#instead of truly delving into it bc that WOULD make me miserable

[hella1975]

(hella you dont have to answer this, just wanted to say it) i know you ofc know that grief is a really complicated n fickle feeling but. it is, so i hope u can give yourself that space to grieve and do whatever it takes...but also please take care of yourself. and we're both creators of stuff so i really get the feeling, but i promise youre not destined for getting worse or stuck in that. something similar happened to me my senior year and even if you didn't know him that well, you're allowed that space to feel too.

ik my words prob dont do much, and i dont pretend to know better than you about your hometown or life or anything like that, but im here if u wanna talk. i love u <3

thank you for this my love. this is so kind and you didnt need to say anything but you DID and im so grateful for that. i promise im okay and im very good at being able to tell what episodes are temporary and what are more serious, so i know this one is temporary and is more shock/natural sadness at hearing the news that will peter off over time, so im trying to just. let myself feel it all for now and then put it to rest after a couple days. im sorry you can relate at all, i feel like it's such a specific, strange kind of grief to explain, when it's someone you know very distantly and technically have no 'right' to grieve, because like you said, grief is complicated, and it doesn't care what right you have to it or not. which is something im having to remind myself of and tell myself im not being selfish or self-centred for feeling upset by this. ive reached out to one of my irls and im going to tell her tomorrow bc i trust her to be good about this, so as basic as that sounds that's a pretty huge thing for me and im hoping it'll help even if it is just. talking it out. idk. but i appreciate this and i appreciate you, ily bestie xx

[redrobin-detective]

I am going to regret asking this and giving you another chance to drag me in this fandom... but what's the problem with Danny's parents? Is there something else than the fact they really really want to dissect a ghost?

For me, the issues with the Fenton parents boils down to two main issues: 1. their complete and dangerous obsession with ghosts and destroying them and 2. the negligence to their children. I think Jack and Maddie are good people who love their children and can be good parents. But the problem is their ghost hunting work was always the priority in the family which Jazz and Danny clearly suffer from.

Point 1. The Ghost Obsession

I don’t know what happened to Jack and Maddie that caused them to develop an all consuming obsession with ghosts and, moreover, the need to destroy them. Fandom has pointed out that while they claim to be scientists, they clearly are more interested in weapons to hurt and destroy ghosts than anything even resembling normal scientific study. Amity Park has a high number of violent ghosts (mostly there to play fight Danny) but most ghosts everywhere else are just vibing. The ghost obsession hurt Danny long before he became part ghost (but I’ll save that for Point Two) but it went from an annoyance to an actual threat to his life.

First off, as many others have pointed out, having a dangerous lab in the basement with untested equipment/weaponry that your kids not only have ready access to BUT also have to go down there for assigned chores? Not great, Jan. I’ll give the Fentons the benefit of the doubt, we see clearly that Danny/Jazz know how to work the equipment in their house so they obviously have been drilled in usage and safety. Danny gets his ghost powers by being dumb and 14 and messing around with his friends like any normal kid would. Danny is now the very thing his parents want to hunt and destroy and a mainstay of the series is he is so scared of their reaction that he hides his powers/identity from his parents but not his ghostly enemies. Can you imagine being that uncertain that your parents love for you outweighs their obsession that you hide such a fundamental part of your life? What a miserable reality for a young kid.

Jack and Maddie spend the entire series going off about their hatred of ghosts. Danny has to sit there and listen to them talk in extreme detail how they’ll dissect and obliterate any ghost they come across. They’ll be making deadly weaponry made to kill beings like him at the kitchen table, weapons that do respond to his ghostly signature. They especially hate Danny’s alter ego, Phantom, because of his supposed trickery by pretending to be a hero. The canon things said in the show would certainly make me nervous about sleeping in the room next to them. They are capable of working with Phantom when push comes to shove but it never lasts long and they go back with guns blazing. Danny and the show mostly play these threats off for laughs but the fact that Danny straight up doesn’t tell them is telling enough on how it effects him. 

Point 2. The Negligence

‘Hur Dur parents are bad’ is a well known cartoon trope but the Fentons take it to an extreme. Jack and Maddie are obsessive with their work, absentminded and reckless, none of which create a safe and stable home for children. I love Jazz and Danny but they clearly are not entirely normal children (even before the whole ghost thing) from growing up in such a home. Jazz develops a reactionary personality, delving into psychology and being right as a way to kind of understand/get back at her parents (source? I do this exact thing with my mom) and Danny was quiet, overlooked and not given the attention to really flourish, instead being a sort of ghost in that house before he ever became one. 

Jack and Maddie 110% love their kids but do they encourage them in a meaningful way? Support their interests? Be available to help? Not really. I hate The Fright Before Christmas bc Danny gets blamed for being a “scrooge” instead of acknowledging he hates the holiday for his parents destructive fighting every year. (source? Again fucking me. I hate Xmas bc mom and I scream every year)

This issue only exacerbates once Danny gets ghost powers. His whole life is affected by his ghost fighting: he’s getting injured in fights from human bullies and ghosts, his grades are dropping from lack of studying/sleep, he’s absent from the house more often than not, he’s sullen and depressed and scared and anxious all the time. It’s a radical change and yet Jack and Maddie kind of brush over it, focusing instead how Danny’s changes affect them (IE Danny not being around to do his chores). This boy comes home, beaten from fights, stressed and feeling alone only to get yelled at because his parents miss all the signs he’s practically radiating that he is Not Okay. He eventually becomes a good enough fighter and actor to skip over but it’s truly heartbreaking that he can’t confide in the people supposed to support him the most. But it’s not just the ghost obsession, even without all the powers like if Danny was doing drugs or in a gang, his parents barely notice and, when they do, they don’t really do anything other than blame him. 

Now I’m going to end this long rant by saying that I love Jack and Maddie, I think they are fascinating people and want to see them developed. The situation as it is for most of the series is not okay in the least but I do believe they have the potential to be good, supportive parents. There’s a couple of eps where they DO find out about danny’s powers and instantly all the negligence and hostility is gone, its all acceptance of his powers and apologies for their behavior. Its not a perfect situation and could be borderline abuse apologism if done wrong. But I’d like to think that once they got over the shock and did some serious priority and soul searching, they would learn to correct themselves. Growth isn’t just saved for the teen protagonists, everyone has the chance to be better. Danny clearly doesn’t hold his parents behavior against them and would be nothing but ecstatic if they loved and accepted him. I do believe in a happy, functional if abnormal, Fenton family dynamic and I’m all for it.

[googledocsdyke]

on the french mistake, i also think there’s something there about dean seeing alternate universe “dean” experiencing a life so easily filled with comfort, in contrast with real dean who has had to fight his entire life since he was like a toddler. like comfort and living without fear is such a foreign concept for him that seeing it given to any version of him so easily was like pulling a fish out of his water. and tbh it really makes me all the more bitter abt the finale bc he never got to truly experience feeling fully safe or comforted at all in his life, and that was it. (sorry if this makes no sense i started rambling a little lol)

oh for sure. like, the french mistake is very much about class, and even though supernatural’s class politics (just like everything about supernatural) are muddled and inconsistent throughout the show, i love how ben edlund takes the premise and actually digs into the humour/irony/inconsistency around sam and dean being played by millionaires with mansions and alpacas and model wives and foundation and perfect teeth and chauffeurs and the ability to get anything with the snap of their fingers! like it’s so DISSONANT to think about how the story is constructed and the amount of money poured into generating it into the world especially when to sam and dean this is literally just their own maxed-out stolen credit card day to day life

and like it’s deeply disturbing for both sam and dean to witness, but sam has a more immediate comfort with using his alter ego’s wealth. they go to jared’s house instead of jensen’s, sam is the one who suggests stealing jared padalecki’s money to buy the artifact (HUGE win for the samgirl community there). whereas dean just absolutely resolutely is SO spooked by the comfort and almost wants nothing to do with it. (”MORE money? you pay these two jokers enough as it is”) which for sure is at least partially a straightforward disdain for rich people. and it’s also just very funny and true. and a dig at the idea that these rich actors can ever know what it’s like to Be Sam And Dean, yk?

but it’s also like — dean has a resolute tendency to sublimate desire into hatred. if he wants something that he can’t admit to himself that he wants, he will process it as “i want nothing to do with this thing” and express that accordingly. it’s like that post that’s like dean winchester voice i have the things that i want and the things that i pretend to want and the things that i have and if any of those overlap even slightly i will kill everyone in this room and then myself. and part of him wants comfort! which is Not to say that dean would be happy or actually want to live in the french mistake universe, he’d be miserable. but part of him i think absolutely is so taken aback by “it’s THIS easy? it could be THIS easy? there is a horrible alternate version of me who gets paid THIS much to do THIS little and doesn’t live in constant fear of death or dying and is like pampered and smothered in adoration?” and part of him wants that comfort. NOT the fame or adoration or public perception — dean hates, hates, hates anyone outside him thinking that they know him, or professing to be able to understand or tell his story, and he hates the meta stuff. but part of him WANTS that comfort and to live without fear and he entirely hates that he wants that!!

and then of course there’s the added dimension of the fact that class is so loaded w gendered and sexualised signifiers in this episode. like everything about french mistake universe jared and jensen (who, again, we never meet, only see the spectres of, which, GENIUS choice) — the makeup, the male model shoots, the poppers — is Absolutely effeminised in contrast to sam and dean’s whole deal. like this episode really puts forward the thesis that Actors Are Sissies. all the comforts and wealth they have make them “less of a man” in dean’s eyes particularly (since that’s so much and constantly dean’s preoccupation). so like.... what does it mean to desire, even a tiny bit, that comfort or financial stability or ease of a life that isn’t trying to kill you if it’s also something that “softens” you? that makes you less of a man? i think for dean that’s terrifying

tl;dr there are a gordian knot of particularly classed and gendered reasons why the french mistake universe shakes dean to his core! which is not even to fully delve into the metanarrative aspect