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#this one wasn't planned
petite-madame · 4 months
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A 170-year-old young man - (2024)
Happy birthday to the world's greatest detective, 170 y.o today 🥳💗
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cryptixotic · 3 months
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Be real with me. You're sitting in a bar and a 𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔢𝔞 with a massive sword rams into the door. Do you or do you not laugh
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allysketches · 1 month
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this drawing started off as tv crowley and aziraphale dressed like their book cover counterparts, but then I got carried away and it turned out... not being exactly that anymore 🤷🏻‍♀️
so... late 80s/early 90s au? (aka. literally the book lol)
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egophiliac · 6 months
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LET THE BOY HAVE AN EDUCATION
officially at the point where we're starting to see where it's all headed and I am just going NYEEHEEHEE in delight at it all. ahhh...next week can't come soon enough...
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oifaaa · 1 year
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Baby jason
Someone please save him before he's so small he can no longer be seen
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rangerfromstarship · 9 months
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Ok we have to talk about s2 moments that make me love Aziraphale even more
- pretending to be a journalist and just like. being as adorable and pure and kind of dumb as Muriel pretending to be a police officer
- going against Heaven to protect Job's children! He questioned Heaven twice, then tried to protect them from Crowley and then actually lied to the archangels to save them. HE WAS WILLING TO FALL FOR IT
- him actually grieving and hugging that jar with the tumour after the ressurectionist told him it was from a seven year old
- "you don't seem his type at all" *eyebrow raise*
- giving away his books! his books!!!!! to help Maggie and Nina
- "Smitten, I believe" *looks smittenly at Crowley*
- "You're being silly!" *adorably soft and tender*
- "well perhaps you could tell me...while we dance" AND HIS HAPPY FACE AND GRABBING CROWLEY BY THE HAND TO DANCE
- "You came to me. I said I would protect you and I will" he is an Angel of his word and even if he doesn't like Gabriel he will protect him! bc he promised it! we support a responsible, empathetic and caring being
- being shocked and putting a hand on Crowley's shoulder when they see Gabriel and Beelzebub together like "oh my, are you seeing what I'm seeing"
- THE SOFT LOOK TO CROWLEY - I MEAN I can't deal with it I can't watch this scene without tearing up (after Gabriel and Beelzebub vanish)
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artharakka · 3 months
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Beautiful, But Broken
#bg3#tiefling#tw blood#c: Viivi#so I redid my bg3 character because I wasn't feeling durge that much. So now my sibling does durge and I regular tav Viivi#(changed her to tiefling for funs)#at least I meant to do regular tav but uhhhhh things have gone very unfortunately very fast#anyway. Viivi is an artist; she does painting sculpting poetry and some prose. Experimenting with this and that#unfortunately she is deaf which made making connections a bit hard in the fine arts world#fortunately she has a patreon with one very generous patron (she's fey warlock)✨ who has bestowed some gifts of charms for her#which have opened doors of many art galleries#She's not a fighter so although she is confident in her own lane she is also very aware of her mortality#so she avoided any fights she could#which might have saved her but also got her into the mess of her lifetime#you see she couldn't fight the entire goblin camp and their leaders. She would've just not survived that. So she convinced them#that she is a True Soul. She is good at convincing people. It worked. They thought she is on their side. Good#Halsin also though Viivi was on their side. Halsin attacked Viivi's party. Now Halsin is dead.#So Viivi and her group were still alone deep within enemy fort. Viivi made new plans. She frees the prisoner who says he will warn the grov#Good thinks Viivi now they know to flee. I will go to Minthara and tell we got the information from prisoner of the grove location#she will trust us and we walk off#when we get back to grove they have not fled and Minthara is at the gates#Minthara wants Viivi to sound the horn. Zevlor wants Viivi to sound the horn. Viivi asks Zevlor to please tell this plan in detail.#Zevlor says just blow the horn already. Viivi does that. Minthara thanks Viivi for leaving the gate open as planned#Zevlor does not thank Viivi for that. Viivi is confused as she did not leave the gate open. (for real the damn gate was left open)#So I did a Massacre.#now Karlach is gone Wyll is dead. Lae'zel is also dead#but apparently Minthara is ready to be very loving and sincere with Viivi. The most helpful person she has met in very long time.#Viivi might love her#so that is how she's doing.
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bluerosefox · 1 year
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Same As The Day I Lost You
I...
This came to me as I'm making dinner so I'll be quick.
What if we mix deaged Danny and twin/older sibling (either one works) Damian, AND he gets tossed to his sibling in a last minute escape.
Like what if he was fighting Vlad who was doing his whole "denounce your father and join me as my son Daniel!" Thing while in the Zone and knocks Danny into something that's floating in the Zone with the ability to deage or was hit by a new Fenton or Plasmius invention while fighting in town that accidentally deages him.
Danny, who in this was adopted, gets put back to the age of six. The same age he had been found by Jazz in a 'haunted' forest Jack and Maddie were visiting/investigating while also using that time as a family vacation. (They were shocked to see a little boy with a stab wound bleeding out and rushed him to the nearby town, almost completely forgetting about the glowing green tiny puddle they found nearby and bagged most of it as evidence when they heard Jazz's scream of terror over finding the hurt little boy)
The sudden revert into that traumatized age, along with the child response to a fight or flight scenario, and add Danny's deepest need/wish to be protected his child fogged mind wishes to go to the one person who always made him feel safe.
His twin/older brother.
Just as quick as it was with Danny being turned into a child, his ghost powers ripped open a portal and sent Danny to the person he wants to be with...
Only he didn't know that right at that moment his seventeen year old twin/older brother is currently fighting the League with his family's help (his mother was trying to convince him to return to the League and be it's heir) in Nanda Parbat (the very place Damian lost the last/only person he knew loved him without any strings attached.)
So imagine everyone's face when a portal opened up, some muttering its a new pit being formed before them or something, and crawling out of it is a very scared and confused six year old Danny.
#danny phantom dc#danny fenton#danny phantom#dp x dc#crossover#dc x dp crossover#No one will be ready for child Danny#Does he have his older memories? idk maybe#maybe his six year old mind from the sudden deage is at front rn or something#Damian almost feral/angry screams at his mother for 'daring to try to replace Danyal with a cheap clone'#only to see the look on her face and knows this wasn't planned#his little brother who he secretly watched as his mother tried to go behind grandfather's back to heal only for the pit to greedily keep#was brought back by the pits not looking a day over the age he lost him#What happened was Danny disobeyed an order from Ra's and was punished for it#he almost died for it and Talia wanted very badly to keep him because he looked so much like her beloved and she couldn't bare losing that#Only the pits kept Danyal instead of bringing him back#or rather under the guide of a certain entity he was brought to the forest the Fenton's were visiting#Damian scoops Danyal up when he see's the look in his mother's eyes shift from shock to calculating greed/love#he refuses to leave his brother in the hands of the League or his mother#he loves her despite everything but knows Danyal would never truly survive their mother's version of 'love' especially in the League#Also Damian may have...refused/forgotten to tell the others about Danyal#so cue them being horrifically confused#The pure sick feeling and deep seeded panic Bruce feels when he see's the mini version of himself but with hints of Talia hits hard#blue rambles
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jitterbugbear · 4 months
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centipede, acrylics on gel plate
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nonbinarypirat · 4 months
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education vs. fascism in iruma-kun
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someone mentioned this in another post but iruma-kun does a wonderful job of showing that education is key to fighting fascist and harmful radical ideas. As soon as it became clear that things were going to change in the netherworld what was Sullivan's response? It wasn't "oh we need to send spies" or "we need to find the people" (though im sure people are working hard to find those answers) it was "we need to focus on educating our students." Because only knowledge and diversity in thoughts can combat fascist ideas. The issue only becomes worse with a lack of understanding and an echo chamber. And by doubling down with education, we can make sure our students are prepared for what lies ahead. Thats how we truly fight the power.
The teachers themselves can tell that things are changing. They stay informed and guess what? its obvious things are about to throw down soon. And so they work tirelessly not just because it's their jobs, but because they need to. this is their protest. this is how we can prevent the spread of gross rhetoric. And after Heartbreaker what they do? they double down on their education too. Because there is always something new to learn, always a way to grow/sharpen your strength. They too know that they can't stay stagnant, they must continue pushing to provide their students with the best chance of survival.
When you have villians that believe in these ideas in media, there's a big issue of them leaving out education as a weapon. But it's crucial if we want anything to truly change. Iruma himself wants to no longer be naive about the netherworld which was growing to be an issue the longer he stays. because yeah, you can't stay uninformed anymore iruma. its time to learn about the history of you new home and the leaders. taking being the king out of it, ignorance about these topics is a breeding ground for becoming complacent. iruma wants to be a hero? or at least, do the right thing when he can? that requires knowledge to make sure you aren't inadvertently hurting someone along the way.
Iruma loves the netherworld, the place he proudly calls home. but it's frought with danger and cruel people. And yet, Iruma is still proud of his new home and friends and wants to do anything he can to stay here. This reflects real life, where there is goodness and pride in the place you live and yet a faction of people who taint it with othering ideas. However, it's always worth fighting for the good overall and bettering yourself so you can see another tomorrow through. Iruma knows he can only protect himself and his loved ones is through learning. And I love Nishi for truly understanding this too. You can't fight fascism through pure will, it has to be beaten by education and the williness to better one's knowledge. That is how we will take back the Netherworld.
but yeah, this is just my little spiel as someone who loves educational activism and is going to school to become a teacher :). If i can find the original post I'll make sure to credit the op!
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humming-fly · 14 days
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Theatre Kid (Derogatory)
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salamispots · 2 years
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splashdown
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sysig · 4 months
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I think the world is so wonderful... (Patreon)
#My art#Handplates#UT#Papyrus#I have not been able to get this idea out of my head for like - days now lol#It's only solidified the more I read! Heck!!#I dunno if I was necessarily hoping that reading further would point me in another direction but no now this is one of his songs lol#I really like Rugrats Theory actually :) The song of course it's lovely but I even have some nostalgia for the creepypasta haha#Been a while since I read it tho so that's probably just the soft haze of memory talking lol#But the song is still great! I'm partial to the English cover but I like the original as well :)#There are just so many fun lyrics! Especially for Papyrus specifically#''Everything I've been told I believe and yet people that I love just leave'' Gasterrr#''I think I'm old enough to understand so there's no reason to hide from me'' Sanssssssss#Once I returned to the scene of Sans trying to lie to him I just fjdslahfd these lyrics would Not leave me alone lol#I'm also Extremely partial to the second verse surrounding blindness and willful ignorance - his vision problems literal and metaphorical!#I wasn't planning to start a Handplates playlist but I guess by this point it's kinda too late haha#I also tried a different style of shading for this one ♪ Trying to style match a bit hehe#It's fun! Scratchy - tho some of that is from still using my usual brushes lol#I was Very inspired by watching the comic creation playlist - so cool! Very fun to watch and pick up ideas hehe#I knew I forgot something lol dang it - forgot the dash between WDG-2#S'what I get for using pre-plates references :P#For just a quick little thing I'm fairly pleased overall tho :)
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geodenes · 2 months
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eddiezpaghetti · 3 months
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It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:
I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.
I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.
Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".
First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.
Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.
Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.
And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:
They
Think
It's
Funny.
They are actively making fun of us.
That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."
So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.
Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.
Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.
Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"
Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.
Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.
Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.
Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.
There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.
Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.
Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.
Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.
So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.
There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.
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spacedace · 9 months
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Reluctant War AU Part 3
Part 1 Part 2
More of the brain worm that has taken me over, gonna probably post it to Ao3 here before too long. Already got another part started and so many ideas for additional stuff, someone please send help I've been consumed by this thing lol
Sorry if Waller seems out of character, outside of fandom I'm mostly familiar with her through Justice League the animated show & Justice League: Unlimited and her vibe there has always struck me as "deeply incredibly unlikable character that also kind of has a point but also has done so much fucked up shit in the name of her goals that you don't really care about her point anymore." So you know, complicated lol. If she's completely unrecognizable let me know, but I'm hoping she feels at least somewhat like Waller.
Forgot to say this in the last update, but still feel free to use all this as an overly long prompt if yall want. Literally anything I throw out to the void should be treated as a prompt lol If there's anything at all interesting to you in any of this nonsense go for it <3 <3 <3
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Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.
Ruthless, heartless, vicious, cruel.
She’d been called it all. Wore the words thrown as insults as a badges of pride and valor. Because at the end of the day, when it came to the problems she was given to face, the issues she was meant to solve, those words meant she’d done what others had been too squeamish or cowardly to do. Life was a never ending slog of trolley problems and she the only one unshakable enough to pull the levers that needed pulling.
It wasn’t so simple as a matter of greater good.
Greater good was what the weak willed muttered to themselves after having feelings over doing the bare minimum. A justification used by people on all sides to do what they wanted with fractured, faulty logic thrown around like truth was a thing immutable. To assuage their guilt when they were forced to make a call they didn’t want to.
It wasn’t a matter of greater good. It was a matter of preservation. Of protection. Of digging through the filth to find the threats skittering beneath and crush them with ruthless abandon. Of facing a god and not blinking because if you did it could cost the world.
Of doing what needed to be done, no matter how underhanded or atrocious it was.
Hands dirty.
Hands red.
Hands wrapped tight around the throat of something that could threaten to destroy it all.
When the Ghost Investigation Ward had been shoved her way with it’s sucking wound of a budget, it’s bloated incompetent staff, its asinine methods she’d seen a rotted limb in need of hacking off. It hadn’t been until she’d been conducting her inspection, digging through the trash for a few pearls of effective agents she could snatch up and put to work elsewhere, that she’d truly seen what they were working on. The potential.
Potential to better arm themselves with in the forms of the strange new weapons being created.
Potential for threats far greater than anything even she had thought possible before.
The GIW as it had been when she’d first come across it was a fetid waste of time and resources. A laughing stock agency only secret because no one took them seriously enough to look. Made stupid and useless with its own conceited delusions of importance it didn’t actually have. Yet.
She went to work on it. Hacking away as she’d originally intended, but this time with a different goal in mind. She ripped out the weeds with bare, calloused hands and planted proficiency and loyalty in their place. She took over as director herself, tossing the self-aggrandizing fool that had been running the place into the ground to the dogs as the culprit for misappropriate spendings, saving the agency by tweaking things until their ballooning budget was pinned neatly onto the former director as an embezzling charge.
Then she got to work.
The Fentons were brilliant, if entirely insane. But Amanda could work with that. She’d reigned Harley Quinn in - more or less - she could do the same to the two deranged scientists that so eagerly wanted to be apart of the fight against the dead. Especially when the benefit came in the form of the inventions they threw together so easily, especially when those inventions were weapons.
It took very little to get them on board with her plans for the GIW. Keeping their focus could be a chore, at times, but she didn’t even have to really do much in the way of pressing to get them back where she wanted them. They craved knowledge and understanding nearly as much as they craved the eradication of the entities themselves. Letting them have the first look at a new subject here, free reign over a vivisection there, it took so little to fuel their fervor and keep them busy working on the projects she set for them.
Things had been going smoothly.
For a time at least.
Until Phantom.
He’d been the main focus of the previous director’s attention, the big fish he’d so desperately wanted to catch and put up on his wall. Amanda wouldn’t lie and say it wasn’t a tempting prospect, but not one she’d put above the other projects she had set in motion since taking over. No, Phantom was powerful, enough to be a real problem one day, but she could the awkward youth in the way he held himself, the inexperience in how he handled situations. She had time to get everything else in order before focusing on getting Amity Park’s would-be hero brought to heel.
And he would be brought to heel. One way or another.
Hands dirty.
Hands red.
Hands wrapped tight around the Core of a fledgling god and bending him to her will.
An artifact, old an powerful, recovered with some effort. A means of controlling specters, of chaining them to the will of the artifact’s wielder. Dangerous in the wrong hands. Dangerous in the right hands.
It was shattered, and even whole and functional Phantom was resistant to its power. But Amanda Waller prided herself in her ability to see the potential in things. It could be repaired, be made better. Even gods could be bound, be made to kneel, with the right pieces, with the right application of force.
It was just a matter of time to gather everything needed.
Phantom didn’t know he could single handedly destroy every last member of the Justice League. The baby fat, the innocent eyes, the split-second hesitations when he fought. He knew enough to be confident in fighting the usual ghosts that haunted Amity Park, but he still very much saw himself as a little fish. Maybe it was the part of him that was still Daniel Fenton, gangly teenager not quite sure what he was truly capable of yet.
She had time before the Fenton’s son truly became an issue. Time to judge if his parents’ obsessiveness would overcome their - rather shoddy, by Amanda’s estimation - parental instincts and continue to hunt him once they knew the truth. Time to get as much out of them as she could before hand, should they falter at the idea of attacking their own son. Time for the staff to be repaired and returned to working order, to get the other items needed for the truly big fish hidden on the other side of the veil between worlds.
She had time.
Until she didn’t.
Pariah Dark had not been something she thought she’d have to account for - not yet, at least.
If he wasn’t already dead, she’d ring the Ghost King’s neck with her bare hands. His arrival had opened Phantom’s eyes to what he was capable of, of just how big of a fish he was. Worse still, Phantom’s defeat of the war mongering King changed the state of play. Phantom was no longer an impressively powerful half dead teenager.
He was King Infinite.
He was an Ancient.
He was getting on her last damn nerves.
Phantom’s rogue gallery were now firmly under the boy’s control. Still distinct nuisances around Amity Park, but no longer considered true concerns. They were loyal to their boy king, delighting in ruffling his feathers but never crossing the line into treason or attempted regicide. Which meant that the GIW was the only thing that held his attention.
Amanda took the time to send a care package to the former GIW director in his tiny, dank prison cell. As thanks for his carelessness in revealing to the entire town - both living and dead - of the agency’s existence and their intentions. Had he stuck to standard protocol, Phantom would have been none the wiser to their presence. Would have scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders at the ghost that went missing upon occasion. Would have been boredly uninterested in the people his parents had begun working with. Would have been taken by surprise when they finally came for him.
But no.
No that self-obsessed, fame chasing imbecile had to go and announce to everyone and their dead mother that the GIW existed and exactly what it was they were in Amity Park to do.
Phantom knew what they were there to do.
They could only count on his naive certainty that he could broker peace with them for so long.
Peace. As if he and his people weren’t the invading force, the monsters slipping in through the cracks between worlds, the latest threat that had to be accounted for. As if he himself hadn’t rent their world asunder himself in another world, another time. No. Peace was not something they could hash out with this baby-faced monarch with his too-big crown. Peace was the assurance of safety, security. Of control of the situation.
There could be no peace.
The higher ups were somehow surprised when Phantom took that to mean there would be war.
Amanda Waller was not.
The Fentons, as suspected, took the right side when all was revealed. Steady hands and flinty eyes as they crafted the weapons that would be needed for the coming fight. Minds even sharper in their maddened grief, hearts set on revenge for the son lost and the entity that stole his face and friends and sister in his garish pretense at humanity. They were blinded to the reality of the situation in its entirety, the potential in what their son truly was, but at the end of the day it didn’t really matter. They did what she needed them to do, they could believe whatever it was they wanted so long as they did.
By the time the boy king and his armies marched upon the Amity park facility, preparations had been put into place. The base in Amity had been stripped back to bare essentials, everything of importance moved to more secured locations.
The weapons labs.
The artifact.
The girl.
All tucked well away from the front lines where Phantom and his motley crew could not reach. Their time to be put in play would come, but not yet. First she needed to gauge what Phantom and his people were capable of, what they were willing to do in the name of what they wanted. Amity Park was a pawn well sacrificed on that front. As were the other facilities she’d left easy to find.
The problem with making children gods, with giving them crowns and calling them King and giving them armies to play with, was that they thought there should be rules. That even in the trenches tearing apart their enemies, there was a certain level of playing fair that everyone was held to. They thought there was a way the world worked, of how things should be that blinded them to more effective options even as time stretched on and desperation set in.
It was the Dead’s problem though, not hers.
She reached out to the Justice League. Sour faced, unhappy, bitterly reluctant to accept that she needed their help. Stone faced and barely containing their rage at what little they knew of the situation, they agreed to a meeting.
She didn’t let herself smile until she was well and truly alone in her office.
Greater good. A lie people told themselves. A fairytale told to children. A means of convincing the weaker willed that they had no choice, that they had a noble duty to bend to. A belief that could be wielded like a weapon if the fantasy of the idea had dug in deep enough. And there were few it had dug into so deep as the members of the Justice League.
Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.
Hands dirty.
Hands red.
Hands clenched tight on a victory long in the making.
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Part Four
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