#((she doesn't know this ofc))

[starry-bi-sky]

this just in: danny fenton is just as much of a mask as Brucie Wayne? - another danyal al ghul au

Turns out, being placed in a civilian family who have no knowledge of your background is actually detrimental to the health and development of a child assassin due to lack of proper support! Surrounded by strangers in a foreign city, Danyal Al Ghul does as assassins do best. He hides. Espionage is one of many teachings one learns in the League, and it only takes half a day for Danyal to construct a new persona to hide behind: Daniel Fenton.

By the time dinner rolls around, Danyal al Ghul is safely and securely tucked behind the face of Danny Fenton; brand new adoptive child of the Fenton family who came from overseas. A shy, quiet little boy with a thick accent and curly hair, with brown skin and blue eyes, and an avid interest in the stars. The best fictions are always cobbled together in a little bit of truth, it's some of the only truth he ever lets through. He apologizes in a meek voice for his behavior early, he didn't mean to be rude, and he watches the three of them eat it up with coos.

Lies roll like silk against his lips, he struggles to meet their eyes and offers them his weakest, shyest smile. It's too easy. It's easy to go from there.

Danny Fenton, adoptive son, shy and awkward and unconfident but friendly. Who struggles in his classes and isn't the brightest, but tries his hardest. He makes bad jokes and has a quick tongue and a sarcastic mouth. He wants to be an astronaut. He's got the best aim in school, and is a terrifying dodgeball player. He's one of the least athletic kids in his grade.

It's like playing two truths and a lie, but there's only one truth, and the rest are lies. It's easy to pretend when he knows it's insincere.

Danyal Al Ghul, grandson to the Demon Head. Deadly, trained assassin. Has spilled blood, has had blood spilt from. Environmentalist, animal activist. He loves the stars. He owns a calligraphy set. A sharp tongue, an even sharper blade. He's clever, quick-witted, he would be top of his grade if he tried harder. He purposely doesn't.

He misses his family. He misses his mother, and he misses his brother. Mother visits a few times a year, so few times that he can count it on both hands. He cherishes every visit, as brief as they are. It helps remind him who he is.

Sam and Tucker are Danny's best friends. They've never met Danyal, but Danyal's met them.

It becomes routine to become Danny Fenton. As familiar and as easy as pulling on a shirt in the morning. Danyal wakes up and is always first to the bathroom in the mornings; stares at himself in the mirror until he can finally see Danny staring back at him. At night, he locks his door and sheds the mask.

Dying throws a wrench in his mask; splits a crack straight through the porcelain. He's able to smooth it over with sandpaper and liquid gold, but it's a little hard keeping his ghost form under wraps. It instinctively wants to shift to show his true self. Danyal can't have that, he's spent four years as Danny Fenton, he'll spend another four as him as well. Even if the feeling of the hazmat suit in his ghost form feels restrictive, like a too-small shirt suctioned to his skin that needs to be peeled off.

He'll live. Er-- well, you know what he means. It's frustrating however, trying to keep his Danny Fenton mask up even as Phantom - fighting in the air is something he needs to get used to, and the sudden propping of powers throws him off. But he is nothing if not adaptive, and he hates that he needs to slow his own skills down in order to keep pretenses up in front of Sam and Tucker.

The first time Danyal summons a sword when he's alone, is one of the few times Danyal gets to grin instead of Danny. He's fighting Skulker, and from an invisible hilt he draws a katana from thin air. It startles them both. Skulker takes a step back at the smile that spreads across his face.

They're both silent as Danyal examines his new sword.

"Do you know what people like me do to people like you, poacher?" Danyal finally asks him, the accent he began to hide a few months in slipping through. He drops all pretense, dragging the flat end of the blade slow and appreciatively against his palm. It's a good make, and when he cuts it through the air, it slices through like butter. He looks up at Skulker with a smile; "are you ready to find out?"

When Sam and Tucker ask about why Skulker seems so skittish around Danny now, Danny shrugs at them and says with a playful smile; "I don't know, I guess I kicked his butt too hard after our last fight." and he watches as Sam rolls her eyes exasperatedly, and Tucker snickers with his own joke.

By the time he reunites with Damian before their 15th birthday, Danyal is buried beneath so many layers of Danny Fenton that his brother will need a shovel to dig him out. He's not sure what he'll find.

[the-last-butter]

HC they first met a year or two after Yelan got her vision; post fighting the in abyss but when Kaeya was still navigating his identity from Kaeya, Brother and Right hand of Diluc Ragnvindr to Kaeya Alberich, Cavalry Captain and Quarter master of the Knights of Favonius.

[deeva-arud]

So, about that one AU that's been marinating in my mind for years

[ialwaysknewyouwerepunk]

the loneliness and sadness that creeps into you in a way that only growing up queer can cause. your parents can accept you and still make you feel like an outsider. your parents can love you and still reject parts of you. that old-fashioned kind of love where they think trying to mold you, make you tough, is better for you. or that quiet status quo where you just don't talk. and where everyone is accepted, though some are more than others. generations and generations it's just been easier to let it slide. to let it be. not cause a fuss. but then we sit there with a knot in our chests all our lives wondering how it got there

[spicypussywave]

glad to know Namtan is for the girls too. [source]

[dootznbootz]

How I'll be boogying to the Wisdom Saga if Penelope is not in it:

[caitlynmeow]

Cassandra has middle child privileges for sure!

Bela is the eldest so she has her responsibilities.

Daniela being the youngest is often tasked to do things because she’s the baby and everyone (Bela) gets to order her around

Cass doesn’t get bossed around (she’d fight Bela if she did) and has few responsibilities because she’s not the eldest.

[vakarianshepard]

sole survivor!shepard and ashley’s friendship is so important to me. two people who survived an impossible situation, lost almost all their friends, and just. kept going. neither of them really had time to mourn, to process anything. shepard shipped off to N training, and ash is reassigned to the normandy and it’s just go here, on to the next mission. you survived. you’re fine. so what if you don’t feel like you deserve this? so what if your “success” cost you your friends? you’re lucky. right?

no one really gets it, and people bring it up like it’s something you should be proud of. and you can’t really blame them, how could they know? you lived, that's impressive! no one understands what it feels like to be the last person standing, surrounded by the bodies of people you failed care about.

but shepard knows. ashley knows. they don't have to talk about it much, but it's nice to have someone who understands. who you can turn to with your doubts and your questions and your grief. someone who can hear you out and say "i've been there" and mean it. someone who knows WHY you have to push yourself, why you have to be good enough— you have to be worth the lives of all the people who died to get you where you are. (how far are you going to drive yourself? are you trying to be a martyr?)

but no matter what, one of them dies. even if it’s temporary in shepard’s case. the only other person who got it. another friend, gone. whether shepard loses ashley on virmire or ashley loses shepard on the normandy, one of them is left behind. ash outlives two of her closest friends only a few months after losing her entire squad.

it makes me think about foundation, where after ash talks to rasa/brooks, she remembers one of her squad telling her "luck is for the lonely." i really think that would be on her mind again after both virmire and the destruction of the normandy. sure, she keeps getting "lucky" but always being the last one standing is pretty damn lonely too.

[sincapjelly]

I wonder how it felt when Lilly gave birth to Cole and lost her powers right away. She was pretty young, and she probably had a different vision for herself as an elemental master, meaning she never got to have fun with her powers as much as she would like. She probably couldn't get enough of them.

I wonder if Lou was worried about her when she lost her powers. He has no idea how it must feel like, but he can guess some part of her feels empty now. He'd be so worried if with PPD she would be angry at Cole for taking her powers or feel hurt, because you know, even though in her right mind she was happy that he was her inheritor, you never know.

He finds her sighing sadly when she is taking care of their garden a few times, no longer feeling like a part of the earth below her. It no longer feels like they are one, and it's a very odd feeling, she can't say she likes it. And it took some time to finally get used to it too.

One night Lou wakes up, and she is not beside him. He wonders where she is, and finds her talking to baby Cole. She yaps to him, asks him about how she wonders it feels to him. How she heard that when elemental masters are too little to wield such magic, "the magic is around them and not in them", or something like that, whatever that means. So he probably isn't even aware of the connection between him and his element.

Lou listens to them. How she talks to the baby in a quiet, soft voice, how Cole sometimes makes happy, funny little sounds, how Lilly giggles between her words when he does that. Best of all, Lilly doesn't sound as sad. She sounds happy when she talks to the baby about their element. How she explains to him that she is sad about losing them, but it's okay because she chosed to give up on them. She will be okay, it's just gonna take a little longer to get rid of old mannerism.

[cxtxphile]

her name is ebony darkness dementia raven way but we call her ligeia

sandworm oc sorta?? theres a second half to this drawing but this looked too cunt to not post it on its own

[welcometogrouchland]

Noticing that TV and film will often have a character either have had an abortion in the past that isn't showcased on screen (and just used as part of the character's ~fucked up and twisted backstory~) OR contemplate getting an abortion in the present day but not to through with it. Just once I want to see someone delete that fetus within the events of the plot and not be like. Extremely majorly punished for it and/or be in the wrong

[invinciblerodent]

Replaying from the beginning, I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that Astarion actually expected us to not immediately clock that he's a vampire. And I know this has been said before, but it's so hilarious.

He's over there, thinking himself suave and secretive, with such decor as...

A clearly bloody glass cup sitting right in front of his tent, in a puddle of blood, as the very first thing you see

another bloody goblet at his feet, with stains that do not look anything like wine on his white carpet

jars of blood inside his open tent, complete with a very clear bloodstain on the pallet under his bedroll

this clearly labeled bloodbank jar, covered in bloodstains, just on the table right next to him

this veritable dinner table napkin covered in blood, and of course, the pièce de résistance,

the fucking mirror in clear view, angled perfectly so that if he wasn't a vampire, you should be able to see his ass in it in premier plan when approaching from the campfire.

Not only is he very clearly a vampire, but he's also an excessively messy eater, which honestly makes the fact that he is only revealed on the third night a downright humiliating admonishment of the party's collective intelligence.

(Though, armed with the knowledge that he cannot seem to keep blood in his mouth, there is also some real potential here for the first act of physical tenderness he experiences in centuries to be the player character just... absently wiping a drop of their blood off his chin with their hand after a feeding.)

[herefortheships]

One great thing that can come out of Beetlejuice 3 ending with Lydia and Betelgeuse married, is that they can continue the story as a show if they want to, later on. An animated show, is what I mean, about Betelgeuse, Lydia, and Astrid. I could watch an animated series about their little family getting into all kinds of Neitherworld shenanigans.

[brionysea]

if stranger things 5 comes out and they're like 'omg! the upside down has been a product of someone's dark and twisted mind this whole time! it's... WILL!' I'll immediately lose interest

[deanpinterester]

i know this is A Reach and possibly nitpicky but i think the prettification of the hunger games movies can be seen even in the small matter of katniss's hairstyle. what's described as a simple and practical braid in the books is now a fancy diagonal over-the-shoulder dutch braid in the movies (a braid that is neither functional when the purpose is to get your long hair out of the way, nor very quick/easy to do on yourself), and added to that is the fact that katniss has bangs, once again something that is very impractical when you consider that katniss hunts for a living and those loose hairs would not only be visually obstructive but would also get caught in the bowstring and yanked like hell every time she shoots. in the training sequence of catching fire you can literally see that the bangs are in her eyes. there's a reason olympic archers always have their hair tied up and tucked out of the way. if she were to have a dutch/french braid, the point of that would literally BE to get those shorter hairs out of the way. but since this is a hollywood movie of course they have to make their star have pretty hair that frames her face just so

[shadystranger]

Dean holds Sam and cradles his face from a place of "you're made for me. You're made of me, Sammy; it must be you. It'll never be anyone but you." And Sam goes mad over him to the point he cuts down pieces of himself to fit Dean: because he's the one thing Sam has guaranteed for himself. Dean provides a sanctuary to Sam (who's constantly othered) that's deposited as the sole refuge from perpetual alienation; it's the only home he belongs to, and he'll do anything to preserve it. (Which is why he literally seems and acts reminiscent of an estranged man when Dean is dead & is visibly lost)

When the Devil himself rises, Sam turns his eye away, finding priority in Dean's calling to him, it's the only thing that matters even though he just did the one irredeemable act man could ever do. But in this moment Dean takes the place of the never-present God, and through his unwavering acceptance of Sam it's a lifeline handed to him that enables Sam to preserve, Dean transcends his status as a brother or father and steps in to personify faith: the intangible unquestionable higher spirituality you appeal to to repent and push on. To some people, their guardian is the hanker they base their self around and the load bearing they fall back on; to others, it's their idol/passion, and to many, it's religion. Now imagine having all of these in one person. It's not crazy that Sam is this self-deprecatingly devoted to Dean. His "I have Dean" when he's stripped of every possible thing becomes a necessity that is life threatening. He must have Dean when he's stripped of every possible thing at all costs. And most of the time, he is the fact.

Dean is Sam's lighthouse, a beacon he instinctively returns to. One that needs to be around. Because it always has been around. Every action Sam does, even the erosion of his own identity, is to sustain its withholding in his life.