#anyway lmk what you think!

[thetomorrowshow]

I've had this idea for a few days now, but what would happen if Scott was kidnapped instead of Jimmy in the superhero au? Pro hero Major showing up half dead on the crappy vigilante Solidarity's apartment door

this was never meant to be so long kjsdhkfjh

cw: blood and injuries

~

That’s Major.

The knock on his door at this time of night had been entirely unexpected, so Jimmy had looked out the blurry peephole to see—and there’s no mistaking that blue hair, even if he is—

Is he covered in blood?

Jimmy’s still in his Solidarity costume from an evening out patrolling, so he knocks four times on the door—it doesn’t fall in, that’s good—and makes a noise as if he’s unlocking the broken lock (keeping up pretenses so that people passing by don’t know it’s broken) before swinging the door open. Major starts speaking the instant it’s open.

“I’m sorry to intrude, but. . . .” Major trails off, face dreadfully pale, and his eyes flicker shut as he collapses bonelessly to the floor.

“Holy moly, okay—” Jimmy does his best to catch him, but of course he misses. Major lands facedown on the suspiciously stained carpet of the hallway.

Without even a second thought, Jimmy grabs Major by the wrists (there’s blood soaking one of his arms, that can’t be good, this is bad—) and slowly drags him all the way to his threadbare couch, probably rugburning his chin in the process. Then he can’t figure out how to get Major onto the couch—he’s panting just from the effort of dragging him here, the man has serious muscle—so he just sort of rolls him over and leaves him on the floor.

He has a pile of first aid stuff on the floor of his room (the latch on the box kept getting stuck at inopportune times, so he just took it all out), and after surveying it for a moment, he just gathers all of it up in his arms and brings it back to the living room. Major hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor, still unconscious.

He really ought to call for emergency services, but then he’d be brought in for questioning, and something would go wrong, and his secret identity would be exposed. Something always goes wrong. It’s safer for him to just check over Major’s wounds and patch him up a little, then leave him somewhere and anonymously call the emergency number. That makes the most sense.

The blood soaking Major’s arm is the first thing he’d noticed, but when he wipes some of it away, it doesn’t seem to be coming from a huge wound. It’s a bit of a tear, almost like he’d been removing something that was stuck in his arm. Jimmy disinfects it and ties a clean rag around it.

His nose is bleeding something awful, but nosebleeds are fairly common things and can be dealt with later, because Major’s not wearing hardly anything but a pair of cheap shorts and his chest is dripping with blood. A quick catalogue of all the injuries he can see reveals most of them to be surface, but there’s just so many that he’s overwhelmed for a moment. That much blood can’t be good, no matter how shallow the wound is.

(He looks so thin, his skin practically hanging off his bones. His ribcage is clearly visible, the muscles that Jimmy had known to be defined under his skintight suit almost non-existent. That can’t be good either.)

There’s a bit of a gash in his side, he can start with that.

He hopefully cleans it up all right—there’s no dirt in it, so a bit of rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball should be fine—and sticks a couple of band-aids over the wound. Then he does a wipe-down of Major’s torso, seeing clearly for a moment the cuts that the blood stems from before it wells up again.

There’s something like road rash here and there, not terribly dangerous but certainly painful. And then there’s sharp, calculated cuts. Perfectly square scabs. One long, healing scar that had clearly been stitched shut at some point.

His arms are bruised at the inner elbows and the backs of his hands and here and there along his forearms. There’s a raised bump close to his wrist with a little black circle drawn around it in permanent marker. The majority of the scars down his entire body are clinical, intentional.

Now Jimmy may be an idiot, but he can tell that these aren’t normal injuries for a superhero.

And maybe Jimmy’s the biggest idiot, because he suddenly remembers hearing gossip in line at the drugstore about how Major hasn’t been seen in public in weeks.

He remembers hearing that the mayor ordered a search of Major’s house two weeks ago to find him missing.

He even remembers seeing that shrine of stuffed toys and flowers and candles under the big mural of Major downtown, complete with signs asking him to come back and praying he’s okay.

Oh no.

Jimmy does his best to clean and wrap the rest of the injuries, but he runs out of bandages soon enough and, after a second of thinking, runs to his bedroom, digs his cleanest shirt out of his pile of clean laundry, and pulls at it.

The threads don’t even come loose. If anything, they weave tighter.

He hates using scissors, but at least it’s better than a knife. So he throws the shirt on the kitchen table and grabs the scissors from the counter, then carefully approaches the shirt and makes a slow, horizontal cut down the bottom of it, then he repeats it a couple of inches up.

The scissors do slip a few times, most notably jabbing into his chin hard enough to draw blood at one point, but it’s a small sacrifice to make so Jimmy finishes turning the shirt into scraps and just hopes they’re clean enough that nothing will get infected before Major can get proper help.

Major hasn’t even stirred once, which should probably be concerning (for a brief, terrifying moment, Jimmy thinks he’s killed him before he presses his ear to the hero’s chest and hears his heart beating), but he can’t really worry about that right now when he’s still got a broken nose to set. Which he does, fairly easily, and finds himself even more relieved when Major makes a small noise of pain.

Once he thinks he’s entirely done (Major’s body is more bandages than not, which at least provides him a little bit of modesty), Jimmy’s hand hovers over his mask.

There could be more injuries on his face. Some of the blood could be from a deep cut on his cheek rather than just his broken nose. He could be bleeding out under his mask. It’s unlikely, but with Jimmy’s luck, not impossible.

He won’t do it. If Major doesn’t wake up soon, then he can rethink things, but even a powered person who accidentally hurts people all the time has a moral code. It’s illegal to unmask superheroes, and he’s not going to betray Major’s trust by doing it.

He really ought to get him up off the floor, now that he’s done patching him up. But there’s nothing wrong with the floor of his living room, unless the couch happened to collapse and fall—

No no no nonononono don’t think that don’t think that don’t think that, think about good things, Jimmy tells himself frantically, rolling to his feet and backing away. I saw a duck today, it was a cute duck, for once it didn’t get ran over over right in front of me. Good things.

Maybe he should just . . . stay away. Hang out in the kitchen while waiting for him to wake up. He glances at Major, hoping for a sign of life.

Nothing, except he does notice that he happens to be situated right under the living room light bulb that is, for some reason, working today. That could be dangerous. Jimmy doesn’t want to push his luck by trying to move Major though, so he just yanks his sheet off his bed and drapes it over Major entirely. That way, if the bulb bursts, none of the glass will land in his eye or anything.

Jimmy gathers up all of his leftover first aid supplies (mostly a half-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol and three or four cotton balls, among various band-aid wrappers) and carries them to the kitchen, where he dumps them unceremoniously on the table. A glance at the digital oven clock (partially obscured by dead cockroaches stuck under the glass) tells him that it’s just past two in the morning.

Like a light switch turned out, all the adrenaline vanishes from his body in an instant. He suddenly feels absolutely dead on his feet. How had he even managed to care for Major after a full evening of patrolling?

He needs to sleep. If Major wakes up while he’s asleep and kills him, thems the breaks. If Major wakes up and leaves while he’s asleep, then this problem will no longer be on his hands. Not that either of those are particularly likely with the condition the superhero’s in. Jimmy feels fairly confident that he can sleep for a little bit and not have any issues.

Jimmy sets a bottle of water next to Major, then trudges to his room to collapse onto his mattress without even kicking his boots off. Just an hour or two of sleep, then he can continue to deal with the matter at hand.

He’s dead to the world within minutes of closing his eyes.

-

Scott wakes up with something covering his face.

One of his eyes is too swollen to open, but he can see through the other one that whatever’s on top of him is white, and as he becomes more aware of his body (and the pain it’s in, nothing new) he realizes that it’s covering all of him.

Did he die? Why else would a white sheet be draped over his body?

Is this some sort of trick?

He stays as still as possible, tries to even his breathing back out into something mimicking sleep. Whatever this is, it can’t be any worse than everything else. He can survive it.

Where is he?

This isn’t the lab, or his cell, he realizes at once. This is bare skin on something scratchy and sticky instead of a table, this is the smell of stale cigarette smoke, this is the tinny sound of a sports broadcast.

Scott sits up, grunts when it pulls at his wounds painfully. Something on his side splits open, but instead of feeling blood dripping down his body, it gets stopped by—a bandage?

He pulls the sheet off, looks down at himself. He’s more bandage than skin, really—but he has no memory of being fixed up. The last thing he remembers is . . . running. . . .

He’s on the floor of a dingy apartment, he realizes as he looks around himself. There’s some stains on the wall he doesn’t like, a gross couch that looks like it’s about to fall apart, and a kitchen—

Solidarity stands, frozen, in the middle of the tiny kitchen, perfectly recognizable by his shoddy costume and faded red mask. He smiles hesitantly when Scott sees him, waves.

Scott waits for the hatred to boil up. He waits to see red, waits for insults to fly out of his mouth.

He doesn’t have the energy.

“Did—” he croaks, and there’s a bottle of water beside him, he cracks it open with shaking hands and swallows a mouthful— “Am I dead?”

“No,” Solidarity is quick to reassure, too loud in the silence of the apartment. “No, I did my best to keep you alive.”

Keep him alive. There’s more to come, then. The torture he’d escaped wasn’t the end.

“Why am I here?” he asks, and he’s not quite able to keep the fear from his voice. He needs as much information as he can get, so when he escapes, he can tell Gem or Blossom everything.

“You actually turned up on my—er, on the doorstep of this random apartment I happen to be in,” Solidarity tells him. “I don’t—you were bleeding pretty bad, and you passed out, so I patched you up the best I could.”

He was running . . . Xornoth was there, angry, calling him back . . . a tentacle wrapped around his waist, threw him hard into the road—and out of nowhere, a driverless car rammed into Xornoth . . . Scott ran . . . until he saw an apartment complex, and up on the sixth floor there was still one window with a light on . . . safety.

And the one apartment with the light on had just happened to be Solidarity’s.

Scott takes another gulp of water, spilling half of it down his front. He can’t drink all of it, his stomach won’t be able to handle that . . . but he doesn’t know when he’ll get more water. “What are you going to do to me?” he asks after a moment, voice small.

Even though he’s not looking directly at him, Solidarity flinches so hard that Scott can see it out of the corner of his eye.

“I—do to you? No, I—” Solidarity swears, moves around the counter, then moves back to the other side. “Major. I don’t know what happened, but I promise I won’t hurt you. Intentionally. I don’t—I don’t ever mean to hurt anyone, and I’m not going to do anything to take advantage of you. All right?”

Scott still doesn’t look at him. Solidarity is a snake, the type to pretend to be noble and good while killing those who actually are. He might not come out of this alive, weakened as he already is. He doesn’t even think he can find the spark to summon ice. Solidarity can literally do anything he wants and he won’t be able to fight back.

Solidarity sighs. “Look, I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen,” he says, and Scott tenses. This is it, this is where he gets told to cooperate or suffer the consequences. “I’m going to make—something to eat, whatever’s still good—and after you’ve eaten, I’m going to help you to a public place and call for an ambulance. Sound good?”

That sounds . . . unbelievable, frankly. He doesn’t respond, just watches through his eyelids as Solidarity waits for an answer, then shrugs and opens the fridge behind him.

First he pulls out a carton of milk, which he shakes. He grimaces, then Scott watches as he pours half-curdled milk down the sink. Solidarity leaves the carton there, then grabs a jar of peanut butter from an overhead cabinet.

He twists it open and barely even sniffs it before tossing it over his shoulder into a trash can. Why are all of his food items expired? Is this just a safehouse situation, a place to lay low where no one will find him, and he hasn’t been here in a while?

The second jar of peanut butter is apparently satisfactory, because Solidarity sets it down on the counter after tearing off the safety tab next to a loaf of bread, which he checks thoroughly before pulling two pieces out.

“You’re not allergic to peanuts, are you?” he asks offhandedly, and Scott swallows.

“I’m not,” he mutters, and he’s not usually the type to hide, but every instinct in his body is screaming for him to be as unobtrusive as possible. He immediately ignores those instincts mere seconds later as Solidarity sticks a spoon into the peanut butter.

“I—are you using a spoon to spread that?” he asks incredulously. Solidarity freezes, laughs nervously.

“I haven’t been able to use knives since an emergency room incident when I was sixteen,” he says, then elaborates, “I dropped a knife that landed point up and then tripped over my laces onto it. Learned from that two things: don’t handle knives, and don’t wear lace-up shoes. Been rocking velcro ever since. I mean, I do get velcro burns on my fingers sometimes, but shoelaces are honestly just a hazard when it comes to—”

“You talk a lot,” Scott mumbles, then cringes and bites his tongue. He can’t talk back. It always hurts when he gets snarky.

“Sorry,” Solidarity apologizes, then adds under his breath, “it’s not every day that I have the most famous hero in the country—who also hates me—in my living room, but yeah, I’ll just. I’ll just be normal. That’s fine. This is fine.”

Scott’s fairly certain he wasn’t meant to hear that, so he doesn’t respond. He sits quietly, checking over his injuries.

If Solidarity really did help him, he did a good job. Every wound that he thought might need bandaged has been wrapped up, a mix of gauze and clean rags tied around him. A peek under one of the rags shows a clean cut, just beginning to scab over.

There’s enough blood still on him that he feels woozy, and it hurts terribly to breathe in such a way that he suspects broken ribs. But in general, he feels better than he has in days—weeks, maybe. He doesn’t know at all how long he’s been missing.

He looks up at movement in the corner of his eye, and Solidarity goes still, halfway across the room. A peanut butter sandwich on a paper plate is in his hand. He shakes it slightly.

“I’m just gonna . . . put this beside you and go back into the kitchen, okay?”

Scott watches, perplexed, as he does just that. Why on earth does Solidarity feel the need to speak his every action? How long has it been since someone asked permission to do things around him? How many times has he been touched without warning or regard for his feelings and safety?

This is all wrong. The Solidarity he knows wouldn’t be doing this.

Scott’s absolutely famished (his stomach growls loudly at the sight of the sandwich), but he instead fixes Jimmy with a suspicious glare.

“I can’t defend myself,” he says, despite everything in him screaming to not reveal any information pertaining to his health. He has to know. “Why—you could do anything you want. You could kill me, right now, and nobody would know. Why are you—why are you helping me? Why do you care?”

Solidarity pauses thoughtfully, in the middle of making another sandwich. “I don’t like hurting people,” he says eventually. At Scott’s snort, he continues. “No, really! I’ve hurt a lot of people in the past, but I never meant to. I was only ever trying to help.”

Right, because Solidarity helped Aeor so much. But he’s really got nothing else to say (nor the energy to say it), so Scott picks up the sandwich with both hands and takes a small bite. It tastes like a normal peanut butter sandwich, if a bit stale. Solidarity’s eating one made with the same peanut butter and bread, so the chances of poisoning are pretty low.

Not that there’s any reason for Solidarity to poison him. He’s weak enough that it would just be a waste of poison.

He eats half of it in silence before setting the food back on the plate. He can already feel his stomach rebelling, so unused to more than the bare minimum. Solidarity stops eating his own sandwich, glances between him and the door uncertainly.

“Um . . . should we go?” he asks, already coming around the kitchen counter. Scott flinches back; Solidarity doesn’t notice, looking past him. “Do you need the bathroom first? It might be a long walk, so . . . go now or forever hold your pee, I guess.”

Scott blinks. Solidarity blushes, buries his face in his hands.

“Sorry—something my mom used to say. I—forget it. Are you ready to go?”

He’s still not quite sure where he’s going, but over the past couple of minutes, he’s begun to relax his guard a little. Solidarity isn’t acting like a threat. He’s actually the kindest person Scott’s met in . . . however long he’s been gone. He doesn’t dare ask. He nods, rolls to his knees.

Just the small action makes him feel like his breath has been punched out of him. He gasps for air, pain seizing up and down his torso. He can’t do anything but shake, hands on the floor to stabilize himself.

In an instant, Solidarity is by his side, one arm supporting him and the other taking his hand. Scott balks at first, but once he realizes that Solidarity isn’t trying to hurt him in any way (what’s wrong with him, Scott is vulnerable and in pain and Solidarity has every chance to humiliate him or kill him or anything and he just won’t take any of them, he doesn’t understand) he allows the help.

Before he knows it, he’s standing, barely any of his own weight on his feet. Solidarity gives him a few moments to breathe, to be accustomed to being upright (he’s so often on his back on the table, or crumpled on the floor), before helping him out of the apartment and down the hall.

Solidarity apologizes profusely for not taking the elevator, but doesn’t tell him why they can’t. Scott can’t remember much from the night before, but he’s fairly certain that he took it to get up here, so it can’t be out of order. He doesn’t ask, though—all his concentration goes to not collapsing.

Apparently, they’re on the sixth floor. Scott makes it down one flight of stairs before Solidarity apologizes and just scoops him up bridal style. Being carried is more familiar than walking, and Scott blinks back tears at the pain that shoots through him at the sudden change in position before nodding to give Solidarity the go-ahead.

Somehow, the man seems more anxious carrying him than letting him walk. Scott just leans his head against Solidarity’s arm, too tired to hold it up properly. He should be watching. Solidarity could throw him down these stairs and he wouldn’t be able to do anything. It’s Solidarity, the man who killed Aeor, one of the most dangerous villains in the city. He has to keep his guard up. It’s not like Solidarity is actually going to let him go.

Maybe the villains have some sort of code, some way to lay claim to a victim. Maybe Solidarity is just going to bring him back to Xornoth. Maybe his escape was all for naught.

Scott can’t bring himself to care. Solidarity’s been kind enough so far. If he tries to hand him over to Xornoth, Scott will just ask him for a mercy kill. Anything would be preferable to going back there.

He thinks, vaguely, he ought to be more scared. More emotional. All he feels is tired. He just wants this to be over with.

Solidarity, however, does not bring him straight to Xornoth. Instead, he carries him out a back door of the building, across some scraggly patches of grass and a few crumbling roads, and into the smallest public park Scott’s ever seen. It’s still early in the morning, early enough that that there’s dew on the graffitied slide and the only person they see is one man in his pajamas taking a bulldog out for a walk.

Solidarity sets him down on the singular bench, then quickly picks him back up as the bench creaks before collapsing entirely. It must’ve been fairly rusted through to break under his weight, Scott observes idly. Maybe the park is abandoned.

Solidarity instead props him up against a tree, which is less than comfortable but he can feel it. It isn’t cold, it isn’t clinical, it doesn’t smell of rubbing alcohol and metal. It’s rough against his back and the roots dig into his legs and an ant crawls over his bandaged arm and Scott’s outside. He breathes in the air, grateful at least for this moment of peace. He’s not sure how long he’s going to have here.

“Um, yeah, I found Major at a park and he looks really injured,” Solidarity says loudly, and Scott jolts to see him on the phone. Is he—did he actually call emergency services? He’d said he would, but Scott hadn’t really considered it a possibility that he was telling the truth.

Has he truly been rescued? And by Solidarity?

Solidarity rattles off an address that Scott doesn’t recognize whatsoever, gives a brief description of Scott (he cringes when Solidarity mentions how weak he is), then hangs up, something that Scott knows you’re never supposed to do. Solidarity slips the cracked phone into his back pocket and shifts awkwardly, clearly itching to leave.

“I really shouldn’t hang around, I—cops make me nervous, and when I get nervous it’s always worse—no—”

There’s a rustling noise and a loud crack from above, and Scott barely has time to look up before Solidarity is practically diving over him, arms outstretched to catch a large branch that had just been about to fall directly onto Scott. The leaves brush his hair as Solidarity heaves it aside with a grunt.

The branch is thicker around than Scott’s arm. An accident like that could’ve killed him.

What on earth is Solidarity’s problem?

“Right, and that’s my cue,” Solidarity says a bit breathlessly, straightening out his mask. He doesn’t say goodbye, just turns on a dime and sprints off back the way they came, quickly disappearing behind a depressed-looking set of townhouses.

Which leaves Scott leaning against this old tree in a rundown park, trying to figure out what just happened. None of it makes any semblance of sense, and Scott’s already running himself ragged just trying to figure it out.

An ambulance and a police car roll up not long later, and Scott thanks every god he can think of that there’s not a news van following them. They load him onto a stretcher as soon as they spot him, asking him questions like does he know what day it is (he does not), how many fingers are they holding up (three), and what is his blood type (A-).

As they roll him into the ambulance, Scott stares off into the distance, trying with every last scrap of energy to figure out Solidarity’s motives. And as the makeshift bandages come off and Scott answers all sorts of invasive questions about what happened, he begins to wonder if he hallucinated the entire encounter. There’s no way that Solidarity would actually treat him with such kindness, is there? He doesn’t mention it, vaguely answers that he’d wrapped the wounds himself with the help of some good Samaritan who had found him on the street.

As time passes and Scott finds himself back home to recover, he convinces himself that Solidarity helping like that is utterly impossible. He was sleep-deprived and in the worst pain of his life; there’s no way he can trust his memory of any of the events post his escape.

Until one day, when Scott limps out to his mailbox, calling a greeting to Gem across the street, he finds a torn piece of notebook paper stuffed into his mailbox.

It’s a simple thank you, for not revealing him, along with some well wishes. A little scribble of Solidarity’s logo signs it off.

Scott should throw it away. He should shred the note and pretend that he never saw it.

Instead, that note finds a special little place on top of his living room bookshelf, where he frequently stares at it.

And if, one evening, Scott found himself slipping a note under the door of an apartment on the sixth floor of a very shady building?

Well, it never happened, and any further good interactions between the two were surely so impossible, anyone to see them would never believe it.

[heynhay]

and there's nothing i can do, not much i can change, so i give it up to you. i hope that's okay.

[nonbinary-arsonists]

Jimmy, Timmy, Danny, Manny, Jenny, and Dib.

With Dib being on the "bad" side in Globs of Doom, I think he'd have a hard time fitting in with the rest of them.

(Alt text under cut)

ID: Page 1 of a comic featuring Nicktoons characters. Panel 1: Dib Membrane from Invader Zim looks down at a weird device. He is wearing his usual outfit and has dumb hair. Dib says, “Hey Timmy, did you get the energy readings I sent?” Panel 2: Timmy Turner from Fairly Oddparents looks up from a phone while leaning casually on a giant green cartoon hammer in a suburban street. He is wearing a pink hoodie, scuffed jeans, and a backwards hat over a mullet. Timmy says, “Uh. No? What do you expect me to do with them?” Panel 3: Dib and Timmy talk to each other. Dib says, vaguely put off, “What? No, not you, the techie kid with the stupid hair.” Timmy points at him, saying, “Oh, you mean Jimmy!” Panel 4: Timmy looks over his shoulder at Jimmy Neutron and says, “And look who it is! None other than Mr. Chocolate soft-serve himself!” Jimmy is wearing glasses and a red turtleneck under a lab coat and holds a similarly high-tech device to Dib’s. He looks at Timmy, unimpressed, and says, “Can we stop making fun of my hair?” Timmy replies, “Nope!” Panel 5: Jimmy sighs and rubs his face, saying, “Okay, what do you need.”

ID: Page 2 of a comic. Panel 1: Timmy elbows Jimmy playfully and says, “Eh, I dunno. But get this– Dib still doesn’t know our names!” Jimmy looks at Timmy, interested. Dib angrily shouts, “Wh- it’s not my fault your names all sound alike!” Panel 2: Jimmy shrugs and looks at Timmy, saying, “Well, he does have a point.” Timmy looks unimpressed. Panel 3: A close-up of Jimmy saying, “Statistically speaking, it’s much easier for the human brain to distinguish between highly contrasting elements. (I. Brigg, 1978)” Panel 4: A zoomed-out shot of Jimmy, Timmy, and Dib in the street. Jenny Wakeman from My Life as a Teenage Robot is floating down to join them. Jimmy says, “You can’t really blame him when our names are so similar,” with his hands spread diplomatically. Timmy looks incredibly unimpressed. Dib arrogantly says, “Yeah, you all need to get better names.” Panel 5: Jenny appears next to Dib and says, “I am not changing my name.” She looks similarly to her appearance in the show, but has a ponytail and side bangs instead of twin pigtails and is wearing a contrasting maroon vest. Dib is startled and drops his device.

ID: Page 3 of a comic. Panel 1: Jenny appeals to Jimmy, saying, “Anyway, there are other ways to quickly memorize information. Like patterns!” Jimmy looks up with a hand over his mouth, thinking, and says, “Right!” The background is a red and yellow striped pattern. Panel 2: Jenny stands, confident, in front of Timmy and Dib. She says, “Plus, our names already form a recognizable pattern!” Timmy side-eyes Dib, who stares at Jenny, annoyed and confused. Panels 3-5: Jenny starts listing off the members of their group. Panel 3 shows Jimmy and Timmy, looking at each other and smiling. Jenny says, “There’s Jimmy and Timmy,” accenting the last parts of their names. Panel 4 shows Manny Rivera from El Tigre and Danny Phantom. Manny, in his El Tigre outfit, crouches on an awning in the background while Danny, in ghost form, approaches and asks, “Uh… what are we talking about?” Jenny continues, saying, “Danny and Manny,” once again stressing their names. Panel 5 features Jenny, waving a hand in the air while finishing her list, saying “-and Jenny works with that pattern too!” Panel 6: a group shot featuring all of the characters mentioned. Manny leaps down from the left. Danny stands somewhat in the foreground, looking at Jimmy. Timmy stands in the back, looking at Jimmy while thinking. Jimmy and Jenny stand in the middle, continuing their discussion. Jimmy says, “So you’re saying, if anything, Dib should change his name!” Jenny says, “Exactly!” Dib, in the foreground, objects, saying, “W- hang on-“

ID: Page 4 of a comic. Panel 1: Dib holds his hands up in protest, sweating, and says, “I just meant you should- -y’know, give me some slack w-“ Panel 2: Dib is interrupted by a mischievous Timmy, who elbows in and says, “Hey, what do you think about changing your name to Denny?” Dib looks confused. Panel 3: Manny enters from the other side, scratching his chin and grinning. He says, “I dunno, Timmy. He looks more like a Benny to me.” Panel 4: Danny butts in, holding a finger and looking down at Timmy. He says, “Cut it out you two!” Timmy and Manny look confused. Dib looks relieved. Panel 5: Danny finishes his thought, saying “Besides, this guy’s totally a Kenny.” Timmy and Manny both crack up, while Dib looks royally ticked off. He stares straight ahead and says, “That’s it! I’m going back to the syndicate!” Panel 6: A far-out shot of all 6 of the kids. Dib is storming away, angry. Jimmy and Danny follow after him, Jimmy worried and Danny apologetic. Timmy and Manny continue to laugh between themselves while Jenny stands over them and scolds them. (End.)

[skitskatdacat63]

I've decided to do myself what the cowards at Aston won't. Behold.

[emergingghost]

julien baker live lyric changes masterpost

the many ways that julien changes her lyrics over time and seamlessly alters the lyrics and meanings of her songs to maintain a level of personal authenticity has become so fascinating to me and many others so i thought it'd be nice to do some research and compile as many as i can. enjoy! or cry! whichever!

the original lyrics are in parenthesis, changes are bolded, roughly in chronological order and i’ve added timestamped links to performances [x] where i can! i use mostly youtube because it's the most accessible. some of these seem to be permanent changes and others are just occasional, probably depending on how she's vibing with the song at the time (i'm assuming). let me know of any i’ve missed!

Rejoice: [x] [x] [x] pronoun change, does this lots! "i know there's a god and they hear either way" ("i think there's a god and he hears either way") [x] she uses the 'she' pronoun here this time! [x] she sings 'force' here and also in a version she performed pre-release "asking why did you let them leave and then force me to stay?" ("asking why did you let them leave and then make me stay?")

Good News: [x] [x] [x] these are not full lyric changes but rather some gut-wrenching repetition. side note she performs a cover of paul by big thief in the first clip here too! "it's less about you / it's all about how i ruin everything oh everything i do / everything i do / god i ruin everything oh everything / oh everything i think could be good news." ("it's less about you / it's more about how i ruin everything--- i think could be good news")

Distant Solar Systems: [x] pronoun change speaking of god, she also omits the second last verse. "I send postcards from the road and now and then she answers" ("and now and then he answers")

Turn Out the Lights: [x] [x] [x] this one hurts! a few times in late '18 and in '19 "maybe i'd do it but it's not a joke" ("i'd never do it but it's not a joke")

Sour Breath: [x] [x] another one that hurts!! "think all the liquors gonna keep me warm / burn everything down just to prove i could / leave you inside a body made of wood" ("think all the liquors gonna keep you warm / burn everything down just to prove you could / leave me inside a body made of wood") [x] audio only from 1:16 (same changes as above +) "i don't do too well when everyone's worried about me" ("i don't do too well when nobody's worried about me")

Appointments: [x] [x] [x] in lots of performances post-2018. she switches between using 'know' and 'think' occasionally “i know that i ruined this / but i think i can live with it / nothing turned out how pictured it ... i think that i failed again / but i know you’re still listening” ("i think if i ruin this / that i know i can live with it / nothing turns out like I pictured it ... i think if i fail again / then i know you’re still listening") [x] audio only - from 2:45 (same changes as above +) "i hope you're still listening" ("i know you're still listening")

Happy to Be Here: [x] tiny changes. not sure if she's done this more than once "different me would be inhabiting my body / have two cars, a garage, a dog..." ("different me would be inhabiting this body / have two cars, a garage, a job...")

Something: [x] [x] [x] [x] (she adds 'again' a lot, even since 2015) “asking aloud why you’re leaving again” (“asking aloud why you’re leaving--”) [x] (this was prior to release) "asking aloud why you're leaving again / i know you won't answer me" ("asking aloud why you're leaving --- / but the pavement won't answer me")

Red Door: [x] "beneath before you won't follow me down" ("beneath before you wont follow me there")

Shadowboxing: [x] [x audio only - from 3:09] "tell me that you love me / tell me you love me / i wanted so bad to believe you / so tell me you loved me / tell me you loved me / i wanted so bad to believe you" ) ("when you tell me you love me / tell me you loved me / i wanted so bad to believe it / so tell me you love me / tell me you loved me")

Ziptie: [x] [x] [x] [x] (side note the end of the second clip rules!!) “someone’s/somethings got my heart in a ziptie” (“someone’s got my head in a ziptie”)

Tokyo: [x] [x] [x audio only - from 1:30] in a few performances in 2022 “a seven-car pile-up of every disastrous thing that i am" (“a seven-car pile-up of every disastrous thing that i’ve been”) + also sings "accident" instead of "aftermath" in the audio clip

Relative Fiction: [x] [x] [x] [x] does this lots! "honey you're the only thing i'll wait around for" ("--you’re the only thing i’ll wait around for")

Highlight Reel: [x] [x audio only from 1:45 ] original chorus lyrics are 'you feel' but now in one chorus she sings 'to' and the other she sings 'you' "ooh it's a highlight reel / tell me how to feel" ("ooh it's a highlight reel / tell me how you feel")

Ringside: [x] [x] [x audio only from 3:50] two separate lyrics changes in these clips! "like a scratch-off ticket how i dig my nails into your skin" ("like a scratch-off ticket how you dig your nails into my skin")

(from final verse) “nobody deserves a second chance / so why do i keep getting them?” (“nobody deserves a second chance / but i keep giving them”) [x] [x] (from the second last verse) “nobody deserves a second chance / but somehow i keep fucking getting them” (“nobody deserves a second chance / but honey i keep getting them") Anti-Curse: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] she doesn't always change 'foreign characters' "writing the words to the best love song you've ever heard" ...“sounding out familiar characters” ("writing the words to the worst love song you've ever heard"...“sounding out the foreign characters”)

Favor: [x] [x] [x] [x] first change - changing to 'why?' in most live performances “why couldn’t you make me do it?” (“well you couldn’t make me do it”) [x] [x] new change from MSG in 2023! “how did you make me do it?” (“well you couldn’t make me do it”)

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Funeral Pyre: [x] this is just a funny thing i found on my hunt. the audience accidentally corrected her grammar, theyre singing along and sing "needed so badly" instead of the original "needed so bad" and everyone took a lil' moment to laugh. Funeral Pyre: allegedly. i just read about it somewhere so have no proof!! “while i drank gasoline 'cause it's what i needed so bad” (“while you drank gasoline 'cause it's what you needed so bad”) Shadowboxing: [x] she doesn't really change any lyrics significantly but repeats the final verse for emphasis.

Good News: [x] (i think an early/demo version but i cant find any other recordings/videos of this version!) "how i fuck up everything i think could be good news" ("how i ruin everything i think could be good news") Rejoice: [x] house show performance from 2015 before official release. a few different lyrics! "ask you why did you let them leave and then force me to stay?" ("asking why did you let them leave and then make me stay?") (final verse) "i rejoice anyway / i rejoice either way" ("i rejoice i rejoice / i rejoice i rejoice") Sour Breath: [x] she added a new mini verse repeating "the harder i swim" where there are usually just instrumentals or 'oohs.' then she continued with the original final "the harder i swim the faster i sink" verse.

Sour Breath: [x] house show performance from 2015 before official release. there's an entire additional verse where the repeated 'the harder i swim the fast i sink' usually is. proceed with caution. "...too late to talk just go to sleep been up too long and you've been drinkin' all night it's almost a week and you haven't said a word been thinkin' it isn't worth the tryin' it takes to fix everything you hate about me all that you wouldn't wanna see

the harder i swim, the faster i sink and all i ever wanted was to pull you down with me was to pull you down with me don't you wanna sink with me? don't you wanna drown with me? just let me pull you down..."

[tubbytarchia]

I was speedrunning traffic/hermit merch ideas because I really wanna be a vendor this summer so uhh would you guys buy these lol

Edit: BEANS ALSO. THE SQUISHY COTTON BEANS BUT WITH LIKE. Bdubs' or Scar's face (they have the most marketable faces idk what to tell you)

Edit again: made another post about shipping (as in, parcels)

[puppyeared]

Once upon a time

[thepunkmuppet]

I have spent so much time thinking about the miss holloway musical WHICH THEY HAVE ALREADY WRITTEN and I need to spill my thoughts about it

there is no point or end to this it’s just a brain fart of all the thoughts I’ve been having so enjoy I guess lmfao

“backstory”. it will be about her backstory. was she an 80’s music star who sold her mortal life for fame in a deal that backfired on her?? or was she a woman with the gift about to be hanged by the hatchet men who saved herself by making that same deal?? HOW FAR BACK DOES THIS GO IS WHAT IM ASKING WE KNOW FUCK ALL ABOUT THIS WOMAN

if it’s the former, I would love to maybe have mariah as casey (the girl with the gift in the witchwood who asked for her autograph) be an actual character who holloway maybe tries to help. also kim singing 80’s songs fuck yeah

and if it’s the latter then,,, oh wow. some heavy musical numbers, a shitload of hatchetmen / church of the starry children lore, and maybe another form of the lords in black (maybe the creepy hooded figures that we see drawn in the black book???)

also sorry EDIT I just looked at this picture again and the middle one (probably wiggly) is holding a knife. there’s no fucking way that’s not the black blade this is absolutely miss holloway guys omggggg

I would love to see this scene on stage with kim!!!! this would make 5 different forms of the LIB that we’ve seen / heard about (dolls, teens / humans, their true forms, wiggly in made in america, and whatever this is). I’m just imagining you see these black hooded figures, and then in the pro-shot you get a good look inside their hoods… and their faces are NOT human. like just imagine a massive purple eye staring out of one of those hoods, maybe even moving and blinking, a cool animatronic thing. SO CREEPY!! I also love the idea of switching up the actors again - I love jon so much as wiggly and I don’t think they would change him bc of his voice, but with the rest of them I think any actor can play a LIB which opens up so many possibilities…

I also would love to know how miss holloway met duke, and potentially even how many times they have met and then he had to forget her. considering the fact that we now have weird lore about his dad in 2005, did she know duke when he was younger?? did she help him out when he was a teenager, or help his dad?? is it a family thing, like she’s vowed to watch over the keane family or something??

duke’s dad is a big part of this tbh, because what a random insane lore / backstory drop, like WHAT? I genuinely have no idea what douglas keane sr’s murder could be about, except that it ties in to duke and to wilbur. and shows that 2005 is SO DAMN IMPORTANT

2005 was the year hannah was born, the year the portal to the black and white was created, the year wilbur cross went insane and became a disciple of the LIB, the year miss holloway took on the mantle of “miss holloway”, and (very likely) the year miss holloway and wilbur fought. so i think it’s safe to say that the musical itself will be set in 2005, which to me means macnamara and wilbur backstory alongside holloway and duke, which is very very fun

I like the idea that wilbur and macnamara were canonically together, and I really want to see pre-LIB wilbur. I also love the idea of macnamara and holloway working together or even becoming friends - despite being set a decade and a half before nightmare time, it would feel like the culmination of the two hanging plot threads / overarching arcs to me. also the idea that it was holloway who introduced macnamara to the paranormal and therefore essentially set up PEIP and doomed wiley is some juicy stuff that I would LOVE to see, especially if either macnamara or wiley lived in hatchetfield as kids and miss holloway helped them, inspiring whichever one of them to set up PEIP

ok so leading off of that I have a clear vision of a potential final scene that is driving me insane, and that’s the main reason why I patched together this post.

the final scene is the fight between miss holloway and wilbur, the one that happens in every single timeline.

and the basic idea is that we see both fights at once. there’s a song, and the stage is like black friday and spies are forever, with a level above the stage the actors can walk up to and stand on. joey and kim sing, and do their bit on the stage, but above the stage there are either doubles or a projection, mirroring the choreography. only in the pro-shot version, they would splice in joey and kim playing both pairs, which I just think would turn out looking really awesome despite being tricky to pull off live.

and yeah basically at the exact same time, one wilbur stabs holloway, and the other holloway stabs wilbur, creating a gorgeous visual representation of the newly splintered timelines.

either that or they do a trail to oregon and just do a different ending each night, and then splice them together in the pro-shot like I was saying. but I personally prefer the first one, if they’re able to pull it off and make it look good

and duke shows up just after that, having followed miss holloway throughout the story so far. and in the universe where wilbur’s dead, miss holloway makes him forget it all, hence this being the year that she takes on the new name and the fact that we know he has forgotten about her / her true past before. and then in the universe where holloway is dead, he holds her as she dies in his arms. bonus points if we get dying holloway saying “please don’t forget me” and living holloway saying “you have to forget me”. oh and just to be cruel, both dukes saying “I could never forget you” at the same time :) stew on that for a bit. yeah. fuck you I guess lol I woke up and chose violence today apparently

the idea of the two of them finding each other again after that in some timelines is just gorgeous to me, especially given the fact that NMT3 seems to suggest them finding each other AGAIN after she needs to make him forget. truly star crossed lovers they are so insane for this

in summary I guess what I’m trying to say is I think it will include miss holloway’s full backstory and then be mostly set in 2005, and centre around the opening of the black and white portal (macnamara and wilbur), miss holloway meeting duke (wilbur murdering duke’s dad, possibly something with lex and hannah if duke was already a social worker) and eventually the big fight between holloway and wilbur, ending in the audience seeing both potential endings. also obviously a reference to hannah’s birth because that seemed to be some kind of catalyst. thank you for coming to my utterly deranged ted talk goodbye

[gomzdrawfr]

alrighty....angst Ghoap comic ahead, you've been warned :]

cw: angst, depiction of mental health (spiraling and breaking down)

ଘ(੭ ᐛ )━⁺˚⋆｡°✩ reblogs are appreciated

Enough

:3c notes below (feel free to skip)

[imminent-danger-came]

So, this parallel, right.

That parallel and the 4x11 shadowpeach fight as a whole:

Macaque: "No that's YOU! You're the one always running off! Looking for more power, more sources of immortality—you're the one who wouldn't quit while were were ahead! Not the great sage, he's got to drag EVERYONE else into his mess!" Sun Wukong: "You're not in this mess, you're still free! Everything I did was for us!" Macaque: "You did it for yourself! You've become like this, obsessive demon! I told you going against the Jade Emperor was a bad idea, but no, Wukong doesn't listen to anyone! He just does whatever he wants! You put yourself here, not me."

(4x11 A Lifetime of Mistakes)

-

A large part of Wukong's motivation to keep getting more power was the freedom of it—the more power you have the easier it is to do whatever you want. It's easier to ignore everyone else and focus solely on yourself. It's also easier to ensure yourself and your loved one's are protected and have the ability to do what they want.

So, a punishment where the great Monkey King is imprisoned and trapped for hundreds of years? It's effective and tragic and fitting. Wukong wanted to have the freedom to protect the people he cared about, and in trying to reach for the power to do that, he completely had his freedom removed. He went from the mountain, to then the circlet, and then all of a sudden he had morals and was bound to those.

And then I think about his end of s3 choice to go face the Lady Bone Demon alone. Once again Wukong was trying to protect his loved ones (not to mention the whole reason he went after the Samadhi fire to begin with was to have the power, the freedom to stop LBD (which in itself is another case of SWK believing he needed to be stronger for such freedom)), but he also wanted to make sure MK and himself both had agency. He didn't want MK to have to fight LBD, and he didn't want LBD to end the world.

This is exactly the sentiment he tells Macaque in the 4x11 flashback:

Sun Wukong: "It's so we don't have to worry about anything or anyone ever again! Just living a lazy life, sitting in the sun, eatin' fruit, and doing whatever we want!"

But where does it all lead him?

To possession, imprisonment. Once again Wukong no longer had the freedom to do what he wanted (which is to protect the people he cares about). Once again in his attempts to help his loved one's, he only hurt them.

This can be applied to his relationship with Macaque, to MK in s2, hell, even Wukong trying to get the map in the first place left him powerless, which then led to him and the gang being imprisoned in 3x02. It's a familiar pattern, one we see with antagonist and protagonist alike.

MK in s2 trained to become more powerful, which in the end only strengthened LBD and forced him and his friends on the run. Mei in 3x12 protects MK by letting herself get captured and placed into LBD's crystal. Mei in 4x05 goes to protect MK, breaking her sword and leaving her vulnerable to being captured by Kui Mulang ("How am I supposed to protect everyone without my sword?"). DBK reached for more power and then became possessed by LBD, hurting his wife and son. Azure reached for the Jade Emperor's power and bound himself to that role, jeopardizing Peng and Yellowtusk in the process.

It's a cycle of reaching for power, endangering others, and then being imprisoned.

So anyways, here's why MK is going to lose control (his agency) next season and hurt his friends with his own- *get's shot*

[ninjasmudge]

started off as a joke bc hes a lion and then concocted a whole narrative in my head so. oops this is no longer a joke.

i think the second half is way better than the first bc im figuring stuff out as i go, and this is platonic i just like all these mfs a lot 🎺

[askblueandviolet]

MASTER POST

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[allur1ngs]

hear me out…

bada doing this trend💭

[doctorsiren]

This one is more focused on recently disbarred Phoenix and young Trucy, but it has other stuff in it too :3

[amazingdeadfish]

Woah what's this? Shadowpuppet Good Omens crumbs?

[avisisisis]

The sun and moon symbolism was used so well in LMK

I love how it wasn't used as a way to tell us about their personalities but instead as a way to reflect their beliefs, their places in the world and how their relationship with it can vary

When you think about sun and moon characters, the first things that comes to mind are "extrovert and introvert", "loud and quiet", "optimistic and realistic (or straight up pessimist)", etc. You think of two labels that are used, to put it simply, as a way to tell us that oh, this character is bright and nice and this other character is quiet and follows them anywhere. And depending on what you think about Shadowpeach, this might suit them! But if we're talking about canon, then it's just... not them

Macaque isn't a shy, timid guy who while he's smart and clever, he doesn't stand up for himself. SWK isn't a happy and cheerful but also dumb guy who tends to be the one to defend Mac when he doesn't do it himself

Here, the sun and moon symbolism is used to explain the nature of their relationship, not their personalities. It's used to give us a simple explanation of why they're that way without showing us a 20 minute backstory scene to make us understand what the fuck happened (though that wouldn't be unwelcome)

The sun shines brightly and gives us its warmth, but in the end, he'll always be alone; no one can get close to her without burning. The moon's brightness comes only from the sun, and she's most noticed when it's night, while the shadows cover the earth

The moon needs the sun to shine, but the sun wouldn't change at all if he wasn't there; Macaque needs SWK to be there for his character to be important. but Sun Wukong's story would have remained almost the same if Macaque had never been his friend. If you want a story where they never knew each other, just read JTTW!

However, while the sun doesn't need the moon at all in real life, these two characters are supposed to be actual people, not a rock and a ball of gas in space. Macaque can be his own person without Sun Wukong being there, and Wukong is strong enough to not need someone fighting by his side but still wants it anyway

They're not soulmates, at least not in the way the wind and the sea are. Sun Wukong's love for Liu'er Mihou isn't a thing destiny wrote. It's not heaven's, not space's, not faith's: it's his. And his love for Macaque is what makes him need him by his side