#or how I could even help anyway.

[fourfuckinghorsemen]

Really? Really?

[theoldkyokodied]

The Allegiance of the Ascended Vampire and the New God of Magic

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms

ANYWAYS

A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.

The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.

“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.

“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”

Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…

The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”

The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”

“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”

The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.

Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.

One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.

This… might require some phone calls.

[lygma-nygma]

Being a batfam fan is funny because people will make a post like “here’s my headcanon-“ and it’s just something that’s directly canon to the story then post about major canon events and get everything wrong.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

oh hey! i was reading a fic the other day where Wangji was once misspelled as Wangu. which leads me to: MDZS Pingu-style??? noot noot!

Do you think love can bloom on the sea ice?

[luxaofhesperides]

Can I please have meet cute/weird with mistaken villain! Danny (but really just a engineer and or chem student) and the one being put on investigation cause Danny is a day villain(not really)! Duke

Technically, Danny Fenton is innocent. Technically. 

Duke wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since he’s having so much trouble finding solid evidence that Danny is stealing from a wide variety of people, but he’s been burned before by trying to see people as better than they were. It doesn’t change the fact that Oracle’s cameras keep spotting Danny right before a building on the street is broken into and something stolen. He’s always just walking down the sidewalk; no one has spotted him entering or exiting a building, but he’s around far too often to be unconnected to these burglaries. 

It doesn’t help that strange, petty crimes have been on the rise since Danny first arrived in Gotham. 

So.

Danny Fenton is technically innocent.

Duke is trying to prove that he’s not. 

Maybe I’m looking too closely, he thinks, going over Danny’s sparse file in the Hatch. Maybe Danny’s only one person in a bigger operation.

He could just be the lookout, the runner, the information gatherer who marks which buildings to hit. He may even be the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb; Danny has no support in Gotham, no family, no job. There would be no one to help him if he got arrested or injured in a fight. He’s a freshman college student from Illinois who should be unprepared for life in Gotham but is somehow managing to survive like a native. 

There’s a lot about Danny that doesn’t add up. 

Duke has seen plenty of different people since he first went out as the Signal. He’s tried to be kind and give people the benefit of the doubt, but it leads to his loved ones being put in danger. Some people are truly evil, some working on a malicious agenda, some are misguided in their beliefs, and some are desperate people who see no other way to move forward.

He’s not sure yet which on Danny is, but he’s hoping Danny is just desperate and needs a little help to get out of a life of crime.

Which leads to the next problem: Duke has no idea what Danny is steal, or why. He hits both rich and poor folks, civilians and members of the mob, and once, notably, stole something right out of Cobblepot’s office. Allegedly, at least, since no one saw him enter or exit the office, not even the security cameras. 

But added to the whispers going around about a new group in Gotham snatching people up from the streets, and some strange green substances found in warehouses often raided by police for the frequent drug labs that pop up in them… 

It doesn’t look good for Danny. Especially when a few of the items he stole were found where people either vanished or where that green substance has been found.

A week of analysis in the Batcave and they still don’t know what it is. 

Both Damian and Jason suspected Lazarus water, but the composition was completely different. By the look of the molecular structure, it shouldn’t have been in a liquid form at all. 

All these findings lead back to one person who may have answers: Danny Fenton.

According to Tim, who’s already broken into Danny’s dorm room and checked over all the labs he has classes in, Danny has some concerning items in his possession. Various inventions and little metal knick-knacks put together by a practiced hand. He was also the one to find all the information that went into Danny’s file when it was first being made: social media posts, school report cards, news articles about his parents… everything. 

And then he had an emergency mission to take with the Titans that swept him out of Gotham leaving Duke to tackle this investigation on his own. 

He doesn’t have Tim’s natural skill in stalking and invading privacy. He hates breaking into people’s spaces and following them around, but needs must and he has to force himself to work through the discomfort. 

It’s a good thing he did, too. Danny’s leaving his dorm after his last afternoon class, hood up to hide his face and something held in the front pocket of his hoodie. He ducks around people on the sidewalk easily, almost as if he’s gliding through the crowd instead of walking. 

Duke follows from above, bending the light around him to hide him from sight. 

He walks for some time, weaving through alleys and streets as if he’s been in Gotham his whole life, leaving behind the university campus to head towards Otisberg. There’s something strange about the way Danny walks, as if he’s moving around people who aren’t there, guided by something Duke can’t hear. Even using his meta abilities doesn’t do much beyond show him where Danny’s going to be in the next few seconds. 

He continues to follow Danny on the rooftops, walking along the edge to keep him in sight. 

Then Danny stops behind an apartment building and tilts his head back to look up at it. He tilts his head to the side, then nods and looks around the empty alley. Duke crouches down, keeping his eyes on Danny in the hopes of catching him in the act—

Danny disappears.

Duke curses under his breath and jumps down from the roof, putting more strength into his abilities as soon as his feet touch the ground. 

The space where Danny was has a faint outline, oddly enough. He’s never seen that before. From it is a semi-transparent trail, smoke-like and a pale green leading into the building. It goes straight into a wall, as if Danny walked through it.

He can’t go in and search the entire apartment, but he can grapple up and take a look into the hallways to see where Danny’s heading. If he was looking up, then that’s where he should be heading. 

It doesn’t take any effort to scale the building. There are ledges and windowsills and plenty of handholds for him to propel himself off of, and paired with his powers, Duke is able to find the correct floor in just under two minutes. 

The green smoke slowly dances through the air of the ninth floor, on the east side of the building. If he’s been counting the rooms correctly, then the target of tonight’s burglary has to be apartment 924. 

The curtains are drawn on the window he makes his way over to, and his abilities don’t show him anything helpful for the immediate future. He hates going in blind, especially to a civilian’s home, but capturing Danny takes priority. Duke picks the lock and slides the window up slowly, making sure it stays quiet, then slips into an empty bedroom. 

He makes his way out into the hallway on silent feet, keeping a wary eye on the thin smoke strands of green, curling along the walls. The rest of the apartment is empty as well, pale sunlight slanting across the floor through the blinds. 

Everything is still and silent. Danny’s nowhere to be found. 

Did he miss Danny leaving, somehow? Was this a misdirect to get him out of the way while Danny stole from another location? Did he know Duke was following him?

But no, his ears pick up on the faint sound of clothes rustling. 

Cautiously, Duke turns towards the front door, where the door to the coat closet is open. He focuses on what’s going to happen in the next twenty seconds and sees Danny panic, then disappear from sight again, but a transparent outline of his body is visible just enough to show him where he runs to. Best not to spook him; Duke pulls at the light around him and bends it to hide him from sight.

Then he moves along the wall, getting around the open door without bumping into anyone or anything. 

A figure in front of the coats, shoving them to the side roughly, flickers in and out of view, almost like a reflection in water, distorted by ripples on the surface. 

Danny pops back into visibility suddenly, scowling at the coats. “Are you sure it’s in here?” he asks the empty air. 

There is no answer, but Danny acts like there is. He rolls his eyes and says, “It’s a favor. That I’m doing for you. I can literally stop right now and you wouldn’t be able to stop me.” He shoves aside another heavy winter coat, then sighs. “Why don’t you look for it, and then tell me where it is.”

He steps back and bumps into Duke.

Danny whirls around, eyes wide, and blast of green light has Duke crashing back into the wall, trying to blink spots out of his eyes. 

“Wait!” he yells, grabbing for Danny before he can run off. “I just wanna talk!”

“Standing right behind me like a serial killer does not make you look like someone who wants to talk!” Danny yells back, slipping through his hands like mist. 

“I just have a few questions!”

“Well, I have a question: why?!”

“Will you hold still, we’re being too loud!”

Danny escapes to the other side of the apartment, next to a window looking fully prepared to fling himself out of it. But he does stop yelling, so Duke is counting it as a success.

“Why is the Signal coming after me?” Danny asks, glaring at him suspiciously.

“Dude,” Duke says, “You’ve been seen outside of every single building that’s had a burglary since you first arrived in Gotham. All the Bats are after you, they just sent me because I’m the only one active during the day.”

“All the Bats?” Danny repeats, losing what little color he had in his face.

He looks legitimately scared, pale enough to be concerning, and Duke drops his guard and tries to relax the tension in the apartment. “I’m not gonna turn you into the cops or anything. I just had questions and you seem like the most likely person to have answers. That’s it.”

Danny still looks wary, ready to run at a moment’s notice, but he doesn’t leave when Duke approached casually, leaning his weight against the couch. 

“So,” he begins, “What’s the deal with all the thievery? It’s rarely something super rare or expensive.”

There’s a long few minutes where Danny doesn’t answer, looking anywhere but at Duke. Then he twitches a bit and glares off to the side, and says, “I taking items that are contaminated with ectoplasm to help ghosts move through the veil and leave Gotham.”

That tells him nothing! That just gives Duke more questions! But at least it’s an answer, the first one any of them have got.

“I think you’re gonna have to explain a little more.”

“Ghosts are real, alright?”

“Yes.”

Danny stops. Squints at him. “What do you mean, ‘yes’?”

“Ghosts are real,” Duke repeats, “There are a few who help heroes or are heroes themselves, but that’s more on the magic side of things so I’m not super familiar with it.”

“Magic,” Danny says slowly. “Sure, alright. Um. Yes, ghosts are real. And there are a ton in Gotham who need help moving on, but they’re too weak to get past the veil. Something about Gotham has made the veil super strong, so they need a little boost to get through. Additional ectoplasm bonded helps with that.”

“And that’s why you’re stealing random things?”

“The ghosts I help can kind of sense ectoplasm-infused things, but they need me to grab them since they can’t hold anything without a physical body.”

Duke nods slowly. “Okay, that’s starting to answer some things. We have found those objects in the last places missing people were seen. Any idea what’s going on with that?”

“Yeah, those people were already dead.”

The way Danny says the most concerning answers as if they’re nothing is really throwing Duke off his game. He was expecting to be calm and serious to keep Danny from freaking out too much and look like a legitimate hero. But as soon as Danny started talking, all his nerves fell away and Duke is left grasping for composure. 

“They were…”

“They were ghosts, yeah. And they needed to get through the veil. But they were also able to possess their own bodies and didn’t realize they were dead until I had to break the news to them, which is why it looks like living people just up and disappeared.”

“Okay… What about the green stuff we’ve been finding?”

“Ectoplasm.” Danny holds up a hand and a neon green light surrounds it. Except it looks more solid than light, as if it can be touched, and it moves on its own like fire around Danny’s fingers. “It’s what ghosts are made of.”

Oh. If Danny has ectoplasm, does that mean…

“Are you dead?” Duke asks, heart dropping. 

Instead of looking upset about the question, or even disturbed by it, Danny just shrugs and waves his hand back and forth. “A little.”

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Duke says, trying to resist the urge to rub his temples. It’s a habit he didn’t mean to pick up from Batman, and it would just look silly with his helmet in the way. “You’re just doing all this to help ghosts?”

“Yeah. Basically. They asked for help man, of course I was going to help them.”

Danny’s a good person. He’s just a good person to ghosts. But this is good news either way, and he can let the others know that Danny isn’t the next Catwoman and is entirely unconnected from any drug production. Everything that made him look like a criminal is just the fault of ghosts. 

“Speaking of,” Danny continues, “Looks like they found what they need, so I’m going to grab that real quick.” He pushes off of the wall and heads for the closet again, moving past Duke without any fear. Duke follows, keeping a few feet of distance between them so Danny doesn’t feel trapped, and watches as he shoves aside the coats again and pulls a shoebox out of the depths of the closet. From it, he takes a single intricate lace headband and holds it up.

It looks normal, if a little old, but when Danny sends ectoplasm through it, the lace lights up and holds the glow. 

He pulls some strange contraption out of his pocket and holds it up to the headband. It makes a few beeps, then Danny mutters, “7.4 millisieverts. That’s enough to get you through the veil.”

Another concern Duke can let go of: Danny’s not creating weapons like his parents have, he’s just measuring ectoplasm through his own inventions. 

Maybe he could talk to Bruce or Tim about getting Danny an internship at the R&D lab in Wayne Enterprises? That way they could keep a closer eye on him while seeing what he can create in some of the best laboratories in the country.

Well, it might take having them meet Danny before they trust him enough for that, but Duke is sure he can make it happen. 

“I better go see this through, then,” Danny says, shoving the contraption back into his hoodie pocket. He gives Duke a small awkward wave, then pops out of visibility. “I’ll see you around, I guess?” he disembodied voice hedges, and Duke smiles.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to find you again.”

“Cool. I gonna go now!” 

He doesn’t see any sign that Danny’s left, but he gets a feeling that he’s alone now, the apartment suddenly emptier than it was before. 

As strange and concerning as Danny and all his bizarre actions were, Duke is glad he was able to finally talk to him and get some answers. Knowing how Gotham pulls people him in, it’s only a matter of time before the other Bats are exposed to Danny’s kind of strange. He’s already looking forward to it. 

For now, though, he has a file to update in the Hatch; POTENTIAL THREAT will be removed and replaced with GHOST HELPER. 

If anyone goes snooping into his files and gets confused, then that’s their problem. Duke’s explained enough. And Danny can take care of the rest, once they go through the effort of tracking him down. Duke's done his part, he's ready for the rest of them to step up to his level.

He can’t wait to see what other kind of trouble Danny can get it into.

[myoonmii]

I keep thinking about Merlin’s love for Arthur and how it’s so clearly portrayed in the show to the point that it practically drives the plot of the show. However when it comes to Arthur’s love for Merlin it’s more subtle and sometimes difficult to even grasp, and I started thinking why that was, aside from the obvious fact that Arthur has a lot of trouble expressing his emotions affection or otherwise. I think it also lies in the fact that Merlin knows Arthur intrinsically throughout the show; he is one of the closest people to Arthur, and sees him for who he really is. Arthur admits as much.

Sure, Arthur knows Merlin but the main part of the plot is that he really doesn't know Merlin. Merlin wants him to desperately understand him and “see me for who I am” but he can't yet. And I think this subconsciously creates a barrier in the way in which Arthur can care for Merlin, and how Merlin can let himself be seen by Arthur.

Which is why I think he was also so hurt when the magic reveal happens because more than the betrayal of Merlin having magic, it was the betrayal of Merlin not letting Arthur see him for who he really is and for hiding a main part of himself. Arthur says it himself “why did you never tell me” that’s what hurt him the most.

I think the most damning piece of evidence for this is the fact that while we see snippets of Arthur’s feelings for Merlin thought the show, the biggest signs are in the last episode after the magic reveal; in which he finally gets to understand Merlin, and this time REALLY know Merlin, and as the barriers of what held them back from understanding each other truly fall away, Arthur evidently “falls in love with Merlin all over again”. We see him actually express himself to Merlin.

This is another reason why I think if anyone was ever to create another season of Merlin after Arthur’s return, it’s physically impossible not to make it about Merlin and Arthur acknowledging their feelings for each other. Because there is no way forward without them acknowledging how deeply they care for each other, obviously anyone is free to argue what kind of love that is, but its impossible not to see the deep love there either way.

They always knew they loved each other, just maybe never realising how much and what that means, because its almost second nature to everything that they do.

[ryllen]

🍎⚡

[iris-drawing-stuff]

Okay so Like a Dog doesn't really fit Mikoto and John at all except for this one line maybe, but I really wanted to draw them in the pose.

Plus I wanted to make myself a new phone wallpaper that incorporates PAFL in some way.

No filter and text version under the cut

[crystalpallette]

so I finished side order recently

[autisticandroids]

CASTIEL: Stop. What's the point if you don't mean it? You fear me - not love, not respect, just fear.

[youtube with closed captions]

a godstiel pity party. i'd like to thank an anon i got way back in february of 2021.

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: violence mention / death mention / ]

Will never stop thinking about how Leo, all alone in an endless void and being beaten again and again and again by the only other living thing around, still finds comfort in that space. The situation he was in was completely hopeless, and in any other circumstances he would not have escaped, at least not fast enough to save him from permanent (or even fatal) damage, be it physical or mental.

And yet, despite the bleakness of his situation, despite the agony and helplessness, all he needs is one glance at a crumbled photograph, one glance to remember his family, and that’s enough of a reason for him to smile.

Maybe that’s why his powers center around manipulating space - because no matter how much space is between them, no matter how dire his own situation may be, just the thought of his family, alive and okay, is enough to give Leo hope.

[jklpopcorn]

crying and sobbing i was supposed to draw doodles of my ocs but instead all there is is Siffrin

they're so shaped i have to draw them

also

100% :)

[shaxza]