despite the fact that, for at least 14 years, my Notable Dance Ability™ (to the point that every single new teacher and friend AND the artistic director I last auditioned for have to comment on it and/or make me demonstrate) is That Girl Can Jump, I've never thought much about being naturally good at it aside from joking about my thighs but now I'm trying to figure out how to teach kids the progression from like baby jumps to fun jumps and my brain is just like well. you just. you Just Do It. that is All.
I have been informed that you guys are getting part 4 of episode 7 tomorrow, which means we are FINALLY going to get the official romanization of Revaan's name, somebody please tell me because I need to know what it is.
like, yes, it's probably just Revan/Levan, but look, I'm sitting here with my finger over the button of all these Laverne and Shirley jokes and just waiting for the opportunity to deploy them --
Found this old snippet and don't really remember of the context for it outside of being a joking exploration of how weird the Fenton/Phantom family tree would seem to outsiders (not even getting into how relationships might be classified differently between the human side & the ghost side)
Anyway gonna drop it here as a prompt lol
Mind the quick reference to dismemberment, there's no gore or detailed description and no one is actually hurt, it's more there for comedic effect, but still wanted to give the heads up on it 👍
---
Nomad motioned to the towering, vaguely vampire-looking buff dude with literal flaming hair what the fuck, “Dan, this is everyone. Everyone this is Dan. He’s my…” Nomad trailed off and blinked, a look of confused befuddlement on her face as she let the sentence hang for too long.
“Huh…” She said considering, looking up at vampire-dude, Dan apparently, with a confused furrow on her brow. “You know this is the first time I’ve ever had to try and explain our relationship to each other and I’m drawing a blank and what exactly to call you. Uncle? Dad? Brother? Like, I think you could technically be considered all three.”
What the fuck did that mean??? Kon snapped his attention over to meet Tim’s masked gaze, the look of wild confusion Kon was sure was on his own face mirrored there. Around the meeting room confused and worried looks were being shared by the rest of the League. Which like, yeah, what in the Habsburgs was happening here for all of those terms to be applicable?
“Well, you’re Danny’s Mirror, so if you consider him your dad then it stands to reason I’m also your father.” Dan said, hand coming up to his - literally flaming, how did that work? - goatee thoughtfully.
“Yeah but like, I call Danny dad just to piss Vlad off.” Nomad countered, toying with her severed arm with her still attached hand. Kon didn’t think he’d ever get over how casual she was about being literally disarmed and just…not caring. “And I definitely don’t see you as a dad. Uncle?”
The giant of a ghost shook his head with a frown, “Implies that Danny and I are brothers, which could work but gives our relationship kind of a weird vibe. I feel more like his father than anything.”
“Gramps, then?”
“No.”
Nomad laughed, “Fair, wouldn’t want to take the title of Grampa away from CW. Besides we’re both half Vlad, so I think brother works best here.” She frowned, looking thoughtful, “Maybe half brother?”
Dan considered, “Half-brother could work. Though it gives Vlad more credit than he deserves.”
“Oh come on, can you imagine the look on his face if we went in together on suing him for child support?” Nomad asked, fanged grin wicked. Dan’s face lit up at the idea, and Kon felt like they were rapidly heading towards the two ghosts running off to go and go torment whoever this Vlad guy was rather then them help deal with the current demonic problem at hand.
“Can you please explain what any of that means?” Kon asked, more a squeak than anything else. He was starting to get a headache.
always happy about the fact that in 2012, mikey often asked donnie questions if he didn't understand something and donnie always answered no matter what
this can be seen in a bunch of episodes but my favorite example of it it's the one in half shell heroes where mikey is extremely excited to be in the museums and is the one actively asking donnie questions about the exhibits they saw and also actively listening to donnie's explanation (before raph got silly lmao). he was very excited to learn!!!
And while it's true that mikey would lose interest quite fast if the explanation got too lengthy with too many technical terms, it doesn't change the fact that he does retain the info donnie is always rambling on about different things!!! (even if mikey himself doesn't notice he's doing it lol) and also i find it very sweet that no matter if donnie himself got annoyed, donnie would always answer the questions. no matter what. he would always try to explain if he didn't understand something
This is prob because mikey is the one brother who is often seeking out donnie to pass time around him Meaning that donnie might have used mikey as his rubber ducky whenever mikey hangs out with him while he's working (explained him a lot of his experiments and theories while trying to solve them himself and in this way mikey also learnt in the process WHILE spending time with his brother! win win!)
it also helps donnie because accompanies him while not letting him get lonely in his lab 24/7, sometimes explaining things to someone makes it better to understand it yourself AND it's shown in the comics that donnie is quite used to his brothers just Living as background noise and literally cannot function without it lmao
They are literally the two smart kids in the family even if none of them notice it and it's all because mikey looks up to his brother and is like an sponge with donnie around. donnie is actively teaching mikey and mikey is learning! even if they have no idea they are doing it
Damian comes back to the manor one day with... a new school acquaintance (coughfriendcough) due to the fact they need to work on a school project together and Danny Fenton was the only one in that class that Damian would tolerate to have as a partner.
Everything about the kid seemed normal, heck very normal if a bit shy... or at least that was until the kid suddenly zero focused on a corner of the room and stared at it non blinking. Then after what felt like hours blinked once and returned to normal, chatting away like nothing happened.
....It also doesn't help that Alfred the cat... did the same thing.. at the same time as Danny.
Yeah something is... off about Damian's new friend.
Who is the more well-adjusted twin; Damian, or Danyal? Why, it's Damian, of course!
And I have an explanation for this! But first I wanna preface this that this is just me like, rambling about this thought I have and it's not an attack on the trope as a whole. I love the Danyal Al Ghul au which is why i'm so deeply passionate about it, because I think it has a lot of potential to be explored. It's no secret that I've mentioned before that I think Danny's psychological development tends to get overlooked and underutilized in DAG aus, and the impact that growing up in an assassin league often goes ignored. This is just me further expanding on that.
Now lets set the stage! This is specifically for Danny who is adopted by the Fentons later down in life. Lets go twin au. At 10 years old, Damian goes to the Wayne Family, Danny is adopted by the Fentons (regardless of their affiliation with the League). By 14 years old, who ends up the better adjusted, more socially aware, spiritually in-tune with themselves, sibling? Why, Damian is! Why is that?
Because he has the actual support he needs compared to Danny. And I'm not talking about good or bad parents Fentons, because either way my opinion doesn't change. Damian would end up the better off twin, because, frankly, his family knows his background. They know he grew up in the League, they know what the League's teachings are, and they know he's a born and raised assassin. Knowing this, they can then help tackle and dismantle the teachings and lessons he has been given and ingrained into by the League. They may be a dysfunctional family, but they're functional enough to at least actively help deprogram all of the League's teachings that have been ingrained in Damian throughout his childhood.
Can't say the same for Danny.
Lets say Fentons here don't know his background -- and even if they do, the results may just stay the same if they play their cards wrong, -- Danny's now just been thrown into the deep end of a pool and is essentially being told sink or swim. Regardless of how he got there -- undercover, faked death, etc -- he has no proper support. He knows the League is meant to be secret, he's not gonna speak on it for various reasons. Whether it be some still lingering loyalty, fear of harm, or whatever. Whatever the reason is, he does not have a proper support system in the Fentons, no matter how nice they are. They can only tackle the surface level stuff and whatever Danny allows them to see -- if Danny ever lets them see it at all. For what do assassins do when they don't want to be caught? They hide. Sometimes in plain sight.
"But Jazz--" Jazz is a child. She is 2 years older than Danyal and no better at giving him a proper support system than the two adult Fenton parents, even with parentification. We don't know when she got into psychology or how long she'd been studying it by the time Danny's 14. We just know she's really into it. Even then, Jazz is not a licensed or reliable therapist, or even an experienced or implied good therapist, and should not be used as one either. It's a disservice to her character to reduce her down to 'supporting female emotional crutch'. Besides, therapy only works on people who want to get better. Danny, who'd be hiding who he really is, has very little incentive to want to, or to even think something is wrong with his way of thinking, even with exposure to the outside world.
When people's beliefs are outright challenged, they tend to double down on them, and Jazz canonically has a habit of psychoanalyzing her family and declaring what she thinks is the problem -- regardless of whether or not she's right about it. Jazz would get into psychology, try and psychoanalyze Danny, and all it would do is cause him to clam up, shut into himself further, and throw up even more walls so that she can't figure out that he has been lying this whole time. It would do more harm than good, and would actively hinder any progress he'd make in trying to open up to them. Roads and good intentions and all that.
That being said, I think Danny's development and dismantling of the League's teachings would be slower than Damian's. Much slower. Because he would be the one having to pick apart everything and figure out what is right, what is wrong, what he wants to keep, and what he wants to toss. Everything he unlearns would be stuff he has to unlearn himself. If he even gets to that point at all -- depending on his experiences, he very well could not change at all, or change very little. The League acts as a purge for humanity, meant to reign in their hubris and retain balance, they just also happen to be assassins for hire. Danny's time spent in Amity Park could as well strengthen his belief in their teachings just as much as it could weaken it, especially if it goes as canon and he gets bullied.
Regardless, being tossed to a civilian family as someone who is very much not a civilian, without any support, would be actively detrimental to Danny's overall mental health and development. Especially to strangers like the Fentons. Damian was closed off and standoffish even with blood family, and it took him time to open up to them -- Danny, with the Fentons, would be even more so. He doesn't know them, he doesn't trust them, he has no rhyme or reason to open up to them, and since the Fentons don't actually know him, they can't help him the way he needs. Once "Danny Fenton" is made, he has even less reason to open up. So long as Danyal allows it, they will only ever know Danny, and they'll never know Danyal.
TL:DR the Fentons aren't the better family option just because they're civilians, and actually that makes them the worser option between the two because they can't give Danny the proper support he needs. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Just got hit real hard by a drive-by idea where Flashpoint doesn't happen and Dick just takes a few months off to chill (read: Donna shows up and drags him off to have adventures now that Bruce is back in town and everything seems status quo again)
And when he comes back it initially looks like that set up so many fandom fics have where Tim has been isolating himself / been left to his own means and only works with the others out of politeness.
And the moment Dick clocks that that's what the others think is happening, he can straight up feel the grey hairs trying to show up, because while he had phone calls with Tim (who seemed to be coping better with everything that went wrong in his life) and Damian (with whom Dick did not talk about anyone outside of Damian and, occasionally, Bruce, which was already hard enough on Dick without bringing the others in) he had also thought that things had sort of started settling back into what Dick used to think as normal before Bruce "died" on them.
Except Damian and Jason don't know how to pick up on that sort of thing, Cass is still doing her Hong Kong / Journey of Self Discovery Thing as far as anyone seems to know / Bruce is CLEARLY (to Dick and Alfred and absolutely no one else) still communicating with Tim because he's on an even keel but also he must have done something to piss off Tim because Tim is doing the Politely Co-Workers Thing at Bruce (with Alfred's approval and support so Bruce must have fucked up REAL BAD) and it's stressing Bruce out so much that Dick can practically see the tension lines heading to a breaking point in the man why is no one else seeing the tension lines.
Plus Barbara and Dick were still on not-so-great terms when Dick split from Gotham, so he's not had much luck talking to her and some desire to call her but not enough to actually call her a lot, just some, which hasn't made Babs less pissed at him, so he's not getting information on that side and of course if Barbara is pissed at him and Tim is pissed at Bruce and Dick wasn't around for Tim to bitch about Bruce in person (and Tim would NEVER on a phone line, not even a secure one) then Dick is 1000% sure that Tim and Barbara have been having a shared and supportive bitch fest for however many weeks / months Dick was away that has just solidified them in a block of their own.
All of which means that Dick's little brother has been left unbothered, unnoogied and unsupervised for all the time Dick was away and like, sure, some people would think Dick would feel horrible for that and want to octopus-grab him and cuddle him but those people would be wrong because Dick is now honestly terrified to find out WHAT Tim has been up to without supervision and limits.
Between YJ, his civilian friends, his other friends in the superhero community, whatever new people Tim for sure rustled up, the lack of supervision on who Tim teams up with and for what, all the villain-frenemies he might have decided it was worth cooperating with, Tim being pissed at Bruce enough to keep a physical distance if not a communication distance...
And then, just as it is hitting Dick that, of course just keeping track on the phone was a bad idea to begin with why did he think that was a good idea and that what with Barbara and Tim in agreement and both Tim and Barbara at odds with Bruce and Alfred firmly entrenched in his usual If-Tim-Is-Handling-Master-Bruce-I-Will-Not-Hear-A-Thing-Against-The-Lad british politeness artillery position, this means that no one who would not enable him in the Wrong And Not Dick Approved Ways has been actually keeping as close track of Tim as he should have been kept track of (because *will smith hands memes* TIM!) ...
... Red Robin swings by, Azrael in tow, clearly going after Lynx.
And it's not that new Azrael that they had, which was still an Azrael but wasn't the Worst of the Azraels.
It's fucking Jean Paul Valley, who is supposed to be dead and clearly did not have the goddamn grace to decide to stay dead.
Dick, internally while outwardly having a BSOD moment: Tim. Tim you had just told Dick you were going to check out a couple of leads tonight. Tim why are you swinging from rooftops with JPV in tow. Tim why is JPV ALIVE. Why did you NOT tell Dick about it, TIM. TIM.
do y'all think Macaque is falling back into the role that Azure and the others put on him by remaining on the outskirts of the group because he thinks his input/presence is unwanted (and yeah his presence isn't really wanted by MK and the others BUT. something about the fact Macaque is placing himself at the edge of the group, the edge that Azure and the others pushed him to, doesn't really sit well)