#DP meta

[threewaysdivided]

compared to the other hero's in YJ how do you think Phantom stands up power wise. like Future Danny ripped the world apart and i know in some fanfiction that it is used as an indicator that he is high up there, but i'm interested in your thoughts.

This is an interesting question nonnie!

I generally agree with the idea that Phantom is in the upper-tier of crossover superhero powers, but I do have more specific thoughts so let’s break it down:

Danny’s power level

Just looking at the variety and strength of ghost-powers that Phantom displays in his show, I would put him in the higher rankings of most heroes when it comes to raw ability.  I alluded to this in my main DP x YJ Deathly Weapons fanfic, but to me Phantom shows signs of a pretty common power-scaling differential that happens when a solo-protagonist hero gets transplanted into an ensemble setting.  Within his own setting, Phantom had to be (or become) powerful enough to solve most problems/ fights all by himself – and some of those ghosts he ended up facing towards the end of his canon were impressively strong.  By comparison ensemble heroes are generally less-powerful because working as a collective means they don’t have the same need for aggressive self-sufficiency and also so that no one character upstages or outmodes the rest of the group from a writing perspective.

There’s also the nature of ghost powers.  Phantom needed to develop the raw strength to fill the role of solo combat heavy-hitter, but his base powers are versatile to the point of unsettling.  He has to physically fight against other ghosts because they have (and to some extent are immune to) the same abilities as him, but in a fight against other species he could potentially avoid, manipulate or exhaust an opponent with strategic use of invisibility/ intangibility/ overshadowing.

The back of Dinah’s neck prickled.  With flight to mask footsteps and intangibility rendering them undetectable by touch…  Nonthreatening as Phantom generally appeared, she was starting to understand why his kind had developed such an unsettling reputation.  The idea that a ghost could be present at any time - eavesdropping, spying, interfering - without any of them being the wiser was… disquieting to say the least. - Deathly Weapons, Chapter 17: Assessment

On top of that, he seems to be in a similar boat to Superman when it comes to physical weaknesses – he doesn’t have that many, and they’re often quite specific or hard-to-find.   The most easily-exploitable one is that Danny can run out of power, be slowly starved of ectoplasm or be knocked unconscious; all of which would forcibly revert him back to his weaker human state.  After that, he’s vulnerable to certain magics and ghostly-artefacts, which are more likely to be accessible to various DC/ Marvel heroes (although they might not know exactly which spells/items will be most effective or why).  Beyond those two, most of his weaknesses need to be specifically known about and actively sought out – anti-ecto-technology is obtainable but not mainstream, blood blossoms naturally repel/hurt ghosts but they seem to be rare in nature (or even extinct in the modern day) and then assuming you acknowledge Phantom Planet there’s ectoranium which is basically ghost-Kryptonite in rarity (and possibly even the same mineral in DP x DC settings depending on the crossover).  Much like with Superman, the most reliable ways to take down Phantom require actively knowing what he is and having prepared accordingly.

Based on those metrics, I want to place Phantom in the same power-band as Superman or the Martian Manhunter.  I’d consider their powers to be equivalent incomparibles – it’s hard to stack their abilities side-by-side and say one is objectively better than the others.  A no-holds-barred, knock-down drag-out fight between those three could get very nasty but it would be hard to confidently call a winner without knowing more about the external factors around them.

That said, I think the thing holding Danny back from being fully at that level is his experience: or rather his lack thereof.   Danny hasn’t had much formal training (except maybe some basic self-defence instruction from Maddie/Jack) and he doesn’t have a proper mentor either.  His personal experience mostly fits the narrow niche of direct open combat with other ghosts, mostly throughout Amity Park and surrounds (although occasionally in the Ghost Zone or further from town). 

Phantom has enough raw power and innate talent as a strategic lateral-thinker to get by, but I think that hyperspecialisation and lack of guidance would leave him with a lot of blind-spots.  His hand-to-hand is self-taught and probably missing a lot of best-practice basic techniques.  He’s also never had an experienced third party to observe him in the field and offer suggestions on alternative approaches to using his powers/ keep him from developing bad habits.  This is something Danny actually comments on in canon; he can take a long time to identify solutions (even obvious ones) that deviate too far from his default throw hands approach to fighting.  His powers could be more effectively deployed as a precision-instrument but a lack of coaching means he tends to falls back on using them as a blunt hammer because that was the pattern that came naturally when he was first starting out, and no-one was around to keep that habit from ingraining.

The place where you can see this lack of experience hurting him the most is in his lack of soft-skills.  Phantom didn’t have anyone to advise him on de-escalation, damage control, comforting civilians, interacting with authorities etc.  Add in the naturally-frightening nature of many ghosts and it was easy for him to fall into a public perception of being “the town menace”.  Danny is pretty decent at rallying both humans and ghosts (even erstwhile enemies) to his side in crisis situations but no-one has taught him how manage public relations outside of that.  He says it himself: he needs a PR agent.

On the other hand, Phantom’s heroics have inadvertently earned him a decent amount of potential political pull in the Ghost Zone.  He has enough positive rapport that some regular rogues will take his side or even actively seek him out for help in the right circumstances, and other more antagonistic ones have at least developed a degree of grudging respect.  There are several powerful ghosts that either have direct debts of gratitude to him/his team (Princess Dorothea, Pandora) or who hold him in high esteem for re-sealing Pariah Dark (The Far Frozen).  It’s possible that defeating Pariah might even have granted him a potential candidature/claim to an official position, and judging by the way the Observants and Clockwork pay attention to him, it seems that Phantom’s slow accumulation of power/influence isn’t going completely unnoticed.  However, again, Danny doesn’t have the awareness, experience or training needed to leverage that effectively – heck, he’s not even doing it on purpose.

With all that taken into account, I think Phantom would rank very highly in terms of overall potential, but at his current level he’d be in the lower ranks of the A-tier.  He could become a much more powerful figure with the right guidance but in his canonical state he’s underutilising or outright overlooking a lot of his most effective tools.

TUE Future/ “Dark Phantom”

The “Dark Phantom” presented in the TUE Bad-Future is interesting to me because while he’s a very powerful figure within that story, I don't think he’s a very good reflection of canon-Danny’s potential to do harm.

Gonna complain about The Ultimate Enemy for a bit: I’ve tag-muttered about this before but I’m one of the Phandom members who finds The Ultimate Enemy to be a frustratingly weak episode.  It has a potentially fascinating core premise (the “evil future/alternate self”) but the execution is so convoluted and driven by improbable contrivances that the whole ends up being far less than the sum of its parts.   

One of the biggest problems is that, rather than being a straight future/alternate version of Danny, “Dark Phantom” is actually a hybrid of Phantom and Plasmius’ worse sides.  He’s a distinct, separate entity which means he can’t work as an effective dark mirror to either of them.  (Compare and contrast the Justice League episode A Better World in which the Justice Lords acted as a dark mirror of what the actual Justice League members could become if they chose to abandon their morals and compassion in favour of seizing control and instating a totalitarian system of draconian crime prevention.)

The episode also tried to graft on a really mismatched moral of “don’t be a cheat”.  Rather than being a lesson on choices/ values/ power/ responsibility, Dark Phantom almost ends up being an offhand biproduct of Danny getting caught cheating on a freshman/sophomore-year career-aptitude test.  Instead of learning a lesson about himself/ his ideals/ his personal faults, Danny comes away from the episode with a cool new superpower after deciding not to cheat on the test after all.  Not exactly satisfying.

That mismatch and the convoluted levels of moon-logic required to make it fit severely undermine the idea that this version of Dark Phantom is “inevitable”.  There are too many steps that are too highly-specific and too easily-avoidable for the threat to feel real: Danny has to care enough about an early-highschool CAT to want to cheat, he has to somehow get the answers which he wasn’t intending to do in the canon timelineand only does as a result of Clockwork’s meddling, making it a self-fulfilling situation, he has to get caught using them, Mister Lancer has to hold the resulting parent-teacher meeting at Nasty Burger rather than a school office for some reason, the Nasty Burger Sauce has to 1. be dangerously explosive and 2. coincidentally explode while not only Danny’s parents but his friends and sister are inside, Danny has to be placed in Vlad’s custody rather than with his Aunt Alicia or closer family-friends, Danny has to ask Vlad to remove his Phantom-half and finally, Vlad himself has to agree to do it.  Take away any of those steps and this version of Dark Phantom doesn’t happen.  That’s not inevitable, it’s contrived.

But anyway, let’s look at Dark Phantom as his own entity:

One of the things that makes Dark Phantom much more potentially dangerous is that he combines Phantom’s raw power with Plasmius’ experience.  Like I was saying before, one of Danny’s biggest handicaps is that he lacks training/guidance and tends to underutilise his most effective abilities.  Vlad meanwhile has had years of relative freedom to practice and finesse a lower raw-power level; he’s much more skilled at advanced techniques like duplication and overshadowing (which he canonically used to force through his fortune-making business deals), as well as ecto-constructs.  Plasmius is also a lot more tactical and manipulative in how he applies their common powers.  Plus, the TUE version of Dark Phantom is a full-ghost, which means he doesn’t have a vulnerable mortal state that can be exploited as a weakness.

This is why I think it would be possible for TUE!Dark Phantom to successfully decimate other heroes in shared-universe crossover situations where ghosts aren’t common knowledge.  He’d be an unexpected, unknown enemy that the heroes have no effective way to fight (outside of a few magic users).  Combine that with many of the most powerful heroes being visible as public figures, and Dark Phantom having inherited Plasmius’ strategic/manipulative traits and it could be very easy for Dark Phantom to basically launch a premeditated paranormal blitzkrieg attack, using Plasmius’ skill with duplicates and overshadowing to subjugate any hero he couldn’t overwhelm with Phantom’s raw power level.  It would also make sense that Amity Park would become one of the remaining bastions in any TUE-style future, since having advanced knowledge of ghostly abilities and access to anti-ecto technology would tilt the balance more evenly and allow them to at least keep the danger out.

Mentally, it’s also worth noting that Dark Phantom is a lot more dangerous than either Phantom or Plasmius.  He’s basically the most toxic traits from both of them, removed from their more moderating/ compassionate instincts.  Based on the canonical explanation given, TUE!Danny had Phantom forcibly removed in attempt to remove the pain/ rage/ grief he was feeling over the death of his family.  This isn’t a model-hero-persona conceptualisation of Phantom a la Splitting Images; the TUE-version of his ghost half is a big ball of churning negative emotion.  And what are some of Danny’s toxic traits when it comes to negative emotions: he lashes out, falls into self-blame and self-destructs.  Then we add in Vlad’s toxic traits: he’s egocentric to the point of narcissism, he projects negative feelings/ blame onto others rather than accept responsibility for his own actions and he has a controlling/ sadistic streak.   

TUE’s Dark Phantom is the worst possible combination of an emotionally devastated teenager and an emotionally immature adult.  He’s a ball of pain and rage that blames the world for that pain, lashes out at it, feels worse for doing so and then blames the world for making him feel worse because he doesn’t have the emotional capacity to accept that he’s the one causing it.  Grief is love persevering but the feelings of love, connection and guilt that contextualise his pain were left in the human shells that remained of Danny and Vlad.  It’s possible that the Dark Phantom presented in TUE might not have the capacity to feel positive emotions or compassion.  He was never meant to exist as his own entity – he was an attempt to destroy Daniel Fenton’s negative emotions which went horribly wrong.  In some ways it seems like his reign of terror could be an angrier version of Dracula’s scheme from Netflix’s Castlevania or Haliax’s goal from the Kingkiller Chronicles – a drawn-out suicide note from an undead being who’s been dead inside for much longer, destroying whatever peace/happiness he encounters in revenge for being denied it himself, until such time as he either attains catharsis or finally ends the pain by destroying reality and himself along with it.  That’s the final thing that makes TUE’s Dark Phantom more dangerous than either Phantom or Plasmius – he has nothing to lose and no “better nature” or personal dreams that other heroes could try to appeal to.

So yeah, the TUE version of Dark Phantom could absolutely rip the world and other heroes apart, but I don’t think he’s a particularly good reflection of Danny’s capabilities in terms of either powers or personality.  There’s too much Vlad in the mix, and even then he represents such a narrow and extreme edge-case for each of their personalities that it’s barely representative at all.  At best he’s a warning for what these kinds of powers could be capable of in the wrong hands.

Meta-question: What is “power” in narrative?

Alright, now that I’ve (hopefully) answered the question, let’s finish with a self-indulgent thought exercise for extra credit.

There’s an anecdote which I’ve heard attributed to the Stan Lee, in which a fan apparently asked him “who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk?”  To which Stan apparently replied, “whoever the writer wants.”

While it can be fun to make tier-lists and try to rank how strong different heroes/villains/creatures are based on the rules of their respective universes, I think it can also be helpful to consider that– like all things in storytelling – power is a narrative device.  It’s a tool that the character(s) and storyteller(s) can use to create and solve problems.

A character can be extremely physically strong/ skilled/ knowledgeable/ influential in a specific area but how much narrative power they have depends on how well their abilities allow them to influence or resolve story problems.   And, as the omnipotent god(s) of the narrative, the storyteller(s) can choose whether to confront them with challenges that play to their existing strengths, or that force them to find other solutions.  What’s the best way to kill a vampire?

This is actually part of what makes Lex Luthor such an effective Superman villain.  Objectively most versions of Lex are just A Guy™ – on a physical level he doesn’t have anything close to Kal El’s Kryptonian strength or superpowers.  But he feels like a serious threat because he often comes after Superman in ways that Clark can’t easily steamroll with that brute strength.  Lex uses manipulation, money, influence, connections, politics, public opinion; Superman can’t physically fight him without playing into Luthor’s plans, and trying to face him in those other fields requires tools that Clark wasn’t handed as part of his Kryptonian heritage.  An invading alien army is objectively a bigger physical threat to Earth, but a competent Lex Luthor scheme feels more dangerous because – while we feel confident that Superman can beat down a legion of monsters – when it comes to the question of whether he can outwit Luthor, the outcome is a lot less certain.

Situational disempowerment is another of the ways a narrative can reign in an otherwise “overpowered” character: placing them in circumstances where they either aren’t given many opportunities to showcase their best strengths, or are kept from using them because the drawbacks/ risks/ consequences of using their abilities makes their power(s) a liability.  I’ve mentioned it before, but this is actually one of the tricks I’m personally using to keep Phantom’s massive powerset balanced against the other proteges in Deathly Weapons.  It’s also something I’ve been struggling with when it comes to Conner’s place in that story since the stealth-mission plot structure doesn’t allow as much room to highlight his core powers and personal strengths.   

Stories can create additional stakes for powerful characters by giving them emotional arcs which their powers can’t resolve.   For a published example, consider the series One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100.  Despite how high-ranked Saitama and Mob are within the power-scaling of their respective stories, those powers don’t kill the emotional stakes because the things they actually want/ need can only be gained through self-improvement or making connections in ways separate from their powers (and in some regards their power level actively gets in the way of that).  This is also something I’m doing with Danny’s main grief arc in DW.   

Final Conclusion time

In terms of physical strength and range of abilities, I think Phantom would be pretty near the top of the power-scale in most superhero crossovers.  While the Dark Phantom presented in TUE might not be a particularly good reflection of Danny’s specific potential, a crossover version of the TUE timeline offers a pretty good litmus-test for how dangerous a strong ghost could be in a given universe: the combination of power level, ability range and highly-specific/ inaccessible weak-points poses a strong strategic threat.

On the other hand, physical strength isn’t the only strength.  Phantom has a decent level of potential political sway as well, but he also lacks a lot of the soft skills and experience needed to make use of his toolset to its full ability.

Stepping back further, the answer to how powerful Danny is in a narrative sense is really just “however much the writer wants”.  Phantom’s narrative power depends on the kind of story he’s in and the challenges placed around him – there are as many ways to situationally nerf our ghost-boy as make him OP, all without needing to alter his on-paper powers.

#you asked me for thoughts which is a dangerous game to play as I have many #dp x dc #dpxdc #danny phantom #DP meta #dark phantom #the ultimate enemy #TUE Critical #I know that AGIT did a different take on TUE Dark Phantom and that's totally cool! This is just me unpacking the OG episode writing #on writing #writing superpowers #anonymous #3WD Answers

[hayscodings]

On that scene with Laura and Laura.

The scene where Laura comes face to face with her past self is incredible for several reasons, but one of the ones that sticks out to me is that it is truly a marriage between powerful writing and poignant acting choices. As the audience, I think it's our instinct to watch it from the perspective of present day Laura, and to focus on her, but let's talk about past Laura for a moment.

The conscious decision not to have her fight back or defend herself at any point is an absolute masterclass in writing. The fact that she just stands there and takes it, never once getting angry at present day Laura or attempting to swing back, but instead insisting that she's a good person and repeatedly asking "why?", is such a delightfully subtle way of cluing us in that her self-loathing is very present even in 1949. It's why she has to keep lying to herself, and it proves what present day Laura said about her becoming such a master at deception that she's genuinely fooled herself.

What really drives the scene home, however, are Michelle's acting choices. The juxtaposition between present-day Laura, in all of her uninhibited grandeur, and 1949 Laura whose self-restraint is so palpable that it's almost a third person in the room, is sublime. The two Lauras aren't just styled differently, their respective physicalities are poles apart. They even speak differently, with Michelle not only changing the the volume, speed, and rhythm of her speech, but also her accent. Present day Laura leans into the Scottish burr, while 1949 Laura actively tones it down.

It's brilliant. The entire scene is brilliant.

#doom patrol #laura de mille #madame rouge #michelle gomez #fandom text #dp text #dp meta

[mysteriousooze]

Any Valerie Gray headcanons?

Ohohoho now where did I put that soapbox...

Valerie eventually has to come to terms with her own ghostly nature. She has been imbued and empowered by nanobots and ectoplasm, and even when she isn't using any of it, she is different now

Technus is capable of mind controlling Valerie. Fortunately, he is stupid. He doesn't think to do so for a very long time, and it's obvious the moment he does

They never actually figure out how to prevent technus from controlling her. But thankfully he never gets good at it. Instead, he learns to fear being beaten like a pinata by teenagers

Eventually, the GIW is able to pick Valerie up on their sensors due to her super suit living under her skin

Valerie is not a halfa. She doesn't have ghost powers. To any ecologists, she seems highly contaminated and likely overshadowed.

Any attempt or even success in removing the ectoplasm and nanobots from her system will kill her.

Valerie was that kid who never missed a day of school even if she had the flu and everyone would have been safer if she had stayed home. Being sick just makes her stubbornly determined to persevere.

(Valerie stays home from school the day she realizes the anti-ecto acts apply to herself)

If Valerie were to ever come into contact with blood blossoms, she would feel pain within her entire body, followed by muscle spasms as if being jolted with electricity, and—with prolonged exposure—sores would open on her skin and start leaking ectoplasm.

Blood blossoms alone wouldn't kill her, unlike Danny. But they would weaken her immune system enough that something else likely would.

Valerie eventually develops a sort of sixth sense for electromagnetic fields

If Danny transforms into a human and keeps a lid on his powers, he can hide from the GIWs sensors. Valerie can never hide.

Valerie's eyes are opened to her own behavior toward ghosts after the GIW treat her as subhuman.

It's not Danny who saves her. It's Sam Manson.

Valerie's dad and Sam's parents work with the teen girls as they spearhead the ecto rights movement. Valerie becomes a figurehead. She hates it, but she hates the GIW more

Eventually when Valerie joins team Phantom, she learns that Tucker has been able to track her location using her nanobots this whole time

The more she learns about Danny's weird friends, the more she comes to respect them

Hey friendship with Sam is frightening to behold. The bond over the destruction of their enemies

She doesn't touch romance with a ten-foot pole, and is thankful nobody brings up feelings. Team Phantom have flashes of rage or betrayal or yearning, usually followed by an awkward silence. But mostly it's because they're low-key being hunted by the government

(Publicly, the government isn't hunting them at all. They strike indirectly, or when ghosts can take the blame. They place substitute teachers in Casper High, which is always badly understaffed. It's a strange cold war.)

Valerie never has the problems with controlling her nanobots that Danny did his powers, but sometimes her reflexes get the better of her.

Valerie would rather get angry than cry

She almost shot her dad once when he tried to wake her up from a nightmare. She bawled for two hours while he held her

Valerie sees herself as an adult after becoming a ghost hunter. She occasionally doesn't see Youngblood bc of this

She's honestly such a daddy's girl tho it's kind of embarrassing. If Young blood tried to sneak up on her while she was with him, he would immediately be spotted

Valerie never becomes one of the popular kids again, but rises above it all. She's the kind of powerhouse of a girl that kids part like the red sea to get out of her way

She doesn't become a leader so much as a linchpin of teenage civil disobedience

She knows everyone in Casper High. She has their phone numbers. She has their secrets. And she knows most have been trained with Fenton Blasters and are willing to use them

With a single mass text that the GIW is cornering Phantom, a flood of teenagers takes to the streets for their hero

Valerie isn't the leader of a teenage militia. But isn't not NOT a leader iykyk

Valerie eventually develops an affinity for controlling technology

Technus decides that she is his daughter

It's like a much less dangerous version of the relationship between Danny and Vlad

He still wants to take over the world but also considers himself to be a good father who does not fight his daughter

Team Phantom can recruit him as an ally

As an unrepentant daddy's girl, Valerie is filled with unquenchable rage at the presumption of this undead weirdo

Technus might have tried challenging Valerie's dad if team Phantom didn't keep gaslighting him that he couldn't tell humans apart "omg Technus that's not even her dad. He has a completely different eye color"

Valerie accidentally activates the nanobots inside of Jazz. They can't do all of the things that Valerie's does, but between the two of them, they figure out how to strengthen her, as well as make her immune to overshadowing

Nanobot buddies:)

Tucker is a mite envious

Dani is the little sister Valerie always yearned for; she feels like a partner in crime and like her baby girl all at once.

Jazz is the big sister she never wanted

Danny will never feel like a brother tho lol

Valerie and Danny have solidarity in helping each other avoid therapy with Jazz

All of their parents (except her own dad) trust Valerie implicitly for some reason. "Well if Valerie's there then whatever you're doing is okay" kind of deal

It baffles, outrages, and amuses the trio, bc Valerie is just as bad if not worse

Valerie is a force of nature

Valerie will continue to hone her ghost hunting abilities. Not bc she hates ghosts; to protect the ghosts closest to her heart

Bc Vlad Masters is the real monster, and he is escalating. Someday, someone will have to put him down. And he's already in her sights.

#you activated my trap card #this was a fun ask ty #valerie grey #valerie gray #technus #dp technus #dp trio #team phantom #dp au #dp meta #red huntress #dp headcanon #danny phantom #dp #long post #ask

[plutoshaunted]

Something I think the first two seasons of Danny Phantom did very well was showing a natural progression of Danny's distrust and fear of his parents. It's also one of the most tragic things in the show imo.

At first, Danny believes his parents' love is unconditional. Of course they would love him no matter what. He even says to Vlad in Bitter Reunions "My parents will accept me no matter what."

It makes sense, Danny had always known his parents were obsessive about ghosts but with no ghosts to interact with, he didn't realize just how strong their bias was. Plus, as neglectful as the Fentons can be, they've always loved their children. Sure, he's apprehensive about their reaction, else he would have told them immediately, but he isn't very concerned about the possibility they would hurt him.

As season 1 progresses, Danny starts to have doubts. The first really visceral reaction I can remember him having to his parents is in My Brother's Keeper. Their glee in talking about hunting down the ghost at Jazz's school and ripping it apart molecule by molecule visibly distresses him.

Then, his parents start actively hunting him. And after Public Enemies and Control Freaks, it becomes more complicated with his reputation as Phantom is tanked.

In season 2, the conflict between Danny and his parents only escalates. I'm not going to list every instance, but there are numerous moments in season 2 where Danny reacts in fear, sadness, or anger to his parents' words and actions. I feel like Maddie and Jack also pull even further away from their kids this season too, which doesn't help. When they do express concern over his wellbeing, their help is often very misguided (like in Phantom Menace). But unlike season 1 we don't see them lament over how their kids are pulling away, they've become very focused on their ghost hunting.

In Reality Trip we get explicit confirmation that Danny is afraid of his parents hurting him if they found out what he was.

Sam: "Where are your parents?"

Danny: "Probably looking for me, or a scalpel to dissect me with."

and

Tucker: "We should contact your parents."

Danny: "And tell them what? I'm sorry I've been lying to you and please don't rip me apart molecule by molecule."

And really can you blame him? His parents have given no indication they would accept him as a ghost. He has been shot at, threatened, and insulted by his parents. Plus even if it was in an alternate universe, it's hard to forget Maddie strapping him down to a lab table and threatening him. This kid has major trauma that is not really touched on at all in the show.

I also find Jazz's reaction to Danny's secret interesting. She says its Danny's secret to tell, but it's putting him in danger not to tell them. Not once does she suggest telling their parents. Which really makes me believe Jazz isn't confident they would accept him either, and that she thinks it's safer to keep it from their parents.

In Reality Trip, Maddie and Jack do accept Danny, and Danny erases their memories. Which leads to a weird limbo in season 3. No longer are the Fentons portrayed as a real threat to Danny, in fact they barely interact with him as Phantom in this season. There's a lot of dynamics that suffer in S3, but it really feels like its just treading water. The only real highlight I can think of is the family bonding in Girl's Night Out. It makes me wish they'd let Jack and Maddie keep their memories and played out how this would impact their family dynamic. Or at the very least, have Danny reach out and try to make a truce with them and work on having them accept Phantom. Anything really would be preferable to what we got in S3.

And the reveal in Reality Trip was much more satisfying than the reveal in Phantom Planet, as Maddie and Jack are actually made to confront how they treated Danny and why he didn't trust them.

This is a kid's cartoon show, so at the end of the day, Jack and Maddie were always going to accept Danny. But in my opinion, the show was successful (until it wasn't) in playing up the horror of the situation and the fear that your parents will reject you for who you are.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the graphic novels.

#danny phantom #dp meta

[number1villainstan]

jfc Danny Phantom (as a show) is so chauvinistic

And like, watching Beauty Marked in particular makes it extra obvious, especially because with the whole pageant thing and the medieval theme makes it seem like it's half-heartedly trying to be a girl power episode, except it really doesn't work--you have a bunch of girls trying to bribe the judge to get to be the beauty pageant winner, and Danny and Tucker reveling in 'getting all the girls' while Danny's chosen as the judge, and Sam judging the girls involved and boys watching instead of the actual practices and ideals that the pageant is apparently based on, and the whole implication that misogyny only exists in the 'dark ages' which both disrespects actual medieval Europe AND sidesteps the question of sexism in the modern day, the treatment of Dora's relationship with her brother (imo very poorly handled), probably a whole bunch of other things in this episode and in the general show that I'm not mentioning/remembering

but like, it's Danny Phantom, i shouldn't expect that much of it

#i've seen at least a few fics addressing tucker being chauvinistic. but it seems like no one judges danny for the same behavior #or not doing anything about tucker's behavior #danny phantom #beauty marked #phandom #dp meta #sam manson #dp dora #anyways that definitely could have been organized/written better #dp critical

[tachvintlogic]

I blame @madametamma and this post for the fact that I can't stop thinking about how Tucker and Sam can be written as such good foils for each other. I feel like I'm slowly turning into a Veggie Burger shipper.

I mean, the ship "The people who hate each other in the pilot get married in the finale" requires the characters to grow and change and learn to like and later love each other. It comes prepackaged with good character arcs.

Sam is passionate, stubborn, and ready to dive into a problem to make the world a better place. These are strengths and weaknesses, as she will often leap before she thinks and not take the time to understand complex problems she has little experience with, which can end up making the problem worse. She wants to change the world for the better but if she doesn't pace herself, she will overwhelmed by the sheer number of problems and divide her attention too thin to make an impact on any one of them.

Tucker is chill, funny, confident, and wants to enjoy life doing and learning about what he loves. These are strengths and weaknesses. He doesn't care about problems that don't affect him until they do. While Sam champions too many causes at once, he champions none. If forced to act he will thoroughly research an issue before acting. His confidence and vanity incline him to take better care of his own needs, but leave him vulnerable to ego-stroking.

The way they play off each other is great.

When Sam starts ranting about a new cause she only just learned about, Tucker is there on his pda or computer, learning the ins and outs of whatever Sam is going on about so he can go "Um, actually Sam, if you did some more research, you'd know it's more complicated than that..." and she's mad because Tucker is right; she didn't do the research. Tucker's mad too for trying to drag them all into something that's not their problem.

Over time, Sam learns to appreciate when Tucker fact checks her to stop her from making a fool of herself and her cause. And over time, Tucker can't help but admire Sam's dedication to improving the world and the lives of others regardless of if she herself has a personal stake in the matter.

I keep thinking back to this idea of Sam trying to get the school to make Yom Kippur a day off. It's a Jewish High Holiday where jews (like Sam) are expected to take a day of rest (aka no working), attend prayer services, and fast among other things. The fasting and the no working make homework assigned around the same time difficult or impossible.

Unlike her other causes, Sam has a very personal stake in this and is Jewish, so there's no fact checking for Tucker to do. Making Yom Kippur a day off or a strict no homework day also directly benefits him, as nothing breeds religious tolerance like a free day off.

This campaign hits him differently than the others. While she brings in the same level of passion as she does in all her causes, he is moved by how deeply important this cause is to her thanks to how personal it is, and comes to understand just how deeply, desperately, and sincerely she wants to make the world better.

And there are other moments. When Sam is overwhelmed by all the problems in the world and how difficult it is to be 100% eco-friendly (so many things are made of unrecyclable plastic that it's hard to avoid them all), it's Tucker who helps take her mind off it by insisting they all do something fun.

He's the one who points out to Sam and Danny that they can't do everything and need to take time for themselves. He would know; his mom's a doctor. Being overworked, underfed, dehydrated, and sleep-deprived helps no one and only causes you to make more mistakes.

And while Sam is vulnerable to manipulation by introducing her to a new cause, she is immune to manipulation by ego-stroking. In an upper class world, ego-stroking sets off alarm bells in her mind. For Tucker the opposite is true. They're perfectly suited to recognize when the other the being manipulated and point it out.

And of course, they bond by mutually supporting Danny in any way they can. From patching him up, helping him stay caught up in class, helping him in ghost fights, going on patrol, etc.

I can fucking see the progression play out.

In the beginning Sam is very argumentative about her causes and Tucker rolls his eyes and argues back with his latest research. Then the arguments get more playful. If there was any animosity in their tone before it's not there now. Then their conversations become more constructive; Sam asks Tucker for information and Tucker asks about her game plan. The discussion can't be framed as an argument anymore.

Danny picks up on this and suggests that they split up on patrols and Sam and Tucker should patrol together. Totally not suggesting it because he wants his two best friends to get together, of course not.

And it's an interesting parallel to Vlad and the Fenton parents.

We have 2 trios comprised of one half-ghost and one romantic pairing. Vlad couldn't handle being the 3rd wheel even though the other 2 in the trio cared about him a lot, so he turned evil. Meanwhile, Danny is supportive of their relationship and doesn't resent Tucker. He's just happy his friends are happy.

Unlike Vlad, he won't refuse to answer his friends' calls for 2 decades and come back to try to get Sam to leave Tucker for him. Danny has in his friends what Vlad doesn't because Vlad is resentful little bitch.

#danny phantom #sam manson #tucker foley #veggie burger #dp meta #I swear I don't usually care about romance #but if the romance comes with characters arcs or symbolism #then yeah I'm down for it #every ship I ship is basically: #2 people start off antagonizing each other #but then character A associated with light/warm colors #has an arc that completely changes how they view character B and their relationship #and then they date #and Veggie Burger has arcs for both

[imsociallyanxiousgetoverit]

#dp #danny phantom #phandom #dp meta #dp fandom #fandom

[hydesjackiespuddinpop]

Had a discussion with @randomwriter23 a while back and I feel like the writers were really weird with Donna. They had several characters act like she’s a god and that Eric was lucky to be with her but also have some of them be really sexist to her. Which is I can’t say that the writers love her. Because it doesn’t seem like they do.

#that 70s show #dp meta #t7s meta #my meta

[dclovesdanny]

DcxDp prompt

Teen dad Danny Fenton moving into Crime Alley and getting a reputation for helping. Street kids willing to babysit Ellie and Dan while he’s job hunting can spend the night, have a meal, get cash, whichever they choose. Sec workers who do Ellie’s hair/nails/babysit some nights also get the same benefits. He will treat anyone with injuries for the low price of showing Ellie and Dan their guns/taking them to the observatory/getting him job opportunities.

All of the people in Crime Alley know the single meta dad with two kids, who has helped half the alley at least. Everyone is also aware of how Ellie calls her other parent ‘The Bastard’, and how bad their nightmares are, the ones they have to call Danny for(A few of his repeat guests have seen the scars and burns on his arms. Some of the older street kids recognize that hunted look he gets when people touch him when he doesn’t know they are there. Some of the sec workers notice how protective he is of his kids, and the younger workers. No matter who they are, they all notice how Dan gets quiet and angry when asked about his ‘other dad’. They all have sworn never to let those kids go back to the other dad, Danny included. They are a part of Crime Alley now, and they protect their own)

Danny doesn’t realize how far his reputation goes/how much everyone trusts him until two of his regulars bring in an injured Red Hood, promising him whatever he wants in exchange for him helping their boss.

#loosely based on a fic on ao3 #funny #misunderstanding #dc x dp #they think danny is a teen parent #dad danny #de aged dan #de aged ellie #crime alley has claimed him #he is their meta teen dad now #if Batman tries anything #they will fist fight him #Danny has been adopted by the community #but has no idea

[that-one-weird-cloud0]

Batfam: ghosts aren’t real.

Danny, having been trying to explain that he’s the dead boy to them or 3 hours: *pulls sleeve up and sticks out arm*

Danny: Find. A. Pulse.

Batfam: Danny, how is this—oh my god where is your pulse?

#Batfam: you are not dead you a a meta with ghostly powers #danny: I fucking wish! #Danny: maybe id have rights if I was a meta! #Batfam: wait— #dp x dc #dc x dp #dpxdc #danny phantom #dcxdp #danny fenton #dp x dc prompt #dp x dc crossover #batfam #dc x dp prompt

[threewaysdivided]

So, I've noticed that DP fans and authors have a sliding scale for Vlad. They vary from "haha look at poor little meow meow who fails at everything" to "Vlad is an absolute psycho and the Fenton parents are criminally negligent for allowing him near their kids". I'm very curious as to how you view Vlad and his relationship with Danny because that variance is so huge, and since it kind of slides between the two in canon as well.

Ah, Vlad.  Perpetual runner-up of Dracula lookalike contests, consistent bronze medallist in the race for most-culturally-relevant-Vladimir, and called by the internet everything from Psychopath to Meow Meow to I regretfully inform you Daddy.

One of the things that makes interpretations of Danny Phantom characters more fluid/variable than others is that (as you said) canon can be rather slide-y at times - something which lends itself to multiple quasi-canonical potential readings.  I think I’ve mentioned before that for me this means I have a bit of an annoying tendency to change my headcanons depending on what best facilitates a given story concept, rather than being wedded to One True Version™.

That said, Vlad is probably the major-character who I have the most consistent read on.

Vlad’s Character

When it comes to the question of whether Vlad is an entertainingly pathetic failure or a dangerously unhinged threat, I would say the answer is that he’s kind of both.

My core reading of Vlad is that he’s a narcissist.  He sees himself as exceptional/ superior, he has very little empathy for others, and he often treats other characters less as people and more as prizes to be won or as existing to support/ serve him.  His ghost powers probably exacerbated this, but since he behaves pretty similarly during Masters of All Time it’s likely that this is a part of his native personality.

Now, on its own this wouldn’t be a consignment to villainy - there can be narcissistic or egocentric hero characters (early MCU Tony Stark is like this, and it’s basically Neil’s whole bit in Class of the Titans) - but Vlad combines it with a bunch of significantly nastier traits.  He’s entitled, he can be extremely petty, he’s immature and he holds grudges to an irrational degree.  He also twists narratives; finding ways to position himself as the victim or somehow secretly the victor/ mastermind even when he loses.  Most of all, he’s controlling and part of that comes out as sadism - he enjoys the power that comes from hurting, inconveniencing, frustrating and generally making life miserable for others.

All of this means that Vlad can be incredibly dangerous toward people/ in situations where his self-concept is threatened, where he feels slighted or where he has been denied something he feels should be rightfully his.  That sadism combined with his lack of empathy, his manipulativeness, his capacity to hold petty grudges for potentially years and his ability for patient, premeditated planning has the potential to be terrifying.  At his worst, Vlad is a malignant narcissistic abuser with wealth and superpowers.

But on the other hand, it’s those same core traits that make Vlad kind of pathetic and even tragic.  Like many narcissistic antagonists (and IRL malignant narcissists) he creates a lot of his own suffering.  Someone else on this site put it well when they said that Vlad doesn’t care about people, he cares about the people-shaped objects he’s trying to stuff into the holes in his lonely, miserable existence.  Vlad had multiple opportunities to course-correct and build the kind of genuine, sincere relationships with Maddie, Jack, Danny and Danielle that deep down he seems to want, but he burned those bridges himself with bad choices and worse behaviour.  He has needs and desires, and on some level he has the capacity to change and choose better, but until he learns to care about people for their own sake and to treat others with consideration and respect he will always end up driving those things away.

Vlad’s strategic plans fall apart for similar reasons.  He’s unwilling to admit when he’s wrong or has been bested which means he doesn’t really change his opinions of people or adjust his strategies accordingly (Jack will always be “an idiot”, Danny will always be “an underperforming fool wasting his potential” etc), he doesn’t really pay attention to people unless he’s fixated on/ wants something from them, and because he sees his perspective as universal and/or doesn’t value empathy, his plans often have big gaping weak spots that people can easily exploit. 

There’s an almost classic-tragedy element to Vlad; his compassionless hubris is his hamartia and it walks him into nearly every reversal of fortune.

But also… yeah, watching him repeatedly trip over that ego and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is funny.  This is a character who never holds himself accountable or bothers to grow; at some point you run out of sympathy for the whiney middle-aged man who uses his tremendous wealth and power mostly to skulk around a big empty mansion while creeping on a married woman and her teenage son, and seeing him become a perpetual karmic butt-monkey of his own making can be very satisfying.

Vlad is both at once; simultaneously a potentially terrifying villain and a deeply pathetic little man living in a selfish mundane suffering of his own creation.  Forget The Fright Before Christmas, a holiday morality visit from Scrooge’s ghosts would have done Mister Masters a world of good.

My preferred use of Vlad

Okay so, despite everything I’ve managed to say above, I’m now going to cop to the fact that I… don’t find Vlad super compelling as a character.

Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s very useful as an antagonist and source of schemes that can be complex while still being beatable, but in isolation he just doesn’t have a lot going on under the hood for me at that deepest level. 

This might be coming from personal experience - I’ll spare you the details but there are some abusive malignant narcissists in my extended family and I’ve observed this kind of behaviour and its consequences in real life.  And the truth I’ve found is that once you strip all the layers back it’s depressingly simple.

I completely understand other people’s fascination: when you first encounter this kind of mindset, it can seem deeply compelling.  It feels like there has to be a reason, an answer, an explanation.  A lot of time can be spent searching for that; trying to puzzle out how a person could be like this, what kind of moral framework they must have, what internal justifications a sane and reasonable person could have that would possibly excuse doing something that seems so obviously wrong/ hurtful.  But deep down the answer is: they just don’t care.   There is no moral rationalisation because morality never factors into it.  They want, so they do and the only thing that will give them major pause is if it will have negative consequences for them personally.

In this regard Vlad for me sits more in the realm of Fire Lord Ozai, Batman’s Joker or YJS1’s Vandal Savage.  These characters aren’t super complex or compelling in isolation (there’s a reason people write feature-film-length analyses on Zuko and Azula but not Ozai himself).  They’re more like a force of nature and while you can definitely interrogate the specific context of their origins, their self-perception and get a lot of mileage from dissecting the ideology that they use to rationalise their actions to others (and how those arguments often don’t hold up to questioning) underneath all that grandiose posturing the evil they represent is eerily mundane and commonplace.  Just reactionary id and ego run rampant, detached from compassion and placed in a position to exert itself indiscriminately.  Power and control.  Want and do.

I think that’s part of why they’re striking - we expect some grand ideological philosophy to match the presentation and instead what we get is something small, hollow and pathetically human.  It feels unfair and unsatisfying and that’s because it so often is.

Because of this, I’m often more interested in stories that focus on other, more layered members of the cast and their struggles (it’s a bit weird how little involvement Vlad has in a lot of my favourite DP fics and fic premises).  When Vlad is present I usually prefer him to function more as an antagonistic force for other characters to struggle with than stories which try to justify his worldview or make him “relatable”.  Like I said above, Vlad at his worst is a controlling, manipulative, abusive stalker and that can make him a very effective villain in horror-thriller style character dramas.

Vlad and Danny

On a meta-level Vlad and Danny work well as character foils.  They share several surface-level flaws (both can be superficial, immature, judgemental, prone to grudge-holding and tempted to misuse their powers) and in some ways Vlad is a warning for what Danny could become were he to allow his power to go to his head and separate him from other people.  But at their cores (heh) there’s a fundamental difference to do with compassion and responsibility that sets them apart.  Vlad is an exceptional man with power and status but no empathy or accountability, and deep down, beneath all that performance he’s alone­ - still skulking around the fringes of the ghost zone, using threats, lower-power mooks and bribery when he needs someone to do his bidding.  And then there’s Danny, unexceptional by many metrics, who might feel stressed, lonely and overburdened at times but who genuinely cares and tries, and without even realising it has a lot of powerful allies who would rally to his aid as a result.

As for what they have in-story, I wouldn’t really call it a relationship.  They have a dynamic, but to me relationship implies some kind of mutual participation, and I don’t think Vlad sees or treats Danny as a person.  He doesn’t seem to care about Danny’s interests, feelings or needs: his fixation is mostly on shaping Danny into an heir/ apprentice of his own design, and getting yet more revenge on Jack by supplanting Jack as a father figure.  Danny is the son-shaped-object that Vlad is trying to shove into one of those holes, and once Danny makes it clear that he will never willingly submit to that, Vlad goes full supervillain.

From an audience perspective there is a tragic element to this, since we can see how much Danny would have benefited from having a genuinely supportive mentor, and how it might also have helped Vlad as a person… but Vlad burned that bridge himself.

In that regard I think it’s good that Danny doesn’t have any prior attachment to/ affection for Vlad or desire to please him.  Vlad isn’t a healthy person for Danny to be around, and it’s pretty obvious that Danny knows this and tries to minimise contact with him as much as possible (outside of the occasions when he gets stupid-teenager-brain and decides to poke the bear by pettily antagonising him).  I think that that’s really the best outcome; minimising a toxic person’s presence in his life so he can independently pursue things that are actually healthy and productive.  

Ultimately, Vlad is a grown man who makes his own choices, and he is not Danny’s responsibility.  Yes, it is admirable to extend understanding and respect to others but there is a limit on that and a relationship requires input from both people.  As they say, it takes two to tango; it’s not for one to be doing 100% of the work when the other is unwilling to sincerely engage or compromise with them.  And it is especially not the responsibility of a teenager to be playing that role for an adult (particularly an adult who routinely manipulates and threatens him). 

The biggest issue for Danny is that he can’t fully remove himself from Vlad.  Vlad has too much power and influence; as Masters he’s an important businessman (and at times political figure) with sway in Danny’s hometown, as Plasmius he’s a powerful ghost who can use those powers to bypass physical barriers (when he isn’t sending mooks to harass him), and as a person Vlad’s the kind of creepy stalker who will use his power, influence and resource-access to literally plant spyware in the Fenton family home.  But, most difficult to avoid, Vlad is also a close family friend of Danny’s parents from their college days and Danny frequently has to play nice with him for their sake.

And let’s talk about that last one.

Vlad and the Fenton Parents

The Fenton Parents have some the most divisive interpretations in fandom (short of Vlad himself and sometimes Sam).  Their presentation ping-pongs all over the shop and whether they read as “good but flawed” or “absolutely awful” really depends on how much you want to take things at face value, read into implications and/or recognise certain scenes as being purely hyperbolic Rule of Funny Nicktoon gags.  The only readings I would call a mischaracterisation are ones that paint them as actively disinterested, uncaring or malicious towards their kids - the fact that they do sincerely love their children despite their behaviour is part of what makes them compelling.

However, I want to talk about them because - while you can certainly make the case that they are “criminally negligent” in other ways - the fact that they don’t realise how bad Vlad is, or that he shouldn’t be allowed near Jazz or Danny isn’t one of them.  It’s actually pretty believable to me.

Something to remember is that, as an audience observing a story from the outside, we often have a much more omniscient perspective than any of the characters within it.  Even when characters think they are “alone”, we are observing them through the fourth wall - we get to see What You Are in the Dark.  Fandom loves to joke about how obvious it is that Danny is Phantom or Clark Kent is Superman but that’s kind of forgetting that we get to see things from a Doylist perspective while all the actual characters are stuck being Watson.

Just from that viewpoint, it makes sense that Maddie and Jack aren’t aware of the true nature of Vlad’s character.  Maddie might recognise that Vlad is a creep toward her specifically (Jack meanwhile is cluelessly naïve and loyal to a fault) but most of Vlad’s worst moments take place outside of their awareness and he often behaves a lot better in their presence in order to keep them close.  Danny has seen much more of Vlad’s darker side and Jazz is aware of that through him, but since most of it is connected to Danny being Phantom they’re not exactly rushing to share.  From Maddie and Jack’s point of view, “Vladdie” is a dearly beloved college buddy who might be a bit eccentric and incel-adjacent but is otherwise mostly harmless.  And sure their kids might not like him but of course teenagers are going to complain about hanging out with their parents’ friends - they’re teenagers!  Plus, Danny and Jazz have frequently objected to other aspects of their parents’ lives, so it’s not like that would raise an immediate red flag on its own (let’s be real: even at their best, Maddie and Jack are not the most attentive parents).

So to me it’s pretty reasonable that they wouldn’t notice those initial signs.  And (speaking again from IRL experience) even assuming they did notice some of them it would make sense for them to not want to believe it.  It can be really hard for people to accept that someone they’ve known and respected for a long time has done something awful.  We want to give people in our lives the benefit of the doubt and that can lead us to make excuses for/ try to defend them in ways we wouldn’t for a stranger.  There’s also a level of fear and guilt that can get in the way.  If our judgement about one person turns out to have been that badly wrong, then we could be potentially wrong about everyone; suddenly the world is a lot less safe/ certain.  And then we have to face the question of how complicit we might have been by ignoring, excusing, or enabling their actions.  It’s not really surprising that even well-intentioned people can end up reflexively dismissing whistle-blowers and victims; it’s a self-protective impulse as much as anything else.

I think that’s why Danny’s “mutually assured destruction” threat is so effective.  If Maddie and Jack accept Danny being Phantom then they wouldn’t be able to deny what Vlad has done as Plasmius.  And, once they can’t deny that, they probably wouldn’t continue to accept Vlad as a friend.

And that’s another bridge that Vlad has burned himself.

What a cheese-head.

#Danny Phantom #Vlad Masters #Vlad Plasmius #DP Meta #Character Analysis #I feel like 'long essays containing tepid takes' is becoming my signature style #I know 'Vlad is a narcissist' isn't a particularly revolutionary take #but he fits it to a surprising number of levels #kaiobeast #3WD Answers

[nerdpoe]

Damian didn't mean to. But looking at the horror on Batman's face, he also knows it doesn't matter.

Someone had managed to sneak up on him, immediately after a fight.

Damian, exhausted and wounded and ever so slightly drugged by fear toxin, reacted.

He'd spun around and run his katana through the attacker-but it wasn't an attacker. It was a civilian, who was staring down at the sword in his chest with a stunned expression.

The civilian looked up, blue eyes meeting Damian's through the mask.

"I was just..." The man trails off, dropping the first-aid kid he'd been carrying.

Damian knows his time as Robin is over.

Danny, on the other hand, can already feel his healing factor trying to kick in, and just needs to figure out how to convince Robin to remove the Katana so it can work without letting Batman know he's a meta.

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #phanfic #story prompt #stabbing tw #wound tw #danny doesn't know about signal #since he works night shift #and just got to gotham #so he doesn't know the whole 'no metas allowed' thing is just a rumor

[bun-fish]

Two bros, chillin in the batcave, 0 feat apart cuz they’re best friends

Also because Danny weighs like a wet baby crow in ghost form and he likes to have his Perch.

Duke would sooner take up Condiment King duties than turn him down

edit: there’s a comic now :)

and a story from @zeestarfishalien

#dpxdc #art #illustration #dp × dc #danny and duke #hazmat au #bunfish can art #comic #comics #day shift #day shift duo #meta alliance

[metalatias5]

I'm calling this the Ghost Vision AU

dunno if an AU like this exists yet or not, but if it hasn't existed yet, it does now

Basically, all ghosts, including halfas like Danny, see and hear all things ghostly the way they're depicted in the series, while to regular humans they appear a lot more.. ghostly, spooky and unsettling

#Danny Phantom #DP #DP AU #Ghost Vision AU #Danny #sam manson #tucker foley #Meta #MetaTheTrifox #MetaLatias #MetaLatias5

[mossycobblestonewrites]

DC X DP PROMPT #9

Danny is a meta. Danny does not know he is a meta. Danny's power only activates in death so how should he have known? It's not like he's died before the portal accident. Right?

Danny has been dying from his parent's neglect repeatedly. The first time he had died was when he wandered outside into the snow while Jazz was at school. He had frozen and never noticed as Jazz had claimed that she came home just in time.

Danny still dies to the portal opening up on him, he still becomes a halfta, but his human half is just as instructable as his ghost half. He just doesn't know it.

When Danny turns 15 the Justice League step in with the GiW and shut down the anti-ecto acts before they can even pass. It's great. The JL talks to him and even offer him a spot in their teen group!

Danny found out he was a meta from Robin (either Tim or Damian,, can't decide),, not even BATMAN , and it was during a CASUAL HANGOUT

R: "What's it like being a meta?"

D: "wdym"

Everyone thinks Danny's meta powers are ghost-themed. They are not. He only got them AFTER the portal accident!! Danny fights tooth and nail to convince them he is just dead lmao. No one brings up that he is both at the same time.

#dc x dp #dpxdc #danny phantom #young justice #miscommunication #danny is a meta #danny is a ghost still #hes BOTH 💅 #dannys meta power is spontaneous self resurrection lmao

[bet-on-me-13]

The Villains Daughter

So! Years ago, back when the Justice League was only just starting out, only a year or two after their initial team-up, they had one of their biggest battles to date. A group of Extra-Dimensional Beings had burst into their reality, hellbent on destroying a Government Facility and the nearby small town in Illinois.

They barely managed to beat the Invading Army back, although the Government Facility and a part of the nearby Town had been destroyed in the battle.

Later, they would learn about what had happened. Apparently the Government Base, called a GIW Facility, had managed to finally Crack the secret to Interdimensional Travel a few days earlier. Unfortunately, they had opened a Portal into a Dimension known as the Ghost Zone, ruled over by a Tyrant King who wanted to enslaved all world under him. Their Breaching of the GZ had alerted the Tyrant King to the existence of their Dimension, and he had launched an immediate Invasion to try and take it over.

And the evidence supported this.

Wonder Woman shared Legends of her People, telling that their Founding Ancestor had fled the rule of a Tyrant King when she passed into the Afterlife.

Zatara shared his Magic Tomes, showing them passages detailing the horrific Rule of the Tyrant King of the Infinite Realms.

They even asked Boston Brand, the Deadman and resident Ghost about it. He hadn't been the the Ghost Zone in Years, but even he told them that he had personally fled the Tyrant King.

And they also learned that when the Tyrant King set his eyes on something, he did not falter on his Warpath to acquire it. The Tyrant King, Pariah Dark, would be back for their World, again and again.

And they needed to be prepared. This Battle was what kickstarted their true Commitment to the idea of a Team. They knew they could not defeat Pariah Dark alone, so they needed to remain as a Team.

But there was another thing that came about from the Battle.

While the JLA had been helping clean up, Wonder Woman came across a strange sight. A Baby had been left in the rubble of the GIW Building.

She asked around, investigated, and did all she could to find the babies parents. At first she thought that one of the GIW Agents had brought their kid to work that day, but their records indicated that none of the Agents had children of that Age. And Neither did any of the other workers who worked on the base, like the Janitors or the Kitchen Staff. And of they did, all of their children were accounted for.

She eventually came to the conclusion that the Baby must belong to somebody in the nearby Town, but that lead led nowhere either.

She finally came to the conclusion that the Baby's parents must have died in the Invasion, a very unfortunate but very real possibility. She was going to place her into the System, but over the course of her investigation she had grown fond of the Child.

She decided to Adopt the baby herself. She didn't know the child's name, so she had to come up with a new one.

"How do you like the name, Stella?"

The baby gurgled in delight.

...

Over the next decade of their Teams Existence, the Justice League had to fend off the Legions of the Ghost King's Army many more times. It seemed that Pariah had grown wise to the fact that they were the ones defending the Human Realm, as almost all of the later attacks were directed on them personally.

It made sense, they were the First Line of Defense against his Armies, if he managed to defeat them, their World would soon fall.

But they dealt with the attacks as they came. They had made it their mission to defend their Home from the Forced of Pariah Darks Army, and they would not falter now, or ever.

In the case of Wonder Woman, he Daughter had grown to be a fine little lady. Stella had eventually developed Powers similar to her mother, in that she could fly and had super strength, and had begged to be trained as a Hero.

And who was Diana to deny her Daughter her greatest wish? Over the next 5 years, Diana trained Stella in the ways of the Amazon's. Then, when Stella was 15, she had her join the newly formed Young Justice.

She made a great group of friends on that Team, and even started going by Ellie as a Nickname. Her best friend was by far Conner, though she didn't know why she felt such a strong connection to him? It felt like she could relate to him, but her situation was completely different?

Ah well, her Mom wouldn't mind having another kid, would she? She always wanted a Brother!

...

Meanwhile in the Ghost Zone, the Ghost King was getting anxious. After 15 years, his Agents in the Human Realm had finally managed to set up the Ritual needed to Summon Him into the Human Realm.

Who knew that accepting the Ghost King's Throne would bar him from entering the Human Realm through normal Means? He couldn't even use the Portal, he needed to be summoned or he simply wouldn't be able to leave his new home dimension.

But now, it was almost time. Just another year or two, and he would finally be able to enter the Human Realm. He would finally be able to Find Her. His Daugther.

Danny would finally be able to reunite with his daughter, Ellie.

#Dpxdc #Dp x dc #Dcxdp #Dc x dp #Danny Phantom #Dc #Dcu #Justice League #Wonder Woman #Diana adopts Ellie #Ellie was kidnapped by the GIW #Ellie was deaged so her Core would be able to grow alongside her Body #She doesn't know she even has powers aside from her flight and strength #They all just think that he is an unregistered classification of Metahuman and that's why her blood work didn't come back with a Meta Gene #Ellie Joins Young Justice #She is extremely uncomfortable when Superman rejects Connor but she doesn't know why #The Justice League thinks that Danny is a Villain #They think that he is Pariah Dark #Just under a new name #The whole world thinks that Danny is the greatest Supervillain to ever live #Including Ellie #She does not react well when she finds out that the World Greatest Evil is her Dad #Especially since she doesn't have the context #Danny attacked the JLA because she could sense that they had his daughter #He thought they were working with the GIW