#it's because of the themes probably

[egophiliac]

did this as a quick scribble at like 1 AM last night and...immediately lost all motivation to ever clean it up. ( ᐛ ) but I had to draw my son being the fanciest little flower boy who ever threw petals down an aisle. oh my god.

[stil-lindigo]

motherhood.

[shittysawtraps]

getting served with divorce papers mid-saw trap and there’s an awkward pause before the trap turns off and jigsaw comes back over the intercom to ask if you want a beer

[llutik]

inspired by the last dany chapter in a dance with dragons

the empress card for twitter user toadpeee tarot deck. Big thanks to her for her patience with me

[audliminal]

Survivability Bias Pt 3

Masterpost - Ao3

Content warning: This chapter involves depiction of a train derailment and subsequent fire throughout. There is also brief mention of death. I will be putting a brief summary in the description if you prefer not to read this part.

Danny jolts up from his fitful sleep. He’s intangible and invisible before he’s even fully sitting up and he’s in the air before he registers the loud boom that woke him. Any concerns about his bright transformation are made totally irrelevant by the warning sirens blaring in his head.

Wait, no. Those are real sirens.

In the distance, lights are now accompanying the sirens; flashing as they speed down what looks like main street. It’s pretty clear where they’re going too, from the violent orange glow cascading over the tops of the nearby buildings.

I knew it, Danny thinks, flying towards whatever disaster is unfolding. probably it’s stupid to get involved, when he still knows so little about this place, but- well, old habits die hard. It doesn’t take long for the problem to become obvious, and Danny freezes as he struggles to process the scene before him.

The metal carnage is nothing like Danny’s ever seen before; what looks to be a freight train has derailed at the worst possible location, sending its cars careening into the various apartment buildings and stores on the east side of town, and to make matters worse, one of them has clearly crashed straight into the gas station by the freeway, and fire is spreading faster than Danny could have imagined.

Danny can already see two buildings blazing, but he quickly focuses his attention towards the carnage of the train itself. Luckily it’s fairly obvious what direction it was headed, and Danny moves fast, looking for the engine. In ghost form, physical sensations always feel a little more distant but even through that, Danny can feel his heart rabbiting in his chest. Luckily it takes less than a minute to find the engine, but as he approaches it, the presence of death catches in his throat, and he immediately knows it’s a lost cause.

He can’t sense any actual ghosts, though, so instead Danny whips around to stare at the derailed cars. He’s far more used to fighting than he is rescues, but he can hardly just ignore the possibility of people trapped, so he carefully begins phasing through the wreckage, searching and listening for signs of anyone. Already, people are starting to gather outside; both those who were nearby and those who have managed to escape on their own, and Danny is careful to maintain his invisibility as he works. 

Danny’s made it through about half the wreck by the time he spots the firetrucks arriving, he’s pretty certain that nobody’s trapped under any of the cars, and he’s also thinking more clearly. The fire has also gotten worse now, and Danny watches as fully equipped firefighters spill out onto the street, already jumping to work as the fire chief shouts out orders. Some rush to start battling the flames, but others head towards the crowd.

They’re getting headcounts, Danny realizes. It seems so obvious in retrospect, but of course, Danny would have to be visible to check with anyone. And now that they’re here, anything he tries to do in secret would probably just make things harder. There is, of course, an easy solution to that, but- Danny has yet to find any evidence that all the meta stuff is anything but propaganda.

Even as Danny considers the dilemma, he knows what he’s going to do. He’s survived danger before, after all, and if he can keep people from assuming ghost, then he’ll have an advantage on them even if it comes to the worst. Besides, there’s that whole great powers-great responsibility thing, so in a way, it’s kind of his responsibility...

Danny floats out of the wreckage before shifting into visibility, figuring it’s probably polite to approach in their field of sight.

“What can I do to help?” Danny asks, causing most of the crowd to stare in shock. Belatedly he realizes he’s still floating, but actually that’s probably a good thing. Makes it clear he’s a meta right off the bat, at least

“New hero, huh? Powerset?” The man responds promptly, leveling Danny with an even gaze. Probably the lack of shock is a good thing. Probably.

“Uh, flight obviously, enhanced strength as well, and um... The ability to turn people and things intangible?” Danny responds promptly. It’s far from his full set, but he figures those are the most relevant, and keeping most of his tricks under his sleeve makes him feel better about what he’s doing.

“Is the fire gonna hurt you? I’m not sending some kid in there to die of third degree burns or smoke inhalation.” The man frowns, giving Danny the distinct feeling he’s not particularly impressed with Danny’s answer.

“Oh! Yeah, no, I’ll be fine! I like, don’t exactly need to breathe? And I’m fine in extreme heat too, so it shouldn’t be a problem...” Danny trails off and the head firefighter narrows his eyes as he tries not to flinch at the assessing look. To Danny’s right, someone shouts and when he turns to look, he sees a firefighter wave their arm and plant some kind of flag before moving on. No longer paying attention to Danny, the chief walks over and speaks to another firefighter. Danny wonders if he’s been dismissed, but before he can do anything, the chief calls out to him.

“Alright kid, you’re up, I guess,” he says, when Danny walks over. “We don’t know how injured he is, so do not move him, but if you’re strong enough to move this stuff fast and safe, that’ll be a damn good help.” He gestures to the twisted mess that Danny’s pretty sure was the edge of a building. 

Danny nods, stepping forward to examine the rubble. The firefighter that spotted the man points to a couple beams.

“Those beams are protecting him from the worst of it right now, but we’ll need to move them in order to get him out, so you gotta make sure that there’s nothing that’ll fall on him him when you move them.” 

“Righty-o,” Danny says, stepping forward to grab the two support beams he’d pointed too. He carefully examines the rubble collapsed around and over it. It’s sort of like a puzzle, he realizes - not quite the same as fixing his parents tech; certainly nothing here is supposed to be smashed together like that, but-

Danny blinks and refocuses. If he  just moves a few things first, he thinks he can get enough cleared away and just intange the beams. He tries to be fast as he does, without forgetting the emphasis the chief had put on safety, and after a few moments, he’s ready to move the beams. He gets into a good position, and then carefully makes them intangible, ready to react if anything bad happens. When nothing does, he carefully pulls them up and away, watching as the waiting firefighters rush in and start to work on actually extracting the guy.

He watches for a bit as a backboard appears and they begin a very slow and careful process of getting the guy onto it.

“Kid,” the chief calls, pulling Danny’s attention away.The chief guides him towards one of the buildings that’s on fire. “Got two people trapped on the third floor here. The stairs are unsafe, so if you can, get yourself up there, locate them, and get them out.”

Danny nods, not waiting for further instruction. He flies up two floors, and goes straight through the wall with his intangibility. The majority of this building isn’t terribly damaged, but one side has collapsed in on itself so if that’s where the stairs were, he can understand the difficulty. The air inside is already thick with smoke, and he quickly stops breathing, belatedly remembering that he’s supposed to not get smoke inhalation. Luckily, it doesn’t take long to catch the sound of voices, and Danny follows it to a room where two people are huddled next to an open window. Right, that’s a smart way to limit the danger of the smoke.

“Rides here!” Danny announces cheerfully, dropping his intangibility. Both people startle as they spot him, but one recovers relatively quickly.

“Him first,” they say, nodding towards their companion, who definitely looks more dazed.

“Right, here we go!” Danny says, stepping forward, and scooping the person up, and wasting no time flying directly through the building, and down to the waiting paramedics. There’s no stretcher currently available, so Danny gently sets them on the ground away from the worst of the smoke, before flying back to get the other person. They’re already standing up, and waste no time in wrapping their arms around his neck as he picks them up and flies them out to the medics as well.

Danny hardly has time to set the person down, before the chief is pulling him away again. They send him in to save a couple other trapped people, but after that, it sounds like everybody is accounted for, because the chief starts focusing all their energy on putting out the fire, rather than just containing it.

Danny is surprised to find himself pulled into helping with this part too. He gets assigned to a fire attack team, and Danny trails along after the two firefighters as the enter the building and begin to fight the fire from the inside.Occasionally, one of them will point at some piece of wall or ceiling and ask him to check what’s on the other side. He goes where they say, looking for signs of the fire, and when he does spot flames, occasionally tearing stuff down so they can get to it with their fire hose. It’s honestly a fascinating process. Danny’s never been anywhere near a major fire and the fact that the firefighters actually do more damage to the building as they work echoes in Danny’s brain as a morbid refrain.

What they’re doing is clearly working though, because he can actually feel the ambient temperature going down as time goes on. He briefly wonders if he should be trying to use his ice powers when one of his teammates complains about how hot it is, but they have protection, and he doesn’t want to risk any more info on him getting out. And anyways, he’s busy enough just doing his job. By the time they leave the building, Danny is exhausted. The interrupted night’s sleep is making itself known, alongside the surprising realization that Danny has actually worked harder tonight than he ever has before.

He lets himself half-collapse against a wall beside one of the fire trucks, once they finish their work putting out the fire. Beside him, his teammates are divesting themselves of their gear. it’s funny, Danny was anxious about revealing himself at first, but this whole night - and Danny belatedly realizes the sun is beginning to drift above the horizon now - he’s not been scared at all. Sure he’s been worried; with people in danger he’s hardly going to feel good, but in the last few hours he’s both worked harder than he has in any of his fights, and he’s done it without feeling terrible. Now, with just everyone accounted for and just about all of them either fine or in the hands of doctors, he feels odd.

It’s not a bad feeling or anything, kind of like when he successfully beats a hard level in a video game, or how he used to feel when he finished science projects in middle school.

Satisfaction, he realizes. And that’s what it is, though it’s far stronger than any version of it that he’s ever felt before. He does have a lot to feel proud of too. He  helped, even though he wasn’t sure it was safe to, and he might’ve actually saved somebody’s life tonight.

“You did good, kid.” One of his teammates says, echoing Danny’s thoughts. He startles a bit, feels himself flushing, and then in his embarrassment, he feels himself tumble over into a full blush. It’s always felt more embarrassing blushing in his ghost form. The way his skin actually glows with the green tinge is just so obviously inhuman, and he tries to avoid, tries his best to seem normal and alive, even when he’s a ghost.

Of course, these people don’t know he’s a ghost, but from what he’s seen, most of the heroes out there at least look functionally human, and he waits for the firefighters around him to freak out at the reminder that he isn’t even remotely one of them.

“Damn,” one whistles. Green glow is a new one. Makes your freckles real cute though.” The others laugh, and the other of his teammates steps forward to pat him gently on the back.

“Stop embarrassing my new favorite hero,” the chief says, walking up to join them. “You gotta name?” 

“Oh, yeah!” Danny answers, desperate for a distraction from this line of conversation. “I’m Danny!”

“Danny,” the chief responds flatly. he almost sounds exasperated, though Danny can’t imagine why, unless...

Unless that absolutely sounds like he just introduced himself normal and they think he’s a hero and he sounds like a dumbass without a secret identity, which- technically isn’t exactly wrong. 

“Yup!” Danny says, trying to make it sound intentional. “Danny Phantom at your service! Y’know cause of the intangibility and like. It just sounded good?” There. That sounds plausible. If he actually does end up having to be a hero, though, he’ll probably need a different first name. If he gets a civilian identity, that is.

“Well, Phantom,” the chief grins, that same assessing look from before back, but noticeably more relaxed now that there’s no immediate danger. “We’re damn grateful for all your help, and if you need anything you come let us know, alright?”

“Yeah, one of his teammates echoes. “You’re an honorary firefighter now, you should come hang out at the station sometime!” A couple of the others echo the sentiment. It’s surprisingly kind, and Danny smiles at the unrelenting wave of welcome.

“I’ll think about it,” he offers uncertainly. “For now, I think I ought to go back to sleep for a few more hours.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Danny,” the chief says. “Just make sure to get something to eat first. You’ve burned a lot of calories today.”

“Yeah, will do,” Danny offers an awkward salute to the man, and then, before he can actually fall asleep standing up, he takes off to hunt down a good spot for a nap.

[skymantle]

what does it all mean.

[tobercat]

aro/ace themed valentine's day teddy bears ^^ because i just recently found out i might be arospec but also just cuz like..... why not

[knockknockitsnickels]

I think this is one of my favorite lines from the Wraith route because of (imo) how much the meaning changes depending on if you got there via Spectre or Nightmare. For Spectre, it honestly strikes me as a genuine question. Why are you doing this to her? If you're on the Spectre route, you presumably already know the Narrator can't really be trusted, since you had to reject his reward to get here. What are you hoping to gain from continuing to hurt her? For Nightmare, it honestly just makes me sad. As the Shifting Mound describes her, "She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt." This line feels like a plea from someone who genuinely doesn't understand why you keep rejecting her. She wants to be with you, but she just can't understand how to do that in a way which doesn't hurt you.

[ooooo-mcyt]

Scott Smajor (cc) is such a good story teller actually and the common themes he uses in his storylines captivate me. I think we should talk about how good he is at Themes more often. If I wasn't so tired I'd write essays.

[egophiliac]

looking at next month's schedule and between the end of 7-12 and the wishing lantern event it's like

February is officially RIDDLE MONTH, brace yourselves to be absolutely blasted into ashes everybody

[filurig]

new little silly, eernah... she's a hooftender from a settlement not super far away from vätterunda, but seperate from Ehrumnen, Gahuurn. Moar little things about stuff i have thought about in relation to her below

a hooftender is a hrumeh (bäckahäst...ian) occupation that like the name implies takes care of hoof maintenance. some do take care of hoof maintenance on their own but the convenience of hooftenders is appreciated, especially during seasons of accelerated hoof growth, as well for hruma who cannot take care of them on their own due to things like old age, disability, etc. hooftenders also will take care of medical issues related to the hooves, so generally they tend to have a medical education as well specifically concerning hooves/feet.

reason why she will pop up in pareidolia despite not being from the most relevant hruma settlement in pareidolia (ehrumnen) is because during every hrumeh spring festival, hruma from different settlements will often gather to mingle and find potential partners. most festivals are set up in one area, often a grove, seperate from the settlements which young hruma make a journey to for the duration of the festival. and the festival Happens in pareidolia which selma goes to

Yes she is trans and i have pondered how hruma culture treats trans ppl and its a bit complicated, a bit negative (although there are probably some cultures who arent as negative but the ones im talking about are ehrumnen, gahuurn and adjacent settlements). ill just paste a discord screenshot for the general idea of their family/gender dynamics;

but yes this is also all very prefaced by the fact that most hruma societies percieve gender and sex to be very correlated if not one in the same and it doesnt only affect trans hruma but also gender nonconforming hruma. being a stag who wants to be more present in his children's lives than what is "normal" is seen as a bit overbearing, emasculating and also condescending to his hinds. a hind that wants work even after having had fawns (and before they are independent) is seen as irresponsible and weak. a trans hruma who lives in a different way of what is expected of their sex, while not treated with as much violence as is typical for humans, are shunned socially often in a bit of a condescending way - like they are what they are out of immaturity and an inability to accept what role they are best fit for in society. ive still gotta ponder this more and there might be religious overtones to the reasons as to why this stuff is quite established culturally to many hruma but yea

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

When you see the word “rain” which Taylor song comes to mind?

[starry-bi-sky]

yall ever think Shen Yuan went through like, internet withdrawal after being transmigrated into Shen Qingqiu? Like, he's canonically a NEET shut-in who did nothing but spend his time online, you can't tell me that for the first week or first few weeks of being SQQ he wasn't twitchy.

Like, reaching instinctively to his pockets for a phone that wasn't there, having an obsessive itch in the back of his mind that he should check and see if X or Y novel or webcomic has updated -- only to realize he can't anymore and being irritated by it. Wanting to go and see if there's new posts about this or that, but again realizing that he can't.

When he's bored or uncomfortable or just feels like wanting to escape he tries to go for his phone to distract himself, but oops! Not there anymore, and now he has to find a new and different way to distract himself from his feelings. And going through system notifications, quests, etc only does so much.

And there's that Tetris Effect too. SQQ makes a mistake while writing and instinctively goes to backspace on it except hey-ho that's not a keyboard and now he just dipped his pinkie into a bottle of ink or on a still-drying letter.

With him scrambling to fix his reputation and learn how to be a peak lord, I think his abrupt cold-turkey from all things internet would just be another straw on the camel's back that he promptly Ignores until it goes away on its own after he acclimates to his new surroundings.

[glitter-stained]

Saw someone say the red bat on Jason's chest looked like a brand and I can't stop thinking about that, I think it should actually be. That thing's got metal, right? Heat it or burn it or something and make it a bat-shaped brand into his chest. I think it would be fun. It's the unfairness of it all. Your father can disown you but you cannot disown him. You put the branding iron on yourself. There's no escaping being your father's son.

[istan-idraw]

MayBlade D-1 | Dawn

[heartorbit]

happy valentines day... 2!