#it's up to interpretation if she's talking about fenton or phantom though

[hopeless-astronaut]

Testing out something new with an old incorrect quote from @totallycorrectdannyphantomquotes I found on my phone

#danny phantom #dp #valerie gray #dp star #gray ghost is the ship I'm referencing if you couldn't tell #it's up to interpretation if she's talking about fenton or phantom though #personally i think she's talking about phantom #phanart #my art #val's expression in the last pic is killing me #i kind of like how this looks maybe I'll play around with it some more

[five-rivers]

Sleep Paralysis

Gift fic for @sporks-metal!  

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William Lancer had never been a superstitious man. He enjoyed reading about the supernatural, true, about mythology, legends, folklore, but he wasn't superstitious.

In Amity Park, believing in ghosts did not count as superstition. It was simply common sense.

Even so, this was pushing the limits of common sense. The almost-empty salt container rattled softly in his hand as he shook out the last few grains. Sweeping all this up, each white line he had drawn at every threshold and every windowsill would be a pain. A greater pain than the splinters and thorns he had picked up from the 'sacred trees' he had alternately planted in his yard and cut up to hang over his doorways.

William didn't have a choice. He was at his wits end, and he was being haunted.

He was being haunted, and the normal methods of dealing with such things hadn't done a thing. Of course, the 'normal methods' were 'wait for Phantom to show up' and 'call the Fentons,' so he wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting.

The teenage ghost didn't exactly have a hotline and while the Fentons did, their services had been less than efficacious. They'd camped out at his house for two nights, and the only things they had removed from it were all of his sweets. The ghost had not made an appearance. It (they, she, he, William didn't know) was smarter than that.

The Fentons had told him that he was most likely suffering from a case of nerves or stress (what nerves, what stress, in the middle of summer?) and had given him a small ectogun. On the house. Neither of these things comforted him.

Oddly, part of William insisted that if Mr. Fenton, that is, Danny, not Jack, had been there, things would have gone differently. Differently how, that part of William wouldn't say. When he thought about it, he honestly couldn't imagine why Danny's presence would change things. He liked Danny. Somehow, the younger Fenton had found his way to being William's favorite student, even if he was also an incredibly inconsistent student, but he was also shy, never in place when a ghost showed up.

... Huh. There was something there, but William's tired mind couldn't quite reason it out.

If the ghost would just let him be, let him rest.

William pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. What he wouldn't give for some rest... He'd even call the Fentons back, if it came to that. He exhaled slowly and sank into his armchair, the laughably tiny ectogun balanced on his thigh, his fireplace on his right. He had covered the hearth with salt, too, just in case.

He was losing his mind, wasn't he?

No. Ghosts were normal in Amity Park. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't even superstitious, for all that he was resorting to older apotropaics. There was a reason the garden supply store sold so many different varieties of holly, rowan, and sage.

He took a deep breath, let it out. Nothing had happened yet, tonight. Perhaps the Fentons had scared the ghost off. Perhaps he could pass this night in peace. His hand inched towards the small table next to his chair. He had a book there, one he had been reading before this started...

A fire roared to life in the fireplace. William's breath caught in his throat.

For several long minutes, the only thing that changed was how much sweat glued William's pajamas to his skin.

Then the whispers started.

.

The ghost haunting William was not like the Box Ghost. William could deal with the Box Ghost. He had dealt with the Box Ghost. That cardboard-loving spirit could have been a threat, in another world, in another life (death?), but in this one he was more of a pest, than anything. Sort of like a barking dog. A very small barking dog.

But this ghost, this ghost that William hadn't even seen but somehow managed to turn his life into a paranoid hell, this ghost wasn't like that. Wasn't like any of the ghosts he'd seen at the school. Wasn't like any of the ghosts he'd seen on the news. Wasn't like the ghosts the Fentons talked about.

This ghost, it was more like things he'd seen in stories, in books, myths, legends. Something ethereal, something that stuck to shadows, drove men crazy, stole the breath from their mouths and light from their eyes, or burned down their house while they slept.

Or pushed a person so far that their inattention and exhaustion did them in. If it was the school year, and he had to drive... But, maybe, if school was in session, he would have been able to flag down Phantom after one of his fights.

William's hands shook as he pressed buttons on his coffee machine. He needed to sleep. He couldn't sleep. Not with the ghost always, always waiting for him to relax.

He was a mess, and he didn't know what to do.

He did not save his coffee from boiling over until it was far too late to salvage. He felt sick. He needed air.

Going outside was risky. Too many accidents had dogged his steps yesterday, even accounting for his fatigue, but staying inside wasn't any better.

He stepped slowly and carefully over his salt lines and onto the porch. Fresh air hit him like a sledgehammer. The space just below the top of his head buzzed uncomfortably.

Looking to the side of his door, William noticed that his extra rowan cuttings were all gone. He shivered. He was only wearing his pajamas. This really wasn't dignified.

He was afraid to go back in.

Something across the street caught his attention. He looked up, half afraid of what he would see.

Danny Fenton.

William let his shoulders slump in a mixture of relief and intense embarrassment. What kind of a teacher was he, letting his students see him dressed like this?

What was Danny Fenton doing here, anyway?

Danny tilted his head to one side and blinked a few times. Slowly, William raised a hand in greeting. Danny seemed to take this as an invitation, because he smiled brightly, raised one of his hands, laden with a shopping bag, and crossed the street, walking right up to William's porch.

"Hi, Mr. Lancer!" he said, with an energy William hadn't felt in years. "Jazz and I are back from our college tour." Which was obvious, really. "Mom and Dad said you weren't feeling well, so I brought you some stuff." He shook the bags. "Should I just give them to you, or put them down somewhere?"

William's sleep-deprived brain was still caught on being embarrassed, but he did manage to make himself nod. He had been wishing for Danny to be here, like he was some kind of lucky charm. But... was it safe for Danny to be here?

"Safe?" asked Danny.

"Did I say that out loud?"

"Yeah," said Danny. Amusement mixed with worry in his tone. "You really must be sick. You look like you haven't slept in days."

William pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "Something like that," he admitted. "I'm being haunted."

Something William couldn't interpret passed over Danny's features. "Mom and Dad couldn't find it?"

"No."

"Well, maybe some of this could help. Have you tried candles? Or eyes?"

"What?"

Danny's face twisted into a wry grin. "Mom and Dad use modern methods," he said, "and I see you've been trying other things. Like salt, and the holly. But not all methods work for all ghosts." He put one foot on the steps of William's porch. "I can help you set up."

"But if the ghost comes-"

"Hey, I've dealt with ghosts before," said Danny.

William frowned. "So have I," he said. "So have your parents."

Danny shrugged. "Like I said, they prefer modern methods. They don't always work." His head tilted again. "Not all ghosts are like the Box Ghost, you know."

There was confidence, there. Quiet, yes, but... Danny wasn't confident. At least not in class, and... William felt like he was being trusted with something, almost. With a glimpse.

His head hurt.

"Alright," said William. He took a step back, towards his door. "Come on in."

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Danny laid boxes out on the dining room table. "This is just snacks," he said, pushing one box towards William. "Keeping your energy up is important. This stuff is apotropaics, which is mostly supposed to keep ghosts away in the first place, so I don't really know if they'll work." He picked up a rock painted with a blue eye, and a pendant with the same. "It can't hurt, though." He handed the pendant to William. "So, what's this ghost like, anyway?"

Feeling dazed, William just watched Danny take candles out of the bag and stand them up on the table for a few minutes. "When I relax," he said, finally, "that's when it comes. At night, mostly. Sometimes it doesn't. And then it does. It gets hard to move. I get-" He put one hand over his chest, and pressed down. "Then things happen. The fireplace. Stuff gets all-" He moved his hand up and down. Some English teacher he was, he could barely speak. Words escaped him. "What does it even matter?"

"Different ghosts have different weaknesses," said Danny. "Like, if you were dealing with a, um, more traditional Chinese ghost, you might be able to confuse it by breaking sight lines. They only like to move in straight lines, some of them. Feng shui or whatever. Spirit mazes." He wiggled his fingers. "But you've got walls and doors and stuff, so I don't think it is one of those." He stared down at the table and the objects on it, frowning slightly.

"What do you think it is?" asked William, tiredly. "And why didn't your parents bring this up?" He had the feeling that he really should find this whole situation more suspicious than he actually did, but he'd do almost anything for sleep, at this point.

"I don't know," said Danny, shrugging. "Did you ever have sleep paralysis? Or sleep walking? Night terrors?"

"Please don't try to tell me this is sleep paralysis," said William, scrubbing his hands over his face. His jaw felt like sandpaper. "I know what that feels like."

"But you did have it."

"Yes," said William. "I used to. But it stopped."

"When?"

"When I got a new medication."

"Which was?"

"I don't know. Last March, or February."

"Right before the ghost king stole the town?"

"What are you getting at, here?" asked William.

"I think-" The windows rattled, cutting Danny off. "Oh, it doesn't like that, does it?"

William felt the weight in his chest like a stone. Couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think-

Danny pulled on his elbow, and suddenly he could move. "We need to get out of here," he said. "Sunlight."

"What?"

"You never had sleep paralysis," said Danny, pulling William along. "You were possessed, and it wants back in."

"What?" wheezed William, and it was getting really hard to breathe. Black spots danced in his vision. He fell.

"Hey!" shouted Danny. Something like a growl rippled in the air. "Back off! You can't have him. He's mine."

Which didn't make any sense, but then, nothing made sense right now, he couldn't think except for terror.

And suddenly the missing holly branches were in Danny's chest. Danny staggered. Went down on one knee.

"Don't think you can kill me that easily, pest."

And William's vision went black.

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William woke up in bed. In his bed. With the covers drawn up to his chin. He'd been sleeping on his back. He never sleeps on his back.

Other things are off, too. His slippers were in the wrong place. His throw rugs have been moved. A picture shifted to hide a burn mark on the wall. The dishwasher has been run. Several cups are missing.

So are all the supplies Daniel had brought him, earlier.

It was as if someone, or something, wanted to make William think that everything that had happened was just a dream, but William knew that it wasn't. There were too many discrepancies, too much evidence, and, more to the point, he remembers.

He hoped it was Danny trying to cover things up. He really did.

If it was the ghost... William didn't want to think about that.

Should he call the Fentons? He still has their number.

But he didn't know what happened. He could remember, but... it didn't make sense. It didn't make sense for the ghost to cover this up, or to let him sleep. Except-

William nearly threw up when he remembered the branch embedded in his student's chest. That was- That was awful. That couldn't have been real. He must have been hallucinating. He had passed out, right after.

He shook his head. No, this was how people convinced themselves that something was 'just a dream' in movies. That hadn't been a dream. He hadn't dreamed that whole awful, terrible thing. He hadn't dreamed he was being haunted. He wasn't going to gaslight himself.

That thought turned over for a few minutes, then he lunged for his phone.

.

This was stalking. William was stalking his student.

That sounded bad.

It was bad, honestly, but William needed to see for himself that Danny was intact, and it wasn't the school year. He couldn't just wait for Danny to stroll into the classroom, thirty minutes late.

What if the ghost has latched on to him?

But, no. Even if the Fentons hadn't found it when it was haunting William, if it was after their own son, surely they'd realize it.

William just had to see. He'd look, he'd see, he'd maybe knock on the front door if Danny insisted on staying inside all day, and-

Danny walked out of his front door and bounced down the front steps of Fentonworks. He turned and started walking up the street.

Great. Now William should go, Danny's fine, but...

William did not go. Rather, he did go, but not home.

Now he really was stalking Danny, and he was being as stealthy as possible, given that this could likely cost him his job if anyone noticed. Stealth was difficult. Danny walked surprisingly quickly. Deceptively quickly. His half-skipping gait looked slow, but it ate up the ground, and trying to keep up with it left William feeling winded.

Of course, that might just be the effect of barely sleeping for who knows how long. Who knew? Not William.

But Danny went up the street and so did William.

They had almost reached the local park, when a ghost attacked. Because of course a ghost attacked. This was Amity Park, after all. Thankfully, for William's nerves, it was a normal ghost, not like whatever had been tormenting him. He even knew this ghost's name. Skulker.

Which was less of a comfort considering that the ghost was intent on attacking Danny. Why this was the case, William didn't know.

The metal-covered ghost sent missile after missile after Danny, and Danny just. Kept. Dodging. Oftentimes, by little more than an inch.

It was terrifying.

Danny didn't look particularly scared. Which was somehow even more terrifying.

After what couldn't be more than a minute, the ghost swooped low and close, and Danny whipped something white and green from behind his back, and a blue light poured out of it, engulfing the ghost and sucking it in.

Danny continued down the street.

William went home.

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When school started again, William watched Danny more closely. As closely as he dared. Now that he had his eyes open, it was easier to see that there was something off about Daniel. Not really wrong, per se, but not normal.

It wasn't just skipping class, although that was part of it, or the way he and his friends hold themselves aloof from the normal social hierarchy, or how there were sometimes burn marks on his homework, it was something deeper and more elusive. Something more fundamental.

Halfway through October, William realized Danny didn't move nearly as much as someone his age should. He's still. Too still.

In November William found a pattern to Danny's absences. He didn't like it, and he tried to forget. He tried to stop looking, stop watching. Tried to tell himself that it wasn't possible.

But by December, William was fairly certain: Danny was dead.

Danny was dead.

His student.

Dead.

And a ghost, on top of that.

William had no idea how to cope.

But he didn't know for sure. Didn't know that Danny was out there, day and night, fighting ghosts, so he simply... ignored it. Treated Danny like normal. Like a student. Even if he was a ghost, he still had a right to an education, didn't he? Being dead was simply... a disability, of sorts. William's training covered exceptional students and accommodations. He couldn't very well set up an IEP meeting with the Fentons to discuss how Daniel was no longer among the living and how that might affect his ability to learn, but as a classroom teacher and as vice principal, he could make things a little easier for Daniel.

None of this really settled his anxiety, but it kept it at manageable levels.

It helped that his sleep paralysis did not come back. He didn't want to think about that too closely.

But then he couldn't ignore it, because he walked in on Danny changing, peeling off his skin and burning it like flash paper, in an unused classroom, and now there was a ghost tearing up the school behind him, and a ghost tearing up and hyperventilating in front of him, and he didn't know what to do.

"Just," said William, holding up his hands, "just breathe, Danny." He had no idea if that would help, no idea if Danny even needed to breathe.

"Mr. Lancer?" asked Danny. His voice wavered beneath a supernatural echo. He blinked hard, deliberately. "You-" He inhaled raggedly. "You can't- Please don't tell anyone!"

"I-" started William, unsure if or what he should promise. Now that he knew... Did that change what he should do? As a teacher? As an adult?

He didn't know.

Something crashed behind William. Far behind William. Somewhere in the vicinity of the cafeteria, he'd guess.

Something flickered over Danny's face. "I've gotta go," he said. "Please, just, don't tell anyone."

And then he vanished.

.

The next time Danny reappeared it was in front of William's house, between two of the holly trees William had planted that summer. He was wearing a coat that was much too thin for the weather, and had a box in his hands that just screamed 'bribe,' for all that it was wrapped in Christmas-tree themed paper.

William watched him through the blinds. He wasn't sure if he should invite Danny in.

Danny was a ghost. A dangerous ghost. Arguably the most dangerous ghost in Amity Park. A ghost that beats up other ghosts on a daily basis.

Danny was also his student, and he was standing out there in the cold, looking terrified.

William walked over to the door and opened it, slowly. It creaked and the cold made his toes curl inside his socks.

"Mr. Fenton," he said, "Danny... Why don't you come in?"

#danny phantom #prize #phanfic

[ladylynse]

A belated happy birthday to @bibliophilea. 

Forewarning: All Dipper knew was that there was something buried in some special thermos behind the shack; all Danny knew was that he had no idea how he’d gotten here. Inspired by this artwork by @hashtag-art

Part 3 [FF | AO3] (previous)

-|-

“Okay,” Danny said to himself once he was back in the forest and sitting on a springy bed of moss. He ran a hand through his hair. “They know. Or at least they practically know, because there’s no way they bought that.” That was a problem. Not them finding out the truth, exactly, unless it meant they played that card and trapped him again. (He’d really have to figure out how to prevent that from happening again. His parents didn’t believe in non-ghostly magic, but Vlad would have a field day if he realized that had actually worked.)

Thing was, though, if what he’d done had really been enough, if he’d somehow managed to do whatever Clockwork had wanted, Danny would be on his way home right now.

But he wasn’t, which meant he hadn’t.

And he couldn’t exactly time travel without help, so it’s not like he had an alternate route home.

That probably meant that they hadn’t believed his warning, either. He’d have to figure out how to convince them, assuming he could talk to them without them trying to exorcise him or something. Unless exorcism would send him to the Ghost Zone? He’d be a lot more willing to let that happen if he knew that for sure; it beat waiting around for a natural portal or risk getting caught by Vlad if he tried to sneak into one of the ones he’d built over the years.

Unfortunately, given some of the things Danny had seen in the past, he wasn’t going to bet that exorcism wouldn’t equate to destruction.

Especially in a place that gave off such skin-crawling vibes—seriously, what was wrong with that place?

Well.

Real magic, apparently. Somewhere. Buried within all the scams.

Buried.

Like his thermos had been buried.

What else was buried, then?

Danny slumped back against a tree, absently flicked an ant off his knee, and stared upward at the branches. “I have to go back, don’t I?”

No one answered, which was probably a good thing. It was too much to hope that Clockwork would come back so soon. Especially when he was set on ‘not interfering’ while interfering as much as possible through Danny.

Mabel and Dipper’s magic, whatever sort it was, worked better on him when he was Phantom. His best defense was staying as Fenton. Even if he couldn’t resist whatever they tried next forever, it would buy him time, and that might be all he needed.

It would be nice to think that they wouldn’t be plotting something at this exact moment, but he knew better than to engage in such wishful thinking—at least out loud—when magic was involved.

“I’ll just stay invisible until I can figure this out,” he muttered.

The forest seemed to swallow his words.

This whole place was weird.

The sooner he could get out of here, the better.

XXXXXX

“Are you sure about this?”

Dipper didn’t bother to look up from his reading. “The journal hasn’t been wrong before. I’ve just been wrong when interpreting it. If he’s a ghost, those runes should keep him from harming us.” He made a vague gesture at the walls of their room, which he and Mabel had carefully covered in chalk runes. Not as permanent as he’d like, but a lot easier to get rid of in a pinch if someone came poking around.

Or, more to the point, if something turned out to be the wrong rune or drawn incorrectly and having a meaning that was extremely counterproductive.

“Should.” Mabel’s voice was flat. “Can’t you be more confident than that?”

“I’m starting to wonder if he’s really a phantom, whatever he says,” Dipper explained as he sat up. “He doesn’t have their distinctive piercings, and he didn’t try to hurt me, even though I summoned him. Which means he’s either a category ten ghost or he’s not really a ghost at all.”

“But you summoned him,” she said, “and he was trapped in the circle.”

“That might just be what he wants us to think.”

“So what, then? Oracle? Because of the prophecy?”

Dipper grimaced. “Only if we’re lucky.” He turned the journal around to show her what he was looking at.

“Some kind of demon? You think Danny’s possessed by him?”

“He did say something about interdimensional travel,” Dipper said defensively. “You don’t need to say that like it’s impossible. And that would merit the author’s warning.”

“So would a category ten ghost, and a ghost could possess someone as easily as a demon.”

“I guess.”

He’d tried not to grumble it, but Mabel slid down beside him and leaned against his bed as well. “It’s okay not to know something, bro-bro.”

“I know,” he said, flipping through the journal again to see if he could find something else that might be relevant, “but if I mess this up, things could get bad fast.”

“Maybe we should tell the others, then. At least Grunkle Stan.”

“But then we’d have to tell him everything, and….” And he didn’t want to tell them about the journal yet, not even Grunkle Stan. He just…didn’t. It would feel too much like admitting defeat. What if he wasn’t even allowed to keep the journal?

Mabel hummed in agreement, stayed silent for about three seconds, and then asked, “What if he’s right?”

“Grunkle Stan? About what?”

“No, Phantom. The warning. What if he’s right? What if he is an oracle, or a messenger for an oracle, or something like that?”

Dipper scowled. “Anyone with actual foresight would know that saying something the way he did is just going to make people more determined, not less.”

“Maybe that’s the whole point.”

Dipper glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe the point isn’t to warn us off.”

“Really? That’s what it sounded like to me. He kept telling us to stop.”

“But that’s not the actual message he gave us. If you stay on this road, you’ll find yourself on a path you can’t turn away from. That just means if we keep going, we won’t be able to stop later. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have to stop now. Stopping now was just what he thought we should do.”

She had a point. If he really was just a messenger, he wouldn’t necessarily know the true meaning of the message. And if he was wrong? About them needing to stop? Then that had to mean— “It’s forewarning. So we’ll be better prepared for whatever’s coming. Whatever has to come.”

Assuming Mabel wasn’t wrong about that, that changed things.

Phantom might not be an enemy. Danny might not be a conduit or something like that. And the journal’s warning….

But maybe it hadn’t been a warning. It had been in a different hand than the rest of the journal. A special thermos to contain the messenger until it was time for the message to be heard….

“I hope you’re right,” Dipper said.

“But in case I’m not, we still have to do all of this.” She nodded at the chalked runes. “These will stop ghosts and demons?”

“It’s every protection rune I’ve found in here,” Dipper said, lifting the journal a few inches for emphasis. “I’m hoping none of them cancel each other out.”

Mabel snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t do that weeks ago.”

“I’ve been practicing drawing them,” Dipper admitted. “In the dirt. With a stick. I didn’t want to risk getting something wrong when it mattered. I’m not as good at freehanding as you are without practice.”

“That’s just because you spend more time reading than drawing and crafting.” Mabel climbed to her feet. “You can keep looking through the journal. I’m going downstairs to wait for Danny.”

“You think that’s how he’ll come back? After that story he fed you about his family before running out?”

Mabel smirked. “I’m pretty sure he’s figured out we don’t trust Phantom. Trying to convince us to trust Danny is his best bet.”

“But we’re not going to trust him.” Not liking the look on Mabel’s face, Dipper added a pointed, “Right?”

“I like to hear people out.”

“Mabel!”

“What? He was kinda cute.”

Dipper groaned. “For all we know, he’s as real a person as Norman was.”

She just shrugged. “Summer romances are all about risk-taking and mysteries. It’s part of the thrill.”

“But this is serious!”

“And I’ll help you with all the serious stuff once you figure out what preparations we need to actually make. Just like I helped you draw all this. Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun in the meantime.”

She wasn’t going to listen to him, was she? “Just be careful, okay?”

“I’ll be as careful as I ever am,” she promised before slipping out of the room, and he bit back the urge to yell at her that that wasn’t careful at all. Her definition of careful had nearly ended with her as queen of the gnomes.

But she had helped him with this, and she’d help him in the future, and she really did hate all the research, and that was his favourite part.

He just wished she’d give up the idea of having a wonderful summer romance with any boy who came near the Mystery Shack. It would make his life a lot easier. But that’s what siblings did. They made things harder.

And, usually, they made things worth the effort.

With any luck, that would hold true this time.

XXXXXXX

Danny had absolutely no idea what the siblings—twins?—had up their sleeves, nor how fast they could pull something together, but judging by the magic circle, it would be faster than he’d like.

He knew blood blossoms weren’t the only things that fell under traditional methods of ghost hunting. His parents relied on technology, using their inventions before anything else, and Vlad (and therefore Valerie) was little different. Even Technus and Skulker used it. Danny was getting pretty good at dodging anything Tucker couldn’t just hack, but magic? He barely dealt with that outside of Desiree. He knew next to nothing.

That didn’t make him feel any better about going back to the Mystery Shack.

It didn’t keep him from going, either.

The place wasn’t closed, but it was empty—or, at least, it was as empty as it had been earlier. He would’ve been better off if there had been a crowd. No crowd meant no hope of distraction. He could try being his own distraction, of course—knock a few things around with well-placed ectoblasts, since attempts to duplicate himself would probably end badly with how he felt right now—but the truth was, he didn’t know if that would help.

If the adults bought into the whole magic thing as much as the kids, doing something like that would draw more attention to himself, not less. It was more likely to be recognized for what it was: something unnatural. And for all that this place was clearly set up like some sort of scam, it…. It wasn’t all a scam. He’d felt that much before. He was sure it hadn’t just been the beginnings of that magic circle.

He could still feel it now, hovering where he was underneath a window. Something that made his skin crawl. Something that had his arms covered in goosebumps. Something…something that felt achingly familiar but made him want to run away at the same time.

Or maybe that was just whatever the others had already done.

Or what he was supposed to be warning them away from.

It would’ve been nice if Clockwork could’ve given him some straight answers for once.

Danny put one hand on the sun-warmed side of the shack. Nothing happened, so he tried to phase through the wall. Tried being the operative word, as it didn’t work. He scowled and pushed harder, to no avail. He even tried the windowpane in case glass reacted differently than wood. It didn’t.

It figured.

These guys would find a way to make the entire place phase-proof without coating it in anti-ecto goo.

“Why can’t just one thing be easy for me, huh?” Danny muttered. Clockwork didn’t answer, of course; he was probably back in his tower watching through a portal, sure that everything was going the way he thought it should.

Fine. Whatever. He’d do what he could, even if that meant taking more risks than he’d like in a place like this. Anything to get back home.

Still, what he was doing wasn’t the smartest. Even by Tucker’s terms, it would be a fairly bad idea. Danny knew that even as he circled the shack, looking for an open window that didn’t exist. Everything was closed. Most likely, if anything had been open, the others had closed it. Since phasing wasn’t an option, he’d have to go through a door. Maybe the back door was still open? If Mabel hadn’t locked it behind him….

Danny peeked through the screen on the back door. He couldn’t see anyone, but there wasn’t a full view. He turned the handle slowly, easing the (thankfully unlocked) door open and slipping inside, closing it just as silently. He half-expected to come face-to-face with someone, but the kitchen was empty.

Small mercies.

Danny hesitated, trying to figure out where he should start his search when he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for. Did these people hide stuff in plain sight, or was he better off digging through closets and the basement and the attic? Except the room he’d been in with the other kids had pretty much been the attic, or at least some kind of attic room or loft—is that what a loft was?—and he wasn’t sure if this place had a basement, but…

Danny slowly stepped onto the floor, holding his breath as he let it take his full weight. Flying in human form got exhausting after a while. He tried to go intangible and keep going, hoping to slip right through the floor, just in case he wasn’t prevented from that now that he was inside, but his shoes stayed firmly on the wood beneath them.

Fine.

Old fashioned way it was, then.

It’s not like he really expected anything else.

Besides, this place was the Mystery Shack. It had to have secrets. And, well, clearly these people were prepared for the supernatural. Announcing his presence wouldn’t necessarily win him any favours, but maybe he could be his own distraction if he did it in a more old-fashioned way instead of trying to fool them like he had earlier.

Knocking on walls should still help him find hollow spots—hiding spots, for whatever information had to be hidden around here to merit Clockwork’s interference—and they shouldn’t expect anything less from a ghost. Judging from the junk for sale in the gift shop, the head guy would probably use the excuse of calling this place haunted to up his prices anyway. Danny might be doing them a favour.

It wasn’t very subtle, and it meant completely abandoning any hope of coming out of this unnoticed, but it was also very unlikely that he wasn’t expected. He knew that. It was too much to hope for that they weren’t expecting him, especially considering he couldn’t phase through any of the walls. That wasn’t a coincidence.

He just hoped he was right about them not being able to do as much to him as long as he didn’t go ghost, even though he was using his ghost powers.

XXXXXX

Wendy didn’t pay attention to the floor creaking at first.

She didn’t pay attention to the odd knocking sound, either.

At least, not until she realized it was moving and coming far too regularly, too rhythmically, to be something Soos was tinkering with while they didn’t have any customers.

But that’s what made the floorboards creaking wrong, too. No customers. She knew the squeaky floorboards in this place. They all did. They all also avoided them now, more from habit formed by annoyance than anything else. But the last customer to come in had been that kid, and according to Mabel, he was long gone.

Wendy popped the bubble she’d been blowing but didn’t look up from her magazine. Instead, she listened while pretending to read, scanning the page to keep up appearances but not taking in any of the words.

The floorboards shouldn’t be creaking, and there shouldn’t be any weird knocking. Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap. It definitely wasn’t a woodpecker, even if that might be a seemingly logical conclusion from some city slicker who knew nothing about Gravity Falls. Someone—something—was inside the Mystery Shack. And if it was supposed to be tapping out Morse code, well, it wasn’t being rapped out by someone who had a concept of long and short; the pauses were too inconsistent, even if the reoccurrence was not.

Wendy flicked her eyes to Mabel, who’d come downstairs to borrow one of Wendy’s old magazines and was sitting up on a stool in the corner. She was still humming to herself. Either she hadn’t noticed or she was doing exactly what Wendy was and pretending.

Wendy sighed. Sometimes, she was really not paid enough. Still, this was a good job on the whole. Plenty of time to read and just enough of the inexplicable to keep things interesting. About par for the Mystery Shack, really.

“Hey, Mabel, what’s your brother up to?”

“Reading,” she answered without looking up. “Boring stuff.” She folded open the magazine and turned it around, showing off a bright advertisement for perfumes. “Do you mind if I cut this up for my scrapbook? I like the flowers.”

“Go wild,” Wendy said. Mabel chirped her thanks, but Wendy was still listening to the tapping and the occasional floorboard creak. Whatever it was was coming closer.

She checked her watch; almost closing, but Stan was probably still in town, looking after…something. Wendy didn’t ask anymore. Stan had had that look in his eye recently, been in a sort of mood where he answered questions with a joke, and she hadn’t bothered trying to get anything out of him. He’d fill her in if she needed to know. She knew Soos had gone into the hardware store earlier, too—something about wiring disappearing again—but she was pretty sure she’d seen him in the yard not that long ago. He had to be back, anyway. Stan wouldn’t have left without having him fill in as Mr. Mystery should any tourists swing by.

Not that she needed either of them to deal with this for her, but it’s not like this was an infestation of raccoons. She wouldn’t mind a bit of backup if she found herself dealing with something from the side of Gravity Falls that most people ignored. Or tried to ignore, anyway. Sometimes, it really wanted to be known.

This…might be one of those times. Which might mean she wouldn’t have a choice about giving Dipper and Mabel a crash course in whatever they wound up facing. The truth of it, not whatever stories she knew Dipper tried chasing; however much he seemed to be trying to keep that from her, it’s not like she never heard him whispering to Soos or Mabel. Trouble was, Soos and Mabel being who they were, she wasn’t sure how much of those whispers were truth….

She could remember being as ignorant of all of this as they had been at the start of the summer, as they might still be aside from an encounter or two, but that was before she started working at the Mystery Shack and realized her dad’s ulterior motive for all those survival lessons.

She was pretty sure her dad didn’t believe in any of the stories people told. As far as she could tell, most people didn’t. Urban legends were just urban legends, and a good campfire story was just a good campfire story. If anyone had a particularly good one, well, then it might be deemed something on par with what Old Man McGucket might tell. It was weird, though. People would tell those stories, and then they’d never mention them again, even when offered the perfect circumstances for call-backs. It was like they’d just put it out of their mind completely.

Still, no longer mentioning something and not admitting to even entertaining the idea that there was a modicum of truth in any of those stories didn’t mean people didn’t prepare, even if it was mostly unconsciously.

And even though Stan laughed it off, even though she usually laughed it off, it hadn’t taken the haunting at the convenience store to open her eyes to the fact that there was more going on in Gravity Falls than anyone admitted.

Whatever. Mabel and Dipper were going to find out sooner or later that Gravity Falls wasn’t the sleepy little town it appeared to be—assuming their run-in with the ghosts at the old convenience store hadn’t already done that. Honestly, even she’d thought ghosts were just stories before that one; she’d figured all the real stuff was the sort that was much less popular. Who would’ve thought it was all real?

The door separating the gift shop from the main Mystery Shack showroom creaked open.

Mabel, having torn the page from the magazine, was back to humming to herself and didn’t look up from her reading.

Wendy reached below the counter, trying to figure out what in their eclectic emergency supply would actually be useful in this situation, and settled on the baking soda box that was supposed to be placed in various nooks and crannies to keep the place from smelling too musty when it rained.

There was no tapping, but she heard a floorboard creak. The one by the vending machine, if she had to guess.

“Screw it,” she muttered. She tore the cardboard on the top of the baking soda box and flung the contents in the general direction of the vending machine. For the briefest moment, she saw a humanoid outline in the dust, and then it was gone.

“Wendy?”

Mabel’s voice wasn’t scared, exactly. Nor did it sound like she thought Wendy was crazy. But it was still too cautious for Wendy’s liking.

“What are you doing?”

“Summer dusting,” Wendy deadpanned. “It’s like spring cleaning. This helps you spot all the places you need to dust.” Mabel’s face told her she clearly didn’t buy that, but Wendy didn’t care. She just smirked and added, “Go grab your brother and run outside and help Soos gather some wood. We should roast marshmallows tonight.”

Mabel stared at her for a beat longer before she squealed, “I love roasting marshmallows! It’s fun to catch them on fire and watch Dipper’s face. He hates that. He wants his to be this perfect golden brown, but it’s not done till it’s crispy.” Grinning, she slipped off the stool and out of the room.

Wendy turned her gaze back in the direction of the vending machine. “What the hell are you?” she hissed. “And what are you doing here?”

Something shifted, and she could see the faint impression of footprints in the thin dusting of baking soda.

And then she blinked and saw the kid from earlier standing there.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said. “I swear.”

Right. Like she was going to buy that.

“I mean it,” he insisted, probably reading her expression. “I… There’s something wrong with this place, okay? I need to figure out what it is. I…. It’s the only way I’m going to get home.”

There was a thump from upstairs. She had to deal with this fast. “What are you?” she repeated.

“Stuck,” the kid said. “And not a threat to you. Honest. Unless you’re, like, secretly planning to eat the kids who live here or something.”

Well, it’s not like she expected straight answers from something that no doubt loved to trick humans.

“Get out.”

“But—”

“Out!” she jabbed her hand towards the front door. “Now. I’ll know if you try to come back.”

“Not necessarily,” the kid muttered, not quite quietly enough that she couldn’t hear him, whatever he might think.

He vanished again.

No more footprints appeared in the white dusting the floor, but she heard that tapping again.

And then she heard the sound change.

It wasn’t the rap of knuckles against solid wood. There was something hollow, something hidden, something—

Footsteps coming down the stairs.

Mabel and Dipper.

She lunged for a rag beneath the counter and wiped it across the countertop, pretending to be cleaning. When they waved as they ran out the door, she offered a weak smile.

No more knocking.

No more footprints.

Man, sometimes she really wasn’t paid enough for this.

XXXX

Okay, that had not gone as well as Danny had hoped.

Fine, he’d been stupid. Revealing himself had been stupid. He shouldn’t have expected help. Clearly, these people were not here to help him. That would have been too easy.

But at least whatever they’d done to the shack itself to make it phase-proof didn’t extend to its contents. He hadn’t been too hopeful when he’d tried to stick his arm into the vending machine, but once it had worked, well, of course he’d gone right in and tried to keep going. The fact that there really was a hidden passageway behind it was an unexpected bonus. He’d been half expecting a hidden door that would have been just as effective at barring his way as every other wall in this place.

Danny dropped his invisibility and intangibility once on the other side, but he kept floating as he held up a hand and let a ghost ray illuminate the passage. There was a faint light coming from below him, but it wasn’t enough to light his way by itself. Rickety stairs led downwards, the angle steeper than any stairs he’d come across before. This place really did have secrets. Maybe the Mystery Shack wasn’t a total scam after all.

The stairs didn’t seem terribly dusty. Despite creaking under his weight, they held when he stood on them, so he crept downwards.

When he reached the floor, it was just the landing for an elevator. A lone light bulb shone overhead. He pressed the elevator button and waited for it to come up, shifting from foot to foot. Just how deep were the secrets of this place buried that they needed an elevator?

Three floors down, apparently, which might explain why it was so dark when the elevator doors opened.

Danny could hear the low hum of machinery even before he stepped out of the elevator, which made it immediately evident why Clockwork had put him up to this.

This place didn’t only have a creepy hidden room, it had a creepy basement lab. Because, naturally, basements were where creepy secret labs were kept.

He kept walking, calling up a ghost ray again to light up what the various computer screens and blinking lights couldn’t.

Despite having more construction tools and computer screens than beakers or Erlenmeyer flasks, this lab came complete with what looked suspiciously like a nearly finished ghost portal. This one was at least ten feet above the floor, set in some kind of reverse triangle mounting, but it was definitely a portal. Which meant these guys had magic and technology on their side. Perfect. This couldn’t get any worse. This couldn’t—

Danny frowned and walked forward, letting the ghost ray burn a little brighter to give him some more light. That book by the control panel looked like what the kid had had. Danny still didn’t recognize the handwriting—not another novel by Freakshow, thankfully—but those were definitely blueprints to a portal. Incomplete blueprints, but still blueprints. And the portal in front of him was a heck of a lot more complete than the drawings on the page, which was not a good sign in his book.

“Maybe this is what’s going to go wrong,” Danny whispered. “Maybe Clockwork wants me to prevent another accident.” Though, considering no one had stopped what had happened with him or Vlad, that struck him as unlikely. But an unstable portal could lead to a giant explosion, and—

The room flooded with light from overhead, and Danny jumped even as the buzzing of electricity filled his ears.

“I’m not going to let you destroy everything I’ve spent the last thirty years building,” a voice behind him growled, and he turned just in time to see the net flying towards him.

(next)

#danny phantom #gravity falls #phantom falls #crossover #fanfiction #danny fenton #mabel pines #dipper pines #wendy corduroy #my writing #ladylynse #dp snippet #gf snippet #crossover snippet #snippets #some year I will finish this fic

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Danny had just finished dealing with one problem when a sort of old problem reared it's ugly head and made itself a priority.   For once, he may have to deal with a supernatural entity the same way any Fenton traditionally would.

trigger warning for suicide mention and school shooting mention

“Uh, well, I know a way I can help.”  Danny smiled, rubbing the back of his head.  “Sorry for making that wish without asking your permission but I have a feeling you’ll like this one.”

“I’m certain.”  Desiree sighed and turned to fly away, but Danny couldn’t just let her go like that.  People made wishes haphazardly all the time, and interpretation was a horrible thing to mix magick into.

“I wish that you were free of the curse that was laid on you.”  She froze, turning to stare at him with wide red eyes.  Pink and green light gathered around her fingertips and she raised her hands.

“So you have wished it… so shall it be.”  A cloud of smoke enveloped her like a cocoon, and Danny squinted into it.  A wave of force exploded from the cloud and all the booths shook with the energy released, Danny being knocked to the ground.  When he looked up, Desiree was blue-skinned, her silver armbands violet and her dress a dark green.  Eyes like stars looked down upon her new form, bottom half still a cloud of wispy mist, and she slowly began to smile and laugh.  “I’m… free?  I’m free!  Thank you, Danny, thank you so much!”  She flicked her hand, pink and blue ripples of light fixing up the cotton candy explosion and even setting Danny on his feet properly.  “I had thought I’d never be free of that wretched curse!”

“No problem!  Just, if you can avoid it, please don’t go hurting anyone?”  She arched a brow at him and Danny winced.  “I mean, I’m kind of trying to keep everyone, ghosts and humans alike, safe in my town, you know?”

“I cannot promise not to hurt anyone but I won’t be staying in this Realm for long.”  Desiree smiled, a sharp and dangerous baring of teeth and a gaze fixed on something far beyond them that Danny felt pity for.  “After all, I have to find the fool who did this to me and show him how it feels.  And then, I’ll return to my own realm, and a queendom of my own shall be mine!”  She laughed, lights and swirls of colors that his brain had no way of making sense of dancing around her, and throughout the park.  After a moment, she sighed and patted his head.  “Thank you, Danny.  Stay safe.”  And in a swirl of pink that might not have actually been pink, she was gone.

Danny took a moment to feel all warm and tingly inside about how he helped someone so easily, and then he let everything slide past him and through him, flying into the ground and then back up under the table.  The cold of his ghost curled back up into a ball somewhere within him and his skin regained its color and warmth, the world settling back into a thin extreme indigo lense.  He crawled out from under the table cloth and found Tucker, staring at where he had been, and tackled him.  They tumbled to the ground with a yelp from Tucker and Danny laughed, rolling away from the zap of the belt.  “Dude, Desiree is a Jinni!  I wished for a dick and now I have magickally transitioned.”

“Don’t let my being crushed into the ground by you fool ya, I’m genuinely overjoyed for you about that.”  Tucker lifted his head and laughed, deactivating the Specter Deflector before dragging Danny into a hug in the grass.  The hug lasted longer than he felt this deserved, even if he was over the moon about it.  It was also tighter than it should be, and Tucker’s gold was streaked with all kinds of wild blurples, marshons and even some grick.

“Dude, are you alright?”  Danny patted Tucker’s back when he just squeezed tighter and sighed.  “Ok.  We can do this, but like, we’re gonna get stepped on.”  Tucker relented, finally, and they got up, dusting the dirt and grass from their clothes before Danny was hugged, again.  “Tuck?”

“I… we need to talk, with the others too.”  Well, this promised to be interesting at least.  A good distraction from what happened before, hopefully.

It was not, in fact, a good distraction from the shapeshifter that had essentially murdered him (Sam was not the cause, no matter what she probably thought, and he needed to tell her that at some point, she deserved to hear it).  No, instead Danny, Sydney and through the skype call Sam listened to Tucker tell them about how he’d wished that Danny hadn’t gone into the portal and apparently all hell broke loose from that.  On one hand, it was almost freeing to know that even if Danny hadn’t caved to peer pressure like an idiot, the portal still would’ve been wrong when it turned on.  It ached to know that if he hadn’t died in there, his sister would’ve died out here.

But the burning in Danny’s soul was nothing, apparently, compared to Sydney.  “Wait, Tucker, did you say, Spectra?  As in Penelope Spectra?”  Oh boy, Danny knew that tone and he didn’t like it.

“Yes…” Tucker backed up a bit, while Danny shifted to stand in front of him, hand in his pocket.  “She’s the guidance counselor at Casp-”

Sydney glitched, glitched hard.  His features stretched, twisted, overlapped before settling on the image of a corpse, blood dripping from his mouth and the back of his skull as he hissed fury that made the skype call lag and crackle with static.  “Penelope Spectra should be dead like the rest of us!  I- show me a picture of her.  Now!”

“Ok, ok,” Tucker said, pulling up a picture from the school’s website.  “There’s surely plenty of people with that name, Sydney, no need to freak out.”

Except, he did.  When they pulled up the image of a ginger woman with hair done up in what looked almost like horns and a red business suit, the air around Sydney shone with green and his eyes were pits of red light.  “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!  NO ONE CAN SURVIVE A BULLET TO THE HEAD LIKE THAT!  I SURE AS HELL DIDN’T AND NEITHER DID ANY OF THE OTHER BULLIES LIKE HER!”

Tucker, slowly, exited the browser and reactivated his Specter Deflector™ while Danny gently tugged Sydney back from the screen.  It stung, the dark reddish colors radiating off Sydney like heat, anger that wasn’t his own boiling in his chest.  Danny took a slow, deep breath, and when he breathed out he pushed the anger out of him with it.  “Breathe with me, Syd.  Can you do that?”

“I’m dead buster.”

“Yeah, and you don’t need to breathe, but can you?”  The glitching slowed ever so slightly, and Danny brought his energy as close to the surface as he could while still human.   “In and out, c’mon.  In,” the heat receded, concentrated, burned darker for it.  “Out.”  It dissipated in waves, ripples of static on his screens and Tucker grabbed the laptop to keep the current from ruining it.  They did that, breathing, for a while until Sydney looked less like a floating corpse and more like a monochrome translucent image.  He rubbed his arms and looked away while Danny turned to lock eyes with Tucker.  Tucker was busily typing away on the laptop now that nothing was interfering with the wifi signal.  “Tuck?”

“It’s a good thing Sydney stays away from the school,” he muttered, Sam snorting over the line.  “Is it possible for an unagitated ghost to have some color and look like a human being?”

“Uh, not that I know about.”  Danny glanced at Sydney and gave him a pat on the back.  “Syd?”

“I-I don’t know… I’ve been a bit stuck, on the other side you know?”  Sydney was becoming fuzzier at the edges and Danny sighed when he realized the other boy was invisible.  “Maybe someone else would know.”

“Right,” Tucker drawled.  “Syd, do you wanna come with us to go ask Agatha about this?  If we’re dealing with a well-hidden ghost, then I wanna make sure you two are on top of your game.  A hearty meal, or I guess a ghouly meal, is essential for any fight.”

Sydney at least flickered back into something easier on the eyes if not fully there, and he chuckled.  “Uh, maybe?  Who’s Agatha?”

“Agatha Reece,” Sam said over the call, pausing to cough into her arm.  “She’s the ghost of a lunch lady at Casper.”  Sydney’s white eyes went wider than humanly possible, a touch of sepia seeping into his greyscale.

“Ah, you know what, I think I’ll just head out and go see some sights.  I’m sure you two don’t need me to help you grab a snack.”  With that, Sydney flew through Tucker’s ceiling, and Danny leaned back in his chair, a heavy sigh on his lips.  It felt like a lot of pressure just rose off of his chest, though there another pressure entirely coming from his swirling thoughts.

“It’s a damn good thing I got Sydney out of the school before he actually saw Dash doing the shit I ranted to him about.”  They all laughed at that, and Danny felt a bit lighter still.  “Though, I imagine school’d be pretty interesting without him.”

“Yeah, we could actually walk around without worrying about getting shoved into a locker.”  Tucker stretched his limbs out, and Danny felt an ache in his joints just at the reminder.  “What a stereotype.”

“As much as I’m glad to cheer on the virtues of Jazz’s therapy sessions with Sydney,” Sam cut in with a shaky, light laugh of her own.  “We still need to figure this Spectra thing out.”

“I’m looking her up and while she’s not stupid enough to use the same name over and over again, her picture is sorta everywhere over the past five decades,” Tucker muttered.  Danny got up and rested his chin on Tucker’s shoulder, taking in the image of a barely, if at all, changing face go throughout the ages back to the 50s.  “Cause if she’s a ghost, she’s gotta be using a lot of energy to keep looking like that.”

“That’s if she’s a ghost,” Sam said.  There was a long moment of quiet after that, and Sam went off-screen, grabbing some book that looked older than Spectra.  “Guys, you just said a Jinni flew off to get revenge on a ghost, how do we know there aren’t other things out there.”

“Mom and Dad have been to other places before…” Danny felt his hand slipping out of reality as the realization hit him like a football to the face.  “They’ve made so many windows to other places and then if a drone could survive going in, they went in, and then Jazz and I went in with them.  Holy shit, what if there was stuff in there we just couldn’t see?”

“What did Sydney and Agatha call the other side?”  Sam sniffled.  “The Infinite Realms?  There’s probably a whole lot of things that Spectra could be.”

“Based on this track record of depression, she’s either a shitty psychologist who doesn’t get how the human mind works, or she’s fucking up people’s lives on purpose.”  Tucker shifted so Danny could see the news article that he was looking at better.  “That’s a lot of people who went from average mental states to killing themselves, or going into self-isolation.”

“Maybe she likes ruining people’s lives,” Sam muttered.  “There’s plenty of legends and myths about things that like to do that.  Danny, have your parents made anything that might help reveal a supernatural being hiding as a human?”

“I… maybe?  I’ll have to check, I haven’t been paying attention to their weapons or anything lately.”  He had been actively avoiding anything offensive that his parents made besides the plasma rifle he had.  He wasn’t looking to have things go off on him, after all.  “Tuck, you check with Agatha about what Spectra might be and I’ll head home, see what Mom and Dad have worked on.  Sam, you see if you can find anything on, I dunno, emotional vampires or straight-up assholes who love ruining lives in folklore.”

“Can do, captain, but there’s a lot of the latter in every kind of story.”  Sam offered a wave before ending the call and Danny sighed, sagging in his chair.

“Look at you, takin charge like a hero.”  Tucker hugged him again, and Danny leaned into his side.

“Yeah.  Let’s hope I can keep being a hero.”

#TW suicide mention #tw school shooting mention #Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Desiree #Tucker Foley #Sam Manson #Sydney Poindexter #fanfiction #fanfic #phanfiction #phanfic #fanphiction #fanphic #phanphiction #phanphic #Monstrous to Supernatural #MtS #Rexy Writes

[threewaysdivided]

I saw your conversation about Sam Manson. I was talking to Imekitty about this, but I’ve noticed a few things that (sort of) make Sam’s relationship with her parents seem more like teen-drama than actual hardship. If you look closely, she’s got a lot in common with them: outspoken political-activism, possible shared-interest in vintage clothes, and no shame in saying they don’t like certain people. Also, after the Fentons, they were the first to volunteer to use the Ecto-Skeleton, risks and all.

(In reference to this post.)

It’s been a little while since I rewatched DP so I’m not well-placed to do a detail-analysis implication-breakdown right now, but yeah - that fits with the overall impression I remember getting.  To me they came across as being sort of old fashioned set-in-their-ways conservative and snooty, and maybe a bit too Pleasantville -  but more often in the way of parents who do genuinely want good things for her and to be able to be proud of her despite not really understanding her interests, choices or friends and being very bad at expressing it.  Plus she seems to have her grandmother fully in her corner a lot of the time.

I really wish that the writers had committed to one or the other; either making it clear that Sam’s martyr/ persecution complex is mostly just regular self-inflicted teen-drama BS and giving her an arc addressing it, OR fleshing out the idea that she faces a lot of judgement/ pressure/ control/ nonacceptance in her home life and that her negative traits are a bi-product of defensive/ coping mechanisms resulting from that strained dynamic, rather treating things with Roger Rabbit Rules.  

(Which isn’t to say that a person can’t have similar interests/ personality traits to, and positive interactions with, their parents while still having a strained, broken or even abusive relationship with them on a deeper level, but the show never really goes hard enough in either direction to make it work.)

As mentioned the last post, this is kind of a consistent pattern across DP - the writers tend go with the low-effort first answer for whatever is Funny or Awesome or Convenient in the moment rather than putting in the work to find a solution that’s consistent with the characterisation, themes and world-lore overall.  There’s enough internal contradiction in the show that I don’t think it’s actually possible to take every canon detail as canon without fundamentally breaking things.  And in some ways that’s kind of cool; it makes the series more open to interpretation, and trying to distinguish authorial intent from authorial incompetence and come up with theories that account for as many pieces of canon as possible is really satisfying.  But, you know, it’s also kind of bad writing in general.

I think the thing that bothers me about Sam’s characterisation in particular is that - where it tends to be more obviously out-of-character when it shows up in other places - there’s a pattern to the inconsistency with how the writers handle Sam:

Throughout the series there’s a double standard in how Sam sees herself/ seems to expects others to act, compared to her own behaviour:

Despite being pro-pacifism she’s okay with smacking Tucker and encouraging Danny to destroy the trucks she doesn’t like

Sam values self-expression and is a feminist, but derides other girls for wanting to express themselves in a conventionally feminine way

Sam doesn’t like being forced to conform to others’ values but is okay with forcing others to conform to hers

Despite being anti-consumerist she shows very little discomfort at, or awareness of, her lavish home life and material belongings

She encourages Danny to take the moral high ground towards his bullies but has no problem antagonising and getting into petty verbal spats with Paulina herself

Sam stalks Danny and his love interest out of jealousy/ protectiveness but threatens to end their friendship when he does the same

In Mystery Meat, when Danny tries to express his discomfort/ anxiety, Sam hijacks the conversation to complain about her own parents instead of listening.

In One of a Kind Sam photographs Danny and Tucker hugging in their sleep, without their knowledge, with the stated intent of putting it in the yearbook, then uses it to blackmail them into silence. 

Side note: this joke is also tacky on a meta-level because it boils down to “male intimacy ha ha toxic masculinity no homo amiright?“ Would have been nice if show didn’t use low-key sexist humour as much as it did.

Instead of expressing that she’s hurt by Danny’s “pretty girls” comment in Parental Bonding, Sam retaliates by pushing him to ask Paulina out - a move she knows will most likely result in him getting publicly shut down and humiliated.

Then, after getting the result she wanted, she comes over to gloat and insults Paulina, rather than dropping it now that her point’s been made, which is what ultimately sets off the episode’s subplot.

In Memory Blank Sam permanently physically alters Phantom’s appearance to better suit her tastes while he’s not in a position to understand or give informed consent, then lies when Danny notices and asks about it later.

To be clear this definitely isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of her character and it’s not there 100% of the time - there are plenty of moments when she is loyal and generous and helpful and sincerely kind and where her stubbornness comes in handy.  But it’s the aggregate pattern of all these small instances that drives a crack through the foundation of her character integrity; producing this insidious undercurrent alternate-reading of Sam as someone who, at a deep level, just doesn’t respect or recognise that the emotional needs, pains, opinions, autonomy and boundaries of others are as real and valid as her own, and who responds to criticism with passive-aggressive hostility.

Again, I think that’s why people are so quick to point out that line from Phantom Planet, even though we all know the episode was a complete mess.  None of the examples above are particularly bad in isolation - you can’t really point at any one of them and say “oh no, bad girl” without sounding like you’re making a mountain out of molehill and irrationally hating on her just to hate on her.  It’s an uncomfortable slowburn pattern of subtle micro-transgressions that accumulates across the series - a “you might not notice it but your brain did”.  And it makes sense that it would be the worst-written episode that amplifies and brings that regular bad-writing undercurrent close enough to the surface for people to consciously recognise and use it to articulate those frustrations.

To wit: Not because it’s most telling of her character but because it’s most telling of the specific bad writing that regularly hurts her character. 

And again, from a storytelling point of view, it’s okay for Sam to have flaws.  She’s a teenager!  She’s learning.  She’s allowed to be egocentric and self-important and do things that aren’t the best at times.  It’s okay if these are her character weaknesses and a source of conflict with the rest of the cast.  But again, for that to be satisfying something really should have come of it.  It would have been nice if the writers were willing to have any self-awareness about these flaws being flaws that a person should recognise and grow past in order to have healthy relationships with others.  But they didn’t - because it’s easier to keep her as she is - to the point that they’ll actively bend the narrative to roll back or skip over moments that would have necessitated that growth.  So, even though they call attention to her flaws, the writers end up rewarding and enabling them instead of letting her learn.

And again, this isn’t meant to hate on Sam.  Hanlon’s Razor in full effect: it’s clearly a result of authorial/editorial incompetence rather than deliberate malice.  I know this isn’t the intended interpretation.

My preferred reading of Sam Manson is that she’s a Rosa Hubermann/ Hermione Granger/ YJS1 Artemis Crock-type character.  Someone who’s passionate and forceful and maybe a bit abrasive and hard to love at a glance, but whose core nature is compassionate and sincerely kind and loyal-to-the-death for the people they value.  I wish I could 100% like her without caveats; to be able to say that even if I don’t agree with her flaws I can at least understand that they’re a valid product of the life she lives, that they make her who she is and that she’s trying her best to be a good person who will get better despite them.  

But I can’t because the writers don’t give her that.  They’re always prioritising other things over the integrity of her character.  They don’t give her background enough time and context to make her negative traits feel resonant with it (because that would take time away from the Wicked Cool Radical Ghost-Fighting Superhero Action™) and the framing and plotting doesn’t give her chances to recognise or grow past them (because that would mean character development and those negative traits are an easy source of cheap conflict).  The writers just don’t seem to care all that much about Sam - her actual character, who she is, how she came to be that way, what she wants or how her negative traits would actually play against Danny and the others.

And that sucks.  Because she has a lot of potential to be a well-rounded and great character.  I’ve seen plenty of fics that seize that potential and roll with those gaps and the result is very good.  I wish I could like her canon depiction without feeling like I have to actively ignore a bunch of latent behavioural red flags as the price of entry.

She deserved better.

#Danny Phantom #Sam Manson #Character Writing #Character Analysis #I'm also going to cop to the fact that this part of Sam gets to me personally #because it mimics some of my experiences with emotionally abusive relatives #feeling really uneasy and uncomfortable and upset but not being able to articulate what they're doing that makes you feel that way #and wondering if maybe it's your fault and you're just reading into things too much and you're bad for not defending them #until they do something really egregious and suddenly it's like 'oh' 'OH' 'OH SH*T THAT'S NOT OKAY' #And then you look back and see all the little red flags and from then on you can never un-see them #One of the reasons I only like fanon!AmethystOcean is I can see how badly things are likely to go when Danny's flaws meet these problems #Danny's canon flaws are ones that make him particularly susceptible to emotional abuse #and they accidentally wrote canon!Sam with a lot of latent proto-abusive red flags #they both need character development to work as a couple #but this is Danny Phantom and I guess we're chumps from expecting that #anonymous #3WD answers

[duckapus]

My Danny Phantom Reboot (as was owed for the Phight)

Okay, so first off I should mention that this is going to be less “what if someone made a reboot of Danny Phantom now” and more “what if Danny Phantom was done right to start with.” This means there’ll be more emphasis on storytelling and characters, none of H*rtm*n’s usual shenanigans, but the storyline as it was is going to be more-or-less intact, depending on what I think I can salvage.

So, let’s talk powers.

Danny is going to have all the powers he did in the show, given gradually and with clear foreshadowing. His ghost sense is currently just a bit too conspicuous, so I’ll be changing it from a wisp of cold breath to a chill up his spine, though for the sake of the audience there will be a visual and audio indicator of it, much like Spider-Man’s spider sense. Starting out, he just has that and the three basic ghost powers, though they won’t work properly for a while, and I’ll make it clear that this is because his half-ghost status prevented him from gaining the instinctual knowledge to control them outright. While there are some abilities that he gains during times of stress (like ectoblasts and the ghostly wail) he’ll have to actually practice in order for them to work with any level of consistency.

Like I mentioned, there will be some foreshadowing, specifically when it comes to his ice powers. There’s going to be multiple points where someone mentions that he has cold hands, with many of those people being ghosts to imply that it isn’t a ghost thing. There’ll be more emphasis on Ghost Cores and Core Types. Danny isn’t going to be as affected by warmer or colder temperatures as other people, usually being the last one to need to put on a jacket. He’s going to be somewhat weak to fire-based attacks. And there’s going to be a multi-episode buildup to his powers freezing him.

I’m also going all-in on the space motif. His bedroom is covered in star stickers and NASA posters. He tends to look up at the stars whenever he needs time to think. He isn’t afraid of heights at all because up is good, up is safe, up is home, and flight is the only power he never has trouble with as a result.

And now, for Danny’s parents. First off, for this, they do not want to destroy ghosts. They want to study them, understand them, and keep people safe from the ones that cause trouble. They know full well how little they actually know and how small their sample size is- that’s why they’re working on equipment to actually explore the Ghost Zone in the first place! Yes they’ll screw up, and jump to conclusions, and be a bit too enthusiastic. Yes, they’re working off of some pretty big assumptions, because that’s all they’ve got. But at the end of the day, they’re the first to admit they’re not perfect. And as far as priorities are concerned, they’re parents first, scientists second, and hunters third(if even that).

Jazz and Tucker are already good as-is, as are most of the ghosts, so let’s move on to Sam and the “A-listers.”

So starting off, because I’m not Fartman, I will not be vilifying the popular kids just because they’re popular. For Qwan, we’ve already got the fanon of him being a sweet cinnamon roll who’d be a great friend to everybody if he were just able to say no, specifically to Dash. And with Star I’ll be going with a strong-willed girl who’s fully willing to call the others out when they’re bullshit goes to far, though she’s admittedly got a looser definition of “too far” than she should.

And now the big three. So my interpretation of Sam, Dash and Paulina is that a big chunk of their issues come from them not quite growing out of their jackass middle schooler phase(you all know what I mean). That’s not all of it, or even most of it, but it’s a big enough part that them acknowledging it will be a huge step in the right direction.

In Sam’s case, a lot of it also stems from her need to control as much of her life as she can, which developed in response to how little control her parents let her have. This ranges from harmless (her love of gardening and “ultra-recyclo-vegetarianism”) to really not okay (her tendency to manipulate or strong-arm people into doing what she wants) with her harsh judgement of people and trust issues landing somewhere in the upper middle. All of this to say that she’s a lot more like her parents (and Paulina, to a lesser extent) than she realizes.

With Paulina, while she does still have a lot of problems, being a crazy, obsessive fangirl isn’t one of them. She knows full well that her feelings for Phantom are just a celebrity crush and they aren’t about to get together any time soon (the boy’s dead as far as she knows, for god’s sake!). She’s also very observant, not to the point of finding out the truth about Danny but enough to realize quite a few other important details…

With Dash, all I’m really going to be changing is that his Football Star status absolutely does not give him free reign to do whatever he wants, because I respect Mr. Lancer more than that.

Admittedly I haven’t quite figured out their other classmates yet. And Valerie’s arc is already good as-is, though I won’t be including her getting shunned by the “A-listers” because this version of Star ain’t gonna let that fly. I’m also including Wes, because his antics are glorious and I think I can do some cool stuff with him.

Now, along with giving the characters better characterization in general, I’ll also be giving them their own time in the limelight to show what Danny’s situation looks like from an outsider’s perspective. Valerie in particular ends up as something of a secondary protagonist.

And now we come to Vlad. Oh, Vlad.

Okay, so in this version, Vlad inviting the Fentons to the reunion was a genuine attempt to reconnect. Unfortunately ghostly obsessions are powerful things, and he sort of relapsed into hating Jack and wanting Maddie for himself. Things more-or-less continue as normal, though with his desire to take on Danny as an apprentice coming off as him actually, genuinely wanting to teach Danny how being a halfa works, which makes it a little comically awkward when he tries to turn their battles into a teaching moment. He still becomes the mayor, though this time around it’s because he genuinely thought it was a good idea, and he got voted in legitimately.

Unfortunately it all sort of goes downhill after a while. Due to his current mentality of “tired old uncle just wants to get over his issues and help out” clashing with his obsession with Jack and Maddie, he’s sort of cracking, and the fact that Danny adds an extra layer to both isn’t really a good thing.

And then we get the clones. In this version, they all last a lot longer, and sort of act as Vlad’s minions for a while. The Frankenstein’s Monster-esque one sort of acts as a big brother to the others. He’s also very smart, even if he can’t really say much, and as time goes on he starts to realize that something is very wrong with Vlad. It all comes to a head when Dani is created, because Vlad realizes that even with a human half she still isn’t stable and something inside him just snaps. At this moment, there’s now two Vlads in there; Masters, who’s honestly just tired of all the fighting and pushing people away, and Plasmius, who’s essentially season three Vlad in all of his megalomaniacle obsession-fueled glory. Frankendanny’s destabilization is a big moment in this, as are the other clones holding back Vlad as they’re melting so Danny and Dani can escape at the end of the episode.

Dani still ends up traveling after that, though she’s not just ignored as she’ll be sending Danny postcards of places she’s been and there’ll be a few episodes dedicated to her adventures (with some hints to her instability getting worse.)

D-stabilized is where thing get really crazy. This is because while I’ve been distracting you with my Danny Phantom remake, there’s been a secret, second remake of Fairly Oddparents hidden in the background! I won’t go into too much detail, since that’s not what this is about, but It follows the same structure of apply overarching story, focus on characters, trim off what doesn’t work. Because of this, Timmy happens to be in the same city where Valerie finds Dani (I don’t think they were in Amity Park yet, but I’m not sure) and meets Dani before Valerie does. The episode plays out more-or-less the same (Val uses Dani as bait to catch Danny, gives Dani to Vlad, Danny appeals to her better nature, she finds out that Vlad is an evil half-ghost and that not all ghosts are evil thus shattering her world view) but with the addition of Timmy tracking her down to her weird holding cell/torture room place (seriously, what was up with that?) and then tagging along and somehow holding his own against Fright Knight with nothing but a blaster he managed to swipe from her (since not only does he have to deal with having human allies, but also the fact that magic doesn’t work that well on ghosts, which means no fairy help).

After that, there’s a few breather episodes to the end of the third season, mainly to do with Valerie processing everything she’s just learned.

And then Freakshow gets the reality gauntlet, because I’ve been holding that off until now. Danny gets his identity revealed on live television, the Guys in White are after him, and Freakshow is holding Amity Park hostage until Danny can find the three stones he scattered.

There’s just a few small changes I’ve made:

The stones got scattered across the planet, instead of just the country

There’s no easy way to track the stones unless one gets activated, unlike in the original where they had ecto-signatures

Wes and the “A-Listers” get dragged along for the ride

Because Freakshow isn’t a complete idiot and realizes that it will take a significant amount of time to find the stones, the team has until the end of summer.

Instead of everybody being in cages (since that won’t really work with this time frame) Amity Park is surrounded by an impenetrable dome, and both ghost portals are clogged up. Nobody gets in or out unless the ringmaster says so.

The second and third parts of Wishology and an adaptation of Nicktoons Unite are happening alongside all of this, so along with GIW and ghosts the team is going to be dealing with the Eliminators and The Syndicate.

Carl, Sheen and Libby have somehow tagged along.

We’ll be calling this arc the Road-trip from Hell, and it, along with the other two story arcs, will be taking up the entirety of the fourth season. The other two arcs will experience changes as well, such as Dani going with Timmy, Mark Chang and the Villains to find the Wind Wand due to being in Dimmsdale when it happens, Catman, Chip Skylark, Elmer and Sanjay getting captured along with the rest of Timmy’s friends, Valerie and Tootie getting recruited by Jimmy to fight the Syndicate since Timmy and Danny are busy and they’re honestly the only two options, and Anti-Cosmo being the Fairly Oddparents representative for the Syndicate since Crocker is also busy.

For the sake of storytelling, I should mention that GIW is a fanatical splinter group of MERF in this continuity, and have already been established as major antagonists. Also throughout the season Fairy World is basically going to be a warzone locked in a three-way battle between the Fairies, the Anti-Fairies and Syndicate, and the Eliminators, which all three groups see at one point or another.

The final battle is really going to be four going on simultaneously- Danny and Team Phantom(which by this point will also include the reformed agents O and K, because I like them) vs Ghost Freakshow, the robot army just outside of town, and Lydia; the Nicktoons vs the Syndicate’s doomsday device; Cosmo in his Godzilla form vs everything the Syndicate and the Eliminators can throw at him, and Timmy vs The Destructinator (which will actually be a full-on fight, with the outsmarting thing just being Timmy’s trump card). It’s going to be really cool with a bunch of well-timed jump-cuts and everything.

Then in the aftermath I’m going to basically spit in the face of the status quo. Danny still erases peoples memories of his reveal, but leaves out the new members of Team Phantom (because if he has to remember the road-trip from hell, so does everybody else), and it also doesn’t work on Valerie (or Tootie) since they were in Jimmy’s universe at the time, which is going to be Fun for Danny to deal with when she gets back. Timmy, Chester and AJ are also immune, due to AJ secretly making the three of them immune to memory wipes in general so Timmy wouldn’t have to forget his fairies or go through what happened in the first Wishology again. He would’ve done the same with Elmer and Sanjay, but he didn’t get the chance.

After all that, season five is a return to the norm, other than dealing with the new character dynamics, the Vlad situation, and all the Fairly Oddparents stuff leaking in. I haven’t really worked out all the specifics, since I sort of got caught up in the season four stuff.

Note: For obvious reasons, I cannot actually reboot Danny Phantom and/or Fairly Oddparents. Unless I come up with ideas later on down the line, or other people decide to add their own ideas, this is what you get.

(@phandomphightclub, I did it!)

#danny phantom #dpreboot #fairly oddparents #reboot #concept #phantom phight club #lost a bet #phantom planet isn't canon #this was fun #long post #sorry

[spookberry]

I would love to hear more about your interpretation of Spike! If you're up for sharing of course

Absolutely! Im not super great at explaining characters so im not sure where to start? Ill do my best

Spike in my head is a quiet guy, he's not shy he's just usually pretty quiet and with a deadpan expression. Underneath that deadpan and faux done with it all goth exterior, he's a sweetie with a mischievous streak. In general he likes being helpful to people. He's also pretty observant! Altho he keeps a lot of these observations to himself.

(He realized who phantom was pretty quick. Cuz like that dummy trying to fight a giant meat monster is def jazz's dorky lil brother, right? But like thats None of his Business, the Fentons are weird and can do whatever they want.)

Jazz and him have been friends for a while and met through getting into opposite sides of an arguement during an english class once their freshman year. It was one of the few times their classmates heard him talk with such almost enthusiasm.

Jazz likes to use him as her patient at times which is fine, because she also will sit thru his long emo rants about how the end is nigh or whatever. He's also just a really good listener, partially cuz he doesn't talk much and when he does its always something he's put a lot of thought into and is very confident in saying.

also though he absolutely loves bringing up stupid arguments like "is water wet?" Just cuz Jazz's unbridled irritation at it is hilarious

#danny phantom #spike #spike is one of jazz's closest friends #Sam thinks he's pretty cool but like He's got a couple years of goth on her so #deadcanons

[princess-of-the-corner]

Mari’s friends aren’t dumb, but they are oblivious. Especially Alya who tries her hardest to find out who LB is (she even had a cropped out photo of Mari’s haircut and tried to match the haircut to the classmate) I’m sure she’ll find out eventually, but it will take some time. These are fictional characters, so don’t get so salty over one person stating an opinion that HUNDREDS other fans have. Remember some people in this fandom are 14 themselves, us older fans should be setting an example.

Okay, there’s a lot to unpack here. And while I’m tempted to just throw out the entire suitcase and move on, here’s a few answers: 

1.) My answer to the ‘why can’t anyone see that Marinette is Ladybug since they look the same’ was not about them being dumb or oblivious. In fact, I was defending them from both adjectives by saying that it’s perfectly reasonable to not even think about Marinette being Ladybug because they can’t imagine someone they know so well suddenly being a hero, just like how no real person would think their friend/classmate/etc. is suddenly a hero if that happened. 

2.) However, since you brought up Alya, she’s the one I will question when it comes to her ‘uncovering Ladybug’s identity’, because she thought somehow that Chloé could somehow be Ladybug despite a lot of evidence against that. Like the fact that Ladybug and Chloé have been seen talking to one another several times, or that Chloé has a rock solid alibi for every Ladybug appearance. I just toss that into the Bad Writing Bin™ and move on. 

3.) Don’t worry! I’m not salty over one person stating their opinion! I’m salty over how this opinion has become more of a ‘thing’ and how it paints the characters. 

I mean, as I said before, every series involving a Secret Identity plot will have this problem. It’s a standard trope! How do the classmates/family members not know who Ladybug and Chat Noir are even though their disguises are so weak? How does no one realize that Danny Phantom is Danny Fenton with white hair and green eyes? How does no one know that Superman is just Clark Kent without glasses? How is it that no one knows that Usagi Tsukino and her friends are Sailor Moon and the Sailor Scouts despite having no disguise whatsoever?

I have no problems with pointing out the trope or making fun of it. Honestly I like when it’s made fun of. The only good thing from the Green Lantern movie was the bit of “I’ve seen you naked! You don’t think I would recognize you because I can’t see your cheekbones?!“. 

My problem is that some fans are forgetting this trope is one of those things you just have to run with in fiction no matter how ridiculous it is. 

That post was outright judging the characters. Not only judging their intelligence, but judging their relationships to Marinette. Saying that if these people can’t see through the disguise, then they don’t care about her enough to be able to see the similarities, therefore, they do not love her and do not deserve to know the secret identity. 

As I said, it’s one thing to point out the trope and make fun of how ridiculous it is. It’s another thing to use a trope like that to judge the character of, well, the characters

4.) Sure, yeah, some people in the fandom are fourteen. But that doesn’t mean I cannot criticize and discuss their view/interpretation of a show the same way I would someone my own age. Or the same way another fourteen-year-old would. 

#rant tag

[monotype-on-phantom]

Yo, I think about this a lot but where Danny's parents just upstairs when he died???? Like wouldn't yet have heard Danny's scream of pain as he was basically murdered by his best friend????

Oh gosh.

Y’know, I was about to head to bed and address the rest of these asks in the morning, but then I saw this one and I couldn’t wait. This is a really interesting ask for various reasons, but I’ll get into that in a moment.

To start off, let’s answer your question.

Memory Blank is a flawed episode that I’d make a lot of changes to, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got to an origin episode, so let’s take a look at the scene that shows how Danny got his powers.

It’s pretty vague where Danny’s parents are, but it’s made clear he had to sneak his friends into the lab. The wording makes it easy enough to infer that they were actually not home and Danny and Jazz weren’t supposed to go into the lab.

We do also know that at least Jazz is aware of the accident, because she brings it up in My Brother’s Keeper. So, the initial screaming may not have been heard by anyone other than Sam and Tucker, because they could’ve been in Danny’s house alone, but the family was aware that Danny went into the portal and was hurt.

I do think it’s a bit harsh to say “murdered,” though. “Murder” implies the intent to kill someone, and Sam absolutely didn’t intend for that. She didn’t even force him into the portal. She just suggested it. If you wanted to pin any sort of crime on Sam here, the worst you could get is manslaughter.

Though I’d say even that’s inaccurate, because Danny’s still alive. He needs to breathe, eat, and sleep when he’s in human form, and there’s still plenty of times when he almost dies, and you can’t kill someone who’s dead already.

But that wouldn’t make a lot of sense since Danny’s also a ghost, would it?

If you’re interested in the details, this is a perfect opportunity for me to talk about the inspiration behind my view of ghosts in Danny Phantom. I’ve talked a bit about it before, but let’s get meta.

I’ll put it under a cut for those who don’t care.

Insert obligatory image of ghost with a canon backstory to keep the post interesting…

That’ll work.

I take a lot of my inspiration for ghosts in DP from the unfinished business trope and yūrei, or Japanese ghosts. The unfinished business trope is a really common one in ghost stories that’s used to keep the ghost characters interesting, as well as to give the story a clear end goal.

The idea is that the spirits of the deceased have something binding them to the physical plane that needs to be taken care of before they can rest. This can be anything from revenge for their death, passing on a message, or even just needing to realize that they’re dead.

A lot of fans bring this idea into Danny Phantom in the form of obsessions, and it’s one I like and roll with. Ghosts have an obsession that keeps them in existence, and they need to satisfy that before they can pass on to whatever afterlife you do or don’t want to believe in.

I like combining this idea with the idea of yūrei, though, because that adds another layer to the existence of ghosts that fits well with the DP universe.

The way the Japanese see ghosts is this: the way yūrei come into being is that a person feels a really strong emotion when they die, and that emotion is what binds them to the physical plane. The emotion can be anything. Rage, sadness, love, jealousy, or any number of other emotions. Similar to the idea of unfinished business, these emotions need to be addressed for the ghost to pass on.

This is a very simplified explanation, but I think it gets across the basic idea.

There are two things in particular that make yūrei stand out to me in comparison to Western ghosts, though.

First, they don’t really have a personality or consciousness outside of that emotion. This fits well in Danny Phantom because it explains the Fentons’ view on ghosts. They might’ve been human at one point, but everything that made them human is gone, replaced by a singular mindset that’s incapable of complex emotion or reasoning. They’re wrong, but if the ghosts in DP work similar to yūrei, it makes sense for them to come to that conclusion.

The second thing that really stands out to me is that a person does not have to be dead for a ghost to form.

The Japanese have a kind of spirit called ikiryō (or “living spirits”) that are formed from a person who is still alive. Much like any other Japanese ghost, there only needs to be a strong emotion and (as far as I’ve seen) a near death experience for the ghost to form. The spirit could belong to someone on their death bed who wishes to visit their loved ones before passing on, or they could just want to help someone important to them. They’re not always harmless, but they’re portrayed as so more often than many other ghosts.

It’s actually really easy to apply this idea to Danny Phantom, because ghosts are very loosely defined by Maddie as consciousness and ectoplasm. That’s all that’s needed to make up a ghost, and combining unfinished business with the idea of strong emotions taking the form of a ghost gives us all the consciousness we need.

Adding in the ectoplasm gives the story a bit more of a science fiction feel combined with the usual ghosty horror elements. We can say that ectoplasm is the glue needed to bind ghosts to the physical plane. Without that, they’d fizzle out and pass on. The consciousness or strong emotions left behind by the dead (or otherwise) latches onto ectoplasm and creates a ghost.

When you think of it like that, Danny, instead of being dead, is a human who’s DNA was infused with ectoplasm, which allowed a ghost to form around him, using his existing human consciousness as a map.

I’d say Danny has a lot more in common with an ikiryō than the spirit of a deceased person, though rather than his spirit leaving his body, the ghost merely formed around it and is now part of who he is.

Hopefully that makes sense.

This is all my personal interpretation, though, based on the ghost stories I’ve found the most interesting. You’re free to say Danny technically “died” in the portal accident. He did become a ghost, so reading it that way fits fine enough. I just don’t find that nearly as interesting as the idea of someone who is actually a ghost and a human at the same time.

Anywho, thanks to anyone who read this! I’m now off to bed because it’s really late. Hopefully this clears up some stuff I’ve talked about in the past and makes my point of view a bit more clear.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #lore #plot #Anonymous #ask me

[katbug48]

you wanted writing prompts/scenarios so I propose literally anything with the secret reveal between danny and his parents because im weak

(It’s funny because this is something that I’m actually trying to work on haha. So instead I’ll come up with something that’s different from what I’m currently trying to write. :3)

Danny stood in the living room with his head down, looking at the floor while his parents gave him yet another talking to when he came home with his report card from the end of the school year. It hadn’t exactly been stellar, with mostly C’s and D’s, which his parents weren’t too happy about, considering their straight-A daughter. They knew Danny was capable of more and Danny knew he was too, if only ghost fighting just never got in the way.

He shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably as he continued to receive an earload from his parents. “This has been going on for two years, Daniel.” His mom berated him, making sure he knew she was being absolutely serious with him as she used his full name instead of his nickname. She held up the report card Danny had given her for him to see again, ignoring that he wasn’t even looking at her, and instead the floor. “You’re a Fenton. You are very capable of much more. Do you expect to get anywhere in your future with these grades? You need to smarten up and stop whatever it is you’re doing!” Danny flinched as his mom raised her voice at him, and rubbed his arm gently, still refusing to look up at her.

“Not to mention how much you’ve been lying to us. Coming home late, skipping out on school and chores, sometimes I don’t even get to see you for days, Danny.” His mom spoke in an even stricter tone at him. She paused, letting that sink into him. “Do you know how much it hurts, that I don’t know what my baby boy is doing because he won’t talk to me anymore?” The softer, hurt tone that Maddie took made Danny finally look up. It tugged at his heart and made it hurt when he heard her sound so upset.

“Mom…” Danny said quietly as he glanced to her hurt eyes, making him look away with guilt.

“I don’t want to hear it, Danny.” His mom replied, her voice hardening again. “Until you can tell me, tell us, the truth, you are grounded and you are going to summer school. No ifs, and’s or but’s. Understood?”

“Yes…” Danny sighed, looking back down at the floor. He deserved it, really. He’d been treating his parents like crap, and it was only a matter of time before they snapped at him for it.

“Son,” His dad started. He was rather quiet the whole time Maddie was disciplining Danny, unable to get mad and raise his voice at his son like she could. “You know you can tell us anything, right? We want to help you succeed, Danny, but we can’t if you don’t let us.”

His dad was right, and he knew it. Even he was tired and upset about how many times he came home with his parents disappointed in him because he wouldn’t let them in his life. He wanted to badly to tell them what was going on, just to get rid of that disappointment, even if it means he would have to run away. He just wanted them to be proud of him again, to be proud to be called a Fenton.

“Actually, mom and dad…” Danny said quietly, rubbing his arm again as he looked up at them. “There is something I need to tell you.”

“If it’s not the truth, I don’t want to hear it Danny, and this discussion is over.” His mom declared, making Danny’s heart tug again in hurt.

“Mom, I promise it’s the truth, please just trust me.” He replied quietly, as he glanced up at both his parents, waiting for them to give him the go to continue. “I really mean it when I say that I’ve been trying as hard as I can, it’s just things happen and get in the way, and this is the best I can manage so far…” He looked pleadingly into his parent’s eyes, wishing for them to understand him to this point.

He had no idea where he was going to go with the truth he was about to tell his parents. He’d gone over it so many times in his head, thought up a million plus more outcomes of the situation, but he really wasn’t ready for the real thing. He didn’t know how he could tell them he was half ghost, the Phantom kid that they’ve hunted down for the past 2 years.

“Look,” He said, pausing for a moment, trying to get his thoughts in order. “You remember the portal accident two years ago? How I was inside when it turned on?” He asked them, watching as they nodded their heads. “Well,” He looked to the floor, wringing his hands together, playing with them, as he tried to get past this with his parents. “I..I should’ve died. That much electricity should’ve killed me. A-and why it didn’t is what I’ve been hiding from you guys…”

His mom looked to his dad confused, and a little shocked at what Danny was telling them. Of course it should’ve killed him, and they never came to that realization until now. “What do you mean?” Maddie asked, her voice shaking a little.

“Mom… The accident changed me. I-It did something to me.” Danny replied quietly, refusing to look up at his parents once again. “It’s why I should’ve died, but I didn’t.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “You know how your ghost weapons always targeted me and you thought it was a bug because I was the only one they targeted?” 

“Yes,” His dad nodded, his face scrunching up in confusion as he tried to wrap his head around the story Danny was telling them. “But what…?” He trailed off into his thoughts.

“Dad, it’s because they were right.” There, Danny finally said it. Not outright, but enough to get the point across. There was no turning back now. “From what we were able to figure out, the ectoplasm from when the portal turned on infused with my DNA, I don’t know how, some sciency stuff I don’t understand, and it turned me into a half-ghost to keep me alive.” Danny finally got it all out, got the truth out to his parents, even though he was shaking so bad with the anxiety of telling them and it took alot out of him.

“Danny…” His mom said quietly, reaching out to touch his cheek, making him look up at her when she did. He looked into her eyes that were quickly filling with tears. “We’re so sorry, we didn’t…” She trailed off as Jack had earlier. She really didn’t have any excuse to say she didn’t know, because she just didn’t pay attention. Her and Jack were much too excited about the portal working than to know what was going on with her own son.

“I-it’s okay, mom. I’m okay.” He pulled away from her again, rubbing his arm once again. “There’s just..There’s one more thing I need to tell you guys, and please don’t be mad. It’s just, this is why I’m doing horrendously in school, why I’m always missing out on curfew, it’s just… I don’t mean to be doing it, it just accidentally happens.” Taking a deep breath, he reached inside himself, feeling for the familiar ice core inside him, bringing it forward, letting the transformation fall over him. A black and white jumpsuit over clothes, green eyes over blue, snow white hair over pitch black hair. “I-I’m Danny Phantom.”

(And I’ll just leave it off there for interpretation of what happens after :3)

#danny phantom #prompt #this was so much fun to write #omg thank you #i love fanfics of dannys revealation #so it was fun writing my own :3 #fanfic #fanfiction

[monotype-on-phantom]

Why does everyone assume Paulina remembers nothing after "Lucky in Love"? She probably thought she'd passed out in the Floody Waters bathroom, but when she comes to, she's told she's been going to school and dating a so-called loser. How does she explain that to herself? And might she not remember that Danny was Phantom? I like to think she knows and keeps it a secret.

I hate to ruin such a fun headcanon, but it’s because canon shows that Paulina doesn’t remember anything.

Lucky in Love shows that she’s fallen for the ghost boy, but when Danny talks to her (probably hoping she does remember), she reacts with surprise and confusion. “Why are you even talking to me?” We also see in Memory Blank that she invites Danny to her quinceñeara because she noticed the ghost boy is around him a lot. However, she’s also trying to give an invitation to Phantom specifically so she can uninvite Danny. Then there’s Reality Trip, where she’s actually surprised when Danny’s identity is revealed. (And she’s delighted by how much easier this will be now.)

It’s made pretty clear multiple times that Paulina doesn’t know Danny’s secret, and she wouldn’t keep quiet if she did.

As for what she might think about those missing days, well, she’s been overshadowed before. Both of the times Paulina noticed Danny saving her were when she was overshadowed. She’s smart enough to figure out that’s what happened.

That aside, she doesn’t question things much. Finding out what happened during those days may not be a priority for her. It’s possible she doesn’t know she was “in a relationship” with Danny. If she doesn’t bring it up, I get the feeling her friends wouldn’t, either. Wouldn’t wanna say something stupid and make the queen of the school angry.

If she does know about the relationship, it’s not hard to explain away. Danny Fenton’s parents are ghost hunters. She could either believe he blackmailed the ghost into the relationship or the ghost was trying to get close to him to find out more about the Fentons. Either way, Paulina was just a puppet. She had no say in the matter, and I’m sure she’d want to move on and forget about the whole thing. It’s not like she was really there for any of it, anyway.

You can still interpret things however you want, though. It’s clear what canon intended, but the way it’s done does give a little bit of wiggle room. And aus are always a thing.

It’s not for me because I don’t like imagining too many people secretly knowing (I feel like it’d be a less interesting rehash of Jazz). But that’s just my personal taste. You do you.

#danny phantom #paulina sanchez #cast #plot #Anonymous #ask me