#from the old forest

[badolmen]

They don’t even attempt to assassinate US politicians anymore. You notice that? Not since the anthrax scare back for… who was it, Barack? And even that… pathetic. This new generation has no respect for an honest hitman. I’m not sure this new generation has any honest hitman - you see that shit with Boeing? Sloppy, fucking disgraceful - you kill the whistleblowers before they get halfway to a lawsuit. What kind of fucking amateur is doing faked suicides the night before testimony? Goddamn greenhorns. Back in my day someone tried to shoot Ronald Reagan in broad daylight. There used to be bomb threats to Congress. I took out a few union leaders in the utilities sector myself. Today’s generation? Won’t even threaten to throw a punch - not even over on that - what’s it now, ‘X’? They got no guts. None! And they don’t even have poor impulse control to boot! Too much of that - that panopticon anxiety bullshit. “Oh what if I get a called out post???” People used to send the president letters full of bioweapons. In the mail! Today’s generation? Not a chance. All because of woke.

[worms-for-brains]

Too much sexy König. Not enough creature König.

[happyheidi]

𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 🍃

𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳: 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘦, 𝘩𝘶𝘨 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦 🌳 𝘭𝘰𝘭 𝘪𝘥𝘬

[bluerosefox]

Same As The Day I Lost You

I...

This came to me as I'm making dinner so I'll be quick.

What if we mix deaged Danny and twin/older sibling (either one works) Damian, AND he gets tossed to his sibling in a last minute escape.

Like what if he was fighting Vlad who was doing his whole "denounce your father and join me as my son Daniel!" Thing while in the Zone and knocks Danny into something that's floating in the Zone with the ability to deage or was hit by a new Fenton or Plasmius invention while fighting in town that accidentally deages him.

Danny, who in this was adopted, gets put back to the age of six. The same age he had been found by Jazz in a 'haunted' forest Jack and Maddie were visiting/investigating while also using that time as a family vacation. (They were shocked to see a little boy with a stab wound bleeding out and rushed him to the nearby town, almost completely forgetting about the glowing green tiny puddle they found nearby and bagged most of it as evidence when they heard Jazz's scream of terror over finding the hurt little boy)

The sudden revert into that traumatized age, along with the child response to a fight or flight scenario, and add Danny's deepest need/wish to be protected his child fogged mind wishes to go to the one person who always made him feel safe.

His twin/older brother.

Just as quick as it was with Danny being turned into a child, his ghost powers ripped open a portal and sent Danny to the person he wants to be with...

Only he didn't know that right at that moment his seventeen year old twin/older brother is currently fighting the League with his family's help (his mother was trying to convince him to return to the League and be it's heir) in Nanda Parbat (the very place Damian lost the last/only person he knew loved him without any strings attached.)

So imagine everyone's face when a portal opened up, some muttering its a new pit being formed before them or something, and crawling out of it is a very scared and confused six year old Danny.

[arrgh-whatever]

a few unfinished things

[starry-bi-sky]

finally giving fem danyal her own au and fulfilling my 'danny is an animal whisperer' agenda at the same time: mother of monsters danyal 2.0

i say "2.0" because TECHNICALLY 'mother of monsters danyal' is an au I made back in June for Dark fem!Danyal (who I promptly named Layal). However, I haven't posted much for her yet, and I like the "mother of monsters" premise too much to leave it only to Layal. Plus Danyal in that au was going to become the mother of monsters anyway, just with significantly less world domination and mass extinction.

'Animal whisperer' Danny has been something I've been thinking about since my latest DP 'wolfpack au' post and it's! So fun to think about, and who no better to assign the idea to than Danyal Al Ghul? Who comes from a family infamously known for their love of animals and nature?

Fem Danyal is just purely self-indulgent. *gestures wildly at her* i just lomvb,,, her,,,, I've only really mentioned her in context of the 'Things in Threes' au/my first Danyal al Ghul au with the facial scar, but she's!!! I love her. She deserves her own au <33

So kill three birds with one stone! Make a post about it.

Anyways, Danny has a large lair. Similar to cult leader danyal, her lair is a giant mountain region resembling nanda parbat with a big temple/palace-like area built into the mountain. It's large, it's overflowing with natural flora, with its own mini-floating islands hovering over some areas, and it's also completely empty.

Danny takes one look at her lair upon first meeting, -- noting that it looked relatively smaller from the outside -- and promptly, with the elegance of an Al Ghul, goes "What the hell??" Because yes, while she does enjoy her own solitude and privacy, this is a bit ridiculous.

For heaven's sake, there's even a massive lake in there! What's she going to do with all this space? Can she make it any smaller? Why is it so big in the first place? This looks borderline like one of the mega-islands!

She finds out later that apparently, the amount of ectoplasm a ghost has can have an effect on the size of their lair. And since she has such a large core, her lair reflects that. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, it's bigger on the inside so it doesn't take up "too much space" on the outside. Don't worry about it too much.

Danyal isn't totally opposed to having such a large lair, she's just... a bit baffled by it. It feels like so much wasted space is all. All this flora and no fauna to enjoy it with. It's practically eerie.

She decorates her temple-palace area, transforming rooms to match her needs as she sees fit. In the center of the inner gardens is a massive tree that she likes to climb, with twisting, winding branches. Sam and Tucker have honorary rooms, even if they can't safely leave the specter speeder for long periods of time, even with proper safety equipment. So does Jazz. Ali (Dani) has one too, but he can actually use that one, and Danny brought him to her lair so he could decorate it himself.

She has a personal garden, but for the most part she lets the flora exist as it is. Too much space to cultivate it en masse anyways.

Skip to a few weeks later, on her next visit to Clockwork. She developed a habit of going to see him semi-regularly just because. She enjoys his wisdom, and he has a lot of stories to tell, and when he's not being the cryptic and esoteric timekeeper, he's a bit goofy.

(pushing my dadwork agenda here,,, i think Danny deserves to go 'hey, Lord Clockwork, do you want me to buy you something' while she's at walmart, only to receive a singular glowing sticky note that says 'cucumber gatorade'.)

(She insists on referring to him with his proper titles even for the most mundane of things because it's proper, but Clockwork sees a future where she eventually calls him "Cee" and by all things in existence is he determined to get there. Anyways,,,)

On her next visit to Clockwork, just as she is about to leave, Clockwork stops her and goes; "Ah, I have something for you. Hold out your hands."

Danny does as such, and Clockwork doesn't give out things often, so her curiosity has spiked to the highest levels. He turns away from her for a moment, using his staff to summon whatever it is he needs, and when he turns around.

He drops a fish into her hands. Granted, a fish in a small glass tank. But a fish nonetheless. A small one, roughly about the size of her finger, with a blue-black, eel-shaped body and four sets of glowing eyes. She can see thin, almost translucent, but spiny fins down its back and the start of bioluminescent markings. It's swimming around in circles in its small container.

"Lord Clockwork." Danyal says all too calmly.

"Yes, Danyal?"

"What is this?"

"That is an adolescent leviathan, Danyal." She’s transfixed onto the tank, but she doesn’t need to see Clockwork’s face to hear the smile he’s stifling.

The myriad of emotions that runs through her all at once threatens to overwhelm her, and she can’t tell if the feelings are negative or positive. So she carefully closes her eyes to breathe in through her nose.

“Clockwork.”

“Ah, I see you’ve dropped formalities.”

She ignores that.

“Why have you given me an adolescent leviathan?”

She's expecting the trickster to look amused when she opens her eyes. Instead, he just looks endeared. "I know you're fond of animals," he says, "and you always look amazed when you come across an animal of the realms. So I thought you might enjoy taking care of the young beast, it's mother is dead so it has no one to care for it."

Oh.

"But, if you don't like it," Clockwork's hands reach out for the tank, "I can simply take it back--"

Danyal shifts the tank out from his reach and hugs it possessively. "I never said that. How do I care for it?"

And so clockwork gives her a list, and when Danyal returns to her lair, she sets up a large tank in her room for the leviathan to swim in -- it's much too small for the lake right now, she thinks. She'll feel better if it's somewhere she can find it. She names him Suhā.

Suhā grows quickly, and by the end of the mortal month she transforms one of the rooms into a large pond for him to swim around in. He's a very loyal beast, recognizing her as it's mother of some kind. Danyal takes great care ensuring that her beastie gets quality care, and Suhā swims to the surface to see her when he senses her in the room.

It spirals from there. Somehow, Pandora catches wind that Clockwork gave her a leviathan, and so the next time Danyal visits the Greater Athens, she gives her a baby chimera. It's eyes are still sealed shut, Danyal can't bring herself to say no. She names the little beastie Firas.

Frostbite hears about it too, and not to be outdone, gives her an animal she's never even heard of. Infinite-realms born, apparently. A fox-like creature with two small horns like an impala, four eyes, and tall legs. The name isn't something she's quite sure how to write down, and she's positive that her friends won't be able to comprehend it. She names her Eira.

Getting the three of them used to each other was... interesting. Suhā tried to eat Firas when Danyal first introduced the two, and they've hated each other ever since. Firas and Eira are seemingly getting along. Her island already feels full enough with the three of them on it.

Of course, that's not the end of it. With her luck, she begins stumbling across other monsters. Realms-borne or otherwise. An injured hydra in the Grecian islands that, through lots of trial and error, Danyal is able to rehabilitate and heal. It routinely comes to visit her afterwards.

A griffin with a broken wing that she moves permanently to the island that likes to keep to itself, but tends to come down when she's near. It gets along best with Firas.

A panther-like monster from the Shades Woods that had six legs and three tails, with ends that reminded her of a venus flytrap. It stuck around the heavy foliage and she can only make out where it was when she saw its golden eyes reflect.

She befriends a young indrik with its leg injured, and much like the hydra it follows her back to her island, and stays there in the mountains. It comes out when she's alone, much like her other beasts.

She receives two more leviathan -- one from clockwork, and one she finds herself while exploring the deeper and darker recesses of the Ghost Zone. It was huddled against the carcass of its mother, and she managed to befriend and get close enough to it to bring it back to her island. Suhā is fully grown by then, with a head bigger than Danyal herself and he still likes to stick her head out of the water for nuzzles when she's near.

He's not very happy with his new siblings, but he's not trying to eat them when she's not looking. So she calls it a win in her book.

And it's not just large beasts either; smaller animals begin popping up when she's not looking. Bird-like creatures and small mammals, and she swears she saw a doe (or something resembling a doe) grazing in the forest while she was walking by.

She takes back with her a lone snake egg once, and it grows so big it wraps around her island and sleeps with its massive head on the mountain beside the temple, like some smaller breed of Jörmungandr.

And on and on it goes. Some of the beasts she comes across never step foot onto her island, some of them follow her back, while others she has to carry back. Not all of the ones that follow her stay, and Danny rehabilitates the injured and releases them when they're fully healed.

It's hectic, and busy, and frankly she loves it. Some of her rehabilitated beasts return to visit her, or to have their children somewhere on the island, or whatever it is they need to do.

She becomes a bit infamous for it. She goes to visit Dorathea once, and as she's walking through the streets she can hear some of the denizens whispering while she walks past.

"Is that her?"

"Her highness' friend? Yes--"

"--that's the one--"

"--Mother of monsters--"

Danny's not sure how to feel about that.

Although, she can't say she's opposed.

Danyal Al Ghul, Mother of monsters, raiser of beasts. It has a nice ring to it.

[nickpeppermint]

Somewhere, lost in the clouded annals of history, lies a place that few have seen. A mysterious place, called The Unknown. Where long-forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the wood. 🍂

[lindagoesmushrooming]

[sourscratched]

thinking about these two and messing around with some cassandra designs

[stubz]

"So path it is?" asked Pollix looking up at the steep forest hill.

"That'll take so long though..." whined Zyz.

"Why don't we just climb it?" buzzed Xw.

"Because...not everyone can make it." hinted Pollix.

"Yeah, and we don't want to-"

"What do you guys mean? It's easy! Even Marl could make that and their tiny-"

"Xw!" "They're right there!" the two hissed frantically pointing to Anthony and Malaika who stand to the side looking at some plants.

"...aw I forgot about them. Do we have to bring them?"

"Teacher Kim said that we need to stay in a group."

"And we can't just leave them, they don't have any claws or extra limbs or anything to protect themselves with!"

"Or to climb with..." Xw muttered.

The younglings stood there silent for a moment trying to figure out how they could help their friends up the very steep hill...if you could call it that. It was almost vertical at some parts and even though Xw said it was easy it would still be a bit tricky for the younglings.

"...We could carry them?" Pollix offered.

"Malaika maybe but Anthony is too big! He's bigger than you."

"What if we tossed done some roots from the top? Like rope!"

"That could work-"

"Hey guys! Hurry up!" called Anthony, he and Malaika almost half way up the steep hill.

"...race ya!" hollers Xw before they scuttle up the hill.

"Hey!"

"No fair!"

All three of them easily passed their human friends. Xw's 4 legs making it easy to climb the near vertical parts. Zyz and Pollix run on all fours, their claws dig into the dirt allowing them to run easily.

Every now and then they would glance down to adjust their pace so as to not leave Anthony and Malaika behind. It was strange to see them climb the hill, they had no claws yet managed just fine by using roots as handles and rope, it was like seeing larger versions of Marl climb. Save for the lack of tail and fur.

"Looks like I win!" grins Pollix just a few feet away from the top.

"Not for long!" cackle Zyz and Xw grabbing a hold of his tail and clothes. The younglings wrestle and fight and all topple onto each other on the top of the hill. They chuff and chirp and snort whit wide smiles on their faces.

...chuff, chirp, snort...where's the laugh?

"Anthony help!"

"I'm trying! J-just stay there!"

"I'm slipping!!"

Peering over the edge they look and look until they see their friends down the hill, about 10 feet down 5 feet to the left...right at the most steepest part of the hill. It seems Malaika had took a different path and was now stuck clinging for dear life on a tiny root that was slowing being pulled out. Anthony was going as fast as he could to her to try and pull her to the safer parts but he too was soon stuck.

Quickly Xw scuttled down to Malaika and grabbed her, frantically pulling her up but alas they were too small to carry her higher.

Pollix and Zyz skidded down and slowly yet surely guided Anthony to the safer parts where he could safely grab on to some roots to climb.

With Anthony now safe they went to Malaika to try and help Xw carry her up or to the side.

.

"You good Xw?"

"Yeah...I hope Zyz comes back with Teacher Kim though." they huffed.

After many terrifying attempts of trying to bring Malaika to somewhere safer on the hill they realized three things. One, the area Malaika was standing was too steep for her to climb onto Pollix or Zyz's back. Two, both boys needed both hands when climbing there so they couldn't grab her hand and pull her higher up to safety. Three, Anthony still couldn't make it to the top and as the biggest couldn't be carried or pulled to the top. In short, both humans were stuck.

"I got Teacher Kim!" Zyz yelled scrambling up the hill.

"...where is she?"

"...still at the bottom of the hill..."

"Zyz! She'll probably need help like-"

"Coming through! Can't stop the momentum!" yells Kim running up the hill on all fours. She goes until she reaches Malaika, grabs her, sits down and slides down the hill.

"..." "..." "..." "...Miss Kim what about m-?!"

The teacher climbs back up, this time slower, taking time to find roots to grab and dig her fingers into the dirt for better grip when she could find none. Malaika clings onto her back, much like Marl would do with his mom.

When she reaches Anthony she first boosts Malaika up to the roots they can't reach and has Pollix help her up to the top. Anthony goes next with some help with from Zyz and Xw until finally she herself goes.

"So what did we learn today?"

"...don't go off the path." the children mumbled.

"Because...?"

"Not everyone can do what other's can do."

"Good. Now let's go, I look like I crawled through the wilderness for miles." she chuckled looking at the dirt caked hands and clothes.

"...so in a few years you'll be able to do that?" Xw asks Anthony.

"I guess."

"My daddy can do that too! He climbs mountains without rope!" Malaika proudly declares.

"...should have brought your dad here then."

[rookflower]

i know the knowledge is Not Secret and Pretty Damn Obvious but remembering the fact the wc writing team changed between oots and avos makes so much sense. like ohhh that's why mothwing is Like That now despite her previous characterisation being far less bitter and aggressive, along with other personality shifts or new directions for characters. that's why onestar's SE zeroed in on the darktail thing they came up with instead of older key scenes or points about his character that they may not remember as well if at all. that's why each arc is structured more episodically, repetitively, and self-contained now rather than having a lot of wee overarching character arcs and plot threads or messing much with the status quo. sometimes i wonder and then i remember the obvious answer. like. to both improvements and its degradations it explains a lot of writing switch ups between then and now doesnt it

[meow-parties]

I've got my eye on the prize,

My beady eyes are alight!

(Please, no tags implying ship.)

[threefeline]

Another snerson

[nothingbizzare]

Ones upon a time was a Prince and a Knight ...

[theemeraldforesthideout]

Hagr Y Coed (The Ugly Wood)