👀 :3

doodle i am holding your shoulders. i am staring directly into your eyes. run away now i am going to talk about danny phantom at you.

i have. ELEVEN. YEARS. worth of danny phantom headcanons built up in my brain. canon is nothing to me i have written and rewritten the show like 4 times over. but also i love canon so it gets to stay. im just improving upon it. i allow myself to be pretentious about ONE (1) piece of media ever and it is danny phantom . so im the only person in the world who is correct about this. ok. shaking you.

do u want to know the backstory of nearly every ghost . what they were like when they were alive/how they died and how it relates to their role in the afterlife. I GOT YOU. do you want a full rundown of dannys powers and how they work. I GOT YOU AGAIN. DO YOU WANT. an ESSAY on the MYTHOLOGY of the ghost zone. do you want me to talk about the way the ghost zone royalty system works. because my god. ive got you.

trips and falls and like a bazillion sticky notes and pictures and papers spill out of my coat and scatter in the wind. oops sorry that was just my in depth analysis on Danny's relationship with nearly every character in the show. teehee <3

NOT TO MENTION popular fanon aus that live in my brain forever and i have my own versions of. i love you ghost king danny. i love you ghost hunger. hey can we talk about ghost hunger? i think the fact that i discovered ghost hunger the same year fall out boy released the young volcanoes music video did something irreparable to my brain. did you know i also like hannibal. these facts are completely unrelated.

FUCK torture fics FUCK dissection fics. fuck anyone who says the fentons are not good parents. the fentons are EXTREMLY good parents and i WILL die on this hill. every time someone in the modern dp fandom writes about how horrible the fentons are i lose like 3 years off of my life. how can you be so wrong. they are not evil they are not horrible they would not dissect their own son . i will die on this hill. im in the fucking trenches out here. someone recently posted a fic series (series!!!!) of oneshots specifically about jack fenton discovering dannys secret by accident and also being a good father and i swear to you i almost started crying on the spot. i havent even read the fic yet.

hmmmmm. what else is there. theres so much. i could go on about danny phantom.for so many hours. i havent actually read a glitch in time yet its been burning a hole on my nightstand because i KNOW as soon as i finish it we are going to be in 24/7 danny phantom lockdown for like a month and i want to do that when i have energy to make art. now that i have my new laptop this time may be sooner than you think. beware!

Halligan and Lowry may have some sort of a rivalry going on, but think about this: Steve doesn't change his pose to a normal, "human" one when Brent enters his office, which means he's perfectly comfortable with Brent watching him floating above the chair. Brent doesn't comment on it either. I feel there's something more to their relationship than it seems. 🤔

I enjoy the idea that Steve is something more than human, and that he needs to keep up an act. Honestly, looking at him, he very well could be. I suppose it's just a bit of potential-druid/mythical-creature/deity + ND/Druid solidarity thing going on here. I guess there isn't much point in hiding how out-of-the-norm you are when the other person also is that way, but the fact that Steve doesn't wish to uphold that facade with Brent, despite being an individual who normally seems to wish to uphold all kinds of social norms -based on his demeanor and supposed "disdain" for Brent-, it could be said that there's something profoundly personal about their supposedly impersonal rivalry. I think he likes his audacity, and refuses to allow Brent to see anything other than his "truer" facade self. I suppose that maybe after pretending to be his "ideal" persona like that for so long, he perhaps finds the idea of Brent's more "unnaceptable" imperfection to be kind of irresistible, and can't help but let his guard down a bit with him in an unspoken way that Brent wouldn't really point out because he's Brent? Brent is quite daring in how he speaks to Steve, after all, but he doesn't comment on this at all.

Not only that but once again the floating itself. The fact that it was the later update really does raise eyebrows.

Sorry to bring up this picture again, but look at him. I mean really look. Does this look normal either to you? Based on test-runs I did myself, no, probably not. He looks like a dead shrimp with that pose. Perhaps this version really was the error, and the later one the correction. Lowry here looks like he's about to slip right off his chair and fall on his ass. But the later one? Truly more confident, and his hands do not phase through his knees...I think. He's revealing himself a bit more to his tense rival, and he knows it.

I feel like their rivalry is actually a lot more tension than fighting and they don't admit it. Does Brent have something towards Steve? Maybe, it could also be one-sided, but either way this pair does make you question the heterosexuality orientation of more than one party, which is really saying something when one is wearing purple and gayly floating above a chair. Note that funnily enough, despite their banter, Steve never once calls Brent anything other than Halligan, while Brent actually does call him Steve twice in the game, yes, I checked, I'm completely certain. Enjoy that nugget of information.

They get into really heated arguments. But it is pretty peculiar that for all his threats, Steve is surprisingly lenient towards Brent. Although there are definetely lines where he sounds like he wishes to reach out of his throat and puil a very Brent move on him (by sustained choking), he never lays a single hand on him, in a bizarre act of respect and, something repressed perhaps? It makes sense that he wouldn't want trouble. But a little bit of violence, or even a grab by the collar would be acceptable in the department, presumably. Steve never stops just playing with his thumbs, almost nervously, the entire time. Does he entertain himself like this when he's angry, or is this actually something that happens when he sees Brent? We cannot know, because our only point of reference is Brent himself, and what he sees, so this question is most intriguing. Does he perhaps know that if he were to reach out and touch Brent for even a moment, he wouldn't be able to help himself? Can you blame Steve? Of course not; there's a reason one of my first MOTD posts ever was Halligan's eyelashes-

Whether or not that's an agreement or something Steve himself has decided, there seems to be a mutual understanding that they're not meant to go too far, or even touch each other. Even when there's venom in their voices, it's very clear that at all times at least one of them is partly enjoying the interaction. Even at his wits end, Steve never actively attempts to stop Brent from entering his office, much less interacting with him, or talking to him. If you do get on his nerves enough, he stops letting you ask him things, but he not once stands up to stop Brent. He remains a completely passive observer and you're free to do what you please otherwise. For all of the verbal agression, there is very little action involved, and everything else is a lot subtler. Even one of the milder actions he could've taken against Brent, would have been to take the scissors back from him. Brent has coat pockets and little else, at least canonically since he of course has videogame-character-with-infinite-space-on-their-persona-syndrome. He knows that Brent has his scissors in one of those pockets. But he makes zero moves to get them back, despite his earlier determination to "not lose anything to anyone again, especially not to [Brent]" (perhaps he realizes it's futile, for he has already lost here, against Brent, all the time. Despite his toxic "masculine" facade, he can't help who he is, and this goes unspoken). He just asks him what else he wants, and then tells him to get out, again, just spoken word. Brent is free to stay if he pleases.

This gets interesting when you consider an inocous detail in the game that no one knows how to answer: The fan. Why can you, as Brent, turn on the fan? Perhaps the detail of the fan, even, was meant to represent how this is their dynamic. Steve won't even comment on it, won't even care, because despite everything, he's not as bothered by this as he pretends he is. And perhaps even enjoys someone actually treating him this way for once, with dominance instead of fear. He finds Brent a bit threatening, and he enjoys it. Turning on the fan could disturb his work. It could make his papers go everywhere. This game takes place in the fall. It's presumably a bit chilly, so it could also cause Steve some discomfort, assuming he's not warm, and giving that they don't appear to have telepathic communication (unless they do), I highly doubt that Brent is aware of his current bodily temperature unless he supposes his presence is rising it. That or given that Brent is aware that Steve is floating, he is hoping that if he turns on the fan he will float away from the Yard, but that's neither here nor there.

Whatever their relationship is? ...It is definitely not just your standard rivalry. It is ADVANCED. There is something going on here. I don't know what it is, or what the hell any of this answered, to be honest.

...I'm gonna go get some coffee.

That fic

I’ve had a good long think about that fic and I want to second @skitzofreak‘s suggestion.  Yes, it is passive-agressive, but it would help slide it off the front page quickly and spare us all from having to remember to keep screening our AO3 reading page to avoid seeing that user.  So how about

those of us who write and post rebelcaptain on AO3 all get started on writing now and build up a little backlog of drabbles that are ready to go? 

Then each time the writer in question updates, whoever notices first comes here and declares “Hey friends, today’s the day for a Rebelcaptain Mini-Fic Fest!” and we share that message around and start to upload as soon as we see it?  A couple of dozen new drabbles each time should be enough to clear the front page. 

Also - and this is something that would go on over a slightly longer period, but again it would ease the stress of having to interact with this person - if they comment on your work, you can choose to delete their comment, or reply simply saying “Please don’t comment on my work again.  Thank you.”  I don’t know whether you get a notification that something you’ve written has been deleted; I’ll see if anyone can help me find out.

If you can go back over your inbox, and you find they’ve commented on your work before, then you can reply now, if need be deleting any earlier response you made, and request them not to contact you again. 

If they then do, you can repeat the request not to comment on your fic, or you can get into a discussion with them about why you don’t want to interact with the author of “This is not a love song”; your choice. 

From the mocking and almost jubilantly self-congratulatory nature of their responses to feedback it’s clear that there’s no way they’re ever going to understand why we loathe it so much, much less stop writing it.  And one of the big things about AO3 is that it is a censorship-free zone, and rightly so.  So there’s no way to stop this person posting what they like.  But by each individually asking them not to make contact, we can at least make it clear that we don’t want anything to do with them, which is something we have every right to do.  I never thought I’d find myself recommending shunning someone, it sounds positively Biblical; but I don’t want to interact with this person in any way and I want them to understand that.

There is also the fact that if they comment on your work and persist in commenting after being asked not to, the crucial thing now is it’s on your feed; by AO3 rules, them commenting after being asked not to constitutes harrassment, and you can report them to AO3 admin.  First offence, I think one gets a warning letter, but if they went on, I believe one can eventually get a temporary suspension. 

Yes, I know this looks like I’m trying to orchestrate a campaign against them; but this would only happen if they were asked not to comment and kept doing so.  it isn’t really a campaign if it would require them to be the one to start it.

I’d just like not to see their username on my page.  I don’t want their comments or their kudos.  If I could block them from seeing my stuff altogether I would.

We can also write to AO3 admin and ask them to add features that allow one to block another user, remove kudos another user has given, and undo a kudos one has given by mistake or given to a fic that went south later on.  Apparently they are collating feedback on which new features users would like to see, so any such messages would go onto a database soewhere.  It probably won’t lead to anything, or not for years, but there’s no harm in logging a request.