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Rewatching Danny Phantom (again) and y'know, I really love the way almost every recurring enemy knows Danny's secret identity and then does nothing about it.

Many of them have directly interacted with his parents or sister. All of them have either watched him transform in front of them or hit him so hard that he involuntarily transformed back. The portal is in his basement, for crying out loud.

It kinda seems like the regular cast of ghost enemies (apart from Vlad) don't quite recognize that it's a secret, that it's important to him that other people don't find out that he's the Phantom. I guess probably because of 1. Tucker and Sam treating him the same regardless of which form he's in, and 2. they're ghosts, they're treating him as a fellow ghost, they don't care so much about the fact that he's half human. Meanwhile, Danny considers himself a human who is a secret ghost sometimes.

When Walker pulled that stunt with Wulf and started possessing everyone to make Danny out as a bad guy, he never thought to just clue his parents in about his powers, all he wanted to do was discredit the Phantom as a bad guy. Kitty did threaten to tell everyone, once, but only after possessing Paulina and connecting the dots that Danny actively wanted it to be a secret. He and Vlad obviously have kind of a mutually-assured-destruction kind of thing going on about it, because Vlad is also half ghost, which he doesn't want Maddie finding out about. It's just a really nice narrative way of handling the question of how his enemies interact with a hero who has a secret identity.

Also: Valerie does keep her identity a secret but doesn't have a specific name she answers to when in her ghost-hunting suit. Love that for her too, honestly.

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I see your "the vast majority of the Justice League has been not-so-secretly deeply attracted to Batman for years", and I wholeheartedly agree, HOWEVER. I would also like to submit for your consideration: "most of the up-and-coming second generation of Leaguers also has a major crush on Batman's cheerfully oblivious eldest son"

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When the concept of fantasy as an escape from reality is woven into the fabric of the story itself

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The first time Sanji finds Zoro asleep in bed with Nami he screams loud enough to wake Luffy and Usopp from belowdecks and tries to toss the mosshead overboard. Nami and Vivi hold him back long enough for Luffy to show up and officially, effectively separate the two of them, and then everyone on board proceeds to tell Sanji he's a dumbass, and upset over nothing, and jeez, won't you give them a chance to explain before you fly off the handle like that?

"Explain, then," Sanji demands, glaring at Zoro.

"She had a nightmare," Zoro snaps back, as if that's all the explanation Sanji should require.

Sanji opens his mouth to start yelling again, but Nami smacks him in the back of the head before he can get a word out.

"You're overreacting, Sanji. You're making connections that aren't there. He was just trying to help."

"Yeah, Zoro's great at helping you get back to sleep," Luffy chimes in, cheerful as ever. "Whenever my brain is too excited to turn off, I always go sleep with Zoro."

Now that he mentions it, Sanji has seen Luffy on the couch draped on top of Zoro before. More than once.

"How did I know about this before you did?" Vivi wonders. "Oh Sanji, you really mustn't read too far into it. There's safety in numbers, and having someone else with you really does help you sleep more easily when you're out of sorts. Like when you were a kid, running to your parents' room after a nightmare."

"So, are we good now?" Usopp asks cautiously, as Sanji fumes.

"If Nami and Vivi say it's ok," he says through gritted teeth, and storms off back to the kitchen.

It isn't an isolated incident. When he gets up early in the mornings to start in on making breakfast, he often notices Zoro cuddling with one of the others. It still kind of weirds him out, no matter how casually everyone else seems to take it.

When they upgrade to their new quarters onboard the Thousand Sunny, sometimes Zoro disappears entirely, and Sanji just knows he's in the girls' room with either Nami or Robin. Robin, especially- a woman nearly a decade older than Zoro- he seems to end up in bed with a lot.

But Sanji knows, even as he struggles to actually accept it, that Zoro isn't a sexual kind of person. He's just not. He's like a robot sometimes, hardwired to put himself between his crewmates and any danger they run across. And, somehow, his moronic programming has led him to the conclusion that night terrors are his business to deal with, too. Even though that makes no sense.

But, then again, Zoro isn't really a sensible kind of person, either, is he? It's the others just letting him carry on with whatever it is he's doing that really bothers him, Sanji concludes.

But he lets it be. Whatever makes them happy. It's really nothing to him either way, is it?

Until it actually kind of is.

When Sanji wakes up in the dead of night from a nightmare about his father crushing his windpipe in, it's a quiet kind of waking. Gasping for air and trembling all over, yes, but dramatically crying out, no, thank god. He's able to sit up quietly and get his breath back and focus on making his hands stop shaking without disturbing any of the others.

Except, of course, for Zoro. It's like he has a sixth sense for Things Happening, and Sanji hates that about him.

Zoro doesn't say anything for a while, just stares at Sanji from his bunk, the bottom bunk closest to the door. Sanji glares back at him from the top middle, hoping he'll take the hint and just let it go.

"You alright?" Zoro finally asks quietly.

"Fine," Sanji snaps. "I'm fine."

Zoro nods, still staring at Sanji. "...You coming in?" he eventually asks, lifting up one arm, inviting Sanji under his blanket.

"No!" is all Sanji says, and rolls over, turning his back on Zoro, who doesn't press the issue.

But then, a couple weeks later, Sanji wakes up from another nightmare about his father, and this time it's so bad he wakes up crying.

He wordlessly gets up and goes out on deck and sits there for a long while, staring up at the moon and just breathing. It doesn't work that well. He feels shaken, down to his core, and for what? Nightmares are just a product of his own imagination, he reminds himself, and that doesn't work to calm him down all that much, either.

Eventually he starts to get really cold, so he goes back inside.

"Hey," he says, standing at the foot of Zoro's bunk.

"Hm?"

"Move over."

Zoro does, and Sanji awkwardly climbs in, and Zoro settles down beside him, warm and heavy and very present in a way that's hard to ignore. Sanji wonders what the hell he's thinking, this isn't going to work.

And then it does. He drifts off into a deep and dreamless sleep, with no more nightmares, and Zoro doesn't try to make it weird in the morning.

...Ok fine. You win this round, fucker. Turns out that when your imagination is being unreasonable, it really does help to placate it with assurances of safety. Doesn't mean that Sanji has to like it, but fine. He'll let it slide, he decides, and malcontentedly sets about preparing Zoro's favorite main course for dinner.

(thanks for reading, please don't tag this with any ships!)

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Aquabros truly cannot miss. There is no bad Aquabros dynamic. Observe:

Resentful, selfish, power-obsessed Orm who's in it for the money and the status vs. wise-beyond-his-years Arthur who's doing fine with the king stuff and honestly wants nothing to do with his brother

Cold, tactical, strategic Orm who loves his city and has a vision of making Atlantis a world power vs. some-have-greatness-thrust-upon-them Arthur who's doing his best to be a good king but really wishes he had his brother by his side to help him out

Angry, jaded, disillusioned Orm who can't seem to get over the perceived slight of not being crowned king vs. idiot frat boy Arthur who falls for every single one of Orm's schemes cause he's just too trusting

Every possible combination is a winning combination! It's a good story if they eventually resolve their differences and live as brothers making up for lost time, and it's a good story if they're bitter enemies til the end of time! THEY JUST CAN'T MISS!

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THAT IS GREAT NEWS!!! Welcome to One Piece!!! ���

This is probably one of the top 3 funniest comments anyone's ever left on my writing

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The only consistent adult influences in Luffy's life growing up were 1. Garp and 2. Dadan and her gang. He barely knows how to speak at all, but he curses like a sailor, obviously.

Zoro, on the other hand, was raised in a dojo by a man with certain ideals about responsibility and respectability. Meaning, Zoro was whacked on the head with a training staff every time he dared to utter a curse word as a child. As an adult, not only has the habit of minding his language stuck with him, he occasionally finds himself horrifyingly struck with the urge to whack one of his crewmates over the head with a scabbarded sword. World's Greatest Swordsman is NOT immune to turning into his father.

Bell-Mere had a swear jar and good intentions for her daughters. Nami grew up to be continuously surrounded by people in need of being reminded that they're being a dumbass right now.

Usopp is a social chameleon, he matches whatever language you bring to the table. Doesn't have a problem with cursing, but can turn it off when he wants to.

SANJI was raised by LINE COOKS. He's the worst of them all.

Chopper is a teenage boy (I feel like it's easy to forget that part) going through a rebellious phase. While also continuously surrounded by people in need of being reminded that they're being a dumbass right now.

Robin doesn't curse much. She's too mature for all that.

Franky was also something of a feral child with sailors and career criminals for friends and associates. He curses a lot.

Brook likes to think of himself as pretty professional, but he's a professional among pirates. He also curses a lot.

Jinbei's too mature for all that... unless you really, REALLY need reminding of how bad you're being a dumbass right now.

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I am far and away not the first person to pose this question, but let's play the what-if game, shall we?

Batman vs. Vandal Savage. In one corner, a man whose moral code demands justice and protection while simultaneously explicitly forbidding killing anyone. In the other corner, a man who's been directly influencing the course of human history for millennia, who can't be physically killed.

Each one presents a threat to the other. Eventually it's bound to come down to single combat between the two of them. The question of the night is this: when it does, would Batman kill Savage?

Not permanently, I mean. I think we all know the answer to that one. I'm asking, would he come at Savage with intent to kill, knowing that Savage could survive whatever he could dish out? Does it break Batman's only rule, or does anything go against an immortal foe?

Killing him certainly doesn't present any kind of permanent solution to the problem at hand. But snapping his neck might incapacitate him long enough to imprison him some other way. Slitting his throat might be the only way to give yourself any kind of edge against a warrior like that.

Batman would never go into a fight like that without a plan. He'd know that he'd never have a chance of permanently winning that fight unless he called for help, or used whatever advanced technology or magic power he can get his hands on to contain Savage. In the in between, while he's waiting for backup, or attempting to manipulate Savage into a trap, or whatever, he's going to have to contend with everything Savage can throw at him.

But killing him- yes, even temporarily- means betraying everything Batman stands for. Killing him might mean you're not Batman anymore, you can't be.

So what do you do with that kind of decision hanging over you? Which one wins out- morality? or practicality? He's on the ground in front of you. Do you bring your foot down on his chest and crush his sternum, or not?

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Fic where Anakin and Obi-Wan get body swapped, and boy do they hate that.

Because Anakin's connection to the Force manifests itself as extremely heightened senses and awareness of his surroundings in general- sudden changes throw up little red flags in his periphery and areas of uncertainty or concern are marked by these like, quest markers, not so much seen as felt- that's what makes him such a good pilot. Most things he comes in contact with, he has the ability to channel his focus towards if he chooses, which results in a bunch more detailed information, all logically and neatly systematically catalogued in context- that's what makes him so good with complex machinery.

But it doesn't work like that for Obi-Wan. Things for Obi-Wan are way less grounded in the present, everything more exists for him in a state of flow. He gets these flashes, sometimes, just sort of shape suggestions at the edge of his vision- he sees things that happened in the recent past that led to the present moment, he sees things as they may happen in the immediate future, he catches glimpses of things happening under the surface. He can tell, usually, when he's being lied to, or when someone's attempting to conceal their emotions from him. In a fight, he reacts to your next move half the time before you even start moving it.

And they would have the worst time navigating each other's worlds while attempting to get back into the right bodies. There's a lesson to be learned there about walking a mile in someone else's shoes, or whatever, but mostly I think Obi-Wan-as-Anakin would give himself a headache chasing his logical train of thought in circles and Anakin-as-Obi-Wan would trip and fall on his face at least twice over the course of the story, and I think it would be funny.

For the B plot, 3PO and R2 also swap bodies. And boy do they hate that.

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My best friend looked at me one day and said, "hey. It's always just the two of us hanging out. Like, always. That doesn't bother you, does it?"

I shook my head and said, "no."

"Seriously?" His eyebrows went up, like he didn't quite believe me. "Haven't you ever wanted a girlfriend, or something like that?"

"No." I shrugged. "Never really even thought about it much. Have you?"

He shrugged, too, and his eyes slid off me. He looked out the window at the cars below us on the street, and I looked, too. I always wonder, in the back of my mind, where all those cars are driving to in the middle of the day while we're stuck inside.

"Do you have any plans for this weekend?"

"No."

"Let's go on a trip somewhere, then," he said, looking back at me. "We can take the bike. Let's just get away for a little while. What do you think of that?"

I thought it was fine, and I said so.

I met him on Saturday and got on the back of his bike, and we drove for a couple hours. We stopped for gas, once, and we bought some food there, too. Then we kept going.

We eventually ended up in a deserted alleyway in some place just too big to be called a town, and just too small to be called a city. We sat by a streetlight and ate our food, and just talked. Just the two of us, a couple hours away from anyone else who's ever known us.

My best friend put his hand on my shoulder and spun me around and kissed me in that alleyway, and I kissed him back.

I kissed him right back.

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Imagine being so nosy of a person that not only do you make investigative journalism your career, but you start using super secret spy technology just to get better dirt on celebrities, so you can write salacious tell-all biographies and expose everybody's darkest secrets in your gossip magazine.

One day you strike gold by getting close to an up-and-coming teen sensation, and of course you're doing your spy thing, following him around all the time and learning as much about his private life as you can. Except in the process, his 14 yo friend ends up figuring out what you've been doing, catches you in the act, and threatens to report you to the authorities if you don't leave the kid alone. You could face some pretty serious consequences for the spy tech shit alone so you reluctantly agree to comply, and she eventually drops the matter.

As a result, you don't actually face any consequences, and you don't learn your lesson.

Fast forward a couple years. Both that kid you were reporting on and the girl who caught you end up marrying into the same semi-well-known family in the area. It's like they're practically begging for publicity. You stay mostly out of it for a while but then comes your big chance- you get invited to be one of the commentators for the women's FIFA finals and they're all going to be there because what's-his-face's wife is one of the players.

Obviously you spend most of your time on the sidelines ignoring the game in favor of watching that family through your binoculars, making your typical stream-of-consciousness, over-the-top-sensationalized comments about everything you see, until eventually that guy's wife comes hurtling towards you, elbows you in the chest in the process of getting the ball back under her feet, then passes it off to one of her teammates and runs back into the thick of the action as if nothing ever happened. You get the wind knocked out of you on live television, and nobody even cries foul on your behalf. Imagine that.

Cause that's basically what happened to Rita Skeeter.

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Pen: This is Art, the cartographer! He moved here a few years ago and he's explored this whole area very thoroughly. If anyone can answer your questions, he can!

Main character: Hi, I'm John.

Art:

Art: My full name is Arthur, actually.

Main character: Oh my god, you too?!

I want an isekai where all the fantasy characters have names that are just mundane Earth things. This is the hero's best friend, his name is Truck. This is the love interest, Pen, no, that's not short for anything. The comic relief guy, Zipper. The wise old man who sends them on their quest, Professor Diploma. These are some of the power hungry, evil goblin henchmen they meet along the way, Skyscraper, Elevator, and Incinerator.

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Long time no fic! Here's a post-canon Bleach story about zanpakuto, because they're my FAVORITE

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One of those scenes where one character is like being held captive, and another character starts getting all up in their face, so they spit at them, but INSTEAD it's a character with a tooth gap shooting water directly into their eye like an archerfish. Is that anything

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ALT

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Davekat storytime! Come get your Davekat storytime, everyone!