#taint arc

[little-pondhead]

Your Ancient History, Written In Wax

-

Danny knew he should have put better security around the Sarcophagus of Eternal Sleep. It wasn’t even Vlad who opened it this time! The fruitloop was too busy doing his actual mayor duties because for some godforsaken reason, the man got re-elected.

No, it wasn’t Vlad. And it wasn’t Fright Knight, either. Nor the Observants. Who opened the Sarcophagus, then? Danny didn’t have time to find out as Pariah Dark promptly tore open a hole in reality and started hunting Danny down.

The battle was longer this time. He didn’t have the Ecto-Skeleton, as that was the first thing Pariah had destroyed. The halfa had grown a lot over the past few years, and learned some new tricks, but apparently sleeping in a magic ghost box meant that Pariah had absorbed a lot of power. The bigger ghost acted like a one-man army!

Amity Park was caught in the middle of the battle, but the residents made sure it went no further than that. Vlad and the Fentons made a barrier around the town to keep the destruction from leaking. Sam, Tucker, and Dani did crowd control while Danny faced the king head-on.

Their battle shook the Zone and pulled them wildly between the mortal plane and the afterlife. Sometimes, residents noticed a blow from Pariah transported them to the age of the dinosaurs, and Phantom’s Wail brought them to an unknown future. Then they were in a desert. Then a blazing forest. Then underwater. It went on like that, but no one dared step foot outside of Amity. They couldn’t risk being left behind.

It took ages to beat him, but eventually, Danny stood above the old ghost king, encasing his symbols of power in ice so they couldn’t be used again. He refused to claim the title for himself. Tired as he was, Danny handed the objects off to Clockwork for safe keeping and started repairing the damage Pariah had done to the town. The tear he’d made was too big to fix, for now, so no one bothered. They just welcomed their new ghostly neighbors with open arms and worked together to restore Amity Park.

Finally, the day came to bring down the barrier. People were gathered around the giant device the Fentons had built to sustain it. Danny had brought Clockwork to Amity, to double check that they had returned to the right time and dimension.

Clockwork assured everyone that they were in the right spot, and only a small amount of time had passed, so the Fentons gave the signal to drop the shield.

Very quickly did they discover that something was wrong. The air smelled different. The noise of the nearby city, Elmerton, was louder and more chaotic. Something was there that wasn’t before, and it put everyone on edge.

Clockwork smiled, made a remark about the town fitting in better than before, and disappearing before Danny could catch him.

Frantic, Danny had a few of his ghost buds stay behind to protect the town while he investigated.

He flew far and wide, steadily growing horrified at the changes the world had undergone. Heroes, villains, rampant crime and alien invasions. The Earth was unrecognizable. There were people moving around the stars like it was second nature and others raising dead gods like the apocalypse was coming. Magic and ectoplasm was everywhere, rather than following the ley lines like they were supposed to.

Danny returned to Amity.

The fight with Pariah had taken them through space and time. Somewhere along the way, they had changed the course of history so badly that this now felt like an alien world.

How was he supposed to fix this?

-

In the Watchtower, The Flash was wrapping up monitor duty while Impulse buzzed around him, a little more jittery than usual. The boy was talking a mile a minute, when alarms started blaring an alarming green. Flash had never seen this alarm before, and its crackling whine was grating on his ears.

Flash returned to the monitor, frantically clicking around to find the issue, but nothing was popping up. No major disasters, no invasions, no declarations of war. Nothing! What was causing the alarm?

Impulse swore and zipped to a window, pressing his face against it and staring down at Earth. “Fuck! It’s today isn’t it? I forgot!”

“What’s today?” Flash asked. He shot off a text to Batman, asking if it was an error. The big Bat said it wasn’t, and that he would be there soon.

“The arrival of Amity Park. I learned about this in school; the alarm always gives me headaches.”

Flash turned to his grandson, getting his attention. “Bart,” he stressed. “What are you talking about?”

Impulse barely glanced over his shoulder. Now that Flash was facing him, he could see a strong glow coming from Earth. “The first villain, first anti-villain, and the first hero,” he said anxiously. “They all protect the town of the original metas. They’re all here.”

“Here? Now??”

“Yeah? They weren’t before, but they are now. The first hero said there was time stuff involved, which was what inspired me to start practicing time travel in the first place.”

“I’m not following.”

“It’s okay. We should probably go welcome them before they tear apart Illinois, though. The history I remember says that some of them freaked and destroyed a chunk of the Midwest during a fight with each other.”

“WHAT?”

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID: An animatic of Stephanie Brown as Robin set to Tears over Beers by modern baseball. The images are paired with the lyrics. Stephanie as spoiler staring longingly at Bruce, Tim and Cass on a rooftop is paired with "he needed more than me". A compilation of sketches of Steph as robin go with "im friendly and thoughtful and quite awfully pretty". Finally a redraw of Steph's firing as Robin is paired with "but he needed more than me". End ID]

been trying to finish a comic for. Weeks now (just been hitting a lot blocks) and quickly threw this together as a break from it! Do you guys ever think about Stephanie Brown…

[cinamun]

Indya said she got the fits too.....

[senvurii]

DREAMSMP MEMBER AS IYOWA (VOCALOID) SONGS!! A THREAD!!

Ctommy / Almost ended - a song about a girl stuck in a loop- stuck chasing her own ending forever

ctommy part2 - Midnight Phobia

ctommy honourable mention (im a freak) / peachy key

ctubbo / over - about a young girl determined to find her dead friend in the stars

ctechno / adipocere - a girl wandering through the metaphorical cold for dead relationships

(note: i always imagined techno to living millennium, and this song to crimeboys. this is for accuracy.)

cphil / imawanokiwa - about a mother attempting to ignore the grief of losing her child

cniki / Till your tear goes - a remembrance to let go and love the day

cslime / living millenium - a painting-like girl observing humans for thousands of years

cdream / mercy killing - a girl whos punishing another for lying

cquackity / goodbye jackpot - a nihilistic outview on life told through casino metaphors

cpuffy / Dandelion - someone desperately trying and failing to protect what she holds dear

csam / angel care - a girl apologizing and grieving for a loved ones death

[worstloki]

Fortesa Latifi, We Were Young

[findmeinthefallair]

How not to fucking write the Your Makeup is Running trope:

How to write the Your Makeup is Running trope:

[eddiegettingshot]

😭😭😭😭😭

[bluntandsaucy]

oho does this imply a navani bondsmith arc? unclear how i feel about it but that's the vibe

[gayemeralds]

I'm guessing you hated the Eggman amnesia arc in the IDW comics then, especially the whole "Sonic and Shadow arguing whether Eggman should be killed in his amnesiac state"?

yeah i think it’s pretty stupid. but i also don’t really think shadow would be that invested in killing eggman either? like most characters don’t really give a fuck about Eggman beyond stopping him.

[vaugarde]

oh yeah i should probably talk about elementals as an arc. uhhhh overall it was good but why tf did they have an episode where jake is a really good character and then immediately replace him with lsp. i know it was all for plot stuff but oh my god the arc took an immediate nosedive for me after jake got assimilated and lsp became an important character

[mermaidyn]

Ahahaha I love Shindou Takuto amirite gamers

[libertyreads]

Book Review #4 of 2024--

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Rating: 4 stars.

Read from January 17th to 20th.

Before I get into the review, a quick thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers over at Del Rey Books for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Tainted Cup is a Holmes and Watson-esque novel that follows investigator Ana Dolabra--a detective whose eccentricities are matched only by her brilliance--and her assistant, Dinios Kol who are called to work a case after a high imperial officer is killed when a tree erupts from his body. As they follow the clues, Dolabra and Kol just might uncover a darker secret than this poisoning. The Tainted Cup comes out on February 6th and is available for pre-order now.

I had such a fun time with this one. I'm a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan girl so I was worried that picking this one up would set off a chain reaction of disappointment. But the way this story unfolds in this fantastical world and the way the mystery gets laid out for the reader makes it so much more fun and accessible to the reader. In most of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I've read over the years, there would be leaps in logic that were too difficult to follow unless you had very specific, detailed knowledge. And, while Ana does had a little bit of that going on, the author managed to find a way to keep the reader invested and to keep the reader's suspension of disbelief going. The world building and the pace of the story worked really well for me. There was a small section at the beginning where it felt like you were just thrown into the story, but given the fantastical world and how short that feeling lasted I'm going to say that part was still a thumbs up from me.

The characters are probably what I think could have used the most work. We do get some of the Holmes and Watson-esque interactions between our investigator and her assistant but I felt like we could have gone further with it. I still feel like I know so little about Ana. Maybe that's a choice the author made because of her being a representation of Sherlock Holmes. But I just wanted more from her. I also spent a lot of the book thinking there would be some dark reveal about Dinios but it never went in that direction. And I kind of wish it had. He's a little too squeaky clean for me. But know that's coming from a girl whose favor characters are all morally grey.

Overall, this was a fun and engaging read that I think fans of Sherlock Holmes can enjoy while acknowledging that it's separate from the original stories. It always felt like the plot was pushing me to read more and more which made it a faster read than I was expecting.

[prismit]

wow, this greedier mode lost attempt is going really well, i have so much good stuff! can't wait to get through these last few levels and finally get this last completion mark so i can unlock godhead!

[lonestardust]

ok I liked that scene. it's pure sitcom shenanigans. ronen's delivery is everything. those reactions and iris calling him short sjjsjs. I love her throwing down the gauntlet to TK and rubbing him the wrong way with how nonchalant she is. she's indeed blunt in a way that her tone felt like she's coming in hot to give TK a shovel talk but she's ultimately not mean and rather funny. how the whole talk was basically a blunt teasing and then TK listing his NDEs (and a god forsaken unknown third coma that no one ever heard of sjjsksk *lone star being consistent with both not fact checking and throwing logic away* "it's a bit more than average" yes it is sjksj).

[racke7]

Villain Izuku

Reading through the “Villain Izuku”-tag is so weird.

Like, you have a bunch of different approaches:

“The League were the good guys actually” (UwU they’re just misunderstood)

“Society was mean to me, so that means it’s fine if I murder thousands of innocents”

“Izuku is a Super Mastermind and all the crazies among the Villains are totally fine with following his orders, since he gives them Results and would never betray them because he’s so smart and cool”

“The useless quirkless kid with no value was kidnapped by the Villains and forced to do Villain-things (instead of them just... you know, recruiting an obviously-useful Villain), but he secretly wants to be a Hero“

“Morally grey means that I can tell everyone that they suck, and they still have to be nice to me, because I’m so cool”

And having a bunch of different types is great, but like... I’m sorry, what?

Izuku is a molotov-cocktail of suppressed rage, and I can easily see him getting in trouble with the law simply because he used lethal force against someone he shouldn’t have (because he considered them a threat, and other people disagreed).

I could see him growing heavily disillusioned with the Hero Industry, and the way that they’re “enforcing the status-quo”, up until he finally snaps and tries to force a revolution.

I can even see him becoming a Vigilante pre-UA, and using enough violence that he falls into the category of “Villain who attacks Villains” rather than being referred to as a “Vigilante”.

Or have him try to reach out to help people through internet-forums until he accidentally creates an organization that’s technically-illegal, and he defends it to the death on behalf of how it lets him help people.

But like... those two sets of “Villain Izuku” don’t have a lot of overlap, do they?

The League is an organization led by an egocentric man-child, and funded by a sadistic monster who thinks that human experimentation is actually totally okay (since he’s the one doing it).

Izuku buckling to the pressure of society and deciding to murder innocents (for the lolz), rather than drag society kicking and screaming through a revolution (with some unfortunate innocent casualties)? Lame.

Setting up Izuku to be BBC’s Moriarty? That kind of character-story was doomed from the start (because it doesn’t make any fucking sense), and trying to follow in BBC’s deranged footsteps isn’t really a good look.

Kidnapping a quirkless kid because they won’t be missed? Sure. Forcing them to do “Villainy”? Nah. Quirkless kids are worthless (everyone knows that) just recruit someone with a properly Villainous-quirk instead. If you just want to write whump, have them rescue him from some kind of sadistic cage-match set-up instead, at least that would give the Villains a good motive to traumatize him (nobody would bet on the quirkless kid, but holy shit look at the violent little bastard go).

And “morally grey means that I’m just better than you people”? Ugh. I get that trying to write an “and our hero swoops in and saves the day”-fic is difficult to do when the problem is a societal one instead of someone trying to punch people in the face, but geez.

It’s just... I really don’t understand this fandom sometimes.

[dragynkeep]

You know, I legit can't tell if Jaune is supposed to be a few months older or a full decade older with that new design.

it's more than likely meant to be a couple decades due to the rust of his armour & the eyelines they use to "denote age" for older characters for clover, ironwood, raven, etc. but they just kept his model from his 19 year old self & said behold. a man.

like no that is a foetus.