#mother always said

[drenched-in-sunlight]

Erdtree’s Sacred Tears.

(discussion of my inspiration to draw this under the cut)

[feluka]

Egypt 1919

[itscherryterry-again]

yea

[gothiethefairy]

so, i've been thinking about laios's relationship with his mother. we all know about his daddy issues by now, but no one thinks about his mother. i mean, he disowned her as well. he hardly talks about her. he has a lot to say about his dad but when it comes to his mother, the most he'll say is "idk, she was kinda sick a lot."

and i think it was because he did hold her on a high pedestal. she's his mother, his protector. i know for sure she babied him a lot. mothers who's first-born is a son mostly do.

she was the one who even gifted him his precious monster manual!

so, what happened? why did he also lump her with his father and decided "i'm never speaking to them ever again." ?

to put it in simple terms, it was falin. laios was so upset about how his parents treated the situation about the villagers' abuse to falin. both of them didn't know how to handle it, but they both failed at protecting her. the best their father can come up with is sending falin away to the magic school. (without explaining why bc their dad sucked at communicating with his family.)

their village was also very conservative, especially towards magic-users. i always found it to be odd since magic does seem to be the norm in the "dungeon meshi" world, however evidence shows it's not all well-known all around the world. i mean, rin's parents were burnt to death for using magic that was thought to be "black magic".

and falin's natural magical talent being "talking to the dead" would make anyone nervous bc that could be linked to black magic.

their mother is always described to be "frail", and i bet it's mostly because she's very superstitious. gotta be honest here as well, she maybe wasn't mentally healthy. this is just an assumption but their mom comes off as paranoid and anxious, and then does these made-up rituals to try to "heal" her daughter.

hurting falin like this was the final nail in the coffin for laios, because maybe he thought he could rely on her? "hey mom, can you tell dad not to send falin away? please?"

yeah, she had "good intentions", but she still abused her daughter? because she made the situation about herself and went "oh god, it's my fault my daughter is a freak. i have to fix this."

also, laios looking so stressed and haggard here makes me so sad. like, what if their mother did something similar to him when he was younger? he wouldn't care about himself getting hurt, but seeing his own mother doing it to falin is nerve-wrecking.

the way both siblings are portrayed as autistic in different ways is important to their characters. just because falin understood why their parents did what they did, doesn't make it okay. they still hurt her, and laios knows that. and in a way, they hurt him too.

if their parents couldn't protect them from awful, nasty people and expected their children to just bare it, how can laios trust them?

this is scary to see for a child.

after that, he pretty much gave up on his parents and never looked back. but i also think, if he misses them, it's more his mother than his father.

afterall, he did his best to keep his monster manual safe.

[fishsinsareacknowledged]

choose your character:

-[Nikto]- [König] [Ghost]

Nikto has tits so big every button up shirt he has, has to be oversized or the buttons will pop off. Everytime he tries something in the fitting room it breaks and he has to pay for it either way so he just buys it while doing an estimate. Nikto who tries them out at home and they expectantly break. Fixing the buttons up before deciding to give it to you. Making an excuse that the fabric just wasn't right for him.

Nikto who comes over just to make sure you still have his clothes. Talking to himself in satisfaction when he sees a whole stack amount of his clothes mixed into yours. Nikto who "accidentally" leaves his clothes in your house for you to keep. Nikto who folds a clean boxer into your drawer of panties, taking one for himself. An eye for an eye.

But also Nikto who leaves a dehumidifier in your closet so the clothes don't smell like shit other than him. Leaving you some scented candles if he notices the smell of your house is "off" cough cough having someone over. Gifting you some bedspray the same as his so he can pretend that you're in the same shitty bed he is on during deployment. Nikto who comes back and the first thing he does is replace and maintain the cleanliness of your house, refurnishing the floors if they're wooden. Replacing the grout if they're old.

Leaving mothballs in your bathroom and closet. Checking on the batteries of your devices. Neatly arranging your cables. Spraying antibug spray onto the walls and floor. Making the house all devoid of life except you. It makes him calmer. Doing the chores and the environment. Just the way he likes it. Clean, sterile and you. He loves you.

Ps: Don't look at the tags.

[orangerosebush]

Interestingly, Artemis' decision to start wearing suits (and to dress more formally sensu lato) more or less follows the (presumed) death of his father and the mental break of his mother; what we see as Artemis' present-day, default sartorial styling is almost a kind of mourning attire. And, of course, I'm compelled by the many reasons (verging from banal to saddening) as to why Artemis never really stops dressing like this.

[starry-bi-sky]

I am absolutely loving your Danyal Al Ghul au. While I have a soft spot for the whole plotline of Danny becoming his canon personality almost right after breaking away from the LOA all because of Jazz, I'm just as much for your take in which he goes through the same character development as Damian.

Now I'm curious. You already tackled his relationship with Dani, will you eventually take a stab at when he, Sam, and Tucker meet Gregor? Given that it's one of my hated episodes as I couldn't stand Sam's infuriatingly hypocritical attitude to Danny's suspicions of him, I'd kill to see your spin on it.

Aw, thank you! Danyal Al Ghul aus are what got me into DPDC first, so I have a major soft spot for them. That being said, uh, its exactly that soft spot that causes me to have Many Opinions about the trope you just mentioned. Like the trope is all fine and dandy, i don't blindly hate it, my main issue with it is that most aus i've seen treat his backstory as an ex-assassin more like a pretty cosmetic accessory rather than something that actually should have had an impact on him. Especially if he remembers being in the league.

Like i cannot stress enough the fact that being in an ecofascist assassin cult (regardless of his standing in it) should've left him, in some way or another, screwed up morally and psychologically because that's just how development works. Nature vs. Nurture is like a game of tug-o-war that never ends, where they are constantly fighting against each other and one side usually has the upper hand or greater influence. Children model the behaviors of the adults around them (ex: bobo the clown doll experiment), and what impacts them in childhood can stick with them permanently.

Like how my psychology professor put it: a baby's brain is like wet cement; if you slap your hand on it, it leaves an imprint, and the cement dries that way. The same rings true for small children.

I could go on, but I frankly have so many thoughts on that alone that I would end up completely derailing from the second half of your ask, and I don't want to be more critical than I already have. Especially since you just mentioned you have a soft spot for the trope.

[Okay, hold onto your hats because this is long. Naturally lmao.]

Gregor! Man, I'll admit I last watched the show back in middle school on a dodgy illegal website (it had surprisingly good audio and visual graphics, and full episodes. But really annoying porn ads.) but I only made it to like season 1 before my hyperfixation faded and I lost interest. So I never actually saw the Gregor episode.

But... it is relatively easy to find free websites that stream Danny Phantom :), so finding the episode took me like. Thirty seconds. Plus the Tv.Tropes recap page because my damn earbuds just died and im out in public as of rn.

I'm not sure if I'll write something for the gregor episode like I did with Dani, since Dani's a bit of a special case in that she's a clone and tends to be a reoccurring presence in DPDC, and I thought the new dynamic with Danyal would be interesting.

Plus, I'm not a big amethyst ocean shipper for the pure reason of I'm just not all that interested in it; its kinda bland to me. I'll admit I've entertained the thought in this au due to the whole balcony scene i wrote, but I would've entertained the thought anyways if it was Tucker in that position instead. Big multishipper, me.

But, if I had to make it official? Danyal is not interested romantically in Sam when the Gregor episode happens, regardless of his relationship with Valerie. Who, speaking of I'm trying to think about how that would go, and I'm torn between including him almost-dating Valerie or not.

Because on one hand it helps point out Sam's hypocrisy (and i love her but i am always happy to point out her flaws and address them in au) in this episode in terms of Danny spying on them, but on the other hand I'll want to include a lot of set up in order to make Gray Ghost work in this au and wow will that take a while.

Especially with the Flirting with Disaster episode because it happens due to Technus' meddling, and Danny is, well, the son of the Batman? A trained assassin? An ex-assassin nonetheless, but still an assassin? A prodigy child in this au? He might not have needed to use most of his skills in the last few years, but like... there's just a bunch of 'what if' and 'well technically...' and 'would he? he could, but would he?' things that is getting in the way of my thought process and making my head spin.

.

Mmm. Okay. Flirting with Disaster occurs relatively the same as canon with a few exceptions; like Danyal noticing the strange coincidences, and he might take the idea into proper consideration because Sam has a point it is strange, especially out of nowhere.

However,,, he really enjoys Valerie's company, and he does really like her. He's been adjusting to civilian life for the last four years and while he's made a lot of progress, he's still. an ex-assassin child living like a wolf amongst sheep. This is normal, typical teenager stuff, and usually his friends like to encourage him doing normal teenager stuff.

So he's stubbornly holding out on the thought that this is normal, that ghost stuff isn't interfering here. He's a little hurt that his friends are discouraging this, he's not bothered by the fact that Valerie is a ghost hunter and he a ghost -- his mother is an assassin, and his father is Batman, and they still had a relationship. (Granted, he's not gonna tell them that)

If anything, being diametrically opposed to each other but still being in love is part of the family! Granted, usually both parties are aware of said opposition to each other, but he'll make a special exception this time around.

(And man now that i'm thinking about gray ghost, im now thinking about various like. scenes i could write between the two of them. maybe in a reblog.)

Anyways uhhh things relatively go the same as canon. Yeah. I think Sam still has a crush on Danny and still spies out of jealousy with Tucker.

.

Now, the Gregor episode! With that out of the way; the TVTropes recap for this episode isn't the best because it doesn't go into detail about the entire episode like it does with Flirting With Disaster and Shades of Gray.

(which i looked at earlier because I made a section of this post talking briefly about what changes I'd make to the Shades of Gray episode to help set up Gray Ghost, but ended up deleting because it was kinda irrelevant for the matter at hand.)

So I'm taking in bits of the episode clips at a time, I'll try not to get too nitpicky about how each scene goes because then it's gonna take me a longer time to write this.

But! First thing's first; since Danny is not romantically interested in Sam, he is also not jealous of Gregor. He is however, a bit eyebrow-raisey at him in their first introduction, but that's because Gregor is coming off as obnoxious.

Danny thinks he's kinda annoying, and it doesn't take a genius to see that Gregor is trying to impress Sam. But since they've only known him for five minutes he takes the good faith assumption and assumes that Gregor is genuinely trying to show interest in Sam's interests too because he likes her, so he keeps mum. The fake hungarian accent is weird, but it's overall harmless, so he doesn't point it out.

He does do the spying thing when he starts suspecting that Gregor might be working for the GIW. The episode only has this happen twice, but for the au this happens a handful of more times over the course of the week, with Danyal's suspicion steadily rising more and more each time.

Hah, when he brings up wanting to spy on Sam and Gregor because of this reason, Tucker still does his "woah! you wanna spy on Sam?" thing.

Danny immediately turns to him, completely unimpressed, and crosses his arms. "Tucker," he says, deadpan, "you and Sam spied on me and Valerie."

He uses a combination of his ghost powers and his regular stealth ability to spy on them. He's hiding in a tree when they're skipping rocks, close enough that he can use his powers to hear them talk but far enough away that he has a good view of their surroundings.

He's invisible in the cinema, but doesn't accidentally get in front of the projector. He checks the inside of the room for the GIW, and then waits outside the actual room itself, keeping an eye on the area and occasionally flying in to watch the movie out of boredom. It reminds him of being back on a recon mission with the League, but it doesn't end with him orchestrating someone's death.

Then when they're at the mall he stays in human form, blending in with the crowd. He runs into the GIW there, but realizes that they're not there because of Gregor; they're just shopping. They didn't show up at either of the last two locations, and he follows them to make sure they're not also trying to blend in. But they're literally just there for shopping.

Danny is rather pleased with this turnout; so far Gregor isn't a spy, he's just annoying. The next day at lunch he asks Sam how her date with Gregor went, and that's how she figures out he spied on them, because well, she didn't tell him that.

"Have you been spying on me?"

Danny messes with his food a little bit, and Tucker is sinking into his seat with embarrassment. He frowns, "Only last night. Those incompetent government dodos--"

His lip curls up; he gets all 'Shakespeare-y' (as Sam and Tucker put it) when he's insulting someone, "--kept appearing whenever Gregor did. I followed you and him last night to make sure he wasn't a spy."

A roundabout way of saying, "I was worried".

Sam is, as canon, furious. Danny understands why, he knows generally speaking that people don't like being spied on. But he's confused on just how angry she is, and is a little irritated by it.

"Why would you do that!" She exclaims, "That's way out of line, Danny."

"How? You spied on me when I was going on dates with Valerie." He narrows his eyes, and points his fork at her, "I'm not blind, I noticed."

"That's different, we told you why we were suspicious. And we don't have ghost powers like you do."

"I don't need ghost powers to sneak around, Sam, you've seen this firsthand. And I just told you why I followed you, I thought he was working with the guys in white--"

"So you think someone can only be interested in me if they're after you?" (this is a paraphrased quote, folks ;D)

"No! If that was the case I would have voiced my concern the moment I thought it. I don't get why you're so angry, you spied too."

Iiits.... a mess. Sam storms off with Gregor, Tucker tags along because okay, yeah, maybe Gregor isn't with the GIW, or maybe last night was a fluke. Either way he ends up tagging along. Danny overhears that conversation between the GIW and Mr. Lancer, and maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong; but something is up.

I've gotten to that scene in the locker room where Gregor tells Danny that he knows he doesn't like him, and I've paused at Danny's reply to say this: Danyal doesn't even bother trying to deny it.

"I know you do not like me."

"You're right; I don't."

"Ah, let me finish. I know you do not like me because you want to protect your friend, Sam, and I respect that."

"...That's correct."

"Good! Because I am going to ask her out."

"I had a feeling you'd say that," he stands up, claps his hand tight on Gregor's shoulder, and leans close to him with a threatening smile, "so you understand me when i say; if you break my best friend's heart, you're as good as dead, right?"

"Ah,, yes. I am so glad we got that cleared out of the way, and now I hope after we can.. how you Americans put it, hang out?"

In the episode he hugs Danny and gives him a la bise (which is that french greeting where you kiss someone on the cheek two or more times) after they end their conversation. But here, when he goes to do that to Danyal, Danny leans away, points an accusatory finger at him, and says; "Absolutely not; we are not close."

The next scene after that is like, end of day. Sam, Tucker, and Gregor walking away. Sam looks over her shoulder to glare at Danny, then gets forlorn. Tucker looks back and just looks forlorn.

(When did I start narrating each scene?? Eh, I'm writing this in brief spurts of time throughout the day. Don't fix what's not broke)

After that there's this whole scene with the two GIW agents that have been chasing Phantom all episode. They're there because they have Tucker's PDA that Skulker took, and it's got the information of their purple backed gorilla assignment on it. They've been going around seeing who Tucker associates with in hopes of catching Phantom.

Uhh ahaha and that is where this gets a little interesting imo, and also allows me to mention that im retconning Danyal's (already) redesigned ghost form. Which I've wanted to retcon even before this moment bc it was just too busy. I'll get to that in a moment.

The GIW suspect Gregor for being the Phantom because of his white hair and green eyes, which is all fine and dandy until you remember: Danyal (and by extension Phantom) has that very noticeable, rather identifiable facial scar that goes across the middle of his fucking face. The GIW could easily suspect that Phantom hides his scar with makeup if he's in disguise, but if they meet a kid with a seemingly identical facial scar and similar disposition? Hoo boy.

Solution? I've got two: Gregor is canonically a kid from Michigan who faked everything to impress Sam. Considering he knows she's gothic and knows that she's ultra-recyclo vegetarian? He probably watched her from afar or got information on her somehow. His hair is dyed, his eyes might just naturally be green, but if he notices that she's got a crush on either Danyal or Phantom? A little sfx makeup could help him recreate a similar looking scar.

My second solution that's gonna happen anyways bc its that suit redesign; Danyal does hide his face as Phantom. Ghosts are emotional creatures and its a popular headcanon that their interests, ambitions, etc, influence the way they look as a ghost, not just their death. A big reoccurring theme of my au is that Danyal did not leave the League unscathed, and that being an assassin is an important part of his identity.

So i'm discarding the hazmat suit look entirely and leaning into the 'assassin' thing. But the general (stylized) feel is like, white ribbon/cloth vambraces that he has used as a garrote at some point, a hood, a gaiter scarf-type thing. I'm keeping the cape. I did a doodle a few days back that's not the official redesign, but a redesign for Phantom. I may reblog this post with that attached because it's got the general feel down. There's very little white involved, but the inside of his cape flares out and looks like the night sky.

Now, the hood and gaiter scarf gets rid of most of the problem, but Danny's hood doesn't stay on all the time, so the GIW have likely seen the upper half of the scar. :] Gregor's own drawn-on scar doesn't have to be 1:1, but it looks close enough, right? A small scar cutting through the edge of his brow and ends right below the corner of his eye. A 'cool, badass' one opposed to Danny's 'garish' scar.

But! Back to the episode scene. Canon Danny gets written off as being 'too prepubescent' to be Phantom, and honestly it'd be hilarious if Danyal was written off for the same reason (he's calling them idiots in his head if they do). But instead -- leaning into the GIW's incompetence here -- he gets written off as being too mature or too talkative. Or something equally as absurd.

Sam breaks up with Gregor for canon reasons, but when Gregor does his "i really like you, but, come on-!" and gestures to tucker, he adds on "and that scary friend of yours too, seriously!"

Things go relatively the same as canon after that. Danny does end up apologizing for spying, however. Sam does it first. Sorrows, prayers, all that.

.

Things usually end up changed or different when I actually write it down, so I'd likely add more or adjust different scenes according to the flow of the oneshot. This is just like, a general vibe of how things would go, and where some of the more obvious changes would be if I did write this oneshot.

Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the ask :]

[hylialeia]

you don't get it. she loved him once. she didn't have a maester, she had a brother. he sold their mother's crown to keep them fed. he said Dany, please. she loved him, once.

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[maxsix]

[verflares]

i miss her so bad (botw/totk zelda)

[helluvahotmess]

'I want you to continue to be who you are.' what if i fucking died what then

[caitlynmeow]

Honestly the way I look at it all three daughters think they are Alcina’s favorite.

Bela: She’s the eldest and her mom’s helper. Alcina trusts her with big tasks and praises her a lot for it. She’s the only one who can do these things and the fact her mom trusts her and only her solidifies this believe.

Cassandra: Alcina spends A LOT of time with her. She knows all what’s happening with her, knows about her hobbies and interests and indulges her. Her mom trusts her abilities to the point where she lets her do things she normally doesn’t allow. But she only allows her to do it because she trusts her like that.

Daniela: To Alcina, Daniela never does anything wrong. Ever. She is her little angel who minds her own business, often staying in the library reading her books and not bothering anyone. She is harmless, and Alcina always tells her that she is special and to continue being herself. That one day she will grow as strong and capable as her sisters but for now she can continue doing what she loves.

It’s because of this that each one thinks she’s Alcina’s favorite. While in reality, Alcina loves them all the same. Each daughter has her merits and she focuses on that.

Oh, and one way to get Alcina livid is to mention ‘middle child syndrome’ and watch her explode in anger because her middle daughter is not neglected or overlooked. On the contrary, she pays more attention to her so that she doesn’t feel left out and it might have resulted in said daughter getting used to the excess attention thus feeding her dramatic streak.

[sistersofsilver]

in sharp contrast to my favorite eris screencap, this is my favorite of nems. this line made all her nonsense toward mel click for me. what if this is what the gods deserve? poor divine retribution.

[guayabana]

elden ring attracting so much attention from audiences that usually wouldn't touch a fromsoft game has been so annoying when it comes to discussions about its story.

like maybe ironic considering grrm was involved in the writing this time, but the response to elden ring & specifically SOTE feels very similar to what happened with game of thrones, where the story is pretty explicitly about the dangers & violence & cruelty inherent in certain systems of power, and 95% of the audience response is to look at that & be like "wow i hope my fave character gets to be the good ruler who fixes everything because they're so cool & nice :D"

[ganondoodle]

so with echoes of wisdom .. i havent watched any of the trailers beyond the very first one and the thumbnails/screenshots and what others have said about it-

but with the world inside the rift being called "Welt des Nichts" aka "world of nothing/void" in german ('still' in english, for some reason) and demises title in french being "avatar of nothing" ... yeah my anxiety is shooting through the roof again

(hopefully you can be a little more forgiving for me being anxious/weird about it bc demise is my blorbo)

i had similar worries with totk, that werent proven true thankfully, but the darn book is making it all worse again with all those weird lore things the game doesnt even so much as hint at AND potential retcons- im in for a really rough time huh, not just stress in real life (more in tags.. its alot) but now about my specific hyperfixation from two things even (AND artblock still..)

weird as it may sound, i dont want demise to get more lore, partly bc i dont believe theyd do anything with him that i would like (given their track record) but much more importantly- the fact that he has this little lore about him is precisely one of the reasons why i fell in love with him, i tend to like characters that are neglected by the narrative, and his story being both so flat and already done meant i can be very creative with what i come up with for him without necessarily contradicting anything in canon (which is ... or was a big point of how i wrote destiny's story and lore, working with canon in a way that reframes it all without straight up ignoring it ... but i suppose i urgently need to let go of that and accept i spend alot of time working things that will go to waste :( ) AND not having to worry that there will be more stuff with him that would massively change not only what im writing but also potentially how i feel about him since the game he was briefly in was the oldest chronologically and ended with his death- i didnt expect them to mess with anything that far back and thought theyd just go forward and leave the timeline behind and wouldnt mess with it again, given how botw seemed to be a sort of 'fresh start' that seemingly regarded the past as the past that needs to rest and that the timeline was finally no longer a discussion if everythings unified through botw and one thing going forward

but i suppose i was very wrong with that .__.

right now the only thing that motivates me still is the left over determination and spite to work on my zelda comic, since i have never gotten this far and really want to get something done for once, but i cant lie that im feeling like i should pause all work on it too to wait and see waht the book and the new game will do .. either to determine if i still have the will to keep working on it after those things are out (my love for tloz has been taking alot of hits lately ..) or if i have to change stuff (mostly bc of my lore problem trying to not ignore it ..)