:: 26, bengali-american/desi, pronouns are she/they (either is fine, and i don’t care if you use one more than the other)
:: i originally made this blog back in january 2019 to post about generally younger audience targeted shows i’m into. some stuff i post about are: knight squad, wolfblood, heirs of the night, henry danger, the thundermans, villains of valley view, lab rats (+elite force), kickin’ it, austin & ally, julie & the phantoms, and honestly whatever my friends here are dragging me into at the moment.
:: i write fanfiction sometimes, so check out the my writing tag (and also scrapped pieces and prompt fills) if you’re interested! fics are also posted on my ao3.
:: my mainblog is @fallingsun, so all follows/replies will come from there. feel free to follow me there, too, but it’s a bit more all over the place and i do post about more mature topics, so please don’t follow if you’re under 18.
:: i’m not as active as i used to be on this blog anymore, so i probably won’t be posting or interacting as much. i’m still around though, so feel free to dm or send asks! it might take a while to answer, but i’ll do my best to get back to you.
🌆 relationship: chenry, with mentioned platonic chensper
🌆 rating: T
🌆 word count: 2521
🌆 summary: After Blackout is defeated, Henry returns to Dystopia and to the girl he left behind.
pssst to the person(s?) sending me knight squad asks, i promise i’ll answer very soon!!! i’m just very busy at the moment so i don’t have as much time or energy to sit down and do the long thought out response i want to do, but it’ll happen, i promise. i appreciate you, anon 💜
(I realize I may not be familiar with the fandoms) but far too young to mess it up and the rabbit, the archer, and the moon both intrigue me. I’d love to know whatever you’re willing to share 👀
zack!!! somehow you picked one of my knight squad wips, so you absolutely would be familiar with the fandom. and it's one of the fics i am most excited to finish, like i'm actually shaking a bit just thinking of it. "far too young to mess it up" is a canon-divergent fic where arc is a part of ryker's army, but he and ciara keep meeting. here's a snippet:
Arc keeps to himself through it all. He has never been very trusting to begin with, but he wouldn’t turn his back on anyone at Ryker’s camp. If they’re not supporting Ryker out of their own free will, they’re cornered animals - prone to strike and lash out at any moment. They’ll take any moment of weakness to survive.
Not that Arc is any different. He has been here for four months, and he knows that the camp and Ryker are killing his spirit. So when Ryker offers him a solo quest, even if it’s to further their cause, Arc immediately agrees, eager to breakaway even if only for a couple days. He knows it’s not a permanent escape and that he’ll have to come back, but he will take any scrap of freedom he can get.
“Consider it a test,” Ryker tells him. “I want to know just how good Astoria’s magical shield is, and whether you’re worth keeping around. Go, steal something from the palace, and come back. I’ll give you a week.”
Arc doesn’t need more than a day and a night, but he doesn’t say anything.
i've been working on this fic on and off for a while, but i reallyyyyy want to finish it and get it out sometime in the next year. hopefully you'll get to see the full thing sooner rather than later!
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"the rabbit, the archer, and the moon" is a fic for the cdrama a journey to love. it's focused on three characters: princess yang ying, duke li tongguang who is from the enemy nation, and chu yue, a daughter of a duke from an outside tribe. li tongguang was originally arranged to marry chu yue, but due to various political manuevers, he ends up marrying the princess to secure the throne. my fic is basically throwing the three of them in a blender together to process their grief over the fact that literally everyone else died in canon (it is a...devastating show). and also they're all together romantically because i said so. the title is a reference to the chinese myth of the rabbit in the moon, the archer hou yi, and his wife, the goddess of the moon chang'e. this fic is very much in the outline stage so no snippet here!
Imagine this One episode Henry is complaining about being a sidekick and just how hard it is to save ppl and shit So someone is like "Do you even want to be a hero/sidekick" And the episode ends with henry being like "I...I...i'm not sure"
Sorry for this late response, I know I got this when the show was still airing but the finale episodes were already underway.
Honestly, I would have loved that. I genuinely wish the identity crisis and character-based plot lines had come in much earlier. Like Henry says, he was 13 when he took the job, and did he really have another option? He was an impressionable kid meeting his hero, and who knows what Ray would have done had he not accepted (memory wipe him and leave him in an alley probably, since he had already exposed himself as Captain Man and showed him the Man Cave). His feelings definitely would have changed over time, especially with how much it stressed him out and stuff.
In a way, I wish even Ray had been asked that at some point. He was thrust into a superhero’s life when he was 7 and got his power and then his father forced him to train. He had just as little choice as Henry had, maybe less, and I wish Ray had a moment in the show where he stepped back and realized that he was making the same mistakes his father had, and he decided to give Henry an out.
There is so much the show could have done in terms of character, and I will forever be salty that they didn’t.
i think the reason i am the most frustrated with the fact that they didn’t explore this more was that they were very self-aware the whole time. henry was never presented as having a good balance between his personal and hero life—from episode two they were like “okay so being a sidekick and managing regular life is a serious challenge that has huge negative impacts” and then they fixed the issue of that one episode and never addressed it again. there were little throwaway lines, too, like “i don’t know where kid danger ends and henry hart begins” from whistlin’ susie or “are you a sidekick or just a regular kid?” — “there you go, ray, there’s the central conflict that defines our relationship” from car trek.
but because of the nature of the show and the writing, these were constantly played off for humor and like, the actual weight behind them was never fully acknowledged. even in the finale, they didn’t talk about how henry had lost a literal year of time and had barely realized it, and i can’t stop thinking about how messed up he must’ve been in order to be in that state.
i honestly wish they had structured henry’s arc starting a lot earlier, because they hinted at it but it could’ve and should’ve been a buildup of a lot of things. as it is, it’s hard to determine what henry really wanted for himself—but it’s clear that it’s less about not wanting to be a hero and more about wanting to form his own identity. he’s generally enthusiastic about fighting crime, he seemed thrilled by the proposal from neighborville, and his arc did end with him continuing the hero business. i think it was more about the fact that he didn’t get a choice up until that point. like shona said, ray basically thrust the job on to him, and not to be narcissistic but to quote my own fic, “when you’re thirteen and someone hands you a mask and tells you to be a hero, it seems that simple”.
i still think it’s in his nature to be a hero: from day one he immediately threw himself at the older, bigger guy who attacked ray, he’s extremely protective of the people around him, and he never thinks twice about doing what’s right for other people. it’s just that he was never even given the chance to be anything but that. his identity rests solely on him being kid danger and even from a standpoint as fans, we know little to nothing about what henry hart likes. we formed whole hobbies around throwaway lines (flower boy henry) because there was so little development to the side of him that was just a regular kid—because he never really got to be that. i think what he wanted wasn’t to not be a hero, i think it was more about wanting to live his own life (i mean, he basically says this) and make choices for himself.
Hey Shona can I please ask for a snippet / description from suitors fic <3
you absolutely can! i am admittedly kind of flustered though because i'm assuming you think it's for bridgerton but it is not asdfgjfk. so i'm not sure how much you'll care for this, but it is for a kid's medieval fantasy comedy show called Knight Squad and it is one of my favorite comfort shows that ended too soon.
to give a very quick rundown of the premise, the show is about ciara, a princess who wants to be a knight to defend her kingdom so she disguises herself and sneaks away to train in knight school. arc, a new member of her squad, figures out her ruse, but he also has a secret - he is a thief from outside the kingdom, and he lied his way into knight school to get revenge on the man who destroyed his village. so they're helping each other with their respective hidden identities while growing up and training together. and yes i ship them!
the fic is a post-canon 4+1 of four suitors that ciara is set up with, and one she chooses herself. each section is from the suitors' perspectives because i love outsider pov. here's a small snippet (no names are used in this bit, but ciara is the princess and arc is the blond knight):
The princess does not look happy at all. “What? Dad, I’m only nineteen-”
“Well, no one’s telling you to get married, now,” the king assures her. “Just talk to people. It’s all part of the courting process, and eventually you’ll make a match.”
The blond knight, who has been carefully blank-faced this entire time, clears his throat and leans towards the princess. “I think I should go.”
He doesn’t wait for anyone to dismiss him as he turns around with a mock salute and walks off. It is ridiculously audacious, but the princess only watches him go with a furrowed brow, her lips pressed in a thin line. Lord Hugo raises an eyebrow, but when the princess turns her glare on him, he smooths his expression into a charming smile.
Hiii, I'm poking through your blog and it's such a beautiful little time capsule. I've never seen knight squad, but i know it is beloved, and Nickelodeon put their weight behind the wrong blond boy tbqh. I'll try not to give you a billion notifications, but i love all of it. Thank you for leaving this up. And as for chenry, there was a time..... 🥲 I got into HD quite recently as an adult, so I can only imagine watching the excitement and disappointment of watching those episodes in real-time. Also, fellow 🇧🇩🇺🇲 what up? Hope you're doing well living life (in these dreadful times) and enjoying whatever fandoms make you happy!
Aww, thank you so much!
I absolutely would not mind if you ended up giving me a billion notifications, I'm really curious about which of my posts might resonate now even if it's been like seven years (holy shit what is time) since I first started this blog. I've been loving the discussion on my FAFSA marriage of convenience Chenry post. And honestly, I don't think I could ever take this blog down, I have a lot of memories here, even if plenty of them are tinged with frustration. It definitely was a ride, but I'm sure watching now has its own set of insights! I really appreciated your response to that one ask about Chenry, like it really captured everything I had felt while watching, although I'm not sure if I would have had the words to describe it all as well as you did back then.
Also it's very cool to meet another desi person in fandom! I hope you're doing well, too. These days I tend to be less active here (and when I am, it's usually not about HD), but fandoms are often like Hotel California for me, even if I check out, I can never leave. So I look forward to seeing you on my dash and maybe hearing from you again. :)
okay this question is going to sound mean but it's from a place of genuine interest and i just don't know how to word it better. what do you see in henry/charlotte as a ship? i know why you don't actually ship them in canon but you do see some potential in them, why is that? asking because we seem to feel pretty similarly about both characters but i don't ship them at all and you like i guess the concept of them as a ship? and i wonder where that difference between us comes from. maybe i'm just too diehard henry/jasper, idk, but i am really interested in your thoughts on henry/charlotte as a potential ship
I've seen how beautifully you answer people's asks, and this is... not that. At all. I tried answering this without veering off into a million tangents or getting too headcanon-y. I also failed completely. Disclaimer: not good grammar, I will go back and edit this one day. Actually, I think this answer is kind of unhinged and bordering on drivel, so I'm really sorry. You deserve better.
I don't think your question sounded mean at all, I got a good laugh out of it (laughing at myself, not you). This is such a hot mess response. If none of this makes sense, my one paragraph answer for why I see Chenry potential is 1.) friends -> lovers slow burn set up in earlier seasons, 2.) similarities in character 3.) such familiarity that they are more married couple than emerging romance, and 4.) trust/devotion.
My Chenry potential comes from seeing a trope that's like best friends -> something more? To me, Charlotte and Henry looked like they were being set up in the same way that other kid TV shows seem to do with BFFs. Do I see romance in the first season? No, and they don't see each other that way either.
But from the start and right through to the finish, Henry and Charlotte are shown to be comfortable and very in sync with each other. There's the ridiculously cute "Hen" and "Char" that are used primarily between the two of them (Ik others use them in the musical, and Jake uses Hen as well, but it's mostly Henry-Charlotte). I think things like the "ewww -> hey!" in The Bucket Trap are cutesy things to look back on and be like...well, well, well.
Charlotte serves as Henry's impulse control the entire show, and when he listens to her, it usually turns out well. I (maybe headcanon) think Charlotte is one of the first people to treat Henry like her own personal superhero TBH, she screams for him and he comes running. Would he do this for anyone? Probably. But I still see it as unique.
The first time I think I got future romantic vibes was in the Time Jerker. One could argue that Henry is a loyal and caring friend who would relive the same day for Jasper too (and I agree! he would!) But the plotline was Charlotte's, so I lean that way for this episode.
Putting in a line break because I start pulling from Season 5 down here.
I also think (and maybe this is getting too head-canon-y), that the two of them are far more similar than what meets the eye. You've said it and I agree: Charlotte is to Henry what Henry is to Swellview. Charlotte seems to have a good read on Henry's anxiety and neuroses. Henry goes to her constantly for advice, calls her the second something goes amiss. You I believe had the enhanced image of their group chat in Grand Theft Otto, where she says he's freaking out, at the end of Captain Drex, she tells him not to freak out.
(Maybe headcanon?) I think Charlotte is also an anxious Annie, she just has much better impulse control and plans the heck out of everything, and because she is so competent (and probably worked on therapy and meds to survive school+work), she always seems to have a solution. I think she can empathize with being a worrier (maybe not to the OCD-levels poor Henry is subject to, but she gets it, I think).
I think they both have a sense of heightened responsibility (Charlotte from babysitting this whole damn group, Henry from being parentified at home) and often act as (Jasper in early seasons) and Ray's parents together (I don't remember the ep, but there's a scene where they are explicitly trying not to get Ray to do something that would hurt and Charlotte straight up says to let him do it so he would learn). Actually, I think they're written as so familiar with each other, constantly in each other's space (literally have had their hands in each other's mouths, compliment each other's teeth, know each other's bathroom habits, turn and say "Spurt!" at the same time) that it skips past the romance and throws them into the old married couple category, bickering and all. They're less hugg-y as they get older, but I think they're still close, it might just be the awkwardness of age.
I love that Henry has a goofy little enamored grin when Charlotte does things like claim Ray's burger, zaps people, sings like an angel, etc. I love that Charlotte says she's team Henry in Jam Session and that he's very responsible in Sick and Wired. I love that when Charlotte asks Henry to promise he's not gonna try and kiss her in IDOD, he cuts himself short and doesn't fully promise (one of the funniest moments in the series for me, actually, as he reaches out with his head turned and asks, "is this you?"). I love that Henry is fast enough to stop Charlotte from killing Jasper over grammar and has learned how to get her to calm down without telling her to calm down of course.
I think it's interesting that Charlotte is the one who is ready to leave at the beginning of the end, and she's also the one who is ready to die and literally says "I'm not leaving you!" I think there's layers to this. I (headcanon) think the writers gave us crumbs of any and all ships lol.
I think, tangential to canon, there's hurt over Nickelodeon pulling dumb stunts like this to bait people who liked the ship and garner viewers. There are still videos on YouTube that are labeled as Chenry on the official channels that came out AFTER the show ended. I also think racism is a factor to be completely honest. Nickelodeon isn't super huge on interracial couples (True Jackson, VP is the only one I can think of in recent years, and that wasn't a Schneider show). I think these factors make Chenry fans see potential/ship harder.
Also, thank you for acknowledging that I can't ship them in canon, because I think things started to change around season 3 and continued to nosedive for these two. I think I'm rambling like a maniac right now, but basically, there's one post I can't find by another person who said Charlotte and Henry's relationship ends up turning into "I knew you when you were a boy," and I so agree. Charlotte was so faithful and enduring I feel like she was taken advantage of and assumed to always be there. Ultimately, Henry was down such a shitty path I don't think he was capable of being a good partner to anyone. Not Charlotte, not Jasper. No one. Praying he gets therapy and is happy after his brain matures post-25.
found out about a youth urban fantasy show called "the elephant princess" about a girl finding out she is the princess of a magical kingdom that's basically fantasy india. and i was wary of the 2000s era orientalism but it still sounded very much like something i might want to watch...until i realized most of the cast, including the main character, is white??? an entire india-based fantasy and not a single south asian actor, are you serious???
just found out the sisters grimm which was my absolute favorite book series when i was a kid is getting an animated adaptation... except i just saw the trailer and i kind of hate it here but i have no one to talk about this with
just saw a jasper and piper edit and i thought it was a relationship appreciation edit in the platonic sense but folks were shipping it in the comments and saying they hope they get together in the spin-off??? and honestly the idea of a the revival already had me scared but now i’m downright terrified. the idea never occurred to me but it’s a waking nightmare now. if this happens when chenry got paid in dust and bones….you’ll never see me again
"mature" henry danger revival series.... max and cherry dating.... somehow this fuckass month has gotten worse. i didn't know it was possible, yet here we are
