#anyway yeah i forgot what this post was about

[say-hi-intrepid-heroes]

.

[phantomwithbreakfast]

✩ ~ If You Know, You Know ~ ✩

If you’re adrift in your own vivid, imaginary world, you know. If your mind doesn’t follow the typical pathways, you know.

(A kind of animated thing at the end of this)

———————

The sunlight stretched long fingers through my window, spilling warm streaks across the cluttered floor. Paints, pencils, and half-finished sketches surrounded me, a small fortress of creative chaos. I was deep into it—lost in the rhythm of sketching lines that might, just might, lead somewhere—when Danny appeared.

At first, he was just a shadow in the corner of my eye, a faint blur of movement. But then, as if the sunlight solidified him, he stood there, leaning casually against the wall like he’d always been a part of this room.

“Working hard or hardly working?” he teased me, that lopsided grin of his making me smile despite myself.

I waved him off, pretending I was drawing. “What do you think, genius?”

Danny didn’t answer.

Of course, he didn’t.

He never gave me that satisfaction. So instead, he plopped himself on my desk chair and began whistling.

“Do you mind?” I asked, feigning irritation.

He shrugged. “Not really.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to concentrate, but Danny had other plans. He started tapping his fingers on my desk, drumming out some rhythm that had no beginning and no end. When that didn’t get a rise out of me, he started humming—soft at first, then louder, adding lyrics that made absolutely no freaking sense.

“Danny!”

“What? You looked like you needed a break.”

“I don’t.”

“You sure?” He grinned wider and reached over to nudge one of my pencils off the desk. It clattered to the floor, joining the others he’d already scattered.

This was the thing about Danny. He didn’t come when I needed him, not really. He came when I thought I didn’t need anyone. He came when I was so buried in my own mind—in every single way possible—that I didn’t notice the sunlight anymore or the way the world felt alive outside these four walls.

If you know, you know. If you’re the kind of person whose head is so full of ideas it feels like it might burst, you know what it’s like to have a Danny. Someone that pulls you out of your own brain and reminds you there’s more to life than the next line, the next stroke, the next brilliant thought.

“Okay, fine,” I sighed, setting my pencil down. “You win.”

Danny lit up like I’d handed him a trophy. “Excellent choice.”

He flopped onto the floor beside me against the wall, staring up at the ceiling like he was seeing constellations in the cracks of the plaster.

“So, what are we working on today?” He asked.

“I am working,” I corrected. “You are distracting.”

“Same difference.”

He turned his head to grin at me, and for a slight moment, I forgot all about the mess, the deadlines, the pressure.

It didn’t matter that Danny would probably be gone in a few hours, fading back into wherever he came from. What mattered was that right now, he was here. Pulling me out of myself, turning my messy little room into something brighter, something more alive.

And maybe that was the point of Danny. He wasn’t here to stay. He was here to remind me that sometimes, it’s okay to put the pencil down and just exist.

For a while, we just sat there, watching the sunlight move across the walls, filling the silence with his whistling and my laughter.

Again, if you know, you know.

———————

When my full hyper-fixated ADHD brain kicks in, this happens. Most of the time it’s just Phantom that shows up though, not Danny as Fenton. (I was doubting to post this, but yeah. I did it anyway)

———————

—OC: Hailey.

I’m that kind of a Phan… (っᵔ◡ᵔ)っ⋆˙⟡♡

Please, tell me I’m not the only one for Danny’s sake…

[les-pompiers118]

Bucktommy Advent: day twenty-five

Getting back together | light angst with a happy ending | not rated

Summary: Buck searches for the perfect Christmas present to convince Tommy to give him another chance.

Based on the Cards Against Humanity prompts from @tevanadvent2024 in this post.

read from the beginning ->here

🎄 🎄 🎄

A double drabble comin' down the chimney for Christmas! I used the prompts for both 12/24 and 12/25 in this one, since I forgot yesterday.

December 25th

Tommy stayed.

“I thought about you a thousand times,” he murmurs, his thumb stroking Buck’s jawline. “Every day, it was like I was lying in the wreckage in a crash I’d caused myself.”

“I was afraid you actually had crashed, when I saw you typing a text once.”

Tommy turns his face into the pillow. “That was Donato. She took my phone. I figured I’d completely blown it.”

“Nope,” Buck says and kisses Tommy’s temple. “Just set us back a bit. Now we can do it right. I didn’t get you a Christmas present, though. I had a whole plan to convince you with something really special.”

“I certainly wasn’t expecting a gift.”

“I know. It was going to be a whole romantic thing,” Buck explains. “I was going to surprise you at your house.”

Tommy looks delighted. “You were going to romcom me back?”

“Yeah. But I couldn’t decide what to get you. Anyway, it gave me time to think about things.”

The hazy morning sunlight says it’s time to get out of bed, but there’s no rush. They’ll drive over to Maddie and Chim’s later, eat too much, and watch action movies. 

It’s gonna be a great Christmas.

❄️ ❄️ ❄️

Thank you to everyone who has followed along this month! I so appreciated the kudos every day. Wishing you all the Happiest of Holidays and a prosperous New Year! Let's hope it brings us what we really want: a swoon-worthy romcom happy ending for Buck and Tommy.

[mantequillamcwhoremick]

Mysterion in Chaos Plan

Upon request I'm gonna translate my elaborations on this post on Mysterion's design in my fic :> I wish I could actually present you guys with a drawn design but i haven't had time to draw lately plus all my attempts to draw him until now haven't been satisfactory to me, but I still wanna rant about my choices.

[Anyways, first things first, IF anyone ever is tempted to draw any fanart (giggles and kicks feet uncontrollably) I want y'all to know there's no pressure to stay true to these ideas. The descriptions & details for Mysterion's getup in my fic are purely practical, because design is a visual element that isn't considered in questions of practicality and realism. If you have any ideas you like better for his design, or if you feel like any of this is hindering your creative freedom, by all means throw this in the trash and do what you want instead. I love seeing people's individual creative interpretations and I don't wanna hinder anyone's creativity.]

Anyways, with that out of the way, let's get to it.

(from chapter 2 of Chaos Plan)

I'm a SUCKER for Miles Morales' silhouette as Spiderman in the first movie, and because both Mysterion and Spiderman are both vigilante/heroes with working class roots I love to find similarities between the two of them. So I'll be referring to Miles a few times in this post >:)

I like the idea of Kenny using really old maybe counterfeit brand basketball shorts that he used to wear to sleep or something. I'm not yet settled on the specific patterns/lines that I want them to be adorned with, so just for reference you can imagine something like this:

As for colors; I like the idea that these shorts might be the brightest part of his outfit as a reference to Kenny's dumbass "underwear over pants" design in canon.

His canon design is also the main reason I don't wanna give him just normal long pants, and instead stick with the Miles-Morales-type shorts-over-thermal leggins idea.

I like to think that Kenny got thermal ski underwear (pants and undershirt) from Kyle or Stan at some point for when they went camping (bc ain't no way Kenny would go skiing), and he just forgot to return it aka they forgot to ask for it back, so that's what he uses underneath his hoodie & shorts to keep warm.

For colors, I like the idea that they're a dark color to contrast the light-colored shorts but have lines similar to these in a neon green color. Just to add a fun something

And well, then there's his hoodie. Just a regular ol' hoodie, a dark one of course to blend in better into the night (dramatic ass bitch), dark purple like Mysterion's cape in canon except he has no cape because. well. realistically, impractical. But yeah, I imagine it to look a little makeshift, which is why I have Kenny spray-paint the question mark in the front (and an unmentioned "M" on the back of his hoodie) to give it that tacky look. Again, like Miles does his Spiderman costume in the first movie.

(screenshot from chapter 6 of Chaos Plan)

As for his pouch/fanny pack; I was very inspired by the type of clothes people who do parkour wear, and that shit has to be very light for maximum mobility. A utility belt wouldn't be the best choice for hip mobility, so a fanny pack he can slap across his chest and back would be the way to go. It just needs to be big enough to store some fireworks, a gun (the one he stole from Harris lmao), cigarettes and other miscellaneous things like a lighter, lock picks, his small knife, maybe a chapstick idk he definitely should

Something like this but, again, creative freedom is welcome.

And well, then there's Kenny's gloves (crucial!! bc it's cold as balls plus he CANNOT LEAVE FINGERPRINTS ANYWHERE!!), his mask, and a bandana to hold back his hair. Here's a really old shitty sketch I did once gashagdha (yes he has long hair that he has to tie together. I haven't mentioned this in the fic because i'm an idiot)

And well, for warmth & anonymity reasons I often describe him wearing a thermal tube scarf, kinda something like what I often see in Princess Kenny fanart to cover his mouth. But I haven't yet found a way to make this look cool in combination with the mask so maybe this will only stay in written word...

As for his shoes, I'm not really attached to any specific type but I do find it significant that they look like they're being held together by hopes and prayers. Tongue, collar and lining sticking out upward as the shoelaces wrap tight around the ankle to ensure it doesn't slip. Maybe duck-taped together at the tip or something. Listen, it's hard to buy new shoes when you don't want any purchases to get traced back to your identity, okay. He's forced to raw-dog this shit and we respect that.

Anyways that's it!! someday i'm going to edit this monster fic and all these details will be much clearer from the text alone, but for now we're running on the first version of the story so bear with me. I might do a similar post for Chaos too if I don't manage to draw him first :)

[unholyphish]

horse artists hnnnn you are great inspirational

i want to get into art because of you alas my meandering brain leads me to avenues that lack such outcomes

Zoey and Dapper lil arts shout outs love you guys keep doing you and being awesome <3

[xxplastic-cubexx]

alternate apocalypse ending or something who the hcrist knows anymore

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in alt text, transcripts for comics also found there!]

🎉🎇HAPPY NEW YEAR!🎇🎉

Sure was a year...This is just me taking the end of year opportunity to post the various DC comics doodles that have been gathering dust in my files! Disclaimer that I'm a heathen who mostly reads batfam comics (and also a lot of. Sidekick-y stuff? Like YJ98) and these are all for fun! (Image #3 is a direct adaptation of this text post I made)

[daily-odile]

AUGH I’d love to see more time looping odile if possible,,,,, how do you think she’d like; “devolve” over each of the acts as compared to Siffrin over time :O

ok im gonna be honest i did like portrait edits months ago and just never finished them. so here you go

act 3:

act 5:

[princelancey]

Lance is such a let bygones be bygones kind of a guy, we should embrace that energy more often in sports tbh, it's never that serious

[ccbatman]

actually so evil how much of hal's internal world gets obliterated with the rewriting of his relationships with jessica and martin.

[torgawl]

instead of just cross eyes and star eyes distinguishing dynasties in khaenri'ah, why do some khaenri'ahns cover one eye specifically? there’s many things that seem interconnected regarding the lore:

crimson moon turning around to look like an eye; irmin the one-eyed king; the unknown god’s cubes containing eyes in their design (same ones present in the cataclysm as well as the crimson moon), her glitching looking like arlecchino’s, and the four pointed star pattern that appeared when she showed up to the twins; forbidden knowledge and nibelung’s influence; fischl's auge der verurteilung aka eye of condemnation (crimson eye) and her skin's description "o holiest of sovereigns, high princess of immernachtreich (kingdom of evernight)!".

kaeya's note about the alberich saying "i saved this one memento from the fire 'father' made while he wasn’t paying attention. this was in violation of our principles. our clan's affairs should never be recorded" and "though we could not restore khaenri'ah to life, we of the alberich clan should lead lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers [small piece of burning or glowing coal or wood in a dying fire]", father being in quotation marks and references to fire and ashes; the orphanage in khaenri'ah that wanted to house children from destroyed worlds and non-threats that leaked into the kingdom, in hopes of finding beings from beyond the sky who could transcend the gods; perinheri's first memory being transversing something like a chimney, filled with ash and being asked if he wasn't dead just for him to see the eye (crimson moon) and being told he was reborn; dust and the blood of of dragons (or dragon-like beings like durin and elynas) being connected to rhinedottir and the art of khemia; fire as rebirth and life but also, the balemoon blood specifically being connected to loss of memories and loss of memory being equivalent to death (not physical);  despite the orphanage never being able to find that transcendal person, it had many unusual individuals who became knights of the kingdom.

irmin as the first divine halberd (that once pierced the axis mundi [cosmic/world axis, world pillar, center of the world, world tree, etc.] and connected the nine worlds), the prinzessin der verurteilungas (fischl) as the last one; fischl and kaeya comparing themselves to one another and their parallels to irmin and odin; der ring des nibelungen, in which the dwarf (or nibelung) alberich creates a ring capable of controlling the world, using gold he stole from the rhinemaidens (or rheintöchter "rhine-daughters"). the conflict that arises over the ownership of this ring eventually leads to the destruction of the gods and their home, valhalla.

irminsul (irmin + sul) meaning great pillar and being a reference to the yggdrasil, the tree that supports the universe; the description of the item silver twig – collected in the center of the world - talking about a sage that hanged himself upside down in the irminsul tree to gain knowledge of the runes and the cosmos, then going into a secret kingdom down its roots [also a reference to hanged man in tarot that symbolizes wisdom, divination, sacrifice, prophecy, etc.]; odin who hung himself upside down from the sacred world tree, yggdrasil, for nine days and nights sacrificing his eye and throwing himself on his spear (gungir) as a ritual sacrifice in order to obtain secret wisdom; memories, fire and crimson moon hand in hand with the irminsul, king irmin and the concept of fate; the fake sky, the stars and being able to see fate but also fate being a means of the heavenly principles to control the world (neuvillette calling it puppet strings); khaenri'ah, a supposed godless nation but the crimson moon dynasty revering the moon (and hilichurls worshiping istaroth); the crimson moon having an eye on humanity and always being present associated with punishment and destruction (fall of gurabad, remuria and the catclysm).

crimson moon's semblance (arlecchino’s weapon) implying the crimson moon sought vengeance (“few survived the utter destruction of their kind, hiding in the shadows where the sun did not shine, longing for the crimson moon to decree their desire for vengeance be repaid”); the design of the weapon and arlecchino’s boss attacks resembling the double helix present in deathly statuette material dropped by abyss heralds, abyss lectors and shadowy husks, which has a single red eye. it apparently whispers "see, my child. all that lies under the throne of heaven shall be destroyed by upheaval. the eternal peace of the pitch-dark void shall embrace us all.” as you gaze at it.

the abyss order being founded by chlothar alberich and pierro being the first harbinger; the "sinner" – the crystal in chains from the chasm, protected by an abyss herald - not being a god but still worshipped by the abyss order. the voice stating to chlothar and the traveler’s twin that he "[knows their] fate well" and urged them to become a "transcendent one" saying he would "shed a tear at the end of time... as i gaze back upon your life". he also imbued chlothar with the power of the abyss, which alleviated his worsening conditions. the “sinner” refered to chlothar as “dear creature”; dainsleif, pierro and kaeya being examples of khaenriahns who hide their right eye; dainsleif being called “bough keeper”, bough is a branch of a tree, but also his constellation being a snake ring like ouroboros – representing the eternal renewal cycle of life, death and rebirth; the loom of fate being an operation of the abyss order first encountered during "a herald without adherents" quest.

“the threads of your fate lie in my hands” a quote by fischl connecting to the weaves of fate; fischl stating that if she does not obtain the divine halberd “...this world and everything in it is going to burn in hellfire” (legend of the shattered halberd vol. ii). some other excerpts of the book also include: “but unbeknownst to him, this was the greatest cursed sword of all, that had once burned the entire world to cinders: laevatain [in norse mythology, a weapon crafted by loki and the only capable of defeating the cockerel viðofnir, inhabiting the top of yggdrasil], the sword had extinguished after the world was burned, but... it burned bright once more. ‘the whole world... destroyed again...’ weiyang [fischl] fell unconscious as she spoke” (vol. iv), and, "the world is beyond repair. it shall be born anew from the ashes of the last” (vol. vi); dainsleif saying “none will escape the flames. see for yourself” but also neuvillette’s character story including “the puppet strings glossed as "divine rules" would one day be burned away by the fires of judgment” when talking about constellations; burning away the old world, project stuzha by the fatui and the image of dottore burning the irminsul; nahida saying fontaine's prophecy was engraved in the irminsul, implying the tree also contains the history of the future; sibylla, a prophetess who guarded the irminsul in an ancient city located in what later became the high seas (referred to as abyssal depths). she sacrificed her life for the sake of creating phobos, remus' grand symphony, but her lack of a will ultimately caused the project to fail, as her vague desire to "grant happiness to all in the world who are called humans" caused phobos to attempt to satisfy everyone's desires — including destructive and selfish ones — and set remuria towards the course of its self-destruction (possibly tying concepts of will and fate together); thinking of dottore's plan, it would make sense to burn the tree that holds memories with a fire able to erase them (arlecchino's balemoon powers) so that the world can be born anew breaking away from the shackles of fate.

there’s also the improvisation kaeya does during the play in his hangouts. "do you believe in fate? if fate decreed your life was to end in tragedy, what would you do?". he then throws a prop and we interact, choosing if we would face our fate bravely or challenge it and rise above it. kaeya then goes on saying "then so must it be! yes, so must it be! i shall discard this intaglio and rid myself of the shackles of fate", "fate means to send the machinations of war to every corner of the land to fan the flames of conflict till they ungulf the entire world… fate would see my sword tainted with the blood of innocents, that the bright banner of my homeland might fly in every nation known to mankind. but i shall not bow to the will of fate i am no pawn in heaven’s plan. i, qubad, will spend the rest of my days in a foreign land, 'till i breathe my last in a place far from home" and finishes the play with "but i must walk this path, or freedom dies by my hand. goodbye, my tribe and kin. farewell, sweet land of my birth". the prop we get from kaeya, the intaglio, symbolizes the noble origins of prince qubad in the play and the blood-red jewel (blood, red... funny, uh?) is said to be a crystallization of the question kaeya asked us about destiny. furthermore, an intaglio can be a type of engraved gem or metal signet ring.

[valentjin]

we've all seen the jokes about Raphael and clonefucking but what if we talk about Raphael and Clone. welcome to my TED talk, here's how Raphael can still win-

(don't take it TOO seriously, i'm just offering some info/lore/mechanics and whatnot from d&d that could be interesting to consider, for fics or headcanons or whatever else this might be useful for lol)

anyway onto the post. so while idk if 5e has anything particularly specific or definitive about this (knowing 5e probably not, though I haven't read descent into avernus so idk if they have more fiend lore in there) going off 3.5e cambions are just defined as another name for half-fiends, which the MM says are typically outsiders with the native subtype - meaning they can be "raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be". huzzah, this means they have souls (imo). presuming the same holds true for cambions in 5e, since 5e also just defines them as the offspring of a fiend and a humanoid, i don't see why Clone wouldn't be an option for Raphael. it's only 8th level (surely there's a few 15th level wizards out there), the material component cost is only 3000gp (for a diamond and a container for the clone), and once the clone matures it "endures indefinitely" as long as the container does; when the creature dies its soul transfers to the clone with all its memories, abilities, and personality (but none of its gear, so we still snatch his diary) + the body's physical remains don't disappear if they aren't destroyed, so the orb vision we got about Meph munchies still tracks

the only potential issue is that in order to transfer to the clone, the soul of the creature must be "free and willing to return", but idk why anyone would have a claim on Raphael's soul to prevent it from returning. since he clearly deals in other people's souls a lot, he would probably be pretty careful about not letting anyone else get their hands on his! (plus he makes a point of saying he's a devil not a cambion when talking about himself, he wants to act like he doesn't have one at least 😂)

Clone lets you make the clone look like a younger version of the creature as well (nooo dont make your clone look like a younger version of yourself Raphael you're so sexy ahah)

[nathsolkyoako]

Posting this before I can chicken out

What are you supposed to do when your friend dies?

Drugs? No that didn’t work before. And that’s what caused this too that’s off the table. For now.

You can’t run, nowhere to run. And you still remember your home and running didn’t help there either. It’s still there when candles fizzle out in the wax, and the ache in your shoulder gets just annoying enough to notice.

You can’t hurt. Cause it or take it. Not much to hurt either. What there is wouldn’t help much. No point in doing so either it’s not anyone’s fault but yours.

And his. It wasn’t your fault he ran into a monsters mouth but it’s also your point to do something about that. you couldn’t have done nothing.

But you did and now he’s dead.

You swore you saw him smile even though he didn’t have a mouth. Almost heard him laugh through lungs he didn’t have.

You’re at the wheel and he’s dead, his brain in a chip his body’s stored in the back room next to barrels and crates. And your where he stood. And then where he lay.

Lights are off and nobody’s home

He doesn’t get cold no point in giving him a blanket, but the comfort wouldn’t hurt. He’s not there to thank you but you say you’re welcome to the dead eyes and clean off the marker on his face. He never liked it but it’s still his, it should keep his expression, not a smile.

It’s been a few days, And when you pay your respects to your dead your unsure weither to include his name

And you’re not sure what to say when your captains say they’re bringing him back.

And now his voice is there, his body’s gathering dust, it doesn’t sound fully like him.

He is the ground you walk on, he still offers to steer when you get tired, but he’s not there.

He was almost there. Almost.

So what do you do when your friend dies?

Try to keep the echo alive

“We’ll be leaving Alphonze behind”

[schlechtenhunde]

first meeting

[zosonils]

🫵PHOTON TRIVIA

o7 YOU GOT IT BOSS!!

as much as i love making robots who Think Like Robots there's none of that here! photon is the ghost of someone real shoved into a metal body and just as unpredictable and irrational as any meat brain is. too obviously mechanical to be a person, too painfully human [mobian. whatever] to be a robot. [and don't you worry, i've definitely thought about how this in-between existence would collide with other robots in the series. give me a minute to stop crying every time i think about mecha sonic mkii and then i'm sending his ass to scrapnik island]

he derisively calls sonic 'meat sonic'. at first it was in response to being called 'metal sonic,' but now that he has his own name it's just this bizarre orphaned punchline kept alive by some mix of complacency and spite. for what it's worth meat sonic thinks it's funny as fuck that photon calls him that

photon can't cry, at least not at first. just doesn't have the physical functionality built into him. he tells himself that it's no loss, he/sonic hated crying anyway, but it's definitely not good for him that such a deeply psychologically necessary function is gone!

of course my autistic ass has thought about the jules and photon dynamic. it's weird, and awkward, and steeped in a thousand layers of feelings that neither of them know how to articulate, but i reckon they do like each other and they are good for each other. jury's still out on whether they can claim to be family, but it's hard not to at least be SOMETHING with the probable only other person on the entire planet who understands at least a little bit of what you're going through, y'know

out of all the things he can't do anymore, photon REALLY misses eating. leftovers from his organic-by-design brain keep telling him that it's been way too long since he ate and he'd feel better if he slammed back a chili dog. he can usually laugh off being asked a fundamentally robot-proof question like when he last slept or if he needs a shower and genuinely not be hurt [much] by it, but he gets real quiet if someone accidentally asks him if he wants anything to eat

because he struggles to conceptualise his body as His Body, he's really bad at treating the possibility of hurting himself with the appropriate gravity. as a result, he's prone to letting himself get injured if it means he gets more done in a fight, or ignoring minor damage until it compounds enough that he's falling apart, or pushing himself until his systems short out. thanks to this reckless approach to personal safety, he's been fully ship of theseus'd at least once since his original neo metal sonic body, which i'm sure is great for that aforementioned difficulty connecting himself with the body he's in

most of photon's interaction with sonic canon post-heroes is vague and messy and not something i've come up with an answer i like to, but i'm pretty confident in how he fits into the idw chunk of the timeline! he never 'officially' joins the restoration, and he's still just as prone to fucking off halfway across the planet as meat sonic, but he starts to be a pretty common sight around their hq. fighting eggman isn't really fun for photon anymore the way it is for sonic, having your entire identity irreversibly ripped away from you by someone makes any future victory against them feel hollow, but he's still got that burning drive to help others - the restoration gives him ways to fight indirectly enough that he can actually feel good about it again. he's one of the few who can meaningfully defend the metal virus survivors, and you BET he's so pissed at sonic for letting it happen he can hardly think straight. lanolin and tangle probably try to get him in the neo diamond cutters, but i don't think he'd take them up on the offer, given that he doesn't respond well to being told what to do. like i mentioned, i want to send his ass to scrapnik island and see how he plays off of another robot sonic turned terrifyingly real and separate person. then of course there's the dynamic between him and belle, which honestly could be a whole post by itself. after a couple years with only a tiny handful of non-grief-inducing friends and some unsustainably destructive coping mechanisms to his name, the point that idw picks up from is where photon finally goes from just enduring the horrors to genuinely feeling happier again :]

[necrotic-nephilim]

do you ship helena bertinelli with anyone? if yes, then which characters and why? what's your favorite helena ship? do you have any helena rarepairs? (i know you've talked about helena/steph and you're so right about it, it's a very interesting ship)

!!!! i have so many ships for my best girl ever yes oh my god thank you for asking.

my top pairing is probably Vic Sage/the Question. Vic is the basic answer, but man. i love them so much. no couple has matched each other's freak like that have. Justice League Unlimited is a great adaptation of Helena in general, but it also did a great adaptation of Helena and Vic's relationship. how he just dedicates himself to helping her with no expected return, but also wants to make sure she doesn't go too far in a hunt for vengeance that never ends for her. i think a lot of characters often want to change Helena or expect things out of her for their own needs, like the Batfam and the BoP. but Vic is one of the few people who just wants her to be better for her own good. when he tries to stop her from killing it's not because of his morals, it's because he doesn't want this crusade to consume her. and i just. man i think about them a lot. Helena rlly likes weird little men who give themselves wholly to her.

Zinda Blake/Lady Blackhawk is also a top ship for me. tbh i just like Zinda. but i do love how Helena and Zinda interact, being the more rough and tumble members of the BoP. they're both outsiders, in different ways. Helena is an outsider of the Batfam and Zinda is literally from a different time and an outsider to the current world. their friendship is so genuine and i think if Babs and Dinah can have. whatever homoerotic nonsense going on during BoP, then Zinda and Helena deserve some homoerotic nonsense too. as a treat.

if we're willing to count New-52 Helena, then i enjoy Helena/Dick/Tiger. i think Helena and Dick being a past relationship is really important in pre-Flashpoint for Helena's development, though i don't ship them as a serious couple beyond a fling. but in the New-52, i think this throuple be fun. Helena and Tiger respect each other as two very driven, no-nonsense agents and then well. they both clearly have some kind of thing for Dick. so it's fun finding the balance of how they could all work together romantically.

and ofc. it's a crime to mention Helena ships and not mention Renee Montoya/the Question. every time they interact it's really fucking gay. it's so gay that Kate Kane, Renee's own ex, assumed Helena and Renee were gay. i cannot be convinced against this ship. i genuinely think this ship should be canon. i mean. DC did tease us with this moment from an alternate universe and it's lived rent for me since. fucking criminal for us to only get one panel of what we could have if DC let Helena be a fruit in the main universe. being in love with Helena Bertinelli should be a right of passage for the Question mantle, i personally believe. if you asked me like. genuinely who i want to see Helena date in the current comics, Renee is my top pick. (i would say Vic but he's fucking dead and the New-52 butchered him so rip my mans-)

lois lane (2019) #10

besides those ships, just about every ship for Helena probably falls into the category of rarepair. like you said i've talked about my love for Helena/Steph before bc god. i think it should be a thing more people ship. once i finish the fic i'm writing about them i will convince others to like it.

i also think Helena/Cass could be fun. in a *lot* of ways Helena and Cass are narrative parallels to each other. Helena was a victim of her family being murdered at about the same age Cass was forced to be a murderer. Helena grows up to believe in lethal justice because of this, and Cass grows up to be staunchly against it. Cass' Batgirl suit was made *by* Helena. they both want to be protectors of the most vulnerable people. they balance each other out in a lot of ways and i think they should kiss about it.

also probably a rarepair, i think Helena/Lady Shiva is fun. their fight during Birds of Prey (2010) had... questionable moments for Helena's characterization, but i do love so much that Helena knocks Shiva off her feet and gains a deep respect from Shiva. like. Shiva gives her a nickname and shows her admiration. i would like to see fanfic where Shiva continues to be weirdly admirable of Helena and bothering her non-stop. they could be a fun fucked up toxic yuri moment. this is just. so gay to me.

birds of prey (2010) #6

my most rare Helena pair would probably be Helena Wayne, actually. but specifically Helena Wayne of JSA (2022). ever since, for some reason, it was made canon that the current Helena Wayne was named after Helena Bertinelli and took the name Huntress to honor her i *cannot* stop thinking about them meeting. because in-universe it makes *no* fucking sense for Bruce to name his kid after *Helena Bertinelli*, someone he's regularly at odds with and doesn't like. it's clearly an awkward explanation to try to make the whole two Huntress situation make sense. (it's almost as bad as Helena Wayne in the New-52 using Helena Bertinelli as an alias.) but because it's such an odd choice, i do think it could be fun for Helena Wayne, when she's back in time to see Bruce, to find Helena Bertinelli to get to know the woman she was named after and Helena Bertinelli just being. baffled by the idea of *Batman* naming his kid after her. it could be a fun fucked up moment.

my other super rarepair is Kara Zor-L/Power Girl. they had like. one meaningful interaction of JSA Classified and it's been PLAGUING me. something about when Power Girl doesn't remember her past and she's seeking a friend, she instinctively goes to find Huntress? but it's wrong bc this isn't *her* Huntress and neither of them understand why Power Girl would seek Helena out? god it's so good. i'm always a big fan of ships where one person in the ship is *so* obviously using the other person as a replacement for someone they lost and they both know it. it's such a doomed angsty thing where you could play with Helena actually really liking Kara, but knowing that she's just a replacement for Kara's Helena Wayne. good fucked up shit man.

and lastly: i really ship her with Dawn Granger/Dove. there's no canon basis for this, they didn't have a ton of interactions even when they were both on the BoP. but there's a very kind innocence to Dawn that contrasts Helena's violence really well. and i do love a ship with a corruption kink vibe to it. let Helena corrupt Dawn. i could write such fucked up porn about these two.