#I made an au from another au

[starry-bi-sky]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[raycatzdraws]

A Linked Universe meets The Dark Crystal AU! I don't even remember what started it at this point. I remembered that the Dark Crystal and Age of Resistance are things I like, blinked, and woke up three days later with an AU and a bunch of art.

The designs and the story are a wip and for fun so expect a lot of variation! (I have a few different beginnings, ideas for different designs, etc)! :D

In addition to #linked universe I'll be using the tags #the dark crystal lu au and #courage of the dark crystal!

[excali8ur]

🔥🔥🔥

[solargeist]

random sketch of grian realizing hes stuck with the watchers

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

fantasy au whiteboard scribbles <3

[we-cool-beans]

Inspired by @pistachi0art ‘s infection au :0!

What if mushrooms??

[mblue-art]

drew @owl-bones's lv20 dust!cross boy, strike 💗 (pre-redesign) (new design here!)

silly xtras + simp thoughts under the cut

a shitpost ... ft silly au bc i got attached to how blorbo i made my sona in it...

im just a lil guye... against big scary tall skeleman constantly burning lots of magic... who easily crumbles to even the smallest bit of affection... he'll be dead on the fukcign gorund when im done w him /j/j/j/j/lh/aff <333

self-indulgent scenario/au surrounding my simping (just like all my other AUs in my head lololol) is called icecube (for now,, 👉👈),, yearned hard during an especially chilly rainy day, and felt so cold i joked that i was turning into ice-- then i got attacked with simp thoughts about how he'd be sooo warm and toasty (,,perfect for the weather,,,/)/////(\;;) and the silly thought of being the ice to his warmth-- his little icecube-- is very /////wwww

i love,, the visual of getting cold chilly hands and just reaching up to cup his cheeks and feel his ambient(?) magic warming my hands up and the whole gesture simultaneously making him melt,,

an icecube can only cool off a magic-burning body so much,, but i hope he enjoys the feeling lots everytime he holds cold lil me to his chest uwu 🧊💙❤️‍🔥

[starry-bi-sky]

finally giving fem danyal her own au and fulfilling my 'danny is an animal whisperer' agenda at the same time: mother of monsters danyal 2.0

i say "2.0" because TECHNICALLY 'mother of monsters danyal' is an au I made back in June for Dark fem!Danyal (who I promptly named Layal). However, I haven't posted much for her yet, and I like the "mother of monsters" premise too much to leave it only to Layal. Plus Danyal in that au was going to become the mother of monsters anyway, just with significantly less world domination and mass extinction.

'Animal whisperer' Danny has been something I've been thinking about since my latest DP 'wolfpack au' post and it's! So fun to think about, and who no better to assign the idea to than Danyal Al Ghul? Who comes from a family infamously known for their love of animals and nature?

Fem Danyal is just purely self-indulgent. *gestures wildly at her* i just lomvb,,, her,,,, I've only really mentioned her in context of the 'Things in Threes' au/my first Danyal al Ghul au with the facial scar, but she's!!! I love her. She deserves her own au <33

So kill three birds with one stone! Make a post about it.

Anyways, Danny has a large lair. Similar to cult leader danyal, her lair is a giant mountain region resembling nanda parbat with a big temple/palace-like area built into the mountain. It's large, it's overflowing with natural flora, with its own mini-floating islands hovering over some areas, and it's also completely empty.

Danny takes one look at her lair upon first meeting, -- noting that it looked relatively smaller from the outside -- and promptly, with the elegance of an Al Ghul, goes "What the hell??" Because yes, while she does enjoy her own solitude and privacy, this is a bit ridiculous.

For heaven's sake, there's even a massive lake in there! What's she going to do with all this space? Can she make it any smaller? Why is it so big in the first place? This looks borderline like one of the mega-islands!

She finds out later that apparently, the amount of ectoplasm a ghost has can have an effect on the size of their lair. And since she has such a large core, her lair reflects that. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, it's bigger on the inside so it doesn't take up "too much space" on the outside. Don't worry about it too much.

Danyal isn't totally opposed to having such a large lair, she's just... a bit baffled by it. It feels like so much wasted space is all. All this flora and no fauna to enjoy it with. It's practically eerie.

She decorates her temple-palace area, transforming rooms to match her needs as she sees fit. In the center of the inner gardens is a massive tree that she likes to climb, with twisting, winding branches. Sam and Tucker have honorary rooms, even if they can't safely leave the specter speeder for long periods of time, even with proper safety equipment. So does Jazz. Ali (Dani) has one too, but he can actually use that one, and Danny brought him to her lair so he could decorate it himself.

She has a personal garden, but for the most part she lets the flora exist as it is. Too much space to cultivate it en masse anyways.

Skip to a few weeks later, on her next visit to Clockwork. She developed a habit of going to see him semi-regularly just because. She enjoys his wisdom, and he has a lot of stories to tell, and when he's not being the cryptic and esoteric timekeeper, he's a bit goofy.

(pushing my dadwork agenda here,,, i think Danny deserves to go 'hey, Lord Clockwork, do you want me to buy you something' while she's at walmart, only to receive a singular glowing sticky note that says 'cucumber gatorade'.)

(She insists on referring to him with his proper titles even for the most mundane of things because it's proper, but Clockwork sees a future where she eventually calls him "Cee" and by all things in existence is he determined to get there. Anyways,,,)

On her next visit to Clockwork, just as she is about to leave, Clockwork stops her and goes; "Ah, I have something for you. Hold out your hands."

Danny does as such, and Clockwork doesn't give out things often, so her curiosity has spiked to the highest levels. He turns away from her for a moment, using his staff to summon whatever it is he needs, and when he turns around.

He drops a fish into her hands. Granted, a fish in a small glass tank. But a fish nonetheless. A small one, roughly about the size of her finger, with a blue-black, eel-shaped body and four sets of glowing eyes. She can see thin, almost translucent, but spiny fins down its back and the start of bioluminescent markings. It's swimming around in circles in its small container.

"Lord Clockwork." Danyal says all too calmly.

"Yes, Danyal?"

"What is this?"

"That is an adolescent leviathan, Danyal." She’s transfixed onto the tank, but she doesn’t need to see Clockwork’s face to hear the smile he’s stifling.

The myriad of emotions that runs through her all at once threatens to overwhelm her, and she can’t tell if the feelings are negative or positive. So she carefully closes her eyes to breathe in through her nose.

“Clockwork.”

“Ah, I see you’ve dropped formalities.”

She ignores that.

“Why have you given me an adolescent leviathan?”

She's expecting the trickster to look amused when she opens her eyes. Instead, he just looks endeared. "I know you're fond of animals," he says, "and you always look amazed when you come across an animal of the realms. So I thought you might enjoy taking care of the young beast, it's mother is dead so it has no one to care for it."

Oh.

"But, if you don't like it," Clockwork's hands reach out for the tank, "I can simply take it back--"

Danyal shifts the tank out from his reach and hugs it possessively. "I never said that. How do I care for it?"

And so clockwork gives her a list, and when Danyal returns to her lair, she sets up a large tank in her room for the leviathan to swim in -- it's much too small for the lake right now, she thinks. She'll feel better if it's somewhere she can find it. She names him Suhā.

Suhā grows quickly, and by the end of the mortal month she transforms one of the rooms into a large pond for him to swim around in. He's a very loyal beast, recognizing her as it's mother of some kind. Danyal takes great care ensuring that her beastie gets quality care, and Suhā swims to the surface to see her when he senses her in the room.

It spirals from there. Somehow, Pandora catches wind that Clockwork gave her a leviathan, and so the next time Danyal visits the Greater Athens, she gives her a baby chimera. It's eyes are still sealed shut, Danyal can't bring herself to say no. She names the little beastie Firas.

Frostbite hears about it too, and not to be outdone, gives her an animal she's never even heard of. Infinite-realms born, apparently. A fox-like creature with two small horns like an impala, four eyes, and tall legs. The name isn't something she's quite sure how to write down, and she's positive that her friends won't be able to comprehend it. She names her Eira.

Getting the three of them used to each other was... interesting. Suhā tried to eat Firas when Danyal first introduced the two, and they've hated each other ever since. Firas and Eira are seemingly getting along. Her island already feels full enough with the three of them on it.

Of course, that's not the end of it. With her luck, she begins stumbling across other monsters. Realms-borne or otherwise. An injured hydra in the Grecian islands that, through lots of trial and error, Danyal is able to rehabilitate and heal. It routinely comes to visit her afterwards.

A griffin with a broken wing that she moves permanently to the island that likes to keep to itself, but tends to come down when she's near. It gets along best with Firas.

A panther-like monster from the Shades Woods that had six legs and three tails, with ends that reminded her of a venus flytrap. It stuck around the heavy foliage and she can only make out where it was when she saw its golden eyes reflect.

She befriends a young indrik with its leg injured, and much like the hydra it follows her back to her island, and stays there in the mountains. It comes out when she's alone, much like her other beasts.

She receives two more leviathan -- one from clockwork, and one she finds herself while exploring the deeper and darker recesses of the Ghost Zone. It was huddled against the carcass of its mother, and she managed to befriend and get close enough to it to bring it back to her island. Suhā is fully grown by then, with a head bigger than Danyal herself and he still likes to stick her head out of the water for nuzzles when she's near.

He's not very happy with his new siblings, but he's not trying to eat them when she's not looking. So she calls it a win in her book.

And it's not just large beasts either; smaller animals begin popping up when she's not looking. Bird-like creatures and small mammals, and she swears she saw a doe (or something resembling a doe) grazing in the forest while she was walking by.

She takes back with her a lone snake egg once, and it grows so big it wraps around her island and sleeps with its massive head on the mountain beside the temple, like some smaller breed of Jörmungandr.

And on and on it goes. Some of the beasts she comes across never step foot onto her island, some of them follow her back, while others she has to carry back. Not all of the ones that follow her stay, and Danny rehabilitates the injured and releases them when they're fully healed.

It's hectic, and busy, and frankly she loves it. Some of her rehabilitated beasts return to visit her, or to have their children somewhere on the island, or whatever it is they need to do.

She becomes a bit infamous for it. She goes to visit Dorathea once, and as she's walking through the streets she can hear some of the denizens whispering while she walks past.

"Is that her?"

"Her highness' friend? Yes--"

"--that's the one--"

"--Mother of monsters--"

Danny's not sure how to feel about that.

Although, she can't say she's opposed.

Danyal Al Ghul, Mother of monsters, raiser of beasts. It has a nice ring to it.

[diwara]

Throwback to when I drew Kazuscara for my friend as payment for doing my windtrace

[coern-art-very-cool-and-nice]

encore nnks

[chiropteracupola]

in the mood for a modern au. banishing them to Community Theatre.

[goldengirlgalaxy]

You know how there's a whole thing about how DC superheroes die and get brought back a lot? Well, for DPxDC, how about this?

Every time a Justice League member gets resurrected, their ghost remains in the Ghost Zone.

So you'll have a member of the Justice League bite the bullet for whatever reason, they'll form as a ghost in the Ghost Zone. They'll make themselves comfortable, maybe they'll even becoming defenders of peaceful ghosts who have no experience fighting or no desire to fight. Maybe they'll find dead family members and re-establish their bonds. Maybe they'll find other dead members of the Justice League and make and undead branch of the Justice League. Maybe they'll meet Danny and either help teach him how to be a hero (if he's still young) or become a hero group supported by him (if he becomes the king).

And then, for whatever reason, someone found the magical amulet that can revive a person, they somehow developed 1-Ups for a limited time, the revival machine finally got a tune up, the hero gets revived. But the ghost doesn't leave the Ghost Zone. Because of this, the revived hero doesn't have any memories of their time in the afterlife. The ghost probably doesn't even notice something changed and that their old body is up and running again.

This all ends up coming to a head when the GIW decide to push the manhunt for Danny Phantom and all other ghosts, lying to the Justice League in order to convince them to help. They eventually decide to hunt down Danny and corner him, ready to capture him...

… And suddenly he's saved by a bunch of ghosts that look identical to them.

[m1d-45]

You know, I've been thinking. The stars in our world often look quite dim, especially in areas where there is light pollution. Suddenly, I'm imagining that in the Imposter!AU, the Creator looks at the stars at night, captivated by their brilliance. Perhaps Scaramouche or Mona (Whichever you prefer, you may also just write another character you think fits this scenario :D) find them. The Creator looks at them, then back at the stars.

"They're very lovely, you know? The stars never shine this brightly back home. It's a lovely sight..."

They smile. "I'm happy that I'm able to see them, even if it's in another world. I appreciate you letting me look at them before I die."

Perhaps the character takes pause... And sits next to them.

It's a lovely night.

in the stars

word count: ~1k

-> warnings: violence, blood, both of those in your future so technically you’re not hurt yet, not written for mona mains, sorry, didn’t work with the plot :/ also diona/klee/qiqi/nahida/sayu mains are on thin ice with this one. questionable plot. barely edited.

-> lowercase intended

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie

< masterlist >

the stars never lie.

mona clutches her catalyst to her chest, wide eyes turned to the sky. she whispers to them, hoping they’ll change, shift into something she’ll understand, anything.

they don’t.

her head lowers, inspecting the book. thrilling tales, the spine reads, the cover a simplified dragon with a sword through it. she tries to read into it, to try and pick apart the motives behind the weapon, but all it returns is a simple needlepoint.

a compass. one she’d followed ever since she caved into the pull on her catalyst, one she’d followed out of the city at dusk and into the plains, hiking up starsnatch cliff at its behest. her twin tails had lost some of their curl on the journey, her hat flopping sadly. it was late, later than she’d normally be awake, and she stumbled once on a rock before quickly catching herself, checking to make sure you hadn’t moved.

you, sat at the peak of the cliff. you, surrounded by cecelias, face turned to the stars. you, who turned at her short cry.

“are you alright?”

she couldn’t bring her hands to shift her catalyst into its attack position. her hands, free from their usual gloves, dug into the cover of the book, shaking both with the chill of night and with… she couldn’t tell, couldn’t pin whether it was fear or nervousness, or something else that blurred the line between panic and excitement.

“just fine, thank you.”

her voice was harsher than it should have been. she could tell you were being genuine, the way the water in the air shaped around you like it wanted to cling made that clear enough, the stars shining down on you as if you were the only being on the planet.

the stars never lie. so why were they saying you meant no harm?

you turned back to the stars, your hands shifting back to weave into the grass between the cecelias.

"they’re very lovely tonight. the stars, i mean. they never shine this brightly back home….” against her better judgement, mona glanced up. the sky was particularly clear, constellations shining down unhindered. “it’s a beautiful sight.”

orders from the knights echoed in mona’s head, orders extended from a god she’d never met. she knew the knights wholeheartedly meant what they said, truly believing the words they were told, but you…

hesitantly, she brought her hand in a circle in front of her, scrying for your constellation. you didn’t have one, unsurprisingly, and she relaxed slightly in the knowledge that you didn’t have a vision.. still, there was something strange about the empty space where yours would have been. swapping the sigils and rotating the outer edge, mona decided to read your future.

all the air was sucked from her lungs, the images depicted in the water making her mouth dry. the water warped and bubbled a dark color, as if it itself hated to show what it did.

you were on your knees, tight steel chains wrapped around you and latched onto hooks in whatever you were sitting on. in front of you stood the favored, the creator’s most prized, their weapon drawn. their form was taught with anger, nearly seething. it was strange, so uncharacteristic that it froze the astrologist in place for a moment.

no matter how fiery the disposition, vessels of yours were calmer after being wished upon, heart stiller for being by your side. they, the most prominent on your team of them all, should be at most handling such a severe situation with a tick in their jaw and quiet fury in their eyes, not…

she watched with sick horror as the favored attacks once, your chest caving once, twice with hitched attempts at breathing before you slumped over, blood trickling from your neck. the favored stepped back, weapon dismissed, and mona closed the illusion before it played any further. she hadn’t meant to look all the way to your death, only a few-

…only a few hours.

her hands shake where they’re still clasped in front of her, the remains of her scrying circle swirling in her palms. you didn’t even have a day.

she let the water fall, sending it towards the cecelias around you, willing them to stand brighter as she approached. she couldn’t bring herself to summon her catalyst, not now that she knew what your fate held.

the grass was damp beneath her, seeping slightly into her nightclothes. you didn’t say anything, simply passing her a flower that you had been twirling in your palms. she willed it to heal, restored the color to its petals and the strength to its stem, then passed it back. she had no use for it, not when you…

you chuckled as you took it, staring down at it for a moment before turning skyward once more. mona followed your eyes up, spotting a well known constellation directly above you. nearly perfectly straight up, glowing like a beacon, was the constellation of the favored, six stars making themselves prominent against the dotted sea of night.

“beautiful, isn’t it?”

she swallowed, eyes flicking down to you. you were still watching the stars, probably tracing the shape of the constellation above you. unknowing of what it spelled for your fate, unknowing of the warning written above you.

mona settled into the grass a little more, taking her hat off her head so it wouldn’t fall when she looked up again.

“indeed, it is.”

[sincerely-sofie]

Found some old PMD2 comics lying around gathering dust, so I figured I’d post them!

Bonus humanized future trio concepts for your trouble:

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[arsenicflame]

Hornigold's Izzy was the worst, of course. A version of himself that never escaped that terrible place, who lived his life as little more than an object. He still has nightmares about all the things Baz told them, about all the things he didn't.

It doesn't really surprise him, after the first ones, not at its root. To be Izzy Hands is to be someone's after all, though seeing his own face on someone so fundamentally different to him never gets less weird. The people who these other Izzys attached themselves too often left him with more questions than answers. Jack's Izzy, he can understand, from a certain view, though the man himself felt like a fever dream. The less said about Stede's Izzy the better, he's never going to forgive him for the ideas he put in his Stede's head.

Then there was Sam's Izzy.

The first thing anyone noticed about him was that he was happy. He smiled and laughed without thought, and went through life with an ease Izzy didn't think he had ever felt. The crew took to him immediately, accepting him in a way they never did the other Izzys, and certainly not their own. They prodded him and asked him endless questions, and he took every touch without a flinch and answered every question without a hint of a grumble. This Izzy was free. He was open, unburdened, trusting. He was happy.

Sam's Izzy was the one that hurt the most to see. He could accept the worst that Hornigold could've offered, that he would have suffered and been broken. It was infinitely harder to see that he had a chance to be this happy. That it slipped through his fingers.

He's never looked back before, but now? Seeing what might've been? He can't stop himself from considering the possibility that maybe he made the wrong choice back then, going with Ed.