DP HC: Dash After High School
I like the idea that once Dash doesn't get a scholarship & his parents learn about his bullying tendencies, his parents (or at least his mother) send him to boot camp & he ends up with some talent for being a medic.
In my mind, Dash's father is a pillar of true masculine toxicity & very obviously homophobic.
Like, I feel that the terms are overly-used these days & has lost some of its meaning, but I do feel like there are certain traits of men that can be toxic if they don't learn balance, just like how I think there are certain female traits that can be toxic too.
Like, for men, there's aggressive & violent when they need to be & that's just part of being a man, it can even be a good thing in certain situations. Then, there's being overly aggressive & violent when there's no need for it or in a situation where it's not appropriate or where he's being legitimately abusive. Like, literally just because they're angry or wanna hurt someone. (I mean, if a couple guys get into a fistfight, then afterwards they laugh about it & go get a drink together, no harm done, then that's fine. Sometimes, that's just how guys interact.) Then there's overly stubborn & a refusal to be wrong & the need for others to be subservient. Those are the sorts of things that are toxic, but they aren't innately male-centric characteristics & are toxic no matter who acts that way.
Luckily, I haven't met many men around me who exemplify this sort of thing.
As for homophobia, again, there's a difference between not agreeing with someone's lifestyle, yet still supporting their right to choose how they live... & outright hating homosexuality & treating such individuals as something less than human.
Dash's dad is the latter.
I also see him as the type who'd use "quit [insert verb here] like a girl" in ways that aren't in jest.
I see Dash's mom & dad being abusive in different ways, the mom, Freida, being more negligent with the dad, Harvey, being more verbally abusive, loud, & demanding. Not necessarily physically violent, though it did happen once or twice. Once to his wife & once to Dash himself. But both times, there'd been this sort of... haunted expression on his dad's face afterwards. Like he was seeing a ghost... Interestingly, he never struck out in anger at either of them again even though there were a number of times when he seemed to raise his hand or fist high with a face like thunder. Though he never followed through, his hand or fist always shaking before he'd instead punch a wall or slam his fist down on a table the stomp out of the room. (Because, I hate 1-dimensional characters. I need almost everyone to have some sort of redeeming aspect to them.)
However, even though he never really struck Dash (after the first time, anyway), he did push Dash to be "the best" in ways that are honestly a detriment to him.
So, when Freida & Harv finally got a divorce, Dash's mom saw some of the makings of the man she married through Dash's bullying & decided that she couldn't handle it.
So, she sent him to boot camp which straightened his ass out quick & in a hurry!
He later chose to apply to the military & even later became a field medic.
He becomes a much better person because of this, his experience with teams helping him a little bit, though basic training was, like, even worse than football training could ever be, & even though he & his mom aren't on good terms, he's thankful that she put him through that even though it was for her own self-interests. Being from a town where ghosts attack at all hours also tends to help with one's reaction time.
Once he retires from the military, he goes back to school & becomes a full-fledged doctor. A surgeon specifically & he does pretty damn well.
Thing is, had his parents not gotten divorce, he would've become what he did in TUE. A fat, washed up loser.
He's also married with kids. He's bi, but he ultimately decided that he wanted a wife & kids of his own blood more than he ever could a man, so he chose to seek out women once he realized that. It's in that moment that he realized that while he was bisexual, he was also heteroromantic & felt no true romantic connection to any of the men he'd dated before.
He'd always found that odd, but now he understood.
Ultimately, he's happy &, at the 10 year reunion, he made sure to apologize to all the guys he bullied back then. Including Fenton.
They're decent friends now. Still razz & bitch at & insult & prank each other, but there's no heat to it anymore & even when they do fight, Danny fights back now &, as mentioned above, they tend to laugh about it before going off to get beers together afterwards.
Just dude shit.
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