#even just canon danny at certain times would be messed up

[mdhwrites]

I'd like your thoughts on the segment of TOH fandom that attributes Luz' behavior to her having been bullied and ostracized in Gravesfield. Canonically there is nothing showing Luz being bullied or says that she was bullied in Gravesfield. Quite the contrary. Yesterday's Lie had Vee, who had been living as Luz for months, living a good life where she had made friends at camp and at school. She resented Luz' return and castigated her for not appreciating how good a life she had. The episode Thanks to Them had the guidance counselor ask Camila if she had been bullied in school to which Camila answered that she had. He then asked if she wanted Luz to struggle as she had. That question strongly suggests that Luz was not yet having any social difficulties beyond those of her own making and that sending her to camp would keep that from happening. When we see Luz back in Gravesfield HS she was having no difficulties dealing with other students and that some of her contacts with them were friendly and admiring.

So what are your thoughts on this insistence of certain fans that Luz had suffered this bullying and ostracization when the show itself not only doesn't support it but contradicts it?

Because it's necessary for Luz's character to function.

That's really all it comes down to. Luz is kind of monstrous if she has never actually known strife. She wants to be seen as the victim after all. She wants to be justified in abandoning her mom for her fantasies. For rejecting the consequences of assaulting people. Heck, that's still true in S3 where she needs to be able to claim that the human world would be some torturous hell hole for her so that her self martyring actually comes across correctly instead of someone going, "Oh, that sounds like a lot of work and might actually be dangerous so I'm just gonna stay home with my loving mom instead."

If her home life was good, was kind, was what we wish our home lives with a parent who will enable us to do whatever we want short of breaking the law... What the fuck is she doing? The audience insert, who goes entirely unquestioned in the show besides "Hey, you kind of messed up, go apologize," (which she doesn't do well all the time) is suddenly this whiny brat who wants to be enabled by literally every person in existence because she needs to be the most special person there. It's the antithesis of what people want "I just want to be understood!" to be about. She wants to be understood so you go "Oh, I get it, you keep being you," and never hold her accountable. Otherwise, she might not lie all the time because she might be willing to actually face the consequences of her actions.

It is a shift in Luz's character irreversible in its damage. You just cannot like the show in the same way when you have to admit that Luz is a self entitled little shit. And mind you, her normal archtype is of that sort. Danny Phantom and Randy Cunningham and even to some extent Kim Possible are all flawed teenage characters who are clearly growing. Who need to be better people so while they're protagonists, you're supposed to learn as much alongside them as from their example, if not more. You are meant to take from Luz by example though. She is meant to be the audience surrogate after all. And, you know, if she's unjustified in her actions... What does that say about you all of a sudden who connected so deeply with her?

That's all of why this can't vanish. I actually want to add onto your proofs though because people will go "What about her panicking during Knock Knock Knocking?" Yes, that is the ONE time we are ever given the idea for her being mocked for something and even that one... Well, she's worried about going too over the top. How much do we want to bet Luz came to school in her suit to ask the person she liked out like she was in some sort of soap opera? That's gonna get you reasonably laughed without a VERY specific sort of partner like Amity.

HOWEVER... That's the one time, a season and a half into the show, her actions imply someone who has been bullied. Otherwise, she is very confrontational, she does nothing to hide herself, she gives almost no shits about what anyone thinks about her besides "Fuck you, I am totally the greatest" everytime Eda doubts her. The closest before then is her worrying about Amity seeing her as lame but Amity is the only one she cares about for that. Even then, she never seems bothered by the fact that Amity is a bully. She is willing to stand up to her regardless. This is further reinforced by what she does with Boscha where she either just brushes her off during Once Upon a Swap or is entirely confident in confronting her in Winging it Like Witches. NONE of that is the behavior of someone who has been bullied, harassed and hurt by constant bullying. Add all the elements where she clearly could have found people like her but chose instead to chase more popular clubs like cheerleading and acting and it paints a REALLY bad picture of Luz.

It paints her as Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, or Goob from Meet the Robinsons. Both people who claimed the world hated them when the reality was that they were awful to reality, one being a bully and the other ignoring all signs of kindness and acceptance that was attempted to be given to him. This is far worse when you remember that Luz never appreciated her mom properly, like Goob, and also is genuinely an asshole to both King and Hooty for their interests, like Liz Lemon.

Luz is a bad person. But for the show to function, you cannot believe that. Once you do, it will only to start to collapse faster and faster as the contradictions pile on top of themselves.

So why not just twist the truth instead into the pleasant lie Luz is actually the archtype of the bullied nerd that the first episode tried to imply she was but then failed to ever deliver on? It's easier that way, even if it's dishonest. Luz wouldn't judge you for it, not so long as you didn't try to lie to her. Because all that matters in the end to Luz is Luz.

======+++++======

If the idea of a fact that's not well supported by the show being critical to a character functioning sounds familiar, it's because it's the same reason why people need Odalia to be pure evil. Both Amity and Luz need to use having been hurt by others to justify their own behaviors, even when their behaviors don't correlate in ways that actually support those excuses.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[toast-tales]

Random Question Time: (I'm hoping these questions weren't asked before. Ignore them if they were or if they are dumb, I apologize in advance!)

Which human character if turned into a giant all sudden would absolutely be overtaken by their new "power"?

And which giant if turned into a human would absolutely fall into helpless disarray?

Lastly, what would you say are the pet peeves for your main cast, Danny, Christopher, Nathan, and any others you'd love to go through? Peeves big or small. Ha, you get it, I'm done. XD I'd honestly like to know all of them, but don't if you don't want too!

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY PEEPSTER!!

HAH! I love those first two questions because I actually started writing something for this (so far, just non-canon shenanigans lol) and somewhat unsurprisingly, the answer is Danny and Christopher. And I mean this quite honestly, not just because they're the main characters.

Danny would finally not be helpless anymore, and would certainly relish in a little bit of payback. She would finally get to hug Nathan. She could walk around outside, maybe take a walk in the woods, go down the street, eat at a nice restaurant. She'd try and take full advantage of her new "abilities." And if she knew it was safe, she probably wouldn't be against eating someone who deserved it, just to rub it in further-

Christopher would be absolutely terrified. His whole thing is maintaining a certain level of control in all situations. If he was actually reduced to that size, helpless, and at the whim of whoever he was with (especially someone who might have it out for him), he'd be freaking out. It would be a multifold nightmare for him - one, he'd lose a lot of his sharpened senses, which would be hard to get used to. It'd feel like he was running around blind. Two, he'd know how vulnerable he was, having previously had giant senses and...remembering how humans tasted. And even if he knew he would be safe throughout, being eaten would be a new and terrifying experience for him. It would be...humbling, to say the least. If he wasn't actively terrified, he'd probably just be an irritable grouch about it until he got back to normal.

As far as pet peeves...

Danny really doesn't like people who speak for her, put words into her mouth, that sort of thing. People who tell her how she should feel or what she should want. (Nathan's the exception here - she respects his opinion enough to know that he's just concerned for her.)

Christopher is a bit of a neat freak. He hates when people leave trash lying around, or dirty dishes, or just mess in general. He'll usually pick it up or clean it himself because of how much it bugs him, but it really rubs him the wrong way when people do it consistently. (This is probably a byproduct of how messy his parents were.)

Nathan hates being referred to as a "goody-two-shoes" or anything similar. Especially by people who barely know him. It's not just the fact that he doesn't eat humans - he never went to any crazy parties, didn't drink, smoke, and he doesn't really swear. Unfortunately that's enough for most people to label him pretty quickly, and he hates being labeled like that, even if it's not in an outright mean way. It just makes him feel like a child, and that's a big insecurity of his.

(that's probably all the characters I'll do for right now, this is at risk of becoming another novel entirely at this point lol)

Thank you for the questions, and I hope you have a swell-tastic day as well, friendo! :D

[luminanightfall]

Been thinking about this all day now. Got a few thoughts on how to possibly insert the DP continuity, at least a bit.

Will they rescue this timeline's Danny early because Danny knows where the base is and when it's gonna be? Does Luthor see Danny running around and connect the dots when he starts cloning, or does he see the resemblance and get the idea of cloning because of it? Time paradoxes and shenanigans are fun to think about. Maybe Lex will experiment a bit more with this timeline's Danny, and he becomes Phantom, maybe he employs a certain couple who's passion is ghosts and they mess around. Perhaps (future)Danny and the JL go to rescue him and on the way out they manage to capture future Danny, and then Cadmus, or the Fentons that work under them until they can fund their own buisness, start to experiment with ectoplasm on him (maybe the Fentons do it in their 'downtime' that they continue to research ectoplasm in on their own). Or Luthor deems new Danny a failure and throws him out and he gets adopted by the Fentons and becomes Phantom the canon way.

And what if the Speedforce is already a bit connected to the Infinite Realms, and the reason they can timetravel or dimension hop, and even met Clockwork is that they're already closer than most humans? Maybe Danny survives(ish) and becomes a Halfa because of his connection to the Speedforce that already made him more likely to connect better with ectoplasm than other people. So when the JL rescues him again, he is injured and suddenly has a lot more powers than before that don't make a lot of sense. Now the Justice League has two Danny clones, this timelines, who is a Speedster, and the future one who just became half ghost on top of being a Speedster. (or vice versa if new clone Danny was nabbed) Perhaps Danny's ghost powers aren't all like in the show, but a bit more in tune with his meta abilities. So maybe a lighting/electricity core instead of an ice core. A speedster able to use ice would be interesting though.

I'm not sure what the new clones name could be unless leaning on other variations of Danny, wich would lead to Dan. Maybe he has a different designation this time and can go from there, maybe he comes up with a completely different name. I kinda like Eddie for some reason. Maybe Lenard? Since Daniel backwards is Leinad, Lenny for short? Idk, I'm bad with thinking of names lol.

Maybe they could prevent Jasons death too, if Danny knows about that drama. Tell Nightwing to not come with on that mission to space and maybe check on his lil brother, or maybe their relationship in general is better if Danny is already there as a family friend that can mediate.

Danny was pissed. He was chilling in the Speedforce, waiting on his dad—the Flash—to show up when he felt something shift around him. He exited the speedforce to find that the timeline had changed again, and he had been written out of the timeline. He technically was a time anomaly now, and didn’t exist. So he talked to Clockwork, a ghost he’d gotten to know extremely well after Danny’s creation.

Danny was a clone of the Flash and Green Lantern(Hal Jordan) as part of an experiment that Lex Luthor had taken prior to cloning Superboy. Lex had wanted to know if the power ring was able to transmit anything genetically (it couldn’t. It was a wearable weapon, not a genetic thing.) but Danny had inherited Flash’s superspeed, so he wasn’t a complete loss. Danny wasn’t sure if he looked more like either man, considering they both wore masks. He had brown hair and green eyes. Beyond that, he tanned well, was tall for his age, and packed on muscle far easier than the Flash did. He hadn’t ever seen either man out of the costume.

After a talk with Clockwork, he decided he was just going to force his way back into his Dad’s life. Both of them, if possible. He arrived years before his creation by mistake, right near the start of the Justice League. By his estimates, the team had only been formed for a year before he’d arrived. It was strange; he both didn’t exist and was from the future. He guessed that it was around nine years before his birth, and since he was technically six months old, he was 9 years in the past. Thinking about this was going to give him a headache.

The Justice League was severely mistrustful of each other. They didn’t go out of their way for teamups, didn’t have weekly meetings, and almost pretended if the other members didn’t exist. The most recluse of them was Batman, of course. If any hero set foot in Gotham, they were booted out before they even got to downtown. Danny highly suspected Batman had the entire city on camera. The situation was weirding him out more than before. What had happened to the team?! He was used to everyone being one big family, and even the sidekicks having their own teams… speaking of sidekicks, why was Robin so small?! Wait a minute, that wasn’t the third Robin that he was used to, that was the first Robin! Baby Nightwing!

Thankfully for him, he still had his costume on this entire time as he zipped around the country, spying on the younger members of the Justice League. It was surreal watching everyone try to capture him, but he wasn’t going to be caught that easily!

Eventually his presence forced the Justice League into another teamup. Batman laid the trap out, and Flash lured him into it. The plan was so beautiful that he didn’t even realize it was a trap until he was caught in it. Green Lantern took off Danny’s mask, and for the first time, he looked at his fathers without a mask. They didn’t make the connection to him right away. It wasn’t until Wonder Woman’s lasso made its way around his wrist that the truth finally came out.

“Who are you?” Wonder Woman asked.

“Oof , hard question—ow ow oww—I’m being honest!” He struggled against the lasso as it started to burn him. “My designation was Dn-y, I go by Danny, though. I’m a clone.”

“Of who?” Batman demanded.

“Flash and Green Lantern.” The lasso was glowing brightly, indicating that he was telling the truth.

“How did you escape?” Flash asked.

He didn’t answer right away. He was trying to think about how to phrase the whole time traveling—timeline erasure thing when the lasso started to burn him again. “Ow ow! Sorry, I’m thinking! Ow! Turn down the settings on that thing, holy shit—okay, okay.” He winced, his words coming out in one breath as he quickly talked, “What do you know about time travel?”

Diana’s eyebrows were rising. “How are you able to resist the lasso for so long?”

“I’m not really resisting it.” He answered, noting the obvious deflect of his last question, “I just-oww—okay! My mind moves too fast for me to put into words sometimes and it makes me stop to think about it, but like, I’m not good at controlling the speed in which I speak all the time—owww make this thing stop burning me! I’m speaking honestly!”

Diana revoked the lasso, and he rubbed his wrist where his costume was starting to singe. He was still trapped in an anti-speedster prison, so it wasn’t exactly like he was going anywhere anyway.

“Why were you asking about time travel?” Batman asked.

“Based on the crickets chirping I heard earlier, that leads me to believe you guys haven’t had any experience in it yet.” He leaned against the wall of the prison, wincing as it shocked him with electricity. “Seriously? How paranoid are you, Batman?” He rubbed his shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting with you people, but I feel so attacked right now.”

“So we have experience with it in the future?” Superman piped up.

“Yeah?” His tone of voice equated to a ‘duh’ tone. “Why would I ask what you knew if I wasn’t from the future?”

“How far in the future are you from?” Green Lantern asked.

“Nine years, maybe close to ten? Timelines are weird. I’m technically six months old, but at the same time I’m sixteen. Cloning is odd, but I was like, the first clone ever, so I don’t really have a basis for this sort of thing, if you catch my drift.” He shrugged. He seemed like he talked a lot more than the heroes did, but he didn’t know if that was because he was a chatterbox, or because they weren’t comfortable in each other’s presence. Either way, the silence was odd to him.

“How did you end up here?” Batman asked.

“Honestly? I don’t fully know. Don’t give me that look, Diana! I’m telling the truth.” He added quickly as Diana fingered her lasso again. “All I know is one minute, I’m chilling in the Speedforce, and the next, the timeline is changed and I’m nine years too early for my birth. You’d think the timeline would at least have the decency to spit me out in my own year, but nooo, it wanted to—“

“What’s the Speedforce?” Superman interrupted.

He tilted his head at Superman’s question, then turned to the Flash. “How long have you had your powers?”

Flash shifted uncomfortably. “Two years.”

“Oh boy.” Danny’s green eyes widened. “You don’t know anything about them, do you?”

“I do know things!” Flash deflected, “My suit doesn’t catch on fire anymore! I can run up to Mach 2! I can get from either end of the country in thirty minutes!”

He groaned loudly. “Oh no. Oh no.” He chewed on his thumb, trying to recall everything he’d learned about his powers from his Flash. While he hadn’t learned his or Green Lantern’s identity yet, he knew almost everything about their hero personas and a lot of personal information. They were just worried of the Cadmus connection and didn’t want their identity to fall into the wrong hands if they still could see inside of Danny’s head.

“What’s wrong?” Diana asked.

“Okay.” He ran his hands through his brown hair, making it spike up. “Hypothetically—“ he cut himself off as Batman glared at him. “Okay, totally real, but uh, Flash, let’s just say that I’m faster than you right now. A lot faster.”

“How much?” Flash took a step forward, obviously curious.

“From what we can tell, I’ve topped out at Mach nine.” He responded with a dry laugh, “But your speed was still a lot faster than mine. You’d never tell me what it was. I’m still growing though, and I’m getting faster. I’m able to beat my precious time by almost double each time we test. But my situation was complicated, and things were happening, and it was a mess.”

“Like what?” Superman asked.

“World war three. I think?” He rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture that he had picked up from Green Lantern, “Things got complicated. That’s why I was going to wait for…” his eyebrows scrunched together as the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “It was you!” He turned to Flash. “You!” He jabbed a finger at the speedster. “You set this up! You set ME up!”

The heroes took fighting stances, but Superman took a step forward, blocking them from Danny. “What are you talking about?”

“Okay okay.” He was trying to calm down his anger, but he had been told by Green Lantern in the past that he had inherited the man’s anger issues. “Let me start at the beginning. This is going to be a long story, you might want to take a seat.”

Nobody moved, but everyone was tense.

“Or not. Okay. So my creation starts with Lex Luthor.” He noticed Superman stiffen. “He used me as his trial, if you will. Once he got a successful attempt at cloning—me—he moved onto his real target. Cloning Superman.” Danny’s green eyes hovered onto Superman’s blue ones. “He was successful.”

“What happened?” Superman’s voice was unnaturally quiet.

“Well, at first, Conner wasn’t showing that he had all the powers of Superman. So Lex tossed him aside and tried again. The second attempt was more successful than the first. But cloning Kryptonian dna was hard, I guess.” He shrugged. “The second clone lacked basic emotions. Empathy, remorse… it made him the perfect little weapon for Lex. But eventually, the clone’s anger and Lex’s greed got to a point of no return. Lex was elected President of the United States and uh…you can probably see where this is going, right? While the fighting hadn’t like…’officially’ started,” He used his fingers to create air quotes around the word ‘officially’, “Things were getting tense. See, we couldn’t take the clone down because Lex had wrote out the Kryptonite deficiency out of his weakness. And the clone had all the strength of Superman and none of his remorse…”

Superman looked pale. “I see.”

“So Flash and I came up with a plan.” He turned back to his father, “We were going to travel into the next dimension for help. From what we could tell, that dimension was full of god-like beings, and one of them actually helped me out earlier! But for a lot of them, they ask for a price for their help. But anyway, Flash and I were going to take our case to the King and plead for help. I was waiting for Flash when the timeline reset and I found out that not only did I not exist, but I was nine years too early.”

“What are you going to do now?” Green Lantern asked.

“Dunno,” His voice dropped as the reality hit him. He wasn’t going home—his home didn’t exist anymore.

[camels-pen]

danny phantom young justice crossover fic that starts with the losing their memories in Bialya mission (Bereft), but because something something ghosts, M'gann can't help Danny get his memories back and he has to get them back naturally.

In DP canon, everything up to and including TUE has happened, and no one died. After the events of this episode however, Danny decided he was tired of hiding his ghost half from his parents and wanted to tell them the truth, but omitting the part about being Phantom just in case.

It didn't go well so he ends up living with Vlad and telling him about Dan.

The Team and the League don't know he's a halfa, but they do know he lives with a 'creepy old Dracula wannabe that's kinda okay sometimes'. They were worried at first, but Danny assured them that everything was cool between them.

He especially made sure Batman and Robin knew that despite the guy being evil in the past, he was trying to be good now and was one of very few people that could take care of him. He didn't need two detectives looking into Plasmius and then falling down a rabbit hole leading to articles about the mysterious disappearance of Daniel Fenton. So he did his best to downplay Plasmius' schemes and make him seem like a competent guardian while also playing up the fact that they're ghosts so certain standards might be different than human standards.

However, this Danny, the one with 6 months amnesia, remembers his last encounter with Vlad being that the fruitloop put a million dollar bounty on his head. This Danny just finished rescuing the kids at his school from Spectra's ghost bugs. This Danny was supposed to be waiting on the curb with a bunch of other students for their parents to come pick them up.

In human form.

So when he wakes up alone in the middle of a desert he's never seen before and in ghost form, he panics. Big time.

For some reason an image of a tent stuck out to him along with a green skinned girl. Danny immediately thinks Freakshow somehow broke out of prison, fixed his staff, and controlled him again which would lead to a whole other issue because the last thing he remembered was being surrounded by people. People who would've seen him acting weird despite the fact that the 'ghost flu' should be out of his system. And considering he could remember hearing the obnoxious sound of the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle's horn just down the street, his parents no doubt noticed.

And that begged the question, did he transform in front of them?

He was going to spiral more, but the same girl in his head flew down and brought him out of it. He fought her at first until he noticed his ghost sense never went off and ends up following her to find their supposed teammates.

Partway through their flight, Danny started floating lower and lower before realizing he's nearly out of energy and liable to revert back to human form if he uses much more.

M'gann levitates him the rest of the way to Kid Flash and Artemis. They help out Robin and when M'gann brings them into that mindscape place they find out about the roadblock with Danny's mind/memories. The others try to jog his memory as much as possible, but after several firm denials and finally finding Aqualad, they have to leave it for later.

The episode goes more or less the same without much changes after that, but when they return to the Cave, there's a laundry list of issues that Danny has to go through.

The apparent fact that he lives with Vlad Plasmius being at the top of that list.

So, to avoid Vlad and because he has a bad feeling about returning to FentonWorks, Danny ends up staying at Mount Justice for the time being.

After debriefing and a checkup from Red Tornado, he hits the showers with the others feeling exhausted and worried out of his mind for his friends and family. When he takes off the top of his jumpsuit and glimpses himself in a mirror though, all of his thoughts are directed towards the large Y shaped scar on his chest.

At this point, Danny becomes incredibly paranoid because he has no clue who could've done that- he doesn't know the GIW that well so he doesn't think of them and he didn't want to think about the only likely people being his parents. Thus, he does what comes easy.

Blame Vlad.

This begins a long week and a half of Danny staying at the Mountain and blocking every call that comes to his phone.

He had a feeling that Vlad would buy multiple new phones in an attempt to contact him (he's right) and if it weren't for the fact that he was declining Vlad's calls instead of letting them ring, he has a feeling the fruitloop would tear Amity apart looking for him.

Vlad does eventually storm Mount Justice as Plasmius and it's a whole confusing mess that ends with him stuck in a thermos while trying to explain his and Danny's living situation.

Danny refuses to believe that he left his home of his own free will to stay with Vlad and Vlad hints towards Danny having a bad identity reveal without mentioning his halfa status. Danny's trying to convince himself and the others that his parents love him and that they would never hurt him, but then Vlad drops the bomb.

-

"They should love all parts of you, Daniel. You can't just let them pick and choose, especially not for something like this."

"They do love me! They-"

"For ancients' sake, you told them you were a ghost and they cut you open!"

Danny's breath hitched and he stared at the thermos with wide eyes. The rest of the Team were watching with poorly hidden worry. "H-How did you-?"

Vlad sighed and in a quieter voice he said, "Who do you think did your stitches?"

-

[inthememetime]

Headcannon: All ghosts are slightly eldritch. The more scary a ghost is, the more powerful a ghost is.

Side note: yes, I know this isn't 100% supported in canon. I like it though.

The weaker a ghost is, the less it can be distinguished from what it was when alive. The weakest ghosts have sort of an uncanny valley vibe. Johnny 13may not be human, but when a person sees him, their minds try to fit him into the human mold.

Certain ghosts like Amorpho and Spectra can 'fake' humanity pretty well for a while. But it's not perfect, and so they have to mess with people's senses and emotions to keep the illusion going for very long.

It's also (part of) why people just don't like Vlad or Danny. (I mean, Vlad's hot garbage as well, so that's another reason). Halfas just set off all the uncanny valley vibes in human form. The average human is going to go: Something is Very Wrong when they're confronted by the way their appearances change, just a little, based on emotions or their way-too-white sharp teeth.

It's even worse in ghost form/as a ghost because they're not really supposed to be in our dimension. So then what do we see? Our brains try to piece things together in a way that makes sense to us, but frequently our wires get crossed. Sometimes those wires change position, causing the ghosts to look like they're changing constantly.

When Danny goes through Ghost Puberty, he gets a second, scarier ghost form. He cannot show that second form to a human for very long at one time- low exposure over short periods of time is way better. He has 3- his human form, what people think his ghost looks like (friendly kid), and Eldritch Abomination.

Clockwork, Pandora, and other Ancients can't set foot into our reality for long periods of time, especially around humans, because just their appearance will mess with people.

The reason a lot of (legitimate) ghost hunters go crazy is because they've looked at their targets one too many times.

Even the sounds ghosts make go through the brain filter. Vlad doesn't just use an army of lawyers and PR people for fun- he uses them because even in human form, his voice is 2 steps to the left of human, and the longer people listen, the more theu freak out.

This is the opposite from Ember, as she's basically a land siren. But a deaf/hard of hearing person would have NO idea why their buddy was vibing to a literal fire monster on stage. Her voice adjusts human perception.

Kitty makes you love her- even as you fear the horrible monster, your love grows just as much.

People don't like hearing the pops and cracks in Danny's voice. There's something wrong, like hearing a voice in radio static, or feeling sounds the human ear can't pick up.

Side note on Vlad: Amity Park is one of the only places he COULD have won an election, because Amity Parkers have constant, low-level exposure. This causes them to go: hmm, something might be up with the mayor. Must be a cold. Instead of: our mayor is Something Not Human.

Amity Parkers- in particular the mayor's secretary, the Fenton Family, and Sam & Tucker- have a certain amount of immunity to fear attacks. I think if Jazz goes to Gotham and Scarecrow fear gasses her, he's going to have a Very Bad Night, because Jazz eats breakfast and dinner, and sleeps in a room across from an existential horror every day.

At best, Fear Toxin would put her into fight or flight mode- and this girl takes out ghosts that can level buildings. Crane would be in the ER before his transfer to Arkham.

[fandom-go-round]

Can we request killer reaction ( legion,Ghostface,Jinwoon or any of your choice) to entity dress reader in a weeding dress ?

Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, Hooking/Torture of Reader, Chasing, Forced into a Dress, Forced Feminization, Sexual Situations, Implied Sex

The Legion:

Frank and Susie don’t think much of it, laughing as the dress drags behind you. It makes it a little easier to track and follow you and they’re not going to miss that opportunity. Frank likes to tease you as the dress gets dirtier, making fun of how nasty you must be. Susie turns it into a game of how many times can she slash at your outfit before it falls apart, keeping you on edge but never seriously hurting you.

Joey and Julie love how you look in the dress. The color, the style, the fit; everything about it drives them crazy. They will purposefully stalk you if you’re in it, ignoring everyone else. Joey likes to think about taking it off of you slowly, marking and biting the skin that he can see. Julie wants the two of you to match dresses, even if you hate it. Nothing is cuter to her than matching outfits and the dress gets her thinking.

All of them love to watch the white fabric turn red, eyes locked on how easy it is to ruin the fabric. The wedding dress might not get pulled out often but when it does watch out. You’re going to be running from the Legion, for better or worse.

Ghostface:

It’s not his favorite but he can see the appeal. It implies a certain amount of innocence that he’s into but white has never been his color. Danny isn’t going to complain of course, no sir. He’s always up for you in new outfits, especially if he can add the pictures to his collection. He’s going to be relentless the first few times he sees you in it, determined to Mori you.

He likes to tease you about the dress, especially if it’s something that you would never wear on your own. Seeing how your face scrunches up or how much you hate it adds to his glee with the entire situation. Danny starts looking forward to it, if only because you hate it so much. It makes it easier to throw you off your game, leading to easier hooks and more mayhem.

He’s only one of the few killers that doesn’t like the dress to get dirty, at least at first. He’ll grumble about how ‘it ruins the photos’ and that ‘you really don’t have an eye for art, do ya?’. After he chases you around a little, Ghostface stops being so stuck up about it and starts to have fun. He’ll cover it in mud, blood, whatever he can find to get it messed up. If you complain that just makes it worse, getting the fabric to cling to your skin. It’s better to just keep running and try to stay out of his way.

The Trickster:

Ji-Woon likes the dress but not because of the wedding symbolism. That’s not the traditional look where he’s from but he sees the appeal. He likes the dress because of the detailing. It’s like a personal challenge; can he cut all the lace off before hooking you? Cut off the train and wrap you in it? All the fabric makes it easy to not get bored.

He does love to watch the it turn red, especially if he can take his time. If you’re the last survivor watch out. He’ll drag it out, delivering small cuts to ‘dye’ the dress red. He’ll tie you up and make you beg him to stop, enjoying the way you scream and try to get away. At least one of you is having fun.

He makes it a game to tease you, calling out how you’re a beautiful bride and how he would love to marry you. It sounds so sweet that you’re tempted to believe him but don’t be fooled. If you lower your guard that’ll be it. Ji-Woon loves nothing more than lulling you into a false sense of security and then hooking you brutally. Nothing can beat the look of horror on your face as he does it.

[thesoulspulse]

Good Vlad AU (Befriending A Fruitloop)

This post is dedicated to @whittacre​ because their tags were just so enthusiastic I had to address them! Besides I’m going to get into talking about this stuff soon anyway since I plan to go over all the episodes that relate to Vlad in some way to see which events I can still fit into my Good Vlad AU and which ones I can’t. But for now I can give a basic overview of some of the headcanons some friends from the other Danny Phantom artist server I’m in helped me come up with!

So first of all, there’s something about my Good Vlad you should know. He may not be a straight up villain like the canon version, but he’s still Vlad where it counts. For example, he’s still a cunning businessman no one wants to mess with in the business world. And he still has the regal charm to him I admired when we first saw him in Bitter Reunions but also a bit of a childish side, the only thing that’s different is that Vlad’s teasing doesn’t have that cruel edge to it when it comes to Jack and Danny. You’d better believe he’ll troll his enemies like there’s no tomorrow though! And sometimes Vlad still does things just because he can since he didn’t have anyone there to tell him it’s wrong or he does it purely out of habit like using his powers freely behind closed doors for the most mundane things. As a result, it’s actually Danny that has to help reign him in before he goes a bit too far...

But that doesn’t stop Vlad from being overprotective of his little badger. Translation, Vlad’s not above smiling in a sickeningly sweet way while making calm threats to anyone who insults Danny in front of him with the silent promise of making their lives/afterlives a living hell. And if they seriously injure Danny, Vlad will show no mercy. This stems from his fear of losing the few important people he has left in his life, Danny being the most important to him now since he’s basically adopted him as his own and no one can tell him otherwise.

To put it simply, Good Vlad is like this:

Now then, onto the next tag! Basically, if you’ve read my headcanon so far for this au in my other posts “Regarding My Good Vlad AU” part 1 & 2 then you already know this version of Vlad made Valerie a ghost hunter to help Danny instead of spy on him (though it’s entirely possible he probably still does like to keep tabs on him just in case something comes along he can’t handle alone.) And Vlad’s the one who freed Danny from Freakshow’s mind control since Sam and Tucker didn’t make it onto the train in time and he had to rescue them from the fall first.

So on that note, let’s start with how Danny’s friends react to Good Vlad shall we...?

Obviously Sam and Tucker would be weirded out by this guy they barely know that seems a bit possessive and overprotective Danny even though they’ve only met once regardless of the fact he did rush to their rescue all the way from Wisconsin. And they’d probably be annoyed with Danny for trusting him so easily since they think there's something sketchy about Vlad at first, but eventually they warm up to him. Especially after Vlad shares more about himself like how he’s an avid supporter of animal rescue and things like that. Not to mention he’s prepared to supply them with top of the line ghost hunting technology should they ever need it as a show of support.

Unlike canon Vlad, this version for the most part is a pretty friendly person and isn’t against winning Danny’s friends over with expensive gifts or extra charitable acts to show them he’s a good guy. To tell you the truth, I’m surprised he never tried to do that in the show. As in giving Danny tons of NASA stuff and not making it so obvious he’s behind certain schemes to gradually manipulate him into getting to a point where he HAS to ask for help with his ghost problems. I know that’s a bit off topic but at least Good Vlad does this kind of thing because he wants Danny’s friends and family to like him too or at least have no reason to turn Danny against him.

It takes a while, but eventually Sam and Tucker get over their initial reaction and finally admit to themselves that Danny really does need Vlad’s support because there’s only so much they can do to help him since they’re human and just teenagers too. And as much as Danny loves his parents, they’re not exactly the most supportive people in his life thanks to how busy they are with their inventions and ghost research. In fact, while Danny’s out of ear shot maybe Tucker gathers the courage to ask Vlad if maybe he could do something about that too, about Danny’s parents so they’ll stop putting as much pressure on him and ease up on making so many nasty weapons that could really hurt Danny. Vlad agrees since he’s planning to move to Amity Park anyway, but that will take time so the most he can do for Danny now is offer emotional support or in an emergency he can offer Danny backup by teleporting here like he did when Freakshow almost successfully abducted and brainwashed Danny with a ghost controlling relic.

Alright, next up we’re going to talk about Jazz because whittacre has a point since technically Jazz didn’t learn Danny’s secret until AFTER the reunion so that gives me a lot to think about. My guess is that maybe Jazz gets fed up with their parents making Danny’s sudden depression worst once Spectra gets her claws in him and calls “Uncle Vlad” to ask him for some advice about it since he’s probably the only person that can related to Danny since they both had an accident with a ghost portal. Strangely enough, it occurs to Vlad that out of all the people in Danny’s life his sister seems like the most trustworthy as well so he gives her the advice she asks for and then begins to seriously consider telling her Danny’s half-ghost with his permission because at least with her around Danny would have someone to support him at home since Vlad can’t be with him 24/7.

However, sadly Vlad doesn’t find out until after the fact that Spectra was the supernatural cause of Danny’s sudden depression so he only ends up helping him through his sister which results in her finding out his secret just like in My Brother’s Keeper after being a bit too pushy about Danny opening up about his feelings. She’s still oblivious about Vlad's secret at this point, but they start talking pretty regularly as part of a team effort to help Danny thrive and gain more confidence. They’ll probably tell her about Vlad’s secret too before long but until then it’s kind of a running gag that they still have to hide his ghost powers from her too whenever he drops by to visit Danny or their parents and forgets to use the door like a normal person.

Onto our next point, there’s Valerie which I’ll keep short and sweet for now. Vlad discovered her potential as a hunter while checking in on Danny and steps in to make sure she doesn’t misplace the blame on him for all of the things that Cujo did. In fact, he does some digging and provides her with proof that Cujo was once a security dog at Axion Labs where her dad works that was put down which puts things in perspective for her early on. Valerie still thinks ghosts are dangerous, but when she starts hunting them it’s not all about her personal vendetta, it’s about making sure ghosts won’t be able to ruin anyone else’s lives like Cujo did since her dad still had to get a new job and move despite Vlad’s intervention. Again, Vlad cares more about what she can do for him and Danny than about fixing her personal problems which is a bit cold but like I said as good as this Vlad is he’s no saint...

Lastly, there’s the cloning tags. Oh boy that’s a tough one! Honestly I don’t think this version of Vlad would ever feel the need to resort to cloning since he already has Danny on his side so to speak which removes those feelings of desperation he had when the original Vlad did it. Even if this Vlad still wants a family of his own and is sad whenever he realizes Danny can never completely be his, he would never risk alienating Danny by breaking his trust like to steal his DNA to make an entirely new halfa. I suppose Vlad could try cloning himself instead, but that would also be way too over the top for my Good Vlad AU. And so, sadly, I can’t think of a believable way to bring Danielle into this au.

Truthfully it would be more realistic for this version of Vlad to consider adopting someone into the Master’s family instead (either a ghost or human since he’s not about to recreate the accident just to have a son or daughter with powers.) Or OOO, what if my Good Vlad has a special ‘episode’ where Danny has to go save HIM this time from a ghost who cast a spell on Vlad to make him believe they’re his only child in order to gain access to his vast wealth, power, and/or his collection of rare magical/ghostly artifacts? And since they have some control over Vlad, this ghost child convinces him attack Danny which results in a very emotionally-loaded fight where he really has to use every trick Vlad’s taught him since they started training together against him to snap that fruitloop out of it. Just a thought to close things off!

Hope that gives you an idea about some of the changes in this au! Some of these ideas might change later if I come up with better ones though, just warning you in advance since this au is still a work in progress!

[nastyburger]

Is Freakshow/Circus Gothica/Control Freaks going to be a part of your reboot? And if that is the case, are there any differences compared to the series?

it is! i do want danny to have a sorta grim reaper type of vibe associated with him so i feel that episodes pretty integral to that lol.

i havent put too much thought into how i want the events to play out in that episode yet, but one change for sure is that freakshow doesnt know danny is a halfa. he just thinks danny is a ghost whose “gimmick” is appearing human/having a human disguise (so he has no qualms with actually kidnapping a human child to be in his circus lol he literally just doesnt know). he merely goes to amity because he heard rumors of an influx of ghost in the area and decides to go round up some extra performers, danny just so happens to be one of the ghosts that gets picked up.

(rest of post under cut because this ended up being long as hell lol)

freakshow is, however, manipulated into keeping danny’s secret identity after the fact despite not fully understanding it. ghosts in the nasty reboot abide by certain honor codes sorta preprogrammed into them from the moment they form. halfas are a little out of that jurisdiction and dont get that same preprogramming, but the ghosts generally agree that revealing danny’s secret is a no go.

a ghost’s death is a bit of a sore subject, you wouldnt talk about it in any way the ghost doesn’t want you to (which is usually not at all). danny’s secret identity technically falls under this umbrella, he doesnt want humans to know he’s (half) dead and still lives among them. therefore, don’t reveal to the humans that he’s dead and jeopardize his situation! its not quite the same as a ghost momentarily pretending to be human to fulfill something (like spectra or johnny), danny’s human identity is directly tied to his “death” and would be even more so if its revealed so its off limits. the situation is definitely a bit unfamiliar to the ghosts, and its something sorta more “learned” than the usual “i just know not to do this” instinct but they still do their best to up hold the honor code for danny!

freakshow doesnt have the same “ghost envy” as canon because i think thats dumb, but he does still want to play by ghost rules for one reason or another so danny telling him about this rule is more than enough to keep his mouth shut.

one last thing is how the control staff affects danny. danny in the nb boot has a lot of themes of “figuring himself out” in terms of both what it means to be a halfa (in that larger than life where his place is in the world if it isnt with either the living or the dead type thing) and who he is as a person (in the more down-to-earth he is literally an adolescent changing as a part of growing up type thing). one big recurring moral to this character arc is that NO ONE ELSE can tell danny what to be, he has to figure it out 100% on his own. he can have help, and he can have nudges, but it all has to come down to what he decides for himself and what he learns about it. he cant listen to his parent’s biases and what their theories for phantom and what he is, he cant listen to the ghost for what they think is best for his biology, hell he cant and shouldnt even listen to what vlad says about them being halfas most of the time because they have completely different experiences.

danny shouldnt be completely influenced by outside sources when figuring out who he wants or needs to be. the staff in this episode is basically just a very big obvious focus plot point in a very literal sense for this exact moral.

danny does sorta still have free will while being controlled by the staff, and i do mean a little beyond the usual “easier to break out of the spell” kind of thing. i believe monotype-on-phantom had an analysis similar to what im describing here, but basically danny is not a mindless zombie while controlled by the staff. he carries out orders and does freakshow’s bidding for sure, but he still has half a mind and probably carries out orders with more intelligence/thought than a ghost blindly following orders.

for example, freakshow could tell danny to rob a bank and he would do just that. but danny, without orders, would also try to hide his tracks, actually try to steal discreetly as to not get caught. something the other ghosts wouldnt think to do because they cant think! in canon, it seems that he even actually commands the other controlled ghosts in these robberies like a leader. its likely that he wasnt prompted to do this with a command, thats just his leftover free will allowing some of danny’s personality to shine through in the tasks. even though danny would obviously not rob a bank on his own accord, if he did, it would likely be exactly how he carried it out while controlled by the staff.

danny very much has leftover feelings after being controlled, he could vaguely remember making decisions and going through with them. some regrets, some satisfaction, its a whole mess of things intertwining with what he did want to do and what he didnt want but kinda did but also kinda didnt. its all about influence and how especially powerful it is when someone still impressionable is subjected to it like say, a fourteen year old child.

[thevoilinauttheory]

Lothaire for the Give you a character thing

[ I wasn't expecting to see my own character(s) on the list, but here he is! I will take any day to talk about them lol Thank you so much for the ask, @cadrenebula! ]

How I feel about this character:

From an OOC standpoint, it's strange to say that I have mixed feelings about my own characters, but Lothaire is one of those characters. Mostly because... Maximiloix was my main for years upon years until I made Lothaire on Mateus and met my spouse on him. I'm a little sad about that, because I thoroughly enjoy playing as Maximiloix, but he's so far behind, that I can't really bother to pick him up as my main anymore. So Lothaire is my main now, and most played OOCly, and one of the least played ICly. ICly - I love Lothaire. He's a nervous dork. He's perfect Dad™ material. Finding plots for him can be hard, considering that he's a rather tame character - and all plots I've done in the past are just that, in the past, and it's not likely that those plots will repeat. Currently, he's working with his grandfather to find a way to the First, which they had heard about in some reports - and all that time he spent trying to prove travel between stars was not for naught! He's a little too curious for his own good and tends to find himself in trouble. A lot. Especially with how absolutely clumsy he is. (I'd say, think Pippin from LotR kind of clumsy - except Lothaire is an academic that likes to stick his nose in things he shouldn't). When he's not getting himself into trouble (in which, his husband usually drags him out of), they run an orphanage and school together in the Beds. He is also a part time jeweler! (Which I gave to him, because of my own love for making jewelry), he also dances fairly well for someone who can't seem to climb up stairs without tripping at least twice. He has the Echo both regularly and his WoL!Verse. It's simple, and he usually uses it for his research - since he'll get visions of the past, he tries to apply that to his studies in hisory, and always hopes he'll get another one when he's on a trip out. Though in his WoL!Verse, he actually finds the damn thing annoying and interruptive. Overall: He is a relatively harmless and anxious scholar.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Well, I'm going to start with his husband. Duh.

I think the story's been said a couple times, but Misha and Lothaire met by happenstance... very strange happenstance. After a conversation with his friend, Aumix, who is a rather prickly fellow (and belongs to a friend) - Lothaire tripped over a chair in the Drowning Wench and broke his glasses after landing face first on the floor. Now, anyone who knows Lothaire, knows that he is incredibly blind without his glasses. Instead of helping the poor man home, Aumix leaves Lothaire to his own devices... which caused him to trip again and fall three stories off the balcony and into the ocean (luck made sure he hit the water, or else he could have been very dead). Misha happened to be picking up a shipment at the docks near the Fishermen's Guild, and only barely caught sight of the bean pole swimming poorly towards him. After helping him up, Lothaire insisted on thanking him properly once he was able to get his spare glasses from his apartment.

They are now married, have eight kids (that they own, not including the ones staying in their orphanage) and a cat... that Lothaire is highly allergic to. He really couldn't be happier for his situation! (I rarely get inspiration from other media for my characters, but Lothaire is definitely a lot like Maes Hughs from FMA when it comes to his kids. And would probably die as easily too.)

Then there's his WoL!Verse. In which. All of my characters have some NPC I ship them with in some way. For Lothaire, it was complicated.

I initially shipped him with Thancred - because they were both alcoholic messes with a pension for bad decisions. This ended up in a several night stand, during which Lothaire became very attached (as he is wont to do); but as a WoL, he wasn't going to show that Thancred's sudden aloofness was hurting him. And soon - eventually - he just ended up ignoring Thancred altogether, and acted as if he didn't exist until he really needed to exist.

Lothaire would get crushes on others but never act on them, being as busy as he was, and it wasn't until the events of Shadowbringers that everything finally settled. Though, much to his surprise, it wasn't just Thancred that came forward and apologized, but Urianger too, before him. Then he was stuck in the middle of this, what I believe to be, perfect Dad™ OT3. They like to embarrass him - because it's not hard to do. (Unlike his grandfather's lovelife, Lothaire isn't afraid to admit he has one.)

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Lothaire has a few friends! Not many, but a few! The first being Aumix Fourchetaix - who started off just as a bodyguard for him while he did his field work. But Lothaire is kind of hard to hate, and even though the man was kind of prickly, he did care on some level for Lothaire.

One of Lothaire's best friends is his cousin, Honorie Fauvier. They've always gotten along, despite their vastly different upbringings; and their daughters were fast friends too. Honorie was always a voice of reason for him - while he brought the light of adventure into her life.

And the last would be Danny Harold (Avis, as he knows him). Their friendship started through Maximiloix, and while he wouldn't consider him a close friend, he would consider him a family friend - and does open his house to him from time to time, or whenever he needs it.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Having an unpopular opinion about my own character is a little weird, and I'm not certain how that would go.

But my "unpopular opinion" is that if people think they know Lothaire, they don't. He has so many layers to him, it's hard to unpack, and even harder to write.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I wish I was able to give him more fuck-ups with love before he married. His story seemed to be a perfect fairytale, and that wasn't really my initial intention. I wanted him to go through a lot of hardship to get where he was, with more interaction from other people. Because of how quickly his story progressed, he never got time to make mistakes or even meet too many people.

[five-rivers]

Do you have any tips on writing the trio? Or anyone, really, but they show up the most so they probably have the most defined personalities. I have never seen the show and don't really want to, but the headcanons and fanon is just so cool and it makes me want to Write Things but I also have anxiety and don't want to mess them up aaaa

Yo, the personalities of the main trio can vary wildly between phan writers, and their phanon personalities and canon personalities don’t always line up.  Mainly because the phandom likes to ignore episodes we consider to be out of character.  Also, we have an almost masochistic appreciation for crack.  So, you are unlikely to do anything that will get you jumped on.  Unless you make them all insanely homophobic or something, which seems unlikely if you’re hanging out here.

That being said, I’ll tell you how I write them.  (This is going to get long.)

Danny:

Danny’s main motivation is keeping his people safe.  He’ll drop everything else for this goal.  

His secondary motive is staying safe himself.  He’s constantly in very dangerous situations, and he sees a lot of his life in terms of how threatening something is.  A lot of the time, he under or overestimates threats to himself, but it’s still on his mind.  He’s paranoid sometimes.  

The third motivation Danny has is being liked.  Depending on where in his character development he is, I tend to vary the strength of this one somewhat.  Sometimes he really, really wants to be popular.  Sometimes he’s only concerned about family and friends.  No matter what, though, he needs some positive attention!  Feed the boy!

Danny’s state of mind varies between ‘I’m invincible!’ and ‘error 404 self confidence not found.’  Because he’s a teenager.  I usually write the latter, because I like angst.  

Other than that, his personality has three parts: heroism, witty banter, and softness.  

He loves his friends and family SO MUCH (no matter what certain episodes would have you think.  We don’t talk about those).  He’s also incredibly forgiving.  I’ve pointed it out a couple of times, but almost all of his friends and close allies have tried to kill or significantly injure him at least once.  He never holds it against them.  (Except once, during a nasty fight, and it work out alright in the end.)

A lot of people write Danny as being somewhat fatalistic, but I tend not to do that as much.  I prefer Massive Space Nerd Danny.

Sam:

Her main motivation is often KEEP DANNY FROM DYING (again).  Yes, this is kind of a satellite motivation that revolves entirely around another character, but considering that it’s partially her fault he died the first time...?

Other than that, Sam wants to show off how unique she is.  She wants to be different!  Different is good!  Different is cool!  Yes, this can be problematic at times, but she’s a teenager.  

Finally, and I think this one gets overlooked somewhat, Sam wants to make the world a better place.  Yeah, she’s not always on base about how to do that, but she tries.  

Sam’s sort of the person who tries to be dark- and she absolutely does like dark things!- but is actually sort of optimistic, even when she’s angry.  

She’s also angry a lot.  

On the surface, Sam’s very secure in who she is and what she wants, but if you look closer, you can see that’s a bit of a facade.  She doesn’t tell people about her family’s wealth, because she worries that people would only like her for that.  Yes, she’s confident enough in herself to say she’s not going to rely on wealth, and to say that she doesn’t care about being popular, but, still...  

I tend to write her as feeling just a little lost, especially when outside the trio’s comfort zone (their comfort zone includes ghost hunting).

Tucker:

Again, Tucker wants to keep Danny alive.  It is a noble endeavor.  

He also just wants to hang out a lot of the time.  His two friends just have so much energy.  Tucker just wants to chill.  With his friends, of course.  It’s no fun without them.  

Tucker also seems to have a bit of an issue with power (or money).  Every so often, Tucker will say, ‘I am no longer baby, I want power.’  He also has a certain amount of desire for things, like technology and meat.  

Tucker’s pretty straightforward.  I also find him to be cool.  Maybe he screws up and winds up the butt of jokes in canon, but he also is really good at making stuff and getting things to work, and he’s super smart.

Another important thing is that Tucker is ride or die for his friends.  I think at one point he took a sword to the chest for Danny, and he will sacrifice any power, item, or personal comfort for his friends.  (See, blood blossoms and throwing his PDA at a ghost that kidnapped Sam, giving up Dulamaan’s power, etc.)

Trio in general:

*Slaps trio on the roof* You can fit so much banter in here!

No, really.  Imagine any friend group, but one of them uses jokes as a defense mechanism, the second is trying out for Ultimate Goth Sarcasm Showdown (tm), and the third lives on the internet.

I also like it when they’re incredibly sassy and incomprehensible to anyone not in the know.  

Sam and Tucker ‘fight’ a lot, and Danny plays the peacemaker, but it’s usually just a big game.  

They also take turns being the ‘leader’ of the group.  Not, like, explicitly, but they all have their own strengths. 

I’ve also got a post about the trio’s character flaws floating around somewhere.  I’ll find it and reblog it later.  

I hope this answers your question!  Have fun Writing Things!

[vtmb2s]

Past 1, 3, 6, 8 for Jason my beloved and Present 5-8 for Jenny annnd Future 2, 5, 7 for Helena! 😏

─ JASON

1. Briefly describe the way their parents grew up, and how it affected the way they raised them.

Both his parents were two regular middle class new yorkers, Frank (his dad) grew up in New York's suburbs and had a very conventional upbringing, he was the middle child of three siblings and thus kind of ignored so he usually just minded his own business... that very much carried over into adulthood, he was very reclusive and didn't really bother spending much time with his family -_-

Jason's mom, Gina, was a 2nd generation italian-american who grew up in a huge family with a billion siblings and cousins who are all very different from her husband. She liked it in the beginning but she became more and more unhappy and kind of underwhelmed. She really projected all her dreams of ever becoming someone on her kids that failed with her because she was stuck in a boring marriage with the most unambitious and boring man ever 😑

3. Describe their family. Who raised them, and who had the most impact on them? Did they have any siblings? Who were they closest to? What were the family dynamics like?

This ties in with the previous question but Frank was a bit of a loser, not particularly attractive and more timid & shy.. he was a very unambitious guy who worked a boring office job all his life without any intention of climbing the ladder. He really spent most of his time off work with his boring little loser hobbies :/

Gina was a much more spirited and lively person than her husband, Jason takes a lot more after her than his dad. She wasn't a great mother by all means due to the fact that she was unhappy in her marriage and with her life and kind of took that out on her kids, in a way where she placed certain expectations on them which Jason never really met. They weren't particularly close due to Jason's more.. rebellious nature he had as a kid, which in turn made him cause more trouble because that was the only way his parents gave him any attention at all :/ He also has an older brother, Richard, who their mother very obviously favored. Frank didn't really give a fuck about either of his sons -_-

He had a very close relationship with his mother's family though, particularly with one of her brothers. Carlo (said uncle) was a lot like him and never had any kids on his own so he became somewhat of a father figure to Jason :-)

6. Did the location they grew up in affect them significantly? Do they still go there?

He grew up in some little house in New York's suburb, not the prettiest house there because they didn't make enough for one of the nicer looking ones. He's not that fond of the boring suburbs (even in Boston), he spent more time in the city with his relatives and preferred that over his actual home. Other than that it didn't affect him much 🤷‍♀️

8. What was their childhood/teenage bedroom like?

A small little room with an ugly sports wallpaper that his parents never bothered to replace as he got older. It always looked a little messy and had a few mismatching mid-century decorations and furniture in there. As he grew older he started to cover the walls with random posters he had, to hide the ugly baseball wallpaper.

─ JENNY

5. What kind of people do they usually interact with? Who are their friends, the people they look up to/trust, and who are their “associates”?

She interacts with all sorts of people in New Bordeaux' criminal underworld - if you do anything illegal chances are you'll know Jenny. As for her actual friends, she's friends with the 3 other criminal 20 year olds in town, Danny, Lincoln, Ellis, unfortunately Giorgi (frenemies would be more fitting) and Lena. Her closest and best friends would definitely be Gavin (of @dannyburke fame)and Juliet (of @jennystahl fame) though, they're also pretty much the only ones who would fall into the "people she trusts" category... they're the only ones she'll have long weed induced therapy sessions at 1 am while the monkees are on tv.

6. What is their current relationship with their family?

Complicated... the love is there and all that, it's more of a business relationship though rather than a parent-child thing, especially with her dad. It's nothing that she ever questions (until aforementioned therapy sessions with her friends), she grew up in an environment where affection isn't really something she sees often and almost all her friends have messed up relationships with their parents too so while there is some resentment she never really questions that the way they raised her might not be ideal :c

The relationship with her siblings is complicated as well, especially because they're both a LOT younger than her. She was an only-child until the age of 13 and moved out of her childhood home when they were eight and six years old so there's this weird disconnect but there's a relationship nonetheless, which is weird. Eldest daughter AND only child disease 😓Not to mention that her parents are looking to make her little brother head of the family because he's a boy or whatever.. drama!

7. Do they have a partner? How did they meet, and what’s their relationship like now?

Yes.. she and Ellis met on some random job in the Hollow in 1963 that her dad was taking her along with (he and Sammy did random deals together and were also good friends 😌) and Jenny was like wow how boring. What if I just talk to this this guy's sons instead.... she thought he was some annoying teenage guy and only really talked to him whenever necessary (when her dad's business trips to Sammy's got REALLY boring). She forced herself to hang out with him more after Lincoln went to Vietnam and realized he's not so bad so they became friends :)

In actual game canon nothing really happens because he dies, Jenny just becomes sad that her friends were killed (him, Danny, Sammy and maybe Michael too because of Juliet connection.. she doesn't give a fuck abt Giorgi anymore that little rat can die) and wonders if she liked that goofy little guy with the ugly shirts, but in any case it's too late now.

We're doing au's here though (also this is as of '68) so in the good timeline they get together in 1968.. sort of. It's not a friends with benefits thing, more that sort of relationship that you know will end sooner or later for various reasons, so you're kind of living in the moment and have fun while it lasts. It IS genuine and not just about hooking up from time to time of course, it's just not the kind of thing that was built to last because it's based off of a dumb 20 year olds friendship and one of them (Jenny) doesn't really plan on sticking around in New Bordeaux. But well, who knows what will happen 😏

8. What hobby or pastime of theirs do they consider most important to them and why?

Well, she's big on making music, she plays the guitar and sings (she has a pretty nice voice c: ), she grew up in a pretty fucked up environment so that was her sort of escape in her youth, to be a normal kid who's playing the guitar very very badly. She doesn't play it badly as a 23 year old anymore of course and it's a little thing she shares with her best friends so that means a lot to her 😳

─ HELENA

2. Are they content with their future situation? Is there anything they would change?

Well, she's certainly not happy with the whole vampire situation - her dreams of becoming famous for acting were pretty much ruined, now she's legally dead and nothing more than a photo on true crime blogs and conspiracy theory websites... Famous but for the wrong reasons, in a way she's more bitter about "dying" before she had the chance to become famous than about the whole vampirism thing herself. There would have been something incredibly poetic about a beautiful young actress dying at the height of her career, now she's just some random nobody :/

It could be worse though. She's known among L.A. vampires for her lack of loyalty to any of the factions (despite her working for the Camarilla earlier) and her just helping whoever she feels like which is fine to her, most of them will just leave her alone. In any case, she's not in Los Angeles anymore after the events of Bloodlines!!

5. Did they get married or have a family? Why? If otherwise, why not?

See she would like to get married eventually, making a promise to love someone and be with them for eternity (literally... because... vampires) is incredibly romantic and she would love that (THIS is her wedding... not really because she's not that cringe but also.. yeah), so who knows what might happen.

Family though, no!! Starting one isn't possible, at least not with biological children since she's a vampire. It doesn't bother her that much, she always did envision herself with one child in the future but she's not desperate to be a mother anyway so she doesn't beat herself up about it. She does wonder what it might be like to have children and laments it from time to time (she's a little overdramatic) but overall she doesn't mind that much.

7. Are their friends still a part of their life? Are there people they are no longer in touch with, or newly important people?

Yes, sort of! As I mentioned before she's not in L.A. anymore post-bloodlines and she never had many friends there to begin with so she keeps in touch with the few she has there. She miiight make a few new (or old) connections once shes out of Los Angeles too, who knows!

[goldenspecter]

Forgivness

Summary: “I was possessed! Da-A ghost took over my body!” Tucker shouts and that’s the moment he breaks down, pulling his hands away from his parents and holding him close to his chest-if he holds his chest, then no one can enter his body. That burning in his chest is back as he sobs brokenly. Here he was, breaking down over something Danny did to him and here he is, still holding on to Danny’s secret. Where was the fairness in that? “I didn’t want to!”

Valerie doesn’t know how to forgive someone. She’s never really had to, because people usually don’t hurt her this badly. Usually they apologize on the spot for some minor thing and Valerie instantly forgives them because she knows that they meant her no harm.

In which we see how Tucker copes with the events of Parental Bonding and Valerie gets some closure.

Archive of Our Own | FFN

Notes:

Here's the first side story in the AU! I'm quite happy with how this one turned out and hopefully plan on doing more of these as the AU progresses!

I knew I had to write this after writing that confrontation scene between Tucker and Valerie in the French Braids and it's been something I've been wanting to write anyways. Not to mention that I'm currently having some form of writers block when it's coming to writing the next part of the other fic.

- I've seen plenty of works within the fandom that addresses how overshadowing/possessing someone fucks them up but I don't think I've quite seen anything that talks about how it personally affected Tucker. It's really, really, really fucked up for Tucker to explicitly say no and not consent to be overshadowed and Danny, his best friend and someone who's the narrative says is a good person, ignore Tucker and do it any way and deeply violate his agency and consent. Even more fucked up that the narrative plays this for jokes at the end of the episode. This is literally a Vlad move my dudes, this is something that we should expect of Vlad because we know that he doesn't really view people as actual people, just pawns that he can use to meet a goal. Danny doing shit like this multiple times throughout canon(and it being played for jokes) only makes him more like Vlad. A more interesting concept would have been Danny asking to overshadow someone/not using except for dire circumstances but canon said fuck good ideas right?

-Valerie deserves closure. She deserves good things, good things and she deserves closure for being stood up at home coming.

-Re: Self-Harm Tag: Okay so Tucker has a certain behavior in this fic where he picks at scabs in his hair until they bleed but the thing is, Tucker doesn't really have a choice whether or not he wants to do it but rather it's compulsive. He doesn't really realize he's doing it and doesn't intend to cause physical damage(whereas its the opposite with self-harming) but he knows its a thing. Trichotillomania (hair pulling) and skin picking are commonly seen in autistic people. It can serve as a way to self-soothe and self-stimulate the individual in day to day life. Some Autism Specialists can classify this behavior as a SIB(Self-Injurious-Behavior) since it is harmful to the person's body. Also I do this a lot, have been for several years and once again the projection is real.

-Also Tucker in this AU has a really hardcore squish(friend crush) on Valerie but doesn't really understand/realize that he just wants to be friends with her and thus pursued her in a romantic manner.

Timeline wise in the AU: The first half, in Tucker’s POV, takes place right after Parental Bonding, through One of a Kind and mid way through pt one of French Braids. The second half, Valerie’s POV, is after pt one of French Braids and in between Attack of the Killer Garage Sale and Splitting Images.

-----

When Tucker fully comes back into his body, he's at the homecoming dance. Dragon Sam’s been subdued and back to her normal self and the three of them are standing in the middle of the dance floor.

“Dude, sorry your date didn't pan out. Where is Paulina anyway?” asks Tucker, the words taste bitter in his mouth as he says them.

Sam shrugs, “Ah, who cares? Look, the DJ's still playing. I think there's time for one last dance?”

“Sure, I’d love to,” Danny turns and hands the amulet to Tucker. “Keep an eye on this will you?”

Danny doesn’t bother waiting for an answer before dropping the amulet in Tucker’s hands. Tucker’s fingers instinctively curl around the amulet and Tucker turns away from Danny’s smile because all he can see now is Danny’s green eyes smiling at him before Danny took over. How come he didn’t get an apology for being forced to stand up Valerie? How come he’s the only one who doesn’t get a happy ending this time around? How come Danny gets to pretend like none of this ever happened while he was stuck with the aftermath?

Tucker swallows the lump in his chest, “Wait a second,” he begins,  “I’m dateless again?! What does a guy have to do to get hooked up around here?”

“I want to go to the ball!” wails Dora.

He doesn’t know why he had to turn his feelings into a mere joke. He does of course. Because no one here really thinks his feelings matter and jokes are the only way he has right now to process it. Tucker knows this but can’t help the heartache and nausea bury when Danny and Sam laugh at his misfortune. Can they not see that he’s hurting or do they just not care ?

The fourteen year old forces a smile on his face as he steps away from Dora. “Maybe I don’t need a date that badly,” he says and runs away from the blooming romance and the burning in his chest.

~~~~~~~

Home should be safe. Home was safe. Home was where it happened, so how safe was he? Tucker opens the door and both of his parents are there, sitting at the table waiting for him.

How safe were they? Were any of them safe anymore?

His parents look up from the card game they were playing, “Tucker?” his mom asks, with confusion in her eyes. “It’s pretty early, you shouldn’t be home for another hour or two.”

Tucker shakes his head, kicking the door behind him. “Wanted to go home early.” He turns around facing the door and locks it, and with it, his emotions.

Maurice blinks, laying down his cards. “Did something happen dear?”

Tucker shakes his head even harder. “It’s nothing,” his voice cracks slightly and he can feel his parents' looks of concern.

Maurice stands up and slowly walks towards him, “Something happened dear,” he says softly and Tucker just knows that he can’t keep up this facade any longer. “Whatever happened, it’ll be okay.”

“No it won’t,” he says in a rough whisper. Maybe, if he keeps his eyes down then he won't lose it. “It won’t ever be.”

Maurice tries to wrap his arm around his son but steps back when his son roughly pushes him away. He tries again, but this time, he gently takes one of his son's hands and holds it in his. “Please, just talk to us.”

It’s the desperation in his dad’s voice that does it for him, that finally gets him to talk. “I stood up Valerie,” he says, voice cracking and thick with emotion, growing more and more panicked by the second. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I didn’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t have a choice?” Angela asks, coming up to him and taking his other hand in hers.

“I was possessed! Da-A ghost took over my body!” Tucker shouts and that’s the moment he breaks down, pulling his hands away from his parents and holding him close to his chest-if he holds his chest, then no one can enter his body. That burning in his chest is back as he sobs brokenly. Here he was, breaking down over something Danny did to him and here he is, still holding on to Danny’s secret. Where was the fairness in that? “I didn’t want to!”

Maurice gets over his initial shock at Tucker’s outburst, before he jumps in to help his hurting son. “Tucker, can you take deep breaths with me?” he takes exaggerated deep breaths, “Follow my breathing.”

“I can’t,” he manages to say through a sob, “It’s not safe, you aren’t safe, none of us are safe.”

“You’re safe honey, you’re safe,” Angela says, sliding off his hat and gently stroking his hair in an effort to calm him down. “Maybe we can go to the Fentons-”

Tucker reels back and the panic kicks into overdrive, “No!” The sobbing grows into deep and broken wails. They can’t go to Ground Zero, where the source of this misery originated from, because then all three of them definitely won’t be safe. Home is safer, Home has to be safer, Home needs to be safer.

Maurice and Angela look at each other in confusion, unable to understand why their child was so adamant about not going to the Fentons. Both parents put aside their confusion to help their son calm down, taking nearly 45 minutes to do so. Once Tucker was calm, they gave him some water and some medications to help him sleep through the night. Maurice walks his son upstairs,  stands outside the door as he changes into pajamas and personally tucks his son in for the night, turning out the light and leaving Tucker’s door slightly ajar.

Tucker doesn’t leave the house for the rest of the weekend.

~~~~~~

Tucker wants to stay away from Danny, he doesn’t feel safe near him anymore. He doesn’t know when his best friend is going to overshadow his body and take control of him.

He’s just on the brink of telling Danny to leave him alone, to not talk to him anymore when Danny says he needs them both to help him with ghost hunting and studying for the test.

Tucker feels the no on his tongue, practically taste it, but instead a sour yes spills out instead.

The incident with the Purple Back Gorilla happens and the week passes by quickly. Tucker can not help but feel uneasy, thankful when the weekend comes by.

Somehow, someway he’s at the grocery store and he comes across Valerie pushing a cart with a little kid inside of it. Nerves garble his voice even as he clears his voice, “Valerie? I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while.”

“Go away Tucker,” she says and he can hear the anger boiling in her.

“I know I messed up-”

She whips around, her green eyes narrowing at him in anger and he feels so small right about now. “You left me!” she hisses, “I was alone!”

Tucker winces, rubbing his neck. “Let me explain Valerie.”

"You don't get to explain how you stood me up at homecoming," Valerie starts, her voice tight. "You don't get to waltz in here-" Her shoulders deflate, the anger leaving her body and soon washes her over with sadness. Tucker knows that she’s holding herself back and he can only assume it’s because of the kid in the cart.

"Go," she points down the aisle, "I don't want to hear your excuses."

Tucker bows his head in shame, walking down the aisle and out of the store with the few items he bought, his chance to repair...whatever he wanted to have with Valerie gone.

~~~~~

Valerie doesn’t know how to forgive someone. She’s never really had to, because people usually don’t hurt her this badly. Usually they apologize on the spot for some minor thing and Valerie instantly forgives them because she knows that they meant her no harm.

But with Tucker? She has no idea where to begin. The only reason she’s considering forgiving Tucker in the first place is because Clockwork told her that Tucker didn’t want to stand her up, that he didn’t mean to hurt her, that Clockwork knew what happened that night but couldn’t tell her.

Clockwork leans over her shoulder as she contemplates sending Tucker a text. “What are you doing?” they ask, sipping on their juice.

“Trying to send a text,” she says, “To Tucker to talk about...you know.”

Clockwork tilts their head before nodding in realization. “What’s stopping you?”

“I don’t know what to say!” Valerie says, throwing her hands up in frustration. “That’s just it!”

The small child shrugs, “Mmm, just go with what feels right?” they question in a stilted voice.  

Valerie raises an eyebrow, “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I picked it up from someone on one of the TV shows you were watching,” Clockwork says, “I thought it was appropriate.”

It was appropriate, she has to give them that, no matter how stilted and unnatural they sounded while saying it. She encouragingly rubs their back, “You did good, though.” she praises, pulling them in close to her for a side hug.

Valerie’s thumb hovers over the keyboard, typing and retyping her message until she’s satisfied with it and pressing send.

You: I’ve thought about it and I’m giving you one chance to explain yourself. Meet me at the park at 5:30. I’ll be at the tables near the swings.

Several minutes pass by before she feels her phone vibrate, looking down to see the notification.

Tucker: Okay, meet you there.

Valerie sighs, pulling away from Clockwork. She sits up, checks the time on her phone. It’s 4:45 now and the park was only a five to ten minute walk from the Nasty Burger. Then again, it didn’t hurt to be early, Clockwork could play on the swings while she waits for him to meet her.

“You finished with your food?” she asks Clockwork, who nods. “Come on, we’re heading to the park.”

“Whoo!” exclaims Clockwork, eagerly sliding out of the dining booth. Valerie shakes her head with a smile, picking up their trays, dumping the food and sitting the trays on top of the trash cans as they walk out of the diner. Traffic was a little heavy, which only set them back by five minutes and the two managed to get to Amity Park in a timely manner.

Once they’re in the park, Valerie hunts for the set of swings. She quickly finds it, the tables she mentioned earlier close by. She sits down at the wooden tables and tells Clockwork to go play on the swing, which they do without a fuss. Valerie checks her phone again, the time now 5:05, leaving her with only twenty five minutes till Tucker was supposed to be here. She decides to scroll through her social media, occasionally breaking away from her phone to check on Clockwork.

Valerie feels the table and bench groan and shift under new weight, she looks up and Tucker is sitting right across from her.

He looks nervous and uncertain. So is she.

Turning her phone screen off and placing it face down on the table, Valerie sits there in silence for a moment before speaking.

“Uh, speak your truth,” Valerie says awkwardly and she wishes that she had gone over what she was going to say. “Don’t bullshit me.”

“I got possessed by a ghost,” Tucker says, looking away from her and throwing his hands out. “I don’t remember what happened when I was possessed.”

“We’re her best friends! We should have known.” Danny laments.

“It’s not our responsibility to read and protect Sam’s emotions, she should have said she wanted to go to the dance from the beginning,” Tucker says back, straightening his tie a bit. “There’s nothing we can do about it now anyways.”

Danny thinks for a moment, then a mischievous smile appears as green eyes flash at Tucker.

Tucker realizes what Danny wants him to do, “No way. Forget it. Absolutely not. No!” he loudly protests and the next thing he knows, he’s feeling a gaping hole in his chest as his consciousness is taken over by Danny.

“You were possessed….by a ghost?” Valerie asks incredulously, she feels something tugging her arms. Looking down, she sees Clockwork looking up at her with their big eyes, silently saying “He’s telling the truth.”

Tucker’s nods, “I know that sounds absurd and it sounds stupid but it happened and I’m so sorry that I stood you up.” Tucker pleads, holding his face in his hands, one of them crawling up to his head and pulling at the short curls. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I’m so, so sorry.”

Valerie notices how distressed Tucker sounds, how his voice cracks a tiny bit after he shields his face from her and how broken Tucker looks and sounds. There have been plenty of ghosts attacks in the city and it sounds just as likely he was possessed by one of these ghosts. He didn’t have a reason to make any of this up;  it wouldn’t have made sense if he did since he was too excited to be her date to the dance.

Clockwork’s words ring in her head, “If it helps, he didn't want to hurt you.He didn't want to though," and she gets it. She finally gets it.

Valerie reaches out, uncertain as she pulls Tucker’s hands away from his hair, not saying anything as she notices blood staining the pads of his fingers and holds it in her hand. Tucker stops shaking, stops pleading, simply stops and looks at Valerie, waiting for her to confirm his worst suspicions.

“That possession stuff? That’s some weak shit fam,” she says, “But I forgive you.”

Tucker’s body sags with relief, and the unheard ‘Thank You’ is loud enough for all three of them at the table.

Clockwork reaches forward, takes one of Tucker’s hands and holds it.

Valerie grabs a tissue and some hand sanitizer out of her book bag, squeezes some on the tissue and begins gently wiping the blood off of his finger pads. He tries to pull back but Valerie tightens her grip on him.

“Let...let us handle this,” she says softly, continuing to wipe the blood off his fingers. “Why so much blood?”

Tucker looks away in embarrassment.  “I have a thing where I can’t help but pick at the scabs in my hair,” he explains, “It gets really bad sometimes.”

“I bet what happened hasn’t helped any,” Valerie says, silently gesturing for Clockwork to give her his other hand so she can continue. “Do you remember the ghost who did it?”

Tucker shakes his head, “No,” The lie comes too easily. The little kid sitting next to Valerie eyes him with some scrutiny, and Tucker resists the urge to pull away from Valerie while wondering if this kid knew more than they let on. “What would you do if you ever found them?”

“Punch them in the face,” Valerie says without skipping a beat, oblivious to Clockwork’s and Tucker’s simultaneous wince. “No ghost gets away with possessing my friends.”

“Friend?” Tucker repeats back, “We’re friends?”

“Well, yeah,” Valerie answers, as if it wasn’t obvious. “You’re my friend now.”

Tucker blinks several times to make sure he heard her properly. “Oh, okay.”

Valerie finishes wiping the blood off of his fingers and he slowly pulls them back towards his chest. “I should go home now,” Tucker says, standing up and pulling away from the table.

“Why don’t we go with you? Me and...Isaiah can keep you company while you walk home. Ghosts probably won’t attack if all three of us are together.” Valerie says, standing up to wipe the imaginary dirt off her orange skirt. Isaiah follows suit, tightly holding her hand. “You in?”

“Sure,” he stutters. The three begin the walk to Tucker’s house and as they walk, he can’t help but focus on how safe he feels with Valerie and Isaiah and feels that gaping hole in his chest slowly begin to heal.

[blackevermore]

x Secrets of The Lake: The Company of Misery and Pain

{ Chapter 9 }

Summary: Vladimir Masters’ family tree has always been tainted by secrets swept under the rug. From generation to generation there have been countless reasons the Masters’ family had seemed to keep private from the public. Even to this day, Vladimir was no exception. But what was one to do when a restless spirit from the settlement years finally breaks free from restraints and demands you answer for your ancestor’s crimes? Vladimir doesn’t know. However, Clockworks does.

Notes: We just having fun, rewriting some of the canon, new adventure new characters. I will apologize now for any grammar, spelling, weird sentence structuring in advance. My brain writes faster than my fingers and even when I go back through to reread it I still miss things. Sorry about that!

Word Count: 3725

P.s: I think it's best if I tell you now the flashbacks are out of order I should have said that earlier but never late than never for a long story owob

Vlad laid across the faint couch trying to recall all that had happened, the more he put everything in order the more he felt his brain about to melt. Danny took it upon himself to watch over Tayonna who was now being held captive in the guest room that had now been converted to a giant ghost trap. Vlad would have thrown her in the basement had it not been a complete mess. Honestly, he would have done a lot more had it not been for Danny playing hero, or Dani needing to be comforted. 

This day had gone to complete shit and Vlad knew as soon as he stepped back into his workspace there would be questions. And for every question would be a white lie that covered up the whole water pipe story. Grumbling a butter biscuit or a fudge muffin, Vlad rolled his head to the side and stared mindlessly into the fireplace in front of him. He could still taste the plasma in the back of his throat even though the endless teeth brushing and mouthwash. He even tried to drown it down with a drink but all that did was make it worse. That also upset his stomach even more and he made way towards the nearest bathroom to another unpleasant round. 

The mist had scared him. Vlad had never seen anything like it on Earth nor in the Ghost Zone. The way it slid off his body like heavy smoke felt unbelievably weird and made Vlad shiver. It felt almost like an essence of himself was pulling from his body and forming into a very upset vision. Vlad tried his best not to walk past mirrors when he wasn’t in a good mood. Anger was a face he had grown used to but sadness and misery were faint expressions he buried deep inside. The few times he couldn’t help but look he could only focus on how dark his blue eyes got and the way his face grew longer than it was. It was haunting to see or feel complete utter sadness, and that’s exactly what the mist looked like. ‘Like the day you got their wedding invitation’.

“She’s awake!” Dani shot through the door flying above Vlad, she still looked as if she would rather be somewhere else but the hero inside her pushed her to keep helping. Vlad secretly praised her as he slowly sat up and clenched his chest again. The shocks were long gone but he could still feel a sudden zap here and there, along with the sudden tighten and release around his human heart. He strongly hoped he would never have to do that again. It was already an awkward feeling shoving his own hand through his chest. Dani flew down to take his arm to help him up but Vlad held up a hand to stop her as he made it to his feet. He took a deep breath and took a small step, the shock made his energy a bit slow to regenerate, when he found a steady pace he followed Dani out the room and towards the bedroom hallways. 

Vlad could call himself paranoid the way he boobytrapped his homes. He himself was a ghost but yet every door was equipped with anti-ghost bars that were turned on by command that could cut off any exit. The statues that decorated the walkways all had blasters installed in either the eyes or the base. Once he and Danny found their common ground he made sure to update the system so Danny wouldn’t be a target anymore. 

But Vlad did enjoy that first week of Danny showing up and having to dance like a monkey when the signals were tripped. When he made it to the bedroom/cell he gave the system command to dismiss the bars and walked inside. Danny sat on the floor closer to the door watching Tayonna who now sat up in the corner of the bed against the wall. Her head hung low and she tried to curl into herself. However, when Vlad walked into the room her head shot up and she stared at him with pure hatred. Dani stayed outside and a few feet away from the door. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Tayonna.

Vlad only rolled his eyes and huffed before crossing his arms behind his back and clearing his throat to Danny.

“Any progress?” Vlad asked, never breaking eye contact with Tayonna. If she wished to insert her dominance in his home, he would have to show her who was really in charge.

“I wish, she just woke up and backed into the corner. But she is messing with my head a bit. I almost had a breakdown about a cookie I didn’t eat and threw away.” Danny got to his feet and stretched, hearing all of his bones crack at once. With a sudden heavy sigh, he turned to Vlad and tapped his foot. The older halfa eyed him confused and mouthed a ‘what is it?’. Danny’s face twisted to an annoyed eye roll before he caught himself and backed away a bit.

“Whoa, yeah, see she’s doing it again, I almost punched the hell out of you for breathing the wrong way.” Danny held his head and turned back towards Tayonna. The ghost was still shooting daggers at Vlad and even breathing heavily as if she was about to attack him. “Well if she can’t get to you she sure was gonna use me. Dude, you gotta fix whatever this is.”

“I’m well aware of that, Daniel, It’s not as if I asked to be in this situation in the first place.” Vlad hissed. The constant reminder that he had to fix this was starting to run him up a wall. Vlad took a moment to straighten himself out and breathe before he walked closer to Tayonna. The girl didn’t flinch or move from her spot as Vlad now stood at the edge of the large bed. He kept his hands behind his back to keep it cool and unbothered. Vlad knew he had authoritative energy that could make anyone cowardly at his feet. Tayonna would surely give in eventually and tuck her tail between her legs.

“Now, Miss Tayonna, won't you tell us all why you felt it was utterly necessary to invite yourself into my home and cause so much trouble?” Vlad tried to not sound pissed off, but every word that left his lips he threw like acid. Tayonna’s eyes grew wide then narrowed like a snake as she stayed quiet and continued their staring contest. “Or more importantly, how did you change from your ghost form to a human form.” Vlad pointed out, which seemed to catch Tayonna’s attention before she looked back towards him then away. Vlad huffed angrily and brought his arms forward to cross them.

“You think she’s one of us?” Danny called out. “I mean it would be very rare if she was. What were your ancestors getting up to?” Danny pushed off the wall he was leaning against and came up beside Vlad, he stayed somewhat behind the man hesitantly.

“I don’t believe halfas would exist during her time, she is very much a ghost that has the ability to mimic powers it seems. I figured she must have attached herself to my core and in turn, she mimics my energy. The reason why she could control my electric power so easily.” Vlad hummed, a mimicking ghost was a rather dangerous type especially if they had to latch on to you. For a moment Vlad felt his annoyance and frustration slip away as the science side of him became interested in what more Tayonna could do. With the cuffs still on her along with the anti-ghost rope she was pretty much defenseless to any poking and probing Vlad wanted to do. Those little activities would have to wait, a certain Phantom wouldn’t be too happy to know Vlad was back on his bullshit. Nor would the older halfa wish to explain to the youngest who would definitely tell the other.

“So if she’s not going to talk to either of us, what do we do?” Danny finally asked the big question Vlad had been avoiding. He had thought of just throwing her back into the Ghost Zone and making sure that secret space she came from she couldn’t get out of. Maybe even have Skulker keep an eye on her every so often to make sure she wouldn’t start screaming again or getting out. Or maybe Vlad could keep her here but somehow figure out a way to get rid of her himself. Clockwork did tell him to handle the situation. Vlad was knocked from his thoughts by the sound of paper hitting the ground. Both Danny and Vlad heard it and looked down towards their feet. A small sheet of paper laid at Vlad’s and he reached down to pick it up. He should have known who it was from before he flipped it over.

“Pieces in a puzzle with only two corners will always be bound together” - CW

“What does that mean?” Danny hovered over Vlad's shoulder causing the man to jump away from the sudden scare. Danny cracked a smile at how easy it was to make the man jump then pointed back towards the note. 

Vlad rolled the card in his fingers a bit and sighed, “Clockwork sure likes his sayings. You know that more than I, I’m just as confused.” Vlad lazily handed Danny the card and told him to keep it. Vlad was once again looking towards Tayonna to make sure she hadn’t tried anything. She still huddled up in the corner but now she looked so sad, blinking slowly and staring down as if it was a void. Vlad felt his heart slow and grow heavy as he watched her. 

There it was again, that feeling of wanting to reach out and hold her, and there it went as Vlad mentally screamed at himself to get it together. She was just using her emotional powers somehow despite having the handcuffs still on. Yet Vlad couldn’t pull himself away from her and whatever she was doing. Then Vlad saw it from the corner of his eye, the mist started to rise off his skin and droop to the floor before inching closer to the bed. Danny saw it too but didn’t say anything, all he could do was watch alongside Vlad as the mist formed an outstretched hand and reached out to Tayonna. When the hand touched her she pulled away and tried to fight it off. 

“Leave me alone, you’ve already done enough, stop touching me.” Tayonna had finally spoken and she sounded so broken. Vlad felt a sting in his heart and unknowingly he wished for the hand to go away. The hand tried to touch her again but before it could it faded away with the rest of the mist.

“Um…?” Danny started and Vlad finally pulled himself away from looking at the ghost and turned away towards the door.

“I don’t know,” Vlad couldn’t even fake a sense of understanding as he felt his heartache and his mind become foggy with a sudden sadness. He quickly covered his face when he felt tears peak in the corners of his ears. He quickly wiped them away before Danny could ask what was going on and he straightened himself up. “I think it’s best if I keep her here for the night. It’s late and the both of you have school tomorrow.” Vlad looked at Danny then at the door as he saw Dani slowly poking her head in. He hoped she didn’t see the way he wiped his face, that would be embarrassing. “Daniel, why won't you stay the night and in the morning I’ll have Jackson come and drive both of you to school.” Danny looked back towards Tayonna and felt a sudden rush of sadness. He shivered and threw up his hands to protest.

“Thanks but I would rather not be around someone who's gonna make me have a mental breakdown at 2 am. I can do that in my own time with my special playlist. I’ll just fly home.” Danny turned ghost and started to hover off the ground. Vlad nodded and was ready to dismiss the boy till he remembered Dani at the door. 

“You wouldn’t mind hosting Danielle until this is all over would you? I rather she is safe as well.” Vlad asked, feeling the father in him swell with the need to protect.

Danny turned around and cocked ahead to the side to see Dani but she ducked behind the frame, “You wanna go back home with me, short stack?”

“Don’t call me that!” Dani stuck her head through the wall and stuck her tongue out. She then took a moment to look around and take a glance at Tayonna before pulling her head back out. “Yeah, that would be nice.” Dani’s voice was low with anxiousness. Vlad let out a heavy sigh and nodded for Danny to go help Dani and hurry home. It would be best if he was alone with this problem. That was enough people in one night to be in danger.

When the kids were gone Vlad gently waved them away before closing the door and floating back up to the room Tayonna was in. He stood outside the anti-ghost bars peering in as Tayonna now laid on the bed. ‘What exactly is it that you want, Miss Tayonna?’ he thought to himself as he backed away from the door and haunted away towards his own bedroom. 

Vladan knew better than to snoop around the house like some paranoid townsmen. There was enough of that when his family travelled into the town square since they were German. It seemed like the English still had a stick up their ass when it came to others joining them. Everyone was an outsider in one way or another but yet found a way to put each other in a ranking system for security. Vladan grunted at his wandering thoughts as he walked around the cottage. Settling in a few days ago was easy but it was still beyond him why they had to be so far away. Could his father not settle closer to the others for a quicker journey? Vladan knew better than to question his father’s mind, Vladan had learned early every man has a secret that only gets revealed with due time. Luckily for him, Luther had no secrets Vladan hadn’t already heard, and vice versa.

Vladan wasn’t really a nature person as he was a man who sat by the fire and read. But something pulled him from his bed that morning and told him to go out and look around. His parents were gone and took the house servants and Luther was still sick in bed so Vladan took his chance. As he rounded the back of the house he heard someone praying. Praying? On a Tuesday? Vladan would have laughed, he wasn’t much of a religious man like everyone else, but the sheer thought of someone praying by his house nerved him. He slowed his pace and peeked around the edge of the wood and saw Tayonna. She kneeled to the ground in a patch of grass surrounded by cups and bowls. Vladan narrowed his eyes confused as to why she would be outside and what she was doing. He couldn’t help but watch her as she bowed a few times and mumbled incoherent words. This must have been a thing her people did before being brought over, that was the only thing he could think of. But as he watched her it seemed like things only got weirder. 

Tayonna stopped praying and frantically looked around herself for something. She then snapped her fingers and a basket that was placed behind her snapped open and a jar hovered out and to her hands. She then swirled her finger in the air and drops from the freshly rained grass rose to the air and formed balls. She waved for the biggest ball to fall into the bowl and she began to pour other things from the cups into the bowl. When she was finished mixing everything she placed the bowl in front of her and bowed face down into the grass. He could hear her mumbling again and then the bowl began to glow. Vladan felt his body shake in fear but also pure curiosity. He knew what he was seeing, the men at his university spoke of them like fairy tales, he even spoke of them like fairy tales. Tayonna was a witch. He hadn’t noticed he had walked out from his hiding place and walked closer to the girl until he heard her scream. Tayonna fell to her butt and tried to put space between them. She begged him not to hurt her and that’s when Vladan snapped fully out of his trance.

“I’m not going to hurt you, woman!” Vladan growled, holding out his hands to calm her so she didn’t wake Luther. Tayonna finally made it to her feet and gathered her dress, she looked between Vladan and the forest that stretched on behind them. Vladan looked then shook his head. “Don’t you dare!” He lunged and quickly grabbed her wrist and pulled her against his body to hold her down. Tayonna was about to let out a scream which wouldn’t do any of them any good so he quickly covered her mouth. They stood there struggling with each other until Vladan brought them both to their knees.

“I’m not going to hurt you unless you give me a reason to. I will remove my hand and you will answer every question I have. Do you understand?” Vladan couldn’t explain why he was giving this servant a chance to explain herself. But he felt he needed to. Tayonna was still shaking but she calmed down just enough to shake her head slowly. Vladan removed his hand from her mouth and spun her around to face him, he never removed his hands from her arms just in case. “You are a witch and there is no denying it. Are you cursing my family, if you are I will have you dealt with.” 

“I am not cursing your family, master Vladan, I was blessing the house.” Tayonna kept her head low and chose not to fight to get her arms away from him. She didn’t want to be hit or attacked.

“Blessing?” Vladan was taken back and it showed on his face.

“Everyone has been so kind to me and I do not wish to be sold again. I wish to stay until I die and can fly back home. Please do not sell me...I won't do it again...please do not sell me.” Tayonna began to cry and Vladan pulled away from her allowing her to fall to the ground. Witches are all bad, right? All the fairy tales he was told as a child and all the legends of witches only pointed to them being evil beings that caused only trouble.

“Witches are only bad things. Witches do not pray.” Vladan said abruptly and pointed at the girl. “You are trying to deceive me with lies. Are you the reason my brother has been sick the whole time? Do not lie to me!” Vladan hadn’t meant to raise his voice but it came out so fast.

“No! I have only done things to make him better. He was sicker before I arrived and he slowly gets better the more I help.” Tayonna was telling the truth, their mother had only good things to say when it came to Luther’s health recently. Luther had even offered to go to town for their father because he ‘felt up to it’. Vladan was still skeptical but he didn’t truly sense evil coming from the girl. And since he had seen how comfortable she made his brother feel he didn’t believe she would want to kill them so quickly.

“You’ve been helping him? How?” Vladan asked, kneeling slowly to face her. Tayonna raised her head and backed away before answering him.

“His baths, I put the herbs in his bath to calm his senses and ease the pain. It’s not much but it’s enough to help him through the day.”

“Will my brother become healthy again and be able to travel back home?” Vladan had to know, he had to know if his brother will grow old as he and live a fulfilled life. That was his best friend. “Please tell me.” Vladan reached out and took hold of Tayonna’s shoulders and shook her a bit and the girl stiffened before quickly shaking her head ‘no’.

“Your brother was not meant to live this life with you. He was only supposed to be here for a while until he left. I’ve tried to convince the earth to let him stay but it seems that even he is ready.” Tayonna lowered her head again and Vladan finally let go of her and rose to his feet. A heavy silence fell over them as Vladan tried to debunk her words. Surely his brother would live long, they had promised so long ago, but the feeling Vladan got from Tayonna that she only told him the truth. “He was so happy to have you here with him, Master Vladan. He speaks so highly of you, the best brother he could ever have, a best friend.” Tayonna slowly got up wiping her face with her hand and kept space between them, there was no telling how Vladan felt towards her after this. Vladan looked up towards the small window that led to Luther’s room then back down to the ground. He clenched his fist a couple of times trying to fight back tears and sighed.

“Do my parents know you are a witch?” Vladan asked, and Tayonna quickly shook her head ‘no’.

“Does he know you are a witch?” Vladan finally asked.

Tayonna looked up at him with her bright green eyes now tinted red from crying then towards the window, “He was the one that insisted on buying me.”

[threewaysdivided]

I saw your conversation about Sam Manson. I was talking to Imekitty about this, but I’ve noticed a few things that (sort of) make Sam’s relationship with her parents seem more like teen-drama than actual hardship. If you look closely, she’s got a lot in common with them: outspoken political-activism, possible shared-interest in vintage clothes, and no shame in saying they don’t like certain people. Also, after the Fentons, they were the first to volunteer to use the Ecto-Skeleton, risks and all.

(In reference to this post.)

It’s been a little while since I rewatched DP so I’m not well-placed to do a detail-analysis implication-breakdown right now, but yeah - that fits with the overall impression I remember getting.  To me they came across as being sort of old fashioned set-in-their-ways conservative and snooty, and maybe a bit too Pleasantville -  but more often in the way of parents who do genuinely want good things for her and to be able to be proud of her despite not really understanding her interests, choices or friends and being very bad at expressing it.  Plus she seems to have her grandmother fully in her corner a lot of the time.

I really wish that the writers had committed to one or the other; either making it clear that Sam’s martyr/ persecution complex is mostly just regular self-inflicted teen-drama BS and giving her an arc addressing it, OR fleshing out the idea that she faces a lot of judgement/ pressure/ control/ nonacceptance in her home life and that her negative traits are a bi-product of defensive/ coping mechanisms resulting from that strained dynamic, rather treating things with Roger Rabbit Rules.  

(Which isn’t to say that a person can’t have similar interests/ personality traits to, and positive interactions with, their parents while still having a strained, broken or even abusive relationship with them on a deeper level, but the show never really goes hard enough in either direction to make it work.)

As mentioned the last post, this is kind of a consistent pattern across DP - the writers tend go with the low-effort first answer for whatever is Funny or Awesome or Convenient in the moment rather than putting in the work to find a solution that’s consistent with the characterisation, themes and world-lore overall.  There’s enough internal contradiction in the show that I don’t think it’s actually possible to take every canon detail as canon without fundamentally breaking things.  And in some ways that’s kind of cool; it makes the series more open to interpretation, and trying to distinguish authorial intent from authorial incompetence and come up with theories that account for as many pieces of canon as possible is really satisfying.  But, you know, it’s also kind of bad writing in general.

I think the thing that bothers me about Sam’s characterisation in particular is that - where it tends to be more obviously out-of-character when it shows up in other places - there’s a pattern to the inconsistency with how the writers handle Sam:

Throughout the series there’s a double standard in how Sam sees herself/ seems to expects others to act, compared to her own behaviour:

Despite being pro-pacifism she’s okay with smacking Tucker and encouraging Danny to destroy the trucks she doesn’t like

Sam values self-expression and is a feminist, but derides other girls for wanting to express themselves in a conventionally feminine way

Sam doesn’t like being forced to conform to others’ values but is okay with forcing others to conform to hers

Despite being anti-consumerist she shows very little discomfort at, or awareness of, her lavish home life and material belongings

She encourages Danny to take the moral high ground towards his bullies but has no problem antagonising and getting into petty verbal spats with Paulina herself

Sam stalks Danny and his love interest out of jealousy/ protectiveness but threatens to end their friendship when he does the same

In Mystery Meat, when Danny tries to express his discomfort/ anxiety, Sam hijacks the conversation to complain about her own parents instead of listening.

In One of a Kind Sam photographs Danny and Tucker hugging in their sleep, without their knowledge, with the stated intent of putting it in the yearbook, then uses it to blackmail them into silence. 

Side note: this joke is also tacky on a meta-level because it boils down to “male intimacy ha ha toxic masculinity no homo amiright?“ Would have been nice if show didn’t use low-key sexist humour as much as it did.

Instead of expressing that she’s hurt by Danny’s “pretty girls” comment in Parental Bonding, Sam retaliates by pushing him to ask Paulina out - a move she knows will most likely result in him getting publicly shut down and humiliated.

Then, after getting the result she wanted, she comes over to gloat and insults Paulina, rather than dropping it now that her point’s been made, which is what ultimately sets off the episode’s subplot.

In Memory Blank Sam permanently physically alters Phantom’s appearance to better suit her tastes while he’s not in a position to understand or give informed consent, then lies when Danny notices and asks about it later.

To be clear this definitely isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of her character and it’s not there 100% of the time - there are plenty of moments when she is loyal and generous and helpful and sincerely kind and where her stubbornness comes in handy.  But it’s the aggregate pattern of all these small instances that drives a crack through the foundation of her character integrity; producing this insidious undercurrent alternate-reading of Sam as someone who, at a deep level, just doesn’t respect or recognise that the emotional needs, pains, opinions, autonomy and boundaries of others are as real and valid as her own, and who responds to criticism with passive-aggressive hostility.

Again, I think that’s why people are so quick to point out that line from Phantom Planet, even though we all know the episode was a complete mess.  None of the examples above are particularly bad in isolation - you can’t really point at any one of them and say “oh no, bad girl” without sounding like you’re making a mountain out of molehill and irrationally hating on her just to hate on her.  It’s an uncomfortable slowburn pattern of subtle micro-transgressions that accumulates across the series - a “you might not notice it but your brain did”.  And it makes sense that it would be the worst-written episode that amplifies and brings that regular bad-writing undercurrent close enough to the surface for people to consciously recognise and use it to articulate those frustrations.

To wit: Not because it’s most telling of her character but because it’s most telling of the specific bad writing that regularly hurts her character. 

And again, from a storytelling point of view, it’s okay for Sam to have flaws.  She’s a teenager!  She’s learning.  She’s allowed to be egocentric and self-important and do things that aren’t the best at times.  It’s okay if these are her character weaknesses and a source of conflict with the rest of the cast.  But again, for that to be satisfying something really should have come of it.  It would have been nice if the writers were willing to have any self-awareness about these flaws being flaws that a person should recognise and grow past in order to have healthy relationships with others.  But they didn’t - because it’s easier to keep her as she is - to the point that they’ll actively bend the narrative to roll back or skip over moments that would have necessitated that growth.  So, even though they call attention to her flaws, the writers end up rewarding and enabling them instead of letting her learn.

And again, this isn’t meant to hate on Sam.  Hanlon’s Razor in full effect: it’s clearly a result of authorial/editorial incompetence rather than deliberate malice.  I know this isn’t the intended interpretation.

My preferred reading of Sam Manson is that she’s a Rosa Hubermann/ Hermione Granger/ YJS1 Artemis Crock-type character.  Someone who’s passionate and forceful and maybe a bit abrasive and hard to love at a glance, but whose core nature is compassionate and sincerely kind and loyal-to-the-death for the people they value.  I wish I could 100% like her without caveats; to be able to say that even if I don’t agree with her flaws I can at least understand that they’re a valid product of the life she lives, that they make her who she is and that she’s trying her best to be a good person who will get better despite them.  

But I can’t because the writers don’t give her that.  They’re always prioritising other things over the integrity of her character.  They don’t give her background enough time and context to make her negative traits feel resonant with it (because that would take time away from the Wicked Cool Radical Ghost-Fighting Superhero Action™) and the framing and plotting doesn’t give her chances to recognise or grow past them (because that would mean character development and those negative traits are an easy source of cheap conflict).  The writers just don’t seem to care all that much about Sam - her actual character, who she is, how she came to be that way, what she wants or how her negative traits would actually play against Danny and the others.

And that sucks.  Because she has a lot of potential to be a well-rounded and great character.  I’ve seen plenty of fics that seize that potential and roll with those gaps and the result is very good.  I wish I could like her canon depiction without feeling like I have to actively ignore a bunch of latent behavioural red flags as the price of entry.

She deserved better.

[dgcatanisiri]

I had the thought recently about how the idea of “canonical character interaction is antagonistic which leads to them being shipped” is DEFINITELY representative of heteronormative attitudes - We have, for good and for ill, been brought up to believe that “pulling pigtails” is a sure sign of attraction between little boys and little girls, and this is then transferred over into a same-sex pairing. As a trope, this goes back AT LEAST to Shakespeare and The Taming of the Shrew.

Problem is, that’s NOT the same-sex attraction experience. The same-sex attraction experience is that someone of the same-sex shows us the smallest ounce of decency and kindness, we will spend years following in their shadow and building an image in our head of them being our perfect example of love. 

*ahem* What, why are you looking at me like that?

Anyway, there are two particular examples in my mind that kinda emphasize just how this plays out when it comes to media and the fans reactions of same-sex pairings, at least on the M/M end. And they make a case for certain problems within fan communities, with the respective media they’re for reacting in different ways, and, in my personal opinion, show how the people running the shows and the fan responses don’t get the differences.

(Even though, yes, I realize, both of my examples are helmed by gay men - it’s not like their staffs were gay and the studios were not, so that is less of a thing for the purposes of what I’m trying to say here.)

So, example one: Glee. Glee is, rightfully, a dark period of time we are truly better off pretending never existed, but it’s useful for my point, so please bear with me. IN CANON, Kurt spent much of the first season hopelessly head over heels for Finn. This was an actual, ongoing subplot through the first season, up to the point it culminated in the mess it that it did we’re not here to go into that god I really could rant on Glee if I were going to...

Right. My point. Sorry. Glee does that to me.

Anyway, Kurt’s canonical attraction in season one was towards Finn, and, while we all knew it would never happen, that the intent was always going to be towards the heterosexual breeding pair of Finn and Rachel... At this point in time, when I was in the Glee fandom, the main pairing was Kurt and Puck. 

Puck, the guy whose INTRODUCTION was leading a pack of bullies in tossing Kurt in a dumpster. THAT was where the majority of the fanfics I came across at the time were looking towards. 

Fandom saw “bully and victim” and took it to “Puck is expressing his repressed feelings for Kurt by bullying him.” 

And stick a pin in the concept of “fandom” in general, I’m going to come back to it after the second example.

Now, and brace yourself, because I’m about to say something positive in regards to Glee, the response on the show was to turn around and, the following season, not only introduce a new bully for Kurt who WAS doing what fanon!Puck had been doing, which lead to Kurt actively refusing a relationship with him, while also getting a canonical boyfriend. Yes, I call that a positive.

Because while I was closeted throughout my time in public school, I was still bullied and mistreated by other students, if not due directly to my sexuality. It did not lead to crushes on those guys. Hell, there were a couple of guys who spent a good amount of time pretending to be my friends, and if it had been a few years later, that might have become a crush. Instead, though, they revealed themselves before that happened and I completely cut them out of my life when they revealed themselves. And I’ve never felt bad about that.

The gay experience is not crushing on your bullies. It’s crushing on your friends, on the people who you know will be there for you. You don’t see the bully as “disguising their feelings.” No, that you’re gonna take at face value, because the alternative may well be dangerous to you. At least if someone’s been kind to you, they’re more likely to keep up that behavior. But why would you EVER put your heart - and your LIFE - on the line by telling someone who has shown you nothing but disdain “I’m attracted to you”?

Now, for the second example. If Glee was the good one (because the law of averages say it had to happen), then Teen Wolf is the bad one.

See, we all know that Stiles and Derek (no I am NOT going to refer to it by the ship name, I do NOT need that drama showing up in my feed) were considered the fandom darling. 

BUT... They were the above “bully/victim” ship. Their interactions in season one were very distinctly antagonistic. Meanwhile, in terms of positive pairings that could be teased, there were a few - Scott/Stiles (bromantic best friends), Scott/Danny (Scott canonically cuts in between Danny and his Prom date so that he can hide the fact that he’s not supposed to be there by making Coach look homophobic), Scott/Derek (Derek talking about how they had a bond as pack), Stiles/Danny (”Am I attractive to gay guys?”). 

But no. It was Stiles and Derek that became the runaway darling in the fandom. To the point that, eventually, the show engaged actively in queerbaiting, throwing them together more and more often, but ultimately never doing more than teasing before throwing female characters at the both of them. 

(Granted, I also don’t think that any discussion of that particular ship is valid unless you also acknowledge the racism involved, considering that the ship itself features two white guys, while the other two characters I mentioned are, respectively, Latino and Hawaiian, very clearly not white - you will note that Scott and Jackson had a similar antagonistic relationship, and THAT pairing didn’t get much attention at all, despite not having any competition with the “main” ship. In particular, I think that it was entirely valid for Tyler Posey to have seen this reaction and condemned the ship, because it was basically people diminishing him and his character to focus on white guys, especially when you consider how often Scott’s traits ended up being transposed onto Stiles... Okay, this is starting to move beyond the scope I wanted for this.)

Now. back to the issue of “fandom.” Because you know... I don’t think the “fandom” of either of these pairings, Kurt and Puck and Stiles and Derek consisted heavily of actually gay fans - not that they weren’t out there, but I don’t think they were the bulk of the initial fans of the first season, only really coming on board after season two and the active queerbaiting. I think they were, at the time of the first season, heavily made up of teenage girls.

And I’m not saying this as part of the general habit that there is in media critique to just dismiss teenage girls as a demographic as cringey don’t-pay-attention-to-THAT-crowd. It’s just my observation that, for teenage girls, all the things we say about women in fandom exploring their sexualities are magnified - what’s the common observation, that women in fandom use M/M pairings to explore a “safe” dynamic that they can observe and play out harmlessly for themselves, something to that effect?

So that’s the awareness I’m coming into this with - those teenage girls (and I’m emphasizing teenage girls because we have high school dramas, where I’m fairly sure these are the primary audience) use the awareness that they had of “how relationships work” when it comes to heterosexual relationships and were simply applying it to their perceptions of the gay pairings they were looking at. That “pulling pigtails” is the trope this audience associated with attraction, and so it’s how they applied.

THIS IS NOT CONDEMNATION. I really feel I have to hammer this point - I am observing a trend, in the name of awareness and understanding, I am not trying to say that anyone who was doing this or is still doing this has done ANYTHING wrong here. I want that to be very clear. This is me having spotting this trend and wanting to give it some attention, because look at the age of the examples I’m offering - both these shows lasted for six seasons and have concluded their runs, I’m only looking at their first seasons here as is, we are not talking about recent stuff, just history of fandom. I could have looked at more and seen if there was a universal trend or just a trend of the times or what. While this certainly could be grounds for one, this is not me having done some massive research project consisting of multi-media examinations of fandom and queerness, I’m just connecting dots and trends that I have seen to look at this thing that, going forward, I would like to see us pay attention to and be aware of.

Because my point is (for the TL;DR summary) that same-sex attraction manifests DIFFERENTLY. To express attraction to the person who is mistreating you is to invite harm being inflicted. The gay experience is to pine from afar because they were nice to you. And, obviously, a straight person is not going to know this inherently - this is part of an experience that they don’t have. 

I’d just like to see this recognized in the future when it comes to how people respond to and react to the popular same-sex ships in fandom - are they being shipped by actual queer people, or is it prominently the straight fandom using their view of things and latching on to a ship, rather than being actual queer fans expressing themselves.

Like, that’s one of my big things - I often don’t feel very... I’m going to hedge this as “noticed,” rather than any other term, within fandom a lot of them time, as a queer man and queer creator. The big names in fandom, writing for the popular ships, still tend to be female creators, which... I’m not discounting the queer women who are writing and making art and all that featuring M/M pairings, but I do feel like they get elevated to a point where the queer men doing the same creation do not, which can seem like a problem, even if I recognize that it’s as much an issue of who even picks up the pen or opens the word processor or whatever as it is a matter of promotion - I do recognize that it may be as much that queer men aren’t creating as much as it is anything else, there is a complex ball of interconnected issues pushing and pulling on one another.. 

It’s just a frustrating feeling of not seeing your experiences being given your voice - it means you have to depend on others to speak your story. Which, surprise, surprise, is not exactly encouraging to gay people, who’dve thunk?

[five-wow]

10.01 thoughts (or basically a rambly recap, very spoilery, with a lot of caps lock abuse) under the cut!!! :D

JERRY’S BEEN SHOT. that’s not actually a surprise at this point in any way, but oh gosh, poor guy. “it hurts more than i thought it would.” oh no. :c

i’m confused though - grover’s there calling an ambulance, jerry is bleeding, steve is keeping pressure on the wound, but where’s danny? clutching his heart out of frame? OH WAIT he could be arresting ezra hassan, i suppose?

on screen: 2 weeks later. jfdkfjdk they resolved that cliffhanger in like, under thirty seconds.

love jerry’s longer curly hair! REALLY LOVE that jerry and junior are playing battleship, omg.

jerry thought about HIS DND BUDDIES WHEN HE GOT SHOT. i love him. (i’m also both worried about his mental health and glad they’re showing him actually feeling some repercussions from getting shot, aside from the flesh wound.)

tani and junior!!! are going to the opera!!! wonderful, i’m into it.

AH. here we have steve on his date, omfg. it all looks so pretty - the background, the restaurant, the date, steve. REALLY AWKWARD conversation though, fjdkfd. steve’s been hanging with danny too much - as soon as someone asks “what are you thinking” he just opens up his heart.

“it’s just crazy, you know. things that happen at work.” FDJKFDJF i’m glad he’s seeing that AFTER NINE YEARS.

DANNY CALLS. i’ve seen the clips that were drifting around tumblr, so i knew it was going to happen, but still. DANNY CALLS. IN THE MIDDLE OF STEVE’S DATE.

“i think it’s best,” steve says, about taking a phone call from danny while he’s in the middle of a first date with a really pretty woman who seems very kind about his total awkwardness, oh BOY

the WAY danny says “hi” just already has me in stitches. i die. and then steve’s “dude! i don’t know.” he sounds so frustrated! poor guy.

“words are kinda just, they’re falling out of my mouth, i don’t know why.” OH STEVE. also: that’s 80% of all fic in which steve finally confesses his feelings to danny ever. thank you, canon, for giving us a steve who is canonically prone to this.

“do you have any game at all?” danny asks, of steve, WHO HE IS CALLING IN THE MIDDLE OF A DATE. the co-dependency here is HIGH and it’s probably unhealthy but i’m enjoying it a lot, truly.

okay so, steve says “you’ve called twice, we haven’t even ordered!” and then DANNY SAYS “if you answered my texts, i wouldn’t have to call” and that’s just ALL SO BAD. they are TERRIBLE together and that woman should probably run far away.

danny! way to build up steve’s confidence on this date by telling him his thing is awkward and messing things up, holy shit.

I’M SCREAMING. “that was danny. who i love. very much.” I AM YELLING. YES. GOOD. PREMIUM CONTENT.

just. i love “i love you”s, okay. i love them. we got one (1) in s9 at the end of 9.01, but we’re off to a good start now in 10.01, with steve telling his frigging date that he loves danny, oh my.

IT GOT WORSE. i paused like, in the middle of steve’s sentence, and then as soon as i hit play the date said “sounds like my ex” and steve says “you know, it’s funny that you say that, because it’s kind of like a marriage” and uh, hello steve, i made a gifset about that the day before yesterday, thank you for giving me an update, but also just. wtf. wtf holy shit

i. i just. this is supposedly steve on a date with a woman being all heterosexual, but it’s really an extremely mcdanno scene, like ten times more than i was prepared for, wow.

real talk though, i’m almost certain this relationship isn’t going anywhere, but this woman seems really cool!!! i love her so far.

tani is actually enjoying the opera and junior seems to be paying more attention to her than the stage and i have no idea if this is actually an officially official date between them or if they’re still “just friends”, but it’s all so cute. and then, of course, some anonymous guy shows up with a sketchy briefcase that’s inevitably going to contain weapons, but oh well, it was nice for how long it lasted.

a slightly updated intro!!! katrina law is already in it (which i like) and the new group shot is kind of crowded but really nice, but fjdkfdjkdf they chose a really awkward moment where adam is supposedly typing something on the tech table but he’s REALLY OBVIOUSLY just randomly tapping his fingers on it. that’s going to haunt me. oh dear show runners, why.

danny... says steve was blowing his date, as they arrive on the crime scene that junior and tani found, and steve says he has a second date and danny goes “you got a second date?” incredulously and almost dismayed and that just really sounds like he WANTED steve to blow it. what is this, danny, setting steve up with a pretty woman from steve’s school to test him? see if he’ll say no and fall in your arms instead, and when he doesn’t, you’re disappointed?

even the lighting in this random stairwell gun fight chase scene is kind of pretty! the blue and red? i like it.

oh NO, steve, you’re not even ten minutes into a new season and you’re chasing some suicidally parcouring bad guy across roof tops and into a jump that’s REALLY going to give danny a heart attack, jesus.

fdjkfd danny telling steve that ten years ago he would’ve made that jump? telling him he’s forty? i’m not sure if that’s kind of mean or really good, but it might be both.

plot stuff happens, but i keep getting distracted by all the grey in steve’s beard and his new, longer hair. it’s good.

i like quinn’s introduction!!! i really do, more than i’d expected. and honestly, that déjà vu thing lenkov was talking about is very faint to me, to the point where it’s mostly just there because danny says it out loud in the text and then forcibly makes it so. they’re not in steve’s garage, it’s the wrong car they’re standing next to, there are three people instead of two and there’s no “one, two, three” and showing badges, but steve yeets his badge over the windshield of the car in quinn’s direction. the similarity isn’t that strong.

danny going “i gotta follow him” about steve and “i don’t know [shrugs]” about where they’re going is beautiful.

i’m about halfway through the episode now and steve and danny have spent SO MUCH time together and it’s really good but also has me slightly worried that they’re pushing all the steve&danny content for the entire season in one episode, omg. it’s good, though. i’m happy for now.

adam is still doing yakuza stuff. i get it, because it’s the one big thing they’ve given his character, but i do get kind of tired of it. he’s supposedly out, but every time they need it for plot reasons, he still has connections somewhere that are willing to help him for whatever reason.

and then quinn shows up and pulls a gun on adam, fjdkfd. listen, i know i said i was getting tired of him doing the yakuza thing over and over, but shooting him would be a little drastic.

danny: “this is good, we’re chasing a monster truck. that’s totally normal, right?” how is it that NOW they’re both suddenly realizing their lives are kind of crazy? they weren’t crazy before, guys? guys??

HAH, the guy in the truck drives over a dozen cars. that’s ridiculous, but a lot of fun, omg.

danny, when he finds tani and quinn in the same room at hq: “oh good, you two have met.” YES. MY SENTIMENTS. except i’m perhaps a little more exuberant about it. TWO MAIN FEMALE CHARACTERS IN ONE SCENE YES GOOD I LIKE THIS. we haven’t had this since... season 4, maybe? when catherine was briefly part of the team?

oh SHIT. danny: “are you sure you’re not related to steve in any way?” okay SO. we’re all assuming quinn is steve’s new love interest, but quinn being steve’s secret half sister somehow? also nonsense, but nonsense i’d like. and i mean, they need to keep the mcgarrett family drama alive somehow, so this could be fun.

quinn: “can’t this thing go any faster? [steve looks at her weird] what?” steve: “nothing. just never had that complaint before.” that is a LIE. i know for a fact that that’s a lie, because i have a stupid amount of knowledge of h50 of the top of my head and one of the things i know is that in 8.01 tani pops up between steve and danny while she’s in the backseat of the camaro and ALSO asks if it doesn’t go any faster. i know what they’re going for here, setting quinn and steve up as equals, and i like what they’re trying to tell us about quinn as a character in theory but come on, if you’re trying to convince us steve is all impressed by this woman that you might be setting him up with romantically, at least do some continuity fact checking on your own show, guys.

anyway! i do like that it’s canon that all women in five-0 think the camaro isn’t fast enough. get wrecked, steve and danny, HA.

when steve said to the bad guy “my friend lou here is going to put some handcuffs on you” i thought at first that he said “liu”, as in quinn’s last name, and oh man, first they had tani and junior’s last names as rey and reigns, which was close enough, but now they have lou and liu, gosh.

!!! this talk between steve and quinn in front of kamekona’s?? i LIKE IT. A LOT. we get to know a little more about quinn and steve genuinely does treat her as an equal and a capable colleague and there’s nothing especially romantic about this, which is good this early on even if they’re doing that later because i do feel like it could possibly work but right now it would just be really weird and very forced and i’m just really relieved that’s the dynamic they’re going for. this, this is good.

OH BOY. “we’re breaking up with you, danny” steve says. i... wow.

FAIR THOUGH. it’s probably a REALLY GOOD idea of steve to maybe involve danny a little less in his dating life if he wants to, well, actually have one that’s viable for life, but oh GOSH. danny going “you can’t cut me out” when steve tells him this? danny is just. so interested in steve’s romantic life, damn.

tani: “mom and dad are fighting again.” fdjkfdjk YES. this time it’s not even junior saying this to eddie behind steve and danny’s back, it’s just tani saying it out loud to the entire group and nobody says anything about it so uhhh that’s accepted fact then, within the team. GOOD.

ohhhh jerry is leaving. also not a real surprise and it’s probably kind of good that the team doesn’t endlessly keep growing if quinn joins this season, but ahh, i’m sad, anyway.

GROUP HUG. i love EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT THIS.

oh gooood, somebody put a bomb in the champ box in steve’s garage. that’s harsh.

final thoughts: i LIKED THIS. very much!!! i’m relieved about that, tbh, because at least i’m happy about the start of the season, which seems like a good sign, haha. i love quinn so far, there was REALLY GREAT mcdanno stuff in this, i love that steve is dating again, tani and junior seem to be dating, jerry is fairly healthy and happy - all around lots of good stuff.

i do kind of think that cliffhanger from last season got extremely little attention (we didn’t even see ezra hassan get arrested, and what happened to her kid? where was danny? idk it was weirdly short and quick), but it’s still possible they’re coming back to that in a later episode, idk.