#residents can go live somewhere else ok let me destroy one (1) city it's the least i deserve at this point

[theemperorsfeather]

I enjoy being genre-savvy enough to be able to identify things that are going to come back and be Important (and probably horrifying!) but also enough of a dumbass to not put all the pieces together (or sometimes just ... let Giant Flashing Signs whoosh right past me) so that I still get to be shocked when it is finally spelled out. It is also genuinely nice when writers put together tropes in new and exciting ways.

[dannyphantomrpg]

Analysis: Ten Years Later

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Ten Years Later videos lately, and this analysis post just sort of happened~

To be fair, I did need to work it all out since I mildly referenced it in my Foley Fest drabble.

If I get any comic book info wrong, I'm so sorry. I don't know anything about Marvel aside what my husband knows about the 90's Spiderman cartoon.

Let's start off with Sam and Tucker, cause honestly? There's not much to go over with them.

Sam is sort of basic. Sort of dull. Butch says "leather" trench, but it's most likely pleather, or something more animal-friendly. Even (especially) ten years later, I don't see Sam giving up the good fight.

Her crop top, tho, seems to be a constant. I don't know if that's really her aesthetic, or if Butch just thinks all women like to show off their stomachs. Either way, the DP logo is something Sam would definitely sport.

Something I wanted to point out: in her first TYL sketch, Butch compares her to Black Widow. A quick Wiki skim later gives a bit more depth to the comic book ignorant like me. Black Widow's origin story is that of an orphan child being raised by the Russian government as a sort of Anti-Capitan America. She met up with Tony Stark by trying to assassinate someone in his company.

Sort of interesting to compare Sam with Black Widow, and then give her all those huge anti-ghost guns, hm~?

Tucker, I have a few issues with. Not his design (aside how he only got one sketch and then his final design - show your own characters some love, Butch!), but how Butch talks about him.

Specifically, that he's running for president. Quoting from Wikipedia:

“Article Two, Section 1 of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:

   No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

Tucker would only be twenty-four in TYL. He's still got 11 years to go before he can even think about running for president. So, like...

What happened to that little bit of legality?

Also of note, Tucker is the only redesign without the DP logo. Most likely, this is because he was the first and therefore before Butch had the idea, but he did give the majority of Sam's the logo.

Moving right along, we get into the meat of TYL. The Fentons.

A moment of silence for my baby Jazz.

How did "I want to go into psychology to help troubled teens" turn into "I'm essentially Tucker now"? Yes, she's the only one we've seen use the Fenton Peeler, but that doesn't really equate to getting "into the tech side of things."

Even in her sketch of just being in a jumpsuit with a "Maddie" haircut, Butch specifically gives her a piece of technology. He has her in a lab, leaning against a circuitry panel. Not a book in sight - not even one on ghost hunting!

And her final design? Oh, my sweet, smart child. There's just something so inhuman and terrifying about this image. Physically wired into Fenton Works? She "helps run all the gadgets"? She has control over traffic lights and automatic doors? Somehow, I feel like Tucker being up close and personal with his iPhone would be way more helpful than Jazz in a building on the other side of the city would be.

What happens the moment she runs into Technus? Heck, just send someone in to cut the power physically and she's completely vulnerable.

I guess Jack would be happy to be half robot? I mean, it seems like half his brain would be gone, so he can probably just be programmed to be excited about it anyway. I've never really seen Jack as the kind of guy to be upset about hygiene. If anything, I see him as a really clean person (until he gets completely distracted with an invention or something).

His second sketch is the one I really prefer - older, but still Jack. He’s big and buff and still a big old teddy bear. I can see this as a man who saw his son save the world and think "I'm slapping that logo on everything to show how proud of him I am".

Jack's finalized sketch is what really gave me pause in the first place. He's missing an eye. He's missing a leg. He has a prosthetic that, according to Butch, runs on ectoplasm. And, ok, I can see that happening. For God's sake, he turned his son and college best friend into halfas on accident because he wasn't paying attention - this man is not someone you really want in a lab setting.

But that's not what happened.

According to Butch, there is a possibility that people did this. That flesh and blood humans went after the Fentons and did them personal harm simply because of their connection to Danny. Jack lost a limb because a person decided to a) take out ghost-hunting competition, or b) cause Danny some kind of psychological harm, i.e. "If we can't get to you, we can get to your family".

And Maddie?

She was first and foremost a mother. Despite all the angst and family drama this fandom produces, Maddie loves her son above anything else. I feel, personally, if there was a choice between continuing her research and her children, she would give it all up in a heartbeat to make sure they're safe and happy.

That's all gone in her sketches.

Her very first image, she has a buzz cut, she has a huge weapon that's creating some sort of unmerciful death-ray, her goggles are down and she means business. There's nothing matronly about her in that image, no remnants of the mother that would look fondly on her son. No, she's murdering the F out of some ghost and does not care.

Again, in he second sketch, her hair is cut off and the goggles are down. There is something out there and she is going to destroy it. There is something out there that made Maddie leap "out of some sort of an airborne vehicle" with the ghost equivalent of the Little Boy and the Fat Man.

And, again, Butch is not helping.

"Well, I think maybe the Ghost Zone is in turmoil. I think that the ghosts need to live somewhere, and they’re trying to come here. So that’s why the Fentons get involved and that’s why there are so many weapons and why they’re up night and day, fighting off the ghosts."

First off - it's been established that the Ghost Zone and the Human World are connected. Anything that happens to one, will affect the other. So if the Ghost Zone has become so uninhabitable that the ghosts are coming here? How bad off is our world?

Second, Butch didn't say the ghosts were attacking. He said they wanted to live here. Yes, there are some ghost jerks out there *cough*Skulker*cough* but what about peaceful ones like Dora and Poindexter? The people of the Far Frozen? Shouldn't the Fentons know by now that not all ghosts are hostile? (Plus, this would have been an amazing use of Jazz's psychology to talk to some of these ghosts, to calm them down and learn from them.)

Maddie's final version manages to paint an even more bleak image for her. Butch mentions Mad Max and, a quick Wiki read later, that's, like, not good. Civilization is gone, lawlessness runs rampant, murder seems to be the only way to protect yourself. And Maddie is supposed to call forth that image?

Her hair is now essentially the shortest length Butch can give her without shaving her head. She's still wearing those goggles. We have yet to see this woman's eyes, she keeps them so hidden from the world. She has no guns to defend herself, only an ectoplasm-charged bat. She doesn't care about keeping her distance - oh no, she wants to be in the middle of the action.

And those BDSM ghosts? She keeps them on leashes short enough that they could touch her. She keeps them around to "help her sense other ghosts", nevermind the fact that, from what I recall, Danny is the only one with an actual ghost sense. Those ghosts look angry and not at all subdued.

And she's still wearing the DP logo. Somehow, even knowing her son is part ghost, she still has enough detachment/hatred of ghosts to demean them down to an animalistic level.

Vlad's designs are, whoo boy... Unique? Different? Each one portrays a completely different vision of the future that don't really mesh together. His first sketch is rather, uh, let's be completely honest here, Satanic. But other than that apparent dive into absolute evil, he looks more or less the same. Like no time has passed. I guess Clockwork could have yanked him out of space before too long?

By now everybody knows about the second sketch with fat!Vlad, tiger!Maddie, and perfect clone!Daniel. Heck, I knew about Daniel before I even knew there was a Ten Years Later video.

And let me just say this real quick: I love that, as soon as the words "He’s finally got himself a cloned child." were said we all, individually, came to the conclusion that: his name is Daniel Masters, he can be a spoiled jerk but isn't really evil, and he just wants someone to be friends with and play video games with. Like, I've yet to even see him in a TYL setting, he's more of a "Season 4" character.

My other thing I love about this image? Fat!Vlad. For a middle-aged man who kept in perfect shape, who fights with ghost teenagers every day, to suddenly put on weight? To me, in my experience, that means he's happy. He's found a way to be calm and relax and, yes, be settled enough to put on a few pounds. That's what happened to my husband. Before we got together she was an anxious, angry (precious) emo chick. And now she's calm, she's happy, she's adorably chubby~ (don't tell her I said this lol). Like, Vlad's so chill in this sketch that, whenever he finds out Daniel's been hanging out with Danny, he's not even mad! He's just like, "Be home by curfew, love you!" (My TYL Vlad is -absolutely- Maes Hughes. There isn't a single employee at Dalv Corp that hasn't seen a fold out wallet full of Daniel's pictures.)

(And just think, when Daniel brings home his boyfriend/girlfriend, Vlad brings out the baby book and Daniel's S/O is just like, "Why were your first steps when you were fourteen???")

Tiger!Maddie is great, if a little odd. Then again, Vlad's just living the dream of every five year old that just went to the zoo for the first time: "I wanna bring home the big kitty!"

And we get back to crazytown with the third sketch. Vlad wants to be king, what? When? Butch do you... do you know who Vlad is? You were so close with perfect clone!Daniel, and then you pull this. The only thing I can see this working as is some kind of Medieval AU with Dora and Aragon/pre-Sarcophagus Pariah Dark. Other than that, I can't see this sketch fitting in anywhere in DP.

But Vlad's final sketch returns us to the nightmare that is TYL. Vlad was abandoned in space, all human contact cut off, the only person that willingly called him a friend turned his back on him. He's probably ready to curl up and die at that point and then aliens come and kidnap him, forcing him to be a miner and then a coliseum fighter. I can't imagine the blow to his pride all that did.

I can accept that he would keep enough presence of mind to escape. Heck, I can almost believe that he would willingly keep the chain on his arm (though as less of a "reminder of where he came from" and more of a "I'm going to make these guys pay!"). But what really gets me is Butch saying, "he really, really wants to get Danny now".

That's not at all ominous. Not at all.

Like, what is that supposed to mean? I'm sure we're supposed to infer he's coming after Danny, but, would he? After all that time alone, after being broken down by some crazy Criminal Minds aliens? I'm sure that, in all that time Vlad was captured, he must have let it slip that he wasn't the only halfa. That this boy on Earth was more powerful that he had been in his prime. Could he be coming to warn Danny? Maybe the reason he escaped was because the aliens have their eye on a new "champion"?

Danielle is absolutely precious to me. My sweet little girl who only wants to live her own life. I love that her first sketch gives her a bit more of the Vlad influence (especially since I headcanon that she has his fire core and not Danny's ice core). The opposing black and white outfit, though, just looks like a bad Harley Quinn to me.

The second sketch is kind of cutsie, kind of bleh. There's something about Butch's femme designs that just... don't really hit the mark.

I'm adoring her third sketch. The overall feel of "ghost" really comes through with this design (and she finally has matching boots and gloves) and it feels really right with her. I've always loved the idea that she's more ghost than human, and this images hits it just right.

Her final design is ok. We go back to the alternating colors, which I don't like, but she also looks more like Danny, which I do like. Butch says she "likes to party" which I can kind of see. She's full of spunk, she has an adventurous side, she'd love to go out and see everything and get involved with as much as she can. The fact that she can shape ectoplasm into words seems like something she'd be into. Just imagine her floating outside of Vlad's window, cussing him out with floaty green writing.

Now, we finally get to Danny. His first sketch isn't too bad. He has a dedicated place for the Thermos - good idea on his part. A little simple, little plain. Loving the cargo pants, tho.

His second design looks a little more like a plain upgrade form his usual hazmat, but with more armor. Makes me think Sam and Tucker went to a sporting goods store and slapped all the knee/elbow pads they could on him to keep him from hurting himself so much.

I like the idea of the third design. When he embraces his ghost side, he gets more Dan-like qualities. I think something like this would take him a while to adjust to, but he would be better for it. This design feels like it would be the strongest one - delving into his ghost half and pulling power from it instead of fighting to keep it balanced with his human half.

Danny's final design, however, make me think. His hazmat has been replaced, or most likely upgraded, to include more Fenton gadgets - specifically trading the Thermos for a Glove. But the Glove, instead of just being a catch/release system, actually uses the caught ghost to power his suit. The green isn't just for design, it's the power he's taken from other ghosts he's captured. Does this mean he's just taking whatever the captured ghost's power is (like weather-control, or even power over boxes)? Or is it like the rest of Fenton tech where he's actually taking the ectoplasm from the captured ghost to power himself? How much is that hurting the other ghost?

As strong as Danny is, as strong as he keeps getting, why does he need to power a suit to keep fighting?

I've been thinking about this final design, thinking about the designs for all the other characters, especially the Fentons. I thought about how Danny would fight until his last breath to protect Amity Park, and, like...

Did he?

Did Danny die at some point prior to Ten Years Later?

Only once is Danny referred to as Danny Fenton, and that's during the sketch for Jack's original design. He's not even called Fenton in his own redesigns. He's had several sketches, but all of them were for Phantom. Heck, Vlad got a human drawing, even if it wasn't for his final design.

And the more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense.

Jazz gave up on psychology when her little brother died. She probably became depressed and couldn't leave the house. Wiring herself into Fenton Works seemed like the next logical step - at least this way she could help without having to face his friends who could go on without him.

Jack was probably grieving when he was attacked. He lost his son, his eye, and his leg.

Without having to reconcile her son's humanity with his ghostlyness, Maddie was free to revert back to a lifetime of thinking that all ghosts were nonsentient. She probably didn't get enough of a chance to being to change her views permanently, so she sees nothing wrong with how she's treating the leashed ghosts.

And Danny himself would even have an excuse for his suit. I've seen in the fandom that the reason Danny is such a strong ghost is because he's young, and he's still growing. That the more he ages, the stronger he becomes. When Danny died, he would have stopped growing in power. Heck, he might have even started -losing- power, and trying to revert to how strong he was when he first "died" in the accident. Having a suit that runs on other ghosts, using their power to replace his own, would actually make sense, especially if Maddie helped make it.