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#thats not an excuse but still
yrsonpurpose · 7 months
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"the handsomest-bodied man in all of England."
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choccy-milky · 3 months
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rly liked this screenshot so i wanted to redraw it in my style (credit to lil5nake on twitter!)
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soosoosoup · 2 months
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treasure planet au: cabin boy duties
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factual-fantasy · 1 year
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how about that uhhhhh Fantasy Julie. she gets her sword <3 no one can take it from her <3
rambles:
SIKE you get an extra, lower quality doodle
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SIKE AGAIN here's the rambles
yeah... i caved and gave her a tail... I'm Not Sorry! it's cute! i wanted to stick with her sorta flower motif - it's stronger in her princess look, since I imagine that when she was part of the royals she was very blatantly flower power based. it was her Thing!
but a Julie free of her noble shackles... she deserves her big sword. like yeah, she has flower magic, but who needs it when she has a Giant Blade??? on the royalty vein, and if we're classifying "rainbow monster" as a species, i feel like horn size/curve would be a status symbol of some kind. maybe Julie would have kept her horns filed short. but if she ran away from that life... longer horns! i like to imagine that they'll keep growing until she has a pair of Extra Weapons attached to her head! curved forward like mammoth tusks maybe!
i imagine that like Frank, she goes with minimal armor - range of movement over protection, yk? some scale mail over her front, a thick leather flower over her chest w/ scalloped leather pauldrons, wrist armor and metal knuckles! i'd think that the faux-suspenders include a back sheath for her sword... i wish i'd thought of that Before i finished the little ref! i don't feel like going back and editing!
i imagine that she was forced to cut her hair when it got caught in something (a gelatinous cube, mayhaps). it didn't look good! don't let anime and Mulan fool you! cutting your own hair with a blade will not look nice! but someone - Eddie, probably, he's good with scissors i'd assume - cleaned it up for her. and hey, it didn't look bad! plus, Julie probably liked being able to just tuck up her long strands into her hat when she's feeling a bit more like a Julius than a Julie!
it's been a fun challenge transforming their canon outfits into a similar variation with fantasy flavoring and twists! i want them to suit the setting but still maintain Themselves! Julie's was tough i gotta admit. i was messing around with the princess look and the fighter look side-by-side. it worked better when i sat back and thought "fighter Julie is Julie unrestrained. that version would be more aligned with her canon look"
i wanted her princess form to look Restrained! she has to be a ~delicate flower~, a noble woman, pristine and poised and very much a princess. soft colors, poofy clothing, bright white gloves that are not to be sullied. carefully bundled up hair! jewelry! that dress must be Heavy and hard to move in! her tail must be so cramped under there!
but Julie Unleashed? violent pinks! rose gold accents! short skirt so that she can sprint and Kick! fun boots that she can be active in and delight in watching them get dirty! her hair is free to whip in the wind and get caught in things! fun straps and Deadly Accessories! a sword that she stole from the royal armory on her way out the window! she has forearm wraps both to match Frank and to support her wrists!
#yessss this was mainly an excuse to draw jules with short hair and a tail. i do not apologize#i like to think that poppy has a bottomless bag that she's too scared to use herself#but everybody keeps things in there#julie keeps her hair-hiding-hat in there and some pants and a cape for that Julius Vibe#(yes i could have gone with julian. but julius makes me think of orange julius and. yum)#i've said in initial rambles that i think that julie has Mild plant magic#I TAKE THAT BACK SHE'S SO FUCKING POWERFUL#i think she could hold her own against wally here tbh!#she wouldn't win if home had the reins but yk! it would still be Close!#but why would she use boring magic when she can slash punch kick#she can definitely talk to all plants. like im carrying that over thats so cool#trees warning her of an ambush... trodden-on flowers pointing her in the direction of her quarry...#roots arching out of the ground to trip anyone about to beat her in a race#scribble salad#wh fantasy au#so in canon julie left The Cave#which. fuck is that supposed to be a reference to plato's cave? ok no now's not the time for speculation#so she left the cave to seek out a life of her own#so i imagine that she left the royal life for much the same reason! she didn't want to sit on a throne in a poofy dress and lead!#she wanted to Adventure! see the world! be unrestrained!#i imagine that her repeated sneaking out is how she met frank - then when she ran she went to him cause she knew he wanted to leave#and she went 'hey im ditching this joint wanna come' and Of Course the answer was yes!#adventuring duo that never regret it for a second!#also as im making refs im adding them to a Lineup. which i'll post when ive collected all the pokemon (neighbors). size refs!!!
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starry-bi-sky · 8 months
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miscellaneous danyal al ghul things
specifically about the danyal al ghul from my post/prompt here and i wanna get my misc. headcanons/thoughts on him (especially in his early stay with the fentons) out here before i make any other danyal al ghul aus
list under the cut because whoops this got longer than i expected. which really i should have expected
the Fentons are unaffiliated with the League, which was perfect for Danny faking his death.
he struggles with empathy. Empathy was not taught nor encouraged while he was with the League, so it's a skill that's been pretty stunted. At 15 he's better at empathizing with people, but he still struggles with it. He's pretty bad at reassuring/comforting people and usually acts as an emotional rubber duck for Sam and Tucker to vent to if need be. He sometimes offers blunt and sometimes mean opinions, especially if its about another person.
Sam and Tucker do not know he's an ex-assassin, they are however, pretty positive that he used to be part of an eco-fascist cult with a focus on martial arts?? They've been helping him tone down some of his more,,, extreme views on humanity ever since they caught wind of his more extreme ideologies.
He and Sam are still avid environmentalists and feed into each other quite a bit. They spend plenty of time at protests and pestering the school into more eco-friendly options.
Dash is not dead on the sole fact that Danny knew he had to lay low in Amity Park and killing someone was not, in fact, 'laying low'.
he did, however, traumatize him when Dash first tried to bully him. Safe to say, Danny is not bullied at school and neither are Sam and Tucker.
Danny didn't make any friends in his first year at Amity Park. He was surly, grumpy, standoffish, more stubborn than Sam, and pretty self-important about himself. Jazz was trying to teach him against these things, but she is a 12 year old unaffiliated with the League. Danny did not respect her nor listen to a word she said. It wasn't until like, year two that he finally started paying to mind what she was saying and slowly started to improve on himself
Sam approached him first, he rebuffed her quite harshly, and then Danny approached her sometime afterward when he overheard her talking about environmental rights. Sam completely ignored him though when he agreed with her, and Danny had to later learn that he needed to apologize for being rude to her when they first met. He did so eventually, and they started to talk more with Tucker and Sam.
Danny's a bit more reserved than he is in canon, although he steadily learns how to act as a regular teenager when he's out in public. He's a bit more friendlier at least, although when he's around Sam and Tucker he drops the act. He still has a somewhat formal way of talking, it's just become more casual after a lot of ribbing from Sam and Tucker. When he's angry or annoyed he starts talking poshly though.
His humor is relatively the same as in canon, if somehow dryer and more insulting at some points
Those rare moments where he gets really pissed usually ends up with him insulting someone in arabic or any of the other languages he picked up from the league. He is the go-to for Tucker's Spanish homework. (Tucker makes that mistake and learns that Danny is a very strict teacher)
while Danny doesn't view the Fentons as his parents, even five years after living with them, he does respect them to some amount. He respects them enough at least that when Vlad Masters comes sniffing around, he is suitably offended on both Maddie and Jack's behalf. And when he finds out Vlad was the one who tried to kill Jack and tried to tell him to renounce him as his father/parental guardian, danny threw a suitably sharp object at him and insulted him quite horrendously
Vlad still wants him as his kid. In fact perhaps even moreso after this.
Danny trains with Maddie to keep up with his training. It's not quite the same but it prevents him from getting completely rusty
Sam and Tucker know that Danny has a little brother, but nothing else beyond that other than Danny cares about him quite a lot and that he got his facial scar from keeping him safe.
Danny cares about Sam, Tucker, and Jazz quite a bit, but he struggles to convey it. Especially early on when he realized he cared about them and like instinct started being harsher to them and more critical of their actions. This resulted in quite a few arguments with Sam and Tucker and Jazz until he got sat down and told outright that the way he was treating them wasn't okay. It's a process he's still trying to unlearn even at 15. He has become kinder towards them as a result, and has begun looking for what they did right rather than what they did wrong.
He harbors a lot of guilt over how he treated Damian in the League, and its a pretty big conflict he has with himself since he's torn between telling himself it was for the best to make sure Damian survived the League, and feeling like crap over how harsh/critical of Damian he was and realizing that he probably could have come up with a better way of training him despite being a child himself at the time. Danny comes to the realization that more than anything, that he just wants to apologize.
His ghost form, specifically is outfit, is a combination of his hazmat suit and his uniform from the league, and he carries a sword with him. He also doesn't know how to react to Dani, honestly. Although it is fair to say that he figures out she's a clone instantly because of her whole 'I'm your third cousin once removed' thing and he freaks out. She spills the beans pretty quickly after that. And Danny is pretty skittish around her - or the equivalent of skittish. Her being younger than him kinda reminds him of Damian, so he's uncomfortable by her presence but learns to warm up to her.
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cozylittleartblog · 3 months
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happy Make A Terrible Comic Day 2024. dealing with some Shipping Dwama today
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skrrtscree · 5 months
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Woe ryomina dump be upon yee 💙💛
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birdsong-warriors · 5 months
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Putting off uploading because I kind of hate this comic right now, lol.
First | Previous | Next
Part 1: Friend and Family
See up to thirty pages ahead, with timelapses, on Patreon!
Backgrounds, brushes, timelapses, and other assets for sale on my Ko-Fi!
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todayisafridaynight · 3 months
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Each time you draw Daigo or Masato in a corset I gain 500 HP thank you
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do you accept corset tops. may you live a thousand years
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moon n ballora
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all-my-ocs-are-evil · 8 months
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They're so them coded.
(click for better quality)
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hecksupremechips · 3 months
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Thinking of vlr Akane is so conflicting cuz on one hand I’m so upset that she doesn’t ever get a moment to just rest and enjoy being alive again I’m upset that she just gets deeper and deeper into this role she’s built for herself and she loses her humanity and will never ever be that girl who died in the incinerator. But on the other hand, I need her to get so, so much worse I need her to be so obsessed with perfection she has this unique ability to change the course of history and she will burn everything and everyone to the ground in the blink of an eye if it means she can "reset" and get a perfect timeline and I desperately need her to never be satisfied with anything because really, is there anything that’s worth all the damage she’s caused?
#zero escape#akane kurashiki#virtues last reward#yeahhhhh just having so many thoughts about akane and sigma and junpei and yeah im screaming eyes bloodshot#i want akane to just like post 999 just do silly shit with aoi get a cat be a gamer try to heal the best she can#and i want her to be so evil i think theres still some crimes she hasnt committed yet she should do those#i really really really want her and junpei to just beat the shit out of each other in a boxing ring. specifically post vlr#need them being old as shit throwing chairs everyone is cheering#and damn like vlr akane just cant agree with junpei on his philosophy that a life with pain is still a life worth living cuz then thatd mean#everything she did in 999 was all for naught like to accept even the bad timelines where she died as valuable...#thats a kick to the dick especially when she fought so hard to live and how her death was so unfair#except she was just a scared kid with no choice then. now whats her excuse#i just want it to be possible you know? possible that akane didnt need to do this and she couldve been happy#cuz yeah the trauma would be horrible but surely itd be better than the trauma she has now since she took that dive#i wonder if she knows that no matter what she does she’ll never erase her trauma and eventually she will have to face it#or if she actually believes she can figure it all out and win the perfect timeline and magical mental stability will happen#basically akane is avoiding therapy soooooo hard but then again who would even be her therapist#no one can possibly understand her...right?
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spacedlexi · 2 months
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twdg s4 really gave us an adorable wlw romance for the main character about building a home and a family where the two antagonists are an evil woman who she was partially cared for by as a child and her girlfriends fucked up not-exactly-ex girlfriend who wants her dead (who has been manipulated by Evil Woman and they are character foils) AND its written by a gay woman and its fucking CRICKETS!!!!! i dont understand !!!!!!!
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luxaofhesperides · 10 months
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Ghostlights as college roommates and maybe some identity shenanigans thrown in would be so fun! Maybe dannys doing a little vigilante work on the side as well to up the secret identity mayhem
Danny would like to say his college career is going well. Gotham isn’t where he was expecting to pursue higher education, but the engineering scholarship he got through the Wayne Educational Foundation was just too good to turn down. It even covered the cost of an apartment! Although, the apartment is shared with another student who got a Wayne scholarship. 
Even with that, Danny lucked out and got a great roommate. Duke Thomas is chill, kind, respects Danny’s space and doesn’t throw wild parties or invite random people in at all hours of the day. He even joins Danny twice a week for study sessions!
Really, it would be the perfect college experience except for one thing: the ghosts.
Danny thought they’d stay in Amity Park. They had no reason to stray from the city where the portal was, and his parents are more than enough to keep most ghosts away. It took his friends, Jazz, and even Vlad to convince Danny that he wasn’t abandoning Amity Park and that the city wouldn’t fall while he took a few years to focus on himself. 
He worried right up until he got to GCU and walked the campus for the first time. Then he decided to enjoy the four years he had on the scholarship to get his degree and live his own life like a normal person.
To say he’s pissed about the ghosts is an understatement. 
The one thing he was looking forward to most is not being Phantom. Gotham is home to the Bats and they’re more than capable of handling everything in the city. It means there’s no need for him here and he can focus on school and enjoy going on invisible flights without worrying about being hunted down or having to fight a ghost. 
“Are you fucking kidding me,” he mutters under his breath as he feels the familiar chill race up his throat, A cold mist wafts out of his mouth, curling around his words, and Danny quickly ducks his head and hides it from sight. 
“Did you say something?” Duke asks, looking up from where he leans against the kitchen counter, squinting at a recipe on his phone. 
“Nah,” Danny lies. “Just stressing.” He gestures to the papers he has spread out on the dining table, then stands up. “I’m gonna take a walk. Maybe that’ll get my brain to work correctly tonight.”
“Got your phone on you?”
Danny reflexively drops a hand to his pocket, checking that his phone is where it’s supposed to be. It’s what Duke asks every single time Danny mentions going out, worried about Danny being unprepared for Gotham. It’s nice of him, though Danny does wish he can say that he’s survived a lot worse than a few muggers. 
“Got it.”
“Alright. I’ll try to work on dinner while you’re out.”
Danny nods and offers Duke a small wave before pulling his shoes on at the door. He grabs his keys and heads out, double checking that the door is locked behind him. 
Then he glances around the hallway, checking that the coast is clear, and pulls up the chill of awareness in his chest. Slowly, he breathes out, watching the blue mist waft out and lead towards the stairwell. 
“Wonder who it is this time,” he mutters to himself, going into the cold, concrete stairwell. It always feels a little off in there, as if he’s been removed from the rest of the world when the door closes behind him. His footsteps echo oddly in the space, so Danny chooses to fly instead, keeping his feet off the floor. 
A few flights down is when he sees her: pale and translucent, a faint blue glow around her. She’s a familiar face. Emilia is one of the first of Gotham’s ghosts he’s met, leading to the rather unpleasant realization that ghosts don’t only come from the Infinite Realms. There’s a strange sort of magic in the very foundations of Gotham that makes it the way it is, creating ghosts that are different enough from what he’s used to that it leaves him off balance. 
Gotham keeps her dead. Few get to pass on peacefully, and most have to wait until they grow weak and wither away, a second death, before they can be released from the living realm. The ghosts of Gotham are pale and weak, for the most part, and try to cling to him so grow stronger from his ectoplasm. 
Most want him to help them pass on, or give them a way into the Infinite Realms. Some want him to bring justice to their killers. Others want to kill him and take his ectoplasm for their own so they can continue their reign of terror in Gotham, unable to be stopped even in death. 
Emilia gives him warnings. It’s not always her, but she tends to be the one to draw him out of his apartment, pulling him into a vigilante lifestyle because he can’t bring himself to refuse anyone who asks for his help, and the dead in Gotham have no one else to ask.
“Danny,” she greets. “Nueve is out again. He’s going after the ghosts near Chantilly Street.”
“The sun isn’t even down yet,” Danny grumbles. Nueve, an old gang enforcer who died a few decades ago, cannibalizes other ghosts. It doesn’t destroy the other ghosts, not really, but it makes them feel pain when they shouldn’t be able to feel much at all. Taking their limited reserves of ectoplasm makes him momentarily stronger, and he uses that stolen strength to try to harm the living.
He’s been successful a few times. Danny makes sure to rip him apart as much as possible these days; he won’t be here forever, but he’s hoping that within his four years at GCU, he’ll be able to permanently stop Nueve.
Times like these, he misses having a Fenton Thermos with him. Though he’s not entirely sure it would work on Gotham’s ghosts with how different they are. 
Emilia follows him down the stairwell to the ground floor. Once there, Danny shoves his hand into the floor, taking out the backpack he’s hidden in it. He’s done this change of clothes so often he can do it in just a minute now, hiding his face and pulling on gloves beneath a large hoodie with old ectoplasm stains along the sleeves and hem. A gas mask is pulled on as well, covering the bottom half of his face, a necessary addition to his Ghost Work Outfit™ after he almost got caught in some Fear Gas during Scarecrow’s last attack. 
“Alright,” he says, “Lead the way.”
Emilia takes off through the wall and Danny hurries to follow, going invisible as he hits the streets. 
It’s still early evening, the sun not yet fully set. Plenty of people walk along the sidewalks and cars pass by endlessly, honking at each other as they try to go twenty above the speed limit. Danny does his best to avoid running into everyone, deftly dodging the reaching hands of a few ghosts who spot him as he sprints by. 
They only go a few blocks away from his apartment building, turning into a dead end alley where a group of teens (living, for once) are stuck with their backs to the wall, clinging to each other as they warily watch the man in front of them carelessly twirl a gun around his finger. 
The man makes a strange clicking noise in the back of his throat, and it takes Danny a moment to realize that he’s trying to talk. 
Still invisible, Danny sneaks around to stand in front of the teens, ready to bodily protect them. The man looks alive, and Danny see any ghosts around save for Emilia, standing at the mouth of the alley. There’s something strange about him; his movements seem just a little off, not quite as fluid as they should be. It’s not the movement of someone on drugs. It’s something that screams uncanny valley.
The gun’s handle drops solidly into the man’s palm. He makes another few clicks, then raising the gun to point at the teens.
“Bad idea, pal,” Danny says dropping his invisibility. The teens behind him startle, gasping and trying to press themselves further into the wall. 
The man’s eyes flash weakly and the pieces click into place in Danny’s mind. Nueve must have gotten strong enough to possess someone. That is… alarming, to say the least.
He rips the gun out of the man’s hand and tosses it aside. Then he pushes away the man’s arm when Nueve makes a clumsy attempt to punch him. With his chest left wide open and undefended, Danny takes the chance to shove his hand into the man’s chest, feeling for the familiar chill of a ghost. 
And then he wraps his fingers tight around it and pulls out Nueve, leaving the man to collapse. 
The teens behind him scream and Danny winces. 
Pulling out a faintly glowing human figure from someone’s physical body does not look good. It’s the best way to end a possession, but it does look alarmingly like he’s just ripped someone’s soul out of their body.
Keeping hold of Nueve’s ghost, Danny steps to the side. “You guys should go now. Take care.”
The teens don’t need any more prompting. They take off in a run, tripping over each other in their haste to get away.
Danny spares a glance to the man unconscious on the ground, but there’s nothing he can do with an angry ghost in his hands, so he has no choice but to leave him there as he flies up to a rooftop farther down the street. 
“How many times do we need to do this, Nueve?” he asks tiredly, shaking the ghost.
“These streets should be mine!” Nueve howls, trying to break free of Danny’s grasp. But he’s quickly growing weak, his energy fading, and Danny’s holding back his own ectoplasm as tightly as he can. “They may have killed me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still take what I’m owed!”
“Dude, you’re dead. There’s nothing here for you. Move on.”
“You don’t get to speak on this, outsider. You think a freak like you has an say over us? You can’t stop us. You don’t even know what’s coming.”
Danny squints at him. “What, are you planning a heist or something? With your gang of dead people too weak to lift a piece of paper?”
“We’re not all dead. We’ve got living folk helping us and we’ll be taking you out first when we hit the streets.”
“Good luck with that,” Danny says flatly, “Begone with you.” 
Without giving Nueve a chance to say another word, he rips Nueve’s head off his body. His ghost wavers, then dissipates like smoke, fading away. 
Another side effect of whatever it is Gotham does to her dead: their ghost forms are remarkably fragile and it takes only a bit of strength to tear them to shreds, giving him some peace before they reform again. It won’t stop Nueve from striking out again, gathering enough strength until he’s able to possess some other unfortunate soul, but Danny’s bought himself some time to figure out what the hell was he talking about?
There are living folk involved with whatever he’s planning. It’s probably another gang, maybe someone with magic who is able to see ghosts? Which is not great. Danny doesn’t know much about magic; even when facing ghosts who used magic or magical artifacts, his go to method of dealing with them is to start throwing hands like there’s no tomorrow.
Well.
It’s a problem for later.
For now, Danny needs to get back to his apartment and work on his calculus homework. Hopefully he can finish it before he gets frustrated enough that he gives up and lies face down on the floor until Duke manhandles him onto the couch, where he’s less of a tripping hazard.
He’s just about to get back to street level when his Fenton Luck strikes again and he hears someone land on the roof, just a few feet behind him.
“Hey there, stranger,” the Signal says. “You know, we run into each other so often it feels rude not to introduce ourselves. Why don’t you go first?”
Danny turns to face the daylight vigilante, standing with his arms crossed as if that would make him look any more approachable. He’s been popping up wherever Danny’s out dealing with ghosts, which is very not great for Danny’s plans to have a peaceful, normal college life. 
Biting his tongue, Danny gives the Signal a quick two fingered salute, then goes intangible and drops down through the building. His invisibility sweeps over him and then he’s running through the streets, hoping it’s enough to keep the Signal from following him to his apartment.
He skids to a stop in the stairwell, dropping his intangibility just in time to crash into the wall. Panting, Danny waits for a tense minute to see if he’s been followed. 
When the door to the stairwell remains closed, he lets out a slow breath, then pulls off all the pieces of his Ghost Work Outfit, shoving it back into his bag. He takes a moment to fix his hair, messy from the hood, then shoves the bag back into the floor, safely hidden from curious eyes. 
Then he very casually walks up the stairs to the fifth floor and walks down the hallway to his apartment. His keys clang together when he opens the door, and Duke usually hears it when it does, but just in case, Danny calls out, “I’m back!”
He’s learned to announce himself after a few late night walks almost ended with him tackled to the floor when Duke thought someone was breaking in.
Duke doesn’t respond as he toes off his shoes. The stillness in the apartment feels off, as if the world is holding its breath. Cautiously, Danny walks in, trying to find his roommate.
He’s not in the kitchen. The living room is empty. Duke’s bedroom door is open and he’s not in there either. 
Something cold lodges itself in his chest. 
“Duke?” he tries again, looking over their apartment again for any sign of struggle, or something terrible happening, or even a mess that Duke needed more supplies to clean up. 
There’s nothing. The apartment is as it’s always been, just with an empty space where Duke should be.
Worried, Danny stands in the middle of the hallway, trying to figure out what he should do next. It’s because he’s standing so still, surrounded by silence, that he hears it: a light thud outside the window. 
Danny turns and he can swear he sees something large moving outside the window, disappearing from sight just as Danny takes a step into Duke’s room to check on it. He rushes to the window and pushes it open, looking down at the street, then side to side, and finally up to the last three floors of the building.
Nothing’s there.
Slowly, Danny pulls his head back inside, closing and locking the window. “Must be my imagination,” he says, trying to convince himself it’s not a big deal. 
He leaves Duke’s room and begins pacing down the hall, anxiety building steadily in him. 
His phones in his hand before he can think his actions through, Duke’s contact pulled up on the screen. He should call. He should make sure Duke is okay, but Danny hesitates. Is this something to be freaked out over? Would Duke thing he’s clingy and nervous and a bothersome roommate? He doesn’t want to risk Duke asking for a new roommate next year when the lease renews.
But he’s worried. It’s Gotham and Danny just dealt with a violent, murderous ghost threatening him. Duke can deal with a stressed out, worried Danny if it means he’s alive.
He hits the call button before he can talk himself out of it. It rings on and on and on until Danny starts to panic about having to find Duke’s ghost to avenge his murder. 
The front door is thrown open so suddenly and so loudly, Danny jumps and his phone clatters to the floor. 
“Danny! Hey!” Duke says with a bright smile, trying to catch his breath. He’s still holding onto the doorknob, slightly hunched over as he pants for breath. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah! Yeah, I’m totally fine.”
“Where were you?”
Duke straightens up and closes the door, kicking off his shoes. “Oh, just… out. Shopping. For dinner.”
Danny looks over his empty hands doubtfully. “No luck finding what you needed?”
“Nope!”
“What did you need? Maybe I can go to a different store and get it for you.”
“You don’t need to!” Duke says. “I just needed… tomatoes?”
Danny blinks at him. “We have tomatoes. Did you not know we had tomatoes in the fridge?”
“Oh, do we? Good to know.”
There’s something very weird about this conversation, but Danny doesn’t pry. Duke is weird sometimes, but it’s fine because he kindly ignores some of Danny’s oddities that come from being a halfa and a semi-retired hero. 
“Do you… maybe wanna sit down? Catch your breath? I can make dinner tonight if you want.”
Duke waves a hand in the air. “No, no, it’s fine. I got this. Anyways, how was your walk?”
He definitely shouldn’t talk about the cannibal ghost and his threats to take out Danny with his gang. “It was nice. Very quiet. You know, for Gotham.” He punctuates this with an awkward thumbs up and immediately regrets it, but it’s already done so he commits to it.
“Cool! Great. Just wondering, did you see anything weird?”
“Depends on what you’re asking about?”
“Just some guy wearing black with a hood covering his face. He’s been active in this neighborhood and I saw some people talk about him online. Apparently he just appears out of thin air.”
Danny tries not to wince. That’s him, alright. Gotham’s newest neighborhood menace. “I don’t think so, but there’s a lot of people in Gotham that were all black and walk around with their hood up.”
“True,” Duke concedes. “Well, just be careful when you go out, alright?”
“I always am.” He gives Duke the same two fingered salute he gave the Signal. Duke stares at him for a moment, eyes dark and almost dangerous, then he smiles and walks into the kitchen. 
“Wanna make dinner with me? I think we can figure out this recipe together. Unless you need to do your homework.”
“It can wait!” Danny hurries to join Duke, grateful for an excuse to push off calculus a little longer. He understands what he’s doing in the class, there’s just… so much work. He doesn’t even want to think about the tests. The tests make everyone cry.
“Alright, let’s get to it, then!”
“You’re in charge, chef,” Danny says, laughingly, and bumps against Duke’s side. He expects a light shove in return, something Sam and Tucker always did, but Duke goes tense instead, letting out a sharp breath that Danny is all too familiar with. “Wait, why are you hurt? What happened?!”
He goes to lift up Duke’s shirt to inspect his shirt, see the damage for himself, but Duke smoothly moves out of the way, grabbing Danny’s wrists and stopping him in his tracks. “I’m fine, Danny. I just got hit. Lightly. Minor bruising, really.”
Danny looks at him doubtfully, then wrenches a wrist free to lift up his shirt before he can move again.
Minor bruising is not how Danny would describe the blues and purples that decorate Duke’s entire side. He can see the outline of Duke’s ribs through the bruising. “How is this being lightly bruised? What hit you?”
“A car?”
“A car?!”
Duke winces, then pulls his shirt down. “I’m fine, Danny, really. It was just from a car that didn’t want to stop at a red light. I stopped another person from being hit, but the car got me pretty solidly. You know how bad Gotham drivers are.”
“Sit down!” Danny says, pulling Duke out of the kitchen. “I don’t understand how you’re still standing. I’ll get some ice, and I’ll handle dinner. You just stay there and stop pushing yourself for no reason.”
“Playing nurse for me now?”
“If I have to.”
“Would you wear a nurse costume for me, too?” Duke jokes.
Danny looks him dead in the eye and says, “If I have to. Would that make you follow my instructions? A tight little nurse dress?”
Duke sputters, cheeks darkening, and looks away. Danny grins, victorious, and darts back to the kitchen to grab an ice pack from the fridge. 
“Maybe I’ll wear one for you anyways, once you’re all healed up. Only if you’re good, though.”
“Danny, you’re killing me here.”
“Better me than a car.”
Duke laughs and takes the ice pack, pressing it against his side carefully. “Oh, for sure. Thanks, Danny.”
“Hey, what are roommates for?” Danny shares a warm smile with Duke, then pats his shoulder and heads back to the kitchen to start making a simple pasta dinner. 
Life in Gotham is weird and stressful and full of ghosts and heroes who won’t leave him alone. But it’s not all that bad, really. He’s happy with how he’s doing in college, and he’s beyond lucky to have Duke as a roommate. So long as Duke never finds out about his halfa status, then he’s sure they’ll be able to last all four years rooming together.
He just needs to keep a secret. 
Shouldn’t be too hard, right?
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mickeym4ndy · 4 months
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You can spend a lot of time trying to justify everything a character has done, and it’s great to look at the reasoning behind their actions that people might not understand.
But you can also sometimes say yea it’s understandable why they did it but it was still a shitty thing to do, and that’s okay. Humans make mistakes, your favourite characters will too. It’s ok. It doesn’t make them bad people.
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