#little blue alien

[thewanderingmask]

tfw ur trans and in the closet and become a weird funky shapeshifting creature who, in addition to your bestie and the local bodega guy, become your town's best defence against a sudden supernatural invasion and subsequent infestation

[starry-bi-sky]

i have been unmedicated for the entirety of spring break and thus have had little interest in writing this down, but i have been thinking about this for the entire week (as well as a dpdc clone danny au that resulted in it becoming its entirely separate batman au that includes a teenage vigilante bruce wayne, an ocarina, and me entirely incapable of making a batman au without making bruce dirt poor but we're not talking about that) and so i've finally went 'fuck it' and forcibly grabbed my laptop. I will get this done in one sitting even if it kills me.

BUT. This is about neither clone^2 danny nor about who i am calling Ocarina Batman. This is about my Danyal Al Ghul Au and more SPECIFICALLY it's me thinking about his relationship with Sam and Tucker specifically.

Tucker and Sam? Adore this asshole (affectionate) with every fiber of their being. And it is very much a reciprocated feeling, but Danny's thoughts will not be delved into much other than he would kill for them.

Tucker? The only person currently capable of getting a deep, loud, belly laugh out of Danny. Sam can get him to smile and to laugh, but it's the kind that's a chuckle-under-the-breath. The quiet, looks-down-while-huffing laughter. Snorts once with laughter and then grins stupidly.

But Tucker? Tucker can crack a slew of stupid jokes and Danny will be incapacitated for the next five minutes because he's laughing so hard that he can't breath. He lands one well-timed pun or quip and Danny will be close to tears. His laughter is their favorite sound in the whole world.

Sam is lowkey jealous of this ability, and she's gotten a belly laugh out of Danny a few times. But alas, it is Tucker who wields this power and has gotten it the most times out of the two of them.

-

They're also both physically affectionate with Danny as much as possible. It started roughly around when they were 12-ish, a year since they befriended Danny, and they noticed that he sought after touch but never seemed to initiate (and was in some ways repulsed by it). They started slowly being more touchy with him. Hooking a finger around his to lead him somewhere, tapping his wrist, looping arms. Little touches, grabs, etc, to get him used to it, and once he started doing it back they started increasing it.

It's gotten to a point where he will now just. Lay on them. Like a lizard sunbathing on a rock. Leaning on their backs when they're sitting in class before the bell rings, his chin on their heads. He'll talk about anything with his arms looped around their shoulders.

If they're sitting on a couch at either of their houses, he'll lay his legs on theirs. Him and Tucker will press their feet against the other's and try and push against them (newsflash: Danny always wins, Tucker claims its the ghost strength but Danny's been winning since before his accident)

-

Naturally, both Sam and Tucker know where Danny keeps his weapons on his person, and are allowed to grab them off of him if they need it. His only requirement is that they don't lose his weapons if they take it and forget to return it immediately.

They both understand how big of a thing this is from Danny, and so they do their best to treat his weapons with a lot of respect and care because they know its his way of saying he trusts them.

-

Sam and Tucker are so fond of Danny it's insane. Like fr. That's their goddamn best friend, and they are so protective of him. Emotionally, physically, you name it. They will tear the head off a grown man if they need to, Danny's had scars since he arrived in Amity Park and Sam and Tucker both are going to find the person who put them there and make them pay for it.

One time, Tucker overheard a bunch of upperclass girls speaking nastily about Danny and about the rumors surrounding him, calling him names like 'freak', 'monster', etc. Danny was with him and heard it, and seemingly appeared unbothered by it, even telling Tucker that he was used to such rumors.

Tucker was so furious that hacked into the school system later that night and tanked those girls grades. They were kicked out of their clubs and had to go to mandatory tutoring for the rest of the year. He made sure to leave some way of letting them know it was him who did it.

And Sam doesn't like using her money for things, doesn't like abusing that wealth. So instead, whenever her parents talk bad about Danny, she causes a media incident that has her parents scrambling to deal with. She does something wild, outrageous by her parents' standards.

She heard some boys on the basketball team making fun of Danny once, similar to those girls had. She kicks up a fuss about something eco-unfriendly at school and forcibly holds a protest on the same day of the big home basketball game, forcing them to cancel the event and reschedule to a visiting school.

She anonymously donates money so that there's new uniforms for the team but oops! Looks like she "forgot" to donate enough money for them to get uniforms for all the team members, and strangely enough those boys in particular didn't get them! Looks like they'll have to wait until more money gets donated for the basketball team to get their new, nice uniforms. The old ones look so ratty in comparison, right?

And since the football team gets most of the sport money, that might just take awhile. And if (and when) they kick up a fuss? oops! Off the basketball team you go, :) such unsportsman-like behavior is unfit for the team.

(The only good thing about how corrupt the school system is is that she can use it to her advantage too.)

The both of them know that Danny suspects them for the sudden misfortune falling on these people, but he doesn't call them out on it. He's kinder than he used to be, but not kind enough to vouch for people who speak badly of him. Sometimes, he might just congratulate them on not getting caught.

Because Danny is their wonderful, hurt friend with a "slightly" Blue and Orange Moral code, and enough scars that people have been calling him a criminal (and worse) since he arrived in Amity Park when he was ten. And they'll be damned if he gets hurt anymore.

[nexahexagon]

A couple of Clooless Guys

I didn’t expect to finish this tnight (it’s, once again, very late for me) but it’s as close to finished as I’ll allow it!

Close-ups under cut

[lilalienz4ever]

[trashinyourpockets]

Absolutely living for your junior art rn I swear you're the only rvb artist who draws him <3

Ofc! There needs to be more junior out there.

Look at the little guy~

[rockwgooglyeyes]

Taking into consideration Till's history with sexual assault (i will be tw and cw tagging for this), it puts the Ivantill kiss in round 6 in so much more perspective for me. Not only that, but it gives a lot of context and reasoning to the way that Till interacts with other people (as well as his rapid, violent mood swings) into perspective.

I just to preface with this- I have never been the victim of sexual assault or sexual harassment, so my discussion on this purely comes from what I know at a psychological angle, in addition to what I know based on this video from pop culture detective on Youtube and his videos on the male interaction with abuse and generally seedy behavior in media. It's really good, I enjoy his content a lot. Anyways analysis below the cut. Content and trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and pretty much everything else relevant in this fandom (slavery, child abuse, etc)

Out of all of the characters in Alien Stage, Till is the most openly dehumanized. Sua is treated like a doll, Ivan is treated like a trophy horse to parade around, Luka is something of a combination of both- but Till is the lab rat. He's the losing dog that Urak is betting on. They're all dehumanized to a degree but Till is dehumanized so much so that his defining feature is his rebellion. Even amongst the fandom, he's made into Ivan's side piece or the idiot who's hopelessly in love with Mizi and yeah, I do think Till is a dumbass but I say that out of the deepest affection possible, I love this little freak and I want the best for him. I truly do.

He's so smart and talented and yet, he hates himself. He's passionate about music, he uses it to express himself in ways that he can't otherwise, and he's so good at music, too. He's not good with people and he has a temper and he's easily flustered, yes, but he's so complicated. He was hopeful and innocent to the ways of the world but when he was bought by Urak, he was shown how utterly and hopelessly cruel the world could be. Comparatively, even Ivan and Sua got lucky, with their absent and emotionally abusive owners- Till was put through hell, experimented on, forced into a cage and treated like a feral animal that needed to be shown who was boss- even when he was willing to go along with anything at the start. He wanted to be loved. He wanted to be cherished. Children always want so desperately to please their authority figures, I can't imagine that he would have resisted in the beginning, hoping that if he went along with whatever Urak told him to, that he would be rewarded and treated with tenderness and care.

He never was. He was beaten and broken and thrown through the wringer time and time again. They made him miserable because that's what Urak wanted- that's what makes good art, after all. A tortured artist who cuts off their own ear but paints the most beautiful night skies.

Even in Round 2, we see this dehumanization. Till has a tether, keeping him to the stage, because he's "dangerous." He's marketed as this rebel, who needs to be tied down, who needs to gagged and muzzled, we can't let him speak because if he opens his mouth, he'll bite. He's pushed down to the ground, subdued, IN HIS MARKETING. This is how he's presented FROM THE BEGINNING. He is forced into this role of the mad dog who screams and claws and bites because this is the mold he was given, he pushed himself into it because that was all he could do. He's giving Urak what Urak wants and even that isn't enough. Because he might be broken, he might have given in, but he's still a stubborn bastard.

Before Round 6 (but after Round 5), Till refuses to sing Mizi's song in the bar. He gets angry with a member of the audience for implying that Mizi is dead, maybe even saying shitty something about her, and he goes at them with a bottle. As @a-star-that-burns-brightly said, he's the only human we've ever seen to get violent with an alien within the bounds of Alien Stage, which makes Till all the more impressive- which means that they have to bring him down all the more forcefully.

I will admit- I didn't understand the scene to be SA until it was pointed out to me (not that I thought it wasn't, it just went over my head) but it adds so much to Till's character to analyse it through that lens.

They rape Till, punishing him for refusing to sing and punishing him to attacking an audience member. Terry Crews, who some may know from Brooklyn-Nine-Nine or other media, is a survivor of sexual assault, and he talked about it before the United States Senate Judiciary committee. He was assaulted by his manager, who was a man. And you may be wondering why I bring this up, and it's simply because I want to remind people that sexual assault is not about sexuality. It can be connected but correlation is not causation. Sexual assault is about exerting power over an individual to make them feel weak, lesser, and show them who is in control of the situation. It's not dissimilar to bullying (but far, far worse). After all, why would corrective rape be a phenomenon if it wasn't about exerting power over the victim and showing them that they don't have autonomy or agency? Because if they had autonomy or agency, they would be able to consent or conversely, the ability to say no.

Of course they don't have autonomy/agency, though, right? Because they're pets. They're possessions. It's akin to how we treat dogs and cats, we breed them and we don't let them say no, because they don't have an understanding of consent like we do, why would they need to say yes or no? They can just fight someone off if they don't want it, right?

Right?

Something that @k9punkout (Numso) said stood out to me, though, is that this might not even be the first time that this has happened to Till. This breaks my heart. Like, legitimately, it made me nearly cry when I read it, because the idea of sexual abuse being used as a form of regular and routine punishment against someone is horrible- but at the same time, that already happens. In prisons, in war zones, in households, sexual abuse is used as a regular punishment against people and that's horrible. The way that Till's experience specifically reflects that of a child in a toxic and abusive household is immensely interesting because of how people forget about that, how people don't seem to really care. He's a sopping wet kitten, yeah, he's a silly little guy, but he's been abused for his whole fucking life. He has a superiority complex that's teetering on an incredibly thin knife's edge and sometimes it wobbles into self-hatred and an absolute absence of self worth.

It's no wonder that Till clings so fiercely to the idea that Mizi is innocent and pure and hopeful, like he once was, because if she isn't- then does that mean he was stupid to ever hope at all? Was he stupid for expecting love and affection, from the people who were supposed to take care of him? Does that mean he's suffered for no reason, save Urak's amusement? Does that mean he's miserable just because, just because Urak demands that someone be miserable in order for them to be great? Does that mean he's been beaten, broken, made into this wretched, ugly thing simply because he's around? It's not so much that his suffering needs to have a purpose, it's more that if it's pointless and based on whim, then that says something about Till himself. That says that Urak saw something in him, something sturdy enough to be broken again and again and get back up. It says that he deserves this. (He doesn't, no one deserves that and deserving things is horseshit, but I can't imagine Till to be thinking anything else.)

Back, finally, to the whole reason I started writing this fucking thing: the Ivantill kiss in Round 6. I've seen some people call it SA, and while I can see why (and of course, I respect their opinions), I disagree.

Ivan shouldn't have continued to kiss Till after Till pushed him, yes, but at the same time, through the narrative of their kiss- it wasn't really a kiss at all. Not in the sense that it was an expression of sexual intent. And maybe this is because I'm on the acearo spectrum but. I don't believe Ivan wanted to kiss Till, it wasn't a romantic kiss, it was one last attempt to get Till to wake up, before it was too late.

Through the lens of knowing that Till is a survivor of sexual assault, the way that Ivan kissed him and his reaction to Ivan kissing him is all the more impactful because Till pushed Ivan away, yes, but he didn't seem horrified, or hollowed out like he is post assault in the bar scene. It shows his trust in Ivan, and maybe even the fact that he knows that Ivan isn't doing this to hurt him, Ivan is kissing him in a final effort to say "I love you. You're loved. I'm sorry."

Blue (@bluemoonscape) talked through this with me a bit earlier and he said something that stuck out to me as well "The kiss, if anything, shows how much control the aliens assert over them to put them in a position where this would be two friends’ last chance to communicate with one another, hence how desperate it is on Ivan’s part. (...) Ivan wasn’t trying to assert power over Till in any way; that just isn’t in his nature. Over the years, he basically lets Till dictate every aspect of their relationship, hell, he even gives power to Till over Ivan’s own freedom (power that Till didn’t want but nonetheless got)" and he really summed it up beautifully in my opinion. The ivantill kiss WASN'T romantic because it wasn't meant to be- Ivan was just saying that he loved Till period. It was a fucked up way to do it. I wish he hadn't.

But he was just trying to say goodbye.

(@atrophiedemotion because i mentioned this to you! <3)

[plusie]

🌈 - aisha stuffies for anon !!!

[chellodello]

“Sir… sir! The cleansing chalk bath pods are single occupancy only, you’ll have to wash your weird alien pet elsewhere!”

I like to think that once they find a liquid that won’t burn Zim’s skin off, bath-time is very relaxing for them.

[wickedfelinaxo]

Me AF lol

[church-of-crayak]

hes so easy to draw

[dailyhogz]

day 41: sonic wachowski attends SCHOOL (it goes poorly)

[reconnoiterish]

grimmons werewolfs

[layeredrealitiesspace]

random stamps

[bruciemilf]

Jason and Jaime have very big potential I think

[fartmuncher20xx]

smiling friends x monsters vs aliens crossover episode

[darling-imobsessed]

I really wanna kiss his tummy