#progressive indicators

[starry-bi-sky]

Out of Context Stuff for a Danyal Al Ghul au i haven't posted - Pit Beast Danyal

Damian, 13: Look, Danyal, -- I am so sorry for everything that happened between us in the League, I hope you can forgive me.

Danny, 10 (allegedly): (has been secretly plotting to murder Damian this whole time, is still gonna do it obvs, but is going to make it significantly less painful now)

Danny: I-- of course, older brother. :]

--------

Bruce: what do you have there, Damian?

Damian:

Danny: (a hulking 10ft pit beast standing beside him, growling idly with ram horns gouging out his eyes and a second set of horns jutting into the air, spines down his back, and a long, spiked tail with an animalistic, skull-like face)

Damian, who smuggled him in (they've made amends): a smoothie, father

----------

Damian: this is my little brother Danyal, i murdered him when he was five. He festered in rage for the last half-a decade, took over a League mountain base in Switzerland, murdered everyone inside and then tried to murder me when I went to investigate with Drake.

Danny: hello!

Damian: we're cool now

----------

Damian: thoughts on resurrection

Danny, (a full ghost): i will succeed in murdering you if you try it

Damian: we'll put a pin in it then

----------

Danny (still instilled with League values): why don't we just murder him??

Damian, on patrol (Danny followed him): we don't murder people, Danyal

Danyal:,,,,are you sick, Dami?? Have you been possessed? Why not!?

(There is raucous laughing through the comms)

----------

Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D

Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:

Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]

-------

For some actual context: Danny is fully dead in this au, its a result of the classic DPxDC Demon Twins "death duel" trope but instead of Danny getting revived, he stays fully dead. Danny was five, Damian was seven. His ghost lingered though, and due to the proximity of the pits his ghost steadily absorbed the ambient energy it was letting off. The pits are not corrupted ectoplasm in this au, it's just liquid ecto.

Which means Danny's corruption from an angry and hurt little ghost boy to an unrecognizable monster is from his own doing. It's a result of him stewing in his hurt and anger for years, it physically warped him. He's very powerful. Danny can travel between League Bases but chose a small, out-of-the-way base in the Swiss mountains to fester in and then just. Never Left.

His influence steeped into the very foundations of the building, allowing him to transform and warp the rooms and hallways for his own bidding, Meaning he could turn it into a seemingly unending labyrinth if he so wished to, and block the entrance.

Eventually, blinded (both metaphorically and physically) by his own rage, Danny grew powerful enough to appear physically in the living realm and attacked everyone in the base, slaughtering them all and leaving the base abandoned. He attacks anyone who dares enter -- whether that be other league members, or the unfortunate hiker who stumbled across the base. His conscious is steeped into every nook and cranny of the building, there is nowhere you can hide where he can't find. Nobody leaves without his explicit say so. Nobody ever does.

Him appearing as ten years old before Damian in the skits above is his own physical doing. First it was to prevent Damian from being suspicious of him. Damian initially thought Danny was revived with the pits, he was too busy with his own training afterwards to notice that Danny never showed up again, and when he did notice, he assumed it was because Danny was too ashamed of his loss to face him. He'd always forget to ask about him.

Then it becomes a personal choice to appear as ten. It's how old he would've been had he been alive.

danny forgiving Damian is kinda for an offshoot branch of the main au. Whereas the main au takes the form of a ps4 first person horror game where Damian and Tim are investigating the Base for Plot Reasons. There's no sign of the rumored "monster" living inside until the end, where Danny, who was found inside the Base and has been happily "helping" them look around, manages to persuade Damian into splitting off from Tim in order to "show him something."

This something turns out to be Danny revealing that he never really forgave Damian for that fight, and he reveals through a horrifying transformation, that he was the monster the whole time. Which the game subtly hints at throughout as Danny's strange behavior becomes harder to ignore.

First from his insistence to only refer to Damian as "older brother" (when before the duel he always called him Damian or Dami), to him right off the bat denying the existence of a monster when questioned. ("There's no monster here, older brother. It's just me.") To other various things, like his knowledge of the outside world not matching up to modern times or things going on with the league outside of the base, or what happened to the other league members.

This whole idea was inspired by the song "Scylla" from Epic the Musical, with Danyal being the voice of Scylla as well as Odysseus, while Damian stands as Eurylochus. The instrumentals after Scylla says "hello" is him turning into the pit beast, and Scylla's "drown in your sorrow and fears" part is danny, as the pit beast, snarling at Damian while he attacks him.

There's a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a True Ending. The Bad Ending results in Damian being killed by Danny, it happens when Damian decides not to question or suspect Danny and treats him kindly. The Bad Ending is a cutscene, where Danny kills Damian quick and painlessly.

Meanwhile the Good Ending is Damian killing Danny. This is a boss fight, and it happens when Damian treats Danny coldly and suspiciously the whole time. Danny as a result, decides to make Damian's death painful as he had planned to, which is why it's a boss fight because it only causes him to double down on his anger.

The True Ending is Damian escapes with Tim. It happens when you treat Danny warmly up until the last minute, where when Danny proposes to Damian that he wants to show him something, Damian goes to talk to Tim and finally, reluctantly agrees that something is off with Danny, and that he'll be careful going in. It starts off with the boss fight until a third through, where it then changes to a cutscene where Tim manages to get the door open and Damian escapes out. It's then a chase scene down a never-ending hallway as the building actively works to keep you trapped inside. But you eventually make it to the exit so long as you avoid all the projectiles and doors.

Remember when I mentioned that Danny only lets people leave when he wants them to? That's where the treating Danny kindly throughout the game comes into play. It causes him to second guess himself and, eventually, reawaken and strengthen the love and admiration he had for Damian prior to his murder. It's why in the Bad Ending he kills Damian quickly -- because by then, he loves him enough that he doesn't want him to suffer, but is still so consumed by his rage and need for vengeance that he kills him anyways. That quiet part is what allows Damian (and Tim) to find the exit, because some part of Danny still loves Damian enough that he wants him to live.

The True Ending ends with a cutscene of Damian and Tim tumbling out into the snow/grass outside of the base. Damian looks up back to the entrance to see Danny standing there. But rather than a ten year old boy, there's a little five year old Danyal Al Ghul instead. He stares at Damian emotionlessly, blood seeping from his chest, staining his clothes, and little, bloody sword in his hands and tearstains on his cheeks, before he turns away and disappears back into the building.

[evenmyhivemindisempty]

My controversial opinion about Hob Gadling is that I believe he’s absolutely the sort of guy that “puts things behind him”, and tries to wash his hands clean of the things he feels icky about. This is implied pretty well in the show, with him blithely moving from soldiering and robbery to printing, from slaving to… whatever it was he was doing in the 19th century instead. That being said, this is not at all the same as actively trying to atone, or even making a concerted effort to be a better person, and I really wish fandom could tell the difference!

[fluffyartbl0g]

My yearly progress!!! past tumblr posts below ouo. I got kinda lazy this year so i dint do any fancy smancy background, but I am quite pleased with how my rendering has improved :D I think my colour choices have become more dynamic. I hope I figure out how to really properly draw hair in the next couple of years ; w ;

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

[spliqi]

higuchi thoughts of the day: as much as i love the idea of her having some devastatingly destructive ability… her having a healing/support ability would explain so much of her character. like. her high ranking in the mafia despite (as far as we know) not being extraordinarily strong. her assignment to akutagawa + his resentment of her + her being so overprotective of him. the irl author’s connection to mori and yosano. dw about it

[databent]

having a cat with fucked up weird eyes that are hyperreflective and constantly dilated is fun because it can be almost pitch black in my room, only the light of my phone screen and the moon through the window, and then out of the corner of my eye ill see two fucking Green Orbs staring at me bc oolongs eyes reflect so much light that they look like theyre actively glowing

[033h]

turning 26 tomorrow and I’ve really come to dread my birthday but especially this year I feel so self conscious about my life. I feel self conscious about whether my friends actually like me as I am now, I feel insecure about my lack of hobbies, I feel self conscious because I don’t know if I’m capable of connecting with and loving other people the way I used to but at the same time i know it’s the only thing that could make me feel better. but sometimes it feels incomprehensible.

This year was the first year I’ve truly had to build my own life from scratch and frankly I’m not very satisfied with it right now, but I’m proud of myself for working hard to survive and to do what I need to get better. A lot of things I used to believe about myself are no longer true, in some ways that are good and others that are really sad and hard to accept. Depression is so alienating and awareness of the alienation from others only makes it worse and worse.

On paper my life is good and even enviable to a lot of people, but I feel so raw and isolated most of the time and I’m terrified of making other people uncomfortable by not hiding it well enough. But I know I have to grow up and actually live for myself and choose to spend my time and my life investing in things that are actually good for me, even if it’s hard and it doesn’t feel good at first.

[leupagus]

Behind the scenes, American officials also believe there is limited time for Israel to try to accomplish its stated objective of taking out Hamas in its current operation before uproar over the humanitarian suffering and civilian casualties – and calls for a ceasefire – reaches a tipping point. In fact, there is recognition within the administration that that moment may arrive quickly: Some of the president’s close advisers believe that there are only weeks, not months, until rebuffing the pressure on the US government to publicly call for a ceasefire becomes untenable, sources told CNN.

A lot of this pressure — the majority, I would wager — that Biden and US national leaders are getting is the result of people calling their reps, attending protests, writing to their newspapers and generally making themselves heard on this issue. People make a difference, and it's always worth reaching out to your legislators and telling them what you think.

Senators' info is pretty easy to find, since you've got two for every state (even DC and other non-state people have someone they can call!) but sometimes it's a little tricky remembering who your representative is, especially now with the district lines having changed up. So check your address here and then call their office — I've found more luck getting hold of an actual person at their local offices rather than the DC one, fwiw.

[neonfretra]

can you tell the story of shringo?

turns on flashlight under my face. yeagh.

its actually nothing too deep LOL its just a combination of sharks + bingo, i made a kinda ugly bingo card (below) (its a cute trend in some hockeys circles ive seen!) (also, i was losing my mind in the early-early season. im NOT winning shrockey and neither are the sharks) and also got a hella work in progress website (with most work from oensible!)

i guess it caught on and im incredibly normal about knowin people think its fun enough to play every game ^_^

[infestedguest]

The way a lot of people on this site treat discrimination against atheists is really weird. The dominant position I’ve seen is that because (in the U.S.) atheists don’t have it as bad as other minority groups, we should just never address it at all, and if we do we’re just whiny attention seekers. it’s a very “there are children starving in Africa, so shut up and eat your peas” kind of argument.

Acknowledging the ways in which Christian hegemony in the U.S. can be shitty for atheists is not the same thing as claiming that atheists have it worse than or as bad as any other minority that is screwed over by Christian hegemony. Acknowledging less severe issues does not negate more severe ones.

[valiant-if]

getting close to another 50k threshold...

also, i just finished writing the last passages of the Team B route in chapter 2, so now it's on to the aftermath scenes. home stretch for ch2!

[blastlight]

every so often i think about how if i ever make a post or something that blows up, i'll immediately be harassed en masse by people claiming i'm a zionist

[mumblesplash]

I disagree, one time I asked AI to draw Judas' hands and it made the stack of coins in his hands cast a shadow in the middle of his palm that looked like the stigmata. I did have to feed it the idea of there being silver coins and "red liquid,/ and a rope necklace" but by selecting what I wanted it to be drawing from (pictures and statues of saints, therefore basically entirely public domain) and having a keen eye for what I was looking for (photography, after all, is 90% selection), I got a lot of intent in there! Haven't really done anything with it since, because I don't have any other projects that would avoid the sourcing issue that well/working around the fact that the sites demand you ask for squeaky clean prompts is annoying.

this is a good point and not a type of ai program use i was addressing in the original post, but fwiw i don’t think we actually disagree

like, a camera is also a tool that allows people to generate images that prior to its invention could only be produced through sometimes-inaccessible levels of skill and practice, but it’s still possible to take bad pictures. you get out what you put in. you got a lot of intent in your generated picture because you HAD a lot of intent, and the skills necessary to effectively use the tool

the thing is, the actual, stated goal of a lot of ‘ai artists’ is to make artistic skill itself obsolete/less valuable, for some godforsaken reason. and they’re trying to accomplish this by feeding examples of the result of that skill into a machine until it can replicate everything they understand about it without learning anything themselves.

what i’m saying, and i think your example here supports this if anything, is any image produced with that primary motivation is going to fail in its purpose because even aside from any ethical/intellectual property issues, it’s self-defeating. cameras didn’t make art obsolete, they just gave us a new way to make art.

and it also feels relevant to note that to this day one of the best compliments a photograph can receive is “it looks just like a painting”

[unprotectedmechs]

why the hell are people even against objectophilia in the first place. how is me fucking my computer harmful to your life

it’s a knee-jerk reaction that doesn’t make sense once you examine it for like .5 seconds. either people have the wise, correct mindset of “it’s not hurting anyone so who cares” or they double down because they’re sex-negative and have conservative brainrot. it’s the same general anti-kink anti-queer anti-fun crowd, all this shit comes from the same mindset of “ew icky i don’t want to examine my own preexisting biases so i’m going to be a huge asshole about it instead”

[recurringwriter]

i need to speak up with this because it's getting grating as a bi arospec.

Please. Think before you say that someone writing a character as demi-, grey-, or elsewhere on the aromantic spectrum is only doing so to 'appeal to the alloros'. When you say that, you sound exactly like the people who call bisexuals 'fakers' or 'basically straight' for wanting to see or think about m/f pairings. I do not want to see the community that should be supporting me, a greyro, pulling the same gatekeeping shit that still hurts me and my bi friends.

I do not mind if you hc this character as repulsed. More power to you, enjoy your headcanons. But you will not tell someone that they are doing it wrong for exploring the idea of romance with that same character. 'It's only when the allos do it--' can you tell? Do you have a magical scrying orb that tells you who is aro enough to write a headcanoned-as-aro character in a romantic relationship? Do you remember how bisexuals get called 'straight' for enjoying a m/f pair? Do you see how others within the arospec community might think that you're calling them allo when they hear you saying that? That this makes them feel unseen and unheard?

I'm sure it's very alienating if you want to be a part of popular fandom, and I could never understand that. But think about how you alienate your allies and siblings when you say these things. Our existence isn't to please anyone else, the same as yours. So stop talking as if it is.

[darkfictionjude]

On a scale of least to most slowburn, where do all of the ROs lie? Can you tag this question with #slowburn, please?

Imre > Nia > Lorcan although it’s a bit more complicated than that

[thedragonagelesbian]

beginning to be slightly worried that i irrevocably fucked up neve's personal quest.... i didnt realize the treviso vs minrathous decision point would trigger immediately after recruiting davrin, so i hadn't yet done her 'walk around chatting' quest and then it disappeared when she left the party & i haven't gotten any more personal quests from her since she's been back (up to the siege on weisshaupt) but idk to what extent that's due to being hardened or due to me not doing the first one

and i do love consequences and i do love this strained relationship that's developed between her & cyrus, because even though the circumstances were outside of his control his decision still hurt her and countless others, but i also. love her. and do not want to miss out on her content...............................................................