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#AND WILL LITERALLY DIE TOGETHER
endlesspaint · 2 months
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A blast to the past 😏
Fanart for the amazing @that-cool-guy! Your comic is srsly so funny, so I made you this ❤️
I know that Rhonda was also scared when they got sucked into that giant worm time traveling thingy. But I thought it would be 10x funnier if she was having the time of her life while JD screams like a baby LMAO
But yee, that's all. Hope you like it :3
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doverstar · 27 days
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when I explain to you that Ten is the equivalent of Enamored Smurf in the Doctor lineup
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little-pondhead · 2 months
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The Folly of Men -
Chapter 1: #355E3B
AO3 - MASTERPOST
[GENERAL TW: Swearing, lukewarm violence, lots of POV changes, and mild body horror.]
[Fair warning, guys: Canon is a ball pit, and I’m throwing a baby into it. I have no clue what's happening. Feel free to point out mistakes!]
-
Danny was starting to hate the color green. It was the color of death.
Green reminded him of the portal that killed him, and the electricity that was constantly humming under his skin. It reminded him of being on the wrong end of an ecto-blaster and having to dodge for dear life. It reminded him of choking plants that swallowed him whole and tried to turn him into fertilizer. It reminded him of his glowing eyes and how they seemed to take up his entire face when he looked at himself in the mirror.
And right now, as he lay weakly on his side, grasping at fresh wounds with shaky fingers as he tried to ice them closed, the green blood that was splattered everywhere reminded him he wasn’t human.
Not anymore.
-
Green was a familiar color to Ra’s al Ghul. It was the color of life. 
Green reminded him of the Lazarus Pits, mostly. When it was the reason he’d lived such a long life, how could it not be the first thing he thought of? Green also reminded him of his cloak and the warmth it wrapped him in during the cold desert nights when his wife was still alive. Of the beauty he saw in the natural world and why he wanted to protect it. It reminded him of his green eyes that have been passed down through his very few children and grandchildren. Green was the color of the al Ghuls and represented the power he’d amassed through centuries of hard work. 
And right now, as he stood before the Well of Sins, Ra’s was reminded of a secret contract that was buried deep within his personal records, and the monster he’d made it with. The Gardener, the creature called itself, was a being who had crawled out of a Lazarus Pit years ago in search of Ra’s. Its flesh was made from thorny vines and grasses intertwined, and its eyes were tiny red blooms that glowed and made him feel sick just thinking about it. It had forced him into the contract, exchanging power and knowledge in return for a promise of help in the near future. 
‘Near future,’ my ass. Timothy Drake's fleeting voice flickered in his mind, and he could only agree with his subconscious's crude words. It seemed like the only appropriate term as it had already been several centuries since the contract was made, and the being had yet to claim its part of the deal.
He watched, mind racing, as the Well of Sins started swirling frantically. He was alone, with his attendants on standby. Should he call them in? No. Whatever was causing the strange reaction in the pool had something to do with that contract. He could feel it. A power was tugging at his heart, drawing him closer to the edge of the green waters. He loathed to admit it, but this was beyond his scientific understanding. He just knew that every time he tried to look away and leave, his whole body felt like it was alight with flame.
So he stood. And he stared. For hours, possibly, before the first sign of something new caught his attention. A screeching sound was echoing from the bottom of the pool. It slowly got louder and higher pitched as the stone floor started glowing so bright Ra's almost risked the pain of glancing away.
A large head was making its way through the bottom of the pool. It went slowly to accommodate large shoulders, followed by a wide chest and narrow waist. The figure paid no mind to the churning of the Well of Sins and broke the surface of the waters with the ease of a seasoned swimmer. The screeching sound echoed wildly, bouncing unnaturally throughout the chamber, sounding more like incomprehensible words. Ra's wanted to plug his ears with wax and banish the figure back where it came from. Instead, he didn't even twitch an eye.
The Gardener stood before him. And it was carrying a body.
"Master of Lazarusss," it hissed, inclining its head in acknowledgment, but making no move to exit the pool. "Too long has it been, has it not? I've come to collect on my part of the deal."
Ra's nodded in return. Higher being or not, he refused to bow to anyone. "I've expected this, Gardener." He said roughly. Despite learning their language years ago, the sharp chirps and clicks made by the dead were difficult to sound out. It was like he was trying to mimic a broken radio. "Although it's taken longer than I expected for your arrival."
The Gardener clicked its beak in annoyance. "Don't give me flowery words, Pretender. It was not my choice whether to appear before you or not. The Scepter of our realm visited me long ago and commanded me thus; I only now see her vision behind it."
"I...see." He did not see, thank you very much. That was more information in two sentences than he'd ever managed to get from the Gardener. Were there others at play in this little contract of theirs? He did not like the idea of that. "And I assume this whole thing has something to do with the boy in your arms?"
The Gardener let out a low humming sound that seemed to originate from its chest and echo in Ra’s bones. It glanced down, turning the body over gently to let Ra's see his face. The boy was just a child, no older than sixteen. He was deathly pale and seemed eerily stiff, just as if rigor mortis had set in. His white hair was plastered to his forehead from the water, and his clothes were nothing more than rags. Thick green blood was leaking from several wounds and pooling underneath his skin. It wasn't hard to guess what the Gardener was about to ask.
"This is our Guardian and one of the last of his kind. His haunt is not safe anymore, and I task you with his care for the foreseeable future."
Without waiting for a response, the Gardener sloshed forward to set the boy oh-so-gently upon the edge of the pool, taking care that his thorns did not pierce the child. A few vines cupped his face gently as if the Gardener was sad about the boy's state of being.
The assassin made no move to step forward and claim him. "What iske?" He asked. Ra’s voice caught on the last syllable, and he had to repeat the question again properly. Annoying.
The Gardener didn’t seem to mind and just stepped back, relinquishing its hold completely. "He is our Guardian." It repeated. "Care for him well. His fraid will be on the hunt for him and return any harm tenfold. But earn his loyalty, and the power of the Infinite Realms will be at your fingertips. Good luck, Master of Lazarus."
With that, the Gardener disappeared beneath the waves of the Well of Sins, and the waters calmed. The only proof that someone had been there was the sopping wet teen that lay at Ra's feet.
Ra's stared at the boy. The tugging in his heart was a bind, he realized. And it was tying him to the boy. Well, caring for a dead child shouldn't be that hard. Despite his disagreement with Talia over the matter, Jason Todd had turned out just fine, hasn’t he?
With the contract heavy on his mind, Ra's turned and left the boy lying there, clicking his jaw and calling for his attendants to collect him. The Lazarus Pits had gifted him with a new heir, it seemed.
-
“WHAT DID YOU DO?”
In another world, a redheaded girl was on the edge of a rampage. Her scream echoed down the suburban street her house was on, and the neighbors sighed quietly and locked their windows shut, not realizing the severity of the question. They were used to this family's antics, and the girl's screaming as a result.
But this could not be written off as 'family antics.'
Jasmine Fenton, nicknamed ‘Jazz,’ was positively furious. Red-faced, she stood before her parents with steam coming from her ears and a bat in hand. 
“Jazzy-pants, we-” her father tried.
“Nope!” Jazz put up a hand to stop him. “Never mind, I don’t want to hear it. I already know.” 
She whirled around, tuning out her parents' protests as she stormed through their house. Correction, her parent’s house. If she had her way, Jazz would never see these metal and unloving walls ever again. Neither would her brother, once she found him. 
Her phone rang, and she flipped it open with a snap, leaving the bat at the end of the hallway. Only a few people had her number, and it sure as hell wasn’t her parents calling her. “What.” She barked, shoving the phone between her shoulder and ear as she dug through Danny’s closet. His bug-out bag hadn’t been moved. 
“It’s Tucker.”
“We have a code green and a code yellow.” She ground out. Good, the ecto-dejecto shots were up to date. The less time she spends in that god-forsaken lab, the better. 
“Fuck.” Tucker swore. Rustling was heard and she heard another voice in the background. “I’m putting you on speaker.” 
Jazz re-packed the bag quickly, adding in some non-essentials that she knew Danny would appreciate. After it was settled on her shoulders, she switched the phone back to her hand for a better grip. “Is Sam there?”
“I’m here.” The girl responded. 
Jazz tripped over her bedroom carpet in her rush to her room. She cursed but recovered and started ransacking her closet and drawers. “Good. One of you needs to contact Danielle. Our parents sold Danny out, and the GIW took him while I was gone yesterday. I’m going ghost and getting him back. Tell Danielle she’s in danger since they have her ecto-signature now.”
“We’re going with you.” Sam said firmly. There was more rustling, and Jazz guessed they were looking for their own emergency bags. “I don’t care how long it takes; we’ll get him back.” 
“Are you going to shut down the portal?” Tucker asked. 
Jazz paused, considering it. In the original plan, Danny was in charge of shutting down the portal while Jazz and the others took care of the Fentons, GIW, and everything else. It was personal for him; his final resting place. But now that Danny was missing, and they needed a reliable escape route. 
“Not permanently.” She decided. “I’ll figure out how to turn it off temporarily, or put a shield up, but Danny will need to be the one to make that call.” 
Tucker started typing furiously on his laptop, muttering under his breath until he got to the file he wanted. “Sam and I will take care of the town defenses, and Dani’s on her way from New Zealand. She’ll be here in a few hours. I’m sending you a bug; plug it into the Fenton’s security systems, and it’ll lock them out of the house for now. Only do it after you’re done in the labs. Sam’s gone off and is pulling some strings to get all the ghosts in town back to the Zone. I’ll start tracking Danny and shutting down all the Fenton and GIW equipment I can find.”
“Thanks, Tucker. I’ll meet you guys at Nasty Burger in two hours; pass that message to Danielle.”
“Sure thing. Oh, and Jazz?”
“Yeah, Tuck?” Jazz started counting her hidden wads of cash, making sure it was all there. They never wanted to believe the Fentons would go this far, but she was glad they’d made contingency plans just in case. 
She could hear Tucker’s silent snarl as he said his parting remark. “Leave enough of them behind for the rest of us.”
Jazz laughed, a little hysterical. “I’ll try.” She said, bidding him farewell. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure she could look at her parents ever again. But she knew, deep in her bones, that if they tried to stop her, there wouldn’t even be ashes left from the hell she would raise. 
-
Gotham was caught in a storm. It was one of those ugly, howling summer storms that threw water in your eyes and bit your skin with a vengeance. Damian squinted, trying to make out the sight of Spoiler and Signal through the rain, but even their bright uniforms were lost in the shadows.
He tightened his grip on his grappling hook as a particularly harsh wind tried to throw him around like a ragdoll. Water seeped into his collar, making him shiver. A beep echoed in his ear, and he risked taking one hand off the line to answer his comms.
"Robin," Oracle was practically shouting in his ear over the storm. "Signal made it to the Cave. Spoiler is rounding up Condiment King, and then she'll do the same. You can go back now."
Damian tsked. "Father is still out here," he replied. "I shall not return until he does."
"Robin-" Oracle sighed.
Another gust of wind made him grunt, and he cut the call to refocus on scaling the building. The only good thing that came from such a wild storm was that most of the villains were smart enough to stay inside. Splitting up in such conditions always left a sour taste in his mouth, but Damian understood it was necessary to cover as much ground as possible during times of emergency.
He wasn't sure this counted as an emergency, but Todd was certainly treating it as such. The citizens of Crime Alley were being hit hard. Enough to the point where Red Hood had openly invited the Bats onto his turf to help with the flooding and evacuation from some unstable buildings. Batman and Red Robin had gone, leaving Robin and Orphan to cover their patrol routes.
Finally, finding purchase on the rough brick, Damian quickly hauled himself up to safety. Some of his equipment was ruined, and his costume was soaked. Truly, this storm had come out of nowhere.
His comms clicked back to life. "Robin." Cain's clipped tone was somehow louder than Oracle's voice.
"I'm here," he replied, scowling at the oily mud on his shoes. Damned pollution.
"Home," Orphan said simply.
Damian scowled even harder. He could argue with Oracle without issue, but he barely won when it came to speaking with Orphan. "...Fine." He sniffed. "I shall return."
"Good." Damian could hear the smile in her voice. "Agent A has cocoa."
"I'll consider it." He said stiffly. He imagined his adoptive sister smiling slyly and glancing toward the sky before the comms switched off, leaving him to his thoughts again. After checking his grapple to ensure it still worked, he started picking his way through the building at a snail's pace, letting himself get distracted whenever he spotted someone in trouble. The Batcave would be warmer and dryer than the streets, but not everyone had a dry place to return to. Every little bit helped in the long run, and even Damian wouldn't pass by a lost child in the rain.
The only thing that bothered him more than the dark clouds overhead and fresh hail on the way home was the unnatural feeling on his spine. It felt like someone was watching him, judging him. But when he looked, nobody was there.
-
The stars were gone.
Danny felt weightless as he floated, staring at the space where the stars were supposed to be. He felt lighter than normal. Danny was surrounded by colors that flowed and ebbed like the tide, taking him deeper into this mysterious space. Golden fish and silver deer wove past him as fire and ice trailed behind, and yet he couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to get up. He just laid there silently. A bone deep exhaustion was settling into him, but sleep refused him.
“Ghost Child.”
Oh, Danny was dreaming. He was already asleep.
He didn’t turn his head, nor acknowledge when the stars returned to his line of sight. The stars wrapped around him like a curtain, cutting off the rest of the dreamscape. Two bright eyes, burning like red giants, peered down at him as thin hands cupped his body.
“Ghost Child.” The voice repeated again, speaking in his mind even as the words were swallowed by the silence of space.
Danny turned his head slowly. “Nocturn,” he murmured. These too, were snatched from his throat and lost. The cold seeped into his chest and he hiccuped. He couldn’t speak. Not that he really wanted to.
Luckily, Nocturn seemed to understand him just fine. He cradled Danny gently, bringing him closer to his chest. Something shifted in the fabric of space, and suddenly Danny was being laid to rest on the smooth stone of a crescent moon, as pearly white as his own hair. He sighed as the coolness of the moon seeped into his body, soothing aches and burns he didn’t remember getting.
“Where are we?” He wanted to ask.
Nocturn blinked slowly at him, his face twisted down towards Danny. His ram’s horns glinted as a glowing blue jay landed on them and started preening itself. Danny wanted to fly with the bird. His body didn't move.
“Sleep, Ghost Child.” Nocturn hummed. The moon vibrated beneath Danny, soothing the electric currents that kept him awake no matter what he did. Danny’s eyes started sliding shut as Nocturn’s song wrapped around him like a lullaby.
The others… Danny’s mind whispered.
Are safe. The song replied. Rest, young guardian. Your people are safe. You did well.
That was all he needed to hear. Danny let himself fall into slumber, relief flooding his mind. Yes, his people were safe. He did well. He deserved some rest.
As the young ghost fell into a dreamless sleep, a real sleep, Nocturn gently tucked the boy in with a blanket made from his own starry robes, shifting the fabric once more to hide away his core, and the boy who was resting on it. The bluejay on his head chirped indignantly from the movement and flew away, leaving a trail of smoke behind.
Nocturn paid it no mind. Warnings from Fate were never a good idea to ignore, but the bird was but a memory of a life that had long since passed. It only stuck around because of the dreams that kept feeding it. The ghost let his lullaby continue as he returned to his work, taking care to move slowly.
Undergrowth was taking care of his physical body, so he would care for the boy's mind. Vortex was off to round up the little ghostlings who had scattered like dandelion seeds, and the Master of Time was keeping an eye on the rest of Phantom's fraid while they rampaged in the mortal realms. After the stunt he pulled to protect the Realms, it was the least the elder ghosts could do.
-
"Is the boy awake?" Ra's asked sharply, entering the private rooms he had set aside for the boy.
The attending nurse, an older man born with no tongue, bowed his head and signed, 'No, sir. Vitals are off. He is a cold corpse.'
Ra's regarded the boy. It has been several weeks since the Gardener dropped the boy off in his care, and he hadn't awoken once throughout the entire time. He truly looked like a regular dead teenager, if you exclude the unnaturally white hair.
The Demon's Head bent over the boy's bed, tugging open an eyelid to see if he would react. Nothing. However, he noted the boy's eyes were green, which he was mildly pleased about. Green was such a lovely color, and this boy seemed surrounded in it.
A sharp knock echoed from the door, and Ra's granted the other party permission to enter. His best phlebotomist, a man named Paz, entered, holding a stack of papers as thick as his thumb. He bowed to Ra's as soon as he saw him.
"The results?" Ra's asked.
Paz immediately handed over his work, fully confident that Ra's understood everything he'd written. "For all purposes, the boy is dead." He said in a thick accent. He spoke in halted Arabic, as he'd only lived in 'Eth Alth'eban for a short time. "He has no circulation. No heart to move blood, or lungs to breathe. We must move him every hour to prevent postmortem lividity. He has undergone an extensive autopsy process, but it seems it was stopped before his brain was removed. No organs remain in his body otherwise.”
Ra's examined the papers. They were reports from different scientists and doctors, all of whom had been assigned to examine and work on the boy. Most of them said the same thing. The boy was dead and had been for a while. If the Well of Sins didn't do anything when he first exited the waters, what good would it do now?
He flicked his eyes up. "But you think otherwise," he stated.
Paz nodded enthusiastically. "The boy is dead, but his blood is alive!" He tapped a green folder that was poking out from the bottom of the pile. Ra's shuffled the papers off to the nurse and opened it. Printed off charts had been scribbled over with Paz’s frantic notes, documenting his thought process.
The phlebotomist rambled excitedly as his boss read his work, gesturing wildly. “It’s incredible! Most of his red blood cells have died off, and he has an abnormal amount of white blood cells, which indicate some kind of infection. But his plates-“
‘Platelets.’
“Platelets,” Paz nodded his thanks to the nurse for correcting his speech. “The boy’s platelets are still alive, and are actually trying to heal his injuries! We recorded a time-lapse last week to confirm it. The process is incredibly slow, even compared to human healing, but there’s a difference! Because of the absence of red blood cells, the plasma left in his body has practically doubled in volume, even though there’s no circulation to keep it moving. We’ve noticed a collection of stem cells at the base of his skull has started growing as well, and whatever it’s producing is being released into the body at regular intervals.”
“What kind of cells are they?”
“Unsure. At first, we thought it was cancerous in nature.” Paz tapped the corner of the folder again, prompting Ra’s to turn the page. “And while these cells are certainly growing as fast as unchecked cancer, rather than doing harm, we’ve taken samples and noted that they’re merging with whatever original matter has been left in the boy’s body. Bonding, like glue! The healing process is periodically speeding up with every release, the plasma has started circulating on its own, and the white blood cell count is diminishing. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it! It’s filling in for everything that’s missing, and keeping what is there, alive. Dr. Vanessa hypothesized that within the month, it may even start replacing the boy’s organs.”
Ra’s looked up from the research. “These photos look like plant cells, is this an example or actual recordings of the activity?”
Paz wrinkled his nose. “Those are evidence of the activity. For some reason, cellulose is present within his body, and the mysterious stem cells seem to be a mix of both plant and animal matter. It’s hard to track even with our technology, but it looks like the cellulose is forming a sort of…skeleton? Frame? I’m not sure what the right word is, but Dr. Vanessa says they might start regrowing in another month. If that’s true, this would be a huge breakthrough in the realm of organ transplants and other medical fields!”
The Demon’s Head hummed, flipping through the work again and considering the man’s words. “Very good,” he praised. Paz beamed like a child at his words. “Unfortunately, I shall be releasing you of your duty, and your tongue is too loose for your head.”
“What-“ Paz’s eyes widened as he gurgled, his words cut off. Ra’s twisted his wrist, driving home the dagger he’d planted in the man’s heart. He had no use for men who talked too much.
Paz fell to the floor, convulsing as he tried to weakly remove the weapon still sticking out of his chest. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he went pale as his blood seeped out onto the floor.
Ra’s barely spared the dying man a glance, taking back the extra stack of papers from the nurse and neatly stepped around him to exit the room. “Clean that up,” he said over his shoulder.
The old nurse bowed his head, waiting patiently for the foolish doctor to finish dying before he got out the mop.
This is why the nurse had survived so long; he knew how to stay silent.
-
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[Nocturn tucking Danny in to rest. Ghost speech says, "Rest well, ghost child"]
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aprill-99 · 6 months
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Imogen: “Garrick pissed me off earlier, so I told him I couldn’t wait to see what he had planned for our special day tomorrow.”
Violet: “Is there something special about tomorrow?”
Imogen: “No, but there is something special about watching all the color slowly drain from his face.”
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jackgoodfellow · 4 months
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Don't Starve is the only game I know that somehow senses my HUBRIS.
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I was 2 MINUTES AWAY FROM THE FINAL PORTAL IN THE FINAL LEVEL OF ADVENTURE MODE WITHOUT CHEATING OR ANYTHING. I had spent DAYS working to win the game, 2 MINUTES away from the end! I had Chester! I had a billion pierogies! I had two activated touchstones! I had it all, baby!!!!
I even bragged to my wife that the game was almost easy now!
Big mistake. The Hubris Sensing Technology (TM) of the World's Most Unforgiving Game sensed my complacency and the next thing I knew I was barraged by more Clockwork Bishops than I have ever seen in a single place in my hundreds and hundreds of hours playing this evil evil game!!!
I got through more killer bees than I'd ever seen, and a huge dense forest of 1,000 spiders! All that I could handle!!
But I have NO IDEA what I was supposed to do about a bottleneck that involved 60 ranged attacks hitting me within 5 seconds and stun-locking me to death. I have never been so Humbled by a game, and I've been playing this game for so long!
I have made this art piece to commemorate the occasion.
DISCLAIMER/CREDIT:
To make this, I cut out sprites from the game and from other official art by Klei Games, and then I added all the lighting effects and arranged it all together.
The only other thing I actually drew for this is Wigfrid's hand holding the torch.
Normally, I illustrate every element of a piece I do; but for this, I just wanted to quickly communicate the High-Pitched Silly Screaming Horror of running into this monstrosity in the "all-darkness" level of Adventure Mode!!
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danothan · 3 months
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“i don’t know why i’m being given a second chance. i don’t deserve it.” / “i don’t know why i’m back. i’m not supposed to be.”
“stop looking for reasons to convince yourself out of your blessings. what matters is that you have them.”
okay so this is the same exact conversation.
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xenonsdoodles · 4 months
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byleth and death knight, staring each other down as the imperial army approaches garreg mach: to the death. to the death? to the death.
claude swooping in between them with a crit: hey! no!
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marlenacantswim · 1 year
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"You just can't switch off, Nicholas, and until you find a person you care about more than your job, you never will."
this is a certified angelbutter moment 😎
in all seriousness i am completely insane about them and now that i've figured out how to draw them in a pretty simplistic style, i have a funny feeling there's gonna be a lot more of the two of them spilling out from my pencil in the future.
lineart under the cut!
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I actually managed to replicate a specific style i've drawn in before! though the lineart this time is noticeably thicker, but whatever!!! this is still a huge win for me since normally any particular art piece looks completely disjointed from anything else i've ever drawn.
i also drew bill and ted in this style
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cestacruz · 11 days
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In F/SR, Chiemon was the victim of the Shimabara Rebellion, his family and his village all died because They were christians
He doesn't ever stop being religious, he still prays to God, even if he has given up everything else
He has no hopes of going to Heaven, so what he wants is to see that Hell he lived again
Because that's what he believes that he deserves
And yet, at the end of the day, the only thing Chiemon wants was to be saved (from the DLC 1, Lancer's Team ending, he prays at (possibly) his mother's grave)
But he can't allow himself that because he doesn't even believe he should have survived at all
Why only him
His mother, his father, all of them killed
And he was the only one who survived
Left in that hell
And then you have Lancer
He prayed her summoning, he started the chant as a prayer
Jeanne, who gave her life to save everyone
Who was fine with being killed because she had saved her country
They are opposites and they are one and the same
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lab-gr0wn-lambs · 5 months
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The walking dead managed to get me so invested in hetero couples it's not even funny. I love these freaks.
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moongothic · 5 months
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In reference to this post; I was gonna reply in the comments but once again, it got too long, and I figured I might as well make a brief post about this because shit's interesting but the OG post was getting so long I didn't want to extend it any further. So. New post.
But I'm also going to make this a lowkey follow-up to this post, where I briefly talked about whether or not Crocodile is worthy of a redemption. Because I did have multiple people reply to it, mentioning they don't think Crocodile needs a redemption, which isn't wrong. Villian redemptions come down to personal preference (some people like them more than others generally speaking), and the specific circumstances of a character and the story they go through. (Personally, I am a fucking sucker for a good redemption story, and One Piece? Has how many redeemed villians? Kuma, Hatchan and Bon-chan? Perona too? Buggy and Mr 3 if we're generous??? I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but the ratio is quite low is my point) The reason I want to bring that up again, is that depending on what Crocodile's trauma really boils down to (**since we don't know for sure what it is**), it could go against the very core messages of One Piece if he just dies without that trauma being resolved. And at the same time, if his trauma is what I think it is, then he can not heal from it without being redeemed. And the opposite is true as well, if his trauma isn't what I think it is, then he doesn't need to heal from it, and he doesn't need to be redeemed. I do have a whole separate post slow cooking in my drafts right now so I don't want to go too deep into that subject here and now. But the point is. If we want Crocodile to open up and be vunerable and heal from his shit, it means he's either getting a redemption arc or redemption in death. The latter is way fucking sadder, but again, a whole separate post.
BTW quick apology but I figured since there's a bunch of shit in this post that I've written about separately before, I might as well link to those posts for like context, so people can get where I'm coming from with my nonsense while keeping this post brief-ish
BUT ONTO THE ACTUAL SUBJECT As I have kind of mentioned before, I do think Crocodile probably has multiple layers of trauma going for him
We know losing to Whitebeard Did Things to his psyche for certain
I think it's very plausible he might've been betrayed by his former crew if he ever had one
I think it's likely Dragon didn't take too well to him transitioning
And between that and Crocodile already having tried to kill Luffy multiple times, he probably believes his son would never accept him as his other dad, especially since he already hates him.
(And I do think it's likely he might have some additional early childhood trauma based on how Oda writes these things normally but whatever that could be is an absolute mystery)
And if I'm right and those are (some of) the different layers of his trauma, then for Crocodile to open up and heal from it you'd need to do it step-by-step, layer by layer
I think Luffy accepting Crocodile would be the most important thing, above all else. Because if Crocodile loving and caring about his son is the only shred of humanity left in him, if Luffy is the only thing Crocodile cares about anymore while believing no one else will ever do so for him, then having that feeling returned is the key to getting Crocodile to just start to heal. If his son can't accept and forgive him then what would it matter what anyone else thinks? In my mind, Luffy is The Sledgehammer that can break Crocodile's walls.
But that's the first layer, the first step to getting Crocodile to become vunerable
If he does have that betrayal-based trauma, then I think finding people who would actually follow him and be loyal to him would help him heal on that front. And... This probably sounds strange, but I think Mihawk is the best candidate for it. Not just because he could be to Croc what Zoro is to Luffy (in many ways), and not just because of the Romancing SaGa 2 comparisons, but because Crocodile does already seem to respect Mihawk on some level. Like he specifically invited Mihawk to start Cross Guild with. IDK if they have like shared history before or if it's just because they're Fellow Former Warlords or simply because he knows Mihawk is strong and in a vunerable position (after losing his Shichibukai Rights) or what, but despite Crocodile saying he doesn't trust people, he seems to trust Mihawk enough to invite him. And he seems to respect Mihawk's opinions on things, like he might view themselves as equals. So if Mihawk, The Greatest Swordsman In The World of all people, genuinely expressed faith and loyalty to Crocodile... Yeah, I think that would do a lot for Croc. Especially if Mihawk found out about Crocodile's baggage and chose to follow him despite/because of it.
But if we want Crocodile to Heal ALL THE WAY. He and Dragon need to have a talk.
Which will not be easy, considdering like.
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Look at that fucking expression on the panel on the right. Dragon is more than likely beyond furious with Crocodile over what he did in Alabasta. And for good reason. And frankly, I can't tell if they can ever come back from that.
(Sidenote, but this page these panels are from (from Chapter 1058) follows immidiately after the page where Buggy introduces Crocodile and Mihawk to Cross Guild, Dragon's placement on the bottom right of this page matching perfectly where Crocodile was placed in the previous page. So considdering what Dragon says and the expression he makes... Man, if there ever was a way for Oda to tell us what Dragon thinks of Crocodile without explicitly having him say it, yeah, this would be it)
And I'm sure that even if Crocodile got over whatever heartbreak might've happened between him and Dragon and just moved on... The fact that Dragon never called Crocodile and warned him about their son being a pirate, with a bounty, who might be on his way to the Grand Line, where he could stumble his way to Alabasta, where Crocodile was famous for his Pirate Crushing Heroics mind you... Yeah. Crocodile would have a perfectly understandable reason to be furious at Dragon too. He almost killed their son without knowing because Dragon never warned him, never told their son's name to him, never told his OWN full name to Crocodile.
So needless to say.
They have a lot of differences to overcome. Things they've done that they'd both need to look past, forgive and forget. Somehow. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'd find it damn near impossible to happen.
But can you imagine, if despite everything, Dragon still loved him? And was sorry about whatever the fuck happened 19 years ago? And didn't want to lose him again?
I think that would be the thing that would help Crocodile heal all the way in the end.
If Luffy is the first step, then Dragon is the last.
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crossbackpoke-check · 11 months
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Why I Am Not Coming In To Work Today [abridged], Jess Zimmerman
part one | part two
#me when everybody is posting the maple leafs sad narratives and i am furiously generating this like HOLD ONNNN HOLD ONNNNNNN#honestly i could've been SOOOO MEAN about this because i saw this poem & alexandra got the preview on the poetry blog#where i just reblogged the first half of this poem point blank with the tags#kyle dubas#toronto maple leafs#& got yelled at aksdaksf & it literally only didn't go on this blog bc i usually write more & then it was percolating & i looked up the poe#& it was only the FIRST PART i'd reblogged i didn't know there was more & then brain immediately went brrrrr ok time for an edit.#this is a long one lol & i also have no idea if it makes sense to anybody but me but because y'all know me i will always overexplain so!!#my reasoning for the reasons obvi kyle. that's a given i hope he's doing well i hope he & his family r good but man is not coming in to wor#the second edit took me a stupid amount of time bc i am nitpicky but also i learned how to do the layers & transparency from the claude edi#that actually y'all don't know about lmao but i lost my mind when i saw how perfectly those pictures align i was scrolling getty & was like#ok december i'm gonna do a headline one (in my brain with the november/june quote about choosing to die again) w/ maple leafs playoff odds#how they say at winter break you know who's gonna be in the playoffs & who'll win & they thought they had a shot but it's mitchie overlaid#the 2003-04 team who'd last won a playoff round with the atlantic division stats from dec for 22-23 & how long it's been & dec headlines#i wanted breakup/recent/never loved to be a recent trade acquisition somebody who bounced around & somebody else so i almost had simmer#brodie & zar but then i wanted to make murray for breakup at any time &i forgot zar & him were on the pens together &it hit me like a truc#bc there's a photo of the two of them EXACTLY the same so close it's scary of this one but them as pens so they had to be it & i did always#know never loved again was mitchie. sorry. also mitchie in the penalty box the last game but i couldn't find footage of it & this one works#no i could not find a photo of tyler bertuzzi fighting a leaf for a dog looked at me yes i tried.#i almost made the bunting photo jt but instead it's 'bunting a rat etc' anyway the one i really feel unhinged about is dead pets bc at firs#i was gonna make it the handshake line & look to see if the leafs had drafted anybody on the panthers (dead pet former draft pick)#& they had & it was carter verhaeghe & i couldn't get a good pic of matthews & verhaeghe but it's fine bc i thought about the mo/luke schen#narrative (in which they are a perfect d pair long lost) & schenn was drafted by the leafs & that line fits jut trust me. also how i feel#about the kniesy luminous line that one possessed me it had to be kniesy idk why. i almost put gussy as girls are too pretty though ALSO#did u like my joke. daylight SAVINGS time on the goalie. thank u. also my photo magic on the jt (me very poorly editing in him as an isle)#OK ALSO HOLD ONNNNN there is a part two but i have to wait for the Content i want it will come out as soon as [redacted] or sooner#if i get bad at waiting &everyone will pretend like it is always the way it will be once i have the photos i want. speaking of did the leaf#simply not take a team photo this year?? it Does Not Exist for me i have tried very hard to look for it also i'm excited for part 2#one of them is named oh you're so unhinged for this one & the finished product is you're unhinged in ways you didn't even know u were sorry#liv in the replies
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sxcrificialamb · 5 months
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tbh i dont even care about them
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storge · 5 months
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Yueqing, you can have both a stable life and a man who loves you.
The Deliberations of Love (2023)
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agentpenguinmann · 2 years
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Post identity reveal Twiyor be like
Twilight: Yor saved my life that evening, Franky. Twice.
Yor, blushing slightly: Once. And a half.
Franky: How do you half save someone's life?!?!?
Yor: I was the one that was sent to kill him, so I figured it's only fair to count that as half.
Franky: Oh, it actually makes sense when you put it like that.
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solradguy · 7 months
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I wish I was more openly hype about being a trans dude because there's like zero positive stuff for trans men like anywhere and it would be nice to help change that, but I've been out/on HRT for like idk 8 years now and being trans is like the 4th on the list of things I think are interesting about myself rofl
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