#okay this is also kind of a void danny idea

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 257

Now Danny loves space. He loves everything about it, to the point his core quite literally is space. And he’s also a baby ghost, even if he could argue he’s not in human form. But see, being baby has an honestly great consequence once it’s noticed- despite the Observants’ best attempts at hiding it, the assholes. 

Of course he would be far more worried- and even a bit pissed- if his caretaker wasn’t who it was. Look, he’d never met Clockwork’s siblings before, but apparently everyone was really against Clockwork himself adopting. 

But Clockwork as his uncle is fine. Besides, his caretaker is Space! Space itself is holding him, cooing gentle words in the sounds of the very cosmos. And they’re huge, like parts of their body going through portals so they can fit outside Long-Now sized big- and apparently Clockwork can get just as big and they can get even bigger- 

Okay, he needs to take a breath- even if he doesn’t need to breathe- to stop his squealing because holy Realms this is so cool. 

Space is awesome! And he’s getting so much more rest than he did in Amity- and even if Space sort of shrugged at the idea of school at first, they did help him set up online schooling. So there’s that, and it’s just the start! 

He gets to learn so much about space and it’s honestly kind of… nice? To be taken care of? And he can do whatever he needs for his Core and Obsession with only a few interruptions to take care of his living needs. Erm, sort of living needs? 

But even that gets turned into a bit of play or even a lesson too! He’s honestly having such a good time right now! He’s learning so much about spaaace! And dimensions! And interdimensional portals and- oops! No one saw that. 

Ahem- But he’s learning so much about space and getting to explore other dimensions with Cosmos! And sure he no longer looks as human as he once did and all that, but he’s seen so many people who also don’t look human that does it really matter? 

Of course it doesn’t, and he matches his sort-of-dad! Even though the streaks of color in their hair are more of a brown-red like they’re literally bleeding out the cosmos around them instead of it fading to void and space like his own. But still! They match and it’s fun! 

And they’re going to go on another trip from the in-between to one of the dimension realities! He’s going to start a game of tag this time he thinks! But no cheating with portals or bending space! Tag! 

Look, the Justice League? Not paid enough for this. In fact, technically not paid at all due to being volunteers (not that it stopped them from finding money in their accounts) but still. 

There is some sort of figure… being… thing… zooming around the asteroid belt, about the size of Earth itself. Let them repeat themselves. A planet-sized creature (are those hands or paws? Tail or simply its body stretching? Hair or the Abyss-) is currently darting around the asteroid belt like a child running through grass. 

That is, without noticing or caring if something bug-sized might be crushed. And they are very much bug sized, as the governments are concerned about. Like really concerned about. Like talking about trying to nuke the entity if it wanders closer sort of concerned. 

Which they are all very concerned and very much like, against. Because it isn’t seeming to notice the asteroids it’s knocking into their area. It’s like… not a space whale or eel or anything like that but also is something like that. 

And they would also maybe like to see if they can attempt to talk it down first maybe and-

oh. 

Oh. 

That creature is the baby. And mama just arrived, stretching across the entire galaxy, from them to Pluto and beyond, like something took the cosmos and shaped it like clay into some sort of form. Like reality itself has wandered into their galaxy with what they are suddenly realizing must be a very young child. 

Shit, they really have to make sure no one tries to piss either of these things off-

[thebiggestfuckgiven]

hey wait i just got an idea for a dpxdc fic

sam, tucker and danny never went to high school together and they never met let alone become friends

bear with me here

im a firm believer in everlasting connections that are not limited by time, space or dimensions. Meaning that these three, no matter what, will always find one another somehow. (I also just really like their friendship)

anyways, tucker is in college. He’s in his second to last year, looking for an internships. Surprise, surprise he gets accepted for an IT internship at Cadmus! It goes pretty normal but he starts realizing that something’s… kinda off. And it has to do with the building’s power source. What’s powering our servers? The one we’re in charge of making security programs for. What do you mean that’s classified????

Fast forward, Tucker doesn’t question it too much. He doesn’t want to get in trouble. But whenever he accidentally falls asleep at work (he still has classes okay?) he has these… weird dreams. His supervisors tell him it’s normal when you’re stressed. Don’t worry about it. Don’t talk about them again. Don’t even think about them.

Oh, okay…. but the dreams get aggressively persistent. It’s always a voice, floating in a void… tucker eventually starts seeing a blurry figure, broken and crawling. It talks about Cadmus and, Tucker can’t not investigate.

On a different line, we have Sam. She is an avid activist, as we know. Cadmus’ new base of operations (the same where Tucker is working) is rumored to be dumping toxic waste in the lake. It isn’t radioactive but it has a weird effect on the wildlife. Like, really weird. Everyone is very hush hush about it and Cadmus allegedly gets rid of the evidence before anyone can get to it. (Sam caught them do it once, but couldn’t get it on camera)

So, she decides to do some heavy investigating. Think Nancy Drew meets the Doctor kind of thing. Eventually it leads to her working as a custodial and stealing key cards. She’s overheard enough and gotten glimpses at exposed info on computers to suspect where the waste is coming from, and that it’s definitely NOT normal.

Tucker and Sam go investigate on the same night. Same hour. They scare the everliving shit out of each other because who the hell are you and what are you doing here???? But they find a middle ground (their suspicions), compare notes, and decide to work together.

With Tucker’s skills, their trip to the basement (they had no idea there was a hidden panel in one of the elevators with ten additional basement floors..) went smoothly, for the most part. And after a lot, a lot, of searching they find a heavily vaulted room.

They open the room.

In it, there’s impressively tall machines, what look like servers and some kind of filtration system? There’s cables and tubes everywhere, all connected to the giant glass tube in the center back of the room.

Floating in that tube, in a vat of bright green liquid that Sam recognizes as the toxic waste in the lake, is the same blurry figure that Tucker would see in his dreams. It’s surreal to see him there, for both of them. Phantom, in his hazmat suit, has large IVs on each side of his neck and other strategic parts of his body. Even the sides of his head. There’s a weird metal collar around him, too.

After a moment of confused and worried discussion, they decide to free him. Tucker manages to do it without activating any kind of alarm (or he hopes at least), narrowly keeping Sam from breaking the glass with a heavy duty police baton that she apparently just had on her.

They take off the IVs carefully (still ripping some of the skin regardless), they’re panicking slightly, figuring out how they’re going to leave without getting caught on cameras or by security when an alarm goes off. A really loud one with red lights.

All of a sudden they hear voices, Sam and Tucker’s panic blows up but they freeze because the voices are right there and—

and then there’s a bunch of teenagers (?) dressed in bright suits and masks in front of the heavily vaulted door. They’re half dragging another kid, who’s weirdly wet. Kind of like Phantom. The two groups freeze momentarily and just… stare at each other.

���Are they with us? Rob?” The teenager in the yellow suit asked the one wearing an R on his chest.

“No, they’re not. Are you guys stealing a person, too?”

Dazed, Sam and Tucker just nod.

Then the large machinery behind them makes a repeated beeping noise, like it’s failing, and the lights go out. As does the power in the whole building.

[absolute-art-attack]

It had been a week since Danny had run away. Jazz has been looking for him since the night that his powers short circuited in front of the entire town. Now, 7 and a half days later, Jazz found Danny on a floating island, with a dark castle with a night sky full of stars and a bright moon.

Danny changed a lot in the week that he was missing. A purple and black gale you replaced his hair, a slight wave to it. His usual t-shirt and jeans were missing, instead he had an almost royal appearance. Dark purple dress pants, a dark blue long sleeve button up shirt, and a pair of black vans. His complexion was brighter and the bags under his eyes were almost gone. His arms and stomach seemed fuller, like he was properly eating. All in all, he seemed almost like a different person.

“Danny?” Were the first words that were uttered from the mouth when her brother came into view. Shock passed through his face, and a shaky smile followed. “You look different. Healthy! And,” she took a slow spin around the castle they were in. “This is amazing.”

His smile softened, as he gently chuckled.

“Thanks. I guess this is sort of my layer, now. Everything just grew around me, anything I could imagine happen, right before my eyes.”

Jazz started to make her was up the stone steps, continue to talk to her brother.

“I’m sorry about what happened in Amity, Danny. You didn’t deserve what happened, if I would have stopped-”

Danny had raised his hands, almost to defend himself, and began to back away.

“No, it’s fine, really. It’s not your fault. You should start heading home. Really.” He had his hands awkwardly around in his pockets, an unsure look on his face. Jazz stopped walking, surprise in her voice.

“But I just found you.” Another step. Danny looked more nervous.

“But you don’t belong with ghosts. You belong with humans, in Amity.” Jazz's eyebrows furrowed. What did he mean by that.

“What are you talking about, so do you. You’re not-” She had stared up the steps again, set on getting to her brother.

“No, I belong here. In a place where I can live my life without endangering the people I love.” Danny looked directly into Jazz’s eyes at those words. A thought occurred to Jazz, something that she had been wondering about for a while.

“Danny,” another step forward, another step backward. “Danny, we were so close before everything. Why are we not anymore?” A frown rested on Danny’s lips, answer lost on him. Jazz crept talking. “We don’t have to be this was anymore. We can have the same relationship as when we were kids.”

Behind Danny’s eyes, scenes played like a projector. The moment where he almost killed his older sister. ‘Catch me!’ ‘Hold on!’ ‘JAZZ!’

“No.” Danny wrapped his arms around himself protectively. “We can’t. Goodbye Jasmine.” Danny began to walk upstairs. Jazz stood shocked for a moment. Danny never used her full name.

Jazz started up the, calling after him.

“Danny, wait!” Danny grabbed himself tighter.

“No, I’m just protecting you.” Jazz was running up the steps, Danny much faster.

[Jazz:]You don't have to protect me I'm not afraid

Please don't shut me out again,

Please don't slam the door

You don't have to keep your distance anymore

'Cause for the first time in forever

I finally understand

For the first time in forever

We can fix this hand in hand

We can head back to town together

You don't have to live in fear

'Cause for the first time in forever,

I will be right here

They were upstairs now, a large room with a balcony. It had a perfect view of all of the stars, and the bright moon. He turned around to meet Jazz’s gaze when she got up the steps.

[Danny:]Jazz,

Please go back home, your life awaits

Go enjoy the sun and pursue your fate

[Jazz:]Yeah, but -

Danny put his hands up in defense again, backing away to the door, turning around to open it.

[Danny:]I know

You mean well, but leave me be

Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free

Just stay away and you'll be safe from me

Pale light hitting his face made Danny close his eyes. Jazz walked up behind him, as Danny continued. When she got to him, he backed away more and walked be into the room.

[Jazz:]Actually we're not

That got Danny’s attention. He turned around, eyebrows scrunched.

[Danny:]What do you mean you're not?

[Jazz:]I get the feeling you don't know

[Danny:]What do I not know?

Jazz wring her hands in each other, nervous of his reaction.

[Jazz:]Amity’s being invaded by… ghosts

[Danny:]What?

Shock was present on his face. He didn’t mean for that to happen. Danny didn’t even know he could do that.

[Jazz:]You've kind of created little void demons… everywhere.

[Danny:]Everywhere?

[Jazz:]It's okay, you can just stop them

[Danny:]No, I can't, I - I don't know how!

Danny was getting flustered, and every time that happened, something bad happened. Jazz needs to leave, it just get away from him. Why didn’t she understand, why does she keep following him?

[Jazz:]Sure you can! I know you can!'Cause for the first time in forever,

[Danny:]Oh I'm such a fool, I can't be free!

Darkness was starting to creep up on Danny, slowly suffocating him. Around the Fenton siblings, it was starting to get darker, harder to see and think. There was a mass of darkness starting to condense around Danny, almost like a twister of black.

[Jazz:]You don't have to be afraid

[Danny:]No escape from the storm inside of me!

He was looking down at his hands. It was there flat that he was in this position in the first place.

[Jazz:]We can work this out together

[Danny:]I can't control the curse!

Controls your emotions. Controls you powers. Don’t feel them. Don’t feel them.

[Jazz:]We'll reverse the storm you've made

[Danny:]Ohhhh, Jazz, please, you'll only make it worse!

He was rubbing on his sleeves, rubbing his hands together, and doing anything to keep calm. It was so hard, though. This was what he was afraid of.

[Jazz:]Don't panic

[Danny:]There's so much fear!

Tears were sliding down his face, but he didn’t feel then. He could only feel the pressure in his chest, in his core. She was never going to understand, why was she trying so hard to?

[Jazz:]We'll make the sun shine bright

[Danny:]You're not safe here!

Get away from her before you hurt her. Get away before she ends up like before.

[Jazz:]We can face this thing together

[Danny:]Oh!

[Jazz:]We can change this dark teather

[Danny:]AHHHHH…

The dark was getting to be too much on Danny. He was going to explode. He needed to do something, or it was going to start eating him from the inside.

[Jazz:]And everything will be alright...

[Danny:]I CAN'T!

A mass of black magic ricocheted from his body, hitting everything in the vicinity. Jazz was struck, and felt the immediate sensation of fear starting to grip at her heart, causing her to gasp out.

Danny had a small sigh of relief, a pressure lifted off of his core, ever so lightly. He heard Jazz gasp out behind him, and turned his head to see her gripping her chest, her heart, and curling in on herself.

“Jazz?”

[phantomskeep]

Putting the "Fun" Back in "Funeral" Excerpts Pt. 1

okay yes I am impatient and I kind of want feedback on this idea, so have some excerpts from the Dead on Main fic I'm writing! \o/ (also I have no idea how to format things LOL). There is a very, VERY large timeskip between E1 and E2, btw. Criticisms and opinions are very welcomed!

Warning for small bits of violence in E1, and for mention of blood in E2 as well as a suggestive ending ;)

------- Excerpt One -------

Danny sometimes wishes he could travel through time. Don’t get him wrong! He knows the danger of messing up the time stream (Dan, Desiree, and Clockwork all taught him that much) but there are still times when he’ll sit on top of a building, staring at the stars, wondering what he would change given half the chance.

Currently, however, he was debating on his life choices while not on a rooftop.

White gloved hands shakily grasped broken concrete, slowly lifting his broken body out of the crater in the middle of some random street. The latest ghost who decided to try their hand at using Danny as a punching bag was one that he hadn’t encountered before. His usual roster of ghostly enemies still came by, of course. Ember, Skulker, Lunch Lady, Johnny 13, Kitty and Box Ghost at least visited Amity Park once a week, if not more. However, the ghostly entity that Danny was currently facing? He had never seen them before.

As Danny raised himself out of his impromptu resting place he considered the being before him. Dark, void black skin and fur greeted him. The ghost’s face was an odd cross between a horse’s and dogs - long, block-shaped snout with a mouth reaching right up to under their dark red eyes. Pointed ears flicked wildly back and forth between a long mane that reached just up until the collar of the ghost’s thick golden necklace. The ghost’s choice of clothes baffled the white-haired ghost greatly, black dress shirt and (oddly enough) bright golden skinny jeans? Really? Who died and thought that was a good fashion choice?

Yeah, Danny was just as confused.

The other ghost looked down at the young halfa, “I cannot fathom how you are the one Hotep described to me.” He sneered, clearly mocking Danny. “The great Akuris will easily defeat such a pathetic child.”

Danny gasped, mock-offended. “Well, Mr. Fursuit, I will have you know that at least I don’t dress like an accountant in the middle of a mid-life crisis.” He smirked before resting a soul-piercing green glare at the larger ghost floating above where Danny stood. “Or would it be mid-afterlife crisis?”

With that, Danny leapt back into action. He swung a powerful punch directly into Akuris’s long muzzle causing the dark ghost to be pushed back. Amity Park’s ghostly hero did not relent on his assault, though. Danny followed the other ghost’s backwards momentum to bodily slam into his opponent’s soft belly in a move he often saw Dash pull during his football practices. The twenty year old halfa quickly grabbed the Fenton thermos off of his belt loop, taking the opportunity to finally capture the winded ghost.

A great sigh left Danny’s body as he hovered in the air, surveying the damage leftover from the fight between the two. It was well around two in the morning, judging by the placement of the twinkling stars. Today was the day of his coronation - exactly five years after he defeated Pariah Dark.

Originally, Danny was told he was technically king of the Ghost Zone in the aftermath of the battle. The young ghost had argued with the mysterious time-themed ghost named Clockwork who appeared. Danny was successfully able to get a five-year grace period of kingly procrastination.

Since then, Danny had grown up a little bit. He defeated his alternate evil self, discovered new powers, traveled through time on Clockwork’s request, graduated highschool, took a gap year to focus solely on fighting ghosts, and successfully never let his parents or the world know about his ghostly half. All in all, Danny considered it a successful five years.

All good things must come to an end, though. The half ghost kept staring dejectedly at the stars so far away. He knew that even though he probably *should* tell his parents what was going on, the fear of everything going wrong lurked in the back of his mind. After the events of Dan, the young man pulled away from his parents bit by bit. It was grief that drove Danny to rip out the most vulnerable parts of himself, after all. If he had nothing to grieve about then he would never be pushed into doing something as drastic like destroying the world, right?

Jazz disagreed very heavily with his mentality, but he was fine with that.

Another sigh left the poor halfa’s body and he re-hooked the Fenton Thermos to his beltloop. He might as well go back home to continue to lick his wounds before Danny had to, unfortunately, be crowned king. What a shitty Tuesday.

------- Excerpt Two -------

A delightful aroma wafted through the late morning air, easily slipping between the weak rays of sunlight filtered through the windows. Jason slowly blinked as he shuffled his way out of bed, slightly wincing when his bruised leg hit the time-worn wooden floors. He still hadn’t fully recovered from the latest fight with Scarecrow – something Danny certainly wasn’t letting him forget. Thinking of the ghostly man, Jason glanced over to the other side of their shared bed only to see the sheets rumpled but obviously used. With a small sigh, Jason pushed himself off his mattress and started his sleepy trek into the apartment’s kitchen.

The sight of a smaller, pale man with his exposed back to Jason was always something the man longed to see. The first time Danny was relaxed and comfortable enough around Jason’s home (and by extension, Jason himself) to make the pair breakfast had rapidly become one of the man’s most favorite memories. It made the middle of his chest hum with feelings of pride-safe-I-did-that-yes-home-safe. Of course, seeing his boyfriend only in space-themed boxers was something Jason loved for another reason, as well.

Danny let out a small laugh, pushing back against the strong chest bracing him. “Jason,” he whined, dragging out the man’s name. The other man just hummed and dropped his chin on top of Danny’s head. Large arms wrapped securely around the younger man’s torso and waist, Jason’s steady breaths moving Danny’s smaller body as the Crime Lord hugged his lover from behind.

“Yes?” The taller man asked.

Danny half-turned his head to look into Jason’s similar crystal blue eyes. “If you keep this up the pancakes are going to end up burnt,” he warned half-heartedly.

A deep chuckle shook the smaller man’s body and Danny couldn’t help but purr contently at the feeling. Jason always made the younger feel so safe. Even when he came back to their shitty little apartment deep into the heart of Crime Alley covered in blood, or when the Pit Rage got the better of Jason so early into their relationship. Jason, to Danny, felt so much like home sometimes it physically hurt.

“What if,” Jason said slyly, blue eyes-half lidded with promise. He leaned closer onto Danny’s body, his mouth ghosting across a pointed ear. “I wanted something different for breakfast instead?”

Danny gasped as Jason finally captured his lips in a kiss. Calloused, practiced hands ran over cold cheeks and through soft hair. The half-ghost ran one hand along the stove’s counter, finding the dial to turn off the stove quickly. The man turned around in the comforting embrace before fully facing Jason.

---------------

aaaand yeah that's it! I'm slowly finishing up chapter one and I'm hoping to get it posted this weekend ^-^

[rumblelibrary]

Hello, it's me again, your friendly neighborhood... Hungarian?!...👀❤️

Can I request a Sebastian Zöllner fic, where he is a coworker of Reader, and there's an obvious sexual tension, attraction in the office, they sit opposite each other, legs touching sometimes, hands touching... Idunno... Things like this 👀🔥 but nothing happened... Yet...🔥🔥

Never an Enemy [Sebastian Zöllner x Fem!Reader]

Word count: 5k

Warnings: A bad mouthed journalist with strong opinions about art and performance that might offend

Author’s note: Did I let this idea simmer in me for ages? Yes. Did I ever stopped thinking about it? NO.

You hummed softly while the music blasted in your headphones as you made your way up the stairs to the headquarters of the Art Tribune, the art focused magazine you worked for since over a year.

You liked the job even if to deal with artists was hard and the pay check could really deserve an improvement, it was stimulating and surely kept you on the edge. That morning in particular you needed to revise some background stories and just loads of reading to do to work on a new article for an upcoming exhibition. Just the usual fact checking, but you just couldn’t do it at home the day before so you decided to come early and enjoy some peace and quiet at the office.

You arrived at the top of the stairs of the fourth floor with a groan, you told yourself you had to do the stairs because you spent 70% of your life sitting in front of a computer, kind of self care, but brutal. You groaned lightly going straight toward the little kitchen installed for the team when you noticed something in the empty shared room full of desks. It was actually a really nice place with big industrial style windows that let lots of light inside, a very smart environment to work in, with areas where you could relax, free Wifi and loads of facilities. Usually people were put in big desks together, facing each other, trying to push a sort of ‘community feeling’.

Inevitably most of the people created barricades with books, and pictures of their dogs or even empty coffee cups. Yes, all cute and artistic, but do not talk to me.

That’s what also the attitude of the man you shared your desk with on your first day. He whined like a child for twenty minutes, complained he was happy to work alone, followed the assistant of the editor around the office and created a barricade of catalogues between the two of you so thick that you wondered if it was also bulletproof, only to rest his elbows over it half an hour asking if you had the change for the vending machine. Yes, that random man was you colleague and friend, Sebastian Zöllner.

The same that you are witnessing now asleep on the desk, head resting on his crossed arms while a stand of saliva went down on his shirt, wild hair and shoes taken off.

He could be considered an attractive man if he wasn’t a bloody nightmare of a person. You actually worked a lot with him and enjoyed his presence most of the days, your characters folded nicely and you would bounce off his attitude. He was strong on biographies and annoying the shit out of others, so he was always nagging at someone, you included.

You smirked slowly tracing his hair with your fingers, he never looked so innocent and you were always surprised to learn how those messy hair were so soft. It wasn’t the first time you did that gesture, sometimes he did lean his head like this only to be touched like an annoying mewling cat that needs attentions. “Kaffee” He mumbled making you chuckle, such a an annoying brat and he didn’t even open his eyes.

You carried on walking to the little kitchen room to prepare some coffee for you and your desk partner. You shook your head aimlessly as you started wondering why the man is here at this hour and if it was really a good idea to wake him up. To have him awake means to be able to do little to zero.

You watched the coffee get ready, the comforting tune of your morning playlist getting you still on the good side of your mood as you poured the coffee in your mug.

Then you saw it, an arm sneaking in front of you and taking the mug from your hand, you jump scared in a second almost pouring the rest of the coffee on the whole kitchen counter only to encounter Sebastian sleepy figure behind you bringing the mug close to his nose and inhaling deeply the aroma before having a gulp, you stared at him as his jaw clenched, his eyes got a bit teary. “Fucking hot” he whined making you chuckle, he deserved it for stealing it, luckily you were already doing some more for him so he stole your favourite mug but you had some coffee for you left.

You pulled off your headphones leaning them on your neck “No idea you’d be sleeping at the office, weren’t you off on some interview ?”

He shrugged “yeah, well me neither, but interviewing sculptors is always annoying as shit and those are always supersensitive” he said opening the freezer and pulling out some ice cubes from their box and putting them in the coffee mug. “Scheiße!” He cursed as the ice cube landing in the mug caused the coffee to spill onto his white shirt. You pressed your lips tight against each other not to laugh into his face, but he was already pissed off and it wasn’t even proper work time. You watched him lean over the sink trying to wash it off somehow without even bothering to take it off, just adding chaos on chaos.

“Y/N! Do not laugh and try to help me! Beside, the heck are you doing here at this hour?” You rolled your eyes at that comment, but you didn’t indulge him in that request.

“I was just looking for silence”

He nodded like he didn’t believe a single word of it, he was just an asshole and you had to deal with it like it or not. You almost hated how he was so freaking good at writing and that’s probably why many people indulged him. Even you knew his pieces on the magazine and didn’t expect to find out he was so…so Sebastian.

You let out a breathy chuckle taking your mug and making your way to your joined desk letting him wrestle his balance over the kitchen sink trying to get the stain wet and not shower himself in the meanwhile.

You sat down at your spot leaning the mug on side, hands covering your face trying to keep a clear mind letting out a big breath “okay, let’s do this”

You turned on the lamplight on your desk pulling out your laptop from your backpack. As the computer was ‘waking up’ you stared at Sebastian side of the desk compared to yours.

You had like a little citadel of books around you, but it was pretty neat, a little succulent gifted by your friend for your first day at work with the name tag ‘Danny’ on it sitting beside the lamp, lots of pencils and pens of different colours and notebooks to no end. If you had something in common with that beast of a man was that you both still relied on paper for sketching ideas and write down impressions in the moment, then onto the typing.

His side, however, was like a contemporary artwork in itself. Half empty cigarettes packages everywhere, the ashtray filled up, paper inside books and books filled with more papers. Notes everywhere, the damn king of neon yellow post-its, stains of coffee and crumbles of food invert corner, his red laptop showing off like a punch in the eye and his satchel bag always hang or thrown around.

You often wondered if the cleaning stuff just gave up on him. Your lucky guess was that he would probably throw a fit if anything was moved, so everyone just played the blind eye.

He was good at throwing fits.

You watched him come back sitting in front of you, half of his shirt soaked in the attempt to clean it up, he licked his lips picking one empty package of cigarettes looking in it and throwing it away until he found one with still something in it and he lighted his cigarette as he turned on his laptop. You sighed opening the window to let the fresh air not getting you intoxicated.

You went back to sip your coffee and stare at the screen quietly, every now and then your eyes falling onto the little cloud of smoke in front of you.

Sebastian was an attractive man, that was undeniable and you were sure that made him also a successful interviewer even though he was so random and chaotic, when he was silent and collected in thoughts he was indeed a sight to be seen. The dark hair framing his face like he was some cherub, his deep eyes staring into the void of his own words as he typed. He had a sort of decadent look on him.

Slowly the office begun to get filled, people coming here and there to tease Seb about coming early and he just waving his cigarette around asking for silence.

“Zöllner””

The chief editor shouted getting into his office without even turning around. Seb rolled his eyes looking at you as he pushed the cigarette in the ashtray waving his hand around to dissipate the smoke around him before standing up.

“I wonder how he managed to survive few days without shouting my name” he smirked.

You looked at him and mimicked his smirk.

What a chaotic man.

You had finished your reading by then and started to make a first draft of the article you were meant to work on.

“Y/N!!!” Sebastian voice rang through the office making you jump on your seat and he gestured at you to go with him with a big wave of his arm.

You looked at your screen with an helpless sigh, it seems like you will not write that article anytime soon, you’d better just have slept an hour more.

You stood up following that incessant wave as Seb put his hand on your back to get you in a bit quicker.

“Good morning”

You said as the chief editor nodded quietly “Look Y/N, it is a big favour I have to ask you” he begun frankly as you were beginning to get worried “you did your time with silly articles, so I thought it could be interesting to pair you up with Sebastian to go to tonight’s exhibition of Evita Schnecke”

Your eyes went wide as you looked at Sebastian shrug his shoulders.

“I need somebody to keep the horse with tight rains” Mr Megelbach continued gesturing with his pen at Sebastian and then at you “and you will dip your toes in those big time artists environment, but we really need to make sure Sebastian won’t hurt anyone’s sensibility, her interview has been obtained with lots of hard work”

“Yeah, we all know that hard work” Sebastian whispered in your ear earning a glare from Mr Megelbach who handed you a couple of catalogues from that artist and the invitation.

“So, put on hold your current article for today, make a plan with this train wreck and please make sure he doesn’t show up dressed like that”

“That was unneeded”

“All precautions are always needed with you, and now get out of my office the both of you”

You nodded moving out of the office, you were a bit anxious. Those artists were unpredictable just as Sebastian.

You made your way back to your desk with him as you sat down looking at the invitation. “So, it begins at 9 pm” you said almost understanding why Sebastian shouldn’t be allowed to go unescorted because the invitation on the dress code had: Wear something that talks about your soul. Only that could bring Sebastian to have an aneurism.

“I hate that bitch”

“Seb, that’s not a good start for an article”

He smirked as you said so but shrugged

“I mean it, this woman was born into privilege, she portrayed herself to be this underground rebel, but her simple black dress was a Chanel and her everyday boot Balenciaga, so I don’t trust her for a reason”

You smirked as you could agree with that and showed him the two catalogues the boss gave you

“Choose your fighter”

He groaned so loud he could have stabbed his toe and he leaned over his side of the desk picking one from your hand giving a light pinch on your side “teacher’s pet”. You chuckled softly as he always said that.

“Tell me if you read something that it is not about the performer’s way of life” he mumbled opening it in front of him.

You begun your reading and it was indeed the hell pit of a vey spoiled kid who was told to be the greatest since the first day of life, you picked your notebook and opened it taking notes on things that you could ask about.

Sebastian in the meanwhile lighted up another cigarette rolling it between his fingers mindlessly, his eyes looking above the paper at you every now and then among the little curses in German about the stupid things written there.

After some time it was becoming really a torture to read and you leaned your back on your chair stretching your legs forward for Seb to catch one of them among his.

You smirked as you often joked to him he was like some bear trap with those legs always catching yours.

He put his hand under the table bringing your leg up onto his thigh as you shifted even lower on your seat, his hand touching your ankle mindlessly as he had a talent for little massages like that. He did it the first time a while aback, a summer day where it was so hot and humid that you couldn’t feel your own legs.

So it became a little ritual among the two of you. You had many of those rituals, it was like an unspoken collection of attentions. Like you making the coffee in the morning because he was a grumpy ass. Or him always buying you some chewing gum or little treat when he went to buy cigarettes.

“I guess I am not the only one that needs a restyle”

He said bringing you away by the tenderness those little actions brought to you when he pushed his finger in your Vans shoe deepening a hole that you were trying to ignore from months.

“Seb, don’t do it, I wanted to make them last another season”

“Another season? These can’t last the end of the month, no doubt why your sex life is a train wreck”

You frowned at him taking your ankle off his hand to push on his chair making him roll back thanks to the little wheels underneath it, but he held on the desk and pulled himself closer again.

“What do you even know about it”

He looked at you, eyebrows raising up on his forehead

“Y/N, if I was your boyfriend I wouldn’t allow you to leave the bed that early in the morning to go to the office and that’s a fact”

“Oh, and how on heaven could you detain my passion for this job?” “Well, I can write you a list about it, you can consider it a to do list on your next date” His smirk was so wide, he enjoyed to tease you like that, the bastard, he knew to be an hottie and he always acted like half of the world was up to fuck with him.

“Oh please, do it, I want to see”

You teased him and he leaned in elbows on the table staring at you.

Oh the sexual tension with him was too much, you always went down on this hurricane of remarks, always him mentioning how you need more orgasms or implying it, or even implying how good he is at giving them.

“But be careful, because any act should be performed and not only lived”

You said quoting the artist you were reading about and he whined so hard like you really stomped your foot on his balls.

“Horrid witch”

“Me?” “No, that one”

He huffed and puffed picking another cigarette. Sometimes cigarettes just died on his fingers as he forgot to actually enjoy them more than waving them around.

The artist herself wasn’t remarkable, she used themes seen over and over before, she had a background as performer/dancer and she added painting to that, but more than talent she had an amazing marketing squad. You read her story and her commentaries about living like in a poem, which always sounds pretty easy with a big bank account.

You did all you could to stay neutral even if Seb was going down to massacre the woman, you two shared a bundle of two sandwiches (or better say, your brought a package of two and he was skipping his lunch so you just handed it to him) until you decided to get parted and go get ready at home.

That evening you were waiting for him in front of your apartment, when a taxi stopped in front of you and his figure appeared waving at you to come in on the back. His eyes widened in surprise “Well, well, well, look who got all fancy here”

He smirked as his eyes travelled on you shamelessly, the dress was actually one of those you brought ages ago and never used, also to wear heels felt like new, last time you went to a fancy event almost hard to recollect.

“Just move and let me in”

You said chuckling as you looked at him being so elegant when you noticed it, the price tag on his shirt.

“Seb, did you just buy this shirt?”

“Yes, and I am going to take it back tomorrow”

You looked at him puzzled

“What?” He groaned “I suck at ironing stuff”

You looked at him as a little laugh escaped your lips as he told you not to, but it was too late for that, you shifted closer to him anyway helping him to hide that price tag better behind his neck. Nevertheless the white shirt was really fancy and fitted him perfectly.

As you arrived in front of the gallery you sighed and made your way inside.

The place wasn’t crowded but few eyes turned as you got in.

“Would you like some champagne?” A waiter asked and Seb picked two flutes immediately downing one in a gulp on his own as the other was still in his other hand, he put the empty glass on the tray and then picked a third one handing it to you.

“Drink Y/N or you won’t make it to the end of the evening”

You smirked as he was always over dramatic, but indeed the evening seemed to be made for posh people to show off how cool they are.

You spotted the artist pretty quickly wearing a Valentino bright red dress, she surely had the dancer figure and gestures which gave her some kind of an edge.

"She is all yours"

You looked at Sebastian already half way through his drink, giving you that cheshire cat smirk.

"Are you sure?"

"You know I will insult her in a second if she names her dancing background one more time, I saw the videos, she looked like a three ready to collapse on the ground" he chuckled as you smirked shaking your head at his metaphor, but he is probably right, he is too much biased.

"I didn't notice the open back before" he said referring to your dress as he caressed over your skin with his fingertips making goosebumps raise up your spine.

"What? Am I too sexy for your own good?"

"Probably" he commented not losing a beat to answer you. You were taken aback from a moment, his eyes still down on his hand touching your back before raising up to find yours.

Then he took his hand away and pressed the cold champagne glass against it making you hiss "Now go, I'll check this bourgeois art"

You frowned but you just moved away from him. He always did it, he teased you and then made it a joke. You gave it back to him too, it was your relationship, that's how you balanced it.

"Good evening " you said to her with a smile holding your glass in your left hand before offering your right hand to her "I am Y/N, from the Art Tribune"

She went from neutral to smiling in a second

"Oh, I was waiting to meet you" she said leaning to kiss your cheek, surely she was a woman with charm, with a degree of boldness that made her charming and also, you noticed, extremely touchy-feely with everyone.

"We can define this a sort of retrospective of your previous works, I liked to see the evolution of it" you lied, because you just saw the catalogue.

But that was fair enough to have her go on about her, guess what? Past as a dancer, about how she needed to express herself, how she was her own muse and all the stuff you already read.

"What is next for you then?"

"I want to follow my dream, I have always wanted to found a space with my name where people could rent the rooms to perform dances and arts"

You stared at her. For real? Like there weren't other hundreds in the whole city?

"What will keep you apart from all the others that did this before you?"

"Nobody is me" she smirked like it was clear and obvious.

You asked few more questions, but you were sad to admit Sebastian was right. There wasn't art there, there was just profit, selling a name, a brand.

This saddened you because you met many artists that had less than a chance to make it but double the talent of Miss Valentino Dress.

"Y/N" Sebastian warm hand was on your back as you were downing the last bit of champagne "Come, come ,come quick" he said pushing you away as the artist clearly recognised him but he dismissed her with some insult or whatever he just mumbled.

"Seb, I was working, what the hell?"

"Elke is here"

You still didn't understand, you were puzzled as the reason of that anxiety was still unknown to you.

"Like your girlfriend Elke?"

"Put an ex in front of it" he said looking around frantically

"Oh, I am sorry, I didn't know"

"No, me neither, I thought she was just bashing around, she always did" his arm sneaked around your waist pulling you closer "please, act sexy for once"

You were one second from hitting his guts with your elbow when Elke herself approached.

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you here" she said waving her glass around

"Yeah, well I work for an important Art journal if you remember"

"How could I forget?" she groaned looking at you then as Sebastian's hand rested onto your hip. Really? Was he acting like you were his date?

"Hi, I am Y/N"

You said politely to her and she chuckled "Run when you can, this man is a leech and you don't even know it"

She mentioned it almost casually, but you could feel all the poison implied on your skin, Sebastian's hand giving you a soft squeeze, you had never seen him like this before. He looked like a dog that just got kicked, his back hunched over you lightly both trying to protect you and for protection.

"Well, thank you for your advice, I must be a real torment too because we actually have lot of fun together, I like his unpredictability"

You said it from your heart, you didn't want to insult her or anything, but you felt bad for him. Even if he probably deserved it, to be humiliated like this must be hard in any circumstance, in particular in a place where he is supposed to work and being known.

He looked at you a bit surprised, he leaned slowly pressing a kiss on your temple and you smiled because of that gesture so enveloped in that feeling of tenderness.

"Your shot" Elke said clearly a bit annoyed that you as she just moved along followed by a man that must be her date.

"Lets go out"

You suggested as Seb nodded and just followed for once, he held your hand as you guided him and for once he wasn't talking or commenting anything.

As you went out he sat down on the sidewalk pulling out his package of cigarettes taking out one immediately.

"Hey stand up" you said to him as he looked up at you and you snatched that cigarette off his lips "let's go away"

"Where? Don't we have to stay until she gets naked to dance?"

You smirked "No, we have all the material we need"

You took his cigarette away offering him your hand as he picked it and you guided him.

He was silent, which is rare, when he was silent it meant he was upset in some way, he always had a nice comeback line for everything usually.

His head leaned on side like a scolded child as he slowly laced your fingers together.

You walked across few streets, your heels clicking on the cement until you made it to your final location pulling him inside.

"Constatinopole?"

Seb asked looking at the sign, it was a kebab place, your favourite by the way.

"I am hungry" you just said making him lower his head and smile like a kid with cue breathy chuckles.

You ordered for the two of you as he went to sat down putting another cigarette between his lips when the man behind the counter glared at him and he just put it back in the package.

He sat down slouching as you did some small talks with the guys there, you clearly knew them. The soft music from the radio holding the place into a sort of magical aura as his eyes travelled over your naked back once more, the need for a cigarette becoming even more urgent.

You two dressed so elegantly really were so noticeable in the bright lightend place, he smiled to himself thinking it could be a nice painting by Hopper.

You came back offering him his kebab with a soft drink, very thoughtful because he was indeed already a bit high on champagne.

You ate quietly together, it wasn't uncomfortable, your silences were happening often at work and always filled with a sense of common understanding, you leaned your leg up like you always did at the office and rested it on his thigh as you sat sideways beside him. His hand flying naturally on your ankle to give his usual massage, his thumb tracing your skin with imaginary patterns as his other hand held the kebab close to his mouth.

The speaker at the radio announcing next song as Rocket Man by Elton John filled the room with a melancholic vibe. You couldn't help but think the song suited perfectly Sebastian, his being out of this word, out of control.

"Thank you" he said at some point as he tried his best not to ruin his shirt, you looked up at him as he was staring, his eyes telling you something on their own "You have been the best girlfriend I have ever had"

He added with a bitter smile diverting once more his gaze, you smiled back at him, he looked so resigned. Maybe it was the alcohol, but you have never seen him so fragile before.

"I could be"

His eyes darted up to you, his surprise evident as he put down the kebab, the soothing voice of the British singer still giving a dream edge to the moment as he moved closer. You slowly shifted your leg to give him room of movement as his right arm sneaked to rest on the back of your chair closing the space between the two of you.

His lips tasted still a bit of champagne as he pressed them against yours, you kissed him back slowly as his left hand travelled on your thigh pulling you closer to him probably staining your dress because of his greasy hand.

He pulled back almost immediately before leaning onto you again titling his head on the other side. This second time the kiss was more deep, more intense. Your hands slowly cradling his face before pulling back yourself.

He smiled against your lips and you smiled back.

Maybe tomorrow you will regret it like Elke said, maybe not.

Tagged @cazzyimagines @lieutenantn @handmaiden-of-mischief@thesunflowersutra @zemomybeloved@fictionlandslanddreams@charistory @greeneyedblondie44@apparrio @hb8301@whatawildone @rhymerhymerhyme  @thehuiabird @lilith-blackrose @unbeatablecurlgirl@obsidianlaszlo@alindeluce@zemosimp05 @baronesszemo-blackwood @nocapesdahlingLet me know if you want to get tagged to my publications too <3

[echoghost1]

Cast Into Obsidian

Word Count: 2530

For: @lexiepiper and @sapphireswimming

Summary: The accident sent Danny to the hospital due to the damage to his eyes.

You can read on AO3 or down below the cut

Danny idly moved his hand back and forth over the blanket on his lap. He was trying not to be impatient, but he really wanted the doctor to hurry up already.

“Okay Danny, I’m going to take the blindfold off now. I’m going to need you to lean forward just a little bit, okay?” he asked and Danny complied, eager to be freed from his prison of gauze and darkness.

As the gauze made its final orbit, Danny took a steadying breath before opening his eyes.

He only found more darkness.

“Are the lights off?” he asked, hoping it was that or maybe his eyes were taking a bit to adjust.

“Yes, we didn’t want to overstimulate you.”

He hummed in acknowledgment and leaned back against the pillows. “I was kind of looking forward to seeing something.”

“Is it too dark?” the doctor asked. Something about his tone seemed off. It seemed almost worried.

“Yeah. Is there a way to turn on one light or something?”

He heard something being written down, “We can try that. Just a moment.”

Danny heard the doctor walk away so he turned in the general direction and waited for the click of the switch.

“This light is on a dimmer and I’m going to gradually turn it up. Just let me know if it’s too much and I’ll turn it back down.”

“Okay,” Danny nodded.

He waited for the light to come on.

He waited.

Waited.

Why was it taking so long?

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I don’t know? Maybe turn the light on and I can tell you?”

There was the click of several switches and Danny could hear the buzz of fluorescent lights above him.

But there was nothing but darkness.

“I’m so sorry.”

That’s not something he wanted his doctor to say.

He thought it was bad enough that a stupid accident in his parent’s lab had him in the hospital overnight.

But this? It was so much worse.

“But I can’t be blind.” His voice hitched as he tried to keep his composure, “I want to be an astronaut. You got to get your pilot’s license first. I can’t be blind. I can’t!”

He couldn’t keep it together any longer so he asked the doctor to go away. He didn’t want to cry in front of them.

Why did his future have to rely so heavily on sight? You can’t touch stars. You can’t hear them either.

Why did the thing he loved the most have to go away?

He was only trying to be helpful and now it felt like his whole life was over.

He felt so stupid for crying about this. He wasn’t dead. He should just be thankful he wasn’t dead.

There were tons of people in the world who were blind and they got along just fine. This was just something he’d have to get used to. Something new to learn.

He thought he had it all out of his system but he lost it all over again when his parents found out. The second he heard his mom sniffle he was back at it with the waterworks.

The best the doctors could figure, and there were definitely multiple doctors that had come to poke and prod him once they figured out what happened, was that the light from the machine his parents made was just so bright it fried his eyes.

They all agreed that it was permanent.

Part of him hoped they were wrong about that. Part of him wondered if maybe it was just temporary. Maybe his vision would come back, but not all at once? Maybe he’d have to wear glasses like Tucker for a while. Heck, maybe they’d have the same prescription.

He wasn’t really sure how glasses worked, but he wouldn’t mind finding out if it would get him out of the dark.

He didn’t like how he had to stay in the hospital to relearn how to walk. He knew he was clumsy before, but without his eyes, he was even worse.

They got him a cane so he could waggle that around instead of flailing his arms. He hadn’t realized that it was so obvious.

He also had to get used to people just suddenly being nearby. Sometimes he’d just be sitting and zoning out and someone would just start talking to him, or worse, touch him, and he’d freak out because he didn’t know they were there.

Thankfully, his family learned pretty quickly not to scare him like that. His Dad sometimes forgot to announce himself, but he made so much noise just existing that it didn’t really matter. His mom sometimes forgot to say hello, but she always made sure to warn him before touching him. Jazz was the best at it.

At first, she sometimes went a little overboard by announcing literally everything, even the movement of others, but he did appreciate it.

===============================================

It was his last day in the hospital that his friends were finally able to visit him.

“Now remember you have to tell him where you are or if you want to touch him before you do it.” Jazz whispered to someone at the doorway.

“Jazz you’re supposed to say hello first.” he teased knowing she was just about to.

“I was!” she pouted with a little huff. “Anyway, Hello Danny.”

He stuck his tongue out in her general direction as he waved.

“No fair! I can’t stick my tongue out at you.”

“Sure you can! Just make a lot of noise when you do it!” he gave his best example by humming loudly with his tongue out.

Jazz snorted.

Or maybe that wasn’t her?

“Who’s here?” he asked and wondered why he didn’t just wait for her to introduce them before he teased her.

“Sam and Tucker,” she answered. “You can go sit in the chairs over there if you want,” she said to his friends who were still awfully quiet.

“You know you can talk to me right?” he said once he heard them take their seats. “I’m blind, not deaf.”

“You’re taking this rather well,” Sam said, sounding oddly timid.

“I have had a week to deal with it. Plus you know me? I don’t like being bummed out.”

“No one likes being bummed out, Danny.” she retorted sounding more like her usual self.

“Says the goth.” He teased right back.

Something hit him in the arm and he tensed.

“Oh shoot! I’m sorry! I forgot!” Sam quickly apologized.

“You forgot?! Dude, we’ve been in here for barely a minute!” Tucker yelled through what sounded like clenched teeth.

“Guys!” He really didn’t want them fighting. Not now. And definitely not over him. “I’m fine. She just surprised me, is all. Plus, I did kind of deserve it, so there’s that.” he shrugged it off with a smile and just hoped they relaxed.

It was quiet for a few moments.

Then a couple more.

“Could you let me know if we’re good or not? I am literally in the dark over here.”

Both his friends quickly reassured him that they were fine.

Then Tucker snickered, “Wait, did you just make a pun?”

“Of course!” Danny laughed. He was even happier when they laughed along with him.

With the tension finally broken the trio slipped back into their normal rhythm. It was easy for Danny to imagine that they were just hanging out in his room at home.

There was a knock on the door and Danny turned to the sound, “Who is it?”

“Dude, who are you talking to?” Tucker asked.

“Someone knocked on the door.”

“Who did?”

Danny sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “I don’t know, Tucker, that’s why I asked, who is it.”

“Well, I didn’t hear a knock.” Tucker retorted.

“Boys!” Sam interrupted, “Danny do you want me to go check?”

“Yes! Thank you.”

Danny heard the creak of the chair as Sam got up and he followed the sound of her boots as they made their way to the door.

The door opened.

After a few moments, it closed again before Sam made her way back over to Danny’s bedside. “I didn’t see anyone. Maybe you just mistook one of the nurse carts rolling past.”

Danny furrowed his eyebrows in frustration, “I know what a cart sounds like and that wasn’t a cart!”

“Geez sorry.” Sam apologized sarcastically as she dropped back into her chair.

Danny sighed, “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

He pulled his knees in and just hoped he didn’t piss off one of his only two friends. It’s not like making new friends was going to happen.

He was only frustrated because that wasn’t the first time that had happened. He’d been hearing knocks at his door only for no one to be there all week. It was just often enough to be annoying but not so frequent for him to ignore it.

He thought about telling them about it. Or maybe even ask them to leave the door open in case it really was the cart sounding odd when it passed.

He almost did.

But the knock came again.

“That’s it!” Danny got off his bed in a huff and walked straight to the door, or the general approximation of where he was thinking the door was, anyway. He hadn’t exactly memorized the room yet.

His hip bumped the tray next to his bed, but it was on wheels so it rolled out of the way as he course-corrected.

His friends called for him, both to come back and to be careful, but he didn’t care right now. He needed to find out who was at the door. To prove that he wasn’t hearing things.

He hit the door a bit sooner than he was expecting and it took him a moment of feeling around to find the door handle, but he did it. He took a step back as he opened it to make sure he didn’t bean himself with the thing.

Then he just stopped and stared because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Mostly it was because he was seeing.

Everything was still dark, like he existed in a void with no discernable up or down, but now there was something else. A woman.

Something about her was off, besides the fact that he shouldn’t be able to see her. At first, he thought she was standing on her toes, but then he realized she didn’t actually have feet. Her legs just sort of morphed together into a long wispy tail as it tapered down towards the ground. He looked back up and noticed her short red hair that defied gravity along with the rest of her. He also couldn’t help but notice that the edges of her seemed blurry like she wasn’t really there.

She wasn’t facing him so he had no idea what her face looked like. She was currently knocking on the door across the hall from his.

He slowly closed his door and leaned against it.

There was a soft rhythmic tapping on the door behind him. Like someone was drumming their fingers against it one at a time.

“I knew you could hear me,” whispered a voice from the other side of the door. “Poor little thing. All alone in the dark.” her sugary-sweet voice sent shivers up his spine. “I could help you, you know? All you have to do is let me in.”

His legs shook so bad he slid down the door until he was sitting. Somehow he just knew she wasn’t asking permission to enter the room. She could come in anytime she wanted, he wouldn’t even need to open the door.

No, she was asking for entry into something else. Something much more important.

This was the sort of thing his parents had warned him about all his life.

For once something they taught him was finally paying off.

He clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes tight. He had to be firm. He couldn’t let her, it, trick him into agreeing. “No.” he opened his eyes and the darkness didn’t seem so dark now, “I don’t need you.”

She hissed and scratched at the door. “You can’t get rid of me that easily!”

“Go away!”

The door rattled in its frame in response to his outburst and he frantically crawled away from it.

He bumped his head into something and he screamed because everything was just too much.

“Danny! Danny! It’s just me! Sam! I got you!” Sam pulled him into her arms and he clung to her as he shook.

“Hey, I’m coming over too, man,” Tucker said as he came next to Danny and hugged him too.

The trio sat on the floor huddled together until Danny finally stopped shaking and could breathe regularly.

He relaxed his death grip and leaned back with a sigh.

“What the heck was that?” Tucker braved and Danny could hear the click of his phone being unlocked. “I mean, I already didn’t trust this place, but that was something else.”

“Wait,” Danny turned towards Tucker and tilted his head in confusion, “What was that like for you?”

“Well at first I thought you were about to flip out over nothing.”

“Gee thanks.”

“So I pulled out my phone to see if I could catch something funny.”

“You recorded that?!”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t going to send it to anybody.”

Danny crossed his arms and huffed in annoyance, “Well?”

“It’s just that once you started talking, things got weird.”

“Weird how?”

Danny heard his own voice through the tiny speakers of Tucker’s phone, but Tucker just talked over it, “Well I thought I was seeing things at first, but I could have sworn your eyes changed color.”

“You saw it too?” Sam asked as she shifted, presumably to get closer to Tucker and watch the video. “Yeah, right there! Pause it!”

Tucker tapped the screen right as past Danny was yelling at the ghost to go away. “Whoa, they just turned green.”

“And they are glowing,” Sam added.

Which to Danny, her addition was a tad more alarming than a slight hue shift, “Glowing?”

“Who were you talking to anyway?” Sam asked, ignoring Danny’s worry.

“I don’t know.” Danny stammered, “There was this woman. I think it was a ghost.”

“Why do you think it was a ghost?” Tucker asked as he set his phone on the floor.

“Because she was floating?”

“You saw her?” Sam asked in awe.

Danny nodded.

“That’s crazy,” Tucker whispered just as awestruck.

That only made Danny more self-conscious. Did they not believe him? Did they think he was nuts now? Had they always thought he was crazy?

“I can’t believe you can see ghosts! That’s so cool! What’d she look like?” Sam asked eagerly as her hands slapped onto the tile and he assumed she must be leaning towards him.

“You believe me?”

“Of course we do!” She answered quickly, “isn’t that right?”

The sound of something, or someone, nudging into someone else was followed by a grunt from Tucker, “Yeah.”

He was so lucky to have such good friends.

[mischiefandspirits]

Living Phantom

Danny Fenton was fourteen and at the tail end of his freshman year of high school when his parents finished their life's work, a portal to the world of ghosts. There was one thing they overlooked when activating the portal, however: An emergency measure within the portal meant to disable it. A measure that was accidentally turned on while they plugged the machine in. A measure that was accidentally turned off while Danny was looking around the inside of the portal at his friends' instance.

A measure that caused Danny's death, but only for an instant.

But an instant was all it took.

In a small town in Minnesota, underneath a two-story home that was capped by a metal monstrosity, a trio of teenagers stood in a basement laboratory.

One, an African American boy with dark hair hidden under a red beret and green eyes peeking through glasses, was looking over some instruments scattered over the countertops. The second, a fair boy with black hair that fell over blue eyes and a flurry of freckles, was standing nervously near a tall metal tunnel with a hazmat suit in his hands. The last, a tanned girl with her sidecut hair dyed to match her purple contacts and amethyst fake nose stud, was holding up her phone.

“Smile!” Sam Manson said and took a picture as soon as Danny Fenton looked towards her.

The blue-eyed boy blinked the lights from his eyes. “Okay, I showed you the Portal. Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back here any minute.” He glanced at the tunnel with a frown and a shiver. “Besides, they say it doesn’t work anyway.”

Sam walked up to the tunnel’s entrance and snapped a picture of the inside.

Tucker Foley nudged Danny and he sent the dark-skinned boy a glare, but the boys followed her over.

“Come on, Danny,” Sam said, taking another picture. “A Ghost Zone? Aren’t you curious? You gotta check it out.”

Danny shivered again as he looked in. His parent’s inventions had always given him goosebumps -- a reaction to the ectoplasm they infused into the devices, his mom theorized, combined with a sensitivity he must have inherited from his father -- and the portal to the Ghost Zone was the worst of the lot. There was just something… foreboding about it.

It was hardly something he was going to tell his friends, though. Not if he didn’t want them teasing him for the next month. Besides, the faster he did this, the faster they’d get bored, and then they could go upstairs and watch movies like he’d told his parents they would.

There also might have been a small part of him that was honestly curious about the whole idea.

“You know what? You’re right. Who knows what kinds of things exist on the other side of that portal?” He smiled at his friends and stepped back to pull on the jumpsuit his parents had made for him.

“What are you doing?” Tucker asked.

“I’m going to put on the suit.”

“Dude, that thing is hideous.”

Sam snorted and grabbed the front of the suit, which had his dad’s face on the chest. “You can’t go walking around with that on your chest.”

Danny shrugged. “Mom and Dad say we have to wear them for protection.”

“It doesn’t even cover your head though,” Tucker pointed out. “How much protection does it really give? Just wear the gloves.”

Suit yourself, Danny thought with a shrug and pulled the gloves off the suit to put them on. He turned to the tunnel and gave another shiver.

Suddenly something fell over his head.

He blinked and pulled it off to see it was Sam’s pleather jacket.

“You looked cold,” she said with a smirk.

He shot her a look and blushed. “I’m not wearing your jacket.”

“Relax. I got it off the men’s rack. The women’s jackets sit weird.”

Danny hesitated, then slipped it on. He did admittedly feel better, having something more substantial on over his shirt as he stepped into the tunnel. He cautiously stepped over wires and glanced over his shoulder at the others. As he got further in and the tunnel grew darker, his hand went to the wall so he could catch himself if he fell.

The wall sank under his hand and a beep sounded.

Before he could do anything, the world became a swirl of green and Danny felt like someone had set a fire inside him. There was a blazing inferno within his abdomen that was burning him alive from the inside out, moving outwards from a place just under his sternum in a pulse of agony that left a stinging cold in its wake. At the same time, there was a numbness rushing up his arm, his shoulder, his collar-chest-face. He could hear his pulse beating rapidly in his ears until it was swallowed up by the numbness and everything froze.

Danny’s gaze went white and he knew he was dying -- was dead -- could feel himself slipping away.

Then the fire flowed through his chest and an almighty thump sounded from the frostbitten wasteland it left behind. His body jerked once, twice, then the thump sounded again and continued sounding.

The numbness gave way as stinging zaps settled over his body -- through his skin -- filling it and keeping the blaze inside like an electric fence.

Later he would think back on the accident and realize those events must have happened in less than a second. The portal turned on and the flow of electricity killed him before the ectoplasmic energy restarted his heart like a defibrillator. At the time, however, it felt torturously slow, which was reflected in the harsh wail he let out as soon as his consciousness snapped back into his body and the pain hit him once more.

He wailed and wailed as the lightning settled in his skin as a gentle buzz, the fires curled up into a warm glow, and the frozen wasteland within became a chilling void. Slowly the world returned to him and his wail died out. He gave one last gasp, then nothing.

He opened his eyes and looked down, surprised to see he was still standing. He raised his hands and his once bright orange gloves were now dark grey.

The gloves disappeared, then so did his flesh, then his bones, then there was nothing before his gloves snapped back into view.

He looked up and everything was swirling green, but there was a darkness behind him and he staggered towards it, slumping against a metal wall before falling out of the mists and onto a concrete floor.

~~~~~~~~~~B~~~~~0~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~

Sam felt her heart stop as her best friend disappeared behind a flash of green, the only sign he was still there being the awful scream coming from the portal.

“Turn it off,” she whispered. She grabbed Tucker’s arm and shook him. “TURN IT OFF!”

“I-I don’t know how,” Tucker whimpered, not taking his eyes off the portal. “Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man! Oh, man! Oh, man!”

“TUCKER!”

“SAM!”

The screaming stopped and Sam froze.

Tucker sucked in a breath.

There was a moment of silence, then something tumbled out of the portal.

Tucker shrieked and leaped away, but Sam just stared.

The thing -- person -- slowly got onto hands and knees. Its skin was grey which contrasted with its bright white hair. It wore dark grey jeans and black hightops as well as a black hooded shirt underneath a white jacket.

A familiar white jacket, though the color was new.

“D-Danny?” she asked, taking half a step towards the person.

The glowing person. The glowing person with pointed ears. The glowing person who, when they looked up, had eyes and freckles that shined the same bright green as the portal behind them.

“Sssammm,” they slurred, blinking sluggishly.

“Danny!” Tucker gasped and Sam took another few steps towards him.

“Are-are you okay?” she asked hesitantly.

“Okay? OKAY?” Tucker muttered in a high voice. “He’s glowing! He’s… What if he’s… Oh man, is he a ghost? Did we just kill Danny? Oh, man!”

“Ghost?” Danny sat up slowly and looked down at himself. His eyes -- glowing, glowing green like the portal, eyes shouldn’t glow like that! -- widened as he took himself in. “I’m a-I’m a ghost?”

“We killed Danny!”

“Danny?” Sam whispered, taking another step towards him. She reached out to grab him. She had to grab him. Because if she could grab him, that would mean he was there. He couldn’t be just some apparition, right? You couldn’t touch ghosts, right?

“I can’t be a ghost. No, no, no, no, no -”

“Danny’s dead! Oh man, Danny’s dead! Danny’s -”

“- no, no, no, no no, no, no, no no, no, no, no no, no, no, no -”

“- dead! Danny’s dead! We killed him! He’s dead! Danny’s -”

“SHUT UP, TUCKER!”

Danny flinched back from Sam, falling backward.

Sam grabbed him and pulled him towards her because he was falling TOWARDS THE PORTAL! The portal that had just KILLED HIM!

Except no, it didn’t. It can’t have killed him. Danny can’t have died. Oh please, please, please! Don’t be dead.

“S-Sam?” he whispered, staring up at her. This close she could see that his freckles twinkled like stars and his canines were just the slightest bit too long, too sharp.

Her hand was wrapped around his arm. She had touched him. He couldn’t be a ghost.

Her hand slipped through his arm as he collapsed back on the ground.

No!

Tears filled her eyes and she dropped to the ground. She threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face into his neck.

His skin was solid, but it sent a tingle through her like a static shock. He also felt warm, but at the same time, her face was cold where it was pressed into his skin.

“Danny’s dead,” Tucker said, quieter than he’d been before.

“I’m dead,” Danny mumbled.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Sam sobbed. “I should never have made you go in there. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t be dead. I can’t be a ghost. My parents… Oh man, my parents!” Danny shouted suddenly. “They’re going to kill me!”

Sam fell to the floor as Danny’s body disappeared from under her. She rolled over to see him floating just above her, shaking.

“Danny’s dead. You can’t kill someone who’s dead,” Tucker muttered, eyes unfocused and staring at nothing.

“My parents hunt ghosts. I can’t be a ghost. They’ll trap me. Kill me. I can-can’t be a ghost.” His eyes closed and he grabbed at his hair, hunching over in midair. “I can’t be a ghost. I can’t be a ghost. I can’t be a ghost.”

“Danny, we’re home! You kids in your room?” came Mrs. Fenton’s voice from upstairs.

“Can’t be. Can’t be. Can’t be.”

“We gotta get him out of here,” Sam hissed, climbing to her feet.

“Kids?”

“Can’t be. Can’t be. Can’t be.”

“How?” Tucker whispered back.

“Danny?” Mr. Fenton called.

“Can’t be. Can-”

A white light appeared at Danny’s waist, growing outward into a ring of light.

Like a halo, Sam thought and briefly wondered if humans could turn into angels when they died.

If anyone could, it would be Danny.

Then the ring split into two, one going up him and the other going down.

Danny collapsed to the ground at Sam’s feet, looking exactly as he had when he’d first gone into the portal.

No, not exactly, because there was also the Lichtenberg figure burn going up the side of his neck and face.

There was half a second where all three teens just stared at each other, then Danny gave a loud yelp and rolled onto his right side, clutching his left arm.

“Danny!” his parents shouted and came running down the stairs.

“What happened?” Mrs. Fenton asked, dropping down next to her son.

“Th-the portal…” Tucker stuttered, glancing between Sam, Danny, and the device.

“The portal? The portal!” Mr. Fenton cheered when he looked at the portal and saw it running. “Maddie, it’s working!”

“Jack,” Maddie snapped before turning back to Danny and carefully checking his face. “These look like electrical burns. What happened?”

“He-he was showing us the portal and it-it turned on,” Sam said, her own eyes never leaving Danny. “Is he okay?”

Of course not, he’s a ghost.

But he’s not glowing anymore.

Mrs. Fenton set one hand on his neck and the other on his chest, trying to get him to sit still. “Danny honey, I need you to calm down, please. Jack, get the first aid kit.”

“Right.”

As Mr. Fenton ran off to the side of the lab, Mrs. Fenton looked over Danny’s face. “Danny, please, deep breaths. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Sh-sh-shock, I th-think,” he panted, sitting up slowly. “Was looking at the portal.”

“You must have bumped a wire. You know you need to be more careful around our inventions.”

“Was wearing gloves.”

“That’s good, but it’s not always enough.”

“Sorry.”

Mr. Fanton returned with a white toolbox with a red plus drawn on the side and Mrs. Fenton helped Danny carefully pull off first his gloves, then his jacket, and finally his shirt.

Tucker spun around when the last piece started to come off, but Sam couldn’t pull her gaze away even at the sight of the binder hidden underneath.

The Lichtenberg figures trailed down onto his collar bone, around his chest, across his left arm, and ended -- started -- on his palm.

Mrs. Fenton took out a stethoscope and started checking his chest. “Your breathing and heartbeat are a little fast, but nothing more than what you’d get from a scare,” she sighed finally.

He nodded and shared a relieved look with Sam.

Mrs. Fenton looked up at her as well. “Did he pass out? Any spasms?”

She shook her head, trying not to think about how he’d been grey and glowing only moments earlier.

He was alive. Mrs. Fenton said he had a pulse.

The scientist turned back to Danny. “Any muscle pain or numbness? Nausea?”

“No, it just stings.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m okay then?” Danny asked hesitantly.

“Hopefully. We’ll need to keep an eye on you. Electrical shocks are not to be taken lightly.”

He nodded quickly. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Fenton rubbed his unhurt shoulder for a moment, then tapped the binder. “You’re going to have to take this off so we can clean your burns.”

Sam finally looked away, a small blush on her cheeks. That put Mr. Fenton in her sights, who glanced at her with a frown.

“Maybe you two should head home,” he said seriously.

Mrs. Fenton agreed, “Danny’s going to need to rest after we get him cleaned up, and then we’re going to have a long discussion about the lab safety rules.”

“I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” Danny called as Mr. Fenton led Tucker and her to the stairs and they both said their goodbyes before heading up.

They paused once they were alone in the living room.

“I’m not crazy, right?” Tucker whispered. “Danny was… For a moment there, Danny was…”

“You’re definitely crazy, but yeah. Danny looked… like a ghost.”

They shared horrified looks.

“But he’s fine now. Mrs. Fenton even said so.”

“Yeah. Yeah. He has to be. We’ll… Let’s talk about this tomorrow. With Danny.”

Tucker nodded and they left.

They didn’t get to talk to Danny that next day. Danny’s sister, Jazz, met them before school to tell them Danny was staying home so their parents could keep an eye on him, just in case. He was also grounded so they gathered his missed schoolwork and gave it to Jazz to take home. As it was Friday, they didn’t get to see Danny again until the following week.

Thanks to a lucky break (and maybe a bit of secret bribery on Sam’s part) the three’s lockers were all next to each other, which meant that’s where Tucker and Sam were waiting when Danny met them Monday morning. He was pale, even for him, which made the soft pink scars curling up the side of his face stick out a little more. They’d clearly healed enough not to need covering, but Sam noticed his left hand was wrapped in bandages when he grabbed her and Tucker to pull them along.

“Woah, Fenturd, what happened to your face?” Dash Baxter jeered as they passed.

“He looks like he’s got a bush growing inside his face,” Kwan Yu laughed along.

“Loser probably got it in his parents’ freaky lab,” Valerie Gray added. “It looks like a weird burn.”

“Hideous is what it looks like,” Paulina Sanchez scoffed.

Danny blushed and ducked his head, but otherwise ignored the group of popular kids as he pulled his friends into an alcove. “It happened again.”

“You… turned into a ghost?” Sam asked and he nodded.

“Dude, what’d your parents say?” Tucker asked.

“Nothing. They don’t know. It didn’t happen in front of them and I couldn’t tell them. I don’t even know what I’d tell them.”

Without thinking, Sam’s hand rose to his neck. She blushed, but didn’t pull away until she felt the telltale beating beneath her fingers. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve been doing the same thing,” Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s always been there when I check, except…”

“When you’re a ghost?” Tucker suggested and Danny flinched.

Sam smacked the back of the geek’s head.

“It’s not just the transforming either. I… sometimes I…” Danny bit his lip then closed his eyes. His face scrunched up, then his body turned transparent. He opened his eyes again as he started sinking into the ground.

All three of them gasped. Tucker and Sam tried to grab him, but their hands went right through him. Danny made an aborted movement, like he was trying to jump, and he shot into the air. He hovered a foot off the ground for a moment before his body turned opaque once more and he dropped like a rock. Sam grabbed him when he stumbled over the landing and he gave her a grateful smile.

“I’m guessing that’s not what you were talking about,” Sam said as he righted himself.

“It was, kind of, but I was trying to turn invisible.”

“Wait,” Tucker said, a smile slipping onto his face. “You can turn invisible. And just now, that was intangibility. Dude, you’ve got superpowers!”

Sam shushed him and glanced out of the alcove, but no one was paying them any attention. When she turned back to the boys, Tucker was bouncing slightly.

“And you can transform into a ghost at will. It’s like you’re part ghost. Half ghost! That’s so cool!”

“It’s not cool, it’s freaky,” Danny argued. “And it’s not at will. I don’t know how I’m doing it. What if someone sees?”

“Well, we’ll just have to help you figure out how not to do it,” Sam said simply.

Although, it sounded anything but simple. How on earth do ghost powers even work? How do humans even get ghost powers?

Apparently by getting blasted by a ghost portal.

But Danny wasn't dead and it wasn’t her fault. She could help him. She had to. Please, just let his heart keep beating.

This is going to be a bit of a different reworking to canon because I'm going to be mixing up the order of events for a variety of reasons. Episodes will be out of order and their events might be changed anywhere from subtly to drastically. There's been a change to a certain someone's relationship to someone else. This is more a passion project than anything.  It's headcanons, theories, and plot concepts getting merged together. If that's not your cup of tea, I get it. I hope you liked the pilot at least!

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

So! @guardianrex and I were talking about that Danny Phantom ‘Phantomverse’ post that’s going around like ‘what if we put all the phandom AUs together?’ I still think all the phandom AUs at once would be a horrible, terrifying task that no mortal can handle, but it made me want to make my own DP Spiderverse story and Rex, as usual, encouraged my bad ideas. 

My initials thoughts were, okay, we need some AU Dannys that parallel the movie to some degree, but also can go fuck itself, and that create the following list: 

Daniel “Danny” James Fenton/Phantom: Our “canon” Danny Phantom who is somewhere near his 30s, married to Sam, and still protects Amity Park while studying something dealing with NASA. He’s a bit overworked and stressed because Sam is starting to want kids, Danny is terrified at the idea of having children and giving them ghost genes, and he just wants to rest without the world falling apart. 

Danny Fenton aka Hunter: This is a last-year-of-high-school Danny who activated the portal on accident but was NOT inside it, and so as such he runs around town with his parents’ equipment fighting off ghosts and protecting Amity Park from any who would try to do it harm. He’s great at technology, can repair and even possibly build any Fenton tech, and has a deep-seated dislike for ghosts. 

Phantom aka formerly Danny Fenton when alive: This is a Danny who fully died when he entered the portal and as such is a full ghost. He has all kinds of powers, but he retains all of his humanity, mostly, and sticks close to Amity Park, protecting the town from all the other ghosts who would want to harm him. His parents are fully aware of who he used to be and still love and accept him. 

Danielle “Danny” Alicia Fenton: This is a Danny - or, well, Dani - that is basically from a gender switch universe and is a halfa much like canon Danny with the same basic kind of timeline and growth arc, only, you know, without all the Butch Hartman stupid bits. She’s around 16/17 and is at the top of her game.  

Danny-with-ghost-powers-but-no-Phantom-form-so-he-fights-with-disguises-and-weapons is along for the ride, too, because why not? 

Then we have our “Miles” of the story who is a Danny Fenton who was just zapped by the Fenton portal and is barely aware he has ghost powers and now all these alternate versions of himself are running around and freaked doesn’t even begin to describe what he’s feeling. 

Rex threw out the idea that The Problem would be Vlad, but then I’m like, nah… plot twist. He then said GiW and I’m like  p e r f e c t. So far the idea seems to be they made their own portal, want to destroy the Ghost Zone, again, but fucked up so well that they fucked up some fabric of Space-Time and, in my opinion, basically screwed with Clockwork’s powers and abilities and trapped him and his Citadel in some kind of void, but Clockwork had just enough time to pull in other Dannys from other universes because, well. If one Danny Phantom doesn’t do it then might as well leave it to six of them. 

Oh, plot plot twist that Vlad is fucking sane and a halfa who actually helps protect his town and who the GiW kill just as Miles!Danny gets his powers to further mirror the actual movie. 

Thoughts?

[safflowerseason]

What would Amy think about Bernie, Biden, Warren, and Trump?

What would Dan think about Bernie, Biden, Warren, and Trump?

Hi! What a fascinating question! I also saw your q about Dan, but I’m actually going to talk about them in the same post, if that’s okay, because I think it’s more interesting to think about them side by side :-) (and also because fundamentally…I think Dan would just follow Amy). Also, I’m approaching this question as if Dan and Amy are considering Bernie, Biden, and Warren as candidates, and thinking less about their politics. In Veep, one’s policies always matter less than..literally everything else. 

Also, I’m just going to assume that we’re talking about S1-S6 Amy and Dan, not Dark!Amy or Sex-Psychopath Dan of S7. Both of them belong at Fox News, to be honest. And in general…so much has changed from the earliest seasons of the show! I’ll get into this in more detail below, but Veep is fundamentally a show about establishment politics, and right now, we’re in a moment where multiple politicians are trying to tear down that establishment. So in that sense, it’s a difficult comparison!

As for Trump, I’m going to sidestep this question, slightly, because I think Trump is now too “big” for Veep comparisons. On his own, without being propped up by a corrupt Congress and evil billionaires, Trump is a narcissistic buffoon. But he has now become the face of a much larger and profoundly anti-democratic, racist, oligarchic, and patriarchal movement. I find it hard to talk about Trump now without placing him in the context of the global struggle for a more just, equal, open, and healthy society. And Veep…is not really equipped to explore these fundamental questions about how to make the world better, and how to fight those in power who actively want to oppress people. Veep, in its best years, was interested in the everyday grind of establishment politics: the banalities, the absurdities, the miniature power plays, the balance between political ideals and the dirty reality of achieving those ideals. Trump and his ilk are only interested in enriching themselves to the detriment of everyone else, and that…lack of nuance doesn’t really fit with Veep’s approach to politics. Mandel-era Veep is more focused on the narcissism of politicians, to be sure, but he completely skips over the real-world stakes of that narcissism. So neither era of the show is really structured to deal with the realities of Trump in 2020.

So I’ll just say that Trump is of the opposite party than Dan and Amy, who are political strategists working for a Democrat-equivalent, and so they’d never consider working for him in the first place. Amy, especially S1-S4 Amy, would find him nothing more than a repulsive, empty gasbag shouting into the void. Dan might recognize and respect Trump’s ability to manipulate the media (the one instinctive skill Trump possesses), but he’d never go work for him. Not to mention…the version of Dan who is visibly disturbed by Teddy’s harassment of Jonah would never work for a man who has sexually assaulted multiple women (and likely raped women as well).

As for the others, it’s a really interesting question! It’s a lot easier with these kinds of “Veep/real-world” questions to focus on intra-party dynamics, which was one of the show’s sweet spots.

Biden sort of strikes me as a Doyle-like figure…he’s been around forever, but doesn’t exactly inspire much political fervor. Doyle, like Biden, would probably be a pretty limp-dick candidate. It’s hard for me to see Dan or Amy getting very excited about Biden in the face of other candidates with more charisma. If this were a regular political primary (ie, no Trump), I think they’d both pass him over in favor of someone younger. (Also, if it were a regular election year, there’s no way Biden would be running. Notice how Doyle is done running for things in the Veep universe). Dan, especially, seems to be drawn to politicians who perform (superficially) well on TV, such as Danny Chung or Tom James. Still, because Biden has been around forever and has a lot of establishment friends, they can’t exactly write him off. Biden is capable of pulling a lot of strings behind the scenes that can change the entire political landscape in an instant (see Jim Clyburn’s last minute endorsement in the South Carolina primary). 

As for Bernie…the thing about Bernie is that he’s a very anti-mainstream politician, and, for better or for worse, Dan and Amy are absolutely mainstream political strategists. They are not interested in upending the status quo. Amy did not invest in Selina so early on because she was planning to burn down DC and establish a feminist political utopia. Yes, she absolutely has more progressive causes, but Selina would never eschew Wall Street donors because she believes the whole system is fundamentally broken and billionaires are inherently immoral. (Remember, Selina is the daughter of a corrupt millionaire, who herself married a corrupt millionaire…)

I was reading a Vox article about this the other day (it was a conversation between Ezra Klein and Matthew Iglesias about what a Biden administration vs. a Bernie administration would look like.) I felt this line summed up S1-S4 of Veep perfectly: 

“To the extent that the “establishment” means anything to me, it does mean that kind of nexus of Democrats who migrate back and forth onto K Street and other business community-type things. That wing of the party will have its share of the pie in a Biden administration.” 

This is what Veep S1-S4 is exploring. There’s an ever-evolving migration flow that exists between the White House and Capitol Hill and all the lobbying and consulting firms. Dan and Amy do exactly this in S4—they leave the White House and migrate to lobbying. And while to the audience it’s presented as a big change for both of them, in the big scheme of things, it’s really not. And this is what Ben proposes to Dan and Kent, regarding BKD, because it’s just the natural order of things for D.C. “lifers.” Eventually, you parlay your White House/campaign experience into some downtown consulting firm (if you have more of a conscience, you work for a big non-profit, and if you really have no conscience, you go work for Wall Street). Maybe, if you have a candidate who really blows up, you’ll end up in the White House again, but also maybe not—it doesn’t matter, you can still make a very, very good living consulting for congressmen and influencing policy from the outside.

Anyway, so because Bernie positioned his candidacy as an insurgency against the D.C. establishment, I don’t think Dan and Amy would support him, even if they might appreciate some of his policies, and even though he obviously stands at the head of a powerful political movement. Dan and Amy are establishment strategists, and they are pragmatists above all. D.C. politics is all about making alliances with people you don’t actually respect, and Bernie has, according to some, never really played that game.  

As for Warren…I can definitely see Amy being drawn to her, especially S1-S4 Amy. I do think Amy is drawn to working for women, for a variety of reasons. I could see her, like, consulting on Warren’s campaign from afar…probably to try and reign in Warren’s idealism. Dan would probably get all riled up about Warren’s wonkish tendencies and how they translate on camera. Warren was more willing to play with the establishment than Bernie was, so I think Dan and Amy would be more open to working with her even though her ideas were similarly radical. 

We do see, in S5, Amy and Dan working to elect Jonah…but he is presented as far less anti-establishment in that season. And then in S6, his stupidity just becomes a tool of the Tanzes, an evil billionaire if there ever was one. So…for me, answering this question really comes down the establishment dimension of Veep as a show. Dan and Amy aren’t revolutionaries. In so much as they want to effect change, they want to do it from the inside of the existing political system. 

[cowandcalf]

First of all, hello! I hope your Monday is tolerable with minimal fuckery and your coffee/tea is strong. I have to ask. What do you believe is the most cbs-friendly way McDanno COULD become canon? Like the actual moment the writers would make it blatantly clear to the audience that McDanno is no longer being disguised as platonic. Whether or not you believe it would/could ever happen, I am still interested in your response :}

First of all, hello back! And thank you so much for your ask. I almost keeled over reading who sent it. I only detected recently that you're DorisNancyGrey on AO3 who wrote the most wicked A/B/O stories for the guys in the fandom. You freaking rock, girl! And here you are, sending me this bomb of an ask!

I'm still kind of numb with nervous pride that you dropped this ask in my inbox. I wouldn't have minded an easier question. Such as: "Who do you like more, Steve McGarrett or Danny Williams?" You know? Life's already so damn complicated.

But I also feel seriously flattered that you're interested in my response. I kind of get the impression you handed me some holy fandom grail that everyone craves for and I may answer your question.

It's already Tuesday and the fuckery (what a freaking awesome word – ohmygod!) is tolerable. My coffee is strong, knuckles are cracked and my brain's ready to unload. I’m not really sure if my answer is the one you have hoped for. And I apologize for the length. I can’t do short :-)

Here you go.

I have flipped that switch in my imagination. CBS writers are totally willing to make McDanno canon. And I would like to add here that at the end of season nine I screamed my secret wishlist for season 10 into the void of the vast space that is Tumblr. There I said I dream about Alex o'Loughlin becoming a director with a hell of a say what's going to happen in the episodes.

And here we are at the beginning of season 10 with Alex directing the first episode, the one he wrote. (I say: Wishlist number 1, check! Wishlist number 2, check!)

Now, McDanno and how they become canon on screen:

It shows in subtle moments and the development from friends to an actual couple happens silently.

Before I dive into the scenes how it's going to be, I'd like to open up the scope of my answer a little more. I can't help it. I'll write an essay. I had to wrap my answer in an explanation that it makes sense. (But maybe it only will make sense to me...)

We all know Danny and his behavior when it gets serious date-wise, relationship-wise. I remember the time when he met Gaby for the first time. He dusted his hands together. He was visibly nervous. His attitude caught Steve's attention. He inflated his cheeks and blew air through pursed lips. He was having a hard time until he was even ready to ask Gaby out for a cup of coffee. Danny isn't relaxed and not super confident when it comes to the real deal. I dare to say he's a bit a nervous mess.

We also know Danny when he hit rock bottom with his worries about Steve. He flies to Korea, all the way to Afghanistan and he would fly to the shittiest place on earth to rescue Steve and to take him back home. In those moments Danny is mellow, soft and very understanding. His whole posture is giving off vibes of protectiveness and he supports Steve in every way. Danny wants to be close to Steve. He makes him feel safe and taken cared for. Danny never rants in those moments. Never. His love for the person (100% always Steve, it's always Steve) he came to take home is on display, vulnerable, honest and full-on.

We also know Steve. He can be a tease, cocky and a sexy bastard. He can flirt with women, get them to have a date with him. I remember Cath in the beginning. She only had to fulfill Steve's wishes. Other men would say "I miss you or I like you a lot". Steve always started his phone call with: "Hi, Cath, I need a favor…" and he always promised to take her out for dinner, lunch whatever and it really took him a long time, after taking one raincheck after the other before he finally made it happen.

We also know Steve as closed off. He doesn't show his feelings. He doesn't deal well with being attached to anyone because of his abandoned issues. A loud, mouthy and bulky Jersey cop proved him time and again how valuable Steve is and how worthy he is to be rescued and to stay by his side. Steve learns from Danny that Danny doesn't leave him.

So, furthermore, both men have to deal with health issues. They underwent a liver transplant. Steve's dealing with radiation poisoning and they get older. They are worn down from the job and from all the years serving as great cops of an elite task force

Okay, now from this perspective I see it happen in a subtle and unhurried way. And this is only scene one and without my background explanation on the feelings.

There will be moments where Steve grabs the Camaro keys from Danny's hand and lingers a few seconds more to pluck it from his fist. Or Steve grabs Danny's wrist and pries the keys from his hand, slower and more deliberate as he normally does.

There will be more peeks into each other's office with the question if the other is up for beer and steak and yeah, there's a game too. Wanna come over?

And at one point, Danny would lean back in his chair, tap his pencil against his crossed knee and stares and Steve. Really looks at him and his eyes are pensively on Steve, intense and earnest. And Steve just stares back, not tearing his gaze away and this moment lasts a few seconds. Danny heaves a sigh and nods. "Yeah, sure. I drive to my place and get changed and then I head over to you. Sure, let's have dinner and watch the game.

Steve's a bit nervous before Danny arrives. It shows in the way he pours too many chips into the bowl and half of it lands on the counter.

Danny walks into Steve's house without knocking. The TV is running and Steve grills steaks in the backyard. They watch the sea and sip at their beers in companionable silence. Both side-eye each other from time to time.

They eat in front of the TV and Danny wants to get up to fetch the Barbecue sauce. Steve jumps up and apologizes about the fact that he forgot about the sauce. Danny says he could go get it but Steve's already on his way back. He hands the bottle to Danny and gives him simultaneously the stink-eye. Danny grabbed the remote control and placed it next to him, out of reach from Steve.

Steve leans in and presses into Danny's space to take the remote control back and before he straightens up he presses a kiss to Danny's head and flops back into the cushions as if nothing had happened.

"What was that?" Danny asks tentatively with his Barbecue sauce bottle in his hand, frozen.

"What was what?" Steve asks, looking straight ahead, feet propped up. "Your team is losing, Danny."

And they would go quiet again and Danny would reach a few times into his hair to touch the spot where Steve's lips touched him so uncharacteristically gentle.

They end up doing the dishes and talking about the game and the shitty calls form the referee. Steve smiles and lets Danny rant, drying the dishes.

They grab the last beer and sit at the beach, night dark. They don't talk, they just sit. Danny gets up at one point and stretches. He shoves his hands in his pockets and stares uneasy out to the dark incoming waves. He sucks his upper lip between his teeth and turns to Steve.

Steve doesn't look up. He rolls his beer bottle in his hands and furrows his brows. He clears his throat and without looking up he says: "Stay," before he goes silent again.

Danny makes a typical Danny face where he shakes his head in disbelieve and narrows his eyes as if he can't believe what he just heard.

Steve's still silent and still doesn't look up. He just darts a gaze over where Danny stands, and their eyes meet briefly. Steve leans back and takes a last gulp from the bottle. He presses his lips together and with a firm voice, he says it again. "Stay, Danny." Not looking up but with a face that shows clearly how much is at stake. Steve fakes nonchalance.

Danny crosses his arms over his chest and digs his toes into the sand. He cast his eyes over the where Steve watches the sea. "Don't make me wear a shirt with NAVY printed on it."

Steve wears that tiny, boyish sweet smile when he answers: "Okay."

He stands up and goes over where Danny waits. Danny glares at him, and Steve just smiles relaxed. They don't say a word and Steve turns to move back to the house. Danny catches up and some point Danny slips his hand into Steve's big one and Steve's fingers press down on Danny's hand.

Soft music plays and the last screenshot is two pair of shorts and two shirts carelessly tossed aside on the floor and up on the steps of the stairs.

And that’s just the beginning. That’s the turning point where Mcdanno goes from platonic to being a real couple.

Did you ask for this? I suddenly wasn’t sure anymore. Yeah, that’s my ass long answer to your ask.

I hope this gives you some idea? I could go on but I’d end up with a ton of words again. It’s already way too long. So, anyway, thank you so much again for your ask.

Mahalo *blows a kiss*

***

[phantomphangphucker]

Evil As Plain A The Collar On His Neck - PhannieMay- Day 21 Double Date

Summary: Danny’s revisiting the dating scene, but just is Jazz doing here?

Sequel to my fic A Sister Always Has Her Reasons

“And why do you have to come again?”

Jazz rolls her eyes, “mom and dad asked me to chaperone after what happened last time”. Danny can’t help but groan and cringe as he remembers the disastrous date with Star, which of course got interrupted by a ghost and resulted in him going home with shredded clothing.

Glaring at his sisters “charge” who snickers at Danny, which Jazz also rolls her eyes at, “you could at least try to get along”. Danny only glares at her incredulously for that, how could he ever get along with him.

But spotting his old, and possibly new, flame changes his mood, “hey Val!”. Catching his sister muttering at her “charge”, as Danny runs over to Valerie, “now don’t you go scaring her mister, or you will be in shit”.

Danny can tell Valerie’s a bit confused, “try to ignore them. My parents are being a bit over bearing after my last date resulted in blood loss and ruined clothing”. Valerie snickers at that, “your entire family is wacky, including you”, shrugging, “but clearly my tastes are wack”.

“I’ll take wacky any day, much more interesting”, Danny chuckles as they take a seat together, with the other two close behind.

Danny uses his menu to block out the other guy, which Valerie leans into to whisper at him, “let me guess, you don’t get along with Mr. tall, built, and brooding over there?”. Danny shakes his head and glares at the menu, “enemy is a pretty accurate descriptor. But where Jazz goes, It goes too”.

“It? Now that’s just mean-”, the rest of Valerie’s comment gets cut off as Jazz clears her throat. Danny, lowering the menu, glares at her. Who rolls her eyes and points at the approaching waiter, resulting in Danny blushing a bit and mean chucking coming from across the table.

“So what will you four being having to drink today?”, the two nineteen-year-olds order Faygo, Delicious Red for Valerie and Moon Mist for Danny. Lemon water for Jazz, who then glares at her “charge” as he orders a Green Lantern. He just shrugs, “it’s not like I’ve got a liver to piss off, and it’s not like I care”, while Danny’s just wondering where the hell he got an ID and what the hell’s even on it. Jazz rolls her eyes, “that stuff tastes awful though”.

“He’s awful, so it fits”, Jazz glares at Danny. While Valerie talks over the strangers snickering, “okay, who are you? I thought I’d seen everyone in Amity and there’s no way I’d miss someone walking around with an oversized neon green collar”. Danny groans slightly as Jazz responds, “the big guys' name is Dan, bit of a trouble maker so he’s stuck with me”. Danny blinks at her incredulously, “a bit?”. While Dan smirks and stretches his arms over the back of his head, fully noticing Valerie trying to not stare at his muscular arms, “they could snap your damn neck”.

Jazz shakes her head, “well, you lasted twenty minutes”, while Valerie glances at Danny. Patting her leg, “he won’t actually be doing that”. Muttering under his breath, “only because he isn’t allowed to”.

Jazz snorts as Dan flat-out tosses the entire drink in his mouth, downing it in one gulp. While the waiter goes a bit bug-eyed, promptly bringing him another. Jazz cuts him off after the fourth, laughing, “I’m not rich! stop that!”, pointing at the waiter, “and you! Stop encouraging him!”. While Dan leans his head back and laughs, which is plain weird to Danny. Though he can’t help but laugh a little along with Valerie, while the waiter looks like he’s just had a damn good day.

Eventually getting their food: caramelised salmon for Valerie, chicken penne for Danny, salad with garlic toast for Jazz; and, as per requested, the bloodiest thing they could serve, eight-ounce steak cooked blue with a side of ribs, for Dan. The waiter, looking at him, “just so you know, that is the single weirdest way anyone has ever requested for anything here”. Turning his head to the Fenton girl, “you Fenton’s sure like ‘em weird, don’tcha?”.

Danny coughs into his hand a bit at that but eyes Jazz questioningly as she blushes, even more weirded out as she waves him off.

Valerie’s not sure why Danny’s eyeing his sister oddly, the waiter wasn’t exactly wrong, she was definitely odd herself; though this guy’s odder.

Shoving one of her green beans at Danny, who just takes it with his mouth and eats it. “So, you figured out how to fling yourself into the void of space yet?”, Danny chuckles at her question fully remembering promising to do so as his yearbook quote, “once or twice, still working on the “and die” part”.

“The answer to that question has been around for fifth-teen years”, Danny glares at Dan and stabs at his noodles a bit aggressively. Dan smirks and violently snaps his teeth around a large piece of steak, loud enough to make the people across from them jump and scoot their chairs away a bit.

Valerie points her fork at him, “you have issues”, while he digs in his mouth and pulls out a tooth he broke loose. Flicking it across the table, out of sight before it dissolves into ectoplasm, snickering, “your idea of issue, is my idea of a good time, little red birdy”.

Valerie squints at him while Danny mildly chokes, glaring subtly at Dan.

Jazz is torn between being slightly grossed out and wanting to giggle a bit, for being twenty-nine, the guy sure was an overdramatic baby, “you just have to be a mildly terrifying ball of tease, don’t you?”.

Dan pokes her in the side, barely whispering, “I get my pleasures where I can”. Before ecto-zapping her lightly under the table, which she hits him playfully for, while he just snickers a bunch. Doing it more until she actually starts laughing, chuckling, “it’s my right by might, soft flower”. Dan leans back against the booth, satisfied, before biting clean through a rib bone; with one arm behind his head.

Valerie will admit it’s a little adorable Jazz collecting herself and patting the huge guy on the head, which he seems quite pleased by. Danny must have some serious issues with Dan to look so put off though, he won’t admit it but he is rather protective of his sister. Well, ok, he’s protective of everyone actually.

Elbowing him, “oh whatever, but since the party crashers are distracted...”.

Danny decides to deal with whatever weirdness later in lue of taking the chance to kiss Valerie, not giving a damn that Dan probably noticed. While Dan and Jazz take turns ruffling up each others hair, though he takes the time to zap Danny purely to annoy him.

Valerie has no clue what the zap was, there wasn’t supposed to be literal sparks flying, she also has no clue why Danny’s glaring at Dan again.

Danny decides to roll with it, to not give Dan the satisfaction, smirking at him before turning and poking Valerie, “well, when sparks fly, the couple must surely be shockingly perfect”, with a shit-eating grin, “so clearly with us, lightning struck twice”. While Valerie snorts, Danny a bit surprised to see Dan looking rather amused while Jazz just groans.

Dan, chuckling at Jazz, “with this weather, I’d say we could bolt and see if any actually strikes”. Danny can’t help but respond, “sounds like a killer idea to me”. Which Dan actually snorts at, while Jazz gapes excitedly, whispering, “did they just, get along?”.

While Valerie mutters under her breath, “he’s like a jerkier version of Danny”. Which makes her blink, realising that makes it genuinely kind of weird that Jazz is clearly either dating or borderline dating this guy. Or they just have a really really weird version of friendship; Valerie’s not placing her bets on the last one though. But considering half the damn town seems to ship the Red Huntress with Phantom, and she’s not exactly entirely opposed to the idea; her eyes are just firmly elsewhere. So who was she to judge here?

It doesn’t take long after that for the waiter to bring them their bill. Unsurprisingly, Jazz pays for the tip and most of the meal thanks to a certain oversized someone. Poking at him with the bill as they all get up to leave, he shrugs, “could have just left, besides, money’s a human issue”. Jazz glares at him, “that’s wrong and even if you don’t care, I do”. Dan stretches his arms over his head, “everyone else's wrong, is my oh so very right”. Dan smirks knowing that was part of the allure of this thing with Jazz, along with annoying his younger self. Though he does find it odd, yet pleasant, that his affections are more genuine than that. Not that he’ll admit that to Danny.

While Valerie and Danny walk a fair bit behind the older pair, “you’ve officially succeeded in giving me the weirdest date ever”. Danny smirks loosely and bumps his shoulder into hers, “so this mission to Venus was a success then?”. Rolling her eyes at him, “absolutely, you reckless space boy”.

Not a single one jumps as a massive thunderclap goes off, rattling a few windows. Both Jazz and Valerie say to their respective ghostly men, “if I die, I’m dragging you down with me”. Both of whom responded, “guess I’ll die”.

End.

[captainrandomstranger18]

My dearest Captain,

I would love to hear your ghost story, if you are willing!

1. I’d like to go to another country at some point. My sibling and I are the only people on my mom’s side who haven’t been overseas yet

2. A star

3. I’m pretty fond of brownies at the moment

4. Yes, there was a huge one last summer that my cousins and I named Thaddeoso

5. Currently it’s probably anything within the feline family

6. Chocolate!

7. Last month was actually the first time I haven’t dressed up for Halloween. Often I think of a costume at the last minute, but I didn’t this year. We couldn’t go anywhere anyway (I think trick or treating was happening but we live with my grandparents (covid risk b/c of their age) and a ton of the houses on Main Street are trump supporters so)

8. I have had brilliant ideas in the middle of the night, but I always think I’ll remember them so I never write them down and then I forget them

9. Sail the world and commit crimes against the rich. I’m not sure what sort of rules I’d impose

10. Absolutely

11. I would go to the far future because I would like to visit the aliens

12. I used to watch unus annus, so I’m beginning to watch some markiplier stuff to fill the void. But I also watch channels like jammidoder and one topic at a time

13. Ummm sometimes my art is good, the things I write tend to be pretty good, and I have a pretty good memory

14. I guess I would make myself less anxious so I could actually do more stuff

Don’t worry about the amount of questions, I don’t mind at all! Perhaps I will some of my writing at some point, I’m not sure yet.

I return to school tomorrow, so I won’t be able to respond during school hours because I don’t have data right now and my school is determined to keep us there in person, but I will still be able to get online after school.

Sincerely,

L

Dearest L,

Thank you for expressing interest in my ghost story! 

This happened at the start of this school year. I was at a party, the sun had set, and we were going to play capture the flag. I’m lazy and I hate running, so me and these two people who also hated running decided to be on guard duty. Me and the two people were talking and looking at the neighbor’s yard when we saw this shadowy figure in the neighbor’s yard. It looked like a person who was sort of hunched over, but it was too dark to make out any details. This was weird considering the fact that the neighbor’s yard was off limits for the game. However, I was like, “that’s probably just a member of the opposing team.” So me and the other people started waving and being like “Don’t come close!” But the figure didn’t even move. That’s when a car drove past, and as the light from the car hit the grass, the figure disappeared. Which was crazy perfect timing. We started screaming and freaking out. To this day I’m not sure what it was that I saw. Chances are it was probably this one kid who insisted on wearing a ninja outfit, or it could have been an animal of some sort.

Tldr: At a party I saw a shadowy figure at night and it disappeared when a light from a car hit it.

As for the questions....

1. Some things on my bucket list:

- Fill my entire stomach with temporary tattoos and go to the beach or the pool (Don’t worry, I’m not implying that I want to eat the temporary tattoos. That would be unhealthy, probably. I’m implying that I want to apply them to my stomach. Omg imply rhymes with apply. Or does it? I’m not sure.)

- Hug a giraffe

- Publish a novel

- Sprint through a field of flowers (I might hate running but I’ve always wanted to do this)

- Write a musical (I already started writing a musical with my friend called ‘Existential Crisis: The Musical’ once. We never finished it unfortunately.)

2. A tree!

3. Any and all desserts. (Brownies are awesome btw. Have you ever tried a brookie? It’s like a half brownie / half chocolate chip cookie combination and it is delicious.)

4. Of course! (Also Thaddeoso is a top tier name for a frog. I’m curious at to how you all came up with it.)

5. Squirrels. They’re underrated in my opinion. I also like foxes.

6. chocolate as well!

7. I was a pineapple because I have a pineapple onesie. I was originally going to be SpongBob’s house but I didn’t have enough energy or time or money to print out pictures of his door / windows. I didn’t go trick or treating either since it was mostly outlawed in my area this year.

8. yep, frequently

9. I would impose general kindness and respect for each other, but that’s it. We’d sing sea shanties and play card games when we aren’t pillaging treasure and having epic battles. (Good answer btw. Be the Robin Hood you wish to see in the world.)

10. Indubitably. I asked for a sword for Christmas, after all.

11. I’m gonna have to agree with your answer. That would be awesome.

12. I watch Kurtis Conner, Danny Gonzalez, and Drew Gooden. I also watch a lot of random meme-ish stuff and commentary type-things. Sometimes I watch ASAP Science. (I also watch Jamidoder and One Topic At A Time, from time to time.)

13. I like the fact that I’m short? Also I like some of the poems I write, and I think I have good taste in music.

14. I would make my parents not be homophobic / discriminatory.

If you do choose to show me some of your writing, that would be great! If not, that’s totally fine. I’m kinda shy about a lot of the stuff I write so I understand.

Also that’s okay about the school hours thing. You can take all the time you need.

As for new questions:

1. If you could tell the entire world one thing, what would it be?

2. Which Star Trek is your favorite?

3. Do you have any favorite Star Trek characters?

4. Do you relate to any of the Star Trek characters? If so, which ones and how/why do you relate to them?

5. Do you like any musicals?

6. What is your favorite kind of tree?

7. Feel free to write a long rant about literally anything for #7. It can be a positive rant or an angry rant or literally just the word “meow” in bold. I’m sure that the proper configuration of the word “meow” is rant in some cat language.

8. Do you have a favorite pair of socks?

9. What’s the funniest thing you overheard someone say in public lately?

Thank you for continuing to write! 

Yours Truly,

Captain M

[phantomskeep]

Odd question for the Tumblr void, but I'm currently writing a dead on main fic and was wondering if I might be able to find either a beta reader or someone to help me with it? Im not the best with anything besides descriptions and I am on the struggle bus for how to play out fight scenes.

Basically the concept of the fic is Danny gets crowned king of the GZ and some of his first royal actions are to go into a different dimension to take back ghostly artifacts and stop leaks of ectoplasm from the GZ. He gains the title of "Ghost Thief" from the heros of the DCU and he ends up meeting a certain someone along the way.

The title for the fic? Putting the "Fun" Back in "Funeral"

I don't want to spoil too much but I have a lot of plans for this and have been doing a bunch of research into various DC rabbit holes for this. Im so excited to finish writing the first chapter and post it!! But, like I said, I struggle with writing sometimes due to only being really good at descriptions.

Have a cool link to lil bits of the fic uwu

I've also heard about a DP x DC discord server?? And I was wondering how one goes about joining it ;w; hahahah I found the page that runs the discord. let's go for googling things >:)

[justanotherdumpingground]

Chapter Reviews: April 30-May 4, 2019 + Thoughts on Upcoming Stories

Wishful Thinking Chapter 4:

I actually replayed the book again just to get the cat, and it was worth the purchase. Her lines amuse me.

Anyway, back to the chapter. The part where MC helped Louis and Sara reconcile was sweet, though I laughed at Sara saying that she received anti-wrinkle cream by accident. Nevertheless, it's a good start for MC to explore and develope her mind reading ability.

I have a soft spot for most animals, and the puppy is no exception. Even his dialogue is so adorable, especially when coupled with Jinx. I hope to see more of those two.

The library investigation was kinda fun, especially with the premium choice to go after the guy with the documents. Seriously, that got me intrigued. And hello again, Anna. It's nice to finally see her again despite being away for her boss, who happens to have a recycled model.

Bah, I can't stand Alec. First, he's initially dismissive towards the MC's ideas unless proven otherwise. Then, he forces Ellen to overwork only to shut her down (she may be no saint, but she's still entitled to fair working conditions as well as therapy). Seriously, I'd like to have him ejected and replaced with a better boss. I don't care that he takes back his word on the library after the MC's investigation. What really matters is that he should stop playing favorites. Nothing against my MC, just wishing that Alec would just behave or beware.

Gee, playing Wishful Thinking makes me miss Hero. It's not super good, but I still had fun playing it. Oh, how I wish Book 2 will be released soon. At least Wishful Thinking is fun to play so far.

High School Story: Class Act Chapter 12:

For the candidate I picked to stay, I chose Rory. Arts are underappreciated in Berry High and one one with the least focus compared to sports, which already has played significance on the plot (Book 1 of the first trilogy, for instance). I get that the twin's family, but they're still a freshman and probably not the strongest candidate, as well as particiapting in the election just because instead of having a more concrete motivation like Rory. I didn't go see Emerald with Rory and the twin, however.

I'm glad Ajay has found a support system in the form of talking with kids with divorced parents. He needs help as soon as possible, and I'm glad Emma has provided it. I wonder why the first trilogy MC is absent. After all, they mentioned in a premium scene that their parents are divorced as well.

Didn't attend Rory's cousin's wedding because Rory's not my love interest, so no interest in discussing it. Anyway, I just want this election drama to end and Lorenzo to realize that his platform is futile.

Across the Void Chapter 20:

Dang, that was another intense chapter. Sucks that I have to pay diamonds to save Aquari's life, but I did it anyway. Not to mention that the operation was a success with only one injury. Glad everyone's okay.

I'm gonna skip through the romance bits and jump straight to the upcoming landing on Cyber. I'm glad the MC is smart enough to ask Lyra about the meeting between the Vanguard and Jura on Cyber. After she said it was Barlow's idea, I'm now worried how the Atlas can disarm the trap the Void laid on them. I'm excited to see what's next.

America's Most Eligible Chapter 16:

I'm not surprised that Adam wears a tux and proposes to the MC, especially when Omar grabbed something from him in an earlier chapter. It was kind of romantic to propose after he was voted the most eligible because I chose not to pick the premium option to talk to the jury. Oh, well. Glad to see that my MC and Adam will spend the rest of their days in bliss, though I don't think an extra book just to get them married is necessary.

Ugh, can Piper be any more intrusive? If boasting about the Game of Love with Jen was bad enough, she had to barge into the mansion and bring up the smack talk. Glad Jen rejected the offer to join Piper's show, and Wrenn stood up against Piper. I didn't pick the option to give Piper a piece of my mind, but at least it was satisfying enough to watch Jen become showrunner.

Overall, I find Book 2 much weaker than Book 1. The double eliminations pretty much ensure that multiple people get eliminated, especially most of the new contestants. It's a shame, especially since Bianca could've been a proper love interest but was shoved aside in the end. While I appreciate Ivy, Vince, and Slater espousing a gray morality in their view of things, it remains untapped potential. Like, how can it be used to develop them further, especially Ivy because she's a contestant since Book 1. It gets worse when Ivy and Slater are practically interchangeable, effectively watering them down to the same person. And why do we need another marriage-based book? Do we already have enough?

Nightbound Chapter 3:

Luc seems nice and helpful, though I'm not still not sure whether my MC will pursue him. And the same goes for Cal, who seems to be a nice guy despite being a werewolf. I'm not pleased to run errands, but he does sound like he cares for his brother. And what's with Kristof having Nikolai Petrov's model? Made me wince, thought at least the octopus tattoo is gone.

Great. Another collection set. This time, it's similar to the portrait fragments in Bloodbound. I wonder what secrets do they unlock. I wouldn't be surprised if it allows us to learn more about the person who's after the MC by sending that bloodwraith.

Anyway, I'm still excited for this despite my lack of concrete thoughts on it because it's still too early.

Passport to Romance Chapter 8:

Great, sibling drama between Elliot and William. Not only is their arguing forgettable, but Elliot sounds so entitled. He left his responsibilities on his company to his brother, who also misses their parents. Seriously, what's with this guy? I was initially relieved that he's out of my group to recover, only for him to reappear in the last scene. Oh well. He better behave, though.

So far, this story's just meh. Not too excited for Marisa's birthday, though I'm expecting drama along the way.

Open Heart Chapter 12:

This chapter is emotional, and I love it. First, it stings that the nurses except Danny are no longer nice to the MC. I have my top suspects, but I still think everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That includes Aurora and Landry. There's no reason why I should hate them both.

Did I adopt all three animals? Yup. I'm a sucker for these lovely creatures, and they're already a joy to have with me. The turtle's the one I like the most so far. 

If there's one character in this chapter continually gives an emotional punch, that would be Mrs. Martinez. It was fun and satisfying to steal the needed medication from Declan Nash. I was overjoyed to see Mrs. Martinez getting better and traveling around the world after the hospital held a farewell party for her. Most of all, hearing that she died in her sleep was so painful to hear that it left me shocked and speechless. Even though she went out in a blaze of glory by living out her dream of traveling the world, I still couldn't contain my grief. Even more aggravating was when Harper said that Mrs. Martinez's family is suing Edenbrook, particularly the MC, for malpractice. And let's not forget that Dr. Banerji has a month left to live, yet another point of anxiety.

Ride or Die Chapter 16:

That was a fun showdown to watch. It was fun to see Mona's impressed reaction to the MC outwitting the Brotherhood, them pointing their guns at one another amidst their confusion, Mona taking the bullet for the MC, and Jason getting arrested by the FBI and MC's dad. If there's one thing that I'm annoyed at is that I have to pay diamonds to take Mona to the hospital while the free option is to leave her behind. I'm not upset that Mona gets arrested. I'm upset that the free option doesn't save the cops more time to ensure Mona's recovery, even if she disregards herself.

The graduation may be short, but I'm glad to see Ingrid being friendly towards the MC, and that they'll be attending Langston together. The ending just feels oddly surreal on the MC's uncertainty of her future, though.

Honestly, I'm disappointed but not surprised that RoD will get a second book. The story's overrated and full of clichés and wasted potential. Not to mention that it has one of the most irrational fanbases in the Choices fandom that partly ruined the story for me. A lot of the vocal fans, especially on Instagram, worship it like it's groundbreaking or revolutionary. At least there are some rational fans out there who acknowledge its faults while still enjoying it.

If there are any ways the second book could improve on the first one, I'd say introduce a morally gray setting and execute it better. There are traces of it, though they aren't well done because the narrative depicts the Brotherhood as just evil when their members should be just as varied as the Mercy Park Crew. Same goes for the MPC, since defining them as black or white doesn't work on them.

The Elementalists Chapter 8:

I thought Atlas was gonna die from the MC's attack, but I'm glad he survived and is put under care. I just wish he'll trust his twin and their friends again.

Honestly, I need to keep an eye on Alma. She's still really fishy and may have an ulterior motive for descending on the earth, especially when the MC receives another letter from Kane. Is the MC a plaything or what?

Since I roleplay my MC as a typically curious Air-Att, I picked the premium option to go to the gardens with Beckett so he could have a leg up for a future class with Professor Kontos. A bit miffed that the gardens of Aurelia are recycled, but here's hoping there will be a leg up.

Helping Griffin with his scholarship is kind of fun, and I'm glad I picked the choices that give me scholarship points. Even more so when I chose to help him rather than sabotage Amy. The second option sounds counterproductive, to be honest.

After touching the treasure chest and a vision of Kane's followers, I have a feeling that I'll encounter this hidden group of pranksters at some point in the story, and there might be an option to join them, especially with the letter from Kane. It may also be part of the morality system like many choices before, which leaves me excited.

Thoughts on upcoming stories:

Honestly, the only stories I'm looking forward to are Bloodbound and the new fantasy story. Platinum could surprise me, but I have low expectations of it. The Royal Heir looks like an attempt to milk as much money from die-hard fans as possible, though a part of me misses playing as the MC. BSC's just meh. RCD's an utter mess since the beginning, and any potential it once had is dead and buried since the end of Book 2. Sunkissed and Bachelorette Party just scream forgettable, so not excited for them. This is gonna be one bleak summer.

[cinephiled-com]

New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-lauren-greenfield-continues-incisive-exploration-generation-wealth/

Interview: Lauren Greenfield Continues Her Incisive Exploration of ‘Generation Wealth’

For the past 25 years, acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield has travelled the world, documenting a vast range of cultural movements and moments. After so much seeking and searching, she realized that much of her work pointed at one uniting phenomenon: wealth culture. With her new film, Generation Wealth, Greenfield puts the pieces of her life’s work together for in an incendiary investigation into the pathologies that have created the richest society the world has ever seen — as she examines some of the serious repercussions that wealth culture has created. Spanning consumerism, beauty, gender, body commodification, aging and more, Greenfield has created a cautionary tale about a culture heading straight for the cliff’s edge. Generation Wealth, simultaneously a deeply personal journey, rigorous historical essay, and raucously entertaining exposé, bears witness to the global boom-bust economy, the corrupted American Dream, and the human costs of capitalism, narcissism, and greed. I talked to Greenfield several years ago about her fascinating documentary, The Queen of Versailles, and was thrilled to sit down with her again to discuss her new film which is, in a way, is a continuation of that work.

Danny Miller: I have so many of my own issues with wealth that I should just take your documentaries with me into therapy because they always butt up against my baggage. On the one hand, I feel like I can use your films to confirm my biases and judgments of rich people, but on the other hand, you always present such a human picture of them that it makes me stop in my tracks. I was interested to see the subjects of The Queen of Versailles, David and Jackie Siegel, pop up again in this film. It seemed that they had learned some important lessons by the end of that documentary but it doesn’t seem like those lessons have really taken hold.

Lauren Greenfield:What was so amazing and also disillusioning to me, and what inspired this film to some extent, is the way the Siegels went right back to where they were before the financial crash. At the end of The Queen of Versailles, I really felt that they had reached some very hard-learned lessons. David says he shouldn’t have built so many buildings, Jackie realizes that she cares more about her family and that she didn’t need the world’s largest house. They lose the house by the end of the film, but it’s okay because they’ve gained their values, right? But then what happens? Since the film, they’ve borrowed money to buy back the land and they’re still trying to build that gigantic house!

Yikes. And they supported Trump, which we see in the new film. I was kind of sad to see them at one of his rallies in the new film because I had really grown to admire Jackie.

Their story really drove it home to me that it’s not so much about the money: this is about addiction and relapse is often part of that process. People often don’t learn anything until they hit rock bottom and even after that sometimes there’s change and sometimes there isn’t. When the financial crash happened, I thought all of the stories were connecting into a kind of morality tale where we learned our lesson as a society but then when I saw what has been happening since then I realized it wasn’t that simple. That’s why I wanted to continue exploring this topic.

So some people in those dire circumstances can finally get a grip on what’s really important to them and change paths. But for others, the second there’s an opportunity to return to the old lifestyle, they just can’t help themselves.

Exactly. Is the change sustained, or is it limited to the moment of suffering? For me, the story I tell in the film about what happened in Iceland is an example of a culture that used the financial crash to rethink their values and put in place some institutional changes as a society where they could be who they wanted to be. But here we just put Band-aids on a broken system, you know, the whole “too big to fail” thing. We bailed out the banks and now we find ourselves heading into the same situation.

Hearing from the kids of some of the people in this film was really heartbreaking. I want to watch my biases and believe that extremely wealthy people can have great relationships with their loved ones but it seems like there are some real obstacles to that for people who are that driven.  

Yes, I agree. Again, it’s not about the money, it’s about what’s driving the drive. And that’s why thinking about it in terms of addiction was so powerful. If you are Bill Gates and you have a great idea that makes a lot of money, it’s not the money that’s the problem. He has a lot of money and he can do great things for society. But looking at the addition, I think what we see with the subjects of the film is a kind of emptiness or void or trauma maybe going back as far as childhood that fuels whatever they’re trying to get — whether it’s money or beauty or youth or fame. But it never actually heals that emptiness so they just keep wanting more.

Given your body of work, it must have been overwhelming to figure out what to include in this film. You could have just focused on billionaires or revisiting the affluent young people that you profiled years ago, or any number of things. How did you decide what to include and what not to include?

When I started this process, I was thinking more about a narrow definition of wealth from my work on consumerism, but when my focus shifted to the insecurity and addiction underlying all these stories, I realized the film was more about what we think gives us value and how that gets leveraged in our culture. And so that brought me to look at the commodification of girls’ bodies which had been a big area in my work from how little girls are affected by fashion or innocent games of dress-up to teenagers and social media to leveraging sex for money to getting older and having to like keep that value of your body and your looks. I just started following all the tentacles of wealth and trying to bring them together. I felt that you couldn’t understand our society, including things like the rise of Donald Trump, just by looking at money, it’s about so much more. There are so many pieces to this story that I think help reveal where we find ourselves as a culture today and we need to try to deconstruct that in order to get out of the matrix.

Did you consider making the Trump phenomenon a more explicit part of the film?

I didn’t want it to be too big of a piece. I included the rally where you see David and Jackie Siegel and Trump saying, “This isn’t about me, it’s about you.” That’s what I wanted to leave the audience with: Trump is a symptom, he’s not the disease. What has happened in our culture over the last 25 years was laying the foundation to make him possible.

It was so interesting to me the way you wove your own story with your family into the film, I thought that was very brave since you show some very vulnerable moments. At first I wondered how it fit but then when you got into the thread of drive and addiction, it seemed to make total sense. I really admired your sons in the film, and I was particularly impressed by your younger son’s poem called “Legacy” that he reads on camera. He so gets it. Was it a hard decision to include your family in the film?

It was, and not something I expected to do the beginning. But just as you were saying when we started talking about how the film made you think about your own relationship to wealth, I felt I had to be transparent about my own process. My work has been so dependent on the kind of honesty and bravery and vulnerability of my subjects that I felt like I needed to be willing to be in there without makeup, I felt like the content demanded it. It wasn’t so much about fame and fortune for me, but it was definitely about accomplishment and a kind of obsession that I think a lot of artists have. It made me want to look at where’s that coming from in me.

One of the most moving moments in the film for me is when the Florian, the former billionaire hedge fund guy, tells the story about a dinner he was having with his wife in a harbor with all these big yachts and he asked her which one she wanted. She said the only gift she wanted was for him to stay off his phone for an hour so they could have a nice dinner together. So poignant to see the tears well up in his eyes as he tells that story. And another one was when your older son admits that you weren’t around for a lot of his childhood and then he sees your reaction to that behind the camera and asks if you’re okay. 

I feel like my documentaries and my photography have always been about those kinds of unexpected moments — decisive moments that in some way reveal truth. For me, those moments with my family helped me connect the dots in my own brain, and those moments with the different characters where they have realizations about their own journeys is what I live for — when something is revealed in real time that allows the audience to see things in a different way. In my case, since this film was about me going back and looking at all my photography work over the years, I realized that it was very much about point of view. Let’s face it, this is not an objective medium, it’s about a person seeing things in a certain way so I felt it was time, even though I’d never done it before, to look back and try to expose why I was drawn to these things.

Do you feel you want to do something entirely different next or do you think these are themes that will always be in your work?

I do feel like I am able to close this chapter to some extent, it’s cathartic in that way. I feel like I can start something new, but the truth is that my work has always built upon the last thing, so I’m sure in some ways I’ll keep building on these ideas.

Generation Wealth opens in theaters on July 20, 2018. Click here to check out Lauren Greenfield’s incredible photography book and retrospective on Generation Wealth.

[waldos-writing]

The Dig Initiative: Chapter 20

The Misadventures of Poole

Adam bent down in front of the door and carefully untied his shoes before sliding his heels free. He tucked the shoes neatly beneath a row of decorative hooks he used to hang his keys and his coat and his hat. The instant relief on the soles of his feet was heavenly. He cracked his toes against the floor before locking his door and retreating into the quiet sanctuary of his home.

The kettle on the stove was old, something he had inherited from his neighbor as she did her spring cleaning. She had a new one to replace it. Why own two kettles? She laughed and he thanked her for thinking of him and she asked him some question he dodged before returning home. The kettle looked tarnished. Nothing fancy. However, it boiled decently. That’s all he really needed; a decent boil. Adam turned on the stove, which clicked and clicked and sputtered and clicked and then took the flame. While the water heated, he found a mug from the pile in his sink. Probably had only been used for water and, if not that, then just another cup of tea. He sniffed it. It would be fine.

There were a few apples in a wire basket on the counter. They were getting long in the tooth by then with their sugar spots and Adam struggled with the idea of eating them or just throwing them out. He picked one up to test the firmness of the skin. It wrinkled against his thumb.

“Ugh, gross.”

“You were supposed to throw them out yesterday.”

“I know,” said Adam, his nose scrunched as he kept pushing the soft old skin of the apple in a little circle with his thumb. “Trash doesn’t go out until next week. They’re just going to get bad in the waste basket.”

“They’re going to get bad on your counter too.”

“I know,” said Adam again. He put the apple back. He’d get to it tomorrow.

While he was thinking about it, he wanted to shed his suit and tie and put them in the laundry bag to take to the dry cleaners on his day off. He worked the tie loose and pulled it up over his head as he went back to his bedroom. It was dark in there, too, but he knew his way around the place. There was still a little light coming in through the west-facing window, cut into pieces by the cheap blinds. Adam stared through it as he unbuttoned his shirt, whipped the belt out of the pant loops, and tossed his jacket onto an unmade bed. Felt good just to be in boxers and a tee. Adam stretched his arms over his head and cocked his hips to the left and right. He even smiled as he did it. Adam did not smile enough.

“I told you about the raid, didn’t I?” Adam called from his bedroom. He was putting on some jeans before he’d come out again to talk. “Soup kitchen, can you believe? All these little people, these parasite kind of people, stuffed into this dis-gust-ing little place. Bunch of them in there and half of them dead from the fever.”

There was a hole in the knee of his jeans. It showed most of his kneecap. Too much skin exposed. Adam stopped, touched the hole, fingering the delicate white threads that bordered it, and then stood up again.

“Hole…. Whole bunch of uh candidates. Couple of them had turned actually, which is weird.” Adam stared at the hole, wondering if he cared when all he was going to do was stay in for the rest of the day. “I don’t know how it got there. Out. I mean out. I mean how it got out. I don’t know how those people survived if they didn’t have the program, remember that? Valentina does.”

Didn’t matter that nobody else was going to see him. Adam wormed out of the pants and chucked them at a pile trailing out of his attached bathroom. There was a second pair of jeans, less comfortable, but clean and complete. No hole.

“Valentina also has a few theories about what happened. About the virus. She cares about a lot of things,” Adam continued as he came out of the bedroom. “Has that kind of energy.”

“You know I can’t hear you when you’re back there, right?”

“She’s kind of infectious too, if you know what I mean,” Adam said, ignoring the question.

He popped open his refrigerator and fished out a beer. It didn’t do that satisfactory ssktssaah when he pulled the tab back on it. Commercials always lied about that stuff. Lied about the flavors too; crisp, mountain fresh, full bodied and refreshing. Well, okay, it was refreshing. Adam gulped down half the can.

“Ahh,” he said dramatically, closing the fridge door. “Anyways, I think I’ll take her out for coffee. I told her about those places they used to have, you know. Late night open mic places. I really miss those places, I really do.”

“You’re kettles on.”

“What?”

“You’re kettles on, Poole.”

“Don’t call me—”

“You’re kettles on, Poole.”

The kettle was screaming on the stove. It was hard to miss as Adam put down his beer and grabbed the little dingy kitchen towel to take the kettle off the burner. The fire was still going, but he was careful to set the kettle down on an oven mitt before he did anything else.

“This is only because I was talking to you,” said Adam bitterly. He hadn’t put out any tea and decided it didn’t matter. He was going to finish the beer anyways.

“Then don’t.”

“Oh, you’d hate it if I ignored you. You’d start going on and on about everything just to fill the void. You’d tell me everything under the sun because you don’t even get to see the sun anymore. Don’t think I don’t remember.”

Maybe one beer wasn’t enough. It definitely wasn’t enough. He was a big guy, tall. Had always been bigger than other people, but not too big, because then he wouldn’t have been an augmenter. And nothing seemed worse than wearing white.

Even though the tea wasn’t going to happen—Adam reached in and grabbed two cans before bumping the fridge door shut with his hip—he decided he’d move on to a different routine. Tomorrow was going to be his only day off in two weeks.

“We’re cleaning the house today,” he announced and laughed.

“I thought you were going to the dry cleaners.”

“Clean the house first,” he answered. He sipped at the second beer and nodded at nothing and peaked his eyebrows, giggling a little with a metallic ping into the can. “You better,” he muttered. “If you’re ever inviting her over here, you want a clean place.”

What he really wanted was to sit back and talk about Valentina Drednov. He wanted to talk about how she tugged at her earlobes during debriefs, like a little wink to him about how boring their supervisor was. Or the way she hitched up her shoulders, bubbling with nervous confidence when she drove during their patrols. The way she purposefully stopped at each light to remind him of their first flirtatious moment. The way she snapped her fingers when she was primed to knock a candidate off their feet. The way she turned to him for approval when they dropped them off with the Altamira team. The way her mouth twitched with that little hidden smile for him, of course for him, because they were partners and he knew, if he cleaned and washed his clothes and made his bed and prepared everything just right, he could have her.

“You know, we’re coming up on a very important date. You remember it?” Adam asked, setting down the can again so he could start in on the dishes. “Half of May already over. I can’t believe it’s finally coming up. I can go on and on about illegal candidates and turnovers in soup kitchens all day, but it won’t even matter when they finish up with the towers, right? And I wouldn’t even know about it if it wasn’t for what you did.”

Adam laughed again, a little softer this time, expecting to hear a nasty retort. The faucet was running, maybe too loudly, so he turned it off.

“Did you say something?”

Silence.

“You know what I’m talking about, though, don’t you? You haven’t forgotten yet?”

Adam was scrubbing one of his many mugs. It was covered with soap suds, squeaking against the tired green sponge. When there was still no answer, he threw the sponge into the water in the sink. The mug went right in after it, shattering against the dishes hiding under the suds.

“Great! You see what you made me do?”

Adam turned in the kitchen, waiting for something, probably laughter, but it just wasn’t coming. He gripped the edge of the sink and roared with his neck taught, eyes bulging. He tried to rip the counter off from the sink, but it was solid built. It stayed. He pushed and pulled, jerked against it a little, but gave up.

“Are you ignoring me? After all we’ve been through? After all you’ve put me through? Now you’re giving me the cold shoulder, huh?” Adam slapped the counter. “Cold shoulder, you sonovabitch.” He slapped it again and laughed this time, hard. “Cold shoulder!”

Adam grabbed the kettle next to him and tossed it out of the kitchen. It sailed over the counter with an arc of hot water splashing around it before it bounced against his dining room table and onto the floor. The half-empty beer can was next, not before it soothed some of the burn on Adam’s palm. He didn’t care, really, that his hand was burned. He didn’t care that the table was damaged or that there was a giant puddle of steamy water on his dining room rug. He turned to the freezer and yanked open the bottom drawer.

“You don’t even have a shoulder, Daniel!” Adam yelled to the block of ice that took up the majority of his freezer space. Daniel still wasn’t answering, deciding instead to let his partner steep. “You think you’re better than me. You always did. You snuck around my back like I was this big dumb simpleton, thinking you could get in with the higher ups and take me out. You talked to that doctor, the one we had to put away and figured out they’re spreading the rest of NARA through the towers. Got a date, too. And good for you. Good for you, cause you had to tell me. Me, the big dumb partner. Put me in with the White Jackets. I knew, Danny. I knew you wanted to do that. I knew everything.”

The frozen head felt even better against his burnt palm than the beer can did. Adam fished Mr. Shutter’s out, squeezing the dead frozen cheeks between each hand as he hoisted it up to his eye level.

“And it’s good that I did. You know? Cause, Danny, listen,” he whispered and pressed his forehead against the bluish-white skull. Mr. Shutters eyes were frozen white, sightless, but he didn’t need them anymore. Didn’t need anything but that big dumb mouth of his, running off all the time. “I got the girl. How about that? Pretty thing, too. Beautiful. You’d be so jealous. You will be, when she comes over. She’s coming over and she’s gonna love me, Danny. Everything you used to say? Lies. Lies lies lies, even when you found out everything from that Dr. Fletcher and didn’t even tell me, didn’t even share until you did like a giant idiot, Danny.”

The skull’s blinked through the white frost, staring up at the big man who used to be his augmenter. But he didn’t say anything.

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter