#[[lost little astronaut]] - gawain

[lost-kingsmen]

Late Knights in the Lizard Lair

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((Arthur has told Gawain a thousand times that they aren’t calling his shed workshop the ‘Lizard Lair’. I need to put this down now. My phone is starting to lag from all the layers the file has to open.))

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((Gawain if he were in Danny Phantom except I had no art style reference and did it all from memory alone.))

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((Slapped some colors on the sketch to help pass a slow day at work!))

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“Sigil City really comes alive when the sun goes down.”

-

((I usually don’t draw backgrounds - let alone cityscapes - so this was a nice challenge!))

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Assorted Worldbuilding Headcanons Focused Mostly On The DP Part Of The DPxDC Crossover Aspect Of This Blog In No Particular Order Because I Like Wide Nets For My Sandboxes, GO!:

Vlad is in his redemption era when he's handed Gawain for an accelerated ghost skills course, and it is absolutely not of his own will.

He tried and failed to fleece Laird Aether when the 'sister city' project between Sigil and Amity was first proposed, not knowing that his seemingly naive target was actually a Fae lord.

No-one but Vlad knows what Laird said or did to make him suddenly balk on his evil schemes and try to straighten up so quickly, but according to Mayor Aether's assistant(s), they had a civil discussion and traded witty banter, of which, Aether just so happened to have more of.

According to Master's assistant, they fucked in the office coat closet.

Vlad drank a LOT of coffee while trying to teach Gawain intangibility and invisibility, as his enchanted armor made fully fading from the visible spectrum quite difficult, and getting stuck halfway into the floor sent him into a panic attack.

Duplication 101 and Ectoblasts for Beginners were postponed indefinitely as a result.

Griflet and Bran don't like Vlad. At all. They hiss at him and puff themselves up like angry cats if he gets close,

Chopper, surprisingly, does like Vlad, and likes to lounge across the back of his chairs to steal bites of his snacks when they take breaks between lessons.

Vlad does not like Chopper, but prefers to keep all of his fingers where they are.

They make a very weird pair: Gawain spent his entire childhood chasing any kind of praise from his parents, so the moment Vlad gave him any kind of positive reinforcement, he clung to it, and Vlad (deep down) really wanted that sense of family he thought he'd only ever get with Maddie and Danny.

When Danny comes by to see what Vlad's scheming, as he's been quiet for weeks now, he's horrified (and a little bit concerned) to find that Vlad's seemingly shifted his creepy parenting focus off of him and onto a new ghost.

Any fighting is dissuaded, however, by Gawain getting his hand stuck halfway through Vlad's table and spilling the tea when he can't get it out.

Chopper also likes Danny, but Bran called dibs.

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((A slow day sketch to go along with that last drabble!))

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In his youth, Gawain was taught to ride horses as part of his parents' chosen extracurriculars, and he grew very fond of a Dartmoor pony called Guinevere. He would ride no other pony but her, and Guinevere - previously known as a cranky and stubborn mare - was always happier to see Gawain than she was anyone else beside her owner.

Though they had leased the pony at first, Tom and Elaine wouldn't buy her (it was the one of the rare things they ever told Gawain 'no' on). When Guinevere was eventually retired to a rescue in northern Scotland when he was fifteen, Gawain was upset, but there was nothing he could really do but say goodbye.

He stop riding after that, to his parents disappointment.

Several decades, a death, and a magical coma later, after chasing a villain halfway around the world with a team of other heroes to save the world, Gawain woke up to find a ghost horse outside his uncle's house. She trampled the lantanas in the front beds and chewed on the wind chime strings, and refused to leave (even when asked politely).

Guinevere refers to herself in the third person, and refers to Gawain as 'Favorite Rider'. Arthur is 'little foal', and the Reptilitones, collectively, are 'chickens'. She is the only spirit attached to Gawain who communicates in full (though not always grammatically correct) sentences, and speaks with a distinct West Country accent.

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((*places a large manila folder on the desk and opens it, spilling an unrealistic amount of paper to the floor* Okay, let's follow up on that last post by stream-of-conscious-talking about different types of ghosts in this potential crossover.))

I thought of this idea while talking with @doors-to-infinity a while back (heyoooo I thought too much about a throwaway line and now we're here). What happens if a ghost forms outside of the Infinite Realms?

So. Amity Park ghosts from the Infinite Realms need and are made of ectoplasm, according to what I remember from the show and what I'm slowly absorbing from my brushes with the Phandom. I don't remember many examples of DP ghosts that noticeably deviated from this, apart from some notable ones (Clockwork, the denizens of the Far Frozen, etc.) that I'm leaving in their own category, for now.

Meanwhile, ghosts in the Mystery Skulls universe so far haven't been shown involving anything quite like ectoplasm. They appear to have a lot of similar abilities, such as energy-like blasts, illusions, and (some degree of) shapeshifting, and the fandom seems to attribute most other ghost-like abilities to them, as well.

Those things don’t sound like they really reconcile, right?

Well we’re gonna make them.

BAM! It’s usually super rare for ghosts to form outside the Infinite Realms - when it does happen, these ghosts need to rapidly consume enough ectoplasm to stabilize themselves. But ectoplasm itself isn’t super common outside the Realms, so where do they get it?

Other ghosts.

They learn to seek out natural portals and hunt the ghosts that come through them in a bid to survive, and Realm ghosts quickly lean to fear the ‘Outsiders’ that seemingly guard these natural portals, making them less likely to travel through them, and thus starving out most of the non-Realm ghosts before they could stabilize.

But this is a world of ghosts, magic, and superheroes, so of course, eventually, that status quo has to shift.

Whether it be natural or unnatural magical shenanigans, something changes in Texas to make it easier for non-Realm ghosts to survive. Maybe it was the Fae Court that immigrated from the UK and founded Sigil City, or maybe there was a cult that opened a door too wide to close? Either way, ‘Outsiders’ suddenly have enough ambient energy in the area to siphon off and stabilize.

Slowly, they adapt to require as little ectoplasm as possible - like desert animals adapt to function on what little water they can get. Some (like Dulce and Callahan) end up with enough excess to support a sizeable number of other, smaller spirits, while others ( like Gawain, Lewis, or Brushfire) only support a small number. They no longer need to hunt other ghosts, and come back to their humanity now that they aren’t constantly in survival mode.

Most Realm ghosts, however, have been staying far away from natural portals, frightened away by legends of ferocious beasts that eat ghosts.

When the Fenton Portal punches a stable hole between the worlds, it’s the younger ghosts who go through first, unimpressed by tales of monsters they’ve never seen. When all the younger ghosts claim to have met are humans and a ghost like them, more come through, emboldened by the seeming lack of true danger.

Then one day, years after the portal was opened and stabilized, Danny makes an off-hand remark to Frostbite about ‘being like his parents’ because he met some ghosts in Texas who don’t need ectoplasm and immediately took down a bunch of notes, like the scientist his parents always wanted him to be.

Frostbite, horrified: “You met ghosts…who don’t have ectoplasm?”

Danny, blissfully unaware: “Well, they HAVE ectoplasm, just not a LOT of it.”

Frostbite, curiosity slowly winning out: “And they didn’t try to consume you?”

Danny, confused: “No?? One of them offered me tea and another let me play with his ghost dogs. They were pretty friendly, all things considered.”

Frostbite:

Frostbite, slowly raising his own notebook and quill: “Tell me more.”

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Phantom: *says something self-depreciating*

Gawain, rounding the corner with a Nerf gun in each hand: "So you have chosen death..."

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Ao3

"You need to rest." Gawain's eye lights flickered briefly - first up, over the edge of his book, and then down to the pages again - at the quiet crunch of dried leaves. Chopper lashed her long tail as her liege tried to ignore her, and grudgingly uncoiled from her comfortable position beneath the desk lamp to stand up and arc her spine in a stretch. "You have been active for six months and fifteen days. You need to rest." She insisted in the soft shushing of leaves in the wind.

"When did you start counting?" Gawain flipped the page of the book to try and make it clear that he wasn't listening. He hadn't read a single sentence in the past ten minutes. He just...he couldn't focus on the words. He got too distracted by the surreal glow of his own eyes on the page and how, no matter where he looked-

Little orange claws hooked over the edges of the pages as Griflet hauled his body up from the knight's lap. Though the spirit's negligible weight barely even made a dent in the paper, Gawain lowered the book anyway, allowing Griflet to climb up and resettle over the pages in a definitive end to his distracted reading.

"Rest is important." Chopper made sounds like the creaking of old trees in a storm as she gathered her long body at the edge of the desk, and then jumped across to take up the space in Gawain's lap that Griflet had vacated. "You need to-"

"NO." Gawain moved to stand up abruptly, causing Chopper and Griflet to tumble off his lap with a series of startled chirps. They recovered quickly, though, and gave their master matching looks of mild offense. "I can't risk it. I can't risk losing another twenty years-" He made a sound akin to breath hissing through clenched teeth as something tried to wedge itself between his palm and clenched fingers, and almost jerked his hand away. Branwen simply reached out again to take the knight's hand and lifted it to press it against the heart-shaped mark on her chest.

"You are not alone anymore." The spirit said in the soft clicking of his brother's building bricks. Gawain made the hissing sound again, but softer - quieter - in the fragile silence that now filled the space in the wake of his own near-shouting. He felt Griflet and Chopper grasp at his other hand, and let his arm go limp so that they could lift it, too.

"We will wake you." Branwen promised in the soft rumble of distant thunder before leaning her long neck in to press her head against the side of his helmet. Griflet and Chopper echoed her with rumbles of their own, patting his hand and arm with their little claws, and Gawain's eyelights narrowed.

But...not in anger.

"I can't lose another twenty years." He repeated in a voice far more defeated than before. Griflet moved to wrap his arms around the knight's wrist in a reassuring little hug. "I've already missed so much, I-. I can't."

"You will not." Branwen promised again, this time in the gentle ticking of the old clock that hung on the wall of his uncle's study. "We will wake you. You are not alone anymore." Gawain said nothing and let his eyelights flicker out of sight. He did not resist, however, when the three spirits guided him to walk around the bean bag chair he'd been sitting in and stand in one corner of the shed, where he could lean against the edge of a windowsill and the frame of a cluttered shelf.

They settled around him - Branwen stretched across his shoulders in a comforting weight, Chopper coiled around his boots like a patrolling guard dog, and Griflet draped across his hands - as the fatigue he had been fighting off for so long began to weigh on him, impossibly heavy and inescapable.

He felt a spike of fear as his awareness began to fade into the dark, but fighting was no option, anymore. Gawain's helmet dipped slightly as he dropped fully under, and Chopper heaved a heavy sigh.

"So dramatic..." She tutted in the tinkling of broken glass. Branwen reached a paw deep into her mouth and dug around for a few seconds before producing an old hourglass in a wooden casing. She set this carefully on a clear spot on the shelf beside them, and then settled back with a satisfied hum.

"Start small." She told the others in the splashing of little feet in a shallow puddle. "One hour. Later more." Chopper rolled her yellow eyes but didn't argue further. Instead, she kept her gaze on the falling sand as the other two drifted off for a quick nap of their own.

"Start small..." She whispered to herself. One hour wasn't nearly enough to make up for months of neglect, but she could understand Gawain's fear....after all, how could one tell an hour from a year when unconscious to the passing of time?

Chopper coiled herself a little tighter around Gawain's boots and watched the falling sand for the rest of the hour.

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((*throws stylus across the room* That's it I'm done I can't tAKE THIS SKETCH ANY FURTHER-))

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@answrs

((Guinevere’s count for ‘Goons Bitten’ rivals Chopper’s, despite her shorter time on the roster.

It’s always a tough media day for Gawain when he has to utilize both of them, as ‘Microphones Bitten’ is also a factor he has to worry about in the aftermath of a rogue incident.))

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@chopperpirate

"In his own defense, Gawain had never expected the icy ground to just crumble beneath him like that. He could (rightfully) say that he was lighter now than he'd ever been in his life! Or...unlife? Undeath?

He wasn't sure what the proper vocabulary would be.

At least they were out of the wind, way down here. He could probably fly them both out. Probably. He actually hadn't tried to carry anyone before, but surely it couldn't be that hard. Gawain slowly made to sit up out of the armor-shaped impression his fall had left in the snow, and looked around for the unfortunate stranger who he knew had been caught up in the avalanche he'd caused.

"Hello?" He called out, half-hoping that his half-second glimpse of someone else falling among the ice and show had been wrong. "Is anyone else out there, or am I talking to myself?"

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((What’s the point of having a little sibling if you don’t bother them with increasing gravity every once in a while?))

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[cont from X.]

@manofplastic

"I don't think I do, no." The lights inside Gawain's helmet flashed in mimicry of a blink as he turned his head towards the other. "Don't even really get tired unless I've used up a lot of power throughout the day.

"I've sort of passed out once or twice when a rogue gets a good whack in, but I don't think that counts enough as 'sleeping'." He looked over at his other shoulder, where one of his orange tagalongs was lounging on his pauldron. "Do you think it counts?"

The orange creature lifted it's head slightly to look Gawain up and down for a few seconds before it's sharp-toothed maw pulled down into a frown, and it made a sound similar to the rapid clacking of a typewriter before putting its head back down and closing its yellow eyes. Gawain let out a small laugh and looked back to Plastic Man.

"Ah. That would be a 'no', I suppose." He said.

[lost-kingsmen]

A Cold Night in Gotham

Ao3

It hadn't been difficult to find the site of the summoning. If the eerie clouds hanging in the sky hadn't been clue enough, the frost painting fractals across the concrete and floating in the water in the height of summer were a dead giveaway.

The knight touched down on the ice where it thickened at the threshold of the shipping container, and knocked on a piece of door that had been blown outward into a twisted metal shred twice before simply phasing through the wall of blue ice that blocked off the container’s interior. He didn’t spare more than a glance for the frozen chunks of ice entombing the unfortunate men who had been left on guard.

It was probably a mercy, compared to what the local vigilante would have inflicted on them.

As soon as Gawain’s suit cleared the icy barrier, the flame atop his helmet flared and split off into three pieces. Griflet, Chopper and Branwen crawled down his shoulders and arms in their more corporeal forms. Gawain crossed his arms over his chest and leveled the hulking skeletal entity seated across the room with a stern glare.

“Again?” He asked rhetorically. All activity within the container abruptly ceased as fifteen pairs of eyes snapped to the newcomer, wary and frightened in equal measure but for one. The entity did not falter under the knight’s glare, and made no move to rise from where he sat on the ground. When the stranger in gleaming armor was not treated as a threat, the group of near-trafficked children slowly began to relax, and one of them even threw a snowball at another.

Griflet, Branwen, and Chopper all dropped to the icy floor below and scampered across the ice, using their little claws as crampons, and falling over one another in pursuit of the snowball, and the rest of the tension seemed to break. A few of the children laughed, and they resumed playing among the drifts of snow and ice. The skeletal entity leaned their elbows over their knees andmade a sound like a sigh.

"Yes, again." He growled out. A child slid between them, laughing as they were chased by another, seemingly unbothered by the icy coldness of the room. "Look, I feel a summons, I answer a summons. It's not my fault this city has a trafficking problem."

"It is your fault so many children apparently know how to summon you." Gawain argued. Another child ran by, pulling two more on a makeshift sled with Branwen’s help. "This is the third time this month you've been summoned to Gotham, specifically. Gotham. Eventually you're going to get the attention of the locals. Goodness knows how you haven't already."

"Melkein toivon, etten olisi soittanut sinulle..." Red lights rolled around dark, cracked eye sockets in a dismissive gesture. "Are you gonna get me home or just stand there and lecture me?"

“Who says I can’t do both?” Gawain stepped to one side to avoid a child sliding across the floor, laughing as Griflet rolled a sizable snowball after him. “Your husband will make me a double ghost if I don’t get you home, not to mention your father…” He moved toward the center of the container, where the ice seemed to radiate outward from a circle of frozen spikes.

In the center of the circle was a rough summoning graph, drawn in black marker against the steel floor and sealed beneath a clear layer of ice. Four stolen cigarettes stuck upright in chewed gum stood in for the candles, and a red ribbon from somebody’s hair was placed in between them. In the middle, on top of the ribbon, lay a single, battered trading card with bent corners. Gawain knelt down and picked up the trading card, careful not to catch it on the seams of his hand.

“The cigarettes are a creative substitute.” He said quietly. The entity shrugged.

“They used what they had available.” He said back just as quietly. Gawain floated back toward the entity, and held out the card. The entity took it in one heavy, gloved hand, and passed it on to a young girl with a gaunt face and bloodshot eyes. She took it and pressed it to her chest, sniffling, and buried her face against the entity’s shoulder. A red shape moved behind her, and a canine-like blob rested its head on her own.

“I expected more of your polter-pack to be around, Ivan.” Gawain commented, a smile on the edge of his voice. The girl made a watery laughing sound, and the entity - Ivan, just like the name on the trading card - swiveled his skull to glare at the knight.

“They’re keeping the perimeter clear, at least until the local heroes show up…and don’t call them that.” He growled. “We’re not giving them some gimmicky name.”

“I think we are.” Gawain’s eyes turned up in a smile. The makeshift sled passed them by again, this time carrying three children as Branwen dragged it backwards in her teeth, her claws scrabbling at the ice in a frantic pace. “It’s been said out loud now. It’s not going away.” Ivan muttered something in Finnish that was probably impolite and slowly shifted his weight to begin standing up, giving the children leaning on him or near him time to move, themselves.

“I’ll corral the little ones.” He decided. “You make sure the coast is clear, and we’ll follow you out.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Gawain ignored the amused snort he got in response, and whistled a quick tune. His three little spirits came running back to him, and he phased them back through the icy wall without a word further.