#in fact i have been getting into. fucking danny phantom of all things recently for some reason???

[lexosaurus]

Hey, Lexx! Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💜

LEXIE THIS IS SO CUTE!

Okay I couldn't narrow it down so I'm adding a 6th fic akjnsdfksjnd. So here's my top 6 fics with some commentary because I'm extra af:

1: Everything Was White: After being accidentally revealed to the public and taken away by the government, Danny deals with the aftermath of his time with the GIW.

Yeah, this won't come as a surprise to many. This VERY angsty longfic sorta marked a turning point for me where I started taking writing more seriously, really looking at plot structures, doing research, interacting with other writers. I went into this with "I'll just do a twoshot cuz I suck and I'm not capable of writing much more," and seeing how far I've come in skill and confidence has honestly kept me totally enamored with this fic. I love that I can see my improvement as the fic's gone on. I've gone back and cleaned up the early chapters, and I can still see a distinct difference. Makes me very happy!

2: Morge: It was a beautiful day outside. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming...a corpse was found in the woods.

This was my first Invisobang fic and also my first (and only? so far?) Outsider POV fic. I loved exploring the perspectives of Amity Park and Phantom from somewhat regular people who don't know much about ghosts. And, of course, writing Danny slowly losing it as the fic went on was a great bonus!

3: Transformation Troubles: A hit from one of Skulker's weapons leaves Danny temporarily unable to transform out of his ghost form. Unfortunately for him, he still has classes to attend.

This fic is just a vibe, honestly. It's a "guilty pleasure" category of DP fics that are few and far between (glitching powers, still has to go to class) but I absolutely inhale any chance I get to read one. College AU, post-reveal MY BELOVED real tea y'all. This basically came from me wanting a niche thing and going, "Fine, I'll write it myself!!"

4: and then he woke up: In his dreams, he woke up in his cell again.

This oneshot is similar to EWW where it's my take on what a realistic GIW recovery might look like. Aka, Danny Has A Bad Time. It's a very sad hurt/comfort fic, but I think it also represents a "level up" in my descriptions and pacing that I've been trying to employ more in recent fics.

5: Black and White Roses: When he died, he didn't get a memorial service. He didn't get the vigil, the flowers, the headstone. In fact, no one even found his body.

Dude idk man I just really love Valerie and Phantom's dynamic. Also, thought it'd be really interesting to write a full ghost AU fic, which it was, because as I was writing it I realized like hey, he'd have a corpse, and corpses are kinda freaky aren't they? Like how would you react if ur ghost friend was like "Hey yeah my corpse is over there." That'd be fucking nuts.

6: Birthmark: “No, it’s…” He trailed off, rubbing a hand over his face. His eyebrows were pinched and he looked almost sick. When he finally spoke, his voice was small. “They’re not tattoos.”

Lichtenberg HC my beloveddddd seriously I love it so much I am SO normal about it. That and Phantom and Valerie becoming friends fics. Literally so fucking normal guys. Just trust me bro.

Yeah 5 and 6 are so similar so I couldn't pick between them hahaha. But this is my current top fave fics!

I'm also REALLY excited to release all the stuff that I've been working on the past year this fall. Not tryna gas myself up here but I've been sitting on so much stuff since last NaNo and I'm just ahhhhh!

#danny phantom #ask #my writing #phiccs #fic recs

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children: Redux | VIII. A Synonym of Madness

A DPxDC crossover // Read on [AO3} or [FFN.net]

← Previous Chapter // MASTERPOST // Next Chapter →

◆◆◆

Two Years Ago…

Endurance training lasted three months, and at the very end of it their twenty-person cohort was reduced to ten. Dusan said that he must have been going soft. 

If that was ‘soft’ then Danny shuddered to think what Dusan’s ruthlessness looked like. 

Phase Two of their training was…different. For one, instead of the familiar base of Infinity Island, now Danny’s cohort was transplanted to some desert. For another, the expectations and demands placed upon them fundamentally increased compared to the three months of endurance training they had. 

But all the same, the training was grueling, the sun was hot, and sand got absolutely everywhere. 

Oh. Can’t forget about the chores either.

Henri looked up from the whetstone, disbelief spreading across his face. “You were going to…quit?”

“Well, yeah?” Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean— I’m not now . I’ve come too far to quit now, but back then? I was about ready to quit by week two .” He sighed, leaning his head back against the cool stone wall. “You had to admit that I wasn’t cut out for it back then. Hell, even now, I still don’t think I am.”

Henri shook his head, the dagger ringing in his hand as he glided it against the whetstone. “I envy you, Danny. You must’ve had a pretty good life before coming here.”

It’s because he came here that Danny had a life. But Henri wasn’t supposed to know about that. “What makes you say that?”

Henri scoffed. “Well—” He lifted his knife, meticulously inspecting the edge before flipping it around to start sharpening the other side. “Just look around you. The other novices? The people you’ve trained with? None of them are even going to think of dropping out just because the training’s tough as shit.”

“I’m not a math guy but statistically I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.”

“You’re not taking into account the human factor, that’s why. You know, the majority of the people who get picked up for this are orphans, or runaways, or people who just got dealt the—uh, how does the saying go again? Short end of the stick? Yeah, short end of the stick one too many times.”  

Henri paused. “You know Niki?”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Week Five. Brown hair, short, has more faces than fingers, a really strong kick.”

It was the kick that unlocked the memory, strangely enough. After his first month of endurance training, Dusan came in with a woman—a recently graduated apprentice—and had her spar with the best person in their cohort: a guy named Amir. Danny didn’t know him very well—in fact he disliked the majority of the people in his cohort—but that didn’t stop him from audibly wincing when he witnessed Niki kick Amir’s back so hard she dislocated both of his shoulders. He was in the infirmary for weeks and got set back in months of training after, so Danny heard.

Seeing Danny’s expression, Henri laughed. “Yeah, that Niki. Before she came here, she used to be an addict. Got kicked onto the streets and spent a whole year doing whatever she could chasing her next high. Got into a fuck ton of trouble too. The League took her off the streets, cleaned her up, and gave her a new life. Last I heard, she’s posing as the date to some fancy Greek diplomat in Monaco.”

“How do you even know all this?”

“Maybe if you stopped being a kissass and actually made friends with the others, you’d know these things.”

Danny threw the rag he was using to wipe a knife at Henri’s head. “A kissass— well fuck you too.” Then, grumbling under his breath, “It’s not my fault that they don’t like me.”

“Yes, yes,” Henri placated, throwing the rag back. “Poor little Danyal, stuck being Mentor’s favorite.” He flicked his auburn hair. “Good thing I’m around to keep all the mean kids away.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “What ever would I do without you.”

“Starve, probably.” Henri cleaned off the knife. “But I digress. You see, out there—” he jerked his chin towards the open window, and beyond it the wide expanse of sand and shrubs and rock “ —we have nothing. A life in the slums, of being treated less than dirt. We are leeches. Vagrants. Eyesores. But here? Here, Ra’s al Ghul gives us food and clothes and a roof over our heads. Here he gives us purpose. A meaning to our lives.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

Henri’s smile was dark with contempt. “Paris may be the city of lights, but that only means it casts larger shadows.” 

The metal door that guarded the armory groaned open. A welcome interruption considering that Danny didn’t know how he was going to respond to Henri’s insight. 

Or…not.

“Oi!” Owens banged his fist twice on the side of the door before leaning up against it. His relaxed figure contrasted against the annoyance that scrunched his face. “Ugh, you guys aren’t even halfway done yet?”

Danny rolled his eyes. “We just started an hour ago.”

Owens—and no one really knew if that was his first name, last name, or even real name—was the youngest member of their cohort after Danny. He was a six-foot tall pillar of jackassery, and at sixteen, would probably grow even taller in time. His skin was tanned and covered with bursts of freckles over his face and arms from long, grueling hours in the sun. Owens always seemed to be sporting a scowl whenever Danny saw him. Or maybe Owens simply had that ‘recently sucked on a sour lemon face.’ Who could say?

He clicked his tongue, crossing the room to snatch the cloth Danny was using to wipe down the sword in his lap. “Shove off, loser.”

Danny held firm against Owens’ foot pushing him away. “Hey, what gives?”

“Mentor ordered for you to be ‘summoned to the east compound’ so I have to take over doing your shit,” he grumbled.

Henri narrowed his eyes, the knife in his hands taking on a dangerous glint. 

Owens just scoffed, raking a hand through his hair. “Don’t even try to start shit, Henri. Remember what happened to the last trainee that tried to murder someone without permission?”

Danny grimaced. The incident itself happened within a different cohort, but stories had a way of circulating. Rumor had it that one of the trainees tried to gain favor with their instructor by eliminating another member of their cohort. Drowned them on the beach and didn’t do a good enough job at hiding the body. The trainee was found out very quickly—there were eyes everywhere on the island after all—and summarily punished. Though exactly what the punishment was, no one except those in the cohort knew; the only thing known for certain was that no one would ever make the same mistake again.

Henri huffed, resuming his maintenance with a serene grace. “I have no idea what you’re implying.”

“As long as you keep to your side, I’ll keep mine.” Owens said. He shot Danny a glare. “What the hell are you still doing here?”

Danny stuck his tongue out at him. “Don’t have to be so rude about it, jeez.” He got up, said goodbye to Henri, and headed off to the east compound. 

The building was, thankfully, only a short walk from the armory. It was a giant, boxy building with dark-tinted windows, that sat near the edge of the jungle and bordered the sharp cliffs of the island. One of the Shadow-people—official members of the League—intercepted him at the door, leading him through a series of winding hallways until they arrived at a large room on the far-end of the building. 

The room wasn’t lavishly decorated by any means, but it lacked the foreboding utilitarianism of the rest of the island. Not homey or welcoming, but more…warm, somehow. Human. There were couches and chaise lounges, beautifully carved tables, bookshelves, potted plants, and dark green curtains. At the end of the room were glass doors that opened into a balcony that overlooked the sea.

And there, stood in the middle, with a smile that made his core hum, was her.

“Talia,” he breathed, as if the very name was sacred. His core fluttered, barely biting back the word it wished to call her. Too shy despite its eagerness. Mother , it whispered. Mother-mother-mother.

◆◆◆

The first time Talia parted with her son, mere moments after his birth,  it was more out of necessity than any true desire to do so. Her father needed the aid of the Batman against an old enemy. Her mother’s death needed to be avenged. Her beloved needed to be focused on the mission— not be burdened by the weakness of family.

The plan was easy enough to execute. The ambush at their desert HQ was the perfect setting to enact her great performance. Her beloved may be the world’s greatest detective, but Talia had been taught all the ways to craft a lie ever since she could learn to speak. A sudden fainting spell, a conspiratorial request to Dr. Weltman, and silent tears to soak her infirmary pillow were all she needed to fool him. 

Him and her father. 

(But the tears she shed that day were real— even if the reason for them was but a mirage.)

Talia hid her pregnancy for as long as she was able, and when she could no longer hide the swell of her stomach, she fled from the League’s grasp and burrowed herself a hole so deep that no one could possibly find her. She tracked down Dr. Weltman to help Talia give birth and swore her to secrecy. Saw only the downy tufts of dark hair on her infant son’s head, heard his shrieking cries, before bidding Dr. Weltman  to take her son and leave him some place where he could be safe.

Talia never inquired as to where Dr. Weltman took her son. The less she knew, the better for everyone once Talia eventually returned to the League; the prodigal daughter escorted back to be dealt her punishment. Ra’s al Ghul did not take lightly to betrayal, less so from his own kin.

When she conceived Damian, Ra’s made sure to keep a tighter surveillance on her movements.

“The League of Shadows require an heir,” he said, Lazarus green eyes cutting in their gaze. “You have already robbed us of one. This new child will remain here.”

It did not take long for her father to order that the little fetus inside her womb should instead be transferred to an artificial gestation tube. An unfaithful daughter such as her did not deserve to carry the precious heir to the League, after all.

Talia bore all this with grace and a fierce determination to regain her place in the League. All her efforts focused towards gaining the privilege to raise Damian herself.

Damian was such a cute child. A sweet and kind child who squealed in delight at the birds nesting at his window. Who was the balm to her soul. Whose first words were a gurgled mama. Whose aches and hurts she soothed with gentle touches and soft kisses to his black hair. Whose little hands she pressed a wooden training sword into as she taught him all the ways he could cut the life out of a foe.

Then one day Dusan came to the League with tales of a little boy with black hair and too-pale-blue eyes.

The ache in her heart returned with a vengeance.

Talia did not know why her father decided against recovering his lost grandson then and there. Perhaps he thought of Danyal as a lost cause— what potential he had chipped away by years of civilian life and mundane morality. Perhaps he had some grand and masterfully crafted plan for Danyal that required him to stay with the Fentons for as long as Ra’s deemed it fit. Perhaps Ra’s was simply curious. He was an old man, after all; old enough to have seen the patterns of history repeat themselves and know, almost instinctively, which people are destined to become instruments of Fate.

Talia never claimed to know the inner workings of her father’s mind.

When the time finally came that she could claim her eldest son as her own— could finally, finally hold him in her arms and say “yes you are my son” after years of trying to bury his existence in her heart—her elation was short-lived.

It would be Dusan who would train him. 

Dusan who would mold him.

Talia was ordered to sit on the sidelines and turn the other cheek.

And yet… Behold!

Here was her first born, in the flesh. Taller than she last saw him three months ago, and his hair cut shorter and away from his face. His arctic eyes brightened at the sight of her despite the shadows beneath. He stood straighter, broader; stance not necessarily confident but disciplined. He bore but a passing resemblance to that frail little boy in that room of ice.

He spoke. “Talia.” There was a slight quiver in his voice— a cross between elation and desperation—and all Talia could remember was the fasting cries of a baby she never let herself see.

“My son. My habibi.” She closed the distance between them, hands cupping his face. Her thumbs brushed against his cheekbones—could see the smatterings of freckles on his nose. There was a sharpness to his face now. A gauntness that was never there before. “How are you?”

Danyal’s eyes—his father's eyes—crinkled up in a smile. “I’m alright. More than that, now that I got to see you.” He blinked, head cocked to the side. “Why are you here?”

She smiled. “Officially, I am here to deliver you this.” Talia walked back to the table, taking out two opaque white pill bottles. She handed the one with a simple green label on the front to Danny. “After hearing of your condition, Ra’s al Ghul had his people work on a medicine that will, hopefully, supply your ghost half with its needs.”

Danyal twisted open the bottle and shook a few gel capsules onto his hand, the bright green a stark contrast against his skin. “It’s…from the Lazarus pit?”

Talia nodded. “Take these once a day. And these—” she hands him the other bottle with a red label “ —are to help control your cryokinesis whenever your mania has gone out of control. There will be some side effects with this one, so make sure you are somewhere safe if you ever need to use them.”

He clutches both bottles in his hands and lowers his head. “Thank you.”

“Anything for family.” Talia smiled. “Though I will say that while the medicine is the official reason I am here, unofficially I am here for something else.” She beckoned him to come closer. “Come, I want to introduce you to someone, though you must take care to be quiet.”

Talia took him by the hand and led Danyal into an adjoining room. “Do you remember when I told you that I had a son?” A soft four-poster bed sat in the middle, ladened with all manner of pillows, and nestled at its center was a small lump. 

“Come closer,” she whispered to him. Talia sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over the lump, brushing away soft strands of hair to reveal a soft, rounded face, eyes closed in sleep. “This, Danyal, is Damian. He is my youngest son.” 

She turned to look at him. Could see the realization blooming on his face, eyes wide at first in surprise, then understanding, then longing. His mouth was agape in a silent ‘oh.’ “He’s…”

“Yes, my son. This is your brother.”

◆◆◆

“My brother,” Danny whispered. 

Brother-brother-brother, his core echoed.

This small child cocooned in sleep was his little brother.

“I told him about you during our flight here and he was absolutely determined to greet you properly but…” Talia laughed softly, fingers brushing against Damian’s cheek. “However stubborn he may be, he is still seven and prone to exhaustion.”

Danny laughed, instantly enraptured. 

He looks like me, Danny thought. Though the skin was much darker—closer to Talia’s own—and the shape of the eyes a bit different, Damian almost looked like the childhood pictures his mom and dad would frame and decorate the house with. 

“What’s he like?”

“Proud,” Talia said. “He’s been raised as a prince, you see. Stubborn, of course, something he inherited from your father. Very intelligent and very determined and…kind. So very kind and gentle to animals.”

His chest fluttered with warmth. His core hummed. Brother-mine-mother-mine-family-here-us-together.

This-is-how-it-should-be.

Danny’s own eyes never left Damian’s face. “Can you tell me more about him?”

Talia smiled. And for the rest of the afternoon, her voice filled every corner of the chamber with warmth as she regaled Danny with anything and everything about the precious treasure that was Damian al Ghul. Danny listened with rapt attention, mind absorbing every little detail.

The voice in his head that sounded like Jazz spoke. Being a big brother is a lot of responsibility. Can you handle it?

Yes, his core sang. A conviction. A promise. A vow.

Brother-mine-mother-mine-family-mine.

Protect-protect-protect.

Here-us-belong.

◆◆◆

The physicality and discipline they gained during phase one of their training was refined in phase two. The martial skills they were taught were further expanded upon; an entire arsenal of techniques cultivated and developed into the most efficient way to take down any opponent was open to them. “The goal of a fight is to end it,” Dusan instructed. “To make sure your opponent cannot get up and strike you again.” 

Danny’s revitalized ghost half gave him advantage over the rest of his cohort, who were all older and bigger and stronger than he was. A bit of experimentation and he found that he could channel his ghostly energy into his human form to enhance his strikes, increase his speed, or boost his stamina. Though his early spars were mediocre at best, now he was a force to be reckoned with on the training mat.

Stealth was another subject. Dusan taught them the exact way to walk so as to minimize any footsteps. How to hide your tracks. The art of disguise. They were given obstacle courses and staged missions with the objective of getting in and out of a building without being seen or traced. Even without his invisibility or intangibility, Danny passed these tests with flying colors. 

They were taught weapons handling and herbology, first aid and navigation. Languages, too, were on their list. Mandarin and Spanish and Arabic and Hindi and Russian and more, their accents trained so that eventually they’ll be nigh indistinguishable from a native speaker’s. 

They were taught about the mission; the grand purpose of the League of Shadows. They were the great fangs that protected the head, the hands by which to do its bidding. The world was dying, said Ra’s al Ghul. The world had been rotting in a slow and agonizing death because people were too stubborn, too selfish to change their ways. And from the shadows, the League will preserve the world by cutting off the rot , like how a surgeon cuts out a tumor. 

“Rules and order alone will not right the world. Justice cannot be done without whilst staying clean,” Dusan lectured. “To survive in this world, to survive in the League of Shadows, you must have the conviction to dirty your own hands.”

Danny does not believe in the mission. Not wholeheartedly, anyway. What he does believe in is his grandfather’s generosity and his uncle’s solid stature, an ever present anchor against any storm. Believes in Damian’s bright curiosity and his compassion, in the bashful way he’d reach up to hold Danny’s hand in his. Believes in Talia’s healing touch and soft smiles, the warmth of her voice washing over him like a gentle tide. 

Danny believes in the vows written in the names he is called. Grandson. Nephew. Brother. Son. 

Family.

And for that, Danny was willing to do anything. Be anything.

  When Dusan gave him a poisoned cup, Danny drank without hesitation. 

Mithridatism: the practice of building immunity towards poisons made from large organic molecules through gradual administration of non-lethal amounts. In this area, Danny also had a greater advantage over his cohort. Further experimentation showed that his ghost-half naturally detoxifies Danny’s body of any inorganic poisons, metabolizing it into itself and using it as energy.

Ghosts feed off death much the same as how they feed off ectoplasm, though the former seemed to be a less effective energy source according to his parents’ research. Ra’s al Ghul—who personally came to observe how Danny’s two forms intermingled with one another—wanted to test if Danny could also feed off death. Long story short, the answer was Yes.

But only his own.

Not that Danny ever actually died while doing these experiments. Really the only thing that was needed of him is to imbibe enough poison to actually trigger the death aura manually and let Phantom do the work of healing him up. Phantom, you see, cannot let the human-Danny die because then there would be nothing to stabilize Phantom. Instead, Phantom converted whatever ectoplasmic or deathly energy he could get his hands on and pumped it through human-Danny’s system to speed up the recovery process. Danny’s wounds, in a way, were also the source of his extraordinary healing factor. 

Ra’s had theorized a method that would allow Phantom to keep the energy siphoned from the death aura as an extra source of power without harming human-Danny— but it was risky. Simple, but risky. A plan to be used only in the worst case scenario.

Blood Blossom training was the worst of the lot. Staying human was Danny’s only defense against that stupid flower, and even then just being close to the blossom’s sickly sweet scent made his stomach lurch in on itself and his head spin with nausea. But his family expected him to be able to bear it. To work through the repugnant feelings that made his skin prickle and his chest flare with pain and tolerate it. 

Mind over matter.

That’s all it was. 

Control the mind, control the body.

He would not be beaten by this. 

◆◆◆

“Is it just me, or has everyone been really out for me these days?” Danny wiped the sweat matting his forehead with a small towel. Settling the towel around his neck, he leaned his back against the cool concrete walls of the indoor sparring room.

He and Henri were taking a short break a ways away from the rest of the cohort. Some of the others were still sparring on the practice mats, repeating katas over and over to perfection. Dusan with a long wooden rod in hand circled the mat like a hawk, ready to strike at any sign of a mistake and correct with harsh precision. 

Henri poured a bit of his water bottle over his head, soaking his auburn hair. “You just noticed?”

“It’s not like I’ve been here long enough to.” His extra training covering the extent of his ghost powers usually meant that Danny was summoned to practice away from the rest of the cohort. On the bright side, he saw his family more often. Damian even came to a few of his training sessions to observe.

On the down side…well, as much as he didn’t like his cohort, it didn’t mean that he wanted to be an outcast. Mutual dislike was a given, this alienation on the other hand…

Focus. Their opinion of him didn’t matter in the long run. Besides, Danny was used to be an outcast. He never had many friends throughout his life except—

Except…

“Hey, hey!” Henri snapped his fingers in front of Danny’s face. “Earth to Danyal, are you reading me?”

Danny startled. Blinking the ghost of a memory away from his eyes, he smiled. “Copy that, Houston.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“No need to apologize to me, but you better hurry up.” Henri pointed to the imposing form of a League of Shadows member diligently standing at the entrance. They were masked, but Danny could tell from the angle of their head that the Shadow was looking expectantly at him. “It looks like I won’t be seeing you for a while.”

◆◆◆

Ra’s al Ghul carefully snapped the tome shut in his hand. “I have decided that it would be more beneficial for your education to remove you from your cohort.”

Danny’s mind stalled. “What?” 

Ra’s hummed. “You’ve improved in keeping your composure but you still leave yourself far too open. We must work on that.”

He’s frantic. Tongue tied and mouth dry as he tried to phrase the multitude of questions he had into the forced formal speech of the League. “I’m, uh— Sir, may I ask why I’m being removed?” Internally, Danny was flipping through all memories of his performance as a League apprentice. He didn’t see anything he could have done wrong; his marks were always high, Dusan had always praised his hard work, and Danny trained himself into the dirt from dusk till dawn. Why then? Why move him?

“Simple,” Ra’s said. “They are holding you back.”

Seeing the confusion plain on his face, Ra’s continued. “You are leagues ahead of your peers, Danyal. It would make no sense for you to have to stay at their level when you could instead reach farther. It’s also much more efficient, considering you have spent the majority of Phase Two of your training in private lessons.” He steepled his hands atop the heavy wooden desk. “Fear not, you are not completely removed from them. When the time comes, you will join them for the final test.”

The final test. The last hurdle before being welcomed as an official member of the League of Shadows. None of the recruits actually knew what the final test entailed; none of the inducted members would say anything about it, and the only sure piece of rumor they could get about the test from more advanced cohorts was that it had a very low pass rate. The League viewed its recruits as investments, and if they could not fulfill their potential, then they would be discarded.

Ra’s set his book aside and pulled out another one from a stack to his right. The book was small, only a bit bigger than Danny’s hand, with a faded purple cover bound shut by a long leather cord wrapped tightly around it. At Ra’s beckoning hand, Danny moved closer to the desk, hovering awkwardly over Ra’s.

“A recent acquisition,” Ra’s said, slowly unraveling the book with tender care. “It is difficult to find not only authentic, but reliable, books on the supernatural. To differentiate the experts from the charlatans. But these—” gingerly he flipped open the cover, carefully flattening the worn and yellowed pages “—were penned by a member of the foremost occult experts on ghosts. Their research into the infinite realms and its inhabitants have spanned centuries, and the exact depth of their knowledge is incalculable. They’re rather fond of their secrets.”

In thick, bold calligraphy—ink cracking at the edges—the title ‘ AN EXTENSIVE ACCOUNT ON THE NATURE OF GHOSTS AND THE MANIFESTATION OF THEIR PSYCHE’. Then, in neat curling script at the bottom was the signature of Elizabeth Showenhower.

Danny’s memory sparked at the name. “Showenhower?”

“You know of them?”

“I…had a run-in with a Showenhower—a criminal that liked to call himself Freakshow—when I was still in Amity. He ran a circus and had a staff that could mind control ghosts to perform acts and rob banks for him.”

“So they’re still around, then.” Ra’s flipped through the book, summarizing the rumored history of the Showenhower family to Danny. The family was a collector of cursed artifacts and scholars of the antiquated and esoteric, their interests laying solely in the territory of ghosts or ghost-adjacent things. Each member would collect and study and compile their knowledge into various caches of hidden libraries, passing the secrets they learned of the Infinite Realms onto the next generation of Shownehowers who would then repeat the cycle.

A Case Study on the Ghost of Miss Catherine and the Subject of Mania.

Danny wondered if his parents ever came across any books by the Showenhowers and consulted it. They would have poured over the text, reading it cover to cover and analyzing every scrap of information it had to offer. Did they even know about the Showenhowers? Wonder what they would think about all of the alchemy in their books. Some part of Danny believed that, as scientists, his parents would scoff at the idea of magic. But then again…his parents did build their entire career on proving the existence of and then studying a creature that many believed didn’t exist, so maybe they’d eat up the magic part, too.

“Ah, here we are.” Ra’s settled on a page and flipped the book over to Danny. “I feel that you will find this section quite interesting.”

Mania. The ice. The overwhelming cold. Perhaps this would finally give him the answers to Vlad’s cryptic words. God…that entire conversation—Vlad, Amity, ghosts— seemed like a lifetime ago.

It was great uncle Johnathan who first coined the term Mania to describe this phenomenon in ghosts. Mania, from the greek word μᾰνῐ́ᾱ , which is synonymous with the word ‘madness’ or an otherwise ‘mad desire.’ 

His eyes locked onto that word. Madness. Like…insanity?

The ghost of whom I had the pleasure of meeting goes by the name of Catherine. She is comparatively weak in power to the other ghosts recorded by the Showenhower family, a mere apparition with minor poltergeist tendencies that had, until recently, been haunting the young lady of an affluent family. They are not relatives, of that I have no doubt, but a thorough and in-depth research into the family in question’s history revealed that some years ago they had once employed the services of a young woman as a live-in nanny for their newly christened daughter. It was remarked that the two shared a very close relationship up until the nanny was unfortunately killed defending her charge in some sort of conflict.

The passage then went on to describe the afterlife of Catherine the ghost. A tragic tale of a woman who protected a girl she thought of as her own daughter and, even after death, continued to watch over her from afar until the girl’s untimely death via consumption. 

He traced the words with a building impatience,  slowly parsing the meaning of the passage. Some of the passage was written in a long, winded, and pedantic style. Reading it reminded Danny of that one assignment in 8th grade US History where they had to memorize and recite the Preamble of the Constitution. 

The case study of the ghost of Catherine Eckhart seemed to go on forever, but things did start to become interesting once Elizabeth Showenhower started to describe the effects young lady Helen’s death had on Catherine. She became inconsolable, yes, but at the same time frenzied. Her normally weak poltergeist abilities began to manifest stronger, somehow, more erratic as she began to attract objects toward herself. Curtains and bedsheets and wooden chairs and silverware would start to float and circle around her pale and lingering form, a swirling vortex of household objects that scared the occupants of the Edwards manor so much that they soon abandoned it. 

Ghosts, Elizabeth wrote in small curling script, are at the very heart of it a manifestation of a particular brand of psyche. They are the imprints of the dead that choose to linger beyond the veil. The central feature that formulates a ghost and anchors it onto the material plane is the primal human experience of want. Of desire. Think of it as a very singular sense of purpose. They have an uncontrollable need to pursue this desire—though whether if it is because of a belief that by fulfilling it their souls can finally seek peace, or if by continuously satiating that desire they are able to maintain their permanence in both the Infinite Realms and the material plane, we know not. It is the constant source of debate among the Showenhower family. I am of the belief that it is the latter.

Mania, then, as great uncle Joseph described it, was the consequences of failing to fulfill that desire. Or, perhaps in the case of Miss Catherine, it is the inability to fulfill that desire leading to the perceived failure of it. Her last act in life was one of sacrifice and an intense desire to protect the young lady Helen, and in death that feeling only persisted and manifested ten fold. What then was she to do now that her dearly beloved charge has passed? Had been taken away by a disease that neither doctor’s nor Catherine’s efforts could cure? 

Logically, one would realize the futility in blaming one’s self for such a death. It is not the fault of any party that lady Helen died so young. It is not the fault of any party except that of the diseased hands of Fate itself. But ghosts are not built on logic. They are pathos incarnate; they are the strongest emotions a person has in the moments before death takes hold that manifest itself into substance. 

Mania is, perhaps, the  most tragic form of self-preservation for ghosts. It works two fold: the first being either the amplification of the ghost’s current abilities (in the case of miss Catherine, the radius of her poltergeist abilities doubled and she was able to commandeer larger and heavier objects than before) or the manifestation of new abilities (great uncle Joseph wrote of a ghost that developed an ability to manipulate light to cast illusions) as a way of coping for the perceived failure. The second is the amplification of their own emotions to an almost mad and degenerative degree. 

To illustrate the second point— Before lady Helen’s death, Miss Catherine had been, foremost, a benign ghost. Her desire to protect Helen mostly appeared to be eliminating any slight inconveniences, such as helping Helen find lost objects, or warding off unwanted suitors. After Lady Helen’s death, Miss Catherine’s  benign nature changed to one of hostility. Her ghostly aura threatened to choke any of the servants that attempted to remove the late lady Helen’s belongings from her chambers. The incidents increased to the near impalement of one of the servants that I was forced to intercede and exercise Catherine from the chamber with blood blossoms. Catherine, then, took to zealously guarding Lady Helen’s grave.

I am reminded of the words of my namesake, my thrice great-grandmother Elizabeth Showenhower. “Ghosts have only a singular desire in their whole existence to which they must devote the altar of themselves to, but it is an unfortunate truth that they cannot choose as to what that desire may be.”

It was the desire to see lady Helen safe that tied Miss Catherine to this world, and now that the lady is gone, Miss Catherine’s soul seeks a new anchor.

There was more to Elizabeth’s writings, but Danny left it off there, confident that he got all the information he needed, but still in the process of deciphering what it meant. 

The idea of ghosts having a singular desire was not an entirely new concept to Danny. It was a theory his parents had discussed a few times over dinner, though the terminology they used was different. Obsessions, they called them. Danny didn’t really think much on it until he started fighting ghosts himself, and even then he didn’t really care much about the validity of the theory. Though considering how gimmicky the Amity Park ghosts sometimes got, maybe there was some truth to this whole ‘singular obsession’ thing.

If so, then what was his?

“Why did you show me this, sir?” 

Ra’s scrutinized him with that unreadable smile. “I thought you would appreciate learning more about the workings of your other half, even if it is through an occult lens.” He took the book and slid it towards himself, carefully shutting it. “When you first came to us, you said that you were afflicted with mania and yet could not tell us what that meant. Now, we know.”

That familiar and biting cold began to creep into Danny’s chest. “That I failed,” he said. A statement. An undeniable fact. 

“Yes.” The bluntness of Ra’s words hurt more than Danny would like to admit. “You did. Your cryokinesis developed in response to your mania, but instead of making you stronger, it only hampers you. I believe this is because you lack an anchor. If we can figure out your obsession, then we can quickly find the appropriate anchor and better help you get your powers under control. So the key question remains: what did you fail at? Tell me, Danyal, do you know the core of your own desire?”

No, said his mind.

(Yes, sang his core. Yes-yes-yes-we-know).

Did he?  

He clutched at the fabric of his shirt above his heart. His core thrummed just beneath the skin. “I think I do…but at the same time I don’t? It’s not— it’s difficult for me to put into words because at one moment it's one thing and the next it's another.”

Danny thinks about that nightmare from so long ago. Of Sam and a raft of burned and water-logged corpses asking why, why didn’t you save us? He thinks of Damian, both arrogant and so eager to please, his boundless curiosity, and quiet gentleness. He thinks of Talia’s fingers combing through his hair, of her warm embrace, of her enduring love. 

“I don’t know what exactly my obsession is. All I know is, at the very end of the day, what I want is to get stronger. Not for revenge, not as some kind of weird penance. I want to be stronger so that I can protect them—Mother, Damian, you and Dusan. I just want to keep my family safe, because you took me in when I had no one else to turn to.”

Ra’s stared at him with his all-knowing eyes, surprise alighting for a moment across his face before it settled into a smile. Something almost fond. “Well, I believe we found your anchor without even having to try.”

(Here, his core sang. Here-family-stay. Here-us-belong.) 

#dpxdc #phantom children: redux #my writing

[emcscared-whumps]

WiJ 2022 - 01: (Re)introduce Yourself

WiJ 2022 Navigation Post

Intro!!

Hi, I'm emc, and I write whump of original characters in original settings! I've had this blog since some time in August last year (2021), and in these short few months, I've come a long way in the whump community. Everyone I've met here is wonderful and friendly and I've enjoyed every second of whumpblr and whump discord.

I've had at least a vague awareness about my taste for (fictional) blood since I was a kid around 5 or 6, but I first remember seeking the whumperflies in my teens (I'll get more into that in tomorrow's post :3c), and later still, I discovered Whumpblr posts through Pintrest, and joined a whump discord server a few years later, and then made this blog a year after that ^-^' . Getting into whump is the best thing I've ever done tbh, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

(I can now run off whump derived dopamine instead of trying to be happy!! /j/j/j/j)

Some fun facts are... I'm Australian, I do karate, I'm in the Danny Phantom fandom, I have an interest in cutting gems and other semiprecious stones, I have three cats, I love plants and gardening, and my favourite colour is unironically a deep, cool red. I also draw!

Project Updates!

Since joining the community, I have made tremendous progress on my nearest and dearest project Shifting Phases! Not only do I now have a rough idea of how to get everyone to the end scenes, I've actually started writing it!!! I'm super excited! I want to get it beta read in its entirety before I post it though, so it's a long way off yet. (As a byproduct, this means that I'll never post the fic unfinished lmao)

This story has spawned an AU that somehow manages to be darker. It's still in the ideation phases (brainrot spam to all of my whump friends on discord, rip them), so it'll be a little while before you see much posted about this one :3

My friend I recently made a lot of progress on Satanus Magus! We have basically the whole plot figured out, it just needs to be beefed up with some scenes. I look forward to writing that all out in the word doc void :)

My friend and I actually hope to publish this irl one day, so, That's A Thing!

It's an older idea of mine, it spawned in around 2018... But getting out of school and into this community has really boosted my creativity (bouncing ideas around is a powerful tool). It's like an action movie, but instead of guns and explosions, it's elemental magic and explosions!! It's not an outright whumpy fic, but ofc bc I'm involved, there are definitely a lot of whump themes.

Lastly, I have a new fic idea kicking around in my head involving a vampire and a human. It's still veeeerrryyy early days for it, but I'm already in love with the concept, and I have been sorely lacking in vampire whump for many years. I look forward to working with Malté and Corwin >:3c though I'm sure the same eagerness is not extended back -rubs my evil little handses together-

My Favourite Whump Tropes! Oh man...

Collapse

Especially when they try and fail to get up again

A whumpee getting tangled and/or ensnared in something they can't get out of

A painful mobility impairment as a result of a traumatic injury

Delirium and panic where they don’t recognise their friend/caretaker, maybe they’re waking up from a nightmare, and they lash out at their friend/caretaker-- most fun with nightmares/night terrors ;DD

I'm recently getting into fucked up mental health shit >:)

Ab00se (but like, not romantic relationships)

Nonhuman whumpees (mer and vampire/demon whumpees are where it's at tbh)

Painful transformation (and the aftermath, especially if the whumpee ends up Different than they were Before)

Bonus points for terrified, horrified, and very uncoordinated bb getting used to their new body and having an awful time

Secret based whump where bad things happen if anyone ever finds out whumpee's secret

An injury jeopardising the secret-- the secret needs to be revealed it to treat the injury

A whumpee going stupidly far to hide a secret, leading to a dramatic collapse and injury/scar reveal :D

A secret reveal gone badly never fails to give me whumperflies <3

I love it when circumstances are what leads to the whump. Not all of my whumpees have whumpers at all times, and where the whump comes from often fluctuates, but a common theme of my works is that the whump is primarily a product of circumstance that enables my characters to be whumped, whether by another person (whumper), or otherwise.

A happy, or at the very least, a bittersweet ending

#These are a few of my favourite things#

Also, Tumblr just fucking ate this draft when I was 99% done, and I was a fool who did not frequently save, and now I'm starting from nothing but a (shit) memory so... I'm not angy, I'm just sad and tired lol, apologies if there're any dumb phrasing/grammatical errors lol I can't even think straight anymore gkjdhfg

(The beta post editor may be easier on my poor eyes, but It has a habit of eating things on occasion...)

@whumpmasinjuly

#wij #wij day 1 #wij 2022 #whumpmas in july #whumpmas in july 2022 #whump #whump community #whump intro #wij22day1 #whumpmasinjuly2022

[illeaadante]

Passive Ecto-contamination and how Jazz Fenton is probably classifiable as a meta in the DCU

So, I’ve been on a Danny Phantom and Batman crossover binge recently, and I have to say, we don’t talk enough about how likely it is that the entire Fenton family, but especially Jazz, probably has enough ecto-contamination to count as a meta-human. 

This girl has lived her entire life around ectoplasm (bc Maddie and Jack were working with it before they were together and you know they don’t care enough about lab safety to have stopped when Maddie was pregnant or when Jazz was little) and her late teens living two floors above a dimensional rift. She may not be a halfa, but she is 100% not fully human after living her entire life being surrounded, and sometimes ingesting, ectoplasm and it’s radiation.

I think Jazz in particular would get some more passive ghost powers. She’s got her own obsession in her drive to be a psychologist, but I’m pretty sure she’s also tougher than a normal human. She can take blasts from Vlad pretty much on par with Danny, and while her parent’s inventions don’t work on her as well as they do Danny, the do still effect her. (Yes, I might be extrapolating from the vacuum gag, don’t @ me.)

Her eyes probably glow a bit in the dark, she heals faster than a normal squishy human, and she ages slower than she should if she weren’t ecto-contaminated.

All of this to say, that I 100% think that if they existed in the same universe, the Lazarus waters would just be, like, rancid ectoplasm that’s been cut off from the Zone but still retained its powers (probably because of all of the dead people shoved into it tbh) and that it would be really fuckin’ funny if a fully healthy Jazz Fenton was pushed into the Waters, only to come up spluttering and complaining about how gross that is.

small not-fic thing under the cut

Could you imagine. Like, I’m picturing Jazz had moved away to Gotham or Bludhaven and started dating Dick, only to wake up suspended over a very familiar glowing green pit. And the League of Assassins is reluctantly impressed with her apparent lack of fear when they explain what the waters are, but she just hangs there mentally groaning about how long it’s gonna take to wash her hair, and how much she’s gonna have to explain to her boyfriend once he gets here (and this is Jazz, she clocked that Dick was Nightwing almost immediately, the only thing that had tripped her up about Danny was the fact that Phantom was dead.) On the up side, she’ll no longer have to pretend to ignore all of the blatant signs of vigilantism that her boyfriend puts out. (Under the false bottom of a shared dresser drawer is not the best place to hide your electrified escrima sticks, is all she’s saying.)

So Nightwing and a few of the batfam come to save her and just as the fight seems to be turning she’s dropped into the pit. Dick is enraged, Jason took the opportunity to reload, Damien never stopped swinging, but then.

Splash splash. Coughing and spluttering. An irritated whine.

Everyone looks over to the pit where a very much Not Dead Jazz Fenton is wading out of the waters. She’s shuddering, and seems to be in some pain, but she’s rather nonchalant as she wrings out her hair.

Everything just. Stops. All of the assassins stare. The batfamily stare. Ra’s al Ghul isn’t thinking anything right now, as his brain needs to reboot, but afterward he’s gonna develop quite the obsession. One thought goes through every single person’s mind.

“What the fuck.”

Jazz looks around, tossing her still gross hair behind her to hit her back with a thwap, and she just looks around in mild concern.

Anyway, once they get Jazz back to Gotham and do the whole vigilante reveal (”yes, I know who you are.” “How?!?!?!?”) they realize that Jazz isn’t dead, but she isn’t in great shape either. She is supremely unconcerned, and texts Danny to get their parents out of the house for a few days so that she can take the Spectre Speeder and go see Frostbite.

Thus becomes the Batfamily’s crash course intro into Ghosts, ectoplasm, ecto-contamination, and the Infinite realms. Jason demands to come see these ghost healers too, it becomes a whole field trip. They get to the Far Frozen and that’s when Jazz has to do explanation round 2: yes, my little brother is the King of All Ghosts, which means that, despite being alive, I am also a  Lady of the Infinite Realms. 

#dc #danny phantom #jazz fenton #jazz centric #we don't talk enough about Jazz's deeply weird childhood #she psychoanalyzes herself while hanging above the pit #she determined that yes #Dick and Danny do share some similarities #but her attraction to the vigilante stems more from his ability to empathize with her as both an older sibling and a crime fighter #rather than her developing a brother complex #well #anymore of a complex #ghost king danny #Jazz Fenton: Lady of the Infinite Realms #dick grayson #Nightwing #Jason todd #danny phantom batman crossover #dick is just confused at how his well-adjusted girlfriend can have a weirder life than him #batman #batman au #danny phantom au

[popculturebuffet]

Quick Thoughts: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Reveal Trailer and Initial Roster

Whelp I didn’t expect to be doing another one of these so soon but welcome to quick thoughts where I give well quick thoughts on stuff instead of the longer form reviews I usually do. 

So as longtime or even short time readers of this blog might know I love NIck. I don’t review shows from it as often as Disney or Cartoon Network, but it was still a beloved part of my childhood and still makes great shows today such as the Loud House, Harvey Beaks and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s horribly mismanaged, which is why two of those shows are no longer with us and the last of them is weirdly missing from this game, and have a long and storied history of screwing things over.. and i’m not exagerating when Mr. Enter, no matter your opinon of him now, did a whole marathon of every nicktoon almost every entry included the fact the show had been screwed over in some way. 

But as anyone who knows my history with Disney will tell you just because I don’t sugarcoat a brand I like’s fuckups dosen’t mean they aren’t near and dear to me at the same time. I”m a grown up: I can have complex emotions towards a chlidren’s tv network. So I love it’s varied shows some of whom (Avatar, Harvey beaks again, Danny Phantom, Hey Arnold) are among my all time faviorites. 

Now something readers of my blog probably WOUDLN’T know is I love Nintendo, they have their own fuckups like weird release strageies and never doing a remotely decent discount like the competition, but their still a company I love and since I only play handhelds most of the time are my primary source of good shit. So naturally Smash Bros is my faviorite franchise of theres. I love the idea of fighting games but often struggle with the combo heavy nature. So Smash Bros, having a roster of some of my faviorite characters ever, a plaformer style control scheme, and a deceptivley simple style that’s easy to learn and fun to master with the right character, is my shit. Sure I won’t rush out to buy every dlc character, but you better belivie I played the hell out of Ultimate, will likely go back to it again some day, and did buy Banjo and Kazooie because fuck yeah. 

So yeah I needed to talk about Nick making their own smash bros clone. When I heard the rumors I wasn’t sure, mostly because Rumors can be just that.. but nope this game is happening and i’m all on board for it. This isn’t Nick’s first crossover rodeo in recent memory either also making a pair of Kart Racing Games: one I KINDA wanted to play till I looked at the roster, had a good laugh and lost that i want, and the other I really want to play as it seems like the first game if it were you know an actual game with a decent track selection, a deep character roster and an actual love of it’s properties. 

So making their own Smash Bros was a logical step and one i’m here for. We haven’t had any of the big cartoon networks make one since well.. Cartoon Network, and Nick has just a deep a bench to pull from, one that will hopefully get CN to get their cast to throw hands once more. 

For now though the idea of the vast history of nick all throwing hands with each other is amazing. Look i’m honest with myself: this looks like a decent smash clone,functional but nothing specail, but with the expressive character animation and solid roster you need for a game like this. I know going in i’m not going ot get Smash Ultimate quality of brawler, but i’m probably going to have fun with it. 

The only downside I see so far is , like the Kart Racers, theyd idn’t seem to get ANY voice actors for this which smacks of laziness, especially since most of the voice actors for these characters are still active, and in some cases like Spongebob or Loud House are still working with you. So you have no real excuse for this, shame on you.

But yeah the game looks good.. despite the trailer being pretty bad. It’s just some generic music set to “LOOK WHO WE GOT”. And granted look who they got is really spiffy and i’ll be diving into that in a second, but it dosen’t give any of these characters a reall chance to show off how they play or how awesome they are. It’s just a bland montage of whose in the roster in the same 2 or 3 stages. And when you have 15 stages overall to show off that’s not excusable. Again i’m not expecting Smash level quality revelas, this game dosen’t have the marketing budget, but you have a really great concept and roster here, you coudl’ve revealed it better and this game better. The Kart Racers 2 Trailer was also mildly bland but it did show off the game better, showing off several tracks and how VASTLY improved the roster was, so you CAN make a good trailer you just didn’t. It felt like they thought the poitn of all the smash reveals trailers was here’s a character and missed all the style and substance to them. 

That being said while the trailer was weak.. it was boyed by the fact this roster is REALLY damn good. Let’s face it I woudln’t even be talking about this game if the roster wasn’t this minty but they clearly learned from Kart Racers not to half ass it and while they learned the long lessons from Smash in how to promote the fighters they have, they learned the right lessons in having a nice mix of crowd pleasing faviorites for kids and vetrans alike along with a few deep cuts for said longtime fans. And this is JUST the intitial reveal roster: Given the Box Art isn’t out yet, I feel there’s more to come, especially since despite being perfect for the game there’s no one from the Avatarverse yet, but I also feel that Nick is saving that for a second trailer to announce the release date. But I can and will go into who i’d LIKE on the roster in another one of these sometime soon. -

Spongebob, Patrick and Sandy (SpongeBob Squarepants): I’m getting these three out of the way as their essentially to this what Mario and Co were to smash: necessary and inevitible.  As for who was chosen.. it was as obvious as putting spongebob himself int he game. Sponebob is Nick’s mascot, Patrick is nearly as iconic and Sandy is well loved as well as the spongebob character most associated with buttkicking. Being an expert martial artist is both part of her character and a cerntral part of her character and relationship with Spongebob. So yeah not a lot ot say here: it was ineivible but I don’t mind at all having grown up with them and with my niece and nibling being huge fans. 

87 Leo and 87 Mikey (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles): This one i’m mixed on. Not on the turtles being here: i’m a MASSIVE TMNT fan and i’td be stupid to leave them out since Nick Owns them, made the last two series, and they fit this kind of game like a glove, even having had their OWN smash clone to themselves once. 

No my issue is obviously in the version choseN: The 87 turtles. Again I have no beef with the guys themselves, I haven’t seen much of 87 but I want to and they look really gorgeous and nicely cartoony. It’s just a REALLY weird choice. The 87 turtles have never been on a nick network due to rights issues, have never been associated with nick, and aren’t the ones most kids of EITHER DEMO would be familiar with: Grown up fans of nicktoons from the 90′s like myself would be more familiar with 2003, and kids and teens from more recent eras would be more familiar with 2012 and rise, which REALLY should’ve been the rep. I mean their weird shame of rise bothers me enough on a good day but not using EITHER show you actually made bothers me, it bothers me a lot. I’ll still probably play Mikey, i’m not made of stone and as I said I have no beef with the 87 turtles, I just wish nick had used the others or hell just gone all lin and used one turtle from each cartoon. I mean if your going to use stuff you’ve barely aired why not give me some 2003 nostalgia too huh? Though it could just be that since, unlike the rise and 2012 turrtles the 87 turtles have the same body type and colors it was easier to just do all 4 and just give each unique facial expressions. Who knows... I knows it was probably that. 

Lincoln and Lucy Loud (The Loud House, Duh): Another pretty obvious one as The Loud House is currrently nick’s co-flagship show with spongebob. Still waiting for my diffrent world spinoff with Bobby and Lori guys. So yeah Lincoln isn’t a suprise and Lucy is only minorly one as it was a matter of “which sister”... and Lucy is one of the most popular. Neither really fit a combat setting.. but given this is a fun crossover game, that really dosen’t matter and in fact is kind of the fun: taking just the most insane matcchups imaginable and mashing them together. I mean this is a game where Lincoln and Lucy can beat up Leo and Mikey, why wouldn’t I want that kind of crack on my nintendo switch? I am hoping for Luna to make her way to the stage next as she was absent from Kart Racer 2 and would be really fun to play. Plus having ANOTHER bi fighter in the mix if korra gets in there would be awesome, let alone letting the two beat up or punch each other’s face. But again I could and probably will mak ea whole article about other possible fighters i’d want. 

The Plesant Suprises: Nigel Thornberry , Oblina and Powdered Toast Man (Wild Thronberries, Ahhh! Real MOnsters1 and Ren and Stimpy) : Yeah while only one of these cartoons was a faviorite as a kid (Wild Thornberries)... I have nothing but respect for these choices. One of the funnest things about Smash is while you can see some roster members coming sometimes you get utter curveballs like Mr. Game and Watch, Pirana Plant and MInecraft Guy. They also go for more cult franchises like SNK or Earthbound (the latter of which is fucking awesome localize mother 3 already dammit) too among the big heavies, making it feel like a true tapestry of Nintendo’s history. 

Nigel is the only one of these three that’s really obvious. He’s a meme, he was the best part of his show.. but it’s still just uniquely batshit to put NIGEL THRONBERRY in a fighting game. You better belivie he’ll be one of my mains. 

Oblina is more a suprise because I thought they’d go with Icket, but instead went wtih the character who was more popular and had a really unqiue and cool design, so i’m pleased as punch to have her. Finally while I don’t have any real attachment to ren and stimply apart from Log, and really it’s hard to gain any now knowing i’ts creator was a pedophile piece of shit, the franchise is still a cornerstone of nick history, the rest oc the crew didn’t abuse power or not make deadlines or be a com plete piece of shit, and powerded toast man is genuinely great. I”d love to see Really Big Man too, clash of the weird superheroes, I love me a weird as hell superhero. This also speaks promisingly that w’ell get some real weird curveballs to come and i’m here for it. 

The Rest: Helga, Zim, Danny and Reptar. (Hey Arnold, Invader Zim, Danny Phantom and Rugrats! ): Note i’m not lumping these together because their bad: their all graet nostalgic picks from timeless shows and with the rugreboot currently running on Paramount+, it’d be weird not to represent them. 

And since I brought it up reptar is a fun chocie, another oddball but one more understandable as no one wants to beat the shit out of a toddler. Or rather no one playing the game would care you could because it’s a silly fighting game and a 12 and 8 year old are also beat upable, but someone would probably throw a fit somewhere. Plus again it’s a game where you can have danny phantom fight reptar. Shut up and take my money. 

The rest are all great choices if ones I’m not suprised by: Hey Arnold’s an all time classic and being tough is a lot of Helga’s character, and again I can have her throw hands with nigel thornberry, reptar and a ninja turtle in the same match. Zim is another fan faviorite and fits the game like a glove and Danny Phantom is the one out of Nick’s three suprehero classics it actually still cares about so my boy getting in there isn’t a shocker, though his attacks lookw eird. Hopefully they green them up before the final prduct. 

So yeah overall it looks really promsing and really fun and i’ll probably check this game out if I get enough money when it comes out or more likely put it on my christmas list. But I will get it somehow this i swear.. speaking of which put manny in the roster dammit. If you liked this.. thing consider joining my patreon for a buck a month fo exclsuvie reviews and ot help me review tuca and bertie, amphibia and more as part of my memebership drive. 

#nickelodeon #danny phantom #the wild thornberry's #spongebob squarepants #hey arnold #teenage mutant ninja turtles #ren and stimpy #the loud house #ahh! Real MOnsters #rugrats

[miss-nov]

Over-Emotional: Danny Phantom Oneshot.

Original idea by @amabsis on their post right here!!

[Originally written on a reblog of the prompt but it went all screwy and left an incomplete version so I made it it's own post and I've made a few grammar and spelling edits. Sorry for any confusion!!]

(This is the first thing I've ever written for the DP Phandom so I apologize if it's a little OOC)

⚠️(TW: DESCRIPTIONS OF A PANIC ATTACK AND GORE!!!!!)⚠️

  Danny drifted through the skies of Amity Park, following the streets which were slick with recent rain. The stars twinkled merrily above and the beams from the street lights seemed to buzz through the comforting, crisp air. Not a sound disrupted the mellow atmosphere and ghosts had appeared to leave tonight alone and retired to their lairs. A soothing night such as this would have been Danny's favorite; it would have been a much needed break from his overly stressful life.

  Yet Danny couldn't shake off the creeping apprehension even as he twisted in and out of alleyways back into the lit roads.

  His parents had been working tirelessly  on a project that they wouldn't tell him and Jazz about. Jack, their father, would always jump at the chance to describe what he was doing and couldn't keep his antics quiet for long. Maddie's, their mother, eyes would have brightened as she recounted the innovate idea she had conjured and the necessary calculations she could toy around with. These facts coupled with Jazz and Danny casually inquiring about their latest project would make them incredibly ecstatic.

  But whenever the two had asked about it, put off by the unusual quiet of the parents, had only been given an amused smile and an occasional wink.

  Tonight, before Danny's patrol and during dinner, Jazz had managed to weasel some information out of them. Though, it left more questions than answers.

  "So, you guys have been in the lab a lot recently," Jazz said conversationally. "Working on some new ghost stuff? It seems important if you're spending most of the day down there."

  Maddie had given her a deliberate look like someone who'd finally decided to take a second cookie.

  "It's our greatest invention yet," she said lowly and excitedly. "I think your dad and I have found the solution to our little ghost problem."

  The siblings gulped and tried to suppress their shudders.

  "It's not going to hurt them is it? Phantom and the other ghosts." Jazz's voice was even and didn't show a hint of a tone shift.

  "Surprisingly, no. No harm will be dealt to them. It's not like they can feel anyway. That's exactly the problem," Jack chimed excitedly before going back to his ectoplasm contaminated lasagna.

  "Besides, we wouldn't want to hurt the object of our daughter's affection.  We all know about your crush on Phantom," Maddie teased but then added with a small frown. "Though it's not healthy to have a crush on ghosts at all."

 Jazz gave an aggressive gagging noise and Danny was torn between hysterical laughter and a gag of his own. Dinner resumed as normal —well, as normal as you could get being a Fenton— and Danny took note of the fact his parents had refused to say anymore.

  Danny was busy going over and dissecting the conversation and lax in his attention to his surroundings by the inactivity that he didn't notice the two shadow-cloaked figures tailing him. The taller one with a broader build was holding an intimidating gun, that looked like it was straight out of an eighties sci-fi movie, on his back.

  Maybe I should head back, Danny thought to himself. I have so much homework due and a test tomorrow. A pop quiz in calculus and a lab in science. I have to meet Nathan at my study hall period and at lunch. Liz needs my help…

  On and on the list went as Danny subtlety started flying home. Just thinking of things that needed done was making him more anxious and tired.

  "Phantom, we'll have you now," Jack cried, his voice echoing in the hollow streets.

  Danny turned around, slightly aggravated when he was struck by a violet beam and plummeted, crashing to the sidewalk.

  "Jack! I told you to wait," Maddie chastised as they walked over to Danny who had barely sat up.

  His head swam and Maddie and Jack looked like the reflections of a carnival fun house mirror. Though his vision corrected itself quickly.

  "I think you might have given him a concussion. But that doesn't make sense, ghosts don't have brains," Maddie said, slightly confused. She reached out to gingerly place her fingertips on Danny's temple and he flinched.

  "Don't touch me!!" Danny had yelled louder then he meant to and his voice came out with an extra echo; like he had been about to use his ghostly wail. The three stilled before Danny began crawling backwards, keeping his eyes on Jack and Maddie at all times.

  "I don't wanna hurt you," Danny whimpered and tears sprang to eyes like a line of men ready to battle. Why the hell was he crying!? He didn't cry easy, at least not of late, and he'd been in these situations and worse without crying so why was he breaking down now??

  Maddie looked at him with wide eyes and her hand, which had still been suspended in shock, dropped to her belt and Danny panicked.

  "Don't hurt me!" Danny tried to pick himself up to fly, to get the hell out of dodge but when he went to stand his vision and black an —god why were his veins burning with adrenaline???

  Danny's chest was caving, that was the only explanation as his ribs seized and threatened to crush his lungs. His heart had left its place and sprinted from the back of his throat down to right beneath his collarbone before starting all over again. Has his hands always been this sweaty??? Tremors wracked through his limbs —he couldn't deal with this now!! He needed to finish his Hamlet essay, and review his history notes, and hadn't Liz asked him to buy popsicle sticks for their art project??? That's what he had forgotten!! He can't think of this now!! Maddie and Jack could easily catch him now —but oh, God was he screwed when —if— when he went to school the next day.

  "Phantom, you're having a panic attack," Maddie said calmly.

  "No, shit there, Sherlock." Danny bit his bottom lip to prevent another scathing comment from escaping. Usually he had better control of his mouth believe it or not. He put his head between his knees, closing his eyes and trying to focus on, well, nothing. He felt tears slip from his eyes and barely stopped himself from screaming.

  "You know what a panic attack is?" Jack titled his head as he scanned over his shaking form.

  "Jack did you put the settings up too high while we were following him?"

  "Of course not! I was very careful not to bounce anything out of place. You've Done the math, four times, it should be perfectly calibrated." Jack twisted the purple and silver metallic gun in his hands, giving it a thorough look over.

  "What the fuck are you two talking about!!" The scientists' head whipped back to see Danny's eyes glowing a tad brighter than before and his mouth transfixed into a snarl. Maddie slid a careful hand to her holster.

  "Our newest invention. Ghosts, well most of them, are just whispers of feelings that people once had. They can't actually feel and so they do bad things or... or they mimic human behaviors really well to make it seem like they do, like they're human." Maddie's voice trailed off at the end as if seeing if he would explode.

  Danny felt that normally he would have but he started to hyperventilate. How was he going to reverse it??? Was there even a way to do so or did they not include a reverse button by mistake (on purpose?) like they had mistakenly put the 'on' button inside the portal??

  "We're going to take you to the lab. Check your... concussion and to stabilize your mood. Run a few tests..."

Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodoh—

   They would strap him down and cut and lay his chest open like a butterfly steak and their hungry eyes would roam over him and their hands would devour him by pulling at his nerve endings and removing his organs and Danny would scream until his voice was hoarse and then some like a helpless lamb. Would he bleed blood or ectoplasm when they drained him? Would they take turns as he bleed out?? Or would they flow out together like some sort of demented, holiday dinner?? Or—

  "Phantom! You need to calm down." Maddie was at his side (when had she gotten there?) and was squeezing his hand. Danny briefly noted her eyes were filled with worry as her goggles hung at her neck. "Just breathe with me okay, please."

  "Breathe with her, buddy" Jack, who sat on the other side of Danny, whispered as he gently rubbed circles on the boy's lower back. "It's gonna be okay. We aren't going to hurt you."

  Danny wanted to say a smart aleck remark about them not having the same sentiment five minutes ago but instead focused on his breathing. He faced his head skyward and tried to count the stars. Nothing but him and the stars, no home— just the stars.

  Danny was reminded of the time he went stargazing with the rest of his family. A rare occasion as Maddie and Jack seemed to always be working. They had smiled so big at him as he pointed out constellations, awestruck. Jazz had nodded along as she listened attentively with a smile of her own. The night hadn't been more clear in months and more stars then usually were out. The picnic blanket they laid on was soft and him and Jazz had rested in between their parents and God they had been so happy then—

  Danny let out an involuntary sob. The melancholy seemed to come from the depths of his chest but at least it seemed to push out the panic.

  "Phantom," Maddie asked as she huddled closer to him. Phantom, not Danny. It hadn't really bothered him before; they didn't know it was him so why would they call him by his name?

  But it still made him cry harder. He wanted to tell them. He wanted to so, so bad.

  Jazz had urged him to tell them. But Danny had always been afraid. Scared that they wouldn't want him anymore.

  Now the sadness had overwhelmed the fear and the panic. He felt so isolated even when his parents were next to him, right there, trying to coax him into being calm. He had to tell them. He had to do it now because he wouldn't be this impulsive again.

  He felt the white rings gloss over him and heard Jack yell out "Phantom". When it was over he heard them gasp.

  "D-Danny," Maddie choked out.

   "I'm so sorry," Danny said through his tears. He chanted it over and over again as his parents reassured him that he had nothing to be sorry for and that they should apologize.

  The three sat there for quite some time, huddled close and crying together.

  Soon they would head home and take care of Danny's quickly healing concussion and reverse the effects of the gun. They would ask questions tomorrow after school but, for now, they tucked him into bed, something they hadn't done since he was eleven, and gave him their good night kisses on his temple before creeping to their room unaware of Jazz watching them from her bedroom door. She would text Sam and Tucker an explanation and ask them to give Danny the answers to the homework in the morning. She slipped into bed and fell asleep.

  The streets were barely slick with rain anymore. The stars twinkled merrily and the street lights buzzed. The crisp, cool air was calm and mellow. The night soothing and the Fentons were a family once again.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #jazz fenton #danny phantom prompt #danny phantom prompt fill #danny phantom oneshot #danny phantom fic #prompt fic #prompt fill #prompt oneshot

[arashikitten]

Why has no one made a Yu Yu Hakusho x Danny Phantom crossover yet?

?I mean, honestly, look at these two shows! Look at them! How is it that no one (that I know of) has made a crossover with them yet? There’s so much potential!  I mean honestly! Both are about a 14-year-old who died in or before the first episode, came back to life through some sort of shenanigans, and ended up with supernatural abilities as a result. Both Danny and Yusuke have a very close knit friend group comprised of people who know about said supernatural abilities and help them fight all form of malicious supernatural entities (Danny fights ghosts, Yusuke fights demons). Both Yusuke and Danny have a rival/arch-nemesis who, at the start of the series, is leagues above the protagonists in terms of power, but ends up being surpassed by the main protagonist sometime during the second season of their respective show. Both Vlad and Toguro serve as foils to Danny and Yusuke respectively, and while they may feel some sort of kinship with them for some reason or other, they tend to see the young protagonist as someone who is below them in terms of power, intelligence, and skills (even after that is no longer the case). Both Danny and Yusuke are snarky and seem like delinquents to all but their closest friends, but secretly they have a heart of absolute gold. Both would (and have) died for any one of their friends, and they likely have a metric fuck ton of trauma from the many, many, many times they almost watched their friends and family die right in front of them. And of course, both Danny and Yusuke are likely to become kings of their own supernatural realm (if you disregard DP’s canon in favor of the fanon like I do).

So then the question becomes this: how would a crossover between the two shows go?

Here’s how I see it playing out:

Sometime after the last episode of Yu Yu Hakusho, and right after the events of Reign Storm, Yusuke (who I would say is about 18-19 years old now) gets a call from Koenma for the first time in almost 4 years. Koenma tells Yusuke that he needs him to come back for one final case: investigate a small town in Northeastern America for recent spikes in spiritual and demonic activity. 

When Yusuke asks why Koenma wants him to look into what is seemingly a tourist trap town, Koenma tells him that the town was recently encased under a dome of spirit energy, disappeared for almost 24 hours, and then suddenly reappeared again, and Koenma suspects that someone- or something- from spirit world might be responsible.

Three calls and four plane tickets later, Yusuke and the gang land in Illinois and make their way to Amity Park. Kuwabara takes one (1) step into the town and immediately freezes. He’s always been the most spirit-sensitive of the group, and this town is setting off all of his proverbial alarms. Kurama, Hiei, and Yusuke also notice something off about the town, like everyone here has way higher spirit energy than normal. 

The four make their way through town, noticing more and more as they continue. They notice the massive craters that litter the streets. They notice the constant smell of spirit and demon energy that drenches the town like a fog, covering everything and everyone. They notice the small, silvery-grey and green devices that almost everyone seems to have on their wrist, and Yusuke can’t help but think about how similar they look to the spirit-detecting gadgets he used to have back during the beginning of his detective career. They notice the metal panels that every store seems to have hanging above their windows, waiting to come down and defend from some unknown beast.

They notice how, whenever they appear in an area, everyone in the vicinity goes silent. Tense. Wary of them. Like they know three demons just appeared, even if all of them look human.

Yusuke and his team split up to search through the town and cover more ground, agreeing to meet by the local highschool in two hours. Things just get even weirder from there. 

 Kurama finds a patch of wild blood blossoms growing near the forest, despite the fact that they were declared extinct more than 200 years ago. Hiei sees a pair of burly men wearing all white suits and dark sunglasses dragging a young man with white hair and sunglasses away for questioning. Kuwabara is surprised when a small, glowing green puppy appears in front of him, only to vanish when he leans down to pet it.

Yusuke finds a massive stone brick building with what almost looks like a UFO perched on top, and huge neon sign with the words FentonWorks on it. Here, the spirit energy is almost suffocating, and it feels like molasses, thick and heavy and dense on Yusuke’s senses. He feels something else though, something that just barely manages to break through the thick ambient spirit energy that swamps this entire block: a ghost. And a powerful one at that.

By the time the group reconvenes at the high school, everyone is tense. They’re sure that there’s something sketchy in this town, but none of them have gotten any concrete leads on what caused the town’s sudden disappearance and reappearance. Almost none of the townsfolk give them any answers, and the few that do are vague and confusing, or outright lies. Kuwabara firmly believes that this town is haunted by ghosts, and that they’re what caused the sudden disappearance, but Yusuke, having been a ghost himself at one point, is less inclined to believe that. Yusuke is convinced that the house with the weird UFO thing and abnormal spirit energy has something to do with it, and the gang agrees that would be the best place to start.

Before they can do that though, they all suddenly sense a MASSIVE spike in spirit energy, coming from the center of town. Yusuke and the gang book it to where the spike is, hoping to get some sort of lead.

Meanwhile, Danny is having a fight with Skulker, made slightly more difficult than normal due to the fact that he’s still recovering from the whole Pariah Dark fiasco. He’s been on edge all day, ever since he sensed that weird ectosignature near his house. He’d felt the typical chill of his ghost sense, but the typical puff of blueish smoke wasn’t present like it usually was. On top of that, he’d felt a small jolt of electricity, too big to be chalked up to static electricity and carrying with it a hint of... something. Something not entirely human. 

But when Danny had tried to investigate, he’d come up empty handed. Which as you can guess, made Danny My-friends-and-family-have-all-almost-been-killed-by-a-ghost-disguised-as-a-human-at-least-once Fenton more than a little nervous.

So Danny’s fighting Skulker when he feels that not-quite ghost sense again, except this time it’s even stronger than before and waaaay the hell closer. And now Danny goes from nervous to flat out terrified, because whoever or whatever is triggering his not-quite ghost sense is really fucking strong, and oh fuck are there four of them?! Are they getting closer?!?! Whatever it is is really strong, like almost stronger than Pariah Dark and Danny was barely able to take him down at 100% strength with the enhanced suit, and he no longer has the suit and he still has not fully recovered since then, so how in the fresh hell is he gonna fight four beings who are at least on par with Pariah? 

Skulker notices the sudden power spike as well and immediately bounces, leaving Danny to panic over these four insanely powerful entities. 

Yusuke and the gang make it just in time to see Skulker leave while Danny hovers in the air, looking like he’s about to blow a gasket. Kurama takes one look at the panicking ghost kid floating above him, notices the weird spirit energy around the kid, and immediately puts two and two together and realizes the kid is a ghost, and a really powerful one. Yusuke, who if you remember spent about a week as a ghost at the age of 14, is confused because I thought ghosts couldn’t be seen by living people? But these bystanders are clearly seeing this kid? 

And then Yusuke senses that strange spirit energy he felt when he went by FentonWorks, and he’s like “You were the reason for the weird spirit signature!” at Danny, who panics and flies off because now he thinks these super powerful guys are working for the GiW, and he’d rather not spend the rest of his afterlife on an examination table.

So Danny flies off, hoping to lose Yusuke and his gang, but Yusuke I-used-to-fight-demons-who-could-move-at-the-speed-of-sound-for-fun Urameshi and Hiei have absolutely no problem keeping up with the panicking halfa, and they end up fighting. Yusuke and Hiei want answers, Danny is terrified of being caught by what are possibly government agents, and finally Kurama manages to trap the halfa with ghostly vines.

Unfortunately for Danny, these vines are phase-proof, meaning he can’t escape, and he’s already hurt and exhausted and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold his ghost form.

Yusuke picks up on the ghost’s nervousness immediately, and again assumes that this ghost is the culprit for Amity’s sudden disappearance, demanding to know why he abducted an entire town.

Danny is confused, because what the hell are these people talking about? He never abducted the town? He’s not nearly that powerful?? Before he realizes that oh, these people are trying to figure out why the town disappeared for 24 hours because literally no one outside of Amity Park has any idea why.

So Danny starts to explain what really happened, when his time finally runs out and he detransforms. 

Right in front of what he believes to be four government officials.

There are five different reactions.

Hiei goes still. He’s completely silent. This shouldn’t be possible. He wants to believe that this is all a trick, but he can hear that fifth heartbeat that wasn’t there ten seconds ago and he smells that fear scent that only humans have and glamour can only do so much.

Kurama has the calmest reaction. He leans back a little, eyes wide, and lets out a soft “oh”. Yes, this is a surprise to him, but then again, Kurama himself is a demon hiding as a human, with a human family, so he immediately sympathizes with Danny a bit.

Danny is panicking. He’s just revealed his biggest secret to four complete strangers, all of whom are absolutely powerful enough to take him out on their own, and he is terrified that they’ll turn him in to the government. He’s about five seconds from a full-blown panic attack.

Kuwabara freaks out. He’s trying to wrap his mind around this whole thing, because he is 100% sure this kid was a ghost, that he was dead, but now he’s not sensing much of anything and how the hell is this possible???? How can someone be a ghost and a human at the same time???? WHAT????? He’s pulling at his hair as he tries to put the logistics of it together, pacing back and forth.

Yusuke freezes. Suddenly he’s 14 again, floating as he watches his body get carted off as he tries to come to terms with the fact that he’s dead. Then he’s in the temple of the four saint beasts, fighting with everything he has as he watches the love of his life get attacked by monstrous zombies. Then kneeling next to Genkai’s broken and bleeding body, begging her not to go even as she draws her last breath because he couldn’t bear to lose the woman that he’s come to see as family, as the closest thing he’d ever have to a grandmother. Then he’s watching Toguro plunge his hand into Kuwabara’s heart, watching as his best freind gasps for breath because Yusuke wasn’t good enough, he wasn’t strong enough, and he just lost Genkai he can’t loose Kuwabara too-.

And when he looks down at this small, skinny teenager with deep shadows under his eyes and knuckles covered in scars from god-knows haw many fights, he sees himself as he was in the beginning: Just a kid who was thrust into the world of the supernatural without any warning, desperately trying to stay alive and protect the human world despite the fact that he’s only a teenager, and he shouldn’t have to be fighting for his life against these ancient and powerful demons because he’s a kid, dammit!

Yusuke kneels down to get to eye level with the kid. He can’t help the painful twinge in his chest when the kid looks up at him with wide, icy blue eyes, and quietly begs him not to tell anyone, because this kid can’t be much older than he was when he started out as a spirit detective and he sounds absolutely terrified, and Yusuke can’t help but wonder why he sounds so scared of people learning about the whole ghost thing. 

“Listen, kid. We’re not going to hurt you. We were sent here to investigate something, and we were hoping you might know something. Can you tell us your name?”

“Danny. D-Danny Fenton.”

“Ok, cool. Don’t worry, none of here are going to tell anyone about... about whatever this is. We just want to know about something that happened here a week ago, and we were hoping you could give us some answers.”

Danny agrees, and Kurama frees him from the vines. After a couple of moments, Danny calms down as he realizes that no, these guys won’t rat him out to the government, and he agrees to answer some of their questions.

The group make their way to the outskirts of the forest, and Danny tells them about his status as a half-ghost: he tells them about his parents, how they were building a portal to the ghost zone (Everyone is more than a little freaked out at that, because now there’s a permanent portal to spirit world that Koenma doesn’t know about), how he’d gone inside to see if he could figure out why it wasn’t working, how it’d turned on while he was inside (Yusuke clenches his fists hard enough to draw blood. Both of the times he’d died had been excruciatingly painful, but at least they’d been quick. Getting electrocuted to death would be beyond agonizing, and getting caught in a portal like that...). He tells them about how his parents despise ghosts, believing them to be cruel, malicious, and emotionless, incapable of feeling pain. He tells them about how he’s TERRIFIED of telling his parents the truth, of telling them that he’s Danny Phantom because that seems to be the ghost they want to capture the most, and he’s seen what they do to the ghosts they capture (Kurama and Yusuke feel sick at that. No wonder the kid was so adamant about keeping this a secret.). 

“Does anyone else know? Anyone at all?”

Yusuke breathes a small sigh of relief when Danny tells them that his sister and his two best friends know. That sigh of relief is rescinded when the kid tells them that oh yeah, all the ghosts that are constantly attacking the town? Yeah, they know my secret identity too.

Yusuke has to force himself to move on from that last tidbit because he’s about five seconds from adopting this kid despite being only five years older.

“Ok, neat. That’s... that’s ok. Moving on to why we’re here. We were hoping that you would have some information regarding the sudden disappearance and reappearance of Amity Park a week ago? Do you know why or how it happened?”

Danny talks about how, one week ago, ghosts started pouring out of the portal in unprecedented numbers. How they were terrified, running from something in the ghost zone. How Fright Knight had appeared, declaring the reign of Pariah Dark (Kurama and Hiei suck in a breath. Had... had this kid seriously fought against the fabled ghost king?), and the massive green dome had appeared over the town. How he’d tried to fight Fright Knight off, how another ghost by the name of Vlad Plasmius had shown up and admitted that he was the reason for Pariah Dark’s temporary freedom, how Plasmius had decided to have a temporary truce with Danny in order to defeat Pariah, how Danny had pulled Fright Knight’s sword from the ground and accidentally teleported Amity Park into the Ghost zone, how the entire town had gone under lock down. How he’d stolen the power suit from his parent’s lab to go and face Pariah on his own, and bring Amity back to Earth. How he’d just barely been able to shove Pariah back in the sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, how the power suit had almost completely drained his life energy, how the town had been back on earth when he’d woken up (Again, Yusuke has a flashback to the Temple of the Four Saint Beasts. What is it with the powers that be and sending kids to do life-threatening missions like that?).

Kurama records the entire thing before sending it to Koenma. 

When Danny is finally done, he notices that everyone is staring at him. Yusuke is the first one to speak.

“Damn kid, you really fought the king of the Ghost Zone, huh?” Danny stutters for a moment, because this guy is saying it like Danny fought a god or something. Like yeah, it was difficult, but it can’t be that big a deal right?

Then Kurama speaks up. “Danny, I don’t think you understand. There are two ways to crown a king of the Ghost Zone: either the ghost zone itself must choose someone, or the current ghost king must be defeated in battle. You defeated Pariah Dark in battle. Meaning....”

Everyone goes silent for a moment, processing.

Then several things happen at once. Danny, who at this point still hasn’t fully processed that oh yeah, I defeated one of the most powerful ghosts in existence, freaks the hell out because I barely have time to protect one (1) town, how am I going to rule an entire dimension? Kuwabara is flipping his shit again, Hiei is contemplating, and Yusuke.... Yusuke decides screw it, I’m having an apprentice now, and after calming Danny down, he offers to help train him up a bit (Somewhere in spirit world, Genkai starts quietly laughing).

Danny agrees after a moment of deliberation. Yusuke hangs out in Amity for a bit to help Danny. His first interaction with Sam and Tucker is.... interesting. Yusuke snuck up on Sam and Tucker, and Sam promptly punched him in the face and almost broke his nose. But after a bit they start to warm up to him, and eventually Yusuke starts teaching Sam some hand to hand along with Danny.

Vlad makes one appearance while Yusuke is there. He sensed some sort of foreign presence in Amity and wanted to see if he could exploit it, only for Yusuke I-haven’t-slept-in-a-week-and-I-refuse-to-start-now Urameshi to wipe the floor with him. When he asks Danny who the new ghost is, he is surprised to learn that no, Danny is not the only half-ghost in existence, and also that guy is a famous millionaire and also knows my secret identity so maybe let’s not break into his mansion to fight him please? (Yusuke agrees not to after a very lengthy argument. Still, the whole situation reminds him a little too much of Toguro and the Dark tournament, and he quietly asks Koenma to open an investigation into this Vlad Plasmius guy.)

Yusuke’s introduction to Danny’s parents goes... surprisingly well, actually. Aside from one small incident where one of the Fenton ghost detectors lock on to Yusuke’s signature, everything goes fairly well. Jack and Maddie take a shine to him almost immediately, when they see him curb stomp Skulker with a practiced ease that only a professional should have, and within the week Yusuke is an honorary member of the Fenton family.  

There’s a lot more, but this post is waaaay too long as it is. Feel free to add on!

#Danny Phantom #yu yu hakusho #yusuke urameshi #danny fenton #Danny phantom crossover #Seriously tho why has no one done this one yet? #It would be so interesting #ESPECIALLY if Yusuke is older here #The dynamic between Yusuke and Danny would be so damn fun #I imagine it's similar to Genkai and Yusuke's relationship #Speaking of Genkai #The MOMENT she finds out that yusuke is training someone #She busts her way out of spirit world so she can find out who it is #she wants to know who her grandkid is teaching dammit! #she takes one look at Danny and is just like #Looks like I'm adopting yet another snarky half dead fourteen year-old #Also Danny can totally see her #and it throws her for one hell of a loop #Danny floats up to her and is like yo what's up? #and Genkai's chill abt it on the outside #on the inside tho #she's like #*surprised pikachu face* #Hiei #Kurama #yyh kuwabara #koenma #i will pay whoever writes this 50 dollars #jk i don't have any money #but like

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

Danny Phantom - Transparent

Author Comments: Ha, and you all thought you were rid of me, didn’t you? Too bad for you I’m still here and back with some more stories! This is one of my commissions I finished recently and, god willing, there’s more where this came from!

Summary: Ghostwriter, also known as Andrew Riter, has had a long and difficult life, and a rather difficult afterlife, too. So, when his boyfriend, Danny Fenton/Phantom, starts acting oddly, it’s clear that there’s only one answer as to the cause. Danny was going to betray him to his ghost-hunting parents — now if only he could convince his brother of the matter. 

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Relationship: Ghostwriter | Andrew Riter/Danny Fenton/Phantom

Characters: Ghostwriter | Andrew Riter, Dannny Fenton/Phantom, Randy Riter (Ghostwriter’s Brother)

Rating: Teen Audiences

Word Count: 3,622

Transaction Amount: $20 

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                                                       ⁂

Typically, considering the rather complicated lives as religion-obsessed assassins they had led when they were, well, alive, Andrew’s brother was rather good about believing him when Andrew suspected someone of showing signs of betrayal. This time, however, Randy looked less amused and more disappointed, arms crossed as he sighed and spoke a vaguely annoyed, “Have you been working on your murder mystery books again?”

“Randy.” Andrew Riter, better known to some as the Ghostwriter, liked to believe that he was a rather logical person. With the fact that he was one of the few ghosts in the Ghost Zone who wasn’t absolutely insane or obsessed with world domination, he had a much firmer grasp on reality and those around him. As such, he knew when he was being paranoid versus when something actually concerning was taking place. “We’ve been betrayed before and I’m telling you that all of the signs are there-!”

Randy held up a hand to stop him, looking even more disappointed than he had even just a minute ago. It was almost impressive and Andrew hated how he immediately snapped his mouth shut, Randy nodding before continuing with a firm, “Your boyfriend is not plotting to betray you.”

“But he could be!” Andrew burst out, throwing his arms up into the air. “It would be perfect, too, because no one would ever expect the hero Danny Phantom to betray his partner!” It all made sense and the plot was laid out in front of him like a glaringly bright yellow brick road. 

“Andrew,” Randy groaned, moving to collapse against a plush, overstuffed couch that Andrew was particularly fond of. There was a reason he kept that couch in his study, after all, which was where he had hidden himself until he could parse out Danny’s true intentions. “Danny couldn’t even lie to you when he was trying to surprise you for his birthday.”

“Which would make his betrayal all the more possible!” Andrew shot back, mind whirling with snippets of conversations and interactions as he paced his study. “He always has to be home on Saturday mornings and when I asked why he looked away and nervously lied about how it was a medical thing-”

“What makes you think that was a lie?” Randy was all but ignoring him, flipping through one of Andrew’s manuscripts that he had thrown towards the couch in a fit of rage. Andrew felt no qualms in picking up a rather large thesaurus and throwing it at Randy, pleased at the following yelp of pain. “Hey!”

Andrew went back to his pacing, ignoring the swears aimed his way as he thought over the other day’s questioning about why Danny always had to be home at the same time on Saturday mornings of all things. Danny had been so nervous, avoiding eye contact and shuffling his weight around and even going so far as to flinch when Andrew had raised a hand to gently rub his shoulder. It was clear to see that Danny knew Andrew was clued in on his future betrayal. 

Catching the book he saw flying at him out of the corner of his eye, Andrew looked to Randy, an annoyed expression showing that he had clearly said something that Andrew hadn’t heard. Andrew decided to respond with a simple, “You’re wrong.”

“You have no idea what I said, do you?” Randy scoffed, Andrew only smirking because replying like that meant Randy knew he was wrong in whatever he had said so ha. “Okay, so the medical thing is a bit weird, but maybe it’s just something he has to do that he’s embarrassed about. That doesn’t mean he’s betraying you.”

“It also doesn’t mean that he’s not not betraying me,” Andrew snapped out, pausing and wrinkling his nose because, hm, that had not felt like good sentence structure. There had to be a better way to word that thought. Perhaps- “Ow.”

Rubbing his now sore head, Andrew glared at Randy, who smirked because he was stupid and had stupid perfect aim and Andrew didn’t care what he said being hit in the back of the head with a pen hurt. Andrew made a mental reminder to make him suffer later, continuing his point instead with a firm, “It makes sense.”

“Fine. Let’s indulge your paranoia for a few minutes here.” Randy sat up as Andrew fought off the urge to insist that it wasn’t paranoia. “Who exactly would Danny betray you too?” Ah, well, that… was a question, certainly. “Seriously?”

“Well excuse me for being more worried about the actual betrayal aspect of this plot!” Andrew snapped back, crossing his arms and looking down at aged, ruffled carpet. “The Observants-”

“They hate me and Danny way more than they hate you,” Randy interrupted with a scoff, which… was true; as much as Andrew hated to admit it. He was just waiting on the day when Randy was kidnapped by the one-eyed cretins. “Try again.”

Andrew chewed on the inside of his cheek, mentally paging through the ghosts and humans that they both knew. “Guys-in-White?” Before Randy could throw something at him again, Andrew shook his own head, “Mm, no.” Danny hated the Guys-in-White more than any other ghost he knew. Plus, it would be embarrassing to be handed over to them. “He would at least have the good sense to give me to his parents, first-”

Snapping his mouth shut, Andrew stared at the ground because that was it. The thread of the plot that had just been out-of-sight. Danny’s parents; the ghost hunters. It made perfect sense. Danny had yet to tell the two of his ghostly nature, but he had been hinting towards it. What better way to get in their good graces than to offer up an actual ghost? 

Andrew looked to Randy, who immediately shook his head, “No- No, no, no, he is not planning on offering you up to his parents-”

“It makes sense.” It was the perfect plan — the perfect story. Danny Fenton, the boy cursed with ghost powers with ghost hunters as parents. What better way to earn forgiveness and respect than to give them that which they had been so desperately hunting over the years? It lined up into clean, crisp arcs: the meeting, the fall, the betrayal, the end. 

Feeling the thrum under his skin of danger, Andrew turned to start pacing again, instead running right into Randy’s chest. His brother caught him by his shoulders, stilling him and holding him in place while looking at him with an expression that was equal parts annoyed and concerned, “What manuscript are you working on right now?”

Ah, now, this is where Randy would dismiss all his worries and say he was paranoid because he had spent too long in one genre. Andrew, though, knew how to get around this. “I’m afraid it doesn’t have a name at the moment-”

“Andrew.” Damn Randy and his knowledge of Andrew’s small quirks and oddities. 

“A Crimson Dinner,” Andrew muttered reluctantly, trying not to wince at Randy’s glaring look. “So what if I have been working on murder mysteries again! That doesn’t explain Danny’s odd behavior!” 

“Jesus,” Randy groaned, Andrew hating how he had the instinctive urge, even after so long, to scold him for taking the Lord’s name in vain. Hm, maybe he had been working on his latest manuscript for a touch too long. “Andy. That kid fucking loves you. He is not going to betray you to his parents — who are not that good at being ghost hunters, by the way.” 

Andrew read the concern buried in Randy's voice and the way his hands tightened on his shoulders in clear worry. What was even clearer was the plea in his eyes to just drop the matter. If this had been another time Andrew would have nodded and agreed that he was being paranoid. He would have lied to Randy’s face and felt no remorse. 

As it was now, though, Andrew only continued with a firm, unyielding, “But what if-” Randy’s groan was unappreciated, but he at least wasn’t flying away from him in a fit of rage.

Which was excellent. Andrew needed a sounding board so he could begin crafting a plan to deal with his boyfriend’s future betrayal.

⁂

“You’re being weird.” Blinking at the half-ghost that was sitting in his lap and staring at him with amused suspicion, Andrew decided to respond by innocently tilting his head. “Don’t play cute with me. I know you know what I mean.” 

“Haven’t the faintest,” Andrew denied, shivering as Danny’s palms, cool and soft, rubbed against the stubble dotted across his cheeks as the younger leaned closer. “No idea at all.”

“None whatsoever, huh?” Danny raised an eyebrow, those palms still cool against him as he gently nudged Andrew closer to him, pressing a sweet, soft kiss to the tip of his nose. “Not even a bit of an idea?” 

“None whatsoever,” Andrew repeated distractedly, unable to help his frown when Danny pouted and ‘collapsed’ against his chest. Honestly, this one was bad for his heart in far too many ways. “Why do you think I’m acting suspicious?” 

“I didn’t say suspicious,” Danny snorted, looking up at him with a look torn between annoyance and amusement. It was such a sweet look, and Andrew almost didn’t even feel all that bad that it would be Danny to betray him. “I said you’re being weird. You’re acting all… observant-y.” 

Andrew knew Danny no doubt meant that Andrew had been keeping a much more careful eye on him over the past couple of days, but he couldn’t help his immediate response of, “There’s no need for insults, mon cher.” 

The confusion fading into startled laughter was worth the pang of knowing this would, one day, come to an end. Besides, it was hard to feel too upset when Danny was so sweet about the way he earned his trust, cuddling closer to him and giving him soft kisses and teasing him gently and warmly. Really… if this was to be his final hell, it wasn’t one Andrew was all that keen about fighting against. 

“Don’t think I’m dropping this,” Danny managed to mutter between kisses, seemingly as distracted as Andrew was becoming. “You’re still acting weird — and that’s coming from the teenage half-ghost superhero.” 

Andrew scoffed, rolling his eyes as Danny curled back up against his chest, near hiding against him, “And here, I believe, is where I say something about the pot calling the kettle black?” Danny stuck his tongue out, Andrew clucking his own in response. “Maybe I’m just busy trying to uncover all of your secrets.”

It was a tease as much as it was a test, but it hurt more than Andrew would have thought when he felt Danny jolt against him, sudden and sharp as a swirl of fear flashed across his eyes. Danny’s words tumbled together and fell out of him a rush, a half-panicked, “Looks like you caught me. I did steal Sam’s nail polish in seventh grade.”

“I knew it,” Andrew said seriously, responding just how was expected of him. He might have been tempted to put more humor into the situation if it didn’t feel like his chest was aching with the realization that he had been right. Yes… he supposed he really had known it. “Danny…”

Danny, nervously shifting and adjusting to where he was once again sitting beside him rather than straight in his lap, paused to give him a look that was just as nervous, “Yeah?”

“I…” He what? He knew that Danny was going to betray him to his parents? He was fully aware that Danny was keeping something from him and had no intention of telling him? He still loved Danny even though he knew what was going to happen? 

A million words floated through his head, Andrew trying them all out silently one after the other. I love you. No. This wasn’t the time even if it was true. I know what you’re going to do. No, no, no, that sounded far too accusatory. Andrew didn’t want to start a fight with Danny when it felt like he was trying to claw his heart back together as it was. Why did it have to come to this? Don’t you love me? Did I do something wrong? What did I miss? Please, don’t do this- 

“Andrew?” Danny’s quiet voice broke up his thoughts, a cool hand cupping his cheek as eyes looked at him with a potent mixture of worry and concern. It was the barest edges of caution that had him near recoiling, though. “Are you-”

“I’m not blind.” It was nowhere near what he wanted to say exactly, but it was at least a somewhat subtle start. “You… You do know I’m not blind, don’t you?” He had to have known that Andrew was fully aware of what was about to happen. Right? 

“I- Yeah, of course- I mean-! Yeah! I know that!” That caution spiraled out into panic and fear, Danny quickly standing up. “Right, well, uh, I’m gonna go, you know- Kitchen. Food, and everything- Yeah.” Danny was rushing away towards another part of Andrew’s lair before Andrew himself could even offer a response. 

His only saving grace — and oh how far he had fallen to even so much as think that — was Randy entering the room with a low whistle only seconds after Danny had truly left. Andrew didn't know if the man was just that good at sniffing out drama or if he had felt Andrew’s turbulent emotions. 

“Accuse him of his ultimate betrayal of your love and shit that soon? Thought you would have held it in for at least another week or two.” If this were even earlier that day, Andrew would have been tempted to roll his eyes and toss a book at his brother. As it was, Andrew just stared in the direction Danny had taken off towards; the opposite direction of the kitchen. “Hey, this is the part where you give me your hundred page thesis on all of your paranoid-”

“He flinched.” Andrew’s words were quiet, soft enough that they could have been easily talked over. Randy fell silent, instead, and didn’t that just tell Andrew everything he already knew? “We were just… talking. He noticed how I’ve been acting odd, and I teased that I was ‘trying to uncover all of his secrets.’’

Andrew looked to Randy, hating how everything in him felt like begging for advice and support and he didn’t want to lose this. “He flinched.” Danny shouldn’t have flinched- Andrew knew all his secrets; or at least, he thought he had.

“Andy…” Randy trailed off, not saying anything else. When it looked like he was about to try to speak, Andrew simply shook his head. He didn’t need advice. 

Not when the matter would be dealt with soon enough — one way or another. 

⁂

In truth, after his discussion with Randy, Andrew had been prepared to wait months or even years for Danny’s betrayal. The both of them were patient when it came to important matters and Danny was far cleverer than people gave him credit for. He also didn’t like to lose. With that in mind, Andrew had been prepared to wait. 

He hadn’t expected, three days later, to be wincing at Danny’s cold, aching tone when he snapped out a harsh, “Fine. You figured it out. Proud of yourself?!” Shoved into a corner of the couch and curled up and glaring at him, Danny showed every sign of an injured wild animal. It was harder than Andrew would have thought to fight back the urge to try and comfort the teen and talk him down. 

Instead, he busied himself with the thought of wondering how Danny had known that he had figured it out. Andrew opened his mouth to ask that, or maybe deny he even knew, but Danny beat him there with a cold, bitter laugh, “Please. You’ve been acting weird for days, ever since-” Since that joke about ‘secrets.’ “You barely look at me, you’ve been avoiding spending time with me, you haven’t touched me once-”

Danny cut himself off with a jagged sound that had very clearly been a suppressed whine and Andrew hated how much it hurt. He couldn’t stop himself from responding with a quiet, “Danny…” 

“I just- I thought with you it would be different.” Danny’s voice cracked and the sound made Andrew want to release a whine of his own. “I didn’t think-! It wasn’t supposed to go like this!” Danny had his arms wrapped tight around his chest, curled up even more as the desperate, broken expression on his face snapped into one of rage, green eyes blazing with anger.

Unsurprisingly, it was the anger that had Andrew responding, a spark of defiance blazing through him because how dare he-! “You thought I would simply be fine with you betraying me by offering me up to your parents on a silver platter as some- Some gift-” 

“What?” Danny’s tone, loud and sudden and confused, had Andrew snapping his mouth shut. Danny no longer looked angry and hurt and cornered, instead he simply stared at Andrew, blinking slowly. “Hang on… Hang on- Andy, what do you mean when you say I’m ‘betraying you?’” There was confusion and caution and… hope?

It was the hope that caught Andrew off guard, all of his meticulous notes about how odd Danny had been acting as proof of his upcoming betrayal disappearing. Instead he could only stare before managing a weak, “You’re… going to betray me and offer me up to your parents as a peace offering? A ghost they can study before revealing your own ghostly nature to them?”

The laugh, wild and sharp and sudden and relieved, was not something Andrew had expected from Danny. Nor had he expected the rushed out, blurted words of, “I’m trans.” Andrew simply… stared. He had expected betrayal, and heartache, and the bitter reminder that humanity and the dead could never truly be, but he had not expected… that. Danny seemed to realize as such, all of his fear and worry and anger seeming to vanish as a smile reappeared. “You know. Transgender?”

“I- Yes.” Trans. Danny was transgender. “I’m aware of what trans means.” He knew what it meant, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t surprised because he hadn’t… been expecting that. “I… Well. I suppose that does rather make more sense than you betraying me to your parents, doesn’t it?”

Andrew barely took a seat on the couch before he had Danny in his lap, Andrew’s hands snapping out to steady him before he was very quickly distracted by lips pressed against his own. When Danny finally pulled back, it was to more laughter muffled against his cheek as the other buried his way against him, “I can’t believe- Out of every possible sign you thought-!”

“Yes, thank you!” Andrew interrupted, refusing to focus on the warmth he could feel in his cheeks. Ghosts may have been dead, but they could still flush in embarrassment, apparently. “It made a remarkable amount of sense at the time.” Ah… Randy was never going to let him live this down once he found out.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Danny said seriously, leaning back to cup Andrew’s cheeks with his hands, pressing just enough to squish them and make Andrew try to squirm away. Danny, the brat, didn’t let him. “It makes perfect sense that, instead of believing I’m trans, you believe that I’m going to betray you to my parents.”

“That’s not-!” Ah, but that was exactly what Andrew had thought, wasn’t it? “It wasn’t as simple and foolish as you make it sound!” Andrew tried to jerk his head away again, not putting much effort into the gesture when he was more focused on Danny’s relieved, happy laughter. “You’re just a naturally suspicious person, I suppose.”

“This from the former assassin,” Danny shot back at once, his inability to not have the last word kicking in as it always did. “I pass that well, huh?” There was something in the words that made the ends waver. There was a hesitance in how Danny braced himself, beginning to lean back as if expecting Andrew to ever care about something as simple as that. 

Mulling over his words, Andrew tried a dozen variations in his head before he sighed, truth slipping out of him as it always did around his idiotic, ridiculous, wonderful boyfriend, “Honestly, you say that like it matters.” Cupping the other’s cheek, Andrew brought him back in closer, kissing him softly. 

“Doesn’t it?” Danny asked as soon as he pulled back, a hint of fang peeking out as he bit at his lip. Even as he asked, though, Andrew could see the tension sliding out of him, body relaxed and easy to bring back towards his own. “I mean… does it matter?”

“Danny.” Andrew shook his head, incredulous laughter bursting out of him. “I thought you were going to betray me, and I was still in love with you and ready to do whatever you asked of me. What do you think that means?”

“Mm…” Danny trailed off, learning forward for a kiss before stopping just shy with a smirk. “That you’re more paranoid than you say you are.” The smirk was too much like Randy’s for Andrew’s liking and he felt no shame in grabbing a nearby pillow and trying to smother the brat. 

He had to admit, though… The bright, cheerful laughter wasn’t such a bad sound; and he supposed it was rather good that Danny wasn’t about to betray him to his parents. At least, not anytime soon, it seemed.

#danny phantom #iambic prose #ghostwriter #ghost writer #my writing #original

[nikxation]

Fic Writer Interview

I was tagged by @endae <3 I throw this under a Read More since it's a little long.

How many works do you have on AO3?

23 (wow that's so much more than I had thought)

What’s your total word count on AO3

215,893 jesus fucking c-

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Marvel, Miraculous Ladybug, Gravity Falls, Danny Phantom, Star Wars So 5. 5 fandoms

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Top to Bottom: Premiere Night With a Large Popcorn and a Side of Eye-Rolling (Miraculous Ladybug), Tactility (Star Wars/Mandalorian), Tell Him (Gravity Falls), A Matter of Time (Gravity Falls), Catharsis (Gravity Falls).

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to. I think I've only ever not responded to a couple comments, and that's because they either 1) came from a non-registered user, so I knew they wouldn't see my response, or 2) it was just a "Kudos" comment or something along those lines that I appreciated but maybe didn't have the time or drive to respond to. But all comments are appreciated, and I do respond to the majority of them. I like engaging with my readers and letting them know I appreciate them sharing their thoughts about my work.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I mean I straight-up kill Stan in Their End, so that'd probably be up there for that reason. But I still think Tell Him had a certain level of foreboding to it that made it pretty angsty (and as popular as it apparently was).

Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever written?

I don't write crossovers, haven't really found a plot for one that's excited me yet.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I... don't think so... Not that I can think of right off the bat.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I have not, but I am... not as opposed to it as I used to be. I still don't think I ever will, but I blame my current affinity for pretty helmeted Star Wars men for the fact that I'm not vehemently opposed anymore. But again, not sure I ever would, but will clarify that if I ever wrote it, it would not be posted through this blog/account because this blog is non-explicit, I would make a side account for it.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah! DaraDjinn (don't know why Tumblr isn't letting me tag her) translated a couple of my GF fics to French a while back! Catharsis, Scars, and I Dreamt of Fire! Was super psyched when she asked me if she could do it!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I'm not very big on ships at the moment (aside from reader insert stuff, obviously, haha), but way back in the day, I really liked FrostIron (Loki x Tony Stark). It was one hell of a dynamic and really popular. Stucky (Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes) was a close second.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I'm not gonna say A Matter of Time, I'm not gonna say it and put those words out into the ether because I want to finish it I'm just trapped in Star Wars hell right now, but I'm also well aware of what happens when I latch onto a new hyperfixation, I can't maintain two of them, and I hate that because I really wanna finish AMoT and I know there are a lot of you out there that want me to finish it tooooooooo.

What are your writing strengths?

The two things people compliment me on all the time are the flow of my writing and my characterization. I personally love my writing flow, so I'm super glad when other people seem to like it too. When it comes to writing in-character, it's always a big fear of mine, but then I get comments of people gushing over how in-character things are, so that's reassuring and validating af.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I have one hell of a time with anything action-y (which is why... I don't write it a lot, haha). Fast-paced motion is really hard for me to nail down, especially when I like to hammer down details, so the necessity to get through things fast while still maintaining a clear picture of what's happening??? Difficult af.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it completely depends on the situation, both in the fic and in real life. With respect to the fic, if you're writing dialogue in another language, it better be 100% in-character and not awkward. Like, too often you see people dropping in other languages either to use as petnames or to have a "oh oops sorry I accidentally switched languages" which gets... very near that unrealistic trope and can sometimes even come across as fetishizing??? So, like, it better be in-character and within reason. Bear in mind that if you're writing in another language, you better have a translation readily accessible, probably in notes (which, is still annoying because either you have to scroll down to see what they said, or you have to just keep reading not knowing... which, if you're not supposed to know, then alright I guess, but if it's a full conversation that you're supposed to be in-the-know on, it's annoying). With respect to your real-life situation, if it's a language you are personally not fluent in, you better be finding someone who is to run things by them. You can really ostracize your readers and take them out of your story if they speak the language and you say something taboo or blatantly incorrect because you just used Google translate. So, have someone who knows the language double-check your stuff, make sure it all reads correctly. TL;DR: Be tasteful and smart if you really feel the need to do it. Remember you're putting more work on the readers, so it better be worth it. And make sure you have someone check your work if you're not fluent in the language.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Pokemon, back in like 3rd or 4th grade.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

I'm still proud of Catharsis, it was my first real delve into very introspective writing and flow, and it's a way of writing that I really enjoy slipping into every once in a while now. Also a lot of really nice descriptions and metaphors and motifs that I'm still very happy with to this day. More recently, I'm proud of Tactility, more for what it did for me rather than the fic itself. Well, I mean, I'm proud of the fic, it was my first delve into the Mando fandom and it got a lot of positive reception, it was exactly what I wanted it to be and came out exactly how I wanted it, especially in the short timeframe that I wrote it. But I'm just... very happy that I did it because writing reader inserts always felt very taboo for me. I've actually written a few before, all of them PG and very tame for different fandoms, but I've always just been... too nervous to post them? And this was the first one I actually felt comfortable posting and wanted to put out there, and it sort-of let me feel more comfortable with it and encouraged me to keep doing it, which I'm happy about because writing reader insert fics is so fun and I'm glad I feel comfortable enough to enjoy it openly now.

Uhhh I'll tag @bunniesofsteel @anistarrose @3hobbitsinatrenchcoat and anyone else who wants to do it, you can say I tagged you :)

#thanks for the tag rin #this one kinda made me think a little bit not gonna lie #tag games

[phantomphangphucker]

Legless On Maim Chap. 8: Crime And Time Makes Me Fine. NOT.

Danny messes with a cop, Lewis messes with a ghost, Vee messes with a Eddie, ClockWork messes with EVERYBODY. And while Danny loves ClockWork, he also thinks they’re an absolute bastard.

Danny gets awoken almost violently and promptly slips off the branch he had climbed up onto. Deciding to just stay laying on the ground groaning rather than deal with his friends; especially hearing them laughing at him.

“Now that’s some quality blackmail material”.

“Dude! Wow you were not kidding!”.

Danny just groans again as Tucker tosses a pair of pants over his face. Fine, he appreciates actually having pants now -even if they weren’t on him, at least not in the way he’d like them to be- but knowing his friends they were probably patterned embarrassingly. Blinking open his eyes and blowing air strong enough at them to make them float up into the air, effectively confirming a stupid pattern; fucking pink with hearts, motherfuckers. “Jerks”.

Sam smirks and puts a hand on her hip as Danny pushes himself to sit up, “courtesy of my folks' refusal to accept that I’m not their personal dress-up doll”.

Danny snorts, “you’d think they'd give you more heartfelt gifts for a change, instead of using the opportunity to try and make you have a fashionable change of heart”. Earning matching groans and making him smirk. Getting up and flipping them off while hopping to get the (very hideous)pj’s on.

Tucker points at him, “least your legs clearly work”.

“Tuck pal, I think I’d be having a fair few fucking crises if they didn’t”, patting the pants off before straightening up and gesturing exaggeratedly at his legs, “I’m having a crisis as it is. The fuck am I supposed to do with this? How the fuck am I supposed to explain this guys?!?”, gesturing even more wildly, “I. Have. Legs. Again. They were cut off, and now. They. Are. Back. Is there any section of the endless expanse of the Zone where I am not fucked”.

Tucker shrugs, “body paint? Sam is rich enough for an endless supply”. Sam glares at him, crosses her arms, and then uncrosses them just to smack him over the head, “I am not a walking wallet!”.

Danny points aggressively at Tucker, “my folks are not utterly blind, Tuck”, shrugging, “sure it’s a close thing, but still”, glaring, “and that will immediately fall apart as soon as they want to do a systems check or something. Heck! They haven’t even gotten the CyberSteps working yet. Meaning I still got to test prototypes, which is literally impossible to do with having freaking legs again!”.

Sam and Tucker share a look, Sam shaking her head, “you could just be honest? They were chill with a bloody ghost Core, Danny, I think they can handle legs”.

Danny glares, “Cores and ghostly tails are solid ecto-energy, not flesh and blood and bone. It’s not the same. That shit can, apparently, just be explained away by me having a somewhat awakened ghost. Legs, fleshy human legs, are not a ghost thing”.

Tucker shrugs, “could just pitch it as ghostly healing? Though yeah, you almost might as well just tell them everything at this point”.

Danny huffs, he had a point. Considering the sheer amount of ghostly weirdness his folks have just accepted at this point. But still, the whole ‘I’m half ghost! Surprise!’ was more than just being half ghost. It also meant admitting he was Phantom and had been hiding and lying for two whole years. It meant his parents facing the fact that their life's work was effectively responsible for killing their son. That they had spent years telling him to his face how much they really badly and painfully wanted to dissect and destroy him. That they actually had tortured him once and injured him on nearly a weekly bases. Then there was the fact that they saw him get tossed around, impaled, stabbed, lit on fire, gutted, decapitated, cut in half, electrocuted, maimed, shot, and other things he’s probably forgetting, pretty much every day; and they just watched and did nothing to help.

Sure he didn’t resent them for all of that, how could he? they didn’t know. But they would be crushed and hurt, that mattered. And that’s without even mentioning that he would effectively disprove most of their work. And yeah, they had made some headway recently and were finally recognising that created ghosts at least could be a thing. Maybe, just maybe, born ghosts too. Ancients, they were only just now starting to listen to him. Willing to face and accept that ghosts might not be the evil emotionless monsters they always thought they were. Is it so terrible that he'd like them to not hate ghosts before finding out that he was one???

Apparently the universe thought so.

But no, fuck it. He will take this secret fully to the grave before the universes crap -which the Observants probably played a role in because they hate him and want him to suffer- forces this secret to light. Fuck the universe and it’s bullshit. Groaning at the sky anyway, “you know, I always imagined it would be something crazy, utterly impossible, undeniably ghostly; that would bang me up in a life-changing way. Would force secrets to light. Not something so damn simple, so normal, so human; as a car crash”.

Both of them chuckle at him and move to pat at his shoulders. Tucker snorts, “I think it was more car ‘massacre’ than car ‘crash’”. Danny shoves him a little because people fucking died.

Sam shakes her head though, “you’re not going to tell them, are you?”.

Danny snorts and shakes his head a little; happily taking the slight distraction, “naw. Maybe someday, but that someday is not today. Fuck the universes shitty sense of comedic timing”, crossing his arms and glaring down at his legs. He can still feel the whole bandage booty shorts situation, embarrassing but fuck it. He’s going to make Lewis have to witness his shit. Even if it probably won’t make his eyeballs bleed, that guy has seen way too much weird shit to suffer mental ocular trauma from anything. But still.

Tucker and Sam exchange a Look before looking back to Danny and speaking in sync, “spite”.

Danny nods with a slight smirk, “is there ever a better reason?”.

Getting another in synch response, “not dying... further”. Danny waves them off like he couldn’t care less.

Sam shakes her head, “on a slightly serious note, what’s the plan?”.

Danny shrugs, “well should see if I even can still modify my ghostly body on a molecular level to turn solid limbs into a gas”.

Tucker snickers, “and like everything else about you, when you say it technically it sounds like some body horror shit”. Danny just finger-guns at him before going ghost and easily changing to his ghostly tail; promptly doing jazz hands.

Sam and Tucker nod, Tucker pointing at him, “well that solves that, dude”, continuing at Danny’s raised confused eyebrow, “Danny-dude, just do that half transformation thing and leave your lower half in ghost mode”.

Sam smirks and nods, turning to Tucker and talking like this has already been decided as the plan of attack, “then we can just wrap bandaging over his Phantom legs before he switches to a tail, getting the bandaged look”. Tucker hums his agreement.

Danny sticks his arms out to the side and looks almost offended, “do you know how hard half transforming is to maintain? There’s a reason I never do that shit for more than emergencies or quick jokes”.

Sam rolls her eyes at him, “deal with it”. Danny flips her off. Though really, not much of another option. Having a ghost tail in human form was drastically harder to have and maintain than half transforming.

Danny transforms his upper half back human because, eh why not? And he’s been gone for a while. Chuckling down at the black ghostly tail before smirking at his friends, “I’m three halves of a whole now. Half a body, half transformed, and half-ghost in two different ways. I don’t think anyone ever put this much effort into half-assing so many things. All because so much of me just keeps on dying. I’m a real die-hard you could say. Really killed any effort for a fully functioning life. My apparent partial lifelessness isn’t a real tear-jerker apparently, so maybe I should add some flavour and start halving onions”.

Tucker grabs Danny’s head and shoves him into the dirt; even if they’re all laughing a bit.

It takes a while before they all calm down, laying in the grass and staring up at the sky. Tucker being the first to speak up again, “so, hows it feel to be amongst the legged again?”.

Danny changes back fully human and crosses his ankles, “very leggy”, earning a round of snorts. Honestly, it was a bit weird. Especially feeling fabric over leg skin for the first time in days. He also has never been so aware over how much legs weigh. Sure his human form was always heavier than his ghost one, but wow legs weigh a lot. Well technically legs and pelvis. And it was also weird that having legs again felt weird; really it should feel like a return to normalcy, instead the leglessness had become like normalcy, Either it was really easy to get used to or he was one overall adaptable son of a corpse. It was probably the latter.

The three scrunch their faces up and groan in sync as it starts raining, lightly at first before suddenly coming down in a torrential downpour; resulting in them scrambling up. Danny transforming and grabbing them up, intangibly and invisibly flying them back to his house. Returning to the visible spectrum in his room.

Sam takes two steps before stepping in something definitely still wet and grimacing at Danny, “this is why we never take our shoes off”. Danny just shrugs her off while changing back human, feet planting on the ground with a little plop, and flopping face down onto his bed.

His friends following suit on top of him. Tucker muttering, “ow”, after basically smashing his forehead into Danny’s shoulder brace.

Danny snorts, “I’m not paying for your concussion treatment”.

Seconds later Jazz practically slams the door open, “finally, where have you been Danny???”. Managing to actually startle Danny (since his nose was blocked by his bed), who startles everyone else by pushing himself up so fast his braces make concerning cracking sounds and his very human legs suddenly becoming a ghostly tail; which completely off balances him and, combined with his momentum, sends him falling to the floor. Landing on his ass/tail base with a startled ‘oof’, just as Maddie sticks her head in the doorway.

Maddie blinks and looks slightly apologetic, assuming she startled him enough for him to mess up with the floating, “oh sorry sweetie, I came up to let you two, four now I guess, know that supper will be ready in half an hour”, then scrunching up her face and realising something’s not right here. Pointing at his tail, “why is It pink, and covered in hearts?”.

Danny has to physically bite his tongue to avoid gapping as he glances down at his tail. What the fuck. It has never been that easy in human form? And he wasn’t even having to maintain it? The fuck?

Sam comes to his rescue near-instantly though, “uh, we wanted to see what would happen if he tried putting normal clothing over It and It just kinda absorbed it”. Maddie can’t help but smile at that, kids will be kids.

Danny awkwardly adding, “and it’s not like the, uh, bandaging is a forever thing, and, uh, I don’t think It would, like, look very good flesh-coloured?”. He, in fact, knew It wouldn’t. His mom makes a face and nods while his friends snicker at him, the assholes.

Maddie tilts her head, a little curious how his tail even did that. This didn’t happen when he had apparently had a hoodie draped over It when he first came home? Maybe -what she’s just going to assume is a ‘gift’ from Pamela for Sam. She will never see eye to eye with that woman. Sure her and Jack did push the kids to be hunters, but they didn’t try to control their entire lives- the pants were fairly tight around his tail? She’d ask but considering he looks a little startled, she’s not going to press. Shaking her head, “well hopefully you can undo it, in case this happens with any clothing you actually care about”, frowning slightly, “I also hope this doesn’t interfere with Dan’s work”.

Danny blinks, still confused enough by his body to be unphased by the Dan name, “uh, yeah don’t wanna go giving him a heart attack”. Everyone shakes their heads.

Maddie electing to head back to the kitchen, “I’ll call when foods ready”, the door closing behind her.

Sam and Tucker look to Danny’s pink heart-covered tail then to his face, “Danny, what the Hell”.

Danny throws up his hands, “I panicked alright!”.

“Since when does your panic help anything?!?”.

“Since now apparently!”.

Jazz blinks, “I’m going to guess this-”, gesturing at Danny’s tail, “- wasn’t intentional”, putting her hands on her hips, “and Danny, you are lucky mom just waved me off to go check on you and stayed in the lab. You’ve been missing for hours. You know how they get". Her chastising earning some apologetic neck rubbing, before Danny emphatically gestures at his tail which suddenly pops into pj-covered legs. Making her jump a little, “oh! Your legs! They grew back!”, quickly moving to sit down on the floor and grab at one of his bare feet. Then glaring at him for suddenly changing back to his tail; leaving her grasping onto the tip of his tail.

Sam and Tucker both jerk a bit from the sudden change themselves, before falling over laughing loudly, the pink heart-covered look was still not flattering. Danny looking baffled doesn’t help either. Though he does eventually snort and start snickering before flopping to lay on the floor laughing with them; Jazz just shakes her head at the trio's antics.

Danny snickers, “I guess the hearts really felt my hearts deepest desires! Really trying to be lovable! Since I was just being a total bleeding-heart earlier!”.

Jazz audibly scowls and stands up, “on that painful note, I'm going to help mom. I’m assuming this leg issue was why you just up and disappeared”. Shaking her head when Sam adds in, “and he fell asleep. In a tree”.

Danny throws out his hands, still laying on the ground, “it’s comfy!”, while Jazz heads downstairs.

Sam eventually glances at the calmly waving tail before looking back to the ceiling, “guess your body got so used to the tail that it comes easier now?”.

Danny huffs, “no fucking clue”, shrugging, “but probably. I doubt I’d even change back automatically from tiredness or sleeping or injury. So you can have your heart back”, intentionally turning back to legs purely to phase off the pj’s dramatically by flinging them up into the air; easily changing back to a bandage-looking tail. This kinda solved his problem, he still had a tail. Easily and naturally so. And! he had legs too! The best two for one deal ever! Which fine, he was glad to have again. Even though it was straight crazy that he could regrow entire limbs. Half his body pretty much. Sure Lewis has ‘said’ they were regrowing but them actually regrowing was a whole-ass-nother thing.

The three watch the pj’s float down out of the air onto their faces, Danny snickering and speaking mockingly, “ahhhh. Heart attack”. Earning hard hits from his friends.

Tucker rolls his eyes, “you already used that one today, and are you just going to stick with a tail all the time now?”.

Danny shrugs noncommittally. The answer was probably yes, in human form anyway. His friends obviously can tell he’s basically come to that decision since they both hit him again, Sam snapping without much feeling, “you fucking idiot”; everyone falling back into silence after,

Danny contentedly winding his tail around their legs. Which fine, he had become more than a little fond of being able to do that and his tail in general. He has a feeling ClockWork would, and probably is, actively smirking over him just sticking to a ghostly tail; just like them. Which yes, only serves to encourage Danny.

(Off in the far off realm of the Ghost Zone, a couple Observants hand trinkets over to ClockWork; having lost various bets. ClockWork simply smirks, one would think they’d know better by now. But no, most of their egos were a smidge too large. But it was a quite enjoyable way to teach the Observants a lesson about the future not being set in stone... And that Daniel tended to take the uncommon (and thus unviewable to the Observants) route)

Danny eventually grunting and lifts up his thermos with his tail, “so Skulker wants to harass the doc for my scraps”.

Tucker snorts, “poor bastard, only just met you and he’s already got a ghostly pest”.

“Oh I don’t know Tuck, seems more like a fast way to put whether or not the friendly-ish sorta cannibal can eat things past their expiration date to the test”. Danny would kinda like to know if Vee could eat him or not. Sure a human definitely couldn’t, ectoplasm was toxic after all. But again, fucking aliens. And Lewis seemingly thinks Vee can eat fucking everything.

Sam pushes herself up to glare down at him, “I find it seriously hard to believe a cannibal is ‘friendly’”. Tucker snickers, “yeah, probably steal your scraps from doctor dude or Skulker for a snack”.

Danny waves his hand around as much as the braces will let him, “oh he’s clearly a real people person. If they wanted my scraps they coulda just shown up in the amputee ward, they’d have some real meals on wheels then”.

Sam smacks him over the head with a very disgusted scowl, “your mind is a fucking sin and that so-called ‘diet’ is even worse”.

Danny smirks, “well if they feel like repenting via a little taste of religion, I know a few annoying priests that show up every month or so”. Seriously, he could really do without those type thinking ghosts were demons, or that Phantom was the ‘anti-Christ’, or Amity was a displaced section of Hell, or that Phantom was the second coming of Christ. Outside of the mixed messages, it was also supremely annoying.

All three jerk a bit from a very loud yell from Tucker’s pocket, “Jesus fucking Christ no! We are not eating a fucking priest! I’m not that depraved!-hey don’t you-I liked that coffee pot, you fucker and now look at it? It’s on the fucking ground. No I am not going to just ‘go get it’, you’re the one that chucked it out the window-no don’t you fucking-!”, followed by some scratching, clattering sounds, and a loud thump.

The three sit up and Tucker cautiously pulls out his PDA and everyone just stares at it. Danny tilting his head, he’s heard that voice before. Poking the PDA with his tail, “huh, I think Eddie hacked your PDA”.

Tucker gives him a look of deep offence before looking back to the PDA in question at the sound of a very long string of swears, “I’m going to fucking strangle you, I fucking swear. Jesus fucking Christ. Fuck you. I’m going to eat nothing but fucking pickles and salad dressing tonight-bitch don’t tempt me or I’ll set it on fire before I eat it-oh my god you baby”, there’s a bit of stomping and a slamming door, followed by what the three are assuming is the sound of glass jars hitting each other, “see look at these fucking pickles!-oh fucking watch me-oh fuck! Gak. They’re fucking expired. Oh god shit. Why me?-shut up bitch”.

Danny and Tucker both bend over wheezing, PDA falling unceremoniously onto the bed. While Sam raises her eyebrows and asks sounding almost annoyed, “why is eating veggies a threat? What’s so hard about eating vegetables? Seriously, what’s the hardest part of a vegetable to eat?”.

Danny snaps his head to her, grins, and shouts, “the wheelchair!”. Sam shoves him off the bed shouting, “that’s horrible!”. Danny just lets himself land on the floor.

“Oh shit! The phone’s still on. Fuck-WHY WOULD A VEGETABLE HAVE A WHEELCHAIR-different kind of vegetable, Vee. Use fucking Google. Living impaired guy, or whatever, is talking about people-PEOPLE ARE NOT VEGETABLES EDDIE! THEY DO NOT GROW IN DIRT-Jesus, just use fucking google holy shit. And-wait a minute, Dead Guy are you seriously using a fucking PDA? No way you’re not old using a fucking PDA, what is this? the fucking nineties?”.

Tucker straightens up and points aggressively at his PDA, “hey! You take that back! You’re gonna hurt Lisa’s feelings! PDA’s are a gift upon us all!”, snatching his PDA off the bed and rubbing his face on it, “don't listen to him sweetie, a phone could never keep up with all your glorious curves and circuits”.

“What the fuck? Is that what I sound like when I say Vee’s better than humans?-YES. LIKE A DUMBASS-fuck you-MY DUMBASS”. Tucker jerks away from the mic and everyone makes disgusted horrified faces at the strange kinda wet sounds.

Sam grimaces deeper, “should we ask?”.

Danny chuckles slightly, “considering Lewis’s tendril comments. No”. He so doesn’t want to hear about that.

A bunch of coughing sounds through the mic, “why is Dan telling people about my se-”, get cut off by the three teens shrieking or shouting and Danny shoving a pillow over the PDA. “NO!”.

Danny peals back the pillow and growls a little, “dude there are minors here, we don’t wanna hear about that shit. Oh my Zone. And I thought Lewis had a near nonexistent filter”.

“Eh whatever. Wait, how many people am I even talking to?-THREE, EDDIE. THERE’S THREE VOICES-well maybe I would have been paying attention to that if someone hadn’t tossed me out a fucking window-PUSSY-bitch”.

Tucker starts wheezing again, muttering, “how does this guy maintain a conversation with anyone?”. Which yeah, Danny slightly agrees with that sentiment.

“Hey, fuck you. It’s my job to talk to people. I’m pretty fucking good at it-OVER HALF THE PEOPLE YOU TALK TO TRY TO KILL US, EDDIE-bitch I don’t see you complaining about that when you get a snack out of it”.

Tucker wheezes a little more, “how have you not been arrested?”, while Danny and Sam scowl at the PDA in disgust.

Danny points at Tucker, “their city apparently supports their people eating. It’s, like, common knowledge”, Sam turns her disgusted scowl to him.

“Debatable. I think the cops are just scared we’ll eat them-WHICH WE WILL-no! We do not eat cops! How many times have I said that?-STILL GOING TO EAT THEM-no we will not!-EDDIE-no!-WHAT ABOUT CHOCOLATE DIPPED?-Jesus fuck. No”.

Sam mock gags, “could we not talk about eating people with a vegetarian present?”.

Tucker gives her a pouty face, “awww come on, we’ve all got our tastes”.

Danny points at him, “usually not people-flavoured though”.

“Isn’t it just like chicken though?”.

“No. No it’s not-MUCH BETTER!-I don’t think you’re a good judge of that babe-I AM AN EXCELLENT JUDGE. KLYNTAR HAVE MANY MORE TASTE BUDS THAN YOU FLESH BAGS”.

Tucker scoffs and crosses his arms, Danny’s already preparing for him to say something stupid. “I’m the real meat conisure here, I’ll be the judge of that”.

“Kid, did you seriously just ask-WE HAVE A SPARE LIVER IF YOU'RE CURIOUS-where the fuck did that come from!?!? Where even was that?!?! What the fuck Vee!?!!?! How many times have I said we don’t do take-out!-NOT AGAINST THE RULES IF NO ONE NOTICES-oh my god. That is not how rules, or the law for that matter, works”.

Danny shoves Tucker, “Tuck, what did I say about asking for snacks? Zone dude. Now they’re gonna show up with a fucking liver in a suitcase and with my luck someone else is gonna find that and think I murdered someone”.

“Finally got another name, nice. And eh you’d be surprised how easy it is to hide murder and body parts. And how much cops are willing to ignore”.

Sam snorts, “smooth spooky”.

Danny blushes a little, whoops, “you have no idea how bad my luck is”.

“Speaking of spooky, figured that echoey voice crap would sound way more fucked over the phone. You don’t even seem to have an echo. And blame whoever has the PDA, do you just not expect anyone to back-hack you? Sure that was some hard shit and I can’t access shit-”, Tucker beams very smugly at this, “-but you hacked me first. What was even the point of that? Even basic research makes it obvious dead guy is based in Amity Park. And you did that just to tell me I got your age wrong-HE’S MORE PETTY THAN YOU EDDIE-that is not a compliment”.

Danny smirks and transforms purely for his ghostly echoing voice, his friends rolling their eyes knowing exactly what he’s doing. Sam speaks almost dryly, “if anything ever gets spooky over here destroyed, it’ll be his sense of humour”.

Danny chuckles deeply, voice reverberating intentionally creepily, “it’ll be the death of me, seeing as I have killer timing”, waving his hand around, “and us spookies are petty creatures. We wear petty like it’s all that makes us pretty”.

“Huh, so you definitely can change your voice. Congrats Vee, your voice isn’t the only one that sounds ridiculously fucking demonic-APPROVE. FAR MORE THREATENING. LIKE A PREDATOR-I don’t think that counts as a compliment either babe-HE HUNTS HIS OWN! IT IS A COMPLIMENT!-eh, I guess? What’s up with that anyway, dead guy?-HE’S A PREDATOR, PREDATORS FIGHT, EDDIE. OBVIOUSLY-says the big bad predator who’d rather become one with the couch in a sea of chocolate wrappers and watch Alton Brown make people suffer-THEY DESERVE TO WEAR FLIPPERS AND ARM SPREADERS FOR BURNING THE LAMB!”.

Tucker nods his head a little, “yeah, burning lamb should be a crime”, while a little buzzing sound comes through the mic.

Danny rolls his eyes at him, “that’s the guy from Cut Throat Kitchen isn’t it? Doesn’t he buy stuff from BDSM stores for those challenges”. Tucker nods with a smirk, “and that’s kinky”, and gets smacked over the head by Sam.

Danny shakes his head and leans over the PDA, “I’m a protective fellow, I beat up ghosties to protect. Ya know, the typical hero schtick, but with death. It’s a real grim job, but I absolutely reap the rewards”, looking to Sam and Tucker, “one day I’m gonna cash in all these trauma points for a fucking yacht”.

Tucker quirks an eyebrow, “why a yacht?”. Sam adding, “you know I’ve got one. They’re okay”.

“One of you has a fucking yacht?!? Anne warned me I’d be out of my depth but holy fuck-NOT HARD WHEN YOU’RE PUSSY MADE-how the fuck do you know that term?!? And just eat your fucking tater tots”.

Danny snorts, “someone’s a real tater thot”, looking at Tucker, “one, because that’s one thing Frootloop doesn’t own”.

“Fair”.

“Wow you are really petty as shit”.

Danny scowls at the PDA, “dude fucking nearly caused the apocalypse, like, four bloody times”, rolling his hand, “and there’s the whole sorta have a daughter, or cousin, or sister, eh it changes; ‘cause of his cloning stunt-”.

Danny doesn’t get to continue as Vee butts in with, “WE’RE SPAWNING ASWELL-what, fucking what? What the fuck do you mean ‘spawning’? No you so do not get to hide in my body after that shit, get the fuck out here bitch. Oh my fuck, what the fuck. This is what Anne means by fucking communication issues. What the fuck you fuck. Jesus fucking Christ. What the fucking shit. That is not how you tell anyone anything, you fuck. Now I want a yacht to sail away from fucking everything and become a fucking pirate. Your oily ass will love that so much because there will be so many lobsters to shove up everyone's collective assholes but especially yours-SAME ASSHOLE SO GO AHEAD BITCH, THAT WOULD BE DELICIOUS-ha! Tricked you with the old lobster summoning, now the fuck do you mean spawning!-”

Tucker whispers, “Zone these guys have so many issues”. Sam and Danny just nod, not wanting to interrupt this because it is, frankly, hilarious.

“IT IS NATURAL EDDIE-I sure fucking hope so, otherwise we’ve got a fair few fucking problems going on-THEN STOP BEING A PUSSY WET BITCH-where do you learn this shit? Fucking fourchan? And excuse me for being an emotional asshole, asshole. I think I’ve fucking earned it considering-”.

All three teens turn their heads as Valerie flies in through the window and deactivates her board at seeing them sitting around a PDA but giving it a wide berth.

“-I’m apparently fucking pregnant!”.

Valerie blinks as her suit deactivates, “what have I just walked in on”. It sounds more like a cautious statement than a question.

Danny points at her, “technically, you flew”, she glares at him while he continues, “Eddie’s having some... issues, apparently”.

“‘Some’?”.

“Oh fuck the phones still on. You heard all of that didn’t you? Fuck-DUMBASS-fuck you, this is your fault. I need a fucking drink”.

Danny chuckles and smirks a bit meanly, “yes, yes we did”.

Valerie shakes her head and speaks down at the PDA, “are you okay?”.

“No”, Eddie promptly hanging up.

Valerie watching the other teens descend into fits of laughter for a bit before asking, “what did I miss?”.

Tucker wheezes, “probably one of the best random meltdowns ever”, smacking Danny’s arm braces, “you should probably warn doctor dude you gave his friend an accidental crises!”.

Danny just chuckles, he’s pretty sure he’s never heard anyone swear that much that quickly. And considering he’s somewhat friends-ish with Johnny, that’s saying something. Pointing at Tucker, “for the love of all the Ancients, tell me you recorded that. Because, by the Realms, that was glorious”. He also totally wants to show Johnny, and Skulker actually, maybe Ember and Kitty; they’d be fucking impressed honestly. Possibly Pandora too, if only for Eddie just straight up going feral rage mode for a bit there.

Tucker nods eagerly with a wide smirk, instantly being granted a high five; even getting one from Sam.

As his mom calls that supper’s ready, Danny pulls out his phone; because he is not calling Lewis while he might be having special time with the bone saw.

DPain: so stormed Area 51 might being having a mild melt down bout being pregnant

DPain: and it might

DPain: possibly

DPain: maybe

DPain: be my fault

Tucker chokes next to him, “dude, you do realise how that sounds right?”. Making Danny facepalm as the four (not three like Maddie was expecting, but she just sets another plate with a smile and head shake) sit at the table; Danny checking his phone when it goes off.

Tiethief: so you’re why I have 11 new voicemails

DPain: 😇

Danny barely gets through his (very mushy, fuck you Jazz) mashed potatoes before there’s a knock on the door. It’s not a scent Danny recognises so he tears off Tucker’s hoodie to cover his tail up. Rolling his eyes at the guy’s scowl, Danny would just blink his tail out of the visible spectrum if his not-in-the-know parents weren’t around. While one of said parents, his mom who hadn’t even sat down yet, gets the door.

“Hello Mrs. Fenton, I’m officer Jared Walker”, the four teens -and Jazz- all choke at that last name and share ‘seriously? Why is this our lives?’ Looks. “I’m here to conduct a welfare check for Daniel Fenton. May I come in?”.

Danny cringes, this probably wasn’t a good thing. FentonWorks wasn’t exactly... safe. Oh who was he kidding? FentonWorks was a mind field of danger and death; and not just ‘cause his dead ass was here. And what if he wants to check out his room? Oh Ancients he absolutely is going to want to check that out. Fuck.

Sam and Tucker obviously have the same worries as they finish their plates and start to move towards the stairs; probably to make a mad dash to his room to make it not look like a probable biohazard.

While his mom obviously lets the guy in, would arguably be worse not to, “sure thing, Danny’s at the table having lunch, his doctor’s doing a final shift at the hospital right now though. You could come back later to talk to him? Or would you like me to call him?”.

Jared steps in and looks at the two teens starting to head up the stairs and then to Valerie, “I’m sure you’d like to hang out with your friend and make sure he’s well, but I’ll have to ask you to leave”, tilting his head not unkindly, “this is a family matter; you understand”.

The three teens obey, because this is a cop for fucks sake; and they like to at least pretend to be proper law-abiding citizens. Sam and Tucker shooting him apologetic looks and Valerie giving him a little forehead kiss as they leave. Danny makes a damn point to make sure his smile doesn’t look painfully nervous.

Jared looks back to Maddie, “that’s quite alright, I’m sure I could get into contact if I need to”. Jazz offers him tea which he declines, “do you think you could go to your room, Jasmine? I’d like to speak with your parents and brother alone if that’s alright?”.

She nods, ruffling Danny’s hair up as she stands, which he of course scowls at and swats her hand away. Even if that, like usual, only accomplishes making her grin at him. Jazz completely ignores Danny’s bedroom door, knowing Jared would likely notice if she tried to go in.

(Sam and Tucker outside both decide that trying to sneak into at least clean Danny’s room wasn’t the best idea. Seeing as they had Valerie as a tag along and there was another cop sitting out in the police cruiser on the curb. Plus, cleaning Danny’s room would take a goddamn while and would be, frankly, disgusting to do. So they just hope Danny’s got something up under his spooky sleeves)

Jared joins the Fenton parents in sitting at the table, sending a smile to Danny, “you doing well today?”.

Danny gives an awkward nod and knocks his hand brace against his chest brace, “I’ll be better once I’m rid of these stupid things”, making the officer chuckle.

“That’ll hopefully be sooner rather than later”, turning to the parents’, “I'm just here to see how things are going, what sort of accommodations have been made or are being made, the state of the house, how school work’s being handled, and to speak with Daniel privately. Standard procedure”.

Jack beams, ever eager to brag about inventions, “we had a hover cushion built for him before he got home! So he’d have a way to get around right off the bat!”.

Danny grumbles at the cop, “I don’t like being carried or pushed around”, which was something of an understatement; his ghostly pride could only take so much of that. And that ‘so much’ was very little, ah the joys of being powerful. Made being ‘weak’ all the more bloody fucking awful. Maddie adds in with a warm smile at Danny, “we did order a wheelchair though”.

Jared looks pleased at this and notes everything down, “hospital approved? And could I see this... hover cushion?”.

Jack jumps up and gives Danny a curious raised eyebrow, “bedroom, next to the door, dad”, Jack nods curtly and bounds up the steps.

Jared raises an eyebrow at Danny, “any particular reason it’s not down here with you?”.

Danny blinks, oh because he wanted to get around on his freaking tail and doesn’t need no damn help to get around. He can’t tell this random cop that though. The tail is abso-fucking-lutely staying a secret if he can help it, “uh, it’s pretty snug and Doc said I should let things breathe here and there”, that’s utter bullshit, but probably accurate for normal amputation wounds. Realising he should probably explain how the Zone he got downstairs without it, “and there’s a pretty big difference between friends and family carrying me and, uh-”, blushing a bit both genuinely and to sell the lie, “-the girlfriend carrying me”.

Jared grins to himself at that, “ah yes, that is pretty different. She handling this well?”.

Danny nods and smiles, she was handling it about as well as most people would; maybe a little better. Him seemingly giving very little of a damn about his ‘leglessness’ probably helped slightly. After all, she did decide to give the whole ‘them’ thing a shot again. Jack comes back with the hover-cushion before he can even attempt to tell the guy any of that.

Jack shows off the device and powers it up, show that it does, in fact, work. Jared blinks and grins, “I’ll admit, I’m impressed”, and makes some more notes in his book, “it alright if I take pictures? Purely for documentation purposes. And the wheelchair?”.

Maddie nods, giving him the go-ahead, while moving to grab up her copy of the documentation for the ridiculous wheelchair Danny ordered and handing that over. “It’s not hospital approved but Dan said it would be fine, he was here when we ordered it”.

Jared nods acceptingly -obviously aware of who Danny’s doctor was- and tilts his head a little, “expensive, you footing the cost if the hospital can’t cover it? This isn’t a standard type either, athletic wheelchair?”.

Danny nods and grins almost meanly, “have you seen Amity?”, should he be sassing a cop? No, probably not. Jared nods a little, while Maddie speaks up, “we can cover the whole bill if needed. So long as Danny’s happy”. Jared nods and smiles at that.

“Alright, I’d ask if there’s been modifications to the stairs but you’ve found a different suitable workaround. Same with if everything has been moved to be in reach”, nodding at his notebook before looking back to them, “so how about schooling?”.

Danny rubs his neck awkwardly, “I’m working on the catchup and homework, uh, keyword being ‘working’”. Jared chuckles at that, typical teen behaviour.

Maddie pats Danny’s head, “Jazz made sure to talk with all his teachers. She’s friends with most of them. Sam and Tucker brought his work home for him”.

Jared raises an eyebrow at that, “and what about you?”. Jack laughs a bit loudly before rubbing his neck, “ah, the school prefers we don’t come unless we have to. We tend to break things”.

Danny’s pretty sure that’s a mark against his parents’ in the cops' book. So he tries to save face a little, “ghost hunting is a pretty destructive job”, he would know. Jared seems to think on that for a beat before nodding.

From what Jared’s heard and seen, ghost hunters were effectively cops here but for ghosts; which were much more dangerous than the average human criminal. He’s not about to fault them for their career. Schools didn’t particularly like cops showing up either, makes people on edge usually. And considering the school turned out to actually be a hot spot for ghosts, ghost hunters showing up out of the blue would absolutely cause at least a little panic.

Jack laughs a bit more, “plus! Frees us up to work more on the CyberSteps!”. Jared quirks an eyebrow at that so Maddie elaborates, “robotic prosthetic legs. Dan’s been helping as well”. Jack grins wide, “yup! Got to make sure they’re perfect!”.

Jared blinks, “you are... making your own prosthetics?”. Danny immediately blurts out, “walked on a prototype already. Not, um, quite good yet”, adding because holy shit he knows this is probably all kinds of illegal, Lewis kinda said so, “doc was there”. He’s going to get Lewis in trouble at this rate. He should probably shut up. Shutting up wasn’t one of his notable skills though.

Jared nods, “so you were... under certified medical care?”. Danny just nods, his folks nodding too. Jared notes that down as well.

Jared is pretty sure there isn’t much to worry about at this point. Bad or abusive parents wouldn’t go to the lengths of creating break through technology. And they were obviously putting the boy first, making him comfortable and happy. But that still didn’t explain certain things and that didn’t mean the house was suitable. From what he’s seen so far the house was... acceptable. Little messy and... odd. There were certainly some strange stains, burns, damages, and technological bits lying around. Certainly unacceptable for a small child, but Daniel was a teen.

Nodding to himself, “I think that covers that. I’d like to look around now”, with that the Fenton parents’ get up. Jared watches the teen easily manoeuvre into the hover cushion contraption, does a little spin in the air, and sends him an awkward smile. Daniel then squints at him and tilts his head, “Jared Walker... as in J. Walker, like jaywalker”, and starts snickering.

Jared rolls his eyes with a smile, “laugh it up kid”, that just makes the teen smirk.

Most of the first floor is marginally normal, acceptable, when Jack very enthusiastically points out the weapons vault though, “is this secure? And this is just for anti-ghost weapons correct?”.

Maddie nods immediately, she could see how a cop might have a few issues with this, “designed to be secure, from both humans and ghosts. Ecto-Fiber glass and sheets block them from getting in intangibly”. Danny mentally grumbles, because he had found that out the hard way and it had been inconvenient on more than one occasion. Jared just nods as they head down to the lab.

Jared glances around before raising a slightly disbelieving eyebrow at the parents’, the amount of hazards here were, honestly, uncountable. Bits of metal (some being very sharp), wiring, chemicals, samples, weapons, glowing... stuff, and the leg creation things.

Jack laughs, “yeah, it can be a bit of a mess! The kiddos are well versed in lab safety though!”. Danny resists pointing out that he usually cleaned the place. That probably wouldn’t win any brownie points.

Jared blinks and gives a rather disbelievingly, “uh-huh”, before responding in genuine, “is this the normal condition of things? And what about supervision while anyone’s down here? It is more than likely Daniel here will be a bit clumsy for a while”, this was unsafe in so many ways.

Maddie ruffles Danny’s hair as he grumbles incoherently and blushes, “Danny’s rather clumsy normally”.

Danny adding, “school still won’t let me handle fragiles”, even though he was much better, fuck you very much. Jared looks just a little unimpressed, he was probably trying to not show the fact that he was not impressed. Which Danny thinks is fair.

Maddie continues, “but yes this is how things usually are. This is the one place where we have a camera system, so it’s pretty secure and we can see if anything’s going on whether we’re home or not. We didn’t allow the kids down here when they were young, and they had to have one of us with them until they could show they knew what they were doing”. Jack butting eagerly, “a family of inventors invent together!”, shrugging, “or at least are all involved in the process”.

Danny looks around awkwardly, well aware that he at least partly died because of crappy lab safety on everyone's part. Jared notes somethings and glances at Danny but says nothing.

What then follows is Jared basically getting the lab tour, asking about nearly everything and taking notes. Eventually coming to the portal, always the last thing his folks showed off since it was their pride and joy, “and this?”.

Danny gives the blunt answer of, “ghost portal”, because screw him, screwing with people was fun. Jared gives him a Look, which Danny can’t help smirking at, before looking to his parents and raising an eyebrow.

Jack laughs and smacks the frame, “yup! This baby opens up right into the spookies backyard!”. Maddie grins and adds, “we use it mostly for research purposes, to return captured ghosts, and as a warning system in case of invasions”, then speaking a bit sternly, “going inside it is strictly forbidden and it has a genetic lock”. Danny tries to make it look like he wasn’t paying attention, seeing as he went through those doors almost more often than his front doors.

Jared still looks rather disbelieving, “you have a portal to another dimension in your basement?”, shaking his head a little, “I mean, I’m glad it has a strong lock. Do ghosts ever come through?”.

Maddie shakes her head a little, “we have used things to pull ghosts through intentionally. Research you know. But as for them coming through on their own? No”. Danny has to bite his tongue to avoid snorting at that, his folks were insanely oblivious. The portal was literally the main entryway into his home. He’s pretty sure the only ones who don’t almost always use it are Skulker and the Box Ghost. Well, and most animal ghosts.

Jared takes that answer for what it is and wonders how the Hell you're supposed to rate ‘has a portal to the dimension of the dead under his bedroom’ on literally any safety scale. He’d say this is something that should be in a government facility but the G.I.W. approval rate was abysmal. And with good reason based on basic research. But side-eyeing the teen, he seemed to give the portal a look of fondness actually... and annoyance; but fond annoyance. So he does make a point to mark down that the kid seemed to like the thing, for whatever forsaken reason.

Jared taps his pen on his notebook, “alright, is there any other rooms other than bedrooms?”.

Danny does the dumb thing and blurts out, “well, there’s the torture dungeon”, making the guy give a very satisfactory choke.

Maddie shakes her head at Danny fondly before looking to the officer, “something’s down there are on the medieval side”. Jack just chuckles, “the stockades are more for storage and old school equipment”.

Danny mumbling, “you mean like the Iron Maiden and other instruments of extreme pain and suffering?”, which Jared thankfully doesn’t hear.

Maddie smiles, “our family have been hunters for generations, so we’ve inherited older tools of the trade”, shrugging, “some that work, some that definitely don't. Family heirlooms really”. Jared nods at that, anything medieval could come off as ‘torture devices’ and he’s starting to get the feeling this teen has a serious sense of humour and likes startling people. Arguably this seemed on par with people keeping their ancestors' old weapons. Meant for ghosts or not.

“Alright, so just the bedroom now. Don’t worry, I only need to see his”, and smiles, totally missing Danny muttering, “and that’s not a good thing”. Jared continuing, “just one more question, regarding the family profession actually. Does Daniel hunt as well? With you? If not, are you training him to? If so, how are you taking into account his disability and healing?”.

Jack scratches his head, “eh, Danny-boy’s not particularly interested in ghost hunting. He is pretty good with tech though! Like every Fenton!”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “so no, they aren’t having me running, or floating, around with guns, shooting sentient beings for sport or science”, and he’s not going to mention his dad sorta trying to get him into weaponised prosthetics. Danny’s pretty sure effectively -literally really- attaching guns and knives and stuff to your kids robo-legs would be a big no-no. Especially to an out-of-town cop.

Maddie smiles and pats his head, “and if he wants combat training, survival training, or anything else of the kind, he can simply ask. I’m trained in a lot of different areas”.

Jared nods at that, “everyone could benefit from that. Good that you’re not forcing it though”, scribbling down a bit more before closing the notebook and tucking it away, “alright, I think I’ve got a good picture of how things are”, sending the parents a slight smile before looking to Danny, “now you feel up to giving this old man the bedroom tour? I’m certain you, like most teens, know it better than your parents do”. Jared absolutely mentally notes that while everyone laughs at that, Danny’s laugh is a little awkward and nervous; he probably had somethings in there he’d rather his parents not know about. He can’t help smirking slightly at that, ah teens. Danny just glares and gestures towards the steps, everyone heading up.

Jared nods at the parents’ as they sit at the table while he heads up to the bedrooms after Danny.

Maddie sitting down with a sigh. Jack speaking up after the two are out of sight, “think he’ll be okay?”. Maddie rubs her eyes, she’s pretty sure them not getting a call about the visit meant there was something else going on, “I don’t know Jack, I’m just a bit worried what Danny’ll say, what he’ll be asked”, looking to her husband, “our house and family isn’t exactly normal or particularly safe, Jack”, biting her lip slightly, “many people might think any child, especially a... disabled one, would be better off somewhere else”. Because at the end of the day, Danny was disabled now, CyberSteps or not. And he had been through what was arguably a traumatic event, he seemed fine but still; she’s sure Jazz was keeping a very close eye on him for that very reason. Most people would want a disabled possibly traumatised injured kid in a safe, sturdy, structured, adaptable, loving home and family. Her family had the last two in spades, but the rest? She be kidding herself if she even tried to think their household was ‘safe’ or ‘structured’. She forgot to get him supper till one a.m. for peat's sake! Not to mention actively and repeatedly testing out prototypes on him. Sure there wasn’t another option but still. Even ignoring that, things in the house often reacted to him; usually seemed harmless but not always.

But at the same time, what family or house could even understand or attempt to support someone like Danny? With his ectoplasm, ghostly tail, and Core? She’s pretty sure Dan was an extreme outlier in being totally unphased by those things, especially being from out of town. And like Dan, her and Jack were doctors. Sure it was in a different way and different fields, but they were effectively Danny’s doctors for his more... ghostly things. If anything Danny needed to be here, with his family, more than most teens needed to be with theirs.

Jack moves to rub her shoulders, “he’ll be fine, he’s a smart kid, Mads. And I’m sure the officer will see that -while weird and unconventional- he’s good here”.

Meanwhile upstairs Danny is hovering over his bed looking more than a little awkward and Jared is glancing around the room in shock. Jared blinks and scrunches up his nose, “kid, this smells worse than the morgue when the ac breaks”, lifting up his foot and putting it back down cautiously, making a faint squelching sound, “you know I’m gonna need an explanation for this”. There’s no pussyfooting around this, this is worse than literally every crime scene he’s ever been to. And he’s based from New York, so that should be saying something.

Danny chuckles and it’s extremely awkward, “yeah, uh, this probably ain’t gonna win me any points, but I like to joke that my room could make a crime scene investigator cry and the cleanup crew quit outright”, shrugging, “I have been meaning to clean, but uh, it doesn’t really bother me”.

“Kid, that ain’t normal. And that also doesn’t answer how this happened”. Jared is seriously hoping he isn’t dealing with some killer kid situation. Those were awful.

Danny rubs his neck, not entirely sure there’s any way out of this, he pretty actively screwed himself here, “uh, besides me not being very clean being a factor, you’re probably standing in a cesspool of pop, coffee, energy drinks, some cleaning solution stuff from when I actually mildly attempted to clean and just dumped it on the floor and shoved it around with my foot, probably some decomposed food, ectoplasm, and yeah, uh, blood”, then wincing slightly, because yeah, not impressing mr. Cop.

Jared glances to the floor, blinks, and looks back to the teen. Teens were lazy sure, but this was something else. This was beyond unsanitary, this was a downright biohazard and completely unliveable. And he might know the what, but the why? Heck, even the how. For the carpet alone to be this soaked, “whose blood. And the ectoplasm? Kid, for your floor to be this soaked you’d have to have dumped literal bucket loads of liquids on it. Bucket loads”. And watches the teen actively wince, obviously aware of this fact.

Danny looks around, actively avoiding eye contact, “I mean, you’re not wrong. My room’s kinda the ‘hang out’ spot, I guess, for me and my friends. So it’s not strictly my mess”, shrugging, “Tuck’s probably left a fair amount of meat scraps around and I’m pretty sure Sam’s trying to grow a rare fungus in one corner”. Valerie’s probably left a gun or two around too, but he’s not going to mention that.

“Kid, you have got to be kidding me. I know Amity is strange, but this is a little beyond”.

Danny shrugs again, looking back to the guy, “sorry pal, I’m probably certifiably the strangest kid in the entire town. Me and my friends are literally known as the weirdo trio. Sometimes the defect quartet when Val’s with us”, smirking a little to himself and knowing Sam will love him for this, “we are the weirdos mister”, and grinning cheekily.

Jared blinks very slowly, this teen just quoted a movie at him in response to him pointing out this was insane and that this floor was a biohazard. He blinks again and elects to just... ignore that, “still waiting on that ‘why’ for the... floor”.

Danny chuckles a bit meanly at the freaked cop before shaking his head a bit aggressively and looking around awkwardly, “ah, uh, it’s mostly, ah, mine? Which yeah I know is probably, like, super concerning. But it’s fine”, no point even trying to lie here, because a bloody fucking cop absolutely could just sample his floor and test it for, well, everything. And if he could avoid Tucker having to hack the fucking cops any more than he already did, by being just slightly honest. Then that’s what he’s gonna do.

Jared blinks again, arms slack at his side, before walking over and sitting down next to the teen on the bed. Daniel following suit by letting the hover thing float down to ‘sit’ him on the bed; this kid could read people at least a little, “buckets of blood is not ‘fine’, Daniel. And the ectoplasm?”, readjusting slightly, “honesty for honesty?”, something tells him this particular teen was well versed in dishonesty, “the main reason I was sent here is because of some things the first responders and nurses noticed. Namely, that you have a lot of... scarring. Unusual scarring. Does that have anything to do with the state of your floor?”, he’s making a point to try and be gentle here. This officially looked less ‘killer kid’ more ‘battered kid’.

Danny resists muttering ‘ah fuck, Ancients goddamnit’ out loud; talk about suspicious. He knew one day his scars were going to come and bite him in the ass. What is he supposed to say here? Obviously not the truth. Just ‘oh hey random cop dude, I fight ghosts totally not on the down-low but also technically on the down-low because it’s, like, a super-secret. Y’ know, like most superheroes. And ghosts are, like, totally really into maiming me. Also I’m kinda sorta a little bit kinda dead. So there’s that. My parents and girlfriend also shoot me sometimes, but you totally won’t report that to CPS, right?’. Alright, activate secret protection tactic three; sass and annoy ‘till they leave you the Zone alone. Ancients give him strength, “well first, I really do prefer Danny. I’m totally fine, cool as a cucumber or whatever. And welcome to Amity pal, people get hurt here a bloody lot. Couple abductions here and there, the occasional light stabbing; y’ know the usual. I get that you’re from outta town but that near non-existent crime rate means nothing”, shrugging and leaning back on his elbows, “and yeah the ecto’s mine too, so what I’m a little spooky? Not everyone’s full-blooded legged humans you know”.

Jared practically flinches back from the sudden change in behaviour. So that’s a check on him being defensive of his scarring. But there was no mention of his parents anywhere there, not to defend them or even to try and claim it wasn’t their fault. So, it’s probable his parents aren’t at fault here. Obviously something was going on, had to be for him to have more scarring than war vets. ‘Nearly more scars than flesh’ they had said. Though oddly his doctor had said nothing on the matter, even said the kid was fine; and he definitely did not report the state of the kids bedroom, which definitely deserved reporting. Furrowing his eyebrows at the kid, who doesn’t drop the ‘insufferable teen who just wants to be left alone and thinks you can shove it’ act for the previous nervous cautious behaviour. The doctor probably knew whatever was going on, or was very corrupt and seriously didn’t give a damn, “does your doctor know the reason behind the scarring?”, thinking on what Danny said, “and you have ectoplasm?”, that... that was a new one.

Danny huffs and rolls his eyes, his ecto-contamination was at least somewhat public knowledge in Amity. Dude would hear about it sooner or later, “yeah? So what?”, scowling a little at the cop, “don’t be givin’ doc shit, he’s cool. Knows when shit doesn’t need no reporting, shouldn’t be reported or recorded. I’m fine. My ‘situation’ or whatever, is fine. Perfectly peachy. Just stellar. We done here?”. Danny is probably not earning any good karma points here.

Jared blinks, okay, protecting his doctor was definitely not typical abuse victim behaviour. So definitely not the parents’ fault then. He seemed to be blaming Amity itself or the ghost issue instead. Which yes, this town was insanely dangerous and a lot of people -kids included- had scarring; but not to that degree. Maybe he got targeted more because of being related to hunters? Mentally pausing, or maybe he was a hunter and his parents -for some asinine reason- didn’t know? But then again, he said he wasn’t ‘shooting sentient beings for sport’ so maybe there was a conflict in ideals? Maybe he disagreed with his parents so he didn’t want them involved or putting in their two cents? That was fairly common in the force and other departments. But he was also implying that reporting this in any way -not just to his parents- was bad. So maybe something else was going on, or was he referring to having ectoplasm in his body. There were too many variables here, “that depends. Are you in any danger? You need to give me something here kid, Danny. ‘Cause right now your ‘situation’ seems decidedly not fine. Especially since you clearly get hurt a lot yet have an almost impressively sparse medical file”.

Danny huffs some more and rolls his eyes, okay, this wasn’t exactly... working, “I'm fine. I’m just a little ecto and Amity’s just a little dangerous”, sighing, “so no, I’m not in danger. In the past or now”. ‘But I fucking will be if you chase my shit’ being left unsaid.

“And in the future?”.

Danny levels the guy with a serious steely expression and puts just a tiny hint of power into his voice, tail coiling around invisibly, “I will be if you don’t butt out”, maybe warning the dude will get him to fuck off with this?

Jared blinks and nods, not entirely feeling like he’s actually talking to a minor here; which said a lot, “from?”.

Danny scowls, “not my family. Or friends. Or the doc. Or ghosts, for that matter”, Ancients dude, would you just drop it already?

“That doesn’t leave a lot of possibilities”.

Making Danny glare, “not your business”. Jared sighs and shakes his head a little, “it rather is. It’s my call what happens here, doctor turning the cheek or not”.

Danny scowls at him again, growling slightly because he is honestly getting frustrated here, “a little bit ecto, in the eyes of the government, equals a lot bit not deserving of human rights. And thus a very nice easily findable Christmas wrapped subject for some really nasty things I’d rather not experience”.

Jared blinks a few times, that was... not what he was expecting. But that would explain not wanting things reported, never going to hospitals, not wanting people to look into things, the doctor getting him out of the hospital abnormally quick and coming along, etcetera. Thinking of that, didn’t one of the secretary’s mention government agents showing up? Alright, so this kid was being testy for good reasons. Being defensive to literally defend himself... from his own government. Alright, the best thing he can do for the kid was to do nothing. To fudge his notes and report. Leave in the general weirdness but nothing that would encourage further investigating. This situation was officially way beyond his pay grade. Still though, his priority here was the kid's safety and welfare; not whether or not the government? knew he was ‘a little bit ecto’? “Alright then. Legally I should absolutely report this-”. He doesn’t even get to finish as Danny cuts in with an actual snarl, “and doc shoulda absolutely dragged me back to the hospital, your fucking point?”.

“Jesus kid, I’m trying to extend an olive branch here”, Jared shakes his head when all the teen does is huff, “I’m not saying I’m going to. The governments slightly dangerous opinions and interests in ghost stuff ain’t in my salary”.

Danny tilts his head and watches the guy for a beat, he seemed honest enough, “so you’re not going to mention my ecto-contamination, questionably bio-hazardous room, battered body, or being overly self-sufficient?”. Talk about dodging one Hell of fucking bullet. Holy Shit.

Jared blinks, okay this kid knew exactly what was up with his stuff. “I should, but I think I’m going to opt-out of doing that. Seems like that would do more harm than good”, leaning forwards a bit, “but when you say self-sufficient...”.

Danny rolls his eyes but relaxes some and lays back on his bed, he’s keeping his damn tail invisible and whatnot though, “put it this way man, Lewis thinks I’m a better surgeon than his lackies and I make a mean lasagna that doesn’t randomly gain sentience and try to stab people with knives”.

“Alright, I shouldn’t have asked”, his scars were self-treated, that... that is entirely unacceptable. And he’s just not going to ask about the Fenton parents’ apparently questionable cooking skills. Danny just snorts. So Jared speaks back up, “I take it ecto-contamination is the proper term for being ‘a little ecto’? And that it’s different from the general kind that -according to multiple sources- basically everyone in this town has? Even though your parents failed to mention it. I imagine this probably affects health and care”. ‘Contamination’ pretty firmly implied it being a health thing.

Danny sighs, “‘cause I got it from blatantly and aggressively ignoring nearly all forms of lab safety. Which would probably be a mark against them in your little book. But yeah fine, my ecto is little more unique. Common knowledge, though not really your business”.

“Again, it rather is. But I guess that’s understandable. Does it affect your health and care though? I would prefer to attempt to be thorough”. He’s glad he’s not wearing a wire or body-cam.

Danny looks him over and nods a little, yeah dude could probably get fired for not reporting all this crap. Would kinda make him a dick for no real reason to not answer that, “fair enough. It does, but my folks are pretty aware though. And they’re basically the leading ectologists. If they don’t know how to handle me, then no one does”, no one entirely human anyway.

Jared nods, enough information to be an answer, vague enough to tell him practically nothing. Kid’s smart. Grunting, “good enough”, squinting, “wait, would another family even be able to look after you effectively?”.

Danny snorts and actually laughs, “are you kidding? No, of course not”, as much as his parents being his parents resulted in ghostly injuries and being actively hunted and endless amounts of paranoia; it also saved his half-ghostly ass left right and centre. This legless/leg optional situation would be a bajillion times worse if he didn’t have parents that could build legs and get them to work with his spooky ass.

Jared shakes his head disbelievingly, so it didn’t even matter how he was being treated/looked after; he literally couldn’t get suitable treatment anywhere else but here. No wonder the doctor wanted him home, on top of the government trying to do who knows what. The doctor was actually looking out for his patients' best interests. “Well then I guess it’s best you’re home then. On that note, how are you coming along treatment wise? Healing well? And the prosthetics?”.

Danny snorts, “back to normal people questions huh?”, pushing himself up onto his elbows again, “my healings fine. Doctor approved. CyberSteps are getting there. My ecto’s ‘causing issues but also only reason they’ll feasibly work”, looking the cop over and tilting his head, “you're asking me shit, so I’mma ask you shit. You got any dead relatives who were really into white and a real stickler for rules. Maybe was a prison warden or sherif in the nineteen hundreds? Or maybe a mafia member that went to jail? Has a thing for black fedoras?”, he has to ask, ‘cause it would be just his luck to get stuck with a relative of Walker’s. Not to mention a relative of Walker’s that isn’t a dick and doesn’t utterly despise him. Yet at least.

Jared raises both eyebrows a bit disbelievingly, “Cordell Walker was a mafia member that worked up to being a prison warden after serving time there, nineteen hundreds yeah. How did you know that?”. Jared is insanely confused and a bit freaked out. Shaking his head, “that’s... good that the prosthetics might actually work”.

Danny glares at him and mutters, “Ancients seriously? Why me”, tilting his head and laughing, “wait so he actually was a criminal?”, then starts laughing at Jared’s confused nod, “oh my Zone! HAHAHAHA oh man! I am so bugging him about that. Oh he’s not living that down!”, pausing to snort before adding, “literally not living that down”, and flops to lay down on the bed, laughing more. Waving his hand at the confused cop, “don’t worry about it. It’s just- wow haha. It’s just that your great-grandpa, or whatever, locked me in jail a couple times”, continuing at Jared raising his eyebrows almost comically, “he’s the warden of a ghost prison just inside the portal. So, uh, congrats I know your family. He kinda hates me though so. And he’s kinda a dick, no offence”.

Jared blinks, “I... don’t think I have a response for that and I’m pretty sure this almost qualifies as a conflict of interest”. There isn’t any kind of training for ‘subject knows your dead relative and was apparently arrested by them once’. Swallowing, “what did he... arrest you for?”.

Danny blinks and laughs awkwardly, “uh, first time was driving illegally pretty much. Second, possession of illegal... things. And after that there’s been a lot of other things. Something like ten jail breaks slash destruction of prisons. Probably gives me another assaulting an officer and resisting arrest charge every time he sees me. Honestly man? He’d arrest me just for existing”, tilting his head, “I think he actually has arrested me for that”, chuckling, “like I said, he hates me and he’s a dick. Pretty sure he’s got a cattle prod with my name on it, literally. One of my scars is from him attempting to brand me”.

Jared blinks really harshly at that, he had heard Cordell was a sadist but Christ, “Jesus, that is insane in all honesty. I had heard some... less than pleasant horror stories about him but that seems a bit... much. He was the first cop in the family though, and many of us did brag about having mafia roots as kids”, shaking his head, “I certainly still do”. And this teen apparently destroyed prisons, what is up with this kids life?

Danny snorts, “I would too”, ‘cause come on, having roots to the mafia is just plain cool. Shrugging, “I could give you a really wild story to take back and uh, set up a meeting or something? Y’ know, in return for not possibly getting me tortured and killed? Or having to hack your police system stuff?”.

“Are you... bribing an officer?”, Jared is out of his depth with this kid, and he is absolutely positive he has a very mischievous side and very little regard for the legality of things.

Danny snorts, “not even close to the most illegal thing I’ve done. And might please Walker- uh, ghost Walker, some”, shrugging, “technically I’m bribing two officers”, and smirks devilishly.

Jared is pretty sure he shouldn’t be encouraging this, but this was... an opportunity that really was otherwise impossible. Meeting long-dead family that were something of a legend was quite the offer, “you are a rather sneaky teen, aren’t you? I can’t say I’m going to turn that down. But are you really well enough to do something like that?”.

Danny snorts and mutters, “if I’m well enough to get punched in the face, then I think the fuck so”. Jared pretends he didn’t hear that, he’s decided he really just doesn’t want to know. Danny looks to him, “eh, it’ll be fine. Just maybe don’t call him Cordell, dead-naming a ghost is a good way to get stabbed or shot or maimed or a lot of other painful things. He just goes by Walker now”.

Jared nods dutifully, yup he’s officially ‘compromised’ and no longer unbiased with this case. Best he keeps that to himself though, kid’s probably banking on this being a way to ensure he keeps his mouth shut. This kid was bolder than he seems, definitely not as ‘in the background’ or nervous as he acted at first. That was probably just a tactic to avoid people looking into his shit.

Danny smirks, “cool, I’ll coax him into the mortal realm at some point. Gives me an excuse to annoy the heck out of him”.

“You’re more of a trouble maker than I pegged you for. Please avoid breaking the law to do that”.

Danny blinks, “uh, no?”, activating the hover cushion and hovering around his room to adjust somethings, “so, any more questions that are ultimately pointless?”.

Jared quirks an eyebrow, “honestly? No. Since you’re right, there isn’t any point. But I really should ask what kind of punishments you get?”, he’ll get more than just looked at funny if he doesn’t ask the most basic child abuse question out there.

Danny shrugs, “a stern talking to? Maybe them having a meeting with a teacher and scaring them? Another parent/son bonding thing that turns into getting almost eaten by swamp monsters or getting abducted by the mayor and hunted for sport by his personal ghost science experiments? Getting shown more videos about how not doing my chores will blow the house up and kill everyone?”.

Jared glares at the kid who smirks, “do you just want me to have to scrap everything?”, grumbling to himself and jotting down in his little book, “I’ll just write down the first two”, before looking back to the kid, “what are your chores anyway?”.

Danny smirks, no point lying now might as well go all in, “cleaning the lab. Yup, the ecto-contaminated kid that reacts to hunter tech and ecto is the one who cleans the place filled with those things”, why his parents had him clean the lab was beyond him, not that he minded. Was a good excuse to snoop new inventions or drop off a ghost or two in the portal. Speaking of that, what the heck’s he gonna do with Skulker? If he releases the dude he’ll probably chase down the doc. Eh he’ll warn the guy to keep a bone saw on hand or something. Chuckling at the cop, “also vacuum the walls sometimes”.

Jared blinks, “neither... neither of those are normal. You have got to be kidding me. Why?”.

Danny shrugs, “no idea man. Though now I don’t have any chores, well except the chore of healing”, and floats over to the door, gesturing to it, “so we done? Cool to leave the crime scene?”.

Jared stands and lifts his phone, “I actually need to take some photos of your room, so maybe try to make a section not completely nightmarish?”.

What then proceeds is the two moving around a few things and Danny dumping a pile of cloths over a particularly unpleasant looking square of carpet, so Jared can get his photo. He also takes photos of the star-covered ceiling, hand-built rocket models, and his computer video-game set-up. Noting the space flight simulators, “you a fan of space? I have a cousin who’s an astronaut you know”. Danny zips right over into his face, causing him to fall on his ass, Danny stays in his face and follows him though, “what! Oh my Zone! What missions have they been on?!? Wait, have they been on any?!? Did they get to go to any planets?!? Or a satellite?!? What was the recovery like?!? Oh! Oh! What’s wearing an actual spacesuit like?!?...”.

Alright, Jared thinks, this kid was a little freaky and was officially seriously freaking him out. Interrupting Danny’s word vomit, “uh... I don’t know? I think ‘like’ might have been an understatement, you’re a bit... obsessive”.

Danny huffs and glares at the guy, how, no seriously how could he not know? Not ask? “You disappoint me, and shut it. Side-effect of the ecto”, practically hissing, “and I’m interested, not obsessive”. He knows a little echoey ghostliness came out there ‘cause space is not his Obsession.

Jared nods slowly and blinks at the wide-eyed teen that he’s pretty sure hasn’t blinked in a while, “uh sure thing. Could I... maybe get off the floor?”, which now that he’s not focused on the kid going a bit crazy, he’s noticed said floor is a bit more than foul-smelling.

Danny stares a little more and realises he’s effectively pinning the guy without actually touching him, backing off but grumbling, “deserved it, family goes to space maybe and you don’t know shit about it? Ridiculous. At least Lewis would ask”, Lewis was a curious dude, Vee just didn’t know shit.

Jared gets up slowly and makes a point to get out of the kids bedroom, the kid shooting him glares like he’s committed a crime the entire time.

Jasmine sticks her head out of her bedroom too, “everything alright and good now?”, looking from the slightly freaked cop to her slightly wide-eye brother who’s grumbling incoherently, “Danny stop frightening the guests”. Danny grumbles incoherently a bit more but in ghost just to be creepy because let it be known, he was a dumbass.

Jared studiously ignores the... sounds? the kid is making and lifts up the notebook, “we’re good here. My partner’s waiting so I should get going”. Jared heads down the steps, spotting the sister putting her hands on her hips and looking unimpressed at Danny, “what is wrong with you Danny? Are you trying to make him suspicious?”.

“His cousin is an astronaut and he knows nothing, fucking nothing, about that?...”, and looks to start wide-eyed ranting, which Jasmine looks fond? over. This family was... weird.

Nodding his head at the parents, who smile and look relieved. Telling him they were rather... aware, things weren’t really acceptable here. And here he was not reporting that because of a bribe of all things, and honestly? after that performance, he’d rather not see what that kid’s like mad. That’s not mentioning how awkward working with the Fenton’s would be if he did report this. Again, they were basically cops here; their own ecto-department, alongside the Red Huntress.

Maddie jumps up to get the door while Danny and Jazz come down the stairs to see him off, only for Danny’s ghost sense to go off and a (very manly) scream sounding from outside. Everyone rushing to the door to see Ember literally standing on the cop car hood, her stomping on the windshield with one boot and telling the ‘piggy to lick her boots’ and moving to strum her guitar.

Danny’s folks of course run out guns blazing, while he silently slips into the background to transform; and Jared rushes over to his partner, grumbling about Chester being more of a greenhorn than him. Chester, meanwhile, is wide-eyed, back stiff, and clutching his chair seat for dear life.

Danny Phantom flies out -with his ghostly legs being, in fact, legs- to the sight of the cops trying to peel out of here while shooting their standard issue ecto-pistols at the ghost. His parents chasing said ghost, who’s of course mocking them and sticking out her tongue.

Ember shouting, “babypop!”, as soon as she sees Danny and floating straight at him. So he does the smart thing and leads her on a little goose chase. Which, in typical fashion, results in him getting a guitar powered fist-shaped sound wave punch straight into the side of a building.

She shouts at him, “my babypops been missing a while Phantom, know anything ‘bout that?!”. Danny snickers, “you know, you calling us both babypop raises some serious questions”.

“Oh can it”.

Making Danny laugh and shakes his thermos a little, “already canned the tin can. Care to join? Not sure how much makeout room there is though”. Which promptly gets him slammed into the road, “keep this up and I’ll put a cement lock on the thermos!”.

She rolls her eyes and readies her guitar again, “that won’t work, we can phase through cement, dipstick”.

Danny pauses and holds up a finger, “actually, my folks are making a mass-producible ecto-cement”, shrugging, “which I’m sabotaging because oof, imagine slamming into a ghost proof wall mid-battle?”.

Ember chuckles, “yeah, would really ruin the vibes. Speaking of vibes, try these sound waves out”, and turns the nob to something Danny’s pretty sure is new. Great. Watching, and failing to dodge, a pink line of sound slice through the air... and his shoulder.

Danny watches the arm go flying into someone’s garden, “wow, some really cutting edge beats you’ve got there”, and promptly dodges another pink line.

The fight again pausing when the dude who owns the garden throws Danny’s arm back at him, which he just lets it bounce off the side of his head, “way to get dismembered asshole!”.

Danny holds up a finger to Ember, “one second”, looking to the guy as Ember crosses her arms. Danny snatching his arm out of the air and tucking it under his armpit, “okay first off, dismemberment requires multiple limb removal; I only lost one. Two, I’ll admit my arm wouldn’t make very good fertiliser, but was that really necessary? And three-”, smirking, “-thanks for the hand. I’ll make sure to put my act together. Got to stay handsome after all”. Turning to Ember and speaking quiet enough the scowling guy won’t hear; though Ember shooting him a few miles away into a tree helps, “got a girl to impress, ya know. I like to think she prefers the whole over bits and bites”.

That gets Ember to pause and actually smile, if this were a video game a little ‘!’ would have likely appeared over her head, “oh! You’re dating again? The goth? I’d ask if it was the techy but you said girl”.

Danny throws his hand out to the side, “why do you all always think I’m dating them?!?”.

Ember snorts, rolls her eyes, and puts a hand on her hip, “your two humans are attached at the hip to you. How are you not dating them?”.  

Danny pinches the bridge of his nose, “we’re close so what? I’m a protective asshole who likes to keep what’s mine close. Fuck off. I’m dating Red for your information”.

Ember giggles and shakes her head, “silly boy, and nice to see your death wish is still intact”, readying her guitar to restart their battle, “she know you’re one of us yet?”.

Danny chuckles as he stretches out his torso to avoid another fist blast, “naw, that info’s still ghosting her”, earning both another head shake and a pink slicing blast from the ghost.

Meanwhile, Lewis is just now taking his last shift break. Flipping through the Amity news because again, being prepared is nice and Danny’s a verifiable walking time bomb for physical injuries. And surprise surprise Phantom him is currently practically eating a tree with his face fighting some rocker chic. Eddie would probably ask her for a night of fun or something; though she might might be a minor. Maybe? It’s hard to tell. Well whatever, she’s currently smacking Danny over the head with her guitar. Squinting at the screen before sighing, the kid’s arm is definitely not attached to him. So check his arm brace, check his stitch work, make sure his bones are aligned right. Watching him get hit over the head again, maybe he should ask if Danny even can get concussions; he hopes not.

Quirking an eyebrow at his phone ringing, pausing the video, “hello?”.

“Dr. Dan Lewis? This is Jared Walker from the Amity police department”.

Lewis sighs, why does he feel like Danny’s at fault for this, “yes?”. Just the same as Eddie is literally always at fault whenever the San Francisco police call.

“I just finished up with a welfare check on Daniel Fenton, and just wanted to confirm that he’s indeed medically alright and that someone other than the Fenton parents’ are keeping an eye on the kid”.

Lewis grimaces, oh no way that went well, “he’s better than anyone else would be, so he’s quite fine; no need to worry. After this shift I’ll be taking something of a leave to stay at the Fenton household, I do intend to keep a rather close eye on him. That is my job after all. Do you need anything from me for your report?”. Danny must have done something to keep this guy from just outright reporting that the house was ridiculously unsafe.

“No, that’s alright. I think I’d rather not know whatever it is you do know”, alright so Danny definitely did something, something a ‘normal’ person wouldn’t really approve of, “so long as there’s someone more... responsible, watching him I’m not going to concern myself. Try to get him to clean his room, I doubt this’ll be the last time someone raises the alarm about that kid. I doubt ‘I know your dead grandparent’ is something he can pull again. And most less seasoned cops would not have reacted well to nearly being assaulted”.

Lewis sighs, Danny seriously can not keep his nose out of trouble. Though assaulting a cop is something he’d expect from Eddie not Danny. Though in Eddie’s case, the cop wouldn’t be alive to talk about it. “I’ve told him as much. I do hope my patient wasn’t too much of a hassle, he can definitely be a bit odd. Though that’s hardly unusual for the family”.

“Oh I’m aware. That kid is a bit more.... startling though. I don’t envy you. Thanks for taking my call, I imagine you’re a busy man”.

Lewis chuckles, “he hasn’t tried to kill or eat me yet, so he’s a fairly enjoyable patient. Very interesting. Have a good day”.

“Yeah...”, Lewis is pretty sure he hears the guy mutter, “what is up with people today? Everyone’s a goddamn nutcase”, before hanging up. Lewis barely gets the time to chuckle down at his phone before it pings from that private server Phantom chat.

DPain: so

DPain: that spooky from fore might

DPain: might

DPain: be lowkey coming for you for my scrappy bits

DPain: also

DPain: mighto scared a cop

NightShade: made pig squeal

Tiethief: so he told me

Tiethief: should I just give the spooky what he wants?

DPain: put it in a present, throw it at his face screaming bomb!

PDAxpda: not like you need it

NightShade: n tinman might actually stab you or something if you don’t

Tiethief: that is a rather convincing argument

Lewis tosses his phone into the tray, hopefully this ghost doesn’t show up mid-surgery.

And he showed mid-surgery. Very mid-surgery. As in, hands in someone’s intestines kind of mid-surgery with a number eleven scalpel. All his underlings just hug the walls, or slowly move out of the room, effectively leaving him holding a guy together by himself at the table. Cowards. Lewis swallows and is impressed with himself at sounding calm and slightly bored, “do you mind? I am rather busy. The secretary could give you a number if you need something”.

“Where’re the whelps skinnings?”.

Lewis sighs, lifts up the hand holding the scalpel and points it at the ghost, “rude. As I said, I have my hands full. And I imagine the ‘whelp’ wouldn’t appreciate my patient keeling over from your pestering”. Here’s hoping the ghosts are sorta friendly with Danny at least slightly and really are against using someone's Obsession for a cheap shot.

Skulker blinks and internally winces slightly, well aware of the whelps protective Obsession, “fair play to you. I will wait. Here”, and nods curtly.

Lewis raises a very disbelieving judgmental eyebrow, “no you’re not. I somehow doubt you are even close to sterile. And I would rather not have to explain to his wife how he mysteriously got ecto-contamination during surgery”. Lewis is honestly surprised the ghost tilts his head, shrugs, and just... leaves. Ghosts were very interesting. Though he’s not about to hang up his doctor coat for the ghost hunter spandex.

Brittney walks up next to him, shaking slightly and readjusting her glasses, “Dan?”.

Lewis simply gets back to work, gesturing the others over, “yes?”. Thankfully they listen and also thankfully no one passed out on him this time.

Brittney swallows, “what the fuck”. Which just makes Lewis chuckle.

Two hours later Lewis snaps off his gloves into the trash and turns sideways to nearly crash right into the ghost. Sighing, ghosts were incredibly determined bastards. Looking at the ghosts grinning face, “this better not become routine or I’ll have to start removing your organs or something along those lines. You’re already dead, so it wouldn’t count as malpractice”.

“If you make a habit of taking parts of the whelps pelt, then gladly”.

Lewis tilts his head, that was kind of tempting; but he’s pretty sure he’ll pass. “He doesn’t need it so I don’t see why I would”, now to figure out how to deal with this, he didn’t exactly have Danny’s scraps on hand; though he had been effectively given the go-ahead. Eh he’ll just walk out to his car, slowly, and drive home, slowly. Peoples reactions could be interesting and annoying the ghost might discourage him from doing this again. He could do without ghosts showing up in his ER. Walking off and gesturing for him to follow, “follow”.

Skulker raises a metal eyebrow, “very few would dare turn their backs on the mighty Skulker”. Impressed or insulted? The doctor had turned his back on the best hunter in all the Zone at their previous encounter. And the doctor had already threatened him with a weapon. So Skulker’s leaning towards impressed.

Lewis chuckles, “if you hurt me I have one friend who’ll beat you up and another who would eat you; or at least very aggressively try to”, tilting his head as he walks, “and a fiancée who would sue you out of your lair and everything you own”. Glancing at Skulker, who of all things looks impressed.

Skulker nods curtly, “you and the whelp run in fine circles”, explains this new apparent human pet. The little whelply Prince wasn’t one for acquiring new pets.

Lewis chuckles as they pass a few nurses who looking to be trying to point out the hulking metal ghost following him like he somehow hadn’t noticed, speaking towards them, “I’m aware. Just ignore him”, then addressing said ghost while the nurses undoubtedly add this to the gossip mill, “you seem impressed”.

Skulker laughs, “a good prize should be impressive! The boys accomplishments are many, he is strong, and he is rare”, and grins more than a little viciously.

Lewis pauses as they get halfway across the parking lot, turning to Skulker, “so you respect him then. You care”, shrugging, “in a way”.

Skulker huffs and very obviously pretends to not give a damn, “a hunter respects the hunt and fellow hunters, that is all. And it wouldn’t due for him to fail to someone pathetic and unworthy”.

Lewis can’t help but laugh, “a friend of mine is like him, none of their enemies respect them. They just don’t want them to murder them. Mind you, most of their enemies die the first time they meet”. Lewis pulls out his phone as Skulker grunts, “skilled hunter”, which Lewis nods at as he walks.

Tiethief: metal spooky with lots of guns already here and apparently respects you

Tiethief: but is also trying to pretend he doesn’t

Tiethief: he is not a good actor

DPain: eh

DPain: he’s helped me the odd time

PDAxpda: well that was fast

PDAxpda: guy knows what he wants

DPain: he isn’t trying to hurt you is he

Tiethief: no

Tiethief: no need to be overprotective

Tiethief: I’m just taking him to get scraps slowly

Tiethief: very slowly

DPain: *snort* hahahaha food

DPain: *good

NightShade: make him swear not to tell vampireass monochrome’s leggy situation in return

DPain: oh shit

DPain: smart

DPain: why didn’t I think of that

PDAxpda: ‘cause you’re a dumbass

NightShade: our dumbass

DPain: hsiabdajbfje

DPain: rocker just asked if I was dating you assholes and you go and say shit like that

Lewis shakes his head as he hops into his car, sending off a final, Tiethief: you’re young, live a little, before driving off; being followed by a freaking ghost. He knows the punning he probably just encouraged but that only makes him smirk at the other two teens expense. They messed up his patient files and made Eddie practically blow up his phone while getting insanely dangerously drunk and probably killing someone to blow off steam (neither of which was all that uncommon but still; doesn’t mean he wanted that bad habit encouraged), paybacks a bitch; and apparently punny.

By the time he gets to his place he’s pretty sure the ghost is suitably annoyed. Heading in, he’s glad Anne’s still at work, better to not drag her into this. Not that she would likely mind. Would handle it with the controlled grace and power she always did. Glancing at the ghost as he moves to one of the closets, “now this stays between us, no need for Vlad to know. As far as that old friend of mine knows Danny never lost his legs. We are messing with him some”.

Skulker huffs, “I only tell him anything because he pays me”, taking a bag from the doctor guy and glancing inside. Grinning extremely maliciously, “and this outweighs any money or upgrades”.

Lewis nods and puts his hands on his hips, “another form of payment for this little gift could certainly be leaving Danny alone enough to study. He'd make a nice surgical assistant”, smirking, “he’s very good with a knife and stitch work”.

Skulker tilts his head and chuckles, “pestering the whelp is half the point. The potential of him spending his human time cutting people up and taking others scraps is tempting though”. Making the Prince even more of a little hunter was very tempting. He cared not one bit for that space whatever human job he was chasing before. So the boys studying meant nothing.

“Then bite the Eden’s apple. I already offered the kid a job”, shrugging, “granted he makes it through medical school”, glaring at the ghost purely to make a point. Feeling very smug at Skulker seeming annoyed but smiling slightly; not that it’s easy to tell with the metal face.

Lewis chuckles, “also, I appreciate you making him regrow his legs. Now I don’t have to knock him out”.

That gets Skulker to give him an almost concerned seeming look, “you have a ghost knockout device?”, which Lewis just grins at as the ghost promptly leaves. Well, he just successfully intimidated a ghost. Like symbiotes and MRI machines. Looking out the window to the dark sky, it’s about time he checks in on his patient properly; and probably patches him up yet again. That kid needed to just have a doctor shadowing him at all times.

Danny flops his head into Valerie’s lap, tail swishing lazily in the air at random. Sam and Tucker are lobbing chunks of mystery substances at each other. Valerie pats his head, “I still can’t believe you bribed a cop and got away with it”.

Danny chuckles meanly before going slightly wide-eyed, “oh yeah! And get this, Walker’s first name was apparently Cordell. Cop’s his grandson or something”.

Tucker gets hit in the head by something purple and fuzzy, “seriously? Your luck man”. Making everyone laugh just as Maddie sticks her head in, “the next CyberStep prototype is ready, sweetie”, looking around the room, “oh! You kids are still here? You really should head home and let Danny rest”, almost glaring at Valerie, “you especially missy. Danny being... endowed... or not”;

Danny wheezes in laughter while everyone else chokes. Valerie promptly hits him, so he manoeuvres his tail to poke her in the head; she, of course, swats It away. Sam however, surprises him by grabbing It and yanking him to the floor as she goes to stand, Tucker following as they move to leave.

Sam eyeballing Valerie, “well?”. Who sighs and leans down to give Danny another pat and a kiss before getting up to leave herself.

Danny sticks his arms up at her, “lift me, am baby”. Valerie snorts and leans down lifting him up, “yes, big scary baby”. Danny laughs with a high pitched voice very intentionally, “spooky scary skeleton baby”. Valerie groans and drops him on the bed, “you’re awful, you damn fool”, shoving his head into the blankets.

Danny chuckles, “you’re the worst, you stupid fool-lover”. She just snorts while Danny stays there, with his face smushed into the bed as they actually do leave.

His mom coming over after she’s sure his friends have gone. Her sitting on the bed and patting it, giving his shoulder a little rub, “you are okay with testing the CyberSteps right? And the way the house is? It’s setup? You can get to everything fine?”, continuing as he turns his head to her, “I know we haven’t really been treating this like you actually are... disabled. We’ve been treating this like you’ll pretty much go back to normal”, sighing and looking to the ceiling, “I know with the CyberSteps you’ll be able to walk again, have legs again. But it’s... it’s not the same. And I don’t- I don’t know if you want us to teat you like you’re no different. Not give you extra help or do things for you”, looking back to him and ruffling his hair a little, she can tell he’s thinking, “I know you want the general public to treat you the same and not even know anything’s happened. But us? I guess what I’m asking sweetie, is if you like the way we treat you”, trying to lighten the mood a little, make this seem less serious, “and no, by help you out I don’t mean babying you. I know you don’t like that”.

Danny opens and closes his mouth a few times. His mom was obviously worried and was definitely always going to be bothered by his leglessness, but he wasn’t actually legless. But revealing that was more than a little unpleasant sounding. Regardless what his friends say, regrowing human(ish) flesh and bone was not the same as developing a ghostly tail. It wasn’t even in the same realm of same. Literally. Humans do not heal like he does. Not even close. And him revealing he doesn’t heal like a fucking human is absolutely going to make them question if he even is human anymore. If he’s been too changed by his Core and contamination to qualify as human. And his parents deciding the answer was ‘no. Not human’ was nightmare fuel that he simply did not want to face. That, his hybrid status, was getting pried from his cold dead hands, when it came to his folks. And besides, even if he did tell her, then she’d be worried about his weird-ass healing and humanness. Which she would probably be more bothered by than him technically being ‘disabled’. So that’s solved. Kinda. Not really. Something tells him that having legs -real ones- while human was going to be an uncommon thing; too risky to have them often. He has a distinct feeling that is making ClockWork smirk meanly at him.

(ClockWork was, in fact, watching the near future with a smirk; and drumming their fingers over their staff almost in eager anticipation)

Now the other dilemma Danny’s having is this whole ‘do you want us to treat you the same/help you/modify things for you’ question. He means, the answers were obvious to him: yes/no/no. But his mom was obviously having at least a little bit of a hard time with treating him like nothings changed. Obviously she wanted to help him. And that made sense. She was his mom, any mom would want to help their disabled kid. That meant he needed to give her a reason, make her feel good and better about him not wanting that. She needed to feel like she was helping him by not helping him. Huh, talk about an oxymoron. And funnier, doing that would make him feel helpful and his Obsession at least a little content. But the question was, how to go about doing that? Tilting his head -and knowing damn well his mom is just letting him sort through his head- he could just be honest? in a different way. He disliked being babied, them helping him when he didn’t goddamn need it, because of his ghostly pride. Because of that ghostly part of his mind. His ghostly brain. Which his mom had asked about. Had asked how his mind was different, was more ghostly. He could just... tell her? That’s pretty well what she wanted right? and it would keep her from being all weird about this. Maybe anyway. Hopefully. But also how to explain that? He wasn’t kidding that he really seriously didn’t know just how different his mind was. Where did his human pride end and his ghost pride begin? He had never liked being babied, but he definitely hated it much more since the accident. But he’s pretty sure full human Danny wouldn’t mind his folks doing things for him or putting stuff in easier reach. Heck! full human Danny would probably want nothing to do with robo-legs; especially robo-legs made by his explosion prone parents. Full human Danny would probably be fine being pushed around in a wheelchair. Halfa Danny definitely wasn’t.

Swallowing, alright brain, time to be on the ghostly side. Huh, for once he was actively wanting to be ghostly around his family, “okay uh, I think that -me being bothered with being babied so much- is a ghost brain thing. And um, you guys trying to help me unnecessarily -as in I could honestly do it myself just fine- is babying to me. Wounds my pride I guess”, shrugging. It didn’t help that he was a powerful ghost. He was a proud bastard alright? Ghostly proud for sure. Nowhere near as bad as Vlad though. That guy was, like, sixty percent pride or something.

Maddie nods, making a point to not look too curious, she can tell a bit that Danny’s more certain about this than he’s letting on. So he was clearly not comfortable yet talking about how his... Core and ectoplasm affected his mind. Meaning this was probably him testing the waters a bit, him taking a bit of a leap of faith. She could understand that, it made sense, him hide anything about himself he thought was ghostly was what he was used to. He had ghost hunters for parents after all. So she needed to not be bothered by this, just like the tail and Core. But also just like with those, she was bothered, she just had to work on that and not let it show; because upsetting him, making him feel like he still had to hide parts of himself, would bother her much more. Though to get any confirmation that his mind has changed, who he is, his personality; was harder to swallow than his physical body being a bit different. And here, he probably had a point. She thought he had been more self-sufficient, more caring about his looks, and more capable as a teen. She had chalked that up to growing up, but maybe that was his ghostly influence showing. Tilting her own head, “well ghosts are prideful things. So I guess you being more proud, in a ghostly way, would make sense. Do you... have different kinds of pride? Like, human pride and ghostly pride?”. Not ‘ghost pride’ because he’s not a ghost; no matter how close to one he’s become.

Danny rolls onto his back and stares at his ceiling a little, “I think my ghost pride trumped my human one. I’m not sure I have human pride?”, tilting his head, “or maybe my ghost stuff just abducted my human pride and modified it?”. Did he actually know the answer here? No. And it’s not like he’s gonna ask Spectra how his mind worked. How human it was. That would be asking for punishment. Would really confuse her though. Maybe. She was one ghost he didn’t really understand.

Maddie nods and ruffles his hair, “your ecto-circulatory system and Core? That would make sense”, looking up at the ceiling too, “ghosts are impressions of the living, so your ghostly set up cannibalising your human pride and leaving you with the ecto-impression of it seems plausible. Seems logical pride would be something your ectoplasm would latch on to or overpower”, she bites back adding that ghosts were obviously proud since they seemed to think they were better or above the living when they were only the leftovers of the living. Effectively scraps. But that thought makes her squint a little, there wasn’t anything for Danny’s Core to be a ‘scrap’ of... The tail was obvious, but the Core? They had thought those were likely built of leftover emotional imprints or maybe the heart? That clearly couldn’t be right since Danny still had a heart -Dan had pretty well confirmed his heart being there- and, even with his aloofness, she’s still positive he was definitely all there emotionally. So the Core was an addition, not a leftover. Meaning that maybe... they were at least partly wrong. On their basic understanding/finding, of all things. Maybe the majority of a ghost was leftovers, but some were new?

Danny interrupts her thoughts, “‘ecto-circulatory system’? Is that just, like, what you’re calling my, uh, ectoplasm? And I think it’s more likely that ghost pride, or whatever, is stronger and more focused on, or something, and so the human pride is kinda redundant? Would be wasteful to have two, I think”, chuckling, “I guess ‘cannibalising’ is one way to put it. More like taking the old and upgrading it”, then very stupidly adding, “less ‘impression’, more ‘freed from unneeded baggage”, and instantly cringing because calling living, breathing, eating, organs, etcetera, ‘baggage' was probably simultaneously worrying and offensive. Maybe she wouldn’t take it that way? Even if it was... kinda true. Why have organs and bones when you can just be energy? Why be reliant on oxygen and food when you could just... not? But at the same time, why need to absorb ectoplasm, just one thing, instead of diversifying your needs? No ectoplasm equals some pretty fucked and probably fading ghosts. No cheese or beef just equals ‘eat something else you moron’. Still though...

Maddie gives her son a slightly concerned look, did he have that ‘ghosts are better than the living’ mindset? That could.... could explain his tolerance and even seeming fondness of ghosts. But he also clearly didn’t ascribe to humans being lesser; than ghosts or him. Like how some people just found cats better than dogs, better pets than dogs; but didn’t view dogs as some lesser beings. Was this part of his ghostly influences or just the way he would view things regardless? She should ask instead of assuming, assuming has gotten her in a bad way a lot it seems. And she told herself she’d do less of that. But first, his question. His curiosities were more important than hers, especially if he might be genuinely worried about anything, “your ecto-circulatory system is just what your dad rather dubbed your Core and ectoplasm. How it works and flows together. Like blood and a heart”, shifting a bit and biting her lip, “I guess having two kinds of pride would be unnecessary. But... do you? think ghosts are better than humans? Above?”, looking at his face and making a point to come off as gentle, “swapping ‘impression’ for ‘losing baggage’ sounds less like they are our leftovers and more like we’re garbage holding back our ghosts”. When it came to power she could understand, humans simply couldn’t match ghosts when it came to raw power. But they lost so much. Or that’s what research said, what she had thought for so long. But even if they were wrong about ghosts being emotionless and unable to feel pain. And, according to Danny, about being able to reproduce. Ghosts still lost organs. A truly physical existence. They were still bound to Obsession, even if Dan’s idea of them loving their Obsessions had merit. They still existed almost endlessly. They still were trapped in a form, ‘mind’, habit, personality, that could barely change at all. That was horrible. A loss. Not freedom or shedding off baggage. And certainly not better. Maybe it was good and better for the ones that never knew life.

Danny pushes himself to sit up and chuckles awkwardly, he sure loves making his life harder huh? “uh, I wouldn’t say ‘garbage’”, he pointedly ignores her slightly relieved sigh, “better comparison would be prototype to finished product. Prototypes are smaller, weaker, less effective. But more manipulatable, easier to deal with, informative. Prototypes you can practically upgrade or modify like crazy. Finished things go obsolete”, tilting his head and looking a little far off, “‘when things reach their ultimately conclusion, their final stage, they can go no more. But the universe is a thing of endless mores. There will always be a higher goal. A harder day. A stronger fight. A more expensive cost. To stagnate is to someday die out. To cease to exist when the universe requires beyond the final evolutions limits. But life is a thing of endless evolution. Of constant change. Always taking more and more and more. Never to rest’”, nodding his head with a smile, “‘and that, young one, is why I love life’”, chuckling and looking back to his slightly startled looking mom, “I might have made a stupidly wise friend”, shrugging, “sure they also then went on about why they love death. But you get the point I think”.

Maddie blinks, alright so maybe him being more grown-up had something to do with making -what sounds to be- a very smart friend. Likely an adult. Choosing to make light of this because that was a bit heavy and her boy clearly thought highly of this friend; he remembered them word for word!, “and here I thought I’ve met all your friends”, patting his head and getting lightly scowled at in return, “though I would like to know what they think of ghosts”, sighing and looking back to the ceiling, “as for what you said, most people consider prototypes inferior. So that doesn’t really change my question”.

Danny nods a little, fair enough, “well... uh, I think ghosts are better yeah. Kinda. In ways”, shrugging, “the strength. The durability. The powers. The sorta immortality and Obsessions though, heh”, he may love helping and protecting people, and enjoy satisfying that pesky Obsession of his; but it was still annoying pushy bastard. Shaking his head, “and my friend? They’re kinda a loner”, was a bit weird calling ClockWork simply ‘friend’ but he so doesn’t want to get into that. Chuckling, “‘death -in the way it is known for ghosts- is a finality in a way that finality is not. An end unending. Eternity, or at the very least the possibility of it, on a shiny silver plater. A steady star in space. Enhancing and overwhelming everything around it. Never bending for anything. It’s beauty and strength. Chaos and destruction. Pure and raw; leaving room for nothing else. And the universe is nothing without that’”, Danny nods and adds, “pretty sure they also said ‘think of it like this: without death, life is worthless. Death is the core and essence of life. Without it life is just a bled dry husk. And that’s something I care nothing for’ on the same topic”.

Maddie can’t help blinking again, this whoever seemed like they genuinely didn’t prefer one over the other. Reminded her a little of Dan actually. She’s not sure she agrees with the idea that the living are worthless without ghosts. Or maybe Jack’s wild on-the-spot idea of needed ghosts had some serious merit. As in, world would end without them, kind of merit. Then squinting, thinking on the weird emphasis Danny put on ‘Obsessions’; it couldn’t- could he possibly? “Sweetie-”. Only to get cut off by Jack barging in, holding up the CyberSteps.

“I got tired of waiting! So I figured I’d just bring them up! Plus! It might be more convenient to test here! Since if there’s some kind of reaction then Danny can just hop right into bed!”. Maddie tilts her head and nods slightly; he had a point.

Danny looks around his room and rubs his neck, thinking of all the shit he hid fucking everywhere in here, “uh, I’d rather not have anything that, y’ know, might explode or anything, in my room while doing things that would make it maybe explode or something”. His dad actually blushes at that and deflates a little. So Danny adds on, “still cool with testing though dad. Just not here”; earning a wide smile in return.

Maddie nods and sighs slightly, standing up with a smile; storing away her question and worry for later, “might as well do that now then”, smiling almost meanly at Jack, “since someone’s over eager”. Jack just chuckles and grins.

Danny flicks around his tail, feeling how easy it would be to simply have legs yet how not draining the tail still was. Super odd but fuck it, odd is him or whatever. Floating up off his bed and flying his face right up to the legs, more than a little curious what they've changed to account for his Core in a way that actually works in any way. Looking inside the legs, “so, think you’ve fixed the signals miscommunication issue?”, deciding not to add ‘without messing anything else up’.

Jack beams and nods, father and son chatting a little as they head out and down the stairs. Maddie watching from behind and smiling to herself, glad he didn’t seem to be closing himself off or act uncomfortable after their ghost-related talk; like he often did. Probably had something to do with her effectively reintegrating that they were willing and okay to hear him out on his opinions and ghost tolerance. Or maybe from them knowing about his ghostly influence and accepting that as simply part of him. Refocusing and watching his tail flick and swish around; which only makes her smile grow a little. He truly had gotten pretty good with it; not a wobble or falter in sight. He might even be able to give some ghost a run for their money, once he was healed up of course, which Jack would absolutely cheer and brag over.

Danny turns his head towards his mom just as they get into the kitchen -the currently designated blast zone, since doing it in the lab around sensitive anti-ghost stuff really was stupid- tilting his head at her giggling to herself, “what?”, and blushing when she glances to his tail; him coiling It around a little, making her smile crinkle her eyes a little. Guess his folks were finally -thank the Ancients- genuinely getting use to the tail. Turning back to his dad, who sets down the legs and gestures at them a bit ridiculously. Making Danny laugh and shake his head with a smile, “yeah yeah, alright”.

Grabbing the waist and slipping his tail in, instantly wondering what would happen if he went all leggy while wearing the legs. Legs on top of legs. Legs inside of legs. Fucking legception. That’s for another day though, even if he grins like an idiot over the thought. Moving for the thumbprint scanner and pausing, huh, they moved the timer. Nice, way less awkward. Shrugging and attaching the neuroreceptors, “where'd the timer go? Not that I’m complaining”. Considering that thing controlled the drain, he’d rather be able to see it without pulling some inhuman body horror shit.

Maddie walks up and taps on the neuroreceptors between his shoulder blades, “it’s on your back, we think shortening the distance between your brain and Core, and the timer conductor might just do the trick. With a couple other changes of course”, shrugging a little, “even if that increases the distance between it and your tail -the most accessible of your ectoplasm- as well as the main body of the CyberSteps”.

Jack adds in with a laugh, “and just like before! It’s completely protected from bumps and it can be locked so no one can go fiddling with it on you!”, and slaps Dannys back over the strip, then blushing and realising that was probably dumb to do.

Danny tries (and fails) to look over his shoulder at it while his dad turns it to actually start up, “uh, won’t it be kinda hard for me to adjust it there”.

Both parents blink like this hadn’t occurred to them. “Oh”. While Danny glances to his chest and tries to focus on what he’s feeling. Again, the draining is near nothing, which is good though foreboding.

Maddie shakes her head, “well we could add a small chest bar so it could be on your chest”, nodding and thinking to herself a little, “would fall right over his Core then”.

Danny raises an eyebrow before grumbling, “who am I? Tony Stark?”, snorting to himself, “well I am a literal metal ass. Rockin’ robotics”. Then deciding why not try walking, didn’t seem like anything was going horribly awfully wrong.

Lewis had walked in just during Danny’s little dig toward Ironman and had promptly muttered to himself, “considering the super-suit leading a merry band of heroes. Yes. Yes you are”, which he’s pretty sure Danny missed. As he watches the kid go to lift his ‘leg’ -what happened to him regrowing his legs???- only for said leg to practically high kick the air aggressively, sweep Danny clean off his other foot, and flip him onto his back; hard. Eliciting a little ‘oof’ from Danny and making Lewis sigh. What is it with walking in on the hero/vigilante type getting hurt? Especially Danny. Was like the boy felt a moral and physical obligation to get injured at the sight of a doctor. Which actually... does seem like something Danny would get a kick out of.

Maddie and Jack quickly move to help him sit up. Lewis puts his last bag on the floor and walks over. Danny rubs his head and mumbles in ghost, “o̸҉w̧͘͏,̕͡ ͞I’͝v̕ę ̴͝w͘h̵̨a͝c̴͠k̕ed̴͠ m̷̕y ̢͠͡hea̵d ͏͠͠a͝ ̢͢͝sh̷͘i̛t ̵̕t͘o͟n͡ ̨a͝n͞d̸͝ ͞s̶͏͢om͡e͜͡ho͠w ͠t҉̵h͜a̡͜t̡ was͘ ͜͞͝w͜ay҉ ̛mo̕͠r̴͠e͏̸ ͏̡p̡̨ai̴͘nf͟ưl̡͝͡”, and shakes his head. Making his folks blink in surprise and squint at him slightly, many times they’ve thought they heard him muttering in a strange language; never heard it so clearly before though.

Jack chuckles and gives a lopsided awkward smile, “I guess you knowing ghost speak makes sense, son”. Catching Danny off guard, “e͘͜͞h̴̵҉¿”. Realising his fuck up, he goes to stand up only for the legs to overreact again and basically toss him -back first, because of course it does- into the table.

Lewis stands up and shakes his head, hands on his hips, “well I’m glad you’re up and walking, but maybe you should turn that down a little. Before you put a foot through the ceiling or hurt yourself further”. Danny just stands there rubbing his neck awkwardly before glancing cautiously at the legs. Though really? Lewis is damn impressed these things are actually working at all. And that Danny’s braces don’t look destroyed, but that’s another matter.

Jack chuckles, checks over the timer/conductor, and scratches his head, “they’re still on the lowest setting actually”. Maddie sighs, shakes her head, and repositions the table back where it belongs.

Her sitting down and eyeballing the CyberSteps, “I’m really not sure what else we can try. Any lower and it’s not gonna pick up and convert the signals successfully”.

Jack snatches up the little tray of peanut fudge brittle Maddie made earlier and puts it on the table. One’s missing, so he’s guessing Jazz took one before she turned in for the night. Least Dan joins them at the table. Danny looks to attempt to but winds up on the floor again. At least he lands on his butt though! Or the CyberSteps butt really. Oh whatever, all’s the same.

Danny just sits there, ‘legs’ sticking out straight, and vainly attempts to reach over his shoulder to flick the dial. His own normal flexibility surprising him a little at actually being able to reach the thing and turn it. But in typical fashion he turns it the wrong way, taking more from him and watching the legs start smoking concerningly; promptly turning the dial the other way. Everyone watching the smoke while Danny chuckles slightly, “heh”.

Danny decides ‘fuck it, pretty sure these are already busted’ and changes his tail to legs. Promptly reminding himself of the fact that the hooks for his tail are actual hooks via him being actively stabbed. Alright, he really should have seen that coming. Changing back to his tail to hopefully not leak blood everywhere and ecto-burning away any blood that might (definitely) have gotten on the hooks. Using said hooks to use his tail to stand up and get out of the (still smoking)CyberSteps.

Lewis watches him float to sit and grab up some of the brittle, pretty sure there’s some specks of blood on the ‘bandaging’. Which come on really? How does something made entirely of ectoplasm bleed human blood? How? Danny’s body made so little sense. Eddie's made more sense. And Vee was a liquid.

Maddie pats Danny's shoulder, “you alright sweetie?”. Danny of course giving a solid ‘yep’. Which Lewis is calling bullshit on, “I’ll be the judge of that”, earning an eye roll.

Jack nods and rubs his neck, “guess you’d like to check him over right off the bat huh?”, then perking up a bit, “then me and Mads can take the CyberSteps down! Give them a little check over of their own!”.

Making Danny snort, “really splitting the work there. A bio mechanic and tech mechanic. Real two for one. How suiting. Built for me”. Lewis just shoos the pair towards the lab door, Jack scooping up the ‘legs’ and bounding over; Maddie right behind after ruffling Danny’s hair.

Danny mumbles at the table as the lab door closes, “what is with ruffling my hair today?”. Then scowling at Lewis for attempting to ruffle his hair with a small smirk, Danny going intangible to block him.

Lewis rounds on Danny, pointing at his tail, “now, why is that bloody? How’s your back and arm? Can you get concussions? And I thought you said you had legs again?”.

“Twenty-one questions much? Everything’s fine, doc. I discovered the CyberSteps qualify as an iron maiden for legs. If I can get concussions I never have I think. And I’m not legless, I’m leg optional”, changing to legs and crossing them for emphasis and to effectively show off his (still intact)fashion disaster. Feeling slightly cold chair against his bare legs, and possibly the bottoms of his ass cheeks; which he’s studiously ignoring, because Ancients damnit how do girls wear this shit and not feel awkward as Hell.

Lewis blinks, “I’m pretty sure this qualifies as a crime for me to see”, well, no wonder he asked for pants. No guy should be in anything like this against his will; least Danny was rolling with it.

“Fuck the law. Also, I might have encouraged Vee to eat a cop... and a priest”.

Lewis shakes his head and gets up, “again, you’re a bad influence”. Watching Danny as he gets up and walks around his chair, going to head up the stairs. Whelp, guess he can walk. And has the most insane healing factor imaginable. Eddie technically didn’t have any special healing, Vee can just put Eddie back together. Like a jigsaw puzzle that can regrow any lost pieces to boot.

Lewis shakes his head as he closes Danny’s bedroom door, “I am once again in awe of your body”, Danny gives him a really weird look at that and awkwardly slaps his ass. Lewis scowls at him, “no. Eddie can do that, not you”, gesturing for the boy to sit down so he can make sure everything’s as it should be for a healthy person.

Danny raises an eyebrow, giving his arm over, “Eddie slaps his ass at you?”, muttering to the side, “I think Tuck is winning a bet”.

Lewis studiously ignores that, he had more than a few people question if his friendship with Eddie was really ‘just friends’. Sure, he and Anne had talked about that, opening things up. But they were pretty agreed on that being a bad idea. At least currently anyway. Pulling at bandaging, “back to tail, I somehow think that’ll be easier to wrap and less wasteful”, both of them shaking their heads at the flesh-coloured tail. Lewis quirks an eyebrow at his waist coming to a clean smooth flat end before transitioning to the tail. Eh, least he was healed and wrap-able; positives Lewis, positives.

Checking over the braces quickly, only having to change out a cracked back brace surprisingly. And very closely checking Danny’s job of reattaching his arm, the kid was seriously too good at stitching; and bone alignment apparently. Leaning back and nodding at his own work, pointless as it technically was, “guess I don’t have to gas you now”.

Danny grimaces, he’s not going to underestimate Lewis’s seriousness about healing again, “you were seriously going to do that, huh?”. Lewis just smirks at him as Danny floats up off the bed.

Lewis speaks up before Danny turns his doorknob, “speaking of Eddie, what is up with everyone thinking you’re old?”. Danny’s grin is downright malicious, “what? Did you not believe me when I pointed out time travel is a dear friend of mine”, finger-gunning at the doc, “I do have basically the god of time in my corner after all. And a time slash dimension-hopping map”.

Lewis nods acceptingly, “I’m surprised time jumping is even legal. Though ClockWork seems like the type that might not care”.

Danny chuckles, “law means nothing to them. Time loves crime. We’re like twins”, and grins meanly before opening the door and going to head back to the kitchen; Lewis following. Maybe see what ideas his folks have now, inspire them a little; they seemed kinda stuck. Which at this point was fair. For every thing that worked, something else didn’t.

The two enter to the two parents glaring at the table and off-handledly munching on brittle. Danny blinks, looks to Lewis, shrugs, and turns back to his folks. Floating over to the table, “drawing blanks?”. Jack nods and hums; taking another bite. Danny moving to sit, cooking his tail around the seat.

Maddie looks at Danny and squints, “it’s like the timer conductor simply can’t work in proper alignment with itself and you”.

Lewis tilts his head, “well couldn’t you just separate the timer function and conductor function? Sacrifice a little space-saving in the name of functionality?”. This thing working at all is a miracle alone. It also being stylish, and realistic, and compact, and durable, and practically self-sufficient; seems straight-up impossible. “Like a friend likes to say ‘ain’t nothing wrong with the cheap n’ easy option’”, shrugging, “sure, he’s usually talking about food and booze, but I think the mindset applies”.

Jack shakes his head absently, mumbling into his food, “only the best for Danny-boy”. Maddie pats his arm comfortingly. Lewis points at him, “working at all might be the best though”. Jack just grumbles incoherently at that.

Danny shrugs awkwardly, “I’m fine either way. An extra dial is nothing really”. He is not going to school or walking around town without legs, Ancients Damnit!

Maddie sighs and nods, “we’ll see, we’d rather not of course, but we’ll see.  I’m not entirely convinced that would work anyway. Might make it even worse. Since the two need to communicate so closely and heavily. Control how much is taken, how, and stored. Control how much is released and where to at a time”.

Jack nods, joining the conversation more in genuine, “I think the timer isn’t working really. It’s just not strong enough. The conductor can’t take little enough, even with storing excess, for the timer to handle; without taking too little to even activate the conductor properly”.

Maddie nods and gives Danny a soft look, “your ecto’s just too strong. The conductor needs to be strong enough to keep up and handle you, but the timer doesn’t seem able to keep up with that. We’re pretty sure the timer’s maxed out”. Danny cringes and rubs his neck, looking around awkwardly. A more power-hungry ghost would be tickled green to hear that.

Jack nods, “feasibly, we could increase storage space but that would botch the design clear to the Zone. Definitely wouldn’t be able to match your physique. Noticeably so”, and glancing at him. Knowing full well Danny wouldn’t be happy with that.

Danny instantly grimacing, “yeah no. I’ll pass on that option”. Earning a round of nods.

Lewis leans back and taps his chin, “I’m assuming by ‘too strong’ you mean ecto-level right? And could you just... make a different kind of timer? Or a conductor that could compress his energy on top of storing it?”. Hey, sometimes an outside perspective helped.

Maddie raises an eyebrow at Dan, “oh? Danny explained ecto-levels, I take it?”, shaking her head, “this timer is our newest model. I’m not sure we can currently make something stronger. And everything we’ve got for compression right now are capture devices or would likely hurt anything that could actually feel pain”, and winces slightly from Danny’s sudden sharp glare; promptly getting a matching one from Dan. Right, she was supposed to be rethinking that. And she was, honest. It’s just, they had been so sure. Fiddling with her glove a little, “habit sweetie”. Danny rolls his eyes, like he always did when they would ignore or disregard his opinions; which made her cringe. She probably just took at least a small step back with him. Lewis just continues with the glare.

Jack nods, “we haven’t really had a chance to look into reviewing things, son”, chuckling slightly, “give us some wiggle room, would ya?”. Danny rolls his eyes again but this time he has a slight smile.

Danny shrugs, back brace scraping almost loudly against the back of the chair as he leans back, “well I definitely don’t want anything that hurts ghosts being used on me. And honestly? There was never any reason to think ghosts don’t feel pain”. Lewis just nods, this wasn’t really his fight here; he’ll interject if he thinks he needs to though.

Maddie gestures with her hands, “but they don’t have nervous systems, it doesn’t make any sense. There’s no brain to measure or process that stuff”.

Jack nods a furrows his brows, “same reason we didn’t believe they had emotions. Or the ability to love, or really care about anything other than their Obsession and chaos”. Even Lewis has to admit, he’s got no clue how something without a brain experiences things that require brainwaves and nerves to experience. Ghosts or symbiotes. Though he’s got a few ideas regarding Vee.

Danny blinks, in his opinion it was obvious ghost could feel; both emotions and pain. Literally just look at them and it was obvious. But yeah, he guesses from a purely slightly close-minded human-centric scientific eye it would seem illogical or impossible. And he’s never exactly questioned the ‘how’ of ghosts feeling anything. His ghostly self included. Maybe if he could find an answer to that then his folks might really truly genuinely change their tune on ghosts; instead of just pondering it. So how did he feel things a ghost? Okay stupid question, he felt through his ectoplasm of course. But how? Everything had a slight tingle in ghost form, he had figured he was just feeling his own ecto; but maybe that wasn’t the case. Kinda like how if you pressed your finger down on something and really focused or pressed you could feel your pulse. And Cores were often described -even by him- as like a brain and they effectively were ghost hearts. Maybe that was even more literal. His Core would pulse or vibrate harder if it was doing lots of work, but it would also vibrate pretty noticeably when he was happy; he got teased about ‘purring’ over that. And his Core did get colder and even felt harder when he was pissed off. Kinda wet when he was sad. Huh, he probably should have noticed the emotional connection a long ass time ago; though not really feeling his Core consciously was a good excuse for not, background noise after all. Emotions were effectively felt through the Core. And any pain he experienced did seem to be slightly worse around his chest. So It was probably processing, or whatever, that pain. Sure people didn’t feel head pain every time they stabbed their finger with a knife, but humans were less in-tune with their brains than ghosts were with their Cores. Humans can’t ‘feel’ their brains by just focusing after all. Same went for blood verses ectoplasm though. If anything, ghosts felt more than the living.

Danny blinks, staring down at the table before looking back to his folks; who are giving him curious looks. Well damn, ghosts felt everything with their Cores. He officially gets why they were all so damn protective of them; beyond just instinctively feeling protective. Part of why they were sacred. This also explained his parents' confusion too. They admitted to knowing near nothing about Cores, so they wouldn’t know everything Cores did.

Danny sits up straight and puts a hand over his chest brace, over where his Core was, “it’s the Core. How ghosts feel things. They feel it with their Core”, continuing at his parents eyebrows raising and basically matching Lewis’s curiosity; though he can tell his dad’s restraining himself, which Danny appreciates. “Er, not sure if it’s the same for me -doubt it- but It does react to emotion and general pain. Uh, sometimes before I mentally do”, shrugging awkwardly and trying to make the air feel less crushing, “Sam and Tuck like to poke fun at my, um, purring when I’m happy or really content. Heh”, and glancing around.

Lewis smirks meanly, Danny moving his glancing to him and scowling. It was just like whenever anyone -other than Eddie- called Vee’s little snake head thing ‘cute’; which it was cute. They do that cat bleb thing too, so it was their own fault they were cute. Both Venom and Danny being cat-like wasn’t a similarity he ever expected to find.

Jack kinda wants to ask, ask everything actually, but specifically if Danny could show it or let them feel it? his Core feeling things. But he has a feeling his boy wouldn’t appreciate basically show-ponying. And experiencing an emotion, even faked, at the drop of a hat was kinda hard. Plus! He believes his boy! So does he really need to ask? His wife speaks up before he does, which is so uncommon that Danny is probably weirded out by that. Maddie tilts her head a little, “‘before you mentally do’ so your... Core is actually more emotionally sensitive?”, and squints at the air.

Maddie’s not really sure what to do with that information. She could write it off as a side-effect of forming a Core while still having a brain, nervous system, etcetera. But... realistically it made more sense to think that his Core was very similar to practically the same as a regular Core; an ice Core type specifically. And trying to claim his Core could experience emotions and pain but a regular one couldn’t was a serious fundamental difference. Sure she had hoped his ghost would keep the ability to feel emotions when It fully formed, but for his ghost’s Core to already experience emotions and in a completely different way than humans did... It wouldn’t make any sense if the Core hadn’t come in with Its own emotional setup. Especially if It picked up on emotions first. And there was the whole complication of pain, because her job rather required ‘hurting’ ghosts; but ghosts ‘hurt’ each other so she’s not too bothered by that. But thinking on the ice Core thing, maybe she could jump off from that to try and place how maybe normal his was? Ugh, she seriously wishes they knew more about Cores. “Do you maybe feel things icily?”.

Danny gives her a slightly confused look, he's pretty sure that question wasn’t worded very well. “Like if my Core gets icy with emotions?”, he actually needs the clarification here. At her nod he continues, “uh, It’s always cold. But uh, more cold rock when I’m mad and ice water when sad? I’m not really sure how to put it”, rubbing his neck, “I know I drop room temperatures when I’m mad”, tilting his head, “Sam and Tuck say I literally suck the heat out of them if I’m sad or really bummed or whatever”, shrugging, “has to be, like, strong emotion for others to really notice. I think?”; he’s pretty sure people would say something if he chilled rooms every time he was mildly frustrated. Everyone would have to wear sweaters during tests.

Lewis blinks, maybe it was better his Core was all exhausted at the hospital. But hey, it was a step up from eating someones organs in response to annoyance. Or drinking yourself under the table and then the floor, having questionable gang bangs, and getting a tattoo of a horse eating pickles.

Maddie and Jack exchange a Look. Alright, so his Core absolutely could and did process emotions and in Its own way. They absolutely couldn’t deny that ghosts feeling -and thus caring, experience pain, having morals- was not only plausible but likely. And Danny was right, if ghosts had something they could feel with then there really wasn’t a reason to assume they couldn’t feel. Looking back and nodding at Danny. Jack sticking out his arms, “I guess ice Core ghosts are emotionally cold literally”. And grinning at making Danny snort and laugh.

Danny nods at his dad with an amused smile, putting his chin in a palm/hand brace, elbow on the table. Looking to his mom as she speaks up, “I guess Cores are a lot more than a vital energy source. And if this isn’t just a you thing, a modification of your Core due to being human still, then ghosts wouldn’t be emotionless. Wouldn’t be pure chaos and evil”, sighing and leaning back, “so I guess ghosts really can’t be purely evil. But I think we really need to actually encounter a so-called ‘good’ ghost, to see just what kind of good that is”.

Danny can’t resist a wide grin effectively splitting across his face. That grin becoming pinched and very forced, while his folks jump in their seats a little as a portal just opens up, in the middle of the kitchen.

Lewis’s eyebrows get lost in his hairline successfully and he’s wondering just how often do ghosts just pop up when Danny was involved in literally anything. He’s known Eddie for a year and he’s only dropped a criminal on him once, an alien once sorta twice but he never really had anything to do with Riot, and corpses (or on their way to being a corpse) once; Eddie was much better about giving ‘I’m eating out’ heads up now. Danny he’s known less than a month and there’s been what? Three ghosts dropped on him? The metal one, Skulker, twice. The biker, Johnny right? And that time he almost walked in on the ClockWork ghost, that didn’t quite count as an encounter though.

Lewis physically wheezes at the timing of this ghost as they stick their blue hood-covered head through the portal. While Danny feels the need to forcibly restrain himself from smacking ClockWork over the head, as they float fully through the portal in their child form.

Jack and Maddie blink, if they were a little less tired then they would have immediately whipped out pistols from their suits and held the spook at gunpoint; though holding back on firing until this strange ghost seemed hostile, if for anything to appease their (definitely overly ghost friendly)son and try out his ‘ghosts aren’t evil’ mindset.

Jack and Maddie’s sleep deprivation-induced hesitance gives the ghost the chance to smirk mischievously and speak, “you called?”.

Danny blinks and gapes like a fish, clacking his jaw shut to avoid yelling ‘what the fuck ClockWork?!?!?’ because seriously. What the fuck are they thinking? What are they doing? Has his guardian lost their damn mind? Has all their sense of reason and common sense utterly timed out? What’s their malfunction? Does their clock Core need Its batteries changed? The hands tightened? The clock face or case polished? The pendulum realigned? Danny tears his eyes off them and looks to his parents, opening his mouth back up, “uhhhhhhh”.

Lewis sighs into a hand, “and you are?”. Jack and Maddie glance at him quickly with looks of utter disbelief; was the man just utterly unflappable?

Danny just loses it at that, ‘cause take a fucking context clue mr. smart doctor man, “do you not see the clocks everywhere? Whom the fuck DO YOU THINK?!?”.

Lewis levels him with an unimpressed look, “I’m being nice”. This was probably ClockWork, but he wasn’t one for assumptions.

Jazz walks downstairs rubbing her eyes and yawning, “it’s five in the morning? Why are you-”, yawning, “-yelling? Why are you up?”. Then drops her hand, stops walking, and stares.

ClockWork grins, “hello Jasmine”.

“You... know my name?”.

Danny thumps his head on the table, “they know everything”, confirming who this was to her and Lewis really, while Danny bangs his head on the table repeatedly.

#Danny Phantom #phandom #CrossOver #venom #fan fic #danny fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #dan lewis #eddie brock #sam manson #tucker foley #valerie gray #legless on maim #skulker #ember #clockwork #major character injury #limb removal #reveal #amputation #mentions of murder and cannibalism #ectobiology #ghost prince danny #character growth #have a fic suck my dick #phantomphangphucker #my writing #injury recovery #eddie is having a... time

[lewyn-martell]

rules: answer 21 questions and tag 21 people you want to know better

tagged by @laurels-things thanks! you seem like such a nice person!

i. nickname?

lui or simply lu

ii. zodiac sign?

scorpio

iii. height?

165 cm... I'm not sure if I'm below average height on my country, but I believe brazillian people are pretty short. I may be the shortest amongst the boys in my class but I'm the tallest amongst the girls (except one girl who is nearly 180cm i stg) and as a nonbinary person this is a good place to be, i think.

iv. hogwarts house?

hufflepuff :D

v. last thing I googled?

amongst or among — i was unsure if i was using the word correctly sjbshsbshsvs

vi. fav musicians?

THE BEATLES (all 4 of them, but john lennon speaks to my soul in ways i can't describe... the way he makes me feel is something out of this world)

david bowie

elton john

brendon urie from panic! at the disco

the boys from green day

aaand i have mad respect for some soundtrack musicians bc i eat these up constantly. i like ramin djwadi, michael giacchino, ennio morricone, danny elfman, jonny greenwood (yeah i know he's from radiohead but i haven't listened a lot of stuff from this band yet and his phantom thread compositions are SUCH A BOP), hans zimmer and i've been also listening to the score of the shape of water by alexandre desplat (i like him, but jonny greenwood was ROBBED) so maybe that'll be a future fave. also i love a lot of composers for disney animated musicals but if i start i won't ever shut up. but i love almost all of the disney soundtracks.

i would say some time ago whoever wrote the songs for the smiths which i believe includes morrisey, but i recently found out he is extremely right wing and i don't think i can still like someone with these kinds of inhumane views on people&society... i'm disappointed

vii. song stuck in your head?

currently bad boy (the beatles' cover of the song), john's vocals make my pulse speed up since the first verse

viii. following?

2234 nfbdjdbjdsbjshs but i think most of the people i followed years ago are no longer active, i must go through the list and try to do a spring cleaning or something

ix. followers?

408... and like half of these i gained only the last two months or something... and i don't know why shdbsjbshsbs maybe it's the beatles thing

x. do you get asks?

i don't, but that's ok because i don't know if i have a lot of interesting things to say... but if you wanna get something off your chest, go ahead, i love to listen to/read drama 👀

xi. amount of sleep?

tricky question because it constantly changes, sometimes i don't sleep at all bc i have to leave the house at 5h20 in the morning to go to uni and i stay awake until late and when i realize i have to go shower already dhsbshbshsvshs and then when i come back i sleep for like... 10 hours or smth or i don't bc i got stuff to do and i accumulate sleep and then there will be a day of the week i'll just shut down for 15 hours. mostly i try to go to bed around 23h and wake up around 4h45, so that makes it almost 6 hours .

xii. lucky number?

never noticed any particular number that favors me

xiii. what are you wearing?

t-shirt, shorts, it's hot as hell here

xiv. dream job?

don't have one, just want one that won't consume me so i have time to do stuff i'm actually interested in

xv. dream trip?

also don't have one

xvi. instruments?

flute, some percussion, some guitar, i wish i had actually studied music besides the basic stuff... i still wanna learn to properly play something and not just beat some bongos during carnival

xvii. languages?

portuguese, english, bit of spanish only cause of the similarities with portuguese and 4 years of classes in middle school...but still, can't speak or write, only read and listen

xviii. favorite songs?

oh my god... ok...

i was making this in list format but it got way too big... it's still big i'm sorry

the beatles: i want you (she's so heavy), strawberry fields forever, across the universe, oh! darling, and your bird can sing, tomorrow never knows, mother nature's son, yer blues, golden slumbers, i am the walrus, i me mine, long tall sally (little richard cover), you can't do that, what you're doing, ticket to ride, rain, eleanor rigby, happiness is a warm gun, i'm so tired, blue jay way, for you blue, in my life, anna go to him (cover).

david bowie: time, cygnet committee, unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed, tvc15, life on mars, young americans, queen bitch

panic! at the disco: that green gentleman, she had the world, build god then we'll talk, nearly witches, emperor's new clothes, bittersweet, nine in the afternoon, northern downpour, behind the sea, stall me, the piano knows something i don't know

green day: jesus of suburbia, brutal love, hitchin a ride, blood sex and booze, give me novacaine, whatsername, last night on earth

the smiths: this charming man, panic, how soon is now

elton john: goodbye yellow brick road, bennie and the jets, rocket man

queen: somebody to love, killer queen

strawberry swing - coldplay

welcome home - radical face

joão e maria - chico buarque

barbara rose - jonny greenwood

bachianas brasileiras no 5 - heitor villa-lobos

le festin - michael giacchino, camille

rains of castamere - ramin djwadi

unchained melody - a lot of versions from a lot of artists

another day - paul mccartney

meu erro - paralamas do sucesso

flor de lis - djavan

love the way you lie - rihanna&eminem

man! i feel like a woman - shania twain

xix. random fact?

well, it's not really a fact i think... i'm moving (again) but this time is to my father's house because my mum is moving to the south of the country... and i'm so fucking scared because we aren't close at all (i met him when i was 14) i mean, he seems nice enough, all of our interactions have been mostly pleasant but his wife (and probably he himself too) is a bit conservative in the brazillian traditional white family way (she's white cause she's a southern. i know yall think all latinos are poc,,,, but that's not true) but then again, that's something i had to live with all my life so i can handle casual homophobia and racism and sexism... but it will still be so weird cause i never been away from my mum too long (i'm... a momma's boy). i'm going next week i think, wish me luck.... (also he's got two dogs who won't leave me the fuck alone, i get out of the shower and they drool all over me, they know i'm a beta so they keep getting on top of me and since they're HUGE and i'm such a weakling i can't even get them off me and i can't scold them with a strong voice, i just can't do it... i mean, don't get me wrong i like them... but... they like me way too much and keep making me dirty.. i hate being dirty)

xx. aesthetic?

farm aesthetic..... idealistic farm aesthetic habshabaha like marie antoinette's pettit chateau. also the whole pretty odd aesthetic and strawberry swing by coldplay aesthetic

i'm tagging (probably less than 21 ppl) @zutaralesbian @ekscelsior @benstolemyhearty @lannistermartell @tyrionlannysters @avatars-legend @cerseiofhouselannister @falconsredwing @gendryayaya @glittering-snowfall @agirlandabeast @bugband @alittlebigpotato @vairemelde @charmeilon @jawn-lemon @antilennon @im-only-sweeping @ssimsass

i hope tumblr actually notifies you guys, i had problems with the last one...

#nfr #abt me #long post

[forte7]

Forte’s Fan Character Flashback Friday - #7

Name:: Valarie Masters Series: Danny Phantom Background: Holey moley guacamole! I missed Fan Character Flashback Friday! I mean... today is a Friday, but I was supposed to post this last week! Dangit! I'm sorry! Things are kinda crazy on my end still and it only dawned on me today that I had forgotten to do something - and it was this.

A thousand apologies for my tardiness, but going on about that still won't get this posted.

I've actually been waiting to post this character because I KNOW I had old art of her SOMEWHERE around and I cannot, for the life of me, find it, and unfortunately, I'm down in Texas right now to help out my aunt and uncle so I can't even continue looking for the physical copies of said old art if it even still exists. I KNOW it exists, because I used to post art for this character on a Danny Phantom fan forum I would RP on and heck, I even found that old forum, managed to log in to see if any of those old links still worked, and NOPE.

Guess I deleted them off the Photobucket I once had them on at some point and where the physical copies are, I'm not sure, because I don't remember seeing them when going through my old drawing binders.

It's really quite frustrating.

Anyway, this is Valarie, who I named forgetting about the actual Valerie Grey character from the series, cause the name fit the general bad fan character naming system of "it starts with the same letter of the character I like and is kinda similar, so I'll go with it".  I kept it anyway, cause little me reasoned, "well, this Valarie spells it with two As while the other is with an A and an E, so it's fine."

Just kinda funny that they're both linked to Vlad though, so yay, I guess? Hahah, I dunno.

Anywho, Valarie was set up/designed to be Vlad's daughter, but not even his biological daughter, though not a clone like some of my other fan characters, though with things that happen later in the actual series, it would actually be... possible/viable. Instead, she was a extraordinary creation of the Ghost Zone and was more or less "born" of the supernatural energies that construct that dimension.

I guess you can kind of compare her existence to that of Maria from Silent Hill 2. The Born from a Wish scenario kind of implies that Maria was manifested by the town using James' subconscious memories and feelings regarding his wife. Valarie, in the same vein, was manifested by the Ghost Zone, for whatever reason, to help placate Vlad's need and want for a family of his own.

Mind you, this entire backstory was cobbled together before Kindred Spirits introduced Dani Phantom and her entire storyline... which... is.... kinda the same, really, to Valarie's, and I remember at the time, was kind of mad about it back in the day.

Speaking of Dani Phantom, I remember how a lot of people were mad about Butch Hartman's apparent laziness in her character design and creation, cause it was pretty akin to many "bad fan characters" that you see out there, which, hey, I won't deny; that's what this whole Flashback thing I do is about, but you know, this just serves as a good example of the fact that pretty much... everyone does this. Everyone makes bad fan characters, even for their own things, so I think it's just more healthy for people to realize this and embrace it, hahaha.

Going back to Valarie - she's more or less a person who exists to help Vlad chill the fuck out and maybe not ruin things for everyone or everything. A more recent reason I came up with for this was that Clockwork and/or The Observants that are seen in the Ultimate Enemy special with Dark Danny foresaw Vlad's ambitions proving to be too troublesome in the future, so to prevent this from causing way more havoc than it's worth, even with Danny around to stop him or whatever, they're like "hey just throw him a kid; that'll keep him busy a little, right?"

Even with her supernatural origins, Valarie is half-human and half-ghost like Vlad and looks much like him thanks to just her being a physical manifestation of one of his subconscious desires. Physically, she’s about seven or eight years old and generally acts playful, though polite, but can occasionally come off as spoiled.

She shares many of her father’s sentiments towards various issues and people, though it’s safe to assume she doesn’t fully understand his reasoning for those feelings due to how young she is. For example, she harbors a dislike for Jack, though finds his clumsiness more amusing than idiotic and only really says she hates him because Vlad does.

In regards to Danny, she likes him and finds him fun to play with, but in her terms, that means toying around with him. Despite her small size, she can hold her own in battle and has a good handle on her ghost powers and won’t hesitate to use them to pull pranks or harass other people, especially if she has or is told to. Her antics can be described as impish while in ghost form, though she likes to feign innocence if caught.

A big point of curiosity with her is her memory; she has no memory of a time before not “being” and has no real answer when asked about her childhood. She doesn’t seem bothered by this lack of knowledge and usually shrugs it off, intent that she exists because she does; she feels no need to question it further. For her things are simple: if her father is happy, she’s happy. Be this just some childish thought process or some more ingrained sense of purpose because of her strange origins is up for debate.

More was actually done with this character than others and like I said, there used to be old sketches of her about. If I ever find them (and I hope I do, really), I’ll be sure to post them.

But aside from that, like I said, I did role play with this character on a Danny Phantom fan thread and boy was that a cringy time. I will admit now, that back then, when I was like 12 or whatever, I was an obnoxious brat who didn’t know how to really socialize or what she was doing on the Internet. Hahaha, when going back there to find the old image links, I ventured onto some of my older posts and…. Whooooo boy, no thank you.

I know at that point I did also write short fanfics from time to time, but I think those might be locked on boot drives from our old computers and don’t have a way of looking for them now either. For those, if I ever do find them, I might also post them, but it all depends on just HOW much cringe I want to trudge up and share, hahaha.

I know I’ve been ranting a lot now and it’s already now past Friday, even for the time zone I’m in, but I’m gonna go on a little side story as… an apology, though it just means a bit more ranting.

When I said I RPed on this site, I can’t actually say a lot of actual character development happened. I don’t remember what the system was for RPing canon show characters and the times they did pop up, it was on a situational basis, because more people were interested in playing their own character and pretty much everyone on that forum had half-ghost, half-human characters that had their powers for one reason or another.

There was one thread that was particularly popular though that I spent a lot of time in with most of the other players, called Halfa High, so it was just kids in high school. Characters, like mine, that were younger than high school age, had various reasons for being there, like they’re super geniuses or they have a sibling there they’ve come to see or something like that; it’s a fandom RP so anything can happen. Most of the stuff in here, because it was 12-14 or whatever year olds, was just characters pairing up with each other, cause I guess that’s just what kids care about, hahaha. I don’t know, I’m just an old lady now.

Anyway, this thread went on for a good number of pages and eventually they started a second one. And then they had one where everyone went to summer camp, so other weird adventures could be had without the confines of going to school.

This was the one I remember doing the most in though frankly, I don’t remember what the overarching storyline was at the time, though I don’t think I knew what was really going on back in the day either.

One of the big points I do remember was the fact that many of the people on this forum looked up to one particular member, who I’ll call Susan, because that was her character’s name. I’m pretty sure she was in her early 20s at this time, so a lot of the younger people gravitated towards her because she was mature and knew how to keep things moving in terms of RP story; she was more or less the main storyteller of the Halfa threads, coming up with a lot of the plot points and twists. She was also just popular cause she had been there for a while, I think, and she was a pretty good artist on the forum.

She wasn’t necessarily a bad person and usually always open to adapting an RP to involve suggested ideas, but I remember at the time, I was super jealous of her. One, because she did have really good art and I felt like a poo-poo artist and two, because she seemed to have a lot of sway in terms of what she wanted to happen in most scenarios, so much so, it was treated as forum canon that her character was married to Dark Danny and had two kids with him.

Nowadays, of course, I don’t give a damn. Whatever. But back then, it was annoying to me. And I guess some part of me wanted to pair my characters with Older Dan. I remember actually being openly mad about it on the forums and to her in private messages about it and did get in trouble for being a salty, little brat for it. One time, I even wrote a bitter fanfic that was less than subtle in regards to it, but I remember cooling my jets enough for them to not just full out ban me.

Like I said, I was obnoxious back then; it’s a phase all kids go through I guess, cause I see it in kids that age even now.

Anyway, this actually developed into a story point in the RP when I agreed to not be such an Angsty Annie about the whole thing and the Halfa Summer Camp thread took some weird turns. Besides the usual pairing of everyone’s characters with one another and other summer camp-y hijinks, it had time travel, an evil group that were named after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and political unrest regarding a ghostly royal family.

The royal family, of course, consisted of Susan and Dan, and their two kids. They had a son and a little girl, who I don’t remember the names of in the slightest. Susan got crowned? Queen of the Ghost Zone after she and some members of some Ghost Council? Were able to seal away Pariah Dark… and in that timeline, Dan was a fugitive, so they got married in secret and still managed to have secret relations enough to have their two kids.

But see, that was in the future of the Ghost Zone, which was like 20-30 years away from the time of the events of the actual RP. Why they were going back in time, I don’t remember, but I think it was something to do with Clockwork sending them back or something, who knows.

Valarie, however, is also technically part of the Ghost Royal Family (cause that’s a thing here…. hahaha), because I guess Susan was… Vlad’s niece? Somehow? So that made her and Valarie cousins, but because Susan was the one who sealed the Big Bad away, that meant she got to be Queen, just… because? There will be a lot of uncertainty with this recollection, cause again, heck if I actually knew or know what happened then.

Anyway, I guess in the uhm… present timeline, Susan was going to summer camp and this was before her and Danny were even a thing, cause doesn’t happen until they’re adults? I think, but she runs into a version of Dan that’s… in between him being a teenage and the future version that’s married to Susan… and… there was some contention with that, but again, I don’t remember what…

But eventually, everyone’s future selves end up appearing at summer camp, again for their own various reasons, along with Susan’s future kids, who get caught up in things, mainly because of misunderstanding and people having grudges and just wanting to kill other people without talking it out.

This loops back to my annoyance with Susan getting her character paired with a major canon character and the aforementioned political unrest, because it led to Older Valarie being a quiet, hardened soldier with a hidden, strong, but deeply unrequited love for Dan, which of course, causes a bit of tension with her and Susan, who is the Queen in the future. Also, apparently, I guess? There was a Ghost War or something? In the future or at some point that they set up a Royal Guard and Army, cause Valarie was more or less the Captain of all that, along with the personal trainer of the eldest son of the Royal Family. Future Susan, of course, is fine with her being in such a position of power cause I guess she’s proved it by this point and she doesn’t know of Valarie’s feelings for her husband, so it’s all right as rain as long as she just… stews about it silently to herself, because that is totally the healthy thing to do.

Older Valarie also goes back in time though, because eventually, people start coming across the aforementioned Four Horsemen, which aren’t really horsemen, because they don’t even have horses, but again, are named after them and are supposed to be the “living embodiments” of their namesake. So we have super powerful characters named War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death running around for… reasons? That I can’t even remember. Certain members’ characters are actually the younger versions of the Four before they’re… corrupted? Or something like that and given those names and most the people who turn into whichever, of course, have to fight their evil, older selves cause that’s cool or whatever.

Younger Valarie, at the time, was just hanging about and I guess fawning over a teenage Danny or the in between Dan (this is just as confusing to remember as it is to read, trust me), and I think makes friends with the Future Prince and Princess, who again are running around. I think the Prince was there to try and find Dan, because he believes he? Killed his father? Even though Dan is his father? And Dan was there anyway to protect the younger version of his future wife…? And the Princess was there just cause she wanted her mom, which is Future Susan, who went back to… do…. Something…?

But anyway, Younger Valarie ends up getting approached by her future self, who had originally come to serve her duty as Captain of the Royal Guard and protect Future Queen Susan, but eventually starts to realize that she could perhaps mess with the past to change things to the way she really wants them (even though I know now that would probably create some annoying paradox but please don’t get me on time paradoxes cause we’ve been here long enough already), so she starts to put it in her younger self’s head that everything going on here isn’t fair and she should do more than just be obedient and trusting and take whatever Susan says without question, because by not being more open and honest about your feelings just leads to a life of misery, pain and loneliness.

However, Younger Valarie just doesn’t get why she would say these things and rejects that line of thinking, which kinda makes Older Valarie snap and be like “okay, fine, I guess I’ll just go kill some peeps and then you’ll see what I mean”... I mean, I think? She does try to stop influencing her younger self and try to take matters into her own hands though.

Because at one point, we did have it where Older Valarie confronts Older Susan about her deep, dark hidden feelings, and they get into a fight over it, especially after Older Valarie threatens to go kill the Prince, but being a trained soldier and the Captain of the Royal Guard, Older Valarie does kick Older Queen Susan’s butt, but I think… is interrupted by one of the Four, that being War.

I think Older Dan also comes in at some point and chides Older Valarie for her actions, but heck if I remember. To be honest, if I fully cared and wanted to really relive some cringe, I could probably go to the forum and just read over the whole thread, but that was like 200+ (if not more) of pages and I…. do not feel like doing that, hahaha.

Anyway, Older Valarie and War end up getting into a fight, because it turns out War himself has some issue with Older Valarie. And it turns out that he used to be like her second in command? Or something? Who disappeared while on a mission and ended up into some spoopy, dark, dangerous, evil place, where he got corrupted and turned into War and it turns out he was okay with it, because he was also angry and bitter, cause surprise! He himself had feelings for Older Valarie, but poor guy got friendzoned and his attempts went unnoticed because she instead had feelings for Older Dan, because love triangles are also a cool plot twist to do, cause why not, I guess.

Uhm… I think during this fight was when Older Valarie started to notice the error? Of her ways? Or something like that after seeing one of her closest subordinates fall into darkness, so her story shifts to trying to get War to remember who he used to be. This character did have an original name, but I totally forget what it was… Anyway, War claims that there’s nothing she can do because he embraced and was more than willing to give up his soul or whatever for the power to actually make Older Valarie notice him or something.

I… actually don’t remember much past this point, though. I want to say she did end up getting through to him, but that might just be me rewriting history. That character, though, was more or less being set up to give someone for Young Valarie to pair with and I do thing there was a present day or at least an uncorrupted version of that character pop up at one point….

But besides that, I don’t even remember if that RP was finished, mainly because I think I started to stop going there as much and lost interest. The RP itself, actually, I think started to slow down, mainly because people got busy with other things, especially Susan and because she was again, more or less the driving force behind most things, it petered out.

I’m actually uncertain how old I was when there, because I will admit, when I was in my first year of college, I toyed around with some of the concepts from this RP and wanted to repurpose it into a story. It was mainly the stuff that took place in the future with the Royal Family and with the Four Horsemen, where basically, it would follow Older Valarie (hell, the “rewrites” character name might have just been Valarie for simplicity sake) as she dealt with her feelings with the Royal family and her relation to it, trying to protect the Kingdom and its people, and eventually deal with the disappearance of her Second in Command and his reappearance as a giant threat later on.

…. Really, I still kinda like the idea…

ANYWAY, I have talked long enough and am tardy enough with just this post as it is, so I’ll leave it at that. According to the Google Doc where I’m writing all this before actually posting, this is six pages long, so even more apologies for my rambling.

Still, hope you liked this month’s look back in time and look forward to the next one!

#forte's art #forte's fan character flashback friday #fan character flashback friday #danny phantom #oc #original character #fan character #vlad #vlad plasmius #vlad masters

[scientifically-strange]

Could you write a bamf! either ghost king au or clockworks apprentice au Danny meets the avengers please? You're writing is beautiful

Danny had always figured that he was to busy to ever go back to the mortal world. When he died for good and became a full ghost, he had immediately been made king and schooled in the art of Ghost Zone politics. And that had been…God, that had been such a long time ago. Occasionally his core would ache, and there wasn’t really anything he could do about it. His obsession was to protect, but all of the ghosts stayed In the Zone for the most part. Ever since he had died for good they never felt the need to haunt the real world. And because he was king now, they didn’t cause much trouble. Any trouble that was caused was either taken care of by Walker, or it was the Observants on the receiving end of a prank. His obsession wasn’t getting the attention it needed, and it was finally starting to take a physical toll on his body.

He sagged in his throne, the armor he wore biting into his skin in a few places, but he didn’t bother moving. He had long ago gotten used to the feeling. His eyes wandered to the large walls of Phantom’s Keep, eyes raking over the paintings that Princess Dora had her artists make. They were amazing, and highly detailed, if a bit overdramatic. Some were from when he was a halfa, standing tall and proud. Some were him defeating the old king, Pariah Dark. Some of them were more recent, showing off his broad shoulders. In those ones his face was always young, because he had died young the second time, but somehow they always managed to capture his blazing green eyes just right. Old and tired.

If he was bored like this for more than an eternity he could see why pariah lost his marbles.

He sighed, glancing over to his faithful servant. When Fright Knight had first started taking orders from Danny it had been…Strange. He wasn’t used to ordering his old enemies around and them actually listening. Fright knight not only listening, he went above and beyond for Danny. He remembered Clockwork mentioning that serving the king, no matter who the king was, was the Knight’s obsession. Pariah had taken full advantage of that.

Danny sighed again, tapped his fingers on his thigh a couple of times, and stood up.

“Fright Knight,” he said in a commanding voice. “I’m going to the Mortal World. Watch over the castle.”

“As you wish, my lord,” the faithful servant replied.

Danny could’t give you an answer as to why he wanted to o to the mortal world. Maybe he missed it? Maybe he missed people? Either way, the feeling in his gut fel right when he said it. Danny had always been one to go off of his instincts.

Without sayig anything else, he held out his hand and opened a portal.

—————

“We’re under heay fire!” Came Captain America’s voice as he barreled through the enemies. Hawkeye rolled his eyes. Of course they were under fire, thy were always under fire. It’s not like the old man has to point it out every fucking time.

He knckea few arrows, quickly letting them fly through the air, not bohering to make sure they hit their mark. He knew that they did if the gurgling was anything ot go by.

He quickly reached back to get more, and a pit in his stomach grew when all he got as air.

“Aww, arrows,” he whined. That’s okay, though. He was Hawkeye. He was good at improvising. hell, he did so much that at this point he was a fucking expert at it. He heard the guns stop.

He let out a huff before spinning aound, ready to fight fire with a bow, but he stopped short. Because standing right in front of him was a floating, glowing man. He had broad shoulders and a tall frame that was covered in bits of armor. Around his shouldes was a white fur cloak, but it wasn’t nearly as white as the dude’s hair. Floating above his head was a crown coated in ice. He looked around, seemingly unphased by the commoion he had walked into. In fact, the guy almost looked bored.

“Who are you?” hawkeye called to him. The words left hi lips before he could stop and think that maybe this guy wasn’t on his side.

The figure turned around, and a chill went down Clint’s spine because of how freaking green they were. But it wasn’t any kind of green he had seen. It was a toxic color, like the kind you fid in those barrels full of chemical waste in the mvies. Like acid. It was unnerving.

“Where am I?” He asked. And hly shit. On top of his voice being a deep baritone, it also had a sort of echo to it, like a tinging Clint really couldn’t place his finge on. For a split second he wondered if it was the being, or if it was just his hearing aids acting up.

"Uh,” Clint said. Perfect. Very smart. The being cocked his head tot he side, amused. It was a very human thing to do, and Clint didn’t know if it wa because he looked human but man it was so obvious that he asn’t. Nobody had eyes like that. Nobod glowed like that. And he was sure as hell nobody hovered like him. It wasn’t much but it was enough to catch Clint’s attention.

"East Berlin,” somebody answered behind him. He whirled around, only to see Sam Wilson, holding two guns up. Oe was pointed at the figure, and the other was pointed at the hydra goons on the other side of the miniature No-Man’s land, saring in awe at the glowing man. “Who are you?”

“My apologies,” the stranger said, completely unconcerned a the gun pointed his way. “I do suppose introducitons are a polie thing to do. My name is Phantom.”

Phantom? Like-as in a ghost? Does that mean he’s a ghost? Why would a ghost nam himsefl Ghost? When did ghosts start being more than fiction?

“Are you a good guy or a bad guy?” Clint asked. If he wa bad then they were in trouble, because e could practically feel the power coming off of this Phanom character. If he was good then maybe he could help them wth the whole ‘let’s take down this hydra base in case we find out more information on Steve’s long los friend, Bucky’ situation. Namely getting past security.

"Good, I guess,” he shrugged. “And you?”

“We’re the superheroes, they’re the bad guys!” Sam called to him, gsturing with his pistols. Phantom nodded before turning around to the hydra army He floated forward, and stopped before turning his head back.

"You might want to duck,” he warned. And despite wanting to see how this guy would totally mess up those other guys, he did as he was told. he crouched back down behind his little makeshif shield, gad it was big enough for two.

They waited patiently, listening to the noises of screams and some other scraping noise. He heard explosions and gun fire. For some reason, Clint had the odd urge of twiddling his thumbs, but when the fighting stopped the thought left his mind as soon as it had come.

Instead of standing up, he and Sam just kind of peaked their heads over the top of their tiny barrier, eyes widening in surprise at the scene.

Ice coated the ground as well as turning some of the hydra guys into popsicles. Other were bleeding, their suits detereorating and the smell of burnt flesh heavy in the air. The rest didn’t have heads.

“Woah,” Sam said behind him. Sometime during their starring Cap, Tony, natasha, and Thor had dropped behind them, ogling at the mess like them.

“What the hell?” Tony ased, his mask flicking up so hey could see his expression. It was a little bit of amazement, a little bit of fear. Clint glanced at the rest of the team. Natasha’s face gave nothing away but the hesitation in her hands showed that she was thinking they were on thin ice. Steve’s jaw was set and his eyes were hard, and he couldn’t tell if it was because of Phan to m or because if the death grip Thor has on his shoulder, holding on so tight his knuckles were white. His eyes were huge, starring at the ghost (?) Intently.

“Do mine own eyes deceive me?” He whispered, almost to himself. Nobody but Clint seemed to hear though, and that in and of itself was ironic.

“Most of them are alive,” Phantom said, turning back around to them. The white of his armor was stained red, and something told Clint that none of it was his. In fact, this guy didn’t have a single scratch on him. Like what he had just done was the easiest thing in the world.

“How did you know we were the good guys?” Sam asked. “I mean, you just kind of took our word for it.”

“Well,” Phantom gave him a smile. He was young - or at least looked that way - but his eyes were ild and weary, kind of like Steve’s. Like he had seen to much shit. “I can see your auras. You are all good in your own way, but them? Their auras are dark, vengeful. And I can hear your heart beat. You were telling the truth when you said you were good.”

“My liege,” Thor stood up, walked forward, and actually kneeled before Phantom. The only person they had ever seen Thor kneel to was Odin, so this was a surprise.

“Rise, Odinson. There is no need for such formalities in this mortal world.” When Danny had heard of Norse gods being real, he had wanted to laugh in Clockwork’s face. Now though? He had seen enough proof that they existed, and now he actually had THE Thor bowing, practically kissing the ground he floated above. Danny almost didn’t feel worthy.

Thor did as he was told, standing up straighter than ever, maybe trying a little to hard to impress Phantom. But it’s not every day you meet the slayer of Pariah Dark. Because if this man the spirits of Asgard can sleep in peace.

“Who are you?” Tony asked, walking forward. Thor glared at him, wondering why he would show a king such disrespect. But Phantom didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Nice suit, dude,” he said, staring at it in awe. “Did you make it?” Tony took notice of how he avoided the ques tu on, but he couldn’t help but puff out his chest just a little. Apparently this guy was new to the 21st century.

“Yeah, I did,” he answered. “Now are you gonna tell us who you are now?”

“Man of Iron,” Thor spoke, and even though it was an introduction, there was a bit of warning in his voice. Tony decided that he was going to ignore it. If this guy wanted them dead he would have done it already. “This is Phantom, King of the Ghosts. I advise you to show more respect.”

King of ghosts? Was Thor serious? Ghosts aren’t real. Or maybe Tony had just grown up way to fast. But either way this guy’s identity was a bit of a stretch.

“It’s fine, Thor, ” Phantom said, placing a hand on Thor’s shoulder. The blonde looked over at him.

“I mean no disrespect when I ask, my king, but why have you left the Ghost Realm?”

“My obsession is to protect, but in the Ghost Zone there is nobody to protect. So I thought I would…Stretch my legs. It had been a while since I’ve been here, after all.”

“What do you mean?” Tony asked. It was a stupid question considering his title, but a guy couldn’t be too skeptical, could he?

“I died here, on Earth, many years ago. I haven’t been to the mortal realm in so long. I almost forgot what it was like.”

A smile crept up on yhe ghost’s lips, and they all saw how it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Steve briefly wondered how many people that smile has fooled. The shape of his mouth provided a sense of happiness, but inside it was a different story. Steve could somewhat relate to that. Because pretending to be okay, and lying to yourself that you’re fine, was a hell of a lot easier than faci ng what’s bothering you and making you not fine.

He has seen a lot of shit. He’s probably been bored out of his mind for centuries. His obsession, Steve guessed, is what keeps a ghost going, but if there’s nobody to protect then what’s the point of even simply being? He would have kept anilyzing his facial features if it weren’t for those acid eyes being trained on him. The small smile grew to a big, toothy grin.

“You’re Captain America! Man, I grew up reading about you!”

That threw them all for a loop. He was dead, yeah, and had app rent ly been King for fora while now, so how did he grow up reading comic books abo it Cap?

“How…?” The words died on Steve’s lips.

“When did you die?” It was the first time Natasha had spoken. Her eyes were narrowed but she was..Intrigued to say the least.

“The first time was in the early two thousands, amd the second time was when I turned 26? I’ve ben stuck like this ever since. But time in the Ghost Zone is weird. It’s like a sort of limbo where it doesn’t really exist, so I could be living in the Zone for centuries and come back and only a few minutes have passed. It’s really confusing, honestly.“

"Wat do you mean the first time? How do you die twice?” Clint asked.

“Well, when I died the first time I became a halfa - half ghost, half human. Wh en my human side died, I became a full ghost.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me. Anyway, I’m glad I could help. If you guys need help just give me a call or something. I sure there’s a few pages of Latin around here somewhere.”

None of them really wanted to know what that meant, but they waved their goodbyes nonetheless as he opened a swirling green portal and disappeared. Tony blinked a couple of times before sighing and turning to Thor.

“So…Ghosts, huh?”

——Sorry this was late, I was put of town at a Green Day concert (I cried it was beautiful) and have been busy to go out of town again to Texas because of this anime con down there. But I hope yo u enjoy!-also if there are any typos I didn’t catch I apologize, most of this was written from my phone

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: The Treasure of the Lost Lamp Movie Reviewcap! (Patreon Stretch Goal)

Hello all you happy people! And we have a special review today for two reasons. The first is that this is my second patreon stretch goal review, having hit the 15 dollar goal back in march thanks to my wonderful friend Emma, the same patreon whose responsible for the Green Eggs and Ham Reviews,  who helped me hit the 15 dollar goal.  As a result you fine people are getting three movie reviews each based on a Disney Afternoon Movie with Treasure of the Lost Lamp today, a goofy movie at the end of the motnh for  a weeklong tribute to my favorite dogmandadguy.  Extremley was going to be part of it but the length of this review convinced me otherwise, but I will be doing it this summer so keep an ear out. If you want to help me hit my next stretch goals do yourselve a favor and zip on over to my patreon YOU CAN FIND MY PATREON HERE. My next stretch goal at “OH Look 20 Dollars” would give everyone patreon and not, a monthly review of Darkwing Duck as decided by my patrons, reviews of BOTH season 2 mini series from Ducktales 87, introducing Fenton to the world and blighting it with Bubba before the 2017 series fixed him, and as a brucey bonus added last month a review of Danny Phantom the Ultimate Enemy. And if that wasn’t enough if you help me get to the goal after that at 25 unlocks another trilogy of disney film reviews, this time for the proud family and recess movie and the best kim possible movie, and dcom period, so the drama as well as Bryan Lee O’ Malley’s two stand alone graphic novels, lost at sea and seconds for you Scottaholics in the audience.

The other reason now the shilling’s done. is that the plan WAS to review this back to back with Treasure of The Found Lamp, to the point the orginal review had a whole thing about that, why it was delayed etc... but now that review’s been scrapped all together as something sudden and wonderful happened. After just kinda giving up someone came through with a translation of Della’s first apperance so presumibly i’ll be doing that as part of the build up to mother’s day, and since I still want ot do maternal instincts too, and already had to let the Floyd Gottfredson birthday special slide away as well... it had to go as I want to leave the only open space on the schedule for the lovely person who found the story for me. But this review is still done, i’m very proud of it so join me under the cut won’t you?

Behind The Scenes: Before I get into it i’d just like to note this article from SyFy Wire. It , along with articles I found via wikipedia citations, was an invaluable resource. 

The film was an experiment: It was an experiment to see if one of their tv properties could bring in theatrical money, to see if a movie made on a cheaper budget and still rake in decent money, to see if a film could be made being outsourced to several diffrent places, and to see what one of those places, their recently aquiried french stuido, could handle this kind of work. 

The film, if succesful would be the first of Disney’s MovieToons line, a series of films based on their shows. As you can tell by the fact only this movie and Goof Troop happened and the Movie Toons label wasn’t applied to that one it very much failed. While the film was warmly recevied by people who liked the show general audiences didn’t turn out for it. As a result the MovieToons label was scrapped, future projects with it were canceled.. but the stellar work put in by the french stuidio lead to it perserviering for several more decades and lead to them working on the Goofy Movie, which we’ll get to later this month but needless to say was a MUCH bigger hit with a much bigger budget. 

As for why the film failed... I have two theories. THe first is that parents were stupid back then and didn’t want to pay to see something on the big screen they could see on tv’s. This is a stupid mentality to me as generally a movie of a tv show puts in a ton of extra effort and usually goes bigger and dosen’t go home. It’s a likely theory given most liscened films of the era didn’t do quite well, with all three hasbro films tanking. And look I get Transformers the Movie is cheesy and killed a lot of people’s childhood toys, but damn if it ain’t aweosme.. and also something I need to cover at some point. Thankfully this died out by later in the 90′s with Rugrats getting a hugely succesful if flawed film, a better sequel and a third one that was also a crossover with the wild thornberries. 

And even now in 2020 we’re getting the Loud House and Rise of the TMNT movies sometimes this summer, we were SUPPOSED to have gotten the bobs burgers movie this summer but arne’t because Disney is being a dick about it.

And we got a phineas and ferb movie last year. With this trend hopefully thsi means we’ll get a Ducktales 2017 movie at some point since season 4 left a huge sequel hook laying right there to grab for a feature film.  One final note: The film was conceptually thought up as a 5 part serial like “Treasure of the Golden Suns”, “Catch as Cash Can”, “SuperDucktales” and “Time is Money, something that DOES show as the movie weirdly has act breaks. In a feature film. Yup. 

The Guest Cast:

I won’t go into the full cast since I’ve sung Alan Young and Russi Taylor’s praises PLENTY on this blog before, and I plan to go into Beakly and Launchpad’s actors when they show up in the pilot movie. But i’d be remiss if i didn’t talk about our three guest actors for our three new parts. 

First up is Merlock voiced by legend and if I had a hall of fame, hall of famer Christopher Lloyd.. I need to get me one of those. Lloyd is of course known for playing Doc Brown in back to the future but has done countless other films, voicework, and other good stuff. Among his MASSIVE filmography includes The Back to the Future Trilogy (Already mentioned it but it bears repeating), Star Trek III, Who Framed Roger Rabbit as the pants destroyingly terrifying Judge Doom, The Addams Family duology as fester, a role rip torn would ironcially play for the animated series made to captalize on said movie, Hey Arnold! The Movie, The Oogieloves in The Big Ballon Adventure (Look everybody needs money sometimes okay?), and Art of the Deal: The Movie, which was not, thankfully an ego filating nightmare made by trump himself but a film made by funny or die parodying his terrible book and having Llloyd return as Doc Brown. TV Wise he’s known for Taxi, Back to the Future the Animated Series, Cyberchase and he most recently popped up on Big City Greens. How I missed that ep I.. do know as I haven’t watched season 2. Gonna fix that later this month. Lloyd is utterly awesome, a great guy and thankfully still alive at the time of this writing, so I was happy to have him here. 

Less familiar to me but still known is Rip Taylor, a comedian known for his flamboyant unique way of speech and his marvelous mustache. He showed up in things occasionally and always seemed like the nicest guy and his passing in late 2019 truly is sad. He does a terrific job here but more on that in a moment. 

Finally we have Richard Libertini, a comedian I never really saw in anything besides this who according to IMDB was most famous for his ablility to do a foreign accent. I REALLY hope all of them aren’t as horribly racist as this one. We’ll.. get to that in a sec as it’s time for the plot!

A Treasure Uncovered:

We open our film gorgeously. The animation is great in the film, having some rough edges I chalk up to the film’s hectic production, the studio being new at working at disney properties, and the film not being meant for HD. That being said a few rough spots here and there aside.. the film looks ungodly gorgeous. Like most theatrical films based on a cartoon it takes an already great style and makes it look great. It feels like a more fluid evolution of the cartoons look and it’s a shame we didn’t get more movies in this style for both this show and others, ESPECIALLY Darkwing Duck. Can you imagine a Darkwing Duck movie with this lush animation? Hopefully we’ll get one eventually. 

So our heroes are going to somewhere in the Middle East. That’s.. that’s all wikipedia gives me and all the film gives me. As usual Scrooge is after treasure in this case the Treasure of Collie Baba, the greatest thief there ever was based obviously off Ali Baba from 1001 nights and that one Beastie Boys song. 

It’s here we find the WORST thing about the film, the thing that makes this a hard one to watch depsite otherwise being pretty good, and that makes my skin crawl knowing i’m a white man and a BUNCH of white guys, Ducktales series creator who did the voice casting for this character, the writers who wrote him, the direector disney them fucking selves who thought this was okay. 

The film has some horrible steroytping. It starts with a bunch of backgorund guys surronding Scrooge, with crooked teeth and steotypical voices. This on it’s own is odious. 

It somehow gets worse. Then we meet one of our antagonists. We meet Dijon. 

This Fucking Guy 

Djon is horribly offensive reminding me of other such luminaries in being ungodly offensive yet somehow getting put to film as Jar Jar Binks (With all respeect to his poor actor Ahmed Best, this is not his fault), Rob Schinder as a Sterotypically asian preist, Skids and Mudflap, Rob Schinder as a sterotypically mexican bandit, The Whitewashed cast of The Last Airbender, and Rob Schinder as a stereotypically asian preist. What i’m saying is Djon is an AWFUL, horribly offensive character.. and that Rob Schinder should be shot up into space, not to watch cheesy movies, he’s not funny enough for that, but instead to be sent to a satlitie that’s liveable, but also filled to the brim with spring loaded boxing gloves. Just tons of boxing gloves that feel like getting punched by a heavewight boxer all hidden... they could hit his legs, his face, his nuts, his face and his nuts, the point is he’s in constnat pain unless he moves carefully. 

And lest you think i’m exaggerating for starters this is his design. 

It just screams “vaugely but sterotpyically middle eastern” along with cowardly. The fact he’s also a literal rat is just the icing on the cake made of broken glass, shrapnel and broken DVD’s of Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen. They say if you eat a reveng eof the fallen dvd John Tutoro appears at the foot of your bed and watches you while you sleep.. and by they I mean me. It was a bad bet. I got rid of him with some insese and a bribe of five dollars. 

Oh but that’s just design.. when he talks it’s MUCH worse. His voice is like if they took Apu from the simpsons and said “This but MORE offensive”, and his perosnality is WORSE. He’s a thief.. and not in the endearing loveable rogue way but he’s a pick pocket and a running “Gag’ is that he’ll often grab eveyrthing within reahc. As the deisgn shows he’s a coward running at every opportunity. Oh and to top it all off he’s the willing servant of the white coded, given all ducks in this series are white coded and voiced bby white actors, big bad. And the actor is naturally VERY white to make this cocktail of offensivness so complete that if Disney ever got rid of this film I GUARANTEE the republcian party would be running in with accusations of cancel culture gone amok and never shutting up about this like they did the muppets. Which for the record THEY DIDN’T CANCEL THEM, YOUR POINT IS ILLEGITMATE, THEY JUST WANTED TO BE SENSTIVE YOU GHOULS. 

I do have a reason for bringing up Disney’s content warnings... most damming of all given just how DEEPLY uncomfortbale this character is.. there isn’t one for this movie. I double checked: There isn’t even wanring notes on the website. It’s just.. on there. And given just how ghastly a sterotype Djon is.. that’s not right. Seriously they DID put them on certain episodes of the show, theyk now this sort of thing is wrong and they done wrong.. but for NO reason they haven’t done so for a film released 31 years ago. Around the same time as the series and just offensive as that show at it’s worst if not more so. This is flatly inexcusable.. par for the course for Disney’s incompetence but still horribly furstrating, disgusting and shameful.. which has been the theme of the last three days really. I expect better because when it comes to putting that warning label on this stuff, they usually are better. First the scheduling mixup and now this. You already do a handful of things wrong Disney why add this to the list?!

It’s just draining not only to run into another Disney Fuckup after a weekend of dealing with one of their worst in recent memory, but just to watch Djon. To see this horrible caractrure saunter onto the screen and go on with his harmful schtick, to see that THIS is what Ducktales 87 reduced non white people to more often than not.  It’s remarkable just how throughly and awesomely Frank and Matt completely and totally reversed this. Instead of horrible sterotypes in the reboot, we got TONS of loveable people of color, an endearing latino hero, a smart african american buisness woman who takes no shit but is still a consumate professional, and an egyptian HERO with an intresting story and a strong moral code instead of this horrible reminder that racisim in media was such an afterthought not ONE person brought this up during the scyfy wire stuff or in any inteview i’ve seen. No one cared. Djon was POPULAR enough that he got three episode sin the series. THREE FUCKING EPISODES. This film could be GOOD.. but it’s just so bogged down EVERY FUCKING TIME this artists interpreitation of what Tucker Carlson sees when he looks at a middle eastern person I had to pause to compose myself and had to take a break writing this review to avoid tyiping this in all caps and using the phrase YOU RACIST MOTHERFUCKERS every other sentence. And again i’m white, I get this is second hand offensiveness.. I do... but it dosen’t mean I can’t be offended other white people were so callous about other cultures behaviors this happened.

And what makes me feel worse.. is that I just sorta... never thought about white people voicing non white characters. Things like this I noticed sure, I realize now part of the reason I didn’t like this movie the first time I saw it was this alex jones version of a looney tune, but I do feel shame for not noticing or caring long before this. Sure I loved it when a character of color got played by a person of color.. but I didn’t realize just how deep that problem was and how LONG it went on for before the outcry post george floyd and the call to action lead to most shows still going course correcting. It’s why stuff like this extra botehrs me: because THIS was just as okay at the time. No one blinked twice about this and odds are the creators involved still haven’t. And that.. that’s just terrible and it hurts to think about and  I still have most of the movie to go.  

The Pyramid of Peril:

So we do get a gorgeous unvewling scene of a box Scrooge found out about from Collie Baba’s horde that should lead them to the treasure. This scene reminds me of Indina Jones.. and I bring this up because the poster was specifically made to mimick an indinia jones poster, to the point of getting drew struzan to do it. THe creator of Ducktales objected..l but I do not get WHY. While I”m not sure if he had yet, Speilberg flat out admits the Carl Barks comics were an inspiration for Indina Jones, with the iconic bolder chase coming from a similar scene in one of Barks Stories. Gotta cover that too. So yeah I don’t get not wanting an indina jones style poster when both were inspiried by the same work and it’s just simple logic and it looks so neat. Thank you. 

Scrooge finds seemingly just clothes.. and a map. Jeff Dunham’s Most Racist Puppet reports to his master, Merlock. Merlock is a.. meh villian. Christopher Lloyd does try.. but Lock is your standard evil overlord wants to take over the world type. He dosen’t have much depth, or personality and only his style saves him from dragging the film down along with Dana Carvey’s most racist disguise in master of disguise. He does have a deent shape shifting gimick and being played by Christopher Lloyd means he’s acted TREMENDOUSLY. Alan Young was apparently in awe watching him work and that’s wonderful to hear. The guy did his best. Weirdly Merlock would show up in tons of other works, mostly video games.. but even weirder he NEVER showed up in ducktales 2017. Both Djon and Gene would, Djon thankfully renamed we’ll get to all of that tommorow thank god. I need it after this. But Frank has outright said they didn’t use Merlock because there simply wasn’t anything they could do with him they couldn’t dow ith magica. My likely guess is the might of found a way to revamp him EVENTUALLY, it’s not like radical revamps weren’t there thing come on, they just had way more stories with Magica and didnd’t get around to it before the show was canceled. Just make him some sort of evil god or something. it’s what I might do. There’s a lot of angles with him. Though I would’ve still gotten christopher lloyd back. I mean most of the recasting is good but he’s still alive and deserved a better shot at things. 

So Merlock sends Djonn to go with scrooge as his guide to find the treasure, as there’s something of imense power within it. And I gotta ask WHY does Merlock need a minon. No really. This isn’t a situation like reboot magica where he’s trapped in another realm. He can shapeshift into any animal. We only see him use falcon, rat, cockroach and bear but theoritically he can become anything and bear alone is still a LOT. Why does he need this sterotype even other sterytopes ar eashamed of? The film dosen’t NEED Djonn. Just let Christopher Lloyd monologue and leave this post 911 propogranda cartoon at home. 

So our heroes nad rejected jar jar prototype head into the desert, and seemingly find nothing before finding a small pyramid all while Merlock follows desecretley as a mighty hawk. 

Scrooge makes the boys and Djon dig... because they clearly forgot the “work hard” part of his ethos. 

Our heroes unveil the pyramid... and while Merlock SAYS he searched the desert and I get it’s hard to see thourgh all of that.. the dude is immortal, had decades to search and had Mickey Rooney there on standby to force him to go comb the desert. I have an artist rendering of that hang on

So our heroes enter the pyramid and it goes.. really how you’d expect: there’s a bunch of traps our brave explorers have to pass, the boys minintpret a juinor woodchuck saying about loosing your marbles to mean using the ones they actually have which geninely comes in handy as they trip the traps and Rob SChinder as a carrot stumbles into one. Also launchpad is wearing a hawaiin shirt and shades. This has no baring on the plot, but it does bring the movie up a notch in my book and I question why the reboot never used this outfit. Then again they also never properly used Donald’s Quack Pack Outfit (Which bad show or not, is objectively awesome), or his Quack Shot Indiana Jones Riff Outfit, so  it’s not like there isn’t a presdecnt for not giving a character a cool costume change from a previous medium. I really should do a top 12 missed opportunities list for the 2017 cartoon.. the ideas for stuff are really piling up. 

OUr heroes eventually find the treasure which has insidiously clever security the more I think about it: at first I thought it had none, just a pit with some... scorpions? I mean their supposed to be but they look like they crawled out of the same stygian hole in the sky Doofus crawled out of. And if your asking me “wait which Doofus” the answer is both. Both these abominations crawled out of a stygian hole in the sky.

But the treasure is on a platform surrounded by scoprions with the only way out being the trap filled way they came in. Unless someone comes in with a full team and a bunch of lootin sacks, they aren’t getting out with EVERYTHING. They can steal SOME of the treasure but there’s no way to get any signifigant portion... and the team thing itself is an issue, something Collie defintely predicted being a thief himself: while some thieves can work well as a team, hence why we have four oceans movies 3/4 damn good, and for the record 12 is the bad one, 8 is how you do a soft reboot and a female led reboot right, a good chunk of professional crooks will turn on each other or try and swinldle... and tha’ts dangerous in a trap filled temple but hey some criminals ain’t so smart.  If they all were Rudy Gulliani wouldn’t have two razzies for preparing to pull his pants down, and have waved his phone around on tv like a dare for future adminstrations to arrest the shit out of him would he? 

But Scrooge has his family so they get loading. But not before Webby finds the lamp. Not knowing about it Scrooge has no intrest in it, but Webby does. We also get a really simple but hilarious gag where SCrooge dickers over the idea for a second.. before Webby picks up a Jeweled tiara to possibly take instead. The best gags to me are often the ones that just let the character’s perosnalities take the lead and bounce off each other. It’s why when I reviewed the four lilo and stitch crossovers recently I harped on character interaction as their biggest weakness: it’s what MAKES a good work for me. It’s why my faviorite comics and shows often follow a loveable group of disfunctional misfits. I like a group of big personalities who despite in theory should NOT be able to work making it work anyway. And it’s honeslty what’s made Scrooge last so long: Scrooge on his OWN is awesome.. but iwth the boys, donald, and in the case of this series and the reivival Webby and Launchpad, with people to bounce off of who he contrasts heavily with, from Launchapd’s buffonery to Webby’s inehrent sweetness in both versions, to the boys genuine honesty and sense of adventure.... it makes him truly stand out. He’s a great character on his own, don’t get me wrong.. but it’s the people around him that give him chances to show WHY. A good character on it’s own is fine and dandy.. a good character with other good characters around them is where it gets truly special. 

Merlock naturally bursts in and in a VERY Black Heron move needlesly outs what micheal bay sees when he closes his eyes as a bad guy... no really he grabs the guy with his talons as he captures the treasure and reveals he’s a bad guy. I don’t even get why keep Djonn alive. He’s done all Merlock possibly could’ve needed and Merlock is ruthless... this makes no sense and only happens because they need Djonn for later in the plot.

Our heroes barely escape, rafting out on the platform itself in a thrilling sequence.. but it’s the one right after that catches my attention. Scrooge utterly defeated, having searched for this treasure for forty years and unresponsive to everyone else. The anmation, coupled with the incomprable Alan young’s acting makes this the highlight of the film for me. Beneath the armor of wealth and skill.. is only a poor old man who just lost something he’s been chasing after most of his life. Scrooge tries his hardest not to be vunerable and both shows and the original comics all use that so when he truly is devistated like this, and i’ts belivible since this treasure is a personal goal of his and as someone who has had things that they seek out specifically, loosing them always hurts. It hurts to ALMOST reach a goal only to have it crumble out under you

But while this alone is good.. what’s next makes it great. Webby sweetly offers up the lamp. Scrooge turns it down, and her genuine gesture reinvgorates him and reminds us of who he is “I’ll find it if it takes another 40 years”> Scrooge may be bitter, mean and selfish a lot of the time.. but deep down, he’s a good man and one who will not give up, and a momentary setback can only stop him so long as long as he has his family to remind him of who he truly is.. and what’s truly important. It’s genuinely sweet and to me is also a reminder of why 87 Webby is a good character: Shes’ not perfect, her main personality trait is often Girl Sterotype”.. but she’s a genuinely sweet small child with a huge heart. It’s telling that while 17′ Webby is almost completely diffren,t and far better, that heart remains her biggest strength. Sure her reboot self could kill a man nad no one would ever find the body, but it’s her heart and empathy that makes that possible and makes her Webby.  That inherent loving nature is what makes Webby webby wether she’s a toddler having a tea party or a tween getting ready to intergoate a guy with a meat tenderizer while saying ‘Cute girl stuff”. 

Gene Genie Let’s Himself Go:

It’s a few days later and this is the point where it REALLY becomes obvious this was written as a bunch of episodes. Though to the film’s credit while it does ake this feel like a compliation movie as a result... it dosen’t hamper the film’s quality, condiment from Rush Limbaghs’ hot dog stand does that just fine, but once you notice it it’s impossible to unotice it. Weirdly though it seems chunked up into four episodes rather than the usual five, likely cutting down an episode, though I can’t see where they cut out material frankly if they did and i’ts just as likely they woudl’ve had to make one to fill in the space.

So Scrooge is in a mood, being grumpy with his secretary Mrs. Featherly, quackfaster in all but name, and having to be sent home. So while Duckworth goes to fetch him Webby polishes her treasure at long last readying for a tea party, something the boys roundly reject because their sexist little twits and swo were the writers or executies who assumed all little boys act the same. It’s easily my biggest pet peeve with the series as a whole: anytime this crops up with the boys it turns them into the worst dicks imaginable. It’s telling this, being mean about her wantin ga tea party with her surrogate brothersi s TAME. Normally they’ll say she can’t do things because she’s a girl or mock her hobies outright instead of just be mildly dickish. And while she dosen’t look much younger Webby is VERY CLEARLY, in this series anyway, supposed to be say 5 or 6 to the boys 8-10. 7 at most. SHe’s a small child and while it is realistic for older kids to bully younger ones, it’s not fun to watch. It’s why I get annoyed at all the big sibling bully characters.. some work, but most aren’t fun to watch because there’s nothing funny or intresting about it. It’s the same deal here. 

Thankfully that quickly goes away as the lamp moves when Webby rubs it and does so again to prove it did move. Huey finishes it and we’re introduced to Gene, the best part of the film.  Gene is a Genie and he takes a second to dart around before messing with the appliances in the kitchen, as he was last around during the time 1001 Nights Came About. Cleverly though, and so we thankfully don’t have 80 dozen fishout of water jokes that have already been done before. As you can probably guess i’m not a huge fan of time travel fish out of water stuff. Now from another dimensoin or planet, i’m on board with with Star Vs, Steven Universe and Sym-Bionic Titan being great examples of this, as is the comic resident alien. (Despite having the wonderous Alan Tuduk the show sounds way more mean spirited and misses the entire point of the comic as given by the author in the credits, i.e. that the alien is supposed to NOT be a threat and just be gently waiting for a ride) The inverse is also good with Amphbia and owl house, taking a human and plopping them into our world. But time travel stuff just usually runs the same beats of “look at the shiny thing” and what not. The only time i’ve sene something SIMILAR work is with thor where their society is SIMILAR to vikings time but still it’s own thing.. it also gave us a classic gag in..

So yeah i’m glad they dropped this and instead had a clever way around it: Gene reads the encylopedia at the mansion. Granted it’s Scrooge so I don’t know how current it is and given this came out in 1990 thus HOW racist it is. It’s not a questoin of IF it was, but how much.

But having caught up the kids confront him with the fact he has to grant wishes. This lamp runs on what I now realize are Aladdin rules: Whoever currently holds the Lamp is the Genie’s master, they only get three wishes, and that dosen’t reset if it changes hands. The only big diffrence from the usual is Gene dosen’t have to TELL them about the wishes like Genie did, and Gene very begrudginly agrees to it. He also seem’s phsyically pained when doing so. 

So since all 12 know about him, each of the kids gets a wish though it seems unfair with HDL. Their one person, they shoudln’t get 9 wishes just because their brain is spread out over three bodies. 

This film continues the weird simliarties to Aladdin by attaching rules though they instead come up as a result of our heroes talking rather than the Genie just flat out tleling them: both share the “you can’t wish for more wishes” thing, a common rule in these stories and usually only broken nowadays as a clever twist as the rule is SO common place, not having it is a twist. But it is there for a reason: to limit the sheer power of a reality warping wish. The wishes can also only go so far. In a nice line, when Huey, Dewey or Louie suggests wishing for peace one earth, Gene says “No pipe dreams’ He can’t bend people or reality on THAT scale. He can bend reality as we find out, but it’s smaller scales like turning someone’s possesions over ot someone else, warping the bin into a castle, or bringing inanitamte objects to limited life. Still HUGE feats worth of a genie, so Gene’s power isn’t so nerfed it’s unusuable, but it does explain why his evil pervious ownder Merlock, more ont hat in a bit too, didn’t just wish to have eternal dominon over the earth or something. Gene can do just about anything but he can’t change the world on a fundemental level. 

And I do LIKE having rules in wished based stories like this, I chalk it up to growing up with Fairly Odd Parents... though they eventually went too far in the oppsoitie direction, pulling rules out of their ass to suit the episode, instead of simply having some very standard, very understandable rules that still pose challenges but don’t outright cheat so the episode can happen. 

So Webby does her first wish.. and wishes for a Baby Elephant, something Gene is against as he prefers they keep the wishes small: otherwise he gets found out, and the fight over him begins. So one of the boys wishes him away. Or Webby does. Point is it’s gone though not before Beakly sees it and Scrooge smells something is up. Our heroes try to hide gene, but gene thankfully simply dresses up like a modern kid and thus is able to pass as a friend of there staying for the night. 

So with the rules established and what not the kids find a clever solution: they simply go a ways away from the mansion into the woods, far enough from town to avoid any suspcion, and same iwth the mansion and just wish for all kinds of stuff: a giant bunch of ice cream toys, standard kid wish fufillment but it’s nice... in part because the kids treat Gene like one of them. Wihle they STARTED asking him about the wishes, this starts the bonding process. Soon he will be part of the hive mind.. SOON. 

Until then though after using another wish to make scrooge not mad at them for coming home late and missing dinner, that night we find out Gene’s backstory.... and it’s an utter tearjerker. As it turns out Merlock wants him back because he’s Gene’s former master and as you’d guess.. it was NOT a happy existnace, used contstnatly to do horrible things with no power to stop himself. Pompeii and Atlantis were both directly Merlock’s fault and it was only Collie Baba stealing the lamp that put an end to his hell. He also answers the two obvious questions botht he audeiince and the boys have: How the hell is Merlock still alive and shoudln’t he be out of wishes then? The first is simple. Unlike pretty much every DBZ Villian whose WANTED to do so, Merlock wished for immortality first chance he got, taking the Zamasu route instead and thus leaving him free. 

As for the wishes thing it turns out his amulet, in adition to shapeshifting, also gives him extra wishes becuase fuck it. 

But the boys sweetly offer to protect him. 

The next day, Apu’s Cousin let’s Merlock know the maps in the mansion and Merlock has him help sneak in with Merlock taking rat form. This backfires as Mrs. Beakley notices the form and chases after him with a broom

Meanwhile Webby has her tea party with Gene after he and the boys played cops and robbers earlier, and he’s bored.. though nicely not because it’s a girly thing, but because the stuffed animals aren’t alive and she naively has him fix that. This leads to 

Which sadly is jsut scrooge vs a duck toy but admit it, you want that movie for Disney Plus yesterday. Call Charles Band Disney. CALL CHARLES BAND! 

Whelp Scrooge Still Sucks:

Scrooge takes for a turn for the obnoxious in the next part, but i’ts fine by me as it’s part of the plot. Naturally this reinactment of Cult of Chucky has lead to Scrooge finding out about the Genie. To his credit, Scrooge is tactical about his wishes. As said by the Duck himself “I could wish for a diamond, no the world’s biggest dimaond, no ten world’s biggest diamond, no a diamond mind, no the MINING INDUSTRY!”

The sheer power this gives him is TERRIFYING, both because of his status.. and because unlike the kids who all wished for simple kid stuff and used up their wishes quickly, he both gets how much he can do with this and could conquer the world economy if he truly wanted to. 

The obnoxious part comes in as he treats Gene as not a person, figuring he’s just there and forces him into the lamp despite the kids protests after Gene grants his first wish: Collie Baba’s treasure. It also dosen’t feel like the wishing nor him using the lamp to get the tresure back goes against his hard work ethos: for the former while he is getting all this magically, he’s still having ot use his wits to get the most out of it, and he did earn the lamp itself square. For the latter, he already earned the treasure square too and had it stolen. He’s onlyg etting back what’s by all rights HIS. Granted he plans on giving most of it up for a tax break but still it’s his by right. 

However the reason his assholery works is twofold: first it’s Scrooge. While he’s not a TERRIBLE person, in the comcis and this cartoon he isn’t a GOOD person either. He DOES have a good heart and will usually do the right thing, but his first instnct is always to get more money and to be a cantakerous old bastard to eveyrone and everything. While he’s subtly grew out of “I hate eveyrone and everyone hates me” as his guiding principal, it’s still his defualt reaction to most situations. But he first relents by letting Gene attend the party, part of why the Collie Baba thing stung so bad was that he’s told the historical society he’d get the treasure for years only to come back empty handed, if shrunken. But he still manages to have a good time while Asok and Merlock infiltrate.. well I’mRunningOutofINsultingNIcknamesCanYouTell steals the silverware. Yes... that.. that really happens. 

Look we’re almost done, i’m almost free of this racist mummies curse. Let’s continue. Gene sees melock and freaks and drags SCrooge with him and while at First Scrooge is cranky...

No but now I want a Donkey Kong Country crossover too dammmit. And to talk about those games. Another thing for the list. But Scrooge is righ tot be a bit surly...

Okay now your just pushing it. As Gene whisked him away without telling him anything other than vauge worries... but then he gets a full idea of why Gene’s so terrified when Merlock shapeshifts into a bear and starts breaking the door down. Eh, could be worse. 

Gene shrinks them to escape and Merlock leaves thinking they fled but leaves Skids Minus Mudflap to go look for them. Scrooge sneaks out but bumps into a cart running from the photo you see when you look up stereotype on google. I mean I assume.. let’s try it. 

Huh you know I HOPED but I never expected... 

So Google Proving My Point plans to give his lamp to the master because of his weird Torgo-Esque obession with helping a man who clearly wants to murder him but takes his sweet time doing so because plot, and Gene figuring this COULDN’T POSSIBLY go as bad as Melock getting him urges the dummy to keep him and make his own wishes.

This goes about as well as you’d expect....

Wiped Out With A Wish:

Scrooge returns home to find Watto has wished to take his poessions, fortune, everything and Scrooge gets thrown in jail for breaking into his own house. We get two great moments back to back. The first is Scrooge lamenting loosing his fortune in jail, and realizing the sheer power and risk of the lamp, especially since he worked hard to earn it, every bit of it.. and Sam Wilson’s 70′s Backstory came in and took it all in an instant. 

The second is Scrooge’s family coming for him, including Launchpad , Beakly and Webby obviously and bailing him out. Though Beakly is UNGOLDLY annoying in this scene, sobbing hysterically and adding nothing and it’s not nearly as funny as the  film thinks. Turns out Goliath getting buried wrapped in chains threw them out. 

Scrooge takes a bit to rebound from all this.. but eventually realizes something: he knows the security of the bin inside and out. He had it put in after all. So it’d be easy enough to break in. So they gotta break in to break out the lamp, undo this nightmare, and END THIS MOVIE. Seriously this review has taken two days  as is I do NOT want to miss my invincible review. 

So they break into the bin, and it’s a tightly paced Scene, scrooge going in one way while the kids go the other and we even get a nice callback as the marbels come in handy to get past one of the traps. It’s just a good scene. it’s only real flaw is that Launchapd just sorta disappears as does Duckworth despite the fact their in a plane, and the bin later gets turned into a floating castle. Kinda a plot hole to not have Launchpad crash in to save htem just saying. 

Scrooge eventually does get to Djonn, whose been ignoring the imminent threat of Merlock while Gene sweats it out... and this backfires horribly as Merlock hitched a ride as a roach (Though there was a hilarious scene of him getting fried constnatly by lasers when Louie went through a laser hallway, as while Louie had the directions, it dind’t take into account passengers on your head. 

So Merlock remanifests in full gets the Lamp and unleashes his wrath on Tin Tin in the Congo and turns him into a wild pig. 

Not you sweetie. He then forces Gene to turn the castle into a fortress and float it back to his home in parts unknown. It’s a DAMN cool scene with impressive and horrifiing animation as the bin melts and crumbles into thte castle and the kids barely make it up the stares as they shift and disolve. Really top notch stuff.

Scrooge stands up to Merlock... and this naturally goes poorlyw ith Gene begging Merlock not to respond.. and Merlock having him blow scrooge off the top of the forgtess storm eagle style, though scrooge understands. And this is the true reason why scrooge being a dick didn’t bother me so much. Because it helps create a great contrast between him and Merlock. Both thought of Gene as a tool rather than a person.. but Scrooge grew to realize he was wrong and what he was dealing with wasn’t some magical goodies creator.. but a child forced to constantly grant wishes, in sheer agony to do so no less, likely so sick of it because again and again and again people used him as a slave to get what they wanted and to hell with what Gene wanted. He realized he was terrible for making this poor boy into his slave simply because that’s his job. In contrast Merlock could give no shits and is a malevolent monster who glefully uses Gene despite the pain the wishes put him through and his protests. It’s why Gene is the best part.. he’s  athroughly likeable, throughly inncoent character with tons of personality and a truly tragic and horrifying backstory and Rip Taylor acts the hell out of every scene with the guy. 

Thankfully the marbles come in handy one last time and Huey, Dewey or Louie snipes the lamp away and a struggle for it insues between Scrooge and Merloc mid air. it’s fucking awesome.. and it get sbetter in how scroogewins. He simply gets rid of Merlock’s amulet, taking it then throwing it. Grante dhe COULD’EVE used it for unimited wishes.. but it was too risky to do that and as we’ll see in the ending , Scrooge realized the Lamp was too powerful to keep around for much longer and too much of a tempting target for his rogues.. not that we see them this movie as the crew wanted it to bea ccesaible and thus kept hte cast to the main cast from season 1 and just made new vilians and a new supporting character, but still. 

He does use his second wish though to undue the damage Merlock had done and the bin and clan mcduck are returned to duckburg in good condition.

Time for our ending, which is genuinely and wholly touching. With the lamp too dangerous to use Scrooge considers just sending it to the earth’s core, which horrifies the kids as it’d mean Gene would be trapped there forever... if the molten lava iddn’t just outright destory the lamp and probably kill him. But Scrooge.. isn’t the bastard he likes to potray himself as. Instead he makes Gene into a real boy. He gives the poor kid HIS wish, which designrates the lamp and undoes all the spells... so Merlock is PROBABLY dead but he does return for some games so maybe not? 

And so we end on two things: Gene happily playing cops and robbers with the boys finally free.. and Birth of A Nation grabbing all the loot he can in his patns and running off. Ha ha ha thank god i’m done with this prick. And no I will not be looking at his ducktales episodes unless I have to. 

Final Thoughts:

This movie is OKAY. It has a solid plot, gene is a wonderful chacter, the animatoin is pretty prettay pretty good, and the voice acting as usual is excellent, with Rip Taylor being the standout. 

But as my paragraphs of rage shoud’ve made Clear Djonn is just BAD. Easily the worst character i’ve encountered in my year of reviewing and some of the worst writing i’ve ran into. And that writing includes a goblin man voyerstically forcing two teenagers to make out, making jokes about santa renaming himself Clem the sceneafter he tearfully confessed to letting the elves and ms. claus die, accidental transphobia via the u-men, and Bryan Lee O malley thinking we needed more than one volume of Julie Powers being around.  This was disgusting, even by 1990 standards and especially by 2021 standards and it drags the film down considerably. Without it the film is okay.. with it the film is just VERY hard to watch any time he pops up.  He made getting through the movie a nightmare and while I pause a lot becaue it’s a bad habbit I did so more simply because as I said earlier in the review I could not stand him. 

It makes it a hard film to recommend. If you can stomach the racisim, then it might be worth it, but be aware of what your putting up with going in. But if you can’t.. there’s no shame in that, it’s carbombya levels of bad. Which yes was a real fictoinal country. It was so bad Casey Casem quit transformers over it. True story. So yeah, it’s an okay film, on par with the series at it’s best for the most part.. but Djonn just spoils it for me. 

If you liked this review, like it, share it around that sort of thing and if you want MORE disney movie reviews, in addiiton to the goofy movie one later this month, if you help me hit my 25 dollar stretch goal on patroen.com/popculturebuffet, i’ll do reviews of the Recess, Proud Family and Kim Possible MOvies (Well so the drama anyway), so help me out would you and i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

#ducktales #ducktales treasure of the lost lamp #ducktales 87 #scrooge mcduck #rip taylor #christopher lloyd #launchpad mcquack #webby vanderquack #huey duck #louie duck #dewey duck #duckworth #bentina beakley #merlock #djon #faris djinn #movies #disney plus #disney

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

Writing Commission - Human - Danny Phantom

Author’s Comment: Back again with some Danny Phantom this time! Another commission done and finished with this one being from my lovely girlfriend who I despise with everything in my heart! The reason for my hatred is because she bought a commission off of me that boiled down to, ‘Iambic Prose with NO dialogue.’ She commissioned 5,000 words of a story with no dialogue.

...

If you want me to despise you as well then consider commissioning me for more stories like this one if you enjoyed it! You can click anywhere in the Author’s Comment or simply check out my blog with all my commission info: https://ibelieveinahappilyeverafter.tumblr.com/commissions

With all of that out of the way, on with the show! 

Summary: Danny Fenton had dealt with a lot of ghosts in his time as Phantom, but none of them had ever quite been so human as the Ghostwriter; none of them had ever been as annoying, either.

Fandom: Danny Phantom    

Relationship: Danny Fenton | Danny Phantom/Ghostwriter | Andrew Riter  

Characters: Danny Fenton | Danny Phantom, Ghostwriter | Andrew Riter

Rating: Teen Audiences

Additional Tags: Pre-Relationship, Canon Compliant, Post The Fright Before Christmas

Word Count: 5,037

Transaction Amount: $30 (USD)

                                                        Human

                                                            🕮

This was not how Danny had planned on spending the last day of his winter break; his homework-free winter break that was now, due in large part to actual pity, also ghost-free. It was a ghost-free, paper-free, stress-free last day of winter break and Danny had been planning to use it to sleep, play games, sleep, eat, sleep, and sleep in that order. That was how he had planned the day. Sleeping, eating, or even playing video games, however, was not what he was doing. 

Instead of his soft, well-worn bed, Danny was uncomfortably slouched over in a wooden chair that looked to have been donated to three different elementary schools before ending up in the ‘bookstore cafe’ that he and his friends were trapped in; or at least, Danny and Tucker were trapped. Sam, the vicious vulture with perfect winged eyeliner that she was, looked to honestly be enjoying the cringe-filled ‘poetry’ that other goth teenagers were reading up on the small stage. 

The words were as out-of-focus as his gaze and Danny’s thoughts had turned towards wondering if he could fall asleep sitting up with his eyes open before a wisp of cool air slipped through his parted lips, a sensation like being zapped sparking down his spine until it was perfectly straight, his chair scooting back from the sudden movement. 

Opening his mouth to explain, Danny was instead met with a sharp shushing sound, Sam giving him one of her looks that could essentially be translated into a rough: take care of this quietly and quickly because if you ruin this for me then I’ll make sure you’re the next one up on that stage. 

Tucker, at least, looked mildly sympathetic as Danny took the soundless warning to heart and slipped out of his seat before silently making his way towards the men’s bathroom to change and find out which ghost wanted to ruin the last of his break. 

That had been the plan, at least, until he looked up and caught sight of the ghost himself and saw just which one it was. 

Danny could honestly say that he hadn’t expected the Ghostwriter to be the one that had set off his ghost sense, but, well. It made sense. Christmas was over and if it was one thing a ghost loved, it was revenge; especially when it was revenge against Danny Phantom.

The interesting thing, though, the thing that made Danny stop and instead change direction towards the ‘bar’ that only sold overpriced and watered down coffee where it was quiet and dim and easy to hide, was that Ghostwriter wasn’t looking all that, well… ghostly. 

Ghostwriter was still wearing that stupid trench coat that was purple along with his depressing grey clothing, but he wasn’t glowing or flying or declaring his revenge in a theatrical tone like Technus or Skulker or even the Box Ghost might. There was no I will destroy you, ghost child! or This time, it’s going to be you who rots behind bars! or even Hey, you fuck! 

No, it was just… Ghostwriter. His skin was still a washed out grey sort of color, but without the ghostly glow that lit it all up, he just looked like a tired college student who might have been coming down with the flu and had trudged in out of the cold to look for a book to finish off a last-minute paper. He just looked so human, which, Danny mused, might have been all the more reason to worry. A ghost didn’t go to those lengths to disguise himself unless there was something to hide. 

Stepping out of the shadows, and fully prepared to make a scene no matter how much Sam hated him after it was over, Danny watched as Ghostwriter walked around the edges of the tables and chairs that were pointed towards the stage, looked around the building slowly and carefully, and then… 

He was reading. The ghost who had almost ruined his life and destroyed his Christmas had walked up to a bookshelf, poked around for a few seconds, and then started to read one of the books like it was something he did all the time. 

Danny almost thought that the gods might have finally smiled upon him and blessed him just enough to where he wouldn’t have to deal with a ghost fight on his last day of winter break, but then he remembered just what kind of bookstore he was in. 

If Sam had managed to find a book on the Fright Knight in a place like this, he dreaded to think what a ghost who could change reality and knew what he was looking for could find. 

Saying a silent goodbye to his peace and quiet, and almost managing to dredge up just a speck of regret for the poetry ‘jam’ that was about to get broken up, Danny took a step forward and immediately froze when he met bright green eyes. 

The two were utterly quiet, but Danny fancied that he could hear what would no doubt be a smug I see you, ghost boy. 

Danny made sure to give his best glare back, channeling the rage he usually only felt when dealing with Vlad. The rage that screamed, loud and clear, If you even think of hurting anyone here it’ll be the last thing you do. 

Instead of showing the appropriate amount of fear and shuffling out of the store in a burst of sensibility, Danny watched as the Ghostwriter laughed, putting the book he had been reading back onto the shelf and then disappearing around the corner to the next one. 

Danny wasted no time, half-running over to the shelf and grabbing up the book that the ghost had just been looking at to see what unnatural disaster he was about to deal with next. It was like ice sliding down his spine as he saw that it was just… a book. There was nothing special about it beyond the fact it was a lame book about some old poetry. It was normal with a normal twisted plastic cover and normal bent pages that had been rifled through a time too many. Which meant Ghostwriter was fucking with him. 

Rounding the shelf, Danny kept his energy close to the surface, ready to snap into his changed form at a moment’s notice as he watched Ghostwriter set down another book he had picked up, glancing back to Danny. This time the smirk screamed, Nothing you could do would stop me.

It was enough to have Danny clenching his fists hard enough to make his palms bleed, wisps of green energy starting to curl through his fingers as he bared his teeth in a very clear, Try me. 

Ghostwriter vanished around another corner and Danny rushed to inspect the book he had been looking through, pissed to see that it was just another lame paperback book about poetry a decade too old that made it obvious that the ghost really was just screwing with him.

And that’s how it kept going. Danny followed Ghostwriter around the store, flipping through the books the ghost had been reading and trying to piece together what he could be up to. 

Instead of some grand scheme of revenge, though, Danny was looking through beaten up books of poetry, old nonfiction books about trains and air transportation that weren’t about airplanes, and a bright yellow and white How To book about how to play piano. It was that one that almost had Danny throwing the book at Ghostwriter himself to see if it would start a fight just to get the tension over with. 

Danny glared at nothing as he slammed the most recent book back onto one of the countless shelves, not caring if it was the proper spot or not as he turned around to keep following after Ghostwriter before feeling his heart stop at seeing the ghost directly in front of him and a few inches away. 

It took an eternity to make sure Danny hadn’t somehow been scared straight into his ghost form before he realized there was a ghost only a few inches away from him. He didn’t even manage to call up his energy, though, before what was clearly a book was tossed at him. 

Years of living with Jazz and her psychopathic librarian tendencies had Danny catching the book before any damage could come to it, a quick look up to Ghostwriter showing the ghost was smirking, as if to say, Your move, ghost boy. What now?

Danny opened his mouth to tell the Ghostwriter just where he could shove his pretentious attitude before the sound of snapping fingers distracted him just enough to glance over at the crowd of goths that were taking up the space. A look back to the ghost had Danny losing what was at least seven years of his life because the fucker was gone. 

Gripping the book he had caught tightly, Danny slammed it down against a half-working radiator that looked older than the store, freezing when he saw a piece of torn notebook paper slip out of the pages and flutter down towards the ground. Danny managed to snatch it up before it hit, looking at it suspiciously before turning it around and blinking at seeing the writing that was there. He half-thought it might have been a note some former nerd left behind as a placeholder, but that thought was quickly broken when he saw just what the words spelled out. 

There, in a neat, curling script that could only mean the writer was a pretentious control freak, were the words, Until next we meet, Phantom. 

It was a declaration of war and Danny was all too happy to meet it, vowing that he would destroy Ghostwriter molecule by molecule as he stomped back to his seat (after moving the book off the radiator), another goth nerd already up on stage and reciting what sounded like a sea shanty turned into a spoken word that was then read as a eulogy. 

Danny felt some of his rage drain out of him by the sheer confusion he felt at hearing what he was absolutely sure was not English, but the last of it was wiped away clear when he felt his phone buzz with a message from Tucker, who was looking at him with a worried expression. 

A quick glance to the message showed just what Danny had expected, a simple, ‘if we talk sam will kill us. you alright?’ 

Reading the message over another time or two, Danny gave a quick nod before backtracking and shaking his head at Tucker’s unimpressed look. Opening his mouth, and seeing Sam shoot him a look as if she had eyes in the back of her horns, Danny instead turned towards his phone, typing out a quick, ‘Not bad but it pisses me off when a ghost comes in here obviously picking a fight and then leaves without actually fighting I mean what the hell is that about?’ 

‘sounds like the dude was scoping out the enemy you know? did he do or say anything or something like that? cause you know i’ll leave and back you up no matter how much it would break my heart to not hear the rest of this beautiful poetry on stage.’ 

Danny had to smother a laugh into his fist and turn it into a weak cough that hopefully didn’t sound too fake, Tucker beaming proudly and sticking out like a sore thumb among all the dour goths crammed together. Danny let him have the moment before kicking his chair - just to keep him humble. ‘Nah I think he already left can’t sense him anymore at least but he didn’t even say anything he just left a note that was basically calling me out for a fight next time we meet.’ 

‘yikes. sounds like the dude still isn’t over the whole xmas thing. need me to do any research and see if i can’t try to find something out about the dude?’ 

‘Nah I already know how his powers work and his keyboard thing was busted so it’s not like he can stick me in a poem again I’ll just wait and deal with him when he comes looking for a fight he won’t win.’ 

Danny tucked his phone away as Tucker snickered behind his own, turning his attention back to whatever car crash was happening on stage, mind already focused on his plans for the war that Ghostwriter had declared. 

War had been the plan, at least, until a week passed with no fight with the Ghostwriter and Danny started asking for advice over the problem that was starting to make him twitchy with nerves over nothing happening. Ghosts, in his experience, usually didn’t wait long before getting revenge.

Long talks with Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and even his Mom, who had been the most judgmental out of all of them, had ended up with Danny calling in a favor to a way too amused Clockwork before toting a glowing book that hurt his eyes to look at to a library that he still half wanted to freeze into a giant ice block before shattering it and hiding the remains in the Far Frozen. 

It wasn’t like he had started the Christmas fight that had almost ended up destroying all of his relationships in his everyday life, and, really, when one thought about it, Ghostwriter was as big a dick as Danny was. Honestly, ‘until next we meet?’ It wasn’t like that could be anything but a declaration of war! 

It was still a challenge Danny was all for if the nerd ever followed through on it, but now if he actually returned the book he had accidentally (which was very important to point out since he hadn’t started the fight) destroyed, then that meant he had the moral high ground and he was right; or something to that effect, at least. 

Overall, it was why Danny took great satisfaction in throwing the book in the nerd’s face as soon as the library doors opened way too dramatically, taking a moment to gleefully enjoy the annoyed rage that faded into shocked awe and oh, yeah. Danny was just that good. 

While the ghost looked down at the book with wide eyes, Danny took a quick moment to really notice how, even in the Ghost Zone, the dude still looked human. His skin looked way more pale and grey, of course, what with all the crazy lighting and green, but he still could have passed as a human with just a few changes. It was… weird. 

The only other ‘human’ ghosts he had really been around was Ember, Johnny, and Kitty. While Kitty’s skin tone could have been sick human, her hair was way too ghostly to ever pass, and Ember was the same with her hair, and Johnny- Well, no, he pretty much had been human as long as he suppressed that glowing thing that all ghosts did. Jazz had almost ended up dating him he looked human enough. Maybe it had something to do with age. Ghostwriter didn’t- 

Focus. Danny was here for a reason and that reason was to prove that, obviously, he was the better ghost. 

It took hours before Ghostwriter finally looked up at him, opening his mouth to no doubt annoy Danny into his full death. He made sure to cut it off by pointing to the piece of paper that was sticking out of the book. It was a simple note that read: 

Nerd.

You can thank Clockwork for this since he owed me a favor or I owe him one. Not sure. It’s Clockwork. Enjoy and stay the fuck out of my town and my life. 

Fuck you.

Danny made sure that by the time Ghostwriter finished the note he was well on his way back to the Amity Park portal, confident with his carefully calculated risk that his hands were washed of the mess that was the Ghostwriter. 

                                                          🕮

Danny had honestly expected to be done dealing with ghostly business for at least a few weeks after his Christmas. He should have been done with the Ghostwriter, all debts should have been repaired, and there should have been absolutely no reason for that ghost, or any other ghost, to be anywhere near him or his town. 

Honestly, when thinking about just the Ghostwriter business, Danny was the one who had suffered the most. He couldn’t just get rid of the trauma he had gone through that Christmas, but Ghostwriter had gotten his book back? 

No matter how it played out, Danny was the one who suffered the most in the whole scenario, which was why he couldn’t figure out why, a week or something like it later, he was staring groggily at a glowing book that was on his desk on a morning he had to be up early for school. 

The winter sun was too dim to light up his room like it might have if it was summer and all of Danny’s lamps were either turned off or burned out from where he had been sleeping, so there really was nothing to cause the glow around the book except the book itself - which meant it was a ghost book. That meant it was a trap. A trap in the morning. Danny really had thought that ghosts had better manners than that. 

Scrubbing at his eyes and suppressing the urge to mutter words that he had no doubt his mother would hear even with doors and possibly two floors between them, Danny dragged himself to his feet and stumbled over to the glowing book with a title that looked like it had first been written in crayon before being properly typed or drawn. 

Except the longer he stared at the title the more it seemed to make sense, Danny squinting before finally managing to at least make out the word history, which, ugh, did some ghost prank him with a ghostly history textbook? This had Poindexter written all over it.

Snatching the book with a solid plan of hiding it in his backpack until he could throw it back into the Ghost Zone, Danny paused at the fluttering piece of paper that slipped free of the pages and tumbled towards the floor. 

Danny made sure to wait at least seven seconds to make sure it wasn’t another form of trap, lightly nudging the piece of paper with his foot before nodding and picking it up, mentally ruling out Poindexter as a suspect and adding in Plasmius. It would be just like that Fruitloop to give him some kind of test or riddle or… familiar looping scrawl that Danny had last seen in a bookshop. For a moment, he could only think that he forgot, in his calculated risk, that he was bad at math.

Phantom,

Thank you for the miraculous recovery and return of my written works that came to a gruesome end this past Yule. While your own correspondence left much to be desired, the return is appreciated. 

I’m writing to you now due to the discovery of this book during one of my searches. While I’m certain that you already have a thorough understanding of the Spirit World and its inhabitants, it occurred to me that you might not yet be aware of certain specifics. 

Please feel free to peruse this book at your leisure before returning it to my library at your discretion. I would prefer to have it returned within a fortnight but will be most understanding if it happens to take longer. 

Regards, 

Ghostwriter 

Danny had to read through the note four times before he finally crumpled it into a ball and threw it on his desk because no matter how many times he read the words his early morning brain was simply not going to be able to process that. God, the Ghostwriter was like if his sister was a boy and had become a ghost while studying for her finals or something. 

The moment it took to process the thought had a shiver running up Danny’s spine, resolve hardened as he dug around through his desk until he found a cheap pen and a crumpled piece of paper that he quickly smoothed out before using it to articulate his thoughts and feelings perfectly. 

Ghostwriter

I said stay out of my town and my life and this is doing none of those things. Look it’s plain to see that this book is some kind of trap I mean let me guess you stole it from Plasmius and now you’re gonna pin it on me? As if I don’t have enough problems with the Fruitloop fucking thanks. 

Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to give you this book back. You’re going to take it. You’re going to keep out of Amity Park. The next time I see you or any other books in this town I will BURN THEM ON PURPOSE. The last thing I need to deal with in life is another ghost out to kill me for something that’s no longer my fault. 

REGARDS 

Fuck you 

Biting the blunt end of his pen, Danny read over the letter a time or two to make sure it had everything he wanted to say before nodding and slipping the piece of paper between the cover and the first page of the still glowing book. God, the sooner he got the thing out of his room the better. It had probably already tripped at least three ghost sensors in his house. 

A quick of the time until he was meant to be at school, and a weighing of his options, had Danny swearing (very quietly) to himself and triggering his change into his ghost form. An hour wasn’t much time to get things done, but it would be enough to get rid of a book.

Besides, Danny hadn’t really thought of the Plasmius thing until he wrote his letter, but the more he thought about it the more it made sense. A ghost was too weak to take him on? Send Plasmius. It was the perfect plan and, actually, one Danny could maybe use against some of the more annoying ghosts. Plus, it’d just be hilarious to see Plasmius go up against Technus. The two would probably monologue at each other for hours- Focus. 

Danny had a book to get rid of, a day to get ready for, and at least three classes to sleep in. He couldn’t do that until Ghostwriter was dealt with. 

Dropping down through the second and first floor and into the basement with the book still in hand, Danny shot towards the portal with a burst of speed, shivering at the feeling that washed over him as he did so. It always felt like a wave of static that rolled over his skin only without any of the pain. He had explained it to Sam and Tucker once as the feeling just before getting shocked, but both of them had looked at him like he was crazy, so maybe it was a half-ghost thing. 

Making a mental note to try and taunt the answer out of Vlad later, Danny focused on getting to the stupid library Ghostwriter lived in, which, really. Who lived in a library? It was so stupid. 

It was close enough, though, and Danny was sure it hadn’t even taken ten minutes before he was moving to bang on the doors. He didn’t even get a single knock in before the doors were opening smoothly, no one on the other side to annoy him. 

A glance at the book, the empty doorway, and back towards the direction he had come from had Danny cycling through excuses even as he stepped inside, nodding to himself when the doors closed behind him with a very obvious locking noise because of course they did. That was just his life, wasn’t it? 

Biting the inside of his cheek until the urge to either scream or swear passed, Danny managed a slow breath, half-remembering something Jazz had told him about counting his breathing or whatever, and then continued on into the library, book clutched tightly in his hand as he contemplated just leaving it on the floor to be found later. 

Annoyed as he was, it took him way too long before he realized that the library he was in wasn’t silent. Instead of the silence he had expected, there was a soft, gentle chiming noise. 

It wasn’t overpowering like what he would hear from some of Jazz’s guided meditation tapes that she played way too loudly when stressed over testing, but it was something that reminded him of the windchimes in Sam’s greenhouse when they tucked themselves away in there in the winter, humid air warming them up and taking away the sting of the cold winters that Amity Park was known for. 

The soft chimes reminded him of his friend’s laughter at all of his bad jokes and the peaceful silence that came from being around people who didn’t expect anything out of him. It was a sound that had something in him relaxing. 

The more he relaxed, the more he realized that the library he was in was actually kind of cool. At first it had looked like some official capital library kind of thing with too tall bookshelves and carpet that was enough to make him think it was ugly, but the further he walked into the library the more different it looked. 

He wasn’t sure if it was a ghost thing or just the library he was in, but a glance down showed the carpet slowly and smoothly changed from the burnt looking red it had been into a cool purple that felt soft when Danny chanced landing and walking instead of flying. It wasn’t exactly like he was sinking into it, but he could see himself spread out on the floor during a study session and being comfortable enough. 

The shelves, if possible, were more surprising in their changes than the carpet. Instead of towering, structured shelves like something out of Jazz’s dream, the bookshelves became lopsided and mismatched like each one had been found in a thrift shop or an antique store or something. 

Some of them looked nice enough, but others had obviously crooked shelves and slanted tops and there were even more that had dark spots in the wood that showed some form of weather damage. It was straight out of Jazz’s nightmare, but something about all the clunky, mismatched shelves filled with books both glowing and not made it all look… human. 

There were low tables and chairs of different sizes spread around, couches and armchairs decades old that looked like they had been dragged to a certain corner and left forgotten, and lamps of all different shapes and sizes spread out in a way that made no sense. 

It was something out of a fever dream and Danny couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that, if nothing else, he had finally found a library he liked - a library that belonged to a ghost that did not act like he would be able to handle living in such a messy, crazy place. No matter how he looked at it, the place he was in just didn’t look like somewhere Ghostwriter could live. 

Danny probably would have poked around even more if he hadn’t noticed that the soft chiming noises had stopped and instead been replaced with soft muttering that almost sounded like swearing. The voice was just familiar enough that Danny was pushing forward, drawing to a stop as he saw Ghostwriter was… not looking like Ghostwriter. 

The ghost was curled up into an overstuffed armchair that, like everything else, looked like it had come from a completely different decade. That part alone was strange enough, but the truly strange part was the fact Ghostwriter was sitting half propped up against one side with his legs thrown over the other side, a laptop resting in his lap as he glared at a screen that looked bright enough he could already hear his mom telling him that he was going to ruin his eyes. 

That wasn’t even the worst of it. Instead of mania and cackling and making Danny’s life a living hell, the ghost looked tired as if he hadn’t slept- Danny hadn’t thought ghosts slept, but the proof was in front of him considering he saw bags under the other’s eyes. There was also the fact Ghostwriter’s hair was an utter wreck, as if he had run a hand through it like Danny did to his own hair and, just a few feet away, the man’s stupid coat was thrown over the back of a couch and, to top it all off, he was wearing no shoes and instead just socks. 

He looked human.

The thought had passed through his head again and again over the days he had been dealing with Ghostwriter, but the other was just so human. 

There was no grandstanding or monologuing or crazy plan or revenge scheme, but instead somebody curled up and working on their laptop and relaxing in what was obviously their home. 

What couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds and Ghostwriter was freezing and snapping his head up to look at him, something in his eyes going from hard and sharp to confused and surprised as he seemed to realize that, yes, Danny Phantom was standing in front of him. 

Later Danny would explain, if only to himself, that it was the scrunched up expression the ghost made that decided it; the crinkles at the corner of his eyes, the twisted little expression of his mouth that looked stupid enough to laugh at, and the crazy hair that was near standing on end with how much it had obviously been abused. 

In that moment, though, Danny could only hold the book he had brought behind his back, slipping out the note he had written and crumpling it up before letting it turn to ash in his hand. 

Once that was done, he opened his mouth to speak. 

#danny phantom #ghostwriter #iambic prose #the ghostwriter #ghost writer #my writing #original