapes human intelligence.

Like Lils probably informed everyone all the weird stuff going on, y'know secession and all of that jazz. Business you'd expect to happen in a third-world country instead of here.

Gotham Academy has not shut down though. In fact, no one said anything about going home or being sent home by their rich, powerful parents. Universally, everyone's been told to stay put, even me.

That we are supposedly in the safest place despite all logic and reason. And no one questions it. Am I the weird one or am I somehow not in the know?

We've had multiple terrorist attacks hit the central city. We have supervillains running freely. And sure, nothing's actually happened to the school proper, but c'mon we are a bunch of kids with rich and powerful parents with security that might be able to thwart a couple pissed of parents but actual supervillains or a well-armed team? Please.

It's so weird. Even Lils's family seems content on letting us stay put. Even that overprotective sister of hers seems perfectly fine with this arrangement too - and won't give me answers like the rest, except this appears more deliberate.

How is Lils more of a princess-type than me?! 8l

Lillian "If you put food in front of me, I am content" Este!

No! This cannot stand!

And you know what's amazing.

In this technological age where everything and their mom are recorded, for some odd reason, no one actually has a DNA sample of Bruce Wayne.

Wayne Corporation is in danger of being disbanded after the kidnapping of their president and CEO Bruce Wayne - and of course, the terrorist attack on Wayne Tower sending that skyscraper straight into the ground a year ago. Bruce Wayne and his cabinet were kidnapped and never found, and there was no ransom note. To the company and the remaining cabinet, he's presumed dead.

The company had been running fine though. Given that Bruce likes to play the part of full-time billionaire playboy, he doesn't actually run the company all that much.

But it seems that the remaining Wayne family, the Kanes (Bruce's mom's family), and Bruce's adoptive kids are in disagreement as to who will control the company.

I've had a friend do some digging around. Because, y'know, times of chaos are good to benefit yourself.

And well, I heard that Brucie's left a will that's being mostly ignored. The will states control of the company would go to his kids at the age of their majority, but the man's right hand man Lucius Fox will run as president until then. Except Lucius Fox was kidnapped and disappeared off too in the same terrorist attack that got rid of Bruce.

I wish Wayne Corporation had a public listing. I would've made a killing shorting that stock. But instead it's a private company now - previously made public and then made private again after repaying all the investors a decade ago.

Anyway, a lot of harsh words were said between the Kanes, the Waynes, and Bruce's adopted sons, and they're all enemies now. The judge recently ruled that the Will stands, but because Lucius Fox is out of the picture, they decided to make the executor of the will a Julius Wayne.

Julius Wayne then proceeded to start dismantling the company with the major shareholders' blessing and selling parts of its subsidiaries for profit. In essence, he and the Waynes are extracting as much profit as possible before Bruce's kids can inherit the company they can't control.

Naturally, Damien - one of said kids - is appealing the decision of the original judge which is being fast-tracked, but I think by the time things are done, Wayne Industries will be kryffin screwed.

It's gotten so bad that the land where their flagship skyscraper got demolished was just sold to Lils's guardian. I think they believe they could always buy it back if they regret it, but they don't get how obsessed Lils's guardian is with that piece of land. She just spent nearly half a billion dollars on acquiring it. No wonder they said yes.

What's interesting is that the kids had very strong objections to the sale, which only spurred Julius on.

No. That's impossible. You can't become rich! You just can't!

My whole life is a lie!

Boohoohoo.

No rhyme or reason to who they stole from, though further investigation into some of these people showed that they had some very questionable business practices like tax evasion. So maybe it's some sort of justice thing? Who knows?

Now, there's a lot of noise on the news now because some of the Bitcoins that were being tracked moved. You know about what they say about Bitcoin being totally anonymous, totaaaaal bullshit. The transactions are public in the first place. Now the digital wallets are not; you can track individual bitcoins, but you can't tie a digital wallet to a person unless they're careless.

The Bitcoins are being sent to orphanages and other public works and random people living in impoverished areas and also being converted to other types of Bitcoin to obfuscate the trail.

And many of the politicians / billionaires are buying up stock from smaller companies after the market tanked from their dicking around. Admittedly I did too because I expect they're probably gonna do something to temporarily raise the value before murdering the economy again lol.

Major companies seem to have divided up America now. We got Jungle and Edison and Google competing for hegemony in the West Coast. LexCorp pretty much is the Northeast. Gothcorp in the South. Cassiel Corp is pretty much the Great Lakes and a good chunk around that area. And I guess the Nameless Cult for Gotham / Nameless City lol. I've heard rumors of state legislature planning to make unions effectively illegal - aka "disrupting supply chains is un-american and harms the American people and should be classified as a crime."

The days will probably get very interesting. Hopefully Lils's guardian can weather out the storm. If not, we can always go back to Winsconsin and have all my friends as guests.

There's a video of a reporter trying to interview a BC. Wait, lemme get it.

--

[ A video is playing. ]

[ A middle-aged reporter wearing a dark suit is seen inside a police station. He is crouching down and holding a microphone in front of the shorter, faceless BC. This particular one has a lettuce leaf on its head.

Reporter: Are you an alien? Why have you taken over the police station?

BC: ...

The reporter aggressively shoves the microphone towards its face.

Reporter: How many of you are there? Why did you appear worldwide that day? Is this an invasion?

BC: ...

Reporter: Why aren't you answering, alien?

The BC tilts its head curiously.

The reporter continues to shove the microphone towards where the BC's mouth would be if it had one.

Reporter: Why have you inva-

Chomp.

The BC bit towards and engulfed the reporter's microphone and hand. And in the next moment, it pulled back. The reporter's hand was intact, but the microphone can be seen poking in and out of its mouth.

Only belatedly did the reporter suddenly scream and fell back, patting his hand to make sure it was alright.

The BC ran off with the microphone in its mouth. ]

---

Later on, the reporter got arrested a month later for leaking confidential internal information in the police station. And the whole station was scoured for bugs but to no avail.

Only a little later did someone remember this video interview and 'lo and behold, the microphone that the BC Lettuce ate was still whole and transmitting lol.

So now everyone's more concerned that these guys are walking security hazards, but they can't do anything about it because they're kryffin BCs lol.

The police have settled for trying to trade donuts for any microphones they find in the police station. The police later closed the loophole of the BCs just retrieving the microphones they already traded by taking them far away from said station.

@creepy-crowleys

---

[ A video is uploaded. ]

[ The camera is pointed towards the riverside where there were two people standing - and a bunch of BCs excitedly tossing masonry into said river. The first person was a middle-aged detective wearing a trenchcoat - his name tag helpfully said Gordon. And the other was a fully-covered Eggplant mascot with stubby hands and legs - Chi.

Kerplunk!

All the Blank Canvases clapped excitedly at the large deluge of a splash before looking for even bigger chunks to throw in.

Given that the last chunk thrown in was half a billboard, it was understandable that the audience, standing much further away, was getting nervous.

Kerplunk!

The detective turned around to face Chi. "You look like you get along with them. Can't you do something about this?" Gordon remarked, "They're making everyone nervous."

Chi in her Eggplant costume paused, looked at the BCs, and then replied, "I do not really command them. But I will try."

Waddling over, Chi approached the small group of Blank Canvases. Immediately, they stopped what they were doing and even looked attentive. And then Chi said, "they want you to stop throwing the big rocks into the river."

The Blank Canvases looked at each other before dropping whatever they were carrying, the biggest thing being a car.

They then stared at each other and then at Chi.

"Oh."

---

An Eggplant could be seen flying in an arc towards the river.

Kerplunk!

Our group came with the Este family mostly cause I didn't have anything to do today and Haanah couldn't concentrate on studying. We just mostly helped distribute food. It's also good PR for my own family to be seen helping out, so it's win-win.

It's like a superhero circus here. Even some supervillains were helping out from the old Blackgate Prison. Big ol' latex convention. Funnily enough, the most eye catching costume was Eggplant - I mean Lils.

Pretty sure she was wearing that costume last Halloween. A full mascot-sized Eggplant with purple leg stockings. Except in this case, you can't see her face cause of a purple mask.

Like I always figured Lils was a meta-human. Ever since my kidnapping anyway. Seeing Lils's arm suddenly jut out from underground - through concrete - and struggling to pick herself out of the spot where she was buried alive a day before. It was funny seeing Ava pull her out of the ground like a potato.