#but also portal duo as well!!
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Things I make for myself when insomnia kicks in
Just a chart about what I wanna change up and keep consistent in my art - I mainly wanna draw Raph with a tail because he deserves one, it fits too well. Donnie gets a long tail too because I didn’t realize how dino-like he looks until I gave him one, and now it’s a must for me haha.
#rottmnt#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#rottmnt headcanons#note these are veryyy much for my own art so by all means ignore this completely for your own unless it resonates#these are just my personal headcanons#I’ve been getting more and more fond of the turtles having tails - especially Raph whose design honestly feels more complete with one#I also am now attached to Donnie having a long tail too because 1) he looks cute with one and it really works for him and-#2) I LOVE giving the Brains and Brawn duo more stuff in common#I could write an essay about how many things Brains and Brawns duo has in common in general#but also portal duo as well!!#we already know that Mikey and Leo look a LOT alike#so I think it’s cute when Raph and Donnie have stuff like that in common with each other too#like how canonically Donnie’s sclera are on the yellow side like Raph’s#anyway I’m sorry if this is a random post I am very tired and still have not slept#ALSO yeah i wanted an excuse to doodle April it’s been too long i missed her#I’m excited to finish this comic up to show the OTHER reason I gave Donnie a long tail#I made this in like five minutes because working on my comic was not working out#also Draxum totally has a tail he’s a sheep#I lean away from Mikey and Leo having longer tails mainly because their designs are already so busy#with all the colors and shapes present on them#so to me longer tails kinda takes away a bit#meanwhile Raph and Donnie are more monochrome in comparison so I feel like tails only help them?#I think as well Donnie’s torso/carapace being on the shorter side makes a tail balance him out#(me trying to justify the visual gag im putting into the comic for literally only two panels)#didn’t draw the caseys because I am tiredddd#and they would have just ended up where April is anyway
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donatello centric post (sigh + eyeroll)
#he’s just so easy to draw but he’s not even my favorite guy#well okay technically they are all my favorite#also!!#i just have thos idea where 87 donnie is like messing with his portal gun thingy#and ends up in the rise dimension#and ofc rise dee is estatic bc his theories are confirmed#and then they just#go dimension hopping idk#i just think itd be an interesting duo#esp bc canonically the 1987 turtles have been to a lot of the other versions#so 87 donnie would have background knowledge idk#anyways#tmnt donnie#tmnt 2003 donnie#rottmnt donnie
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Uh haven't posted art in some time hm
throws this like I'm an old man feeding the pigeons
Kraang Leo and Mikey getting up to shenanigans expect it's a Ms paint doodle,,,,
Are they collecting dishes from around the lair? Stealing from a china shop? Somehow gotten themselves hired in some yokai restaurant? Got caught up in a cook off? I don't know!
I was drawing Leo and then I put dishes on his kraang arms and it all went down from there....
#scrolls art#rottmnt#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#kraang!leo au#kraang!leo#rottmnt art#rottmnt fanart#rottmnt leo#rottmnt mikey#also this is just a small detail i put in but the eyes on leos arms are looking at mikey and i tried to make them look like.#so caring as in. Hes having so much fun wirh his little bro doing stupid things 🙏#i don't remember what their duo is called uhhh#tidepod duo?#bajablast?#portal duo ??#well whatever it is#mikey in the au is the one that from the start is like#“well your eyes might be pink and you might be turning into/ be a kraang but. y'know. you're still my brother”#“you're still Leo and that'll never change so”#he acts basically like nothing's wrong while the others...... don't.
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Trope blender strikes again!
Since the formation of the Justice League Dark to deal with supernatural threats, Diana had been acting as the team's 'Superman' for lack of a better term.
It was, however, not a position she was entirely suited to, as ironically enough when engaging supernatural threats she was better suited to the same role that Batman played in the Justice League, engaging with superior training, tactics and specialised tools while also acting as battlefield tactical command.
With the lack of any other candidates however, she made do. But not for long.
Thanks to a wandering little girl, Diana had gained a new cousin and uncle who were refreshingly free of the hubris of the Greek pantheon, as well as an unexpected (and terrifying) meeting with her Grandfather who was far different from the stories, she supposed death and a few millennia would calm someone down. She was pleased however to add some paternal family members she could enjoy calm moments with.
Her Uncle was willing to help, however his backlog from the previous King in addition to the repairs and ongoing negotiations for reparations with the United States government made her feel guilt for placing further demands on him.
Her younger cousin however was more than happy to "get out of the house", her Father's comments about the expansiveness of a TARDIS castle completely ignored.
Ellie was already training with her old friend Pandora (So many happy reunions) so Diana was more than willing to take her to Themascerya for an initiation to the Sisterhood of Amazon's. Danny was ecstatic that his daughter was making friends.
Now Ellie as Banshee is JLD's front line fighter and Diana is the tactician, a dynamic duo of their own. Diana is so proud of her little cousin.
Which is why today was very..... Strange.
~
Basically the JLD have to head to the Watchtower for some threat, Ellie is super pumped because SPACE and Diana is excited to take her smol bean cousin to the Watchtower for the first time.
Batman and Co arrive and Drama TM occurs because "Holy shit that little girl looks like a Talia with blue eyes", Damian starts accusing and mouthing off, Ellie freaks because her Dad has warned her about the League of Assassins, so she freaks and bails.
Diana is explaining who Ellie is, how they're related when Uncanny Valley Danny in human form comes out of a portal in his "Royal Casual" work attire. Loose jeans,button up with vest, fluffy slippers with a coffee mug in hand. He's facing Diana, paying 0 attention to who else is there beyond "cool space station".
"Hey niece, why is my daughter running through my castle screaming about killer birds?"
"Ah, I believe she is referring to Robin being a former member of the League of Assassins." Diana replies.
Batman and the rest of the Justice League are tense, assessing this possible ally who RADIATES power and death. Anyone affected by death can feel it like static in their teeth during a lightning storm. Those who have been into the Lazarus Pits feel safe yet the overwhelming urge to KNEEL BEFORE YOUR KING.
"Well shit, someone actually escaped from the Fruit Loop Supreme? Anyone who gets away from my asshole grandfather is alright by me." Danny replies as he turns to look at the various heros, taking a sip from his mug.
"Danyal?" A faint hopeful whisper as Damian takes his mask off to look at his Brother (HOW, HOW? HE LOST HIM HE'S HERE HOW?) His dead twin somehow here and changed so much.
*Slurp*
"Well shit, didn't expect this."
This entire time Bruce's brain is making crunching noises.
It's not the extra son that's apparently God of the Afterlives. It's not the granddaughter.
Diana is his son's niece. Bruce had sex with his grand niece. Barbara is right, he needs therapy.
#dp x dc#dpxdc#dc x dp#dcxdp#danny phantom#dp x dc crossover#dp x dc prompt#dani phantom#Wonder Woman#Diana Prince#Danny is Clockwork's Ghost Son#Danny is the Ancient/Titan of Space#Danny is Diana's Uncle#Twins AU#Danny and Damian are twins#Ellie is Danny's daughter#Batfam dysfunction is just Greek God Family Relationships#Ellie and Diana are cousins#Ellie looks like Talia but with blue eyes#Ellie looks 9#ish#She won't start aging until she's *actually* 9#Danny grew a beard so he looks older#17 year old dad to 9 year old daughter isn't convincing#Clockwork's time missions help#Danny is definitely older twin now#Danny looks like Thomas Wayne
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War at Home part 2, but this time the rest of the team is alive.
Your best bet against a Stellaron Hunter is another one.
#goodbye forever memory of xianzhou you were unfun but i love monetary gains#kafka/black swan team was on the first half because nihility is one hell of a drug#sparkle is also one hell of a drug#why blade and dan heng together? well she's weak to wind and imaginary and i was out of supports#so might as well do more damage instead#i love running super instinctive dps duos#me throwing them both through the forgotten hall portal and yelling 'remember to kill the enemy and not each other ok have fun'#somehow it worked out#bladie prevails always#hsr#ray's records
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amity park in the non-ghostly chaos after the departure of the youngest fenton
The situation with the GiW had gotten worse. Even Vlad was starting to get sniffed at by them after the GiW heard things about Vlad election.
The three halfa came together, despite the tension between them, for a common plan.
Danny couldn't leave until the gate closed.
Vlad couldn't leave while he was still attached to Maddie
both were endangering the halfa's secret existence and so Dani was worried. but she owed Danny a favor.
Danny was going to tell these parents, without transforming himself, just making his eyes shine at the end. If it goes well, so much the better! they will have help for the rest of the plan!! Otherwise Vlad would intervene to prevent the worst while sending a message to Dani who would trigger the Fenton sensors and pretend to be Danny Phantom and Vlad intervene immediately physically.
Why? Vlad thought it was the best way to make the parents believe that Danny had only tested them and that they had failed.
…What happened
Maddie didn't hesitate to shoot Danny when Danny's eyes started to shine. Then the detector distracted her while Danny ran. The Parrent duo followed Danny BUT were stopped by Vlad, who argued with them, taking out a bottle of shiny green ecto contact lens while taking out custody waiver papers which a still very tunned Jack signed while declaiming that they were coming to show where their priority was and it was NOT Danny and his well-being!
when Maddie? ... she didn't stay to listen to Vlad and went running after Dani Phantom.
Suffice it to say, Danny wasn't entirely happy with this "little" addition to the plan on Vlad's part, but it worked, vlad knew how to put pressure on people to sign his papers after all, he did not succeed in the business world ONLY thanks to his ability to own people. These parents seemed to question themselves or at least jack but Danny no longer had enough confidence to stay at Fenton Work. Vlad convinced them to close the portal. In any case, even if they had refused, Vlad would have just sabotaged the machine without blowing up the whole neighborhood, he has the knowledge to.
Once that was done, Vlad and Danny no longer had any ties to Amity Park other than friendships and the position of mayor. After all, Maddie reacted like that to her son ... so Vlad resigned himself, he didn't think that Maddie would be the one who would react ... react like this and not even stay to hear all his talk....
Danny chats with his two best friends and these two both intended to aim for Gotham University knowing that it was the best choice of city for the three of them. So they would meet again, just for a few years of long-distance friendship.
Danny even told Valerie what happened, without the part where he was Phantom, although some implied that Valerie was thinking about the implication for her. Danny didn't insist.
Dani decided to stay a little longer at Amity Park. After all, if Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom moved at the same time, it wouldn't have been for the best.... But Vlad threatened, she won't stay at Amity Park for long, Vlad will officially adopt Dani but he had better be correct! otherwise she will run away!!!
Danny and Vlad move to Gotham after Vlad's resignation speech on the importance of family over career and another snap election.
Dani, under the title of Phantom, warned the few Danny "enemy" arriving at Amity Park without any portal of the situation. But the closure of the fenton and vlad portals caused ghost attacks to drop sharply. Soooo, Val asks Dani about the situation and listened about the fenton portal....
and valerie was not silent about this sudject!
She was also very verbal at school, like it was normal that he was always so tired! he had to sleep above the point of ghosts entering the living world!! he who was so afraid of the slightest ghostly appearance!!! how do you want to sleep like that?!? why didn't anyone visit the Fenton home with Danny's grades dropping and falling grades! his overall change in behavior!!! In hindsight it was normal that Jazz was so mature if she had to hold the bar !!! why had no teacher sounded the alarm! What do you mean, Mr.Lancer, you did it but it didn't work? !!! How? or did it block?
Quickly Vallerie was not the only one to search and ... it was Tucker who said the passing remark that ignited things: Maybe it was the government that didn't want the only designer of anti-ghost weapons to be distracted from their work after they signed their government contract
----
Meanwhile, Danny was preparing for the first gala as Vlad's child in the mansion of the richest family in the city and in the top three in the world.
no pressure
#dpxdc#dcxdp#dc x dp#dp x dc#dp x dc crossover#dc x dp crossover#GiW#danny phantom#danny fenton#danny master#vlad plasmius#vlad master#dani phantom#valerie gray#red huntress#team phantom#tucker foley#sam manson#maddie fenton#jack fenton#my#my prompts#prompt#giw#if you change Gotham to another city it works too#if you have a better idea for a title#I'm interested#it's much too long >w<
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The idea warms are hitting extremely hard today, so outside of my usual DPxDC I give you, Spider-Man in Gotham...Not MCU Peter edition!
Give me a Peter Parker that is 18 going on onto 19, he has been Spider-Man for like, 5 almost 6 years, getting his bite very early, and dealing with all the things that happen to him younger.
And give me a Year One Batman. Who is still trying to figure out what the hell he is doing, and toting along a 9 year old Robin
Peter, falling out of a portal, and doing his standard check of surroundings, spotting Batman staring at him in clunky armor and a brightly colored child: Waves slowly
Bruce, who heard some freaky shit was happening with a cult near by and went to investigate: blinking at the blue and red being that got summoned
Dickie, who is trying (and failing) to do the Bat glare: still waves back.
And like, just the idea of this 19 year old Spider-Man taking a much older vigilante under his wing, teaching him the ins and outs of it all.
Like..
Bruce, Storming through a bag guys base gets suddenly pulled back by a web to his cape.
Peter, giving him a "bitch you dumb" look under his mask: Traps! LOOK FOR TRAPS?? AND LOOK UP? PEOPLE HID THINGS UP?
Bonus, Spider-Man bending himself into a human pretzels and Dick "I have no bones" Grayson is gleefully testing to see if he could do it too.
Jump cut, years later, Peter beats emotional intelligence into Bruce with Dick.
All the Bat kids grow up with Uncle Peter, (either Peter can't get back or has been told specifically that he can't by a higher being or something) and like...
Peter is the only one that catches Tiny Tim following them during patrol, he shows him all the places to get the best angles, even poses a few times for him.
Either is there when Jason dies and saves him, or is there mourning with Bruce
(Gotham lives in fear of the memory, Batman at his most brutal and Black Suit Spider-Man)
Teaches Jason how to control his pit rage after he comes back, what is Spider-Man if not control?
Stephanie is his bestie in puns and white girl music tastes.
Tim finds a partner in constantly staying up far to late as well as someone who likes to invent,( because I hc that Peter has pretty much worked with every scientist in New York, cus like since this is a blend of canons, he has worked with the Lizard, Doc Oct, Reed Richards, the only one he said no to an internship was Stark)
Duke gets a meta mentor that can help him with his powers, Spidey has been on more than one team with someone that had some form of light powers.
Plus I think Spider-man is Gothams daytime hero before Signal joins him, they are the daytime duo
Cass is his favorite (don't tell anyone because they already know) she can see him and he can see her in a spider sense, they do the point meme whenever they sense each other.
Little stabby Damian finds out that this person with his father has been trained by many an assassin (Wade, Daredevil, Natasha, Shield in general)
And Wade...Deadpool pops up occasionally, even he doesn't understand why or how lBruce gets a strange feeling he should punch the Flash in the face the next time he sees him)
Bruce having to deal with Deadpool is terrible for him and I sadly love it.
(Also on the point of Black suit spidey in Gotham...ESPECIALLY after Jason is murdered? Oh Peter is killing the Joker, or his arm privileges forfeit. I feel like Peter would try not to kill him but wouldn't try too hard.)
Spider-man being a founding members of the Justice League, them having to deal with Peter crawling on the ceiling, and scuttering through air vents!
Peter making Parker Industries, pointing inventions from other heros/villains from his world, he isn't above pettiness, and that's how the DC world gets some of Reed Richard's old designs he gave to Peter "Because they are practically useless" they arnt they save millions of lives. Not to mention Arc Reactors, Peter grinned the whole time claiming it was his idea.
Hope you enjoy my ADHD rambling brought to you be sleep deprivation
#marvel x dc#spider man in gotham#peter parker#spiderman#batfam#batman#i wrote this instead of sleeping#peter is a little shit#bruce curses his past self for feeling sorry for the flippy sassy teen#peter is laughing the whole time in the background#i am feeling like this needs a meme#the one where its lilo praying for an angel and it cuts to stich laughing evily#that but its bruce praying for help and getting chaos grimlin peter#peter maybe convinced Dick to put on pants.
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Okay, so, just so you all know, I'm aware of what many of you have probably been thinking in regards to the Great God Airplane AU: "Yes yes, blah blah Shen Jiu blah blah Bingge, WHERE IS THE MOSHANG, IT'S AN AU CENTERED AROUND SHANG QINGHUA, WHERE'S THE MOSHANG??!"
Thank-you for waiting patiently instead of saying this part out loud, because up until this point Moshang has mostly been doing the literary equivalent of sitting in a corner of my head with head pats and juice boxes being just the goodest boys whom I love so so much, you know?
Here's the Moshang:
It's a few days after the conference where Shang Qinghua got outed as Airplane Shangdi, and that's exactly how long it took Shen Yuan to get used to the idea and go back to treating him like normal (because he's read too much of SQH's terrible porn to ever truly take him seriously for an extended period of time). Which, as it happens, on this day includes razzing Airplane for the fact that, after everything that's happened, his sex scenes still have 'written by a virgin' slathered all over them.
To which our favorite divine hamster, newly imbued with some actual, legit self-confidence and tired of being razzed for this, snaps back that yeah, so he's a virgin, so what, he's been literally too busy his entire time as Shang Qinghua to get around to finding someone to do something about that with! Besides, Mobei-jun's also a virgin, and no one gives him shit about it!
Shen Yuan: ...like hell he is, you're telling him a guy like that's never had sex!
Shang Qinghua: Yes I am! (arms folded and nose in the air) He's the sort who's only interested in doing stuff like that with someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with and he doesn't have any love interests because I didn't write any for him, because I wrote Mobei-jun for one person and that's me! He is my perfect man, no one else's, and we're both virgins, and I'm God, so there! And if you have anything else to say about it, I'll- I dunno. I'll have Precious Blossom shrink Binghe's dick or something!
Shen Yuan: ...
Luo Binghe: A slightly smaller pillar might be more convenient, actually, but don't threaten Shizun. >:(
Our favorite hamster then gets to choke on his own spit, spin around on his cushion (half falling over in the process), and gape at the portal he hadn't noticed Luo Binghe and Mobei-jun just use to sneak into Shen Qingqiu's house.
There is silence for a moment before - in the most daring display of disloyalty he's ever made - Mobei-jun calmly pushes Binghe out of the way, ignores his indignant 'I am your emperor how very dare you-!' squawks, picks up Shang Qinghua by the back of the robes, and walks back through the portal with him.
Shen Yuan: Well that just happened.
Binghe: Husband, what did Shang shibo mean about not having written any love interests for Mobei? What does his writing have to do with that?
Shen Yuan: ...I don't have enough tea and snacks for this.
(also there will be more of this, and we're gonna cut over to our icicle/hamster duo, I'm just very tired at the moment)
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Trouble? You're only in trouble if you get caught. So don't let me catch you ~
uhhhhh say hi to jamil and yuusha's kid jas(mine) pt 2 (also here and here are like my only two other posts of her)
HFDDF OKAY SO - i actually had these unfinished sketches from months ago of jas as a nrc student and scarabia housewarden
this sneaky little bastard (affectionate) had never left my cranium she was just sitting idly by
im sobbing i hate jas so much (lie i love her)
jamil and yuusha still aren't supposed to have a kid so i just imagine this to be an alternate timeline for them 🤧🤧🤧
soooo info dump time ---
━━━━━━✦ scarabia housewarden nrc jas
jas has a vice-housewarden who is her childhood best friend (figuring out if i want them to be twst rajah or abu)
also thinking about if i want yuusha to be a staff member in nrc with grim or just dead during this time (why? just because)
no further info tbh, scarabia housewarden jas is just vibing
━━━━━━✦ child jas stuffs
i'm SO indecisive about her design as a toddler/preteen lowkey 😭
she was very sweet as a toddler but somewhere along the line she just became more carefree and chaotic
jas is a mama's girl but is more alike with her father than she cares to admit
octavinelle trio and heartslabyul duo + grim are like the honorary uncles (jas's favorites are floyd, ace, and grim bc they sometimes enable her with shenanigans)
even though jas has favorite uncles, najma is the favorite favorite. i imagine she's just the cool aunt
if mama yuu is "shrimpy" then jas is a "tiger prawn" (bc rajah)
jas LOVES doing people's hair including her own; would rather do them by hand rather than by magic
jamil showed jas how to breakdance once and it became ingrained in her personality ever since
(there's probably still more about her that i'm forgetting but this is it for now)
━━━━━━✦ bonus future jamiyuu stuff because i miss them
jamil took yuusha's last name surprise surprise (if they get married)
i imagine after nrc they'd be travelling together actually, not necessarily settling down
(i'm REALLY not 100% on them settling down and having a kid but i still love jas a lot so im so conflicted) (that's why aus exist 😔✨)
(and if hypothetically they do settle down i think yuusha being staff in nrc with grim + maybe jamil who travels for work (or being a house husband??? maybe they alternate roles) can be adorable ideas)
━━━━━━✦ (i also had this thing that i never posted about that one trope of a fankid finding themselves in nrc bc of portal/time/mirror shenanigans)
(jamil found both of them asleep somewhere and refuses to wake them up)
also some bonus tidbits about this scenario with them:
💜: Is she a family member of yours? How'd she get here?
🐍: I have never seen that child in my life before now. And there's no way I could have missed news about a new relative of mine.
💜: You know how ridiculous it sounds if she's related to me. I'm not from here. She even looks more like you!
🐍: Jas has the same color of eyes as you. Didn't you tell me she mistook you for her mother?
💜: ...Yeah, but I don't like what you're implying.
🐍: Well, I'm not exactly happy with this either.
they're just both in denial of the implication of this child existing and neither of them is saying it out loud.
and the angst/wholesomeness(???) of jamil asking jas's full name and hearing that she has her mother's last name instead of his
eventually they grew attached (unfortunately) until somehow they send jas home to her original timeline
and then they finally have a real conversation about what all that was about
anyways thank you for reading if you've made it this far;;; end tweet
#hdfsdfkjs another brain dump but i feel like i'm giving inconsistent lore 💀💀💀#i’m bawlin#i dont write these down they just exist so all my thoughts are scattered#anyways i screenshotted the ask so that tumblr would keep the formatting with the photos >:(#anon i hope you still see this bc tumblr doesnt even notify anons anyway 😭😭😭#and thank you for giving me the excuse to info dump about her the best i can 🙏#[—✦-#-✧ oc rambles#-✧ my art#twst art#twst#twisted wonderland#jamil viper#twst oc x canon#jamil x yuu#twst yuu#twst yuusona#(💜) yuusha#(💜) curry noodles#(🌺) jas#nextgen💜#twst fankid#twst fanchild#twst oc#-✦—]#i think the girl finally deserves her own tag#but i'm not sure how much more i'm going to post about her 😭#even though i enjoy her character concept hnghhh
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Please Watch My Adventures with Superman
This show is just so delightful and manages to capture the essence of Superman in a way a lot of adaptations just don't quite get. If you've ever been curious about Superman, if you've ever felt Superman is too boring for you, or you just enjoy a fun superhero story, I highly recommend checking this series out.
The first season has ten episodes, and the second season has just aired its third episode. In the US, it's available on Adult Swim and Max.
What It's About
If you aren't familiar with Superman, he's an alien -- the last survivor of planet Krypton, sent to Earth as an infant where he was found and raised as Clark Kent. Being an alien, he has extraordinary powers which he uses to lead a double life as a hero. This show focuses on a core trio of Clark, his girlfriend Lois, and their friend Jimmy, all of whom work at the Daily Planet newspaper.
Clark Kent / Superman
One of the main reasons this show works is it understands that Clark is Clark, first and foremost, and Superman is his disguise. Clark is a big friendly nerd. He's a huge sweetheart who cares so deeply about the people around him and the planet that adopted him.
This version of Clark is starting out very young (early 20s), so a lot of this story is about him just figuring things out. He's gradually learning the truth about his origins, the extent of his powers, and how best to be a hero -- all while grappling with the fact that he isn't human and his people of origin may in fact be a massive threat to Earth.
Clark is voiced by Jack Quaid, which you might not expect to work well, but he honestly nails it.
Lois Lane
Lois is loud. She's ambitious. She's intelligent and quick-witted. She doesn't take no for an answer. She has jumped off a building to prove her point -- twice. She is an unstoppable force of nature, and this show refuses to dumb any of those traits down.
But above all, she's kind. She wants to use everything she can do to help people. Her relationship with Clark is also everything you could ever want from a Clois dynamic.
This version of Lois is Korean-American, and voiced by Alice Lee, who does a phenomenal job.
Jimmy Olsen
Jimmy is Clark's best friend and roommate. This version portrays him as a supernatural/paranormal vlogger, running a web series called Flamebird. He's easily excitable, very passionate, as well as one of the most dedicated friends you could ask for.
Following in the footsteps of several previous iterations of the character, this version of Jimmy is African-America. He's voiced by Ishmael Sahid, who's just perfect in the part.
Why It's Great
The characters are all fun and interesting in their own right, while also having a great dynamic with each other -- as duos and as a full trio. And because the characters are shown as being very young and just starting out, they're very relatable. Additionally, every character feels very true to the spirit of their comics counterpart, despite taking a lot of liberties with the specifics.
There's a great cast of villains so far -- Livewire, Task Force X, Mxyzptlk, Parasite, Silver Banshee, and plenty of others that I don't want to spoil. They've also been teasing some really interesting stuff for the Kryptonians, which is noticeably different from any previous adaptations I'm familiar with.
The show is very anime-inspired, giving it a distinct flavor from other Superman adaptations. The creators are clearly having a ton of fun with it. Classic Superman villain Mxyzptlk, who's typically shown as an imp, now looks like he just walked out of a Dragon Ball episode, in an episode called "Kiss Kiss Fall In Portal."
It's also the same animation studio as The Legend of Korra and Voltron: Legendary Defender, who do excellent work. The character designs are unique while still fitting the characters perfectly. I particular love Clark and Superman's designs -- they've struck a balance between making sure he's big and muscular while also retaining a certain softness to his appearance. The fight scenes are fluid and dynamic. It all just works.
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11 hours later, I finished the dungeon. Didn't do contest (lost our third), but did normal as a duo (got help at the final boss health chunk because well. We were 10 hours 30 minutes in at that poin and were kinda a little bit tired so we just wanted to cut down on the amount of dps phases).
Really cool dungeon. Very familiar scenery, but with a great twist to the aesthetics. Same for the mechanics. Familiar mechanics, but altered just enough to be engaging and innovative. Loved it a lot!
Lore wise? We don't know anything. It's a space station orbiting Europa. No clue what the "portal" (?) is yet. Collectibles are only available after completing it once and getting a quest to go back in, kinda like Warlord's Ruin. Will be heading back in tomorrow!
Lore on the armour is about the Eliksni crew that got there before us and tried to use and repair the station to use its resources and live there. Something ... bizarre happened to them. I'll wait for the rest of the lore to see if there's anything that adds more context.
The exotic lore has Shayura!!!! Recommend reading. No idea what's going on. She's on the station looking for something and talking to someone identified as "her handler." Baffling. Concerning. There's Old Chicago mention. Also baffling and concerning.
Can't wait to continue the quest.
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DPxDC Idea - Parents and Dead on Main
This post is more setup/background info for what could be a larger story. If I ever write more of this, I'll link it back to this post.
For clarity, I do use the term 'human' to refer to those who are alive and don't live in the Infinite Realms. I am sorry there is so much worldbuilding and so very little Dead on Main
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Danielle (nicknamed Ellie because Dani would be way to confusing and she is her own person) starts to destabilize again, but the cure from before doesn't work. It's beyond what Danny can do on his own, so he takes Ellie to Frostbite.
Frostbite tells the duo that basically, Ellie's core formed incorrectly. Her core has been struggling to keep her alive until now, but it can't hang on any longer.
But! There is a solution! They can take Ellie's core and basically force it to revert to a pre-formation state. They'll then be able to artificially generate the conditions needed for Ellie's core to begin forming correctly on it's own. At that point, Ellie will be able to grow at a normal rate, but they won't be able to artificially age her up.
In simpler terms, they can de-age her to an itty bitty ghost egg (or whatever you want to call it, maybe embryo?), and then trigger the change that makes her an itty bitty baby halfa. She'll have to age normally after that.
It's to save her life, and without it she'll turn to goo and she's running out of time, so they do it. Ellie becomes a baby! A baby halfa!
It's important to note that a baby ghost is not the same as a human baby. The term "baby ghost" refers to two things. 1) newly formed ghosts and 2) child ghosts who may still "age" and alter their form to match that of an adults. When a new ghost's core is fully formed, that's when they stop being a baby ghost. The time it takes to be fully formed can vary from ghost to ghost.
Following this definition, after the de-aging, Ellie is a baby ghost. At the start of the show when the portal had just opened, Danny was a baby ghost. At some point, his core finished forming (more on that later, possibly in a separate post), so he isn't a baby ghost any longer. Box Lunch is a baby ghost because not only is she newly formed, but she will, presumably, age into an adult form. Youngblood is not a baby ghost, because even though he is a child, he has determined that he will NOT age and take on an adult form. Being child sized is his adult form.
When it comes to the question of who will raise Ellie, there are complications. Ordinarily, Frostbite and the Far Frozen would be happy to raise her, especially as a favor to Danny. However, Ellie is a halfa. She needs to be able to spend time in the human world and amongst living people, not just ghosts in the Infinite Realms. Vlad isn't an option for obvious reasons, so Danny is it.
It helps that, in the years since Ellie was created, he'd taken on a parental role towards Ellie. So, even if he wasn't the only option, he would have been the best option anyway.
So, Danny is a dad now. I'm imagining him at 20-23 years old, so he's going to have that I'm-a-new-dad-and-I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing energy like, all the time now.
But here's the thing about baby ghosts, and it's not any different for baby halfas. They form a bond with the ghosts around them, literally a bond between their cores. They rely on those bonds to know they're safe, as the baby ghost's core isn't developed enough to protect them. Baby ghosts feed on emotions until they can process ectoplasm, so they also rely on these bonds for nutritional reasons.
These bonds are familial in nature and will carry into adulthood. The bonds can always change, but it's a lot harder to change the bonds when a baby ghost is involved. Not only because a baby ghost may not be able to communicate very well, but also because changing a bond is stressful on cores that aren't fully developed.
It's also important for a baby ghost to have lots of bonds. The parental bonds they form will be the most important, but having other bonds is a key part to the development of a ghost. As they get older, these bonds can influence who the ghost becomes as an individual, much like how living children are influenced by those they spend a lot of time around. A baby ghost is most influenced by the ghosts they have parental bonds with.
A parental bond doesn't mean a biological parent, though it can be. Using Box Lunch as an example, she'd have parental bonds with Box Ghost and Lunch Lady. But, parental bonds can be formed with adoptive parents or mentors, and there can be more than two parental bonds. Ghosts tend to stop forming parental bonds once they reach adolescence, but it's not a firm rule or anything.
A ghost with only one parental bond, however, is going to be almost solely influenced by that parent ghost, especially if they are an actual baby like Ellie is. And in the case of a baby halfa whose only parental bond is the person whose DNA she's based off of? Yeah, she's going to end up to be almost identical to Danny, which isn't what anyone wants.
At first, Danny thinks it isn't a problem. Jazz, Tucker, and Sam are liminal enough that even if they don't have true cores, they can form the bonds that ghosts do. They are also living, so they'll be beneficial to the development of her human half. One of them can form a parental bond with Ellie, they're going to be big parts of her life anyway, problem solved!
Or not solved. When Ellie was de-aged, she kept the bonds she'd already formed. She's got a parental bond with Danny, but aunt/uncle/niece bonds with Jazz, Tucker, and Sam. And as previously mentioned, it's awfully difficult to change the type of bond a baby ghost has with someone.
And so, Danny needs to find another halfa, or someone human but liminal, to raise a child with. Danny has been living in Gotham, and the most liminal person he's met is a hot guy who makes death jokes and goes by the name of Jason Todd.
Is dating his co-parent required? No, but Danny is not going to pass on hitting that. Jason Todd is the most attractive person Danny has ever seen.
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Jason: *walks into the batcave, holding a tiny sleeping child in one arm*
Batfam: *stares*
Jason: *moves around as evenly as possible to not wake the kiddo*
Batfam: *stares some more* *realizes the kid has black hair and blue eyes*
Jason: *digs through a pile of old gear without a sound* *makes calming sounds when the kiddo shifts around* *does what he needs to and leaves with the sleeping kiddo*
Batfam:
Stephanie, probably: Damn, I bet on Dick. Who put money on Jason inheriting Bruce's adoption problem?
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Ellie falling asleep on Jason while he's Red Hood, and he can't do anything because cat rules apply for tiny, sleeping baby halfas.
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Jason showing up with baby Ellie around the batfam, who have no idea why he has a kid or where she came from. Jason isn't going to tell them shit, so he refuses to say anything about her and might have taken it too far.
Baby Ellie: *sneezes adorably* *accidentally shoots an ectoblast at the wall of Jason's safehouse because she can't control her powers*
Dick: I get that you don't want to talk about the kiddo, but can we talk about the fact that she has meta abilities and that you now have a hole in your wall that's still smoking?
Jason: what are you talking about? what hole?
Dick: The one right behind you?
Jason: oh, that? been there for weeks, keep meaning to fix it but haven't gotten to it yet
Dick:
Dick: I literally watched the kiddo shoot a green blast at the wall just now
Jason: *wiping Ellie's nose and then picking her up so she can rest her head on his shoulder* what kid?
Dick: *screams internally*
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Tim coming up with conspiracy theories as to why Jason has a kid that sometimes has Lazarus green eyes. His theories become more and more wild the longer he goes without sleep.
Tim's current theory is a mass, drug induced hallucination because Jason never confirms that there is even a child, even if he's holding her.
Jason comes home and tells Danny all of Tim's new theories, just to make him laugh. Not only is Danny's laugh one of the best sounds, but when Ellie hears him laughing, she starts laughing too even though she doesn't know why one of her dads is laughing. Jason would do anything to make sure his two favorite people always have a reason to laugh and be happy.
#dpxdc#dead on main#jason todd#dani is ellie#ellie is deaged and also danny's kid because i said so#does danny use his new status as a single dad to seduce jason? probably#jason is soft for both danny and their daughter#ghost cores#worldbuilding#tim's conspiracy theories get weirder the longer he goes without sleep#dad! jason todd
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Life Series Scarring Headcanons: Part 1
I'm going in alphabetical order by player handle, so this one is BDoubleo100, Bigbst4tz2, Ethoslab, and GoodTimesWithScar
The concept at hand is that during each game, every death leaves a scar, after the game, those are gone, replaced with scarring from their final death.
I did take some creative licence with the deaths, mostly in the sense of figuring out ways to handle Fall Damage in a slightly more RL based context, as well as figuring out approximately where final blows would fall based on the respective positioning of the players in question. (I did both a lot of video watching and also pointing at and posing myself figuring this out.)
Related to that Content Warning for general blunt but vague descriptions of varying injuries and ways to die, including but not limited to shattered bones and impaling.
Disclaimer that I did make all these diagrams in paint so they are hardly the pinnacle of artistic reference, but I think it gets the point across. Xs indicate arrow kills and i used the spray paint mode for fire/lava/explosion damage. All scars are color coded by series.
I forgot to mark it on the diagrams themselves, but light green is for scars left from the death of the Double Life soulbond partner. The soulmate who died second has phantom scars from their partners death, fainter and sometimes smaller, but still there.
Pink scars are the ones that, while not final deaths, had a significant impact on the story, the cubito, or both.
This project has also has shown some interesting patterns in how some of them tend to die.
On with the show!
BDubs
Third Life: Scar chased BDubs down and killed him with his sword before heading off with Grian to have Their Moment at the cactus ring. He turned around to fight Scar at the last minute, so the killing blow came from the front.
Last Life: BDubs was shot and killed by Grian as he fled after he betrayed the Red Pack and killed Lizzie so that Etho would give him a life.
Double Life: Pearl chased BDubs down and killed him (I believe with an axe) after Tilly died. Like in Third Life, he turned and fought at the last minute, so the killing blow came from the front.
Limited Life: Bdubs' final death was from a TNT Minecart dropped by Impulse, it landed slightly above and to the right of him, so that is where the damage is localized.
BigB
(You see what I mean about trends in the way that some of them tend to die?)
Third Life: BDubs shot him as BigB, the last surviving member of the Red Army, tried to escape from him and the Desert Duo. I placed that scar a bit lower than the others because BDubs is short.
Last Life: Cleo shot and killed him in a river. He was also poisoned from a potion she threw in the skirmish prior, so his health was very low. Reflecting that, my choice for that arrow was that it skimmed the side of his neck and he probably would have survived it had he been in better health at the time.
Double Life: Grian dropped a dripstone stalactite on Ren's head in Box, killing both Ren and BigB. His scar from this is a bit smaller and fainter than Ren's due to Ren being the one to actually receive the injury.
Limited Life: Smajor shot and killed him while he tried to escape through the woods. From what I can tell Scott came at him from the side, so I put the scar for that one reflecting it.
Etho
Believe it or not this is not the worst that it gets.
Third Life: Etho died to fire damage dealt by Impulse during the Battle of Dogwarts. I chose the location for it based of the direction the attack that initially caught him on fire came from.
Last Life: Joel killed Etho before dying himself when the later-game red lifers banded together to take out him and Grian. Etho struggled with his shield during that confrontation, which let Joel get enough hits in to kill him before being killed immediately after by Scott. I placed that injury as a glancing blow off the top rim of his shield.
Double Life: Etho and Joel died to a lava-trapped nether portal. The scars are from the lava flow. Etho died first, so his scars are a bit more prominent than Joel's.
Limited Life: Etho (like so, so many other people this season) died to fall damage. He was fighting the Mean Gills on the edge of the Bad Boy Manor and fell. The "camera angle" of the ground as he fell is pretty much how i decided where the impact probably was.
Scar
Third Life: I deviated a bit here because for everything else I really just went with "this was the final straw that broke the camels back" when picking scars, but I feel like the narrative and character significance of the Cactus Ring excuses the Death By A Thousand Cuts look. The heaviest concentration of scars from the ring are on his knuckles (from hitting), forearms (from blocking) and back and the side of his face (where he fell into the cacti).These are all small, relatively faint scars, there are just. A lot of them. EDIT: He's going to have some lasting explosion scars from the creeper Grian killed him with as soon as I have the opportunity to update the diagram.
Last Life: He was shot by Ren in a skirmish in the woods, that's genuinely all I have to say about that one, sorry. I decided it was a really good shot on Ren's part that got him right in the eye.
Double Life: So, sonic booms don't really...leave marks. They just liquidize your internal organs. I do think though that he and Grian probably have some faint mark approximating the center of their torsos. Because magic. And Lore.
Limited Life: Grian stabbed him in the back and then chased him down and killed him. The infamous "ultimate betrayal" because someone forgot that they were technically only barely endgame allies this season. Because Grian is incapable both of not killing Scar and not being dramatic about it.
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Part 2
(There are five posts in this series in total, each of them will have links to the first one, as well as the one preceding and the one coming after)
#trafficblr#life series#third life smp#double life smp#last life smp#limited life smp#bdoubleo100#bigbs4atz2#ethoslab#goodtimeswithscar#rain rambles#life series headcanons#traffic life scars
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My dear fellows, it's time to place your final bets for this upcoming WOTFI! Only just mere days away, everyone's been curious:
How will the challenges play out?
Whose submission got accepted into the episode?
How will the crew defeat Mr Puzzles?
Will Mr Puzzles die?
Indeed, they are very valid questions. It's only reasonable that we would guess. Some speculated that Puzzles will die similarly to how One-Shot Wren did in Western Spaghetti. Others said the opposite, that Puzzles may go down a path of redemption. So on and so on.
The point is: We aren't a hundred percent sure what will happen. That includes me. Anything could happen. But that is the fun of it all, it captivated us so much that we were at the edge of our seats. Eager to find out more.
In my "Welcome to Puzzle Park" episode review, I predicted that SMG4 and Mario would have to win the mini-game challenges to save each of their friends from Mr Puzzles. And now, before the SMG4 show decides to jump-scare me with a new update, I want to share a twist on my original guess.
If SMG4 and Mario couldn't save the Crew and get controlled by Mr Puzzles, then who would?
"...Mom sure is taking a long time, huh."
THE UNEXPECTED GUESTS
⚠️ DISCLAIMER IN INTRO POST ⚠️
"To your own demise, you created your own enemy…"
RECAP
Let’s go over the episode ‘Welcome to Puzzle Park’ once again:
The SMG4 Crew, including Karen, is forced to listen to Boopkins' vacation story, beginning to wonder where Meggy is. And right on cue, Leggy pops in and lures them to Puzzle Park, a carnival built by Mr Puzzles, which they didn't know that part until the Crew got there. Unfortunately, being forced to enter the park, each one of the Crew took part of the attractions and games. One by one, they suspiciously disappeared, Three noticed this.
A whole day goes by and the park is empty except for Four, Mario, and Three. Three saw Luigi getting captured, realizing that the park was a trap, and went to warn the rest of our Star Trio. A clown head intervened, capturing Three before he could tell them to run. In his last efforts, instead of struggling, Three sent a text to Four, hoping it would be enough for the two to escape before it was too late. Four and Mario, being in the middle of their competitive water gun game, saw the text and attempted to escape.
The whole park, somehow coming to life, chased the two down until they went through a magical exit door. In there, they faced a hall of mirrors and finally face Mr Puzzles. Puzzles reveal his plans, that the Crew was “the missing pieces of Puzzle Park”. Leggy opens up a portal to the hall for Didney’s Engine Room, Four and Mario having no choice but to go through. Entering the Engine Room, they encounter a horrifying site: A grown-sized Mr Puzzles, merged with the Power source Star with wires and limbs. Mr Puzzles laughs maniacally before the doors of the Engine Room close behind the duo, ending the episode with the grayed-out credits.
Now, that is all well, set, and good. But, when I was rewatching this episode, a question popped into my mind:
"Wait, if Karen is here, then are Zack, Cody, and Katie home alone?"
As much as I could assume that they were with a babysitter or at school, Karen got captured by Mr Puzzles regardless. A whole day has gone by and her kids are left at home. Then, I fall into a rabbit hole of questions:
Would her kids notice her strange absence? Would they ask if their mom was ok? Would they try to locate her?
Wait, what about Beeg4 and Eggdog? Three and Four were also captured and didn’t tell them where they went.
And JubJub? Sure, Boopkins have other family so Jubjub isn’t technically alone but wouldn’t he wonder where his brother went?
Question after question, it all ends up having the kids missing their family members.
If the kids realize that their family is gone, what will they do?
Well, why don’t we play a game of “what if”, shall we?
Instead of Four and Mario, what if the kids save the Crew?
THINK OF THE CHILDREN
The kids, believe it or not, have been an important aspect of this WOTFI arc, ever since the very beginning. Look back at all the previous episodes:
We Must Kill Mario
Zack, Cody, and Katie get excited seeing Four on screen in a Puzzlevision episode, ‘Mario’s Mysteries’
Despite being Zack’s birthday, Four tailored each entertaining act for each kid, making them feel special
SMG4 and SMG3 come up with an episode
Three came up with the plot of Four turning into a child just so he could go on the teacup ride
Mr Puzzles’ Lowest Point
Puzzles relied on the children’s interests in brain-rot comedy just so he could be popular
In the first series of attempts, he sought Karen’s kids for their approval. The third time was successful
his videos only catered to a single demographic
Unable to satisfied the children at the convention, Mr Puzzles gets chased all around town. Zack being one of those kids who chased him
The children abandon their attention on Puzzlebox to pursue Goob4. Sure, Goob4 is not SMG4 but it is still another punch to the gut for Puzzles, that Four will keep beating him in popularity no matter what. Losing his young audience was a subtle factor that drove him to lose his mind
Mr Puzzles' Clubhouse
Didney, formerly beloved by people of all ages, has a park known as Didney Worl, dubbed as "The Happiest Place on Earth"
A flashback shows Mr Puzzles as a child wanting to own a carnival when he grows up, hoping that he could make everyone happy (similarly how Four’s goal, shown in IGBP)
These episodes all revolved around kids, so it’s possible that WOTFI would as well. Plus, it’s one of the aspects of Four and Puzzles parallels. While Puzzles tried to satisfy every kid with one show, Four made sure that each kid was happy, his acts being unique.
Well, another reason for Mr Puzzles to hate SMG4, jealous of Four being able to connect with his audience so easily.
HOW WILL IT PLAY OUT?
Technically, this is the end of the mini-theory. However, I do want to contribute to the narrative in how I would personally write it. Not that it will come true, this is just for funsies. This is how I imagine it:
Four and Mario attempt to fight off Mr Puzzles, wanting to save their friends. But Puzzles became too powerful, not even Mario of all people being able to stop him. The last scene we see them trying to dash for the exit before being grabbed by Puzzles.
We cut to Karen’s house. Zack, Cody, and Katie would be sitting around, flipping through the channels on the TV. One of them looks out the window, noticing that it is nighttime. They were told that their mom (Karen) would be visiting SMG4 for just a bit, something about welcoming Boopkins back from his vacation. It was supposed to be for a couple of hours.
“Mom sure is taking forever, huh.”
Back before dinner, she said. That she was going to make pizza. But the oven was cold, and no pizza was made. They were starting to get hungry. They loved having Mom around, she was always there for them. She loved them with all their heart. But now, something felt off.
“Hey, guys, look!”
The three looked at the screen to see an advertisement of Puzzle Park, an incredible carnival with exciting attractions and games, having its grand opening today. It’s so much fun that you wouldn’t want to leave.
Right there on the screen, they see SMG4, in a new outfit with a top hat and twirling cane, performing an act. They cheered, of course, they recognized their favorite YouTuber. Wow, who knew Four was part of this.
Then, they saw their mom on the screen, exactly as Four is with the new outfit and act. They were a bit surprised by this, Mom didn’t tell them she was part of this. Why? Wouldn’t she have invited them to join her at the carnival? Still, they were happy to see their mom.
Just then, a knock on the door. They open to see Beeg4, Eggdog, and JubJub on the other side, they looked worried. They were let in and through Cody’s translating, they were worried that something happened to their dads. Three never told Eggdog where he went and was pretty much left alone in the cafe. Beeg initially didn’t care, he got to be home alone to do whatever he wanted to do for meme’s sake, but a new meme just dropped, and was shocked to see that Four didn’t say anything about it. Not even a like on the post. For JubJub, his brother said that he was going to tell his friends about his vacation but he never came back home to the ocean.
Eggdog spots his dad on screen, dancing around in glee. That’s not my dad, Eggdog points out. The light in Three’s eyes, it was gone. As if his mind wasn’t there. Despite the theatrics the crew was doing, they looked like they didn't intend to act this way. There was no happiness. They looked like puppets.
Finally, Mr Puzzles come up on the screen, urging the viewers to come on down to Puzzle Park. Zack points out that Puzzles was the one behind Puzzlebox. They then concluded that Mr Puzzles had something to do with their family members being mind-controlled. So, they gear up and head for the carnival to confront Mr Puzzles. And soon, they learn they would have to save each Crew member one by one by completing mini-games.
.・-: ✧ :--: ✧ :-・.
And there you have it, the kids being Puzzles’ first audience to ultimately being the ones who will defeat him in WOTFI! It would be a nice change of pace for the show and it will come full circle if they go with this. I'm going to be honest: I didn't intend to post this today. I was hoping to wait for the trailer to drop so I could post multiple things:
one of the posts is obviously my reaction/analysis of the trailer
second, a post where you guys help me fill in the boxes on the bingo card I'm creating for WOTFI (still going to do this in the future btw)
and lastly, this mini-theory
I initially thought that it would be a silly little post, thinking that it might not come true, But the more I thought about it, it made sense in my head. It works especially with my “The Ticket” theory (excluding the shoe part) of the kids knowing some form of truth behind Puzzle Park. Again, anything could happen, my dear fellows. This isn’t out of the question. We would just have to wait and see at around October 19th!
“One can't fully understand how much a child love their family...”
And hey, that’s just a theory…
AN SMG4 (MINI) THEORY
🎶Thanks for dropping by🎶
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Female Queer Icons of Hong Kong // Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙)
Photo 1: Promotional photo for 1955 contemporary movie The Model and the Car (玉女香車) (no video available) (Source: LCSD Museum Collection Search Portal)
Photo 4: Photo from Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe's 1958 trip
Photo 5: Photo from a 1962 newspaper feature on Yam, Pak, and others at their (?) summer villa in Central, Hong Kong
Photo 6: Christmas celebrations with Yam, Pak, and their protégés of the Chor Fung Ming Troupe
Far and away the most iconic duo in Cantonese opera, Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙) – commonly referred to simply as Yam-Pak (任白) – were famed for their partnership both on and off the stage… Click below to learn more!
Edit on 28/07/2023: Updated to link to a photo of the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s Pop Culture 60+ exhibit, and to add information regarding Yam and Pak's marriage status.
Iconic? How?
Yam-Pak are the face of Cantonese opera; you can't talk about the latter without mentioning the former. It's to the point where a gigantic picture of them graces the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s permanent exhibition on Hong Kong pop culture’s evolution across the past 60 years (“Hong Kong Pop 60+”) - they are the first thing you see upon entering!
Best known as the originators - with Yam playing the male leads and Pak the female leads - of five masterpieces of Cantonese opera, namely:
1. Princess Cheung Ping (帝女花) 2. The Legend of the Purple Hairpin (紫釵記) 3. The Dream Tryst in the Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭驚夢) 4. The Reincarnation of Lady Plum Blossom (再世紅梅記) 5. Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) (Note: Princess Cheung Ping, Purple Hairpin, and Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom were made into abridged movie versions, with the Sin Fung Ming troupe members reprising their roles from the theatre productions. Also, the "Fragrant Sacrifice" (香夭) duet from Princess Cheung Ping (movie clip) is one of - if not the most - famous songs in Cantonese opera.)
Yam and Pak were the leading pair and co-founders of the legendary Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe (仙鳳鳴劇團; 1956-1961), which is widely held to have pushed Cantonese opera forward as an artform due to Pak and scriptwriter Tong Tik Sang’s (唐滌生) emphasis on poetic libretti and adapting source material from Chinese literature and history. (Note: it has been common practice since the 1930's for Cantonese opera troupes to be founded by key actor(s).)
They were also very active in the Hong Kong film industry in the 1950's, being paired in over 40 movies together across roughly 8 years. One of those – the aforementioned Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) – is the sole Cantonese opera movie on the Hong Kong Film Archive’s 100-Must See Hong Kong Movies list (IMDB list / archived version of the official PDF). It's a well-deserved inclusion - check out this beautifully-shot dance scene.
Even their post-retirement activities had a significant effect on the industry! In the early 1960’s, they held auditions for prospective students and provided - for free - systematic, hands-on training to those who passed; Yam and Pak even hired other veterans to teach skills they personally were not as familiar with. Prior to this, apprentices were expected to learn primarily from observing their masters, and to pay handsomely for the privilege. Yam-Pak’s methods proved exceedingly effective: the Chor Fung Ming Opera Troupe (雛鳳鳴劇團; 1963-1992) starring their apprentices reigned supreme in the 1970’s-1980’s. Following this success, Cantonese opera institutes - most notably the major 1900s-era guild, the Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong (八和會館) - started to offer systematic coaching to young hopefuls in the 1980's.
Okay, so why are they queer icons specifically?
The lazy answer is that they're queer icons because nearly all of Yam's roles were male, so Gender is involved by default, and since most hit Cantonese operas of the time were romances, that means you get to see two female actors performing being in love onscreen (and also on stage, but there aren't any video recordings from back then). So far, so Takarazuka Revue.
Female actors playing male roles in Cantonese opera To give some context, each Cantonese opera performer specialises in one of four major role-types, and Yam was a sung (生) - i.e. an actor specialised in playing standard male roles. Female sung were fairly common in the 1910's-1930's due to women being banned from performing with men during that period, but when the ban lifted in the mid-1930's, many troupes shifted towards cis-casting. Yam was pretty much the only one whose popularity survived the transition. Just take a look at the huge number of Cantonese opera movies produced during the 1950’s-1960’s – you’ll be hard-pressed to find a female sung other than Yam, let alone one with top billing. Happily, thanks to Yam's immense popularity, her profilic film career (over 300 movies!), and the prominence of Sin Fung Ming works in the Cantonese opera canon, there has been a resurgence in female sung which endures to this day. Two noteworthy examples are Yam's protégé Sabrina Lee/ Loong Kim Sang (龍劍笙) - a star in her own right - and Joyce Koi/ Koi Ming Fai (蓋鳴暉), one of the biggest names still active in the industry. (Note: perhaps due to cinema being more "realistic" in nature, Yam's early movies often involved her playing female characters cross-dressing as men, including in some Cantonese opera movies. However, she received increasingly more male roles as her fame grew, and from the mid-1950's onwards she was playing male characters onscreen nearly exclusively-- even in non-Cantonese opera movies! See Photo 1 above.)
What sets Yam and Pak apart is that they were particularly known for their chemistry. Long before Sin Fung Ming's formation in 1956, the advertising copy for their first Cantonese opera movie together - Frolicking with a Pretty Maid in the Wineshop (酒樓戲鳳, 1952) - declared "Only this movie has Yam-Pak flirting on the silver screen" (source - 華僑日報 1952/05/23-26). And indeed, they were popular for their flirtatious duets: their Cantonese opera works invariably contained at least one, and such scenes made it into some of non-Cantonese opera (i.e. "contemporary") movies too. In fact, there are not one but two contemporary movies where Yam and Pak's characters are not paired up and yet still sing a duet together in such a way that their significant other(s) become convinced that the two are in romantically interested in each other - see 1952's Lovesick (為情顛倒) and 1956's The Happy Hall (滿堂吉慶) - a weirdly specific situation which doesn't crop up in the other, non-Yam-Pak movies I have seen.
Speaking of contemporary movies, let's talk about a certain plotline that keeps cropping up in works featuring the both of them and where Yam plays a woman! Six of the eleven movies which fit that criteria involve Yam's character cross-dressing as a man (a common characteristic across Yam's handful of female roles), and Pak's character falling for her. Nothing ever comes of it, of course, but, um. It was certainly a trend. Actually, even their very first movie together - 1951's Lucky Strike (福至心靈) - falls into this category.
Such storylines, and the emphasis on their chemistry, are particularly interesting given that both Yam and Pak remained ostensibly unmarried throughout. This was unusual for female performers of their stature, who tended to wed in their twenties, often to fellow-actors or wealthy men (e.g. Hung Sin Nui/紅線女, Fong Yim Fun/芳艷芬, and Tang Pik Wan/鄧碧雲)... In contrast, by the time Yam-Pak retired from the stage in 1961, they were both over 30 years old and without husbands.
Also, did I mention they were popularly believed to be living together? There doesn't seem to be any conclusive evidence either way... although it's a little strange that separate newspaper pictorials depicting "Yam at home" and "Pak at home" seem to be of the same location... however what is conclusive is that they did spent a lot of time together offstage. Pak has talked about how when they had no guests over, Yam would watch TV by herself while Pak was in the living room (source - p93), and protégé Mandy Fung/ Mui Suet Sze (梅雪詩) has said that Pak would sometimes cook for Yam at home (source - 03:53~). They would also celebrate birthdays, New Year's, and Christmas together (see Photo 6 for an example of the latter).
Shortly after Yam's passing in 1989, Pak set up the Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin Charitable Foundation (任白慈善基金) to support the arts and provide welfare for the elderly. In 1996, Pak made a large donation to Hong Kong University, resulting in one of the buildings being renamed Yam Pak Building (任白樓) in thanks (source).
Thanks for reading! Please feel free to DM me or send an ask if you have any questions, or are just interested in learning more.
If you made it here, have this bonus piece of trivia - Yam and Pak were also well-acquainted with Hong Kong's preeminent queer icon, Leslie Cheung (張國榮), who was a massive fan of theirs. Sadly there don't seem to be any pictures of them before Yam's passing, but here's one of Pak (centre) having afternoon tea with Cheung (left) and his long-term romantic partner Daffy Tong (唐鶴德) (right) at the Cova cafe in the Pacific Place shopping mall.
#wlw recommendations#sapphic#lgbtq#asian lgbtq#hong kong#theatre#cantonese opera#chinese opera#yam kim fai#leslie cheung#pak suet sin#yampak#yambak#pak sheut sin#bak sheut sin#hong kong queer icons#not me hastily adding tags because i keep forgetting certain ones
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Remember that drawing you made of SK Francis meeting regular Francis? Well, I got an idea on how to expand on that as well.
You know that ending where SK Francis killed Nacha and Anastacha and stitched up their corpses to create his own version of a happy family. Well, their bodies didn’t last long. They decomposed into nothing but skeletons. SK Francis tried so hard to put them back together but he failed. He couldn’t keep them. All he had were their skeletons. In the midst of his despair and desperation, he somehow found a portal to a universe where Nacha and Anastacha are alive with regular Francis. Not wanting to lose his chance at a happy life, SK Francis kidnaps Nacha and Anastacha from the different universe and forced them to be apart of his family, all the while they had to sit with the skeletons of their dead counterparts.
I’m not too sure about your version of Francis but my regular version of Francis is this tired, shy, hardworking guy who supports Nacha and Anastacha despite not being married. He has a relatively normal life with a few friends and he’s in a healthy relationship with Nacha. So regular Francis finds out the mother daughter duo had been kidnapped so he travelled to the other dimension to save them.
Upon arriving, regular Francis finds SK Francis holding them hostage. They both thought they were a doppelgänger of each other but they soon realised that they’re alternate versions of themselves. It’s like they’re looking into a mirror of each other, one with a good reflection and the other one a dark reflection. As SK and regular Francis fought, SK Francis finds out that regular Francis has a normal life and have loved ones. SK Francis became jealous and attempts to kill regular Francis as he sheds angry tears.
“YOU! HOW DARE YOU!! HOW COULD WE BOTH BE THE SAME PERSON AND YOU GET TO HAVE IT BETTER THAN ME?! WHY DOES NACHA AND ANA LOVE YOU MORE THAN ME?! WHY DO YOU GET TO HAVE FAMILY AND FRIENDS THAT CARE FOR YOU?! WHY HASNT ANYONE ABANDONED YOU YET?!”
Regular Francis was scared and confused but sympathetic about the other version of him. It’s like looking into a future version of himself that went down the wrong path. But then, both Francis’s continue to fight. Regular Francis isn’t going down without a fight because he’ll save Nacha and Anastacha. And SK Francis isn’t backing down either because no one is taking away his family from him again.
That’s all I have for now. Feel free to expand upon this if you like. Btw, I finished 3/4 of the fanfic so it should be on A03 by next week probably. I’ll be sure to send you the link.
~ SK Francis anon 🔪
Oh yeah I remember that!
This is a saddening scene
Also SK anon, I wanna thank you for sharing your ideas with me via asks. Sorry I haven't posted them all, but I do wanna let you know that I appreciate every single one of your asks and they are all very intriguing! Feel free to share more via messages if you want 🥲
And sure! Please do share the link of your AO3. I can't wait to read it before my bedtime!
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