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starry-bi-sky · 1 month

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i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.

He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.

And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.

And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.

Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.

Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."

There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.

It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.

Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.

At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.

"Do you like to do anything?"

Nothing. Just silence.

Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.

Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.

Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.

And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.

He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.

Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.

So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.

"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"

"Don't."

He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.

Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"

"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."

It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"

The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."

Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."

And they fall back into silence.

Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."

He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.

(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)

At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.

Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.

("Tucker told me once--") ("Tucker?") ("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")

(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)

(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)

It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."

The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."

The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.

When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.

Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.

"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."

When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.

Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc prompt #man i just really need more dpdc stuff where danny and bruce have a good relationship. like man i NEED it. like i need to see these two #bonding together. and not in a cracky 'oh danny is a distant friend/cousin/etc' stuff but like. active participants in each other's lives #or as active as can be in this case. i neeeeed these two getting along and caring about one another #this idea came to me like last night and hasn't left since nd it was driving me up the wall to think about both positively and negatively b #i neeeded someone to hear about this or i was gonna implode #danny is the first son #tried to just get the general gist of the idea down but i definitely thought of the idea that bruce lowkey suspects vlad for having a hand #Vlad allows Danny to sneak off because he thinks Danny is alone. if he knew Bruce was there he'd be piiisssed and would put a stop to it #Sam and Tucker are alive they just got ghosted for a bit by danny bc he was in Major Grief and didn't wanna socialize. He couldn't go to #them because he didn't wanna put them in danger via Vlad.#oh that thing he handed Bruce? Yeah that's his ghost core. I have a headcanon (that isnt always applied) that ghosts can take their cores #out of their bodies at will and painlessly and without issue. and its common practice actually to do so bc they can be a not insignificant #distance away from said core before problems start to act up. and its common for ghosts to leave their physical cores at their lairs for #safekeeping because as long as the physical core is fine: so is the ghost. they can reform if their body gets destroyed. it also acts as a #fast travel sometimes. where they can reform at their core in an instant. its not inspired in the slightest by SU but i do see the overlap #most cores are pretty small for safety sake: its harder to hit if its small. and they're pr resilient too but its better to be safe than #sorry. so yeah. danny essentially gave bruce the physical embodiment of his soul and indirectly said #'if anything happens to me at least i'll be safe with you'#danny doesn't know he's batman btw #starry rambles.#was gonna go into danny becoming a vigilante beside bruce but im sleeeepy so i'll do that in a reblog. he's gonna go by nightingale if #anyone is interested. stereotypical but to be frank it is a *good* name imo. has a good amount of syllables and consonants to it #and the bird theme. and since its part of an ancestral name it has even more backing for it being bird-y without being meta

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originalartblog · 1 year

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(domestic skk?? here???)

Sometimes it's hard to be vulnerable but they're working on it.

#i decided i'm nice again #@carrotkicks you destroyed me with chuuya plushie angst i'm riposting with the chuuya plushie comfort that possessed me #also coming out as someone who draws dazai's hair like they're dog ears it's like atsushi's single hair stripe and tail-belt #look up french spaniels look at their ears and tell me that's not dazai #(chuuya can be a cocker spaniel. or a cavalier spaniel. to match.)#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd fanart #bsd chuuya #bsd nakahara chuuya #bsd dazai #bsd dazai osamu #skk #soukoku #nawy's comics #i put chuuya in that outfit when thinking how akutagawa has civilian clothes so chuuya must hang out in something else too #but since i gave him the same thing for my AU it can be whatever now #aaaaaugh i've been looking at this for too long i can't say if it's good or not WHATEVER #getting out of your comfort zone is hard. i don't do domestic stuff. i do jokes and concepts and canon stuff.

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heartsgettingwiser62 · 1 year

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When you pull bitches by having internalized homophobia and being neurodivergent:

(bitches=another neurodivergent kid with internalized homophobia that happens to be your best friend)

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archiveoftragedies · 2 months

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In mdzs, when the public opinion started shifting and everyone turned on jgy it made me feel vindicated. Finally they're siding with me against the guy that keeps pissing me off. But that only lasted an instant. Slowly, progressively, I started going wait. Wait no hold on. Go back. I didn't mean it that way go back. Because they were saying about jgy the exact same bullshit they had been saying about wwx the entire novel. And suddenly it felt really off.

Then, during the flashbacks leading up to Nightless City, I kept thinking back on that thing wwx tells nhs in volume one, when nhs explains his family's solution to their haunted saber problem. "Well, that's hitting a bit close to the demonic cultivation path". Doesn't nhs refuse to swordfight as well? Is he even carrying a sword? How come he can get away with this (and wwx can't)?

Wwx and jgy have similar origins but were raised in different environments. They learned similar survival methods and tried to play by the rules up until they couldn't anymore. They had the two more prominent roles in winning the sunshot campaign, and yet everyone forgot about that the second they decided they were irredeemable. They met similar ends, fighting and protecting people they loved.

Nhs became the kind of person his brother would despise in trying to avenge him. He became like his brother's murderer. His survival method is also trying to make himself seem harmless, not with polite smiles or clever distractions but with tears. The only reason he didn't meet the same end as the other two is that he managed to stay out of the public's eye, and because his reputation was unstained from the beginning. Although I should note that he is Nie Mingjue's half-brother, which might hint at a more complicated heritage, more similar to that of the other two, than one would suspect at first glance. But whether that's the case or not, the point is that nobody would call nhs a bastard, and that means that people will overlook certain things he does that have condemned the other two to death.

That's what makes them such great narrative foils. In the end all three of them are cheating, but nhs had better cards to begin with.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #wwx did most things out of love while jgy did most things to get ahead in life #but jgy went out of his way to help people he loved too #given his childhood his goals are not less noble than the other two's just because they're selfish #most of the things jgy did he was forced to do or genuinely saw no other choice. and most of them he doesn't regret #but also #why should he have helped lan xichen. then a stranger. when he was fleeing the destroyed cloud recesses #qin su would have suffered more than him if they had not married #call me lan xichen the way i will apologize for yao-mei's crimes #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mxtx #my meta

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whetstonefires · 9 months

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Hey you said something about the my hero academia creator being unhinged about sexism, do you mind explaining?

I tried to write like, a thorough explanation of this and it just got longer and longer and longer and I have not touched this series in actual years and yet I've still got all these receipts a;lkjk;lfasd.

So rather than trying to build the whole massive case, here's a pared-down version. It's normal to have sexism in media, and shounen manga especially. Everyone does it. The level and mode and intentionality and so forth all vary, but of course it's there.

What's not normal is to have lots of varied and interesting female characters with discernible inner lives, and on-page discussion of how sexism is systemic and unjust and holds them back in specific ways, and then also deliberately make consistent sexist writing decisions even where they don't arise naturally from the flow of the narrative.

Horikoshi is actively interested in gender and sexism, he's aware of them in a way you rarely see outside of the context of, you know, fighting sexism. He is hung up on the thorny issue of what women are worth and deserve and how power and respect ties into it. He genuinely wants, I think, to have Good Female Characters, and not be (seen as) A Sexist Guy!

But. He doesn't actually want to fight sexism. He displays a lot of woman-oriented anxieties, and one of the many churning paddlewheels in his head seems to be that he knows intellectually that morally sexism is bad, but emotionally he really feels like it ought to probably be at least partly correct.

There are so many things I could cite, and maybe I'll get into some of them later, but the crowning item that highlights how the pattern is 1) at least partly conscious and deliberate and 2) about Horikoshi's own weird hangups rather than simply cynical market play, is Mineta Minoru.

The writer has stated Mineta is his favorite character. Mineta is also designed to be hated--that is, he is a particularly elaborate instantiation of a character archetype normally deployed to soak up audience contempt and (by being gross and shameless and unattractive and 'unthreatening') make it possible to include a range of sexual gratification elements into the narrative that would compromise the main characters' reputations as heroic and deserving, if they were the actors.

Good Guys don't grope girls' tits and run away snickering in triumph, after all. Non-losers don't focus intense effort around successfully stealing someone's panties. Nice Girls don't let themselves be seen half-dressed. And so forth. You need an underwear gremlin for that. So, in anime and manga, longstanding though declining tradition of including such a gremlin, for authorial deniability.

Horikoshi definitely uses him straight for this purpose, looping in Kaminari as needed to make a bit work. And yet he has Feelings about the archetype itself.

The passages dedicated to the vindication of Mineta, then, and the author's statements about him, let us understand that Horikoshi identifies with the figure of the underwear gremlin. He understands the underwear gremlin as a defining exemplar of male sexuality, at least if you are not hot, and finds the attached contempt and hostility to be a dehumanizing attack on all uh.

Incels, basically.

It's not fair to write Mineta off just because he's unattractive and horny (and commits sexual harassment). Doesn't he have a mind? Doesn't he have dreams? Doesn't he have human potential?

So what's going on with Horikoshi and gender, as far as I can figure out, is that he knows damn well that women are people and are treated unjustly by sexist society, but however.

He also understands the institutions of sexism as something protecting him and people like him from life being nebulously yet definitively Worse, and therefore wants to see them upheld.

So you get this really bizarre handling of gender where obviously women's rights good and women cool, women can be Strong, and the compulsory sexualization imposed by the industry isn't them or the author, and so forth.

But also it's very important that in the world he controls, women never win anything important or Count too much, and that jokes at their expense that disrupt the internal logic of their characters are always fair game, that women asked about sexism on TV will promptly get into catfights amongst themselves, and they are understood always in terms of their sexual and romantic interests and value, and sexual assertiveness and failures to perform femininity well enough are used to code them as dangerous and irrational, and that the sexy costumes are requisite and will never be subverted or rebelled against--at most they might be circumnavigated via leaning into cute appeal.

And that Yaoyorozu Momo, who converts her body fat into physical objects, is being frivolous when she wants to use money to buy things instead (rather than as sensibly moderating her Quirk use) and is never encouraged to eat as much as possible at every opportunity to put on weight and even shown being embarrassed by hunger (even though Quirk overuse gives symptoms that suggest she's been stripping the lipids out of her cell walls or nervous system to keep fighting) and always, no matter how many Things she has made, has huge big round boobies.

#ask #hoc est meum #beastenraged #bnha #sexism #i think i got the main points here #just getting lost in the weeds of subsidiary arguments and supporting evidence was destroying me #i don't need to do those this is fandom on the internet #and not even a serious level of that #meta #mineta minoru #yaoyorozu momo #honestly psychologically pretty interesting #it's like he keeps saying 'look i know sexism bad but I Need It'#someone tell him that the patriarchy is exploiting him too and we can all achieve liberation together #this is the same mechanism that upholds white supremacy among the poor #'my life is so bad already the idea of liberating those below me and having to share the crumbs with them is horrific'#ESPECIALLY if i know they're worthy and lots of them are better than me #injustice is the only thing keeping my head above water!#he's also fishing for vindication ofc #but it's wild to see how he'll put in the groundwork that would let him do something gender-egalitarian with his themes #and then opt not to #despite having done the hard part already #idk how much that's making a statement and how much it's just 'this Feels Right'#but as a pattern it murdered me

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mewtwo24 · 2 months

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Not to be That Guy but like.

Am I the only one that can't stop thinking about how Tianlang-Jun says about Luo Binghe that he pretends to be cold-hearted like his mother. The hint of fondness there, the heartache in that utterance.

Like it drives me absolutely insane. Imagining her putting on a front of strength, cold and driven and unrelenting. Why does TLJ say that about her. Did she secretly look for solutions that meant reconciling with demons instead of hurting them when her sect wasn't looking? (I wonder this because I feel like his weird fondness for SQQ would lowkey track if it's connected to the woman he once loved.) Did he mean that she was tasked with basically assassinating him and she fell in love with him instead (re: failed step one)? Did he mean that she was fond and doting in her own way (e.g. conceding he was attractive, paying for his exploits and humoring him)? Did he mean that, like LBH, she thought that power would be the thing to protect her--and that it was disguising a person who was deeply and privately wounded? All four????? I don't need sleep I need a n s w e r s

Did she know about the Huanhua Palace Master's skeevy ass intentions before she met TLJ? Or did those only come to significant light after she fell in love with TLJ? Is that why she never anticipated that level of betrayal, because initially she had no intention of being with anyone romantically? And HHPM just assumed she would be under his thumb forever?? Was she furious at her own indiscretion or did she try to use the pregnancy as a bargaining chip, a way to try to stop the immortals of Cang Qiong Mountain from attacking TLJ (plus the bonus of marriage entrapment no takesies backsies this is where LBH gets it from)? Did she try to use that claim on her to dissuade HHPM from his covetous advances, framing herself as tainted so that she could finally escape? Did she dream of a life by TLJ's side, far away from Cang Qiong Mountain?

Like. Literally every single permutation of what this could mean guts me to hell. Do you ever just cry about tianxi because I--[loud bawling noises]