Just another DP blog. I live in Rarepair Hell. You can read my fics on AO3, while my dumb thoughts are immortalized under the meta tag. Drawings are under the my art tag. Feel free to send in asks or prompts/suggests for fic or art.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Dash Baxter was a winner, in every way. He'd always been the biggest, toughest kid in his grade. He was good at football, could climb the highest trees, run the fastest, and he was handsome too, with All-American good looks that the ladies appreciated.
His parents were well-off too, if not exactly rich. Their respectable, boring careers (lawyer, software engineer) paid for a house that was large, and everyone who could drive had their own car, including a brand new sports car for Dash when he turned 16.
These things made him popular. He had everything a guy could want, and then some. You might think a guy like that would be gracious—what reason would he to have malice towards any?
But Dash was full of hate, especially for one Danny Fenton.
See, on the outside, it looked like Dash had everything and Danny had nothing. Danny was from a family of freaks—professional ghost hunters, who were more like professional laughing stocks. Dash half-suspected the town paid them a salary for their comic relief qualities, as they bumbled and ranted and were generally amusing nuisances.
They certainly weren't well-off, or if they were, they weren't giving it freely to Danny so that he could dress stylishly or be a generous gift-giver to friends or anything else that might help buy him popularity.
Danny wasn't tall, or broad of shoulder, or even possessing wiry muscular strength. He was scrawny, puny, weak and pathetic. His looks weren't admirable or All-American, although his big baby blue eyes were fringed with long, thick black lashes and his slender, pointed face had a delicate beauty—those were traits better placed in girls.
Danny couldn't play any sport well, not even sissy ones like volleyball. He was an uncoordinated klutz with no stamina.
So why did Dash hate this boy, this loser who seemed to have nothing? It was because he had the one thing Dash didn't. Friends—real friends, that is. Danny had nothing to offer Manson and Foley. And yet they liked him anyway, stuck by him when they would have been better served dumping him like old garbage.
Who did Dash have that would stick by him like that? If his parents went bankrupt, if his looks were disfigured in a terrible accident, if, God forbid, he could no longer play sports? Would Kwan or Dale or Paulina give him the time of day?
Going by how they treated Valerie, they'd abandon him like rats.
Vlad hadn't exactly been a beach bunny before the accident. He lived in Wisconsin, after all. But he'd gone a couple of times, on trips to Florida to visit his grandparents, and he loved it.
He never went to the beach now. It would be stifling in his dark long-sleeved suit coat and perfectly tailored slacks. And he wasn't about to strip down to swim shorts and flip-flops, not with the pockmarks and scars dotting his torso and legs, leftovers of the Ecto-acne.
He could have had more scar revision surgeries done, but the ones on his face had been a hellish experience, and it just didn't seem worth it when he could so rarely get away to more tropical locations.
Still, it was one more thing Jack had taken away from him, and he added it to the pile of sins Jack would have to atone for.
Find the comic funny with Dan and Vlad because it was basically
Dan: I HAVE NO WEAKNESS
Vlad: See that’s where you’re wrong you’re a part of me- and being part of me makes you an epic fail cringe loser with issues a therapist will need a therapist for
can’t stop thinking about how clockwork left dan with vlad and was basically like ‘alright don’t fuck this up’ like my brother in christ you do remember who fucked him up in the first place??
I get that some folks don't like that Vlad got a redemption arc, but if Vlad WAS going to get one, I'm glad they did it how they did.
Danny didn't push the redemption. He wasn't pushed to forgive him. Vlad realized he needed to change and worked to show that change. He didn't ask for Danny to forgive him. All he did was make room to give both him and Phantom a second chance.
It's a redemption arc for a person who still isn't a good man, but he is still looking to make himself better. We nor Danny have to forgive him, but he can still do better.
It's a step forward and for someone like Vlad who always seems to be looking back, that's a whole lot.
My copy of the Danny Phantom graphic novel hasn't arrived yet, but based on isolated images I've seen without context, this is basically what happens right ???
I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS AAAAA putting them under a read more because major spoilers (there's a lot under there I'm so sorry I got carried away this comic is just really incredible)
Vlad coming to this decision on his own is what really makes it for me. The main crew never really asked him or expected him to change. For a lot of the comic, he's the butt of the joke and it's what he deserves. But then he witnessed Danny having his own emotional breakthrough. Being able to see how powerful Danny became after embracing his emotions and letting go of his inner turmoil...like, that did it. He finally let himself look inward too, recognizing his own faults and the hurt that he had caused himself all these years. The focus of the scene is Danny, but I love how clear it is that Vlad's entire perspective just shifted, too
The moment where he tells Dark Danny that because he's part-Plasmius too, that means he's full of emotions, and that he's full of fear......my jaw dropped. Vlad admitting that he's deeply afraid of being alone, and that he pursued ultimate power in the hopes it could fix his loneliness. Doing so hurt all of the people he wanted to have in his life, and made sure he would never recieve the love he so desperately wanted. He says this in front of all of the people that he hurt the most, and he doesn't ask for forgiveness from any of them.
(Also fear being Vlad's driving emotion behind his power, just....ruin me.)
BUT HE TAKES IT A STEP FURTHER. No one is suggesting that Dark Danny needs to overshadow someone as a solution to his unstable form. Vlad comes forward unprompted and offers himself up, as an apology. An apology to the people of his timeline that he hurt, and to Dark Danny. He isn't the Vlad that created Dark Danny, but he knows the potential to be that guy was always in him, so he takes the faults of that other Vlad on his own shoulders. And still, he isn't seeking forgiveness, just a second chance. More time, to do something good with his life before it's gone. Danny tells Vlad he still hates him, but thanks him, and the smile Vlad responds with is everything to me. They're not friends. The wounds he caused aren't healed. But that little thank you is proof that Vlad is already making a difference in the world
He gets to be a guardian to Dark Danny!!!! He gets a family!!!! And it's broken, and hurt, and kind of fucked up, but this is all he ever wanted, and he has the chance now to do better for himself and for Dan. He already understands the root of his problem, the pain and fear that has been driving him all these years. The path forward is gonna be messy and hard for him & Dan, but the first steps are the hardest, and he's already taken them.
All that being said, he better continue being an insufferable fruitloop. Never let the sass die, you silly vampire ghost man.
Sjfkxnskd wow sorry this response turned into a whole essay. This is what happens when you prompt a neurodivergent to talk about their hyperfixations. And I didn't even get into the pompep potential in all of this. Anyways I love Vlad more than ever and agit is perfection.
imagine Vlad post a glitch in time sending jack and maddie like a 100 voice messages at 3 am initially just asking for some basic parenting advice but from message 30 and onwards his just cry and ranting about how much he misses them both
Vlad, several flavored vodka shots into his first night as a single mother: "Greetings, Jack and Maddie, I am calling with some... theoretical questions. Lets say, hypothetically, that I have adopted a child, who is about 14 to 40 years old, and I, in theory, might perhaps require some advice-"
Vlad, two hours and several bottles later:*sniff* "Y-you guys remember The Skunk Punks?🥺" *sob* "I remember The Skunk Punks....😭"
meanwhile Dan is in the background eating ants or something
