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apomaro-mellow · 5 months

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Sunshower

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Written for @slavicviking for the @steddieholidayexchange !

When Steve Harrington had graduated, Eddie thought he’d be pretty much done with him. Not that they had a lot of face time before. He just thought, in the true fashion of guys that peak in high school, he’d fade into the town, get married young, show his face at the 20 year reunion. Maybe he’d catch glimpses of him around Hawkins, but not for very long. Eddie was planning on hightailing it out of here the moment the diploma was in his hands. So what if it would take another year?

The positive was supposed to be that he was NOT going to see Steve’s face in the hallways. It was a great misfortune to see him walking up from the football field with some kid. Eddie had just finished a deal by the picnic tables. Why Harrington was hanging with what looked like a freshie, he didn’t know.

Eddie would’ve known if he had a brother. So who was the kid? Curiosity got the better of him and he trailed a good distance behind them. He was a little surprised when Steve took him through the cafeteria’s kitchen doors, which had a broken lock. It was the school’s worst kept secret, but he never imagined The Hair sneaking into school during summer vacation.

So what could he do but follow?

What he saw as he crept behind them was Steve Harrington giving what must be a future freshman a tour of the school.

“Here’s the cafeteria. Honestly the food’s not bad. Their creamed spinach isn’t the best, but really who’s is?”

Steve led the kid with the curly hair out of the cafeteria and into the greater part of the school. “Here’s all the lockers. No you don’t get to choose one, but once you get assigned you can always switch with someone who’s got better real estate.”

“Does the location of my locker really matter?”, the kid asked, nose scrunching up.

“Do you want one right next to the bathroom?”

“....Boy or girls?”

Steve smiled. “Good. You’re learning.”

Eddie shadowed them for the whole tour, which ended up being about twenty minutes. Harrington was really showing this kid everything. And yet was giving him the most skewed tunnel vision of high school. Great, just what he needed his third time around as a senior. A mini-Steve. Steve was telling him which teachers would let him get away with coming in late, the best spot to sit in the classroom, what teams it was worth going for.

“Steve, it’s like you don’t even know me. Have you ever seen me dribble a ball?”

“I’m just saying that it’s a fresh start. You could be someone new”, Steve reasoned.

“Did you become someone new in high school?”

Eddie thought back to the proto-Harrington he knew in middle school. The answer was clearly no. He’d been on the baseball team back then and was pretty much just as self absorbed as he would’ve been in high school. Steve gave a non-answer about how everyone had different experiences and pushed the kid on. Eddie decided he’d heard enough. Enough to know this kid was under Steve’s wing, but clearly they had different interests.

So come the first day of school, Eddie wore his Hellfire Club shirt loud and proud. The air was still warm, which meant he did so without his jacket. That just allowed the emblem to show even more. He’d told the other members to also wear theirs. Normally Eddie waited about a week, scoping out the freshies before figuring out who he’d approach to join. But he’d already had his sights set on at least one boy.

Imagine his delight and surprise when said boy had two others hanging around. Eddie was hanging outside the school, his cronies surrounding him as they caught up from what happened over summer. The trio was loud. Very obnoxiously arguing over something. Freshmen tended to be more self-conscious, wanting to keep their heads down at first. Eddie noted the Weird Al shirt one of them had. These boys were the opposite of timid. Perfect Hellfire material.

Eddie waited until lunch to make his move though. Give them a bit of time to get acclimated and at least half a day to see where everyone stood. But when Eddie did get to them, he was glad to see both excitement and relief in their eyes. They were looking for somewhere to belong. And he could give it to them.

Screw any influence Steve Harrington had on them. Which was why Eddie made careful measures not to even mention his name. The guy had graduated. His reign was over. Actually, it had kind of ended back in 84 but who was keeping record? Dustin, Mike, and Lucas were great additions to the club. They had a passion for the game and a never-back-down attitude. Honestly, it was so great, that Eddie almost forgot that these kids knew Steve.

That is until sports tryouts started.

“You can’t honestly be thinking out trying for a team”, Mike said, practically slamming his lunch tray onto the table as he sat down.

“I’m not just thinking. I’m already training”, Lucas replied.

“Ugh”, Mike retched. “Don’t get me started on that. You spend more time with your dad than us now.”

“His dad’s not the one teaching him”, Dustin said. “Steve keeps bailing on driving me places because he’s coaching Lucas.”

Mike had a look of utter betrayal and was definitely about to say something in response when Jeff cut him off.

“You’ve got Steve teaching you? As in Steve Harrington?”

“Yeah”, Lucas answered, much to the jeers of the rest of the table.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen”, Eddie said, holding his hands up in a calming gesture. “We must not bar Lucas from his own choices. And as for Steve, well, let’s just be glad young Sinclair didn’t go to him for academic assistance.”

The others laughed at that and the subject was quickly changed to something else. The rest of them didn’t really want to talk about any of the sports teams, lest that get Eddie really going and off on one of his rants. Sometimes it was nice to have just a stress free lunch.

“He said that?!”, Steve shouted indignantly as he dribbled the ball around on the court. He and Lucas were at a public court. Lucas was getting some practice in with his dad, but whenever he was busy, Steve stepped in.

“He’s not your biggest fan”, Lucas said with a shrug.

“Yeah, well he’s no prize either. Don’t let him get in your head. There’s nothing wrong with the sports programs.”

“But they’re right about there being cliques. If I get on the team, can I even be friends with Dustin and Mike anymore if they’re gonna be in Hellfire?”

“You should go for whatever you want. High school only happens once.” Steve dribbled the ball a few times before giving a bounce pass over to Lucas. “Alright, show me your handling.”

Lucas followed Steve’s advice. He officially joined up with Eddie’s club. He loved DnD and he enjoyed playing with his friends. But walking around with a Hellfire shirt didn’t do good things for their reputations at school. The others took it in stride, but Lucas was tired of being called names and girls looking at him weird.

So as soon as the sign-ups for try outs was out, Lucas put his name down. He didn’t really announce it but he didn’t hide it either the first time the guys wanted to do something and he was busy. The reception was not so good.

“You actually wanna be on the basketball team?”, Mike was incredulous.

Eddie was leaning against the lockers, arms crossed. “I get the feeling someone put this idea in your head. Was it Harrington?”

“He didn’t put any idea in my head he just..encouraged me”, Lucas confessed. “He said I should go for what I want. You only get one life.”

“One life indeed”, Eddie nodded.

“And you wanna use it shooting hoops with Jason and his cronies?”, Jeff asked.

“They’re probably not all that bad. Steve wasn’t”, Lucas defended.

The opinions were mixed on that. Dustin, Lucas, and Mike knew what Steve had done that they couldn’t tell others. He had stood between them and certain death more than once. But they couldn’t tell Hellfire that.

“You guys don’t know what Harrington was like”, Eddie said.

“Are you saying Steve bullied you?”, Mike asked with a raised brow.

“Bullied? Pfft, no. Harrington and I barely crossed paths. I just know his type. I know what he’s about. And he and I couldn’t be anymore different.”

At first it was just a conflicting of ideals. Whatever Steve told them about high school, Eddie told them the opposite. And there was no telling one what the other said.

“Harrington’s an idiot.”

“Munson’s a loser.”

It made talking to either of them hard. Most of their days involved hanging with Eddie and when they saw Steve it was all they wanted to talk about. Sort of difficult to talk about Eddie without talking about Eddie, but they managed for now.

Well, at least they did until the party got super deep into Hellfire. The campaigns were really involved, to the point of needing rides home from Steve when they ran too late. It resulted in quite a bit of petty glaring across the parking lot. Mike and Lucas had resigned themselves to the status quo remaining, but Dustin wasn’t satisfied with that.

It took quite a bit of doing, but what else brought people together more than a missing child? Dustin didn’t actually go missing. He simply concocted a plan with his friends to make it seem like he did and only to Eddie and Steve. He wasn’t crazy enough to get the whole town looking for him. Steve wasn’t crazy about Eddie tagging along for the search but the priority was finding Dustin.

“Why do you need that to find Dustin?”, Eddie asked, reaching a hand out to touch the nails in the bat, just to see it they were real.

“Don’t ask”, Steve bit out as they entered the woods.

Dustin thought getting them to work together would ease the tension, and it did. But only after bickering like children for a little while longer. Steve didn’t like how Eddie was undermining everything he’d been saying about high school. Eddie didn’t like how Steve had been trying to lead his sheep in the wrong direction.

“Yeah well before they were your sheep they were my-”

“....They were your…”, Eddie urged him to continue.

“Nevermind.”

“You and Nancy must’ve been pretty tight when you dated to get so close to her brother and his friends.”

“Me and those guys bonded outside of Nancy.”

“Is there a story there?”, Eddie asked.

“Yeah-” Steve froze when he thought he heard a sound before continuing. The sun was still high in the sky, so they didn’t have much to fear just yet. It didn’t hurt to be cautious though. “I just…I guess I just know how high school can be for kids like that. I wanted to make it easy for them.”

Eddie shook his head. “Doesn’t matter what kind of cheat codes you give ‘em. There’s always gonna be someone who makes it harder than it needs to be.”

Steve thought about thanking Eddie for giving them a place right away, but didn’t. Eddie thought of saying how Steve seemed to have changed, but didn’t. When they finally found Dustin, they laid into him hard, especially because he wouldn’t stop smiling despite his lie being revealed. All Dustin cared about was the fact they weren’t arguing with each other.

Mission accomplished.

Mission accomplished a little too well.

Now instead of having two friends who hated each other’s guts, Dustin had two friends who reveled in being shitty older brothers to him. Any time Steve picked them up from Hellfire (which he did with a suspicious amount of willingness now) he and Eddie traded notes on whatever it was that Dustin did that week. It was like a Henderson Briefing and the main objective was to either embarrass him or annoy him, sometimes both.

“I regret ever forging this friendship”, Dustin said.

“I think it’s the best thing you’ve ever done”, Lucas beamed.

Mike was grinning too. “It’s definitely the funniest.”

It got to the point where sometimes Steve and Eddie would hang out on their own. And wasn’t that just bizarre? What did they even do together?? The answer was mostly smoking, drinking, and shootin’ the shit. Even though Steve wasn’t able to tell Eddie any of the grimier details of the past couple of years, he was still able to tell plenty. And Eddie had no NDAs to speak of.

They were sitting out by Steve’s pool one day in March, the weather just starting to warm up to be able to relax there without freezing. Spring would officially come soon and with it, maybe a day or two where they could actually take a dip.

“I’m telling you, the lunch ladies changed the formula. Something’s different about the meatloaf”, Eddie said, fully reclined in a pool chair.

”You’re implying that they actually cook that stuff in the school.”

“I’ve seen the vats of mystery meat stew, Steve. But some of the food is made on-site. And the meatloaf is one of them.”

Steve smiled up at the clear sky. They talked like this, high or not. Just the most inane things that he never wanted to end. What did he care about the food at a school he no longer attended? He cared when Eddie was the one talking about it.

“So you’re done with the loaf then?”

“I don’t even think it’s the same meat anymore”, Eddie said. “Or maybe they changed the seasoning…?”

Steve continued gazing up at the sky as Eddie mused on that. Suddenly a drop of water hit his head. Then another, then a third. He wiped his face and looked to Eddie, who was also blinking through drops. Wordlessly, they got up from their seats and went under the porch awning as the rain began falling in earnest.

“How is it raining? The sun is still out”, Steve said, reaching a hand out just to be sure it was still rain.

Eddie snorted. “Never seen a sunshower, Harrington?”

“No”, he answered honestly.

“Don’t sweat it. I’ve still gotta knock ball lightning off my strange weather checklist.”

“It’s just weird seeing it rain with no clouds”, Steve said.

Eddie watched the droplets fall in the sunlight. It was like liquid gold falling from the sky. He watched Steve’s face, no hard lines or sarcasm, just awe at seeing something new and wonderful.

“You know, some folks back where I’m from have a name for this.”

“You mean something other than ‘sunshower’?”, Steve tore his eyes from the rain to look at him.

“They say the devil’s kissing his wife”, Eddie stuck his tongue out. “Give you any ideas?”

He had been a hundred percent teasing. Eddie had just been talking. Flapping his gums. Doing his usual friendly flirtation style. He had no plan in place for when Steve actually kissed him. But when it happened, there was only one choice: to kiss him back. The rain provided some pretty romantic ambience in his opinion.

“So are you the devil in question?”, Steve asked when he pulled back.

“Only if that makes you my sweet, lovely little wife”, Eddie teased and then made kissing noises.

“Fuck off, Munson”, Steve laughed.

Feeling like they were on the edge of something, Eddie took the plunge and kissed him again instead of cracking wise. Steve softened so beautifully that Eddie wished he could go to the past and kick himself in the pants. He probably could’ve been doing this months ago.

“You know we absolutely can’t tell Dustin about this?”, Steve said against his lips.

“It’s none of his business anyway.” Eddie didn’t feel the need to mention that no one could know. He just put his hands on Steve’s hips and for once was thankful for the privacy the backyard gave them.

Weeks later, during the spring break from his darkest nightmares and the stroll through actual hell, Eddie would have an epiphany.

“That’s why you have that bat!”

#apo writes #stranger things #fanfiction #steddie #dustin henderson #i hope ya like it!#steddie holiday exchange

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beybuniki · 4 months

Note

Speaking of Bakugou's clones, there's an anime called "Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie" and the main character's goofy best friend, Shu Inuzuka, not only looks exactly like Bakugou, but he's also voiced by the same voice-actor as him in Japanese and I just thought it was fun because that's the closest we would get to seeing Horikoshi's first proto-type of Bakugou's character (the one who was supposed to be a nice wholesome boy and bff with Deku) be animated.

he even has red eyes thats so funny

#asks

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raaorqtpbpdy · 1 month

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What Fades, and What Never Will

After Danny's accident, he starts acting strangely, and after exhausting all their other options, Jack and Maddie call upon a long-time friend who once had a portal accident of his own to try and get Danny to open up.

For the Prompts: In another universe, Maddie and Jack did visit Vlad in the hospital, and stayed in contact. What happens when Danny has his accident 20 years later? [from @kinglazrus]

After the accident, the Fentons can't help but notice something wrong with Danny. And since Danny also has that terrible symptom of "being a teenager", he refuses to tell them anything. So they reach out to the only person who could possibly help: an old friend in Wisconsin. [from Mimca]

And Like Danny, Vlad also has an unfading death scar—several of them, actually. Dozens of pock scars mar his skin all over his body, a permanent reminder of his slow, painful death from ecto-acne. [from me :)]

Read also on Ao3

[Warnings for mentions of past trauma/death, and past hospitalization]

Danny's accident had given his parents quite the scare. Their son nearly dying put a serious damper on the excitement of their portal working properly, to say the least.

But after that, even though Danny insisted he was fine, and the doctors said he was in the clear, medically—they couldn't help noticing that there was something wrong with him. Maybe that was a bit harsh, maybe it would be kinder to say there was something off with him, or something different about him. But whatever it was that was different about him... it seemed very wrong.

Maybe it was like Jazz said, and he was just traumatized from the accident and isolating from his family as a coping mechanism after his parents' invention had caused him so much distress. But if that were the case... why was he going into the lab so often? Much more often than before, and it didn't seem to bother him at all to be in a place where he'd experienced so much... distress.

They tried several times to talk to Danny about it, but he also appeared to be exhibiting unrelated symptoms like 'being a teenager', which of course meant he refused to tell them anything and suggested that they, 'butt out of his business' when they pressed even a little bit.

After about a month of trying and failing to get through to Danny in any way shape or form while whatever was going on with him only seemed to get worse, they decided to call in some back-up. As it happened, Danny wasn't the only person they knew who'd had an... unfortunate experience involving an experimental ghost portal.

Maybe... hopefully, their old friend from Wisconsin could help.

After a month of complete failure to connect, Jack and Maddie started to think that maybe he was the only person who possibly could.

Although they stayed in fairly regular contact with him, they still hesitated to ask him to come all the way out to Amity Park from another state entirely. But Vlad seemingly thought nothing of making the trip out to see them and have a chat with their boy.

After his own accident with the proto-portal, they were the only friends of his who didn't cut ties with him because they found him too grotesque to look at. They'd visited him in the hospital often, and gave the doctors all their research in the hopes that it might help cure him. Although the doctors hadn't asked, and Jack and Maddie were pretty sure they'd just thrown all the research away.

Eventually, Vlad's ecto-acne went away, although it was years before it vanished entirely. He was always terribly self-conscious about it. He refused to be in any of their wedding photos because of it, even though he was the best man.

And even when the ecto-acne itself finally went away, it left scars, dozens, maybe hundreds of them. Vlad often complained that he had to spend a small fortune on foundation and concealer to keep them covered, even though Jack insisted they made him look cool and mysterious. Vlad argued that they made him look sickly and unkempt.

It would be good to see him again after so long. Oh, sure, they called and e-mailed each other all the time, but they hadn't seen Vlad in person since they moved to Amity Park. Danny had only been four years old at the time, so he almost certainly didn't even remember the man, even though Vlad was his and Jazz's godfather.

Two days after reaching out to him, late Saturday morning, there was a knock on the door. Jazz was the one who answered. It took her a moment to recognize the tall, gray-haired man in a fancy suit standing there, but eventually she did.

"Uncle Vlad?" she asked. "We haven't seen you in ages. What are you doing here?"

"Your parents called me the other day and asked me to come down," he replied easily. "I heard about poor Daniel's accident. They were hoping I might be able to commiserate with him, since I was in a similar unfortunate accident myself with our prototype portal many years ago."

Jazz nodded slowly. "That... could be good for him. Personally, I'm pretty sure it was a traumatic experience for him, but he won't talk to anyone about it."

Vlad's expression was sympathetic. "It would be a traumatic experience for anyone. May I come in?"

"Oh, right," Jazz stepped aside to let him through the door into the house. "Sorry."

"Think nothing of it," Vlad said. "Are you parents around? I'd like to say hello."

"Down in the lab," Jazz told him, pointing to the basement door.

He nodded his thanks, remarked how good it was to see her, and what a lovely young woman she'd grown into since he last saw her, and then headed down into the lab to talk to her parents.

"Maddie?" he called down. "Jack?"

"Vladdie!" Jack shouted.

As soon a Vlad reached the bottom of the stairs, he was tackled in a massive bear hug. His arms were pinned to his sides and the breath squeezed out of his lungs.

"Let go of me you big oaf!" he wheezed out.

Jack dropped him with a good-natured laugh, and Vlad gasped for air for a bit before chuckling with him.

"It's good to have you over, Vlad," Maddie said, though she didn't move from where she was standing over a laboratory apparatus. "I would walk over to greet, but I'm holding volatile chemicals at the moment. Just give me a minute to stabilize the experiment."

"It's quite alright, Maddie, dear," Vlad said. "Don't rush on my account; especially not where volatile chemicals are involved."

"Thank goodness you're here, Vladdie," Jack said excitedly. "I'll finally get to show you all the new inventions we've made since moving here."

Vlad gave him blundering old friend an amused smile. "And approximately what percentage of these inventions actually function as intended?"

Jack looked sheepish, though the excitement didn't fade from him.

"Oh, but here, I thought you asked me to come all the way down from Wisconsin to talk to your Daniel," Vlad added. "Perhaps seeing all your hundreds of failed inventions and a dozen or so working ones can wait?"

"I guess so," Jack agreed, though he seemed very reluctant.

"Yes about Danny," Maddie said.

She'd apparently finished at the apparatus and was carrying a rack of test-tubes to the nearby freezer to be stored until the next phase of her experiment.

"We told you he had an accident in the new ghost portal," Maddie said. "I thought we'd disconnected the power source before leaving it unsupervised, but I guess not. The doctors say he'd fine, physically, and Danny insists he's fine, too, but... something just doesn't seem right with him anymore. Jazz says he's traumatized, but he doesn't seem anxious in the lab at all, so we're just not sure.

"Obviously he won't talk to us, but we were hoping, if you told him about your own experience, that he might be willing to talk to you."

Vlad nodded thoughtfully. "You know, he probably doesn't remember me," he pointed out. "To him, I'll be a stranger prying into something he probably doesn't want to even think about, let alone discuss."

"We know it's probably a long shot, but we had to try something, you know?" Maddie looked more worried than Vlad had seen her since he was still laid up in the hospital. "I'm just... I'm worried about him. We all are. He's been acting so strangely lately, cagey and short-tempered, maybe it is just stress, but it can't be healthy for him to keep it all bottled up. You'll at least try, won't you?"

Vlad looked at her distraught expression and nodded once, firmly. "I'll try," he agreed. "But if Daniel does talk to me, and he asks that I not relay what we talk about to his parents, I won't violate his trust."

Maddie shook her head, a sigh of relief escaping her. "That's fine," she said. "We don't need to know everything. We just want him to have someone he can talk to, so he doesn't have to bottle everything up. Right, Jack?"

"Absolutely," Jack agreed. "Whatever's best for Danny is good enough for us."

"Alright then," Vlad said. "Is he here now?"

"I think he's out with his friends right now," Maddie said. "He'll be back for dinner though. At least, he'd better be."

He removed his jacket and hung it on a hook next to a lab coat, which he put on in its place. It must've been Jack's judging by the way he practically drowned in it, but he rolled up the sleeves without complaint and ignored the way the bottom of it touched the floor when he bent his knees even a little bit.

"Then, for now, how about I give you both a hand in the lab," he suggested. "Where might I find a spare set of safety goggles?"

—

Danny was late for dinner, but he didn't miss it at least. The Fentons weren't really a regular family dinners kind of household, so when they told Danny they would be having a family dinner tonight, he knew there would be consequences for skipping out. Still, he was surprised to see a mysterious, well-dressed guest at the table when he hurried into the kitchen.

"Uh... hi?" Danny greeted, awkwardly taking a seat between his dad and his sister.

"Daniel, so nice of you to join us," the stranger greeted with a smile. "You know I think this is the best chicken casserole your mother's ever made."

"Not that it's a very high bar," Maddie joked.

"Don't say that, Maddie," the stranger said. "You're a... perfectly adequate cook."

Maddie laughed out loud.

"Um, not to be rude or anything, but... who's this?" Danny asked, jerking a thumb over at the stranger.

"Oh, that's right, you wouldn't remember Vlad," his mother told her. "He's our friend from college, and you kids' godfather. He was really close with the family when we lived in Wisconsin, but since we moved, he mostly just talks with me and your father over e-mail. I'm sure we've mentioned him before."

Danny did vaguely recognize the name Vlad. This was probably the same Vlad his dad called Vladdie and gushed about while his kids tuned

"Yes, the last time I saw you, Daniel, you were only four years old," Vlad said. "At risk of sounding like an out-of-touch old man, you've certainly grown since I saw you last."

"Yeah, that tends to happen in ten years," Danny pointed out. He narrowed his eyes at Vlad, scrutinizing him. "What brings you all the way out to Amity Park?"

"Oh, I was doing some business a couple towns over, and figured since I was so close, I might as well pay a visit to some old friends."

It was a perfectly plausible excuse, especially since Danny was pretty sure his parents had mentioned their Vlad was some kind of businessman. It didn't ease Danny's suspicions at all.

Throughout dinner, Vlad maintained a casual, friendly conversation with the rest of the family, easily defusing Danny's loaded, accusatory questions. When dinner was over, Danny went straight up to his room. He'd had a long day and was hoping to turn in early, even though he knew he wouldn't be able to actually fall asleep until well after midnight, if he slept at all.

He wasn't expecting a knock on his bedroom door a few minutes later.

Vlad being on the other side of it was less of a surprise. He glared at Vlad, but the man seemed completely unperturbed.

"I have a confession to make," he said.

"Oh yeah? I'm shocked," Danny replied sarcastically.

"I didn't want to bring it up in front of everyone and put you on the spot," Vlad said. "But the truth of the matter is that your parents asked me to come in the hopes that I might be able to talk to you, commiserate, I suppose, about your recent accident in their lab."

"And why on earth would I talk to you about about it?"

"Because I know what you're going through," Vlad replied.

"No offense—actually, yes offense," Danny said, "but I'm pretty sure you have no idea what I'm going through."

Vlad raised an eyebrow, and then his blue eyes glowed a sinister red. Danny gasped and his eyes blew wide in shock.

"No offense, Daniel," he said, "but I'm pretty sure I do." He let the light fade and smiled, a little smug, but not unkindly. "May I come in?"

Danny nodded mutely and let Vlad through before closing the door behind him.

"You're like me," he said incredulously. "How?"

"The portal in which you had you own accident was not the first your parents made," Vlad began to explain. He straightened up Danny's blankets before taking a seat on his bed. "When we were in college, the three of us formed a paranormal science club, and we made a prototype portal. It didn't work, but it did turn on and... badly injured me when it did so.

"Your father turned it on, actually. He got a little over-excited and hit the button prematurely. I was very angry at him about it for a while, but... bygones." He shrugged.

Danny continued to stand in the center of his room, staring openly at the man who'd already made himself comfortable and was casually describing what must've been a horrific accident—if it was anything like Danny's, that is—as if it were nothing more than another boring anecdote about his past.

"I spent years in the hospital after my accident," Vlad continued. "Your parents were the only people who ever visited me. I was so unsightly after my own accident that all my other quote-unquote 'friends' couldn't stand to look at me."

"You look alright now," Danny observed.

"Ha!" Vlad barked a short laugh. "Not without effort, I assure you."

"Do my parents know you're—"

"Oh, heavens no, can you imagine the embarrassment?" Vlad scoffed. "Of all the things to do me in, ecto-acne was what did it. No, bad enough I had to suffer the nasty condition for so long, nobody needs to know how much it truly affected me."

"Ecto-acne?" Danny questioned.

Vlad waved him off. "Never mind that. Now that I've told you my story, would you care to share yours?"

"I..."

Vlad patted the empty space on the bed next to him. "You can lock the door if you're worried about someone coming in."

"No, you'll just tell my parents," Danny said. "You're their friend, not mine."

"If you don't want me to tell them, I won't tell them," Vlad refuted. "In fact I said as much to them earlier today. Death, even half-death is a very personal thing, and no matter how close I am to your parents, I would never disregard your privacy in such a matter. I may be their friend, but I'm your godfather."

"You promise you won't tell them anything?" Danny asked.

"I promise," Vlad confirmed, then smiled lightly. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

He patted the bed beside him again, but this time Danny sat. He didn't speak at first, but after a long moment of getting his thoughts in order, he opened his mouth an began to tell his story.

"My friends and I were just... messing around I guess," he said. "I told them about my parents portal, and how they were upset because it didn't work, and they wanted to see it, so I showed them. Sam wanted to get some pictures, and she asked if she could get one of me inside. At first, I said no because I thought it might be dangerous, but... I figured the portal didn't work anyway, and it would be kind of cool, so I did it.

"She got her picture, but then, on my way out... I guess I put my hand on the wall. I don't know what happened, I felt something move under my fingers and then... the portal turned on."

"You were inside it at the time?" Vlad asked, sounding surprised. "Standing fully inside?"

"Yeah," Danny confirmed. "You weren't?"

Vlad shook his head. "No, the prototype portal was only about as big as a desktop computer monitor. I couldn't have stood inside if I wanted to. I was standing in front of it when it turned on, and it... well, I suppose you could say it quite literally blew up in my face."

"Oh..." Danny got real quiet for a moment, and then asked, "Do you still remember how painful it was when it turned on?"

Vlad stiffened, and he got a faraway look on his face. "Every day," he replied. "That agony has stayed with me for twenty years."

"That's comforting," Danny grumbled.

Vlad tilted his head in acknowledgement. "I wish I could give you better news, but something that changes you on such a fundamental level was never going to simply fade away."

"The scar will, though, right?" Danny asked. "He pulled up his sleeve to reveal an angry red Lichtenberg figure sprawling across his forearms and disappearing under his sleeve. "The doctors said it should fade in a day or two, but it's been a month now and.... But you said the portal blew up in your face, and I don't see any scars there, so it will fade, won't it?"

That scar felt like it was staring at Vlad even harder than he was staring at it. His eyebrows drew together in sympathy and anguish. He reached into his pocket and his fingers closed around the small make-up kit he always carried around for touch ups.

"I'm afraid not, my boy," Vlad said apologetically, and pulled up his own sleeve to reveal the pock marks scattered on his forearm. "I use make-up to cover the ones on my face, but death scars never fade. Be grateful you only have the one."

Danny stared down at the marks with despair written all over his face.

"If it's any consolation, you do get used to them," Vlad assured him, pulling his sleeve back down to cover the marks. "It will always remind you of what happened every time you see it, and the memories will always hurt, but the pain, like all pain, gets boring after a while, and starts to carry less weight."

"Really?" Danny covered up his own scar again, but looked up a Vlad hopefully.

"Yes, really," Vlad said. "Humans are the most adaptable creatures on the planet, and, despite everything, you are still human to some extent. As am I."

Danny smiled a bit at that. He'd be ruminating on the fact that he wasn't fully human anymore for the past month, and the reminder that he was still human, at least in part, was more than welcome. It was a nice reprieve, actually.

"How long did it take for you to realize you had changed?" Vlad asked. "Not long, I suspect."

"No, not long at all," Danny said with a slight laugh. "I went into the portal human and came out a ghost, so that was my first clue. When Jazz and my parents came down in a rush after hearing my screams, I was able to change back just on impulse, although I had no idea how I did it at the time. I think maybe I just passed out and turned human automatically.

"Then I got rushed to the hospital."

"So... it was instantaneous for you?" Vlad asked, his brows furrowed in confusion.

"Yeah... it wasn't for you?"

"No, it wasn't," Vlad said, his shoulders slumped and his face fell. "My... condition took much longer to kill me than that. It was years before it had run its course and I discovered how it had changed me and what I could do."

As soon as he saw the pity on Danny's face, Vlad averted his gaze. It had been twenty years since his accident. He didn't need pity anymore. He never had.

"That sounds awful," Danny observed.

Vlad almost laughed at how obvious the statement was.

"Yes, quite," he agreed. "But I've had plenty of time to come to terms with it. You, on the other hand, are still in the existential angst part of your journey. 'What am I? Where do I belong? What do I do with myself? How should I use these powers? Did I even deserve to half-survive? Should something like me even exist?' these questions and more keeping you up into the wee hours of the night. Am I close?"

"Dead on, actually," Danny said, his shoulders sagging. "I haven't been sleeping very well lately."

Vlad put his hands behind him and leaned back slightly on the bed.

"Well that's in part because you simply don't need as much sleep as you once did," Vlad noted. "The more time you spend in your ghost form, the less sleep your human form needs. It's all to do with the delegation of energy.

"Ghosts and humans regain energy and use energy in ways that are too different to be compatible with each other. Your human brain, body, and internal functions can't consume energy when you're in ghost form, so you don't need to recharge as much in human form, and vice-versa. You may have noticed you don't get hungry as much as you used to either."

"Yeah, actually," Danny confirmed, a little incredulous.

Vlad smiled at him. "I had to figure all this out on my own, but if you accept my help, you won't have to go through all the trial and error that I did. I'm more than happy to teach you.

"I'm only planning on staying in Amity park for a few days because I do have to get back to my business eventually, but I'll give you my contact information, direct line so you won't have to go through my assistants. That way, if you have any questions, or need help with anything, you can reach out to me, and I'll do my best to answer any question you may have."

For a long moment, Danny just stared at Vlad, like he was trying to see through the thick layer of make-up on his face to the scars beneath. Vlad inhaled deeply and tried not to squirm under the teenager's gaze.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Danny asked. "Just 'cause you're friends with my parents? You barely know me."

"For the same reason you were willing to open up to me, even though you don't have any memories of me before today, I suppose," Vlad answered with a shrug. "It's... it's a relief to know that I'm not alone anymore, especially after all the years. It's terribly lonely to be one-of-a-kind, isn't it?"

Danny nodded and looked down at the floor.

"Besides, even if we don't know each other very well anymore, I'm still your godfather," Vlad reminded him. "I do rather have a responsibility to be nice to you, even if you were a wretched, awful boy, which, thankfully, you don't seem to be."

The not wretched, not awful boy chuckled softly.

"Now, is there anything else you want to talk about?" Vlad asked. "It's getting fairly late."

Danny shook his head. "But uh... thanks for coming all this way just to talk to me."

"I would have flown in from another country," Vlad assured him. He stood up from the bed and straightened his clothes. "Would you uh... like a... hug or something? Physical affection isn't really my forté, but—"

"No," Danny cut him off. "No hugs, thanks."

"Good, good," Vlad agreed awkwardly. "Ah!"

He reached into his pocket and took out one of his business cards. On the back, he wrote his personal phone and email address, along with the words 'direct line', so that Danny would be able to reach him directly.

"Hold onto that, reach out whenever you need to," he said, handing the card to Danny. "Might I suggest that, now that you don't need as much sleep as you used to, you use the extra time to work on your homework? Your parents tell me your grades have been slipping since the accident, and while that's perfectly understandable, you really ought to try to maintain at least a 'C' average.

"Trust me, you don't want to be in high school any longer than is absolutely necessary, I assure you. Your life will improve dramatically after high school graduation, and anyone who says 'high school is the best years of your life' is an idiot of the highest caliber. I spent a good portion of my college years hospitalized, and it was still better than high school. You do not want to be held back a year."

"Noted," Danny said, looking vaguely horrified at the prospect. "I'll get going on that homework."

Vlad nodded curtly and left the room. He headed down the hall to Jack and Maddie's bedroom, but of course they hadn't gone to bed yet, so instead he headed down to the lab to say goodbye before he went to his hotel for the night. They had offered him their couch, since they didn't have a guest room, but he had politely refused. It wasn't as if he needed to save money on this trip, and the four-star hotel he'd found was much more comfortable than their old, stained couch.

"Still working into the wee hours, I see," he commented when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Vladdie!" Jack greeted, boisterously as always. "How did it go with Danny."

"It went very well," Vlad replied. "After I told him about my experience, he was willing to open up to me about his—although as I expected, he asked me to keep it between us. Still, I think you'll find his demeanor will start to improve now that he had some one he can relate to. He'll probably never be exactly as he was before, but no one ever is."

Maddie stepped over and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "Thank you Vlad, truly," she said into his ear, and he blushed so hard he feared that Jack might see it through his many layers of foundation. "You're a life-saver."

He cleared his throat when she let him go. Even after all these years of being happily friends with her and Jack, his feelings for her hadn't gone away entirely. They probably never would.

"Think nothing of it," he said. "I'm always happy to come to the aid of my god-children, and to you."

She smiled at him, and Jack gave him a hearty pat on the back that nearly bowled him right over. Another thing that hadn't changed after all these years was that Jack still didn't know his own strength.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I only came down for a brief chat and to say goodbye—"

"No! You're leaving already Vladdie?" Jack looked positively crestfallen.

"Relax, Jack," Vlad said. "I'm only going to my hotel for the night. I'll be back tomorrow. The three of us have a lunch appointment, remember? And I agreed to go bowling with you on Saturday. I'm staying in town for six days, you dope." He shook his head, though he couldn't deny it was just a bit fond.

"Oh, hehe. Right," Jack said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "We'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Wouldn't miss it, Jack," Vlad said. "And it's been a delight as always, Maddie. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Vlad!" they both called up after him as he ascended the basement stairs with a hidden smile.

#danny phantom #dp #danny fenton #badger cereal #vlad plasmius #maddie fenton #jack fenton #jazz fenton #fic #things i wrote #phic phight #phic phight 24 #dp college buddies #college trio

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strong-with-the-sarcasm · 7 months

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part 11- a thousand candles burn into the night

"When the ashes start to rise and the moon falls from the sky and a thousand candles burn into the night. When the angels softly cry on the flames below the sky, would a thousand souls still pray for you and I?" -Day of the Dead by Hollywood Undead

Masterlist Part 10

Just like the summer air began to cool into autumn winds, Jasmine and Jason began with a heated tension between them that dwindled into a slow simmer of what neither of them wanted to jinx by calling it love.

Both were aware of how unnatural their connection was, how quick one was able to trust the other with simple thoughts that roll off the tongue- Jazz’s favorite tea, Jason’s favorite book, her younger siblings, his many brothers. It was obvious that Jason held some lingering anger towards those he called family, but it was an old wound, infected yet healing. When it came to more in-depth questions about Jazz’s siblings, Danny and Ellie, there was a sad tinge to the affection. Jazz missed Ellie with every fiber of her being, but her little sister was free as her heart desired.

Jason spoke at length about his own, eventually admitting his anger issues that had led him to attempted murder on one of the younger boys, Tim, that he deeply regretted.

Jazz had only to listen, because who else could understand the deeply rooted rage that came with betrayal?

One slash, two, three

Blood is on your hands already.

Fourth, fifth slash

Ask the ghosts if honor matters, buried amongst the ash.

Slash six, seven

Sharpen your love into a weapon

They went out on several dates, each one special and lovely, but Jazz’s favorite was being wrapped in familiar arms as they watched Pride and Prejudice on Jason’s couch. It was a comfortable warmth that lulled the redhead into a deep sleep, the best she had gotten in a long time.

Jazz was the first to wake, lying on Jason’s firm chest and ear pressed firmly to where she could hear a faint purr from his Proto-Core, she felt no compulsion to move even though there were things she had to do as Regent and as Jasmine.

She had to talk to Frostbite, because she needed to understand why she was so connected to Jason. It frightened Jazz, to have her emotions so sharpened towards someone she hadn’t known for very long.

(She was in love.)

Her own Proto-core purred in tandem with Jason’s, happiness bubbling up in her chest. This was a peace she never wanted to let go, regardless of the reason why the two of them were brought and bound together.

Jason was in love.

There was zero doubt in his head or heart that he was fully committed to his darling Jazz, the beautiful woman who understood him in ways no one ever had. With her, the pit remnants were calm and he was happy.

Happy.

Sheer happiness was in his grasp, in his arms and resting on his chest as she slept. Her long hair smelled like strawberries and he never wanted to leave.

Yet, bat-trained paranoia reared its ugly head in moments like these.

Jasmine Nightingale was, by all accounts, a civilian with a trust fund who cared for her younger brother. No other records were found that could tie either Jazz or Danny to crime, but Jason didn’t want to see them if they existed anyway. He hadn’t even met Danny yet and the kid, despite being prime adoption bait, was already one of Jason’s favorite people. He made Jazz proud with his intelligence and good-natured attitude, so Jason would do his best to form a good relationship with the kid.

He guessed he should be more concerned with how quickly he fell for his darling, but he wasn’t. It felt right. It felt safe. Like he could trust Jazz with every thought, every dream, every hope, every nightmare and she wouldn’t run away. He wanted her, plain and simple.

Thankfully Jazz was more or less on the same page as him.

She never had to say a word about how she felt for him, it was obvious in the way she would gravitate towards him, want to be around him, talk to him, simply be with Jason. How honored he felt to be gifted such attention by Jazz.

He didn’t know how to tell her about Red Hood though.

The Nightingales lived outside Crime Alley’s borders, in a shitty neighborhood of Gotham recently claimed by two new vigilantes- Phantom and Regent.

Jason tried to shove back the horrifying images of a vivisectied Phantom, screaming, sobbing and whimpering, but he would ever be able to forget.

The video of Regent killing the Fentons was glitched, but cross referenced with the Ghost Files, it was obvious the Regent of Now and Then were the same woman…entity that saved Phantom, no, avenged the ghost kid.

The fact that the Fentons death prevented a war was karmic justice, in his humble opinion.

Yet, there was something familiar about the Regent. Something that called to him on a baser level… as if he knew the entity behind the helmet.

But that was ridiculous…right?

Right?

Jazz was going to kill him all the way this time, Danny bemoaned while in flight. He really stuck his foot in it this time and yikes, he really needed to learn to keep his mouth shut.

He just had to go behind Jazz’s back and give the Ghost Files to Batman instead of Superman or Constantine. Big and blue wasn’t available when Danny found an opportunity and for shame if he wasted it! Sad trench coat man being there was really just a bonus, honestly.

With the Acts getting the League’s attention, it was time for a desperate move on the part of the GIW.

They infiltrated Gotham.

Danny had no idea how they had found a way past the border Lady Gotham kept a tight leash on, but the agents were able to pick up his trail with a lucky break on their end. He had a haunt in Gotham, which meant his ecto-signature was strong in that area and weak in others. A glaring neon sign of where the Phantom often could be found.

But Danny would never give up his haunt again, not without a fight.

This haunt didn’t just belong to him, not like Amity had. This had become the home of the Nightingales, the Phantom and the Regent. They had shed blood to claim it and would shed more to keep it.

If it meant admitting to his mistake, then so be it, that’s where he would start.

“Bold of you to assume I thought that far ahead.” Was probably not the best response to Jazz’s irate question of ‘Did you even consider what Batman, Mr. Contingencies-out-the-ass and minion-acquisition-instead-of-therapy, would do with the files?’

Needless to say, Jazz wasn’t impressed.

She had been rather happier lately, with her boyfriend Jason constantly in her orbit, but responsibility still weighed on her.

(Danny’s fault, he was aware, but he still had so much growing up to do before he was ready for the crown.)

Getting the AEA demolished was sure to take some weight from her, even if it would be only the beginning of resolving the repercussions of the United States’ crimes against the Infinite Realms.

It would be years before it would be considered repaid, the blood shed and existences snuffed out. The deaths of the Dr. Fentons were only a consequence of their actions, not truly recompense for the torture they inflicted on the people of the Realms.

(Danny never told Jazz, but he knew they didn’t die when the portal was destroyed.)

(He knew his sister had killed their parents to save him.)

(He still didn’t know how to feel about that.)

Lady Gotham offered a sad croon as Phantom curled his form under a gargoyle’s wings, the heavy rain an ironic ambiance for his mood.

There was nothing he could do about the GIW in Gotham until they showed themselves and they were doing an unusually good job of keeping on the down low. If it hadn’t been for the frantic screeches of the friendly shades and a few blob ghosts cuddling him for comfort, he would have been caught off-guard by an attack. As long as he stayed out of his haunt for a while, let his signature be caught somewhere else, then Jazz would be able to defend their home until he could deal with the bastards.

He just needed to wait.

Jazz had been livid with him admitting his fuck up with the files and deeming the GIW’s presence his fault for claiming a Haunt. With a threat to hug him and make him talk about his feelings until he no longer believed such a lie, Jazz agreed to remain in their Haunt until he could draw some of their forces away. Lady Gotham’s ecto-siganture would be enough to scramble their trackers once further into her city and she would subtly lead her Knights to the agents when able.

It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough.

Phantom curled his tail around his laid back form, mimicking a cat as he texted Sam and Tucker with updates. They had sworn to visit him during Summer Break, but the Halfa wasn’t holding his breath. Gotham wasn’t safe for them. It wasn’t safe for anyone and that’s coming from a kid who can punt a building into the sun at a moment’s notice.

Amity was (laughably) the best place for them.

Phantom wasn’t really paying attention, absentmindly petting a blob ghost that was cuddled into his side, when he was joined by none other than the Red Hood.

Badass armor and weapons aside, the Hood was an Antihero he admired. The avenged dead sung his praises for all who’d listen.

And… he was very familiar.

Red Hood possessed a Proto-core, one he’d sensed before in his own home….with Jazz.

It couldn’t be. There was no way the Fenton luck could be that wonky that his big sister was dating Red Hood of all people, Jason Todd when unmasked. She had to know right? There was no way Jazz could miss the Proto-core signature of the Once-Revenant they’d housed for a while. Was Jazz okay with Jason’s past? Sure, Red Hood didn’t kill much anymore, but he was still a crime lord who thought severed heads in a duffel bag was a great gift to leave on someone’s doorstep, like a particularly picky cat.

“Uh, hi?”

Hood crouched down, rain blocked by his huge body, water droplets dripping off his red helmet. The white lenses gave nothing away as the Anti-hero spoke, “Hey kid. You ok?”

(Danny was well aware of how gentle and caring Red Hood was towards kids.)

(He couldn’t wait to be an uncle.)

“I’m fine, dude. Just chilling.”

“Under a gargoyle in Gotham?” The disbeliving tone made Phantom snort in laughter, because wow not the scariest concept to a halfa.

“Hey, it was either this or the sewers. I wouldn’t be caught dead,” Phantom chuckled a bit at his joke. “Down there without hazmat gear and the Anti-Creep stick.”

Hood snorted, the sound stackity through the modulator, “Fair enough. Don’t get caught by the big bat, ok? He doesn’t like Metas in his city.”

“Oi, being dead is a meta-cal condition.”

“Ugh,” Hood groaned, “a punster. You’re not dead, kid.”

“‘Fraid I am, my good dude. Fourteen and fried alive, zero outta ten, would not recommend.”

“...You’re a ghost?”

“Right in one! Name’s Phantom.” the Halfa offered, seeing no point in correcting the Anti-hero.

“Red Hood.”

“Dude, I know. The shades sing your praises given half a chance.”

“Shades?”

Phantom shrugged, “The restless dead, unable to pass over without a lot of ectoplasm.”

Hood didn’t ask what ectoplasm was, which surprised the Halfa. Did Batman share the Ghost Files with Red Hood?

“You’re from Amity Park, right?”

Phantom cringed at the name of his former haunt, anger bubbling in his gut, “I died there. I haunt Gotham now.”

“....I’m sorry.” Even with the modulator, Hood sounded genuinely sad for Phantom.

(Batman definitely shared the Ghost Files with the Anti-Hero.)

“Are you alright here? Do you need help?”

Phantom shook his head, “The GIW invaded Gotham tracking my Ecto-signature, so I’m leading them away from my Haunt.” He raised an eyebrow, “You should be careful too. You’re a pretty strong liminal, but they’ll still try to capture you.”

“No, they won’t get me. Phantom, where’s your haunt?”

If Hood was anyone else, Phantom would keep his mouth shut. A Haunt is sacred, a home for a Fraid, it was not some measly address freely given. Yet, Red Hood was also Jason Todd, Once-Revenant Death-claimed Champion turned Proto-core Liminal dating his older sister. If Jazz trusted him enough to date him, then it was good enough for Phantom to offer him a place in his Fraid. (He really couldn’t wait to be an uncle.)

A/N: This was beta-read by @meditating-cat, thanks!

The little bit at the end there... foreshadowing, perhaps? Ooh... all those baby names I could give a Hardcover kid.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Who knows. I have the end of this series mostly planned out, but it could likely change.

Thanks for reading!

#dc x dp crossover #dp x dc #dp x dc au #dpxdc #jazz fenton #regent!jazz #jason todd #anger management ship #hardcover ship #I made myself squeal #They're just so CUTE #they're in love your honor #two dorks #two vigilantes #and only one knows the other is one #spoiler: not the one you'd think #In which Jason is kinda a sweetheart #He's in love with Jazz #she fell first he fell harder

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hiwelcometothemonstersancturary · 1 month

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I’d love to hear your headcanons on the relationship of Catnap/Theo and The Prototype…especially when the poor kid became wee little baby Catnap. The Prototype must have a lot of guilt over that, and many, many other things…

Oh, boy, I have so much to talk about!

First, for me their relationship is and will always be of father and son. Even during the time Theo/Catnap starts looking up to Prototype as his god, it is still, at its core, a parent and child relationship. The religious imagery is just another layer it has, even if it's a very bad and unhealthy one. For me the whole cult thing was something Prototype only allowed to happen because it gave him more control over the factory, and, by extension, more protection to his kid, because if anyone dared to mess with him, they would know they would have messed up with the Prototye himself. And also because Elliot was used to people looking up to him and "lost" his "window" to cut it off before it became too much, like how we see in-game.

I think Theo met Prototype by accident, when he was running from bullies and accidentally got lost. He called for help until Prototype heard him and made a "mental link", gently guiding Theo out of where he was. Prototype was in the middle of an escape attempt, btw, and stopped because Theo was just a child and needed help. He would have done the same for any other kid in Playcare, and this is an important part of his personality to me. Proto would never hurt a kid (except if he thinks said hurt will free them from their suffering, which is why he kills CatNap during the og game).

Theo, very young and a bit religious, thought that the voice was actually a guardian angel guiding him out, and tried to contact the Prototype by praying. Proto, who still had the mental link with the kid, was very amused, and told him that no, he's not an angel, just another creature trapped inside Playtime Co. Prototype would often silently escape his cell in order to talk to Theo, or use the mental connection to make his hand appear in front of him. The kid was lonely, terrified, and no other adult seemed competent enough to just do their job as a person and help him, and Prototype knew what it was like to be lonely and terrified. He wouldn't allow this little one to be alone like he himself was.

He protected Theo the best he could. He wouldn't scare the bullies, knowing well that if he did, the higher-ups would immediately make a connection and end any attempts at contacting Theo. At this point Proto was already with the adoption papers all signed up inside his head but he just thought it was normal behavior for him until years later. Prototype helped Theo with homework, taught him how to calm himself down, and, little by little, started showing more of himself. First he made it so that Theo would only see his hand, then his arm. He warned the boy that he had a very scary appearance, to which Theo replied that even angels look a bit scary the first time you see then. Surprisingly, the little boy was amazed by how the Prototype looked like! He thought he was the coolest thing EVER.

Prototype's influence also made Theo start scoring higher at the Game Station. He was a very frail and clumsy kid. If it wasn't for Proto being gentle and encouraging, Theo would have never been fit for the Bigger Bodies initiative. This is something Prototype didn't realize until he accidentally overheard Sawyer talking about the Smiling Critters "line" of Bigger Bodies and saw the test results for Theo. By this point, Proto was planning an escape, with him and the boy freeing all the orphans trapped inside Playtime Co, but when he saw these papers, he decided that the plan must be done as soon and quick as possible. He would allow anyone else to be hurt. And he didn't realize it at the time, but he wasn't going to allow Sawyer to just take his kid away from him like that.

And then Theo almost fucking died. Haha. Lmao, even.

Maybe the fact that Proto didn't have more time to "train" him could be part of the reason why the accident happened. Maybe Theo was just too young. But what matters is that he almost died, and Prototype kept on calling to him, begging him to survive, to get up, but the boy wasn't moving. The Prototype had failed yet another child, and this time it almost costed their life. I think this is how he found out he could cry in his new body, because he was sobbing, and if he wasn't so focused on getting help and not being silent I think he would have screamed a bit.

And then he saw his boy being brought to that room, and he couldn't do anything to stop it from happening. And at least to me this was one of the worst things that ever happened to Prototype, because he loved that kid just like how he loved Poppy when things weren't like this. Taking care of him, raising him... He did that to Poppy as well.

And he failed the two of them.

I think that after Theo became CatNap, Prototype tried to keep a certain distance between them, because he almost killed that boy. He's not a good parent, nor a good friend. He tried to hard to save him, and for what? But to Theo, this wasn't a case of his parent trying to protect him. The last thing he heard was Prototype calling himself a failure: "You failed another one", he said, and Theo thought he was calling him a failure for almost dying. And combine that with the distance post-Bigger Bodies transformation, and the fact that to Theo he was still alive because Prototype saved him, and you have just the right amounts of guilt, second chances and redemption to kickstart the worship.

Theo/CatNap wanted to prove himself to be useful, to be better. Prototype wanted to free him and everyone else inside, and told him about the Hour of Joy. CatNap delivered the news to other toys, grateful that he was being useful to his savior, and helped him set everything in motion for the following months. After the HoJ, Prototype realized he had to feed all the toys inside, and food is not an infinite supply. He taught CatNap how to protect himself from other hungry toys and how to hunt and scavenge for food, and in CatNap's eyes his god was teaching him everything he knew just like old times. It was a reward, he had proved himself to be useful, things will be okay once more.

@/lassieposting made some really interesting posts about their relationship post-HoJ, and I recommend checking the poppy playtime tag on their blog! I love the idea of CatNap eventually leaving Prototype's wing/"area" after a certain amount of time, coming back to the Smiling Critters as a hunter and thinking it's stupid how the group doesn't want to hunt for other toys. However, I like to think that Prototype one day came up to him and told him there wasn't anything else for him to learn, and that he could go, once again creating a distance between them, as Prototype/Elliot still thinks he failed the kid and that he will fail him again if he stays close. In CatNap's eyes this was his savior asking him to prove himself so he would be allowed to be close to him again.

With enough time, CatNap made his Prototype cult, which was allowed to keep on going because Proto firmly believed this would protect him and the mini critters. Plus, more control over the factory, stopping toys from going on a rampage or trying to leave and risking making the experiments known to the authorities. Meanwhile CatNap had to provide food for the mini critters and was finding the same problems Proto himself was having with feeding the toys, and this just made his admiration and worship of him grow more and more (hc also by @/lassieposting).

There's also another element to their relationship: Elliot was a very kind man who was shaken up by war. He raised Poppy to be kind, as much as she possibly could be. For her, kindness was a choice she must make every single day. But for Theodore post Hour of Joy, kindness was something that could cost him his life. Prototype taught him how to be a hunter, and this meant not playing around and not being able to be a kid anymore. CatNap feels like a part of him went missing when he was forced to stop playing because he needed to survive, and a part of him does resent Prototype for that, but he will never admit it out loud.

By the time Angel enters the factory and the game starts, Prototype is being eaten alive by his own guilt. He failed every single child in that damned factory, he failed his two kids (Poppy and Theodore), and he failed himself and his principles. Meanwhile, CatNap is starving not just for food, but for any love and attention he can receive from Prototype. All he wants is for things to go back to how they were once before, but the distance between them just keeps on growing. The cult, the worship and the guilt are killing this relationship for years, and neither of them are able to talk about it.

CatNap just wants his dad back.

Prototype just wishes Theo never had to meet a monster like him.

#poppy playtime #catnap #experiment 1006 #poppy playtime prototype #oh my God i'm TEARING UP and i'm not even joke #joking #screaming at this why can't i be normal about this game!!!!!!! it's not even that good!!!!!!!!!!#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #ask tag #ref #poppy worldwide #save everyone au #poppy playtime headcanons

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emcandon · 11 months

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i imagine that by now you will have seen a number of posts about why you should, uh, maybe think twice and cross to the other side of the street if you're thinking about engaging with Threads

i have unwisely already done this.

for reasons! i am empirical by nature and like to test things for myself. it is also best practice to account squat on your usual account name if you are some kind of Known Entity for say, writing a book or two. i am furthermore traveling and having a fuck of a time focusing on writing book three, so i have spoons to spend on social media upheaval.

to the point: i do not recommend Threads bc afaict, Threads is simply joyless.

perhaps it will change. perhaps the shitposts will emerge. perhaps there will be ways to make your timeline chronological, or to stop seeing all the inane, vapid brand posting of brands you do not actually follow, or all the inane, vapid influencer posting of influencers hoping to gain ground by being a new first in something. perhaps meta will cultivate a culture where people can be weird little goons but in a good way -- i.e., not a fascist way, which hoo boy, hoo boy, the landscape is so sterilized at present that i am pretty sure ppl are just gonna go rancid "just asking questions" proto-fash weird before they go anything.

perhaps in the meantime it would be best to maintain a healthy distance, or, if needs must or impulse prevails, go in armed with a hefty stick.

#threads #writer life

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ineffable-rohese · 7 months

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Good Omens, or the Disruption of Gay = Death

CW: historical homophobic violence and death

@queerfables recently wrote an excellent meta on slash fiction and the concept of "Taking Away the Glass". I had some thoughts, which I was going to add as a reblog, but this seems to spiraled away from the original post, so I'm posting this on its own, but I'm referencing their ideas and references, so maybe go read that first.

This is especially for those of you who are, say, under 25 (which is apparently most of Tumblr), and who haven't had much opportunity to learn queer history. Let me say, I'm not a queer historian. I am a queer who has lived through recent history and can reasonably clearly remember the last at least 35 years of it, and I was fortunate to have had schooling that did include some earlier queer history and didn't shy away from queer topics. (I recognize now what a revolutionary bit of teaching that was.)

I also want to acknowledge that I'm writing from a place of relative privilege, as a white cis woman living in a progressive part of North America, and that some of what is history for me is still life for others. I am speaking from my own personal experiences here -they are by no means universal. But I think it's important for us to share our stories, so this is part of mine.

When You're Dying in America, at the End of the Millenium

Fables quotes a video by thingswithwings as saying "Homosexuality, or just loving touch between two people of the same gender, is equivalent to death in this media narrative." In the 1980s and 1990s, when Good Omens was written and first published, that wasn't a metaphor. When I was a baby proto-queer, what I heard about being gay was that it killed you.

My formative memories of what it meant to be gay weren't pride parades or even riots. It was gay men dying by the thousands and governments and religious leaders ignoring them at best, and welcoming their deaths at worst. To be gay, and a gay man in particular, was to be marked for death. It wasn't until a straight white boy who got it from a blood transfusion died that AIDS became something that "normal" people had any empathy for and governments really started to act.

The gay representation I rember in the media as a moderately sheltered child from the 80s and 90s with left-of-center middle class white parents was news about AIDS, Philadelphia (death from AIDS), Ellen (cancelled after she came out), and eventually RENT (desperately trying not to die of AIDS or capitalism). I knew a very small handful of out gay adults, and no trans adults at all.

My first time being in a large group of queer people was a vigil for Matthew Sheppard, who had been beaten and left to die tied to a fence. I remember being terrified. I wasn't out yet. I knew people who hated us might be there, this group of mostly young queer people gathering with candles to cry over a boy we'd never met, and over the many others who had died just for being what we were. I'd never even kissed a girl yet. I only knew my queerness in relation to death.

In the last decade or so of the 20th century, being queer was about grasping any bit of joy you could from a world that very clearly would prefer you were dead. It was defiance and anger and fear every time you held your love's hand, or kissed them in public. My second date with the person who would become my spouse was interrupted by some dude in a truck shouting slurs at us was we walked down a quiet street. We laughed it off - no one had thrown anything, or beaten us, so it wasn't a big deal. It should have been a big deal, but we couldn't let it be. When you're marked for misery and death, you can't let the little things get to you. You just hold each other's hands as tightly as you can and defiantly keep walking.

An Angel and a Demon and Immortality

Good Omens was written during some of the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic (which is still ongoing, by the way), before there were effective treatments, when gay = death. It is a mainstream, mass-market book. It wouldn't be shelved in the "Gay and Lesbian" section at the book store, it would be shelved with humour, or possibly fantasy.

And yet, here we have these two beings. An angel and a demon, with an unlikely friendship, and who are very clearly written as gay. Or, at least, as percieved as gay by outside observers. Aziraphale in particular is (in one of my favorite lines) "gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide," and "THE southern pansy" (self-proclaimed). Together, they are "consenting bicycle repairmen" (Neil Gaiman's explanation for context) who Anathema was safe with the whole time.

Whether you caught the subtextual shippyness of their relationship (and to be honest, I only did a little when I first read it), they were very obviously written as precieved-gay characters, in a story where their precieved gay-ness wasn't the cause of their downfall. Yes, an 11 year old calls Aziraphale a faggot. But he doesn't get arrested or beaten of killed - he just gets covered in cake. And he loves cake! The attempted insult just rolls off him like water off a duck's back, because he has no pressure not to be visibly gay.

Becuase, see, unlike us humans, unlike his gay contemporaries, he is not marked for death. He's an angel. He's immortal. Even more, he was made by God, exactly how God wanted, presumably, and that is intelligent, English, and so very gay.

Niel and Terry are saying so much here. You can be gay and loved. You can be gay and have a deep relationship. You can be gay because that's how God made you. You can be gay forever, through all time, with someone beside you, finding joy in your life.

You can be gay and not die. You can be gay and live.

#good omens meta #queer history #aids history #this one's personal #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #death #hiv/aids #homophobia

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prettywarriors · 3 months

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Mini Mahou March Year 4 Week 1

Hey everyone and welcome to the third week of Mini Mahou March! You can find the main post for the event here X.

The Prompt for the week of March 2nd-8th is…

Hime Lolita Phantom Thief/Kaitou!

The sub-genre of magical girls that needs more love, the phantom thief has a long history of non-magical girl entries such as Lupin and Magic Kaitou. MGs include Shadow Lady, Saint Tail, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, and the recent Phantomirage.

Magical girl Kaitou often steal with good purpose- returning stolen goods like Saint Tail, or exorcising demons like Jeanne. With a much smaller pool of inspiration to draw from, there is very little consistency in designs for these characters, although they always have a way to make a quick escape. They often leave behind a calling card, sometimes as a form of cheeky flirting with their officer rival.

Hime Lolita, or Princess Lolita. If you know magical girls you probably know Lolita fashion- Rococo inspired, distinct silhouette, frilly and feminine. Hime lolita is extra frilly and a bit more mature with a lighter color pallet.

I’m only looking for a visual character design, something as simple as a single fullish-body picture, but you are more than welcome to go as wild as you want with trinkets, backstory, information, alt outfits, all that good stuff. Also I say girl but girl boy nb other as long as it’s a magical humanoid gender be damned, thumbs up. (Also nothing 18+ please. Your characters can be, just not your art for this)

Make your post and tag me before end of day March 8th (11.59EST) and I will be re-blogging participants here next Sunday/early Monday, with everything tagged Mini Mahou March.

Saint Tail uses stage magic to distract while stealing stolen goods and returning them to their proper owner while leaving calling cards for her crush who is the detective trying to catch her. Shadow Lady uses a magic eye shadow pallet to transform into different forms depending on the color, and steals, well, for fun until the plot happens, while the local cop is in love with her thief form. Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne transforms with assistance from her mascot to remove demons from pieces of art which makes the art disappears, and her rival is transformed boy who wants to stop her (and her best friend is the obligatory cop) D.N.Angel is the long accept magical boy, and he transforms into his older alter ego to steal magical artifacts made by the ancestor of the obligatory cop who has his own magical alter ego and there’s a love square.

So uh. Complicated romances & police enemies with possible overlap in those categories, transformations range from ‘new dress’ to ‘new body’, stealing is good sometimes. It’s not my fault there aren’t more Kaitou MGs we deserve this sub-genre c’mon Toei. Pierrot? Anyway there’s always non magical girl kaitou like Skye from Harvest Moon or whatever is happening in Persona 5. Masks are generally not a magical girl thing beyond proto-senshi and a couple of weirder male-target series, but it is a thief thing so your call.

Robin Hood Lolita? Scarlet Pimpernel but Frilly? How many weird thief tools is she hiding under her big skirt? Are the ribbons removable to use as getaway ropes? How fancy is that kaitou mask? Maybe some wings- with bows?

#text #mini mahou march #mini mahou march y4 #magical girls #mahou shoujo #art prompt

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voidsentprinces · 13 days

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Love FFXIV cause it took my misconception of Alisaie and flipped the table over me IMMEDIATELY!

I remember seeing the twins on the chocobo ride and being like, "Oh fuck...don't let him be the determined and loud boistorous heroic one and her be the shy and quiet one"

and then I got through the ceremonies and she tells Alphinaud off and immediately sets out on her own and I was like: HOLY SHIT SHE IS THE BEST!

And then I was stuck with Alphinaud as he made the biggest political fuck up since Robespierre decided to become Proto-Stalin Russia at a town meeting. But spent some time with him and saw him humble and grow and I was like, "Wow, he's really great." Then Alisaie comes back and is all like, "That boy is just not very bouyant" and it was like, "BUT I STILL LIKE HER MORE."

So anyway, I always go with Alisaie first. She is my favorite twin with Alphinaud lagging behind. Poor boy didn't stand a fucking chance.

#{ Alphinaud is the neighbor's kid }#{ Alisaie is my adopted daughter next to Ryne...and Gaia...and the entire Idyllshire orphanage...and Meteion...and Alpha...and }

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blacklegsanjiii · 3 months

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Mihawk and his three sons in the Golden verse taking the time between his jobs and all their chores to teach the boys haki and fighting and educating them to the best of his abilities. Luffy struggles with everything book related because it's boring, Dad. It's not like haki or fighting where he has to pay attention or he might get hurt by someone but it's also fun so it's easy to pay attention. Ace also finds it boring because why do they need this stuff if he and Luffy are going to be pirates. Mihawk tells them both it's important because the best pirates know how to split their treasure amongst their crews and can read the logs their navigators make. Mihawk is surprised at how emotionally intelligent Luffy is for being so young, and says that's something all good captains have as well.

When Luffy asks why he doesn't have a crew Mihawk chuckles and says his goal was to never be a pirate, it was just the easiest way to accomplish his goal of becoming the world's greatest swordsman. Ace asks if his dad ever knew this stuff and Mihawk says he did. He's not lying either, Roger may have been incredibly impulsive but he was the king of the pirates for a reason.

Ace and Luffy are so used to sleeping together in a hut in the jungle their room has two beds that are sizable because he thinks they may just climb into each other's beds. No, usually Sanji wakes him up when he climbs into his bed first, sometimes it's Luffy, rarely ever Ace who only comes when his nightmares are extreme. Mihawk wakes most mornings to three extra bodies in his bed. Most of the time he can pry himself from the pile of children that have somehow heeped on him but some mornings Mihawk does not and lets himself sleep longer. Sanji and Luffy are relatively the same size until Sanji is about twelve, thirteen when the food finally sticks to him and he almost matches Ace in height for a while.

Garp compliments Mihawk on his raising of the boys, saying they'll be good Marines when the time is right. Mihawk doesn't argue with him, just cocks a brow at the elder. They talk about Garp's failures as a parent, an honest talk they weren't expecting to have but a welcome one. When Ace shows Garp his fruit he blinks and sighs and Luffy tells Garp that when he told Mihawk he ran so fast it was really fun.

They take a few photos together when Luffy discovers a snail camera. The others are all very candid shots of his sons or him and one or two of them doing something mundane or Mihawk looking shocked or appalled at one of them, usually Luffy, doing something that only children raised in a jungle can think of. Mihawk took it to his room one night and somehow woke up under a pile of teenagers and took a proto selfie with the poor snail who he later fed a delicious salad as both thanks and penance.

It's his favorite photo though. Sanji has his head on Mihawk's bicep and a leg hooked with his, Ace's head is on Sanji's stomach but his body crosses Mihawk's legs and Luffy has his head tucked under Mihawk's chin and is somehow on all three of them. Mihawk does not understand how a sixteen, fifteen, and thirteen year old can all weigh that much but Mihawk is raising two Ds who were in a jungle and a kid who wants to be a cook and will feed them pretty much whenever they ask.

Zoro and Perona finding out during their stay on Kuraigana. Perona yelling that the rubber jerk is his kid and Zoro asking how the fuck Luffy, the cook, and Ace are his kids when they look nothing alike. Mihawk watching them have meltdowns over his kids while he drinks wine. Mihawk simply says adoption is a wonderful thing which makes Perona and Zoro scream.

#black leg sanji #monkey d. luffy #roronoa zoro #portgas d ace #vinsmoke sanji #dracule mihawk #hawkeye mihawk #straw hat luffy #fire fist ace #golden!asl+s #golden!sanji #golden!luffy #golden!ace #single dad!mihawk

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p3ta · 28 days

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gotta send Ryoji Mochizuki

Thanks for the ask! Hope your day's going well, fellow Ryoji enjoyer.

Spoilers below for P2, P3, P4, and P5R.

Send me one of these here!

First, I want to give some thoughts on his character as a whole. For the certain type of character he is (doomed, remorseful harbinger), Ryoji Mochizuki is perfect. I don't think there's a better Persona twist than his reveal as the the Appriser/Death, the thirteenth Arcana Shadow. Just because a twist is easy to see coming doesn't make it less impactful, and I particularly enjoy the way Persona 3 distills information to the player in allotments. Even knowing that, Ryoji managed to surprise me with how much more he was. And fittingly, a lot of Ryoji's characterization bounces back to the P3 Hero, and vice versa.

On top of that, Nyx Avatar is my favorite final boss in the entire Persona series and unsettled me out the first time. I'd still say that Nyx Avatar causes me more fear than the Reaper, who I'd comparatively describe as inciting panic rather than fear.

Ryoji is frequently compared to Kaworu from Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE), and, well. Yeah. I believe I read that in a developer interview that the P3 dev team deliberately took inspiration from NGE but I'm unable to find a source at hand, so don't quote me on that. Between the two, I prefer Ryoji. He is the strongest out of the character type for me.

favorite thing about them

His layers! Ryoji is one of those late game characters who comes in and recontextualizes all the information you've learned thus far. It's why I love watching the Dictionary update throughout a playthrough. I understand why people are put off by the way he's introduced as a serial flirt, but Reload made it much more textually clear that this isn't his true personality, nor his intentions. Ryoji is proto-Teddie (Japanese Teddie, anyway); a fully formed individual who sprang into existence seeking connection. However, where Teddie's isolation and lack of identity are his defining characteristics, Ryoji's are moored in how connected he is with P3 Hero.

Ryoji ultimately only exists because of that connection, that little bit of humanity he's been given, but that's also what prevents him from being fully human. He's had a role to play since his inception, and he can't avoid that even with his newfound connections.

Ryoji's present throughout the entire story. You've got Pharos at the very beginning with the contract running errands for the Velvet Room (I like it more and more that I think about it. Picture Elizabeth or Igor having to explain to this terrifying child what he has to say. Or maybe he knew what to say all along! He has been waiting ten years), Thanatos tearing himself out of Orpheus (by far the best Persona awakening in the series and a textual highlight for what an alien force he is), and a crucial lynchpin event for Yukari's backstory, Mitsuru's backstory, as well as the crucial event for Aigis and P3 Hero.

There is no version of Persona 3 without Ryoji and I'm all the happier for it. Genuinely, if something's confusing with P3's story, there's 90% chance the answer is Ryoji or one of his many numerous forms. The remaining 10% is the Kirijo Group. That said, we don't get a lot of time with Ryoji. Ultimately, he's a part of P3 Hero and you're left to extrapolate exactly how much of each other you believe they've influenced.

Sogabe, the P3 & P4 mangaka, chose to highlight how similar Ryoji and P3 Hero look. I consider it an essential element of their relationship together.

least favorite thing about them

It'd be cheating to say nothing, wouldn't it? I'd say that his design is easy to mock and hard to get right in fanart. Between Ryoji's forehead and very Axel Kingdom Hearts approach towards long limbs – and legs in specific – the movies did not help with this. I've read reviews saying how the higher budget allowed for the characters to be more consistently on model, and thus look better, but I fervently disagree. That boy is mostly leg. Late 00s and early 10s anime art Looked Like That, though. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a soft spot for some of it.

But I love how Ryoji looks and wouldn't change it for the world. Silly slick-backed hair boy. It is funny how whenever Persona wants a villain with sympathetic qualities, they slick back the protagonist's hair (Philemon and Maruki come to mind).

Reload fixed ("fixed") this anyway but making him much fluffier in his portraits and giving his skin some color! He's achingly soft in that game.

favorite line

There's many iconic ones I could pick but I'm going to go with a new one from Reload:

It's so small, it's so playful! I like that if you choose to start an exchange he finishes the bit. It says a lot about him in such a succinct way.

Even more so when you consider the reason he came here was for Junpei's sake. Being able to balance joking around while keeping a touch of concern endears me beyond belief. Thank you, Reload.

brOTP

Junpei & Ryoji. It's not even close. This was the one element I was hoping Reload would show more and I was not disappointed! The dynamic is good for a variety of reasons, but chief among them is that despite Junpei's Persona being Magician Arcana, he is not the P3 Hero's Magician Social Link. Junpei is not the male protagonist's best friend. He clearly wants to be, but his frustration is palpable. The P3 Hero is cool, charming, and everything that Junpei plays second fiddle to, but he won't even acknowledge him. But what if there were a more likeable version of the Hero?

Instant friendship. Those two are besties from day one, where Ryoji has all the qualities but none of the knowledge, and so their dynamic is a much more even one. To me, it indicates how well Junpei and the P3 Hero might have gotten along had he not carried Death inside him for ten years. It's a brief window into another world.

There's also the fact that Ryoji, Death, befriends Junpei so close to when Takaya shoots him and he perishes. His character arc is defined by change, this act being what radically transforms his soul, and what's one of the meanings of the Death Tarot? It's like universal foreshadowing. It's funny to me too that the Magician Arcana Shadow is the one Thanatos tore to pieces. Growth for Ryoji too.

As an aside, I miss the dynamic movements from the PS2 cutscenes. Junpei being so quick to drown Ryoji is nowhere comparable to him covering Ryoji's mouth.

OTP

Hmm. This might take a second. I wonder what pairing I might like with Ryoji. Here's an unrelated picture of Messiah:

You know, Messiah is one of those Personas that has only grown on me more as time passes. My favorite of the final protagonist ones, due in part to how you have to fuse him yourself. Orpheus, the starting Persona, combined with the power of Thanatos, the penultimate manifestation of the Death Arcana. They compliment each other beautifully, and regardless of if you the player create him, he is always the true final Persona, the final result of the Judgement Arcana.

They are inevitable.

Of course it's Ryoji and P3 Hero. How could it be anything else? These two make me sick with joy. Death has a clear favorite and in the end, gets to keep him forever.

nOTP

It's funny, because I can't think of any serious pairing with Ryoji that I wouldn't view as a crack ship? I can't see any version of Ryoji with anyone but the P3 Hero nor can I take that relationship seriously. The only other being Ryoji has an established relationship with is Aigis, and that ship comes across as black comedy. I mean, there's also Ryoji and the P3 Heroine, who he is undoubtedly head over heels for, but I see her as heavily preferring Aigis. Oops.

Wait, I did remember one! Ryoji and Junpei! I'll admit, maybe it's the sheer "dudebro" vibe of their relationship, but people pairing these two was not an outcome I expected from Reload. I've seen it enough to know those who like it aren't joking, either.

It's funny, because they're both soul-taken at the tail end of their friendship (Ryoji with P3 Hero and Junpei with Chidori) so I guess I wasn't looking for it? Then again I can't see Junpei Iori kissing a man in general. If there's a Ryoji pairing that isn't my thing, these two are the Most not my thing.

random headcanon

Ryoji memory backfill!

I've seen multiple interpretations for how Ryoji's sudden transfer, housing, and parental situations were never questioned. I like exploring this for myself, especially from Ryoji's perspective. Ryoji fully believes himself to be human until 12/2's Dark Hour. So, how does he reconcile his own situation?

This headcanon states that whenever Ryoji is prompted to answer on where he lives, what he likes, or where he went to school before, he'll often "backfill" what memories he think should be there. If it's something he should reasonably know, it'll be there.

In-game you can see a couple instances of Ryoji being stumped at simple questions, like where his class trip was going to be, but excelling at others, such as when he asks Mitsuru out to a restaurant date. According to the headcanon, he failed the class trip question because it wasn't something he anticipated, but he knew a date location because it was essential to his personality. Ryoji Mochizuki is a hearthrob, it wouldn't make sense if he didn't. So he does.

I like to think Reload Ryoji's phone is another example of this backfill, though this one spills over into material items. Ryoji thinks he should have a phone and knows he should ask for others' numbers, but when he reaches for it on his first day it isn't there.

His inconsistencies are fun.

Rapid fire small ones: his favorite color is blue, he likes sunrises but not sunsets, and he's good with children.

unpopular opinion

This may be the most unpopular opinion I have in general, but I don't believe Ryoji is bisexual. Or rather, I don't necessarily believe he must be bisexual. It's not like I'm trying to shirk representation, but I think there are so many fascinating ways that you can analyze orientation for a character. Same with gender.

Ryoji, through my interpretation, is someone who could only love the protagonist. And it doesn't have to be a sexual kind of love. There's an entire spectrum of identities in our culture that we've labeled for what Ryoji's experiences could be. It brings me joy to be able to think about how – even if Ryoji knew about these identities – he'd define himself. On top of that, would how he define himself be accurate? Would he have misunderstandings about his own identity?

There tends to be a large backlash when someone even suggests a different label for a character with one widely agreed upon, which means my gender and sexuality thoughts stay hidden away. I'm more than aware of those that insist any hint of same-sex attraction is obviously platonic and fans are reading too much into things. I'd never want to take away from an individual identifying with a character for what a fandom settles on calling them.

Though one note: it's interesting to me that from the collective opinion I've seen, people have latched onto bisexual as a label rather than pansexual despite them ostensibly meaning the same thing. Something something changing social climate. Anyway. Play around with character gender and sexuality. It's good for you.

song i associate with them

Auld Lang Syne.

For old acquaintance be forgot

And ne'er brought to mind

Should old acquaintance be forgot

In the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne

We'll drink a cup of kindness yet

For the sake of auld lang syne

It's a traditional New Year's celebration song. Auld Lang Syne essentially means "for old time's sake". It originates from a precursor to Scottish, and exists as a fossil word inside this otherwise Standard English prose. I find it sweet how this little, historic piece gets to survive through something that redefines it.

favorite picture of them

Well, that was a lot. If you have a keen eye, you might've already noticed I've been dropping in pictures so I'll keep this part concise.

My favorite pictures of Ryoji are his portraits:

Sweet. Fluffy. Endlessly endeared by the way his hair flairs out. A much clearer heart shape for his face. Perfection. Special mention to his startled expression. His eyes get small and I get happy, simple as that.

Although, I'll never forgive Reload for dropping his Messiah pose:

There's an element to this portrait that's a little more unearthly, but earnest. Visually, his eyes are also a clearer parallel to Aigis's in this version.

Thank you for reading all the way through! And thank you again for the ask. I'm not sure if you were expecting an essay, but I think that about sums it up.

Have a picture of Ryoji nui + charm!

#asks #ryoji mochizuki #🔫#🌕#it took me eleven days to answer this that does not bode well for the others #elle-p's nomenclature is spreading #thanks Ver!#happy mochizuki monday #very-lucky

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best-fictional-band-poll · 4 months

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THIS IS THE OLD SUBMISSIONS POST. UP TO DATE SUBMISSIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE

Sorted alphabetically by band. Please click through to original post to see full list. IF IT'S NOT ON THE LIST, PLEASE SUBMIT IT. NO BAND IS TOO NICHE. Multiple bands from the same media are permitted.

Putting this under the cut because it's getting too long!

0-9

4*town - Turning Red

About Gardens - ROGUEMAKER

The Ark - I Was Born For This

ABXY - Splatoon

Arno van Eyck - Disco Elysium

The Band With Rocks In It - Discworld

The Beets - Doug

The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton - The Mountain Goats

The Bettys - Phineas and Ferb

Black Stones (BLAST) - NANA

The Blues Brothers - The Blues Brothers

Bottom Feeders - Splatoon

Boys In The Sink - Veggietales

Boys Who Cry - Spongebob Squarepants

Boyz4Now - Bob's Burgers

Boyz 12 - American Dad

Bunk Bed Junction - No Straight Roads

Cheetah Girls - Cheetah Girls

The Clash At Demonhead - Scott Pilgrim

The Covey - Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Crash & The Boys - Scott Pilgrim

Daisy Jones & The Six - Daisy Jones & The Six

Damp Socks - Splatoon

De Bois Band - & Juliet

Deep cut - Splatoon

DETHKLOK - Metalocalypse

Dedf1sh - Splatoon

Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeros - Space Opera

Dingoes Ate My Baby - Buffy The Vampire Slayer

DJ Octavio - Splatoon

DJ Stylbator - Samurai Jack

Dr Teeth and The Electric Mayhem - The Muppets

Drive Shaft - LOST

Evar Orbus & The Galactic Jizz-Wailers/The Max Rebo Band - Star Wars

Fig and the Cig Figs - Dimension 20 Fantasy High

The Flaming Creatures - Velvet Goldmine

Fran-Shou-Shou - Zombie Land Saga

Gallifrey Academy Hot Five - Doctor Who

Gem & The Scotts - Secret Life SMP

Gillion & The Tidestriders - Just Roll With It

Girls Dead Monster - Angel Beats

Gorillaz - Gorillaz

Grifters Bone - Magnus Archives

Hatsune Miku - Vocaloid

Heaven Seventeen - A Clockwork Orange

The Hectic Glow - The Fault In Our Stars

Hex Girls - Scooby Doo

Ink Theory - Splatoon

Jem & The Holograms - Jem & The Holograms

Johnny Casino and The Gamblers - Grease

Josie & The Pussycats - Archie (Comic)

The Juicy Fruits - Phantom of the Paradise

Julie and the Phantoms - Julie and the Phantoms

Kessoku Band - Bocchi the Rock

Killer Boy Rats - Horrid Henry

The Killjoys - My Chemical Romance

Lacus Clyne - Mobile Suit Gundam Seed

Lady Parts - We Are Lady Parts

The Last Days - The Last Days

Lemonade Mouth - Lemonade Mouth

Leningrad Cowboys - Leningrad Cowboys

Lincoln Hawk - Gossip Girl

Little White Lie - Little White Lie

Loded Diper - Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Love Burger - Can't Hardly Wait

Love Händel - Phineas and Ferb

LumberZacks - Milo Murphy's Law

Mad Gear & The Missile Kid - Danger Days, My Chemical Romance

Maxwell Demon & The Venus In Furs - Velvet Goldmine

The Mechanisms - The Mechanisms

Milkcan - Um Jammer Lammy

The Misfits - Jem & The Holograms

Muppet Orchestra - The Muppets

Needy Beast - Hatchetfield

Octoplush - Splatoon

Old Gods of Asgard - Alan Wake

ok, kids - Andre and Karl

Off The Hook - Splatoon

Pink Slip - Freaky Friday

Plasmagica - Show By Rock

Proto Zoa - Zenon Sweep

The Rainbooms - Equestria Girls

The Rats - Velvet Goldmine

RIP - Ruby Gloom

The Risky Fix-Ins - Buzzfeed Unsolved Franchise

The Rutles - All You Need Is Cash

Sadie-Killer & The Suspects - Steven Universe

Sadgasm - The Simpsons

SCÄB - Home Movies

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles

Sev'ral Timez - Gravity Falls

Sex Bob-omb - Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Sing Street - Sing Street

Soundcheck - Odd Squad

Spinal Tap - This Is Spinal Tap

Squid Sisters - Splatoon

Squid Squad - Splatoon

The Stiff Dylans - Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging

Sunset Curve - Julie and the Phantoms

The Superconducting Supercolliders - Designations Congruent With Things (Pacific Rim fanfiction)

The Three Lights - Sailor Moon

Trapnest - NANA

Turquoise October - Splatoon

The Vampire Lestat - The Vampire Chronicles

Wonderlands x Showtime - Hatsune Miku Colourful Stage/Vocaloid

The Wonders - That Thing You Do

Wyld Stallyns - Bill & Ted franchise

Wet Floor - Splatoon

w-3 (omega-3) - Splatoon

Yoko & the Gold Bazookas - Splatoon

Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars - David Bowie

#submissions

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afieldinengland · 8 months

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can i have your full list of movie recs? i’m sure you’ve posted them before but idk where to find them, also i hope you feel better soon i’m not terribly good with comforting ppl but i’m thinking of you tonight <3

oh, of course, friend– well, i have a list on letterboxd of a few of my favourites, but i can be much more expansive here :) hopefully this is alright, thank you very much for the kind words

the wicker man (1973) - the best film ever made. erotic and pagan and rolling the sun on the hips of a lord in tweed. to date the only film i have shown people that invariably had made them come to me the day after to tell me i have introduced something undeniable and strange into their world. thank you anthony shaffer for everything

equus (1977) - and thank you peter shaffer for everything, too. uniquely distressing and terribly, unutterably sensual. i know not everyone has galloped like alan strang has, but i have. and i know how it feels to have a god take your intestines in his teeth

harold and maude (1971) - when i first started university someone told me that i reminded them of harold chansen, but it wasn't for another few months that i found out why. i don't think i'm being overzealous when i say that this film would probably change anyone's life for the better, really. go and love some more

penda's fen (1974) - a rare thing indeed, which i was made aware of by someone i consequently owe a great deal to. homosexuality, paganism, spiritual becoming, angels and demons and the music of edward elgar bleeding like a long-exposure across the soil of the english countryside. again a film i hardly have words for.... it feels like a rare thing indeed for a boy on a hill in england in the 1970s to declare so vitally and so beautifully that his sex is mixed

if.... (1968) - mick travis and the proto-droog, or the boys' boarding school as petri dish for violence. ever so slightly hallucinatory and alternately deft and brutal and comic in encouraging the growth

a field in england (2013) - you are a coward in a seventeenth century field with a wizard and he won't tell you he's feeding you psilocybin, but he's feeding you psilocybin. every time i got drunk in a field between the ages of sixteen and eighteen i turned into whitehead.... has the world ever recovered from when reece shearsmith emerged from that tent-flap mad and on the end of a rope. a tw for strobe images

in the earth (2021) - as above, a ben wheatley-directed film in which reece shearsmith kind of plays whitehead's descendant. a spectral pandemic looms large at the margins of an unmapped forest, while a standing stone and parnag fegg speak and scream through the mycorrhizal mat inside. a tw for strobe images / flash

the rsc richard ii (2013) - david tennant plays shakespeare's self-dramatising, histrionic king as a posturing androgyne, an inept ruler, a hysterical poet, a madwoman in the attic, a ghost at the feast and a scared little boy all at once. deposition comes to find him crawling and strutting and wailing by turns in a matrix of history and tragedy

caligula (1979) - anyone who tells you that this is one of the 'films considered the worst' is a coward. aspiring headily to cleopatra (1964) but with every possible flavour of bodily fluid and sex act and effete little costume on malcolm mcdowell ending just below his balls represented. helen mirren i hope we live forever. tw for sexual violence

caravaggio (1986) - love and violence and paint and anachronism talk brutally about art and muse in a way that reaches far beyond 1610. death ejaculates blood everywhere, complete with contortionism and engraved knife-blades and kissing blood and coins from another man's mouth to your own

dead ringers (1988) - ellie... ellie... can you ever escape something like a twin? parasitic siblinghood as addiction / withdrawal / overdose, and how the body opens under metal no matter their mutations

ravenous (1999) - this is a love story. comparable to a field in england, in many ways. the devil comes whistling over the sierra nevada in the 1840s in the shape of a man, and in his hands and on his palate he carries the hypnotic taste of longpig and unnerving manifest-destiny ideas about the bloody power of eating who you kill

the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover (1989) - the insides govern everything. eyes caught across a restaurant germinate a love affair, then chaos, and then the brutal and total and pyrrhic main course. the dry outside moves unforgiving towards the slippery inside. tw for sexual violence and domestic abuse

sleuth (1972) - anthony shaffer does it again. homoeroticism and class posturing and wry detective novel cliché, hemmed in by the animatronics and board games and sedately hedged walls of a wiltshire manor. above all else you have to keep your eye on the rules of the game

mumsy, nanny, sonny and girly (1970) - speaking of which, this is one of the films that inspired anthony shaffer to write the wicker man. childhood games and childhood language dance laughing circles hand-in-hand with axe violence and imprisonment and jelly for elevenses. everyone in the 'family' commits to their place in the game in a way that would even make sleuth's andrew wyke safeword out, i think, but certainly not the beetle-trapping children of summerisle

robin redbreast (1970) - another predecessor of the wicker man, this time a bbc play for today that places a pregnant citydweller in a remote and rural cottage. somewhere between sergeant howie and rosemary woodhouse, she is surrounded by a knowing and smiling circle happy to pull her closer and closer to the golden bough

the lion in winter (1968) - you will see the script of this film posted in webweaves alongside hannibal and succession, and with good reason. henry ii, eleanor of aquitaine and their sons are a writhing, humid familial sickness at the heart of their christmas court, too close for comfort– alternately struggling for the crown, tearfully reminiscing and threatening one another with knives. as with all family christmases, of course

straight on till morning (1972) - peter pan and dorian gray as post-psycho proto-slasher. shane briant and rita tushingham are equally astounding as children who never grew up, telling stories to keep themselves from shaking apart against the brutalist backdrop of the 1970s south bank and the winding tower of their own never-neverland. wendy and peter on a nihilistic backdrop of stashed jewellery, dog mutilation and recorded screams

the creeping flesh (1973) - somehow a standout among many other cushing/lee vehicles like it. victorian attitudes to madness, to women and to sexuality corrode around an uncanny supernatural force that brings forward a spectre of unaccountable grief. tw for attempted sexual violence

who's afraid of virginia woolf? (1966) - me and who. again the spectre of grief, but in the form of a glass hitting a wall like a broken-necked bird and the ultimate and consequent bilious overspill of truth. violence!! violence!!

corruption (1968) - in 1968 peter 'lavender and linen' cushing obe played a sex murderer. surely one of the most bizarre grindhouse flicks for the casting alone, he beheads a woman in a train carriage and rubs the blood of another all over her exposed breasts (in the european cut). there's also an incredibly silly chase scene on a beach, a guy in john lennon glasses who crushes an apple in his bare hand and a giant laser. thank you

theatre of blood (1973) - four words for you: vincent price does shakespeare. perhaps the most fun film on this list, and starring pretty much everyone who was working in british film at the time. critics forced to eat their words, sometimes literally, with the meat of the speeches given to price and diana rigg to devour with the scenery. from greasepaint to chef's hat to the mud of the thames, vincent price is clearly having a whale of a time, and it really is fucking great

the bride of frankenstein (1935) - i have no idea if it's blasphemous to say this is far better than frankenstein (1931), but that's what i think– largely due to the presences of delightfully camp mephistopheles aka dr septimus pretorius and the unutterably captivating bride herself. to a new world of gods and monsters

bride of reanimator (1991) - i think this, too, is better than reanimator (1985), but that's a very close-run thing as both films are excellent. shoutout to herbert west for proposing to dan cain with the heart of dan's dead ex-girlfriend and shoutout to dan for accepting it. before the wrath of the lamb there were two men in a basement laboratory killing geckos for gecko juice

dragonwyck (1946) - vincent price brooding tall as byronic villain, replete with a manor suffused with hints of rebecca and jane eyre and wuthering heights. death, remarriage and birth pass in an opiate haze that drive relentlessly towards mandess

rope (1948) - nietzschean philosophy, dinner party etiquette, palmistry, incriminating furniture and household items, and why every sign in this room of wonderfully dressed people says to me that gay people ought to be allowed to kill whoever they want

the lair of the white worm (1988) - do you want to see peter capaldi in a kilt pull the pin out of a grenade with his teeth? do you want to see him have vitally homoerotic moments with hugh grant on the stile of a fence while covered in blood? do you want to see a sexy snake lady lie on a tanning bed and taunt a hypnotised woman with a giant strap-on? of fucking course you do watch this film right now they have pickled worms and a specifically written folk song

flesh for frankenstein (1973) - somehow a uniquely nasty take on the frankenstein narrative. the film's acting is as awful as its approach to flesh, explicit blood relation between victor and his sister, obvious motives behind his quest for the 'perfect nasum', and overabundance of gushing mutilation are interesting

the medusa touch (1978) - an oddly quiet thriller about the power of the mind with a climax filmed in the beautiful environs of bristol cathedral. which isn't the only reason it's on here, but it helps– especially as they adamantly want to make you believe that it's a building in london

horror hospital (1973) - similar to the creeping flesh in that i have seen its ideas done much weaker elsewhere, but also completely unlike that film because it is so totally unserious. any film that opens with one man calling another a 'silly little red faggot swirling around in his own smoke, who does she think she is, greta garbo' and then turns into the world's most bizarre narrative about a health spa with a limo that beheads people is a joy to behold

dracula ad (1972) - johnny alucard we are making you king of all the faggots. he whores and scores his way across the groovy baby shagadelic underbelly of london and takes his little gang of freaks to a desanctified church to drag dracula up from the dead, as if the old sod hasn't suffered enough. and then he has the temerity to moan and kneel and ask a reasonably irate christopher lee to bite him– which he does. if nothing else i hope you will watch for the line 'close the devil's circle, dig the music, kids'

the satanic rites of dracula (1973) - the bitch is back, and you better forget everything you know about dracula movies because this time he has an office building, a motorcycle gang in sheepskin vests and a eye for bioterrorism. shoutout to joanna lumley for playing peter cushing's granddaughter in this who just a year before had a different face and body and hair colour and was a different actress entirely

frankenstein and the monster from hell (1974) - shane briant's simon helder is baron frankenstein's johnny alucard. they do not have crazy gay bitesex in a church, but they do transplant a brain together and in the world of hammer frankenstein that is a fingers in the mouth sort of a deal. astonishingly strange and fantastic swansong to the hexad, with briant, cushing and madeline smith making up the mental asylum's worst family unit

martin (1977) - another vampire story undoubtedly for the modern age. walking firmly ahead of the bela lugosis and christopher lees before it, and playing with the ambiguity between supernatural and homicidal behaviour. all vampires should be ringing in to radio shows

the finishing line (1977) - a 1970s public information film about the dangers of walking on railway tracks, except the way they convey this is a dreamlike vision of a sports day held on said tracks that takes on the air of a calmly administered mass ritual sacrifice. i keep behind the yellow line on the platform, now, though

apaches (1977) - another public information film, this time about the dangers of being an unsupervised child on a farm. except, again, the way they convey this is to make the world seem a callous and terrifying place in general, because it is the 1970s. anything from a slurry pit to pesticide to a tractor can lead to the name above your coat-hook at school being quietly spirited away

the insomniac (1971) - a hallucinatory journey between the fantasy of storytelling and the cement world outside. short and peculiar, but shares similar concerns to parts of penda's fen

stigma (1977) - a family moving to avebury aim to have one of the stones removed from their back garden. only half an hour long but again tempering british mundanity with incarnadine consequence

#answered #film recs #thank you friend!! i think i've included all my main recs... sorry it's a long one. i haven't tagged gore so take it as par for the course

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