Jake meta? On MY dashboard? More likely than you think.
Been thinking a lot lately on when and how Jake was most likely formed as an alter.
Sure, I enjoy the idea of him coming in later. After all, Steven is the first one Marc knows. We get to see when Steven shows up. He was pretty young. He grew up with Steven and doesn’t know Jake.
I like the idea of Jake coming in during Marc’s early teen years when he starts to have problems with his father. Perhaps when he is sent to a psychiatric hospital or dealing with a bad therapist. Jake is the protector after all. He’d step in to help Marc out with this different type of trauma and pain.
Or perhaps Jake was formed in the military. Marc had an off day, dissociated during a bad time and needed saving. Or even during the mercenary times during a tight spot.
But judging from Jake’s gloves showing up in Cairo, the fact that I really think Jake was playing a part in the alps while fighting the village, and Jake’s Jakeness… Jake has been around for a while. He isn’t a ‘new’ alter that was formed during the show’s run.
I want to propose a different option, just to explore it a little. I don’t know if anyone else has tossed this out there yet, but here it is.
Jake was formed in the cave.
DID is caused by intense trauma. Trauma that they could not handle and needed a different way to deal with. A way to protect themselves.
So let’s look at their unique positions. Marc is a trauma holder. Possibly other positions too, but he holds the most traumatic memories. He remembers going into the cave. He remembers his mother beating him. He remembers bad things in the military/mercenary days. But he also admits that his memory is pretty fractured up.
We don’t know how much Steven remembers of their childhood or growing up. We don’t know how much of what he remembers is real. We also don’t know if Steven was always active. There’s a good chance Steven went dormant during the military/mercenary years.
What we do know is that Steven was formed a few years (1 or 2 judging from the birthday scenes) after his brother died.
Marc was already sensitive. He was already traumatized. He had been belittled and emotionally abused for some time. Steven isn’t formed until Marc breaks down at the dichotomy of a mother he wants and a mother he has that wants to hurt him and needs someone there to take care of him. He needs someone to be hopeful and happy. He is always aware of Steven. He looks to Steven as an emotional protector. Someone to remind him why he lives.
But what about the trauma that set it all off? The trauma of being in charge of protecting his little brother and failing? The trauma of telling him that it would be alright and then having to watch him die? The trauma of almost dying himself?
A protector that failed. A protector that lost his only charge.
Steven is there to guard Marc emotionally. We see this strongest when he breaks down in the street and can’t handle everything that comes with his mother’s death. Steven is there when Marc can’t be. He’s there to guide Marc and comfort him. To protect him when he’s vulnerable. To challenge bad claims and step up when Marc can’t.
Jake is there to protect Marc. To save him. To save them. To do what Marc could not do in the cave.
So, what if Jake was the first? What if Marc went into the cave with Roro and Jake came out? Does Marc remember what happened? In the flashback he sees them go in. Then suddenly they are standing in the living room. Marc comes down the stairs dressed up and ready to join the Shiva. He seems unsure of himself but he’s there. And then he’s surprised when it goes bad. When his mother screams at him. Maybe at that point he didn’t really know what happened. He only understood that his brother was gone. His mother is the one that puts a false memory into him that it is all his fault. He can’t remember what happened, after all, so he fills in the gaps and thinks she’s right.
And Jake is there with the memory of what happened after. Of how Marc almost died too. Of how he got out. Of them pulling his dead brother out. Of Jake swearing he would never fail again.
So why doesn’t Jake step in when their mother starts to beat them? Why Steven?
Because what is a little boy going to do against his mother? There is nothing Jake could do. This was Marc’s pain. This was emotional trauma that Steven could help distract Marc from. If it had gone too far, if the body had been too badly broken, there is a chance Jake would have taken over and tried to get them out.
It’s also possible that since Jake was the first, this is why he can hide so well from Marc. He holds the biggest trauma and he does not talk to Marc. He stays in the back. He doesn’t want to front at this point. He’s the type of alter that just likes to stay in the back unless really needed. And maybe in their teenage years Jake starts to peek out more and more. He becomes highly active in the military/mercenary years because he’s needed. He watches Marc become more and more destructive and he has to start protecting Marc from himself.
When he failed in the desert and Marc almost died and then almost killed himself, Jake must have taken that very hard. He starts to slip in more often. He can’t just hide anymore. He starts to take missions. He starts to leave out hints of his presence. (See the gloves in episode two). He starts stepping in when Marc goes on a bender of self destruction. Jake will not lose another one, even if he has to protect him from himself.
He watches Marc and Steven bond and he swears now he will protect them both.
So when Harrow threatens them, Jake has had enough. He comes back from the Duaat pissed off to high hell and all he can think about is the damn cave. Being locked in the Sarcophagus and HEARING them in the cave. Marc could hear what Steven heard. He remembered as Steven went in and witnessed the flood. You know Jake could too. Trapped in that tight and dark coffin as he heard the screams and water rushing in.
When Jake comes back, he is emotional. He is pent up. He is rage and refuses to fail. He can’t fail.
And that’s why the final fight scene looked like a bomb went off.
310 notes
·
View notes
The King and his Red Knight
DPxDC crossover fic
Part 1
Really sorry to everyone who suffered through the fact that I didn't know about the existence of readmore. I can't fix the thread now but the individual posts are better? Sorry I have like a very rough idea of how this site works 😭
Check the: The King and his Red Knight tag to find all the parts
"Go here, Danny. Go then, Danny. Go to a random cemetery in the middle of the night for no reason, Danny." A voice grumbled, accompanied by the sound of sneakers rhythmically tapping stone.
Danny Fenton, currently Phantom, sat on a gravestone, his white hair a beacon in the dark night. There were no stars in the sky for him to gaze upon, their light hidden behind swaths of smog and neon lights playing off the gray clouds.
Clockwork had dumped him here, with no explanation for why. Not that he ever really explained much when he sent Danny off on his tasks. He supposed he should be grateful, at least he was in the same when rather than being transported a thousand years into the past.
"Wait here King Phantom. You will understand in time." Danny mimicked his mentor's voice as he let himself float off the grave he'd been dumped on after Clockwork shoved him out of a portal. His body floated higher until he could flip around, his legs crossing. He sat upside down, his chin in his palm as he glared petulantly at the assembled gravestones surrounding him, his toxic green eyes glowing.
"So far all I've seen is a concerning amount of ecotplasm for a city without a ghost portal and some blob ghosts! How long am I supposed to wait here?" Danny asked the air, and the aforementioned blob ghosts who were hanging off his body, soaking in the ambient ecotoplasm he radiated at all times now.
Neither provided him with an answer to his question and Danny let out a frustrated groan as he lowered his still flipped body to look once more on the gravestone he'd been tasked with waiting on.
Jason Todd, the name read. The dates, too close together, made something in Danny squeeze painfully. He'd been young, barely older than Danny when he stepped into the portal. Only for this teenager there had been no ectoplasm to bind to his dying body and repair the damage of death and force him back into a semblance of life.
"Who were you and why did Clockwork send me to you?" Danny asked the gravestone, one clawed finger tracing the words before he pulled back with a sigh when the gravestone gave him no explanation. The dead didn't always speak, not even to their king.
Turning his body Danny looked over the rest of the cemetery. It was empty, as most usually were this time of night, of the living. There were a few shades wandering around, circling closer to him, drawn by his presence. No full ghosts though, but oddly enough there rarely were in cemeteries. This was where the dead came to rest. To remember, if they wanted to. Cemeteries were sacred spaces to the dead, much as a temple or a church would be for the living who were religious. Ghosts who still clung to life, to their obsessions, did not frequent cemeteries, did not dare trespass and disturb those who had already found their peace.
Danny himself was an oddity. He had never shied from cemeteries, enjoying the peace he found in them, the guarantee of safety offered. And perhaps, he mourned that he himself would never have a gravestone for the living to place their flowers and their tears at. Who would make a grave for someone who was both alive and dead? There would never be a body to bury for him. His human half would continue to live on so long as his ghost core remained and could fuel it.
Maybe that was why he found peace in cemeteries, for all his whining that Clockwork had dumped him here. Cemeteries were for the living and the dead, one of the only places both existed in harmony naturally. For someone who was as much dead as he was alive such a place held a certain degree of belonging for him.
Danny straightened out in the air, letting his body lie above the grave as he folded his arms behind his head and looked up at the covered sky. He complained and whined about this task, but he was secretly glad that Clockwork had given him something to do. Even if it was just 'hang out in a random cemetary'.
Ever since he'd graduated high-school, revealed himself to his parents and discovered how deep prejudice and hate could run, and he'd run away to the Infinite Realms for sanctuary while his friends moved forward with their lives, he'd felt unmoored. A ghost with no haunt. Bored was too light a word for the gaping emptiness he felt in his chest, for the loneliness clawing at him. Clockwork, Wulf, Pandora they could help chip at the ache inside of him but not banish it. Not now that his family, his friends, were spread so far apart and so distant from him.
Not that he resented their choices, their distance, in fact he'd fought for them to do just that, to get out of Amity Park, to go to college, to become more than overworked teen superheroes. Still he missed them, even if he could visit them whenever he wanted. It was becoming clear as time moved forward that the world they belonged to and the one he did were two different things.
Danny Fenton couldn't go to college when his parents had declared him dead. Danny Fenton didn't exist as far as the government was concerned. Danny Phantom couldn't return to Amity when those same parents were waiting to capture him and tear him apart 'molecule by molecule'. Danny Phantom couldn't go back when the GIW were crawling over the town like ants.
So neither Danny Fenton or Danny Phantom returned to Amity after that day. And he made sure they couldnt follow him when he ensured the portal that took his life to function never opened again. He didn't need the portal any longer to get in and out of the Infinite Realms, and it was safer for the ghosts, his subjects, if the temptation of the Fenton portal was gone.
The world of the living was not yet ready to accept that the dead didn't always stay dead. And Danny would keep his people safe until they were.
Danny jolted from his lazing state of reverie when a pulse of emotion rocked through him, the strength of it stealing his breath if he had any to take.
Fear/Trapped/Dark/Fear/Help/HELP pounded into him and Danny frantically flipped around, head swiveling, poisonous green eyes wide as he triedf to locate the source. The emotions, the plea for help, burned his core, his Obsession screamed at him.
Help/SomeonePlease/Dark/Trapped/CANTBREATHE/HELP another wave of messages, of emotions pushed themselves at Danny and this time underneath the onslaught he could hear a rhythmic thudding. Danny looked down, horror filling him when he realized the thudding was coming from under the ground. From the grave he'd been hovering over for an hour now.
Danny flew down, sending back a wave of I'mHere/HelpIsComing/I'mComing to the boy trapped in his own coffin, feeling the intense wave of relief and hope sent back before he dived into the earth as if it wasn't there. Danny paused for a moment when he passed the thick wooden coffin, seeing a boy in the dark with wide, panicked blue eyes and fingers tipped with shredded nails and fresh blood.
"Hey, I'm going to get you out of here, okay?" Danny told the boy, keeping his voice gentle, soft. The boy jolted, fixating on the only source of light, Danny's growing green eyes. Danny hoped his smile came off as calming instead of 'freaky AF' as Tucker liked to call it. He grabbed the boy, Jason, as carefully as he could and then let his intangibility wash over the terrified teen as he lifted them both out of the coffin.
When they emerged from the coffin and the ground Danny set the teen down, leaning him against the gravestone, his own gravestone, and pulled back a bit. The boy was gasping in air as if the fetid, polluted air was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted.
Danny tilted his head as he watched the boy ground himself. Now that the emotions were leveling out and his Obsession was purring in contentment rather than growling in a frenzy, Danny could feel something off about the boy.
Disregarding the fact that he'd just come back from the dead, of course. But that wasn't the oddest thing Danny had seen in his afterlife. No the boy felt... not like a normal, living human. Not even like an Amity Park resident, who all felt more than slightly liminal. No this boy, this Jason Todd, felt closer to liminal than even Jazz, Tucker or Sam, who were three of the most liminal humans Danny had ever been around.
Jason felt almost...like a ghost. But not. Danny could feel the tickle in his throat that proceeded his ghost sense but the tell-tale mist never emerged. It was as if Jason was...like him. But Danny couldn't sense a core either. Even halfas had cores.
"Who are you?" Jason spoke, breaking Danny from his thoughts and examination. Jason was looking at him with a mix of gratitude and suspicion. Which, fair. Danny had just pulled him from his own coffin and there were so many questions that could stem from all of this, disregarding all the weirdness that was just Danny himself.
"I'm Danny, Danny Phantom. Or just Phantom. I go by either. And you're Jason, right?" Danny asked, smiling at the teen and oops, yeah that was definitely his scary smile based on the slight flinch there. It wasn't his fault his teeth were too sharp now and his lips split a bit too wide.
"How did you know that?" Jason asked, blue eyes narrowing. Danny nodded at the gravestone the boy was leaning against with a raised brow. Jason turned and almost toppled over from the movement. Danny frowned as the boy caught himself on his gravestone. His skin was still pale, too pale, and as Danny watched Jason swayed again.
"Shit. You're fading. You didn't form a core and your body isn't stabilizing." Danny cursed, moving towards the boy who scrambled back, only to be stopped by his grave.
"What the hell are you doing?" Jason asked, hands fisting as he tried to rise only to fall back to the ground when his legs refused to hold his weight.
"Saving your life. The dead aren't supposed to come back. There's always a price to pay, a balance that is struck. Currently, as you are, if I don't get enough ectoplasm in you to form your core, you'll fade and turn into a brain-dead husk." Danny told Jason, tone stern and no nonsense as he grabbed him. Jason made an effort to break free, but it was weak, and even at full strength, he wouldn’t have been able to break Danny's hold. Few in this realm could.
If they had the time, Danny would've approached this situation in a far different manner, but this close he could hear Jason's heartbeat, a weak flutter in his chest, skipping beats as it tried to fuel a body that was past saving. Jason didn't have the time for Danny to approach this gently and kindly, to coax trust out of the teen like he would a feral cat.
Jason had minutes left before his ectoplasm starved body consumed itself trying to make a core and failed because while wherever they were had more ambient ectoplasm than most places, it was far from enough to sustain the birth of a halfa. Maybe if Jason had stayed dead for another year, he'd have naturally formed a core and risen as a proper ghost. But that wasn't what happened, somehow he'd gathered enough to fix his body of whatever wounds or illness had put him in that coffin to begin with and come back to 'life' but without a core to sustain his body he'd be dead, again, in minutes. And Danny was not about to watch while a teenager, another teenager, died.
"How do I know I can trust you?" Jason hissed as Danny pushed his arms down and laid his clawed hands on Jason's chest.
"You don't. But you don't have another choice." Danny said with a shrug. "Now are you going to let me save your life or not?" Danny asked, not moving his hands. He'd save Jason either way but this would be easier if Jason worked with him.
"Fine." Jason spat and Danny smirked as his hands began to glow a toxic green that matched his eyes.
Ectoplasm pooled out of his hands and rushed into Jason, filling him until the boy glowed bright enough to rival the neon lights of the city around them. The green light flared around him like an aura, slowly shrinking but getting impossibly brighter as the glow centralized around his chest until a small glowing ball of green, like a trapped star, blazed from his chest.
Jason gasped, back arching as Danny pulled his hands away and the light vanished under Jason's skin. For a moment Jason's blue eyes burned green and his hair flashed snow white before returning to black, with one single lock of unearthly white left above his forehead. Jason collapsed back against his grave, chest heaving. Danny watched, eyes full of a sad understanding.
"What the fuck was that?" Jason panted out.
"Welcome to the world of the half alive, half dead." Danny said with a smile. "Want to get a burger and talk about it?" He asked, standing up and dusting off his hands.
"Make it a chili dog and you've got a deal."
~~~~~
Fixed some typos added some lines
Maybe I'll continue this AU. Maybe not. This scene was in my head for days and I wanted to share
5K notes
·
View notes