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. :]
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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
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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
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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
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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)
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Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D
Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:
Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]
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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.
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It's summer for you, winter for me. Warm me up with strawberry fluff! As always, my muse, your muse, the one and only, Eddie.
Midsummer's night, because I don't have a lot to inspire you with. I'm thinking something cute but weird? Maybe some human body softness where Eddie is a bit of a freak and we love him for it. And we're told our bodies are lovely, even when they're doing weird shit.
I lalalove youuuuu. xo Rhi
RHI!!!! <3 i adore you. thank you for this prompt - i had far too many ideas for it, but ended up on settling for this one, which coincidentally feels like the most subtle of them all? either way, it definitely turned out being the softest. give me an eddie munson who just wants to sniff me like a dog. this definitely got a bit long but i hope you enjoy, my dear <3
the smell of you
warnings: weirdos in love? idk. i have a skewed sense of what is actually weird i think. mentions of death and coffins jokingly. eddie 'manhandles' reader sort of. not edited.
wc: 2.2k+
come enjoy a sweet summer treat with me <3
“Eddie?”
The entire apartment is quiet – too quiet – as you drop your keys into the old crystal bowl on the counter. The clink resonates through the air, louder than the soft murmur of the stereo static you can hear from down the hall.
“You dead?” you call out again, slipping off your running shoes and tossing down your headphones onto the counter as well now, “Do I need to call the coroner?”
Your tone is lilted, teasing with airiness as you continue to wander deeper into the apartment and head straight for the room you know Eddie has to be in. Like the waves pulled by the moon, there’s an incessant string tied around one end of your soul that connects you to his, and you follow it all the way down the hallway. The bedroom door is wide open, and you can hear his mumbled yell of a response without clarity before you even cross the threshold.
You wouldn’t have even needed him to verbally respond to find him in this tiny apartment. You two could get separated on the streets of a bustling city, of a buzzing New York sidewalk, and you still wouldn’t properly lose him. It’s more than just soul ties and his gravity that keeps you pulled to him.
Something unspoken. Something homely.
“Sorry, what was that?” you hum as you spy him face-down in the bed, pillow muting him by the mouthful, “Say it one more time, and this time not into the pillow.”
When he finally properly turns over, he’s a vision. Sleep lines folded into his skin and a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth, eyes squinting in irritation not at you but the sunlight flooding in through the bedroom window. Messy hair, messy shirt, messy everything. A kind of mess you just want to collapse into currently, curling up in all that he is from the day’s exhaustion.
He’d mentioned wanting to take a nap before you’d left for the gym. Something about the summer heat draining him, trailing off as he’d rambled about how he’d probably thrive as a vampire.
“I said,” he huffs, sitting up, the frizz of his hair becoming a makeshift halo, “If you call the coroner, request the comfiest coffin possible.”
“Why do you need a comfy coffin if you’re already dead?”
“You dare deny me of being buried in tempurpedic memory foam? In my hour of need?”
You roll your eyes as you huff out a little laugh, forcing yourself to turn away from him long enough to strip out of your socks. But just as you reach down for the pieces of clothing, you catch sight of the source of that stereo static flooding the room.
Your shared record player, spinning a blood red pressing of one of your more recent vinyl purchases. The album has been played through, but the player no longer had an automatic stop mechanism, probably from years of use.
The center of the record is probably scratched, and Eddie knows it, from how sheepish he looks when you glance over your shoulder at him.
“Speaking of death,” you walk over quickly, purposefully, before carefully lifting the needle and cutting the static finally, “Care to explain why you’re burning scratches into my Momento Mori vinyl?”
“I’m sorry,” he quickly apologizes, nearly flinging himself off the bed as he scooches quickly to the end, clearly fully awake now, “I put it on and thought I’d just lay down for a quick second, but then the bed was so comfy, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick nap, and then…” he trails off, looking up at you through his lashes with big eyes already pleading for forgiveness, “I’ll buy you a new one. Swear it.”
It’s impossible to be mad at him when he’s looking like this, inhumanely soft and easily forgiven, “You’re lucky you’re cute, or you really would be dead.”
He doesn’t respond with words, but instead the outstretch of his hands, fingers flexing as he beckons to you. The needle rests on its perch, the vinyl left behind to gather dust for a few extra moments, as you go straight to him.
When his palms slip beneath your old t-shirt and meet your skin, they’re pleasantly warm.
“You were right,” you admit as his knees spread, delegating even more room for you to stand in front of him as your hand wanders to cradle the side of his face, fingers tangling in sweaty curls from his rest. Your thumb mimics his on your own skin instinctively, tracing a large arch right up over his cheekbone, “It’s hot as balls outside.”
“Told you so,” he murmurs, smiling softly in satisfaction as he leans lazily into your touch.
“You did,” you agree quietly, half-entranced by his relaxed face, no sight of pride in the room currently.
He resembles a cat as he continues to preen under your gentle hand, and you almost expect him to start purring right before you find the strength to pull away, removing his hands from where they'd wandered to your lower back.
One swipe of his finger along your sweaty spine, and you’d remembered what your original intentions had been immediately upon getting home.
“Wai- Where are you going?” he’s seemingly brought back down to Earth the moment he loses the pattern your thumb had been tracing, the press of your fingertips into his scalp. When he reaches back out to latch onto you again, you take a step back, “Get back here-”
“I need to shower,” you laugh, shaking your head and smacking his hands away as he continues to barter, “I’m all sweaty and smelly, let me go clean up and then we can nap togeth-”
“You can shower after we nap,” he nearly whines, finally catching your shirt between his fingers and tugging, uncaring for if he stretches the fabric. A small price to pay to have you close to him, “C’mon, sweetheart. I know you’re just as exhausted as I am.”
You swear you meant to take another step backwards, but somehow, you end up back between his knees, “Did you not hear me, Munson? I stink.”
“Good.”
He doesn’t give you any time to react – in an instant, he’s throwing his face forward, burying it against your stomach as you let out a gasp and immediately try to pry him away with far too gentle of hands in his hair.
“Eddie!”
If it were anyone else, you’d probably be mortified. But Eddie just takes a dramatic deep breath in, nose buried just shy of your belly button, and when his shoulders start to shake with muted laughter, you can’t stop the smile from breaking. Your fingers are still twisted in his hair, still pulling back in an attempt to get him away from you, but he’s resilient.
And all your faux resistance is weak in comparison. Soon enough, you’re back to melting into him.
Only once you’re relaxed once more, no sign of trying to pull away again any time soon as his hands once more evade the space beneath your shirt to wander up and down your sticky skin without a care in the world, does he lift his face away from you long enough to breathe and speak, “I’ll have you know – I love your stink.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I’m your idiot.”
The game of banter is cut short when he goes back to pressing his nose into your clothes that surely can’t smell good. No amount of deodorant or perfume could erase that underlying stench of sweat. Hell, the shirt is still a bit moist from it all: from the walk to the gym, from your workout itself, from the walk home. It’d been through the ringer, and you’re back to tugging him away from you.
“I refuse to believe you like how gross I smell right now,” you reinforce, eyes darting towards the bathroom connected to your master bedroom, “I promise I’ll be quick with the shower.”
“Baby,” he fights back, wrapping his arms around you securely, no intention of losing this battle, “You remember that time we went to the fair, and you were complaining about how you were sweating, so I tried to lick your face?”
Your nose scrunches quickly at the memory, “I do, unfortunately.”
“You really think I’d be willing to lick the sweat off your body but be afraid of you smelling a little bad while we cuddle?” his shoulders drop as he looks up at you, head tilted, almost as if amused with the conversation, “What kind of man do you take me for?”
“The kind that gets off on annoying me.”
His jaw drops, putting on a fake look of offense before he dramatically throws himself back onto the bed, laying flat as he makes a fist to mimic stabbing his chest, “You wound me.”
You’ve heard those words a thousand times in a hundred different ridiculous voices. You’ve seen this scene enough to have it mesmerized at this point, down to the over-exaggerated pout of his lips and the lingering of the fist against his sternum.
You never grow tired of it. You never will.
“Need me to kiss it better?” you joke as you prop a knee up on the bed, following the same script as always.
And he hits his queue perfectly when he lifts his head eagerly at the expected response, wiggling his brows a bit. “Absolutely. Doctor’s orders, in fact.”
“Great,” you see an opportunity, and take it, “I’ll get right to it, after my showe-”
You don’t even get the final syllable of the word off your tongue before he’s clenching his thighs around your own, knees pressing hard before he wraps his legs the rest of the way around your waist to pull you in. A squeak of surprise leaves your lips as you begin to fall forward, but Eddie is quick to break the fall with ease. Catching you with his eager hands, maneuvering for you to half drop to the mattress while some of you still lands atop of him.
He has you right where he wants you, turning his head to be face to face with you, noses nearly brushing, “Unfortunately, the doc said you have to kiss it better now, or else you’ll be comfy coffin shopping.”
“A fatal wound?” you gasp, nearly mocking him. It doesn’t offend him – if anything, his boyish grin only grows wider, “First, I’m smelly-”
“Again, I like when you’re smelly.”
“-And then I inflict a fatal wound upon my lover? Oh, how dare I.”
Slowly, all your insecurity of how you currently smell is simply fading. The entire ordeal has become an art of childlike, whimsical jokes – and Eddie is an artist. A professional at the dance, locked and loaded with his incomparable skill set equipped for disarming you this way. The ability to make someone feel loved, imperfections and weirdness aside.
He likes you, even when you claim you don’t smell your best. And you like him, even when his hair is tangled beyond recognition and one of his socks is half-hanging off his foot from a nap.
You like him when he’s embarrassing you in public, tongue chasing after you with the threat of licking your sweat away, and he likes you when all you can do in response is a weak palm to his chest (that isn’t even making an effort to push him away) as you giggle relentlessly.
You like each other on the good days, the bad days, the weird days.
Disarmed entirely, you don’t even notice when his face conveniently slots itself far too close to your armpit as you two scooch further up into the bed. You’re more occupied with the way your legs tangle up, toeing each other’s socks off properly as he slings a heavy arm across your torso.
“We’re gonna have to wash the sheets,” you mumble, exhaustion catching up as the two of you finally settle.
He hums absentmindedly, nuzzling into your skin a bit further as he makes himself comfortable. “And wash away your sweet, sweet stink? I don’t think so, sweetheart.”
“Oh, fuck off,” you laugh, unbothered as your fingers start to trail up and down his back over the t-shirt, smoothing out wrinkles along the way, “I’m serious. We need to change them soon anyways, I think I got crumbs in the bed the other night with those crackers.”
“Bury me in the crumbs of all your midnight snacks,” he almost slurs, clearly drifting back off.
You snort in response, relaxing and letting your own eyes shut. Matching all your deep breaths with his own, a million different last words crossing your mind to whisper to the boy you’re sure is once again asleep.
I love you.
I adore you.
I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll have me.
And maybe some of those unspoken thoughts slip out without you realizing, because he squeezes you just a little bit tighter, presses his face just a little bit deeper into your skin as his scruff tickles you.
The only actual thought you can know for certain that you say, though, is, “Do you think they actually make coffins with memory foam inside?”
To your surprise, even despite the almost-snores that had been escaping him, he answers in a heartbeat.
“Oh, definitely. We’ll order two.”
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there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)
i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.
i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.
and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.
HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.
now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.
my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.
i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.
by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!
keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"
similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."
the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"
if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.
the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.
godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.
the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.
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