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mokulule · 1 year

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The Number You Have Called Cannot Be Reached 3

Part 1|Part 2

Ship: Dead on Main (Danny/Jason) Warnings: angst/depression and canon typical violence

I'm not entirely happy with this, but I hope you enjoy it anyways. Some things will probably be changed for the Ao3 version, this is very much first draft and I want to do a proper rewrite before then.

Jason parked his bike next to the Batmobile. There was a strange air in the Batcave or maybe it was just him being different. He couldn’t tell for sure. He stepped off the bike so he had his back towards Bruce, who sat by the Batcomputer with his cowl off. Jason could still feel his gaze when he looked up. He didn’t know what to feel. Where was he supposed to start?

“Little Wing!” Dick announced happily, suddenly slinging an arm across his shoulder from behind. It was only all his training that stopped him from jumping three feet into the air from the fright and he managed to just tense - but that was normal. Dick would consider that normal. Pull yourself together, Jason, he scolded himself. Normal, act normal, for one long moment he was grasping for what was normal. It definitely wasn’t the urge to lean into his big brother.

“Jay?” Dick asked quietly, worried, thankfully too quiet for anyone to hear. Panic grasped him and he elbowed Dick to get him off. Dick bent over with an oomph. At least elbowing Dick was a normal response, even if it was for the wrong reason.

Ignoring the strange urge to check on Dick, he squared his shoulders, firmly didn’t look back and walked forward towards the Batcomputer, where now that he had arrived the rest of this night’s patrol team gathered. Damian already out of his suit with damp hair and a towel slung around his neck glanced surreptitiously at Jason out the corner of his eyes even as he pretended to look towards Bruce - brat was still worried. Tim was curled up in an office chair doing who knew what with his laptop in a way that did not seem conducive to the healing of the broken ribs he’d been benched for. Bruce himself, paused what he was doing and spun around in his chair. Even sitting he managed to draw everyone’s attention, Tim even closed his laptop.

Jason purposefully crossed his arms and widened his stance. That’s what they expected of him, probably? How did he usually stand? He usually always felt one wrong comment away from a fight when he was here, he should stand like he expected it, right? Defensive.

This was exhausting.

At last Dick walked up to them completing their loose circle. He was rubbing his side and Jason felt a stab of worry and guilt. Had he aggravated an existing wound? Shit. Fuck. What was wrong with him? Why was he so worried?

“Oracle,” Bruce spoke, “please start.”

“Thanks to Hood, we now have a better headshot of the thief,” Oracle announced from the computer speakers“The Ghost,” Dick interjected in a sing song voice, “after what happened tonight you can’t disagree.”“Nightwing,” Barbara replied flatly, she didn’t even need to say she thought it was a stupid name. “The thief,” she reiterated in a way that left no room for any other arguments and Dick wisely held his silence. At least Dick knew Barbara well enough when to stop. Finally she pulled two photos up on the large screen. The one on the right was an older/early photo with the green glassed goggles obstructing much of the upper half of the face, a grin was a sharp line of white on the lower half of the face in the blurry photo, the quality was terrible and caught in movement.

The newer photo on the left showed a young man, maybe even late teens, eyes were wide, bright green, not quite glowing and his face beet red in embarrassment, mouth slightly open - this was taken just after he’d pushed away from Jason. His goggles sat at the edge of his messy black hair, just high enough to see the way he was beginning to swell on his forehead where Jason had clocked him.

Jason looked from one picture to the other, something was off to him. The grin was an obvious difference, but these where snapped in very different moments, and he shouldn’t let different emotions cloud his judgment.

“He’s lost weight.” The realization hit him with the certainty of a sledgehammer.

There’s dubious mumbling around him, about the blurriness of the first picture. But Jason is unmoved, there’s a hollowness to the guy’s cheeks that wasn’t there before.

“We can’t really judge that sort of thing with the quality of the first image,” Barbara cut through the murmurs. Jason knows he right, but he doesn’t feel like arguing.

He doesn’t feel like arguing, it’s another realization that leaves him wrong footed and he’s not listening for a minute. Checking back into the conversation he only caught the tail end of the conversation that was apparently about the Meta’s skills.“-we can now add phase shifting powers-““Like a Ghost.”

Tim groaned and Barbara outright growled - Jason reevaluated his earlier thought that Dick knew Barbara’s limits. Damian had already accepted the logic and Bruce had long since become immune to this sort of Dick antic.

“Back on topic,” was all he said. “Tim.”

Tim opened his laptop back up.

“Yes, so the items the thief-” There was a small beat as everyone waited for Dick to interrupt, Tim was side-eyeing him but continued; “-is stealing are still painting a very alarming picture, and there is a multitude of very dangerous uses, not to mention what kind of world ending horror they could be built into. Luckily he didn’t get the prototype spectral calibrator tonight, and we’ll be keeping it here for the time being and set the project on an indefinite hold at Wayne Enterprise.”Tim looked up at Bruce. “We’ll be needing to monitor Star Labs as they have a similar project, but so far the Ghost has not operated outside of Gotham to our knowledge.”

Bruce nodded, “I’ll arrange something.”

It was a signal for Tim to continue, “we’re still no closer to a way to capture him and the phase shifting is a whole other added concern. We’ll need to figure out if there’s something he can’t phase through, some denser materials perhaps. I just finished looking through tonight’s footage and from what I’m seeing at least the new filter program is holding up; both the audio and visuals have very few glitches now. But we still don’t know how he’s sending out the electromagnetic interference.”

“Ghoooost,” Dick said quietly under his breath.Tim’s left eye twitched dangerously. Jason couldn’t help smiling, it was very good he was wearing the helmet. Bruce once more ignored Dick looking to Damian.The kid straightened imperceptibly at the attention, it really was adorable, but his voice was as haughty as ever. “Blood sample is already being analyzed of course, tt.” Blood sample? Oh, that’s what Bruce had been doing on the roof, when Jason was distracted. A sick feeling rose in his stomach thinking of the blood, was Ghost even alive? He could be bleeding inside the head for all they knew.

“Hood,” Bruce asked quietly, “do you know why the Ghost reacted to you like that?”Jason stiffened. Fear grabbing cold onto his heart. There was no way he could tell them he thought it had to do with the pits. They’d think Jason was being influenced by the Ghost and bench him. He couldn’t let that happen, he needed answers. He didn’t need to fight his family.

“No damn clue,” he scoffed, hoping he sounded nonchalant and none of his panic shone through, “some weird trauma response? He’d just hit his head real good.”

Bruce looked at him dubiously, but he was clearly unwilling to risk pushing. Their truce was a tentative one after all, one they’d come to after many false starts and stops. Jason had never before been so glad for their tattered relationship.

“So to conclude,” Dick drew everyone’s attention off Jason, “the Ghost is still a mystery, we don’t know if he’s just a thief or a supervillain biding his time.”

“He’s not a supervillain.” Jason could have cursed himself, he’d just gotten their attention off him. Now he was forced to elaborate. “He’s not wearing any sort of body armor, just that hoodie.”

And he’d definitely broken some of his ribs landing on him, Jason thought with a pang of guilt.

“Not all villains wear body armor though,” Tim pointed out carefully, and now Tim was worried too, Jason had no clue what had given him away.

“The ones who engage in close combat with us usually do though,” Dick returned, and Jason could have hugged him for bailing him out again (if that had been normal, which it was NOT).

“He could just not be a very good villain?”

“Or he’s just banking on the fact that he’s very good at dodging,” Barbara interjected with annoyance before the discussion got out of hand, “or did you all just forget you’ve been chasing this guy for weeks without landing a substantial hit on him?” She could always be counted on to be the voice of reason.

Dick scratched the back of his head sheepishly. Tim looked down at his computer. Damian scoffed, trying to look unaffected but that was definitely almost a pout.

Bruce’s eyes twinkled in amusement as he stood up and was that almost a smile? How was this happening? It felt… His fingers dug into his arms. It felt like all the things Jason had convinced himself had never really been there. And there was Bruce’s hand landing on Damian’s shoulder; a silent comfort-encouragement, because Bruce was terrible with words but his touches always spoke volumes. And as the small smile bloomed on Damian’s face and he quickly looked away to hide it, Jason remembered exactly how that felt. Shit.

“Oracle, that’s all for tonight, we’re not getting anywhere without more information.”

“You got it, B, Oracle out.”

Jason spun and stalked towards his bike, before he did something, he didn’t know what exactly.

“Jay?”

Bruce’s voice stopped him in place. He glanced over his shoulder to see them all watching him. Don’t give anything away, he scolded himself.

“What is it, old man?” Jason asked trying to interject as much annoyance into his voice as he could, but it was so hard dredging up any of that when they looked at him worried like that, and his chest ached and he just sounded tired.

“It’s late,” Bruce said with a small unconscious wave of his hand as if anyone could tell the time of day from within the cave, “you could stay the night?”

After a beat he added, “Alfred would love to see you.”

Jason’s jaw clenched. Alfred would, but that’s not what Bruce was really saying, he was saying he would love to have him stay, but didn’t think Jason would be receptive to that and so he brought out the Alfred card. It was plain as day and how had Jason never seen that? Seen the longing on his dad’s face? His chest ached, he knew why. He was always so busy reading everything Bruce did as him trying to control him, every interaction tinted in green. His chest ached. Every inch of his body wanted to stay, to take a step back, see where this could lead, but he couldn’t.

He had to act normal. Normal Jason would never. Normal Jason could be back tomorrow for all he knew. He couldn’t do that to any of them, to himself.

With great difficulty he tore his gaze away from his family and walked the last steps over to his bike.

“Tell Alfred I’ll be coming over for tea on Tuesday,” he said loudly over the noise of his bike, not looking, because he didn’t want to see any of their reactions, then he tore out of there.

This was better for everyone.

Poor Jay really is having the time of it, maybe next part he'll get to actually enjoy not being angry.

next Masterpost for subscription link

#dead on main #poor Jason has no idea how to act #when he's not perpetually angry #also he just really wants a hug from his dad #but that would be WEIRD #bruce is a good dad #Missed connections #Jason is catnip to Danny #thought sadly no Danny this snippet #probably next time though

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ourtearsofrain · 3 months

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Chapter 12- Swim to Shore

Pairings: Jake Kiszka x Reader

Genre: angst, fluff? (little snippet of domestic Jake)

Word Count: little over 1.4 k

Warnings: brief talk of healing wounds and shared traumatic experience

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You drift in and out of consciousness, not knowing if the faces that appeared to you were a dream or a reality, or perhaps glimpses of the other side. You see Rosanna, your father, Sam, Danny, and Jake. You think you surely must be dead when you catch a glimpse of Joshua’s face, caring and focused as he dabs at your forehead with a damp cloth.

You finally grasp full consciousness, cracking your eyes open to see Danny sitting by your bed as he reads. You feel a form behind you, heat radiating from his body as he lay curled against your back. Sam. You realize there is a hand in your own and look down to see Jake on the floor, slumped against your bedframe as he slept soundly. Danny looks over to you, closing his book as he realizes you had woken up.

“How long have I been asleep?” Your voice is quiet and raspy from disuse.

“A week.” His voice is quiet as to not wake the other two men as he smiles at you sadly. “Was beginning to think you might not wake up.”

“Where are we?”

“The Kiszka house in The Garden.”

You look back to Jake on the floor, and Danny follows your gaze with a smile. “These two haven’t left your side since we found you. I told Samuel that you might not want to wake up with him stealing half the bed, but he just told me to go fuck myself. I didn’t know you two had gotten that close.”

“Did he- did he tell you what happened?”

Danny nods solemnly. “He did. Thank you for saving his life, Polaris. Knowing him, he would have neglected his wounds and died from infection. I’m eternally in your debt.”

“And did he tell you-” You cut yourself off, not wanting to share Sam’s secret if he hadn’t admitted it himself.

A small grin breaks over his face. “That he loved me? Yeah, he did.”

You look down at your clothes, noticing you had been changed into a different shirt and pants, clean ones free of any blood, sweat, and grime. Your skin too had been scrubbed of any remnants of your time in the cell, causing confusion to pass over your face. “Who- who dressed me and cleaned me up?”

“Samuel. Jacob and I offered to help as he’s still recovering himself, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it. Said it would be ‘a violation of your privacy’.”

You offer a small smile at the thought. “We shared a cell with each other for weeks, I don’t think there’s a single thing either of us could do that would violate the others privacy.”

Danny smiles at your words. “That’s exactly what he said.”

The smile slowly leaves your face as you process what Danny had said about Sam still recovering. “How is he? His- his back, I mean?”

Danny looks down for a moment, sighing deeply with his leftover fury at Helena for what she did to him. “Better. He split some of them open trying to carry you before we got there but, everything is starting to scar over nicely.” He looks back up at you, his rage having left his body as sadness overtakes him.

“I can’t imagine what it was like fresh. I know that- that must not have been easy to see, even if you two hadn’t been as close as you are now as when it happened.”

As if he knew you were talking about him, Sam stirs beside you. He rubs the sleep from his eyes as he sits up to look at you, glee overtaking his features when he sees you had woken up. He tackles you around the middle, pulling you into his body in a tight embrace. “Polaris! You’re awake!” He yells, loud enough to snap Jake out of his sleep as he frantically looks around the room. Sam lets you go, looking at you as tears begin to well in his eyes. “You’re ok.” He whispers.

You wince, noticing the dull throb of pain on your stomach for the first time. “More or less.” You pull your shirt up slightly to assess the damage. Surprisingly, it was not as bad as you had expected, thinking you would see a stitched-up gash from the dagger. Instead, you see a clean half-healed burn. You look up at Jake, who had stayed silent since the moment he woke up. “You cauterized it?”

Jake looks down shamefully as tears on his waterline catch the light. “I had to.” He says quietly, refusing to meet your gaze. “It was the only way to stop you from bleeding out.”

You reach out to him, brushing his hair back from where it hung like curtains around his face. He looks back up at you, slightly leaning into your touch. “Thank you for saving my life.”

He offers you a small smile. “Of course, I couldn’t let you die. Especially after what Samuel told us. How you cared for him. Thank you, Polaris.”

You steal a glance back to Sam. “Guess we’re even now. I save you, you all save me.”

Sam laughs lightly. “Yeah, I guess so.”

You take in the men around you, noticing one was missing from their usual group and your brows furrow. “Where’s Joshua?”

“Back on The God Song.” Jake starts.

“Yeah, he’s barely left his quarters the whole time we’ve been here. Trying to plan out how to find Helena.” Sam continues.

Danny finishes their explanation. “He’s only left to come check on you.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “Joshua? Has been checking on me? Doesn’t he hate me?”

Sam shakes his head. “Not since I told them everything that happened back in that cell.”

“Which, speaking of my brother,” Jake starts as he pushes himself to a stand. “We should probably go check on him, and let him know you’re ok of course. Haven’t seen him in a day or two now.”

You sit up, turning to place your feet on the ground as you begin to reach for your boots. You wince as you bend over, stopping yourself as they come within inches of your grasp. Danny and Sam don’t notice, getting up from where each man sat as they began to stretch their limbs. Jake does though, and he drops back down to kneel in front of you as he grabs your boots. “Here, let me.” he offers.

“Thank you.” You allow him to help you into each boot and he stands when he finishes, offering a hand to you to help you up. You take it as he pulls you up to a stand, steadying you as you wobble on your feet. Jake drops one of your hands, keeping the other in his own as you follow the other men to the door and out of the room.

Your group makes its way to The God Song in silence, the weight of everything that had happened to you and Sam still hanging over your heads. You smile to yourself when you see Sam reach for Danny’s hand as you make your way through the town, saying nothing as they intertwine their fingers easily, as if it was second nature to them.

You finally reach The God Song, boarding it to find its deck empty and silent, its crew nowhere to be found as they took a much-needed break in the town. When your group enters Joshua’s quarters, he doesn’t notice you as he stands stooped over his maps and plans, mumbling to himself as he scribbles out notes.

Jake clears his throat, capturing his brother’s attention as he glances up from the table below him. He smiles when he sees you, a genuine smile that you aren’t used to seeing from the man, and he makes his way over to you, throwing his arms around you in a hug when he reaches you. Standing unmoving for a moment, you’re not sure if you were still unconscious and dreaming the interaction up as you laid in your bed at the Kiszka house. You bring your arms up to reciprocate the hug, and he only tightens his grasp when he feels your hands on his back.

He eventually pulls away, looking at you sincerely as he keeps a hand on your shoulder. “I’m so glad to see you conscious. Thank you for taking care of my little brother for me.”

“Of course, Joshua.” Your group says nothing as they observe the interaction, happy to see everyone reunited once more, with a new sense of peace between each person. “Now.” You start. “How are we going to track down this bitch and end her reign once and for all?”

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A/N: the title, of course, is taken from the lyrics to Waited All Your Life

#greta van fleet #greta van fleet fan fiction #gvf fic #jake gvf #pirate jake kiszka #jake kiszka x reader #pirates

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thesoulspulse · 1 year

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Danny Phantom Randomness (Heartbeat)

Not sure if this has been done before but if not, I have an idea. So I was thinking about how Danny’s human half didn’t survive when Dan was created from his ghost half and Vlad’s combining and thought of this really sad but meaningful moment where Clockwork brought his ghost to the past to let him say goodbye to the friends and family he lost to help his spirit pass on so there wouldn’t be two Danny’s in the same timeline. After all, the existence of half-ghosts themselves is already a paradox but it’s hard to say what’ll happen to Vlad and Danny once they actually DO die. That is, if they even can (plus immortal au’s are fun like that.)

Anyways, the idea here is that after Danny’s ghost manages to say goodbye to his parents, sister, Sam and Tucker, he makes a last minute decision to visit Vlad one more time too even though they were still enemies in the past. Even if he can never say this to the Vlad from his timeline who watched Dan kill him, Danny wants to let Vlad know what happened wasn’t his fault and for better or worse he knows he was trying to help. So Danny shows up at Vlad’s, is met by the usual snarky comments like “finally come to your senses to join me hmm Daniel?” or something to that effect but instead he just hugs Vlad, wishing he could change the future so neither of them had to lose someone important to them in such a horrific way, but knowing he can’t.

Vlad of course suspects something like a Specter Deflector being attached to him like last time so he’s just about to push Danny away when he notices something that makes his blood run cold. Danny...he doesn’t have a heartbeat! Alarmed now Vlad asks Danny if something happened and Danny, who has begun glowing with a warm golden light, smiles sadly and says:

“I wish we had more time but before I leave I just wanted to let you know it wasn’t your fault. In the end, you tried to help without the usual strings attached and I’ll never forget that. So thanks, Vlad, for finally doing what you said you would. Being there for me when I needed it. And in the future, when your second chance finally comes, don’t hesitate to take it because we’ll be waiting for you on the other side...”

Then he vanishes, implying that Danny’s moved on and is reunited with his friends and family who thankfully didn’t become ghosts after the Nasty Burger explosion, and Clockwork resets time in order to make it seem like this conversation never happened. But deep down, Vlad remembers what Danny said to him subconsciously which is why, when a young Danny appears in the future asking for help he uses the Ghost Gauntlets to help him stop Dan from recreating the dark timeline by removing Clockworks time amulet.

What we don’t see is the old and frail Vlad sink into his chair not long after, just barely holding onto life which is fading fast but then he sees a familiar light and a hand reaching out of it towards him. And despite all the mistakes Vlad’s made in his life by saving Danny -and by extension the world- it’s enough to help him make peace with himself and join his Danny in heaven after holding on long enough to give a version of his little badger a second chance to avoid a fate worse than death. That said, I still wish canon Vlad had gotten some kind of redemption arc instead of becoming progressively worse as the show went on but that’s what fanfics are for!

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this little snippet even if it’s kinda jumbled up. Just wanted to get the idea down before I forget since the main point is seeing Danny go out of his way to comfort Vlad and let him know the death of his human self wasn’t his fault. Plus, it’s nice to imagine Future Vlad got to move on peacefully too after making up for his biggest mistake of accidentally creating Dan.

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under-the-ladder · 2 months

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We got a super Thursday this year bigger than any of the super Saturdays lol. So much happened! I needed some time to gather my thoughts

First of all, I love that we have another nonbinary artist this year! Musically The Code reminds me of Jann in Emperor's New Clothes. I like how dynamic the song is, the opera merged with other genres (which I'm always a sucker for) and on top of that, the message!! The only thing is I always cringe at the line with ammonites... Can't have everything. This will be high in my ranking for sure. The question remains, will they be able to pull those notes live?

UK... I believed until the end, even after those snippets. The huge names (Olly and Danny) only raised the expectations. This is incredibly monotonous and lacks any climax. In a weaker year it could place like 10th in my ranking, not this time. A lot of wasted potential here :/ I still have hope for a redeeming staging since I've seen what Olly's capable of at the Brit Awards in 2021.

Not a crazy fan of We Will Rave. Everywhere around me I keep hearing oohs and aahs and because of that I just can't warm up to that song. Somehow I strongly feel about what staging would fit and which would break that song for me. Based on Kaleen's vibes I think she will go for the latter, sadly.

Cyprus scores surprisingly high this year in my ranking, considering what kind of song this is. Usually I stay indifferent towards upbeat girl pop. Idc what happened this time, I like the melodies and Silia's positive energy in the mv is just contagious.

And last but not least, my one of a kind funky Dutch man 🥹 I am absolutely in love with everything he does. While watching the premiere I immediately spotted that Europapa doesn't go as hard as his other songs, which I did expect. (Ok, the exception is that gabber(?) moment.) I get he might have done this to appeal to the wider audience but somehow it still feels very authentic to him as an artist and that is what counts in the end. The first part immediately brings to mind Samaa taviasta katsotaan, even Poland got mentioned. Maybe I shouldn't be comparing so much but I swear those are all compliments. I love both Emperor's New Clothes and Samaa...

The "Europe without borders" message speaks to me on a very personal level. It awakened the Europatriotic side of me, which I feel I might have unconsciously shut down some time ago due to the worsening political situation (both in Poland and throughout Europe) and people writing that view off as idealistic and naive. Idk whether I'm interpreting it right, but especially the picture of the burning cluster of buildings(?) as a symbol of the current political (but also environmental!!) situation on the continent hit me hard.

Generally, I find it insane how a Dutch rapper makes me feel more towards the place I live in than an entire lifetime that I spent learning about Polish history, martyrdom and a predefined meaning of what it means to be a "good patriotic Pole" being imposed on me by people whose national identity was shaped long before we entered the EU. I think that's a generational divide, but the worst thing is that those people are more and more power-hungry and not willing to give up that power when the time comes. Right now they are only reinforcing their positions and digging divides deeper than ever to control the nation

So yes, I am crying but not because of the dad situation (I sympathize wholeheartedly but can't relate) but rather my very personal relation to patriotism and the mill of thoughts Joost kickstarted in my head. This song awakes some deep deposits of feelings I was only partially aware I had, expect more thinking out loud in text on here.

Now, thanks for coming to my ted talk, if anyone even reached the end <3

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writingmaidenwarrior · 11 months

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7 Snippets 7 People

I was tagged by @oh-no-another-idea I post the 7 favorite snippets from "Moon Daughter"

Again, Neil rubbed his arm, what drew Connors attention to it. With narrowed eyes, he fixed Neil with a warning growl. “Don’t tell me you went to a witch.” “I didn’t go to a witch.” Even in Neil’s ears, it didn’t sound believable. Connor let go of his shoulders and threw his arms in the air. “Fuck, Neil, are you nuts? What did she take as payment?”

Satisfied he could cross out one of the steps he planned already, Connor went to open the door. The neighbor’s kids ran past him with happy yells as he crossed the hall to his apartment. “Hey hun”, Danika opened the door with a broad smile. Her hair has been put in box braids with a colorful ombre effect going from purple to white, which was already a tell-tale sign her sister was over. “Hair day already?” “Yeah, what do you think?” She wiped her head. “Gorgeous as always, hun. Is Candice still around?” With a smirk, Connor snuck his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek.

She spotted the woman in the dancefloor surrounded by a few guys with her boyfriend aside watching closely. Everything about the way he held himself and how he watched the dancefloor told Mika he trusted his girlfriend but not the other guys, and if just one of them did something she wasn’t ok with, it was an instant ticket to hell. It made her snicker when she caught herself thinking this gave her back a little faith in humankind.

“Damien’s kid. She is the alpha’s kid we are looking for. I was born in this pack. My connection is stronger than yours. Asra is impatient.” “I know. It takes all my control to keep Silas from barging over.” With a deep heaving breath, Connor looked over to the bar that started to become less crowded as the night slowly turned into morning. “I like to see you bossy for once. You always have so much patience for everyone.” “One day you might see me push around Neil if he continues like this.” Snickering, both took another sip from their beer bottles. “The same as usual?”, Danika asked after a moment of peace.

Neil scanned the room and found Erebus where he was to be expected: Close to the house bar, lounging in an armchair with a glass of wine. Again, Neil had to wonder if Erebus did this bad impression of a Hollywood vampire with his ruffled shirt and tight pants to lead people astray or because he thought it was funny.

“You know I am good. That’s why Damien liked to send us. So, tell me, how did it go with the girl?” “Mika…, she agreed to come with us. She is a more concentrated and direct version of Neil.” Laughing, Danika fell on top of him. “This will be funny.” As on clue, his phone went off. With her still on top of his, Connor fished for it and made a face when he saw the caller ID. “Speaking of the big bad wolf.” He answered the call and put Neil on speaker. “Hey buddy, you are on speaker. Danny is with me.” “I am not disturbing some private time, am I?”, Neil teased with a suggestive tone. “You wish”, Danika shot back. “Not at all, contrary to what you may think of me”, Neil laughed.

Fondling with the necklace she got when she was little, Mika couldn’t help herself and wonder if her mother tried to keep her away from the pack for some reasons but sadly, she couldn’t ask her anymore. For the first time in the last two years Mika wished her mother was still alive even if she hoped she had been past this point by now.

I tag @zmwrites @captain-kraken @sam-glade @serotoninshift @lexiklecksi @writernopal @eternalwritingstudent

#writblr #writing #7 snippets tag #moon daughter wip

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haloburns · 2 years

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happy birthday to "the world is having more fun than me (tonight)"!!!

it has officially been one year since i started this stupid indulgent au of mine. so in honor of my commitment to this au for a full fucking year, i have some fun stuff to share!!

i'll be making posts all day about the au, tagged as "au birthday shenanigans" if you want to block it.

it all started because i speedran rewatching the series and decided i (like the rest of the fandom) wanted to change the ending of phantom planet.

then, i wanted to create a college au because i wanted to see what would happen to this danny that i created (and i got my senior year stolen by covid so i wanted to lived vicariously through my characters). it was supposed to be a lighthearted au, fun little snippets of college nonsense here and there. i expected to write for a few months, maybe, and then abandon it like i did everything else.

but then i found the ectober prompts and it was kinda all over from there. i used nanowrimo to finish the ectober prompts (i found them oct 25th alksjfkdsjf) and between the two months wrote 25 chapters. i had started developing a solid plot by this point, actually, and then it snowballed even further from there.

and now here we are! one year, 266k+, more than 30 works, and two fandom events later!

some fun facts about the series below the cut

vanessa was going to be danny's original love interest. then i realized they had major friend vibes, and after i wrote "the ghost boy can have a little coffee (as a treat)" i thought about using maybe luke. a cliche, for sure, but luke was sadly straight. then i realized that he and his roommate, mateo, had chemistry. y'all know how that's gone

mateo was originally supposed to be a point of conflict with danny. they weren't supposed to get along and were never supposed to get close. (that definitely changed, didn't it??)

vanessa was the first character i created for the specter squad, and emrys was the second

emrys had three name changes before i fell on that name. welsh names are hard and i had to find the right vibes. plus now i get to make merlin jokes so it's perfect

manaia and nikau's majors were originally flipped. nikau was the marine biologist and manaia was the voice and dance major. i flipped it because i felt like the vibes were wrong

there was going to be a buffy crossover episode for halloween year one. then i got the halloweekend idea, and the course of the fic permanently changed

i never intended for luke to become a regular part of the specter squad. he was supposed to be a throwaway character for that one fic, after i realized he wasn't danny's love interest. then my sibling decided they liked luke and wanted more of him. he quickly became one of my favorite characters to write and became central to the plot of the first arc. which my sibling regrets, but i am very grateful for

manaia and vanessa's relationship was news to me, and the third that ends up in their polycule was a fucking shock to me. i can't say anything yet, not until after invisobang, but hooboy. just you wait. it's gonna be so fun

nikau and emrys may or may not be in a relationship. i have no idea. neither do they. it's queer, no matter what it is, and i love them so much

i would die for any of my blorbos, but mateo especially. he is the Blorbo Supreme

i have so many plans for this au. i have the series plotted out for up to five years after graduation >:3 buckle up chucklefucks, we got a long way to go

#the world is having more fun than me tonight series #au birthday shenanigans #danny phantom #ecto fics #my writing #my au #man its been a year #i can't believe that #ive done so fucking much since then

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pokelolmc · 3 years

Text

Ectoberweek Day 2: (Pulse)

Sadly, my Ectoberweek submissions are a few days behind because of...pesonal reasons. This is what happens when I wing it last-minute, I guess (also, this one turned out much longer than I anticipated).

This one is also a crossover, with Doctor Who (featuring the Ninth Doctor), but hopefully it’s not too much trouble to get the gist of if you haven’t seen it:

ff.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13729906/2/EctoberWeek-2020-Collection

‘A faint spectre of a familiar wheezing noise—something roughly halfway between an electric train engine and some contraption from the mind of H.G Wells—drifted through Danny’s window, bolting him unceremoniously up off of his bed in a messy paradox of fear and excitement. A quick ghost-aided hop out of the second-floor window landed Danny safely onto the manicured lawn of his backyard with nary a giveaway crunch of grass. He leapt into a hurried sprint out to his front yard and down the footpath, a prayer on his lips that Jazz—or, god forbid, his parents—wouldn’t find it odd he locked his bedroom door for something as mundane as an alleged “nap”.

He couldn’t tell them why he was leaving, not without admitting a secret he dreaded they wouldn’t understand.

He sadly had little justification to convince him they would, considering the misery of the past hellish year that slipped by his hitherto closest loved ones completely unnoticed, let alone understood. The only person who could understand his discomfort was a once-stranger who had properly noticed, pulled him back to his feet and saved him when everyone else couldn’t.

For someone as guarded in lies as Danny, the hefty pile of trust he invested in the Doctor after only half a year still continually stunned him…

…For all the time that he had been a halfa, Danny adamantly ignored the implications of his own modified biology. As he zeroed his focus in on his early superhero-esque impression of the outcome, the notion of becoming something not entirely human sat tightly folded and stuffed into the belly of his mental closet where it could no longer hurt him—out of sight, out of mind. The notion of an otherworldly, freakish creature—one of the only two on the entire planet—alone amongst a crowd of normal humans, ready to tear him apart should they find out he was not one of their kind…

It reared its ugly head out of depths of his psyche in his nightmares.

An unfortunate doubt had burrowed its deep way into his heart that, no matter how well his family and friends knew him, the intricacies of his situation were impossible for them to understand— unlike him, they all remained fully human…powerless, mundane, living without fear of being found out as something else… Vlad, for all that he was Danny’s fellow in physical nature, remained his moral opposite. Danny lost count of just how many times that broken record had replayed his denial of Plasmius’s contemptible deal to the stubborn maniac. By all accounts, he should’ve had no one to turn to.

However, for all of the paranoid secrecy that lodged the topic close to the vest, Danny felt fare more at ease breaching it with the Doctor, minus the unpleasantness of the touchy subject matter tasting bitter in his mouth…

…“…Something wrong?”

“Can we talk about it inside...?”

The Doctor nodded carefully, letting Danny into the vast exterior of the disguised time machine and locking the door behind him.

The teenager shuffled in as the Doctor paced to a cooler bag resting beyond the edge of the main console to grab a drink for them both, returning to break his companion’s awkward silence.

“I assume this is something difficult, then?”

“Well…yeah.” Danny responded pathetically, rubbing the back of his neck as he averted the man’s gaze. “It kind of occurred to me earlier, but I’ve never wanted to think about it…”

Those ancient eyes pierced immediately into him.

“Does it have to do with your family?”

“No!” he stammered hastily, “It’s just…”

His throat moved as if possessed, his voice lowering carefully from a reflex honed for reasons he wished never had to be.

“I…what do I do? …What if people find out what I am?”…

The Doctor’s eyes blinked almost owlishly for such a scant second that Danny wasn’t even sure if he had just been imagining it, before his features schooled into a pensive frown.

“Oh…”

“I can’t take it! I told myself I was normal, still normal, forever…but I’m just deluding myself!” his hands clenched tightly into shaking fists by his sides, “I’ll never be a normal human like everyone else again! I have powers they don’t; DNA that’s different to theirs—how different is my body, even, to a normal human’s?! How much physical, undeniable proof is there that I’m not normal?! Have I got some sort of freaky biology that would set me apart from everyone in a hospital—that as soon as they took a look at me, they’d know I wasn’t like them?! A monster?! A weird thing that needs to be locked up?! What am I supposed to do when everyone finds out that I’m some freak?! How…how can I live with something like that?!”…

…“Danny, there’s nothing ‘freakish’ about being other than human; normalcy is in the eye of the beholder.”

Danny’s gaze sank to the floor, fighting a losing battle to keep his face restrained, eyes dodging away from the Doctor as he put a hand on the teen’s shoulder.

“You say that…but you don’t know what people are like.”

“Oh, I think a good 700 years of being acquainted with Earth had made sure I know.” The Doctor scoffed.

“You don’t know what being human is like! You don’t know what I’ve lost!” ripped itself from Danny’s trembling throat.

“I don’t, I’ll admit that—but for all it’s worth, why does it have to be something to mourn? There’s nothing wrong with having biology different to a human’s, and that’s not going to change what you’re worth or take away your ability to find a place to call your own.”

“What about my parents and the people in town? Even Tucker and Sam, forgetting what they already know, would still find me weird if they found out how deep it went! It would matter to them!”

“—You already know I’m not human; you just said so.” the Doctor replied simply.

“Do you think it would matter to me?”

Danny choked on a dumbfounded stutter.

“I…I don’t know.”

The older of the duo tapped a hand on Danny’s shoulder, trying to coax the younger’s gaze upwards, with a thoughtful pause…

“Danny, did you know I have two hearts?”

Danny snapped up to look him in the eye.

“It’s true!” the alien crowed in mock defence, “You must’ve forgotten if you don’t remember! I’m sure I’ve mentioned it at least once!”

A cocked brow from the boy told him to return to seriousness, “For all I look like a human to you, Danny, Time Lord biology has quite a few major differences on the inside; mainly, two hearts—additionally, also a respiratory bypass system in the same area. It’s quite useful in situations of air blockages. That is a clear, solid reminder that would prove me vastly different to any human who took a look—and they have, too...a hospital had the unfortunate shock of taking my bloods and chest x-rays in the 1970’s. It’s happened quite a few times since.”

Leather wrinkled as he rolled up one sleeve in response to Danny’s gaping face, offering his bare wrist to him.

“Go ahead—feel my pulse; it’s right there, double time—the vascular valves have to work twice as fast to keep up with a second heart.”

Danny cocked an eyebrow, taken aback for a few short seconds before gingerly taking the Doctor’s wrist in his hand…

…As Danny fumbled to find the right spot and gesture, the Doctor mimed with his own free hand on the wrist to guide Danny on the correct position.

He fought down the light tremors of emotion in his hand as he tried to focus on the right spot beneath the time traveller’s skin, tactile attention peeled for any slight movement.

Thump-thump,

The hybrid’s eyes shot as wide open as dinner plates.

A beat rippled under the pads of his fingers, rapidly fluttering in quickly succeeding rounds of two each third of a second…

…Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…

A vague fog spilled into his brain an isolated fact from tenth-grade science—a snippet of the teacher’s comparisons to show the rough scale of average resting heart rates.

The Doctor’s pulse hurried like a human pumped up on terrifying high of adrenaline…all, incredibly, while still at rest. Such a pace remained impossible for a human heart to handle alone…

A chest far more bizarre than any of the freakish physiological anomalies he had ever fathomed or dreaded discovering in his own mutated body.

“How…how fast is that?” Danny stammered in awe, pulling his hand away.

“Roughly around 126 beats per minute, resting.” The Doctor grinned proudly, “That can go up to 150 when I’m running. The hearts themselves are even faster than the pulse—in rounds of four. You think that’s too different from human for you to have no problems with?”…

… He glanced over the other’s smaller frame.

“Want to try yours? Take some vitals to see if there’s anything different we need to know of?”

Danny frowned, unease starting to pool in the bottom of his stomach.

“But, we’re in Amity Park…”

“We’re in Amity Park in the TARDIS” he corrected, “safe from any prying eyes—those walls are impenetrable. There’s no better place than here to take a look—and knowing how your own body adapted to ectoplasm will very likely come in handy later.

If not now, that’s alright—but consider it for later some time; self-knowledge is very important, and courage starts with stepping up to face what frightens you.”

“No…I’ll give it a go now.” Danny decided hesitantly.

“Alright, then.” The Doctor strolled briskly down a branching corridor, disappearing down the amber hallway.

The console room fell into silence, only broken by the faint drone of the TARDIS engines in the background. Left to his own devices in the empty room, curiosity lightly crept in over the upset in Danny’s chest, tempting him into a quick glance at his own wrist.

He’d gotten to check the Doctor’s pulse…so what about his own?...”

Read full story from beginning under cut:

A faint spectre of a familiar wheezing noise—something roughly halfway between an electric train engine and some contraption from the mind of H.G Wells—drifted through Danny’s window. He sprung up off of his bed with the suddenness of a wound-up spring, in a messy paradox of fear and excitement. Hardly a blade of backyard grass crunched under his step as he ejected himself, ghost-aided, from the second story window. He leapt into a hurried sprint out to his front yard and down the footpath, a prayer on his lips that Jazz—or, god forbid, his parents—wouldn’t find it odd he locked his bedroom door for something as mundane as an alleged “nap”.

He couldn’t tell them why he was leaving, not without admitting a secret he dreaded they wouldn’t understand.

For someone as guarded in lies as Danny, the hefty pile of trust he invested in the Doctor after only sixth months still baffled his own judgement.

Sheer serendipity had smashed them into each other in the dirty, deserted alleys of Amity Park in the heat of late spring—in retrospect, it was only sensible that Amity Park’s run-ragged local protector was pulled head-first into the Doctor’s mission to chase down an alien threat to the town. Danny’s experience with danger, quick thinking and compassion received the unbelievable surprise of an approving eye from the peculiar “traveller”—and at the end of an averted crisis, their exchange switched from a currency of snarky banter to their inevitably unveiling secrets. Two pairs of light sapphires locked into each other’s depths, piercing through the icy surfaces to glimpse at mutually familiar reflections of loneliness and pain. With the planting of a hand on Danny’s shoulder, and the man’s lighthearted switch to a casual offer to take him on a trip (he owed the boy one for the help, was his excuse), and Danny had finally witnessed the unthinkable: the miraculous salvaging of the hitherto unsalvageable.

His childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, struck down by the brutal consequences of recklessly buckling to peer pressure at fourteen (sacrificing one half of his life to get his powers, and the other half to the ungrateful town he used them for), had somehow been resurrected from the ashes. In the blinding abyss of despair that tore from him all motivation and vision of his own meaning and future, he had finally regained sight of what he had longed for so long ago:

He was offered a chance to see the stars.

…not just gazing at constellations from the roof he vastly preferred to the entire home that sat underneath, but a chance to spare a glance up close and personal—on the densely populated planets pulled into the stars’ orbits. To bask in the colourful evidence of those stars in an alien sunrise, and set foot on the moons and asteroids bizarre geological impossibilities called their ancient homes…

One trip turned into a second…which, unsurprisingly, turned into a third…

From there, the call of Danny’s responsibility to stay in Amity brought a semi-regular schedule of visits back and forth—from Danny relearning what hope felt like from the firsthand wonders of space, to the Doctor’s frequent check-in visits to the child’s haunted hometown. Hours filled with conversation and strengthening rapport that Danny’s busy double life deprived him of having with his family and friends. A fresh perspective on the universe leapt into his life out of the blue and sat, in a worn leather jacket and raven buzz-cut, listening to his pain and pushing him to heal.

That report nagged at Danny from the recesses of his mind, insisting on the only person he could take his dredged-up dilemma to.

For all the time that he had been a halfa, Danny adamantly ignored the implications of his own modified biology. As he distracted himself with his earlier superhero-esque impression of gaining ghost powers, the notion of becoming something not entirely human sat tightly folded and stuffed into the underbelly of his mental closet where it couldn’t hurt him—out of sight, out of mind. The concept of an otherworldly, freakish creature—one of the only two on the entire planet—alone in a crowd of normal humans with the tenacity to tear him apart as soon as they knew…

It reared its ugly head in his nightmares.

An unfortunate doubt burrowed a deep beeline into his heart that, no matter how well his family and friends knew him, the intricacies of his situation were impossible for them to understand. Unlike him, they all remained fully human…powerless, mundane, living without fear of being found out as something else… Vlad, for all that he was Danny’s fellow in physical nature, remained his moral opposite. Danny lost count of just how many times that broken record had replayed his denial of Plasmius’s contemptible deal to the stubborn maniac. By all accounts, the second halfa should’ve had no one to turn to.

However, for all of the paranoid secrecy that lodged the topic close to the vest, Danny felt almost entirely at ease breaching it with the Doctor—minus the unpleasant sting of the touchy subject matter tasting bitter in his mouth.

His hasty feet scraped to a stop at a sliver of blue wood past a corner. Relieving his straining lungs, his legs strolled the last few metres steadily of their own accord, ceasing before he bumped into the hilariously unfitting shape of a 1960’s British police box at the mouth of an alleyway. An unearthly glow pulsed faintly from the lantern atop the booth, tinting the deep Aegean-blue paint with scant patches of flashing turquoise. A soft orange glow streamed out in beams from the two windows on a pair of double doors at the entrance. Danny’s fingers reached up, sensitively, to the sturdy corner framing of the booth, his eyes catching the ebony sign that read “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX” along the length of the roof. A shudder through the wood brushed feather-light underneath his fingertips in greeting, the warm purr of an impossibly ancient—and just as volatile—housecat eagerly welcoming its familiar guest.

After a quick rap on the doors, they swung open with a long creak, accompanied by a Northern British accent rising in a pleasant tenor.

“Ah, Danny—right on time again!” faded eyebrows shot up a bare forehead under the familiar black buzz-cut. A welcoming smile spread over half the distance from one embarrassingly prominent ear to another.

“I heard you landing.” the forced cheer in Danny’s words fell in ruins to the awkward, shaky tumble they came out in.

The grin quickly turned into a serious frown, those electric blue irises lowering their gaze in concern.

“…Something wrong?”

“Can we talk about it inside...?”

The Doctor nodded carefully, letting Danny into the vast exterior of the disguised time machine and locking the door behind him.

The teenager shuffled in as the Doctor paced to a cooler bag resting beyond the edge of the main console to grab a drink for them both. He broke his companion’s awkward silence.

“I assume this is something difficult, then?”

“Well…yeah.” Pathetic as it was, it was all the response Danny could momentarily muster. His gaze darted from one side to the other and he rubbed the back of his neck, “It kind of occurred to me earlier, but I’ve never wanted to think about it…”

Those ancient eyes pierced immediately into him with a protective air.

“Does it have to do with your parents?”

“No!” he stammered hastily, “—not exactly, it’s just…”

His throat moved as if possessed, his voice lowering carefully from a reflex honed for reasons he wished never had to be.

“I…what do I do? …What if people find out what I am...?”

The Doctor’s eyes blinked almost owlishly for such a scant second that Danny wasn’t even sure if he had just been imagining it, before his features schooled into a pensive frown.

“Oh…”

Silence.

“Danny, there’s nothing ‘freakish’ about being other than human; normalcy is in the eye of the beholder.”

Danny’s gaze sank to the floor, fighting a losing battle to keep his face restrained, eyes dodging away from the Doctor as he put a hand on the teen’s shoulder.

“You say that…but you don’t know what people are like.”

“Oh, I think a good 700 years of being acquainted with Earth had made sure I know.” The Doctor scoffed.

“You don’t know what being human is like! You don’t know what I’ve lost!” ripped itself from Danny’s trembling throat.

“What about my parents and the people in town? Even Tucker and Sam, forgetting what they already know, would still find me weird if they found out how deep it went! It would matter to them!”

“—You already know I’m not human; you just said so.” the Doctor replied simply.

“Do you think it would matter to me?”

Danny choked on a dumbfounded stutter.

“I…I don’t know.”

The older of the duo tapped a hand on Danny’s shoulder, trying to coax the younger’s gaze upwards, with a thoughtful pause…

“Danny, did you know I have two hearts?”

Danny snapped up to look him in the eye.

“It’s true!” the alien crowed in mock defence, “You must’ve forgotten if you don’t remember! I’m sure I’ve mentioned it at least once!”

Leather wrinkled as he rolled up one sleeve in response to Danny’s gaping face, offering his bare wrist to him.

“Go ahead—feel my pulse; it’s right there, double time—the vascular valves have to work twice as fast to keep up with a second heart.”

Danny cocked an eyebrow, taken aback for a few short seconds before gingerly taking the Doctor’s wrist in his hand.

“Umm…how do I check for a pulse?”

“Take your index and middle finger together and put them on the wrist, underneath the base of the thumb; there’s a palpable vein there in most ‘humanoid’ species, a similar one in Time Lords as well.” As Danny fumbled to find the right spot and gesture, the Doctor mimed with his own free hand on the wrist to guide Danny on the correct position.

He fought down the light tremors of emotion in his hand as he tried to focus on the right spot beneath the time traveller’s skin, tactile attention peeled for any slight movement.

Thump-thump,

The hybrid’s eyes shot as wide open as dinner plates.

A beat rippled under the pads of his fingers, rapidly fluttering in quickly succeeding rounds of two each third of a second. It throbbed as fast as the metal-style Dumpty Humpty song he’d listened to on loop for the last two months, accelerated beyond the rabbiting thud of his heart in his chest when he ran himself ragged in the two-minute mile in ninth grade. The very rhythm of life that kept the Doctor in the universe, pushing his physiology onward, spoke clearly of the hidden contents of his ribcage.

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…

A vague fog spilled into his brain an isolated fact from tenth-grade science—a snippet of the teacher’s comparisons to show the rough scale of average resting heart rates.

The Doctor’s pulse hurried like a human pumped up on terrifying high of adrenaline…all, incredibly, while still at rest. Such a pace remained impossible for a human heart to handle alone…

A chest far more bizarre than any of the freakish physiological anomalies he had ever fathomed or dreaded discovering in his own mutated body.

“How…how fast is that?” Danny stammered in awe, pulling his hand away.

Sixth months of travels, venting and understanding, everything he owed the miraculous alien in front of him, won out beyond questioning.

The halfa shook his head vigorously.

“No…never…”

“Well, with the body I’ve got, yours certainly wouldn’t ever a problem for me. Even if there are people in your town who wouldn’t accept you, I do—and there will be other people out there in the larger universe who would, too. Even if you lose one place, you don’t lose the ability to find another—and I’m sure there are people already in your town who would find a closer place with too. From what you’ve said of your friends and sister, I’m sure they’d handle it fine in the end.”

“But I’m pretty sure they couldn’t take something like that in stride.”

“Oh, come on! What’s a little non-human physiology between friends?” the Doctor jabbed warmly, “An initial shock, inevitable as it is, wouldn’t end bonds that old just like that!”

He glanced over the other’s smaller frame.

“Want to try yours? Take some vitals to see if there’s anything different we need to know of?”

Danny frowned, unease starting to pool in the bottom of his stomach.

“But, we’re in Amity Park…”

If not now, that’s alright—but consider it for later some time; self-knowledge is very important, and courage starts with stepping up to face what frightens you.”

“No…I’ll give it a go now.” Danny decided hesitantly.

“Alright, then.” The Doctor strolled briskly down a branching corridor, disappearing down the amber hallway.

He’d gotten to check the Doctor’s pulse…so what about his own?

A bombardment from his brain halted that train of thought at a railroad crossing, forcing it to make way of a nuisance little car that jeered, ‘Try, and you’ll seal that proof in stone; if that pulse is anything non-human, you’re never unseeing that, you frea—’

Danny pounced at the scathing thought in defensive irritation as it sent his hands into another series of light shivers. Another part of him stepped in to remind him of the Doctor’s words—receiving a reluctant welcome by his conscious.

How different would it be? Was it any different from a full human’s at all? How different was it when he hadn’t really had a strong concept of what a normal human pulse actually felt like in comparison to his own? Using his own heartbeat as a frame of comparison for the Doctor’s was one thing—a point of reference to compare his pulse to another normal person’s, he did not have.

He pulled a deep, slow current of air into his lungs, trying to settle his nerves again as he fumbled with the posture of the middle and index finger, stumbling embarrassingly for a few seconds to find their claim on the thumb-side of his other wrist.

His nostrils flared with another deep breath as he steeled himself in anticipation, seconds dragging their heavy feet as he searched for a feeling of movement in his veins.

He froze in astonishment as plodding pulse gently thrummed to his touch.

Thump…thump…thump…

His…

That was his.

The giver of his own life—half-life—the very perpetuator of his existence; the fundamental thing that kept him alive from the inside, human and post-…the emissary of the complex organic pump at the centre of his once-human body…

A dizzying rush of…something indescribable surged through his body, bringing a surreal tickle of cold everywhere it flowed; the hairs on his arm stood straight upwards atop a desert of countless goosebumps cluttering his thin skin. A breath caught itself in his throat, straining his diaphragm as it pulled tightly around his chest. The sluggish pulse accelerated to a more vigorous flutter under the light touch, as adrenaline hit in the snap-short second his body screamed for air—responding to his own emotions in real time, like a viewing window cut neatly into the exterior steel plating of a mechanical marvel, giving a tantalising glimpse of a small section of the mechanism inside as it continued playing its part in the unknown, concealed whole…

He snapped out of his reverie as the Time Lord re-emerged into the console room, his arms cradling a steel bin stacked with medical equipment, a stethoscope coiled around his neck.

“…You know, I thought you weren’t that kind of doctor…?” Danny probed with shy wit.

“I am now!” he grinned, sapphire orbs glimmering humorously as a quick yank saved a digital thermometer from falling to its death off the top of the overflowing pile.

His head took on a slight tilt like a contemplative owl as he lay down his cargo and eyed the halfa’s fingers drawing a pattern into the skin of his wrist as his mouth seemed to temporarily malfunction.

“My pulse…it’s there.”

“Well, that’s one thing you have over other ghosts, then.”

The halfa probed hesitantly, “Is it too slow? …Is it human?”

“Hold on, let me take a look.” The Doctor insisted, brows squashed downwards in a neat line of concentration as thick, calloused hands took a hold of Danny’s wrist. The concentrated frown descended further as his throat hummed in thought for a few, lagging moments.

“That’s rather slow,” he rated, “Usually, the average resting rate for humans is between sixty and eighty beats per minute. Considering that you’re hardly an elite athlete, you wouldn’t be expected to go below forty to fifty at a healthy rhythm…but here it is.”

An uncomfortable gulp didn’t cure the tension in Danny’s throat.

“…how slow?”

The Doctor’s face stilled for a scant second in a familiar schooling of intense focus; six months of seeing the Time Lord in action told Danny that superhumanly precise calculations of the flow of time were running through that head, measuring speed in all but brief moment, like a supercomputer.

“…45 beats per minute, rounding up the half-seconds.”

“Damn…” his gobsmacked mouth fell open.

“It’s the ghost half affecting the human one, likely.” His friend explained simply. A pair of leather clad arms burrowed into the box and returned with handheld metallic box, snaking around a cuff of rough cloth on a length of rubber tubing, “What would be interesting is to see whether your blood pressure compensates for the heart rate in any manner—and what it does to your temperature, for that matter.”

Danny grimaced in anticipation as the blood pressure cuff slipped over his bicep. For some inexplicable reason, insistent check-ups back in the forgotten times his parents fretted constantly over a risk of childhood ecto-contamination had given him a mild aversion to blood pressure machines. It left a mark so strong, that being thrown violently across the pavement by a volatile ghost while fighting remained a more tolerable preference to having his blood pressure taken.

“It won’t take long,” the Doctor insisted as he picked up the thermometer he’d intercepted earlier, “Just stay still.”

Danny’s upper arm pressed in on itself like a squashed balloon about to burst; he ground his teeth together as a few, unpleasant seconds passed, relief flooding through him as the crushing push of the cuff retracted and gave his limb free room again. The few seconds of a thermometer pressing against his middle ear lasted for a few less, far more comfortable seconds before it chimed a small, synthesised beep.

He watched the Doctor’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.

“Well, your blood pressure seems to be within normal human range–not compensating for the slow blood flow at all, something else must be at work...” the Time Lord quickly evened his voice, hastily attempting to salvage the second that he looked taken aback, “…your temperature, though…that’s 26 degrees.”

“WHAT!?”

The Doctor locked onto Danny with a dumbfounded look, “…Celsius.”

Danny groaned.

“You almost gave me a heart attack! …what is it in Fahrenheit?”

“78.8, almost 79.”

“Oh…wow, that’s cold. Average people are around 90-something, right?”

“Yes; 79 would be hypothermic for full humans.” he continued, his voice leaking a hint of fascination, trailing off lightly into a short, pensive silence…

“You’re not a lot colder than I am…” his voice tumbled out airy and absent, hints of buried emotion leaking through his cracks in his straining voice…

…such a foreign tone from the elder that Danny froze.

“Time Lord core temperatures sit generally at around 12 degrees Celsius—around 53 in Fahrenheit. ” he continued, “Any human that cold would be on the brink of death—or already dead.”

As soon as the cracks opened, they sealed themselves shut—the Doctor’s voice evening to a low, serious tone leaking with hints of curiosity, leaving little trace that tension had ever been there, “Whatever is happening in your body, the ghost aspect of your biology is somehow enhancing or interfering with the human body; there has to be a trace of something sourcing all of that…”

Danny blinked as the azure light of a Sonic Screwdriver emerged out of the Doctor’s pocket and intruded into the path of his vision. The shining spot smeared a line of light, alongside the device’s typical warped buzzing, as it swept through the air in all directions along Danny’s body. He fidgeted bemusedly as the screwdriver’s whine spiked to a much higher pitch as it aligned with his chest.

“The scan has just found ectoplasmic energy readings trailing through your entire body,” Danny’s elder translated as he pulled the Sonic Screwdriver back with a deft flick of the wrist, “and it’s all gathering in one place in your chest, like streams of energy all flowing into one, teeming reservoir. There, it’s a singular point of high ectoplasmic concentration, but the overall energy doesn’t seem stationary; it seems to continue flowing around the body, become attracted to the centre point and travel through it before flowing out again, temporarily spiking the energy level in that point.”

“I don’t get it…” Danny frowned.

“It’s like a…core…” The Doctor reasoned, “Like planets have cores, and atoms have nuclei; there’s a central ‘core’ of denser energy all held together in one localised area, and the rest of the energy flows around it, like an atmosphere. As the energy changes, it’s attracted closer to the centre; the centre is the waypoint that keeps all of the ectoplasm in your body on a leash—keeps it flowing and cohesive. I wouldn’t be surprised if it also controlled your ghost half itself.”

In essence, it’s highly likely that ‘core’ is keeping your ghost form together.”

The words assaulted Danny’s ears like a crack of thunder.

His hand glided to his chest, attention peeled for a single movement, a charge, anything…a sign that wasn’t the tell-tale beat of his heart…

As he settled in the very centre—just to the right of his trudging heartbeat—he found it.

A wave of surreal, visceral lightness overwhelmed him, flooding through his very bones.

A rapid, blurry buzzing flashed in and out of existence under his palm, pulsating in his chest like a crackling electrical circuit. Dizzying confusion flooded him as fear and resentment gave way to a profound sense of relief, of near-euphoria. A spark of life erupted from the blurry sphere in his chest to every tissue, every muscle, every vein and bone in his being.

His whole body stiffened in surprise, his diaphragm forcing his lungs to take in a stuttering gasp of awe.

A desperate voice cried out in familiarity from somewhere deep within him, a cry for help, a cry for acceptance…and an overwhelming sense of oneness.

‘…This is me.’

His weak knees threatened to give out underneath him, and the concerned Doctor bolted forward to grapple him under his arms as he collapsed to the TARDIS floor like a ragdoll.

“What happened?!” the words rushed out in a tense demand.

Danny’s head snapped upwards in a swift, stiff motion; their wide eyes locked. Young sapphires bore for relentless, painstaking seconds into ancient ones.

“I can feel it…” he breathed, “It’s there...”

The Doctor’s hands flew to the stethoscope around his neck, hastily uncoiling and fitting the two prongs in his ears in a frenzy as his instructions under pressure came out, clear and sharp.

“That’s it—I’m taking a look. Shirt up, now!”

Lifting the hem of his own shirt became a fumbling mess in the boy’s dazed state as the alien placed the bell end on his chest. The cold metal of the stethoscope sent shots of ice through Danny’s skin.

Seconds drudged on in the apprehensive silence as the Time Lord listened.

“…It’s pulsing…” he concluded at last in a daze.

“That buzzing in and out, right?”

“Yes—can hear the vibration.” He elaborated, “It’s very clearly there, lodged almost over your heart; it’s nearly completely mixed in with its motions…”

His voice lowered thoughtfully.

“They appear to be working in conjunction. As the heart beats, the ectoplasmic core flares up, then quickly peters out...”

A mud of dissonance lurked in Danny’s gut as those lips twitched into a restrained smile—he could’ve sworn those worn eyes above them flickered with a glimpse of conflicting melancholy.

“In a way,” the Doctor proposed, voice trailing off absently, “it functions like a second heart…”

The smile widened warmly, though hints of vulnerable emotion cracked through a strained veil of positivity.

“In a way, you almost have two hearts as well…or perhaps one and-a-half hearts is more accurate, considering its difference to a proper organ.”

The Doctor reached down and grabbed him by the wrist to haul him to his feet; Danny’s other hand clenched instinctively on that similarly cold joint above the clamping hand in response. Two vastly conflicting pulses thundered through the pair’s sensitive tactile reception as they pulled on each other’s weight—one too rapid to be a human not sprinting down a racetrack, the other too plodding and slow for one not in a deep slumber.

Two pulses at opposite ends of a spectrum of the blatantly unearthly, but simultaneously indicators of a vaguely similar common ground…

…common enough to flood Danny’s bones with a primal, euphoric relief of belonging.

“I haven’t met anyone like that in a while—we could start a club, the two of us!” the Doctor smiled proudly, “The two-hearts club…or approximately-two-hearts, I suppose.”

“Y-yeah,” Danny grinned as his uneasy legs strengthened beneath him; the realisation that he was standing without help didn’t loosen his grip on the wrist in his hand.

“The ectoplasmic output is like background electrical interference in your chest, though, so you’ll certainly never want others to be looking at you on an electrocardiogram,” he interjected casually, “but otherwise, you’re perfectly fine.

…just remember, ‘fine’ and ‘human’ are not the same. If you can’t trust your own word, trust mine—not being ‘normal’ or ‘human’ in the eyes of planet Earth doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Even if you came across all the close-minded humans out there who’d be happy to shove that opinion down your throat—aware of your secret or not—don’t give them that power over you and they can’t take away the fact that you’re not wrong.”

A small grin split across the half-ghost, half-human hybrid’s face.

Even if for just a small while, he could believe that.

#danny phantom #ectoberweek2020 #ectoberweek2020 day 2 #pulse #doctor who #crossover #danny fenton #ninth doctor #nonhuman biology

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five-wow · 4 years

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👀 #42, please? Happy Holidays to you, too! :)

Thank you! And heyyy, the answer to life, the universe and everything. ☕😊

Sadly, the corresponding fic does not contain any answers of that sort. The working title for this one is “the fic where they’re married but so super-duper straight” (spoiler: turns out they weren’t entirely straight, but they’re very blind to that) and the idea is one that’s been done before, I think, but it’s that they “platonically” move in together, raise the kids, get married, probably adopt a goldfish or something and live the perfect white picket fence domestic life, but they’re just doing it as friends. Yes. Definitely. Just friends.

You get two snippets for this one, because they’re tiny and I have a lot of thoughts but I don’t have much else actually written. The first bit is just something random, and the second is around the time they’re finally figuring stuff out and contains a very blatant reference to Danny’s response when Steve quits the restaurant in 9.07 (“if you’re out, I’m out”), because that line of his just… it has potential.

—

“You know what’s really weird?” Danny asks. “Women don’t seem to want to date me when I tell them I live with my husband and our two kids.”

“Hmm.” Steve frowns like this is a conundrum indeed. “That’s very weird.”

(…)

“If you’re out, I’m out.”

Danny doesn’t mean to pull a face at that, but he’s pretty sure he still does. “Of the closet?” he asks. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – he just hadn’t thought he was in a closet up until this point. His claustrophobia would have told him a thing or two if he had been.

“Of heterosexuality,” Steve offers, which, yeah, that makes a lot more sense.

“All out,” Danny agrees. “None left.”

—

End of year WIP meme - send me a 👀 and I’ll post a snippet of writing that I never got around to finishing this year (and optionally send me a number between 1 and 152 too)!

#writing #*#stephmcx #ask #IF YOU'RE OUT I'M OUT #i think that spawned at least three fics and none of them ever got finished so far

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ryanmeft · 5 years

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Dumbo Movie Review

If there’s one thing Tim Burton reliably does, it’s go big; going home isn’t even on his list of options. His movies are visual spectaculars, and if they sometimes lack genuine heart, they never lack things to look at. Disney’s Dumbo remake is no exception. Every moment of the movie is jam-packed with creativity, some of which is lifted from the original and some which is new to this version. Amid the splendor, the mute title character is instantly and unfailingly engaging, giving the movie the very spark many Burton movies need.

The plot you probably know, though the original Dumbo is no longer as widely seen as some other Disney animated movies. Dumbo is born with huge ears that allow him to fly, but when his mother attacks a cruel animal tamer for abusing him, she is declared mad. The original was just over an hour long, and this one has been expanded. Timothy Q. Mouse has been replaced by two children (Nico Parker and FInley Hobbins), who discover Dumbo’s talent when a feather makes him sneeze himself right into the air. They are of course not immediately believed by their father (Colin Farrell), who lost an arm in World War I and his wife to influenza and is determined to raise his children to be practical survivors. The owner of the circus (Danny DeVito) is a decent man at heart whose obsession with the bottom line is due to needing to keep himself and his crew fed. To this end, the movie adds an entire second half in which he makes a deal with a wealthy amusement park magnate (Michael Keaton) to feature Dumbo as his star attraction; also involved is the magnate’s arm candy, a glamorous French trapeze artist played by Eva Green. Alan Arkin has a small, welcome role as a banker the magnate is interested in wooing.

Dumbo is mute. To give him a voice would have surely been possible, and would not only have broken the fragile spell he cast in the original but the idea that he is, ultimately, an animal. That is accomplished here through CGi that is indistinguishable from the real thing. When Dumbo is sad, it doesn’t feel like a cartoon character moping, and when his mother goes on a protective rampage, it almost makes you want to back up in your seat. What matters more than realism, though, is emotion. Burton, screenwriter Ehren Kruger and their army of computer wizards manage to make Dumbo a believably deep character with real feelings. Classic scenes are recreated, including Dumbo’s embarrassing stint as a clown and a brief snippet of the still-glorious Pink Elephants scene. In the former, Dumbo’s sadness at his situation is palpable, and in the latter he is given a childlike wonder that could make a grown man’s eyes instantly turn into hearts. When he is imperiled, I held my breath just a little, and when he escapes by soaring free, I found I forgot for a moment that I am a critic and expected to be a cynical bastard.

That there was going to be a villain in this remake was inevitable, and going in I steeled myself at the thought; I didn’t feel the story required one. That’s still true, but what the filmmakers and Keaton have come up with is not lazy. I can sum it up in three words: Evil Walt Disney. The character, wonderfully named V.A. Vandevere, comes to Dumbo’s circus promising the impresario he will show him the future. This is 1919, and Vandevere’s future is a massive amusement park called Dreamworld complete with animatronics, flashing lights everywhere, a parade down Main Street, and even plush Dumbo dolls on sale that look like they could have been shipped over directly from the endless shops littering the real-life park. The parallels are so incredibly obvious I’m amazed the company, famously over-protective of Disney’s image, let the movie get away with it. Vandevere’s speeches about the future sound eerily like those Disney himself made on his television appearances; the fact he is cash-poor seems a low-key nod at the way Disney would go into debt in pursuit of a movie; and his ruthlessness at getting what he wants no matter who gets hurt is of course very similar to the criticisms leveled against the modern, post-Walt company. Burton and company did everything short of pinning a Mouse Ear hat to his head. The fact that Dumbo and his friends win in the end is the only aspect that doesn’t feel parallel to reality.

The 1940’s were a much more permissive time in the movies. Dumbo no longer becomes accidentally drunk, and the chorus line of crows has been removed, likely because of racial connotations. Instead, the human characters have been emphasized, whereas they were entirely unimportant before. I’ve heard criticisms that they are more important than Dumbo, but I didn’t find that to be the case; Dumbo is present and has an independent personality in nearly every scene, and is never a prop. The human characters succeed or fail on their own, and it is a mix of both. Farrell’s disabled war veteran is an inspired inclusion that roots the film firmly in its 1919 setting, as opposed to the general “anytime” of the original. DeVito’s impresario is the kind of genial loudmouth he’s so good at playing, and underneath all the bluster he genuinely cares for his performers. Green’s cynical acrobat isn’t a role that really uses her talents, but it’s always good to see her in anything. The child actors, sadly, are given rather wooden characters compared to the rascally and mischievous mouse, and bringing in all the carnival performers for the big finale is unnecessary and feels tacked on, since they’re never developed. Fortunately, Dumbo and his mom are always center stage, so these are minor issues.

Before my showing of Dumbo, I saw a trailer for the completely unnecessary remake of Aladdin, and it sucked the life right out of me. Dumbo handed it right back, and though it may not be the most inspired act in Disney’s remake circus, there’s a joy and a heart here, and that’s enough for me.

Verdict: Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

All images are property of the people what own the movie.

#Disney #dumbo #Michael Keaton #movies #Tim Burton #eva green #danny devito #nico parker #finley hobbins #alan arkin #ehren kruger

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briangroth27 · 7 years

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Iron Fist Season 1 Review

I went into Iron Fist knowing next to nothing of the character: only his reputation as Luke Cage’s best friend/fellow Hero for Hire and his “zen surfer” portrayal on Ultimate Spider-man. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave the character’s first live action showcase, currently streaming on Netflix, a fan. It’s gotten a lot of bad reviews, and sadly I think they’re largely deserved. The show is low-stakes and repetitive from the get-go, never really has a grasp of who Danny (Finn Jones) is or what the main threat should be, and (though this doesn’t seem to be entirely their fault) boasts a mythology behind its central character that makes little to no sense.

Full spoilers…

First off, I don’t understand the Iron Fist mythology. Iron Fist is supposed to be a great warrior who guards the path to the mystical K’un-Lun (which only appears in our reality every 15 years), meaning he has to stay there. But he’s also the sworn enemy of The Hand…so how can he destroy them if he’s not supposed to leave his monastic Brigadoon? Was the plan to just wipe out any Hand who happened to try to take the village whenever the path appeared, hoping they’d never stop trying until their ranks had been completely destroyed? To the show’s credit, Danny does realize this contradiction…eleven episodes in (and even then, it comes off as an excuse for why he won’t go back rather than a mission-altering epiphany). It would’ve been a stronger character motivation had he left K’un-Lun to destroy The Hand to complete that portion of his duties instead of completely abandoning them, choosing a proactive approach rather than sitting and doing nothing. That’s another issue: since K’un-Lun only appears in our plane of existence every 15 years, their information is outdated, but even that doesn’t excuse the idea that The Hand are talked about as if they’re mythical enemies who haven’t existed for a very long time. Danny has no idea The Hand are currently active in modern-day New York when he gets there; who did he think he was training to fight all these years if he didn’t believe The Hand were still real? Why is the Iron Fist necessary to protect the gateway to a magical training camp that didn't even know its sworn enemy was still around? Is Danny Rand anything more than a mystical doorman? I don’t know if any of this is the case in the comics, but if it is, the show should’ve either updated it, better explained it, or used it to spin the characters into interesting directions.

K’un-Lun itself should’ve been much more explored. We got maybe five minutes of screentime spent there, all of it very vague and barren. There's not much context to anything Danny felt there because we barely even saw snippets of his stay; it's all secondhand for us. These were the 15 most transformative years of Danny’s life and we saw next to nothing. We never see him struggle (except for one random scene of the monks beating him as a child). We never see him as an outsider. What we did see was entirely unimpressive. I didn’t need the entire series to be about his training (nor would I want it to be), but I definitely needed a better idea of what it was like and how being there changed him (since we have no information about the kid he was before he went missing either). Maybe the show should’ve started off with the first two-three episodes detailing his training or the rules of magic in Danny’s world. Much like Dr. Strange, I wish they'd gone FAR weirder and more outlandish with the supernatural elements. A season later, I’m not even sure what's so great about K'un-Lun that makes them so much more important than the rest of the world. And who were the masters of the Iron Fist mysticism, who thought it unnecessary to teach Danny how to use his focused Chi to heal others, or even to recharge his powers? Even if his “training went a little sideways,” as he claims, shouldn’t recharging his abilities have been lesson #2?

My first impression of Danny Rand from the trailers was that he’d be yet another rich guy who got lost/traveled abroad and came back to save his city with new powers and/or skills. Having seen this from Green Arrow, Batman, Iron Man, and Dr. Strange, I wasn’t sure what new twists Iron Fist could bring to the table. Turns out, not many. Not every character has to reinvent the wheel—there are only so many origin story tropes—but they should all find some fresh angle. Iron Fist didn’t. He doesn’t seem to come home with a concrete goal at all, beyond convincing people he’s really Danny Rand. His attempt to get back into his family’s company feels half-hearted (unfortunately so, since I liked him best when he was insisting on better business practices and on using their resources to help people) and is quickly forgotten. It barely even feels like getting in is what he wants (he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to do there once he’s in); it’s just something to kill time. He later centers on trying to figure out who killed his parents, eventually giving us the season’s main villain, but even that felt completely routine; the only trope more well-trodden than dead parents inspiring heroes and guys coming back home with skills/talents is evil businessmen. I didn’t find Danny compelling, but the unfocused writing and direction may take some blame off Jones. They asked him to show several seemingly conflicting facets of Danny’s personality that never had a strong connective tissue (more on that in a bit).

Rand was surrounded by controversy from the show’s first announcement: some saw him as a white savior figure who’d appropriated Asian culture; a relic of the 70s that didn’t belong in the modern day. Many argued Marvel should change his character to be Asian-American. Others said they should remain faithful to his Caucasian comic book appearance, claiming an Asian character who’s good at martial arts would be racist in and of itself. It seemed Marvel was damned either way. I don't necessarily mind Danny being white and an expert at martial arts—there's no reason someone from any background can't become an expert in any field with enough practice and training (assuming we're not looking at a story where the white guy is just automatically special and better for no reason beyond the idea that he naturally is; a magical chosen white savior)—and the way he talked about wanting to be Iron Fist more than anything and fighting against impossible odds to attain the title and responsibilities associated with it felt respectable and earned. However, the way he's better at every aspect of Colleen Wing’s life and culture (fight skills, speaking Mandarin, knowing where the best food is served, dojo etiquette, meditation and Tai Chi techniques, capturing the attention of students (until he’s too violent), etc.) than she is does grate on me and crosses the line. His apology for correcting Colleen after informing her about challenging a dojo’s master also came off as condescending. Nothing said K’un-Lun culture had to be exactly hers—not every Asian culture is the same, obviously, especially not made-up mystical ones—but the show chose to have them correlate almost exactly, and it’s in his complete domination of her culture that he comes off as appropriating it. Iron Fist had a golden opportunity by going with Danny’s comic book whiteness to discuss cultural appropriation—what it is and isn’t, why it’s wrong, etc.—in the same way that Daredevil did gentrification, Jessica Jones did sexism and misogyny, and Luke Cage did racism. Danny's talk about feeling empty and thinking the Iron Fist would solve all his problems could’ve been a perfect metaphor for cultural appropriation if the show were at all interested in exploring that. But it isn’t. Had they gone with an Asian-American actor instead, Danny fighting so hard to claim the Iron Fist title could’ve been a great parallel to an Asian-American kid (who would already feel out of place in both American and Asian culture, by the way) fighting to reclaim his culture, as Lewis Tan (a potential Danny Rand) said. It was also frustrating that, even though Danny says he worked hard and earned the Iron Fist mantle, the show teases out an idea that he is some mystical Chosen One who was meant to be Iron Fist all along. That plays even further into the White Savior trope, and that’s not something I’m down to explore in future seasons.

One of the most common arguments I read about why Danny “had to be white” was that he had to feel like an outsider in the Asian-cultured K’un-Lun. If that’s an essential part of Danny’s background, the show completely dropped the ball. It feels like they paid lip service at most to Danny feeling like a fish out of water in both K'un L'un and New York. He commented on being called an outsider back in his mystical land and said there were some unhappy memories, but also mentioned a best friend and fun times sneaking wine. Episode 6 reveals that he might actually be a mighty prophesied savior and was trained to believe as such...some outsider. It does seem like the requirements of being Iron Fist are colder than I’d anticipated, but assuming the beatings he received as a child were part of his training (and we have no reason to think they weren’t), that seems like the rigors everyone else was going through too, not something specifically aimed at him because he was white. And there’s no “Man out of Time” element to his journey back to New York after 15 years; the only times he feels out of place amount to people questioning his lack of footwear, him being friendly with the homeless, not sleeping in a bed, and his lack of "business acumen"…which is really just him having the most basic compassion about clean emissions and the price of pharmaceuticals. He doesn't seem to struggle to connect with anyone he really wants to, unless the other party has dubious interests (the Meachums, mainly) and are intentionally working against him or have the common sense not to invite total strangers into their lives after being semi-stalked by them (Colleen). Nothing about his situation feels very different from any other superhero, much less any other rich guy who returns home with powers/tech to be a hero.

Danny's clear PTSD that he ignored to focus on his training feels like something that could’ve been explored more to add dimension to his character. His fear of flying and near-freakout during turbulence (that’s how his parents died) was a great eample of this, but it was never explored beyond his fits. Along the lines of another trope—the dead parents—why is it necessary that Danny's folks be murdered? Batman’s parents’ murders made him vow not to let that happen to anyone else. Uncle Ben was killed to show Spider-man he could and should be doing more to help people with his powers. What does Danny get out of the fact that his parents were murdered? Wouldn't a random accident providing no enemy to take out his frustrations on be a bigger challenge for his survivor's guilt and his (completely inadequate) attempts to re-center himself? Furthermore, his childlike sensibility upon returning to New York would’ve played better had it been the result of his training to suppress his emotions, rather than just existing completely independent of his PTSD, as if one or the other state of his being didn’t exist at various times. The other problem is we don’t really ever see his training work. It appears the best he can manage is seizure-esque outbursts of shouting and hitting things when he gets overwhelmed. These fits seem like they’re trying to show us a character who could break but for the sake of his training, but they only come off as making it seem like he’s wasted the last 15 years. Along those same lines, he says he took a vow of celibacy, but only a few episodes later sleeps with Colleen. Challenging his resolve, vows, and training would’ve been one thing, but it doesn't feel like he trained for 15 years to be the best anything (despite showing up Colleen at nearly every turn), much less a mystical warrior who's supposed to be in total control of his emotions (he is absolutely not). The show could’ve mined that for an interesting character development—and it almost does, with Claire calling out how unhealthy suppressing his emotions is—but Danny’s answer is to go back to K’un-Lun for even more training at the end of the season (completely reversing his epiphany from the final battle). Ultimately, Danny doesn't feel like he has an arc at all because he's just flitting from one situation to the next as the plot demands. It’s as if they regressed him from where he should’ve been at the start for the sake of drama to watch him kinda-sorta regain all of his skill again, only to have him set off for even more training at the end. He has the nuts and bolts of a complex personality, but they aren’t assembled or explored at all.

The series’ best attributes are without a doubt Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick), and Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho). Carrie Ann Moss is another very strong Netflix-verse asset, though she doesn’t get as much screentime as the others. I'm glad Claire's here to talk sense into these heroes (she’s the wisest person on these Netfilx shows). I love her as a helper to heroes and I’m glad she’s adding self-defense to her skills (her insisting on going to collect Gao was great!). Claire's talks with Danny about dealing with his issues and letting his emotions out instead of running back to K'un-Lun were really solid. Dawson’s no-nonsense presence and sarcasm ground and humanize these shows so well I don’t know why they’re so afraid to go more fantastical. Galactus could show up and she’d still make it feel like we were tethered to the real world. And she got to say “Sweet Christmas,” which was great! Madame Gao was still the stoic and imposing Hand operative from Daredevil. I’ll always be glad to have her reappear. Since she’s apparently been around since the 17th century, it seems there are many more tales to tell about her!

Colleen was the best new addition to the Netflix-verse and I liked her a lot! Of the characters on the show, she’s the one I want to read more about in the comics. Her struggle with adhering to the Bushido code and keeping her students invested in training and off the streets was far more interesting than Danny stumbling his way through pretrial proceedings that ultimately went nowhere and his other issues. The things she was up against felt real—right down to just paying the rent—and Henwick brought a sense that Colleen really was tested by the forces against her, like with her comments about issues with control in the fight club. Danny’s approach to “dealing” with frustrations served to throw Colleen’s into a much more sympathetic light too. While his dating style—bringing a restaurant to her—felt just like any other billionaire, Danny being impressed with her sword and nunchuck skills—and her glee at showing him she was his equal for once—was cute. I didn’t need them to be together, but I was fine with their relationship. When she was poisoned, I was more concerned about Colleen dying than I was about anyone else at any point on the show, even though I figured she probably wouldn’t die. I absolutely did not see the reveal that she was proudly a member of The Hand coming! That was the one place the show truly shocked me—the one point where it took the more interesting option—and I loved it. I didn’t understand why a martial arts instructor would be training her students to hunt people on the streets, but then it all made sense. Colleen struggling to justify her Hand allegiance and having a good argument that certain segments do help people was good, solid stuff. Claire's retort that they should've chosen another name was perfect...I've had the same thought about SHIELD after they were outted as half-Hydra. It didn’t quite make sense that she wouldn’t know more about the Iron Fist if she were a member of The Hand, but I suppose she could’ve been playing dumb with Danny. I also thought her turn from true believer to betrayer was a little quick, but The Hand attacking Danny was a justifiable motivator and a strong reason to believe him. I’m glad we didn’t get anyone trying to convince her that Danny had struck first. I also felt sorry for her when she realized The Hand would kill her for her doubts, which would’ve been a great parallel to Danny's doubts in the Iron Fist's mission had his side been explored more. Although, him telling her that he knows what it's like to believe in something only to have it pulled away falls totally flat when he's the one who left K'un-Lun.

Iron Fist’s writing definitely has some holes (what psychiatric hospital would let their completely unknown new patient wander around unsupervised with a "tour guide" who was caught trying to convince him to kill himself???), but the biggest problem is that it’s nothing new or inventive. The dialogue isn’t the most original and the show’s pacing is way off. This has been a problem with previous Netflix shows too—I really wish they’d be a little less serialized instead of trying to be 13-hour movies with a single plot—but it was especially apparent here. Two episodes in, Danny was still mostly walking around going “I’m Danny Rand. No, really,” someone disbelieves him, and then he goes on to the next person to start it all over again. There’s also a recurring thing where everyone comments on Danny’s lack of shoes like it’s the funniest running gag ever (it’s not); as if that’s the only thing weird about this guy. There’s also a bit in episode two where Danny’s thought insane because he has a stolen passport with a different name on it, but Danny had no reason to believe his company and his best friends Joy and Ward Meachum (Jessica Stroup and Tom Pelphrey) are no longer friendly, so why didn’t he just call his company? Why all the subterfuge? The later reveal that he knows Jeri Hogarth (Carrie Ann Moss) and that she’s gung-ho about helping him confirms he could’ve just gotten her to bend the rules and let him in the country, making those early plot developments pointless. Even better, why not use his super-ninja skills to sneak in? Unnecessary speed-bumps like these slowed the plot down right off the bat and it never really recovers, thanks to wishy-washy writing around its lead character.

That the Netflix shows keep referring to the Avengers Chitauri invasion as "The Incident" and largely ignoring it has gotten annoying (at least Daredevil used it to regress Hell’s Kitchen and Luke Cage featured bootleg video of it as a plot point). I do not understand the desire to keep halfway pretending that they’re in some separate, mostly grounded universe; they are not. They don't need to talk about it as incessantly as SHIELD did in season 1, but coyly vague references draw more attention to the lack of Avengers than the simple fact that these heroes don't world-savers’ help does. On a show like this with magic, this is especially apparent. I’m not sure why Clarie wouldn’t think dragons might be real in this world. I mean, sure, just because one crazy thing is real doesn't mean they all are, but given everything that's happened to New York alone (not to mention the existence of Thor), a little less skepticism would be believable. Even more baffling, why doesn't Claire call Daredevil (or even refer to him by his superhero name)? He might be absolutely helpful in fighting the Hand! Just use an excuse that he’s out of town or something if they don’t want to bring Matt in.

This unwillingness to venture into a bigger universe extends to the opponents Danny faces. Madame Gao and The Hand are great villains, but The Hand aren't anything like what they were in Daredevil and don't come off as a threat here at all. They seem decidedly toned down and it feels like they could’ve been any generic mercenaries. Where are the badass, creepy, somewhat undead ninjas Daredevil fought? If you're going to start your show with Danny as a superhero (and for all intents and purposes, he was—this is 15 years into his training!), you have to give him opponents who are more threatening than random gangsters (Luke Cage had this issue too) and martial arts-trained street kids. If the street kids are supposed to undergo some kind of process to become the heartbeat-less assassins of Daredevil, where is that happening? And what happened to them after Danny busted out of their training compound? The Hand’s leader, Bakuto (Ramon Rodriguez) was just an OK villain, which wasn’t enough on a season this long when he was supposed to be second only to Meachum in terms of villainy (according to the season’s structure, at least). He seemed to have no real plan beyond the continued existence of the Hand via Rand Corp’s assets, making him seem pretty weak. Lewis Tan's drunken guard had more character and charisma than 90% of the characters on this show and also provided the best fight of the series up to episode 8. If they aren’t going to go creepy, they at least need to go distinct. The karaoke-loving assassin from episode 6 felt a little cliché, but at least he and the other three Hand champions Danny faced had personalities and unique fighting styles. Across the board on Netflix series, I want more powered supervillains and far fewer gangsters and businessmen. I don’t know who Danny has in his Rogues Gallery, but he’s gotta have a few mystical enemies he could’ve fought here, if for no other reason than to vary the fights and Danny’s tactics therein. On that note, Danny is the third Defender whose power is super strength. Obviously superheroes are more than their powers, but I’d like to see more variation of them (a super-punch is not that impressive anymore).

Davos (Sacha Dhawan), Danny’s former best friend in K’un-Lun, was another good opponent, and I would’ve liked his arc expanded a lot. There was a lot that could’ve been mined from his well-crafted belief that Danny wasn’t the right choice for the Iron Fist, which never came off as petty jealousy to me. He seemed legitimately hurt that Danny abandoned his duties and sided with a member of the Hand. The one area where Danny’s seeming failure in most of his training worked perfectly was in Davos’ assessment of him; Danny being so unbalanced fueled and justified Davos’ hate quite effectively. I absolutely believe Davos should’ve been the primary antagonist, if not secondary only to The Hand. Imagine how much more complex the show would’ve been had Danny left to defeat The Hand, with Davos following him to stand up for (and represent K’un-Lun and its teachings) and bring him back from the start. Davos chasing Danny for leaving his duties would’ve completed the parallel to Colleen being chased by The Hand for doubting their mission too.

The season’s actual main antagonists, the Meachums, were not compelling to me at all. Danny’s attempts to save Ward and Joy from themselves seemed to fall rapidly to the wayside as the siblings took turns going morally black before bouncing back to gray, then back again, over the course of the season. I understood their desire to keep the company they’d built and didn’t really harbor them any ill will over it—again, Danny never seemed to truly want it—but I never really cared about who controlled it. Ward’s drug problem didn’t interest me at all, nor did Harold’s (David Wenham) attempts to get the company back from his children and The Hand. I didn’t see Ward killing Harold or Harold’s resurrection coming, but I suppose I should’ve, given Nobu’s repeated resurrections on Daredevil. I wasn’t a fan of Harold’s confused undead state and apparently he’ll start becoming a crazed murderer, so a member of the Daredevil cast has that to look forward to… Harold was at least a little interesting to me when it seemed like he really was on Danny’s side, but the reveal of his true evil intentions fell flat because nothing about him stood out in the first place. I didn’t guess that he was behind the Rands’ murders, but it also didn’t shock me. That Harold’s entire goal was to be running Rand (he’s immortal and that’s all he wants? Really?) was so small compared to everything else going on that he felt like a minor villain who should’ve been dealt with by mid-season if not sooner. By no means did he deserve to be the embodiment of Danny’s cave dragon, which felt entirely anticlimactic. I don’t think my lack of interest in the Meachums was the fault of any of these three actors; they were just stuck in a mediocre plot that carried on far longer than it should have.

Speaking of the fights, outside of Bakuto vs. Colleen and Davos vs. Danny (and the massive battle leading into them), none of them have any emotional component to them. Maybe that’s just because most of them involve thugs, but even Danny vs. Harold—the climactic battle of the season—left me cold and just waiting for it to end. If the show doesn’t get me invested in the conflicts between characters, the fights will feel empty. Even though Harold killed Danny’s parents, I wasn’t feeling it. The choreography to Danny’s fights wasn’t the most polished either, but this wasn’t Jones’ fault, as he apparently only had 15 minutes of training before each fight was filmed.

I wish they’d done what the other Netflix shows have done: showcase the hero’s city in the opening credits to make it as much a character as anything else. Here, the credits only showed a CGI Danny doing kung-fu. They should’ve shown off K’un-Lun and juxtaposed it with New York City. The score also felt repetitive.

I didn’t want this to be disappointing (why would anyone want anything they’re watching to be bad?), but unfortunately it was. There are kernels of a good, maybe even great, show here (Colleen, Claire, Gao, Davos), but Danny’s character arc, the villain aspects, and the rest of the show never coalesce around them. It almost always takes the least interesting option, so it comes off as bland and repetitive. If Danny’s character can be redeemed in Defenders, then cool, but it will take a great deal of boldness and precise direction/writing/acting choices to right this ship.

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