#Honestly you're probably just mad that their parents let them express themselves

[oblivions-dawn]

If you're that fucking disturbed and disgusted by kids wearing cat ears and tails in public, maybe YOU are the asshole and need to perform some personal introspection

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

"Hello." A dull thwack sound reverberated across the rooftop, leaving the boy who snuck up on Red Robin clutching his head. The boy, a meta if the large animal ears and tail were anything to go by, shook off the pain and pouted up at him, "What was that for?!"

The vigilante was unrepentant, holding his bo staff in a ready position, "You snuck up behind a vigilante at night. In Gotham."

"Okay," the meta conceded, still pouting. "You have a point there. Robin threw ninja stars at me when I tried to approach Batman."

That got Tims attention, "You tried to approach Batman? Was there something you needed?"

The kid suddenly got serious, "My mom went missing. I haven't been able to contact her for almost two weeks now."

Red pulled his arm closer to his face before he began typing on his wrist computer, "Can you tell me her name and date of birth?"

"Um." The other teen fidgetted with his tail a bit, "Okay, so...she's kinda Cheetah."

"...come again?"

"She's Cheetah. The...the supervillian."

Red Robin stared at him, and honestly who could blame him? The bats hadn't even known Cheetah had a son. "So why are you in Gotham? Why not ask Wonder Woman for help? Cheetahs one of her rogues not ours."

The teen shook his head, "She went to meet someone in Gotham before she disappeared. She seemed really agitated before she left, almost scared. I've never seen her like that before." He paused, giving the vigilante time to type before continuing, "I didn't go Wonder Woman since I figured I would wind up needing to talk to a bat anyway since its your turf and all." He said, waving a hand as if gesturing to the city around them.

"I wasn't aware Cheetah had a kid."

The meta grimaced, "she didn't until a year ago."

Red gave him a look, as if urging him to go on.

The meta chuffed, sounding a lot like whatever big cat he was supposed to be, "I'll only tell you my tragic backstory if you promise to help me find my mom."

"I'll find your mom." The bird said without an ounce of hesitation. Tim was a little offended. Did this guy think he was going to leave his mom in danger just because she was a criminal? Appearently so, seeing as the teen looked so relieved at his words.

"Okay, so my bio parents were evil mad scientists. Always a bad start, anyway they were obsessed with the occult and one day they suddenly took me and my sister to Brazil to hunt for some artifact of another. That alone was strange but weirder still was the fact my creepy godfather was paying for it all. He usually only does something like that when he's plotting "

"Plotting?" The detective interjected, "you make it sound like he does that often."

"Yeah. Hes a supervillian." The meta said casually, as if he didn't just leave Tim reeling, but the kid wasn't done yet, "He's had a massive crush on my bio mom since collage and never let it go no matter how many times she rejected him. She even married my dad, his best friend, and this dude just kept simping for 20 years." The teen rolled his eyes, "Hes convinced himself that if he murders my bio dad then my bio mom will fall in love with him and me and jazz will be "his"." He said that last part with fingerqoutes and a disgusted expression.

Tim filed that away for later, "Can I have his name, if nothing else?"

The teen seemed reluctant for a moment, "You're the worlds greatest detectives. You'll find out even if i try to hide it. Besides, I'd probably be better off if you and the Justice League know everything anyway."

Tim was...surprised by that. Most people usually weren't this open with them.

"His name is Vlad Masters, he also goes by Plasmius when he's dressed like a wannabe vampire. He's a ghost who's repossessed his corpse. My parents are Jack and Maddie Fenton, who are obsessed with ghosts and have convinced themselves that all ghosts are evil and must be destroyed, regardless of how much evidence points to them being wrong."

"And your name?"

The meta grinned at him, showing off four very sharp fangs, reminiscent of the large cat he takes after, "You can call me Jaguar. We were exploring a bit when I broke off from my family and got jumped by one of them. Suddenly I was struck by a claw and turned into furry bait. Fluffy stopped trying to make me his lunch and just stared at me before walking away, which was wierd. Then my parents found me, accused me of being a ghost, because thats naturally what someone would assume when thier son sprouts cat ears," he said while rolling his eyes.

"Naturally." Red joked, which had the benefit of making Jaguar smile.

"So my parents chased me through the jungle, shooting all the while, then suddenly a portal opened up in front of me. I'm not stupid, I know there was no way this wasn't a trap. I mean, a portal opening up right after that bizarre series of events and its the same shade of glowing green as the wierd death go my parents are obsessed with? There's no way they weren't related somhow, but I was desperate and jumped through anyway."

"I landed in another jungle, or the same one in a different location, I'm not sure. I tried hunting and foraging but wasn't very successful at either." Danny still remembered the throbbed in his head when he had headbutt that tree after missing his pounce on that pig he had been stalking. "Thats when Cheetah found me. She took me in and taught me to hunt and fight."

-----

Possible plot twists:

1. Danny isnt Phantom in this au

2. Danny is Phantom in this au but is trying to leave that life behind

3. My favorite. Danny has the ability to manipulate and control animals into doing his bidding with the effect of jaguars and other big cats being the most prevalent and he just doesn't realize it.

One of Cheetahs friends/allies realizes cheetah has changed and suspected something and convinced her to leave for a while to see if her care for this kid faded after a while away from his presence. It works and Danny loses another parental figure/possibly attacked by them too.

[minty-playhouse]

OK, but if I may ramble about daltwistle for a moment...

Putting this under a cut because it's just me basically telling you why they compel me so much, so if you're not interested or if you already know you can skip this, otherwise, let's go!

So what makes me crazy about them specifically is how wildly different they are when it comes to approaching their own problems and insecurities, and how that can mesh so well or catastrophically wrong.

Like it drives me up the wall thinking about Roger, who comes from a background where he’s expected to perform in the manliest of ways, already being at a disadvantage because of his short height, resorting to violence/aggression as his coping way, as his way to yes, to prove that he is a big burly guy, what of it?

Meanwhile John is an autistic only child who needs to prove themselves worthy over and over (to a parental figure that will probably never really care no matter how grandiose their achievement is) so he just becomes a character. He’s just masking his way through life, nothing wrong with that. You just need to remember to play your part all the time, no biggie.

So they are pretty much decided on who they are from the get go. Roger is short tempered and picks up fights and brawls all the time because that’s what guys are supposed to do, right? John tries to do every single thing under the sun to impress his unenthused stepdad, because that’s what’s expected right? For you to make your parents proud?

And I just think that while from a “feelings for each other” standpoint (because so far I’ve only been lying down the like base of who they are in my head when thinking these thoughts) John would accept what he feels much easier, since he was never really pressured to perform in any type of manly man setting - at least not to the same extend as Roger’s factory worker background – so OK. Also he’s friends with Pete who’s………… very not straight, which has been all but confirmed by him at this point, so John isn’t exactly shocked and appalled that he himself isn’t an example. He’s surprised it’s Roger of all people that instilled this feeling in him though.

Roger is fucking besides himself. All that perfect image of a guy you shouldn’t mess with, that he built upon for years, and for what? For him to throw it all away because some guy with gnarly teeth smirked at you a little weird and it made you feel weak in your knees for a split second?

And while I feel that John would accept his feelings easier, that doesn’t automatically means he’s just going to open up about them. His entire life was built upon “fake it till you make it” so honestly, he isn’t going to just go to Rog and say what he’s feeling, but nothing’s stopping him from looking and thinking. And besides, how pathetic, that a small shrimp like Rog would have any type of influence over him in any way.

((when the animosity between them as a band as a whole starts to simmer down they realize wow we were being really childish about all of that we really shouldn’t have made that so much more complicated, but I guess our backgrounds made it hard to express ourselves in healthy ways but let’s not unpack all that right now!))

I feel that in the short run Roger would be the first to crack because for all his macho demanding background, at least he just exploded with whoever was making him mad and got over it pretty much (which is a much healthier outlet than mr. “my entire persona is carefully crafted to please those around me”). He would probably think “OK, maybe if I just fucking do it maybe it’s out of my system and I can let this GO” because Roger hates having to keep shit bottled up. But at the same time this is shit he’s gotta keep bottled up because otherwise it’ll ruin his reputation. So yeah, he’s under a lot of stress thirsting over this weird goth guy who existed before goth guys were even a thing.

John would probably show way more vulnerability in the longer run. Like, with Roger there isn’t really much else. What you see is what you get pretty much. When he finally unties himself from people’s demands of him to perform like A Man, he goes “Wow, not sure what I was freaking out about, hah!”

Meanwhile John is a whole baggage that, while I’m not unpacking here because that could be it’s own post, would take eons to go through. Like yeah it’s all fun and games when it’s banging late at night at a hotel when drunk and high. Don’t really need to think about anything. And it’s nice when Roger compliments him. But whatever, he doesn’t really love Roger, it’s no big deal. It’s no big deal, he keeps telling himself.

John is almost scared about his feelings later because at first he thinks “Ah, this is a fling” but the feeling doesn’t go away. And the attachment is way more scary for John than the idea of being gay.

Like, did Roger fall for him, or for the perfectly manicured persona he put forth all these years?

But yeah, these are all things that they could solve if they spent like two minutes talking to each other like people, but instead they need to play this weird game with each other. Where they are in this limbo that’s not really a relationship, but just what are they anyway? They really don’t know, but they also wouldn’t trade this for anything.

I think that’s what compels me about them I guess =shrug emoji=