Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath, counting to ten and then letting it out. Why was this always his luck? Alright. Okay.
Time to move again thanks to Dan pushing his body too far again, and ending up in his core. This was not how he was expecting to spend his days when he ghost-adopted his clone and sort-of son now actual son. Welp, he’ll throw a dart at the map to figure out where he’ll go next.
Hm. Well, pack up Ellie! They’re moving to a place called Smallville, you always wanted a horse, right?
It's dark out, time ticking to zero, and he's desperately trying to hide the baby yeti along the shadows of the alleys.
He's so so dead. Even more than he is right now. Turning full ghost even.
When Frostbite finds out that he'd taken his eyes off Snowdrift for five seconds and ended up in the living realm with no preparation, very short notice, or plan, he will never trust Danny with babysitting again!
Oh ancients.
"Hey there— is that a yeti?"
Great, a hero.
Swirling around, Danny stands in front of Snowdrift, hiding their form barely, their fluff and form peeking from behind the legs.
"No—"
"Greetings! My name is Snowdrift!"
Danny glances at the yeti cub as they stand next to him.
"Snowdrift, this is a stranger danger situation, remember what I told you about those?"
The cub peers up at him, confused. "Name no name and call for Dad?"
The teen nods.
Snowdrift looks at the hero, and a light bulb goes off. They quickly slide back behind Danny's form, simply peeking from the side now, curious.
"You saw nothing." The halfa turns to the hero, grinning nervous yet threatening.
-Pulls out AU idea cauldron and tosses stuff into it-
Let's put in some Ghost King/Prince Danny.... But also some deaged to toddlerhood Danny that gets yeeted into the DCverse!
Like imagine, tiny baby Danny with his tiny crown of ice floating above his head and his galaxy cape wrapped around him and uses it like a baby blanket. He didn't mean to fall into a different universe, a natural portal opened up and he was being a curious little thing! He didn't mean to trip and fall in during his nap time.
Nor was he expecting to fall into this realm during a rogue attack and knock out said rogue cause they were being a meanie and harming people and now Danny just wants his nap time cause he spent a lot of his tiny engery and he wants to find a nice spot.
Danny finds a place to crash, snuggling himself into his cape and the astronaut bear Danielle got him during her last visit that he takes everywhere since.
He's out like a light as the door to this safe house that belongs to one of the Bats opens up.
Meanwhile. In the Infinite Realms, Queen Regent Jazz is going into Mama Bear Jazz Mode trying to find her deaged brother, keeping the Realms in check, and is resisting the urge to put CW in time out Soup Time because he's being cyptided again about Danny whereabouts!!! UGH!
i love love love the way you paint back lighting!! do you have any tips/ a step by step for the way you do it?
ended up making a whole painting just to break it down and explain my general process for subjects lit from behind so heres that + a timelapse!
main thing for drawing anything with a strong light source behind is to make the main subject Darker and more desaturated to convey that the light is behind them rather than to their sides (face cant be properly lit if the light is behind). Also making the Main highlight the brightest hue in the image helps to intensify it. I tend to use teeth/eyes as a good comparison point
some people have a tendency to make the sclera white out of habit but darkening that+ the rest of the whites helps the image read as Darker compared to the brighter highlight
When Jason arrived at the manor to meet Danny it wasn’t him who greeted him but Damian. Jason tensed as he always did when he saw Damian, though now the feeling he got when he saw Damian made more sense to him. He had read the slide show, he knew that the urge to fight Damian wasn’t hatred, and neither was the way Damian lashed out at him… at least probably not. They should spar more, but not right now, he still needed to overcome the urge to fight Damian in the lobby.
“Todd,” Damian greeted.
“Demon-Brat,” Jason said, insults were practically his love language now anyway.
Damian sniffed disdainfully, but he was shifting from foot to foot. He had something to say and was struggling to figure out how. Jason crossed his arms and dutifully waited for Damian to spit it out. “Danny has warned me about the role that combat has in courtship for his kind, I do not know why on earth he would want you to court him But that is his decision. I will not interfere but understand that he is vulnerable and he is protected. If you hurt him in any way there will be consequences.”
“I’m not planning to hurt him, but I also don’t even know if we are ‘courting’ yet,” Jason said rolling his eyes.
“Well then you’re even more of a fool then I thought,” Damian said with a disdainful sniff. “He’s a very powerful being, Zatana says that he will likely grow to be a god, you should be grateful he is willing to let you court him.”
Jason blinked rapidly, he hadn’t been here for that conversation so that was the first he was hearing of that! It also occurred to him that Damian had a baby-crush on Danny and considered teasing him about it but decided not to. “Huh, good to know,” He said, simply reaching out to ruffle Damian’s hair and missing on purpose as he dodged away. “So where is Danny?”
“He’s waiting for you in the dojo upstairs,” Damian said, sounding a little resigned as he gestured upwards. “I hope you made reservations for somewhere worthy.”
“Don’t worry Dami,” Jason snorted, brushing past him to head towards the stairs. “I’ve got it under control.”
Once again as soon as he entered the dojo and saw Danny the violent urges surged but he wasn’t alone and he didn’t swing first. Danny came at him first and Jason rose to meet him. The fight was longer but less desperate this time. It felt like they were getting out their energy and anger without meaning it, and by the end Jason and Danny were both breathing hard and purring again. It really did feel like bonding, they were closer now then they had been at the beginning of the fight, even if they had hardly said a word.
It ended in a stalemate, or, Jason got Danny pinned but it couldn’t have been more obvious that Danny let him. Jason was glad they didn’t have an audience this time so later he could deny that made him blush. Danny gave him a cheeky grin and reached up to pull Jason down, slow enough that Jason was able to scramble away before Danny got hold of him.
He coughed to clear his throat awkwardly, grabbing one of the towels that sat on a shelf on one side of the dojo, using it to wipe his face and the back of his neck. The fight had been intense enough to make him sweat, though Danny still seemed unbothered, and there were some gym style showers off of the dojo.
“Well I’m glad I brought a change of clothes!I’m going to have a quick shower and then we can go out for dinner okay?”
“Sounds good, I’ll go change too. Alfred bought me a Ton of new clothes, I really didn’t need that much more. By the way, what sort of place are we going? I mean, should I dress up?” Danny asked a little awkwardly, Running a hand back through his hair to try and push his bangs back.
“I mean, probably a little bit?” Jason said. “If I didn’t take you somewhere nice I think Damian would shank me. It’s cute how protective of you he is,” Jason teased.
“Alright, so we talking jeans and a button down? Or proper dress pants?” Danny asked, cocking his head to the side.
“Better to go with dress pants. The good ones are pretty comfortable anyway, and Alfred wouldn’t get you bad one. No need for a jacket though, unless you’ll be cold?”
“I have an ice core, I never get cold,” Danny laughed. Jason was just going to pretend he understood what that meant.
“Alright,” Danny agreed, bouncing to his feet in a way that denied gravity and bouncing out of the room to go get changed.
Jason grinned like an idiot after him before shaking off the feeling and going to have a quick shower and get dressed for their date.
Jason showered and dressed in a red shirt and soft brown pants before meeting up with Danny who was wearing a blue that brought out his eyes and black pants, he looked… very good. Judging by the blush on Danny’s cheeks he thought the same thing about Jason.
“Have you ridden on a motorbike before?” Jason asked rather than acknowledging any of that.
“Oh! Ya I have, not that often but I know the basics,” Danny assured, following Jason eagerly towards the door.
“Great, I have an extra helmet for you.”
“Do I have to?” Danny sighed dramatically. “It wouldn’t kill me anyway if I fell off.”
“Yes you have to,” Jason said firmly, his stomach twisting at the idea of Danny getting hurt. “You have to be more careful Danny! I get that we’re all bad about risk taking, and you’re tough, but you don’t have just yourself to worry about anymore!” Jason said, trying not to sound too much like he was scolding Danny. He wasn’t sure it worked because Danny did look pretty chided as he took the helmet.
“The babies aren’t in my head, the helmet wouldn’t protect them,” He muttered as he put it on. Jason just hummed and rolled his eyes as he put his own on.
Danny got on the bike behind him and wrapped his arms around Jason’s waist, snuggling up against his back even as continued to sulk. “Hold on tight, and the helmets have mics so we can still talk without having to yell. It’s a bit of a drive,” Jason warned. He could have gotten there a lot faster, but not without breaking traffic laws and he was in civvies so a half hour drive it had to be.
Danny hummed and tightened his grip on Jason as he kicked back the stand and revved the bike, peeling out of the driveway in a way he knew would piss off Bruce. It also made Danny yelp and cling tighter though so Jason slowed down a bit once they were out of the driveway.
Danny was quiet for maybe ten minutes and Jason was starting to worry he’d upset Danny more then he realized and maybe should apologize when he spoke up. “You’re right. When Cass clocked that I was pregnant it was the first time I’d talked to anyone about it besides Vlad. I’m not… Honestly the way I’ve survived most of the shit that’s happened to me was not thinking about the implications. I’m not sure how I’m going to do this. I’m in a way better position now then I was even a week ago but it’s going to be such a big change I’m having a hard time imagining what it's even going to look like.”
Jason hummed, nodding and taking a moment to consider his response. His first instinct was to remind Danny that he didn’t Have to have the babies since it was still early but he knew that the other bats would have already brought it up. If Danny was anything other than fiercely protective and utterly determined to have the babies Bruce and Dick would still be trying to convince him to not be a teen parent and focus on his education. The same way they had tried to convince everyone in the family not to be vigilantes and utterly failed.
“You’re going to be a good dad Danny, and you’re not going to do this alone. Bruce never got to have any of us as babies, the youngest of us was 12 when he adopted us and I know he’s looking forward to having a baby around. Alfred is too, and Damian and Dick will compete for best uncle. Money is no object, you’ll get everything you and the babies need. It’s still going to be a big change obviously but there’s nothing to be scared of I promise,” Could he make that promise really? Well he just did so he’d better do his best to make sure it was kept.
“It’s not just that though,” Danny said and hesitated again. Jason stayed quiet to let him organize his thoughts. “My binder is hurting more to wear, my.. Chest aches, I told Bruce I was just incubating ghost cores. And that’s what I’ve been telling Myself too, but I got sick this morning and the babies are clones of me, and I’m half human. What if I actually am pregnant?
“I told Jazz I’d bring up going to a human doctor but then dodged it. I haven’t been in years and I am nervous about going again but it’s more than that. I don’t like my body, I’m too young for hormones or surgery but if my body changes. What if my chest hurts too much and I can’t wear my binder anymore? What if they grow more? They’ve always been small enough to hide before.
“I don’t mind the idea of my stomach growing, or even really being a mom. I’m a man but I do feel like I identify more with maternity than paternity. It’s really just my.. Breasts. God I hate that word. I don’t want them to grow, I don’t want to lactate or breastfeed. I mean, I DO, I actually really do but just the idea is giving my dysphoria at the same time that I really want to do it to bond with the babies.” It was like a dam had broken and Danny’s words came fast and a little loud, breathing hard between bouts of talking.
“Deep breaths please Danny, take a few deep breaths,” Jason soothed, taking one hand off the handlebars briefly to pat Danny’s hands where they were clasped over his stomach. He was a bit at a loss about this, none of his siblings were trans, he knew trans people but he’d never had to talk anyone through these particular problems. “These are a lot of what ifs to be panicking about. It’s totally your choice, the babies can be bottle fed if the time comes and you’re not up to it. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’ll all be here for you no matter what happens, but you really should go to the doctor Danny. At least then we’ll know what to expect right?”
“Will you come with me to the doctor? I’m a bit scared of human doctors, I’ve heard people talking about experimenting on me so much as Phantom that every time I’m in a lab-like environment now I can’t stop thinking about it,” Danny asked, a pleading edge to his voice.
“Ya, I’ll come with you, and whoever else you want,” Jason promised, because what else could he say? “We’ll make an appointment for you with Dr. Leslie, she sees all of us vigilantes, she sees just about everyone involved in the night life and never Ever talks to the cops or the feds. Trust me no one can get that woman to talk to anyone, she’s safe.”
“Thank you,” Danny murmured, leaning his cheek against Jason’s shoulder. The rest of the ride was a quiet one as Danny recovered and Jason tried not to overthink his lackluster responses.
-----
Jason parked a block away from the restaurant rather than trusting any concierge with his bike and waited for Danny to get off before he did. He took off his helmet and took Danny’s from him and locked them both in the storage compartment on his bike before leading the way, shoving his hands awkwardly in his pockets. He was never the most… socially competent. He was better than Tim but he was worse than Dick and Bruce and in moments like this he wished these things came a little easier to him.
Danny was quiet, his hands swinging loosely by his side as he followed, Jason noted the way he kept looking around them. They all did that, looking for threats civilians might not see, it was how you spotted a hero even when they weren’t trying to be spotted. Still there were no problems between the bike and the restaurant and when they got inside Jason softly asked the host to make sure Danny got one of the menus without prices. He was knew to this lifestyle, Jason remembered the first time he’d gone out to a fancy dinner with Wayne the prices had nearly given him a heart attack and he was younger and less set in his ways then Danny.
He didn’t want Danny to worry about the prices, he’d be paying and he was both the son of a millionaire and a crime lord, he could buy the entire fucking place without blinking. The host nodded understanding and ushered both of them to the most private table in the establishment.
They settled in and ordered drinks, Jason a coke and Danny a signature lemonade before they were left with the menus. Danny gave Jason a suspicious look when he noticed there weren’t any prices but when Jason innocently pretended not to notice Danny huffed and decided not to bring it up.
“Order whatever you want, appetizer and dessert too,” Jason encouraged, putting on his innocent face again when Danny gave him a Look.
“Alright,” Danny agreed with a dramatic sigh, he didn’t need to be pushed too hard though, Alfred had mentioned Danny was almost always hungry, wish was why Jason hadn’t chosen one of the fancy places with ridiculously small portions.
Danny took a while to choose, and asked Jason about a few items and words on the menu. Finally he sighed and put his menu down to indicate he was done. It wasn’t long before the waitress returned to take their order for appetizers and main before vanishing again.
“So,” Danny asked leaning against the table and clasping his hands. “You have questions?”
[ID: Digital Art of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. Vash’s body is turned slightly away from the viewer as he holds a staggering Wolfwood by his shoulder. He has one foot ahead of the other, the foot in the back used to stabilize himself from tipping over. Wolfwood is tethering into Vash, his weight pressed into him with his arms wrapped around Vash’s waist and his face is hidden away as he leans against Vash’s shoulder. Vash’s expression can be seen, his eyes wide and mouth tight-lipped, and his face is flushed red. A speech bubble comes out from Wolfwood, saying a drawled “Spikeyyy...”. The background are desaturated pastels of blue and green, showing night time, as they stand in the middle of an empty street that is also lit by the moon not depicted. Yellow light is seen coming from the inside of a saloon. End ID]
The Final Fifteen is about Terry Pratchett's Death
read on Ao3
The final fifteen is obviously a major plot point, and serves a role in a story that was written long before Terry Pratchett was ever diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But the scene itself wasn’t written until just a few years ago, during the writing of Season 2. In fact, the scene came about during a park bench conversation between Neil Gaiman and John Finnemore.
Others have noted that the non-romantic kiss that signals the story moving into the third act is a Neil Gaiman staple. The function of such a kiss, from Gaiman’s perspective, is to communicate.
In 2023 we are seeing a lot of stories written by men, for men, about men who are best friends and discover that their friendship can go deeper than the norms of society would usually allow; that platonic and romantic love are not so far apart, and perhaps the better word for a relationship that can be described this way is intimacy.
Neil Gaiman has made it clear in interviews that his friendship with Terry Pratchett was deeply intimate. They began collaborating on what would become Good Omens in the 1980’s, endured a tumultuous experience together through the first publication, wherein Neil offered to martyr himself on behalf of Terry if the book failed, and then spent the better part of two decades touring the world, meeting the people who loved their work. Neil would even off-handedly remark that Terry’s fans were so cheerful, and Neil’s seemed like they were ready to kill themselves; wouldn’t it be nice if they got married? From the outside, it looks very much as if Terry was Aziraphale-coded, and Neil was Crowley-coded, working together in an unexpected partnership to make the world a little bit more tolerable for the humans inhabiting it. I am not conjecturing that Neil and Terry had romantic inclinations the way their fictional characters do, but I think it is fair to say that their opposites-attract intimacy became an important part of who each of them were.
In 2007 Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s. As the disease progressed, he began to lose himself, and knew that the person he used to be was slipping away. He wanted to end his life on his own terms, and die as himself, but England did not and still does not allow for voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide. He advocated for the right to die but never achieved it, and ultimately succumbed to the disease in 2015. Neil Gaiman has spoken a lot on the topic of death, and one answer of his that resonated with me reads:
Mostly it feels terrible. It even feels terrible when it’s someone who has been in a lot of pain for a long time or has not really been there for a long time and you know that Death has in some ways been a blessing: suddenly you are mourning the whole person.
It doesn’t get easier as you age. It gets stranger. The point where you realise how many people you used to know and like who aren’t there any longer, and you cannot talk to them or see them or laugh with them is painful in a way that I had never expected. The first time that someone you had a romantic relationship with dies and you realise that there had been moments both of you shared and now you are the sole custodian of those moments and one day you will be gone and they will be lost forever is peculiarly strange and hard.
~~~
The entire show is seeded with references to Terry Pratchett, but the most important one is the one that’s missing. Neil Gaiman cameoed as a sleeping moviegoer in S1E4, but a long time ago, he and Terry had discussed cameoing as sushi restaurant-goers, because sushi was weirdly prominent in the book. That cameo would have been in S1E1. But when it came time to do it, Neil couldn’t. Not without Terry.
Neil: I was gonna say our location is a Chinese restaurant we’d had turned into a sushi restaurant. So Terry and I, Terry Pratchett and I, had a standing… not even a standing joke, just a standing plan, that we were going to have sushi - there was going to be a scene in Good Omens where sushi was eaten and we were gonna be extras, we were gonna sit in the background, eating sushi while it was done. And I was so looking forward to this and, so I wrote this scene with it being sushi, even though Terry was gone, with that in mind and I thought: Oh, I’ll sit and I’ll eat lots of sushi as an extra, this will be my scene as an extra, I’ll just be in the background. And then, on the day, or a couple of days before, I realized that I couldn’t do it.
Douglas: You never told me this before either. I might have pushed you into doing it, had I known. I think you were right not to tell me.
Neil: I was keeping it to me self ‘cause I was always like: Oh, maybe I’ll be… this will be my cameo. And then I couldn’t. I was just so sad, ‘cause Terry wasn’t there. And it was probably the day that I missed Terry the most of all of the filming - it was just this one scene ‘cause it was written for Terry and all of the sushi meals we’d ever had and all of the strange way that sushi ran through Good Omens.
~~~
In the Final Fifteen, it is clear that Crowley and Aziraphale want to stay together. They love each other. They each know that the other loves them. There’s nothing that needs to be said, no convincing that their bond is true and real and precious.
But Aziraphale has to go to Heaven, and Crowley cannot follow him there.
I cannot speculate what it must have been like for Neil to endure losing a friend who, though I’m sure he desperately wanted to still be in his life, he also knew that life had become a burden to him, and grieved that Terry was not able to choose the time and manner of his departure from this Earth. This sort of complex grief, we fan-ficcers know, is the kind that is often best processed through story-telling.
I think that what we see Crowley going through in the Final Fifteen, alongside its importance to the story arc of Good Omens overall, is Neil processing his grief at losing his friend Terry Pratchett, and even the kiss, that violent, terrible, awful kiss, was the symbolic representation of Neil saying goodbye.
A long time ago Ghostwriter and Phantom had some kind of rivalry with each other, the ghost was still upset with the halfa for sending him to prison while the halfa was still upset about being forced to celebrate christmas.
The ghosts watched them closely on days of truce, waiting for them to behave; the other days however, weren't their problem, so the rivalry just continued to grow.
Until eventually they got tired of fighting and made a deal of sorts, which ended with Danny opening a library in Gotham; It turns out that Ghostwriter had wanted to open one in the human world since a long time, but there were many things that prevented it, such as being human for example.
So yes, Danny ended up owning a giant library full of mini-portals to the Infinite Realms, Ghostwriter lectured him for hours on the proper handling of books, and while he didn't directly give out the originals there were plenty of copies of unpublished works, courtesy of the ghost personal library.
Danny doubted that people would pay much attention to such copies since those could be borrowed but not taken from the place or they would have an angry ghost haunting them.
Upon learning of the announcement of a new library the bats were suspicious, but they put it as a minimum priority. Noticing this, Jason couldn't help but take an interest and check it out for himself.
The place turned out to be excellent, albeit understaffed if you count the owner being the only one present managing everything, but the place was huge, Jason couldn't help but feel like a little kid in a candy store: this was so organised! the chairs were also comfortable! the atmosphere and decorations helped to feel relaxed too.
He cleared his throat in embarrassment at his own thoughts before heading to the Jane Austen section, gaping at the sight of copies of first editions and some books that hadn't even been published, how was that possible?
He looked at the owner but he only greeted him with a smile and decided to look away from him; In the end, he decided that this library would be his, perhaps not directly, but no one could approach such a sacred place with bad intentions. Not even the bats.
And as such, both Danny and an invisible Ghostwriter looked at Red Hood routinely coming in to read on some couch, no one else seemed concerned so they just let it be.
Danny was pretty sure he was the same guy who came to him in the morning asking for recommendations, the corrupted ectoplasm of him was a bit of a giveaway, but the guy was cute, so he just let it slide.
The fact that Adaine "i don't know if im asexual im 15" Abernant and Riz "why is everyone so horny im definately aroace" Gukgak both being in the same show is incredibly important to me
the thing about people calling laios white is that theyre somehow framing it with the mindset of real world's political and social justice context where white privilege exists but this is a fantasy world written by a japanese living in japan where most of the time white privilege isn't something you can utilize so is it any surprise that the manga doesn't discuss race by making it a metaphor for racism in the west?
the black skinned elves are depicted as royals, we've never seen kabru got shit for his skin color but he did got shit for having blue eyes back in his hometown, shuro was never depicted as a victim of anti-asian racism because hey. get this. asia as a concept doesn't exist in dungeon meshi's world. in fact im not sure colorism is even a thing in dungeon meshi world? most of the time we see it based on whether they're long-lived or not, and. well. the racial biases of fantasy races that have nothing to do with skin color.
laios is white in the sense that his skin color is pale, but he's not white the same way white americans are more privileged than poc
Hey girl hey ;) could you do a Phillip Graves x reader smut where Phil is picking on the reader all day (like touchin her behind, kissing her, etc) then he finally gets the reader to himself?? 🩷🩷
''𝘜𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴, 𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘺. 𝘛𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦-'' The words came out as a growl from the back of his throat, hands roaming to your hips, gripping and guiding, showing you what he craved most.