#it was pretty interesting imo

[starry-bi-sky]

i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.

He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.

And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.

And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.

Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.

Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."

There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.

It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.

Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.

At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.

"Do you like to do anything?"

Nothing. Just silence.

Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.

Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.

Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.

And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.

He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.

Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.

So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.

"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"

"Don't."

He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.

Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"

"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."

It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"

The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."

Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."

And they fall back into silence.

Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."

He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.

(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)

At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.

Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.

("Tucker told me once--") ("Tucker?") ("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")

(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)

(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)

It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."

The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."

The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.

When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.

Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.

"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."

When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.

Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.

[turtleblogatlast]

Small but significant character moments that I actually really adore are from both the times we see the boys as tots. There is a reoccurrence that happens in both of them that I find so incredibly interesting.

For the turtle tot short, Splinter leaves the boys with weapons. In the short, Raph is the one who suggests they do “what Lou Jitsu would do” and Leo is the one who takes point when Splinter comes back to reprimand them. Leo, in taking point, is the one to defend them and get Splinter off their tails.

And then, in the flashback regarding the Kuroi Yōroi helmet, Raph is the one who grabs and throws “Skully” as a way to replace their missing ball which breaks it into pieces, but Leo is the one who speaks for the group and rushes into action to fix the teapot.

I love this for multiple reasons, but the biggest are how it shows that Raph has always been inclined toward the bold and fun and making the plans to include his brothers in what he loves and believes they’d love, whereas Leo has always been inclined to be the “Face” of the group and shoulder the attention even if it’s potentially negative all while coming up with on the spot attempts to fix the situation.

[martinijordan]

He will wait until / you give yourself to him. x

INPRNT

[callisteios]

I have a new uquiz for you, go on a pilgrimage with me. discover who you are.

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine looking at a character whose entire premise is that in every stage of his life, he's made every version of himself into someone that inspires people to such a degree that EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF HIM has people wanting to literally follow in his footsteps in some way or another.....

And coming to the conclusion that like.....the most important things about him are the sum of all his trappings. His entirely homemade developed from scratch could not exist if not for what he already was and brought with him BEFORE crafting this newest version of himself trappings, with his greatest trait throughout all of it being his adaptability; his ability and willingness to roll with the punches and not try to simply weather any opposition or changes to his life but instead reshape himself as needed to better fit INTO whatever new shape his life and the world around him takes. All while managing to carry the most innate, fundamental and necessary aspects of himself from one version to the next. Thus every single version of himself is different but simultaneously every single version of himself is also undeniably the same person.

The strength of this character, to me, will always be that he can be so many versions of himself, he can become so many things, all without ever actually losing or discarding any of the aspects of himself he considers most essential, the things he's not willing to lose or give up just to keep going. Finding that road not taken by most, usually because most never even think to look for it as an option. But one that he's always able to find because the one trick he's mastered in his tumultuous life is threading that needle of not just digging in his heels in an unproductive way but rather being selective about when and where he makes a stand and decides "this is not a thing I'm willing to compromise about" but here are places and ways I can and will change and evolve and adapt in order to make it possible for me to hold onto these parts and keep them as they are.

And that's why its always so mind-boggling to me that so many writers can't seem to think of anything else to do with Dick Grayson other than invent some new reason for him to just....not be that person, or to like just take the character whose most basic fundamental trait he's NOT about to compromise on is willingly giving up his spot in the driver's seat of his own life.....and make him just a passenger in his own life and stories.

Dick Grayson at age nine....at age nineteen...at age twenty nine....the one core thread running through all versions of him is the only way he's standing back and letting you call the shots for him or putting him on the sidelines in some way is over his dead body.

HOW he goes about that, what that looks like, who he becomes and what aspects of himself he plays up at some times and what traits he lets fall by the wayside at other times when they offer less in service to his primary goal here....that changes constantly. He changes constantly.

But those changes are almost always (or at least they used to be/should be IN MY OPINION) made with the intention of keeping certain things about him or his life as consistent as possible.

That's the duality of Dick Grayson that I'm here for. The inherent contradiction of him that COULD allow for endless conflict and breaking new narrative ground in all sorts of ways if mined properly:

His eternal willingness to compromise....but only ever in pursuit of doubling down on the ways he's not willing to compromise.

Forever walking that tightrope in ways that only a kid born and raised in a circus could ever hope to.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[petr1kov]

one reason why i think hypnos will end up being more relevant to the story than we might initially assume in hades 2 is because melinoë is known as the goddess of both ghosts and nightmares. we see her connections with ghosts quite plainly already, with how they even implemented her helping to guide lost souls as a game feature, but we haven't seen much of the nightmare part of her yet, and i think it stands to reason that a goddess connected with dreams and illusions should be closely aligned with the god of sleep

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[mako-mahko]

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned (and if someone has please direct me to it) is that there is a clear visual representation of the inaccessibility of the council room in episode one.

When Salo gets crushed under the rubble after the explosion, he becomes wheelchair-bound and loses the function in his legs. His first scene after this is when he enters the council room, and in order to get to the center of it, he has to go down two sets of steps in his wheelchair. The camera focuses on these shots, and I think it's a really interesting way to portray that inaccessibility, especially since a person with a physical disability played such a large role in the previous season. Not only did the writing in season one support the fact that the council was inaccessible, but this cements the fact that without Jayce, a council member willing to bring those without access to the other side of the table, Viktor wouldn't have had any possible chance of affecting change.

It stood out to me on my first watch because I thought it was a really solid visual way of showing that the council isn't as inclusive or fair as they portray themselves as being, and that in order to affect change, the people that don't have direct access to the council have to put themselves in peril in order to get there. No one on the council was physically disabled prior to the explosion, and it is only after they have been brought down to the level of those they preside over that their inaccessibility becomes an issue for them. That moment is a sound reinforcement of that inaccessibility, and I found it so cool that they decided to include it.

[kindaorangey]

hate hate haaaate marius and in the books it's infinitely more fucked up that he turns armand when he does (aged 17) and then the cunt "dies" so armand never really gets the chance to grow up or grow out of what marius asked of him before he's met with immeasurable grief BUT one thing that's really interesting about the show timeline is that there's an additional ten years before marius turns armand and there's SO MUCH that could happen in those ten years in terms of armand deciding whether or not he wants to stay with marius (and, then, why he does choose to stay) and actually having the wherewithal to make that decision.

[sacchiri]

Hellsing 2002 calendar illustration.

Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen

A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death

[cephalofrog]

hades 2 spoilers below the cut. rambling about a post-final boss piece of dialogue

this is such an interesting line and it makes mel's character SO good to me

like. her entire life was marked by the tragedy that took place when she was too young to remember, and from the moment it happened it was expected that she would be fully dedicated to making it right, because that was her family that was taken. that was the mother and father and brother that, if they'd had the chance to raise her, she would love more than the world itself. she should want them back more than anything.

but, the thing is? she has other love. she has hecate and the other people in the crossroads. she can't miss the love that she didn't have from her family because it never happened - and yet, her entire life from the moment chronos took them, she was expected to be so angry and stricken with grief over it that she would be willing to dedicate her entire life to killing him.

because that's what she should be doing with all of that anger and loss - it should fuel her to kill chronos. that's her goal. that's what she has been training for her entire life.

mel is a good person - she does want her family back. she meets her father for the first time and it's a deeply emotional moment for her. it's important to note that she doesn't actually mean what she says here. but she's been expected to be motivated by loving them so much that ever expressing that she doesn't actually love them as much as she's supposed to has never been an option. nemesis tells her that she isn't fully motivated by loving them in order to hurt her - and it hurts her because it's true (at least to a degree that she finds unacceptable within herself).

and when she gets that crucial step closer to achieving her goal - death to chronos, and here he is, about to die - he asks her to hypothetically pick between not achieving that goal, and potentially doing harm to the family that she is meant to love than anything...

and the motivation to kill him, the thing that has been drilled into her over and over, the first line that you hear her speak when you start the game - that is what wins.

[m0ggers]

One Oni-Chan to rule them all and in the darkness bind them

the Kusōzu brothers because I have no fucking chill:

Choso: Walking Anxiety. Blood Manipulation. Eso: The Rizzler. Blood/Explosions. Kechizu: Golden Retriever. Hemophilia. Noranso: The Eeyore. Purification. Seioso: The Artist. Sensory Destruction. Lanso: Nature Nut. Freaky Shikigami. Sanso: Envelope Pusher. Dismemberment (you and him). Kosso: The Chill Friendly One. Bone Weapons. Shoso: The Gentle One. Disintegration.

(eso and kechizu got new faces bc 1. they died but came back so i wanted to nod to that 2. i'd like to have more than what amounts to 1.5 eps of content accessible to me if i ever want to do more edits 3. part of the "why does only choso get to be hot??? [sexualizes your otoutous]" bit)

[taralen]

I love that Spamton is simultaneously:

Funny

Scary

Hideous

Handsome

Tiny

Gigantic

Angelic

Demonic

Villain

Anti-Hero

Piece of @#$%

Lovable Weirdo

Disgusting

Sexy

Silly

Angsty

Manic

Depressed

Chubby

Thin

Buff

Dirty

Clean

Ball-jointed

No jointed

Badass

Loser

WINRAR

He's like the perfect poster boy. He fits into so many categories, and yet, most of them fit him anyway. Want an ad for something horrific? SPAMTON G. SPAMTON. Need a model for the latest lingerie? SPAMTON G. SPAMTON. Looking to advertise good dental care? SPAMTON G. SPAMTON. Need a scapegoat for all the city's problems? SPAMTON G. SPAMT—

[solargeist]

What you said about Grian keeping his modesty even after leaving the Watchers.... Hmmmm.... Grian in Hijab.... Yes that's the shit...

i think hijabs are just for women ! i'm unsure what the male equivalent is

But ! The Watchers i write are inspired by Catholicism, his mum is a nun who veils. This is also just for women, but if he wereeee to veil then it'd be something like that--i mean not the full extent of a nun, but there are head scarves that allow hair and neck to be shown

headscarves are very pretty regardless tho <3

[princesscallyie]

Here's Kingsley's redesign. The unexpected glow up!

Kingsley's whole arc is that his desire for justice and to protect everyone, awakens a rage within him. He also develops a kinda twisted sense of morality as time goes by. As he starts to believe the end justifies the means, and the only way to get the upper hand is to play the same game their enemies are playing. Whatever the costs. As mentioned in the plot synopsis, Kingsley is angry, mostly at himself for being so weak. He feels like he's not meant to lead if he doesn't have the strength to protect everyone. He must become stronger to defeat the YBA and all evil. This leads to him finding and injecting himself with Jojo's Chemical X serum.

This serum is unstable as it's been sitting dormant for so long, and would have killed him if Hank and the rest of the Technology Department didn't band together to save him. Though his case is way more complicated than they can handle, so Kingsley is under the care of Blossom and the VL's generous benefactor, Dexter. Kingsley wears Dexter's invention, the Vita-Pack, to track his vitals and forces him into a "Cool-Down Cycle" if he happens to approach his limit, as limit breaking could be catastrophic for him. He can reach Limit Break by overexerting himself or by being consume with an intense rage, which he is prone to under the serum. Being called weak is a big trigger for him.

He uses a bo staff he designed himself after being trained by Taiyang and Xiang. His super enhanced muscle memory allowed him to learn to fight quicker than normal, though he still prefers to use his mind to gain the upper hand.