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#the scarred hands thing really only applies to a no-powers danny i think
starry-bi-sky · 4 months
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Another small Clone^2 thought
Danny's hands are scarred.
Really, every part of him is. His arms, his legs, his torso. All of them littered in nicks and scratches and scabs that he's picked at over, and over, and over again. And then bigger ones, jagged scars from debris stabbing at him, and burns of ectoplasm blasts that melted through his regular clothes and hit his skin.
The one thing that never really got scarred were his hands. They were callused, of course, from all his climbing, and hitting, and hanging on for dear life to things. But never really scarred, not really. Maybe he just got lucky, maybe it was the fact that he wore gloves and they leather, and leather is harder to get through than cotton. Maybe both.
But, well, that's no longer case. But the scars on his hands take place on his palms. Two clean, thick lines going diagonally over his palms. Not from any enemy he's ever faced, but proof of his meeting with the little boy sitting between his knees, running his tiny fingers over those same scars.
Damian, his little brother. He scarred them, with that katana of his.
First when they first met, when Damian called him an imposter and proceeded to attack him. It was really only from Danny's exposure to the quick movements of ghosts that kept him from getting shish-kabob'd by Damian's sword.
And it was only because he was an idiot, and his brain was not faster than those reflexes that he kept grabbing the blade with his hands. That it kept cutting into that leather until it started cutting skin.
And then numerous times over on those rocky first months of Damian staying with him, when he didn't know any English, and Danny didn't know any Arabic. When Danny would piss him off or go looking for him when he ran off, he would have to grab his katana while Damian was swinging it at him.
His hands wouldn't heal for months because of it. The wounds kept being re-opened. Kept bleeding. Kept hurting. Until they slowly stopped hurting, and he knew that it wasn't a good thing.
Danny's parents were very upset when they saw his hands. It was hard to lie about where he got them - the lines are too clean, too consistent, to have been accidents. Danny didn't know how to lie and say it wasn't because of Damian. That it wasn't his katana that they knew nothing about that was stained with his blood.
He found a way to anyways, because he thought Damian was worth it at the time. He was a kid. He was scared. He was hurting other people and that's all he was ever taught to do.
So Danny thought a little pain was worth it.
(He still does.)
Oh, fun fact. There are three nerves in the human hand. the radial nerve, the median nerve, and the ulnar nerve. From what he could find on it, the ulnar nerve traveled up into the pinky and the ring finger, the median went through the middle of the palm and the ring, the middle, and the index, and the radial nerve went into the thumb and the index.
Fun fact, did you know consistent (or deep enough) lacerations to the palm could end up cutting a nerve? And that such lacerations can cause numbness, loss of feeling, and weakness in the hand, fingers, and thumb?
Here's a final fun fact: Danny had to go to physical therapy after his hands finally began to heal. Because Damian's katana had cut his radial nerve. There are seventeen thousands touch receptors in the hand, Danny's lost some of those.
His hands still hurt when he closes and opens them, the scarring pinches a little. He doesn't know why but his fingers hurt now when its too humid or too cold, or when its about to rain. It sucks. It's worth it.
He lied about before; here's the final fun fact:
There is a deeply, deeply, guilty look on Damian's face as he runs his little hands over Danny's scarred palms, carefully closing and opening his fingers in a slow rendition of his physical therapy workouts.
(Because even if it's ended, he still has to do them. Pain doesn't go away even if it's healed.)
"I'm sorry." Damian says in a meek, thick voice. He's said it before, when they've done this before at all hours of the day. Danny's wondering if Damian does it on purpose - hurt himself with this, that is. Not apologize. "I hurt you."
Danny sighs, deeply, and leans forward to press his face into his little brother's hair. "It's okay." He mutters, again. And he'll say it again, and again, and again, until Damian finally believes him. "I'm not mad."
"I am." Damian insists, his voice wobbles. "I hurt you, Danny."
"And I say it's okay that you did, Damian." Danny repeats, and wraps an arm around Damian's middle to sit him on his leg. Damian doesn't look at him, just curls his fingers around Danny's other hand and looks at the scar there. "Like I said, I'm not mad. I would do it again."
"Do not."
So, Danny's hands are scarred.
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arashikitten · 4 years
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“I am Danny Phantom”
Who knew that four words were all it took to turn someone’s entire life on its head? Well, Valerie knew, her father being fired and her subsequently being dropped by the A-listers proved that, but....
Danny Fenton. The small, quiet, funny, space-obsessed, sleep-deprived, nervous guy who slept in class, made puns out of everything, her boyfriend... was Phantom. The ghost who had ruined her life, who was a menace to the town, who had committed several crimes including kidnapping the mayor. They were the same person.
Her suit was on before she could blink, guns powering up and aimed at Phantom- Fenton- Danny.
“One reason. Give me one. Goddamned. Reason why I shouldn’t put a hole in your head.” Everything was red. She felt nothing but the blood in her veins turning into fire, only heard the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. It would be so, so easy to turn this... this monster into a pile of ectoplasm. All it would take was one little blast...
“Because it was an accident.”
Silence. It rang in her ears like a gunshot, quieting the pounding of her heart like the forest before the storm. Where her anger was once fiery red, now it was cold, calm blue, freezing everything in her path.
“What?” Her voice sounded flat, no hint of anger, and yet the ghost shuffled back slightly, wringing it’s... his hands nervously. (Somewhere in the back of her mind, a part of her recognized that was a habit of Fentons, that Danny- no, Fenton has been doing that earlier. Valerie shut that thought down before it reached farther into her head.)
“It was an accident. That ghost dog... Cujo, he- he was, um, looking for his- his toy because he’d been euthanized by Axion labs after they got the, uh, new security systems. He was just loking for his toy.”
“Then why were you there, spook?”
A pause. He was wringing his hands again. It caught her off guard slightly, how... human he looked. If you took away the glow and bright white hair, he could’ve easily passed as a normal highschooler. (That’s because he is human, part of her mind screeched at her. That’s your boyfriend for fucks sake, it said. Again, she shut it out.)
“I can sense them. The ghosts, I mean. Whenever one shows up, there’s this sort of... smoke, kinda, that I breathe. And that’s how I know if one’s around. So that night, when- when Cujo showed up, I sensed him and went to check it out. I never meant to get your father fired, or to- to fuck the place up as bad as I did. I’m sorry.”
Anger bubbled up in her again. He thought- he really fucking thought that a simple damned apology fixed that? Hell no! He’d screwed over her entire life, got her father fired, committed several crimes, and he thought a simple ass ‘I’m sorry’ would fix it?
She took aim, charging up her blasters.
“I don’t care if you’re sorry. You’re a ghost, a crook, and a thief. And I’ll be doing the whole world a favor by getting rid of you.”
Her blasters were charged up. All it would take now was for her to-
“Then do it.”
Valerie almost dropped her blaster. Had- had she heard that right? She stared at Phantom.
He was rooted to the spot, arms down by his sides, eyes scrunched shut. He was still in his ghost form, but he wasn’t levitating.
What in the hell?
“What do you mean ‘then do it’?” You’re not- you’re not even gonna try to fly off?”
“No.”
“Why?”
At that, Danny- no, Phantom opened his eyes. He looked, scared. Sad. Like he had seen a massacre, or a war.
“A couple of weeks ago... when- when we were about to take the CAT... I- well I got the answer key to the test. And... I wasn’t in a great place, mentally, at the time. I mean, I’m still not, but... it was different, in a way. But basically, what, well, what happened was that I was so stressed out, because I was trying to protect the town and my friends from ghosts, and my parents were just getting worse about trying to hunt me down, and my grades are already shit, and Mr. Lancer kept saying that this test would determine my future and I just...” Danny stopped, shaking and hugging himself. He looked.... Valerie didn’t think she’d ever seen him look this distraught, as Phantom or Fenton. It made something in her chest tighten, made her stomach twist.
“I... I had the answers. And I was already so worried about... well, everything, that I decided to cheat. I figured that maybe I could just do it one time, and then that’d be it, you know? But... of course, of course, it couldn’t be that simple.” Now he sounded... tired. Worn, and not in a good way, more like a war veteran disallusioned with the world. (Something in Valerie told her that maybe this was the real Danny, the part of him he refused to show anyone. The tired fighter who wanted nothing more than to be able to go to sleep without worrying if he was going to wake up with a gun pointed at him.. or if he would wake up at all.)
“Essentially what happened was that Sam, Tucker and I got sort of... teleported about ten years into the future, and... apparently me cheating on one stupid test leads to the end of the world, because Mr. Lancer would find out that I had cheated and would call a meeting with my parents at the Nasty Burger, which would then blow up and kill my friends and family.” Danny was shaking now, arms wrapped around himself as though he was trying to protect himself from his own words.
“That, in turn, lead to me tearing the ghost part out of me, which then proceeded to fuse with Vla- the Wisconsin Ghost. When- well, when that happened, it- drove my ghost half.... I-insane. And then he was killing people all over and... and I- I killed people in that timeline! I did the- the one thing I said I would never fucking do, and I killed someone.”
Danny was on his knees now, quietly sobbing. His black hair (when had he turned back?) shone in the sun.
Valerie was rooted to the spot. How in the hell did someone deal with that? Fuck, how in the hell would someone deal with any of this? In the span of about thirty minutes, Valerie had discovered that not only was her boyfriend dead, but was the town’s widely considered hero and had apparently fought an evil version of his future self and had almost seen all of his friends and family die.
And, to top it all off, he’d discovered that not only were his own parents hunting him, but she was too. Valerie felt sick.
Jesus. Just how much shit had she put him through? Fuck- was that why he was so nervous about telling her he was Phantom? Granted she was still pissed at him, but not for the Cujo thing. Not really.
“Danny.” He looked up at her, and she felt something in her chest break at just how scared and sad he looked. Was this the sort of shit he had to deal with every damn day? All that fear, over being hunted, or experimented on, or getting everyone he loved killed- was this how he felt all the time?
Slowly, Valerie stepped towards him and knelt down. Her eyes never left his.
“Danny. I care... so, so much about you. You... you were the first person to really give a shit about me, after the A-listers dropped me.”
Immediately he tensed, and distress filled his eyes.
“I’m-“
“Nope, don’t, stop. You’re not apologizing. Not right now. Maybe later. Not fucking now.”
He fell silent, eyes wide and searching. Still scared, still tense.
“You love space, and puns. Your favorite video game is Doom 4 even though you’ve never won. Your favorite subject is science, you’ve always wanted a dog, and you doodle in the margins of your paper when your bored.” Valerie paused.
Danny seemed to be noticeably more relaxed, as he was no longer gripping his knees so hard that his knuckles (how had she not noticed the scars? They weren’t exactly small.) were white. Good.
“You adore your mom and dad, even if they embarrass you all the time. You look up to your sister more than anyone on the planet, even if you don’t act it. You don’t make friends often, but when you do you stick with them through hell or high water. You’re incredibly smart when it comes to science and math, even if you have bad grades. And above all, you care so much about bathe people around you. You sacrifice everything, your grades, your relationships, your time, to help people who you think need it. And that applies to phantom and Fenton.”
He was crying again. But this time, there was a small, shaky sort of smile there, one that said something like this was looong overdue.
Slowly, Valerie recalled her suit, and wrapped her arms around Danny in a loose hug. He hugged back burying his face into her shoulder as he shook.
They would be okay. They’d figure it out, eventually.
But for now, they just enjoyed the relief in each other.
——————————
Aaaaand that’s a wrap folks! Part three is finally here! Not gonna lie, I wrote this in the span of about two and a half hours on mobile from 9 to about 11:20 pm, so apologies if there are any inconsistencies.
That being said, I would like to do a poll. I have about 120 followers and I was wondering if I should write something special for y’all once I reach 150. So, would you rather I write:
1) a Danny phantom/Rise of the Guardians crossover,
2) a Danny Phantom TUE! Au fic,
Or
3) part 3 of my Glass ghost au?
Comment your choice below and have a happy weekend or whatever.
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blueoatmeal · 5 years
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Day 1: Sandbox Characters
Obviously I went with Clockwork. Mostly a jumble of thoughts, headcanons, and quotes here
Clockwork
Not truly omniscient. Learns info like any other person, by seeing it. Just has a lot more time to spend watching, and the unique ability to see the past and future by travelling there
To any mortal being, he appears to know just about everything, but in truth there’s such a volume of information that’s constantly increasing that CW only knows a small fraction of what could be known at any given time
He’s very good at acting like he knows all, of course
He is in no way telepathic. Just good at reading people and predicting what they’ll do based on prior/future actions. Like a Batman Gambit. Not a foolproof method though
(Core theory) Has a time core. Unlike average ghosts who consciously tap into their specialized powers to use them (besides when Danny was repressing his ice powers bc he didn’t know about them), CW is constantly generating temporal energy
Just as Danny might freeze a wall he phases through when tapping into his core, CW affects things when phased through them too. He just. Can’t turn the effect off. Notably, he tends to age (or otherwise warp) whatever material or being he phases through. Sometimes quite drastically
As a result, he generally refrains from using intangibility and often uses teleportation in its place when he can, even though it takes more energy. That being said, he has made offensive use of intangibility
This also makes overshadowing a lot riskier
He is, for all intents and purposes, a ghost. He may not have always been a ghost, but he is now
His scar is hypertrophic (raised) except in AUs where it isn’t
He has the only time core in existence. He’s been targeted for it before; by time travelers, errant physicists, and aspiring rulers of the universe
The clock in his chest is fully functional; the hands move, the pendulum swings, and it even makes a ticking sound
He can make around 12 or 13 duplicates
He is very much an unreliable narrator. Take everything he says with a grain of salt
Clockwork’s tower always looks a lot smaller from the outside. It’s a phenomenon that doesn’t seem too unusual in the Ghost Zone, but is taken to the extreme in the clocktower. Unless a bunch of the doors in the halls lead to nothing, there’s more going on than anyone could guess from a casual look.
Quotes: (mostly from my phic WIPs)
Clockwork stared into the distance with an annoyed look on his face. “It is possible. I’m not the only entity who can manipulate time. Sometimes others try to help fix time, including those ruined timelines, and wind up making my job more difficult. Other times they’re a bit too effective.”
“Time is fluid,” Clockwork explained, “and I am a part of it. I do not exist outside of time. My actions can make a difference in time on the most basic level, like yours or anyone else’s. I can change events without causing temporal rifts.”
“It’s interesting to hear directly what people think about their own time.
Clockwork shook his head. “As convenient as it would be, I can’t speed up time for localized parts of my own body. It would throw everything out of whack. I can certainly freeze time, wait until I heal, then unfreeze it, but it’s indescribably boring.
“You don’t have a preset destiny. Just variable possibilities based on the actions and decisions of yourself and those around you. And, of course, genuine chance. Natural disasters, for example.
“You reduce individuals to statistics because you can’t properly comprehend numbers above a few hundred. You lose your perspective because your minds can’t handle the concept of trillions of unique people with different lives and goals of their own, each with a web of connections to others. You can only envision a few people at a time with that much detail. I don’t have those limits. Not on comprehension. Not on memory. I see the entirety of a person’s life, from birth to death and sometimes beyond, in multiple continuities, and I can never forget any of it.”
“I can tug at someone’s secrets every day for their entire life, but they can still choose to ignore me or refuse what I ask of them. I can’t just puppet people into doing what I want. There’s overshadowing, but it’s not a good long-term strategy. And it’s terribly unreliable. Most of what I do is good old-fashioned manipulation, with force applied as needed.”
“I must not act without thinking. Ever. Anything could happen. Worse, if my actions benefit myself at the expense of others, I lose my objectivity and all my decisions become compromised. It’s a conflict of interest. I can’t enter personal matters into the equation.”
“I understand the confusion, but this is not a torture chamber. It’s more of a garage, really.”
“It’s actually the seventh world-scale war, but it’s called the Fourth War because Captain Fourth is the one who fired the first shot.”
“With nearly every decision that’s made, by anyone, the timeline splits. Often more than just twice. I may have started with one timeline, but that didn’t last long.”
“Sometimes the chronology itself begins to lead towards the destruction of the timeline. Perhaps a reality-warping weapon is developed, or a massive drought begins that will end all life if it isn’t stopped. I either let the timeline die, or course-correct so that the timeline may go on longer.”
Clockwork raised his eyebrows. “I’m an excellent actor, Daniel.”
Clockwork gave him an odd look. “That’s only in this form. This isn’t my standard or default form or anything. All of my forms, no matter the appearance of age, are equally me. Besides, even my eldest appearance is hardly representative of my true age.”
“My body ages in a cycle, and my mind ages linearly.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I suppose I can’t quite perceive it as you do.”
“You know, I never quite understood that. I see how people can be inaccurate with their sense of time, but to report either a far shorter or far longer span than actually took place—Why? How does that happen? I could come up with an evolutionary reason but ultimately it just seems ridiculous to have a sense of time at all if half the time it’s wildly inaccurate.” 
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