#literal garbage boy

[fountainpenguin]

This boy is garbage

[fountainpenguin]

"I am Reggie the Red! And I am perfectly capable of doing things on my own!”

We couldn’t very well have ZoneSwap AU without Reggie Bullnerd!

As seen here, when Reggie “goes chalk”, his pants get darker and he sheds his sweater vest and tie for a simple white shirt that makes it easier to move around, and that he’s not so worried about getting dirty. He also takes on his “superhero with a baseball helmet” look from “Reggie the Red”. Safety first!

Just like in the show, Reggie loves messing around in ChalkZone because it offers him the sense of control over his life he so desperately seeks. In this AU, though, Reggie’s role as Reggie the Red would begin earlier (Season 1 finale probably) and last longer, a bit like Valerie’s storyline in “Danny Phantom”. And obviously, ZS!Reggie can go chalk, so he’s a smidgen like Vlad too.

Equally obviously, the red chalk - being the red chalk - has ZS!Reggie by the throat like its canon counterpart. Perhaps his biggest weakness (aside from the fact water causes him immense pain in chalk form), is that he can’t use it for longer than about five minutes at a time before it consumes him, turning him into a puppet. He can fight it (leading it to turn on him), but only for a few minutes more. Ten minutes into Reggie the Red form, he’ll collapse.

Using the red chalk has corrupted him in some way so that regular white magic chalk won’t respond for him (though he can still use non-magic chalk to erase things INTO ChalkZone). Thus, when he wants to use magic chalk, he has no choice but to return to the unfortunate red once again.

Rudy’s constantly trying to find and destroy his stash, but even if he does so, Reggie will just find another way into ChalkZone and get more. He loves the power and the fun too much to ever shrug and give it up.

And this was never pointed out in the show, but Reggie is a surprisingly decent artist for someone who never really practices, as he was easily able to whip up the doofi on short notice, Responsible Reggie was spot on, and then in “Reggie the Red” he not only designed himself the outfit, but he drew that awesome garbage truck. 

All this makes ZS!Reggie a formidable opponent for ZS!Rudy. I mean, Reggie’s neither great at drawing nor understanding the features of ChalkZone - he mostly just fumbles around - but he’s chaotic and that can be a problem.

ZS!Reggie’s signature attacking style first and foremost is “anything that seems like it would be cool”. As another nod to “Red”, his preferred physical weapon is a mallet. In addition to that, he loves to draw minions to do his bidding. This understandably disturbs Rudy, who’s sworn off drawing living things, because Reggie doesn’t care for them unless they can help him in the moment. Plus, most all except the doofi and Responsible are made of red chalk, so it doesn’t end well.

Ooh, and if anyone was wondering, after the real Bobby Sue starts crushing on Reggie, Chalk Bobby Sue starts crushing majorly on Reggie the Red, and this goes on in the background for awhile if not the remainder of the series~

Most of the Zoners call him “Red”, but Rudy and Penny call him “Reggie”.

(I also think it’s hilarious that he’s very well-cultured and proper for a fifth-grade bully. Despite being heir to a garbage company and spelling “cow” with a “k”, he likes dressing to impress- to the point of wearing his tie when he actually goes around collecting garbage, and he never speaks with contractions and is clearly familiar with a thesaurus. He’s bad with spelling many nouns, but ADJECTIVES and synonyms are his playing field. He cracks me up I love it.)

So that’s Reggie! Bonus fact: He’s also great at bowling like his canon counterpart seems to be, and has excellent eyesight and accuracy.

[fountainpenguin]

L X and Y

L: What’s the weirdest AU you’ve ever come up with?

ZoneSwap AU!

I love the concept of a Danny Phantom/ChalkZone AU where Danny, guardian of the Ghost Zone, tries to protect the Ghost Zone from humans who might exploit or destroy it (and protect its people from the dangers of the outside world, such as fading from reality if they spend more than a few hours outside). Rudy guardian of ChalkZone, has the ability to “go chalk” the way Danny goes ghost (a power he utilizes to actively fight monsters that have been erased into ChalkZone).

I have a ZoneSwap AU tag on my blog if you’re interested in reading my concepts for it. THIS is the main post that outlines my thoughts. The idea was “ChalkZone but it’s darker and more action-y and Danny Phantom but cuter and with extreme levels of worldbuilding.” In this AU, Zone guardian powers are flipped: Danny’s ghost powers now only work in the Ghost Zone while Rudy gains the ability to use magic chalk in the real world.

Reggie the Red was my favorite part of this, with him taking Valerie’s role as dangerous rival whose motivations overlap the hero’s on occasion, but not often since he usually has his own agenda.

“I am perfectly able to do things on my own!”

The red chalk has the same malicious intent in ZoneSwap that it does in ChalkZone canon, overwhelming Reggie quickly and turning him into a puppet if he tries to use this form for long. ZS!Reggie has become so corrupted from repeated exposure that white chalk won’t respond to him, so any time he wants to use magic chalk he has no choice but to use red.

Like canon Rudy, ZS!Rudy swore off drawing living things when he realized he couldn’t handle the responsibility. Reggie has no problem creating masses of minions, so it makes for interesting fights.

You don’t understand how much I love Reggie.

Tucker is also dead in ZoneSwap AU and is for Danny what Snap is to Rudy in ChalkZone: a guide and friend. He’s friends with Technus, who loathes letting Tucker out of his sight.

There’s a lot of fun stuff to this world and if I wasn’t already neck-deep in Fairly OddParents, I’d love to revisit this idea. I’ve actually planned to introduce my little brother to ChalkZone this coming week, so maybe you’ll see more chalk on my blog these next few months.

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

Mmm… I have to say Cosmo.

Foop goes through a lot in my fanfics, but I don’t think he sees his life as suffering (He’s the opposite of Poof in that he doesn’t think his trials are that big of a deal). Poof faces a lot of struggles, but I wouldn’t say I enjoy it. Poof’s one of the characters I prefer writing in the downtime between drama; he’s laid back and fun. I prefer watching him juggle his baggage to the moments he receives said baggage in the first place.

I like watching H.P. and Anti-Cosmo overcome their struggles, but “suffer” is a harsh word. H.P.’s entire story revolves around him thinking his life is worse than it is, and his wealthy, high-status entitlement is obvious when he’s placed beside Anti-Cosmo… He’s not suffering as much as he could be. Anti-Cosmo is energized by suffering in an “I can’t wait to conquer this obstacle; this is exciting!” sort of way. Conflict is a pleasurable learning experience in his mind (Unless he’s in a depressive mood swing and withdraws… though I don’t enjoy throwing things at him while he’s at his lowest either).

Cosmo is… special. I enjoy knocking him down. I think it’s because he feels things so deeply AND interprets his suffering in a heartbreaking way, so he’s refreshingly different compared to the other characters I normally write. It was important to me to utilize both “Cosmo wrote an astrophysics textbook” and “Cosmo is forgetful and can’t read very well” canon so I, uh… I did.

“Author of distinction?” Yes, that was canon. Once upon a time, a long time ago. I really put him through the wringer in Frayed Knots. While Anti-Cosmo is having the time of his life wielding power and swooning over Anti-Wanda, Cosmo… is battling his inner demons. There’s a reason I can’t post “Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Pixies” for another year or two… Can’t have Cosmo sharing his pain with Poof just yet!

That said, while I do like knocking Cosmo down, I love seeing his high points too because, again, he feels so deeply. It’s funny… in my files I have his postpartum depression ‘fic right next to his hygge ‘fic. Whenever I write scenes where he’s suffering, I add more lines to his self-care story because he and I both need that mental break. I do him wrong, but I treat him right.

Y: A character you want to protect.

Youngblood (Danny Phantom). He deserves the world. If you guys have recommendations of nice ‘fics he appears in and does NOT die a horrible second death on top of already being a ghost child, I’m all ears. I wish I could find the time and motivation to finish my own ‘fic about him, but ALAS!

You didn’t ask for Question Z, but the “character whose death I can’t tolerate in ‘fic” is absolutely Youngblood. He doesn’t appear in many to begin with [going off what I was reading two years ago], yet I’ve read like five that unexpectedly kill him off in the end. Maybe my explorations into DP ‘fic were limited, but I never came across any other ghost being killed off. Only this one child who never enjoyed a happy ending. What’s up with that?

Fanfic Ask Meme

[fountainpenguin]

“Reggie the Red” is an important episode.

[fountainpenguin]

Honestly, sometimes Reggie randomly becomes my favorite.

BONUS:

[fountainpenguin]

I can’t decide what my favorite part of this episode is, but I think it’s a tie between Reggie thinking shipping thoughts while he was drawing these two and Snap grossed out by his best friend flirting with the girl he himself can’t stand. Dad, Snap doesn’t want a mom!

BONUS:

That proud face Reggie makes when Rudy compliments his artwork in front of the class and pleads to let it stay on the chalkboard forever and ever.

[fountainpenguin]

Things I had forgotten about this show:

Once upon a time there was a bully who had a massive panic attack because he thought he had turned his favorite nerd into an eraser.

Still fearing for Rudy’s safety, he cradled him carefully in his hands as he was sent to the principal’s office for being disruptive.

Reggie handed the eraser over to the principal in the hopes that she would fix the problem.

He then punished himself before even being instructed to.

Even though Rudy (AKA, “Reggie’s conscience”) promised him that Rudy would come back if he wrapped the eraser in his sweater and said the magic words again, he just... 

... looks so heartbroken oh my gosh he had absolutely no confidence in himself and he thought Rudy was gone forever and that he was guilty of murder. 

Reggie is specifically designed to be disliked but whoops he accidentally became adorable and I don’t have a problem with this at all.