Young Justice is always a little...concerned. With Phantom's living situation.
Now they're outright afraid for him, and Bart has decided it's time to Ask An Adult.
It was the little quips. The tiny little things. Stuff that didn't seem to matter to Phantom at all, or appeared to be normal for him, that he didn't realize weren't normal at all.
"Oh, better not hope my mom catches me."
"Doing what, staying out past bedtime?"
"Nah, using my powers; she'd vivisect me!"
"Another stab wound. Great."
"Don't worry Phantom, I've got the med kit-"
"Oh, I'm not a baby or anything, I can handle it just fine. Just gimme a sec to take it out."
"My dad has better aim than that."
"...Like, when he's hunting, right?"
"...At what other times would he be shooting at me?"
"Huh. Not as bad as my parents place. Look; they have a decontamination shower!"
"Phantom, this lab has been vandalized to the point of needing a hazmat suit."
"Did I stutter?"
Finding out each others identities did nothing to soothe the worry. Tim quietly told the others that every time he tried to run facial recognition, he kept hitting a government firewall he couldn't breach. Phantom never told them his last name, just his first, and 'Danny' is super common.
The thing that really did it though, the thing that made Bart snap and run off to ask Max, was when Danny had a nightmare.
He was talking in his sleep.
"No. Don't-stop. Stoooop. I need...my skin. Mom, no. You can't...peel off...my skin..."
Bart didn't even wait for them to wake Danny up before he was standing in front of Max, talking a mile a minute as he tried to figure out what to do, with Wally staring in horror over a plate of waffles as he computed everything that Bart was saying.
~~~~~~
Danny had a dream about his mom and Skulker arguing about how to skin him. He wouldn't really call it a nightmare, because it was just Skulker, but the scariest thing was Skulker insisting to his mom that it was possible to skin him with a potato peeler. Dream mom was arguing that it was not, and that from a scientific standpoint that was a really piss poor way to preserve a specimen.
He hadn't been begging them to stop hurting him, he'd been whining at them to knock it off.
But when he wakes up, it's to a room full of worried friends and an old man who calls himself Max.
"Kid, I think we need to talk."
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BG3 OCs
Meet my various Tavs and Durges! Aune, the first on this list, is my very first Tav. I fell in love with her SO hard that there are two other AU/world-state/timeline versions of her — both durges; one Resist and one Embrace. This trio is the nearest and dearest to me and it shows through their very elaborate backstories & lore. I hope you enjoy learning a bit about them & the rest of the OCs!
(Alt. text available for all images, except for the dividers/spacers. Includes transcript of the text on the images, plus descriptive text.)
AUNE, the Sword-Dancer (tag | she/her | agender | half-drow | love interest: imyrr (dead), astarion | playthrough: completed)
bio: Aune was brought into the world via a ritual birth; one of great tragedy and bloodshed. When her Lolth-sworn mother found her newborn child lacking, Aune was abandoned on the streets of Menzoberranzan and was raised as a slave. She escaped to the surface in her young adulthood, possible only through the help of Eilistraee’s followers. Her life improved a hundredfold within the Church, but she still felt out of place — too abrasive, too cold, too self-serving. Things changed for the better after Aune fell in love with a fellow Eilistraeean warrior who challenged her worldview, but after just a year of bliss, she lost her lover to a violent death. Racked with grief and more lost than ever, Aune was in the midst of a 5-year long crisis of calling before being kidnapped by mind flayers…
AUNE, the Lady Carrion (tag | she/her | agender | half-drow | love interest: gortash gale astarion | playthrough: in progress, act 2)
bio: Though born through the same means as tav!Aune, Bhaal had a different fate in mind for Aune. At 15, durge!Aune kills her slave-master — freeing herself and unwittingly summoning her faithful butler, Scleritas. After years of living amongst Myconids in the Underdark, Scleritas finally convinces Aune to surface in Baldur's Gate and claim her birthright. Years later, she finds herself on a ravaged beach with very little memories — only a kinship with mushrooms, soil, and bones; a reverence for the boundary between life, death, and rebirth; and a restless craving for spilling blood.
AUN XORLARRIN, the Bloodsinger (tag | she/her | half-drow living as a drow | love interest: gortash, ascended!astarion | playthrough: not started)
bio: Aun was the fateful ritual child born to a zealous priestess of a Menzoberranzan House. She was the culmination of everything her mother had worked towards; a child with power and a destiny, one to be shaped and molded into a tool to serve her own ambitions. The secret of Aun's lineage — that she was a half-Drow — was carefully guarded, known only to a few. Aun was raised in the way of Lolthite women (to be cruel, cunning, and ruthless), but her blood ultimately called to a different deity. On her 17th birthday, Aun awakens.
She heeded the song that keened in her blood; it drew her ever southward to Baldur's Gate, sometimes in the company of a strange imp. Within just a few days of being on the surface, she meets a young man with dark, tired eyes and a pained smile; neither with any awareness of just how tightly woven their fates will become when they meet again years later, Chosen before Chosen.
LETHE, the Feylost (tag | they/he/she | genderfluid | tiefling | love interest: gale | playthrough: in progress, act 1)
bio: Somewhere in Faerûn, a wee tiefling is relinquished to the Fey. They grow up lonely and isolated in the Feywild under the care of an Archfey guardian whose attentions are few and far between.
Despite living a lifetime in a Plane so replete with magic, the tiefling had no skill for wielding it. One day, they are told by their guardian that they must return to Faerûn, a place they are unlikely to survive due to their many inadequacies. When the Archfey offers them a pact - powerful fey magic that they could use to fight and protect; fey magic that could make others love them - the tiefling accepts.
Lethe was strange, unsettling, and tricksy, as all fey-adjacent should be. Still, they spent their first year in Faerûn carving out a space for themselves — making a living performing in taverns, seducing strangers, and charming people before cleaning out their pockets. It was all going just fine until Lethe got yoinked up onto some nautiloid.
VIR, the Exiled Elturan (tag | he/him | tiefling | love interest: lae'zel | playthrough: in progress, act 1)
bio: Vir was born into an Elturan family of proud Hellriders and was expected to take up the mantle - especially by his mother, who had always desired to do so but could not because of her poor health.
By the time Vir is old enough to form memories, all that is left of the family is his mother and himself. The pair are of humble means, and as Vir ages, his mother grows sicker, and he becomes more disenchanted, eventually resorting to thievery to support the two of them - even as he simultaneously trains to join the Hellriders.
Inevitably, he is caught, and against all odds, escapes his severe punishment by fleeing the city; effectively now an exile.
In his exile, Vir makes a life of bounty-hunting while also becoming accustomed to the ways of the land and its creatures. He has a skill for it, and is mostly content with his new life; but he can't keep out the resentment he feels towards his mother, his city, and its protectors, who he feels utterly failed him. Or the guilt he feels for abandoning his mother - especially once Elturel is dragged into the Hells. He wrestles with the risk of reentering the city once it returns, but his decision-making is rudely interrupted by some illithids.
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