#Daniel Chalk

[witchcraftannie]

honest hearts

Source: Deimos art on Twitter

[tanglepelt]

Dp x dc idea 87

Danny is part Martian. He doesn’t know it tho.

Jack and Maddie decided to mess around with the DNA of their child before he was born. Adding in a bit of what they thought was ghost blood or something.

They originally planned to monitor and watch what happens to Danny as he grew up. See how it effects him. He was there ultimate research experiment.

But when he was born they felt just a tad guilty. They decided he deserved to be human. So obviously they suppressed that part of him. Every year they make sure it stays suppressed pill/shot or something.

That way he would only be human.

They wouldn’t have to deal with Danny’s “ghost” side coming out. They wouldn’t have to investigate what makes him tick.

Then the accident happens. The Fenton parents catch on quick. Already thinking Danny was part ghost. The accident obviously fully killed him and that’s why the ghost side was coming out full force.

They stop the suppression. Wanting to see what will happen. That’s when the Martian dna begins to effect him.

Shapeshifting and hearing others thoughts come first. Danny assumes new ghost power.

The fenton parents get more curious about what will happen. They decide it’s time to research Danny. This leads to him on the run.

Danny’s dna starts rewriting itself again. Danielle who Danny ran to gets him to frostbite. Frostbite reveals that he isn’t fully human. Thanks to Martian DNA being in the realm from an ex Martian frostbite informs them of his other part.

Jazz, Tucker, and Sam then set out to find Martian Manhunter. That way frostbite knows what the correct (alive dna not dead) structure is and figure out how to properly stabilize Danielle with it.

[mushroommans-cache]

My Courier definitely had a ✨time✨ in Zion Valley

[baddieladdie]

Hello!! So I'm an RPer (gross) and I dabble with Joshua Graham. I do cross-canon occasionally and I have stumbled on weird romantic (maybe??) tension with him and RE5/blonde Jill Valentine based on the fact they both were manipulated by someone they respected and did horrible things (even if hers were against her will and he did them by choice) and it's become this heavy, weird tension full of lame, longing gazes and pretty decent fight scenes! Is it possible to get them together? 😬

Regardless, stumbled on your work and I love it!! 😍

I have not played Resident Evil, actually! I had to look up who Jill Valentine was, at first I thought she was Nick Valentine's daughter in some AU\

SO - How 'bout this? I will get us started with some opening context on Joshua Graham. Then you could take it from there? I have a feeling you are a bit more familiar with Jill than I am :)

Tag me if you add on to this - I'd love to give a read!

An idea for a structure could be:

Ch1 - Joshua Graham (see below the cut) Ch2 - Jill Valentine Ch3 - Combat/Meet-cute, Joshua and Jill meet in fire fight Ch4 - Connection/Tension/Romance

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Rating: Teen

Description: Mormon missionary turned co-founder of Caesar's Legion now roams Zion under the guise of folk legends as the Burned Man. He is haunted by his actions while part of the Legion, yet cannot so easily release his dependence on violence as he leads a vicious campaign to bring 'God's justice' to all those who would threaten the safety of the innocent.

Joshua drags his thumb across the bumpy ridges of his Bible. Absent-mindedly, he traces each letter stitched into the black leather. The book was worn down. It could hardly be recognized for what it was - the Holy word of God. The book, like Joshua the man, had been irritably changed in time by the unforgiving nature of this mortal life. Joshua flips through the book, pausing at a page crinkled by a dried blood stain.

18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 1 Peter 1:18-19

“Divide et impera,”  Edward exclaimed, gesturing to his beloved novel ‘Commentarii de Bello Gallico’. “Divide and Conquer. Joshua, this is just like the Roman Empire of great! We conquer these tribes and we make them better. Stronger! Outfit them with weapons and battle strategies. From this tribal strife, we will raise a great and mighty empire!” Sallow laughed with cynical joy.

“It is brutal,” Joshua mumbled in thought. Edward had studied all his life with the Followers of the Apocalypse. His knowledge of societal development and anthropology were next to none. Perhaps Sallows knew something he didn’t. And the good Lord knows it’s good to have friends. He should trust Edward to the very end. Joshua nodded hesitantly,“What better way to unify these groups than under the threat of death. They would have a better chance of surviving if they worked together.” 

“Yes, yes!” Edward walked around the table to get closer to the hesitant missionary and man he called friend. “Leave the brutality to the soldiers. I-” He awkwardly cleared his throat and corrected himself, “We only need you to translate.” He gestured openly with a wide smile. “You’ll never have an opportunity like this again, my friend.”

So that is what Joshua Graham did. He translated for Edward as he spoke to the crowds of tribals he had gathered. But soon, translating became giving orders. Giving orders slowly became leading in battle. Leading in battle became training, punishing, terrorizing. A series of small mistakes before Joshua Graham's great fall.

In time, he would become Caesar’s second in command and most trusted advisor. Never had Graham held such power. Death came as he demanded it. Riches poured from the Earth as he wished it. It was as if the very thread of fate was his to design. 

Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole. Galatians 3:13

Sweat beaded at the tip of Joshua’s nose as the Mojave sun beat down on him. Sand carried in the wind irritated his skin. He cursed, putting the hammer down for a moment to adjust the legionary mask snuggly around his nose and mouth.

“Please, I haven’t done anything wrong. Let me go!” The man cried in desperate agony, trying to pull his hand free from where it had been nailed to the cross. Blood spurted generously from the wound Joshua had inflicted. The naked man screamed from a place of consuming pain, but no living soul was around to hear. Their only witnesses were the bodies left in Joshua’s wake. And the man’s pleas meant nothing to the heart that had hardened inside him. Joshua had heard the dying screams of men, women, and children far to often to feel anything at all. He was as stoic as the corpses behind them. 

Graham leaned over the man screaming and punched him squarely in the jaw. The jaw swung open lazily, the man stared up at Joshua horrified that he could no longer speak. Joshua firmly grasped the man’s free hand and pinned it to the right arm of the wooden cross. The man under him squirmed in futile effort to free himself from his inevitable fate. The hammer came down swiftly, pushing the rusty nail through the delicate flesh of the man’s palm. Blood sprinkled Joshua’s legion uniform. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. No matter - his job here was done. The resistance group dead and their leader crucified. With a grunt of effort, Joshua stood the cross up. It was an eyesore against the flat desert landscape. However, it sufficiently served as a warning to any who would cross Caesar and his legion. 

Joshua dusted himself off and stowed his hammer away. He turned his back on the suffering man and walked slowly across the desert plain back home. Home to Caesar’s legion. 

John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Luke 3:16

The nervous raw recruits stumbled forward towards the center of the dam. The veteran's stood before the Malpais Legate (Joshua Graham), silently recalling their first battles as a raw recruit. Joshua felt no remorse. He had followed the Legion military doctrine excellently. They had the enemy on the run and he intended to leave no survivors. Dead men tell no tales.

THUNK

The legionary veteran collapsed next to Graham, a bullet wound oozing from the back of his head. Instinctively, he traced the bullet's trajectory to a platoon of sharpshooters. The First Recon of the New California Republic.

THUNK THUNK THUNK

Bodies of veteran soldiers fell around him at an alarming rate. "Fall back!" the Malpais Legate cried. The raw recruits panicked at the order, dropping their weapons and running for their lives. More experienced soldiers simply pivoted and ran for the ridge.

THUNK THUNK

Bodies of legionaries continued to mount as they made their escape towards the pass through the ridge. Joshua's eye was caught by a glint in the afternoon sunlight. More First Recon shoots and NCR rangers. It was a trap - this whole damn time! Joshua cursed himself, then Caesar for underestimating Chief Hanlon. Swallowing his rising panic, he shouted over the pop of rifles, "Be weary of crossfire! To Boulder City! For Caesar!"

The is when he lost the remainder of his good men. Boulder City wasn't just protected by rangers and sharpshoots. The whole damn city was rigged to explode. Mines and traps lined every square inch of the town. The opposition, having placed them, evaded the threats, only luring the legionaries in further. What was meant to be a great victory for the mighty Caesar had become a costly defeat.

-

veni , vidi, victus

-

"Mighty Caesar," Joshua approached his life-long friend's throne. "We have lost this battle, but not the war. I won't give up. We-"

"You will do no such thing," Edward barked at him. "Your failure has brought shame to the great legion of Caesar! Such a disgrace will not be tolerated, Malpais Legate." Sallow spat his words with such vile hate, Joshua could no longer recognize him. The personification of the roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, had finally consumed the former- follower of the apocalypse completely. No more was Joshua's friend present before him.

"And for your transgression against the might of Caesar, you shall be burned to death!" Caesar shouted til he was red in the face. "Legionaries! Cover the former-Malpais Legate in pitch, lit him on fire and cast him into the Grand Canyon!"

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and it to the full. John 10:10

“Life has not been good to us without your guidance, Joshua.” Follows-Chalk guided a stumbling Joshua Graham through the Dead Horse camp. “We tried to live in your ways but have been driven from our home. With your return, we can take back Zion from the White Legs.”

"I am sorry to hear what has come to pass. God willing, I can undo the harm that has been done here."

"What...happened to you, Joshua?" Follows-Chalk paused, noticing that Joshua had been lagging behind.

"I do not enjoy reflecting, but I pray to God that someone may learn from my mistakes. Was there something specific, Follows-Chalk?"

Follows-Chalk eyed the puss oozing from the bandages around Joshua's face. His bloodshot eyes and uneven gait all clearly showed the man was in undeniable pain.

"How did you survive, Joshua? Such a fall would have killed most men."

"I survived because the fire inside burned brighter than the fire around me. I feel down into that dark chasm, but the flame burned on and on. The next morning, I woke up and crawled out of the northern edge of the Grand Canyon, that cursed place. It took me three months to return."

Follows-Chalk hung to every word of Joshua's tragic downfall, guiding him to the healer's tent and away from the gaze of the merciless sun.

"The Dead Horses are happy you have returned to us. You are welcome to stay," Follows-Chalk spoke sympathetically. He opened the tent wide for Joshua. The man hissed at the pain as he crouched under the flap to enter the room. "You have been good to us, Joshua."

"You are kind to offer," Joshua groaned as he lowered himself onto a straw mat. A woman rushed over with a basin of clean water and bandages. "It never stops burning. My skin. Every day, I have to unwind the bandages and replace them with fresh ones." He nodded his thanks to the woman. She smiled politely and awkwardly shuffled out. "Exposing my body to the air is like living through it again. But it's better to be clean than comfortable."

Follows-Chalk nodded and turned away to give the Burned Man space to clean his wounds. "Have you met Daniel? He is a missionary like you."

"Who?"

"A Mormon, like you Joshua. He is helping the Sorrows not far from here."

"Take me to him," Joshua gasped in a pain as he removed a bandage that has wound had adhered too. Fresh blood trickled down his back. "In the morning. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. And there is much to do. God be with you, Follows-Chalk."

Like an enemy he has strung his bow; his right hand is ready…he has poured out his wrath like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion. Lamentations 2:4

"Ye have sown death and so shall ye reap it!" Joshua roared, lunging towards the remaining White Legs tribals. He greedily drove his knife into the back of tribal, revealing in the screams of man he had not heard in years.

The lost courier beside him fired lucky shots from a .45 pistol. The bodies of White Legs fell around them until only Salt-Upon-Wounds remained alive.

Joshua stood over Salt-Upon-Wounds. His jagged features highlighted in the dim firelight. It was akin to watching a skilled hunter taunt and play with its prey as it made feeble attempts to escape. "We warned you at Syracuse, and you persisted. You took advantage of us at New Canaan to drive us out, and like the dogs of Caesar you are, you followed us to Zion. And now you stand on holy ground, a temple to God's glory on Earth. But the only use for an animal in our temple is sacrifice!" He smiled grimly at the terror in Salt-Upon-Wounds as the tribal leader curled in terror under Joshua's gaze. "Kale watcha nei conserva oh! You understand me, don't you? Don't you?!"

"Outman!" Salt-Upon-Wounds hissed at the mentally distant courier. "Kuma-man mad! He has killed all White Legs. Please, you talk. You stop this!"

"Stand up and look at what's come for you!" Joshua pulled the tribal leader to his feet. Salt-Upon-Wounds raised trembling hands behind his head.

"Don't listen to this… thing!" Joshua spat. "His cries are those of a mad beast caught in a thicket! He gave no mercy to my family, and I will give none to his!"

The courier squinted their eyes at Joshua, "Is this coming from the missionary Joshua Graham or Malpais Legate? This is brutal and beyond reason. You know it is. Look Joshua, you've already won," The courier gestured to the bodies of the dead that surrounded them. "There's no need to kill him."

"He has a debt to pay for what he's done and I've come to collect," Joshua stammered, but the anger was already starting the leave him and along with it, his conviction. "And so he's chosen to cower in the water like a dumb animal."

The courier stepped over still bodies, moving closer to Joshua. "If what you believe is true," the courier stumbled slightly over an arm shrouded in the darkness. "he'll pay for it later." The courier balanced themselves next to him and whispered, "The Sorrows don't need to see you this. Let's go."

"Go," Joshua sighed in defeat. He released Salt-Upon-Wounds and continued, "Get out of here. Go back. Back to the Great Salt Lake."

Joshua watched Salt-Upon-Wounds scamper off and abruptly turned to the Courier. Angerly, he fumed, "I wanted to take from them what they took from me, from my family!" The courier watched him with mindful pity.

Joshua sighed, allowing his true sadness, underneath all the rage, to flow in. "In this life. I want them to suffer. I want all of them to die in fear and pain," He continued. "I want to have my revenge. Against him. Against Caesar. I want to call it my own, to make my anger God's anger. To justify the things I've done. Sometimes I tell myself that these wildfires never stop burning. But I'm the one who starts them. Not God. Not them. I can always see it in my mind. The warmth and the heat. It will always be a part of me," Joshua paused, looking down the path where Salt-Upon-Wounds had fled. "But not today."

[milafm2002]

Since It's Halloween In Two Days

Now Presenting Fall Blog Part 2 Side B Aesthetic Spooky Songs For Unleashing Your Inner Darkness Perfect For October Enjoy

Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus ( Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape) 1982

Arsonist - Halsey ( The Great Impersonator ) 2024

The Mountain - Pj Harvey ( White Chalk ) 2008

Girl With One Eye - Florence + The Machine ( Lungs ) 2009

Beetles - Warpaint ( Exquisite Corpse ) 2008

Starvation - AURORA ( What Happened To The Heart? ) 2024

Identikit - Radiohead ( A Moon Shaped Pool ) 2016

Hands Away - Interpol ( Turn On The Bright Lights ) 2002

Attack Of The Ghost Riders - The Raveonettes ( Whip It On ) 2002

Trick Or Treat Dancefloor ( Papa Cremp Version ) - Cherry Glazerr ( Papa Cremp ) 2013

Thats It That All

Hope You All Enjoy Both Parts Of The Fall Blog And Follow For More

[purplerakath]

Why I haven't started working on the fourth part of the "Sam in Cobra Kai fic": I haven't rewatched Season 4 to write my outline.

Why I haven't rewatched Season 4?

Season 4 does a lot of stupid nonsense that annoys me.

Playing Persona 3 Reload

Combo "Season 4 Annoys me" and "Playing P3R"

(I'll probably get to it this weekend, maybe? I hope.)

[stealingyourbones]

Bruce has been having some trouble trying to figure out why the security camera feed at Damian's school keeps on corrupting. The pattern is consistent with a normal students schedule. Classes that change every class period, cameras fizzing out as the unknown walks to their next class, and occasional irregularities in the pattern. The irregularities easily chalked up to the unknown talking to friends or going to the bathroom.

Bruce has every single student with that class schedule pulled up of every student that has the schedule of the Unknown and is even more concerned, noticing that his son has two overlapping classes with the Unknown.

Bruce checks what students have recently transferred schools and sees only one student who's schedule and recent appearance matched.

A student by the name of Daniel "Danny" Nightingale.

[unhingedreblogging]

Danny was strange. Now this was nothing new to him, or even to the rest of Amity Park, but anywhere else it would be noticed.

Danny has taken a job at Arkham Asylum as a guard, following his sister and parents to the city. The ectoplasm in the air felt more hollow, tainted by something, than it did in Amity with its constant bathing in the ambient runoff from the portal.

In the year since he took the job, there has not been a single successful escape, not even Joker could manage it, and the Bats have grown suspicious, there were only two new employees at the Asylum, nothing of note apart from one was a new psychologist and one a guard, siblings.

Bruce sends Tim on a mission to find out every bit of information he can about the two, but annoyingly their past before moving into the city is hidden by a firewall so thick and so strange it almost seems like it's alive and actively trying to stop the snooping. Tim is exasperated and angry after a week of being nowhere.

Bruce decides to drop into the Asylum to check in person after two weeks of no headway being made, they need to find out what these two are up to, and why there haven't been any breakouts, what the rogues are plotting. What Batman finds is nothing short of a miracle; every single patient is being treated properly, he checks on Joker first of course, the most worrying theat but finds that the clown prince of crime seems to be catatonic.

This is worrying, but the man is still breathing, there's the possibility of reversing it. The new guard named Daniel James Janus Fenton somehow managed to appear from nowhere behind Batman, bringing with him a slice of cold splitting the comfortably warm hall of the Asylum, a low whispering of static whispering just beyond his range of hearing, a feeling of being watched from every angle, before simply shaking his head, as if knowing what Bruce was thinking with the Joker.

"It's no use, he's going to be that way for the rest of his natural life. His victims deserve their justice, and this is the best option." Is all he says, before simply turning and continuing his rounds, as if the Batman isn't there, isn't a cause for worry.

The temperature change leaves just as quickly at it arrives, the sound does not, and when Batman looks back at the Joker there are tears streaming down his unnaturally chalk white skin, lips moving in a silent plea. He resolves to get to the bottom of this, no matter what it takes, how long it will take.

[roses-and-revolutions]

Two Can Keep a Secret If One Of Them Is Dead

Damian Wayne, the youngest son of Bruce Wayne realizes that he doesn't want to be fighting crime for the rest of his life, nor does he want any major part of his father's company. With the utmost support of his friends and family, he pursues an art degree at GIA, Gotham Institute of the Arts.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the adopted daughter of Sabine Cheng and Tom Dupain, after completing her duties as Ladybug and passing the title to a suitable successor, pursues her dreams of becoming a fashion designer alongside her boyfriend Adrien Agreste. They decided that they needed to get away from Paris for a while so they went to Gotham Institute of the Arts.

Daniel 'just Danny' Fenton, recently adopted son of the Drs Fenton (what do mean I haven't been adopted in the 9 years you had me!!!), wasn't sure what to do with his life after his dreams of being an astronaut were crushed. But after getting stuck in a thermos with Ember for about a week he developed a new obsession with music. After fixing his grades and perfecting his portfolio, he was accepted into GIA's music course. He was worried about being alone in Gotham but with Tucker getting into GU and Jazz transferring there, Sam and Valerie just across the bay in Metropolis, everything looks like they're going to be fine.

A few weeks into the school year a video is going viral on Twitter. Damian Wayne and two other people who look similar to him are shouting in a cafe near the school. Well, only two of them are shouting the other one is chill as fuck. They're speaking in Arabic so not many people can understand them. The ones who do chalk it up to this: "Two of you are lying and the other one is supposed to be dead!"

Well, ain't that something?

[hadrian6]

A Warrior Amid Classical Ruins. 1650-99. circle of Daniel Hallé (Rouen, France, 1614–Paris, France, 1675. black chalk and brown wash heightened with white on brown laid paper. http://hadrian6.tumblr.com

[txttletale]

hey not trying to be a shithead but genuinely curious; and not saying it isnt, but what makes honest hearts like super racist? because, okay its been a while but i dont remember it being *that* bad?

am i missing something? (probably)

well, essentially, the whole dlc hinges its plot on its idea of 'tribal' society vs. 'civilized' society. this is like... a distinction with origins in 19th century scientific racism used to argue that indigenous peoples were 'primitive' and 'backwards', a lesser form of life compared to the more developed 'civilized' people. and this is a distinction that is everywhere in all the fallout games, including new vegas (i think it's super fucking racist that the white gloves practice of cannibalism is constantly narratively linked to their 'tribal origins' and described in the terms of a regression or degeneration)--but honest hearts is about it and so it's really inescapable.

joshua sawyer can say whatever he likes about multi-ethnic diverse groups or whatever but the tribes in honest hearts are very clearly inspired by racist stereotypes about native americans--they are naive, gullible morons (follows-chalk can't understand the concept of a casino) at worst and noble savages with (textually) biblical innocence at best. their names, their art, their societies--all just a white guy's idea of "vaguely native american" without any research or care.

and imo worst of all (and this is something im aware the devs have properly acknowledged) they have absolutely no agency--your role in the dlc is to be a "civilized" outsider who tells them which of two white "civilized" mormons to listen to. none of the 'tribals' are able to make their own decisions or lead themselves--they need a mormon missionary to tell them what to do! there is no way to resolve the dlc without picking which white mormon missionary they should listen to other than just murdering everyone indiscriminately.

and, like--i am aware that honest hearts thinks it is gesturing towards a critique of these ideas. you can criticize the paternalism daniel shows towards the sorrows, and the dlc clearly intended it to be criticized--but that criticism is weak and hollow when the only way to follow up on it is to put a different white mormon in charge. it is the most archetypal white saviour narrative possible--and yes, i also know daniel was 'supposed to be asian', but that doesn't change anything because he is in fact, as the "civilized" missionary preaching paternalistically to the "primitive tribals", fundamentally white-coded

so i mean yea it's racist because it relies on racist stereotypes about native americans, mandates that a white person come and take charge of these poor stupid 'tribes'--but even if you changed all that, it's fundamentally about an idea of 'civilization vs. tribal society' that it accepts as a true and meaningful distinction as its core premise, and that is just a straight up racist premise.

(and the reason i keep bringing up that both daniel and josh are mormons is that mormons have a long and storied history of brutal violence and colonialism against indigenous peoples, from their original violent settlement of utah to their 'indian placement program' to their deeply racist scripture, which makes their portrayal as benevolent white saviours particularly galling and repulsive)

[nightcolorz]

I would love to hear your thoughts on autistic Armand, if you haven’t already spoke about this! Imo he’s very autsitic coded, and it’s very precious to me as an autistic iwtv fan :]

OMG!!! RUNS AROUND. Yes lmao I talk about this a lot actually it is one of my favorite Armand things to meta about bcus I’m also autistic and he is my special interest🙏I was trying to find some of the stuff I’ve written about autistic Armand but tumblrs search engine makes it near impossible to find anything so I gave up 😭, but believe me they r out there. Even tho I talk about this a lot I would love love love to talk about it some more for u anon because I can never get enough of armandtism.

I first figured Armand was autistic when I was reading the vampire Lestat because when he is first introduced he is completely non verbal and only communicates through the mind gift. through further explanation it’s very much implied that he does this because he finds putting his thoughts into words hard and he considers just projecting them into peoples brains much easier. Armand speaks out loud for the first time like more than halfway through the book, and lestat is surprised to hear him lol. This is super autistic I feel like that’s obvious 🙏 it’s basically the vampire power equivalent of using a non verbal communication device. Armand having trouble with connecting with people, understanding how to “fit in”, and talking r prevailing parts of his character throughout the whole series (not just tvl) which solidified my headcanon into basically a canon fact in my mind lol.

When Armand is first introduced in iwtv his strangeness is chalked up to his vampirism, but it’s soon revealed throughout tvl and qotd that Armand is considered a strange outcast by other vampires. The things he struggles with r unique to him and r not representative of vampires in general. His otherness/strangeness can also not be chalked up to his trauma or his age turned because Armand was also an outcast as a young child. It’s described in the vampire Armand that Armand was not understood by his parents or his community because he was obsessed with and freakishly good at painting. His community interprets his unusualness as a sign of some divine intervention, the priests believe he is a saint or a prophet sent to earth, even at times saying things implying that he is “not human”. Unusually high quickly developing skill in childhood is an autistic trait, as is hyper fixation on an activity/topic that becomes a core identity factor and prevailing obsession. The affects of Armand’s trauma only worsen the severity of his autistic traits. C-ptsd and autism often overlap and coexist in autistic people who were traumatized in childhood, which seems to be Armand’s case.

in queen of the damned Armand is at his peak autistic lol, I feel like this is when most book readers gain that head canon. The Devils minion chapter revolves around Armand using Daniel as a guide to help him learn how to be “normal” and to blend in to the modern age. Armand can’t seem to figure out how to blend in on his own because he is unable to understand social norms of any time period enough to integrate himself into society. Armand is in love with technology and what most would consider monotonous sensory experiences. He stares at his own reflection for hours, he loves kitchen appliances and watching ingredients whir in blenders, cameras, he watches the same movie over and over again and never gets bored of it. The way Armand fixates on technology really reminds me of how a lot of autistic people played as children. He enjoys repetitive, sensory behaviors over “fun”. For Armand this means watching the same things repeatedly, which is a form of visual stimming. There r moments where Armand is trying to understand his world, but is so blind to what he is trying to understand that he goes about his discoveries wrong. Such as in qotd when he tries to interrogate strangers to gain information on societal norms but he only gets uncomfortable glances. Armand is desperate to understand and to connect but he is consistently inherently alienated, whether it be from humanity or from other vampires or from himself.

Armand also can not process his memories comprehendingly. This is part trauma part autism, but autism is def a factor. Because of his repressed trauma induced memory loss Armand finds it difficult to talk about himself to people. This is worsened by Armand being unable to comprehend the aspects of story telling that he needs to be able to tell people about his life. Armand explains to Daniel that he vividly remembers small details, such as dates and weather, but he could not tell Daniel what “things were like” because he “doesn’t know what that means”. Literal thinking, the inability to grasp vague, fiction based concepts like narratives and metaphor, and strict fixation on minor details like numbers, are all autistic traits!

Armand also struggles heavily with emotional regulation. He is described as often having intense and extreme meltdowns where he cries and screams and breaks things. Armand is easily bothered, in tva he mentions that he covers his ears when he is overwhelmed. The vampire Armand begins actually with Armand becoming overwhelmed in public and trying to escape to an attic so that he can be alone in silence. Armand copes with his intense emotions by putting on a mask of neutrality. He is often described as expressionless and blank, uncanny. But this is a mask, and when Armand can no longer mask and his disguise lapses his facial expressions r described by lestat as being so over the top and emotional that they are disturbing and weird. Over the top unnatural facial expressions as well as blank unreadable ones are both autistic traits. For Armand he is naturally overly emotive to the point of being considered horrifying, and he hides this by taking the opposite extreme. Either way, either expression Armand puts on causes him to be socially outcast.

Armand often describes feeling like there is something wrong with him that causes him to be isolated from others and he’s not sure what it is. In prince lestat he tells Gregory that he doesn’t know why it’s so hard for him to have relationships when other vampires are fully capable of doing that. In the vampire Armand he explains to David that he’s crazy because his mind isn’t built right and his senses are tripled so he shouldn’t bother trying to understand him. I rlly relate to this as someone who felt like I was from another dimension as a child bcus i didn’t know the unspoken life rules everyone else did.

Armand is often treated like a child by the other vampires and assumed to be emotionally immature and too fragile and insane to be helpful. Armand says in the vampire Armand that he doesn’t consider himself an adult because he can’t function like one. This could be due to the age he was turned, but it’s shown to us that characters like Benji and even to an extent Claudia r able to self regulate and function appropriately despite being turned even younger then Armand was.

in conclusion, book Armand is an autistic person who was never given proper support or understanding because the environment and the time period he was born in decided to alienate him further rather then work to help him socialize and learn appropriate skills, and because of the necessities he has been deprived of and the horrible trauma he endured Armand is never able to learn to function in the way he was likely capable of. this recessive quality in pair with his autism caused Armand it be unable to cope or self regulate or learn ways to understand himself since he wasn’t given a chance to in his formative years. He’s a great representative of what many autistic people who experienced intense child abuse experience.

Im rlly happy with the shows portrayal with Armand so far partly because he is omg, so autistic. Show Armand shares so many of book Armand’s autistic traits. inability to understand himself or others, fixation on small details but inability to understand the big picture, etc. even his iPad is autistic asf! My ipad is my comfort item that I carry around with me to self sooth, and this is def the vibe Armand’s iPad gives me in the show. Even assads performance is autistic! He is able to play Armand masking and Armand unmasking, the stilted expressions he gives and the blank stares, the uncomprehending earnestness. AGHHHH!! Assad stims with his fingers when Armand is nervous too which is just an amazing touch. I hope the show explores Armand’s autism, because that would literally be a dream come true. Even still, for now I’m satisfied.

thank u so so much anon for the ask this made me so happy 🙏❤️ autistic Armand means so much to me and has gotten me though some tough times. Understanding and analyzing Armand helps me understand myself better and feel more comfortable with how I am. Earlier this year I gave myself a concussion because I was harmfully stimming during a meltdown, and while I was in the emergency room I was holding the vampire Armand and imaging that he would relate to what I was going through. So yeah he is very special to me too! And once again it makes me so so happy that u got me to talk some about it. I hope this was coherent or interesting lol I felt like I was all over the place

[nevadancitizen]

-> CH. 3: OF TRUE AND FALSE MEMORIES

synopsis: you hitch a ride to the heartlands. hopefully your driver doesn't mind you leeching for just a while longer.

word count: 3.6k

ships: Arthur Morgan/Modern!Reader, Van der Linde Gang & Reader

notes: hey ummm merry christmas eve here's an early present. also zion as a concept of faith is mentioned but i am not a zionist trust it's just that joshua graham is unfortunately a mormon 🙏

TOSoA taglist: @one-green-frog , @photo1030 , @mavenhavenn , @fathermarama , @its-yummi (if you'd like to be added to the taglist, just ask <3!!)

THE OLD SOUL OF AMERICA MASTERLIST

You know the trail to Dead Horse Point well by now. Something is a bit different – but still, Joshua and Daniel and the Dead Horses and Sorrows welcome you and your mules, Rook and Bishop, all the same.

Follows-Chalk, Drumming-Storm, and a few other Dead Horses crowd the mules, offloading everything you had on them: books, kettles, blankets, guns (and accompanying black powder), tobacco, and alcohol. They mostly crowd Rook, as she’s the heavyweight of the two and carries more – Bishop’s more of a riding mule. The Dead Horses wander off soon after, arms full, taking everything to its respective place. 

Joshua approaches you, adjusting the bandages near his eyes to see you better. “You’ve got on well.”

“Yes, sir,” you say. “Happy Trails treats me well. I’m their employee, but I’m also their friend.”

“Yes, but this?” Joshua gestures at the people putting up what you’ve brought. “All this product? They must have put a lot of trust in you.”

“They put more trust in my steeds,” you say. “Both got some burro in them. And they can kick as hard as them, too – especially Bishop.”

“That, I don’t doubt,” Joshua says. 

You watch as Rook shakes her coat out, causing her carrying gear to jingle. Bishop wanders closer to Joshua, nudging at his shoulder and nipping at the bandages that cover Joshua’s arm. Joshua lifts his arm (slowly – again, he’s bandaged all over) and pats the side of Bishop’s face.

“They like it here,” you say. “Maybe it’s something about the canyon. Or maybe they just like you.”

“Zion is a godly place,” Joshua says. His voice, though deep and abrasive, carries a heavy tone of affection. “Wherever man may be, he always dreams of Zion. These creatures may share our same dreams.”

“That’d be nice,” you hum softly. You reach out and place your hand under Rook’s jaw, and she leans forward into your touch. Her big, brown eyes blink slowly as she looks at you, then around the campsite, like she’s appreciating the sight.

“We should probably get going,” you say. You look over at Joshua. “I need to load up on daturana and datura hide. That’s what Happy Trails wants in exchange, anyway.”

“Go talk to Winding-Path,” Joshua says. “She knows what you’re owed.”

When you look to your right, Follows-Chalk is hurrying over, a hand raised and a smile on his face. The painted markings on his face crease and stretch with his smile – rather than spider legs creeping up his cheeks, they look like laugh lines.

“Hoye!” He greets. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, too,” you say. You reach out to grasp his hand, and as soon as you brush it – 

A bump in the road jolts you awake. You let out a small, confused sound, then settle. 

You’re in the back of a wagon, crammed between folded-up lodgings and kitchen supplies. Your knees are drawn to your chest, and your back is to the wooden side of the wagon. 

Before packing up and making yourself fit into the space left on the wagon, you weren’t really told much of anything. From what you’ve gathered, the men (“men” being the young-ish, able-bodied ones) robbed a train, and now you and the gang have to flee. It seems like you fit right in, because they have a penchant for pissing off the wrong people, just like you.

“Hey, you’re finally awake!” Hosea calls from the front, where he sits next to Arthur.

“Yeah.” You shift and take a quick, deep breath as you rub the sleep from your eyes. “Yeah, I’m up.”

“We’re nearly to the Heartlands,” Hosea says. He turns so that he’s facing you with his arm resting on the back of the seat. “You ever been there before?”

“No,” you say. You sway with the trail in the dirt road and the way Arthur drives. 

“We’re settling up in Horseshoe Overlook,” Hosea says. “It’s near a livestock town called Valentine – all mud and morons, if I remember right.”

“Huh,” you hum. You look away from Hosea and around you. 

It’s different from when you were up in Colter. It’s warmer, for one. The trees aren’t dredged in snow – instead, their branches are covered in leaves, each one green and upturned. Grasses and flowers sprout from the dirt ground, which is now soft and malleable instead of frozen and cold to the touch. Everything is just nicer. 

For a minute, you just listen to the sounds around you. It’s calm. Birdsong fills the air, and you can see animals bounding through the trees of the forest and grasses of the valleys (for the first time in a while, honestly – cities don’t lend themselves well to wildlife). 

What was that dream about? You wonder silently. I was… in the Dead Horses’ camp. But that place is completely fictional, even in this… timeline? Coma-fever-something dream? I don’t even know at this point.

You hear the sound of moving water and look to the front. Arthur is guiding the horses into a stream, which the rest of the caravan has cleared without a problem. 

In the middle of the water, you feel a shock and hear something break. You clutch to the side of the wagon and feel that the driving is a little… off.

“Get us out the stream,” Hosea says. “You gotta keep us moving, but calm.”

Did you just ask Arthur to be calm? You shout in your head. Arthur is the epitome of everything that isn’t calm! He barely feels things, and when he does, he’s meaner than a gas station tweaker – and he’s not even on anything!

Arthur (yes, carefully, you’ll admit) pulls the wagon out of the stream. Just as he does, you feel another shock and a shift. You scramble to hold onto a canister as it nearly falls out of the back of the wagon. 

“Ah, shit!” Arthur curses. He draws the wagon to a stop.

“Okay, let’s take a look,” Hosea says. 

You move and shift the items so that they’re pushed further up the wagon, where you were sitting just before. You hop off the back of the wagon. Sure enough, the wheel has just popped itself right off. 

“You alright back there?” Bill calls from up ahead. 

“Does everything look alright?” Arthur snaps as he hops off the driver’s seat. 

You can see Javier shift in his seat in the wagon ahead of yours, trying to get a better look. “Well, what’s going on?”

Arthur walks closer to you, accessing the damage. He throws a hand up in the air and groans. “I broke the goddamn wheel!”

“Alright!” Hosea chimes. “Let’s get it fixed.” 

“You need help?” Javier calls. 

Hosea waves him off with a hand. “I reckon we can handle it.”

You quickly step back as he and Charles make their way to the back of the wagon. Arthur hoists up the wheel so he can roll it towards the wagon. Hosea and Charles pick up the back, and Arthur forces the wheel back into place. 

You hurry over and pick up a crate, putting it in the wagon. You hop up into the bed of the wagon and take a small chest from Charles, placing it where it belongs.

“Hey, look at you.” Arthur says as he checks the back of the wagon. “You ain’t so useless after all.”

“O-oh,” you say after a second. “You’re talking to me?”

“I am.” He looks up at you. The brim of his hat casts a harsh shadow that partly obscures his eyes. “Did I… offend you, somehow?”

“No, no!” You laugh nervously and take another crate from Charles. “I just wasn’t sure. Sorry.”

“Uh-huh,” Arthur hums. 

“Hold on,” Hosea almost hisses. 

You look over at him, and he’s looking to the side. You follow his eyes and see three figures on the ridge of a cliff, each perched on a horse. You can barely make out their facial features, but they look like Native Americans.

“What you think?” Arthur says lowly. 

“If they wanted trouble, we wouldn’t have seen them,” Charles says. 

“Poor bastards…” Hosea raises his arm and waves, but doesn’t call out to them. “We really screwed them over down here.”

Yeah… You think to yourself, still looking at the figures on horseback. It’s not much better in the future, either. I’d tell you all the details, but then I’d be put in an asylum.

“Come on,” Hosea says. “Let’s not push our luck.”

You take your eyes away from the figures. Instead, you help Charles pack up the last of what’s meant to go in the back of the wagon. 

As Arthur and Hosea hop on the front of the wagon, you make yourself comfortable on top of a trunk. Charles sits across from you on a rectangular crate. 

“Not too far now. Stay on this trail,” Hosea instructs Arthur. “We’ll follow the river, then cut left inland.”

You look around as Hosea starts telling Arthur about how the poor the natives were treated in this area. “Stolen clean away from them it was, every blade of grass,” he says. Even though it’s wrong (reprehensible, even), you understand why white men wanted this country. It’s breathtakingly beautiful – or maybe it just looks that way because it’s not what you’re used to. It’s not asphalt and smog and a concrete jungle in place of real land that lives and breathes.

“I heard some of the army out here was particularly, uh…” Hosea thinks for a second. “Unpleasant about it.”

“Unpleasant?” Charles echoes. “How do you rob and kill people pleasantly?”

“You… say please?” You try to joke. “And thank you?”

“Something like that!” Hosea laughs. “That’s the perfect way to simplify something more complicated for the benefit of our blockheaded driver here.” 

You cringe a little. You don’t really want to be roped in while Hosea’s insulting Arthur so freely and carelessly. 

“Hey, don’t blame nothin’ on me,” Arthur says. “Never forget, y’all – this here’s a conman, born and bred. Just ‘cause it sounds fancy don’t mean he knows a damn thing ‘bout what he’s talkin’ ‘bout.”

A nice pseudo-quiet settles over all four of you. (Pseudo because while it’s true that none of you are talking, the noise of the forest around you fills that silence well.)

“So…” Arthur starts. “Charles. What happened to your tribe?”

“I don’t even know if I have one. Least, not that I can remember,” Charles says. “My father was a colored man. They told me he lived with our people for a while – a number of free men did – but… when we were forced to move from our lands, the three of us fled. I was too young to really remember much.” 

His expression hardens a little. “All my life I’ve been on the run.”

You feel your face twist a bit and a pang of empathy. Empathy – not sympathy. You don’t feel pity for Charles. You know a feeling familiar to his. Maybe you weren’t literally pushed from your land, but you sure as hell know how it feels – skipping from shelter to warming center to temporary housing to shelter.

Addicts, even child addicts and children of addicts, are liabilities. You were a liability.

Charles’ voice brings you from your thoughts. “A couple years later, some soldiers captured my mother. Took her somewhere. We never saw her again. We drifted around. My father was a very sad man, and the drink had a mean hold on him. Around thirteen… I just took off on my own.”

His eyes flit over to meet yours. “What’s that look for?”

“Sorry.” You duck your head and look off to the side. “It’s just… I understand.”

You leave it hanging at that. Then, you look at Charles out of the corner of your eye. He’s waiting for you to continue. You glance at Hosea and Arthur. Neither have turned around to look at you, but you can tell they’re waiting, too. 

“My dad wasn’t around. Like, at all,” you say. “And my mom liked to go to trap houses to get stoned out of her goddamn mind.”

“Trap houses?” Hosea echoes. “What d’you mean by that?”

A cold shock shoots down your spine as you remember that, yeah – this is 1899! And you’re from the future! And you can’t let slip that you’re from the 21st century!

“A trap house is a house where people go to buy and sell drugs,” you say as you think of a lie. “Sorry – it’s slang from the Frontier, I guess. Hasn’t made its way eastward yet.”

“Huh,” Hosea hums. “And what did you do before you found yourself here? If you don’t mind my asking.”

The dream! The dream! Your mind screams at you. Remember the dream!

“I worked for a company called Happy Trails Caravan,” you lie. “Had two mules – Rook and Bishop. I spent most of my time travelling alone, and delivering to the tribes in the Mojave.”

“And how was that?” Hosea asks. “I can’t imagine travelling all the time leaving a lot of room for friends.”

“Oh, yeah. It was nice, but still a little lonely,” you say. “I started doing more local runs across the north of the Mojave around six or seven years ago. Made friends with some of the tribes in Zion Canyon. I started working that job when I was maybe… fourteen? And spent around a decade going cross-country before I did more local deliveries.”

“That was about the age we found young Arthur here – maybe a little older,” Hosea says. “A wilder delinquent you never did see! But he learned fast.”

Arthur scoffs. “Not as fast as Marston, apparently.”

You and Charles exchange a look and he speaks up. “I don’t understand. What’s the problem between you two?”

“Eh…” Arthur shrugs. “It’s a long story.”

You cup a hand by your mouth and half-whisper to Charles. “Marston’s the wolf guy, right?”

He just nods in response. You drop your hand and lean back, looking around at the scenery again. Arthur leads the wagon right by the wall of a sheer cliff drop. You look up at the ridge and the trees silhouetted there. 

“We still headed the right way?” Arthur says. 

“That depends,” Hosea says. “Are we still heading west, in search of fortune and repose in virgin forests, as we planned? No. Are we heading in the correct direction on our desperate escape from the law, eastwards down the mountains? Yes, I believe so.”

You smile to yourself a little. You don’t really know him all that well, but so far, Hosea’s shaping up to be one of the people you can trust. If not, he’s a nice storyteller, at least. You guess that counts for something.

“You know this area?” Charles asks. 

“A little. I’ve been through a couple of times. There’s a livestock town not too far from here, called Valentine.” Hosea hooks his thumb over his shoulder at you. “Was telling them and Arthur about it earlier. Cowboys, outlaws, working girls. Our kinda place.”

“O’Driscolls?” Arthur asks. 

“Probably them too,” Hosea says.

“Pinkertons?”

“Let’s hope not.” 

“And this place we’re going…” Arthur shifts, giving the reins a light snap. “Wait, what’s it called again?”

You turn and watch the riverbed pass by as they continue to talk. The place is called Horseshoe Overlook, like Hosea told you earlier. They talk about the Blackwater job and about Dutch doing things that weren’t like him. (That confuses you a bit. He’s a nice guy, as far as you can tell. But everyone has their limit, and from what you can infer, the ferry was Dutch’s limit.) A few more sentences later, you get the distinct feeling you shouldn’t be listening in on this conversation. Instead, you turn to Charles. 

“Are you doing okay?” You ask. 

“I’m fine,” Charles says. “Do I… not look okay?”

You laugh awkwardly and scratch your cheek. “No, no. I’m just… asking to be polite.”

His eyebrows draw together a little and he frowns a bit. “Okay.”

You inhale deeply and draw your lips into a thin line, then nod, then look away. 1899 is such a weird year to be alive. Or… to be in a coma in? Like, you’re in a coma and your coma dream is set in 1899. This is so confusing.

Javier’s voice from up ahead breaks your thoughts (and keeps you from going into a spiral, really). 

“There you are, brother!” He points further down the trail. “Head in there and follow the track for a bit.”

“Thanks,” Arthur says. 

“Hey, slow up,” Javier calls. “I’ll jump on.”

Javier catches up as Arthur slows down. He hops up onto the tailgate step, holding onto the side of the wagon for extra support. You give him a smile and he nods in return. 

“Any trouble getting in here, Javier?” Hosea asks from up front. 

“No, it went well,” Javier says. “This is a good spot.”

“Excellent!” Hosea says. “I think this’ll work for us. For now, anyway.”

You lean to the side and watch as Horseshoe Overlook comes into view. It’s a nice spot, like Javier said. Some of the grass has already been worn down from all the recent moving around the people and the horses have been doing. A few tents have already been set up, but not all of them.

“Here we are, folks,” Hosea says. “Home, sweet home.”

“You weren’t wrong, Hosea!” Dutch calls from inside the camp. “This place… is perfect.”

Hosea climbs off, and you take that as a hint to get off and start unloading. Charles looks inside the trunk you were sitting on before and tells you that it’s bedding. You take it from him and head over to the tents. 

Most of the rest of the day passes like that. Everything needs to be unpacked and worked on. There was a small interruption when Dutch got up on his soapbox and gave a quick speech about everyone pitching in. He told the gang their fake backstory – that you and the rest of them are a group of itinerant workers whose factory got shut down up north. 

Evening comes quietly and quickly, and night follows it. The sheer drop on the outskirts of camp serves as a nice place to sit and think. 

The stars are so much more bright than they are back in your time. (Your time? Or is it real life? Waking life? Who knows? And, at this point, who cares?) They twinkle and blink and almost seem to dance. They group together and look like they’re spilling from one center source. The moon is nice and full on the horizon. You can see the craters and indents in her surface. It’s like you’re looking up at millions of silver nails driven into dark blue velvet, with the white head of a spike serving as the moon. It’s beautiful, for lack of better words. 

“Hey.”

You gasp and tense, glancing over your shoulder. It’s Arthur. 

You return to looking up at the sky. “Jesus… What do you want?”

“Charles told me to ask you if you’ve eaten,” Arthur says. “Well? Have you?”

“Uh, yeah,” you say. “I’m good.”

Even though you think the conversation is over, you can still feel Arthur behind you. It seems that these people either don’t know how to end a conversation or it’s just different in 1899. 

“The stars.” You glance over your shoulder at Arthur, then away again. “I’m… I’m looking at the stars. If you were curious.”

“Uh huh?” Arthur hums. “And what’s so fascinating about them stars?”

“It’s just that, uh… I couldn’t see them as well out west,” you say. “Where I’m from. Here, I can see them so clearly. They look so real.”

Like I could just reach out and touch them… I mean, this is a coma or something like that. Maybe I could. Maybe I can. 

“I mean, I know they’re real,” you say, your voice laced with laughter. “I’m not – I’m not stupid. They’re just pretty. That’s all.”

“Whatever you say,” Arthur says. 

He steps forward into your peripheral vision. You glance at him, then away, like a child after they’ve been scolded for staring. You push down the instinct to shrink away and look at him.

He takes out a hand-rolled cigarette and puts it between his lips. He strikes a match with the bottom of his boot and lights it. The cherry of the cigarette lights up his face, casting warm light and soft shadows. 

“You want one?” Arthur asks. 

“Huh?” You blink, then look away. “No. No, thank you. I don’t smoke.”

“If you say so,” he says. 

You can see Arthur look up at the stars out of the corner of your eye. He takes a deep drag from his cigarette, then exhales the smoke through his nose. The cherry of the cigarette flickers, then resumes glowing softly. 

You join him in looking up. Sure enough, the stars are still there, and the stars are still real. All seem to spill from a single source. The moon is a little higher above the horizon – no longer touching it, but hovering in the sky. 

 Usually, you’d never get moments like this. You’d usually work from sunrise until sunset and pick up extra shifts and overtime where you could. It’s nice to see the world like this. Natural. Raw. Even if you have to ignore Arthur’s presence extra-hard, you still manage to enjoy the moment. 

Everything’s just so slow back… then? Back now? Back now. Everything’s so slow back now. It’s like a break. A break from the jackrabbit-style, too-quick, so-fast-it’ll-give-you-a-heart-attack type of living you’re used to. A forced break, but a break nonetheless.

Breaks are nice. You watch a star flicker, twinkle, then blink into darkness. 

Maybe you should take breaks more often. 

[flamingpudding]

Fictober23 Prompt: 9 - "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: Red Hood's swearing, mention of character death

Danny blinked a couple of times before he realized what exactly happened. He had been with Alfred making some cookies for the rest of the family after Oracle had reported they would all come back uninjured. And Danny had decided to help Alfred in hopes to get back on Damian's good side. The boy had been pretty short and huffy with him ever since Danny had admitted that he didn't plan on getting reinstated as hero.

The rest of the family had taken it sort or well, sure there were the occasional side comments in hopes to maybe convince him to come on patrol with one of them every now and then but otherwise his decision was greatly accepted. Alfred had appeared especially happy when Danny had announced that after having lived with the Waynes for little more than a year now.

Of course Phantom would still come out to help if his ghostly rogues decided to show up and pester his new family or Lady Gotham needed help with something or when Lazarus Pits were involved. But this certainly did not include a situation like that.

Looking down at his gloved hands, Danny breathed out a sigh of relief, noting that he had gotten summoned as Phantom at least. Pretransfomred. Last time he got summoned and had appeared shortly as plain old Danny before changing into Phantom, Tim, as Red Robin of course, had gaslighted the cultists into believing they hallucinated seeing Daniel 'Danny' Fenton-Wayne for a brief moment. The press still had a field day with the nonsense the arrested cultist spouted.

At least now they wouldn't have to deal with another media drama that could result in Vlad trying to fight Bruce for custody again. Still, Danny frowned, they had summoned him right out of a late night baking session with Alfred and knowing his family the way he does now it was only a matter of time before they all stormed this place or at least some of them.

Bruce had put a tracker on him specifically for this kind of situation, aside from the fact that he was also still pestering the Justice League Dark to find a way to stop it from happening in the first place.

"You do realize that you are in deep shit right?" The occult leader looked at Danny for only a short moment before continuing his spiel about how with the power of the summoned they would lead the world back to the balance it's supposed to have and bla bla bla. Being the Ancient of Balance Danny never thought he would even get summoned, aren't cultists in books more interested in evil demons, masters of chaos, Cthulhu and so on?

Knocking with his fist against the barrier lightly, the halfa noted that he would probably be stuck in place until his family showed up to disturb the chalk writing on the floor. For a moment he wondered if he should attempt to break out but then remembered the lecture Bruce had made him sit through the first time he broke a magical barrier and got injured in the process. It was probably better to wait.

"You know the last time I got summoned out of family time, one of my brothers went apeshit on the cultists." Danny continued to interrupt the leader's speech, just to be a little shit. He needed to pass the time somehow. Plus he wasn't lying. He had gotten summoned right out of movie night with his siblings, it's no understatement to say that they were not amused. Jason was especially pissed for some reason. "And the time before that it was my younger brother, that was a whole lot more bloody but no one died anyway in the end.

"Silence spirit of balance, you will listen to me. I was the one that summoned you."

"Yea… buddy that's not how this whole summoning thing actually works. You read a couple of fictional books." Danny retorted until he saw what the leader pulled out and flinched back.

How was that possible? Danny was sure that after his parents death, Bruce had bought all the rights of Fenton Works, including the patents and put it all in Danny's name no matter how much some tried to fight it. If it wasn't willed to Danny then Bruce had bought it. They had stopped any production of his parents' inventions, they had forced the GIW to cough up all the inventions they bought and then disband the governmental organization through the Justice League.

Of course Danny had known that some of his parents inventions were still on the black market and then there were also Vlads inventions but, the cult leader was holding up a Fenton bracelet Danny had specifically created for his brother to help him control the corrupted ectoplasm in his system until his treatment with Frostbite was done. How was it possible for them to get a hold of it? No wait it looked slightly modified from the one he made for his brother.

"This will make you listen to me." Danny's eye widened as he noticed a shard of a very familiar red crystal embedded in the bracelet when the leader waved it around triumphantly at Danny's reaction. It wasn't enough to brainwash him by simply holding it to his face but if he made direct contact with it? Danny wasn't so sure.

"How did you get that!"

"Oh not so mouthy anymore are we?"

His core quivered and all his eyes could do was focus on the red shiny stone as flashback ran through his mind as he pressed as far away from the leader as he could. His back hit the other end of the barrier he was in and Danny contemplated breaking the barrier and high speed flying home to the Wayne manor even if it risked injury.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The calm but familiar voice broke Danny out of his panic as he saw a blade sneak around the leader's neck. Robin was standing right behind the man seemingly having appeared out of nowhere.

"Robin! B said to wait for his signal!" Another voice appeared and Danny heard the thud next to him with the flutter of a cape. Relieved, he turned his head ever so slightly to find Red Robin next to the barrier, looking unimpressed at the fact that Robin, from the looks of it, had run ahead of them once again.

Robin clicked his tongue and Danny finally relaxed enough to snicker at his siblings' banter. Before he could add in his own two cents to the banter a window crashed in and Red Hood added himself to the rescue party.

"Can't any of you follow a fucking plan?" The man announced his presence loudly while also landing boot first on some random cultist members. That instantly scattered, their stunned frozeness, caused by their leader getting held at blade point, broken now.

"You're one to talk. Since when do you simply follow B's plans anyway?" Red Robin huffed back, taking the bracelet from the leader as well as destroying the barrier seal with his boot by smudging the chalk writing.

"Point taken." The other answered as he started to knock out any cultist that was in his reach. Red Robin joined him once he gave Danny a look over and was certain that the barrier no longer existed.

Robin once more clicked his tongue causing Danny to look over, the leader now knocked out cold before his feed. "Phantom, you need to stop getting summoned by these incompetent…"

"Imbeciles!"

"Scoundrels!"

"Asshats!"

"Scum!"

"Fucktards!"

"Lunatics!"

"I do not require your input!" Robin shouted across the room at their older siblings that were currently giving the rest of the cult members the beat down of their life.

"Fruitloops?" Danny offered chuckling at the seething glare Robin directed at him for that and he lifted the palm of his hands in a sign of peace.

[geese-in-a-frock-coat]

What's your evidence for Watts and Murdoch being autistic? (I totally agree btw)

Hello, internet stranger. Buckle up cause I've thought too hard about this.

Ok disclaimer I have not really sat down and watched the whole thing for a hot minute. Its past nine, you're just gonna have to trust me this one.

Credentials: Mega autisitc

Murdoch:

Does not understand social conventions. Like this ones pretty obvious. He doesn't understand why people keep dogs. Raises his kid in a completely non traditional way. Frequently doesn't get why people care about something that he sees as not being worth it (sports and popular trends and so forth).

Doesn't like small talk

Cares about justice NOT the law. The thing that really makes me think he's autistic is that he cares about things being just and is prepared to break the rules to do so. The main example being he lets that woman out of prison depsite the fact that he could go down for it. He turns a blind eye to Watts and lets Giles go even though they're both criminals in the eyes of the law. And on the flipside he sends George to prison because I think that's what he percieves as justice (if anyone's seen the bridge this really reminds me of Saga at the end of season 2)

Sees through hierarchy. There are so many epsiodes that play out like "I think Mr X is the killer." "But Mr x is extrememly important and influential!" "I don't care he killed her."

Interest in science and inventing. Look I know we joke about stereotypes but like, its a stereotype for a reason. He builds things with an autistic brain. He uses pattern repition through learning about previous inventions and applying them to his own devices.

Visual learner. This is not autism exclusive but he solves cases in such a unique way that it screams ND to me. Murdoch often literally builds a case. They make a joke about clue/cludo but he literally has to make the model of a house to picture where everyone is. He makes all those model of the ladies that were covered in metal. And let us not forget his famous chalk board.

Buzzkill. I say this as a long-term sufferer of leaves parties at 8:45 syndrome. He does 'boring hobbies' which autistic people often have because we don't feel the need to take up traditional ones.

Remember that scene where he attempts to read out his and Julia's book and just absolutely cannot tell that no one gives a single toss about anything he's saying.

Wears the same thing for nearly 20 years. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Refused to let his wife cut his hair because he didn't want to change from the lady who used to do it.

breather. Part 2: watts.

Cannot read social cues: Frequently insults other station house four people. Pretty sure he called someone's baby ugly but I might have hallucinated that. "You're face is symetrical." Got chucked out of station house because he didn't get on with any of them

Disregard for societal norms: doesn't feel the need to be polite or tactful with anyone or to really follow police protocol. Acts very 'improper' a lot of the time. Only got one shoe shined that one time because that was all he needed. Puts his feet on the sofa, lies on the desk and leans over tables.

Makes limited eye contact.

The man will fidget with anything: Look this is clearly a character decision from Daniel Maslany but its an autistic character decision if ever I saw one. We're talking pencils, cups, fabric, anything. If it is on the set, he will find a way to play with out. And I don't normally like to assign autistic traits onto behaviour implemented by actors but it's basically stimming at this point. I dare you to keep an eye on this man's hands for any scene and I garuntee you they will not stay still.

Disorganised, but not: He always has tiny bits of paper and whatnot in his pockets but always seems to know where everything is. organised but doesn't have to time to be tidy. Same whenever we see his flat, it's equally disorganised. as an autistic person I find things end up all over the place because I don't have the capacity to keep them in order.

Bad handwriting and can't spell

Physicality: Most autistic people will have some sort of problem with co-ordination. He walks uneavenly. He has an odd posture. I always think about that scene where he steps in sick and moves around like a dear on ice. He's clumsy, can't sit straight and has a strange posture.

can't think when being interrupted

can't focus on two things at once.

George realised he'd been possessed by aliens because he was acting normally.

pretzels: dare i say safe food. If not, they're bland, usually the same everytime and take little mental effort to consume.

Strong sense of justic: see william murdoch.

SPECIAL MENTIONS:

Dr Emily Grace: didn't become a doctor becuase she didn't want to adopt a 'cheerful bedside manor.'

Dr Julia Ogden: Married to Murdoch (like calls to like) and sees through the bullshit of victorian society.

Susannah Murdoch: has those two as parents and I have the full confidence of genetics on this one.

In conclusion:

There's probably so much more I could talk about that I just don't remember because there is a lot more of this show than most others. But anyway. Murdoch is autistic because he has to be for the show to work and becuase he often comedic-foils far too close to the sun. And Watts is autistic because there is no way on God's green earth a man who stands like that is neurotypical.

Thank you, internet stranger, I am here all week.