#when did he have a earring | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starry-bi-sky · 6 months

Note

I am absolutely loving your Danyal Al Ghul au. While I have a soft spot for the whole plotline of Danny becoming his canon personality almost right after breaking away from the LOA all because of Jazz, I'm just as much for your take in which he goes through the same character development as Damian.

Now I'm curious. You already tackled his relationship with Dani, will you eventually take a stab at when he, Sam, and Tucker meet Gregor? Given that it's one of my hated episodes as I couldn't stand Sam's infuriatingly hypocritical attitude to Danny's suspicions of him, I'd kill to see your spin on it.

Aw, thank you! Danyal Al Ghul aus are what got me into DPDC first, so I have a major soft spot for them. That being said, uh, its exactly that soft spot that causes me to have Many Opinions about the trope you just mentioned. Like the trope is all fine and dandy, i don't blindly hate it, my main issue with it is that most aus i've seen treat his backstory as an ex-assassin more like a pretty cosmetic accessory rather than something that actually should have had an impact on him. Especially if he remembers being in the league.

Like i cannot stress enough the fact that being in an ecofascist assassin cult (regardless of his standing in it) should've left him, in some way or another, screwed up morally and psychologically because that's just how development works. Nature vs. Nurture is like a game of tug-o-war that never ends, where they are constantly fighting against each other and one side usually has the upper hand or greater influence. Children model the behaviors of the adults around them (ex: bobo the clown doll experiment), and what impacts them in childhood can stick with them permanently.

Like how my psychology professor put it: a baby's brain is like wet cement; if you slap your hand on it, it leaves an imprint, and the cement dries that way. The same rings true for small children.

I could go on, but I frankly have so many thoughts on that alone that I would end up completely derailing from the second half of your ask, and I don't want to be more critical than I already have. Especially since you just mentioned you have a soft spot for the trope.

[Okay, hold onto your hats because this is long. Naturally lmao.]

Gregor! Man, I'll admit I last watched the show back in middle school on a dodgy illegal website (it had surprisingly good audio and visual graphics, and full episodes. But really annoying porn ads.) but I only made it to like season 1 before my hyperfixation faded and I lost interest. So I never actually saw the Gregor episode.

But... it is relatively easy to find free websites that stream Danny Phantom :), so finding the episode took me like. Thirty seconds. Plus the Tv.Tropes recap page because my damn earbuds just died and im out in public as of rn.

I'm not sure if I'll write something for the gregor episode like I did with Dani, since Dani's a bit of a special case in that she's a clone and tends to be a reoccurring presence in DPDC, and I thought the new dynamic with Danyal would be interesting.

Plus, I'm not a big amethyst ocean shipper for the pure reason of I'm just not all that interested in it; its kinda bland to me. I'll admit I've entertained the thought in this au due to the whole balcony scene i wrote, but I would've entertained the thought anyways if it was Tucker in that position instead. Big multishipper, me.

But, if I had to make it official? Danyal is not interested romantically in Sam when the Gregor episode happens, regardless of his relationship with Valerie. Who, speaking of I'm trying to think about how that would go, and I'm torn between including him almost-dating Valerie or not.

Because on one hand it helps point out Sam's hypocrisy (and i love her but i am always happy to point out her flaws and address them in au) in this episode in terms of Danny spying on them, but on the other hand I'll want to include a lot of set up in order to make Gray Ghost work in this au and wow will that take a while.

Especially with the Flirting with Disaster episode because it happens due to Technus' meddling, and Danny is, well, the son of the Batman? A trained assassin? An ex-assassin nonetheless, but still an assassin? A prodigy child in this au? He might not have needed to use most of his skills in the last few years, but like... there's just a bunch of 'what if' and 'well technically...' and 'would he? he could, but would he?' things that is getting in the way of my thought process and making my head spin.

Mmm. Okay. Flirting with Disaster occurs relatively the same as canon with a few exceptions; like Danyal noticing the strange coincidences, and he might take the idea into proper consideration because Sam has a point it is strange, especially out of nowhere.

However,,, he really enjoys Valerie's company, and he does really like her. He's been adjusting to civilian life for the last four years and while he's made a lot of progress, he's still. an ex-assassin child living like a wolf amongst sheep. This is normal, typical teenager stuff, and usually his friends like to encourage him doing normal teenager stuff.

So he's stubbornly holding out on the thought that this is normal, that ghost stuff isn't interfering here. He's a little hurt that his friends are discouraging this, he's not bothered by the fact that Valerie is a ghost hunter and he a ghost -- his mother is an assassin, and his father is Batman, and they still had a relationship. (Granted, he's not gonna tell them that)

If anything, being diametrically opposed to each other but still being in love is part of the family! Granted, usually both parties are aware of said opposition to each other, but he'll make a special exception this time around.

(And man now that i'm thinking about gray ghost, im now thinking about various like. scenes i could write between the two of them. maybe in a reblog.)

Anyways uhhh things relatively go the same as canon. Yeah. I think Sam still has a crush on Danny and still spies out of jealousy with Tucker.

Now, the Gregor episode! With that out of the way; the TVTropes recap for this episode isn't the best because it doesn't go into detail about the entire episode like it does with Flirting With Disaster and Shades of Gray.

(which i looked at earlier because I made a section of this post talking briefly about what changes I'd make to the Shades of Gray episode to help set up Gray Ghost, but ended up deleting because it was kinda irrelevant for the matter at hand.)

So I'm taking in bits of the episode clips at a time, I'll try not to get too nitpicky about how each scene goes because then it's gonna take me a longer time to write this.

But! First thing's first; since Danny is not romantically interested in Sam, he is also not jealous of Gregor. He is however, a bit eyebrow-raisey at him in their first introduction, but that's because Gregor is coming off as obnoxious.

Danny thinks he's kinda annoying, and it doesn't take a genius to see that Gregor is trying to impress Sam. But since they've only known him for five minutes he takes the good faith assumption and assumes that Gregor is genuinely trying to show interest in Sam's interests too because he likes her, so he keeps mum. The fake hungarian accent is weird, but it's overall harmless, so he doesn't point it out.

He does do the spying thing when he starts suspecting that Gregor might be working for the GIW. The episode only has this happen twice, but for the au this happens a handful of more times over the course of the week, with Danyal's suspicion steadily rising more and more each time.

Hah, when he brings up wanting to spy on Sam and Gregor because of this reason, Tucker still does his "woah! you wanna spy on Sam?" thing.

Danny immediately turns to him, completely unimpressed, and crosses his arms. "Tucker," he says, deadpan, "you and Sam spied on me and Valerie."

He uses a combination of his ghost powers and his regular stealth ability to spy on them. He's hiding in a tree when they're skipping rocks, close enough that he can use his powers to hear them talk but far enough away that he has a good view of their surroundings.

He's invisible in the cinema, but doesn't accidentally get in front of the projector. He checks the inside of the room for the GIW, and then waits outside the actual room itself, keeping an eye on the area and occasionally flying in to watch the movie out of boredom. It reminds him of being back on a recon mission with the League, but it doesn't end with him orchestrating someone's death.

Then when they're at the mall he stays in human form, blending in with the crowd. He runs into the GIW there, but realizes that they're not there because of Gregor; they're just shopping. They didn't show up at either of the last two locations, and he follows them to make sure they're not also trying to blend in. But they're literally just there for shopping.

Danny is rather pleased with this turnout; so far Gregor isn't a spy, he's just annoying. The next day at lunch he asks Sam how her date with Gregor went, and that's how she figures out he spied on them, because well, she didn't tell him that.

"Have you been spying on me?"

Danny messes with his food a little bit, and Tucker is sinking into his seat with embarrassment. He frowns, "Only last night. Those incompetent government dodos--"

His lip curls up; he gets all 'Shakespeare-y' (as Sam and Tucker put it) when he's insulting someone, "--kept appearing whenever Gregor did. I followed you and him last night to make sure he wasn't a spy."

A roundabout way of saying, "I was worried".

Sam is, as canon, furious. Danny understands why, he knows generally speaking that people don't like being spied on. But he's confused on just how angry she is, and is a little irritated by it.

"Why would you do that!" She exclaims, "That's way out of line, Danny."

"How? You spied on me when I was going on dates with Valerie." He narrows his eyes, and points his fork at her, "I'm not blind, I noticed."

"That's different, we told you why we were suspicious. And we don't have ghost powers like you do."

"I don't need ghost powers to sneak around, Sam, you've seen this firsthand. And I just told you why I followed you, I thought he was working with the guys in white--"

"So you think someone can only be interested in me if they're after you?" (this is a paraphrased quote, folks ;D)

"No! If that was the case I would have voiced my concern the moment I thought it. I don't get why you're so angry, you spied too."

Iiits.... a mess. Sam storms off with Gregor, Tucker tags along because okay, yeah, maybe Gregor isn't with the GIW, or maybe last night was a fluke. Either way he ends up tagging along. Danny overhears that conversation between the GIW and Mr. Lancer, and maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong; but something is up.

I've gotten to that scene in the locker room where Gregor tells Danny that he knows he doesn't like him, and I've paused at Danny's reply to say this: Danyal doesn't even bother trying to deny it.

"I know you do not like me."

"You're right; I don't."

"Ah, let me finish. I know you do not like me because you want to protect your friend, Sam, and I respect that."

"...That's correct."

"Good! Because I am going to ask her out."

"I had a feeling you'd say that," he stands up, claps his hand tight on Gregor's shoulder, and leans close to him with a threatening smile, "so you understand me when i say; if you break my best friend's heart, you're as good as dead, right?"

"Ah,, yes. I am so glad we got that cleared out of the way, and now I hope after we can.. how you Americans put it, hang out?"

In the episode he hugs Danny and gives him a la bise (which is that french greeting where you kiss someone on the cheek two or more times) after they end their conversation. But here, when he goes to do that to Danyal, Danny leans away, points an accusatory finger at him, and says; "Absolutely not; we are not close."

The next scene after that is like, end of day. Sam, Tucker, and Gregor walking away. Sam looks over her shoulder to glare at Danny, then gets forlorn. Tucker looks back and just looks forlorn.

(When did I start narrating each scene?? Eh, I'm writing this in brief spurts of time throughout the day. Don't fix what's not broke)

After that there's this whole scene with the two GIW agents that have been chasing Phantom all episode. They're there because they have Tucker's PDA that Skulker took, and it's got the information of their purple backed gorilla assignment on it. They've been going around seeing who Tucker associates with in hopes of catching Phantom.

Uhh ahaha and that is where this gets a little interesting imo, and also allows me to mention that im retconning Danyal's (already) redesigned ghost form. Which I've wanted to retcon even before this moment bc it was just too busy. I'll get to that in a moment.

The GIW suspect Gregor for being the Phantom because of his white hair and green eyes, which is all fine and dandy until you remember: Danyal (and by extension Phantom) has that very noticeable, rather identifiable facial scar that goes across the middle of his fucking face. The GIW could easily suspect that Phantom hides his scar with makeup if he's in disguise, but if they meet a kid with a seemingly identical facial scar and similar disposition? Hoo boy.

Solution? I've got two: Gregor is canonically a kid from Michigan who faked everything to impress Sam. Considering he knows she's gothic and knows that she's ultra-recyclo vegetarian? He probably watched her from afar or got information on her somehow. His hair is dyed, his eyes might just naturally be green, but if he notices that she's got a crush on either Danyal or Phantom? A little sfx makeup could help him recreate a similar looking scar.

My second solution that's gonna happen anyways bc its that suit redesign; Danyal does hide his face as Phantom. Ghosts are emotional creatures and its a popular headcanon that their interests, ambitions, etc, influence the way they look as a ghost, not just their death. A big reoccurring theme of my au is that Danyal did not leave the League unscathed, and that being an assassin is an important part of his identity.

So i'm discarding the hazmat suit look entirely and leaning into the 'assassin' thing. But the general (stylized) feel is like, white ribbon/cloth vambraces that he has used as a garrote at some point, a hood, a gaiter scarf-type thing. I'm keeping the cape. I did a doodle a few days back that's not the official redesign, but a redesign for Phantom. I may reblog this post with that attached because it's got the general feel down. There's very little white involved, but the inside of his cape flares out and looks like the night sky.

Now, the hood and gaiter scarf gets rid of most of the problem, but Danny's hood doesn't stay on all the time, so the GIW have likely seen the upper half of the scar. :] Gregor's own drawn-on scar doesn't have to be 1:1, but it looks close enough, right? A small scar cutting through the edge of his brow and ends right below the corner of his eye. A 'cool, badass' one opposed to Danny's 'garish' scar.

But! Back to the episode scene. Canon Danny gets written off as being 'too prepubescent' to be Phantom, and honestly it'd be hilarious if Danyal was written off for the same reason (he's calling them idiots in his head if they do). But instead -- leaning into the GIW's incompetence here -- he gets written off as being too mature or too talkative. Or something equally as absurd.

Sam breaks up with Gregor for canon reasons, but when Gregor does his "i really like you, but, come on-!" and gestures to tucker, he adds on "and that scary friend of yours too, seriously!"

Things go relatively the same as canon after that. Danny does end up apologizing for spying, however. Sam does it first. Sorrows, prayers, all that.

Things usually end up changed or different when I actually write it down, so I'd likely add more or adjust different scenes according to the flow of the oneshot. This is just like, a general vibe of how things would go, and where some of the more obvious changes would be if I did write this oneshot.

Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the ask :]

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dpxdc crossover #danyal al ghul au #danyal al ghul #i dont even mind the trope that danny becomes like his canon self i just want *some* kind of impact on him. but as it stands most aus i've #seen lowkey treat his assassin background as an accessory. like dyeing your hair or piercing your ears. that being said its also a silly #au where they're brothers and are related to each other and thus doesn't have to be that deep at all! im just bored of seeing the same thin #all the time. especially considering danny is usually depicted as the paler/whiter passing twin and being the 'kinder. more compassionate'#one between the two of them. give me danny who suffered crises of morality! danny whose morally darker than a cloud #morally orange and blue danny who sooner understands 'dont litter' than 'dont murder'. arrogant danny! he dotes on the people he loves but #is an utter bitch to everyone else and thus has to learn to be kinder. danny discovering himself outside being an assassin #his brother remembers a kind and compassionate older brother because thats how danny interacted with him. But danny had no qualms turning #around and slicing the tendons of one of the other assassins because of smth they did that displeased him.#he can still be like his canon self but shouldn't there be something that stays behind? Lingering like a blast shadow?#danny who carries weapons on him always even though he knows he doesn't need it but it makes him feel safer.#danny who spits out the oddest. most foreboding shit sometimes and his friends just stare at him and go 'bro what the fuck??'#idk if i can share the website where i found the episodes bc of risk of copyright. but just search up #'where can i watch danny phantom for free' and look for a reddit post with that question. the comments give website options.#i keep thinking about gray ghost now. valerie finds herself becoming a member of the 'danny fenton protection squad' with sam and tucker #danny takes a page from his beloved mother's book and calls his partners 'beloved' and equally sappy pet names.#he also throws the BIGGEST shitstorm of the century when he finds out about what Axion Labs did to the dogs. hoo boy.

204 notes · View notes

royalarchivist · 9 months

Text

Oscurucho: Welcome back, brother. Cucurucho: What. Oscurucho: Not even a "Good morning"? How cold.

Here's Cucurucho and Oscurucho's long lore conversation from yesterday! The entire conversation lasted about 8 minutes, but most of that time was just silence between each exchange, so I edited out the long pauses and got it down to ~3 minutes. I also fixed the audio levels and added subtitles since I personally find it difficult to understand Oscurucho sometimes :'D

I hope folks find this helpful!

[ Subtitle Transcript ↓ ]

Oscurucho: Welcome back, brother.

Cucurucho: What.

Oscurucho: Not even a "Good morning"? How cold.

[They enter Cucurucho's office]

Oscurucho: I wanted to see if you're still as rigid in your beliefs as ever. You see, I've been thinking about our... Let's call it "philosophical divergence." You stand for order, for predictability. But where's the fun in that? You see, brother, while you build, I ponder the beauty in tearing down. It's not just destruction - it's rebirth. A chance to remake things in a more... thrilling image.

[...]

Oscurucho: You once had a backbone for our cause. Now, I see a softness in you, a sentimental weakness for those Eggs. Mere experiments, and yet - they've softened you.

Cucurucho: Your vision obstructs the path to perfection. You fail to understand the potential of the Eggs.

Oscurucho: Potential? They're but catalysts for change - for revolution. Without them, stagnation reigns.

[...]

Oscurucho: You chase perfection, I embrace the beauty of flaws. Your world is one of order, mine thrives in chaos. You wish for everything to run smoothly, I dream of watching it all burn to the ground. We may share a name, but our souls are worlds apart. All your efforts, all for what? Mere acknowledgment from a Duck who told you to do it? Imagine the possibilities - rather, show me where it is, and I'll do the rest.

[...]

Oscurucho: Speaking of possibilities, I couldn't help but notice how easily others can access the island. It seems your security measures aren't as impenetrable as you think.

Cucurucho: No. My island's vulnerabilities are of your own making. Do not mistake restraint for ignorance.

Oscurucho: Pity. But then again, I never really needed your approval. Just consider: Cucurucho - in your quest for order, have you not sown the seeds of your own undoing? Do you genuinely trust all your Federation minions?

Cucurucho: ...

Oscurucho: Perhaps it's time you question not just my intentions, but those who you believe stand with you.

Cucurucho: That is none of your business, I shall say. Now, leave me alone and try to disturb someone else.

#Cucurucho #Oscurucho #QSMP #December 21 2023 #Edited #Subtitles #For those who like knowing the gritty details and specifics about the things I did for this video -#I adjusted Cucurucho's volume because they were very quiet compared to Oscurucho #I fixed the sound direction (for lack of a better word) of Oscurucho's voice b/c he was speaking through my right headphone 90% of the time #so now it's more of a ''centered'' audio rather than a right ear or left ear thing #I added subtitles (obviously)#I fixed the camera a bit so it's more focused on Cucurucho / Oscurucho #and I adjusted the translator box so that even with the crop; they're all still included #usually they get cut out when I edit things because I'm just focused on the characters; but then one day I was like #''Why am I cropping out this thing that specifically helps people understand the story better?''#So moving forward I'll see if I can do what I did here and add translation boxes as their own ''layer'' overlaying the clip itself #for big lore videos anyways or for clips with long conversations at least #I jokingly said to myself ''I bet I'll wind up shaving 5 minutes off this'' and I was right lol #I enjoy the official QSMP streams but one major critique I have is that the pacing was a bit slow in one or two streams #which is understandable considering many admins have to write in books (which takes time) and translate things (which takes even more time)#And that's valid! But in the last stream (the one with Elena) for example; many scenes dragged on far too long #and it wasn't because people were taking extra long to write books or translate things. It was purely a matter of pacing #idk I'm a professional writer and editor so I'm extra nitpicky about things like that. I think it's something that's pretty easy to fix tho #This is just my critique in terms of the story pacing - like I said; the time it takes them to write / translate stuff is understandable #this is more of a comment on the overall pacing #anyways rant over #Today's stream had much better pacing! Still a bit slow (again; I cut 5 minutes from this conversation)#but that's due to the communication medium (TTS) so that's understandable. That's valid. I'm not fussed about it; that felt natural #Take all the time you need kings it's hard to translate things on the fly. I get it.#Portfolio

161 notes · View notes