#enemy contact

[paintedcrows]

Whenever Bill sees KingOfNJ's fics through Stan's eyes he just thinks they have the same taste in fanfiction (disgusting. unthinkable) continued

[thesithmom]

Drakin & CODm.

[strangelighttraveler]

[sleepy-writes-stuff]

DP X DC PROMPT #29

(#) = Notes at the end of post

✦

The Nasty Burger Explosion still happens, and Danny is left without his friends, family, and the only teacher who ever tried to help and encourage him in school. He manages to skirt around Vlad's custody by discovering a cousin of his Dad's he'd never heard about (1). He reached out to her, crying and begging for her to take him in. To not let Vlad anywhere near him.

Needless to say, after hearing a desperate teenager call her in tears and discover that besides Danny, her cousin Jack and his family had recently died in a horrible "accident," Lois nearly upends everything to go and get Danny from a middle of nowhere town in Illinois. After talking with Clark, of course. She didn't get one word in, however, cause he heard the entire phone call from the other room, though unintentionally.

After arranging for Mama Kent to watch over a still young Jon, they drove as fast as possible to meet this boy that already had their hearts in an iron grasp. When they first lay eyes on him, they immediately want to comfort him. His black hair is a tangled mess, his eyes bloodshot and red from crying. He sits in the corner of the school secretary's office, curled up in the small seat with an overstuffed backpack clutched tightly in a trembling, white-knuckled grip. A girl with dark skin and her hair held back by a headband sits with him, but she gets up and walks over as soon as she sees them enter the office. Danny doesn't seem to notice or even look up from where he's staring at the floor tiles.

"He's been hiding here for the last few days since he called you. He hasn't gone home once except to pack the bag he has with him." The girl explains. She holds out her hand to Lois for a handshake. "Valerie. You could say I'm a... friend of his (2). I'm assuming you're the cousin?"

Lois nods solemnly. "How's he been? He wouldn't tell me why he wouldn't go with his parent's first choice of custody. I've been worried."

Valerie grimaced and looked back at Danny before looking her directly in the eyes. "I can't say much without revealing anything i shouldn't. Let's just say Vlad has an unhealthy obsession with Danny, and it's unsafe to be around him. If he trusts you, he'll be the one to tell you the rest."

Clark and Lois share a look before they both nodded.

Valerie sees their acceptance and relaxes. She'd actually been tense the entire time she'd been talking with them.

"Well, with that said, I'll be going now." She rubbed the back of her neck and looked down with a sad expression. She looked back up at Lois with a deep sigh, and only then did Lois realize that Valerie looked to have been crying recently too. Looking between both adults, she made a quiet request. "Take care of him, will you?"

This time Clark is the one who finally speaks up. "You have our word he'll be safe and cared for."

Valerie's shoulders slump with a shuttering sigh of relief. "Thank you."

Once she left, Clark and Lois slowly approached Danny and sat to either side of him. Only then did he finally look up from the tiles and see them. His eyes ghosted over Lois but immediately locked onto Clark. He stared up at him, his eyes glassy with unshed tears.

Clark shrunk his broad form down a little, concerned his build might be intimidating for the young man. "Hi there, bud." He said in a soft tone. "I'm Clark and this is Lois. We're here to pick you up."

When introductions didn't seem to get a reaction from the teen, Clark's brow furrowed further. "Something wrong?"

Danny finally blinked and quickly ducked his head back down to look at the floor. "N-No." He croaked. "Sorry. For a moment there, I thought you were-" He choked on his words and seemed to have difficulty swallowing. He was shaking, his face hidden against his knees with one of his arms braced over his head to hide even further.

When he finally managed to finish his sentence, Clark's heart shattered completely.

"I th-thought you were my dad."

Clark looked at Lois with lost, watery eyes only to see she was in the same exact predicament. She couldn't stand seeing Danny so heartbroken any longer and leaned over to wrap him in a hug, Clark soon following. After a while of shushing and murmuring words of comfort, Lois gently spoke up.

"Why don't we get your things in the car and we can get on the road."

Extracting himself from their warm hold, Danny took a deep, shuttering breath before nodding.

"Okay."

"Is there anything else we need to get from the house? You have everything?"

Gripping his bag tightly to his chest, he nodded again. (3)

"Yeah. I do."

✦

Side Note:

(1) He found out through Tucker. He'd searched through Danny's family tree for any living relatives in case Vlad ever actually managed to kill Jack or something else happened to both his parents. He just never imagined it would be for this reason specifically.

(2) Yes, she knows Danny is Phantom now. She did not know before. She found out after she tried to pin the blame for Danny's friends and family on Phantom while Danny was in earshot, and he basically blew up at her and broke down. She's horrified and feels terrible, so don't be too hard on her. The confrontation also happened on school grounds with a bunch of other kids present, so a good majority of the student body knows now, too. If not from seeing it first hand, then by word of mouth. They're keeping it hush hush so nobody with bad intentions towards ghosts comes looking for Danny. Valerie will be the main defense against any ghosts that pop up, as well as a few other kids she trained.

(3) Before he left, Danny did disable and completely dismantle the ghost portal and translated all his parent's research into a code him, Sam, and Tucker came up with before destroying the originals as well as the entire lab itself. Natural ghost portals can still pop up in Amity Park tho, since the ghost portal kinda oversaturated the town with ectoplasm. Valerie and the kids she trained are just a precaution.

Haven't come up with a title for this one yet. I'll add it later when it pops into my head though.

Funny enough, this actually isn't what I planned to write for this prompt. It did involve Danny getting adopted into the Kent family, but there was going to be something entirely different happening. Apparently, the characters had other plans. Oh well, I'll save it for the next one, I guess. It might be a second part of this, actually. We'll see!

Enjoy the angst & hurt/comfort tho!

[waywardgirl75]

*Sanji and Zoro flirting with each other yet again during a fight*

Usopp: And you two are sure you're not dating?

Sanji: 100%.

Zoro: Of course not! Why would you think that?

Usopp: I wonder why that possibility would even cross my mind, Zoro. I fucking wonder.

[tamago-aki]

im literally shaking someone buy her brown contacts please

[freckledbastard]

redid the reaper quests for funsies and this was all i could think the whole time

"hey zenos, yeah theres this voidsent dude calling me his prey? yeah you need to have a pact with another voidsent to beat him and he was being real intense the whole time and talking about how he was gonna devour me and how glorious it would be? yeah- yeah no i know thats your thing dude i tried to tell him and everything but idk, he seems pretty set on the idea of me being his prey... oh youre heading his way already and are gonna super murder him? oh weird thats crazy, anyway."

[scarredlove]

Gems and Jewels for the prebby boiii Neptune - @cloudyvoid~

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

concept: a very unorthodox private investigator character à la Sherlock Holmes but it's set during normalization-era Czechoslovakia

[yuuyami-the-wanderer]

Poor Dan Heng, the writers keep on pairing him with undead men with red motifs and crazy written all over them.

I really like Boothill tho, while Blade was a past flame with stalker and till-death-do-us-part energy Boothill Boothill is more of a pal? Idk, I can see him offering Dan Heng a drink and a non-judgmental ear.

[crispyjenkins]

re Obi-Wan and ensuring his self is cared for enough to allow him to actual do his duties. THANK YOU! My greatest frustration has always been reading about Obi-Wan in the clone wars ignoring significant injuries etc. and doing back flips to keep out of the med bay. I just don't believe he would ever set and example like that or put himself in a position where his lack of self-care puts others in danger. Don't get me wrong sometimes I do like reading that though...

the medbay thing!! oooh the medbay thing drives me absolutely bananas!! it’s one of those things that i like. DO enjoy reading from characters for Angst reasons, and like. COULD make sense for Obi-Wan especially taking his Legends background into account, but it just doesn’t fit what we actually see of him in movies and TCW canon? and it’s become this wildly widely accepted fanon so it’s EVERYWHERE so it's no longer authors (and artists) exploring an interesting headcanon, it's just accepted as canon, and it gets boring and contrived real fast. there are so many other ways to make Obi-Wan angsty, and so many other ways of making injury and illness angsty, that it just seems... yeah contrived to paste this characterisation onto Obi-Wan, especially since it seems in direct contradiction to his character as we see it in high canon. almost like hmmm people (including me, early in my star wars writing) are so used to "hating medical" as a trait for their blorbos that it just feels natural to apply it to Mr. Angst himself? that's certainly why i did it

ALL THIS TO SAY write and explore whatever you want!! engage with fanon and canon how you want!! it’s all valid and i am 500% about engaging with media how you want to, regardless of how "in character" something is. i will never knock someone for playing with fiction the "wrong" way

but boy howdy do i also have some Peeves. this one is far far far from a deal breaker when reading btw, if it's not the focus of the story; it just bothers me that it’s the default especially when it seems to contradict Obi-Wan’s actual character. and there are places hiding injuries makes a lot of sense!! (the ground between unstoppable force and immovable object by des_pudels_kern comes to mind! is also such a good, interesting look into Cody and Obi-Wan’s early working relationship, i highly recommended this fic)

[saltysaltdog]

Just because it's been boiling my brain, the fandom agrees Ratau is the reason there's so many traps and ambushes in cult of the lamb, right? Because he was a stealth main who vanishes into underground hiding spots/tunnels, taking down units one by one, and sneaking into temples, right?

Because that giant screaming bell thing seems like it'd be a pain for rogues: since it only goes off when enemies are alerted/an enemy dies, then follows the player around till all enemies in that area are defeated. Total stealth killer. They made it especially for him.

Thus the best way to defeat Ratau was to have traps, stakeouts, and ambushes. Instead of general patrols, checkpoints, and unit check-ins since a rogue would just sneak past those. Because unless those doors have a "fixed*" entry point, it's pretty weird to have your whole place covered in traps just in case a crown bearer comes through.

[see-arcane]

considering it was the late 1800s, do you think Seward and VH are oblivious to Jonathan's watchfulness because Stoker couldn't justify writing Jonathan implying that "vampirism and blasphemy are fine if it's for Mina, actually" beyond his initial declaration? We don't seem to get much more of it directly from Jonathan's entries either after that, just by implication.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was a factor.

Considering all the very potent metaphors at work in the premise of 'God has denied love and protection to my beloved over X Violation and/or X State of Being which is beyond their control, and I have decided our love is more holy than any decision of the Almighty, and I would rather be a monster with her than shun/destroy her As Is the Righteous Thing to Do,' Stoker was already dancing on the edge of acceptability with Jonathan making his secret vow even once.

But thankfully, that single vow--and the adamant refusal to even pretend to make a new 'Yes honey, I will absolutely vampire martyr-murder you like a good Christian boy! God says it's chill just like it was for Lucy and everyone else Dracula has snacked on for untold centuries! God's will be done!'--likely flew over a lot of heads back in the day (as it does now) and simply landed in a lot of hearts with the more obvious factor of...

"Oh. He is literally willing to brave Hell and eternal damnation as the conscripted undead, possibly even cutting down his stake-wielding friends, just to protect and be with his beloved? ...That's kind of hot."

Especially during a period when romance was basically just a bonus to tack on to the Job of Being Married. Jonathan Harker is proven multiple times to be the un-Victorian Victorian man, running from the Brides (mistress stand-ins), happily letting his wife take the lead and holding her up as his equal until he's peer pressured out of it (which leads to dangerous consequences! Social mores fucked everything up! And He Only Follows New Directions with Mina's Approval Going Forward!), and now here's this romantic motherfucker ready to skin Dracula and French kiss the Devil so long as it sees his beloved safe and un-slaughtered, even if she isn't ~perfect and saintly and non-monstrous~.

Girls gays and goths of 1897 were definitely fanning themselves at the next tea party book club once they reached October 3rd.

Even without the ell gee bee tee undertones to glean from Stoker's own romantic leanings, the idea of 'selfish' personal love, of a mere human being, getting held up as more important than God, someone worth Hell, was extremely spicy to depict during that period. If Stoker had had Jonathan repeating himself over and over regarding his secret plans, it would have started to sound a bit like writing a smitten Poe protagonist. Which would also be sexy! But it'd risk taking some of the heroic shine off of him towards the end.

Better to let it hang over the narrative's neck in silence like an axe waiting to fall.

Or a kukri.

[worstloki]

Personally I think Thor should be able to hear electricity going on around him and it should bother him a lot btw. He hates the fridge intimately

[hsslilly-blog]

people with blue eyes staring at you meme but it's actually everyone to me. man stop looking at me. there literally no need for that. that's why i always side sit

[viric-dreams]

Thinking a bit more about Jones and mental health and why he's averse to any sort of treatment. I think there are a few things going on here.

Before prison, he was in good physical and mental health, to the point that it was never a consideration in his mind. To this day, he still struggles to properly reckon with the fact that that's no longer his reality. He also believes that he's keeping the worst of it at bay by not giving it any sort of name, doing anything to draw attention to it (unaware that the sheer amount of time his thoughts spend on loop is equally harmful). He doesn't want to publicly acknowledge that he has any sort of problem, because in his eyes that would make it too real and give it power over him.

Additionally, he'd spent time at the Royal Bethlehem once, in his early days in London. It was an awful experience. The loss of autonomy, the inability to leave, and all the while the staff treated him so politely whilst still holding him in that gilded cage. It almost felt worse than Newgate. At least there, they hadn't pretended he wasn't a prisoner. He's utterly terrified of being sent back to the Beth, a possibility that's inevitable in his mind, should anyone find out just how bad things are behind that facade.

Except it's not really a facade. That's him. That should be him. It's who he's supposed to be. Everything else is just... something. Something else. Something interfering.