Fanfic / The Secret Biography of Donald Duck

Most people would think Donald has lived a fairly boring life, knowing him as Scrooge's bumbling nephew and nothing more. Most people would be wrong, for few know who the real Donald Duck is: a superhero, a navy captain, a secret agent, a crusader, a wizard, and the world's greatest father. This is the untold story of Donald Fauntleroy Duck, the most incredible duck to ever live.

— Summary

The Secret Biography of Donald Duck is a DuckTales (2017) crossover fic by anundeadgamer45 that attempts to stitch together a number of Donald Duck's adventures across comics, television, and video games into a coherent timeline.

On one lazy afternoon, with all of the adults either tired from a recent adventure or out and about in Duckburg, the kids find themselves in desperate need of something to occupy their time. As such, Webby insists that they rummage through Donald's things for something interesting; though Huey, Dewey, and Louie are skeptical of Donald's life being remotely interesting outside of his adventures with Scrooge, the group soon stumbles upon a locked box containing the titular journal. A journal whose first entries reveal that as a teenager, Donald was a superhero that defended the city from aliens and time travelers? Wait, what? As the kids delve deeper and deeper into the contents of the journal, they discover that the unassuming Donald Duck has led a far, far more intriguing life than any of them could have possibly guessed.

You can find it here.

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Tropes in The Secret Biography of Donald Duck:

• Actor Allusion:
  • Donald, Mickey, and Goofy are awarded medals of honor by President Clarence Nash, named after the Disney actor who served as Donald Duck's original voice actor.
  • After discovering the existence of Mickey's new movie "Warriors of the Key", which is heavily implied to be based off the mouse's experiences in Kingdom Hearts, Dewey remarks that the actor playing Donald's expy is somebody named "Tony Anselmo".
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • Scrooge's final battle with Magica, which resulted in Lena's "birth" is retconned as occurring around the time Della was pregnant with the triplets (approx. 10-11 years before the start of the show) rather than 15 years.
  • Some of the events of the series finale are altered, in part to pay off some of the new plot threads that Donald's backstory introduced. The Papyrus of Binding is now found when Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby were together in the Lost Library as opposed to Webby finding it alone, with "the true heirs of Scrooge's legacy" requirement now being metaphorical rather than strictly literal. Pepper is also the one who disables the Ramrod before Donald is wiped out of existence instead of Gyro, revealing herself to be Kay K in disguise and helping to fight off Bradford. And since Webby is now Donald's daughter, she joins him, Daisy, and the clones on their post-series sailing trip.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Donald Duck. While he's already established to have adventured with Scrooge and Della as a kid, the fanfic combines many of his heroic moments from across different comics, shows, and games into a single timeline of events.
  • Kairi during the Kingdom Hearts arc. Granted, the canon Kairi is still a badass Action Girl who is more than capable of holding her own against the forces of darkness, but here she ends up participating in several important battles (Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts II and the Keyblade Graveyard battle) and is instrumental in turning the tide. Her most notable example is summoning up the 'Mountain Coaster' spell and using it to essentially carpet bomb Magica De Spell's heartless and nobodies in order to save her friends.
• Adaptational Heroism: While in canon Pepper was an Affably Evil villain, here she ends up making a Heel–Face Turn and reveals herself to have been Kay K acting as a sleeper agent all along.
• Adaptational Sexuality: In canon, Donald has only ever shown interest in the fairer sex (mostly Daisy); while he still shows much of the same behavior initially, after spending some time with Panchito and Jose (who make several romantic advances on him), Donald experiences a sexual awakening and realizes that he's actually bisexual.
• Age Lift: April, May, and June are portrayed as college-aged adults here, rather than being children as they were in Legend of the Three Caballeros. When the DuckTales' versions of the characters make an appearance, the shared names are written off as a coincidence.
• And Here He Comes Now: How Donald reappears to Scrooge and Della after his 7-year disappearance post-Double Duck arc, while he was adventuring with the Caballeros and off in Kingdom Hearts.
  Scrooge: I know lass but we gotta keep looking, Donald wouldn’t give up on us and we won’t give up on him. Besides, it’s not like the lad is just gonna drop into our laps out of nowhere.
  Donald''': Never say never Scrooge.
• Armor-Piercing Response: How Donald manages to get Mickey to back down from killing Magica De Spell.
  Mickey: I’m not asking you to compromise your morals Donald, I just want you to stand aside and let me do what I need to.
  Donald: What you need to do?! Mickey, killing is never the answer! It won’t bring Goofy back, it won’t make you feel better! The only thing it’s gonna do is leave you with a weight on your shoulders that will haunt you for the rest of your life!
  Mickey: And what would you know?!
  Donald: BECAUSE I’VE CROSSED THAT LINE BEFORE!
• Artistic License – Military: When receiving their medals of honor, Donald, Mickey, and Goofy are addressed as "Sergeant Donald Duck, Private Mickey Mouse, and Private Goofy Goof'. The problem is that those are United States Army ranks and the trio served in the Navy, which means they should have been referred to as Petty Officer and Seaman respectively.
• Black Mage: Donald becomes one of these in the Kingdom Hearts arc due to his affinity for offensive, elemental attacks, but a complete and total inability to perform any sort of healing spells. This is actually a reference to the "Donald never heals" meme within the fandom, due to Donald's AI not being the best support character.
• Book Ends: The story begins and ends on a quiet day in Duckburg, with members of the family learning about Donald's book. The first chapter has the triplets and Webby stumble upon Donald's book and start to learn about his adventures, while the epilogue has Donald himself gathering Scrooge, Della, Gladstone, and Fethry together so he can reveal everything to them himself.
• Brick Joke: After Donald completed his training with Merlin and headed off into the world, the old wizard told him that if he ever ran into a wizard by the name of 'Yen Sid' to tell the man he owed Merlin a new hat. Three chapters later, when Donald is introduced to Yen Sid the first thing he says is:
  Donald: Merlin says you owe him a new hat.
• Broad Strokes: Since DuckTales (2017) is used as the dominant work for this fic, all the other works in the crossover have timeframes played with and details altered to fit in the same continuity.
  • His time as Paperinik is now during his high school years rather than as a young adult already taking care of the triplets.
  • Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Daisy don’t appear at all in any of these stories; the former three due to all the events being shifted to now take place prior to their birth (which takes place during Donald's late 20s), and the latter to coincide with Donald not meeting her within the show's canon until the Season 3 episode "Louie's Eleven".
  • The Double Duck section of Donald's backstory is the most loosely connected to the original comics, sharing little more than the basic setup of Donald Duck being a spy for a secret organization with a Femme Fatale partner named Kay K.
  • Pete is Adapted Out of the events of Kingdom Hearts, due to DuckTales (2017) heavily implying that he exists in that continuity as Goofy's jerkass neighbour ala Goof Troop, based on PJ's cameo in a photo in the episode "Quack Pack".
  • April, May, and June are still present for Lo3C, but are college students instead of children. They're still Daisy's nieces, but she's never told about the events. This would end up conflicting with DuckTales own Grand Finale, which has its own version of the triplets present, but the shared names is handwaved as a coincidence in addition to April not existing due to Webby now being Donald's biological daughter rather than a third clone, while May and June are clones of Webby herself rather than opposite-sex clones of Scrooge.
  • Xandra is an eagle instead of a human. As a matter of fact, all of the human characters present in Legend of the Three Caballeros are now animals, since humans don't exist in DuckTales.
  • To tie up all the loose ends from Lo3C, Sheldgoose and Felldrake were Killed Off for Real.
• Canon Character All Along: The final chapter reveals Pepper was actually Kay K in disguise as an undercover sleeper agent the entire time.
• Crossover: Between Kingdom Hearts, Legend of the Three Caballeros, Paperinik New Adventures, and Double Duck, with DuckTales (2017) serving as the framing device.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Jiminy Cricket. He makes precisely TWO appearances in the story (once during his introduction and once during the beginning of Kingdom Hearts II) before never being mentioned again, and is completely forgotten about despite the fact that he’s implied to be traveling with Sora the entire time.
• Clear My Name: Agent K and Donald are forced to flee for their lives when they discover F.O.W.L. has been slowly taking over S.H.U.S.H. and they've been labeled dangerous criminals. The rest of the story arc is sees them on a mission to retake the organization and clear their names.
• Confession Triggers Consummation: Played with. Kay doesn't even let Donald finish his confession before kissing him and immediately dragging him off to the bedroom, starting their romantic relationship.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: That award goes to Alexander Puffin, who's actually a F.O.W.L. agent in disguise. He poisoned the previous boss of S.H.U.S.H., J. Gander Hooter, so he could take his place as the boss of their rival agency.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Donald's nephews know their uncle as an ordinary duck at best and a buffoonish sort at worst, scoffing at Webby's claims that Donald is one of the greatest adventurers of all time. That is until they unearth his diary, where they find out about Donald's undercover heroic exploits, most of which surprise even her.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Donald vs. Magica De Spell in their first fight during the Kingdom Hearts arc. Donald spent the better part of the battle simply blasting the sorceress through walls and tossing her around with little-to-no effort while Magica fails to land a single hit against him.
• Daddy DNA Test: How Donald confirmed that he's Webby's biological father.
• Darker and Edgier: While it never gets too bad, the story certainly has a much more serious take on Donald’s adventures, with the darkest point being during The Three Caballeros arc. There, the poor duck is a suicidal alcoholic suffering from severe self-loathing and survivor's guilt after losing Kay K.
• Death by Adaptation: Unlike in canon, Sheldgoose and Felldrake die after their final battle with the Three Caballeros.
• Doorstopper: The completed fic stands at 273,323 words; this fic really shows how much there is to Donald Duck's lore when you try to stitch it all together into something coherent.
• Dope Slap: Donald gives José one when he starts flirting with Della on their first meeting.
• Dramatic Unmask: The fic ends with Scrooge, Della, Fethry and Gladstone showing up on Donald's houseboat only to find the superhero Paperinik, reappeared after 20 years of everyone thinking he was dead, and him pulling off his mask to reveal his identity to his stunned family.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Donald and Agent K have to temporally dress up as Egg-head minions from F.O.W.L. in order to infiltrate their organization.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Donald starts hitting the bottle between the events of Double Duck and The Three Caballeros in order to cope with the aftermath of the former.
• Encyclopaedic Knowledge: April in The Three Caballeros arc. She's a major geek that knows a lot about subjects like science, math, history among others. She even managed to somehow figure out how to pilot an ancient spaceship within minutes of only glancing at the controls.
• Enemy Without: While in Shangri-La, Donald gets put into a mirror pool that creates an evil doppelgänger that serves as a representation of all of his negative emotions regarding his trauma.
• Foregone Conclusion: All of the adventures Donald goes through over the course of the story are viewed through an old journal that he wrote, meaning that even the most harrowing, life-threatening events already occurred long before the triplets were born.
• Flashback B-Plot: Inverted. The main plot consists of various flashbacks of Donald's life that he had been written down in a secret journal, while the B-plot is a framing device that follows the kids in the present day reacting to said accounts.
• Framing Device: Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby (and later Violet and Lena) reading through reading Donald's secret journal behind his back. Near the end of the story, it turns out that he'd always intended for the kids to find out, having planned to gift it to them once they became adults.
• Functional Addict: Zig-Zagged with Donald and his stint with alcoholism during The Three Caballeros arc. Some days he'll be sober and up to having popcorn battles with Panchito and Jose, or helping out the triplets with their college courses. Other days, the grief of Agent K dying will be too much and he'll isolate and poison himself with as much alcohol his liver can handle. Thankfully, everyone worked to help break him out of this; Xandra regularly sparred with him, Panchito and Jose took him to movies and ice cream parlors, and the triplets kept trying to introduce him to their single and cute aunt in the next town over.
• Gadgeteer Genius: June in The Three Caballeros arc has a gift with engineering. It doesn't matter what materials she has on hand, as she's incredibly resourceful and she can fix or build anything on the spot. According to Donald, she's even made a snowball cannon out of a fire extinguisher and a water gun before.
• Generation Xerox:
  • We get this in two ways from Huey, Dewey, and Louie when Donald takes note of several similarities between them and various members of the family as they grow up. He originally compares them to different people in their family — Huey is the most like him with his anger issues and responsible nature, Dewey is more like Della between their shared recklessness and willpower, and Louie's love of wealth and scheming habits mirrors that of Scrooge — and later notes that all of them (and Webby) equally reflect aspects of Scrooge's personality.
  • The reason Donald started to suspect that he and Kay were Webby's biological parents. According to him, she showcased numerous personality traits that were extremely similar to both of the former S.H.U.S.H. agents, on top of the visual similarities.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Dewey starts to become jealous of April, May, and June when he finds out that his Uncle Donald has met and hung out with another set of triplets before them. He even wonders if his Uncle was secretly spending time with them while he was raising them. That jealousy doesn't get any better when Donald admits in his biography that he thought of them as his kids, and continues when he finds out about Donald's relationship with Sora.
  Dewey: The big deal is that our Uncle Donald met another set of triplets before us! What if he’s been hanging out with them behind our backs? I always thought all those ‘fishing trips’ seemed suspicious…
• Happily Adopted: Here, Agent 22 adopted Agent K after finding her unhatched as an egg during a mission. After failing to find her birth parents, she took it upon herself to raise her instead of just handing her off to some orphanage.
• He Knows Too Much: Any loyal agents of S.H.U.S.H. that got close to figuring out exactly what F.O.W.L. was up to would go "missing" one-by-one. Downplayed in that Donald and Agent Kay discover that the missing agents were simply confined by F.O.W.L. rather than killed.
• Heroic BSoD: Donald goes through this twice:
  • After Donald beats Trauma to death in an berserker rage during the Paperinik New Adventures arc, he becomes horrified when he realizes that he's become a murderer, a fact that haunts him long after and is one of the many factors that motivated him to hang up his cape for good.
  • During a trip to the Underworld during the Legend of the Three Caballeros arc, Donald tries to find his dead lover Kay K, only to discover that she actually survived the rocket crash that was thought to have killed her. The realization that she had been out there the whole time and that he had thrown his life away for no reason sends Donald into a full-on mental breakdown.
• Heroic RRoD: Donald's Zettaflare spell. While casting it does allow Donald to completely destroy a powered up Magica De Spell, the amount of power that he needed to summon in order to do it overtaxed his body and causes him to go into shock, which would have resulted in his death if not for Yen Sid's intervention.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Kay ultimately pulls this by getting the rocket ship to crash in order to prevent FOWL from launching their space station into orbit. This throws Donald into a serious depression that lasts into the following story arc, at least until he learns she actually survived.
• He's Back!: After the finale's boating trip, Donald reconnects with ONE and brings Paperinik out of hiding for his grand reappearance after 20 years.
• Hidden Depths: The very premise of the fic is the triplets and Webby (and later Violet and Lena) learning about Donald's past. Webby is notably the only one who doesn't initially scoff at the idea of Donald's past being more adventurous than he lets on, but even she's surprised about everything he's managed to accomplish.
• His Own Worst Enemy: One of the two main conflicts of the The Three Caballeros arc is Donald having to deal with the trauma of losing Kay K.
• History with Celebrity: Before Mickey Mouse became an Oscar-winning actor, he was roommates with Donald and Goofy during his Navy days. This is notably one of the few aspects of Donald's past that Huey, Dewey, and Louie did know, as he still keeps in contact with Donald and invites them to his Christmas party every year. They just learned not to broadcast this information as it could have made them kidnapping targets.
• Jaw Drop: Everyone's reactions when Paperinik makes his 20-year comeback, as well as Donald's family when he unmasks to them.
• Lampshade Hanging: During the The Three Caballeros arc. Donald is frequently annoyed and confused by the fact that some of the people around him keep breaking out into musical numbers for no apparent reason, the most notable instances being in Goblin Jail and Shangri-La.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Donald uses a memory wipe music player to erase Della's memory of her finding out about him being a spy and Paperinik to prevent her and Scrooge from interfering in a mission.
• Living a Double Life: Donald Duck is revealed to have been living one since he was a teenager, being a superhero, a secret agent, and a wizard without the knowledge of his family.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": At the end of Chapter 38, when Donald stumbles upon the triplets and Webby reading through his secret journal. The kids wind up spouting out a classic "Aw phooey" when they realize how much trouble they're now in for getting caught.
• Mental Monster: Donald has to face one of these in Shangri-La, after the reflection pool gives all of the negative emotions he's been wrestling a physical form that proceeds to attack him.
• Mistaken for Gay: Downplayed. Della winds up walking in on José and Panchito examining Donald's scars in a bathroom, with the duck in question being completely shirtless, and the pilot assumes she just walked in on her brother getting rather intimate with his friends; while she completely misread the situation, she’s right that all three of the birds are bisexual and have indeed shown a romantic interest in one another.
• The Mole: As it turns out from what we learn from the Double Duck arc, there are tons of moles F.O.W.L. placed in S.H.U.S.H. slowly over time.
• Mustache Vandalism: Donald Duck spends his first weeks as Paperinik prank-vandalizing wealthy residents of Duckburg. He slashes tires, tosses a few stinkbombs, and defaces artwork — doing the last of these by drawing mustaches on the portraits he encounters. He transitions to performing heroic deeds soon enough, though.
  Unnamed rotund beagle: Millions, those paintings cost me millions! And now they’re worthless because someone thought it would have been funny to draw a few mustaches on them!
• Mysterious Past:
  • The whole point of the kids reading Donald's biography is finding out about their uncle's mysterious past.
  • Xandra, Panchito, Jose, and Daisy's nieces get teased with this often, as Donald refuses to open up about his past but keeps alluding to it randomly.
• Never Found the Body:
  • Donald unintentionally pulls off one of these during his final battle with the Evronians after narrowly escaping their crashing flagship, as all of his friends were only able to find a piece of his Paperinik uniform in the wreckage, leading them to believe the hero was dead. This allows Donald to retire peacefully from the hero life without anybody realizing his secret identity.
  • Kay's death wasn't witnessed by anybody, and ultimately ends up foreshadowing this.
• Noodle Incident:
  • While Donald Duck posing as Paperinik enjoys the admiration of many Duckburg residents, a few seem less positively disposed towards his superhero deeds. One unnamed and crooked wealthy individual tries to stop Paperinik, but is unsuccessful, suffering humiliation in an incident that is referenced but not fully described.
    One millionaire even tried to get a task force put together to bring Paperinik down, only to have said task force humiliated in what will be forever known as the hot fudge sundae incident and the man who hired them was exposed for serious counts of embezzlement and money laundering.
  • The last chapter has Donald mention a few other adventures while on his cruise with Daisy and his daughters, including a rematch with Captain Jack, Webby becoming Queen of England, and his and Daisy's impromptu wedding to keep Hel from claiming his soul.
• Not What It Looks Like: After winning a wrestling match against Jörmungandr one of Donald's old injuries starts acting up and he retires to the bathrooms to check the damage, José and Panchito soon join him and start putting their hands all over him to examine the scars, getting extremely close to him in the process, all while Donald is sitting practically naked on the bathroom countertop. Then Della walks in on the scene and immediately assumes that the duo are in the process of seducing her brother; much to everyone's embarrassment.
• One Degree of Separation: While adventuring with the Caballeros and the college-age triplets April, May and June, the triplets keep trying to hook up Donald with their cute single aunt, which he always turns down because he's still grieving over Kay K. Donald doesn't realize the connection until he and Daisy go and meet one of the latter's nieces in her new workshop and recognizes said niece as June.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The happy-go-lucky Mickey Mouse suffers from this during the Kingdom Hearts arc. He snaps after seeing Magica De Spell seemingly kill off Goofy, causing him to fly into a blind rage and attempt to return the favor. Donald is just barely able to talk him down.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • During the Navy Arc, when Donald and the rest of his navy crew except for Goofy and Mickey are captured by zombie pirates. The duo managed to follow the thieves back to their island hideout and successfully infiltrate the place with nothing more than some disguises they found lying around, but because the story is told from Donald's perspective, we never see this happen.
  • Happens again during the Kingdom Hearts arc during the battle with Ansem. Right before the battle starts, the kids realize that the pages outlining what went down have been mysteriously torn out, and thus neither them nor the readers ever find out what happened. It turns out this was Dewey's fault. He ripped up part of the journal when he was a toddler, but Donald assures the kids that the details don't matter too much.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Goofy has a moment of this during the Kingdom Hearts II arc when the group realizes what Organization XIII's plans are
  Goofy: Aw fyuck.
  • Donald drops one of these when he realizes that his journal is missing from the spot he left it hiding in, causing him to go into a full blown panic.
• Patchwork Fic: The stories told in Donald's secret journal are inspired by and/or serve as compressed adaptations of storylines from Paperinik New Adventures, his Navy service in the original 1987 DuckTales series, Double Duck, Legend of the Three Caballeros, and the Kingdom Hearts series up to KH3, that have been rewritten to better fit the continuity of DuckTales (2017).
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Pepper spouts off one of these right when she reveals her true identity.
  Pepper: "And another thing, my name isn't Pepper! It's Kay K and I’m here to bring an end to F.O.W.L. once and for all!"
• Precision F-Strike: Donald does one of these in goblin jail when Panchito and Jose pushes their fake insults a little too far.
  Panchito: Well I may be an airhead, but it’s still better than being some angry old drunk who constantly makes his addiction everyone else’s problem!
  Donald: WHAT?!
  Jose: Oh do not act like you do not know. We’ve seen you downing ridiculous amounts of liquor my friend, you are nothing more than a deadbeat alcoholic.
  Donald: Shut up.
  Panchito: It’s no wonder we’re your only friends, between your drinking habits and your anger issues you’ve likely scared away anyone who so much as spoke to you.
  Donald: I said shut up!
  Panchito: And with a voice like that who can blame them? I’d be stuffing my ears with cotton if I had to listen to that garbled quacking all day.
  Donald: SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH, WHAT KIND OF PAIN AND MISERY I HAVE TO LIVE WITH!
• Related in the Adaptation: Donald and Webby. It's teased (and then eventually confirmed) that Donald is the latter's biological father, rather than them being cousins as in canon.
• Right Behind Me: Kay K's explanation to Webby about why she had to leave her behind is interrupted by her mother Agent 22/Mrs. Beakley looming over her.
• Right in Front of Me: During a walk in the park, Donald comes across the Paperinik statue that was constructed in the wake of his alter-ego's 'death' and starts having a conversation with Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera, who is a huge fan of PK's exploits, regarding the various aspects of the superhero himself. Despite the fact that Donald shows an extremely intimate understanding of the superhero's inner feelings, even for someone who claims to just have been the hero's "best friend", and with statue a mere few feet away to aid in the comparison, Fenton dismisses the idea that he's actually talking to his childhood hero.
  Fenton: "By the way, my name's Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera. It was nice talking to you about PK, you were so lucky that you got to be his best friend before he went away... in fact if I didn't know better I'd swear you were actually his alter ego, you do look pretty alike."
  [Beat]
  Fenton: "But that's crazy, there's no way Paperinik would just approach one of his old fans like this! Anyways, I'd better get going! Goodbye sir!"
• Same Surname Means Related: When Kay reveals she's alive, she offhandedly mentions that her cover name is Pepper Vanderquack. Now who in the DuckTales universe has the same last name?
• Secret Secret-Keeper: The triplets and Webby (and later Violet and Lena.) wind up finding out about all of Donald's secret adventures through his old journal and decide to keep it a secret until they find a way to properly confront the duck in question about it, who doesn't know that they know. At least not until they've gotten through almost all of the journal.
• Secretly Wealthy: Not as crazy rich as his uncle, Donald Duck is still a millionaire in his own right, as he didn't just leave the treasure he collected over the years where he found it. He sold some of it off, and after consulting a financial advisor for investment help, put money in a trust fund for his nephews for when they turn eighteen to the tune of fifteen million dollars. Each.
• Seen It All:
  • Donald Duck, no question. The entire autobiography the kids are reading emphasizes this as we start learning all the adventures he went on prior to raising his sister's kids. There's all the adventuring he did with his Uncle Scrooge and Della, the superheroing he did as Paperinik, his navy experience which consisted taking down zombie pirates and a kraken, his stint as a secret agent for a covert government agency, all the adventures he went on while he was one of the Three Caballeros, and getting trapped in another world all together where becomes a mage and fights Heartless.
  • The kids' reaction to Donald's adventures becomes this as they go through his journal. By the time they get to reading about his time as a wizard in another universe, they're nonplussed by such an occurrence.
    Louie: A wizard? Sure why not? He’s covered pretty much every other hero archetype. Might as well round things out.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: After Donald carries Kay K into a hotel room with the very clear intent of copulating with his partner, the story cuts away to the morning after where the duo decide to start dating and never shows the actual scene. Later justified in that Donald planned on giving the journal to the kids eventually, meaning that the duck likely felt that omitting the exact details was probably best for the sake of anyone who'd read it.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: After Bradford's defeat in the final chapter, Donald asks Webby about her girlfriend. Webby blurts out that Lena isn't her girlfriend, despite the fact he never said her name specifically.
• Ship Tease: Huey and Violet briefly get this a couple times when Violet accidentally calls their time reading Donald's journal a date (with both blushing in response), as well as her having a plush toy resembling Huey.
  • Webby and Lena also get this in the final chapter as mentioned in She Is Not My Girlfriend above.
• Shout-Out: Now with its own page.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Pepper/Kay gives one of these to Bradford in the final chapter right after saving Donald.
  Bradford: “Pepper you traitor! After everything we’ve done for you?!”
  Pepper: "You mean everything you’ve done to me! F.O.W.L. ruined my life and took away what could have been a fairytale ending for me! I’m just getting some payback!"
• So Proud of You:
  • Scrooge delivers a very heartfelt one to Donald after he was awarded a medal of honor in the Navy while crying.
    Scrooge: I’m so proud of ya lad. It seems like only yesterday you were writing terrible songs in your bedroom and now look at ya, a medal of honor recipient. You’ve grown up so much since I first took you in, I-I…
  • Donald gives one to Webby after revealing that he's her father.
    Donald: Webby, I….I’m sorry it took this long for me to say this but I’m proud of you, I’m proud to be your father and I...I love you, more than you can ever know.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Donald mentions that Webby does somewhat resemble Kay K in terms of appearances, which is one of the reasons he started to have suspicions about her parentage.
• Take That!: When Donald hears that May and June think that the two of them and Webby are clones of Scrooge, the sailor points out how ridiculous that is, in an obvious jab towards the mixed fan reaction to that surprise twist in the show's finale.
  Donald: Other than the fact that she barely even resembles the old duck at all, Webby and Scrooge aren’t even the same gender. I may not be a clone expert but I’m pretty sure a clone of Scrooge would have been a boy, not a girl. Not to mention that whole premise seems incredibly far-fetched and convoluted, like a TV show twist that had no foreshadowing and came out of completely nowhere right at the end.
• Thrill Seeker: May in The Three Caballeros arc. According to Donald, she's an adventure-seeking daredevil who has no problem whatsoever facing off giant termites or lava lizards. In fact, usually Donald or Xandra needed to bail her out whenever she got in over her head.
• Title Drop: Donald gave his secret journal the titular name, meaning this happens right off the bat in the first chapter, when the triplets and Webby find it, and again when Lena manages to get a glimpse of the journal's title herself a few story arcs later.
• Trapped in Another World: This is the explanation for how the events of Kingdom Hearts still manage to occur in the DuckTales timeline.
• Trauma Button: Donald as Paperinik faces an Evronian super soldier literally named Trauma who forces people to relive the worst moments of their lives to make them vulnerable to becoming Coolflames. When Trauma does this to Donald, making him relive the day his parents died, Donald goes full Unstoppable Rage and beats Trauma to death.
• Unknown Relative: Upon learning that Beakley adopted Agent Kay K while reading through Donald's journal, Webby begins wondering if they might actually be her birth mother, since she knows nothing about either of her parents. The idea is soon dropped when Huey points out the timeline doesn't match whatsoever considering Kay died before she could have conceived Webby, meaning the spy is merely her aunt by adoption... at least until it's revealed that Kay survived the crash that made the kids initially drop the idea, with her going on to have a one-night stand with Donald Duck years after the fact, which does fit the timeline and implies that Donald is her father. When Donald is asked what he knows towards the end of the fic, willing to answer any lingering questions the kids have, he immediately confirms her parentage. He then explains that he actually didn't know this himself until a few months prior, when he got curious enough to start investigating who Webby's parents might be, and planned on telling Webby after the McDuck family's current conflict with F.O.W.L. cooled down.
• Unstoppable Rage: This is a story about Donald Duck so this is a given. But the biggest example thus far happens after Trauma button mashes Donald's Trauma Button. Donald responds by mashing Trauma's head into paste.
• Wham Line: Right before they have sex, Kay K reveals her new cover names.
  Kay K: Oh yeah, I’ve actually got two cover identities. I go by ‘The Red Primrose’ whenever I’m acting as a vigilante, but when I’m in my civilian guise my name’s 'Pepper Vanderquack.'
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Donald, Mickey, and Goofy spend about four years adventuring in the world of Kingdom Hearts. When they finally return to their own reality, they find out that only FOUR DAYS have passed.
• Your Magic's No Good Here: After returning from his Kingdom Hearts adventure, Donald's magic is much weaker than what he could manage during his adventures, which he chalks up to the different rules in the different universes. It isn't until the Heartless start showing up in his own universe under the control of Magical De Spell that it starts coming back in force.
• Your Worst Memory: Thanks to Trauma, a Evronian super soldier who had the ability to force people to witness their worst memories of their lives tried this move on Donald. Well... let's just say Trauma will never be able to tell his tale and unfortunately Donald came out worse for wear from that fight. He started getting nightmares to the point that Della and Scrooge started worrying about him. Scrooge even went so far as to hire a therapist for Donald and diagnosed that he for some "mysterious" reason started relapsing the trauma from his parents' death.

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