#Fraids

[sinorim-pisani]

tl;dr The Danny Phantom fandom is just obsessed with Found Family and I FALL FOR IT EVERY TIME

Hear me out, people, hear me out......

FRAIDS.

that's it that's the post.

jk jk that is absolutely not the post, because I have SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT FRAIDS. Danny Phantom lore at it's FINEST.

Strap in folks, it's about time for another (weirdly long??) DP word blast!

Now this could be the "found family trope" lover in me, but I freaking love the possibilities that exist when it comes to the concept of a ghost fraid. What I've read in fics is just *chef's kiss*. We have the mental links, the ectoplasm based threads that bind everyone together, the found family idea of course, and pleeeeenty of angst potential. But I wanna talk about the nitty gritty details.

What is a Fraid, if not a subconsciously and artificially created link based on a ghost's heightened feelings of attachment, or ownership? Bear with me, I can explain; we'll use Danny and his Fraid as an example here. Typically, when introducing the idea that Danny is connected to his friends and Jazz and Dani via the concept of a "Fraid", fic authors use the image of threads created with ectoplasm to tell the reader that the group is connected together on a higher level. These threads are often a result of Danny unknowingly marking his people as his, and thereby telling the ghost world that messing with these people means messing with Phantom himself. To me, this sounds a lot like Danny is essentially layering his own ectoplasm onto his group so frequently, intensely, and even intently (despite his continued ignorance to what his ghostly side is doing), that his resulting Fraid essentially becomes a part of himself. The ectoplasmic threads are then a physical manifestation of Danny's ectoplasm as it exists in his friends.

But if this is the case, could a Fraid ever be created intentionally?

Let's lay out the apparent requirements to create a Fraid, based on the proposed example above. I'm postulating that, to create a Fraid, the ghost needs to 1) spend a sizable portion of time around the future fraid members, 2) feel strong feelings of possession, protection, obligation, or what have you, 3) maintain a large amount of affection for their persisted presence, and 4) feel safe enough around them to allow their ectoplasm to manifest like an aura, rather than keep it tightly inside and controlled. In Danny's case, all of these conditions are met by Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Dani, and they are typically the ones you see being placed in Danny's Fraid. His parents aren't on that list, as they fail to meet condition 4, and possibly even condition 3 (which is not to say Danny doesn't feel affection towards his parents. He definitely loves them, but does he love them consistently, constantly, and in the same way as he does his friends?). While Danny is constantly choosing his friends (he chooses them day in, day out, after Sam convinces him to walk to his death, after Tucker makes a decision out of intense jealousy, after Dani hunts him, Danny is still choosing them), he isn't constantly choosing how he feels in their presence. That would be hard for anyone to do, let alone creatures whose entire being revolves around their emotional volatility. The idea of intentionally creating a Fraid is ruled out, based on the idea that, even for beings that run off emotional cognizance, feelings as vulnerable as those required for the process are difficult to create and maintain consciously.

Now how does Fraid creation actually work?

The way I've described it above, I'm going to claim that a Fraid is essentially the ghost version of a horcrux. Instead of the soul going into an object, the ghost is exposing other ghosts (or people, in Danny's case) to intense amounts of their ectoplasm (which could be argued to be their soul given form, I guess?) and the ectoplasm is then settling inside the other party, being absorbed into their core, or skin, and cementing that individual as a part of the ghost creating the Fraid. Since this kind of ectoplasm is primarily that of the ghost, it will invariably have ties to the emotions that ghost is experiencing, hence the idea mentioned above that there needs to be a prolonged feeling of relaxation and safety about the creatures in the pre-formed Fraid. This being the case, I like to think about how Fraids might function when they're made of other ghosts too, and whether or not those secondary ghosts can basically form a layer of Fraids (like one web of ectoplasm built on another web and on another etc with different ghosts being the center point....does that make sense?). Would a Fraid with mostly ghosts develop it's own impression of a core? Is there a threshold of ectoplasm needed to develop a power level in this case? That's some juicy theory building right there.

When Danny's Fraid comes onto the scene, it gets a bit wonky.

Most of the time, his Fraid is made up of two (or three if you're counting Dan) ghosts and three (sometimes liminal sometimes not) humans, and there's almost of bit of a power imbalance. I would say that both Danny and Dani end up establishing this group of people as their individual Fraids, but how do the three humans influence the ectoplasm connection? And how does the fact that Danny and Dani virtually share an ectoplasm signature influence it? (this isn't to say that they share a core or are the same people, I am a firm lover of ice core danny and water core dani, but Dani is a clone and a product of Danny's ectoplasm....do you think they have the same signature, or would Dani develop her own signature?)

Connecting this to my first question above (is a Fraid a product of a ghost's feelings of "ownership" or "possession"): if you like your humans liminal like I do, I'm going to take a chance and say that Sam, Tucker, and Jazz have developed juuuust enough of a ghost core or an ecto signature for the Fraid threads to stick to them, and that ghosts probably wouldn't be able to draw regular, non-liminal humans into their Fraid unbeknownst to them. Due to this, I believe the humans would be able to reflect the ectoplasm back to Danny, creating a stable loop that allows for the continuance of the Fraid connection. I don't necessarily think this alone would allow for a strong connection - they're human, however liminal they might be, and liminal humans don't have the same ectoplasm reserves as a ghost, nor do they have the amount of "soul-like" ectoplasm needed to cement themselves inside the other parties like Danny could ( remember the horcrux analogy?). But! But but but! If Danny and Dani share an ectoplasm signature, and a Fraid is essentially an emotional feedback loop given substance, then you have two times the ectoplasm signature being run through and reflected back to each of the Fraid members, essentially....eliminating the original weakness of their connection?? And therefore you end up with a fully formed and healthy Fraid system?? I think that's pretty neat, right?

Idk dude, is this too long? Is there a limit to how much I can talk about this? I don't think there is.

for the sake of digestibility I'm going to DEFINITELY be writing a part 2 for this!!

But think about these questions in the meantime, if you want:

Would a ghost that isn't the Fraid's formation point be able to reject or leave the Fraid system? How?

What would happen to the Fraid "head" so to speak, if their Fraid threads were severed or rejected, based on the theory that it's essentially a part of themselves implanted in another creature?

Are potential Fraid members aware of what's happening when a Fraid is in its preliminary stages?

Could Fraids be rare?

Am I projecting my feelings of isolation onto a cool kid's show?? Who knows! I feel a fanfic idea coming tho....

Part 2 coming soon!

[spam-extemporal]

Dcxdp where Danny has been working with a hero team (did Bruce adopt him? Did he help the teen titans and got told to join them? Idk) for less than a year, maybe they knew eachother for longer, but Danny has been living with them for some months.

Now, I imagined this as a "Danny has to flee to a different dimension after a giw attack/reveal gone wrong" but it can work with other scenarios, the important thing is, death days are important for a ghost's wellbeing, but nobody knows/remembers Danny's deathday or that it's important to commemorate the dead. Maybe he hasn't told anyone yet cause he doesn't want to be a bother, or doesn't trust them enough yet.

So Danny takes the matter on his own hands, each year he goes to a quiet corner of the local graveyard, where he has a piece of marble and a small vase, he usually buys some flowers for his memorial grave and makes some fudge as an offering.

This year wasn't gonna be different, he told his team/family that he was gonna spend the day out, he chose an elegant but comfortable outfit, made some fudge, and saved it on the fridge with a note that said "phantom, do not eat".

The next part might work better with a young hero team, cause despite the note, someone took a bite of the fudge for breakfast.

Danny clearly gets mad, they didn't know, but they just ate an offering, a great offense to the dead it was offered to.

It all ends in a big fight, Danny doesn't want to admit that it was an offering for himself (it just hurts to admit that nobody remembers his death), and the other person thinks he's just having a tantrum over some fudge, like, c'mon, they can make you some if it's SO important to you 😒

And I don't know how to end it cause it came to me while falling asleep and don't remember more T-T

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 186

Ghosts are dragons. 

No, really, Danny swears. Sure they might sometimes take a more humanoid form to interact with the living world, but the default shape for each of them is a dragon. Or their world’s equivalent, since there’s also not just human-ghosts which wow was he giddy when he met his first alien. 

But yeah, ghosts were dragons. 

Which meant he was in fact a dragon. Or at least half a dragon. Which over time started having a bit of an effect on how his human form started to look too. Which he would be worried about except for the fact that everyone else in Amity was starting to look the same. 

So he should probably be concerned about ecto contamination but there’s this happy rumbling in his core next to his Obsession and Hoard bonds. Honestly, what could go wrong? They’re all used to property damage thanks to wrestling getting out of hand. They can retreat to the Zone if there’s a big danger approaching the city. 

And really, what wants to mess with a city full of dragons and those slowly turning into dragons huh? 

…

Well he stands corrected, apparently the GIW and whoever else they’ve brought in are in fact that stupid. Alright guys, let’s try Not to squish people. 

[cat-cosplay]

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost

[dreaminginpencil]

I was reading some good old Harringrove fics and couldn’t get ghost Billy from I Ain’t Fraid Of No Ghosts outta my head.

So, here we are! Thank you lovely @heck-in-a-handbasket for being chill with me playing with your sandpit 💗

[adinelleggreeo]

Danny Phantom Project Sneak Peek!

I finished my little project! Can't wait to show you guys!

I'm turning it into a YouTube video for later in the year, so I won't be telling you much about it until then.

In the meantime, here are some peeks at the artwork I made for it!

[defiledtomb]

making big strides now that I'm not crippled by pain and wanting to shout it from the rooftops but somehow feeling awful about it because I'm not doing it fast enough. #livelaughlove

[beta-adjacent]

Y’know, it may not be comfortable, but trying to nest under desks/tables must really do something for me given how often I find myself doing it

[melandrops]

*grabbing gerry by the shoulders* WHY DID YOU LIE? WHY, WHEN SAM ASKED YOU IF YOU KNEW ABOUT THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE DID YOU LIE? GERTRUDE TRIED TO DENY THAT YOU WERE INVOLVED AT ALL. YOU ADMITTED YOU WERE THERE BUT YOU LIED ABOUT ALL THE REST OF IT. WHY DID YOU BEND TO GERTRUDES WHIMS WHEN SHE HUSTLED SAM AND CELIA OUT THE DOOR? ARE YOU DESTINED TO BEND TO THE WHIMS OF GERTRUDE IN EVERY LIFE? WHAT DO YOU KNOW

[kalicofox]

Fraid/Fright vs Grief

OKAY!

So. I wasn't going to type this out, but I literally fell asleep last night ranting about this in my head, so HERE WE GO!

Fraid and Fright. Those are the two most common words used for ghost family units in the Danny Phantom fandom, and honestly, I don't think they should be.

First of all, ghosts being scary is a Living thing. It's a thing that the living created, and applied to ghosts. Why would ghosts find each other scary just as a matter of course? Why would *fear* be the emotion that they wish to elicit when they're talking about the people that they love and trust the most? It doesn't make sense.

Second of all, ghosts do not typically set out to scare the living. It might be a side effect of their urge to fulfill their obsession, but it generally isn't the primary goal. Again, why would you refer to your closest friends and family as people who assist you in causing fear??

It doesn't make sense.

However.

Grief is a thing that all ghosts are familiar with. The grief of lost living relatives. The grief of a changed existence. The grief of mourning that which you can not have anymore, and, in some cases, can't even touch.

A burden shared is a burden halved, they say, and who better to share your grief, to mourn with you and help you through those feelings than your closest friends, the people who have become your family?

Who would mourn for you if you End? Who would you mourn, if they vanished forever? The bonds aren't that of family, but they are bonds of grief. Shared. Halved. And welcomed.

[zeta-in-de-walls]

So Tommy has always struggled with the idea of either being the hero or becoming a villain.

Early on, he was actually excited, he wanted to be seen as a hero who can save the day. He was young and eager to be taken seriously and hungry for some glory.

But things changed. Wilbur would one day suggest to Tommy that they should be the villains. This horrified Tommy who could then not stop Wilbur's descent into villainy where he would of course blow up L'Manburg.

Over the course of his season 2 arc he struggles with both ideals, struggling under the burden of being a hero and fearing that he was doomed to follow Wilbur's path. And he gets very close to the latter after he's isolated and considers blowing up the server as well before rejecting it entirely and choosing Tubbo. He never gets near to that point again.

So, having rejected villainy is he doomed to follow Dream's script and play the hero in Dream's game? Disc finale comes and he confronts Dream so maybe he is forced into the role.

Now however, Tommy's been trying to take a third option because he doesn't want the responsibility. He wants to be out of the spotlight. He'll be neither.

So Tommy does nothing. And he waits.

All throughout the series, Tommy has longed for someone to guide him. He wants to follow someone else's lead, whether it be Wilbur or Dream or Technoblade or even Philza if he'd let him. But that's never worked out.

As Tommy says to Tubbo, they're not kids anymore. They can't run from responsibility. If Tommy hides away, he's never going to be happy. No one else is going to take care of Dream for him if he does nothing.

And as much as he hates the burden of responsibility he also knows no one else is going to save him. They're not kids anymore and they'll never get those days back.

So Tommy makes a plan himself. Because at the end of the day, he's willing to fight for his happiness. It doesn't matter how others label him.

[silkmorii]

I bet if u threw him against the wall like those splat balls he’dd stick to it

[thegoldenelite]

If tk wasn't a coward, jay v hangman would've had more build up😔

[dxmain]

trick or treat :3

AH um uh.

one (1) humble banana slut. happy ween

[putnamcapital]

this is supposed to be a YR blog in which i escape from the real world bc boy does it need escaping from but also the White House just released a statement about the anti-war, anti-Israel, and anti-genocide protests at Columbia University (which are also FYI protests about academic freedom and freedom of expression) and the White House has managed to both 1) completely misrepresent the protests as violently antisemitic (btw the practising folks on the ground there have spent the weekend doing Muslim and Jewish prayers) AND 2) erase the existence of anti-Zionist, non-genocide-supporting Jewish people and I frankly can't get my head around anything MORE antisemitic than the latter (2).

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

when will my motivation (to stick on a single project and do anything meaningful) come back from the war