#now im worried im being a bad friend

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[sonknuxadow]

the thing is i think that a lot of sonadow shippers severely over exaggerate how much sonic and shadow like eachother in canon but i also think a lot of sonadow haters severely over exaggerate how much sonic and shadow dislike eachother in canon. many such cases

[skunkes]

^_^

[cleofast300]

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[itsalwaysdark]

i like overthink everything now it makes me feel so dumb. i used 2 be able to just talk 2 ppl but nowadays every single thing im like Is that actually going to make them hate me. Yes probably. and then i just dont respond which makes ppl hate me. this is how it is

[stemacademics]

small update

ok so um I got my number theory paper today, and the TA had cut marks for me because i left the answer at 66^2 and not 4356 (fermat's little theorem) 😔 I even wrote the full proof

my friend told me I should mail the TA about this, I got 14/20 and should be getting 17or18/20 😔

scores aside, number theory is so much fun, so much fun. the only good thing here is that I know the concepts well, and I fully knew the paper (still fucked it up, because I'm so frickin slow while writing and time). and it hurts worse because there's not enough proof that validates my knowledge. which in turn makes me question if i actually do have any.

I am, in general, a person who does well in concepts but screws up the exams (70% of the time) and I'm trying, I'm trying to get myself out of this "exam paniK" that I often spiral into, just minutes before the exam. I hope I change and grow; I hope, I hope.

[cherry-treelane]

his hand on her arm/back is the cutest thing ever and yes i will be taking this two second interaction and obsessing over it

[thetisming]

im actually really worried that im not that interested in &j anymore like ivd been having a hard time writing about it and talking about it online and i mean i talk about it a lot irl but idk like people have been knowing more than me and im starting to feel so incredibly inferior that it's hard for me to enjoy it

[lazarus-harp]

matthew will always be the most complex character in escape the night no matter what. his emotions are always at 0 or 100 there is no in between for that man. he tries to cover up how intensely emotionally attached to people he's only known for a couple of hours by being passive aggressive and overly sarcastic then gives them devoted attention 5 minutes later. he admits in a confessional in episode 4 that choosing between voting in rosanna, safiya or teala is hard and that he's scared. why would he level rosanna who he's known for years with safiya and teala who he's only known for a few hours? he holds someones hand, shoulder or waist as a form of affection then randomly stops and shelters himself pretending that he doesn't want to talk to anyone but the second someone speaks to him or shows him any form of attention hes overwhelmed by it and goes 100 miles by constantly following them around, he either always gives a nickname (like ro for rosanna/darling for nikita) or says their name like he's known them for his entire life (softly and slowly) he's attached at the hip to the person of the episode who gives him the most attention and love (and yes i will be calling this man an attention whore bc he is one, don't deny it) he treats his love like a toy in which if you even leave the slightest scratch on it, he'll take it away until he paint over the scratch, gives in to his urges and gives it back almost like a second chance but he gives you unlimited chances bc he can not help himself. he is the only person in this so who is 100% willing to beat or even kill for someone he loves. like in episode seven you can see by the look in his eyes he wants nikita gone bc she expressed her feelings in a way that wasn't right in his mind. he paints pictures of everyone in is head and becomes unsatisfied and irrational when they aren't what he imagined them to be which is why in episode 8 when he tells nikita that he "doesn't like this side of her" i think he's not saying he dislikes how mean she's becoming, he's disliking the fact that she isn't the person he wanted her to be. he loves hard and hates hard then tries to take it all back, and though we as a fandom should hate someone who is a short-tempered attention whore who has severe attachment issues. we can't, he's almost everyone's favourite and if not, he's always in someones top 3 or top 5. and honestly i don't think there is a rational explanation for this he just captivates us because he has the characteristics of a golden boy who we root for but other than that i don't know why our favourite detective is so beloved when he has the most hate-able traits ever.... but my god do i love that man <3

i am soooo in love with this holy hell! i'm like, ugh, this is just such a well worded take on the detective and i always get this second wind of love for him when other people see him in a similar vein to how i've always viewed him. there's so many characters in etn, many of which who are complex and astonishingly human in the most interesting of ways, yet i keep coming back to matthew constantly. as you said in the end, he just has this undescribable pull on everyone around him that can't be understood or logically reasoned with. his traits are beyond hate-able and his wishy-washy nature should, by all means, make people hate him and distrust him. this is a death game! the last person you want to devote yourself to and bend over backwards for is a guy like mat ... but nobody in the show hates him, and neither do the fans of the show. the way he wraps people around his finger? the way he makes people want to do anything for him, makes even the most selfish of people want to be better? all while not trying that hard? it's insane. has he ever considered starting a cult? because he'd kill it. ahem! back on track, however!

'there is no in-between with that man' is exactly what makes his love for others ( his attachment ) so devastatingly intense and extreme. it's also why he has the capacity for cruelty that even the most 'mean' people in his season hasn't done nor thought of ... his sudden apathy and pettiness towards nikita and manny in ep9's death challenge comes out of nowhere, and joey of all people is completely taken aback and borderline appalled by his behavior in that moment. but in a split second, he's back to loving those two with a fierceness and, after being so clearly hurt by manny's passing, goes right into comfort and protect mode with nikita -- someone who, mind you, he just casually admitted to wanting her to die over manny not even minutes prior. it's this bizarre sense of wishy-washy behavior except it isn't, not really, since all those emotions don't come from a real place of apathy. there's not a part of the detective that can be described as uncaring because his entire problem, the crux of his character, is that he cares too much. in the best ways, the worst ways, and the selfish ways. most people in etn have this moment where you see them switch off so to speak, where they take a step back from others because they acknowledge there's either a.) no time for emotions or personal opinions, or b.) caring about these strangers will only make things harder, so there's no point. mat is a character who never has that moment and actively goes against these 'rules' at every turn, and honestly, he's probably a big part of why s3's group seems to care more about each other then the two groups before them. he just loves people so much! it's like this thing he can't help but do. and you're totally right with the fact he tries covering it up -- where he says mean things or does something specifically to someone with the intent to hurt, like he's trying to burn his barely formed bridges and be this perfect uneffected leader ... but he can't commit to it. it's like he either gets attention from that person again and just flings himself into them full force, or he misses them. which is crazy! how can you miss someone you don't know that well? but mat does, all the time.

and it's such a selfless thing, initially, if you're labeled as someone who loves so much and cares too deeply. when you're someone who's helpless to this nature. except, again, the detective's love isn't exactly unconditional. it is, but it isn't. he'll always come back to someone and dote on them, yet there are consequences to being someone he cares about. with mortimer and the town of everlock, matthew is consistent. nobody's ever 'punished' and he overall doesn't care for how these people act because he has no love for them whatsoever. this man even has the audacity to be like “you're welcome.” in this plain ass tone to maria in ep8 when she's gushing about how she's gotten her life back, because it wasn't worth the price of rosanna's. sure, he joins in on that group hug and eases himself onto manny's shoulder after -- but while the other three rejoice about how they're actually saving people, about how their deaths won't be meaningless, the detective is oddly quiet despite the smile on his face. he might love fiercely and hate twice as hard with his group, but like you said! he'd be willing to fight or kill anyone, including burning all of everlock to the ground with the residents inside it, if it meant the people he loves would stop dying. he stays gloomy and cynical about this by the end of the episode and at the start of the next. like he's waving this massive sign around that reads “hey! noticed you guys are falling into the belief that these randos' lives are worth more than yours! so i'll remember how stupid and awful and not true this is since i guess you guys forgot to.” which is ironic since these people are just as innocent as them, and just as foreign to matthew as a majority of his so called 'loved ones' tonight ... he just can't see that and so passionately distrusts everyone else's intentions and character besides his group. he's totally willing to forgive joey, but saving some poor guy tied up and begging for help? yeah, fuck him. mat's gonna drag his feet to help and keep trying to convince manny, nikita, ro, and joey to leave the bastard for dead. there's only one thing he wouldn't do for who he loves and that's die for them, but that's genuinely the only thing ; he has no boundaries, no reservations, no things he wouldn't share or do or forgive them for, it's just that he's not willing to get himself killed. crazy behavior, if you think about it.

also, thank you, thank you, thank you for the nikita comment, because that's exactly the thing isn't it? these claims that he doesn't like this side of her that he's seeing, that she's darker and more competitive, are flimsy at best and false at worst. matthew has always known who nikita is since the jump, has labeled her as someone who stirs the pot and is well versed in being mean. basically admits he sees her as just her title and nothing more since, when he votes her in come ep3, his reasoning is “we don't need troublemakers in the group.” to him, nikita is dramatic, troublesome, and someone who's willing to do anything for herself. she's a person who doesn't care for others, much less someone who experiences grief to any degree. it's a shallow read of her character but it's a conclusion we see mat come to because of all he's witnessed from her early on : demeaning roi until he sacrifices himself ( for mat, funnily enough ), belittling teala, and even cheering for manny during the challenge that gets matthew killed. it's a nature he struggles with hating yet it's one he loves nikita in spite of and one he loves her for. you see his hatred for this in early episodes, but his adoration for it shows just as much in later parts of their journey together. he almost drowns her in praise in ep9 because of how effortlessly she's won ( only to condemn her for this later, oh mat ) and actively tries engaging in this 'competitive' side of hers in s4, where he's all smiles and playful with her. he wasn't 'surprised' by nikita's behavior in ep7 as much as he was probably blindsighted by it. mat, fresh and high off his revival and the love he was shown, had probably forgotten this was how these people were normally. maybe he painted nikita as some secretive major softie in his head and when that didn't add up, he became unsatisfied and irrational and began changing this view to claim she was becoming someone she wasn't ... despite her being that way all along. you see this sorta behavior from him, this like, i decide how you really are and what you think, because when nikita tries apologizing and explaining herself he so rudely cuts her off and hammers down on his view of things. again, nikita most likely was trying to get mat to grasp that he's never been in a challenge with his best friend before, that this was what he wouldn't get, but mat angrily assumes she's stupid enough to think he doesn't get what being in a challenge and almost dying is like. eventually nikita stops trying with him, but this isn't because of her, it's entirely due to him retreating down a road where he's not letting anyone reach him anymore, for a while. it's also so telling how loved he is because almost every etn fan came out of ep7 hating nikita and believing mat's warped and untrue view of her. despite us seeing physical proof of nikita saying safiya's death saddens her, we fall for mat's claims that she delighted in safiya's death.

( which is something he quickly forgives her for all things considered lol. also, i love nikita because she and mat are two sides of the same coin. she's different to mat in a way that makes them exactly the same. mat is portrayed as selfless individual, a good person, a leader, when he's genuinely the most selfish guy around who picks favorites and would let innocents die simply because of biased views and reasoning. nikita, on the other hand, is portrayed as selfish and vain and inherently bad ; when she's the only one continuously pushing the group forward like a true leader, when she's willing to stick her hands into places where she could lose them because no one else wants to, and helps people without a second thought and does, quietly, feel devastated when people die. there's truth to these surface level reads of them both but that is not all they are. these are mainly fronts, purposefully put on or not, with elements of truth. like, nikita and mat are so similar they even have green and yellow-coded best friends who are their better and more sympathetic halves. nobody's doing it like them! )

the detective is short tempered, he's an attention whore, and has severe attachment issues and i adore him to bits and pieces haha. and love the little bit where you say he 'tries to take it all back' when he loves and hates because i think guilt and regret are huge parts of him too. it's another thing that pushes him into doing dangerous missions and dedicating himself to a bad way of life just as much as his love. he wants a do-over with jc, he wants to save roi who he let die for him, he wants to not vote in teala despite the cost, he wants to be able to have the guts to tell safiya she was secretly one of his favorites, and he wishes he wasn't a coward and that he would've tried to save rosanna rather than just talk to her, etc etc. probably would give almost anything to see manny again and take back how he acted in the ep9 death challenge, because the record producer was someone he was so fond of and consistently treated well, and then he let one petty moment be the last thing they'll ever have together. mat is someone founded on this guilt, regret, love, and he proves you can adore someone with your whole being and still treat them unfairly. there's so many layers to him and if he wasn't as crazy, needy, destructive, and charming as he was i wouldn't have fallen for etn as much as i did. he is the moment and if he comes back in s5 i hope people remember these things about him because i find the fanon detective so boring. let him be his messy, hypocritical, judgemental self! it's so much more fun.

[ame-to-ame]

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[crashed-on-mars]

can all of you shut up for literally five fucking seconds please

[pnsge]

oh. that's thanksgiving tomorrow

[imthatwannabeauthor]

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[madame-mongoose]

vent art probably deleting later

sure i'll play uno

[tommygotwrittenoff]

i need eddie to get another guy friend in season 8, and buck loses his shit about it (again), so he breaks up with t because he's convinced that the weird feeling he gets when he sees them together is because he is Really attracted to the new guy.