#it's tempting tho

[wendingus]

Tried so hard for ages not to let A Lonely Broadcast be Sweet, but I'm afraid the full version might end up being just a tad bit Sweet.

[gunebuggiesprompts]

Why do I do this to myself? *sigh* guess it's time for me to try this out.

-

It was originally a warm sunny day, with the sun shining and a few clouds lazily drifting across the sky. Danny and his two best friends, Sam and Tucker, had made plans to go to the park and hang out for the rest of the day. They had plans to make this day count as a good day for this summer, as it was the last one until highschool, and everybody knew highschool sucked. 

The trio were just about to head out, all of them dressed for the warm weather that had a small cool, relaxing breeze. Tucker was wearing his usual red beret, but instead of his usual long clothing, he wore a yellow t-shirt and some green cargo shorts. Sam was still dressed in all black, her goth appearance kept by her dark attire, though she made sure to bring one of her hats to try and keep off as much sun. Danny had his typical red and white t-shirt, but this time he wore shorts as well, not feeling like burning up from the weather. 

Everything was perfect, they knew everything they were going to do. Get some ice cream, maybe go to the waterpark or the arcade (most likely the arcade because they liked the air conditioned space of the inside), and then go to Nasty Burger for lunch. It was going to be a fun day, ideal for their last summer before teenage hell.

Then it started to rain, and not just a slight summer drizzle, but a full on storm. All of their plans were ruined, Danny’s thoughts just as sad as his soaked hair dripping all over his face. They had gone to get ice cream, the sun still bright in the sky, only a few clouds big enough to block its beaming display. The dark clouds that began to roll in were sudden, and incredibly fast, like they were made just to ruin Danny and his friend’s day. He wasn’t even able to make it out of the park before the onslaught of water drowned him.

Sam, whose hat was sagging from the amount of water it was holding, became immediately aggravated. Danny didn’t blame her when she yelled at the sky, cursing the rain. He still didn’t blame her when she went storming off, mumbling that she was going home, her make-up running down from the rain. Tucker wasn’t too far behind. He already didn’t like being outside too much, and would rather be inside tinkering with some new tech than hang out here in the rain. Danny left with him, feeling downcasted by the random storm ruining all of their plans. Can’t he ever just have a good day to hang out with his best friends?

Now Danny was in his room, sulking for an hour, before deciding that he needed to find something to do. He was already getting antsy just sitting down doing nothing, and although he couldn’t go outside, that didn’t stop him from hopping onto his computer.

He booted it up, the screen light coming to life after a second, and he began to wonder what he should do. His brain went blank, and he found that it was hard to come up with something to busy yourself with when your previous plans were thrown out the window. This left him to try calling up Sam or Tucker, to see if they would like to play videogames or something, maybe mention the new update on Doom.

Turns out, Sam was too busy brooding and fixing her make-up and Tucker had started a project and would be MIA for the next few hours at least, leaving Danny to his own devices. He groaned into his hands, racking his brain for something, anything to do. The rain was making a constant thrumming, which would usually provide a sense of peace for the boy. Now it seemed like it was teasing him, reminding him that he was stuck in the house because of it.

Danny turned his head and glared at the window, imagining that he was staring at the being who was causing his current misery. Then he stopped and thought to himself, was there a being that controlled the rain? He knew there were gods in multiple religions and beliefs that had gods like that or something similar, such as Thor or Zeus, but he didn’t know much else other than that. To be honest, he never gave it much thought before.

These thoughts led to what would be Danny spiraling into an hour (more so likely several hours, but Danny lost track of time) of researching and reading about gods and goddesses. He would find one, read through it and where it originated from, then find more in that same belief. That would then cause him to find more otherworldly beings like those ones, and he would deep dive into those. Continue to repeat the cycle and now you have Danny who is in the deep rabbit holes and small corners of the internet, finding new information that he may or may not remember later. It sufficed his boredom though, and solved that particular itch in his brain, so he didn’t particularly mind.

Then he found something that really interested him, a certain god who has been seen repeated in several remarkable pieces and times of history, from stone tablets all the way to renaissance paintings. The god’s name had changed a bit over the years, some translations being a little wonky or misunderstood, but the being was mostly referred to as Phantom. Apparently Phantom was the god of ghosts and most things afterlife wise, which Danny found very interesting. Partly because his family were ghost hunters, and partly because Danny had always wondered about what happens after you die, especially if you turned into a ghost.

He did a deep dive of Phantom and learned a lot of cool things about him. Such as how some people not only depicted Phantom as a god but also a king, or more accurately, the Ghost King, and that was a really cool name. He also had “powers'' or ghostly abilities, some of them even going beyond what people reported as “normal” ghostly advantages. The god could fly, go invisible and intangible, create ice and use said ice in various ways, shoot something called “ectoplasm” (he heard his parents talk about it before, but he found it hard to focus on what they was saying when they started to go on long rants), possess people or what historians refer to as overshadowing, has strength way beyond that of a human, and so much more that Danny felt like his brain was going to explode from how powerful this god seemed. Which made sense, because that was what Phantom was, a god.

Phantom was known to be witty and brave, taking on challenges all the time. Though he was also known to be a diplomatic and kind god and served his ghostly subjects with care and thought. The paintings and engravings of him didn’t really stay all too consistent, whether it was the various art styles or innovations in art in general, but there were a few things that did stay the same. He had white hair, green glowing eyes, and either wore a royal-like robe or an odd looking suit, both showing up in different iterations of him.

No matter how much research Danny did, it felt like he couldn’t find enough. He continued to read articles, books, sighting accounts, and pretty much anything else he could find.

It was in this extensive search that he learned that Phantom had essentially faded, becoming a distant memory, most of his sources coming from outdated and old documents. People had stopped believing in Phantom, and therefore he stopped existing too. Nobody ever really talked about him anymore, if at all, almost as if he never was there to begin with. It disheartened Danny, because he really liked this Phantom god, but now it seemed as if he just became a phantom to everybody’s memories.

More DP Brainrot

AU - Fenton and Phantom are two different beings, and Phantom is seen as like a kind of ghostly god seen all throughout history from stone tablets to renaissance paintings. well the summer before Danny's freshman year he discovered info on phantom and then hyperfixated on it. after his research spiral, Danny decides Phantom was a super cool dude so when he finds out phantom essentially faded because people stopped believing in him (like gods in pjo) he was disheartened. while babbling about how cool and nice and amazing Phantom had been to Sam and Tucker, Sam offhandedly remarked that Danny should just become Phantom's priest or something. Danny is immediately completely on board with that idea so he like idk wiki how's how to become a priest- My point is Untrained Magic User!Danny with Phantom as his patron with Danny being gifted essentially all of Phantom's powers as thanks for being the first to believe in them in centuries and unintentionally becoming the second coming of Phantom would be PEAK chaos. and you can even make it a DCxDP Crossover, with Constantine stressing tf out over this feral kid and his menacing Eldritch patron hovering out of mortal sight behind him.

[trenchcoat-full-of-snails]

Considering flipping a coin to decide if i should go draw in the dark for a while but i know if i see the sun come up im going to give up on life arrarrhhggcfgg

[causticflower]

what if the bamboozlers bed is actually a nest (since they're all parrots) and THAT'S the real reason why grian keeps sleeping in it

bird brain takes over

[bifrostarchivist]

some guy: why does it smell like queer tragedy and despair and trauma and misery and sacrifice in here ?

my silly ass:

[intriga-hounds]

my most beloved sauce went to the vet today and was a Very Good Sauce so she got to go to the store and pick a prize. she chose this very large, very hairy pig ear. she’s very pleased with her choice!! she ate the whole thing and did not share a single bite.

[alanide-arts]

I was supposed to draw an angsty sketch comic for Caspian but this was more in character tbh

[devilart2199-aibi]

YEAH! ➕️

Twitter removed the like I guess??? so have these Miiverse inspired Hermit "Yeah"s for your reaction substitute! Feel free to use these in replies 😊

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Sally is the real neighborhood Rizzler... you all know i'm right...

[ryllen]

delivering peaceful judgement

[theatricalmage]

This audio with the juice box fellas

[stuckinapril]

I want to read books I want to write more I want to play the piano I want to sing in key I want to delve into fashion history I want to travel I want to publish research papers and I want to become a surgeon and I’m supposed to do all that in this one wild and beautiful life

[zombie-bait]

Full Moon

Ok so I don’t normally post about Helluva Boss but the newest episode touched on an interesting concept I haven’t necessarily seen represented in media. Back when I was on Twitter (derogatory) a few years ago there was this now deleted viral thread where someone discussed how their struggles with mental health affected their relationship with their partner and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. 

This is such a good, short example of how anxiety and depression can play tricks on you. It becomes so easy to envision yourself as a nuisance, a constant burden to those closest to you because they cannot possibly genuinely enjoy your company, right? But in doing so you create this arbitrarily cruel version of the people you love, people who would otherwise never behave like this outside of your own mind.

It's mean. Because your mind wants to be mean to you under these circumstances. It wants to put everyone else's emotions and desires above yours, both in worthiness and validity. And that starts bleeding into your understanding of other people, especially those you care about.

Now. Helluva Boss.

"Can I get a fucking MINUTE to think after everything you put me through you pompous rich ASSHOLE? Treat me like one of your little butler imps, you can’t just dismiss me like that! I mean, you royal fucks think you can do this every time, like you can just play with our feelings because we’re smaller and not as important. Well I’m not letting you, BITCH! Let’s go!" - Blitz

I find it really interesting how Helluva Boss decided to approach this conflict between Stolas and Blitz. Obviously, the difference in power matters. It's the underlying tension of their entire relationship and their lives. Stolas is burdened by the mountain of expectations thrust upon him from a very young age while Blitz is constantly reminded that he can NEVER be part of that world, that he is "smaller and not as important" not just in Hell's hierarchy but in his own life and family. Stolas very literally has power over Blitz (through the grimoire, the arrangement, his position in society) and Blitz uses their relationship as an excuse to reverse those roles. But that power dynamic, in one form or another, never truly goes away. And for Blitz, it's a lot easier to paint Stolas as this manipulative symbol of power and himself as nothing more than Stolas' plaything. It's easier to be angry than to be vulnerable and accept that someone might care about him.

"Dismiss" is the keyword in that quote. All that Blitz has been able to process is that Stolas has decided to end the relationship that they have. He feels ls like a choice has been taken away from him so he lashes out because he's not ready to emotionally tackle what the rest of Stolas' offer might entail. If Stolas hates him, just wants to play with him, then he is justified in his anger, his self-destruction, his isolation. If the world is mean, you're "allowed" to be mean back.

But

In that moment he forgets that Stolas is someone he actually cares about. Someone he's known for way too long and clearly wants to keep in his life, no matter how reluctant he can be to admit it. Someone who is not innately cruel or manipulative but sad and desperate for connections in a lot of the same ways that Blitz is. And Blitz immediately sees that he's miscalculated something.

Somewhere along the way the fictional version of Stolas that he's allowed himself to be mad at and the real one that he's not ready to admit he cares about have merged into something real that he has actual power over. Stolas can get hurt and Blitz can be the one who does it. He has once again allowed his greatest fears (which Stolas so frequently symbolizes) to co-opt his loved ones, to give him an "out" even though he didn't actually want one in the first place.

I'm definitely not the first person to say this but I think this is an example of the miscommunication trope done right. Their individual struggles are what cause them to be unable to connect during this conversation or to even have a proper conversation in the first place. There is no convenient misunderstanding or third party fabricating this rift. Both of them have preconceived ideas of what the other one is thinking but those ideas are flawed and rooted in self-hatred. They also both shutdown in their unique ways when the conversation starts heading in the direction they'd feared it would.

Blitz and Stolas work because they're both fucked up in similar ways, because they want similar things. That's the same reason why they're uniquely designed to hurt one another. A fear of rejection and a yearning for happiness. To borrow a quote that has been used by literally everyone from Spiderman to Evangelical preachers, "hurt people hurt people."

anyway, I really liked this episode.

(twitter thread screenshots sourced from this reddit post)

[new-hyperfixation-every-month]

(THE SILT VERSES FINALE SPOILERS)

i rlly enjoyed drawing the faulkner illuminated page so heres a paige one :)

faulkner page:

(text taken from the @thesiltverses finale)

[wolfythewitch]

I want to take someone out on a date and then record it like a research log. I'll have an abstract and methodology and everything. We can go on repeat dates to ensure that observed results aren't just random events. If we fall in love that would make for great additional data, but that isn't a requirement

[starrypawu]

i didn't know what to draw so i made a chibi of my human tsc :D