#about daniel

baby boy!!

Daniel "Danny" Anthony Hope

Son of two iconic broadway lesbians, Vanessa & Lucinda Hope (not married because it's not legal but Lucinda changed her last name to match her wife and son)

Vanessa Hope (bio mom) is from Ohio, she was doing community theatre in Columbus when Danny was born (and meets Josh St James, they become very close even though she's a bit older)

She went through a very very messy breakup with Danny's father (he was extremely financially and verbally abusive, sometimes physically, leaves him because he hit infant Danny to make him stop crying, during the process she realizes she’s a lesbian), which leads to her moving to New York, auditions for a broadway show on a whim but gets it and quickly becomes theatre icon status, changes her last name from Corcoran to Hope as part of restarting her life, meets Lucinda soon after

(also Danny and Vanessa both have restraining orders against Danny's bio father)

Danny has known Josh for his entire life, he hasn't been to Ohio since Vanessa moved them to New York but Josh regularly comes to New York to visit Nell, young Jesse (when Johanna still lived in New York), and Vanessa & Danny, he's somewhere between a cool uncle and much older brother to Danny

Danny is following in his moms' footsteps, he's done some ensemble broadway roles before but has just started his first major role, playing Tony in Sweeney Todd (fun cast, his moms are playing Lovett and Lucy, Roman Kline is playing Anthony)

But soon after he turns 15 (roughly the start of glee season 2), he loses his virginity to a theatre acquaintance (who is ~18 at the time), who films it without Danny knowing, leaks the tape, and outs Danny on a major scale – the video got spread all over social media and tabloids, his moms sued so many people for possession and distribution of child pornography (he was 15, the other guy was 18, he’s now in jail for 7 years over it) – it's the first time that Roman has actually acted as a lawyer since getting licensed but he represents Danny, the whole thing becomes a huge media circus because it becomes a huge precedent case about tabloids and news outlets and revenge porn/sharing private images and videos etc

But the whole situation takes a significant toll on Danny's mental health, and he's dealing with insane amounts of harassment and stalking from paparazzi so for his safety, he ends up moving to Lima to live with Josh for a while. He's enrolled at Dalton which is a bitch of a commute but it’s Ohio and he was just very publicly and traumatizing outed so the no bullying policy is a huge win; he does end up eventually transferring to McKinley either after the Slushy Incident in season 3 (details iffy on that because Sebastian and Klaine are more tensely civil in this verse) or because of Hunter shit in season 4

Ship is tbd, Blaine is very much a big brother to him (people keep adopting him tbh), also has a huge crush on Sebastian when they first meet but it doesn't go anywhere, Sebastian becomes his over protective big brother instead

Roman and Cooper were his gay awakening when he was 12 (he had never thought he liked girls but didn’t realize he *liked boys* until then), he met Roman when he was doing a stint on Broadway with one of his moms and then met Cooper on opening night

And it’s going to be a Kurt & Klaine friendly story (noteworthy because it's not typical of me), Kurt is his big brother too and is very protective of this kid (who is only a year younger than him but feels *so* young when they first meet and reminds Kurt too much of himself; also Kurt knew about the outing situation and posted so many scathing social media posts condemning everyone who watched, shared, or mocked it and everyone who harassed him after)

everyone just calling him Klaine’s son all the time (Danny: I’m only a few months younger than Blaine wtf? / Blaine: nope sorry you have two lesbian moms and two gay dads now love you kid / Danny: 🥺🥺🥺 love you too)

he used to be a total social butterfly and very confident and chill and just happy but becomes extremely withdrawn and anxious and shy after the whole outing situation, struggles to get close to anyone after that (but no one is immune to his fluffy hair and puppy eyes and he keeps getting adopted anyways)

also his moms spend a lot of time visiting him in Lima and might end up moving there once it's clear that this is the best place for Danny to be, tbd

bonus characters: Kathryn Hahn as Vanessa Corcoran Hope, Patti Lupone as Lucinda Hope, and Aubrey Plaza as Danny's unnamed therapist in Lima