#i like to think considering how venomously against danny would be in actually being a ghost king or prince

[thebrainrotsreal]

Different ghost king outfits! (o^ ^o) Always adored the au as soon as I heard about it, but I never tried to design what it would look like until now! Left outfit is where I tried inverting Danny's usual ghost fit as jumping point, the middle is going ham with more a space/ecto theme, and the last is focusing more on Danny's ice core/powers! The middle's cape, hood, and ruffles near the belt-like bit are all pieces of void/portals, reaching through can pull out anything, and it can shrink or expand to his will!

#danny fenton #danny phantom #phanart #ghost king danny #ghost king au #danny phantom fanart #dp fanart #dp danny #i like to think considering how venomously against danny would be in actually being a ghost king or prince #the somewhat sentient jewerly and/or royal outfits would try being appealing to him by becoming space themed #since he does love space! #if you're wondering why he doesn't wear a crown in the other ones it's because I can hardly see him wearing one personally! #my art! #BEHOLD! an art tag for my art :]

[five-rivers]

Loved 6

Written for Dannymay 2021 Day 15: Nature

.

“Danny,” said Sam, “what’s wrong?”

The question was, really, far too vague. Many things were wrong all the time, especially with Danny. Part and parcel of being what he was, living where they were, and doing what he did. Although she was more comfortable with it all than Tucker, she could acknowledge that things were… bad. That the world was messed up. That, although people could be horrible to each other on their own, the monstrous beings lurking under the fabric of reality did not help.

But Danny had been in especially low spirits for the last few days. She’d almost say he was depressed, but she was hesitant to apply mental health disorders to someone who wasn’t even entirely human anymore. He’d also been unusually quiet, but he had admitted some time ago that he was having progressively more difficulty ‘finding words,’ so that could be the reason instead.

If she could find out why he was upset, maybe she could cheer him up. Or at least support him.

He made a face, one hand covering his mouth as he talked. “You remember that time, um, when Clockwork… The gifts?” He touched his wrist.

“Yes?” said Sam, prompting him to continue.

Danny glanced down the otherwise oddly-deserted school hallway. “It’s… He had me eat with him. Sort of. Ever since then, my teeth have been…” He paused his hand now firmly pressed to his face.

“Weird?” suggested Tucker, voice low.

Danny nodded. “I had – I was venomous, in the Dream, I don’t—” He faltered.

“Do they hurt?” asked Sam.

“Mhm.”

“Do you think biting into something might help?” asked Sam as she swung her backpack off her shoulder and rummaged in it.

Danny’s eyes seemed to glaze over as he considered the question. Finally, he shrugged.

Sam found what she was looking for. “Here,” she said, holding out the shiny red apple. “Try this.”

Danny examined the apple, careful and silent. The fruit was reflected, vividly, in his eyes. Once. Twice. Three times? No. Danny had two eyes. Two perfect, insightful, soulful eyes.

Delicately, he took it. He still didn’t remove the hand over his mouth.

“We’ve seen worse, man,” mumbled Tucker.

“Not when I’m being human,” protested Danny. Gingerly, he removed his other hand from his mouth and brought the apple to his lips.

When his lips parted, Sam could see what he was talking about. Those were definitely, clearly, fangs. Sharp, smooth, and white. They sparkled even in the flat overhead school lights. Something bluish and clear glistened at their tips.

Was Danny venomous?

(Why did that excite her?)

They crunched into the apple. Danny held it there, still and tense, for a few seconds before his expression melted into absolute bliss.

“Feel better?” asked Sam.

“Mmmhmm,” said Danny, eyes half closed.

“Guys?” said Tucker. “We should probably go now. Before they kick us out.”

“Huh?”

“It’s the end of the school day. School’s been out for half an hour.”

Sam frowned. Was it? She… Did she… She did remember going to all her classes. She shook her head, dismissing the momentary lapse.

Danny regretfully disengaged from the apple, blinked, and swayed. His outline wavered. Sam grabbed his wrist, and a jolt ran up her bones, making her teeth hurt as if she had just bitten down on ice. He stabilized again.

“Thank you,” he said.

He did not notice that she had taken the apple.

.

She set the apple on her desk, and the color stood out vibrantly against the dark-stained wood and her black, goth-themed knickknacks. The color, which was a different than what it had been when she had given the apple to Danny.

The neon blue skin was cold enough to gather condensation and smooth under her fingers. There was otherwise little evidence that Danny had bitten into it. The holes had sealed over, leaving only small depressions.

She knew what she wanted to do. She knew what she shouldn’t do.

Danny said she couldn’t die. That he had destroyed her death, among others. She trusted him.

But it was always good to be prepared.

She set up a text on a timer. If she wasn’t able to cancel it in the next ten minutes, it would go out to Danny and Tucker.

The bed would be the best place to do this. She sat down on the edge, feet firmly planted on the floor.

She bit into the apple.

For a few seconds, she was disappointed, but then.

Then.

She let herself drop back onto her bed, the springs creaking slightly and the covers gently fluttering. She exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. Blinked. Closed her eyes. Opened them again.

Everything. Everything.

It was like seeing for the first time. The world was as thin as rice paper. The light was shinning through. It’s true nature.

And all the people. Everywhere. Everyone. Connected.

She—

Everyone.

Beyond the rice paper they could see and touch and feel, the false veil above the truth they couldn’t look at directly, but Danny could and, oh.

Was this what he saw all the time? Was he always filled with this sense of—

Of charity? Of- of—

What could she call this? Care? Empathy?

Could she call it love?

(She could. He was. Because he was loving. But his understanding of love was overwritten and subsumed by his understanding of Love. There could be no other way.)

(To love was human. Love was divine.)

If everyone could feel like this…

Sam knew how much people could hurt each other. She knew how terrible the world was.

(Her grandfather had only died a few years ago. He’d been born in Germany.)

She knew how stressed Danny was about hurting others, even when it was his mere existence that was harmful – And Sam wasn’t so sure that it was harmful. If Danny hadn’t just internalized the vitriol and hate that his parents practically consisted of.

If everyone could feel like this…

They’d had a conversation, back when they’d connected the others to cults, about whether or not cults were a natural result of the others’ presence, or if they were actually encouraged by the others. Maybe it was a combination of the two, but Sam now had good evidence for the former.

This. This was natural. This was right.

And she would work hard to make everything else right, too.

The feeling faded after another few… minutes? Hours?

Minutes. It had to be minutes. Otherwise, Danny and Tucker would be here.

The timer.

She fumbled her phone open just in time to cancel the text.

.

Sam was tempted to take another bite of the apple, but she knew that she had to be careful with her resources. She had her vision. Her goal. Her plan to make the world a better place.

It started here.

She leaned on her shovel and checked the depth of the hole in the ground. Good. Good. Room enough for the apple and room enough for the fertilizer.

She used her fingernails to slit open a bag of the latter and then placed the apple reverently on top of the small pile. A shadow passed over her. It didn’t seem like quite enough, did it?

Perhaps… an offering? She emptied the contents of her pocket. Coins. A six-sided die with a bat in place of its ‘one’ pip. A caramel and a strawberry candy her grandmother had given her that morning. A small picture of herself, Danny, and Tucker. A safely pin.

She arranged them carefully around the apple. The safety pin gleamed in the light.

Staring at her. She stared back.

Maybe…

She picked up the pin and squeezed it to free the sharp end. Then, before she could hesitate, before she could have second thoughts, she drew it over the ball of her thumb. Blood welled up from the small wound, and she let it drip on the soil surrounding the apple.

.

The tree grew into a sapling overnight. The next day, it was taller than Sam. On the third, the trunk was thicker than both her wrists together. By the end of the week, it had burst into bloom.

Sam made sure to water it every day.

Danny, meanwhile, continued to have problems with his teeth. He spoke less, his words slurred and lisping around his still-growing fangs, but that didn’t matter to her and Tucker. After the years they’d spent together, they could read each other pretty well.

Sam maintained a constant supply of apples for him to bite down on. Most of the time, he ate them afterwards, which she couldn’t really begrudge him, but sometimes he’d leave them on his desk or on the table or just out and Sam would put aside her next afternoon for experimentation.

Before she knew it, the tree was bearing fruit. Rose-red and perfectly shaped, not a trace of scale or insects. Sam knew exactly what to do with them.

.

“Hey,” she said, as her parents walked in, “I made an apple pie. Tell me if it’s any good.”

#danny phantom #loved #dannymay 2021 #dannymay #dannymay 2021 day 15: nature #eldritch abomination au

[aworldoffandoms]

51 + 35 with Bryce 🥺💕

Authors Note: Please don’t hate me with this one. It’s going to huuuurt. Bryce and MC pairing this time! I had fun writing for Bryce. It was different but fun. 

Hope you enjoy this fic, nonny! 💗

Prompt is: what are you doing here + don’t do this to me

Prompt is in bold.

***

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x F!MC [Nicolette Valentine]

Word Count: 1, 518 (give or take)

Rating: PG (for swearing)

Warnings: No warnings. Just angst. All the angst in this one.

Summary: Bryce comes to explain himself for what he’s done. Will Nicolette let him?

I’m tagging my OH tag list but please let me know if you’d like to stay on it or would like to be removed.

Open Heart Tag: @senseofduties @polishchoicesfan @princess-geek @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @binny1985 @fanficnewbie @x-kyne-x​ @thefluffyphotographer @lilyofchoices @thecordoniandiaries @rainbowsinthestorm @cxld-play @jens-diamondchoices @malakbesharah @hopelessly-shipper @my-heart-beats-for-ya @landofenchantedwonder @sabrinahoffersonsworld @flyawayboo @stanathanxoox @oofchoices @thequeenofcronuts @heauxplesslydevoted @bi-cookie @kingliamsbish @trappedinfandoms @supercoolperson0808 @perriewinklenerdie @riverrune

Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Pixelberry and all characters belong to them.

***

HEARTBREAK

Nicolette scrolls through her Instagram feed, liking a bunch of photos absentmindedly without actually looking at them. She has too much on her mind. Her heart aches. Her muscles are sore and she swears she’s been crying for three days straight with how much her face feels all puffy and red.

She’s disrupted from her idle viewing when there is a knock at the door. She heaves a deep breath before calling out to them. It’s probably Sienna or Aurora, however, she wasn’t sure why they were knocking considering they have keys. 

“Come in! It’s open.”

The figure who steps through the door is the last person Nicolette expects to see and her mouth twists in displeasure. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Bryce stands in the doorway awkwardly, his posture tense, the lines of his shoulders strung tight like a string pulled taut. The look on Nicolette's face makes his heart ache and makes him feel like shit again. Not that he already feels like shit. He hasn't slept in three days, he needs to wash his hair and the shadow on his jawline clues to the fact that he hasn't bothered to shave.

Nicolette stands for a few seconds, then steps back to let him in the frown still evident on her face. She pads over to the kitchen, Bryce following close behind. He stands on the opposite side of the granite benchtop so he was a few metres away from her spot on the other end, he didn't want to stand near her because whenever he does she flinches away from him.

The air is stale and thick with tension, the clicking of the clock on the wall the only sound permeating the cloud of silence between them. He wants to get rid of the heaviness surrounding them both so Bryce opens his mouth to talk, wanting to apologise about what he did. To find any excuse to make it better but he can’t. He knows what he did was wrong. 

He hates himself for doing it. He never thought he’d be one of those guys.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair, the dirty strands sticking up after his fingers left it and swung down to his side to rest limply against his thigh. There wasn't any time like the present to try and explain himself. 

“Look, Nicolette… I know that I can’t say anything to make this better but I do want you to know that I love you and I—” 

Nicolette slams a hand against the benchtop, the sound reverberating around the room, making Bryce jump at the unexpected sound. Nicolette looks at him, her eyes shining with the unshed tears she promised herself she wouldn’t shed. Not for him. Not for this man who broke her heart so spectacularly.

“Don’t try and say those words to me after what you did,” Nicolette tries to make her voice sound not as pathetic as it does but she can’t stop now after she’s started. She’ll wallow in her heartbreak later.

“You broke whatever we had, Bryce. I loved you. I loved you so goddamn much that I was willing to follow you anywhere. Even follow you after our residencies finished at Edenbrook, to tell with everything else, but y’ know what?” 

Bryce swallows against the lump in his throat, knowing the words that will come out of her mouth. 

“That isn't going to happen...at least not anymore…” Nicolette trails off, puffing out a bitter laugh. “Guess the jokes on me then, huh?” 

Bryce watches as she runs a hand through her hair, the bags underneath her eyes more prominent under the fluorescent lighting. His heart aches for her a little more because he knew that he’s the cause of it. 

There's a smile on her face but its not warm. It's thin, lifeless and self-loathing. “God. Listen to me. I'm not the kind of girl to get hung up on a guy like this! I'm the youngest junior fellow in a world-renowned diagnostics team for chrissake! I am a goddamn amazing doctor and here I am heartbroken over some guy. Pathetic.”

Nicolette shakes her head, turning away from Bryce and closing her eyes, her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose in frustration. 

Bryce's hands twitch to comfort her and he almost does, his feet moving closer to her before he stops himself. He doesn’t want to make the situation worse than it already is.

The heavy silence falls on them again and he needs to say something otherwise he'll never have the courage to do it. 

“I never meant to hurt you like this, Nic. It was just a moment of weakness. I don't know what I was thinking.”

Nicolette scoffs, turning around and pins Bryce with a glare so violent he has to take a step back. 

“You blame this on a short moment of missing clarity? What the hell, Bryce? You think I'm fucking stupid or something?”

“Of course I don't. I just want to state my case.”

Nicolette spreads her arm out in a show of letting him do just that. “I'm not stopping you. Please, enlighten me about this lapse in judgement not that it’s really needed.”

It wasn't lost on Bryce the amount of sarcasm that’s dripping from her tone but Bryce sighs anyway and leans against the countertop, clearing his throat to speak. 

“We were friends in high school and she just so happened to be in Boston for a tech conference and we bumped into each other at Donahue’s and we got talking, we laughed, we drank...a lot, and then the next thing I knew…” 

Nicolette’s fists clench at her sides and Bryce can see her jaw working against her clenched teeth. He really shouldn’t be saying things like this but she said she wanted to hear so he’s telling her. 

Bryce takes a deep breath, running a despondent hand through his dark locks, grimacing as he says the next words. 

“We slept together.” 

A sharp intake of breath is heard and Bryce snaps his head to the sound and what he finds makes his heart shatter all over again. He did this. He was making her feel this pain. Bryce could see the wave of emotion crash over her again and again. 

Bryce pushes away from his perch against the edge of the countertop and makes his way over to his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) and reaches out to comfort her but Nicolette recoils from his touch. 

“Don’t touch me.” Nicolette hisses, the venom in her voice thick and deadly. 

She moves over to the far corner of the kitchen, furthest away from him. She looks up at him, her face carefully blank but her voice plaintive. “Why, Bryce? Why is it you are having the guts to tell me this now when you could have told me a week ago? I had to find out from Danny...” Nicolette’s voice cracks and a small sob rips from her throat, tears tracking down her face in a steady stream. 

He rubs the back of his neck in a nervous tick. Yeah, keeping it a secret didn’t work well. Nicolette’s been shutting him out for the past three days. He didn’t blame her. 

“I know I should have told you straight away but...it just happened and it didn’t mean anything I swear. I never wanted to hurt you. I love you and she means nothing to me—”

Nicolette holds up a hand, her tears coming to a sudden stop as she stares at the man she thought would never hurt her, her green emerald eyes are iridescent in their beauty but also shows the pain of his words, the anger at his confession, the utter misery this has caused her. 

Bryce wants to throw up.

“Don’t…” Nicolette says in a dangerously low voice, the tone of it on the verge of cracking into something less dignified that she wants it to. “Don’t do this to me, Bryce. Don’t say those words because you have hurt me, beyond even you can imagine.”

Bryce flinches at the defeated tone in her voice and tears burn his eyes at the thought of this being the reason to lose her. He can’t lose her. 

“Please, Nicolette...I can’t lose you. Please.” 

Nicolette breathes out a laugh, it wasn’t humorous at all. It’s cold and shallow.

“Too late for that now, Bryce. You should have thought about how much I meant to you before you slept with another woman. Now, get out.” 

Nicolette points to the door, her face turned away from him as she shields her expression from him and he’s barred from those vivid green eyes that Bryce loves so much. 

He resists the urge to push, to beg, to fight for her but he knows that it’s a losing battle. Nicolette Valentine was a stubborn woman and she wasn’t going to budge. He has to give her time and time he’ll give her. 

Pain like tiny shards of glass pierces his heart as he steps away from Nicolette, and out the door. He walks down the hall and winces as he hears the loud, painful sobs of the woman he loves, the heartbreak poignant and visceral. 

He’s really fucked up this time. 

#open heart #open heart 2 #open heart fanfiction #bryce lahela #bryce lahela x mc #writing prompt #asked and aswered #choices fanfic #choices #choices fandom #playchoices

[darks-ink]

The Visit

As voted on for my 250 followers celebration, a sequel to Fangs!

Rating: K+ / Gen Warnings: Referenced character death; but it’s ok because it happened 15 years prior to canon (and the fic) and also they became a ghost and are totally fine with how things are now. Genre: Friendship/Family Words: 5,646 Relationships: Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson (platonic) Additional Tags: Developing Friendships, Alternate Universe, Referenced character death, One shot, Fluff

[AO3] [FFN]

---

FentonWorks loomed over the rest of the buildings on the street, a mishmash of building and metal, topped off by the glaring neon sign. Tucker knew very little about the Fentons, besides what everyone said of them.

They’d been crazy about ghosts. Jack Fenton always was, beyond all sensibilities, and his wife had been the only restraint he’d ever known. After she died… It didn’t get any better, apparently. Tucker wouldn’t know, to be honest. It was before his time, Maddie’s death.

But that was why he was here, wasn’t it? Because he’d met Danny Fenton; a kid no one even knew existed. A kid that was, apparently, half-ghost. Born of his human father and his ghost mother.

Crazy. Absolutely crazy. There was no way it was real. Ghosts weren’t even real, never mind ghost-human hybrids. Tucker just had to go in, like he’d been invited to, and find absolutely no evidence otherwise. Which would be easy, because there wouldn’t be proof. Couldn’t be proof, because ghosts, of course, weren’t real.

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he definitely did not scream.

“What are we waiting for?” Sam asked, a grin clearly audible in her voice. “Scared, Tucker?”

He snorted dismissively, shrugging her hand off of his shoulder. “No. If it matters, I was waiting for you. So we could, y’know, go in together.”

“Oh, of course you were.” She grinned, knowingly. “Well, if that’s the case, we can go in, yes?”

“Uh,” he stammered, before straightening out. “I mean, yeah, of course. Let’s go get proof that ghosts aren’t real after all.”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Whatever makes you feel better, Tuck.”

Together they crossed the street, hopped up the stairs to the door. He paused, hesitated for just the briefest moment, but Sam reached past him and rung the doorbell.

“Don’t run off now,” she chastised. Stepped back a little so she could stop him if he tried to run. “This is the make-or-break moment. Either you’re gonna find real proof of ghosts, or you won’t.”

“I’m not scared.” He tried to sound braver than he felt. He didn’t think he succeeded.

Sure, he didn’t believe in ghosts, but that didn’t mean he had to like what was happening here. He’d seen enough horror movies to be wary of this sort of stuff. Tucker Foley was no fool.

The door opened—not creaky, not silently, but with an ordinary amount of noise—and he jerked back to the moment. Danny stood in the opening, blinking at them for a short moment. Then he grinned, wide and bright. His eyes, the odd blue interlaced with almost unnaturally bright green, scrunched up in clear happiness.

“Sam, Tucker! I’m so glad you came by!” He stepped aside to let them in, and Tucker automatically entered. Sam followed right behind him, blocking the only exit. “I wasn’t sure if you, y’know, would come.”

“Of course we came.” Sam smiled back at Danny, nudging Tucker meaningfully. “We said we would, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, well, people say things all the time, don’t they?” Still, Danny’s smile didn’t falter. “Come on, my parents are down in the lab. You wanted to meet them, right?”

“Uh huh,” Tucker answered automatically. “Is there, uh. Anything we should keep in mind?”

Danny stopped to raise an eyebrow in his direction. “I mean, I don’t think so. Why? What were you thinking off?”

“Like, I don’t know.” Tucker shrugged somewhat aggravatedly. “Topics to avoid? Things you shouldn’t ask ghosts about, or whatever?”

“Oh.” The other boy put on a thoughtful expression, one finger tapping on his cheek. Tucker realized Danny had freckles—pale and tinged almost green, but there nonetheless. “Not really? Just, y’know, be tactful. It kind of differs per ghost, but Mom’s pretty chill about most stuff.”

Well, that was good to know. This way Tucker hopefully wouldn’t end up with an enraged ghost on his tail.

“Just making sure.” Tucker shrugged, trying not to look as tense as he felt. “Better safe than sorry, and all that.”

Danny hummed and continued walking, leading them into what appeared to be the living room. A large and comfortable-looking sofa sat along the wall, with two matching armchairs finishing the circle. A moderately nice TV sat on the other end.

“I guess that that’s fair,” he said, bypassing the couch for another open doorway. “You might want to be careful with some of the other ghosts, but you’ll be fine around my parents. Promise.”

“So you’ll introduce us to other ghosts as well?” Sam cut in, looking far too excited at the prospect. “Like some of the others you’ve mentioned? Ember, Kitty, those guys?”

“Maybe later.” Danny paused in the doorway, allowing Tucker to look past him. Ah, the kitchen? He thought they were going to the lab? “I don’t think it would be a good idea to bring you guys into the Zone so soon.”

“They never come here?” Sam continued to prod, even when Tucker nudged her to please stop talking. “You only ever see them while you’re there?”

“Nah, they come over all the time.” Danny continued walking again, crossing the kitchen towards one of the doors set in the walls that Tucker had assumed to be a storage closet. “But they haven’t mentioned coming over today, so.”

Sam followed Danny to the not-closet, and Tucker begrudgingly followed.

“That’s a shame. They sound like fun.”

“They are!” Danny shot them another brilliant smile, then threw open the door. Behind it laid a staircase leading down, the entire thing—and the walls and ceiling around it—plated in metal. That was… worrying. “They’re my friends, after all. Maybe another time, though.”

He started down the stairs, his shoes scuffing against the steel plating. The sound echoed dully in the room below them.

Why did the lab have to be in the basement, huh? Why couldn’t it be in that huge metal construction on top of the house?

Wait.

What was that enormous construction, if not the lab?

Tucker considered asking, but… maybe not. Maybe, in this case, he was better off not knowing.

Sam shoved him, and he almost fell down the stairs.

Right. Focus on the moment, Foley.

He shot her a venomous glare anyway, then set down the stairs. They really weren’t anything impressive; before Tucker knew it, he was down in the lab itself.

The room was enormous and, much like the stairs, made entirely out of metal. Shelves sprawled all along the walls, bar the wall furthest from the stairs. That one was suspiciously empty, with a complicated machine set next to large yellow-and-black blast doors.

Much of the floor space was similarly taken up by metal tables, covered in all sorts of gadgetry. Inventions of all kinds imaginable—and several not imaginable—covered their surfaces, in various states of assembly.

It was almost enough to distract Tucker from the fear he felt, somewhere deep inside him. Fear that had rared its head, suddenly, pointing Tucker straight towards Danny’s parents.

Not that they would’ve been easy to miss, anyway. Jack Fenton was, true to stories, an absolutely massive human being. Large in every meaning of the word, and clad in a bright orange jumpsuit.

Next to him was the real source of Tucker’s sudden paralyzing fear. A woman in a matching jumpsuit, smaller than Jack but making up the size difference by floating next to him. Her body seemed to glow, even under the harsh lights of the lab.

“Wow,” Sam breathed, having apparently joined Tucker in the lab. “Damn, Danny, what a space!”

Her voice was enough to startle the adult Fentons back to the present, as both twisted in their direction. Maddie’s—because the ghost had to be Maddie Fenton—eyes seemed to lock straight onto Tucker’s, like she could feel his fear. Hell, who knew! Maybe she could!

“Danny-boy!” Jack Fenton boomed, grinning widely at the three of them. Tucker could definitely see the family resemblance in that smile. “Who are your friends, kiddo?”

Danny started leading the two of them towards his parents, apparently choosing to ignore the unblinking stare of his mom. “These are Sam and Tucker. I mentioned them earlier, didn’t I?”

“The kids you met at school,” Maddie stated, cocking her head at Sam and Tucker. She’d looked almost human from far, but as they got closer, Tucker found more and more details that were… off, for the lack of a better word. Her brown hair, for example, was laced through with white. But it wasn’t just singular hairs, like when people went gray; the base of every single hair was white, shifting back to brown the further away from her skin they were. And her eyes, which he thought were hazel, were actually literally golden in color. Glowed, even, casting a yellowish tinge on the rest of her face.

“That’s us!” Sam cheerfully exclaimed, grinning up at the ghost. “And you’re Mrs. Fenton, right? Danny’s mom?”

Maddie stared at them for a brief moment, like she was scouring their souls for… for something. Then she smiled, soft and kind and warm and decidedly mom-like. “That’s me. And this is my husband, Jack.” She gestured over at him, like they could’ve possibly missed the man.

“Nice to meet you.” Tucker inclined his head, first towards her, then Jack. Now what?

Sam took mercy on him, leaning herself against his side. “Yeah, what he said. You two seemed like really cool parents, based on the stuff Danny’s mentioned so far.”

“Is that so?” Maddie stopped hovering besides Jack, instead floating closer to them. She drew her legs together, and they blurred into— into some sort of spectral tail. It curled languidly, the end twitching almost like a cat’s tail would. “Only good things, I hope?”

“Of course,” Tucker answered, hesitantly grinning. This was familiar territory—assuring overbearing parents that their kid wasn’t doing anything wrong. “He’s not gonna stop loving his parents just because y’all let him leave the house, you know?”

“Of course he isn’t!” Jack boomed once more, slinging a massive arm around Danny’s shoulders. “You love us, don’t you, Danny-boy?”

“Daaaad,” the boy groaned, exasperated. Rather than try to wrestle the arm away, he—

um

Faded into translucence? And then just… went through Jack’s arm?

Color returned to Danny’s body when he was away from the arm, and he blew a raspberry at Jack.

“Damn,” Tucker swore, nudging Sam. Make a joke about it, Foley. Make it easier to deal with. “Bet you wish you could do that with your parents, huh?”

She huffed, rolling her eyes, but couldn’t hide the faint smile. “They’re not that bad, Tucker.”

“I’ll be sure to remind you next time they’re slathering you with kisses, then.”

“Ugh.” She jabbed him with an elbow. “I hate you sometimes.”

“Aw, Sam, no.” He reached for his heart, dramatically. Normally he wouldn’t let it play out this far, not in front of like, actual parents and stuff, but… they looked like they needed the normalcy. Or, well, the suggested normalcy. Honestly, they looked stunned that Sam and Tucker were having a regular scuffle instead of making a big deal out of— whatever Danny just did. “You’re killing me, man.”

Oh. Uh.

Was that a bad thing to joke about with ghosts present?

Sam glared at him, apparently thinking so. Danny snorted, though, and Maddie didn’t lash out, so. Tucker would go ahead and consider this a victory.

He cleared his throat. “So, uh. Danny mentioned you had some cool inventions, and honestly, I would love to see some of those. If, uh, you don’t mind?”

Jack brightened. “Well, why didn’t you ask before? Of course we’ll show you! What’d you want to see?”

He scrambled out of the seat before Tucker could answer, bounding over to the other side of the lab.

“Um.” Tucker watched him go, stunned. How could a man that large move that quickly? “Danny mentioned like, a hovercraft? And jetpacks, but I think you were still working on those? That sounded pretty cool.”

“Well, the Specter Speeder is right over there,” Maddie said, gesturing over to a giant heap covered in a sheet. Her expression was carefully neutral, like she was trying to figure him out. “That’s probably the hovercraft Danny described. Jack and Jazz—our daughter—use it to traverse the Ghost Zone.”

Tucker looked over at her, hovering in the air. Then over at Danny. He was still trying to find a tactful way of asking the obvious question when Sam cut him off.

“So Danny can fly, just like you?”

He shot her a disappointed look, but she ignored it, staring at Maddie.

“I can do almost everything an ordinary ghost can,” Danny answered, bouncing a little excited. Probably didn’t get to talk about it very much.

Or maybe he was just happy they believed him.

“Fly, go invisible, go intangible—like I just did. All kinds of stuff!” He grinned at them. The expression was so abundantly happy that Tucker could almost miss the sharp fang-like canines. “Just not overshadowing, but that’s fine—I don’t like that power anyway.”

“Oh?” Sam cocked her head, eyebrows drawing together. Clearly interested. “Why not?”

Surprisingly, it was Maddie who answered. “Overshadowing is much like possession—or how possession is shown in media, at least. You take over a human host, puppeteering their body, and, if done well, they won’t even know it happened. Will have no memory of what happened, or any way to know what you did.”

“Most ghosts avoid overshadowing, anyway,” Danny added, his casual tone clearly forced. “They don’t like the concept of it, of losing control over one’s body like that. So I don’t mind that I can’t do it.”

“But why not?” Tucker asked, despite himself. So sue him for getting curious, there had to be some form of science behind this, right? Ghosts couldn’t just defy all common sense! “Is there something about you being a— a hybrid that’s stopping you?”

Maddie’s eyes narrowed, and her tail swept a slow arc. It reminded Tucker of the agitated twitching of a cat’s tail, but not quite as… angry, if that made sense? To him it did, somehow.

“We think so,” she said, slowly. She kept a steady gaze on him, like she was testing him with this. Testing his… opinion on Danny’s possible half-ghost nature, maybe? That would make sense, wouldn’t it? “We think that, because Danny’s body isn’t entirely ectoplasm, but half flesh, he can’t overshadow anyone. He has more trouble with intangibility than other ghosts, too, and that’s an essential skill for overshadowing.”

“Ah.” Tucker’s mind provided him with an entirely unnecessary vision of Danny turning tangible while inside another person. “Yeah, I can imagine not wanting to risk that, especially for a power you won’t use anyway.”

Danny nodded. “Exactly. Besides, my other powers are good enough. And it’s not like I need them to fight much—most ghosts are less likely to lash out because I’m only half ghost.”

“Really?” Sam hopped up on the edge of one of the tables, sitting down on an apparently empty corner. “You’d think that they would be more likely to lash out against someone only half ghost, rather than less.”

“Well, I know how ghost society works, so I’m not really an outsider.” Danny shrugged, leaning against one of the tables. His mom had floated off towards Jack, apparently no longer interested in the conversation. Maybe they had convinced her that they really didn’t mind Danny’s hybrid-ness. “And I can fight just fine—I’m not the strongest ghost, but not the weakest either. That all helps, I think.”

Sam opened her mouth to continue asking, but a loud clunk echoed through the lab. All three of them whirled towards the noise, finding the source to be Jack Fenton. Maddie floated next to him, holding up a large metal shell of sorts. Based on the fact that Jack was rubbing his head, it must��ve fallen down on him.

Maddie clicked her tongue, then gestured at the maybe-hovercraft near them. Jack pouted but nodded, trudging back in their direction.

What a family.

“Come here, kids, I’ll show you the Specter Speeder.” Jack underlined the statement with a sweeping gesture, like they weren’t already tracking his every move.

“Coming!” Danny pushed himself away from the table, racing over to his dad. Raced to such an extent that he made to leap over one of the tables that separated them.

The boy leapt, and then just… stayed airborne.

Man. Half-ghosts, am I right? Tucker really wasn’t ready to deal with this sort of madness.

Sam jabbed an elbow in Tucker’s ribs, and he startled. Took his eyes off of the other boy. Whoops, no staring, that’s rude.

The two of them wound their way to Jack as well, ignoring the fact that Danny was still floating in the air. Were they going to have to stop him from doing that in public? Was Danny going to fly over hurdles during gym instead of actually jumping?

It was like he’d accidentally befriended a comic book superhero. Did that make Tucker the sidekick? Or was Sam the sidekick, and was he the love interest?

He sure hoped not. Superhero love interests had an awful tendency to die, and he wasn’t sure if the involvement of ghosts made that better or worse.

No point in worrying about all that, though. Danny wasn’t even really a superhero, anyway. He didn’t even fight anyone!

Yeah, let’s just dismiss that whole train of thought and focus on the invention.

“This was the hovercraft, right?” Tucker asked when he and Sam joined Jack and Danny at the covered-up machine. “The… what did you call it? Speeder?”

“The Specter Speeder!” Jack enthusiastically corrected. “And indeed! This baby can carry us powerless humans safely through the Ghost Zone. Its outside is protective with blast-proof shielding, and it’s packed with all kinds of ecto-guns!”

He patted the machine, the sound echoing dully within the vehicle. Then he realized that they couldn’t really admire it while it was covered up and, without further ado, pulled off the cloth covering it.

Honestly? It was a very impressive machine. Tucker had heard some stuff about Jack’s inventions—and he’d seen the bizarre construction on top of FentonWorks—but the Speeder was nothing like all that. It was gorgeous. All smooth paneling and shiny metal, with a cylindrical shape and a rounded window that covered the entire front of the machine. Not to mention the enormous thruster-like engine on the back.

“Wow,” Tucker breathed. “That’s… Man, what a machine, Mr. Fenton.”

“How do you get it in the Zone, though?” Sam asked, ever the skeptic. “It looks too heavy to push.”

“Why would you push it?” Danny frowned at the two of them, then at the machine, then back to them. “It can fly, that’s kind of the point.”

“Even here?” Tucker looked at the machine again. It laid flat on the ground, perfectly horizontal. He could imagine it flying in a world with altered gravity, like he imagined the Ghost Zone to be, but here? “How?”

Jack laughed, cheery and explosively loud. It was Maddie who answered, floating in closer. “Ectoplasm is a rather incredible material. The Speeder is constructed mostly out of an ectoplasmic metal, which helps it defy gravity. It also serves as a very light-weight fuel, lessening the weight.”

“It’s also very explosive, which also makes it a great fuel!” Danny added cheerfully. “It’s a great source of energy. All FentonWorks machinery works on ectoplasmic basis—it’s a great renewable energy source!”

He chuckled. “It’s literally green!”

Both of his parents groaned. Tucker had the feeling that Danny made that same joke all the time.

“But isn’t ectoplasm the stuff ghosts are made out of?” Sam’s brows drew together, tension seeping into her shoulders. Oh boy, here they went again. “Isn’t that, like… animal cruelty? How do you get it?”

“It is the stuff ghosts are made out of,” Maddie said, with a gentle smile. “But only because the entire Ghost Zone is made out of that stuff. You can take it straight from the air. Most of our ectoplasm, we get from the Portal’s filter, which stops loose ectoplasm from seeping through. Without it, the presence of our Portal would contaminate the air and soil of the Earth.”

Tucker nudged Sam. “See? Perfectly cruelty-free. No sweat, man. Do they look like they melt down sentient creatures for weaponry, huh?”

“Right.” Sam shot him a venomous look back, but dropped it almost immediately to turn back to the Fentons. “Sorry. I’m… a big supporter of animal rights, and all that.”

“She’s a super-duper vegan,” he added helpfully. “Won’t eat any animal products at all.”

Maddie nodded, an understanding expression on her face. “Of course. But, yes, no need to worry. Our ectoplasm is exclusively atmospheric. If we weren’t using it, we would just be forced to dump everything the filter collects straight back into the Zone, so we might as well use it. As an energy source, it’s great—better than solar or wind, and just as safe for nature.”

“If you know what you’re doing, at least.” Danny grinned impishly, leaning on his dad’s massive shoulders. He still hadn’t stopped hovering. “Since it’s pretty explosive, and all that.”

“Which is why I’m usually the one handling the volatile ectoplasm,” Maddie said. “Us ghosts can handle ectoplasmic attacks a lot better than humans can.”

“Ghosts can take just about anything better than humans,” Jack pointed out. “Ectoplasm is a lot tougher than flesh, and you don’t have any organs to damage.”

Maddie grinned knowingly at Jack, who pouted back.

These two were entirely too much. One was a ghost and the other human, sure, whatever. But this? Nah, man. He already didn’t like it when his own parents were being sweet to each other, he really didn’t want to watch Danny’s parents do the same thing.

He turned to address Danny. “So how does that work for you? Since you’re a hybrid, and all that?”

“Well…” Danny slipped off of his dad’s shoulders, doing a completely unnecessary flip before landing on the ground. “I’m kinda in the middle for most stuff. I’m tougher than a human, but not quite as tough as a ghost. I’ve got all the ordinary human organs, but I also have a ghost core. There’s ectoplasm in my blood and my flesh, but no part of me is fully ectoplasm—besides my core, of course.”

“Is that why you were eating that weird glowy food?” Sam raised a single eyebrow. “It contained ectoplasm, right?”

“Yeah.” Danny shrugged, leaning back against the edge of a table. “Gotta keep up the ectoplasm levels somehow. Full ghosts can just filter it out of the atmosphere, and I can do it a little, but it’s not enough. I would need more ectoplasm in my body to filter out enough to sustain myself.”

“That sucks, dude.” That sandwich hadn’t looked appealing at all.

But then, maybe to Danny’s half-ghost brain, it looked differently? The glow and color were caused by ectoplasm, weren’t they?

“Eh, it’s not the worst.” Danny shrugged again. “Better than having to take it via needle or IV, which is the alternative. Or drinking straight ectoplasm, but that’s not very good for me, either.”

“Speaking of food,” Maddie interrupted, startling the pants off of Tucker—when had she stopped talking to Jack?, “Jack and I are going to start working on dinner. Sam, Tucker, are you staying over?”

Tucker opened his mouth to refuse, but Sam was, once again, too quick.

“Of course we’ll stay,” she said, smiling up at Maddie. “I should call home to let them know, though.”

“Uh, yeah.” Tucker cleared his throat, awkwardly. “So do I.”

Maddie nodded, before moving towards the stairs. She moved through the air like there was no resistance, nothing that could stop her. Fluid and graceful. No wonder that she never landed. Tucker didn’t think he would, either, if he could fly that easily.

Danny, on the other hand, was equally graceful in the air and on the ground.

Which was not very, Tucker realized, as he watched Danny trip on a table leg.

“There’s a phone in the kitchen.” Danny grinned up at them, having caught himself on the edge of the table he’d tripped on. “Unless you want to use your cellphones, in which case you’ll still need to get out of the lab. No signal down here.”

Tucker glanced over at the metal walls, the metal ceiling.

“Of course,” he said, watching Danny push himself back into a properly standing position. “That figures.”

They picked their way back to the stairs, Sam scaling them first. Tucker was about to follow her when a hand grabbed onto his shoulder and then pulled.

He stumbled backwards, and turned to snap at Danny—

who wasn’t there.

Tucker turned towards the stairs again, and then up. Danny was floating above the stairs with a sheepish grin.

“Sorry,” the boy apologized, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t think you would stumble if I did that—Jazz usually doesn’t.”

“Jazz probably knows to expect it and braces for it,” Tucker grumbled back. He wasn’t really all that angry—Danny had grown up too sheltered to realize, and that wasn’t his fault. “Just be careful, alright? I could’ve fallen and hit something.”

Danny started looking even more guilty, which made Tucker feel guilty, and boy. This was just brilliant.

“Seriously, it’s fine,” he added to try and break this circle of guilt. “You didn’t know any better. Come on, let’s just go upstairs.”

“If you’re sure…” Danny shot him a last worried look, which Tucker dismissed with a flap of his hand, before flying upstairs. Tucker waited for another moment before following on foot.

Sam had already found the phone and was now busy fending off her overly concerned parents. Tucker couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he could recognize that exasperated look from a mile away.

Rather than bother waiting for her to be done, he dug his cellphone out of his pocket and dialed his home.

“Good evening, Angela Foley speaking,” his mom answered.

“Hey Mom.” Tucker’s eyes wandered back to the scene in the kitchen. Sam was still arguing with her parents on the phone. Danny was worriedly hovering over her—literally. Danny’s parents, both human and ghostly, were quietly talking over the stove. “Sorry for the late call, but um. A friend asked if I could stay over for dinner, and Sam already said yes, so…”

His mom snorted. “Tucker, honey, you can just say that Sam wants you over to shield her from her parents.”

“Well, yeah, I know that.” Danny had floated even closer to Sam, and now had his hands wrapped around her shoulders. Someone should teach this guy about personal space. “Sam and I are over at a different friend’s place, and his parents asked us if we wanted to stay for dinner.”

“Oh?” He could hear his mom’s curiosity over the phone. They were gonna have a talk when he got home. “Who’s this, then? I thought everyone else in your class was “stupid” and “insufferable”?”

“He’s new.” Sam had apparently gotten tired of Danny’s clinginess, and was now fending him off with one hand. The other still held the Fentons’ telephone. “I’ll tell you when I get home, okay, but can I stay for dinner at least?”

His mom remained silent for a long moment, then sighed. “Of course you can stay, sweetie. I’m glad you and Sam are making more friends.”

Ugh, embarrassing. Good thing that no one was listening.

Or maybe they were, because Danny stopped flailing at Sam for just long enough to throw Tucker a look. Did ghosts have superhuman hearing? Tucker resolved to find out ASAP.

“Alright. Thanks, Mom. Love you.”

His mom laughed, softly. “Love you too, honey. Don’t be late, okay? And be safe.”

“I will,” he promised. “See you later.”

He hung up. When he looked up from his phone, Danny was grinning at him.

Then Sam swatted the boy in his face, and that wiped the grin off real quick. Danny spluttered at Sam. Sam held out a single warning finger, and Danny settled down again.

Ah. A fast learner, that one. It had taken Tucker weeks of bruised shins to figure out that Sam was a terrifying enemy, and generally not worth fighting.

He stuffed his cellphone back into his pocket, then wandered back over. Danny was pouting at him, curling into a sad ball.

It would look more pitiful if he hadn’t been floating. That kind of made the whole thing rather silly.

“Having fun with your parents, Sam?” Tucker asked, grinning at her wordless growl. Turning to Danny, he added, “My parents are fine with me staying over for dinner, by the way.”

That cheered the boy back up, and he shot Tucker another vicious grin. Well, it probably wasn’t intended as vicious, but come on. You can’t have a pleasant smile with those kind of fangs.

“Mom,” Sam snarled at the phone. “Seriously, it’s just dinner! His whole family is gonna be there. Chill out!”

Ah. It was one of those conversations.

Tucker gestured for the phone, and Sam handed it over without protest.

“Hey Mrs. Manson,” Tucker greeted before he’d even put the phone to his ear. “My parents were fine with me staying over for dinner with Danny, so I can walk Sam home afterwards, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Sam’s mom scoffed on the other side of the line. “Sammy doesn’t need you to walk her home, Foley.”

“Cool, so there’s no problem with her staying for dinner?” Tucker winked at Sam. “Thanks, Mrs. Manson, you’re the best.”

He could hear a sharp intake of breath. Knowing what that meant, he hung up before she could start yelling.

“I gotcha,” he told Sam, placing the phone back onto its holder. “But I think your mom hates me again.”

“I don’t think she ever stopped.” Sam grinned at him. “Thanks, Tuck. Ah, Danny, looks like I can stay over for dinner as well.”

“Um.” Danny blinked between Tucker and Sam, clearly confused. “Good?”

“Don’t worry about all that,” Tucker assured him. “Sam’s parents are… kind of overbearing and controlling. They dislike anyone who doesn’t meet their standards.”

“Their standards being rich and boring as hell,” Sam tacked on. “Seriously, they don’t approve of like, 90% of the people at our school. They’re just extra mad at Tucker and his family because they think that if I hadn’t befriended him, they could’ve stuck me with their rich friends’ kids.”

“Uh, okay.” Danny nodded like he understood, but his expression said that that absolutely wasn’t the case. Tucker couldn’t blame him. The Mansons were something else even if you were used to regular human society. To someone raised by ghosts and Jack Fenton, they were like an entirely different species.

“Oh, kids.” Maddie looked up from the stove, somewhere in the process of nudging Jack away so he couldn’t reach. “It might be a bit before this is done. Why don’t you go to the living room to wait?”

“Or my room!” Danny bounced with excitement over the prospect, the green sparks in his eyes brightening. Wow. They could do that? “That’s okay too, right Mom?”

She laughed obligingly. “Of course, honey. I’ll call when it’s done, okay?”

Danny nodded, then shot the both of them such a sparkly look that Tucker couldn’t have refused even if he’d wanted to.

Seriously, it had to be illegal to have puppy eyes that powerful.

---

Danny lingered in the doorway to the living room, throwing sad looks at Tucker and Sam.

“Sorry we couldn’t stick around longer,” Sam told him, nudging Danny gently.

“It’s fine,” he said, looking very much like it was not fine. “Sorry you didn’t get to meet the other ghosts.”

“We’ll just have to save that for next time, won’t we?” Tucker bumped Danny as well. “Seriously, dude, cheer up. We’ll see you at school tomorrow, yeah? No need to act like we’ll never meet again.”

The other boy shrugged listlessly. “I guess…”

“Seriously, man.” Tucker reached over to jostle Danny’s shoulder. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Why are you acting like we’re gonna disappear?”

“I…” Danny looked up, startled. “We’re friends? Still?”

“What do you mean, still?” Tucker looked back at Sam, but she looked as startled as he was. He turned back to Danny. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Well, just…” Danny gestured backwards at the rest of the house. Jack and Maddie were inconspicuously looking like they weren’t listening in, while Jazz was glaring at the both of them for doing exactly that.

“Danny, man, we already knew how crazy your family might be when we met.” Tucker grinned at him. “Seriously, you warned us, didn’t you?”

Sam crept in closer again. “Besides, if you thought that your family was crazy, wait until you meet mine. At least your craziness is fun.”

“Sam,” Tucker scolded, but Danny brightened up nonetheless. Turning back to him, Tucker added, “Anyway, we already said we were friends, didn’t we? It was the start of a beautiful friendship, and those don’t end so easily.”

“Right,” Danny agreed, a hesitant grin on his face. “Nothing beautiful about that.”

Tucker clapped him on the shoulder, then nodded at the definitely-not-listening Fentons. “Besides, who’s gonna do a better job of teaching you about school than the unseen nobodies?”

“Nobody?” Danny guessed, uncertainly.

“That’s right!” Tucker crowed, before turning to the door. “Seriously, we’ll keep an eye on you. Us invisibles, we take care of each other.”

Sam nodded her agreement. “Really, you’re not getting rid of us that easy, Fenton.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Danny assured them, grinning.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #tucker foley #dp fanfic #phanfic #phanfiction #dp fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #dark writes #i am so tired... let me sleep #thats (mostly) unrelated to the fic tho #i just slept like utter shite sunday night and havent recovered #hence why i held off on posting this until now #bc i didnt trust myself to give it a good read-through earlier

[ladylynse]

So I have a Secret Quartet question. How'd the things with Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen B go?

Ooh, this is fun to think about. @queenofhearts7378 would have a better answer to that than me (she started the crossover, after all), but if we’re assuming Adrien was part of the Secret Quartet when this happened and Jake, Danny, and Randy weren’t around to help when the other Miraculous holders started turning up, Adrien would probably be asking them for advice.

I mean, he’s supposed to be Ladybug’s partner, but it’s hard not to see it like she’s replacing him, regardless of what she says. And he can’t blame her, because how much help has he been? She’s had to fight him a lot, he’s been caught under the spell of the latest villain many times, sometimes he’s caught in a trap and can’t free himself, and she had to fight without him entirely when Style Queen got him. It would be a major hit to his confidence, especially when that’s on shaky ground considering how little recognition he gets from his father. 

Couple that with the fact that Ladybug clearly knows more than he does about everything, that she hasn’t told him the whole story behind where she’s getting the Miraculous or who she’s entrusting them with or why she can suddenly give him things to feed Plagg to change the transformation…. How can he call himself her partner, when the balance of power is so one-sided? Is she trying to distance herself from him because he confessed how he felt? What did he do wrong? Why doesn’t she trust him?

He could talk to Danny, Jake, and Randy after what happened in Style Queen. He doesn’t need to remember it to know. To realize how close he came. It would make him feel so useless. What kind of hero is he if he’s taken out of the fight before he can even begin to help? And the others would share stories of their mistakes and missteps and how they turned those around or handled them, and he’d feel less alone, and less like someone made a mistake giving him the Miraculous.

And working with them? Fight bad guys and winning? It would help. Reassure him that he does have skills, he can fight well, and he wouldn’t need to second guess himself when he fights with Ladybug.

Had the other boys in the Secret Quartet been around to help for those incidents, the Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee probably wouldn’t have been needed. 

Jake probably has some of Fu’s magic potions kicking around to supplement the magic he doesn’t inherently have, and he’s the only one of the bunch used to a younger sibling. He knows how they think. Even if his dragon eyes can’t spot the real children, he’d be able to come up with something to pick them out. Danny’s ice powers might be enlisted to make some enticing creations, and Randy would learn just how far he can take the Art of Disguise–because no one said that was limited to him.

Even if they didn’t want to torch or freeze the spiderweb for safety reasons, Danny’s intangibility would’ve made that rescue easy.

In the fight with Style Queen, they’d know immediately that Chat Noir was out of the equation because they know who he is, unlike Ladybug. And they’re not exactly ill-equipped to fight someone made of glitter. A Ninja Hydro-Hand would take out clumps at a time even with her trying to shift around their attacks, assuming they don’t want to risk setting fire to everything with either a fireball or Jake’s flames, and Danny could probably ice her in place while she’s trying to dodge someone else’s attack.

When Queen Bee went rogue, even if Jake didn’t have some sort of antidote to her venom, they could have helped slow the train. Danny is strong in ghost mode if he can lift a bus full of children, and Jake can carry a heck of a lot as a dragon. (Even if Danny’s not strong enough to turn the entire train intangible or take it off the tracks, he’ll still make a big difference.) While they’re trying to slow the train down with Ladybug, Randy could decide if he thinks he can actually safely control an element to help here (earth to slow the train without derailing it or wind to increase the wind resistance) or if he’d rather start flinging Ninja Rings at Queen Bee. Because if he can get her Miraculous off and cause her to transform back, that might negate her venom. (He’s willing to try anything at this point, and she seems to be a worse hero than he ever was, so…. Probably best that she doesn’t have it, right? (Randy wouldn’t be thinking about redemption arcs despite the many mistakes he’s made and paid for.)) There’s also the possibility that the Ninja Art of Healing would be able to counteract the paralysis, or at least counteract it enough to allow the conductor to do his job or help them through it.

When Queen Bee got akumatized? Danny, definitely. Intangibility. He could grab her Miraculous and get it to Adrien to destroy. If hit, he might–and this is a bit of a stretch but it’s still a possibility–be able to phase through the venom in his body–and everyone else’s, if they got hit. There’s also the possibility that Jake’s dragon hide is thicker and that the venom would have a lesser effect on him in dragon form or in general just because of his dragon powers/him not being completely human. Randy…Randy would just have to dodge.

Invisibility and intangibility would be really helpful where Maledikator is concerned, too. Jake probably has a handful of spells to try with varying degrees of effectiveness, and Randy is totally willing to try to burn the power sparks out of the sky until it’s made clear that that is a Bad Idea, but the possibility of being turned into a puppet makes Danny’s invisibility–and his ability to transfer it to whoever he’s touching–an ideal tool. He can’t be made a target if they don’t know he’s there. And Randy and Jake would make excellent distractions.

And if all the heroes got together? Expect lots of horrible puns and accompanying groans/cringes, plenty of teasing, maybe a dash of flirting from both sides, and a whole lot of friendly competition. Alya would call for it to be girls against boys. Chloé would be the first one to play dirty–especially because she doesn’t know her precious Adrikins is under Chat Noir’s mask. Marinette’s attempts to calm things down before they explode out of control would be drowned out by enthusiasm. Nino would catch her eye and shrug, then swallow when he spots Rena’s hungry look. Randy, Danny, and Jake would already be trying to come up with plans to get the girls, but if this is Paris, they’re at a disadvantage because they don’t know the territory, and they have to rely on Adrien and Nino for guidance–particularly Adrien, as Nino wouldn’t be used to seeing it from the rooftops (and he’s definitely not used to running them so dragon riding it is), which is probably where the competition would start because they’d be meeting up somewhere away from crowds.

#ml spoilers #secret quartet #miraculous ladybug #danny phantom #adjl #rc9gn #ladylynse #fic ideas #I guess? #fantasycrest #asks

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

One decade on MOST people are still sore about this Rich.

 Dan Slott is being overly presumptuous because how the Hell can he predict the future like this? This is seriously like someone in 2002 saying believe all you want but you will never see a revival of the Clone Saga characters and concepts because of how dedicated editorial have been to bury them. Except we did because the people in power changed.

 He is also disingenuous because not every editorial since the marriage worked hard to undo it.

  The Jim Salicrup regime did not work hard to undo it at all.

 Danny Fingeroth’s regime wasn’t truly working hard to undo it at all and if you were to take the most consistent writers of the Spider titles under his regime into account (David Michelinie, JM DeMatteis, Howard Mackie, Terry Kavanagh, Tom DeFalco) only one of them, Kavanagh (one of the worst Spider-Man writers ever) was outright against Spider-Man being married. Michelinie came around to the idea eventually and Mackie at worst had a take it or leave it attitude but tried to get rid of it when editorially mandated to do so not by the spider office but by the EIC himself. Everyone else under Fingeroth’s regime was PRO-marriage.

 In the Budiansky regime that was the same story. MOST writers were pro-marriage but higher ups wanted it undone.

 It was always the higher ups who wanted it gone but rarely the actual editorial regimes composing the Spider-Man group.

 It is particularly bullshit considering the first regime in power after the marriage was DeFalco as EIC and he defienitly didn’t want the marriage gone.

 And again it presumes that

 a)      Those higher ups were right which they weren’t and

b)      That EVERY higher up in the future will defeinitly want the same thing when there is no proof of that. Alonso for instance is apparently more lenient over the marriage in some shape of form than Quesada. Editorials change and generations cycle in and out. There is no evidence to suggest 100% every editorial will want the same thing.

 I mean he talks about it like Marvel is this never changing entity unto itself which has decided there should be no spider marriage when again ‘Marvel’ is made up of people with jobs and positions which change. Only Ike Pearlmutter is in it for life and I don’t think he honestly gives a shit about if Spider-Man is married or not so long as he can make action figures.

 Like he talks about not having a good grasp of the business but literally it is pretty much as far as we know Alonso, Quesada and Brevoort who are against the marriage. MOST marvel creators do not seem to be at all. When those guys eventually leave who knows what will happen.

 I mean he talks about branding but putting aside how that’s proven to be utter bullshit given how brandingwise Sam Wilson’s mere existence as Cap fucks that arguement up as far as Cap is concerned or Flash as Venom fucked that up as far as branding was concerned for Venom, for many years and even now what is happening in the mainstream universe Spider-Man has been out of order with the branding.

 If branding really was the big thing at play here why the fuck HASN’T Spider-Man been regressed back into being a teenager or a teen version of Peter Parker become an ongoing series? Why was he married throughout the 90s and most of the 2000s when that was also at odds with the branding?

 I don’t think Slott himself understands the branding or corporate structure at all.

 Like sure there are people above the EIC, like Brevoort and Quesada. Again, there is no guarantee that they would remain in power forever at all.

 As for the argument about every 8 year old who’s grown up with Post-OMD Spider-Man, putting aside how they are in the minority and less and less fans are coming to the series every year (hence sales are lower now than 10 years ago) the argument holds no water when you consider this.

 Every Spider-Man fan from 1962-1987 grew up with an unmarried Spider-Man fan.

 Like think about it. Most of those guys eventually WANTED Spider-Man to get married, more than this even if they were indifferent to it they were mostly okay with him getting married when it happened because it was additive character development. Same with him leaving high school.

 Most fans were not bemoaning it and similarly most fans of post-marriage Spider-Man were not bemoaning OMD merely BECAUSE they grew up on the marriage.

 It all revolved around the character development. They accepted and liked the marriage because it was developmental for the hero. They disliked OMD both because of HOW it was being done and why it was being done and how it threw out and damaged the character.

  Given how Spider-Man getting married again would be less of a fuck you and undoing of the post-OMD stuff and more of a forward momentum additive step for Spider-Man I do not see why the Post-OMD fans would be inherently inclined to never want to have Spider-Man get married again, especially when most of them clearly also like Mary Jane and Spider-Man being in a relationship.Essentially like the pre-marriage fans they’d probably get fed up with the doomed to fail strings of relationships which do not matter as much as his relationship with MJ (which thanks to Marvel unlimited, trades, info books and pop culture osmosis they are probably going to have become aware of because MOST fans do re-read the older runs) and probably will want to give him something more permanent too.

 Also a lot of Post-OMD fans who’re okay with the status quo would probably be similarly okay witht he marriage’ returning. Most people don’t like Spider-Man purely or mainly upon the basis of what his relationship status on facebook would be.

  Then you got OTHER characters to consider.

 Editorials hated the Super marriage too. Its back..

 Editorials were against Green Arrow and Black Canary’s relationship. Its back.

 If you go by branding and pop culture osmosis it’d make a shitton more sense for Nightwing to not exist and for Dick to have forever remained Robin as opposed to Damien who is a far less known character to the public. Even then people in the public are hardly going to just shrug off the idea of Robin being Batman’s actual son.

 Iceman’s sexuality, the ages of the original X-Men, the list goes on and on about branding vs what is in the books themselves and how there is a double standard at play as far as the Spider marriage is concenred.

 Oh and btw, SUPERMAN and BATMAN both have kids. THAT is even more of a out of lockstep branding thing than Spider-Man being married. It is far from the most egregious example of dissonant brand snergy

 I mean Disney clear don’t give a shit about the content of the comic books and have not for a long time. I am not even believing of the idea that Marvel Entertainment on the whole is. I think it is basically Quesda, Brevoort and a few other guys who are not in the job for life. I mean he talks about the Senior Vice Presidents and CCO and all that and again...those are just people who will roll out of power someday whilst marriage friendsly people will likely replace them given how much younger they are than those men. And again I don’t believe anyone at Disney itself gives a shit if Spider-Man is married in the comics considering they do not care that he is married in the newspaper strips, in an AU comic book or that Venom and Doc Ock for the longest time have never resembled their typically branded counterparts. I mean Brock not being Venom has stuck for over a decade too and he was around for less time than the marriage. But look at how that’s reversing gears too. Shit Jean Grey came back and other reversals in continuity have happened throughout the decades too.

 He speaks about Ben Reilly too. He tries to say the situations are different but they really are not. Multiple people wanted him back including higher ups (which i am not convinced of at all, I don’t think Quesada wanted Ben back or gave a shit) and that still happened. Basically Slott said enough people and the people in charge wanted it, which means obviously people inclined towards it rolled into power. Literally there is no reason that couldn’t happen with the marriage. The powers that be could retire, die or change their minds, there is an overwhelming preference for the marriage within the fandom and most writers and artists and who is to say the way branding is considered as far as the marriage is concerned won’t change.

 I mean the idea is really ridiculous when you think about it. People who don’t like the marriage will always be there and will never be replaced by people who do or are at least open to the idea. And at the same time whether Spider-Man is wearing a wedding ring (cos he could still to all other intents and purposes be married and in a relationship with MJ) in one particular comic book series is utterly pivitol to the sales of all other Spider-Man merchandise? 

 C’mon.

 Even if you look at it the other way around f the comic sales being affected by the other stuff that also is clearly not true and Marvel clearly do not care about it.

 Basically Slott is talking shit because he’s presumed everyone in power up to and beyond the EIC level will never change their minds and also will remain in power forever.

All this is especially poignant when you consider how truly off to the side and irrelvent the comic books are compared to everything else. The adaptations are more prized and important than the comics so branding considerations are really kind of asinine if you are to lump them all in together.

 And then You have his comments about Spider-Man being a high schooler being in line with the original intention of the creators.

 Maybe, maybe, maybe that is true of Ditko but it sure as fuck isn’t the intention of Stan Lee. Even in Ditko era letters pages Stan was making comments about how Spider-Man wasn’t married yet. Fans wanted Spider-Man to age and develop and go to college which Stan eventually instituted.

 Then it was in Wolfman’s run where he graduated from college and in Roger Stern’s run in that Spider-Man exited full time education altogether.

 If Spider-Man’s point was about being young you’d think either of these writers or editorial regimes would have prevented that, let alone Stan Lee outright aging Spider-Man out of college. Hell in ASM #39 he stated that Peter was 19 years old so he’d obviously ages not just since he got his powers but since he even began attending college. And Stan was working towards Peter getting married someday. He did that in the newspaper strips and has in other short stories or comments expressed a preference for Spider-Man to eventually get married, even referencing the fact that MJ used to be pregnant.

 He also noticeably had many of his other characters age and develop over time. for instance Reed and Sue didn’t remain dating or engaged forever. Ben Grimm got over his grumpy stages. Johnny storm went to college. Reed and Sue had a kid. The X-Men graduated.

 Few if any of Stan’s teen characters remained teens or at least in the same context they were created in. The entire MU was bult with continuity and character development in mind so the idea that Spider-Man was intended to be about youth as far as Stan was concerned is idiotic.

 This isn’t getting into how accounts from Stan have outright stated that Spider-Man was about being an ordinary guy as his core concept not about being young or how Tom DeFalco, EIC of marvel, long time Spider-Man writer, author of the most definitive Spider-Man guidebook of all time and someone who had been reading Spider-Man since literally Amazing Fantasy #15 has outright stated Spider-Man isn’t about youth...along with other creators like Peter David, J.M. DeMatteis, etc.

 Combine this statement with Slott’s assertion about Peter being emotionally 15 years old and suddenly so much makes sense about his take on Spider-Man.

 Again, this man should never have been allowed near the character.

  P.S. Even Steve Wacker admitted that the marriage probably would come back someday.

 P.P.S. Slott admits Spidey could get the win over Mephisto. This basically proves that even he knows Spider-Man’s been on a colossal losing streak ever since that story contrary to what he and Quesada have said about it in the past.

 P.P.P.S. I find it questionable that Slott doesn’t actually go into details to elaborate on why it’d be so impossible for the marriage to return. He says there are VPs to consiuder and stuff but leaves it at that.

P.P.P.P.S. Rich should know better than to take Slott’s word as gospel

#Dan Slott #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Spider-Man #peter parker #spider marriage #marvel #marvel comics