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starry-bi-sky · 8 months

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Childhood Friends Au: Danny's in Gotham Again

when the wool is off your eyes you'll stop counting sheep at night cause you'll eat your fill of them during the daytime

A few weeks after Danny’s visit to Gotham, he buys an apartment in the city. It’s this little thing, a studio apartment on the same street he grew up in. In Crime Alley. When he tells his parents, they protest heavily. They don’t think it's safe. They think he should reconsider. There were plenty of apartments and places to live somewhere else. And what about college?

Danny doesn’t think he’ll go to college. He isn’t sure what he wants to do, now that being an astronaut is off the table. It’d be a waste of money to go without a goal in mind, he thinks. He says he’ll take a gap year and apply at one of the community colleges funded by the Wayne Corporation, possibly. It just wasn’t in the cards right now.

“If things get tough,” He says at dinner that night, “then I can talk to the Waynes. I’m friends with the family, remember?” He ended up getting Bruce’s number in his phone again before he left, and in the process got Tim’s as well. They don’t talk much, Danny isn’t sure what to say. But he sends Tim memes whenever he comes across one and thinks he’ll like. Tim sends memes back in return.

His parents do remember. They remember. They also remember the horrified shriek that echoed through the house when Danny learned of Jason’s passing. They remember running up the stairs and bursting into their son’s room and finding him sobbing into his bed, curled up like a little kid, like he was in pain. He lost his voice that day, stuck between screaming out his grief and sobbing it.

They’re still not sure if they should let him go.

In the end, Danny wins them out, and he lets them help him search for an apartment. They take a break from their lab work to help search for cheap furniture to buy. They may have more money than when they were in Gotham, but that frugal part of you never fully goes away. They all agree that they don’t want Danny to be seen carrying in nice-looking furniture when he moves in.

He ends up with a basic furniture set, all mismatched, and in the warm summer of June, his parents rent out a u-haul and drive him down to Gotham to move in. They meet the landlord when they arrive, a skinny and frail old man with wispy white hair and a wrinkled face. He gives Danny the keys and tells him what apartment number he is, and then he leaves.

His parents help him move in. They help him carry his heavy furniture up to the second floor, where his apartment is. Danny isn’t sure if he wants them to help. His mom and dad are strong, but they are getting old, closer to their fifties now that their children are grown. His dad’s hair is slowly beginning to thin, and rather than the white eating at the sides of his head, it now streaks through his hair like salt-and-pepper. His mom’s hair is graying out too, and there are more lines in their faces than he remembers there being.

When he voices his concerns, his mom laughs spiritedly and says that they may be getting old, but they are still as spry as when they were in their twenties. Danny isn’t sure if he believes them or not. He can see his dad struggle a bit when they return to get his bed frame, and they have to take a break before they go back down for the rest of their things.

Five years ago, his dad could do this without breaking a sweat. It forces a heavy thing in the back of Danny’s throat. (He is less afraid of his own death than he is of his loved ones, and while he has always felt rocky with his parents, he still loves them more than anything else.)

Danny’s apartment is exactly as he would have expected it to be: shabby and worn through. The entire room smells like stale cigarette smoke and weed, nicotine stains the wall with poorly covered bullet holes, and stains in the carpet that are a color he can’t discern. The fridge has a broken light and when he tries to turn on the gas stove, it click-click-clicks before lighting, fire fwooshing out while the smell of gas fills the air. There’s rat droppings in the cupboards and the closet-like bathroom is just as bad.

The ghostly part of him can sense the heavy stench of death in the room; people have died in this room. People have died in every room of this building, he thinks. They have died on the streets outside and in the alleys squeezed between them. He can feel it like a heavy fog in the air.

It is painfully nostalgic, a bittersweet feeling in his chest that he grimaces to.

When the last box is placed in his apartment, his parents offer to help unpack. They are hesitant to leave and Danny knows it, although he doesn’t know if it’s from empty nest syndrome or because it's Gotham. He thinks it might be both. He is their youngest child finally leaving home to a city known for its danger.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay behind, sweetie?” His mother asks, a frown she tries to hide settled in the creases of her face. She fiddles with her hands, a nervous habit Danny has since noticed when she feels truly unsure and doesn’t need to hide it. Hesitancy looms over her like a heavy cloud.

His dad jumps in hastily, splaying his hands and smiling painfully wide to hide the glistening in his eyes. “You’re mother’s right! We can help you get everything set up, champ. I could probably do something with that stove of yours to make it faster!” He says, his voice still booming like it always does even if there’s a stumble in his words.

It makes his heart squeeze, knowing just how much they care. It was hard last summer, telling him that he was the Phantom. Terrifying, actually. They couldn’t comprehend it. He hadn’t felt his heart beat that fast in years when he stood in front of them at the kitchen table and told them he was a halfa, begging them to believe that ghosts weren’t inherently evil.

His parents were people of science, however, and after much, much shock, they slowly came to terms with it. How could they not? The evidence was right in front of them. Their son was dead-alive, alive-dead. Somewhere stuck in the between. The tears they shed that night could fill a river, moving from the kitchen to the living room as Danny explains how he died.

(When Danny tells them that he died after a week Jason did, his mom and dad look horrified. His mom covers her mouth when he adds that it was his idea to go inside it, his dad looks ashy pale, gripping his pant legs so tight that his knuckles turn white. There is a conclusion coming to their minds that he can tell they don’t like.)

(“You’ve always hated our inventions, Danny.” Mom says in a hushed voice, and Danny winces at the wording, sinking into the back of the cushions in shame. He never thought that his parents noticed. Mom quickly grabs his arm, “No, no, there’s nothing to be ashamed of Danny. We were… perhaps too careless with our inventions, too enthusiastic. You had every right to hate the things we made when they had a tendency to… to malfunction.”)

(Malfunction is a delicate way of putting it, when Danny remembers every time they had to evacuate their old apartment complex because whatever half-baked creation his parents made inevitably blew up into ash and smoke. There were soot marks permanently stained into the ceiling.)

(Her hand slides down and grabs his, and she cups it in both of her hands, squeezing tightly. He forces himself to look up, and there is a look like her heart breaking when he looks into his mother’s eyes. “You’ve always avoided the lab after we moved, Danny. And you had every right to, so why on Earth did you ever think about going into the portal?”)

(Danny struggles to come up with an adequate answer, a way to verbalize what came over him that day five years ago. The answer is there, hanging in the air like a knot in a noose. He opens his mouth, and then closes it.)

(Finally, with a tongue made of lead, he shrugs lamely and looks away. “I didn’t know there was an on button inside it.” He mumbles, and despite being the truth it feels like a lie. But that is the truth. He didn’t know there was an on button inside it. So he didn’t care what happened.)

(Something dulls in mom’s eyes, like she thought of something else that Danny hadn’t said. Her eyes shimmer, and she squeezes them shut, breathing in so deep that it shakes. And then she pulls him into a hug, a hand burying into his hair and pressing him close. “It must have hurt so much, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”)

(It is something that Danny doesn’t expect her to say, like missing the last step of the stairs. It startles him so much he laughs this short, bark of a thing. He feels his dad press against his back and wrap his big arms around them, his nose pushed into his hair.)

(Because yeah. Yeah, it did hurt. It hurt more than anything else he’s ever felt before. It had torn him apart and sewn him back together again, only to rinse and repeat. The pain was nothing he ever spoke to Sam or Tucker about, and it was something they never brought up. No, that’s not true. If they ever brought it up, Tucker would call it a zap. As if Danny only experienced a mild static shock. Like it was painless. It’s a pretty lie that Danny lets him and Sam believe.)

(His eyes sting and water immediately wobbles into his vision, coming up with such a force that he doesn’t even need to blink before it spills over. “Yeah.” He forces out, voice unexpectedly rough and cracking. “Yeah, it- it hurt. A lot.”)

He tells them about fighting the Lunch Lady a month later. He tells them about finding Jason. It comes spilling out like a waterfall. “I found him, mom.” He says, holding onto her tight while she keeps him tucked under his chin like a little kid. The secret of Jason being Robin stays hidden under his tongue, it is not his secret to tell. Not his identity to expose. He grips her tighter. “I found him, mom. Right there in the Ghost Zone, and he was my Jason. He wasn’t an echo or a— an imprint of him.”

Mom is silent; quiet and attentive, and so is dad, who rubs his large hands up and down Danny’s spine in an attempt to soothe him. It only works a little. Danny breathes in like a gasp as the urge to cry overcomes him again. He always avoids talking about Jason, his grief is like a never-healing scab that can be picked off at any time. It is ingrained into his core.

“And then I lost him.” He forces out, a sob layering under his words that he chokes on and swallows. The hand on his back stills, and he can feel mom and dad breathe in like a question. He turns his head and pushes it into mom’s shoulder. “He disappeared, mom. Just— just gone.”

“And he didn’t move on.” He says, voice snarling like teeth biting before his mom can ask, because he knows that’s what she was going to ask. It’s what Sam and Tucker asked when he came to them in tears hours after he found Jason gone. It’s what Jazz said when he finally told her about it. It’s what every one of his ghosts asked when he told them about it and begged for their help.

Danny grits his teeth and tries not to dig his nails into mom’s clothes as a fresh wave of tears run down his face. “His haunt is still there. If Jason really moved on it would have disappeared with him. That’s how it works. But it’s still in the zone, so Jason’s out there I just don’t know where.”

(Sam once asks him why Danny didn’t just move on from it a year after Jason’s disappearance. She asked him why he didn’t give it up. Danny nearly saw red, and nearly bit her head off for it. It was incomprehensible to him to just stop looking for Jason, to give up. Not when he was out in the zone somewhere. Because he had to be in the zone.)

(Danny once tried to take Jason through the portal with him, and much like what happened to Kitty, it didn’t work. Jason was too tied to the ghost zone to leave.)

(Some bonds are just unbreakable, he thinks. Bonds forged through blood and time and trust, and when you’re on the streets of Gotham, you hoard what little trust you have in someone like a dragon with its gold. It is scarcely given and fiercely kept.)

“I’ve been looking for him.” Danny whispers when talking becomes too hard for him, when it runs the risk of him crying. “When- when I’m not fighting ghosts or, or in school or with my friends, I’ve been looking for him.” He has explored the Ghost Zone in every reach he can. He has met so many people. He’s met the ghosts of aliens from planets in every corner of the galaxy. He has met gods or god-like beings and their disciples.

He’s met famous scholars and writers (he’s gotten the autographs of all of Jason’s favorite writers). He has found entire cities that have so much life in it that it's been permanently etched into the ghost zone, like a mirror version of itself.

He’s visited the ghostly vision of Gotham so many times, and he avoids the imprint of Wayne Manor like the plague. There are ghostly newspapers that he reads. There are the ghosts of Martha and Thomas Wayne in many of them.

Jason’s haunt connects to Wayne Manor, but it is also the street they grew up in. It is a small brick building with a door that leads to Jason’s room. A ghost knows when someone enters their haunt, it alerts them like a doorbell in the back of their mind. A foreign ecto-signature in a place drenched in your own.

Danny visits it every time he goes into the Ghost Zone. It’s always his first stop.

He tells his parents all of it. He tells them of the ghosts he’s met, of the places he’s seen. And when he feels brave, he tells them about Rath and the terror that his future self brings him. He keeps some details hidden, the ones that he can afford to keep without muddling up the story.

(Rath is a tall, spindly thing, like a funhouse mirror version of Danny himself. He has arms that are much too long and legs that are much too tall, with skinny fingers that extend into claws.He wears his suit the same as Danny does, with it partially undone and the sleeves wrapped around his waist.)

(There is a black hole in his chest that is much bigger than Danny’s own. It takes up his chest cavity and drips the same, viscous black liquid as the tears falling from his eyes. Danny never forgets his voice; a scraping, quiet thing like he’s screamed himself hoarse. Rath has a voice like goosebumps, and it haunts Danny like a bump in the night.)

Danny speaks and speaks and speaks until he can’t think of anything else to speak of. He is tired and sad, and it feels like his heart has been ripped out and rubbed raw again. And yet, he also feels so much better. Like a long heavy weight has been taken off his chest.

Yeah, last summer was hard. His parents walked on eggshells around him, and they forced themselves to unlearn their bias of ghosts. It was more than Danny could have ever dreamed of, and when they felt ready for it, they asked him more about the ghost zone.

He smiles sadly at his dad, “I think fixing the stove can be a priority another time, dad.” He says, watching him wilt and his smile fall. Jack Fenton was always so good at making himself look like a kicked puppy. “I can handle unpacking by myself, I promise.”

His parents still look so unsure, like they want to argue. Danny watches his mom purse her lips tightly, confliction running across her face like a datastream. She takes dad’s hand, squeezing their fingers together despite the droop in her shoulders.

“Oh, alright then, I suppose.” She relents, her hand placing on Jack’s arm. “I guess we could go, we’re just going to miss you so much, Danny.”

Tears seem to have won over his dad, and Jack Fenton sniffs back before he can cry properly. “Our little boy, all grown up.” He says, voice wobbling. It makes Danny laugh, and it makes his heart pang. His smile grows impossibly wider and so much fonder. “You’ve become such a kind, wonderful young man, Danno. We’re so proud of you.”

Danny laughs again, and it cracks. “You’re gonna make me cry, dad.” (He feels a welling of guilt in his gut that he ignores — he doesn’t feel like a kind man. He doesn’t feel like a good one either. Not with what he plans to do.)

His father holds out his arms in hopefulness, “One last hug for your old man before we head out?” He asks, mustering up a smile on his face.

Danny barrels into him, nearly knocking his dad over with an oomph. He’s as tall as him now, but he still feels little in his bear hugs. With arms wrapping around his middle, Danny hugs his father tight and breathes him in one last time.

“Careful there, Danno.” He laughs, patting Danny’s back roughly. “You’ll break my ribs with that ghostly strength of yours!” But he holds on just as tight.

Out of spite, Danny bends back and lifts him off his feet, laughing when Jack tenses up and nearly scrambles out of surprise. His mom laughs with him, stepping back to give them room for the few seconds that dad is in the air.

When it’s his mom’s turn, Danny has to hunch to hug her. Something bittersweet to him as she plants a kiss on his forehead and says that he’ll always be her baby. “Even if you do have that horrid smoking habit.” She adds on with a disapproving eyebrow raise.

Danny turns red in embarrassment, and walks them back to the GAV. Gothamites of all kinds slow to stop and boggle at the monstrous, road-illegal thing that is parallel-parked next to the curbside. In the past, Danny would have died with mortification to be seen with it. Now it just makes him laugh. Before he goes back into the apartment building, he buys a newspaper from a nearby convenience store.

The first thing he does when he gets back up to his room is one: make a mental note to buy a bicycle chain lock for the door. The locks jiggle and there are splinters along the side that show signs of it being broken into in the past. The second thing he does is pull his cigarettes out of his pocket and light one.

Danny starts to unpack with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, placing the newspaper he bought onto the counter. He has a cheap loveseat that he pushes off to the side, and he moves the boxes into the kitchen. It’s a matter of organization that Danny has to think about before he does anything.

It’s as he’s pushing the sofa up against the wall facing the windows that his phone rings a familiar tune: Sam. The phone is fished out before he can think about it and when he stares down at the screen, he realizes it's a facetime call.

He presses answer and walks over to prop his phone up onto the counter. The smiling faces of Sam and Tucker greet him, rather than just Sam. Immediately, Danny grins. “Hey Danny.” Sam greets, smiling a dark-painted lazy thing. From the background it looks like they’re in Tucker’s room. Sam is in Tucker’s desk chair, and Tucker is behind her, leaning against it. “Have you moved in yet?”

Danny pulls the cigarette from his mouth and huffs, a cloud of smoke following his breath. “Yeah! It’s a shithole.” He grins lopsidedly, and his feet carry him off to the side to allow Sam and Tucker view of his apartment. He lets thirty seconds pass, allowing the both of them to really see the rest of the room. And then he steps back into frame.

Sam and Tucker both look like they’re trying not to look judgemental, like they’re trying to hide a grimace that Danny sees anyway with the small turns at the corner of their mouths. He grins wider, mirth filling his lungs. “I know, it looks awful doesn’t it?”

“It’s— it’s not so bad.” Sam says with a strain in her voice, a forced smile on her face that tries to be reassuring. Tucker nods along readily, and he looks just as unsure as Sam does. Danny stifles laughter behind his teeth.

“No, no, it looks bad,” He takes a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head. “You can say it, I won’t get offended. It’s a fucking apartment in crime alley. Of course it looks bad.”

Sam remains silent, a rearing of her stubbornness showing itself. Tucker takes a different approach, and heaves a dramatic sigh of relief, slumping like a weight. “Okay, you’re right. It looks bad.” He frowns, “Sorry, man.”

While Danny snorts, Sam sighs. “Yeah, it looks bad. What even are those stains?” She asks, and both she and Tucker lean closer in tandem to the screen, eyes squinting at the floor behind him. Danny glances at the floor, and shrugs.

“Blood, probably.” He says, and while years in Amity Park have accustomed him to a clean environment, the desensitization of Gotham still remains. Tucker and Sam both make faces and lean away, as if the stain itself was capable of passing through to them. “Yeah, there are bullet holes in the walls.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to be there?” Tucker asks, a furrow appearing between his brows. He adjusts his glasses and leans against the chair. Sam is frowning heavily, and Danny can already see her thinking up of a new way to fix the problem.

“Oh, I never said this place was safe.” Danny tells him cheerily, taking a last hit of his cigarette before placing the dead stick onto the counter. He itches for another one. Instead he walks over to the shelf his parents brought in and starts moving it. “It’s Crime Alley, Tuck. Safe isn’t even in its vocabulary.”

Tucker and Sam look like they’ve both swallowed a lemon.

“But it’s where I want to be right now.” He says, grunting quietly when the shelf is against the wall he wants it to be, near the short hallway leading to the front door. He can push it in front of it if someone tries to break in. “And Crime Alley’s apartments are the only ones I can really afford right now without mooching off my parents, and I’d rather not depend on them.”

He can hear the disapproving hesitance from where he stands. And he ignores it.

Danny walks back into frame, lifting up a box onto the counter. He hums lightly, fingers run over the tape keeping it shut. “Why do you even want to be in Gotham, Danny?” Sam asks, and she sounds genuinely perplexed. Danny stills. “I thought this place only had bad memories for you.”

His blood turns cold, and like a dime being flipped his slow heartbeat fills his ears. “It does.” He replies automatically, before he can think. Shit, shit. He knows that Sam or Tucker would ask that question, and yet he still feels unprepared for it. His heart pulses quickly against his ribcage, knocking, asking him what he’s going to tell them that isn’t the truth.

Danny stammers, “I mean— I just— I guess I felt nostalgic.” He says, and it sounds like a weak defense. He looks away, finding himself instinctively scratching his jaw. A new tick of his when he’s nervous. From the corner of his eye, he sees Sam and Tucker both narrow their eyes at him.

He cannot tell them the real reason why he’s moved back to Gotham. He can’t tell them of the little secret and vow he told himself five years ago, the one that’s been left to fester and burn like an open wound close to his core. The one that, if he thinks too much about it, sends a searing hot electricity through him, filling him from crown to toe top-full of direst wrath.

(Danny was always the angrier one in the duo of Jason and Danny. He was always the one with glass in his mouth, cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world around them. His knuckles had more blood and bruises on it than skin, once upon a time. All because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He has grown from it, that fury has turned to a small simmering candle.) (But sometimes, sometimes it rears its head, and electricity will buzz under Danny’s skin. There is lightning before the thunder, the second before a fist pulled to punch lands, the spark before it becomes a blaze.)

He stumbles over his words, and then sighs long and low, drooping his head. “I… was thinking that I can’t avoid this place forever.” He says, and the best lies always have the truth in it. Because it’s not a lie, not completely. But it’s not close enough to the truth either. “And that maybe if I came back, I’d be able to do something about those bad memories. Make them better or make it hurt less.”

Like wool over their eyes, it fools Sam and Tucker. Their narrowed eyes soften, and Danny feels like a snake is in his lungs as they both adopt their own versions of gentleness on their faces. “Oh, Danny.” Sam breathes out, and the snake squeezes, “Of course, we understand.”

Tucker nods, smiling at him. “Yeah, bro, that’s really brave of you. I know it can’t be easy coming back.” He says, “Maybe you can reconnect with the Waynes again, you always thought well of Mister Wayne whenever you came back from visiting.”

Danny smiles weakly, the gesture cutting into his cheeks like a knife. Perhaps he could. He was still upset with Bruce for hiding Jason’s killer from him. But he doesn’t hate him. Maybe five years ago, he did, when the death of Jason was still fresh in his mind and freshly bleeding in his heart. Now he just doesn’t know what to think of him. He was Batman. Jason was Robin, and the Joker killed Robin.

It would need to be something he’d have to speak to Bruce about in person, he thinks, in order to resolve it. To hear his judgment on it and make an opinion from there. Danny has learned in the last five years, much to Jazz’s smug delight, that talking to people about something he was upset about did make him feel better.

The conversation slips on from there into something more light, more breathable. And while they talk, Danny unpacks. He sets up his bed in the corner of the room, adjacent to the windows, and unpacks his cheap TV and table stand. It’s directly across from the couch, in front of the windows. He puts up knicks and knacks he’s collected over the years on the shelves.

When he puts up the curtains, he notices that more than one frame jiggles loosely. Sam makes a comment on the musty stains permanently dyed into the glass, and Danny talks about getting something to fix the cracks. Gotham winters can get brutal, and even if he can withstand the cold, doesn’t mean everything else in his apartment can.

“Oh, watch this.” He says halfway through unpacking, and pulls out a stick of thick white chalk from a box. “This is something I learned from Clockwork a while back; I think he knew I was going to move to Gotham.” He grins sillily, popping into the camera frame to show them. “I wonder how?”

Sam rolls her eyes, smiling while Tucker huffs. “It’s not like he’s the Master of Time and can see all past, present, and future.” Tucker snarks.

Danny hums lightly, curt like he isn’t sure he believes Tucker, and walks to a piece of bare wall not yet blocked by furniture. He starts to draw on it. The chalk shimmers with faint ectoplasm on the wall.

“Uhh…” Tucker’s voice cuts through, “Are you sure you should be doing that? Won’t you get in trouble for that?”

“There are bullet holes in the plaster, Tucker.” Danny retorts dryly, arching his hand to make a big circle. “I don’t think the landlord is gonna care if I get washable chalk on his walls.” Inside the circle, he inscribes the symbols of the Infinite Realms. “I don’t think he’d be able to see it anyways, he was really old.”

When he is done, Danny steps back to admire his work. It’s not bad, he thinks, for a lack of practice. He tosses the chalk off to the side, it lands on the couch and rolls back into the cushions. Ectoplasm heats under his hand, slowly glowing from his fingertips before stretching down the rest of his palm.

Danny’s fingers press against the wall, into the center of the circle. The result is immediate, ectoplasm is siphoned off his hand and into the circle. It glows, and then swirls. He steps off to the side for Sam and Tucker to watch its transformation. The circle fills with a swirling pool of ectoplasm, like a smaller version of the basement portal, and then it warps and stretches.

It fills out a rectangular shape, shifting like taffy being pulled this way and that, before settling into a solid shape. It solidifies, and instead of a wall there is a glowing purple door, warped in nature and seemingly shifting like a trick of the eyes. He can hear the gentle hum of the zone standing next to it, and can see the carving of the circle in the wood.

He gestures dramatically, grinning from ear to ear. “Ta-da~” He sings, “A door to my haunt! For whenever I feel like visiting it.” He pats the wood, making a strange thunk-thunk sound. “And then watch this.”

Danny touches the circle again, and the door twists and recedes like water going down a drain. The circle flashes bright green, and then fades into nothing on the wall, invisible to the naked eye. “I can hide it whenever I want! So if I ever invite someone over—” which he doubts, “—I won’t have to worry about them asking, ‘Hey Danny? Why is there a creepy fucking door in your studio apartment?’”

He gets a pair of laughs for his efforts, and Danny grins wider.

Sam and Tucker have to end the call when Danny is nearly done unpacking, leaving him alone with only his thoughts and the Gotham ambience outside. There were only a few boxes left, and they promise to call him tomorrow. He tells them that they better keep that promise.

The silence that follows after they leave feels somberly, as if the reality of moving in has finally set in and filled the air with its loneliness. With its change. Finally, Danny lets the strangeness of moving back to Gotham hit him when he reaches the last box, and he stops to take another smoke break to let it settle.

It feels so strange to be back in Gotham, he thinks. He’s all grown up, or almost grown up. He can vote and pay taxes, but he doesn’t feel much older than he was at fourteen. There’s a disconnect that makes him feel sad.

There are cars running outside, driving by. He can only catch glimpses of them, his apartment faces an alleyway. There are dogs barking in the distance, strays he bets. It’s already dark out, and he wonders if he looks out the window he would see the bat-signal shining through the night and staining the permanent cloud that hangs over Gotham.

Bruce would be so disappointed if he learned the reason for Danny’s return to Gotham. But Danny’s not here for him. He’s here for someone far more important. And like that, the simmering anger that has tucked itself into the furthest corners of his heart starts slipping through. His heart has teeth, ready to strike and snarl and bite.

He crushes the cigarette in his hand and throws it away. When he opens the last box, it is with hands that tremble and with a face of stone. With a delicateness he does not feel, he reaches in and pulls a corkboard from the box. On the corner frame is a small, near inconspicuous carving of another ghost rune.

Danny hangs it up on an empty space on the wall, out of sight from the window. It’s plain, and he has nothing to pin to it. He presses the small rune on the corner, pushing ectoplasm into it. Unlike the door, it does not twist and warp and shape itself into something new. Instead it bursts into green flame, eating away at the board and revealing the same thing underneath it, just in dark blue-black-purple.

Now this board, this board Danny has something to pin to it. The newspaper he bought earlier sits abandoned on the counter, and Danny unrolls it with something like viciousness in his chest. On the front page is an image of a damaged street, and above it is titled: “JOKER STRIKES AGAIN, 3 DEAD AND 27 INJURED”

Danny rips out the first page, he rips out every mention of him. His hands shake and threaten to crumple the paper as he turns back to the board, there is hot blood pounding in his ears. There is an impending sense of finally in his chest, like a setting sun giving the stage to a starless night. There is a stern set in his jaw, five years of festering rage rushing forth like a tidal wave, threatening to make his vision swim.

It would be so easy, he thinks, to go out as Phantom right now and hunt the clown down. It would only take a night. All it would take is a night, and then he could sink his hands into the Joker’s chest and rip out his heart where he stood. It would be so easy.

The thought alone forces Danny to stop as he is hit with another rush of fury, really making his head and vision swim. Thorny vines wrap around his throat, making it hard to breathe. He stares at a spot on the wall until the shaking passes.

If he wants to be discreet about this, then he can’t do it now. Even if he wants to. He doesn’t want witnesses. He doesn’t want an audience. He made a mistake, telling Red Hood about his plan. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking at all. But he can only hope that the Hood hasn’t mentioned it to Bruce. He knows it hasn’t been long since they started working together. He hopes that the Hood has already forgotten about it.

He pins the newspaper clippings onto the black-blue-board, and stands back. It’s bare now, but it won’t be forever.

He presses the circle again, and the pinboard reverts back to its original blank state.

-----

Was I expecting to make a third part?? No. No I was not. I was also not expecting to make an entire google doc filled with summaries for short story ideas about this au that all tie into each other so that way if i DO continue this i have a skeleton pathway to follow rather than making everything up from scratch and potentially cornering myself

you can find this on ao3 or on tumblr 1 2 :)

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dpxdc crossover #childhood friends au #cw swearing #cw smoking #im calling them short stories bc if i call them chapters i might intimidate myself #fun fact every single chapter will have a crane wives lyric on it i am DETERMINED #i hope yall are subscribed to this on ao3 bc i almost didnt post this on tumblr #the fentons being good parents were a surprise to me too but also i never really planned on them being BAD parents #okay so they appear as negligent in the first post but we'll just call that a plothole #i had the idea that danny was the angrier one out of the duo earlier today and it felt like an epiphany #there's no guarantee of a next part but yk immm kinda hoping there is #on the docs the ending bullet point for this chapter was #'make it feel like a tv show where the seemingly inconspicuous and friendly character has something sinister up their sleeve'#WE know that danny's not inconspicuous in the least he's been thinking of this murder for the last five years. but nobody but red hood know #i had to come up with a in-story reason why danny doesnt kill the joker NOW but my out-of-story excuse is: there'd be no tension otherwise #its about the BUILD UP. Its about the RISING TENSION. Its about KNOWING that danny is planning to kill the Joker but you dont know WHEN #its about knowing that something is going to explode but never knowing when #i made the doc yesterday and spent my entire pluralism for educators class going thru the crane wives albums and looking up the lyrics and #matching them to the *checks doc* 18 short story prompts i have prepared #i am still missing one :((#its the tim and danny story and i have NOTHING PLANNED FOR THEM. i cant think of a thing for them to bond over :(( so i cant match a CW son #even DICK has a story and that was also a surprise #my favorite lines: He was always the one with glass in his mouth cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world #aND danny slapping his door like a used car salesman and going 'now people wont ask why i have a creepy fucking door in my studio aptm :)'

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snickerdoodlles · 27 days

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regarding posting extra fic content that is not fic, but being worried about notifications... i have no idea how user subscriptions for pseuds work on AO3, but would it be a viable option to post those extra things under a pseud and then you can make it a related work to the fic in question?

it doesn't work! :( anyone who's subscribed to my main 'snickerdoodlles' username will get notifications for everything i post on AO3 that isn't anonymous because the pseuds still tie back to it. which is actually really convenient for me in every other case, but ajkfdjh.

right now i'm mostly considering building up a queue of tumblr posts that i'd want to copy over to AO3, then making a specific story post that's in my anon collection as i move stuff over. i can link all the story stuff together in the fics themselves, then take them out of the anon collection after i've finished uploading everything so that it's just one email notification at the end. my only hesitation rn is that moving a bunch of stuff over sounds very boring and i'm procrastinating it lol, but that's the only method i can think of atm that won't drive me completely nuts? i also don't really want anyone getting AO3 notifications from me to become associated with "not fic" either oof, i will cry if that happens 😂

#its mostly random extras i have for gone fishing series that i want to include too orz #like the long fic headcanon posts and some random snippets that are in the universe but not going to be full fics #i have the usernames and outtakes story already but i dont want to keep disappointing people with update emails that arent story updates #but im also eyeing various snippets because i'd like them to be easier to read/find but i dont want to clog up my ao3 with too many shorts #and im not sure how a bunch of notifications for them will go down >.<#on one hand i am DETERMINED not to fret over AO3 notifications because!! people who subscribed subscribed for a reason!!#logic says they want the notifications!!#but while im crawling towards being in a better brain space anxiety says i am So Annoying and need to cut down on how much i bother people #and there's a part of me that feels squiggly posting stuff that was always meant to be little snippets and vignettes instead of full storie #hjgjhgfjhfgjhfg

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miss-midnightt · 4 months

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i shouldnt have posted my writing, not sure if im sick or if its just really really bad imposter syndrome but i feel nauseous, i think its the latter

goddammit why am i like this

#screaming at midnight #i #hate this #my writing is too short and it just #doesnt read well #maybe i should mention its cross posted to ao3?#whatever im just #very tired and i think its showing #hatethishatethishatethis

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boxxecl · 7 months

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please read my fic about wanting to kiss someone in the dark. g rated. <2k (i think)

•X•X•

A sliver of moonlight creeps its way through the gap where the curtains aren’t quite pulled to; it’ll annoy Mike in the morning, the mid-morning sun waking him too early, never allowing him the eight hours of sleep a growing boy needs. Still, he won’t check that they’re completely shut tomorrow night, and when they’re not, he’ll once again watch Will's face — cut through with silver — shift in the shadows.

He’s awake now, whispering about a new campaign idea he has. They do this when they know they should be sleeping. Pretend everything’s normal, that tomorrow they’ll get up, get ready for school and afterwards do whatever it is normal sixteen-year-old boys do: play video games, watch movies, shoplift dirty magazines from the top shelf of the magazine section at Mr. Finchley’s general store. The world hasn’t ended and they’re having a normal sleepover at Mike’s house, same as they always did when they were younger.

“I think there should be a dragon in the crystal cave,” says Mike after Will’s finished explaining parts of a particularly arduous-sounding dungeon crawl.

Will gives him a withering look as best he can in the darkness, one that say of course there’s going to be a dragon in the crystal cave. What do you take me for? Then he laughs at his own attempt at admonishment. Realises he’s being too loud, clamps a hand over his mouth, because even though they’re not ordinary sixteen-year-old boys and the world did end, Mike’s mother still won’t tolerate them being up and giggling in the early hours. If they get caught again, Will’s going to be back in the basement with his brother; an arrangement a sum total of eighty percent of the house’s dependant population would object to.

Maybe she’s right, it’s almost two AM and Mike’s head aches behind the eyes, a persistent strain that begs them to close. Just for a moment, just for a short rest. He doesn’t want to sleep, though; with Will under the cloak of darkness is the only time he feels like the world is still orbiting the sun and not hurtling through space in a direct line to a black hole.

Will drops his hand onto the mattress between them, landing curled somewhere near his chin. Mike’s own hand twitches with the urge to reach out. He doesn’t. He doesn’t push down the thought, either. Hasn’t for a while. Let’s himself indulge in the fantasy of it for a moment. Fingers brushing, the electricity of skin-on-skin, trailing over the knobbly bones of his wrist. His heart barely even picks up speed at the idea anymore, used to the wanting. The way he feels is so much less dangerous here. He’s shrouded, obscured. His emotions become grayscale at night, blending into his bedsheets, the only technicolour provided by the moonlight that cuts Will’s face in two.

It’s all there in the places where he’s illuminated. The shine of one eye, over the bridge of his nose, down to the curved corner of his still smiling mouth, the one underneath the mole. It’s barely concealed everywhere he’s not. Across his jawline, his throat, his broad shoulders. His hands, his hands, his hands.

Will’s quiet; must notice that Mike’s somewhere else, with someone else. A version of Will that doesn’t shy away when Mike tries to touch him, returns every affection with his own. Mike wonders, sometimes, if he could. If maybe when they stop talking and stay awake, watching each other for too long to be an accident, that Will experiences any of the reverence Mike does. If he, too, considers shuffling an inch, two, closer; their breaths mingling, a barely noticeable heat radiating off their skin. An invitation where the R.S.V.P. is to do the same.

Neither move, settled into something so fragile that any shift could break it. Mike’s gaze flicks down to where Will’s hand still lay, mapping out the rise and fall of his barely visible knuckles. He could. What was stopping him? Rejection? The world outside his bedroom window rained hellfire three times a week, it chased them down with bared teeth and elongated claws, it didn’t let them breath most days. Every day, month, week survived more of a miracle than the last. And Mike was worried about being embarrassed, worst of all feelings but still better than dead. Better than dying without knowing. If he dies without knowing, then what was the point of any of it?

He shifts a hand up slowly, like Will is a skittish animal that could startle at any sign of movement, doesn’t stop until it sits parallel to Will’s, four inches apart. It wouldn’t take much. Less than a second. Easier said. There’s a glacier between them, a gulf, a canyon. Light years upon light years, and an entire eternity. Mike wants to skip to the end of the chapter, see how it ends without having to get there. Wants to know if the final reprise is joyous or melancholy.

Will doesn’t retreat like Mike fears he might, doesn’t back up to the edge of the bed. He wouldn’t anyway; these days Will’s a restless sleeper, tossing and turning even on nights where the nightmares don’t take hold and wouldn’t risk hurtling off the side. If it were anyone else, Mike thinks, it would be annoying, but with Will, it just means he’s alive, safe in the confines of Mike’s childhood bedroom. As long as the posters hung on the walls and the last remnants of his toy collection sat gathering dust on the shelves, they’d never have to grow up. They could stay untouched by time, unharmed by what the future might bring.

Mike has long since realised it’s already too late for either of them. Will had never had the privilege of naïvety and Mike had seen too many bodies for childhood to be anything more than a nebulous concept that they clung to nonetheless. As if all the joys and simplicities of youth were stored on a game cartridge ready to be slotted in, a cheery 8-bit soundtrack playing in the background, overwriting the trauma of the real world.

“How does it end?” Asks Mike, so quiet he’s worried that Will doesn’t hear him properly. “The campaign?”

Will smiles, softly. “Secret,” he whispers back.

Mike could push it; he’d relent if he did, always does, but really, Mike doesn’t want to talk anymore. Too tired to say anything meaningful or interesting, too scared to simply be honest. Not in words, intangible things. Words can be scattered to the winds, ephemeral then lost forever. He wants to kiss him.

The thought is easy now. The first time the notion had come to him, unbidden and uninvited, he’d gone outside and put his fist to a brick wall. The wall had remained unharmed, but Mike’s knuckles had required some explaining when he got home. He doesn’t remember whatever lie he’d come up with, just his father commenting that it was lucky he wasn’t strong enough to break a bone. Despite the still stinging split skin, he’d wanted to punch him too.

Eventually, the rage had died down, though not before countless nights of waiting for Will to finally, mercifully fall asleep so he could scream silently into his pillow. His anger was as useless as his fear. It made even less sense in the grand scheme of everything. He’d let that one go, taken away by the storms and ravaging beasts.

He closes the gap half way, another two inches gone. Two to go. He gauges Will’s reaction; he’s watching the point where their fingers are closest, doesn’t take his eyes off it even when Mike takes a deep breath. With little more than a shift, he runs the back of his forefinger over Will’s knuckles, slowly, up and down between the ridges. Will’s so still that Mike isn’t even sure that he’s breathing. Maybe he isn’t, neither is Mike.

He wonders for a moment if he should stop, turn over and pretend he didn’t do anything; in the morning he could let Will think he’d dreamt it. Maybe that’s what Will wants. Maybe his stillness is cold and horrified and it’s only in his shock that he can’t pull away.

But then he uncurls his hand and turns it over so the palm faces upwards, somewhere new for Mike’s fingers to explore. He does. Runs them over Will’s own, calloused, slightly shaking. He traces the lines on his palm, tries to remember what they’re supposed to mean; heart line, head line, life line. He wishes he knew how to read them, wants to see if he can find himself there. He finds the pulse point in Will’s wrist, revels in how fast it is. This here feels dangerous. He’s hurtling towards a point where plausible deniability is no longer an option; that point is crossed half way up Will’s forearm.

At this point Will starts to breath again, his breath heavy enough that Mike can feel it, warming his face like a summer breeze. If it’s stale, he doesn’t notice, doesn’t think he’d care if he did. He finds another pulse point, the one at Will’s jugular, presses into it, counts the beats for tens seconds and multiplies by six. One-twenty or thereabouts.

“One hundred and twenty B-P-M,” he says.

Will doesn’t respond. Instead, he raises his tormenting hand, presses two fingers to the inside of Mike’s wrist. Fifteen seconds pass.

“One-oh-eight.”

“Damn, you beat me.”

Will laughs softly, dropping his hand. Mike doesn’t drop his. His fingers continue on their journey, although there isn’t much further they can go without retracing their steps and taking a different path altogether. They brush Will’s hair out of his eyes but it just falls back so he leaves them lingering at the crest if his cheekbone where the strip of light is brightest, a glowing whisper of a touch. His pale skin is stark white in the moonlight. He stays there, nowhere else to go.

“Mike?”

“Hmm?” Replies Mike, suddenly worried that he’s made a mistake, that Will’s only just realised what he was letting happen. He should pull away, he thinks. Turn over and go to sleep or at least wait and see if Will will do anything in response. He doesn’t, too caught up in the closeness. If he pulled away now and Will didn’t bring him back, that would be it. He wouldn’t try again.

Will’s eyes are wide and shining, his lips parted in a ghost of a reply as if the words won’t come to life on his tongue. When they do, Mike is struck still. “Why aren’t you kissing me?” He’s too sincere when he asks it, no hint of flirtation, like the fact that Mike hasn’t kissed him yet is of his own doing, a punishment for his wrongdoings whatever they might be. He doesn’t understand that kissing him is all Mike’s wanted to do for months and faced with the very real prospect, he doesn’t want to mess it up.

“Do you want me to?”

“Will you? If I say yes?”

“Only if you say yes.”

He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he reaches up and places his fingers over Mike’s, intwines them.

“That’s not an answer,” says Mike. It's childish and stupid and refuses to take action. But Mike's always been a coward when it comes to Will, and even if he can force himself through that cowardice to make the first move, he can't follow through.

Maybe Will's a coward, too, if he's wanted Mike even half as long as Mike has wanted him, night after night keeping up the pretense of simple platonic companionship, nothing more than the continuation of a childhood friendship that they'd worked so hard to re-establish, nurtured it until it bloomed more lustrous than ever. Filling the silence with anything to distract them from the things that the wish the other already knew.

Will's lips part, allowing the moonlight to spill into his mouth and the word that comes out is celestial. “Yes.”

#this is both too short and too boring to justify posting on ao3 but theres some nice lines so im putting it here #the end is sooo cheesy i made myself cringe lmao #but its been sat in my drafts for 2 months and i want it GONE #byler #byler fanfic #mywriting

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conivolos · 10 months

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lil ficlet thing i wrote in literally twenty minutes

directly inspired by @peachy-shark's tumblr post (idk how to properly link it lol)

uh fic under the cut. yup.

encore

and- pearl’s falling.

why is she falling?

it feels like it should happen.

she should keep falling.

she knows it will end.

she knows she should keep falling anyway.

a shooting star, she thinks bitterly.

as the ground gets closer, she wishes.

wishes things were back the way they were. wishes she was still made of copper. wishes she didnt fall. wishes she was more careful. wishes she was-

Encore, the universe shouts, encore!

Pearl's no longer falling, but the feeling lingers, even as she sits back up in bed.

she’s still small, swamped in her covers (she hasnt been able to find a bed that fits her yet).

shes not still a star, she can tell that much, and an inspection of her arms yields the realisation that she's made of copper.

oh. everythings the same as it was.

pearl huffs, damning the universe, and goes to collect her things.

later, when she catches sight of her reflection in brand new, shiny copper platings, she has a small star atop her antennae.

#also hope that its okay that i tagged you #i probably shouldve check first huh #its really short #like a hundred words #but i liked it so idc #pearlescentmoon #new life smp #coni fics #now i go disappear #wait i think im gonna post this on ao3 too #okay now im gone

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garyc0re · 1 year

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It was weird having someone who grew up with you, not in a sibling way, but someone who knew the deepest most intimate details about you, someone who you could really call a soulmate.

It had taken them a long time to come to terms with the fact that that was what they were to one another, soulmates, that they were two people who's souls were forever intertwined. Lots of dimension hopping had solidified the conclusion, showed that no matter what universe they were in, their lives still revolved around one another, that they still found one another even when circumstances seemed impossible.

And maybe that's why it was so easy to let down their guard around each other, even if there was still a small part of themselves that was scared of getting hurt or hurting the other. They both sucked at communication, really, but it became less of an issue later on, in space, after space, when Mordecai set up his art studio up in the city and they'd spend nights huddled together on his bed whispering about what to do next. Scared to lose one another like they had lost Pops, because now the Park felt wrong. No one ever died in the Park, if they did, they came back, but that was no longer feasible, Pops was gone, and they were still here.

Everything felt as if they were trapped in a bubble, but they had each other, and that was comforting, even if everything else wasn't.

#regular show #mordecai and rigby #id post this on ao3 but its way too short lmao #gary.txt

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thereaderinsertlady · 1 year

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Hiiiiii, long time no see!! How have you been?

I’m curious, you’ve written so much over the years (every time I go to your page, I’m always amazed you have like a 100 plus works while I’m struggling to finish my Second Shroob Invasion - I’m so close to the ending). How do you manage the workload of requests/commissions? What helps you when you’re writing?

Thank you so much!! :) You’re the best! (There shall be more Shroobs coming your way).

992nd3 hi there! Sorry I didn't answer sooner lol. It can be pretty damn difficult to manage everything and still make room for myself sometimes, though I manage to get by. I'll have days where I dedicate 5-10 hours to just writing alone, waking up at around 10am-ish and going to bed at 3am. I usually do commissions first at the start of the day, but sometimes I'll need motivation, so I go over to the regular requests or my multi-chapter fics and work on that instead. Though, mainly my friends have been helping me keep on track and motivated (and stopping me from going absolutely insane lmao). As of currently, every other day, I'll spend either 1-4 hours hanging out with them on discord sort of near or after dinner time, then end the day off with more writing until I get tired enough to go to sleep. Sometimes I'll write while on call with them too. The main thing that helps me write is playlists that I've listened to before, or other familiar music. I'll also set a mini goal for myself and try to write that amount in a day (like.. write 2,000 words or smfn). I sort of spread my attention out to multiple fics at once (Dear Detective, AVC, The King’s Jester, Dichotomous Key, the commissions, one or two general requests,) but work on them one at a time (if that makes sense)

#also yippe shroobs!#i love your writing sm 9esnoe ❤️#the main reason why i have over 100 works is because most of my works are very short #for regular requests i try to write around 1k words. sometimes ill write more. sometimes ill write less(like in the questober challenge)#questober was HARD ngl. i think i ended up writing just under 30k words for it #one of my main goals ive been tryna reach is 1million words posted on ao3. i think im at 730k right now #i also have dnd with my friends on fridays rn around dinner time. i play as a cute littel Plasmoid!#i may also do smfn self indulgence every now and then (see the self indulgent series lol)#if i am struggling on something too much an nothing else seems to help i like writing small clips and scenes too whether its related or not #i may also also go read someones fic to get motivated

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jesse-cosay · 1 year

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How tf do I add the "view under cut" thing to my posts, I thought it was automatic I feel so bad, some of my shit is really long and I can't post drabbles here until I figure this out I am SO SORRY YOU GUYS

#I've been scrolling through stuff for like thirty minutes and everything is from 2020 #AND THEY OBVIOUSLY CHANGED HOW YOU DO IT ON MOBILE SINCE THEN #I DONT WANNA POST MY BLAKE STUFF ON AO3 BC I FEEL LIKE ITS TOO SHORT RN TO BE ITS OWN THING #PSPSPPS SOMEONE WHO UNDERATANDS TECHNOLOGY PLS HELP ME #I'm so sorry #I genuinely thought it was automatic once it git to a certain length #This explains so much #I'm working on it though I swear

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the-nsr-family · 1 year

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mmmmm maybe I will come back for real this time.

I lowkey want to like. write a fanfic. issue is I’m already running one for SU and I’d never forgive myself if I abandoned my readers in the middle of such an intense moment.

#nsr #no straight roads #I WANNA WRITE LIKE. MY ORIGINAL VISION FOR THE MAIN AU I POSTED ON THIS BLOG #no shade to the version I made with my mutuals btw #you guys mean the world to me and so do your ocs and I think I might include the silly ghost guy anyways but i'd have to track down the #person who owns him lol #but long story short I do adore the thing we've built here and I wouldn't trade it for the world but #the original version I made with an old friend (who im not as close to now) really means a lot to me too bc it was the first real big thing #that I ever came up with and I just feel like I want to revive that #it was literally the first thing I made upon finishing watching the cutscenes for the very first time and I do want to write for it some day #but rn Last Resort has my attention #BTW PLEASE READ LAST RESORT IF UR A STEVEN UNIVERSE FAN AND YOU LIKE CORRUPTION AUS AND ALSO WANT MORE JASPER AND STEVEN INTERACTIONS #its on Ao3 and it's one of my proudest pieces of fanfiction tbh #im working on the next chapter rn

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bsaka7 · 2 years

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absolutely no clue why i wrote this (jk i do it's for the lovley @checosperez who rocks and deserves the world. is it a late birthday present? a surprise summer gift? idk but its for her!!) but anyway here's "until i'm solid" max/checo 2k basically pwp even though i said i'm retired from pwp. enjoy!

#i also never post things this short on ao3 but today. i did #i was gonna post it anon but i'm greedy for comments etc #its like. right now if i feel like writing. i gotta let it happen who cares what it is #also wrote this in like. AN HOUR. so don't judge too hard lol.

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monty-glasses-roxy · 2 years

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Hm... Gatorbun fic here or on Ao3 with a link shared here?

Opinions?

#pop rox writes #yeah i got it #its done #some very rough sketches to go with it too #coulda been a hell of a lot longer but I'm keeping it short because its supposed to be short not a long ass thing #anyway #tumblr post or Ao3 with a link here?#/chill

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fonulyn · 8 months

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since I've seen it talked about in several places recently:

if you are going to do a whump- or kink- or ANY-tober or other similar challenges please please please don't post them as one fic with 31 chapters unless it actually is one coherent fic. if they're 31 completely separate fics or ficlets then please just make a collection for them or just post them as separate fics. it doesn't matter if they're only 100 words or if you think they're too small or insignificant to post alone, they're not.

and why this?

because if you post all 31 of them in one fic the tagging is absolutely useless. if I look for things to read on ao3 I'm gonna look at the tags, and if the tags include something that's a dealbreaker for me, i won't even click on the fic. I might not even SEE the fic because I've filtered out the nope-tag! so I'm gonna lose out on reading 30 perfectly nice fics because of one fic that my nope-tag applied to.

ao3 is about archiving. it's about clear tagging and being informative. there is nothing informative about it if the tags in the fic apply to random chapters while others have nothing to do with it. it makes so much more sense to have each work as an individual fic with its own individual tags and warnings, so readers can make informed choices.

of course, you do you. I can't police what other people decide to do. but personally, I find it incredibly frustrating to weed through 31 chapters to find the ones I actually want to read. so I don't. I automatically scroll past all works posted like that. and I know some others do, too.

there is absolutely no shame in posting short things on ao3. there is no minimum word count. no one is going to look at you funny if you post a small ficlet on its own, I promise. it's just going to make some readers very happy when they can actually find the things they want to read.

so, please. at least consider the upsides of posting each work as their own fic.

signed, one very frustrated fandom grandma.

#ao3 #fanfic #fandom #I'm not trying to dictate what others do #so if you still wanna keep posting #completely unrelated works as chapters of one thing #then go for it #i'm not your mom #but please at least consider the alternative #and how much easier it'll be for people to #both find it and to make informed choices #of what they want to read

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kaffeebaby · 11 months

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What kinda stuff are you writing about!!

Most of the stuff I'm writing right now are better call saul fanfics. I've always been more of a fanfic writer as opposed to making original characters and worlds.

A lot of my fanfic ideas are the "What if this happened instead?" genre. Like what if Gus rehired Gale and made him work with both Walt and Jesse? That would change a lot of stuff, and I had explored some ideas months ago, but I kinda stopped thinking about it as much as other ideas that were more interesting to me started crowding my mind. I don't want this post to get too long but also >:3c

Lately, I've been trying to come up with ideas for a fic where Chuck forgets to cancel his appointment when he's having his last breakdown, so he misses his appointment and his therapist shows up at his house concerned. And she ends up getting him to a hospital where he can be treated before he has the chance to do anything worse than tear his house apart. That event would completely change everything else that happens in the show, and would even impact the stuff that happens in BrBa, so it's been a lot to think about. I basically have to figure out a way for Chuck's life to become livable for him, plus I have to figure out how Saul can still happen if Chuck is still there and Kim doesn't divorce him due to Howard and Lalo never happening, and. Many other things.

But I have a rough outline of different things that need to happen, and I'm the type of person that daydreams or fantasizes a lot throughout the day, especially at night, so it's nice to have a pet project that has some interesting challenges. I get to justify thinking about blorbos all day because it goes back to something I want to write about.

The one wip I mentioned in my tags was a Chuck and Howard smut that I was writing during January this year. I planned to have it finished and posted on Valentine's Day, but I got the stomach flu like two weeks before that which completely ruined any ability to write people having sex. I tried to keep writing after I wasn't sick anymore, but it was kinda done for at that point, since the deadline was actually really motivating me. I've thought about trying to write more on it again, and I've even considered posting it in its half finished state with an author's note that it's not done. There are very few Chuck and Howard fics, and I only ship them recreationally, so at first I wasn't so upset and not finishing and posting the work. But the more time drags on, the more I feel like there are people who would actually like to read my rarepair fanfic, even if I posted it unfinished with a warning and the possibility I'd finish it later. It works where it is right now, but it's very much not as long as I wanted it to be and there's a lot more stuff I wanted to add that I just don't feel the motivation for at this point. But also that doesn't mean I should keep it locked up forever.

I have some other fic ideas that I've been floating around, but my brain has been consumed by my Chuck Lives AU for a while and it's kinda hard to focus on other stuff. I do have a google doc of all my fic ideas though, and I visit it every now and then when I'm in the mood to write or want to refresh what all of my ideas are. I've been a lot better lately at actually writing down ideas as they come to me so that I don't forget them later.

#long post #not really but tagging it just in case #my own writing #I love talking about my fic ideas because it's fun to actually share what im up to #i dont have any irl friends that like brba and bcs so i only get to talk about my fic and art ideas online #most of my fic ideas revolve around chuck because hes my favorite character and i think his therapy era is so interesting #i do have some fics posted on ao3! though they are just 2 very short scenes about chuck being sick or getting better #ive made some progress with my wips but its all like. lateral progress? is that what its called #when you work on a lot of things one step at a time and get them all a little more done. instead of just working on one thing #and getting that done before moving onto the next #anyways this is getting too long #if anyone ever wants to chat about all my fic ideas and maybe troubleshoot or just shoot the shit about writing stuff I'm available in dms #id even be okay talking on discord too! I'm also kaffeebaby over there. and on ao3 which I forgot to mention

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zillychu · 5 months

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I’ve gotten a WAVE of asks about this AU, so I decided to flesh it out some more and answer some of those questions!

I’ll probably polish this extended summary up at some point and submit it to AO3. But for now, here’s a rundown of my thoughts–please feel free to send more questions! I’ll update this post if I get any more. But if you’re someone who wanted to write fic for it, don’t worry, you don’t need to take my headcanons as gospel. It’s a pretty basic AU honestly lol

Summary:

The portal accident results in a violent explosion that wipes out the whole block, and condemns all of Amity Park. Danny haunts the city for 100 years, before Sam and Tucker find him.

Setup:

In the 1920’s, 19-year-old Danny went into the incomplete portal on his own, hoping to help out his parents. Ripping the portal open through unnatural means created a huge burst of energy that resulted in a massive explosion. A good portion of the Amity Park population died, many were injured, and the ones on the fringes relocated–Amity was quickly deemed too dangerous due to the excess ectoplasm in the area that attracted ghosts.

While the disaster was in Amity, the fallout was seen around the globe. Before, natural portals were rare, short-lived, and rarely allowed ghosts to fully slip into our realm (the most severe cases being on par with poltergeists that most people didn’t believe in). Now, natural portals pop open frequently around the world, large enough to allow the entirety of a ghost into the physical plane. They’re more common the closer you get to Amity, but they happen enough elsewhere that this change was something of a small apocalypse before people settled back down and found out how to combat at least some of their new, permanent neighbors.

Danny is unaware that he’s only half-dead, believing he’s a full ghost. He ends up sticking around Amity, unintentionally making it his haunt. His grief and guilt over causing the death of his loved ones (and many others) makes him isolate and avoid human contact. Though he has, at times, scared nosy people away from the city in a mix of territorial instinct–and to get them to leave before a less friendly ghost finds them.

Ghosts are much more of an uncontested danger in this AU. Lesser ghosts are practically mindless, and while stronger ghosts are capable of reason, their interests are limited. They’re highly territorial, possessive, and often destructive. Most worrisome is that they also like to snack on the life force of anything alive. No one is sure what dictates a ghost’s propensity to attack or hunt the living for their life force since ghosts don’t exactly experience hunger. At least, not the way we do. If a human is rescued before their life force is fully drained, they can make a full recovery–though humanity has still not yet found what this “life force" is.

And since the Fentons’ research died along with them, there aren’t many tools available to the public to protect them from ghosts. Most homes have standard ghost shields and some weapons are available on the market, but certified ghost hunters are required to take care of anything more powerful than your average spook.

Sam and Tucker met in high school, and are now rooming together for college very close to the Amity border. Rent is surprisingly cheap when you’re a stone’s throw away from a condemned area crawling with ghosts. Sam is the one who drags Tucker along with her fascination over finding out more about the city, and its largely mysterious demise. Sam is aware of the danger, but feels ghosts have a place in this world just like everything else, and does exercise caution–like one would while foraging in the woods with a known tiger population.

What she and Tucker weren’t expecting was to run into a ghost that felt almost human. One that hasn't hurt them, not for lack of trying–while being powerful enough to walk past ghost shields without so much as a flinch. The long white hair is familiar in the whispers of the ectobiologist community, but there’s no way it could be the rumored ghost king Phantom, right?

About Danny:

He has very long hair, claws, and black sclera. His hazmat suit is more torn and ragged, with exposed hands and feet that fade into a burnt black.

His hair tends to float a lot on its own. It can start morphing into fire under duress.

He does still technically have gloves and boots, they've just charred and melted into his skin towards the ends. He can't take them off in his ghost form. His hands and feet have a leathery texture that's tougher than the rest of his skin.

The white of his hazmat suit is both supposed to look like flames, and also a battered look representing his more violent, explosive death.

Overall, he appears rather listless and sad, with an unnerving air of danger around him–even for a ghost.

Danny’s “ghost sense” comes out as white smoke.

He does breathe black smoke at times, usually when agitated.

He's already fought and defeated Pariah Dark by the time Sam and Tucker find him, technically making him the Ghost King. This is heavily speculated by ghost experts, despite there being no real proof beyond a massive battle that scarred Illinois. He has not donned the Ring or the Crown, and captured sentient ghosts are hesitant to answer questions surrounding him. Danny basically has the throne but doesn’t do anything with it, and finds it meaningless enough to routinely forget he has the title. He only fought Pariah because he knew otherwise, humanity would have perished. A lot of ghosts are scared of him because he's so hard to figure out, and he's strong.

Danny is usually very quiet and speaks softly, because his lungs were damaged in the blaze that half-killed him. He's technically healed since becoming a ghost, so it's more of a compulsion due to the traumatic memory. That, and he’s just… very forlorn and distant, shy around humans who don’t seem to understand how dangerous it is to keep hanging around him.

His memories pre-accident are extremely fuzzy. He knows the very basics of who he was, but specifics have been muffled due to trauma and isolation. He routinely forgets human habits, etiquette, etc. and tends to act more like a full ghost with some odd quirks.

He does try to scare Sam and Tucker off numerous times. Unfortunately for him, they realized they shouldn't have been able to escape a ghost that strong–but they did, because he let them.

Sam and Tucker think he's mute at first! He doesn't speak a word to them until several encounters later, when he fumbles his whole scary act and saves them from another ghost.

He’s still half-ghost, though he doesn’t figure this out until Sam and Tucker come along trying to unravel the mysteries behind the Amity catastrophe. Physically and emotionally, he’s been stuck for 100 years–so his human form is still 19. It’s unclear at this point if he can age normally like a human as long as he stays in human form, or if he’s immortal.

Danny's family did not turn into ghosts, though he sometimes worries he'll find them in the afterlife as shells of their former selves. He doesn't know if it's better or worse that he's not sure he'd recognize them.

(Danny also still has some living family. Take a guess.)

Yes, he knows how to Wail. Understandably, he very rarely uses it. You do not want to witness this.

Danny :) is not immune :) from the allure of eating a human's life force :)))

#danny phantom #au #zilly art #I just wanted to draw a boy with long hair and claws how did this happen #fire core au

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