#Dani and Danny's destructive tendencies

[luckyfox3000]

DC X DP PROMT #15

Hello there Loves! New promt!

Ok, so, here's the thing. Dani didn't really mean for her and Danny to end up on the Supers radar. Really, she didnt.

She just wanted to check out if the rumors about another clone were true! And if they really were one of the Supers.

Dani wasn't at fault here, she was just looking, then found another rich douchbag who created a clone.

So, of course she had to investigate! Danny agreed with her and all! (They might not have told jazz)

So, Dani went to Lex Corp, where these rumors began. Then she found Clone machines. And plans to make MORE.

Dani didnt exactly do anything per say. She just. Went into the mainframe and deleted everything?

(She and Danny were in so much trouble)

Then, then, the next part was definitely not her fault, nope. In fact, it was Danny's. Kinda. Sorta. Ish.

Aaaand the building was on fire.

Spontaneously.

Entirely unrelated to her and Danny.

And nothing at all to do with the dynamite she had in her bag.

Nope.

The supers had not been flying after them for the past half hour.

...

(Jazz was going to kill them. Goodbye afterlife.)

Feel free to use it add on!

[racke7]

basically? danny decides to actually be a villain. in metropolis. and he's pretty much unstoppable. superman can't punch him but danny can punch him back. punch him and make it HURT.

and he doesn't really care about ''committing crimes'' as a general rule. but he lives in metropolis. he knows these assholes. he knows which auto-repair shop is basically just scamming people. and he has no reason NOT to ruin their lives.

so now everyone in metropolis is going ''yeah. phantom is a menace with a grudge against superman. BUT-'' bcs they know exactly why danny's targets deserved to be targeted. and even if it's illegal it's nice to see them suffer.

danny doesn't care about ''long-term fixes'' (that requires legal intervention and he's not responsible for that) danny only wants to make everyone who's ever annoyed him SUFFER for it.

neighbor vacuuming at 3am? vengeance.

train that's constantly JUST A LITTLE BIT delayed? just enough that nobody at work will accept that as an excuse? vengeance.

he's an absolute menace and a lot of people are lowkey terrified of him. but he's also so fucking cathartic for the regular folks.

also also. if dani finds out before jazz does? he now has a side-kick. who is just as strong and a lot more cheerful in her menace. danny has a deranged grin on his face. a vicious kind of gleeful anger that's SO relatable to anyone who's ever been annoyed. dani has a bright grin on her face and seemingly not a mean bone in her body. but she's also childishly destructive.

danny is in it for the vengeance. dani is in it for the ''fun''. nobody knows if she's being corrupted or is just inherently Evil.

Alright. Building on this now.

Everyone knew Phantom.

He was somehow both the scariest and most benign of Metropolis' villains.

Scariest because he didn't actually seem to lose as much as he'd at some point decide that he'd beaten up the Supers enough that it wasn't fun anymore. And then he'd just... go home.

Most benign, because outside of his clear and violent antipathy towards heroes? He was more of an anti-hero than a villain.

The government refuses to fix the potholes? Phantom waits until a bit of rain and then drags the politician in charge of the refusal to a pothole and waterboards him in it.

A repair-shop slowly growing infamous for scamming its customers? Phantom rips out the engines on the owners' own cars, and then uses them as improvised weapons against the Supers.

If you were an honest citizen? Odds were that you had more things to worry about from collateral-damage from the Supers than from anything Phantom got up to.

In fact, Phantom-fights had a weird tendency to lack the regular amounts of collateral-damage. And there were definitely theories going around that this was a very deliberate stab at the heroes from Phantom.

However, this lack of collateral-damage wasn't necessarily true for Phantom's side-kick.

Phantasm was-... Phantasm was a violent little monster who didn't see anything wrong with casually throwing bricks through people's windows.

If it made people yell and chase her in rage? Phantasm would do it with the uncaring glee of a cat pushing things off of a shelf.

Phantasm was less violent, it was true. She only really fought the Supers in the role of 'backup' that Phantom clearly didn't need. But Phantasm was definitely a villain.

The Justice League seemed to have gotten this mixed up, because there were usually someone yelling at Phantom about 'corrupting' Phantasm, when anyone with eyes knew that it was blatantly obvious that Phantasm was the Evil one.

But nobody was really going to make a big fuss about it. They were probably siblings? Maybe? Their exact relationship hadn't ever been explained, but they looked very similar and their apparent ages weren't that far apart.

And if Phantom wanted to channel his little sister's obviously Evil and Villainous nature into being a small-time Villain side-kick? Nobody was going to be objecting to that.

It was even kind of fun watching the girl egg the police-station every few weeks.

Short DPXDC Prompts #972

Danny is just trying to keep a stable job and pay rent in Metropolis. When Superboy takes his shitty old car and throws it at Parasite and misses. Something in Danny’s mind cracks. His wall of rage and restraint crumbles. He has words to say to Superboy for throwing his fucking car.

[thenovl]

Cover Reveal: Love & Other Carnivorous Plants

Get ready for a heartbreaking yet hilarious tale of something we’re all too familiar with—that moment between adolescence and the uncertainty of the future. But we are certain of one thing: you’ll eat Florence Gonsalves’s Love & Other Carnivorous Plants right up.

Here’s what it’s all about:

A darkly funny debut for fans of Becky Albertalli, Matthew Quick, and Ned Vizzini about a nineteen-year-old girl who's consumed by love, grief, and the many-tentacled beast of self-destructive behavior.

Freshman year at Harvard was the most anticlimactic year of Danny's life. She's failing pre-med and drifting apart from her best friend. One by one, Danny is losing all the underpinnings of her identity. When she finds herself attracted to an older, edgy girl who she met in rehab for an eating disorder, she finally feels like she might be finding a new sense of self. But when tragedy strikes, her self-destructive tendencies come back to haunt her as she struggles to discover who that self really is. With a starkly memorable voice that's at turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Love and Other Carnivorous Plants brilliantly captures the painful turning point between an adolescence that's slipping away and the overwhelming uncertainty of the future.

Okay, wow. This all sounds amazing, but the cover makes it even better. Are you ready? Here it is:

We asked the designer, Karina, a few questions about the cover and the process behind it, because, well, it’s face it, not just anyone can design an awesome book cover.

How do you start the design process?

Ideally the design process starts with reading the book. And in the case of Love & Other Carnivorous Plants, we had the manuscript early on, which gave me lots of time to enjoy the read, really get to know the characters and the themes, as well as search for any good symbols or imagery. We had a head start with this one in terms of imagery. A venus fly trap made sense with the title and felt like a natural pairing. However, there are a surprising large number of ways you can go about putting a Venus fly trap on the cover (more on that in a bit!). So after I read the book, I like to meet with the editor since they really have the deepest understanding of the story and the author. One of the first questions I like to ask is, "What other books is it like? Where does it sit in the bookstore?” And then, the most important question, "What is it that they find special about the book? What do we want readers to know, feel, think about the story?" I share my thoughts, but I mostly like to really listen for their thoughts. Humor and Danny’s voice came up right away in this case! With the answers to these questions, I start to play! It’s not a standardized process at all. Every book leads me through it’s own journey. I look for inspiration in ads, magazines, fashion, Instagram, blogs, Etsy, colleagues’s work, everywhere! Then I manipulate photos or stock art, look for fonts, download illustrator portfolios, doodle, paint, draw until I have a bunch of options to share with the team. 

What were some of your other ideas for this cover? How did you come to a final decision?

Real-life venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants (!) are so cool! So one thought was to use a photograph. I shared a photographic option where a bee was caught in venus fly trap, which made sense since characters in the book feel trapped in their current lives. I also found a photograph light shone through the venus fly trap and you could see the shadow of a just-eaten bug inside, so I thought, what if we replace the big with the shadow of a heart, and it could look really beautiful and devastating in photographic form. And then there were some just gorgeous close-up photos of  venus fly traps in vivid colors which I overlaid with large, hand-lettered type. However, one of things that I think makes this book a stand-out read is that it has not only a great balance between beauty and devastation, but it also has a tremendous sense of humor. Ultimately we, as a team, felt that this illustrated version of the cover not only had the most originality and impact, but it also captured the overall tone of the book best. 

The saying goes, “never judge a book by its cover,” but we all know we do. What do you think is the most important aspect of a book cover?

I really feel like there is no one, singular, perfect cover for any book. So I don’t get overly concerned as to whether the final cover ends up being photographic, illustrated, that sort of thing. As can be seen when classic stories get repackaged, there is often more than one brilliant way to tackle the package of a book. So my biggest concern as we make final decisions is, “Does this cover feel like the book? Does is set the stage for the reader that feels accurate and true to the story?” Ultimately the purpose of the cover is to lead readers to the books they will love, so they need to be reflective of their respective stories. And then my next big concern, and this is really what differentiates a good cover from a great cover, is “What is different about this cover? What makes it stand out from the other books on the shelf?” There are a lot of illustrated YA books currently, but my hope is people will pick up Love & Other Carnivorous Plants because the cover is funny! And that it will accurately conveys that these characters are navigating messy, tough topics (such as love and sexuality and heartbreak) with a sense of humor, and a little bit of sarcasm and irreverence, that I think will feel very relatable and refreshing to the reader. 

Why did you choose these particular elements for the cover, such as the typeface or the colors?

In doing research for the cover, I came across some photographs of very brightly lit venus fly traps, and they looked almost neon pink and green. I thought they were just so fresh and cool and vibrant, like the characters in the book, that it felt like a natural color scheme for the final design. Dani keeps a journal, and there are several instances of hand-written notes and letters in the book, so I wanted to bring those elements of the story to the cover through the hand-done feel to the type, as well as through the paper texture underneath. Inspiration really did come form here and there, but I think we ended up with a good balance of elements that conveyed different aspects of the story.

Thanks, Karina! This really gave us some insight into the wonderful creative process that cover design is.

We can’t wait for this book, and we hope you feel the same way. It comes out May 15, 2018. In the meantime, add Love & Other Carnivorous Plants to your Goodreads shelf, and follow #LoveCarnivorousPlants for more news about it!

[racke7]

yes. danny is actually really popular with the regular folk. and dani is... uhh... if dani got killed in a big fight? there'd probably be a silent celebration for ''defeating the Evil'' up until someone would see the lack of chaos and miss her

like. she's clearly a child so they don't ACTUALLY want her dead. but if they could just strangle her to death a LITTLE BIT.

in comparison? danny is considered a Big Bad by the supers (i feel like the JL would wash their hands of it) since they can't defeat him in combat and this is a Scary Thing for someone very capable of defeating world-ending threats

but they also know logically that danny isn't like... Evil. he's just violent and destructive and a bad influence on dani and dani is clearly an innocent child who doesn't understand that she's behaving like a villain. if they could just separate dani from danny's bad influence? then dani could grow up to be a Good and Noble Hero.

jazz definitely heard about their antics. and was THIS CLOSE to telling danny to cut it out. but then? then the supers said that danny. her danny. her precious and kindhearted little brother. DANNY was a bad influence.

jazz was so offended that she had to be talked down from grabbing the creep-stick and beating the supers black-and-blue herself. danny talked her down bcs he knew she'd regret it once she calmed down.

dani was silenced with ice-cream.

(dani wasn't trying to talk her down.)

In Dani's defense, she has no understanding of the concept of "home" (because she's never had one) and therefore doesn't really understand that wrecking someone's home is a "bad thing".

Combine that with having no understanding of money (she's never had any) and no real concept of theft (nobody has ever stolen from her, but she's stolen food and played stowaway lots of times).

And combine that with her having a very warped understanding of "physical health", because why would tossing a giant boulder at someone's head and not hitting them be in any way distressing? There wasn't even shrapnel? And what's PTSD? Is that like a BLT-sandwich? She likes sandwiches.

And then with her ghost-tendencies on top of that? (Even if ghosts weren't predisposed to throwing down as "hello", they're creatures of passion. Any conversation they have is going to end up with them running out of words a long time before they run out of opinions. And that's always going to end in a fist-fight.)

Basically?

The Justice League isn't wrong in saying that Dani is "too innocent to know better" in regards to her reign of terror. HOWEVER, they're very wrong in Danny being a bad influence.

Dani needs to learn how to fight and get annoyed and use her powers, and ever since she decided to be Danny's Villain Side-Kick? She's gone from mostly-ignoring this stuff in order to explore the world, to actually learning, and doing so under the supervision of someone who can actually stop her before she goes too far.

Jazz knows perfectly well what kind of a terror Dani could be if she was let loose completely, and she's also very aware that Dani is way too much of a gremlin-coded prankster to ever accept "discipline" and "responsibility" as reasons to do anything at all ever.

In comparison, being Danny's side-kick lets her spend time with her family, be annoying, and learn how to use her powers and how not to hurt people too much.

Jazz is also very aware that Dani shouldn't be a Hero, because she's way too young for that kind of responsibility. But being a Villain gives Dani the chance to pick and choose when and how to engage with her "new hobby", and that's important for her development.

(Batman is the actual reason for the JL leaving the Supers to deal with the Phantom-Phantasm duo on their own. He was very worried that Phantom was dangerous, but he decided to test a theory before going all-in on prevention.)

(His theory was that if he just stood and watched Danny with a blank face? Danny would get bored and wander off.)

(It worked perfectly. So the official JL guideline is to just ignore them. This doesn't work for the Supers because Danny is invested in beating the shit out of them, so they're not very happy with this policy.)

Short DPXDC Prompts #972

Danny is just trying to keep a stable job and pay rent in Metropolis. When Superboy takes his shitty old car and throws it at Parasite and misses. Something in Danny’s mind cracks. His wall of rage and restraint crumbles. He has words to say to Superboy for throwing his fucking car.