#and can tell hes died/liminal like her

[bluerosefox]

"Daddy! Mommy's is having Ellie!"

Everyone in the Batfam knows Jason keeps secrets.

Secrets he'd take to his grave a second time if he had to.

But to think one of those secrets would be about the fact he had a secret family.

And the only reason the Batfam found out was because apparently their secret (grand)daughter/sister-in-law Jazz/Jasmine was in labor and their (great)grandson/nephews Danny (Daniel) and Dan (Dante) called him while on a Red Hood job with the rest of the Batfam to panicky tell him their baby sister Ellie was on the way early.

Red Hood books it away from the fam to his bike while asking to put Kori or Roy on the phone.

Oh boy.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

would love your opinion of the newest episode of DW, if you get the chance.

HAHAHAHA YES I HAVE MANY THOUGHTS

Alright okay so

I only have one complaint, which is that that wasn't a faerie ring. You could still have the shamble, no problem, but it should have been over the top of an actual faerie ring, which should be a mushroom (or, at a push, stone) circle. Not some cotton that would blow clean off the cliff edge in three minutes.

HOWEVER

This is the first time I've seen Doctor Who do a time travel story using, not Doctor Who time travel lore and rules, but Welsh faerie rules. (First time I've seen anything do it, in fact.) In Welsh myth, people who enter faerie rings or get entranced by the music become suspended in time, out of sync with the real world. They think they danced for a night, but when they return it's been 100 years, and they crumble to dust as soon as they eat/drink/step on land/etc.

In this case, this is what I think happened to Ruby. She spent that time in Annwfn, seeing what would happen if the binding on the ring was broken. When she 'dies', she returns to the spot and lasts long enough to give her younger self the warning, then crumbles to dust.

But, a time travelling Ruby is not the woman who follows her throughout the episode. That, in fact, is a gwyll.

The gwyllion were hag faeries, usually of mountain tops (though Pembrokeshire's liminal cliffs are 100% from Welsh mythology - it was said that if you found a faerie ring on one but only put one foot in, you could see the faerie islands in the sea. And that faeries used to visit the human markets in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion. So while gwyllion are unusual there, it's not an impossible relocation.) They were malicious and sometimes vicious faeries who delighted in making people lose their way, could strike an uncontrollable and ungodly terror into travellers, and who feature in more that one myth as an old woman that someone tried to approach, but they always appeared at the same distance away, impossible to catch up.

CAN YOU SEE THE PARALLELS

And the best part!! Is that this is why she defeats UNIT!!!

Kate tells Ruby that her agents have necklaces of silver and salt to keep out the supernatural, but that's just generic fairytale shit. That doesn't work on gwyllion. Salt drawn in a line would provide a barrier, but the UNIT soldiers aren't trying to trap or block the gwyll; they're trying to capture her. What works, very specifically, is a knife. Iron or steel for preference of course, but it needs to be a knife.

But UNIT has no Welsh employees and the soldiers have guns, not knives. And so they all become entranced.

(This is also what I think the gwyll 'says' to everyone to turn them against Ruby. She doesn't say anything - she sings.)

This is also the first time I've ever encountered any mainstream media doing Welsh faeries and understanding the tone to strike, which is 'unknowable, unstoppable and fucking terrifying'. I think I've only ever read it in Catharine Fisher books, and she's a Welsh author so... yeah, obviously. But I basically vibrated with delight and excitement for the entire episode.

Oh my god, hang on, Roger ap Gwilliam! Okay, I have two theories about him.

My weaker theory and the one I don't like is the kind of boring and obvious one, which is that he is himself not human. A lot of Welsh folklore features the devil, and I get that vibe from his role in the story. But, I'm not keen, because I can't see the link to the gwyll.

But my strongest theory, and the one I have chosen to believe, is that he's a human who made a deal with the Fae for power, and then reneged. There's a Metric Fuckton of stories about humans fucking up Fae gifts in some way, and the punishment is usually something ironic but always results in the loss of the gift. It could be a faerie harp that makes everyone dance, and the Fae tell the giftee not to abuse it, but they cruelly force everyone to dance so long and so hard that the faerie returns, takes back the harp, and then takes the human's ability to ever make music again, so example (by taking fingers or eyes or tongues as well, often.)

So I think Mad Jack strikes a bargain for power - but, then tries to abuse that power (nuclear war). But part of the bargain is that the Fae cannot approach him directly ever again. In the real world, they therefore tempt him into the faerie ring and bind his soul there, problem solved - until the Doctor accidentally lets him out, and gets his own soul stuck. Ruby, therefore, becomes the instrument through which they manage to take that power away once again - and then, her final Fae gift for her service is that they use the temporal anomaly of the faerie ring to send her back, at the end of her life, and give her a second chance. This time, with Mad Jack's soul left bound in Annwfn.

The fun part is, RTD is a writer who understands the power of not explaining everything and leaving some things up to the viewer's imagination, so none of this is ever going to be explained lol. But yeah, that is a gwyll. The moment she appeared, I said out loud "Oh holy fuck, gwyllion." That was a gwyll.

As a final observation, I loved seeing Siân Phillips, and I choose to believe they filmed those scenes in a pub because they could only get Siân if they agreed to just come to her local. The woman is a queen.

[redflagshipwriter]

Mamabat- enter Jason 1/2

MASTERPOST

The air was different with Cass, now. Danny felt a little anxious as he followed her to the study after breakfast. Something about her was serious-determined-protective. 

She always felt protective towards him. That was why he'd followed her in the first place. Some ghosts lied, but they couldn't do it with their aura. He knew what she really felt for him. 

“Sit?” She asked him. She gestured at the big squashy chair. Danny did without complaint. Cass perched behind him and started dragging her fingers through his hair, relaxing him.

Man. She was good at this. Top tier mothering, right here. Danny went limp. 

“I'm worried,” Cass broke the silence. She didn't sound worried. She never really did. Her voice was quiet and serious, but still kind. Her thumbs dug into his scalp. He pushed his head back against it. Bliss. “Barbara made you sad. Because you miss your sister?”

Danny tensed. 

‘I should have figured that Batman would track me down.’

Maybe he had known, if he was honest with himself. It didn't hit him like a shock.

“Tim thinks your name is Fenton,” she added, brutally sensible as always. And yup, that was it. No point in denying it. “Declared dead. In danger?”

He sucked in air through his teeth. He wasn't going to lie to her. 

“Worried,” she repeated. 

He thought about it. He really did. Danny bit his lip. 

She was liminal. That probably meant she'd come really close to death, in at least one sense of the word. Would that mean she was desensitized to it, or extra paranoid?

…It was hard to imagine Cass over or under reacting to a possible danger. She was just so steady. But would she see him as a possible danger if she knew what he was, what he really was? 

He could feel it out before he took a plunge with the whole truth.

Maybe it was wrong. Maybe it was invasive. She didn't seem to realize that she was liminal. That meant she definitely didn't realize how much she was communicating to him under her words and gestures. 

But Danny deliberately tuned into her quiet aural communication and tested the waters. “Tim is right, I'm Danny Fenton,” he said. He knew he was too tense. She would definitely feel it. But what could he do about that? He was nervous. “I… Maybe I did die.”

Her heart dropped to her stomach. He could feel the crush of grief on her heart. 

But it didn’t wash away the thudding repetition of love-protect-my darling. There was no suspicion, no guilt, no fear. It was just pain for his sake, with no calculation about how to solve a sudden problem. 

God. He wanted so badly for that to have been how his parents reacted. His eyes started to sting.

Danny sniffled. He thought it was safe to tell her. “I died,” he corrected, and he knew he was right when Cass made a little wounded sound and leaned her body into him, aiming to comfort. “Not then, but a couple years ago. I’m different now, and it’s uh… It’s dangerous to be this way.”

“Affects?” Cass asked quietly. She started to pet his hair again. “Mood? Health?”

“...Huh,” he said, because that was a sensible question he hadn’t expected. If he really thought about his mood and emotions before and after the accident: “Yeah, uh, there’s sometimes a mood thing. I might be a little more aggressive than I was before? And I can get kind of intense sometimes.”

He had thought that was basically just a reaction to having a whole bunch of new threats in his life. But would pre-electrocution Danny have been able to actually stand and fight Skulker? He had genuinely been afraid of the jocks. Maybe… Maybe he was different. Sure, Sam and Jazz were up for shooting ghosts with Fenton tech. Would he have been if he was just human? 

…He didn’t really think so.

Oof. Well, that wasn’t exactly great for his sense of self.

Cass shook him lightly. “Health?” she repeated.

Danny forced down that revelation to deal with later. He didn’t like acknowledging that he was kind of a chicken by nature, but historically, there wasn’t much evidence of bravery pre-mortem. “Uh, my heart rate is really slow, body temp is low, so I can’t really afford to go to a doctor for a checkup,” he said. “Uh, sometimes I’ve got none at all and my hair turns white.” He paused there. That was- that was enough, yeah? He was going to be honest with her because she deserved honesty from him. But that didn’t mean he had to explain the whole great beyond and his inhuman status.

“Sounds like Jason,” Cass said, after a long silence.

Danny short-circuited. “Wait, what?” He craned to look at her. “Who?”

Cass darted forward to kiss his forehead. “Little brother,” she said cheerfully. “Want to meet him?”

Uh, yeah. Danny nodded vigorously, wondering what the hell she was on about. “Do you mean he died?” 

“Died,” Cass agreed, getting out her phone and tapping away at it rapidly.

“Not like, heart stopped for a minute on the operating table and he was revived, or what?” Danny pressed.

“Dead in the ground, came back later,” Cass said. “Dead for months. Now, very crabby.”

Danny balked. “What?”

“White hair too,” she said. Then her face did something funny. “I think he dyed it recently,” she said. 

Danny huffed a laugh. “If it’s the same thing as mine, you can’t dye it.” He saw her look over his head for white streaks. He didn’t correct her line of thought.

He hadn’t thought that anything could top the anticipation of meeting Batman. But Danny had to admit the rest of the day was a wash. Apparently Jason couldn’t make it until the evening, about an hour before patrol.

Danny nearly paced a line into the carpet. He had enough energy to do that now, even without ecto. He was getting soooo much food here. A guy couldn’t even stress out for an hour without someone coming by to make sure he had fruit and yogurt or a hot drink.

He didn’t need someone to come and tell him that the much anticipated Jason had shown up. Danny knew it when he went to take a sip of cruelty-free chocolate milk (hand delivered by the most frightening child in the world) and choked on vapor.

Damian gave him a glare and snatched the drink away. “Are you incapable of drinking beverages?” he demanded. His face looked so goddamn cross but he was just worried.

Danny managed a smile. “No, went down the wrong pipe, sorry.”

Damian didn’t seem to even see the fog, so- so that meant that either he was really unobservant or he wasn’t liminal enough to see it the way people did in Amity. That was a small blessing. Danny appreciated it and he took back his drink to have something to hold onto.

That was a whole ass ghost. That was a whole ghost coming onto the property, one that felt big and mad and old. Danny smacked his lips, disconcerted. 

He, uh, didn’t know what to expect from this.

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Finally Getting Help (prt 6)

Masterpost

The Wayne family gathered in the family room once Alfred was done setting up the projector, somehow there was also a plate of cookies and a couple pots of tea on the coffee table. How he’d found the time they didn’t know, he always seemed to be doing just a little more than should be possible but they didn’t question it. 

Jazz seemed nervous as she plugged in her USB and accessed the power point on Ghosts and Liminality. The tidal page had a picture of Danny in his Phantom form standing with a group of others, a boy with gray skin and blond hair, a girl with green hair and skin, and a goth with purple eyes and a dark skinned boy who looked around Danny’s age, and Jazz with the title “Ghosts and Liminals!” 

The next slide had simple text: “What are they and How are they made?”

With each slide she read the text on the screen allowed and then added any context or anecdotes she thought of, or had prepared. 

(Next slide)

Ghosts:

Made of ectoplasmic energy and obsession

Made either:

when someone dies with strong enough desires

An idea gains enough traction to take on a life of its own

Immutable concepts and gods

Must be allowed to indulge in obsessions or they will cease to exist

All have basic abilities such as flight, intangibility, invisibility, and minor shape shifting

On top of basic abilities most will have additional powers based on their obsessions

Immortal unless killed 

Love to fight

Liminals

Made when a human is exposed to high levels of ectoplasm for prolonged periods of time

Have some ghostly traits 

Ghostly traits vary person to person

Less susceptible to human illness and injury

“The ghosts on the picture are Kitty and Johnny, we’ve had problems with them but would consider them friends now. They’re the ghosts of two humans who died, but there are others, Vortext for instance is the ghost of Storms. Those ghosts who come from ideas are called ‘neverborns’. There seem to be almost an infinite number of ghosts, however not all of them are interested in having anything to do with us so we tend to get the same faces showing up a lot in Amity.

“I don’t know how many liminals there are. I thought they might be new with my parents' research but as I look into it more I think there are more natural sources of ectoplasm then my parents thought.” Jazz explained before going to transition to the next slide.

“I have a question-” Bruce started before Jazz hushed him. 

“Wait till the end please! I might answer it without you having to ask,” She scolded, and he felt very much like a schoolboy again as his children snickered.

(Next slide including a image of the glowing green viles in the Fenton’s lab and a glowing green crystal)

Ghost biology 

Ghosts do not have any recognizable organs or bones

The only solid part of their being is their Core which is the source of their ectoplasm 

Any injury to a ghosts form not done directly to their core is considered minor and will heal

A healthy ghost is fully capable of mending any damage including removed limbs in a matter of hours or days depending on extent of the injury

All injuries not including the Core are considered minor 

Ghosts are considered young for at least the first hundred years of their existence and are often not considered adults until nearly 500

A caveat to this is ghosts are heavily driven by emotion and will often be the age they feel they are allowing ghosts to mature much more quickly, or more slowly

When this is the case ghosts are treated as the age they present and behave

Ghosts reproduce by shaping ectoplasm and Wanting a child badly enough

“Believe me it was incredibly scary the first time I saw Danny in his ghost form have something go right through his stomach. It took him a long time to convince me it wasn’t a big deal and it barely hurt. He does have to make sure he repairs the damage Before turning human again though or the damage can transfer over and I don’t need to tell you a hole in the gut is a lot more serious for humans!

“If I’m honest I only know ghosts that have stayed younger then they really are, for instance Youngblood who’s a few hundred years old and could be well on his way to adulthood if he wanted but has remained a child. I assume it can go the other way though, if a ghost is very mature for their age.”

Ectoplasm 

Ectoplasm is the energy that makes up all ghosts and the Ghost Zone itself. All ghosts can feed on the ectoplasm around them as well as produce their own by indulging in obsessions. The ghosts Cores produce the ectoplasm like a brain produces neurochemicals when exposed to the right stimulation.

Ectoplasm is a powerful source of energy but unstable. When it is stabilized into an ecto-crystal it is more stable and can be used as a power source safely by ghosts and liminals.

“Most ectoplasm is green like you see in the pictures. But it isn’t the only colour, some other ghosts produce different colours and it is highly tied to what emotion drives them. When it’s pure it usually smells like petracore but it can get pretty foul.”

(next slide)

What are Obsessions

Every ghost has one or more obsessions

They can be very literal things such as boxes, or ideas and emotions such as Love

In rarer cases they may have dual obsessions

Unlike for humans obsessions are very healthy for ghosts

Ghosts need to indulge their obsessions

Sometimes the way ghosts indulge their obsessions might seem evil, however it is almost always just amoral 

Obsessions shape every part of a ghost from their powers to thier physical appearance, to befriend a ghost you Must understand and aid their obsession

In very extreme circumstances a ghosts obsession may shift, sometimes this is healthy, more often it is a result of extreme trauma

“With my interest in psychology this was sort of hard for me to accept. From the outside the way ghosts obsess seems really unhealthy but it’s what gives them life. When not allowed to indulge in their obsessions ghosts will dysregulate and go to extreme lengths to try and get their obsession, if that doesn’t work they either go dormant if their core is still healthy enough or they will melt. 

“Ghosts change their obsessions very rarely, I’ve heard of it happening as they heal. For instance once a ghost has gotten revenge for themselves, if that was their obsession, their obsession might shift to avenging other people, or even protecting them so they don’t need to be avenged.”

(Next Slide)

Ghost Culture

The Ghosts have a monarchy

The title of the Ghost King is not hereditary but passed through trial by combat

Under the monarch is a council of being known as Observants, and powerful and old ghosts called Ancients 

Ghosts respect strength and value power and cunning in combat a lot

Ghosts bond with each other through combat and play fight with family and friends often

“I have down that the ghosts are a monarchy, and technically that is true but the current Ghost King was a tyrant who was locked away thousands of years ago. I’m sure as soon as someone shows up who’s powerful enough to beat him his court will be happy to pick up where they left off with a better King, or queen, though I don’t think the title has to change based on gender.

“I really can’t stress enough how violent ghosts are! Because nothing short of having their cores shattered can kill them, play fighting for them can look Very Much like a murder attempt to a human. A lot of the issues we’ve had with ghosts have come from them just not understanding quite how fragile humans, and for most of them they feel really bad once they know they actually Hurt someone by shooting them. It’s really best for everyone when they’re kept separate and Ghosts can happily tear each other apart in peace.”

Liminals

The result of long term low level exposure to ectoplasm, sudden high doses are almost always deadly

Liminals Can have almost every trait a ghost can, usually having a combination of a few

Commonalities between liminals include

Minor cosmetic changes such as: glowing eyes, pointed ears, and/or sharp teeth 

Increased stamina, strength, and aggression

Increased obsessive behaviour

Liminals sometimes develop powers shaped by the strength and type of obsession 

“Most of the people Danny and I know are liminals. I don’t want to talk about them in case they don’t want to be outed so I’ll talk about myself and my parents. We all had prolonged exposure after all. My ears are pointed,” She said brushing her hair back so they could see them, “And Danny is a little more then liminal but even in human form he has fangs. 

“My parents didn’t realize it but they could to the point they could subsist on their obsession without needing to eat or sleep as often as a regular human would. About a year ago I started developing the ability to tap into and feel other peoples emotions, I can feed on them a little too but I try not to because the Worst ghost we met did that and I don’t want to be anything like her.”

(Next Slide)

In conclusion

Ghosts are not evil even though sometimes their actions are hard to understand

Never get between ghosts when they’re fighting each other but it’s usually safe to yell at them to remind them not to break anything

Never get between a ghost and their obsession

Don’t drink ectoplasm unless you know you’re already liminal

“I have a feeling the section about liminals will be familiar to a bunch of you. I know Damian is liminal though I don’t know how he was exposed to ectoplasm and some of you,” Her eyes skirted across Tim and Bruce. “Are toeing the line. You’ll probably notice Damian and Danny getting really close, and they might get in some really vicious looking fights. I promise Danny is playing at least.”

The family was left silent for a moment, Bruce knew he was thinking about Jason. Who had died, been exposed to.. What certainly seemed to be something like Lazarus water and come back, obsessive, aggressive, and emotional. He wished he’d had this powerpoint a long time ago. It helped understand Damian too but mostly he was thinking about Jason. He needed to reach out again, maybe meeting Danny would be good for Jason?

“So uhhh, ya, that’s the end of the powerpoint?” Jazz said, shifting from foot to foot in the awkward silence. “Any questions?”

Next

[strong-with-the-sarcasm]

DP x DC prompt #4:

(Insomnia struck again with those witching hour thoughts.)

We’ve seen Revenant!Jason. We’ve seen corpse AU. The rare Halfa!Jazz AU has been gifted to us.

But now, I present a result of a bad timeline-

Revenant!Jazz

According to Monster wiki Revenants are supposedly,

“the spirit of a deceased human being that has returned to the mortal plane as a visible ghost or a vengeful spirit that has possessed a dead body, likely its own body.”

Which if you’re a fan of Revenant!Jason can be aptly put. He does seem the vengeful sort.

However, the next paragraph is as follows,

“Revenants are said to return to the living realm to take revenge on those who wronged them in their previous life. In a typical myth, only wicked or evil people tend to turn into revenants. Rarely, however, there were cases where a particularly strong willed individual had died before fulfilling an important task or a promise and would return as a revenant to complete what was left unfinished.”

‘A particularly strong-willed individual’, you say?

=======

Jazz is killed trying to get Danny out of Amity Park, her little brother a sobbing bleeding mess on her backseat, her tiny car a contaminated mess of glowing green and dark red as Danny tries to keep his innards within. They are about to cross into Gotham, to lose their ghost hunting parents in the liminal city when something slams into the driver’s side of Jazz’s car.

Jazz has enough left in her to tell the blurry figure in black to save Danny before she gives into blood loss.

Official cause of death is a punctured artery in an unfortunate car accident.

Unofficial? Murder.

Jazz doesn’t become a ghost, no, she’s too angry and worried about Danny to let herself be taken to the Realms just yet. She won’t rest until Danny is safe. That’s all that matters-Danny.

It was fortunate that she hadn’t been cremated just yet, awakening in an unattended body bag.

[aprocessionofthoughts]

Explanations

part 4 of MM ao3

Danny winced, overwhelmed for a moment at the emotions Hood was projecting. A flurry of fear, anger, not again, pain being shoved at him as forcefully as if someone were screaming in his ear. 

Danny raised his hands in surrender. “Look, we don’t mean any harm. I honestly have no idea what pits you’re talking about, but I do know a lot about the being dead thing.”

Hood didn’t move, just kept glaring at him.

Danny took a chance and projected peace, want to help, it’s ok. 

Hood’s angry aura faded and he stumbled back a step.

“What was that?” Hood growled and Danny gulped as Hood’s aura flared again with anger, confusion, fear.

“Sorry.” Danny said. “I forget that new liminals aren’t used to projecting, but it’s just another form of talking. And you don’t need to worry, I’m also dead adjacent. “Though,” Danny paused, “I don’t know what the lazarus pits are.”

Hood was still tense but his aura had pulled back a little. “The Lazarus Pits are lakes of glowing green goo.”

“Huh.” Danny gleaned at Jazz. “We call the green goo Ectoplasm. But if these pits are what brought you back, I think they might be rancid. You stink.”

“Excuse me?” Hood took a step back as his aura flared with indignation.

Jazz cleared her throat.

“What my brother means is that the ectoplasm that brought you back may have been polluted. He can tell because he also has ectoplasm in his system which allows him to sense other sources of ectoplasm.”

“Explain.” 

“Look,” Jazz said, “Why don’t we all sit down and I’ll make some tea and then Danny can explain better.” she sent a pointed look in his direction.

“Fine.”

Jazz nodded and turned and walked toward the kitchen where there was a table and some chairs. Danny followed her and so did Hood.

Danny fiddled with his hands as Jazz was making tea. Honestly, Danny was trying not to comment on the fact that the fully dressed vigilante looked kind of ridiculous sitting at their kitchen table.

“Would you like some tea?” Jazz said, looking toward Hood.

Hood paused before responding. “No thanks.” 

Jazz nodded then turned back toward the kettle.

“Soooo….” Danny started. “Before we go on, i do need to know if you actually died, or if you just encountered some green goo.”

Hood didn’t say anything.

Danny sighed. “If it helps, I actually died and was brought back to life via green glowy stuff.”

Danny waited and was about to give up and wait for Jazz to lead the conversation when Hood finally spoke.

“I died, I’m not sure what brought me back. But then I was dumped in a Lazarus Pit.”

“Huh.” There weren’t a lot of things that could bring people back from the dead as far as Danny knew, but with all the craziness he’d already experienced in his own life, he wasn’t surprised. Though it was interesting that Hood had been exposed to ectoplasm afterward. What would that make Hood? A liminal, or a halfa like him? But as much as Danny would like someone else like him, since it wasn't ectoplasm that brought Hood back the man was probably just a liminal.

“Here you go, Danny.” Jazz said, setting a mug in front of him and then taking a seat next to him.

Danny inhaled the warm scent of spices and then looked at Hood. “So, how do you want to do this? I can do a quick info dump and then you ask questions, or you can just ask questions and I’ll answer them?”

“Info first, then I’ll ask questions.”

Danny nodded.

“First of all, ghosts are real.” he paused, but when Hood didn't say anything he continued. “They live in an alternate dimension and are fueled by and made of ectoplasm, the green glowy stuff. There are various things that can make a ghost, but we don’t need to get into that now. This is just the basics. When a human has a near death experience, or is exposed to ectoplasm they have the chance of becoming what we call liminal. That just means that they lean a little toward the ghostly side.” he glanced at Jazz, his gaze questioning and she nodded. “That’s what me and Jazz are. And that’s what I think you are.”  Danny waited for a moment, clasping his hands together in front of him. “Any questions.”

“How did you heal me?”

“Oh, yeah.” Danny shrugged and sat back. “As liminals we actually need some ectoplasm to survive and it can help heal us. Usually, the ectoplasm in our bodies heps us heal ourselves, but I think yours can’t since,” Danny wrinkled his nose, “whatever source you got yours from is obviously rank.”

“What does that even mean?” Hood said, but he sounded tired not angry.

Jazz smiled gently at him. “Ectoplasm that stays too long in the Living Realm, here, can absorb pollutants. Think of it like,” she hummed and tapped her finger against the table, “like air in an improperly ventilated area. If air isn’t allowed to move and flow it can become stale. The same with ectoplasm. It’s a form of energy that needs to flow and be filtered in the Infinite Realms, where the ghosts are, or it needs to be filtered by ghosts. But if it’s allowed to just sit in one area and build up, continually absorbing energy, but unable to filter or release it then it grows rank.”

“It’s complicated.” Danny said. “And neither of us is the greatest at explaining since we’re still learning. But yeah, ectoplasm is a form of energy that flows between dimensions.

Danny smiled at Hood, there were faint feelings of confusion, disbelief, denial, no true, not true, I’m alive. But Danny did his best not to push anything toward the other liminal. He didn’t want to scare the man.

“I need to go.” Hood said, standing abruptly. 

Danny startled, but nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

Jazz stood. “You’re welcome back here anytime if you have questions.” Jazz smiled. 

Danny felt the briefest glimmer of attraction come from Hood and while Jazz was good at not projecting, Danny could tell from her face that she was feeling similarly toward Hood.

Danny smirked. This would be fun.

[wellofdean]

Thinking about @luckshiptoshore and her liveblog of watching Supernatural and how much I love following it and how great it is to watch someone just fucking ENJOY the show...

And then, there were a couple of people in my Discord who love the fic, but have never watched the show, and folks in there were trying to convince them that it was worth watching (duh!) and that knowing the show by heart makes the fic so much better and like yes, again... DUH! And then I was suddenly overcome with such a feeling of ENVY for all the people who still have the chance to watch Supernatural for the first time already knowing what happens in the end.

I mean, I watched 14 years of it in real time (after downloading and bingeing season 1) and at least I was clever enough not to be in the fandom trenches that whole time, and just enjoyed it for what it was, but the end broke my brain, and changed the whole show for me.

Because, like, here's what happens in Supernatural by the end: Dean and Cas are in love. It was not subtle. Dean can't say it because he never has a single moment of not being up to his pretty, pretty eyeballs in dealing with the ongoing and constantly multiplying trauma of being the man his father raised him to be, and god's specialest boy to boot, but in the end, Cas finally does just fucking say it. Not only that, he waits until he can use it to save Dean, and show him once and for all in an incontrovertible, undeniable way exactly how deeply and truly loved and SEEN he is.

When you watch it knowing that, knowing that the the whole story is going to end in that stupid bunker dungeon with Cas telling Dean who he is and dying to save him, the whole thing just HITS DIFFERENT, because the Dean of season one with his outcast liminality and pretty, pretty lips is the poor, lonely, weird boy who will one day be loved like that by Castiel, an angel of the lord -- an impossible Eldritch being who learned what love and selfhood are from closely observing Dean.

The consensus amongst most Supernatural fans is that it is trashy and bad and that its all evil queerbaiting, but I would contend that it's actually deeply entertaining, culturally rich and interesting (yes, even its flaws and missteps), often impressively well-written and acted, never puts on any airs about being prestige television or high art, but still manages to be ultimately epic and somehow sublime, and that it's a queer story, about queer love saving the universe, and it is so, so worth watching.

Like, my brainworms are not 'they strung me along all that time and then never let them make out', by brainworms are 'they told us so many times and in so many big and small ways, and now I need to watch every bit of it again and again and again so I can finally REVEL IN IT (and, friends, that is the Supernatural rewatch journey: realising it was ALWAYS THERE). My brainworms aren't 'but does Dean reciprocate??' they are: 'of course he loves Cas, and of course Cas knows that Dean loves him, and the one thing Cas can't have? That's just his chance at happiness and a soft epilogue with and for Dean, because Cas, impossible, cosmic, Eldritch being Cas, traded his chance at happiness for his family's lives and sacrificed himself for love of his son and Dean, because that is what you do when you love someone, and what he has watched Dean never stop doing for even a minute of his beleaguered life.'

And then, Dean dies (yes, it's stupid), and he cannot just go to heaven, drink a beer and hang out, he needs to climb into his magic soul vehicle, hit the axis mundi and tear the universe up looking for his angel and his happy ending in The Winchesters? Fuck me.

And like, it's the most romantic, and devastating story I have ever been told? And I love it so much?

[im-only-here-for-the-fandom]

Dead Twins

so a dpxdc idea that’s been floating in my head for a long time.

i’ve seen jason and danny being each other’s alternate selves from another reality or father and son, but never as twins, i’ve seen danny being a twin or look alike to all the other batboys (mostly damian) but never with jason.

so they could be the children of the fenton’s but it’s easier for me to write them as children of willis and sheila, willis taking one child and sheila taking the other so she can get child support or something and once she’s done with him she dumps him in an orphanage, where tye fenton’s pick him up as a friend for their daughter jazz.

jason and danny both grow up never feeling alone due to a twin bond between them, when one was feeling sad the other would send happy feelings to cheer the other up, but they couldn’t tell each other’s thoughts or location, their bond streched thin from their separation. so when jason dies, danny feels the bond snap and he feels jason’s last moments, his sadness, his fear, his feelings of betrayal and helplessness at his situation, and it sends him into a depression spiral that not even his sister or friends can get him out of. he could feel himself dying, slowly fading from existence his body failing him at every turn, it wasn’t just depression, it wasn’t just in his head as his sister tried to tell him, it was physical he could tell .so when his parents machine fails and his friends ask him to go inside to take a picture he doesn’t argue even though he knows how dangerous it could be, knows that many of his parents inventions malfunction or backfire in horrible ways. so he doesn’t notice the protruding wire on the floor and trips pushing the on button on the wall as he tries to stabilize himself. he dies and comes back not knowing that when he came back his brother came back with him.

the bond comes back but it’s weak barley stable only assuring the other that they were alive. both being connected to death, to ectoplasm, danny a halfa and jason a resurrected revrent with a core.

their reunion could go several ways:

1. The Ghost King Way

enter world ending threat that the JL can’t defeat and need to summon the ghost king to defeat. danny apears in all his space obssesed ghost king glory, and instantly feels a connection with this strange man wearing a red helmet standing at the back the same bond he has always felt since he was born. jason also feeling this stange bond is very confused as to why his bond leads to the ghost king. they end up hanging out as their alter egos neither knowing that they are in facr twins, their bond strengthening the longer they spend time together. they first start out hanging out at the watchtower but later start hanging out in gotham, jason finaly has himself declared alive again which makes into the paper, that danny ends up seeing.

2. The Jazz Way

Jazz ends up working at arkham asylum much to her brother’s dismay and manged ti make him promise her not visit for at least a month. que her bumping into jason at the library or a coffee shop and sees what she thinks is danny (who she can also sense because she’s liminal) stalking her after explicitly told him not to follow her to gotham and she is furious, she pulls jason by the ear and starts to lecture him in the middle of the road, ‘i trusted you’ and ‘how could you’ and ‘you promised me’ and ‘why did you dye your hair like that’ ,and jason is like ‘lady who are you?’, his siblings are standing to the side laughing at him. jazz realizes that’s not her brother, she shows them a picture of danny and they all agree that they ate identical, and agree to set up a meeting. when they meet they realize that that’s who their bond conects to.

3. The Ellie Way

ellie is traveling around the world visiting all the famous places and decides to visit gotham and ends up seeing jason thinking he’s danny she barrels into him sreaming ‘DADDY’ and jason is very confused, like WTF, she soon relizes that this isn’t danny despite their ecto- signature being almost exactly the same if not for the weird corruption jason has, but decides to be a troll anyways and pretend that jason is her dad danny. she pretends to be very upset that her daddy doesn’t remember her, and shows them pictures on her phone of her and danny doing father daughter things, cuddling, playing. jason on the other hand thinks ‘oh my god did i have a daughter that i forgot about’. they take her home and run a dna test just incase (ellie is just waching the chaos, she also wants to know why he feels so much like danny) and while not a match for a father it is for a close relative like an uncle. with the her act done ellie tells them about danny and how he was adopted and they realize that their related.

-ellie could either be aged up by vlad or rescued and raised by danny before she was aged up.

*** or it could be dan too, actually it would be way funnier if it was dan. grown ass man proclaiming that you are his father, with photographic evidence. they might think he’s from the future or something. dan it just doing it for shits and giggles.

*** or both, both together is also funny, because they would squabble like the siblings they are and jason would have to act like a dad to make them stop.

4. The Ellie Way 2

in this one it’s better that ellie is not aged up.

after danny let her go on a camping trip with his parents while he goes on a business trip or to attend ghost king duties, ellie is kidnapped by meta children traffickers, after seeing her float for a bit. maddie and jack don’t want danny to worry or be disappointed by them try to find her without telling him. ellie ends up in gotham and ends up rescued by jason, senseing his ectoplasm that feels almost exactly like danny, and clings to him fully believing that he is her dad danny, and the only reason he didn’t find her straight away is because his ecto became corrupted. jason is now stuck with a little girl that insists that he’s her father going off of nothing but that he feels like her father so he’s her father. he ends up taking her to the manor and takes off his helmet and tells her “look at me, do i look like your daddy” to which she insists that yes he is her daddy. so they ask if she knows her dad’s number to which she answers yes, they call danny and tell him that they found his daughter, danny is predictably worried and furious because his daughter had been kidnapped and his parents didn’t tell him, he rushes over and the batfam is like omg they look really identical. of course the reunion between danny and ellie is tear filled, lots of hugs and kiss.

5. The Vacation Way

they go on a vaction to lets say the beach, with all their family, jason with the batboys and batgirls and danny with his parents sister and dan and ellie included.

*** jason and danny go to a food truck to get food with steph and ellie. because of the large amount of food they’re carrying they can’t see so they need some one to guide them back, que ellie and steph taking the wrong twin back to their area. both jason and danny ate very confused, who are you people. both families think that something must have happened because neither twin knows who these people are. danny is confused but all for having more siblings and another father, while jason doesn’t understand why a teenager (ellie) and a full grown man (dan) are calling him dad. they both go back to the food truck so that they could maybe trace the problems back and end up meeting.

*** or they could be swimming and end up in each other’s area.

*** or a volleyball game that got too intense, either from the trained batfam or ghost strenght/ectoplasm enhanced family.

for this it’s funnier if ellie and dan were older.

6. The Business Way

danny started a company with sam and tucker, and is heading to a meet with wayne enterprise in gotham. he gets there a few days early just in case, and goes around site seeing and end up meeting memebers of the batfam along the way, he doesn’t know who these people are but they’re very friendly and it’s freaking him out, meanwhile the batfam are very sad that jason is pretending he doesn’t know them even though they had finally put away their differences. it isn’t until the meeting that they realize no that is not jason. or tim who is ceo could think that jason showing up for the meeting is a very elaborate prank

-random snippets that could fit anywhere-

danny telling jason that he felt him die.

for angst both jason and danny having Y shaped scars.

when talking about their death they find out that when when danny died and came back jason came back with him (i got this from a fic where jason and danny were soulmates on ao3, i don’t remember the name if anyone knows that fic tell me.)

the batboys and girls acting as uncles and aunts to ellie and/or dan.

comparing crazy family shenanigans.

/each way could be an entire fic really but im to lazy to be fully invested in writing these as actual fics with good grammar and consistent updates./

feel free to use these ideas, but tag me if you do i really wanna what others come up with.

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Stupid thought: Ghosts under a hundred years are babies no matter how old they are. However it’s acknowledged their human ages matter.

Danny is a baby. Johnny and Kitty aren’t. Both were killed during the Salem Witch Trials as witches. Shadow is in fact Johnny’s magic still sticking around. However they adapt to the times compared to other ghosts who died. They like their new style.

Johnny notices first and stops right away to talk to Danny who is stunned. He’s fought ghosts before who just attack?!

Johnny: You feel old but like I can tell it’s just echoes of power kid.

Johnny abandons his plans for Jazz and goes back to the Ghost Zone to talk to Kitty. Both come back and begin helping Danny with Ghost stuff. They become his ghostly parents/older siblings. Mostly older siblings.

So they aren’t rogues. Though they will cause mischief.

Then the GIW attack Danny after figuring him out. Vlad is a bitch and helps. Cause he wants to save Danny and be his ghost dad. Johnny and Kitty are around. They grab Danny when he’s injured and book it. They can’t go to the Ghost Zone though, cause the GIW tracked Danny to the place and realized his identity. Maddie and Jack are confronted and upon learning their son is Phantom… yank out their guns and shoot the agents. Jazz runs to the basement and wrecks the portal. All three are arrested.

Johnny and Kitty run with Danny all the way to Gotham where a natural stable portal is, hidden deep under the rock. Gotham’s Spirit stops then.

GS: He’s to human. He needs to recover here yes, but can’t go full in for to long.

They do take him to see Frostbite while Gotham does her thing. Arranging for an apartment to mysteriously become available, then to find a stash of dirty money, all that.

Johnny and Kitty manage to pass as meta. They hide what they are cause the old Laws say they have to.

Johnny ends up working with Jason as part of the Red Hood gang while Kitty works in a beauty parlour. Danny is in recovery. But when he’s okay, he begins working with Tucker (who along with Sam booked it out of Amity and are hiding out in a bunker Sam’s grandma has) to destroy the GIW.

Jason eventually gets roped into the chaos as he’s liminal. He is more then happy to blow up some government agencies. More so when Maddie and Jack break out with Jazz to run to Gotham to. Suddenly there are two mad scientists who work in Crime Alley with Red Hood.

Few people are happy. I’m not sure if this is during the early days (if so, Johnny murks the clown) or not but Batman is not happy. Meanwhile the Fentons are happily churning out gear for Red Hood cause both have little morals, Jazz is helping expose the GIW and the JL cause they all think they knew (they didn’t. New laws said the hotline had to be operated by a civilian who was easily bribed, thanks Luthor).

I have no idea where this would go other then ‘Johnny and Kitty are Danny’s ghost parents/siblings who run with him to Gotham and cause chaos with Jason and Danny is a baby crime lord’.

I mean you can go bad reveal Jack and Maddie but the idea of them going: you know what? FUCK THE GOVERNMENT before going evil is funnier.

[wolfjackle-creates]

WIP Wednesday

Part 1, Part 2

This is more of Ghost!Robin haunting Jason. This might not've won the poll (if you haven't voted, it's the post right after this one on my blog. But you'll have to come out in numbers to win against the Dead on Main shippers!), but it will feature in both this week's WIP Wednesday and next, so y'all better be happy.

1,100 words

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“If he’s still in the area, you should invite him,” said Dick. “Alfred’s food is to die for.” Robin was hanging upside down next to Dick nodding solemnly.

Danny tried to stop himself, he really did. He even managed to keep from saying he’d been there done that, but he couldn’t keep from laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe.

From where he was bent over trying to catch his breath, he saw Dick do some sort of spin that ended with him sitting upright on the chair. “Um… Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” Jazz insisted. “He just thinks he’s hilarious. He had an accident when he was younger with electricity and his heart stopped. But after a few months his condition stabilized and now he’s stronger than ever.”

Through his laughs, Danny gasped, “If— If I hadn’t died… Mom and Dad… And you never, Gotham.”

Jazz turned away from him and hid her face in Jason’s neck. Danny just got himself under control when he noticed her shoulders shaking slightly.

He lost it again, Jazz following just behind.

Someone was saying “I’m confused” but someone else joined in their laughter. Danny looked up and saw it was Jason. And Robin. He liked them both already.

“Sorry, sorry,” gasped Danny once he had enough breath to do so. “Amity Parkers have a morbid sense of humor.”

“Tt, I hardly believe your heart stopping then medical intervention saving your life can count as you actually dying.” Damian had a sneer on his face and Danny already didn’t like him.

But rather than engage, he just shrugged. “It was close enough that the ghosts back home like me more’n most.” He wiped his eyes to get rid of the tears.

“I like you, kid. Great sense of humor.” Jason reached around Jazz to ruffle his hair; Danny swatted the hand away.

“Ghosts?” asked Cass.

“Yes, of course,” said Jazz. “Amity Park, the most haunted town in America.”

“Ghosts aren’t real,” argued Damian.

“Do you really need to play up the tourist gimmick even around friends?” added Tim.

“Tourist gimmick? We hate outsiders.” Danny didn’t even bother responding to the comment about ghosts not existing.

“Why do you dislike outsiders so much?” asked Bruce.

With a shrug, Jazz answered, “It’s hard to explain, but outsiders just don’t fit in in Amity.”

Danny let himself look at Robin who was sitting on the back of the couch behind Jason. “Jason might be an exception, though. Have you taken him home yet?”

“No, but I’ve been wanting to. Just… Jack and Maddie.” Jazz did take their betrayal so much harder than Danny had.

“Fair. Tell you what, give me a list of weeks you two can arrange to get off and I’ll make sure Mom and Dad are out of Amity for at least one of them.”

Jason leaned around Jazz to ask, “Why are you so sure I’d fit in in Amity?”

Obviously he couldn’t say it was because Jason was haunted and liminal, so all he said was, “Oh, you’ve got the vibes. You’ll understand it when you get there. Just… Listen to Jazz? It isn’t really safe if you try and do your own thing.”

Around them, various conversations developed and Danny let Jazz take over describing the places in Amity she wanted to show Jason. Instead, he watched Robin interact with the wider group.

The ghost kept trying to get the attention of someone, anyone, in the Wayne family. But his efforts focused on Bruce and Dick. He was clearly haunting Jason, though, and it feels like they might be sharing ectoplasm somehow.

Danny really wanted to pull out his Ecto-tracker, based off the Fenton Finder but far more sensitive and accurate. Instead, he just moved his bag closer to him.

“We can store that somewhere so you don’t have to carry it around with you,” offered Tim who must’ve seen the motion.

“Oh, that’s okay. Mr. Alfred already offered. I feel more comfortable having my bag with me.”

“What are you carrying around?” he asked.

“Bit of everything, to be honest. Laptop, PDA, chargers, first aid kit, granola bars, medicines, change of clothes, things I need for my job.”

Jason asked over Jazz’s head, “What is your job? Jazz never shares specifics, just that it keeps you too busy to visit or call very often.”

Robin was now staring at him with a grin and making amused trills. It took all of Danny’s self control to not snark at him.

“I do contract work.” It was his default answer on Earth. It was even sort-of true. If he squinted and tilted his head. Robin did not look impressed by his answer.

“I… Don’t know what that means,” admitted Jason. “What field do you work in?”

Danny waved a hand in the air. “Ancients, easier to ask what I don’t do! I build or repair things. I’m good at finding people. I help others get where they need to go. I’ve done babysitting before. I’m called in to deescalate or otherwise resolve conflicts. Basically, if someone needs assistance with something, I do it. Or I know someone who can.”

“Why do you swear by these ‘Ancients?’” asked Damian.

“It’s another ghost thing. But you don’t believe in ghosts, so I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Jazz swears by them, too,” added Jason.

Tim elbowed Damian who stood and actually pulled a knife on his brother. Not only was this kid liminal, he definitely had some ghostly instincts. “Woah, that’s enough, Damian!” ordered Dick as he positioned himself between the two.

Damian allowed Dick to take the blade, though he continued to glare at Tim. “Then tell Drake to not touch me again.”

Tim rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever,” as he moved closer to Danny and Jazz. To Danny, he asked, “So, what sort of things do you build?”

Danny decided Damian’s ghost instincts weren’t worth commenting on at the moment and just answered the question. “Oh, I can build anything.” Pulling out his PDA, he unlocked it and handed it to Tim. “My partner Tucker and I designed these. All the capabilities of a smartphone without the need for a cellular plan. Plus durable enough to survive being run over by a tank. And it gets service anywhere.”

Tim wasted no time in navigating the device’s capabilities. “What is this UI? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Tucker designed it. He’s a genius with software. I’m the hardware guy.”

Tim asked more details on the specs of the PDA which Danny happily answered. The things he built with Tucker were always his favorite inventions.

Tag list!

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Part 4

@addie-lover-of-stories, @justwannabecat, @gin2212, @amercurio, @regonold, @overtherose, @readerzj, @sjrose1216, @echoednonny, @deeterzz, @blu-lilac, @number-one-jew, @rowanaway-fromthisbs, @vythika96, @tired-yet-awaken, @themirrorghost

I think that's everyone! Let me know and I'll add you.

[ikustioa]

How would Songfell Frisk react to meeting an opposite gender version of herself?

…I absolutely love this question

If she ever did, it would be through some shenanigans with Gaster—he allows her to look in a particularly magicked mirror, perhaps, or leaves a little thread of subspace hanging, and Frisk encounters her other self in another dream or liminal space.

Assuming it was a male Frisk who had been through her exact life and circumstances, he would be a lot like her, both inside and out. Lean, on the short side, nice features with a well-kept little beard, a lovely baritone voice…and a boss monster hanging around who absolutely adores him. Even if they couldn’t reproduce, the love is there simply because they each are who they are 🫡

Both Frisks would be fascinated by what they figure is just a weird dream or magical hallucination, and their first impression is that their other self turned out much more attractive than they did. (Sigh.) They’d be too polite to ask really personal questions about what it’s physically like to be each other, but once they’re more comfortable from punning back and forth, she tells him that she’s pregnant, or a mother…

And after a long moment, he congratulates her, but he’s so wistful that she feels guilty. They wish each other well, and the next morning, she decides not to tell Sans. It was fun, and weird, and a little sad, but it was just a dream, or a hallucination, or whatever. Sans can tell something’s on her mind, but she’s so busy that she soon forgets it entirely.

Gaster gets his comeuppance for meddling: she never tells him exactly what or who she saw or what was said. He almost dies of curiosity, then concludes that it serves him right.

[tumblingxelian]

Underrated Writing: .Hack's Morganna Mode Gone

There's a villain I don't think gets enough credit, Morgana Mode Gone from .Hack//Sign, Liminality and the four part game series, plus the AI Buster novels.

Brief summary:

Hack is set on a slightly altered history Earth, where in part due to plot & also the era it was conceived it blends the Sci-Fu futurism and "The internet is magic" together with the "Isekai" and "Trapped in a game" story concepts. Different eras of the series have different tones & structures, but this is covering the early eras overarching Villain.

Morganna Mode Gone is the "God" of a game simply called "The World", which was based on the writings of the epic poem Epitaph of Twilight.

But in truth she is more akin to a Gnostic deity, false or proto god. Because her primary purpose is actually to tend to and facilitate the birth of the worlds Ultimate AI, Aura.

I mean actual AI, as in, artificial intelligence, not some shitty algorithm tech bro idiots slapped a trench coat on.

Morganna Mode Gone is herself an artificial intelligence, one capable of contradicting herself, ah sapience, but is still bound by the rules of her programming.

This is a problem for her because once Aura is born/awake, Morganna Mode Gone won't have a purpose and she can't really conceive of what happens then.

As a result, before the series even began she essentially fragmented off a portion of her own identity, forming the Vagrant AI Macha, but she couldn't solve the problem.

Because if Aura dies, then Morganna Mode Gone also has no purpose. She needs a way to Ouroboros this situation, leaving Aura always growing but never developing, never waking.

She also trapped her and Aura's creator in The World when he realized what was happening. He survives the series but never escapes, and eventually devolves/evolves into a sort of living relic.

It was around this period that she began breaking & twisting things to try & escape the paradox she was trapped in. Re-styling herself from Harold's idea of a mother into the Cursed Wave.

This included orchestrating the hunting down and deletion, IE murder of other Vagrant AI's that were forming as a result of the Black Box meant to birth Aura, IE, proto Aura's, like Lycoris.

"I am an unwanted child. Even God doesn't want me." — Lycoris —

As well as using Macha or Guardians to 'Data Drain' any humans who get to close, which at its lightest, leaves them temporarily comatose, destroys their characters and has a negative impact on their mind.

You might notice Moraganna Mode Gone has not yet been established as making an appearance, good eye.

See, one of the things that makes her so interesting to me is that Moraganna Mode Gone is nominally omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent figure.

She is the underlying system of The World itself and for all intents and purposes a force of nature. As a result she primarily acts through intermediaries, or by guiding others to act for purposes.

Managing to make a villain like this work, and work so effectively is one of the biggest strengths. As it is, we pure Moraganna Mode Gone as a disembodies voice that influences the world & creatures.

She also has some fantastic lines, though not quite as effective without the atmosphere and delivery, I still love them, such as:

"The higher up it is dropped, the worse the crash will be. Hope is the best spice to bring out despair." — Morganna Mode Gone —

In order to accomplish her goal, Moraganna Mode Gone has Macha manipulate and Data Drain Tsukasa. A human who she had been watching and trying to replicate for some time, but without getting what she needed for her goal.

This also involved warping Tsukasa's memories, leaving only those of her abusive father, and creating a divide between her real world identity of Shoji and online identity Tsukasa, to further weaken his ties to the real world. Tsukasa's gender is rather liquid, as far as I can tell and either way, also a lesbian.

"The World and all of its wonders; this is my world, you see."— Tsukasa —

The reason for this was to essentially tie Tsukasa's desire to stay within The World to Aura's development. So long as Tsukasa never wanted to leave, Aura would never want to wake up.

However, other determined players, isolation, and a disconnect from physical sensation leading to alienation led to Tsukasa gaining connections and desires outside of simply staying in The World.

This, Morganna Mode Gone began... Moving chess pieces so to speak. Orchestrating traumatic incidents. Giving Tsukasa a pet monsters for protection but that would also attack those she wanted gone. As Tsukasa continues to develop independence Aura's health improves, VS her sickened, pallid state when Tsukasa is locked in survival mode.

Things eventually come to ahead and well,

Morgnanna Mode Gone basically destroys Tsukasa's mind to ensure a perpetual state of despair and catatonia. Permanently stunting Aura's development.

Much of the rest of the series, is centered on the rest of the characters gaining the necessary knowledge to finally understand the situation.

As well as the Macha fragment of Morganna Mode Gone's ties to Tsukasa creating doubt and Subaru and Tsukasa's bond managing to slowly begin waking Tsukasa up.

Which naturally leads to Morganna Mode Gone needing to orchestrate more despair, but circumstances such as the bastion of Net Slum & her programming keep her from auto winning.

A great deal happens, including some mind fuckery and illussion conversations. Along with more classive abuser tactices like holding the threat of what awaits Tsukasa in theoutside over head.

But eventually Aura is awakened by Tsukasa's desire to return to the real world regardless of the hurled and the characters escape with Aura, thanks to the turncoat Sora.

Suffice to say this doesn't pan out well for him.

Morganna fragments more of herself and uses him as a sort of beacon & vessel to craft the first Phase of the Cursed Wave:

"Riding the Wave is Skeith, the Shadow of Death, to drown all that stands." — Epitaph of Twilight —

This is such an imposing threat that Helba, thematically the same Helba, Queen of the Dark from the Epitaph of Twilight, has to erase the entire world segment they are in just to keep Skeith away from them and put Aura beyond its reach for a time.

Skeith continues to be hosted inside Sora in an ensuing novel, with Sora flittering between amnesiac, malevolent brat and an utterly inhuman monster which violates the basic principles of the game.

But is eventually devoured by Skeith and continued hunting down Aura until the Phase is defeated in .Hack Infection. A memory of Sora leaves behind a reward for the one who did the deed.

Moraganna Mode Gone wasn't done however.

As all this was happening, she basically began fragmenting off parts of herself into other portions of the Cursed Wave:

Skeith:"The Terror of Death"

Innis:"The Mirage of Deceit"

Magus:"The Propagation"

Fidchell:"The Prophet"

Gorre: "The Machinator"

Macha:"The Temptress"

Tarvos:"The Avenger"

Corbenik:"The Rebirth"

Relying on the logic that Aura wasn't yet 'finished' or otherwise not not correct 7 so needed to be destroyed like any other Vagrant AI, so Morganna could start the process over again.

These phased also sent anyone they encountered into comas and even altered electrical installation and internet usage with their presence, while generally corrupting The World.

Fun fact, they all have the symbol of an eye on them representing Morganna Mode Gone's presence in them and her observing the world through them.

Skeith actually did manage to capture and fragment Aura, but not before she created the Bracelet of Twilight, and with it the Eldrich horror Cubia to combat the Cursed Wave.

Morganna Mode Gone would eventually fuse with the last of her Phases in a bid to directly end her foe that had slowly, over the course of four games, destroyed the other seven phases and Cubia.

Ultimately, Aura had to sacrifice herself to ensure Morganna Mode Gone would be destroyed, but in doing so, also allowed herself to be reborn .

Remnants of her continue to haunt and corrupt the world in the form of Data Bugs and an effort by the parent company to recreate her through the lingering fragments of the Eight Phases doesn't go quite to plan, let's say.

Conclusion:

But yeah, Morganna Mode Gone, No one is doing it like her, she has everything:

She is a force of nature and omnipresent goddess, to a Gnostic false god & a program breaking itself & everything around it in the quest for agency inside its own mind that struck down her creator.

She's a woman bound to and violently rejecting the sacrificial role of mother & seeking to destroy that which will supersede her & a manipulator and abuser, as well as philosopher and prisoner.

She is a corruptive influence on the world as well as the very foundation upon which the world world itself is built & she is the Cursed Wave, part of a story, a myth, a poem that is woven into The World itself.

What's more,

Her fragments in the Cursed Wave Phases are all a wonderful blend of eldrich, Biblical & elemental. Something only enhanced by the games Graphics of the time:

[frangipanilove]

Bluebird Symbolism in TOWL 1X4 And Its Relation To The Numbers "10" and "2"

I’ve written a bunch of posts on bluebird symbolism before, particularly during TWDDD, that show was full of these bluebird references. Go read those posts (for exemple here, here, here or here) for more in-depth analysis of the symbolism, but long story short, the bluebird symbolism was the reason we really could tell for sure that Rick and Beth are two sides to the same coin as far as resurrection symbolism goes. We all remember the Blue Heron painting behind Beth in Still, as she and Daryl emerged out from the labyrinth of death that was the golf club. “We made it!” she exclaimed, effectively foreshadowing her future fate.

Then, through foreshadowing provided by Noah’s t-shirt, (with a stylized blue heron) we see, in TWD 8x2 The Damned, another Blue Heron painting, this time behind Rick!

We didn’t know it at the time, but we later learned that Andrew Lincoln would be taking a break from the franchise, and his character Rick would be “just gone” for the unforeseeable future. But, we also knew he would eventually return, as the OG Sirius character he is. And that’s interesting for TD, because Beth and Rick are paralleled so closely when it comes to the resurrection symbolism they’re surrounded with.

In TOWL 1x4 What We, we see this tapestry fairly early in the episode.

The birds are peacocks, and peacocks are definitely blue birds.

@angelthefirst1 posted an excellent post on elevators and the 10 - 2 symbolism this morning, and I wanted to piggyback off of that because of how it ties neatly into the bluebird symbolism and the numbers 10 and 2.

Elevators, much like bridges, ladders, stairs etc, are metaphorical passages through which the characters can move between the "realms". These liminal spaces are what allows characters like Beth and Rick to return to the realm of the living, after having stayed in the "death realm", the "underworld" for an extended period of time. And we saw that in Still, when Beth and Daryl moved through what a Gimple described as “the nine circles of hell” at the golf club, before they returned to the "realm of the living".

We also saw this theme of "passages", liminal spaces between the realms, around the second blue heron painting, the one from TWD 8x2 The Damned. We specifically saw Rick and Daryl move up through the elevator shaft in order to reach the floor where the Blue Heron painting was.

We first see Daryl opening the elevator shaft from the inside, he then gets up and subsequently helps Rick up into the corridor.

The elevator shaft is the metaphorical passage that foreshadows Rick's journey to the "death realm", but it is also, as seen in TOWL 1x4, what allows him to return to the realm of the living. And as @angelthefirst1 pointed out, him doing so was accompanied by a voice repeating the numbers “10” and “2”.

And this is where it gets really interesting.

Because yes, it is a reference to the Slabtown clock, the “Get Well Soon” clock. We all have our different takes on that. It can be interpreted in several interesting ways. I believe one of the main purposes of the clock was to call back to the red fire engine we first saw in 5x5 Self Help. That fire engine, Engine 82, was present at the heartbreaking last shot of Coda, when Daryl carried Beth’s seemingly lifeless body out of Grady. I'll explain why below.

Remember, ladders, like elevators, stairwells and bridges, are metaphorical passages through which characters can move between the realms. Take Rick for instance, his death was foreshadowed by the elevator shaft and the blue heron painting from 8x2 The Damned. Then he “died” on a bridge.

We were specifically shown a ladder in 5x7 Crossed, Maggie used it to provide shade for Eugene after Abraham had knocked him unconscious. The ladder literally helped him “wake up” from an unconscious state.

It’s no coincidence that the fire engine from season 5 specifically was a number “82”, pointing towards episode 8x2. Episode 8x2 The Damned specifically foreshadows Rick's "death" and "resurrection".

It’s no coincidence that it was Noah’s t-shirt, with the stylized heron, that foreshadowed Rick’s “death” and “resurrection”, and that the t-shirt specifically pointed us to episode 8x2.

It's no coincidence that we see Engine 82, complete with a ladder, front and center as Daryl carries Beth out of Grady. Engine 82, with the ladder, foreshadows her resurrection.

And it’s no coincidence that in TOWL 1x4, we see another representation of a blue bird, this time a peacock, right before Rick metaphorically “returns” to the realm of the living, to Michonne, to the life he knew. Because those blue birds herald resurrection.

(Obviously Rick hasn't physically returned to his previous life and his family yet, but he experienced a psychological breakthrough, where he chose Michonne, he cose his family and he chose "the realm of the living". He chose to reject the CRM, where he had learned "to be dead" as he explained to Michonne in the episode)

So finally, let me return to the voice repeating the numbers “10” and “2” from TOWL 1x4. We know the Slabtown clock can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, and like I said above, I believe it's a callback to Engine 82 from 5x5 Self Help. I'm getting to that in a minute, first let's briefly explore some of the other potential interpretations, because of course, they're interconnected.

I’ve described a few ways of interpreting it in previous posts, one way to interpret it is to break down for example the “2” into “one one” which is a reference to the “one one” on Noah’s t-shirt.

You can also read it as a reference to episode 10x11 (read 10 - one one), which was called “Morningstar”, an obvious reference to the Venus/Sirius symbolism (read more here).

Interestingly, 10x11 Morningstar is the episode where Daryl got his upgraded vest, and in this article on how Daryl got new wings, I found this part particularly interesting:

Cailey Fleming, who plays Judith, explains how she restored the tattered wings so that Daryl now finally has TWO wings again, dotted with TEN stars.

See how that’s another representation of the numbers “10” and “2”? In an episode foreshadowed by the Slabtown clock, if you read it as 10 - one one? An episode literally named Morningstar, which is a Sirius/Venus reference?

And see how one of the wings are now blue? That’s another representation of bluebird symbolism!

In TOWL 1x4 we see Michonnes scar, and she tells the story on how she and Daryl got branded. Daryl's scars interestingly form a constellation along with other scars that reasonably be interpreted as the Roman numerals X II, which translates into 10 and 2. Or if you read it as 10 - one one, you could say it points to episode 10x11 Morningstar.

To recap, in TOWL, we see michonnes scar, an X, in an episode where we also see two peacocks, two blue birds. See how that conceptually shares similarities with the scars on Daryl's back, that forms a X II, pointing to an episode where he gets a revamped vest with TEN stars and TWO wings, one of them blue? See how the 10 2 symbolism and the bluebird symbolism keep popping up together?

In TOWL, the voice repeating the numbers 10 and 2 is tied to the elevator, and remember, elevators = passages between the realms. And the same goes for ladders. Now let me remind you of Engine 82, last seen as Daryl carried Beth's lifeless body out from Grady, and why I believe the Slabtown clock is a callback to it.

I mentioned above that one of my favorite ways to interpret the 10 and the 2 and the Slabtown clock is that it serves as a callback to episode 5x5 Self Help, where Abraham, Eugene and the rest of Team Washington found Engine 82. And when they did, it was backed up to a building marked with this particular number:

That's right, Engine 82 was first seen backed up to a building marked 102! A direct reference to the Slabtown clock, and directly foreshadowing Beth's "death" and "resurrection".

Imo, the voice repeating the numbers “10” and “2” in TOWL 1x4 were referring to the building where we first saw the fire engine, back in 5x5, well before Beth “died”. The “102” on the building foreshadowed the Slabtown clock, the Slabtown clock was a callback to the 102 on the building where we first saw the fire engine.

Engine 82 represents the presence of metaphorical “passages" between the realms, such as elevators, stairs, ladders and bridges, through which the characters can travel unhindered between the realms. They are what foreshadows "death", but also what allows for "resurrection".

Depending on how you choose to read the numbers on the Slabtown clock, you could also argue that they point to episode 2x2, which is when we first meet Beth, or 2x10, which is 18 Miles Out, the episode where she initially attempts suicide, but eventually decides she wants to live (again, foreshadowing her surviving).

Like I mentioned, it could also refer to the “one one” on Noah’s t-shirt with the stylized heron, and it could refer to episode 10x11 (read 10 - one one) which is called Morningstar (straight up Venus/Sirius symbolism).

Or, like I’ve described above, it could be a reference to the building where we first saw the fire engine, Ladder 82, in which “ladder” is one of the metaphorical passages which allows characters like Rick and Beth to undergo a “death and resurrection” arc.

No matter how you chose to interpret the numbers “10” and “2”, it’s safe to say they indicate “resurrection” for anyone associated with them. Particularly when they’re accompanied with the presence of blue birds!

(Side note, Ladder 82 is noticably very red, and it was backed up against a red door on the building marked with the number 102. I call it “red controls the gates” symbolism, illustrated by the red fire engine backed up against a red door. I've been tracking this symbolism for a long time, and have several posts on it. If you want to explore the symbolism surrounding the color red, read this and this)

[litcest]

The Innocents, by Michael Crummey

There was I, one fine afternoon, reading Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and started wondering if anyone had ever done an incestuous re-write of the novel. I found none, but what I did find was that there was a movie adaptation (by Truman Capote) in 1961 with the title of The Innocents. This movie shares the title with a 2019 novel by Michael Crummey, which DOES have brother-sister incest.

I went to check the book on Goodreads and found out that @shipcestuous had it on her shelf, and from this I found an ask she got just a month ago with some book recs. Everything is connected.

The book, narrated in the third person, follow the lives of Ada and Evered Best, siblings who lose their parents at an young age and have to take control of the family's fishing enterprise in a remote beach. The novel is set around the 19th century and so the siblings have little contact with the outside world other than the ship that visits them twice an year to collect their goods.

In a secluded cove on the shores of Newfoundland, in a recent past, lived a family. One winter, in quick succesion, the newborn dies, followed by the mother and then the father. And so, siblings Ada and Evered are left to fend for themselves.

"And he to bawling with her then, the two helpless youngsters holding on to one another in the pitch."

"For weeks after their father died the youngsters did little but sleep, lying in bed all hours for the warmth, for the comfort of the other's breathing beside them."

Evered hunts and fishes, while Ada takes care of the house and cooks. Winter turns to spring, and The Hope,cargo boat, comes to the cove, as it did every year. The siblings tell the Captain their parents have died, and the Captain tries to explain how the enterprise works: Evered's father caught fish and gave to the Captain, who in turn gave them supplies. The Captain wasn't sure that the two kids could deliver the amount of fish necessary to cover the costs of the supplies, and tries to convince the kids to go to the town and look for a job there. Ada, however, doesn't want to leave the grave of their dead baby sister (who she insists that she can talk to) and refuses to go.

Evered menages to persuade the Captain into giving them one season to try it out. The season is not much of a success, but it's good enough that Evered and Ada decide to keep trying to make it work, even though they are getting into debt.

"'You managed fine, Brother', she said. 'You done good.' 'Don't you ever leave me,' he said out of nowhere' 'Why would I do the like of that?' 'Just don't.'"

Two years go by, and a storm blows a shipwreck into the cove. The siblings explore and collect material, and Ada gets new shoes. They are two right feet, but she's happy anyway.

"She threw her arms around Evered's neck and they jumped up and down in each other's arms."

Another event of this year was Ada getting her first period. She gets grumpy about it, ignoring Evered and lashing out at him (PMS is a bitch). What I found particularly interesting about this chapters is that, to hide the bleeding, "they slept in separate beds for the next five nights". Which means that, despite they having a spare bed (the one that their parents slept in), they were still choosing to sleep together for the past two years. And, when Ada's bad mood (and blood) has passed, they go back to sleeping together.

"They talked through the black or looked to the other's warmth for comfort, gravitating to the familiar body beside them. One night, half-asleep and adrift in that liminal space, Ada hooked a leg across Evered's hip and they nudged into one another."

Also worth mentioning is Evered's masturbatory habits. He doesn't quite know what he's doing, but he knows he feels pleasure from touching himself, and that it results in a "hot spill pumping across his hand and stomach". And yes, he does it in the bed he shared with Ada, until one night, still half asleep, Ada turns towards him and wraps her legs around his torso.

"They tucked into the heat of her, Ada lifting her leg across his hips and rocking against him. And he was suddenly, vibrantly awake. He leaned into the heat of her, barely moving, letting Ada work against him, moving his hand to the small of her back to add weight to that drowsy agitation. The didn't speak or acknowledge one another at any point and Evered thought it was possible she was dreaming, that she was insensible to the waking world the entire time they were engaged."

Are they dry humping? I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to lie, the book is sometimes hard to understand. It's very poetic and I struggled to get the meaning behind the vomit of words that were on the pages. It made me feel very stupid and like my reading comprehension had gone to shit. Whatever that was, the event goes by unmentioned, as neither sibling wants to talk about it.

"It was the one intimacy that everything between the siblings seemed a prelude to. But some hesitation had always stopped them short, a shared vertigo that stayed them at the edge."

In the summer, Ada goes to bath herself in a clear water pool in the hills around the house, and Evered spies on her, admiring how her body had developed.

"A woman's body he was looking at and he was embarrassed to be watching as if it was a stranger standing in the brook below him."

Ada sees him watching and he goes away, but as she cleans herself, she thinks of "sleeping beside Evered [...] as if her body was a having a thought all on its wordless lonesome."

Their routine comes to a halt when Evered gets sick after making a delivery to the ship. He passes the sickness onto Ada, who becomes gravely ill.

In a struck of good luck, sea Captain Truss and Mrs. Brace happen upon the cove. They nurse the siblings back to full health, and when Ada first wakes up from her feverish dreams, her first word is "Brother".

Truss also teaches Evered how to hunt with a firearm, so the siblings can have more supplies in the winter. When inquired on whether he feels lonely in the cove, Evered says that he has Ada and so he isn't alone.

During this time, Evered and Ada listen as Truss and Mrs. Brace have sex and Ada recognizes the sounds as similar to the ones Evered makes when he thinks she's asleep.

"Something in it reminded her of the hitch in Evered's breathing during the solitary ministrations she pretended to sleep through. Of her brother ferreting through her small clothes to find the place she was the warmed and wet, her hips rising to his hand as he figured the works of her."

After Truss goes back to his ship, Evered begins to plan an expedition to further explore the hills around the cove, as they had never gone too far from the shore, and also so he hunt bigger animals. Ada wants to go along, but Evered tells her it's better for her to stay and take care of the house. Ada is not stupid and knows that her brother is being distant, he has been since before Truss' arrival.

"She missed her brother, missed the easy physical affection that had been the only constant source of comfort in her life."

The night before Evered leaves for his expedition, Ada waits for him to lay in bed beside her and then begins to touch him, jerking him off. Evered later comments that the gesture seemed like punishment of short, for him not taking her along.

"She placed her hand on Evered’s hip behind her and then down between them, finding her way to bare skin. He put an arm around her waist and moved to reach under her shift but she grabbed it with her free hand. She did not want to be touched. Or to turn toward him or to speak. She moved against the rigid bit of gristle in her hand, working toward that hitch in his breath, that spastic release."

Hunting turns out to be a good deal for the siblings and when The Hope comes to deliver their goods, they gain extra by selling pelts of the animals they had killed.

The next strange event is the arrival of John Warren onto the cove. He comes knocking in the sibling's door, having heard of the so called "Orphan Cove" and wanting to lumber there. At first, Warren mistake Ada and Evered for a couple, asking if they are wedded, which leaved Ada "mortified".

Warren lates asks Ada whether she feels alone, and her answer is similar to the one Evered had given Truss.

"She shook her head. 'I got Evered,' she said. 'He been good to me.'"

Warren and his crew leave, with Evered and Ada once again returning to their routine. The text time The Hope comes around, the Captain asks if Ada has ever considered marrying, as the men in town are lacking women. Evered asks Ada whether she has ever considered marrying and she says that she doesn't want to do that.

That winter, a terrible storm blows in while Evered is out fishing, and for a moment, Ada assumes he has drowned. He does make it back to shore, completely soaked through, and she takes him to the house, stripping him off the wet clothes and setting him by the fire. Then Ada removes her own clothes, as she too got wet from searching for him and straddles him for ~warmth~. This obviously leads to them having sex.

The next morning, there's an awkwardness in the air, with neither sibling knowing quite how to deal with the intimacy they had shared.

"And she couldn’t settle with any satisfaction how to feel about what happened between she and Evered, about how it unfolded or if it was all her doing somehow."

Even though they had only had penetrative PiV sex once, Ada finds herself pregnant, in a strike of bad luck akin to Cathy Dollanganger's. I know it's possible to get pregnant from just one unprotected encounter, but god, are this incestuousr girlies unlucky.

Ada realises she is pregnant when she stops getting her "monthly visitor", but isn't quite sure how she got that way. At first, she hides it from Evered, but when her belly gets big enough, he starts to suspect that Ada got pregnant because Warran had made her his wife. Ada and Warren never had sex, by the way, the just apent a lot of time alone because Warren thought of her as a surrogate daughter and wanted to keep are away from his sailors.

As the distance between the siblings grows bigger, Evered suggests that they should leave the cove and go to the town, where he can find a job and Ada can get married.

Just as The Hope appears on the horizon, Ada enters in labor and Evered helps her deliver the child.

"He nodded though his expression didn’t change. "I don’t know what to do," he said. "What do I do?" "Just don’t leave me," she said."

The child is named Martha, after they deceased baby sister, whom Ada believed might have reincarnated into her daughter. Then, in one of the most anticlimactic endings ever, the books ends, as Evered places the new-born on Ada's chest and the ship approaches at distance.

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Finally Getting Help (prt. 10)

Mastterpost

A/N: Thank you all for the well wishes about my dog. Unfortunately he didn't make it and pass away Tuesday morning in the vet's office. I was able to get some writing done but I don't have the energy to edit. Let me know if you find any mistakes.

-----

Jason: hey, thanks for the gun and the tech, it's really cool.

Danny: new phone who dis 😝

Jason: I hope you haven't given too many people guns in the last couple days.

Danny: no I haven't, thanks for texting me Jason. Have you got a chance to try the gun?

Jason: not on anything moving, I've been doing some target practice to get a feel for it though. Looking forward to when I can test it on Vlad.

Danny: aww are you going to avenge my honor 🥺

Jason: if you want me too. I'll bring you his head if you want me too.

Danny: 🥰 you're so sweet. I wouldn't say no to seeing him suffer for what he's done but don't get yourself in any trouble okay? And if you do call me right away. I'll come rescue you 😘

Jason: hey I'm the one offering to protect you! 

Danny: we can protect each other. And fight each other, can you come spar again soon?

Jason: I wouldn't call that sparring, more like brawling.

Danny: eh potato potato, do you want to come fight me again?

Jason: if demon brat won't kill me for it, sure. Can I take you out for dinner afterwards? I have some questions

Danny: It's a date! Just tell me when

Jason: Day after tomorrow? I have some work to take care of first.

Danny: Sounds great! And it is a date right? You don't mind that I'm going to have kids?

Jason: the kids aren't a deal breaker I promise but let's not jump the gun okay? We're going to be family through B so we don't want this to blow up in our faces. Let's hang out, take it slow, see how it goes. You need to be careful about who you let into your life now anyway, you can't just let anyone around you and the babies.

Danny: don't tell me what to do 😠 but you're right. I'm bad about rushing into things. I'm still looking forward to it.

Danny: By the way Jazz uploaded the power point she made about Liminals and Ghosts to the bat’s server thing. You have access to that right? You should read that before we meet and I can fill in the gaps.

Jason: Sounds good, I’ll have a look at it and I’m looking forward to it too. I'll be there at 5 so we can spar before dinner. Don't forget to warn B and your guard dog.

Danny: Damian is a good kid. I'll let them know.

Danny stared at his new phone Tim had given him with apprehension. The chat with Jason had gone very well, and Danny was glad he reached out but there were other people he really needed to reach out to and he was… frankly scared. Sam and Tucker were his best friends and had always been there for him but they both had tempers. Would they be mad that he hadn’t told them he was pregnant? Would they be upset he had left Amity and wasn’t planning on coming back?

He needed to reach out though, the longer he waited the harder it would be to talk to them, and things wouldn’t stay calm as they were now. Vlad would be back to cause trouble again and even though the JLD had control of the portal but he was sure his rogues would find their way through eventually. Vlad had his own portal anyway, and Danny wouldn’t put it past him to open it just to annoy Danny. Maybe try and weaken him a little so Vlad could swoop in and pick him off.

Today was quiet, he needed to take this chance. He sighed and got up off the edge of his bed where he was sitting and ducked out of his room. He didn’t want to do this alone, so he wasn’t surprised when he found himself in the library where Jazz was studying. 

He sat down across from her and reached across, laying his hand, palm up on the table. Without looking up from her book she reached over and placed her hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. He smiled at her and took a deep breath before putting on his earbuds and sending a message in the group chat.

Danny: When you guys are ready can we call?

Jazz phone went off too and she checked it, smiled at Danny, and then silenced the chat and went back to her book. She didn’t need to be part of this call but at least she knew what he was doing. 

Sam: Yes, let me just grab Tuck. He’s playing Doomed.

Danny took a deep breath and put down his phone while he waited for them to call and tried not to panic.

When the phone buzzed he jumped and reached for it, joining the call quickly. 

“Hey guys,” He said, awkwardly, waving with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone.

“Hey yourself! What the heck happened Danny?! Basically the whole town joined in in chasing Vlad when we found out what he did but why did we have to find out on tv?! Why didn’t you tell us?!” Sam said, but at least she just seemed stressed, not actually angry.

“I’m sorry guys,” Danny said, wincing a little when he heard Tucker sniffling a little. “I hadn’t told anyone yet. I hadn’t even fully accepted it yet honestly.

“I still wasn’t ready to talk about it, bur Cass is really good at reading people's body language and I guess she clocked that I was carrying them by how I kept unconsciously touching my stomach. When she asked me about it it sorta broke through my denial and I broke down which started the ball rolling on… all this,” He said with a vague gesture.”

“All this is right!The justice league really brought the hammer down on Amity. They’re dismantling the GIW and really pissed at the government and basically all the adults in the town for letting this happen. And they arrested your parents!” Sam said sounding almost excited.

“Sam! That was really insensitive! They’re still his parents, what if he didn’t know!?” Tucker broke in furiously. 

“No it’s alright I knew, Jazz told me. She’s here with me,” He said squeezing her hand though she wasn’t paying attention to the call.

“Okaaay so where is Here?” Tucker asked warily. 

“Ya are you safe? We haven’t seen you since all this went down! Are you really with Bruce Wayne?” Sam asked sounding wary.

“Yes I am. He’s got a foster license and since his kids were the one that found out what was going on it just made sense that I’d stay here.”

“And he’s Not another Fruitloop?” Sam asked warily. “You need to be careful with these rich people you know? They’re basically all crazy!”

“Sam you’re rich,” Danny pointed out, amused. 

“Ya, and? My point stands!”

“Fair enough,” Danny laughed. “But no, I did some snooping the first night I was here and it seems okay. And since he’s got close ties to the Justice League he was able to get the help we really needed, and he says he might be able to help me meet Martian Manhunter!”

“Don’t fanboy out too bad,” Tucker teased him.

“Oh ya? And what if I helped you meet Tim Drake? Would you not be just as bad,” Danny accused Tucker.

“Touche,” Tucker said. “Could you though?”

“I mean maybe? He’s my foster brother now and he seems cool. You two are my best friends, if I’m going to stay I’m sure you could come visit me and meet all of them.” 

“Are you really going to stay there though? I mean once the GIW and everything is cleared out you could stay with either of us. I know my parents aren’t your biggest fans but I know they’d let you stay,” Sam said sounding worried. 

“And I know my family doesn't have a ton of money but they adore you, we’d make it work,” Tucker added looking worried.

“No, guys I really appreciate the offer but… I don’t want to come back to Amity. The Justice League said they shut down the portal and I really need a fresh start I think. I think I’d rather stay here. Jazz too, she’s gonna study at Gotham U and intern at Arkham,” He said. She looked up at the mention of her name and gave him a small smile.

“I’m sorry, you guys are my best friends and I’ll miss you, but there are too many… memories in Amity you know?”

“Ya I get that,” Sam said, looking sad and distant.

“We can still call, and play Doomed together, and visit on breaks!” Tucker said, his chipper tone sounding a little forced. “We’re going to say friends!” He insisted and Danny smiled.

“Of course we will Tuck,” He promised. They might grow apart with the distance between them, but he hoped not, they really were his best friends.

“Ya, my parents will probably be thrilled about this development and want me to come over all the time. They love the Waynes,” Sam chuckled though her optimism also seemed a bit forced. Of course she was more of a pessimist, she probably thought they would drift apart, but knew Danny needed them right now. 

“Soo what’s been going on in Amity since I left?” Danny asked, letting them ramble about the drama, the rumours, and the bullshit that was the bullies and everyone in the school sudden;y pretending they cared about Danny soooo much.

After they finished telling him about it there were a few beats of silence and Danny was just about to suggest they hang up when Sam spoke up again. 

“So, what actually happened with Vlad? If you don’t want to talk about it that’s okay but…”

“No, it’s okay. It’s not what- what you’d think. It’s superhero bullshit really. When I wouldn’t be his son he decided to try and clone me, you met Dani with an I right? She was one of the clones. But he didn’t know I was trans, and my DNA got all fucked up in the portal so none of the clones were stable. I have no idea how many he tried to make that died. But when I found out it was because he had lied to Dani and told her he needed me to stabilize her clone brothers. It was a batch of ten.

“But he lied, he didn’t actually care about stabilizing them, he was going to let them all die. I was only able to save the two that were most stable and only by taking their cores into myself. So I’m not normal pregnant, I’m ghost pregnant. 

What is my life huh?” He finished, chuckling awkwardly. 

“Oh fuck,” Sam said her shoulders slumping a little even as her expression went through a range of emotions. “That’s better in a way but still a whole different type of fucked up! I hope they catch him soon.”

“I hope so too but I don’t think they will,” Danny said with a shrug. “Not before he tries something else. I’m not lucky enough to be able to just move past this,” He said with a bitter little laugh.

“Well, we can still hope. And even if he does cause trouble you have more allies now! You’ve been able to handle everything else he’s thrown at you basically on your own, with the Justice League behind you I know there’s nothing you can’t handle. I mean, Vlad is kind of pathetic anyway,” Tucker encouraged making Danny smile. 

“Ya, you’re right, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Thanks guys,” he said fondly. 

“Of course dude! We’re here for you!” Tucker said.

“It’s really good to hear from you too. Don’t be a stranger okay?” Sam said, a bit worried.

“Of course not, I’ll keep you posted I promise.” Danny assured before they said their goodbyes and he hung up. 

He put down his phone and leaned back with a sigh, closing his eyes for a moment. Next to him Jazz chuckled and there was a soft snap as she closed her book. 

“You did well little brother,” She told him, getting up from her seat she moved behind him and rested her hands on his shoulders.

“How do you know? You weren’t listening.”

“No, but you reached out to your friends and had an honest conversation which isn’t easy. You did well,” She reiterated, squeezing his shoulders.

“Well thanks Jazz. I hope that they’re right that we won’t lose touch, and I’ll be able to handle whatever Vlad does,” He grumbled. 

“I’m sure we will,” Jazz promised. “And either way there’s no point in worrying about it now. Has Jason texted you yet?” She asked, giving Danny the excuse he needed to change the subject and launch into his more petty worries about the upcoming date as she sat back down to listen.

Next

[massivechildtidalwave]

Again for the Skull Danny au

Does Tsuna being adopted mean he gets hugs from his sibling at least weekly ? Maybe Tsuna has his own apartment in Amity because he feels safer there , and without his mother who is willing to use insults when referring to him .

Also it's obvious what Ryohei favorite place is . Because getting both a run and a fight in the same hour ? He would love that extremely much .

But also magine Reborn's face when he meets Tsuna who was raised mainly by Amity Parkers , the kid is ready to throw hands especially with someone who reeks of death in this specific way yet isn't dead as of yet . It smells like a killer . Also Tsuna is probably also liminal as most of Amity is so super strength on the help to beat Reborn .

And while Amity is hiding Danny from the Arco he is definitely helping as much as he can

Danny wasn’t really thinking when he grabbed the Tiny Child and brought them to FrostBite.

Provided that Tsuna hadn’t gained that “seal” at his home, Danny was more than willing to give him back to his parents with an apology note and family Fudge…..

Tsuna had “felt cold constantly since his father and his father’s boss came to visit” Fuck

Danny went to the kids house to try and explain Tsunas stay in the Yetis care as a play date (can’t tell people about Yeti healers without them looking at you sideways) and Nana called her son fucking stupid right in front of Danny…. Danny, the son of geniuses that often neglected him and his sister for their work and was constantly made to feel dumber than he was even if it was unintentional, dislikes the image he sees.

Last he checked the apartment right across from Tucker and Sam’s wasn’t being used by anyone, and with it being Amity Park the prices are dirt cheap too! Not like Tsuna would be the one paying for it but details.

It’s relatively easy to get the kid to stay, and it is both aggravating and rewarding that no one fights the slow removal of personal items from the house and into the new homes.

🔆

Namimori is used to weirdness, it doesn’t mean they throw themselves directly into it. Any contact with Amity Park is slow going, but that’s fine for both groups.

It’s actually Tsuna who introduces Ryohei into the world of Amity Park Fighting.

With an actual support group of older friends, Sam, Tucker and the rest of the group was almost permanently sixteen or seventeen , Tsunas puppy crush on Kiyoko had died out and was instead replaced with a rather weird fascination with her brother. he’d been weirded out a bit by it until he read the packet on Dyling Will Flames given to him by Skull.

The Seal left him freezing to the touch from the inside out, a Sun, generating warmth and energy without pause, would attract his Flames like a lizard to a warm rock. Not Harmonizing, not yet, but closer than normal.

That attraction combined with new Liminal instincts, lead Tsuna to pull Ryohei off his normal running path and into Amity on one forge few afternoons Skull didn’t have an adventure planned for Family Bonding.

needless to say, the with constant noise and fighting and energy zapping movements, Ryohei fit right in with the rest of the Parkers.

Now if only he could find a way to drag Yamamoto into the Park. Takeshi hadn’t seemed to be doing as bright as usual and almost all of Amity was convinced he would fit in better with them then the Sports team he stood with.

🔆

Reborn expected many things going into Namimori. He had not expected the Sky he was called to tutor to be a half feral little shit, with Skull as an older brother figure. This is the closest any of the Arcobaleno have been to making contact with Skull.

Reborn had to watch in a corner as Gokudera and Tsuna worked together to build bombs in the kitchen of his mothers house. The first time he has threatened Tsuna with his gun, he had been defenestrated without a single thought of hesitation.

Reborn had become rightfully cautious of getting within grabbing range of Tsuna since.