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the-stove-is-on-fire · 3 years

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Time to Retcon Phantom Planet.

I took Flynn from Elmer, I'm taking PP too.

There I was, just minding my business when an errant thought about the cursed Danny Phantom finale graced my mind. In the ep Vlad had to touch the ectoranium asteroid to realize his plan is a bust. He got his hands ON the meteor. The meteor speeding through space at a deadly pace...

So that got me thinking, If Vlad had the means to keep up with the darn thing WHY DID HE NOT SIMPLY PUSH THE METEOR OFF COURSE ??? THERE'S NO FRICTION IN SPACE HE COULD BLAST IT A BIT TO THE LEFT AND BOOM! PROBLEM SOLVED. Obviously, after that realization the only logical next step is to retcon the whole episode.

I’m going to A) rename it “Altering Course” and B) make it Vlad-centric. With the aforementioned correction, and the magic of cartoon logic, the result would be Vlad’s plan to take over the world actually working. V-man gets exactly what he wants, Jack in prison (or something, we obviously can't kill him), Maddie as his begrudging wife, Danny and Jazz as his kids and the whole world under his command.

And it SUCKS.

Cue a montage of Vlad being hounded by world leaders asking what he's going to do about all these different problems in other countries now that he's "in charge". Being badgered by the press every possible second for statements about "what his plans are now?" Which catches him off guard because, well…. THIS was his endgame, he has no more plans. So instead of answering he goes ghost and flees. But he's not safe in the ghost zone either because now ghosts are popping up to challenge him for "the right to rule the mortal world".

After an absurdly hectic day Vlad finally makes it home to his mansion, beaten, bruised, and exhausted. "Well, at least I have my new loving family." WRONG. The whole night is full of Danny and Jazz glaring at Vlad and pranking him when they’re not avoiding him. Maddie (the human) serving him burnt, ecto-contaminated food for dinner, and pointedly sleeping on the couch. Vlad proposes they have a “family game night” and everyone leaves the room. The day ends the same as all the others before it: Vlad miserable and alone in his bed with no one but Maddie (the cat) beside him. A long, slow pan outwards from Vlad staring silently at his ceiling to emphasize the weight of his loneliness and how nothing has changed.

Hard cut to the next morning.

[BREAKING NEWS! SUPREME OVERLORD VLAD MASTERS STEPS DOWN AFTER ONE DAY OF RESPONSIBILITY. DEMANDS STATE OF WISCONSIN IN EXCHANGE FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD.]

Danny confronts Vlad after the news breaks, understandably suspicious. "So what? That's it? You got everything you wanted just to give it up after one day?" Vlad sighs, "Clearly, I bit off more than I could chew, the idea of world domination is much nicer than the reality of it." He looks at Jack and Maddie being tearfully reunited, "Power is a hollow substitute for love, it's taken me until now to realize that."

Vlad apologizes to Jack (who also apologizes for the proto-portal incident), apologizes to Maddie and the kids, and declares he’s done with scheming. Danny hesitates, but then offers to help Vlad become a hero if he wants. “I could train you, teach you everything I know. And all you'd have to do is renounce your old evil ways.” Vlad laughs upon hearing the offer he made Danny being turned back on himself. Vlad agrees and they shake on it. The ep ends on a close up of their handshake and fades to black with outro music.

I think Danny making peace with his main villain would be a great place to stop the series if it was forced to end there, but still open enough to invite another season exploring Vlad's redemption arc (and Valerie’s, since the theme of S4 would be ‘befriending your enemies’).

Unlike PP the focus of the episode wouldn’t be on the sensationalism of “ghosts are real!??” or the disasteroid itself, but on Vlad’s personal growth. The reality of responsibility, consequences of one’s actions, and power of forgiveness. No mayor Tucker, no stranded in space Vlad, no outing Phantom to the entire world, no weird forced romance.

Now for your entertainment please consider these post AC headlines:

- "Billionaire commits crimes against humanity, faces no consequences for his actions. Claims to have 'turned over a new leaf'"

- “Half-Ghost or Half-Truth? Elaborate publicity stunt causes DALV Co stock to surge overnight”

- “Dairy King Vlad Masters Becomes Official King of Wisconsin”

#Danny Phantom #DP #Vlad Masters #Danny Fenton #Phantom Planet #stove writes #stove on fire #long post #AC #Altering Course #26230 #not like there haven't already been a million and one pp rewrites lol #sketching in the official DP style is so unfamiliar

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thesoulspulse · 3 years

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Good Vlad AU (Befriending A Fruitloop)

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

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

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

To put it simply, Good Vlad is like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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redrobin-detective · 3 years

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DP Time travel AU, except not Dan because he sucks

(You want a rewrite of Memory Blank? I can do that)

- Danny makes a wish in earshot of desiree about wanting to be able to go back and stop himself from going in the portal. Future Danny arrives just before Past Danny, Tuck and Sam go into the basement to look at the portal. Future Dany pulls his past self aside in secret and tells him under no circumstances to go into the portal which younger Danny agrees too. Future Danny watches happily as past Danny pulls Sam and Tuck out of basement and goes up to his room instead. He goes back to his present.

- Amity Park is a war zone when he returns. Ghosts have half overrun the place. The Fentons could never get the portal up but their hubris and attempt upset the ghosts causing the town to be overrun. Jack and Maddie are hardly ever home, too busy out hunting every moment of the day also universally reviled by the town but too desperate for their help to kick them out. Danny and Jazz are pariahs in school, when its able to be in session.

- everything is different, people he knows are dead, everyone is afraid and there's no real hope of the attacks slowing down. Desperate, danny grabs the speeder and heads towards Wisconsin. Vlad has no idea what to make of Jack and Maddie's son showing up on his doorstep. He's the one who set the Fenton's up or failure by setting the ghosts on the town, he's waiting for Jack to die in battle so he can ship the kids off to boarding school and marry Maddie.

- Angry, Danny grabs the speeder and heads into the Zone to fix this whole mess. He wanders aimlessly until he's caught by the ghosts. He fights off valiently but is soon overwhelmed but before he can be killed, Clockwork intervenes. He agrees to redo the timeline, apparently this version is not only Bad but its also unstable. Danny's accident is a fixed point and undoing it causes the timeline to unravel.

- Danny goes back and redoes the accident not only knowing that Amity will be in ruins without him there to fend off the ghosts but because he feels angry and powerless and lost without his ghost half. Parts of Phantom lives in him even without his powers but without direction, he was missing a piece of himself. He walks into the portal this time with his eyes wide open and ready for the joys and responsibilities that come with being half ghost.

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cartoonsliveon · 4 years

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More Sam Phantom AU Headcanons

Still thinking alot about this so....

1) Sam is still responsible for the sudden change to the school’s lunch menu. Ultra-recyclo vegetarians for the win at last! Danny and Tucker are still very angry about the change because neither of them want to be eating a slice of bread with grass on it. Or be forced to survive off of salads for the next four years. And Tucker is still the one to rat Sam out to the Lunch Lady ghost.

But, instead of Danny having to constantly rescue Sam from the Lunch Lady while his best friends fight over the school menu, Sam is battling the Lunch Lady while also trying to defend the changes she coerced the school board into making. Tucker, being a meat eater, is just angry that he’s being told that he can’t eat the food that he loves so much. He’s just angry about the radical change. Danny joins in because, since they’re best friends with Sam, the bullying has gotten a million times worse from Dash and the other jocks.

Unsurprisingly there’s a lot of tension, where Sam feels hurt that they don’t support her and her desire to make positive changes. But the boys feel that she’s going to far, thinking about what she wants and not what others also want, and that she isn’t considering how this is now impacting them. However, they do eventually make up in the end and, with more pushing to the irate school board, the new school menu is changed to include one main vegetarian meal and one of the tradition school meals. It doesn’t satisfy Lunch Lady but it satisfies Danny and Tucker.

2) Sam is the one being hunted down by Skulker in “One of a Kind”. Because of all the late night ghost hunting, and the fact that Tucker released all the ghosts they captured by accident, she barely manages a C plus on her biology test. Despite getting every question Danny had quizzed her on during the night correct, she’s too exhausted to focus and barely manages to stay awake during it. A C plus isn’t bad, it’s still passing. But knowing that her parents will freak out if they see it, and she doesn’t want it to tank her grades or draw any unwanted parental attention to her, Sam takes on an extra credit assignment about Samson the purple back gorilla. An easy assignment because Sam is already so invested with the idea of releasing Samson back into the wild.

Danny and Tucker still fall asleep on the floor, because they’re bored from watching a gorilla scratch their butt for hours on end. Sam leaves them (after getting her blackmail material for future use) and goes to Samson’s habitat. She does release Samson, because they’re freaking out about Skulker, and she battles the ghost bounty hunter down there. She also continues to be attacked in all of the same places as Danny was, including Fenton Works. This is mainly due to the fact that it’s the closest location to the ghost portal and, from all his time watching Sam and preparing for the hunt has learned that she spends more time at Danny’s house than at her own.

Her fight with Skulker in Danny’s room draws the attention of the Fenton’s and their guest. Jazz is livid. And Danny is trying his best with the equipment he had “borrowed” from the lab and hid in his room to help Sam while Tucker distracts the Fenton’s. Danny is left behind in his room when the two ghosts phase through the floor and Danny slams the door shut behind him as he rushes to go help Sam. Everyone gets a glimpse of his destroyed room, Jazz is angry at the attention he’s getting, she’s also a bit suspicious about the weird noises they all heard.

3) Sam ends up with Locker 724 when a fight with the Box Ghost wrecked hers. Sam ends up switching places with Sidney Poindexter, a nerdy girl from the 1950s who was the favorite target of her own bullies (it would be weird if Sam and Sidney switched places if Sidney was not also a girl). Sidney sees Sam using her ghost powers against Paulina, for all the teasing that she’s getting from her failed assembly for saving the frogs (showing up dressed up in a dress from My Fair Lady completely undermined everything she had planned). And on Dash for all the grief he’s been giving them as well.

Tucker and Danny catch on really quick that it isn’t actually Sam, because the moment Sidney took over, she was hanging with Paulina and the cheerleaders and completely abandoned her efforts to free the frogs. Giant red flags that neither Danny or Tucker could ignore.

4) Knowing that there are ghosts after his dad, Danny manages to convince his parents to let him invite Sam along for the road trip. Danny doesn’t trust that the vultures just turn tail and left, that they might try to follow the family when they leave town. And he also knows how his parents are, it’ll be really hard protecting them and capturing the ghosts when he’s being sheltered like a little kid. Jack has, of course, no problem having another pair of ears to talk off. Maddie is uncertain at first (as she doesn’t want to make it awkward for Sam or for Vlad), but Danny reminds her that Sam’s parents are away on another business trip/social obligation and, although she loves her grand daughter, Grandma Izzy had plans with her elderly friends. Which would leave Sam alone at her house while Danny was in Wisconsin and Tucker was visiting family.

Sam is awoken in the middle of the night by the vultures, and has her fight with Vlad where she gets her halfa butt handed to her. Vlad is, admittably, surprised that Sam is the halfa and incredibly curious how she got her ghost powers. How did Jack Fenton screw up so badly a second time to give someone ghost powers but not get in any kind of trouble nearly killing a teen, especially one from such a wealthy family (being a billionaire, of course Vlad knows of the Mansons). Danny is admittably, incredibly confused when Sam tells him about the ghost she fought. But neither of them suspect Vlad at all until he reveals himself.

When Sam threatens to expose them both to the Fenton’s and everyone else at the reunion, she says “Danny will always have my back and protect me. But once everyone realizes what you were trying to do, well, who’s going to protect you?” because they both know that by exposing Vlad’s plots in trying to dispose of Jack, he’ll lose both Jack and Maddie’s support and friendship.

5) Although Tucker and Danny don’t find out about Sam’s family being rich until the “Attack of the Killer Garage Sale”, when Danny gets invited to Dash’s party because he’s hitting on Jazz, Maddie has always sort of known. Jack does too, sort of, but he constantly forgets or the reality of how rich hasn’t quite hit him like it hit Tucker. Maddie knows, mainly because she wants to know what type of people Danny might be surrounding himself with, as children usually take after their parents. Maddie recognizes that Sam is nothing at all like her parents, and has never said anything because it isn’t really her secret or fact to share. Furthermore, neither Jack nor Maddie are super fond of the Manson’s, for their disapproval towards Danny (and their professions as ghost hunters). And Maddie hates it that they’re so blind to how great a child/teenager Sam is, wanting to pressure her to fit into their mold of a bubbly, carefree socialite heiress.

6) Grandma Izzy discovered Sam’s powers very early on. Although neither of Sam’s parents see it, Grandma Izzy always notices when Sam’s powers act up. When her arms phase through the table or her feet hover above the ground by the slightest inch. When she checks up on Sam late at night when its just the two of them home, she’ll see her grand daughter either floating slightly above the bed of having gone invisible with the blankets obviously still on top of her. And also, unlike almost everyone else in Amity Park who knows Sam, Grandma Izzy recognizes her in her ghost form in a heart beat.

#Danny Phantom #AUs #headcanons

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ladylynse · 6 years

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here's another if you're still doing it: "Cracked Image"

Honestly, that sounds like what I would’ve called my scrapped sequel to Mirrored. Where 88 and 89 screw up. And things start to…unravel. We know from Hong Kong Longs that the Huntsclan bases and stuff still exist, despite the fact that they technically never did since they were written out of the timeline, so it’s quite feasible 88 and 89 would get into something.

Time travel is a thing in both shows. So are alternate timelines. But if the current reality started to crack and other bits bled through? It may not be too noticeable at first, the changes may not be very big or last very long, but it would get worse. The closest realities to it start to blend into the current reality, and the period of time that they’re blended for slowly becomes longer and longer. So, Danny comes home and the house is empty, because his family was killed when the Nasty Burger exploded. Or, the only one to be found at the Fenton house is Jack Plasmius. Or suddenly everyone in town knows Danny’s secret and the Guys in White are on his tail because the Freakshow incident didn’t get wiped from everyone’s minds. Or Rose is back in school, or the Huntsclan still exists, or Gramps’s back is injured again after that nasty fall he took. Or, more notably, Jonathan Long knows the family secret. But then everything goes back to normal, leaving the people who realize what’s going on terribly confused. Only magical creatures can identify the shift–and the people at the centre of the blast, poor 88 and 89, who have no idea how to fix what they’ve done, or even know exactly what it is they’ve done.

Failing that, I’d probably still go DP. The title pretty much screams reveal fic for me—though how much and to who could easily be shuffled.

We’ll pick Jack Fenton because I haven’t done one with him for a while. Some important symbolism off the start would be him accidentally knocking off the picture of him, Maddie, and Vlad from their college days and cracking the glass in his enthusiasm to grab some ghost hunting weapons—because it’s nice to get some physical cracking in there. *grins*

But Jack forgets about the photograph, too eager to chase down Phantom who had the audacity to appear right outside their house. Again. It’s downright annoying; he’s basically thumbing his nose at them, showing up in their backyard or on their doorstep so often. Sure, he doesn’t stick around once Jack gets off a few blasts, but he’s taunting them, plain and simple. He’s fast, obviously likes playing chicken more than he fears their weaponry, and discredits their abilities at the same time as he’s trying to appear more likeable to the rest of the town by ‘patrolling’ a residential neighbourhood.

It’s a statement to them, proclaiming that this town is his haunt, and it makes Jack’s blood boil because that ghost is too close to his family, and he knows that’s not a mistake.

He’d worry so much less if Jazz and Danny went hunting with them more often. If he knew they kept their skills sharp, if he believed they could hold their own in a fight, then maybe he wouldn’t worry quite so much about the possibility of them being a target. Or tricked, as is more likely with a ghost like Phantom.

He tells Maddie he wants to take the kids out today—it’s early on in the school year, and Jazz might be in her last year but she shouldn’t be busy already—only to find out that Jazz has gone to the library and Danny is with Sam and Tucker. Jazz being at the library isn’t a terrible surprise, but Jack would’ve thought it was early enough to catch Danny in bed. Tired as he was, it was funny he wouldn’t use the weekend to sleep in before hanging out with his friends.

Maddie’s in the middle of a batch of cookies, so Jack sets off on his own, following Phantom’s general trajectory since he’s not showing up on the portable Fenton Finder yet.

The moment something does ping, Jack narrowly avoids creating more ghosts as he manhandles to Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle in as direct a line to his target as possible.

Correction: targets.

The vehicle isn’t fully stopped by the time Jack is bursting out the door, the Fenton Bazooka whining as it charges. It’s rare to have both Phantom and the former Wisconsin ghost in his sights, and he’s not about to lose that opportunity. He’s never forgiven Plasmius for endangering his family, and though Phantom might’ve helped him once, Jack’s not foolish enough to assume he always will. If these two are colluding—

But they don’t even notice him, too busy exchanging blasts and catcalls just outside of town. The GAV isn’t camouflaged at all—he’s too far from the nearest copse of trees to hope for that—but he crouches in some shrubbery as if it’ll be enough to dull his day glow orange HAZMAT suit.

“You got a cat! Why can’t that be enough for you?”

Phantom’s taunt is accompanied by an ectoblast Plasmius easily counters with a shield. “Daniel, fine a specimen as my Maddie is, she is not—”

“You named her Maddie? Gross. I did not need to know that. You really are some seriously messed up froot loop.” Ice this time, formed into deadly shards that meet their end with Plasmius’s fireball.

That earns Phantom an eye roll, which Jack sees because he has his sights turned on Plasmius. A few more seconds of conversation is all he needs, and then the Fenton Bazooka will be ready to fire. He’s got a few ecto-guns and other less powerful weapons on him if they decided to attack him, of course—he’s always prepared—but the Fenton Bazooka packs a punch, even against powerful ghosts like Phantom and Plasmius.

A sigh. “You and your mother are both very dear to me, Daniel. If you only—”

Jack takes the shot without taking time to double check the setting on the Fenton Bazooka. He’s modified it, added another setting. A lesser version of the Fenton Peeler, the first shot is designed specifically to weaken the stronger ghosts so they could be captured and taken back to study.

It works as well as he expects, easily hitting Plasmius’s shoulder and knocking him down, out of range of Phantom’s most recent blast. Phantom himself pulls back, but while Jack isn’t foolish enough to turn his back on Phantom, he’s not overly worried, either. Phantom and Plasmius have their big rivalry because Plasmius has been trying to encroach on what Phantom believes is his turf. While they have a common enemy, Phantom won’t attack him.

Jack runs, getting closer—but not too close—to his downed prey. Plasmius’s teeth are clenched and he’s clearly fighting, but a bright patch of white has settled on his shoulder where the blast it, and it’s growing.

Plasmius shrieks, and the light explodes.

Plasmius is clutching his arm now, his pristine appearance gone. Green leaks from beneath his fingers. “What is this?” he growls. He looks at Jack and then at Phantom. White light builds again.

“I…I don’t know.” Phantom sounds terrified. His helpless gaze swings to Jack, too, and Jack’s momentarily stunned that he’s landed instead of fleeing, especially once he’s seen the newest modifications.

Jack studies its effects on Plasmius. It’s hard to look where he’d been hit, bright as it is, but—

Why does it look red?

Plasmius lets out an agonizing roar, and the light swallows him again.

When Jack blinks the spots away from his eyes, he’s staring at the sobbing form of his best friend.

(see more fics)

#danny phantom #jack fenton #danny fenton #vlad plasmius #vlad masters #fanfiction #fic ideas #my writing #ladylynse #at least I know you know the fandom this time #*grins*#thanks az!#azthedragon #asks

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monotype-on-phantom · 7 years

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I’m gonna talk about Valerie for a bit, but I’d like to clarify that this is not an analysis. I like to keep my analyses focused on how a character did or could work. This post is going to be a bit more on the critical side.

I’m not questioning Valerie’s character or anything. I think most of the episodes that actually give her some focus are great. This one’s a bit of a problem for me, though, and I think it’s a good chance to address why I feel Valerie got a bit jipped.

One thing that bothers me is that Valerie disappears for long periods of time, and she only appears when the writers feel like giving her an entire episode. Public Enemies was an episode with hundreds of ghosts attacking, and the ghost kid is supposedly the one responsible, but our Red Huntress is nowhere to be seen.

When Reign Storm rolls around, Valerie fighting the ghosts feels very natural. It’s like she’s supposed to be always there, but she’s not. It feels like the writers are sticking her on a shelf instead of giving her the focus and development she deserves.

Personally, I’ve always considered her one of the main characters, along with the Trio and the Fentons, but in reality, she gets six episodes, and only four of those are really about her. She’s just sort of there in TUE, and Reign Storm tried to include as many characters as possible, so of course Valerie gets to play a part.

Four episodes out of 52 belong to Valerie, and only two more that give her any kind of development. For a character that many of us consider important, that’s criminal. For Vlad, it makes sense that he doesn’t appear in the majority of episodes in the first two seasons. He’s in Wisconsin. But Valerie? She goes to the same school as Danny, and she’s supposedly devoted her life to ghost fighting. She should almost always be there.

Episodes like Maternal Instinct, The Fenton Menace, and even Lucky in Love make sense. Danny’s either out of town or caught in a more personal battle in episodes like that. But she should absolutely appear in Public Enemies and The Million Dollar Ghost.

How would I have worked her in? I’m honestly not sure, because the dynamic of a lot of things could be changed if she was there. It could be made to work, though. Just include her as one of those fighting ghosts. If you need her to not get in the way, have her be someone overshadowed in Public Enemies. She’d be great for that.

Another problem I have with her is her development. While it’s actually very good, it’s sporadic and rushed if you consider only the time where she’s on screen.

Shades of Gray is perfect. It has Valerie being demoted to outcast status instead of part of the popular crowd, and she starts trying to hang out with Danny’s group of friends as a way to learn more about ghost hunting.

The very next episode where she appears, though, forgets all of that and only keeps her grudge against Danny Phantom. As for Danny Fenton, their relationship has changed to mutual dislike and seeing each other as the biggest jerks they know. While I see where they’re both coming from, in a lot of ways it’s unwarranted and kind of forced.

By the end of the episode, we’re supposed to buy that Danny was in the wrong and he needs to get to know Valerie better to get along with her, just like Valerie needs to give ghosts a chance. I do not buy that, though.

Valerie, sweetie, I don’t know how to break this to you, but Danny was pissed because you tried to pawn the majority of the work for a school project onto him because “you were busy.” I understand that life’s tough because you have a job and you’re fighting ghosts, but you just assumed that he had nothing to do and could therefore carry most of the responsibility for you. You could have been paired up with anybody, but the chances of them reacting differently than Danny are pretty slim.

Danny does know what it’s like to be busy. He’s fighting ghosts constantly. He loses sleep and leisure time constantly, and his grades also happen to be in the toilet. The worst part of this is I can’t tell if the writers were attempting to make this a character flaw of hers or if they really think they did a good job excusing her behavior and making Danny look like the bad guy.

His attitude is unwarranted. He takes out his aggression on the Nasty Burger employees without even knowing Valerie works there, and he doesn’t take the time to listen to Valerie. However, she does the exact same things to him, and the most resolution we get from her side is solely her declaring a short lived truce with Danny Phantom.

If this is supposed to be the episode where the two of them start to come to an understanding, they really did a disservice to Valerie with this one. To make matters worse, the very next episode she makes an appearance in is the one where she starts crushing on Danny. Watching these two episodes back to back...it doesn’t flow at all, and there are episodes in between that really could’ve used her presence. (The Million Dollar Ghost, Pirate Radio, heck even Memory Blank could’ve addressed what happened to her as a result of Sam’s wish.)

I mentioned in the past how I wish Tucker and Valerie’s relationship had been allowed to last longer, and I feel the same about hers and Danny’s friendship. That could’ve been done more gradually, and gotten more focus, and Valerie could’ve been a bigger rival for Danny Phantom instead of showing up only when the writers wanted her to. This would’ve given them more time to address her flaws instead of just Danny’s. Because Danny is flawed, but for two people to go from hating each other to dating, it takes more than just one person saying “well, I guess I can take the fall in this instance.”

Valerie has a problem with assuming anyone she doesn’t like must be a terrible person. Danny Fenton, Danny Phantom, and even Sam and Tucker in Reign Storm. The only times she starts to like someone are when they start giving her what she wants (such as Danny apologizing for not doing the majority of the work for her, him doing her favors like hiding her from Nathan and covering for her at work, and Sam saying she’ll give Valerie a chance since Danny likes her.) She’s never expected to change by the narrative. She never apologizes for treating the “geeks” badly in the past, even when Sam points it out. She never is portrayed as being in the wrong for shoving things off on Danny. The fact that she has a tendency to put more people in danger with her ghost fighting is not even addressed.

None of these flaws make her a bad character in the least. These are character flaws, just like any character should have. The problem is that characters like Danny and Tucker are frequently expected to change, and Sam has to acknowledge her mistakes on multiple occasions, but things like that are really rare for Valerie, and I think that’s largely due to her lack of screen time.

She should’ve had more episodes dedicated to growth. She should’ve been given more time to develop her relationship with Danny, and even with Sam and Tucker. And of course, she deserved a better conclusion than what she got in Phantom Planet.

If I had my way, Valerie would appear in every episode having to do with massive ghost fighting, and this episode would’ve been more dedicated to both Danny and Valerie realizing they were in the wrong.

Okay, rant over. Again, I do love Val, and I don’t blame her for all of this. She’s a great character on her own. She just doesn’t get the time she needs to grow, and that’s something that really needs to be fixed.

I’ll continue addressing Val when I hit Reign Storm, because that episode really shows what could be done with her character.

#yet another reason reign storm is best episode #danny phantom #valerie gray #i'll tag this if it bugs anyone #cast #plot #life lessons #save valerie

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klbmsw · 7 years

Text

Hasan Minhaj's one-liners from last night's White House correspondents’ dinner:

— “I would say it is an honor to be here, but that would be an alternative fact. It is not. No one wanted to do this. So of course it lands in the hands of an immigrant.”

— “Don Rickles died just so you wouldn’t ask him to do this gig, all right? RIP to Don Rickles, the only Donald with skin thick enough to take a joke like that.”

— “A lot of people in the media say that Donald Trump goes golfing too much. . . which raises a very important question: Why do you care? Do you want to know what he’s not doing when he’s golfing? Being president. Let the man putt-putt! . . . The longer you keep him distracted, the longer we’re not at war with North Korea.”

— “We gotta address the elephant that’s not in the room. The leader of our country is not here. And that’s because he lives in Moscow; it is a very long flight. It’d be hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad can’t just make it on a Saturday! As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”

— “There was also another elephant in the room, but Donald Trump Jr. shot it and cut off its tail.”

— “Jeff Sessions couldn’t be here tonight, he was busy doing a pre-Civil War reenactment. On his RSVP, he just wrote ‘NO.’ Just ‘no,’ which happens to be his second favorite n-word.”

— “Is Steve Bannon here? I do not see Steve Bannon. I do NOT see Steve Bannon. Not see Steve Bannon. Nazi Steve Bannon.”

— “Betsy DeVos couldn’t be here; she’s busy curating her collection of children’s tears.”

— “Frederick Douglass isn’t here, and that’s because he’s dead. Someone please tell the president.”

— “Mike Pence wanted to be here tonight, but his wife would not let him because apparently one of you ladies is ovulating. So good job, ladies. Because of you we couldn’t hang out with Mike Pence.”

— “Even Hillary Clinton couldn’t be here tonight. I mean, she could have been here, but I think someone told her the event was in Wisconsin and Michigan.”

— “[Sean Spicer] has been doing PR since 1999. He has been doing this job for 18 years. And somehow, after 18 years, his go-to move when you ask him a tough question is denying the Holocaust. That is insane! How many people do you know that can turn a press briefing into a full-on Mel Gibson traffic stop?”

— “Donald Trump is liar-in-chief. Remember, you guys are public enemy number one. You are his biggest enemy. Journalists, ISIS, normal-length ties.”

— “It is amazing to be among the greatest journalists in the world, and yet, when we all checked into the Hilton on Friday, we all got a USA Today. Every time a USA Today slides underneath my door, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Hey, you’re not that smart, right?’ USA Today is what happens when the coupon section takes over the newspaper. Is this an article about global warming or 50 cents off Tide? Either way, the pictures are so pretty!”

— “The news coming out of the White House is so stressful, I’ve been watching ‘House of Cards’ just to relax. Oh man, a congressman pushed a journalist in front of a moving train? That’s quaint!”

— “Even if you guys groan, I’ve already hired Kellyanne Conway; she’s gonna go on TV on Monday and tell everybody I killed, so it really doesn’t matter.”

— (To the press) “Remember election night? That was your Steve Harvey/Miss Universe moment.”

— “It was all fun and games with Obama, right? You were covering an adult who could speak English. And now you’re covering President Trump, so you gotta take your game to a whole new level. It’s like if a bunch of stripper cops had to solve a real-life murder.”

— “Tonight is about defending the First Amendment and the free press, and I am truly honored to be here, even though all of Hollywood pulled out now that King Joffrey is president and it feels like the Red Wedding in here.”

— “We all know this administration likes deleting history faster than Anthony Weiner when he hears footsteps.”

— “[Donald Trump] tweets at 3 a.m. sober. Who is tweeting at 3 a.m. sober? Donald Trump, because it’s 10 a.m. in Russia. Those are business hours.”

— “This has been one of the strangest events I’ve ever done in my life. I’m being honest with you. I feel like I’m a tribute in ‘The Hunger Games.’ If this goes poorly, Steve Bannon gets to eat me.”

— “Fox News is here. I’m amazed you guys even showed up. How are you here in public? It’s hard to trust you guys when you backed a man like Bill O’Reilly for years. But it finally happened. Bill O’Reilly has been fired. But then, you gave him a $25 million severance package. Making it the only package he won’t force a woman to touch.”

— “I know some of you are wondering, Hasan, how do you know so much about Fox News? Well as a Muslim, I like to watch Fox News for the same reason I like to play ‘Call of Duty.’ Sometimes, I like to turn my brain off and watch strangers insult my family and heritage.”

— “MSNBC is here tonight. And I’m glad you guys are here. That way if I’m bombing, Brian Williams will describe it as stunning.”

— “MSNBC. It’s hard to trust you guys when you send so many mixed messages. On the one hand you tell us the prison industrial complex is the problem, and then you air five straight hours of ‘Lockup.’ You can’t be mad at corporations profiting off of minorities in prison when you’re a corporation profiting off of minorities in prison.”

— “I had a lot more MSNBC jokes, but I don’t want to just ramble on, otherwise I might get a show on MSNBC.”

— “CNN is here, baby. You guys got some really weird trust issues with the public. I’m not going to call you fake news, but everything isn’t breaking news. You can’t go to DEFCON-1 just because Sanjay Gupta found a new moisturizer.”

— “All you guys do is stoke up conflict. Don, every time I watch your show, it feels like I’m watching a reality TV show. ‘CNN Tonight’ should just be called ‘Wait a Second Now Hold On Stop Yelling At Each Other With Don Lemon.’”

— “You guys have to be more perfect now more than ever. Because you are how the president gets his news. Not from advisers, not from experts, not from intelligence agencies. You guys. So that’s why you gotta be on your A game. You gotta be twice as good. You can’t make any mistakes. Because when one of you messes up, he blames your entire group. And now you know what it feels like to be a minority.”

— (Later, addressed again to the media.) “By the way, you guys aren’t really minorities, you’re super white.”

— “It’s 11 p.m. In four hours, Donald Trump will be tweeting about how badly Nicki Minaj did at this dinner. And he’ll be doing it completely sober. And that’s his right. And I’m proud that all of us are here to defend that right, even if the man in the White House never would.”

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