#{ this is also the beginning of his moms redemption arc }

[skamenglishsubs]

Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 3, Episode 3

Episode 3 picks up the day after the camping trip, and Wilhelm calls his mom to check on her. She dumps a massive guilt trip on him, maybe unintentionally, and Wilhelm is feeling a little bit down.

Culture: These are Swedish studentmössor. They originated in the 1800's among Nordic university students and they wore them as a common marker. Later, they were adopted as graduation caps for high school students, signifying that they were now allowed to begin studying at a university.

Culture: Valborg, April 30th, is a traditional Swedish holiday where you celebrate the coming of spring with bonfires. It is also the start of graduation season for high school students, and graduates are allowed to start wearing their caps.

Cinematography: This season they started writing most on-screen social media commentary in English, despite those users being pretty obviously Swedish. I suspect it's because it saves them having to subtitle all of them, it makes it a bit easier for all the viewers to follow along.

Subtext: No, keeping up appearances is more important than mental health for the royal family, which is why this is new behaviour that Wilhelm has never seen before.

Subtext: As a reminder of the increased interest, here's a paparazzi intruding on school grounds. Also, where the hell is Malin? Isn't it her job to shoo away photographers?

Culture: Vintern Rasat is a classic Swedish song celebrating spring that's often performed by student singers at Valborg.

Subtext: Boris cleverly offers August individual therapy, something he sorely needs.

Subtext: It's of course a bit ironic that pretty much the entire fandom hates August and has decided that he can't be forgiven or redeemed. Yes, you, dear reader. But Boris lays out a way for August to start his redemption arc. Will it work? Tune in for next week's episode!

Culture: These usernames reek of white supremacy. Norse mythology references are very popular, and 88 means H*il H*tler, so that's the kind of people we're dealing with. The show is also foreshadowing what's gonna happen at the end of the episode.

Blink and you miss it: Linda made Pabellón, a Venezuelan dish. In season 1 we didn't know where Linda was from, but in season 2 she was canonically made as being from Venezuela, just like Omar is in real life.

Subtext: I think August actually cares, Kristina is family to him too, but Wilhelm refuses to treat him as family, so he lies about how she's doing. Not very convincingly, though.

Cinematography: This is an absolutely hilarious shot with a bunch of students anxiously peering out through the windows as the dreaded enemy arrives: Skolinspektionen! Dun-dun-dun!

Blink and you miss it: There's a rainbow flag on the board to the left.

Subtext: Vanessa totally knew she interrupted a makeout session between our boys. Oh, and there's a lot of purple in these two scenes, colour theory exploded with joy.

Subtext: Simon will be proven wrong, someone will be honest.

Subtext: It's also ironic that Simon joins the rest of the Forest Ridge boys pretending to have a great meal together that is totally not stiff and awkward at all, absolutely not.

Lost in translation: Simon Walter says that May 1st is a "röd dag" - a red day, which is how Sundays and public holidays are usually marked in a Swedish calendar. "Bank holiday" is the term used in the UK for public holidays. There are 13 public holidays in Sweden each year.

Culture: Första Maj is the name of the International Workers' Day in Sweden, because it always occurs on May 1st. In defence of Henry and Walter's shared braincell, most Swedes actually don't participate, but it's a bit weird to not even know what it is.

Subtext: This entire sequence shows how Felice's dad tried to stick up for himself, but quickly learned to keep his head down instead and conform and roll with it. And it wasn't just the other students who were racists, the staff was in on it too. This goes for all the shit the students are doing, the partying, the booze, the alcohol, the bullying: The staff is in on it. They know. They're complicit.

And despite all of this, Poppe's immediate answer when asked how his time at Hillerska was, is that it was the best time of his life. This is why schools like this stay the way they are, why they never change, because they're very good and very bad at the same time. Trauma-bonding works, the kids will all get friends for life, they'll forget the shit and remember the good times. They'll become like him.

But when Felice learns what the school did to her dad, she decides to help shut it down, to stop the cycle of abuse. The reason she goes in alone is because she now knows she can't trust her dad, he's gonna defend the school, and she also doesn't want him to know that she snitched.

Subtext: In official surveys, students from schools like this generally rate them very highly. Student satisfaction is very high. Maybe they're lying, maybe they're delusional, but they sure care more about their schools than public school students.

Blink and you miss it: REAL SUBTLE THERE, SHOW.

Subtext: Keeping with the school theme, this is how students defend the shit that goes on. Outsiders are kept in the dark, you don't tell them anything, because they "wouldn't understand", they're missing the "full context", etc. Oh, I don't know shit about fashion, but Fredrika's jacket smells very expensive.

Blink and you miss it: While Wilhelm pinned a polaroid of himself and Simon prominently on his wall, August keeps a similar polaroid of himself and Sara hidden.

Subtext: Micke's redemption arc is in full swing, so why not play a song that reinforces the idea that people can change?

Subtext: August's redemption arc is in full swing, so let's cut to him nervously waiting outside Micke's place for Sara to come home, while the same song is playing. Is he gonna be a villain forever?

Blink and you miss it: Micke introduces himself as Micke af Eriksson when August introduces himself as August Horn af Årnäs. The English subtitles for some weird reason went with "Micke Eriksson of Bjärstad", but that's actually not what he says.

Subtext: Sara is pretty realistic about her expectations of her dad because she's seen this before, but this also applies to her expectations of August, because she knows that he can also slide back into his normal shitty self. Also, she's wearing a purple sweater.

Subtext: In case you forgot, August's dad also struggled with addiction, and died from it, so he and Sara actually has that in common. Maybe there's hope for this redemption arc thing?

Cinematography: I don't fucking know why they included this baking scene. It serves no purpose, and I suspect quite a few people in the production have a serious hand fetish, because what is this? What is this? Also, why are Simon and Wilhelm joining what appears to be a Manor House thing with the rest of the girls? How? Why? This makes no sense! It's very cute, though!

Subtext: Oh ok, we got a social media pic that Sara could see and feel bad for her lost friendships. But man, those Hillerska aprons! On point!

Subtext: This is unfortunately a very common thing for people on any kind of psychoactive medication. How can you tell if you need medication if you feel good right now? Is it lasting or temporary? Can you trust your own brain? Either way, fantastic conversation between Micke and Sara, which starts her on her journey to reconcile with Felice at least.

🎵 I can change, I'm not the same, not forever. 🎵

Culture: The official hat-on-putting ceremony where all the third-year students put on their hats, set to another traditional Swedish spring celebration song: Vårvindar Friska.

Culture: It's Valborg, so Hillerska has their own little bonfire. We saw some students with torches pretending to light it, but it's actually floating in the middle of the fountain so, uh, how did they do that? Normally, your local bonfire or Majbrasa is just a huge heap of wood that you set on fire.

Cinematography: Man, this is a pretty show. Look at that shot. The fire, the sunset, the pool reflection. The end of April is over a month after the spring equinox, so the days are getting longer, and the sun now sets at about half past nine in the evenings.

Subtext: Ok, let's do one more on-the-nose lyrics thing for when August sees Sara back at school. Yes, yes, he needs her.

Culture: I had to post about it immediately after watching the episode, because setting a sex scene to Uti Vår Hage is hilarious. Everyone in Sweden knows it, most people have sung it at school, it's a cute little song about enjoying your garden, flowers, and giving your loved one a wreath of flowers. I can now never hear this song without thinking about this scene. Thanks a lot, show.

Blink and you miss it: Simon fucks Wilhelm. Yay! Versatile supremacy!

Subtext: Sara is still so suspicious of her dad's behaviour, she can't make herself trust that his current good period will last.

Subtext: Even though this dialogue is about how Simon and Sara are so different, it of course also applies to how Wilhelm and Erik were different, because Wilhelm struggles with not being able to handle his duty the same way Erik could.

Culture: Alright, it's time for the actual local Första Maj event in Bjärstad. The town is probably a bit small to have a proper demonstration parade, but there's people with banners and socialist slogans, and a bunch of local organisations have joined in, including Bjärstad BK, the football club Rosh plays in.

Culture: Meanwhile, the absolutely not socialist rich kids at Hillerska are nursing their hangovers and enjoying the day off, and they're doing some yoga and playing some padel instead. As you do.

Subtext: Drugs. He looks like he's selling drugs.

Culture: These apparently confused a bunch of viewers, but they're just raffle tickets. It's one hundred numbered, rolled up, paper tickets stuck on a metal ring. When you buy a ticket you just tear it off at the perforation, and when all tickets are sold you can just break the seal on the ring and pour all the stubs in a bag or whatever so you can draw winners.

Blink and you miss it: Cute kiddo has a pride pin on his jacket.

Lost in translation: The show waited a bit with showing what it says on the banner behind them in the photo, but if you can read Swedish you immediately saw that it says KROSSA ÖVERKLASSEN - CRUSH THE UPPER CLASSES. Oh no, Simon, what have you done?

Blink and you miss it: Like a pack of rabid wolves, the social-media starved Gen Z kids rush to their phones for an hour of glorious feeding on Instagram and TikTok.

Blink and you miss it: I love Vincent so much, he's terrible, but he's just so much fun! The little fist he makes as he says "kampen" just seals it.

Subtext: The show still hasn't revealed the banner text to the non-Swedish audience, but Wilhelm immediately sees it and knows how bad it is and why Farima tried calling him seven times. Also, Vincent is just on a roll here.

Cinematography: Man, this is a pretty show. Look at that shot. Look at how they perfectly aligned the hole in the window with Simon, the police car, and the entrance to their house, as he discovers that someone decided to vandalize it.

[kitkats-and-kittens]

I hate both the ways fannon (and now cannon) is slowly beginning to present the Al Ghuls.

On one hand you have the people who make Ra’s and Talia almost cartoonishly evil. Which is annoying because it does a disservice to both their characters, is usually rooted in very racist stereotypes and is also used to present Damian’s family as two conflicting sides. You’ve got his evil, horrible, no good Al Ghul family roots and then his perfect, holier than thou batfamily side.

Its especially annoying because in recent comics the batfamily hasn’t been treating him much better. With the amount of times he’s just up and left on secret missions you think they’d be taking care of the literal 14 year old. It’s just so dumb and incredibly one dimensional.

Then on the other hand you have people who absolve them of all guilt. Although I love good Grandfather Ra’s Al Ghul and good mom Talia it’s still not entirely accurate. I prefer it to making them just unrealistically evil, but you can like these characters and still accept that Damian was abused by them.

Ik Dc struggled with media literacy, but despite how it’s presented online abusive situations are not nearly as cut and dry as shown on TV. It’s not always ‘oh my dad beats me every day and I hate him’. Sometimes parents love their kids despite being bad for them, sometimes kids love their parents despite the way they’re treated. Sometimes these situations resolve themselves and sometimes they don’t.

I’ve always seen Damian’s relationship with Ra’s and Talia as complex and maybe I’m projecting a little, but I love the comics that take on a more nuanced perspective of the way he grew up. Personally my headcanon is that while Ra’s and Talia were both bad when Damian was growing up, giving him to Bruce kind of opened their eyes to the realisation that if they didn’t treat him better he was going to leave which kickstarts both the redemption arc and improving their relationship.

And ik it’s a bit beyond Dc, but I really hope they’ll drop the racist attitude towards the Al Ghuls. Tim stans too cause honestly the ‘Ra’s is obsessed with this pathetic little white boy’ is actually so problematic, but that’s a whole other conversation.

[wilcze-kudly]

do you find it odd azula basically did everything zuko did ( he burnt down a village, she seized ba sing se, they both tried to kill aang multiple times) and wasn’t afforded a redemption( like mai and ty lee who helped in everything she did and this are also culpable ) despite being redeemable ( caring for ty lee as shown by her apology in the beach episode) and was also younger than everyone else and very mentally and abused but somehow kuvira the facist is redeemable and so is ursa who neglected azula?

I do think about that anon I think about it a lot.

I want to say that the reason Zuko got a redemption arc is because we were following him from the beginning of the series and he had time to grow. I have also heard that there was a plan for Azula to get a redemption arc but it never came to fruition.

However when looking purely at the canon material we see that Azula had virtually no support network other than two other teenage girls who were scared of her and also struggling with their own shit, she spent at least 3 years with her only family member being her abusive dad who molded her into a weapon. Like did we really expect her to turn out as anything else?

On the other hand we have Zuko, whom we see do horrible thing, but he has a supportive (and also enabling tbh) uncle, who helps him through these dark times. Zuko has a support system, he gets chances that Azula never got. His banishment was awful, but I think it also saved him in the long run because he was able to free himself from Ozai's direct influence.

Azula never got the chances Zuko did, ironically due to her talents, and because she succeeded where he did not. Being a "good daughter" was a death sentece for her morality.

And I don't want to say that Azula is purely a victim, and that she's a good person. She's not. She has her kind behaviours but she has done awful things. But so has Zuko. Azula was just better at it lol.

When it comes to Ursa, I have mixed feelings about her. I try to stave away my biases against Ursa, but she reminds me very much of my own mother (if you wanna know what type of woman my mom is just mix Ursa and Lin Beifong, and add in Catholicism.). So Ursa kinda makes my skin crawl.

I think Ursa is a very good deduction of a victim, but it comes at the cost of her being a good mother. I think her situation made it difficult for her to parent both her children, hence the gross favouritism towards Zuko. It sometimes feels like Azula was a sort of 'sacrificial lamb' that Ursa allowed Ozai to influence, which let her focus all her attention on Zuko.

And once again, it's hard to blame Ursa fully for her behaviours, due to the strenuous, horrifif position she was in. I want to believe that she did her best, even if she made the occasional mistake.

I think her behaviour in the Search, while shitty, is also at least semi realistic due to her abuse and the awful frame of mind she was in at the time.

This does not really decrease the effect her behaviours have had on Azula, and we should take them into account, even if we don't fully blame Ursa for them. Ursa isn't a bad person, she's someone forced into an awful situation, where it would be impossible for her to take an objectively perfect action. That doesn't mean that she didn't massively drop the ball on Azula.

As for Kuvira, it's honestly really funny to compare Azula and Kuvira. Azula is 14 and has no support system and a controlling abusive father. She is a pawn to Ozai. A talented, brilliant pawn, but a pawn nonetheless.

Kuvira is an adult woman, at least early to mid twenties by my estimate. She had a support system which she handily rejected, probably due to her past traumas. She created her Empire and led it. She had all the cards in this situation.

So why is Kuvira more deserving of redemption?

I think honestly the reason Kuvira got a redemption arc and Azula didn't has more to do with the people around them, especially their mothers, or mother figure in the case of Kuvira.

Azula has no support system, and her mother always treated her like the problem. Ursa's treatment would favour Zuko, the "model" child, over Azula, the "problem" child.

While Kuvira had a support system. It wasn't perfect, but the Beifongs, particularly Suyin clearly cared for her. Also, Suyin was extremely lax in her treatment of Kuvira. Suyin's parenting actually favoured Kuvira, the "problem" child, over, for example Opal, the "model" child.

I think Suyin and Ursa can be posited as opposites, in a way. Ursa seemed to have grown up in a very loving household, but was forced to raise her children in an abusive environment. On the other hand, Suyin grew up in a neglectful, if not abusive household, but managed to create a loving, safe environment for her children.

Ursa sees Ozai, a man whk hurt her, in Azula, and Ikem, a man she loves, in Zuko, to the point where she even lied about Zuko being Ikem's son, which put Zuko in actual danger.

Suyin probably sees herself in Kuvira, they have plenty of parallels between each other. Of course she'd be kinder to Kuvira. Kindness and forgiveness probably saved Suyin's life.

And in the end, Ursa cannot give Azula the love she's craved for so long. While Suyin openly embraces Kuvira, for better or worse.

When we see what characters receieved redemption arcs over Azula, the pattern quickly emerges:

Zuko had Iroh and Ursa, Kuvira had Suyin and the Beifongs.

Azula only had an abusive dad and friends who were scared of her and who probably couldn't help her even if they wanted to.

It's a shitty way to treat characters we know deserve better, but it's also sadly realistic. Shitty people with support networks, with people willing to bat for them are more likely to "get better". And shitty people who are on their own, or surrounded by other shitty people... they have to stew in their misery and shittiness.

I hope Azula gets her redemption arc. But I don't think she ever will, because the only person who seemed genuinely kind to her in the comics was Aang, but I think she's much too fargone at this point to even care or see it as genuine. It would take a really long, intricate comic novel or series to even start on Azula's journey, and I don't know if the creators of Avatar are willing to put the time, effort and money into that.

Damn that was depressing.... oh well, back to ye ol'e Azula is the Shaman from tlok theory because that at least gives me hope lol.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

Quick bnha 387 reaction 'cause I need to sleep:

I'm super glad we're not getting the whole "Enji sacrifices himself as a resolution of his redemption arc, while Dabi dies but at least gets to die with his dad" thing. I'd have hate it so much lol.

Rei Todoroki, the woman you are.

Something something if Touya gets to live because of his mom quirk, because his mom got there to help him cool down, because his siblings help too with their quirks... Thinking about Shoto refusing to use his fire quirk at first 'cause he didn't want to be like his father and Touya using his fire quirk to the extreme because he wanted to be like his father and how they always fall to their mother say when they need it the most.

MR. COMPRESS COME BACK, COME BACK WE NEED YOUUUUUUUU. BUT ALSO STAY SAFE, OKAY? STAY AWAY FROM THE MESS

Love to hear more about the Himuras.

It took several traumatic instances but Enji is finally understanding what he needs to do in order to begin his road to atonement slash redemption.

TOUYA CALLING NATSUO'S NAME.

I love fire demon Dabi wjdbdkbe.

The last panel, where Rei remembers how Touya told her it was her fault too and she let him go, broke my heart. She won't stay back this time. She won't stay sit while her son explode yet again, dragging them all with him this time.

Spinner was really educating the League on quirk discrimination and they really listened to him, uh? Like them all defending Magne's pronouns. I love to see respectful villains.

I'm glad Geten is okay. I find him intersting as a character and he didn't deserve to die.

Touya and Shouto really are TwT the fire and ice quirk villain and hero TwT two sides of the same coin TwT brothers and equals TwT

I'm tired of AFO and I wish we stay a lot on the Todorokis sjdbskjd BUT ALSO SHOW ME KUROGIRI AND AIZAWA AND PRESENT MIC AND SHOW ME TOGA AND OCHAKO AND TOMURA AND IZUKU AND AJSBSKDJ

I loved this chapter.

[iforgotwhaticalledthis]

Ender Prince Rae AU

Realising that ive never talked about my Ender Prince rae au so here:

in this au, Rae would split off from Icarus a while before the resets started. Probably because he realised Icarus was trying to lead them to the Gilded Kingdom, when he wanted to go to the End(because he believed that was where he could find info on his mom i think?) Rae would make it to the end, Enderian would realise that Rae is her son.

I think she would be very distant at first, but slowly they would have a good relationship and she would speedrun her in canon redemption arc. During this time Icarus would mayhaps come to the realisation "oh fuck im completly alone and i have no idea what happened to my baby brother" and tries to find them. Unfortunately the resets would start, because fable is very much trapped and very much needs to get icarus to focus on releasing him and not focusing on his goddamn brother hes not even important icarus .

This would lead to Fable deleting memories of icarus and rae from each others childhood, leading Rae (and all other related parties) to believe hes always been in the end, and Enderian has always been his mother. While he is in the end, he works on restoring it after the war with Fable- which he pretty much knows all about because Enderian would tell him. He also remembers Isla, because Enderian would tell him. All in all, he knows a lot more about himself and the world then he does in the original canon.

Meanwhile Sherbet, very alone, dealing with quixis, no memory of who they were, only knowing that they have to find their brother. They do not remember anything else about their brother, just that they have one, and they lost him. This leads them to finding everone else in the Original Lodestar Grove, before it even had a name. Everyone who was there in the start of canon, is there.

Back to Rae- hes become close friends with a prisoner that Perix has been 'looking after' (meaning she has to stop her experiments, cause Rae would take notice and tell Enderian giving her another reason to absolutely hate Rae, which she does) -Oh also at some point he has an eye of ender in his head because he realised it would help him see the auras better.- Anyway, hes hangs out with Ghosty a lot(since he cant properly remember his name) Ghosty doesn't really trust him in the beginning, but like they grow closer over time.

This all takes place in the s1 reset, so Rae is unaware of resets as the only person who knows is Perix, and if the world did reset while he was building his friendship with Ghosty, Ghosty would remember so their friendshp only develops in the S1 reset.

Then one day, a new prisoner magivally appears. A certain, pink haired nether hybrid, who, once Rae tells Enderian about, she becomes very interested in.

Theres a lot more to this au, this covers all of the pre-lore bits I believe- i honestly meant to make this a bullet point type list about this au but ended up just kind of narrarating the story, oh well. ANYWAY Enderprince!Rae my beloved, he has been cooking in my head for so long. if you read this far, thank you?? i qrote so much more than i intended.

[zoe-oneesama]

So what are your thoughts (and salt) on your research re-watch on Queen Wasp?

This episode is annoying because it tries to play both sides - it is very much NOT a redemption arc episode but at the same time tries to make you feel sorry for Chloe after she fucks shit up, which has tricked some into believing this actually WAS part of Chloe's redemption arc.

As @hypexion laid out in a full essay, there never was a Chloe redemption arc because Chloe never thought she did anything wrong and never thought she had to change. In "Queen Wasp", she refuses to return the Miraculous on the grounds "finders keepers, losers weepers", deliberately causes a crisis in order to try and FAIL to save the day just to show off, and when confronted with her deeds only has this to say:

See, I didn't pull Scarlet Lady's complete disregard for human life out of my ass, it was canon all along! 😈

"Who cares"?! "Who CARES"?! Putting aside that "WE" did not save them, Ladybug and Chat Noir saved them from YOU, I'm pretty sure the people's who's LIVES you endangered "cares"!

Thing is, if you just watch this episode and put the entire idea of "redemption" or "hero Chloe" out of your mind, this is 3/4ths of a good episode. Pretty fun, actually, with Chloe just...being Chloe. And getting to hit Chloe in the face with a trash can ❤️.

So what's with all the audience emotional manipulation at the end?

Why is Chat Noir making soft face and using soft voice at Chloe at the end, commiserating that she STOLE a Miraculous (because once she decided not to return it when asked, yes, that's theft at that point), crashed a train, and ran away from the consequences just to ImPrEsS hEr MoThEr? Guess that makes it alright then, right Adrien? 🙃

(If it was just meant to be an Adrien Character Moment, they would've had Ladybug counter him by point out that her motivation doesn't make what she did okay, but instead they have Ladybug ALSO commiserate with Chloe)

As a character beat, I get that Adrien is channeling his daddy issues through Chloe's mommy issues, but I mean for the audience: why are they having Ladybug admit to "making mistakes" and Chat Noir comfort Chloe when SHE MESSED UP THIS BADLY except to manipulate the viewer into feeling sorry for her?! Her mother didn't ASK her to do any of those things, she did them all on her own, so why are the heroes giving her a pass, ie. why are the writers wanting the audience to give Chloe a pass???

No pass! She sucked! And she deserved her classmates ripping on her in "Malediktator", but then the story had the balls to try and make the audience feel bad for Chloe for that too!

Speaking of that, it's really weird that they ended "Queen Wasp" with Ladybug being so soft on Chloe at the end, only for Marinette to turn around at the beginning of "Malediktator" and go back to being really annoyed with her. Especially after she went out of her way to reconcile things between Chloe and Audrey.

Even the way they did it - equating Ladybug accidentally dropping the Miraculous in the middle of the battle and then relying on the Miraculous Cure to return the Miraculous to Fu, (something she'd have no reason to believe shouldn't happen), to Chloe deliberately causing a disaster in order to fail to impress her mom and refusing to return the Miraculous that she Was Not Given? Those are not the same! An honest error that Ladybug fully intended to rectify vs. Chloe disregarding other's safety and the right and wrong of keeping something that never belonged to her are not on equal footing.

Oh and then there's this gem:

Giving back an item that never belonged to you to the rightful owner isn't "exceptional", it's basic human decency. Good Lord Chloe is not "exceptional" for finally adhering to the code of conduct the rest of us learned in Kindergarden.

All this pushing the viewer to feel some type of way and it's all for nothing. Feeling sorry for Chloe just leads Ladybug to giving her another chance in "Malediktator", giving Chloe entitlement to the Bee Miraculous, facing the issues of the enemy knowing her identity in "Miraculer", having to flat out retract Chloe's access to the Bee Miraculous which Chloe responds to with a full on tantrum in "Miracle Queen", leading to Fu giving Guardianship over to Ladybug.

Woooow, real glad we were told over and over again by the narrative to go easy on Chloe, sHe JuSt NeEdS a GoOd InFluEnCe and a SeCoNd ChAnce. That sure ended well for everyone.

Also this is just me being a nitpicky asshole, but if Chloe didn't out herself right in front of everyone (ie. GABRIEL), the Hawkmoth era of the series would've been over. After Style Queen failed, Gabriel had completely given up since his "Masterpiece" failed. If Chloe hadn't revealed herself, Gabriel wouldn't have been inspired to akumatize a Miraculous Holder and might've gone into retirement long enough to return the Miraculous in secret or reveal Emilie to the public in search of other methods before he could've been "inspired" by something else.

The villain defeated by lack of motivation, lmao.

(Also also obviously this could've been doubly avoided by Ladybug not losing the Bee Miraculous or taking the Bee Miraculous out in the first place, but we could've had Anti-Hero Bee Chloe with an actual secret identity paired with a new antagonist to go into a new era of Miraculous, so I would've considered that a win)

MY main gripe with the three Chloe centric episodes "Style Queen", "Queen Wasp", and "Malediktator" is all the pointless, blatant audience manipulation. They went so far out their way to make the audience side with Chloe against Ladybug and feel bad for her only to turn around and call us stupid for doing so. I want my time back and I never even believed in the Redemption Arc. I can't imagine how much worse it was for someone who actually believed what they were selling.

And obviously it was terrible for the thing that brought Chloe and Audrey together is how they're horrible people who torment the working class, but maybe we should've taken that as a sign as to where this was going. Way to immediately resolve Chloe's mommy issues as soon as they were brought up.

Wait...is that why they made the problem in "Malediktator" Chloe's usefulness?

[pincushionx]

You said you wanted asks about the Late Redemption AU and !! yes! Wish granted! I am so incredibly curious about Luz's thought process about this scarred-up teenager who's actively hurting her friends. She seems very empathetic still in the post-finale art, but considering he seemingly succeeded in giving her friends sigils in the alternate Labyrinth Hunters art, is there ever a moment where she views him as completely unredeemable? Or is she still insistent that he's just being manipulated and can still be helped?

Thank you so much for the AU, this is such a cool idea and I love it

She definitely has her ups and downs in regards in how she feels on Hunter. In the start she didn’t like him (separate tides- hollow mind). She saw him as another Belos lackey or just a fancy scout. Bad but not evil. Once the sigil incident happened, she absolutely hated him, she was full of anger because he quite literally gave her friends stamps for slaughter(even if he didn’t know). However after King tide happens and she sees Hunter defending Belos even as the spell actively drags him down does she realize just how wrong it is, that he this loyal even when being killed.

He’s being killed by his only guardian and he doesn’t even know it

She tried to reason with him in the fight but he refused to listen, too desperate to stop them from fighting Belos and defending him even as Belos also swipes at him in blind anger. Escpically when she realizes that he’s is around her age and no child should ever be at this state.

I imagine during Thanks to them does she have some conversations with her mom since things are a bit more intense in the timeline and some conversations about abuse and abusive adults does she start making some connections but she still doesn’t quite like him.

Que for the final where Belos is finally gone, all that is left is the Golden guard in his broken, scarred state. She starts seeing the ugly picture for what it is, an abused child who just doing what he knew to make his guardian happy.

So, it’s both. She saw him as an unreadable monster to then someone who was abused and used. She wanted to help him even if she was still mad and he didn’t want it.

Of course once that wonderfully late redemption/recovery arc begins, does an actual friendship start to form.

[aphverse-confessions]

things i want from ms s7:

- michi returns and crashes the aarmau wedding

- vylad has his main character era where he has to play detective and figure out what's wrong with his family and what exactly went down on starlight because everybody is too traumatized to say what happened (dante & laurance are the watson to his sherlock)

- the shadow knights return for one last slay

- jenny returns and oddly enough becomes besties with aphmau (jennymau toxic yuri ftw. come on, aphmau literally saved the world, she should be allowed to cheat on her fiancee with women as a treat)

- MORE TRAVIS AND AARON INTERACTIONS. the parallels are there! they could bond over being cursed souls and their messy relationships with their (deceased) fathers.

- kimcinda becomes canon. fight me. lucinda and kim are gfs. also emmalyn leaves kim's body and moves onto the afterlife with kenmur and mcd aphmau.

- nana reveals her past and her real name to the rest of the cast. she finally leaves behind her "kawaii~chan" persona, and searches for who she truly is, possibly going on a quest to track down her family with zane.

- make garrance at least implied or give garroth any boyfriend. we deserve one genuine mlm relationship that isn't just played for laughs.

- teony and ivy also return bc i said so.

- zack has a redemption arc and reconnects with aphmau ofc.

- ein's mom shows up as a villain, seeking revenge for her son's death. but when she sees how hurt and sad everybody is, she feels bad and doesn't have the heart to hurt them any further. she also finds out how much pain and suffering her son has caused to everybody, and begins to feel guilty because of how she raised ein.

- ein's ghost haunts the cast and possesses several characters. they eventually have to appease his spirit because it's the only way to get him to leave them alone and put his soul to rest. ein's spirit has very long conversations with all of his enemies — aphmau (they find out they're half-siblings which makes them both feel a mixture of disgust and sadness), aaron (they finally find one thing they can agree on, they both hate their dads, and put their rivalry to rest), blaze, daniel, dottie, rylan, kacey, katelyn, kai, gene, zack and his own mother. [+possibly an ein backstory in flashbacks/animation to finally explain his motivation in detail]. ein finally moves on to the afterlife (HELL ofc).

- elizabeth starts off as the main villain of the season. you think she's gonna do evil stuff and kill people like michael and ein did, and then BAM — halfway through the season she has a reluctant change of heart and semi-redemption arc (with zack's support) and ends up an anti-hero instead. she reunites with her family. katelyn is not happy to see her at all and is still very angry at her. but kacey warms up to her much quicker surprisingly and they spend quality mother-son time together.

- all in all pretty peaceful season with depressing undertones. it's like early, slice-of-life mystreet and late, dark mystreet fused together. there are a lot of red herring villains (michi, ein's mom, elizabeth), but none of them actually do anything evil and all of them have a change of heart. nobody dies.

- the void consumes everything. but the cast ends up creating a new dimension (with the help of the void paradox cast!) and uses the realm breaker to transport themselves into it just before the mystreet dimension is consumed and dies off. the series ends with aphmau and co swearing to build a better world in the new dimension they have created.

.

[thebiggerbear]

"Sleep. I'll keep you safe." - Jason Teague Prompt Response

Summary: Jason has just helped you escape the clutches of his nefarious mother. Where will you go from here now that you know the truth?

Pairing: Jason Teague x Female!Reader

A/N: Prompt from @thelonelyempath. I wanted to dabble in the darker side of Jason's arc in the show and the mention of the stones, Lana, and his mom. There's such a clear line cut of when he turns from being a character that has your sympathies who is striving hard for some redemption we don't yet understand into being revealed as a calculating murderer who has severe mommy issues (I say that with love of course). The original ending was going to be much darker but I'll admit, once I got to it, I just couldn't do it. To Jason or Y/N. So I apologize if this has the feeling of crawling up to the dark edge to peek over it but then a backing off. Hope it's still okay, though.

A huge thank you to my beta @rieleatiel for her services. You rock, girl!

Warnings: mentions of gun, implied violence, mentions of kidnapping, mentions of injuries, mentions of possible murder scenarios, mentions of infidelity

Word Count: 4761

Taglist: @avada-kedavra-bitch-187

Jason Taglist: @heartlessdelusions; @nancymcl

Jensen Taglist: @samanddeaninatrenchcoat; @deansbbyx

You can also read on AO3

"Sleep. I'll keep you safe."

Soldier Boy version ✨ Beau version ✨ Dean version ✨ Jenny version ✨ Tom version ✨ Anael version ✨ SDV Alex version

Jason unlocked the motel room door and urged you in first as he glanced around, making sure no one else was around. Once you were in, he flipped the light on and moved towards the windows to draw the curtains closed. You remained where he left you, frozen in shock, and dripping on the cheap and questionable-looking carpet.

Both of you were soaked through. You’d gotten caught in the storm when Jason had freed you from captivity, hence beginning the run for your life. Thunder cracked above, causing the motel to shake, and you jumped slightly. You’d been hearing thunder for the last half hour, running in the downpour as lightning ripped through the skies overhead once Jason dumped the car he’d been driving. It was too risky to keep especially since he’d likely stolen it just for this mission alone, thus he’d simply grabbed a bag out of the trunk, tossed it over his shoulder, took your hand, and threw the keys out into the surrounding grass. Ever since, you’d been on the run, Jason leading you to the next town over. When you were both exhausted, Jason had decided on this motel, paid cash for a room, and now you were here. Alone. At any second, you could be taken away again since a certain someone wanted you out of the way and you had a figurative price on your head. Something told you that if you were taken again, this time it would be ensured that you wouldn’t actually survive it. They didn’t want to keep you tied to a chair or temporarily removed from the board — it was clear that they wanted you gone completely. 

You watched Jason move around to further secure the place and, the shock wearing off, you slowly brought yourself to sit down on the edge of one of the beds, not caring that you were probably soaking through the bedspread. You stared into space as flashes of memories began to assault you. You hadn’t been physically tortured, but the things you were told, the things you’d been shown…well, all of that, you’d rather forget. 

You heard a click that made your eyes snap up in Jason’s direction, seeing him checking his gun. That was something new, Jason not only being armed but also apparently being an expert marksman, something he’d proven when coldly and efficiently dispatching your guards. You highly doubted that either of them would ever walk properly again, and it was just one of the many new things you’d learned about your boyfriend these past three days; never in a million years would you have ever thought him capable of wielding a gun. You’d been dating him for six months and it turned out you never really knew him — the real him. Sure, you knew his name was Jason Teague, but you didn’t know just what kinds of things actually came with that name. And to think, you thought the Luthors were soulless, dysfunctional, greedy monsters. 

You stared ahead at the dresser. In a small voice, you stated, “I should call Clark, let him know I’m safe. The Kents can call my parents and let them know I’m okay. Or I can call Lana…if you want.”

Jason stopped what he was doing and his gaze landed on you. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw his jaw clench and his lips press together. Truthfully, you were surprised he had even bothered rescuing you since it turned out you weren’t the only Smallville native he had been dating. How he managed to pull that one off you couldn’t be sure. Then again, he had managed to keep this side of himself under wraps up until three days ago when all the while, you’d never been the wiser. You were in love and happy, only seeing what he wanted you to see — how could he not be successful at keeping the fact that he was seeing one of your best friends hidden from you, too?

“You can’t,” Jason answered, his tone icy. “It’s too risky right now.”

You managed a slow nod, your eyes never lifting from the dresser. You’d expected as much and honestly, you didn’t want to drag your parents, the Kents, Clark, or anyone else into this mess. You refused to put them in danger; you’d die first, something that was likely going to happen soon anyway. It was probably better for them not to know the truth about what was going to happen to you. Lana… Well, Lana was already caught up in this whether she knew it or not. You just hoped she had a better chance than you did and that she got out of this. And you really hoped that if she found out the truth about Jason (and you really wanted her to) that she would be stronger than you to get past the pain of his betrayal and get as far away from him as she could. He was a walking death sentence and even though she had unknowingly participated in your heartbreak, you didn’t want that for her at all.

Jason crouched down in front of you but you refused to meet his eyes, instead looking down at your lap. “Let’s see those cuts.” You were numb when he pulled your hands to him and studied the indentations and burns the ropes had made on your wrists. He glanced up at you but you kept your gaze on your injuries. “They’re not as bad as I thought they’d be but they should still be cleaned.” He reached over to his bag and pulled out a first aid kit. You watched in confusion as he proceeded to clean your wounds and then bandage them with great care. If you didn’t know any better, you would almost think the old Jason, the Jason who’d come into the coffee shop you worked at every summer day to flirt with you until you agreed to a date, was starting to show through. But you did know better, and you knew that he was a far better actor than you’d ever given him credit for. 

When he was done, he tenderly rubbed a thumb over one of the bandages. “There,” he murmured. This time, when he lifted his eyes to yours, you didn’t avoid his gaze. You tried to see the man you once knew who had actually held you as you cried when your divorced parents’ bickering and dramatics ruined your 18th birthday dinner; you had already been nervous-yet-excited beforehand because you were announcing that you and Jason were going to travel to Europe for two weeks. You’d always wanted to go, but it seemed to be only a dream — one that was out of your reach until Jason surprised you with two tickets to London as a birthday gift. The trip ended up being canceled later anyway because Jason suddenly had to fly to Paris on an urgent business matter for his mother, something that she was going to pay him for. He needed the money since his father had cut him off and he was starting at CKU in the fall. You’d offered to go with him, but he said he wouldn’t have any time for sightseeing, promising he’d call you often and bring you back some French souvenirs, swearing he’d pick out the best spots for you two to return to at a later date. He’d kissed you goodbye and gave you that brilliant smile of his, waving as he moved further into the airport. He ended up staying in Paris for weeks and when he came back, he seemed distant and a little busier, but you chalked it up to him starting classes and his new job right away. Now, obviously, you knew that that wasn’t the case, but as you stared into his jade-colored eyes, you didn’t see a trace of the Jason you’d met before that trip to Paris. He had never really existed, had he?

The real Jason, the one you’d come to know now, cupped your chin and studied your face from all angles. “We’ve been so busy running that I haven’t really had a chance to look you over. Did they hurt you?”

“Not physically.”

Jason’s eyes snapped to yours. “What does that—”

You got to your feet, the action knocking his hand away, and you moved towards the table he’d left the gun on. You stopped right before it and stared down at the weapon, almost as if it was mocking you by being there. 

“Y/N.” You heard the familiar soft call of your voice and you briefly closed your eyes. If only you had never met him… Gentle hands landed on your shoulders and turned you around to face him, seeing the cold aloofness from before had all but vanished. “I need you to tell me. What did they—”

You decided you were done holding back. You’d been through hell the past few days, you were exhausted and depleted of any energy or motivation for anything else, and who knew how long you had? “You never really loved me, did you?”

His eyes widened. “What? Of course I love you, Y/N. I’m here, aren’t I? I went and got you out of there. I—”

“I wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for you.”

Jason’s face fell, appearing as if you’d slapped him, and then his expression hardened. “What did my mother say to you?”

Your gaze remained on him. “She told me everything.” You watched as that realization played over his features and his jaw tightened. “So, yeah, I know about the stones, you and Lana…” His eyes appeared to be slightly glassy (or maybe it was the lighting from the lamp behind you) as he cocked his head a little, looking at you, yet he didn’t even try to deny it. How could he? It was nothing but the truth, and worse, his mother had been the one to tell you that truth; how was that for irony? “When you canceled our trip, when you didn’t want me to go to Paris with you, how distracted you were when you came back, how busy you were — it really explains everything, doesn’t it?” His gaze softened slightly and he briefly hung his head. “I was just too stupid to see it.”

His head snapped up. “No,” he insisted, laying a hand on your cheek. “You weren’t stupid. I was. I should have let you go the moment I met Lana in Paris.”

Even though you thought your heart couldn’t break any more than it already had these past three days, it turned out you were wrong. Your eyes began to sting as tears built up in the corners. While you already knew of his two-timing, you didn’t think he’d come right out and just say it, and in such a blase manner to boot. And how easily you would have been tossed aside, as if you’d meant nothing…that hurt.

A hurt that mirrored your own flickered across his face as he gently cupped yours. “But I didn’t want to.”

“Why?” You choked out.

“Because you mean the world to me,” he murmured, placing his forehead against yours. “Because you’re what I want and I was too selfish to give you up.” He ran his nose along yours just like he used to and you involuntarily shivered. “I love you, Y/N. Always have.” His eyes dropped to your lips and when he leaned in, you pulled away and stepped closer to the table. 

“No, you don’t. If you did, you never would have put me in danger or let me become mixed up in all of this while you pursued one of my best friends behind my back. You would have just left me alone in that coffee shop,” you gritted out, a tear slipping down your cheek that you quickly wiped away. “What was the point of it all, Jason? Was I just some distraction for you that you could drop at a moment’s notice when your mother called? And Lana,” You scoffed and wiped away another tear. “It would be one thing if you actually loved her, but you’re just using her to get the stones. You’re doing the same thing to her that you did to me. You used both of us! And for what? Some ancient stones that your mother believes are supposed to give her some sort of power? So that you make Mommy Dearest happy and can go back into the unhealthy Teague fold? What’s the motivation here?”

He swallowed compulsively as you laid bare his transgressions, yet his eyes never left your face. “I never used you.”

You huffed out a laugh of disbelief. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

His jaw tensed but he stayed silent.

You slowly nodded and after a moment, your eyes trailed to the gun on the table between you. “So when do you use that on me? When your mother tells you to, or when you’re finally done with me?”

You heard a tiny choked sound and you glanced up to find Jason staring at you in horror. He rushed over to you, causing you to stiffen, and he gripped your face as he searched your eyes. “I would never hurt you!” Too late on that count. He watched as another tear rolled down your cheek and his expression softened. “Y/N, I need you to listen to me,” he entreated softly, wiping away the tear with his thumb. “You were never supposed to know about any of this. I kept you at a distance when I came back because I didn’t want you becoming mixed up in this. My mother, she promised she’d leave you alone if I just…” He took a deep breath to compose himself. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I never wanted you to see this side of me. Ever. My plan was just to get her what she wanted, this last thing, and then I’d be free to come back here, be with you, and start over, live my life, but…” He shook his head. “I guess that’s all a moot point now, isn’t it?” A tiny smile played upon his lips, devoid of any mirth, as he let you go and turned his back to you, running a hand down his face.

You glanced once more at the gun, wondering if you should try to grab it but you weren’t sure if you were fast enough. And if you did get the gun, what then? Would you really be able to use it against him, to pull the trigger?

“If you want to walk out that door, I won’t stop you.” Your gaze snapped up to Jason’s back. “Just promise me you’ll take it with you.” You briefly flicked your eyes to the gun once more. “It’s fully loaded. And there’s plenty of cash in the bag. Take it all with you, run as far as you can until you can get safe, stay off the grid, and I’ll do everything I can to keep her from going after you. I’ll distract her with the stones, lie and say I killed you so she’s satisfied, whatever it takes.” 

Your eyes widened at his words. Run? You didn’t know how to run or stay off the grid. Maybe you’d seen something like it in a movie once, but that was fiction, not reality. Did he really think Genevieve Teague would believe his lie about you? Granted, he was good at lying as you now knew but he wouldn’t be able to fool her. Unless she was right in what she had told you, that you never really mattered to Jason in the first place, so it wasn’t too far-fetched for her to believe that you’d be so easily disposed of without a second thought by her son. “And how long is that supposed to buy me, Jason?” 

“There’s enough money in there for you to start over, to get a new life. You could go anywhere in the world you want. Canada, Cape Town, Tokyo, England.” At that, your eyes burned once more but you huffed out a breath of disbelief. “Anywhere you want to go.”

“And my parents?” You bit out. “My life? Graduating high school at the very least?”

“You making it out of this alive is more important than any of that.” Jason let out a sad sigh. “It’s my fault you’re in this now, that you’re in danger, but I promise I never wanted this for you. I never wanted to hurt you. I’m sorry, I really am.” He turned his head slightly back towards you. “I do love you, Y/N. I always have. I hope you believe me when I tell you that I always wanted to come back and have things be like the way they used to be. I miss those days more than you know,” he ended in a whisper.

“You can’t go back,” you whispered back.

You saw his shoulders drop slightly and he nodded. “I know.” His tone sounded defeated. “And that’s why you should go. But before you do, I need you to know one thing.” 

You waited for him to say whatever he was planning on saying.

“You were never a distraction. That trip to Europe we were planning, those nights under the stars, everything we talked about, us…that was the real deal.”

Your lip wobbled and you bit down into it, trying to keep the tears at bay as a memory resurfaced of you and Jason lying on the hood of his car under the clear night sky. He showed you where all of the constellations were (initially, you only knew where the Big and Little Dippers were), and you’d both spoken about each of your dreams for your lives. After you’d excitedly pointed out a shooting star, he’d told you to close your eyes and make a wish. You did and that was when he kissed you for the first time. He’d breathlessly asked you about your wish afterwards and you’d smiled right at him, saying it came true. He’d given you that bright smile of his in return and leaned in to kiss you again, murmuring, “Mine too.”

Another memory shook loose of a night you’d stayed with him. He had been staying at a local B&B over the summer before his trip to Paris. When you two began to get serious, you’d taken to spending more time with him there, even sneaking out a time or two to stay the night unbeknownst to your parents. Nothing ever happened between you during that time but he would hold you and you both would laugh and talk and just enjoy being together. One such night, you’d fallen asleep but you had a nightmare. Someone was chasing you and you were running for your life. You ran into Jason telling him that you both needed to run, but he didn’t seem to understand the danger you both were in. He seemed distracted and looking elsewhere, not at you or where you were pointing. It wasn’t long until this unidentifiable assailant caught up to you and at the last second, Jason stepped in front of you, telling you to run right before he was killed in front of you. You’d woken with a loud gasp, your scream caught in your throat, and shot right up in bed. 

Jason had immediately awoken and was trying to calm you down, to get you to breathe as he tenderly rubbed your back, and he kept telling you it was just a nightmare. You didn’t tell him what the dream entailed but you’d thrown your arms around his neck and held him close as he attempted to comfort you. Eventually, he’d laid you both back down, his hand gently running through your hair as you kept your head on his chest, your ear positioned perfectly over his beating heart to reassure yourself. 

“It was just a dream, sweetheart,” he had hummed against your forehead. “I’m right here and you’re okay.” Hearing his soothing words and heartbeat, feeling the tender caresses of his hand up and down your back, you did start to drift back off, hoping against hope the nightmare didn’t continue. You weren’t sure how you’d endure a world without Jason in it, even just a dream world. Just before you’d fallen back into slumber, you’d heard him murmur sleepily to you, “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe.” You’d smiled and whispered that you loved him which caused him to smile as well and whisper the sentiment back to you. And he had — kept you safe, that is.   

And now here you were, considering taking the gun and running for your life like you had in that nightmare, though this time was real and you would now also be running from his mother, from him. How had things gone so terribly wrong in only a few months’ time? 

Another tear slipped down your cheek but this time, you didn’t wipe it away. “It was for me, too,” you admitted in a whisper.

Jason slowly turned back to you and you could see a recent tear track on his own cheek. “This was never supposed to happen,” he said softly. He drifted towards you and perhaps you were so caught up in memories that you didn’t back away or even tense up. Instead, when he laid a hand against your cheek, you leaned into it. Despite everything he’d said and done, despite how much he hurt you and your life had become a casualty due to his choices in his mother’s obsessive quest for a particular set of artifacts, your heart still yearned for him. When he moved even closer, leaning in to kiss you, you welcomed it. When more memories began to wash over you, of everything you had lost and would lose, you threw your arms around him and kissed him more passionately, tears rolling down your cheeks. Gone were the plans of you attending CKU with him; gone were the plans of you two moving in together, spending the holidays with your family, and traveling abroad to see all of the places you both wanted to see; gone was the future Jason had talked about wanting to have with you eventually down the road — all of it was just gone in a single moment of Genevieve Teague revealing who her son really was and just how much control she had over him. You supposed you hadn’t really had time to properly mourn the end of those dreams, of your relationship, everything you believed it had been — it only made sense to kiss it goodbye. Literally.

When you both broke apart for air, he laid his forehead against yours and closed his eyes. “I don’t want to let you go,” he whispered.

“Then don’t.”

His eyes snapped open in surprise. Truthfully, your words surprised even you. He lifted his head and looked down at you, his brows furrowing and his face lining with a mix of suspicion and confusion. Still, his green gaze lit with a dim gleam of hope. 

“You don’t have to be this person anymore. You can give it all up and walk away. You said yourself that there’s more than enough money in that bag to start over somewhere new.” He went to say something when you framed his face with your hands, gazing up at him as earnestly as you could. “So do it. Make a different choice.”

He stared into your eyes. “Y/N,” he murmured. “I don’t know if I—”

His cell phone began to ring on the table, near the gun. You both turned to glance at it before turning back to each other. You silently pleaded with him to do as you’d suggested. He had made it sound so easy, that you could walk out that door and start all over — if it was that easy, why couldn’t he do the same? Your heart sank when he gently removed your hands from his face and began to move towards the table.

You swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in your throat and though your eyes burned with new tears, they didn’t fall. He watched you as he approached the ringing phone and picked it up in his hand. You felt numb as you took a step forward and picked up the bag, slinging it over your shoulder. It was clear that he wasn’t going to make a different choice, and it was clear that you were also screwed and needed to run like he’d told you. If his mother was calling him, then that meant she already knew he had helped you escape and she could be on her way right this second, or worse, right outside the door. You picked up the gun and you hated how it felt in your hands. It was heavy, sure, but also light enough that you could easily lift it and fit your finger inside the trigger handle at a moment’s notice. You’d never shot a gun before so you probably wouldn’t hit whatever or whoever you targeted, but at least you’d be able to wield it to an extent.

The next thing you knew, Jason hurled the ringing phone at the wall, making you jump as it loudly cracked into two pieces.

You turned wide eyes on him but he quickly approached you, his jaw clenched. For a moment, you wondered if you’d actually have to try to use the weapon in your hand to try to defend yourself, though you didn’t know if you had it in you to hurt him. Sure, you’d fight to survive, but your traitorous heart still loved him. Luckily, you were spared from having to make that decision when he snatched it out of your hand (which did make you a bit nervous at first) and cupped your face, his green eyes staring into yours, that slight hope from earlier now a blazing inferno mixed with determination. “A different choice,” he whispered, almost as if he was sounding out the words for the first time. After a moment, he gave you a slow nod, put the gun away, and leaned in to brush his lips against yours. “Let’s do it.”

“Really? You’re sure?” You breathed, your heart starting to lighten inside your chest.

A tender smile stretched across his face and he kissed you again. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He kissed you one more time and took your hand, leading you to the door.

You stopped in your tracks, though, when a thought hit you. “My parents…”

“Let me get us out of here and we’ll decide what to do about letting them know you’re okay without tipping off my mother.”

You nodded, still beyond surprised that he had actually listened to you considering how tightly his mother seemed to have control over him. “Jason, are you really sure? Won’t your mother be even more upset if you leave and don’t help her with the stones? And what about Lana? I don’t want her to get—”

He laid a gentle finger on your lips and kissed your nose. “Like I said, let me get us out of here first. We’ll handle everything else after. Okay?” At your nod, he smiled again, stroking your cheek with his thumb. “If you could go anywhere in the world today, where would you go?”

You nearly smiled at the familiar question — it was similar to the one he’d once asked you, beaming right before he’d pulled out the two tickets to London from behind his back, making your eyes widen and you practically squeal with glee before launching yourself at him and pressing kisses all over his face, making him laugh. You could see his eyes soften slightly as you realized he was reliving the same memory.

This time, you gave it some thought before answering, “Iceland.”

“Iceland?” He asked, sounding pleasantly surprised. 

You nodded. “It’s supposed to be beautiful there. I’ve seen pictures and I’ve always wanted to go. Plus, it never gets fully dark there.”

He tenderly stroked your chin with his thumb. “And we could see the Northern lights when it does,” he murmured.

“We’d never be fully in the dark, there’d always be light.” You pressed your lips together and stared up at him meaningfully. “I like the sound of that.”

He ran his hand gently over your hair and his affectionate smile grew as he nodded. “Then Iceland it is.”

dividers by @firefly-graphics

[dailycass-cain]

It's time at long last to delve into a certain secondary story in Detective Comics #1083 by Alex Paknadel and Robbi Rodriguez and my thoughts on it.

I SO did not expect to see a secondary Cass story as Ram V closes out his Tec run (but maybe I should've given he's let others give EVERYONE their due of his run).

And here ironically, a month before the character's 25th anniversary we get Cass.

I must confess reading the story drawn by Rodriguez along with Cass's appearance in #1082. It's got me reminiscing on Batgirls again.

It does make me truly miss that series. Even with the rewards that have been this run, Birds of Prey, and Spirit World.

However, unlike the prior two series, this one does a DEEP dive into the mindset of Cass and where she's at during this point of the run.

Some truly meaty stuff we get here character-wise.

The story continues where we left Cass in #1082, still roaming Gotham freely and making sure the city remembers the symbol of the bat.

I do adore any time a criminal mistakes her for Batman. Just another notch to add that she'd make a great successor to Bruce as Batman.

Likewise, I do enjoy HOW she's introduced. Going to town on the criminal lot and us the reader seeing her viewpoint on subduing them.

Yet, unlike the prior story, not everything is hunky-dory with Cass. With a few words of choice in the narration boxes, you can tell something is off with Cass.

And it's fascinating she sees relief in reuniting with probably one of the beings who can "understand" her-- Lady Shiva.

Probably the only downside I have with the story is this recurring cycle of Cass instantly mistrusting her, when really the last two stories with Shiva, her mom has been trying.

Still, they "talk" in the only way daughter/mother truly knows: fighting. Instantly, Shiva picks up what been clued to us the reader in the beginning: Cass is not well.

Though unlike the reader, Shiva lays out thickly what it is.

Since the Orgham have taken over Gotham they've been trying to wipe away the memory of the Bat via the. Yes, we know given a few issues ago Cass was immune to the Reality Engine wiping away the memory of the Bat.

Here we find out another reason why: she's fighting as Bruce.

Of course, being that this is an Orgham-controlled Gotham and Shiva has her own subplot in the issue. Their exchange is cut short by the arrival of Azmer demons.

Something I've been hoping for Cass to encounter since they showed up.

I do muse how bluntly Shiva starts this team-up to again say she's not up to any insidious shenanigans. Again, it's Shiva being blunt which I guess she has to do given Cass just always seems to untrust her.

And we get the "juiciest" portion next. Still fighting as Bruce, Cass is getting her butt handed to her by the Azmer when we get this memory:

Seven years it has been since we last saw you in a canon DC comic (fifteen years if we count this incarnation): welcome back David Cain you freaking bastard.

Again this goes back to what Cass said in her last story. She was built like Bruce, but differently, and here is how that came to be.

Which again is the core of Cassandra's character. She's always terrified of becoming what her father made her: this weapon of death. How she continues to go with this answer of NO and down this path of the bat.

That goes deeply into WHY the bat symbol means so much for Cass. It's not just a layer of justice, but redemption. That is her coda: "You can change. You CAN change."

Ironically, it's due to the Reality Engine that probably WHY Cass has this relapse. She's good, but we know from the "Outlaws" arc even she was being affected by the Reality Engine at an EXTREMELY close range.

And it's fun that Shiva is again the one to help Cass through this time. Because other than Bruce and Oynx (man I miss that friendship), she's probably the only one who can help her daughter.

Where once more, we get the recurring theme of Cass/Shiva finding mutual ground between one another, but also Shiva letting her daughter be what she wants to be. Which given all their history does feel like a new layer going with them (hopefully).

Again, this story ties so wonderfully with what Ram V has been doing with Cass. Showing again, how much the bat symbol means to her, and again reminding the reader that she's built like Bruce in sheer determination.

This was a REALLY good story that was built on prior with Cassandra. It gives Cass a sense of poetry at the end for her character. Her appearances here all tie together for this subplot of showing the any new reader WHO SHE IS, and why so damn enthralling as a character.

In a way, this really felt like a good unofficial celebration of the character. Though DC never fully said it, this does celebrate just means A LOT to so many.

The tale meant A LOT, giving us ANOTHER banger Cass story to boot.

Though I can't help but wonder? Even if there were rats in the story. My mind kept going here instead and Cass's "little friend" and nickname from Shadow of the Batgirl. I know it was probably unintentional.

If this is truly all we get in celebrating the anniversary of the character this TRULY was a story worthy for it. For that, I thank the creative team behind this and Ram V too for giving us this. Like you, Kelly, Michael, and Alyssa are just giving us all these bangers.🙏

[starswhisperwritershear]

Of All The Stories In The Stars, Ours Has Yet To Be Told (62761 words) by StarsWhisper Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton Characters: Danny Fenton, Dash Baxter, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Paulina Sanchez, Kwan (Danny Phantom), Valerie Gray, Pookie (Danny Phantom) Additional Tags: Aged-Up Character(s), on the way to college, mentions of child abuse, Mentions of homophobia, Redemption Arcs, Bisexual Danny Fenton, everyone becoming good friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Second Chances, lots of classical literature references, Canon-Typical Violence, Angst, Lots of Crying, Some hurt/comfort, almost everyone has shitty parents, More tags to come as I think of them, Suicidal Thoughts, This is heavily inspired by marichat, stealing lots of headcanons from tumblr, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, not entirely canon compliant, I stole the pieces I like and combined them with fanon to get what I wanted, this was supposed to be a slow burn, Dialogue Heavy, some spooky shit will be snuck in here, Mutual Pining, Dissection, Bad Parents Jack and Maddie Fenton, lots of astrology references, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), horror aspects will be in here, but also cute fluff, Asexual Character, Mentions or pevious eating disorders Summary: It's the end of senior year and Dash and Danny are having the worst time of their lives. Dash's father finds out he's queer and tries to kill him. That lands him in prison with divorce papers. Dash goes to therapy to cope and learn how to change his behaviors while taking some time off from school. He now needs to learn how to navigate the world and figure himself out. Danny fears he'll never figure out what he wants for his future beyond being the hero of Amity Park forever and he's running out of time to figure it out as he watches everyone he knows move on without him. Plus there are always the people hunting him down that he has to worry about on top of that.

~

Danny lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling, feet idly kicking the air as they dangled off the side. He listened to his phone ring, anxiety settling in his stomach. He'd already tried twice that day to get a hold of Jazz with no luck. He knew she was busy, but he couldn't help the little voice telling him his parents had gotten to her first. The phone was two rings away from going to voicemail again when she picked up.

"Hey, bro! What's popping?"

Danny snorted, laughing at her choice of slang words. Ever since getting to college, she'd been trying her best to sound cool and he was beginning to suspect Mr. Lancer had given her one of his 'how to be hip' dictionaries. "The only thing that should be popping, is you popping open a real dictionary."

Jazz sighed comically. "There's that younger brother sarcasm I've missed."

Danny rolled his eyes, a faint smile on his face. "How are you, Jazz?"

"Oh, I'm fine. The summer semester is kicking my ass. I've got seven essays, two research projects, and a group presentation all due by the end of the week, but, yeah, I'm fine."

"Jesus, Jazz, do you even have time to breathe?"

"I do right now. I'm sorry for missing your other calls. Is there something going on?"

"I understand you're busy. Nothing crazy, I just, uh, have Mom and Dad talked to you at all?" Danny chewed his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood.

"No," Jazz snorted. "The last I heard from either of them was a few days ago and all Dad sent me was a cat meme on Facebook. I figured they've just been too busy with ghost hunting to check up on me." The frustration in her voice was tense like she couldn't decide if she wanted to be sad or mad. She cared about her parents, but she harbored a lot of resentment about how the two of them were raised. "Why?"

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, cause I wanted to be the one to tell you that I've decided to go to college."

Jazz screamed. Danny ripped the phone away from his ear, only daring to bring it back when he couldn't hear her anymore. "Danny! That's amazing! Where are you going? What program are you doing? What convinced you?"

"Well, I had a talk with Mr. Lancer-"

"I knew he'd come through for me," Jazz whispered under her breath.

"And," Danny chuckled, "he was talking about this program here at Amity Community that I kind of liked. After some thinking, and admittedly a little pushing from Dash, I-"

"Dash? Dash Baxter? Since when are you two hanging out?"

"Uh, I haven't told you about that? Never mind, not important right now. I, well, I decided to be an astronomy teacher. A professor if I can swing it."

Jazz screamed again. "That's such a good choice! It's so you! Oh my gosh, my brother, a professor!" She gasped. "We can share our theories about classroom behavior now! This is going to be so great!"

Danny felt a huge wave of relief hit him, shaking a lot of his parents' disapproval off. He sighed, "Thanks, Jazz. I'm glad you think so."

"Mom and Dad didn't take it so well, huh?" Jazz's voice lost a lot of its excitement, a hint of bitterness glazing over it.

Danny glared up at the glowing stars on his ceiling. "No, not really. They're mad at Mr. Lancer for even putting the idea in my head. But, Mom said it was a start and I'll for sure want to change my major to biochemistry by the end of the semester when I've realized what it is I've gotten myself into."

Jazz hesitated, her voice careful. "And Dad?"

Danny's heart constricted. "He's just glad they have at least one genius kid."

"I'm going to lose my shit." Jazz hissed, knocking something over. "This is why I don't come home for Christmas. Don't listen to him, Danny. He should be proud of you. If he knew of half the shit you did in his lab, he would be proud. I'm proud of you."

"I miss you, Jazz." He sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. "They were a lot kinder when you were around."

"Only cause I had to kick their asses anytime they said some bullshit about you." Her voice softened. "I miss you too. But, hey, look at how great you're doing without me."

Danny laughed. "Yeah, but how much better could I be doing with you?"

"Oh! Speaking of old inside jokes, how are your, um, extracurricular activities going? Wink."

"You don't have to say wink." Danny jokingly rolled his eyes.

"Then how will you know I'm winking?"

"You're such a dork."

"I know you are but what am I?" Jazz laughed. "But, seriously, how are things going on the spooky side?"

Danny took a deep breath, flashes of the night before entering his mind. He stood up to pace his room, hoping to shake them off. "Uh, good, good. Just the usual. The ghosts might be on vacation, there have been fewer attacks lately. So, that's nice."

"You hesitated. Danny, you know you can tell me, right? I wouldn't ask if I thought I couldn't handle it."

Danny exhaled, long and low. "Okay, they were," he swallowed, his breath shaking, "They were dissecting a ghost in the lab last night. She was in real bad shape when I found her."

Jazz gasped. "Was it someone you knew?"

Danny shook his head, briefly forgetting she couldn't see him. "No, but, God, Jazz, she, she couldn't have been older than sixteen. She wasn't even a threat and they had her- she was completely, her arms were covered in-" Danny paused to take a deep steadying breath. "It was bad. She was in a lot of pain and the house reeked like they'd been at it for hours."

Jazz's voice carefully held no emotion. "What happened? Did they say anything about it?"

"Not to me. I got her out without them noticing. When they got back to the lab and found out they argued for a minute before I interrupted them." He stubbed his toe, hissing at the contact.

"That's- I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Do you, maybe, wanna talk about how you're feeling?"

Danny sat back down, twisting the sheets in his fingers. "Not really. I kind of want to forget it ever happened."

"Okay, that's fine." Jazz took a breath, then forced a teasing tone to creep back into her voice. "Then maybe you can explain this photo of you and Dash Baxter that both Tucker and Sam sent me."

"What?" Danny sat up straight, panic settling into his veins. "What photo?"

"It seems like a movie night at Sam's. You're asleep on his shoulder and you two look pretty cozy."

"That was an accident! I didn't mean to fall asleep. Okay, but, listen, I have to tell you about Dash." He proceeded to tell her everything from the beginning, how he had stopped messing with them a few years back, how he patched Phantom up, how Danny invited him to hang out, the whole story up til yesterday.

"So, what I'm getting out of this is that a pretty jock boy said thank you and you fell in love with him."

"I'm not in love with him! Why does everyone keep saying that?" Danny huffed, face warm.

"Uh, 'cause you're acting like it."

"I just, think he's cool. You know, I've mixed these feelings up before with Sam. This is probably just the same thing. I don't like him, I just think he's cool."

Jazz giggled. "Danny, please, I never heard you talk about Sam the way you just talked about Dash. You totally like him."

"I don't think I do. I mean, I do like being around him, a lot. As both Fenton and Phantom. He doesn't really act different between the two of them which is… nice. But if I liked him, I'd have to tell him I'm the same person, and then what if freaks out and starts acting differently again? I like this Dash. I like the way things are. I don't want them to change." Danny knew he was whining, but Jazz started it.

"Of course change is scary. And I'm not gonna say that you should tell him 'because of what could be' or anything. It's your relationship with the guy, you get to decide what you tell him. What I am saying is that you should be honest with yourself and you should have told me! You have a crush on a boy and you didn't tell your sister! I'm hurt."

"Uh, maybe!" Danny protested. "Maybe I have a crush on a boy."

"Liar, liar, pants on fire." Jazz sang.

"Don't you have like twenty essays to do or something?" Danny quipped.

Jazz bellowed a hearty laugh. "Yeah, I do. Talk to you later?"

"Yeah. Thanks for talking to me, Jazz."

"Anytime, bro. Love ya."

"Love you too." Danny hung up. He sighed and collapsed back on his bed, feeling better than he had before. He should make it a point to call his sister more often.

~

Danny: Hey, if I wanted 2 wear eyeliner, where would I start?

Paulina: Aaaaaaa!!! U liked it that much?! this is perfect. I haven't taught any1 make-up in a minute! R U busy? I could B there in ten minutes.

Danny: Would it B ok if i came 2 yours instead? parents have a bunch of dangerous experiments lying around this morning

Paulina: Oh, yeah that should B fine. I'll have everything set up by the time U get here. I'm so excited!

Danny: :D

Paulina has created a group chat.

Paulina has added Kwan, Dash, Danny, Tucker, Sam, and Valerie.

Paulina has sent a photo.

[The photo shows Paulina standing next to Danny in her huge vanity bathroom. They're holding their hands up in the peace sign gesture, winking, and sticking their tongues out. They wear matching eyeliner.]

Paulina: I am a goddess at make-up

Danny: Can confirm. I've learned from a master

Sam: Since the goddess can get you to do something I've been trying to convince you to do for years, I'll gladly bow

Tucker: Smthng U want 2 tell us, Sam?

Sam: Only that I can recognize talent when I see it

Valerie: But can Danny do it on his own?

Danny: I did Paulina's!!! She's been teaching me all day. This shit is hard

Dash: I didn't think you'd get to Paulina's level in one day

Danny: Oh, I'm nowhere near her level. She's a master. However, I can tell U the difference between liquid and felt tip eyeliner.

Sam: Prove it

Tucker: How's he supposed to prove it?

Valerie: He could do your eyeliner

Tucker: No thank U. That shit takes forever to get off. Never again. Why aren't we volunteering Dash for this?

Dash: Because I'm not back for another two weeks. And by then he'll be better at it so you won't be able to make fun of him

Danny: :(

Paulina: I can't believe ur all doubting my teaching skills

Sam: We're doubting Danny's art skills

Danny: >: (

Kwan: Yo!! Looking good, bro!

Danny: :) Thanks, bro. I knew I could count on U. The only 1 that has my back 4 real

Dash: I thought it looked cool

Danny: :D

Valerie: Anyone want to meet at Nasty Burger? I've got a craving for fries

Tucker: Say less, I'm omw

Sam: I'm down

Dash: :(

Danny: You'll be there in spirit :)

Kwan: Woooo! Party!!!! Dash, we can Skype you

Dash: That's okay, we're going on a hike here in a second

Paulina: That's what you get for abandoning us for a month

Dash: :(

~

Sam: I can't believe our resident nurse friend is gone right now

Dash: ?

Tucker: Danny needs stitches and Sam doesn't want to do it

Valerie: What'd he do this time?

Dash: This time?! How often does he need stitches? Is he okay?

Sam: More often than you'd think. He's a magnet for trouble

Tucker: He's fine. Just jumped in front of a car crash to save a kid. A piece of shrapnel gouged his leg.

Dash: Why isn't he in the hospital?! Is the kid okay?

Valerie deleted a chat

Valerie: Danny doesn't like hospitals. Why didn't he let Phantom handle it?

Sam: There weren't any ghosts involved. He wouldn't have shown.

Dash: Is everyone okay though? What's happening with Danny?

Tucker: The kid is worshiping Danny as we speak

Danny: Aw, worried about me Dash? ;)

Danny: Every1 is ok though. I got stitches. The kid is a little shaken, but otherwise unharmed and he's not worshiping me. He was just scared. It doesn't look like a serious crash either.

Dash: My friend jumped in front of a car, of fucking course I'm worried.

Tucker: Eh, he does this often. You'll get used to it.

Dash: Often!? Why?

Valerie: Acknowledging it only encourages him

Danny: Who else was going to save that kid? I think I prefer him over U guys

Dash: What did I do?

Danny: Ur exempt

Tucker: Simp

Danny: I will haunt ur ass Tuck

Tucker: No U won't. Ur too nice

Sam: It's true, that's a hollow threat and you know it

Danny: I can be threatening >=(

Paulina: Glad ur ok Danny! Hate to disagree with U guys, but Danny can be scary when he wants to be

Dash: Yeah, have U ever seen him mad? He's a wall of terror and rage

Valerie: How do you two know that?

Paulina: We used to be bad people.

Dash: U pick on the wrong kid once and suddenly Danny Fenton turns into ur worst nightmare

Danny: :D See?

Sam: Ur still not haunting Tucker

Tucker: I have bestie privileges

Danny: True. But I do too and I will not hesitate to send the blackmail photos I have saved.

Tucker: What photos?

Danny: ^u^

Tucker: Danny, what photos?!?!

~

"Go long!" Danny launched the frisbee through the air, watching Youngblood and Cujo race after it. Youngblood caught it and threw it back. Cujo spun around and came charging back toward him.

He caught it, narrowly dodging Cujo as he jumped after it. This time when he threw it, he used a little bit of ecto energy to throw it further. Cujo took the lead on this chase, Youngblood protesting.

"Hey! Cujo! Let me get it! You can't even throw it!"

"You'll never tire them out, you know." Ember huffed, scribbling music notes in her notebook.

"I know." Danny collapsed on the ground next to her, sinking into the soft grass of one of the ghost zone's islands. "I'm not trying to. Just making sure they don't get bored and try to cause chaos in the living world."

Ember huffed and picked up her guitar. "I've been doing just fine keeping them in check." She played a few chords, shook her head, and adjusted the strings.

"Yeah, you have. Thanks for that. I'm sorry I haven't been visiting as much lately."

She picked her notebook up and changed something she had written. "Yeah, what gives? That new boyfriend of yours better company than us or something?"

Danny tensed. "You know about Dash?"

Ember rolled her eyes. "The whole zone knows about Dash. Well, anyone who cares about Phantom, knows about Dash. Johnny has been itching to tease you about it."

"Great, well he's not even my boyfriend. So Johnny can lay off." Danny watched Youngblood and Cujo fight over the frisbee.

Ember hummed. "You know he won't. I think Skulker already has a plan to use him as bait too. You'd better keep an eye on him."

Danny groaned flopping over to stare up at the swirling green void. His vision filled with a giant green dog, dropping slobber over him like rain as it deposited the Frisbee next to him.

"Gross, Cujo!" Danny sat up, turning intangible so the dog spit would slide off of him.

"You're supposed to throw it back!" Youngblood huffed, sitting next to Ember. "This isn't fun anymore. I want to play pirates."

Danny raised an eyebrow at him, turning tangible again. "Do you remember what happened last time you played pirates? You sent three people to the hospital and leveled a whole city block."

Youngblood rolled his eyes. "It's not that big of a deal. They're all fine."

"People got hurt. That's not fine." Ember said gently.

"Ugh, big kids are no fun. It's fine because they'll just show up here if they get hurt. It's not like they disappear."

"It isn't fine," Danny soothed. "People aren't supposed to be here until they're ready. If you bring them here too early, it makes them really sad." Danny could tell Youngblood wasn't listening to the conversation anymore. Cujo butted his arm to get Danny to pet him.

"And you aren't supposed to be able to see me anymore. Rules are just dumb words that don't mean anything."

Danny tried to contain his frustration as he petted Cujo. He sighed. "Okay, why don't we play astronauts? We can use your slingshot for a spaceship again."

Youngblood brightened. "Okay! I'll go get it. C'mon Cujo! Help me carry it." Cujo barked and the two of them sped off toward Youngblood's door.

"Aren't you glad you're missing time with your boyfriend for this?" Ember sneered.

Danny frowned. "He's not my boyfriend. And I haven't just been spending all my time with him. I've been trying to apply for college and turn the antibiotics for the Fenton Venom into a vaccine. That way Pandora doesn't have to worry about distributing antibiotics to ghosts who are scared of her. You know, important things."

Ember huffed, ripping a page out of her notebook and throwing it at him. "Whatever. Just bring him to my next concert so I can make fun of you."

"No promises. Giving up on your song?" Danny threw the paper back at her, laughing.

"Not giving up, starting over. You giving up on getting over your crush?" She scribbles more in her notebook.

"You're not gonna drop this are you?" Danny wound his fingers around the ghost grass, ripping some chunks out and watching them blow away on the breeze.

"Nope." She popped the 'p', readjusting her guitar on her lap. "It's kind of the most interesting thing going on right now. Since I've given up on taking over the world, I have to entertain myself with your whole 'will I, won't I' thing."

Danny pouted. "Kitty and Johnny's 'will they won't they' isn't more interesting? What about your boyfriend? Is he not entertaining enough?"

"Uh, no. For one, Kitty and Johnny are annoying and they always get back together so it's boring at this point. And no, he's too busy trying to come up with a way to hunt you and the boy you want to kiss so bad it makes you look stupid." She struck a few chords on her guitar, nodding and writing it down.

Danny gasped, shoving her playfully. "I do not look stupid."

"Yes, you do. You fell in a goddamn lake." She grinned and motioned to her guitar. "You know, I could always help out with a well-timed love spell."

Danny frowned at her, eyes flashing in annoyance. "Not a chance. I'm not letting you put a spell on Dash."

"Aw, you care about him." She mocked. "Why don't you just fucking tell him?"

Danny huffed. "I don't know. Maybe I don't want him to freak out when he finds out I'm dead. Or not completely dead if he prefers Phantom. Oh god, what if he does prefer Phantom? What would I do then?"

Ember rolled her eyes. "Jesus, you're a mess. Look, I can't give you the best advice as someone who literally died because she got stood up. But, just ask yourself if you're willing to be lonely for the rest of your life because you're too scared to let someone take your feelings seriously. Don't be an idiot."

"I've got it!" Youngblood called, returning with Cujo who was balancing the slingshot on his back. "I call going first!"

"Coming!" Danny called. He smiled at Ember. "For someone who doesn't have a lot of advice, that was pretty good stuff. I like you better when you're not trying to take over the world."

"I know, you tell me all the time." Ember played more chords on her guitar. "Go play with the kid before he loses his mind."

Danny chuckled as he got up and flew over to Youngblood. "Alright, Commander, are you ready for launch?"

~

Danny: Hey, how's Cali?

Dash: It's fun. My aunt Cassie is teaching me the secret family recipes

Danny: :o any chance I can blackmail U into making those for me?

Dash: Yeah, you can ask nicely

Danny: Can U make them for me?

Dash: What's the magic word?

Danny: Ambivalent

Dash: I can withhold my cooking

Danny: This is cruel and unusual punishment

Dash: Weird, I don't think your texts are coming through

Danny: I refuse to beg

Dash: Then I refuse to share my secret family recipes

Danny: :(

Danny: :(

Danny: :(

Danny : Please?

Dash: Ok, you win. Hope you like chicken kebabs

Danny: <3 U have issues with Reggie yet?

Dash: Ugh, of course. My mom has put him in his place a couple of times though. It's been cool.

Danny: Let's go, Mrs. Baxter!

Dash: She says you can call her Jessica btw

Danny: Is ur mom reading ur texts?

Dash: No, she just asked who I was texting

Danny: Aw, she loves me <3

Dash: Don't encourage her. How are your stitches?

Danny: Still worried about that? I'm fine. It's no big deal.

Dash: It's kind of a big deal. I'm just glad you're okay. I seem to remember you promising a game night when I got back. Wouldn't be able to do that if you fucking died on me

Danny: Did I? I just remember saying we needed to hang out

Dash: No, I distinctly remember you saying that you'd help me get revenge on Tucker

Danny: Ur going after Tucker and not Sam?

Dash: Sam kicks ass. I don't think anyone can beat her. Tucker threw a blue shell at me. That's unforgivable.

Danny: Ok, u have convinced me. I'll help u with ur revenge scheme.

Dash: How upset is he going to be when he finds out I've turned you against him?

Danny: Immensely. He'll never let me live it down. U had better make it worth it

Dash: I'll get some practice in. Wouldn't want to let you down

Danny: Hope ur cousins are good practice then

Dash: Nathan might be, he hasn't left the game room since we got here.

Dash: I need to help with dinner, text you later?

Danny: Yeah, tell ur mom I said hi!

~

Danny, on his stomach, lay on his bed, one elbow supporting his head, red pen spinning in his other hand. An astronomy textbook lay open in front of him, a page already underlined with significant notes in the margins. He'd ordered the basic books for the classes he'd be taking ahead of time so he could use the second half of summer to get a jump start on his studies. He'd need the extra time if ghost attacks ramped up again in the fall.

Granted he was working off the textbooks the teachers had used the previous year so it might all be for naught. But he figured any information was good information, plus he liked seeing the pictures from the telescope.

He was underlining another sentence when his phone rang. He reached over, stretching to grab it from his nightstand, not even bothering to hide the smile on his face when he saw the contact picture. He dropped his pen and answered the call.

"Hey, Dash, what's-"

"Do you have to have your boyfriend fight all your battles, dweeb?" A voice he'd never heard before shouted a small distance from the mic.

"Shut the fuck up, Reggie!" Dash's voice was loud and pissed. "You're the one insisting you know everything when you're just sitting here talking out of your ass."

"Like some kid from Amity Park would know than me. I'm in-"

"Your seventh year of college, yeah, I think that's too many for an associate's degree, making you more of an idiot than a genius!" Dash snorted. "Danny, have you seen Mission to Mars?"

Danny resisted the urge to laugh. "Yeah. Are you calling me to settle a debate about a space movie?"

Dash sounded like he was ready to commit murder. "Yes. Reggie over here thinks that the movie is completely scientifically accurate."

"It's not." Danny closed his textbook and pushed it out of the way. He rolled onto his back to give his elbows a break.

"I fucking told you," Dash shouted, presumably at Reggie.

"What does some fresh high school graduate even know?" Reggie bit back.

"More than you asshole! He's going to get an astronomy degree and I don't think you even know what campus you stumbled onto."

Danny bit his lip to keep from laughing, a warm feeling bubbling up in his stomach.

"Boys, please," an elderly voice called, "the kids are in the next room."

"What part specifically are you arguing about?" Danny asked.

"The part where he takes his helmet off and instantly freezes. You were just talking about it the other day."

"You were actually listening to me rant about the effects of space on the human body?" Danny couldn't help the fluttery tone creeping into his voice. He wrapped his free arm around his stomach trying to contain the small butterflies forming there.

"I'm gonna be sick," Reggie hissed.

"Am I on speaker?" Danny picked at the loose threads on his jeans.

"Yeah, sorry, uh, can you explain to him what happens when an astronaut takes off their helmet in space?"

"Space is freezing, obviously they'd freeze," Reggie shouted disgruntled.

"Okay, first off," Danny started, understanding exactly why Dash hated this guy, "It doesn't matter what would happen because an astronaut would not be able to remove their own helmet. It has to be sealed and pressurized from the back, meaning they would need a partner to put it on and take it off properly. So, there's your first inaccuracy."

"What are your fucking sources for that?" Reggie spat.

"Fucking NASA." Danny snorted. "Fucking google it if you don't believe me. Although, I assume Dash already tried that."

Dash coughed, trying to cover his laugh.

"Whatever," Reggie huffed. "They'd still freeze if they could."

"Not immediately. The first thing that would happen is their skin would develop extreme sunburns from exposure to unfiltered ultraviolet light. If they didn't immediately exhale, their lungs would expand like a balloon from the unbalanced pressure. Parallel air expansion within their ears and sinuses will cause the tissues to rupture. Any moisture in the eyes, mouth, and throat will boil and vaporize. The rest of the liquids in the body will also start to boil and trigger extreme swelling in the muscles. Then the vaporization will cause localized temperatures to drop and then they'll begin to freeze. But that's not the end. Any body fluids that are left can and will escape the body however they can; crying, vomiting, urinating, defecating, all of it boiling on emission. And then they'll run out of oxygen causing hypoxia to take place. Within twelve seconds, they will have lost consciousness so at least they won't have to feel most of this. And if they're not re-pressurized within two minutes, they're certainly dead. And you can imagine the consequences of surviving."

The line on the other end was silent for a few moments. Danny thought he'd gone a bit too far and maybe ruined his reputation with Dash's family. The butterflies in his stomach were turning to stone. He stared at the stars on his ceiling, nerves eating away at him.

Dash, finally, broke the silence, his voice bold and full of pride. "Anything to say to that Reggie? Or did you not understand half the words he said? I thought you knew everything?"

Danny felt warm and gooey inside with the tone of Dash's voice. He was proud of him. Danny may as well be melting. He rolled on his side, curling up in an attempt to contain himself. He fidgeted with the edge of his blankets.

"Whatever," Reggie muttered. "Your boyfriend is creepy as hell. I'm going for a smoke." He heard a door close.

"Yeah, whatever, Reggie, you sore fucking loser," Dash muttered. Danny tried to keep his heart from jumping when Dash didn't correct Reggie on their relationship for a second time.

"Good job, Danny!" Dash's mom whispered nearby. "I owe you one."

"Thanks, Jessica." Danny giggled.

There was some shuffling and muttering on the other end before he heard another door. "You're off speaker now. Thanks for that. I've never seen Reggie so uncomfortable."

Danny's laugh was bubbly and he was embarrassed at how uncontrolled it was. "Anytime. It's nice to know you actually listened to my little space rant."

"Of course, I was listening. And look, it came in handy. Anytime you want to rant, I'm ready to listen."

Danny's face burned, tears pricking the corner of his eyes. His cheeks ached from how long his smile had been there. "Cool," he wheezed. "I'm always here to listen to you too. If there was anything you wanted to talk about."

"Really? Cause my grandma has been trying to teach me how to knit. I could tell you all about different types of yarn and needles."

Danny laughed, every nerve in his body alight with sparking nervous energy. One conversation with Dash was putting him through a lot of emotions in a very short time span. He would be lying if he said he hated it. "Then please, go on, knitting master. I'm all ears."

"Dash!" Dash's mom called faintly from the other room. "We're about to start the next movie! Danny can wait a few more days to have you all to himself!"

Dash sighed. "Well, I guess you'll have to wait to hear all about three-sided yarn until I get back. Talk to you later?"

"Yeah, later." Danny breathed, closing his phone as Dash hung up. He breathed out shakily, cradling his phone to his chest. His heart was racing under his fingers.

Dash had called him to prove a point about astronomy. And he was proud of him for his answer. And that made Danny feel very weak in the knees.

Oh boy, he might be in trouble.

~

Dash adjusted the temperature of the water at the kitchen sink. He was washing the apples they had, making sure to scrub all the pesticides off. He handed each one to his niece Janice who was peeling them at the kitchen table. His grandma sat next to her, mixing pie crust and humming a song.

"Dash, can I ask you something?" Janice asked, setting a freshly peeled apple in the wooden bowl on the table.

"Yeah, what's up, nerd?" He grabbed the last apple, pulling its sticker off and running it under the water.

"That boy that you keep texting, do you like him?"

Dash froze, the old yellow wallpaper with its red birds suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. "Maybe," he drawled. "Why do you want to know?"

Janice shrugged. "Reggie keeps saying mean things about it and I told him if he hurt your feelings about it I'd kick his ass. So, if you did like him, I was going to have to go to war." She struggled to pull a stem out of one of the apples. Their grandma passed her a small knife.

Dash grinned at the thought of his twelve-year-old niece fighting his twenty-five-year-old cousin. She would win. "You don't have to go to war for me, Janice. Just ignore Reggie. He's just a mean person."

"That's not an answer to my question, though." She stood up and got a glass down from the cabinet, filling it with the homemade juice from the fridge.

"I'm curious too." His grandma spoke. "With the way you called him the other day, I'd have thought you two were already dating." She winked at him.

Dash laughed to shake the nerves off. Calling Danny had been impulsive, he just wanted to put Reggie in his place. But he'd been thinking about how happy Danny had sounded since it happened. He turned off the sink and grabbed a cutting board and a fresh knife to start cutting the apples. "Well, if you two gossips need some to satisfy you, then maybe I'll admit to liking two boys."

Janice gasped, plopping back down in her seat. "Drama. Is one of them Danny?"

Dash nodded. "Yes, one of them is Danny. Don't you dare tell him."

"Who's the other one?" His grandma asked, adding more water to her mixing bowl.

Dash didn't really know how to explain Phantom to people who lived outside Amity Park. Ghosts weren't as common beyond their strange little town so they didn't really need ghost superheroes anywhere else. "Uh, just this other guy from school that I've been hanging out with."

His grandma sighed. "I wish I was still young enough to play the field like that."

"Grandma!" Janice gasped, scandalized. Their grandma just laughed. Janice grimaced. "Which one do you like better then? It's Danny, right?"

"You just want me to like Danny because he likes space." Dash slid the apple chunks off the board into a small bowl on the very end of the old wooden table.

"Uh, duh." Janice huffed. "Would it even work with this other guy?"

Dash sighed, remembering how disappointed Phantom had been in him the last time they talked. "I don't think so."

"Why not?" His grandma asked, waddling over to the oak cabinets in search of the dough roller.

"I don't know, gram. I haven't seen him in a while and we just have… different lifestyles. It might be a nice experience, but I don't think it would work long-term."

"There's nothing wrong with experiences." His grandma mused. "They're a part of life."

Dash gave her a small smile. "When did you get old enough to be so wise?"

She cackled, setting the roller down next to her bowl and moving her chair out of the way. "When did you get old enough to be worrying about boys?"

"Touche."

"So," Janice took a long sip of her juice, maintaining eye contact the whole time, "when are you gonna tell Danny?"

Dash frowned. He finished slicing the last apple and walked over to the sink to wash the cutting board. "I don't think I will. He's trying to figure out what he wants from life and I think I'd just get in his way."

"Why can't he figure it out with you?" Janice said with all the sting of honesty that children provided.

Dash didn't even know how to begin low self-esteem to her. His mind raced, trying to come up with a good excuse. "Uh, well, I just think he deserves the best and I think there's better than me."

"I think he's the one who gets to decide what he deserves." His grandma smiled. "You put yourself down too much Dash. We all have darkness in our past, but it doesn't make our present light less deserving."

Dash didn't get a chance to reply as his mom came bustling into the kitchen. "How's it going in here?"

His heart dropped when his grandma smirked at him. "Good. Jessica, dear, did you know your son has a crush on not one, but two boys?"

His mom turned a curious, twinkling eye to him. "I did not."

Janice was practically falling out of her seat. "Aunt Jes, you have to convince Dash to marry Danny so he can bring him to the next reunion so I can have a space buddy!"

His mom gasped, clapping her hands together. "You have a crush on Danny? That's wonderful! You already have my approval."

"Gram, you're a traitor," Dash grumbled. She playfully shrugged, as if she did nothing wrong.

His mom was never going to let him live this down.

[starsopinions]

Damsel is surprisingly good!

I am going to be honest with you, going into this film I was fully expecting a classic Netflix tween empowering movie. Let's just say I was pleasantly surprised!

SPOILERS AHEAD

Starting with the good! Firstly, I really enjoyed the femininity and girlhood aspect. This theme is woven through a lot of aspects of the film and it makes it feel well-rounded and shows multiple different examples of woman- and motherhood. It was shown through Elodie's birth mom dying, her relationship with her step-mom and obviously Elodie's connection to the previous victims. I really enjoyed how all the women/offers/victims helped each other indirectly. Victoria's messages helped Elodie get out alive even though she couldn't herself. (Victoria is the definition of a girls girl). Think about Elodie’s relationship with her sister Floria, marriage, The dragon's children being murdered and the dragon's reaction to that, Lady Bayford's relationship with Elodie and Floria and Elodie being sacrificed by her father.

Another thing I liked was Elodie’s dress. It obviously restricts movement and is a symbol of Elodie’s freedom and control, or lack thereof. That, however, isn’t the only thing it is used for. Throughout the movie, Elodie repeatedly uses her dress to survive. For example, She is saved by it when she jumps over the ravine and she uses the sleeve as a bag for the light worms. This shows that Elodie is being resourceful and smart by using all the available material. Besides that, it also shows that she isn’t giving up like she is expected to which is nice to see. It would have been so easy for her to conveniently find a bag in a cave somewhere and use that, or for her to simply be able to jump that far. Instead, the movie is clever and makes Elodie innovative which makes her more likeable and more deserving of survival. Additionally, it is also really cool to see all the different iterations of the dress as time goes on and it makes for an epic transformation.

And now, a speed round of parts I enjoyed: Prince Henry not having a redemption arc (he threw her in that cave without a second thought). The CGI looked amazing and the dragon was honestly terrifying. The costume- and set design both did an amazing job. Floria was adorable.

There are a few things that I would have done differently. Starting at the beginning, it feels a bit rushed. I would have liked to see Elodie’s people actually struggle, there was a lot of telling that they were poor but Elodie is married off before we actually get a chance to see it for ourselves. And while we're at it, although I liked the bond and dynamics between Elodie/Floria, Elodie/Lady Bayford (her stepmother) and Elodie/Lord Bayford (her father) they should have spent more time exploring their relationships. Especially Elodie and her father's bond should have been stronger, right now we only get a few scenes of them together, so imagine how much harder his betrayal would have hit if we were shown how close they really were. That is not to say that it is bad right now, but it is definitely something that could be improved upon.

Another aspect I would have liked to see more of is the colonizer plot which is implied but not developed further. It is mentioned briefly that the people of the kingdom Aurea invaded the land and tried to slay the dragon and her children. It could have been delved into more by showing another flashback, for example. It also would have been cool if that was also one of the reasons the dragon was upset. For me, the dragon's redemption arc isn’t really a redemption at all but more of a 180°. I think the dragon getting tricked is a good plot point but the dragon was EVIL before (taunting and playing with her victims) and it could have been dragged out a bit more in my opinion. It is also quite weird to me that the dragon goes with Elodie at the end. You would think that the dragon wants her land back and with the kingdom gone, she can have it back. It is also weird to me that Elodie would want the dragon to go with her because although it is obvious that the dragon isn’t the actual evil in this scenario. She still tried to kill you, your sister and she actually did kill your father. So overall it would make more sense to me if the dragon stayed behind to claim her own land back or they should have more scenes where the dragon comes around and isn't evil anymore.

The last thing I want to complain about is the set-up for Elodie being sacrificed. There were some great starts on that. Queen Isabella getting Elodie’s name wrong, The girl on the balcony, the creepy masks. Those are all great beginnings but I want it to be WAY more suspicious and weird. I liked how Lady Bayford stormed in and tried to stop Elodie from marrying Prince Henry but I wish it came from a more creepy place, right now she just thinks he isn't right for her. Maybe she heard people on the market talk about a ritual, or maybe she talked with the family of the other girl who was sacrificed, that kind of thing would be an amazing set-up. I don’t think it was bad how it was but it just could have been better.

Overall, I feel like I have been very negative in this review but that is not my intention at all. I actually really enjoyed the movie. It obviously isn’t a cinematic masterpiece but I don’t think they intended it to be. It had potential to be even better but I honestly think they did a fantastic job.

This is my first time writing a review without watching or reading anybody else’s opinions, so I am completely in the dark about what the general opinion is. My prediction is that it is written off as a classic tween movie just because it has a “girl boss” female lead when in reality it is so much more than that and I had such a good time watching! Would 100% recommend!!

Obviously, these are my opinions! If you feel differently, then that is 100% okay and you are always free to share your thoughts!

Thank you for reading all the way to the end (I would be eternally grateful if you liked/reblogged) <3

Until next time,

Star ☆

[mattbegins]

My 911 7x05/7B predictions

- Eddie and Marisol break up (she’s only had one line and one appearance in the last four episodes and I find it kind of ooc that the reasons Eddie didn’t want to be with Ana wouldn’t also apply to Marisol, there’s been such little build up or even scenes with them to suggest otherwise. That might change this season, but we haven’t seen a successful relationship launched between a recurring character and a newly introduced character since Michael and David (I don’t count madney because even though Maddie was new they’re both mains), so I don’t know how they’d do this for Eddie and Marisol without it being rushed and kind of clumsy)

- Buck and Tommy will have a good run but I don’t think they’ll last to the end of the season. Tim Minear said as much himself and described bucktommy as an important but “sort of the entry-level relationship” as Buck begins to understand his sexuality, but because of Tommy’s redemption arc and the clear joy Buck has about their relationship I don’t think they’ll end because of something bad between them. I’d hope it would either be that Tommy has to move due to some sort of career advancement, or someone realizes feelings between Buck and Eddie and Tommy doesn’t want to be a replacement, and not them killing him off. With that in mind, my genuine theory is that buddie would be what ends bucktommy because Minear hasn’t completed the rest of the season yet and has repeatedly expressed concerns about making sure he doesn’t create anything that messes with ratings and views, so if anything he may have been testing the waters with bucktommy to pave the way for buddie if it was received well- which it was. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’ll happen off-screen like with Natalia.

- There’s going to be some drama or angst surrounding Hen and Karen’s baby (they really deserve a break but they never seem to get one when it comes to their kids and I’m nervous, but they’ll get a lot of support from Chim and Maddie especially and I can see the relationship between these sets of parents getting even stronger)

- The silly Jinx/Cursed type episode this season will involve Chimney’s bachelor party (might be There Goes the Groom) as the 118 boys stumble into some wild shenanigans. For anyone who’s seen Psych 3x04 and 6x02 and/or remembers 911 2x15 Ocean’s 9-1-1, THAT is the kind of chaos I’m looking for where maybe they accidentally get involved in some kind of nonsense and wind up getting interrogated by Athena or get drunk/dosed and have to retrace everything that happened that night (bonus points for the trope of something happening between Eddie and Buck during that time because it would be hilarious timing but honestly not a bad way to get the ball rolling). Anyway, this would explain the ruined suits in the bts photos and I honestly see them just showing up to the wedding all messy and disheveled like John Watson in Game of Shadows and Maddie being shocked but not surprised despite having made them promise nothing will go wrong or something.

- Christopher’s current storyline arc is going to get a wholesome resolution closer to the end of the season as he works through his feelings and trauma from his mom’s death, and I think/hope Eddie and Buck will get to share a proud co-parent moment seeing him go off to a school dance or a date and knowing that he’s in a better place than he was at the beginning. The scene with Shannon’s letter was so beautiful but I think this narrative still hasn’t come full circle yet because we haven’t seen it change his dating behavior, he just put the photo back up, and I think the resolution really has to involve all three of them as a family (in whichever sense that ends up being).

- Whatever grand emergency features in the season finale, I don’t think it will involve the traumatic injury of a main character, I think it’ll be a really personal and emotional type of situation rather than something physical. The three episode premier was so intense and ongoing that I have a sense they might follow the pattern of s3 and s5 which each had a major physically endangering episode in the middle (Fallout and Brawl in Cell Block 9-1-1) and then scattered large emergencies near the end with a finale that provided a lot of closure and personal resolutions for character struggles to carry over into s8. This might be the thing with Chris, or possibly more personal growth for Buck, but I think it has to be Eddie, Chris, or Buck because they have the most loose ends right now. The middle emergency has a good chance of being Ravi if they go with him getting the Albert treatment. Regardless, the hype for the show since being taken up by ABC has been huge so I think the finale will still have some sort of massive implication that’ll hook people in for the next season.

- Bonus minor prediction: Buck and Tommy cross paths at an emergency because I think that would be cute

[fangirling-heart]

Hi Heart! Good morning ^w^

For the fandom Ask Game, how about The Owl House?

Hello! And good day/evening (it's evening for me)! Thank you for the chance to ramble about my favorite show! :)

my favorite female character

Luz Noceda my beloved! I have mentioned the numerous reasons why I like her so many times, I've probably become annoying, so I'll keep it brief: She's sweet, she's enthusiastic, she's unapologetically herself, she's smart, she's headstrong, she's extremely relatable to me, she's a weirdo, she's a legend and she is the moment!

my favorite male character

Hunter! Hunter is a really great character, who I absolutely love for his story and arc, his awesome design, his relationships with other characters, his personality...

He basically has everything it takes for me to love a character, including the antagonistic starting point (I do have a soft spot for redemption arcs), but he didn't really have a redemption arc, because he didn't really need it. Hunter was always a good person, trapped in the bad situation, but that doesn't make his arc any less impactful and wonderful.

my favorite book/season/etc

Definitely season 2. Literally every element in it bounces off each other perfectly. The character arcs get moving, we see many relationships grow and develop, we meet a lot new characters whose entrance to the show feels completely natural and very impactful and everything develops more and more! The story, the relationships, the characters! And then everything is comes together for a marvelous final act (Hollow Mind-King's Tide)!

my favorite episode (if its a tv show)

Thanks To Them. Yes, it's not a season 2 episode, but it's my absolute favorite one!

I will forever be pissed at disney for cutting this show short, but I will also forever be in awe for the way the crew handled the last season and especially this episode. It does an excellent job balancing out all the characters, a bunch of dynamics and I never thought that one scene was taking time from another one. Also, it focuses on a lot of the stuff I love the most about the show, like the dynamics of Luz and Hunter and Hunter and Flapjack, the lore of the Wittebanes, the shenanigans of the Hexsquad, Camila and her relationship with Luz, Belos being a creepy bitch (the fact that we didn't see him get hit by a car is a crime, but I gotta admit the idea of having him quietly getting stronger by possessing critters in the background to set the atmosphere and build up the ending part was great) and an awesome confrontation with a bunch of emotions for the end! 10/10 episode! (I still cry with Flapjack's sacrifice...)

my favorite cast member

The man, the myth, the legend, Alex Hirsch!

my favorite ship

I honestly have so many ships I love in this show, it's hard to choose just one. So I'm gonna say my top 3 (in no specific order):

Lumity

Huntlow

Raeda

a character I’d die defending

Camila Noceda! None of that "Camila is a bad mom!" crap is allowed here! In this house, we love and appreciate mama Noceda!

a character I just can’t sympathize with

Odalia Blight. That's an actual bad mom and horrible person! Screw her!

a character I grew to love

Probably King. I did like him from the beginning, just not so much when compared to other characters. But during season 2, when we got to explore his character more, outside of cute comic relief, I grew to love him.

my anti otp

Well, aside from obvious choices (incest, pedophilic ships), I personally don't like ships with the Hexsquad and Boscha, especially Boschlow. Aside from just, not really liking Boscha as a character, I just can’t see in general the appeal of the bully x victim of their bullying ship type.

[lazerswordweilder]

I’ve had an au rattling around in my skull for a while so here:

A 20ish Danny ends up in the DC universe one way or another, then he meets Shazam, and wtf that’s a homeless child. So Danny gets himself some fake IDs and whatnot and buys a house, inviting adopting with no choice because that is a hoMELESS CHILD- Shazam and then Danny uses some magic. The House is really in the ghost zone but it’s also in Fawcett city and Amity Park.

So the hero sanctuary begins and it’s in The House. Danny travels between so many different realms in between his duties as Phantom and Danny and he slowly picks up more kids.

He brings Peter Parker home and for the first time Peter has someone who understands him, someone who helps with his homework and understands what it feels like to try and do a test with a concussion, Peter spends time there so often it becomes a second hone, The House gets a new location in New York.

Then Dan starts a redemption arc and Dani decides to settle down at the house too, they even weeks where they do nothing but hang out together and they have odd weeks where they travel the world or do odd jobs for some money.

Next is Nico from Percy Jackson, he finally find people who aren’t creeped out by his death energy, who understand what it’s like to be so different, where did you think he stayed in between his time at camp half blood and the underworld, The House gets a small plot of land half an hour away from Camp Halfblood.

By this point Jazz moves in and acts as the mom, Sam and Tucker follow shortly after and this is when The House fully becomes Dannys home, his haunt is Amity, but his nest (think that’s the right terminology) will always be The House.

There’s also Harry Potter, Danny knows he can’t intervene much here but he gives Harry enough food that he doesn’t get malnutrition and heals injuries given to him unfairly and tells him stories that give Harry hope, Harry moves on quickly when he finds Hogwarts but never forgets and says hi to his second dad (Danny) on each of his death days. Harry becomes an even bigger embodiment of the third brother, when he does die, death is an old friend he can see again and Danny welcomes him back into The House with open arms.

Basically every child who gives up too much to become a hero finds sanctuary at The House, they aren’t judged about their powers and the needs and other things that come with them. Having someone to heal their wounds after fights is a welcome relief for each child and they have someone to lean on if all goes wrong, they’ll always have their dad (Danny, Tuckers too irresponsible for that), their moms (Sam and Jazz), their siblings, they’ll always have their family.

One day, Shazam gets beaten up within an inch of his life by Darkseid. Darkseid goes down in seconds to the angry family and if Danny asked Fright Knight to trap him in his own personal worst fear for a while, well no one has to know.

[zyafics]

Hiii!!! Do you thinkthat Rafe should have a “redemption arc”? I have a opinion that not all characters need a redemption arc and I don’t think morally gray or “straight up evil “ characters are one dimensional, etc.. I feel like that’s a common trope in media where they take a character who has done many wrong things!! and they try to redeem them, but that being said I do think rafe has many layers to him in my opinion he’s extremely sensitive, erratic, and when his father was alive, he’s so desperate for his dad’s love so much so he can’t even see through the mistreatment. Also, the way Drew plays him u can tell he has moments of empathy, shame etc!! He’s such a complex character soo messed up but so interesting! I also find it hard to believe that the Rafe that we seen throughout the seasons would not spiral even more . Even though this season Rafe is still erratic at times he generally seems more composed and also drug free??? Idk it seems like such a massive shift from littarly telling his dad there’s something very wrong with him , also literally everything that happen in s3 . Also it would have been nice to see how he was as a child, Rose had mentioned that she always knew something was wrong with him . I wonder what went wrong and also how is relationship was with his mom? Do you have any head canons  on that . Sorry for this long rant. Would love to know ur opinion on everything and if you agree?

in my unserious opinion, i don’t want rafe to have a redemption arc because i want him to spiral and crash out. but on a serious note, i can explain why.

the reason why obx transitioned from rafe being an antagonist -> anti-hero is because of fan reception. and i don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing—sometimes it’s good to take in the reaction of your viewers to better steer the direction of your projects, but not at the cost of the character itself.

rafe’s redemption arc—no matter what direction it goes to—won’t be satisfying to me. because he didn’t get the chance to hit rock bottom. rafe was heading in that direction, but s3 felt like a complete shift from s2. let me explain.

rafe started as this character who was relatively background. he was just an agitator, a place of conflict to heighten the kook-pogue dynamics. then, he killed peterkin and it completely shifts the narrative. the thing about killing in shows such as these is that once you write it, u cannot go back. the only way to enhance problems and issues is to go deeper than murder—and that’s where it become very cartoonish and out-of-tune with the realism of obx. regardless, rafe shifts from this minor background character to a pivotal moment in the show—an on-screen death. and now he’s caught in the middle of everything—the treasure hunt, the ward-john b conflict, the pogues and kooks. and so, he’s beginning his first step to antagonism.

this heightens in s2. rafe had his moments of doubts but overall, he went straight into the treasure hunt and aiding his father. he helped ward hid the body, he almost killed kie, he found the cross and stole it from pope and had a whole fight against pope in the middle of the marsh. he was ruthless and relentless. he was becoming this demented version of himself he never saw himself going to—and that’s the most intriguing part of his character. there was so much to explore, especially as you said, a lot of his actions were driven by his need to be validated by his father. all his actions were manipulated by another voice. HOWEVER, by the end of the season. he won. he didn’t have any more doubts about himself. he managed to pull the cross back onto the ship, but he didn’t try to shoot sarah. that moment of hesitation was depicted, but not explored.

and then s3 happened.

this is where they took rafe’s character and completely flipped it imo. i truly believe it’s because of his depiction in s2 and how fans wanted rafe/drew to be more on screen; and the only way the creators could think of doing that is making him a “good guy.” but the problem with this is that, rafe felt like someone who was controlled by another person (s2) to someone who grew into their own (s3). he had this complete shift in mentality (also getting clean, growing more dominant) and we didn’t get to see his internal struggle with it.

nothing in the show has demonstrated for rafe to look back and reflect on his actions. everything he’s ever done felt right in his head, felt like his own ownership. he never hesitated nor regretted his choices. in fact, he enhanced it by taking the cross from the pogues successfully and melting it down. if rafe were to have doubts, he would have to be met with failure, but rafe kept winning. and that’s the problem. he never needed a moment of self-reflection, of second-guessing his choices because why would u when ur choices all lead you to success?

that’s why this shift into s4, which clearly shows the creators attempt to making rafe becoming redeemed, feels disingenuous. because rafe never wanted to change. he had no reason to. so why would he? and in addition, we never got to see the full version of who he could be had he descended down his villainy path. we never get to see the potential of anything. rafe feels flimsy in that aspects, and while we get moments of him tweaking, it feels like fan service rather than genuine responses. because it’s never explored why. 

again it comes back to the streaming problem and lack of filler episodes, but overall, i think the question isn’t that rafe “should” have a redemption arc but rather “could” he have it successfully in the show. and the answer is no. it’s too flimsy, it lacks the proper foundation for him to transition smoothly and naturally from who he was to who he becomes. because regardless of my answer, i think he will. it’s whether the execution can be done properly.