"Stillborn? No, still born" Danyal au -- VLAD MASTERS THE BITCH HIMSELF
*Points at Vlad* THIS MFER GOT SOME TEEFS TO HIM. !! Okay okay, Vlad Masters in the stillborn au is different compared to most of my other aus in the fact that I am far more heavily leaning into his original ambitions of wanting a family and being desperately lonely. Because you know what wanting a family implies? Wanting to be a parent.
Fucked up father figure that could've been Vlad. Complicated love-hate relationship between the only two halfas in existence.
Danny hates Vlad, but he hates even more that he's genuinely considered his offers of mentorship. Vlad is the only halfa around, and they both have fire cores. Danny has these powers he doesn't understand, can barely comprehend some days, and can't control. But Vlad does. Vlad can. And Vlad wants to help him. He's the only other person who can get close whenever Danny runs too hot. Whenever his igneous hair cracks, splits, and spits back out into magma and his friends can't get close, Vlad can.
His hair is made of magma, which runs so hot that people need specialized suits in order to get near it. He physically cannot get close to the living as a ghost unless he's calm enough for his hair to cool into igneous rock. Which isn't as often as he would like. And sometimes he's too hot for other ghosts to get near unless they have fire cores -- which Vlad has.
There have been many times when Danny's having a meltdown (literally) and gone somewhere to be alone, to let his anger and hurt and loneliness overflow and spill out, that when he's come back to, Vlad's right there with him as an anchor. It's desperately frustrating, it's the only time they can get along. They don't say anything, Danny just turns and clings onto the only person he can touch as a ghost.
Its not fair. Vlad wants to kill his foster dad, and Danny can't let him do that. But he wants to be trained by the man, he wants his help and wants what he can offer. But Vlad can't step away from his revenge long enough to let him. It's just not fair. He thinks for a moment that maybe it could work, and then Vlad does something to remind him that no, it can't.
Vlad Masters sees too much of himself in Daniel Brown -- from the way he holds himself, to the defenses he puts up, his quiet anger that builds and builds and builds until it explodes. That simmers beneath his skin. All the way down to the fact that they have matching cores. This boy is cut from the same cloth as him, and by god does he want to help him. He's always wanted to be a father, and Daniel Brown is too much like him for him to ignore. He genuinely, truly cares about Danny and his wellbeing.
He wants to help him, child just let him help you. Let him kill your foster dad so he can adopt you himself and help with these powers that terrify and intrigue you -- he knows what that's like to have something that you can't control, to have a heat that you can't cool down from. "We're in the same boat you and I, let him help you please."
But his methods are all wrong, and Danny is too much like him -- stubbornness and all -- for him to agree when they oppose each other so greatly. But again, Danny is much like him -- which means that Vlad is equally stubborn, and in every single one of their fights he's parental. He's annoyingly parental. He drops his interest in Maddie to focus his efforts in trying to coax Danny onto his side. It's like trying to get a traumatized cat to trust you, and on some levels it works. It's like he makes some progress, and then moves too quickly and the cat immediately runs off and you have to start back from square one.
TL:DR; Vlad and Danny both want to find family in each other but they're too different to get along and ultimately they are doomed by the narrative to be at constant odds with one another unless one of them is changes, and it doesn't matter who.
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What's often interesting to me, is Dream spells it out in the finale and people often still don't get it, so I thought it'd be interesting to see what he was actually referencing here. To see where it all started.
[24:27] Tommy: “That first war, me and Tubbo versus you–how it should have ended–why’d you take it?”
Dream: “Tommy, you ambushed me and killed me. You stole all my shit! You tried ambushing me in a little cave–you don’t remember that? I feel like you just–your memory is just–gone.”
So here is the ambush Dream is talking about, where Sapnap and Tommy basically decide to just kill Dream and then kept all of his shit. [Death 1]
He gets killed again when he tries to take back his stuff. [Death 2]
Tommy kills him for fun right after he respawns with nothing. [Death 3]
Then after Dream gets his stuff back (via our boy Punz) and he takes the discs to get Tommy to stop, he gives Tommy back his items. But unsatisfied, Tommy goes after Dream, gets one of his discs back and hides it in the little cave. Dream tries to find it, while Sapnap and Tommy try to stop him. They are unsuccessful until, Tubbo brings them axes and they sneak up and corner Dream in the little cave, ambushing and killing him. Once again, taking all of his shit, (including, yes, the other disc.) [Death 4]
[27:58] Tommy: “Think about that, we could’ve been friends but no because you have to figure out the reason you have to get–”
Dream: “Yeah we could’ve but you–you ruined the chance of that long ago. It was you.”
Tommy: “I ruined it?”
Dream: “You ruined it!”
And I don’t think it’s unfair for Dream to say that in the finale, because for Dream it’s this stream early on, these moments that started it all. It’s these instances of of Dream getting murdered and robbed and made fun of over and over. Him, trying to not just make peace for everyone, but also reclaim respect and peace for himself. It’s Tommy chasing after Dream when he has nothing to kill him and rub it in his face. It’s Dream, even after all of that, giving back their items. It’s these instances of violence taken too far to the point they clearly pissed Dream off and didn’t care or follow his very simple request of just giving an apology and his belongings back that shape my distaste for Tommy and sympathy for Dream. It’s these moments that I feel like are gone from Tommy’s and our memory that highlight a different story.
[28:34] Dream: “Yeah, we could have been friends if you weren’t a little shit.”
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TWO (2!!!) MOMENTS WHEN THEY ALMOST KISSED IN A SINGLE EPISODE. As honorable J/C veteran I approve the intensitivity and quality of staring here btw... So YEAH, the writers DID their homework.
Also. I'm unwell. I'm literally so SICK. Just LOOK at them. The getting closer to his face. The CLOSED FOR KISS EYES OF MIRROR CHAKOTAY. The hand on his face. The hand on his CHEST. The softly running eyes. The hard breathing when he thinks about years alone.
Also the amazing job of actors, bc I was already sobbing when they saw each other and then I heard the soft broken voice of Beltran and just EXPLODED, I SWEAR-
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btw looked through my botw textdump yesterday using the keywords "kill" "killed" and "eliminated" and there's no actual evidence link kills yiga clan members besides master kohga, and. well. he fell down a hole onscreen
like you can think what you want about whether it's ok, i'd argue it would still be self defense if he did and would therefore be reasonable.
however do i like the idea of botw link specifically killing people? no. it contradicts how i see him as a character. he's not out to get them, he's there to fuck around and find out like he is with all enemies. so i'm biased. but i have seen multiple people spreading this claim and it pisses me off. citationless behavior
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