Wes ruins everything
Wes had finally done it, he had finally realized why nobody ever belived him about Fenton and Phantom! It made so much sense now, he had been looking for an answer for years, thinking he was going crazy because everybody refused to see the Obvious!
He was Cursed!
He literally had an Ancestoral Curse on his Bloodline that made it so that all those born with the gift of Prophecy would be ignored! A Gift of Prophecy that he apparently had.
It was Cassandra's Curse, the one from Greek Myths. Apparently she was his Great×1000 Grandmother and passed down the Gift (and Curse) of Prophecy to him. And he knew how to break it!
All he needed to do was gather the right resources, chant the correct incantations, make sure not to accidentally summon a Demon in the process, and he could just foist the Curse onto some other poor schmuck. Sure it would suck for them, and he would loose his Gift of Prophecy, but Wes had been ignored for Years at this point, he needed validation!
So he did the Ritual, and he didn't mess it up, and he managed to get rid of the Curse.
Now all he had to do was convince everybody that he was right for the first time in his life! This was going to be great!
...
Cass didn't know what was going on.
A while ago, she had started getting these...gut feelings that she couldn't explain.
She would look over the details of a Case her Family was working on, and see a patern that the others were seemingly ignoring. Like when she realized that The Penguin was about to raid the Docks on the East Side, but the others were convinced it was going to be on the West.
But when she had tried to tell them, they had brushed her off. "We've already concluded that he will begin the Raid on the West side, no need to go to the East."
She had gone anyways, and low and behold she had been right. But nobody even acknowledged that she had been right at all, they had just wondered how they had missed the signs, not even questioning how she had known.
It wasn't limited to Cases either. Even small things, like telling her brother's where the TV remote was were brushed off, and hours later they would still be looking, never even having checked where she told them.
It seemed that no matter what, nobody cared about her point of view anymore. They kept brushing her off, telling her she was wrong, actively ignoring her ideas.
And it was getting worse. They were starting to ignore her more and more, forgetting she was in the room, not calling her down for Dinner, even forgetting to check in on her during Patrol.
She knew that there must be something going on, Magical or otherwise, but when she tried bringing it up with her Dad or JLD, they would also Brush her off.
Her Family was forgetting her. And they didn't even realize it.
...
Danny was not okay at the moment.
When he had gone to school a few weeks ago and noticed everybody staring at him, he didn't give it much thought. Maybe Dash or Paulina had spread another Rumor about him again, not too out of the ordinary.
When his name had been called over the Intercom, he hadn't thought much of that either. His grades were falling even more than usual, so he assumed his Guidance Counselor wanted to have another talk with him.
When he walked into the Principals Office to see both of his Parents and some GIW Agents, that's when he realized something big must have happened.
He didn't have much of a chance to react when the Shields went up, but he did react when the first Ecto-Blast scorched the wall behind him. His Parents began to scream at him as they fired their Blasters, something about replacing somebody? He didn't know, he was pretty preoccupied at the moment.
It took more effort than he cared to admit to escape the Room, but a stray shot to the hidden Shield Projector under the Principals Desk proved to be his saving grace. Unfortunately the moment he escaped the Office, he was met with a veritable Army of GIW Agents, all armed to the Teeth with Weapons he had never even seen before.
He managed to get away for a moment, hiding in the Bathroom as the Agents chasing him passed it by. That's when he met Wes.
He obviously hadn't been expecting him, but the moment he saw him Wes put on a smug look. "Oh hi Fenton, trying to get away from the other students?"
Danny had replied with confusion, "What the hell are you talking about?!"
"I finally managed to convince everybody about you, now everyone knows that you're Phantom! I'll bet you're hiding from all of the other Students hounding you for questions right?"
"...it was you?"
"Yeah, so? I finally get to be right!"
"...You absolute MORON-"
That was the last Danny got to say to Wes before an Ecto-Blast launched him through a Wall, seeing his face morph into a look of Shock just before the dust cloud covered it up.
Since that day, Danny had been on the Run. Nowhere was safe anymore now that the GIW knew both his Human and Ghost's faces, but he had to keep running. He crossed state Lines already, and was on his way to the next Ecto-Rich City he could sense, somewhere in New Jersey.
He cursed his Fenton Luck every day. Why had everybody believed Wes this time?! Nobody had ever belived him before, nobody even seemed to acknowledge his existence after a while! What had changed?
Danny just wanted to rest already.
...
Cass had taken to Patrolling alone recently. She had taken to doing a lot of things alone, actually.
After the first month, it seemed that nobody could remember that she was in the room with them, even if she was within their eyeline, she just faded into the background. By the 2 Month Mark they had stopped talking to her entirely, although occasionally she would get a Text or two from her dad. By the 3 month Mark she was completely invisible, and By the 5th she had been forced to get used to it.
She didn't know what was going on, was it a Meta Ability? Magic? Alien Tech? She had no idea.
She had begun to cook for herself after the first time Alfred forgot to set her Plate at the Table. The same with Washing her own Clothes, Cleaning her Room, and Paying her Phone Bills. At the very least the Automated Allowance Payments to her Account had kept up, or she wouldn't have been able to go to her favorite Cafe anymore.
It was bittersweet for her. She used to go to that Cafe every week with Alfred, but he didn't even come on his own anymore. Had he only come for her? Did she really mean that much to them? It hurt, she finally had a family that cared for her and suddenly she didn't exist to them.
She sat alone at a Table, ignored by everyone in the Cafe as usual, when a new face walked in. He looked about her age, a little roughed up, walking with a sort of cautious gaint, as if he was scared of something. His Body Language seemed to agree with her assessment, as his body practically screamed "Worry" in its movements.
Cass stopped watching at that point. Just another Gotham Teen, probably worried over something like getting not having enough money or getting mugged on the way home. It was a Common sight in Gotham.
She attention was pricked again for a moment when she heard a voice speak up. "Uh, can I sit here?"
She ignored it, he wasn't talking to her.
"Um, excuse me? Miss? Could I sit here?" He repeated.
She ignored him again, he wasn't talking to her. Nobody talked to her.
"Hello? Do you have Earbuds in?" He said, and he waved his hand in front of her face.
Her face. He waved his hand. In front of Her Face.
He was talking to her.
She looked up at him sharply, seeming to startle him for a moment before he asked, "So, is that a no?"
"You can see me?" She asked.
He looked a bit bewildered, but replied "Uh, yeah? Why would I not? Are you...a Ghost?". That last part sounded a bit suspicious.
"No. Not a Ghost. But nobody sees me. Ever. Nobody remembers me." She replied. She had never spoken this much to anybody outside of her Family, but in the past few weeks she had been starved for interaction.
He seemed slightly interested, and sat down at her table. He looked her in the eyes, and said "Do you...talk about it?"
She smiled. He could see her.
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Always a bit puzzled by people saying that anyone who wanted long-term consequences for TotK Zelda's sacrifice are "edgy".
I'm not even particularly in the camp that she should have remained a dragon forever (I think this should have been Ganondorf's fate, it would have been sooo much more impactful than to explode him and move on but anyway). To be honest, I wish the rules for turning back would have been 1) clear 2) active gameplay on the player so that it feels like it's something we have earned, and 3) not make her have amnesia about it and/or at least having her gain some crucial insight because of the experience.
(also: doesn't she crave knowledge? isn't that insanely mean to have her watch over every civilization and every bit of history ever and then take it away from her? kind of dislike how totk privileges the comfort of the player's feelings over what the characters would actually want or need tbh)
To be perfectly honest, I fully expected us needing to turn her back before engaging Ganondorf so we would fight him together, especially since Zelda as a compagnon exists in the game code already (though in a very subdued state). It feels very very strange to me that all of this mechanic of Sages following us existing and yet we never have the very climactic cool Zelda-staple moment of facing Ganondorf or Ganon together (OoT, WW, TP, ST and probably more that I'm forgetting all did this in some way --even BotW had Zelda more involved than in TotK). I'm not sure Mineru was a compagnon that was needed over Zelda honestly, especially given the kind of non-insight she gives us on the zonai (even if the idea of the mecha is cool, it really could have been Zelda using her zonai + sheikah knowledge to pilot one for us or something).
But anyway: yeah, even if this isn't what I would have wanted personally, I think wanting Zelda to remain a dragon is kind of arguably more respectful of her relationship to Link, in a way, that what the game ended up doing. When she enacted this sacrifice, Zelda decided to trust him to such a extent that she lost herself, reciprocated his trust in her and his devotion to her, and now the future of Hyrule exists beyond her and beyond what Hyrule once was, but she trusts them to follow through and be happy and she will watch over them from the stars moving on. It's fine if we manage to save her from that fate, but even if we don't, honestly this sounds like a beautiful story/tragic romance to me, if you want to read it that way. Tragedy doesn't necesserily involve edginess. Fictional pain isn't always mean, or out to get you.
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