#anyway heres this au again

[riacte]

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

[feelo-fick]

...i promise i take him seriously i just keep finding shitposts that fit soooo well... i have folder with just shitposts that fit ominously well with him that i keep wanting to draw and then i never get to them HAHAHA

[pineapple-frenzy]

Book 2 au doodles

It's just a bunch of random moments with Zuko looking grumpy for most of them,,, he can be happy for at least one drawing tho

[hailsatanacab]

A Persuasive Argument - dpxdc

"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."

"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.

"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.

"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"

"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.

"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."

"This is where I live."

"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"

"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"

"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."

"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."

"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."

"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"

"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"

"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"

"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."

Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.

"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."

[cubedmango]

「安達が魔法使いにならなかった世界線の話」 + 「もしもの話」 — english translation

[demigod-of-the-agni]

The pishacha are manifestations of evil itself, locked within a cursed amulet. The wearer of the amulet is at the mercy of the demon, known for possessing humans and feeding off their host's chakra energy. However, if symbiosis is achieved, the pishacha can grant its host a myriad of powerful abilities.

I just needed to draw something cool okay. I needed to draw some cool goop and some cool looks okay. okay. if I didn't post this I would have exploded okay

[theatricalmage]

The brainrot took over and so here's a vat7k hadestown au!! Don't know if I'll develop it fully but I liked designing it at least!

More info under the cut:

- Varian, the Coronan royal alchemist, tasks himself with deciphering an incantation capable of bringing the world back into tune. Times are tough, and the royal family + Quirin are doing their best to cope with the meagre crop yields and desolate weather (Corona not really being the sunshine kingdom - hasn't been for a while). He wants to help and do good and I think he'd be a good Orpheus.

- Hugo, having moved about from place to place, still has his interest in alchemy and does what he can to get by. He plans on temporarily staying in Corona before looting, but he encounters a certain like-minded scientist at the Snuggly Duckling. I think him being selfish works especially well in Eurydice's role, having a more pessimistic view of the world. It also works with how he gets drawn to Donella's offer of working for her later on, leading him to his death.

- Ulla as Persephone! I was initially stuck on whether to have Rapunzel (and either Eugene/Cass) as her (and Hades) but I was drawn to the connection that Hugo has to Donella and the Donella/Ulla relationship in vat7k just works too well. In this case, Ulla won't be Varian's mother. She's still gonna be somewhat of an inspiration to him though, being the previous Coronan royal alchemist and for her intelligence. For half the year, she'll return to Corona with food, drinks, and alchemical compounds/inventions, bringing Spring and Summer to the world, if only for a bit.

- Donella would be such an interesting Hades, losing sight of her love for Ulla, heart filled with fear and hurt, leading to bitterness and cruelty. Ingvarr being Hadestown and how by being the esteemed Ingvarrian engineer, she'd be in charge of major technological advances across the kingdoms and so would wield a significant amount of power (like how Hades is literally the ruler of the underworld). Ingvarr essentially being a near death sentence for its workers while also displaying its technological prowess, all still shrouded in mystery and corruption - a place so otherworldly compared to the rest of the kingdoms.

I didn't want to modify the outfits too much nor the personalities,, if anything I imagine the general plot beats being the same as the original musical/story but with slight differences that'd you get inherently as a result of these characters. I wouldn't want it to be the case where it's just the show but the names are changed. I'd want this to still make reasonable sense in this AU, with the actions being understandable for this particular cast of characters.

For Hermes, I ended up picking Xavier, as he's most knowledgeable of old legends and stories, which would work in reference to the Hades and Persephone myth (and so Donella and Ulla)! He'd act as a mentor figure for V, someone who can guide him in uncovering the forgotten incantation. Quirin would still be the good supportive dad he is (even if he doesn't fully understand his son's project).

Last but not least, the fates!! often lurking in the background, I'm still a bit stuck on who it could be? I'm tempted to have it be Raps, Cass, and Nuru as they've had celestial connections at some point (and ya know how stars can represent fate), but I also love the freckled siblings dynamic so much. Also Team Radical... Maybe Raps and Cass can be their normal selves but their Sundrop/Moonstone counterparts are the manifested physical forms of the fates? They wouldn't be visible to the characters though, just voices in the wind.

Anyways yeah!! Those are my thoughts. Do let me know if you've got any cool ideas or questions. I'm really combining my interests at full force and there's nothing anyone, not even myself, can do about it quite frankly. 😮‍💨

[degenerateshinji]

oops its been a year

[h00tzz]

Hiiiii Ghosts fanssss

(🦗🦗🦗)

[amoritasart]

Don’t meet your heroes?

I like the idea of Philip taking odd jobs to survive before finally deciding on slaughtering everyone.

[rystiel]

haha don’t think about that au where stan & ford as kids get sent forward in time and end up with young adult versions of themselves, stan with ford and ford with stan. don’t think about adult ford focusing on finding a way to send stan back, kid stan finding it so cool how smart he is. stan eventually realizing that ford isn’t just trying to help, he’s trying to get rid of him—he’s just a reminder of the brother ford doesn’t want to think about anymore. adult stan meeting kid ford, having a version of his brother who still loves him and admires him. taking him to gravity falls because he figures ford could figure out what to do, he can’t just keep this kid forever after all—he has a home to go back to. ford’s found a way to send them back, and right before the younger twins leave, stan stops this kid version of his brother to hug him goodbye. holds on tight and tells him he’ll miss him. maybe ford will respond that he’s sure he misses stan too in the future, but stan knows better. he says “yeah you’re probably right, kid” anyway. the kids leave, and ford leaves stan alone in that room, kneeling on the floor where he said goodbye to the brother that still saw him as his hero.

[lovesickeros]

☆ choir of the faithless

{☆} characters venti, kaeya, the abyss {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings violence (minor) {☆} word count 2.7k

One moment, you lay wistlessly in your bed, head full of fleeting thoughts and ideas you bounced around internally. You were moment away from falling asleep, the draw of exhaustion unraveling the threads of your mind, pulling you apart and weaving your thoughts into the fathomless depths of a boundless dream.

The next you conclude that is exactly where you must be – blinking rapidly against the bright sun that bears down upon you through the massive branches and array of thousands of leaves swaying above you. It can only be a dream because you know those roots, those winding branches and the soothing song of wind chimes as leaves rustle and sway in the invisible path of the wind. It feels too real, but don't many dreams? You reach your hand sluggishly skyward, imagining the feeling of touching those leaves so high above, admiring the way light fractures as it passes through the tree so massive it blots out the sky above you. You'd have to crane your neck just to catch a proper glimpse of solemn blue past the swaying ocean of vivid greens.

It's beautiful.

It's familiar in the way home is. That warmth that settles in your chest, the solemn, quiet moments between. You've spent hours staring up at this tree, both your first steps and your last, simply admiring it all for what fleeting moments you can cling to.

You've played the game long enough – strayed towards its familiar branches at they reach towards the heavens – to recognize Windrise at even a passing glance. The perfect portrait of Mondstadt – the massive oak at the center, the statue of the seven with its hands outstretched and its wings curled protectively around itself..a memory of something you've seen a hundred thousand times, lingering like a ghost amongst its branches and roots, clinging to its familiarity. Maybe Mondstadt isn't the most complex, or gorgeous, or detailed..but it was the first stepping stone to the world of Teyvat you knew. It was the beginning of the Travelers journey and your own – the first, hesitant step into a game you'd learned to love.

You might as well enjoy it might it lasts, right?

This tumultuous, fragile dream of yours.

You sit up with no small amount of hesitancy, taking in the rolling, distant hills and far away cliffs. Mondstadt isn't that far – far enough that it bleeds into the scenery, but you feel that pang of fragile familiarity seeing it in the distance anyway. In contrast to its nation, Mondstadt stood like a towering beacon of stability, stark grey against the ever expanding hues of green and blue, a symbol of tranquility among the monster-laden lands beyond its walls. You still come by once and a while, whether or not it's your favorite place to linger – if only to reminisce and ponder the countless hours you've sunk into the game. To take a moment and admire the nation that had slowly dragged you into loving the world you've become so familiar with, to truly take a moment and process your endless journey further, deeper, into the mystery of Teyvat as it slowly unraveled like a spool of thread.

It felt almost real. The grass beneath you, the wind rustling the leaves and swirling around you, the warmth of the distant sun as it stood unwavering at its peak – but it was a dream. Vivid, maybe, but still a dream.

You didn't want to wake up from it, though.

It'd be nice to stay here for a little longer, to be able to wander past these fragile barriers of the world around you – but would you wake if you longed to see those distant horizons? Would you even remember this dream? Maybe not.

But the endless urge to explore – to see and truly experience that distant, familiar visage for yourself – was calling. A craving to run your hand along towering stone walls, to trace the intricate lines of the alchemy table you'd used hundreds of times, to get lost in the endless books tucked away in the library..a longing that you could never fulfill.

But you'd try anyway, wouldn't you?

You'd make the most of this fleeting dream – stumbling like a newborn fawn after seelies, watching from hidden perches as the occasional cart rolled by on dirt roads, observing the distant hilichurl with a look of solemn understanding. Re-familiarizing yourself with the paths you'd traveled hundreds of times, treading along the same, curious line you'd taken the Traveler.

Maybe it was just an aspect of the dream, but the wildlife didn't run away like it did in the game – the wild boars startled when you approached, but they'd settle down and continue their idle grazing before long. The occasional crystalfly fluttered to your outstretched hands like a moth to flame, the cool, subtle touch of anemo against your skin like a soft breeze, ephemeral and fleeting.

Even the squirrels did not flee at your boundless curiosity – it is as if you are a ghost, perhaps, wandering these wide spanning plains in search of..well, you aren't sure. You let your feet guide you, just like you used to. There is charm in the aimless exploration, a sort of comfort in wandering and observing the world through new eyes.

Perhaps you should've taken more caution when you reached Mondstadt itself – a dream was a fragile thing, after all..there was no telling when a dream could meld into a nightmare. But you were in the nation of freedom, who could blame you for throwing caution to the wind?

Uncertain as your steps across the bridge were, it was tranquil – ducks skimmed beneath the bridge, fish dotted the serene surface, clear waters rippling with their movements. There was something about it all that felt more alive. It felt more real, for a moment, but what an absurd thought that must be.

A dream is no more real than Teyvat.

And at the gates of the city, at last, you feel relief – the eyes of NPCs glide over you like water over the back of a swan, allowing you to simply step past them without even an utterance of a question. Up close, with your own eyes to guide you, Mondstadt is more alive than it's ever been. The people converse and laugh and breathe – the small details you'd miss looking through the limited frame of the Traveler peek through, now.

You get so lost in admiring it all you almost trip over a cat that strays near your feet, rubbing against your ankles. Your hand twitches, as if to reach down and pet it, to feel it's fur beneath your palm – but the small voice that flows from the tavern stalls you in your tracks. You don't have to turn around to know who it is, you've heard her voice enough times to recognize it – and, really, you'd rather not get caught up in the logistics of interacting with the characters in a dream at the moment. It's not like they can see you, besides. Everyone else didn't even seem to know you were there at all.

And you were here to explore, first. You could test the limits of the dream later, once you're satisfied you've seen it all.

You sidestep the cat – as much as it pains you to ignore it, you really don't know how much time you're afforded in this dream – and take up wandering undeterred. Maybe you'll check out the library, next..you only read a measly fraction of the books there, after all, and the wonder of something new is a tempting lure. Maybe if you get the chance, you'll seek out your favorite character – even if the dream ends there, it'll at least dampen the disappointment when you awake in your own bed again.

Mondstadt is still relatively small, despite seeming so much bigger – by the time you're slinking into the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, your legs are aching from all the walking. Even if you don't find anything too interesting here, well, you'll take sitting down for a moment to catch your breath at least.

The game made it seem so easy to get from Windrise to the city, but your legs practically putty when you peered into the library with a healthy amount of caution – it's not like anyone has even glanced your way since you woke up in this dream, but you knew not to test it around Lisa and her books..

Even if it was a dream, waking up because you got electrocuted by a pissed off librarian didn't sound very appealing.

Especially because, along the way, you'd become the perch for a handful of anemo crystalflies. You'd almost forgotten some linger on the rooftops until now..well, they seemed content to just rest on your limbs, and it's not like they weighed much if anything. It'd probably be fine – how much harm could a crystalfly cause?

The steps down into the lower level of the library creaked slightly as you slowly took in the grandiose room, trying to glimpse some semblance of familiarity amongst the hundreds of book covers nestled into the shelves. Maybe having a reference of just ten or twenty books wasn't exactly the most extensive list – you could barely even remember what books you mindlessly picked up chasing glittering spots like a moth chases the flickering flame.

Maybe you'll see Venti's statue, next – it was impressive enough in game, you could only imagine how it looks in person, how the smooth stone feels beneath your fingertips.

For now, you scour the rows and rows of book, gleaning the contents of the books from the assorted covers and titles so foreign to you. You recognize a scarce few, those you picked up on your first, brisk walk through the library scouring for treasure just to be disappointed at the lack of it. These days you're just happy to bask in the atmosphere and reminisce here – unless you're dragging your feet to do your Theater for the month. Not a lot of room for reminiscing when you're busy fighting for your life to finish on time.

Still, you're almost half disappointed there hasn't been many playable characters around..sure, maybe they'd just ignore you like the other NPCs, but it'd still be nice to see them. If Dawn Winery wasn't so far away, you'd consider dropping by, just to see, but..well, you've hiked long enough, personally.

Though as much as you'd like to busy yourself in the library, you do want to make the most of your time, too. You don't pay much attention to the patter of footsteps as you ascend the stairs and awkwardly step past the guard outside the library, the brief blur of reds and blues in the corner of your eyes gone before you can truly see its source. Well, there's more to see anyway – the cathedral was impressive enough when you first saw it in game, you can only imagine it's magnificence now.

All the stairs definitely feels worse now that you can't just haul yourself up a wall like in game, though. Maybe it would've been better to rest a bit more in the library, but you really didn't want to waste this chance..how often did you really have this much control over a dream, anyway? You feel lucky it hadn't turned into a nightmare.

And it was more than worth it when you crested the top of the stairs, the wind rushing past you for a brief moment and almost making you stumble as your eyes flit towards the towering stone you'd known so well. Hands outstretched and draped in robes, looking all the Archon they are..well, it was a lot more detailed like this. The lull of music doesn't escape you, either – because of course they'd be strumming that lyre beneath their own statue. Playing to an audience who knows not the bard that plays a melody of their own triumphs. The same bard who commands the wind as if an extension of themself, their voice the chimes that sing in tune with its winding paths, free and true.

Even if you've never heard the song they play before, it leaves a warm feeling in your chest – a homesickness, maybe, for a place you've never even been to. A longing for the world made up of lines of code and pixels on a screen. Endless yearning for a world not your own – a place you don't belong.

Poetic, isn't it?

Fitting, seeing as your audience is a bard who loves to tempt another into a riddle of their own, their silver tongue used for mischief rather than malice.

It wouldn't be so bad if you woke up now, you think. Lulled back to reality by the gentle strum of a lyre and the sweeping winds.

A reality all your own.

The harsh twang of a lyre brings you out of your aimless reverie, eyes of the teal ocean meeting your own in a moment of startling clarity. You are almost tempted to look behind you, for they must be perceiving another – but the empty, hollow thud of the lyre hitting the cobbled ground is like a bullet to the chest.

Beneath the shrouded eyes of an Archon, the wind coils into a tightly wound bolt that sings with danger, the draw of a string making your blood run cold and your instincts flare up.

Before you could even process the fact they'd just drawn a bow – the bow you had given them – the pillar of the corridor shattered like glass beneath the force of an elemental arrow, rubble dusting the cobblestone and dragging you out of your horrified stupor. If it hadn't been between the two of you, you can only dread to imagine what an arrow that pulverized rock would do to you.

There's a knot in your stomach as you turn to pace right back down the stairs, but you stutter at the sharp glint of metal and familiar blue hair that stands frozen mid-step – for a moment you can't even register any of this, your mind refuses to accept the stark, bleeding truth right in front of you, but the shrill sound of anemo forces you to make a choice. You only hesitate for a moment before throwing yourself over the edge of the wall, nearly choking on your saliva when you hit the ground – it was farther than you remember, but when your other choice is a blade and an arrow, you're thankful you haven't broken anything yet as you stumble to your feet.

Why haven't you waken up yet? You don't want to be in this dream anymore – you don't want anything to do with the nightmare it's become. Just seeing their faces, familiar and once so calm and warm, contrasted with the sharp edge of danger made you want to be sick.

Water – water will wake you up, right? That always works. Your feet slip on the dirt, struggling to gain purchase, forcing yourself to rush towards the cliffs edge – you have to repeat that it's just a dream like a mantra just to keep yourself calm when you look down, the lapping waves and jagged rocks making you almost reconsider. Not that you get the chance, really, when the wood of the tree beside you is splintered so violently you can feel them digging into your skin.

You don't even realize you've lost your footing until the edge of the cliff gives beneath your heel, air rushing around you and forcing what little breath was left in your lungs out violently. Your vision blurs into a collage of blue and grey, the sky above and the side of the cliff you find yourself falling from flooding your vision – you have to trust you'll simply wake up in your bed once you hit the water. You have to.

You don't want to imagine what it would mean if you didn't.

It's just a dream – all of it is just a dream, no. a nightmare.

And as the water parts from the impact of your body against the surface, it drags you down like an anchor weighed against your chest. Your vision bleeds into white, a chill enveloping your limbs until you feel numb – dead, probably. You must be dead. You died and you plead that you wake up back at home, exhaling whatever breath you had left, cold stinging your throat like shards of glass.

Anchored weightlessly in frigid cold, blinded by stark white, your fleeting thoughts are silenced as your consciousness flickers in and out, lingering long enough only to hear the murmur of a raspy, unearthly voice.

"I believe the experiment can be considered a success, Princess."

[starry-bi-sky]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Lord Clockwork." Danyal says all too calmly.

"Yes, Danyal?"

"What is this?"

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

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

“Clockwork.”

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

She ignores that.

“Why have you given me an adolescent leviathan?”

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is that her?"

"Her highness' friend? Yes--"

"--that's the one--"

"--Mother of monsters--"

Danny's not sure how to feel about that.

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

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

[sunnymainecoonx]

How many people witnessed softie food addict horror who needed something in his mouth or he would actively kill and turn to cannibalism 🧍‍♀️ or was that just me.... anyways honestly it was silly.. he'd maybe get along with cook horror... I just like fanon crossovers guys*sadge

Anyways canon horror is also silly(really silly. What an asshole, man)(no seriously he's actually such an asshole.. I might love him for that but-) I don't think he would get along with the others(loser)

[blue-mood-blue]

I’ve grown to appreciate the aus where Shen Yuan enters the story as “Shen Yuan” - same name, probably similar face, generally able to interact with PIDW as himself and change the story through his added presence. I like the sense of “if only you’d been here, things might have been better the first time around” of it all.

And I was thinking, it’s a funny coincidence in that scenario that someone named Shen Yuan gets put into… another Shen Yuan. What are the chances? What a weird twist of fate that Airplane would pick out the name that his most dedicated critic could slip into seamlessly.

What about a version where it’s not coincidence at all?

Airplane goes to school with a kid named Shen Yuan. He’s prickly and hard to approach and a little intense, but Airplane is persistent. In fairness, Airplane is relentless - and maybe it’s a good thing that they end up being friends, because they’re a little too much for anyone else to handle. They balance each other out. They’re the “weird kids” in class and they’re okay with that, because even when they don’t have any words for it, they know they’re not like their classmates, not really. That’s okay; they don’t want to be.

Recesses and breaks are consumed with the elaborate stories that Airplane wants to tell, and all the holes Shen Yuan pokes into them. It’s not mean-spirited, though, even though Shen Yuan isn’t the kind to temper his words. It’s passionate. He cares about those stories the way Airplane cares about them, and it can’t be mistaken for anything else when they lean together conspiratorially across the lunchroom table. They’ve both got notebooks filled with details and characters and monsters. Shen Yuan’s practically got a whole bestiary sketched out in wobbly childhood attempts at art, entries fervently scrawled beside them. Airplane prattles out plots nonstop, always with the promise of shining eyes and being asked “what happens next?”

They come up with a whole world together. Airplane’s going to write about it someday. Shen Yuan is going to read every word.

Shen Yuan misses school. Shen Yuan starts missing school a lot.

Airplane goes to the hospital room instead. He doesn’t think to worry, because Shen Yuan is okay - that’s what he says. He looks okay, and he’s a kid, and it doesn’t feel real that anything bad should happen to a kid. He doesn’t think to worry. He doesn’t think to say goodbye.

It’s one of the older Shen brothers who catches him on the way up to the room one day, in the hallway just outside - snaps at him to go the fuck home, and when Airplane hesitates, pushes him into the elevator and tells him not to come back. “Tells” is a generous way to describe the way the words come out - a growl, a hiss, the sound an animal would make when a hand got too close to a wound.

(It’s not fair to name a villain after him, even if the name never really comes up in the story. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He’d lost a brother minutes before, and he was getting his brother’s friend out of the way so he didn’t have to… see. It isn’t fair, but then, none of it is fair.)

Death feels very real after that.

The notebooks get shoved into a closet, and it’s not until Airplane’s moving out and one falls on him from a high shelf that he thinks about it again. He’s written things, lots of things, but nothing as ambitious as this - nothing as important. It could be good, he considers. He’d promised. Shen Yuan wanted to read it.

The problem was that no one else does, not for a long time, not until Airplane has whittled himself and his art into a corner and into such an unfamiliar shape that he has to wonder how it’s still his own face he sees in the mirror. He has to eat. He has to pay rent. Shen Yuan would yell at him, but Shen Yuan isn’t there to yell at him, and who cares. Who cares if it could have been better? The people who actually are here love it, and it’s paying his bills, and sometimes stories don’t go the way they’re supposed to and the world is fucking unfair. It doesn’t matter.

(It does. But he shoves that thought away along with styrofoam cups and soda bottles to the bottom of a garbage bag.)

Authors are not gods and their power is limited, but Airplane exercises just a sliver of what he’s been granted and gifts an inconsequential sort of immortality. He thinks about making him a rogue cultivator, maybe the kind that goes around documenting beasts and compiling his findings. He thinks about making him someone too powerful for death to touch, or too important to threaten, but when Airplane looks at the world he crafted and everything that’s become of it, it feels like the kindest thing he can do for Shen Yuan is a childhood where he’s loved, and a death that’s peaceful. What does it say about that world, that he’d kill off his best friend too early again instead of making him live there?

(The best writing he ever does is the only, shining moment of humanity that his scum villain ever displays: a lament about death that comes too early, about a brother gone too soon. The commenters praise him. The commenters flatter over how real the emotions feel. The commenters don’t get any response from Airplane on that chapter.)

Death is incredibly real when it comes for him too early, too, still hovering over his keyboard with the story technically finished and incredibly incomplete. Airplane could tell himself that’s because the written version can never be the version in the writer’s head, always shifting and with every possibility still on the table, but he knows better than that. The System knows better than that, with its condescending message about “improving” his writing and “closing plot holes” and “achieving his original vision”...

…and he’s a child again. He’s a child in his own story, he’s Shang Qinghua now without the benefit yet of a peak or cultivation or anything, and maybe he’s a little bitter, and a little scared, and…

And Shen Yuan - with longer hair, with robes, with a couple of older kids watching him from across the street, but undeniably the prickly little boy who used to sit down imperiously across from him and tell him everything that was wrong with the chuck of writing that had been handed to him last period, but with that smile that said he was only invested because he knew it could be better and they were going to make it better - marches up to him with a fire in his eyes and a frown that warns of a coming tirade.

“You told it wrong,” is the first thing he says.

Shang Qinghua wants to ask how him how he’s here, how this is possible, or maybe laugh because, yeah - yeah, Shen Yuan has no goddamn idea how wrong he got absolutely everything.

(Shang Qinghua wants to say “I missed you” and “why did you leave so soon” but he’s here now. He’s right here.)

“I know,” he says instead. “I’m sorry. It all kind of… spiraled out of control.”

Shen Yuan frowns, but then it dissipates the way it always does, and his eyes shine with ideas the way they always used to. “That’s okay,” he relents, grabbing for his hand. “We’ll fix it. We’ll make it what it was supposed to be.”

[pempempemto]

rare pempem fnaf posting because dual process theory's fnaf timeline(the portion with the vengeful spirit michael theory) sent michael afton barrelling through my brain for a brief moment. vengeful spirit michael is something ive never considered what the hell . thats . oooh . shitt.