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starry-bi-sky · 3 months

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Clone^2 danny headcanons and/or facts that i wanted to expand on but didn't have the motivation or inspiration to write a ficlet about. Ultimately most of these are ideas that already exist in canon clone^2 but are only now being expanded on/explored/stated specifically.

Because I'm procrasinating cfau and passively thinking about clone danny and damian again.

1 - As he's liminal, Danny generates his own ectoplasm. He generates it at a slower rate than the casual ghost but faster than the average liminal. It's what gives him an ecto-signature and results in him triggering his parents' weapons and ecto-sensors.

The ectoplasm he generates actually has a use, and he tends to burn through his supply while he's fighting because of all the physical energy he spends + the use of his scary eyes requires (albeit really minor amounts of) ectoplasm to use. It also has health benefits, as using his ectoplasm keeps his heartbeat steady and lessens the risk of his arrhythmia flaring up due to all of his physical activity and adrenaline.

It does happen occasionally that he uses up more ectoplasm than he can replace, and this has the expected negative effects on his health as all that adrenaline and stress catches up to his heart without a buffer to mitigate it. He carries a canteen full of diluted ectoplasm with him in order to give his system the boost it needs in order to stabilize itself, which he can usually tell when he needs due to excessive fatigue/chest pains/dizziness/other arrhythmia symptoms he gets that means he's low on ectoplasm.

2 - Danny's arrhythmia is a form of bradycardia (which is a slower heartbeat) -- what type? Unspecified / Unknown thanks to it being ectoplasmic in nature.

3 - In that same breath, Danny also has to burn that ectoplasm off in some form or another because if he doesn't it builds up and causes him the same issues as if he was too low. It also causes him to become more emotionally volatile, restless, irritable, overstimulated, etc, which the stress of that then makes his heart condition worsen. If too much ectoplasm builds up, it'll cause a physical electrical shock/shortage. This is rare however, and usually is the equivalent of giving someone a painful static shock. At best it makes the lights flicker or technology fritz out for a few seconds.

While it doesn't have much effect on the physical world, it does expend a good chunk of ectoplasm. Think like dumping out a heavy bucket of water that you've been carrying for a while, or getting into a hot shower after being outside in the cold for hours. It's emotionally draining but very relieving.

4 - Danny can replenish ectoplasm or generate ectoplasm faster by resting, eating, consuming other ectoplasm (fastest), fulfilling his interests / doing things that makes him happy, or by being exposed to high amounts of ectoplasm in the area. He can also rapidly generate it by being in a volatile emotional state, but that drains ectoplasm almost as quickly, and runs the risk of causing flare ups in his arrhythmia.

5 - this is actually canon to the au but I figured it wouldn't hurt to expand more on it / clarify / confirm, but Danny post-Damian has chronic pain in his hands from the nerve damage he sustained. He has daily physical therapy exercises he's supposed to do that he does in the mornings/evenings and whenever his hands hurt/feel stiff. He wears compression gloves in his day-to-day life and gets Sam and Tucker's help to brainstorm ideas about how to make compression gloves for Phantom that can include his knuckledusters. His grip and hand strength is weakened.

He has bad hand days where his hands hurt more than usual. This can happen at random, but is more common after he's overused/strained his hands either the day before or earlier in the day. His fingers stiffen up for similar reasons, and he gets tremors. It's happened before where (for example) he's braiding his hair and unbraiding it, only to need someone else to finish the braid because his fingers stiffened up and don't want to work like he wants them to.

Massages, heat, pressure, etc. helps soothe the pain, and since Danny's a fidgety person his friends and family can usually tell when he has a flare up because any hand movements he was doing prior ceased/slowed suddenly, or he starts massaging his hands / stretching out his fingers.

Damian very stubbornly insists on massaging his hands for him when this happens, he has a lot of intense guilt for being the reason for Danny's chronic pain so he wants to alleviate it in anyway he can.

6 - Danny has what I like to call "Bruce-isms", a word I came up with just now that means he has Bruce Wayne mannerisms that come from the fact that he's still Bruce's clone. A Nature vs. Nurture thing. His Bruce-isms include the Bruce Grunts Of Ambiguous Tonal Meaning ("hm", "hrm", "hn"), his workaholism, his paranoia (on a milder scale), etc. They're small, relatively non-defining things that are quirks but don't make up his personality.

He's got what Sam and Tucker like to call "Bruce Wayne Moments" which are essentially Bruce-isms but only ones that Danny and his friends are aware of considering they only know Bruce as Brucie Wayne and not Batman. "Bruce Wayne Moments" include Danny being clumsy, doing something air-headed, being oblivious, etc. It's not a common joke among the three of them since Tucker and Sam know that Danny's still pr sensitive to the whole clone thing. So they only bring it up when he's done something stupid but hilarious.

7 - while clone^2 focuses more on Danny and Damian's relationship and Danny helping Damian develop his identity beyond just "Damian Wayne's Clone", Danny still suffers from his own identity crises. He sometimes gets jealous of Ellie and Damian for being "lucky" that they always knew they were clones, rather than finding out later in life.

He's aware that this is not fair to think and that Damian and Ellie both have their own struggles as clones, but he can't help it sometimes.

He tries not to think about it too much, but when things get too quiet or when he's not busy, Danny can't help but wonder how much of himself is things he's learned on his own and come from him, and how much of it comes from being Bruce Wayne's clone. He has to stop and count how many things are unique about him specifically when he starts to emotionally spiral. It's not rational, but it's not supposed to be.

As a result Danny kinda, hm, clings to his identity as the Phantom, just a little bit? He thinks it's one of the few things that he has autonomous control over as "Danny Fenton", rather than it being a result of him being Bruce Wayne's clone. Because Bruce Wayne isn't a vigilante! Right? Right?

Consequently this becomes one of the reasons that Damian keeps mum about Bruce Wayne's identity. The original reasons were because Danny asked not to know much about the LoA beyond what Damian already told him, and Batman was technically "apart" of the LoA, and secondly because he just didn't want Danny to get involved with Batman and co and Danny knowing about Bruce Wayne's identity could potentially cause that.

But as time goes on Damian kinda notices like, just how being a clone is affecting Danny even if he hides it from Damian pretty well. He can't really comprehend what it was like for Danny to grow up thinking he was normal like everyone else only to find out he was a clone, but he does see the hurt it's causing his brother. And he does notice that Danny was holding onto being Phantom quite a bit, and figured that if he found out Bruce Wayne was also a vigilante, it would hurt him beyond belief.

8 - So Danny's creation has been kept relatively,,, mmm,,, vague? considering I've been struggling for a time how I could plausibly have his creation happen without Bruce finding out about it immediately. And my conclusion is that around the time Danny was created, Bruce met up with the Fenton parents again for some reason or another -- checking out their tech under the guise of wanting to catch up with them.

And I can imagine that, due to being close friends in college, the Fentons literally just outright told him, "Hey we wanna 'nother kid but don't want to go through the risk of pregnancy again, so we're gonna make a clone of one of us instead"

and in true Bruce fashion, he mentally went "wow i should learn Everything And Anything About This Thing Specifically. Just In Case." and outwardly went "woah cool! ahaha how does it work"

and since the Fentons consider Bruce a close friend and are also incapable of Not Talking About Science, turned and went "OH WE CAN SHOW YOU" and showed Bruce their entire cloning process up to and including how they (safely) extracted the DNA they were gonna use. of which they already had. they were gonna just extract Jack's DNA a second time as an example, but it was Bruce who said "hey you should try me instead" in order to gauge how exactly safe this was and if there were any symptoms he would need to recognize in cloning.

so with his consent they did, and then showed him how they were going to use the DNA to make a clone without actually going through the process. Without prompting from Bruce, the Fentons went "we're gonna throw your DNA away though since we don't want this lying around and because we have no use for it" and visibly showed him that they were disposing it.

Bruce came to the conclusion that the Fentons weren't planning anything nefarious, they just really wanted another kid, and (reluctantly) left afterwards. The mixup comes when Maddie, surprisingly, misplaces the cartridge with Jack's DNA in it and while they could have always gotten another sample, it was better and safer to just try and find the original before that.

Jack finds Bruce's in their disposable. In his excitement, he forgets that it was Bruce's DNA, and manages to get it out safely. Maddie wasn't looking when he found it, and in her excitement also forgot to ask where Jack found it. They used that cartridge instead.

When they found out they used the wrong DNA, Danny was already about year old and while Jack and Maddie are morally dubious, they're only morally dubious towards ghosts. Danny was their beloved human baby, they would never do anything to him.

That being said, they were still horrified when they found out, and really, they genuinely did consider reaching out to Bruce to tell him. They thought it was something he deserved to know since it was his DNA that got used instead, and they felt awfully guilty after he trusted them enough to let them draw DNA from him. The only reason they hadn't is because, at the time, Bruce had been really busy with something in his public life and they didn't want to bother him during such a stressful time.

So they were going to wait, and in Fenton-like fashion, forgot to tell him. When the subject came up again sometime later, they assumed they already told Bruce and went about their day.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #clone^2 #danny fenton is a clone #bruce you getting cloned by accident is technically your fault man. you knew the fentons in college you know what they're like /j #i kept kinda vague about danny's chronic pain prior since i don't have it myself so i didn't want to portray it incorrectly. but i want to #confirm it now that danny has chronic pain in his hands. and also that his arrhythmia does affect him more than just “slow heartbeat”#and the ectoplasm he makes acts more like a weird pacemaker than an actual cure for his arrhythmia.#clone^2 au might be more about danny and damian and damian's issues but by god does danny have his own too that he just. shoves to the side #danny canonically has only known he was a clone for a year before he got damian. thats not a long time for something that substantial tbh #and he was still in the process of coming to terms with it when damian ended up in his life.#danny started carrying his canteen of ghost juice with him after he passed out one too many times after a fight when he was low on ectoplas #danny hinges a little too much of his identity on being Phantom because he thinks it's the only really major thing about him that isn't #a result of him being a clone. so uh -aha - him finding out bruce is a vigilante too is gonna be pretty ugly.#arrhythmia isn't always permanent but it CAN be and in danny's case it is

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nightwonder7 · 8 months

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I absolutely ADORE your IDV fanart. You portray their personalities so well plus your STYLE is just!! agh!!?? I would love to see more Norton content my heart is aching for it 😭❤️

HGFJSFSJHFSF THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! ;///0///; It means the world to hear that! QAQ Norton is one of my favourite characters and he's so much fun to draw! I've still got a few more ideas with him planned out, but here is a sketch for now ;u;

#identity v #idv #identity v prospector #idv prospector #norton campbell #ask #anon #anonymous #identity v fanart #sketch #night's art #I try my best to portray the characters as close to canon as possible #with a generous dash of silliness #so it truly makes me happy to hear this! So thank you so much! ;<;

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welcometogrouchland · 2 months

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I love Steph's origin as told in the Secret Origins 80 page giant- I just overall think it strengthens her character by giving her a lot of pathos and adding to her heroism (which isn't something writers were focused on in her actual intro in detective comics #647 since she was just meant to act as a plot device back then) BUT there is one tiny detail in it i will begrudge, and that is the portrayal of her having a minor love at first sight moment for tim

Secret origins 80 page giant, ID in alt

(or well, technically this was their second meeting in that story (the brick was the first) so...love at second sight?)

Mostly because Stephanie showed no interest in her introduction and only showed romantic feelings towards Tim AFTER this moment here:

Robin (1993) #4, ID in alt

Straight up the progression here goes:

The adventure in 'tec where they first meet -> Tim investigating the same crime scene as Steph -> she beats him up not knowing it's him at first, apologizes but says he shouldn't have scared her -> he remembers her/the moniker she goes by -> they talk about plot for a few pages -> Stephanie starts flirting

Robin (1993) #4, ID in alt

Which...is so fascinating to me and says so much about Stephanie. She highlights the fact that Tim "remembered" her. Like. Steph. Girl. This is our bar? It's sweet but kind of speaks to how much Stephanie is ignored at home/how little and sporadically she's shown interacting with her peers (and rarely ever the same kids twice). Her idea of peak romance is just...being on someone's mind even when you're not there.

Kind of also adds layers to Steph's proclivity towards jealousy later on, a manifestation of her insecurity and loneliness (though don't get it twisted, she's not written this way bc Dixon and co think it's an interesting character flaw, they wrote it bc they think it's an inherent character flaw of (particularly young) women/girls, which is very apparent in how he approaches Ariana's character as well from what I've read)

Also the fact that Steph becomes so smitten for Tim almost immediately after this is (a few issues later she aggressively flirts with him during AN ACTIVE HOSTAGE SITUATION. WHERE SHE'S THE HOSTAGE) again is kind of a mixture of kind of funny and sad. One boy is nice to her once and she's fully ready to wife him. Girl you are deranged (affectionate) (concerned)

#ramblings of a lunatic #dc comics #stephanie brown #tim drake #timsteph #meta #< ??? ig #robin 1993 #made this post and forgot to finish. saved it in drafts. saw posts that annoyed me. proceeded to finish it #the subset of fans who think they're doing a righteous feminism by giving steph more flaws than she has in canon...headaches #yes flawed female characters are important representation no i dont think you projecting chuck dixons conservative values onto her-#-is doing her character a great favour. if so you need to commit to the bit and make tim a stone cold nark /j #sorry okay im done vaguing. there's real things going on in the world that matter. the bad take is the mind killer etc etc #anyway the zero to 100 progression of early timsteph is fascinating. on the one hand i know it's mostly a product of its time #both in terms of portrayals of romance (esp teen romance) and partially of women and girls by dixon (not extremely boy obsessed-#-but there's a. dark shadow of the boy crazy trope. a gentle whiff of it in the air. just a little)#but bc this aspect isn't blatantly/egregiously author bias i choose to analyse it #i could also analyse how steph in general is portrayed as liking guys she can't/shouldn't have a little #(her crush on the much older detective in bg2009 and also tim a little bit w/ the secret identity thing)#(but that's a whole other discussion. also that aspect of the romance in bg2009 is. also a little sexistly motivated-#-and also dropped part way through to an extent so like..not exactly ripe for analysis)#ANYWHO i love you Steph <3 you're unwell and yet so adorable and compelling Steph <3

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scramratz · 4 months

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You being so comfy and quick to just be like “fuck yea he him guy lesbian” has genuinely helped me in my own gender and own he him lesbian-ness thank you for being so open about it!!

:o) that makes me so happy! Honestly I wasn’t so quick to realize that. I used to wonder how anyone who called themselves a guy could be a lesbian. Then I grew up, went outside, and realized all that shit didn’t matter. Do what you want. Call yourself whatever. Homophobes are still gonna call you a fag regardless.

#legitimately going outside helps #quit ruminating on every little key point in your life to determine what your identity is #it’s better just to use labels that accurately portray your experiences #sometimes those labels can be *contradictory*#like transmasc and lesbian

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xbraveheartx · 7 months

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Just full of ✨ Thoughts ✨ over the development and progress from when you start the game to when you finish on how P/Carlo just evolves, and kinda just thinking on some internal stuff on how I would like to write him.

How you start and he's just P, he doesn't know his purpose, he just knows he's being called somewhere. Lost, alone, faced with peril and made to fight when he hasn't even stepped out of his "birth place". He wakes up and he's just handed a sword. And he fights. At the start he's very much this empty slate; A newborn stumbling through Krat, and despite the man who calls himself himself father saying stuff like "Krat isn't how you remember it--" He really doesn't 'remember' anything at all. What is there to 'remember', he wonders?

And then he starts to get the memories-- they're not his but also... they are? They feel so close and yet so far away; Foreign and yet familiar. And then he hears a name whispered: Carlo-- and his whole world shifts right from under him. He feels sick, the name makes his head spin. The voice to have said it makes his head spin all the more. And bit by bit. He remembers. Not all of it, but... he remembers enough.

And he's hurt by what he remembers.

But by the end of it, after he claims his own freedom, after everything is resolved, and he returns to the hotel, he doesn't feel fully like Carlo-- doesn't feel at all like "P", either. He woke up not too long ago, and suddenly his life is flipped in its entirety. He's neither, and yet he's both. He doesn't know who he is anymore, but the name sticks. It's all he has left, even if a part of him feels some strange form of imposter syndrome, somewhere deep down... But he doesn't like being referred to as Geppetto's Puppet, either. He's not a puppet, not anymore. He's human, albeit, a different kind of human.

So just Carlo, is fine with him, even if he's changed far beyond of who-- and what-- Carlo was.

'--an Ergo puppet can have a second life and become another kind of human--' He just needed now to decide just what that second life meant for him, now.

#Lies of P #Lies of P Spoilers #Just digging deep while dumping all my thoughts into a word document but also kinda #thinking on how... I want to portray him? How I saw him through my playthroughs of the game.#Sophia in her letter at the end specifically mentions:#“The fact that an Ergo puppet can have a second life and become another kind of human requires more time for people to find out about it.”#And while she's probably referring to herself? Aren't we too referred to as such by Giangio/Paracelsus?#So by extension... yeah. Second life. But by this point Carlo doesn't even feel like 'Carlo'#It's like waking up one morning as one person and then suddenly getting slammed with memories of your past life #and going 'well shit now who am I' because literally just this morning you were 500% convinced you were someone else #Hurray for identity crisis!! Even if lowkey! He just goes on and does his best c':

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waroferas · 25 days

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oihhh my god. its over btw :(

#and the between worlds was the friends we made along the way #actually crazy to me . some spoilers here okay?#hilda had me shoutinngggggg at my screen . i beat yuga final phase with 3/4ths of a heart left NO fairies no nothinggg left #HILDA . HE IS BEATING MY ASS HILDA.#BUT I WON ! FIRST TRYYY #um . why did nobody tell me ravio was like that BTWWW???????#maybe unpopular tak e. but i absolutely had been spoiled for his identity ahead of time so that wasnt a surprise. but the way ppl tend to #portray him doesnt seem like him at allll ???? why are u lying to me. ToT #SORRY. NEGATIVE NANCY OR WHATEVERR BUT HE IS SO INTERESTING. WHY DIDNT ANYBODY TELL MEEE #god and hilda. i love hilda. and link . and zelda. and irene #IRENE . WHERE ARE THE IRENE FANS. HELLO?#THSI GAME IS INCREDIBLE !#frogtxts

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daisywords · 3 months

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I will do my best but at the end of the day "good representation" is always going to be secondary to my quest to create the most specific Little Guys in the world sorry

#esp with regards to alt world fiction like sorry my characters' lived experiences wouldn't map 1:1 with a real person from the 21st century #and also! everyone that is alive right now is also the Most Specific Guy in the world and there is no one magic way to portray a trait #or identity and have it resonate with everyone who is/has that irl!!!#and sometimes I get very tired. I want my characters to be diverse because I want to write about people #and people are diverse #I am not trying to be anyone's spokesperson! especially for groups I am not a part of!#I don't want to be tempted to strip my characters of ''diverse'' traits so some hypothetical person won't be mad at me!#anyway please interpret this post in the way that will make you the least mad at me. that's what I meant. thank you

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fromtheseventhhell · 10 months

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No offense but trans-masc/trans-man headcanons about Arya are so incorrect, I'm sorry. I can't even take them seriously considering this fandom's desire to separate Arya from girlhood/womanhood. I would love it if people would stop trying to divorce female characters (and real women) from their identities as women just because they aren't traditionally feminine.

If we're talking about actual good-faith interpretations, ones that actually work with how Arya is written, then trans-femme is a much better fit. Arya has never had the desire to be a boy or be seen as one, she is fiercely insistent on her identity as a girl and corrects people several times, she doesn't consider herself a "real" Lady because she's not one in the same way her mother and sister are (!!!), she has self-esteem issues from her looks and ability to perform feminine tasks, she actually spends time pretending to be a boy but never considers herself one or enjoys doing it, as time progresses she loses the ability to pass as a boy (!!!), etc. Look at the material!! There's so much there to discuss from that perspective! Arya's non-conformity and how that fits into a society with such strict gender norms is fascinating and there's a lot to discuss there, but calling her trans-masc is one of the laziest interpretations to come up with.

#arya stark #asoiaf #It's wild cause I literally never see any other character separated from their gender identity like Arya is #Arya isn't even our most non-conforming character (female or otherwise) and yet it feels like she gets singled out for this treatment #probably because characters like Brienne + Asha + Sam are more associated with romance than her and as progressive as people claim to be #they aren't actually interested in queer identities + relationships and their larger implications go figure 🙄#her feelings about being a Lady are so intertwined with society's (misogynistic) expectations like ughhh it's such a well-done conflict #I just wish people weren't such illiterate clowns about it #Arya doesn't like sewing or wearing dresses and wants to be more than a housewife and people go /this is a man/ :/#it's like seeing people portray Arya with darker skin than her siblings...the way this fandom acts I know it's not being down in good faith #can it be done sincerely by people interested in exploring queer subtext? 100% is it often done so? almost never #no hate to people who genuinely make these headcanons this is for the people who hate viewing Arya as the girl she actually is #justice for trans-femme!Arya cause it works so much better then any other identity people force on her #though it is hilarious to me that people act like complicated feelings towards gender are impossible for cis people to have lol

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spitefularoandbi · 4 months

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"We need more weird queer people!" Yall can't even handle the B in lgBt.

#listen. theres so many good You Cant Even Handle [queer identity] posts #but i dont see enough of how unacceptable bisexuality is to lgbts lmao #please look to the example of every bisexual celebrity ever but also for a recent example: kit conner #'Hes portraying a bi character that i call gay & yet in real life despite being unidentified hes holding hands with a girl? Lets bully him.'#my posts

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gwynsplainer · 6 months

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Thinking about how The Man Who Laughs is not the best translation of the title L’Homme qui rit but it is kind of the title I’ve inherited bc I don’t believe in retranslating titles (ultimately any degree of name recognition is more important imo, at least with a work that has been read in English by that name for so long). Smile and laugh just don’t have the linguistic relationship that sourire and rire have.

Etymologically it’s more like if we (in English) called a smile a “sublaugh” or an “underlaugh,” so that “laugh” could be understood as a direct step up, ie an exaggeration, of a smile. But we don’t! Thus I’m forced to admit that at least in some schools of thought, perhaps including my own, a better translation would be The Man Who Smiles, The Man Who Grins, or dare I say, The Grinning Man.

#mixed feelings on the grinning man bc I think ‘who grins’ portrays it more as an aspect of his identity rather than his sole identifier #the man who laughs #the grinning man #translation talk #victor hugo

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coochiequeens · 7 months

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Personally, I don't want to live in a world where little boys playing with dolls and little girls who don't like wearing pink are subjected to lifelong medical intervention because lunatics think these kids are in the wrong body. If that's the right side of history, then history can go f**k itself." - Graham Linehan

Stretched out on a hospital trolley after a surgeon had removed my cancer-riddled testicle, waiting for a doctor to give me the all-clear to go home, I lazily opened Twitter.

This was five years ago and, at this point, I had not quite nailed my colours to the gender-critical mast. I had defended women being smeared with the slur 'Terf' (for 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist') and was being monitored by trans activists as a result. This made me nervous, though I wasn't quite sure why.

I'd had an inkling of what I was up against when my wife Helen and I played a small part in repealing Ireland's draconian abortion laws. Working with Amnesty International, we appeared in a video in which Helen spoke of terminating a pregnancy because the foetus she was carrying had an abnormality which would have resulted in death moments after birth.

We tried to attend every protest and, at one event, I remember some strange person with a bullhorn bellowing out this nonsense: 'We want the state to pay for abortions!' [general cheering] '...and surgeries for trans people' [puzzled mumbling].

I felt uneasy. Sure, let's talk about trans rights, but first things first. We hadn't yet won the fight on abortion.

In retrospect, this was the first sign I had of the sleight of hand that would allow a sinister movement to attach itself to progressive causes and wrap itself in their stolen banners.

Then, when Ireland voted to overturn the abortion ban, Amnesty Ireland tweeted that this was a victory for 'pregnant people'. I was enraged.

My wife wasn't a 'pregnant person'. She was a woman, and a mother.

But these were only the first ripples of a gathering tsunami of madness. Online, people had started to go dangerously insane. It was such a slow process that I didn't notice it at first, but now, as I lay in hospital, I was collecting my thoughts on the subject.

I knew my positions were thought-through and sound, and I was sure that once people saw I was arguing in good faith, they'd see the problems with gender ideology and we could have a sensible, grown-up conversation about it.

I also told myself that, as co-writer of well-loved television sitcoms Father Ted and The IT Crowd, I had an audience out there who would listen to me. So I sent a few tweets carefully outlining my argument.

Meanwhile, I was in intense pain from the wound under my bandage and, when I was finally told I could go home, I couldn't stand up. A bed was found for me and I lay there, enjoying a bit of peace until the morphine wore off.

The visitors had gone and all was quiet. I decided to have a look at Twitter (now X).

My careful explanation of my position had certainly had an impact.

A trans activist and journalist called Parker Molloy, who identifies as a woman and is enraged if anyone disagrees, had sent me a number of increasingly frenzied direct messages.

After the third or fourth time telling Molloy I was in hospital, I ended the conversation. Meanwhile, another tweeter hopped into my replies to say, 'I wish the cancer had won'.

My ordeal had begun. Cast adrift, I was about to lose everything — my career, my marriage, my reputation.

A little bit after my brush with cancer, I brushed with something almost worse. A biological male, now going by the name Stephanie Hayden, was determined to wreck the life of anyone who flouted trans dogma.

A woman was arrested at home in front of her two young children and put in a prison cell for seven hours after she referred to Hayden on Twitter as a man.

When I made a public accusation about Hayden on X, Hayden didn't challenge it.

Instead, I was accused of breaking confidentiality by publicising Hayden's former male identities.

Hayden reported me to the police. The Guardian, whose editors seemed to have given up any pretence of being even-handed on this issue, published an article headlined 'Graham Linehan given police warning after complaint by transgender activist'.

It claimed I had been given a 'verbal harassment warning' by police acting on Hayden's complaint. This was untrue. I'd been phoned by a policeman who seemed confused when I told him that I'd blocked Hayden on Twitter months ago, so could hardly be accused of harassment.

The policeman then said something like 'stay away from her, awright?' and rang off.

For a national newspaper to headline this as a 'harassment warning' — a formal document that needs to be delivered in writing — was disgraceful, but typical of how many journalists liked to frame things that involved feminists and their allies.

After seven months of wrangling, the paper eventually removed the word 'harassment', which was too little, too late.

By then, the 'police warning' had morphed on social media into 'police caution' — which is issued where a crime has been committed and requires an admission of guilt, neither of which had happened. The false claim that I received a police caution for transphobia is constantly repeated to friends and colleagues to justify my cancellation. It was even presented to my publisher as a reason not to publish this book from which you are reading an extract. I found it grimly funny that the police and media were acting as reputation managers for a character like Hayden, but my wife Helen was terrified at being targeted in this way.

Hayden and Adrian Harrop, a Liverpool-based GP who was temporarily suspended from practising medicine as punishment for his aggression towards women on Twitter, trolled a Catholic journalist called Caroline Farrow, live-tweeting a visit to her home in a way that seemed designed to frighten and intimidate her.

She was about to travel to the U.S., but her visa was withdrawn. Harrop tweeted that he'd just visited the U.S. embassy in London: 'Consular staff very efficient at dealing with my important diplomatic business,' he wrote, with a wink emoji.

In a tweet, I called Harrop 'Doctor Do-Much-Harm'. The next morning, the police turned up at my door. I told them I wouldn't be changing my online behaviour one iota, and that Harrop bullied women online.

The policeman nodded, said something about free speech, and left. However, that visit wore heavily on my wife.

But the likes of Hayden and Harrop could not have had such success without accomplices in the police and the Press. It was surreal how swiftly they gained such power over society.

As for my career as a successful television scriptwriter, that proved to be over before the stitches from my cancer operation had healed.

Around this time, I received a letter from Sonia Friedman, one of the biggest theatre producers in London's West End, about me writing a new companion piece for the late Peter Shaffer's classic one-act farce Black Comedy.

I was apparently 'top of our dream list' to pen it.

Black Comedy is possibly the most ingenious farce ever written. I'd seen it years before with David Tennant in the lead and it left me giddy and envious. Now, going from lowly sitcom writer to being considered worthy of pairing with Shaffer had me floating.

Not for long, though. Only a few days later, Shaffer's estate decided on the late playwright's behalf that they 'didn't want to get involved' by 'taking one side or the other'.

More jobs began to fall away. A tour to Australia to teach comedy was cancelled because the company claimed it 'wouldn't be able to afford the security'. I discovered later this was a standard excuse given to those of us declared unclean by the new sacred class.

I'm also the person who worked with comedians Steve Martin and Martin Short for the shortest period of time. Five minutes, I think it was. A producer invited me to develop a comedy-drama TV series in which both would star. I had a flat-out offer and then, within minutes, an email from the same producer rescinding it, I suspect after a Twitter user in his office told him I was a bigot.

Even what I thought would be my pension was taken away from me. There were plans to make a musical of Father Ted, written and directed by me, which I was certain would be a huge hit, perhaps even make my fortune if I could get it right.

I hadn't reckoned how resolute the forces against me actually were, and how quiet my colleagues would be in the face of their onslaught. Sonia Friedman, the producer, told me I was 'on the wrong side of history' and advised me to 'stop talking'.

I suddenly found myself in a raging argument with this powerful woman who held my musical in her hands. But hearing one of these copy-and-pasted, thought-terminating clichés from the mouth of a colleague was more than I could bear.

The meeting ended with each of us trying not to catch the other's eye in case it kicked off again.

I thought at least that Jimmy Mulville, the head of Hat Trick Productions, was on my side.

As the original producer of Father Ted, the company had a big stake in this new venture. But now the Hat Trick people began to go the other way.

I had another meeting around the supposed problem of my defending women and girls, in which, as always, no one could locate the flaw in my analysis as I explained over and over again: 'Children are being hurt. Women are losing their sports, their language, their privacy.'

Finally, I referred to the violent, terroristic nature of trans rights activism. Casually, off-handedly, Jimmy said: 'Well, there's bad behaviour on both sides.'

'Both sides' is a poisonous smear. No one on my side of the argument insists that people should be shunned by polite society. No one on our side wears T-shirts with slogans such as 'Kill all Terfs' and 'Die Terf Scum'.

I was told by one acquaintance: 'Some of the things you've done have been questionable.' 'Give me an example,' I replied. Long pause. 'All right, well maybe not.'

The final act was a meeting in the Hat Trick offices in which Jimmy told me I was to remove my name from Father Ted The Musical or he would not make the show — my show, which I had been tending, rewriting and refining for the best part of half a decade.

Once again, I asked what I was being accused of.

Jimmy rolled his eyes, as if it was self- evident. Desperately, I tried to explain what was happening to women's rights, and to the young girls mutilating themselves because of — 'I DON'T CARE!' Jimmy shouted. I left.

Later, I heard from my agent that in return for declaring me an unperson, Hat Trick was suggesting an up-front payment of £200,000 as an advance on my royalties. Initially, I agreed to go along with it, because I needed the money. But then I changed my mind.

I saw an interview with the mother of one of the women competitors who found themselves up against the trans swimmer Lia Thomas.

Lia was still physically intact and all the girls worked out how many towels to take into the locker room to cover themselves up completely as they changed.

'I asked my daughter what she would do if Lia was changing in there,' said the mother. 'And she said resignedly, 'I'm not sure I'd have a choice.' I still can't believe I had to tell my adult-age daughter that you always have a choice about whether you undress in front of a man.'

What messages have these girls been receiving?

My heart was ripped apart. I closed the door for ever on making any kind of deal with Hat Trick. I was prepared to betray myself for £200,000, but I couldn't abandon my daughter.

BEFORE the gender hoopla, I only knew people in the media. Now I had been so effectively cancelled that virtually no one in the media would return my calls. But I began to count as friends social workers, police officers, solicitors, barristers, doctors, nurses and academics who sided with me or shared my experience.

One of the few people I still know in the creative arts is the choreographer Rosie Kay.

At a party at her home in Birmingham for her company of young dancers — some of whom went by 'preferred' pronouns — the conversation turned to her plan for an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's gender-bending Orlando.

The discussion turned heated as she explained that she strongly believed in the reality of sex because she and her son had both almost died while she was in labour.

During that ordeal, her womanhood was literally a matter of life and death for her.

Her husband would never know that experience, and that difference between them meant something.

To the little sparrows of the Church of Gender, this was all high heresy, and could not be tolerated. The dancers harangued Rosie to such an extent that she hid in her own bathroom, then they formally complained about her to the company chiefs.

'They cancelled Orlando and then were making efforts to re-educate me, to stop me from centring women's rights in my future work,' Rosie told me. 'I had to resign from the company I founded.'

Then there's the children's author Rachel Rooney, who wrote a picture book called My Body Is Me. Its message was that children should be happy with their body.

But trans rights activists dislike any mention of being happy with your body as it undermines their message that being trans is a thrilling and transformative lifestyle choice.

Tweets called the book terrorist propaganda and likened Rachel to a white supremacist.

The author's 'trade union', the Society of Authors, declined to offer support. So devastating was the experience that Rachel stopped writing books for children and has now taken on a part-time care job.

But what did Rachel do to deserve cancellation? She wrote a beautiful, kind, responsible book for children, and she got the same treatment I received: they tried to destroy her life. Trans activists mostly target women for disagreeing with them, but I'm not the only man to have suffered. Some 30 years after we'd first worked together, I crossed paths once more with the comic actor James Dreyfus (Constable Kevin in The Thin Blue Line).

I persuaded him to sign a letter asking Stonewall, the former lesbian and gay rights charity which has altered its remit and done more than any other institution in the UK to promote extreme gender ideology, to reconsider its stance.

James agreed without hesitation. The letter argued that Stonewall was 'seeking to prevent public debate of these issues by branding as transphobic anyone who questions [its] current trans policies'. It asked the charity to 'commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate'.

Stonewall refused. Even asking the question was painted as a moral failing. Five years later, James is still being hounded by trans rights activists and he has had difficulty finding work.

In 2021, the company Big Finish released Masterful, a celebration of 50 years of Doctor Who's arch-enemy, The Master, who James had played on its audio productions.

The credits featured every living actor who had taken the iconic role… except James. When the history of these years is written, it's not only the extremist activists who will be recalled with revulsion, but also the spineless corporate figures who never made an attempt to resist them. Their inaction contributed to the ruin of James's livelihood.

A brilliant comic actor, a gay man, was abandoned by the very people who should have had his back, because the celebrity class is more interested in looking like they're doing the right thing than actually doing it.

Meanwhile, a chasm was opening up between me and my wife as she watched me lose jobs and opportunities.

Helen was looking for normality, and I was perpetually dismayed and angry. She asked me to cease operations, which she was perfectly within her rights to do to protect our family.

But I couldn't do it. I knew what everyone who's in this fight knows — the Gender Stasi never forgive.

I could never be confident of a having a job again until the entire gender ideology movement, which has caused so much misery, was burnt to ashes.

Even if I had been prepared to recant or keep my mouth shut, it wouldn't do any good because my heresy was out there and would never be forgiven.

I could never be confident of a having a job again until the entire gender ideology movement, which has caused so much misery, was burnt to ashes.

Even if I had been prepared to recant or keep my mouth shut, it wouldn't do any good because my heresy was out there and would never be forgiven.

I was fighting for women and children, sure, but also for my reputation and my ability to make a living.

With my marriage now over, I left the family home and moved into a modest flat. It had a nursing home for old people to one side and an overgrown, neglected graveyard behind it — which is a little too symbolic of my situation for comfort.

Adapted from Tough Crowd by Graham Linehan (Eye Books, £19.99) to be published October 12. © Graham Linehan 2023. To order a copy for £17.99 (offer valid to 15/10/2023; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.

#Graham Linehan #TRAs attaching themselves to other causes #TRAs wanting free stuff #Only women can get pregnant #Father Ted #The IT Crowd #how many identities did Hayden have before transitioning?#The Guardian and poor journalism #A TRA got a women’s visa withdrawn and we are supposed to believe the man in a dress is oppressed?#Sonia Friedman is a TRA handmade #Jimmy Mulville is a coward #The Society of Authors abandoned Rachel Rooney #James Dreyfus may have portrayed a villian but he has more integrity than the producers of Big Finish

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verflares · 2 months

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i feel like i could write an entire mini-essay thing on why draconification rules as a narrative thingy + why it, the dragons and the thematic of immortality/undeath are so relevant and impactful towards botw/totks characters and themes as a whole. like i WONT because it really is just text thats already there. but i could .

#i loveeeee it. its so miserable and tragic and so fun for my brain to munch on #i am learning that miyazaki (fromsoft) tends to include dragons and humans wanting to Become dragons as a common theme in his work #theres this futile pursuit of immortality and the punishment of it (often humans being trapped in ugly half-man-half-draconic states)#or they become wyrms who are trapped to roam the earth with wings that aren't even large enough to fly and support their own weight (hubris #and of course the entire loss of identity that comes with all of that.. its rebirth in the truest sense of the word. nothing is left of you #in botw/totks case too. defying death but losing everything that made you who you were. are you still dead? are you even truly alive?#its interesting too because of how sacrificial its portrayed in botw/totk. it really highlights the unwitting nature of the whole thing #OKAY ANYWAYS. elden ring and fromsoftware good. i am just constantly loz brained also #personal.txt

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cluescorner · 1 month

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Randomized Robins AU - Ages + Worst Trait Exercise:

Steph (25):

Says her worst trait is her murderous rages (she is exaggerating for dramatic/comedic effect, she’s killed 3 people tops and for very good reason)

Thinks her worst trait is her spitefulness (one of the few traits she definitely got from her father + one that prevents her from fixing her relationships and living her best possible life. She’ll refuse to interact with someone she dearly loves after an argument (happens significantly less after Tim’s death) or will say things she knows are hurtful just for the sake of having the last word. This trait will worsen in some ways as the list of people who have wronged her and those she loves grows, but will also ease up as she matures and realizes the harm it’s doing to her relationships with those she loves most.)

Her worst trait really is her spitefulness

Cass (26)

Says her worst trait is her self-righteousness (she believes that her goals are righteous and, as a result, she is righteous. Cass becomes very defensive whenever someone questions the mission and often does not second-guess herself. This is a trait she only develops later in life as she grows closer to Bruce/learns to understand herself more/starts to love herself more. But she knows she isn’t perfect and when somebody she trusts criticizes something she is doing she is willing to listen. She just usually isn’t the one to START the introspection.)

Thinks her worst trait is her self-righteousness.

Her worst trait actually is her obsessiveness (she gets it from Bruce and, while not as bad as him, she will easily become preoccupied with her night-life and the mission if someone isn’t there to pull her back. She will do this to the point of self-destruction and it hurts her relationships with the people she loves, especially Steph.)

Tim (24)

Says his worst trait is his spitefulness (he actively rejects the idea of mending his relationships with the older members of the family and this causes him to also lack good relationships with the younger ones)

Thinks his worst trait is his obsessiveness (similar to Cass, if he gets fixated on a task or idea he will neglect everything else in his life in order to dedicate more time to it. Unlike Cass, he will almost never be dragged away from it unless Pierrot snatches control of the body and forces them to take care of themself.)

His worst trait actually is how manipulative he is (the KING of guilt-tripping and using people’s emotions against them. He’ll do whatever he needs to do to get what he wants, he’s not above crocodile tears. And he will do it to whoever he needs (or wants) to with little care for how his actions impact others.)

Pierrot (Insists: “Age doesn’t apply to me! And even if it did, I'd probably be the oldest. Or the youngest! I’d never be a middle child, though.” Mental assessments by the Bats have put him around 21, with a margin of error of 3 years. Pierrot has called this “blatant character assassination by my eternal rival!”)

Says his worst trait is that he is an irredeemable psychopath without any regard for the wellbeing of others (this is a lie and everyone who's important to him understands this).

Thinks his worst trait is his parasitic nature (he literally would not exist had Tim not suffered the way he did. Plus he is a living reminder of one of the worst things that happened to many of his loved ones. He is a parasite injected into a functional person's body and contributes to his continued suffering. This is also a largely incorrect judgement of himself, caused by his actual worst trait.)

His worst trait actually is his limited sense of self (he doesn’t really know who he is outside of ‘inheritor to the legacy of the Joker (a man he despises yet also views as a father)’ and ‘chip in Tim’s brain that became sentient’. He slowly develops an identity over the course of his life and relationships with other people, but he lacks the foundations of identity that most people have. Pierrot will often almost become a caricature of himself and what others perceive him to be because it's the only person he knows how to be. This causes wild swings in how he behaves and relates to others, sometimes to the detriment of himself and others.)

Dick (17)

Says his worst trait is his clinginess (he is a very extraverted person who likes to be around others, which mixed with his fear of abandonment after his parents died means that if he goes a few days without seeing/talking to a friend he will get very anxious.)

Thinks his worst trait is his anger issues (he gets ticked off very easily and will explode on people. He’s kind at his core and is usually very nice, but he has a temper that can escalate significantly. Spoiler (and later Twist) help him channel this anger into something positive.)

His worst trait actually is his anger issues.

Barbara (18)

Says her worst trait is her disability (internalized ableism, she thinks of herself as less valuable than the other Bats because she cannot be out there in the capes like they can. She will grow out of this as she matures and as she learns how invaluable her support for the team is.)

Thinks her worst trait is her disability

Her worst trait actually is her overly-independent nature (In an attempt to overcompensate for everything she can no longer do, she has resolved to do literally everything that she possibly can without any help from others. This results in many instances where she either takes on too much and winds up not being able to fully realize any of her tasks or where she makes her life and the lives of others significantly harder by refusing help when offered/not asking for it when she needs it.)

Damian (16)

Says his worst trait is his perfectionism (he is overly critical of both himself and others, taking any flaw or problem and amplifying it to an absurd degree. This is due in part to his life with the LoA (where even a brief misstep could lead to death), in part to how others treated him initially as Spoiler (any flaw was fixated on and used as a reason to either mistrust him or portray him as unworthy of the mantle), and in part due to the fact that he is Bruce’s son (the only person with worse perfectionism problems than Damian). Gradually, Damian has improved in this regard but it’s still a massive barrier to both his own happiness and his relationships with others.)

Thinks his worst trait is his perfectionism

His worst trait actually is his perfectionism

Duke (16)

Says his worst trait is his definitely-real secret evil side (says this as a ‘my dad is a villain so who knows??’ joke)

Thinks his worst trait is his impulsivity in his words (Sometimes he will crack a joke or say a remark without thinking it through, leading to a LOT of hurt feelings and drama. He’ll say something without thinking it through and wind up seeming insensitive. This isn’t done because of malice, rather because Duke is someone who’s quick to act and speak. But while the mantle of Insight and his awakening powers have helped him with his actions, they do not always help with his loose tongue. As such, Duke gains an unfair reputation in the media as an instigator and will accidentally cause family drama through what he says.)

His worst trait actually is his impulsivity in his words

Jason (14)

Says his worst trait is his bad manners (he grew up on the streets and has no idea how rich-people society works, which he’s pretty insecure about considering he’s now the youngest kid of Bruce freaking Wayne).

Thinks his worst trait is his reactiveness (Jason never got the privilege of planning ahead for various events in his life, so he instead needed to rely on being swift and harsh in how he could react to situations. It’s saved his life on multiple occasions and helps significantly in his role as Spoiler, but it can also lead to extreme overreactions (accidentally causing kidnapping scare after Jason ran away following a fight with Dick) and a struggle to plan things out ahead of time. As he grows more secure in his place in the family and in life, this trait will lessen but never fully dissipate.)

His worst trait actually is his reactiveness

#stephanie brown #cassandra cain #tim drake #dick grayson #barbara gordon #damian wayne #duke thomas #jason todd #batfamily #randomizedrobinsau #I'm debating whether I should tag this with the Joker Junior tag and those related to it for Pierrot #because like...it's not quite that. but it's also very close to that and is the direct result of that.#but Pierrot would fucking HATE to be tagged as that and sees it as an insult to his identity...which he already has problems with #so I don't think I'm gonna #anyways lmao I am totally projecting my younger self onto Barbara. How could I not? She's literally the reason I view my disability #the way that I do and she actively improved my mental health just by existing and saying some of the shit she did when I was in the #stages of accepting my own disability. So yeah I am projecting a lot onto her because I love her and see myself in her.#I'm mostly basing these characterizations on my favorite versions of them (ie Red Robin 2009 Tim and Birds of Prey Barbara).#so I'm taking the traits I like/think fit in this AU and discarding what I think either is bad or doesn't fit or if I just don't like it.#Damian's 'murder gremlin who is a meanie on purpose because he is a meanie' is entirely unappealing to me and also does not fit this AU #I prefer him when he's portrayed as a sympathetic kid (who is still an asshole) and not a demon child. So that's what I'm using.#same with Talia's 'abusive mother who is totally on-board with all of her father's bullshit and will kill someone for no reason' version #I have read enough comics to know what I like/what is most important and what I don't like/what is #BLATANT CHARACTER ASSASSINATION GRANT MORRISON YOU FUCK YOU SET TALIA BACK SO FUCKING FAR #I also decided to outline their WORST traits because I already know what I like about these characters/their best traits.#most people do. But what was a greater challenge was finding what would make their lives and those of others worse.#what would I hate about this person if I knew them IRL? What would I first suggest they get therapy for? What hurts them and why?#I found these questions really interesting in the context of this AU where some people are forced into completely different roles #the says/thinks/is was inspired by trying to answer that question for myself. I say my worst trait is my impulsiveness but when #I asked others in my life they answered 'oh so you said your weird thing where you don't ask for help right?'

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