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ickypuppi3 · 1 month

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billy’s mom waking him up while it’s still dark, whispering even though neil’s working the night shift. it’s a couple days before his tenth birthday and she’s telling him they’re going to have their very own adventure, just like the ones in billy’s books. she grabs an already packed suitcase from under billy’s bed and kisses him on the nose, tells him to get dressed quick. the two of them leave in an old beat up yellow bug that she managed to get for a third of the asking price and keep parked around the corner until now. they stay with friends and jump from place to place so neil can’t track them down. billy gets used to surfing couches and staying in motels.

he spends his tenth birthday in a diner, his mom gets him a big stack of pancakes and a milkshake with extra cherries. gets a candle out her pocket along with her silver lighter. sings happy birthday and pulls a face when the waitress frowns at them, just to make billy laugh. she sips at her coffee while billy tucks in. smiles when he holds some out with a “c’mon mama, share with me.”

billy thinks it’s neat. thinks it’s the best birthday he’s ever had.

they eventually end up with a place in california, a little bungalow near the coast and billy grows up with his mom. billy gets pretty shirts from the thrift store ‘cause his mama lets him do stuff like that. doesn’t call him a queer, doesn’t force a baseball bat into his hands whilst yelling at him for crying, for being a pussy. his mom lets him read and keep a journal and press flowers between the pages of the neverending story, she plays hendrix and dusty springfield and laughs when billy comes home from his friends’ house with his first piercing at thirteen. she doesn’t tear down his posters or yell when she finds him using her eyeliner.

and everything’s perfect. sort of.

they have bad days- billy’s mom has bad days. billy calls them gray days ‘cause that’s how the world looks when she’s like this. all her color gone. no singing-dancing in the kitchen or baking five different kinds of cake because she couldn’t decide which one was best, no last minute trips to the beach or sitting outside at night and telling billy about the stars. instead she’ll stay in bed, won’t go to work. she’ll stare at the wall blankly and look right through billy when he tries to talk to her. she won’t take the pills the doc gave her and billy doesn’t know what to do. never knows what to do. just chews at his lip until it bleeds, bites at his thumb until it’s red raw. he’ll get in the bed with her. lay beside her and just talk like she used to do with him when he had a nightmare. hum a song to her.

billy’s still pissed at the world just slightly less so. still has that anger and anxiousness simmering just below the surface and shows his teeth when cornered. he’s still hardened in a way that a kid shouldn’t be but. it’s different. there’s no neil. the only bloody noses he gets are at school, when he fights with the kids who call him a fag and a fairy, call his mom a basket case. he uses fists when they laugh and ask if she’s all there with a finger pointing at their heads, ask if billy will “catch the crazy.”

those are billy’s bad days. sitting in the principals office, icing his knuckles.

when he’s fifteen, billy manages to bag a job at the local auto repair by turning up every day and telling howie how good he’d be, that he knows cars and it’s all he wants to do and please please please. eyebrows pulled together, eyes puppy dog wide and hands clasped in front of him until howie grumbles, throws an oily rag at billy. says fine but billy’s gotta pay for anything he damages. someone brings in a chevy camaro and billy asks howie to let him help fix it up. does the begging again until howie laughs. says get a hold of yourself, kid, voice fond as he ruffles billy’s hair.

billy’s four months away from turning seventeen when the doorbell goes. he’s eating a sandwich and watching knight rider. he’s wearing the necklace his mom got him for his last birthday and- he answers the door. doesn’t think twice. freezes when he sees neil standing there. he looks different. hair a little shorter and more wrinkles. where billy’s gained weight, gained muscle, neil’s lost it. his eyes are a little sunken and he’s still got his wedding band on. he reeks of booze. billy has to remind himself to speak, just says “yeah?” his voice comes out small and neil smiles at him. smiles and billy feels this weird twist in his stomach ‘cause .. that’s his dad and he hasn’t seen him in years and it twists and twists and-

turns out. not much has changed. billy realises a little too late that neil will always be neil. they run again. have to leave everything behind. billy doesn’t get to say bye to his friends, to howie, to the car. they leave a lot of stuff behind and head in any direction away from neil. they both try to keep the mood light, take turns driving and play the tapes billy grabbed. they end up in indiana- hawkins. they stay at a motel until billy’s mom finds a place for dirt cheap. it has two bedrooms and a dingy bathroom, a living room slash kitchen and one hell of a damp problem. it’s dirt cheap for a reason.

it’s above a shop in town and- it’s fine. their landlord is an asshole but they’re together and they’ve got a roof over their heads. billy’s enrolled at hawkins high and his mom gets a job at the laundromat. he tells her that he doesn’t need to go to school, that he could just work and help pay the bills but his mom won’t have any of it. says that she wishes she had finished school and that billy’s too clever to waste it. that he has potential.

billy knows the reason she dropped out of school was because she had him. he just nods, rests his head on her shoulder.

it’s billy’s first day at school and his mom drives him to make sure he actually goes. he gets out the car and tries to shake the nerves off. straightens up and puts on his act. plasters a fake smile on his face and it’s working, he’s got most of the girls swooning and the boys at least seem curious. billy looks around and his eyes land on a guy leaning up against a bmw. his hair’s coiffed to high heaven and he’s wearing a polo, preppy as fuck but- pretty. it’s one of the first things billy realises about him, all doe eyes and moles dotted just about everywhere. he’s got a smirk on his face. not aimed at billy but the guy beside him.

pretty-boy walks over to him and billy raises an eyebrow, plays it cool. he introduces himself as steve and billy gets the idea that he’s top dog at hawkins high, is immediately proved right when they step into the building. king steve, freckles calls him. billy laughs- catches steve looking at him when he does and feels his face get hot. steve just smiles wider, calls billy california and tells him to sit with them at lunch. billy tries to ignore the way steve’s smile makes him feel like the rug’s been pulled out from under his feet.

he nods and steve grins. tugs at one of billy’s curls.

says “i think you’re gonna like it here, california.”

#it got away from me i fear #billy has to live somewhere else at the start and then they move to california i don’t care he needs to be there with his mom for the #majority of the time he just has to #he Is california ! what else am i supposed to do here he needs it #makes hawkins that much worse #he’s best friends with argyle but he doesn’t get to say bye !#billy’s first kiss is with a girl but the second the one he counts is with a boy and his mama knows he’s gay also #probably argyle if we’re being real #my words #billy hargrove #billy’s mom #harringrove #cw slurs #cw mental illness #spinning in circles i just need mamas boy billy and king steve so bad #mamas boy billy & king steve

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aroaceleovaldez · 3 months

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Nico referring to his mom as "Mama" implies he most likely at least used to refer to Hades as "Papa" and i 100% headcanon he still does but mostly in the manner of him having the entire Underworld wrapped around his finger for being the baby of the family

#pjo #riordanverse #nico di angelo #headcanon #my art #nico flexing youngest child privilages by pulling out the most pitiful expression he can manage #anyways i find it fun to explore character word choices #cause yknow no two characters are going to select their words the same way #or even necessarily think about it to the same degree #i like to think Nico thinks about his word choice a lot #so of course every time he uses ''papa'' he fully knows he's pulling the Baby Of The Family card #Hades definitely knows this too but falls for it every time anyways #cause Nico hasnt called him ''papa'' regularly since getting his memory wiped - just detached ''father'' or at best ''dad''#so it just reminds Hades of How Much He Just Wants His Children To Be Happy Like The Old Days #and how much poor Nico has been through and he's just the baby of the family and-#cue Nico smugly staring at the camera cause he knows how much power he holds #also i say Nico is Hades' only son cause mythologically even when Zagreus *is* Hades' son (rarely) he's. dead.#a major part of Zagreus' mythology is that he died #and im p sure every other deity said to be Hades' children are all goddesses and also are like 50% of the time not his #theres also only like 3 of them. and as far as we know in riordanverse canon one of them is implied to not be his daughter #so Nico is Hades' only son and also youngest in the family (cause Hazel is older by a month chronologically or 1 year biologically)#(and everybody else is a deity if children of hades at all)

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mjulmjul · 1 year

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Katya / Goncharov

#yeah ik ive posted them before sorry but i REALLY like how these look together #martin scorsese #goncharov #artists on tumblr #illustration #unreality #<— posters for a ‘movie’ that doesn’t actually exist but is a tumblr meme in which everyone pretends it does&makes content for it #fascinating how we’re immediately personable w katya by knowing her first name while only knowing goncharov’s surname keeps us at a distanc #combined with him being the only major character to go by a moniker it emphasizes just how much he's been consumed by the role he plays #who is goncharov? does he know and keep it secret? or has he too lost his sense of identity?#it's reflected in these posters as we SEE katya but goncharov remains elusive - yet clearly time is running out for them both #lakjdklf ok im done now i never post meta on here so im having fun with the fictional movie #btw I updated both of the illustrations compared to the original posts but will leave those as they were #woudl be cool if my post showed up. u can do it tumblr

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 6 days

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I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wen ning #wei wuxian #wen qing #jiang cheng #Truly Massive disclaimer here: I am a Jiang Cheng enjoyer. I like his character. I enjoy that he is very flawed and volatile.#This episode of the audio drama has a lot of great breakdown scenes featuring JC - and they all deserve a feature.#But underlying this comic is a small meta comment of 'ah man I have too many comics of JC just wailing sadly'#My goal is to draw 6-8 comics per episode - I sometimes have to truncate and cut good scenes out.#Especially when a large majority is just different flavours of trauma and toxic relationships to your self-worth.#I would also like to make a note here that just because you lose the ability to do something that is very tied to your core identity-#-does not mean your life is over. It will feel like the end of the world. It will send you into a spiral of grief. It will hurt so badly.#Sometimes we do not realize how tied up our identities can be in certain things until we are cut loose.#You don't lose yourself. I promise the pain will fade in time. I promise you will find other things to tether you. I promise you will be ok #Life moves forwards. Time moves forwards. You move forwards.#Ego death just means an opportunity for ego rebirth. You are never committed to being the same person forever.#To wrap this around to JC: Yeah I love the twist with the core transfer but man I would have loved to see JC accept the loss.#Obviously it happens for a reason (story) but I can have my AUs. I can have these 'what-ifs'.#described in alt text #I'm trying it out! *please* give me feedback - I want to eventually Add image ID to all of these comics one day

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bet-on-me-13 · 8 months

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Reformed Dan but misunderstandings suck

So, Dan has been Reformed for Years at this point. You could go with the Fandom Typical version of just chilling out, or you could go with the AGIT version of the Redemption. Either way, Dan is fully reformed and trying to find his way in the World.

Unfortunately, not everybody knows/believes him.

You know all those Time Traveling Heroes who came back to stop some great catastrophe? That was Dan.

Impulse is fucking terrified of this guy, cause he Grew Up in the Central City Stronghold and saw Phantom tear down the Walls protecting the City in person.

Booster Gold grew up in the Metropolis Stronghold, so while he never really saw Phantom in his timeline he still did know of him. I mean, obviously, he murdered every hero on the planet and subjugated most of the world, but he doesn't have much personal stake in that.

Eobard Thawn hates Phantom. Thawn himself grew up in a world where Phantom killed every Hero in the world, and he was terrified that Phantom would track him down when he tried to become the new Flash. But once he became a Walking Paradox he saw as Time itself changed to erase Phantom from existence, he got really jealous. Why did Time decide Phantom was bad enough to erase, why not him!? He's Evil! He's a Terror on the Timeline! He deserves Clockworks attention dammit!

And then, they discover evidence that Phantom has come back in Time,

So now, any and all Time Travelers are trying to find the guy who single-handedly was the Apocalypse, and want to kill him to save the world. Or out of Jealousy in Thawns case.

Either way, no matter where Dan goes to try and settle down, a bunch of annoying Heroes always find him and attack him, yelling about "Stopping his Plans" and "Saving the Timeline!" And "It should have been me dammit!"

Honestly Thawn is the most annoying one, he just runs in and rants at him about how he is jealous of how much attention Clockwork gave him. Dude, just sdmit your crush already and leave me alone. (I'm not sorry)

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ruporas · 1 year

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can’t talk about it

[ID: Black and white comic of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. The comic starts with the sounds "thud, thud, click". Vash, mid-action of peeling an apple, turns to the sound, noticing who it was that entered, and says, "Oh, Wolfwood, you're back." He resumes back to his apple in the next panel as he speaks, "Where'd you go? You snuck out of bed quickly this morning..." Wolfwood's hand then enters the panel, hovering over Vash's cheek and Vash looks up as Wolfwood asks, "Can I?" Vash responds, "Not going to talk about it?" while using a hand to gently hold Wolfwood's hovering hand and presses a kiss to his inner palm.

Vash then gets up fully, setting down the knife down on the table and the apple onto a plate, He leans into Wolfwood as Wolfwood explains, "Had to meet someone. Nothing interesting to talk about." Vash kisses Wolfwood's left cheek and a hand moves to cup his other cheek while muttering, "You're being vague." Wolfwood says neutrally, "If yer really that curious, keep askin'. We can talk about that instead of doing this." Vash leans back and responds, "Let's talk after, since... You look so tired."

The panel pans to a close up of Wolfwood's downcast eyes, bags heavy underneath his eyes. He doesn't allow Vash to sit in that moment for long though, then saying, "Yer not helping, Spikey. Being all slow with it... I could fall asleep right now." He moves his hand to start unclasping Vash's coat, starting from his collar. Vash with red cheeks, responds briskly, "Oh, shut up. I'm worried about you. I can't be worried?"

The final shot shows Wolfwood's back to the viewer while Vash's softened expression can be seen as he holds gently onto the side of Wolfwood's face and a hand firm on his waist. Wolfwood responds, "I'm fine, seriously," pausing for a moment before continuing, "Is it okay to still..?" Vash responds, "Yeah, it's okay."

The next image is a shot from later that night after the previous comic. Vash and Wolfwood are now in bed, half naked. Wolfwood's buries his face into Vash's chest, his arms wrapped around him, while Vash is petting at his hair. Vash reminds him, "Hey. You said we'd talk about it." Wolfwood pauses for a moment before piping up, "In the morning? I'm sleepy." Vash says, "Okay..."

The next two pages start from the morning after. Wolfwood is already fully awake, pulling on his outer jacket as he says to Vash, whos' still bundled in his blankets, "Breakfast is on the table. Make sure to eat it. I'm going to grab some things in town and then we're leavin'. Got it?" Vash says, "Mh." Wolfwood responds, "Good. See ya in a bit." The dialogue starts to shift into Vash's inner thoughts now, as he gets up and eats toast, thinking, "Wait. Weren't we supposed to... talk about it?" The next shot then shows him fully up, meeting Wolfwood in town. He carries a half worried expression with him while Wolfwood slides on his glasses for him. A quick panel shows Wolfwood's tired expression from the night before and quickly juxtaposes with Wolfwood in front of him who's smiling gently, the shades covering his eye bags. Wolfwood asks him, "Still not awake yet?" Vash pauses, his thoughts stirring, thinking, "Oh. I guess I was getting ahead of myself... thinking you owe me that kind of honesty." He smiles at Wolfwood and responds, "I'm awake!" His thoughts continue, "Maybe one day, you'd trust me enough to share your burdens."

The final image shows Wolfwood pulling at Vash's cheek and Vash complains, "Owwwww why..." Wolfwood quickly says, "You were thinking something stupid, right? It's all over yer face." Vash mutters, "Nooo, I wasn't..." END ID]

#vashwood #trigun #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #nicholas d wolfwood #Theyre both thoroughly exhausted tired individuals -- vash having to fight this lonely battle for over a hundred years and getting dragged #back into inevitable situation with knives after a 2 years hiatus of being a gunslinger. they both need so much Rest and comfort in this #department... .SIGHS. BUT I JUST THINK ABOUT WOLFWOOD . AND HOW... LITTLE He has existed on no man's land. how majority of his years being #alive is being used as a weapon and to kill when him at his very core is the most giving and selfless individual ever #badlands rumble inspired me a bit but i do think wolfwood gets dragged into occasional tasks from the eye of michael while on his duty of #guiding vash -- or i think that one chapter where we got to see other members of eom -- there's like a clear division within the eom too #i think.... so i figured similarly to vash but not to the same amount -- there are people that look for wolfwood too. but most of the time #it's probably wolfwood that has to look for someone else and take them out. i feel like it happens ever so occasionally.#evidentially these two don't talk enough canonically but they always know how to express things properly to affirm that they're okay #they have the worst time ever sharing burdens - can't willingly burden the other and has neeever asked for help or reprieve in their #desperate situations... vw is a huge case of right person wrong time syndrome so they just. in the time they get to spend together -- even #if romantically - they don't have enough time to heal to get over that kind of hurdle. They've just never asked for help in all the years #they've been alive -- they don't even know how to and its just aughhhsgskg #and well! they don't even need to ask! because they'll be there for each other anyway at the end of the day -- company and presence alone.#ruporas art

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lonesomecupid · 4 days

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#i live for the last one #the amount of time he just bothers and taunts people just because be feels like it #iconic #he has clown blood fr #major john egan #john egan #john bucky egan #major john bucky egan #bucky egan #callum turner #mota #mota spoilers #masters of the air #mota memes #YALL I HAVE A PAULINA ONE #AND A CLEGAN #IDK WHICH ONE IS COMING NEXT #bye bye and kisses

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kindgreenape · 9 months

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i think kim is just as complex of a character as harry, but i think a good amount of players (not all, but a chunk) choose to unflinchingly characterize him as “the Good Cop” and leave it at that.

#kim was a child of the revolution. he has faced racial discrimination all his life #even in a position of authority he still encounters overt racism while on the clock #but he has also killed. it's implied that the majority of his kill count comes from his time working with juveniles #he defends a police force that is corrupt and does jackshit- a tool of the coalition #the same coalition that was likely responsible for the death of both his parents #he used to be a moralist and claims to be apolitical #and yet there are times where he takes what are decidedly un-moralist left-wing stances #there is just so much there.

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beskarfrog · 7 months

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Okay, so we all agree that Luke having to marry Mand’alor Din for political reasons is a quality au. What if Luke accidentally gets politically engaged to some other planetary leader instead?

Let’s say that perhaps his connection to Leia automatically made him a candidate for diplomatic marriage, especially after Leia and Han get married. Maybe it was a major clause in the funding for his Jedi school, but Luke didn’t really think they’d ever actually marry him off. For the sake of the au, let’s also disregard bits of TBOBF and Mando S3.

Luke’s been building his school on Ossus, Grogu is enjoying Jedi training, and there are a couple other students. And perhaps, Din actually becomes Mand’alor and retakes Mandalorian space. Maybe he visits the Jedi school pretty often to see his son and get away from politics.

Luke can really sympathize with having the weight of the universe and a glowing sword tossed at you with no warning. So maybe he and Din become friends after a while and maybe that friendship becomes something different. There start being blushes when someone gets pinned in a spar, falling asleep together on the couch after dinner, running around after the younglings constantly. Din visits as often as he can and has about made up his mind to just ask Luke if he would consider moving the Jedi school to Concordia so they’d at least be in the same star system most days, if not on the same planet.

That's when Luke gets an urgent holocall from Leia, informing him that he’s just been engaged to some bigwig princess as part of a treaty with a rich planet the New Republic has been courting. Luke is absolutely panicking to Din, going on about how the terms of the treaty basically forbid him from keeping his school. He’s looked at his funding agreement with the New Republic and he can’t get out of it without losing money unless he’s already married to someone.

And then Din thinks of the most beautiful solution to both of their problems. Everyone else thinks that they’re already a couple, as much as Din has denied it. Bo-Katan has been harassing him for months about spending so much time off-world to go see his little family. Mandalore could really use a trade agreement with the New Republic.

The next logical step is, of course, for Din to propose in the middle of Luke’s kitchen while his Jedi friend is struggling not to go into a dark spiral about losing his school funding. It's simple, really. They just have to get married right that moment, which would fix the school funding issue. Luke moves the school to the Mandalore system so Din can see him and the kids all the time without giving Bo-Katan a new gray streak. And Mandalore probably gets a trade agreement out of it. What’s not to like?

Luke is so stunned he accidentally pours the calming tea he was making directly onto the kitchen floor.

#dinluke #the mandalorian #text post #au #mand'alor din djarin #listen i love the aus where they meet for the first time already engaged #but think how funny this would be #din thinks the best form of flirting is showing how practical and good at problem solving you can be #he is an acts of service kind of guy #luke on the other hand has a major crush on din and up until that moment was pretty sure din was just tolerating him for grogu's sake

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qbebou · 2 months

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i understand why ppl don’t believe quackity rlly didnt know abt the working conditions with the admins, it’s his server, he should be overseeing everything, etc etc. but i think many ppl aren’t taking into consideration how massive of a project the qsmp is and how big the team is. on top of the roleplaying admins (eggs, capys, bunnies) there’s likely lots of offscreen admins, builders, mod devs, writers, artists working on the project as well. it makes total sense to me for q to have hired and trusted ppl to handle parts of quackity studios that he a. didn’t have time for b. didn’t have the experience to make the best decisions for or c. that he just didn’t want to do. at the end of the day q is a content creator and yes that means he also is a businessman and yes he owns quackity studios but he’s also shown himself to be INCREDIBLY busy and things like managing finances, vetting, hiring, and paying out employees takes a lot of time and can go super wrong if he didn’t have the knowledge or experience regarding how to do such things. he’s also shown himself to be pretty hands off with a lot of the server administration stuff, afaik he still isn’t op’d on his own server which makes sense bc he does have a team running things behind the scenes. i worked administration in a small office a while back and we had plenty of miscommunication issues bc my boss didn’t handle every part of his business. he didn’t even know how much i was being paid bc he had hired someone else to do the onboarding, offboarding, and payment for employees. even tho our team consisted of like 13 ppl at any given time, there were still miscommunications. and we were all seeing each other in person! we weren’t even dealing with differing time zones or different languages.

at the end of the day, q is young and inexperienced. he trusted the wrong ppl to handle parts of his business. all we can hope for is that things change for the better, the whole quackity studios team gets paid fair wages, have stress loads taken off of them, and feel safe and comfortable continuing with the project. i rlly hope pommes admin comes back bc the qsmp wouldn’t be the same without her even if another admin took the place of pommes character. idk if lea would want to come back but i feel like the door should be open for her too and she still deserves compensation for the work she did in her time working on the team. i have high hopes that things will get taken care of and some restructuring happens within the company

#qsmp #lex.txt #idk i just feel like ppl rlly jumped down his throat when the news first broke #and a lot of ppl have called him stupid or incompetent or what have u for not knowing what was happening but also have likely never worked #on an administration team or dealt with situations that would make him not knowing make complete sense #hell if i hadn’t had experience i probably would’ve also thought the same thing #but obv the qsmp is a major passion project and has had so much time money and care put into it #i don’t see q actively making the decision to jeopardize something he has dreamed abt for ages over something like this #or rlly anything at all #do i tag this as discourse????? idk wth #qsmp discourse #quackity

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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.