#like we watch Sam and Tucker die like three time in this

[idontknowijuststartedsomething]

Holy fuck I forgot how good ultimate enemy is

#danny phantom #I think I have to go read agit agian cuz I feel like it’ll hit different #everything in that episode is so great just so many scenes and moments that go all in and they’re great #I love agit but personal opinion I also loved when Dan was just a evil irredeemable motherfucker with no ounce of humanity #the you knew moment is still so great best scene thou is vlad telling what happened #I don’t know how so many things in this episode got by Nickelodeon censors but wow #like we watch Sam and Tucker die like three time in this #and the future ghost literally tell Danny he ruined the lives of everyone he’s come in contact with #and then they just never talk about that again like Danny never thinks about it in another episode #the episode after this has fun danny and a guy flying around in a bedsheet saying you felonious fiend #also I don’t like that I’m now the same age as Dan #the ultimate enemy

[spectacled-renegade-writes]

An Early Start - Chapter 13 - Danny Phantom

Ao3: Here | Masterpost: Here

Ao3 Description: The accident that turns Danny half-ghost happens when he is four years old and leaves him trapped in the Ghost Zone. Clockwork finds him and takes him in to raise. But what happens when Clockwork sends Danny back to the human-world ten years later when a permanent portal appears?

Chapter 13:

Danny was certain Tucker and Sam were angry with him by the time detention rolled around. Once he’d returned to school and went back to class, his friends barely looked at him the rest of the day, and he caught them on more than one occasion whispering to each other while staring at him. If Danny lost his friends, he honestly didn’t know if he could continue going to school. They were the only things that made the crowded, tight quarters of this place bearable.

Mr. Lancer supervised them as they cleaned. He had his arms crossed and tapped his foot as he watched. Occasionally, he’d say something like, “Mr. Foley, you missed a spot.” But besides that, he too was silent.

Danny needed to get ahold of himself. He could feel ice creeping down the handle of the mop he held. He only lost control of his ice powers like this during times of extreme distress. He closed his eyes and repeated Frostbite’s mantra he’s had in his head all these years. ‘It doesn’t control you. You control it.’

“Mr. Fenton,” Mr. Lancer said. “Is there a reason why you have stopped mopping?”

Danny opened his eyes and saw all three of them looking at him. He looked down at the mop handle. The ice was gone but he could tell it was still freezing. Danny shook his head and went back to mopping.

-

Danny was all too ready to go home, which was a first, once they finished. He rushed past his friends and to his locker, ready to lock himself in his room and be done for the day. He’d deal with this tomorrow. Quickly shoving textbooks, notebooks, and the now empty thermos into his backpack, Danny zipped it shut and closed his locker.

Waiting on the other side were Sam and Tucker. “Hey, man.” Tucker greeted.

Wait... what?

“Wanna go to the house?” Sam asked.

Weren’t… they mad at him? Danny looked down at his bag then back up at them. He could feel his palms coat with ice. He swallowed a deep breath and held it back, and nodded.

As the three of them walked, Danny rifled through his bag to pull out the cellphone his parents gave him and sent them a text saying he was hanging out with his friends, before throwing the phone back in. To save time, they ended up taking the bus to the edge of town and walking the last few blocks. The entire time there was a surprisingly comfortable silence between the three of them. Maybe Danny was wrong, maybe he couldn’t read humans as well as he thought, or maybe he just couldn’t read Tucker and Sam.

They arrived at the abandoned house and the first thing they did was make sure it was empty. Like always, it was, and as they made their way to the pantry, Sam pondered if maybe the other graffiti was from way long ago, and perhaps they really were the only ones who visited this house now. The three of them got chips and sodas, and spread out in the living room.

Once they were settled, and Dumpty Humpty played quietly over the radio, the odd atmosphere between Sam and Tucker returned. Danny quickly began to regret agreeing to hang out. Between the two of them, they seemed to be having some kind of silent conversation with their eyes, and it went on for a minute before they both turned to look at him.

“So…” Tucker trailed, glancing to the side. Moments later it became clear that he let the sentence die so Sam took over.

“So, Danny,” Sam said with more confidence than Tucker. “About earlier…”

“I’m sorry,” Danny interrupted after setting his soda in his lap. “About getting you guys in trouble.” Sam and Tucker exchanged yet another glance, and Danny wished they’d stop doing that. But their glance was different this time; rather than unreadable, it was clearly baffled.

“No, we weren’t even thinking about that.” Tucker said, and Danny faltered. Okay, now he was confused. Tucker grew flustered as he began to explain. “So, it’s like this, you see. After you started the food fight in the cafeteria, you just kinda ran off. So naturally, Sam and I followed.” Danny paled. “We saw you run into the kitchen and we followed you inside.”

What’s the one thing Clockwork told Danny not to do? Don’t let anyone know he’s half ghost. It hasn’t even been a month.

“We saw that ghost,” said Sam carefully. “Then we saw you… become a ghost.”

“And, like, talk. I think?” Tucker added.

Danny could feel as his whole world came crashing down on him... again. He hated that this became a familiar feeling. They weren’t supposed to know. No one was supposed to know. Not even a month in and he let Clockwork down. The soda back in his hand completely froze over. He’d only taken a sip of it so it began to overflow from pressure. He stood up and dropped it in surprise.

“Wow, Danny, it’s okay.” Sam placated, standing up too.

Danny looked frantically up at his friends… and realized they looked concerned. Tucker was standing up now, too.

“Hey man, it’s okay.” Tucker said. “It’s obviously a secret. We won’t tell anyone. Promise.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “We’re your friends.”

A heartbeat was another thing Danny wasn’t quite used to yet and right now, it was beating faster than it ever has before. He looked down at the frozen soda fizzing on the floor and felt like it was a good representation of how he felt right now. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he couldn’t look at them for what he was about to say. So, he kept them closed as he raised his hands to speak. “I’m half ghost,” he explained. But, despite his fear, he had to open his eyes anyway when he heard no response. His friends stared at him, but they saw him go ghost earlier so he didn’t know why they looked so surprised now.

“Is that even possible?” Tucker asked, and Danny tilted his head.

Sam elaborated. “Tucker and I thought, well… we thought you were like, a full ghost who disguised yourself as a human.”

Despite the crushing, nauseating anxiety in his chest, Danny found himself smiling at that. “I’m half ghost, half human. So, half alive I guess.”

A beat of silence and Tucker said, “…Huh, well, how about that?”

Danny felt his insecurity return. “No one was supposed to find out. Not even my family knows.”

“Is… that where you’ve been the past ten years?” Sam asked.

Danny pondered the question. After considering it a moment, he gestured for them to follow him. So they did, and Sam and Tucker followed Danny upstairs to the room with their graffiti. Danny’s painting was still exactly how he left it and he pointed to it then said, “Home.”

Tucker blanched. “That’s your home?”

“Clockwork’s tower,” Sam whispered, then spoke up. “Clockwork. Who is he?”

Danny turned to the painting and placed a hand on it, taking a moment to himself. He missed it so much. He turned back to his friends and said, “He’s a ghost.”

“A half ghost like you?” Tucker asked.

Danny shook his head. “No. No one is like me. He’s an ancient ghost that's in charge of time. He took me in when I appeared in the G-H-O-S-T Z-O-N-E and raised me.”

“Ghost Zone?” Sam asked.

Danny sighed. This would take a lot of explaining, but he felt an uncertain knot in his chest. “How do I know I can trust you?” He asked despite himself, momentarily letting his fear win out. Honestly he truly trusted them, he really did, but he just had to make sure.

In response, Tucker held out his PDA. It showed a photo of Danny in his ghost form. Tucker hit a button and suddenly it was deleted. “Sam and I could’ve told the whole school by now. But we won’t, and we don’t want to.” Next to him, Sam agreed, looking just as serious as Tucker.

Danny swallowed down that lump and nodded. “Okay.”

The three of them sat on the floor of that old nursery and Danny told them his story, all the way from the beginning. From the accident, to Clockwork finding him, raising him. He talked about the Ghost Zone, what it was like, Clockwork’s lessons, gaining each new power, and how long it took him to make a friend. He told them everything. In a way, it was cathartic. It felt like some weight he hadn’t known about, one heavy on his shoulders, was now lifted. It felt like he could share the burden.

The first question Tucker asked when Danny finished his story was why he couldn’t talk. So, Danny explained Ghost Speak, and how he mistakenly thought he’d never leave the Ghost Zone, so he’d never need his human voice. He told Tucker that was the language he’d heard when Danny spoke to the Lunch Lady. “Ghost Speak doesn’t require vocal cords.”

“Is that why you hate small spaces?” Sam asked next. Danny stiffened but Sam rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Anyone can see it from a mile away.”

She had Danny there. He nodded. “The Ghost Zone is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s all wide open space made up of ectoplasm.”

“It’s no wonder why there are weirdly specific things you don’t know about.” Tucker suddenly realized. “You didn't get to experience them in the human world, and they probably don’t have it in the Ghost Zone.” Indeed Danny displayed some of these behaviors to Sam and Tucker, too. Like the time Tucker was trying to show Danny how to play Doomed, but Danny simply did not know how to work the computer. It turned into an entire lecture on the ins and outs of computer etiquette.

Danny smiled sheepishly and nodded, then regarded them for a moment. “You guys are… strangely relaxed about all this.”

Apparently the thought hadn't even crossed their minds because Sam shrugged and said, “I mean, we were surprised at first, and yeah, our friend being a ghost is definitely the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to us, but like, you’re our friend. You’re still Danny, so it’s cool.”

Danny smiled. Ironically, his friends finding out he was a ghost made him feel more human.

-

Things became easier after that, in some aspects. Soon after it wasn’t only the Lunch Lady who became more daring around him. Skulker and Technus decided to try their hand as well. As each new ghost appeared, Danny told his friends who they were.

“So, that guy wants your pelt?!” Tucker asked bewildered. “That is nasty, man.”

“Tell me about it,” Danny replied. “But I’m stronger than him so I’m not worried.”

“What was it that he called you?” Sam asked.

“H-A-L-F-A? It’s what all the ghosts in the Ghost Zone call me.” Danny explained. “There isn’t much to do in the Ghost Zone so gossip gets around quick, but I prefer to go by P-H-A-N-T-O-M.”

“Hm,” Sam hummed. “Danny Phantom. It has a nice ring to it.”

In response, Danny ducked his head with a sheepish smile and replied, “Thanks.” Some days in the human world were easier than others, but Sam and Tucker were making more and more of them bearable.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ao3 Notes: Whenever Danny talks like T-H-I-S it is because he is fingerspelling the word out. This should typically only happen once before a sign is assigned to the word/name/etc... So if you see him saying the same word in the future but he is no longer fingerspelling it, just know it is because he has assigned a specific sign for it that the others in the know understand. Thank you so much for reading and have a lovely day/night! <3

#an early start au #danny phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #danny phantom fanfic #mute!danny fenton #disabled danny fenton #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #claustrophobia #anxiety #mr. lancer #lost time #renegade writes

[sunnys567]

Friends in Strange Places Ch. 4 Pt 1

What if Vlad was good instead of evil? Link to chapter 1:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/39040329/chapters/97656390

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

"...And these ghost candies have been in your pocket for how long?" Sam asked.

"Well, I got them in Colorado..."

"So, for about two weeks." Tucker raised an eyebrow. Him and Sam were looking at the green candies in Danny's hand like they were dead bugs.

"They seem fine to me." Danny shrugged. He decided Sam and Tucker didn't need to know that they'd probably been through the wash at least twice.

"Danny they're glowing."

"And you got them from a ghost, dude."

"Her name was Bernie, and she was very nice. C'mon, aren't you guys at least a little curious?"

"This seems like a bad idea," Tucker said, taking a candy "But I'll admit I am."

"Welp, we might as well all die together." Sam shrugged, taking a candy herself.

The three of them unwrapped the candies and popped them into their mouth.

Sam and Tucker immediately began spluttering and spit their candies out.

"That was the worst thing I've ever tasted!" Sam said.

"Agreed." Tucker nodded. "And the bar for stuff I'll eat is real low."

"How was it bitter and sour at the same time?"

"Maybe you guys are tasting the ectoplasm." Danny said. "I guess they are ghost candies."

"Danny, how are you eating that?" Sam gaped.

"Dude, those things taste like they hate you."

"It tastes kinda sweet." Danny shrugged. "It's not really a specific flavour, but it tastes like something I can't really describe. Kind of reminds me of Amity Park Park on a sunny day?"

"Ectoplasm tastes sweet to you?" Tucker asked, his face a mix of intrigue and disgust.

"Huh? Oh no, I think I just started noticing the taste of ectoplasm less when I became half-ghost."

"Danny." Sam put her hands together. "Why do you know what ectoplasm tastes like before and after the accident."

"I get blasted in the face with ecto-based attacks on a regular basis. Some of it ends up in my mouth." Danny raised his hands defensively.

"And before?" Tucker asked.

"Sometimes you're seven, and you dare your sister to eat some, but she'll only do it if you do too. Or you're three, and it a bright colour, and three-year-olds like putting bright colours in their mouth, or..." Danny trailed off when he noticed Tucker and Sam's horrified expressions. "Look, I was raised by two ghost hunters. It happens."

"How are you not dead?" Sam asked.

"I probably should be dead for, like, twenty different reasons, but eating ectoplasm isn't one of them. It's not poisonous, turns out."

"On that note," Tucker stood up "I have to go home and eat literally anything that isn't ectoplasm."

"What time is it?" Sam checked her watch. "5:47? Already? Jeez, it's almost my supper time too."

"Aw, why do you guys eat so early?" Danny winded as he followed them out of his room and down the stairs.

"Danny, most people have supper before 8:00. You're the weirdo here." Tucker said.

"Okay, first off, we eat before 8:00-"

"7:30's not much better dude."

"And second, I'm not weird!"

"Danny," Sam said, opening the door "You eat ectoplasm."

"You're misconstruing what I said! I do not eat-"

The door shut before Danny could finish his sentence. Danny grumbled to himself before sitting down on the living room couch.

Danny rolled the candy around with his tongue. He still hadn't figured out what the weird flavour was.

Whatever it was, it was bringing up old memories; like going fishing with Dad, Mom taking him to the park, and daring Jazz to eat ectoplasm.

As Danny got lost in his memories, the candy steadily got smaller and smaller. Eventually it disappeared entirely, leaving Danny with a strange empty feeling.

Danny was suddenly filled with the urge to go to the kitchen. His mind had drifted there a lot while he was sucking on the candy.

He hoped someone would be sitting there.

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

Sure enough, Dad and Jazz were both sitting at the table. Jazz was writing on a some papers, surrounded by a small pile of books. His dad had gutted some small device and was examining some of the wires.

Danny just stood in the doorframe and watched them for a bit. It was kind of nice how normal the scene looked. Well, Danny supposed most people's parents didn't wear neon jumpsuits at the kitchen table, but it was normal for the Fentons. There was a comfort in their special kind of normal that Danny hadn't really thought about much.

"Danny!" Jack beamed once he'd noticed Danny's arrival. "You're just in time! I need some help with this."

"Oh." Danny immediately tensed. "Um, what exactly is 'this'?"

Danny prepared for his father to tell him in great detail what horrors this new device could potentially afflict on him.

"He's just fixing the toaster." Jazz said. "No dangerous weapons, or anything that's designed to cause any harm to humans or ghosts in any way whatsoever. Theoretically, anyway."

Oh.

Danny felt himself relax again. It would be nice to not tense up every time his parents were working on something new. Especially since, being professional inventors, they were working on something new very often.

It would be a huge relief, a voice in his head said.

Then again, the only way to remedy that situation might cause his parents to start making new things specifically to destroy him, which would not be a huge relief.  

"I need you to go to the basement and get me a screwdriver." His dad's voice snapped Danny out of his thoughts. "The one I had earlier is missing."

"Why can't Jazz do it?"

"Because Jazz is working on an important essay on the long term effects of suppression." Jazz turned a page in the book she was reading. "While Danny is standing there not doing anything particularly important right now."

Danny stuck his tongue out at Jazz.

"Love you too little brother." she said, not looking up from her book.

"That's the third misplaced screwdriver this week!" Danny said, turning back to his dad. "How do you keep losing them?"

"I'm not losing them, they're being taken."

"By who?"

"The rats!"

"Why would rats-"

"Ghost rats!"

"Ah, there we go."

"I don't know what those little creeps are up to," Jack narrowed his eyes at some point in the distance "But I just know it's something nefarious!"

"Right, right. I'm going to the lab now."

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

Danny grumbled as he dug through piles of tools and machine scraps. This lab was a  absolute disaster! His parents could have made an effort to keep things at least semi-organized, but nope! The tables and shelves were filled with piles that all held new surprises every time you looked through them. Some of those surprises bit, too.

Finally, after at least ten minutes of searching (and no biting, luckily), Danny found a pile that contained a screwdriver.

"Ah hah!" he cried, triumphantly thrusting it over his head.

That was when his ghost sense went off.

"Seriously?!"

Danny quickly turned turned towards the portal, transformed, and floated into a battle position.

A familiar bird head popped out of the portal.

"Hey fellas!" He cried "It vorked!"

Two more bird heads popped out beside him.

"Really?" the one with the glasses said.

"Amazing!" the raspy voiced one said "Ve can finally get out of da stupid Ghost Zone!"

The vultures suddenly noticed Danny.

"Ay, ghost kid!" The leader greeted him as the birds entered the lab the rest of the way.

"How on earth did you three get here?"

"Good to see you too kid, tanks for asking."

"Ve've been vorking on finding your portal for months." The raspy-voiced vulture said.

"Oh yeah," Danny had completely forgotten about Vlad saying that he'd try to find a route. "Does that mean Vlad's with you?"

"Sorry kid, he's off on a business trip."

"Oh." That meant Vlad wouldn't even be at his house. That was a shame becasue Danny really wanted to talk about their conversation at the cabin. He still felt bad about that.

"If you see him, do you think you could tell Vlad I'm sorry about what happened at the cabin?"

"Eh, I don't tink you got anything to apologize for." the lead vulture said. "In my opinion, you seem to have done some good for Plasmius. He's finally dragged himself out of the lab and back to terapy like I've been telling him to do for veeks."

"Wait, he's gone back to therapy? What for?"

"For da whole friendship situation." the leader turned to the other two "Not the brightest, dis one, eh?"

"So, has the therapist been helping?" Danny asked, deciding to ignore that comment.

"It's a process." the lead vulture shrugged. "He seems to tink Vlad should stop hiding and just tell his friends vhat's going on. Of course, he doesn't know exactly vhat it is Vlad's hiding, but Vlad seems to think that he's talking sense."

"Wait, you mean Vlad's thinking about telling my parents he's half-ghost?"

"Aie," the vulture with the glasses frowned "You probably shouldn't have mentioned dat. You know Vlad's still figuring things out."  

"Eh, da kid vas going to find out anyvay."

"Danny!" his father called down from the top of the stairs. "Did you find that screwdriver, son?"

"Sounds like dat's our cue." the lead vulture said as the three of them turned towards the portal. "Don't forget to change before you go up, yea?"

With that the birds flew back into the portal and Danny was left alone in the lab.

Vlad was going to tell them.

Danny stood there staring at the portal. After a few seconds, a wave of anger rose up in Danny.

For twenty years, Vlad had been too much of a coward to even speak to his parents, and now he was just going to risk it all and tell them everything?

Vlad had spent his time as a ghost hidden safely away in his stupid mansion. Danny was the one who'd risked his neck living under the roof of ghost hunters every day. What right did Vlad have to put them at risk like that? How could he-

"Danny?"

"Yup!" Danny transformed out of his ghost form. "I'm coming Dad!"

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

"I found a screwdriver." Danny said as he emerged from the basement. He hoped it wasn't obvious how perturbed he was.

"Excellent!" his father said, taking the screwdriver.

Good, it wasn't obvious. Or maybe his dad just didn't notice.

"When I'm done, this baby'll work better than ever before!"

"Great."

Danny glared at the toaster. For the past few months he'd had to tiptoe around countless of his parent's rogue inventions. Vlad had been to their house one time and decided that was all just too hard, apparently.

"You okay, Danno? You seem kind of off."

Jazz's eyes flicked up from her textbook at Jack's words.

"Oh, I'm fine, I just, uh..." Danny forgot how unreliable his dad's denseness could be. He needed to switch the topic to anything. "What are you doing to the toaster anyway?"

Jazz did something weird with her lips, then went back to reading.

"Well son, your mother was complaining about it not working properly earlier. I'm fixing it up to surprise her. Done!" Jack held up the toaster triumphantly. "Not only is it fixed, but I've implemented our new experimental ecto-based energy generator, so the toaster creates its own power! You don't even need to plug it in anymore! Now we just need to test it out."

Jack slid two sliced of bread into the toaster and pushed the handle down.

"Uh, are you sure that's a good id-"

The toaster began shaking violently.

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

"-and that's how I spent my evening fighting an evil toaster." Danny concluded.

Tucker was trying very hard not to choke on his sloppy joe. Sam was barely hiding a grin.

"And how long did it take you to subdue the toaster?" she asked.

"About an hour." Danny grumbled. He didn't think the situation was that funny.

"So it was just you, your dad, and Jazz running around your house for an hour trying to subdue a sentient toaster?" Sam covered her mouth with her hand "Because that is a very entertaining image."

"Pretty much."

Tucker and Sam burst out laughing.

It could've been faster if Dad and Jazz knew about your powers. A voice in Danny's head said. He pushed the thought away.

He'd had thoughts like that ever since the accident but, after Colorado, they were becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

Luckily, Danny's ghost sense going off provided a convenient distraction.

Danny stood up, but a flash of red out the window made him sit back down.

"Huntress on this one?" Sam asked.

"Yup." Danny said.

"You don't have to look so grumpy." Tucker said. "She's kind of doing you a favour."

"No, she's just moving the problem down the line." Danny said. "For some reason she doesn't capture the ghosts she fights, so that just means I have and deal with them later."

"At least they're not bothering you in school." Sam said. "I'm not sure your grades could take that."

"Hey! I'm making mostly A's these days."

"Your last report card was mostly B's, Danny."

"There were some A's on there!"

"You know, it might be worth just trying to talk to her." Tucker said. "Maybe she's friendly."

"And just how many ghost hunters have we met that have been willing to give a ghost a chance?" Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, but it's not like we know that many ghost hunters." Tucker pointed out.

"Even so, I'm with Sam." Danny said. "The odds on 'friendly ghost hunter' are not great, and I have enough trouble in my life as it is, so I'd like to keep off of her radar for as long as possible."

The lunch bell rang. Danny realized he'd gotten distracted by The Red Huntress and had forgotten to tell Sam and Tucker about his conversation with the vultures.

He'd just have to tell them after school.

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

Valerie waited around the corner. She'd bumped into Tucker alone here after lunch on another Thursday, so maybe that would happen again.

"Bingo." she smiled as she saw him walking down the hall by himself, absorbed in his PDA.

"Hey Foley." she said, stepping around the corner.

"Oh, hey Valerie." Tucker looked up from his device. "What's up?"

"You're good with weird tech stuff, right?"

"The very best." Tucker beamed proudly.

"Right. And how good are you at keeping secrets?"

"I am also pretty good at that. Why?"

"I need a favour."

"What kind of a favour?"

"First," Valerie swung her backpack around and grabbed the zipper "You've got to swear you won't tell anyone about this."

Valerie narrowed her eyes at Tucker in a way that made his skin crawl.

"Y-yeah, sure. No problem. My lips are sealed."

"Good." Valerie's face morphed back into a smile as she unzipped and dug through her bag. "So is there anyway you'd be able to make this part of a glove?" Valerie pulled out a small green device.

"A Fenton Hand shield?" Tucker took the device from Valerie's hand. "Where'd you get one of these?"

"Where do you think?" Valerie raised an eyebrow. "Not like it was hard. The Fentons will literally just give them out to anyone who shows up at their door. I didn't even ask them for it."

"That's...not actually that surprising. But what were you doing at their door in the first place?"

"Yeah...now's not really the best time for questions. Fourth period starting soon and all." Valerie said, glancing at her watch. "Wanna meet up after school?"

Tucker looked at the hand shield. Something about this whole situation seemed kind of off. Then again, there was only one way to find out more about what was going on.

Besides, it was just Valerie. How much trouble could she possibly be getting into?

"Yeah, alright. I'll meet you out front after school."

"Great!" Valerie beamed.

Tucker didn't know how, but Valerie seemed to mould the environment around her with her facial expression. The world scarier wen she was mad at you, but also brighter when she smiled.

"See you then! Don't want to be late." Valerie waved, heading off to her next class.

"See ya!" Tucker waved back as she disappeared around the corner.

Tucker looked at the hand shield. He'd never wired electronics into clothing before, but the hand shield was a pretty simple device, so it'd probably be doable with a little online help...

The sound of the bell snapped Tucker out of his thoughts.

"Right! Class!" Tucker stuffed the hand shield into his pocket and sprinted off to class.

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

"Welp, see you guys later." Tucker waved to Danny and Sam as they exited the school building.

"Wait, where are you going?" Sam asked.

"I'm meeting up with Valerie. We're going to my house to, uh... work on a bio project."

Sam narrowed her eyes at Tucker.

"Oh, okay." Danny said. "See you later then."

"See ya!" Tucker waved.

Sam kept her eyes on Tucker as he walked away.

"He's hiding something." She said to Danny as they began walking home.

"Yeah?" Danny asked distractedly.

Sam raised an eyebrow at Danny.

"Clearly he's not the only one."

"What do you mean?"

"C'mon Danny, I've been your friend for long enough to be able to tell that something's on your mind."

Danny sighed.

"I was talking to Vlad's vultures yesterday, and-"

"Wait, his what?"

"I didn't tell you about the vultures?"

"No. No you did not."

"Well, anyway, he has these three vultures that work for him, and-"

"Vlad has ghosts that work for him? Does he pay them? And why vultures? I have so many questions about this situation."

"Sam!"

"Right, sorry, what were you saying?"

"They said that Vlad might be planning on telling my parents he's half-ghost."

Sam's eyes briefly widened before narrowing in anger.

"Seriously? I hope you told them what a stupid idea that is. Ugh, that's so selfish of him. Doesn't he care about the danger that puts himself and you in?"

"Yeah, it's just that, I've been thinking...maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if my parents knew."

Sam stopped walking and gawked at Danny.

"Okay," she pinched the bridge of her nose and resumed walking "Is there some kind of brain-scrambling disease going around that only affects half-ghosts or something?"

"I know it sound crazy, Sam. It's just...sometimes it feels like there's this gap between me and my family. Not to mention there's a lot of situations where it would have been really convienent if they knew."

"Danny, keeping your ghost powers a secret is the best option. Best case scenario, your parents turn into pests that fuss over you every time you fight a ghost. And worst case scenario, they try to tear you apart molecule by molecule."

They stopped walking as they reached Fenton Works.

"I get having to tiptoe around them is annoying, but if you tell them, they probably wouldn't really get it, and it'd just be a huge hassle for you to deal with. It's just not worth it."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Danny said as he ascended the steps. "It was a stupid idea. I'll see you tomorrow."

He shut the door before he Sam could reply.

"Hello?" Danny called. No one answered. His parents were probably in the basement, and Jazz had probably decided to stop at the library before coming home.

Danny wished he could talk to Jazz about, well, everything. As much as he hated to admit it, Jazz understood his feelings better than even he did sometimes.

But if he told Jazz everything, she might think there was something wrong with him. She meant well, but Danny couldn't risk her worrying and going to Mom and Dad.

And...maybe it would hurt a little if his sister thought he was a messed up freak. Danny never really felt like a freak, but it would still hurt if the people he loved thought of him that way.

Danny sighed to himself and swung his backpack off of his shoulder. It had barely touched the ground before he felt his ghost sense go off.

"Seriously?" He groaned before transforming. He grabbed The Fenton Thermos out of his backpack and flew through the door. He floated above the house and looked around.

"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"

"Oh come on!" Danny shouted at the sky as the ghost flew up to his level.

"TREMBLE AT THE CAPACITY OF MY CORRUGATED CAPABILITIES!"

"Alright," Danny's fists lit up green "Let's just get this over with."

Before Danny could do anything, a pink beam blasted the box ghost from the side.

Danny looked over and saw the Red Huntress a few meters away on her hoverboard. She looked ready to shoot the box ghost again, but then she turned to look at Danny.

Uh oh.

"Don't shoot!" Danny raised his hands in the air. "I'm not with him! I swear!"

The Huntress laughed.

"Relax." she said. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

"You're not?" Danny cautiously lowered his arms. "But aren't you a ghost hunter?"

"Yeah, but I know you're one of the good ones. Danny Phantom, right?"

"You know me?"

"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"

Without looking way from The Huntress, Danny raised his Fenton Thermos and sucked The Box Ghost into it.

"Woah!" The Huntress exclaimed "What on earth is that?"

"Uh-"

"Hey, wait a minute," The Huntress's visor almost seemed to squint "Is that The Fenton Works logo?"

"Um..." Danny instincitively his the thermos behind his back. "No?"

"Do you steal the Fenton's ghost hunting equipment?"

"Hey! Why are you jumping right to 'steal'?"

"Please. Like those two would willingly help a ghost in any way."

"Okay, fair point, but I need this to catch ghosts. It's the only way to contain them and get them back to The Ghost Zone."

"Contain them, eh? You know, I could use something like that."

"What?"

"Something to contain ghosts. At this point I've just been scaring them away, hoping that that deters them from messing with anyone."

"Wait, you don't actually have a way to contain ghosts?" Danny rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Oh my gosh. You clearly aren't prepared for this at all. What made you think hunting ghosts was a good idea in the first place?"

"You, actually."

"Me?"

"Yeah. I wanted to fight evil ghosts and keep people safe, like you do. You kind of inspired me when you saved me from Axiom."

"Axiom?"

"Yeah. When that ghost dog showed up, I lost everything. I was angry and scared for a while, but now I can channel those things into something useful. My life may have been destroyed that day, but I've been given the chance to build a better one, and I'm going to take it!"

Oh no.

Danny knew that voice.

"Valerie!?"

"Didn't know you knew my name." Valerie casually remarked. "I'm flattered you remember me. Hey, I know technically I owe you one for saving me and my dad's life, but any chance you could hook me up with one of those thermoses? It would really be-"

"No way! This is the only one, and I need it."

"Oh. Well, maybe we could-"

"Sorry, I gotta go." Danny's head was swimming from the discovery he'd just made. "See ya."

"But, wait! I just-"

But Danny had already turned invisible and zoomed off.

"Man," Valerie said to herself "He was certainly in a hurry."

She checked the screen of her ghost radar, but there was no ecto-signature on it.

"Weird..." Valerie muttered to herself.

Maybe Phantom had just flown off really fast? He'd have to be going pretty fast to get out of her radar's range that quickly, but-

"Oh no!" Valerie was suddenly snapped from her musings "Tucker!"

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

Danny flew through his window and stopped above his bed. He transformed and let himself drop out of the air onto his mattress.

Valerie was The Red Huntress.

Danny pulled his pillow over his face and groaned.

Why'd it to be Valerie. Why couldn't it have been someone he didn't see in school everyday?

Danny reached for his cell phone, but changed his mind halfway through dialing Tucker's number. Tucker was studying with Valerie tonight.

"You could've picked anyone to be your bio partner, Tuck." Danny rubbed his face.

He thought about calling Sam but...

Yeah, Danny didn't really want to talk with Sam alone right now. He'd just have to tell them tomorrow. This would be a better conversation to have in person anyway.

Of course that left Danny all on his own to ruminate on this new information. As well as the whole Vlad situation. And the voice in his head telling him how much easier it would be if he just told his parents-

Danny tossed his cell phone back on his night stand. Why was his life so complicated?

He dug his Game Boy out of his nightstand. He just a break from drama and ghosts.

There was already a game cartridge in the slot. Danny pulled it out. It was Pac-Man Collection, his go-to game since elementary school.

Danny reopened his nightstand drawer. He was more in the mood for Tetris right now.

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

#friends in strange places #fisp #Danny Phantom #dp #dp fanfic #danny phantom fanfic #writing #fanfic

[bustyasianbeautiespod]

Episode 42 Transcript: Hey, What’s a Fella to Do?

[intro guitar music]

G: Hello, my name is Grey. 

C: And my name is Crystal. 

G: And this is Busty Asian Beauties, the Supernatural commentary podcast where I, someone who has seen this show several times–

C: And I, someone who only knows the show through social media, discuss every single episode of Supernatural from start to finish. Also, we are both Asian.

G: Both Asian! For today's episode. [laughs] Holy shit! I still have not–

C: What?

G: I still don't know the–

C: Watched it?

G: No!

C: [laughs] Oh, okay!

G: I have, in fact, watched the episodes we're about to discuss. I just don't know who the writers are. Let me see.

C: Raelle Tucker, which you can tell, because she uses herself in the “Then” sequence. And then near the end, Sam's attitudes about hunting directly mirror the ones that she put on him in “Hunted” that didn't make any goddamn sense.

G: Today, we will be discussing Season 2, Episode 20: “What Is and What Should Never Be” written by, as Crystal said, Raelle Tucker, directed by– [laughs]

C: Boooooo!

G: Mr. Eric Kripke himself! Yeah, babygirl.

C: I–did he direct–what? Okay, I'm going to look at what he has directed before. I want to know why he thought this episode was so special that he directed–

G: He has not. This is–this is his first episode that he directed–

C: Oh my god.

G: And, allegedly–

C: He was like, “Dean is such a babygirl that I simply must” [G laughs] –allegedly what?

G: Well, allegedly they had, like, to draw lots or something for what episode they're going to direct, and he ended up–or like, he chose episode 20, but at the time he didn't know that episode 20 was gonna be this. So this is not like a matter of–

C: So he thought it would be plot and not a deviation.

G: Yeah. Okay, here's the thing. We usually reserve our full thoughts of the episode at the end. But I feel like this episode deserves a pre-thought–like a pre-episode thought discussion, so–

C: Okay.

G: Let's–let's talk about my thoughts of this episode.

C: Yes.

G: I have a love-hate relationship with this episode.

C: Uh-huh.

G: I hate it because [laughs] it's so unrelated to what's happening in season two. 

C: Yeah.

G: And I feel like if I just watched it by itself, I would have enjoyed it a lot more, but because we're watching it in chronological order, it falls flat, like it physically–like, it actually angers me that it's here–

C: Yeah.

G: Because it's so irrelevant. And like, next episode we're going to have a two-part finale, and this is the episode prior to that. Why?

C: ‘Cause season two is about Dean, and about how he doesn't want to kill Sam. That's what they've decided. They've decided that Sam doesn't matter.

G: Yeah. And it's so evident in this episode that they really do not give a fuck about that guy. Like that guy can–that guy barely exists in their head.

C: Aw. Sorry, Sam.

G: I would say I like the episode apart from that, though, because of–because the heart of the show and the heart of this episode is family, and that's why I like it, you know? And this- because this episode is so family-centered. I did shed some tears in like certain scenes–

C: Oh, for real?

G: Yes, for real. And yeah, like, it's good as a solo episode. I think, like, when you think about this one, you should think about it as separate from the season. Because if you don't, it sucks.

C: Yeah, I feel like it would work better as a season one or season three episode.

G: Like we said last time, season three is the prime time for this episode to be happening.

C: Yeah. The djinn’s argument that Dean should stay is a lot stronger in season three, because it's like, he's gonna die in six months, anyway.

G: I hate this episode, but I love it. I can't help it! [both laughing]

-

G: Okay, before going in what did you know about this one?

C: Right. So I knew that the monster in it would be a djinn, and that Dean gets put in some dream world where his mom didn't die, but John did, hell yeah, uh, and that he has a girlfriend there named Carmen, who he finds out later is in a beer ad. Okay, I feel like I just know everything in this episode, actually. 

G: Yeah, just everything.

C: Yeah.

G: Because it's a very, very prominent, very in the culture of SPN episode. 

C: It’s considered a Dean thesis.

G: Yeah, it is considered that. God, can you believe the last three episodes are like this before the finale where we're supposed to care deeply about Sam?

C: Right, I just, “Hollywood Babylon,” ”Folsom Prison Blues,” “What Is and What Should Never Be,” like, Sam is not a character in any of these. Like, he's actually, I feel like he's made to be somewhat unlikable in all of them, actually. I don’t know, it’s the lead up to him being, like, put into the Hunger Games, and the whole thing is like, “Dean is such a silly fun little guy who doesn't want to hunt anymore and Sam’s just a judgmental bitch.” [both laugh] Like, that’s not the correct lead up to the finale.

G: Yeah. Okay, let’s start–so the “Road So Far” in this episode’s pretty good. I like it.

C: Eh.

G: I–okay. I'll take that as “It's not,” and–okay, fine. [both laughing]

C: No further debate, I agree. [G laughs]

G: I do not feel strongly enough to fight for my fucking life for the “Road So Far” of this episode.

C: I just think it's silly that they basically replayed the entire pilot beginning scene, like, we know that Mary died of a fire, like, you say it a lot.

G: I mean, maybe the reason why I like it is because it's different. It's not like, “Dad wants us to pick up where he left off [C laughs], saving people–” like, it's not that. So.

C: So we open on a license plate that says CNK80Q3.

G: Aw, they changed it!

C: And it’s Baby, but they changed her name because of the cops being after them, I suppose. It only took them like, twenty encounters for them to consider it.

G: By, KAZ. That's the–that's the Impala’s old name. You are now ceenick.

C: Welcome, conk. [G laughs]

So yeah, Dean gets a call, and Sam's in a motel room, and he's worried about a cop car outside, but it eventually drives away, so it was a false alarm. Sam's not happy about being a fugitive, but Dean says, “Hey, man, chicks dig the danger vibe.” Kay. Uh and Sam's reading a lot of book about djinns, which, speaking of, are not portrayed accurately in this Supernatural episode, and we have several facts about them from Bee, aka angelhannah on the Tumblr, that we will sprinkle throughout when they become relevant. Thank you Bee for that work. Um, right, and he asks Dean about a case that they're working where there were a lot of missing victims, and Sam’s pretty sure that they're hunting a djinn, and Dean seems to know nothing about them. He's like, “What, a genie? Do they grant wishes?” [G laughs]

G: Yeah, I mean, I guess they've never encountered them at this point

C: Yeah, but somehow he knows about the “silver knife dipped in lamb's blood” part, which seems like–

G: Yeah.

C: Something that you'd need a lot of prior background knowledge on, at least in the world of Supernatural where that's how you defeat a djinn. Mmm. Who knows? I guess Sam wouldn't let him hang up without having that information via text at some point. Yeah, so he says that they're powerful enough, and he says “they're not exactly like Barbara Eden in harem pants”? Uh, which I guess is something that happened in a movie somewhere. 

G: [laughing] That sounds bad, so we're–let's just not get into it.

C: Yeah. Um, right.

G: Unless you want to.

C: No, yeah. And he says that djinn have been feeding off people for centuries, and that they're all over the Quran, uh, which is true. But you'd think that if he read that source, then he would know that the lamb's blood knife doesn't actually work. So–and Dean, for some reason is just like, “Oh my God! Barbara Eden was so hot!” Like, it’s been thirty seconds of Dean on screen, and so far he's talked about wanting to fuck women twice. Like, is there a–like a writing reason for this? Or is that just Dean?

G: Okay, here's the thing. Uh, wait, to answer your question, like, “Is there a writing reason for this?” I don't fucking know. [laughs] But, uh, this entire episode, it just reeks of misogyny. 

C: Yeah.

G: It's like–

C: It's so funny near the end when like, djinn Sam is like, “Please don't go, Dean!” And then a girlband manifests from around him. [both laughing]

G: No, it’s just, it's so evident that Supernatural really does see women as solely like, mothers, and like, wives and girlfriends, you know, like, these women don't have inner lives.

C: Yeah.

G: They're just here, and I get that, like, it's like, complicated in that this is like, the dream world of a misogynistic man.

C: Right, it’s just Dean–

G: Right, so it’s like, misogynistic for that reason. But you can argue the same about Supernatural, especially up until this point of the show that, like, a lot of the women that they–that show up on screen really just only serve that–as that purpose. As love interests, or as fucking baby incubators. You know, it's just–Jesus, man.

C: Yep. Yeah. Also, we have to remember that this was written by Raelle Tucker, one of the creators of the Andreaverse. [G laughs]

G: Andreaverse is still the funniest thing that we’ve developed in this podcast. Literally the amount of women in the Andrea Supernaturall verse is astounding.

C: Yeah, good for all of them. Or not. Yeah, um, Sam says that djinns usually live in ruins, where they hide out, uh, and Dean says, “Okay, I found a place, and I'll go check it out.” And Sam goes, “Wait, wait, come pick me up first!” And Dean’s like, “No.” [laughs] And that’s this entire season. Yeah, and he says, “I’m sure it's nothing. I just want to take a look around.” Which is, like, more callous than Dean usually is about cases with potentially dangerous creatures, right? 

G: Well, he did go down into that fucking–like, when he's alone, he's stupid as shit for some reason. [C laughs] Like, remember that time in “Scarecrow” where he just went down into the haunted, uh, thing without any weapons or whatever?

C: Oh my god. Yeah.

G: And you were like, “Why does he not have any weapons?” And it's like well, because he's stupid as fuck, that’s why. [C laughs]

C: So true. I was gonna try to make a theory that something in him subconsciously was like, “I want a wish granted, and I don't want Sam there for it.” But you're right. He's just stupid, actually. [both laugh]

-

C: He shows up to some factory, and he goes through, it's abandoned, and he's looking around, it's dark and stuff, and then suddenly, [laughing] this bald white guy with face tattoos shows up. Oh my god. Yeah, um, so, right. Bee has told us that djinns can't actually be seen, you only see a vision of them that they create, and it's usually a person that you know, not a bald white guy with face tattoos. 

G: Yeah. I feel like that's such a missed opportunity on Supernatural behalf.

C: Yeah. Like, it could literally be Mary right now, you guys.

G: I–imagine, like, this episode, but instead of stabbing himself, Dean has to stab Mary.

C: Yes!

G: Why, why, why didn't he do that? Why did he not have to kill his mother that he wished to come alive to kill the djinn? Yeah.

C: Right? Like, we already know that Dean is suicidal, like, been there done that, make him kill Mary. [both laugh]

G: Make him kill his own mother.

C: Yep. And they could also possess someone or something, uh, and basically they live in a realm that we can't see, because their true forms can drive a man mad. Neat.

-

C: So–right. So this guy shows up, and he like, attacks Dean, and then his hand starts glowing blue in the jankiest special effect I've ever seen, and his eyes glow, and he puts his hand on Dean's forehead, and Dean passes out, and we get our splash screen

G: Actually, I read in the Wiki that the–the blue flame in their hand is a reference to the fact that, like, according to the lore, like, djinns, are made from–

C: Oh, from fire.

G: From, like, from–yeah, like from fire. From smokeless fire, I think is the term that they used in the Wiki. So, [laughs] at least they were trying to do something.

C: Yeah.

G: So Dean wakes up, and he's hashtag shirtless in a hashtag house, in a hashtag bed–why am I doing this?

C: Also, the necklace that he’s wearing isn’t the Samulet. 

G: It’s different. It’s not the Samulet. Yeah.

C: Right. So he just wears a necklace. Like, he bought one, and he wore it because he's our special jewelry boy. Uh, and also, he wasn't on top, or else it would have swung and hit Carmen in the face. Just a thought. [G laughing]

G: Um, sure, yeah.

C: I mean, you can’t wear necklaces in bed if you’re on top, like, it will hit people in the face,

G: I mean, I've never had occasion to wear a necklace while on top, but I will believe you.

C: I’ve talked to friends who wanted to keep their jewelry on in bed and couldn't because it kept swinging and hitting their partner in the face. [G laughs]

G: Uh, anyway, he wakes up, and there's a woman, and of course we get a shot of her legs as it pans up her body. 

C: Yeah. And she’s naked.

G: Because this is Supernatural, in case you forgot. And so Dean is like, “Okay, what is happening?” So he gets up, and he's wearing a Henley. OMG! Okay [laughs], he's wearing a Henley this episode and I feel like this is really the first time that at least I have noticed Dean wearing a Henley, and in my head, this is like, the Dean look, you know, and I know, like, most people probably say it's the leather jacket, or like a flannel, the red one from when he was a demon, or like, the bisexual one [laughs] that the people–that don’t want to be–the purple one or something.

C: It’s such a stretch. It’s barely purple, you guys, I’m sorry. [G laughing]

G: Well, I support people who call it the bisexual shirt. 

C: Mm.

G: But, for me, the Dean look is the Henley, and–I am miserable because whenever I look up “Henley,” like, on stores here in the Philippines, like, nothing shows up, people–people don't call anything “Henley” here, and I have never found it in like, a department store or anything. So I still don't have one, which is very misery-inducing.

C: Yeah. 

G: But one day I will, and I will be like, “OMG, I'm just like Dean Winchester for real.” [laughing]

C: So true.

G: So true.

-

C: Let's talk about his interior design in this home that he supposedly lives in. First off, he has a TV in his bedroom, right? But it's–isn’t– it's on the side wall, like, on his side of the bed, so he literally bought a TV to put in his room that only he can watch. 

G: Oh my god, you're right. You're right. [laughs]

C: Sick, sick in the head.

C: Also, in the kitchen we see that he has a guitar. 

G: Aww.

C: I'm going to say that Carmen plays it, though.

G: Dean canonically knows how to play the guitar.

C: Oh, really, from when? 

G: Yeah.

C: From the karaoke episode, or–

G: No, from “Bad Boys.”

C: Is that the one where he gets sent to the boy’s home for–

G: Yeah.

C: For shoplifting because John’s the worst man alive?

G: Yeah, it’s that one. I think he plays the guitar there with his gf Robin.

C: Aww, yeah, okay–

G: So cute. 

C: The thing is, I don't think I could take any Dean doing music seriously, because now I'm just like, “That's just Jackles trying to promote Radio Company.” [G laughs]

G: Okay, not to bash Radio Company, but like, why is it called Radio Company?

C: Yeah.

G: I literally–that's such a bad name, right? 

C: I agree. 

G: Radio Company. “What's the name of your music label?” “Radio Company.” “So is it called Radio–” “No no no no, it's called Radio Company.” “So, the Radio Company–”

C: Also, that song that everyone's, like, all, like, gaga over, cause, like, it–

G: “You were watching over me.” That one.

C: Yeah, the lyrics are so generic, and the song is so boring [G laughs], and like–sorry if this is about someone who died in your life, like, genuinely, like, if that's your way of expressing it, then, like, good for you. But, like, we don't need to care about it, like, that's for you. Like, I don't care about it. Because it's not good.

G: No, wait, I’m looking up the lyrics–Radio Company–

C: “Lay it on, it on, it on, it on, [both laughing] now that I can see, now that I can see, couldn’t bear to talk, to talk, to talk, without the will to breathe, without the will to breathe.”

G: We’re so mean, we're so mean. I'm going to cut off half of this because it's so mean. But yeah, yeah. [C laughs]

I've listened to a bit of Radio Company because we've had mutuals–oh, we still have them–we have mutuals who are like, “Oh, but the songs are actually decent, like, the songs are actually good, like you should give them a shot,” and I was like, “Okay, I'll give it a shot,” and I was sorely disappointed. I think I've said this before, either in an outtake or over here, but like, I feel like Radio Company songs try so hard to be deep, and then I read the lyrics, and they're just completely fucking incomprehensible. [both laugh] And like–

C: Maybe that's because Jensen Ackles is too smart for you, Grey. [G laughs]

G: Yeah, exactly. That must be the reason why. [C laughs] I am way too stupid for Radio Company's caliber of songwriting.

C: Exactly.

G: Anyway. Uh, Dean walks around and he calls Sam.

C: Yeah, okay, did you see what was on Sam’s fucking phone?

G: Yes! [C screams] I took a picture!

C: I did too!

G: I'm going to recite it.

C: You read it.

G: So, Sam Winchester, texting Christopher Cooper. Here goes. “Hey, dude, dot dot dot dot [both laugh], how are you doing, man? I'm doing pretty darn good [C screaming]- I’m doing pretty darn good myself. I've been meaning to sit down and write you, but I've been so darn [C scream-laughing] busy. I’ve been [laughing] meaning to call, too. But hey, what's a fella to do?” [C screaming]

G: I–I'm in love with this. I genuinely–

C: Yeah.

G: Why does he talk like this? 

C: [laughing] Need me some dick from a man who types like this.

G: First of all, they can say “damn” in Supernatural.

C: Yeah. So Sam just doesn’t.

G: Sam’s just like, “I'm texting my highbrow friend, who definitely one hundred percent does not curse,” and–

C: Right, and I’m sure lawyers curse all the time in the office. I mean, have you seen Suits? Not [laughs]–I haven’t either, but I’m sure they curse in there. 

G: I mean, have you seen Better Call Saul? I haven’t either, [both laugh] but I'm sure they also curse there. 

C: Have you seen this like, Extraordinary Attorney Woo?

G: Whoo! They don’t curse-

C: They don't curse in there, but, you know, I’m sure they do actually. [laughs]

G: Yeah, have you played Ace Attorney: Investigations: 2? [C laughs] It's the best game in the franchise, and they don't curse there, but he isn't a lawyer for half of it. So that's the reason why.

C: God also, god, are we–okay, so we’re assuming this is like, a fellow Stanford friend that we haven't met yet?

G: Yeah.

C: Okay, I think that he's an ex and that's why Sam is typing like this. [G laughs] Like, “Oh my god, yeah, like, I had so much fun that night ten years ago. Sorry for not calling back for the whole time. I’ve just been so darn busy! By the way, I'm engaged now, so stop texting me.” [laughs]

G: Exactly. 

-

G: Yeah, but Sam picks up. And at this point, we're still not aware that Dean is in a dream world where the Sam is different. So Sam picks up, and you think he's gonna respond about the case or something. But Dean says like, some things about the case, and Sam doesn't know, and he says, “Quit playing, the djinn, the djinn got to me,” and Sam is like, “What, you've been drinking gin?” Which is the beginning of a running thing in this episode where everyone assumes Dean is drunk all the time, implying that he has a history of drinking in this universe, and is quite possibly an alcoholic.

C: Yeah. Hmm.

G: Sad. This is like–when, when Sam called, this is when I was like, “Okay, I think I'm gonna end up crying this episode.” [laughs]

C: Awww. 

G: Because um, I mean, there's a scene later where we can get- we can really get into it. But just the whole thing of like, having a sibling that you're not close with is a very sad idea for me, and they really fucking hammer it in this episode, like, Sam and Dean do not get along, and as we will see later, I think Sam kind of actively hates the guy. [laughs]

C: Yeah. 

G: And, uh, yeah, it's sad. And it made me really emotional, like, watching this episode because of that. And also the Mary stuff.

C: Mm.

G: Anyway, uh, Sam is insisting that Dean is drunk dialing him, and Dean is like, “Ugh, whatever.” Sam hangs up and he closes the book he's reading that you think it's about lore, and it’s…

C: Criminal Law and Procedure! Go lawboy go. 

G: Hell yeah, go lawboy go. At this point, he’s in law school already, right?

C: Uh, yeah, well–right, right. Because right now he’d be like, twenty-four? So yeah, I guess he'd still be in grad school. Awww, he’s so young! He’s a little baby! Okay. [laughs] Anyway.

So right, Dean investigates the room a bit. He sees that there's a lot of mail in the house, some of which is addressed to Carmen Porter at 53 Bark Avenue in Lawrence, Kansas. And some mail that's addressed to Dean here, and Dean's confused about it being Lawrence and about him supposedly living here. And Carmen wakes up, and just does the typical girlfriend thing where she's like, "Honey, what are you doing up? Oh, you can't sleep? Well, why don't you come back to bed and let's see if I can do anything to help." Ugh! Ugh, like, has anyone-

G: So fucking-

C: - said any of these words in this order, like in real life?

G: I mean, I'm sure it has happened. But [both laughing] the way that Supernatural portrays it is so funny. God! I can stop thinking- while watching this episode- I tried to watch Breaking Bad. I think I've mentioned this in the podcast before. I tried to watch Breaking Bad, and it did not work out. So me and Breaking Bad has broken up.

C: Yeah.

G: But like, in the very first episode of that show, it's Walter White's birthday, and like, when they come bed, the woman who's typing on her laptop or something just starts fucking jacking him off. [C laughs] And he's like, "What's the occasion?" And she's like, "Well, it's your birthday." This is the vibe. Like- [laughs] it's just so funny to me, because it's like, this is pretty much that scene, but in Supernatural they were like, "But it's sexy." [both laughing] Like-

C: God, like take a sleeping pill, Dean! Like- [laughs] Ah, so good. And by that, I mean it's so bad. [G laughs] Like, this is Dean's brain. This is what he thinks married life is, or like long-term relationship life is, right? It's just sex on tap and no personality from the woman.

G: It does make me sad that, like, I think the reason is- because this woman could have been anyone. This woman could have been [both] Cassie. Or Lisa, or, you know, literally anyone. But like, the reason why it's not those people is because Dean only met them through hunting.

C: Yeah.

G: So he couldn't have met them here.

C: But honestly, like, I don't think Sam would have gone to Stanford specifically if it weren't for hunting and him wanting to get as far away from his family as possible, you know? Like, Dean could have still met Cassie in this universe in some way.

G: Yeah, perhaps so. But-

C: Yeah, I get why they didn't make her Cassie. Besides, then they would have had to give her a personality.

G: Yeah, also, like, I don't like the idea of them playing with Cassie's character any more than in “Route 666.” Because, like, if they put her here, she's gonna have to be like, "Oh, Dean, why don't we have sex so you can sleep?" [C laughs] Like, I don't want her to go through that.

C: Yeah.

G: Even if it's a dream world, I don't want her to be depersonalized and decharacterized like that. So.

C: So- Right, also, I guess, because part of the point of this is that, like- Oh! No, they should have fucking shown this. Because the point is like, "Oh, we couldn't save the people that we saved through hunting, so they all died." Cassie would have died from the truck.

G: Oh my god. Yeah.

C: But they didn't show Dean reading an article about her dying. I feel like that would've been way more impactful than the other cases that he reads about.

G: Yeah. Because, like, "Here's a love in my life that's not real, like that I didn't develop or experience firsthand. It's just been laid on my lap. And here's a love that I actually did experience, and it was real, and it was complex, and it was bitter sweet. But it was real." And like, that would have been a nice contrast.

C: Yeah, and she died! Oh, god.

So Dean says, "Yeah, in a minute. But you go ahead." Which I know he's just replying to the "come back to bed" part, but it really sounds like "You go back to bed and wait an hour before like, you give me your handjob so I can fall asleep. [both laugh] Like, stay up for an hour before you provide this service for me on my time." Mr. Put the TV on the Side Wall on His Side of the Bed.

So yeah. So she kisses him, and Dean makes a face during that. I guess it's a surprised face.

G: Yeah.

C: Yeah. So he looks around at the photos in the house, and there is one of Carmen alone, and then some of him and her together. And then he turns it around, and like, you see something in his face change, and he's doing his whole like, [G mimics a gasp] shock and lip wobble shit. And he walks slowly to this photo that we can't see, and he like, picks it up, and he looks at it with his sad, large eyes, his anime boy eyes, and then he drops it, and he leaves the room.

-

G: Yeah.

And then we see that he's driving, and he still has Baby in this universe, so that's fun.

C: Yeah.

G: I don't know how that would have worked out because he went back in time to tell John to get the car, but he only could have gotten back in time if he did the thing, the hunting.

C: Yeah, I mean, I guess they weren't thinking up to season five at this point. [G laughs] But yeah. Cinemasins ding indeed.

G: Yeah. [laughs] I literally did not consider that they were not thinking up to season 5 at this point. [laughs] I was like, "There's a plothole here. I wonder why they didn't notice." And it's like, "Oh, yeah, because we're in fucking season 2." [C laughs]

But yeah, he still has Baby. He drives up to this address, and it's a familiar house. Is it? Yeah, yeah, it's the house from the pilot.

C: I can't tell, but I guess so.

G: But yeah, I guess it's familiar to him. He knocks, and he knocks quite like loudly and stuff. And the lights turn on, and out comes... [both] Mary! Dean goes, "Mom?" And I think they made this shot similar to the shot of Mary coming back in season 11 because, like, I mean, at least the thing that Dean says. Because I think in season 11, Mary comes out of a house or is like standing in a field or something. I don't know. But like, it like, zooms in on Dean's face as he goes, "Mom?" and that's the- it's the same shot here. And like, I don't know if it's on purpose, but like, it's probably something that just happened to look similar, but yeah, like it reminded me of that, and I'm like, "Omg, she's gonna be back for real." And honestly, okay, tangent. But bringing Mary back for season 12 is like, one of the best things Supernatural ever did-

C: Agreed.

G: - and I am so excited for us to get there in [laughs] a couple of years.

C: [laughs] Yeah.

G: In like, fucking five years or so. I'm so excited.

C: Right. Once you're in law school.

G: [laughing] Once I'm literally in fucking law school and studying to be a lawyer and like, I'm still sitting here recording my Supernatural podcast. So true of us.

C: Yeah, right. Also, speaking of season 12, like, if this is how Dean thinks that Mary would act like, [laughing] no wonder he's such a misogynistic jerk to her when she gets back.

G: No, exactly, that's-

C: "Mom, you are not making me a sandwich right now. Something feels off." [laughs]

G: That's exactly what I was going for, I just forgot to say it. [laughs] That's why I brought up Mary in season 12. But like, the contrast between Mary here, the Mary in Dean's imagination, and the Mary that we actually get when she does come back, like, that's why it's so good. That's why Mary coming back was so good. And I actually feel like that is such a meaningful arc for everyone involved, and Mary being killed in season 14 [C groans] for shock value- Yeah, it's not good. [laughs] They rui- I mean, I understand that, like, at some point they had to be like, "Everyone is gonna die." But like, they did it in season 15, right? So like, why did they have to push Mary's death back this far? And [laughing], god, they were like, "But she's happy in Heaven, so it's fine if she's dead." [both laughing] Like, it's genuinely the funniest shit.

C: It really is. I'm so sad Mary didn't make it to season fifteen because she should have confronted Chuck.

G: Yeah. Like, if anyone here is a pawn piece, it's Mary. Like, she's really [laughs]- she's really the person that has been tossed around a lot and discarded and re-carded [C laughs]. Is that a word? Can you re-card after your discard? But it's just- yeah. Mary is a good character when we meet her, and what she represents-

C: Also, she could've met Eileen!

G: What?

C: In season 15. She could have met Eileen in season 15. Total tangent, but I would have liked to see it. Okay, back to you. [G laughs]

G: Back to me. I was saying that Mary, as a character, when we do finally meet her, is so good. Mary, as an idea, as we know her now, is also good. Like, not as a character, but what she represents in the show right now as like, this mother figure that's kind of just an idea. Like, she's not even a real person. Like, I'm not saying that it's a good thing [laughs] that they have a woman be represented in that way, I'm saying like, in a universe where they knew what they were doing and were like, "Okay, we're gonna do this, and it's gonna be a symbol of how we tend to idolize, and like deitify the dead people in our lives to the point that it can be used by John in this way as like, something to hover over the boys as like, 'You need to be courageous because Mary's watching over you!' stuff like that." That's a good concept. I'm still not too sure if they execute it well enough at this point, or I'm just blinded by the fact that Mary comes back, and I know what happens there. But I just- I really like Mary. And I'm excited for the episodes a little later on in the show where it focuses on her. Like, the ones that are flashback episodes.

C: Yeah.

G: Yeah, because... [trails off] Sorry, I just-

C: [laughing] Well, if you like Mary, there's a show coming up- [screams]

G: [laughing] Literally, the pause that I made when I was talking and I just stopped talking, that was because I remembered the prequel, and I started being like going. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, aghhh." Like, this is such a misery.

C: God, like, such a misery!

G: That's not Mary.

C: That's not my girl.

G: That's not Mary.

C: It's not my girl.

C: It's not a girl.

G: We've been on this tangent for so long, but-

C: But it's her, so.

G: So Mary opens the door, right, and she greets Dean, and she looks like, you know, she's been woken up, she's wearing a robe and stuff. And Dean is like, "Mom?" And we start seeing Dean look like he's about to cry. And this is the most vulnerable we've seen Dean so far. And it does get to you, or at least it did get to me. Because it's- like, I feel like the last time we saw him this emotional was like when he was crying on the phone to John about how he's scared of going home. And now he is home, and Mary is here. And like, the idea of that makes me emotional, that this is the only thing that makes Dean this weak. The idea of home and the idea of Mary. And now he has it, and- He should have killed Mary at the end of this episode. [C laughs] Like, this is- I'm still not reiterating that. This is how this episode should have went. Raelle Tucker, hire me as your script supervisor. [C laughs]

G: Anyway, they come in, and apparently, Carmen called Mary that Dean just bolted.

Which is such a weird thing to do, right?

C: Yeah.

G: Like, first, okay, you're living with your husband/wife/partner, and they run off in the middle of the night. Do you call their mom? [C laughs] I feel like that's a weird choice.

C: Yeah, like she didn't even text him? Like, "Hey, where are you going?" No, straight to-

G: [laughing] "Should I call your mom?"

G: Yeah, anyway, Dean asks, like, "Let me ask you a question. What did you used to say to me when I was younger before bed?" And Mary is like, "Why?" And Dean's like, "Just answer the question, please?" And she says, "I would tell you that angels were watching over you." And Dean breaks, and he's like, "Fuck. It really is you." And he goes to hug her very tightly. Mary is like, "What is happening? You're kind of scaring me." But Dean, you know, stops hugging her, and he's like, "Oh, you're beautiful," and it's like- [C laughing] When he said "You're beautiful," I was like, "Crystal is not gonna like this line."

C: I mean, it makes sense given the context, but now that-

G: Imagine that- yeah, yeah.

C: - we're thinking about the season 5 episodes, with- what did he say?

G: Oh noo! Oh no.

C: "I'm going to hell, but Mom was kind of a babe"? [laughing]

G: Ahhh, I hate Supernatural so much it's unreal!

C: So much. Oh, god. Also, speaking of that episode- because the “angels are watching over you” thing, like, we're supposed to think that that's like subliminal from like, Mary's memory getting erased or something from when Anna came back. So I guess it's nice to think that she's still a hunter in this universe, she's just also chilling in her robe at home. [C laughs]

G: She's like, "I'm a hunter, and I know about the supernatural, but I'm just living my life."

C: Yeah, and I'm not gonna tell my kids about it.

G: Do you think- Okay, I was gonna post this question, and like, I think the answer is pretty obvious. But like, do you think it was wrong of John to hunt?

C: Yes.

G: Like, obviously yes for the circumstances, right. But if it was like, they're at home, and they have a life together, like Mary and him, and they have the boys, and he still went out hunting but didn't tell them. Do you think that would be wrong, still?

C: Hm. Like, but didn't- okay, well, I mean, I think that Bill Harvelle was fine for hunting when he had a family that didn't hunt.

G: Yeah, but-

C: But I feel like you do need to tell your spouse at least so that they're like aware of the risk of losing you and stuff.

G: I think the question I'm trying to post specifically is, once you know about the supernatural, is it your responsibility to save the people it can harm?

C: Dean asks this to John's grave.

G: Yeah, like Dean asks this, and the answer the show gives is, "Yes, it is your responsibility." But, like you. What do you think?

C: I think that you should probably do something, but that doesn't necessarily mean putting your life at risk. It can just mean like, warning other people, or like asking other people to look into things.

G: Yeah. Do you think the idea of a centralized hunting community is bad? Like, where like, everyone is aware of it?

C: Like everyone in the hunting community, or everyone in the world?

G: Everyone in the world.

C: I feel like everyone in the world should just know.

G: Yeah.

C: Like, why keep it from them?

G: Yeah, I guess so.

C: They're all like, "No one will believe us!" But like, if you tell enough people and get enough video evidence, like, eventually, they will. Especially because they're like, "No one will believe us ever!" And then, in every single episode like, anyone they help believes it by the end. Like, we've never had an episode where they're like, "What kind of drugs did you guys put me on? You didn't save my life." Or anything at the end. Like, everyone believes them at the end. [G laughs]

G: This so funny, but this reminds me of what happened in "Scoobynatural."

C: What happens in Scoo-

G: Have you watched?

C: No.

G: No, you have not. So in "Scoobynatural," the Scooby gang gets terrified that like, "Oh my god, the Supernatural is real!" And they're so freaked out. So Sam and Dean formulate this whole thing where it's like, "Oh, it's not actually a ghost. It's actually like a realtor or something. [C laughing] And ghosts don't actually exist." And they fucking gaslight the shit out of the Scooby gang [both laughing] to be like, "It's not real." And at some point, Sam is like, "You never believed it. You always questioned it in your mind, and you were right to question it because they don't exist." [C laughs] All I was thinking of was like, "This is so fucking funny that they're doing this to the fucking Scooby gang." [C laughs] But yes. I'm enamored by the opposite of that scenario where it's Sam and Dean are trying to convince people where now they're trying to convince people that ghosts are not real. God. "Scoobynatural" is such a fun episode. Except for the atrocities. [both laugh]

C: Except for the atrocities.

C: Ay-yi-yi. They really were like, "Let's just pick one teenage girl per Supernatural guy." Well, I guess Cas didn't get anyone because he's better than that. But yeah, they were like "Let's just pair up Sam and Dean with like, teenage Scooby Doo characters. And like, we'll give Sam the sapiosexual one 'cause she wears glasses, and we'll give Dean the one that everyone thinks is a brainless bimbo! Alright guys. Good work. Take five."

G: To be fair, they gave the weed-smoking guy to Cas. [both laugh]

C: Oh, so true. Yeah. The Scooby gang are teenagers, right? Like, that's like canon?

G: Yeah, they're high schoolers.

C: Mm. Yeah. So true of Shaggy to smoke weed in high school. That's what everyone should do.

G: Let's look up what age Shaggy is in the Scooby gang. 'Cause he looks like an old guy.

C: Yeah, but also, I don't know, some high school seniors look old. Like, they have like facial hair, at least. But yeah, no, okay, Shaggy's appearance is actually an anti-weed PSA. [both laugh] Don't smoke weed, kids. You're gonna look 40.

G: No, yeah, so him and Fred are 17, Daphne is 16, and Velma is 15. [laughs]

C: Oh my god, Sam, you- hm. Alright. Alright. K.

G: So yeah, I like "Scoobynatural" except for the atrocities. [laughs]

C: Yep.

G: Ugh.

C: [laughing] This episode is gonna be so long, and none of it will be about the episode!

G: [laughing] I told you I didn't want to talk about it! [both laughing]

Let's speed through the episode. Let's reshape our format into something faster in like, less than an hour.

C: But we need to image describe every single photograph [both laughing] that we see in this room! Like, the fucking shoddy-ass Photoshop jobs and early days lesbian Jackles.

G: [laughing] There's a photo here- Later on, he wakes up, and the reason why he realizes this is not a dream is because there is a photo of like Sam, and like John and Mary, and when Dean opens his eyes, I literally bursted out laughing. Like, it's so bad. It's genuinely-

C: Which one- is this the graduation one-

G: Yes, yes.

C: - where JDM looks like the most photoshopped man in existence and also it's clearly Jared Padalecki's like, University of Texas, or whatever graduation photo.

G: Yeah. And they were like, "It's Stanford, baby!" [both laughing]

C: I'm gonna look up what the Stanford graduation colors are. I'm pretty sure red is right, though

G: Yeah, no. That's true. But it has to be a deeper red, right? Because Stanford is like maroon, almost.

C: Yeah, Google Images is not being kind to me. I guess they could have just done color replace in Photoshop, though.

Okay, so in Stanford, you actually wear like a black robe in everything, but you have like a red- what is it called?

G: Sash?

C: Yeah, it's called a sash even though it looks like a scarf the way you wear it. Yeah. So yeah. I call bullshit,

Anyway- God. [laughs] Anyway, there's iconic-

G: Oh, by the way, we haven't said yet [laughs], but what's happening right now is that like, Dean is looking through the photos in the room, and that's the photos we are talking about currently. Like, he's looking at graduation pictures, and everything is badly edited. So it's extremely funny what's happening this scene,

C: And he's- there's like a prom photo that's definitely just Jensen Ackles and his date at prom, and they look like lesbians. It looks like a lesbian couple. Trans Dean truthing, for real.

G: And at some point-

C: [laughs] The softball photo?

G: At some point, there's a softball photo of John holding a baseball bat. Okay, first of all, why is John playing softball? [laughs] Isn't that a lesbian sport?

C: Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Maybe, like, older men play softball because the baseball like, if it hits them in the face-

G: Is more dangerous, yeah.

C: - they immediately die?

G: Yeah, I guess so.

C: Yeah. Right. I mean the John Winchester we know would never agree to play softball because it's a lesbian sport. But I guess maybe in this universe where Mary didn't die, he's less toxic masculine.

G: [laughs] I was gonna make a joke that like, I am the most unathletic person I know, and in high school we played softball, and it was the only thing I was good at. [both laughing]

C: Makes you think.

G: Makes you think! [laughing] It was literally the only thing I was half-competent in, which is incredibly funny in retrospect. So yeah, maybe John is transmasc, and that's why he's playing softball.

C: Exactly. Or maybe John's a he/him lesbian in this universe with Mary. [laughs]

G: Exactly. Who would have thought? Not me. But it is what it is.

C: Yeah, it's canon. Just like these photos canonized trans Dean. There's like another photo of young Dean, and he looks like such a lesbian. Like his outfit- like, god, what is it? He's like wearing a baseball-

G: [laughing] Wait, the one you sent me? [C laughing]

C: Yes.

G: [laughing] Wait, I'm going to read the message that you sent along with it, because I thought it was so funny. Okay [laughing], okay. This is Crystal's message along with this photo of Jensen Ackles looking like- he's wearing like a red flannel vest-

C: A fucking flannel vest.

G: - over a shirt and a cap. And Crystal said, "SPN props team scrambling to find a photo of young Jackles that looks the least twinky: Uh, Eric? We have a bad news." [both laughing]

C: Oh, god. Yeah, that was- it's so funny! I just don't think you'll understand how twinky it looks unless we post it or something. But like god, it's so good.

C: So yeah. So back to the softball thing.

G: Yeah. Dean is like, "Wow, he plays-" maybe this is what Dean was referencing too. Like, he thinks softball is a lesbian sport, and he's like, "Why is Dad playing softball?" [C laughs] And Mary has to break it to him that like, your dad was a he/him lesbian. [C laughing] So. And basically, Dean was like, "Isn't it so funny that he plays softball?" And Mary's like, "Well, he loved that team."

C: [laughs] Uh-huh.

G: And Dean was like, "Wait, Dad's dead?" And Mary's like-

C: And honestly, I would have been so stupid. I would've been like, "Oh, no, the team disbanded?"

G: [laughing] I know, me too. Literally how do you proceed straight to death? What if he just left the team, you know?

C: Right. What if he had like, drama with his fellow he/him lesbians on the team, as he/him lesbians are wont to do, and that's why the team is like past tense? [both laugh]

G: Exactly.

C: Also, to be clear, he/him lesbians are the backbone of our society and I don't want to disparage you by saying that John was one of you. [laughs]

G: [laughing] Yeah, exactly. It is actually offensive to be in any group than John belongs in.

Dean asks like, "Okay, what killed Dad?" And Mary says, "A stroke killed him in his sleep. You know about this." And [both laughing] then, Dean says, "Yeah, that's good."

C: [laughing] "That's great." He says, "That's great."

G: That's great.

C: So true.

G: And Mary's like, "It's great that he died?" And Dean says, "Well, it's great that he died in his sleep peacefully. Like, it beats the alternative of, I don't know, being tortured in Hell for eternity after you sell your soul to a demon."

C: [laughs] Yeah, just as an example.

G: And then Mary concludes that Dean has been drinking and goes to call Carmen, and Dean is like, "No, don't do that. I'll stay here." And "I miss the place." And "You go to bed, and I'll just sleep on the couch." And then we get the scene-

C: The shot.

G: That everyone, yeah, the shot that everyone loves and adores. Where it's a close up of Dean's face, and Mary comes over to him and caresses his face and says, like, "Are you sure you're okay? Get some rest." Blah blah blah. And Dean like leans into the touch. It's pretty- like, I would say it would have been emotional if I wasn't so hyperaware of this scene, you know?

C: Yeah.

G: Like I would have liked it better if I didn't know that everyone likes it so much, and it's like, in every single AMV and gifset and whatnot about Dean and being touched-starved or whatever. Anyway-

C: And she says, "I love you"!

G: Yeah, she says "I love you." And Dean doesn't say it back.

C: Aw. That's the first time that Dean's ever been- that anyone's said "I love you" to Dean in the show.

G: Yeah.

C: Sam has gotten one "I love you" so far in the entire show, and it was from Jess's voicemail, and then she died, and this is Dean's first. F.

G: "I love you." Yeah. There's one that I remember. It's like when he said, "I love the guy" about John.

C: Yeah.

G: But he was like, kind of insulting him because he says he writes like Yoda. [C laughs] And Cas was like, "It's beautiful handwriting!" Because he is a liar and a fiend.

C: Yeah. He was like, "I need to know how to get into Dean's pants, because right now, I'm so depressed and suicidal [both laugh]. I need his dick to fix me, and if the only thing I can do to get that is to compliment his dad, then so be it."

G: Yeah.

C: Yeah.

So right, so Dean wakes up the next day, and we get like, a Christmas photo, it looks like, of the whole family together, and it looks fucking ridiculous because of how clearly Photoshopped it is. And also, young Jackles just looks really, really out of place in it. Like, the photo quality's different from the other photos or whatever. But we do see baby Sammy in it! And he's so cute! And also transgender. So. [G laughs]

-

C: So he calls Sam, but it's his voicemail. So he hangs up, and he shows up in the office of some professor. And Dean's doing that thing where he's like, "I'm totally one of your students, you just don't remember me." He says, "You kidding me? I love your lectures. You... you make learning fun." So true.

G: He literally looks like a thirty or forty year old man. [both laugh] I mean, he may be a college student-

C: Yeah, it's like, I mean, there are people who go to college late. But usually people would remember you as a student if you're like, on a non-traditional path. So he asks the professor about djinns, and he says that a lot of Muslims believe that the djinn are actually real, and Dean's like, "Yeah, whatever, tell me about the wishes. Can they really do it?" He says, "Say you had a wish, but you never even said it out loud. Like that a loved one came back, or never died, or that something awful never happened." Has he really never said out loud, "I wish Mary didn't die"? That's sad.

So yeah, he says that that is possible because they have God-like power, and they can alter reality however they want. Which does match up with what Bee said to us about djinns, so at least this professor knows his stuff. So yeah, they don't directly grant wishes, but because they can alter reality, then that is something in their wheelhouse. And Dean keeps asking like, "Why would they do it, though? Maybe it's not really evil." And the professor asks if Dean has been drinking, and Dean says, "Everyone keeps asking me that, but no."

Why do you think that the logical conclusion of this universe is that Dean would be an alcoholic? Like Mary's alive, and like, why do you think- Like, I know that like people just become alcoholics for like many reasons in their lives, some mundane. But you know, since this is a Supernatural episode, they had to have a reason that they think that Dean would end up here in the universe where he's like, a normal kid growing up, right?

G: Perhaps it's the show trying to tell us that, like, he doesn't fit in here.

C: Right, like, he needs a purpose in hunting somehow?

G: Yeah.

C: But he doesn't even want to do it! But the show wants him to.

G: Yeah, the show wants him to. That's, I think, the point of the drinking. Well, we don't see him drink a lot, really, it's just everyone telling him that he drinks a lot. But I think, like the whole point of that is to be like, "Look, this isn't even like a good place. It's like, you're still miserable."

C: Yeah, I guess so.

G: But- you. What's your perspective on this?

C: Like if I take away the whole- because it's like, I feel like I can't think of it without the show's intentions, because, you know, later, when, like Sam, confronts Dean, he's basically like, "You're a really bad brother." I was like, "Is that the show saying that Dean's only a good brother because John abandoned them in motels, and he had to learn to be selfless, and that otherwise, Dean would like, sleep with Sam's prom date?" Like, is the show, saying like, "Abuse and abandonment made Dean a better brother!" Like- [laughs]

G: Ugh. Come on, Supernatural.

C: Come on, Supernatural. So I was like, is the show saying that, like, Dean, in his natural state, would be an alcoholic, and like, not give money back to his family and steal his mom's silverware, and it's only through hunting that Dean toughened up and straightened up? Like- I can't tell.

G: But immediately after that, Dean goes, "Yeah, that sounds like me."

C: That's true.

G: Which, you know, implies that in their universe, he would also be doing this shit.

C: Yeah, but the other- like, I feel like he wouldn't have like taken Sam's ATM card. Well, but I guess it's because neither of them have valid ATM cards [laughs], so who knows?

G: Yeah. He takes other people's ATMs, so- [laughs]

C:Yeah, Sam says that Dean bailed on his graduation, which I mean, I guess Dean would do because he's mad at Sam for abandoning the family, but I feel like in this universe, you're just supposed to think that, like, Dean just doesn't care so he didn't show up because he didn't want to bother, which I don't think is something Dean would do.

G: I feel like it's also kind of- Like, the way I think about it, like, the reason why Sam and Dean don't get all along, it's not because Dean is a horrible person, but because Dean is kind of a stuck-up bitch? [both laugh] So like he's kind of a- like, Sam is portrayed as an asshole, right?

C: Yeah, Sam? A bit.

G: So like, I don't know. I mean, Sam is also portrayed like this in real life.

C: Yeah.

G: [laughs] And by real life, I do mean real life. [laughs] No, I mean, like, in, you know, the real universe of Supernatural.

Now that you mention it, like I can't help but think like, are they trying to say that Sam, too, is more understanding and tries to be kinder and all that because of the abuse and torment of his childhood?

C: God, maybe? Okay, no, I think honestly, he's just probably like, mean in this universe because he's in law school, and he has like essays coming up. Like, if my brother took my ATM card like, while I was studying for a test, I'd be mad at him, too. Like, he could do it whenever else, but like, I'm busy and stressed. I'm in law school. I'm gonna be a lawboy. [laughs] Like, do this later. Like, wait until the summer.

-

G: Okay. college campus, he sees some girl standing in the corner. This shot's actually pretty creepy. I was like, "Oh, it's from this episode!" I forgot it. It's pretty creepy.

C: She's wearing a white nightgown. [laughs]

G: Oh god, you're right! Ah! Ugh! Is she wearing that in real life, too?

C: I don't remember.

G: I think she was wearing a white dress.

C: Yeah, so maybe he like, took her from a place where she was wearing a white dress, sure.

G: Yeah. Anyway, Dean is home-

C: Oh, but I do want to mention that when Dean opens his trunk and he sees no weapons, he says, "Well, who would have thought? [both] Baby, we're civilians." Which is-

G: Cute.

C: I feel like Supernatural does make the like soldier and hunter parallels pretty clear. Ugh, John Winchester volunteering for the Vietnam War. [G laughs] I just- I fucking know that in The Winchesters, he's going to be like, "I had to fight monsters too. Asian people." [both laughing] [G screams]

G: I need to throttle John Winchester ASAP.

C: No, you're right, he wouldn't say Asian people, he'd say commies. [both laugh]

G: Noo!

C: But, yeah, you know, civilians. Interesting. Alright, back to your thing.

G: Okay, Dean is in the house, he's eating a sandwich, he's moaning while eating the sandwich-

C: [laughing] Are you seeing what the transcript says?

G: What?

C: The transcript says, "Dean takes a bite out of a big sandwich, grunting 'cause of the goodness."

G: Eugh, that's horrible! [C laughs] That's a horrible image,

I mean, I get it. Have you actually moaned around food before?

C: I feel like fan fiction made that up.

G: No. I mean, I think, when it's like, when you're hungry, it's like, you know how like, when you massage something that's painful in your body, you grunt kind of like, without your permission? What do you call that like? Involuntarily?

C: Yeah, yeah,

G: I feel like the same thing happens when you're really hungry, and then you put food in your mouth for the first time after a while. So. I think it's real. It's just- you're right that, like, media, or like in writing, it's a bit more exaggerated.

This is so funny, because, like they're doing the mom thing where it's like, "Mom makes the best food!"

C: Yeah. It's a sandwich. You just put things on top of each other.

G: And it's like- no, it's just It's funny to me because canonically, we learn later on that Mary is actually a bad cook.

C: Yeah. Queen.

G: And like, the things that he loved from childhood, were like, storebought and stuff. Which is so funny to me. And by funny, I mean, they made her real person! Ah! And then they killed her!

C: Augh, they killed her. From what I can see of the sandwich, it seems to be mostly vegetables, so Dean really loves his mom.

G: There's one giant slab of ham in the middle.

C: Ah, there we go. Dean doesn't love his mom that much.

G: And he's asking like, "Where's Sam?" And Mary was like, "Oh, he's coming over here." And then he asks like, "Has the lawn been mowed? Can I mow it?" And Mary says, "Okay, you can, but you've never operated a lawn mower before. So go nuts."

C: Oh, also, he mentions that he works at a garage, so he's a car mechanic-

G: Oh yeah.

C: - which is sweet.

G: He's a car mechanic!

C: Yeah, I think that's a good Dean job.

G: I think it's a good Dean job, yeah, and I like that they weren't like, because he-

C: Right, they weren't like, "You work a blue collar job, and that's part of why you suck in this universe!" Like, they don't do that, yeah.

G: Yeah, like, he still has the car. I don't know, it's a detail that I really like. That like, that is something fundamental to Dean. Because I mean, we've talked a lot- I mean by we. I mean the fandom has talked a lot about how like, Baby is a representation of Dean and like the fact that he chose it, and the fact that now, even in a universe where Mary is alive and they never go hunting, he still sticks to it like it's a part of his identity. I really like that.

C: Yeah.

G: So hell yeah.

C: Hell yeah.

G: Anyway, he mows the lawn. He does a very bad job of it.

C: [laughs] I screamed while watching this scene.

G: What- if you're mowing the lawn, what's it supposed to look like?

C: Well, there's supposed to be like bits of grass flying up because you're like, cutting the grass.

G: Cutting the grass, yeah.

C: But like, he clearly like, is not because, yeah, the lawn mower is not on, and he's like walking around with the lawn mower- like, I feel like usually, you would try to go in like neat rows or something, because, like the way that the grass is cut, like you sort of see that in the way the lawn works, but he's just sort of like walking around in like random angles and circles, and at some point he, like, runs the lawn mower like, over part of the sidewalk. [laughs]

G: Yeah. He tries to force it in a direction, and it goes the other way. It's quite funny. And at some point, he's waving at a guy-

C: Who clearly knows how to mow a lawn because he's throwing away lawn trimmings-

G: Yeah, and the guy's like, "Okay, cool." And then when he was like. "Ah. I'm done. I have rested well- I have worked well."

C: "I worked so hard."

G: "I've worked so hard, and now I'm going to rest with my coldass, flatass beer [C laughs], and I am going to chill out in the front." And he's having fun. He's cute. He's having fun. Throughout this scene, there's a song playing, "It's a Wonderful-" what is it? "What a Wonderful World," right? But it's a cover of it, so it's like, it's janky and poppy.

C: Oh, I don't know what the original sounds like.

G: I mean, I don't know if this is the original, but I think the original is- the jazz guy, right? What's his name? Okay, Louis Armstrong. 

C: Oh, okay. Is it a money thing, or is it that Supernatural doesn't play music by Black artists, except for in the episode about a Black music artist? I guess we'll never know.

G: Oh my God, this guy is like- the guy who sings this cover is like, the lead singer of The Ramones, which is extremely funny. Oh god, that's why he's called Joey Ramone. [both laughing] Wait, are The Ramones literally just like, guys named Ramones? 

C: I have no clue.

G: Oh my god, they really are all Ramones. 

C: Wow. Are they all siblings? Or did they just say only Ramones allowed.

G: They changed their names. 

C: That’s dedication.

G: So this guy’s Christopher Joseph Ward, another person is called Thomas Erdelyi, so they–they changed their name to first name Ramone- first name and then Ramone. 

-

C: The thing about this whole scene is that in “Bugs,” Dean makes it really clear that he doesn't like suburban life, and he thinks it's all, like, fake, and bad or whatever. But yeah, I guess their point here is that like, despite all that, Mary is his home, so it's all good. He should have killed her for real. [G laughs]

So as Dean's drinking the beer and feeling satisfied with himself for doing zero lawn mowing, a car drives up, and it's–it's like round, the shape of it. It's very cute. Good choice in cars, Sam. So, it's Sam and Jess who get out, and Dean goes. “I don't believe it,” and he, like, hugs Jess really really tight, and he greets Sam with a big smile, and like, slaps him on the shoulder, and he's just really excited that he's with Jess, and Sam's just sort of taken back about all of this, and we find out that Sam flew in from California, where he's at Stanford Law. And Sam makes this judgy comment where he points to the beer Dean has, and he's like, “I see you started off Mom's birthday with a bang as usual.” If you have, like, [laughing] a friend or a family member with a drinking problem, this is not the way to have them get help. Okay, right. 

G: That is true. However, as someone who, like, you know, like, I've experienced this with my family, and I usually just shut up in family events. But I've heard, like, other people talk to other people in my family, you know? Like, people really do talk like this.

C: Yeah, yeah, it is pretty often.

G: Yeah! And it’s–it’s quite unfortunate, because it helps nobody.

C: Right.

G: It just creates drama. 

C: Yeah. So Dean didn't know that it was Mom’s birthday, so Sam's mad at him about that, but yeah, that's why they're all here today. For that. And they cut to a restaurant.

G: Yeah, and they're all drinking. Mary looks amazing. [laughs]

C: Yeah.

G: She looks amazing. She's wearing a black dress, and they're all there–

C: And her hair is up.

G: Yeah, Dean, like, cracks a joke when his food arrives–

C: He ordered that food. Why didn't he order a meat–why did he say “I want the stack of asparagus,” and then be mad that he got a stack of asparagus.

G: Maybe he can't read. [both laughing] Have we considered that, Crystal?

C: I mean, I'm sure there some–there are also probably some dyslexia Dean truthers out there, in which case, yeah, good for you.

G: So true. 

-

G: They do a toast, and Dean and his wife Carmen have a little chat about like, “Oh, I was worried about you.”

C:  I think they’re just dating, actually. 

G: Oh, they’re just dating. Yeah, later on, he says, “I'm dating a nurse,” right? So they are dating. So they’re talking, and Carmen is still being a cool girl, hashtag I'm a Cool Girl, “We'll get the burger after this,” and stuff like that, and Dean is like, “How did I ever land such a cool chick?” And then they kiss.

C: Who says that about their partner? Who calls their partner a “cool chick”? He’s sick for this.

G: I swear, if anyone, like-

C: Like, break up on the spot.

G: Like, because it's very reminiscent of like, fucking Gone Girl, right?

C: Yeah! Like the Cool Girl monologue.

G: Like, “Oh my God, you’re so cool–”

C: “You're unusual.” [both laughing]

G: “You’re unusual,” it's a break up. [both laughing] Like that one, it's a break up, I'm kicking you out of our shared apartment. We've been together five years, and this is the last straw.

C: It might even be the first straw. But now it's also the last one. Carmen's response to “How did I end up with such a cool chick as you?” is-

G: “I have low standards.”

C: So true! [laughs] But like, do you think that that was supposed to be part of like, [laughing] “Oh, this world isn't right, because any woman would be really happy to have Dean in the real world.”

G: Noooo! Well, I hope not. But that's extremely funny.

C: God. But yeah, back to Samjess. 

G: Sam and Jess say that, oh, they have something to announce, and the announcement is, [both] they're engaged! and the way Sam shows it is he raises her hand and just like, shows off her ring. And I thought that was really cute. I feel like I've seen that in every Samjess AMV ever made. 

C: Yeah.

G: To be fair, there's like five scenes of them together, so like, I understand, I get it. And then everyone stands up, and everyone's congratulating Sam and Jess. Dean, like, goes up to congratulate Sam and Sam is like- I don't know what it sounds like, sounds a bit uncomfortable, right? And as Dean congratulates Sam, he sees a figure over at the side. It's the same girl from earlier, but now a little more distressed-looking? And he goes up to her, and…I don't know. I don’t fucking know. What does he do? Oh, the girl disappears, and he's like, “Okay, what the fuck was that?” And then we cut back to the house, and Sam is asking Dean like, “What's- what happened over there at the restaurant?” And Dean was like, “Don't even worry about it.” Mary says goodnight to them, and as she goes up, Sam and Jess are like, “Okay, we're going back to our room now,” or whatever. First of all-

C: They’re there to have engagement sex and Dean's like, “No, we need to- we need to hang out.” [laughs]

G: No, first of all, I find it extremely funny that, like, at this point Sam is what, twenty-three, twenty-four? Maybe twenty-four

C: Currently twenty-four? Since it’s the end of season two.

G: Do you think at twenty-four years old, you would be able to, like- imagine a situation where you're straight.

C: Uh-huh.

G: Do you think even with that, you would be able to introduce, like, a romantic partner to your parents at age twenty-four?

C: Honestly, like, yes, because they keep pushing me to find a rich man somewhere on my college campus. [both laughing]

G: Well, that's true. You should marry the redacted billionaire’s son, who is currently at your college campus.

C: God. But yeah, I mean, I feel like they would want me to date someone because I think- I think they think my friendship with my ex-fiancee is a little too intense [both laughing], and they're getting alarm bells going off in their head. But I don't think I'd feel comfortable introducing someone to them.

G: Yeah, also maybe this is just me speaking from like a quite conservative background, family-wise. But like, the concept that you can introduce your partner to your parents and your partner sleeps in the house-

C: Oh, yeah, in your room? No. No.

G: Sleeps in the same room as you? Noooo. No.

C: No.

G: You have to wait for marriage, baby. 

-

C: Yeah, Dean's like, “Don't go to bed yet. No engagement sex. We need to hang out and celebrate. Let's-” He says, “Let's go have a drink or something,” which, you know, he should know in this universe-

G: Alarm bells, yeah.

C: That’s not gonna make Sam want to do, like, hanging out activities with him. And Sam goes like, “Mmm, maybe another time.” And Dean says [laughing], “Come on, man, look at us. We both have beautiful women on our arms.” I hope he dies. And he says this in front of Jess and Carmen, like, instant break-up material.

G: No wonder- no wonder Sam fucking hates him.

C: Yeah. No wonder Carmen has low standards. She really fucking does. Not for, like, the alcoholism or anything, just for this. [both laugh]

C: God, yeah, right. And it's really awkward, and I was like, “Is it awkward ‘cause Dean just said that?” But no, it's awkward ‘cause Sam and Dean don't have a good relationship. So he says, “Hey, can you go away? I need to talk to my brother alone,” and he, like, tells Dean to like, come here, and he leads him to the whole other side of the living room. Yeah, so he asked him, “Hey, what has gotten into you? What is this whole warm, fuzzy, ecstasy trip thing?” And Dean says, “I'm just happy for you, Sammy,” and Sam’s  like, “Yeah, and also you don't call me Sammy, and we also don't talk outside of holidays,” and Dean goes like, “Well, we don't? Well, we should, you’re my brother,” and Sam’s like, “That's what you said when you stole my ATM card, bailed on my graduation, and also when you hooked up with Rachel Nave, my prom date.” And yeah, as you mentioned- okay, also, fun fact, Rachel Nave is a Supernatural writer. Who wrote “Bugs.”

G: Who wrote “Bugs.” [C laughs] And also, like, apparently they bring up this prom date thing again in the future? And it's like, Lucifer says that, like, that girl was like, possessed to watch over Sam or something. 

C: Oh my god. 

G: Which is terrifying! On so many levels.

C: Geez. So as he mentioned, he was like, “Yeah, that kind of sounds like me,” and he says, like, “I'm sorry about all that.” And Sam says like, “That's okay. I'm not asking you to change. I just don't want to continue having a brotherly relationship with- not really, he just says that we don't really have anything in common. And he just starts to walk away and Dean goes like, “Whoa, yeah we do. Yes, we do. We have hunting in common.”

G: Yeah. 

C: Boo. And Sam goes, “I've never been hunting in my life,” and Dean goes, “Well. We should go sometimes, I think you'd be great at it.” And Sam goes away. Is hunting really the only thing they have in common? Like, they grew up together. 

G: I mean, Supernatural seems to think it is.

C: Okay. Yeah, they seem to think this is true, but, like, even like, I don’t know, make an effort. If your friend has a new, like, hyperfixation, you go watch an episode of it so you can talk about it with them, you know? 

G: Yeah, on an outtake of your podcast for another TV show that you watch together. We're gonna talk about Attorney Woo at some point, I feel. [laughs] So tune in for that in the outtakes. 

C: Make an effort, I say, having no plan to play Ace Attorney. 

G: Exactly. No, but this scene is yet another scene that made me emo. Because, like I said earlier, the concept of having a sibling and not getting along with them makes me so sad, it's just- it's devastating. So like, when Sam was like, “We just don't have anything in common,” I was like, “holy shit. What- what things in common do I have with my siblings?” And the answer is not much, but you still love them right? And it's just, it’d wild to me that they were like-

C: Also, I feel like a lot of conversations are just you saying something funny that recently happened to you. Like, you don't even have to have the same interests, if you care about each other, then you'll just care about each other's anecdotes, or whatever.

G: Yeah, like, and a lot of it is like, gossiping about your family [laughs]. You're like, “Yeah, our cousin is, in fact, going to a different school.” Like, you know, shit like that.

C: Yeah. Like, having a sibling is about like, going through the Instagrams of people you both know from school and making fun of how their partners look, like. [laughs]

G: For me, siblinghood is when they get blocked by someone from your family that they have beef with. You go to that person’s Facebook page [both laughing] and scroll through it with them to see what shit they've been saying. That's my experience of siblinghood, and I feel like everyone should be able to relate.

C: I agree. Though, honestly, I think the Sam and Dean thing does happen because, okay, one time my ex-fiancee was overhearing her roommate with her sister on the phone, and her roommate was trying to talk to her sister about TWICE, but, like, her sister clearly didn't really care about K-Pop and the roommate was like, “You're not really, like, talking to me. I feel like you're not engaging, and we don't really have anything in common, and I feel like we're drifting apart.” And the sister said, “Well, we have Jesus in common.” [both laughing]

G: Oh my god, that's so funny!

C: Sam and Dean literally have Jesus in common. 

G: Literally, Dean would say, Dean would be the roommate, and Sam would be like, “We have Jesus in common.” Yeah. 

C: Yeah.

G: But, it's just, I guess, like, distance really does do that, right? So, and like, I guess at this point, like five years or so, Sam has been away from home, so of course, things are gonna be different. It's so sad. It's so sad. And the fact that even in childhood it's implied that they didn't have a connection. Like what, did they just exist around each other?

C: I mean, I guess maybe part of it is just that they would have their own rooms in the house, so they could just choose not to like, look at each other or talk to each other. They weren't like, cooped up in the same motel room, having to watch the same TV all the time.

G: Supernatural is about family, and, like, I said this earlier, but like, it is about family, and at its core it's like, about Sam and Dean- like, [laughs] not to be a fucking-  

C: Bronly?

G: Not to be a fucking Bronly, but Sam and Dean is like a pillar of this show. That is, you know, a foundation of it. And I like that they explore it like this in this episode, where it's like, no, yeah, seriously, what did they have in common? Seriously, what connects them? What binds them? And yeah, maybe it is the shared trauma, and it is the hunting and all that. I don't know, like at this point I can still safely say, like, at least they have that, I feel like later on in the show “that,” in quotes, actually is a detriment to their relationship and to their lives as individuals. But at this point in the show, at least they have that kind of connection with each other, like at least they have each other, even though later on in the show it's going to be toxic as all hell.

C: Yep. 

-

G: So now we're at Dean's house, I think. Yeah. And Carmen and Dean are talking, and Dean’s saying, like- Carmen hands him a beer, and also like, just for, like, a little tip that later- the beer is called El Sol, and honestly I think it's a little bit of a reference to the fact that this episode is brighter, like, inside the universe, it’s brighter, right. So it's like, the sun, but also it's a reference to the fact that it's a beer brand. And Carmen is actually a beer model in real life, and that's how he knows her. She's a model for the El Sol beer, which we'll see later when he flips through a magazine. Which, do you want to talk about that, while we’re on Carmen, the fact that it's a beer ad that he sees her in?

C: Yeah, I mean, I don't really know what there is to say, like, Dean probably does have a drinking problem. 

G: I mean, we kind of said it earlier. We kind of said it earlier in that, like, why is it not Cassie or Lisa, or anything? And it's like, I mean, my first- my kneejerk reaction was, he imagined this life just because he saw a beautiful woman. [C laughs] Like it- does Dean look at every woman and think, “Hmm, what if we get home and get married then you offered me blowjobs before sleep and also gave me beer,” you know? [C laughing] But also, like, I think it's a little bit sadder than that, like, it's like, I cannot really see myself having this kind of connection with anyone, quote, “real,” and like, you know, who's actually in my life, so I'm going to project these desires on someone that doesn't feel or even is a real person to me. So yeah, I don’t know. 

C: What if Dean's wife in this- Dean's girlfriend in this episode was Asian. What would you do?

G: [laughs] I would- I think honestly, that would be like a “let's stop watching this show.” [both laughing]

C: Yeah, honestly, it’d be like, “Well, okay. It was nice knowing all of you. Bye.”

G: Yeah, I feel like that is a deal breaker at that point, especially after the Busty Asian Beauties reveal a couple of episodes back.

C: [laughs] God.

G: What a hilarious question! But as they sit and talk, Dean is like, “I can fix him” about Sam. And he’s like, “I've been given a second chance in life, and I don't want to mess it up.” And Carmen is just sitting there, like, affirming him and being like, “They don't know what they're missing,” etc etc. Anyway, she- they start kissing, and when they're about to lay down, she's like, “Don't bother me, I have a job to go to,” and- 

C: Wait, wait, remember when Dean says, “I get it now, why you're the one.” Why- how does he get it? We don't know a single thing about this woman. All she's done is offer to fuck him and be like, affirming.

G: “You're the one because you told me my dick was ten inches long.” Go girl. [both laugh]

C: God.

G: But as they start making out and they're about to go down, she was like, “Oh, I have a job to go to,” and he was like, “Oh, what job?” and Crystal has told me that the joke in this scene is Dean thinks she's a stripper because she's working the night shift. But actually she's a nurse. And Dean is like, it's a respectable job, right? 

C: Stripping is also a respectable job. But Supernatural hates women. So.

G: He's watching TV now, and he's flicking through and suddenly he sees a news coverage of this vigil held after the one-year anniversary of the flight that Dean stopped- that Sam and Dean stopped from crashing a year ago, the one from-

C: “Phantom Traveler.”

G: “Phantom Traveler.” Fascinating that it's only been a year from- since “Phantom Traveler.” They really sped through season two.

C: Also like, there's no vigil being held for like, the plane crash that happened the day before, with the door opening and stuff? [G laughs] You’d think it's more of like a two-day long sort of like, this was Plane Crash Weekend, like, memorializing Plane Crash Weekend.

G: But like, a hundred and eighty people died during that crash, and Dean is like, “Wait, no, I stopped that crash,” so he goes to his laptop and starts researching, and headlines, like, flash in- no, not flash, but like, fade in and out of the screen as we watch Dean's face react to all this, and it's like, “Nine Kids Comatose” from the one about- the fucking Macbeth episode. No it’s-

C: “Something Wicked.”

G: “Something Wicked.” Yeah. And then there's the, like, drowning, I think, from-

C: Yeah, from the hotel episode. “Playthings.”

G: Yeah, the girl who drowned in the pool.

C: They should have shown Cassie.

G: Yeah.

C: Like, I know, that would essentially be a fridging, but since it's a different universe, I think it's like, okay.

G: Maybe- maybe Cassie, not being shown is good because it's like, it's not an equal- you know, it's not an equal value. It's like, “I don't know these people, and yet I'm sacrificing my life for them.”

C: That’s true. Yeah. If you saw Cassie’s death and then went to John's grave, it’s like, “Why do I have to save people?” I’d be like, “Fuck off!” [both laughing]

G: No, exactly. Speaking of John and his grave. Take it away, Crystal.

C: Right. So we get to- well, okay, actually, before that for a second, Dean sees, like, [laughs] he opens his bedroom closet door and realizes that he is actually a serial killer in this universe. ‘Cause there are a bunch of corpses hanging from the ceiling, but then they flicker out. So yeah, something's up. So yeah, he's at John's grave now, and he gives this whole speech. Do I have to read all of it? I didn't even like it that much. 

G: Just- just summarize it. 

C: Okay, he's like, “Everyone that we saved is dead, and it's like my old life is coming after me, and it doesn't want me to be happy, and I know what you in the real universe, not this one would say, and it's that I should go hunt the djinn, and that your happiness doesn't matter next to all those people's lives. But why is it my job to save them? Why do I have to be some kind of hero?” And he like, he gets a Single Man Tear, and then a second Man Tear. And he says like, “And what, like, Mom's not supposed to live her life, and Sammy is not supposed to get married. Why do we have to sacrifice everything?” So yeah, that's the speech. So yeah, he's crying and stuff.

C: People care about this scene, and I mean, I guess it's like useful to understand Dean, but I don't- I didn't think- the acting in it wasn't good.

G: Well, I mean he does the two tears falling out of his eyes thing.

C: True, that's a lot for Jensen Ackles. Twice as many as usual.

G: Yeah, it should have been just a Single Man Tear. Yeah, should've just been a Single Man Tear. Also, yeah, the acting wasn't good. It didn't move me. I was like, fading in and out of focus.

C: I was like he's giving monologue during his audition for his school play. Like, that's the vibe.

G: Yeah, I mean for an episode that moved me quite a bit, this one didn't do anything for me.

C: Yeah, this scene just wasn't very good. The only thing that got me a little emo was me realizing that this was probably the first time that the Dean of this universe would have to look up where a grave is.

G: Aww.

C: Yeah. Aw.

-

G: Anyway-

C: We get the pilot parallels, visual parallels, hell yeah, hell yeah.

G: Yeah. So Sam is steeping, wakes up Jess is beside him. It's literally just the fucking pilot. But he goes down, and he's carrying a baseball bat, and this is Dean-

C: I love him. I'm in love with Sam. Go, baseball bat.

G: Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention. Sam in this episode is not dressed like Sam,

C: Right. He's dressed like a law student.

G: He's dressed like a law student from Stanford.

C: Yes.

G: Well, I mean, they're not dirt poor this universe.

C: That's true.

G: That's good.

C: Dean has a- is it an apartment or a house? Does he have an entire house?

G: It's a house.

C: He has an entire house. It's a nice-

G: And not only is it an entire house, it's a beautiful house. I mean, we've talked about real estate in Lawrence before-

C: That's true. In Lawrence, it's pretty cheap. So yeah, like, yeah, John was a mechanic- Oh my god, wait. John was a mechanic. Do you think he had like, a family business that Dean took over after he died or something?

G: Oh, fuck off. [both laugh]

C: Anyway, yeah, but John could pay for a whole house on a mechanic's salary. That woman in "Home" could pay for a house despite being unemployed and recently divorced. So yeah, I guess it makes sense. Again, this was before the housing crash.

G: I was surprised by the size of Dean's home. Like, he has a walk-in closet. And I know that that walk-in closets are a little bit more common in other places, I guess, but I was like, "Wow! He's really living the life." [laughs]

C: [laughs] Yeah, he probably has a washing machine, too. [G laughs]

G: [laughing] To be clear, I have a washing machine-!

C: Okay, it was the dryer that you didn't have for a while.

G: Yeah, we don't have a dryer, yeah. They probably- Dean in this universe-

C: - which is common in a lot of Asian countries because, like, hang-drying is so common.

G: Yeah, I don't have a dryer. Yeah. It's miserable because it's been stormy recently.

C: Oh no!

G: One time, I washed my clothes and I hanged them up, and then it rained-

C: No!

G: And I was like, "Fuck it, we ball," [C laughs] and then let them dry still. [laughing] I didn't rewash them. [both laughing] So yeah.

C: Yeah. So true.

G: Anyway, Dean attacks Sam and gets him down after just one like, push or something. And he's like, "Wow-"

C: Yeah, and it's the exact same like, shot and angle and attack as in the pilot. Did you think at first that Dean was like, "Sam and I aren't talking. [laughing] I'm going to rekindle our friendship by recreating the pilot"? [G laughs]

G: No. You know what, because I know what Dean says about the pilot in the finale, that actually makes me so sad. Because apparently, he stood-

C: Oh, he stood outside for hours not knowing whether or not he would be welcome or whether or not he could come in, and he was so scared. [pained sound]

G: Literally, Dean, your plan is to fucking attack this guy while like in the middle of the fucking night, like, of course you won't be welcome. But I digress

But Sam- Dean is like, "Wow! That was so easy. I'm actually quite embarrassed for you." [laughs] And then they get up-

C: It's because Sam only has strong calves because he got to play soccer when he wanted to when he was little. His arm strength is nothing. [G laughs]

G: Yeah. He gets Sam up, and it's the same silhouette shot from the pilot yet again, and then Sam opens the light, and he notices that Dean is actually stealing from their mom's silver utensil collection. Which is like bad luck. And then Sam asks like, "What's the deal with you? Why are you doing this? Steal Mom's silver?" And Dean is like, "Well, I had no choice." Sam pushes, and you think Dean is gonna confess, but he just says, like, "I owe someone some money."

C: Mm.

G: But then he starts talking, and like, if you put yourself in the situation of someone who doesn't know what's going on, he's talking like he's about to commit suicide.

C: Yeah

G: So Sam is alarmed. He's saying like, "I'm sorry that we don't get along, and I wish that I could stay and fix it. Tell Mom I love her." You know, stuff like that. And then he walks out, and he hops into his car. But just before he leaves, Sam steps into the car!

C: Whoo! Yeah, I like the scene where Sam comes into the car. Right, like Dean tells him to get out, and Sam says, like, "I'm going with you!" And, you know, Dean's being like, "You're going to slow me down. You're going to get hurt." And Sam says, like, "Look, whatever stupid thing you're about to do, you're not doing it alone, and that's that." And Dean's like, "Why- I don't get it. Why are you being nice to me?" And Sam says, "Because you're still my brother." And- I don't know. It's sweet.

G: And I know that this scene- Yeah, it is sweet. I know that this scene is just the djinn trying to stop Dean, but it's still sweet, and I'm still like, "Aw."

C: Yeah. And I feel like if this universe was real, like, this is realistic for the Sam there. Like, he might have a lot of issues with Dean, but he doesn't want him to fucking die. Yeah.

And then [laughs] Dean says, "Bitch," and Sam says, "What are you calling me a bitch for?" [both laughing] Which made me scream. Feminist women love Sam Winchester. [G laughs]

G: Exactly.

C: Yeah. And Dean's like, "You're supposed to say jerk." And Sam's like, "What?" And Dean's like, "Nevermind." And they drive off.

-

G: Yeah. At some point. Sam's like, "Oh, what's in the bag?" Kind of like, playfully. And Dean is like, "Well, nothing." And Sam's like "Nothing? Okay." And then he takes like a bag from between him and Dean, and he [laughing] takes out the container. It's full of fucking blood. [C laughs] And he's like, "Uh, Dean, what is this?"

C: And Dean doesn't clarify that It's not human blood for the longest time.

G: Yeah. He's like, "It's blood." [C laughs] And then, Sam is like, "Yeah, I can see that it's blood." Dean is like, "Well, I needed lamb's blood because I needed a silver knife dipped in lamb's blood." And Sam's like, "Okay, maybe we can stop the car." [both laugh] And Dean is like, "No, no, no, it's fine." And Sam is like, "No, yeah, I know it's fine, but you know, just stop the car." But Dean explains that, you know, there's a creature, a djinn, and that he needs to hunt it, and that, you know, there's creepy crawlies in the night, etc etc. But Sam insists that like, "I just want to help. You're having some kind of breakdown."

C: Okay, also, Dean says, "People have to be saved, and if we don't save them, then nobody will." And also we learn during the grave scene that every single case that he or Sam or John ever worked went unsolved. And that's just not realistic. That's some individualistic, like, American bullshit.

G: Yeah.

C: Like, there are other hunters. Like, Bobby exists. Like I don't think it's true that every single case that they saw they were the only ones who could have fixed the situation, and the only ones who would have noticed. Like, that's dumb. That's what I think.

G: Yeah. At some point. Sam tries to call someone on his phone. [laughs] Dean opens a window and tosses the phone out, and Sam says, "What the hell does that mean? That was my phone."

C: Yeah, "How am I gonna email more people and say 'darn'?"

G: Christopher- Christian Cooper or whatever his name was?

C: [laughs] Yeah.

G: And Dean says, like, "I'm not going in the rubber room. We got work to do," [C laughs] And Sam-

C: Falls asleep.

G: Is like, "I'm just trying to help you out, Dean. I don't want you to get hurt." And this is the part where it's like the djinn is really trying to get Dean to stop. And then they end up in front of this old factory in Illinois.

C: Sam fell asleep despite Dean blasting "Mr. Saturday Night" the whole time.

G: Not only is he blasting "Mr. Saturday Night," Sam also is in the mindset that his brother is having some kind of really probably very dangerous breakdown.

C: Yeah.

G: [laughs] And he still fell asleep.

C: What a king. [both laugh]

G: Yeah,

C: It's because he didn't have his phone. He could have played Candy Crush to stay awake if he was getting really sleepy, but Dean threw it out the window.

G: Exactly.

-

C: Yeah, so Dean wakes up, and yeah, they're in an old factory in Illinois, and Sam's following Dean around, and he keeps trying to tell Dean to turn back, that there's nothing here. And then they start hearing sounds, and they go into a room, and it's those bodies that Dean saw in his closet hanging from the ceiling, and they're all like, hooked up to like a blood bag. Right, and the girl that Dean saw earlier is there, too, but she is alive.

So the djinn comes out, and they hide. The girl keeps crying and asking where her dad is. It's a pretty difficult scene to watch. But he puts her back to sleep, and then he takes out the blood that he's drained from her, and, like- he like, takes the tube, and he just sort of squirts the blood in his mouth. [laughs]

G: I respect that.

C: Yeah. It's a little- it's a little juice bag. He's got his Caprisun. And oh, yeah, I mean, obviously, in djinn lore, they don't feed on blood like this. [both laugh] Yeah, in case you were like, "This is in the Quran!" [G laughs]

So Sam makes a little "eugh" sound. But they are able to move before the djinn finds their hiding place. And Sam's like, "Oh my god! Like, this is real, and you're not crazy?" And Dean's like, she thought she was with her dad at the time. She didn't know where she was, so this isn't like, a wish being fulfilled. It's just like a vision that you're having while you're tied up.

G: Yeah.

C: And he looks up at his light bulb, at this light bulb, and in it, he sees flashes of himself hanging by his wrists and being fed on. And Sam keeps being like, "Dean, Stop having a revelation! Dean, shut up!" But Dean's like, "Oh, god, iIm tied up somewhere, and this is all in my head." Dun-dun-dun!

G: They do some exposition in how the djinn does it. Like, he feeds me poison, and then I go to sleep, blah blah blah. And Sam keeps on saying like, "It doesn't make any sense. We need to get out of here! Like, you're right, we need to get out of here." And this keeps on going and going and going, until Sam just- [C screams] until Mary shows up. [laughs]

C: Right, because Dean holds up- takes out his knife first, and he says, like, "If you almost die in a dream, you'll wake up, so I'm just gonna stab myself."

G: Yeah, and Sam is like, "You're gonna die. And Dean is like, "I'm gonna die, or I'm gonna wake up. One or the other. So I'll just stab myself." And then, Sam, keeps on touching him and being like, "I'm real. I'm real. This is not some acid trip. I'm real." As he's about to thrust in the knife, Mary shows up. [C laughs] And the way she shows up is she's in a fucking [both] nightgown again.

C: God. Killing and death.

G: I'm surprised they even put her in any other piece of clothing, honestly. [C laughs]

C: She should've shown up in her black dress with her hair up, out to the club in this abandoned factory.

G: Yeah, exactly. Sam changes like, his demeanor, and he's suddenly standing up straight and talking very not Sam-like. And he's like, "You should have stopped digging."

C: [laughing] Also, Carmen and Jess appear at this point.

G: Oh my god, yeah.

C: Which is why I was like, "Dean's about to kill himself and Sam summons a girlband to stop him." It's just a very striking moment when you're like, "Oh, in this episode, none of the women are real people, and none of them have personalities, and they're just here to give Dean motivations while the Sam, even the fake Sam, like, has a personality and a life and like a storyline."

G: Yeah. And then Mary comes in, holds Dean's face, and Dean like leans into the touch yet again. And she's like, "Put the knife down." And [laughs] they start this thing where they tag team [C laughing], and, Mary's like, "Dean, you shan't kill yourself." And then she lets go, and then Carmen comes in and kisses him, and it's like, "Don't kill yourself, Dean." [C laughing] And then like, Jess doesn't come in, she just stands in the distance, and she's like, "Sam is gonna be happy." And it's so funny to me that the one thing Jess says about another person. Like, she has no personality!

C: Like, it's not like, "I'm cool, and we can hang out." [laughs] It's like-

G: Yeah, it's not like "I get to live again."

C: Right!

G: "Me and Sam-" she doesn't even say "me and Sam will get to have a life." Like, she just says, "Sam gets to have a life."

C: Yeah.

G: And it's like, my god, girl, where are you in this equation? [C laughs]

C: Right. Though I think the thing she says where she says, "You don't have to worry about Sam anymore" is, I think, the only moment in this episode they maybe nod towards the finale, because, you know, like a world where Mary doesn't die is a world where Sam doesn't have demon blood.

G: Then, finally, Sam walks up and says, "Why do you have to save everyone? Why is it your job? Haven't we done enough?" And this is basically what Dean said earlier. And then he says, like, "Give me the knife." Dean tearfully looks at everyone-

C: [laughing] Well, he doesn't look at Jess. [G laughs] The camera pans from Carmen to Sam to Mary, but Jess has been standing behind him-

G: [laughing] Is that for real?

C: And I was like, "Wouldn't it be hilarious if right after that, the camera swivels around to show Jess and she just gives a little wave?"

G: Exactly. But- Is he crying at this point?

C: Yeah, I think so.

G: He's looking teary-eyed, but he trusts the knife into his belly.

C: Goodbye.

G: And yeah.

C: And we see- yeah.

G: Sam starts screaming like, "Dean! Dean! Dean" but it transitions to Sam-

C: Real Sam!

G: - in real life. Real Sam, who's now waking Dean u from sleep.

C: Yep. So he shakes him awake, and Dean makes like, a Wizard of Oz reference. He says, "Ah, Auntie Em. There's no place like home." He's a friend of Dorothy for real

G: There's a part where Sam removes a needle from Dean's neck that made me flinch.

C: Uh-huh.

G: Like, it looked so real. And I was like, "Holy shit, man!"

C: But you know what's worse is when they rescue that girl, and Sam uses his knife to remove the needle from her neck. Like-

G: What??

C: He takes a little blade and he does a thing. [both] Girl.

Misogyny.

G: Girl. [both laughing]

C: Should we give Dean like a point for this episode just because this is his imagination and everything that happened there was like [G laughs], interesting.

G: Well, I mean, we are not the thought police. [C laughs] I feel like we should punish people for their actions, and not their thoughts.

C: Okay, that's true.

G: And this is just a thought for Dean.

C: I guess? But I don't- if Dean was like [laughing], "I hate gay people" like, in the dream [G laughs], we'd give him a homophobia point because it'd still be him like, expressing his opinions out loud.

G: [laughing] Noo. Hot take of the day, you should be allowed to hate gay people inside your head. [both laughing]

C: Ugh, okay, no point for Dean.

So, right, so Sam cuts through like, half the ropes, but then the djinn appears, and Sam and the djinn brawl for a bit, and, right, and the djinn's about to try to put him to sleep, but then Dean escapes his ropes, and he thrusts his knife into the djinn, and it dies. So this is where we get to I think, our last fact from the about djinns. And it's that basically, the only ways you can protect yourself from a djinn is through reciting verses of the Quran, and you have to be like, an actual Muslim for that to work, you can't just say it. And also, the only way to defeat a djinn, you can't actually kill them. You have to-

G: -exorcise-

C: - Yeah, you have to exorcise them. And it has to be someone with a lot of Islamic knowledge, like an imam. And, you know, because they could like, time travel and alter reality and all of that, it doesn't make sense that they'd be able to defeat this creature, anyway, because, like, he could just be like, "You have a knife? No, you don't." [laughs]

G: Yeah. And like-

C: This is a thing where, first of all, like, they didn't need to make the creature a djinn. Like, they could have just made up a new thing, because all they really needed was this dream sequence. And if they actually really wanted to do a djinn episode, I don't see why, like one of the people they consult could be like an actual imam, and like, they could bring this person along on the hunt.

G: Yeah.

C: I feel like a lot of the religious, or like, folklore creatures that they defeat- there's no reason why they can't like team up with people with that cultural knowledge and background. Like, it doesn't have to be Sam and Dean killing the thing every time. Like maybe sometimes, they just do the research.

G: Yeah, like we've said multiple times, but like, bring people along! Like-

C: No, if we don't save them, no one will! [laughs] Jesus.

G: Yeah. And like, for example, like, I mean, they don't even have to convince like- the lore inside Supernatural is already that a lot of Muslim people believe in djinns, anyway.

C: Yeah.

G: So they don't have to be convinced. You don't have to beg a person to be like- "Can you help us defeat the djinn?"

C: Right, like, I feel like they could contact and a mosque, and they could be like, "There's something here that we think is a djinn. Could you help us exorcise it?" And they'd probably be like, "Yes, 'cause that's a bad thing, and [both] I know how to defeat it."

G: Yeah. Yeah.

Also, like, part of our notes is that djinns specifically, are not exactly like just bad creatures-

C: That's true, yeah.

G: - like, in all of lore. They're not necessarily monsters. They're more like humans with superpowers. And also, like, some of them, are actually like religious, as in like, positively. And then the negative- like negative- what's the term. Like, the bad ones are like, usually like, supplementing dark wizards and stuff. So like, I don't know. Maybe we could have had a djinn vs djinn battle. [laughs]

C: Yeah!

G: Something Wanni said that I was like, "Oh, that's interesting" is that like they said, like we said earlier, like, it's such a missed potential because the lore is really very deep. Like, there is a lot to djinns. So it is- it is- the shtriga, for example, they had like a bit of lore for that, right? Like, with the shtriga episode, it was like, there was lore, and also there was emotional Sam and Dean stuff happening in the episode. So like, they could have done it here, too, that they could have had like a Sam and Dean episode, and they could have had the lore to come along with it. Or, if they just wanted to do the dream sequence so bad, just stick to that, you know?

C: Yeah, you can just make up another creature. I'm sure there are other creatures that put you in a dream state.

G: Yeah.

C: But, ah well.

G: Here we are.

C: He's dead from a knife. K. [G laughs]

Right, and they rescue the girl with Sam using a fucking blade to get the IV out. And yeah. So we cut to a motel room, and Dean's flipping through a magazine, and this is where he sees the beer ad with Carmen in it. And the ad says like, "go someplace better" or something. So yeah. And Sam, who's wearing his iconic white shirt with the floral-ish light pattern on it- you know the shirt.

G: Mm-hm. Yeah. The one that he broke his arm in.

C: Yeah, it also is the shirt that he wears when Dean confronts him about drinking demon blood in season 4.

G: Yeah! This scene looks exactly like that scene. Like, the color scheme of the room is the same. So I was like, "Why is this familiar? Why is this familiar to me?" And I was like, "Oh, it's because this one looks like the scene where he beats Dean up."

C: Yeah. Go, girl.

So, yeah, the girl was in the hospital, she's gonna be okay. Dean's okay, and he's like, "I'm alright. You should have seen it, Sam. Our lives. You were such a wussy." [laughs]

G: "You were such a wussy." [both laugh] Iconic.

C: "I called you bitch, and you said, 'Why did you call me a bitch?'" So yeah, Sam's like, "Oh, so we didn't get along? I thought it was supposed to be this perfect fantasy." And Dean was like, "No, it just granted the one wish for Mom to live." Which means that women are just like this [laughs]. Like, just normally.

G: [laughs] Yeah.

C: "So we never went hunting, so you and me just never like, connected." And [laughing] Sam says, "Yeah, well I'm glad we do." [laughs]

G: Wild.

C: I'm glad we hunt, Dean. "And I'm glad you dug yourself out. Most people wouldn't have the strength." And Dean's like, "Yeah, but like you, you had Jess, and Mom was gonna have grandkids-" Really, like, Dean was like, "You and Jess want kids. You will impregnate her. I have decided this." [both laugh]

G: Ugh. Ugh.

C: Yeah, but he's like, "But Dean. it wasn't real." And Dean says like, "Yeah, I know. But I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so bad. Because ever since Dad died, all I can think about is how much this job has cost us. We've lost so much and sacrificed so much." And Sam's like, [annoying voice] "Well, but people are alive because of you. It's worth it!" [both laugh] He didn't say it like that, but that is how I view the lines. [annoying voice] "It's not fair, and it hurts like hell, but it's worth it!" And Dean looks sad, and that's the end of the episode.

What is this ending?

G: What- is this- Is there an episode a little bit back that like, ends kind of like this?

C: Yes, "Hunted," which is written by Raelle Tucker, which is the pretty much the exact same thing.

G: How does that one end? Wait, what's "Hunted"? What episode is that?

C: It's the one where they call the cops on Gordon, right?

G: Oh, god, okay. Completely forgotten about it.

C: Yeah, let me make sure it's actually "Hunted."

G: Oh! I know what I'm thinking of.

C: Is it even "Hunted." Like okay, because the transcript said that the flashback at the beginning was from "Hunted," but is it?

G: No. The episode I'm thinking of first is the one with- the one with the fucking- "Houses of the Holy."

C: What happens in that one? It ends with a motel talk too.

C: Well, okay, so you said it was shot like "Houses of the Holy," this scene? Because at the end of "Hunted," Dean is the one who goes like, "Screw the job, I'm sick of the job, all we get is bad luck." And that's the one where Sam's like, "But come on, dude. You're a hunter. It's what you were meant to do!" [laughs] That feels a lot like this scene.

G: Ugh. Yeah. Oh, the one where Dean is like- okay, okay, I got it, I got it. The one that ends with like, the Dean beauty shot?

C: Is that at the end of "Hunted"? I thought that was at the end of "Bloodlust"?

G: Yeah, they zoom in on Dean's face- Oh. What episode is fucking "Hunted," then?

C: It's the one with Ava, and Gordon's like, shooting at Sam, and also, this is where they find out that-

G: Oh! This is the episode where I was drunk! [both laughing]

C: Yeah! There we go. Right. It's where we find out that John told Dean to kill Sam. Yeah, that one.

G: Oh god.

C: And the one where you were drunk and Crystal had half an hour's sleep.

G: That's why I don't remember it. That's why I don't remember it.

C: There we go.

G: There we go.

-

G: Okay, I mean, we've discussed what we think about this episode, but has it changed in the span of the last two hours that we've been talking? Jesus Christ.

C: I think because we've made more jokes about it, [laughing] I like it even less than I did before, because the, like, emotional parts are like, "Well, I said them in a silly voice, so were they even that emotional?" [both laughing]

G: I mean, I still- everything I said earlier in the episode, I still hold, so whatever.

C: Yeah. Yeah. [G laughs] Whatever.

G: How about Best Line/Worst Line? I did not pay attention to any lines in this episode. [laughs]

C: I wrote down beforehand what my best line was, and [laughing] it was, "What are you calling me a bitch for?"

G: I think my best line is- I'll recite the whole thing yet again. But [laughs] my best line is, "Hey, dude [both laughing, C screaming], how are you doing? How are you doing, man? I'm doing pretty darn good. I've been meaning to sit down and write you, but I've been so darn busy! I've been meaning to call, too. But, hey. [both] What's a fella to do?" I love that he puts the hey in there. Like, he's like, "Hey. Hey. Hey, hey! What's a fella to do?"

C: "What's a fella to do?" [both laugh]

G: My worst line is, "I know why you're the one." [C retches] Or whatever. I don't even know the wording of that part. But like, when Dean tells Carmen "This is why you're the one."

C: For what?

G: And it's like, she has not shown an ounce of personality this entire episode.

C: Yeah. Death. Death and killing

My favorite- sorry, my least favorite is when Sam says, "Well, I'm glad we do" about hunting. [laughs]

G: No, I think that's- actually, now that I think about it, I think that's a response to Dean being like, "We don't connect."

C: But it's "You and me just never-" Maybe. Okay, fine. Fine, yeah, maybe, you're right. In that case, do I have to find a new-

G: [laughs] No, it's fine. Leave it be. This recording has gone on for so long.

Okay, IMDB rating.

C: It's a highly-rated episode. I know this.

G: Is it? I hate it.

C: I'm going to go with a 9.

G: I'll go with an 8.7. I think that's high enough.

C: Okay,

G: Holy shit, man.

C: What?

G: 9.3.

C: Fucking what? Is that the highest we've seen?

G: No, I think we had a- oh, yeah it is.

C: We've only had a 9.2.

G: 9.2 was season finale or something.

C: Jesus Christ. Seriously? No one likes Sam. No one cares about Sam.

G: "Brilliant and wonderfully heart-wrenching! Must see!" "Outstanding. Splendidly done. Absolute handsome brilliance."

C: [laughs] "Absolute handsome brilliance"?

G: "That was just a dream." I hate this episode. I don't even want to read any of the reviews.

C: I'm skimming them. I'm not seeing anything. This one says it's a great insight into the character development of the two main protagonists. Are you sure? Both of them? You're saying it developed both of them?

G: Nobody? I hate Supernatural so much it's unreal.

C: Aw, this one says, "Like 'Faith' in season 1, this is Supernatural at its best." [both laugh]

G: And we know how we feel about "Faith!"

C: Yeah. Well.

G: Okay, that's it for this episode of Busty Asian Beauties. Next week, we will be discussing Season 2, Episode 21: "All Hell Breaks Loose: Part One." Also, we would like to thank Wanni angelhannah-

C: Yes.

G: - for their input into like, djinn lore and stuff. I love that we just say the word lore now for everything, even for real life stuff [laughs]. Like, it is lore. Thank you, Sam Winchester. But thank you, Wanni! Thank you so much! And you guys should check out their art. It's so good.

C: It's so good. Like, I commissioned them last week for- well, I guess it'll be several weeks now, but it's like a drawing of Cas and Eileen drinking milkshakes, and it's very, very cute.

Follow us on social media! We are on Twitter at twitter.com/BeautiesPodcast, and on Tumblr at bustyasianbeautiespod.tumblr.com. Our official tag is #BABPod, B-A-B-POD, and thanks to everyone who's donated to our Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/bustyasianbeautiespod.

G: You can email us any feedback, comments, or inquiries at [email protected]. See you guys next time. [both] Bye!

[guitar music]

#transcript

[redrobin-detective]

because I could not stop for death

because I could not stop for death / he kindly stopped for me / the carriage held but just ourselves / and immortality ~ Emily Dickinson

Danny Fenton was dying, properly this time.

Somehow, in the back of his head and in his worst nightmares, he knew it would end this way: bleeding on the floor of his parents’ lab where it had all began. He was so hot he felt like his skin was on fire, blood and ectoplasm were dripping all over him and his lungs and heart were working overtime to try in vain to keep him alive a moment longer. He’d imagined at the time that there would be more screaming but death, in the end, was turning out to be a quiet little affair. A lonely table set for one.

“Danny, Danny come on, you-you gotta slow down your breathing, just relax, for me, please,” Sam moaned, more than making up for his lack of noise. She was shaking and touching him all over, his chest, his face, his hair. Normally she jumped right into action but she had to know, deep down, that there was nothing she could do. All that was left was to watch her panic and cry, it wasn’t his favorite image. 

“Vlad!” He heard Tucker scream cry into the phone, “please it’s Tucker, Danny’s dying I think. The Fentons had some new invention, something about his core, please we don’t know what to do!” 

Ugh Vlad, he was probably going to be so happy Danny was on his way out. He wasn’t looking much forward to his last images being his archenemy gloating. Tucker hung up and reached down to grasp Danny’s hand so hard it hurt. “Don’t worry dude, Vlad’s coming. He knows so much about you half ghosts that you’ll be fixed up on no time.” Right, Danny was already dead. If calling Vlad, feeling like he did something, helped Tucker move on then he’d deal with it.

Danny tilted his head to the side where Sam’s fingernails were carding through his hair. It was getting harder to see with the blood pouring out of his eyes but he looked at her, and tried to memorize her face. He’d never been able to tell her how much he loved her, that any day spent with her was a blessing. Tucker too, his best bro and a part of his soul. His best friends in the whole wide world, through thick and thin. God, he was going to miss them.

“Glurk,” he said, trying to convey those feeling but the fluids in his mouth and airway made it impossible. “Blerh.”

“Shh shh shh,” Sam soothed, “it’s okay, don’t try to talk.”

“Daniel!” He heard Vlad’s voice shriek as he materialized in front of the portal. Sam and Tucker were violently pushed out the way. Danny wanted to be angry at his loved ones being taken away in his final moments but anger was for the living, he barely had the energy to breathe. This death was too long and too short all at once. He made eye contact with Vlad who all at once lost the frantic edge to his tone and and instead knelt on the floor. “Oh my dear boy. What did they do to you?”

“What is going on?” Sam demanded, shoving her way back in. Danny was glad, he could see again like this. “Why aren’t you doing something!”

“There’s nothing to be done,” Vlad said in a flat, monotone, he picked up one of Danny’s hands and patted it gently. “His core is dying, it’s like a ghost’s heart. It contains their very essence, it is from which everything they are comes from. If Jack and Maddie somehow disrupted it then there’s nothing anyone can do to save him.”

“But he’s human too,” Tucker defended, grabbing Danny’s other hand. His human warm skin burned but the contact felt so good, he twitched his fingers closer to his friend’s. “He-he doesn’t need a core, he’s already got a heart. So, so he doesn’t have powers, we can do normal again.”

“You-” Vlad hissed before taking a calming breath. “The accident that made Daniel like this irreparably altered him. His core was as much a part of keeping him alive as his other organs, without it, his body is shutting down.” Vlad turned down to look Danny in the eye and saw true, genuine grief in those hateful red eyes. 

“I cannot imagine the agony you are going through, I’m so sorry. I’d say it will be over soon but,” a hitch that sounded almost like a sob if it was coming from anyone other than Vlad. “But you’ve hovered on the edge of death for years, son, and you’ve always been such a fighter. You have minutes at most but those minutes are an eternity when you’re suffering.”

Sam and Tucker’s sobbing blended together in the background, Vlad was saying something with a miserable, stunned expression. The swirling of the portal in the background seemed louder than anything, louder than his heart beat pounding and pounding as it ran it’s last race. 

“Daniel, Danny,” he focused his eyes back on Vlad who had a stubborn, unhappy set to his brow. “Do you want me to make the pain stop? An ectoblast to your chest will end your life instantly.”

“Don’t you dare touch him,” Sam shrieked, coming back into view and looking like she was trying to fight Vlad off. “You do anything to him and I’ll kill you!” Tucker just sat and stared at him, like he too was trying memorize Danny’s face.

“It’s a mercy, Samantha or do you want his last moments on earth to be drowning on the blood in his lungs.”

“Sam, he has a point. I don’t- I don’t think we can fix this.”

“No! No we always fix things, I’ll do it myself if I have to!”

Danny’s vision was starting to go, more black than anything else. He closed his eyes and readied himself for the inevitable. 

“Time Out,” Danny opened his eyes and found he was no longer in pain. He was standing up and apart from where he’d previously been lying. Sam had her hands in Vlad’s face and the older hybrid was snarling something at her. Tucker was midmotion trying to stand up, presumably to get Sam but the three of them were frozen in the moment. Danny turned and found Clockwork floating, looking very out of place in his parents lab. “Good evening, Danny.”

“You that short on cash that you work part time as a grim reaper?” Danny quipped out of habit. He looked down at his body and grimaced a bit, that wasn’t a pretty sight. No doubt traumatizing for Tucker and Sam. God how were they going to explain this to his parents? “Gonna ferry me across the River Styx? I don’t have two pennies but I think I have a bloodied $10 on me.”

“You’re core is dying and you have 17 seconds left in this world before all your organs give out and finish the process you began when you turned on your parent’s ghost portal,” Clockwork explained as he changed into child form. 

“O-okay,” Danny said shakily, trying to be brave even when he was so, so scared. He was going out whether he wanted it or not but he refused to leave crying. “Nice of you to come say goodbye then but, uh but unless you have something to say then you should let me go back. No one knows better than me that you can’t outrun death. Thanks but I’m uh I’m ready.”

Clockwork stared at him for a bit, not sure how long, time was weird like this but he changed forms a few times. “You’re quite the remarkable young man, Danny Fenton.”

“Uh thanks,” Danny added, once more looking at his body which had, according to Clockwork, a 17 second expiration date. “What’s going to happen? Am I going to become a ghost? Does heaven or hell exist for someone like me?”

“I don’t get to decide what happens, I merely see options,” Clockwork stated easily, taking his time. “If you die naturally you’ll become ghost, a mere shadow of who you are now and one who would fade fairly quickly. You don’t have strong enough anger or regrets to tie you in the real world for long.” Not great but okay he supposed, hell for his friends and family though. “You could let Plasmius deliver his mercy kill, destroying what’s left of your ghost core and ensuring you do not come back.” Better, probably won’t help the Fruitloop’s instability but he can’t save everyone.

“That one comes with it’s own caveat but I’ll get to that in a moment,” Clockwork explained. “There is a third option where you get up off the floor and walk away.” Danny blinked then looked back at his body which certainly wasn’t walking anywhere but into a plush casket. Clockwork opened his hands and the Ghost King’s Crown materialized in his hands. “If you accept your claim to the King’s Cown, it will revitalize your core and your life would be saved.”

Danny blinked.

“By sealing Pariah Dark, you won by proxy and established a legitimate claim to the throne. The Zone has been without a king for millennia, most have forgotten the old rules. Those who remembered were not too keen on a half-ghost child assuming leadership and kept you in the dark. If Plasmius ends your life then your claim transfers over to him, which he is aware of. It had been his plan all along to trick you into defeating Pariah so he could steal the Crown from you at a later date, a much easier opponent.”

Danny’s mind was overloaded with information, he didn’t know what to focus on first. He stared at his 17 seconds from death face and tried to process it all. Crown? Claim? Vlad?

“Of course,” Clockwork tutted, “he didn’t plan on your dying and in such a gruesome fashion. If he kills you and takes your claim, he would spend his remaining years ruling the Ghost Zone in a just, controlled fashion for your memory. He destroys all the stable portals and keeps the ghost and human worlds separate.” Clockwork became and old man and titled his head, “it’s not a bad timeline, all things considered.”

“And if I take it?” Danny asked quietly.

“You’re compassionate, brave and motivated, you have all the makings of a revolutionary king,” Clockwork smiled. “The Zone would experience and unprecedented era of peace, there would be positive interactions between human and ghosts for the first time since life and death split into two. Your name would spoken with reverence for the rest of time.”

“But I don’t want to be king,” Danny frowned.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Clockwork stated. “Which is why I am giving you the choice. If you pass peacefully there will be no one to claim the Crown and life will continue on, ghost attacks and all. If Plasmius kills you, he becomes an effective but unmemorable king. If you take the Crown, you can get the chance to tell Sam and Tucker how much you love them.”

Danny rubbed at his face, he didn’t want to die but he’d be sealing away his entire future with a move like this. He didn’t even know if the Crown would let him go with death, maybe he’d die and be stuck as the Ghost King until his core finally gave out lord in who knows how long. Eternity was an awful long time to carry such a responsibility. He couldn’t bring himself to ask, too afraid of the answer.

“Is there ever a timeline I became an astronaut?” He asked instead. Clockwork hummed, seemingly unsurprised by Danny’s non-sequitur. 

“Yes, in one of the few universes where you never walked into the portal. You never go into space what with human politics putting a halt on the programs but you work for NASA. You leave Amity Park at 17 and don’t come back save for your parents’ dual funeral.” He paused and Danny felt read down to his very bones, “from the moment you became half ghost you were always heading for this moment. The circumstances varied but it always came down to you and the Crown. Time is straining to continue, to see how this drama plays out. Will you accept it and all the joy and grief that comes with it?”

Danny looked over at Vlad, still mid-sneer but there was a scared desperation in his face. He and Vlad sniped at each other all the time but Danny didn’t really hate him and he didn’t think Vlad did either. Leaving him alone, plus making him be king was a heavy burden to put on his enemy. 

Sam and Tuck probably wouldn’t recover from this, he’d put them through so much already but he just knew that they’d never be the same. Could he do that to them? Take the easy way out and leave them to suffer? Mom and Dad didn’t deserve to come home to a dead son, the truth would come out and they’d never forgive themselves. Jazz certainly wouldn’t, she was 2 states over at University but he could already hear her angry, grief-stricken screams. 

Death, death was quiet. It was quiet and merciful and sad, but it was also easy. And Danny Fenton had never once taken the easy route. He reached out and took and the crown before shakily placing it on his head. He gasped, throwing his head back as his core swelled, taking up residence once more right next to his heart. Clockwork smiled, looking like the cat who ate the canary. 

“The Crown of Fire, pardon me the Crown changes with each core, the Crown of Ice is now yours as is the Zone. Your reign begins now but so too does the rest of your life. People are waiting for you. Time in.” Danny slammed back into awareness on the floor of his parents’ lab, the floor he’d almost died on twice. 

He sat up as cold radiated off his body, causing frost to crawl down his arms and along the floor. Sam, Tucker and Vlad, who’d been frozen up until now, jumped back to life. There was a new, familiar weight on his head that he didn’t dare acknowledge. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and said a silent goodbye to a quiet, normal life. It wouldn’t be all bad, he could be happy like this but the Crown still felt like a iron manacle around his neck. But he got used to the ghost powers, he could get used to this too. Maybe one day he won’t look at the stars and say ‘what if?’

“Danny!” Sam shouted, throwing herself into his arms soon followed by Tucker. Their warm weight, their relieved sobs, their shaky breaths in his air, now this was something worth living for. He squeezed them tightly.

“But how dude, you were at death’s door!” Tucker asked, still not letting go.

“You accepted the Crown,” Vlad said evenly, “I wasn’t aware you even knew about your claim. Who told you?”

“You don’t know everything, Vlad,” Danny sighed, sitting himself upright. Ugh his shirt was covered in blood and ectoplasm. He needed to trash these clothes before his parents freaked. And find a way to hide the floating ice crown on his head. 

“Even an old man can be surprised every now and again,” Vlad said wearily. He stood up to his full height before startling Danny by dipping down to one knee. “Then allow me to be the first to welcome my new king and wish him well.”

“I thought you wanted this,” Danny questioned.

“I do, I did,” Vlad said, unusually off balance. “To be quite honest, I’m not sure how to feel about it but, right now, I’m just immeasurably happy you’re alive, little badger. Now I best be off, enjoy your kingdom, my liege, I’ll be sure to come bother you some time soon.” Vlad disappeared in a swirl of pink leaving just him, Sam and Tucker still clinging to him.

Danny may have a kingdom, a job he didn’t want and his whole life decided in a spur of the moment choice, but he also had something very important. He squeezed his friends tightly.

“I love you guys, thank you for being my friends even though I have the worst ideas for activities. Dying? On a Sunday night? How lame is that?” Sam laughed, a bit hysterical but it was real and it made Danny feel weightless. 

“Don’t do that again, buddy,” Tucker breathed into his shoulder. “So you gonna explain what just happened and why you’re apparently the Ghost King or something?”

“Yeah, yeah I will but let’s get changed first. Mom and Dad will be home soon and I think I’m going to need to have a conversation with them about my new job.” 

#danny phantom #i was watching forever phantom and said 'i should kill danny' and then i fucking didn't #im obsessed with ghost king danny as end game #Im not sure this is the route I would want to go but I want him to end up woth tje crown #its bitter sweet bc its a *lifelong (possibly afterlife) commitment that he didnt get a choice in #he will be happy and he will be a good king but it wasnt his choice and he'll always regret it a little #i love clockwork but he's a bit shady and will always work in favor of the timeline #anyway happy fucking sunday bitches #have some homemade angst #also i typed this directly in tumblr and almost hit the power screen on my computer instead of backspace #god was trying to stop me from publishing but i overcame #Only did one quick edit Im too tired to care anymore #lmk if you want it on ao3

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Edvard's Supernatural Rewatch & Review: 1x12 Faith

In this review and analysis, I will discuss Dean’s obvious trauma, survivor’s guilt, and suicidal ideations stemming from John's mistreatment of him; Sam’s possible autism; and atheism in America in Supernatural's twelfth episode. Spoilers up to the final episode of The Show.

1x12 Faith is one of the fans’ all-time favourite episodes, enjoying a rating on 8,8 on IMDb based on over 6,000 votes. Written by Sera Gamble and Raelle Tucker, this episode suggests that Gamble IS a good writer of individual episodes, though she dropped the ball as show-runner on series 6 and 7. However, Raelle Tucker’s solo episodes such as 2x20 What Is and What Should Never Be are standout performances, so I am not sure where the real credit belongs.

1x12 Faith presents a morally-ambiguous situation wherein an innocent person dies regardless of what happens. It is reminiscent of the Buffy episode 2x07 Lie to Me, wherein a character dying of brain cancer is willing to sacrifice dozens of innocents to avoid his fate. Faith is, however, unusual in Supernatural in that it shows an uncharacteristic depth of thought regarding its plot.

In addition to a stellar script and Jensen’s usual world-class performance (once more, I swear I am not paid to say things like that), Julie Benz also graced the screen with her presence in the role of Layla. Unless I am forgetting somebody, she is the third Buffyverse cast member to appear on the show, following Amy Acker in 1x03 Dead in the Water and, of course, Jeffrey Dean Morgan who appeared in an episode of Angel. While lovely to see familiar faces from similar genre shows appearing in Supernatural, it is a reminder of how precarious the show’s position was at first. They tried to draw in the audience they expected would enjoy the show by casting people from other shows the intended audience knew and enjoyed. It does not count as stunt acting coughSnookie cough Paris Hilton cough and their performances definitely stand up without distracting from the plot.

The plot is certainly one of the most interesting and challenging so far; no matter what happens, innocents are going to suffer and die. Do we want innocent Dean to live, or do we want innocent Layla to live? The plot will not allow both.

But the first year of this show is mainly focused on developing the brothers and their relationship to each other, so episodes such as 1x12 Faith stand out for having both brilliant plot and character development.

On to the episode, and the cold open begins right in the middle of the action. In medias res (a term meaning ‛starting in the middle of the action’) is a risky business. Writers want to get the viewer or reader interested in the story right away, and a fight scene or chase is theoretically a good way of going about this. It is risky because if the reader or viewer does not know the characters, the stakes, or even what is going on, it can be confusing and off-putting. Star Wars IV: A New Hope did this well in the opening shot AND the opening scene: the visuals of the tiny rebel starship and the overwhelming juggernaut of the Imperial battleship chasing it tells us everything we need to know to get started. The introduction of Darth Vader presents him immediately as a tyrannical threat. All of this is done with no backstory (except the opening crawl) and it is easy to follow the events.

The cold open of 1x12 Faith is in medias res done right: I know the characters and the world well enough that no explanation is necessary here. A shame, then, that The Show did not do this more often. I expect that by the time it had become two or three series long, they could not rely on all the viewership having watched all the episodes, knowing all the lore, or simply having the attention span to be able to follow without having their hand held. Perhaps this explains why the ‛Previously on’ eventually gets obnoxiously spoilery with all its unnecessary exposition for the idiots in the cheap seats.

What exactly a rawhead is never gets revealed, only that it eats children. A rawhead is referred to again in series 14, but only in passing. As such, I will skip over it to the important part of the cold open: Dean killing it with electric. The rawhead knocked Dean over into a puddle of water, and Dean wasted no time in electrocuting the rawhead with the stun gun. Unfortunately the rawhead was just barely standing in the water, so Dean got shocked as well. Upon my rewatch of the episode for this review, I realised Dean probably knew this was a risk. It could not have escaped his notice that he was wet and lying in a puddle, nor that playing with electricity had a high chance of damaging him. Did he accept the probability of his own death as an acceptable price in killing the rawhead and saving the children? Knowing Dean as well as I do, I have to conclude that he did, even without taking the rest of this episode into account.

Sticking with the cold open a while longer, let’s discuss Sam a bit here. It should not be news to anybody who has read this far that I am not here for Sam: I do not love Sam, I do not live for Sam, I generally do not care for Sam. I do understand, though, that some people get a lot out of Dean and Sam’s brotherhood, and enjoy a show about love that is not romantic. While I have my beef with some people in this contingent, the premise of a show focusing on men’s non-romantic bonds with other men definitely appeals to me for a variety of reasons. I first read Robert and Arvid in Vilhelm Moberg’s The Emigrants novels as a deeply intimate and important male friendship which they valued above other relationships, and I did not realise how much I needed that in my life until I read it. (That said, it is also equally valid to interpret Arvid and Robert as a same-sex couple, but that is another story).

Supernatural, however, made Dean and Sam’s relationship poisonous, manipulative, and abusive. Dean was the codependent abused and Sam the narcissistic abuser. While it gave us this dysfunctional horror show, the series seemed blissfully unaware of precisely what it was portraying. It expected the viewer to get behind the brothers’ relationship and root for them to value their brotherhood over everything and everybody else. This is not what I watch the show for, but Sam’s reaction to Dean’s apparent death in the cold open did give me a glimpse of what The Show and the brothers’ relationship could have been. Sam genuinely seemed terrified that Dean was dead, and the rest of the episode carries this on. I give Sam a lot of grief, but even I have to admit that in spite of all his crap, he does love Dean. This does not negate the bad behaviour, but at least when Dean needs him, Sam does his best to help. It is just a shame that Sam only shows his love when he is about to lose Dean.

It is also nice to be reminded of a time when Jared cared about acting on this show.

Moving swiftly on, after a nasty reminder of precisely how messed up the American medical insurance situation is, the viewer is presented with a scene which – without my trademark oversharing – is simply an entire mood. Panda-eyed, pale, and weak, Dean’s suicidal, fatalistic attitude is both tragic and 100% relatable.

I have stated elsewhere that when I watch Dean, I see exactly the kind of young man who is at an acute risk of dying by suicide. The responsibility he takes onto himself, his self-sacrifice, his lack of self-worth and self-esteem, his abusive, violent childhood (leaving your child alone in a motel for weeks IS abuse, whatever John’s apologists might say), his lack of support before he is in a crisis, his use of humour to cover up his real emotions, his desperation to be worthy of his dad’s love... I am no expert on suicide or suicide studies, but I cannot help recognising it in Dean (and The Show explicitly portrays him as suicidal on various occasions). Whether or not this was the intent is besides the point, and whether or not I am projecting is also beside the point; this is what I see.

One thing many people do not know or consider when thinking of suicide is that it is not always actively trying to die, but it can also mean not trying to stay alive. Dean makes it abundantly clear that he does not intend to keep living in this scene as soon as he brushes aside Sam’s comment of “I talked to your doctor”. He purposefully deflected with his remark about daytime telly being terrible (hilarious given Jensen’s career), signalling his desire to avoid that conversation.

Dean gets a lot of hate from some people who perceive his actions as entirely selfish: he brought Sam back into the hunting life in episode 1 because Dean did not want to be alone, some claim. Some also claim he did what he did at the end of series 2 because he could not live without Sam, even if it meant Sam had to watch him die. He restored Sam’s soul against Sam’s will in series 6. He helped ‛Ezekiel’ keep Sam alive in series 9, etc etc etc.

At risk of offending one or two of my seven readers, that reads to me like the limited perspective of the younger, immature sibling who does not see his/her older brother as an actual human, but rather a trope and a punchbag. That reads like Emo King Sam’s perspective, and it is so short-sighted and self-absorbed that it does not belong anywhere but in a teenager’s diary.

Dean believes he is worthless, but at the same time is entirely responsible and accountable for other people’s suffering. He does not try to help or save others because he wants to be the hero or wants to have control over their lives, but because he believes the only thing he is good for is getting hurt so other people do not have to. If that means sacrificing his life, then so be it: his life is worthless anyway, and even his dad never shows him anything resembling love.

Up until this point in the show, Dean’s mask has mostly stayed firmly on around Sam. He presents himself as a larger-than-life, unnaturally strong and charismatic hunter with a Devil may care attitude, but he does this because it is what others need of him. He has to make Sam believe Dean is stronger than he is and that Dean can protect him, because that was always his role. He must be seen to be capable (which of course he is), but to do this he must downplay and conceal any weakness to maintain the illusion. The reason for this is that any hint of weakness runs the risk of the people he loves seeing him as flawed, casting him aside, and replacing him.

I said in 1x09 Home that I will save most of my ire for John until a later date, and the later date is fast approaching. We see little direct evidence of John’s mistreatment of his sons, the elder in particular. However, the other side of Dean presented in 1x12 Faith is all the negative image we should need. His façade falls away to reveal a weak, small, broken, and very human man. His eyes are sunken, his skin is grey, his jokes fall flat, he sits like a sick man with breathing problems, and the viewer is forced to look at the man behind the mask. The choice of attire for Dean in this episode is also striking is its divergence from his usual garb: a hoodie and outer coat reminiscent of Tom Hanniger in My Bloody Valentine. This makes him look smaller, younger, and much more vulnerable.

This is the part of Dean he hates other to see. If they see him as weak, they see him as less capable, and less valuable. They see him as disposable. As his entire motivation is centred around being valuable to others, this is incredibly difficult and scary for him. Worse, perhaps, is the fact it was not a monster who did this to him, not really: it was an accident involving electricity. It was a reminder that simply being alive is a risk, and being alive is a threat to Dean’s usefulness.

His resistance to Sam’s offers of help also suggest a certain view of himself: that he truly is worthless and does not deserve to live if he is weak. Thanks, John.

All of these last few paragraphs seem to pass a huge number of viewers by, and I cannot for the life of me understand how. The show presents Dean as suffering suicidal ideations in a way which is blindingly obvious, but still people miss it. Some even say he wants to die fighting. It is true Dean says more than once in the fifteen years of the show something to the effect of ‛I want to die fighting’ and ‛The only way it ends for me is young and bloody’. Some people cite this as reasons why what happened in 15x20 is what Dean would have wanted, but I cannot even begin to agree.

He does not want to die like that, he simply does not see a happy ending for himself. He does not believe he could ever have anything resembling a happy ending, and all his actions are informed by this belief. He never hesitated for a second before electrocuting the rawhead in the cold open, for example, because he thought he would likely die soon anyway. This is why he willingly sacrifices himself over and over again, and this is precisely why the way he died in the ‛official’, ‛canonical’ ending to the show was a complete betrayal of the character, the actor, and the fans who saw a part of themselves in Dean. Misha and Jensen’s You Are Not Alone campaign raised money to start a suicide and crisis hotline, and spoiler alert spoiler alert having Dean die of a treatable wound because he accepted he was supposed to die young was a slap in the face and a wad of spit in the eye spoiler alert spoiler alert.

The show was so close to doing so many things right, but the last two episodes undid every chance they possibly had. Cas’s erasure shocked me, and the refusal to address Dean’s feelings about Cas’s confession was a kick in the nuts, but what happened to Dean took the biscuit.

This was not just another of my side-tracks, but necessary to ensure you are on the same page as me when I discuss this episode and its importance in Dean’s character development.

Dean has hitherto been a larger-than-life character, so it is shocking for him to be hospitalised and on the verge of a very human death. It is intensely unheroic and he fully believed Sam would leave him there to die.

If I had a heart left...

Moving on to the main plot of the episode, Sam’s refusal to let Dean die lead them to a faith healer in Nebraska, and the episode’s other main theme comes into play: belief in ‘good’ and faith in general.

It was not until my most recent viewing that I actually saw anything unusual about Dean’s lack of religious belief. Whether you want to call it agnosticism, atheism, deism, or whatever, he does not believe in ‘good’ forces, nor miracles, not apparently a life after death. As a British person living in northern Europe, this is par for the course. Most people in Britain are de facto atheists, and most people in the Nordic countries where I now live are atheist. Dean’s views would not in any way stand out

here or be considered noteworthy, and Sam’s would be regarded as naïve, sweet, and childish.

America (and Canada), however, is a different beast altogether. Belief in the Christian god is taken as a matter of course there, and atheists or even agnostics are seen as radical, dangerous, and even threatening. Dean’s lack of faith is therefore remarkable. Of course, given his history it would be hard for him to believe in the existence of good of any kind, and it took until 15x18 for anybody to tell him that he was good.

Which reminds me, as sweet as Layla was, her line If you’re going to have faith, you have to have faith when the miracles don’t happen’ was just a nice way of saying ‘If you don’t believe when things are going badly, you never really believed in the first place’. I understand religionists hold onto things like that as if it is is a noble position to hold, but to be quite honest it just sounds like denial to me. However, my own opinions on religious belief are not the issue here: the point is that Dean is in a nadir where his lack of belief is challenged by the apparent existence of miracles.

Before going into the tent, I would like to linger a moment on Dean and Sam’s conversation outside. Dean’s hesitance to enter the tent is clearly a product of his refusal to believe anything good can exist, and Sam’s question ‘If you know evil’s out there, why don’t you believe good’s out there too?’ is one a lot of viewers might be asking themselves.

My thoughts went instantly to Anne Rice’s novel Interview with the Vampire. In contrast to the film, the first 100 pages of the novel deal with Louis’s brother Paul’s illness and death. His illness was likely some variety of psychosis as he claimed to be hearing god. A local priest was convinced it was not the voice of god the boy was hearing, but rather Satan. A similar question is raised in this plot arc: why is it so much easier for us to believe in evil than to believe in good? Why did the priest not believe it was God talking to the brother?

The answer Louis gives to the interviewer is essentially the same as Dean’s justification: we see evil much more often than we see good, so it is no stretch of the imagination to come to conclusion that evil exists. It requires much more ‘imagination’ to conclude that good exists, too. In fact, the predominance of evil in everyday life makes it hard to see how good could exist.

The fact that Doubting Dean is chosen as the first person to be healed at his first time attending the faith healer’s service is indeed open to interpretation as divine intervention. As episode 4x18 The Monster at the End of This Book makes clear, God is indeed very much involved in the brothers’ lives (especially Dean’s, with whom he has a weird, perverted obsession), this is an interesting thought to entertain.

Putting that aside, it does not take long before Dean and Sam realise the miraculous healings are not blessings or any variety, but the result of serious dark magic which has bound a reaper to the healer’s wife. The wife in question – named Sue-Ann – sends the reaper to kill a person whom she deems morally reprehensible, and that person’s life force (or so I deduce, it is never made explicit) is transferred to the person the healer is ‘healing’.

The first person to die in this manner in this episode is a gay teacher, and it is this man who died so that Dean could live. I would like to draw the reader’s attention to three things here: it is specifically Dean’s heart which is failing, rather than any other organ, and that the person who died to ‘save’ him is both gay and a teacher. The teacher role is a good mirror of Dean. Teaching is a nurturing profession which requires a lot of dedication, care, and patience, as the teacher is imparting knowledge to others to help them succeed in various areas of life.

The teacher killed in this episode was a school teacher, raising children. This should be more than enough for the viewer to draw parallels between Dean and the teacher, since Dean was responsible for raising his own brother at the expense of his own childhood. The teacher died of heart failure, and Dean’s heart was healed with a gay man’s life force (read: Dean’s heart is a gay man’s heart). This is what the episode shows us, and is not an issue up for debate: while dying of heart failure, Dean was linked to a gay man who died of heart failure. From 1x12 Faith until the end of the show, Dean has a gay man’s heart. Make of that what you will.

The blind priest’s line about seeing Dean’s heart, and that he was a young man with an important purpose, should also cause people ears to prick up.

Ethically and morally, what Sue-Ann is doing is unquestionably bad. A young woman dying of inoperable brain cancer is tragic, but should somebody die to save her? Layla never knew the cost of the healer’s miracles, so was not wracked with survivor’s guilt, but Dean’s confusion as to why he was chosen and saved indeed does transform into full-blown survivor’s guilt. Having experienced survivor’s guilt, Dean’s journey in this episode is spot on – it is more than simply wondering ‘Why am I alive?’, and involves a feeling that I do not deserve to be alive, and that I should die. He wants to stop the ‘healing’ to prevent more people dying, but perhaps also hopes that in doing so he can end his own life and be free of both his burden and his guilt.

What makes things worse is that Layla is exactly the kind of person whom Dean would want to protect and save, and Dean clearly sees a lot of himself reflected in her mother’s dedication to helping her. That she was passed over in favour of him is a knife in the guts, but the true kicker comes in at the end of the episode when Dean finds out that Layla is to be healed, and Dean will be killed to save her.

This was peak dramaturgy and I must tip my hat to the writers for this. Dean certainly turned his charm up to 11 the moment he set eyes on her, but after that I sensed nothing sexual between them; rather he simply wanted to help and protect her from her death, but was unable to. He and Sam had to sacrifice her to save others, and that is true tragedy.

Her bravery at the end of the episode when she has her final scene with Dean shows a lot of personal strength. I am not religious so I cannot take any kind of comfort in believing a deity or divine something has a plan or will take care of me after I die, but I understand it is a source of comfort and strength for a lot of people. Layla has accepted her death, but she does not do so in a despairing manner, but rather with her back straight and head high. The point of this final scene was not simply to drive home to the viewer the fact that Layla WILL die within the next few months, but to compare and contrast her with Dean. Both were at death’s door in this episode, but ‘faithless’ Doubting Dean fell in to despair, whereas Layla refused to bend beneath her burden.

A nasty thought I had whilst writing this section was that the writers might have written Dean the way they did in this episode as a snide, underhanded comment on the cowardice and faithlessness of suicidal people. It was just a thought, and I cannot give it much credence given Raelle Tucker’s exploration of Dean in 2x20 What Is and What Should Never Be, yet Layla’s comment about having faith when miracles do not happen can easily be interpreted that way.

If the readers want my own thoughts on this – and if you have read all of my reviews up to this point, you probably do – I sympathise but cannot empathise with Layla’s position. Sure if you believe, you cannot just believe when things are going well, but my question is ‘Why would I believe in the first place?’ I lost a friend to suicide, and never once turned to any kind of deity for help or comfort. It would be nice to believe in some kind of afterlife and to hope for a reunion of some variety, but I had to look death right in the eye and accept it as the final end. Doing otherwise would feel like lying to myself to avoid an uncomfortable truth and ignoring the reality of his death.

As for the reaper in this episode, it would be fine if reapers never appeared again, but they do as early as 2x01 In My Time of Dying. The next reaper we see looks nothing like this reaper, nor reapers much later in the show. The reason for this is likely that the writers etc had not decided on exactly what reapers were in the Superverse, how they worked, or what they looked like. This is not a big problem, but slightly jarring: the reaper in 1x12 Faith looks like what we might think of as an agent of death: ill, old, ugly, creepy, but this is almost completely forgotten after this. The fact that clocks stop when a reaper is around is a nice touch, but never comes up ever again.

What is not forgotten is Dean’s relationship with death, and it makes a reprise at the very beginning of series 2. Dean is a Jesus figure, as Paula R. Stiles detailed in her own reviews of Supernatural. He takes responsibility for other people’s suffering, and takes their guilt unto himself to try to absolve them. He is also the character who challenges death the most, and who eventually becomes the arch-enemy of Death itself.

This episode begins this parallel, but also begins what some fans call a storyline which details Dean’s slow journey to faith. The theme istaken up again in 2x13 Houses of the Holyand coming to a conclusion in 4x01 Lazarus Rising when Cas appears and reveals the existence of angels, i.e. the ‘good’ which Dean did not believe exist. This is a plot I am not keen on: 2x13 ended with Dean believing in something because of a freak accident, and 4x01 is not about belief, but knowledge. Belief and knowledge are different, and if ones knows angels exist, one does not believe in them. One knows. This is a strange, incoherent end to this subplot, but I can see what they were perhaps trying to do with it. Maybe religious people will get something out of this, but not me.

At just over 4,500 words, I will move on from the big topics of the episode and cover some smaller points. I make no secret of my distaste for Sam, but it recently occurred to me that some of his bad behaviour could possible be explained by his being somewhere on the autistic spectrum. He has a few traits of Asperger’s, such as fixations (serial killers, magic lore) and saying awful, insensitive things which he might not actually realise are awful and insensitive, which suggest perhaps something is not quite usual about his brain.

However, some of the things he says to Dean seem too malicious to be explainable as ‘not realising what he was saying’. When Dean checks himself out of hospital and turns up at the motel looking like Death warmed up, Sam wastes no time in talking to him in an incredibly patronising manner. ‘This whole laughing-in-the-face-of-death thing, it’s crap. I can see right through it.’ While it is nice for Sam that he thinks he is an expert of psychoanalysis, it should be obvious to anybody that Dean’s attempts at humour is a coping mechanism, as gallows humour always is. It is not particularly clever to see through it, but it would have been wise to allow him that little fig leaf so he can deal with his death in the way he wants to, not in a way that comforts Sam.

Come to think of it, this is exactly the problem I have with series 3: rather than focusing on Dean’s own journey in coming to terms with his own impending death, the focus is on Sam and how he deal with it.

But back to 1x12 Faith: Sam is almost certainly not neurotypical, but he does a better job of hiding it than Dean. Dean functions well in certain situations, but 1x11 Scarecrow gave us a hint that he is not as socially fluent as he might appear to be. Sam, however, is better as interaction with people he does not know, indicating perhaps a greater capability of adapting himself to different situations. This would not have come about naturally in his childhood, as he was isolated, had few if any lasting friendships, and mostly interacted with Dean who is in no way a paragon of social interaction. He had nobody to learn this stuff from, so would have had to learn by observation and mimicry.

This does not in any excuse his bad behaviour, but could explain it. I do not think he would be anythingmore than a mild or borderline case of Asperger’s if he is autistic, and the traits I have seen do not add up much, but it is a possibility. These traits can also be explained by his having grown up in an abnormal environment, but the two are not mutually exclusive.

The policemen seemed unnecessarily rough in their treatment of Dean when Sue-Ann started shouting. They could see he was not doing anything, so I do not understand why they grabbed him bodily. I did get a laugh however, later in the episode when Dean taunted them by saying ‘You gonna put that fear of God in me?’ It does not take much to see the euphemism there. Typical Dean, sexualising himself in front of authority figures.

The DVD featured an alternate version of Dean’s healing scene which is intercut with the gay teacher being killed. I can understand why the clip might have beencut: it made it too obvious too early that the healing had serious consequences, and it also felt a little awkward. A nagging in the back of my mind wonders whether the unmissable link between Dean and the gay teacher might also have played a role in the scene being axed from the theatrical release.

Regarding the choice of song for the episode, whilst it is the song one would expect in an episode dealing with this topic, it is obvious. I am not a huge fan of it, and sometimes the soundtrack in series one and two can feel like 10 year old Eric Kripke’s mix-tapeof his favourite songs. That said, it worked well and added to the vibe. I always associate the song with Stephen King’s The Stand because the chorus appears as a quote at the beginning.

And one last thing: John did not respond to Sam’s telephone calls. His elder son was dying, and John could not drop whatever it was doing for long enough to even call back. I spent a while at the beginning of this review detailing the negative image of John’s treatment of his sons, particularly the elder one. The fact John could not even pick up the telephone, let alone ‘shag ass’ to see Dean one last time before he died, really should cement the idea that John does not love or value Dean. His apologists might claim that John was busy, in too much danger, or trying to keep danger away from his sons, but Dean was dying. What more danger could he have been in? Neither does he apologise at any point for this rejection or abandonment. This is unforgivable, and I do not care what John does ‘for Dean’ in 2x01: he left his son to die and could not even pick up the telephone to call him. No apologia can excuse that.

With that, it is time to draw this analysis to a close. This is definitely one of the finest episodes of series one, and indeed the entire show. The acting was stellar, the dramaturgy was excellent, and <3 I live for Dean in a hoodie <3. After having watched the whole show, I appreciated the fact that an episode about Dean’s mortality actually focused on Dean and his struggles. This is a stark contrast to series 3 of the show, wherein Dean is dying but the focus is on Sam and his coming to terms with the imminent death of his brother. That is an important aspect of the story, but since Dean’s own journey was side-lined, it felt inappropriate and self-absorbed.

Next time is one of the worst episodes of the whole show, so prepare for whiplash as I write about 500 words about 1x13 Route 666 and its racist monster truck, then go straight to 1x14 Nightmare.

And in case you missed it, <3 I live for Dean in a hoodie <3 Thank you to @emotionalsupportbees for discussing this episode with me. Your insights on this episode revealing Dean's human weakness were definitely valued.

#dean winchester #spn #supernatural #jensen ackles #1x12 faith #spn 1x12 #spn rewatch #spn meta #edvard's supernatural rewatch

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Fathering a Phantom ch2

I just wanna Talk, I swear

Here we have the chapter 2 for that fic from earlier! Once again, here ya go @five-rivers @floralflowerpower and @uwuplasmiusuwu

“Cole I’m going to murder someone,” was the first thing that Toby said to his husband upon arriving once more in their temporary sanctuary. Cole paused mid throw of his javelin, electric sparks crackling up the polearm, and turned to look at his husband. Toby’s wings were ablaze, his nails sharpened into claws, and his eyes a colorful storm, as though he couldn’t decide what to turn into for maximum lethality. Cole set down his javelin and wrapped around Toby in a hug.

“Who are you planning to murder, sunshine? And should I join in? I haven’t gotten into a good fight since we got here, which is a shame.” Cole coalesced from a mass of clouds into something a bit closer to his original body when Toby relaxed in his embrace, running his fingers through shimmering feathers made of embers. “You really do look like a star like this, by the way.”

“There was, I think, a war forged around here who fired a bunch of rockets at a child! You know that liminal kid I told you about?”

“Oh right, we’re rare in this realm, huh?” Cole’s face scrunched up in confusion and he arched a brow. “I thought the liminal around here beat up the tyrant ruling the place when he woke up?”

“I didn’t exactly ask about what must’ve sucked when I half blew up the metalhead.” Toby flew over to the couch and flopped face first into it. “Now I gotta track him down.”

“Why only half? Sounds like someone you’d take out in one go if you had the drop on em.”

“Well, do you wanna traumatize a kid of unknown cultural origins? He’s so small, and his friends were clearly still living humans. I dunno if he’s seen someone die before, let alone a ghost getting Ended. If I recall, committing murder is a bad way to start a friendship with a child.”

Cole snorted and gave Toby a pat on the shoulder. “Alright, fair, Sildar didn’t like me much after that rescue. But hey, now you can put that on your to do list! Murder, the answer to most problems.” Toby laughed, phasing through the couch when Cole sat on him. “There he is, my giggly celestial chandelier.”

“Do you even remember what a chandelier is? I know you broke like three of them over someone’s head, but I forget whose head.” Toby put out the flames in his feathers and stretched, satisfied when his spine popped a few times. “It’s nice to still be able to do that.”

“I’ll be honest, being a cloud has made the sound of your joints popping kinda gross to me. It sounds like you’ve still got a flesh and blood body.” Cole sat up, scratching his head. “Do you still have a humanoid body? With like, meat and bones and stuff?”

“Probably, yeah. We’ll see, cause if so that’ll come in handy with helping out this liminal kid. Said his name is Danny Phantom.” Toby paused, the feeling of his feather being torn an odd and upsetting one. “Speaking of whom, I should go meet up with them. Think you can find this ‘Skulker’ guy while I educate some kids?”

Cole kissed Toby on the cheek and gave him a thumbs up. “Will do! I can’t promise there’ll be much left of him afterward though, I’m not a fan of idiots who attack kids.” Toby smiled and in a flash of light and beat of wings, he was gone. Cole nodded to himself and grabbed his maul, crackling with electric arcs, and opened up the door to their temporary Sanctuary. “Now then, who the fuck is Skulker?”

After having a small debate about where they couldn’t go and why, team Phantom finally ended up at the indoor roller rink that was partially destroyed by a giant ghost crab a while ago, and sat down at a table that Danny cleared of debris with an ectoblast or three. “Ok guys, I think this is a good enough place to call him up.”

“Are we sure it’s a good idea to call him at all?” Sam held up the feather she’d kept in her pocket, turning it about to watch the golden flame dance. “He took down Skulker pretty fast and it usually takes you a good half hour to do that, Danny.”

“Skulker specializes in attacking Danny is all, Sam. We’ve got the weapons to handle pretty much any ghost we normally deal with, and Danny took down the king of ghosts. I’m pretty sure he can handle anyone else.”

“Plus, Toby wrecked Skulker pretty bad. If he wanted to fight, I’m pretty sure he would’ve started a fight.” Danny condensed his ectoblasts into one ball of ectoplasma and stretched it out into a pole. “Imagine all the cool stuff he could show us!”

“Alright, if you say so.” Sam snapped the feather in half, surprised by how easy it was to do, and grabbed her ecto-pistol. For a moment, there was silence. Then the sound of wingbeats filled the room and Toby appeared above the rink as though landing from a long flight.

“That’s a spell I’m not used to casting frequently in a day. Heyo kids!” Toby waved, tucking his wings by his sides while walking closer. “Sorry for the delay, I was talking to my husband. So, names again just to be sure: Sam, Tucker, and Danny, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. What do you mean spell, exactly? Do ghosts have magic ontop of the other ghost powers now?” Tucker spun the lipstick laser around in his fingers, remembering Desiree’s magic and Freakshow’s staff.

“Anyone who can do magic keeps the ability in death, usually. I’m not dead though, I’m Deathless.” He spread his wings and spun around, thumbs pointing to his chest. “I was born awesome like this, and so was Cole. But, based on your faces you weren’t born like this?”

“No,” Sam said, gesturing at Danny. “This is a recent thing, it’s been since about…” Sam paused, her gaze landing on the wall behind Toby. “March of last year, so 14 months.”

“Yeah, god, we’ve been doing this for over a year now, haven’t we?” Tucker, who had held up a camera to record everything Toby was saying, slumped a bit in his seat and sighed. “Feels like it’s been like this forever and like it happened yesterday.”

Toby stared at them all like they’d each grown extra limbs in odd places – Danny even checked to make sure he hadn’t done that while feeling both old and young at the same time due to how little time had actually passed – before zipping over to Danny and holding his hands just over the teen’s face. “Oh my gods, you’re a baby.”

“I am a teenager, thank you.” Danny gently pulled Toby’s hands away from his face, a brow raised. “What, is 14 infantile to angels, feather man?”

“You’re only 14 months dead, Danny, that makes you a baby ghost.” Sam snorted and Tucker covered his mouth to try and hide his laughter. A snap of Toby’s fingers and flowers began growing in Tucker’s hat, and seeds appeared above Sam, growing into flowers as they fell all over her. “If you’ve had regular interactions with that metal head, no wonder your aura’s all aggro.”

“Skulker’s not exactly the worst of the ghosts we’ve had to fight over the months,” Danny said.

“Oh yeah, that’d have to be either Walker, Spectra, or Vlad. It’s really a toss up between Spectra and Vlad, if you ask me.”

“Vlad wants to kill Danny’s dad because he sees his mom as a trophy that was stolen from him, while Spectra tried to kill Jazz just to depress an entire school so she could feed on the misery to look young.” Sam brushed away the flowers and weighed two in her hands. “Yeah, those around the same level of grossly evil.”

Toby’s wings ignited at some point while Sam was talking, and the sunlight streaming in from the hole in the roof grew somewhat brighter. He reached into a bag he had strapped to his waist and pulled out a book and a pen, his smile all teeth. “Tell me, please, a list of all the adult ghosts who have attacked you children? I’d like to have a discussion with each of them.”

“If we give you their names,” Danny said before Tucker could answer, “do you promise not to go slaughtering them all? I don’t need to know ghostly body language at all to know that flaming wings come from a place of anger and imminent violence.”

“When did you read a thesaurus, Danny?”

“Sam, I’m insulted: I know tri-syllabic words. I can even say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

“I promise not to slaughter all of the ghosts you inform me hurt you in the past few months, yes. Names?” When Tucker listed off names, Toby wrote them down with an inhuman speed, and Danny exchanged a look with Sam, worried about how exactly that deal might be loopholed around. “Right,” Toby chirped while slamming his book shut, “I’m here to answer some questions of yours, not just ramble about myself and assemble a… list of people to talk to. Got any?”

“So many that I don’t even know where to start.”

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Tucker Foley #Sam Manson #Tobias Lumano #Cole Lumano #OCs #Fanfction #fanfiction #fanfic #phanfic #phanfiction #phanphic #fanphic #fanphiction #Rexy Writes

[kinglazrus]

Dead Man Walking

Phic Phight | AO3 | FFN

Submitted by @syrren: Instead of making him half-dead, the portal accident makes Danny unable to die. This....changes things.

(or: how canon changes if the accident leaves Danny with deadpool-style regeneration abilities to make for a horrifyingly self-sacrificing vigilante, or with some kind of reset ability every time he dies to equally horrifying implications)

Summary: The accident changes Danny in ways he never thought possible. Sam and Tucker watch him fall from the portal dead and burnt beyond recognition, but he doesn't stay dead for long. He never stays dead. Of all the things Danny expected to happen when he walked into that portal, getting unlimited regeneration wasn't one of them, but now that he has it, he's going to put it to good use. Deadpool AU.

Word count: 3606

The first time Danny dies, his friends bear witness. They will never forget the ominous whirr of the portal as it turned on, the warning crackle of electricity, the final throat-tearing scream of their best friend. There are other things, too, that burned into their minds that day. How his body hit the floor of the lab with a thud, burnt beyond recognition, burnt so bad there wasn't any blood. How it smelled, to their horror, not so different from charred barbecue.

They like to pretend that part never happened. It's easy when all they need to do is call his phone and hear his voice, unaffected by the savage electrical heat that brought him to ruin that day. When he doesn't stay dead, it's not hard to pretend he never died at all. It took minutes for his body to fix itself, blackened skin overtaken by fresh pink muscle, which then sprouted new skin, perfectly unblemished.

Even the scar he got when he was fell off his bike at six years old disappeared.

"I liked that scar," Danny says, pouting when he finally notices its absence three days later.

"I don't think that's the right thing to get hung up," Sam says.

"But it looked like a spaceship!"

"I always thought it looked like an upside-down nine," Tucker muses.

"Or six," Sam says.

"Upside down nine is more fun."

They proceed like this for three weeks, mentioning the accident only in the lightest of terms, joking about their new, shared trauma. They are content to move on with their lives, forget it happened, go on as normal high schoolers. Until Danny dies again.

—

"What do you mean you don't want to hunt ghosts?" Jack exclaims. He gapes down at the trio, wholeheartedly baffled by this confession.

"I'll stick with tech, thanks," Tucker says, holding up his phone.

"Ghosts just aren't cool anymore," Sam says.

"Can I go back upstairs now?" Danny asks. At his question, Sam and Tucker fall silent. None of them make eye contact, and neither do they look toward the portal innocently humming only a few feet away. Danny is very aware that this is his first time in the lab since the accident. The same thought runs through Sam and Tucker's minds.

Jack doesn't notice the sudden change in mood. "Nonsense, Danno! You love ghosts. Why, I remember when you were just a tyke, you wanted to be a ghost when you grew up." He clenches his fist. "It was unacceptable. But that's okay! You can hunt them instead!"

He turns his back on Danny and his friends, eagerly going over the array of tools laid out on the counter. Ghost detectors, ecto-guns, protective shield, and an empty space where a thermos should be. "I forgot the best part! Wait right here, kids." Jack charges upstairs, leaving the kids alone.

Danny glances at the portal, unable to suppress a shiver. "You think he'd notice if I snuck away?"

"Nuh-uh, if you go, we go, too," Tucker says.

No one gets to go. Two sets of slimy green tentacles poke through the portal, probing the empty air. Their soft bodies soon follow, revealing a pair of ghostly octopuses.

"Holy shit ghosts are real." That is all Tucker has time to say before the ghosts attack. They launch themselves forward, shrieking in excitement. One goes for Sam and the other charges Tucker. They try to jump out of the way, but the ghosts are faster. The ectopuses tentacles wrap around them, pinning their arms down.

"Danny!" Sam shouts.

In retrospect, a smarter person would have gone for the ecto-gun lying on the table, freshly loaded and ready for a demonstration. Or, they might have shouted for his father, a ghost hunter who has trained his entire life for this scenario. But Danny acts faster than he thinks. He dives toward Tucker, the closest of the two, and digs his fingers into the ghost's tentacles. It screams as Danny's nails dig into its flesh.

The ghost's body goes translucent. Tucker slips out of its grasp, dropping to the floor in a heap, but Danny's hold stays firm. The ectopus panics, thrashing and tugging, its flailing limbs cutting through Tucker over and over without harming him. No matter what the ectopus does, it can't shake Danny loose, and his nails are starting to cut.

"Dude, you're doing it!" Tucker says, too soon.

As it flails, one of the ectopus' tentacles smacks Danny in the face, making his head snap back. At that moment, he and the ghost have the same realization. If he can touch it, it can hurt him back. The ectopus gives another shriek and its remaining seven tentacles surge forward. They wrap around Danny's arms, his chest, curling so tight his bones ache. The last one closes around Danny's throat.

His throat, weak like the ghost's flesh, crumples in an instant. His air disappears. No sound leaves his mouth, not even a wheeze, and his eyes bulge as panic sets in.

"Danny!" Sam and Tucker scream. Sam struggles against her captor kicking and gnashing her teeth, but her boots can't reach its body. Tucker grabs Danny, tries to pull him away, to bat off the ghost’s grip, but it is no use. The ghost is too strong, and Tucker can't touch it in this state.

Danny loses focus of them, then. His brain goes fuzzy, everything blurring around him while his face grows hot. All he can feel is the burn, the ache, the need to breathe, breathe, breathe damn it! The haze of the ghost looming over him fills his vision, slowly overtaken by red, then black spots.

As everything goes dark, Danny's last thought is this:

I guess I'm dead after all.

—

He hears the sobbing first. It starts off quiet and distant, but quickly grows louder, great hiccupping coughs scattered between heart-wrenching cries.

"Mr. Fenton!" someone screams. It happens fast, after that. Thundering steps, a deep cry of shock and pain that cuts him to his core. A piercing whine followed by two quick blasts.

The ectopuses' retreating shriek cuts through Danny loud and clear. His eyes snap open and air rushes into his lungs, a hoarse, wheezing breath that he holds for a moment. Then he takes another, and another, and he's breathing again, and he's not anymore.

Sam and Tucker, kneeling at his side, cry out as one. They throw themselves on him, blubbering messes the both of them. Danny's father, facing the portal, turns disbelieving eyes on him.

Danny's gaze drops to his father's hand and the ecto-gun clutched in it. "Oh, right." The word scrapes against his throat. He swallows, twice, until speaking doesn't hurt and says, "I forgot we had the gun.

"Danny!" Jack dashes toward them, dropping to his knees beside Danny. Sam and Tucker scramble back, giving him room. "Are you alright? What happened? You looked..."

Dead.

Because he was. Again.

"I'm fine," Danny assures him. "Lost consciousness, that's all.

"Danny, your face was blu—" Tucker yelps when Sam punches him in the shoulder, cutting him off mid-sentence. He rubs the spot, shooting her an offended look, but Sam's eyes are only on Danny.

Danny nods, just enough that she can see, a silent thanks.

"I think you kids should go upstairs now." Jack's voice trembles. He raises his hand, about to run it through his hair, but stops when he sees the gun he's still holding. "I'll take care of things down here. Call your parents and all that."

For the first time, Danny notices the green splotches littering the floor and the wall. Probably from the ectopuses.

Sam loops an arm around Danny's shoulders, hoisting him up. He stumbles when he gets to his feet, bracing himself against her as the room spins. It settles after a few seconds, but he still feels a bit lightheaded. A side effect of choking, maybe?

Tucker helps from Danny's other side. They go up to Danny's room in silence, their steps thumping up the stairs. Only once they're safely behind his closed door, and Danny is lying on the bed, does Sam speak.

"You died again," she says.

Danny touches his throat. "Yeah." Pressing gently, he feels is no lingering pain. Just like before, he healed without a trace. "Can I just not die now?"

"More like you can't stay dead," Tucker says.

"Tucker!" Sam hisses.

"What? It's true! Sorry that I'm not handling seeing my friend die twice very well!"

"Be quiet!"

Danny cuts in before they can devolve into shouting. "Let's just leave it at two, okay?"

Sam and Tucker share a glance over Danny's prone form and nod. The weight of that action is lost on Danny, whose only thought is that he wants to sleep for a very long time.

—

The knives don't kill him. They hurt like hell, but they don't kill him. He sees them flying toward him and leaps out of the way. Something strikes him in the gut, a solid punch that blows the air from his lungs and knocks him back into the walls. He thinks one of the frozen steaks got him, but when he looks down, he sees the handle of a kitchen knife sticking out of his stomach.

He stares at it, stunned, not feeling anything at first. Then, his body jolts, like a shock of electricity is running through him, and his nerves scream, heat building, until every little twitch sends a jolt of pain so deep coursing through him that he can hardly breathe.

"Danny, look out!" Tucker, or Sam, he can't tell which, so lost in his pain, cry out a warning. Danny doesn't move in time and two more knives bury themselves in his body, another in his stomach, and the other through his chest. The Lunch Lady cackles with glee as Danny gurgles. The last knife got his lung, and he can feel it slowly filling.

The pound of Sam's boots on the tiles reaches his ears. She shouts something, but he doesn't hear it. Trembling, Danny grips the handle of the knife in his lungs. In first-aid, they tell you to leave whatever object stabbing you in. It keeps the wound plugged, stops you from bleeding out. But Danny's instincts cry out against everything he was ever taught.

Take them out! Take them out!

He braces himself, then yanks. It hurts so much worse coming out, now that he's aware of the pain, the sharp edge searing as it rips the wound wider. He drops the knife and goes for the next one. All three fall to the floor beside him with a clatter, their blades shiny and red. Danny can't breathe, can barely think through the pain. He presses a hand against his chest, feeling the wound beneath his shirt.

It stitches itself together beneath his fingers. The searing pain retreats, replaced by a dull ache. By the time Sam reaches him and rips his shirt open to see his wound, his chest is healed.

"Technically, I didn't die," Danny croaks.

Sam sobs, covering her mouth with her hand. There's relief in her eyes, beneath the horror, and she makes a noise that might be a laugh, choked and garbled as it is.

Danny dives back into the fight with renewed vigour. Twenty minutes and one Fenton Thermos later, the ghost is gone, but not before half the student body saw some bloody idiot fighting it bare-handed.

"Did you see who it was?" Dash whispers to his friends.

Danny, clean of blood and wearing his gym t-shirt, slumps against the wall nearby, listening. Someone called the police when meat started flying through the hallways, and they apparently called Danny's parents. Ghosts are real and everyone knows it now, but Danny doesn't care about that at the moment.

"No, man. I wasn't close enough," Kwan answers Dash.

"Whoever that was, he totally just saved us all," Paulina says. She clasps her hands together and leans against Star. "He's such a hero."

Hero. The word resonates with Danny. He can't explain it, but it pulls at him. A hero. The school is in chaos, the yard covered in raw meat, the hallways hacked and slashed, but everyone is safe and unharmed thanks to Danny.

"More like a dumbass," Sam mutters from Danny's left.

"Semantics," Tucker says.

Between them, Danny only grins.

—

Jack paces in front of the portal, a tub of fudge cradled in the crook of his arm. Every few steps, he grabs a square and pops it in his mouth, chewing furiously. Between bites, he mutters.

"I'm telling you, Mads. He must have been some kind of ghost," he says.

"I don't know, Jack." Maddie, staring at the computer screen, tilts her head. They managed to grab a few stills from the school's security footage of the figure who fought off the ghost, but they didn't come out right. The surroundings are a little grainy, but no more than a standard security camera, so they know there's nothing wrong with the film itself. The ghost, who called herself the Lunch Lady if Maddie remembers correctly, is little more than a green haze in the image. They expected this. Ghosts don't interact with most technology well, not unless it is designed to interact with them.

But the smaller figure is distorted, a twisted shadow obscuring their form. Not ghostly, but not human either.

She clicks to the next image, getting the same results.

"Are you saying it's a human?" Jack asks without breaking stride.

"It's humanoid, but I don't think it's human, either. Yet it bled, so it's not a ghost. And look at this." She closes the files, revealing a folder full of pictures, all of them taken over the past couple of weeks as ghost sightings increased. "They show up at most fights and leave lots of bodily fluids behind." Jiggling the mouse, she circles a series of four images with the courser, all pictures of significant blood splatters. "But the samples..."

As one, she and Jack turn to the sample tray sitting on the far counter. Where the blood is deep red in the pictures, the samples they took have slowly turned to a dark, murky brown, like thick mud. The oldest sample from the first sighting is black.

Jack grabs a handful of fudge and shoves it in his mouth. "Not to mention," he speaks around the chewy squares, "what does it do with the ghosts?"

The lab door squeaks as it opens. Maddie and Jack fall silent, gazes turning toward the stairs. A pair of red sneakers appears on the top step, creeping down, until the wearer slowly reveals themself. Their son, Danny, with what looks like a thermos clutched in his hand.

"Sweetie, are you only just getting home?" Maddie asks.

Danny yelps in surprise. He jerks the thermos behind his back and swivels to face his parents, freezing on the step. "Oh, hey. I didn't think you guys would be here..."

Maddie narrows her eyes. "What did you do, young man? You were supposed to be home from school an hour ago."

"Nothing! I just got held up." Danny tugs the collar of his jacket.

That's odd. Maddie doesn't remember him leaving with a jacket this morning. The sleeves drape over his hands, down to his knuckles, and he has the collar turned up to cover his neck. It must be cold outside, even though September is only just ending. "What held you up?"

"Uh, that's kind of why I thought you guys wouldn't be here? There was another ghost fight. It got pretty bad." He shifts, pressing his arm against his side. Is his jacket darker there, against his ribs?

"Another ghost?" Jack exclaims. He slaps the fudge down on the closest surface, rattling the test tube samples. "Mads, we gotta go! There might still be some evidence!"

Maddie's eyes widen. "Oh, shoot. You're right! We need fresh samples." They race to grab their equipment, snatching up sample gathering packs from their desks, and charge up the stairs.

Danny presses himself against the wall, offering them a nervous smile as they go. "Stay safe!" he calls. The front door slams as Maddie and Jack make their exit, leaving the house in silence. Still, Danny doesn't relax until he hears the rev of the Fenton RV and the familiar squeal of its tires against the pavement. His shoulders slump and he breathes a sigh of relief.

"That was close." Taking his hand out from behind his back, he looks down at the Fenton Thermos. "Now let's get you taken care of."

As he empties the thermos back into the Ghost Zone, his gaze wanders to the computer screen, still open to the photo evidence. Danny reads the title of the folder. "Challenger?" He snorts. "That's lame." As he skims the photos, a couple jump out at him. In most, he can barely make out the shape of his own body—something he tries not to think about—but in one or two, he can recognize the colours of his clothes beneath the distorting shadow.

Danny slaps the cap back onto the empty thermos before moving closer to the computer, frowning at the screen. "That might be a problem."

—

Danny stands in front of his friends, fists resting on his hips, and shows off his new look. "Well? What do you think?"

Tucker looks him up and down, body shaking as he suppresses his laughter. "Is that a paper superhero mask? Did you spray paint your hair white?"

Danny's hands rise to his head. "It's a spray-on dye! I thought it was cool!"

"Ten bucks says it's super crispy."

"Don't be mean," Sam admonishes Tucker. "I think he looks pretty good. For a discount Jack Frost."

Tucker snaps his fingers. "Emo Jack Frost! The real one would never wear this much black."

"We are no longer friends," Danny says, turning away from them.

"Come on, don’t be a spoilsport."

"Nope, too late. I'm already dead to you."

Sam and Tucker share a confused glance. "Don't you mean we're dead to—" Before Sam can finish the sentence, Danny turns and throws himself out his bedroom window. "Danny!" They scramble after him, falling against the sill as they lean outside, peering down to the alley below.

Danny lies face-first on the pavement.

"Are you dead?" Tucker asks.

Danny raises his arm and gives them a thumbs up.

—

Valerie holds back a startled shout when the metal suit crashes onto the sidewalk next to her. She is not scared, but anyone would be surprised if two tons of metal suddenly fell from the sky. A scream, rapidly increasing in volume, drawings her gaze upwards just in time for a black-clad figure to plummet inches from her nose and land with a sharp crack on top of the suit.

This time Valerie cries out because holy shit, is he dead? Her panic sputters out when she peeks at the possible corpse and gets a good look at exactly who, or what, came falling after. A human figure dressed in all black with poorly coloured hair. It looks crispy as hell.

Valerie sneers. What kind of cheap dye did they use?

She recognizes the Challenger on sight. By now, more than half of Amity Park can, although Valerie can't account for the sudden style change. Maybe they realized how lame their regular t-shirt and jeans are and decided to switch things up. This isn't much better, though. Black hoodie, black pants, black boots, no style.

No one knows their name, but the moniker the Fentons gave them seems to have stuck. Valerie thinks it's a little on the nose, though.

Something wriggles in the corner of her eye and she looks to the Challenger's fist. It clutches a bright green blob, with stubby limbs and a wide mouth.

"Let go of me!" The blob beats its penny-sized fists against the Challenger's thumb. "You are my prey!"

The Challenger groans. "Can you shut up for a second? I think my neck broke." They squeeze the blob until it squeaks.

"Hey. Watch where you're throwing this stuff around." Valerie kicks the arm of the metal suit. "You nearly crushed me!"

The Challenger jolts. Their head whips up, accompanied by a loud crack, and they lurch to their feet. A mask covers their eyes—cheap like the hair dye, probably from a costume stored—but judging by the way their eyebrows shoot up, they look at Valerie with wide eyes.

"Uh, hey, Va—citizen." Their voice drops a solid octave. "Sorry about that! I'll watch out next time." They are about to say something else when a loud squeal interrupts up, the signature sound of the Fentons' approach. The Challenger pales. "Sorry, gotta go!"

They dash into the nearest alley before Valerie can get another word in, leaving her with the empty metal husk and the sound of the Fentons from two streets away. She gapes after them, unsure what to make of the brief exchange.

"Actually, wait a second." The Challenger pops back around the corner, leaping over the ghost's suit to reach Valerie. They grab her shoulders in a cold grip. "Are people really using that dumb name for me?"

At a loss for words, Valerie nods.

"Ugh." The Challenger groans and lets her go in favour of rubbing a hand down their face. "Stop that. It's so boring. Just call me... Phantom. Okay? See ya!" They spin away, too fast, and trip over the metal suit.

Wow, Valerie thinks as Phantom scrambles around the corner once more. We have the lamest superhero ever.

#phic phight #phic phight 2021 #phanfic #phicc #dp fanfiction #danny phantom #danny fenton #deadpool au #danny phantom fanfiction #humour #tumblroneshot

[q-gorgeous]

My Hero

fanfiction

ao3

What happens when Dash finds out about Danny's secret during the events of Micro Management? prompt by @ectopal

word count: 1573

IGNORE THE HORRIBLE TITLE bjhg the only other one i thought of was an ed edd n eddy themed title but clearly that doesnt work for danny phantom jnbhgv

“I gotcha!”

Dash stared up at his hero as he struggled to hold him up, dangling off of the monstrosity that sat on top of the Fenton’s roof while he was the size of an ant. Phantom’s eyes were squeezed shut as he held on tight to Dash’s wrist. 

Phantom’s appearance had been changing ever so slightly as he lost his powers after being hit by a Fenton device, so when a bright white ring appeared around the ghost’s waist, he hoped it would mean that his powers were returning. 

But instead of giving back any of his ghostly abilities, the ring traveled up and down his body. Phantom’s eyes shot open and he gasped, looking down at himself. White hair was replaced by raven black and the Phantom t-shirt turned into Danny Fenton’s signature tee that he wore everyday. 

His head lifted up and Danny Fenton’s blue eyes met Dash’s and he felt his stomach drop. 

Thoughts started spiraling through his head.

What the fuck. The kid I wail on everyday is my hero who’s trying so hard to make sure I don’t die. Why is he doing this?

Rockets flew past Dash’s back and into the metal above Danny’s head. A determined look that was normally worn by Phantom appeared on his face. 

“One, two, three!” 

Danny heaved Dash up onto the windowsill. 

Dash sucked in a couple deep breaths as he watched Danny run over and try to open the window next to them. 

Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom. 

QQQQQ

He still couldn’t believe it. 

Danny Phantom, Dash’s hero, transformed into Danny Fenton right before his very eyes. Saved his life! He had millions of questions but ever since they unshrunk themselves and Danny flew him back to the sidewalk, he had the gall. The audacity. To not even talk to Dash. 

What was even worse was that Danny sat right in front of him in their english class. He ignored everything Dash did to get his attention. Kicking the back of his seat. Tapping on his shoulder. Pulling on his hair. 

Dash huffed and rested his chin in his hand. He didn’t know why Fenton wouldn’t talk to him. 

He looks over to the side and sees two of his classmates exchanging notes. The girl who opened it blushed and scribbled something down before passing it back. 

Brain blasting, Dash ripped off a piece of his notebook paper and scribbled a smiley face on it. He threw it over Danny’s shoulder and onto his desk. Only a few seconds went by before he threw it back over his shoulder and into Dash’s face. He frowned.

Dash aggressively scribbled four more smiley faces and threw all five pieces of paper over Danny’s shoulder again.

Danny sighed and finally, finally turned around to face Dash, a scowl on his face. 

“What do you want Dash?”

“I think you know what I want.” Dash pointed a finger at Danny. “I wanna talk about the other day.”

“Dash-” Danny started but he was interrupted.

“No. I know what you’re going to say. But you can’t just drop something on me like that, accidental or not, and just. Ignore it.”

“I don’t have to talk to you about anything. It’s none of your business.”

Dash groaned and laid his head against his desk. “But I’m so curious.”

“Why? Why do you even care? I’m just the kid you beat up everyday.”

“But you’re apparently also my hero.” Dash mumbled into his elbow.

He could just feel Danny staring into the top of his head.

“Okay.”

“What?” Dash lifted his eyes up to look at Danny who was still staring.

“I’ll talk to you about whatever it is that you want to talk about.”

Dash bolted up in his seat, mouth forming an O shape before he started trying to shoot off a question. Before he could finish, Danny was waving a hand in his face.

“Not here! There’s too many people around. If you meet me outside during lunch we can talk about it then.”

Dash closed his mouth and nodded his head. After a moment he threw another smiley face at Danny.

QQQQQ

Dash walked outside the front doors of the school and looked around. After a bit, he saw Danny sitting on top of the picnic table surrounded by some trees. He walked over and cleared his throat.

“Hey.”

Danny turned around to face Dash, an apple in his hand. He took a bite of it and started talking with his mouth full.

“Charming.” Dash sat down on the bench of the picnic table. 

“What can I say.” Danny shrugged. After taking another bite of his apple, Danny looked down at Dash from where he sat on the table, an apprehensive expression on his face. “So, uh, what did you want to talk about?”

Dash fidgeted with his hands. “You’ve only been like this since freshman year? When Phantom first started showing up all over the place?”

“Yes.”

“How did it happen?”

He saw Danny tense up out of the corner of his eye so he looked up at him. Danny was looking anywhere but at Dash and he brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck.

“Uh, usually our deaths are a touchy subject for ghosts but.” Danny lifted his shirt just high enough so Dash could see a trail of lichtenberg scars. “It was my accident I had before the school year started. Sam and Tucker were over and we were messing with the ghost portal because it didn’t work and they convinced me to go inside. I tripped on something in the portal and my hand hit the power button and…” 

���Oh my god.” Dash paled. “That must’ve been terrible.”

“Yeah. It was.”

Silence settled over them again after that. 

“Sam and Tucker were there. That must mean they know, right?” Dash asked softly.

“Yep.” Danny started scratching something into the surface of the picnic table. 

“Does anyone else know?”

“Just Jazz. And all the ghosts. But they never tell anyone so it’s fine.”

Dash gawked at him. “All the ghosts? All of your enemies know your secret identity?!”

“Yeah, but they’re not snitches.”

“Danny!” Dash shouted. “What if they told your parents? Or the other ghost hunters?”

Danny shrugged. “They haven’t yet. I’m not sure why, but they never go that far.”

Dash placed his head in his hands. “They have a weird sense of camaraderie then considering they’re always trying to kill you.”

Danny just shrugged again. 

Slowly lifting his head back up, Dash looked at Danny. “Can I see?”

Danny’s brows furrowed. “See what?”

“You change, your transformation, whatever you call it.”

They stared at each other for a moment before Danny took a deep breath.

“Okay. But no recording it or anything. Your phone has to stay away.”

“I wasn’t even thinking of recording it!” Dash exclaimed. 

Danny stood up and hopped off the picnic table. He walked a few steps away and turned to face Dash, his feet spread apart and his hands in fists at his side. He closed his eyes. 

“I’m going ghost!”

Dash watched in awe as a white ring appeared around Danny’s waist, illuminating his face and his hair as it traveled up and down his body. Soon it disappeared and all that was left was Phantom.

“Woah.”

Danny did some jazz hands. “Tada. That’s how I transform, but you already sort of knew that.” He floated so that he was laying on his stomach in the air.

Dash was still too busy studying Danny in his ghost form. He never believed that Fenton and Phantom looked so alike before but now that he knew it was impossible not to see it. He was broken out of his thoughts by a hand waving in his face.

“Did you have any other questions?” Danny asked.

“Uh, maybe just one more.” Dash said sheepishly. “Can you show me some of your powers? Oh! Like your ghostly wail?”

Danny scrunched his nose up. “That’s for emergencies only. The ghostly wail would take out all these trees and the parking lot.”

Dash’s shoulders slumped.

“But.” Danny continued. “I can show you this one.”

Looking back up, Dash saw Danny cupping his hands together. A blue blow shined inside them and when Danny opened them back up an ice crystal was in his hand. He held it out to Dash and he took it. 

Looking at it, Dash saw that the ice didn’t melt at his touch even though it was cold. He looked up at Danny with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Ghost ice. It follows its own laws of chemistry.”

Dash nodded even though that didn’t give him any sort of answer. He tried to hand the crystal back to Danny. “Here.”

Danny shook his head. “Nah, you can keep it. It shouldn’t melt or anything.”

Looking back down at the crystal, he stared at it for a moment before stuffing it safely in his pocket. He opened his mouth to say something but the bell rang.

“Well.” Danny said, the rings appearing around his waist again and turning him back to normal. “Time to go back to class.”

He started walking away and Dash watched him go. He took a deep breath before jogging to catch up with him. 

“Hey! Let me walk with you. We have our next class together.”

Danny smiled and together they entered the school.

#gorgi writes #danny phantom #dash baxter #danny fenton #phic phight #team ghost #phic phight 21 #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #phic #phic phight 2021

[ave-aria]

Rewind

Ectober Week 2020 Day 3: Rewind Summary: Maddie can't believe what she's seeing on the security tape. In shock, she hits rewind. Tags: Reveal fic, Blood, Angst, Implications of character death, Tragedy, Trauma, Oneshot

-

Rewind.

Maddie keeps her eyes on the tv screen as the figures wind their way backwards to the start of the video. She won't look away. Can't. Doesn't dare.

If she looks away, she'll have to focus on something else. The quiet, dusty lab around her. The uncleaned ecto-weapons by the door. The green blood smattered on the blade.

The hollow, empty house looming over her head…

The video hiccups a bit as she hits the start of the feed. Old VHS tapes are odd like that, buzzing out with static where the film wore thin from too many pauses and restarts. It's a sign she's hit the beginning. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

It was an old security tape, filched from the lab. Onscreen, three teenagers, her son at the lead, slip into the camera's field of view. Maddie leans closer, enraptured by the movement, even though she's seen this moment enough times to have it seared into her brain.

Maybe, if she focuses hard enough, she can learn the secret - how to rewind her own mistakes, go back to a time when none of it has happened, just like in the video.

"Whoa, check it out! This thing's huge! I can't believe your parents built this!" A pause, while the kid adjusts his glasses. "Bummer that it doesn't work though, dude."

"Damn. Was it really supposed to open a portal to the underworld?"

"It's 'The Ghost Zone,' Sam. And yeah. My parents were pretty heartbroken when it didn't work. It kinda just… fizzled out. I hope they're not too upset."

The detached, clinical angle of the shot doesn't do the moment justice. Danny'd always been such a kind boy, thoughtful and empathetic to a fault. Maddie's throat closes up a little, leaving her struggling to breathe. They had been upset. Unbearably so. Their life's work - as Danny put it - fizzled out before their very eyes. It'd been a hard loss to take, one that she and Jack might never have recovered from, had the Portal not miraculously started working on its own, days later.

God. Now she almost wishes it hadn't.

A bright flash draws her from her reverie. Maddie blinks at the screen. A camera flash. In her distraction, she's missed part of the video; Tucker's casual "Lighten up, dude,", Sam's request for a photo op, Danny grabbing a hazmat suit to pose with while she dug the device from her backpack.

"—Got it," Sam waves the printed Polaroid to air out the negative.

"Okay. I showed you the portal. Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back here any minute."

Where had they been that day, anyway? Maddie wonders. Grocery shopping? Visiting the park? Moping, as they tried anything to get their minds off of their most recent failure? If they'd been there —

If they'd been there—

"Come on, Danny," comes Sam's voice, treacherous in its fascination. "A Ghost Zone? Aren't you curious?"

Danny looks into the Portal, clutching the custom white suit made specially for him. Sam smirks, knowing. "You gotta check it out."

Maddie hits pause.

Rewind.

"You gotta check it out."

Pause. Rewind.

"You gotta check it out."

Rewind.

"—gotta check it out."

The remote feels cold and heavy, like ice in her hand. In that moment, a selfishness grips her. She could blame Sam. For all if it. Everything that happened, it all started here, and it started because—

—But she can't blame Sam, because the next moment, Danny turns back, his eyes sparkling with an adventurous spirit. It's a spark of curiosity, brimming at the thought of the unknown; a look she's all too familiar with, one she's seen often on her daughter's face, her husband's - even her own, in the mirror.

"You know what? You're right. Who knows what kind of awesome, super cool things exist on the other side of that Portal?"

That curiosity, it's a Fenton trait, not one that needs to be stoked like a fire. That spark's been burning within him, since the cradle.

"Don't go in," she whispers, as if her advice could change the course of history. Even if he could hear her, though, it would be no use. He can no more resist the call than he can resist breathing.

He pulls on the hazmat suit. Skintight, white with black edging. It's like staring at a photo-negative. Watching her son, Maddie's stomach twists.

How couldn't she see it before?

"Alright. I'm going in." He says. His first footsteps echo, loud, in the hollow of the blacked out Portal…

Maddie's breath shudders in. She grips the remote and, before she can stop herself, hits the button.

Rewind.

She watches as her son walks backwards, double-time, out of the entrance to the Portal. The panic that gripped her fades.

"Mads?" From somewhere up above, echoing down the staircase, comes her husband's voice. Maddie is glued to the video screen, and almost doesn't hear him. Regardless, she definitely can't answer. What would she even say?

"Maddie?" His heavy footsteps echo in the stairwell, trudging closer. "Are you down there?"

A hitch in the tape. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Drawn by the sound, Jack trudges the rest of the way down the narrow staircase. She feels a slight reverberation in the floor when he reaches the landing behind her. She doesn't turn around.

"The police called back. Officer McNally said he'd file a missing persons report, and they promised to keep their eyes open. But—" she hears the way uncertainty causes his voice to die in his throat when she doesn't turn to greet him. After a long moment of silence, he draws up to her side. "What are you watching?" he asks at last.

"It kinda just… fizzled out. I hope they're not too upset."

Question. He'd asked a question. Maddie swallows and struggles to answer. "Security tapes," she chokes out.

Understanding, an incomplete kind, dawns on Jack, and vigor jumps back into his bones. "Mads, that's brilliant!" he booms. "Why didn't I think of it? He comes into the lab all the time! We can use the security tapes to see when he last—"

"I found this tape in Danny's room," she interrupts.

Again, his voice falters in confusion.

"Under the bed," she elaborates, as if that will help. And continues watching, detached.

"Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back any minute."

The flickering light of the tv fills the lab, ominous in its glow. Jack hesitates. Maybe he's picked up on the subtext by now. Maddie can picture his eyes drifting from the staticy screen to the items in front of it, scattered across the table. He reaches out fro the shoebox sitting beside the tv. Taped to its front, written in the cursive, unmistakable scrawl of their son's handwriting, is a note that reads:

'If I Never Come Home'

"Maddie, what is this." Jack's voice is uncharacteristically heavy. Looking to her for guidance. For answers.

For once, she has none to give.

"Watch," Maddie whispers, still trapped by the screen. Automatic, her fingers hit the button.

Rewind.

With no other options to grasp at, he does.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Watches as the kids approach the Portal.

"Aren't you curious?"

Watches as their son zips up the hazmat suit.

"Alright, I'm going in."

Watches as he disappears into the empty cavity of their greatest invention.

Click.

Watches as it thrums to life, with a scream.

"Da—Danny no!" Jack yells in tandem with the two remaining teens. He lurches forward, hand outstretched, to stop the agony onscreen. "He's not - when did he -"

"It's old, Jack," Maddie whispers. "From when the Portal started working."

Jack spins to stare at her. "You mean - Danny's the one who—" he's visibly struggling with the information, the same way she did, on her first viewing. "But—he never said—"

Right, Madie thinks. He never said anything. Jack's confusion is laughable, though. Why Danny never told them—that much is painfully clear.

"Guys?" Over the yelling and the panicking and the electric cackle from the Portal, their son's terrified voice cuts through the din. "G-guys help, what's happening?!"

Tucker and Sam are black silhouettes stumbling backwards from a swirling green glow, but they freeze and scramble to right themselves, lurching forward to catch someone as he stumbles through the gate.

Phantom - Danny - emerges from the portal, falling to his knees.

"…No," Jack says. Disbelief is thick in his voice. "That can't be… no."

Maddie lifts the remote.

Rewind.

A flash of light. A curdling scream. A shock of confusion, panic, scramble.

Danny Phantom stumbles from the portal.

Jack stares for a long time. Then he reaches out, snatching the lid of the shoebox for a second look at the evidence. The note, accusatory, stares back at them.

"This is how he tells us." Jack doesn't often whisper, but it seems like he can't do anything else. Her husband looks at the empty shoebox, the screen, the VCR. "Our son is Danny Phantom, and this is how he tells us. I…" he trails off.

Maddie almost can't believe it, how easily Jack arrives at the conclusion. It took her twelve viewings for her to wrap her mind around it, and it still hasn't really sunk in. But then, that's always been Jack's strong poing - those intuitive leaps of logic. Ones every scientist both loathed and envied.

"Did it kill him?" he moves seamlessly onto the next question that tripped her. Somehow, Jack's voice is even quieter this time.

Maddie shakes her head no. If they watch the video long enough, about ten minutes in, Danny manages to change his way back to human. If their invention did kill him, it wasn't permanent. Not that time, at least.

She's too close to thinking about it.

Rewind.

"But—" she can't stop Jack from thinking, though. He barrels on, heedless of breaking the fragile grasp Maddie has on her sanity. "But if all this time — Phantom—"

A hitch in the tape.

"We've been—"

Press play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

"—Don't tell me we've been trying to waste our own kid—"

If Maddie weren't so detached, she might laugh. Waste. God, he can't even say it.

"Trying?" she asks instead. Bitter, the word sticks to her tongue.

She's not looking at the tape now. She's looking at him. And Jack, oh, Jack, he just stares down at her, a dark horror growing in his eyes.

He whips around to look at the bloodied weapons sitting at the base of the stairs.

Exactly where they left them two days ago, after that nasty ghost fight. When they came home to find a broken house, their daughter crying at the kitchen table, and their son just - gone.

"No." Jack backs up a step. "No no no no no no no—"

A flash of light. A curdling scream—

In an instant, Jack is moving. He snatches up weapons, whatever he can find, and bolts for the staircase, vaulting his way up to ground floor. Distantly, Maddie hears the doors slam. The RV thrumming to life. The screech of tires as Jack peels out of the driveway.

In the cold wake of his departure, Maddie turns back to the tv. She should go after him, she knows. But she's not quite done watching. Jack's always been a man of action, after all, but she's the analytical one, who studies, who marvels, who gathers the facts she sees.

Phantom, onscreen, slumps against his friends while he drips ectoplasm to the floor. He stares down at his white-gloved hands, his glowing green eyes wide in shock. Maddie wonders if he knew, then, what would become of him. What his parents, who raised him, who swore to protect him, would do.

She can't face those questions. Not yet. Not yet. Instead, she lifts the remote.

And rewinds.

A good scientist, a rational scientist, never draws conclusions while she's still gathering evidence. So as long as she's still watching—

A hitch in the tape. She's at the beginning. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

As long as she keeps watching, she doesn't have to do anything with this information. All she has to do is watch.

So she watches. She rewinds. And she plays. She can't look away—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here—"

She doesn't dare.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down h—"

All she can do is rewind—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let y—"

And rewind—and rewind—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if—"

Until she finds evidence contrary to her theory…

"Mom and Dad would kill me—"

Or she finds Its inevitable End.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Rewind.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

-

[AO3] [FFN]

#Danny Phantom #Ectober #EctoberWeek2020 #Rewind #Reveal Fic #Identity Reveal #Maddie Fenton #Jack Fenton #Character Death #sorry for the length #oneshot

[bibliophilea]

The End - Ch. 1

Happy Holiday Truce, @mystyrust! Sorry to make you wait - I wanted to do something big, but I forgot to take into account two things: I am a slow writer, and this story became too big to handle as a oneshot. I do have big ideas for where I want this story to go, but we'll see how the story builds itself as I write! Happy Holidays!

If elements of this story seem familiar, that’s because they are! This is based on @lexosaurus‘s tags on @dannys-phucking-dead‘s post! I hope you enjoy!

ffn | ao3

>1< 2 3 4 ...

"Listen. I've met a lot of great asteroids. Really fantastic asteroids. And they've all told me themselves — they said that I was a great president. All of them said that — all one hundred thousand asteroids. I was there."

The camera switches to Tiffany Snow, sitting at the anchor desk.

"This is what President Drumpf had to say yesterday regarding NASA's claims that an unforeseen asteroid is approximately 21 days from hitting the Earth, creating an extinction-level event on par with what took out the dinosaurs," Snow states with a cheerful smile. "Polls suggest that approximately 48.2% of the population believe NASA's claims to be a hoax; 29.5% believe it's the end of the world; and 22.3% is undecided. Lance, can you tell us a bit about Amity Park's response to NASA's claims?"

The camera switches to a street view outside of Amity Park's capitol building. People crowd the streets, many of them yelling and holding signs. Some signs read "THE END IS NIGH". Others say "ASTEROID SHMASTEROID". A few say "DEFUND NASA". One sign says "[citation needed]".

"Certainly, Tiffany," Lance Thunder replies, nearly shouting over the crowd. "As you can see here, tensions are high in Amity Park. Citizens gather to make their voices heard amidst NASA's claims of doom and gloom. Hey, Bob, what do you think of NASA's statement?"

Thunder turns to a middle aged man beside him wearing a bright red cap. The man bends to put his face by the microphone Thunder is brandishing.

"It's fake news, is what it is! I mean, come on! How does a freaking asteroid come out of nowhere? It's a China conspiracy, I tell you!"

Bob nods, and Thunder takes back the microphone. "Well, you heard it here, folks. Amity Park's citizens think NASA's claims are a ho—"

"THE END IS NIGH!"

A woman wearing a sign with the same message butts in, snatching the microphone from Thunder.

"The Disasteroid cometh for us all! Soon it will be Judgement Day and all of you Non Believers will be found Wanting!"

Thunder squawks. "Hey! That is APN property! Give that back!"

The camera turns to focus on Thunder and the woman as they fight over the microphone, their squabbling barely audible over the feedback. Then the feed cuts back to Tiffany Snow.

"Wow Lance, looks like no one can break Amity Park's spirit," Snow says with a grin. "In other news, Congress has voted to defund NASA—"

The TV clicks off.

Danny carefully puts down the remote before he allows himself to shake. His fists clench, and he hides them under folded arms, lest they be seen bursting into ectoplasmic flame. His face feels taut, teeth clenched, eyes abnormally dry. Toxic green edges his vision, and he clamps his eyes shut, lest they be seen glowing green with his anger.

And oh, he is angry.

NASA is a world leader in space aviation and exploration, and Congress is defunding them. And for what? Because they told the truth? Because there's a humongous asteroid about to hit the Earth? They should be funneling emergency money towards NASA, not taking money away! The world needs NASA, now more than ever! Danny has seen the images NASA shared — the images the media doesn't dare share, lest the wrath of one President Drumpf befall them. He doesn't know how everyone missed it — it's huge and it's glowing green and no stars glow green like that — but now that everyone knows about it, there should be some sort of plan to stop it, right? Wrong! The president says it's fake news, and Congress follows suit, and the biggest space programs in the world can't agree on what to do about it when half the world doesn't even think it's real and oh god we're gonna die like actually 100% die and it's not ghosts it's not Pariah Dark it's a big fucking SPACE ROCK that's going to do us in for good and there'll be no more habitable Earth and no more Ghost Zone and we're all going to DIE—

A hand touches Danny's knee, and he gasps, eyes flying open, cringing away from the contact.

Through the green haze in his vision he sees bright orange and immediately shuts his eyes again. They can't see, can't see him freak out, can't see his powers freak out with him—

The hand touches his knee again, and he freezes at the touch, body tense, teeth clenched, eyes shut tight. Another hand touches his arm and he takes in a breath, shuddering as the hand slowly moves to his shoulder, and then to his back, rubbing large, soothing circles. Danny tries to time his breathing to the circles, like Jazz had taught him to, and slowly the blood rushing in his ears (when had that happened?) quiets to a dull roar.

"There we go Danny, see, just breathe. You're okay. You're at home, and Mom and Dad are out, and you don't have to hide."

Danny uncurls slightly at the sound of his sister's voice. He opens his eyes a crack — just enough to see past the green haze — and really looks this time. The orange isn't the same shade as his dad's jumpsuit — it's a lighter, more natural color, and it surrounds a face with concerned, green eyes. Jazz. Jazz is here, and she has her hand on his knee, and she's rubbing circles into his back, and he's kind of sort of getting the hang of breathing with the rhythm of those circles. He leans into her, and she bundles him into a hug, still rubbing circles into his back.

The front door opens, and Danny and Jazz both freeze. Jazz said Mom and Dad are out, but what if they're back? They can't see him like this, they'll find out!

Danny has half a mind to just turn invisible when their voices hit his ears.

"Man, dude, did you see what Congress did to NASA? That's so unfair!"

"It's totally unfair! They're just telling the truth! This whole administration is the absolute worst!"

Tucker. Sam. Danny relaxes slightly at their voices, but he doesn't turn around — doesn't want them to see him like this, either.

But it's too late.

"Woah, dude, you okay?"

"Danny!"

He hears them rush over to him — feels their worry and the warmth of their bodies as they get close — and tenses up again. He should be better than this, stronger than this! He shouldn't be freaking out about some dumb news report.

Not just a dumb news report, his brain helpfully supplies. We're all going to die. And there's nothing you can do about it.

All of a sudden, Jazz's embrace feels too tight. To constraining. Trapping him where he is.

He slips intangible and flees from Jazz, flees from his friends — flees upwards, up through the ceiling and through the roof and through the Ops Center, flees until there's no more house to flee from. He lands hard on the roof of the Ops Center, scraping his knees but it doesn't matter, hands scorching the metal but who cares, it's just the end of the world—

He pulls his knees to his chest and buries his head in them, his face screwing as he tries to get a hold of himself, tries to rein himself in, it's just the end of the world, just the end of Mom and Dad and Jazz and Sam and Tucker and school and movies and parks and people and everything and everyone he'd ever tried to protect—

"Bite this."

Danny feels something cool touch his lips, and he bites down — then coughs and spits as bitter rind and sour citrus burst in his mouth.

He looks up to see Tucker triumphantly brandishing a whole lemon with a chunk bitten out of it. Sam and Jazz stand to either side of him, varying levels of worry and amusement fighting for dominance in their faces. Danny spits again, and stares at the bits of rind and lemon pulp that vacate his mouth.

"What the hell?"

"Told you it'd work!" Tucker crows.

"A lemon?" Danny splutters.

"It's an... unorthodox grounding technique," Jazz responds, "and it normally isn't administered like that—"

"Point is, it works," Sam interjects. "How're you feeling?"

Danny stares at the three of them for a moment. Then he sighs and chuckles darkly. "The worlds going to end because too many people don't believe NASA about an asteroid hurtling towards Earth, and Tucker made me bite into a lemon. How am I supposed to feel?"

He sighs again, long, hard, and shuddering, and he lets himself fall backwards onto the warm metal of the Ops Center roof. Jazz lies down across from him, and Sam and Tucker lie to either side of him, all their heads nearly touching. The sky above them is bright blue, clear of clouds. Birds flit across Danny's vision, twittering as they chase each other before flying off to who knows where. Does it even matter? They'll all be dead in a few weeks.

"I don't want to die again."

The words slip from his mouth, and he feels his breath hitch, watches as his vision goes blurry. His hands begin to clench into fists — but then Sam and Tucker take his hands, massaging the tension from his fingers and palms, and Jazz runs her hand through his hair like she used to do when they were kids and he'd had a nightmare, and something in him breaks.

A sob wrenches itself from his throat, and he curls in on himself. His sister and friends move to hold him close, and he can't help but lean into their touch. They hold him as his eyes glow green, as his hands fist into the metal of the roof, as his sobs take on a ghostly tinge, nearly wailing his grief and his anger and his fear into the sky. He shudders as he cries, and feels as they shudder with him — feels as Sam and Tucker push their faces into his shirt, and as Jazz buries her face in his hair — feels as his shirt and his head where their faces lie become damp.

Crying. They're crying.

And it's his fault.

A wave of guilt washes over him, and he wants to pull away again, wants to force himself to stop crying, to be strong for them. But their grips on him tighten, and they speak to him, words warped by their own tears. "Just let it out," Tucker mutters into his back. "It's okay to cry," Sam whispers into his shoulder. "You don't have to hide," Jazz repeats into his hair.

But beneath their words, beneath their tight hold on him and the way they push their faces against him is a hidden plea: "Stay," they say.

Please stay.

So Danny stays.

Danny stays, and they cry together, and the sun shines down upon them from the clear blue sky.

*~*~*

Danny doesn't know how long it's been. Only that he's no longer crying, and that his friends and sister are no longer crying. They've melted into a cuddle pile of four, with Danny at the center, and the sun beats down on them from a different angle than before. Danny has wound up with his head in Jazz's lap, and she's playing with his hair. Sam and Tucker are on top of him, still holding his hands. Their weight is comforting.

Danny is exhausted. He just wants to fall asleep and deal with everything later. Crying in front of your friends and sister will do that, his brain helpfully supplies. So will the end of the world.

He sighs heavily and moves to sit up. Sam and Tucker get off him, still holding his hands, and Jazz helps him up, moving from playing with his hair to rubbing circles on his back. He smiles faintly at all of them.

"Thanks, guys," he whispers hoarsely. He really does have the best friends and best sister in the world.

Too bad they're all going to die in three weeks.

He frowns and sighs again, too tired to cry.

"It's heavy stuff, huh," Jazz says gently. Danny looks back at her, an eyebrow raised. She continues. "The thought of everything ending like that — it's really hard to think about. Hell, I'm having trouble processing it." She smiles gently at him. "It's okay to be scared and angry, and it's okay to be scared and angry in front of us. You don't have to hide."

"Okay, okay, I get it," Danny mutters. "No more running away."

"Good," Sam remarks. "Now, what are we going to do about everything?"

"What do you mean?" Danny asks.

"You know. The asteroid?" Sam raises an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah. That." Danny frowns down at the roof of the Ops Center. The metal is warped and singed where his hands had dug into it. "What are we supposed to do about that?" He looks back up at Sam. Her eyes bear into his, and her grip on his hand tightens.

"Look, I know this is hard for you. It's hard for me, too. But we can't just sit here and do nothing."

Danny frowns at her. He opens his mouth to respond, but Tucker gets there first.

"Look, I know we need to have this conversation, I really do. But can we have it inside? The metal's starting to get really hot." Tucker stands up, rubbing his free hand on his jeans from touching the roof.

Danny sighs and stands up, stretching the kinks from his back. Sam and Jazz stand up with him.

"On it," Danny says. "Everyone hold tight."

He feels Sam's and Tucker's grips tighten on his hands, and he feels Jazz grab his shoulder. With a poke at his core, he tugs them all intangible, slipping through the roof to the refreshingly cool interior of the Ops Center. He lets go of intangibility and lets gravity embrace them slowly, gently depositing them all on the floor of the Ops Center. Then he lets go of his friends' hands and steps forwards, turning so he's facing the three of them.

"So, what are we supposed to do, huh? Half the world thinks the asteroid's a hoax, and the other half either doesn't have the money to do anything, or is stuck in petty arguments about what to do and who's to blame and all that shit." Danny crosses his arms and frowns.

"Dude, you're the Ghost King," Tucker's quick to reply. "Doesn't that mean you can, like, do anything?"

Danny facepalms. "Oh my god, Tucker, I'm not the Ghost King. I told the Observants I don't want any part of it. And besides, even if I were, who's going to listen to me? Klemper? The Box Ghost? I'm sure they can convince the world to get its shit together!"

"Hey!" Sam interjects. "You can't just focus on what we can't do. We need to focus on what we can do, as a team."

"Oh, and what can we do, Sam? We're way out of our depth here! The four of us can't stop the asteroid from hitting Earth!"

"You're right, Danny," Jazz says. Sam and Tucker gape at her.

"But dude—"

"You can't just—"

"Hey, let me speak!" Jazz waits until Sam and Tucker close their mouths — Tucker with a perplexed look on his face, Sam with an expectant frown.

"We are out of our depth," Jazz states. "We don't have the resources or political pull here on Earth or in the Ghost Zone to make a significant difference." She pauses. "But we know someone who does."

It takes a moment, but Sam gets it first.

"Oh, ew, we are not asking him for help!"

"Wait." Tucker says. "Asking who for—" horror dawns on his face. "Oh, no. No no no. We can't! Why would you even think of that?"

"Think of what?" Danny asks, a little annoyed that he doesn't get it.

"Asking Vlad," Sam, Tucker, and Jazz reply.

"Oh, ew!" Danny says automatically.

Jazz rolls her eyes. "It's not like I want to talk to him either! I just think given the circumstances, we don't have much choice."

"There's always a choice, Jazz," Sam retorts. "He'll probably try and force Danny to stay with him in exchange for his help."

"Yeah, Jazz," Tucker adds. "He's a slimeball. Who knows how he'll try to play this to his advantage."

"But—"

"I think Jazz is right," Danny says.

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz stare at Danny, flabbergasted. Danny blushes.

"Well, it's like Jazz said — I don't want to, but I don't think we have a choice. We need his help. And besides," he says with a smirk, "the man is way too narcissistic. He doesn't want to die because half the world doesn't believe what's right in front of their faces."

"And we can use that to our advantage," Jazz adds. "He knows he'll need help with whatever scheme he's plotting, and there isn't enough time for him to be picky."

"So, what? We go to him for help, and threaten to walk if he tries to pull anything?" Sam raises an eyebrow.

"Exactly." Jazz and Danny grin at each other.

Tucker sighs and pulls out his PDA. "Alright, fine. One meeting with one seriously messed up frootloop coming right up."

Danny stares. "Dude, what are you doing?"

Tucker looks up. "Um, scheduling a meeting with our evil mayor?"

Sam shakes her head. "He's probably booked. We'll have better luck if we just show up."

Jazz nods. "He's probably expecting us anyways."

Tucker sighs and puts away his PDA. "Alright, fine. But can we take a moment to clean up? I don't know about you guys, but my face is crusty."

Danny looks at his friends and sister. Their hair is a mess, and their eyes are still rimmed red. Sam's mascara has dried after running down her face, and Tucker's glasses and Jazz's headband are askew. Danny figures he doesn't look much better.

He nods. "Alright. But after that, we have a meeting with one seriously messed up frootloop!"

#danny phantom #holiday truce 2020 #christmas truce 2020 #phantom planet #danny fenton #jazz fenton #tucker foley #sam manson #rewrite #dp fanfic #dp fic #mystyrust #lexosaurus #dannys phucking dead #danny #jazz #tucker #sam #i'm sorry this is so late! #but i hope you like this! #i have Ideas for this story #and i'm excited to get to them! #but the kids needed to let their emotions loose first #my work #my write #not a q

[mischiefandspirits]

Doppelgänger (17/19)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Reign Storm, Part 3}

“It’s like shooting skeleton fish in a barrel,” Doppelgänger chuckled as they flew up to Valerie’s side, blasting one of the skeleton’s harrowing her as their own crowd rushed into the football stadium after them.

“They don’t put up much of a fight, but there’s a lot of them,” she argued. “You going to duplicate?”

“Already did. We've got our own crowds.”

“It’d be nice if you could make yourself a crowd in return.”

“Sorry, we’re still working on making more than three of us.”

“Hello, son.”

Doppelgänger gave a long, drawn-out groan as Plasmius flew up to the two despite still firing on the skeletons. The older ghost tried to speak when they’d finished, only for the ghost kid to start right back up.

“Are you quite done?” Plasmius asked over the groaning.

Valerie turned to fire at him, but he dodged to the side. He stopped with Doppelgänger between her and him.

The younger ghost stopped their groaning to say, “You know, a human shield only works if the shield’s both bigger than you and someone that the person you’re hiding from won’t shoot. We are neither of those.”

“You’re also not human,” Valerie pointed out.

“I think that’s debatable, but we’ll add it to the list,” they said and fired a blast at Plasmius.

“Calm down, son! I didn't come here to fight you! You have other things to worry about!”

“Okay, even if we were your kid -- which we aren’t because gross -- we’re nonbinary, so still not your son. So get lost. We have this under control!”

A blur of black barreled into them and rose up to reveal a knight in black armor atop a pegasus. The knight had Doppelgänger by the throat and pointed his sword at them. “You are the one who destroyed the King’s ring.”

“We’re not one, but we have destroyed a ring recently. Not sure if it was a king’s, though. Can we get a description?” Doppelgänger said before a swirl of comets wrapped around them and they disappeared.

Another swirl appeared behind the knight, leaving behind the ghost kid. They cheered and shot a blast that unseated the knight. “Yes, it worked. Still not as far as we’d meant to go, but we’ll take it.”

“If you would allow me to trai-” Plasmius started.

“Not interested. Now make yourself useful.” Doppelgänger pointed at the knight, who was pulling himself to his feet.

The knight’s eyes locked onto Valerie and narrowed. “You also carry the ring’s mark.”

She leveled her rifle at him, but a pair of blasts knocked him away before she could fire.

“Right on time,” Doppelgänger said as their two copies flew into the stadium. “Wait a second, is that the Fright Knight? Who? He’s the age-old spirit of Halloween.” The trio began to casually blast the knight back and forth across the field as they spoke together. “Legend has it that if his sword The Soul Shredder cuts through you, you get teleported to a dimension where you live out your worst fear. We read about him in the book we got for Halloween. Did the book have any way to defeat him? We think there was something about a pumpkin, but we can’t remember. We’ll go check.”

One of the ghost kids shot off, giving the knight a chance to finally dodge a blast. “Fools! All I wanted to do was retrieve those who destroyed the ring and return to Pariah's Keep, but now, you give me no choice.” He knelt and held up his sword, point down. “By the authority vested in me by my Lord and Liege…” The sword began to glow and he drove it into the ground, causing a wave of energy to roll outwards across the ground. “I claim this town now and forever under the banner of Lord Pariah, the King of All Ghosts!”

Energy shot up from the sword high into the air before rolling outwards to form a green dome across the city.

Both remaining Doppelgängers fired at the knight, but he ducked away. “The sword has sunk, your die now cast, The sword removed shall signal fast. Surrender your-”

He was cut off as a blast knocked him rolling across the ground.

“We hate rhymes. Did we find a pumpkin?”

The third Doppelgänger flew up with a smirk and pulled a fake jack-o'-lantern out of thin air.

“Found it in the boxes of old Halloween decorations like we said.”

They landed next to the sword and dropped the decoration at their feet.

“Gotta move fast. Cover us. Red, Plasmius, keep the skeleton’s back. We’ll handle tall, dark, and fashionable. Fashionable? Really? Yes, we love that aesthetic.”

Val nodded and pulled out her grenade launcher as the other two placed themselves between their third and the knight, but Plasmius’s attention was on the ghost kid.

“What are you planning?”

The ghost kid smirked and wrapped their hand around the sword’s grip.

“To cease the storm…”

“No,” the knight yelled, but the ghost kid’s copies kept him back.

“To end the fear…”

“Wait!” Plasmius yelled as the ghost kid began to draw the sword from the ground.

“The sword must sheathe…”

As soon as the blade left the ground, the energy feeding into the dome cut off and it began to crack. Instead of the sky being behind it, Valerie saw the endless green of the ghost zone.

“In pumpkin near!”

Doppelgänger sank the sword into the fake pumpkin and everything froze. Then the sky returned.

White and green light began to pour from the decoration as the dome shuddered then began to rise up and flow back into the sword in a reverse of how it had just formed.

“No, NO!” the knight shouted as a vortex formed above the sword and began to draw him in.

Valerie only had a second to feel victorious before the vortex began to pull at her as well. She lost her footing on her board, but the ghost kid flew in to help her. Two of them grabbed her and the last grabbed her board before they all flew to the bleachers and grabbed hold. Once she was sure she was safe, she looked over the field.

Plasmius had taken refuge on a goal post, but many of the skeletons were being sucked up. The knight was clawing at the ground, but soon lost his grip and disappeared into the swirling green. Once he was gone, the vortex slowed and dissipated while the pumpkin holding the sword -- now looking like an actual jack-o'-lantern, if purple with a green glow -- vanished in a flash.

“Well, that’s one down,” Doppelgänger said.

“You idiot! The sword was a signal!” Plasmius yelled, brushing himself off.

“Yeah, we heard. That’s why we got rid of it!”

“Not soon enough.”

The teens looked up to see a large ghost floating over them.

After a second, one of the ghost kids pointed at him.

“You know, we expected more from the King of All Ghosts. He’s just a guy. A tall guy, but still.”

Another nodded, looking disappointed.

“Yeah, what is this Odin wannabe nonsense? We thought we’d be facing some beautiful Lovecraftian horror. We feel ripped off.”

The third tilted their head.

“He’s not even that big. Like ten feet, maybe. The dragon made a more impressive sight, and she was literally just a fairytale princess. You’d think a king could do better.”

“Are you done ticking him off?” Valerie asked, watching Dark get angrier and angrier.

They shrugged. “We’re just saying. He doesn’t even have a crown.”

Then the one who’d tilted their head shot to the side, the one who’d nodded stepped in front of Valerie and raised a shield, and the one who’d pointed braced for impact as Dark sent a massive blast towards them.

The shield held, but the ghost kid was forced to a knee as they poured their strength into it and it shattered apart as soon as it wasn’t needed. Once it was down, Valerie could see that the one who’d taken the blast head-on had created a crater in the bleachers that they were pulling themself out of. Meanwhile, the one who’d avoided it was zipping around the field, keeping Dark’s attention. They fired upon the king while bobbing and weaving around the return fire.

It didn’t look like the attacks were doing much damage.

“That hurt,” they said as the one limped towards her and their kneeling copy turned to her. “You should get clear.”

“We should all fall back,” Plasmius said, appearing next to them.

“Even if we could, he’d destroy the town trying to chase us down. You can run if you want to,” they said then they shot towards the field.

One landed and held their hands out. Thick wires shot out of the ground and grabbed Dark’s legs, electrocuting him in the process. At the same time, the other ghost kid shot towards the fight. They engaged the king as the one that had been fighting him backed off. They reached to the side and plucked a pot holding a glowing spider-like plant out of nowhere. They chucked the plant at Dark’s head then re-engaged him as their copy pulled back to command the plant to wrap around the king’s eyes and neck.

“The boy has Chlorokinesis?” Plasmius said.

“You didn’t know that?” Valerie said, checking her rifle and calling her board to her.

“He’s never used it against me. He’s only even used the Technokinesis recently.”

“They’ve had both for as long as I’ve known them. They’ve tried to use it on me, but I’m usually too high for the plants and my gear’s protected against their control.”

“ENOUGH!”

The two looked up to see Dark snatch the plant-controlling ghost kid from the air and throw them. The other flying one tried to catch them, but they both ended up crashing to the ground. The third flew over to them as the king tore off the wires and burned away the plant.

“Our baby,” the ghost kid whined, one staring at the plant’s burning remains with fury.

“Surrender, children! You can't possibly win!”

“Surrender isn’t in our vocabulary. And we can’t possibly let you loose on our city.” The one that had been controlling the wires helped the one that had been thrown to their feet, letting them lean against them, as the other placed themself in front of the two. “Besides, we don't have to win. we just have to make sure that you lose.”

Dark scowled and shot a blast at them. The one in front summoned a shield, but it shattered almost immediately and the three took most of the blast.

Valerie leveled her rifle at Dark, but Plasmius yanked it away.

“Don’t be foolish, girl. He will kill you.”

“Like you care.

“Considering you’re my only help, I do. We need a plan.”

“Face it, children, it's over.”

Valerie turned back to the field to see Dark walking towards the trio as they slowly got up onto their knees.

“No,” they growled. “No!”

Shaking with pain, the trio looked up. 

Their goggles glowed with black energy and then three things happened at once.

The one on the left threw their head back and screamed. Black sonic waves tore through the field and slammed into the king.

The one in the middle doubled over, hands clawing at the ground as they keened. Thick black vines wove in and out of the ground in front of them until they could latch onto the king, wrapping around his arms and legs to tear deep gashes into his skin with their thorns.

The one on the right wrapped their arms around themselves and sobbed. Black tears flowed down their face and formed a void beneath them that stretched out underneath the king.

The vines held him still, the rings drained his power, and the void drew him in.

Dark thrashed against his bindings, but they held and he was soon consumed by the darkness.

The trio collapsed.

The field went silent, the vines shriveled into nothing, and the darkness faded.

Consciousness clearly fading, the trio latched hands and fell through the ground.

Oddly though, they didn’t seem to go intangible and Valerie swore she saw the faintest hint of a white-blue-purple light just before they completely disappeared.

Slowly, she turned to Plasmius to see him gaping at the now empty field. “Did you know they had that kind of power?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny stared out at the stars as Blobena nuzzled up against his cheek.

“My everything hurts,” Tucker croaked, the first sound any of them had made since Danny had dropped them into the Space Fold then promptly passed out. He’s not sure how long they’ve been in there now, but he’s been awake for at least an hour and he knew the others woke before him.

“Sh!” Sam moaned.

It was quiet for a few moments, then Sam asked, “Danny. Why are your blobs in here? More importantly, why is one trying to eat my hair?”

With a sigh, Danny turned to see Sam and the blob in question. “I think Blobson likes the taste of your shampoo. He did the same thing to me two weeks ago when you let me shower at your place after the fight with Garbage Manster.”

“Wait, you seriously named them all? And with blob puns?” Tucker said, pinwheeling slowly near Sam’s feet. “I thought that was just a joke you and Valerie were telling.”

“We had a lot of time in that cage, okay?”

“Danny, get this thing off my hair or I’m smashing it.”

The boy pouted, but reached over to scoop up the blob. He set him on his shoulder next to Bloberick.

“Now again, what are they doing here?”

“In my defense, I just meant to hide them in here for a second because my mom was coming down the stairs and I didn’t have time to get them all back through the portal. I’ve tried to get them to leave, but they won’t.”

“You keep my ghost plants in here!” she huffed, gesturing to the quartet of pots holding plants she’d gathered from the ghost zone.

“They don’t bother them, promise!”

“Speaking of which, how dare you throw Arachne at that jerk!”

“Our ecto-beams weren’t doing much! I thought the poison on her fronds would help!”

“We can get you a new one, Sam,” Tucker said. “It’s not like it was sentient like Audrey II.”

“We can get you a new phone, Tucker,” she shot back. “It’s not like it’s sentient like Audrey II.”

“She’s as good as!” Tucker gasped, pulling his phone out to clutch it to his chest. “Talk to me, baby.”

“Hello, Tuck-man. The time is 9:34 p.m.”

Danny snickered. “Tuck-man.”

“Shut it, Danny Blobton,” Tucker said, grabbing one of the blobs floating near him and tossing it at Danny.

If anything, the blob seemed to be pleased by the action, even as it squished against his forehead. It gave a singing buzz and nuzzled further against him.

“Great, now Blobnessa is never going to let go.”

“Dude, you’ve got issues.”

“Wait, did your phone say it was after nine at night?” Sam asked, turning to Tucker.

“Yeah, it said… Oh man, how long have we been gone for?”

“My parents are probably tearing the town apart looking for me,” Danny groaned.

“Not to mention your girlfriend. I’m sure my parents are already blaming you. Crud, I’m going to have to wear their stupid dresses for a week if they’re ever going to let me see you again,” Sam said, grabbing Danny’s arm and tugging him to her.

“I swear, if my parents try to take me on one of those tech-free relaxation getaways because of this, I’m moving into the fold. Blobs or not,” Tucker muttered, hooking his ankle around Sam’s.

Danny gently shooed and brushed all the blobs off himself then turned all three of them invisible and dropped them onto the football field.

Thankfully no one was around so they turned visible and climbed to their feet.

“We’re going to need alibis,” Sam said.

“Got cornered by some skeletons in an abandoned building?” Tucker offered. “Only came out when we were sure it was safe, but then didn’t recognize where we were and stumbled about until we found somewhere familiar.”

“Sounds good enough for me,” Danny yawned. “Can either of you transform?”

They shook their heads.

“Guess we’re walking.”

They only made it a block before the Fenton RV came roaring up and a hysterical Maddie Fenton tackled Danny to the ground.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #valerie gray #sam manson #tucker foley #Doppelgänger au

[my-sherlock221b]

Supernatural Rewatch Ramblings: Dead in the Water

This episode is the first one to be directed by Kim Manners. It was written by Raelle Tucker and Sera Gamble. It is still the MoTW format and once again the ‘monster’ is something that was created by human action. Ordinary seeming stories—of bullying, lies, cover up—with deadly consequences.

Read below the cut for more and also watch out for the add-ons by my partner in crime @soulmates-for-real​ who does the most amazing gifsets and image galleries 😎

It reminded me of this quote:

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

It is a chilling experience—both the actual monster when we do finally see it and the backstory of what really happened. These monsters are all created by the flawed human beings. Here is another quote from the same source which could well be the underlying bedrock of the two very different approaches we see Sam and Dean take in later episodes to the whole saving people hunting things.

“Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.” .

Philosophical overtones aside, we are also getting more glimpses into the heads and hearts of the two leads.

It is already obvious that Dean has put the whole ‘Dad- is- missing- and- hasn’t- been-home-in -a -few-days stuff’ on the back burner till …ummm  forever ? cos he has Sammy in front of his eyes who is sitting shotgun and being completely brotherly and sniping and bitching while also being boyfriend- level possessive.

As I said in the earlier review- I was just so swept away by the swashbuckling swagger of Dean that so obviously was an armour for his vulnerability that I almost didn’t notice Sam much. This is the episode where he became something more for me. Someone who was also finding out what Dean was all about at the same time as we were.

Someone who could pull him down to earth with a sharp: ‘People don’t just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them.’

But also reach out to him and remind him that they ‘can’t save everyone’.

In an early scene in the episode Sam scolds Dean for even starting to flirt with the waitress. 

He smirks when Andrea shoots Dean down. He mocks Dean’s pick- up line about kids are the best. He seems pleased in a very petty way that Dean’s attempt has failed and that he has no choice now but to hang out with Sam and to give him his full attention.

The episode does have plot holes –that house Lucas draws and the history of the friendship of the two men and the missing boy surely must be well known to everyone in that small town, including Lucas’s mother and how come no one joins the dots etc. etc.

But small quibbles aside, we get to see that the past casts long shadows—whether sins of the past or just events of the past. ( again a parallel to the lives of the Winchesters themselves. And in later seasons we find out just how far back into the past those shadows reach!)

We see that Dean connects with the mute boy, Lucas, but then we learn that he can do this because he had also shut down after he saw his mother die and he knows how scary the world can seem and how he needed to make himself brave to carry on.

Sam watches from the sidelines and we can see him have an ‘oh ok’ moment as he stores away this information because it has clearly never been discussed in the family earlier. Kudos to Jared for being amazing with the ‘active listening’ that Sheila O’Malley references so often.

So despite Sam challenging him to name 3 kids he even knows, we see that Dean actually focusses on the kid throughout. The shared sense of loss aside, maybe Dean also sees himself as the protector of all little kids especially after the Shtriga incident. (which we don’t know anything about yet) (and we do see him bond with kids in every episode that involves kids. It is adorable !!)

In this episode Dean is almost drowning in his dad’s leather jacket and the way the silver ring looks on his hand is just ridiculously sexy…sigh….and that amulet right where it belongs…..deeper sigh. Then the cocky grin, the unsubtle flirting, all macho/manly/me- so- hetero/me- see- me- conquer on the outside but the soft squidgy child- whispering caramel centre, the trauma of being a motherless kid—having become motherless in a brutal way, a missing and probably almost cruel dad, a brother he raised as his own who walked out on him to go seek his own dreams….all these layers are being put together slowly for us.

Dean is not what he seemed to be and that brash swashbuckling exterior hides a very complex and interesting person. The script and direction were excellent of course but Jensen brought to it just the perfect balance of bad-boy + I wuv hugs.

Sam is still finding his way into the story and we are still watching things from Dean’s perspective as narrator which is fascinating to realize during the re-watch. As I have mentioned earlier, I was so swept away by Dean that it took me a very long time to focus on Sam as a separate person.

Ok, now, all together shout--- --WHY do people DO the following things??!!!

Put hands elbow deep into a sink, give lifts to obvious deranged malevolent spirits in human form, ‘let’s split up so we can cover more ground’, go into a shower/bath in a scary scene—can’t they HEAR the dun-dun-dun music score in the background?!! Sheesh.

Anyway.     *eyeroll*

In a not- at- all- very- surprising turn of events Sam and Dean’s fake identity is called out and they are asked to leave town, which they do. But ….of course Dean does a very dramatic turn on the highway and takes them back to make sure the kid is ok!

Then Sam rescues the mother from the lethal bath- tub while Dean makes sure the kid is safe. Then they start to connect even more dots and eventually we see an incredible heroic rescue scene in the scary lake with Dean and the boy.

Jensen had described this shot in some interview as the most terrifying scene he had ever done apparently because he was responsible not only for doing the scene right but also for the young boy’s safety underwater.

What a fabulous visual we do get finally, with the boy in his embrace as they shoot out of the water!

That lake with its dark water is one super creepy place. That very first scene where we see the girl swimming from an underwater perspective had me yelling at the screen for her to GET OUT NOW.

So, finally, all is sorted and revenge has been had and bad folks die, good folks live and as they leave the town of course Lucas chats with Dean and they high five and just like the sister in the Wendigo episode, the young mother in this one also gives Dean a kiss on his cheek. Dean of course blushes and goes all gruff and drives off with Sam smirking in the shotgun seat.

The pattern is beginning to be established.

I am loving it!😍

.

The gag reel of this episode shows Jensen leaping into Jared’s arms.

This is the third episode only. So they have known each other only for a couple of months at this point?! Hmm…my J2 tinhat is also shining. And also wow. I mean Jensen is NOT a tiny guy.

  Here are some other possibly more erudite and informed reviews if you would like to go down that rabbit hole like I did.

This one is cool https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2016/05/10/supernatural-s1-e3-dead-water-summary/ and gives a fun and interesting score at the end which goes like this

Episode 3 counts:

Woman in the Fridge: 1

For Sophie Carlton being the first to get murdered by the vengeful spirit. It’s obviously meant to hook us harder: I mean, nobody would care as much about obnoxious brother Will, right?

Revenge from Beyond the Grave: 4

Sophie Carlton, Will Carlton, Bill Carlton, and Jake Devins.

Brotherly Love: 2

I had to give one to Sam for cock-blocking his brother right at the start. Another point goes to Dean’s sick-of-your-attitude lecture to his little brother, throwing Sam’s decision to go to college while Dean stayed behind with their dad in his face.

Toxic Masculinity: 1

For Dean downplaying his grief when Sam draws him out about the aftermath of their mother’s death.

Swimming in Sexism: 2

For Will Carlton’s comment to his sister that “guys don’t like buff girls.” I added a point for all the times they had Dean hitting on any available woman. They do want us to be extra-very sure he’s hetero, don’t they?

Cumulative Counts: Dean’s Man Tears: 3

One point awarded for all Dean’s choking up about Mom. We’re now three for three, folks.

.

This review totally calls out Dean LOL. I love the reviews that were written as first watch because they are without the benefit of hindsight we have on a re-watch.

.

http://markwatches.net/reviews/2013/11/mark-watches-supernatural-s01e03-dead-in-the-water/

“It was fascinating to me, then, that through this, Sam was able to learn about Dean’s own emotional reasoning behind his hunting. Of course, Dean, being the most stereotypical dude of all dudes who ever duded, has to immediately act like feelings aren’t cool because BLEH. Okay, that is one aspect of Dean that I’m not terribly interested in, especially since he expresses feelings like every five seconds. The whole “I am a straight man and I’m very straight and look at that butt straight I’m straight” thing is already exhausting because I get it. You don’t need to tell me this every five seconds.” 

The comments to this review are also super entertaining with gems like this:

“So, if you knew that someone had drowned in the lake recently and their body was never found, WHY WOULD YOU STILL GO SWIMMING IN THE LAKE? Especially if two people had. It wouldn't make you think, "Hey, maybe there's something dangerous in that lake?" This show has some of the least genre savvy people EVER. Like, for example, once this mysterious death thing shows up in a sink, why would anyone want to take a bath or really ever fill any basin with water again? Seriously, is this the Bad Decision Olympics?”

.

Here is an awesome review from Fangasm also

https://fangasmthebook.com/2021/01/13/looking-back-on-dead-in-the-water-classic-supernatural/

#spn meta #spn #spn review #j2 #j2 tinhat #wincest

[datawyrms]

Prove it with one hand behind your back

Dannymay day 12: Gloves There is reference to the events in Hypothesis, but can be read stand alone. Now Ao3′d “Uhhh, Danny?” Jazz called up the stairs, laundry basket under her arm.

“What? I’ll get my stuff when it’s dry!” Her brother yelled back down, apparently not interested in leaving his room so they could speak semi-normally.

“Normally it would be my duty as your sister to throw your wash on the floor. Were you aware your laundry is glowing?”

Her frazzled brother appeared at the stairs then, taking them two at a time. “Geeze Jazz, tell the whole neighborhood why don’t ya?” he hissed as he passed.

“Mom and Dad aren’t here, and you’re welcome.”

“Obviously. Jerk.” he made an exaggerated frown at her before ducking into the washer, dragging out handfuls of the expected tee-shirts and jeans followed by an impressive amount of mismatched lightly glowing gloves.

“You’re taking trophies now?” she raised an eyebrow, unsure what to make of it. Not a single one had a pair, and none of them were even his ghost form’s hazmat gloves. Quite a few of them looked rather elaborate, some very interesting embroidered patterns making it obviously not something of her brother’s making. Delicacy was not his strong suit.

“Huh? No! These are-” he paused, taking a breath as he covered the glowing handwear with several shirts. “You remember that whole Sam got dragged to the ghost zone because Aragon’s an idiot thing?”

“The self important dragon shapeshifter with some serious hangups and anger issues?”

“Yeah, that one.” he nodded, rubbing at his chin. “Did I mention Dora sort of knighted us for helping drive him out of power?”

“No, but I’m pretty used to you leaving out important details by now.” Jazz smirked as her little brother rolled his eyes.

“It was nice of her and all but apparently they have a sort of tradition in her Kingdom? Where to show you’re worthy of joining the Queen’s guard you challenge one of the newest knights to a duel.” Danny paused to fish out one of the gloves. “Giving over a glove is basically how they ask for that duel. All very formal, I’d write it down if I could explain how I know without completely blowing my cover.”

“So you’ve got a bunch of medieval ghosts throwing gloves at you and wanting to duel...and you decided to wash them. At home.” Jazz crossed her arms. “Seriously?’

“Where else was I gonna do it? I thought they’d make decent proof so show Dad ghosts have society and rules.” He paused, throwing the glowing thing back under his regular clothes. “Then I remembered there’s no way I could explain how I got these. So now they’ll just smell nice in Sam’s closet or something.”

“Your closet a little too risky this time?”

“Nope. All of these belong to Sam. She’s the one getting all the challenges, not me.” he glanced down at his basket. “I think she named some of these.”

“It’s it a little unfair for a ghost to fight a human? That goes against the whole honourable and fair thing it seems to be going for.”

The half ghost grinned. “That’s what they think! Challenged gets to set the rules, and it turns out ghost knights are really, really bad at adjusting to ground only combat.”

Jazz blinked, the part that had been bothering her clicking into place. “Wait, so there’s that many because you’re still the newest knights?”

“Wasted every single challenger. I keep trying to convince them they’ll have a better shot against me, but noooo, they insist on trying to best the ‘breathing banshee’.” he shrugs. “Most of em would absolutely wreck me in a proper fight, I don’t usually need to fight ‘fair’ or anything.”

“So why don’t they go after Tucker? Getting all the way out here for a tradition can’t be easy.”

“He still insists he’s Friar Tuck. You don’t swordfight the clergy. None of them have actually called him on it, so maybe he is?” his brow furrowed, thinking on that. “Maybe I should ask Dora that sometime. Find out if we need to worry about some ghost pope later. Would not want to be the guy who punched the dragon queen’s ghost pope.”

Jazz couldn’t suppress a snort, easily able to picture such a mishap. “A year ago if you said that I’d say you should be committed. Now I’m just nodding along.”

“Even if you were saying it now, I’d get out.” A wicked grin accompanied a flash of green eyes.

“Very funny, dork.” Still, the idea was worth thinking about. “Well I can see why you wanted to try using them as proof.” The project was rather important to Danny, seeing as it was his best shot to get their parents to re-evaluate their ‘ghosts are mindless’ stance. “Maybe you could get Tucker to film a fight? Sam keeping ‘contaminated’ gloves wouldn’t seem that weird, and the variety can prove it’s not just one ghost mindlessly repeating the same behaviour.”

“I’d still be stuck explaining how Sam became ‘Sir Manson’ in the ghost zone. Which seems like a disaster waiting to happen.” his shoulders sagged. “They’ll think I made it up or Tucker did some video editing.”

“I still think it’s worth trying. Sam’s got a rich family, you could probably think up an excuse that she’s practically ‘royalty’ and that’s why they come.”

“Eh. Maybe. Don’t tell Sam but I’m giving the challengers tips now. The sooner they stop coming, the sooner I can stop getting all antsy about a ghost attack where I find out it’s another steel welding glove thrower.”

Jazz set her shoulders, determined to get some of that humour back in her dispirited sibling. “Use that. They owe you if you help them out, don’t they?”

“Well, I guess they do. Like I’ve had them tell me stories about what it’s like for them, if they remember stuff or have always been ghosts, they’re pretty chatty to a ‘fellow of the sword’...but it’s all stuff I write down. I can’t prove a ghost told me. I can’t film it, or have Dad listen in. The second they call me ‘Sir Phantom’ I’m toast.”

“He said he’d at least listen to what you found, right? It can be a starting point, and if you have some really specific detail it’s less likely that you made the whole thing up.” she stopped to ruffle his hair. “That, and if you were going to make something up, you’d have some star ghosts or ecto-aliens.”

“I would not!”

“Yes you would. And you’d draw them little space ships and everything.”

“...Okay maybe I’d make up some ships.”

“A lot of ships. With long complicated names. With scientific reasons for those names. Cus your my dorky little brother.”

“Well you’re my nagging big sister. You get to be the black hole equivalent.” 

“Just don’t give up on the idea so quickly, okay? It’s a good one, and it really can’t hurt too much to try.”

A small smile returned as he elbowed her “Careful, or they’ll think you’re being influenced by ghosts too.”

“It’s not like their theories can have any more concrete proof than yours does. What are they?”

“Dad thinks ectoplasm naturally ‘homes in’ on stuff over here, and that’s how they’re finding the portal.” he closes his eyes, foot kicking at the floor. “He’s got this box thing? A lot of box things with different kinds of ectoplasm to see if they move towards ‘our world’ over time. I keep forgetting it’s floating right next to the portal and almost kick it.” his face turns into a grimace. “Dad thinks ‘that ghost kid’ is messing with his experiment on purpose now, so that sucks.”

“Well you could mess with it on purpose, that would be intelligent.”

“Nope. That would be the ‘natural aggressive action’ towards human materials. Tried it.”

“What’s mom’s hypothesis then?”

“That the portal always being here makes this part of Earth more ectoplasm rich so they’re drawn to enter here instead.” he waves a hand. “She’s half right? I don’t think strong ghosts can go all that long without ducking back home to recharge. She’s using the frequency of ‘higher level’ ghosts as proof that they ‘need’ a certain level to function outside of the ghost zone.”

“Another theory you’re accidentally stomping all over.”

“Since they almost never spot ‘Phantom’ going back to the Zone, yeah. I apparently account for ninety four percent of all ghost sightings. Yet only three percent of that is being spotted outside of a fight. Which sounds really bad! No wonder they think I only think about fighting other ghosts.” he rubbed at the back of his head. “I think she plans to test that by uh. Sticking a ghost in a place with no ectoplasm to see how long they hold out, if at all. So I’ve kinda been...making sure she can’t do that.” he swallows, his glance towards his sister more timid than anything. “It'd be a really, really nasty way to die. From what I heard.”

“Good for you. She’ll thank you once you prove that sort of thing would be unethical.”

His frown didn’t move. “If I prove it. So far I’ve just proven they really don’t like that ghost kid.”

“From what I’ve heard you’re the one with the most solid proof. Once you’ve shown everything you’ve collected, then you could try convincing them to see for themselves you aren’t making it up.” Jazz urged, not wanting to watch her little brother give up again.

“Even if I could convince Dad to come in the specter speeder with me we’d scare most ghosts off. The ones we don’t might want to beat me up, or not use a name I can’t explain away.”

“Sam gets to set when one of those challenges happens right? Invite him to one of those.”

He blinked. “...I guess that might work. If Sam made it clear that they couldn’t say my name under any circumstances. There’s one lady who keeps coming, insists she’s going to be the one to get to succeed after ‘Slapping Sir Manson with her glove’, she might be down for that…” he caught the weird look Jazz was giving him. “Oh. Apparently if you’re rivals hitting the person with your glove is ‘provoking your betters’ into a fight? So it’s a respect thing? I don’t really get it. Sam thinks it’s great, which I didn’t see coming but I didn’t think we’d still be having ghost knight fights either.” he let out a breath. “I’m rambling again.”

“You know, if Mom and Dad could see how you talk about this stuff they’d know you aren’t making it up. Looks like ghost research does run in the family.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “I’m a ghost hunter if anything. It’s just nice being able to chat instead of fight sometimes. The ghost zone is pretty neat. If you know, half the stuff in there wasn’t trying to skin me alive.”

“I still think you have a good shot. You know it’s true, so they’ll have to see it given enough time.”

“Maybe. Can’t really talk about this stuff to them though. Gee dad, how do I know about Frostbite? Well when I stole the Ecto-Skeleton and shoved back Pariah Dark this whole tribe of yetis decided I was their Great One. So now we’re pals. Oh what’s that dad, you say the ghost kid did that? Funny thing!” he dropped his arms with a scowl. “That’d go over like a lead balloon.”

“Maybe stick to the dragon queen society for now. It’s not like anyone over here saw that. Then you can expand into the rest of the friendly areas.” she put a hand on his shoulder. “One step at a time Danny, you’ll get there.”

“I hope so. If it doesn’t, I blame you if I’m torn molecule by molecule.”

“Ew Danny! Don’t be so morbid, it’s not good for your development.”

“Is it morbid if I’m dead?” he winced from his sister’s whack to the head. “Ow! Half!”

“Better. Now scram with all those gloves before someone thinks you robbed a ghost antique boutique.”

“You’re such a busybody Jazz.” the half ghost teased before darting off with his half spectral laundry. It wouldn’t be an easy thing to convince their parents, but he did seem to be on the right track. So of course it was her job to make sure he stuck to it. Siblings had to look out for each other, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

#dannymay2020 #Danny Phantom #danny fenton #jazz fenton #my stuff #the best thing about fanfic is you can ignore all the stupid parts of an episode #catfight beauty contest? never heard of it #dragon ghost society? heck yeah lets go #danny's trying really hard to get usable proof! #More positive fenton bonding #dang it!

[ayamari-no-goshi]

Verboten 8 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary:   AU. When Danny was five years old, he went missing for 2 weeks. In the years that follow, his family tried to make sense of what happened, only for the truth to be discovered years later.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, language. Be prepared for some very weird things

Chapter warning: some gets physically sick, discussions of death

Parings: Danny/Sam

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr. This fic is very heavily inspired by folklore surrounding mysterious wilderness disappearances

Chapter 8

"Hey, is it just me, or is the floor moving?" Danny questioned as he stared at the moving stone.

"No, it's not just you," Sam confirmed as she glanced at her friend. Although he was sitting rod straight as he watched, his coloration was still flickering, and there now seemed to be a green tinge to his cheeks.

"Don't you think we should run?" Tucker's question nearly made Sam snort. With Danny getting worse, there was no way he'd be able to escape with them.

Before anyone had a change to respond, the stone completely lifted and shifted to the side, exposing a hole. Seconds later, a furry head popped out. They watched in silent horror as it flicked one of its ears as if hear them and turned to face them.

The face that greeted them was terrifying. If Sam had to describe it, the appearance was like an angry polar bear who happened to have icy horns. Maybe calling it a yeti would be more accurate, but she could argue with herself about the semantics once she was out of this mess.

They just stared at the thing in the floor until it smiled at them. Whatever spell its sudden appearance held over them was broken, and they yelled in terror. There where several seconds of confusion as the three of them tried to escape. Tucker was halfway to the door while Sam tried to help Danny, who had fallen off the table, when the thing spoke.

"Children, please do not be alarmed," it gently requested as it raised itself up from the floor. Its entire body was covered in that same white fur, save for its one arm, which appeared to be made from ice. In an almost bemused afterthought, Sam noted it wore a blue clothing article which may have been a kilt. "We don't have much time before Plasmius returns."

When they didn't respond of move, the creature continued to speak as it tried to look as non-threatening as possible. "I am call Frostbite, the leader of the Far Frozen. I am lucky to have found out about you when I did. Plasmius has killed many humans in his experiments. If you allow me, I will help you return to your home."

"Why should we trust you? How do we know you won't take us somewhere and eat us?" Tucker demanded as he inched closer to Danny and Sam.

It laughed heartily at Tucker's question. "Myself as well as my clan do not eat people. We have made it the goal of our afterlives to try to assist as many wayward humans as we possibly can." Frostbite's smile faded. "However, I acknowledge your concern. This is the first time we have met, and if Plasmius has been your first encounter with the those of us from this realm, then you most likely do not think highly of us." It, possibly he, glanced at Danny as his coloration cycled again. "You are ill, and if you do not leave this place soon, you may not be able to return to the land of the living."

There was a tense moment as Sam and the boys stared at Frostbite. It… no, he… seemed genuine. Although his face was frightening, his eyes were sincere and almost seemed to plead with them.

"Alright," Danny eventually stated as he slowly stood, "but, you have to swear you won't hurt them!"

"I swear it on my honor, young one."

"Psst, Danny, what are you doing?" Tucker angrily whispered as he tugged on Danny's sleeve. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

"Call me crazy, but I think it's much less risky to go with him then it is to stay here and wait for Plasmius," Danny responded as he tested his footing. "He's a lot more honest than Plasmius, that's for sure."

"You noticed it too?" Sam was impressed he picked up on it. Although, Danny was often clueless when it came to certain social cues, particularly flirting, he did have an amazing talent for picking up on whether someone was being honest.

Tucker looked at both of them for a disbelieving moment before he shook his head. "Alright. I'll follow your lead on this, but if we get eaten, I'm blaming you."

"Young one, do you require assistance?" Frostbite asked as he eyed Danny, who appeared to be somewhat lightheaded as he tried to walk.

"It's Danny, and no, I can handle it."

A frown crossed Frostbite's face for a moment before he scurried forward and scooped Danny into his arms. "I understand your desire to escape on your own, but you are not well, and time is of the essence." Frostbite then instructed Sam and Tucker to enter the hole in the floor first. Once they were safely inside which was revealed to be a tunnel, he handed Danny to them. He then entered the tunnel and carefully replaced the floor's stone.

There was little light in the tunnel save for the slight glow Frostbite and occasionally Danny produced. As if sensing their concern, Frostbite held up his hand (or was it more of a paw?) and created a soft blue light. "This way, children," he instructed as he began to walk. "I am sorry I cannot produce a better light source, but if I generate much more energy, Plasmius may discover our location."

"I was wondering why we were doing things so old school," Tucker whispered.

As Sam rolled her eyes at him. If it wasn't for the fact she and Tucker were both supporting Danny as they walked, she probably would have smacked him for being rude. But, his statement did bring up an interesting point. "So, you could have gotten us out in an easier way, but Plasmius would have caught us?"

"Correct. Most sentient ghosts can easily phase through walls, unless the object is something native to this world or is coated in something that disrupts our powers or repels us. Plasmius' palace is unusual as much of it is created from materials taken from the human realm, but his reputation and the barrier he uses is able to keep most ghosts away. He is very unkind to trespassers." Frostbite glanced back at them. "I know young Danny's name, but I have yet to learn yours."

As weird as it sounded, Sam was embarrassed by that lapse in courtesy. She quickly introduced herself, and Tucker followed suit.

"Sam and Tucker! Such fitting names!" The strange ghost seemed pleased, but after a moment, he stopped walking, so he could turn and look at them. "Please alert me immediately if you notice you are not feeling well or notice something strange about yourself." After they promised, Frostbite nodded and continued forward. "This world can do strange things to those who unintentionally enter it, and there are many ways the changes can occur."

"Can… can I ask a question?" Once Frostbite agreed, Danny continued, "I'm sorry if this is a bit rude, but were you human?"

"That I was." The ghost didn't appear bothered by the question. "While many of my human memories have faded over time, I do remember that I was once an explorer. As for how I came this this realm, I am uncertain, but I do know that by the time I once again found a way back to the world of the living, I appeared much how you see me now. Many of my clan seem were also explorers or those who spent a great deal of time in the woods or mountains. We are not sure why we have taken this form, but we use it to our advantage. We often patrol areas where portal formation is common and try to scare humans away from them. However, more recently we have been finding more and more humans who seem to be looking for us." He seemed absolutely puzzled by the concept.

Sam shared a look with her friends. Did that mean that he and his clan were what people considered Bigfoot? Maybe she was reading too much into it, but that's what it seemed like.

"So, does that happen to everyone who dies? Cuz I don't know if I can handle the fact I might not keep these good looks when I die," Tucker whined.

The soft blue light flickered as Frostbite chuckled. "I don't believe you have to worry. While it is possible, you are unlikely to become a ghost if you expire outside of this realm. However, I am no expert regarding the mysteries of life and death."

"But what happens if you die here?" It was Sam's turn to ask a question.

"It seems to vary. Some die, but their souls do not remain here. For others, their body and soul mingle and change, creating a ghost."

"That almost sounds like a zombie," Sam mumbled to herself.

Frostbite chuckled again. "I understand why you would think as such. However, zombies can only exist in your world. They are corpses reanimated, often through magic, but lack a soul. For us, our earthly bodies are somehow a catalyst for the new form our soul takes, but even though I have seen it happen, I do not understand the process."

His explanation somewhat made sense, Sam mused. It also lined up with what Plasmius mentioned about how his experiments didn't always work. Although, it posed a more troubling question. What exactly would happen to Danny? If he really did die and become a ghost, did that mean there would be no body for his family to bury? It was a troubling thought that wouldn't go away no matter how much Sam tried to think of something else.

However, something Sam also noted was that Danny was avoiding asking questions regarding what was happening to him. Other than when his hands flickered in and out of visibility in the lab, he hadn't brought up the subject. It was possible he was focusing on escaping. However, with the new knowledge Frostbite had given them, he was probably in some sort of denial. She wasn't certain if she'd be able to be as calm if she was the one affected.

What seemed like an hour later, although her sense of time could have been altered due to the darkness, they finally reached the end of the tunnel. It wasn't a moment too soon as Danny had fainted when they had first caught sight of the exit. Once outside, she and Tucker carefully sat Danny down, so they could take a quick break. Once she was certain Danny was settled, she took the chance to look around.

In front of them was a think yet somewhat dead looking forest, like what they first found themselves in when they fled from the first ghost. Behind her was the tunnel which had been cut into what appeared to be a rock outcropping. If it wasn't for the strange coloration, it could have looked like something found in the forests back home.

She started when Frostbite gave a quick whistle. Moments later, four more ghosts who had similar appearances to Frostbite appeared from within the forest. They had to be part of the clan the ghost had mentioned while they were escaping. The group exchanged a few words before Frostbite beckoned to the humans behind him.

"Children, do not be alarmed. These are members of my clan, and they will be assisting us in your escape. However, we need to stop at our realm first as we have an object that will help us locate when and where a portal will open. I would also like to assess Danny's health." The ghost frowned at the form of the unconscious teenager. "You have probably guessed this realm has a grip on him, but he is resisting the change more intensely than I have ever seen."

"That means he'll be able to come home with us, right?" Tucker's question was full of a wary hope.

"I am… uncertain. We may have to seek the wisdom of an older entity to know for sure."

…

The world wouldn't stop spinning when Danny finally came to. After rolling over and relieving the contents of his stomach, he finally was able to think clearly enough to take stock of his surroundings. He was in what appeared to be some type of medical room. Although the walls appeared to be made of ice, there was a light and almost friendly atmosphere about the place.

A sound caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see white creature duck out of the room. Puzzled at the reaction, it wasn't until it returned to the room with Frostbite that he realized it was simply retrieving the other ghost.

"You've wakened, young one!" Frostbite seemed exuberant as he examined him. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got spun around in one of those centrifuges at space camp way too many times," Danny replied as he rubbed his head. Although the dizziness had subsided, he still felt somewhat ill. "Where are Sam and Tucker?"

"They are resting in another room. They've been eagerly waiting for news of your awakening."

Danny sighed in relief at the news. "Will I be able to see them?"

"Absolutely, but first I would like to discuss something with you," Frostbite sat down at a chair near the bed Danny was using. Somewhat unnerved by how serious Frostbite seemed to be, he carefully sat up and gestured for him to continue. "Your circumstance is nothing like what any of us have ever seen before."

"My circumstance?" That didn't sound good. Did it have to do with something Plasmius did to him?

"Yes. Before I explain, I need to ask if you've eaten anything while you were here?"

Danny shook his head. "Unless Plasmius fed me something when I was unconscious, then no. Wait," he paused for a moment as he tried to remember what Plasmius had told him, "maybe? Plasmius said something about taking care of me when I got lost when I was six."

"How odd, but as you must have returned home afterwards, it might have something to do with the unexpected results. Did Plasmius explain what he wanted from you?"

"He wanted me as his heir? I think?" Before he or Frostbite could say anything else, Danny felt something clench in his navel. Immediately afterwards, what seemed to be a flash of light momentarily blinded him. Terrified, he yelped and tried to move away. "What-what just happened?"

"This is what I have need to discuss with you." The ghost then rose and picked Danny off the bed before carefully setting him down in front of a mirror at the far end of the room.

It was the first time since he had come to this world that he had a chance to take stock of himself. However, the image looking back at him wasn't what he was expecting. His eyes weren't his usual blue but were instead an unnatural green. His skin had tanned, but the color somehow seemed unhealthy. His hair was now a silvery white instead of his black, and if he wasn't imaging it, he was admitting a slight glow. "What's wrong with me?" he asked in a horrified whisper.

Before he could get his answer, he felt the clench in his navel again. When the light subsided, he was greeted with the reflection of how he originally looked. Uncertain if his mind was playing tricks on him, he checked his hands and what he could of his bangs. Everything appeared normal.

"Usually," Frostbite started, which caused Danny to pause his examination and look at the ghost," when this world claims someone, they can no longer return to their human form. If they do, they often end up dead. You are somehow able to keep your human form, yet you produce a ghost form. In all my years, I have never seen such a thing."

"What exactly does that mean? What am I?"

"Unfortunately, I do no know. From what our tests showed, you have both a functioning human heart and a ghostly core, which is our equivalent of a heart. You've been switching back and forth between forms for some time."

======================================

Notes:

1) So… the Bigfoot mention. This is something that I've heard before. There are 2 major lines of thought regarding the famous cryptid. 1) Bigfoot is a flesh and blood creature, and 2) Bigfoot is an interdimensional, extraterrestrial, or spiritual entity (I seriously had a professor who believed Bigfoot could travel through dimensions. He even wrote papers about it). For this story, I'm going with the concept that people are catching brief glimpses of Frostbite and his people as they patrol areas known for spontaneous portal openings.

Interdimensional aspects are popping up more and more when it comes to paranormal topics, and they're a major theory when it comes to unexplained disappearances and weird creatures. Personally, I find the concept intriguing, but it's not something that can currently be proven. Though… there are a lot of rumors about how CERN is trying to do that. I know that group is just supposed to be studying particles and quantum physics, but there are sooooo many weird rumors about CERN.

2) For this story, I'm borrowing the type of idea where a ghost can't be created unless its former vessel (body) is used as a medium. You see things like this for Revenants, Strigoi Mort (Romanian ghost/zombie/vampire thing), and Gjenganger (Scandinavian ghost/zombie thing similar to a Dragur), and others. For those stories, the only way to get rid of them is to damage/destroy the body in specific ways which vary from region to region.

3) human centrifuges are real things. They are used by to help test the effects of G-forces on people, and astronauts receive training to handle said forces in them. They do, at least used to have, a version of it at space camp.

#Verboten #danny phantom #danny phantom au #dp #dp au #alternate universe #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #vlad plasmius #maddie fenton #jack fenton #fanfic #fanfiction #my writing #phandom #supernatural #fantasy #paranormal #folklore #so i heard you like folklore #sooooooooo much folklore

[imekitty]

A prompt that might be from hell. This takes place in an AU where giving danny powers was always the plan: Jack stood by as Maddie deliberately designed the portal to give Danny powers. He stood by his wife's more ruthless hunting. He actually helped her get back at Vlad for what he did to her and danny in the Rockies. But he has a line. And Maddie just crossed it.

This is the worst version of Maddie and I love her.

This addresses the beginning of the prompt, sorry. I just really liked it and wanted to write it first! And then maybe I can address the final part later.

—–

“Jack, I found a perfect candidate,” said Maddie. “Someone whose DNA would meld with ectoplasmic properties so beautifully. Someone who could be a very stable ghost hybrid.”

Jack joined her at the counter in their lab. Ever since their old college friend, Vlad Masters, had become a ghost hybrid, they had been trying to determine if they could create their own, someone who could handle the spectral mutation without the gruesome side effects Vlad suffered.

“Really? Who?” asked Jack, glancing over her notes.

Maddie perked up and bounced on her toes as she clutched a couple papers to her chest. “Our son.”

Every muscle in Jack’s face froze. “What?”

“Yes!” Maddie pointed to her calculations, her samples, her tests. “He’s perfect. His body would handle the mutation splendidly. He would not only survive but thrive. He’d be…” She breathed in, her eyes fluttering. “Incredible.”

“But you’re not serious, right?” Jack gestured to her notes. “We can’t do this to Danny.”

“But he’s all we have, Jack!” Maddie gripped her notes tighter, causing them to crinkle. “We’ve been trying to figure this out for almost fifteen years now! Not a single person we’ve tested has come even close to what we need.”

She held her hands out over the counter, over all of her work, all of her experimentation on their son’s hair and skin cells and blood, bits and pieces of their boy he had no idea she had been collecting and playing with.

“We are never going to find someone like this again,” she said.

“But we can’t,” insisted Jack, not even believing he had to insist this at all.

“It won’t hurt him,” said Maddie. “It will only make him stronger. He’ll be healthier. He’ll live longer. He’ll look young longer. He won’t have to be afraid of anyone or anything.”

“You say ‘will’ instead of ‘would’ like you’ve already decided this is what’s going to happen,” said Jack.

He looked at her hard. She held his gaze.

He knew there was no changing her mind.

—

“Here, let me show you,” said Maddie as she stood in front of their ghost portal. “I’ve calibrated everything to Danny’s specifications.”

Jack poked his head in the portal. “And you’re sure this will work?”

“Of course! It worked for Vlad, didn’t it? And Danny’s body will handle this far better than Vlad’s did. He’ll be stable immediately.”

Maddie’s arms waved up and down and around as she explained her plan. Jack hardly moved at all as she spoke.

“There’s a sensor here,” said Maddie. “It’s keyed in to Danny’s biological signature. So when he trips the sensor, about ten seconds later, the portal will switch on and administer a perfect shock of ectoplasmic energy, the perfect combination that will rearrange his molecules into something part ghost, part human.”

Jack’s eyes darted around the interior of the darkened portal as he imagined the powerful field of energy he knew it was capable of creating.

“And the portal will only switch on when he’s in here alone,” Maddie continued. “If it detects anyone else, it won’t switch on. So see, it’s perfectly safe. No one else will get hurt. And Danny definitely won’t die.”

“You said this wouldn’t hurt him,” said Jack. Accusing.

“Well.” Maddie sucked in her bottom lip. “It might hurt him a little. Because the current needs to be high for this to work. But only for a few seconds, and I promise I made both the current and voltage as low as I possibly could.”

“You’re kidding!” cried Jack. “You’re kidding! You must be kidding!”

Maddie pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.

“You’re not kidding,” murmured Jack.

—

“Take a look at this,” said Maddie. She held up two pieces of fabric, one black, one white. “It’s what we make our suits out of. I just zapped these in the portal at the specifications set for Danny. This one used to be white, and this one used to be black. They inverted their colors!”

“Uh huh,” said Jack. “And that’s important because?”

“Whatever Danny wears when he’s zapped is going to become embedded with ghost properties. It needs to be something that can withstand the shock as well as his body can. It needs to be something strong and resistant.”

She showed him the patterns she had been sketching for a protective suit. Mostly white with black accents.

“The colors should reverse when zapped,” said Maddie. “Do you think he’ll like it?”

Jack had no answer for her.

—

“Danny, come down here,” Maddie called from the lab.

Danny made his way down the stairs. Jack kept his back turned as he pretended to be very busy at his own workstation.

“Here. I made this for you.” Maddie handed him the finished jumpsuit. “It’s designed to protect you from ectoplasmic spills or contamination. I’m making one for Jazz too, but I just figured I’d give you yours now since it’s done.”

Danny took the suit from her and looked it over. “Thanks, but why do I need one?”

“Oh, you know.” Maddie shrugged. “Just in case you ever want to help us in the lab. We want you to be protected.”

Danny rubbed his thumbs against the fabric. “Well. Thanks. I guess.”

“Ectoplasmic contamination is dangerous, Danny,” said Maddie very seriously. “You really shouldn’t ever be around it without protection. This is why Dad and I wear our suits all the time. Really, you shouldn’t even be down here at all without wearing one.”

She gestured to their ghost portal.

“Even just stepping into that portal when it’s inactivated can expose you to dangerous levels of spectral energy,” said Maddie. “You understand, Danny?”

“Um…yeah.” Danny studied the suit again. “Why isn’t it orange like Dad’s?”

“I just like these colors. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. It might’ve looked cooler if the colors had been reversed. You know, like black with white gloves?”

Maddie smiled. “Hmm. Interesting.”

Jack’s hand shook as he wrote, turning his notes into illegible scrawls.

Maddie stood up with a heavy sigh and walked toward the portal. “It sure is a shame we can’t get this portal to work, though.”

“Really? It still won’t do anything?” asked Danny.

“Mmm hmm. We’ve pretty much given up on it by now.”

Jack hunched over and shut his eyes.

—

“Danny, Jazz is studying at the library, and your father and I are going to be gone for three hours,” said Maddie.

Danny was slumped on the couch where he was playing a video game with Tucker while Sam watched.

“Okay,” said Danny, not looking up from his game.

“Three. Hours,” said Maddie more firmly. “Do you understand? You three will have the house to yourself for a while.”

Danny creased his brow. “Okay?”

“So look after the house while we’re gone, please.” Maddie slung her purse over her shoulder. “And don’t get into any trouble, okay? Remember our lab is off limits.”

Sam sat up a little straighter. Danny nodded. Jack kept his glassy gaze trained on Maddie, who appeared to be fighting back a grin.

They were leaving their lab completely unlocked. There was no security surrounding their portal at all. Full access to anyone who wanted to investigate it.

And Sam was right here and had just heard their lab was off limits. Exactly what the rebel goth teen needed to push Danny to break the rules and do something he normally would never do.

Jack followed Maddie out of the house. Once the front door was shut behind them, she let her grin break through.

“I really hope this works,” said Maddie. “I really hope he does it. All he has to do is step inside alone. That’s it. Do you think it will work?”

Jack wrapped an arm around her and led her to their parked RV.

—

A few weeks later at breakfast, Jack pretended not to notice as Danny dropped his spoon through his intangible hand and gasped.

“That’s strange,” said Maddie, holding up a device that was beeping loudly. “Our reader says that a ghost is nearby. But that can’t be right. There are no ghosts here, are there?”

She looked across the table at Danny and Jazz.

“Do you two see any ghosts?” she asked.

“No,” said Jazz with a roll of her eyes.

“No,” said Danny with a tremor in his voice.

Jack leaned over to look at the screen on the device. It was not a ghost detector. Of course. They didn’t need one right now. They knew their son was a ghost already.

Rather, it revealed the intensity of the ghostly energy in the room. Energy obviously radiating from Danny. Energy that was spiking in perfect correlation with his anxiety.

Jack’s gaze moved to Maddie’s face. She looked so giddy, so enthralled.

She had taken this too far. He knew that. This wasn’t right. What they had done to their son, what they had turned him into, this was horrible.

And Danny was scared.

Jack turned his attention back to the device. The measurements moved across the screen in mesmerizing patterns. His eyes followed them, spellbound. Data right here and right now they could use for their research, data they could now easily obtain whenever they wanted, right in their own house.

Horrible.

But…

Fascinating.

And maybe a little exciting.

Part 2

#danny phantom #maddie fenton #jack fenton #danny fenton #imekitty writes #planned au #prompt writing #angst #honorable-asshole #this is very contrived to fit in with what we see in canon hahahahahaha #this isn't written that well sorry #soooooo much to cram into as little space as possible #it would need its own full-length fic to be any good #but i hope the idea gets across at least?