#main verse ; today

[dnangelic]

PUBLIC / PRIVATE INFO.

PUBLIC. info available to everyone.

dark is an infamous criminal phantom thief, although his 'true identity' remains a mystery. azumano, as his main operative center, loves and loathes him the most, and his influence completely dominates the entire province like it's his own little miniature country: a single word of his appearance or the announcement of a calling card warning can send huge, hundreds-of-persons stampedes in any direction.

likewise, there's always someone reporting on him, and his heists are typically broadcast on live television or radio. he's just as well known for giving out lots of fan-service too, and doesn't mind indulging photograph or autograph requests, though he always refuses interviews. it's no secret that he loves to show his face and play with all the flattery and frustration that comes with it from fans to law-enforcement alike, but he never gives away anything too personal - the vast, vast majority only know his appearance as a roughly 17 year old, his overwhelming fame, and his name.

the wings (or any other part of dark's appearance, like his freaky slit eyes/retractable talons/lack of fingerprint/regular body temp) aren't a secret, but they are also considered a deep mystery. nobody knows how they work, but canonically, 'nobody in azumano denies that people can fly' either. off-heist spottings do happen: there are many times when dark's flying over that ordinary people will witness the heavy shadow of enormous wings, and dark often swiftly becomes part of its seven mysteries at any school daisuke attends. dark's feathers are also often left behind in various locations and can be treated as a collector's item.

dark mainly targets hikari artworks, but he can and has targeted others, ranging from priceless rarities to no-name, entirely unguarded others. he seemingly has little particular standard or qualification for his artistic targets and personally says that it doesn't matter what he takes, so long as everything that he wants becomes his - this is, in fact, half true.

dark also sometimes just ... doesn't show up. or he shows up late compared to his arrival time. (this is due to daisuke having his own life and not devoting it utterly to being a phantom thief. seriously. he ditched once to go on a date with a girl instead of steal.) dark will also abandon a heist if poor weather happens to hit - he doesn't like to steal in conditions such as rain or snow.

on daisuke's side of things, he's generally considered an ordinary, if not somewhat boring person (at best) or a clumsy, spacey loser (at worst) within his school. other students know him as someone who's almost drowned in swim class, who's fallen off a cliff during a class hike, who gets lost, zones out and wanders off and ends up separated from groups easily, who has semi-poor grades... etc. the general consensus is that while he's nice, he's also a bit of a weirdo who gets caught up in trouble every once in a while.

his current 'friends' include saehara and sekimoto. saehara is an agressive wannabe-reporter whose only ambition is to reveal dark's true identity, and his father is an azumano inspector also tasked with capturing dark. satoshi hiwatari, who's currently head of the azumano police department (as well as the current last of the hikari) abides by a daylight truce around daisuke, and daisuke does consider him a friend. apart from hiwatari who is entirely aware of dark's identity and the niwa and hikari family's history, nobody suspects daisuke of being dark--- not even in the slightest, given how 'different' they are, and thus likewise how impossible it seems.

daisuke's involved with his school's art club. there are times he can't make it and has to leave early if he's scheduled for a heist, but he does enjoy his time at club and often spends what he can working on personal projects until late in the afternoon. many of the other members note that he always works hard and tries to demonstrate kindness by offering to clean things up or staying behind a little whenever he can, but his own connection and appreciation of the arts is fairly well-known and undeniable.

SEMIPUBLIC. info available to some general groups.

the niwa family firmly established themselves as an ancestral family of master thieves (in other words, as a 'proper' family business devoutly training its children in thievery) around 500 years ago. dark's existence goes beyond that, starting from 2000 years ago. within the 'present,' dark has only just recently returned after a 40 year period absence.

dark has never been caught and jailed by ordinary human means in any sort of way that he hadn't initially planned for. if he's ever in a prison, it's because he wants to be there, and he is most definitely leaving with something in his hands that didn't initially belong to him.

there are hikari disciple-descendants within the world who are aware of the hikari artwork's magic. one of these includes funabashi, a student who goes to daisuke's school. the niwa family occasionally collaborates with these individuals for one reason or another, or also sometimes loosely employs bodyguards to watch over dark/daisuke. <- this is also available to ordinary, other criminal families who are willing to take a job babysitting daisuke, more or less.

likewise, the niwa family does handle a variety of cursed objects. they'll buy, retrieve (steal) and store enchanted items whether benign, beneficial or dangerous within the mansion's endless basement. this includes anything from small rings to swords to magnificent statues. curses that can be lifted will be, while ones that are too dangerous are simply sealed or put to sleep - this is where daisuke's status as a 'tamer' (or, literally translated, wing-lord,) of the arts comes from.

the family doesn't usually sell artworks on the blackmarket, but if they do, there's a very strict window qualifications. the niwa family won't let anything magical or overly powerful fall into anybody's hands; artworks sold are generally nothing more than ordinary, albeit still beautiful artworks fenced.

the family is still mind-blowingly wealthy!! daisuke lives in massive, multi-story mansion, though he always just refers to it as his 'home.' it's hard to miss the house itself, though it does have a reputation as being 'impenetrable-' visitors have to ring a bell and announce themselves to even get past the outside gate, (and this is because it's insanely, fatally layered with traps from top to bottom by daisuke's mother who has to disable them.) the family has a butler, it has a maid - who are also artworks, but still.

wiz, dark's familiar and daisuke's pet, transforms with him. the two are indispensable for each other during heists as MANY of dark's tricks rely on wiz and duplicity - thanks to wiz being able to transform not only into dark's wings but also people, including dark himself, he commonly appears in two places at once, making him all that much more difficult to catch. wiz is also considered a mystery - nobody has connected that the small white rabbit often riding on daisuke's shoulder is also the enormous black-winged dog-like thing that sometimes shows up during dark's heists.

PRIVATE. info that should only be known by very, very few.

daisuke's transformations into dark are, of course, amongst his most deepest secrets. despite its uncontrollable tendency just about only his family knows about dark and the way the family curse/genes work - that he transforms whenever his heart starts to pound.

dark himself not even being human is something he guards and treats somewhat as a secret - he was created and manifested within the niwa bloodline as this gene mutation due to a magical accident between an ancient niwa and an ancient hikari. the cultural revolution, a catastrophic event in which mass artworks were burnt and destroyed, was the result of his birth, and the beginning of dark's 'betrayal' against the hikari, his technically-creators, and his choice to steal.

this forges a metaphorical chain that binds dark to the artworks and his self-imposed duty/existence as a phantom thief. in tandem with his selfishness is an immense guilt that motivates him to steal away whatever artworks he can before the hikari, or merely time and neglect, destroy everything - he's usually seeking to preserve what's left.

dark does not have any sort of power or talent to fix (or create!) the artworks, (merely, at best, sustain them for just a little longer,) and he laments this. when a magical artwork breaks, without the power of a hikari, it's as good as dead.

generally speaking, and apart from wiz, dark and daisuke are usually expected to carry out their heists alone, but anyone in the family, most typically his mother, decides upon targets and sets out the warning cards. everyone in the family assists in whatever ways they can during a preparation phase- this means gathering building blueprints, radio information, general background knowledge or hearsay, etc.

daisuke's father is a researcher who specializes in magical artifacts and cursed objects, daisuke's grandfather was also dark, and daisuke's mother is all-around the most enthusiastic person in the family who's trained daisuke since birth, and also preps and readies dark's costumes for him. generally speaking, daisuke still gets the most difficult part(s) of actually committing the heist, and is thus usually left to plan things on his own with dark.

daisuke's genes have mutated. he's unique compared to the rest of the niwa because of this, being the closest to completely merge and 'become one' with dark. getting shot during the process halted their total unification, but they've still become intertwined in a way that 'dark is visible within daisuke' and 'daisuke is visible within dark.' empath muses or people with sixth spiritual senses/magical truth-seeing eyes do your thing here.

daisuke is extremely physically capable. it isn't just dark who can do incredible acrobatic movements or has bewildering reflexes or a catlike quiet when he walks. daisuke typically hides or dulls his movements down when in public, but apart from appearances, there's genuinely no difference in capability between himself and dark. this also applies to things like skill in hacking, lock-picking, wilderness survival, etc.

dark himself is capable of all sorts of magic. memory manipulation, elemental control, invisible force, etc, just about anything you can think of --- dark cannot, however, typically abuse these abilities as the magic takes a very powerful toll on daisuke's body. small tricks like putting someone to sleep or a small flame, enough to light a candle is no problem, but a full-scale wizard battle will leave him / daisuke unconscious for days if he doesn't have some kind of magical regulatory handicap equipment.

dark and daisuke being able to cross worlds through works of art is also generally kept a secret. as long as daisuke's capable of perfectly recreating a particular scenery from azumano, like his home or his room, he can always return home, or vice versa for other locations - but he does have to be careful as he can only move through these 'passageways' with dark's power, and likewise in dark's form.

daisuke will not let dark kill. dark himself alone can get very close to inhumanly murderous points, but as long as he's merged with daisuke, taking a life of any sort is generally off the table. more than a few serious attempts have been made on dark and daisuke's life, however - and they've got the scars to show for it, though these are generally covered up.

dark generally thinks eating is a pain and a chore and not his to deal with - it's daisuke's body, after all. if he has to consume something for calories for daisuke's sake, it's probably going to be a drink, or something like a smoothie or a milkshake, if he's not hand-fed by somebody. he and daisuke both have a sweet-tooth lean and are bad with overly spicy foods - 'why is this a secret?' because daisuke doesn't want people to know you can easily lure and tempt him around with fruit and candy.

[definitely-totally-croatia]

People keep asking if you're a Czechia lover smh

But the real question is if Italy had custody of Dalmatia, would you pay child support?

OBVIOUSLY I WOULD! 😤

I think we should hold a vote-

Why?

Just to see what other people think, and for fun :3

Alright-

[themcst]

@obedientmade

      "An evil boop… But there isn't anything evil about you…"

[handsomethrowrug]

AU Verse: A Better Life

One thing I say a lot is that I personally think staying in the Pride Lands his whole life was ultimately really bad for Scar. The main form of redemption that I know of is for him to spend time away from that, and then return with a broader sense of the world and his place in it.

So I designed that.

It started when he was an older cub on the cusp of becoming a teenager. The bitterness was setting in, and he had taken to long walks to try and keep the simmering frustrations at bay. One fateful day, he was so caught up in his thoughts that he wasn't paying full attention to where his paws were landing. One misstep had the stones come loose. His balance teetered to the side, and he tumbled down a steep slope. Something pulled in his lower back, and he couldn't move his rear legs. He was stuck, helpless.

Luckily, instead of vultures or other hungry opportunists, Tacari was found by a group of kind souls who brought him with them to help him recover.

Several months were spent outside of the Pride Lands, where Tacari was merely a stranger rather than a shadow. The living arrangements were temporary, as the plan was to help him return home once he was able to walk properly again. But in that time, Tacari's perspective of the world expanded.

For the first time, he saw that it was okay not to have a set purpose in life. Sometimes life was simply what you made of it, not what someone decreed it to be for you. Others would like you for being who you are, rather than who they want you to be. Not only that, it was okay if you didn't live up to another's expectations. It didn't make you "lesser". Simple lessons for many, but it was a strange topic for someone who had been decreed the "spare".

The season came and went, and Tacari's strength returned. He was able to return home and... To his surprise, his family were thrilled to see him. That had never happened before. It somehow proved that he was indeed cared about, even if he wasn't the first born.

As time passed, he began to realise that there was a possibility that he never wanted the throne at all. He only wanted others to see him and notice him. He could "prove his worth" in other ways. He was certainly capable of it.

Tacari was the one who spearheaded the campaign to allow the hyenas to return to the Pride Lands, citing that their punishment was too severe for an innocent generation. He would still take to his quiet days away from Pride Rock, but it was more to simply appreciate the land. Though he was anti-social, he did try and partake in various events. He wasn't pushing animals away, and was instead trying to be amicable.

Then, when Simba was born... He was still reluctant to be cubsitter, let's be honest here. But he was better at it, and he was willing to share stories. He was also known for straight up lying and encouraging Simba to ask his parents about utterly ridiculous topics. But there were never any plans to put the cub in harm's way.

Life is... What it probably should have been.

[midnightactual]

"What are you standing around for? Just waiting to get isekai'd?"

[despairforme]

Why have iced coffee when you can have milkshake??

[mage-of-black-robes]

a few cocotte ribbons for his hair

send my muse an outfit piece and they'll have to wear it | @runyou-clever-boy

The mage hummed contemplatively. It certainly wasn’t the worst thing he could be forced to wear, even if it did look a bit childish. The scarlet hue of the ribbons reminded him fondly of his old red robes, and consequently of the time before he ‘fell’ to the temptation of dark magic. Moments of levity with his friends in the midst of various adventures echoed in the back of his mind.

“I’ve never worn these before,” he admitted, “but I bet that I can make them work. Red goes well with silver, after all.” He smirked and summoned a couple of floating mirrors to help him see what was doing before setting about braiding the dainty ribbons into his hair. When he was done, he wound up with a small braid on either side of his head, both with delicate scarlet woven into them. They were conjoined at the back of his skull with a bow, then fused into one long plait that fell down his back, which was tied off with another small bow. The rest of his moonbright locks were left to flow freely behind the intricate display. Satisfied with his work, Raistlin banished the mirrors and turned to face the other. “Well? Have I lived up to your expectations, or do you have more frills to challenge me with?”

[queen-of-the-mad]

VERSES

Today (Main Verse)

Astrid Arkham is the head psychologist of Arkham Asylum. She is in charge of overseeing patients and making sure they are getting the care they need. However, all is not well…but that will become more obvious later.

Yesterday

A young Astrid studying to take her father’s place.

Tomorrow

Astrid, no longer believing her methods are working, dons the mantle of “Arkham Knight” to have not only Arkham, but all of Gotham under her control.

W.I.Ps

Reevesverse

The Batwoman of Arkham

Lady Arkham (Vampire AU)

[darby-draws]

Sooo. It’s Alright - Mother Mother - A 2020 comic-but-imagine-its-an-AMV thing

This is such an Andre song, I had such a vision … yet I never finish and POSTED IT! Until now! (finished, close enough, I’d say…)

Andre is my special OC, and of course, featuring Kriss, @duck-n-clover's OC and Andre's boyfrienddd

[fullmxtal-elrich]

"....I'm homesick for a part of my life that doesn't exist anymore. I'm not sure how to deal with that."

[themcst]

@storybook-darning asked:

❝ But it's not that I'm scared of death. I just don't want to die yet. ❞ - Barnaby B. Beagle

Starter Prompts - Accepting

      Black eyes stare up at his friend. Head tilting at the oh so not pleasant words. Words that where very ominous if the puppet thought about it. 

      [this won't do will it]

            [they're not meant to think about dying really]

                  [they're puppets they don't D I E]

      So he smiles up at him. Laughing his little 'ha ha ha' of a laugh. "Oh Barnaby. Where did this come from? You sound oh so sad with that line of thinking!" And with that he reaches out to hold his hand and pet his fur. "You're not going to do that anytime soon. You've still got lots of years left."

[temp0rtal]

" five, it's come to my attention that i say this to all my kids, but somehow i don't say it all that much to you. and you know what, if you feel weird about it, it's cool. i won't say it again. but i want it on the record that i love you very much. okay? you've been my family for longer than most, and there's not a thing on this godly earth that i wouldn't do for you. i'm very proud of you, and prouder still to know you. i hope you've known that long before i just said it. "

he just barely manages to lift his head as aisling addresses him , her features nothing but earnest , && close enough to him to show that she was comfortable enough && still respecting his need for personal space . five narrowed his eyes slightly , unsure where this was going before then blinking . staring at her for a second as she then explained that she loved him , that he was family , && that she was very very proud of him .

five knows in his heart that this has been true for a long time . but hearing it was different . he couldn't even recall anyone saying that to him ... ever ? maybe once . && maybe that once was just delores , the result of a fractured mind that longed for some sort of affection .

he had never heard those words , uttered in that way , towards him , ever before . no one , not even his own family had ever said anything like that to him . never . NOT ONCE . not grace . definitely not dad . not pogo . fuck ... his siblings hadn't even said it to him .

they hadn't even been HAPPY to see him when he returned .

so hearing this , it was ...

five forcefully cleared his throat . ❝ feeling sentimental huh ? ❞ he asked , pushing through the emotional toil it was taking on him . but he couldn't help but sniff , forcing his head away so she couldn't see a slight glisten in the corner of his eye .

without warning , he moved && wrapped his arms around her waist , head pressed against her shoulder && face buried deep into her shirt .

[brokentoys]

❝ sometimes i consider trying to trademark the question mark because i will see companies use it for their logo && i have to try to remember if i had something to do with it while i was blackout drunk or not. ❞

[quietlyblooms]

well i passed out last night bc i was more tired than i thought, but!! pls look at chiyo!! i made her in veilguard after all hehe

[face-breaker]

you know, sometimes i agree with the general population that sett needs to be deleted from the game —

[despairforme]

He's swiping right on literally everyone now. Fuck it. He's gonna find a date.