#like they're interchangeable

[quicktimeeventfull]

genuinely i do not have anything against the anime adaptation of death note, i actually think it's quite good, but i wish there was more recognition that it is in fact an adaptation directed by a real human being (tetsuro araki/mochizuki saburo) who made creative decisions and explored themes which differed from those in the manga

[starry-bi-sky]

I'm in A Mood™ (stressed) so im going back to my roots of melting two character together into one person. So bruce wayne!danny fenton. Danny Fenton who, for eight years, grew up in a beautiful gothic manor with his mom and dad under the name "Bruce Wayne". Playing piano with his mother, running around the manor with his father.

Then when he's eight it's ripped away from him. There's blood on his hands and pearls pooling at his feet, and both his parents are dead in front of him.

And he gets shipped off to distant relatives "the Fentons" shortly after, Alfred close on his heels because someone needs to take care of him, someone that knows him. Bruce goes to the Fentons for the safety of anonymity. Gotham's press wants to sink its teeth into him.

Danny misses his city even if it took everything from him. There are shadows in his eyes and he's pale as a sheet even beside his distant cousins, and they change his name to "Danny Fenton' because nobody should know that their newest child was illustrious orphan Bruce Wayne.

They call him Bruce behind closed doors. Danny prefers it that way, he clings onto the name -- the one his parents gave him -- like a lifeline. He makes friends with Sam and Tucker. Tucker takes one look at the willowy, morbid little boy standing in the corner like a shade, ghosts in his eyes, and drags him out into the sunlight, and takes him over to Sam.

When Danny is twelve, he's still not over it -- and he's a little obsessed with the Fentons' research, with the morbid. He has books upon books on death, murder, detective work. Anything he can get his hands on. And stars. He loves stars.

Alfred owns the apartment next to them and comes over regularly. Danny clings to him.

When Danny is twelve, he's still quiet, meek, a shy little thing prone to being bullied. Freaky little Fenton with the night in his eyes and too-cold skin even before he put one foot in the grave. in a sleepover in his room with Sam and Tucker, he tells them the truth. They're his friends, he trusts them.

"My name is Bruce." he murmurs, voice quiet as the breeze, always quiet. he's staring at his star-covered sheets.

"Like Bruce Wayne?" Tucker asks, a joking tone in his voice.

Danny smiles a little, lamb-like with insecurity. "I am Bruce Wayne." And he takes them down to the lab, disrupting Maddie and Jack, to prove it. Sam tells them of her own wealth then shortly after. They start calling Danny "Bruce" in private too -- its trust. Thats what it is. It's trust.

Sam goes to media functions and comes back with aching feet and complaints on her tongue -- and Danny soaks it up all like a sponge, splayed across a beanbag chair with Tucker in her room. He's not envious of her, he used to go to events with his parents and they kept him safe from the ugly of Gotham's Elite. For the most part. He's had comments made at him, he doesn't miss them.

Alfred returns to the manor semi-regularly, Danny goes with him. he wanders the hallways and helps Alfred clean, the last thing either of them want is for their home to fall into disrepair. He brings Jazz with him next time, then Tucker, then Sam. They all help him clean, and he shows them his room. The one across from his parents', it feels strange.

When Danny dies when he's fourteen, the first adult he tells is Alfred. He and Jazz go over to his house more often than they stay in the Fentonworks building. At least at Alfred's, the food doesn't come to life. Alfred sits at the kitchen table and weeps when Danny tells him, Jazz is upstairs, and its just the two of them.

Danny's ghost form wears pearls around his wrist and the gloves look stained with some kind of black substance. He looks like a child who died in a lab accident, but he also looks like a child who has shadows dripping off his shoulders, curling at his feet, hanging from his eyes.

because amorphous blob batman has my heart always and danny/bruce will not escape it even in death even if that IS the only reason im giving him Mild BatBlob Vibes...so far

when they go to the manor, alfred helps danny make a pile of stones between Martha and Thomas' graves, nobody but the two of them (and sam and tucker) will know what it means. (not even bruce's children later down the line, not for a long, long time)

danny dives into ghost fighting on shaky feet and not half as witty as he once was in one world. he's skittish, skittering between blasts from shadow to shadow and clumsily making his way through each battle. but helping people lights a fire in him. he still has shadows dripping off his feet but there's a purpose in his eyes.

and god help him, he's going to help people.

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[pennumbra]

I thought it would be fun to try designing some coats of arms/heraldry for the Centaurworld characters! Here's the Mysterious Woman, the General, and the Nowhere King.

More thoughts on each below the read more-

Mysterious Woman: Probably the simplest, but I think that fits for royalty? Hers is split right down the middle to reflect unity and two halves. The yellow shape is actually the head of the Key in spear/staff form! Happy coincidence that it looks kind of like a lily or fleur de lis to me!

The General: I think the General would probably fight under the Mysterious Woman's banner and use her existing coat of arms, because he was a nobody before marrying in? I also think appropriating royal symbols would lend him authority, but I wanted to design something for him anyway.

If he did want his own crest (or perhaps a logo for his army?), I'm not sure if I could see him incorporating elk or deer in any way... On one hand, I don't think he'd want any reminders or association with his true nature/past. But I could also see him egotistically liking something that reflects the narrative he's crafted in his mind, symbolizing what he views as triumphing over the lesser part of himself.

The Nowhere King: He gets two because I couldn't decide which vibe I liked more. Especially in AU contexts, I tend to imagine the Nowhere King leaning into the 'King' part of his title and styling himself as a ruler over the minotaurs- viewing them as his subjects and trying to create a place where they can belong, legitimizing their 'kingdom'. A flag featuring their kind would make sense to me, but I also really liked the idea of a crest featuring his antlers, because they're so distinctive. I think the green leaves would only feature in a more peaceful AU.

[ninjathrowingstork]

More potato quality, but ugh this scene, his grin. The timing. The parallels to the one where he's bleeding on the floor instead.

He's been fighting and is covered in his and Dracula's blood and is absolutely beautiful. Look at him, owning his mistakes and then finally fully taking himself back. Taking his own name back Contrasted to the confrontation in his apartment where he's cowering away and still using the book as a literal weapon, seeing him remember he's strong and remember he can fight, and then turning that back on Dracula for himself is just *chef's kiss *

[paperandpencilsandskips]

Ok I'm Rosa and I'm gonna make some big changes

[moghedien]

ONCE AGAIN REMINDING YALL THAT DOM AND SUB ARE NOT SYNONYMS FOR TOP AND BOTTOM

TOP/BOTTOM ARE POSITIONS AND JUST DESCRIBE WHO GETS PENETRATED/DOES THE PENETRATING

DOM/SUB ARE TERMS INHERENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH KINK. IF YOU ARE A SUB OR DOM YOU ARE PARTICIPATING IN KINK AND YOU CAN ACTUALLY BE A SUBMISSIVE TOP OR A DOMINANT BOTTOM

STOP CALLING CHARACTERS DOMS AND SUBS WHEN YOU REALLY MEAN TOP AND BOTTOM

[gaia-mix-nicolosi]

Have a Pomni I made yesterday. I'm not made for sculptures...

[moleshow]

calling liuna right-wing on the basis of one (1) endorsement in CANADA? way to show your ass comrade. tell me what is a PLA? Quickly.

[wikitpowers]

i just thought about how cute it would be if ty asked kit “why would i call you ‘baby’ when ur name is so pretty?” (ft. kit herondale B L U S H I N G like a damsel in distress) 😳

[ace-s-fave-miraculous-stuff]

You know what I find really dumb? The fact that they chose the names Amelie and Emelie which are french names that look and sound almost identical, when these women are not French.

They're British. Literally born British nobility. Why do they have basically identical french names, that are literally a single letter off.

Especially when the anglicized versions of their names are pretty different.

Emelie is a french variation on Emily, while Amelie is a french variation of Amelia.

So considering that these women are British and not French, why are they called Emelie and Amelie, and not Emily and Amelia?

Like it has to be difficult to differentiate the names being said for people who are hard of hearing, or just people who have to use subtitles.

Considering the names also look almost identical.

It'd be one thing if they were French, I'd think it's dumb that their parents gave them near identical names, but at least the names being french variations of the names would make some level of sense.

But they're not French, they're British, and Amelia and Emily would make way more sense to be their names than Amelie and Emelie.

So honestly if I ever write fic where they pop up or are mentioned, I'll most likely be calling Adrien's mom Emily, and Felix's mom Amelia. Because my mildly dyslexic, fully ADHD having, ass cannot be writing (and proof reading) Emelie and Amelie over and over again.

Like they might still have the same name meaning, but at least I can visually distinguish who the hell I'm supposed to be referring to without feeling the need to put something like [Adiren's Mom] every time I type it.

[agabus]

something is wrong with me i am so excited to see bowser completely destroyed with heartbreak when boo dies. i am so excited i hope he's a fucking MESS i hope it's dramatic as fuck i hope he decides at the very last second that he can't do it he can't possibly do it he can't go through with it he thought this is what he wanted but he loves his brother, he can't kill his brother. but it's too late, and peach kills him, and boo dies thinking he is completely unloved, even by the one person who always loved him whether or not he deserved it. and bowser goes INSANE.

[makerofmadness]

In your au who's story was the hardest to plan

Were the beasts or heroes harder to right over all

Hmmmm, hard question tbh. Mostly 'cus of the whole "working on this for 2-3 months" thing XD (hard to look back through discord messages to reaffirm my memory when its In the thousands Even when I look up a character's name dndndndd)

but I think PV took a while to get the ball rolling on despite driftwood Really wanting to talk about him soon I just. My brain was a rock on that one getting the ball rolling just did not happen for a while while Goldie and Cacao came along pretty naturally before him djdjdjdjdd

I'd say that Flour also came pretty naturally. Spice took more thought I think but I'm not sure I'd call it a difficulty. And shadow milk's only difficulty right now is that I kinda have to wait until we actually get the next two beast-yeast episodes for us to have a full picture of his character, the reason I have as much on him as I do right now is only really because we Have met him so much at all smnsn

[cody-the-cat]

Fanfic idea: Smg3 lost his memory of the last few years and now Smg4 has to find a way to get Smg3 to remember that they're partners friends now... one step at a time...

[calamitoustide]

bartylily is jegulus if the ship was straight.

bartylily and jegulus are not similar in the slightest

[utilitycaster]

I really hate how people are making Laudna’s arc the past few episodes about Imogen and a ship. People saying “this is what happens when you separate them!!!! Laudna lost her tether!!!” It’s really annoying. I wish people would just let Laudna be Laudna without Imogen. She’s her own person dealing with her own trauma. She’s been so much more enjoyable without Imogen and having to fake a sunshine happy face and without having to shoulder Imogen’s burdens. I don’t know if I’m making sense but it’s just annoying me.

Yeah it's...unsurprising, again, coming from the "oh but Marisha doesn't really mean it when she says things that would conflict with my personal desires, obviously," crowd, but it's really a disservice to Laudna as a character.

As was stated in the moment, Laudna felt a sense of control that she had so often lacked - which, by implication, means she felt this way during her time with Imogen as well! And then she admits to Prism that this feels like a loss of control as well, and Prism encourages her to embrace her feelings of confusion and ambiguity, and says it might be healing to do so. She's right! It was, again, a standout moment for Laudna and frankly one of my favorite Marisha moments across all campaigns, for her to grapple with this idea that control and power are really complicated and not a binary concept.

It's just...truly remarkable to watch the difference in Laudna's demeanor with Ashton, Orym, and Prism over the past few episodes vs. how she's behaved with Imogen. There's no front. She's allowed to express herself in an equal exchange, or receive comfort, rather than nearly always being the one to give and to put on a happy face and reassure everyone that everything will work out. The problem with constantly saying that the worse thing that ever happened to her already happened is not that it's necessarily false, but rather that she hasn't allowed herself to openly feel bad about anything lesser.

I think Laudna is in a rough spot right now! Like, do I care about the cringefail specter of Delilah, no, but I do care that Laudna has reawakened something that has hurt and controlled her in the pursuit of trying to gain a sense of control against someone else who hurt her, and I'm excited to see how she processes it, because right now it's trauma no matter what she does. I think it's movement forward, but like...the only way out is through and she's uh, really going through it. I really hope that given this development, with their reunion, Laudna will no longer feel this self-imposed obligation to serve as Imogen's validation at the cost of her own emotional well-being. I hope they can be honest and work through their issues, rather than slipping into their old carefully buttoned-up walking-on-eggshells status quo.