He Was Hardly Monstrous Then

Tuck's Labyrinth

[Phic Phight Phill Phor @mistythefifth!]

Tucker was a lot of things.  A genius.  A first-rate bachelor.  A carnivore.   A snack.  A geek.  Unbelievably handsome.  An Esperantist.  God’s gift to women (and men of good taste).  A gamer.  Cool beyond cool.  A hacker.  Eminently eligible.  A ghost hunter.  Drop-dead gorgeous.  A hobbyist archer.  A magnet for Cupid’s arrows.  The reincarnation of an ancient and possibly evil pharaoh.  Bootylicious. The best friend of the personification of memento mori and also Danny Fenton.  And, most importantly, too fine.  

He was not, however, in any way equipped to deal with this.  

“It's so obvious,” said Wes.  “If you'd just open your eyes–”

“You're the one who needs to open his eyes.  Or at least get checked for colorblindness.”

“Do you hear yourself?  If even you think it's reasonable to mix up Fenton and Phantom just by swapping colors–”

“Uh, one, it isn't, and, two, I was talking about coming to school wearing… that.”

Paulina pointed a manicured fingernail in the direction of Wes's clothing, which was, in her defense, a particularly eye-searing combination of flannel plaid jacket, striped t-shirt, novelty camouflage pants, and bright orange boots.  Even Tucker didn't dress like that.  Regularly.  Wes hunched in on himself.  

“It's laundry day,” he said. 

“Your mama's washing your shoes too, huh?”

“Shut up,” said Wes.  “I don't need to take this from a necrophiliac.”

“You–!”

Tucker couldn't take much more of this.  “You guys do know that there's an actual evil ghost in here somewhere?  You know, the one who turned the school into a maze and trapped us in it?”

“I don't know what you're worried about,” said Wes, “Fenton's not going to leave you here.”

Paulina scoffed.  “Fenton's hiding in a closet somewhere. Mi amor, Phantom, on the other hand, will beat up that nasty ghost and sweep me off my feet at any moment.  You can thank me now.”

Tucker loved Danny like a brother, but these guys had way too much faith in a guy who'd once lost a fight with a grocery bag.  (Long story.)

“That's great,” said Tucker.  “But may I remind you: giant maze.”

Wes rolled his eyes.  “Mazes are easy.  You just have to make all right turns.  You can stop the performance already.”

“My what?”

“You know, hyping up your lying friend.  Being a ghost doesn't make him cool.”

“Nothing could make any of you cool,” said Paulina, “but Mr. Delusional is right.  Mazes are easy.”

“You're calling me delusional, when you're–?!”

“Okay, okay,” said Tucker.  “So, three things.  One, the right hand turns thing is only good for getting out of a maze, not for finding people in it.  Two, it only works if you start with a wall that connects with the outside.  And, most importantly, for it to work, you have to actually be doing it.”

Tucker was definitely channeling Danny, or maybe Sam, but there was such a thing as being too laid back.

“Well, we're not stopping you,” said Paulina, examining her fingernails.  “Go run off and do whatever.  I'll tell Phantom when he comes to rescue me.  Probably.”

“Hey, wait, no, Fenton's coming for him–”

Yeah, Tucker wished he could leave.  But these two had no ghost fighting experience, would throw themselves at a ghost if they thought it would get Danny's attention, and would throw themselves at each other if Tucker wasn’t here.  Heck, they were doing it with him here. 

Sam probably would have left, which meant that he was channeling Danny.  

This was terrible.  How did Danny do this?

“Look,” said Tucker, interrupting the argument.  “Even if you think that we’re going to be rescued, we don’t know when and we don’t know if there are other ghosts around who could attack us.  We need some kind of a plan.”  

Paulina and Wes stared at him.  

“Other than just waiting to be rescued,” clarified Tucker.  He waved at the ‘room’ around them.  “We aren’t even somewhere we can barricade, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a drinking fountain or a bathroom anywhere.”  They were, in fact, in a fairly featureless stretch of hallway, complete with lockers, slightly-cracked linoleum, and buzzing fluorescent lights.  The locker numbers were non-sequential and had three more digits than the highest-numbered real lockers at the school.  

“I never go to the bathroom at school,” said Wes.  “That’s where they get you.”

“Dude,” said Tucker.  “Like, how?  Do you not drink or what?”

“I don’t drink at school.  If I did, I’d have to use the bathroom.”

“No wonder you’re so crazy,” said Paulina.  “I’d say that you should just go to the bathroom with your friends, like a normal person, but you don’t have any of those.”

“I do too!”

“Yeah?  Who?” asked Paulina.  

Tucker listened, too.  And took out his PDA.  This would be good data for his all-school relationship map.  

(Hey, it was an important multi-function tool.  How was he supposed to know who to ask out without it?  Or who to blackmail with what if someone more credible than Wes Weston found out Danny’s secret?)

“I’m not going to tell you.  You’ll just say that they aren’t real.”

Ooh.  That was just sad.  Tucker put his PDA away.

“Well, now I am,” said Paulina.  

There was a sudden, startling chime from the PA system.  Tucker looked around, trying to find the speaker.  

“Hi, so, first off, don’t panic,” said Danny’s voice.  

That… was maybe not the best way for Danny to start.  Jeez.  

“Oh!  Oh!  It’s Phantom!” said Paulina, bouncing distractingly.  

“It’s Fenton,” said Wes, “and it’s about time.”

“And, secondly, no, I haven’t found the office.  I’m possessing the PA system.  And, no, I can’t hear you, unless you find one of the PA buttons and–”

There were a series of beeps, followed by shouting, followed by a screech of feedback.  

“--ough of that!” said Danny, getting control of the system again.  “So, if you can get to a button, I can hear you, but I can’t teleport you out, so that’s kind of pointless.  Unless you’re being attacked or something.  Which could be happening.  This guy named himself Daedalmouse, which sort of implies the existence of a Mousotaur, and I’ve been fighting a lot of ghost rats trying to find him.  I’m pretty sure that finding him and beating him up will undo the whole labyrinth thing, but I don’t know how long it will take – yes, I know about the right hand wall trick, but that only works for getting out of mazes that are, you know, following the laws of physics, and not finding crazy ghosts that aren’t following the laws of physics.  I’ll try to check in by possessing the speakers every couple of hours, but in the meantime, hang tight, find places with water, all that survivalist stuff.  If you find a way out, go for it, but no Icarus stuff.  Icarus,” mumbled Danny, sounding distracted.  “Icarus.  Icar-mouse?”  The PDA system chimed again, and then fell silent.  

Except for everyone mashing the buttons, but that was just unintelligible noise and didn’t count.  

“The ghost is named Deadmau5?” asked Paulina.  “What a rip off.”

“He said Daedalmouse.  Like Daedalus?  From Greek mythology?  Ringing any bells?” asked Wes.  

“Whatever,” said Paulina.  “I bet you don’t even know who Deadmau5 is.”

Tucker breathed in slowly through his nose.  “Let’s at least find one of the call buttons so that we can, you know, call for help?  Hello?  Wes?  Paulina?”  Tucker sighed and adjusted his glasses.  “Or so that we can call Phantom when he gets on next?”

“Please, like you need the announcement system to call your best frie–”

“Yes, and then once Phantom knows where I am, he will come and rescue me,” said Paulina, skipping down the hallway.  

“Sure,” said Tucker.  He started walking.  He didn’t want Paulina to get too far ahead.  “Are you coming, Wes?”

“You could just call him,” said Wes.  “On your phone.”

As a point of fact, Tucker had already tried that.  It didn’t work.  “I don’t have Phantom’s number, Wes.”

“I hate you so much.  All of you.”

“I know, Wes.”   

.

“Oh!  Look at that!” said Paulina, pointing around the corner.  

Tucker ran forward - well, jogged, they’d been walking for a while, vainly searching for a classroom door - thinking she’d seen a ghost.  She hadn’t.  

They all looked at the vending machine, hungrily. 

Paulina ran forward and punched in a number on the vending machine keypad, then stopped and turned back to Tucker and Wes.

“Do, like, either of you have any money?”

“Aren’t you rich or something?” asked Wes.  

“Which is how you know I’ll pay you back,” said Paulina.  She flipped her hair over her shoulder.  “I can’t believe that the one time I leave my purse in my locker during school, this happens.”

“Is it still school property if it’s in a nightmare ghost maze?” asked Tucker, because there was jerky in there, and his ultra-predator instincts needed fuel, darn it.  “We can always say the ghost broke it.”

“Okay, but, like, how?” asked Paulina.  “I’m not breaking my nails on this thing.”

“Just move,” said Tucker, pulling out his PDA and nudging Paulina to the side.  He probably had some dongle or other that would connect to the vending machine.  Not this one…  Not that one…  There, he could slide that into the card reader and then just run the program.  He hadn’t tested this before, so he had no idea if it would–

Tucker didn’t have Danny’s ghost sense, but after over a year of ghost hunting, he’d picked up a few things.  Like when a ghost was about to cream him.  Unfortunately, he still didn’t have much of a skill set when it came to what to do when he noticed a ghost was about to cream him.  He looked over his shoulder.  

Yep.  That was a giant ghost rat, all right.  

He dropped his PDA, then threw himself to the floor as the rat jumped straight at his head.  It hit the vending machine, sending it crashing to the floor.  Paulina screamed and ducked around the corner.  Wes stared, frozen.  

Tucker shoved his hands in his pockets and pulled out his lipstick laser.  He spun the top and started firing.  The rat yelped.  He loved this thing so much.

But giant ghost rats had thicker skin than the typical animal ghost, because it jumped on Tucker, knocking the laser out of his hands.  He and the rat rolled around, wrestling.  

Man, all this scene needed was some fire, and then it’d be straight out of that one mov–

Paulina came screaming back around the corner, carrying a large cork board over her head.  It was covered in motivational posters with slogans like ‘If someone tells you that you cannot become immortal, they are liars,’ ‘Doesn’t it make sense that a lot of witch hunts are witch hunts because it’s your birthday?’ and ‘If we all work together we can make the north pole collapse under its own weight.’  

She slammed the board down on the rat’s head and it sort of staggered off Tucker, twitching.  It was a good thing it was too stupid to go intangible.  Paulina had used enough force that Tucker would have some broken ribs if the rat was smart.  

But the rat’s disorientation was momentary.  It turned back to Paulina and Tucker, teeth bared.  Which was when Wes started shooting the rat with the lipstick laser.  The rat yelped and twisted to face him, levitating up into the air, which in turn gave Tucker enough time to roll to his feet and activate his wrist ray.  

He didn’t like the wrist rays as much as the lipstick laser, they were harder for him to aim, but at this range, that hardly mattered.  After being hit a few dozen times, the rat ran away, squeaking.  

“Thanks,” said Tucker.  “That was–  Thanks.  Can I have that back?”

Wes, pale faced, handed the lipstick laser back to Tucker like it was a loaded gun…  Which wasn’t exactly inaccurate…  

“That was so gross,” said Paulina, holding her hands out in front of her as if they were contaminated.  Tucker didn’t know what her problem was, she hadn’t even touched the rat.  

“Yeah,” agreed Wes, who hadn’t even been near the rat, breathlessly.  He was getting some of his color back, though, so that was good.  Tucker never knew what to do when people passed out.  Unless those people were Danny, in which case what to do usually involved evacuation, ghost first aid, and deciding how many days to tell Danny he’d been out for when he woke up.  

“Could’ve been worse,” said Tucker.  “Luckily, you had me.  Tucker Foley, too fine.”

Paulina and Wes stared at him, lips starting to curl.  Tough crowd.  

How did Danny do this?

Tucker shrugged, discarding the thought, and walked over to the vending machine.  He rescued his PDA - the reinforcement upgrades were really paying off! - kicked the machine to shake off some of the broken glass, and reached in to pull out a packet of jerky.  It had his name on it.  Metaphorically speaking.  

“Are you really going to eat that?” asked Wes.  “That thing was all over you.”

“Well, yeah,” said Tucker, peeling open the packet.  “But it was dead, so…”

“It could have the plague,” said Wes.

“Then I’m already dead,” said Tucker.  “Since it was all over me and all.  Ooh, this type has cheese in it.”  He took a bite and the walls shimmered.  The next thing Tucker knew, he was standing on the front lawn of the school, along with the rest of the student body.

“We’re out?” asked Wes.  

“Phantom saved us,” said Paulina, clasping her hands together, her previous disgust forgotten.  “I knew he would.  Next time, I’ll have to give him a hero’s reward.  Fate is so cruel, to keep us apart.”

Wes scoffed.  “He literally sits two rows behind you in almost every class you have.”

Tucker took a deep breath, anticipating the argument, then turned and walked away.  They were out of the maze.  It wasn’t his problem anymore.  He could enjoy his jerky.  

High overhead, Tucker heard Danny scream.  “It was about the ‘mice’ finding the cheese in your stupid maze?  Why the heck are you Ancient Greek themed if you’re just a mad scientist?!”

So, from TC to everything TOA, everyone expresses their distaste for Apollester's haikus. I believe that they don't actually hate on the technical execution (he's usually adhering to the form pretty well, unless you take into account that haikus are usually nature-themed in some way, but there's such a thing called artistic freedom, so it shouldn't factor in that much). Most people not liking his haikus don't have that knowledge on the technicalities of it anyway.

But any haiku, even the very first one in TC, was just Apollo "going through the motions". It seemed as if he did it because he felt like he had to, like it was expected of him as the god of poetry (and I can understand this, as there are soo many mentions of him being tied to the sun in the pjo!verse, and just as many of him being the god of archery, but not as many about poetry, so of course he wants to remind people). It's performative, and not in a good way.

Art is always best if it's coming straight from the heart. And any time Apollo does perform something heartfelt (like he did about Daphne and Hyacinthus and Jason), it is well-received.

In my opinion, Apollo's journey as Lester Papadopoulos isn't just about changing his character's personality, it's also about him redeveloping appreciation for art and its ability to put your emotions on display in any way, shape or form you desire.

it takes me like 3 days to wake up in the morning

Jason: how ya likin’ that comic, kiddo? Damian: I do not understand. Jason: what? It’s just a spider-man comic. What’s not to understand? Damian: why is Parker pursuing this red-haired woman, who does not seem to enjoy his company further than any other, rather than his friend, Osborn? Osborn has given multiple hints that he would prefer their relationship to go beyond platonic Jason: Jason: *glances over at Jon, who is reading a Daredevil comic on the other bed* Damian: should he not pursue Osborn, considering he is already aware that their relationship can withstand hardship? Friendship is a sturdy baseline for which romance can be built soon. And besides, Mary Jane is an un-compelling idiot with mediocre looks. Jason: Jason: this explains so much

Now from what I can tell there are two main explanations for Danny’s ghost powers. 

The first one is the “canon” version. As in it’s more accurate to the explanation in the show but this is the phandom so it obviously differs somewhat. This one says that when Danny turned on the portal it put him in direct connect with an unlimited supply of ectoplasm as the portal opened on top of him. At the same time, massive volts of electricity ran through him, binding the ectoplasm to his DNA. Honestly I like this version less but I think it makes more sense from a logical perspective if you want a like actual explanation.

The second version is my favorite. It’s much more fantasy and mystical. And in my opinion is better for angst, which everyone knows is the most important thing in the phandom. Anyway this theory says that when Danny turned on the ghost portal it opened inside of him, not just on top of him. This caused him to simultaneously exist in the ghost zone and the material realm. When this happened, Danny was hit with a huge surge of electricity, killing him. But things don’t affect people the same way in the ghost zone so can you really expect that nothing weird happened when he was in both. It caused him to die in one dimension but survive in another, making him a paradox existing as both dead and alive. I like to think that perspective changes depending on which dimension he’s in.

Anyway that’s just my take on it and whoever came up with all this is a genius.

Take a picture, it will last longer

every single time i see one of those ‘pov you forget to mute yourself on discord’ tiktoks i think of the batkids. i just fucking know they’ve spent so long boredly fucking around on comms during patrol that they have honed the skill to acapella any song they want on the fly just to entertain themselves during slow nights.

Bruce will be dealing with a group of muggers when out of nowhere about 6 different voices will perfectly team up with NO verbal planning before hand just to serenade him with Meghan Trainor or Britney Spears and they will Not Listen when he tells them it’s distracting.

one time Damian got smacked in the head with a brick during a group mission and he was collapsed on the ground trying to get his bearings and not throw up while Bruce and Dick were fighting to get to his side, and STILL despite the concussion they could hear the little fucker providing the background beat to Jason Tim and Stephs performance of Fallen Kingdom by Captainsparklez.

Common misconception: “Damian doesn’t give a shit about people/is heartless/hard to understand.” WRONG!!! *incorrect buzzer noise*

Damian gives too much of a shit, in fact! Every reaction, every action, he has is because he gets emotional! (And then processes those emotions in non-“normal kid” ways.) He’s pretty easy to understand even, but people’s perceptions of him always range in the negative rather than positive so they complicate things + Damian obscuring what little he can behind League-isms and quick jabs/sarcasms. (Still, it doesn’t take people like Tim or Dick long to clock his insecurities/“need to be accepted.”)

The real problem Damian has is 1) bad first impressions 2) his reluctance to appear vulnerable, at a cost 3) good old parental (mommy/daddy) issues + child of divorce vibes

All three halfas are slightly different brands of halfa.

Danny is the closest thing you can get to a classic halfa. He died and his soul only went halfway before it got stuck between life and death, unable to fully move into the afterlife because Danny is still alive and unable to move back to the living world because Danny still technically died. A true liminal being that is stuck in the crossing point between life and death. In living and dead forms.

Vlad is a bit closer to some kind of undead creature. As he suffered in the hospital with ecto-acne, he fully died multiple times, only for the ectoplasm fused to his body and still developing core inside him to forcibly pull him back to the living world before he could enter the afterlife. Eventually, the constant tug-of-war between Vlad’s human body failing and developing ghost form accidentally keeping him alive stopped when his core became fully functional, and Vlad got completely stuck between life and death as well. He’s still a liminal being like Danny, and his soul is still in between life and the afterlife just like Danny, but the constant back and forth between being alive and dead before he officially became a halfa has left him as a type of reanimated corpse, at least in human form.

Ellie is also different from the rest because they were never alive or dead in the first place. They were simply created already in between life and death. They have always been and will always be a liminal being, and there is no point in time when they weren’t. Like a proper eldritch abomination.

Boop an Unsuspecting Victim.