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ruporas · 1 year

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comfort

[ID START: Illustration of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun: Maximum. Wolfwood is holding Vash’s head to his chest, his right hand resting gently over his ears and his left hand againtst Vash’s nape. Wolfwood looks at him melancholically as he soothes him. Vash’s eyes are shut, small tears at the corner of his eyes, asleep, and his right hand is holding onto Wolfwood’s arm. Feathered and plant wings are growing out of him, enveloping the both of them like a cocoon, leaving enough space for their heads and arms. The feathered plant wings takes up most of the canvas, colored in dark and muted blues. END]

#vashwood #vash the stampede #nicholas d wolfwood #trigun #trigun maximum #it is crazy that like. we've seen wolfwood be so God damn afraid and fearful in the most humane way possible towards vash and his #otherworldliness... but he more or less is like ok this guys a freak but whatever. needle noggin is needle nogging after the #remembrance of july arc. also the fact he can hold a gun to the back of vash's head and not tremor in fear #vs how he held a gun to knives and already felt like he was dead.#i can't word it properly but just the manner in how wolfwood gets used to the parts of vash that used to make him view him as someone #completely different and shaping that into someone he now understands on a deep level.#he loves him so much #ruporas art

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shima-draws · 8 months

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Kieran has me in a chokehold. His character arc is so GOOD. You can tell that his bitterness and anger doesn’t just come from everything that’s happened to him recently. It’s pretty obvious that he’s been living in Carmine’s shadow for a LONG time and she’s always kinda treated him badly. But it wasn’t until the player character came along that he was finally able to voice that in his own way;; Just when he thinks he’s made a true friend in someone, someone that can and will stand up to his sister and is able to defeat her in battle (which inspires him to start speaking up for himself more), Carmine steals them away. And that’s a big betrayal to him. He clearly has self esteem issues which leads to him thinking that Carmine was talking shit about him behind his back and getting the player to believe that he wasn’t worth being friends with. And that makes him think both of them were laughing at him and making fun of him. And THEN the player goes and takes the last thing that Kieran has, the last thing he truly cares about: Ogerpon. It’s no wonder he got so frustrated and petty and lashed out 😭 Still breaks my heart to see but they did a really good job showing that progression of him losing more and more of his patience with Carmine. And him generally feeling like everything he cares about is being torn away. And losing to the player over and over just makes things WORSE. He’s not strong enough to beat them, he’s not strong enough to stand up to his sister, he’s not strong enough to be worthy of Ogerpon, he’s not strong. He needs to get stronger. Stronger and stronger and stronger.

GODDDD. He’s going to live rent free in my brain forever now. I can’t wait to see the direction they take with him in The Indigo Disk

#Pokemon #Pokemon SV spoilers #Pokemon Scarlet and Violet #Pokemon DLC spoilers #Kieran #The Teal Mask #Pokemon Kieran #Pokemon SV #Ogerpon #Pokemon Carmine #Also don’t even get me started on his unhealthy attachment to Ogerpon. Probably also due to Carmine and his general upbringing and behavior #AND how he starts to view Ogerpon as more of a tool/object than a living being #When Carmine was like ‘Bro you’re fighting over who gets to keep Ogerpon? Don’t you think you should let OGERPON choose??’#He wasn’t being considerate to Ogerpon’s feelings at all 😭#He probably thought that by getting to keep Ogerpon he’d gain back some sense of control. And also power over the player #God my poor poor boy. I hope things resolve for you in TID #Shima speaks

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ninicaise · 5 months

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what's so refreshing about will as a character is that he doesn't throw a denial tantrum about it at any point like most characters with Darkness Within Them do. he's not a moral paragon, his angst and secretkeeping don't get annoying at any point. and i think it's because there's no contrast between who will Really Is, which is Good and True, and the dark king as his shadow or his dark self.

will is the dark king. he behaves like the dark king. he lies and he manipulates and he's a "sneak" and he's scaringly charming and he's possessive over james and a ton of other messed up shit and he tells himself it's for a good reason, and maybe it is!! and will is clearly you know. a Good Person. while his methods are sneaky, he does not actually do anything wrong. but those are his methods still, and they are cool moments and badass and also kind of eerie.

with the way he's written, i would argue will doesn't have or even need a corruption arc, he's just like that from the get-go and he's not gonna change. and i don't mean he was born evil or whatever other bullshit i mean that he was born a full person, including the dark king and will both, and there's complexity, but no clear line separates them.

#it's fascinating truly #i'm really glad we get a more full view of his psyche in dark heir even if there's a lot of stuff he's repressing #dark rise #dark heir #dark heir spoilers #will kempen #and maybe. i won't even agree with this by the time the 3rd book comes out #and that's rlly frustrating bc i hate not having the full picture of anything before i have an opinion #but that's part of the fun of it i guess

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die-rosastrasse · 3 months

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I love you bad art, I love you amateur art, I love you self learning, I love you cheap art supplies, I love you journals, I love you crafts, I love you art available for everyone, I love you second hand art and objects, I love you free museums, I love you handmade gifts, I love you childish drawings, I love you art that nobody ever saw except for the artist, I love you taking time to learn a skill, I love you art history, I love you free tutorials, I love you art as a school subject, I love you things that took a long time to make, I love you art studies that are considered useless, I love you the human need to create and change the world around you to be more beautiful and more meaningful.

I hate you AI art, I hate you generated content, I hate you singe-use images, I hate you mindless consumption, I hate you stealing from artists, I hate you reposting without sources, I hate you lying about using AI, I hate you pretending like art is something unachievable and reserved only for the chosen ones.

Make art!! Make "bad" art that is actually special because you took the time to make it. Make art for yourself that you show no one. Make art for others that they'll cherish forever. See how your whole world changes, see how you start noticing beautiful and inspiring things all around you. Make things with love and devotion. Fuck AI.

#I had to get this off my chest seeing more and more blogs posting untagged AI on purpose and people falling for it #why would you care about “art” that nobody cared enough to make?#I'm seeing the world going more and more towards the mindless consumption of images instead of art and I'm... scared #I'm scared for the future of artists and art history #anyway #sorry for the rant but this is something I feel deeply about #And if you're posting AI images that aren't tagged or captioned because you know you'll get more views by tricking people.... fuck you #and I hope you'll get banned from the internet forever

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alevens · 3 months

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zolu is maybe one of the easiest ships i've ever liked. they're dating, except when they're not, they're best friends even when they're kissing and they're still captain and first mate when they aren't. they hold hands, they hug. they have sex. they don't.

Luffy can hold Zoro's katanas and Zoro can hold Luffy's strawhat and no one bats an eye. one says "You're so cool!" and the other says "You're strong" and it's just another way to say "I see you, this is why I follow you/this is why I trust you". it's not seeing each other for a long time and still knowing how the other's steps sound like against wood and sand. the captain runs and the first mate follows. it's always "Zoro and the others" and "Where's Luffy?"

if they're just friends, if they're something more, if they don't have a label for it, at its core, it's just about how they get each other. they understand how the other's mind works. however you view them, it doesn't erase they fact that they love each other in a way they don't love other people.

#zolu #on why i love zolu #seeing the hate its gotten on its own tag #i figured i'd put it on my two cents #i am aroace and i do hc Luffy as aroace #the same for Zoro if i'm honest #but the thing about this hc is that not only it isn't canon #but is an actual spectrum #what really made me pause was that the argument was that zolu was an “icky” ship bc of how they viewed Luffy as aroace #i would have prefered they just said they hate the ship #it makes sense as i do too hate ships without reason sometimes #but it was how they seemed to view aromatic/asexual people that fucked me up #both orientations are spectrums #the way i see it and experience it isn't the same other people do #giving this label and then saying it only woks on one way is disrespectful to the many people that fall under this umbrella #it isn't as simple as saying “aromantic folks can't experience love” and “yeah ace folks all find sex disgusting”#everyone is different everyone has different views and it's about finding what fits *you* personally!#sorry for the rant on tags i just wanted to get it off my chest #i've seen more people explain it better and break it down more coherently #and i'm so so glad to see so many big brained people ready to communicate on why that take just wasn't it #one piece

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starry-bi-sky · 4 months

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I am procrastinating homework and finals studying so I'm making another DPxDC au -- or more accurately, I am making an au of an au. or combining two aus to make a third one, because I am Procastinating And thinking about it.

(the part two for my Danny is Jason Todd au is like,,, half-made and I will get around to finishing it, promiiissse)

So the two aus I had in mind were combining, of course, the two clone aus - the Danny Clone and the Damian Clone au. For folks who haven't seen either posts (or saw one but not the other) here are summaries of both:

Damian Clone Au: The LoA make a clone of Damian Wayne specifically to either kill Damian Wayne and have the clone take his place as the heir to the LoA, or to bring him back. At 6 years old though and through magical teleportation mishaps, Baby Damian ends up in the warehouse district of Amity Park and picked up (and later adopted) by Danny Fenton. They develop a brotherly dynamic with one another.

Danny Clone Au: Danny is straight up a clone of Bruce Wayne, doesn't find out until a year after he has his accident. And, for the fun of it, is also mostly-powerless (he retains his ghost sense and a semblance of a ghost core and signature, but no ghost form). His reasoning for becoming Phantom is because he has walked into the lab watching his parents dissecting ghosts post-portal working more times than he can count. And due to this, changes his beliefs from "ghosts are evil" to "ghosts are sentient and sapient beings who don't deserve this treatment". (masterpost pinned on my blog, its currently incomplete) He is also a little GNC, as a treat. Long-haired Danny ftw. Ellie is a halfa because of the ectoplasm that Vlad used, and also the same age as Danny. They call each other twins and she is viciously protective of him. He uses a baseball bat and brass knuckles that I call 'jawbreakers' to fight ghosts.

Now admittedly, not much probably changes with the combination of these aus other than the potential parallels between Damian and Danny, and Bruce and Damian - and of course, I am always a sucker for parallels. Plus Damian's running off would take Danny finding him much longer, since he can no longer fly, but all the more meaningful because he still took so much time to find him.

(It probably also makes their first meeting different as well - Danny wears a ROTTMNT Casey Jones Jr. esq. mask when he goes out, but Damian would recognize lazarus green anywhere. He'd probably try harder to kill him though once he sees his face, since he knows that its not his father but an imposter.)

It also includes what I consider a hilarious conversation: "Since I'm a clone of Bruce Wayne, does this make me your dad or your brother?" "Don't be an idiot, laeazir." "You didn't answer my question."

The biggest change that comes from this is, of course, the fact that Danny now no longer has a leg to stand on with the "you're a human, I am a ghost" excuse in order to prevent Damian to help him with ghost-fighting, because now Danny is also a squishy, fleshy and fragile human just like Damian. And a human who, arguably, has less combat training than Damian and no powers to make up for it.

Now, Danny in both aus are about 16-17-ish in age, so they've had time to adapt to their new vigilante-hero lifestyle, but its still not the same as Damian's training as an assassin. Damian, unlike in the original clone au, remains insistent on his want to help Danny.

And,,, eventually wears him down after weeks or months of sneaking out after him, helping in fights, interfering, arguing, etc. Danny eventually agrees, exhausted, but he makes Damian promise, promise, that he will be careful and to focus on dodging and distraction. At least until Danny can figure out a safer alternative. He wants him as far removed from the fight as he can, he's a child for ancient's sake, after all.

Which is another issue too - if we follow Damian Clone timeline, then Damian is six years old when this happens. I'll be point blank, I do not see Danny ever actually agreeing to let a literal 6 year old go with him. SO, solution, I bump Damian's age to 7 when he arrives in the Fenton Family, and make him freshly eight years old when he finally gets Danny to agree.

It still SUCKS. He is still very much an itty bitty child, but as someone who has seen the difference between a six year old and an eight year old due to working at a daycare, an eight year old is still... slightly feasible. And an 8 year old assassin even more so (even if he hasn't trained properly in nearly a year or so)

So Danny, reluctantly, agrees to let Damian come with him on patrols.

He ghost-proofs Damian's sword (as he has since learned to do with his bat and jawbreakers), makes him a grappling hook and a Fenton thermos, and reluctantly lets Damian come with in his old LoA uniform that he appeared in (with some tailoring and ghost-proofing, because he has since begun to grow out of the uniform).

(and Danny himself also finally starts looking into alternatives to improve his own "suit" - which is all but a hoodie and reinforced jeans and a hockey mask. He needs to set an example to his little brother, goddammit.)

Then, as they're planning for Damian's eventual (dreaded on Danny's part) debut, they sit in their shared room and brainstorm for what to call Damian. "Ellie already uses the name Spirit." Danny says, sitting criss-cross at his desk with the eraser nub of a pencil chewed between his teeth.

(Behind him he has an investigative corkboard set up -- his accident left him with the ability to see ghosts not capable of being seen on the visible plane. 'Stereotypical' ghosts. Between school work, his social life, and ghost fighting, some of his downtime is spent figuring out ways to help them move on. His most recent is a cold case.)

(Bc with Danny, I loove to have him have some sort of trait that ties him in with his original counterpart. Nature vs Nurture and all that. Investigative work can be part of that.)

"What about Wraith?" Damian suggests from the floor, leaning against the bed frame while he goes over one of his english books. They've been practicing his reading and writing.

Danny furrows his brows. "A ghost seen typically shortly after or before someone's death?"

Damian nods. "Yes, it's of a similar cadence to 'Batman and Robin'."

"What's with you and your thing with Batman and Robin?" Danny asks with a playful half-smile, Damian shrugs and looks at his books. Danny sticks the eraser back between his incisors. "Phantom and Wraith... that works, though."

The first night out together, Danny fusses over Damian, making sure every bit of uniform was secured and in place -- something Damian took mild offense over. His outfit was far more reinforced than the juvenile get-up that his older brother wore.

But he let him fuss anyways. It made him loved.

"Now remember, Wraith--"

Damian interrupts him: "Yes, I know, Dany. Avoid and distract. Stay situationally aware. I fear that is something I should be telling you, however. Mother would have your head if she ever saw what your training was like."

(It was, not for the first time, that Damian wondered how his,,, "mother",,, would react if she ever met Danyal. Not good, he knows.)

Danny's shoulders sag, and he sighs. "I believe that, what with that super-secret spy--"

"Assassin."

Danny sends him a half-hearted chagrined look, "Assassin," he corrects, "organization that made you. I'm sure I'd give your mother an aneurysm." When he's finally okay with whatever make-believe issues he found with his suit, Danny reaches for the nearby side table and carefully slips on a black domino mask over Damian's eyes. It was thin, flexible, and made with some kind of material that Danny reassured was environmentally safe.

("Some kind of matieral that Wayne Industries invented awhile ago, Sam bought it for me." Danny told him when he first showed it to him.)

It was also cold. But the chill was made up for, slightly, with Danny's warmer hands smoothing it out over his skin, and ridding of any ridges that could form. Damian isn't sure entirely what Danyal did to keep it stuck onto his face, but when he touches it with his fingers he feels a very faint seam at the edge, and it doesn't budge against his hands. It felt like a second skin.

"There we go." Danny smiles, pulling his hands back. He still looks nervous. "It's not the same as my hockey mask," which sat atop his head, ready to be pulled down, "but I think a domino mask will work better for you considering your background."

He was right, a hockey mask would only hurt Damian's peripheral vision. This mask was thin enough that it didn't.

"Ready to go, Wraith?"

"After you, Phantom."

+++

Damian has much issue with Danny's suit. He can think of a million ways to make it better. It is one of the things he and Samantha Manson can get along with, and the few times they have spent time together they have brainstormed suit ideas. He knows that since Danny took him on as Wraith, he has started to look into better suit alternatives.

However. They are both aware of the same thing:

Danny is not Batman, nor Superman, nor Wonder Woman, nor Aquaman, or the Flash, or Green Arrow, or Nightwing, or any single hero on the public roster. He is also not rich like Lex Luthor or Vlad Masters or Bruce Wayne himself.

He has no money and no contacts, and thus, no way of properly improving his suit to be something even half as safe as the other supers.

And he refuses to let Samantha Manson help him find a way to fix that - even with all that money, Samantha Manson is on an allowance from her parents, and also, despite her other range of abilities, not capable of getting those materials without putting herself on a list of some sort. They are at a standstill.

Damian knows this, because he has asked.

Until one day when Danny is talking about a case he is working on and telling Damian about old adventures he had in the Ghost Zone, does he see his brother get hit with a lightbulb.

He slaps a hand against his forehead and straightens up from his swivel seat. He huffs a laugh, "Of course! Why didn't I think of it sooner?" And he turns on his heel and hurries to his bookshelf, pulling down a notebook and flipping open to an empty page.

Damian frowns, "Laeazir?"

"I know you don't like my suit, Damian," Danny says, striding over to his desk and snatching a pencil out of a cup. He begins jotting something down on the notebook. "And there's nothing I can really do about it because, well, I'm poor in comparison to my facesake, and I don't have the resources to get my hands on someone who would make me a new suit."

"Yes, we have talked about this..." Damian nods slowly, still frowning, and trying to follow his brother's line of reasoning.

Danny shoots him a megawatt, half-tilt smile, his hair tied up into a half-bun. "But! I was thinking about it from the wrong angle. I don't have the living resources to help me get a suit, but..." he trails off, staring at Damian intently.

It dinged in Damian's brain to where he was going, "But you have the undead resources instead." He says, his eyes widening slowly. Of course, of course! Danyal was ridiculously charismatic by accident, and Damian has seen plenty of times where his heart-of-gold had one or two non-hostile ghosts be incredibly grateful to him.

His brother makes a loud, 'ding-ding-ding!' sound, pointing his pencil at Damian as his smile stretches further across his face. In a few quick strides, he was sat down next to Damian and showing him his notebook. "Correct! When I first started out as Phantom a few years ago, I managed to help a ghost who called herself Taylor, and apparently she was a seamstress both in and out of life."

Damian watches as Danny writes the name at the top of the paper, and creates bullet-points down the page. "She said that in return for saving her, I should come find her in the Ghost Zone if I ever need clothes made for me. It's a one-time thing, but I was thinking that she could perhaps help make me a new suit."

Danny turns a bit pink at the ears, and rubs his neck, "I never thought much of it because I didn't think I'd ever go into the Ghost Zone, or ever need ghost clothes, so I forgot about it up until now."

A scoff forces itself out of Damian's mouth, but he is smiling. "Danyal, you are the smartest idiot I have ever met."

For the next hour, both he and Danny make a bullet point list of what both of their suits would need. Reinforcement in certain areas, gauntlets with reinforced knuckles to replace Danyal's jawbreakers. A different weapon than a bat.... a utility belt, reinforced boots. Anything they could think of.

It was Damian's idea to add a cloak to both of their suits, asymmetrical and torn at the edges for a more 'ghostly' look. They have a theme, after all. It's quite fun.

Then Danyal calls up Sam for help in drafting up design ideas. And while Danyal steps mostly to the side when it comes to the design itself, Damian and Sam fill pages with designs until coming up with one they both agreed on and like.

"What about a lightning bolt on the chest?" "Why are we using my traumatic accident as a symbol of my identity?" "Ghosts do it all the time, Danny. Ember sings about her death." "I'm not dead?" "No that won't work, Manson. Shazam already has a giant lighting bolt emblem." "Okay, but I still want to use it somewhere." "How about this?" "...That could work. Okay, now onto your emblem--"

Last was the hard part: getting into the Ghost Zone without the Fenton parents noticing the disappearance of their precious Fenton Specter Speeder. They employed Jazz's help with that. She would get the Fentons out of the house long enough for him and Danny to get into the ghost zone, hopefully find the seamstress, and cash in that favor.

They went through with their plan that following weekend. Danny tossed Damian a small jumpsuit as they both climbed into the specter speeder, but did not grab his own. He had a small duffle bag on him that he threw under the seat.

"What is this?" Damian asks, nose scrunching up at the gaudy picture of Jack Fenton's face square at the center of the chest. He held it far away from it, as if it had a disease.

"Your hazmat suit." Danny replies, settling himself into the driver's seat as the door hissed shut and he began turning it on. He had some sort of gas mask on in his lap, too small to fit Danny's head, but certainly the right size to fit Damian's. "Normally you wouldn't need it since you'd stay in the speeder, but we're both getting out once we find Taylor. It's to protect you from the ectoplasm."

A scowl forces itself across Damian's face, "You don't have one." He points out, finding seat in the passenger chair next to Danny. His arms cross over his chest, and he was not pouting.

Danny looks at him amusedly, "I have enough ectoplasm in my body that I don't need one, you however, do not." He retorts, poking a finger into Damian's ribcage pointedly. "If you don't put it on now, you'll put it on when we find Taylor."

Damian's scowl deepens, feeling petulant as he sunk into his chair. Danny turns back to the console and flips a few more switches. "I will not, it looks ridiculous." He turns it around to show Danny the Jack Fenton Face.

The Specter Speeder hums to life, and there's a moment of turbulence as it lifts off the ground. While it does, Danny turns back to him blankly, stares at the emblem, and then reaches forward and yanks it off with a scriiiiich of the emblem. He crumples it up with one hand, and throws it into a small bin at his feet.

"There, fixed." He smiles. Then turns back to the controls, taking the yoke with both hands. "And I'm calling Dad Rights; you will put it on when we find Taylor or you'll stay in the speeder."

Damian sputters, sitting up incredulously. "You are not my father." He argues.

"Teeechnically, I am." Danny says, "I'm a clone of your father, and since I am fully his clone, that makes you my son by a technicality." He says cheerfully, pushing the specter speeder forward and into the swirling green portal.

Before Damian can retort, they're passing through the portal. This was his first time going into the Ghost Zone, and for a few seconds there was nothing but bright, swirling green filling his vision. His body felt like it was being twisted and pulled, his up and down reversing and returning. It was painless, but dizzying.

It only lasts for a few seconds, but it feels like a minute, and when they exit out the other side, Damian is holding his head while his vision spots and swims. Internally, he felt like those cartoon characters when their eyeballs rolled around in their head.

The dizziness fades away slowly, and as Damian regains his sight, he notices Danny's hand splayed over his sternum, gently keeping him pressed against his seat. It fell away when Danny saw that he was alright.

"Put your seatbelt on," Danny orders, nodding to his chair. Damian listens absently, before remembering their conversation before they went through the portal.

"That is not how it works." He scowls, and, annoyingly, only gets a challenged eyebrow raise from Danny. He could see the words written on his face without Danyal ever having to say it.

Because, dangit, he was technically right. Damian refuses to say this aloud. He screws his jaw shut, and crosses his arms back across his chest.

Danny chuckles under his breath, and turns his eyes back to the ghost zone. "My point still stands, either you wear the suit, or you don't leave the speeder."

"Fine."

+++

They eventually find where the seamstress is. Through quite a lot of Danny stopping to ask questions with any friendly ghost he came across, they eventually locate an island with a strange, urban city bustling with life on it. Massive, rocky stalagmites grew from the ground, and buildings were built on top of it or around it, with strange, warping architecture.

It was oddly beautiful.

Danny parked the speeder on the side of the street with a two hour parking sign on a nearby post. As he turned off the engine, he flipped a switch on the console that darkened the windows. He unbuckles his seat, and stood up, stretching out his back with a deep groan.

"Alright, put your suit on. The windows are tinted, so nobody should be able to see into the speeder." He orders, pulling out the duffle he brought in earlier and unzipping it. He pulls out his hockey mask and the hoodie he wore out for patrol, and the notebook they'd been using to jot down ideas for their suit.

Danny even had the hindsight to write in their respective heights, and with Tucker's help, some of their measurements. While he did that, Damian sourly pulled on his hazmat suit, irritated by the need to wear it.

Unfortunately, he also had to wear the boots and gloves for 'extra precaution'. Damian nearly bites out a grumpy 'you're as paranoid as father', but holds his tongue. He wasn't going to tell Danyal that secret.

Once he was done and Danny has his hockey mask and hoodie on, Danny grabs the gas mask and helps fit it over Damian's face. It was a sleek, simple design, shaped similarly to a regular face mask, with little filters on both sides of the mouth and a clear, protective covering around the eyes and forehead. Danyal improved it from the original his parents made.

He was smarter than he gave himself credit for.

Danny checks, then double checks that it the mask is tight, then smiles. Patting Damian's shoulders before standing up fully. "Taylor's shop should be somewhere nearby." He says, grabbing the notebook and tucking it under his arm.

Damian nods, and follows him out the door and onto the busy streets.

Finding Taylor becomes remarkably quick now that they were inside her city - something that Damian silently wondered was based loosely off NYC. Danny kept a firm arm around Damian's shoulders the entire time they walked down the street, keeping the both of them on the inside sidewalk.

Barely anyone passed them a second glance, spare the few odd looks shot at Damian. Danny whispers to him the first time it happens that it's because he has no ghost core, those more attune to their signatures might've been picking up on it.

They didn't notice Danny, because he had one, albeit a weak one.

Taylor's shop has a big sign on it in logographic writing that Damian has no idea how to read. The text shifts slowly, a jambled squiggle of lines, dots, and connected curves that look like a mix of messy cursive, gibberish, and logographic alphabets. He only knows its Taylor's shop because Danny pulls them towards it, stating that it was the place.

"You can read that?" He asks, incredulous as they draw closer to the door. Danny moves his arm off his shoulder, and wraps his fingers around Damian's instead.

"Yep," He replies, then scrunches his nose up, "sort of. It's - uh--" he stumbles over a word that Damian's ears cannot comprehend, but fills his head with slight static regardless. Danny winces. "It's the written form of ghostspeak, but since I'm not a ghost, I can only read some of it. Like uh, dyslexia."

"...I see." Damian says after a moment of silence, trying to replay the word in his head. His mind can't grasp the sound.

When they enter, the door doesn't ding with the sound of a bell, but rather it makes a low scream. Nobody bats an eye to the sound, keeping to their slow search through the racks of clothes.

At the counter was a woman talking quietly to another woman, one of whom Danny recognizes, as he walks over to her.

He doesn't need to say anything, because the woman behind the counter sees him coming, and her face positively lights up with delight. "Phantom!" She cries, and gestures to come over. "I was wondering when in the high ancients you were going to come see me!"

Danny's face is obscured by his mask, but Damian knows he's smiling sheepishly with the way he tilts his head and the way he tenses his shoulders. "My bad, Miss Taylor," he says, reaching the counter and standing beside the woman she was talking to, "It kinda... slipped my mind."

Taylor waves her hand dismissively, "Well you are here now!" She replies, grinning wide. Then her eyes pop open - literally - and she puts a hand over her chest. "Oh, how rude of me!" She turns and gestures between Phantom and the lady next to him, "Miss Mabam, this is Phantom. I told you about him a couple of years ago. He saved me from humans. Phantom, this is Gigi Mabam, she funds my shop. In return I make clothes for her and her staff."

The 'Gigi' woman turns just as Danny does, and smiles wide at him. Damian narrows his eyes at her, shuffling behind Danny legs as he looked her up and down. She had silvery-white hair and purple skin, and wore a darker purple business suit, a red gem cravat at her collar, and teal cat-eye glasses.

There was a lot of purple.

"So this is the ghost-touched you were telling me about, dear!" The woman, Mabam, said. Her voice was rich and low but she spoke in a whimsical cadence. It made Damian's skin crawl, and his narrowed eyes turned into a glare. "I must thank you for saving my seamstress, it would've been quite a fizzy-wink if she had been lost to those ghosty hunters."

What were those nonsense words? Damian hated it.

"Miss Mabam here runs a five-star hotel nearby," Taylor explains, her body turned to Danny, "she also is in charge of the city's Battle Nexus."

Danny is silent for a moment, and his free hand lifts and places itself on the back of Damian's head, keeping him close. "Battle Nexus...?"

Mabam claps cheerfully, laughing low, "Oh yes! Ghosts from all around the zone come to attend and watch as their fellow haunties are ripped from limbity-limb in a blood-curdling battle!"

Danny is still as stone. "I see." He says, careful. Damian wraps his fingers around his pant leg. "Well, I hate to interrupt your conversation, but I was hoping to cash in that favor, Miss Taylor?"

"Of course! What do you need?"

Danny looks down at Damian, and he looks up at him, locking eyes with the ominous green glowing from the eyeslits of his mask. He nods, and Danny looks back up. "Do you know how to make suits? Of the protective kind?"

+++

The seamstress it turns out, is capable of such a thing. And she ushers the both of them into one of the backrooms, sending off Mabam with a farewell and a promise to continue their conversation soon.

She flips through their design book, and immediately gets to work making their suits. In the end, with the help of her powers, she gets both done over the span of four hours. It's longer than both Danny and Damian want, but neither rush her.

Damian just hopes that Jasmine can keep the Fenton parents distracted for that long. She will have to.

The suits are better in real life than on paper, and Damian preens from the side in his own custom suit as Danny examines his own in front of the three mirrors. They were both dressed in all black, but whatever fabric Taylor used was of a blackest-black, turning Danyal - and Damian's - bodies into a black hole to look at. Both of them were fitted for agility, with reinforced padding around their shoulders and chests, as well as around the joints of their legs. Their boots were reinforced as well.

("It was hard to make your boots shock absorbent," Taylor explains, "since we all fly, but I applied similar stuff to what I did with your shoulders and chestplate.")

On the side of Danyal's legs were raised, black, lichtenberg-like figures that were contained to the seams and disappeared under his boots. There were similar designs going up his sleeves, with spiked gauntlets wrapped around his lower arm and hands. The knuckles were reinforced, just like he wanted.

Damian's favorite parts were their capes, however. Black like the rest of the outfit, but "wrapped" around their shoulders like an apocalyptic shawl with a back that went down to their knees, and at the hems the capes were torn and ripped like a wraith. Danyal's mask had gone through very little change. It was made of a stronger material, and Taylor had gone and made it more skull-like in its shape, with three large grills at the front, and the sides curving inward below the 'cheekbones' of the skull to better fit his face. It was still shock white, the only white part of Danyal's entire costume.

Damian's suit was almost identical. However, rather than having the seams of his suit resemble lichtenberg figures, the seams of his sleeves and upper torso were that of a black skeleton, with bone-y designs over his gauntlets and the fingers an ombre of dark red-to-black. And around his torso were raised lines that looked similar to a ribcage. The edge of his cloak was splatter a dark red as well. And he had a new domino mask that looked similar to the upper half of Danyal's mask, with the outer edges curved downward over his cheekbones. He was briefly allowed to take off the upper part of his gas mask to try on the mask.

The best part however, was that since the suits were made of material native to the ghost zone, they could also be taken off quickly and hidden in a small artifact. It was magic, is what it was. Danyal chose earrings, and Damian chose a ring.

When they got back to the Fenton house, Jazz demands a box of chocolate for her hard work. Damian thinks that's only fair as Danny takes them both out to get candy for Jazz.

+++

But other than vigilante stuff, not else much changes. Danny gets to pull a "Dad By Technicality Rule" card over Damian when he's being a brat. Danny doesn't have his run in with Rift (a ghost who portals him into Gotham) until after he meets Damian/lets Damian join him on patrol and when they get new suits.

My reason? Because I want it to happen after that point in time lol. It also makes the eventual "heyyyyy you have a clone" @ bruce much funnier to me because not only does he have a clone of HIMSELF but also THAT clone has a clone of Damian living with him.

Also when Danny destabilizes for the first time Damian is terrified for his safety. The fentons are surprisingly good at cloning, Danny hasn't had any issues up until this point in time, and that's only because he got hit with a new gun from Skulker that messed up the ectoplasm he had in his dna, which in term fucked with his own DNA.

Danny's destabilization, imo, is not "I cast you with Melt" he's not Ellie, he's not made of 50% ectoplasm. His parents surprisingly knew what they were doing, and he was human. So his destabilization should be unique to himself and different. Thus his destabilization is "I cast you with Compromised Immune System" his body slowly weakens over time as his cells destabilize. He becomes unnaturally frail and sick. Damian calls Ellie for help when Danny doesn't get up after being hit in a fight that he normally, and Ellie helps figure out that he's destabilizing. This is whats gonna happen in OG clone au too, but Ellie is going to be there rather than Damian.

It makes going to Wayne Manor after that slightly more interesting,,,

#dpxdc crossover #dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #danny fenton is not the ghost king #danny fenton is a clone #damian clone au #i couldnt NOT describe their new suits. i just couldn't. they're leaning into the ghost culture of being scary as fuck looking #i feel a little cheesy for giving them magic jewelry that lets them hide their suits instantly #but i have to make up for danny's lack of ghost form SOMEHOW #damian just gets it too by association #if anyone is curious #Ellie's ghost form is identical to Danny's suit just the colors are inverted. so her suit is all white and her mask is all black #its not a starry au unless its got a read more #did anyone notice the Big Mama cameo from ROTTMNT #its because Danny's mask looks like Casey Jones Jr's mask from ROTTMNT without the red marks on the eyes #Danny and Damian's dynamic itches my brain #Danny: im calling Dad Rights - youre grounded #Damian: nnOOOO #also also. danny uses sign language if he's in view of the living since they could recognize his voice. damian does not yet know ASL #so thats on his 'languages to learn' list #although he is not seen by the public since he has school and ghost attacks happen around danny and not him #Red Huntress gives the Phantom so much shit when she sees his sidekick. Phantom tiredly explains that he had no choice - Wraith would have #come with anyways. truly a robin at heart.#“idc if you say no imma do vigilantism ANYWAY. i dont NEED ur permission” is robincore and bruce/danny going #“fine but i'm gonna make sure you dont DIE then”#clone^2

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lord-squiggletits · 2 months

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I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

#squiggposting #pharma apologism #i'm sure the doylist reason for the writing is just that pharma was a designated villain #so since he's a villain and 'crazy' it's fine for everyone even the good guys to treat him like complete trash #i just think from a watsonian perspective taking a sympathetic approach is way more interesting and logically consistent #what i mean is like. from a meta perspective one of the best ways to show that a character is super evil and not worth saving #is when even the good guy heroes. the ones who are supposed to be kind and compassionate and wise. see him as dirt #and this is also kind of a necessity in most plots bc TF is the kind of series that just needs action villains and long-term antagonists #so not every villain is written or has a plot to be made redeemable. and pharma is one of these bc he's not important or a legacy character #so from a doylist (meta) perspective you could read the autobots' disregard of pharma as a sign of #'this guy is not meant to have your sympathy as a reader. pay no attention to him'#but from a watsonian (in universe) perspective it paints a miserable picture of pharma being utterly forsaken by the ppl he served alongsid #and like yeah i'm super autistic about pharma so of course i view him with sympathy but like #the idea of being a loyal and good person for years only to be subjected to a Torment Nexus of #being blackmailed into breaking all of the oaths you held sacred. under threat of you and all your comrades dying horrible torturous deaths #then when your comrades find out about it they focus solely on the 'harvesting organs' and not on the 'blackmail' part #and then you get literally left for dead by your comrades and best friend hating your guts #and then you get rescued by a guy who uses you as a test subject for his evil machine #this is a fucking nightmare scenario like pharma could hardly be suffering more if the author TRIED to make him suffer #and for me it's like. the evil pharma did can't be decontextualized to what drove him to that. as well as the question of like #how easily ppl can write someone off as evil and turn a blind eye to (or even find satisfaction in) their suffering bc theyre evil #and either brought it on themselves or it's just karma paying a visit #like. i feel like if pharma WERE a shitty doctor and a terrible person his whole life then the delphi situation would feel like karma #but the way it's written and the lore retroactively put in makes it feel more pharma getting thrown in a torture carousel #and THEN becoming evil. but then being treated as if he was always evil or was some sort of bad apple #bc like i'm not opposed to LOLing when a villain gets a karmic torture/death related to the wrongs they committed #but in pharma's case it feels less like karma and more like endless torture + being abandoned by ppl who should have been more loyal

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likealittleheartbeat · 2 months

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I try to generally be constructive and engaged with the show I love on here, so on this day, I’ll just say that one of the most thematically important aspects for me from the original ATLA is Aang’s emotional core of real shame for running away when he was hurt by the monk’s decision to send him away. People who feel the kind of deep-seated shame that Aang feels from this decision can understand how that kind of all-encompassing shame is not built around a simple failure or a lie they tell themselves; it’s constructed from real misbehaviors and transgressions of their own sense of ethics—lashing out, telling lies, attempting to hurt others intentionally—that then have consequences (abuses, abandonments, or deaths) which seem to far exceed their expectations or even basic logic.

The combination of the misbehavior with exaggerated existential punishments (along with a lack of support and amend-making in the immediate wake of the events) is what transforms a sense of guilt (I fucked up) into shame (I am a forever fuck-up). Then shame, that sense of being a secret monster ‘no matter what I do or how good everyone thinks I am,’ invites all the avoidance strategies (Aang puts on big smiles, makes lots of jokes, constantly tries to make everyone happy, hops from town to town without building deeper connections). One doesn’t want to acknowledge one’s true feelings or let others in to see those feelings and experiences because it’s too painful to face the grief at the same time that you have to look at yourself for being responsible—even when you recognize it wasn’t totally your fault. It’s just that if you had just been good, less emotional, less human, then maybe the world wouldn’t be so messed up. Of course, in a zen view of things, the world will always be messed up in the same way it will always be beautiful. These are constant facts that always coexist in balance, and this is the truth that Aang learns and that undergirds the whole series.

So I always loved that Aang ran away. It was his sin and his salvation. And it becomes this constant tension for the series—he gets hurt in Bato of the Water Tribe and starts to run away from Katara and Sokka, he runs away to the Guru in the Crossroads of Destiny and his best friend is attacked, he and the gaang retreat after the Day of the Black Sun failure, he runs away to meditation in Sozin’s Comet when everyone wants him preparing for war. Aang’s reluctance to be a hero and the attachments and petulance for which he gets criticized are what metamorphasize to become his most noble attributes. They allow him to empathize with others shame and, ultimately, wield the kind of compassion that can deconstruct the power and perfectionism of imperialism.

So yes, Aang ran away from his temple 100 years ago. It wasn’t the mentally healthy choice. It wasn’t the ethical choice. It wasn’t the wise choice. It was human and emotional and shameful and real. Aang is a better character for it. ATLA is a better show because of it. And we are better people when we understand these kind of tragic emotional experiences that people are trying so hard to grow through.

#aanglove #vague posting about the nf adaptation lol #I won’t go off in my posts but I will in my comments #only 17 minutes in tbh #and already amazed at realizing how cool it was that the of series wasn’t told in a linear style lol #I do think the casting department went off for the nf series tho #the kid playing aang is so perf #and all the actors fit their parts so well #but the show doesn’t understand or seem interested in depicting colonial violence at alllll #and the language of the fire nation wanting to ‘take over the world’ is so much more marvel than a colonial rhetoric #and then aang just wanting to ‘go get some air’ to clear his head…😑#we aren’t allowed to have problematic protagonists anymore I guess #only people with perfect mental health strategies allowed in young adult fiction #because we view fiction from a moralistic standpoint now instead of an empathetic one #but 🤷🏻‍♀️

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