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brekitten · 2 months

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Bruce doesn't dream.

He never has, really - at least, not that he can remember. He never even had nightmares from the night his parents died. Maybe that's why; maybe he just subconsciously trained himself to not dream after that night, in fear of the nightmares that were sure to come. But the point is that he does not dream.

And yet.

The dream always starts out the same, every night, every time he closes his eyes and slips into the embrace of sleep. He's in a pitch-black room, one so dark that he can't see his hands even when he raises them right in front of his face. He knows, somehow, that he can walk for hours without coming into contact with anything - walls, furniture, anything at all to indicate that he was even in a room. Yet he knows that he is, although he's not sure why, as there really is no reason for him to know that.

The dream changes, after a while of walking. He knows that he won't find anything, no matter how far or how long he walks. This place is empty, desolate even. It fills him with dread every time. The change is never consistent, always bringing him to a different place each night.

(Once, it was a dusty old bedroom, one that made his heart ache, although he didn't know why. He had taken notice of the various space-themed decorations, the model rockets and NASA posters and stars on the ceiling. It was clearly a child's bedroom, but it hadn't been used in a long time. Another time, it was a darkened lab, illuminated only by the strange vials of green liquid lined along the many, many shelves. Bruce had wondered, after he had awoken, if it was Lazarus Water, but that felt wrong. It was something else. Something more. It had made him uneasy, and he got the feeling that something terrible had happened there. He didn't get a chance to investigate the gaping hole in the wall before he had been whisked away to another part of the dream.)

This time, he is in a brightly-lit white lab, and he has to blink stars out of his eyes at the abrupt change in lighting and color. He looks around; it seems like a typical lab, but everything is pure white, except for a green stain on the table. He can feel bile rising in his throat at the sight of the cuffs on the table, and though he still doesn't know what the green substance is, he gets the horrible feeling that it's blood. A lot of it.

He uses what little time he has to investigate the lab. There is an abundance of medical supplies, but many look unused, with the exception of the scalpels. The pit in his stomach continues to grow. Why were there so many? He reaches toward a vial of red liquid, wrong wrong wrong this is wrong, when the dream changes again.

Now he's in what is clearly a cell, except even the cells in Arkham aren't this bare. The only thing it contains is a familiar white-haired teenager, who is chained to the floor with cuffs that glow the same green as the vials of Lazarus Water that he's seen before.

Though Bruce has never learned his name, he has been in every dream, the one constant (besides the empty room, of course) in each one. The kid has never spoken, never done more than watch, but Bruce has always gotten the feeling that he was the reason for these strange dreams.

He knows that he should be more worried. If some kind of meta has managed to get inside his head, there's no telling what could happen. But he can't bring himself to be. Something is wrong, and it's not the teenager.

He can't help but think of his own children.

Something feels . . . off this time. The kid isn't looking up, isn't even moving - he seems limp, almost, as he kneels on the ground, weighed down by the chains keeping him there. Green blood - Bruce knows it's blood now, it has to be - drips from his still figure, pooling on the ground underneath him.

Bruce can't move. He desperately wants to, what could he even do? but it's like he's frozen in place. He can only watch as the teenager slowly, agonizingly, looks up at him, his bright green eyes dull and filled with fear and desperation and hope and -

Bruce wakes.

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thesquidkid · 2 years

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Who says science isn't exciting?

4x04 Dear Mama

Hi, and welcome back to my science meta! I'm actually writing this merely a few hours after watching the finale, and I haven't gotten a chance to rewatch any of season 4. So this might get updated in the future as I intend to rewatch the entire show to give you the best science breakdown possible!

Anyway, this is not about the finale, it's about 4x04 and science. Hence I will ignore all my feelings about this episode, and focus on my favourite thing in the world: science!

So buckle your seat-belts, deconnect all your braincells, and prepare yourself to dive into some alien made-up science!

(Content warning for this meta, I talk about squids a lot, because as you can see from my username, I like that animal)

We start up with a dialogue between Isobel and Liz:

Isobel: "All right, uh, Dr. Dyson, why don't you tell me about this, uh, alien ectoplasm, hmm?"

Liz: "Oh, I prefer the term "goo," but it's technically epidermal tissue. Mm-hmm."

The ectoplasm is the outer layer of a cell's cytoplasm. The ectoplasm is usually of an elastic texture.

The cytoplasm is the all of the material in an eukaryotic cell, enclosed by the cell membrane, excluding the cell nucleus.

Euraryotic cells are cells whose nucleus is enclosed by a nuclear envelope.

The cell nucleus is what contains all of the cell's genome (all genetic information of an organism).

So, the thing is, what we see on screen looks like skin that has been shed. Which is not what ectoplasm is. And I really don't know why Isobel would mention that. I guess one could theorise that after spending many hours around people (Liz and Kyle) who talk about biology, one would absorb some of that vocabulary.

However, Liz indeed corrects her, by saying something scientifically correct! Skin is indeed epidermal tissue.

Epidermal tissue is the outmost cell layer of the primary plant body. So, really, humans are plants and therefore the outer layer of skin, since our skin is composed of 3 layers, one of which is called the epidermis (corresponding to the outer layer), which is an other word for epidermal tissue.

I know this is a weird thing to be proud of, but the fact that they used correct terms (as far as I know) is pretty cool. Just afterwards, Liz mentions the third helix and hence it is definitely alien. Which, personally, I didn't need to look at it under a microscope to tell. The skin sample glowed. Human skin, as far as I know, doesn't do that.

But, better be safe than sorry. It's always good to check your results, and give background to the results that were obtained.

***

The next science is something that kinda confused me at first, and then seemed to make some sense. Liz seems to be walking around the desert with a metal detector (spectrometer). And she says:

"Yeah. I rigged it so that it would locate the alien tech component in alien biology. I mean, at least I hope I did."

A spectrometer is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral (over a spectrum) components of a physical phenomenon.

There are light spectrometers, that can separate white light (visible light) and measure the individual bands of colour that compose the light (called a spectrum). There are mass spectrometers which measure the different masses of the atoms or molecules in a gas.

There are other types of spectrometers, like a magnetic one, which is what I had initially assumes Liz had used, but turns out a magnetic spectrometer requires very specific conditions.

Then, I decided to look further into mass spectrometer. It appears that it would work on solids rather than just on gasses. We then can conclude that Liz probably used a mass spectrometer, and tweaked it so that it would "detect" the change in mass between alien DNA (which contains a third helix, which I'm guessing must affect it's mass), from the rest of the desert.

Well, she does find an odd change in mass, in, you know, a truck buried under sand. Very normal, of course.

***

Liz saying "For the first time in forever, the science doesn't make any sense to me." really really describes my constant state watching that show

***

Liz and Kyle science!

Liz: "Kyle. What if the alien cells aren't dead? What if they are only playing dead? Like an octopus does when it-it's scared and it turns into coral."

Kyle: "You're talking chromatophores."

Octopuses (I had to google the plural of octopus, and I'm just going with what google answered) wan indeed turn into coral! It's fascinating to see (here's a youtube video for you). Squids can also change their colour (which I can actually talk about a lot, I have done extensive research on squids 😅😂).

Squids and octopuses have cells called chromatophores that have the particularity of changing colour. These cells are situated just below the the surface of the skin, which is thin enough to show the colour of these cells.

Chromatophores basically work by having a center that is elastic and contains a certain colour. The elasticity means that when it stretches out, the coulour would appear brighter, and hence give the illusion of changing colour (since then the colours seems more visible). This elastic center, like a little pouch, is controlled by nerves and muscles. These cells are found in a large number, in varying sizes. Hence, it can create a full camouflage. Thing of it like pointillism, a painting made of thousands of little dots of different colour.

To go back to the alien science, basically the alien cells taken from the skin sample have the same property than squids and octopuses. I guess you could say, that I, squid kid, am an alien. (Sorry, I had to, I have been saving this from the moment I watched the episode. It is my moment to shine).

By introducing the sample from the blue eyes, it is like saying "hey don't be afraid, I'm a friend", and the squid/octopus basically reverts to their "original form".

(Moral of the story: don't scare me. I'll turn into coral 😂)

(Side note, but this is one of the reasons thesquidkid is my url)

***

I could talk about Tezca and Jones' body. But I genuinely have no idea what is going on, and I don't even want to know. However, I am always happy to talk theories and ideas!

***

This is the end of the meta for this episode! It took me most of the day ngl. I was writing in during the breaks in my lectures, because I was so excited to finally talk about how cool squids are 😂

I don't really know when I'll upload the next one, but I'll keep doing them episode by episode, instead of all in one post. I did that for the first three seasons and that was not a great idea for my sanity. You have no idea how stressful it is to write a full meta all on tumblr drafts. I was so scared it would crash and I'd lose everything. I guess I like to live dangerously 😂

#sorry not sorry for talking about squids #i have been waiting for ever for the opportunity #there wasn't much science in this ep tho #so it went quite fast to write the meta #especially since i didnt really need google for the squids part 😂#roswell new mexico #rnm #rnm meta #rnm 4x04 #thesquidkid does meta

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phantomphangphucker · 5 years

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Ectober Day 14: Dinner - Hunger Is My Boi

It’s been a bit too long since Danny has had some ectoplasm to eat. And now his folks want him to spend all day in the lab sorting and sampling ectoplasm samples.

Note: I've had an idea for a ghost hunger fic for a while now and this was the perfect excuse to make everyone deal with my bullshit. I also wrote this while getting progressively more wine drunk because that's just what happens every thanksgiving in my house.

Danny erratically untangles himself from his twisted up bed sheets as his mom knocks on the door, Danny shouting, “I’m up! I’m up!”. He nearly trips over a couple of socks on the floor as his mom chuckles, “it’s six am, I wouldn’t expect you to be”, clearing her throat, “but your father and I seemed to have siphoned off far too much ectoplasm, and of different kinds too! To be able to handle it all ourselves”.

Danny stills, shorts only halfway up, grumbling, “oh just great, why couldn’t this have happened tomorrow instead?”. Rubbing at his core as just the mention of ectoplasm makes it vibrate with hunger. Patting at it, “I know, I know. Just gotta wait till tonight”.

Danny yanks his shirt over his head and ruffles his hair before sticking his head out the door, “just how much are we talking here? It’s not, like, that entire trap box worth again, is it?”.

Maddie shakes her head with a smile, “we’ve already handled all the messy bits. Just need help keeping track of all the breakers and take samples”.

“So I don’t need a broom or need to wash my hands for an hour just to get the splatter off?”.

Maddie laughs and shakes her head, “no sweetie. I’ll be in the lab”, before turning heading downstairs.

Danny mutters, “damnit, so that’s a ‘no’ on sneakily cleaning my hands with my tongue”. Danny closes his door and leans against it for a beat before reopening his door and heading down to the lab.

Scratching at his chest, “my core’s just gonna spasm out of my chest if there’s just open beakers everywhere, especially since I could eat, like, a whole ghost horse worth, right about now”. Taking the steps cautiously and groaning as he gets hit with, what is basically a wall of, the acidic lemony scent of ectoplasm. Danny can’t help but twitch his nose, picking up on some of the more unique scents from the different kinds, “lime, grape, chipotle, bitter dark chocolate...jeez just where the hell were they siphoning from?”. Wiping away the slight drooling from his lips, picking up on his cores favourite, “fuck, even cherry cough syrup covered white chocolate and caramel. How dare life tempt me so”. Danny snorts, “well technically it’s death that’s being tempting, but still”.

Hopping down onto the lab floor with fake cheeriness, “what’s cooking? I can practically see the sour green salty aroma in the air”. Danny grumbles to himself as his dad laughs loudly, “still weird all regular humans can smell is sour saltiness”, smirking, “especially when only the lime and sugar scented ones are sour”.

Flopping down on one of the spinning stools, tracing his eyes over at least a hundred different beakers. Whistling, “trad green, bruise green, purple, red, pale blue, and fuchsia? Ya weren’t kidding. The heck was your source?”.

Jack beams, “some island with purple mist coming off it in pillars. There was hundreds of different plants, some even leaked this black ectoplasm!”, Jack animatedly holds up a large beaker of bubbling black ectoplasm, “never even seen this before!”.

Danny scratches his nose to hide his twitching nose, this kind was unfamiliar to him too. Danny mutters into his hand as Jack noisily pushes a bunch of beakers in front of him, “so the Defted lands then? And ripened from the sounds of it”. Which really did explain the strange ectoplasm, no ghosts went the when it was ripened, so there was probably many strange kinds there during the full bloom season.

Danny shifts, core vibrating with longing and curiosity, as he stirs a consistency stick in some red ectoplasm, letting go of the stick to see how long it keeps spinning for. While his dad takes every sample under the sun from the black kind.

Maddie taps his shoulder, looking up at her, “hmmm?”.

She points down at his bare feet, “I know your contamination makes that safe for you, but really? You have fresh socks don’t you?”.

Danny rubs his neck, “I’ve got one clean sock. Don’t know ‘bout socks plural. Besides, like you said, it’s freaking six am”, smirking, “who wears socks at that time”. In truth, Danny had gone with so much skin exposure in the hope of some actually getting spilled on his skin so he could just absorb it or subtly swipe it into his mouth.

Maddie shakes her head before putting down a plate of untoasted bread and a sealed mini-pack of jelly. Danny swirls a beaker lazily, ectoplasm sloshing around, as he spreads the jelly on his bread; genuinely hoping some spills out of the beaker into the jelly. Chuckling, “how did you know I just needed to get hit with some sweet succulent gooey goodness”.

Maddie smirks as she takes a few of the vials Danny’s filled up over to the centrifuge. Danny can’t help frowning slightly, that thing basically made ectoplasm inedible. Well, could still drink it but it’d taste and feel like licking a rusted and corroded spoon. So not exactly pleasant or tasty.

Danny twitches as his dad knocks over one of the beakers, one that Danny had intentionally placed a little too close, onto Danny’s wrist. Splashing purple ectoplasm on his hand, they probably think he’s frowning at the mess but really, he’s frowning because the beaker didn’t break.

Tilting the beaker back upright, “well that didn’t take very long”.

“Here sweetie”.

“Huh?”, Danny looks to the side only for his mom to wipe his hand off. Forcing himself not to sound painfully sarcastic, “that’s just perfect, thanks”. Patting at his hand, “stuff really can look like jello huh? Makes me wonder how many people sneakily eat the jello, when they’re supposed to be ‘working’ during jello wrestling”.

Jack claps him on a back, “thinking of that time you tripped into a blow-up swimming pool we had to inflate to catch all that overflowing ectoplasm, and got a mouth full of the stuff?”. Danny smirks, reminiscing fondly, they had purified the hell out of that stuff. So how could he possibly resist ‘tripping’ to steal a taste.

Maddie shakes her head, “don’t smile! You scared the crap out of us that day!”. Making Danny laugh as he rubs his core some.

The three work well past noon, and Danny’s officially both hungry and hungry. Being perpetually surrounded and bombarded by ectoplasmic aromas was not helping in the slightest. Twirling a few vials around in his fingers and laughing, “imagine if someone just filled one of these with green apple Gatorade and straight-up drank it? That’d be pretty weird, huh?”, as he pushes his wheeled stool over to the microscopes. He could easily see well enough to not need them, but any regular human would need them.

Jack laughs loudly, “that could certainly make for interesting Halloween drinks!”.

Danny smirks, making mental plans before licking his chops as he pulls out little bits of the smaller particles. Core vibrating and making his skin twitch. Sighing as he leans back, glancing at the clock, “the core of me has become the embodiment of hunger”.

Maddie smiles softly, “yes it is about that time isn’t it”, before standing and wiping her hands off on her legs, “any requests?”. Danny’s honestly hoping she forgets to wash her hands/gloves before making dinner. He knows she won’t but a guy can hope can’t he? Grinning goofily, “I have a hankering for green gummy bears and lime Creme pie wouldn’t be too much to ask for would it?”. Earning a chuckle and head shake from Maddie, while she walks up the stairs to make food for everyone.

Jack pushes a few larger beakers in front of Danny, “usually I’m the one harping for food! But you’re a grown man now so it’s expected”.

Danny rubs at his neck as he pours the pale green ectoplasm into smaller vials, intentionally using the vial rack that has cracks and chips in it, in the hopes that it’ll break and spill ectoplasm everywhere. “You better watch out, soon I’ll be taller than you”. Jack just laughs with a wide smile.

Danny’s pressing samples in between microscope slides, little bits squishing over the edges to drip onto his fingers. It looks like it’s glowing brighter than normal but Danny just knows that his core is influencing his brain to be more focused on the ectoplasm; to notice the potential snack easier. Licking off his thumb as Maddie comes down, holding plates of fish and a bottle of vinegar. Maddie kisses Jack, “out of tartar sauce, sorry Jack dear”. Jack waves her off with a laugh and basically dumps vinegar on the fish.

Danny sighs happily as he takes his plate, “perfect because isn’t there like some endless gaping hole that rivers of ectoplasm just flow into? Yeah pretty sure that’s a physical manifestation of my insides right now. Seeing as I’m just positively glowing with hunger right now”.

Jack tilts his head and barks out a laugh, swallowing before speaking, “yes Danny-boy, I'm pretty sure there is!”. While Danny just smiles, knowing full well that the Falls Of Reverlee were very much real. But they were kind of like pitcher plants, tons of ectoplasm but not exactly safe to go inside. Plus there’s was some chemical in it that made the ectoplasm super sticky, which could be kind of funny if you ate the ectoplasm since it would be like getting a mouth full of peanut butter.

The thought just makes his mouth water though, resulting in Danny eyeballing the black ectoplasm as he eats his fish, only lightly soaked in vinegar. Highly tempted to try to dip the fish in ectoplasm as a sauce. The pale green would go wonderfully with just how lemony it was, though the vinegar undertone might be a little overwhelming if mixed with actual vinegar.

Jack notices Danny’s staring and offers him a slide of the back ectoplasm, “you seem curious, why don’t you take a look at it for yourself?”.

Danny has to force his hand to not just snatch the slide and forces down the response of ‘fuck yes, gimme gimme’, and instead says, “sure, it’s strange”.

Jack chuckles and nods, while Danny wheels over to the microscope, doing his damnedest to get some ectoplasm off the slide subtly. Jack speaking while Danny stares down into the microscope, “we’re pretty sure this kind is made by these strange flowers. The stuff was just inside of these sacs hanging off the flowers! If you poke them they just explode!”.

Danny points at his dad, “so like fruit gushers?”, before blinking and lifting up his head, “did you bring back any of the sacs?”.

Jack nods excitedly and pulls out a container shaped like a tomato, opening it to show six ‘sacs’. Danny blinks, knowing in his gut these were actually seeds. Defted seeds. If cared for properly you could literally make a mini garden of Defted blossoms. Which yes, Zone yes. Ancients he was a blessed man. Danny will, without a doubt, absolutely be stealing one. He’s got no clue how his folks found these, Defted seeds were insanely rare and very very few ever so much as saw one. Mouthing ‘wow’ at his dad before actually speaking, while his core vibrates with aggressive happiness at the prospect of growing and having Defted blossoms nearby, “very strange. Any clues what, exactly, they are?”.

Jack shakes his head almost aggressively as he closes the container, “not a one. Which is why we’re being extra careful with them. Hopefully we only have to damage one to get some kind of idea”. Danny jerks and his core spasms slightly over his folks damaging Defted seeds, but there's nothing he can really do about it.

Danny nods, “hopefully”, before turning back to his microscope, officially even more curious to have even a little of this black ectoplasm. It smelled like a rich thick smoothie and chances are, it’s packed with nutrients.

Danny hands the slide back a bit stiffly, hunger gnawing at his chest and making the ectoplasm in his system jab at his veins and muscles. It was annoying pushing off feeding for this long but his life wasn’t exactly calm or routine. Plus, there was ectoplasm samples around if he really needed to nab some on the fly. Problem now was, he wasn’t alone down here. But he also slightly didn’t care, his folks knew he was goddamn weird and accepted it. They just didn’t know exactly how weird.

Danny manages to knock off one of the black ectoplasm vials, right over the edge of the table. Nabbing it out of the air and swapping it with an empty vial, holding the empty vial out to his dad, “slippery stuff eh?”. Making Jack chuckle as he takes the vial, none the wiser.

While Maddie shakes her head, pipetting up some purple ectoplasm. Danny leans over her and smirks, vial in his back pocket, “would be a lot faster with straws”.

Maddie shakes her head with a smile, “if that was safe and wouldn’t contaminate the samples we just might try something like that”. Making Danny seriously wish saliva, especially his ectocontaminated saliva, didn’t count as contamination.

Clapping her on the shoulder, “well Imma be right back”, before heading upstairs to the bathroom. Slipping out the vial and spinning it around as soon as he locks the door. Sure, it’s a small amount of ectoplasm but this is more about satisfying curiosity than need.

Swirling it around and sniffing at the milkshake scent again before downing it, tasting strongly of whip cream covered strawberries. Looking in the mirror Danny can see his eyes dilating dramatically and speaking as he just goes to lay on the floor, “oh shit”. Colours pulsating and able to smell the scents of the other ectoplasm samples through the floor. Snorting at the ceiling as he moves his fingers over the tiles, which feel much more defined, “it’s like one of those flavoured liquors but drugged”. His skin felt like someone was pushing really fluffy cotton up against all of it, making him feel comfy and numbed.

Flipping to stand back up and smirking at his reflection, little lines of black in his blue irises. It’s not like they’ll actually notice, so he slides out of the bathroom with a slight bounce in his step. Feeling light and kind of like dancing, with an undercurrent of hunger.

Danny hops down the final step and glides to sit back in his chair, spinning around some before moving to separate samples again.

Jack hands Danny a fist-sized jar of fuchsia ectoplasm, Danny raises an eyebrow at it before unscrewing the lid, “what? Ran out of regular sample cases so you decided to can it? Now it’s more like jam than jello”, tapping his chin, “honestly, could probably actually can ectoplasm”.

Maddie turns to him and eyeballs the jar, “that would certainly be something to try sweetie, but what would be the point?”.

Danny shrugs as he pours some into a Petri dish to poke at and mix in chemicals, “the idea of ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’ is bullshit”.

All three turn to look at the portal, which is firmly a ‘probably shouldn’t have done that’, arguably in a very different way for Danny than his folks.

Stirring around the fuchsia ectoplasm in the petri dish with a metal ectoproof stick, having half the mind to just start stirring it with his fingers instead. Core thrumming and pulsing over the scent of its, of Danny’s, favourite of flavours. While Jack is rolling a little ball of the black kind, testing to see how well it stays together and how bouncy it could be. Hint, very bouncy apparently. Seeing as Danny can’t help but laughing as Jack bounces it off the table only for it bounce into the ceiling and back down somewhat violently, splattering all over the table.

Danny bends over in a show of laughing even harder, but he’s really just hiding his face slightly so he can lick his cheeks off.

While Jack mutters, “woah”, Maddie copying him seconds later. Danny sees why as he lifts his head. Some of the black ectoplasm had landed in a small cup of purple ectoplasm and appeared to be devouring it, making the cup's contents slosh somewhat erratically.

Danny laughs again, “it’s cannibalising itself! Ectoplasm eating ectoplasm! Guess black buddy wanted some dinner too!”, his parents join him in laughing as Danny snorts and laughs into his hand, “maybe it’s saying I need to take a hint and start straight-up cannibalising things myself! And maybe cannibalise a little something else too!”.

Jack shakes his head with a heartily laugh, “that one doesn’t even make sense! But! It works ‘cause ectoplasm eating itself doesn’t make sense either!”.

Danny pats Jack’s arm, “thank you for coming to my voretastic TED talk”. While Maddie begins cleaning up the mess, shaking her head with a smile over Danny’s antics.

Danny turns back to his samples and beaker, core vibrating with hunger and making his skin twitch. Putting the Petri dish to the side and starting on pipetting out ectoplasm to fill tiny vials. Watching the liquid slowly fill up each one with a watering mouth.

Cleaning off the pipet and snapping the lids on the vials closed. Clearing his throat and swallowing thickly, “what else you want with the fuchsia?”.

Jack scratches his chin, shrugging, “nothing specific, so do what you fancy Danny-boy”.

What Danny fancies is straight-up eating the whole damn beaker and stealing all the other samples. That mental image making him chuckle slightly, lips feeling kind of puffy and numb all the while. Poking at the beaker with a slight smirk, honestly it’s not like they actually needed any of these samples; except maybe the black one since that was an unknown and unique.

Glancing at the clock, it was going to be a while before it could be considered night. Before his folks would be finished up and he could just dilly-dally off.

Turning his head back to the beaker and rubbing at his core. Which hums with temptation, the vibrations making him twitch more. Rubbing a hand over his slightly numb cheeks and lips, apparently whatever high that black kind have lasted a while even with such a small amount. Looking back to the clock, “fuck tonight”, before staring down at the beaker, speaking thick with humour, “you know it’s very much happy hour, so it would be pretty on point for someone to start chanting ‘shots shots shots’ right about now”.

Both of them send him confused looks but Jack shrugs, “you’re not wrong. But we are certainly not doing that”.

Danny chuckles as he pokes at the beaker again, “if we got Jell-O shots or some of that colourful liquor, we could even accidentally mix things up”.

Jack blinks and laughs, “that would be worse than mayonnaise in pudding cups!”.

Danny points at him with mock aggression, “hey! Mayonnaise is delicious”, smirking as he twitches almost violently, “and just for that...”.

Danny trails off as he grabs the beaker, mentally says ‘fuck it’, and straight up sloshes back the entire thing. Chugging it almost aggressively before slamming the glass down on the floor, like a mug of beer, while his parents gape at him for drinking that. Danny dramatically shouts, “Opa!”, just as the beaker shatters apart.

Jack pitches sideways, wheezing with laughter. While Maddie blinks at him, looks to the floor and broken glass, looks back up to him, “sweetie, it’s not often I feel the need to say this and know that I mean this with no small amount of love and acceptance, but...what, the, absolute, fuck”.

Danny just grumbles, “you’re supposed to say Mazal tov!”, while his core hums happily and he savours the cherry cough syrup covered white chocolate with a hint of caramel on his tongue.

End.

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monotype-on-phantom · 7 years

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Prisoners of Love Discussion Part 4: The Ghost Zone 4/4 (Humans in the Ghost Zone)

I’m sorry for starting off like this again, but I need to get a rant out of the way before I actually get into headcanons.

This rule where real world items phase through everything in the ghost zone has no consistency????? Here, we see that Dora can nudge the Specter Speeder, yet it phases through the wall later no problem, and also apparently Walker can’t even touch Danny, but in a later episode, Walker’s able to hold Sam hostage, not to mention the other times when humans are in the ghost zone and stay solid (like Life Lessons and Beauty Marked).

I’d be able to argue that Maybe Dora’s an exception, and maybe Skulker is, too, because he’s partially physical material, but Walker’s clearly able to touch Sam and Danny in Claw of the Wild, which may be a season 3 episode, but it’s one of the better ones.

This rule is cool, but if it was going to be such a big thing, they should’ve either kept it consistent or established what the exceptions are.

Alright, I’ve got that off my chest. Now let’s see if I can’t try and explain it.

This is related to my last post, but the ghost zone is primarily made up of psychological beings. As such, it’s sort of a psychological plane of existence, or a state of mind, in a sense.

For that reason, humans in the ghost zone can pass through things because they actually exist physically while ghosts, in a sense, do not. Ghosts can interact with “real world items” if they’ve been infected by ectoplasm or such, but purely physical items can’t be touched by them.

The one exception is actually humans. In all situations where a human is actually touched by a ghost or ghostly item in the ghost zone, it’s because they were afraid or they actually wanted to touch the thing (like the floor.) An object like a present has no mind of its own, but humans do. As such, they can touch something if they believe it can touch them.

The Specter Speeder passed through the wall because Tucker was driving, and he was moving so fast that he didn’t have time to fully process that there was a wall there. As such, he just kept going. After that, they believed they’d phase through everything, and they continued to do so. Likewise, when Danny switched to human form, he believed he’d be able to pass through everything (including Walker) because he trusted his friends.

Valerie didn’t know any of that, so when she was in the ghost zone, she believed everything could touch her and it did. In Claw of the Wild, Danny and Sam are more intimidated and have a harder time passing through things.

The reverse is also true. Ghosts can phase through physical objects in the human world because they’re psychological beings. The most physical thing about them is their ectoplasm, and that’s only pseudo-physical. So, if a ghost wants to pass through something or believes they can pass through something, they can and will. Danny has trouble controlling that due to being human as well as a ghost. He has a ghost formed around his being, and so his personality is more complex than a typical ghosts, and the slightest things can result in a change.

This is also why specific weapons are needed to hurt ghosts, and why those weapons also don’t hurt humans. They’re made using ectoplasm and specifically designed to disrupt a ghost’s ectosignature, not to cause actual, physical harm. Ghosts can still “feel” when they’re hurt, due to it technically being a blow to their psyche, but it’s not actually affecting them physically.

Halfas are the exception to this because they are both ghosts and humans. They’re ghosts who do, in fact, have physical forms. It’s a bit inconsistent what weapons can and can’t affect halfas (for example, a halfa in human form can pass through a ghost shield, but isn’t safe from the Specter Deflector), but that’s just related to the design of the weapon. The ghost shield is designed to let physical things through, so a halfa in human form can pass through. On the other hand, the Specter Deflector is designed to harm anything ghostly, so even halfas in human form can be affected.

Similarly, there are some exceptions in the ghost zone, as well. Ghosts like Frostbite are actually biological beings in a sense, and they can interact with “real world items.” Aragon also found a way to be able to interact with “real world items” because he wanted a human bride, and he had to find a way to make sure he could actually trap her. I don’t know enough to explain exactly how he did that, but eh.

I guess a lot of this is related to metaphysics? Again, I know very little about physics, but based on what little I do know, I think it could be. Or at least it has to do with perception of reality.

But yeah. This is really complicated stuff, but they’re my personal headcanons. Hopefully it makes some semblance of sense. Obviously, this is all basically science fiction, but I’ve always viewed DP as partially a science fiction show anyway, so it’s fitting.

With that, I’m done talking about the ghost zone. For now. And I’m almost done talking about Prisoners of Love, too! All that’s left are my posts about Walker and Alicia, and I think I’m gonna save those for later episodes. (Especially Walker.)

For now, I’m heading to bed. It’s late.

#danny phantom #prisoners of love #lore #ghost zone #i feel out of my element talking about this #since i think it's mostly science i made up #and i'm not exactly the best with actual real world science #but eh #i did my best

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