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fangirlwriting-stories · 7 months

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Chess Masters

Summary: Tucker and Sam are tired of looking for answers in regards to what's going on with Danny.

Vlad is happy to provide them.

...

Tucker is very ready to understand what’s going on with Danny, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen anytime soon.

He knows he’s not alone in this opinion— he and Sam talk about it all the time. That for all they’ve learned, there’s clearly something Danny’s not telling them. Something they need to know if they’re going to help him.

In all fairness, that’s not new. They’ve both suspected Danny’s been keeping something from them for a while now. What’s new, actually, is the fact that whatever secret he has is hurting him.

Before, he’d seemed fine. Maybe a little stressed, but that’s Danny for you. And there were a couple times Tucker had even thought that Danny had seemed almost… happier? No, wrong word. Satisfied? Proud of himself? Something.

All of that something is gone now. And Tucker needs Danny to tell him what’s going on, so they can talk about it. So he can help.

“It’s just…” Tucker gestures wildly with his hands. “You know?”

“Yeah, I do,” Sam says, turning to face him from where she’s sprawled herself out on his bed. “You know I do.”

They’ve gathered at his house to have something like a war meeting in regards to Danny, just after school when Danny’s special permission to come over hasn’t activated yet. Tucker feels a little guilty using Danny’s grounding as an advantage against him, but he’s not sure he can take this much longer. He has to do something.

“I don’t know what else to try,” he says to Sam, rubbing his arms under his sleeves. The room is weirdly cold. “I straight up told him to stop lying to me, and he just goes, ‘No.’ Like, what am I supposed to do with that Sam? Obviously asking him directly is off the table. Am I supposed to spy on him?”

“Maybe,” Sam says with a shrug, looking way more serious than she should.

“I was kidding, Sam,” Tucker says with a sigh. “I’m not going to invade his privacy like that.”

“He’s not telling us anything,” Sam snaps, glaring at Tucker. “He’s not giving us a ton of other options.”

Tucker taps absentmindedly on his PDA screen. “He’s allowed to have secrets, Sam,” he says quietly. “That’s not the part I’m worried about.”

“That’s not the part you’re worried about?” Sam asks, turning to him in bafflement. “Tucker, we don’t do secrets between us. Or we didn’t used to. And now suddenly he’s acting weird and not telling us things and clearly trying to handle things he shouldn’t on his own. He wouldn’t tell us when he got kidnapped, Tucker.”

Tucker sighs. She has a point there. There has to be a point when keeping the secret is more harmful than telling it, whatever it is. And they’ve clearly reached that point, and Danny still isn’t telling them. Still, he doesn’t want to force Danny to do something he doesn’t want to. Especially not now, after he’s quite literally just been kidnapped.

“Well maybe… maybe he doesn’t have to tell us,” Tucker says. “Maybe we can just ask if he’s talking to someone.”

“Uh, no,” Sam says, and Tucker glanced over at her in surprise.

“Huh?”

“Bullshit. I’m tired of him hiding things from me. He doesn’t do that. And he needs help, and I want to help him. I want to prove to him that I can.”

Tucker looks down at his PDA and doesn’t say anything. He opens a game he can tap at mindlessly while they talk.

“Come on, you do too,” Sam says, giving him a look. “I know you do.”

Tucker nods. “Yeah,” he agrees, though he doesn’t say that he’s pretty sure there’s a difference between wanting to help and actually being helpful.

“Great,” Sam says. “So you’re gonna help me then, right?”

Tucker looks up at Sam. It would have been easy to miss the worry and fear underneath her grim determination if he wasn’t looking for it.

He nods. “Okay,” he says quietly. “But if he catches us we stop.”

Sam rolls her eyes. “Well yeah.”

Tucker sighs. “How do you want to start?”

…

Apparently, despite not really wanting to do this, Tucker is the one who’s going to bear the brunt of the responsibility, because the first thing they notice in the classes they share is that Danny has a habit of asking to go to the bathroom at seemingly random times and then not actually going to the bathroom.

Sam can’t follow Danny into the boys bathroom too many times without looking suspicious, meaning that’s going to leave this up to Tucker.

So he ignores the guilt pinching his chest, and asks to follow Danny next time, after he leaves the room.

He doesn’t actually get a chance to try and find Danny, though. What he does find is Invis-o-bill chasing down a ghost through the hallway— a weird green octopus-looking ghost, that just so happens to be coming right for him.

Tucker yelps and tries to duck, and he hears Invis-o-bill give some kind of surprised cry a second later too. He opens his eyes, not sure what that’s about, and sees Invis-o-bill leap onto the ghost and go intangible, just in time for them to both pass harmlessly through Tucker.

Tucker shivers, likely an aftereffect to having two ghosts leap right through you, then turns after him just in time to see them vanish through the other wall. He blinks after them for a second just before the ghost alarm goes off, meaning there’s no way he’s finding Danny in this mess.

People start pouring out into the hallway a second later, and start making their way out the doors and towards the football stadium. Tucker starts looking for Danny once they’re there, but the only person he manages to find is Sam. Or more accurately, Sam finds him, by grabbing his shoulder from behind and spinning him around. Tucker yelps, calming down when he sees it’s just her.

“Did you find Danny?” she asks.

Tucker presses a hand to his chest, shaking his head as he takes (slightly exaggerated) deep breaths. “I don’t see him here either,” he manages after a second.

“Me either,” Sam says, crossing her arms in annoyance and obvious worry she won’t be admitting to. “Where the hell did he go?”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Tucker says. “Out of all of us, Danny’s probably the most adept at ghost fighting. He taught you how to use that, remember?” He gestures at the wrist ray that’s now pretty constantly strapped to Sam’s wrist.

Sam nods, even as she starts fidgeting with the strap, the way she’s started to do when she’s nervous. Tucker’s pretty sure she thinks he hasn’t noticed.

Danny does turn up, though it’s after the ghost is gone. He shows up panting at the edge of the field, and tells Lancer he got caught in the bathroom with the ghost and was too scared to leave until the ghost kid showed up and took care of him.

That does not calm Sam’s fidgeting in the slightest.

“Invis-o-bill caught you? Did he hurt you?” she asks, grabbing Danny’s arms and looking him over, probably for injuries.

“No, I’m fine, Sam,” Danny says, pulling back and looking away. “He was only interested in the ghost. He didn’t seem to notice I was there.”

Sam breathes out a sigh of relief and pulls Danny back towards her and into a hug. “Thank god,” she says, and Danny hesitantly wraps his arms around her. Tucker breathes his own sigh of relief, albeit an internal one. Danny must have been in the bathroom after all, then, and Invis-o-bill must have chased the ghost away just before he showed up.

Tucker still isn’t sure where he stands on the ghost and all of his conflicting actions, but he was there when Sam almost died and he didn’t help. Whether there was something else going on or not, Danny being alone with Invis-o-bill right now sounds like about the least helpful thing he could imagine.

A second later Mr. Lancer announces they all need to head back inside, and they all start making their way back over towards the school. But as they start moving, Danny jerks away from them suddenly.

Tucker turns to him in surprise. “Danny?”

“Sorry,” Danny says. “Uh, gotta say, something. To Jazz.” He points at the Jazz in question, who seems to already be starting over for them.

Danny moves away from them fairly quickly, but just before he’s out of earshot Tucker catches what sounds like “confusing” and “Plasma.”

He shakes it off and turns back to Sam, who looks very unsatisfied with the situation, and gives Tucker a look of obvious irritation, though Tucker doubts it’s really directed at him.

Yeah, that could have gone better. At least Danny’s okay.

…

They discover in the following days that Danny seems to have a real knack for asking to leave the classroom right before a ghost attack.

Tucker isn’t sure how he and Sam never noticed it before. It’s near constant. Danny leaves, Tucker tries to follow him, doesn’t find him, and then the ghost alarm goes off. And then, usually, Invis-o-bill shows up, which doesn’t help Sam’s nerves or anger about the whole situation. Really, the only times that chain of events doesn’t seem to happen is when a ghost shows up in the middle of the hallway in between classes, but Danny still finds a way to vanish then too.

Granted, Danny has always been hard to find during ghost attacks, but Tucker had always assumed it had something to do with him knowing his way around the business thanks to his parents, and knowing good places to hide or ways to react. But this is too… consistent, to be a coincidence. It’s becoming both suspicious and annoying.

Honestly, if he’s going to have to feel guilty about spying on his best friend, could Danny at least be a little easier to spy on?

They’re meeting to talk about it without Danny at Sam’s house this time, and Tucker’s trying not to feel guilty about that, either.

Sam is sitting on her bed, wrapped under a blanket and fidgeting with the strap on her wrist ray. Tucker is sitting at her desk in her swivel chair, and he almost wants to ask for a spare blanket. It’s unusually cold in the room.

“So clearly something more than we thought is going on,” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Tucker says, trying to pretend the squirming in his chest is just worry for Danny.

Which, well, yeah. It is that too. Danny may not be getting hurt as far as they know, but having more that’s going on that they don’t know anything about sure isn’t helping.

“I’m not sure what else we can do,” Tucker says, leaning back in the chair. “Talking to him isn’t working, and spying on him apparently just brings more questions.”

“I don’t know,” Sam says, doing a really bad job at keeping the worry out of her voice. “Maybe we could ask his parents? Or Jazz?”

“No,” Tucker says immediately. “Danny’s gonna find out.” His parents and Jazz are way too likely to tell Danny if he and Sam ask them questions about him. Especially Jazz.

Sam sighs. “Yeah,” she admits. “You’re probably right. But then what are we going to do?”

Tucker doesn’t say anything, and instead the two of them look at each other. It’s obvious on Sam’s face that she feels as lost as he does.

Finally, Tucker sighs, turning to sit backwards on the chair so he can face Sam more directly. “Maybe we just have to wait until something changes.”

Sam immediately gives him a look of distaste. “I don’t want to do that. He’s clearly hurting about something, and that murderous asshole Invis-o-bill seems like he runs into him all the time for some reason, I don’t want to just leave him to deal with all of that on his own.”

“I don’t either, but we’re kind of out options here, Sam,” Tucker says.

“Well,” says a sudden deep voice, and Tucker jerks around, but doesn’t see anything. “Let’s see if we can’t change that a bit.”

And before Tucker can figure out what the fuck that was, everything goes dark.

…

“Tucker, seriously,” a voice hisses in his ear. “Wake up.”

Tucker shifts with a groan, then shakes his head a couple times, trying to get rid of the fogginess in it. “Sam?” he asks. “Is that you?”

“Be quiet,” Sam whispers. “I think he’s right outside the door.”

Tucker opens his eyes, not quite sure why he’s expecting a headache, but surprised when he doesn’t have one. They seem to be in a large warehouse of sorts, clearly abandoned with a high ceiling and scattered debris, mostly cardboard and screws. There’s a couple flickering lights up by the ceiling, but that doesn’t exactly make it easy to see.

Tucker blinks a couple times, then processes Sam’s last statement and turns to her uneasily. “He?”

“Oh excellent,” comes a familiar voice, and then out of nowhere, something appears in the room, almost as if it phased through the wall.

Instantly, Sam leaps to her feet and gets in front of Tucker, pointing her wrist ray at the figure. The figure laughs.

“Oh, that’s adorable,” it says. “You have a child’s toy of a ghost weapon. Go ahead, give me your best shot.”

Sam doesn’t waste any time, shooting a green beam of energy at the figure, only for the figure to effortlessly pull up a pink glowing shield that absorbs the wrist ray’s attack like it’s not even there.

Ghost. This is a ghost.

Tucker peeks his head around Sam just enough to get a good look. The figure is wearing a long white cape lined in red, along with pale blue skin and red eyes, and hair that looks like two horns poking up from his head.

Sam catches him looking and pushes him back behind her with her free arm, the one lacking the wrist ray. “Tucker, stay back,” she says, despite her voice shaking in obvious fear.

The ghost laughs. “Oh child, please,” he says. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”

Tucker pushes himself to his feet and gently grabs Sam’s arm, mostly in an attempt to reassure her he has her back, though that doesn’t seem like it’ll help much in this situation.

But even still, Sam just pushes him further behind her and holds out her arm with the wrist ray again, though they both know it’s not going to do anything.

The ghost sighs. “Oh, this is getting tiresome,” he says, and before either of them can say anything back, he shoots a beam of energy towards Sam. Sam cries out in pain as she’s knocked back into Tucker, and they both land hard on the ground.

“Sam!” Tucker says, leaning around where she’s landed on top of him to check on her. “Are you okay?”

“Well if she is, she sure won’t be after this,” the ghost says with a grin, and flies down and scoops up Sam, who gives a surprised cry, starting to struggle in his grip. The ghost keeps an effortless hold on her, then flies up to the ceiling far above them and drops her.

Sam screams, and Tucker runs forward, trying to position himself right under her.

The next second, however, a door bangs open, and Tucker jerks around to see what looks like an old man rush towards Sam, and get underneath her just in time to catch her and set her down.

“Are you alright?” he asks her, and Sam gapes at him.

“Sam!” Tucker cries, and runs forward the few feet it takes to throw his arms around her. Sam hugs him back, and Tucker can feel her shaking in his grip.

“Now as for you,” the stranger says, and he points something up at the ceiling. It lets off some kind of energy that sucks the ghost into it, while the ghost shouts a loud “Noooo!” that’s a little overdramatic in Tucker’s opinion.

As soon as the ghost is inside the thing, the man puts a lid on top of— is that a thermos?

The man turns to face them before Tucker can really get a good look. “Are you alright, children?” he asks, moving towards them with a look of concern on his face.

“What? No. Fine. Who are you?” Sam snaps, moving in front of Tucker and holding her wrist ray out again.

“I’m just here to help,” the man says, holding his hands up. “I promise.”

Sam looks uncertainly at him for a couple seconds, but it’s kind of hard to argue with that when he just saved her life and is making no sudden moves towards them.

Finally, Sam lowers the wrist ray. “Who are you?” she asks again.

“And uh, if I can ask a follow up question, what the heck was all of that?” Tucker asks, gesturing up to where the ghost was just a couple of seconds ago.

“I’m sure you have a million questions,” the man says. “And I can explain, but we might want to get out of here first. I have important things to tell you.”

Tucker exchanges a glance with Sam. He isn’t exactly in the habit of following strange men who randomly show up and ask him to come with them. Then again, this one did just rescue them from a murderous ghost.

“This secondary location better not be your house,” Sam says dangerously.

“Of course not,” the man says, waving his hand. “I live in Wisconsin, that would be quite a drive.”

“Wh- you live in Wisconsin?” Tucker asks in bafflement as they all start for the door of the warehouse. “Okay, seriously, who are you and why are you here?”

“Yes, I suppose introductions are in order,” the man says. He opens the door to the warehouse, and they all step out into what looks like thick dark woods, with limited visibility in the moonlight. It’s clearly very late. There’s a very fancy car sitting a bit in front of them on an old dirt road, that the man starts walking towards.

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard of me or not, but I am an old college friend of Maddie and Jack Fenton,” the man says as he moves towards the car. “My name is Vlad Masters.”

Both of them stare at him blankly, and Vlad sighs.

“No, I suppose Daniel wouldn’t have mentioned me, would he? Did he ever mention a college reunion?”

“Uh, maybe?” Tucker says, glancing at Sam to find her shrugging. “I think I remember something like that once, maybe a couple months ago?”

“That sounds right,” Vlad says with a nod. “That was held at my castle in Wisconsin, and that’s when I first started suspecting something was going on.”

“Something?” Sam asks hesitantly.

“With Daniel,” Vlad says, and Tucker’s blood runs cold.

“With Danny?” Sam asks, sounding just as scared as he’s suddenly feeling. “Is he okay? Do you know what’s happening to him?”

Vlad nods. “Unfortunately, yes, though it’s not going to be easy to hear.”

Tucker looks at Sam in a panic. Just how much trouble is Danny in?

They reach the car, and Vlad pulls the door open. Tucker climbs in the back seat and Sam goes along with him, which he’s glad for. He doesn’t really want her out of arm’s reach just yet.

Vlad climbs into the front seat and starts the car, then sets the strange thermos thing on the middle console and turns to face them. “Alright, I’ll take you both to the police station in just a second, but I think some explanations are in order first.”

“Yes please,” Tucker says, very ready to know what’s going on.

“Well, first of all,” Vlad says. He gestures down at the thermos. “I think you should know that the ghost I just fought was working for someone, who I’m sure you’ve heard of. Another ghost named Danny Phantom.”

Tucker looks at Sam in confusion. “Do you know who that is?”

Sam shakes her head.

“Really?” Vlad asks, sounding surprised. “He seems to show up around here pretty often, from what I’ve heard. Claims to be some kind of ghost fighting superhero?”

“Wait,” Sam says, her voice dropping into obvious anger. “Are you talking about Invis-o-bill?”

Vlad coughs a couple of times, seeming surprised and, if Tucker didn’t know any better, he’d say he’s trying to muffle laughter.

A second later, however, he draws himself back up, seeming very serious. “That’s not the name he’s told me, but I suppose that's what people here call him,” he says. “Yes, that is who I’m referring to.”

Sam gives a frustrated scream and buries her hands in her hair. “Great, now that asshole is trying to get other people to kill for him!”

“Other ghosts,” Tucker mumbles hesitantly.

“Whatever!” Sam snaps, jerking back upright. “Same thing!”

“It actually isn’t the same thing,” Vlad says, seeming almost sorrowful. “Ghosts can’t be prosecuted or apprehended the way people are. He’s trying to get out of this with no consequences to himself. Or worse than that, actually, since he’s sending other ghosts to do it for him.”

“But— why us?” Sam asks. “Why come after me and Tucker?”

“Yeah, it’s not like we’re super adept in ghost fighting,” Tucker says.

Vlad sighs. “Children, ghosts are twisted representations of everything they were in life. They haunt places they used to love, and often terrorize people they used to love as well.”

Tucker looks at Sam, hoping she understands what Vlad’s saying.

“Uh, sorry,” Sam says, turning back to face him. “But I have no idea what you’re saying. What does that have to do with Invis-o-bill— or, Danny Phantom, whatever. What does that have to do with him hunting us? Actually, on that note, what does any of this have to do with actual Danny?”

Vlad’s gaze turns somber. “Oh, child,” he says softly. “Haven’t you guessed? Daniel is Danny Phantom.”

All the air rushes out of Tucker’s lungs.

He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No he— he isn’t. You’re lying.”

Vlad shakes his head. “I wish I was,” he says. “But I began to suspect this when I saw him at the reunion, and confirmed it just recently. Of course as soon as I realized, I rushed here, and not a moment too soon, as I learned you two were in danger.”

Tucker shakes his head again, not sure what else to do. “No,” he says again. “Danny wouldn’t do that. He— you’re wrong.”

“Child,” Vlad says again, shaking his head. “I truly wish I was.”

“But Danny’s not a ghost,” Tucker says weakly.

“Not entirely,” Vlad agrees, and Tucker stares at him.

“What— what does that even mean?” he asks.

“Well, this part is going to be a little confusing if you don’t understand ghost science as well as I do,” Vlad says. “But I can show you the lab footage another time.”

“Lab footage?” Tucker asks, feeling rather lightheaded.

“Do you remember the ghost portal incident from a couple of months ago?” Vlad asks. He explains that apparently Danny had gone back down after he and Sam had left that day, and turning on the portal had… killed him. Sort of.

And now, apparently, he’s a very dangerous ghost.

Vlad doesn’t say anything for a second after he finishes explaining, and Tucker doesn’t have a clue how to help fill the silence.

“I’ll give you a minute while we head back towards Amity Park,” Vlad says finally, and he turns around and puts the car in gear.

Tucker looks over at Sam. She’s scratching at her wrist right underneath the strap of the wrist ray, and staring down at the floor of the car.

“Sam,” Tucker says weakly, reaching for her. Sam smacks his arm away and goes back to scratching.

Tucker looks away, technically landing his gaze outside of the window, but certainly not processing anything he sees. He feels a little sick.

…It makes sense.

Danny disappearing during every ghost attack, saying Invis-o-bill shows up so often, keeping obvious secrets, refusing to tell them anything that’s going on.

“Hey, you know I’d never want to hurt you guys, right?”

Tucker squeezes his eyes shut. What is he supposed to make of that now?

It feels like barely any time has passed when Vlad stops the car again. Tucker turns to look out the front window. They’re definitely back in Amity Park, and he thinks this is fairly close to the police station, but Vlad’s pulled down a side street.

“I’m sorry to have to put so much on you,” Vlad says, turning to face them. “But it wouldn’t be safe for any of us if Daniel finds out I helped you. You’re going to have to walk from here.”

Tucker bites his lip and nods. Sam doesn’t say anything.

“When you’ve had a little bit of time to process,” Vlad says. “I have an offer for you.”

Tucker swallows. “An offer?”

Vlad smiles ruefully. “I have a little bit of experience helping people become ghost hunters,” he says. “If you want to help, well.” He passes something back to Tucker, and Tucker takes it. It looks like a business card with an address and phone number on it, but no name.

“That’s where I’ll be operating from in Amity Park,” he says. “I’m going to be sticking around until things are solved.”

Tucker doesn’t say anything. Then, after a second, he feels Sam grab his arm, and turns to her in surprise.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice firm. “We’ll be in touch.”

Tucker’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Come on Tucker,” Sam says, opening the door and pulling him out after her. “Let’s go.”

She shuts the door and starts pulling Tucker up the street after her, towards the police station. Vlad starts the car again and drives away.

“Woah, Sam!” Tucker calls, as they reach the edge of the alleyway. “Slow down! We need to talk about—”

“Talk about what?” Sam snaps, dropping Tucker’s arm and whirling around to face him. “What is there to talk about, Tucker? Danny tried to kill us.”

“I— Sam,” Tucker says, panic crawling up his throat. “There has to be another explanation.”

“Yeah, Tucker, there is,” Sam snaps. “Whatever the hell happened with that portal Vlad mentioned turned him into some kind of monster. That’s your explanation.”

“But he— it’s Danny,” Tucker says weakly.

“Yeah, and he’s been acting weird,” Sam says. “We both agree on that. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong, well, this is it. And we need to figure out some sort of way to take the fight back to him before he tries to kill anyone again.”

“I,” Tucker says. He shakes his head, trying to force some sense of clarity back into his thoughts. He feels less sure about everything than he felt earlier today, and he already wasn’t sure about anything earlier today.

“I’m not going to hurt Danny,” he whispers.

Sam sets her jaw. “Well,” she says. “I’m not going to let him hurt anyone else.” She raises an eyebrow. “So are you with me or not?”

Tucker looks up at her. She’s still scratching her wrist under the space where the wrist ray sits. At this point, even the skin around it looks red and raw, and Tucker’s pretty sure part of it is bleeding.

Sam’s gaze flicks down to what he’s looking at, and she scoffs. She pulls the strap off and throws the wrist ray at the opposite wall of the alley. It’s not that far away, so it bounces off the wall without breaking and lands in a patch of grass growing up between the concrete.

Sam turns back to Tucker with a glare. “Are you with me or not?” she snaps.

Her wrist is bleeding. Not badly, but noticeably.

“Okay,” Tucker whispers, and tension rushes out of Sam’s shoulders.

She takes a couple steps forward and wraps her arms around Tucker, squeezing him tightly. Tucker hugs her back. Neither of them say anything.

A second later, Sam pulls back, with a shaky broken smile on her face. “Let me do the talking,” she says, with a nod back to the police station around the corner.

“What are you going to say?” Tucker manages.

“That we got kidnapped by a ghost but managed to fight our way out and get away from it.”

Tucker nods, and Sam turns and starts towards the police station, clearly expecting him to follow her.

Tucker casts a glance over at the wrist ray lying on the ground. He walks over, picks it up with shaking hands, and slips it into his pocket.

Then he turns and follows Sam up the alleyway.

#danny phantom #tucker foley #sam manson #danny fenton #vlad plasmius #no one knows au #my fic

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avaritia-apotheosis · 3 years

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Phantom Children Ch. 6

Hi guys! I'm back <3 (also, I'm currently looking for alpha/beta readers for Phantom Children, so if you're interested, feel free to shoot me a message!)

In Which: Danny Attempts to get Answers, Bruce Learns, and Dick Finally Learns What's Inside the Door that Doesn't Exist

AO3 | Prologue | 5 | [ 6 ] | 7

DANNY IS KNOCKED DOWN three, four, eight times on the ice. Each time made his back ache, his bones bruised and tired, and his mind burning with embarrassment and a drive to lash out. But each time he gets back up. Each time he lasts a little bit longer against Talia.

The ice still shifts, cracks and rumbles with every wrong move. Danny learned to roll with it. Move on light feet but attack with a firm stance, gauge which parts of the ice are stable and which should be avoided. Multi-tasking has never been Danny’s strong suit, but he’s good at learning and learning quickly.

Talia corrected his form as much as she beat him down. Exploited every one of his openings until he learned to defend them and praised him whenever he managed to pull one over her. The League’s martial arts was the holy amalgamation between almost every single fighting style there is, mashed and refined to perfection to become almost unpredictable to the untrained. A vast improvement to Danny’s previous ‘fuck around and see what works’ brawling and had the added benefit of meshing together with his spontaneity.

“You are doing well, Daniel,” Talia said as she sheathed her sword, hand resting just above her hip. “You have improved greatly in such a short time, as I have expected.”

It takes every ounce of Danny’s superhuman energy to not collapse to his knees, his every breath a ragged shudder as he tries to get his breathing under control. “Still can’t beat you, though.”

“Very few can boast that feat.”

“I’m not exactly sure if that’s supposed to make me feel any better or not. Do I get my prize at least?”

Tahlia tossed her braid over one shoulder with a laugh. “Come, then, let us rest in the caves. The sun is to set soon and we must make camp before we freeze to death.”

“Hypothermia is so last season. I’m way too cool for that.”

He didn’t know whether to be disappointed that Tahlia didn’t react to his pun. It was pretty clever, in his opinion.

('Puns are the lowest form of comedy,' said mind-Jazz.

Says the one who named the Box Ghost the ‘Crate Creep.’

'That’s alliteration, not a pun.')

It was kind of pathetic that even his mind-version of Jazz was smarter than him.

“What would you like to know first?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sarcasm dripped from Danny’s voice. He sheathed his sword and let it hang loose at his side. “Maybe how old this mysterious brother of mine is?” Ancients, his life was weird enough already, it wasn’t supposed to sound like the B-plot to a bad soap opera.

“Damian is younger than you by a little over four years. He will turn eleven this year.”

“Huh. Never been an older brother before.”

“Perhaps you might have been, if circumstances had been different.”

Cryptic. Great. Danny stepped over a particularly large crack in the ice and scampered over to solid ground. “You gotta give me more than that. What’s he like?”

“Prideful,” she said. “But skilled enough to warrant it. He was raised like a prince—as how you should have been.”

“And he lives with…our dad?”

“Yes. In America.” The cave was deep enough to shield them from the worst of the eventual mountain winds. Tahlia had already started building a campfire with equipment from her knapsack, embers eating away and growing into a steady flame. He sat down, legs crossed, beside the fire, hands tucked beneath his armpits.

He bit his lip, a question forming in his mind. “Do…do we have the same dad?”

Tahlia looked up at him. “Of course. Only your father has had the privilege of being called my beloved, and only he is worthy enough to have sired my children.”

Once night fell, it fell quickly. Blanketing as far as Danny could see from the mouth of the cave in a thick darkness. Snow fell from the skies in thick tufts and covered their footsteps.

“Does he—do they know about me?”

“No, they do not.”

“And you probably aren’t going to tell them anything about me, if you could help it.”

“That is very perceptive of you, habeebi.”

“You won’t tell me anything more about them, will you?”

“In due time, I will.”

Danny blew part of his fringe away from his face. Figures.

Despite the ever-present niggling at the back of his mind, Bruce had yet to see what was in the flash drive. The weeks since his strange meeting with Vlad Masters suddenly exploded with criminal activity with the recent breakout in Arkham and the brewings of another gang war in the shadows of Gotham’s paved streets. It was all hands-on deck. And Bruce, whether as Batman or Wayne, had always prioritized Gotham and its citizens over anything else.

The flash drive remained on his person despite the crisis, tucked away in one of the sturdier compartments of his utility belt to prevent the data inside from becoming damaged. Sometimes he found his hands gravitating towards it, fingers brushing against the button that would release the mystery from its confines before he realized what he was doing and steeled himself. Hands fisted to his side and attention forcibly directed elsewhere.

Eventually, the rogues were placed back into Arkham, and Gotham let out a shuddered breath of relief as it remained standing for another day.

Most of the family were out on a light patrol, cleaning up the remains of the breakout and helping where they can. Jason and Dick bickering over the comms whilst Barbara laughed in her clocktower.

(“It’s not that bad.”

"‘It’s not that bad’—shut the fuck up.” Jason spat. Bruce could hear him revving his bike. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that? Certified Grade A idiot. B’s gonna kill you.”

He could hear Dick roll his eyes. “Sure, pile it all on, Jaybird. Blame the victim.”

"It was your fault.”

“It’s not my fault I didn’t see it there!”

"You tripped and got a concussion. From a stick. A. Stick.”

“Can we please just leave that out of the report?” Dick groaned. Barbara laughed. “Oh god.”

“Richard motherfucking John Grayson. I swear if you vomit on me then—”

“I’m not gonna vomit on you! You just turned the corner a little too fast. It’s nice to see you care though.”

"Fuck no, I just don’t wanna smell like regurgitated cereal.”)

Damian was benched from a patrol. Their last conflict with Poison Ivy ended with Damian sticking a bad landing and twisting his ankle. He dealt with it with as much grace as can be expected. Meaning that he spent the last few days sulking as he caught up on his missed schoolwork and shooting daggers at everyone else who came back from patrol.

Bruce flicked the flash drive open and plugged it into the computer. The flash drive contained only a single folder dated six months ago.

He clicked it, and a news headline popped up.

LOCAL TEEN DIES AFTER DRIVING OFF CLIFF

Beneath it, a picture. Blue eyes. Black hair. A familiar face.

Blood pounded in Bruce’s ears. He could hear nothing except a sharp gasp from Damian behind him.

When Dick and Jason arrived at the batcave, it was to an eerie silence. Not that it was usually loud, only that Bruce spent most of his free time down in the cave and Dick had come to expect hearing some signs of him around. Typing on keys, the clicking of a mouse, the heavy thuds of a fist meeting a punching bag or a training dummy, etcetera, etcetera. Or maybe even Alfred cleaning up around the cave, feeding the bats, or restocking their med bay.

(Dick, it turned out, didn’t have a concussion. Probably. Not a severe one anyway. What mattered most was that he managed to convince Jason to have dinner at the Manor. Alfred was making a tarte tatin for dessert tonight and those were absolutely to die for. )

One of Tim’s cases took him to the other side of Gotham. The only person in the cave was Damian, who was staring agape at the batcomputer.

“Why the hell is the demon spawn looking at old pictures of Bruce? We get it. They look alike.

“Uh, Dami? What’s up?”

Damian snapped his mouth shut. “I believe it might be best if you asked father that, Grayson.” Despite his clipped tone, there seemed to be little anger in his voice. His proud shoulders were hunched over on the chair, eyes trained on his lap.

He looked so small.

Damian clucked his tongue. “He’s upstairs, if you need him. So is Pennyworth.”

Dick shot a glance at Jason who raised his hands in mock surrender. “You’re up golden boy. Whatever the fuck the old man’s problem is this time, I’m not dealing with it.”

Dick sighed. “Fine.”

There was a door in Wayne Manor that didn’t exist.

When Dick was a child and recently adopted by Bruce Wayne, one of the first things he did was explore the manor. It’s the prerogative of every child that somehow found themselves in a large mansion—even more so given the castle-like exteriors of Wayne Manor. All castles have secret passages, and if the Batcave lay in the subterranean depths below, then surely the manor proper must have its own secrets.

Dick would tumble and cartwheel along the hallways, opening any and every single door he came across. A lot of them were just empty bedrooms or unused parlors and sitting rooms; the furniture covered by white sheets to keep the dust away. Alfred was probably magic, but even he can’t keep the entirety of the manor dust free.

The majority of the unused rooms were unlocked.

Except for one.

It was a room in the west wing, on the second floor. A couple doors down from where Bruce’s and Dick’s were. Why it was locked, Dick never found out. But he was curious since it was the only room on that floor that remained shut.

When he asked Alfred about it, the old butler only said that it was an unused storage room they preferred to keep locked just in case. When he asked Bruce about it, he’d be quick to change the subject. Usually something Batman related. Which, well, always worked, because it was Batman related. And Dick, young and spry and itching to fly under Batman’s wings, would quickly forget about that curious little mystery in favor of punching bad guys in the face and flipping over rooftops.

At some point that locked door quietly disappeared, leaving a blank expanse of wallpaper and a decorative vase where it once stood. It was never brought up again. And Dick slowly forgot that it was ever there in the first place.

Until now.

The wooden table and vase were shoved off to the side. Wallpaper sliced away to reveal the lines of a doorway. The door, covered in its faint damask wallpaper, was kicked open, the wood around the bolt splintered and cracked. He could hear voices—Alfred’s and Bruce’s—speaking softly on the other side.

He pressed his back against the wall and kept his breathing quiet.

“Three times, Alfred.” Bruce’s voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. “Three times she’s done this to me.”

“Master Bruce…”

“I don’t—I don’t understand why—” Bruce choked, swallowing a shuddered breath. “Damian, I can understand. Jason, I can too. But…This? I—” Bruce suddenly quieted. Dick knew the jig was up.

He unlatched himself from the wall and slowly slid through the once-hidden-door, a hand kept on the frame. “Um. Hi, Bruce? Alfred?” The words fell flat, stilted. Dick winced as he said them. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but, uh…” He trailed off the second he registered what was in the room.

It was large, as so many rooms in the manor were. The room was covered in peeling green wallpaper with faded pictures of baby deer and owls and other woodland creatures prancing about. There was a dresser on one wall. A shelf filled with little picture books and stuffed animals on the other. A brown teddy bear had fallen on its face on one of the shelves.

In the middle—where Bruce was hunched over—was a crib. The wood streaked and aged with time, the beddings within pristine and untouched, if not dusty. Hanging overhead was a mobile with little animals dangling on a string.

“Worry not Master Dick. It is good that you are here since it will inevitably involve the rest of the family at some point.”

Dick nodded absentmindedly, trying to lock eyes with his guardian. “B? What’s—what’s going on?” Dick took one step deeper into the room. “The pictures in the cave. I thought they were you since they were too old to be Damian—” Bruce’s hands on the crib’s railing flinched.

Dick’s breath hitched.

“They’re…not your photos, are they.”

Bruce took a deep breath in, the lines of his shoulders tense. “No. They’re not.”

In their line of work, the answer could have been anything. Clones, magical doppelgangers, alternate universe counterparts, hell, even just someone’s genetic code being coincidentally similar to another person. But…this room, this nursery, pointed towards only one conclusion.

“Who is he, Bruce?”

Bruce angled his head towards Dick, unshed tears glimmering in his eyes. “He’s my son, Dick.

“He’s my son.”

#danny phantom #batman #danny phantom x batman crossover #dp fic #phantom children.txt

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vampiresuns · 3 years

Text

Interlude 1: Do Not Stand Over My Grave And Weep, Part 2

⟡ PART 2: FRIENDS ARE THE FAMILY YOU CHOOSE ⟡

2.2k words. In which Anatole’s friends start uncovering the mystery of his death and sudden reappearance.

CW: Death and discussions of it.

What to catch up with Anatole’s Apprentice series? You can do that here.

He had met him at University. He had been his friend since he was 18 years old. Anatole and Medea had been Leonore’s first lasting friends, the first people who outside of his family, had taught him permanence was not entrapment. They had filled his life with growth and laughter; he had suffered their woes, he had celebrated their triumphs, he had followed them into Vesuvia despite his original wish to travel the world.

He still travelled, but he always came back to them. Medea and Anatole weren’t just friends: they were family now. When Leonore closed his eyes he could see them holding hands and jumping into the water one summer evening in Prakra. He could see Medea using his thigh as a pillow under a tree. He could see Anatole dancing. He could see Medea and Anatole dressed to the nines for their new Court jobs.

He would know them anywhere. He would know them by the way their steps sounded alone.

It took Leonore some moments to remember where he was, Octavia gently nudging him. Sabine, who he didn’t realise had gone, announced themselves again, saying they had lost Anatole’s doppelgänger in the crowd.

Only it hadn’t been a doppelgänger. Leonore knew his best friend, he knew Anatole when he saw him.

“No,” he said at last. “No, that’s him. That’s him, Octavia. That was him, and I need to find him.”

“Leonore, wait! Anatole’s dead.”

They began bickering about it, Octavia trying to stop Leonore from head diving into a wild goose chase, not realising Selasi, the Baker, was listening to them.

“Excuse me, forgive me for overhearing, but are you talking about Anatole Radošević? The magician from Moonstone and Jasmine?”

“Yes! His aunt owned that shop,” Leonore said, jumping to talk to Selasi, who inspected him with a careful eye.

“I don’t know what prank you’re playing, but he’s alive as can be. I opened a little after the plague subsided and he and Asra have been getting bread from me for three years, almost. They’re attached at the hip, so if you know Asra—“

Leonore leaped to shake his hand. “I do know, Asra! Thank you, thank you so much.”

Selasi tried to tell him Asra wasn’t around, that he was on a journey, but that he could tell him where to find Anatole if he promised he was a friend, but Leonore sprinted towards the shop without letting him finish. Sabine set off to follow Leonore as Octavia called to both of them, which left her standing alone with Selasi. She made some apologies, and Selasi told her not to worry.

“Where did you say you knew him?”

“Leonore went to University with him,” she said, thinking the least she could do was to assure the man they were Anatole’s friends, not some random people with weird motivations. “I know him through his cousin.”

The baker hummed. “I didn’t know Anatole had any family besides his late Aunt and Asra.”

Something about the way he said it, the casual certainty of it, gave Octavia a chill. She thanked him, and tried to catch up with Sabine and Leonore, not wanting to say anything Selasi might not know. She risked him stopping them, or worse, telling Anatole, which she didn’t think would be a good idea. Octavia just had a bad feeling about it: she didn’t expect people to just know who Anatole was, or had been, that could be conceited. Anatole himself hated being anticipated by his job, wanting to have the opportunity to present himself and do the best he could do.

Yet from there to the sureness Selasi had had when he said he didn’t know Anatole had any family besides Paris and Asra? It was weird. The Radošević-Cassano weren’t meant to be separated; if Octavia knew anything about them from Milenko, it was that they were very close knit. The only people in their families that Octavia could think of as not being regarded ever, were Matilda and Krešmir, Vlad’s and Valerius’ late parents, who hadn’t even raised the siblings. All she knew about them was that they were neglectful and Matilda had the idle ennui of someone who was too used to having everything, and was used to using cruelty for fun.

Milenko had only talked about them a couple of times, and she had never heard the Consul even mention them, let alone Vlad, Anatole’s father. One way or another, the Cassano didn’t detach themselves from their family, nor did the Radošević, and Anatole had only ever been extremely proud of the people who had raised him. That had been their way since the days of Cassano Arianamenzi, the first of them, and she could testify that legacy had not washed away with time. If anything, it had become stronger. So why would Anatole not speak of it?

Unless he didn’t remember them. She had read about such a thing once, doing research for one of her most early plays. A shiver went down her back, making her hug her arms around herself and walk faster.

When Octavia reached the Moonstone Leonore and Sabine were talking to a tall man who seemed to guard the shop. None of them had seen him before, but he seemed to know them; he called them ‘people from before’.

“You used to give Anatole clementines, which he doesn’t like—” he said. He was tall, covered in a cloak, and had moss green eyes, though they were barely visible.

“He says they taste fake,” Leonore completed.

“So he gave them to me, before— it doesn’t matter. You won’t find him here.”

The only thing stranger than the stranger was that none of them could remember him as they tried to piece their afternoon together. However, Octavia had heard Selasi say Anatole was occupied in the Palace, and perhaps they could try their luck there.

“Then let’s go,” Leonore said, already standing up. “Maybe Medea knows something we don’t.”

Medea Pryce was the daughter of two archaeologists and the granddaughter of another one. Both her father’s and her mother’s family had settled in Vesuvia some generations ago because its cultural diversity and rich history was good for the archaeological craft. Anatole wasn’t the first Radošević-Cassano she had met — her Grandmother was acquainted with Bastiste Cassano, one of the Cassano elders, and thus with Consul Valerius, whom Batiste called her spoiled grandnephew. Medea’s parents, on the other hand, were acquainted with Atanasie Radošević and Aurora Tesfaye, uncle and mother of Anatole’s cousin Milenko.

So when she met him at University, which she had begun in Prakra, just as he had done, the surname called to her immediately. Discovering they would course the exact same program, even if they had different aspirations and goals, another pleasant surprise. It would be nice to have someone to know, as Medea liked making friends.

What a friend she had made of him and Leonore, who shared housing with them. Anatole was one of those people who had the energy of a handsome stranger one shared enlightening conversation with, yet then never saw again. Debonair and hopeful, he was passionate and inspiring, a devoted friend and nothing if not extraordinary. He had his shortcomings, like everyone, but that wasn’t the way one measured their friends.

Seasons came and time passed. They both studied and apprenticed in Balkovia for six months, and then they moved on into Vesuvia, Leonore following them, to their surprise. They laughed and hurt, they fell in love with their own people, they held each other, and Medea and Anatole drafted their plans for the future. It would be a great future, they were sure of it. Anatole’s self-introductory speech for the Vesuvian Court was a gem, Medea believed it so. They liked to fantasise about one day becoming Consul and Head of Staff, with all the things they thought they could help with, working together for the people of their City.

No matter the crashes and reality checks, the hardships or how many times Medea had seen Anatole stand up to the Count and the new Courtiers, they held hands through it and continued onwards: The World and it’s calling of completion met its perfect match in Anatole’s Ace of Swords coloured Strength.

Then the Plague came and Anatole died, and Medea was left with all their plans, and no one to implement them with.

After his death, things only got worse. She could tell something was going on with the Consul, but she wasn’t close enough to him to know what. She was somewhat closer to Councilwoman Cassiopeia, but she didn’t seem to know what was going on with her cousin either. The Courtiers hadn’t done anything of value for the City in three years, and all that Valerius ever seemed to do was to keep it afloat. The Court was destroyed, and with the Countess as lost as they all were, Medea didn’t know where they would end.

When she heard the Countess had found a new advisor she was thrilled. Fresh air was what the Court needed, and by the first weeks of this advisor around the Countess, it was clear they were doing her good, even if she had heard the advisor had had a rocky introduction with the Court. It seemed like it, because she knew from first hand experience that the Consul had come in furious to his office, refusing to speak to anyone, except to Cassiopeia, whom Medea was sure forced him to speak rather than him wilfully giving her any information.

He had only said something about something in poor taste, and how had he let the Countess know he would not tolerate it, but he didn’t say anything else.

Her turn to meet the advisor came the next morning. It happened by accident, when she was delivering some documents to the Council of Vesuvia. Meet was a lax word for it, ‘seeing’ him, was much more appropiate: with his light golden blond hair, and bespoke clothes. The same unmistakable black eyes and the scar across the bridge of his nose. The same stride, the same height, the same face, the same looks.

Her friend, her own dearest Aelius Anatole had walked into the Consul’s office seeking for an explanation about the way he had been received in Court. From there on, the morning was mayhem, absolute mayhem, and only now that Medea was sitting alone she could finally process it.

“Anatole” had introduced himself fully, his name the right name, but the Consul wouldn’t hear it, immediately throwing himself at the throat of the “second-rate witch” for daring to use that name. Anatole continued to insist that was his name. The more the argument extended, it was clear to everyone involved that that was Anatole, even to the headstrong Consul — his panicked eyes gave him away.

Medea knew her friend, her friend had always had a presence, even if he wasn’t always aware of it. He still had it, he still stood in the same way the Consul did, he still turned his eyebrows in the same way, and the way he spoke.

What he spoke of, too.

The breaking point came when the Consul grabbed him from the shoulders, demanding to know what he wanted from him. Then, Medea saw him do something he hadn’t done in years: she heard the Consul speak Balkovian in public. Medea’s grasp with the language was enough to know he asked two things, two crucial things, that anyone who wasn’t Anatole couldn’t answer.

Anatole answered the first one, something about a sword’s name, in his perfectly native Balkovian, looking pale and sickly-greenish. Cassiopeia tried to interject, but the Consul wouldn’t listen to anyone. Then the Consul asked his second question, something about ‘what was the tree’, or ‘what was the name of the tree’, and nothing else. Medea wasn’t sure.

Anatole replied both of the questions: His first reply being ‘grapevine’, followed by a choked up ‘cult of Dionysus’; the second reply was ‘a beech tree’, looking like he was about to vomit after the words left his mouth.

“Valeriy?” He said, as the Consul looked at him in horror, still holding him by the shoulders. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

Anatole did pass out, and the Consul, blushing cherry red as he realised the whole scene had been in front of half the Court office at his care, yelled at them to know what the hell were they doing, if not call for someone to take this boy to a bed. After it, the Consul stormed off, Cassiopeia power-walking behind him as she demanded an explanation from her cousin, an explanation the Consul refused to give, waving dismissively at her.

“Don’t you wave like that at me, Valeriy, unlike you, I know my own damn nephew when I see him.”

“Don’t call me that here.”

“Valeriy Radošević, I will call you however I damn please! Come back here!”

Medea didn’t stay to watch the rest. The Court was in unrest, it was so much that it had stirred the four other weirdos into watching and making the oddest commentary for anyone to hear. Medea didn’t need an in with them to know they knew something they all didn’t, and simply thought of the Court Staff too inconsequential for them to spare them half a thought.

As if possessed by a thunderbolt, Medea stood up from where she was sitting as she ruminated. She needed answers, and she needed to talk about this to someone. She had an idea: if anyone she was close enough knew a considerable amount of death and ghosts, it was Amparo Cassano, but first she needed to talk to Leonore. They had supported each other in these 4 years Anatole had been dead, or presumed as much. Anything she did, it would be with Leonore.

As she turned around after grabbing her coat, Leonore was calling her name.

“Sabine is waiting for us at our place, they wanted to ask some questions first so I ran here. Octavia is trying to find Amparo, or anyone really. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Good,” she said, as she grabbed his arm and began walking out of the Palace, “so do I, but not here. The Courtiers are around, and they cannot be trusted.”

#the arcana #my writing #the arcana oc #apprentice anatole #anatole's apprentice rewrites #aelius anatole #selasi the baker #leonore #medea #octavia rei #sabine rei #the radosevic-cassano #beautiful powerful and stubborn as a ram #consul valerius

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five-rivers · 4 years

Text

Childhood

Children tend to imitate the adults around them, especially those whom they admire. Mannerisms, personality traits, hobbies, and style are all up for grabs.

Does that change for children who are dead?

Why, yes.

The tendency grows stronger.

The changes were small, at first. Small enough that Danny didn't even notice them. No, Tucker was the first one to say anything.

The specific thing he said was: "Hey, Danny, can you turn back for a second?"

Danny, who had just then returned to human form in the safety of Tucker's attic raised an eyebrow. "Okay?" he said, complying. "What's up?"

"Your hair," said Tucker.

Danny ran his hand through the mentioned body part. "What about it?"

"It's longer," said Tucker, reaching up to tug on a lock.

"Huh," said Sam. "You're right, it is."

"Longer than what?" asked Danny.

"Than when you're human," said Sam. She grinned. "Want me to cut it for you?"

"No," said Danny. "It isn't bothering me yet, and I don't want an undercut."

"I can do more than undercuts," said Sam.

"It is sort of weird, though," said Danny. He dropped back into human form and collapsed into one of Tucker's beanbags.

"Anyway," said Tucker, "how was your trip to the Far Frozen?"

"Oh, it was great," said Danny. "Frostbite taught me some new ice things, do you want to see?"

The next change Danny noticed were his lips. He rarely wound up in front of a mirror as Phantom, but when he did, he found himself doing double take after double take.

Today, it was because he had gotten a fairly nasty cut and wanted to patch it up in ghost form before switching back. He had just finished that, when his reflection caught his eye.

He made a face at it, then froze.

The inside edges of his lips were faintly blue.

He floated closer to the mirror to get a better look, and pulled back his bottom lip. Danny knew he had unusual coloring for a ghost, even a young one, and that Vlad certainly hadn't kept a human coloration, despite being a half-ghost, but Danny had been hoping that he'd be an exception. Especially after the whole incident with Dan.

Danny didn't want to look anything like his so-called future self.

On closer inspection, however, the color of his lips was darker, more violet than blue, and the inside of his mouth was more or less the same color it always had been in ghost form. There were thankfully, no fangs.

Was this a side effect of his cold core? To make him look hypothermic? He wouldn't particularly mind if that was the case.

He stopped playing with his lips and put his hands down. If that were the case, where else would it show? Fingers? Toes? Ears? He pulled back his hair, which was now, admittedly, rather shaggy.

There was a very faint purple-blue blush on his ears.

"Great," he whispered. He pulled off his gloves. The discoloration was there, too, on the tips of his fingers and under his nails.

But there wasn't anything he could really do about it, other than hope it didn't spread. He sighed. At least none of this was visible in his human form.

"Your freckles are coming back," said Jazz.

"Ugh," said Danny, hanging upside-down on the couch. "Really?"

"Yep," said Jazz. "You should think about wearing sunblock more often when you're flying."

"I don't think that would really matter," said Danny. "My ghost half and my human half don't line up in detail."

Jazz closed her textbook. "Have you checked?"

"Checked what?"

"Whether or not your ghost form has freckles."

"No," said Danny. He somersaulted off the couch.

"Where are you going?" asked Jazz.

"To check the freckles thing!" said Danny. He climbed the stairs to the bathroom he and Jazz shared and shut the door. He locked it behind him before going ghost.

Jazz was right. His ghost form did have freckles.

Wait a moment. Those patterns... Were those constellations?

After the fight was over, Danny ran a hand through his hair and- Wait. What was that?

Hidden in his thick hair were two small, cold, crystalline lumps. Were those horns?

Danny swallowed hard and flew back to the school bathroom. Yes, he had grown a small set of icy horns.

That settled it. He couldn't ignore these changes anymore. He had to figure out what was going on.

Horns. He couldn't believe it.

He arranged cover with Jazz, Sam, and Tucker, because he didn't know how long he'd be gone. His destination was the Far Frozen, as they were his allies with the greatest medical knowledge. Clockwork would probably know what was going on, too, but he had all these weird rules about what he could and could not tell Danny.

As he flew through the green mists of the Ghost Zone, Danny mused that he was lucky to have so many allies to help him, now. So many people he could be safe with. He remembered back at the beginning, where the only people at his side were Sam and Tucker. They were great, of course, and he couldn't have survived without them, but they were kids, too.

It was good to have adults on his side.

The Far Frozen was as cold and snowy as ever, and Danny's core hummed happily at the hospitable environment, shifting into purring as he was greeted by the yetis. They laughed, smiled, and patted him on the shoulders.

It made Danny hesitant to bring up his problem.

But it was the reason he'd carved out time to come. So when Frostbite asked what had brought him to the Far Frozen, Danny showed them.

All the yetis went silent for a moment, and then began cheering.

Danny scowled, confused and not liking it. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Forgive us, great one," said Frostbite, chuckling. "We are simply flattered that you have chosen to imitate us."

"I didn't do this on purpose," objected Danny.

"It's a subconscious process," explained Frostbite. "Child ghosts tend to partially imitate the adults they like, the adults they spend time with."

"Oh," said Danny. "Oh. So, it isn't a thing I should be worried about."

"No," said Frostbite. "It's quite normal."

Danny nodded. "I've, um," he shifted closer to Frostbite, almost laying on the larger ghost's arm. "The horns aren't the only thing, though, and I'm not sure where everything is coming from," he said. "Some of it is happening to my human form, too. Should I be worried about that? The horns haven't transferred over, but..."

"We'll look into it."

Danny had a thorough medical check up, courtesy of the doctors of the Far Frozen, and was given a squeaky clean bill of health. Literally. They had given him a laminated medical report, for future reference.

After the exam, several yetis volunteered to teach him how to use the horns to help direct his ice powers. They were brave warriors, unafraid of being frozen by Danny's still-growing ice powers.

This was followed by a huge feast in his honor (Danny suspected that the yetis just liked having an excuse to throw a party). Danny did his best not to overeat and drop into a food coma, but was, sadly, unsuccessful.

Frostbite carried him from the feasting hall half asleep, and tucked him into bed in a lavish guest room. Among the thick, warm furs of the bed, Danny let himself become human and fully fell asleep.

He woke up feeling rested and much more at ease. Knowing what was happening, that his ghost form was just copying his friends, took a lot of stress off of him. True, he wasn't sure where the star freckles came from, and there were two culprits for the blue skin, but, overall, the changes were no longer a mystery.

He crawled from beneath the heavy covers, stretched, and went ghost.

Whereupon he noticed that his ghost form abruptly had four arms.

"Most likely," said Frostbite, "your subconscious was blocking this particular transformation, as it is somewhat more extreme than the others."

Danny tried to cross his arms, and blushed furiously as they collided with each other, highlighting a frustrating lack of coordination. "Yeah," he said. "Do you- do you know how I can undo this? I don't know how to deal with having," he gestured with all of his arms, "four arms."

Frostbite didn't bother to hide his amused smile. "I don't know any way that would be healthy for you, at this stage of your development. I would suggest that you go to Pandora, and ask her for advice. I am assuming she is the primary four-armed ghost of your acquaintance, yes?"

"Yeah," said Danny. He sighed. "I'm going to be gone for so long. Jazz is going to go mental."

Frostbite patted him on the knee. "I can take you to Elysium with the Infinimap," he said. "That will shorten your journey, at least."

Pandora was as excited about Danny's new appearance as the yetis had been. She spent nearly an hour alternately cooing over his extra limbs, showing him off to the various citizens of Elysium, and giving him sandwiches.

Danny... liked the attention, honestly. Sometimes, he forgot what it felt like, for an adult to be proud of him. His parents and most of his teachers only looked at him with disappointment, nowadays.

When the hour was up, however, Pandora was determined to teach him how to fight with four arms. She put a staff into each of his hands, and off to the training grounds he went.

As it grew late, Pandora extracted a promise from him to come back regularly, for more training. Danny didn't think he had coordinating four arms down, yet, but he thought he was getting the hang of it.

There was one more place he wanted to stop before he went back home.

Danny was expected. The tall, dark doors of Clockwork's lair were open. He drifted inside.

"Hello, Daniel," called Clockwork, pleasantly.

"Hi," said Danny, rounding a corner to find the older ghost, in child form. "I-" He stopped, he had no idea how to phrase this without sounding stupid.

As far as he could tell, he hadn't picked up anything from Clockwork, beyond, maybe, the blue spots on his skin, and he felt weirdly guilty about that. After all, he spent more time with Clockwork than the others, and after seeing them so happy, he didn't want Clockwork to feel left out.

Clockwork took off his gloves and started rolling up his sleeves, shifting to elder form as he did so. Danny blinked and flew closer, curious. Clockwork hardly ever took off his gloves, and Danny had never seen him with his sleeves rolled up.

There were, Danny noted with surprise, symbols inlaid into Clockwork's arms in gold and silver. He looked at them, his head tilted. Some of them looked familiar.

"Oh," said Danny, eyes wide, "they're astronomical symbols."

"The sky was humanity's first clock," said Clockwork. He shifted age again, to his middle form, and pulled back his hood, revealing long, white hair.

"Oh," repeated Danny, hunching sheepishly. He felt rather foolish, now.

"You don't have to worry about these things," said Clockwork, patting Danny on the shoulder. "Would you like a snack, before I send you home?"

"Sure," said Danny.

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay 2020 #day 17

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sanchoyo · 3 years

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danny phantom season 2, episode 17-20 thoughts! finishing up season two! the finale is the THIRD 2-PARTER OF SEASON 2. that's so many! I wonder how many season 3 will have?

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-UERGH WHY DOES VLAD HAVE AN AI WITH MADDIE'S FACE ON IT. SOOO CREEPY. AND MORE 'CREATIONS' waiiiit. vlad is Dr. Frankenstein! (despite his ghost design obviously referencing vampires) HE HAS 'CREATIONS' HE MAKES THEN WONT TAKE REAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR!!! this bitch.

-danny was late and his friends immediately start going off about how hes inconsiderate, and has been treating them like sidekicks??? he just overslept, my god. chill. even if he has, be nicer about talking about it with him?? he really can't help that he sometimes has to chase the ghosts, or has a secret identity to protect...

-'what kind of ghost haunts a miniature golf course' umm. me as a ghost. next question

-imagine going home and theres a tiny child on your bed claiming to be your cousin. with as many cousins I have, I would probably believe her. but the 'ran away from home' BIT....SHES 12?? SHES SO TINY. I hate that they have her belly out in her ghost form, but I like how her colors are asymmetrical. something about her design...maybe the proportions?? are weird to me...anyway danny was good to feed her, but he shouldve taken her to his parents FIRST. or, tbh, probably jazz. (JAZZ DIDNT EVEN GET TO MEET HER!!! NOOO. I mean she said she'll be BACK BUT STILL)

-ANYWAY. shes voiced by AnnaSophia Robb, the girl who was in because of winn dixie, played as violet from charlie and the chocolate factory, and was the girl from bridge to terrabithia. (the movie that made me cry hysterically when I was 12 and I never watched it again because it Broke Me!) thats super cool.

-vlad sucks: the episode, basically. what's new!! I love how he's like, I'm Not A Villain. *immediately cuts to him torturing danny to make him transform, to get mid-transformation DNA, to perfect a Clone.* *immediately shows that he doesnt give a shit about his new daughter Dani and just wants a ''more perfect clone'' and will put her in danger to get that. will let her DIE to get that*

-Dani is danny's clone and is a girl? transgenderism....one of them has to be trans. or they both are.

-dani just. leaving at the end. WHAT? SHES 12. DONT JUST. NO!!! SHE WAS PROBABLY JUST BORN, A MONTH AGO AT MOST, RIGHT?? SHE NEEDS...SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. MONEY? FOOD?? A FAMILY?? AN EDUCATION???! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S LEAVING!!! OKAY BYE I GUESS!!! D: concern!!!

-the next ep opens with skulker chasing a ghost down. ...does skulker count as a ghost hunter in the way valerie and danny do? I mean, sure, he hunts the good guys too, but he. he hunts ghosts...also, we haven't seen his Real Form since his debut episode! tiny...

-the guys in white are back! ngl, I assumed they were a gag for that one episode. you're telling me they might actually be a threat? ok.

-valerie in her lil nasty burger uniform looks so cute!! glad shes not in that mascot uniform this time. I guess she stopped hiding that she's working there now?

-gregor having white hair, dressed in black and white...and green eyes...sam has a Type, I guess.

-danny being unnecessarily hostile about gregor. danny!!! hes been nice so far. he looks a little...tall to be 14, but. danny doesnt know anything about him! (he does Suspect, but...you cant just spy on people and be rude to them from a hunch.) also, gregor kissed her, and when she freaked out, he was like 'oh no!! sorry, we can take it slow! I understand!' which was NICE. I hate jealousy plots still tho.

-altho. umm. tucker, being concerned about danny spying on them??? SAM AND YOU WERE SPYING ON DANNY AND VALERIE A FEW EPISODES AGO!!!!! im not saying its RIGHT, but dont be a hypocrite!!! AND THEN SAM BEING MAD ABOUT IT, TOO.

-DANNY IS A 7 ON THE SCALE OF ECTOPLASMIC POWER!!! out of 10? so I want to know where the other ghosts rank...I mean it's a list from the guys in white, so, it may not even be accurate, like, they havent seen ALL of his powers, have they?

-Lancer being like 'im not cooperating with the FEDS' until they said they could access his tax records. they already did that joke with jack, but like, its still funny. kings of tax evasion.

-tucker's aggressive third-wheeling. but gregor being super into it. gregor/tucker is the real ship here. then gregor kissing danny on both cheeks after hugging him. bi poly king gregor. (he does turn out to be a liar with a phoney accent. unsurprising, BUT THE CONCEPT OF HIM BEING GENUINE AND THEM ALL DATING IS FUN)

-THE...GUYS IN WHITE THINKING GREGOR IS DANNY PHANTOM. LMAOOO. GET HIS ASS. or,, Elliot. lmfao

-sam saying tucker is part of the package because theyre friends was super sweet <3 but also 'part of the package'...polyships are obviously the solution to these dumb jealousy/love triangle plots.

-danny crashed a whole plane. the collateral damage...

-is he....

-you know....

.... (ITS NOT GAY IF YOU'RE DOING IT TO PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE YOU'RE NOT, AND LIE TO A GIRL. RIGHT? he was getting a little too into pretending to enjoy tucker's company, and the above...c'mon, guy.)

-lmao, freakshow is in actual prison. I didn't expect a follow up, or for him to show back up! in the finale of this season, too!

-THE SICK TATTOO GHOST IS NAMED LYDIA!!! more Lore On her. freakshow seemed genuinely concerned about her. also, is she mute? I don't think she talked the first time we saw her, either. and we didn't know freakshow 'envied' ghosts, either, the first time, we just knew he was controlling them. interesting!

-...they literally stole the infinity gauntlet from marvel and called it the reality gauntlet. is that legal. what the fuck. even with the gems in the lil slots, having different powers...they had freakshow in jail, but didnt check his pockets??! hes just still in his lil outfit??? what kind of ...oh, its in amity park. yeah, all of the adults are idiots, okay, sure.

-'freakshow!' 'in the anemic flesh!' dude take some iron pills then. also, sure, the red eyes could be contacts for his aesthetic, but the whites of his eyes are yellow! does he have jaundice?! he severely needs more...like, every kind of vitamin. (this is what im worried about as freakshow attacks danny with giant robots)

-again, goth circus is a sick theme, and I love his goth train.

-oh FUCK every single person saw danny transform. on a stage. including his parents via TV. oh god. the guys in white and immediately like 'youre coming in for experiments!' SCARY. at least the crowd is willing to help him to escape...perks of now being a local celeb! even the kids at school are accepting :) this is what, the third time his family has found out? its always been an alt timeline tho. and danny fully intending to just rewrite things again instead of...I dunno, trying to roll with it this time? hes really worried his family won't accept him, huh...

-'maybe our son IS THE GHOST BOY, but its not as if our family's ghostly activities have EVER PUT YOUR FAMILIES IN DANGER' maddie. mmmmmmmmmmmm. okay.

-danny 100% prepared to run away from home because of this :( oh :( and saying his parents are 'looking for him, or a scalpel to dissect him with' ouch...

-THE GUYS IN WHITE TRYING TO ARREST A 14 YEAR OLD. fuck da feds.

-side note (another one about voice actors...) freakshow's voice actor, Jon Cryer, was lex luthor in pretty much every DC tv show, which is why I recognized his voice, because my dad loves those shows so I've seen a good bit of them without seeking them out...)

-the old man saying 'hey, i still had minutes left!' and danny saying 'you gotta watch those roaming charges!' about danny destroying the people in the diner's phones so no one could report seeing him...would kids today understand these things. can you even BUY minutes anymore...I remember my first phone being a flip phone, and the fact I always had minutes when my sister ran out super fast, because I didnt have friends calling or texting me like she did...:/

-the fentons being genuinely like 'why didnt danny trust us and tell us this, we love him :(' and JAZZ LAYING INTO THEM WITH THE 'DISSECTION/MOLECULE BY MOLECULE' LINES. LITERALLLLY. they need to apologize

-technically, lydias stronger than you! -jazz lesbianism moments! when did you even learn her name!!! but also get freakshows ass. lydia is also cooler looking. looove her design sm still.

-jazz psychoanalyzing freakshow... (also, her also having ghost envy? au where jazz is a ghost!! id like to see it)

-im glad the kids still got to go to their respective vacation things, even if they cant really stick around and enjoy them much...

-furry: confirmed. (also tucker calling her hot. tucker is a furry confirmed)

-danny being mad someone at the comic con is selling comics of him without permission, lmfao. give him his royalties!

-freakshow > thanos because hes a drama clown and does use his gauntlet to be FLASHY AND DRAMATIC.

-jazz's 'USE PYSCOLOGY' to danny about freakshow LMAOO. AND THEN IT WORKING. but, oh, freakshow's ghost form sucks. I like him as a clown better tbh. good thing danny took away his ghost powers!

-his parents hugging him and saying theyre proud :"( and saying 'of course you lied to us, we never gave you a reason not to!' and saying they were in the wrong basically for always talking about hurting ghosts aaaa :""(

-then he WIPED THEIR MEMORIES AGAIN!!! FUCK. I can understand him wiping the goverments/student bodies' memories, but why his parents?? they were being accepting!! ARGHHH. season 3 couldve been them all trying to adjust to them knowing!

-I know, on a meta level the showrunners probably wanted to just reset things to the status quo of him having a secret identity. But. We've been doing that for (2) seasons, I'd love if season 3 could be like, his parents adjusting to this and trying way harder to learn more and accept it (and the shenanigans that could come from that) and for fun, if he didn't wipe the students memories, it could be him being popular for a while, then everyone slowly realizing, oh, he's still Danny. Like. he might have ghost powers but hes Just The Same Guy instead of putting him on a pedestal (and seeing them all try and help him hide it from the giw/people who don't know!!)

-fuck they didn't even explain WHY he wiped everyone except sam, tucker and jazz's memories. he just Did It right when his parents were saying they loved/accepted him!! and sam and tucker didnt question it at all!!! HELLO??? very annoyed about this turn of events.

-anyway. onto season 3! I know its shorter than the first two seasons, and is the last season... I might just do it in 2 bursts if I can... :3c depends on the episodes' content and how much I want to say about each!

#sanchoyorambles #danny phantom #dp thoughts

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dannyphantom-rewrite · 3 years

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Character ref for; Jack, Maddie and Jazz,

Art by @gally-hin / @gally-hin-phantom

Okay so first off; in terms of Actual redesign, I didn't change a whole lot. I'm actually very fond of Jack and Maddie's design's, my only real issue was with their proportions. Like...look as a lady person who is also thiCC I do not have a fucking wasp thin waist and I'm sure I'm not the only one, lmao. As for Jack? Godamnit he looked like a brick on toothpicks. Just Let him be a fucking Bara man! Anyway of course I asked Gally to do this one bc they're fucking great at drawing different body types

I also cannot and will not take credit for Jazz's outfit. I didn't have any issue with her canon clothes aside from them being a bit plain, so what she's wearing here was literally pulled straight off of her original concept art, which I will link here.

Anyway, getting to the Actual character lore now, let's start with

Maddie Fenton

-Full name is Madeline (I haven't decided on a maiden name yet)

-Born and raised on a farm in Arkansas, had a southern accent that she trained herself out of in college bc it was just one more reason for people not to take her seriously. Still sometimes uses "y'all" completely unironically bc old habits die hard.

-She has a really big family, and they're proud of her accomplishments but feel like she's wasting her talent studying ghosts, because really, up until the Fenton portal was up and running there wasn't even any solid proof they existed. Her sister Alicia is the one outlier there, and even if she doesn't understand, it she completely supports her.

-She majored in engineering and minored in psychology at Wisconsin EDU. Her, Jack and Vlad were all in the same engineering class, and that's where they met.

-Maddie is particularly interested in how ghosts think, analysing their behavior, their motives. Not only that, but they aren't just dead people with unfinished business, they've built an entire culture in the Ghost Zone that is completely seperate from humanity, and she wants to understand all of it.

-skilled marksman and 9th degree black belt, (which is. The highest fucking level there is holy shit? I looked it up after I saw it on her wiki page.)

Jack Fenton

-He's from Minnesota (Amity park is in Illinois and him and Maddie didn't move there until after they got married)

-okay, "but why minnesota specifically" you ask? Because. I crave. Foot ball discourse.

-minnesota vikings vs green bay packers guys do you UNDERSTAND WHERE IM GOING WITH THIS

-The funny thing is that Jack only watches football casually while Vlad is a fucking die hard so when these two got together to see a game it was like....

-Jack: Here to chill and have a good time.

-Vlad: Primed and ready to start a fist fight at any given moment.

-I am never not going to be salty about how Canon Jack was portrayed like a complete moron 99% percent of the time. Like no...theres a difference between Actual Stupid and ADHD induced dumbass-ery.

-Am I saying Jack Fenton has ADHD? Yes. why? Because I also have ADHD and I have always vibed So Hard with his Character.

-Jack is loud and easily excited about things that interest him. He's impulsive and fidgety and yeah, a bit absent minded. He has a mouth that clearly runs so much faster than his head. His train of thought doesn't get derailed so much as it stops and takes several different detours on the way to it's final destination.

-and that's only the tip of the iceberg, really, I'd need an entire essay to get into this completely, but I just really relate.

-Jacks skill-set / interests regarding ghosts vary a bit from Maddie's, most notably in the sense that he doesn't believe that they're static entities already set in their ways, completely incapable of change.

-Jack majored in engineering and minored in Biology at Wisconsin EDU.

-Jack's work with tech is a bit hit or miss. He definitely HAS the engineering skills, but the intrest isn't always there and he's constantly jumping back and forth between different projects. He tends to focus on the concept work and schematics and leave most of the assembly to Maddie as a result. It's an arrangement that works well for them, and has drastically decreased the number of unintentional explosions in the lab.

-A lot of Jack's work tends to revolve around ghostly biology and Ectoplasm, figuring out how ghosts are made, what makes them tick, what the hell Ectoplasm Actually Is, how it's used as an energy source, ect.

-and yes, that does also mean he handles the dissections.

-See that facial scar? Yeah, that's not actually there at the start of the series rewrite but it's very important for plot reasons so I had to include it. Can't say much more on the subject because SPOILERs owo.

Jasmine Fenton

-Jazz is a 18 years old, and a senior at Casper high.

-Which means she prepping to go away to college and won't be around to keep an eye on Danny.

-Obviously that doesn't mean I'm just writing her out of the story, oh no. Know why? Because she's also gonna go to Wisconsin EDU. ya know who else is in Wisconsin? Fuckin' Vlad.

-Jazz is autistic, Although she passes for neurotypical in part due to symptoms being completely over looked in girls due to gender stereotyping and also the fact that she doesn't have any special interests that are considered " "too weird.""

- Her hyperfixation with psychology started at a young age in an effort to better understand people, and social/emotional cues and all that.

-Jazz is well liked at school but she's not popular or apart of any specific group or clique. She's very kind and compassionate to people, and just about everyone knows her, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually Considered her a friend. Except maybe Spike.

-I'm gonna have to give spike his own Character ref at some point, but he's this scary looking goth kid that's been held back twice. He's actually super sweet, just really fuckin' quiet and anxious. Him and jazz kinda ended up gravitating towards each other. She might do most of the talking, but they look out for each other.

-its not like jazz doesn't try to socialize, but it's difficult and she's found it much easier and less stressful to just. Keep to herself and let her interactions with her peers stay shallow and superficial. Sure, it's lonely sometimes but it's better than constantly worrying about saying the wrong thing or making some other misstep.

-One of Jazz's other special interests is football, and it's not so much the players or the game as it is the strategy of it? Started out as one of those things you do to bond with your dad, and she ended up getting really into it.

-She absolutley winds up getting into stupidly intense discussions with Vlad about it, too, lmao.

-Her and Danny probably bonded over SBNation bc that shit has both sentient satellites and ridiculously complex football mechanics.

-She's completely oblivious to the fact, but Dash has a massive crush on her bc holy shit this girl understands football (hey bud your toxic masculinity is showing put that shit away)

-I mentioned that Danny was in Cheer for a bit in middle school so it makes sense that she'd also be pushed into doing some kind of extracurricular activity.....so.....she was in a martial arts class for a bit thanks to Maddie and has a good grasp on self defense.

I think that's everything? I feel like I'm leaving things out tho? Idk if I did I'll come back and add on to this later and also pls don't hesitate to ask questions bc it really helps me flesh things out better.

#danny phantom #art #danny fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #jazz fenton #ref

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urlocalbunny · 3 years

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Headcanons of what would be the children of boys with MC ???

Aaron:

Probably more than two, but they'd have a gap in between. Two sets of twins. And in full moon Aaron would be apprehensive.

Three boys and one girl, maybe? He is a very present father and the kids absolutely adore him! But they wonder where daddy goes in full moon... You tell them the truth, but hey, they're worried!

One day, however, Aaron turns and goes for his usual hunt in the forest, but then he hears something faintly familiar in the woods. Yelling.

"Aaron! Aaron!" He sort of knows who this is. It's his mate. He is wary, but stays put until you're in sight... With two cubs. His eyes widen comically and he snorts, jumping in surprise. He sniffs the air wildly and realizes those are his cubs. He accepts them, nodding at you and turning his back to you. You sigh in relief, knowing you can count on him, but god... They're going to eat the shoes.

You thought the other two were normal children, until Ivan yells your name into the distance and when you run to see them, well. There are four little holes on Ivan's hand while he holds a diaper. You can only sigh. Good luck, mc.

The third boy and the girl are the little bats. The boy is a little weird but that's how Aaron likes it. Hehe. Like, he's just so cute! One time he'll be right here in daddy's arms, and in the other... Huh? WhERES MY BABY? HE TELEPORTED.

And the girl! Oh, she's so sweet! Once Aaron danced for her and when she swung her fat little arms, she created a shockwave that made him fall on his bum! That's it, daddy's little warrior!!!!

He's a great dad and he'll train his kids from the beginning. He's gentle yet strict, and your kids seem to love training with him. He also likes reading with his kids and teaching them about nature and how to hunt in their human forms. (The kids like it bc the actual rewards are fruit for the cubs and frozen bunny blood popsicle for the vampires.)

Raphael:

Just a little boy.

He's tiny, and no talk him bc he angy. Yes, he's got some bite to him. He likes wearing big hats and he paints. Biggest garden assistance for Vlad. (He likes Aaron more. He has a plan of owning the garden when Vladimir dies, but he doesn't know yet... ToT)

He's very educated and supportive of people with disabilities and he learned to paint with different textures and layers so his daddy can feel his work!!!! Raphael cries every time.

Raphael is comprehensive and tends to pay his head way too much every time he does some "oopsie". He also supports his kid and teaches him how to do stuff without seeing because he thinks of the day his kid will have to fend for himself and walking at night in the dark wasn't good when he first started.

Raph trusts his kid with the boys, but Aaron and Vlad are his go-to if he can't spend some time with his kid because he knows they'd only do what they think it's best for the kid. He also eggs his son on when it comes to exploring and running around. No sun though!

(You often catch him walking around during daytime. Y'all just Do. Not. Know. How y'all can't see where he is hiding until you realize this kid can literally conceal himself anywhere. Also he's very good at not burning himself so you stop worrying at some point and he'll just start sleeping during day)

Was he doing that just to scare Raph? Oh, he'll see what's scary. No kisses tonight >| |(

He's also extremely protective of his kid even though he tries to get him to see the world. A minute late and he'll be lectured severely, so please step in sometimes or they'll fight and raph tends to cry. It's gonna take him time to realize his kid can handle himself because he's fragile in your vampire's eyes.

Beliath:

You can see her ANYWHERE. She has two beautiful curled horns and an extremely ravishing purple hair full of curls. She isn't stoppable. She's confident, smart, social, a business woman! She's five! she's not only Beliath's daughter. She is fashion itself.

Beliath is her number one fan, supporter and manager. He'll spend the rest of his life moisturizing washing combing and zipping things up and down if that means his daughter is the most ravishing kid in this city.

One day you'll wake up panting to your kid sitting in bed looking at you as if she was a psycho though. You were dreaming just now of your kid waving at you. Yep, she's got her daddy's powers. A few months later, she's going to be itching her back like crazy. Beliath is going to be jealous because hey! He had no wings! >:(

One day he'll wake up with her appearance all twisted and then she'll create the sickest illusions like a goose head and a penguin wearing glasses. You'll have a lot to teach.

Beliath scolds her A LOT and she gets grounded A LOT because she's him but smaller and they fight a lot over how she should learn how to be humble and try her best instead of just thinking she's the best but she won't listen bc... She's the best?

She's the greatest performer ever. Knows how to dance and that's what she does the most. Another party animal for you. Now turn them Barney songs on!

For some reason, she absolutely LOVES Raphael. I think it's because he's got shiny outfits and he's chill so she can brush his hair however she likes AND read her books for him. Lives rent free on the library reading princess stories and complaining about the princes.

Vladimir:

A boy. He's shy, sweet and super articulated. His hair is blonde and he loves to wear nice clothes. Another one who'll bicker with his dad like he's talking to a kid his age.

Also he can hipnotize others in a specific way that turns him invisible when he wants and he can be persuasive, but it's hard to develop your powers when your dad is always complaining about the millions of cars you left on the floor and you're grumpy so every time you hide on the walls and turn invisible he complains and you go "tch, old hack" and he hears you. Tough life, grrr.

Even though they fight SOMETIMES, all they talk about when they're together is cuddles, studying and gardening. Vladimir is the actual mom if you wanted to be addressed to as the mom, just forget it lol, if not it's fine, you have a mom for your son.

He grounds your kid and talks it out calmly because even if they fight, your kid is a very good listener and he knows when words are well-meaning.

They sleep together a lot like two old grandpas and you have the advantage of Vladimir not knowing about modern cameras. Have fun!!!

Your kid ends up growing up to be an ABSOLUTE gentleman. He's funny, smart, handsome and really educated. Momma owl Daddy is proud!!!

Ethan:

IT'S A BOY AND A GIRL. BEWARE. HELPAJDHIAJDIAJD

They're trouble. Trouble.

Ethan yells, rips his hairs off, jumps and rolls on the floor but these kids, they're absolute raccoons! The girl literally can control minds Neil style and the boy is a tracker just like his father.

Honestly they're smart, but they just like to use it to make his dad go crazy!

They love each other tho, they rarely get in trouble and they behave when you say so. They're scared *laughs evil laugh*

Ethan teaches them many things and since he can't fight so much, he sends them to train with whoever they like. The girl usually hangs into Beliath's sleeve and they get along super well. He teaches her hand in hand and the boy goes with Aaron because his tracking skills are developing. Sometimes he takes both of them and teaches them knife combat and how to be a good medical support because again, being a vampire is tough.

The boy likes embroidery and Ethan thinks he's weird because he makes some sick Dinosaurs but he tells him to go off. He likes how well made they are.

The girl enjoys violence fighting more so she trains extra hard.

Ivan:

This is the sweetest kid of the bunch. Your little girl. Is the shy baby you see clinging to their companion's shirt/pants in the street. She likes gardening herself, not with anyone else. She plants some flowers in a space Vladimir didn't use and she shoos everyone off, but gently bc babygirl is never mean... Until she finds out she has fangs

She's going to run to you crying and pull her lips up and squint as if struggling and then BAM, fangs are out! You'll have to explain with Ivan what's going on. She understands *sniff*.

Ivan is head over heels for her. They read together, they play board games and she's extremely skilled at every single one. She loves to pursue education on her favorite themes and she likes fiction.

Little girl also loves fashion and she wants someone to teach her how to sew. If you don't know it's okay, she'll put extra effort in learning to teach you!! "You'll see, we'll be sewing in no time, I'll teach you too!"

Sometimes you wonder if you're being a parent right because she just doesn't get grounded. You speak once, she never does it again. Is she really Ivan's daughter? "Hey!" "Shut up, go back in the hole or I'll use the stick!" "Ouch, stop!"

She turns very aggressive when she fights though, to the point where you're worried about the others when they teach her, because she fights like her life depends on it and she doesn't hold back until she overexerts herself. Turns out your daughter can use some sort of gravitational field and if you don't stop her, she might send one flying or pull them right into her clutches, so be careful.

Overall 100/10 great kid. Ends up designing hundreds of clothes and lives her life peacefully.

#moonlight lovers #sfwbunny #moonlight lovers headcanons #moonlight lovers fanfiction #bunny's writing #ml aaron #ml beliath #ml ethan #ml raphael #ml vladimir #ml ivan

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duhragonball · 3 years

Text

Hellsing Liveblog Ch. 14-19

This is the “Elevator Action” arc, presumably named after the 1983 video game of the same name. I’m pretty sure a lot of Hellsing arcs are named for video games, which makes me wonder about the ones that aren’t. Like, is “Master of Monster” a video game that I just haven’t heard of?

The title fits, in the sense that there’s an elevator in the story, but we don’t spend much time there. Anyway, this thing starts off with Alucard checking into a ritzy hotel in Rio de Janiero, and his only luggage is two big-ass coffins covered in sheets. What happens next might surprise you...

For some reason, the guy at the front desk objects to Al’s luggage, not because they’re coffins, but because they’re just really big? Like, he’s not even remotely suspicious, even though the sheets sort of hint that they’re trying to smuggle something in. No, this guy just thinks it’s too big. So Alucard uses vampire hypnotic powers or whatever to Jedi Mind Trick him. Pip Bernadotte thinks it’s a “sex beam”, and yeah, this dude sure looks like he got hit with a sex beam.

Seras is part of this mission, but she can’t travel over running water, so she had to make the transatlantic flight in her coffin. Apparently they tricked her into this, which I don’t understand, but okay.

And Al makes a big production over the debut of his own coffin, because he’s a diva like that.

During the trip, Seras fell asleep, and she dreams of a visitation by the guy who played Baron Harkonnen in the Dune movie. I think? This is all a big gag revolving around her gun being named after a guy in Dune. Then Alucard wakes her up because there’s helicopters and soldiers surrounding their hotel, and he thinks it’s awesome.

A bunch of this arc is panels and panels of commando goons taking up positions and getting ready. A Brazilian newscaster is there covering the story, which he says is a hostage situation. The authorities seem to think Alucard and Seras massacred a bunch of people in the hotel, and have hostages on the top floor. It’s weird that they would even have a photo of Seras for this, since no one saw her. As for Alucard, they identify him as “J.H. Brenner”, which I believe was an alias Dracula used in the Bram Stoker novel. He shoulda spelled it backwards. “Yes, I have a reservation for R. E. Nnerbhj”.

Also, these photos are just panels from the Valentine Bros. arc. That’s Seras killing ghouls in her berzerker rage, and that’s Alucard chillaxing while he waits for Luke Valentine to find him. How would a Brazilian TV station have these? I’m starting to think this comic about gun-toting vampires might not be on the level.

So now all the main cast can see this situation unfold on international television. Pip watches from his crappy one-star hotel room, Integra, Walter, and the Convention of Twelve watch from Jolly Old England, and Millennium is watching from... well, somewhere.

They clearly orchestrated this whole situation, which means they not only knew about Alucard’s mission, but they had a whole thing prepared for him. As far as they’re concerned, this is just a test to see if Alucard will kill humans as readily as he hunts monsters.

What follows is, well, a bloodbath. The police try to enter Alucard’s hotel room, only to find his coffin, engraved with “The BIrd of Hermes is my name, Eating my wings to make me tame.” While they try to suss out that riddle, Alucard shows up and demands they stay away from his coffin, so they shoot at him for like three pages in a row. But bullets don’t work on Alucard, so he just grows back a new everything and starts slaughtering these guys.

The last guy in the room is so horrified that he just gives up and shoots himself, which actually shocks, then enrages Alucard.

Then he tells Seras to come out of a cupboard he hid her in, and he gets all upset when she objects to his killing humans. “Look, this is war,” he tells her, but that look he gives her at the end kind of suggests that he knows she has a point. Those cops were never any match for him. The two of them could have easily escaped this penthouse without a scratch. Alucard’s ethics may excuse this kind of overkill in the line of duty, but he knows it’s not right.

This scene also marks the first (only?) time Seras defies him. There’s a part in the Gonzoverse series where Alucard is about to execute a human reporter who Knows Too Much, so she pulls a gun on him, but then Integra shows up and is like “No, it’s cool, you can kill this lady, idgaf.” I guess that whole moment mirrors this one pretty well now that I write it out. Seras doesn’t like how this is playing out. She joined Hellsing to fight vampires, not human police officers, but she still follows Alucard’s lead in the end. So is he influencing her, or is she influencing him? It’s kind of hard to tell.

And maybe Seras really did make an impression on Al, because the next thing he does is call Integra to report in and confirm his orders. She told him “Search and Destroy” before he left, but that was before all these human dupes shows up at his doorstep. He’s willing and able to kill them without regret, but he wants to know if Integra is cool with it, since she’s the one calling the shots. But Integra holds firm and insists that nothing has changed. She looks resolute here, but leading up to this moment she was pretty anxious about what Alucard was going to do with all these humans.

So why is Walter so giddy about this? Is he just proud to see his commander displaying this ruthless leadership style? Or is it something more? After she hangs up, she asks Walter if she made the right call, but he declines to give an opinion, since he’s just the butler.

I’m not sure Seras was privy to any of this, since she was preparing the coffins for transport while Al was on the phone. He orders her to take the coffins to the roof and steal a helicopter to escape. While she does this...

Alucard leaves the suite and heads down to the front door of the hotel. There’s more cops in the hallway waiting for him, but he just mows them down the same way he did the ones in his suite.

Back to Millennium, their leader, known only as “The Major”, is now satisfied with the knowledge that Alucard can and will kill humans that get in the way of his mission. But he sees no reason to prolong this battle, so he orders his man in the field, Tubalcain Alhambra, to put this to an end.

Oh, and here’s the elevator. The cops scramble inside and try to close the doors to escape Alucard, but he sex beams one of them to hit the “door open” button, which gives him just enough time to get inside. He kills them all, then emerges on the ground floor and kills the cops there to make his way to the entrance. Along the way, he tosses some of their bodies out the windows, and they land on nearby flagpoles, which impale their corpses like pikes. Because he’s Vlad the Impaler, get it?

And finally Tubalcain Alhambra reveals himself. He calls himself “The Dandyman”, and he has card powers. Is he anything like D’arby the Elder from JoJo? Well, he’s got a vest, so maybe. He explains that he manipulated the authorities into sending those cops into the hotel. All he had to do was promise them eternal life. They didn’t hurt Alucard, but they did get him to waste a bunch of his ammunition. Maybe all of it, since I’m pretty sure Al never shoots Dandyman during this fight. See? Seras had the right idea after all.

Never mind, he does shoot him. Also these two hit a lot of innocent bystanders while they fight. It’s worth noting that Dandyman seems to have a lot of the same abilities Alucard expected from Luke Valentine during their battle. Luke thought he was hot shit, but he couldn’t regenerate or transform himself. But it looks like Tubalcain can shrug off gunfire and turn his whole body into playing cards.

While all of this vampire fightin’ is a-goin’ on, Pip Bernadotte infiltrates the bad guys’ command post, shoots all of the crooked authorities in league with Dandyman, and then blows the whole thing up for good measure.

Oh, and here’s the third (and final?) Cross-Fire backup. Bishop Maxwell gets injured during a pagan cult tries to assassinate the Pope, so he sends Heinkel Wolfe and Yumiko Takagi to go to Wales and slaughter their entire congregation. And they do. These Cross-Fire stories just don’t hold up. It’s two overzealous religious fanatics killing other fanatics, except they always have the firepower and the element of surprise, so there’s no suspense or tension to any of it.

Back to the Dandyman fight, well... wait, we gotta go through a flashback, first.

The last installment opens with young Integra learning about vampires from her father, Arthur Hellsing. He quizzes her about why vampires are so feared, and the answer is that vampires are powerful, and they’re also vicious and aware of their own power. So in close-quarters they’ll tear a human to pieces. And another monster wouldn’t? I’m not sure I understand his point.

Back to the fight, Dandyman seems to have Alucard in a bit of trouble, because his cards are razor sharp and once they cut Al, he can’t recover from the wounds so easily. Fortunately, Seras shows up to provide a helpful diversion. And by “diversion”, I mean, shooting enormous shells at Dandyman.

And that gives Alucard a chance to get the drop on him. He breaks Dandy’s leg, splits his left arm in half, longways, and then drinks his blood. Also, Millennium does that self-destruct thing on Dandyman, so he goes up in flames. This is about as defeated as a bad guy can get.

And then Pip shows up in a helicopter, I guess the same one Seras was ordered to steal, since they have the coffins ready to go. But Alucard is in no hurry to withdraw, because he’s just so gosh darn excited to be fighting this Millennium group. They’re bloodthirsty, violent maniacs, just like him, so it’s perfect. Or is it...

#2021hellsingliveblog #hellsing #alucard #seras victoria #tubalcain alhambra #pip bernadotte #sir integra hellsing #walter c dornez #yumiko takagi #the major #the captain #the doctor #but not the dr who doctor #the hellsing doctor #... you know what i'm not gonna bother tagging that guy

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ppatpranss · 4 years

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GAYA SA PELIKULA EP 01 Review.

Is it even possible to already love a show so much before it even aired? It’s like craving for a food or yearning for a product you’ve never tried before. But you strangely feel so strongly for it, which is exactly what Gaya Sa Pelikula did to me.

As a fan of Juan Miguel Severo since his On the Wings of Love stint and having watched and loved his film Hintayan ng Langit, I have such high respect for him as a writer and artist. So when he started pitching the idea of a boy’s love (BL) series in the Philippines, I was already drawn to it even if I have a specific reservation for the genre and its economics (a conversation for another day). I pretty much lowkey followed the show’s development from its first pitch, the screenplays released on Wattpad, Direk JP Habac being announced as the director, Ian and Paolo being introduced as the leads, the processes in between, and everything all the way to its trailer.

The thing is, it’s so weird feeling involved in a project that’s not really yours or was not a part of. But Gaya and all the love surrounding it took me by storm. I was really nervous last Friday while waiting for its pilot, already bracing myself for a possible disappointment (you see, I’m quite the pessimist) just in case. But you know what? You shouldn’t doubt anything that is made with so much love. Gaya Sa Pelikula is exactly that and its pilot episode is brimming with it.

[WATCH EPISODE 01 HERE]

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SCENE BY SCENE – EPISODE 01.

1 – The dance.

The show opens with a narration, “do you ever feel like you’re not the protagonist of your own story?” We see a gazebo lit up and two men slow-dancing, but we only see Karl’s (Paolo Pangilinan) face as he continues to talk about how it often feels like he’s a Janus character – that even if Joross or Ketchup plays the part, it doesn’t really make a difference. The script is written so there’s nothing you can do about it. As they continue to dance, Karl asks him if he feels the same way. To which, he said yes. In agreement, Karl said that he’d like to someday write or have a story he can call his own. The man then replied that he, too, would like to have his own story, specifically adding, “but I want to be in charge of the ending, too.”

Even if we don’t see Vlad’s (Ian Pangilinan) face, we all know it’s him that Karl is dancing with in this sequence. I found this opening scene very intriguing partly because it looked like a dream, and mostly because the conversation voiceover feels like it did not exactly happen on this specific scene. Having read the available screenplay on Wattpad, my instant assumption is to think of it as having a connection with Vlad’s old flame, Aldous, but it feels like a stretch for now because the trailer at least did not show him as having this much influence in their story. Besides, the Wattpad screenplays are a fictionalization of the accounts of what happened to Karl and Vlad over the sem break as told by an unreliable narrator in Karl. Hence, the Aldous factor isn’t exactly feasible for now.

So for now, I’m only going to take it as it is. I loved watching all of the emotions playing on Karl’s face especially in his eyes. His eyes were totally focused on Vlad, and in that moment you can see him slowly realizing that the person he’s been looking for is right in front of him. It is a gaze of someone who loves and a gaze given only to a beloved. The feeling consumes you so much that all you’re really left with is courage. Now that it fills up your chest, what are you going to do with it to take charge of your own story?

2 – tyl and attractions.

Karl and Vlad’s first interaction is through a loud music that prevents him from concentrating on a job that he’s been working on. It’s such a nuisance that he can’t help but go out of his unit to ask Vlad to turn down the music. Unexpectedly so, the door was open, and he saw him drunkenly dancing to tyl (by kakie). Instead of ‘seen,’ I feel like the right word to describe it was Karl being transfixed by this person so enveloped by his own world. He’s not really sure what is up with him, but he cannot help but look because he was intrigued by him. Of course, Vlad is not very welcoming and even slammed the door on his face. He didn’t turn the music down anyway and Karl ended up dancing to it in his own unit.

For a show that pays homage to a lot of Filipino rom-com, I was actually surprised that this initial attraction feels lowkey and understated, and I loved it that way. I guess we’re all in agreement when I say that a lot of our romance films have these grand moment that instantly stirs a park between a would-be pair. With Karl and Vlad, it was about the gazes. Even the eye contact on the scene the following day for their second encounter involved eye-to-eye. Makes you think a lot about how love is really about seeing.

As for the song choice, I have always liked kakie’s tyl before this series, but this specific scene amplified my affection for it. It was mentioned by Gege though, in their interview with the reactors, that Vlad was specifically listening to the song as it relates to Aldous. It makes sense now. At this point, I’m starting to feel the impending doom of whatever the character will bring, but here’s to hoping he doesn’t take too much space in Karl and Vlad’s story.

3 – Karl and his parents

On a morning call with this parents, it’s evident that Karl comes from a loving family. Both of his parents are affectionate, openly telling him that they miss him. They also express that they’re proud of him for immediately earning money from his online writing gig. It’s obvious that they mean well for him and that they are doing this family tradition to help him be more independent and get to know himself. I suppose it’s worth noting that his dad had a bit of a swipe about his Tito Santi. He starts hinting that he spent more time meeting with men than looking for a job, but his mother cut him off. That is a good way to establish what can be a problem later on when Karl slowly starts to come to terms with his sexuality.

On one hand, I find hope in the fact that they seem to be loving and accepting people. Maybe there is hope that they will wholeheartedly accept Karl as he is, or at least, his mother will. Although I can’t help but feel how conflicted things will be once this comes together with his desire to shift to Film from Architecture.

4 – Cosmic connections

Above shot is my favourite from the pilot. I find that it tells us a lot about what is yet to come for Karl’s story. In the frame, Karl and Vlad are separated by a line (this was also discussed during the Direk Takes last Saturday). Karl is perched at a sofa reflected by a mirror and we see him stressed out and preoccupied by a problem he encountered because of his online job. On Vlad’s side of the frame, he is standing next to the three standout materials that best represents Karl: his film slate keychain, his architecture materials, and a poster of CINEMA PARADISO. Upon noticing, Vlad asks, “you like movies?”

That gets me. I love that the first thing that Vlad noticed about Karl is his interest in film, and this is something that connects them, albeit not yet known to Karl. Vlad is a film major (an info that is yet to be disclosed in the show, which I only know because of the screenplays). So going back to the frame, there is just so much weight on the film side now that Vlad is also in the picture, and obviously the scale is about to get tipped onto it.

5 – Ate Judit (no H) and the economics of a fake relationship

As Karl tries to check Vlad’s pants for the possibility that he might have taken something from his apartment, Vlad’s sister walked in on them in a compromising situation that obviously leads to a misinterpretation.

First off, Ate Judit’s moments were really hilarious. We seriously have a lot to thank for Adrienne Vergara for making sure that her character is a mouthpiece for progressive allyship and perspective, while making sure to bring in comic relief so as not to make the show too heavy or preach-y.

A lot of things happened in the last gap of this episode.

Judit at the very least knows about Vlad. She seems to be a cool sister, but an overbearing one too. While there’s good intention on her part to express her support for this brother’s sexuality and the fact that she ‘caught’ him the act with Karl, she couldn’t leave him alone for privacy matters. Although from an elder sister standpoint, I also understand the situation especially considering that there seems to be a conflict within the family. If it’s safe to assume that Vlad’s mom cannot accept him, Judit as the elder sister tries to compensate for it. I like this dynamic and I am really interested on how this can be developed.

On the other hand, Karl is stuck to witness all of these. Suddenly, he is being completely pulled into the world of his neighbor. Last night, it was just the music and the instant attraction. But today, he was there beside him, already being oriented into his family and life issues and all the mystery surrounding Vlad. All of the build-up to the last scene was extremely amusing. Suddenly there is chaos when Vlad and Ate Judit were fighting over a phone and Karl runs to the side clinging onto his laptop for dear life. Then Vlad was walking towards him and grabbing his waste, telling his sister he’s in love with him, and calling him pancake. Vlad whispered the magic words, ‘I’ll pay for your rent this month’ and it’s enough for Karl to turn things around and tells Ate Judit, “yes, ate, we’re in love with each other.”

In true rom-com fashion, things are set. A fake relationship has been established, but I love that it is not for a petty reason as making someone else jealous or anything (though that would be fun, too). In this instance, economics is involved because the motivation for Karl’s choice is money. He needed the money not only to pay for rent, but also to prove to his parents that he is indeed capable. I think it speaks so much about the things we do not really want but had to swallow to compromise. In real life, you sometimes trade so much of your beliefs and dignity to secure a job or to earn money for your family. For the LGBTQIA+ community, as a minority group, this means needing to accept what is set aside for them—of being grateful for something small even when they deserved more, because the next job might not come if one resists.

So, it feels like such a proud moment seeing the closing remark at the end, we will take back our story. As you should.

6 – Epilogue

As Unti-Unti by UDD plays, we see Karl and Vlad in the living room. Karl is seated on the couch, while Vlad is standing a few feat away while drinking (what I assume to be) coffee. Both of them are laughing at whatever they’re watching, but then you also see them fidgeting, especially Karl. It’s obvious that they are aware of each other’s presence. At one point, Karl straightens up and glances down a little at his hands. Vlad does the same. Mirroring :)

Comments; What do I look forward to?

This specific gif is not from episode 1. It is lifted from the trailer.

This is really one of the best pilots I’ve seen in Philippine TV. It is fast paced, but also knows when to take a breath and let the elements settle in. It lays the groundwork in 20 minutes so smoothly – something that would take some shows halfway the series, or several weeks of episodes for teleseryes. All of the elements just comes together. The editing is on-point, with really good transitions and just the right amount of filler ease the viewer into the more emotionally stirring scenes. The music is not intrusive at all, finding just the right spots to highlight certain scenes. The scoring during Vlad and Karl’s kapkapan scene was made extra enjoyable because of that sort-of funky tune. Even the opening theme is so good, I sometimes find myself humming it in my head. Plus, that apartment and the overall set design is gorgeous. They’re mostly earthly tones, dominated by yellow and brown (at least in this episode) that just makes everything feel warm.

I know that this will sound biased, but I did like both of Paolo and Ian’s performances. I came into the show, of course, with a knowledge of their past acting experiences so the scale to which I measure their performances are relevant to that. I appreciate Ian’s overall veracity to make Vlad come alive. Even with a limited screentime on the first episode, he’s already coming on strong and Ian made sure that his presence is felt. Paolo did a good job as a newbie actor. I think it helps that his character is quite awkward and kind of innocent, so everything just works. I especially liked the shine in his eyes that just shows the innocence of Karl. And while I find that there’s still a lot he can improve on, especially in terms of line delivery and nuances, I think that he can eventually learn this through workshops for the next season. What’s important is he can hold his own ground.

The pilot episode really reminds me a lot of how fast rom-coms establish their stories at the first part of a movie. Several characters pop up to help the two leads build tension. Certain circumstances come up to somehow push them towards each other, often a sticky situation that they can’t easily escape from so then they would need each other. While most viewers will find these cliché and typical, that is exactly the intention. It just so happened that this time, two guys are at the center of it instead of the hetero-normative conventions of a male and female lead.

All things considered, as a rom-com, I am excited to discover if I would really end up shipping Karl and Vlad. I know for a fact that Ian and Paolo have intense chemistry. This is evident in the trailer, and even in real life, they just have such a good connection together. After watching a lot of their interviews since the pilot, one thing that really struck me is when they started talking about whether they ship the characters in the show. Thankfully, both of them said that they do so I remain optimistic for that.

The reason that I find this interesting is because I am reminded again that as much as this show is a passion project and an advocacy, it is also a story about two people falling in love. I would very much love to swoon over an on-screen couple any time, but it matters to me more to see how they arrived at the realization. I want to see what made Karl and Vlad interested in each other romantically over the course of the sem break. I expect the show to really explore this organically and lead us to see what makes them work as a couple – a couple that we can all root for. There is an obvious hint of coming-of-age for both of them, so I am interested in how they affect each other’s personal growth and how they also work on themselves individually. I expect nothing less from Severo in this regard and given that both Paolo and Ian ships Karl and Vlad, I guess it’s safe to say that I can, too, for now.

Gaya Sa Pelikula airs new episodes every Friday 8PM (Manila time) on Globe Studio’s Youtube channel.

#gaya sa pelikula #like in the movies #ian pangilinan #paolo pangilinan #pangpang #pinoy bl #filipino web series #filipino bl #boys love #juan miguel severo #jp habac #gsp review #owned

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phandom-phriend · 4 years

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Phic Phight 2020 - Unrequited Love

“Reveal fic--Danny, Valerie, Vlad, or Dani gets outed in the most inconvenient way.” | Prompt by @pesky-poltergeist

Word count: 2,181

A lot has happened since Fenton became Phantom.

It’s only been a year and so far the teen has fought countless ghosts, was cloned, has constant targets on his back from both ghosts and humans, lost his sleep schedule entirely, saved the world (a few times), found out that the only other half ghost that could possible help him adjust is kind of crazy and infatuated with his mom, became a town icon, ect..

Oh! And he died. So there’s that.

But recently, maybe the most horrific event to date had occurred. After a long battle with a ghost who-shall-not-be-named, he came home tired. Clumsy. A little out of his element. And may have...sort of...transformed back in front of his parents whom he didn’t even notice were in the kitchen with him.

Typical Danny luck if you ask him.

And since then things have been weird between them. Weirder than normal, at least. Neither one of them brought up the incident. Danny chalked it up to them not believing what they saw, or maybe thinking the illusion was a byproduct of handling so many chemicals in the lab for long periods of time. But they were quieter now. As if listening for his footsteps and breathing. And watching him more closely, closer than they ever paid attention to him before. They smiled, but their eyes. Their eyes held fear and apprehension. A dangerous combo for anyone with as great of an artillery as they had.

So Danny wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of bringing up the topic himself.

But when Jaz left for a study date with her friends on some random Friday evening, Danny had the unfortunate luck to be caught by his parents in the kitchen. Not literally! But they were set up with serious faces at the table just… waiting for him. Like they used to do when he got in trouble at school but now the air felt darker. It wasn’t sufficateing, no. They were still his parents after all. Even with all their blasters and ghost-hating ideals Danny wasn’t scared of them. Something just felt off. A little uneasy.

He sat at the table across from them anyway.

“What’s up? You guys are usually in the lab around now. Got a new breakthrough?”

“Not quite, Danny.” Maddie began, voice even. “Your father and I have something to talk about with you.”

“Alright, shoot.” The teen noticed the way his mother's hand flinched from its spot on the table. He ignored it.

“In the kitchen, a few nights ago. Phantom came in.”

“Oh, uh, really? What did he say?”

Jack sighed. “Danny, he transformed. Into you.”

“Oh, well-”

“Are you an imposter? Answer honestly, and don’t think for a second I won’t know if you are lying.”

“Mom?!”

“She’s just a little spooked, son. We just want to know what’s going on.”

Danny froze. Did they know so little about him that they thought he was some...fake? Not knowing him apart from Phantom was one thing. But not telling him from himself…? He shook his head to clear those thoughts. He’s seen stranger things. And he has been impersonated before. There’s good reason to be wary, it’s fine. “No, mom. I’m not some fake. I’m Danny.” he spoke calmly.

She stood from the table, eyes blocked by the red of her goggles, expression flat. It’s always bothered Danny that no matter how she moves, her suit is always silent. How can such a material rubbing against each other as she walks, as she moves, stay so silent? Well, his parents were always on the odd side. Maybe it was nothing. It is probably nothing.

“How can we be so sure?” her voice is as flat as her lips. He can’t tell what she’s thinking. No, he doesn't want to know.

“Well, what are some questions only I would know the answers to?”

Jack took this opportunity to jump in. “What’s your least favorite holiday?”

“Christmas.”

“Who are your best friends?”

“Sam and Tucker.”

Maddie clicked her tongue. “These questions are too obvious Jack. What if the ghost was able to take his memories?”

“Then how am I supposed to prove anything to you?”

“What is something you know that we don’t?”

Well, that was a tough one. Danny knew a lot that they didn’t know. But most of it was centered around his ghost half or the ghost zone, and that felt like dangerous territory to tred in without his parents leading the conversation there. That leaves his school life, which is a mess. And his time that he spends with his friends. But that, unfortunately, is typically one of three things recently. Ghost fighting, the Nasty Burger, and other illegal activities as a result of ghost fighting. Not exactly the best idea, but he’s certainly had worse.

“Uh, well. I snuck into the lab yesterday and took one of your in-progress projectors and may have sort of broken it. But it’s okay! Tucker is helping me fix it!”

“What?! How didn’t I notice!” Jack yelled from where he still sat, shock clear in both his face and tone. Danny didn’t bother to tell him that a lot of things happened without his notice, although his mom seemed to have the same thought with the side-eye she gave her husband.

“Mabe because he was a ghost when he snuck in.” she supplied with snide.

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

“Then how am I supposed to have you believe me? No matter what I say, you’ll just throw that “he’s been replaced” or “he’s being possessed” nonsense back in my face. I just want to go to my room and take a nap. What do I have to do to make that happen sooner?”

“We could take blood samples.” Maddie nodded to herself as if that had all the answers.

For the first time that night, Danny felt his blood run cold. That was a bad, bad idea. Not only would it look more suspicious for how his DNA has so drastically changed and morphed, but being down in the lab… it does things to him. Makes him paranoid, mostly. But sometimes, when certain gadgets are left about on their work benches, it hurts. Leaves him dazed. Has the air left his lungs so forcefully it feels as if it were stolen.

Confession time, it is. A horrible, very bad time. But he’s so tired. He just wants this to be over, for things to be okay again. He was going to tell them eventually anyway, he just wishes he never had to. But he still can’t bring himself to just blurt it out, so he’ll have to twist his parents into that direction.

Danny can’t help but wish for Jazz to be here with him.

“Well, there could be other possibilities for what you saw.” Danny shrugs, hiding the panic he feels about the tests she wishes to conduct. Divert, divert, divert.

“Annd what would that be?”

“Wellllll…. Dad! You have a theory, right? The one you told me about last week?”

Almost as if there was a buffer symbol where his brain should be, Jack froze, leaving the room in a stiff, still silence as the older man tried to recall whatever it was from a week ago. Right before Maddie could break it herself, Jack shot up with a grin. “That’s right! Ghost molding!”

“Ghost...molding? Jack, honey, what are you talking about?”

“There are ghosts that look a lot like things, right? That one that looks like a tornado, or that other one that looks like some cartoon mad scientist.”

“Yes, dear. What are you getting at?”

“What if some ghosts mold how they look based on things they have a strong connection to. Like a family member, what killed them, or something like that. That’s why some ghosts look similar to one thing or another but have their own traits.”

Maddie seemed to think for a moment before turning back to her son with an eyebrow raised. “I suppose it would explain why Danny and Phantom look so similar. But what connection does our son have to a ghost?”

Man, where does he even start? What connections doesn't he have?

“He could be related to us?” Jack asked, thoughtful.

“No, no one who knew us has died that young. Even if they took their looks after our Danny, they would still have an age to them.”

“Well, there’s no way Danny killed them!” Jack said thoughtfully.

Well, that was only half true. They were getting closer.

“Do you think he was… there? When he died? Or when he came back?”

Danny snapped his fingers with a smirk. Both proud that they got as close to the truth as they did. “Bingo!”

Instead of a smile, Maddie just glared at him, causing him to shrink in his seat. “Explain.”

“I was there when he… died. And when he came back.”

“That’s not possible. Ghosts take time to manifest. Even then it’s in the ghost zone before they make their way back.”

“True, true. Unless…”

“I’m not playing these games with...you.”

“Alright! Unless… they died in the Ghost Zone, right? Or, more likely, at the portal.”

“How is that even possible. We would have discovered a body in our lab.” Maddie sneered with distrust at her son's words. Before he could say anything, his father jumped in.

“What if there was no body?!” Jack jumped up, hands accidentally hitting the table and making the whole thing shake. “Danny!” But then his tone changed. Quieter, reserved. A tone that didn’t belong on the vibrant man. “What… happened to you?”

“Don’t be crazy, Jack! What are you even thinking?! Nothing happened to our son. If this isn’t him, then he’s somewhere else.”

“He’s right.” Danny cut in shyly, hating the new dynamic. This had to change, and he had to change it. “Something did… happen.”

“No…”

“It was the day the portal turned on, two years ago.”

“Danny…” there was a warning edge in her voice, but he pressed on. He was too far now. They needed to know.

“I went inside to check it out. I tripped on some wire…”

“Danny, stop.”

“And pressed the ON switch by accident. A strange place to put it, really.” Danny chuckled awkwardly, trying to lift the mood. It didn’t work. “The portal turned on when I was inside.”

“Danny!”

“It hurt, a lot. But only for a moment. When I woke up again, I was Phantom. Well, a ghost at the time. I didn’t really choose a name until later.”

Maddie pulled out her blaster and pointed it at him, armed and ready. Thankfully, Jack leapt from his seat as Danny did the same, although Jack took a hold of his wife's wrist and forced her to aim upwards. She didn’t pull the trigger, but Jack didn’t let go.

“Mom!”

“Don’t call me that!” she spat out through clenched teeth as my heart seemed to fall through the floor. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

“I’m not a ghost!” he pleaded, although he began to back away from his parents in case things went more south. “I didn’t die, not fully!”

“Don’t lie! Don’t use my son's form to lie to me!”

“I have a pulse!” the teen cried out desperately, tears threatening to spill. “I need to eat, drink, sleep! I’m still human. I’m just different now, don’t you see that?”

“Maddie.” Jack sighed out.

“Don’t be fooled! Either our son is dead or this thing is an imposter, honey! You can’t seriously believe it!”

“I mean, -I” Danny felt his throat close up. Was being half-ghost so bad? Sure, he didn’t think this talk would go well. But a blaster?! Was it really so hard to believe he wasn’t the monster they were making him out to be?

Was she right?

Danny shook his head and stood straighter. “I’m only half dead if you want to get technical. Even then, I consider it more as having powers than being dead.” He could see she wanted to say something but cut her off anyway. “Is it so bad? I help people! I-I fought a king, saved the world! What will it take for me to please you?! For things to, to be okay again?”

To his surprise, she dropped the blaster from her grasp, Jack slowly letting her arm go and taking the blaster for himself. But he did not point it at Danny, instead he set it on a far counter. Now looking at him, Danny could see how… sad his usually vibrant eyes looked. What was he supposed to do now? What had he already done?

His mother slowly walked to him, lips pressed in a frown. Danny stood his ground even as she leaned over him and whispered, no amount of affection in her tone. Only a stone coldness he’s never had directed to him before. “You may not be fully dead, but you are not my son.”

Mind clouded and fuzzy, Danny ran from the mother he loved, but no longer loved him.

#phic phight #angst #family troubles #i tried #needs edits #but i wont do them #2020

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sylph-feather · 4 years

Text

Wordcount: 1515

Prompter: @feministhotline

Prompt: “I can’t help it, okay? I’m a halfa! ...I need this to survive.”

Notes: Not as long as it could’ve been, but I still quite like it and I hope you do as well!

@currentlylurking for team Human

Ghosts can go quite a long time without a recharge. It’s not something known to Danny. For once, this isn’t due to his inexperience; no, most ghosts don’t know.

This is because ghosts recharge naturally, just by being in the ghost zone— hence why they never strayed overly far from Amity Park’s borders despite the catastrophic potential of their spread. Some could get a temporary boost from emotional output, but it never lasted. Consistently as they grew further, they grew weaker, and when they were brutally beat down (perhaps by a certain Phantom) they needed that glowing green essence of their home.

Danny’s awareness of this came in stages.

The first stage was the weakening. He spent the first few months of his halfterlife mostly figuring stuff out; sure, fighting the (eventually relatively) weak ghost creature that came to haunt the halls, but even then he did that primarily with his fists (albeit floating).

The main usage of his powers was accidental; a dash of invisibility here, a sprig of intangibility there. Enough to stress him out emotionally, but nothing that drained his ghost side physically. Routine exercises for a ghost, especially one with a solid body it could take excess energy from.

The only compensation Danny had to do was eat a little more. Considering everything else that was going on, he didn’t even think to question it as a compensation for the energy of his ghost side, but saw it as something normal. After all, teens were bottomless pits, ghost side or no; it was a nice, familiar constant, a good normalcy.

...Even if, as the ghost fights increased, so did his hunger.

It starts as a little extra on his plate, a few bites more.

His parents notice when he starts to take double portions as he’s fighting more fully fledged ghosts. Bitterly, Danny just wonders if they notice through food shortage and bills; it’s not like they come up from the lab often.

Normally, he’d tell himself not to think about what they were doing in the lab when he was trying to eat, but now… now he’s just so hungry that the nausea just doesn’t matter.

“My son’s a growing boy!” Jack splutters, unspeakably proud as he claps Danny on his skinny shoulder, knocking some of that precious food out of his mouth. “Finally swimming in my end of the gene pool,” Jack laughs, puffing his chest up.

Danny takes in his father’s broadness, thinking of his own lithe style of fighting. I hope not.

The issue with them noticing is when the ghosts continue to escalate— because his intake thusly escalates… and not even to scale, as though his body previously was boosted just fine but the solution of food is temporary, at least to some degree.

Then it was just another worry on his shoulders. Another of those traits that constantly nagged and bit at him— When will your parents notice? When will they put it together?

When he voiced those concerns, the need to consume such noticeably vast quantities of food, Sam and Tucker unanimously shrugged.

“They’ll buy that teens are bottomless pits,” Tuck informed around a large burger (demonstratively of his statement, really).

“Your dad’ll just be happy that you’re,” Sam paused, inhaling, then continuing in the most Jack Fenton-ly deep voice she could muster, “filling out to be just like your old man!”

Danny managed a snort, eyeing his own burger, painfully hungry gut flipping in anxiety, but accepted it with a nod. After all, it wasn’t like his parents had noticed anything about him that was more obviously ghostly, and there were plenty traits to name.

It was as though the universe took offense at that thought, or perhaps at the idea of letting Danny Fenton live his life easily. It didn’t matter the motivation of the universe’s whims, it just mattered that the hunger escalated.

Danny was inhaling food 24-7 now, enough that his worries about his parents noticing were coming true. Granted, it had taken them quite a while, but eventually they noticed he was never without a carb heavy snack. He could only keep that on the down low so much, particularly since using his powers made his stomach twinge in its constant state of hunger.

It was getting worse, food just a temporary solution. Danny’d read enough on ghosts to consider the portal (he may have been a C student, but he wasn’t a total idiot)— but that didn’t work; it brought an energy buzz, but it didn’t sate the hunger. It wasn’t the solution either— though he’d find the real one soon enough.

A fight with Johnny had gotten out of hand, lead to Danny ways away from Amity after having chased that stupid ghostly bike down a road stretching into nowhere. Needy of help, Danny had shouted at Johnny, asking of hunger, and Johnny had just shrugged and said “ya should be gettin all that food from the zone,” and then he’d shrugged again and kickstarted his motorcycle into gear, riding off with a flare of green flames, tailed hotly by Danny Phantom.

Exhausted and grasping at his stomach, Phantom began the flight home, drifting in a wobbly way.

He paused his mental moaning and groaning when the air turned sweet, as though someone had set a flytrap of honey. The halfa narrowed his eyes, practically walking on the air as he attempted to locate its source.

...A deer. Smashed.

Smashed was one way to describe it. Another more gorey way existed; ribs exposed to a baking sun, maggot eggs rooted in seeping flesh, labored breathing that oozed blood with every huff. Full of effort, the doe turned an eye towards him, full of fear.

Smelling so good.

It was paradoxical; Danny was drooling unrelated to throwing up, even though he was doing that too.

Most strangely, it was his first experience of satiation in a month. Just being near the creature’s rotting flesh as it panted its life away was enough to bring fullness to his belly, even as he expelled all the food he’d eaten that day before he left.

Who to go to, Danny wondered in bed. His parents knew not about whatever that was— even ghosts hadn’t known, Johnny hadn’t known. A halfa thing? It was a tentative conclusion, but one likely enough to consider. After all, Johnny spent enough time in the human world to know enough about “ecto fatigue” (his parents dubbing of the phenomenon).

That, of course, left one person.

…Well, Vlad certainly couldn’t have him as his weird son if he starved to death, right?

—That was the leverage he was holding now, at least. “I won’t do it,” Danny informed him after Vlad gave more oozing offers of “well if you’ll just be my pupil.” “Besides,” he continued, “you seem to know what’ll happen— can’t be your son if I die fully, and do you really think dear Maddie will look to you if I do?” Danny made a retching noise to go along with his sarcasm.

Vlad gave in. “Follow me,” he hissed, sliding back into that role of authoritative power, a cocky rich man rather than a frustrated ghost.

Hesitantly, Danny trailed, easily following Vlad directly through the ground to his secretive basement (not so secret, given Danny knew about it too).

“What does this have to do with it?” Danny pondered, eyeing… cages. A little set of small cages— stuffed with squeaking, writhing rats. Some of them were laying in the corner of their cages— something told Danny they were unconscious, but not dead.

Danny recoiled at the deafening confined scrabbling. “Didn’t know you were one for pets.”

Vlad ignored him, phasing a hand through the cage to pluck a rat up, thumb resting against its small throat.

Danny was growing more uncomfortable with the way the gray rat in Vlad’s hand had its eyes blown wide with fear, tiny voice squeaking as it squirmed. Tittering and shuffling and feeling much like the rat, Danny just ran his mouth— “what, you got a snake instead of a cat? Or maybe your cat caught all of these, instead? Or—“

The squeaking became more frantic, and Danny’s blue eyes snapped to the rat in Vlad’s grip. His thumb was pinned to the thing’s throat, cutting off its air, causing it to panic.

Slowly, its struggles stilled, each cry becoming more wheezy, each movement of its tiny paws becoming more leaden.

The sweet smell returned, and Danny breathed it in involuntarily— and felt full again.

Vlad smiled sharply, edging his grip off the things throat. It breathed, but was knocked out— the man callously tossed it back into the cage. Danny’s blown eyed gaze followed it.

“We can’t help it,” he crooned in a faux gentle voice, honey and oil oozing from it equally, “we’re halfas. We need something on the brink, like us; not fully dead, not ghost energy nor meat. Neither would completely do it.”

Danny stared at the unconscious rat, and he was the one breathing hard, pain in his lungs rather than his stomach.

#dp #dp fic #phic #danny phantom #danny phantom fic #danny phantom fanfiction #quill #my writing #phicphight20 #phic phight 20

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ourkarlanicoleuniverse · 4 years

Text

Sweet Nothing (MHA Staff AU Fanfiction)

Chapter 4

Warnings: sfw, some angst, slight spoilers to MHA

Lily and I were getting ready for our meeting while Aizawa and Vlad were talking about how they were splitting the USJ for today. Lily and I spent the whole week preparing to discuss our concerns about how the school really handled the students and really wanted to vocalize how all the staff has to be held accountable if anything occurs with the students. It wouldn't matter if it were an on-campus or off-campus issue. So far, the Pro Hero Hound Dog, Ryo Inu, the head of the UA's counseling department, seemed very behind our school plans. We just needed to discuss it with the rest of the counseling staff and Nezu.

"I'm sure they'll agree with it. I mean, they agreed to your idea about a counselor per class instead of one counselor per year." Lily patted my back while I mumbled over my speech. It was a bad habit I gained from All Might, and I'm guessing Midoriya got the hang of it when I hung out with the class yesterday. Love that.

"I know it seems like I have Nezu wrapped around my finger, but I am literally going to go up to my boss, and ex-principal, who practically raised me, and tell him that I think he sucks at his job when it comes to students' mental health." I scratched the back of my head. Maybe I should've opted to wear my hair up instead of curling it for this meeting. On the other hand, Lily was wearing a creme pants suit with her hair wrapped in her signature bun. "I feel like I am being ungrateful and a huge hypocrite." I pushed my hair back and wiped my palms on the shorts of my suit.

Lily looked more concerned about the other staff members watching us, "Okay, I know I'm a counselor but please pull yourself together. Aizawa and Vlad look like they're about to run and get you water and a ventilator." I spinned in my seat towards the two men to see them staring at me. Welp this is embarrassing. I simply waved awkwardly and turned back to Lily, "We're not talking about you, we are talking about the current students. Nezu will understand that. And you can always use your time in the U.S. as a way to back up our argument and not have to bring up your time living at U.A. It is as simple as apple pie."

I just blinked at her. "You did not just use, 'It is as simple as apple pie.'" I motioned my fingers as air quotes and made a high pitched North Carolina accent to emphasize the phrase. She simply nudged me and laughed. "I hate baking. Whoever thought baking was easy needs to reevaluate everything." I shook my head, my nerves finally dissipating once the topic switched over.

I checked the clock to see if I still had time to spare. Sadly I didn't so I packed up my stuff and told Lily to start walking over to the meeting room. I passed by the two teachers, Vlad gave us two thumbs up and Aizawa just nodded. "So, explain to me why all the male staff at U.A. are so attentive to you." She smirked.

"It's mainly Present Mic. But since you asked, most of them we're U.A. students at the same time I was. So they knew me before I became the self-confident pro you see before you today, that is still afraid of their mouse principal that is like two feet shorter than her." I gave a fake chipper tone.

"Why are you so intimidated by Nezu anyways?" Lily's honey brown eyebrows scrunched creating a crease between them.

"Simple answer. He took me in when my mom couldn't take care of me. The real answer, he thought it was funny to be the staff member in charge of my final exam in my first year at U.A. and it wasn't fun." I visibly shook in my suit.

"Wait, is it that time where you thought you and Iris were up against robots but instead it was..."

"YES! And I don't want to talk about it." I looked over at her with pleading eyes. "I mean it. I can talk about a lot of things, that is not one of them."

"But it's not even the worst thing to..."

"Doesn't matter, I don't like talking about it." Lily just shrugged and kept walking without pressing me further. She's right, it isn't the worst thing to happen to me; it's more just an embarrassing story that I don't like because I seriously underestimated Nezu that day. I really hope he hasn't done that to any other students after that. Once we hit the door to the meeting room, we were met with Hound Dog and no Nezu.

"Where's Principal Nezu?" Lily asked as she opened the door for us.

"He's giving All Might a lecture about how a teacher needs to prioritize his students." Ryo rubbed his eyebrows, "So, the meeting has to go without him."

I raised my eyebrow, "Wasn't the point of the meeting for him to not be here? What did All Might do?"

Ryo looked just as annoyed as we did, "He went around saving people this morning so he ran out of time and needed to recharge. So Nezu wanted to talk to him because he felt that it was more important."

I smirked a little despite being annoyed at the slight hypocrisy, "I can see it now, All Might on the couch at the teacher's lounge while Nezu brings out the tea and starts talking about the meaning of being a hero and a teacher." I did a slight impression of Nezu's mannerism causing them to laugh along. "If anything, he could've just passive aggressively brought All Might along to the meeting so he can hear us lecturing." Then it hit me. Aizawa asked me and Thirteen is we wanted to join him in training the students at the USJ tomorrow. "Shit. Aizawa is going to piss when Toshi isn't in class. Let me text him really quick since no one else is here yet." They simply motioned me to do so while they got seated. Lily even grabbed my bag with my laptop and tablet for me.

Hey, Aizawa.

Toshinori went out using his quirk this morning and wasted his energy again. He might not be able to come in for the beginning portion of class. I'm sorry, I barely found out because Nezu is with him and not at the meeting. Tell the kids I said, "Hi." and that I wish them a good day! Please don't be mad at the big guy okay, I'm sure he feels really bad :)

Message not delivered

That's weird. Maybe he has his phone off or something. Oh well, Thirteen will probably catch him up to speed about Toshinori. I noticed the other counselors were showing up so I made my way inside quickly and let the meeting start.

Things were going smoothly until all of a sudden the internet connection stopped working and Lily's powerpoint froze up on the screen. Ryo and I were struggling to fix it when all of a sudden, Iida ran into the meeting room gasping and slightly heaving. "Iida? What are you doing here, this is strictly for U.A staff..."

"There are villains attacking the USJ! I ran into All Might and he told me to go and alert as many heroes as possible." The tall boy flailed his arms in chopping movements despite needing to catch his breath. "I am sorry for the interruption but I am assured that you understand the importance."

Hound Dog stood up and ordered everyone to head to different school areas to make sure it was just the USJ that was infiltrated. I put my hands on the boy's armored shoulders, "Hey, hey, its going to be okay, take deep breaths. Did you tell other staff?"

He nodded finally catching his breath, "I told Nezu and some of the teachers, they are heading there as we speak."

I nodded with him, "Okay, relax; we're a school full of pros; we'll make sure everything turns out fine." I pulled off my blue blazer and my heels.

"What are you doing, Ms. Montoya?" The boy looked bewildered.

"I'm heading to the USJ and I can't really run in heels." I smiled and held my shoes up and then started rushing over there with Iida following close behind.

"But what about your suspension?"

"To hell with it, you students are more important." I kept straight ahead when all of a sudden I was lifted off the ground, "Um, Iida what are you doing?"

"Sorry, Ms. Montoya, I am not trying to be inappropriate, it's just that I'm faster and they're attacking my classmates and my teacher." If it weren't a dire situation I would've told him to put me down but this boy was running on pure adrenaline so he probably was going to be a lot faster anyways.

I simply nodded, "I admire your determination about helping but once we're at the USJ I want you to just get as many of the students out without running into any villains. Your safety is most important." I honestly don't think the fifteen year old heard me while he was running.

We finally met with the other staff with Nezu at the USJ. The bright relieved faces on Class 1-A's face made my heart sink. "Sorry we were late students." Nezu spoke up. I turned to Iida and the boy looked so proud of himself that he was able to help get us here. I observed the whole place and saw every inch of it in shambles. I couldn't really see where Toshinori was, but I guess it was where the smoke was located. Great that means he's running out of time. Sero and Sato were holding up an injured Thirteen. I looked down to see Asui and Mineta carrying a broken Aizawa. Fuck. I turned to Mic, and he looked almost as furious as I was feeling. Directions were given to the student while the teachers began to fight. First to step up was Snipe shooting all the way to where All Might was. Guessing he was shooting a villain that was fighting him. After that it was Mic with his voice quirk. The villains didn't know what they had coming in for them. I went down as fast as I could to the kids and Aizawa as the rest of the staff followed in suit of Snipe and Mic. I grabbed Aizawa out of their arms and laid him down for a second to analyze him. His face busted in, and his arms and legs were broken. How are you going to recover from this one, Sho? I looked up and the students, "Shoji, you think you can carry Mr. Aizawa out of here?" He nodded and moved his six arms to situate Aizawa comfortably on him. "Okay, all of you start heading up now into safety, okay? Is anyone else injured?" For the students that were with me they all seemed fine. "Okay, good. I am going to help the other staff and find the rest of the class. Please get out of here and try to be safe. You guys did phenomenally, and I'm extremely proud at how well you are handling this situation." I smiled and gave them a quick nod before following in after the chaos. I have to go find Toshinori before he loses his time.

I shouldn't be using my quirk, but I don't really care right now. I decided to channel some of my energy into my legs and make a huge leap into the middle of the USJ in between All Might and some blue haired villain with hands all over his body. There was a purple ghostly figure behind him with glowing gold eyes. I pushed Midoriya out of the way while I noticed that Kirishima, Bakugo, and Todoroki were all a few feet away from the scene. "Who are you? You don't look like a pro? You don't even have a suit." The blue haired villain croaked out, he was bleeding from Snipe's shot.

I gave him a simple smirk once I started hearing more bullets flying through the air, "You don't need to know." I used an old quirk I gained years ago that I had so much trouble wanting to use it. I created a large amount of clouds to hide All Might, Midoriya, and I while the villain was failing to dodge the bullets coming at him. The clouds were dense enough to protect all of us from any last minute chances of an attack. The ghostly figure wrapped around the boy as he fell to ground, I tried my best to come after it but I just flew threw while they both disappeared. So much for being useful. I groaned as I watched the borrowed cloud quirk start to fade as well as All Might's muscular form. He was telling Midoriya that he saved him and kind of praised him for nearly getting himself killed which I didn't really appreciate but I couldn't really say anything about at the moment.

"Midoriya!" We all turned in the direction of the sound, it was Kirshima in his Red Riot suit running towards us. "Are you okay?"

I was getting ready to use the cloud quirk again when Cementoss came to the rescue and blocked the redhead for me with his cement quirk, telling him that everything was okay and that to go with the other students. I admire the compassion the student had to go check on his classmate, and I was able to tell that Toshinori was impressed by it as well. I sighed, "You really need to just let me and the other heroes handle things, Toshinori."

Midoriya looked stunned. "AAAAhh... IIIIII... ahhhh?"

I walked up to him and rested a hand on his shoulder, "News flash kid, all of us teachers know about All Might's situation. I actually knew for the whole ten years. I also know you have One For All. Congratulations and my condolences, because that quirk is going to be hell to learn." I chuckled, "It's okay, though; you'll have me to help you with it though. Now I am going to go help other students get escorted out of here, you want to help while Cementoss sneaks Toshi out of here?" I raised my eyebrow. The boy still stunned with his mouth hanging just simply nodded and followed my lead.

We managed to grab the rest of the students and I was about to escort them out when Kayama stopped me. "I'll get them out, you need to go to the hospital with Aizawa."

I raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean I have to go?"

"Nezu lied and said that you two were engaged so that way you can have access to his room and keep the students updated with his condition while he's recovering."

I blinked. He couldn't have just said that I was a colleague from the same agency as Eraserhead? I just nodded and she pointed me in the direction of the ambulance. "Please make sure my kids are okay while I'm gone."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beep. Beep. Beep. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. Sitting in the hospital room with a just barely stabled man laying unconscious in bed was starting to eat away at me. I had to stay in the waiting room as both Aizawa and Thirteen were in the ER undergoing surgery. Thirteen was out first and was conscious, so I was able to talk to them and check on them while waiting for news on Aizawa. All I had to do was tell them that I was from U.A. and show them my hero license and school I.D. and they let me in. I don't understand why Nezu had to lie about my relationship to AIzawa. Toshinori's friend Detective Tskauchi had a partner of his come in and watch over the both of us and another cop to look over Thirteen. "Yeah, no they're both stable, the students have nothing to worry about. Hey, you want to say 'Hi' to your counselor while you guys have me on the phone?"

I gave a short hello and told them everything was fine and explained that I was made Aizawa's emergency contact since we're partners at the school and how I would keep them updated. Afterwards, the detective left the room to continue talking to Tskauchi about the case. I just stayed sitting beside Aizawa's left. The poor guy was practically mummified. The doctor told me that his quirk might have been affected by the attack. But aside from that the rest of him should be perfectly fine after a period of resting and healing. I'm just relieved that he's alive. I had to go straight to the hospital, I didn't even know I left my phone in my blazer back at the meeting room. Given that Lily doesn't actually fight as a pro and is only allowed to use quirk due to her counseling job, I'm hoping that she got my stuff while she was calling the police and ambulance. I chuckled. Really that's what I'm worried about right now?

I never really felt comfortable in hospitals. Just never had a good memory with them. Which is ironic considering my mom is a doctor. Hospitals reminded me of all the times I thought I was going to die. And now, I'm here seeing one of my first friends ever almost die. My grandfather must be laughing in his grave watching me right now. Heck, I'm laughing at myself right now. I tried hard to be a symbol of hope for people, and I'm not even doing that because of my stupid suspension and I'm holding back on my quirk. If I was... no. Nope. I will not be blaming this on myself. I was having a normal day, I couldn't have expected this. Scanning over Aizawa, I kept following how his chest rose and fell and matched my breathing to that to calm my thoughts. You would think you would be over all that, Mai? I am over it. Today was just a setback.

What would happen if Aizawa couldn't use his quirk anymore? Would he even be upset? When he was a kid he was always insecure about his ability to be hero because his quirk was a combat based quirk. But even so, his quirk gave him an advantage against villains because he could stop their quirk and be able to make it an equal fight. So without his quirk... would he go back to that insecure kid, or would he just make his peace with it?

I didn't know I was crying until the detective came back and gave me the tissue box from the table next to the window and I felt the tears repeatedly hit my hands in my lap. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry about your fiance. At least he's alive though." I simply nodded. At least he's alive. "Do you need to use my phone to call someone for you? In case you need clothing or anything?"

I shook my head and sniffed, "Detective Tsukauchi is a friend of mine. I'm sure he'll grab some stuff before he comes to the hospital to talk to you in person. But thank you."

———————————————————————

My master list 😊

Tag list:

@inumorph @thatgirlwithcamera @mel-sanch

#bnha oc #mha fanfiction #mha oc #oc x aizawa #oc x bnha #ua staff au #original character #bnha fanfic #oc x mha #mha #mha aizawa #bnha #bnha fanfiction #my hero fanfic #boku no hero fanfic #bnha aizawa

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