#I just like rotating him in my head

[toxictoad]

I love it when Durge has the same personality pre and post lobotomy but just stripped of context.

Like, you are a person. You have feelings and instincts and reactions. You have muscle memory for things you don't remember doing. You know how to kill without thinking. Some things scare you for reasons you don't know. You are a shell without anything in it. You are a frame on which nothing has been built. You're an imprint of a person who doesn't exist anymore. A fossil of a dangerous predator. You were something, but now you are nothing.

[totally-here]

3 times Phantom's Guardian was Mentioned + 1 Time He Showed Up

One

Phantom’s introduction to Young Justice wasn’t as dramatic as Empress’ or Slobo’s, or even Arrowette’s first introduction to the cave. No, it wasn’t during the Olympics, or on a battlefield, and he didn’t come in injured and looking for help. 

Impulse just brought Phantom in one day and insisted that he should join because he’s their age, interested in justice, and now that Greta’s human again they need another ghost member. So Phantom stayed, popping in and out for missions but never really sticking around all that long. 

Today is one of the days that Phantom’s with them on a mission, that being looking around a lab of the Brain’s that had an energy surge recently, despite it being presumably abandoned. 

Kon got paired up with Phantom to check the rest out first, since they both have better hearing than Anita and Tim, who were both still in the main room working on checking the computers for previous activity. 

The room is dark except for the light green ball glowing slightly above Phantom’s hand. He waves it around enough for it to reflect off of glass, then throws it up to the ceiling. The light expands enough to illuminate the room. 

Phantom mumbles about not knowing he could do that. Kon ignores him and moves closer to inspect the glass tubes to the side of several monitors set up. 

“Looks like cloning equipment,” Phantom says, casually. He drags a finger through the dust gathering on one of the monitors. “Don’t think they’ve been activated recently, though, so that’s good.”

“What? You got a problem with clones or something?” It’s a quick and defensive answer, and Phantom puts his hands up in surrender. 

“Not in concept.” He shrugs and joins Kon near the tubes. “But not a lot of people ask before making clones.”

“So I don’t need to sic Superman on you?” Obviously Kon could chew Phantom out himself, but few can do a “not mad, just disappointed” face better than Clark. 

Phantom scrunches his face. “Why would you need to?” 

Kon stops pretending to inspect the tube and stares at Phantom. “You do know I’m a clone, right?” The blank look on Phantom’s face tells him that no, he did not. “Well I am. Clone of Superman, though we’re pretty much brothers now.”

“Cool,” Phantom says, not a bit less friendly. He hesitates for a second before continuing, “Could I maybe ask you how you got there? Me and my clone have landed on cousins, but that was also, like, given to us by her evil dad. So.”

Phantom trails off. Huh, that makes three members of the team that have been cloned. Not a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened three times. 

“You’re making sure she feels accepted, right?” 

“Yeah! Well, whenever she’s around. She,” Phantom waves his hand around, looking for the right word, “She’s a wanderer. Exploring the world and stuff. But Richard has a room for her at home, and I remind her of that whenever she does stop by.” 

“Well, first of all, don’t push it so hard,” Kon says. Phantom nods enthusiastically. “And second, who’s Richard?”

Kon doesn’t know a lot of Richards, and he doesn’t think that Phantom ever mentioned one before. Or even if he remembers his living life. 

“Oh, he’s my, uh, guardian? I guess that’s the best term. The guy I’m living with who forces me to go to school sometimes.” Phantom looks away and back to the tubes. 

Before Kon can ask for more details, Robin and Empress come in with a report of dead computers and wanting to know where they’re at with the cloning room.

They’re unimpressed with their lack of progress.

Two

Wally doesn’t really need to come by the Hamilton Lodge that often, not when that’s Young Justice’s territory and he doesn’t want to get involved in all of That.

But Red Tornado said that the team has a file on a planet that’s very quickly becoming a league problem, and he figured it might be a good time to try to check in with Bart, anyway. Make sure he hasn’t run any cars off cliffs again and all that. 

So he stops by Manchester to ask Bart about the file, then they both head East to actually find it. 

When they arrive at the hotel minutes later, Wally’s surprised to actually find it… clean? There’s no visible trash or overturned furniture or anything else he’d expect from an abandoned hotel filled with teenagers. Well, maybe not filled, lately. He doesn’t think anyone’s living here currently, with Greta at Elias’ for the school year and Slobo gone. 

Still, the room smells slightly of artificial pine scent, and Bart perks up before disappearing and reappearing rapidly, holding a teammate up by his armpits. Said teammate just accepts this, his legs folding into a wispy tail, and head rolling against his shoulders. 

“This is Phantom!” Bart holds him up higher. Phantom waves. Wally’s only heard of him through Max’s updates, the same way he would hear about Preston or Carol, but with more wariness about the supposed ghost. 

Actually looking at the pale face and glowing green eyes contrasting against the darker than dark jumpsuit, Wally’s a little more ready to accept his claim at being undead. 

“He stress cleans,” Bart explains, moving to carry Phantom under his arm. Wally bites down the urge to tell him to put him down, but only because Phantom doesn’t resist the hold, only moving to get into a more comfortable position. His hands are touching the floor. “So what happened?” 

Bart directs the question downwards, and Phantom heaves a very dramatic sigh. Definitely a teenager. It does raise the question of who exactly this kid’s mentor is. Hopefully he does have one. Maybe he’s the Spectre’s kid?

Phantom phases through the arm holding him only to lay on top of Bart’s hair. “I accidentally called Richard dad. And then fled.” 

Bart nods sagely. “Classic. One time I accidentally called Max dad, so I had to start a fire to distract him.”

Phantom sighs again, almost dreamily. “Genius.” 

Wally doesn’t have time to unpack all of that. Well he does, but he’s not going to, because there’s really only one Richard that comes to mind that might have the heart to take in a dead kid, even if he doesn’t go by his full name.

But surely Dick would have told him, or any other Titan, if he had adopted a kid. Right?

But there’s still a little shadow of doubt. Maybe Dick wanted it to be a secret, or it was really new or had a rocky start. Phantom doesn’t seem to hold himself like a Bat, but it’s not a guarantee Dick would have trained him. 

“The lodge looks nice,” Wally offers out loud, which Phantom shrugs at and wraps his tail around Bart’s head to keep secure. “Anyway, Impulse. The file on Myrg?” 

“Oh yeah!” Again, Bart disappears then reappears a few seconds later with a paper file. They really need to start digitizing more of these things. “That’s the planet where we played baseball so that they wouldn’t destroy Earth!” 

“You what.” 

The prospect of Dick following in his dad’s footsteps is forgotten in the face of what the hell Young Justice got up to on Myrg. 

Three

Tim may be in a…Predicament. 

It’s not his fault. Really. He knew what he was doing. He couldn’t let a civilian fall for the trap. But they were already so close, so he just, kinda, pushed himself into the rope instead. 

So there Robin is, tied upside down in a warehouse, with the Joker below next to an overly complicated control panel. The clown’s rambling about bombs hidden all over the city that Tim knows Batman is already tracking down with Batgirl. 

Tim’s not really paying attention to the rant because of that, more focused on wiggling enough to get the spare mini-birdarang out of his glove to cut the rope without notifying the Joker. 

“Yikes, bad time?” Asks Phantom’s voice beside him. Based on the source and accounting for the slight echo, he’s floating with his head near Tim’s, likely upside down. “Want some help?” 

Tim gets the birdarang out and starts sawing at the thick rope. They should be fine anyway, but stalling the Joker for extra time would be helpful. “Can you possess the Joker? Just hold him still.”

“The correct term is overshadow, but sure.” The voice disappears, and a few seconds later the Joker freezes. 

His body jerks forward, then backward, and a laugh chokes out of his throat. His hand claws over his mouth at the noise and he hunches over. All movement halts before he rights himself, shaking out his hands and rolling his shoulders. Phantom looks up at Tim and his eyes are glowing. 

Tim cuts through the rope, kicking and using the momentum to right himself and land on his feet. He brushes past Phantom in Joker’s body to handle the control panel. He turns off the radio broadcast and dismantles the bomb strapped to the panel.

Threat handled, he turns to Phantom and holds up some handcuffs. “Let me arrest you?”

Phantom obliges, turning the Joker’s body around and putting his hands behind his back. Tim lets him walk by himself out of the warehouse and moves the handcuffs around a lamppost. The Joker’s body jerks again, then slumps forward, just as Phantom reappears next to him, scowling down at the unconscious body. 

“That felt really slimy. Zero out of ten, would not do again,” Phantom grouches. 

“Why’re you in Gotham?” Tim asks. It’s not like Phantom makes a habit of visiting. The last time he came into the city, he complained about feeling the dead under the streets. Fortunately, that let Tim uncover a few tunnels that Talons travel through. Phantom, however, was unnerved by the Talons and left quickly. 

“Oh, Solomon Grundy’s back in our sewers. Richard said I should probably tell one of you Gotham heroes, since you keep track of those guys.” He shakes out his hands like they were cramped in the Joker. 

They hadn’t seen Grundy in a while. Tim assumed he was currently in a less violent personality. “What’s he doing?” 

Phantom shrugs. “Just chilling. Mostly underground. I tried to talk to him but he only grunted back at me. He also tried to pick me up, dunno what that was about.”

“Maybe because you’re both dead?” Tim guessed. That would be a surface level connection. Ivy and Woodrue have had more luck working with Grundy than anyone, and Phantom definitely doesn’t have the connection to the Green that’d help with that. 

Police lights turn around the corner, and Tim shoots a grapple to get to the roof above them. Phantom follows, but disappears as soon as they’re on the roof. Going back home, probably. 

Cass drops down from the roof she was listening on. “Richard?”

“Not the same one.”

They both stick around long enough to watch the Joker get put into the cop car. 

Plus one

A spaceship landed in the forests of New York, and Cassie’s team was the first to respond to it. Technically not respond, but check it out, since there wasn’t any alert or anything. 

Still, Wonder Girl has Empress, Robin, and Superboy on the other side of the ship, watching what looks like the back door, while she, Impulse, and Phantom watch the other door and main window. She has binoculars, but the windows are so tinted she can’t quite make anything out. 

No aliens have come out yet, and she hesitates to have anyone go in, in case whoever inside does turn hostile. 

Impulse has offered to run through a total of five times already, and it’s a testament to his restraint that he hasn’t, and a testament to Cassie’s that she hasn’t yelled at him yet. Phantom at least isn’t being annoying, but he’s not necessarily helpful, either. He’s not even watching the spaceship anymore. Now he’s trying to make a flower crown out of dandelions. 

“Door’s opening on our side,” Robin says from the comms. “But no one’s coming out.” 

“Alright, good enough to try to get in,” Cassie decides. She turns to Phantom, who’s closing off the circle of flowers. Beside him, Impulse has since pulled out a gameboy. “Phantom, go in invisibly through the open door and report back. Try to see what their plans are.” 

“Oh, sure. One second.” Phantom finishes the crown and tries to put it on Bart’s head. It doesn’t quite fit over his mane of hair, but Phantom shrugs and leaves it sitting there anyway before going invisible. 

“Maybe I should shave my head again,” Bart says as his game character dies. 

He gets a resounding no in response. 

Half an hour later they have a very annoyed Green Lantern lecturing them about league jurisdiction and knowing when to call someone else. 

Apparently, the alien ship was just stopping to complete some maintenance, and did not appreciate any spying on them, and especially did not appreciate who did it. Green Lantern was more than happy to explain that Wonder Girl’s team is not really a part of the Justice League and he can help with their maintenance. They denied his help and left to find a place with less people in it. 

“-and you!” Green Lantern rounds on Phantom next, but Cassie knows none of them are really listening. Sure, they messed up by freaking out the visiting aliens, and yeah maybe they should have contacted the league about it, but they’ve dealt with stuff worse than this! It’s not Cassie’s fault she thought that this would have stuck to the formula. 

“Who even are you?” Green Lantern runs a hand through his black hair, stupid green gauntlets shining in the sunlight. “Do I need to call your mentor?” He frowns. “Or do they know you mess up alien technology by just being around it?” 

Phantom scoffs and rolls his eyes. “How was I supposed to know their tech would go all fuzzy when I came in?” 

“You wouldn’t have to know if you just stayed out of the spaceship!” 

“Hey!” Cassie cuts in. “Technically that was my call. It’s not all on Phantom.”

“I still could've been more careful,” Phantom says to her, ignoring Green Lantern as they argue about blame. 

“Cut it out for a second, okay?” Green Lantern puts a hand between them and they stop to glare at him. He pulls the hand back. “Look, can I just talk to one of your adults about this?” 

Robin glares. “We don’t need an adult. We have this under control.”

“Only because I’m here now.” 

“I’ll call my mentor,” Phantom says. Kon opens his mouth, most likely to offer to call Superman instead in hopes of a lighter sentence, but Bart covers his mouth, smiling like he knows something Cassie doesn’t. Tim and Anita share a look, and don’t intervene as Phantom pulls out a phone from his chest. 

It rings once before it’s picked up. Cassie can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Kon’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Hey, do you think you can pick me up? Green Lantern wants to talk to you.” Phantom looks Green Lantern up and down then says, “No, this one doesn’t have a cape.”

Phantom says goodbye after rattling off their coordinates, hangs up, and stares at Green Lantern in silence for a few seconds. 

And then a swirling mass of black seeps into the space next to Phantom. The end of a cane steps out of it, followed by a leg, then the rest of the immaculately dressed man holding the handle of the cane that’s shaped like a bird’s head. 

“Phantom,” The man says. His voice drips with condescension in only a way a british accent can, yet Phantom smiles up at him. The shadowy portal behind him disappears. “What, exactly, happened?”

“That’s the fucking Shade,” Anita hisses to Robin, who shrugs noncommittedly at her. Green Lantern seems to recognise him too, taking a step back and clenching his hand that holds his ring. 

“Well, the team and I were staking out this spaceship–super cool, by the way–and I went inside to check it out, but my presence messed with their tech–which was an accident–and they freaked out, so I freaked out, and then we kinda got into a little fight until Green Lantern came to mediate.”

“Hm. Is that right?” The Shade asks Green Lantern, who nods slowly, still anticipating an attack. “It seems like the problem’s fixed, then.”

“Well, yes, but–”

“And it does seem about time for these kids to get home, doesn't it?” The Shade pulls out an actual pocket watch, chain and all, from his suit pocket and takes his time in checking it. “I’ll see them home.” 

Shadows grow from behind the team, swirling until they become a giant, gaping maw that swallows them up and spits them out in a different forest, or maybe just a different part of the same forest. 

Either way, Cassie has to take a moment to make sure she doesn’t throw up from the sudden vertigo the shadow portal caused. 

The Shade looks at Phantom, and raises an eyebrow. “You can’t expect me to always bail you out.” 

Phantom shrugs, looking guilty. “I know. Thanks, Richard.”

Oh, so that’s who Richard is. Annoyingly, neither Tim or Bart look surprised by this revelation.

[silicated]

childhood moments

[ballwizard]

[theoldkyokodied]

every warm up miguel drawing i drew in the past few weeks gdhgfhjsadghjagfj

[mindblownie2]

I think there's definitely something to Dankovsky not being entirely what you'd expect from a character like him, or not what he maybe would like to appear as - that is, him not really being that cold, calculating, purely "logic"-driven archetype at all; that he is actually so emotional and impulsive. I think it's also interesting how he can actually believe in the supernatural - there's the dialogue option in marble nest letting you say you believe in God, but especially in classic I think that's canonical, he talks about the soul, invokes concepts like providence or fate in ways that don't seem entirely just as figure of speech, he can very quickly turn on a dime and believe in Clara's healing powers or Artemy's traditional medicine or the Polyhedron's magical properties once he sees what he deems sufficient evidence, and he also has that line about "knowing there are things beyond our mundane perception". and you know what, I don't even think that's so contradictory. first of all, there are nowadays and there especially have been in the past, with less secular societies, plenty of scientists who also held some kind of religious beliefs. I think it's to a certain degree reconcilable when it's applied to different spheres of life - some things are relegated to spirituality, but where there are cold hard facts, you follow these; it doesn't inherently make you a hypocrite. also in the game, the thing he takes most umbrage with is not spirituality, but superstition - the kind of unreasonable and dogmatically held beliefs that lead people to, oh I dunno, say, burning innocent women for witchcraft instead of listening to experts? which you know I think is kinda fair actually? like I keep harping on about that but fellas I'd be mad too. anyway my point is, depicting him as a reddit atheist is in my opinion definitely a mischaracterisation.

however I was actually gonna talk about the whole "defeating death" thing because it's so interesting to me, people often point out how fantastical, almost mystical it sounds, and he sometimes strikes that tone - "could death be only a whim of the will that has shaped this world" is a fascinating line to me because it essentially implies that the way to attain immortality is to tell god to fuck off, but then at the same time. he is initially skeptical about Simon's immortality, though interested in the claims of his longevity and extraordinary immunity to disease; he says he wants to study tissue samples from Simon's body, which seems to me like looking for a material, physiological mechanism that could be potentially found in or applied to other people (and eventually, out of desperation or fascination or both, he can get into the Kains' whole soul transference/preservation thing, but it doesn't strike me as what he was really looking for before the game. as my friend always says, if immortality of the soul was all he wanted, he'd become a priest instead of a medical researcher). he says in haruspex route that his lab works on medicine against aging; he also notes iirc that death will never not be a thing completely because people will still be killing each other. there is that thing with the reanimated lady, which always struck me as a little off in some ways, but mainly - at the start of the game, he hasn't succeeded in his goal yet, so whatever happened there, he either was unable to reproduce it, or it wasn't what he was looking for either - I mean, the fact that you can resuscitate a person under certain conditions is a great achievement, but doesn't remove the fact that people die, same as, as he says, "doctors defeat death on singular occasions" - you can manage to rescue a person from injury or disease, but it's only postponing the inevitable, so what if it wasn't inevitable anymore? the goal, I think, is so that people don't just die of old age. and the thing about that is - is that really so irrational? I mean especially if you think about the setting, if you think about the incredible, sheer rapid change of the time period from the industrial revolution to mid-20th century, that pathologic sits somewhere in the middle of, is that not something that would appear to people as both fantastical but also within grasp, as taking the witnessed progress to its furthest conclusion? same as people imagined - and correctly so - that the next step from inventing the airplane was inventing a flying machine that will go to the moon, would they not also imagine, seeing the progresses of medicine and the extending average lifespan, that we will exponentially live longer and longer? like we know it's not that simple, and Daniil's goal is meant to be unrealistic, but I don't think it's "unscientific" in the sense that it's based on magical thinking. people don't really shoot for immortality anymore but longevity research is very much a thing and I think that's just essentially what he was doing.

on the other hand, it's funny to me to imagine that him sometimes framing his work in those less-than scientific terms might've been partly what made him unpopular; I think there's more to it, especially regarding his conflict with the authorities I think it's more about him representing "revolutionary" ideals, but with his peers? even what Isidor mentions in his letter, that Daniil's detractors claimed his theories were not scientifically viable - the accusation not being that he's a heretic or a necromancer or playing god, but that he's being unreasonable; and well, if the "groundbreaking theory of human mortality" that he claims to have formulated is in fact "people die because they just let it happen, don't let god or laws of nature dictate what happens to you", well. I can see that.

[kagoutiss]

green beetle black beetle

[canisalbus]

I had a scrap piece of paper and drew the little freakish dog 👍 I have been silently enjoying your art for like a couple months now? I found it randomly on uploaded Pinterest and was like “oh huh that’s rad” and yeah he’s such a lovely sad little beast

.

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

i have this really stupid idea in my head that im frankly a little obsessed with and the idea is this: trent crimm doing a drunk history episode on ted lasso's first tenure at richmond. is that how drunk history works? i don't think so. do i care? absolutely not. it's a special episode who cares because this image is not only hysterical to me but treasured. i treasure this image. i hold it close in my heart and also laugh and laugh and laugh.

[artichow]

he's so normal

[kyurochurro]

GUESS who got sick and GUESS who’s angrily taking care of him till he gets better

[peachyfnaf]

gamers its like 11 in the morning and im being unwell over nexus again /pos

They are just a walking tragedy and I love it. They have been pushed and pulled in every which way since creation, a ticking time-bomb made for the narrative to string along with promises of being enough, like a pig being led by a carrot on a stick. They make me JKFHSDF RAHHHHH

From the moment since being made they had to fill Old Moon's shoes. Whether or not the other celestial's wanted them to do that didn't matter to them because that's what Nexus felt like they had to do. They had to live in Old Moon's shadow and walk along the path his much bigger footsteps treaded, even if he has no idea how. And he has to do all that while still being better then him, in almost every way.

And things were going well, for a while!!!

But then Solar died. His chosen Sun. (and Nexus' and Sun's relationship w one another is a wholeee other thing I could get into because I also need to study that like a bug under a microscope kfhdsffs). So, as any Moon does when they lose their Sun, he started spiraling.

And he wasn't going to ask for help- no other Moon he's seen asks for help. Why would he ask for help?? Besides, he doesn't want to burden the other's with his problems when they're obviously suffering from Solar's death, too. And ofc Dark Sun was prolly doing something at this time as well- the hallucinations conveniently starting when Nexus was starting to tip, Dark Sun putting those virus chip things in Eclipse's/Ruin's heads, Nexus being open and vulnerable whenever he went to visit Old Moon in his head for the first time, the perfect timing of Dark Sun being there to scoop up Nexus at his lowest moment, when he was alone and floating in space.

AND now what Nexus is doing now. How do I word what I wanna say about him... He is like a walking unhealthy coping mechanism. Ik a lot of people (me included) have said they can relate to Nexus in some way, and what is going on rn truly makes me think of a "What If" scenario, a "What If" of what if everyone who relates to him chose to cope in a much worse way instead. He is choosing to do the wrong thing because it makes him feel free. Because it brings him comfort, in a way where he doesn't have to feel remorse about what he's done and what he's going to do. He is, to be blunt, going apeshit.

AND I LOVE IT BECAUSE WHO HASN'T WANTED TO GO APESHIT IN THEIR LIFE BEFORE??? He is making the wrong choices. And I want him to be stopped from doing that. I want him to be saved. I don't care if it's Solar or Sun or Ruin or whoever else, I want him to be smacked in the face with being alone again after Dark Sun inevitably betrays/abandoned/leaves him, and I want his ass to be scooped up and dragged back into the family kicking and screaming. And I want apologies from all sides, because while Nexus fucked up, so did the celestial's in their own way. I want him to feel the hurt he caused by betraying the family. And I want the family to feel the hurt they caused by locking him in a cage and throwing him into space. I want them all to feel regret and remorse for things they've done and can never take back.

Oh and I want him to cry. points at nexus. wail, motherfucker /aff

[iris-drawing-stuff]

Does anyone else find Jackalope's T2 end report commentary on Mikoto empty/lacking? Like, suspiciously so?

For every other prisoner it feels like he has had something interesting to say about the audience's voting motivations and the potential consequences of their vote, but for 009 it's like he's dodging the question. (or maybe it's just that Mikoto's my favorite, so I pay more attention to what is said about him.)

Like, he could have made a comment about how all John sort of manipulating the question of voting from being Inno/Guilty to which alter should stay: Mikoto(who's did nothing wrong promise) or John(who did all the bad things really please believe him). Does he not want to acknowledge John as an individual separate from Mikoto who's words had an impact on Es and the audience's choices/perception?

But instead he just says shit about "ooooo think of the victims and some shit about his lack of memory" which is like, one of the less hard hitting or interesting things about you can say

[shannonsketches]

he's so important to me

[coquelicoq]

love kim dokja's non sequitur answer to people thinking he's into yoo joonghyuk: "i like women." okay? good for you?? quick question totally unrelated but have you heard of bisexuality.

[w0rmeater-tbr]

At his core, Etoiles fights so that others have the opportunity not to.

He wants everyone to be safe and have fun, he has deemed himself a protector. He cares about everyone on the island, he cares about all of them eggs. He knows that people like Fit and Philza and Bad can fight, but he doesn't think they should have to. So he fights, he makes himself a threat equal to them (never more than, not in his eyes), he is loud and silly so that their enemies can't forget him. He doesn't die, because dying means leaving the fighting in the hands of people he cares about, and that's something he doesn't want to do.

He likes the fighting, he thinks it's fun. He likes the adrenaline and the danger (only when it comes to him in danger, never anyone else), and if he likes it why should anyone else who doesn't have to fight? It's why he's a bit frustrated with the eye workers, because he and they know that they'd HAVE to target him. Even if they manage to down him, he'd come back again and again and they'd never be able to actually get anyone else. He's too much of a threat, and the eye workers attacks are too organized to not take him into account. He cares so much about everyone, let him be the sword and shield, let him be in danger, let him fight so that others may lay their swords down. Let him protect so that others can feel safe letting their guard down.