#and the tragic backstory can help with that bc. your parents are dead. your sister is dead.

[paigemathews]

Do you ever think about what Wyatt and Billie’s relationship would look like? I mean, do you ever think that maybe he sees Billie as an omen? A prophesied witch with not only extraordinary power, but projection specifically, that evil has hunted and desired for years, to the point of creating intricate plots to turn them from a young age? (While my Wyatt doesn’t realize yet, the fact that Billie and Wyatt both fell into evil’s clutch in the past? That their redemption came at their sibling’s life? That their deaths can be traced directly to them?)

Imagine Billie post-series, who has lost. honestly, everything in under a year. She went from a confident, headstrong newly-discovered witch determined to save the day to a powerful witch who lost her entire family and was manipulated and used by evil to attack good as a whole. After all of that, I don’t really think that you walk out of that without it becoming a deeply impactful and integral part of your experience.

So a Billie who is more subdued and removed from magical affairs. A Billie who knows the price and risks with magic, especially her own. A Billie who learns how to master her magic, because she’s already seen the consequences of her failures, but there is no real need for it anymore with the lack of demonic attacks. And she is asked, by the sisters who she betrayed and had to earn their trust again, to help teach a witch just like her to control his powers.

Beyond her own experiences, do you think Billie ever told the sisters about Dumain showing her what Wyatt was supposed to “become”? Or did she just chalk it up to his lies and manipulation? And even if she did tell them, do you think that the sisters would be able to tell her? When they themselves never actually knew how bad it was in the unchanged future? When they’re still unsure if they can trust her again and handing her that information includes telling them how, despite all of their power, they could still do nothing as a son/nephew died in front of them?

So she tries to impart how important it is that Wyatt uses his powers for good, not to harm. She trains him to control his power, tries to teach him to respect it as something incredibly dangerous. She conveys over and over again that projection is powerful, but dangerous and if you’re not careful, it can create a lot of harm. She isn’t his only teacher, but she, with her own history and the same power and the knowledge that he will outclass them all and that vision that is bad enough without considering what else he is able to do, is the one who is able to understand best. Piper and Phoebe and Paige are extremely powerful, obviously, but their power is rooted in their bond and that itself helps keep them in check because there is a balance. Billie, her sister (the key) dead and her as the real Ultimate Power, is the closest to knowing what that’s like.

Except Wyatt is Wyatt, his mother and father’s son in everyway but especially his heart. He’s the child who tried to prevent conflict before he was even born. He’s the child who took everyone’s burdens on himself as his to solve before he could even speak. He needed to protect his loved ones, no matter how powerful they individually were. When he failed, he blamed himself. When people struggled, and he couldn’t help them, he blamed himself. Not only does he blame himself for not being able to save or help people, he pins his entire worth as a person on his ability to help. This is the child who thought that he deserved to die because of his father’s grief and inner turmoil, something he wasn’t even to blame for. And he sees so much of himself in Billie, sees her story as a warning if he is to slip to the wrong side, if he is to be blinded to evil and used as a weapon. He takes every message that Billie tries to teach and internalizes it just a little bit too much, takes it just a bit too personally.

And imagine what happens. Billie, who can relate to Wyatt’s potential future just a bit too much, trying to teach him caution and instead teaches him fear. Wyatt, who sees a bit too many similarities in Billie’s past, transforms her lessons of control and innocents into repression and his value. Because they see those similarities, but they don’t quite see the differences and those differences change everything.

[aceprosecuties]

The phantom?

Why I like him

LISTEN I LOVE THE PHANTOM HE IS JUST, TO ME, SO COMPELLING AS A VILLAIN AND A CHARACTER AND I WISH WE COULD HAVE LEARNED A BIT MORE ABOUT HIS BACKSTORY AND ALL THAT.  Like I love the idea of a villain who is not sadistically motivated, but instead has trouble with even feeling basic emotions and who is driven by a need to survive in the world that he lives in.  He has had such an impact on our protags while being (legit) a phantom, unable to be caught until the last minute.  

And since I thrive on angst and hurt and all that, he just fuels that for me, due to his interactions especially with Simon.  He was able to play everyone so well and got into so many people’s heads in such a twisted sort of way I just love him.  

Why I don’t

He did kill Bobby Fulbright, which will always upset me.  I would have really liked it if he had just maybe imprisoned/captured Fulbright, and in my own AUs, that is what he did.  I did really love Fulbright as a character, especially sitting next to Simon, so it hurt a lot to find out that he was dead all along and that I would not see him again in future games. 

(cut for length!)

Favorite Episode (also combining with season/movie bc they all blend?)

WELL I GUESS TURNABOUT FOR TOMORROW IS THE OBVIOUS CHOICE since it is the only one where he appears as himself, but also I do love Turnabout for Tomorrow, soooo, yes. 

Favorite Line

"............Aww. Look what you did to my mask.“

I love this line because it was where he finally had to let go of his Fulbright persona and it was kind of the beginning of the end.  Plus the delivery of the line, even in text, was so eerie and chilling and I just loved it. 

Also, when speaking to Simon, “Ha ha ha! That's the spirit! Justice must be swift and true. I see it in your eyes! There IS hope for your rehabilitation and return to society! I will never give up on you!”

Post reveal, this line goes from being a supportive message to something really fucked - he implanted this idea in Simon’s head about being someone who truly believed in him and wanted to think the best of him, but was actually just playing with him the whole time, and I just love that coming from my villains. 

Favorite Outfit

So I love him in his Fulbright outfit/persona, but I also love him with the Gyaxa jacket and the mask (tw in link for phantomquill stuffs) because it kind of hits the phantom persona home and makes him seem more like a spectre and less like a human being.

OTP

WE ALL KNOW I’M A SLUT FOR PHANTOMQUILL

But seriously, phantomquill is just so fucked up and wonderful to me.  Like it is not one of those OTPs where I’m like “relationship goals!” because ships don’t need to be like that, but instead just need to have an interesting dynamic, and that is what the Phantom and Simon have in droves, in my opinion.  They are so intertwined and obsessed with each other unhealthily, and definitely have that “only one allowed to defeat you” mentality happening between them.  I like to think that Simon stirs some weird emotions in the Phantom before his breakdown; he knows something is happening but cannot really describe it other than saying that he finds Simon “interesting.”  Even after his arrest, the Phantom has such an impact on Simon and vice-versa, and Phantom walks that fine line between obsessive love and hatred when dealing with Prosecutor Blackquill. 

Brotp

I don’t know if I really have one for him?  I have seen a lot of awesome stuff with him and Calisto Yew - both in the same organization and being trained together and stuff - and I totally can get behind that, but I think it is hard for him to form any sort of emotional attachments.  Plus, since I definitely see him as becoming obsessed with Simon, I don’t see him as having much room outside of that to form any sort of connections with anyone else, even on a semi-friendly level.

Headcanon

He was brought into his organization when he was a child; his parents were poor and sold him into it for money for their other children.  He showcased signs of psychopathy when he was young, so his parents honestly believed this would be better for everyone; the organization would train him and would be able to take care of him better than they would have, and they would get the resources needed to support their other kids.  

He endured a lot of suffering in his training in the organization, since they had to work to undo any sort of identity he had - he became one of their top agents, but not without a cost.  He has zero memory of his past life but sometimes dreams of a young girl smiling at him (his sister).  

Unpopular Opinion

I guess just really liking him is unpopular?  I find him to be such an interesting villain because his motivation is not necessarily sinister, and I personally am not so into interpretations of him where he is sadistic or anything like that.  His whole persona is not having many emotions - he needs to fake them in order to completely encompass the character he is playing, and he is so detached from himself and others that he cannot really have the sadistic motivations of, say, Matt (for example).  I also liked his reveal, as tragic as it was for me because I loved Fulbright, but I definitely screamed “NOOOOO” when I realized who he was and it hurt me.

But I like both him and real!Fulbright, and I guess that is unpopular too?  Like I don’t need to choose one over the other (same thing with blackbright vs phantomquill; I can and do like both).

A wish

For us to return to the whole idea of his organization as a global spy network.  I doubt we will, but I really like the whole idea of his organization being involved in something greater, and us needing to use him or return to him somehow for help. 

An oh-god-please-don’t-ever-happen

Please don’t ever have him escape and kill Simon I would be so upset.

5 words to best describe him

Obsessive, emotionless, spy, organized, actor

My nickname for him

I don’t have one for him, actually!  I just call him Phantom or ‘the’ Phantom!