#hoo boy had a blast with this one

[starry-bi-sky]

I am absolutely loving your Danyal Al Ghul au. While I have a soft spot for the whole plotline of Danny becoming his canon personality almost right after breaking away from the LOA all because of Jazz, I'm just as much for your take in which he goes through the same character development as Damian.

Now I'm curious. You already tackled his relationship with Dani, will you eventually take a stab at when he, Sam, and Tucker meet Gregor? Given that it's one of my hated episodes as I couldn't stand Sam's infuriatingly hypocritical attitude to Danny's suspicions of him, I'd kill to see your spin on it.

Aw, thank you! Danyal Al Ghul aus are what got me into DPDC first, so I have a major soft spot for them. That being said, uh, its exactly that soft spot that causes me to have Many Opinions about the trope you just mentioned. Like the trope is all fine and dandy, i don't blindly hate it, my main issue with it is that most aus i've seen treat his backstory as an ex-assassin more like a pretty cosmetic accessory rather than something that actually should have had an impact on him. Especially if he remembers being in the league.

Like i cannot stress enough the fact that being in an ecofascist assassin cult (regardless of his standing in it) should've left him, in some way or another, screwed up morally and psychologically because that's just how development works. Nature vs. Nurture is like a game of tug-o-war that never ends, where they are constantly fighting against each other and one side usually has the upper hand or greater influence. Children model the behaviors of the adults around them (ex: bobo the clown doll experiment), and what impacts them in childhood can stick with them permanently.

Like how my psychology professor put it: a baby's brain is like wet cement; if you slap your hand on it, it leaves an imprint, and the cement dries that way. The same rings true for small children.

I could go on, but I frankly have so many thoughts on that alone that I would end up completely derailing from the second half of your ask, and I don't want to be more critical than I already have. Especially since you just mentioned you have a soft spot for the trope.

[Okay, hold onto your hats because this is long. Naturally lmao.]

Gregor! Man, I'll admit I last watched the show back in middle school on a dodgy illegal website (it had surprisingly good audio and visual graphics, and full episodes. But really annoying porn ads.) but I only made it to like season 1 before my hyperfixation faded and I lost interest. So I never actually saw the Gregor episode.

But... it is relatively easy to find free websites that stream Danny Phantom :), so finding the episode took me like. Thirty seconds. Plus the Tv.Tropes recap page because my damn earbuds just died and im out in public as of rn.

I'm not sure if I'll write something for the gregor episode like I did with Dani, since Dani's a bit of a special case in that she's a clone and tends to be a reoccurring presence in DPDC, and I thought the new dynamic with Danyal would be interesting.

Plus, I'm not a big amethyst ocean shipper for the pure reason of I'm just not all that interested in it; its kinda bland to me. I'll admit I've entertained the thought in this au due to the whole balcony scene i wrote, but I would've entertained the thought anyways if it was Tucker in that position instead. Big multishipper, me.

But, if I had to make it official? Danyal is not interested romantically in Sam when the Gregor episode happens, regardless of his relationship with Valerie. Who, speaking of I'm trying to think about how that would go, and I'm torn between including him almost-dating Valerie or not.

Because on one hand it helps point out Sam's hypocrisy (and i love her but i am always happy to point out her flaws and address them in au) in this episode in terms of Danny spying on them, but on the other hand I'll want to include a lot of set up in order to make Gray Ghost work in this au and wow will that take a while.

Especially with the Flirting with Disaster episode because it happens due to Technus' meddling, and Danny is, well, the son of the Batman? A trained assassin? An ex-assassin nonetheless, but still an assassin? A prodigy child in this au? He might not have needed to use most of his skills in the last few years, but like... there's just a bunch of 'what if' and 'well technically...' and 'would he? he could, but would he?' things that is getting in the way of my thought process and making my head spin.

.

Mmm. Okay. Flirting with Disaster occurs relatively the same as canon with a few exceptions; like Danyal noticing the strange coincidences, and he might take the idea into proper consideration because Sam has a point it is strange, especially out of nowhere.

However,,, he really enjoys Valerie's company, and he does really like her. He's been adjusting to civilian life for the last four years and while he's made a lot of progress, he's still. an ex-assassin child living like a wolf amongst sheep. This is normal, typical teenager stuff, and usually his friends like to encourage him doing normal teenager stuff.

So he's stubbornly holding out on the thought that this is normal, that ghost stuff isn't interfering here. He's a little hurt that his friends are discouraging this, he's not bothered by the fact that Valerie is a ghost hunter and he a ghost -- his mother is an assassin, and his father is Batman, and they still had a relationship. (Granted, he's not gonna tell them that)

If anything, being diametrically opposed to each other but still being in love is part of the family! Granted, usually both parties are aware of said opposition to each other, but he'll make a special exception this time around.

(And man now that i'm thinking about gray ghost, im now thinking about various like. scenes i could write between the two of them. maybe in a reblog.)

Anyways uhhh things relatively go the same as canon. Yeah. I think Sam still has a crush on Danny and still spies out of jealousy with Tucker.

.

Now, the Gregor episode! With that out of the way; the TVTropes recap for this episode isn't the best because it doesn't go into detail about the entire episode like it does with Flirting With Disaster and Shades of Gray.

(which i looked at earlier because I made a section of this post talking briefly about what changes I'd make to the Shades of Gray episode to help set up Gray Ghost, but ended up deleting because it was kinda irrelevant for the matter at hand.)

So I'm taking in bits of the episode clips at a time, I'll try not to get too nitpicky about how each scene goes because then it's gonna take me a longer time to write this.

But! First thing's first; since Danny is not romantically interested in Sam, he is also not jealous of Gregor. He is however, a bit eyebrow-raisey at him in their first introduction, but that's because Gregor is coming off as obnoxious.

Danny thinks he's kinda annoying, and it doesn't take a genius to see that Gregor is trying to impress Sam. But since they've only known him for five minutes he takes the good faith assumption and assumes that Gregor is genuinely trying to show interest in Sam's interests too because he likes her, so he keeps mum. The fake hungarian accent is weird, but it's overall harmless, so he doesn't point it out.

He does do the spying thing when he starts suspecting that Gregor might be working for the GIW. The episode only has this happen twice, but for the au this happens a handful of more times over the course of the week, with Danyal's suspicion steadily rising more and more each time.

Hah, when he brings up wanting to spy on Sam and Gregor because of this reason, Tucker still does his "woah! you wanna spy on Sam?" thing.

Danny immediately turns to him, completely unimpressed, and crosses his arms. "Tucker," he says, deadpan, "you and Sam spied on me and Valerie."

He uses a combination of his ghost powers and his regular stealth ability to spy on them. He's hiding in a tree when they're skipping rocks, close enough that he can use his powers to hear them talk but far enough away that he has a good view of their surroundings.

He's invisible in the cinema, but doesn't accidentally get in front of the projector. He checks the inside of the room for the GIW, and then waits outside the actual room itself, keeping an eye on the area and occasionally flying in to watch the movie out of boredom. It reminds him of being back on a recon mission with the League, but it doesn't end with him orchestrating someone's death.

Then when they're at the mall he stays in human form, blending in with the crowd. He runs into the GIW there, but realizes that they're not there because of Gregor; they're just shopping. They didn't show up at either of the last two locations, and he follows them to make sure they're not also trying to blend in. But they're literally just there for shopping.

Danny is rather pleased with this turnout; so far Gregor isn't a spy, he's just annoying. The next day at lunch he asks Sam how her date with Gregor went, and that's how she figures out he spied on them, because well, she didn't tell him that.

"Have you been spying on me?"

Danny messes with his food a little bit, and Tucker is sinking into his seat with embarrassment. He frowns, "Only last night. Those incompetent government dodos--"

His lip curls up; he gets all 'Shakespeare-y' (as Sam and Tucker put it) when he's insulting someone, "--kept appearing whenever Gregor did. I followed you and him last night to make sure he wasn't a spy."

A roundabout way of saying, "I was worried".

Sam is, as canon, furious. Danny understands why, he knows generally speaking that people don't like being spied on. But he's confused on just how angry she is, and is a little irritated by it.

"Why would you do that!" She exclaims, "That's way out of line, Danny."

"How? You spied on me when I was going on dates with Valerie." He narrows his eyes, and points his fork at her, "I'm not blind, I noticed."

"That's different, we told you why we were suspicious. And we don't have ghost powers like you do."

"I don't need ghost powers to sneak around, Sam, you've seen this firsthand. And I just told you why I followed you, I thought he was working with the guys in white--"

"So you think someone can only be interested in me if they're after you?" (this is a paraphrased quote, folks ;D)

"No! If that was the case I would have voiced my concern the moment I thought it. I don't get why you're so angry, you spied too."

Iiits.... a mess. Sam storms off with Gregor, Tucker tags along because okay, yeah, maybe Gregor isn't with the GIW, or maybe last night was a fluke. Either way he ends up tagging along. Danny overhears that conversation between the GIW and Mr. Lancer, and maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong; but something is up.

I've gotten to that scene in the locker room where Gregor tells Danny that he knows he doesn't like him, and I've paused at Danny's reply to say this: Danyal doesn't even bother trying to deny it.

"I know you do not like me."

"You're right; I don't."

"Ah, let me finish. I know you do not like me because you want to protect your friend, Sam, and I respect that."

"...That's correct."

"Good! Because I am going to ask her out."

"I had a feeling you'd say that," he stands up, claps his hand tight on Gregor's shoulder, and leans close to him with a threatening smile, "so you understand me when i say; if you break my best friend's heart, you're as good as dead, right?"

"Ah,, yes. I am so glad we got that cleared out of the way, and now I hope after we can.. how you Americans put it, hang out?"

In the episode he hugs Danny and gives him a la bise (which is that french greeting where you kiss someone on the cheek two or more times) after they end their conversation. But here, when he goes to do that to Danyal, Danny leans away, points an accusatory finger at him, and says; "Absolutely not; we are not close."

The next scene after that is like, end of day. Sam, Tucker, and Gregor walking away. Sam looks over her shoulder to glare at Danny, then gets forlorn. Tucker looks back and just looks forlorn.

(When did I start narrating each scene?? Eh, I'm writing this in brief spurts of time throughout the day. Don't fix what's not broke)

After that there's this whole scene with the two GIW agents that have been chasing Phantom all episode. They're there because they have Tucker's PDA that Skulker took, and it's got the information of their purple backed gorilla assignment on it. They've been going around seeing who Tucker associates with in hopes of catching Phantom.

Uhh ahaha and that is where this gets a little interesting imo, and also allows me to mention that im retconning Danyal's (already) redesigned ghost form. Which I've wanted to retcon even before this moment bc it was just too busy. I'll get to that in a moment.

The GIW suspect Gregor for being the Phantom because of his white hair and green eyes, which is all fine and dandy until you remember: Danyal (and by extension Phantom) has that very noticeable, rather identifiable facial scar that goes across the middle of his fucking face. The GIW could easily suspect that Phantom hides his scar with makeup if he's in disguise, but if they meet a kid with a seemingly identical facial scar and similar disposition? Hoo boy.

Solution? I've got two: Gregor is canonically a kid from Michigan who faked everything to impress Sam. Considering he knows she's gothic and knows that she's ultra-recyclo vegetarian? He probably watched her from afar or got information on her somehow. His hair is dyed, his eyes might just naturally be green, but if he notices that she's got a crush on either Danyal or Phantom? A little sfx makeup could help him recreate a similar looking scar.

My second solution that's gonna happen anyways bc its that suit redesign; Danyal does hide his face as Phantom. Ghosts are emotional creatures and its a popular headcanon that their interests, ambitions, etc, influence the way they look as a ghost, not just their death. A big reoccurring theme of my au is that Danyal did not leave the League unscathed, and that being an assassin is an important part of his identity.

So i'm discarding the hazmat suit look entirely and leaning into the 'assassin' thing. But the general (stylized) feel is like, white ribbon/cloth vambraces that he has used as a garrote at some point, a hood, a gaiter scarf-type thing. I'm keeping the cape. I did a doodle a few days back that's not the official redesign, but a redesign for Phantom. I may reblog this post with that attached because it's got the general feel down. There's very little white involved, but the inside of his cape flares out and looks like the night sky.

Now, the hood and gaiter scarf gets rid of most of the problem, but Danny's hood doesn't stay on all the time, so the GIW have likely seen the upper half of the scar. :] Gregor's own drawn-on scar doesn't have to be 1:1, but it looks close enough, right? A small scar cutting through the edge of his brow and ends right below the corner of his eye. A 'cool, badass' one opposed to Danny's 'garish' scar.

But! Back to the episode scene. Canon Danny gets written off as being 'too prepubescent' to be Phantom, and honestly it'd be hilarious if Danyal was written off for the same reason (he's calling them idiots in his head if they do). But instead -- leaning into the GIW's incompetence here -- he gets written off as being too mature or too talkative. Or something equally as absurd.

Sam breaks up with Gregor for canon reasons, but when Gregor does his "i really like you, but, come on-!" and gestures to tucker, he adds on "and that scary friend of yours too, seriously!"

Things go relatively the same as canon after that. Danny does end up apologizing for spying, however. Sam does it first. Sorrows, prayers, all that.

.

Things usually end up changed or different when I actually write it down, so I'd likely add more or adjust different scenes according to the flow of the oneshot. This is just like, a general vibe of how things would go, and where some of the more obvious changes would be if I did write this oneshot.

Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the ask :]

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dpxdc crossover #danyal al ghul au #danyal al ghul #i dont even mind the trope that danny becomes like his canon self i just want *some* kind of impact on him. but as it stands most aus i've #seen lowkey treat his assassin background as an accessory. like dyeing your hair or piercing your ears. that being said its also a silly #au where they're brothers and are related to each other and thus doesn't have to be that deep at all! im just bored of seeing the same thin #all the time. especially considering danny is usually depicted as the paler/whiter passing twin and being the 'kinder. more compassionate' #one between the two of them. give me danny who suffered crises of morality! danny whose morally darker than a cloud #morally orange and blue danny who sooner understands 'dont litter' than 'dont murder'. arrogant danny! he dotes on the people he loves but #is an utter bitch to everyone else and thus has to learn to be kinder. danny discovering himself outside being an assassin #his brother remembers a kind and compassionate older brother because thats how danny interacted with him. But danny had no qualms turning #around and slicing the tendons of one of the other assassins because of smth they did that displeased him. #he can still be like his canon self but shouldn't there be something that stays behind? Lingering like a blast shadow? #danny who carries weapons on him always even though he knows he doesn't need it but it makes him feel safer. #danny who spits out the oddest. most foreboding shit sometimes and his friends just stare at him and go 'bro what the fuck??' #idk if i can share the website where i found the episodes bc of risk of copyright. but just search up #'where can i watch danny phantom for free' and look for a reddit post with that question. the comments give website options. #i keep thinking about gray ghost now. valerie finds herself becoming a member of the 'danny fenton protection squad' with sam and tucker #danny takes a page from his beloved mother's book and calls his partners 'beloved' and equally sappy pet names. #he also throws the BIGGEST shitstorm of the century when he finds out about what Axion Labs did to the dogs. hoo boy.

[faeriekit]

Ghosts of Those We Once Knew

a phic phight fill for @silverwing013

Warnings for: implied child abuse, accidental death, dead parents

**💚**

“Oh yeah?! And what are you going to do about it?!” Aunt Alicia snapped into the phone. 

There was a sound on the other end of the line, but Danny couldn’t make it out all the way. There was another solution, but it was…risky; it would require going into his aunt’s bedroom— a well known, forbidden domain— to pick up the only other phone hooked up to the landline. 

…There was no other time to find out what Aunt Alicia was putting off. It had to be worth the risk. Danny crept up the worn carpeting of the stairs, hoping that his sneakiness would hold up to Alicia’s discerning eyes and ears. 

Her bedroom was dark. Carpeted. …Pink. 

Whatever. Danny took a deep breath, lifted the phone off the hook, and tried not to breathe too loudly into the mouthpiece.

“You have no right to keep Daniel in your dismal, miserable, isolated hovel,” someone shouted on the other end. Danny had never heard this voice before. He sounded like someone around Dad’s age, maybe? Maybe a little…smoother, despite the blistering anger coming through the line. “You live with no human contact for nine months out of the year. You speak to no one. Do you— is Daniel even enrolled in a school? Did you get any sort of educational provisions for him whatsoever?” 

“What, so he can get cocky and blow himself up in the garage like his parents?” Alicia snapped. Danny had to clap a hand to his mouth to hide his gasp of dismay. 

“You know full well that punishing your sister’s son by restricting his access to an education and basic human companionship is not a solution to your grief for your sister. You are out of your mind.”

Aunt Alicia’s voice got low. Aunt Alicia’s voice got mean. She sounded like how she looked when Danny had fumbled the water pail from the well or stepped two steps too close to the rhubarb patch out back. “Vladmir Masters, you listen here,” Aunt Alicia muttered. “That boy is everything left of my sister in the whole damn world. He is not going anywhere. Do you understand? Not for you to fill his head with her stupid husband’s supernatural hoo-ha, and not for you to snatch up and teach himself how to kill other people the way those two killed each other. Danny stays here. If you ring me up one more time, I’m going to do more than just mail dog crap to the front step of your stupid castle in Wisconsin.”

The phone cut off. It would be an innocuous end to a phone call, except Danny can hear the clatter of plastic cracking on plastic in the downstairs kitchen.

There was a moment of silence.

“Daniel Jackson Fenton, you get your butt in here right now!”

Danny jolted, heart pounding. He—he went downstairs.

Aunt’s Alicia’s lips were pursed, her eyes tight. “What did I tell you about missing all the sticks in the yard? It looks like a wreck!”

Danny felt his breath stick in his throat.

“Well?”

“Yes, Aunt Alicia,” Danny mumbled. He looked down and away. He wasn’t caught out eavesdropping, but…was this any better?

“If those sticks aren’t piled up beside the woodshed for kindling in half an hour, you can kiss your dinner goodbye.”

Danny hadn’t had dinner in three nights. He was very lucky he didn’t need to eat as much as living kids. “…Yes, Aunt Alicia.”

“So?”

…Danny went outside to collect sticks. It took until nightfall to get all the refuse from yesterday’s storm off the ground.

Aunt Alicia ate canned corn and carrots and butchered rabbit with hot sauce for dinner. Danny ate nothing.

Danny went to bed thinking about somewhere else he could go. Mom and Dad were dead—smithereens in the blast that had killed him and brought him back to life simultaneously. Jazz was in the hospital. He had no grandparents. He had no other aunts or uncles other than Aunt Alicia.

…Who was Vladmir Masters?

*

It took two days for Danny to decide to run away.

Or. Well. Fly.

He’d figured that if he wanted to find out who Vladmir Masters was, he’d need an internet connection. His cell had been on the Fenton Fone Plan™ and had been disconnected from the Fenton Family Patented Ghost-free Satellite™ for almost three months now. But, you know…what was a public library for, if not getting information?

The two-day waiting period was mostly just Danny getting his stuff together, making sure he didn’t leave anything behind, finding anything worth stealing…

…There was a picture of Mom with her big hair at graduation, a black robe thrown over her Hazmat suit. Her hair had been so big. Lots of people were beside her, including Dad, and someone with a matching hair stripe. They looked happy.

It didn’t matter that it had been Aunt Alicia’s photo. The picture had gone into his backpack next to Bearbert Einstein and a filched pocket knife.

Mom was Aunt Alicia’s sister, but Madeline Fenton had been his mom.

…Was still his mom.

Would…would always be his mom.

Danny wouldn’t cry. He wasn’t going to cry. Still, the flying and everything was still new to him. It took almost ten minutes to get himself off the ground without floating off willy nilly.

It took another half an hour to remember how to go through walls.

By the time Danny fell (as in actually, literally, leaned up against the wall and then realized he’d not made contact the way he’d expected to) through the house wall, it was almost eight at night. Aunt Alicia was still listening to Prairie Home Companion downstairs on the radio.

Whatever. He was out of there. He was sure he looked crazy—his hair was white, which was almost impossible to hide—but all he had to do was get out of there fast enough that no one connected one teenage runaway with a backpack to Danny Fenton.

It was fine.

It was all going to be fine.

…And if there wasn’t someone who’d help him. Well. Being homeless didn’t sound…so bad…?

…Or maybe he’d just squat in the burnt out ruins of Fentonworks. That sounded fine too.

*

Morning broke. Danny ended up in a tiny town somewhere in Mississippi.

A nice guy at the coffee shop gave him a cup of water and told him where the local library was. A librarian plugged her login details for him on a public computer, and Danny was able to look up one “Vladmir Masters”…

…CEO and owner of DALVco, millionaire, and Green Bay Packers megafan.

Holy crap.

Like… There were hospital wings with his name on them. Charities operating out of his company. Every picture of the man was perfectly taken in perfect lighting with perfect suits and precise smirks and bright-white magazine article paper.

Danny went back up to the librarian. “Do you have any articles on…uh…Vlad Masters?”

The librarian smiled warmly. “Ah, school project?”

“Sure,” Danny lied, milk on his tongue.

Vlad Masters was a self-made millionaire. He lived in a castle in Wisconsin that used to be owned by a dairy empire kingpin. He went to—

Danny read the line again

—He went to the same college as Mom and Dad. The year looked right, too. They might have even graduated in the exact same year. If only Danny could still check Dad’s college ring in the bottom of their junk drawer.

Wisconsin. Vlad Masters lived in Wisconsin.

…Danny was really lucky he was never all that hungry anymore.

Danny got another cup of water at the coffee shop, washed his face in the bathroom, and got ready to fly another night.

He was no sextant, but he could probably figure out how to get to Wisconsin after a couple of hours of flying, and a little time to gauge the sky.

It would be easy.

…Danny’s white-topped, pale face stared back at him from the restroom mirror.

It had to be. It would have to be easy.

*

So, a cheese castle looked a lot like a regular castle.

Danny squinted up at the stonework. Nah, that looked like…a castle. That being said, it looked more specifically like the castle he was looking for—the one that had been featured in Vlad Masters’s house tour in Architecture Daily magazine two years ago.  

Same…roof bits. Same big door. Danny swallowed. Same…tower? Were there better words for these? There were definitely better words for all the tricky stone bits in the castle.

Whatever. Danny was praying that the man was actually home today, as opposed to flying across the country on some kind of business trip. Rich people did business trips, right?

Danny floated up to the front door. There was no doorbell.

…Danny bit his lip. Okay. So there was no doorbell. There was a very large, brass door knocker. It looked kind of like a big monster face, with a ring held in its teeth.

The knocker was just high enough off the ground that Danny had to float to get there. Lifting it was a struggle.

When it knocked, the whole door buzzed with sound.

Danny waited.

…He waited.

And…Danny waited.

No one came.

Danny picked at the skin of his lip. What if he just…went in?

Like. It was a big house. Maybe Vlad Masters just hadn’t heard him at all? Maybe he was just…in the basement or something…?

Danny paced midair. On one hand. He’d come all this way. He had to follow through. He had to see if there was…something. Anything. Anything at all—anything that could possibly connect Masters to his family.

Any connection that wasn’t Aunt Alicia would be worth breaking and entering.

On the other hand. Home invasion was and would remain illegal.

Danny grimaced.

He…stuck his head through the door. 

There was a hallway on the other side. A little end table. A guest book. 

…Okay. Danny slipped through the door. He was breaking and entering now— or at least…entering. 

Inside was dark. Gloomy. Comfortable, sure— lots of soft furnishings, curtains, couches, pillow, lounging things— but very…opaque in atmosphere. 

He was glowing, he noticed. That probably was pretty bad on the “trying not to get caught” scale. 

There was no one upstairs. Danny drifted through room after empty room and up into floor after empty floor. There was a kitchen, and the food therein were largely preserved items. There was nothing in the fridge. 

Danny’s stomach cramped. There was no one here. 

…Maybe he should look downstairs? 

The castle got colder the further down he went. The windows that at least allowed the minimal light that escaped through the tree cover in the castle vanished. The only light left was Danny. 

Danny floated down deeper. 

There were doors made of metal in a long, stone hallway. Each had different numbers on them. Danny followed the rows of doors.

There were wires on the floor. They were organized by color and bound by little ties, until they weren’t, and Danny eventually ran out of tangled webs of red and blue plastic to follow. 

They ended at a closed door. 

Danny hesitated. He poked his head through. 

On the other side was a ghost. 

Danny jerked back. He’d— he clapped his hand over his mouth. That was—! And sure, Danny was something like that now, but he’d never seen—!

He should leave. Danny should leave. 

Danny barely made it three doors down. 

Going somewhere? something asked him. Danny shivered. 

The ghost appeared on his left in ethereal white, black hair pulled behind him in some sort of half-halo. Unlike Danny, who was in something like half-hazmat, half-hoodie, the ghost wore a long, glowing labcoat, appropriate PPE beneath. 

Danny’s breath fogged up in his mouth. He flinched. “Sorr—” he tried. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to be here.”

The ghost looked at him with bright red eyes. Danny floated a few steps back. Spying, are you?

Danny shook his head. “No!! No, I just— I was looking for— I wasn’t spying! I’m sorry! I didn’t know you li— died here! I’ll leave!” 

The ghost’s head tilted. For a second, Danny thought that he was going to throw a punch. And then—

You’re already here, the ghost pointed out, and opened a door. Beyond it was…something similar to a doctor’s office. An examination table with the paper on it. One of those blood pressure cuffs, attached to a printer for the readout. A sink. Sundry tongue depressors. You may as well consent to be helped. 

“...Helped with what?” Danny asked nervously, fingers flexing. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

The ghost hummed— not in the way voices hummed, but in the way high voltage sang in distant powerlines. You are newly formed, aren’t you? Most can tell a ghost’s nature from its presence alone.

Danny looked away. “Um. You know. You might be the first ghost I’ve ever met.” 

The ghost’s feet almost touched the ground. It stared down at him. It was taller than he was, and when it stared, it made Danny want to run away. 

…Truly, the ghost asked(?), and it took Danny a second to realize it was a question. 

“Maybe I died a little recently…” Danny tried, trailing off into a mumble. Was there a right answer to this? 

…I see. That would make this check-up more urgent, then. Might I encourage you to come this way? 

Danny followed him into the room. 

It felt… It looked and felt exactly like any other doctor’s appointment, excepting that the doctor involved in the process had blue skin and fangs and a hairstyle that defied gravity. The ghost still wore gloves and didn’t poke him or prod him too hard, though, so that was a bonus.

Danny got his pulse taken. (None.) Danny got his lungs checked. (Not breathing.) Danny got his resonance? looked at? Whatever that was? It was a big scanny thing that looked like an X ray and took pictures of his chest. 

The readings were real pretty, whatever they were; the whole film print was taken up with splotches of white and clear blue. It kind of shimmered when Danny tilted his head. 

You’re quite powerful for a newly formed ghost, the ghost offered, overlooking papers Danny couldn’t quite see on his clipboard. It flipped through once. Twice. You’re clearly not attached to your place of death, so that’s not why… Are you aware of any compulsions to follow an Obsession yet…?

A ghostly obsession? Danny knew what that was— it was one of his parents’ theories on why ghosts persisted after death! Was it was true? 

“Um,” Danny said, unsure. He hadn’t…had he? “Not that I know of?”

The ghost paused. It clicked its pen. It marked something down on Danny’s chart. Interesting.

Ominous. 

May I quickly test something? the ghost asked, looking up at Danny. It would only take a moment. If it does not work, there will be no other side effects other than mild discomfort and an activated flight response. 

Danny shifted. The paper crackled underneath him. “...Does it hurt?” 

No.

The ghost added nothing more. 

Danny’s…head jerked up and down. It was fine. It would be fine. 

The ghost’s hand circled his wrist. Its touch burned like fire. 

And then light, like how Danny burned away one form for another—

—Danny was left on the table, no longer weightless, no longer breathless. He was flesh. He was human again.

Vlad Masters stared back at him. 

…Huh. 

Mr. Masters— Vlad?— licked dry lips, staring at Danny, whose wrist he still held. Danny…didn’t know if he could move. Danny didn’t know if he knew how to move. 

“...Daniel?” Mr. Masters’s voice cracked. His eyes moved up and down Danny’s body, from his raggedy hair to his dirt-stained clothes to his beat-up shoes. “Daniel Fenton?”

Danny winced. “It’s just Danny,” he offered hoarsely. His throat bobbed. “You…know me?” 

Mr. Masters moved his grip to Danny’s hand, apparently moved to tears. Without the red in his eyes, he just looked…human enough. “Daniel— Danny, how did you— Are you dead? What happened?” 

Danny felt the weight of everything push down on him again, as if it had ever let up on him since the portal incident. Mom and Dad’s funerals. Jazz in the emergency room. Being resuscitated by the EMTs. Getting shipped out to Aunt Alicia’s house without warning. 

“House blew up.”

That was succinct enough, right?

The man’s face turned devastated. “I heard— I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry, Danny.”

…It was more concern than anyone had shown in a long time. His eyes were wet before he knew it. When he wiped his face with his sleeve, the dampness was enough to leave little streaks of mud on his face— and, ugh, he felt filthy. 

“It’s okay,” Danny lied, because it wasn’t. He pressed his sleeve to his eyes. “It’s…you know my parents?”

Mr. Masters took a deep, surprised breath. “Yes. We…weren’t in contact after we graduated from school together, but Jack always… He asked me by email to be your godfather, right before you were born. I said yes, but I have no idea if he ever filed the paperwork.” 

Oh. 

…Oh. 

There were clearly more secrets here. Mr. Masters was a ghost, and so was Danny. He lived in a giant castle that was clearly haunted, which was made obvious by the owner. He was Danny’s godfather, and Danny had never once met him. 

And he wasn’t Aunt Alicia. 

Danny sucked the spit off of his teeth with his tongue. “Can I stay here?” 

Mr. Masters made a wounded, desperate expression. “I would rather you did.” 

“Can you teach me how to be a ghost?”

The man persevered through what were clearly heavy feelings. “...If I must.” 

“Can I have dinner?” was Danny’s final question. “Like. On the regular?” 

There was a second where Mr. Masters’s eyes went red. The castle suddenly felt taut with anticipation. Fury crawled on Danny’s skin. He could feel the pressure digging in search of some way to burrow into his flesh.

And then it was gone. 

“Of course you can. You are a growing boy.”

Danny smiled shyly, barely showing his teeth. When he smiled for real in the mirror, he had fangs. It was better not to. “Cool.”

Mr. Masters nodded. And when Danny looked down at the floor, he changed his grip so that Danny could hold his hand and hop down like normal. 

“It will be alright,” Mr. Masters promised quietly. It seemed to be just as much for him as it was for Danny. “Or…I’ll take care of it. Whatever happens. You’re not alone, Danny.” 

Danny had been alone for almost half a year. It had felt like forever. “Thanks.” He sniffed. 

They walked upstairs from the basement laboratory together, in a way Mom and Dad never would again. 

#phic phight 2024 #danny phantom #vlad masters #I forget Alicia's last name ngl #dead fenton parents #Jazz is sir not appearing in this film #danny fenton #good!Vlad au #phic phight #RIP a prarie home companion you were a cool show but your host was [REDACTED] of course you were gonna get cancelled #my and my persistent love of landlines #faer fic #I do not LIKE vlad. However. This intrigued me. #dead ghost man who furthers the study of ghosts while knowing his college besties might take advantage of him for their own research. whack #anyway. the portal blew up #phic phight 24

[gojo-mochi]

hehe 🌟 + ace please! (as u already know)

and happy holidays softy<3

Happy holiday Vota!! <3 enjoy!

Oh, you could not even think of escaping from a mistletoe kiss from Ace. He has the whole ship booby-trapped. Mistletoes are planted everywhere—on every doorway, hallway, and Christmas's lights. He even had one tied to the front of his Santa hat that he was wearing. This was a double-edged sword, though, as the other crewmates knew Ace’s only goal was you, so they did everything in their power to stop him from getting that mistletoe kiss with you. Thatch and Izou would lead you away from Ace’s path if they spot him making his way towards you.

Some of the other crewmates would catch Ace under one of his own mistletoe’s traps and pretend to ask for a kiss so that Ace would get annoyed at them. Making kissy faces and noises at Ace anytime he fell into the many mistletoes area he set up around the ship. This was his own fault, honestly, and it was fun to mess with Ace either way. However, when Marco happened to catch you under a mistletoe right in front of Ace, he threw a lazy smirk over his shoulder at Ace and gently cupped your cheek. “Guess we have to; it’s tradition after all, yoi?” Marco would never try to steal or force a kiss from you; he just wanted to rile up Ace.

And, hoo boy, was Ace riled. He almost set half the deck on fire as he blasted his way towards you and Marco, scooping you up in his arms and giving the heatest of glares to Marco. Marco puts his hands up in mock surrender and walks away, giving the two of you some privacy. Ace glares at him until he’s fully out of view, making you roll your eyes and slap at his chest to get his attention. “This is your fault, you know.” You told him matter-of-factly. Ace sputters, a blush forming across his freckled face. “Wh-what? My fault?!” He pouted at you, holding you closer to him. 

You wave your hand around, pointing at the abundance of mistletoes. “All of this? If you wanted a kiss from me, you could have just asked, you know?” Ace whined at that, “But that’s not the point! It's about the holiday spirit! The surprise! The tradition! The-” You shut him up by pressing your lips on his, pulling him in by his necklace, weaving a hand under his hat, and gripping on to his hair. Ace would deny this later if you asked him, but he let out a pretty moan when you did so, obediently opening his mouth for you. You only gave him a little taste, letting your tongue slip in for a moment and slip out again. 

You pull back on his hair as you leave his lips, causing Ace to whine like a kicked puppy again. “Was that a good enough holiday kiss for you?” You snickered at him, patting his cheek softly. Ace’s whole body starts heating up; he doesn’t answer you verbally, as he just starts sprinting back to his room. Which he did decorate, and by decorate, I mean he tacked on a bunch of mistletoes on the ceiling. He plops you down on his bed as you stare up at the monstrosity above you. “Is that even safe?” You asked him, but Ace shrugged. “We can take them down, but only after you give me just as many kisses as there are mistletoes."

The two of you were in for a long, merry night~

#softy moots (づ ᴗ ᴗ)づ♡ #₍ᐢ. ̫.ᐢ₎ softy writes #softy writes #softy's mistletoe event #ace x reader #ace fluff #one piece x reader #one piece fluff

[icycoldninja]

Fluffcember #25 (Sparda boys x reader)

Sparda boys spending Christmas with their S/O

A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL

¤Dante¤

-Dear God, if you think he was a wacky woo hoo weirdo before, he gets even crazier during Christmastime. Gorges himself sick on spiced egg nog and iced sugar cookies, as well as stuffed turkey and mashed potatoes with extra thick gravy.

-To Dante, Christmas is all about eating. That line from "A night before Christmas" has never been applied to someone in real life more accurately than now. "Visions of sugar plums danced in their heads..."

Yeah, that's Dante.

-Plays Christmas rock music (think Jingle Bell Rock) on full volume while jamming along with his guitar in the middle of the living room, wearing naught but a Santa hat.

-Decorates the whole of Devil May Cry with like a thousand knotted Christmas lights because he was way too lazy to untangle them (Figures) and brings in a really cheap, withered looking tree like the one in Charlie Brown. Though, like Charlie Brown, you guys managed to fix it up real nice.

-Drags Vergil and Nero to your place for a fun, family Christmas, but things go south real quick: Nero ends up stealing all the treats and eating dessert before dinner, Vergil and Dante drink too much liquor spiked egg nog and have a drunken brawl in the living room before passing out in the hallway.

-At the end of the night, you had to drag all the boys into the living room and cram them either into sleeping bags or wrangle them onto the couch before exhaustedly trudging back to your own bedroom for a long night's rest. Merry Christmas.

《Vergil》

-The mature and responsible one--also the one who wants to have the least involvement with everything. Just sits in his plastic chair, reading his book, not caring nor acknowledging what is happening around him.

-It is therefore your duty to put up the decorations and cook the Christmas meals, but don't despair. You won't be alone. Nero and Dante have come over for Christmas (Vergil was against it, but they're family) and are more than happy to help--even if all they do is make messes.

-Christmas dinner with the Sparda family are typically a mixture of loud and rambunctious chattering (caused by Dante and Nero joking around) and quiet conversation with Vergil, which can barely be heard over the other two's yammering.

-After dinner has been devoured and the two idiots have left, Vergil lets out a sigh of relief--a sigh only a long suffering eldest sibling can make. Then he heads for his plastic chair, ready to delve back into the world of his book.

-Doesn't mind if you want to sit on his lap and cuddle while he reads. It is cold out, after all. ♡

-Spends the entire night chilling with you, watching movies, reading books, and eventually falling asleep in each other's arms.

♤Nero♤

-Takes after his father, in the sense that he likes cuddling and just relaxing, either by himself or with you.

-Unfortunately, he also takes after his uncle, in the sense that he's loud and loves to eat. He loves it so much in fact, that nearly all the cookies vanish before you can get to ice them, and it probably wasn't Santa.

-Has no idea how to hang decorations so he just buys a cheap wreath, throws it on the door, and decides he's done for the day.

-Dresses up as an elf and parades around with a radio blasting Micheal Buble on loop, specifically to get on your nerves and distract you from whatever you were doing.

-When Vergil and Dante come over for dinner, expect absolute chaos. Vergil cannot wrap his head around why his son--his own FLESH AND BLOOD--is prancing about dressed in a green skintight leotard. It's too much for him. He spaces out and just stares at the wall blankly, barely touching his food while wondering what influenced his poor baby boy to be this way.

-Meanwhile, Dante is having the time of his life, laughing his head off while snapping pictures to post online and to show the others so they have more excuses to make fun of poor Nero.

#Dmc #devil may cry 5 #nero sparda #vergil sparda #dante sparda #Dante x reader #Vergil x reader #Nero x reader #Dmc Nero #Dmc dante #Dmc vergil #headcannons #fluff headcanons #Fluff #fluffy headcanons #Fluffy #merry christmas #christmas #fluffcember #Fluffcember 2023 #Part 25 of 31 #Icycoldninja writes

[silent-raven13]

P FKN R!!! 🇵🇷 (Warning Harsh Language!)

Miles is always proud of his Puerto Rican side. Hell, he's the first one in Spider Society to burst out his Boricua music out loud. He wears his flag on his back when there's any Puerto Rican holidays or parades. Hell, he made a special suit with the Puerto Rican flag on it when he felt like showing off his culture, his Pride!

Yet today a racist asshole test him! Miles flew in the air using his venom strike, absorbing energy to give him a boost to do a flip before launching his webs to swing! The 19 year old wore his black, and red suit with the Puerto Rican flag on his chest to his torso.

Miles blasting Bad Bunny song "P FKN R" as he sings out loud as he swings from building to building: Si no sabes de dónde soy, no me ronquen, no -getting pump as he fight a rodder trying to steal from an elderly woman- Si no sabes de dónde soy, eh-eh, (ey) eh-eh, (ey, ey, ey)! -he beats up the robber as he give the purse back to the older woman before going up in the air to look for more crimes-

He sings along to his music: Yo soy de P fuckin' R (hoo)! -bangs his head as he swings- WHOA! Bad Bunny, you know me so well! -he chuckles as he went on a building keeping watch on the City's mainstream. The roads were closed off for Puerto Rican Day parade, he knew he needs to be home early to celebrate with his family. His mom took the day off for this occasion. Little Billie is probably wearing a cute dress with the Puerto Rican flag and her hair with ribbons matching the flag's colors- I should get a closer look to see if everything is good! -he saw the parade is about to start, so he should make sure no hate crimes were gonna be committed-

A familiar voice: Luv, what are you wearing? -Miles turns around to find Hobie standing behind him-

Miles happily smiles underneath his mask to find his boyfriend: OH hey, bae! -he went to hold his partner's hand- I'm glad you came! I thought you would miss today!

Hobie arched his eyebrow being masked: I never missed anything you invited me to. Now, what is this? -he eyes on the flag- A bit too Patriotic?

Miles chuckles giving him a kiss on the cheek with his mask on: Mi amor, it's my Puerto Rican pride.

Hobie: Isn't it a bit much?

Miles pouts: No! I think it's cool! -sounding a bit upset- You don't like it?

Hobie quickly change his statement: I meant, to be devoted to a country... the government, I meant. You know, how I feel about it. -he looks down at the parade seeing massive crowds- Isn't America's way to manipulate Puerto Ricans to appreciate being part of America? When they colonize your country and set up a military base! -he did a quick research on his partner's country and it's history-

Miles understood what he meant: Well, that may be true, but! -he hugs his partner's arm- Look, mi amor! You see how everyone is excited to celebrate being Puerto Rican! It runs in our blood, our pride, our culture is who we are! We may lost too much, hell Puerto Rico never had independence, but we're still here. Still Boricua! Still proud of our flag! It's who we are, and we throw the craziest parties, baby.

Hobie hears the loud music and many families gathering around to celebrate: I guess so.. you know how I am.

Miles: Hey, you're here so you're gonna get the full effect! Come on, let's check around. I know, you may judge America for their crazy ass colonization, but remember, you love protecting POC! There might be racists trying to commit hate crime!

Hobie became alert: Oh! I have no problem beating up a racist! -he grins under his mask, he follows his partner. As they got lower to the parade. The crowds cheers as they saw their Spiderman swinging by-

A random woman: Look! Mira! Mira! Es Spiderman! Boricua Spiderman!

The crowd in the parade cheers playing louder music and getting hype: Spiderman! Spiderman! Te amo!

One guy shouted: He's Puerto Rican?

Miles laughs: Por supuesto que soy puertorriqueño! -as he got low taking a balloon to give a little boy being carried by his mother-

Hobie saw the crowd wearing their flags in outfits, makeup, all sorts to show their pride. He follows Miles through the parade seeing no crime, yet. The music plays outlaid from the parade: Yo soy de P fuckin' R (P fuckin' R) Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh (ah)!

Miles turns around swinging backwards to look at his partner while singing along: Los maliante' con la' R! Prr-prr-prr-prr-prr -he chuckles- Come on, bae! Mejor que la boca cierre, ey Ah-ah-ah-ah

Some of the crowd started to sing or dance getting hype for their parade: Antes que los mío' te entierren (oye) Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh (yeh)

Hobie chuckles: You know what, I get it.

Miles smiles under his mask: I'm glad. You know, my mom made a lot of food so you can try.

Hobie: Yum, I didn't eat just to be prepare. -The two swing side by side-

Miles laughs: She made a lot of food! So you better eat like five plates! Also everyone is coming by for the roof top party! Isn't it exciting! -The loud Bomba music plays as they watch the parade starting having the female dancers following the rhythm of the music. Everyone enjoying the large floats, organizations, and other groups walking as they wave their flags.- Wow, it's bigger than last time!

Hobie saw a small group of men looking a bit suspicious: Aye, luv. Looks like we found a couple of muppets...

Miles looks over seeing them holding up microphones: Huh oh! Let's check it out! -being quick to get over the group-

The hate group had a leader preaching out about God and shouting at the Puerto Ricans: GO back to your countries! This a hate on America! You don't belong here -causing the crowd around to get upset-

A woman speaking in Spanish: No tienes derecho a estar aquí! ¡Estás arruinando el desfile! Déjanos en paz, Puñetas! Pendejos! Mama a tu culos! -some of the other crowd tried to held her back seeing they didn't want the cops to come in or worst stop the parade-

Miles flew down seeing the group of men: Hey fellas, what's going on here?

The hate group scowls at Spiderman's outfit with disgust. The leader had his microphone on: You are an American! You are disrespecting our country's belief! USA! USA!

Miles could only scowl under his mask: Hey man, people are allowed to celebrate where they come from!

The leader kept over talking Spiderman: Your just Spiderman 2! You're not even the real Spiderman! WE WANT SPIDERMAN!

Hobie crosses his arms getting super pissed off. Miles stops him: I got this. -he turns to the group- I kinda suggest you all to leave! Your ruining-

The leader of the hate group: FUCK YOU! GO BACK TO MEXICO! -the crowd behind Miles started to get super mad, almost riling up with anger. The racist insult was enough to cause them to shout back. MEXICO? Miles got mad too. This group is testing him- You and all your Mexican, pals should go back to your country! USA! USA! -the hate group chanted wearing their American flags-

Miles: I'm giving you one chance to apologize to me and my people! Before-

The leader over talks him: Or WHAT? You're gonna hit me? I'm using my first amendment! FREEDOM OF SPEECH, BUDDY! YOUR NOT EVEN A REAL SPIDERMAN WITH THAT TACKY FLAG YOU HAVE ON! -The older leader grins widely to pissed off Spiderman-

Hobie took out his guitar: That's it. I'ma beat this bloke! -the crowd behind him agrees-

Miles push him back: NO! We are better than them! -He turns to the group- you left me no choice!

The leader said: Oh yeah! You're nothing but a dirty sp- -Miles quickly uses his webs to shut up the leader then quickly uses his webs to tied the group, then he swing them high on the building-

Miles smiling happily: Ah-ah-Ah! Tsk. Tsk. I give you a chance to apologize and to go home, but since you want to harass me and everyone here. I think I have the right to shut you up! -the crowd cheers out loud as they saw the hate group being web against the building up high. Some took photos and laugh out loud-

Hobie grins widely seeing one of the dumbass racist pissing himself crying about his fear of heights: Wonderful, luv! -He slouches on Miles being a bit handsy with him-

The leader of the group shouted spotting the two Spidermen being a bit too close for his liking: UGH! YOUR NOTHING BUT A FUCKING FAGGOT! UGH, DISGUSTING! YOUR GOING TO HELL TOO!

Miles arched his eyebrow under his mask: Oh yeah? Well -He lift Hobie's mask to reveal his lips, then he lift his own mask to show his lips. A bit of his nose showing his pierced Septum. Then his lips pressed against Hobie's without a care who was watching. When he pulled his lips away then to hide his lower mouth- I RATHER BE A FAGGOT THAN A FUCKING RACIST!

Hobie froze being too in shock by his partner's action, he felt Miles' hand pulling down his mask to hide his mouth. He could've never love any more than he already did- No, he's falling in love with Miles all over again! Miles grab the Pride flag from one of the civilians having to tie it around his neck, flaunting it. Hobie could only awe at his boyfriend.

The crowd cheers having mix reactions from being shock to joy about the scene. Hell, most of their reactions were positive. The hate group were making loud taunts, until Hobie shut their mouths up with his webbing. Then he got close to the leader: Aye, mate. You're lucky if it wasn't me! I would've throw you in the Hudson River and let you all drown! -his voice low and menacing- I'll left you off with a warning, mate. Start another racist shit, and I will fucking kill you myself, huh? -the men looked horrified.- So you will stop this crap and not bother my darling, do you hear? -they all nodded- Good! -he harshly patted the leader's cheek almost slapping him-

Miles shouted: Come on, we gotta patrol some more, bae! -he launched his web shooter causing the to swing as he wave at the crowd-

Hobie follows him seeing the crowd being so happy, they can have a peaceful parade. The hate group being stuck on the building to be made an example of. As they made their rounds, the two got up on a building to watch one last time. Miles being happy by the parade, then he heard Hobie being breathless: I love you, Miles.

Miles being surprised: Huh, what made you say that? -he giggles being so bashful-

Hobie pulls Miles close to him for a close hug: You were amazing! No Spiderman would've done what you did!

Miles: Hahaha are you implying not even you would've stop them racist assholes?

Hobie shook his head: You know, what I mean. You kissing me in front of the crowd? Heh, New York City is gonna go crazy for you being bisexual, Sunflower.

Miles snorted: Pfft, good! Let them know that this bisexual boy issuing their asses! AND HE'S PUERTO RICAN! DOUBLE PUNCHES! -he chuckles- I love you, too Hobie.

Hobie: Can I get another kiss, Brooklyn?

Miles chuckles: Do you have to ask?

Hobie holding his love: Consent is important, luv.

Miles smiles widely: Sure, baby! -The two lift their mask to reveal their lips to kiss again. This time Hobie holds Miles like his special gem, being oh so gentle. The parade being loud and proud as the crowd celebrates their Puerto Rican Day while Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'Que Tu Lo Sepas by Taino plays in the background.-

(Sorry for the harsh language! Was listening to Bad Bunny and saw a post that made me inspired @babyhellboy post and comic photo also another comic post of Hobie Brown saying he rather be a F-word than a Fascist. Hehe, you know his Sunflower is heavily inspired by him😉.)

#punkflower #flowerpunk #miles morales #hobie brown #spiderman #spider-verse #spider verse #across the spider verse

[dameronscopilot]

It’s not Saturday in my time zone but I’m ✨ pretending ✨

Would you be willing to do some Cassian forbidden relationship head canons? I want to see him yearn.

I really enjoy your writing and Cassian is under appreciated 😭

Honestly, I'm here for any and all Sleepover Saturday inquiries, thots, and comments any day of week. Keep 'em coming<3 (& as a side note for headcanon requests, i have Jealous Cassian + Husband Poe Dameron in the works as well!) Anyway, hoo boy, the SOUND that came out of my mouth when I read this 😂. I'm so glad you asked, because my brain immediately went into overdrive. And thank you for enjoying my work!

I'm clearly incapable of not going overboard with these things! But hey, here we go:

Cassian Andor - Forbidden Relationship

Cassian Andor x Imperial Officer!reader

When you enlisted in the Imperial Military, the decision was made solely out of your innate need to survive. Your family’s extensive ties to the Galactic Empire made it virtually impossible for you to escape a life raised under their fascist ideals. 

As the years went on, you worked your way up to the rank of a captain, and you lost far too much of yourself along the way. You became complacent to the horrors of the Empire. 

Everything changes the day that a roguishly handsome new lieutenant is assigned to your unit. 

It’s purely by chance that you catch the lieutenant when he’s covertly attempting to send a transmission to the Rebel Alliance one evening. Prior to that, he’d given you no reason to be suspicious of him. You were certainly intrigued by him, but you’d had no doubts about his supposed loyalty to the Empire’s cause. 

He’s like a feral, cornered animal when you catch him, and you’re half certain that he’s on the verge of singlehandedly blasting his way off of the Star Destroyer. While your instinct is to immediately apprehend him for his crimes against the Empire, a small voice in your head—one that’s been left forgotten for many, many years—halts your hand’s path to the blaster holstered at your hip. You suddenly feel more awake than you have in a very long time. Your help could be crucial to the Alliance’s cause. You could help destroy this wretched place from within. 

He’s suspicious of your intentions at first, which is to be expected. But when you eventually funnel the spy enough valuable information pilfered from the Empire to convince him otherwise, he finally offers you his name—Cassian Andor.

Somewhere along the way, Cassian begins to worry about your safety as the two of you secretly work side-by-side—captain and lieutenant by day, purveyors of Imperial secrets by night. 

Cassian Andor doesn’t form attachments. He really fucking doesn’t. He can’t. It’s too dangerous. But thoughts of the embers of hope his words awaken in your eyes and the gentle curve of your lips keep him awake at night in the confines of his sterile, modest quarters on the ship.

He tries so fucking hard to ignore the heat that licks through his veins whenever you meet his gaze (and his complete and total inability to break eye contact with you first).

Cassian Andor has never been a weak man, not once in his entire life. That is, until he met you.

He knows that the complicated, all-consuming feelings that he's developed for you in the months that you've been working together are more dangerous than any suicide mission he's ever gone on as a Rebel spy. And yet despite all of his training and every single fiber of his being screaming for him to fucking focus on the mission, he can't. He doesn't.

After carefully making his way through the ship unseen, he arrives at your quarters one night with the intention of discussing the logistics of his upcoming escape. The thought of leaving you behind has left him pathetically retching over the fresher more than once, but it must be done. Both of you know it.

All of Cassian's carefully laid plans and practiced words of avoidance blow up in his goddamn face when the door to your quarters slides open, and you stand there tiredly rubbing at your eyes. He's never seen you without the cap that's an integral part of your uniform, and his heart traitorously stutters in his chest at the odd intimacy of it all. He's not sure if he wants to laugh or cry that the sight of your hair has nearly sent him to his knees.

Cassian tosses everything to the damn wind and, against his better judgement, asks you to come with him.

Perhaps it's the undeniable fear of the unknown written all over your face mixed with the brief spark of hope that flares in your eyes, warring with your uncertainty. Or maybe it's the way your gaze flicks to his lips for the briefest of moments after he asks. Whatever it is, something compels him to slowly crowd you against the wall.

"We shouldn't do this," you remark, your voice wavering. And he chuckles darkly at the irony of it all. That for all that he's left his heart tucked away and forgotten for years on end in the midst of this endless battle against tyrants, he’s suddenly no longer able to ignore how fucking loudly and desperately it now beats in your presence.

"We shouldn't," he agrees, his voice a hoarse whisper as he cups your face and leans in, brushing his lips against yours.

You really shouldn't. But as he deepens the kiss, as you run your hands through his hair, as his hands grip your waist, as your fingers fumble with the buttons on his uniform, as he slowly backs you up across the room until your knees hit the edge of your mattress—Cassian can't bring himself to care.

---

More Cassian:

Jealous Cassian Andor

Jealous Cassian Andor (NSFW) 🌶️

#Cassian Andor #Andor #Rogue One #Star Wars fanfiction #Star Wars imagines #Star Wars headcanons #Cassian Andor fanfiction #Diego Luna fanfiction #Cassian Andor headcanons #Cassian Andor imagines #Cassian Andor x reader

[thebroccolination]

Listen, Between Us is my child. My joy. My raison d’être.

But I do kind of have separate ratings for the series as a whole vs. WinTeam’s part in it. WinTeam Rating: 12/10, perfect my babies miraculous string music. The series…has a different rating. Undisclosed. Unimportant. New and Sheep did their best under extraordinary circumstances and I will defend their series to my last breath.

That said, I want to make a WinTeam supercut for myself.

‘Cos as far as I know, New didn’t just direct the series—he edited it as well, and I understand that he had a lot on his plate. But I do…kind of wish he’d delegated the editing to someone else. The mic noises, the music crowding some scenes, the flashbacks that go on for a really long time—much longer than they had to—presumably to pad out an episode, etc. Plus, well. BeePrince should have had their own series. Bee is already a side character, and Prince only has Bee and his manager to flesh him out. I think Tae did a fantastic job as Bee, but Benz as Prince never really grabbed me emotionally. Their plot felt sort of sped-run to me, and I started fast-forwarding past them in later episodes. I don’t dislike them, to be clear, I just didn’t feel much of anything in any direction. Love Bee, neutral on BeePrince.

I wish I could fix all the muffled noises from the actors squishing their body mics during hugs and oh my god New kept playing the instrumental version of Prem’s song in a painfully sharp/high-pitched key that felt more like a horror soundtrack than the uplifting/happy instrumental they played in the locker room scene of episode two. But I can’t fix those issues because I’d probably need the original high quality dialogue tracks in order to isolate and remove parts of them. And aaahh, more than anything I wish I could remove the music from some scenes—the late-night “if I asked you, would you have an answer for me” conversation has, like, four or five music cues in it and it’s ONE SCENE, NEW. I’m a huge champion of sound engineering as an art form that should be respected, and so a lot of scenes genuinely felt to me like wasted opportunities. Sound and music aren’t supposed to hammer viewers in the face with the mood of a scene. And BounPrem were at top form in this series, so I wish they had had more scenes where they aren’t interrupted by a song in the middle. Where they just got to have quiet and New let their acting carry the scene.

(This is something New also did in UWMA. Like, as much as I enjoy the cabin scene and the dorm room scene, neither of them needed that song blasted over them. Let the actors carry the scene!!!)

Basically, my only major issues with Between Us were editing-based. Hence why I wish New had let someone else do it. Maybe he didn’t have the money to spare. Maybe he just didn’t want to. No idea.

But that’s why I want to make my own WinTeam cut so I can binge their storyline when I’m having a rough day and I don’t want to fast-forward to get to them. (That’s not to say I didn’t like everyone else! I did! But y’know. WinTeam. My babies.) I’ll include some of the other pairings when their scenes are relevant to WinTeam’s story, but mostly I just want to zero in on WinTeam. (I’ll keep all of WanTul since they’re the pairing with the closest storyline to WinTeam, and the two pairs converge later in the series, but I’m tempted to play with the timeline and see if I can’t blend them in elsewhere.)

I know why BeePrince didn’t have their own series. Side pairings are a profitable and inevitable marketing element of the BL industry, and I don’t begrudge New for trying to advertise some of his actor stable in a highly anticipated series that was guaranteed to have thousands of potential fans watching it. It’s tough out there, and New’s got a purebred cat family to feed and Boun’s salary to provide. Sell what you gotta sell, babe.

(I’m actually a little tempted to do this same thing for SOTUS S because HOO boy do I not care about the side couples in Arthit’s office. KongArt + TewDae + seven seconds of sapphics is all I want.)

Anyway! I’m gonna make this my li’l project. I’m not sure I’ll post it publicly because I don’t want to step on the official versions, but I’ll probably post some isolated scenes while I experiment with editing. For my first step I’ll try to cut down some of those flashback scenes. Like Win in the shower remembering his entire conversation with Dean and Pruk? For multiple minutes? Win might have relived the entire thing, but we shouldn’t. The series is only twelve episodes, New, and that conversation wasn’t that long ago even for those of us who watched it live. We remember. We got it.

If New needed more footage to pad out the episode, just have Boun do his hair and skin care routines. Literally who would complain? “Look, a beautiful human being. Stare.” WITH PLEASURE.

“Oh no the episode is short. Prem, pout for thirty seconds.” I WILL TAKE A THOUSAND SCREENSHOTS.

“Ohm, do some push-ups.” I’m sure he does those!

“Prem, Sammy, ad-lib an argument.” More Team and Manaow bickering! Grand!

“Fluke, be perfect.” PHARM’S APPEARANCES IN THIS SERIES WERE FLAWLESS I HOPE HE GETS THE RESPECT HE DESERVED THE FIRST TIME AROUND.

So you see, there are workarounds when you need to pad out time. No need to show us the same scenes again.

Anyway, in addition to writing fic, this is how I’m coping with our collective loss.

#between us the series #between us #winteam #teamwin

[zekes-lil-hellhole]

Could you do general friendship headcannons with, Floyd, Deuce, Jamil, and Kalim, I love your writing especially how you write Floyd!!

ofc I can nons!!! also omg thank you sm! I'm soso glad you like my writing 😭 I was super worried about nobody liking me when I first started writing but it seems I'm doing better than I expected to!

General friendship headcanons with Deuce, Floyd, Kalim, and Jamil

Warnings: you/yours, GN reader, pure fluff, floyd being floyd, Jamil and floyd's parts may come off a little bit romantic but I swear it's not they're just positive-attention starved, Jamil being salty, jamil also talking shit about kalim, any lowercase intended

deuce is another one you're getting into trouble with, just like ace. and again, the adeuce duo is a buy one get one free deal, so you're also friends with ace.

deuce is trying his best ok. he wants to be a good friend to you so he's doing his darndest to be nice and perfect. please reassure him that he can just be himself 😭 he needs it so badly.

since deuce is in track and field- I assume he's rather sporty in general, definitely expect some encouragement to exercise with him. he won't force you but he'd love if you would so you can spend time together

STUDY HANGOUTS he wants both of you to do well in class so he definitely studies with you whenever you get the chance!! if you're smart academically he will absolutely take the chance to get a lil tutor session from you.

he's also super good about getting into your interests, and I feel like even if it was something he wasn't used to he'd be willing to try new things with a little encouragement.

FLOYD IS VERY FUN I LOVE HIM SM

okay so you had to have caught Floyd's attention one way or another, and most would probably think he'd drop you after he gets bored but I actually doubt that? once floyd actually, genuinely gets attached to someone (platonic or romantic) he doesn't leave THAT easily

good luck trying to not get squeezed, he WILL squeeze you 2x more than anyone else. However, he will also squeeze you slightly gentler because you are very good and fun and he likes you. don't worry, he isn't squeezing with the intention of popping.

floyd may bring you free food from his shift at the mostro lounge if he gets the chance or if the mood strikes.

now, floyd may not participate in your interests, but if they're interesting enough he'll definitely watch you! he also loves when you come to his basketball games or practice.

you're not entirely immune to floyd's mood swings, but if you and him are particularly close friends, they don't get so bad when you're around. surprisingly, he's calmed by your presence.

Kalim is such a sweetheart tbh. he wants to be friends with everyone!!!

if you and him get particularly close, expect a ton of gifts from him. like, a lot. he'll always give you these massively expensive things like it's nothing and he'll be like "this reminded me of you!!!"

he's so sweet tbh. anything you do he's interested in trying, and he REALLY hopes you'll be into his interests also. any sort of instrument or vocal talent will have him ecstatic

If you're not good at trying things new, he'll help you get better at that! he's always so open about trying new things and he'll definitely encourage you to do the same.

Once Jamil trusts you, he can and will verbally thank you if you can distract Kalim and do things like study with him. if acts of service(giving) is your love language hoo boy you're going to have a blast 😭

I applaud you if you're able to make friends with him tbh

he is definitely not one to be all buddy-buddy with just anyone like kalim is, so it'll take a while of building up trust, boundaries, and understanding for him to truly consider you a "friend", and you may just be the first close friend he's ever truly had.

once he does consider you a friend though, he'll readily let you speak and/or show him anything about your interests. he won't say much but he's definitely interested.

he would also appreciate if you'd come to his basketball games but you don't have to, he won't be particularly upset about it. one of the rare times you'll see him genuinely smile is when he notices you in the audience.

if you're not in Scarabia, sometimes, when Jamil is cooking, he'll make a little bit extra for you and send it over when he gets the chance

if you allow it, jamil definitely rants about kalim when he gets the chance, just to you. if you agree with him or just listen in silence is up to you and your personality, of course.

this isn't my best work but I really hope you enjoy it anyway 😭 I'm so sorry if it doesn't live up to your expectations

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #deuce spade #twst deuce #deuce spade x reader #twisted wonderland deuce #floyd leech #floyd leech x reader #twst floyd #twisted wonderland floyd #kalim al asim #twst kalim #twisted wonderland kalim #kalim al asim x reader #jamil viper #twst jamil #twisted wonderland jamil #jamil viper x reader

[spookiifi]

How to Summon A Boyfriend (Alt!Gabriel x Witch!Reader)

I kept thinking about witchy things. Plus it’s a full moon and I miss Halloween.

Having 5 dreams about Mandela didn’t help either. 

While trying to practice spells, you accidentally summoned a mighty angel, or someone who was once an angelThat would be Lucifer. 

Good job. Now what are you going to do with yourself?Notes: Don’t take this fic seriously. It’s just a silly little thing that kept poking at my brain. Have fun!

ao3 link!

The room shook as you were blasted backwards into your basement wall. From the smoke emerged a tall shadow that curled over the ceiling. You had to keep yourself awake to be certain your spell worked.

Congrats! You successfully summoned a demon! No Ouija board required!

You summoned a demon.

But he looked nothing like one? Long flowing blonde hair, white angel wings, and a robe that made him look as if he were floating….handsome, too.

Then again you had no idea what a demon actually looked like. Only movies and television provided examples of angels and demons.

You summoned…someone.

“Be not afraid, little one. Your one true savior has arrived.“ The spirit opened his eyes, and his sweet smile faltered. His brow furrowed at you and salt containing him. “You’re kidding me.”

“You’re not Lucifer…are you? Be honest.”

His eyes narrowed. “Such a smart little human. I could deceive you, but no. You’d like the truth, yes?”

You paused before nodding, realizing that your meek little form was silent that entire time. The pentacle in your hand fell to the ground, shattering in two.

The awkward stare down was real

“Then yes, I am the fallen angel, Lucifer.”

Oh.

There it was.

“How interesting. I’ve never had a human summon me before.” Gabriel, or Lucifer, whichever he preferred to be called simply swiped the salt circle away with his wing. “Did you really think a tiny circle would stop me?” Lucifer chuckled darkly and loomed over you.

“But my real question is, little lamb, why aren’t you afraid? Do you fear me striking you down, ending your existence at all?”

You grinned in response. “That is…sick! It really worked!” Your eyes widened in amazement. “I KNEW demons were real! I actually did it!” Trying to contain your excitement, you stood up from your seat on the floor.

Surprise, then confusion filled Lucifer’s face. It wasn’t everyday that a human was joyful to see him.

Pride was the correct term. His hand gripped your chin, stopping you from bouncing on your heels.

“I don’t play favorites with your short lives, but I’ll make an exception just this once.” He smiled down at you.

And soon in a couple months, you’d have a demon boyfriend. A very protective demon boyfriend.

Hoo boy.

“…Do you like the offerings I gave you?”

--

You’re his and you have no say in the matter. Enjoy your demon boyfriend

Food for the simps~

#not beta red ayyyye #alternate gabriel x reader #gabriel x reader #tmc x reader #my fics #rb's and kudos are more than welcome #<3

[koorinokujira]

Yakuza Kiwami is an AMAZING game and I'll shove my love for it in everyone's faces now

So, I kinda realized I didn't make this post yet, and I literally finished Kiwami 2 yesterday, so... whoops? But no matter, better late than never, as they say! Spoilers below, like always, so keep reading at your own risk!

So, Yakuza Kiwami. I've actually seen a full playthrough of it a few years back, so I roughly knew what was waiting for me, but my memory is not my greatest strength, so I luckily forgot most of it. And honestly, even knowing some stuff didn't take away my enjoyment at all!

Now, I gotta say, playing this right after 0 was insane. It made my immersion so much better, and really made me feel things more strongly. I was violently dragged out of the relative peace I got after the whole fiasco with the Empty Lot, the familiar streets with shops and minigames I knew and loved into a new, unfamiliar version of Kamurocho along with Kiryu. It was rough- a lot of things stayed the same or at least similar, but there were enough differences for it to feel like a mockery of all the things Kiryu held dear. He was lost in a place he used to know intimately, and that really got to me, because I had just finished the previous journey with him and Majima.

And slowly unraveling what happened to Nishiki and seeing him fall so far from the bro we used to know genuinely hurt. Especially knowing that he wasn't a bad person before and that he was a sensitive soul that got completely crushed by the circumstances in his life.

As for the story and characters in general, I loved it, it got me in the feels and I was hooked the whole time! While I still think 0 is the best from what I played so far, this story was also amazing. Majima going all out in all the fights and with costumes and disguises, Date-san being an incredibly pathetic man and father who pulled through in the end and sorta sharing that with the Florist, Haruka being a little badass, Reina's tragic, misguided love... there was so much that I adored about this game, and the characters in the main story never really fell flat for me. It also made me love Kashiwagi even more, I just love it when he's there. And the ending was pretty heartwrenching too, though I wish it focused more on Nishiki's death than Yumi's, as I felt their brotherly bond ran way deeper than Kiryu's relationship with Yumi. But that's just my opinion, I still cried and thought it was pretty solid!

Then there are the sidequests. Hoo boy. I have to admit, I didn't really like those that much. They just lacked the spark that the ones from 0 had, and seemed somewhat repetitive in their themes. And there was of course also those very questionable ones. Of course, there were some pretty good ones too! And I had a blast in the whole Pocket Circuit saga, I love Fighter with all my heart.

Speaking of Pocket Circuit, the minigames were still really enjoyable, but I really missed Disco, to be honest. I wish you could groove in a club somewhere at least. The Karaoke gave me whiplash because it was so different (post Yakuza 0 immersion strikes again), and I hated the new version of Heartbreak Mermaid. But I have to admit, I absolutely loved Iji Sakura 2000 and definitely sang it way too many times.

Gameplay was pretty good too! I didn't really like some changes to the fighting system, but overall, it was still really enjoyable to punch everyone in close vicinity. I learned to use Dragon Style a lot more, in 0 I barely used it even though I had it. Tiger drop is spectacular, I will never sugarcoat anything ever again. The upgrade system took some getting used to, but it ended up being my favorite as it was more clear-cut and it was mostly stuff I'd actually use. The Majima Everywhere thingy was pretty fun most of the time! It could get a bit tedious to find specific Majimas, but I got through it like a champ.

So overall, amazing game as the title says, and I will also make another post with some funny screenshots for this game soon! Thank you for reading, and like always...

Have a great day!

#ryu ga gotoku #rgg #yakuza kiwami #yakuza like a dragon

[autisticlancemcclain]

part one

Their relationship only improves after the Incident. Keith finds it’s hard to call someone whose secret you’re guarding your rival, so. Friends it is. (In all honesty, he really likes being friends with Lance. He’s sweet and thoughtful and genuinely really funny, especially when Keith’s no longer the punchline. He also gives really excellent hugs, although Keith will never say this to his face. Another cool thing is the fact that Keith is now friends with a literal mermaid. A mermaid. He’s always been a bit of a cryptid hunter, and now he gets to see all the cool shit up close and personal! Like, Lance is incredibly fast underwater. Wicked fast, really. He’s like a torpedo. The first time Keith convinced him to go swimming — and hadn’t that taken forever! — he’d had to take Lance in the dead of night, after assuring him no one else was awake. They’d dragged a huge wardrobe all the way to the pool so they could place it in front of the door, along with locking it. Lance had still been pretty nervous, so Keith had challenged him to a race to cheer him up. Lance had made it to the other end of the enormous Altean swimming pool so fast Keith had been convinced teleportation was one of his powers. It wasn’t, but that was the day that Keith found out that Lance did, however, have other water related powers — the bitch could waterbend. For real. To say Keith geeked out about it was an understatement. He and Lance had played in the pool until the wee hours of the morning, pretending to be soldiers from the Water Tribe in ATLA. It had been a blast. Genuinely the most fun Keith had had in years, but hanging out with Lance was kinda just like that. He was a fun guy.)

As Lance’s friend and secret-keeper, it became Keith’s job to come up with a decent excuse whenever Lance has to swiftly leave the room for mermaid-related catastrophes.

It is not an easy job.

Last week, for example, it had been Pidge’s turn on dishes after supper. Lance was keeping her company, sitting on the counter and telling some wild story about him and his sisters (Keith used to think these stories were fabricated, but after hearing about how Lance and his sisters literally became mermaids because they were dicking around a haunted moonpool on Halloween, he’s certain the McClains are just as wild as Lance says they are. Like, Keith is 76% certain no one else on Earth has simply become a mermaid from making an impulsive decision. That has to be a McClain thing).

Keith was drawing on the kitchen table, listening to their conversation but not participating, because he always wants to hang out with people and never wants to admit it. Lance likes to say he’s like a cat, which is regrettably pretty accurate.

Lance had made some silly joke, Keith doesn’t remember what, and Pidge had rolled her eyes and splashed him playfully. Lance eyes had gone impossibly wide, pupils so wide they looked black instead of their usual warm brown, and positively fled the room in visible panic.

Pidge had turned to Keith, pretty panicked herself. “What did I do? Is he okay?”

Keith froze, completely blanked on what to say, but then it came to him: “He has explosive diarrhea,” he blurted, and immediately hated himself for it. Hoo, boy, Lance was gonna whoop his ass.

Pidge wrinkled her nose, turning back to her dishes. “Ew. I mean, I hope he’s okay, but ew.”

And that had been that. Not fucking easy. (And yeah. Lance had been mad. He’d been so mad that Keith wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam coming out of his ears as Lance yelled, but in the middle of his sentence — “Fucking explosive diarrhea? Really, Keith? That’s the best you could come up with?” — he’d interrupted himself with a laugh so strong he’d doubled over, tears coming to his eyes. Keith figured he was forgiven. It was kind of funny, after all.)

As more time goes on, though, Keith finds himself having an easier time covering for Lance. It almost becomes second nature. He also becomes excellent at preventing incidents before they happen — if Lance and water are in the same room, Keith notices, and plants himself in between them. It’s become almost subconscious, at this point. Like, yesterday, they were visiting some planet, and they entered this grand hall for a meeting, and there was this massive waterfall cascading on the left side. Keith literally grabbed Lance’s arm and moved him to the side. Lance had smiled all big and squinty at him, hip-checking him in thanks.

It was a nice feeling.

Unfortunately, his newfound closeness with Lance did not escape the others’ notice. Shiro, in particular, was a giant pain in the ass about it.

“You and Lance seemed to enjoy each other’s company today,” he’d tease frequently. There were only so many times Keith could tell him to fuck off without sounding ridiculous, and Keith was rapidly approaching that limit.

Stupid older brothers. So annoying.

It’s pretty dope, though, all in all. The main downside is really only the toll it seems to take on Lance. He isn’t big on lying, and every time they lie to the team he looks more and more sad, which Keith hates. If you went back in time and told him he’d debase himself to telling Shiro’s horrible dad jokes to make Lance McClain laugh and smile again, he’d direct you to the nearest hospital.

But look at him now.

Now, he feels like he’d do anything to keep Lance happy, which is embarrassing but not something he knows how to fix. Honestly, his main solution is to convince Lance to tell the rest of the team his big fishy secret, but even the thought terrifies him. He’s convinced he’ll be kicked off the team. Keith doesn’t know how to explain to him that the team would literally fall to pieces without him.

For now, though, he works on building their relationship. So long as he and Lance are friends, Lance will trust him, and maybe then he can convince Lance to trust the rest of the team, too.

#keith is very much in love and very much oblivious about it #lance also does not realise. team dumbass #vld #voltron #keith #keith kogane #lance #lance mcclain #klance #pre klance #mermaid lance #fluff #angst #langst #but only a smidge #pidge #pidge holt #humour #shenanigans #my writing #fic

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Bowser

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Most of the time, saying a character needs no introduction is a bit of an exaggeration, because there is always the chance, however slim, that someone has not heard of that character. That’s not the case here, though; you could go to the deepest, most isolated jungle tribe on Earth, ask the villagers if they’ve heard of Mario, and they’ll all start singing out the Mario theme music. With that in mind, today’s subject absolutely needs no introduction, but out of respect for the King of Koopas I’ll give him one anyway: This is Bowser.

Bowser is not simply a video game villain. Bowser is THE video game villain. Like Mario, Peach, and Luigi, this big old turtle is pretty much a household name, loved far and wide for his iconic design, simple yet effective boss battles, and his inexplicable yet somehow still understandable sexiness. The question is, can I make it through this review without making some sort of crude comment about the raw sexuality the King of Koopas exudes? Lets find out!

Motivation/Goals: Bowser from day one has always been a pretty simple man. All he wants in life is those peaches, peaches, peaches… And I mean, really, can you blame him?

Yes, his motivations and goals are pretty simple and shallow, but he always manages to make something as trite as rescuing a damsel in distress fun and refreshing. His strict adherence to basic formula leaves a lot of room for mixing things up though, and this same adherence makes the times when he breaks tradition and does something like fight on Mario’s side all the better. And sometimes it’s clear Bowser just wants to relax and fuck around by karting, playing board games, or competing in some sort of sport.

It’s a fun little twist on that old “Knight rescues a princess from a dragon,” except the dragon is a giant turtle and the knight is an Italian plumber (a more powerful force than any knight could hope to be). Of course, the fact Bowser is incredibly obsessed with a woman despite her wanting nothing to do with him means that Bowser is—you guessed it—a

Performance: Hoo boy, are there a lot of Bowser voice actors.

The cartoons used Harvey Atkins, who delivered a fun and cartoonish take on Bowser; Marc Graue voiced him in Hotel Mario, but this isn’t shocking as he was basically every male character in that game; Peter Cullen technically voiced him from 1996 to 2006 due to archival roars he provided for the 1976 remake of King Kong being repurposed for Bowser’s own roars; Charles Martinet provided his iconic evil laughs for 64; Kenny James is his current voice actor; Jack Black turned in a very against type performance in the Illumination movie; and Dennis Hopper of all people portrayed him in the live action film from the 90s. And these are just the ones I wanted to highlight! There are a few English voice actors I skipped as well as his extensive Japanese voice cast! Here’s the complete list, just so I’m not here all day:

The point I’m trying to make is this: Bowser’s iconic status is completely a group effort, and each of these dudes helped contribute to Bowser’s status in our hearts and minds in their own unique ways.

Final Fate: It really depends on the game or movie or whatever, but he is always defeated by Mario at any rate. Sometimes he’s simply defeated and sent on his way; sometimes he’s captured and imprisoned, like in the animated movie; and sometimes he just fucking dies, like in the live action movie and New Super Mario Bros. Don’t worry, he gets better.

Best Scene: Bowser in the earlier games had rather simple boss fights, though they weren’t completely unmemorable. Still, out of his early days it’s hard to deny his epic battle against Yoshi in the finale of Yoshi’s Island, where his child self is grown to gargantuan size and ominously lumbers towards you from the background while a hardcore boss tune blasts through your speakers, is the peak of his NES/SNES days.

Then we have his early forays into 3D, and it’s inarguable that the boss fights he has against Mario in the timeless classic Super Mario 64 are some of his best, even if they are rather simplistic. I mean, this is where we got “So long, Gay Bowser!” from, can you really deny its place in Mario history? And those are just a couple! We could probably sit here all day talking about his great battles in games like Odyssey, New Super Mario Bros, Galaxy, and so on.

Bowser’s most impressive showing outside of the games is The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The initial teaser for the film, which showcased his opening fight against the penguin kingdom, really helps establish Bowser as the threat he is, and the final battle and the wedding scene in the movie are some of his greatest villain moments to date. But I’m going to be cliché and give the spotlight to his villain song, “Peaches.”

Here’s the thing, though: As a song, “Peaches” kind of sucks. It’s just Jack Black saying “Peaches” fifty times in a row and then making Jack Black noises. But that’s also what makes it so genuinely great; in the hands of a lesser actor/musician, this really would just be the dumbest shit imaginable, but in the hamtastic hands of Jack Black the song has become an instant legend. I think the visuals and the beautiful piano playing really help, not to mention the official music video where JB dresses up as Bowser and tosses peaches around. Lyrically it’s nothing to write home about, but man does the performance really sell it.

Oh yeah and there’s this too:

Final Thoughts & Score

It is near impossible to overstate how iconic, important, and downright awesome Bowser is.

Like, this guy is the final boss. He pretty much codified what that means in terms of video games, being one of the first iconic big bads of gaming and the first adversary a lot of gamers fought. It’s kind of hard to believe today, but the original Mario games were genuinely some of the most groundbreaking games of all time, and the only reason it’s hard to believe is because video games have been building off the groundwork they laid down back in the 80s. Bowser is no exception; every single video game villain, especially platformer villains, owes a debt of gratitude to the king of the Koopas.

I think part of the reason Bowser has managed to survive and thrive through console generation after console generation is because he, much like the rest of the core Mario cast, is extremely versatile as a character and can slip into any situation with relative ease. He can be an evil overlord, a bratty child, a loving father, a kart racer, an Olympic champion, a platform fighter combatant, the owner of a Coney Island disco palace, a giant skeleton, a board game player, it doesn’t matter! Bowser can do it all! He can be a goofy, bumbling comedy villain or he can be a galaxy-destroying threat that would make Thanos shit himself, he has range like you wouldn’t believe!

It helps that both times he has shown up in a movie he has managed to be a scene-stealing smorgasbord of ham and cheese. Dennis Hopper’s madcap, in-it-for-the-money-but-not-half-assing-it performance in the live action film is so delightfully over the top that he manages to make the mere act of saying “Monkey” and “Bob-Omb” memorable and meme-worthy. While he’s a bit far off from what you’d totally want from Bowser, and his saurian form gets relegated to a two second cameo before his death, it’s hard for me to really give him less than a solid 7/10. He’s just too damn fun.

Meanwhile, Jack Black delivered a performance so good that it makes it easy to overlook the many problems the movie has (like its terrible needle drops). He’s just so fun, funny, and even genuinely intimidating, perfectly mixing all of the traits that make people love Bowser into one big, juicy package. I think everyone knew this was going to be a 10/10 performance right from the moment it was announced, but still it was pretty impressive just how well Black was able to slip into Bowser to the point he was almost unrecognizable at times.

No one would argue that Bowser deserves less than an 11/10; he is genuinely one of the single most important characters of the 21st century, and has made a mark on gaming that very few villains could match. He is to final bosses what Dracula is to vampires, what the Wicked Witch is to witches, and what Fu Manchu is to racist caricatures of Asian people. Other villains have more depth and complexity than Bowser, but that doesn’t really matter when he kidnaps Peach for the thousandth time and throws an army of freaky mushroom men and crazy turtles at you, because you’re gonna be there helping Mario stomp those Goombas to get to him. Bowser is just an icon, and his place in video game history is absolutely, utterly gargantuan.

JUST LIKE HIS DICK!

#Psycho Analysis #Bowser #Jack Black #Dennis Hopper #Super Mario Bros. #Youtube

[duhragonball]

🕎Kamehame-Hanukkah (3/8)🕎

Chag urim sameach! All right, time for a good one. Let's talk about the time Goku fought Raditz.

The situation is already dire. Raditz just revealed Goku's an alien, and then he beat up Goku and kidnapped his son. Goku's only chance to beat the guy is to team up with Piccolo and hold the big guy off for five minutes so Piccolo can charge an attack strong enough to finish Raditz off. Hoo-boy.

So Goku resorts to a Kamehameha. It seems to shoot straight down at Raditz, but then Raditz moves, and so Goku steers the beam to follow him.

Raditz runs to stay ahead of the beam, but at last he turns and stands his ground...

Kablam! That had to hurt! Or did it?

Nope, Raditz managed to cancel out the entire thing, although it still kept him occupied for a while.

It's easy to overlook Raditz as a villain, since he wasn't around all that long, but just look at this guy. He's a friggin' beast, no-selling ki blasts and slapping around Goku and Piccolo like they're jerks. Raditz walked so guys like Turles and Broly could run.

#dragon ball #kamehamehanukkah #goku #raditz #kamehameha #hanukkah

[fearowkenya]

Winds of Change -

Chapter 2: The Perfect Storm

Shuuji hangs there, breathless in its grip, and everything fades away until there’s nothing left but what he can see in that wild pair crimson eyes, swirling with anger, anguish, and above all else—fear. Maybe he’s too afraid to string together an apology, or maybe it’s that he knows there’s no use in offering one.  Either way, what a fitting end, for a pair of monsters to destroy one another.  But there’s always a critic, and today it’s Ryo.

Shuuji makes it out of the fight in the waterway alive, but somehow, it still goes horribly, horribly wrong.

AO3 link in source, and, as always, extended author's notes under the cut! (:

whoops! the chapter is late. I thought I'd have time to post it before my dads wedding yesterday, but wouldnt you know it, there wasnt quite enough time to get everything formatted properly without rushing thru it.  I was super tired after the wedding and tried my best to at least do my first proofreading before bed, but i kept dozing off. so here I am. better late then never!

this chapter was an absolute blast to write! i figured that one good way to really justify the groups collective paranoia was to let wendimon get VERY close to accomplishing a total party wipe. the mood I was going for was something similar to the hopelessness of trying to take down plutomon or boltboutamon - no matter how many megas get thrown at them, it never seems like enough. that's why I made wendimon a fair bit stronger than what's typical of a champion level digimon.

as I said in my author's notes on ao3, I think this kind of situation would definitely justify falcomons behavior too, both while hes actively arguing with minoru, as well as the time he spends refusing to return to the group even after minoru apologizes. falcomon has his insecurities like the rest of them, but hes always seemed to me like the one who is the most self-assured in who he is and what he cares about.

that's not to say that the others arent, but in terms of his understanding of the world and of himself, I find that falcomon is the one whose identity has the strongest foundation, and I think watching something like this happen to arguably the most gentle member of their group shakes that foundation to its core. 

even when the professor explains that this only happened because of a partner bond sustained severe damage, i think it would do very little to ease falcomon's worries -  it's hard to tell just how messed up minoru's self-image is under the big smiley front he puts up to hide his insecurities, and falcomon KNOWS that. but that's beyond the scope of what I'm exploring in this fic lol. it might be something I circle back to later on though! minoru is the character I find most interesting on my second run of truthful; there are SO many subtleties about him that i absolutely did not notice the first time around.

anyway, the waterway. hoo boy, the waterway. choreographing the waterway fight was probably the hardest part of writing this chapter. when I first drafted it, i was very confident in the image I had in my head of the waterway battlefield, but when I went to check screenshots, it turned out that I had it all wrong! so I had to rework the whole damn thing! which was really hard, because the biggest challenge was keeping track of where every single character was placed on the field!

the goal was to spread characters out so that they weren't all bunched together, but still located conveniently enough such that I could pull them into the fight with wendimon when necessary. in order to do this, i drew a big stupid diagram on actual physical paper made one big (temporary) change to the waterway battlefield which i doubt anybody noticed unless you, like me, are unhinged enough to study the structure of the in-game locations down to the smallest details.

in the game, a little behind the place on the map where you set your units, theres a gap on the left that usually has a treasure chest on the other side, one that you have to send a flying unit to retrieve unless you want to go alllllllllllll the way around. I needed to be able to get takuma, minoru, miu, and kaito over there so that arukenimon could be all menacing on the top of the stairs, but i couldnt figure out how to make it work without having to make them go past wendimon on the central path and around megaseadramon on the top left platform. so what I did is... close that gap.

but closing the gap created the problem where the kids could easily use that path to regroup with Shuuji and the others. which was inconvenient when i needed them to stay split up. so you can imagine how clever I felt when I had megaseadramon cut them off by destroying the stairs and putting the gap right back , which is what I meant when I said the change I made to the battlefield was temporary lmao

speaking of megaseadramon, when i was first writing this chapter, i was very overwhelmed at the idea of having to simultaneously balance the fight against wendimon with the fight against megaseadramon. splitting the party seemed like the obvious choice, but it felt very anticlimactic to be like "oh yeah here comes the other half of the group to the rescue, they kicked megaseadramon's ass off-camera lol"

by that same token, I didnt want to put TOO much focus on megaseadramon and detract from wendimon. so once again I felt like a genius when I realized that the solution was simply to have wendimon not only deal with megaseadramon, but raise the stakes and tension by demonstrating that it is on a completely other level compared to the other champion stage digimon. (in poor megaseadramon's defense, it was not at all expecting to be attacked by wendimon, and was likely at least a little worn-down by shellmon, sangloupmon, greymon, and diatrymon. I think it would have fared much better against wendimon in a clean one-on-one match.)

as for wendimons defeat, well... no matter how much I amp up its strength, I felt that taking a point-blank giga destroyer would probably do the trick. AND give us some truly horrific imagery. I struggled a LOT with that last couple of paragraphs, and I'm still not sure if I was able to give the exact image i wanted to leave off with at the very end.

while this chapter answered a bunch of questions asked in the first one, it also raised plenty more. theres some stuff i set up here that I'm really looking forward to people catching on to (: unless they've caught on already...?? heehee (: i wonder which things will take people by surprise, and which ones they saw coming a mile away...?

on that note, id love to hear what people think of the fic so far. kudos are nice and I greatly appreciate them, but nothing launches me over the moon quite like comments. I'm so curious to know what part(s) people liked best, both about this chapter and the first, as well as any predictions people have about the stuff I'm starting to hint at as I get further into the story. i won't confirm or deny anything of course, but it will make me smile so so so big.

please look forward to chapter 3! I'll evaluate when exactly I'm posting it as the week goes on, as im currently away from home and have a bunch of busy days coming up - I'll be sitting thru a 4 hour car ride on sunday and trying to see some friends on monday before I fly home on Tuesday , so I cant say with any certainty when chapter 3 will be out other than at some point within that Sunday-Monday-Tuesday timeframe. thank you for reading, please consider leaving a comment, and until next time!

#digimon survive #digimon #shuuji kayama #kayama shuuji #ryo tominaga #tominaga ryo #lopmon

[queen-scribbles]

WAIT ]:          realizing the receiver is about to leave the room, the sender hastily reaches out and catches their wrist, preventing them from continuing their departure.

Unfocused

hoo boy, full blast pining!Arcann Ardrali fic for you. Like. High-key isn’t even a strong enough descriptor. It’s stratospheric. (ps this is post-Unbowed, so she’s pining too, but POV is all him :D)

----

Arcann was halfway through stack of reports he’d agreed to review when the faint flicker of another presence disrupted his focus. He’d been so absorbed in his task, he’d failed to pick up the quiet muttering from the next archive aisle over until the individual moved closer. There was an intensity that gentled around the edges--white hot focus framed in soothing blue--which made him fairly certain he knew who it was.

Arcann let his gaze drift up from the datapad in his hand, biting the inside of his cheek as he debated whether it would be a good idea to interrupt her. There was a subtle flare of something... irritation? frustration? that broke his internal stalemate in the selfish direction, and he pushed out of the chair. He needed a break, anyway. 

The muttering stopped as he stepped around the end of the aisle, and Endrali met his gaze with a sheepish smile.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, managing to school his reactive smile into something more acceptable than it wanted to be.

“Not... really. Some information is eluding me. Sorry if I bothered you.” Endrali ran a finger around the hood of the search terminal in front of her. She cocked  her head and studied him. ”Though, come to think of it, this isn’t somewhere I’d expect to find you to be bothered.”

“I offered to look over the recent reports from Admiral Aygo’s men,” Arcann explained. “To see if I noticed anything in the unrest they’ve been handling that bears connection or similarity to the... incidents we’ve handled.”

Endrali huffed a laugh, which was a fair reaction. Tassar at least was more than an incident. “Ah, good idea. I’m sure that’ll be appreciated. You’re doing it in here because...?”

“It seemed the place I’d be the most out of the way while still having easy access to the information I might need.” He didn’t mind the prodding; this was hardly one of his usual haunts around the base. “And you? What information is proving so elusive?”

“Oh, I told Hylo I’d do some research on the Unknown Regions and people who had visited or explored them to see if there’s any leads on resources we could use.” She wrinkled her nose and played her fingers idly over the terminal’s keys. There was a tremor of something he couldn’t place to her sense before her gaze dropped back to the query screen. “One of the predominant explorers isn’t where he should be listed in the database...” Something flickered in her eyes. “Unless....” She tapped keys more deliberately, and her brow furrowed even as triumph flared through her sense. “There you are! “

It took a strong effort to suppress a laugh at her mingled pique and enthusiasm. 

Endrali plugged in a datastick to download what she needed and flashed another apologetic smile as she looked up, tucking hair behind her ear. “So it appears the archive staff need a gentle reminder on how to honor different cultures’ naming conventions when adding to our database.” She flicked a glance toward where he’d come from. “Sorry again if I disturbed you.”

“It’s alright,” Arcann assured her, fighting the urge to smooth back a strand she’d missed. “I was starting to see double, so a break is probably wise.”

She cocked her head. “Don’t work yourself too hard.”

I’d work myself into the ground for this second chance. Even if the care in her tone made his heart skip a beat, it was a rather pot meet kettle sentiment, and he couldn’t bite back this smile. “I won’t. The report I was reading happened to be more detailed than the previous few, and thus was a longer read. I’d planned a break when I reached the end, but I don’t mind it happening early.” Especially if it means I get to talk to you. He snatched the thought back, shoved it down, hoping it hadn’t resonated strongly enough for her to pick it up.

“Good,” she nodded, leaning one hip against the console.

“So I take it naming conventions are an interest of yours?” he asked, partly because her quiet passion had been endearing, partly to keep talking. “To be so frustrated it was recorded wrong.”

“You could say that,” Endrali laughed softly. “It goes with the love for archaeology and cultural history. I might be primarily focused on Jedi history, but other cultures are fascinating, too. And names are an important part of that; there are several where the naming habits are a clear look into their values. Family, status, class, that sort of thing. But it can get tricky keeping track of the family, individual, in some cases clan or ancestral name orders. And sometimes there are differences when the origin tongue is translated into Basic...” She shifted her weight. “So there are guidelines for how to weight aspects for archiving, and apparently at least one member of our staff is unfamiliar with them. So. A gentle reminder.”

The terminal beeped completion of the download and it was almost a shame to watch her reel herself back in.

“There we go,” she murmured, plucking out the datastick. She flashed him another warm smile. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Endrali.” Arcann wasn’t sure what drove him to take a half-step forward and catch her wrist as she started to leave; something instinctive or selfish or otherwise.  It had his heart pounding in his chest when she paused, regardless.  “Perhaps we could help each other.”

Her smile widened and he almost dared think she’d been hoping he’d stop her. His grip was loose enough for her to easily shake and she hadn’t. “How so?”

“I’m familiar with the Unknown Regions to aid with your research, and you are an.. alternate perspective on the incidents I’m comparing with the reports. It would be a more thorough result for both. If you’ve the time?”

“Of course.” She shifted back toward him and he let go of her wrist. Her fingers flexed. “If you don’t mind the company?”

“Not in the slightest,” Arcann said, and he meant it, despite the one slight problem with this arrangement. 

Her smile as they headed, together for where he’d been sitting was going to make it very hard to focus.

#queens fic #eyes emoji prompts #endrali jade #arcann #ardrali #otp: undone by you #i've decided the only reason these idiots(Affectionate) don't notice their mutual pining is they're both so busy #trying to hide their own feelings they miss the other's #bc both are sure the other would never feel the same way #muahahahahahaha #debated finding a more gffa-ish way of saying pot meet kettle but decided it's fine this way #endrali u nerd

[kelpan]

This fic is now over 20,000 words long, and we're not even to the end of Act 1 yet. Hoo boy do I love torturing myself with massive projects that take full control of my life lol

Anyhoo! Please enjoy! Next chapter is shaping out to be a bit of a long one, so I'm shooting to try and get it out before the end of the month.

Credit for the OC Chrysanthemum Headshot goes to wwispie on Etsy/Instagram!

Ao3: Petals on a Stream of Stars

Act 1, Chapter 9: Marigold

Wednesday

1:30 pm

Chrysanthemum

“Yes ma’am…. N-No, I’m sorry, I…. It’ll never happen again, I promise…. Yes…. Thank you….. Yes, of course…. Goodbye.” 

Chrys hung up the phone at the security desk, her heart hammering a mile a minute. She hadn’t been fired. How had she not been fired? Her second day, and she’s over four hours late. By all intents and purposes that should make her a no-call-no-show. Not exactly employee of the month kind of behavior. Officer Vanessa had been livid—who wouldn’t be?—but more than forgiving all things considered.

I should buy a lottery ticket with this kinda luck. 

Sun cocked his head out from behind one of the support beams of the playplace, his worried eyes asking her what the verdict was. She replied with a wide grin and a thumbs up, to which he pantomimed clutching at his heart and breathing a sigh of relief, the jester. He scrunched his face then, and jabbed a pointer finger at the packed lunch sitting next to her on the desk. She laughed, and waved his instruction away, opening up the zippered lunchbox to prove she understood the assignment. Satisfied, he grinned wide, and returned to his task, tying off a banner hung off the edge of the structure which read “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” in colorful, excited letters. 

She’d been smart to throw a little something together the night before. Given the frantic rush that turned out to be her morning, there’d have been no time to even consider trying to make food then. Neither did she have any intention of giving Sun yet another reason to worry over her; Given how he’d reacted yesterday, she could just imagine him calling for a full stop of all preparations until he was satisfied she’d eaten enough. That was the last thing either of them needed. Smiling at the absurd image, she grabbed a cheese stick out of the bag, and set to work on chewing it down. 

With nothing else to do while she ate, Chrys watched Sun’s journey across the daycare, blowing up balloons, decorating areas with confetti and shiny cut pieces of tinsel, and wondered how this afternoon might go. It hadn’t occurred to her that hosting parties in the Daycare had even been an option. From all she knew, the daycare was just that—a daycare. Sun had mentioned they were few and far between before she’d gone to take Vanessa’s call, so perhaps she wasn’t all that far off in thinking that. One thing, however, was clear; Sun was tickled pink at the prospect. She hadn’t seen his rays stop moving since. 

With the last of the streamers hung perfectly in place, Sun came bounding back over to the security desk, resting against the upper edge to lean overtop. His excitement was infectious, and she smiled, hiding the mouthful of food she’d just eaten behind her hand. 

“Oh, this is gonna be so much fun, Chrys, just you wait! It’ll be freeplay the entire afternoon! Nothing but games, games, games! Oh, you’re gonna love it!” 

With a wipe of her napkin, Chrys finished her lunch, and gathered all the trash together to be thrown out later. “Sounds like a blast. What about cake and presents? Do we do those here, too?”

“Oh, yes!” His face fell a twitch. “But… not this time. These parents bought the Ultra Deluxe Fazzerific package, which includes presents, pizza and cake with the entire Glamrock band over in the atrium. It’s one of our most top-tier offerings.”

“Oh. Sounds expensive.”

“Very!”

Coming out from behind the desk, Chrys took in the newly transformed Daycare. “So how will I be able to help? Is there an itinerary to follow?”

“Nope! Well, yes, but nothing you need to be concerned with, I’ll lead it all. Just help me keep an eye on the kids, make sure no one is hurting themselves or others, that sort of thing, and we’ll be all good! As long as everyone is safe and the birthday girl is having the best day of her life, that’s all that really matters.”

The clock rang twice, signaling the start of what would normally be the second shift. Sun jumped, and raced towards the gate, waving for Chrys to come join him. 

“Ok,” he said, stationing her to stand opposite him on the other side of the door. “We’ll open the gate together, and yell “Welcome, new friends!” at the same time. Ready?” She nodded. “Great! Here we go!”

With that, the Daycare flung open its doors, and together they rang in the start to the party. 

Peels of excitement ripped through the crowd, converging into their own miniature stampede as the children rushed past each other to disperse into the daycare, diving head-first into whatever caught their attention the most. Sun spared one encouraging glance to Chrys before running into the thick of it, matching their energy and then some. 

Chrys laughed, but took the chance to look out into the waiting area, if only to make sure there were no stragglers left before moving on. She found she was glad she did; There was still one more friend yet to be welcomed inside. 

Standing in the otherwise empty waiting area stood a young mother, dressed in affluent but feminine, neutral-toned business attire, with a little girl no older than six or seven years old clinging to her side, head full of strawberry blonde curls pressed as far into the side of the woman’s leg as was physically possible.  

“Please, don’t worry too much about her. Give her some time, she should open right up.”

The woman spoke with a kind but firm tone, her words every bit as much a command as a reassurance. She put off the air of someone who was used to taking charge, despite the slight crack of fatigue which broke through. Kneeling down, she detangled herself from her daughter’s death grip on her skirt. “But, do be sure not to let her out of your sight. We’re going through a… a bit of a rough time, right now. You look away for one second and she’ll up and hide on you, I guarantee it.”

Switching between mother and child, Chrys could sense the underlying unease radiating off both of them. A mother who seemed drained, yet doing her best to hide it, and a child who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here. Neither a good state of mind to be in before a party. 

“Don’t worry, there will be supervision present the entire time, we’ll make sure of that.” She took hold of the little girl’s hand at her mother’s behest, and felt the tiny fingers squeeze her own. Without her mother close, the girl curled in as tight as she could, chin tucked to her chest.

“See to it that you do. Bye sweetie, please try to have fun, for me. I’ll be back to pick you up in a few hours. I love you.”

The child stirred, and looked up from the floor. Her bright blue eyes were full of tears, and she squeaked out a meek “Love you” back before her mother turned and walked away, a quick, air-blown kiss her last bit of encouragement before disappearing around a corner. 

Hand in hand, Chrys walked the two of them inside, closing the gates behind her. She knelt down to be more at the child’s eye level, and spoke in a soft, soothing voice.

“Hey there, it’s ok. I know this is a lot. My name’s Miss Chrys. What’s yours?”

She sniffled, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “… Marigold.”

“Marigold?” Chrys repeated, adding a bit of excitement to her voice. “What a lovely name! Did you know that’s the name of a flower?” The child nodded. “I think that’s super cool. Hey, wanna know a secret?” Another silent nod. “My name’s the name of a flower too! Have you ever heard of a Chrysanthemum?” This time a shake, the girl’s ringlets bouncing side to side. “It’s a fall flower, with lots of thin, yellow, white or red petals, like the color of my hair. Just like yours, too!”

Untucking a strand of her own hair, Chrys held it out, ushering Marigold to do the same. She tapped the two strands of hair together, similar to a drink toast. “Now we’re flower buddies! How does that sound?”

Chrys held her breath, waiting to see if her efforts had taken root. A quick double-take between her own hair and Chrys’s face, and the little girl repeated the gesture, tapping the strands together with intent, the tiniest of smiles peeking out underneath her drooping bangs. Chrys exhaled in triumph. If there was one thing she knew about childcare, it’s that if you could get a kid to smile once, you could do it again. 

“There ya go! That’s it. Now, let’s figure out something to do. What do you say? Anything out there look like fun?”

Chrys watched as Marigold scanned the area, her face revealing nothing. Guess they’d have to figure this one out the old-fashioned way. But before she could brainstorm possible ways to keep this child engaged, she caught the tell-tale jingle of Sunny approaching, and internally relaxed. He’d know what to do here better than she. 

“Oh my! What do we have over here? Did Miss Chrys find you, little star?”

He knelt down before them, his head extending unnaturally low in order to not tower over the two of them. The little girl looked to Chrys, her round eyes a mix of trust and uncertainty. 

“Don’t worry, Mr. Sun is a friend of mine. He’ll help make sure today is lots of fun!” 

“Absolutely!” He spun his rays fast enough to create a funny whizzing sound, earning a small giggle from the child. “We can’t have the birthday girl spend her special day stuck under a raincloud, now can we?”

Wait, birthday girl? The statement clicked in her head, and had there not been a child present, she would have smacked her own forehead in exasperation. How had she managed to miss that? She struggled to keep her face neutral. It wouldn’t do to let the very kid they were trying to cheer up in on her little fumble. 

“Tell me,” Sun continued, taking the helm on guiding the conversation, much to Chrys’s relief. “Do you… like crawling through the tubes? Or we could make some sparkly crafts? Ooo! What about getting a game going with all your friends? I’m sure they’d be so excited to see you!”

“They’re not my friends.” Marigold said, her tiny voice cold. “They’re from my class at school. Mama told them to come. I don’t have any friends, except big brother. Is he here yet? I wanna see him.”

Chrys froze. She shot Sun a quick cursory glance, silently asking if he knew anything about this. With as little movement as possible, he shook his head no.

“Uh, sorry sunshine! No one here has arrived registered as your brother. But, uh, who knows! He might come later. W-Why don’t we all play a game in the meantime? We could play “Princesses and Gremlins”! Although… ah, nevermind. That wouldn’t work.”

He exaggerated the last of his words, going from excited to overly sad with ease, keeping a keen eye trained on Marigold through his dramatized antics, taking in her feedback and adjusting as needed. 

“… Why not?” Marigold asked, hesitant but intrigued. 

“Because we don’t have a princess, silly! Everyone knows those can only be played by birthday girls.”

“B-But…” she tugged at the hem of her cool blue, tailored dress. “I-I’m a birthday girl! I could be the princess!”

Sun gasped, hands to his cheeks. Chrys had to stifle a giggle of her own. “Well tie me to a kite and send me to the sky, you ARE indeed! So, how about it? Will you be our Princess today?”

Marigold puffed out her cheeks, the determination bringing a fire to her eyes that Chrys wouldn’t have thought possible five minutes ago. The little girl nodded with a purpose, hands balled into tight little fists.

“Great!” Sun morphed back into his standard, smiley state. “The game is simple; We’ll split everyone into two teams. One team sides with the princess, the brave knights.” He struck a dashing pose. “Everyone else are the gremlins, who will try to breach the knight’s defenses and kidnap the princess!” He made an attempt at a grotesque face, releasing it only once he’d earned a happy giggle from Marigold. “Whoever gets the most ribbons from the other team, or manages to get both of the princess’s ribbons, wins!”

If Marigold’s eyes could grow any bigger, Chrys would think they were saucers. There was no doubt Sun had nailed this one.  

Oh, he’s good.

“And who will you be, Mr. Sun? You a knight, or a gremlin?” Chrys asked, teasing. 

“Neither! I’ll be the mighty dragon, sworn to defend the princess till the end of days! All who threaten her will be tickled!!!” Ever the one for theatrics, he released a mighty “roar”, arms held above his head and cocked to turn his hands into pretend claws. Marigold squealed, ecstatic.

“Come, my princess! Your kingdom awaits!” Taking her laughter as permission, Sun picked the now beaming child up, rays shrinking inward and head dipping low to allow her to safely sit on his shoulders. She shrieked anew as he stood, thrilled at the newfound height. Chrys watched with a warm smile on her face, feeling a sense of pride to see him so masterfully bring out the best in such a nervous little girl, a feat not many could claim. 

Hands holding Marigold safely in place, Sun rushed to the center of the daycare, calling all the children together as he went. Chrys made her way instead to the large toy box anchored against the wall, to grab all the accessories they could need for said game to commence. Sun had been right; Already she was enjoying herself. She’d missed this feeling, of helping others to find the joy she struggled to keep hold of, especially in ones as innocent as kids. Arms full of velcro ribbons and adjustable woven belts, she followed Sun’s lead, determined to do everything she could to make sure that this was the best dang birthday party these kids had ever seen. 

#fnaf #fnaf fandom #fnaf fanart #fnaf fanfic #fnaf sun and moon #sundrop #moondrop #moon fnaf #sun fnaf #fnaf security breach #fnaf oc #fnaf daycare attendant #fnaf dca #fnaf original character #dca fandom #Petals on a Stream of Stars #fanfiction #fanfic writing #ao3 fanfic #fnaf Sun/MoonxOC #commissioned art