#for ten years at this point

[vivalasthedas]

I played my sister the DAI theme and the veilguard theme and asked which she thinks sells the concept of the games and their world better - she doesn't play them, so has no connection to any of the music - her answer was that the DAI music was 'generic video game' and the veilguard music was 'its just batman' which now I can't unhear

this obviously doesn't like undermine the overall point about big names purely due to name recognition over finding someone who is a better fit stylistically, but it put new light on how i was personally feeling about the music!

[carlandrea]

The reason Animorphs works as a deconstruction of the kid hero archetype is that it comes at it from a place of respect for the genre, and for the children reading it.

It never denies the kids agency, because it is a book for children, who want to read about children being given agency. Animorphs doesn't treat its child soldiers as victims the way a story aimed at adults would. They are full agents within the story who make moral choices. The fact that they are children is treated as a tragedy, but it's not treated as something that absolves them of any responsibility.

It plays by the rules. These kids are the only people who can save the world. They cannot trust the adults in their lives. It just takes that story—the story it's telling—seriously.

The message of animorphs isn't actually of "isn't it fucked up that this book I read when I was a kid sent a twelve year old on an adventure" it just uses its take on the kid hero genre to get across the actual message, which is War Is Hell

[piratespencil]

This is so funny to me. Reducing them down to their simplest attributes. Turning them into symbols.

[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.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

As it turns out, Danny makes a pretty good leader. His little gang of homeless children has grown immensely, both from picking up strays and from assimilating other gangs into his group.

Danny might only be 10 and still figuring out his powers but dang, intangibility and flight are over powered even before you add invisibility and laser blasts. At first he regretted sneaking into the lab alone to check out the portal his parents made in this basement. Waking up in a cold alley in a city you've never heard of is a terrifying experience even without the corrupt cops trying to sell you into human trafficking, but finding out he had powers and could do whatever he wanted? That was great. It no longer mattered that adults didn't listen to him or chased him around. He could do anything now. Be anything. Take anything.

He and the people under his protection often robbed places, never banks or anything but high class restaurants and stores that usually wouldn't even let them in through the front doors. Yeah, Danny can admit most of thier robberies were because of grudges the other kids had because of how they were treated but Danny being ten thought this was fine.

The real issue was Gothams Paw Patrol (who absolutely hate being called that :3 ) they were always on thier case, Dannys especially. They kept insisting that the system could help them -Danny called bull. No one helped him or Jazz back in Amity and it was waaaay nicer that Gotham- and kept getting him and his fellow kids arrested. That didn't really matter. Anti-meta stuff never worked on him so getting himself the other kids out was no big deal.

After overhearing a conversation between Nightwing and one of the other bats a kid came into thier current secret base announcing that Nightwing was poor and the other bats weren't. This caught everyone attention. Appearently Nightwing was trying to establish himself outside of the colony cause he didn't get along great with whoever the bats super daddy was, which was fair. A lot of them were runaways for one reason or another and knew a bunch of reasons why you wouldn't want to except "free" money.

This led to them fetching Nightwings "wingdings" and batarangs instead of keeping them/selling them like they do with the others, sharing some of thier spoils with him like the groceries, jewelry, fancy clothes, ect that they stole.

Dick even catches one of the kids in his apartment in Bludhaven filling up his fridge which has him panicking about his secret id being compromised. Luckly the kids had only followed him there and didn't think to check who was on the lease or anything cause they assumed it would be a fake name or something.

Just Dick getting forcibly adopted by a child gang.

[userarmand]

rewatching cucumber and why'd baby assad just pop up in THEE most devastating episode 😭

[op-dumpstertruck]

Can we just get to the reunion art please? Hurts my heart so much

~~I love it but also whyyyyy~~

Sure :)

Zoro has an out-of-body experience, Kuina was the one who got out and is now finally home again and the stawhats 100% made quite the ruckus, so little eggplant was quite scared. This will eventually end well, but I never said the reunion would be fluffy :o)

[inheroes--wetrust]

i just had to steal this from twitter because this is the funniest fucking thing ive ever seen in my life. the MOST divorced couple of all time.

[enidtendo64]

Looooove a secretary au

[spikeyphil]

ah yes my favorite youtubers, phil and ted, as featured in episode 11 of the supermegashow podcast

[gay-jesus-probably]

I like the general fandom trend to just take the plot of Hyrule Warriors as a loose guideline at best and just use the whole concept as a good excuse to get blorbos to interact across timelines, BUT I'm very disappointed that everyone is missing the comedic potential of a very specific squad of characters:

Young Link (aka Mask), who walks out of the nightmare of Majora's Mask and immediately gets portal kidnapped into a temporal war, takes one look at the whole mess and decides that you could not fucking pay him to admit to being the resident expert on Time Shenanigans. He introduces himself with the title of Hero of Termina, and definitely doesn't have any other ones, that would be crazy. Hero of Time? Never heard of him.

Tetra, who is a kickass pirate captain with zero patience for people trying to shove her into the Designated Princess role, and realizes immediately that Oh Fuck, this Hyrule has a lot of Ideas about how the Hero and the Princess are supposed to properly play their parts, the second they realize she's technically a Zelda they're gonna shove her in a goddamn dress and damsel her again, that's not happening. So she's definitely just a really cool pirate captain, nothing else going on here at all, definitely not the heir of the Hylian royal family in her time, that'd be crazy.

Ravio, who is literally just a palette swapped Link, meaning that the second his hood comes off, things are gonna get Awkward. There's no way in hell he's dealing with all that Hero baggage, that's Link work, so that giant bunny hood/mask is practically superglued to his head, and he's not taking it off for love or money.

Spirit Tracks Zelda, who is just in the Phantom Armour the whole time, and passing herself off as just a friendly ghost posessing a suit of armour to help the Hero of Spirits. Of course she isn't Princess Zelda, that's ridiculous, if she were a Zelda then people would start getting really weird about her technically being dead, and boy does that ever sound like a whole Thing she doesn't want to deal with, so she can't possibly be Zelda, she's just a nice ghost knight. Also, her teenage grandma is here, and that's kinda weird, so it's easier to just not admit to being royalty and avoid that awkward conversation.

Finally there's Sheik, who is not the Princess Zelda of the era straight up abandoning her war torn country for months at a time so she can risk her life in extreme cosplay for no clear reason, but is instead the actual Sheik from Ocarina of Time, who just beat Ganondorf like a month ago and is still trying to process what the fuck to do now. Also, he's been pretending to be a boy since he was ten, and is realizing there's a pretty good chance that he isn't pretending anymore, so that's a whole other can of worms. But for the last seven years of his life, being Princess Zelda meant certain death, so he's not really inclined to introduce himself like when in a new and stressful situation (not to mention he might actually just not be a girl named Zelda anymore), so he automatically introduces himself as just Sheik the spooky ninja man, and fuck he's in too deep to back out now, looks like he's committing to the bit. If you think you sense the Triforce of Wisdom on him, no you don't.

Cue shenanigans as the five of them attempt to hide that they're all actually kind of A Big Deal. The group motto is "Nobody says shit", which is usually delivered as a frantic hiss whenever someone slips up. Just the reunion between Sheik and Mask alone would be absolutely buckwild given how they parted, and how they're both frantically pretending to Not be involved with each other. For added hilarity and/or drama, Sheik gives his semi-bullshit cover story of having just been a friend of the Hero of Time, then runs into said Hero of Time and they both have to desperately pretend not to know each other, because if anyone picks up on the mountain of baggage between them then Mask is busted, and he won't hesitate to drag Sheik down with him out of sheer spite. Not to mention the weird balance of Sheik being used to this Link being a teenager that's actually a small child, and now has to adjust to Link who is a small child that's actually a teenager.

Also, i really feel like we're all missing out on the comedy potential of Ganondorf recognizing Young Link on sight and the two of them immediately launching into a grudge match with some extremely personal and specific insults on both sides. Meanwhile literally everybody else is just standing there watching, trying to process the fact that out of every single person that's been pulled out of time, Ganondorf only has personal beef with a literal nine year old.

I just feel like we're all really sleeping on the potential for Shenanigans here. The whole thing is an absurd mess, why not have some fun with it?

[the-golden-weapons]

I’d like to think Jay and Nya are very funny because they are both mechanics, but in entirely opposite ways:

Nya has all her tools in proper order. In her workshop, there is never any scrap part going unused. Any notes and blueprints since the ripe age of 12 have been carefully stored and saved, no matter how much she cringes when looking back on them. The Samurai X designs and revisions have their own file cabinet as well as digital backups. Her measurements are double and triple checked, even though she probably had it right the first time. Every choice she makes is calculated and buffed out, from the interlocking gears to the paint job. She prides on her work on being practical and aesthetic, thank you very much.

Jay, meanwhile, is the definition of fuck around and find out. Blueprints? Who needs em, anyways? The only thing vaguely resembling “notes” in his work area are scrap pieces of paper with the most round-about mathematics ever (complete with indecipherable short-hand and a stick figure drawing of Jay holding a blowtorch, naturally.) He will change up plans on the fly and casually stick his hands in very sharp moving parts like there is no tomorrow. Safety equipment? He grew up in a junkyard. He had a wrench in his hand before he could walk. Yeah, no, he’s pretty sure he’s fine, thanks.

[achildofthemidnight]

*Jun apologizing to her fans*

My honest reaction:

[little-pondhead]

The Curse Of Hope

_

Danny is in another universe. He had a reason, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He can only stare, horrified and disgusted, at the sickest city spirit he’s ever seen. Shivering and swaying with every step, core exposed, and ectoplasm leaking from wounds that are decades old. A ratty blanket was thrown over their shoulders, barely hiding the spirit’s pale grey skin and protruding black bones.

The spirit didn’t even sense him until he reached out to touch its wispy shoulders. The spirit flinched, clutching at the dozens of trinkets hanging from their neck and tucking in on themselves like they were expecting a blow.

“Oh, shit,” He swore, floating back a few feet, hands in the air, to show he meant no harm. “I’m sorry. I promise, I’m not here to steal from you.” The spirit shivered again and rolled a pearl necklace in between their fingers. A nervous habit. “Uh, I like that pocket watch? It’s very nice.”

That got their attention. They peeked at Danny, and he saw that more tattered cloth was covering their eyes, blending in with the stringy hair that reached the ground. Their blanket fluttered weakly, revealing hundreds of thousands of tiny marks etched into their skin. Scars, really. Scars that wrote out curse after curse onto the spirit’s very being. They burned with evil intent, and even reached inside the spirit’s body and wrapped around their core.

Occasionally, blinding specks of color raced across their body, temporarily erasing the writing, but it always returned quickly. He watched, a little detached, as one particular line rewrote itself across their rough forearm, drawing fresh ectoplasm like someone was writing it with a thin knife.

“Are you…alright?” Danny stuttered. A stupid question.

The spirit cocked its head. He couldn’t see their eyes, but he felt their burning gaze as they pondered the question.

“The pain of others becomes mine own.” They rasped. “The lights of the city dim as rotten wealth clogs mine veins. Magicks long forgotten have eaten mine skins, pulled mine cloak, and darkened mine skies. Helios has refused to grace mine doorstep, and the seasons of the Earth have revoked their kindness.”

Danny held his breath. It felt like he was the one with the exposed core, not the spirit.

The spirit shivered once more. “Tell mine soul, little lamb. How could this Forsaken City know peace, when it was long since ripped from mine hands?”

Shit, he needed Frostbite. And maybe Clockwork. Now.

-Or-

Danny meets the spirit of Gotham City. The villains and rogues that have plagued the city for decades are literal curses that are taking quite the toll on Gotham, and honestly, Danny isn’t sure how much longer they can hold out. The heroes seem to be doing some help, and are probably the reason Gotham made it this far, but the poor city needs help from the Realms if they want to get better.

Luckily, Danny can provide that help.

But only if he could get Gotham to leave their city behind. Because recovery is going to take a very long time.

[jewelsli]

Not that I don’t love when Bruce’s kids outperform him and give him heart attacks, but I think it’s funnier when the kids think they are better fighters/spies/infiltrators/etc. then him but he’s just so proud so he lets them think that they are.

I think that Babs would be a really good hacker, the best in the family, but Tim, who thinks that he is the next best(and is still scarily good) has no idea that Bruce only let him think that he broke his record of hacking into secret organizations.

Dick is amazing at acrobatics, and centers his fighting style around it much more. He even won gold in the Olympics for gymnastics! Bruce doesn’t want to tell him that he trained under several gymnasts, contortionists, even ballerinas!!! and has the acrobatic fighting style mastered, so he (within reason) let’s his kid win on most occasions, he doesn’t need to fake loosing on trapeze though(I am still giving the kids SOME things they are better at…)

Cass knows that nobody can lie to her, she can spot everyone’s tells and knows most people better then they know themselves. Bruce is, however, extremely paranoid and also has a kryptonian he works with regularly. He lies so well that he can convince himself he’s telling the truth(which is literally the point in case of advanced lie detectors), and so what if he lets some of his tells be more obvious around his baby, he’s so proud of her for picking up such small things! And while Bruce is AMAZING at reading people, he can’t beat Cass, it is however much closer matched then the others think.

Let’s be honest, Bruce is banned from the kitchen and isn’t good at cooking… or so everyone thinks. While he’s not as good as Alfred or even Jason he could whip up something Gordon Ramsey would be proud of if he actually tried to.

Damian in the best fighter with swords, this is undisputed. Bruce just hopes none of his kids find his crate of custom katanas in the attic, if they do then he’ll say they are for Damian.

Tim is an amazing investigator, so good in fact, that Bruce has trusted him on his hardest cases. Everyone assumes this is because Tim is a better detective then Bruce, but he just loves seeing how proud his kid gets when he gets a breakthrough.

Batman doesn’t kill, Red hood does, everyone in their right minds knows that’s a lie. Before Robin came along, leaders of drug operations or terrorists would disappear into the night, never to be seen again. The only people who don’t seem to know this are the Bats children themselves. Sometimes you can still hear a cut off scream in the dark before the news announces a missing person that everyone just knew was doing something horrible, criminals are more wary on nights that the Bats brood are in. And people running trafficking rings pray that it’s the Hood when a knock sounds, the bat doesn’t give those people the mercy of death.

All of the bat kids know more languages then Bruce, and they keep learning more to throw him off, for a family of detectives they really should have thought about the fact that Bruce traveled the entire world, he knows ancient languages and the words that world in other galaxies use, if he could speak Martian then he would have learned it by now, he still does know that part that he’s able to learn.

Idk I just need more of Bruce being skilled at SO many things while his kids are like “oh yeah Bruce? He’s good but I could defeat him easily” and Bruce just so proud of his babies when they do ANYTHING.

Bonus:

Tim made a plan to neutralize Superman at some point, it wasn’t as good as Bruce’s but he replaced it so fast. When he later uses it to take down mind controlled or something Supes Red Robin is watching.

Nobody notices that Batman whispers something to Superman before he goes deathly pale and acts like the plan is working so well he immediately gets defeated. As for what Batman said to him? It was basically ‘Clark(they aren’t supposed to know identities here btw) my kid made this plan and I swear to every mortal and immortal force that if you don’t take the fall right now you will regret it for the rest of your life” and Batman was usually scary but this was like, God will cower before him terrifying and it scared evil Superman so much he went along with it.

Res Robin was smiling so brightly that later Clark honestly couldn’t be mad at the Bat.

Edit: I forgot to add this but unbeknownst to EVERYONE (including Alfred somehow) Bruce can and will stay awake longer then Tim and his drinks are somehow worse in terms of caffeination. The difference is that on the fourteenth day with no sleep everyone thinks it’s only been three even though he is Vividly hallucinating. The ability to hide his lack of sleep for the first week and a half leads them to believe he’s actually the worst at staying up since on what they think is his fourth day of no sleep (it’s his seventeenth) he’s talking to an apparently very vivid hallucination of Alfred the Cat in a suit and a Tiger named Tawny(he had met the tiger earlier that week) and having a civilized conversation with them

[americankimchi]

playing dragon age veilguard is going to be SO fucking funny because me, the person, the player, the real life human being HATES solas but my "canon" inquisitor considered him a confidant and friend and sometimes even a mentor figure. so while my inquisitor is like "maybe i can still convince him... maybe it doesn't need to end in bloodshed" i'm hovering behind him like