#intelligence shows in different ways

[curiousmagpie]

I, personally, am a big fan of the idea that Danny is actually really smart, it’s just that school doesn’t work with him. Whether that be because of constant ghost attacks, him playing down his intelligence, ADHD problems, etc., it doesn’t matter.

I like most stuff where Danny is a tech genius, or where he’s essentially a ghost culture expert with several notebooks on the topic, or a historian nerd, or *something*. I like all of those, but there’s one that I really, really love that I don’t think I’ve properly seen anywhere. It’s hard to explain so I’m gonna give an example that’s been stuck in my head.

One night, a mere few weeks after the accident, Danny’s laying in his bed, still debating if he’s human or not anymore, still trying to figure out exactly what’s happened to him. Due to the pestering of Sam and Tucker, he knows his heart rate is in the 30’s, well below what’s needed for adequate oxygen perfusion, his internal temperature is 33 degrees Celsius, where he should be suffering from hypothermia, although his skin appears to be warmer for some reason. Point is, Danny is wondering how deep his changes go, and he decides to test his DNA. Additionally, Danny being a truly brilliant dumbass, decides to test his parents DNA as well, doing a basic paternity test, which he does get:

Danny scowled as he looked at the clock above the doorway. He should be able to get the necessary equipment and materials from the lab, but there was one thing missing if he wanted this to be a proper test, which was technically in the lab but would be out of reach for the next two days if he didn’t get it now.

Bouncing on his toes, shaking himself a bit, Danny took a deep breath as he shoved his nervousness down and put on his best, ‘just doing my job ma’am’ face.

“Hey mom?” Danny called down the stairs, taking deliberately heavy footsteps.

“Yes honey?” Maddie said, voice echoing slightly up the stairwell. This was it, this was the moment of truth! Please don’t question it.

“Can I have a few vials of yours and dads blood?” He said, now standing at the doorway to the lab.

Maddie paused in her soldering work, head pulling up and staring straight forward for a moment. And then her head turned towards Danny with the most bewildered face he had ever seen on her.

“What?” Shit, she questioned it! Quick, random bullshit go!

“Uhhh, school said they wanted us to do a paternit- I mean uh, an ancestral dna test? You know, to introduce us to how evolution works?” That’s the best you can come up with?! Does that even make sense? Note to self, figure out if that makes sense.

While Danny was distracting himself with questions on if his made up excuse even fit together with his syllabus, or if DNA tests were even a good way to demonstrate evolution, Maddie thankfully understood exactly what he was talking about (She understood nothing).

“Oh, why didn’t you say so honey!” She said, standing up and spinning to face her son, “Why, I remember when I first started wondering if I was adopted!”

What.

“Oh, I tired everything to get blood samples directly from the source,” She said, giving Danny a hug, “They could have been putting samples of my real parent’s hair in the hairbrushes after all. Jazz went through a similar phase too, though she did look oddly disappointed about the results.” She was silent for a moment after that, tilting her head and letting Danny stew in baffled thought.

After two seconds too much of introspection, Maddie gave her son one last squeeze and peck on the cheek, before she sprang up and over to a strangely bare part of lab wall.

Pressing a button and flicking a hidden switch or two, a number panel came out of the wall. Maddie called out over her shoulder as quickly typed in a ridiculously number of digits in.

“Now, which sample do you want?” She said, snapping Danny out of his trance as a seam appeared and frigid air hissed out between the gaps.

“What?” Danny said, still processing, not quite understanding what she meant by that.

“Which blood sample do you want? For that ‘school project’ of yours.” She said, fingers catching on a ridge and pulling it open to reveal two levels full of vials, one labeled Maddie and the other labeled Jack, with dates and times on each vial.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Okay, I might have gotten carried away there. Man, I really need to write more often, that was coming so easily!

Anyway, with the blood samples, he waits until his parents and Jazz are gone and collects own blood sample, following all the correct procedures that he searched up, although ignoring the ones that don’t apply to him because he’s not taking someone else’s blood. He also searched up how DNA tests work and decided to do some extra testing, such as centrifuges, which come up weird due to parts of his blood going intangible which results in his plasma not fully separating, no matter how much he spins it.

Anyway, using the materials from the lab and a basic understanding of how a dna test works, he creates a homemade dna tester.

(You can skip this if you want, it’s unimportant but I’m just going over how electrophoresis dna testers work. (Which is what Danny is doing here))

Essentially, everyone gets half their chromosomes from their parents. There’s stuff that alter the chromosomes you get, like chromosomes crossing over and exchanging bits and pieces, but that isn’t to important here. The basic is, you have half your moms dna, and half your dads dna. Now, something important to note, is that chromosomes all come in varying sizes, you can see this just by searching it up, an X chromosome is much bigger than a Y chromosome, which is on the 23rd chromosomal pair, and say, chromosome pair 1 can be bigger than chromosome pair 9. There’s a lot of variation however, I’d recommend looking at an image for an idea what I’m talking about. Regardless, this size thing is important for how paternity tests work. Essentially, they get a sample that has dna in it, remove everything except that dna and a solution of water or something (i dunno) to keep it in, and then they get this gel thing and put the sample on one side of it and do something called electrophoresis, where an electric current goes through the stuff, and the dna move towards the positive electrode. Basically, this gel has a sort of fibre mesh through out it, and smaller dna chromosomes move towards the positive electrode faster than the larger ones. This means that they get separated really effectively, forming obvious lines. In two tests done this way on different people, a few lines will get the same distance in the same amount of time, but not all of them. Now, if those two people had a child, and then had the same test done, then the results would look like the child just saw the lines of the previous two and just picked and choose randomly, because all of Danny’s results should match up with either his moms, or his dads.

(Dna test explanation ends here, you can relax)

Now, while danny does this, Maddie’s and Jack’s fin normal, and then he does his own. And the previously mentioned problem occurs, in that some of his dna goes intangible, which ruins his results and makes a complete mess of the entire thing, and now he knows the accident has changed his very dna (which we know from the tv show intro!), and that his very essence has been changed. Now he’s left wondering if he can even be regarded as human or ghost anymore, because ghosts don’t have dna, but he does? And his dna is different now, would it even match the normal human genome? Is he less human than monkeys are now? He needs to do more tests to find out…

Alright, now we’re past the example. What was the thing that stuck out about Danny here? Was it that he doesn’t plan the most basic of shit out? Was it his parents keeping preserved samples of their own blood? Or was it the fact that Danny researched, figured out how to, and then built his own DNA tester from scratch? I’d say all three options personally, but the topic of this one is the last option.

Danny was being crazy smart there. He had a problem, figured a solution, went about getting the materials in the stupidest possible way, absorbed knowledge, did separate tests to satisfy his curiosity, and solved his problem. Although now he has new ones.

I might be able to do something similar if I had, like, three weeks to do it or something, but Danny was easily able to think of equivalents that he could find in the lab, or at least things that are close enough that he could substitute them, and he did it quickly and easily, in like, a day. That’s really really smart to me.

All together, this, this right here, is the kind of intelligence I really like being written about. Intelligence that is shown, not told.

Wow this got away from me. Whoops.

[the-witchhunter]

DP x DC ramble: Types of power

Now, in this particular fandom, there’s a tendency to make an OP Danny

That’s a neutral statement, a lot of people just happen to like and post OP Danny

For the most part, not my taste but it can be fun in some contexts, but overpowered Danny isn’t my default

Now, Danny is physically strong. His abilities are combat focused and he can hold his own in a fight. He probably has a little less physical strength than you’d think since he uses gravity nullification to lift heavy things, but it’s impressive regardless. He has a goodly variety of offensive and defensive abilities that make him formidable is a fight

But the strongest characters in DC aren’t necessarily strong in that way

Superman is physically very strong, incredibly powerful, but he’s still nowhere near the level of the actual strongest characters, because their power is a very different type

Like I’m talking reality manipulation, omniscience, abilities that involve power over people’s very souls (and a ghost is a human soul) and where they end up. Psychopomps and some much more. I’m talking about beings that can mold the flesh of humans to remove something like a cancer and repair damage with barely a thought

And they’re mainly held in check by rules, mostly just being polite, sometimes Divine laws

This is a type of power Danny is not equipped to handle

It’s a very different game than Danny is playing. He can physically throw down, he might have an army if it’s Ghost King AU, but this is “can kill you with a literal snap and the snap is just for dramatic effect” territory

Danny is playing high school American football, these characters are playing Professional soccer aka what every other country calls football

It’s a very different game, and if he’s trying to play with them, he’s going to struggle

And that’s fine, he can still be OP and not be playing on the same field as Lucifer, or the Spectre, or various demon lords and so on, because it’s a different kind of power

But just arbitrarily saying he’s more powerful really undersells why they are powerful. Being able to punch good is not the same as a character that can just send him to the afterlife. Someone being able to reshape Danny’s body at their will isn’t going to be concerned about his ecto blasts

A Tuna is a big fish, but the ocean is VAST and DEEP

All this to say you’d have to drastically alter Danny’s actual power set to make him able to compete, otherwise you’re just de-powering the actual strongest characters, which is less impressive since it missed the point of WHY they were strong

Just because you can solve a sheet of math problems doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to ace a three page essay on the poetry of Keats

This has been my thoughts on the matter, be sure to grab a souvenir from the gift shop

Also just going to sneak this in:

Danny should probably be more concerned about magic users

Magic clearly can affect him, just look at the Freak Show incident from season one, that’s not even getting into the reality gauntlet. Now add in the fact that there’s a variety of magic items/artifacts in DC and a slew other of magic uses and occultists that can summon and bind ghosts, spirits, and demons to do their bidding

Danny is firmly in the category of beings that magic specifically deals with, he should probably be a bit more concerned about magic users

[ofswordsandpens]

I'm sincerely very happy for anyone who is enjoying the show but every time I see takes that the show has improved the book characterizations or that the book characters are underdeveloped in comparison to the show...

[factsilike]

Nie Huaisang is the definition and excellent representation of weaponized incompetence, in a way.

Just not in the way you'd expect.

[mischiefbuckley]

now I’ve stop crying and saw the clip that ABC posted about the bodycams… yes yes yes give me back my army medic Eddie I love to see it 🙂‍↕️🫶🏻

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Love how Vox and Velvette seem to alternate between portraying themselves as the ‘head’ of their little trio, with Velvette referring to herself as “the backbone of the Vees” and Vox plastering his logo over everything and vehemently denying Alastor's insinuation that he couldn't go on without the other two.

And meanwhile, like… Hells entire cinematic industry seems to mostly centre around porn.

Like, I'm sure there are other films out there (Blitzø has apparently seen Shrek) but the “cinephiles” are all off watching “award winning demon bukkake shows”. And I'd be very surprised if the internet porn industry wasn't also pretty big.

Outside the main three Vees, Angel Dust appears to be the figure most associated with their brand. Not any of Velvette's models or Vox's stars. And posters of Angel appear in the Lust Ring in Ozzies, implying that Val's influence extends outside Pride, something that doesn't seem to be the case for the other Vees.

And the whole reason Vox had to hire Sir Pentious to spy on the hotel is because Val hires so many people that all the randos on the street who might be looking for a quick buck were already working for him. Given how sex-obsessed the culture is generally (and considering that for every pornstar Val hires, he's also going to need several camera people, sound people, set designers, editors, etc.) Val could easily qualify as the biggest employer in Pride.

And if he owns even a fraction of those souls, he'd probably be one of the most powerful Overlords with or without the other two backing him up.

And that's not even getting into the age thing!

All the Media Demons seem to be loosely associated with the era when their chosen form of media got popular.

Vel is the social media demon, and one of the youngest Overlords, seeming to have died in the '10s. Vox is the TV demon and supposedly died in the 1950s. Alastor is the Radio Demon and died in the 1930s.

Photographic porn first became a big thing in the late 1800s. Val's style of dress to me loosely indicates 1910s or 1920s. If we're sticking with the established pattern then Valentino could well be older than Alastor.

What I'm saying is: the reason Valentino seems so much less concerned with the image and branding of the Vees compared to the other two might not just be him being dumb and impulsive.

From his perspective, the whole Vee thing might just be something his boyfriend and best friend are invested in, that he just kinda puts up with (and, heck, probably finances) because it makes them happy and gets him out of Overlord meetings.

Out of the three of them, Val may actually be the one who would be most able to go it alone, and the one who is the main source of their power. Possibly the only reason Vox and Vel even get to argue over who is the top dog in the group is because the actual top dog is too busy with his real business to give much of a shit about their fun side project.

[epiphainie]

.

[shivasdarknight]

one of the things that gets me about fanon lens - especially when you entrench yourself so much in a fan version of a character - is how a character can just slowly be stripped of what they are and who they are because of the self referential nature of fanworks (which isn't inherently bad, don't misunderstand; neglected characters can have new life breathed into them)

which is a long way of getting to: where did people get the idea that estinien's not one to talk, or is bad at effectively talking? I don't mean selectively mute hcs, i mean just very curt. like he's not as flowery as many of the scions or even compared to aymeric, but he's still dramatic and talks a lot. he's precise when he needs to be and extremely blunt, but just because of that doesn't mean he won't ramble

like his whole tangent about where he is today because of the wol right before the Dead Ends in Ultima Thule. his chattiness seems to fluctuate with how comfortable he is with someone, so i'm not really sure where "estinien's bad with words" came from?

he's no politician, but he's good at saying what needs to be said and saying it in a way that matters. yes, there is the whole aymeric thing but avoiding a difficult conversation rooted in guilt isn't the same as being bad at talking. he clearly knows how to get to people - especially to antagonize them into action (see: tiamat, azdaja) - so where did this come from?

[fromtheseventhhell]

Sometimes I see people misinterpreting Arya's character and honestly, all it does is make me appreciate her that much more. George could've easily written her into as a basic archetype and instead, he gave us one of the most complex and well-developed characters in the series and I'm forever grateful for that 🫶🏾

[mariocki]

Honor Blackman guest stars as art expert Syd Lewis in Saber of London: Deep in the Heart of Chelsea (1.3, NBC, 1957)

[sysig]

Getting up to trouble is his speciality (Patreon)

[ceruleanfuckup]

So I had a fantastic date tonight.

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Guizhong (don't mind me re-dropping this with the fixed ones, shh)

[buck-yyyy]

by far my weirdest era was that one summer where i spent hours and hours messaging conservative christians on pinterest to gain an understand of why they believed what they did, how religion tied into that, etc etc

i’ll never forget, one girl messaged me back a few months later and asked me to fill out a google form on abortion for her school project because she wanted a diverse data set 😭

[friendofthecrows]

Wish I had more of that stereotypical "refined genius psychopath mystery villain" vibes and less "dysfunctional no sleep cycle can't tell when/if they have emotions traumatized mess doesn't feel like a human paranoid future true crime psychopath" vibes. So that was word salad. Moving on.

[minionwater]

sallies _:(´ཀ`」 ∠):_