#and a lack of resolution

[johnconstantinekissesmen]

oh eddie

[starry-bi-sky]

Out of Context Stuff for a Danyal Al Ghul au i haven't posted - Pit Beast Danyal

Damian, 13: Look, Danyal, -- I am so sorry for everything that happened between us in the League, I hope you can forgive me.

Danny, 10 (allegedly): (has been secretly plotting to murder Damian this whole time, is still gonna do it obvs, but is going to make it significantly less painful now)

Danny: I-- of course, older brother. :]

--------

Bruce: what do you have there, Damian?

Damian:

Danny: (a hulking 10ft pit beast standing beside him, growling idly with ram horns gouging out his eyes and a second set of horns jutting into the air, spines down his back, and a long, spiked tail with an animalistic, skull-like face)

Damian, who smuggled him in (they've made amends): a smoothie, father

----------

Damian: this is my little brother Danyal, i murdered him when he was five. He festered in rage for the last half-a decade, took over a League mountain base in Switzerland, murdered everyone inside and then tried to murder me when I went to investigate with Drake.

Danny: hello!

Damian: we're cool now

----------

Damian: thoughts on resurrection

Danny, (a full ghost): i will succeed in murdering you if you try it

Damian: we'll put a pin in it then

----------

Danny (still instilled with League values): why don't we just murder him??

Damian, on patrol (Danny followed him): we don't murder people, Danyal

Danyal:,,,,are you sick, Dami?? Have you been possessed? Why not!?

(There is raucous laughing through the comms)

----------

Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D

Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:

Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]

-------

For some actual context: Danny is fully dead in this au, its a result of the classic DPxDC Demon Twins "death duel" trope but instead of Danny getting revived, he stays fully dead. Danny was five, Damian was seven. His ghost lingered though, and due to the proximity of the pits his ghost steadily absorbed the ambient energy it was letting off. The pits are not corrupted ectoplasm in this au, it's just liquid ecto.

Which means Danny's corruption from an angry and hurt little ghost boy to an unrecognizable monster is from his own doing. It's a result of him stewing in his hurt and anger for years, it physically warped him. He's very powerful. Danny can travel between League Bases but chose a small, out-of-the-way base in the Swiss mountains to fester in and then just. Never Left.

His influence steeped into the very foundations of the building, allowing him to transform and warp the rooms and hallways for his own bidding, Meaning he could turn it into a seemingly unending labyrinth if he so wished to, and block the entrance.

Eventually, blinded (both metaphorically and physically) by his own rage, Danny grew powerful enough to appear physically in the living realm and attacked everyone in the base, slaughtering them all and leaving the base abandoned. He attacks anyone who dares enter -- whether that be other league members, or the unfortunate hiker who stumbled across the base. His conscious is steeped into every nook and cranny of the building, there is nowhere you can hide where he can't find. Nobody leaves without his explicit say so. Nobody ever does.

Him appearing as ten years old before Damian in the skits above is his own physical doing. First it was to prevent Damian from being suspicious of him. Damian initially thought Danny was revived with the pits, he was too busy with his own training afterwards to notice that Danny never showed up again, and when he did notice, he assumed it was because Danny was too ashamed of his loss to face him. He'd always forget to ask about him.

Then it becomes a personal choice to appear as ten. It's how old he would've been had he been alive.

danny forgiving Damian is kinda for an offshoot branch of the main au. Whereas the main au takes the form of a ps4 first person horror game where Damian and Tim are investigating the Base for Plot Reasons. There's no sign of the rumored "monster" living inside until the end, where Danny, who was found inside the Base and has been happily "helping" them look around, manages to persuade Damian into splitting off from Tim in order to "show him something."

This something turns out to be Danny revealing that he never really forgave Damian for that fight, and he reveals through a horrifying transformation, that he was the monster the whole time. Which the game subtly hints at throughout as Danny's strange behavior becomes harder to ignore.

First from his insistence to only refer to Damian as "older brother" (when before the duel he always called him Damian or Dami), to him right off the bat denying the existence of a monster when questioned. ("There's no monster here, older brother. It's just me.") To other various things, like his knowledge of the outside world not matching up to modern times or things going on with the league outside of the base, or what happened to the other league members.

This whole idea was inspired by the song "Scylla" from Epic the Musical, with Danyal being the voice of Scylla as well as Odysseus, while Damian stands as Eurylochus. The instrumentals after Scylla says "hello" is him turning into the pit beast, and Scylla's "drown in your sorrow and fears" part is danny, as the pit beast, snarling at Damian while he attacks him.

There's a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a True Ending. The Bad Ending results in Damian being killed by Danny, it happens when Damian decides not to question or suspect Danny and treats him kindly. The Bad Ending is a cutscene, where Danny kills Damian quick and painlessly.

Meanwhile the Good Ending is Damian killing Danny. This is a boss fight, and it happens when Damian treats Danny coldly and suspiciously the whole time. Danny as a result, decides to make Damian's death painful as he had planned to, which is why it's a boss fight because it only causes him to double down on his anger.

The True Ending is Damian escapes with Tim. It happens when you treat Danny warmly up until the last minute, where when Danny proposes to Damian that he wants to show him something, Damian goes to talk to Tim and finally, reluctantly agrees that something is off with Danny, and that he'll be careful going in. It starts off with the boss fight until a third through, where it then changes to a cutscene where Tim manages to get the door open and Damian escapes out. It's then a chase scene down a never-ending hallway as the building actively works to keep you trapped inside. But you eventually make it to the exit so long as you avoid all the projectiles and doors.

Remember when I mentioned that Danny only lets people leave when he wants them to? That's where the treating Danny kindly throughout the game comes into play. It causes him to second guess himself and, eventually, reawaken and strengthen the love and admiration he had for Damian prior to his murder. It's why in the Bad Ending he kills Damian quickly -- because by then, he loves him enough that he doesn't want him to suffer, but is still so consumed by his rage and need for vengeance that he kills him anyways. That quiet part is what allows Damian (and Tim) to find the exit, because some part of Danny still loves Damian enough that he wants him to live.

The True Ending ends with a cutscene of Damian and Tim tumbling out into the snow/grass outside of the base. Damian looks up back to the entrance to see Danny standing there. But rather than a ten year old boy, there's a little five year old Danyal Al Ghul instead. He stares at Damian emotionlessly, blood seeping from his chest, staining his clothes, and little, bloody sword in his hands and tearstains on his cheeks, before he turns away and disappears back into the building.

[lemonbaristas]

The thing about mahiru tsuyuzaki is that for someone who consistently sees herself as behind her classmates in skill, in both the show and movie she has very commanding stage presence. Obviously the revue of competition is the more direct example of this, but the first chunk of the revue of jealousy is essentially her toying with Karen in a way that’s not too dissimilar to how Maya treats her in the revue of pride, just played a bit more for comedy. Considering many of the revues show the participants being on close footing skill wise and focusing more on the individual’s willpower (again, barring Maya and Nana in the anime) both of the revues mahiru is in she’s the star even if she doesn’t always see it.

[sainte-melasse]

JSK : Blooming Snow White Underbust JSK by Baby the Stars Shine Bright Blouse : Innocent World Cardigan : Axes Femme Kawaii Headbow : Baby the Stars Shine Bright Tights : Baby the Stars Shine Bright Shoes : MollyPolly on Taobao

[kayatoastkkat]

some toh au sketches!!

okay…I realised I never post anything about my au and I wanted to change that…

most of it is really just concept ideas and "what if"s that I still haven't bothered to develop into proper storylines yet. ah well. maybe some day. I can explain some below the cut

at some point after the oopsy-doopsy arson happened in Bonesborough, Lanyon finds Jekyll's will like in the original story, except this time he gives up after Jekyll's very cagey response to not worry about it and decided to worry about it. Eventually he corners Hyde in the Night Market and challenges him to a witch's duel (how could Hyde refuse?), surprisingly being able to best him and might have even won, if not for Hyde whipping out Jekyll's palisman as a last ditch resort and escapes from a very stunned Lanyon.

there's also a redraw of an older plotline some may remember where I intended Hyde to find out how to suppress and control Jekyll's magic to cause problems (since while Hyde is part of Jekyll's curse in this au, he doesn't drain magic and shares the bile sac while in control) except this time I've also thought about Jekyll pulling the ol' uno reverse on him like in the comic.

purely self-indulgent, but I thought it would be really funny that in this au Jekyll saves the Lodgers by 1v5ing all the coven scouts sent out to capture the wild witches while undercover, flees while they're knocked out and does the same with Jasper.

last point!! Jekyll's Crow palisman was very panicked on the night of the first transformation, even attacking Hyde for a fair bit until he transformed back.

Again, I don't have a concrete storyline or a particular order these are in, for now it's just a huge collection of ideas for me to ponder about in the future when I do want to make a properly fleshed-out story regarding this au.

[ssaalexblake]

grief and it's effects on us was a Major theme in chibnall dw and why are some people acting like that is bad? Is it not cutesy enough? Not heart warming enough? Do you think children do not know grief? Do not know death? Do not deserve a fictional hand to hold them through?

the grief and hope themes in the era are deeply intertwined and this is a Feature, and it certainly is not grim or uncaring.

[aveline-amelia]

You know how I complain about the lack of emotional resolution in The Final Problem? It's not an issue exclusive to that episode.

In The Great Game, there is an explosion at 221B, when John enters the room expecting to see a hurt or injured Sherlock, but instead, we see Mycroft and Sherlock talk about a case.

Why is this interesting? We know Mycroft went straight there after he heard about the explosion, most likely for reasons other than the case like, idk, to check if his brother is still alive? We are not shown that. If Mycroft showed any concern towards him, it is entirely off screen.

We are shown Mycroft watch Sherlock get tortured and speak to him in bad Serbian (why was the Serbian so bad? Was it supposed to be bad?), mirror the actions of his torturers and refer to his torture as a "holiday."

What are we not shown? Mycroft helping him out of the chains. Arranging for him to get his wounds mended. Any possible show of concern. See a pattern?

The Great Game was mostly from John's pov, so it makes sense there. John wasn't there. Here you have no excuse, as season 3 is mostly Sherlock's pov.

So why did they not show us that? They were afraid of consequences. It's the same reason the Lazarus explanation felt like a retcon and a cop-out to people.

I saw a hypothesis that just as Option 1 was Anderson's fantasy and Option 2 was the fangirl fantasy, Lazarus is Sherlock's fantasy.

In this version, he had the events perfectly in control, Mycroft didn't cause him to get screwed over and it was all intentional and they worked together, John, Mrs H and Lestrade were not in any real danger, Sherlock didn't get as emotional on the roof and didn't cry etc. etc. etc.

You see if Mycroft was to blame for the fall, if he was what truly led to Sherlock's downfall and it wasn't all premeditated, you would have to address that.

Sherlock would be angry with him. He would resent him for something he actually did as opposed to a vague reason we were never given or explained.

You wanted to play with emotional stakes, but you didn't want any relationships to actually evolve.

That's why John's beating of Sherlock is not addressed in The Final Problem even when it would be relevant.

That's why Molly is shown back in 221B at the end when the last time we saw her, Eurus put her friendship with Sherlock in serious jeopardy if not outright kill it.

That's why they wrote Rosie into the show and then did next to nothing with her.

That's why 221B explodes and then is rebuilt in a quick montage at the end of the episode.

That's why Eurus is put back into the very same prison she had no issue mindfucking everyone in and escaping from.

That's why we don't see Sherlock reacting to Mycroft being freed or have them discuss events of Sherrinford.

Because they wanted to put these characters through hell, but not actually have anything change.

[10kiaoi]

Time slip AU (2-8/9)

Time Slip AU (1/9)

[eikichi-supremacy]

and they were singin', bye-bye Miss American Pie // american oldie i think kuwabara unironically listens to

(low effort lyric edit im queueing here in May cos im probably gonna forget it exists otherwise)

[mikhailoism]

twt made me think of this but we were really robbed of really good bathena angst of 4x13/14... like the first the fight and then bobby getting shot.. tbh how they did resolve the fight was slightly disappointing i mean it works but I wanted more i wanted a bigger conversation that went way deeper into why they were even distant and fighting in the first place and that's a whole thing

but now imagine more angst purposes they take longer to resolve their fight. they're preoccupied by eddie and figuring out the sniper case and they just avoid each other . then we flash towards the trap and bobby getting stuck and shot and athena helpless outside knowing that he could die in there and the last conversation they had was a fight and how their marriage is possibly failing... and that can't be how it ends bc even tho things are rough she still loves bobby and wants to be with him she can't do it without him. I feel like also gives her even stronger motivation to take over someone's gear and go into the fire for him. it makes this move and her saying she needs her partner have so much more impact and meaning (not that it didn't originally but) and on bobby's side he's possibly dying in this fire terribly injured knowing how bad he left things with athena, regretting the fight regretting hiding things like sponsoring Rachel and wishing so badly he could change things so it wouldn't end like this (something about bobby facing death and focusing on his regrets and what he could have done better)

and the relief of athena appearing in the flame to save him. they may not be In perfect place but she'll always come and save him she'll always be there for him. and then once they're out and safe and in the hospital there will be a real conversation, they'll talk in depth about athena's attack and the affects it had on them both. about their struggles with communication how its not communication they're used, they'll talk about bobby sponsoring rachel and more on why he hid it (I think theres more to it and then just trying to get back at athena so to speak) and they talk about what it means to them personally being partners being married... basically just more in depth and detail version of their canon conversation sorta but better and they actually talk about everything else

[moltengoldveins]

me, very impassioned: it’s important that friendships in media are allowed to be friendships!! That platonic devotion is portrayed and respected in media!!! It’s important that men specifically are portrayed as leaning on one another emotionally, because they are discouraged from doing that irl and it puts immense strain on their romantic relationships!!!!!

also me: That right there 👉👉 *points at “I’m with you till the end of the line”/“kinda hard to find someone with shared life experience” Steven G Rogers and “but I knew him”/“I’m following that skinny kid from Brooklyn” James Buchanan Barnes* that is the fruitiest pair of ‘straight’’ Men I’ve ever seen, if you see my meaning. Neither of those men are rolling cube dice, if you catch my drift. They’re wearing very sensible shoes, the both of them, if you will.

[stuckinapril]

there’s so much responsibility that comes with parenting. like a crazy amount. like i don’t think many parents are informed on how their children’s childhoods can literally shape the rest of their lives. there really has to be some mandate where couples have to take a mental health course before the government allows them to conceive or something. or just. something. anything to lessen the ignorance & volume of people who should never be parents becoming parents

[verflares]

btw i'm sure this is nothing new on account of it having been well over 6 months by now since totk released and we had the no dlc bomb dropped. but i wasnt posting back then so idc ^_^

anyway the funniest thing about totk is no kass 100%. like. what happened to him. they dont even mention him by NAME and the only time hes ever even really mentioned is penn talking about him like this distant legendary figure and not like some guy who was playing his accordion in the woods. i hope amali divorced him

[unpopular-sober-thoughts]

To the OG Solavellan lovers out there, how have you survived 10 years of this hell? It’s barely been a year for me and this man has me in a chokehold I can’t escape.

I can’t even enjoy Astarion properly because Solas is in the back of my mind, brooding grumpily that I’m not romancing him!

[asparklethatisblue]

Somewhere on route to China in 1841, James decides it's time to make matters into his own hands. And get rid of a handfull.

I mean... if it's the heroic age of medicine, if you know a guy you can probably talk them into doing recreational surgery 

[muninnhuginn]

just generally musing to myself what makes thematic and plot sense for the link clink ending after reading some other people's takes the past few days. no real conclusions here, just some thoughts tied together with a string.

I've seen arguments that what needs to happen is that Lu Guang needs to accept Cheng Xiaoshi's fate and move on without regrets. This idea that the past has to remain as-is and you have to move on is a thread that the show has played with quite a few times. It's written into the very rules underlying the dives. The most obvious instance being the earthquake arc, where Cheng Xiaoshi was unable to save Chen Xiao's mum, but he *was* able to deliver the messages and thereby help CX gain closure. It's laid out by Lu Guang that it *was* worth it to deliver the words, and Cheng Xiaoshi takes this conclusion with him when he confronts Emma. (Of course, the fact this lesson was given by *Lu Guang* casts a different shade over the whole affair. I don't think it can be entirely discarded, given LG even admits he's going against his own rules, but it reads more like something he's trying and failing to convince himself of.)

So, the past has to stay as it is. We see a few different approaches to this idea in s2 - of people refusing to move on and trying to change the past. Qian Jin wants to force his wife "not to cheat"; he wants to alter her behaviour because she didn't act as he wanted. Li Tianchen wanted to change how *he* acted back then, even if indirectly, because he sees himself as his mother's killer, and thinks this is the point at which his tragedy was locked into place. They both thought their 'tragedies' were down to a single event. It's not that simple.

Lu Guang wants to personally protect Cheng Xiaoshi by controlling all scenarios. Not exactly taking his will, but limiting his choices. There's probably a whole post to be made on how QJ/LTC/LG each approach the agency of the ones they want to protect, but that's not for now.

Anyway, Li Tianchen as the foil to Lu Guang. At the end of s2, he has in theory let go of Li Tianxi but in practice he's just burying himself deeper by following Liu Xiao. Trying to entirely shun the past so he can believe that he still has some element of control. Both LTC and LG are at the extreme ends of clinging on vs letting go and that means the correct answer has to lie somewhere in the middle. Not shunning the past, but accepting it, and using that resolve to move forward.

So, Liu Xiao. We don't have much on him but what we do have is his belief that uncertainties should become certainties. He's deterministic and set explicitly as the counter to Lu Guang, whose own aim is to change events rather than lock them into place. They both want to *control* all aspects, but for differing reasons. In fate vs free will, it makes sense that our protagonist is on the side of free will, but it's interesting that he's presented himself so much as the opposite previously. He and CXS haven't exactly switched places, but to the audience, they've definitely taken on traits of the other.

Liu Xiao's whole spiel about how all options will eventually lead to the same outcomes, with him set *against* Lu Guang, very much seems like it's a setup for a "defeat fate" type plotline though. It's hammered in that there is no escape, no other option. Are we expected to accept this? It doesn't seem so. It's something I'm struggling to reconcile somewhat with the earlier messages about accepting the past, but maybe that's not quite it. Maybe it's about control vs freedom?

Trust fall. Every dive with LG and CXS is an act of mutual trust where they need to act in tandem. Dives go astray when one party acts without the other. For CXS, this is about him acting against LG's instructions (texting Emma's parents, staying in the earthquake dive). For LG, this is about him withholding info because he doesn't trust how CXS will react.

Lu Guang needs to put his trust in CXS before his withholding of information creates an unresolvable rift. He needs to stop trying to control CXS in order to keep him safe. We saw how that spun out for Li Tianchen and Li Tianxi. LG needs to put the choice into Cheng Xiaoshi's hands and let him decide his own fate. It reminds me of how Cheng Xiaoshi laid everything out for Emma and let her decide whether to live. It was only outside interference that prevented her, but she did make the choice to survive. And she did it by remembering those small moments. By accepting that tragedy happens but there are still people that make it worth it.

For LG and CXS, they need to mutually trust each other and that's how they'll find their way through.