#but also WHY IS THAT MAN ALIVE

[pieflavorpie]

... so they undid one of the main plot points from media posted a year ago and decided to betray one of the initial ideas of SW5 as a ride okok cool chill

[varibean]

Ok but when they parallel this scene with Viktor as machine herald looking at jayce’s broken human body and realizing that he too would do anything in his power to save him, what then?

[muffinlance]

Consider: Post-canon Zuko wakes up in the body of his childhood self, the morning of That War Meeting. Would he still speak against the plans, knowing his fate? What do you think he would do differently the second time around?

"Turned away at the doors, Zuzu?"

"Shut up, Azula," her brother sulked. But sulked weirdly, after staring at her too long and too wide-eyed, not like she'd surprised him but--

But like he hadn't expected her to be there. At all.

He turned away. ...He turned back. "Hey, Lala? Do you think you could help me practice that one set?"

He didn't meet her eyes.

She narrowed hers. "Which set?"

"The one I'm bad at."

She scoffed. Pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "That's all of them, Dum-Dum."

He didn't shout or stomp or yell about the nickname. His lips twitched.

"It's okay," he said. "If you're afraid you won't be a better teacher that my instructor..."

It was the most obvious manipulation ever.

Perhaps if he proved an adequate firebending student, she'd work on his courtly survival skills next. Honestly, it was good that not even Uncle Gets-Cousins-Killed had been fool enough to take Zuko into that war meeting. She could only imagine how terribly that could have gone.

"Keep up," she said, and turned her steps towards the training grounds.

He did. There, and during the katas she ran him through.

Azula kept her eyes narrowed.

"Hey," he asked, "do you know how to bend lightning yet?"

As if he could have missed it, if she'd been able to get more than sparks. "I will soon," she said.

"You will," he agreed, and flowed through his next set. The one she'd only just mastered.

Father didn't notice how weird Zuzu was being. Uncle never noticed anything. Zuko ate dinner and asked a servant for seconds and didn't stutter or flinch or lose his appetite when father asked, coolly, what he'd done with his day. Azula's shoulders tensed, because one mention of how she'd squandered her own training time teaching him--

"Azula hogged the training grounds. For hours," Zuzu scowled, exactly like a petulant thirteen year old.

Exactly like he hadn't been acting all day.

By the time Father was looking her way, Azula had her usual smirk in place. "I'm sure there would be room for both of us," she said, "you're not afraid of a little friendly fire, are you, brother?"

Zuko sulked. And ate his seconds, like he was enjoying each bite. There was something in his eyes, like a joke no one else was getting.

---

Father died that night. A heart attack. There were the faintest of burns to either side of the treacherous organ; the royal physician hypothesized that he'd grabbed at his chest, fingers burning hot in his final moments; so hot they'd only exacerbated the problem.

The royal physician would never have been brought any victims of lighting strikes. Those that occurred in the capital did not generally require a doctor in the aftermath.

Zuzu ate a hearty breakfast.

He didn't order seconds. Azula gave him points, at least, for not being tacky.

---

The sages named Iroh as regent.

They named Zuko as Fire Lord.

"No," the tiny Fire Lord in his perfectly miniaturized Fire Lord robes said, sitting at the head of his war council. "We're not doing that. And I'll be reviewing all recent battle plans, as well. What's this I hear about a division of new recruits being deployed to the front?"

He did not mention how he'd heard of the 41st Division. No one asked.

"Prince Iroh, surely--" one of the generals tried to appeal.

The young Fire Lord's regent was looking as startled as the rest of them, for a moment. Then he sipped his tea, and smiled.

"Your Fire Lord is correct, of course. A change in our leadership--a change the other nations may mistakenly view as weakness--will necessitate a change in our strategy."

"Now," said their lord, "what, exactly, is our overall objective in this war?"

War, the new Fire Lord decreed, was not an end unto itself.

---

The new Fire Lord continued to have time, to pretend to be trained by her. Azula watched him. Adjusted her footwork. Did not tolerate, and was not offered, any commentary on who was teaching who.

"What did you do with my brother?" she asked, as they flowed from one set to the next. As her hands, poised to throw fire, just so happened to be pointed his way.

He missed a step. It didn't look like an act.

"I'm, uh. Right here?"

She didn't bother to dignify that.

He didn't bother to look worried about her hands, one movement off from a true attack.

He looked around, then grabbed her sleeve, and tugged her further from any walls that may hide ears. The royal family's private training grounds were wonderfully large, and wonderfully open.

"It's me," he said. "It's still me. Just. More of me? Longer of me?"

She narrowed her eyes. A familiar expression, by this point. "Explain."

"...I found the Avatar," he said. "And this is definitely his fault, but--but I guess it started at a war meeting, when I was thirteen."

Azula listened. It was a very Dum-Dum story.

[starry-bi-sky]

Unpleasant Revelations - DPxDC Ficlet Idea for the Stillborn Au

"Have you met my youngest, Damian, Mr. Masters?"

Its only from twenty years of long, hard experience and practice that Vlad doesn't increase the room temperature from 'borderline uncomfortably cool' to 'unbearably hot' the moment Bruce Wayne pulls his youngest and "only" biological son out in front of him.

He puts only in quotations because twelve year old Damian Wayne looks scarily, uncannily like one Daniel Brown. Jack and Maddie's foster son, second victim of their foolishness, and only other halfa in existence. Second only to him.

It's nauseating how similar they look. From the scowl and terrible glare on the young boy's face, to his brown skin -- which was only a few shades lighter than Daniel's, the shape of his nose, and even the strange winged edge of his eyebrow. Something that Vlad has long since come to find endearing on the child he considered a son of his own. The only difference was that Damian had dark, sharp green eyes.

Daniel's eyes were blue. The same glacier shade as his father's, who stood behind Damian with a proud, oafish smile on his visage.

It was infuriating how similar they look. Vlad might not have rapidly swung the room temperature from one extreme to the other, but he can't stop himself from letting the fury burning within his core from slipping out and raising the temperature up a few degrees.

Because it really only meant one thing.

Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were related.

Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were brothers.

Standing in front of him, it was clear as day. He can already picture a phantom image of Daniel standing beside Damian, the same scowl written on his face, the same glare carved into his eyes. The only difference being the dark, exhausted circles beneath them that seemed to be permanently painted onto his skin. The only thing missing being the permanent loneliness and vigilance permeating his being like a scar.

This, if revealed, would be enough to ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation. Or, at the very least, darken it quite a bit. The great philanthropist Bruce Wayne with another secret blood child? One related to his youngest? One that had been put into foster care? Seemingly thrown away?

It would be a firestorm.

One that Vlad is not keen on starting.

It would ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation, yes. But it would hurt Daniel in the process -- the harassment he would face alone might just be enough to break that fragile child completely. That was just not something he could allow. Or, even worse, bring him into his biological father's care and custody -- something Vlad was even less willing to allow.

It's not out of kindness to Wayne that Vlad will keep mum about this.

His grip on his champagne flute tightens, just a bit. He's still aware enough of the world around him to not let it shatter in his hands. His plastered, pleasant smile tightens around the corners, and he forces his focus to slide from Damian to Wayne.

"The resemblance is uncanny, Mister Wayne." He says, slanting his smile to the side slyly. Although he's not talking about the resemblance between Wayne and his son. Rage simmers beneath his skin, burning coal and embers in the core of his chest, nestled between his lungs, as he meets the man's eyes.

Wayne swaggles his head proudly, his ditzy smile widening as he squeezes his son's shoulder affectionately. Bastard, Vlad wants to spit.

He breathes in through his nose, and exhales out through his mouth. The champagne in his hand cools, and stops its unusual bubbling.

The Damian boy scoffs under his breath, his mouth still coiled upward into a scowl. With the revelation of his blood relation to Daniel evident, Vlad's not sure if he should find it endearing or not.

He is not Daniel, so he decides that it's just simply irritating. He decides to ignore it.

"And you said he was your only biological son?" He asks, voice lilting and head tilting. He knows its a suspicious question at worst, insulting at best. But considering Wayne's past proclivities, he can hardly call it an unexpected question.

Damian puffs in great offense, face twisting angrily. It reminds him of Daniel when Vlad insisted that he was wrong about something or other, and for a moment his heart swells, fond.

But this is not his child, and so the feeling quickly crashes and burns, simmering back into rage. This was not Daniel -- this was his replacement. A replacement that Wayne was free to keep.

Wayne chuckles, idiotically, as if he'd said some funny joke. Vlad's other hand, the one gripping his cane -- something he's required ever since he was dispatched from the hospital all those lonely years ago -- tightens instead. He grinds his teeth -- him and Jack Fenton would get along like a house on fire, he hates it.

"I can understand why you'd ask that, Mister Masters," Wayne says, squeezing Damian's shoulder again, "but yes, Damian is my only biological son. Although that doesn't mean I don't love my other children any less."

Bastard.

For all his posturing and flouncing about caring for his city and his children, Vlad never would have thought the Prince of Gotham capable of abandoning one of them.

But, well.

They all have their dark secrets.

And what one man throws away, another man picks up. If Bruce Wayne didn't want the treasure child that was Daniel Brown, then Vlad Masters was more than happy to take him instead.

"I see."

[dreamerdrop]

honestly, i think one of the reasons i can tolerate julian’s early seasons' behaviour towards jadzia is the way he approaches miles in an almost identical way, being annoyingly persistent, desperate for any chance to spend time alone with them, incredibly uncomfortable moments of trying to get miles to use his first name, etc. etc.

and whether I read that as julian having a similar puppy crush on miles as he does on jadzia or interpret it as a platonic desperation to make friends, either way, it at least tells me that for all julians faults (and boy are there plenty to go around—) he at least… isn’t Like That towards jadzia because she’s a woman, y’know? he’s just Like That with everyone because he’s overenthusiastic and lacking in social graces.

like, his behaviour towards jadzia is super uncomfortable and all, but the fact that he then turns around and acts the exact same way to his middle aged male coworker just… it adds something in context that shifts it from “wow julian is really creepy with women” to “wow julian is an idiot with people” for me.

i mean he is still pretty creepy with women a lot of the time and has obvious issues with toxic masculinity but at least his horrendous ‘wear them down until they say yes’ approach is apparently just the only way he seems to have of getting to know people and making friends.

[tropicalcontinental]

Human fear is the window to the soul or whatever ://

[thapunqueen]

He must think he the king of foldin his arms and not givin a fuck 🙄

[winkle-pickers]

HC that Kaiba answers the phone with ONLY one of the following: "Yes?", "Kaiba.", and "What." These are in order of how much he likes you

(With thanks to the YGOU discord for helping me hunt down the best of the worst Kaiba screenshots <3)

[vic-does-battlecats]

Calculating how to make a Moonpaw

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[polin-erospsyche]

I need a scene where Colin is spending time with the bros celebrating the announcement that Pen is pregnant again and Will or Ben makes a comment about letting Pen breathe before they have even more Bridgerton’s running around and Colin my wife Bridgerton just smirks and is like “have you seen my wife? Actually don’t answer that I do not wish for you to be looking at my wife.”

I just need Colin being annoying about his wife around everyone. 😂

Oh trust me, I have a feeling that we’ll get Colin “my wife” Bridgerton so much next season we’ll be rolling our eyes with the rest of the London good society in the show.

They’re about to become one of the most obnoxious in love couples. So much so that we won’t know what to do with ourselves (mostly because we already don’t know what to do with ourselves).

Personally, after watching Anthony level of unhinged happy married man and soon to be father, I have a headcanon (maybe it’s canon) that all Bridgerton men become slightly unhinged in a whole new way once their season is over and they’re settled down. Colin soft boy lover era is coming, we just had to get through Reputation and the All Too Well 10 min version before getting there.

[ririsasy]

Varadha touching his nose ring while looking at Deva, remembering the time when Deva himself that put it there for him with his own blood in his hand, remembering the fact that it was Deva who protected and kept his "little honor" intact.

[zarophod]

this is probably a niche crossover but i just wanna alert people to the fact that James Lance and Leonard Nimoy have the same face.

[kairithemang0]

Women can’t resist him but he can sure as hell can resist women

[leclerc-apologist]

I know this is old but this is my emotional support clip of Charles. God the way I could match his freak (be a fucking idiot who is always in a situation)

[mercutiotakethewheel]

ok so realistically i know theres important character reasons Kendra (and Seth and Warren by extension) never suspect Gavarog. It’s the old society trick to set up threats as team bonding exercises, etc, etc. plus this is a new and unfamiliar world thats rapidly overtaking her real world and replacing all her existing relationships, and right now Gavarog’s like the only member of her magical-worl peer group, so she doesnt want him to be a traitor, just like she didnt want Vanessa, her only female mentor to be a traitor, etc , etc.

but also i wholeheartedly 100% believe that every time Gavin did some truly bizarre, weird ass shit Kendra was just like. damnnnn…. average home school kid behavior.