#Danny and Clockwork are very frustrated

[bodybaggage]

Ghostly Heir or Batty Custody?

DP X DC

———

The Justice League Watchtower was an advanced piece of technology, housing the world’s greatest heroes. But even in a place dedicated to protecting the Earth, some things were simply unavoidable—like gossip.

It had started innocently enough, as these things often do. Superman, having just returned from Gotham, was discussing the latest developments in the Batcave with Wonder Woman over a cup of coffee. The conversation was meant to be private, but when you have people like the Flash who can be in and out of a room before anyone notices, privacy is a relative term.

“So, Batman has another kid?” Superman had said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

Wonder Woman raised an eyebrow. “Another one? Are we running a daycare now?”

Superman shrugged. “Not sure. But he’s different from the others. White hair, glows a little. Bruce is being… secretive.”

“Bruce is always secretive,” Wonder Woman pointed out.

“Yeah, but this one seems—” Superman’s words were cut off as the Flash zoomed by, pretending to be busy with something else. The two superhumans exchanged a glance but said nothing more, knowing that once the speedster got wind of something, the whole League would know within the hour.

And they did.

Back in Gotham, Bruce Wayne—better known as Batman—was oblivious to the brewing storm. He sat in the Batcave, going over the latest reports on Gotham’s criminal activity with his usual intensity. Beside him, a ghostly figure floated lazily, occasionally glancing at the screens with mild interest.

Danny Fenton—known to most as Danny Phantom—had been in Gotham for a few weeks now, lying low while he figured out how to deal with some supernatural issues back in Amity Park. Clockwork had suggested Gotham as a good place to lay low, citing the city’s reputation for attracting all sorts of weirdos. Besides, Clockwork had argued, Batman wouldn’t care as long as Danny didn’t cause trouble.

And for the most part, Danny hadn’t. He’d stayed out of Gotham’s wayward criminal elements, kept his ghostly powers under wraps, and only occasionally wandered the streets at night to stretch his legs (or float, as it were).

Of course, he hadn’t counted on the Bat Family.

Damian had challenged him to a duel within minutes of their first meeting, insisting that he prove himself worthy of staying in the Batcave. Danny had countered by turning intangible and letting Damian tire himself out, which only seemed to frustrate the young Robin more.

Tim had interrogated him about the nature of ectoplasm and ghost powers, scribbling notes furiously as Danny tried his best to explain without giving too much away.

Jason had simply grunted, muttering something about “another brat” before disappearing on his motorcycle, while Dick had been the only one to offer a somewhat normal welcome.

“You’re like, what, the seventh kid Bruce has taken in?” Dick had said, clapping Danny on the back. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

“I’m not staying here permanently,” Danny had replied, but Dick had just laughed, as if Danny’s words were the punchline to a joke only he understood.

Things had been relatively quiet since then—until now.

It started as a low hum, a barely noticeable vibration in the air. Alfred, the ever-watchful butler, was the first to notice something amiss.

“Master Wayne,” Alfred said calmly, setting down the tray of tea he’d just brought in. “We appear to have… company.”

Bruce looked up from the Batcomputer, his eyes narrowing as the hum grew louder, evolving into a low rumble that seemed to shake the very foundations of the Batcave. Danny, who had been floating upside down, lazily spinning in midair, suddenly snapped to attention.

“Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Danny muttered, his expression turning from bored to annoyed in seconds.

“I’m afraid I cannot,” Alfred replied, his tone as even as ever, despite the growing disturbance.

The rumble turned into a roar, and suddenly, with a burst of green light, a swirling portal opened up in the middle of the Batcave. The vortex crackled with energy, and from it stepped a towering figure clad in ghostly armor, a crown of ectoplasmic fire atop his head.

Pariah Dark, the Ghost King, had arrived.

“BATMAN!” Pariah’s voice boomed through the cave, rattling the glass cases that held the old Robin suits. “I, Pariah Dark, King of the Infinite Realms, have come to challenge you for the custody of my heir!”

There was a moment of silence as the words hung in the air. Danny facepalmed, groaning audibly. “This is not happening.”

Bruce, for his part, remained as stoic as ever, though his eyes narrowed as he assessed the situation. “Your heir?”

“Yes, my heir!” Pariah bellowed, his eyes glowing with ectoplasmic energy. “The boy you have taken into your care! I will not allow this—this mortal to usurp my claim!”

Bruce’s gaze flicked to Danny, who looked thoroughly unamused. “Is there something you forgot to mention?”

“Oh, come on!” Danny threw his hands up in frustration. “This isn’t what it looks like! I’m not his heir, and I’m definitely not up for custody!”

Pariah seemed undeterred by Danny’s protests. “You defeated me in battle, boy. By the laws of the Infinite Realms, that makes you my heir! And now this Bat-creature seeks to claim you as his own! I will not stand for it!”

Bruce’s expression remained impassive. “I’m not trying to claim him.”

“See?” Danny gestured to Bruce. “Totally not trying to claim me. So you can just go back to the Ghost Zone, Pariah. No custody battle needed.”

Pariah’s eyes narrowed, his fiery crown flaring. “The only way to resolve this is through combat! Batman, I challenge you to a duel for the boy!”

Bruce glanced at the portal, calculating the odds. “And if I refuse?”

“Then I will take the boy by force!” Pariah declared, raising his massive sword, which seemed to materialize out of thin air, crackling with ectoplasmic energy.

Danny floated down between the two, trying to keep the peace. “Guys, let’s just calm down. No need for a duel. I’m fine. No one’s taking anyone by force.”

Pariah looked down at Danny, his expression a mix of paternal concern and royal indignation. “Do not worry, my heir. I will defend your honor.”

Danny groaned again. “I don’t need my honor defended. I need you to stop making this weird.”

Before Danny could protest further, Bruce stepped forward, his voice as calm as ever. “Very well. A duel, then.”

“Seriously?” Danny looked at Bruce, incredulous. “You’re just going to agree to this?”

“If it ends the situation quickly, yes,” Bruce replied, his tone as dry as ever. “This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with an overprotective guardian.”

Pariah raised his sword, clearly satisfied with the outcome. “Prepare yourself, mortal! I will not hold back!”

“Hold on, hold on!” Danny zipped between them again, clearly exasperated. “We don’t need to do this! Pariah, go back to the Ghost Zone. Batman, you don’t have to fight him.”

Pariah looked genuinely perplexed. “But… the honor of the Infinite Realms demands it.”

“No, it doesn’t!” Danny insisted. “The Infinite Realms don’t care about some weird custody battle! Besides, I’m not a kid, and I’m not staying here permanently! I’m just crashing for a bit!”

Pariah frowned, lowering his sword slightly. “You… are not staying?”

“No!” Danny said, exasperated. “I’m not staying! I’m not your heir! I’m just Danny, okay?”

The Ghost King looked around, as if trying to process this information. “But… you are under his care. It was reported by reliable sources.”

“Reliable sources?” Danny echoed. “Who told you that?”

Pariah seemed to hesitate for the first time. “A rather talkative sorcerer in a trench coat. He mentioned it while muttering about ‘bloody bats’ and ‘undead nuisances.’”

Danny blinked, realization dawning. “Constantine. Of course.”

Bruce’s expression remained unchanged, though there was a faint glimmer of irritation in his eyes. “This… Constantine has been spreading rumors?”

Danny sighed heavily, feeling more tired by the minute. “Look, can we just forget this whole thing happened? Pariah, you go back to ruling the Ghost Zone. I’ll handle Constantine. And Batman, you can go back to doing… whatever it is you do.”

Pariah Dark seemed to mull this over for a moment before finally lowering his sword completely. “Very well. But know this, boy—if ever you require my assistance, you have but to call.”

“Sure, sure,” Danny muttered. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

With one last, dramatic sweep of his cape, Pariah Dark stepped back into the swirling green portal, which closed behind him with a final, ominous crackle.

For a moment, the Batcave was silent. Then Danny turned to Bruce, looking both sheepish and annoyed. “So… I guess I should have warned you about that.”

Bruce simply nodded, his expression as unreadable as ever. “Next time, try to keep your interdimensional family disputes to a minimum.”

“I’ll do my best,” Danny promised, floating back toward the Batcomputer. “But with my luck, that’s not gonna be easy.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Bruce replied dryly, already turning back to his work. “And tell Constantine to keep his mouth shut.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Danny muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as he floated back to his usual spot, thinking about the supernatural messes that seemed to follow him wherever he went.

As the Batcave returned to its usual state of brooding silence, Danny couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, Gotham wasn’t the best place to lay low after all. But with the alternative being another encounter with Pariah, he figured the Batcave wasn’t so bad—at least, not until the next interdimensional incident.

[queeniewithabeanie]

Tick Tock

Dpxdc Prompt #32

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

When Danny agreed to help Clockwork out with solving discrepancies in time he quickly grew a hatred of the repetitive ticking sound of clocks. Every time he thought he was done with a mission, every time he thought things were going well, that stupid sound brought CW and bad news along with him.

The old god had thrown him into a universe and time very similar to his own this time around. He had pulled some strings to make a convincing cover story and get him fostered by the Waynes, some rich family in the city he was staying in.

He had barely settled in when he heard the noise he dreaded.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Danny conveyed his displeasure by sending an ice blast in the direction of the noise, CW was never happy to have to intervene either so Danny knew he would understand his frustration.

Except... when Danny turned to where the noise was coming from—where it should still be as long as Clockwork was in his vicinity, it had stopped.

Danny felt his cheeks warm as he realized he had attacked a regular old grandfather clock instead of the primordial personification of time. The ghost-boy quickly ran over to see how much damage he had done, and hopefully melt the ice with no one noticing.

Though as soon as he finished getting rid of the ice he noticed that the clock was actually part of a secret passageway?

As he walked down into the high-tech secret hideout in the basement of his new residence for Clockwork knows how long he had only one thing to say.

"It's always the billionaire's that are crazy, why do they always have to be the ones that want to adopt me, eugh."

[ew-selfish-art]

Dp x DC AU: Danny didn't want to rely on his rogues, but Tucker's computer skills only got them so far and if the media black out continues... Danny knows it's not going to be pretty for them. Nightmares begin to plague the Justice League.

---

Danny gets back from a shitty conversation with Clockwork and in his frustration, accidentally sets off one of the new GIW sensors that his parents allowed to be installed in the lab. Their collaboration seemed to be going no where but when Danny had new holes blasted through him... it must be going somewhere. Damn it.

The commotion is loud enough that Jazz hears it from her room above the lab (he knows she listens to more than just the lab... it's cause she cares, even if it is a bit invasive.) and rushes in to play the distraction while Danny gets away. This time it works- the Drs. Fenton might have the worst aim in the city but they demand all shots cease if a civilian is nearby- Next time his mom might be aiming her gun at him and not the ground. Danny decides he'll buy Jazz a coffee on his way home.

But first, new holes. Yikes. That like, needs medical attention- He heads to Tucker's place and he's pretty sure Sam is already there.

"Danny! What the fuck, did Clockwork-" She starts, her meticulous cat eyeliner making her glare all the deeper.

"Nah, it's the stupid GIW sensor, the stupid one I told you guys about that has a spring lose in the back?"

"I thought we decided those weren't a concern?" Tucker looks him over, face covered in undisguised and very blatant concern.

"Yeah well, Clocky pissed me off so I forgot about them when I came back in through the lab portal-"

"you were supposed to be practicing making your own." Sam interrupts.

"-And when I did, the thing got knocked and I was swatted like immediately. Jazz launched herself into the lab so Mom made them stop shooting and it gave me enough time to get out." Danny continued to explain, ignoring his friend's 'i told you so' faces.

"Dude. We're pushing it close this week. Sam already had a confrontation with the lab guys and I already got blacklisted on my new persona accounts. We're like seriously threading the needle for getting caught." Tucker, pulls his glasses down to pinch the bridge of his nose and Danny and Sam both get what he's really saying. They need to lie low.

"What did CW say to piss you off?" Sam asks after a silent moment.

"He said nothing really, just like he always does, but insinuated I should try getting a rogue to help." Danny sighs.

"What, Like getting Ember to announce the GIW invasion on her tour? We already agreed that-" Sam is getting angry as she speaks so Tuck cuts her off- "It's a bad Idea. She is- They are all just as likely to get captured and hurt as you are if you go out of town." He comes to the same conclusion they've agreed on for weeks. No rogue involvement.

"Maybe we just need to sleep on it... Hey... wait." Danny sighs, but then his gears start to turn.

"Nocturn. We need Nocturn to help us. He can get the message out through dreams." Danny comes to the new conclusion and his friends look hesitant but at least like they're considering it.

"Isn't he an ancient? He's not going to help us for free." Tucker, ever the Egyptian god in these moments.

"Most people don't take their dreams literally." Sam, ever the skeptic in these moments.

"Yeah but, if they dream it enough times, and they're the right people to do something... they can look it up and then at least see that there is a problem?" Danny sounds hopeful and its the first time he's sounded that way in months.

"What, you're gunna give Batman nightmares?" Tucker snickers but Sam looks inspired.

"That's exactly what he's going to do. We need to haunt the Justice League. They'll see past the fake facade the GIW put up online and they'll be able to get the right legislation passed." Sam is practically buzzing.

"Okay, so lets get scheming- What do you get the primordial beast of the unconscious? Should I google 'what to get someone who has everything'? " Danny laughs.

_____

Bruce and his children rarely do feelings when they have breakfast in the morning after a night of separate patrols, but it seems as though the room is plagued with unease. Tim looks about as tired as ever, so his unease is probably attributable to WE board meetings, but its unlike the rest of his children to be so... disturbed. For some reason, after Alfred has excused them all from eating more than a few nibbles, they make it to the cave. Bruce is glad for the noise his children bring.

The nightmare's he's been having are following a dark plot. A town, a boy who looks like he was kin, and so, so much death. Bruce has had vivid dreams before in life, but this nightmare is... unreal. He tries to remind himself that it's just a nightmare.

When his JL emergency communicator goes off at the computer desk, he's not expecting it to be Dinah Lance. She and her Birds are typically wary of him in Gotham, even if they work well together in the League. He answers it like he would any Batman call, with silence.

"Bats, we have a problem. Any chance you've been having weird dreams about a kid getting experimented on or a town being burned down? Ghosts? Lazarus portals?" Dinah sounds exhausted, but Bruce snaps to her voice with rapt attention. As do all of his children.

"I-" Bruce takes a look around the room, everyone's heads except for Tim's nodding up and down with distress," We all have."

"Something tells me that they whole JL is. Everyone I've talked to this week has had a variation of the same dream. We either have a telepath trying to tell us something, or something even worse than that."

"I'll call emergency meeting, we need to collect details and try to determine the complete message."

"I'll send you what I've noted down so far, sans personal details of course, it's definitely in a town called Amity Park though. My client this morning saw the sign."

Batman grunts and the call ends. It's time to get to work.

----

When the Justice League finally arrives, the town is glowing, and everything feels like... sleep. smothering. snoring. smoking. smoldering.

And then, despite the exhaustion that echos within them, the trudge onwards. The noise of laser guns certainly wakes them up a bit.

[batty-pham]

Ghost King Dann/ tech guy on the JLA space station. With JLA needing to summon the Ghost King only he has spell blocks in place to prevent being summoned while at work.

5 to 1 why the summoning failed and how Batman used a phone to get a hold of the ghost king

Danny learned his lesson with his steadily lowering grades in school after his half-death. As soon as he had his first Summoning in the middle of taking someone's over complicated coffee order, he ran to clockwork, asking if there was a way to make it so that never happened again. Danny needed the money, he needed the job to pay for college. He couldn't afford to constantly be pulled away from work for ghost bull shit like he was from school.

Clockwork was very happy to find a work around, as long as Danny was working, the summoning spell wouldn't work.

Danny no longer was working at that shitty coffee place, he had moved up in the world... literally. Caught in Earth's orbit, a beautiful view of the stars, helping out the heros while he no longer worried about being one.

Yeah, Danny loved working on the Watchtower.

Danny didn't think anything of it when he felt the slight pull of a summoning as he messed with some faulty wiring, he ignored it as he usually did when he worked, completely obvious to the increasing tension in the other room as the league waited for The King who never arrived.

Constantine was pissed, he was ordered to sit and wait at the currently opened doorway until he made an appearance. Batman stayed alongside him, not wanting to miss the appearance of an unknown entity in their base.

Hours went by.

Danny was getting more and more frustrated, the small problem ended up being several layers more complicated than it should be. He wanted to bang his head into a wall. Oh well. At least he'll get overtime, right?

It was well over 12 hours after the portal was initially opened before Danny finally clocked out, completely forgetting about the summoning.

It wasn't until he was engulfed in green smoke that he finally remembered. "Ah- fuck." He swore, mentally and physically exhausted, absolutely defeated. "What do you want?" He sighed, running his hand on his face, only to be met with the eyes of...Batman? What? Did he literally just get summoned to the other room?

"uh...is there a tech problem in here or...you could have just...called...me?" Danny looked around, baffled and confused. Some of the other heroes were in the room as well, asleep but in positions where it was clear they were trying to stay awake when they passed out.

"bloody hell- you were here the entire fucking time?!" Constantine exclaimed, causing a few heroes to jump awake.

"...yeah? I was working on-"

"... you're the ghost king?" Batman asked, cutting Danny off.

"I thought you guys knew? I mean you guys wouldn't just let anyone up here?"

Danny was met with silence.

"...guess not."

[spookymoonybeasty]

Insomnia and the Incomprehensible Ch.1

Wordcount: 1466

Summary: Danny, tired of never having time to get any sleep, goes to Clockwork to get that sleep outside of time.

AN: This is a oneshot, but may one day become a multichapter fic. Posting it now in case I never write more chapters.

Next>

Lately Danny has been struggling with insomnia. At least, that’s what he’d been telling everyone that was unaware of him being Phantom. Which wasn’t a lie, he did often find himself laying awake for several hours most nights. But what plagued his sleepless nights the most were the ghosts, ever seeking to wreak havoc on his town or torment Danny himself.

Every. Single. Night. Every single night some ghost appears between the hours of 8 PM – 6 AM, and steals precious time that could have been spent sleeping. And what little time he does have, is usually spoiled by nightmares or insomnia.

Jazz suggested his body might be too used to being woken up at night, that he was subconsciously refusing to fall asleep in case he had to rush off to fight another ghost. That made sense. It was a frequent worry of his, that he’d fall into too deep of a sleep to be woken by his ghost sense. Who knew what could happen if he couldn’t come to the rescue in time? Danny had a perfect zero casualties record and he absolutely refused to let that change.

Danny was just returning from one such fight, hoping to catch at least a few minutes of sleep before he had to get ready for school. This was the third time this week Skulker had gone after him, and he was getting very, very, very tired of that guy’s bullshit.

Alas, the second the boy transformed and fell onto his bed, his alarm went off.

For several moments, he didn’t move to turn it off. He just glared at the dumb clock.

Can’t a guy get any sleep around here?

There was a quiet knocking at his door, before it creaked open to reveal Jazz. “Danny? Are you getting up?”

It took every ounce of self restraint not to crush the clock when he switched the alarm off.

“I’ll make us some pancakes. Try not to fall back asleep!”

This was something Jazz had been trying the past few days, checking in on her brother and motivating him with food. At first it worked pretty well, as long as the siblings managed to keep the fridge free of their parent’s ectoplasm samples.

Today however, Danny was seriously debating ignoring her and letting himself fall asleep. Just ten minutes, that’s all he asks.

“Dannyyy, brotherrrrr~ Wake uuuuup~”

Danny groaned, a sound so full of sleepy rage and despair that if he was in his sister’s place, he thought he might cry.

“Come on, there’s pancakes! Chocolate pancakes!” Danny whined and buried his head under his pillow in response. “I know Danny, but you have a test today, remember? You can’t stay in bed.”

The weight of drowsiness seemed to cling to his muscles even tighter at the reminder, as well as the muddled emotions that he could only describe as what one feels before going insane from lack of sleep. Because that’s what he felt like was happening, he was going insane! All he wanted was to sleep!

“Danny-”

Danny screamed into his mattress, gripping tight onto his pillow. Had he any claws, it’d be torn to shreds.

He heard Jazz start to say something else, but he ignored her as he shot up, and up into the air as he transformed. “No. Screw this! I’m tired, I’ve barely gotten ANY sleep this entire week. I’m going to get some sleep even if it kills me!”

With that, he dropped down through the floor until he was in front of the portal. The damn thing that was hardly ever closed, by his own parent’s insistence. For what reason, he didn’t care for. All that mattered was that it was because of this thing that his nights were so restless. Maybe later he’ll see if he can’t get his parents to keep it closed when they’re done running tests or whatever else they may be doing with it. He’s tried before though, but nothing ever changed.

He flew into it and into the Ghost Zone. Spurred on by his frustration, he flew as fast as he could with what little energy he had. At some point in his flight he flew past some familiar ghosts that called out to him, but he ignored them, even when they followed him for awhile.

Without looking, he shot a short blast at whoever was following them. The last thing he wanted to deal with right now was somebody looking to fight or bug him. He heard an alarmed shout, then some annoyed grumbling that faded with distance. Good. Don’t follow him, Phantom has no patience right now.

Soon, just before he began to wonder if he should give up and turn back, a tall structure surrounded by giant gears emerged from the green of the Ghost Zone. This time, Danny really thought he might cry, this time with tears of joy. Clockwork’s tower could only be found if the ancient ghost himself wanted you to find it. Otherwise it might as well not exist.

The doors opened on their own as he landed in front of them. The creaking of their hinges echoed throughout the large entry room, and into the shadows and spaces between twisting gears and tik-tokking clocks.

Danny’s only been here a few times, but every time he had a chance to really look at things, it left him feeling a bit creeped out. There was something about the illogical -and possibly ever changing- layout that was disconcerting. The dark shadows, skeletal statues and scythes, and clockwork (not the ghost) didn’t help lighten the mood of the place.

Yet there was always some feeling of comfort he found here, if only because it was Clockwork’s lair. He’s come to learn that however serious and stern the ancient may be, he truly cares for Danny. So long as he doesn’t touch anything he isn’t supposed to, he is welcome here.

Though he hasn’t ever explicitly been told not to touch anything, it just feels like he shouldn’t. It feels like walking into an antiques collection. Best not to risk ruining something just by touching it without care.

Each time he comes here, the path to Clockwork’s most frequented room becomes clearer. The first few times he got lost in the confusing architecture, until an amused Clockwork came to find him. But now it was relatively easy to find his way. He couldn’t tell if that was because he was becoming more familiar with the route, Clockwork has tired of letting him get lost, or it was just chance that the path happened to be easy lately.

This was the fastest he managed to find Clockwork, who was already facing the door waiting for him.

For a moment Danny just stood there, eyelids heavy and body leaning against the doorway.

“Please tell me it won’t break the timeline if I crashed here for awhile.” He begged.

“I’m honestly somewhat surprised it took you this long to come here.” Clockwork smiled, amused for reasons Danny did not have the brain power to guess or wonder about.

“Clockwork, PLEEEAAA-”

“-Yes, you may rest here. For however long you wish.”

“Yayyyy…” Danny cheered quietly, slumping further against the doorway as his body leaped on the chance to drag him closer to sleep.

Clockwork chuckled and flew over to the halfa. “Come on now, let’s get you to a bed.”

“You got a bed around here?” Danny mumbled as the other effortlessly picked him up. Were he fully rested, he might complain about being manhandled (however gentle Clockwork was), but he was just too damn tired. He didn’t care that he was being cradled against the man’s chest like he was too weak to fly or walk on his own.

Actually yes he does care about that, but when Danny opened his eyes (when did he close them?) he was already being set down on a pleasantly plush bed. Purple covers and sheets, just like Clockwork’s cloak, and green metal frame.

“No time will pass elsewhere for as long as you’re here.”

“Y’know this feels too easy,” Danny said, even as he transformed back into a human and phased the blankets on top of himself. “Usually you say something like… Whatever time related thing I wanna do hurts time somehow. Usually.”

“Not this time. Altering the flow of time in here rarely affects things outside. So you may stay, but you will have to hurry to school when you leave.” Clockwork explained.

“Mmm…” Danny’s eyes drifted closed. He didn’t bother fighting to keep them open. “Why can’t you just, teleport me to school?”

“The easiest route is not always the best.”

Danny hummed in response, already falling asleep.

He heard an amused huff, then felt a gentle hand pat his head.

“Rest well, Daniel.”

[picturejasper20]

A lot of people in the phandom talk about how Season 3 was when Danny Phantom went downfall, and while i agree with the idea, i believe that the series was starting to show some of these cracks in Season 2 that later collapsed on Season 3.

For starters, we have the Season 2 first episode ¨Memory Blank¨, whose main purpose was to give Danny a logo in his suit so they had to make the portal explode on him again. It is an episode that doesn't much sense in the timeline and it is very confusing. It doesn't change much aside from Danny having a logo.

Later we have episodes like ¨Reign Storm¨ and ¨The Ultimate Enemy¨, considered to be the peak episodes from the series by many for a reason. The issue with these episodes is that they were setting up for pretty interesting things- but they never had a proper paid off. I have talked before about how the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire never appear again after Reign Storm in spite of how important they were. There isn't any mention of them in the episodes that followed. The same goes to The Ultimate Enemy, a mutual of mine, @pedanticat, pointed out how the special was setting up for Clockwork to be a mentor figure for Danny, which didn't get much followed except for a later episode.

While "The Fright Before Christmas" has some good moments, it is frustrating how Danny has to put up with Jack and Maddie's childish argument that ruins for him and Jazz what should be a special time of the year. It is quite gross that a 14 year old teenager has to deal with something like this and the adults are never called out for it.

I do enjoy "Secret Weapons" a lot but one main issue it has is that it semi rewrites Jazz's character, making her be incompetent at ghost hunting when in previous episodes (My Brother's Keeper and Maternal Instincs) and later ones she isn't seen having this same kind of issue with using fenton gadgets. I believe it was written like this so the status quo wouldn't change much in the show.

From here is where things start to get more messy, with "Beauty Marked" having very cool things but giving a mixed message regarding gender (potraying all girls who like fashion and buy clothes as brainless and Sam being the only girl who is clever). Not terrible since it still fun to watch but questionable in message.

"Masters of All Time": Another dumb alternative plotline episode that doesn't add much to the series and was a whole wasted of opportunity of showing how Jack and Maddie's relationship with Vlad used to be before the proto-portal accident. Pretty insulting to previous characterization established for Vlad as antagonist among of a lot other weird messages and implications. Not much else to add that hasn't been said before in my blog or by some of my DP mutuals.

"Double Cross My Heart": I don't remember a lot of this one but i do know i didn't like the whole idea of Danny stalking Sam + ¨If someone else that isn't Danny likes Sam, it means that they are faking it¨. I do know that as whole this appears to be one of the most disliked episodes from the series.

"Reality Trip": Looking back this episode has a lot of really cool things, specially some exploration of Freakshow's characterization and Jack and Maddie as parents. The GIW being main antagonists is great too. The whole problem that brings this whole special down is that the events that take place don't have any real impact and most of the characters, including Jack and Maddie, lost their memories of learning about Danny's identity as Phantom. This has to be one of the most insulting moves the series did, all because for the sake of keeping the main status quo. It makes me wonder why Kindred Spirits couldn't have been the double part episode instead, since it is related to one of main plotlines (Why Vlad gave Valerie all that gear) and is about one of the main antagonists (Vlad Masters), something that was a lot more important that Freakshow.

As you can see, Season 2 was already starting to show problems that later defined the writing of Season 3. You have things like inconsistent characterization (From Secret Weapons to Masters of All Time), lack of proper continuity ( What i already said of Reign Storm ending and also Valerie not having a major role after Flirting With Disaster) and episodes with weird timeline plotlines that go nowhere and don't have a real impact. (Memory Blank, Masters of All Time and Reality Trip) It is a season that, aside from the first episode, it stays pretty well until the first half, then in the second half it kinda falls apart, with having some episodes that are pretty solid and others that are a mess for different reasons.

[pokelolmc]

The Ultimate Enemy is a Disappointment (and How I'd Fix It) (Part 3)

Happy holidays, everyone! Welcome to part three of my analysis on The Ultimate Enemy. If you want to check out the previous parts, you can start at part 2.5 and go backwards. After this, there's only two...maybe 2.5....more to go! To make up for the long waffle on why the "Dan is a fusion" plotline doesn't work, this one's relatively shorter.

(Part 2.5), Part 3, (Part 4)

This one is about the issues with the episode's time travel. To be honest, I couldn't find much to say about it logistically because it was so vague/poorly defined. I have more to say about the time-travelling characters and their decision-making, which will be part four.

Problems with the Time Travel:

The events leading to Dan’s timeline only happen in the episode because of the very time travel used (in an attempt) to prevent them

The episode never actually shows us how Danny’s tragedy started in the alternate timeline itself, outside of Vlad’s flashback of what happened at his castle. But that was the very end of the chain of dominoes that led to Dan. However, we do get to see the alleged events leading up to that play out in the main timeline (before Clockwork saves Danny’s loved ones)—as part of the episode’s plot. The only problem is, the way it happens in the main timeline was only possible because of time travel.

(Clockwork is literally the only reason this happened)

In the main timeline, Danny’s alleged cheating—the first major event in the alternate timeline—only happened because Clockwork set it up. He wanted to give Danny a “moral test” of some sort. And it only happened, logistically, because he sent Boxed Lunch back into the past to attack Danny.

Then he sent back Skulktech, which facilitated the trio hitching a ride to his tower and getting access to the alternate future. Which facilitated Dan realising that his creation was in jeopardy and coming back into the past to cheat in Danny’s place.

The second major event, the Nasty Burger explosion, also only happened because of time travel. Arguably, in order for Danny to go to Vlad (assuming he went un-coerced/of his own choice), everyone that was there had to die. At least one survivor would’ve enough to change his fate.

If he still had Jazz, for example—they could’ve been moved into an orphanage or with Aunt Alicia or some sort of temporary care but (hopefully) still at least had each other. Sam and/or Tucker surviving would’ve given Danny social support and an external voice of reason against going to Vlad. At least one of his parents surviving…that’s a no-brainer—he doesn’t leave their care.

But in the episode, Danny’s parents and Lancer were only at the Nasty Burger because Dan time travelled back and cheated on the CAT in Danny’s place. Sam and Tucker were only there because of their own time travel (they learned of their deaths in the future, and came to the NB to warn everyone), and Jazz because of Dan’s (she came to warn everyone “Danny” was an impostor).

The episode makes these events specific consequences of time travel. There’s no indicator of whether Danny would’ve come up with cheating on the CAT/getting the answers without Clockwork’s prompting, or just given up and flunked the test in frustration (and Danny failing the test couldn’t have led to the parent-teacher meeting at the NB because the results wouldn’t have been out yet). While you could argue Sam and Tucker have reason to be at the Nasty Burger without Dan (because they hang out there regularly), Jazz doesn’t really have one…unless I guess she wanted in on the parent-teacher conference…? Why?

But even then, the newspaper article in the alternate timeline implied that Danny, his loved ones and Lancer were the only ones caught in the explosion (they died and Danny was the “sole survivor”). So that means no one else was at the Nasty Burger.

The explosion happened on a school day, in the afternoon/evening after school, with all of them having a different reason to be there and there was no one else at the restaurant? Not even any staff?

In that case, it’d have to be closed…but it was only closed in the main timeline because of the smaller explosion from the Boxed Lunch fight. And if another previous Nasty Sauce incident somehow closed it early in the alternate timeline, that means Sam and Tucker had no reason to be at the Nasty Burger for the explosion. Why go hang out when it’s closed?

I guess we just have to assume there was some other offscreen reason that they happened in the alternate timeline, with little prompting or explanation…but I still argue that if Danny cheated of his own volition in the alternate timeline, then Clockwork shouldn’t have given Danny the answers in the main one—and the "what could've been" in the alternate timeline would’ve been the better/more compelling story to tell. And Danny’s loved ones lining up for the explosion just feels…it feels like it’s busted there. Without the time travel seen in the main timeline, it just couldn’t happen the way the episode said it did. But the episode can’t be a time loop (where the time travel happened in the alternate timeline) because it would’ve been broken at the end.

Unfortunately, I don't have any real ideas on what to do about this except for my now-repeated insistence of Danny steals the answers of his own volition and gets to finish cheating. And there's probably some way to change the circumstances of the explosion/whatever kills Danny's loved ones so everyone has a reason to be there without time travel.

2. The Boo-merang shouldn’t be able to reach Danny in the alternate future because it didn’t time travel. It could even potentially risk a time paradox.

The Boo-merang takes Jazz’s message from the present-day events of the episode (main timeline) to Danny in the Ghost Zone of alternate future, without using any time travel. Instead, it simply waits the long way around. It seems clever and creative at first glance, but it doesn’t actually make sense.

The Boo-merang’s ten-year wait to reach Danny runs simultaneously to the school day, the CAT and the final fight at the Nasty Burger, which differ from the events that led to Dan’s birth. By the time the Boo-merang had only been in the Ghost Zone for a few hours, Danny’s loved ones would’ve been saved and the future it was headed to would’ve been/become non-existent. Reaching Danny’s destination in Dan’s timeline would’ve been impossible. He never would’ve gotten the letter.

How it’d affect the timeline/events of the episode if Danny didn’t get Jazz’s letter…well…it depends. All Jazz’s letter did was remind him of Vlad, so it’s still possible he could’ve figured it out on his own if given more time. Jazz’s letter not arriving would just remove the guarantee that Danny found Vlad. Assuming that he could’ve eventually thought of Vlad on his own, or found someone in the GZ to help him remove the Time Medallion, there’s still a chance he could get back to the past without Jazz’s letter, Vlad or the Ghost Gauntlets. But that leaves a problem:

Without Vlad, he never would’ve heard about Dan’s backstory. He’d have watched his loved ones die (or been sent back to the past by Dan, in the aftermath of their deaths) and been liable to follow the path to Dan’s existence (not knowing that he had to avoid going to Vlad and the fusion). However, that would’ve created the alternate future, resulting in the Boo-merang’s destination in the future existing in the main timeline, and being able to reach Danny just by waiting. Danny would’ve then found his way to Vlad, and resulted in an eventual victory over Dan (and avoiding the alternate future) as per the episode’s ending (making the Boo-merang unable to reach its destination again). This creates a time paradox.

I'm not really sure what to do about this. It was what the writers set up the Boo-merang for (outside of outing Dan to Jazz because it doesn't react to his ectosignature) and it feels like they were really trying to be clever. I feel like you'd have to give Jazz some other role in the story. Maybe Dan brought a Time Medallion back as his only way of accessing the past (stolen from Sam/Tucker, instead of canon where he seems to just open a portal to the past??) and she gets a hold of it? I don't know I'm just spitballing here.

[pulchritudinosaurhythm]

Asleep In The Keep-Chapter 3

DPxMHA crossover Fic

Chapter 3: Home

Summary: Danny ends up in a foreign place, but makes plans to get back home.

Word Count: 1129

The portal didn’t lead him to Amity Park. The air felt different here… In Amity, the air itself felt heavy from all the ectoplasm that seeped into the very earth of the town. Here, while it still was heavy with something, it wasn’t the same almost tangy zest of Amity’s ectoplasm. It was more diluted, but still there under the surface.  

The portal closed up like a ziplock bag, and the seam melded into the background, as if it was never there. Danny frantically clawed and ripped at the space that once could lead him home. He probably looked like a mad man as he desperately grasped at nothing. He could still feel it, just beyond, like an itch that was just below the skin.  

Danny didn’t know how long he slashed at the empty space. He threw his arms over his head and hammered them down in the air in frustration. The alleyway he had landed in was bathed green from the light of his ‘scary eyes’ and they felt cold in his sockets. If the Fruitloop was there he would probably taunt and mock him for his temper.  

His relationship with the old man had cooled over the years to a general dislike rather than outright hatred. They formed a truce after Dani (or Elle as she now liked to be called) almost got destabilized. Despite her starting out as a pseudo Danny, Vlad had begun to view her like an actual daughter, resolved to take care of her. Danny could respect the man for trying to change. After that, Vlad became the uncle he could almost go to for his troubles. Almost. He was still a Fruitloop.   

Danny ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath in. He didn’t need to breathe while in his ghost form, but it was still a relaxing ritual. His eyes dimmed back to their constant glow, only lighting features of his own face than the whole alley. 

Frostbite had told him once before how fickle natural portals were. Time and space had to overlap in perfect conditions to form one, and they were never open for long, unless an outside force gave it enough energy. His parents' portal was a stretched out natural portal being pulled apart and held together by an abundance of ectoplasm.  

One thing was for sure tonight. He wasn’t getting home. 

Danny crossed his legs and floated above the ground, not wanting to touch the dark puddles that wetted the alley. He had no clue where he was. He never heard of a town with this level of ecto-radiation. Or it could just be that he was on a ley-line as those were known for natural portals and an abundance of ectoplasm.  

Danny blew out a hollow sign as he righted himself to go fly and explore. He needed to find any landmarks or architecture that he could recognize, and you can’t get a good idea where you’re at by an alley. He could be in a different country for all he knew.  

He flew above what he now knew to be a city. He kept himself invisible and intangible to conserve energy (since it was the natural state of ghosts) and for stealth. He did not need to alert the GIW where he was.  

The pollution wasn’t bad enough where there were plumes of smog in the air, but it wasn’t good enough to see the sky clearly. Ideally, Danny could get a sense of where he was with the stars, but knowing star locations and their hemispheres, and being able to tell where you're at in the world, are two different skills. Interconnected, yes, but different, nonetheless.  

Flying around Danny couldn’t recognize any landmarks from other countries or domestic, so that was a bust. The only real clue were the neon billboards that had kanji in wild fonts that made him dizzy to look at. So he was in Japan, or a dense Japanese population (but he was pretty sure it was the former).  

Ok. This was becoming a problem for tomorrow.  

Despite being asleep? Dead? For only Clockwork knows how long, he was starting to get tired. Danny had a long day. There was too much to process, and even more to not think about. He needed to find shelter and sleep.  

★ 

After a while, Danny was able to find an abandoned warehouse. No matter the country, trust a big city to have a few “forgotten” areas. Not forgotten to all though, a few clusters of people were scattered about. Some were close enough to signal different groups, while others were too far apart from anyone to announce partnership.  

He wouldn’t take up space from them.  

He floated above them to a rundown loft above the rafters. Due to the rotten ladder, no one was able to claim it, so Danny didn’t feel too guilty using it for the night.  

The loft was more rundown than the rest of the warehouse, a decent sized hole welcomed in rain, and it had rotted and softened the floorboards. It was a wonder it was still together at all. As long as the beams stayed intact, Danny could make it work.  

There was an old tarp outside, muddy and knotted together. Danny took it back to his soon to be nest and laid it best he could over the mostly intact floor beams. It formed a sorta hammock for him to sleep in. With more glow than he would’ve liked, Danny coated the tarp in frost to make it more durable for his soon to be restless sleep. Danny wasn’t worried about the support beams, despite the damage, he could tell they had a lot more life in them to last well over the night. Or morning now. He could see the wisps of dawn sneaking through the nature-made skylight. Not wanting future sun to be in his eyes, he shot a chuck of ice at it and covered that in ectoplasm for extra sun blocking abilities.  

With his newly formed nest, Danny could now think about sleep… 

Except he couldn’t. In the stillness of the morning, through the gentle snores of those below, Danny realized he couldn’t hear his own breathing.  

This shouldn’t be surprising as he was still in his ghost form after all, but it was his ease at being in his ghost form that rattled him.  

Was he really dead now? Fully this time?   

After the accident, when he was in his ghost form for too long, he could feel his human half fidget. He felt comfortable in both forms yes, but his human half felt like Pjs while his ghost side felt like pants.  

This felt too comfortable. Too natural.  

He couldn’t feel his human half anymore.

[astatia-ghast]

Hey, folks! I have a couple things I want to talk about today.

The King's Quest Continues

First, I want to offer a huge thank-you for the response "The King's Quest" has gotten. When I wrote this story, I didn't have the broader audience in mind; my only goal was to write something @hailsatanacab would enjoy. So when I woke up to a flood of kudos and comments the next day, I was truly taken by surprise.

And then they just kept coming. "The King's Quest" still gets a couple kudos every day, and some of the comments I've received have been just... beyond flattering. They all mean so much to me and fuel my drive to write. So really, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

As a token of my appreciation, I wanted to give you all, and particularly hailsatanacab, a little somethin'-somethin'.

I have a sequel in the works. It'll be about triple the length of "The King's Quest," and it's primary purpose will be to explore why Clockwork made the decisions he did. And I want to share the first scene with you today!

For full disclosure, I'm not 100% sure this sequel will be finished or how quickly it will be written, because I'm drawing a blank on some sections, and I have other fics I want to work on, too. But I would really like to see it finished this year. I think it would be a fun companion piece, especially since Clockwork's behavior raises so many unanswered questions in "The King's Quest."

So here's the first scene! Fair warning: this is in very early draft stage, so it won't have the polish my published fics do. But I hope you still enjoy. :)

------

Clockwork drapes a cape over Danny's shoulders. It is thick and soft and heavy, made by the yetis of the Far Frozen as a coronation gift. The outside is a sleek black fabric, and the inside is fluffy white fur.

Clockwork smooths out the wrinkles on Danny's shoulders, and then his hands just stay there. It reminds Danny of when he did the exact same thing all that time ago. The weight around his soul grows heavier.

"What do you think?"

Tears well in Danny's eyes. They are plastered to his reflection in the mirror, which is slowly being adorned with all the regal clothing and treasures that will mark him as King. His coronation is around the corner, and the whole of Clockwork's tower, usually so silent, is now bustling with ghostly allies working to prepare. They sing and laugh, but Danny shares none of their mirth.

Gently, Clockwork turns Danny around and sinks to eye level. He is handsome today; his hair, white like Danny's, has been pulled back into an elaborate array of braids. He gently brushes a strand of hair out of Danny's face.

"Remember: you just need to get through today." Clockwork's voice is low and soft, meant for Danny's ears only. "Get through today, and the Council of Ancients will take things from there. And then you can focus on your mortal life until you are ready."

Danny feels like he should say something, but he can't; he knows that the moment he speaks, those tears are going to fall. Except then, in a cruel rebellion, one tear falls anyway. Clockwork procures an embroidered handkerchief, and with remarkable softness, he wipes the tear away. Danny puts up with the first dab, but when the second one comes, he pushes Clockwork away.

Clockwork doesn't fight him; he stows the handkerchief away. He seems to be teetering on the verge of action, but he stays still, keeping his hands in his lap. Danny turns away, trying to wipe his eyes as casually as possible, even as he knows there is literally no point in pretending. Frustration grows inside him as he wills himself to stop crying, but the tears only fall more steadily.

Fuck the mirror. Fuck the cape. Fuck this coronation.

A yeti peeks his head inside the room and asks Clockwork a question about something or other. He answers his question and follows up with, "We'll be just a minute." The yeti nods, peering at Danny curiously, as Clockwork closes the door. At once, the tower is quiet again; Danny is thankful for the privacy.

A necklace settles around Danny's neck. He jumps, thinking Clockwork has soldiered on with his preparations and dropped his own coronation gift around Danny's neck, but then he notices that it's just a normal time medallion. He looks up at Clockwork in askance.

"Take all the time you need," he says. "I will be waiting right outside when you are ready."

Clockwork opens the door, revealing yetis frozen in the midst of carrying streamers and delivering food, and closes it behind him.

[picturejasper20]

Analysis of Danny and Vlad's relationship in A Glitch in Time

I have noticed that for some reason i never wrote a proper analysis of Vlad and Danny's interactions in A Glitch in Time in spite of talking about their dynamic a lot in my blog. I think in part because the graphic novel doesn't have much of that, at least not until the third act when they are fighting against Dan Phantom. However, i still want to try to talk about the interactions Danny and Vlad had through the story and how it changes by the end of it.

This is probably going to be a somewhat long post, so let's start.

The first interaction that Danny and Vlad have in A Glitch in Time is when Vlad arrives through the ghost portal in the Fentons's lab. This... doesn't end well as it leads to Danny to transform into Phantom and attack Vlad the moment he asks for his help and tells him he can explain (and also being in a weak beaten state). Not unexpected since Danny believes that Vlad went missing or probably died after the events of Phantom Planet-and with the time glitches happening to him he probably very quickly jumped to the conclusion that Vlad was behind them and was here to fight him. It isn't rare for Danny to sometimes attack Vlad for him just showing up too. So this reaction isn't that unexpected either.

However, after he gets some repressed anger out of his system and they trap Vlad, Danny gives him the opportunity to explain himself, as he wants to know why he happened to suddenly show up in his house.

One thing that's interesting about Vlad's line here is that he shows certain self awareness of how much Danny hates him because of his past selfish actions -something he mainly seemed to lack before Phantom Planet. He knows that he is ¨the last person Danny wants to see right now¨. In past it was pretty unlikely for Vlad to reconsider his actions, as he usually thought he was justified in doing them.

Danny also leaves clear his deep hatred for Vlad and for how he has messed with his life and others in the time they have been enemies. He is willing to listen to Vlad but he doesn't hide how angry he is at Vlad.

Vlad later adds that he didn't know who else to ask for help because it is heavily implied he didn't have any ally left after Phantom Planet events and Danny was the only person that he could think of that would help him. I interpret him as him assuming that Danny would help him since Dan told him that he is half Phantom and Danny would listen to him because of that.

After telling his story about how Dan got accidentally free when he was fighting against Clockwork, Danny, in shock that Clockwork is gone and Dan is free again, doesn't initially believe him and thinks it is a trap. Tucker proves that Vlad is saying is true by checking the ghost portal scanners.

Danny yells at Vlad for putting the reality itself in danger again thanks to his actions. Surprisingly Vlad acknowledges he was responsible for that happening, similar to how earlier he admitted that he knew Danny hates him, but still refuses to admit it was his fault, trying to say that it ¨wasn't only him¨, which in part isn't incorrect since Dan is the one causing the time glitches. Danny is left frustrated with Vlad's lack of taking responsibility for his actions and him having to be involved in fixing the mess he causes (again).

After Vlad tells the team Phantom about how he has been looking for the source of ghost power energy for decades and suggests they could search for it, Danny and Vlad have a moment that resembles their typical dynamic in the series.

Danny quickly picks up that Vlad in part is trying to trick him and the others into looking for the source of ghost power so he could probably keep it for himself after they defeat Dan. Vlad tries passing it off as this is for Danny to fix his ghost powers, correcting himself to not fully reveal his true intentions. Danny quickly points out that when Vlad had the Infi-map, he could have easily found the power source-but the map very likely it didn't want to take him there or it just doesn't exist. Vlad praises Danny for realizing this, indicating that while he wasn't taken to the source, Danny could be taken there if the map wishes him to.

Feeling like they don't have much of a choice, the team decides to team up with Vlad to look for the source of ghost power. For precaution, Danny puts the Specter Deflecter on Vlad so he can't use his ghost powers while they are working with him, just in case he plans on doing anything suspicious. This is a detail that is worth of mentioning since it comes back later on.

In what would be a twisted funny moment, when the characters are inside Vlad's lab, the novel reminds us that there was a time Vlad tried cloning Danny and not only that, he kept doing that even after the events of ¨Kindred Spirits¨.

Vlad tells Danny to ¨ignore the clones¨ and Danny tells him that ¨they are going to have a serious talk about boundaries¨ after they are done with dealing the whole situation. What it is interesting about most of their interactions in the story is that Vlad never taunts Danny with making him become his pupil or son. He doesn't make comments about Jack nor trying to get Maddie for himself.

This could be seen in two ways: A) He doesn't say any of this since they are working together in stopping Dan or B) At this point he had realized how wrong his obsession with the Fenton family, specially Danny, was. This could explain why he didn't seem to have an interest in Danny becoming his son in the novel.

When they are fighting against the Fright Knight, Vlad tries using his ghost powers, only to get zapped by the Specter Deflecter. Because of this Danny orders Tucker to take it off since ¨they need all hand on deck¨ to fight, specially considering that Danny can't use his powers properly. I bring this up since it was Danny the one who put the Specter Deflecter on Vlad in first place and it is himself here who is ordering Tucker to deactivate it. I assume he does it because he knows that Fright Knight is quite powerful and they need Vlad's ghost powers to beat him.

Moments later the sarcophagus where Pariah is trapped begans to wobble and falls to the ground. In a rare moment Danny and Vlad manage to work together to catch the sarcophagus before it can hit the floor with full force and then drop it over Fright Knight when they find the secret room they were looking for.

Getting angry that the secret room they found doesn't give them any power ups, Danny blames Vlad for making them waste their time, accusing him of lying about the the power source's existence. This evolves into a short fight between the two and Tucker trying to stop them before there is another time glitch.

This is the closest Danny and Vlad get to fighting each other in the novel, with the rest of the time clashing or Danny taking jabs at Vlad. However, it is never enough for the two of them to attack each other. Even Vlad looks very surprised at Danny's outburst at first. The fight itself isn't anything serious but there is a chance it could gotten worse if they hadn't been interrupted by the time glitch.

When they are dealing with the Hero Twins, Vlad suggests to Danny to take advantage of the ghosts being distracted and attack them. Danny points out that the Hero Twins just want to play a game, to which Vlad calls Danny ¨naive child¨ for thinking that they want that since they are ¨ghosts¨. Danny answers that with bringing up that Vlad is also half ghost and he is obsessed with the Packers.

I have talked about this before that Danny has a more friendly relationship towards ghosts that Vlad does. At least enough to understand that not of them are evil and they can be friendly, like Wolf or Dora. In contrast Vlad shows to have a more limited view of them. Considering it is naive of Danny to think the Hero Twins want to play. He sees them more as ¨mindless¨, since his first choice was suggesting attacking them instead of paying attention to their intentions.

I'm going to discuss this later on, but Vlad has a huge issue when it comes to understanding emotions and empathy. This is something Danny is better at in comparison.

Another thing about the novel is that there are hints that Vlad is somewhat jealous of Danny having friends and people who care about him. He is sometimes seen irritated or confused when seeing the Team Phantom celebrating together. It isn't out of place to believe that he is probably reminded of the time he was part of a friend trio with Jack and Maddie and how part of him misses that based on his dialogue later in the story.

The point their relationship begans to change is around the time they learn about the ghosts being powered by emotions. After they read the message that is in runes from the secret garden, Vlad has a quite of a mental breakdown, believing he spent years searching for the ¨ulimate power¨ only to find nothing. He dismisses the runes legend as simple ¨story time¨, not seeing the value in them.

I have discussed this before in my Vlad AGIT character analysis that Vlad isn't just good at anything that comes with understanding or processing emotions. He is mostly logical driven and is overall very disconnected of his own emotional side. That is one main aspect that separates him from Danny, who thinks better about the consequences of his actions and his relationships with others.

Once Danny is able to find a new emotional drive and get his ghost powers back, Vlad appears to have a change of mind in the way he sees Danny. It could be said that he has a new found respect for him, since he was able to quickly understand what the message of runes was about while he wrote it off as a ridiculous fairy tale.

Vlad has always seen himself as a superior to Danny and someone the teen should learn from, specially when it comes to ghost powers. In the series he is usually condescending towards Danny, believing himself to be better than him in almost every way and dismissing him as a reckless teenager. Earlier in the novel he called Danny ¨naive child¨ for thinking that the Hero Twins wanted to play, only to be proven wrong minutes after his statement.

By observing that Danny manages to get the ¨ultimate power¨ before him makes Vlad reconsider all these things and probably start to see Danny more of an equal and/or having more respect for him overall. This moment also inspires to rethink of his goals and priorities that he has been trying to avoid until this point of the story.

During the battle against Dan, Vlad shows to care about Danny's safety multiple times, often interfering or attacking to defend Danny from Dan's attacks. He tries checking on him, even helping him to stand and asking him if he is alright.

It is likely that this caring side he has for Danny comes from him seeing Danny as the son he wished he could have had, a side that probably he always had in him and now he is showing it because he is trying to change for the better.

During his speech about recognizing the mistakes he has made and wishing to make amends, he recognizes that his obsession with control terribly hurt and pushed Danny away, along with other people. At the start of the story he acknowledged that he was aware that Danny hated him but here he admits why that happened and he has only himself to blame for that.

Once he helps Danny by blasting Dan off, the two decide to attack him together at the same time on on count of three. A small detail is that Vlad is seen smiling briefly when working together with Danny. When the two hit Dan, their mix of powers ends up somewhat breaking dimensions and going through different parts of the Ghost Zone, until they are able to separate Clockwork from Dan and the four ghosts fall to the ground exhausted.

When Dan is starting to destabilize because of being part of a timeline that doesn't exist anymore and says that he doesn't want to going inside the thermos afraid of being alone again, Vlad answers with ¨you don't have to be¨. He transforms into Plasmius and gently pushes Danny behind him. Danny asks him what he is about to do, to which Vlad answers ¨The right thing, for once¨, still showing that he wants to start making things right with the people he hurt.

While talking to Dan, Vlad not only apologizes to Dan for how he was hurt by Vlad from his timeline, he also apologizes to Danny for his past villainous actions and how they affected him. He also asks Danny if he can give him a second chance to make amends for what he has done, something that surprises Danny a lot.

An important distinction to notice is that Vlad isn't asking Danny to forgive him. He is asking to be given a second chance. He understands that he pushed Danny away a long time ago and he doesn't expect that to be fixed any time soon.

After Dan uses Vlad's body as temporal host, Danny shows to be worried about seeing Vlad hurt/exhausted. A different contrast to how reacted at seeing him the same way at the start of the story. It is a moment that demonstrates that even though Danny still doesn't like Vlad, he still worries about him.

Danny also takes the time to ask Clockwork to wait for a second before he takes Vlad and Dan elsewhere. He leaves clear that even though he still hates Vlad and can't still forgive him for what he has done, he is thankful for helping them during the battle against Dan and offering himself to help Dan as well. Vlad simply returns a soft smile to Danny before he gets taken by Clockwork and Danny is left staring at the spot the portal disappeared.

This sentiment is followed again when Sam, Tucker and Jazz come in to check on Danny. He highlights that ¨they couldn't have done it without Vlad¨. He appears to be both confused and suprised for what Vlad did, since he wasn't expecting him to help them like that. He realizes that Vlad is more ¨complicated¨ than he thought, seeing now that he is more than just the villain he used to fight against and he had more going on in him than he assumed all this time.

In the end, Vlad and Danny start as enemies who are working together for an urgent common goal. Although it rarely escalates to a real fight, the two still clash with each other for good part of the story. Vlad doesn't show to be interested in making Danny his pupil, indicating that he was in his way to changing or regretting his past actions.

While working together, the two gain a better understading of each other, specially from Vlad in how he sees Danny. He begins to have a new found respect for the teen, not just seeing him as a ¨naive child¨ for his hero worldview. After the battle against Dan, the two end up in way better terms, as somewhat allies, with Vlad apologizing for his antagonism and manipulation and Danny, while rather unsure how to feel about Vlad, he gives him a second chance to start things over.

[pokelolmc]

The Ultimate Enemy is a Disappointment (and How I'd Fix It) (Part 2)

Here I am, back with Part 2 of my analysis on The Ultimate Enemy. If you haven't read part one, I suggest you check it out. But I suppose this one works in isolation, too. This time we're going into everything to do with our main villain/the episode's attempt at the "alternate villain self of the hero" trope. This one's a doozy, so be prepared! Unfortunately this post got too long, so this'll be the criticisms and the fixes will get their own post. But I have some interesting headcanons in mind, if that's any consolation!

I think I got a bit too heated with this one--I was running on frustration while trying to figure it out. Oops.

(Part 1), Part 2, (Part 2.5)

Part 2--The Problems with Dan’s character/story arc:

The writers minimised Danny’s moral responsibility in the events of Dan’s existence/creation.

So I noticed a pretty glaring pattern with this episode, but I don’t think it was intentional on the writers’ part, probably just subconscious:

Any time we see our hero doing supposedly bad things, which are supposed to lead to his own villain origin story, the writer’s minimise Danny’s responsibility as much as possible.

They insist that Danny’s going to become evil/turn into Dan, but the events that lead to Dan’s timeline (as far as we get to see them recur in the main timeline) essentially drag a very passive and reactive Danny behind them on a leash. It comes off as very hollow. Like they want to do an “alternate timeline villain self” superhero plot, but couldn’t actually commit to the bit when they wanted to show our Danny having the “seeds” of Dan’s immorality (or the events that lead to Dan’s timeline gradually coming to fruition because of Danny's actions, and risking Dan's creation again).

Exhibits A through C:

“Danny cheated on the CAT”! Except he didn't. The idea didn’t occur to him on his own, nor did he break his own moral code to steal the answers with his ghost powers. The fucking Master of Time just GAVE them to him! Danny just basically just accepted someone else’s offer (his own choice, but reactive and minor). He doesn't even think about cheating until Clockwork drops the answers in his lap. And we'll never know if he would have without them.

And after that, he never even actually GOT to cheat. He didn't get to finish opening the envelope (he was interrupted), and the one who actually cheated in his place to make the story happen was the main villain.

By the end of the episode, Danny had still never seen the answers! He could’ve sat the CAT right there at the very end, without handing the answers to Lancer, and it would’ve been totally legit!

(Keeping the answers with the intent to cheat was still a dishonest move…but a fourteen year old kid doing that, especially when he never got to actually go through with cheating, is extremely minor. That's not evil, ladies and gentlemen. It’s petty academic misconduct at best. Compared to Dan’s actual crimes, it’s laughable.)

Being a victim in the deaths of his loved ones was totally fair…but then we find out how Dan was born. Danny didn’t spend the next ten years spiralling into grief or madness and becoming a villain alone. Instead he had his ghost half fused with an already established villain and Vlad’s evil overwhelmed his mind.

In theory, the writing team had the freedom here to write it however they wanted. They really could’ve just written the “alternate villain self” trope straight—“Dan is literally just Danny, but he’s older and had a massive shift in his personality and moral compass for (insert reasons)”.

But instead, the writers gave us “Danny fused with an already-villainous character and absorbed their evil”. Seriously?

There could be plenty of alternatives—“Danny dealt terribly with his trauma and took it out by abusing his powers (starting small, but escalating) and got corrupted by them”. “He spiralled into madness and split himself in half to try end the pain, but his ghost half ended up with all his negative/toxic traits (or emotional pain) and no restraint (so it went evil on its own)”.

Heck, maybe you could even throw in a toxic relationship with Vlad, for good measure—becoming Danny’s “new father”, clinging to him as “the only person who could understand him”, isolating him, manipulating him, teaching Danny his own bad coping mechanisms and cutthroat philosophy (because Vlad also had trauma, don’t forget) and using Danny to carry out his errands as a gateway to villainous behaviour. Think Silco and Jinx’s relationship from Arcane.

Or, use the idea of fusion, but at least acknowledge Danny’s not the only person responsible for Dan’s creation and explore that in the story.

If they wanted to show Danny at risk of becoming evil, they should've actually shown him more actively making/resorting to immoral decisions instead of dragging him into those situations and calling it "evil".

2. Dan being a fusion of Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves means he can’t be the same person as Danny. He has to be either a mixture of both of them, or a new person born from them combining (they're basically the ingredients for somebody new).

We don’t know how halfa fusions work, but it wouldn’t make sense for a fusion to be the same person as only one of the components. Dan By the episode's logic, Dan was a "future version of Vlad" then, too. But the episode refused to acknowledge that. Dan only acknowledged his relation to Vlad from Danny’s point of view, as “his cheesehead archenemy”.

Physically, it’d be impossible for Dan to exist without Vlad. He was physically comprised of half-Plasmius. His physical design reflected a hybrid of both Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves (and in Vlad’s case, also his human half). His blue skin, ponytail, facial hair and cape (and likely also the red eyes) drew from Vlad/Plasmius. Dan, as he was, could not exist without both of them.

Vlad’s recollection of Dan’s backstory also implies that most of Dan’s “evil” came from him. And we know from Identity Crisis that separated halves aren’t just one or two pure emotions—they have some self-image, or level of awareness and personality. When Plasmius was separated from Vlad in TUE, he would’ve had some self-image or identity of his own to carry into the fusion. It wouldn’t just have been “Phantom’s identity plus Plasmius’s evil”. It would’ve been both of their identities mixing. If whatever constituted as Plasmius’s “evil” (rooted in his memories/backstory, emotions and personality traits) was able to “overwhelm” Phantom, it’d only make sense for his whole mind to win overall.  But for some bizarre reason, Phantom is Dan’s dominant identity--and treated as his only one.

How could Plasmius overtake Phantom in the battle of wills enough to flood the latter with his malice, but somehow Danny’s identity or memories were dominant enough that THEY won?

Besides, in a mental battle between a mentally stronger, older man with more experience with his ghost powers, and the fourteen-year-old kid who was still too weak to beat him directly one-on-one, it’d make no sense for Danny to win. They were both in grief over losing the only people they truly "loved" (Maddie, for Vlad) and Vlad as twenty other years of built-up, unresolved pain to stew in first (not to mention his already strong maliciousness/selfishness). So Danny probably wouldn't win out on negative emotions alone.

Though, we are taking Vlad on his word here, which was rather dubious and vague in canon…but I personally trust him on that statement because he’d have little motivation to lie about this to Danny. That statement directly incriminated Vlad in Dan’s villainous nature to Danny, only giving a reason for the latter to further oppose him or be outraged. If he had any reason to lie, it’d be to make himself look better or avoid directly admitting fault. He already seemed to do that in previous parts of the same flashback.

We absolutely know the fusion happened, though—because Dan’s mixed design outside of the flashback was undeniable and alternate Vlad was in ruin without a ghost half.

And if we want to say that Danny still technically counts as "becoming Dan" because his and Vlad's ghost halves both became Dan together (assuming Dan is an active combination of both halves back-and-forth, rather than a new person just made from both of them) I don't believe it's fair to say that Danny's crimes were Dan's, or hold him (main!Danny) primarily responsible for Dan as a problem. This is because of the disconnection of identity and moral control between Danny Fenton and Dan.

It was never clear, not even in Identity Crisis, what happened to the original, whole halfa’s sense of self or consciousness when split into two. Danny obviously didn’t have much, if any, control over his halves in Identity Crisis—they had to cooperate like two separate people, and their personalities and behaviours were distinctly exaggerated and out of character for his whole self. Individual parts no longer controlled or regulated by the larger whole.

By that logic, Danny couldn’t be held fully morally responsible for the actions of his halves while separated, since they weren’t under his conscious control/he wasn’t of his full mind (similar to the reason insanity pleas exist in court, or you can't properly consent when under the influence of drugs/alcohol). His responsibility would be there somewhere, but unclear and debatable.  It’s possible they could be separate identities from him entirely. The only thing fully his responsibility is the decision to split in the first place, which facilitated their actions (since he did that while still of his own sound mind).

That creates a degree of separation between Danny and his split halves before his ghost half even fuses with another person. Adding a literal separate individual into the mix would make Dan two degrees of separation away from the original Danny Fenton. Alternate!Danny could be held fully responsible for requesting/going along with Vlad's Ghost Gauntlets procedure (facilitating Dan in the first place), but after that, his moral responsibility is in doubt from the moment he's split apart. And considering that this hyperspecific method for Dan existing is relatively easy for our main Danny to avoid (as long as he's informed), I highly doubt it's even REMOTELY fair to accuse past/main timeline!Danny of everything Dan has done. The episode's repeated assertions of "this is what Danny will do...in time" when referring to what Dan did is just not correct.

3. The episode’s plot does so much telling the audience that Danny and Dan are the same person, and that Dan’s crimes are consequently Danny’s, mostly through character dialogue. Dan's backstory throws all of this into question, and the plot does NOTHING to explore or remedy the apparent complexity/contradiction.

While “Dan is Danny’s future self” could be “technically” true—in the sense that the Phantom half mixed into Dan is the only remnant of Danny in the future—it’s not true that he IS Danny as a person. He’s a fusion with an entirely separate individual, who was already villainous before the fusion. The question remains as to whether Phantom and Plasmius are both intact as identities inside of Phantom, or he's a new person entirely.

But the episode repeatedly had a handful of characters spell out that “Dan was Danny but evil”, mistake past/main timeline!Danny for Dan, or accuse Danny of what Dan's done. And even when characters have a reason to be wrong in-universe, the sheer repetition of their mistake in the script (out-of-universe) serves as a framing device for what the narrative wants us to believe.

Clockwork and Dan himself both have every reason to know of his origin as a fusion, and yet they still refer to him and Danny as if they’re the same person.

In the light of Dan's nature as a fusion, this rings hollow. The situation is more complex than anyone is letting on.

And when Vlad reveals Dan’s backstory, NOTHING is made of this information. Danny doesn’t even verbally react to it, to show that he’s processed it. It doesn’t change how he sees Dan or lead to him trying to figure out what Dan is. He doesn’t react to the “my evil overwhelmed you” comment from Vlad. He still goes into the final fight with Dan insisting “I won’t become you!”. The episode says nothing of it—the only thing Danny takes out of his encounter with Vlad is the Ghost Gauntlets.

[nelkcats]

Changing the ending

Recently, Clockwork started treating dimensional events like a TV show. He could be time itself but he wasn't going to take care of all the dimensions; considering the number of times they destroyed themselves it really didn't make sense.

Danny accompanied him, it was quite funny, and there was a dimension that he liked to observe, Clockwork called him "How to die a thousand times" but the halfa only called it "Detective Comics" or "DC" for short. Everything about it reminded him of a comic if he was being honest.

It was a messy dimension, it had been reset so many times it was worrying and had several alternate line screens that ended very badly. Danny winced at the DC Zombies screen combining with another, that dimension worked in weird ways.

Both he and Clocky prepared for the season finale, a reveal about a hero named "Batman", when he saw Clockwork throw his popcorn at Alfred's death. His mentor was devastated, he used to avoid using his future vision to not "spoil" the ending, but it was obvious that Alfred was his favorite character.

When all of it ended horribly for the original dimension, Danny and Clockwork looked at each other. That ending was very unsatisfying, so they decided to...change it. They had some time to waste after all.

They disguised themselves as a couple of normal civilians, went back to the start of the problems, and started changing all the bad endings they could find (without interfering with some things, even if Danny wanted to save Jason, Red Hood had to happen).

Spoiler alert: Those heroes die a lot, and apparently they're determined to die!

[sparkletastic-cookiedough]

This, but having a lot of info downloaded into his brain kinda overrides some of his language skills.

Aka: Danny can no longer understand or speak in modern slang. Give him ancient Latin, he can read it. Old timey English where people used those extra letters (I personally mourn the loss of thorne, and believe that letter should be put back in the alphabet, we can get rid of the letter C in exchange.) and Danny can thrive like no other.

Maybe it also gives him historical knowledge, but in really weird ways. It’s instinctual and full of stuff like trivia facts, and general vibes. Danny has both a lot of respect, and a lot of hatred towards famous historical figures like Alexander the Great, or Attila the Hun. (There are two sides to the wars after all.)

Mr. Lancer is very frustrated, because all of the sudden Danny’s spelling is a lot worse. Danny struggles with typing on a computer now as well. It’s to the point where Lancer would worry about brain damage, except Danny is also better at some things now too.

The class was reading Shakespeare, and where most students would struggle a bit with the language, Danny understood things faster and easier.

They were going over Richard III, and Danny hardly needed charts to understand the ancestry. He didn’t stumble at all, just understood on some intrinsic level.

Danny’s science teacher is very confused, and very concerned. Danny keeps trying to bring up humorology. Jazz was talking with him about psychology, and Danny ended up bringing up defunct points about phrenology.

It isn’t all bad. Danny has a lot of knowledge now on things like raising horses, farming, and various mythologies. It isn’t easy for school- he kept getting Greek Myths confused with itself. He knows some stuff from history books is just wrong, that it writes war in cold facts and not the bloody and heartbreaking tragedy that it should be.

For Danny, it can be confusing at times. Almost every fact he knows, his brain labels as wrong. He sees more sides to conflicts than most people, and can’t pick a side without a wave of contradiction. He ends up seeking help from Clockwork, who has awareness of multiple timestreams.

Clockwork gives Danny guidance on how to deal with conflating facts, how to stay in the right moment, how to use his knowledge to his advantage. With help from the Ancients, Danny understands how to balance conflicting feelings. It’s by far Danny’s most difficult power to adapt to, but he grows stronger for it.

Danny ends up solidifying in his protective beliefs. Every person deserves rights and protection, everyone deserves compassion.

Danny is wary of the Justice league. He’s aware of the many people that commit injustice in the name of the law. He knows how people justify horrible acts under the guise of the greater good. How people will let things slide until it’s far too late.

Danny starts perusing his own Justice- the Justice for his people. Lives that lead with no affection, those who do great harm with little benefits, the paragons of true evil- Danny drags them into the realms and holds their souls on trial.

The Justice league is immediately aware and concerned. People have been going missing. Lots of supervillains like Joker or Lex Luthor, but also a few random people.

Only after Batman digs further into the disappearances does he recognize the pattern. Every missing person is some sort of criminal- and usually the worst kind. Stuff that makes Superman pale, makes Wonder Woman shake in fury when Batman goes over it with them in a debrief.

Superman almost wants to just let it continue. Every single person the entity went after was somewhere on the darker end of the villain spectrum. It’s good that they’re gone.

Batman worries. Even if Zatanna and Constantine assured them the kidnapped people were most likely dead, Batman worries that they still might be out there, planning some horrible deed. He’s alert, waiting for Joker to pop out again.

He also disapproves of the entity taking Justice into their own hands like that. Where is the line before the entity grows displeased with every single crime, and kills for anything it disapproves of?

He doesn’t know enough to not be wary.

Wonder Woman has always had faith in the gods. Who is Batman to stand in the way of divine justice? If this death god kills those irredeemable, maybe it’s for the best that they did so.

DP headcannon where instead of Danny knowing all dead languages he gains a teeny tiny amount of the language of somebody who’s died. Like if a Latin person died guess what Danny knows a few Latin words now. And this stuff stacks so if a (very terrible) event happens he could potentially learn entire languages with slang, accent, sayings- the whole package.

Anyways he’s trying to explain to Superman that he’s not kryptonion.

[xysidhequeen]

The King and his Red Knight

DPxDC crossover fic

Part 1

Really sorry to everyone who suffered through the fact that I didn't know about the existence of readmore. I can't fix the thread now but the individual posts are better? Sorry I have like a very rough idea of how this site works 😭

Check the: The King and his Red Knight tag to find all the parts

"Go here, Danny. Go then, Danny. Go to a random cemetery in the middle of the night for no reason, Danny." A voice grumbled, accompanied by the sound of sneakers rhythmically tapping stone.

Danny Fenton, currently Phantom, sat on a gravestone, his white hair a beacon in the dark night. There were no stars in the sky for him to gaze upon, their light hidden behind swaths of smog and neon lights playing off the gray clouds.

Clockwork had dumped him here, with no explanation for why. Not that he ever really explained much when he sent Danny off on his tasks. He supposed he should be grateful, at least he was in the same when rather than being transported a thousand years into the past.

"Wait here King Phantom. You will understand in time." Danny mimicked his mentor's voice as he let himself float off the grave he'd been dumped on after Clockwork shoved him out of a portal. His body floated higher until he could flip around, his legs crossing. He sat upside down, his chin in his palm as he glared petulantly at the assembled gravestones surrounding him, his toxic green eyes glowing.

"So far all I've seen is a concerning amount of ecotplasm for a city without a ghost portal and some blob ghosts! How long am I supposed to wait here?" Danny asked the air, and the aforementioned blob ghosts who were hanging off his body, soaking in the ambient ecotoplasm he radiated at all times now.

Neither provided him with an answer to his question and Danny let out a frustrated groan as he lowered his still flipped body to look once more on the gravestone he'd been tasked with waiting on.

Jason Todd, the name read. The dates, too close together, made something in Danny squeeze painfully. He'd been young, barely older than Danny when he stepped into the portal. Only for this teenager there had been no ectoplasm to bind to his dying body and repair the damage of death and force him back into a semblance of life.

"Who were you and why did Clockwork send me to you?" Danny asked the gravestone, one clawed finger tracing the words before he pulled back with a sigh when the gravestone gave him no explanation. The dead didn't always speak, not even to their king.

Turning his body Danny looked over the rest of the cemetery. It was empty, as most usually were this time of night, of the living. There were a few shades wandering around, circling closer to him, drawn by his presence. No full ghosts though, but oddly enough there rarely were in cemeteries. This was where the dead came to rest. To remember, if they wanted to. Cemeteries were sacred spaces to the dead, much as a temple or a church would be for the living who were religious. Ghosts who still clung to life, to their obsessions, did not frequent cemeteries, did not dare trespass and disturb those who had already found their peace.

Danny himself was an oddity. He had never shied from cemeteries, enjoying the peace he found in them, the guarantee of safety offered. And perhaps, he mourned that he himself would never have a gravestone for the living to place their flowers and their tears at. Who would make a grave for someone who was both alive and dead? There would never be a body to bury for him. His human half would continue to live on so long as his ghost core remained and could fuel it.

Maybe that was why he found peace in cemeteries, for all his whining that Clockwork had dumped him here. Cemeteries were for the living and the dead, one of the only places both existed in harmony naturally. For someone who was as much dead as he was alive such a place held a certain degree of belonging for him.

Danny straightened out in the air, letting his body lie above the grave as he folded his arms behind his head and looked up at the covered sky. He complained and whined about this task, but he was secretly glad that Clockwork had given him something to do. Even if it was just 'hang out in a random cemetary'.

Ever since he'd graduated high-school, revealed himself to his parents and discovered how deep prejudice and hate could run, and he'd run away to the Infinite Realms for sanctuary while his friends moved forward with their lives, he'd felt unmoored. A ghost with no haunt. Bored was too light a word for the gaping emptiness he felt in his chest, for the loneliness clawing at him. Clockwork, Wulf, Pandora they could help chip at the ache inside of him but not banish it. Not now that his family, his friends, were spread so far apart and so distant from him.

Not that he resented their choices, their distance, in fact he'd fought for them to do just that, to get out of Amity Park, to go to college, to become more than overworked teen superheroes. Still he missed them, even if he could visit them whenever he wanted. It was becoming clear as time moved forward that the world they belonged to and the one he did were two different things.

Danny Fenton couldn't go to college when his parents had declared him dead. Danny Fenton didn't exist as far as the government was concerned. Danny Phantom couldn't return to Amity when those same parents were waiting to capture him and tear him apart 'molecule by molecule'. Danny Phantom couldn't go back when the GIW were crawling over the town like ants.

So neither Danny Fenton or Danny Phantom returned to Amity after that day. And he made sure they couldnt follow him when he ensured the portal that took his life to function never opened again. He didn't need the portal any longer to get in and out of the Infinite Realms, and it was safer for the ghosts, his subjects, if the temptation of the Fenton portal was gone.

The world of the living was not yet ready to accept that the dead didn't always stay dead. And Danny would keep his people safe until they were.

Danny jolted from his lazing state of reverie when a pulse of emotion rocked through him, the strength of it stealing his breath if he had any to take.

Fear/Trapped/Dark/Fear/Help/HELP pounded into him and Danny frantically flipped around, head swiveling, poisonous green eyes wide as he triedf to locate the source. The emotions, the plea for help, burned his core, his Obsession screamed at him.

Help/SomeonePlease/Dark/Trapped/CANTBREATHE/HELP another wave of messages, of emotions pushed themselves at Danny and this time underneath the onslaught he could hear a rhythmic thudding. Danny looked down, horror filling him when he realized the thudding was coming from under the ground. From the grave he'd been hovering over for an hour now.

Danny flew down, sending back a wave of I'mHere/HelpIsComing/I'mComing to the boy trapped in his own coffin, feeling the intense wave of relief and hope sent back before he dived into the earth as if it wasn't there. Danny paused for a moment when he passed the thick wooden coffin, seeing a boy in the dark with wide, panicked blue eyes and fingers tipped with shredded nails and fresh blood.

"Hey, I'm going to get you out of here, okay?" Danny told the boy, keeping his voice gentle, soft. The boy jolted, fixating on the only source of light, Danny's growing green eyes. Danny hoped his smile came off as calming instead of 'freaky AF' as Tucker liked to call it. He grabbed the boy, Jason, as carefully as he could and then let his intangibility wash over the terrified teen as he lifted them both out of the coffin.

When they emerged from the coffin and the ground Danny set the teen down, leaning him against the gravestone, his own gravestone, and pulled back a bit. The boy was gasping in air as if the fetid, polluted air was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted.

Danny tilted his head as he watched the boy ground himself. Now that the emotions were leveling out and his Obsession was purring in contentment rather than growling in a frenzy, Danny could feel something off about the boy.

Disregarding the fact that he'd just come back from the dead, of course. But that wasn't the oddest thing Danny had seen in his afterlife. No the boy felt... not like a normal, living human. Not even like an Amity Park resident, who all felt more than slightly liminal. No this boy, this Jason Todd, felt closer to liminal than even Jazz, Tucker or Sam, who were three of the most liminal humans Danny had ever been around.

Jason felt almost...like a ghost. But not. Danny could feel the tickle in his throat that proceeded his ghost sense but the tell-tale mist never emerged. It was as if Jason was...like him. But Danny couldn't sense a core either. Even halfas had cores.

"Who are you?" Jason spoke, breaking Danny from his thoughts and examination. Jason was looking at him with a mix of gratitude and suspicion. Which, fair. Danny had just pulled him from his own coffin and there were so many questions that could stem from all of this, disregarding all the weirdness that was just Danny himself.

"I'm Danny, Danny Phantom. Or just Phantom. I go by either. And you're Jason, right?" Danny asked, smiling at the teen and oops, yeah that was definitely his scary smile based on the slight flinch there. It wasn't his fault his teeth were too sharp now and his lips split a bit too wide.

"How did you know that?" Jason asked, blue eyes narrowing. Danny nodded at the gravestone the boy was leaning against with a raised brow. Jason turned and almost toppled over from the movement. Danny frowned as the boy caught himself on his gravestone. His skin was still pale, too pale, and as Danny watched Jason swayed again.

"Shit. You're fading. You didn't form a core and your body isn't stabilizing." Danny cursed, moving towards the boy who scrambled back, only to be stopped by his grave.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jason asked, hands fisting as he tried to rise only to fall back to the ground when his legs refused to hold his weight.

"Saving your life. The dead aren't supposed to come back. There's always a price to pay, a balance that is struck. Currently, as you are, if I don't get enough ectoplasm in you to form your core, you'll fade and turn into a brain-dead husk." Danny told Jason, tone stern and no nonsense as he grabbed him. Jason made an effort to break free, but it was weak, and even at full strength, he wouldn’t have been able to break Danny's hold. Few in this realm could.

If they had the time, Danny would've approached this situation in a far different manner, but this close he could hear Jason's heartbeat, a weak flutter in his chest, skipping beats as it tried to fuel a body that was past saving. Jason didn't have the time for Danny to approach this gently and kindly, to coax trust out of the teen like he would a feral cat.

Jason had minutes left before his ectoplasm starved body consumed itself trying to make a core and failed because while wherever they were had more ambient ectoplasm than most places, it was far from enough to sustain the birth of a halfa. Maybe if Jason had stayed dead for another year, he'd have naturally formed a core and risen as a proper ghost. But that wasn't what happened, somehow he'd gathered enough to fix his body of whatever wounds or illness had put him in that coffin to begin with and come back to 'life' but without a core to sustain his body he'd be dead, again, in minutes. And Danny was not about to watch while a teenager, another teenager, died.

"How do I know I can trust you?" Jason hissed as Danny pushed his arms down and laid his clawed hands on Jason's chest.

"You don't. But you don't have another choice." Danny said with a shrug. "Now are you going to let me save your life or not?" Danny asked, not moving his hands. He'd save Jason either way but this would be easier if Jason worked with him.

"Fine." Jason spat and Danny smirked as his hands began to glow a toxic green that matched his eyes.

Ectoplasm pooled out of his hands and rushed into Jason, filling him until the boy glowed bright enough to rival the neon lights of the city around them. The green light flared around him like an aura, slowly shrinking but getting impossibly brighter as the glow centralized around his chest until a small glowing ball of green, like a trapped star, blazed from his chest.

Jason gasped, back arching as Danny pulled his hands away and the light vanished under Jason's skin. For a moment Jason's blue eyes burned green and his hair flashed snow white before returning to black, with one single lock of unearthly white left above his forehead. Jason collapsed back against his grave, chest heaving. Danny watched, eyes full of a sad understanding.

"What the fuck was that?" Jason panted out.

"Welcome to the world of the half alive, half dead." Danny said with a smile. "Want to get a burger and talk about it?" He asked, standing up and dusting off his hands.

"Make it a chili dog and you've got a deal."

~~~~~

Fixed some typos added some lines

Maybe I'll continue this AU. Maybe not. This scene was in my head for days and I wanted to share

[sleepy-writes-stuff]

DP X MCU WRITING PROMPT

Okay, I guess we're doing this. This post is a result of a brief mention I made of the Avengers in this dp x dc prompt here and I can't stop thinking about it. For even more context, you might wanna start here where the reaper of heroes au started. Or not. Up to you, really.

This is completely up for grabs if anyone wants to flesh it out a bit more/continue it!

(Btw, I'm going mostly by MCU movies and only what little info I know of the comics. Sorry, not sorry.)

(#) = Notes at the end of post

(*) = building off of other ideas

✦

Reaper of Heroes

Needless to say, Danny did not realize that his responsibility as the reaper of heroes souls would extend past his dimension and into others. In hindsight, he probably should've considering that he was the ruler of the Infinite Realms, a dimension between dimensions that eventually all would join, so therefore his responsibility would be just as all encompassing. He does not realize any of this until it's literally shoved in his face in the form of half the universe from a single dimension being spirited away into the Infinite Realms almost all at once.

Quite a few heroes blip on his radar in the swirling mass of souls that were harvested way before their time was due. He looks upon the horde of souls in utter agony and despair and can feel only one thing: Anger. Danny was unequivocally pissed. With the help of Clockwork, he pinpoints the dimension the influx of souls originated from and he suits up in full battle armor and heads there immediately.

What he finds only feeds the fire of his white hot rage, so much to the point his white hair briefly flickers like a burning flame before settling back to it's usual tussled state. With permission from this dimension's personification of Death(1), he begins a hunt for the one responsible for the disruption of not only his regular reaper duties, but the balance of life and death itself. It doesn't take him long to find Thanos, he just has to follow the familiar powerful aura of the Soul stone.

What he finds is the end of the first battle against Thanos (Infinity War. Ha) where Thanos had just snapped half the universe away and all the people were still in the process of crumbling into dust/being sent to the Infinite Realms. Before Thanos can teleport away from all the carnage he'd caused or snap his fingers once again when he senses another threat approaching, Phantom disrupts the energy from the gauntlet and has him pinned to the ground by his throat away from Thor. He uses a conjured sword of ghost ice in the other hand to sever the arm that wears the infinity stones from the shoulder down. In the end, he's so close to the purple alien the green glow of his eyes turns Thanos' rapidly paling complexion a sickening shade.

"That's enough of that. Wouldn't be very sporting of you to turn tail and run from the consequences of your actions, now would it?" He practically growls.

Thanos stares up at this newcomer with a mix of confusion and fear. "Who are you? How were you able to stop me from leaving? The Infinity gauntlet is supposed to be infallible!"

"Ha! You mean this little toy of yours?" He asks derisively with a fang-barring smirk and a brief glance at the gauntlet itself. "After using it to rewrite reality a time or two, you learn a couple of things. Did you really think you were the first to have the idea to gather reality's most ancient artifacts and fashion them into a wearable device? Sorry, but somebody already won that race. The first place ribbon goes to a creepy ringmaster by the name of Freakshow."(2)

Seeing the look of shock, frustration, and offense on the alien's face, Phantom snickered and leaned back, releasing his captive's throat only to put an armored boot against his chest to keep him down on the ground. Thanos briefly struggles against it but finds it impossible to move.

"As for who I am," Phantom says, no longer smiling and with Thanos along with the few left on the battlefield's attention.

"I am Phantom, High King of the Infinite Realms. Lord of the dead, undying, and neverborn. Reaper of the souls of heroes and protector of the balance between life and death. And you," Phantom's eyes narrow to slits as he grinds his armored heel into the already deep wound on Thanos' chest, causing the alien to squirm in pain. "have made me very angry. How dare you disrupt the natural order and lay waste to so many innocent lives?"

Despite the obvious pain he was in and the growing fear of facing Phantom's wrath, Thanos still seemed to have plenty of courage to speak.

"Are-" He licks his lips nervously before continuing. "Are you Death?"(3)

Dark amusement dances in Phantom's eyes as he considers how to answer. He didn't need to think on it for very long though before he gave a wide, fanged grin and spoke.

"No. I did, however, meet with her before making my way over here, just to make sure I wasn't stepping on her toes by thrashing you myself. I gotta say, she's quite the conversationalist and her humor is to die for. Funny thing is though," He watches as a spark of awe, curiosity, and hope flashed in Thanos' eyes before dealing the final blow with glee. "she didn't have anything to say about you."

He watched as the alien's face took on a look of shock that quickly morphed into a combination of denial and anger. Phantom doubled down on the pressure he'd been exerting on Thanos' chest, causing the man to cry out in agony before continuing to assault his ego.

"In fact," he said conversationally. "she barely gave it a second thought when I asked to be the one to snap your chains and rip the soul from your body." He stopped there, humming curiously as he gracefully drew the ice sword he'd previously used to sever the man's arm and lodged deep into the soil.

"I wonder though." He mused as he held the point of the sword over Thanos' throat. The alien renewed his struggle, desperation written plain across his face as his eyes traveled along the sharp blade. He locked eyes with Phantom as a slow, gleeful smile spread across the ghost king's face.

"What will she say if I bring it to her in pieces?" He said before bringing the sword down and striking true.

✦

What's this? Actual dialogue??

Well, that was unexpected. I didn't plan on Danny being so unhinged/sword-happy, but I think it kinda fits with the context of it being in response to what happened in Infinity War i.e.- the insurmountable loss of life. I really enjoyed writing this tho. Just thinking about how I portrayed Danny in this has boss music blaring through my head.

Notes:

(1) Although most of them have never actually met, the embodiments of Death from every dimension more or less treat/view each other as siblings regardless of blood relation. Phantom and Death's relationship here will be/is basically the same as Danny and Jazz, i.e.- big sister, little brother. Shovel talk anyone?

(*) Let's have all the death characters from different fandoms gather around a table and have tea/coffee together. It'll be fun.

(2) I know chronologically (marvel comics vs dp show) that this isn't true, but shhh. Let's pretend it is in this case.

(3) Can't remember if it's mentioned or not, but does Thanos still have a creepy crush/infatuation with Death in the MCU? If not, I'm changing it. It's basically what this part of the conversation between Phantom and Thanos is referring to. His gift of so many souls to death being unappreciated stings, but not as much as getting his head lopped off and his soul torn to shreds.

Danny's interaction with Death

_

@mynameisnotlaura

How's this for talking about it? Look what you made me do! /lh/j

[hekateinhell]

NSFW headcanon: Daniel walks in to Armand and Lestat in one of their hate fucks. They don't notice, until they do.

@cup-of-lixx scandalizing everyone's inboxes lmao. For the NSFW prompt thing. Armand/Lestat, implied threesome sitch at the end, rated M (dubcon but not really, rough sex, spanking, Daniel's confused af).

It's not a sight Daniel expected to see, that's for fucking sure. Then again, that could've been his motto since 1973.

He'd followed the sounds of glass breaking, Armand and Lestat's voices arguing in heated French, in accents that didn't particularly belong to this time. He usually tries to stay out of their shit—everyone knows Lestat and Armand have their spats and it’s all very unpleasant until it’s over. Regular like clockwork, predictable as a New York City snow in January. And if Lestat wanted Armand dead, he would have been a pile of ashes long ago, right? is Daniel’s usual go-to comfort thought.

All that to say—when Daniel heard Armand make the noise that he did, a long-dormant protective instinct kicked into gear (because really, who does Armand need protection from besides himself?), and he’d flung the door to the study right off its hinges before he even knew what he was doing. As if there was a shot in hell he could stop anything going down in there.

At first glance, it doesn’t look good. In fact, it looks downright horrific.

“Your maker… He’s a loud one, isn’t he, Daniel? I do apologize.” Lestat smirks at him good-naturally and winks, everything about his demeanor negating his statement as soon as he says it. His grip around Armand’s throat slacking enough for the smaller vampire to let out a broken moan as Lestat drives back into him with a motion so carelessly rough it ought to hurt, even to an immortal. The antique desk creaking from the force of every brutal thrust.

Daniel can't hear Armand's thoughts; it’s especially tortuous now because does he stay or does he go? The glassy-eyed, shell-shocked look in Armand's dark eyes as he gazed in his direction seemingly unseeing, the quiver to his bloodstained lips could just as easily be from pleasure as it could be from pain.

Lestat’s wide grey eyes never leave Daniel’s violet ones with every obscene, slick motion of his hips against Armand's pliant body. Your “boss” is fine, Danny boy. Don’t fret! The teasing lilt comes through even through the Mind Gift, but not enough to make Daniel want to budge, to leave Armand to… this.

And shamefully—shameful because he doesn’t know the exact nature of the encounter he’s walked in on—Daniel feels the hot white arousal in his body make itself evident in the most obvious of ways.

Oh, Armand's played it before for sure, but Daniel’s never seen him in this state: meek, ragged, submissive, utterly disconnected from reality.

Lestat's nostrils flare and he grins like the cat that caught the canary. His hand coming to pet Armand’s curls gently as he bends down to whisper into his ear, purely for Daniel’s benefit, for the full inflection of his words to hit home.

“You like that, don’t you, chéri? You enjoy your fledgling seeing you used like a common whore. But look at the poor dear! Look how concerned he is! Take mercy on him and let him know that you permit this.”

Roused back to life, Armand’s eyes finally focus on Daniel’s panicked, puzzled expression. A low whine emitting from the back of his throat as he groans before his angelic face smooths itself out into a warm smile. Oddly serene as Lestat deals two punishing blows to his backside in quick succession, the claps reverberating throughout the room. “It’s alright, beloved. It’s how beasts in the wild release their frustrations from time to time, you understand.”

Daniel nods, not entirely sure that he does, but he’s long since stopped trying to make sense of the complicated, incestuous relationships that make up their extended family. Armand’s head turns slightly as he reaches a hand back to grip Lestat’s forearm, and Daniel can sense the mental communication playing out between them.

Lestat pressed a reverent kiss to Armand's nape, golden hair dusting over the pale skin—much more vibrant than Daniel’s ashy blond, and a wicked contrast to Armand’s fiery auburn. He then straightens and waves Daniel over with his right hand, his left never leaving Armand’s hip, a devilish glint in his eyes.

“Your maker feels considerately wretched at having disturbed you. And I suppose it would be beneficial for him to practice being more mindful with his mouth, if you understand.”

Now that, Daniel understood perfectly well.