I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt
“Woah. You look like shit."
Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.
The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.
"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."
And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.
The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.
If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.
"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.
"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.
"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.
The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.
He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."
There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.
"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."
Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"
"Daniel? Is that you?"
His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.
7K notes
·
View notes
Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).
I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?
That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.
Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌
TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.
Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.
(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)
Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.
(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)
Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.
Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.
Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.
We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).
Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.
(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)
And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.
If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.
Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.
23 notes
·
View notes
So a couple of years ago I started playing control.
It is of note here that I am a COWARD who cannot handle horror games, and the only time free I had to play at the time was midnight. I could not turn the lights on and I had to keep my headphones in.
I did not get very far in control.
Fast forward a few years and AW2 comes out. My roomate has never played Control, I’ve never played Alan Wake.
“Why don’t we play both together?”
These games are AMAZING. We just finished Alan Wake and are getting into Control (so many CLOCKS is our current issue) and I cannot wait to play Alan Wake 2.
Y’all, play remedy games. It’s a good time I promise.
9 notes
·
View notes
my art summary for 2023! this year was very all over the place for me, but i'm glad to say that i've created despite personal hardships (that were mostly unrelated to art) 🥺 thank you everyone for taking a look at my work this year! 💙 i hope 2024 will be just as fun! 🎉
some documentation of my feelings about art this year under the cut:
i think i was way too hard on myself this year with my art. and i am sitting here like. "goddamn dude. why would you do that to yourself for. stop that LOL"
honestly i would go in a time machine to give myself a pat on the back for drawing SPLATOON for the first time in like 6 years or something. trying to learn the proportions and figuring out how i wanted to draw splatoon was very hard. and i still don't know what i want my splatoons to look like!
i remember back in late 2019 i would bitch to my friend that i didn't understand how face anatomy worked and i would tell her how it was the end of the world. but as i drew more i eventually understood faces better (and i'm still learning!). funny how that works! so i like to think my sploons will be like this too :D
the other thing i would have told 2023 me: overthink less about the learning process. maybe it's because i have way too much free time on my hands but. when i'm not actively drawing i have a lot of analysis paralysis and perfectionism. so i end up not starting anything out of my comfort zone even if it's just for practice because my brain is so hung up on trying to "learn new things optimally" and making things "good enough." and. i. guys.
pleasepleasepleaseplease don't do that to yourself its NOT GOOD!! give urself permission to fuck up and make pieces that dont work out!! u can always revisit the concept later u dont have to do it perfectly the first time!! please!!! i am giving myself and anyone else reading permission to fuck up in creative endeavors. woo!!! i love making mistakes and fixing them later!!
THAT SAID for the things i did sit down and do, i like them (like the pieces here!)! and i'm glad i did them because its like! woaw! more data to work with! so im hoping to do more of that next year! sit down and let art come out! not everything needs to be bangers! things will click eventually! trust!!
so my goal for 2024 is to draw things out of my comfort zone (mostly backgrounds, maybe comics) even if it looks shite!!! no more fucking grid and gradient we are putting characters in LOCATIONS!!! and as a fun bonus it would be funny if each of my pieces in my art summary next year looks like it was made by a different person. because i think its funny to do that. and u should make urself laugh while doing anything :D (i love silly!!! yay!! yipee!! wahoo!!)
11 notes
·
View notes