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#fast travel sometimes. where they can reform at their core in an instant. its not inspired in the slightest by SU but i do see the overlap
starry-bi-sky · 1 month
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i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.
He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.
And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.
And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.
Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.
Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."
There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.
It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.
Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.
At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.
"Do you like to do anything?"
Nothing. Just silence.
Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.
Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.
Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.
And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.
He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.
Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.
So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.
"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"
"Don't."
He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.
Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"
"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."
It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"
The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."
Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."
And they fall back into silence.
Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."
He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.
(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)
At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.
Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.
("Tucker told me once--") ("Tucker?") ("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")
(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)
(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)
It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."
The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."
The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.
When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.
Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.
"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."
When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.
Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.
#dpxdc#dp x dc#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dpxdc crossover#dpdc#dp x dc crossover#dpxdc prompt#man i just really need more dpdc stuff where danny and bruce have a good relationship. like man i NEED it. like i need to see these two#bonding together. and not in a cracky 'oh danny is a distant friend/cousin/etc' stuff but like. active participants in each other's lives#or as active as can be in this case. i neeeeed these two getting along and caring about one another#this idea came to me like last night and hasn't left since nd it was driving me up the wall to think about both positively and negatively b#i neeeded someone to hear about this or i was gonna implode#danny is the first son#tried to just get the general gist of the idea down but i definitely thought of the idea that bruce lowkey suspects vlad for having a hand#Vlad allows Danny to sneak off because he thinks Danny is alone. if he knew Bruce was there he'd be piiisssed and would put a stop to it#Sam and Tucker are alive they just got ghosted for a bit by danny bc he was in Major Grief and didn't wanna socialize. He couldn't go to#them because he didn't wanna put them in danger via Vlad.#oh that thing he handed Bruce? Yeah that's his ghost core. I have a headcanon (that isnt always applied) that ghosts can take their cores#out of their bodies at will and painlessly and without issue. and its common practice actually to do so bc they can be a not insignificant#distance away from said core before problems start to act up. and its common for ghosts to leave their physical cores at their lairs for#safekeeping because as long as the physical core is fine: so is the ghost. they can reform if their body gets destroyed. it also acts as a#fast travel sometimes. where they can reform at their core in an instant. its not inspired in the slightest by SU but i do see the overlap#most cores are pretty small for safety sake: its harder to hit if its small. and they're pr resilient too but its better to be safe than#sorry. so yeah. danny essentially gave bruce the physical embodiment of his soul and indirectly said#'if anything happens to me at least i'll be safe with you'#danny doesn't know he's batman btw#starry rambles.#was gonna go into danny becoming a vigilante beside bruce but im sleeeepy so i'll do that in a reblog. he's gonna go by nightingale if#anyone is interested. stereotypical but to be frank it is a *good* name imo. has a good amount of syllables and consonants to it#and the bird theme. and since its part of an ancestral name it has even more backing for it being bird-y without being meta
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fireemblems24 · 3 years
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I am so glad you pointed out the imperialist vibes Edelgard has sometimes. As someone who lives in a country who was basically occupied ahem conquered because they said "we have better ideas that will improve your lives" and had our culture absolutely shattered, one of the main reasons why I disagree with Edelgard so much is because of that. She thinks her point of view is superior and the most morally right and I really don't like it whenever she sounds so confused about people defending their homeland. Especially that one line she has with Dimitri in Chapter 17 ffffff—
Like, girl, they have the fucking right to disagree with you please stop sounding so confused as to why they can't see eye to eye with you gahhhhh
I would be more tolerant with the war if she had say, did diplomacy before it? But she tried to had Dimitri and Claude killed in Part I (the prologue). I would also understand her better if the war was a last resort and the other leaders were corrupt and all that. But they're not. Many of the students (who have power because many are noble heirs) outside her house are heavily affected by the nobility and Crests (Sylvain, Ingrid, Mercedes, Lysithea, etc.) or at least understanding of the problems caused by them (Dimitri). It's so frustrating how so much of this can be prevented if she just talked about it.
Also, to those who said she wants the change to be quick, even with war it won't be. The fucking war basically caused continent-wide damage. It's going to be so hard to actually fix this. Hell, there's definitely going to be an eventual rebellion by former Kingdom / Alliance people or sympathisers. It's not going to be as clean cut as the game or some pro-Edelgard people make it to be. Not everyone is going to agree with her, whether she takes over or not. She just destroyed the stability of the continent and while yes, she can rebuild it again, it will still take time and who's to say future leaders won't be corrupt? Also, a hierarchy will always exist, whether she likes it or not. Especially if she plans to set up a meritocracy. Meritocracy is going to usually end up giving power and privilege to those with already pre-existing privilege as they the opportunity to show off their merits or develop those skills. Poor and disabled people are going to have difficulty as they don't have equal opportunity to develop skills and accomplish stuff. I'm generalising, but it just ends up as a hierarchy, again. Not only that, it also has ways to enforce discrimination.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is, she needs to long term plan out her systems. I apologise since I have bad memory but as far as I remember, the game doesn't give us too many details on how she wants to establish her system. All I remember is she does the war > Church / Rhea out of power > Establish her government > ???. Someone please clear this up for me because I'm confused.
...and again really, diplomatic reforms are an option. Yes, they're much more tedious. Yes, they take so much more longer. Yes, sometimes it feels impossible to accomplish. But did she not even consider it as an option?
All in all, I do like Edelgard. But I really wish the game let us go against her while we're with her? I wish it wasn't just general "agree with Edelgard" for CF. I remember someone pointing it out to me before that it would've been really great if she had someone in her house who does the same role Felix does in AM... which is basically disagree and call out the lord's shit. And they pointed out Ferdinand could've probably been that character for CF. And I kinda agree? I really think CF would immensely improve if Edelgard had a challenger / foil to her beliefs similar to how Felix does that for Dimitri.
Anyway, sorry for the very long ask lol. I like Edelgard and I agree with some of her morals and ideals such as the crest system being bad but....she's done so dirty asdfghjkl. I do think she's written well enough to incite these emotions in me, and she makes for a good antagonist. As a protagonist lord however.... yeah.
First off, sorry it took so long to respond, but I wanted to give an equally throughout response. 
While I haven’t gotten to chapter 17 yet, I can attest to the notion that Edelgard’s rhetoric is eerily similar to Imperialist propaganda. I do understand this is fiction, and that it’s okay to hand-wave/enjoy things in fiction that you shouldn’t or wouldn’t in real life. Crimson Flower has its charms and parts I enjoy. Edelgard is an interesting character more hampered by things that plague Three Houses as a whole than anything else, but it’s still worth examining how dangerous her rhetoric is. Because, unlike you, my country sits at the opposite end - the Imperialist nation selling that rhetoric to its citizens, and, unfortunately, at the time I bought it - which makes me really sensitive to this. 
I’m from the US and I’m specifically speaking about the US’s invasion of the Middle East. I was in middle or high school, just barely a teenager, and naive and ignorant enough to believe what my leaders said. Because guess what? I bought into it out of misplaced and ignorant (and racist) compassion. I was horrified at the idea these people were suffering unfairly just because of where they were born whereas I got all these promised privileges just because of where I was born. I really thought the US would go in there and give them democracy and everything would be great. Looking back, I realize they were lying, that we’ve only made things worse, that it’s horribly racist to assume the US was just inherently better, and I’ve sense then gained access to fast-speed internet, traveled, matured, etc . . . and thankfully this all happened before I had any actual power to do anything like vote. But to this day I’m beyond pissed off they used my own compassion against me to line their own pockets. It was ignorant and racist, but it was all based in concern that others didn’t have the same quality of life I had and a growing realization of my own privilege. And that’s what I hate so much. It didn’t sound evil. It sounded good. It used people’s good will and compassion against them and twisted it into evil for their own causes. 
I don’t think Edelgard is after Faerghus and the Alliance because she wants oil. I think she honestly thinks she’s doing good. And, if this were real life, I think that makes her rhetoric even more dangerous than a corrupt politicians’.  Because everything else is still the same. She’s being ignorant, nationalist instead of racist in this case, and honestly thinks her moral superiority will improve everyone’s lives even if it means ravaging the entire content in war. She is dangerously naive and ignorant. 
Maybe I’d support her more morally if I believed for an instant the general populace welcomed the changes she wants to bring, if the leaders she fought against weren’t open and wanting change themselves, ect . . . But the dialogue indicated her presence inspires people running and screaming in terror, not welcoming her presence (see the chapter where you kill Claude). The Kingdom is still fighting tooth and nail against her. She’s not supported. Her changes aren’t wanted. And she hasn’t bothered to learn a single thing about the cultures she’s determined to squash under her heal nor the leaders heading them. 
I also think I’d support her better if we had a clearer idea of what her plans were. But CF has shifted from Edelgard speaking about interesting ideas and classism to evil dragon overlords and chastising Byleth for making her blush. The decision to side with her or Rhea is not choosing between two ideals, but an emotional, spur of the moment thing. Edelgard’s early supports with Byleth attempt to convince the player to side with her not based on political ideals, but on feeling sorry for her. 
CF gives you no choice but to agree with everything Edelgard says (as you said, there’s no “Felix” or a “Lorenz”). It wants you to support her war without question, and therefore you don’t get any answers to questions like - if this is really just about Rhea, why are we invading the Alliance? Because they won’t hand power over to you? Why didn’t you just stick to the Empire to enact your changes? In the end, you’re left with what sounds more and more like an entitled Imperialistic princess with absolutely no idea how ignorant she is hell bent on conquering what she thinks belongs to her based on a conspiracy theory. 
All that said, I do think Edelgard has interesting ideas and isn’t wholly wrong, just how she goes about it is horribly wrong. And I fully believe the core issue is how CF has dropped the ball big time writing wise, because diving deeper into her ideas and not her crush on you would go a long way. So would shifting the narrative away from evil boogey dragon lady must die and everyone else is wrong and I am superior and right and more towards a clashing of ideals, this route could’ve been a lot more and seemed a lot less ignorant, naive, entitled, and Imperialistic. 
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