Fanfic / Danny Phantom: Traveled

Traveled is the 20th story in Stranded. Star and her father go to New York to celebrate her grandfather's birthday.

Tropes:

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Power Surge becomes this to Stella because of her resemblance to her late aunt, Simone Traville. He even finds himself drawn to Star.
  • Chip Franco hits on Stella but she isn’t interested since she’s married to Jean-Luc (and still secretly has feelings for Johnathan).
  • Heather St. Cloud tries to flirt with Johnathan in the hopes of getting a rich husband but he’s completely lost in her for becoming a shell of her former self while retaining her Alpha Bitch attitude.
• Accidental Misnaming: While remembering the A-Listers, Joy and Kirk call Paulina and Dash “Polly" and "Nash”, and later “Penny" and "Bash”, respectively. Team Phantom doesn’t even care enough to correct them.
• Aesop Amnesia: Having learned nothing from Star and Danny's threats, Beatrice still tries to get rid of the Ghost Boy by purchasing a magic box trap, the Băowēn xiāng, only to release three evil ghosts instead.
• Agent Scully: Kirk doesn't believe ghosts exist.
• All for Nothing: The Forces of Nature were desperate to avoid being imprisoned again but after destroying the magic box, they get sucked into the Fenton Thermos.
• Alpha Bitch: In high school, Heather St. Cloud was a popular cheerleader from a rich family and looked down on students she considered as losers.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Joy still treats her only son like a child and embarrasses him in front of his daughter and her boyfriend by bringing up his reaction to eating sushi as a teenager.
• Anti-Role Model: Seeing what became of Chip Franco causes Johnathan, Star, Tucker, Sam, Jazz and Danny to see him as a kind of person one should avoid becoming.
• Appropriated Appellation: Sergio decides that he and his crew should take on new names to be supervillains. Because Danny said his powers caused a power surge, he goes by Power Surge. Since Danny mockingly called him Drench, Drew adopts it. Averted with Rocko, who still keeps his name and, to his credit, it still fits his new rocky appearance.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Stella listing the reasons Power Surge deserves an extra slap.
  Stella: He deserves it for attacking my family, harassing me, almost destroying us and the city...and ruining my hairdo..."
• Big Bad Wannabe: Beatrice and Vlad are this as they're supplanted by the Forces of Nature as the main threat to Team Phantom and punished by Puck at the end of the story for all the trouble they caused.
• Boring, but Practical: Rocko destroys the magic box with a piece of debris from the ceiling.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Stella and Joy, her ex-mother-in-law, have a very strained relationship, to say the least. Joy is rightfully upset with Stella for leaving Johnathan, her son, and Star for Jean-Luc. However, Stella has made it clear that she is trying to make amends with the two and that Joy's resentment of her goes out of line multiple times. While Johnathan and Star haven't fully forgiven Stella, they do try to convince Joy to at least be civil with her, which she clearly doesn't bother doing.
• Big Fancy House: The Traville manor is stated to be this.
• Birthday Episode: Star and her father are going to New York to celebrate his father's birthday.
• Blunt "No": Stella doesn’t waste any time rejecting Chip Franco when he flirts with her because, among other things, she’s already married to Jean-Luc (and still has feelings for Johnathan even if she won’t admit it).
• Bond, James Bond: Tired of being called "The Wisconsin Ghost", Plasmius introduces himself as "Plasmius, Vlad Plasmius".
• Brutal Honesty: Joy and Kirk make it clear to Star they always hated the A-Listers and are happy she ditched them since they consider Team Phantom to be an improvement over the stuck-up popular kids.
• Call-Back: Vlad reveals the box housing the Forces of Nature was made by the Yang clan, Misty's ancestors.
• Casanova Wannabe: Heather St. Cloud is incapable of getting a second husband because of her bitchy personality.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: By the time Valerie arrives in New York, Team Phantom has already defeated the bad guys.
• Continuity Nod: One of the things Puck says he cannot go back in time to is to "swap Vlad's and Jack's places to make Jack the half-ghost and Vlad the one married to Maddie". He even says that, if he did so, Maddie would still see Vlad for the creep he is.
• Class Reunion: Learning what became of Chip Franco pleases Johnathan to the point he almost regrets missing the reunion.
• Defiant Captive: Vlad manages to trap Puck in iron chains, trying to force the fae to do his bidding. Puck spends the whole time point blank refusing to do as Vlad wants, trolling him by twisting Vlad's demands around or just mouthing off to get under Vlad's skin.
• Dramatic Irony: Star says that Misty's magical powers would've been useful to fix the Forces of Natures' box had they not destroyed her spell book. She is unaware that the book is still intact and helping Misty, who has regained her magic and is plotting against Star again.
• Dumb Muscle: What Rocko lacks in brains, he definitely makes up for in brawn.
• Enraged by Idiocy:
  • Power Surge and Drench have a low opinion of Rocko's intelligence.
  • Team Phantom is furious at Beatrice for endangering New York in some petty, shortsighted revenge scheme to try to get rid of Danny and make her pay by trapping her in her worst nightmare for an entire month.
• Epic Fail: Stella says the last time Johnathan did maintenance on a car, it caught fire. And the car was soaked from having fallen into a river.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Joy and Kirk are nice people but don’t bother to hide their disdain for the snobby A-Listers to Team Phantom.
  • While Joy hates Pierre's parents, she adores the infant and just hopes he doesn't turn out like Stella and Jean-Luc.
  • While Tucker wants a girlfriend, he decides not to act on Audrey's feelings for him because he'd rather not ruin any chance he has with Valerie and there's no guarantee he can even have a relationship with Audrey since she lives in New York.
  • Despite their hatred of Beatrice, Joy and Kirk are fine with Richard.
• Exact Words:
  • Jack and Maddie told their kids they wouldn't bring their weapons ON the plane. They instead paid the post office to deliver them to the hotel.
  • Vlad demands Puck to make it so Maddie will love him as soon as she sees him. Puck does as ordered, though quickly lets Vlad realize he didn't specify which Maddie, as several women with that name harass him with unwanted affections.
  • In spite of Puck saying he can't kill, Vlad tries to use him to make Jack Fenton be "no more". Puck grants Vlad's wish by temporarily changing Jack's name to Jack Benton.
• Exiled to the Couch: Stella tells her husband that, if her pet horse isn't properly treated or he sells the horse, he'll have to sleep on the couch for the rest of their married life and she doesn't mean the couch in their living room.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: After an EMP neutralizes their weapons, Maddie says it's impossible because "Jack was supposed to..." She then wises up and asks her husband if he added shielding like she showed him to. Jack defends that he "had to go to the Fudge Festival that weekend".
• Foil: Joy are Beatrice are both grandmothers to Star and have a strained relationship with their former in-law. However, their personalities and treatment of their former in-laws couldn't be more different. Joy is a Cool Old Lady and a Doting Grandparent to Star, and has a very loving relationship with her husband and son. Beatrice is a cruel Grand Dame who was ultimately a Gruesome Grandparent to Star and an Abusive Parent to Stella (and likely her other kids), and it is heavily implied that she only married Richard for his money. Also, Joy treated Stella nicely when the latter was married to Johnathan, despite the fact that her prissy and naive attitude wore on Joy's nerves, and she only turned sour on Stella after she left Johnathan. Beatrice, on the other hand, NEVER had a single kind thing to say to Johnathan and severely mistreated him since they met because of his middle-class background, and she was happy when Stella and him divorced.
• Freudian Excuse: Puck implies that Vlad had an emotionally abusive father whose treatment of him resulted in the man he is. Vlad doesn't deny this, only surprised Puck knows of him. Puck later gets Vlad to admit that he was a Lonely Rich Kid whose upbringing with absent parents and no friends fuels his desire to be loved, as warped as his understanding of it is.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: Johnathan Marlon Strong receives one from his father.
• The Gambling Addict: Chip Franco has gambling debts to pay and implies they're the reason his kids and their mother no longer live with him.
• Genius Bruiser: Power Surge is a ghost with strong electric powers and is a brilliant enough schemer to outsmart Vlad.
• Giver of Lame Names:
  • Vlad gets sick of Jack calling him “The Wisconsin Ghost” and tells him that his name is Vlad Plasmius.
  • Drench and Power Surge aren’t impressed that Jazz came up with “Water Fiend” and “Lightning for Brains” for their names.
• Gold Digger: Back in high school, Heather dismissed Johnathan as a loser. Now that her father cut her off and Johnathan is a successful lawyer, she wants to marry him and doesn't care if he's dating somebody else. In fact, she's been hunting for a wealthy husband since divorcing Chip to provide her with the luxuries she once enjoyed in her youth.
• Happily Married: Joy and Kirk are a happy couple.
• Happy Birthday to You!: Joy sings that song during her husband's birthday party. He thinks that song should only be used for children's parties.
• Hard Truth Aesop: No matter how much you might change or regret your actions, some people will just not forgive you. Stella accepts Joy will more than likely never forgive her for cheating on and leaving her son, but she at least decides to stop antagonizing Stella over it.
• Hated by All: Nobody likes Heather St. Cloud for her awful personality, especially her ex-husband Chip who regrets marrying her. Her parents cut her off and are implied to have no contact with her, she can't get a second husband, and even her kids are looking forward to college just to get away from her.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal:
  • Joy and Kirk admit to Star that they never liked Paulina and Dash because the latter was obsessed with football and acted rudely when he thought the couple couldn’t hear him while the former treated Joy like a maid during her visit. They're relieved Star cut ties with the A-Listers and moved up to better friends like Team Phantom.
  • Joy reveals to Stella, who had genuinely admired her and thought of her like a second mother, that she never liked her. She was only nice to Stella because she and Johnathan were married. After Stella left him, Joy lost any reason to act like she accepted her.
• Hoistby His Own Petard: Destroying the box ends up backfiring on the Forces of Nature because its magic was the only thing protecting them from the Fenton Thermos. Thus, Danny has an easy time defeating them.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Johnathan thinks this upon learning what became of former school bully Chip Franco.
• I Was Quite a Looker:
  • As a jock in high school, Chip Franco used to look much better than how he currently is. It came to a level that former classmate Johnathan Strong struggled to recognize him.
  • Back in high school, Joy was so beautiful, it's said she's the one Star took after regarding beauty.
  • Chip's ex-wife Heather was beautiful enough during high school to have the same status as Paulina. Now, she must wear "mom jeans".
• Insult to Rocks:
  • Jack says calling Beatrice a piece of trash is an insult to trash since at least trash can be recycled into something decent.
  • Star feels bad for comparing Beatrice to a witch. "After all, what did witches ever do to be lumped in with Beatrice?"
• Irony: Audrey is the first girl to develop an interest in Tucker but he doesn't reciprocate because of his growing feelings for Valerie.
• Jaded Washout: Former Jerk Jock Chip Franco is now a shell of his former self and barely earns enough to survive.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • More Brutally Honest than jerkass, but Joy and Kirk are right that Dash and Paulina are bad people and Star is better off without them. Kirk even accurately summarizes that Dash is just a slacker who will never amount to anything and end up working under someone that he took for granted one day.
  • Chip Franco is correct that Heather doesn't have a chance with Johnathan, especially since he already has a girlfriend, and correctly predicts that she'll make a fool of herself when she tries to hit on him anyway.
  • She's a total bitch about it but Heather does have every right to be mad at her ex-husband Chip Franco for wasting their life savings because of his gambling habits.
  • Stella admits that Joy is right Beatrice would never try to save anyone, even her family, from ghosts after seeing how much of a pathetic Dirty Coward her mother was during her last visit to Amity Park.
  • Joy’s hatred of Stella is FAR from unjustified since Stella did run out on Johnathan for another man (especially such a Rich Bastard like Jean-Puke) without any thought for how it would affect her family and has been a terrible mother to Star all these years. The fact that Stella is still married to Jean-Luc, the man she cheated on Johnathan with, and refuses to see what horrible people him and his daughter Colette are clearly doesn’t do any favors for Joy's opinion on Stella.
• Jerk Jock: Back in high school, Chip Franco was a football jock and a bully, much like Dash Baxter is.
• Jerkass to One: Joy is usually a warm, friendly, and outgoing woman but acts openly disdainful toward Stella and insults her former daughter-in-law every chance she gets.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Chip Franco admits his current hardships are the result of his bad choices in high school.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Valerie starts a phrase with this to understand how, after all the trouble she went through to warn Team Phantom about Plasmius going to New York, it turns out Plasmius and his allies were already defeated by the time she arrived.
• Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: Heather's an awful, gold-digging bitch while her daughter Audrey is a Nice Girl.
• Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Possibly. Stella believes that her first meeting with Jonathan's parents went wonderfully. Jonathan, knowing the truth, lets her keep thinking this, likely trying to spare her feelings.
• Mirror Character:
  • Danny and Star can't help but notice and be creeped out by how similar Chip Franco is to the adult Dash Baxter considers himself doomed to become.
  • Heather was an Alpha Bitch Spoiled Brat in high school, just like Paulina is.
• Mistaken for Servant: Paulina treated Joy like a maid during her visit to Amity Park, which Star apologizes for. Later, Joy gets angry when she thinks Stella is ordering her to fetch tea for Richard, but it's Subverted when Stella clarifies she was talking to her actual maid, Ann.
• Never Mess with Granny: Joy is willing to taser a deranged Colette (not that she knows it’s her) to protect Star and Danny.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Chip Franco tells Johnathan a former classmate of theirs, Franky, is doing 5 to 10 in county jail for something Chip would rather not mention in front of kids.
  • Kirk avoids drinking champagne after an incident he's too ashamed to describe.
• Not Good with Rejection: Heather acts like a total bitch to Johnathan after he utterly turns her down.
• Older and Wiser: Downplayed as while still a jerk, Chip has matured enough to give up his bullying ways, admits his crappy life is a result of his own poor decisions, and tries to be a good father to his children.
• Parental Substitute: Stella reveals to Jack and Maddie that her former mother-in-law Joy used to be much nicer to her back when she and Johnathan were married, and they were actually quite close; Stella describes her as very kind, warm, and welcoming, with Joy practically adopting Stella as her own daughter and doing everything she could to make her feel accepted as part of the family (Kirk was kind to Stella too back then). Joy and Kirk also helped babysit Star so Johnathan and Stella could have time to rest and to themselves. Stella admits that she came to love Joy much more than her own mother, even when she had brainwashed herself into thinking Beatrice was a well-intentioned person, and now she realizes that Joy was the ideal mother and grandmother, as well as the mother she always wanted deep down.
• Parent-Preferred Suitor: Joy makes no secret of the fact that she believes Solene is a better partner for her son Johnathan than Stella was, and even a better maternal figure and role model for Star.
• Pet the Dog: Even after Stella left their son, Joy and Kirk remain on decent terms with her father Richard, to the point they invite him to Kirk's birthday party at the end.
• Play-Along Prisoner: Puck could have escaped any time but he was enjoying the story.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Joy gives one to make Stella understand how much she hurt Johnathan and Star.
• The Reveal: Puck reveals Maddie's maiden name to be McDonaldson.
• Sarcasm-Blind: When Stella sarcastically says she's ordering a pizza instead of calling for help, Kirk asks if they have bread sticks.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Joy and Kirk quickly support Star and Danny's relationship since he's clearly a helpful, well-meaning boy who cares about her.
  • Joy doesn't bother to hide that she vastly prefers Solene being with Johnathan than Stella.
• Skeptic No Longer: Kirk accepts ghosts exist after witnessing a ghost attack in Coney Island.
• Skewed Priorities: Discussed between Johnathan and Solene after Stella includes ruining her hairdo as one of the things Power Surge deserves an extra slap for. Since Stella mentioned that last, Johnathan considers it an improvement.
• Shout-Out:
  • Kirk thinks the device the Fentons gave him for protection against ghosts makes him "look like one of those bug themed motorcyclist superheroes from Japan".
  • Puck isn't allowed to kill Vlad but points out "you'd be surprised what you can live through".
  • Li's Rare Finds is an allusion to Uncle's Rare Finds. Both places are owned by people who like mung beans.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Beatrice only appears at the beginning and end of the story, but her release of the Forces of Nature is what triggers the plot.
• Smug Snake: Heather St. Cloud greatly overestimates herself by believing she can wrap Johnathan around her fingers because "men are controlled by their hormones", as she claims. All that happens is her getting soundly rejected like Chip Franco predicted she would.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Taken up a notch with Colette, who's now willing to follow Danny all the way to New York. She spends hours scouring the city for him and becomes more deranged when she fails to catch him.
  • Power Surge tries to pursue Stella because she reminds him of his ex-girlfriend, Simone.
• Time Travel: Discussed and averted. Puck tells Vlad he can't go back in time to prevent Jack from being born or meeting Maddie, and he also cannot swap Vlad's and Jack's places to make Jack the half-ghost and Vlad the one married to Maddie.
• Villain Has a Point: Vlad and the Forces of Nature mock Jazz for being a Giver of Lame Names by pointing out she’s the only one who likes the stupid names she comes up with.
• Wedding Ring Defense: Stella uses this reason to turn down Chip Franco and Power Surge because she’s married to Jean-Luc (although her heart secretly yearns for Johnathan).
• What Does He See in Her?: Both Kirk and Joy ask themselves how did a polite man like Richard stay married to a spoiled hag like Beatrice and not go insane?
• Worth It: Jack says he and Maddie paid about $5,000 to have their weapons delivered and they'll probably have no water for a week but he thinks it's worth it. Danny and Jazz beg to differ.