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ghostly-shenanigans-in-progress · 2 years

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Do u have any headcanons or ideas for Sidney Pointdexter?

@dnpanimationstudioclone of course! I love my broski, Sidney Poindexter. So strap in;

Given the length of my previous response I’ll try to keep the ideas and headcanons short for easier reader digest. So bullet points time!

Sidney was huge into sci-fi and fantasy media back in his past life. Comics, movies, books, cartoons and shows you name it he loves it especially foreign works like J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series to the first Godzilla movie at the time in 1954. Others book wise from Tunnel in the Sky by Heinlein, Judgement by C.L Moore, Triplanetary to the works of Orson Wells to classic monster movies the 50s spurred before the 60s. And a lover for cartoons of the Looney toons variety and newspaper funny pages of Dick Tracy and Charlie Brown.

Sidney was a nerd because of his interests but he was smart nerd due to both of his parents being teachers. His mom was an English teacher and his father was a math/pre-calc teacher. Seriously, Poindexter’s dinner time would involve having to figure out three new sentences with a vocabulary word you’d learn in high school and breakfast was doing two or three long division polynomials on the page before the newspaper’s comics/funnies section which his father would make him finish first in order to read it. All of this repetition learning placed Sidney a year or two ahead than most in his class as a result.

Sidney’s parents cared for him a lot but we’re quite strict to a point in his education and use of his free time. It’s understandable in some way as I hc Sidney’s grandparents or parents were Jewish immigrants and Sid being first generation with more opportunities than those before him. His parents loved him and were trying to help him prepare for the road ahead, but they seemed to neglected their efforts and positions had as teachers in the Casper/Amity School systems. I think another factor to Sidney’s bullying is that a lot of high schoolers or middle schoolers took out their aggression on his dad’s tough math/pre-calc classes on him. That whole having to bully Poindexter as a graduation requirement thing started bc his dad was the last class you had to take to graduate as a senior.

I love the idea Sidney and Lunch Lady knew each other back when he was still alive in middle school and a young Laurie (LL’s real name in my hcs) started working as Casper’s lunch lady. Sidney being such a frail and small pre-teen, Lunch Lady couldn’t help but give him and extra helping of food (especially when others would either take his money or food). Even before the bullying got worse, Lunch Lady would let Sidney help in the mess hall to avoid being mistreated. She’d lie and say Sidney had to work first before he could earn his meal if any other staff member asked why he was there. It helped a lot, Sidney considered her to be his only friend at the time when he was alive.

If Sidney didn’t die so young or survived his suicide attempt, his parents would said enough is enough and change schools immediately after that happened. Sidney would restart his third year in junior high and avoid further bullying or gossip about his incident. It was welcomed but he was upset still over having to restart 11th grade again when he was almost done. But more importantly not being able to say a proper goodbye to Laurie/Lunch Lady when it happened. He sent her an emotional thank you card though which she kept in her important belongings until she died of a heart attack in the 1980s or 1990s.

I felt that Sidney was a late bloomer given the lack of eating meals at school, general genetics to general depression, Sidney would of been very tall in his third year in high school. I think he would of been a basketball guy but honestly I definitely think he would of been the best mascot ever in the school he was transferred to like legendary dude. Also, he’d make a risk to join a his new school’s newspaper which led to him meeting new people and socializing with new people who he’d make friends with. But most importantly it allowed him to pursue his interests by drawing cartoon/comics in the school’s papers that led him to his profession as a famous Cartoonist in his adult life.

Ok, enough new life Sidney back to ghost Sidney. Sidney found out about his ability to connect to his old Locker 724 when he got pushed in it again in his lair replica of the Casper High and saw through the mirror another kid like him met the same fate and was crying just like he did alive. It sent him off in a rage that made him press his hands to the mirror phase through and possess the kid in his enraged state to wreck havoc on the bully responsible for it. That bully literally got sent to the ER once they got their hands on them and the school knew this was a ghost possession situation when it happened, the pre-exposed GIW got involved and the locker was decommissioned until the 2000s with new staff and a bigger student body came to reclaim as much available space possible for students to use locker wise. Rumors be damned is how that went, poor Danny.

Sidney didn’t knew about Lunch Lady’s death until after the first episode when she got sent to the ghost zone. He thought she past away peacefully even if it was a heart attack or something else that had her died suddenly. Before Walker got to her/arrested her, Laurie was roaming the zone and had fast whiplash as soon as she found the old Casper high in black and white. Even more so when she entered and her appearance changed back to her look in the 50s again and the moment Sidney saw her again he broke down crying and hugged her as his loss those memories of spending time/being friends with here at the school after so many decades with being treated like crap until Danny changed everything to be treated as an equal.

Sidney is a strong advocate for Danny ever since the debut episode for him. Danny is probably the only person Poindexter actively stood up for against the other ghosts as shown in Reign Storm with Skulker and such. He isn’t fond of traveling the zone alone, at least in the school he knows what to expect with the torment he receives or used to receive. It’s familiar, he’s used to it, out in the deep green it’s unpredictable and unknown which is something Sidney fears even more.

Speaking of Reign Storm, LOOK AT THEM!!!!

WHY DOESNT GET TALKED ABOUT MORE?! Sidney and Dora being best buddies during and after the events of Reign Storm. Sidney’s love for fantasy and old British/medieval literature too (thank his mom on that one), it’s likely Sidney can hold a good conversation and maybe understand his middle ages dialect. Even more so that both of them were bullied and tormented by their peers most of their lives that they have more in common than they thought. And yes, if Sidney would visit her and see how his outfit changes to a knight or jester outfit he would go nuts about it bc that’s his dream there and boy he is living it. Ok overall, they’re best friends I’m not accepting anything else at this time.

Danny and Sidney chat in the locker mirror on a biweekly basis. He’s Danny’s man inside as a thank you for changing his memories of Casper high so he can be the person he could of been in high school with Danny. He helps out by being part of writing the school’s newspaper club and they get other newspapers of the ghost areas as a result. Sidney can only share the newspaper through the mirror which still works out for Danny with taking a picture on his phone for reference later. Plus Sidney is a good enough storyteller that he doesn’t have to read the whole thing if he asked Sidney to share the highlights. Also, during the week or Friday before winter break Danny, Tucker and Sam make sure to wish him a happy holiday and Hanukkah. Same story for each other Jewish holiday since Sam is very adamant about letting Sid know they’re thinking about him during those times.

Danny and Sidney really hit it off after Splitting images once they talk Sci-fi, space and everything under the sun. Sidney flexes that he was able to hear Sputnik 1 late one night when it first launched in 1957. Danny is jealous about it but he gets the benefit of sharing all the new space stuff that has happened since the late 1950s. Sidney is happy to hear every word and finally have someone to share and relate his favorite things to for the first time in decades.

Ok that’s all in the hc/idea tank, @dnpanimationstudioclone thanks again for the awesome asks btw! Sorry this was longer than normal I just love my bro Sidney Poindexter.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #sidney pointdexter #dp sidney #dp lunch lady #dp #dp hcs #phandom #dp princess dora #princess dorathea #sam manson #tucker foley #fav #my hcs #my ideas #danny phantom headcanon #Danny phantom hcs #ghostly chats #my asks

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raaorqtpbpdy · 1 year

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Splitting Images

Written for the Phic Phight prompt: Instead of giving Danny ghost powers, the portal accident lets Danny see the overlap of the Ghost Zone with the real world. This includes not being able to tell the difference between ghosts and living people. (from @pupstim)

AO3 Link

[Warnings for hospitals, bullying, and mentions of suicide]

When the portal had turned on with Danny inside, the only thought that had managed to form in his head before he was too flooded with pain to think anything, was that there was no way he would be able to come back out alive.

Then he'd woken up in a hospital bed six days later.

Maybe it was because he was still disoriented from the accident, but he didn't think hospital rooms were supposed to be this crowded. His mother was sitting by his bedside reading a science magazine, and that made sense. But there were also several total strangers surrounding his bed. An elderly man, a young woman with frazzled hair and a tiny baby in one arm, a girl Danny's age with no hair, another teenager with spiked up hair, all of them wearing hospital gowns.

"Oh good, he's awake!" said the woman brightly. She wrapped her free arm around the bald girl and pulled her into a side hug. "Not that I don't love you kids, but it's always such a shame when young people like him join our ranks."

Danny made a noise of confusion, but it turned into a cough, startling his mother.

"Danny!" She gasped, putting her magazine down right away and grabbing a water bottle off a table. She unscrewed the lid and lifted his head to help him drink some. "Here, drink up," she said. "Your throat must be dry. Oh thank goodness you're awake, sweetie, you had us so worried!"

"Who're they?" Danny groaned, lifting his chin in the direction of the strangers. His mom turned to look behind her, then back to him, her face confused. The strangers looked confused too, for some reason.

"Who?" she asked, then shook her head. "Nevermind. I have to call your dad and tell him your awake, and Jazz too." She pulled out her phone and started dialing. Once she put her phone to her ear she started talking again. "Oh, I'm just so, so happy you're awake. It was touch and go there for a while. The doctors said they were doing everything they could, but not to get our hopes too high. Even once you were stable, they said they had no idea when you'd wake up. But here you are, awake. You have no idea how relieved I am."

"What happened?" Danny asked.

"You went into the portal and—one moment, you're father's on," she interrupted herself. "I'm putting you on speaker, dear," she said into the phone before doing just that. "Jack, honey, Danny's awake! He woke up just now. Say hi, Danny!"

"Hi, Danny," the boy said automatically and she frowned at him.

"Sweetie, you just woke up from a coma. You can't be a little more serious?"

"Oh, sorry," Danny put on a stern expression. "Hello, Daniel," he said, and both his parents laughed.

"Danny-boy, I can't tell you how good it is to hear your voice," his father said. "Hold on a moment, I'm going to get Jazz!"

A minute later, Jazz was weeping over the phone at hearing her brother, alive, and awake, and already cracking stupid jokes. His mom pressed the 'call nurse' button, and let them know that Danny was awake and responsive. The doctor came in to check Danny over, and determined that he would be able to leave in two days.

Through all of this, the strangers remained. Well, more or less. Some of them left, while other, different strangers arrived. Neither Danny's mom, nor the doctors or nurses ever acknowledged any of them, but Danny watched them from the cornor of his eye. He heard them whispering. Tried to listen in.

"Is he looking at us?"

"Do you think?"

"No, of course he isn't! How could he be?"

"Well, what else could he be looking at?"

When things died down once more, Danny asked his mother again what exactly had happened.

"Oh, well, you went into the portal."

"Yeah, I remember that part," Danny said. "I think I touched some exposed wiring and completed a circuit or something. What happened after that."

"You were electrocuted," his mother said, struggling to keep her voice steady. "The portal that we thought was a dud turned on with you still inside. We all heard you screaming and rushed down into the lab. When the screaming stopped, we feared the worst, but then a few moments later, you fell out of the portal. You didn't have a heartbeat, but I performed CPR and revived you. Jazz called an ambulance. We got you to the hospital. Your heartbeat was still weak, and you were having some convulsions. The doctors managed to stabilize you. You were in a coma for six days, and then, just a few hours ago, you woke up. And that's what happened."

Danny nodded. He looked over at the strangers again.

"And who are they?" he asked, and again, she followed his line of sight before looking back at him with confusion and mild concern.

"I... I don't know who you mean, sweetie," she told him gently. "There's nobody there."

"Oh," Danny said, looking back and forth between his mother and the strangers. "But—"

"I think you should get some rest, Danny," his mom interrupted him, gently pushing him back so he was laying down in the bed again. "It's getting late, and you're still healing."

"You should go home and rest too," Danny told her. "I'm sure you haven't slept much, worrying about me. You can come back and see me in the morning."

"Well...." she looked like she wanted to argue. "Alright. Alright. I won't be the insufferably overbearing helicopter parent; I'll go home. But I'll be back bright and early tomorrow morning."

"Okay, mom," Danny said, and he closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep while Maddie gathered up her things, kissed his forehead, and then left. After the door closed behind her, Danny waited a few minutes before sitting up and looking directly at the strangers still standing in his room. "Who are you?"

"I told you he could see us!" said the young woman. She'd been there from the beginning, only leaving for a little while, earlier in the day, before returning, still holding the tiny newborn in her arms.

"Can you actually see us?" asked a middle aged man, sounding shocked.

"What do you mean?" Danny asked, frustrated. "Of course I can see you, you're standing right there. Now, who are you? And why are you in my hospital room?"

"My name is Emily," the young woman with the baby introduced. "This is baby Pearl. That's Joseph, Max, and Lila," she pointed to the middle aged man, then to a teenage boy who'd also been in Danny's room earlier for a little while, but left and returned just a few minutes ago, and finally to a girl of about six years who sat criss-cross on the empty bed next to him.

"We're ghosts!" Lila said with a bright smile as she waved cheerfully at him.

"What do you mean you're ghosts?" Danny asked. Max started to explain the concept of ghosts to him, with utmost sarcasm, but Danny cut him off. "I know what a ghost is. I just mean, why are you here?"

"Because we died here," Max said with a scoff. "Tons of people die in hospitals, and we weren't particularly attached to anything else, so this became our haunt. Better question is, 'how can you see us?'"

"I... I have no idea."

When Danny got to go home a couple days later, he tried to forget about the ghosts. It was entirely probable that he was just hallucinating from the stress. He had almost died, after all—in fact, he had actually died for at least a few minutes, and he had every right to still be stressed about it. There was even a chance he was still in a coma, and the ghosts were just a dream he was having.

After he left the hospital, he didn't see anymore ghosts, though. Hospitals had always made him a little nervous, not as nervous as they made Tucker, but nervous. Maybe it was just the anxiety from the location that made him see things. At least everything at home was normal. Well, normal for the Fenton household, anyway. Hot dogs coming to life and attacking, Danny could deal with, but ghosts only he could see? No, thanks.

After another week of rest and recovery at home—during which he finally got to see Sam and Tucker again and they hugged him so tightly they almost broke his ribs and added another month to his recovery time—Danny's parents finally let him go back to school.

Casper High was... more crowded than Danny remembered it being. Granted, he'd only gone to high school for a week before he suddenly wound up in the hospital, but he didn't think the student body was this big. It also looked like the fifties had come back into style while he was in a coma. A lot of girls had started wearing poodle skirts and saddle shoes, and most of the guys had their hair gelled back, greaser style. Danny idly wondered if he could pull that off, or if he'd just look stupid. Probably the latter.

He guessed the kids who'd really leaned into the fifties fad were also the troublemakers, because almost all of them cut class ninety percent of the time. If they kept that up, they were bound to be held back a year. Frankly, it was amazing that they got away with it most of the time. The fifties kids were also pretty mean.

They kept picking on this one other kid with big glasses and an overbite. Danny was walking to class with Sam and Tucker, listening to Sam's passionate rant about how unethical live-frog dissections were and how she couldn't believe the school still did them. He saw a girl in a poodle skirt trip the one kid they all bullied in the hall, sending him sprawling on the ground, and Danny couldn't just stand by.

"Gimme a sec," Danny said. "I'll meet you in class."

"Huh?" Sam cocked her head. "Uh, sure, Danny." He waved them off and went to give the kid a hand.

"Are you okay?" Danny asked, helping him to his feet.

"Oh, yeah, I'm used to it," the boy responded, then he looked up at Danny's face and jumped with shock. "Jiminy Christmas, you're alive!" the boy yelped.

"What? Of course I'm—" Danny stopped himself, his eyes widening. "Wait... you don't mean you're..."

"Oh, I'm a ghost," said the boy, offering his hand. "Sidney Poindexter. And you are?"

Danny looked around to make sure no one was looking before shaking Sidney's hand. He knew that it would look crazy to any onlookers. "Danny Fenton." Sidney's hand was cold and clammy, but it felt very solid and real in Danny's own. If he hadn't been told, Danny never would've thought he was a ghost. In fact, he hadn't. For almost a week now. "So... is everyone in fifties fashion a ghost?"

"Well yeah, we... wait... you mean you can't tell?" Sidney asked, astonished. Danny shook his head hesitantly.

"You look pretty real to me," Danny said. "I'm a little new to the whole 'seeing ghosts' thing. I guess I haven't figured out how to tell the difference as well as, you know, other ghost-seers you might've met."

"Oh, I've never met anyone else like you," Sidney assured him. A fifties jock slapped Sidney on the back as he walked by so hard that the kid nearly fell on his face again, but Danny caught him. "Thanks."

"He didn't seem too surprised that we were talking," Danny observed.

"I don't think he could see you," Sidney said. "You see, I'm the only real ghost in this armpit. The only one who was human and died. The rest of them are fabrications of my curse. I'm trapped in the school, cursed to never leave, and to be bullied for all eternity."

"That's... wow, that's a major—" another fifties kid came by and kicked Sidney in the rear with a wicked laugh—"bummer," Danny cringed. When Sidney turned to look at his assailant with a frown, Danny saw the 'kick me' sign on his back and peeled it off. He showed it to Sidney when he turned back. "The jock probably stuck it to you when he slapped you on the back."

"Probably," Sidney took the sign sadly and looked at it for a moment before crumpling it up and throwing it over his shoulder. "I should know better by now, shouldn't I?" he said. "I mean, it's been almost fifty years. No one just slaps me on the back. There's always some kind of prank involved. I'm just a little washed out at this point."

"You're blaming yourself for this?" Danny asked, astonished. "Getting bullied is totally not your fault." The bell rang, and Danny realized he'd gotten so caught up talking to the ghost that he was now late for second period. "Crap, late for class! I gotta go!"

He took off running to his classroom, and by the time he got there he was wheezing so hard he thought he might suffocate. Two weeks of strict bed rest had done absolutely nothing for his already sub optimal athleticism. He doubled over, using the door frame to hold himself up.

"Mr. Fenton," Lancer greeted. "Nice of you to join us. Would you care to take a seat?" Danny put a finger up, wordlessly asking the teacher to give him a minute to recover.

"Holy moly," Sidney remarked from behind him, apparently having followed Danny to class. "Looks like you're even more of a wimp that I am."

"Gimme—a break," Danny wheezed. "I was—just—in a—coma—for a week." Danny gagged on his tongue for a moment, but eventually, he recovered enough to get back to his seat, breathing heavily as he sat down.

"Very well, Mr. Fenton," Lance agreed. He hadn't heard Sidney, and so he'd thought Danny had been trying to get out of detention for being tardy. "Since this is your first transgression of the year, and you only recently got out of the hospital, I'll let it slide, but don't deceive yourself by thinking I'll do so again. I expect you to arrive to class on time in the future."

"Yes, Mr. Lancer," Danny said, glad that he could finally get a full sentence out, however short it was.

His stint in the hospital, or more likely, the accident that had put him there, had done him absolutely no favors, physically speaking. He probably shouldn't have run in the first place, since he had something called a heart murmur now, along with some other cardiac problems that had been caused by the portal accident. The doctor had written him a pass to get out of gym for the entire year because he was apparently in danger of his heart straight up stopping if he put too much stress on it. So yeah. He'd try to get to class on time in the future.

Danny put a hand on his chest to assure himself that his heart was still beating, since apparently, he could no longer trust himself to know when someone was alive or dead, or even something else entirely. His heart thumped hard and irregularly against his chest, and he sighed quietly in relief. He kept his hand against his chest for several minutes longer, until it finally slowed, just to make sure.

"What were you in a coma for?" Sidney asked, and Danny straightened up in his seat, startled by the ghost he'd forgotten was there. Lancer was mid-lecture now, but Danny's seat was in the back row.

"Entertainment value," he whispered jokingly, glancing around to make sure no one else could hear. "But no, actually, I was in a lab accident."

"What sorta lab accident?" Sidney pressed.

"Can we talk when I'm not in the middle of class?" Danny asked back, just loud enough that Tucker looked over from the seat next to him, eyebrows quirked in concern.

"You good, dude?" he asked quietly. Danny nodded, trying to appear as normal as possible. Realistically, he knew he didn't look any different than before, but he felt like he had a big, neon, Fenton Works-style sign on his forehead that told everyone he was a freak who was talking to a ghost.

"Alright, we'll talk later," Sidney said. "I wouldn't want you to get in a pickle."

Later, during Danny's free period that used to be gym, he met Sidney in an empty classroom to talk. He told the ghost about the portal accident, leaving out most of the gory details, and explained that when he'd woken up, suddenly he could see ghosts, even though he never could before.

"Well that's pretty amazing," Sidney said. "I've never heard of something kooky like that happening before."

"What about you?" Danny asked. "How'd you end up cursed?"

"Oh... I was a coward," Sidney said.

"What do you mean?"

"I... well... back when I was alive, my life was just like this," Sidney explained. "I was the weakling, the loser, the geek. Everyone at school bullied me. They'd crack jokes about picking on me being a graduation requirement, and even goad the shy kids and the nice kids into doing it." He frowned at the floor, hands fidgeting with each other. "I went to grown ups and teachers, but none of them did anything about it.

"They told me not to fight back and wait for the bullies to lose interest, or that I should try not being so weak, or that I should toughen up and turn the other cheek. They never even tried to tell the other students to leave me alone, not one person did. Eventually, I just couldn't take it anymore," Sidney said. "I took the coward's way out. And for my cowardice, I was cursed."

"What exactly to you mean you 'took the coward's way out'?" Danny asked, though he had a gnawing feeling in his gut that he didn't really want to know the answer.

"The flagpole in front of the school is thirty-five feet tall," Sidney said. "Other kids ran me up that thing more times than I can count, they still do. One day, after I'd given up, I decided not to wait for someone else to come get me down, like I usually did. I cut the rope and just... took a dive, headfirst onto the pavement."

"You..."

"That's the coward's way out," Sidney finished solemnly. "And this is my punishment for thinking all I had to do was kill myself to escape my awful life."

"That's..." Danny didn't know what to say. He'd never been suicidal before, but he was doubly not suicidal now, if this was what happened afterwards. "That's so unfair!" Danny finally shouted. "Suffering Hell on Earth wasn't enough, now you have to suffer it in death because you did something desperate to get away from it?! That's messed up!"

"That's the way it is," Sidney said with a shrug. "And there's no changing it."

"Like hell there isn't!" Danny argued. "You don't deserve this! I'm not gonna let it continue."

"And what are you gonna do to change it?" Sidney asked, clearly only humoring Danny. "You've got a witch or a warlock who can break curses?"

"Well, no," Danny admitted, slumping, but he brightened again when he remembered what he did have. "But I've got a goth friend who's really into the occult! We'll figure it out."

"It won't work," Sidney said with a dour shake of his head. "I've been stuck here for almost fifty years. You can't end my eternal punishment with a little occult research and plucky determination."

"I can at least try!" Danny insisted. "Look, maybe it's just coincidence that I can see ghosts now. Maybe there's no greater purpose or higher calling, but even if there isn't, I can't sit here and watch you suffer without at least trying to stop it!"

"I appreciate the thought, Danny, but honestly, just being able to talk to someone who'll take the 'kick me' sign off of my back is good enough," Sidney assured him. "Even if you can't break the curse, you've already made my miserable afterlife a little better just by seeing me."

"Yeah, but I won't be going to Casper High forever. In four years, I'll be out of here, and you'll be back to suffering alone, and I'm not gonna let that happen. Not if I can help it."

"Well..." Sidney still looked dubious about the idea, but Danny could tell he was breaking through. He was giving this downtrodden ghost some hope, his first in fifty years. "Alright. Where do we start?"

The warning bell rang.

"I guess I start by getting back to class," Danny said, standing up and grabbing his backpack. "I'll talk to Sam about post-death curses later today and see if I can find anything out that might help. See you later, Sid."

"Sid?" the ghost echoed.

"Oh, sorry, it's a nickname," Danny said. "I wasn't really thinking about it. If you don't like it, I won't call you—"

"I like it!" Sidney said quickly. "I like it. It's just... I never had any friends, so no one's ever given me a nickname before. Not one that wasn't mean-spirited, anyway."

"Well, now you do," Danny smiled at him. "You shouldn't've said that though, because now I'm gonna call you exclusively by nicknames. Sid. Sid the Kid. I don't know, Kidney? Basically, I'm never gonna call you by your real name ever again." Sidney laughed and Danny waved goodbye as he walked to class, thankful he didn't have to run again.

After school, he met up with Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger, and he asked his goth friend about curses. She didn't have a single question before she enthusiastically launched into a rand about a book she'd picked up at the Skulk and Lurk about curses and all the various methods of casting and using them.

"What about curses after death?" Danny asked. "Could someone be cursed to, I don't know, be tormented forever in the afterlife?"

"Oh yeah!" Sam nodded, and Tucker groaned, shooting Danny a dirty look.

"You just had to get her going, didn't you?" he moaned, but Danny was more focused on Sam, rambling on about how the souls of the dead were punished for their transactions according to various cultures.

"Of course, being Jewish, I don't believe in the Christian Hell, or eternal torment," Sam said. "In Judaism, or at least the version I practice, there is Sheol instead. Sheol isn't eternal, like hell is. It's just a necessary stopping point for sinners and troubled souls on their journey to olam habah—the world to come. It's the place where they have to, like, reflect and work through the issues they had during life, and grow past them in order continue on toward olam habah."

"So like, if they were a coward in life, then in Shoal they have to learn how to stand up for themselves in order to move on?" Danny asked.

"Sheol," Sam corrected, "and sure, I guess. That's what I always thought, anyway. There's no single, definitive picture of the afterlife, so different people think of it and understand it in different ways, and believe different things. If that's how you think it works, then sure, why not?"

"Okay... cool," Danny said, looking down at the table thoughtfully. Obviously he wouldn't know until he tried, but the Sheol theory was a promising start.

"Hey, Danny," Sam suddenly said in a soft, overly kind voice. "Are you asking about the afterlife because of what happened? Is this you coming to terms with your own mortality or something like that?"

"What?"

"Because you're not gonna die," she said, gentle, but nonetheless absolutely firm. "No matter how weak your heart is or what the doctors said, you're not going to die."

"I'm not afraid of dying, Sam," he assured her. "Well, I am, but like, a normal, reasonable amount, and not a concerning amount."

"And how much do you consider a reasonable amount?" Tucker asked, side-eyeing his friend. Danny thought back to when he'd run to class earlier and spent easily ten minutes feeling his heartbeat just to make sure it was still there. Under the table, he found his pulse-point on his wrist. Still beating. Still alive.

"Uh... I would put my fear of death somewhere above clowns, and below my house catching on fire," he said after a moment, and maybe that was true, or maybe it wasn't, but he honestly couldn't have said which it was. "I was mostly wondering because now that the portal's actually working, Mom and Dad have been even more gung-ho about ghosts, and it's got me curious. Obviously, I'm not gonna ask them, though, because they'd talk my ear off about it even more that Sam would."

"Hey!" Sam complained, throwing a fry at him. "At least I wait until someone asks!"

"Which is why I asked," Danny said with a shrug. "Anyway, did you see that new game that just dropped? Doomed? It looks pretty interesting. I think I'm gonna get it. What do you guys think?"

"Oh totally!" Tucker agreed. "I already bought a copy. I haven't had the chance to play it yet, but it looks like it's right up my alley!"

"Oh yeah?" Sam asked, leaning her head in her hand. "Tell me about it. Maybe I'll get it, too, and we can play together." And just like that, the conversation had moved away from death and curses and Danny had successfully outmaneuvered his friends' concern.

The next day at school, Sidney met Danny at the front door with a smile, and Danny took him to a more sequestered area of the school where they could talk without people looking at Danny like he was going insane. Although, he still wasn't entirely convinced he wasn't going insane, himself.

"I don't know if it'll work, but I figured out something you can try," Danny told the ghost, happy to have found a possible solution so soon. "I asked Sam about curses and the afterlife, and she told me about she-uh, Sheol, I think it was, which is a Jewish thing. Basically the concept is, when you die, you go to this in-between place to deal with all your issues before you can go to Heaven... or, whatever the Jewish version of Heaven was. Sam said it, but I suck so bad at remembering Hebrew words."

"So what exactly are you saying?" Sidney asked. "I'm not Jewish, you know."

"There's no way I could've known that, but that's not the point. The point is, it got me thinking! If the reason you're cursed like this is because you were a coward, maybe the way to break the curse is to stop being a coward!"

"Oh, slice of pie, then," Sidney said sarcastically. "Are you completely off the wall? If I could just stop being a coward, I never woulda been in this situation in the first place!"

"It's okay," Danny put a hand on the ghost's shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze, "because, I've got your back."

"You do?"

"Of course I do! We're friends, aren't we?"

Sidney smiled. "Okay." The warning bell rang.

"I gotta get to class," Danny said, letting him go. "During free period, okay, Sid? I'll be right there with you."

"You'd better be!" Sidney called after him as he headed to first period.

Danny's free period came with Tucker moaning about how lucky Danny was not to have to do P.E. anymore, and Danny split off when his friend got to the locker room. Then he made a beeline for Sidney.

"So what's the plan?" the ghost asked him once they were away from prying eyes.

"We go to the cafeteria, and then when someone tries to bully you, you call them out," Danny said. "And I'll be there for moral support."

"Okay, but... what do I say?"

"Oh, you know this one," Danny waved a hand flippantly. "Just say what you've always wanted to say to a bully."

"I've never wanted to say anything to a bully that they'd whomp me for," Sidney answered flatly.

"Okay, how about this," Danny proposed. "Imagine that instead of being bullied yourself, you saw somebody bullying me. What would you say then?"

Sidney opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut, blinking thoughtfully. "I think then I'd give 'em a piece of my mind."

"There you go! Now, come on! Time to put the plan into action."

"Right!" Passing period was over, and the two of them went to the cafeteria without running into anyone living.

As soon as they walked in the door, someone stuck their foot out to trip Sidney and he stumbled. His first reaction was to hang his head and keep walking, but Danny cleared his throat meaningfully and gestured to the bully. Sidney nodded, stood up straight, and turned around to face him.

"Hey!" Sidney yelled. "Y-you'd better quit picking on me!"

"Or what?" the guy scoffed. Sidney looked at Danny for help, and Danny gave him a thumbs up and gestured for him to keep going.

"Well I... I hate bullies!" Sidney shouted. "Y-you'd better lay off or I'll see how you like a t-taste of your own medicine!" Danny mimed shoving someone, and so Sidney copied the motion, shoving the guy who'd tripped him against the wall. Sidney's mouth gaped in astonishment. He couldn't believe he'd actually just done that. He squared his shoulders and looked the bully right in the eyes. "A-and there's more where that came from!"

Despite the stammer, Sidney had actually done it. He'd stood up to one of his tormentors, and he hadn't gotten walloped for it, either. Rather, all the other ghosts in the cafeteria cheered.

"Yeah! Stick it to 'em Poindexter!" one girl shouted. Another whistled and whooped.

A smile found its way onto Sidney's face as the vestiges of classmates who'd once driven him to take his life encouraged and congratulated him. Sidney looked around at all the clapping hands and proud faces as the other ghosts started fading away, one by one. His eyes finally landed on Danny, clapping with the rest of them, and even more proud.

"You did it, Sid!" Danny congratulated, stilling his hands as the clapping died off. "How's it feel."

"It feels damned good!"

"Haha!" Danny rushed forward and hugged Sidney tightly. Upon letting his new friend go, he couldn't resist flashing a smug grin. "Am I the best curse-breaker, and greatest friend ever, or what?"

"You absolutely beat all!" Sidney agreed.

They celebrated by taking a walk around the block. Now that the curse was broken, Sidney wasn't stuck inside the school, and he could go wherever he wanted. Danny showed him all the things that had changed nearby since 1958, and Sidney pointed out all the ghostly things Danny hadn't realized were ghostly.

"Can you see that motorcycle, and that couple?" Sidney asked, pointing to a bike parked on the street and a punk couple canoodling as they leaned against it.

"Yeah," Danny said. "Wait, are they ghosts too?"

"Yup," the ghost confirmed. "What about that house?"

"That wasn't always there?"

"I dunno, but it's definitely a ghost house."

"I thought I could only see like, ghosts, not ghost houses and ghost motorcycles and stuff," Danny said. "I didn't even realize."

"You said that you were in an accident in a portal to the Ghost Zone," Sidney recalled. "Maybe that accident allowed you to see the parts of the Ghost Zone that cross over into the real world. I was stuck in a Ghost Zone version of Casper High, which is in the real world. That house must exist in both the real world and the Ghost Zone. That couple probably died in Amity Park."

"So... what exactly does that mean for me?" Danny asked. "Am I supposed to help all these people work through their issues and move on fully into the Ghost Zone?"

"I don't know," Sidney said. "I think no one knows what they're supposed to do, really. I didn't know I was supposed to stand up for myself. You don't know what you're supposed to do with your new ability. Maybe the only thing we're supposed to do is our best. Maybe all we're supposed to do is try."

Danny nodded, considering. "Yeah... I can do that."

#phic phight #phic phight 2023 #fic #things i wrote #danny phantom #dp #danny fenton #sidney poindexter #dp au #suicide tw

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