#and people always have questions

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[dukeofthomas]

I find the fact that the confrontation at the end of UTRH is often summarized as Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker for him fascinating.

Because that's not what happened.

Jason holds a gun up to Joker's head, gives Bruce another, and tells him that if Bruce doesn't do something (shoot Jason), he will kill Joker.

Jason doesn't give the gun to Bruce so that he would shoot Joker. He isn't expecting Bruce to pull the trigger on the clown. He's asking Bruce to do nothing. To be inactive. Because that will still be a choice, and despite having done nothing, everybody clearly agrees that Bruce would still, at least in part, be responsible for Joker's death.

...And to me, this moment is a kind of- microcosm, of the rest of Jason's point. Because after being captured and carted off to Arkham, the villain will escape again, and will kill more people. The only way to truly prevent that from happening would be to kill them; Bruce refuses to do so, and I respect his right to choose such a thing for himself, but it is still a choice, and if we agree that Bruce's inaction during the confrontation would leave him at least partly responsible for the Joker's death, then we must also agree that his inaction in permanently preventing the Rogues from killing more people means he is also, partly, responsible for all of those deaths.

[knifearo]

ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story

[macbethz]

“Is doctor who a good or bad person” theyre the kind of person to fly in a little blue box and go weeeeee

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 160

Constantine might have made a slight mistake. Just an itty bitty one. Okay maybe not an itty bitty one, but it’s not like he usually deals with Realms beings! No one deals with Realms beings if they can help it, and never willingly! 

So maybe he had been a little more drunk than usual, and maybe a tiny bit more desperate. But he’s pretty sure he didn’t do any hanky-panky with anyone. So he’s very confused as to how the fuck, he apparently has not just one, but three Realms-cores?! 

Seriously, what the actual fuck, who looked at him of all people and decided, yeah, he looks like he could be a dad?! Mom!? Whatever the fuck it is. 

What the fuck is he supposed to do in this situation!?

[theongp]

Definitely in my top 3 favorite scenes of DBD

The camera angles with the way they closed their eyes made the scene are somehow very cute but also sensual in a way.

And also the smiles that conveyed different feelings.

I love it.

[bluerosefox]

Daughter of Phantom, Lady Gotham.

I love Lady Gotham stuff in the DCxDP stories, like a lot, so what if, hear me out (Long post is long, I rambled again)

Lady Gotham is Danny's daughter.

How? How about Danny is hurt (his parents? GIW? Vlad?), like badly, to the point even his core is damaged and the time needed to heal would take years, like a lot of years. Like it was bad that even his Rogues were shocked and shaken. They eventually get him to the Realms but are unsure what to do next. So they're scrambling trying to figure out how to save him.

So when CW appeared he asked to handed the Core because he knows what to do, where to hide him so he can heal they don't question it, everyone in the Realms know CW, the Ancient of Time itself, has a soft spot for Phantom. He opens a portal to a different world, not Danny's he can't run the risk of GIW finding him, to a just beginning world, the new world will help speed up his healing, and with Frostbite's help they set up a healing chamber deep, deep in the ground. Once they made sure everything is set up and safe, they place his core inside the healing pod and return every so often to check on him.

Over time though, above on the surface of that world it's timeline starts. Animals, creatures, humans, aliens, magic users, etc etc begin and with it, because even as a half healing core, Danny's power and ectoplasm starts effecting the area he's resting in (Ghost King Danny? Young/New Ancient/Eldritch Being? Or just an OP Danny?) (Clockwork and even Frostbite showing up every so often doesn't help either, it explains why Gotham is so cold sometimes or why time seems... off)

Anyways due to Danny's power (along with bits of Clockwork and Frostbite), magic of this world, and people beginning to build a small town on top of the land it gives birth to the namesake of the town.

GOTHAM.

CW foresaw her 'birth' and finds her sitting in front of Danny's healing pod. He always knew Gotham would eventually form, the belief/love her people have in her would had given her a form eventually he just wasn't expecting her to form so soon (this is why Danny remains his favorite person, he always did something CW never really see's to often) nor was he expecting her to become Danny's daughter. Gotham looks a bit like Danny, dark hair, blue eyes, pointed ears, sharp teeth, glowing star like freckles, but she also reflects her people, the ones that call Gotham home so her image shifts sometimes. But he can see small hints of maybe himself and Frostbite in the shifts.

She is 100% Danny's daughter via spirit/ectoplasm. If anything CW and Frostbite are like many times removed family members when it comes down to ectoplasm.

She's silent for a moment before she asks if "You and the other come here often to see him... The one sleeping is he my father?" Which CW does confirm, he explains why Danny is healing and who he and Frostbite are and why they show up to make sure he is doing better. How his healing will take many, many years. She goes silent again before saying "Teach me how to protect him. I am new and young compared to others... and yet I already know if anyone desires him for the power he gives, they will stop at nothing. He is my father and I am his daughter, I need to keep him safe just how I know he would keep me safe. This much I know."

CW agrees.

She learns, from her father's allies (CW, Frostbite, Pandora, etc etc) how to defend and fight. How to protect what she loves. She watches over her father and fights off demon's, monsters, sometimes an alien that senses the slumbering power, evil magic users. Etc. She watches over the town and people who named her as well, falls in love with the humans who call her home as well and defends them as well.

She even gets the blunt force of a curse a powerful old entity that tired to place it on her father after she had just banished it from her lands. It's an old powerful curse that CW or Frostbite can't rid of because it would weaken her far to much that they run the risk of her fading, the only way to get rid of it is if she had a family member feeding her ectoplasim to help sustain her. (Her aunts can't because Jazz isn't ghostly enough and Danielle can't because hers is limited due to being a clone (like she has enough for herself but does need to visit the Infinite Realms during her travels to get more ectoplasim to filter in and out). Danny is their only chance because he's constantly filtering ectoplasim in and out and even creating it because of how he died with a portal opening up at the same time)

The curse slowly starts eating away at Gotham, makes it hard for her to have a solid corporeal form because pain (when she has to use this form to fight off others she has to bare through the pain), her appearance starts changing (eyes turn from sharp ice blue to glowing yellow, skin turns deathly sickly pale, her star freckles slowly blinking in and out, hands become inked claws, her dark hair is unkempt and spills like an oil sludge down her body and face) and because Danny is still healing himself he can't help her and she can't see him all too often anymore because she doesn't want to run the risk of the curse effecting his healing core, she does get updates from the other ghosts that visit him and then her. She still defends him though, outside of his healing chambers should on the rare chance something finds it way down to him.

Eventually due to Danny's and Gotham's natural ectoplasim filtering on the lands, visiting and powerful ghosts, Gotham fighting off powerful beings trying to use her father for power, and the curse on Gotham herself, the town that had been built on the ground above by humans becomes the very city we all know.

Its a whole mixed bag do to so many factors, that's why Gotham is the way it is.

Gotham does her best to keep her people safe from well... everything but due to the curse and the fighting off another person/entity/demon/magic user/etc coming for her father's power, she can't always do much by the time one crisis is over and a new one pops up, she's slowly breaking down the longer it takes.

That's why she has a soft spot for her Dark Knight and his family and allies, they help her from the pain from the curse by trying as both the Wayne's and as the Batclan to fix up her city self, its not enough to really fix her fully but it helps with the pain that eats at her.

She does her best to give them tiny blessings though, but due to her duty of protecting her father she can't always do much (she wept when news of Jason, her second Robin, her rough around the edges bookworm, had died came to her. She couldn't protect him because he was out of her reach. Its why when Joker returned she made it very hard for him to really gain his foothold in her again but had to stop because CW told her if she kept making it too hard for the clown he'd go running off to 'play' with a different hero and that... that timeline would lead the world to ruin. She begrudgingly stopped but when Joker had taken her third Robin, her tiny Tim the one she loved watching shadow her knights, she did everything she could to keep him sane from the pain he had been put in, and lead Batman to the warehouse to save him. Also it turns out her heartbreak over Jason's death, her curse acting up, and her ectoplasim sparking off at the same time it helped bring him back from his grave not fully but somewhat, she was so shocked that she didn't have time to send hints to Bruce to get him when he was taken by Talia and once again out of her reach. She tried hinting it to Bruce that Talia had taken him but by the time he would check on the League, Talia would had moved him)

Gotham, depsite being young in the eyes of many other powerful beings and entities has held her own and kept those that wanted to use her father for power packing. Despite being cursed that is slowly eating her alive she still holds onto the hope her father will awaken and she will finally get to meet him. (She hopes she made him proud, he is a protector spirit core after all and she had been steadfast with keeping him safe all these years).

Things however take a turn for the worse when Gotham awakens from some sort of powerful slumber (she doesn't know what happened?! Did something knock her out?! When did she fall asleep?! Was it magic? Did the curse do it? Did someone or something-) And discovers someone or something had managed to steal her father slumbering core. (So close to healing, so close to awakening according to Frostbite, just a few more days he says. Just. A. Few. More. Days)

She tries to go find him but is suddenly hurting more, her curse has progressed even worse, she can barely stand, let alone fight whoever had her father. And she knows her father's friends won't be back to see her until far later.

And then all of Gotham shakes and shudders when her rage, panic, and terror are felt that early morning.

-×-×-

Deep in the Batcave, Batman and the others are searching for whatever caused that strange almost magical but not (ectoplasm) shudder that morning.

They were expecting a full scale attack. Magical, alien, maybe even all the Rogues in Gotham working together. An all scaled war. They were looking for any signs of it, maybe to by some miracle stop it before it becomes to late.

They however weren't expecting a strange sick looking woman with yellow glowing eyes, oil ink like hair covering her face and body, clawed hands like they had dipped in ink as well, star like freckles blinking in and out on her body and face, sharp ears, breathing heavily and coughing every so often to appear in the cave. Like she had sunk out from the shadows in pure silence. (Even Cass did not hear her)

Nor were they expecting her not to even flinch when they trained their weapons onto her. Instead all she did was laugh, a raspy low laugh, but it held warmth and mirth.

"Now, now my knights... No need for that. I come needing help and you are the only ones I will ever trust with this mission..." her voice was soft but harsh, talking seemed to hurt her though for she had to take deep breaths and suppress a cough. Her eyes trailed across them all, despite her sickly look her eyes gleamed with a motherly warmth in a strange sense, something all of them could feel "I can not hold this corporal form for long. Long story short I am cursed, have been for a very long time and whatever happened to me earlier this morning has aggravated it even more and thus I can not stay in the world of the 'living' to do much. My father, the one I have been protecting since my creation from all sorts of terrible and dangerous things, for should they get a hold of him it could spell the end of life itself for he is that powerful, has been taken from his healing chamber. I do not know who or where but I know he still remains in the city, that much I can sense."

She coughed and took a shuddering breath "But alas I can not go to his aid as I once has been able to, this is where you all come in. I need you to find my father, find his core. Bring him to safety. I had fought so many to keep him safe, to make sure he heals in peace for so long, and he... So close. Just a few more days he needed... then I could had finally had met him."

She lightly muttered those last few words, eyes looking lost for a moment before coughing hard.

"Who are you." Batman, Bruce Wayne, stonely demanded but for some reason he couldn't help but feel like he knows her, like from a foggy memory, and by the looks of his family they all could sense the same thing.

The woman, or whatever she was, merely smiled, sharp teeth bared in it as she looked him right in the eyes and said.

"Gotham, my dear Dark Knight. I am Lady Gotham herself. Its wonderful to finally meet you despite the circumstances."

[cthulhum]

and dean winchester thought he was unlovable and didnt deserve happiness he hated himself and thought eveyone would eventually leave him and then a literal fucking angel fell in love with him. like loved him more than anything else in the world.

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[outfoxt]

fuck it I'm starting the tag game this time (I'm stealing this quiz from someone else's but shhhh :shush:)

take this quiz and get a color palette :D

here's mine :3

tagging (no pressure ofc): @jaarijani @omppupiiras @vinthund @katinkulta @bluehairandpronouns42069

[way2gosuperrstarr]

the world's most underqualified daycare team 😁🫶

i fear theyre cooked.

ignore moon and monday being in almost the same pose i noticed it too late to change it.

original au post w og refs and au explaination

my sun and moon designs w more 'detail elaboration' (not sdgo related post, just them in general)

i did want to make sun and moon's designs in sdgo different than my general personal designs that i use in my self insert au for easier differentiation for other people (i can tell them apart pretty easiy because i portray them personality-wise pretty differently in both aus), but . im too attached . to my current designs um 😔 /silly their designs r basically the same i just wanted to draw them in this lineup w monday/yn/mc/whathaveyou so they didnt look . sad and lonely. lol . theyve already got enough of that "sad and lonely" shit going on in the storyline ❤️

i probably shouldve written a bit more on the image itself but i didnt . want to crowd it.

closeups and a bit ....more..... yapping (not too much, but might interest some? maybe?) under cut 👍 + their all eye variations put onto their actual drawn faces, for funsies ^_^

moon doesnt get a security mode until later into the timeline ^_^ it's (spoilers i guess) actually how the virus gets passed onto him and sun! when his security mode gets added the virus comes with it.

moon's by far got the most eye variations god damn (i love him)

[aseon50]

Imo Tubbo and Fit are a very underrated dynamic (lore-wise atleast)

Every time they talked about lore stuff there was sm tension, i miss it so much. Fit wanting to help but not being able to tell the truth vs Tubbo knowing Fit is lying to him and being rightfully suspicious,, AARGH

They were so good at miscommunication… gone but not forgotten

I'm very sad they never got to make up in the end, Tubbo never knew the truth. ----- Fit: One day, you will understand everything. Tubbo: Do you mean that? Fit: Of course i do.

Fit: If he knew why I was really here, he'd fucking hate me. Everyone would.

[its-wabby-stuff]

Mikey Goes To Oz

<Time spent: 49 hours 17 minutes>

When Mikey takes some time away from a loud family squabble he accidentally ends up getting “flushed” down the sewers. This winds up sending him to the colorful land of Oz where he meets a good witch, a wicked witch, a brainless scarecrow, a heartless Tinman, a cowardess lion, and a powerful wizard, all disguised behind very familiar faces.

A canon adjacent spin off set before the season one finale but after they discover Splinter is Lou Jitsu

I wanted to fit each of the boys into their “you’ve had this all along” category. Leo isn’t brainless, in fact he’s pretty clever with a street smart, people reading ability on par with Donnie’s intelligence. Donnie isn’t heartless, he just has a tough time expressing his feelings. They are complex and unalgorithic but he can get just as excited or sad or angry as anyone, as much as he may deny it. Raph isn’t a coward, but being brave sometimes means admitting you’re scared and that you maybe don’t have all the answers. You dont have to be strong all the time and you don’t have to do it by yourself.

In the movie Dorothy’s journey home is also a representation of her running away. The important thing was to remember there were people who cared about her. Mikey is experiencing a similar phenomenon, wanting the escape the bad vibes in the lair. His “you’ve had it all along” is interesting because it is an object, since the Ruby kneepads could’ve taken him home the whole time. And sometimes getting home means going on a journey only to realize you never left.

I put April as Glinda because Glinda appears as a defender of the weak, and I see April in a similar light. Always willing to help and beat someone up if it is so required. Splinter as The Wizard of Oz represents Splinters own willingness to hide behind different personas, his running from the past and the pulling back of the curtain for Mikey in timeline. The Wizard grows through the movie, albeit quickly, and ends up leaving Oz to go home leaving his legacy with the scarecrow, the Tinman, and the lion. In this case the passing of the baton to his sons.

Meanwhile Draxum as the wicked witch felt much more how Mikey sees Draxum at this time in the show, mostly just an antagonistic force who wants something from them. Fun fact: I imagine throughout this dream, Draxum is uninterested in being the wicked witch but is pressed into it via plot. Hence his disinterest in being “melted.”

Additional characters not pictured: Big Mama as the Wicked Witch of the East (those were her Ruby kneepads!!) and Todd as the Mayor of Munchkin Land. If you can think of more, feel free to leave them in the comments or tags.

[thegreatyin]

while on the topic of iron posting. a very small very insignificant thing that i really enjoy is that nobody really harasses it for not speaking. and like. we don't know precisely why it doesn't speak. it could be because it's mute, it could be due to an unseen injury, it could just be a selective choice, it could be that it never bothered to learn human language to begin with, etc etc. but there's never been a scene (at least as far as i can recall) where mr iron is specifically called out or pressured or anything of the sort. not even by its own haters 4 haters coworkers. and yeah this is realistically probably because its an ESPECIALLY deadly space bat that could kill you six ways from sunday if you pissed it off, but also, y'know, sometimes it's really nice just having a mute character that's treated Normally for once

[starry-bi-sky]

I am absolutely loving your Danyal Al Ghul au. While I have a soft spot for the whole plotline of Danny becoming his canon personality almost right after breaking away from the LOA all because of Jazz, I'm just as much for your take in which he goes through the same character development as Damian.

Now I'm curious. You already tackled his relationship with Dani, will you eventually take a stab at when he, Sam, and Tucker meet Gregor? Given that it's one of my hated episodes as I couldn't stand Sam's infuriatingly hypocritical attitude to Danny's suspicions of him, I'd kill to see your spin on it.

Aw, thank you! Danyal Al Ghul aus are what got me into DPDC first, so I have a major soft spot for them. That being said, uh, its exactly that soft spot that causes me to have Many Opinions about the trope you just mentioned. Like the trope is all fine and dandy, i don't blindly hate it, my main issue with it is that most aus i've seen treat his backstory as an ex-assassin more like a pretty cosmetic accessory rather than something that actually should have had an impact on him. Especially if he remembers being in the league.

Like i cannot stress enough the fact that being in an ecofascist assassin cult (regardless of his standing in it) should've left him, in some way or another, screwed up morally and psychologically because that's just how development works. Nature vs. Nurture is like a game of tug-o-war that never ends, where they are constantly fighting against each other and one side usually has the upper hand or greater influence. Children model the behaviors of the adults around them (ex: bobo the clown doll experiment), and what impacts them in childhood can stick with them permanently.

Like how my psychology professor put it: a baby's brain is like wet cement; if you slap your hand on it, it leaves an imprint, and the cement dries that way. The same rings true for small children.

I could go on, but I frankly have so many thoughts on that alone that I would end up completely derailing from the second half of your ask, and I don't want to be more critical than I already have. Especially since you just mentioned you have a soft spot for the trope.

[Okay, hold onto your hats because this is long. Naturally lmao.]

Gregor! Man, I'll admit I last watched the show back in middle school on a dodgy illegal website (it had surprisingly good audio and visual graphics, and full episodes. But really annoying porn ads.) but I only made it to like season 1 before my hyperfixation faded and I lost interest. So I never actually saw the Gregor episode.

But... it is relatively easy to find free websites that stream Danny Phantom :), so finding the episode took me like. Thirty seconds. Plus the Tv.Tropes recap page because my damn earbuds just died and im out in public as of rn.

I'm not sure if I'll write something for the gregor episode like I did with Dani, since Dani's a bit of a special case in that she's a clone and tends to be a reoccurring presence in DPDC, and I thought the new dynamic with Danyal would be interesting.

Plus, I'm not a big amethyst ocean shipper for the pure reason of I'm just not all that interested in it; its kinda bland to me. I'll admit I've entertained the thought in this au due to the whole balcony scene i wrote, but I would've entertained the thought anyways if it was Tucker in that position instead. Big multishipper, me.

But, if I had to make it official? Danyal is not interested romantically in Sam when the Gregor episode happens, regardless of his relationship with Valerie. Who, speaking of I'm trying to think about how that would go, and I'm torn between including him almost-dating Valerie or not.

Because on one hand it helps point out Sam's hypocrisy (and i love her but i am always happy to point out her flaws and address them in au) in this episode in terms of Danny spying on them, but on the other hand I'll want to include a lot of set up in order to make Gray Ghost work in this au and wow will that take a while.

Especially with the Flirting with Disaster episode because it happens due to Technus' meddling, and Danny is, well, the son of the Batman? A trained assassin? An ex-assassin nonetheless, but still an assassin? A prodigy child in this au? He might not have needed to use most of his skills in the last few years, but like... there's just a bunch of 'what if' and 'well technically...' and 'would he? he could, but would he?' things that is getting in the way of my thought process and making my head spin.

.

Mmm. Okay. Flirting with Disaster occurs relatively the same as canon with a few exceptions; like Danyal noticing the strange coincidences, and he might take the idea into proper consideration because Sam has a point it is strange, especially out of nowhere.

However,,, he really enjoys Valerie's company, and he does really like her. He's been adjusting to civilian life for the last four years and while he's made a lot of progress, he's still. an ex-assassin child living like a wolf amongst sheep. This is normal, typical teenager stuff, and usually his friends like to encourage him doing normal teenager stuff.

So he's stubbornly holding out on the thought that this is normal, that ghost stuff isn't interfering here. He's a little hurt that his friends are discouraging this, he's not bothered by the fact that Valerie is a ghost hunter and he a ghost -- his mother is an assassin, and his father is Batman, and they still had a relationship. (Granted, he's not gonna tell them that)

If anything, being diametrically opposed to each other but still being in love is part of the family! Granted, usually both parties are aware of said opposition to each other, but he'll make a special exception this time around.

(And man now that i'm thinking about gray ghost, im now thinking about various like. scenes i could write between the two of them. maybe in a reblog.)

Anyways uhhh things relatively go the same as canon. Yeah. I think Sam still has a crush on Danny and still spies out of jealousy with Tucker.

.

Now, the Gregor episode! With that out of the way; the TVTropes recap for this episode isn't the best because it doesn't go into detail about the entire episode like it does with Flirting With Disaster and Shades of Gray.

(which i looked at earlier because I made a section of this post talking briefly about what changes I'd make to the Shades of Gray episode to help set up Gray Ghost, but ended up deleting because it was kinda irrelevant for the matter at hand.)

So I'm taking in bits of the episode clips at a time, I'll try not to get too nitpicky about how each scene goes because then it's gonna take me a longer time to write this.

But! First thing's first; since Danny is not romantically interested in Sam, he is also not jealous of Gregor. He is however, a bit eyebrow-raisey at him in their first introduction, but that's because Gregor is coming off as obnoxious.

Danny thinks he's kinda annoying, and it doesn't take a genius to see that Gregor is trying to impress Sam. But since they've only known him for five minutes he takes the good faith assumption and assumes that Gregor is genuinely trying to show interest in Sam's interests too because he likes her, so he keeps mum. The fake hungarian accent is weird, but it's overall harmless, so he doesn't point it out.

He does do the spying thing when he starts suspecting that Gregor might be working for the GIW. The episode only has this happen twice, but for the au this happens a handful of more times over the course of the week, with Danyal's suspicion steadily rising more and more each time.

Hah, when he brings up wanting to spy on Sam and Gregor because of this reason, Tucker still does his "woah! you wanna spy on Sam?" thing.

Danny immediately turns to him, completely unimpressed, and crosses his arms. "Tucker," he says, deadpan, "you and Sam spied on me and Valerie."

He uses a combination of his ghost powers and his regular stealth ability to spy on them. He's hiding in a tree when they're skipping rocks, close enough that he can use his powers to hear them talk but far enough away that he has a good view of their surroundings.

He's invisible in the cinema, but doesn't accidentally get in front of the projector. He checks the inside of the room for the GIW, and then waits outside the actual room itself, keeping an eye on the area and occasionally flying in to watch the movie out of boredom. It reminds him of being back on a recon mission with the League, but it doesn't end with him orchestrating someone's death.

Then when they're at the mall he stays in human form, blending in with the crowd. He runs into the GIW there, but realizes that they're not there because of Gregor; they're just shopping. They didn't show up at either of the last two locations, and he follows them to make sure they're not also trying to blend in. But they're literally just there for shopping.

Danny is rather pleased with this turnout; so far Gregor isn't a spy, he's just annoying. The next day at lunch he asks Sam how her date with Gregor went, and that's how she figures out he spied on them, because well, she didn't tell him that.

"Have you been spying on me?"

Danny messes with his food a little bit, and Tucker is sinking into his seat with embarrassment. He frowns, "Only last night. Those incompetent government dodos--"

His lip curls up; he gets all 'Shakespeare-y' (as Sam and Tucker put it) when he's insulting someone, "--kept appearing whenever Gregor did. I followed you and him last night to make sure he wasn't a spy."

A roundabout way of saying, "I was worried".

Sam is, as canon, furious. Danny understands why, he knows generally speaking that people don't like being spied on. But he's confused on just how angry she is, and is a little irritated by it.

"Why would you do that!" She exclaims, "That's way out of line, Danny."

"How? You spied on me when I was going on dates with Valerie." He narrows his eyes, and points his fork at her, "I'm not blind, I noticed."

"That's different, we told you why we were suspicious. And we don't have ghost powers like you do."

"I don't need ghost powers to sneak around, Sam, you've seen this firsthand. And I just told you why I followed you, I thought he was working with the guys in white--"

"So you think someone can only be interested in me if they're after you?" (this is a paraphrased quote, folks ;D)

"No! If that was the case I would have voiced my concern the moment I thought it. I don't get why you're so angry, you spied too."

Iiits.... a mess. Sam storms off with Gregor, Tucker tags along because okay, yeah, maybe Gregor isn't with the GIW, or maybe last night was a fluke. Either way he ends up tagging along. Danny overhears that conversation between the GIW and Mr. Lancer, and maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong; but something is up.

I've gotten to that scene in the locker room where Gregor tells Danny that he knows he doesn't like him, and I've paused at Danny's reply to say this: Danyal doesn't even bother trying to deny it.

"I know you do not like me."

"You're right; I don't."

"Ah, let me finish. I know you do not like me because you want to protect your friend, Sam, and I respect that."

"...That's correct."

"Good! Because I am going to ask her out."

"I had a feeling you'd say that," he stands up, claps his hand tight on Gregor's shoulder, and leans close to him with a threatening smile, "so you understand me when i say; if you break my best friend's heart, you're as good as dead, right?"

"Ah,, yes. I am so glad we got that cleared out of the way, and now I hope after we can.. how you Americans put it, hang out?"

In the episode he hugs Danny and gives him a la bise (which is that french greeting where you kiss someone on the cheek two or more times) after they end their conversation. But here, when he goes to do that to Danyal, Danny leans away, points an accusatory finger at him, and says; "Absolutely not; we are not close."

The next scene after that is like, end of day. Sam, Tucker, and Gregor walking away. Sam looks over her shoulder to glare at Danny, then gets forlorn. Tucker looks back and just looks forlorn.

(When did I start narrating each scene?? Eh, I'm writing this in brief spurts of time throughout the day. Don't fix what's not broke)

After that there's this whole scene with the two GIW agents that have been chasing Phantom all episode. They're there because they have Tucker's PDA that Skulker took, and it's got the information of their purple backed gorilla assignment on it. They've been going around seeing who Tucker associates with in hopes of catching Phantom.

Uhh ahaha and that is where this gets a little interesting imo, and also allows me to mention that im retconning Danyal's (already) redesigned ghost form. Which I've wanted to retcon even before this moment bc it was just too busy. I'll get to that in a moment.

The GIW suspect Gregor for being the Phantom because of his white hair and green eyes, which is all fine and dandy until you remember: Danyal (and by extension Phantom) has that very noticeable, rather identifiable facial scar that goes across the middle of his fucking face. The GIW could easily suspect that Phantom hides his scar with makeup if he's in disguise, but if they meet a kid with a seemingly identical facial scar and similar disposition? Hoo boy.

Solution? I've got two: Gregor is canonically a kid from Michigan who faked everything to impress Sam. Considering he knows she's gothic and knows that she's ultra-recyclo vegetarian? He probably watched her from afar or got information on her somehow. His hair is dyed, his eyes might just naturally be green, but if he notices that she's got a crush on either Danyal or Phantom? A little sfx makeup could help him recreate a similar looking scar.

My second solution that's gonna happen anyways bc its that suit redesign; Danyal does hide his face as Phantom. Ghosts are emotional creatures and its a popular headcanon that their interests, ambitions, etc, influence the way they look as a ghost, not just their death. A big reoccurring theme of my au is that Danyal did not leave the League unscathed, and that being an assassin is an important part of his identity.

So i'm discarding the hazmat suit look entirely and leaning into the 'assassin' thing. But the general (stylized) feel is like, white ribbon/cloth vambraces that he has used as a garrote at some point, a hood, a gaiter scarf-type thing. I'm keeping the cape. I did a doodle a few days back that's not the official redesign, but a redesign for Phantom. I may reblog this post with that attached because it's got the general feel down. There's very little white involved, but the inside of his cape flares out and looks like the night sky.

Now, the hood and gaiter scarf gets rid of most of the problem, but Danny's hood doesn't stay on all the time, so the GIW have likely seen the upper half of the scar. :] Gregor's own drawn-on scar doesn't have to be 1:1, but it looks close enough, right? A small scar cutting through the edge of his brow and ends right below the corner of his eye. A 'cool, badass' one opposed to Danny's 'garish' scar.

But! Back to the episode scene. Canon Danny gets written off as being 'too prepubescent' to be Phantom, and honestly it'd be hilarious if Danyal was written off for the same reason (he's calling them idiots in his head if they do). But instead -- leaning into the GIW's incompetence here -- he gets written off as being too mature or too talkative. Or something equally as absurd.

Sam breaks up with Gregor for canon reasons, but when Gregor does his "i really like you, but, come on-!" and gestures to tucker, he adds on "and that scary friend of yours too, seriously!"

Things go relatively the same as canon after that. Danny does end up apologizing for spying, however. Sam does it first. Sorrows, prayers, all that.

.

Things usually end up changed or different when I actually write it down, so I'd likely add more or adjust different scenes according to the flow of the oneshot. This is just like, a general vibe of how things would go, and where some of the more obvious changes would be if I did write this oneshot.

Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the ask :]

[gingermintpepper]

Why did Apollo favor the trojans in the Illiad?

So, dear Anon, I've been thinking about how to answer this question since I got it a couple days ago and I think I kind of want to make something clear before I get into it.

The Iliad by itself as a poem only covers some of the events that occur in the final year of a long protracted conflict that had been brewing for at least two decades and was an active war for ten. Within the space of the Iliad itself, the motivations and affairs of the major players are often referenced but there are many, many parts of the story that are not there because they belong to a different story cycle that has been since lost or was never recorded with words. In the space of the Iliad Apollo's motivations are questioned a lot - his pride is questioned by Poseidon who thinks Apollo should be just as angry at the Trojans as he considering Apollo was treated equally as poorly by Laomedon while they worked together. His honour is questioned by Hera who chastises him for taking the Trojans' side when he'd proclaimed that Achilles would live a long life and prosper at Thetis and Peleus' wedding. His own sister calls him a coward for refusing to fight when Zeus gives permission for the gods to go wild on the battlefield. For all that there's this image of Apollo in the Iliad as some staunch and unwavering protector of the Trojans, believe it or not, I largely think of Apollo as neutral in the war.

Which, I suppose, comes back to the question - why did Apollo favour the Trojans? The truthful answer is that I don't know. The Iliad and all its connected stories isn't something I've done enough research on to have an answer or a reference to an answer off the top of my head. The reasoning I'm aware of is that Apollo was a Patron God of Troy and really a god doesn't need any reason besides that to protect his people but it's not like Apollo abandoned the Greeks either. Calchas is the biggest example of that I can point to - descended directly from a priest of Apollo and one who attributed his mantic power to the god, Calchas was pivotal in ensuring the Greeks even got to Troy in the first place.

From a personal perspective however, I think Apollo was more dedicated to the house of Priam than he was the city of Troy itself. Apollo's affection for that house and all its members ran deep - from his admiration of Hecuba and Hector to his love and attempted courtship of Cassandra to his blessings given to Helenus, Deiphobos, Cassandra, Troilus and even his partnership with Paris - Apollo loved the house of Priam. When you think about the times Apollo lashes out against the Greeks, it's generally because they've done some nonsense to earn his ire. The plague was caused by Agamemnon disrespecting his priest, his aid in the slaughter of Patroclus was because he didn't respect him, his minor grudge against Diomedes too was because he tried to test Apollo's mettle and well, the less said about Achilles the better. Apart from his obvious favouring of Hector in the skirmishes, Apollo doesn't really oppose the Greeks. He has a ton of reasons to by the time the Iliad rolls around, including avenging the death of two of his sons, but he remains mostly satisfied with conducting his father's business and overseeing the war from a somewhat professional perspective. To me, it's always been less about Apollo caring about the fate of Troy as a city itself and more about him just really wanting to protect the people in the city that he's come to love and respect.

Of course, I encourage you to take my words with a big tablespoon of salt - like I said, I don't really know enough about the facts in particular to give a solid, confident answer but I can give you my interpretation of it. Maybe consult someone like @littlesparklight for a more comprehensive and grounded response 🤔