#I headcanon that Danny is somewhat more aware as the years go by but he’s still heavily under the influence | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

goodfish-bowl · 3 years

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@floralflowerpower here’s the fic you asked for, took me a bit but I think it turned out pretty well!

based on this post and this headcanon

Summary: Danny had to admit, he’d never thought something like this would happen. Usually, the roles were reversed, and he’d be the one bursting in through warehouse doors, guns blazing, ready to kick some ghost butt. Never thought he’d be the one dangling precariously close to a large vat of somewhat familiar bubbling ectoplasm, while the stereotypical villain paced near the lever that would drop him to his doom. That made him the damsel in distress, a concerning idea.

Words: 3530

Danny had to admit, he’d never thought something like this would happen. Usually, the roles were reversed, and he’d be the one bursting in through warehouse doors, guns blazing, ready to kick some ghost butt. Never thought he’d be the one dangling precariously close to a large vat of somewhat familiar bubbling ectoplasm, while the stereotypical villain paced near the lever that would drop him to his doom. That made him the damsel in distress, a concerning idea.

Normally, this wouldn’t be concerning, but he couldn’t phase through the chain that was wrapped around him enough times he resembled a cocoon rather than a hostage. It must’ve come from the Ghost Zone, with the light glow emitting from the mental links and the lack of burning pain associated with anti-ghost coatings and ectoranium. At least he bought local. He liked the energy coming off of the surprisingly large container of ectoplasm, radiating a glow and mist that bathed everything he saw in green, even less than the idea of being chained upside-down over said vat. He didn’t want to find out why.

Who was this loser anyway? The ghost lawyer? He’d never seen, heard, nor smelled this ghost in his entire half-life. His navy suit contrasted awfully with his green skin, violet eyes, and mint-green hair, and those red shoes definitely didn’t match any of it. What a lame villain, couldn’t even dress himself properly.

“Hey! Looser!” Danny called out, and the lawyer ghost perked up.

“Splendid! You’re awake! It would’ve been anticlimactic if you stayed unconscious,” the ghost remarked.

“Should’ve stayed unconscious, it would’ve kept me from having to witness your crime against fashion. Who are you and how’d I get here? Last I checked you didn’t ask me if I wanted to hang out?” Danny quipped.

“I am Wright, a ghost of due process and order, and your darling Valerie Gray has thwarted me for the last time! I boyfriend-napped you to draw her here! Your doom will serve as her punishment,” Wright exclaimed, like a looser.

Danny just stared at the ghost for a minute as his head attempted to wrap around what was going on, and hanging upside down, wrapped in chains, didn’t help.

“’Boyfriend-napped? Seriously? That’s not even a word, and Val and I stopped dating, like, a year ago!” Danny pointed out.

“Irrelevant,” Wright huffed, ”You still hold her affections, and your death will cause her the same grief she caused me.”

Danny scoffed, “What’d she do to you anyways? She shoots at all the ghosts, you’re not special.”

“I wasn’t aware that you knew about her… nightly activities,” Wright stated, and Danny gave him a look.

“Ok, let me get this straight, who am I to you?” Danny asked, confused. Most ghosts were aware that Valerie was the Red Huntress, and Wright had yet to make a remark about having “captured Phantom”.

“Daniel Fenton, the son of the infamous ghosthunters Madeline and Jack Fenton of Amity Park, and the former sweetheart of Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress,” Wright announced.

“Right, ok. What do you know about Phantom?”

“I hold great admiration for the protector of Amity Park! He goes through the process of capturing ghosts with efficiency and never acts without just cause! He’s a powerful ghost worthy of the titles bestowed upon him! He valiantly defends both his haunt and the people who live there, both human and ghost! Truly a pillar of order and process!” Wright gushed and Danny fought the urge to roll his eyes, ”What does this have to do with you, however?”

Danny frowned, fighting off the reflex to claim Amity wasn’t his haunt, but his home. The praise was appreciated, but he really didn’t understand why this ghost held him so high. He was more surprised by the fact that this ghost didn’t know that Phantom and Fenton were the same damn person and that he had just kidnapped someone he held in such high regard.

“What do you mean by ‘order and process’?” Danny asked, just to get a proper definition as to what this poorly dressed lawyer was on.

“He properly maintains a level of organization and protection in Amity Park, protecting the order and in every single fight plays out how it’s supposed to be. A trespasser with malicious intentions shows up, Phantom arrives shortly, they banter and fight, Phantom emerges victorious, and the trespasser is removed from the premises, thus process. Does that make sense to your feeble human mind?” Wright chastised, explaining himself carefully.

Danny rolled his eyes. “Well, aren’t you a ghost ‘trespassing’ in Amity Park? Doesn’t that mean Phantom will he show up to save m, tossing you back into the Zone?” Danny bluffed.

“But we’re not in Amity Park, I may have boyfriend-napped–“

“Please never say that word again.”

“-you from there, but that’s not where we currently are. Red Huntress operates out of Elmertown, and I would never infringe upon Phantom’s haunt!”

Huh, Danny supposed that made sense to a point, he never really dealt with ghosts in Elmertown, since they were usually just low-level specters that usually didn’t mean any harm. If Val was operating out of here, then it made sense that there would be so few ghosts, and also that the ghosts that were afraid or ‘admired’ him like Wright would stick to Elmertown rather than Amity.

“And Val doesn’t follow your version of ‘order and process’?”

“NO! She shows up, never lets me get through my proper monologue or cause the necessary level of chaos, and then threatens my afterlife, completely uncivilized! What an improper lady! Always shooting first, never asking questions!” Wright exasperated.

“Sorry, but that’s Val’s order and process. Guns blazing and ready to kick some ghost butt.”

Valerie burst in through the doors, with perfect theatric timing, her ecto-rifle poised and aimed at Wright.

“Danny!” she exclaimed, immediately focusing on him before shifting her rage towards the ghost in the room.

Oh boy, did she look pissed. Danny wasn’t sure if he’d ever pushed her to the point Wright currently had. Her suit blazed with scarlet energy, read to fire at the drop of a hat, bright enough Danny could see it over the green haze of the pool of ectoplasm beneath him.

“Finally! It took you long enough. I left a note and everything,” Wright complained, unmoved by her anger.

“Let Danny go, or I blast a hole straight through you this time, Wright,” Valerie snarled.

Wright sneered, ”You shoot me, and I drop the boy-toy into a vat of concentrated ectoplasm. There’s not even enough distance for you to swoop in and save him before he’s at least partially submerged.”

Valerie looked over to Danny, and he almost smiled in greeting, but he managed to stop himself as a particular detail resurfaced. Fenton didn’t know Valerie was the Red Huntress, that was knowledge only Phantom was privy to. Damn it. Valerie’s eyes were wide in fear under her visor, and her grip tightened on her rifle considerably. Danny couldn’t make a joke or anything, and he was forced to fill his expression with unfamiliarity and panic, like a proper actor. He met her eyes anyways, cool and calm, before gritting his teeth. He trusted Valerie, she would save him, but he also knew her well enough to know she hated playing along. Valerie hadn’t realized that the Red Huntress wasn’t supposed to know Danny Fenton either, so perhaps it evened out in its own way.

“Dragging a bystander into a personal fight is just like a ghost,” she spat the word, “What is it you want?”

Wright began with a flourish of his arms, “For everything to play out in the proper order of course! For an order to be restored to your haphazard violence! We are going to go through all of the proper motions of this encounter and the winner will always be the hero! We just have to figure out who’s who.”

“I’m not letting you monologue while Da-… while an innocent is hanging over… whatever that is!” Valerie protested.

“I never expected such an aggressive and weak-minded being such as you to understand the importance of doing things the right way! That’s why I needed a hostage.” Wright huffed. “Also, It’s concentrated ectoplasm. like the name implies its densely packed ectoplasm, a powerful source of energy for both ghosts and most of your human anti-ghost technology, but burns through humans faster than hydrochloric acid,” Wright explained, and Danny couldn’t help but pale in response.

Oh… that was bad, and no wonder he recognized it, he’d seen it in small amounts around the lab. Danny also didn’t want to see how he, a half-ghost currently human, would react to it. Valerie also apparently didn’t want to find out, more than she wanted to blast a hole through Wright apparently. Her shoulders began trembling and she grit her teeth, glancing rapidly between where Danny was dangling and where Wright waited patiently for her to make her decision. Danny took a deep breath and called out to her, snapping her out of her internal conflict.

“Don’t worry about me, Red Huntress! I’ll just hang out right here! I’m not going anywhere!”

Valerie sent Danny a look, exasperated and melancholic, most likely due to the pun, before setting her gaze on Wright, who had a large grin on his face displaying way too many teeth.

“Fine,” she spat, “let’s get this over with.”

“Wonderful!” Wright clapped his hands, “As you can see, Red Huntress, I have captured Danny Fenton! And unless you defeat me in the next three minutes, he will get dropped to his doom!”

“Wait, there’s a timer?” Danny asked, and Wright ignored his interruption, hitting a button next to the lever, probably starting the timer.

“Now meet your maker, Red Huntress!”

Wright vaulted over the bars of the platform he was standing on, directly at Valerie. She met him halfway with a crimson blast, energy meeting the sole of his atrocious red shoes in a form of deflection, launching him into the air where he remained suspended. He launched several violet ectoblasts while Valerie charged up her gun again, taking to the air as her hoverboard formed beneath her feet. They began a combination of hand-to-hand strikes and blasts midair, often speeding out of Danny’s view as he craned his neck to witness the fight. There was too much blood in his head for him to focus properly, but there was something off about the way Wright fought.

One, two, three, five ecto blasts, then he switched to close combat, striking 7 times with his fists and ending in a kick to gain some distance before firing ectoblasts again. It was in order…

“Red! He’s fighting in a pattern! Five blasts, seven punches, one kick!” Danny called out.

They careened back in front of him, and Val nodded in confirmation. Wright ended with a kick and floated back into the air.

“I’ve seen you figured me out! But it will not allow you to defeat me!”

Wright fired off his blasts, and Valerie easily countered them, now knowing what to expect. Wright came in close again, attempting to rush her. His fist connected to her forearms 6 times, each blocked easily and efficiently by Valerie’s suit, doing practically no damage. She had positioned herself right near the chain that held Danny above ‘his doom’. Wright had one more hit left, but rather than take it he backed off, just as the timer beeped.

“It seems it’s time for us to end this charade, Red Huntress.” Wright declared and broke the pattern early and fired a clean and precise ectoblast behind Valerie.

The chain went slack, and Danny plummeted. Valerie grasped it in desperation shouting something he couldn’t hear, but it was too late, the upper half of his body dunked below the surface.

It was like getting dunked into freezing water, at least before he became immune to the cold. It sent shivers and rose goosebumps along every single point of contact, he saw nothing but green. It felt like the submerged half of his body had fallen asleep, pins and needles piercing his skin, but never actually hurting him. Danny thrashed despite this, desperate to get out the concoction meant to kill him, not realizing he wasn’t in pain as panic swept away any other rational thought.

(page break)

“Danny!” Valerie shouted, grasping desperately for the chain.

It skid in her grip, a yard too late and Danny slipped halfway below the surface. His whole body thrashed sending ripples across the surface but making no sound. She screamed, her voice filling the empty void of Danny’s soundlessness. It was already too late, some part of her mind spoke, but she refused to acknowledge it. As fast she physically could, she tied the chain to the closest bar and launched herself on her hoverboard. She snapped the chain Danny was hanging from with ease and a grief-filled ectoblast, and took Danny down to the ground, careful not to touch the green sludge the covered the upper half of his torso.

Valerie’s hoverboard collapsed back into her suit, and then they met eyes, something that her mind could barely register. Even more than that, she wasn’t looking at the face that had plummeted into the vat. Phantom’s eyes stared back wide, bright green and covered in ectoplasm, stared back on her, while the bottom half remained clothed in jeans and battered red converse. Her mind short-circuited, and she was pretty sure her suit as well from the beating it had just taken.

Danny… Phantom… whoever the hell she was staring at seemed to finally realize that he was out, let out a cough, rolling over onto his stomach to purge the concentrated ectoplasm from his lung, and heaved a deep breath of air he couldn’t possibly need once they were clear. He rolled back over and sat up, shifting in the chains, trying to get out of them.

Valerie saw red, and snatched the chains, pulling Phantom’s face close to hers, a snarl on her face. Phantom’s eyes widened and he yelped at the sudden tug.

“Is this what you do?! You teamed up with Wright of all ghosts to get to me?!” Valerie cried.

Phantom’s eyes widened, confused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about! I was kidnapped!” He yelped.

“Don’t lie to me Phantom!”

Phantom froze, looking like a dear caught in headlights. He frantically tried to glance himself over, writhing in place, still unable to move his arms since he was still chained up. Valerie had no intention of unchaining him now. He caught sight of his jumpsuit and shook some of his soaked hair into his face, catching its color.

“Oh.”

“What do you mean ‘Oh’?!”

“Just learned what happens when I get drenched in concentrated ectoplasm.” His tone was even and quiet and only served to infuriate her further.

“Answer me, Phantom!”

“I didn’t lie!” He shouted right back, “He really did kidnap me!”

“Then where is Danny?! He’s still missing. Does Wright still have him?” She demanded.

Phantom shifted around in the chains again, and Valerie unceremoniously dropped him to the floor. He grunted by was focused on the chains now. Phantom’s eyes flared ice blue, overtaking their normal toxic green, and the chains froze solid. With enough strain, the metal links shattered and clattered uselessly to the floor. He stretched his arms and glanced them over.

There was a line, clear and definable, where the ectoplasm hadn’t touched him. Under the green substance, was Phantom, jumpsuit and all, but Valerie was fixated on the borderline, as was Phantom, where the jumpsuit transitioned into Danny’s iconic red and white shirt. There were no gloves on his hands, and the jumpsuit ceased existing halfway down his arms, and the skin underneath the goo was the same color as Phantom’s face, but the dry areas were the same pale as Danny’s skin.

“I’m right here, Valerie,” Phantom said, looking straight through her.

Valerie scoffed, “I see you here, Phantom, but where’s Danny Fenton?”

“I’m Danny Fenton.”

Of all the things Phantom could’ve said, that wasn’t the answer she wanted. For the second time that night, her mind reeled to a halt.

"You can’t be Danny, you’re a ghost,” Valerie justified.

“And people can die? I just happen to be caught in the middle.” Phantom said, making no sense.

“You died? Danny’s dead?” Her voice came out quietly, almost a whimper.

“I’m more like half-dead.” He had the nerve to laugh. “A bit of both ghost and human mixed together, I can be either-or.”

“What was the name of the flour baby we raised together?” She pressed, looking for a piece of information Danny would know, but Phantom shouldn’t.

“We… we didn’t name it, did we? I’m pretty sure that wasn’t one of the requirements Mr. Lancer gave us.” Phantom responded with a weak chuckle.

Valerie looked at him, really looked at him. Phantom and Fenton didn’t really look that different, in fact, they were surprisingly similar to the point it was eerie. He had always looked freakily familiar, and now she knew why. They had the same facial structure, hairstyle, and even the awful senses of humor lined up. The only difference was that Phantom was a ghost, and Danny was human.

“How can you be half-dead?” Valerie asked.

“Turns out the portal is really dark on the inside, that is until you turn it on from the inside.”

It took Valerie a minute, but then she understood. She fully understood. Her helmet and visor retracted, revealing her watering eyes. Danny was Phantom, and Phantom was Danny. He wasn’t being overshadowed, overshadowing didn’t look like this, not half-covered in ectoplasm like he was. Danny didn’t make eye contact, choosing instead to collect a bit of it onto his finger, watching intently as his skin sizzled, glowing white and the edges and spreading like a chemical reaction until it reached the edge of the ectoplasm. The skin became discolored, and a bit of white-silver glove appeared, manifesting all on its own underneath the goop. Then he had the nerve to lick it off.

Valerie scrunched up her face in disgust while Phantom seemed to contemplate the taste, still focusing on his finger. The darker skin tone and glove seemed to dissolve away on their own back into pale skin once the ectoplasm was gone. Danny really was Phantom.

Valerie threw herself onto the ground and punched him as hard as she could in her given state, her suit protecting her from the concentrated ectoplasm on his body that could possibly burn her if Wright was to be trusted.

“Ouch!” Danny complained, rubbing his arm where she’d hit, the ectoplasm spreading to his hand forming the glove again.

“I dated you!” Valerie protested, “I dated you, and then broke up with you!”

Danny’s gaze shifted around, confused and sheepish. “Y-yeah?”

“I broke up with you to focus on hunting you!”

“Yeah?”

“And you knew this entire damn time!”

“Uhhhhhh… yeah.” He admitted, looking down awkwardly and attempting to wipe his hand off on his jeans, but only succeeded in spreading the ectoplasm around. The patch of denim transformed into black rubber.

“You ruined my life!”

“I’ve told you a thousand times! It was an accident!” Danny protested, wiping his hand on the ground again in an attempt to get more off but finally looking back up at her.

Valerie stared at him for a moment, before devolving into a fit of giggles, getting to her feet from where she had seated herself on the floor. Danny looked up at her, even more confused than before.

“You really need to wash that stuff off, or are you going to lick yourself clean?” Valerie teased.

Danny huffed indignantly, climbed to his own feet, and a white ring blossomed around his waist. Valerie watched in awe as what parts were still Fenton transformed into equally an equally familiar jumpsuit and set of silver boots. The ectoplasm that still coated him slowly vanished, absorbed into his ghostly form. The ghostly halo around him grew in intensity, glowing brighter than before. His feet lifted from the floor and he began to float, eyes also growing in intensity. Danny gave a large smile, literally beaming bright enough to light up a good portion of the warehouse all on his own.

“Thanks, Val,” Danny said.

“For what exactly?” she asked.

“Well, you didn’t shoot me when I told you I was Danny Fenton, you saved me from witnessing Wright's awful sense of fashion any longer, and finally for Elmertown,” Danny counted off on his fingers.

"Elmertown?”

Danny put his hands on his hips matter-of-factly, ”Even if I don’t agree with your methods, you’ve been protecting Elmertown from ghosts. So, thank you,” Danny confessed.

He landed on the ground in front of her, boots barely making as sound and bright enough she was nearly blinded by it. He gave her a large, goofy smile, one that she was much more used to seeing on Fenton’s face than Phantom’s, but it only reinforced the idea that they were the same person.

Valerie smiled right back.

#Danny Phantom #fanfic #ao3 #some grayghost #its light though #goodfish writes #dp headcanons #floral's fault #its cute though #I like writing ridiculous characters light Wright #post was broken had to fix it

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bemused-writer · 5 years

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Rosa Blackwell!

I just want you to know that getting an ask about Rosa Blackwell has made me ridiculously happy. Thank you!

favorite thing about them - There is so much I love about Rosa:

I love how she grows from an awkward, unsure individual into someone who is willing to stand up for what she thinks is right. She goes from wishing Joey would go away to accepting ghosts are her domain; she fights for ghosts in a way Lauren didn’t. That’s not a judgment on Lauren (or any other Bestowers) but you can tell Rosa isn’t just in it because she has to be; she really cares for them.

I love that she keeps trying to get published and, despite the rejections, appears to keep on going for it.

I think what I like most is how real and relatable she seems to me. I know that, game wise, having a character be so hesitant to interrupt a crowd in the first game to ask your neighbor a question slows the game down but it seemed like such a genuine thing to do and I understood it so thoroughly that, to me, it was great writing.

Other than all of that, I enjoy her sense of humor and the fact she loves coffee.

least favorite thing about them - …This is much harder. I don’t think there’s anything I really dislike about Rosa but there are some moments, primarily in the first game, where you can tell Dave Gilbert was still figuring her character out (he admits this himself in the commentary). Primarily, she would never have given a drug to a dog (the dog was fine though for anyone who is worried!).

favorite line - Ahh, at the moment I can’t think of one line in particular! Her back-and-forths with Joey are the best.

brOTP - Rosa & Joey all the way. My goodness I love these two. It’s really nice to see two people who can rib each other nonstop but in such a way you can tell there’s a deep fondness there. Furthermore, they will do anything for one another. Joey is limited by the fact he’s a ghost but he saved her from Gavin with words alone simply because he knew her so well Likewise, Rosa would do anything for Joey. We know that from Epiphany.

Their bond in general really fascinates me. In the first game, Joey is at his harshest by far: he’s been locked up in a hospital room for 20 years with a woman who can’t speak to him. So, while his crankiness can come across as … difficult, it’s somewhat understandable. As for Rosa, she’s definitely at her most awkward and she’s most unsure in the first game and has more dubious solutions to things as well. Despite the chaos she’s been flung into, she still goes all over the city to solve a case with a ghost she’s just met though.

Fast forward to the final game and I think we see these characters fully realized: they have the perfect balance and you can see it develop over the course of the series. It goes from Joey being too harsh and secretive to having a fun sense of humor and openly showing when he cares for someone. It goes from Rosa being too nervous and erratic to being self-assured and more calculative. It’s just awesome all around.

OTP - I don’t really have one for this series but I think Rosa x Jeremy would have been nice. They definitely had nice chemistry and you can tell they both would have liked to have tried if things had been different.

nOTP - I also don’t really have a NOTP. I think most people ship either Joey x Lauren, Joey x Rosa, Joey x Danny, or Rosa x Jeremy and I think all of those are cool. Evidently, Joey has the most ships. XD I guess I wouldn’t want to see Rosa x Gavin though or Rosa x most-of-the-ghosts-she-helped.

random headcanon - I think Rosa could be read as asexual. I also think if there were more games we would have seen her become more involved with the police force. It seems as though some of them may have had an awareness that there were other, stranger things out there, and now that Unavowed is out I feel certain she would have interacted with more than just ghosts at some point.

unpopular opinion - Not really a strong opinion but while I liked that Rosa eventually got a new phone and we could sort out clues and stuff on that instead of using the computer at home, I also don’t get preferring to use a phone over a computer…? I’m assuming the phone was cheaper but even so. I kind of liked having a reason to go to the apartment I guess. Although I ended up going there when I was stuck regardless…

song i associate with them - Honestly, just the music of the game, which is kind of boring but true.

favorite picture of them

I think this is a great picture of both of them really. I like that we’re seeing Rosa putting together clues as we so often do in the game and I like that Joey is taking a peek at them himself even if he’s trying to act like he isn’t (or maybe he’s just trying to make sure she’s all right). Of course I also really like this one. I’m currently using it for an avatar after all:

Anyway, I love this series and I really hope more people play it and make stuff for it. It deserves so much more love!

#blackwell series #ask meme #Bemused's reply #maripr #i love this series ... so much

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fixomnia-scribble · 6 years

Text

Blue Bloods 9x05 “Thicker Than Water” Recap/Ramble/Rant

The ranting is very mild this week. This was An Good Episode.

I am trying to condense these Recaps somewhat, so that they’re less novelizations and more Highlights. It’s my tendency to novelize bloody everything…and I’d like to have room for a screenshot now and then.

That said, let’s get started. SPOILERY SPOILERS THAT SPOIL below the cut.

OPEN ON: Reagan Annex, that is, the House of Dudes. The living room is a semi-controlled vortex of bins and clothing. Jack is off to college, and Danny is in a bit of a state, trying to juggle bill collector calls and advise his elder son on clean socks and condoms while he has the chance.

I sincerely hope that at some point, there was little more detailed a sex talk than “You’re not a kid anymore and there’s gonna be girls there.” But good call on simply packing them like NBD, this is your grown-up packing list now, son. And if not for Jack, then they could be a lifesaver for someone else. [I enjoyed being the Condom Fairy in a hostel for several weeks, even though I was completely solo myself: an awesome way to make friends and also double-check that people actually wanted to do the do with their fellow travellers without being pressured.]

As Danny takes another call, this time from Baez, Sean and Jack get into an absolutely spot-on bit of brothering, with Jack being just the slightest bit condescending and Sean ragging him just enough to get a reaction.

Sean heads off to school with a little backwards glance at his big brother. The Terraciano brothers have grown up so well, and clearly they still get a kick out of working together.

CUT TO: Street scene. Baez and Officer Cosgrove (tall, blonde and radiating sass even without a word) greet Danny, who is noticeably frazzled. Baez comments on the frazzle and asks if he wants to talk. Aww. Danny, surprisingly receptive, says with a certain self-awareness, “I probably do, but not now.”

They’re there to investigate the most futile shooting ever. A doctor was targeted and took twelve shots, but instead of a messy cleanup, Baez freestyle raps, “No need, all shots missed / except the one that grazed his wrist.”

The doctor, McCandless, is sitting on the stoop of an ambulance, and I can sense @cards-onthetable twitching about bad medical hygiene and doctors who should know better.

CUT TO: Office of E. Erin wanders down the hallway with her morning coffee, looking absolutely On Point in a long, sleek belted sheath dress in black and coloured stripes and soft-looking hair. (Hair & Makeup has also stopped plastering eye makeup on both Bridget and Vanessa, and they both look years younger and less weighed down by the world.)

Erin is looking for Tony, who shuffles in late and discombobulated. After some gently prying – and a notification from Camryn the clerk that someone ran up eight grand on Tony’s office credit card that morning – Tony fesses up that he got rolled by an online hookup. The poor guy is mortified and wants nothing more than to forget it ever happened. Yikes. That’s an expensive forgetting, there, champ.

Erin is left with an utterly priceless look on her face.

CUT TO: The shooting scene. Cosgrove is about as sassy as she looks, trading eyerolls and patter with Baez like they’re old pals (my headcanon is that Baez is Big Sister to every female officer and a few male officers in the five-four). Danny is speaking with Doctor Sunshine – sorry, “The Baby Magician”, a fertility doctor. He’s extremely smiley and has a hip little micro-ponytail like he’s a Vegas showman or something. He toothily assures Danny that he has no enemies. Everyone knows he only wants to help them. He’s even about to go to an annual picnic in his honour. Uh huh.

Cosgrove is roped in to drive McCandless to his damn picnic, and Danny and Baez get serious, deciding where to start interviewing.

CUT TO: A PT room in a hospital, filled with walking bars and balance bars and therapy tables, and just a bit of natural light from high windows. A middle-aged man, Detective Moreno, is slowly and painfully working on his walking, with the help of his therapist. Enter Frank, in beige trenchcoat and tinted glasses, looking more potboiler private eye than PC. He smiles and waves, and Moreno greets him, pleased to see him.

Moreno rolls up in his wheelchair, and the two chat easily at first. Moreno has taken two bullets in the back on duty, and Frank assures him that the department will take care of all of his expenses and needs. Moreno wants his job back. Frank has come by with the news that unless he’s willing to ride a desk, his return to active duty is not going to be okayed by the medical and insurance people. Ouch. That’s got to sting. Frank offers him full retirement or an admin job, which is pretty decent. But it’s cutting him up to have to say so. Moreno has the whole outward aspect of someone who lives for being a cop, and a good one.

Moreno then asks for one favour: to find and fire the cop who refused his son Jay, also a cop, the guarding post at his father’s hospital room when he was injured. Frank’s moustache promises to look into it.

CUT TO: Credits! A long intro, but felt faster than eight minutes. Great pace. Dorky musical couch dance interval.

CUT TO: The two-nine. Daytime, so Eddie’s tired amble down the hallway is possibly because she’s at the end of a long shift. Or she may be back on days. Who knows? An Officer Irving has called her on account of finding Frank’s courtesy card on Sean, who claimed that Eddie was family (Awww.) We get a close-up of Sean and some of his classmates sitting meekly all in a row on a bench, in school uniform, a bag with a broken twelve-pack beside them. Oh, dear. We’ve been down this road with Jack before.

As Irving coordinates with Eddie, Sean pipes up, “JUSTYOUNOTUNCLEJAMIE” and I melt. Good call, Sean – I rather think Eddie’s been there herself. She rolls down the corridor, thinking of how she’s going to handle being dropped in the deep end of Aunthood.

CUT TO: Office of F. After Frank finishes being cute about wanting to take a swing at-bat instead of throwing a ceremonial first pitch at an event, Gormley brings up Moreno Sr. and Jr. It turns out that it was Jay’s choice not to guard his dad in the hospital, not an order from above. The entire family are cops or work in emergency services. It’s unprecedented to refuse that kind of duty, Frank says in wonderment.

“Kinda like if a Reagan did it,” Gormley anvils usefully.

CUT TO: Adams Park, where Eddie is speaking to Officer Irving and his partner about her class-cutting nearly-nephew. Eddie takes a mild approach, at first: “Skipping school, getting boozed up…really?” I think that would be my reaction, too. This kid knows better. It’s more a matter of why? Mind you, I was a kid raised in a Held To A Higher Standard family, too, and sometimes you just gotta do shit. Eddie keeps it pretty cool, reminding Sean that even aside from the Higher Standard crap, cutting class to drink while underage is clearly never the right thing to do. But she pulls out a bit of hardass, telling Sean that he’s used up his one-shot courtesy card, and insisting that he answer her properly. And then –

“Good, ‘cause I’m starting to sound like your Uncle Jamie, and it’s scaring the hell out of me. Let’s go.” AHAHAHA CACKLING FOREVER! Girl Scout.

CUT TO: Doctor Sunshine’s ex-wife’s house. Danny and Baez are making preliminary enquiries. The good doctor was more sunshiney on the outside, according to his ex, and soon there was no room in the marriage “anything but his patients or his ego”.

Danny calls the son out for eavesdropping (Ha! More good Dadding from Danny), and the surly youth offers to hire the shooter a lawyer when they find him. All his mother says is, “Oh, honey, don’t say that.” Danny chortles, but has to ask him where he was at the time of the shooting. The kid was studying at NYU, and the ex-wife was at Pilates.

The kid gets up in Danny’s face and tells him it’s time to leave. Attitudinal little twit. Danny give him quiiiite a look, and he and Baez leave without further ado.

CUT TO: Office of Tony. As he is shaking his head sadly over the online profile of Donna, 36, Erin comes in. Tony hides his phone under a newspaper – literally – and switches to business. Erin gingerly removes a bag of takeout barbeque or something from his guest chair, and sits down. She’s had the fraudulent credit card charges written off, and has dug down on Donna, 36.

“Didn’t I tell you to drop it?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” Erin agrees. “That’s the beauty of being the boss. I get to call the shots.” It’s lovely how her affection just shines through all of this. She explains that a woman with the same description has pulled this off with at least ten other guys, and assures Tony he’s not the schmuck he feels like.

“If we grab her, I’ll get outed,” Tony protests, when Erin wants to go after her. And I feel a real pang for the guy, because for all it’s nearly impossible for women to report date fraud (let alone date rape) male victims have their own social barriers and reactions of disbelief and scorn to contend with, too.

His job is to see things a mile off, he says. If this gets around, he’ll be laughed out of the building.

Erin gets serious at that. “You are the victim of a crime,” she says, “Now, what do we tell victims in this building?”

(“I believe you”, I hope…)

“There’s no reason to feel shame, because you’ve done nothing wrong,” Tony recites. Pulling himself together, he prepares to launch a search for her through the dating app. Erin points out he won’t get in the door without a subpoena. Her eyebrow says she has something cunning in mind and with less paperwork involved.

CUT TO: Tony’s apartment, a spacious, airy open-plan flat about four or five storeys up, overlooking a ball park. It’s very modern and clean, in total contrast to all of Tony’s workplace habits, as Erin points out.

Erin stands in the kitchen in her lovely dress, gloved up for a search, like a proper Reagan. (No booties, bonnet or bunny-suit, though: she’d never pass muster at an actual crime scene.) Tony comes around the corner and tries to hurry her along, saying they’ve looked everywhere and there’s nothing to print and nothing to pull DNA off. (Um, really? I think CSI could find something.)

Tony ribs her a little about having booty calls with Jack, which she denies (you little liar), but then he soliloquizes about being lonely and single. Aw, Tony, you big bug. He tells her a little more about his date with Donna, and she doesn’t bust him at all, but sympathizes genuinely. He asks her plainly why she’s settling for random Jack reruns, and she just shrugs and admits it’s a good question. These two are so great when they let themselves lean on each other.

Tony tries once again to hurry them out, and Erin says she thinks he’s holding back on something. Which was entirely predictable, but they play it perfectly in character as a genuine moment: Tony sheepishly pulls out his handcuffs and suggests they might get Donna’s prints off them.

“You know the expression TMI? This goes way beyond that,” Erin keeps her voice very calm, as the Soundtrack of Lilting Nonsense plays.

CUT TO: The two-nine, where Eddie is feeling badly about spilling Sean’s secret to Jamie right away, as much as being concerned for Sean.. And really, I don’t think Sean would expect Eddie to keep a real secret from Jamie. Kid just needed a bit of a buffer, without the entire family sitting on his head. Jamie tries to calm her down. They’re back on form, with the perfect timing and poking each other even when they’re supporting each other totally.

Eddie asks about the Reagan Rules regarding secret-keeping. Jamie tries to explain that certain things are more of a need-to-know, like giving the boys courtesy cards.

“It’s good, what you did,” Jamie tells her, earnestly. “Any of us would tell you the same.” Eddie moves from concerned to dubious to charmed to alarmed in half a second, because Vanessa can do that.

When suddenly: Danny walks in the door right behind Jamie, loaded for bear.

“Danny! Come to see the new digs?” Jamie tries. Danny is having none of it. He’s on his way back to work after being called into Sean’s school. Oh, dear. Everyone’s busted. And Danny’s concerns are bigger than one escapade: Sean’s picked a fight, he hasn’t been doing his homework and his grades are slipping.

“That’s rough,” says Uncle Jamie, perhaps thinking of how recently Sean’s mother passed away, and how soon his big brother is going to be going to college and leaving him baching up with his old man.

Danny proceeds to take a small strip out of Eddie for getting Sean off the hook for underage drinking. Which, okay, a first warning with a responsible adult to take charge? That’s what most cops would do.

“You two wanna raise kids, feel free to have your own,” he says, “But leave raising Sean and Jack to me, okay?”

I am stuck somewhere between big sappy heart’s-eyes and OUCH.

Jamie turns his puppy dog eyes to Eddie, who looks highly nervous about the next dinner. Also? I adore the old office gack they have for the two-nine sets. I remember those card files and OMG FLOPPY DISK BOXES and scrolled wooden desk chairs and all…

CUT TO: Office of E. Erin, still looking like a million bucks in a slim grey pencil skirt and grey and white fluttery blouse, emerges from the elevator. Tony has tracked down Donna’s real name. She’s actually a Maud Weaver. Hm. Okay. Maud has a long string of complaints and a history of rental fraud and/or offering sex for rent. There’s no current address.

Tony, sly dog that he is, suggests making a fake profile on the dating app to snare her.

CUT TO: Office of Dr. Sunshine. Danny and Baez have examined local security video, and while they haven’t spotted the shooter, they’ve found footage of a young woman who’s been lurking around the place. The Dr. recognizes her as someone who worked just one day as a clerk, two weeks back. She wasn’t fired – she was great, he says, but she left after one day without even her paycheque.

At least he has her ID and place of residence.

CUT TO: Office of F. Baker (Baker! Baker! Baker!) greets young Jay Moreno outside a borrowed office at the One PP, and assures him, “No formalities today, Officer.” Moreno, hat in hand, finds Frank therein, with coffee and sandwiches. Frank sits him down for a fatherly chat, assuring him that this is a way to stop the entire office clocking who’s been summoned to the fourteenth floor. (And for sure nobody is going to make eye contact with Baker, standing guard outside.)

Frank asks Moreno to explain why he didn’t take the hospital post to be near his old man. Jay explains that out of a family of cops, he’s the only one whose heart isn’t in the job, despite his Excellent Service Award. He’s a good cop because he’s been well trained, but he has a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning – shades of Jamie Reagan, but into community development rather than law. Jay, however, feels stuck, and he can’t back out now that his Dad’s out of the business. He loves his Dad. But he can’t stand all the Brothers-in-Blue that would come along with guarding him, not when he knows it’s not his true calling.

Frank seems to understand. He has to have wondered from time to time if all three of his boys could really have been called to be cops, or if they were just doing it out of love and duty. He promises Jay to keep the conversation between them.

This whole scene was so well played. The young man playing Jay slid so easily into character across from Tom Freaking Selleck, and held his own the whole way. Tom just gave him space to work, trusting him, and they made what could have been a maudlin bit of script into something that felt like the sand everyone gets under their skin where family is concerned.

CUT TO: Office of F, fourteenth floor. Frank, Baker and the Two G’s are sitting discussing the situation (so I guess the idea of “keeping this between us” in Frank terms just means not bringing Moreno Sr. into the loop). The Moreno family has a combined century of service between then, something they should be proud of. Gormley thinks maybe the kid hasn’t has his defining moment as a cop yet, the event that makes him really feel that he’s living the life.

“Is this a first, you without an opinion?” Frank asks Garrett, who is over at the coffee tray.

“As has often been pointed out, I’m not a cop,” Garrett says, and SERIOUSLY let it go, Moore. But he does have a point to make: “As a non-cop, I don’t go all butterscotch-and-marshmallows talking about a big cop family.” Heh. What if they were talking about a surgeon who didn’t want to practice surgery, he says. What if he’s in a shootout and has to cover his partner?

“If he freezes up,” Frank says, standing directly in-frame with the portrait of Roosevelt that could be his own father in looks, “That’s his defining moment.”

In such a cultish show about cops, it’s refreshing that the writers deal with the family outliers who definitely don’t want to be cops – Jay Moreno, Erin herself. Jack still on the fence. Also, that scene was beautifully claustrophobic in framing. Just saying. It fit the theme perfectly.

CUT TO: A classy looking diner, into which strides a classy looking Erin. She spots Donna, 36, and make a beeline for her table. Sliding herself across from Maud, she sweetly explains why she is there, outlining the many crimes Maud is accused of, and placing her under arrest. (Erin is wearing a heavy silver chain necklace that in certain contexts would clearly be a slave necklace, and when put together with Maud’s prints on Tony’s cuffs, my brain is now in double-TMI land. I’d have figured Erin for a dom, but hey, switch away, my good lady.) When Maud laughs in her face and claims that Erin must be making a huge mistake, Tony appears out of nowhere and assures her there’s no mistake.

Such teamwork. As Erin smiles to herself, Tony marches Maud out of the diner in cuffs, and not for fun.

CUT TO: Reagan House. Dinnertime. Nicky asks Jack if he’s signed up for his classes. Not yet, he says – he’ll wait till he gets down there. (WHAAAT? Says I. No, no, no, son. You get all of your classes ready to enroll and you wait with your finger on “Submit” the very second your reg window opens.)

“Most of them will already be filled up,” Nicky assures him. Yup.

“Seriously? Why?” Jack asks. Seriously, you have to ask, a bright kid like you?

“Nobody knows. Just the way it works, for freshmen,” Nicky smirks, being a recent graduate and all.

Ain’t that the truth. First year you take the crumbs on the ground. Second year, the herd has thinned out and it’s way easier. Third year, you’ve got mostly small seminars instead of lectures again, and whoa, things pack up. Fourth year, you better pray to your favourite great whatever high atop the thing that you get the mandatory courses you need without having to wait around another few terms…but anyway. My Spring Term reg date is two weeks away, and you better believe I’ve got seven upper level courses ready in my online cart, in hopes of landing a seat in three of them…

Sean instigates another round of brotherly heckling, which Danny shuts down as Jamie tries to re-direct things into asking after Jack’s major.

Now this is where I get interested, because in my head/fic canon, Jack plans to major in broad Public Policy studies with a Cognitive Science concentration, at Princeton. Eddie did Business and Marketing at a private college upstate, and Erin did a joint Lit and Poli Sci degree before law at Columbia.

The writers proceed to burst my bubble by making it canon that Jack hasn’t yet decided on a major, that Eddie did Art History and Erin did (or started) Botany. What? I could see Eddie taking a few Art History classes, and I could see Erin maybe enjoying learning all the Latin names and respiratory structures of variegated begonias and monocots, but not as a major…whereupon I pull out my CANON IS FOR SUCKERS t-shirt.

Anyway. The adult siblings™ are totally on their game, back-and-forthing about how they turned out okay despite majoring in subjects that have nothing to do with where they ended up. I’m 100% nodding along, having ended up so far off where I thought I’d be that I still marvel at it.

Frank launches into a classic Frank homily that is nevertheless heartfelt and wise, and I wonder if Tom really was speaking to the grandkids who have grown up onscreen around that same dinner table. Frank, though, is clearly thinking of his conversation with Jay and with Garrett, and maybe remembering Danny’s past conversations with Jack about To Cop Or Not To Cop. He wants Jack to be aware of his right to be his own person, to take what is valuable from his family but forge his own way.

“I like to think that your dad, and your aunt and your uncle do what they do because they were called to it, not because they were pushed. I like to think…to hope, anyway,” he finishes. Erin, who we know went through her own turmoil about joining up, looks particularly keenly at her father, watching his face. The others look pretty touched.

The family raises its collective glasses to Jack.

CUT TO: The kitchen. Jamie (ROLLED SLEEVES DOMESTIC JAMIE ALERT) is scrubbing the dinner dishes, and Danny is bringing in the last lot.

Jamie tries to re-open the issue of Sean, or rather, Eddie getting involved with Sean’s troubles, and Danny turns on the snark. Jamie takes a breath and tries to keep going. He thinks he knows why Sean’s acting out so much, he says. Jack’s going away, and maybe in Sean’s mind, he’ll stay home if he sees that his kid brother is going off the rails and needs him. He knows, because he did it himself when Danny left for Camp Lejeune. Aww. He must have been, what, eight or nine?

“What, you get a B-minus on a test?” Danny cracks.

“A-minus, it was a dark time,” Jamie answers in a rush, like it’s a painful memory he doesn’t want to revisit, and I nearly snort my tea.

It doesn’t quite work, though. Danny, trying to keep his cool, says he sincerely loves Eddie (Awww) and that they’re great together (WE KNOW) but that the two of them have to mind their business.

That get Jamie in the buttons. “You know what, we already apologized,” he says, “You got a problem with that? Go to hell.”

Yup. Brothers.

Danny knows he’s probably in the wrong but he’s not going to admit it just then. He throws his kid brother a look and stalks off.

CUT TO: Office of E. A female detective is taking custody of Maud, because Tony intends to take the stand. As the detective says she’ll return his cuffs, Erin pipes up, “You might wanna wash those, first.” Hee!

“Could you not?” Tony growls.

“What?” Erin asks, all wide-eyed. Then they share a truly lovely smile. “I’m proud of you,” she tells him. She offers to set him up with a friend from the Brooklyn DA’s office, but he declines, with thanks.

CUT TO: The five-four. Finally, back to the shooting plot. Danny and Baez have the lurker in the interview room. They unwind a sad and sordid story from her, culminating with the fact that Dr. Sunshine the Baby Magician is not only the fertility specialist who assisted her parents, but her biological father. The good doctor used his own sperm to create her and nobody knows how many others.

“Could be one of them’s our shooter,” Danny says, looking ill.

CUT TO: Dr. McCandless’ office. Danny and Baez arrive and put him in cuffs. He laughs it off at first, saying it’s just a misunderstanding. Eventually his mask slips off and he yells that of course he did it – he was helping people, giving them something they needed. YUCK. We’re actually dealing with a case of this up here right now. Yuck.

CUT TO: A bench on the East River Promenade on a beautiful autumn afternoon. A portly fellow tucks his phone back into his pocket, and pulls out a small handgun instead. Oh, dear.

Danny appears beside him, speaking softly. He explains that his daughter covered for him, diverting their attention to unknown persons, until he sent her a goodbye message an hour ago. (I assume they pinged his cellphone by super-urgent red-hot subpoena.) Danny keeps him talking, and eventually gets him to give up his gun.

The man turns around, and his daughter is there waiting for him. Thicker than water indeed. The full text of the proverb, by the way, is “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” 99.99% of the time, it’s misquoted and twisted 180 degrees from its intended use. The point is supposed to be that family means many things, and doesn’t have to define an individual.

CUT TO: Reagan Annex. The camera drone swoops down from above on Danny and Jack stuffing Danny’s car as full as they can, for the first of many college runs.

Eddie and Jamie step out of the house. Jamie is still wearing the same black polo and beige chinos he’s worn on every day off this season. Eddie’s in – I swear to God – a denim pantsuit with a ruffled halter top. As Vanessa, it’s a sweet look to rock to brunch on a sunny Saturday. As Eddie, it’s…please, no. Eddie helping someone move would be in her oldest jeans and a ratty t-shirt. I love the bouncy ponytails they’ve had her in, though I did see that Vanessa’s tired of cop hair. (I know, honey, I know. I’m sure she’s seen what real live female officers go through with their hair, and why so many chop it all off.)

ANYWAY. This was supposed to not be a novel.

“Maybe he wants to show off how good a dad he is?” Jamie wonders. I’m getting all melty with these two and the this-will-be-us-soon chat. Highchair at the dinner table in a year, you think?

“Gonna miss you guys,” Jack says sincerely. For the hundredth time this episode, AWW. He gives his uncle a hug, and then his Aunt-in-waiting.

“We’re only a phone call away,” Eddie reminds him. I don’t know where the fictional Hadleigh College is supposed to be, but it’s apparently a drive away, too.

Jamie slips Jack some mad money, being that kind of uncle, and no doubt remembering what being a broke college kid is like.

Sean appears in the door, looking a bit surly and down.

“C’mon, man, come say bye to your brother,” Jamie calls.

“Alright, I guess I’ll see you around,” Sean mumbles.

“Actually, you’re coming with us,” Jack tells him. Sean brightens right up. I guess he thought he was going to be staying at his grandpa’s house, or maybe being semi-babysat by Jamie and Eddie? Jack says he can help him get settled in, and have a campus tour to get ready for weekend visits. Sean practically leaps for the car, but does not yell “SHOTGUN”.

As the boys get ready, Danny comes over to Jamie and Eddie, and everyone falls over themselves apologizing. Danny insists he’s the one who screwed up, “running around with my hair on fire” which is a pretty apt visual.

Danny and Eddie hug it out (again, AWWWW), and Jamie wrestles Danny into a tackle-hug with an actual growl, which, okay. I’m going to need to replay that a couple times.

Danny ribs Jamie about needing some mad money too, and Jamie replies he’s got his own circus coming up soon, called a wedding. Eddie rolls her eyes. I guess that Sergeant’s pay bump will come in handy.

“Well,” Danny says, gesturing to Eddie, “You chose well.”

“Let’s not go overboard,” Jamie deadpans, earning him a whack from Eddie.

“Hey!” she squawks.

“What?” he asks, and busts out a grin. He reaches out to bring her in for a hug like we haven’t seen in years, just the two of them being natural and goofy and honest-to-God enjoying each other’s company, and it’s glorious. The camera swirls above them, in an allusion to all the open possibilities ahead, for them, and for Jack.

CUT TO: Office of F. Baker is escorting Moreno Sr. and Moreno Jr. to the fourteenth floor. Jay is pushing his father’s wheelchair. As Frank welcomes them in and Jay gets his father settled, Baker fixes Frank with yet another eloquent look as she closes the door – but this time it’s one of approval.

“My son, Jay,” Detective Moreno introduces them – or thinks he does. Frank plays it off like he’s never seen Jay before, as he promised.

“You find that idiot who refused my son’s transfer?” Moreno asks.

“I did, John. Heads rolled, that’s all I can say.”

“Thank you, Frank,” Moreno replies. That’s really all he needed to hear.

Frank sits down and outlines a quandary he’s in. He’s always fought the Housing Development Board to bring in a cop into the actual planning of the projects that they’ll end up policing. There’s always been pushback. And they still won’t allow a cop on a board. The only solution to getting cop perspective and expertise on the board is for someone with a valuable degree in Urban Planning, who is also a cop with a strong track record, to resign his badge and move to a civilian consulting position. For the greater good and the future of the city.

Having dangled this bait, Frank waits to see what the Morenos make of it. Jay is stunned but quiet, but when his father says it’s a request they can hardly refuse, he perks up, in his understated way. So while Frank has to cut a good cop free, he’s also freeing up an unhappy and undervalued man to do what he’s best at, with his policing experience as an extra asset rather than an albatross.

A tad contrived, but you know what, I’ll take it.

For all the wildly divergent plotlines, this stories were well-balanced, and even if the theme was a little sledgehammery at times, it was lighter than some episodes. I love love love that the actors just took scenes and ran with them - it felt very natural, and I wonder how much ad-libbing was going on. The parallels between Danny and Baez and Erin and Tony, as working partners, are becoming clearer, especially as Danny and Baez become less reactionary and performative, and Erin and Tony poke each other into more friendly and less professional interactions.

And of course, watching Jamie and Eddie trying to make sense of everything is hilarious, even if they definitely shouldn’t be working together. Maybe when Eddie’s a Sergeant too, they could collaborate on community projects, but not as CO and Officer, no, no, no...

Looking forward to next week.

#jamko #blue bloods #recap #blue bloods recap #season 9 #Jamie Reagan #eddie janko #Erin Reagan #Frank Reagan #sean reagan #Jack Reagan #Danny Reagan #baker baker baker

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poolstorybro-blog · 6 years

Note

✘ Any unpopular opinions about your muse?

MUN’S INTERPRETATION | meme reference.

@swellofpity

I’m going to discuss one in detail and honestly ?? it’s not even an unpopular opinion but more like an unpopular perspective ?? and most people probably couldn’t care less but it’s important to me so I’m going to discuss it. before I continue, however, this is kind of a disclaimer that I’m not some elitist asshole. if you enjoyed the daniel way run of deadpool, that doesn’t make you any less of a fan or anything like that, to each their own. I also want to state that since deadpool has never received a canon diagnosis in regards to his mental health, what I’m writing here is wholly headcanon but, as I said, it’s a perception that’s very important to me and is what makes my portrayal so it’s kind of important for people who like my portrayal I guess ?? BUT ANY WHO, the unpopular perception for sure revolves around deadpool’s mental health. I am aware that a lot of dp rpers / dp fans run with the schizophrenia headcanon which is totally fine !! but for me, I feel deadpool doesn’t fit the diagnosis for that but - hold on, another disclaimer ! I am no mental health expert, no professional, but having done extensive research on symptoms ( and I mean extensive ) of a whole knapsack of mental disorders / illnesses, I personally find he doesn’t match it and with REASONS. I know, we’re going deep with this one.

b t dubs, this is solely based on the comic for a hot minute. we’ll get onto the movie, don’t worry your beautiful head.

I think it’s totally fine for people to represent deadpool in different ways but I find the whole psychosis / schizophrenia kinda thing to be a misconception. minus the “incorrect” part of that word’s definition. this is because, for non-avid deadpool readers, it’s very easy to become confused with the series’ events. allow me to explain. before daniel way’s run - who I personally do not like at all and do not include into my interpretation - aka before 2008 there was the two voices in deadpool’s head and a BACKSTORY to those voices. I know, some people think he just hears voices but, before way, this canonly isn’t true. so in this backstory, deadpool basically goes for a job that involves taking out daredevil. ( also please don’t ask me about how loony this plot is I didn’t write it. ) but yeah, he’s sitting on the edge of a roof, getting ready to shoot daredevil when MADCAP approaches and distracts him. one thing leads to another, and daredevil attacks the two of them, but because of both of their regenerative powers, daredevil is no match. LUCKILY, for whatever the fuck reason, thor happens to be passing and so daredevil asks for thor to bring lightning down on madcap and dp, burning them to ashes ( how fitting. ) madcap jumps into deadpool’s arms just before this. once deadpool regenerates, however, madcap is no where to be seen. it’s later found out that madcap actually ??? regenerated with deadpool and somehow became a second conscience. so the white box you see ?? that’s supposedly madcap’s voice. invasive, right ? now, yada yada yada, eventually, deadpool takes the same job - except this time, luke cage appears. luke ends up hitting deadpool so hard that madcap takes over. after some discomforting dancing from luke and thor ( oh yeah, thor’s back ) deadpool comes up with an idea, and that idea is to get thor and luke - under madcap’s control - to rip dp in half. this happens, and deadpool regenerates, except this time one half is dp and the other half is madcap. they regenerate to their full bodies and madcap leaves - along with the voice in dp’s head. that’s who the white box was. THE YELLOW BOX ?? that’s deadpool’s own running commentary.

but before madcap and deadpool were pulled apart, daniel way’s run took place. now danny boy didn’t run with this backstory. maybe he was too lazy to include madcap WHO KNOWS ( can you taste the salt ? ) but way basically discarded all that stuff that happened and that somewhat made sense ??? and gave deadpool this whole new thing. and that whole new thing was pretty much schizophrenia - or at least the stereotypical, untrue, media portrayal of it which is THE VOICES AND CRAZY VIOLENCE. the white box and the yellow box were both just voices in deadpool’s head. not another separate entity trapped - nope, SUDDENLY he has internal voices that he can hear. might I mention none of the other symptoms of schizophrenia though - and anyone who might argue I’ll just point out that self-diagnosis is not supported because symptoms gloop together. so while someone with schizophrenia might argue about hallucinations, I might argue that someone with bpd can also experience hallucinations. and that’s not me shutting down that mental illness, but it’s just me saying be more open minded - don’t jump on something immediately due to lack of awareness of anything else. that’s another thing, the only hallucinations I can recall deadpool having, he’s been able to distinguish them as such - whereas the whole thing with schizophrenia is that they can’t seem to distinguish reality from what they see. but again, to each their own.

way’s run of deadpool is widely read, but doesn’t follow the previous backstory of deadpool which, granted, is what the deadpool series is notorious for. but the point is, it doesn’t make much sense to me that the voices are there for a reason and then suddenly they’re not, they’re just there to fill way’s damaging line of plots. this is just turning into a roast daniel way post I’m sorry I’ll get back on track. when way’s rain of terror run ends in 2012, there was no answers for a whole year until 2013, where acker and blacker ( I know ) explained the sitch in deadpool annual - which is when the whole tearing apart and regenerating separately thing happens.

OKAY. so now I’ve explained all that, and I hope you’re still with me, I’m going to talk about movie dp. in both dp1 & 2, we don’t witness anything voice / box related. it’s not even hinted at, although we do receive deadpool’s running commentary through slow-mo scenes etc which would link to the yellow box. another thing that comes to mind is the “bad deadpool, good deadpool” quote in the first movie. other than that, nothing springs to mind that suggests voices in his head ( even though that quote is said aloud so really it doesn’t suggest voices but more running, unfiltered dialogue ) and it’s the same with the comics - the only voice being his running commentary and I mean you’re lying if you disagree with me saying we all have that. the only time I’ve seen hallucinations hinted at is when his brain has been impaled with something sharp, so I mean that’s pretty understandable. but my point is, those don’t happen on a regular basis. I’ve seen people hint at the scene where he’s following vanessa in the first movie and how he can hear all the voices and I’m here to tell you that could be so many things. I can tell you that with bpd and anxiety myself, I hear that shit every time I step out the front door. in the movie, it seems to be people actually saying those things to his face, and with ptsd / hypersensitivity it’s understandable how he could hear each things easier than the average person - this is supported by the second movie where vanessa’s discussing names and everything slows down and he’s aware someone’s coming to the door with a gun. spoiler alert ? I don’t think so.

when discussing my interpretation of wade, I write him with the freudian trio ALWAYS in the back of my mind. this is made up of the id - which represents emotional & instinctual desires, the superego - which represents the logical & intellectual reasoning and the ego - which represents the balance, or better yet … compromise. now for me, the id represents wade’s yellow box which, in the movie, is represented by his unfiltered words and impulsivity. the superego represents his god-complex mindset, and is seen through his actions when debating on whether to help others ( for the greater good ) or to just not bother / care. and then we have the ego, that’s wade wilson, forever compromising with his impulsivity and motives. impulsivity has him nearly shoot russell, the superego agreeing with colossus in not escalating and wade compromising with telling russell to do as he says, ( noticing that he does eventually launch something at the kid’s head aka the katana. ) I’ll wrap this up because it’s dragging on but the point is, out of all the interpretations of deadpool including schizophrenia, multiple personalities etc etc, I find that wade is just a guy constantly fighting with himself, constantly at loss of who he is identity wise and with his brain cells consistently being replaced / regenerating, his mind is a total enigma. and the point of this unpopular perception that probably only I find important / care about, is that - although wade is canonly undiagnosed, I personally prefer to explore ( what I find to be ) more logical paths rather than leading with media’s incorrect portrayal and series runs that are a complete far cry from what we know as the true deadpool. again, disclaimer, if you disagree with this please remember that it is my interpretation I’m talking about, and my perception of deadpool and what makes most sense to me.

#swellofpity #me softly : no one asked for this #and yet #here u fuckin go #TIME TO MAKE THE CHIMI FUCKIN’ CHANGAS ; ( HEADCANONS. )#long post /#mental health /#I’M HEARING THE VOICES ; ( OOC. )

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miss-m-calling · 4 years

Text

Juletide 2020 letter

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

Without further ado…

Starred Up

Oliver Baumer, Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

For this canon, my dubcon DNW does not apply.

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Role reversal: Oliver as the con (jittery, shut off, sticking out like a sore thumb in prison with all his fancy learning, yet no pushover) and Eric as the newbie counselor (kid from the wrong side of the tracks made good? Youthful hoodlum turned around his life, now trying to help others via tough love and lots of swearing and maybe a bit of manipulation when called for?)

Witchblade (TV) Sara Pezzini, Danny Woo

I used to love this show back in the day, and loved it again in all its hokey gloriousness when I rewatched it recently. Sara figuring things out and being a principled badass, but maybe out of her depth with the Witchblade, and her dynamic with Danny, whether he's a ghost or alive, it’s all catnip to me. Sara is not extremely quippy, she has a job to do dammit! and don’t look at her vulnerable side, just don’t look at it!, and I love that about her (she’s much harsher in S1, after Danny’s death, than in S2); ditto that Danny is somewhat softer than she is, but still can hold his own thanksverymuch (well, when the plot doesn’t require him to get nabbed by bad guys) and has a bit of a deadpan snarker side too. I’d love something that plays around with their canon dynamic from either season, or uses canon as just a starting point. Some of my prompts lean dark or horror-y, so don’t be shy about going there; I’d also enjoy a story in which the Witchblade itself ends up not being very significant (say, they start to investigate a possibly mystical case and then nope, plain murder). Canon-specific DNW: Irons and any version of Nottingham appearing (you can mention them if you need to).

Prompts:

-The Witchblade is more parasitic than symbiotic, and instead of Sara learning to control it, its feeding on Sara affects her more and more over time. Or, the visions and dreams ramp up into full-blown paranoia and/or disassociation. The Witchblade's POV, maybe (it is sentient)? Asking for help is the hardest thing for someone like Sara, but what are (more than) friends for? I’d also enjoy a dubcon scenario (exception to blanket DNW) where Sara really shouldn’t be having sex when her head is all messed up by the Witchblade’s influence, but… well… they do. The Witchblade canonically enjoys violence and bloodshed perpetrated by its wearers, so it stands to reason that it might lower other inhibitions too.

-Witchblade v. mythological monsters. In S1, even with everything else that's going on, Sara absolutely scoffs at the possibility of vampires. So of course I want: Witchblade v. vampires! The scarier and more feral, the better. Or, it's implied that the Witchblade was forged from a meteorite, so it's basically an eldritch artefact from outer space. Yes, please lean all the way into the Lovecraftian tropes! (The moon is turning red, the Old Ones are back, it’s the end of the world as we know it, but Sara’s got her partner by her side.) Or something from Chinese mythology, so Danny can kick extra ass. Or, for a silly take on Chinese culture: Sara and Danny in the world of Big Trouble in Little China (another old fave of mine, the entire plot of which revolves around… a woman with green eyes and an unwanted connection to the supernatural).

-The Witchblade has a reputation for abandoning its wearers just when they need it the most. True to form, it slips off of Sara’s fist, leaving her and Danny to save themselves with good old-fashioned guns, fisticuffs, martial arts, and of course having each other’s back.

-More of the psychedelic-ness in many of Sara’s fight scenes, where now she’s a woman in a leather jacket with a gauntlet on her arm, now she’s a knight in armor! Now her opponent is human, now he’s a wolf-shaped spirit of evil and hatred! Playing around with the characters’ senses and perceptions – yes!

-Instead of seeing only Danny and needing him to play intermediary for Sara to talk to other ghosts, the Witchblade makes Sara see ghosts all over the place, and it's getting to her. Ghost!Danny may or may not help with that. Or, ghost!Danny is basically always around, whether Sara can see him or not. He manifests when Sara is masturbating, and you can't really feel guilty if the ghost of your dead partner whom you’ve always had a thing for helps you out, and anyway you’re probably going crazy and none of this is real, so it doesn’t count anyway... right?

-Case fic/stakeouts and banter. Flirting to pass the long and stressful days at work. Quick and guilty sex because Danny's married. Slow and intense sex if handwave he's not married but “oh noes we’re partners, we shouldn’t be doing this, but somehow we keep doing it anyway.” Hooking up in the car. I've always headcanoned that they had a thing pre-canon which ended for Reasons, but they both kinda wish it hadn't, hence the hand kissing, and the “I can’t even touch you,” and the coffee bringing/stealing, etc. So feel free to play around with that.

-Undercover as married, undercover as a gangster and his moll (LOL at Sara as a moll, or have Sara as the gangster and Danny as her arm candy), undercover as “they think we’re fucking, better fake it real good for the people listening in, oops shit got real fast, careful don’t say each other’s real name or you’ll blow your cover.”

-More timey-wimey shenanigans with the Witchblade. Maybe it allows Sara to manipulate time more than once. Maybe she starts doing it way too often, throwing the continuum out of whack (something non-linear would be very interesting). Maybe she and/or Danny remember some or all of what happened in S1. Something about all the multiverse versions of them, possibly splitting off from a dramatic moment. Time loops and feelings are a combustible mix.

-Apart from the super obvious shippiness, what I like about S1 especially is how Sara rolls with the weirdness the Witchblade has brought into her life, instead of reaching for rational explanations. More of that (I can't think of a better way to put it), and double extra brownie points if alive!Danny figures out at least some of what's going on with Sara's bracelet and somehow gets in on the action. Maybe a Danny saves the day divergence? Or how about a loophole that allows a man close to the Witchblade's wearer to wield it temporarily, but There Is a Price to Pay.

킹덤 | Kingdom (TV 2019)

Prince Lee Chang, Seo-bi

I fell so hard for this show. So hard! The beautiful production values, the wonderful cast, how the characters develop, how the show slowly but surely unfolds one reveal after another and packs so much into two short seasons, all the period detail, the genuinely tense action scenes, the moments of humor and intense emotion, the intertwining of political intrigue and zomg! really scary zombies, how the zombie outbreak works on multiple levels both literal and metaphorical…

I love the brave, kind-hearted, but sheltered prince, whose whole life has been so privileged yet shadowed by the possibility of death if he loses his position as heir, learning what it means to actually rule and lead people, to protect them and be protected by them in turn. And I love Seo-bi the fearless, dedicated, selfless physician, who notices things and figures things out regardless of whether this annoys the people in power. I ship them, but I also love their platonic interactions, how instantly and fiercely loyal she is to him (not just because he’s the crown prince, but because she’s seen how brave and altruistic he can be) and how he immediately takes her advice and experience seriously despite her being a woman and a commoner in this super-hierarchical setting. So I’m good with either / or & for this pairing, and you can work with any of my prompts accordingly. In a / fic, I’d even be good with a totally sublimated, “they both must kinda know what’s going on between them but for reasons of both their personalities and their respective genders and social positions, nothing overt ever gets said or done” scenario! So don’t stress too much over which flavor of dynamic you write for them.

Also, I love most of the cast (not a huge fan of Chancellor Cho, but he is an effective antagonist), and would be delighted to see any of them in fic too. Especially the loyal and funny and badass Mu-yeong (he was loyal, despite the Haewon Cho clan’s blackmail, and if you want to diverge from canon so he lives, I would not mind that at all), the even more badass and wounded and snarky Yeong-sin (or is that “Yeong-sin”???), Chang’s sparky, exiled uncle several times removed, and the terrifying and frankly unhinged young queen are my favorites. I even have a soft spot for that mostly-useless coward Cho Beom-pal, but really, they’re all great and I would love reading about them too, or just about the prince and the lady physician – whatever works!

Finally, before I get to prompts, I know a bit about the Joseon period, but we’re talking the bits and pieces I remember from a college class, and what I’ve read on Wikipedia and picked up from this and other Korean movies and shows. I know a bit more about some of the cultural background, like the Confucian values, the social stratification and feudal system, the gender segregation among the aristocracy, the wars with Japan, but again – my knowledge is limited. So if you want to teach me stuff about Joseon, go for it! If you want to invent or handwave stuff, as long as it fits the canon’s mood and broad cultural parameters, go for it! And if you want to treat me to some worldbuilding, period detail of any kind, and/or costume porn, definitely go for it.

Prompts:

Zombie fighting anything! Learning to survive in a society that’s rapidly breaking down, having to transcend their habitual social roles and challenging each other, anything! Maybe one of them teaches the other to hunt, or to make herbal medicines, or to fight with a sword, or heck, to cook or clean dirty clothes. (FYI I wrote most of these prompts before I was quite done with S2, and the time-skip took me totally by surprise. So while my prompts ignore Chang renouncing the throne, I’d also be down for the untold adventures of the former prince and his traveling companions, as Chang learns how to be just regular folks and they pursue clues about the resurrection flower, or for your take on what happens in S3. Use whatever works for you in my prompts in any way you want!)

Figuring out how the zombie infection continues to evolve and/or working together to find a cure beyond dunking the infected in water – whether that means to destroy large numbers of the undead, or to develop an antidote, or to cure and bring back those afflicted. One plot detail that really struck me: more experimenting with zombies, like Chancellor Cho started to do, might also hold the key to a cure?

Political intrigue anything! Having to fight zombies and/or factions at court with both friends and unexpected allies (not gonna lie, I would have loved to have seen the young queen unleashed on some zombies, even if that did not make her the prince and Seo-bi’s ally).

More road trip/survival/battle goodness – maybe Seo-bi offers Lee Chang some advice while they’re navigating their new situation, or she witnesses him developing his leadership muscles, and it brings them closer together than before. Or maybe a moment of humor, relaxation, or quiet affection on the road or in between zombie-slaying, especially if it catches them both a bit by surprise. Or one of them gets a non-zombifying injury (nothing too gruesome or life-threatening, please!) and the other one has to care for them – extra points if Seo-bi is injured and the prince kind of bumbles through the most basic things so she has to talk him through her own treatment. Or nightmares/being triggered by something, like we saw both Chang and Seo-bi react at the sounds of zombies growling and people screaming in S2E5.

We have seen Seo-bi insist on staying loyal to the prince, and Lee Chang rely on her repeatedly to the exclusion of all his other people – give me a situation in which he has to make clear his own loyalty to her, as a part of both his becoming a better leader and as a step in advancing their relationship. Or, there comes a time when Seo-bi really pushes against the rules of what someone like she can and cannot say or do to/around a crown prince – we’ve seen Lee Chang refuse to stand on his dignity to the point where so many of his interactions with commoners would end in the commoners’ death, but I imagine even he has his limits, and that kind of clash can only drive this dynamic forward!

Canon divergence in which Seo-bi gets sent to the capital and assigned to be the personal physician to the petulant, frustrated prince we meet at the start of the show (handwave the gender segregation and impropriety). She knows her place, but she also does not suffer fools or male nonsense. Sparks fly, social conventions get tested, zombies may or may not happen, and a new mutual understanding is born.

Canon divergence from the scene in S2E2 when Seo-bi finagles her way to being allowed to see the prince and he instructs her to resurrect Ahn Hyeon – what if instead of that, they came up with another plan of escape? Or maybe Lee Chang sending Seo-bi to spy on the queen goes a different way than in canon? And really, anything that requires those two to pass secret messages while grabbing each other’s hands and staring intently into each other’s eyes is A++ with me!

One theme which emerges gradually, and I really loved, is people having to compromise their principles to survive and ensure the safety of those they feel loyal and/or obliged to: Ahn Hyeon agreeing to turn the sick villagers into zombies, dear Mu-yeong having been a spy but also protecting the prince all along, Seo-bi resurrecting Ahn Hyeon, Lee Chang instructing her to do it as well as his thousand-yard-stare after having to finish off what’s left of his father… I’d love to see more such compromises, how their consequences ripple out, and the emotional fallout.

In addition to zombies, other magical and/or supernatural events and creatures start to appear in Joseon. If you want to bring in something from Buddhist mythology or Korean folklore, please do, and any and all worldbuilding would be awesome. One possibility that occurs to me – and I’m going for broke here – is: a dragon awakes in his cave and shit starts hitting the fan.

Post-canon something in which Lee Chang is king, possibly of only a part of the country (maybe a zombie-free enclave, or a part he won in a civil war against the Cho clan or a cadet branch of his family), and Seo-bi is there as his advisor, physician, and unofficial chancellor. Gimme policymaking to deal with the lingering zombie issue, and assassination plots, and servants/guards/ladies in waiting gossiping like it’s their real job, and all the palace intrigue!

Kind of related to the previous: even as a “spare” prince, Lee Chang can’t marry a commoner. Would he ever think to offer Seo-bi to become his concubine? I don’t think she’d go for it, and he might realize it, but maybe I’m wrong! Or maybe being intensely platonic at each other is as good as it gets for them, and they’re kind of okay with that. Or they get married in secret and have to very careful not to let slip anything by word on gesture in public, or not to let Seo-bi get pregnant. Or, y’know, one day or night on the road or in a fortified town, in between scavenging for supplies and fighting zombies, they decide to bone just because their lives are weird enough now to forget about propriety and all that jazz for an hour.

Role reversal: Seo-bi is the sheltered, willful princess fearful for her position (especially since she’s a woman as well as the daughter of a concubine only) and Lee Chang is the proper yet willful provincial physician. Do they meet as in canon, or under different circumstances (maybe she must flee the court to escape assassins, accusations of treason, or an arranged marriage, with or without bonus zombies)? How would their dynamic be complicated (and made awesome of course!) by the gender reversal? Also, burning question: does Princess Seo-bi already know how to fight (because she forced Mu-yeong to teach her back at court, of course), or does she have to learn once zombies/brigands/insurrection/whatever happen? And does Physician Lee Chang know one end of a musket or sword from another, or does he need rescuing at some point?

I realize that some of these prompts could work as well (better?) as a no-zombies AU, and that’s fine if you want to take it in that direction. Just so we’re clear. J

Likes:

I love pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories. I love character-driven and plot-driven stories equally, and I love fics which mix humor and angst/serious business when appropriate for the canon.

I love stories about characters at work and play, group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too, etc.

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

I especially love workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters are competent and dedicated to the job, and while they may not be exactly friends and they may well irritate one another, they still manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise and sometimes reluctance/discomfort). Or, if they can’t get along, show me why not and what’s preventing them from finding common ground.

In terms of ship dynamics, I love (where it fits the characters) banter, competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved), oh-god-why-did-it-have-to-be-you-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this, bickering yet loving couples, characters who are serious about their romantic interests, characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are, characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed, fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping. A dynamic I cannot resist is shipping a couple who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, one betrayed the other or they betrayed each other), and while they love and want each other they’re also not willing to change sides or surrender/compromise their identity for the other’s benefit, and how they might (or not) make their relationship work anyway.

I don’t have any very specific likes for smut, other than smut fitting the characters – show me how their canon dynamics spill over into the bedroom (or other place of congress). I also like sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves (e.g., the person who’s usually quiet or more passive taking charge, the more aggressive person goes with it possibly snarking or commenting on it as long as they can). And I like sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition, antagonism, oh-god-this-is-a-bad-idea-but-we’re-going-for-it-hammer-and-tongs, not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not, or just people getting way more into it or being more affected by it than they thought they would. When it fits the characters and their canon dynamic, you also can’t go wrong with we-both-wanted-this-for-forever-and-now-we-both-know-it-so-here-we-go-diving-in-headfirst. For het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – it’s all good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (the exception is Laura Moon in American Gods dying so she can become undead), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon

#dear author letter #juletide 2020

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fountainpenguin · 7 years

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I like "The Fairly OddParents" and "Danny Phantom" for their potential for angst. In the former, you have Timmy's miserable life, Vicky's potentially traumatic childhood and Timmy's despair at the fact that Cosmo and Wanda must leave him eventually. In the latter, you have Danny risking his life, being horribly injured and fearing what his parents might do to him if they knew what he really was. Just out of interest, where's the potential for angst in "Bunsen is a Beast"?

Oh my gosh, you’ve got my heart racing. Where do I even start?

I guess we start with our title character. We all know how Butch loves the fantastic racism trope (which is one thing I love about his work so much- his use of these things as serious worldbuilding details, and not merely as “one and done” plot points), and it’s a huge part of Fairy and Anti-Fairy culture.

Fantastic racism is a thing in BIaB too. Here you’ve got this little Beast boy who speaks and reads only limited English. Although he doesn’t have huge talons, he does have horns, a spiny tail, and a lot of scary-looking teeth. As soon as he steps out of his car and starts towards the school, he is hounded by news crews:

He manages to shake them off and head inside, but as she’s introducing him to the class, the teacher says, “I hope this whole co-mingling thing works out, because if not, man and beast will be in a struggle for dominance until one side drives the other into extinction.”

Aw, snap! So you have this show about this twelve-year-old kid with the weight of two species resting on his shoulders. And he knows. That’s what I love here- he knows. Instantly when Miss Flap reminds him of this, Bunsen deflates from his happy mood (Bonus: As you continue through the series, it becomes more obvious that his natural personality is to be reserved rather than social, and that he’s way outside his comfort zone here in trying to make a good first impression and win over new friends).

There’s just so much here that’s interesting! Bunsen is clearly very aware that if he proves Beasts can successfully integrate into human society, it means a better life for his people. But if he screws up badly enough, he might have to watch his family and friends be slaughtered, on top of fearing for his own life. And if he screws up the other way, he might see humans killed as his people revolt and take over.

Now, obviously, with the fate of these races resting on him, so many politics can be dragged into this. It’s my headcanon that after petitioning for years, Beasts were finally given the okay to allow a single Beast to attend a school in a very small human town, as a test. Now, who are they going to pick? Bunsen is very fluffy and cute, so he’s a good candidate to promote the idea that Beasts aren’t dangerous and should be granted rights. Although his English is still stilted and he can read only a very small amount of it at this point, he knows enough to be verbally fluent.

So the question is, how long ago did they decide to send HIM? Has he been groomed for this position his entire life? Just think of all that pressure, those years of studying, that fear of failure drilled into his entire being since he was a kid… And that’s not even bringing up the question of whether this fight to get Beasts a human education has been going on for decades, and if he was specifically bred for his cuteness and gentle disposition. And, what if he didn’t want to be “the chosen one” in the first place? Delicious inner turmoil.

Really, it’s a show about a minority constantly struggling with thoughts of, “Should I leave all my culture behind and embrace a new one?” and “But my culture is a huge part of my identity and I don’t want to lose it.” And he shouldn’t have to lose it. So, he’s working to find a balance that makes him feel good about himself, while dealing with his fears that humans are going to look down on or even hate him for it.

If anyone was wondering, I personally feel that if Bunsen were human, his ethnicity would be one of mixed Asian origins. If I’m remembering correctly, it’s a stereotype that Chinese people are good at ping-pong, and he has a relative (possibly his mom’s brother b/c octopus tentacles) who is a ping-pong master.

That, and it looks like he has a large extended family staying in Muckledunk with him, suggesting closer ties than I, your average white American girl, see in my own family, even though everyone on my dad’s side of the family lives in this area, and almost everyone on my mom’s side does too. Thus, the fact that he’s eating spaghetti with forks in the theme song is just kind of amusing to me. I wonder what kind of eating utensils exist in Beast society.

So, those are a few culture-related angst topics about Bunsen. Others are certainly the fact that he’s moved to a new place and has regular jitters about that, and that one of his classmates is constantly attempting to gather evidence that he’s a danger to society and should be cast out of the school and the town. Said classmate also has a rich and influential father, and it’s been made clear that some people will be unfair to Bunsen purely not to get on her father’s bad side.

And I forgot to mention all the hints that Bunsen is a pacifist (or at least that he dislikes confrontation), so his default reaction to having mean words thrown at him is to withdraw into himself and believe them.

Whether it’s because of his inborn personality or because of all the pressure resting on him, he never fights back physically, and rarely argues verbally. The closest he gets is the occasional sassy comment. Although he’s more relaxed when alone with Mikey, Bunsen seems to have somewhat low self-esteem.

Perhaps because he’s an introvert, Bunsen is very perceptive. I might argue that he picks up on subtleties better than Mikey does- so if your words or body language suggest that you don’t like him, he will know. Mikey was willing to ignore Jerry’s emotional instability in “Mikey Is a Beast” because he saw Jerry as his hero, but Bunsen picked up on it and was very nervous at the thought of hanging around him. Throughout that episode, Bunsen continues making nervous faces even when the main focus of the scene isn’t on him- such as when Jerry shouted for Mikey to stop crying over Bunsen’s head:

I greatly appreciate whoever includes these things in the storyboards! These characters are just constantly in character even in the background.

Ooh, then there’s the piece of his character that solidifies Bunsen as a lawful neutral- his utter devotion to following rules, even when he doesn’t like them (For example, wanting to touch things in the museum, but restraining himself when he sees ‘Do not touch’ signs). He’s extremely committed to a set of values known as the Beast Code. This code outlines good etiquette such as “Beasts are always polite”, but sometimes it pins Bunsen into corners.

For example, in “Handsome Beast”, Amanda asked Bunsen out to the girls’ choice dance. Even though he dislikes her, it’s apparently “against the Beast Code to decline an invitation”, so Bunsen was thoroughly convinced that he has to not only go to the dance, but “follow the rigid steps of the Beast wooing procedure” too. He feels more stressed out by the thought of disobeying the Code than by the action of taking someone he doesn’t like on a date.

Beasts appear to have super unstable genetics, because when they have allergic reactions, they take on characteristics of the thing that upset their body systems. Here, Bunsen evidently had a reaction to the body spray Mikey was using in the hopes of attracting girls. He’s also confirmed to be allergic to bee stings and Swiss fondue.

Let’s see, what else… Bunsen obviously has a very close and understanding relationship with his parents, considering that even after everything their whole family sacrificed to move to Muckledunk - stability, friendships, money, possibly years of special educational programs depending on how long ago he was selected as the Beasts’ representative - they were completely willing to move back to the underground Beast World after Bunsen confessed to them that he was terrified of thunder, and couldn’t handle the sound of it anymore.

(These nerds even have matching pictures of each other)

There’s a lot of angst potential there, because up and leaving Muckledunk like that could not have been an easy thing for his entire extended family to agree to do. Or an easy decision for Bunsen to even make and consider talking to them about. He’s Beast World’s champion. Their saving grace. As much as he hates thunder, I’m sure he felt absolutely awful to know he was disappointing his entire race. This is the only time thus far, I think, that he truly puts himself before thoughts of duty and honor. These showing and not telling details really drive home how terrified of thunder the poor guy is.

So, Bunsen! I could name a couple of shows about a kid with an animal (or Beast) friend, but of these friends, Bunsen is my favorite. Cartoons like this generally involve one character who doesn’t caremuch about consequences dragging the other into zany schemes. But this is a show about a kid who is honestly curious about the world, and has strong morals that keep him out of trouble. I’m huge on following rules myself, so having a show with characters who are aware that their actions have consequences (Bunsen moreso than Mikey) and who don’t intentionally bend the law means a lot to me.

From a writer’s perspective, Bunsen is a very well-balanced character: he’s very reactive, so he acts as a nice foil to active Mikey. However, he can be plenty active too, such as when he’s introducing Mikey to his home or talking about his culture and biology. And it’s not out of character for him to be this way. It’s all dependent on his comfort level in a particular situation; by default Bunsen is reserved, but he starts opening up and being more active as he gets to know you. He’s very, very balanced and well-written, I think.

Oh. Also, his best friend has a morbid sense of humor, and even cracks jokes about taxidermy when Bunsen sees his uncle on display at a museum.

And BOY HOWDY, we haven’t even gotten to Mikey yet!

I. Love. Mikey. In fact, he’s probably the character I relate to more than anyone in any show I’ve ever watched. I’ve heard that some people don’t like BIaB because Mikey is just “a boring, regular kid”, but I don’t know what show they’re watching, because I could go on and on about how cool this boy is. In fact, calling it now, the Mikey section of this post will likely be unfairly longer than Bunsen’s.

Where to start, where to start… Well, you wanted angst, so let’s start with this. Remember how in “Abra-Catastrophe”, we found out that until he was eight, Timmy’s parents used to obsess over and record every second of his day on video cameras? Mikey’s childhood resembles that a little bit… except it never stopped.

Mikey has helicopter parents in both senses of the word. They obviously love him, but thus far in the show, they have only interacted with him through this drone. I wouldn’t be surprised if never seeing them in person is a running gag in the series, the same way not revealing the names of Timmy’s parents is a gag in FOP. The implication here is that they’re out of town a lot- meaning that he’s been left at home to raise himself-

-surrounded by security cameras and microphones, of course. Major props to whoever designed Mikey’s yard and drew this storyboard, because I love how none of the characters ever call any attention to the cameras or anything. They’re just. There. Watching. Details like this make me happy.

Y’know, when you’ve got a SMALL TOWN CHILD whose parents install SECURITY SYSTEMS, you can’t help but wonder if said child has any problems disabling the security systems on any building in said small town. Problems physically, or morally. I wonder…

I’m really curious to know when his parents got this drone. Mikey hasn’t revealed anything about a babysitter. Did his parents start leaving him at home alone once they got it and could watch out for him? Or did they leave him home alone to fend for himself even before that?

Mikey’s parents are very nice people - probably better than Timmy’s parents - but they’re not there in the way he needs emotionally. They try to compensate for this by stalking him with the drone whenever they can spare the time. The ability of the drone to find him is interesting too… Perhaps they track him using the location of his phone. Surely they wouldn’t actually GPS chip their child.

Children need safety (physical and emotional) for healthy development. Given the security cameras and the presumed reputation of his parents, we can assume he has the former. But violating his privacy “without probable cause” the way they do can be psychologically damaging and lead to trust issues. Especially because he’s asked his parents to stop, and they haven’t.

Previously, I’ve mentioned my theory that Mikey has an older sister, which would explain why he had the dress, sandals, ribbon, and make-up on hand (and might answer our question about who watched over Mikey pre-drone):

I think she might have disappointed their parents in some way (such as having a baby while an unmarried teen, or stealing money and the family car), and so she took off for the hills. I like this idea because it helps “justify” why Mikey’s parents are so obsessed with monitoring him. They don’t stalk him constantly, but when he gets older, I feel like he’ll have at least one parent on his case at almost all times while the other is installing security systems. One Munroe kid going sour is bad enough for their reputation. Small town. People talk!

Additionally, his voice actor (Ben Giroux) revealed that he used to “terrorize his sister” with the Mikey voice when they were kids. Imagine Mikey doing the same thing to his sister once upon a time, pfft.

This sister theory is just a headcanon, but it’ll be interesting to see what hints about his home life and family are dropped in future episodes. And did I mention that Mikey occasionally visits his uncle in prison, possibly because this is the only family member he has who can’t run away? I love him.

That was Mikey in the past. Now, what about Mikey in the present?

Let me say it again: I. Love. This. Kid.

I’m majoring in psychology, and when I started watching this show, I quickly ended up leaning back in my seat with a knuckle in my mouth, grinning at the ceiling. Mikey is a textbook case for narcissistic personality disorder, with the bonus joke thrown in of, I have no idea if Butch and the writers meant to do this or not (at least, they may not have realized they’ve been checking off all the diagnostic criteria as we go along). Either way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a narcissistic cartoon character pulled off so subtly and so well- and without the cliché stereotype of being obsessed with his looks to boot!

People with this personality disorder are typically characterized as being “arrogant” (Check), “self-centered” (Check), “manipulative” (Check), “concentrating on grandiose fantasies [such as their own success or brilliance]” (Check), and as having “a need for admiration” (Check), “a lack of empathy for other people” (Check), and they “may be convinced that they deserve special treatment” (CHECK- Did you see “Beast of Friends” and “Astro-Nots”?). Such narcissists might “have difficulty tolerating criticism or defeat and may be left feeling humiliated or empty” when their pride is injured. That sure sounds like Mikey to me!

(Technically, since he’s young, we can’t officially diagnose him until he’s acted this way for a year, but if he continues in this pattern then he should fit the bill!)

What a personality disorder means is, this is his personality. You could maybe tone him down by reinforcing certain behaviors, but there’s nothing you can do to “fix” him permanently. There’s no medicine that will change him. It’s just the way he is, and it’s not really his fault. Mikey just loves being the center of attention. And I’m sure it doesn’t help his ego that he’s lived a life with cameras focused on him, and he’s possibly the second child and baby of his family.

He just constantly refocuses the spotlight on himself, like in this scene here where he expresses no sympathy for Darcy being alone all day (or even acknowledges her statement whatsoever), and changes the subject to him:

“Outside, when you were very close to my face, you said something about… helping me?”

Translation: “I’m only here for my benefit. Are we actually doing this, or are you just wasting my time?”

His narcissism is especially prominent throughout “Beast of Friends”. Not only does he interrupt Bunsen once he hears Bunsen has a friend who’s a wish-granting fairy, but when he meets Timmy Turner, all Mikey wants to do is make wishes. Timmy even asks him nicely to stop, and Mikey agrees by making comments like, “I totally hear you. Just let me make one more wish”.

Spoiler: He doesn’t stop at one more. And when Timmy is tripping over himself, struggling to cover up hints of magic and fairies from his dad, he begs Mikey to back him up. Mikey cheerfully says, “Timmy’s totally right”, and immediately turns his attention back to Wanda and - you guessed it - makes more wishes. He’s completely blind to the fact that he’s causing Timmy distress. He hardly seems to register Timmy’s presence, because he’s so focused on the fact that Timmy has fairy godparents. Mikey even assumes they’ll grant his wishes, and never asks Timmy for permission first. This also happens to be the only episode thus far where Mikey realizes he got a little carried away, and apologizes for it. It took the threat of Bunsen’s death to get him to this point.

He also just honestly forgets to think about others a lot of the time. I think the best example I could pull up is that scene where Bunsen congratulates Amanda on winning “hide and go freak”, to which Mikey responds-

He forgot Amanda. As soon as he saw Bunsen’s game room, all bets were off. He just naturally assumed that if he wasn’t playing, the game was over. It didn’t even cross his mind to tell Amanda he wanted to play ping-pong instead. And he’s like this throughout the show. All. The. Time.

Of course, apart from his narcissism, Mikey has another fair reason to be distractible: there are heavy hints that he has ADHD, not the least of which is that he seems to be canonically dyslexic:

(“Go”)

(“Doomed”)

(Here he’s struggling to spell “cat”)

Dyslexia isn’t an actual diagnosis in the DSM-5, but he would have a specific learning disorder for writing - aka spelling, grammar, punctuation, and clarity (refer to the script he wrote above) - but he has no impairment in the reading department (fluency, comprehension), which is why he can read perfectly fine.

ADHD and dyslexia typically go hand in hand. On top of that - and this is SUPER fascinating to me - he’s actually animated as having an inability to sit still. He’s constantly out of his seat, or in his seat and changing position.

I actually had a different example in mind but it was too long and wouldn’t loop

When I first heard of this show, I naturally assumed Bunsen was going to be the wild one, and Mikey would be your average, plain kid along for the ride. It just seemed the cliché default. But then comes this huge plot twist in my mind: Bunsen is playful, but a bit reserved, and Mikey is the extremely peppy and hyperactive child. So, I think that’s really cool and lots of fun. Mikey is the first time I’ve ever watched a show and selected a lead to be my favorite character, so obviously something’s going right here!

ADHD also has some angst potential along with it. Aside from the obvious examples of struggling in class, he’s confirmed to be the head of the school welcoming committee. So, when it comes to designing posters, that can’t be the easiest job to do!

Oh, did you think that was all? NOPE! It’s been hinted numerous times that Mikey has an interest in psychology (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent hours poring over childcare books when he was younger as he tried to figure out if the way his parents were raising him was right or wrong).

And, whether he started doing this intentionally or not, he’s turned into a massive guilt-tripper. He cries, people give him what he wants, he stops.

To be fair, Mikey doesn’t seem to realize that what he’s doing is wrong in any way. He’s sensitive in general- that part certainly isn’t faked, nor is he trying to be mean. Simply, this guilt-tripping behavior has been reinforced.

Repeatedly.

As of “Astro-Nots”, he has yet to come up against anyone in the show who says no to big sad eyes (and he seems to have, perhaps unconsciously, taught this guilt-tripping behavior to Bunsen by this point). Since Mikey hasn’t tried to guilt-trip Amanda onscreen, it’s possible he’s tried in the past, but wasn’t reinforced and so unhappily gave up. He’s just savage to her with his words.

Now, I have that GIF above of Mikey guilt-tripping even Bunsen, his best friend, to do something he really didn’t want to do. I wouldn’t call their relationship abusive at all, especially with Mikey not seeming to realize what he’s doing is wrong. They’re good, close friends and get along awesomely. A time or two of guilt-tripping shouldn’t be reason to end their friendship. Really, what Bunsen did when agreeing to be Jerry’s mascot was a favor. Although being a mascot wasn’t something Bunsen wanted to do, he did want to make Mikey happy, and he did willingly agree to this- as a favor to a friend.

But for angst purposes, he didn’t want to do it. Like I said, I don’t consider their friendship abusive or anything like that, but it might be a tad strained at times. Think of it like, your college roommate might have really irritating quirks, but they’re probably not abusive. Only if Mikey’s manipulating got out of hand to the point where Bunsen was in distress and wanted this to stop - and Mikey refused - would this become a big problem. But, everyone has character flaws and their own struggles in relationships, and for now, this is just one of Mikey’s.

Don’t get me wrong. Mikey’s a really nice person, and he’s proved it multiple times (One of my favorite lines of his is, “Help me help you”). This is the thing: he always wants to get his way. If his way happens to be, “I want to make you happy”, then you’re in luck! But if you’re opposed to his views… he’s not going to make life easy on you. Mikey’s the sort of person who only says sorry out of sympathy- not when you insist he’s made a mistake. Not easily, anyway. He’s a narcissist who reads about psychology- he hates admitting that he’s wrong.

Heh heh. He’ll totally be there if you directlytell him what you need. But he can be a little blind to the feelings of others. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!

On top of ALL of this, Mikey has to put up with his rival being attracted to him:

She invades his personal space constantly and forces physical contact like this on him, and it obviously makes him super uncomfortable. I can relate. In my ninth grade math class, I had to sit next to a couple of jerks who - not an exaggeration, because they told me this - had grade point averages of 1.9 (out of 4.0). I didn’t show any interest in them, except once when one of them was bugging me about what my name was, I finally reinforced him by revealing it. This did not go well for me. And for whatever reason, the girl who sat in front of me thought I had a crush on this annoying kid. No clue why, because he was awful. So, she told him to come up behind me and rub my back.

Okay. So, no. I was out of my seat so fast, grabbing my thick, heavy school binder and whirling around, ready to smack him upside the head, but the bell rang just then so he got off scot-free. Keep in mind that I’m not even five feet tall as a college student, so I was even smaller back then. But BOY, did that kid have the face of someone who thought he was going to die.

Gosh, why is Mikey so relatable…

Then there’s more angst to be found within Amanda, Beverly- and of COURSE, Commander Cone… I could talk about them for a while still, but this post has gotten pretty long, so I’ll settle for just discussing our leading boys.

Mostly, the angst in BIaB is that sort of subtle emotional angst that’s obvious if you’re an adult paying attention to the show, but that’s easy to miss if you’re younger. It’s similar to “Fairly OddParents” in that respect (which is a show I personally favor to “Danny Phantom”, even though there are several things I could name about DP that appeal to me too).

Huh. Come to think of it, I wonder if that’s why DP has always been so popular- the younger generation caught onto its angst potential because it was more physical and obvious than the emotional angst present in cartoons like FOP. Plus he’s like a superhero and kids like superheroes. I tend to favor subtleties myself… I suppose because it feels more like I’m in on the joke than like I’m being force-fed.

Anyhow, “Bunsen Is a Beast” is not a cartoon that requires angst to move it along. And yet it’s sprinkled in there anyway; it never feels forced to me. Along with its super-expressive characters, that’s one thing that attracts me to the show- Holding my breath in anticipation to see if I can catch the subtleties.

For example, all throughout “Body and the Beast”, Mikey refuses to say “school picture day” because he’s convinced something bad will happen to him if he does. That’s a hint that he may be superstitious, and adds a fascinating layer to his character since he’s our man of psychology and science.

Isn’t that neat? Depending on how deep this runs, he might even struggle with thought-action fusion: the belief that thinking something is the same (aka, as “sinful”) as actually doing it- and there is so much angst tied up with that.

And OH MAN, we didn’t even get to the part about Mikey “mysteriously” going bald two years prior the show’s beginning. Pardon me, but what is a ten-year-old narcissist who isn’t getting the emotional affection he desires from his parents going to do to himself for attention? Thaaaaaaaat’s right.

(Or if you want bonus angst potential… ever heard of trichotillomania?)

The clip where Mikey refuses to mention picture day and goes straight into talking about how he went bald two years ago was only a few seconds long, but it reveals so much! See? There’s so much fun here for someone like me! But like… It’s left up to me to choose if I want to see these characters as the sum of their parts, or if I want to enjoy this show while merely scraping the surface: Bunsen being cheerful and Mikey being his happy friend.

I like having this depth. I like having subtleties. With DP, “Star”, and “Gravity Falls”, every episode tasted very, “Meh, that went the way I expected it to” in my mouth. I guess you could say that that the subtle details I like in BIaB are very “inside joke” in nature. With those other three, everyone who watches the show is going to catch angsty things. It doesn’t take the coolness out of them, but it takes that excitement of discovery away from me a bit, I suppose?

Could be. I don’t like being spoon-fed emotions. That’s why you don’t normally find me shipping characters (and when I do, I often tend towards background couples). I’m just not a very emotional person. I don’t tear up at anything less sad than Radio’s death in “Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue”, so you can guess how often that happens, because hoooooly wow, that death scene.

See, there are very few things that bug me about “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”, but the fact that I’m expected to feel bad for Star when Marco starts dating the girl of his dreams is one of them. The ending of “Just Friends” bothered me, with the way that Star lashed out and destroyed the stadium billboard like she was five. Ick. I guess the show put a little too much faith in the idea that people watch shows for ships. Yes, lots of people do- but I’m not one of them. I don’t ship two people just because they’re there, so I have a very hard time sympathizing with Star’s refusal to let Marco be happy with Jackie.

In my mind, she’s an exchange student. They live together. They’re foster siblings. So when you don’t pity her, Star just looks like a selfish brat throughout the end of Season 2. Good glory, I so do not want Starco to be the endgame couple… I know it’s extremely unlikely to happen, but I’d love for her to end up with Oskar. Just. The potential of freaking Oskar being Mewni’s king. I need this so badly. Plus, they just feel so natural.

Awesome show. But I don’t really go for the idea of, “She had to leave him, and it was so sad because she was in love!!!” What is this, a nuzlocke? I’m much happier fawning over Ludo and his story, like the way he once said, “Are you proud of me?” and then when he was complimented, he hesitated and asked, “Can you say proud?” That tells you everything.

I did really enjoy the twist in “Danny Phantom” that Danny doesn’t need to keep his identity secret from his enemies, but from his family- not to protect his family, but because his family are ghost hunters, and they’re liable to hurt him. But, like… I would have enjoyed some filler episodes, actually. Episodes where Danny didn’t even fight ghosts. Episodes that gave him more character traits. Because who is Danny without his ghost powers? He’s a shy kid who enjoys learning about outer space and wants to get with the cool crowd, but has only two close friends. Mostly, he only does poorly in school because he never has the chance to sleep or study, or when he does have free time, he’s distracted by video games.

I wanted to see that Danny a little more, and not just when Danny gave up his ghost powers in “Phantom Planet”. I wanted THAT Danny to have angst. The problem with Season 3 was, in Season 1, Danny was learning to control his powers for the first time. In Season 3, he’d mastered them. He didn’t struggle anymore. He lacked good weaknesses. His weakness became exhausting himself to the point where he slipped back into human form. Aka, the removal of powers: kryptonite. His angst was about fighting ghosts. It was very plot-based. And that worked really well until suddenly it didn’t. Fans of the show have rounded his character out some more, but canon!Danny was left flailing for weaknesses in Season 3, or so I think.

I didn’t mean to go off about shows that you didn’t even ask about in your question. Sorry! This is the first time I’ve tried putting into words my thoughts about why those shows are neat to watch, yet I don’t consider myself part of their respective fandoms.

What I enjoy about BIaB is, the fantastic racism element is definitely there, but it’s not the main focus of every single episode (Geez, that would get annoying fast). It’s a show about, well… fitting in. Making new friends. Struggling with a bully who hurts people emotionally instead of physically. Culture shock. It’s about two kids caring for one another, accepting who they are and who the other is, making mistakes, and learning to be better people in the process. Y’know. With plenty of angst sprinkled on top. The type of angst that fleshes characters out and builds up solid worlds. The kind of angst that I enjoy a lot.

So, DP, GF, and “Star” are generally well-done and awesome, but for whatever reason, I just appreciate them in a different way than I do FOP and BIaB. Anyone who’s been around my blog for awhile knows which of the shows I watch I actually produce fanwork for.

I think it’s interesting that people enjoy different things, don’t you?

#Bunsen Is a Beast #asks #Anon #Beasty such a beaut #Fluffy blue transfer student #Official human buddy TM #Distant helicopter parents #Savage spittle queen #screenshots #GIFs #'ChalkZone' is another very nice 'subtle-angst' show you may enjoy #Going Ghost!#Dimensional scissor show #99% true as far as we remember

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