#echo echoing into the warp

[echo-of-damnation]

two Kriegers live in my head rent free right now. A geriatric early 30s lieutenant who has never known any tenderness or closeness in his life and a baby early 20s krieger who can't speak due to a traumatic injury to his throat from his sad past. having to survive together after being left behind in no mans land. slowly growing into an almost problematic codependence on each other until one day they end up like a bonded pair of cats.

oh no that have to cuddle together for warmth! oops did one of them just risk their life to save the other? quickly take off your pants so i can dress the wound on your thigh! did they just kiss after they thought they had lost the other?

kiss kiss fall in love my little traumatized weapons of war.

(the songs Бери шинель, пошли домой and Тёмная ночь made me feel things and this happened)

[starry-bi-sky]

Out of Context Stuff for a Danyal Al Ghul au i haven't posted - Pit Beast Danyal

Damian, 13: Look, Danyal, -- I am so sorry for everything that happened between us in the League, I hope you can forgive me.

Danny, 10 (allegedly): (has been secretly plotting to murder Damian this whole time, is still gonna do it obvs, but is going to make it significantly less painful now)

Danny: I-- of course, older brother. :]

--------

Bruce: what do you have there, Damian?

Damian:

Danny: (a hulking 10ft pit beast standing beside him, growling idly with ram horns gouging out his eyes and a second set of horns jutting into the air, spines down his back, and a long, spiked tail with an animalistic, skull-like face)

Damian, who smuggled him in (they've made amends): a smoothie, father

----------

Damian: this is my little brother Danyal, i murdered him when he was five. He festered in rage for the last half-a decade, took over a League mountain base in Switzerland, murdered everyone inside and then tried to murder me when I went to investigate with Drake.

Danny: hello!

Damian: we're cool now

----------

Damian: thoughts on resurrection

Danny, (a full ghost): i will succeed in murdering you if you try it

Damian: we'll put a pin in it then

----------

Danny (still instilled with League values): why don't we just murder him??

Damian, on patrol (Danny followed him): we don't murder people, Danyal

Danyal:,,,,are you sick, Dami?? Have you been possessed? Why not!?

(There is raucous laughing through the comms)

----------

Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D

Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:

Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]

-------

For some actual context: Danny is fully dead in this au, its a result of the classic DPxDC Demon Twins "death duel" trope but instead of Danny getting revived, he stays fully dead. Danny was five, Damian was seven. His ghost lingered though, and due to the proximity of the pits his ghost steadily absorbed the ambient energy it was letting off. The pits are not corrupted ectoplasm in this au, it's just liquid ecto.

Which means Danny's corruption from an angry and hurt little ghost boy to an unrecognizable monster is from his own doing. It's a result of him stewing in his hurt and anger for years, it physically warped him. He's very powerful. Danny can travel between League Bases but chose a small, out-of-the-way base in the Swiss mountains to fester in and then just. Never Left.

His influence steeped into the very foundations of the building, allowing him to transform and warp the rooms and hallways for his own bidding, Meaning he could turn it into a seemingly unending labyrinth if he so wished to, and block the entrance.

Eventually, blinded (both metaphorically and physically) by his own rage, Danny grew powerful enough to appear physically in the living realm and attacked everyone in the base, slaughtering them all and leaving the base abandoned. He attacks anyone who dares enter -- whether that be other league members, or the unfortunate hiker who stumbled across the base. His conscious is steeped into every nook and cranny of the building, there is nowhere you can hide where he can't find. Nobody leaves without his explicit say so. Nobody ever does.

Him appearing as ten years old before Damian in the skits above is his own physical doing. First it was to prevent Damian from being suspicious of him. Damian initially thought Danny was revived with the pits, he was too busy with his own training afterwards to notice that Danny never showed up again, and when he did notice, he assumed it was because Danny was too ashamed of his loss to face him. He'd always forget to ask about him.

Then it becomes a personal choice to appear as ten. It's how old he would've been had he been alive.

danny forgiving Damian is kinda for an offshoot branch of the main au. Whereas the main au takes the form of a ps4 first person horror game where Damian and Tim are investigating the Base for Plot Reasons. There's no sign of the rumored "monster" living inside until the end, where Danny, who was found inside the Base and has been happily "helping" them look around, manages to persuade Damian into splitting off from Tim in order to "show him something."

This something turns out to be Danny revealing that he never really forgave Damian for that fight, and he reveals through a horrifying transformation, that he was the monster the whole time. Which the game subtly hints at throughout as Danny's strange behavior becomes harder to ignore.

First from his insistence to only refer to Damian as "older brother" (when before the duel he always called him Damian or Dami), to him right off the bat denying the existence of a monster when questioned. ("There's no monster here, older brother. It's just me.") To other various things, like his knowledge of the outside world not matching up to modern times or things going on with the league outside of the base, or what happened to the other league members.

This whole idea was inspired by the song "Scylla" from Epic the Musical, with Danyal being the voice of Scylla as well as Odysseus, while Damian stands as Eurylochus. The instrumentals after Scylla says "hello" is him turning into the pit beast, and Scylla's "drown in your sorrow and fears" part is danny, as the pit beast, snarling at Damian while he attacks him.

There's a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a True Ending. The Bad Ending results in Damian being killed by Danny, it happens when Damian decides not to question or suspect Danny and treats him kindly. The Bad Ending is a cutscene, where Danny kills Damian quick and painlessly.

Meanwhile the Good Ending is Damian killing Danny. This is a boss fight, and it happens when Damian treats Danny coldly and suspiciously the whole time. Danny as a result, decides to make Damian's death painful as he had planned to, which is why it's a boss fight because it only causes him to double down on his anger.

The True Ending is Damian escapes with Tim. It happens when you treat Danny warmly up until the last minute, where when Danny proposes to Damian that he wants to show him something, Damian goes to talk to Tim and finally, reluctantly agrees that something is off with Danny, and that he'll be careful going in. It starts off with the boss fight until a third through, where it then changes to a cutscene where Tim manages to get the door open and Damian escapes out. It's then a chase scene down a never-ending hallway as the building actively works to keep you trapped inside. But you eventually make it to the exit so long as you avoid all the projectiles and doors.

Remember when I mentioned that Danny only lets people leave when he wants them to? That's where the treating Danny kindly throughout the game comes into play. It causes him to second guess himself and, eventually, reawaken and strengthen the love and admiration he had for Damian prior to his murder. It's why in the Bad Ending he kills Damian quickly -- because by then, he loves him enough that he doesn't want him to suffer, but is still so consumed by his rage and need for vengeance that he kills him anyways. That quiet part is what allows Damian (and Tim) to find the exit, because some part of Danny still loves Damian enough that he wants him to live.

The True Ending ends with a cutscene of Damian and Tim tumbling out into the snow/grass outside of the base. Damian looks up back to the entrance to see Danny standing there. But rather than a ten year old boy, there's a little five year old Danyal Al Ghul instead. He stares at Damian emotionlessly, blood seeping from his chest, staining his clothes, and little, bloody sword in his hands and tearstains on his cheeks, before he turns away and disappears back into the building.

[patrice-bergerons]

I'm just emotional about Lieutenant McGraw, the son of a carpenter's mate, who must have possessed the same cunning, the same ability to play men to his own ends we see from Flint to have risen in the ranks in the Navy, who has seen hardship and sees the world as a practical, hard place; Lietuenant McGraw with this darkness inside of him, being attracted to Thomas's light. Putting himself in the line of fire for Thomas when he himself harboured significant doubt about his plan to issue pirates with pardons.

People can say what they like about you, but you are a good man. More people should say that—and someone should be willing to defend it.

Getting to know Thomas—it must have felt like flying on a dreary winter's day, when the plane finally rises above the last of the grey clouds and you are met with sunshine and it is so brilliant it is almost blinding. Getting to know Thomas must have perhaps felt like there was some salvation for him in that light too. A place where he could do better—be better. A home.

[soath]

A fact I think many highhorsers (which, love a high horse, love generalizations, love dramatic hyperbole, love a bit of godkilling ambition, do not let me stop you) have underrated is that the gods are not weighing Kill Their Siblings vs Kill Their Children. The “deaths” on menu are wildly different! One is an oblivion, a total absence of being, true death as promised even for a god. Meanwhile the other is fear, yes, and unspeakable pain, but then transmogrification. There’s an afterlife on tap for one group but not the other. If I had to choose between throwing my siblings into the black hole of nothingness that has terrorized us since we first learned what terror was…. or shifting a bunch of our beautiful creations messily from one state of existence to another—

I think I’d make the same choice. It’s not about who’s worth more, it’s that they’re two incomparable types of destruction.

[jasondeansgothwife]

everyone besides me has probably already seen this but look what i found

[hyn-hyperlaser]

do you guys like phighting au ramblings

[fishluring]

thinking about the trailer,, videocult what does it all mean

[see-arcane]

They need to make a Harker-focused adaptation exactly to raise the standards for men

Friend, I'm sad to say you just spelled out exactly why we'll never see it

[shinelikethunder]

you know how one of the few banger episodes of s7 was the one where they saddled Dean Winchester with the teenage daughter of a missing hunter and made him lose his entire shit when confronted with how young she was to be inviting herself along on such a sketchy and dangerous case? and also, you know, the inherent horror and obnoxiousness and agonizing half-inexperience of Being Fifteen. and then just let him marinate in the psychic damage of finally glimpsing a mirror he wanted to protect from the life he lived instead of smash to smithereens

.......yeah i think SPN should've done a child vampire episode. and made it all about the deep deep uncanniness of a ten-year-old saddled with this violent misshapen shadow version of an adult's life experience. maybe just for spice toss in something about living into chronological adulthood but not being able to shake the weirdness of missed/mismatched development and aspects of the self that are still frozen in time? like, we are NOT talking IWTV Claudia being rightfully furious she can't fuck, we're talking decades spent on this godforsaken earth with the impulse control of a fifth-grader.

and, crucially, AVOID belaboring the metaphor about kids forced to grow up too fast. just stick Dean in front of the funhouse mirror and watch him bark at his own reflection in horrified semi-awareness.

[quietwingsinthesky]

obsessed with the idea of the doctor and the master standing together in opposition to gallifrey post-end of time. less in it being the reality of the situation, and more in it being what the master perceives it to be in the immediate aftermath of being. well. told he was going to be disposed of. the combination of that rejection with the doctor choosing him, the way that sets them up with a common enemy. but where that enemy for the master becomes gallifrey in the abstract with the council as the face of it, the doctor never sees it that way, never thinks of it as the two of them against their own world. the doctor, crucially, kept count of the children. when he saves gallifrey, it isn’t about the master at all, not to anyone but the master themself. because how are they supposed to take the doctor choosing gallifrey over them as anything other than a betrayal.

[abelle25125]

not Echo's portrait being up on the memorial wall,,,,,,,oughh that man is gonna be stuck in the realm of heeby jeebies soooo bad,,,

[echo-of-damnation]

Friends I need yall to know how fucking funny I find the fact that I (without realizing it) called that fic A Little Treat and only after posting remembering the little treat meme.

So now as people are interacting with it I just think in my head “a little smut as a little treat”. I feel like a momma bird feeding everyone. “yes good. take this porn as a little treat”

[perenlop]

really need to situate my kirby species headcanons properly…… might create a small lofe cycle chart

[thebleedingeffect]

o/ Hi, I'm here to ask about pre-calamity Link holding resentment towards Zelda

(I really like your takes on their relationship between games, and I'm really curious about what you're cooking for this one!)

HI HELLO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING !! Get ready for my character study based off quite literally nothing but my beautiful mind <33

So, I'm replaying botw and I absolutely adore how the game characterizes all of its characters, but I have a particular love for botw link and how it characterizes him through absence and little hints of his childhood. What we know for a fact about him is that he showed skill at a very young age, four years old to be exact, when he was able to fight and win against a grown, trained knight. When he's around twelve years, he draws the master sword for the first time and is officially recognized as the hero of destiny by the entire kingdom. If you assume that Link was seventeen like Zelda when he became her appointed knight, that means that there was only five years inbetween him drawing the master sword, training, and then being responsible for- possibly- the most daunting task in all of hyrule: protecting the princess.

This was a task that he was expected to carry out at all hours of the day and, essentially, Zelda was his prime responsibility above all else. But, the fact still lies that Link was born into a family of knights, very possibly royal knights considering it would've been that much easier for Link's skill in childhood to be noticed. From the moment Link is born, his destiny has already been made for him, there is no conceivable way that he can avoid taking up the sword. Unlike most other preexisting Link's, he is born into a life where everything is already decided for him and he never has a moment where he chooses to take up the sword.

Ocarina of time? For a brief time, Link is a child and he has a home on kokori forest. Twilight princess? For his entire childhood and teenage life, Link was just a country boy who was good with kids and was dependable. Skyward sword? So much of the story is about how both Zelda and Link were kids before the story begun. Wind waker, spirit tracks, minish cap- so many of the Link's that have existed have lived completely normal lives and had a journey where they purposely took up the sword and chose to become heroes. Pre-calamity link though? He never had that. It's not even that hard of an assumption to come to that the moment it was discovered it could wield a sword so skillfully at a young age, he was thrown into training.

You don't just throw a twelve year old at the master sword unless you are absolutely positive without a shadow of a doubt that they are the fated hero. Being born into a knights family, I'm sure that this incarnation of Link has been training and has been told of his duty his entire life. In Zelda's entries, she even says that the reason Link is so quiet is because of the sheer amount of pressure and responsibility on his shoulders. To me, I interpret this as Link purposely not speaking up or having a voice of his own because he learned extremely early on that his body is not his own. Zelda resents Link, at least for a time, because she believes that the goddesses blessings practically hang off him. In her defense, they do, as the very symbol of the master sword on his back is enough proof that the goddesses had long since chosen him.

She resents him because he is the very symbol of her failures, all that she lacks in both skill and divinity, is embodied in him. She is born for a royal family with divinity in her blood, and yet she cannot hear the goddesses voice nor awaken her powers. Link is from a knights family, and he has succeeded in passing in every expectation that they've laid before his feet. The kingdom talks behind her back about her shortcomings, the kingdom preaches that the fated hero has been found. It is not hard to see just why Zelda resents Link so much in the beginning, because to her, he has everything she has ever wished for and more. At first, Zelda is preoccupied with her own troubles and it's only later that she is, as far as we know, the only one who has ever really asked him if he wishes things could be different. If he would've ever picked up the sword if he had the choice.

Which is such a heart-breaking question for many reasons, but one detail, for me, which makes it all the worse, is that I believe pre-calamity Link resents Zelda because she has at least achieved a taste of freedom. Personally, I like to believe that Link heard Hylia from a very young age and the act of becoming hero was taken from him to instead grow as a hero. Link never had a point in his life where he was allowed to breathe and choose what he wished, from everything from his own studies, his training, becoming knight, to becoming Zelda's personal knight. All of this was never in his control, but he exceeded in those expectations because the weight of just what the kingdom expected from him was that heavy. He never had a point where the weight was off of his shoulders, as it was that weight that straightened his spine and eventually made him silence himself. He learned at a very early age that his words, his choice, his very autonomy, was never important. Never was there a point that he was even allowed to focus on something that wasn't his expected destiny because he was the hero first and a child second.

Most assume the goddesses blessing to be a heady, beautiful gift, but I've always believed that Link secretly resented just how carefully the goddesses watched him. Where others preen for the goddesses blessings and gifts, he struggles to stand underneath the sheer weight of their gazes. He never had to earn the goddesses grace because it was forced upon him, and so, the very thing that Zelda resented him for was the very thing that he secretly despised.

In a way, I think Link began to resent Zelda in turn, but was just much better at hiding it, because he saw a girl who did not fully realize how much of a blessing it was to be free from the goddesses. Despite how much it was expected from her, she was still able to escape into the wild and chase after her true passions, which he dutifully followed her the entire time for. Personally, I think he came to resent her for this perceived freedom and escape, as well as how much she yearned for Hylia's blessing, despite it being nothing but a curse for him. More than anything though, I think he resents her, at least a little bit, for being able to speak up and fight back. It's something that he desperately wishes he could do himself, but he knows that he cannot and he's petrified about what would come out of him if he did open his mouth.

Link has had an entire lifetime of resentment, self-inflicted silence, expectations, surveillance, and a crippling sense of duty his entire life. All of these things are things Zelda shares as well, but in a way, I think he begins to resent her because she is a warped mirror of himself but with a handful more freedoms that he desperately yearns for. Yes, the weight of the kingdom is so very heavy for the both of them, but why would she destroy herself for the goddess? He wishes to tell her that it is not a weight that she should chase after, but instead cherish every moment that she is able to breathe without it. His destiny has long since been made, and he hates that she seems to desperate to destroy her own freedom with her own bare hands. It's a resentment born from envy, desperation, isolation, and a crippling sense of self-loathing from so desperately wishing that he had been given a moment to just be himself. His sense of identity is so loose because he has been told that he is a knight, a hero, the sword of hyrule, before he is Link, and for that... he hates and resents Zelda for wanting to throw away the one blessing that separates them. She has hope. He is damned, at least in his eyes.

This is all born from the thought that Link exists as an extension of Zelda where Zelda is actually able to exist on her own. Link seeing himself as a tool being passed from hand to hand and just wanting to be able to make a choice for himself. This is actually one of the big, BIG reasons I headcanon as to just why he's one of the most isolated, lone Links to exist because he craves the lack of eyes on him. He just wants to be a person man.

Not only that, but he purposely buries his own feelings because to acknowledge them is to acknowledge that something is wrong and that he's deeply unhappy of his fate. He resents Zelda, so he overcompensates by being over-protective and hovering over her so that he might beat back his resentment of her. If he buries his resentment and instead blames himself for even thinking those thoughts in the first place, then his own guilt will even further fuel his dutiful nature. It's a fucked up vicious cycle of his own guilt, resentment, and anger that he's drowning in the entire time !! And he'll never go out of his away to even mention it to Zelda because he doesn't want to burden her with his actual self !!!

[almoststedytimetravel]

Faye and Silque leveling up by standing in the corner and healing each other. That, too, is Yuri.

[mgsdelta]

there are so many things that i wish people didn’t have to be “into” to enjoy. i feel like fandom culture has destroyed a lot of things’ enjoyment just for the simple fact that they don’t have a fandom, and some things people try to force fandom culture onto media that doesn’t Need one to be great on its own. it’s a kind of curse i think