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s1ithers · 1 year

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finished da:o at last. thinking about my assortment of half-developed warden ocs who never quite gelled the way hawke did and i feel like it's partly that i never hit on a sequence of endgame choices that really felt like a payoff. da:o is a such a great build-your-own-blorbo kit, you get such juicy character concepts out of the origin choice & reactivity but i'd always get an oc to mid-late game and feel like they were a bit dressed up with nowhere to go bc the ending just doesn't... really cap their arc in a way that feels satisfying

there's some good crunchy episodic drama contained within the treaty quests but in terms of the overall structure, the warden hits their lowest point at the beginning and you spend the game powering up until you win, pretty straightforwardly depending on your choices. like yeah the dark ritual is edgy sexist bullshit but you need it, you need something there.

like the first 2/3 are a great arc. hero leaves home in exile, goes around finding friends & adventure, returns home changed by said adventures, confronts their past, wrenching emotional ordeal etc, moves on as their new actualized self to take on the big bad. which is great except everything pretty much comes up warden from there on out. you need some kind of climax crunch to test that actualized self, another pain point at the end

which they tried to do, it just falls a bit flat for me. i've heard the 'grey warden must die' twist criticized as feeling sprung out of nowhere but i don't mind that so much. between the whole 'in death, sacrifice' thing, duncan & jory, sophia dryden, etc, i think it's pretty well set up that this is an organization with dark secrets that their two bumbling junior recruits know way too little about. i do think it's a bit stock. 'will you die to save the world?' just isn't that interesting, there's a plain right answer both ethics & genre are pointing you to, which more importantly is not really tied to your character at all.

like say what you will about da2 but the ending pays the hell off bc it forces hawke to show who they are. a person could justify making either decision, so who your hawke is matters. every bit of character development is leading up to how they'll jump in that moment

and then after dropping the warden sacrifice on you, dao immediately offers you an escape hatch, which, unless your warden is really fussed about blood magic or whatever, of course you're gonna take. structurally i think this decision is leeched of a lot of potential by the fact that both options are coming as new information.

new guy we just met: wait! there's a problem! morrigan: don't worry i fixed it! okay! on we go then! thanks morrigan

(could've been cool if alistair knew a warden had to die from the start, so you're struggling to go on with this journey, knowing how it ends, really get some time to stew on that before morrigan drops her bomb. the full relief of a stay of execution, plus 'you're only telling me this now?!' gives the warden a somewhat more sympathetic reason to feel betrayed than like, self-centered dickishness)

but more than that, the options the game gives you to object don't acknowledge what's really so awful about it. like you get 1) dark magic scary. part of a pattern in how i think this franchise tends to (mis)apply blood magic etc as a narrative device, but, like, good option to have for roleplay. 2) is oldgodbaby a bad idea? valid question but doesn't really go anywhere (and is more or less locked into being an anticlimax, can't be world-shaking as a choice-dependent outcome)

but like that post that was going around. what it means for morrigan is so wrenching. is it what she wants for herself or is she still acting out her mother's will? can the warden know, or believe they know? if they ask her to go through with it, are they complicit in flemeth's abuse? or are they overriding morrigan's agency if they refuse out of concern for her? how does your warden's origin & personality frame how they see this - what they're entitled to, what they owe, what they believe about duty & autonomy & respect, they're relationship with morrigan, & with magic, & their own impending death.

these people who are so young & so traumatized flailing around hurting each other in their good intentions. the dark ritual as this awful act of desperation & mixed motivations & regret that tears this hard-won friend group apart (especially if alistair is involved). saving the world as a good clean victory over evil in the grand scope, at the cost of this cataclysmic sacrifice on the personal level - so intimate, so devastating, so small. THAT'S drama.

#all of that said it's not a bad ending. this is all in the spirit of musings not haterism lol #as long as the goodbyes at the gate keep making me cry i can't knock it #replaying shook some things loose i think i'm finally closing in on my canon worldstate #on the whole da:o held up better than i was afraid it would #revisiting a few years on i'm really realizing how much my complaints abt the series were retroactively colored by da:i #da:o's got issues but it's pretty solid #kind of nice to remember that oh yeah i -did- get obsessed with this because i. you know. liked it #lmao #anyway let's see if i can get through awakening before i have to devote myself to putting 700 hours in darkest dungeon 2 next week #da

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mutable-manifestation · 2 years

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Part 3 of The Gotham Puddle Boy: Danny Fenton

(Ages bc I didn't clarify before: Jazz 18, Danny 16, Tim 17, Duke 15, Jason 20, Damian 12, Bruce 40, Alfred 70, Dick 25, Cassandra 20 - Idk anything about the Batman timeline or Cass so I'm winging it [ha, winging. Bats])

Duke POV

Duke shared a look with Tim as Jason - Jason - took over the conversation with Tim’s guest, wrangling prank details out of him and talking up Alfred’s cooking as he led the way to the dining area.

Danny lightly elbowed Jason as he suggested he take part in the prank, causing both Tim and himself to stiffen, but Jason only laughed despite the contact.

"Sure kid," and he snorted and ruffled his hair at the indignant 'I'm 16!' "Bruce could do with a little pranking. Tim already fill you in on the basics?"

"Yeah, I got an hour crash course basic family facts and which utensils to use when - which, yikes." The part of his face that Duke could see scrunched up in displeasure.

"You're playing the part of 'another adopted son that's already been here a while and how could he forget you.' You want my advice? Don't bother with utensil orders. Just eat however - the more comfortable you are the more convincing you are, at any rate. It's social engineering 101. Damian's the only one who really cares, anyway."

Danny took a moment to glance back at Tim, who shrugged. Danny shrugged as well.

"Sounds like a plan, J-man." At that, both of them grimaced.

"Just. Call me Jason - it's an inside joke. Bruce'll have a fit."

"Jason, got it."

At that point they arrived in the dining room, Damian and Cass already present.

"Danny, I presume?" Damian asked, zeroing in on the guy before he could even cross the threshold.

"That's me! Here to assist with all your parental pranking needs," he gave an exaggerated bow. "Nice to meet you - Damian and Cassandra, right?"

Cassandra gave a small wave in reply. Damian declined to answer, turning to Tim and raising a brow meaningfully before his eyes flicked behind them.

"Yep!" a bright voice chirped, causing the four of them to yelp and whip around. "I'm Dick - but we might want to save the chatting for after the prank since Bruce is finally on the way up."

Tim scrambled to sit next to Cass, shoving Danny into the seat next to him even as Dick chuckled and walked to his own seat next to Damian.

Duke settled down next to Dick, all of them trying not to stare as Jason sat directly next to Danny and started up a conversation, asking about the convention he'd mentioned earlier.

Dick openly stared before glancing at himself and Tim. They both shrugged.

Everyone cut off as the dining room door opened once more, Bruce finally arriving.

"Alright-" he cut off, staring straight at Danny - Alfred must have followed Tim's request to stay quiet after he'd texted Bruce that his friend had left an hour ago. He hastily plastered on a pleasant smile, asking, "And who is this?"

Danny immediately made a noise like he'd been shot, bursting into tears and curling into himself to bury his face in his hands.

Tim and Jason move as one, each rubbing a shoulder soothinly as the latter glared death at Bruce, who stiffened in place, visibly stuggling to maintain a neutral expression.

"You forgot Danny again?" Tim questioned incredulously.

"Of course he would, that unreliable leech is the most pathetic of the lot of you," Damian sneered at the sobbing boy.

"Damian." Dick reprimanded. Duke decided to focus on sinking into his chair, glancing breifly at Cass, who seemed content enough to simply observe the chaos.

"Well it's true."

"You-"

Dick's reply was cut off as Danny croaked out "It's o-okay. H-he's right anyway." Duke could almost admire how real he'd made it seem, progressing carefully from bursting into tears to slowly getting them under control.

"It is not," Jason spat. "It isn't your fault Bruce can't be bothered to pull his head of his work long enough to remember his family."

"IT IS!" Danny positively shrieked, jolting up out of his chair and knocking the hands from his shoulders to look Jason in the eye, tears visibly streaming down his face. "I-I'm not athletic and my grades are garbage no m-matter how much I try to fix them and I-I can't do anything right-!" His voice cracked on the word as he cut himself off, clenching his fists.

"I- excuse me," he said quietly, tossing the napkins he'd put in his lap onto his plate before weaving around the stunned Bruce and out the door. Alfred must have been nearby with the food as they could faintly hear him call out "Master Danny," at which Bruce's eyes widened a fraction as the other sat in silence a moment, stunned by the performance.

"I'm going after him," Tim and Jason spoke in unison, standing from their places.

"And what are you gonna say to him, Replacement," Jason sneers, "'Sorry Bruce doesn't care about you?' At least I know what it's like to be a throwaway Wayne," he stares dead at Bruce at the last bit, shouldering his way past the man as Tim sits frozen in place.

"Jason-" Bruce turns, cut off by the dining room door slamming shut in his face.

Bruce POV

Bruce had pulled all-nighters before - too often, according to Alfred. He was familiar with the effects, and hallucinations weren't meant to begin until hour 72; Bruce was barely on hour 30.

Despite that, Bruce had entered his dining room only to be faced with what was most definitely the boy he had seen vanish into a puddle the night before.

He was young, somewhere in the 15-to-20's range, though likely on the younger end. Bruce was relieved to see that he was okay, but suspicious. The water had tested normal every time, and while people did tend to respect his no metas rule this was likely a teenager - with the greater tendency to disregard authority that entailed.

Tim had said his friend had left already, and he was generally truthful. Still, with the sudden appearance of the boy the night after he'd seen him disappear into a puddle - and keeping in mind that it was well within Duke's abilities to manipulate light and make him appear to vanish - it was entirely possible they were playing a prank on him.

Still, better not to make assumptions. So he started simple: by attempting to prompt an introduction.

Instead of an introduction his question had been met with a deluge of tears and accusations that even Jason was taking part in. The boy's speech before disappearing was worrying - even if the context was wrong there was a hint of truth in every lie, and the lack of self-worth evident in his words….

But it was Jason's parting shot that hit him like a knife to the heart. As if he had ever wanted to lose his son - as if he ever wanted to lose any of them.

It was only Alfred opening the door not three seconds after Jason closed it that prevented him from spiraling further. Alfred might keep quiet and allow the kids to prank him, but he would never answer dishonestly, which meant he could make sure this wasn't some sort of mind control/memory alteration event.

"Alfred, have I ever adopted a boy named 'Danny?'"

"Not yet, Master Bruce."

"…Yet?"

Alfred merely glanced around the room at his children - black hair and blue eyes for all but Duke's black-and-brown - before pointedly raising a brow.

Bruce scowled before looking back at his children, noting the grimaces and hunched shoulders - "Who was that, really?"

"Danny," Tim spoke up, "The guest I mentioned earlier? He didn't really go home, I just texted everyone about him so we could prank you." He paused, winced. "I…didn't think about how the prank might hit a sore spot for Jason." He concluded grimly. At that, everyone grimaced.

Bruce took a breath before trudging on. "And the puddle incident last night, was that a prank as well?"

Dick, Duke, Tim, and Cass shared a look while Damian merely raised a brow. "No? Why would that be related?" Dick finally questioned.

"Because 'Danny' is the person I saw disappear into the puddle."

"Another meta?" Duke asked, perking up.

"Why come to Gotham, then?" Damian tagged on, face twisting in dissapproval.

"Because his parents dragged him here for an engineering convention," Tim filled in. "The one Jason was asking about earlier. If they don't know he's a meta he might not have been able to come up with an excuse to be allowed to stay home."

"Full name?" Bruce demanded.

"Danny Fenton," Tim answered, not missing a beat. "But seriously, Bruce. He's sixteen and he's only in town for a week because of his parents - and it's already been like three days. He's not doing anything - we literally spent four hours playing Damned-"

"Tim." Bruce cut him off, not looking away from his phone as he opened up a background check. "I'm not going to chase a random teenager out of Gotham - but if there's an outside meta in the city it doesn't hurt to know what to expect."

"Uh," Duke spoke up, "Not to put a damper on things but. Jason's been acting…weird."

"Weird how?"

"Not in a bad way!" Tim defended, "He's just been calm. Which is a nice change of pace! Maybe Danny has some kind of calming aura?"

"For Jason specifically?" Dick asked, raising a brow.

"But he wasn't calm," Duke says softly.

"Because he was confronted with a stranger in the house-"

"No," Duke cut off Tim's response, "He froze before either of you came into sight, before we could even hear your voices. I watched him stare at the stairway for a solid ten seconds before you ever came into view. And you saw how he wouldn't even talk until he suddenly just… switched to friendly-mode. A mode I didn't know he had, by the way. Isn't it odd that Jason is the only one affected less than 24 hours after Bruce sees the person likely causing the affect disappear into what he thought was Lazarus water?"

"You think he's related to the League of Assassins somehow?" Bruce narrowed his eyes, humming as he looked at the screen.

"We've been playing video games alone for four hours, Danny's been nothing but nice. And I'm the one who invited him here - he didn't ask about it, he was just leaving when I offered to hang out. And he had four hours to stab me if he wanted to and didn't." Tim shot back.

"Still, it won't hurt to run a quick background check while he and Jason cool down - every lie has a grain of truth," He frowned sadly, thinking back on Jason's words, "And unless that was scripted they probably both need a minute."

The room winced, frozen quietly in place as Alfred passed out the food and Bruce typed away.

Danny POV

Danny scrubbed his eyes as he retreated to 'his' room - a guest room he and Tim had spent some of their prep time making look lived in earlier. It was the designated retreat room for after he completed his tearful speech - Tim would follow soon enough to tell him if Bruce was actually falling for it or if he should drop the joke and come say hi.

He tried to tell himself that it was only for dramatic effect when he slammed the door behind him. He slid down the adjacent wall to hug his knees to his chest, doing his best to ignore the pang in his chest in favor of thinking about the look on Bruce Wayne's face when he'd fled the room.

He heard a few doors open and close before 'his' door opened, and he looked up to find Jason looking down at him instead of Tim - expression just as heavy as Danny's.

"Hey," he said, taking a glance around. "Nice digs."

Danny snorted. "Thanks. What happened, I thought Tim was going to come get me?"

Jason closed the door behind him, sliding down to sit crisscross on the floor against it in an echo of Danny not ten seconds earlier. "Prank's probably canceled. I said something that… hit a little too close to home." He grimaced.

"Yeah." Danny muttered, looking away from him to stare blankly at the window a moment.

His brows drew down as he mulled that over, pushing away his own feelings for the moment. Tim had mentioned the rooms were soundproof, so with it just being him and Jason, now was the best time to ask.

He turned to rest his head on his knees, looking at Jason as he asked, "Do they know?"

"Know?" Jason echoed, turning to look him in the eyes.

"You know," Danny said, flashing green eyes.

Jason jolts out of his seated position, putting another ten feet between them even as he sees his own eyes flash green from a mirror in the corner of his vision.

The feeling of calm and safety hasn't disappated but he won't let that stop him from reacting.

"You're from the League?" he questions, even though it sounds wrong the moment he so much as thinks it.

"What?" Danny asks, baffled. "I don't think the Justice League accepts scrawny teenagers."

"What? No! The League of Assassins!"

"…isn't that one of the optional add-on groups for Dragons and Dragons?"

"What? NO!" Jason runs a hand through his hair in exasperation. "Okay, what is anyone supposed to 'know' here? Something about Lazarus water?"

"Lazarus water? Is that like, some kind of alternative holy water?" Danny's face scrunches up before he shakes his head. "Whatever, not the point. I mean 'Do they know you're liminal?'"

"Liminal." Jason echoes again, face blank before his eyes narrow. "Does that have something to do with why I felt like I was about to be murdered before you introduced yourself?"

Danny freezes, face cycling through embarrassment, confusion, and realization before settling on dawning horror as he paled. "YOU don't know? You don't know? Ancients. Okay. Alright, okay, quick question - a few questions. They are very important and you need to answer honestly."

Jason narrows his eyes at the demand, "What?"

"Okay, starter: your eyes just flashed green-" Jason stiffened, blinking "-were you aware that happens?"

"Maybe my eyes just look green in different lighting," he deflects, "why do you want to know?"

"Because I want to help you," Danny says grimly. "Because if you're liminal and you don't know then you're in danger. And you are liminal - I couldn't sense you until I saw you because your signature is so small but it's obvious to anyone with the ability or the technology for it. And I'm sure you could sense me even before that. You thought I was 'going to murder you' because your liminal instincts told you that I could have-" Jason tensed. "-and you relaxed because I satisfied that liminal part of you's fear by making it clear that I wouldn't - that I won't. That I was - am friendly."

"Great. If you don't want to murder me then why does being 'liminal' put me in danger."

"Because it doesn't matter how small your ecto-signature is, the fact that you have one at all classifies you as an ecto-entity-"

"'Ecto?'" Jason cuts him off, raising a brow.

"As in ectoplasm; the thing ghosts are made of."

Jason flinches as if slapped. "Ghosts aren't real. I'm not a ghost. I'm alive."

Danny's face softens, and Jason hates it. "You aren't a ghost. But something happened - whether it was… an injury… of some kind, or a contamination by exposure."

Memories of his death play behind Jason's eyes, along with memories of his revival, hazy agony-fear-confusion weaving through each like a nightmarish mockery of a carousel.

"You have an ecto-signature, which means you're maintaining your own ectoplasm levels by producing it. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, your ecto-signature means that the Anti-Ecto Acts apply to you. Which is why I need you to tell me if you've noticed any suspicious guys in white suits and sunglasses around recently - or if you've tried to donate any blood since… whatever caused this, if you know?"

"Anti-Ecto Acts?" Jason asks, mind still reeling.

"I'll be happy to explain, but the other two things are way more urgent if we want to avoid being vivisected-"

"IF WE WHAT!?" Jason shouts, grabbing at the weapons in his pockets to calm himself.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm just so used to that kind of threat I didn't think about how it might be…concerning to hear. Look, I won't let anyone vivisect you. The GIW are incompetent idiots anyway. But if you get on their radar and they know your identity it'll be a problem - assuming you want to keep your current life and identity instead of changing your name and moving to Mexico or something. So: white suits, blood donations? Any yeses?"

"I-no."

"Great! Then let's walk through the Anti-Ecto Acts, starting with your new classification in the eyes of the government as a non-sentient being incapable of experiencing thoughts or feelings - or pain!"

-----

Anyway my tags got put in a different order on two other posts so sorry if they look wonky :\

#Danny’s human form does to Duke what it does to ghost equipment #ghost shield don’t work on human Danny #wonky vision stuff doesn’t see anything on human Danny #unless Duke like #cut him open and used microscope vision to see the ectoplasm mixed with his internal stuff #(hc ghost shields don’t work on human Danny bc his human form hides all of the ectoplasm under his human skin)#Ofc if Danny had become Phantom at any point in the minutes before his light-time vision would have clocked him #But he's been playing video games w/Tim for hours now #So he just looks normal #again dunno much about dcu so like #hc possibly just cannon: Jason generally reacts angrily &/or violently to any casual physical contact #but like his internal not-a-blob ghost won't register humans as friendlies so that doesn't help #it will register Danny as a friendly though #Jason just found a walking chill pill #Blob ghosts are very tactile with friendlies #Jason's not-a-blob ghost is about to be lol #Jason may not be a halfa but he's ghost enough for Danny to sense #(when he's close at least. Jason's ecto signature is smol)#But he's definitely ghost enough for the Anti-Ecto Acts to apply if the GIW find him #so #mentions of vivisection

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