#his co-manager thinks he’s an unusually mature and reliable teen

[eri-cheshire]

The kind of misunderstanding that I love reading 😂

I need a Misunderstanding trope where Phantom is put with one of the ‘kid’ groups because everyone assumes he’s a teen, but Phantom (he’s, like, 28) thinks he’s just like… co-managing/supervising the group with another Justice League member.

Asked if he’s in school thinking high school? He says yes, thinking of college where he’s going for his graduate degree. His grumbles over homework and time management skills cements it.

ICE contact? Frostbite. Yeah, that’s really his name. (Jazz talked him out of putting her because if it’s an emergency then they likely need medical history and support.) Here’s a device to actually reach him. His parents? Uhhh, nah, I would put my sister second.

It just goes on.

The guy snarks, puns, and throws jokes, clearly up-to-date with internet culture. He’s a casual dude, loves video games, burgers, and space. He’s kinda short and a little lanky, but he’s stupid strong (like he both forgets he is strong and doesn’t know his strength at times).

Phantom’s checking all the boxes as a teen hero both visually and on vibes with the League so they put him there. Danny’s touched that they think he’s responsible enough to put him in charge of the kids, so he does his best.

(Batman finds out about the appointment after it’s approved, but before he says anything he sees how much the teens open up around Phantom and… well… if they didn’t do their homework to see that the Phantom persona has been active for 14 years with pop-ups through history then that’s not really his problem, is it? He might miss that Phantom doesn’t realise this for a while…whoops.)

[ri-afan]

What doesn’t help would be a tendency to downplay his actions and things that happen. (Probably not on purpose, he’s vaguely midwestern and he had to hide so much for his vigilante life and he’s on pretty good terms with his rogue gallery.) His stories of vigilante behaviour on his own is heavily edited both not to give the kids more ideas and he’s remembered them not being as bad or amazing as it actually was. Also making light of his learned knowledge (guy has and is working on his graduate degrees in —fill in the blank but I like a mix of astronomy, astrophysics, engineering, etc— but when his niche knowledge comes up and is questioned it’s met with ‘well, I’ve always been interested in it, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯’).

​Also referring his knowledge as things Other People he’s learned from. First aid? His friends (past team) and Frostbite. Conflict resolution? His aunt (Pandora). Coping mechanisms? His sister’s been spoon feeding him psychology stuff since he was ten (“ugh, puberty while being completely self aware is another nightmare”). His jury-rigging/patch job/temporary fix skills for machines? His dad’s good at using things that’s in hand in unexpected ways and you learn to get creative (different from his actual fixing skills that are all above board from his degree).

I need a Misunderstanding trope where Phantom is put with one of the ‘kid’ groups because everyone assumes he’s a teen, but Phantom (he’s, like, 28) thinks he’s just like… co-managing/supervising the group with another Justice League member.

Asked if he’s in school thinking high school? He says yes, thinking of college where he’s going for his graduate degree. His grumbles over homework and time management skills cements it.

ICE contact? Frostbite. Yeah, that’s really his name. (Jazz talked him out of putting her because if it’s an emergency then they likely need medical history and support.) Here’s a device to actually reach him. His parents? Uhhh, nah, I would put my sister second.

It just goes on.

The guy snarks, puns, and throws jokes, clearly up-to-date with internet culture. He’s a casual dude, loves video games, burgers, and space. He’s kinda short and a little lanky, but he’s stupid strong (like he both forgets he is strong and doesn’t know his strength at times).

Phantom’s checking all the boxes as a teen hero both visually and on vibes with the League so they put him there. Danny’s touched that they think he’s responsible enough to put him in charge of the kids, so he does his best.

(Batman finds out about the appointment after it’s approved, but before he says anything he sees how much the teens open up around Phantom and… well… if they didn’t do their homework to see that the Phantom persona has been active for 14 years with pop-ups through history then that’s not really his problem, is it? He might miss that Phantom doesn’t realise this for a while…whoops.)