#but that could make an interesting conflict with valerie and vlad once she finds out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dannyphantom-justiceleauge · 3 years

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This may be a minor gripe but something that has kind of bothered me about discussions and depictions of Dan is how often people seem to forget that Dan isn't just an older evil Danny, he's a combination of Danny and Vlad's ghost sides. Like people always talk about him like Danny threw away his humanity and turned evil but that's not even true. Sure, we can say that Dan is the result of Danny's action but that's a little unfair. (1/2)

(2/2) Him cheating on a test, coincidentally putting his loved one's in a position where they could be killed, is absolutely not his fault. Letting Vlad take away his ghost powers with a strange contraption might not have been the smartest move, but we are talking about a grieving CHILD here, of course he isn't going to make the best decisions. If anything Vlad's the one to blame here, and even then, it's not like he could predict what happened

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you aren't wrong, my friend. it really isn't entirely danny's fault and the whole 'if you cheat on a test, you'll loose everything you love' moral is confused at best. i think as fandom we find it more interesting to look at danny's potential evil and moral struggle with himself. so simplifying it to be dan is a worse case scenario of danny makes the conflict less abstract.

particularly because when it comes to self blame danny isn't going to go easy on himself just because it was excusable mistakes.

i think another talking point should be how danny is the target of the time assassination more than vlad is, even though vlad is part of the evil whole. you could argue that danny is the catalyst of his friends death and vlad inventing the claw things. but vlad invented the claw things. maybe because his human side survived and acted relatively harmless from then on? or maybe it's because the observants based on the available evidence recognized danny as more of a threat. i think that fits actually, for all vlad tried to be an evil mastermind, his achievements outside of terrorizing a teenager and theft isn't particularly impressive. danny was the one who got shit done. all his fights he finished one way or another and i could see how that would bleed into dan defeating everyone.

the real question is how to we fix this. ideally we could shape this idea so it's less confused, though i do honestly find the dynamic of half danny, half vlad interesting. if for not other reason. than two half ghosts make a whole. actually that's something else to be said about dan. his self-loathing is what led him to killing his human half, another negative aspect coming from danny.

i wonder if we could frame it like fusion, from su. obviously dan isn't stable or healthy, or based on love. he's most comparable to malichite. but with less internal debate. dan took the best and worst of both of them. danny's determination, danny's fighting ability, danny's anger, danny's sarcasm, vlad's anger, vlads lack of morals, vlads schemes, vlad's control. heck, vlads desire to rule the world. i don't think we ever got that from danny.

maybe if vlad was more involved in the fight with dan it could have been used as an opportunity to compare and contrast their characters. to go we're not so different you and i. danny gets to recognize that he has that dark potential. vlad gets to be humbled by the fact that what he wants isn't good for anyone, especially himself. and to be fair, we do see some of that humbling with future vlad, but none of that character growth is given to present vlad, so, really it's just another vehicle for danny angst. it also depends on what you want to do with vlad though. he's a fascinating character and could be given redemption under the right circumstances or be a character who has the opportunity for redemption but chooses not to be redeemed every time.

that fits him and makes him both a more pathetic and despicable villain. it's hard to pity someone who ignores the opportunities to heal and grow.

as for danny, he becomes far more aware of the consequences his actions, especially his selfish and cruel ones can have. because that potential was always there. he has a history of abusing his powers. perhaps for this specific incident him abusing his powers can be something less understandable than almost cheating on a test that he couldn't study for through no fault of his own. (maybe i just have flexible morals?). maybe it could be something more character relevant, like he did something particularly vlad like, maybe he set up a prank at the nasty burger to get dash but it set off the explosion that killed his family. or maybe he did something particularly cruel and manipulative. there are better catalysts than a test. either way he recognized that he should never go that far again and strive to avoid being actively cruel.

he also has the opportunity to recognize that vlad does have a human half, even the one he's fighting everyday. he can face some conflict in it's not entirely clear what trait belongs to vlad and what trait belongs to him. he can empathize with vlad and he can recognize that situations aren't always in black in white. those who fly the highest, fall the hardest, after all.

it can be a growing experience. and while making it solely a danny goes bad and learns not to do evil kind of story. maybe we could cut vlad from the equation and just have danny face himself, full evil refection. i think exploring both vlad and danny through this fusion is far more interesting. especially because we can build on what's revealed about vlad in these episodes, in later ones. danny sees a future where vlad chills and that maybe his vlad could get their. later he see vlads past and what he lost to become who he is.

and then there's vlads turning point episodes. i don't know when motherly instinct took place but maddie fully recognizing he's a bastard and rejection him, was a turning point for his sanity, and danny helped it along. then we have danny rejecting him repeatedly, then we the clone episode, which we can all agree was a desperate move on his part, that danny once again thwarted. and we can all agree that this was the cannon turning point for his character where he stopped fighting for a family and started trying to be danny's villain. in that episode, i think danny could potentially pity vlad enough to try and reach out. he's not going to justify what vlad did and he's not going to apologize for stopping him. he went too far. he hurt danny and dani, he crossed a moral line that can't be justified even with his desperation. but if he changes...

he lost this time but if he changes, maybe they'll reach the point where they're ready to accept him.

i think the same thing could be said about his relationship with jack and maddie. if he changes, if he reaches out. if acts like less of a crazy fruitloop, his friends would be there for him. jack is still trying to be there for him, even if he's being oblivious about vlad's faults. vlads the one driving wedges into his relationships and pushing everyone away.

and that's so freaking human and understandable.it would be such a cool thing to explore with his character.

i could also see a potential arc where after valerie finds out vlad and masters are the same person she tries to get close to him, both to sus out how evil he is and to understand him as a halfa. afterall danny got her to acknowledge dani as human enough, the same would apply to vlad/plasmius, right? only he's a bad person and the more she uncovers about vlad masters the man, the more she realizes it's not the ghost half that's evil. but this is a double edged sword because, vlad is getting attached to her and encouraging her to be more evil. he's encouraging her to go darker and darker in her fight against ghosts and her fight specifically against phantom. to the point where she finally draws the line and says, i'm not doing that! boom exploring the moral ambiguity of her character and getting her to take a hard stance on her morals, because there's a line too far for her.

and boom a further breakdown of vlads character because he finally had someone outside the fentons to redeem him. she could have helped pull him out of the hole he'd been digging himself into. she wanted to help him. he got attached to her, but he and his bad decisions decided to dig himself deeper instead. so once again he's 'abandoned and betrayed'.

from that point, i think it'd be time for him to finally face jack head on. not through manipulative schemes. not through veiled threats and insults. but the full confrontation of 'i always hated you. you ruined my life. you're the reason i lost everything'. which is really just his own self loathing speaking. and jack... empathetic jack can see that vlad desperately wants help. and jack would offer it to him. jack would try to hug it out and apologize and give vlad the love and friendship vlad's been fighting to steal this whole time.

and vlad would reject it.

he'd probably lash out a jack and go into a full breakdown/world destroying attack. could finally put the stolen crown to use and try declaring himself king and embracing his megalomaniac thing and actually be a threat this time. and THAT would be our series finally. everyone teaming up to fight 'king vlad'. danny probably finding out that he's technically king because he beat pariah dark but the matter being a bit confused because he had help. val and danny trying to find the ring of rage or at least find someone who can make one. secrets are out. i imagine vlad, upon revealing himself to jack would out danny to make danny as sad and alone as him. except nope, his family still loves him and val has had the character development to come around to him. (she's still gonna punch danny for lying for so long.) the ghosts will come and help because no one wants another tyrannical kind and vlads obviously off his rocker.

ah, the could have beens

anyway, i didn't mean for this to become a full vlad character analysis and rewrite when we were supposed to be talking about dan, but hey, i'm a simple creature. i like good writing, and i have to rewrite things myself, so be it. - Hestia

#dpjl #hestiawrites #danny phantom #vlad masters

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monotype-on-phantom · 7 years

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How would you write season 4? How would you write the series finale?

Well, I should mention that I haven’t exactly finished my ideas for the timeline yet. Plus, a season 4 would have to have mostly new content.

If we’re talking a season 4 that follows my timeline, though, I have some ideas.

With season 3 finishing off with Control Freaks, that’d put everyone into the beginning of summer vacation. It’d probably pack all the summer episodes around that time, and focus initially on the Fentons adjusting to Danny’s secret being out (among just them, though.)

I’d want to keep D-Stabilized pretty much the same, so that’d require moving Vlad near Amity Park for some reason or another. The excuse could be that he was concerned about the events of Reality Trip. I dunno. Regardless, I’d keep D-Stabilized somewhat early on in the season, and focus the majority on developing Danielle and Valerie.

With Danny’s parents in on his secret, his life would get a lot easier. They’d stop trying to hunt him down, they’d be able to help cover for him, they could learn a lot from him and help him figure himself out, and heck, they could help him figure out a school schedule that works with what he does. In a sense, Danny would be reaching the tail end of the development he’s been going through since season 1.

Dani would be an excellent follow up for that, because her struggles mirror Danny’s in a lot of ways while also being totally different. She also has plenty of reason to question her humanity, wonder what she’s worth and what her purpose is, have trouble trusting people, and she’d be trying to adjust to a new life that’s foreign to her.

The differences are, of course, that Danny’s life was changed when he got ghost powers. Dani has never been without hers. What she’s trying to adjust to is a form of normalcy, something she’s never experienced. On top of that, she’s a clone. While Danny would definitely support her (and they do love each other a lot), she’d also struggle with how much of her identity is her own and how much is just a copy of Danny. Danny called the other clones mindless. What made her so special? Was she really that different from the others? Is she just really good at faking being a person?

There are plenty of characters who could relate to aspects of her struggles, but nobody would fully understand. That could lead to a lot of interesting plots. Heck, if we bring in Elmer’s idea of Vlad finally completing a perfect clone, that could add a lot of drama. Vlad would treat his “perfect son” way better than the previous clones. He wouldn’t be expendable. He’d only care about him as an object, really, but when you know nothing different, you can’t exactly know that you’re not really loved.

So we’d have a really messed up character who, ironically, could relate to Dani more than anyone else. She’d absolutely want to help him, even though he’d be pretty warped and do some despicable things.

Along with that, we’d also have Valerie’s character arc to continue. After finding out about Vlad and Dani, it wouldn’t be too long before she pieced together that Danny Phantom was a halfa as well. From there, she’d probably connect him to Danny Fenton eventually. That revelation, combined with everything else, would leave her questioning a lot of things. She’d be struggling between her affection for Fenton and her hatred for Phantom, and who knows which one would win out?

Judging by how she reacted to Dani, I can imagine her morals would prevent her from not at least hearing Danny out. Vlad has proven himself to be vindictive and manipulative, but she’d worked with Phantom a few times, and there were times when he seemed almost trustworthy. She’d have questions, but I don’t think she’d prioritize her desire for revenge over her friendship with Danny.

It’d still be very complicated for her, though. Danny would likely be able to easily accept everything, because he’s known about both sides of her this whole time and liked her anyway. Tucker’s pretty optimistic, so even he’d probably warm up to her if she promised to not attack Danny anymore.

Valerie would have a lot to figure out, though, and one person who would really struggle to trust her is Sam.

Assuming by this point, Sam and Paulina have reached some sort of mutual understanding, Valerie could easily replace Paulina as her rival. The thing about Sam is that her flaws are often very similar to those of the people she dislikes, just sometimes to another extreme. She can be as judgmental as Valerie, and she holds grudges and gets angry in the same way, too.

With Paulina, their shared problem was being unwilling to get to know people who fall into certain groups. Once they come to an understanding, even if they’re never friends, that would help both of them to move past that flaw. That would leave Sam more open to getting to know people, but she’d still have the same level of defensiveness and suspicion that Valerie has.

That’d lead to them butting heads a lot, even if everyone around them is trying to get along and make things work. That would lead to some great and necessary development for both girls. They’d both have to admit they’re wrong in various situations, which is something they both have trouble with, and unlike with Paulina, Sam would have to accept Valerie as somewhat of a part of the group eventually. After all, Paulina’s a popular girl who mostly avoids them. Danny considers Valerie a friend. So does Tucker. And despite her conflicting feelings, Valerie likes them both, too.

There are a lot of possible ideas, but these are a few of the ones I’d probably go with.

As for how to finish the series, I have no idea. I haven’t thought that far, yet. It’s a lot easier to come up with an ending for a show that should’ve finished sooner than one that should’ve kept going. It’d depend on where the story eventually led and, if I was actually working on a real show, how many episodes we were allowed.

This is all a bit more vague than my last post about the timeline, but this stuff hasn’t been given as much thought yet, and I have less material to work with. Hopefully that still answered your question well enough.

#danny phantom #valerie gray #dani phantom #danny fenton #plot #princess-unipeg #ask me

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