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five-rivers · 1 year

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Fractal

This is set in the Mortified-verse

Patterns repeated themselves. That is why they were called patterns. Two things derived from the same source tended to share similarities, though the method of derivation might be totally different. So it must be with shadows and Phantoms, one group cast, the other, copied.

Yes, technically speaking the lair, Refuge, which the shadows were part of belonged equally to all seven Phantoms, but Danny had existed the longest, had been awake the longest, had the most memories, not counting a certain someone who was ignoring the lair with an intensity that could likely make plants wilt.

(Danny, when he thought about Dan and Refuge in the same moment, thought about the fate of Harmony in that timeline. Had it survived, unknown to Dan, or–?)

The personalities of the other Phantoms were starting to come through, most obviously in the creation of Replica, who was more Ellie's shadow than Danny's, but, to an outside observer, those changes were small, and could easily be dismissed as Danny wanting to accommodate his siblings. Fractal was not an outside observer. He could cite exactly who was influencing what at any given time.

All that to say Fractal was definitely a creation of Danny’s, a facet of his needs. He had been made, largely, to act as a non-threatening interface between the lair and any visitors.

All this to say that, despite the above facts, Fractal felt that he and Dmitri had a lot in common.

They were both somewhat more bookish than Danny presented himself, they were both shy, they were both in a position that required them to interact frequently with others, anyway, they both had eye issues, and they both were on the verge of developing an enmity with the current organizational system of Refuge's library.

Before the shadows were made, the lair had sorted books, and other objects, autonomously. That was not to say the sorting wasn't still autonomous. The shadows were part of Refuge, no matter how easy it was for outsiders to forget that. Sending a shadow to move things was, however, a different process than the one it had employed before.

It was easier, but, with shadows also being called to do other things so frequently, it also took longer. Thus, the library was arranged in the same way it had been since Danny first became aware of it. By color.

This was a terrible way to arrange anything except, perhaps, art supplies. Fractal, who had been assigned most of Refuge's sorting problems, hadn't gotten the chance to deal with it yet.

He had been watching Dmitri flit up and down the rows of bookshelves for about five seconds. He’d been aware of his frustration for much longer.

Steeling himself, Fractal stepped forward–

Right onto the hem of his pants–

Causing him to, once again, plant his face on the floor. It was even the same place! Was there something about this one particular aisle? This bookshelf? The act of stepping out into the open? Was he cursed or something? When would he have been cursed? How? Why? Who?

“Um,” said Dmitri. “Are you alright?”

“Yes!” said Fractal. He sat up. “Yes. I am fine. Are you fine?”

“Yes?” squeaked Dmitri, floating far above Fractal.

“Do you need help finding anything?” pressed Fractal, tapping his fingers together. “Perhaps a book?”

Wisps had started to come down out of the leafy trees that grew from the tops of the bookshelves… Or, from another perspective, the trees whose trunks the bookshelves were carved from. They liked it here, but ever since the wisps as a group had gotten scolded for making Danny incredibly high, they were a little wary of getting close. Which was too bad, really, but in ghost form Dmitri was almost the same size as them, so it was maybe just a bit…

Fractal wouldn’t call it funny, but he was quite sure most of the other Phantoms would. Either that or cute.

Dmitri glared at them, making them chime sadly, and dropped lower.

“I’m trying to find books about places,” he mumbled. “About countries and cities and things.”

“Ah,” said Fractal. “We do have several like that.”

“But I can’t find them. I can’t figure out what the order of this is!” He waved a tiny hand at the shelves.

“There really isn’t one, I’m afraid,” said Fractal, folding his hands in front of him. “They’re arranged by color.”

“Oh, no,” groaned Dmitri. “By color?”

“I can help you find them, though. May I ask what this is for?”

“Don’t you know?” asked Dmitri, tilting his head to one side.

“I can guess,” said Fractal. “But Refuge as a whole is still somewhat more aligned with Danny, and we’ll always be more in tune with subconscious needs than conscious desires.”

Dmitri fidgeted. “Dad - Sojourn - said he wanted to take me on a trip once we’re done regularizing relations with the US, and that I should pick out the places to go, but I don’t know any places.”

Fractal, already cataloging the atlases and travelogs held in the library, nodded. “You’ll mostly want places in the Realms, then,” he said. “At least until we start reaching out to the other countries on Earth.”

“Yes,” said Dmitri. “That would be good.

“Okay,” said Fractal. “I think I’ve found a few books that will be useful to you.” He started to walk away confidently, then remembered his earlier spill and changed his gait to something more cautious. The first book wasn’t far away, and then the next one was… and so many atlases were blue of some variety…

“Does it ever bother you?” asked Dmitri.

“Does what bother me?” asked Fractal. He slid another book from the shelf, and passed it off to a wisp that was trying to make itself useful.

“That you can’t leave. That you’re stuck here.”

“I can understand that it would bother you,” said Fractal, pausing, “but why would it bother me?”

“Because you’re not really just a shadow, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I picked some things up from Danny. You’re based on us physically, too, which means you have a brain, so… Doesn’t that make you a person, too?”

“Hm. Maybe. But even if I do have a brain, it’s function is to be an extension of yours. And,” he added, “I have no intention of pursuing any individuality I might possess. I am a portion of a pattern that is self-similar to the larger, more complete version. That is all.”

“A fractal.”

“I did name myself.” Fractal started walking again. Atlases, atlases…

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t. It doesn’t bother me.” He smiled. “After all, I get to travel with you. Let’s find the rest of your books.”

#danny phantom #dannymay 2023 day 4: fractals #dannymay 2023 #dannymay

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aprocessionofthoughts · 1 year

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just a frost covered duck

fractals

also inspired by Batburger by ciell-noire

@noir-renard

#dannymay2023 #day 4 #danny phantom #danny fenton #dp fanart #dp #fanart #fractals #dc x dp #red floating duck candle

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tanglepelt · 1 year

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I had zero ideas about what to do for fractals.

#danny fenton #danny phantom #dannymay2023 #day 4 #fractals #i stole a image for refrence from a wiki on how the sleep in class #mr lancer #fanart #phanart #he’s tired #let him sleep #mr lancer looked odd #i did trace the fractals #cause those are weird #still don’t understand them

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lexosaurus · 1 year

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Amnesia Chapter 2

Decided to continue this for the Dannymay prompt: Fractals

Title: Amnesia WC: 3849 Summary: Phantom didn't remember who he was before. One day, he just woke up here, and this is where he's been ever since.

[ao3] [chapter 1]

****

It was called Earth.

That, Phantom—no, Danny learned, was where the Human Realm existed. It was in a doorway between Skulker’s island and Ember’s house. When Danny closed his eyes, he could picture the door, having burned in his memory the feeling of raw energy emitting from the gap between its hinges.

He also learned a lot of other things. Like, that he had parents. Two of them, in fact. One was named Maddie, and one was named Jack. Apparently, Sam and Tucker weren’t allowed to use their spaceship—no, the Spectre Speeder—but they hardly seemed angry about this.

Maddie was gentle when she touched him as if she couldn’t believe he was real. She cupped his face, her fingers gently rubbing his cheeks before tears welled in her eyes. She pulled him in close, and her suit smelled like burnt lime.

His father, Jack, was much different. He was a huge man with a personality to match. He slapped Danny’s shoulder, nearly sending him flying, and barked a loud, “Danno! Atta boy! Knew those ghosts couldn’t keep you down!”

Danny couldn’t help but notice that his hazmat suit was the same style as theirs. But when he showed them, his aura twinkling with excitement as he changed forms, instead of returning his glee, their eyes tightened and their smiles seemed strained.

His sister—he had a sister—told him to give them time. They had been through a lot. They weren’t used to seeing their son this way (what way?). They never expected him to…

Her voice trailed off after that. Phantom tried to peer past her thin face and set jaw, past her teal eyes to figure out what? They never expected their son to what?

But she just looked away, her thin brows tight, before her expression melted into something far more gentle. She patted his shoulder and said, “Glad to have you back, little brother.”

Phantom switched back to Danny and he noticed the tension in the room release. Maybe they just weren’t used to seeing him as a ghost, like he hadn’t been used to seeing humans in the Infinite Realms. Yes, that must have been it!

When he saw his bedroom for the first time, it was hard to not jump with glee. The NASA posters! Model rockets! Star constellations on the ceiling!

He wasn’t sure if he remembered this room—he thought he might have—but even so, he knew it couldn’t be anyone else’s except his. It was perfect. Exactly what he could have dreamed.

“You know what NASA is?” Tucker had asked after Danny pointed out the decor.

“Of course!” Danny responded, walking up to the poster. “This was Apollo 11! It was the first rocket to bring astronauts to the moon. And this one—” he jabbed his finger at the one next to it “—is Explorer 1! It’s a satellite NASA launched that started the space race.”

His friends exchanged a glance.

“Do you know what Doomed is?” Tucker asked after a beat of silence.

Danny tilted his head. He tried to think…

“No, I don’t think so,” he said.

“Ah. Got it.”

Sam showed him all sorts of things on Earth. And Danny was surprised at all the similarities to the Ghost Zone—that’s what Sam and Tucker called the Infinite Realms. The plants were nearly identical, albeit a bit less green and glowy on Earth. Earth had liquids like water. It was clear, and it ran out of taps and faucets. Earth also had its own form of energy. While the Ghost Zone used ectoplasm as energy, Earth had electricity.

Danny vaguely remembered electricity. But, he couldn’t exactly place where.

“The portal,” Tucker answered, taking a bite of his sandwich. Apparently, this was an important food item that Danny needed to learn how to make.

“Portal…” Danny stared down at the mess of mayo on his bread. He hadn’t shaken the bottle enough before he squeezed, apparently.

The mood of the room turned awkward. Danny looked up, confused, to see everyone’s eyes avoiding him.

“What portal?” Danny asked.

“It’s how you were separated from us, son,” Jack answered. He walked around the counter, putting a heavy hand on Danny’s back. “The one in the basement. But don’t worry. We have you back here now.”

Danny closed his eyes, trying to remember. Some ghosts remembered their deaths, he was told. But he didn’t. Just like how he didn’t remember what a sandwich was, or a computer, or how he was supposed to shake the bottle of mayo before squeezing it onto his bread.

He remembered…a flash of green?

Fire in his bones?

His head hurt. He put the knife down on the counter and rubbed his chest with his palm. He had never been in his human form for so long before, and the warmth must have been throwing him off. His core was still there. He could feel the faint chill whispering to his hand. But it was dormant, under the tutelage of his human heart right now.

“It’s okay, Danny,” Jack said. “Take your time.”

He looked around for Maddie, but she was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t sure why that filled him with a sense of unease.

“Where’s my—um, where’s Mom?” Danny asked. It felt strange to call her that after so long of not having a family.

“In the basement working on something.” There was that strained smile again from Jack. “I’m gonna go check on her, actually. You kids have fun!”

Danny watched him exit the kitchen and cross the barrier to the basement. Just beyond that staircase was the portal back to the Infinite Realms. It was so close now. He wondered how he’d gotten so lost there, unable to find this door home.

Home. The word gave him a nice tingling under his skin.

“Here, let me finish this,” Sam said, pulling his mess of a sandwich over to her. “I don’t normally condone someone eating meat, but I know you like it. Do you want one or two slices of turkey on yours, Danny?”

Danny wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things anymore.

“Put two on,” Jazz said. “He could use it.”

“You’ll probably be able to go to school with us,” Sam said.

Tucker grinned at him. “It’s been lame without you, dude.”

“Lame?” Danny couldn’t imagine a building with other human teenagers as ever being lame. Sam and Tucker seemed great! He was sure the other humans were just as fun.

“Ever since Sam moved up to honors English, I’ve been stuck in the lower level by myself. So rude of you to abandon me there, by the way.”

“Sorry,” Danny said, unsure if he was supposed to be sorry or not. He didn’t even know what honors English was.

“It’s okay, now you’ll be back with me.” Tucker froze, sharp eyes flickering over to Danny for a moment. “I mean, hopefully, you will be. You’ve been missing for a little while…”

“How long?” Danny finally asked the question he’d been burning to say since he got here.

The room was silent. Jazz ducked down, her hair shading her eyes from view.

“How long was I away for?”

“Nine months. Give or take.”

His stomach felt weirdly hollow at that. “Oh.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what answer he was expecting. For some reason, it had felt like years he was drifting around the Infinite Realms, yet it was just a handful of months?

Maybe time worked differently in the Human World than it did in the Ghost Zone.

Sam and Tucker eventually had to leave. They said that humans lived with their own families in their own homes. This made sense to Danny, who remarked that it worked the same for ghosts too.

His parents had seemed surprised at this. They didn’t know that ghosts had families. And they mostly don’t—at least, not in the same way that humans seemed to have them—but communities living on the same islands or behind the same doors were common.

“Islands?” Jack asked. “Ghosts live on those things?”

“Remember, hun? The probe we sent into the Ghost Zone got some photos of a castle on one of the islands.”

Jack snapped his fingers. “Of course!”

They sat down for dinner, and despite Danny initially explaining how he’d eaten a few hours ago, his stomach growled at the smell of the food.

Danny put his hand on his stomach, surprised. “I must need more food on Earth than I do in the Infinite Realms.”

Jack gave his back a hearty slap again. “Don’t worry, Danno! We’ll get your body all regulated in no time!”

Jazz handed him a plate with human food on it. It looked familiar, as most things he’d seen so far had, but when he tried to dig deep into the holes of his brain and pick out what this was, he drew a blank.

But whatever it was, it was delicious. He munched on his slice as Jazz had called it, his mouth letting out a happy hum. The food was warm, a rarity for food in the Infinite Realms, and both sweet and savory.

“What’s this called again?” Danny asked. “We don’t have it in the Infinite Realms.”

There was Maddie’s tight smile again. “It’s pizza, sweetie.”

“Pizza’s awesome!” Danny said with a bright tone that was perhaps exaggerating how grateful he was for the delicious meal because he didn’t understand why Maddie and Jack were giving each other side glances right now and wasn’t he mirroring them correctly? Wasn’t he doing this human thing right?

His parents told him the police would want to talk to him, and he got nervous thinking of all the times Walker wanted to “talk” to him for being a “worldly being.” His parents looked concerned at this and reminded him that things were different here, that ghosts weren’t allowed here.

And so he scrunched his eyebrows as he’d done for the dozenth time that day and frowned into his plate because wasn’t he a ghost too?

That night was cloudy.

“I thought we were supposed to be able to see the stars, Jazz,” Danny said, looking out his bedroom window. His family had brought him up here after dinner to change into what they called pajamas, which Jazz explained were softer clothes they wore to bed.

Danny remembered pajamas. There was a ghost that wore them too.

The one ghost that tried to talk to Phantom, that ironically Phantom couldn’t stand.

Jazz patted his shoulder. “Tomorrow night, maybe.”

“Ugh. I can’t wait till tomorrow! Maybe I can just go fly up there. How high up do the clouds go, do you think?”

“Too high,” Jazz said. “You’ll get hurt if you try. Please, stay here with me. We can watch some TV for a while, okay?”

Jazz looked at him like she was terrified he might disappear, and Danny froze, his eyes flickering between his sister and the sky.

He really wanted to see the stars…

“Please, Danny?” Her voice was small, and she gripped his arm. “Can we just hang out again?”

Danny didn’t know what she meant, he couldn’t remember hanging out with her before, but he still gave her his best smile and a, “Sure!”

He followed her to the living room despite the fact that the trees in the living room blocked his view of the sky and damn he wanted to go outside. But perhaps Jazz could see how he was squirming on the worn sofa because she put on a movie about NASA and suddenly, the outside didn’t seem so important after all.

“Are you tired?” she asked when the movie ended.

Yeah. He was tired, actually. And it felt heavy and weird in his human body.

And so, for the first time since he could remember, Danny Fenton (he was a Fenton now!) slept on a bed.

A real bed.

Like the other humans.

The next day, Danny’s parents brought him outside the house to go to the police station. The first thing he noticed was the smell of the air. Ectoplasmic atmosphere smelled acidic, while this one smelled fresh.

Jazz told him it was from the grass. The green grass.

Apparently, there was no ectoplasm in that grass.

“That’s sort of strange, isn’t it?” Danny asked.

“What’s strange?” Jack asked. “You mean, ghosts?”

Maddie elbowed him, and then Jack’s eyes went wide and he gave a nervous glance down at Danny, whose eyebrows were furrowed again because were ghosts really that strange?

Was he strange?

Was he allowed to be here?

Would the other humans accept him for having a ghost half?

It turned out that the Infinite Realms and Earth had more in common than they had differences in that regard.

The investigator’s mustache twitched as he stared at Danny, who squirmed under his gaze. He fell through a portal—not his parents’ portal, just a portal—and was lost in the Ghost Zone. His parents, not Sam and Tucker, found him and brought him back home. His parents suspected a ghost had meddled with his mind, resulting in amnesia, but no one could say for certain.

And most importantly, he was human. All human. He was so human, in fact, that he was told to not even bring this topic up. Because it would only look suspicious. A real human wouldn’t need to point this out, Danny, so don’t say a word.

How was Danny able to survive in the Ghost Zone?

He got lucky, landing on an island with its own atmosphere. It had oxygen.

Danny glanced outside. The sky was blue here, not like the Infinite Realms where the backdrop of the horizon was black. That was, unless the area was rich with ectoplasm, in which case it was green.

Did Danny interact with any ghosts while in the Ghost Zone?

He tried. They ignored him.

He liked that he didn’t have to lie about this one.

Did he remember anything that happened before?

No.

He didn’t like that he didn’t have to lie about this one.

He wished he could remember. Maybe then he would understand why he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about his ghost side. How he fell through the portal. Why the only thing he remembered was space.

Space.

The thought made Danny shiver in excitement, and he looked up at the detective, grinning. “I remember a lot of things, actually! Like how Sputnik 1 was the first satellite placed in orbit! Or…about exoplanets! Like, oh! Like Kepler 16b! It’s an exoplanet that orbits two different stars.”

He sat back, pleased with himself for recalling this. The whispers of space, space, space kissed his skin where his aura would have been.

The detective’s eyebrows shot up, and his twitchy mustache fell suddenly still. He ran a hand over his wrinkled forehead before checking his notes again.

Danny frowned. The detective didn’t seem nearly as impressed with this information as Danny thought he would have been.

You don’t remember your parents? Your friends?

No, he did not.

But you remember all these random facts?

Not random facts. They were all about space.

Danny made sure to stress this information. Space was important, he was certain of it. If it weren’t so very important, then why was that the only thing he remembered? Even over his parents? Sam and Tucker? Jazz?

The investigator stood up, apologized, and swiftly left the room.

Danny drew on the table with invisible ink and his finger as a pen. Stars, planets. He traced Capricorn, and then Scorpius. It was nice, the familiarity. He didn’t like the blinding lights overhead—why was this world so bright—and he didn’t understand this world’s obsession with computers and secrets and hiding things. He kept looking out expecting green and instead getting blue sky or white ceilings. He didn’t understand why the investigator didn’t like his answer about space.

Humans were so confusing. Why were they so confusing? He came here to get answers, and now he was only left with more questions.

The door opened again, and the detective was back. He brought Danny out to his parents, who engulfed him immediately with their arms. He went in the car and they said he did a “great job” and said not to worry about the “slip up” because he had been through a lot, he was confused, they would take care of it.

Danny felt his brows furrow as he stared at the passing cars. Slip up?

He didn’t remember turning into his ghost form.

He wondered what they meant by that. But, just like he’d always done in the Infinite Realms, he kept his mouth shut. Stared out the window. Mhm-ed and uhu-ed at their rambling.

That night, he stared up at the stars. He had changed back into his ghost form—his family had gone to sleep already, so there was no need to worry about making them tense again. He cupped his hands, eyeing through his palms like they were a telescope. Through his fingers, he could see the tiny pinpricks of stars spreading like fractals across the night sky.

He dropped his hand—his aura was getting in the way—and the fractals grew bigger, broader. They stretched into the horizon, glowing pinpricks of hot white, red, blue, green. The Milky Way airbrushed the sky, adding contrast to the twinkling background.

His own aura responded in kind, letting its own stars and planets out.

This. This.

This was stunning.

Perfect.

This was everything.

No matter how confusing the day had been, this made up for it. Being here, in the human world, finally able to see the one thing he’d always dreamt of.

And the world was perfect for it. Dark. Like the Infinite Realms, actually. But a bit less green.

He was lost in the view, soaking in every inch of the sky before him. He felt something wet drip on his cheek, and he ignored it, swallowing the lump that threatened his throat.

“Danny?” a voice sounded from behind him.

The lump vanished, and he hurriedly wiped the tears off his cheek. It was bad to be emotional in front of other ghosts, and he assumed it was the same for humans, judging by his innate reflex.

He turned around and nearly dropped through the ceiling. Poking her head out the window was Jazz, dressed in her blue pajamas, wiping her own fatigue out of her eyes.

And then Danny realized, perhaps too late, that he was not Danny, he was Phantom. And he remembered how his family felt uncomfortable around Phantom.

He hardly had to think before the reflex was triggered, transforming him back into Danny. Jazz frowned, but didn’t comment on his appearance otherwise.

Why had she frowned, though? Was she upset that he had been Phantom when she saw him? He just wouldn’t do that anymore. Well, he said he wasn’t going to do that before, and yet he had been Phantom in front of her anyway. Only for a brief moment, but still. He just got to the human world. He didn’t want everyone to drive him off into his own isolation here like in the Infinite Realms.

To now-Danny’s dismay, she hoisted herself over through the window with clumsy motions and began half-walking-half-crawling over to him.

He squirmed. Space was right there and he was suppressing his core. He didn’t like this feeling. He didn’t like having to hold back his ghost form when the object of all his desire was all around him for the first time in—as far as he remembered—ever.

She sat down next to him, and he scootched to the side. Humans were much more contact-heavy than ghosts were. And they were warm. It was so alien to Danny, so confusing.

“Stargazing?” she finally said after too long of a silence.

Danny wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to answer yes or no. All the other humans today seemed to get awkward when he talked about space.

So he shrugged.

The fractals in the stars were sort of like the fractals in humans. Confusing pattern after confusing pattern. Limitless, neverending. Unsaid questions repeating over and over.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Jazz said.

Danny had never had anyone to talk to. No one except the blob ghosts that floated around the ectoplasmic ponds in the Infinite Realms.

He wondered if he could ask Jack and Maddie if he could bring some over here. But then he dispelled that idea immediately because, according to them, ghosts weren’t even allowed on Earth.

So instead, he asked her, “Did I talk to you a lot before?”

She took a moment before she opened her mouth again. “When we were kids, you used to talk to me about everything. Even space.”

That piqued Danny’s interest. “I liked space when I was a kid?”

Jazz laughed, her voice soft like the puttering of rockets. “Oh, you loved space. Mom and Dad used to send you to a space explorer summer camp every year. That’s where you made that model rocket, you know.”

Danny smiled, turning his attention up to the flickering lights. “I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.”

He wasn’t sure where that came from.

Judging by Jazz’s little ‘o’ shaped mouth, she was just as surprised that he remembered this as she was.

“I think…I think I’d still like to try to be one now if you guys will let me stay here?”

He held his breath. That question just spilled out, and now his chest was tight, and anxiety was creeping up his spine.

Danny was Danny, but he was also Phantom. And Phantom wasn’t welcome on Earth, according to everything he’d learned over the past two days. Just like how Danny wasn’t welcome in the Infinite Realms.

But he really wanted to be welcome somewhere.

“Oh, Danny.” Jazz looked heartbroken, and guilt clawed at Danny’s stomach.

Because here it was going to come. She was going to tell him that he wasn’t welcome here. He was a ghost, and ghosts shouldn’t be here. They should stay in the Ghost Zone with the other ghosts.

Because that’s what everyone always said.

But instead, what spilled out of her was different.

“Danny, of course you should stay. You’re family. It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember us, or if you’re different now. I don’t care. You’re my brother, okay?”

She held out her arms, and despite the strange feeling that contact still gave him, he closed the gap between them, wrapping his arms around her.

“Thanks, Jazz.”

She squeezed him gently, still treating him like something that would disappear at a moment’s notice.

“Please don’t run off. I mean it,” she whispered.

“Okay,” he said.

And he meant it. Despite the stress and confusion of the day, this was the first time that Danny could remember where anyone wanted him. Liked him. Wanted to be around him and hug him and talk to him.

Now that he’d had a taste for it, he never wanted to let it go.

Home.

Maybe…maybe he was finally there.

#danny phantom #phicc #my writing #dannymay2023 #fractals #amnesia

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papiliomame · 1 year

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Dannymay Day 4: Fractals

Ok that's a rather boring one, but I have no idea how mathemathical patterns can be combined with DP in a meaningful way.

(Maybe the scene in the show where Danny became a fractal himself with his failed duplication attempts but let's save the body horror for ectober)

So here is just a growing and shrinking fractal which reveals... something...

#dannymay2023 #day 4 #fractals #danny phantom #my animation #my art #blender #I'm not happy with it #but I can't see it anymore #too much math

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saurixx · 1 year

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#dannymay2023 #dannymay day 4 #fractal #dp #danny phantom #fanart #danny fenton

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underforeversgrace · 1 year

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shatter my soul (I don't want it anymore)

DannyMay 2023 Day 4: Fractal

title: shatter my soul (I don't want it anymore)

words: 1160

Complete

Warnings: Major Character Death, Implied Violence

~~~

In that moment, Danny felt like he’d been torn apart molecule by molecule, that his family had finally made good on their threats.

As sick as it was, he thinks he’d prefer that to real life right now. He’d rather be under his mother’s scalpel and his father’s saw.

Because then that meant they were here. They lived. And he’d suffer a thousand times to make sure his family and friends lived, to bring them back. He’d go back in the portal and die again and again if it saved the people he loved.

But as he knelt in front of the ruins of the Nasty Burger, as he remembered the blast and the smell of singed hair and flesh, he knew it was impossible, a wish even Desiree couldn’t grant. Even she couldn’t bring back the dead.

Danny heard the sounds of the fire department, of the police, but they sounded so far away, his head stuffed so full of cotton everything was dull to his ears. He vaguely acknowledged when someone helped him stand and looked him over for injuries.

Later, they told him what he already knew. His family and his friends, lost in a freak accident. They asked him if he had any family, anywhere he could go.

He didn’t remember asking for Vlad, but he knew he did. Alicia couldn’t understand, would never understand.

Vlad handled funeral arrangements. He managed to be a decent person the whole time, actually appearing somber at the situation. He never made a quip about Jack or if he did, he didn’t do it in Danny’s earshot. Danny would never forget the conversation, though, with the funeral home director.

There were no bodies for any of his family, after all. They didn’t need a coffin.

They’d been blown into as many pieces as Danny’s soul had been.

~~~~~~

Time slipped and swerved around him, stagnant as he was. The pain was awful, it was all he ever felt. He began venturing into the Zone on his own, now the one seeking a fight instead of the one having to defend against an onslaught he had done nothing to deserve. He hoped he would lose a battle. That Skulker would slice too deep. That Technus would electrocute him to death. That one would be ironic, wouldn’t it? Killed twice by pure energy.

Vlad tried, he really did. Stopped calling him Daniel, son, little badger. He was more concerned with trying to get Danny to eat, with having to patch up the wounds Danny let freely bleed because the child simply didn’t care.

Weeks passed like this. Danny had never wished so fiercely to be weaker than he was. His ghostly Need to exist prevented him from throwing fights - against himself or anyone else. But all he wanted was peace. He wanted freedom from the agony in his chest, from the pit that kept gnawing deeper into his stomach, the fracture in his very being that just grew with every day.

He wanted his sister, his mom, his dad.

The girl he thought he’d spend forever with and the boy he expected to be forever at his side.

He wanted them more than anything. But he couldn’t have them ever again.

They’d been blown into as many pieces as Danny’s soul had been.

~~~~~~

It was a last ditch effort. He wasn’t sure who came up with it - him or Vlad. Who decided to try to separate him from his pain - to lock the agony away in a deep hole that rivaled Pariah Dark’s. But Danny simply didn’t care anymore. He didn’t have the strength. As strong as people thought he was, he wasn’t. He was just a tired orphan who dreamt of his loved one’s death every night, who had not slept longer than an hour in a month.

Danny didn’t know how this was going to work and he didn’t care. There was no existence more painful than what he currently suffered. Maybe he’d finally have one peace and quiet, a reprieve from the demons in his mind that spoke with his parents’ voices. It was only their voices, never the other three. Probably because even now, he couldn’t imagine any of them saying these words to him.

But his parents had said plenty and enough of it sounded like what the monsters in his head spoke that it grew harder to ignore. That he was to blame. That if he had just died properly, they’d still be alive. That if he hadn’t been such a useless child playing hero, maybe he could’ve gotten to them in time, gotten them to safety.

Even now, his mother’s last words to him echoed in his head cruelly. “The people will cheer when I get you on that table!”

It wasn’t any worse than anything else she’d said. But that was the last thing he’d ever heard from her.

He couldn’t remember his father’s last words to him. He didn’t know if that was better or worse - that he couldn’t remember his father damning him again or that he had paid so little attention to them before they died. Before they’d been buried in an urn. The reminder of what had happened.

They’d been blown into as many pieces as Danny’s soul had been.

~~~~~~

Power.

Pure, intoxicating power. As he awoke, the feeling of knives in his chest, power was all he knew. And he found he didn’t mind that. It was better than whatever he had left behind. He couldn’t remember just then what exactly he’d felt before. But now he felt perfect and he never wanted to feel anything less again.

He laughed, eyeing the man in front of him with a deranged grin on his face. This man had power, though he couldn’t remember who this man was. But he wanted that power, he craved it like a drug.

The knives that he’d awoken to in his chest worked just as well ripping the other ghost from its fleshy prison before he absorbed it into himself, disintegrating the consciousness in it to replace with his own.

He needed to hurt this man. He needed to prove he had the power.

A whimper behind him got his attention and he snarled as he turned, seeing a lanky teenager with black hair and fear in his blue eyes shaking with terror against the wall.

At his human face, Dan remembered. He remembered what he’d lost. Anger replaced where hurt used to be within him. This was that stupid child’s fault. And he needed to pay. He almost realized it was his mind fracturing into a thousand pieces as he did it, though it wasn’t unpleasant. He threw away all the shards with pain in them. As far as his old human body, though…

Dan made sure it hurt, not the quick, painless death everyone he loved had suffered.

Danny was ripped into as many pieces as his family and friends had been blown into.

#grace writes #danny phantom #dannymay2023 #Dannymay day 4 #Fractal #Danny has a Bad Time #Mind the warnings

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