#Jazz keeps adding in their Ghost Getting designations

[wolfjackle-creates]

Ghost!Robin Part 11

Time for another WIP Wednesday! I'm not sure if I'll have anything for next week. I'm working on a one shot right now as I can and wrapping up stuff for my final week of work which is taking a ton of time. Though I did get on a roll today and wrote a bit more than I'm posting, so maybe I'll have something.

Story Summary: Danny was invited to dinner at Wayne Manor to meet Jazz's boyfriend and his family for the first time. He worked hard to make sure no ghost business would interrupt the evening. But when he arrived, all he could focus on was the ghost of the dead Robin that seemed to haunt Jason. Looks like he was breaking his promise.

First, Previous

Word Count: 1.4k

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“Hn. What is the range on these devices?” asked Bruce.

Danny shrugged. “My stuff? From anywhere. I track through the Infinite Realms, not by Earth. GIW? Jason-Robin, they’ll be able to detect something from probably ten miles out of city limits, but they’d need to be within half a mile to get an accurate location. The Fentons? Mile or so. They get an exact location or nothing.”

Tim asked, “Is it likely the Fenton’s will come to Gotham?”

“Not sure,” admitted Danny. “But they sell commercially, so other ghost hunters might have their equipment. Jazz, pass the Fenton Finder?”

Damian couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice when he finally saw the blocky silver device with a circular, green screen on it and bits sticking up out of the front. “Why is there a light bulb attached to it?”

Even Robin looked at the device with a raised eyebrow and sent out a silent this real? his way.

“It flashes when a ghost is nearby,” Danny replied to both of them.

Tim hummed in interest. “Are the visible antennae necessary? Why are there multiple?”

“Most of my parents designs were cobbled together with whatever they could cannibalize from other household electronics and junk yards. Hence the less stream-lined appearance compared to the Guys in White’s stuff.”

He flicked the switch to turn it on and instantly the light bulb was flashing red, the radar screen turned on showing several dots in close vicinity to the center, and a robotic voice said, “You are surrounded by multiple ghosts. You’d have to be an idiot to not notice the ghosts all around you.”

Danny let it read out it’s warning again before flicking it back off. He had to laugh at the looks of complete bafflement on basically everyone’s faces. Even Bruce raised an eyebrow at it.

“Yeah, that’s my parents for you. FentonWorks designs are at least easy to spot. Not the the Guys in White’s stuff is much better. That horrible white on everything…” Danny shuddered. “I hate white.”

Bruce hummed. “Will you be able to provide us with some of these devices so we can study them on our own?”

Danny bit at his lower lip. “Probably. But it’ll have to wait until after I get you the information on how to safely work with ectoplasm. If Tim and Barbara are your big tech people, they’re not liminal at all and will have to be careful when handling it.”

Tim added, “We do have extensive experience working with toxic chemicals. Many of the Gotham rogues use chemical warfare.”

“Right. Yeah, I’ll have Tucker send you the safety sheets on it and we’ll see what devices I’ve got or can make duplicates of to get to you. I’ll be sure you get all three styles of hand-held trackers and their schematics. Maybe I’ll even be able to get you the schematics for a larger tracking system like what my parents have set up in Amity.”

Barbara nodded. “That would be great. What sort of set up do your parents have in your home town?”

“So they’ve set up sensors all over the city that detect ectoplasmic activity. The signal gets sent back to the computer in the ops center they built on top of their house, and they can pin the exact location of any ghost to within a foot or two anywhere within, like, five miles of the city limits. That data is also shared with the computer in their GAV.”

Jason bumped Jazz’s shoulder with his. “I know I’m gonna regret this, but what’s the ‘GAV’?”

Jazz sighed and answered. “It stands for Ghost Assault Vehicle. It’s a modified RV that’s basically a tank. Jack and Maddie simply have to press a button and a dozen ghost weapons will protrude from the vehicle and aim for any nearby ghost. And that’s without Maddie shoving her entire upper body out the window while holding a bazooka.”

“Yep. I regret asking. How badly am I gonna want to murder your parents by the time I’m done learning about them?”

“They are not my parents.” Jazz’s voice was hard.

At the same time, Danny answered, “Depends. How do you feel about genocidal mad scientists?”

Jason just let his head bang on the table. Robin flew over to him and patted him on the back. Jason seemed to subconsciously lean into the touch.

“Now,” said Danny. “I promised I’d show the rest of you these scanners up close.”

“That would be appreciated,” said Bruce. “We also have a few more questions about you and your parents.”

“And I need you to tell me more about these Lazarus pits because those sound like they’re a disaster.”

Alfred cleared his throat. “And I believe that will have to be the end of this meeting tonight. It is getting late and at least some of you will insist on going on patrol tonight still.”

A few people grumbled at Alfred’s words, but no one argued.

Danny made his way to the other side of the table and went over how to use the devices again. He pretended not to notice the way Jazz flinched when he turned on the Fenton Finder and it called out its warning again.

Jason did put an arm around her in response, though, so he figured she’d be all right.

“So that’s that,” he said once he turned off the last device. “I won’t be showing you any weapons until after we get you up to date on ghost biology and culture. If you run into issues in the meantime, you can call Jazz or me and we’ll take care of it.”

Bruce nodded. “We’ll be following up with our own experts as well.”

“Of course,” agreed Danny. “I figured. Now, you had some more questions?”

Tim asked, “You mentioned to me and Alfred that a member of Justice League Dark stopped by Amity. Can you tell us more about that?”

“I mean, there’s not much to tell,” said Danny. “It was John Constantine. And at the time I had no idea how famous he was. Would’ve asked for an autograph if I had, but oh well. This was shortly after I defeated Pariah Dark, the previous Ghost King. He came in, asked if I needed help. I told him I got it covered, he gave me a phone number, and that was that.”

Bruce hummed. “Yes, that sounds like Constantine. We will speak to him.”

“Why?” asked Danny. “It was exactly what I wanted. A check in to confirm I was okay and someone to reach out to on Earth if I got in over my head. It’s just by that time I started getting allies in the Realms. The big concern Earth-side was ghost hunters. And the worst of them were government sanctioned so I wasn’t sure if I should reach out to the Justice League since you guys also work with the US government.”

Jason let out a noise that Danny could only think of as a growl. “He should have spent enough time there to answer questions like that.”

Danny snorted. “Less than a week before he arrived, our entire town was removed from Earth and brought into the Infinite Realms for multiple days. Something would’ve been very wrong with him if he’d stuck around longer than it took to confirm it wasn’t likely to happen again.”

“I’m sorry,” asked Steph, “what is that about your entire town being transported off earth?”

“Don’t you know? My friends and I figured that’s why you sent Constantine to us.”

Barbara shook her head as she clicked around her computer. “There’s nothing in the Justice League files about it.”

“Huh. Well that’s how I became the Ghost King. The previous king was released by an idiot and lured to Amity. Ended up bringing the entire town into the Realms. His goal was to take over the town then the rest of earth. I defeated him in single combat while some other ghosts helped hold back his armies. No one bothered to tell me until later that that meant won his titles as well.”

Dick was frowning at him. “Why did you have to be the one to defeat him?”

Danny just blinked at him in confusion. “Who else was there? My accident is what activated the portal and started letting ghosts through. By making me half ghost, I had the powers necessary to contain the ones who caused problems. My parents were incompetent at best. So I just did what had to be done. Besides, if I hadn’t been an idiot, the portal never would’ve turned on in the first place. So it was my responsibility to fix it.”

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Next

And no one at the table liked that answer! The end of the dinner is finally in sight! I know I'm overlooking characters. I'll do some editing to make sure everyone gets a say before I eventually get around to posting this to AO3. (It's a good part of the reason I haven't started cross posting, tbh. That and I like to have stories fully finished before I start posting.)

Hope you all enjoy.

Tag List Part 1:

@addie-lover-of-stories, @justwannabecat, @gin2212, @amercurio, @regonold, @overtherose, @readerzj, @sjrose1216, @echoednonny, @deeterzz, @blu-lilac, @number-one-jew, @rowanaway-fromthisbs, @vythika96, @tired-yet-awaken, @themirrorghost, @emeraldcorpral, @all-mights-asscheeks, @darkhinauniverse, @blep-23, @phandomhyperfixationblog, @larkcoe1, @thegatorsgoose, @job-ross-the-second, @britcision, @lenacraft, @bubblemixer, @androgynouslordofescapism, @purefrickingspite, @leftmiraclechaos, @lizisipancardo, @starlight-sparks, @miraculousandmore, @gildedphoenix, @sometimesthingsfallapart, @letmesayfuxk, @phoenixcatch7, @skulld3mort-1fan, @abaowo, @dhampir-princess, @idkmrpianoman, @sarina-elais, @ballzfrog-blog, @undead-essence, @spookytragedyshark, @flyingpansaurus, @akintoabitch, @marivictal, @8-29pm, @justreadingthefanfics, @happybear135, @kisatamao, @spoopyspoony, @adorablechaos, @sara0055, @screamingtofillthevoid

[ladylynse]

A DP ficlet for @schwoopsiedoodles. The prompt was technically 'New Years' but, uh, that was more of a starting point than a focal point with this one.

Phantasmagoria [FFN | AO3]: At first blush, the new year seemed like it would start off normally enough, but Danny should really know better than to expect normal by now. Still, this was not what people usually meant when they talked about a new year yielding infinite possibilities.

-|-

“Happy New Year, little brother,” Jazz said as she wrapped Danny in a hug. Fireworks burst on the TV, some celebration they’d switched to just before midnight, but Jazz clearly didn’t think that was loud enough to cover her next words because she lowered her voice before adding, “We made it through another Christmas, and we made it through last year, so we’ll make it through this one, too.”

“Happy New Year, you two!” Maddie said as she joined them and turned the affair into a group hug, and then Jack was on the other side, wrapping them all in a bear hug, and Danny—

Danny was being squeezed too tightly from every side now, and he was getting hot enough and feeling trapped enough that not phasing out of everyone’s grip was more of an active decision than what should be the tangible default of remaining in place. Jazz’s hair was tickling his nose, but better the smell of her shampoo than the scent of ectoplasm from his parents’ HAZMAT suits that lingered despite the intense decontamination and washing protocols. He should say something, maybe force out a laugh or joke about Jazz not breaking into song like usual, but—

But maybe that was it.

Maybe that’s what was bugging him, why he wasn’t as happy as he should be even though he knew, objectively, that Jazz was right, that everything was as good as it ever was these days.

Jazz wasn’t singing Auld Lang Syne.

It shouldn’t bother him. It’s not like she had to sing it. She just always had; it was practically as much of a family tradition as the annual Christmas argument. She liked the song—she had for as long as he could remember—and Maddie would join in once she started. So would Jack, even though he couldn’t sing any better than he could aim.

So why skip it this year?

There was something niggling at the back of Danny’s mind, a sort of awareness that came slowly, creeping over his skin and making it crawl in the process.

He didn’t feel hot any longer, but the feeling of being trapped definitely hadn’t gone away.

Maybe that was a good thing.

That meant that whoever was doing this to him didn’t know he’d realized something was off.

This didn’t feel like the Ghost Writer. Even if he’d mercifully decided to weave his stories into reality without rhyme, Danny doubted he’d give up the background narration entirely. He liked being in control of the narrative too much.

Danny wasn’t ruling out this being a dream, though, or some other happy simulation designed to keep him under, to keep him from questioning it. Things hadn’t worked out last time when he’d been dreaming of his friends, so if this was round two of ‘keep Phantom out of things by keeping him asleep’, shifting the narrative to his family might make a sick sort of sense. It would make more sense than an attempted reality rewrite from someone like Desiree—or someone armed with something like the Reality Gauntlet.

This was too personal for that kind of thing.

“Uh, Dad?” Danny finally tried. “You can let go now.”

“I’ll never let you go,” came the response, but it wasn’t Jack’s voice, it was Sam’s, and he was smelling her shampoo now, not Jazz’s, and Tucker was sandwiching Danny between him and Sam, and—

Shouldn’t he feel sick after a transition like that? After a lack of transition like that? This was a dream, but if Nocturn or whoever it was was trying to keep him down, wouldn’t they at least make him a little dizzy? It all might have felt seamless, a shift occurring between one blink and the next, but the whiplash between what is and what was—

“Dude,” said Tucker as he released Danny and stepped back, letting Danny see that not only was he no longer in his living room but he was also no longer in his house. They were in Sam’s room, and it was decorated the same as always; nothing seemed out of place at a glance.

Then again, if this was a dream, and he thought he knew how everything looked, would anything feel out of place when he was the one imagining it in the place it was now?

This was making his head hurt.

It just didn’t hurt enough to wake him up and snap him out of this, which was annoying.

Tucker was biting his lip, but his words burst out of him a split second later. “I know this is kinda a stupid question considering everything, but are you okay?”

He really wasn’t, but fine, Danny could play along. That was easier now that Sam had let him go at Tucker’s words, which had the unnerving effect of lessening his feeling of being trapped even though he knew he was still very much trapped.

But if the shock of the transition wasn’t enough to snap him out of it, and the shock of realizing what was going on wasn’t enough, what would be?

“I’m fine,” Danny said, and Sam promptly punched Tucker in the arm, who yelped.

“What was that for?”

“Asking a stupid question,” she ground out, “that made Danny feel like he had to lie to us and say he’s fine when he’s not.” Her gaze flicked to him. “What Tucker means is that it’s okay that you’re not okay yet, but we’re going to be here for you for as long as you need us.”

Wait.

What?

Tucker blew out his breath in something that wasn’t exasperation or a sigh but something else, something closer to…regret? Jazz would do that sometimes—she said it helped her to centre herself and get her thoughts in order—but had he ever heard Tucker do it?

“Sorry,” Tuck said. “I didn’t mean are you okay okay, because obviously this being a new year doesn’t mean what happened a couple weeks ago didn’t happen. I meant it more as a sort of ‘are you okay because you suddenly seem less okay than you were ten seconds ago’ and I wanted to know if it was something I did. Or Sam!” Tucker’s eyes flicked to Sam as he quickly added, “Please don’t hit me again. That really hurts.”

Coldness pooled in Danny’s stomach again, spreading outward and freezing his lungs. It was harder than it should be to repeat, “A couple weeks ago?”

Tucker’s laugh was a little too high not to be full of nerves. “Or, like, last week, with the funerals. And Vlad.” Sam’s foot shot towards Tucker’s leg, but he was already dancing back in anticipation. “He asked!”

“What about Vlad?” Danny pressed.

Sam stopped her attack on Tucker and frowned. “What do you mean, what about Vlad?”

“See?” Tucker flung out an arm towards Danny. “That’s why I asked if he was okay!”

Sam scowled at him, but it melted away when she turned back to Danny. “Okay, I get that it probably doesn’t feel worse than what he was always trying to do, but the paperwork’s that much closer to being official now, and I just…. I don’t want to lose you. We don’t want to lose you. And if we can’t figure out some way around this….”

“We will,” said Dani’s voice from behind him.

Danny jumped before spinning to face her, the what? spilling from his lips before he could think twice about it. Danielle was in her human form but in a black T-shirt and shorts he didn’t recognize, and—

And that wasn’t all he didn’t recognize.

A far cry from Sam’s bedroom, this place was basically a white box, sharp clean lines and maybe twice the size of his bedroom back home. Not small, but not necessarily big, considering it didn’t have windows or a visible door or, well, anything.

Anything, he realized as he looked around again, except some poorly hidden cameras.

Crud.

Maybe he didn’t have to recognize this place to know where he was.

Danielle was ignoring the cameras, apparently. She must’ve seen them—Vlad had trained her and he wasn’t incompetent in that, Danny was pretty sure—but she wasn’t looking at them. “We’ll get out of here,” she said. Repeated, presumably. “I can’t tell you how, obviously, but we will.”

Danny walked over to the nearest wall, turned his hand intangible, and promptly failed to stick it through the wall.

He wasn’t surprised, considering he’d dreamed himself up what must be some luxury cell courtesy of the Guys in White, but it was really disappointing to confirm that he was aware that he was dreaming but couldn’t control it.

(This had to be a dream. Nothing except dream made sense.)

“If you keep doing that, they’re going to separate us.”

“No,” Danny said with an assurance that better suited Jazz than him as he studied the wall for what seemed to be nonexistent flaws, “they wouldn’t have risked putting us together if they didn’t want something.”

“Yeah, and giving it to them would be bad. Got that. Hence the whole ‘not telling you how we’ll get out of here’ thing.”

“Except even that tells them something.” He turned back to Dani. “It tells them you have a plan.”

“Or it tells them I want them to think I have a plan.”

“Which is still technically a plan. It’s just a poorer plan.”

“Like you’re an expert on plans.” Danny snorted, conceding her point, so Danielle continued, “All that really matters is they’re guessing. Which they are. Because they don’t know us. Not well enough, anyway. It’s going to be their downfall.”

“I hope you’re right,” he murmured.

“Of course I’m right. I’m me. Besides, I’m not spending my entire birthday locked in here.”

Danny didn’t bother to verbalize the look he sent her; even someone as dense as the GiW agents he’d run into in Amity Park would be able to interpret his confusion.

Dani rolled her eyes at him. “Fine, my chosen birthday. New year, new me. Everyone else can have resolutions. I want cake.”

Danny grinned. “Cake would—”

Alarms swallowed the rest of his words.

He jolted awake, fumbling without opening his eyes for the whatever-it-was that was making that racket so he could make it stop, and it took a precious few seconds to blink awake and remember and scramble to make sure there were no remnants of any ghostly tampering.

Nothing, as far as he could tell.

No helmet, no dust, no goo, nothing new or out of place. He was still in bed, but he was awake. The beeping had stopped by now, so maybe he had imagined it? Maybe it had simply been the last bit of a dream before it had woken him up?

Danny crawled out from under the covers so he could take a peek out the window, and he winced at the glowing green eyes of his reflection before blinking them back to blue. He really had been on edge if his powers were this close to the surface. Maybe he should head downstairs for some water and—

There was someone sitting on the roof across the street.

They were looking in his direction.

They’d probably been looking in his direction the whole time.

That wasn’t as bad as it could be, considering the things that could be explained away because this was the Fenton household, except that Danny knew the silhouette of that particular someone.

It would explain the beeping, too, though he’d never realized it was that loud.

Against his better judgement, Danny opened his bedroom window. It wasn’t particularly cold out—Jazz probably had her bedroom window cracked right now—so it wasn’t like he had to break through a seal of ice to get it open. The main reason he kept his window shut was to discourage ghosts from popping in on him, and that only worked with the polite ones. Still, mild weather or not, he hadn’t been woken by his ghost sense.

“Valerie?”

She heard him, or maybe she just saw the window opening, but either way, she called up her sled and slid almost silently through the air until she was less than three feet from him. Her visor wasn’t shielding her face, and her arms were crossed, which he was hoping to take as a good thing and not a bad thing. “How long?”

“How long what?” Even as he asked it, he realized what she must mean. Oops. She’d heard him after all. “Sorry. From the beginning. Like, the beginning beginning, not just since Technus gave you your new suit.”

Something in her expression tightened. “Please just be straight with me.”

“What? I am!”

“No, I mean—” She broke off with a frustrated growl. “Look. If you answer my questions, we can leave the past in the past. Start fresh. New chapters and all that. But if you insist on playing dumb, I have no reason to trust you—or give you the benefit of the doubt. So how long?”

“I don’t—”

“How long, Phantom?”

Oh.

“Could you, um, be a little more specific than that?”

He was waiting for the dream to shift on him again.

It didn’t.

As Valerie’s frown deepened, he realized that maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe he really had woken up. “Please?” It never hurt to be polite. In theory.

“How long has this been going on?”

She was still watching him, but there was a catch in her voice that hadn’t been there before, and it seemed real enough.

Of course, everything else had seemed real, too.

If this were a dream, his response wouldn’t matter. His response might even shift him somewhere else entirely. If this were really Valerie, though? This Valerie looked lost and was doing a poor job of hiding it behind a show of familiar anger. This Valerie—

“And how long,” she croaked, her composure crumpling entirely as her voice cracked, “is this going to keep going on?”

Wait.

“I don’t want to do this again.”

The dream—not-dream, whatever this was—did not conveniently remove him from the conversation.

“Don’t want to do what again?” he asked, even though he suspected he already knew the answer.

“I can’t keep jumping through possibilities.” The words were soft, more of a reluctant admission than anything else. “If this is you, stop it. It’s cruel even if you don’t think it is, and you always insist that you’re the good guy anyway. If it’s not you….” She swallowed. “Help me. Please. Even if you’re not my friend, be my ally. I— Our truce doesn’t have to end when this is over.”

She sounded like she meant it.

Maybe he should hope this wasn’t a dream after all, if only so he didn’t have to worry about having Valerie on his back all the time.

Then again.

If this wasn’t a dream, she’d be spitting distance from his secret even if she thought Phantom—in a feat of spectacular stupidity—was currently overshadowing Danny while under the same roof as the people who hunted him down at every opportunity.

If she were being honest about what might be an indefinite truce, though, that might not be a bad thing.

Danny wouldn’t say this in Sam’s hearing, but Valerie was a better shot than her, and having Val back him up from time to time would be beneficial in more ways than him not having to worry about her taking a shot at him.

“Indefinite truce if we get out of this alive?” he asked, offering her his hand.

She didn’t look amused at his choice of words, but she swallowed whatever scathing insult she’d wanted to spit at him and shook his hand instead.

“Great,” he said. “Meet me on the roof? I should really change for this.”

That earned him an eyeroll, but she grumbled, “Fine.”

He really did change before following her, first out of his PJs and into clothes and then transforming into Phantom, but she was waiting for him on the Ops Centre without a blaster, so that was a win.

“Thanks,” he said, even though he hadn’t really thought she’d fire at him right after being the one to call a truce. “And—please don’t shoot the questioner—can you elaborate on the whole ‘can’t keep jumping through possibilities’ thing?”

She sighed and sat down, hugging her knees and looking out at the horizon instead of at him. “It means exactly what it sounds like. Sometimes it takes longer for the shift to happen, but whenever it does, I’m somewhere else, in a new situation, and most of them aren’t pleasant.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Case in point, finding you where I found you, because I don’t have to be a genius to figure out what’s going on there.”

Danny winced, and not just because his parents were proof that geniuses could be astoundingly blind when they weren’t looking for something. He didn’t want to get into what Valerie thought now, though. They had more important things to talk about. “I’ve been doing the same thing. The shifting between situations like it’s a dream thing.”

“If you’re going through the same thing, then which of us is dreaming?”

If Nocturn or someone like him was involved, it wasn’t necessarily one or the other. They could both be dreaming.

Or this could be something else entirely and neither of them were dreaming, since Danny wasn’t sure why Nocturn would want them both to be aware that they were dreaming when that meant they’d be actively trying to snap out of it.

Still, better that they were dreaming than some something horrendously damaging and somehow unforeseen had happened to the timeline and they were dropping through alternate realities like they were tissue paper faster than Clockwork could sort it out.

“Beats me,” Danny said, offering Valerie a grin in the hopes that it would cheer her up. He held out a hand, and she took it and let him pull her up. “Let’s find out.”

(see more fics | check out the awesome fanart for this fic)

[aterfish]

I posted 59 times in 2021

48 posts created (81%)

11 posts reblogged (19%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 0.2 posts.

I added 148 tags in 2021

#phandom - 25 posts

#danny phantom - 23 posts

#dp - 20 posts

#hazmat!danny - 16 posts

#containment breach au - 14 posts

#bnha - 11 posts

#ask - 11 posts

#not art - 10 posts

#mha - 10 posts

#fanart - 8 posts

Longest Tag: 119 characters

#im too small brained for this but i know there are big brained people out there who will know what to do with this info

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Maybe draw tuck and sam doing something stupid with straws with danny in the background fighting?

Only if youre up for it tho! Thanks!

Thanks to Sam's supply of bamboo straws, Tucker can imitate this guy:

1428 notes • Posted 2021-06-04 19:24:42 GMT

#4

This has been probably done few times already but i wanted to share my take on uhh... different kind? of hazmat suit for Danny.

more ideas under cut:

This suit was made by and for ghost hunters, so it was made with anti-ghost technology. Because of that, after the accident, most of Danny's ghost powers, like flight, intangibility and invisibility, were sealed. The suit is keeping ghost energy from getting outside, the same way it is from getting it inside. Unfortunately, heat from electricity melted the zip and buckles, so he is stuck inside.

Danny can still use ectorays because of the damage on his right glove from getting electrocuted to death. Charging them takes some time, so his main strategy are singular but strong and well aimed shots.

Not being able to emit ghost energy like every other ghost, makes his attacks more concentrated and thus more powerful. This also lets him use powers in human form far easier, which is helpful when he needs to disappear. (and maybe he gets sick after not using them for a while? 👀)

The suit is oversized which makes Danny slow and clumsy in fights, so instead of using agility, he tanks most attacks. It can take it, but in every fight it gets slowly damaged more and more. This lets him slowly use more abilities in his ghost form, but also lefts him more hurt after each fight.

Danny thinks it's because he and his enemies are just getting more powerful, so it is a bit of surprise for him when in his final battle the suit finally falls apart...

1523 notes • Posted 2021-10-18 22:18:22 GMT

#3

Some people were wondering how he looks under the hazmat suit, and I was about to say the same as in canon, but who cares about the canon, let's have some fun design instead.

So right after losing the suit he is in a form that has a lot of energy and also space themed bc why not

and as those energy levels stabilize, he starts to look more like a halfa

1834 notes • Posted 2021-11-29 17:43:33 GMT

#2

I saw you were taking requests. Could you maybe do Jazz, Danny, and Dani being cute siblings? Thanks in advance. I love your artwork!

Jazz does not approve cookies for breakfast

1841 notes • Posted 2021-06-05 23:45:26 GMT

#1

One chosen for All

4043 notes • Posted 2021-04-10 00:24:58 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[andydona-chan]

Bad, bad treat!

Read it at AO3!

Scratching a bit on the wall with the spatula, Danny sighed, he had been trying to remove the mix of candy and ectoplasm from the walls on Fenton Works for at least 3 hours now. He was tired, but the memories from the day before still made him smile, so he supposed it was worth it.

Looking back at what happened, he should have seen it coming, he sighed and turned to look at his two best friends, Tucker and Sam were helping him, and even though Tucker looked like he was melting with all the activity this required and Sam, with red-tinted cheeks from the sun, who was just spraying the spots with a Fenton ecto-removing formula were also tired, they also didn’t seem to regret what happened.

Danny chuckled a bit and thought back to Halloween night (aka yesterday), the three of them had been planning on what to do for that night to make it a very interesting trick or treating experience.

While both Tucker and Danny had spent a good portion of their budget to buy candy (in which only half of it actually went for the trick or treating basket), Sam and Jazz had worked together to create a spooky corridor from the entrance and down to the lab. Jack and Maddie had been invited to talk at some conventions, the convention was actually for horror movie fans and ufo theorists and the sort, so it was nothing too serious but it will keep them out for the following three days, leaving them alone for the best night of the year.

Using that as an opportunity, they made the ghost portal the biggest attraction. Jazz of course had taken some ‘security measures to prevent things from going downside, or so she thought. The corridor that Tuck and Danny had to assemble (girls designed, so they built) guided people through some weird-looking plants and spider webs, also some splats of glow in the dark paint that looked like ectoplasm had been on the paper-made walls. The black light and some of the rumors about the portal made it for a very good-looking spooky place, especially with the lights off.

Danny and Tucker had both dressed up as scarecrows and were sitting about a meter away from the portal, there was a line there that said do not cross and they were supposed to stop any curious kid if they tried to go near. Danny had the candy basket and from time to time he would move and scare some children. Jazz and Sam were taking turns helping people go down while talking like a witch and a vampire, which helped prevent a big amount of people from coming and going.

It seemed to be working, at least until a ghost was detected nearby. Danny turned to look at Tucker who just shrugged and looked at him. Danny was sure the ghost hadn’t entered from the portal because it was closed, but natural portals were now becoming a constant so he still needed to go and check. He transformed and left the basket on the chair they’ve been using to allow Tucker to continue with the act.

Turns out it was just Johnny and Kitty, who had tried to pass as teenagers going trick or treating, they hadn’t really used their ghost powers or influence to get candies and they actually seemed to be having fun, so after negotiating a calm night with the pair Danny went back to his place. He flew around the place once before turning invisible and intangible to give the people outside something to talk about, however, when going back, Tucker was on the floor, placing the candies back on the basket.

“What happened?” Danny asked returning to his human form and helping Tucker with the candies.

“Youngblood,” he said with a frown, “just a moment ago the portal opened and he tried to kidnap the basket, so I tried to stop him, we were pulling on the basket for a moment, who would say that kid almost pulled me into the Zone, however, I negotiated to give him a handful of sweets and the brat just let go of the basket, thus the mess. He took the candies and left but yeah, nothing serious.”

“Well, at least it wasn’t anything worse and no other ghost came out right?” They finished lifting the candies and Danny placed the basket on Tucker’s arms as he sat.

“Yeah, the girls stopped the tours when the alarm went off, Sam just came to make sure I was okay and left, they must be on their way down again” Danny nodded, at least Jazz’s plan had been good so far.

“Let’s keep it spooky then”, said Danny posing again as a scarecrow. It was no surprise that after a couple of children, some teenagers also started showing up, Paulina and Star, Dash, and even Wes walked down to get candies and then left, by ten pm they had run out of candies, and people on the streets with children were less and less.

“Wow, no big incidents tonight, talk about good luck!” said Tucker after they closed the door.

“Yeah, it was also fun, not creepy and full of horror as I was expecting, but it was alright,” said Sam pulling candy from an inside pocket on her vampire cloak.

“And with all the safety measures we took, nobody got hurt, abducted, or lost in the Zone, so there’s that…” said Jazz, cut short by Sam’s scream of pain.

“What in hell…?” Sam had thrown the popsicle she had just removed the cover off to the floor and was looking at one of her fingers covered in blood, she turned to look and Danny and showed him her tongue, for a second he thought she was joking, but then he saw there was also blood there.

Tucker had gone to lift the popsicle from the floor. “That stupid thing bit me,” said Sam, and Tucker retracted from where he was about to pick up the candy. It was Danny who then moved and went to get the candy from the floor; he lifted it and touched the strawberry glassy surface of the candy, only to have it open something like a mouth trying to bite him too…

He then turned around and looked at Tucker “Dude, did the candies enter the Ghost Zone when you were dealing with Youngblood?”

Tucker opened his mouth to answer but then lifted a finger and cursed silently, it was then that they heard people screaming. Danny, Sam, and Jazz shared a look, this was a big problem. In a minute they were making a plan, with a net to pick up the candies the girls were going to visit and or try to locate the people with the candies, Danny and Tucker had to sacrifice their share to replace the contaminated ones, so they left and started doing their own trick or treat route.

Some people were already looking for them, some other people were screaming in their homes, in a matter of minutes there was chaos in the streets of Amity Park. “How many people went to the house today?” asked Danny while trying to catch some of the candies that the people were running from.

“I didn’t keep count,” said Sam, “but it was a lot!”

While she tried to catch some of the candies with the net Danny had an idea. “The shield, people will be able to go into it and it will stop these, let’s get them there” Jazz and Tucker who were also nearby heard him and took off towards the house telling people to follow them.

Jazz made sure to turn on the shield and cover the housing ratio, Tucker was calmly telling people to go in, and just as expected the ghostly candies couldn’t follow. Danny used that moment to go ghost, and tried to use a shield of his own to gather all the candies. These allowed people to go back to their houses, some of them grabbed candies from the non-contaminated pile, but others just left and the ghost shield on the house was turned off.

At that point, Johnny and Kitty showed up on the motorcycle. “Wow, the first time I see treats become tricks on Halloween night,” said Johnny, “but I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said pointing ad Danny’s shield full of furious candies.

“Why?” asked Danny.

“Candies can only support certain contamination level, they’re not made to keep it for too long, that’s how we can eat the candies, they dissolve and become part of us, but when not part of a ghost and with a constant increase of contamination made by an ectoplasmic shield, they’ll just… boom!” said Kitty as a matter of fact.

Just then Danny looked at the contained candies in the shield, as if Kitty’s words were a command, some candies started exploding like popcorn, Danny let go of the shield, however, the candies didn’t fall, instead, they remained floating and started exploding, splatting candy and ectoplasm everywhere but mostly onto Fenton Works, some of the most colorful ones creating something that looked like fireworks.

Jazz, Sam, and Tucker were already inside, and if the look of horror on Jazz’s face was something to go by, this was going to get him grounded, it didn’t escape him, however, how his friends laughed at the whole thing, Johnny and Kitty went back to the Zone shortly after the show ended, but Danny entered covered in a sweet mixture of candy and ectoplasm.

Jazz had only asked him to make sure the house was clean before their parents arrived, something that by the looks of it was still going to take time. The ectoplasm candy he was trying to get off finally gave out and fell to the floor, he lifted it and placed it inside the ghost proof trash bag they were using, then reaching inside his pocket, Danny pulled out candy, the green-yellow candy screamed at him once and he threw it in his mouth, Tucker and Sam looked at him with disgusted faces, but he just shrugged.

“Someone’s got to eat all those sweets,” he said smiling. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had found themselves with some ecto-contaminated candies after the whole thing, and Danny was supposed to get rid of them, but the ectoplasm actually gave it a different kind of flavor, he had been unable to keep his share of candies from Halloween, so it was only fair he at least had those.

[thesoulspulse]

Regarding Flynn Fenton...

(Updated 12/17/2020)

Alright so, confession time. I wasn’t planning on joining the bandwagon on this new character Butch ‘supposedly’ came up with all on his own apart from sharing a few thoughts or giving replies here and there, but now I just have to come out and say it. Most of his backstory makes no sense.

Also, let’s be honest here, the canon Butch gave him is borrowed from so many Marvel characters its not even funny and I have some serious questions about why Danny’s parents would happily keep experimenting with a ghost portal if they knew their FIRSTBORN CHILD was sucked into it! And even if they did they’d be treating the whole thing much more seriously if they were planning to mount a rescue mission into the Ghost Zone...

Next, lets talk about his design.

Now, we already know that while Maddie has reddish brown hair, normal red hair and green eyes does run in her family so let’s compare Flynn to Maddie’s older sister Aunt Alicia, which I might add is the ONLY named character we know of that’s indirectly part of the Fenton family through her younger sister Maddie after she married Jack. But we don’t actually know what their original maiden name was or what their parents might have looked like:

After that there’s one of the more obvious comparisons you can make which is Jazz, who definitely takes after her aunt more than her mom. By the way, I’m using a screenshot of her as a kid because I think when Flynn was still around she was supposed to be like six years old while Danny is only two:

So with that in mind, as far as genetics are concerned I think Flynn actually could have been born as a red-head just like his younger sister while Danny takes more after his dad with the black hair and blue eyes (borrowing Amethyst-Ocean’s version since I couldn’t find any good quality screenshots of Danny as a baby/toddler):

But here’s the real kicker, as soon as I actually SAW Flynn in Butch’s latest video after hearing everyone in the phandom talking about him, do you want to know which character I ACTUALLY think he looks like the most...?

Wes Weston, the random background character that the phandom adopted from the episode “Shades of Gray” that has since become a fully fledged character in his own right and recently you guys have even given him one or two brothers based on other red-headed background characters.

So you want to know my honest to god opinion here? I seriously think Butch is just pulling stuff from the phandom and taking credit for coming up with the idea of Flynn ‘randomly’ since it came from his show which we all know has only become a source of click-bait for him since he doesn’t legally own the rights to it anymore. Nickelodeon does.

That said, while I’ll admit some of Butch’s newer ideas are decent, most of them are uninspired and it’s the show’s fans who have turned these ideas into something more inventive and created this whole Danny Phantom universe with its very own lore with things such as ghost cores, spirits that only exist in the Ghost Zone vs ghost who were in fact once dead people or animals, the list goes on and I couldn’t be prouder of our community as a whole.

Either way, I look forward to seeing more cool ideas for Flynn gradually come out and I’ve already added at least one of my own too based on something another phan wrote. But I’m sure there are more to come since there are so many amazing authors and artists in the phandom that I truly admire even though this show ended all the way back in 2007. So there you go, I’ve added my two cents to get it out of my system so take from it what you will...

P.S. I still think Flynn’s ghost hero design is kinda uninspired too personally since he just looks like a red-headed version of Dan to me.

[burning-clutch]

Shielded From The Truth

Cross posted on A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30441042 -.-.-.-.- Warnings: Mild wounds. Number two in the phic phight! When his parents put a shield up around Casper high to keep the ghosts out, and it means that Danny’s day hardly goes to plan. And he was so close to being on time for once too…. PHIC PHIGHT 2021 For team ghost! -.-.-.-.-.- Prompt by: Silverwing013 Danny's parents have kindly offered to set up a ghost shield generator for Casper High. Hijinks ensue as Danny attempts to handle the situation. 

-.-.-.-.-.-

Danny groaned as he only half listened to his parents rattle off whatever ghost nonsense they were going on about as he ate his breakfast. A bowl of dry cereal because the milk was contaminated and he really didn’t want to chance it giving him more than a stomach ache. This had become the norm this week it seemed as his parents seemed invested more than usual into the ghost shields that they had been working on and improving.

Why only shields? They would be installing one in the school soon… but beyond that? He wasn’t sure. They probably told him, sure, but being a teenager and one that had parents that hated half of him, had the effect of making him only lightly listen to the weapons and things that were meant to fully kill him off. That and at least the ghost shields weren’t usually a hindrance to him, in fact, they had proven themselves useful on a few occasions.

Plus he had the added advantage of being able to simply return to his human form and slip through the shield with little issue. Given his parents had no knowledge of half ghosts existing, at least he hoped not, they shouldn’t be designing a ghost and human shield. After all, that would defeat the purpose, right? It wasn’t as if Amity really had any human threats anymore.

Well, regardless of the eccentricities of his parents he could at least take some comfort in the fact that Skulker couldn’t simply attack the school to get to him any longer.

Small mercies he supposed.

Danny blinked as his father said something to him before slapping him on his back causing the teen to practically choke on his cereal from the force of the smack. “Isn’t that just great Dann-o?” the large man exclaimed happily before looking at his son expectantly. Oh great, he wanted him to ask something? Great.

“S-Sure” Danny choked out as he flailed, grabbing in front of him for the orange juice he had nabbed from the fridge, it thankfully hadn’t been in there long enough to start glowing… yet…

He shook his head as he finally got his breath back without inhaling dry cereal pieces into his lungs. When he was sure he wasn’t going to sound like some dollar store squeaky toy he tried to ask his parents a question, always a dreadful time if he were honest, but hey, he would usually be late for school anyway.

“So this will go around the whole school?” Danny tried weakly.

“Yep! And the best part is it’ll sense where there's an evil ectoplasmic entity nearby and spring up instantly! We made sure there won’t be a ghost within Twenty feet of the school before that puppy jumps up to the rescue! Like a big Fenton airbag!” Jack exclaimed all too enthusiastically for what the current time in the AM should allow a normal person to exhume.

Danny hummed noncommittally and sent a glance of ‘help me’ to his sister, who, in turn, rolled her eyes at her little brother. “And the shield even uses the ghost’s power to run the shield right?” Jazz asked side eyeing her father from her own spot not wanting to fully engage in the conversation they were having.

“Oh, yea! That’s the best part!” Jack practically cheered out.

“And the stronger the evil skum is the faster the shield will react and sooner it will be picked up. It will only go off on a level three or higher.” Maddie explained with a pleasant smile as she sips at her coffee.

“And we got it all finished last night to be ready for you kids today” Jack added happily.

“Hooray, more fun on a Monday” Danny sighed out into his last bites of cereal. Jazz snorted but didn’t comment, though Danny blew her a childish raspberry.

Jack continued to go on about the more intricate details of the shield they had put up though only one thing really caught his attention in the spiel, “-And Vladdie helped with the funding to outfit the school! Even helped us get the materials we needed to make such a large shield!”

“Ah, there it is…” Danny groaned letting his head fall forward onto the table in instant defeat.

“Danny! I really wish you would learn not to stay up so late playing video games! Look at you! If I get another call from one of your teachers about you sleeping in class-” Maddie started only for Danny to cut her off jumping to his feet.

“Yep! Thanks for that, mom! Look at the time! Love you bye!” Danny prattled off quick as could be before grabbing his book bag by his feet and bolting like a scared rabbit. After all, if his mother never finished that sentence when he inevitably fell asleep he couldn’t be grounded… she never officially gave him the last warning…

That’ll work, right?

It wasn’t long when he was out of the house that he was at his usual waiting spot for Sam and Tucker. Unsurprisingly, Sam got there first though they didn't have to wait long for Tucker to lumber forward, half asleep to his friends, and together they made their way towards the school as a unit.

Things seemed well enough until he got onto the stairs leading up to the main doors. That was when all hell broke loose. A deep alarm sounded before his father’s voice rang out from the speakers, in his over the top cheery way that only Jack Fenton knew how to pull off.

“Attention kids! Guess there’s an evil spook nearby so we’re deploying the shield! This ghost protection was brought to you by Fenton-works and sponsored by your mayor!”

Danny frowned. “My ghost sense didn’t go off…” He mentioned quietly to his friends.

“Maybe the shield sensors are more sensitive than you are?” Tucker asked with a frown.

“Since when?” Sam argued incredulously.

“Well who or whatever it is, it isn’t bothering me right now and no one’s screaming, no one’s panicking, so it can wait. I’m actually going to be on time for once!” Danny says waving the notion off.

He continues his trek up the stairs and towards the doors of the school, though when he reaches the threshold of the shield he finds himself having to really push hard against the thing. It was like hitting a wall of foam or Jell-O. He could push through if he pressed hard enough but it was not pleasant or as easy as going through the air.

Once through the initial shield wall, he blinked slowly feeling sluggish and as though all his limbs were moving through water. He even sort of felt like he was having to ‘swim’ as he walked like he was both heavier and lighter than he should be, but unable to find that buoyancy happy middle ground.

“Dude…” Tucker said smartly as he frowned at his friend’s almost slow motion, yet stop motion like movements. It was eerie, to say the least, not to mention the more pressing issue that he noticed right off the hop, “Your eyes are shining, man. And your, um… Neck...”

Sam, ever prepared for whatever bull their lives seem to throw their way, slipped her bag around to her front and offered Danny a pair of sunglasses, which the halfa put on promptly, along with the spider webbed patterned black and silver scarf.  “I mean, it’s better,” Sam argued, not even giving Tucker's look of disapproval her full attention.

“They’re spider glasses.” The boy states with a shake of his head. “Not really digging the whole-” Tucker waved his arm about Danny’s head in little circles, “-pseudo goth thing” he finished finally. Though he had to admit it was at least marginally better than seeing his friend’s glowing eyes and the electric scars showing up on his neck and disappearing under his shirt collar.

“Better?” Danny asked out sluggish, his voice almost sounding like it was being drawn out on a tape deck that was starting to lack battery power and not playing at quite the proper speed making the pitch and timing slower and lower.

Sam and Tucker shared a look before offering a thumbs up to their friend, both deciding it better not to address… whatever that was… The look they shared between one another spoke of their mutual hope that this would perhaps be one of those problems that simply go away on its own.

Ignoring the problems they have usually makes it go away… Yeah, that always works out.  

Danny makes a grab for the door to pull it open again, having that weird slow stop motion effect, like he was flickering between blinks rather than making a smooth motion forward. “Ehm, maybe don’t move around too much man… it’s um… creeping me out.” Tucker offers helpfully.

“Huh?” it took Danny a minute to process, as while he looked slow to them they seemed to be hyped up on caffeine to him… “Why are you talking so fast?” He wondered, his head almost appearing to glitch into a tilted and confused look.

“I think the ghost shield is making you go all slow motion. Just stop talking.” Sam says forcefully before letting out a shudder of her own.

Sam and Tucker share a glance before they each grab onto one of Danny’s arms and half drag him off to his locker. Despite his friends’ efforts he still got many looks shot his way, and a couple of people started whispering to one another as he passed by them.

“How is this going to work if I’m already weirding everyone out?” Danny asked, voice still sounding like a slowed record as he blinked sluggishly and his head jerked almost unsteadily from side to side. From his perspective, everyone was speeding along and talking at 1.5 times the normal speed.

“Maybe I should look for the ghost that triggered this, maybe Tuck, can you look into this mess?” Danny asked after a moment of trying to figure out what was being said around him through the noise of the hall.

“Yeah that might be best…” Sam responded shifting from leg to leg as she locks eyes with a basketball jock who was staring at their group incredulously.

“I got you, man, I’ll change everything to present and, block any ‘call home’ recommendations.” Tucker pipped up already pulling out his PDA to set that up preemptively.

Danny nodded and let out a hum before glitching his way out the nearest exit and out of the shield’s bounds. Once he slipped back out through the barrier, strangely enough, a harder feat than it was getting in, but that wasn’t a problem he wanted to focus on, he already blamed Vlad so he would simply continue to do so until the fruitloop showed himself.

As soon as he was through the green line of the shield Danny practically fell forward in relief. That stifling feeling now gone from his core and bones making his movements fluid and normal, well as normal as a clumsy half ghost could be anyhow…

It was a moot point and not one Danny wanted to think on too long. He gave a quick “thanks” to his friends, before diving between the dumpster and the school’s bricks, transforming into his ghostly alter ego and taking off into the sky. He would do a few laps around the school and city as he looks for whatever ghost set off the shield.

-BREAK-

It wasn’t until lunchtime Danny returned looking much more windswept and all around more miserable. He entered the courtyard through the side joining his friends out on the picnic table they had claimed.  He made it over to them, flopped down on the bench next to tucker with a groan before his head smacked into the table before him.

“You find them?” Tucker asked around whatever horrid monstrosity of a sandwich he was eating, spewing bits of half chewed bred at Danny’s head.

“No” Came the muffled reply, filled with tired disdain.

“No ghost sense?” Sam wandered, flicking the bits of bread from Danny’s raven hair and back towards Tucker.

“No”

“Huh… You think it was you who set off the shield?”  Sam wondered with a thoughtful frown.

“When I went into the back end of the generator though it wasn’t supposed to go off for anything that low, Danny in human form is like a two at best,” Tucker argued spinning his PDA around to show what he’d found when he hacked into the motherboard of the Fenton’s latest device.

Danny groaned. He supposed had he listened to his parents he could have been more prepared for whatever lunacy his parents’ decided to toss his way but alas, his short attention span and teenage rebellion and lack of caring got the best of him yet again.

Joyous of joys.

He tuned out his friend’s back and forthing for a bit, wondering if he could get away with smashing the device as Phantom when Tucker had his a-ha moment of discovery. Danny turned his head and raised a brow at his friend who was furiously typing away at his device.

“You were right about Vlad, Sam”

“Naturally,” She agreed.

“Well, he had an over right line here specifically set for Phantom’s ecto- signature,” the boy states running his finger along the line of code he’d found in the program.

Danny’s mood instantly brightened at that. “So then we just get rid of that bit right? And BAM everything’s fine?” He asked. “Man, what happened to me? Why do I want to get into the school again?”

“To keep up the illusion of normalcy on this mortal plane.” Sam supplied stabbing at her salad a little more forcefully than she probably needed to.

“Eh, yeah, I suppose.” Danny agreed with a lacklustre shrug.

“There, that should do it” Tucker spoke, interrupting whatever tangent Sam was getting ready to spew off about how normalcy was only an illusion created by corporations or some other such thing.

“And just in time The bell just rang,” Danny says with a small grin clasping a firm hand onto his friend’s shoulder. “Nice one Tucker!” he cheered as the trio made their way over to the doors that would lead them back into the cafeteria.

Unfortunately, as soon as Danny’s hand hit the door handle the shield once again sprung to life, though this time, instead of simply having a hard time passing through the shield, he was thrown back across the field earning a cry from several students who were following the trio.  

“Grapes of wrath Mister Fenton!” Lancer, (of course it was Lancer) shouted out in worry, his shout even carrying over the prerecorded message containing his father’s voice. Lancer half jogged half waddled over to Danny who blinked up blearily to his teacher, eyes flashing green for the briefest of seconds before draining back to blue.

“Leave it to Fen-turd to get himself possessed.” Dash snorted from behind the pot bellied teacher earning a few nervous glances between the small crowd of gathering students. The mutterings of the students didn’t take long to start up after that.

“I’m not possessed,” Danny argued, though, it was rather hard to make said argument when the palm of his hand was burned and leaking ectoplasm from where he had touched the door.

“Course he’s not possessed! He’s a ghost himself!” Wes shouted pointing an accusatory finger at the youngest Fenton.

Danny glared. “Not the time Westly.” He muttered under his breath as he was hauled to his feet by his friends. He tried to brush himself off only to end up smearing the ectoplasm from his hand onto his jeans, leaving a luminescent streak across his thigh.

Seeing his chance the ginger jock was all too eager to point it out. “See look! He’s bleeding ectoplasm!”

“No, I’m not! It’s from the shield! it sputtered out at me.” Danny tried to protest, though even in his own ears it sounded like a weak argument.

“Really?” Wes argued and marched over to the shimmering shield. The teen waved his arms about freely in the shield’s range hopping back and forth pointedly across the line of the barrier before showing his hands and clothes were completely clean of any glowing goo. “See! Ghost!” he accused again after he did a little pirouette to show his lack of ectoplasm.

“Yeah? Well, it sputtered at Danny only ‘cuz it turned on with him in the threshold.” Sam tried to argue back glaring at the ginger, venom in her gaze.

“Well then, why don’t you just walk through the shield Fen-toad?” Dash said with a smarmy grin, ever eager to get his own jabs in and seemingly not wanting to be outshined by the ginger conspiracy theorist’s bullying of his favourite punching bag.

“Fine” He spat back bitterly and marched up to the shield with a huff.

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance with one another as Danny presses his hand into the shield again. Thankfully this time there wasn’t anything that blows him back but he also really had to try and push through the shield.  

Danny could see out of the corner of his eye Wes’s smug grin as he grunts and does his best to push through the shield. His persistence is rewarded and he falls to the ground on the other side jumping up and giving a quick ‘HA!’ as he faces the small gathering crowd of students shifting uncomfortably just beyond the shield.

Sam had a look of exasperation and she looked like she was trying to restrain herself from face palming. Tucker on the other hand had no such restraint. He was almost over eager to bury his face into his hands.

From Danny’s perspective, he simply smacked into the ground and stood back up, but from the other students’ perspectives, Danny fell into the shield but instantly slowed down, looking as though he were falling with the moon’s gravity rather than the earthly speed everyone was used to. It also didn’t really look to them like he had hit the ground, instead glitching his body back into an upright position before cheering in that low slow motion state as he had earlier.

And if that wasn’t damning enough his eyes were glowing a lovely shade of ectoplasmic green.

Wes smirked, seemingly very smug and content with himself and this development. “See told you all he was a ghost!”

“T-that’s enough Mister Weston… Right…” LAncer muttered to himself a few moments watching as Danny seemed to glitch about as he cheered before seemingly realizing something was wrong. “I think there was a procedure to depossess a student…I bet the teachers in Bridgestone don’t have to exercise their students in this manner…” He complains. Sure they had gym class and he would appreciate the pun and irony if he wasn’t so tired.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” he muttered, ignoring the look of panic that spread across Danny’s face.

It took some doing, a lot of flailing limbs and pressing himself against the damn shield, but Danny soon was through back out and free. His eyes still glowed brightly as he stared at his classmates looking very much like a deer in the headlights. Eyeshine and all might he add.

A few of the students were snickering, because only in Amity park could one get possessed by a ghost and have it come across as though someone had merely said something embarrassing or misheard an instruction and was now staring blankly ahead.

“Er….” Danny stared at his classmates half panicked before simply vanishing from view.

“Moby Dick!” Lancer exclaimed, almost dropping the book he was thumbing through from the Fenton parents. Sure it was a ghost, and could potentially be dangerous, but it wasn’t attacking so there wasn’t really anyone panicking.

Instead, the teacher simply felt tired. “Right, I’ll call the Fentons and let them deal with this, Everyone back inside I do believe the lunch bell rang already!” the teacher called out shooing the students into dispersing.

Danny stood there invisibly and holding strong as he internally groaned. At least they thought he was possessed, that could be easily explained away but he was not looking forward to trying to explain it to his parents…

Still maybe if he gets ahead of this…

It was with that thought in mind that he bolted away into the treeline beside the school, transformed and headed off to his home landing in his bedroom only a few minutes later. He went human, back intangible and invisible came out the door, made sure the coast was clear before speeding his way down into the basement.

He just made it down the stairs startling his mother and father who blinked at him curiously, when the phone rang cutting off his mother’s “Honey? What are you doing home so soon?”

“It’s the school calling Mads,” Jack says, sounding disappointed as the large man sent a look of disapproval to his boy.

“Wait!” Danny jumped forward answering the phone and instantly hanging it up.

“Daniel!” His mother exclaimed abashedly.

“I wanna explain first! Do you know how all your stuff goes off on me? Well, the shield at school started doing that and they think I’m possessed! I’m not, it's just the… ya know…” Danny rambled off hurriedly hoping against hope that his parents wouldn’t try to send him to decontamination … again… (Thanks to his ghost half, it burned in places he didn’t ever want to burn)

“You’re possessed Dann-o?!” Jack exclaimed instantly pulling a Fenton gun from somewhere on his person and brandishing it towards his son.

Danny threw his hands up and waved them placatingly at his father. “NO! Just the normal stuff! The contamination from the portal accident set it off. I got too close to the sensor!” He says quickly ignoring how his parents seem to flinch slightly.

His parents shared a look before his father seemed to deflate, seemingly upset at the fact his son wasn’t possessed. “I thought we fixed that... “ Jack says with a frown. “But, we can’t let the school know we may have messed it up! I know we’ll just run the tests again and fix it in the night!”  

“Yeah, that would be- Wait what?” Danny blinks. Why couldn’t they just go down and fix it normally? Of course, his parents had to be weird about this too. “Thanks… Is there anything you need from me to help?”

And with those words said he almost instantly regretted it. “Well… We would really like to know why your ecto signature lines up perfectly with Phantom’s but perhaps that can wait.” Maddie offered with a small amused smile.

Danny sputtered at that, “Wh-What?”

“We set up a monitoring system so we can tell which ghosts most frequent the school… Phantom was the one that triggered the shield twice today. There actually wasn’t anything else that did,” Maddie explained with a deepening frown.

“You sure you’re not possessed, son?” Jack asked again this time sounding almost defeated in how, well, normal a volume he asked that. The hidden meaning was all too obvious especially after he mentioned his accident…

They thought he was dead! The portal killed him! And as the growing pit of dread grew into Danny’s stomach he couldn’t help but feel awful knowing they were correct in that assumption, well at least half right anyhow.

“Yeah… I’m… I’m me…” Danny managed out his voice cracking

“O-oh hun....” Maddie sniffed.

“But it’s not I… I’m me, I promise and I’m not all dead. I still have a heartbeat and everything!” Danny argued or rather tried to as his mother was quick to kneel before him taking his face in her hands as tears bubbled down her chin.

“Mom really I’m like … half at most. More human with a side of ghostly abilities ya know?”

“Oh, it’s okay Dann-o… You're still my son, I know ya are. It’s been almost a year since that accident and you’re mostly still you.” Jack said. “Just worse grades and more hormones and-”

“Thanks, guys really,” Danny sighed in relief both at dodging the potentially awkward birds and ghostly bees talk as well as the tepid acceptance he was getting. Awkward though it may be it was still acceptance nonetheless.  He was happy for it just the same.

“Maybe while we work on fixing up the shield to ignore Phantom’s signature you can tell us about some things?” Maddie asked sniffling again as she looked over her son’s face trying her best to hold herself together and not outright bawl at the thought she had killed her youngest child.

“Y-yeah… I’ve been wanting to tell you about this for a while now but, well, ya know…” Danny offered uselessly.

“I think it’s us who should apologize for that, son but maybe we can just all go get some triple chocolate fudge milkshakes and go deal with that shield after dinner?” Jack offered with a smile, ever the one to break up tension.

“Yeah, yeah… that sounds good.” Danny agreed. Well, it wasn't how he was expecting this to go, but he was kinda glad it ended up like this. Maybe now they could repair their strained relationship.

As Maddie ruffled up Danny’s hair the teen offered her his first genuine smile in almost a year.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Total words: 4245 Complete

[mischiefandspirits]

Doppelgänger (18/19)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Reign Storm, Part 4}

“Another day, another night of trying to catch as many ghosts as we can before curfew,” Tucker groaned as the trio made their way to Danny’s bedroom.

“At least we managed to hide the Ecto-Skeleton in the fold before Vlad could take it,” Sam said.

“Plus Val is keeping up the truce for now and Jazz is covering for us,” Danny added.

“Yeah, and how long until Val turns her weapons back on us or Jazz decides to stick her nose in our business?” Sam muttered.

Danny opened his door. “She -”

The three stared at the room that very much was not Danny’s room. They looked behind them to see the green sky of the Ghost Zone with gears floating through it. They were standing on an island that housed a tall tower in the shape of a grandfather clock.

“Uh…”

“We’re not going to get anything caught tonight, are we?” Tucker sighed.

Sam pushed past her partners and stomped into the tower. “Alright you stupid ghost kidnapper, what do you want?”

No one answered and the boys followed her further into the tower.

They kept an eye out for whatever ghost had teleported them there, but the only movement was coming from the spinning gears that were everywhere or the circular screens scattered about.

Danny’s eyes caught on three that were side by side and he gasped.

The first was labeled Future: Ten Years and showed a ghost in the form of a young woman. She had pale teal skin and white hair, though her hair was a white vapor that flowed around her head and shoulders. She wore a floor-length black dress that was slit on the right side high on her thigh. She also had a white belt, thigh-high high-heeled boots, and elbow-length gloves. Her dress had an S-logo on her skirt that looked like claw marks as well as a long white cape with a black lining. She was draped over a dead tree in what appeared to be a destroyed city like it was a throne, smirking as a military group fled from the bright green void rapidly growing beneath her with every similarly colored tear that dripped from her dark gold eyes.

“Is that…” Danny started and the two followed his gaze.

“Me?” Sam said.

“Why do you have Danny’s Spectral Void?” Tucker asked.

Danny pointed to the screen next to it.

This one was also labeled Future: Ten Years and featured a destroyed city, but a young man was the ghost featured. He had the same skin and hair color as the woman, but his hair appeared to be thick braids of dripping goo and his eyes were deep violet. He was shirtless and wore dark grey pants with white boots and a large white belt. On the belt was a black buckle with a white T-logo that appeared to be made of lightning. He also wore white bracers on his forearms and a cape to match the woman’s. Cackling, he watched his own military adversaries get pulverized by bright green vines.

“And that would be me with Sam’s Wraith Snare,” Tucker added as they turned to the final screen.

Once more a destroyed city was labeled Future: Ten Years. This time the ghost was flying around as he tossed tanks about and blasted them apart with a bright green sonic attack. He was also a young man with pale teal skin and white hair, though his was made of flames. His eyes were blood red and he had a small goatee. He wore a suit that was primarily black, but with a white pattern on the sleeves that continued down the side of his abdomen. He also had white boots and belt alongside black gloves and the same cape as the two before. On his chest was a wispy white D-logo.

“Which leaves Danny with my Ghostly Wail,” Tucker finished.

“We look so cool,” Danny muttered as he stared up at the screens. When his partners immediately turned to look at him, he quickly added, “Except for the whole being evil thing.”

Sam knocked her shoulder against the smaller boy’s and looked back at the screens. “This… They can’t be us.”

“They aren’t.”

The trio spun around to see a ghost floating behind them.

He at first looked like an old man, but as he spoke he faded into a young child. “At least, not in this life.”

“What do you mean?” Danny asked as the trio readied themselves for a fight.

Instead, the ghost came over to float next to them, his eyes on the screens as he fiddled with the clock on his staff. “In these timelines, only one of you went into the portal in your parents’ lab.”

“Hold on, are you saying that if we hadn’t gone in together, we would have turned evil?” Sam said, eyes narrowed.

“Sometimes.” He hit a button on his staff and the screens changed.

Instead of lounging in a tree, Sam was defending a school bus from a giant hydra ghost. Her skin was a human tone only a few shades darker than her normal and her eyes were bright green. Her hair was the same as her evil version's, if longer, but her dress and cape had been replaced by black pants and a white crop top with bell sleeves. Green vines wove around her head in a crown of thorns.

Tucker was now facing off against what appeared to be a Skulker-Technus hybrid. His eyes were the same shade as Good Future Sam’s and his hair had remained the same as evil Tucker's while his skin was a darker human brown. His cape had been swapped out for a black muscle shirt and silver Egyptian-style necklace. Likewise, his bracers had been swapped out with silver vambraces with glittering green hieroglyphs engraved into them.

Good Future Danny was laughing as he dove around the attacks of a ghost that seemed to be composed entirely of the night sky except for a ram horn helmet. He also had skin similar to his human form’s and bright green eyes. His hair was shorter than his evil version’s had been, but just as fiery. His suit was now white with dark green diagonal designs. His boots, belt, and gloves were all black and he was the only one to still have a cape, though this one was made of white fur. There were also horns made of ice curling out of his hair.

“Sometimes you choose the right path,” the clock ghost said, aging up into an adult.

“I have horns!” Danny whispered.

“You’re getting way too into this,” Tucker said, nudging his side.

“Mind telling us why you brought us here?” Sam asked.

The ghost hummed and their evil versions took the screens again. “Individually, the three of you have the power to bring untold devastation to the Ghost Zone and wipe humanity from the face of the Earth.” He turned to them, fading back into an old man. “What do you think you could do together?”

The trio blanched and Sam shook her head. “That wouldn’t happen.”

“Wouldn’t it? Why not? It happens in other timelines.”

“So what? You brought us here to tell us we’re going to turn evil and destroy the world? Thanks. We’re leaving now.”

“I’ve brought you here to give you a warning,” the ghost said, focus completely on his staff and not the fuming halfa. He aged down to a child and continued, “Those who command me do not peer into the alternate times often and I have worked hard so that they should not see these, but that effort will not last forever. Should something not change, they will discover these chances and label you all too much of a risk. When that happens, I will be charged with the task of eliminating your future.”

“So you’re going to try to kill us in the future, good to know,” Sam said.

Tucker grabbed his partners as they both stepped forward to fight. “You said you were warning us, that something could change so you wouldn’t have to kill us. Could you tell us what that something is?”

He smirked.

The trio blinked and they were in Danny’s room.

“Is that a no?” Tucker asked.

“That ghost better not show his face again,” Sam huffed and tossed her backpack into the corner.

“Uh, guys,” Danny said and held up his hand.

Wrapped around his wrist was a watch he’d never seen before. It had a white square case and face with navy asteroids taking the place of the numbers and icy blue comets acting as hands. The band was white nylon with black constellations stitched in. On the watch’s crown, the letters W and C were interwoven together in navy.

“I think he left me a gift.”

His partners looked down to see similar watches on their own wrists.

Sam’s had a black ceramic band and case with a silver paint splatter design overtop. The face was round and violet with a silver spiderweb design that black spiders crawled across in the place of hands. The WC logo was also on its crown, in violet.

Tucker’s watch, unlike the other two’s, was digital. It had a silver rectangular face and case with white glowing numerals over a green old-school bezier screensaver. The band was grey silicone with white pixel hearts decorating it. The WC logo was on the button on the side in green.

Sam growled and tried to remove it, to no avail. There was no buckle and the band wouldn’t break. She could not phase through it or have it phase through her either. She transformed and while the watch didn’t leave, it did change.

The case was now a golden-brown and shaped like a gear. The face was black with traditional hands and numbers in electric blue. The WC logo was at the center of the face while the band was a dark metal.

It proved to be just as impossible to remove in this form and also appeared to be indestructible considering the small ecto-beam she shot at it did nothing.

The boys just watched her antics, though Danny did stop her from trying to shoot a larger beam at it (and therefore her arm) while Tucker transformed to see if his would change as well.

It matched hers perfectly in ghost form.

“He’s trying to turn us evil,” the two hissed.

“I really don’t think he is,” Danny said, rubbing Sam’s arms.

“It’s turning us evil.”

“You’re just upset.”

“We’re going to burn his tower to the ground. You know, he probably should have seen this coming if he can see into the future so he probably deserves it.”

“You’re not helping, Tuck.”

Tucker shrugged.

“Guess we’ve got some research to do now. On top of everything else we’ve still gotta do. To. The. Ground.”

{Identity Crisis, Part 1}

“What are you guys doing?” Jazz asked as she came into Danny’s room to see the trio curled up together on his bed with a book each.

“We finally caught all the ghosts that escaped,” Danny said. “Well, the ones worth catching at least.”

“Ones worth catching?”

“The ones who cause problems,” Tucker explained. “There are some ghosts we leave alone as long as they keep out of trouble. Like Poindexter’s cool and Johnny and Kitty are fine as long as they aren’t fighting with each other. We also made a deal with Ember since she got a gig at a bar downtown; as long as she doesn’t brainwash anyone she can stay.”

“There are also those that aren’t worth the time, like the Box Ghost,” Sam said. “We can leave him to your parents or Valerie.”

“Valerie doesn’t even bother with Boxy anymore,” Danny added.

“I think he’s got a job with a moving company now,” Tucker muttered. “Either that or they’re just using him as a mascot.”

“Anyways, we got everyone accounted for so we’ve got a ghost-free weekend to do some research on that clock ghost that kidnapped us,” Danny said.

Jazz frowned. “So the three of you are going to spend the whole weekend here, together, alone.”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, basically.”

“Until we find what we need to get these stupid watches off.”

She sighed and walked over to take their books.

“Hey!” they said together.

“You three need a break after the last couple weeks of insanity. That means no ghosts, no Doppelgänger, and most importantly, no each other.”

“What? Why?” they asked and she gave them a look.

“I kind of get the ghost part, but why no each other?” Danny asked.

“When was the last time you three spent more than twenty-four hours apart?”

“I went to some gala in California with my parents two weeks ago,” Sam said pointedly.

“And Tucker sent the whole weekend here playing video games. I’m asking about all three of you spending more than a day apart.”

The three frowned, staring at nothing.

Jazz gave them a moment, then nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

They shared a look.

“Well, the computer club was having a camp this weekend,” Tucker said.

“It’d be nice to spend the weekend with Val,” Danny offered.

“There is a sale at Skulk and Lurk this weekend,” Sam sighed.

“There you go then.” Jazz dropped the books onto Danny’s desk and pointed to the door. “Out.”

“You know, you’re his sister, not ours,” Sam muttered, but she and Tucker said their goodbyes and left.

Danny threw a pillow at his sister and grabbed his phone. “Why are you so bossy?”

“It’s not healthy to spend so much time around your partners. Especially considering your interwoven minds. It won’t hurt you to be apart now and then.”

“Yeah, yeah, now get out so I can text Val.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, it’s Tucker, right?”

Tucker looked up to see a freshman he vaguely recognized standing over him. “Uh, yeah. You’re… Kira?”

“Kiran. Kiran Rizvi.”

“Right, sorry.” Tucker held his hand out to shake and looked over the freshman.

They were cute. Androdygenous, if leaning masculine, with rich brown skin. They looked like they were on the thinner side, but it was hard to tell with their baggy yellow hoodie. They had short black hair and a round face with bright green eyes.

Tucker put on a flirty smile, even as they ignored his hand and put their own on their chest. “Tucker Foley. So, you’re into computers then, Kiran?”

They shrugged and sat down next to him. “I’m more into computer games, but I wanted to learn how to build my own PC so I’ve been learning all I can. The computer I’ve got lags constantly, but I don’t have the money to buy a gaming PC.”

“Who does?” Tucker snorted. Well, Sam did, but even she knew the benefits of building over buying. “My partner introduced me to this company that’s got quality gear at good prices. Doomed never ran so smooth!”

“You play Doomed too? Did you see the new expansion pass?” Kiran said excitedly.

“The Netherworlds or the expanded Pride Armor selection?”

“I was talking about the Netherworlds but oh my gosh, the Pride Armor pack was great! Even if the stealth aspects are absolutely awful.”

“If there’s ever a reason to wish to be ace, it's when you’re running around in neon yellow, pink, and blue,” Tucker sighed.

“That sucks. At least my armor’s got some black and purple in it to balance out the yellow and white,” they chuckled and Tucker swooned.

Wow, they’re pretty when they laugh.

“Have you seen some of the designs online people have done for stealth versions of the armor?”

“Wh-Oh, yeah,” Tucker said, snapping himself out of it. “Yeah, my partner posted some she did of the Ace-Spec gear on her blog. I’ve been trying to work it into a mod for her for her birthday.”

“No way! Can I see?” they asked, leaning closer, and Tucker smiled.

“Yeah, sure.” He turned back to his laptop and tried to bring up the file, but it slowed down as he tried. “Crud, right, I forgot I was in the middle of fixing that.”

“What’s wrong?”

“This is my old one. I’ve been trying to fix it up to sell. Everything seems okay. I think there’s just some excess data in the cache slowing it down. I was just about to empty it when you came up.” He started the process then pulled out his phone to bring up the designs he was working on.

“There’s pizza in the other room,” the computer teacher, Mr. Göbel, called as he poked his head into the classroom.

Tucker and Kiran joined the rest of the club heading out of the room as Kiran looked over the designs and begged Tucker to send them the mod when he finished it.

A few moments later, an abandoned laptop began to glow before flying out the window.

[ecto-american]

If Found Please Return to Danny Phantom

Phic Phight Oneshot for @imperfection-at-itsfinest: When Jack manages to get his hands on Danny Phantom's ghost hunting logbook, an investigation reveals some information about ghosts and the infamous specter himself that a scientific study would never cover.

Read on FFN and AO3

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It would be wrong of him to read it. 

Jack kept staring at the book in his hands. It resembled a diary, the front design being colorless but a pressed design. The moon with stars, with no words, and the diary itself felt unusually thin. There was no lock, as if it was almost inviting him to just read it. Jack had, in fact, already opened to the first page, and the first words greeted him. In a standard font read: If Found, Please Return to: and the name scrawled, in surprisingly tidy handwriting, was the name Danny Phantom.

What an absolute find. It was pure dumb luck. He had seen Phantom drop it, but Jack had went looking for it in hopes that the ghost teen had dropped one of the stolen Fenton gadgets. Only to recover...this book that he had taken home and into the privacy of his lab for study.

The idea of Phantom keeping a diary was kinda funny. He never struck Jack as the type to write down his deepest darkest secrets or teenage embarrassments in a book. That would imply that the ghost had some kind of emotions. They didn’t. They were blobs of ectoplasmic energy.

So it should be okay for him to read, right? Why was he so hesitant? Well...it was an invasion of privacy. But it was fine. Phantom dropped it in the park. Phantom was a menace to society. There was likely evidence in this journal that could explain all of the ghost boy’s terrible deeds, that could prove that he truly was evil. This diary could change everything.

...Jack had children though, and he knew both were avidly creative. Scrapbooking, drawing, painting, writing. They were stress outlets for his girls, and he wouldn’t ever dare dream of invading their privacy like that. So he couldn’t. He shouldn’t. Phantom deserved privacy, right?

“Jack? Are you coming to dinner?” Maddie’s voice snapped him from his thought process. She hadn’t made a noise as she came down the stairs. But Maddie was a much better stealth hunter than him.

“Yes, yes! Sorry, I was distracted,” Jack apologized. He set the book down on the table. Maddie rose an eyebrow at him.

“Did you get a new ectobiology book?” she asked. His eyes glanced to the book, and he shook his head no. Maddie came over to him, studying the book cover. Of course, it didn’t resemble any of the scientific texts that they owned. 

“I don’t know how to explain it…” Jack said slowly. He held it out to her. Maddie accepted it.

“This looks like it belongs to the kids,” she stated. She opened the first page, and Jack saw her eyes widen. Her breath hitched, and she looked up to him “Jack...where did you...get this?”

“He dropped it during a fight,” he replied. “I thought it was Fenton tech, but…”

Her eyes sparkled, and she shut the book. A wide grin had appeared, and she threw her arms around her husband.

“Oh Jack! This could teach us so much! If this really is a journal or some kind of diary, then he may have recorded motivations! Thoughts! We can really get into how Phantom thinks and a raw, honest, firsthand account from Phantom himself! This changes everything!”

She was right. She was absolutely right, and he hugged her back. They were scientists first and foremost, and this journal could fill in so many missing blanks about ghosts. It was a starting off point. Jack’s mind raced with all the things they could possibly learn. Just from a simple peek of the book. That was worth more than the invasion of privacy of a ghost that caused so much havoc, destruction and pain. 

“We should look at it right now!” he exclaimed. Maddie pulled away with a small frown.

“After dinner,” she reminded him. “I finally got everybody corralled upstairs for a family dinner. It’s nearly impossible to get either of the girls at the same time.”

“Oh, right!” Jack nearly slapped his forehead. Yes, they were scientists first and foremost, but before even that, they were Mom and Dad. “First thing after dinner.”

“First thing after dinner,” she agreed with a smile. 

Upstairs, he saw that Jazz was already serving herself. Chicken, mashed potatoes and peas. His youngest was pouring iced tea into glasses for everybody. 

“Hey Ghost-kateers!” Jack greeted cheerfully with a grin. Both kids groaned in embarrassment. Perfect. 

“Daaad!” his youngest complained, a whine hitching as she put the pitcher of ice tea back. “I told you, if I’m going to be some kind of ye olde soldier type, I wanna be a knight, like at the renaissance fair.” 

“Ah, but if you’re a ghost-kateer, you can get an anti-ghost musket!” Jack teased. As he walked past her to get his own food, he playfully ruffled her pixie-cut hair. She waved his hand away. 

“But as a ghost knight, I can get a cool sword!” she protested. Jack shook his head in fake disappointment. 

“Never bring to a ghost sword to a ghost musket fight, baby boo,” her dad replied.

“Can’t shoot what you can’t see!” she shot back with a grin. Jack had to hand it to her, and he just chuckled. 

“Can we please have a ghost free dinner?” Jazz scowled. 

“Yes, yes, let’s save ghosts for after dinner,” Maddie agreed. Jazz shot her a grateful look, and Jack focused on getting his serving of dinner from the stove. His youngest pushed her sleeves up, exhaling. Jack stole a look at her and frowned. She had some sweat collected on her forehead.

“Honey if you're hot, you can just take your sweatshirt off,” he told her. She shook her head no.

“No, I'm fine,” she insisted. Jack was skeptical.

“You sure?” he asked. 

“Mhm!” 

Jack shrugged a bit. She was always insisting on wearing a hoodie, no matter the weather. If she got hot enough, she’d take it off. No need to force it. He got his food and took his seat.

“How's school going?” Maddie questioned. Jazz lit up a bit, and her sister flinched. She raised a suspicious eyebrow at her youngest.

“I managed to get a B on my chemistry test,” the youngest spoke up with a forced smile.

“That’s excellent!” Maddie’s demeanor shifted as she smiled warmly. “Keep it up!” 

“Yeah!” The youngest seemed to visibly relax. “Sam’s been helping me study.”

“That’s good, I always studied better when V-man or your mom helped me,” Jack nodded at her as he cut up his chicken. 

“Oh it’s true, I used to help your father study for all of our shared classes,” Maddie confirmed. “Otherwise he’d get so distracted.”

“Yeah, Sam just explains it super well,” their daughter agreed. “Tucker’s been going over math with me a bit, which helps some.”

“Well if you need a tutor, just let us know, and we’ll help you arrange one,” Maddie smiled. “What about you, Jazz?”

“Pretty good,” she replied. “Mr. Lancer asked if I wanted to be his TA this summer, which I really do. It’ll look good on a college application, and I might even get paid!”

“Have you been narrowing down where you might wanna go?” Jack asked. Jazz eagerly nodded.

“Yeah! Oxford is my number one choice, but I also would love to go to Yale or Stanford. I’ve been talking with the college counselor about what else might look good on an application for them that I can do over the summer. I wrote them down in my planner notebook earlier-”

“Hey, that kinda reminds me,” her sister interrupted. “Have you guys seen one of my notebooks? I think I lost it,” she asked them. Jack stared at her. The reminder of the notebook he actually had found. Maddie seemed unbothered by the question. This wasn’t unusual, for the parents to have to play “where’s my stuff?” with the kids. 

“What notebook?” Jazz asked hesitantly. 

“My important one,” came the reply. Jazz frowned lightly. 

“Sorry, princess, haven’t seen any notebooks laying around,” Jack replied. He saw the briefest of a cringe cross his youngest’s features. “Did you leave it at school?” Her shoulders slumped.

“I don’t think so?” she said hesitantly. “I’ll have to check tomorrow. I was so sure I had it earlier…” Her voice trailed off before she forced a smile. “If you see it, let me know!” She picked up a forkful of chicken, only to freeze. The clattering made Jack glance up curiously as she was turning her attention to Maddie. “Can I be excused? I have some homework to get done.” 

Maddie let out a soft sigh. So much for family dinner.

“Of course, just make sure you come back down before you go to bed to get your chores done,” Maddie nodded at her. The young Fenton snapped to her feet with a thanks, fully abandoning her dinner as she went to the stairs. Jazz stared after her sister, craning her neck to track her movements before hurriedly shoveling more mashed potatoes in her mouth.

“Uh, I’m not that hungry, and I totally forgot to do this online assignment,” Jazz spoke, standing up, taking hers and her sister’s plate. She was already walking away before either parent could truly give permission. “I’ll put our plates up and clean up in a bit!”

“A-alright?” Jack hesitated, watching his other child put the plates on the counter before rushing up as well. Another child down. They seemed to grow up so fast. 

“Least they’re doing homework,” Maddie sighed lightly, shaking her head before taking a drink of her tea. “Oh well. Might as well take their lead and eat in the lab?” 

“Please,” Jack agreed. He stood up, taking his plate. “I’m dying to see what Phantom has to say.”

January 10

Skulker: 1; captured

Ectopuss: 1; captured

Box Ghost: 8; captured

Ember: Fought; got away

Fenton Thermos: half-full

Fenton Fisher: untangled

January 11

Vultures: 1; got away

Cujo: 1; played fetch and he went back to the GZ

Fenton Thermos: Full

Ghost Bazooka: overheated and doesn’t shoot anymore, take apart and fix it

January 12

Skulker: 2; got away

Box Ghost: 3; captured

Sidney: 2; got away

Fenton Fisher: tangled, untangle asap

January 13

Skulker: 1; captured

Box Ghost: 4; got away

Fenton Thermos: damaged, won’t suck up ghosts

I met a new ghost today named Desiree. She got away, but it allowed me to discover a new ghost power. Ghost ray.

Maddie furrowed her brow as she studied the words. She stood at the table, her dinner half-forgotten as she thought on the words.

“It sounds like a record,” Jack mused, and he ate another spoonful of peas. Maddie nodded in agreement.

“I think we found Phantom’s logbook,” she agreed. “I’m assuming these are the ghosts he’s fought. And he seems to be recording his powers too. This is huge, we can match up what we know about his powers and what he’s claiming.”

“And he’s recording the status of our equipment.” Jack frowned. “Why would he care?”

“Yeah, he made note that he was going to fix the Fenton Bazooka too,” Maddie pointed out. The scientist flipped through the pages, only to stop at a page, staring curiously. Maddie laid the journal on the table, pressing the spine so that the pages stayed open. She read the page aloud to Jack.

December 19

I hate my life. I hate this existence. I look in the mirror and wonder why it has to be this way. Why am I the one cursed to be this freak? Why is everything about me and my body wrong? For once, I wish something about me was normal, that somebody about me could be right. If Desiree wasn’t such an unreliable asshole with wishes, I’d give everything I have to wish that life could, for once, allow me to be a normal teenage boy. 

Jack listened to her in a stumped silence. This couldn’t have been a pre-death thought process of a moody teenager. It was written too recently, and the words hit a sorrowful chord to him. He didn’t intend to, but he quickly began to feel sorry for Phantom. He was very young. It couldn’t have been easy to lose everything at that age. His daughter was his age. Jack cleared his throat.

“It’s not just a log then?” Jack questioned. Maddie shook her head, flipping the pages back.

“No, I think it’s a mix. There’s still records of ghosts and FentonWorks equipment,” she replied. Using a leg, she pulled a wheeled chair to her to sit in. She leaned back, and she pulled the journal to her. After a moment of flipping through and scanning pages, she settled on a page about a third of the way through. “It seems like this is when he began to record things other than just ghosts.”

“What’s it say?” Jack wondered. Maddie read aloud the next few entries as Jack silently continued to eat. 

April 4

I only fought this shitty panther today, and he still got away. I’m such a fucking idiot. I can’t believe he got away. I was too slow. All I do is fuck up. There’s ghostly activity happening around the school, and I just can’t figure it out. I feel like I can’t stop them anymore. I don’t know what’s going on, why I suddenly suck so much. I honestly probably just always sucked, and now it’s starting to hit me. [scribbles] and [scribbles] were trying to make me feel better, but I fucked up. It was only one ghost today, and I couldn’t catch them. It destroyed an entire store, and it’s my fault.

April 8

No ghosts today, surprisingly. But [scribbles] has been acting weird lately. The other day she poked and prodded me at dinner. No clue what that’s about. She also tried to give me this speech that I can talk to her about anything, and that she’d love me no matter what. That makes me think she found my binder. I’m honestly kinda freaking out. I knew I shouldn’t have left it out like that. She’s such a nosy know it all.

“Phantom must keep more records than just this,” Maddie lightly mused. “He has an entire binder full of information that somebody discovered.”

“Maybe on other ghosts?” Jack theorized. “He’s recording his fights, he must be also recording information about them.” Maddie’s eyes lit up.

“That makes so much sense,” she agreed. “He probably keeps so many kinds of things written down and logged. I wonder where he’s keeping it? Obviously paper, which is a bit odd. I figured a teenager would move to the digital age…” Maddie paused.

“Maybe he’s older than we think he is?” Jack suggested. “He could have died fifty years ago, and just be more comfortable with writing things down.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Maddie mused. She put down the notebook to take a long sip of her drink. Jack picked it up to observe the page she read.

“Phantom has neat handwriting,” he noted. “He’s not fighting ghosts when he writes these.” Jack’s eyes scanned the words. “...I wonder who he’s scribbled out.”

“Allies?” Maddie shrugged. “He probably went back and blacked out some of the names. Privacy. Especially if this isn’t the first time he’s lost this.”

It made the most logical sense. Jack skipped the purely log entries to one that had more written, and he read it aloud to his wife.

April 10

She was feeding on us. Spectra, the Casper High “psychologist” was feeding on emotions, like some kind of emotional vampire but she’s a ghost. It’s so scary. I saw her do it. She asked [scribbles] and [scribbles] about their lives. What made them unhappy, and why. And when they left, I saw her absorb? I guess how I’d describe it? She absorbed the energy into her skin and it just seemed to instantly revive her, and it made her happy. When she did it to me, I could just look in her eyes and know that she enjoyed every minute of my misery. I managed to stop her, with [scribbles] helping me. It was weird. She didn’t seem afraid of me. I don’t know why. 

Spectra: 2; captured

“Ghosts can feed off of energy!” Maddie exclaimed. “Human energy! We always suspected it, but this is confirming something!” Jack glanced up at her excitedly. It was the first real, true ghostly discovery that Phantom was revealing to them. 

April 13

All I do is fuck up lately. Because of me, this ghost dog just absolutely has been causing havoc on this girl’s life. She blames me. And I don’t blame her. I ruined her entire life. She lost her house because of me. I didn’t mean to. I tried to stop the dog, but he just won’t respond to anything I say. I can’t capture him. I’ve been trying. I’ve been just calling the dog Cujo. After the Stephen King book, because damn is this dog giving me one fucking nightmare of a time.

Cujo: 3, got away

April 16

[scribbles] kissed me. It was to force me to change back, and it worked, but she kissed me. It was great. She smelled like lavender. I don’t think my heart’s ever beaten so fast. Afterwards she clarified to me that it was just a fake-out make-out. It didn’t feel like it. I don’t want it to be. But she’s my best friend, and I can’t lose her. So I agreed, and when I came home I cried. My dad caught me, and I pretended it was just girl problems, even though that excuse made me feel even worse. He got me some ice cream, and we watched Star Trek together. It didn’t really help that much, if I’m being honest. 

Anyway, apparently Cujo’s trained. He knows his commands. [scribbles] thinks it’s because he was a guard dog when he was alive for Axion Labs. For a guard dog, he’s such a playful puppy though, he loves his squeaky toy. And [scribbles] became a hunter specifically to kick my ass. It’s my lucky month. But I deserve it. Will there ever be a day where I actually can do more good than bad?

Skulker: 1; captured

[Scribbles]: 1 Red Huntress

Cujo: 1, got away

“Phantom has a family?” Maddie wondered. She chewed on her food as she thought. Jack shrugged, an odd, unsettled feeling hitting him as he put the book down for a moment. He used his spoon to push around his peas.

“I mean, we all do,” Jack reminded her. “Just...I didn’t think Phantom still talked to his family. After his death. Or did such...non-ghost things with them.” Watching Star Trek with his dad? Jack did that with his own kids all the time. It was his and his youngest daughter’s favorite show to watch together. Jazz typically preferred documentary series, and Maddie was too bothered by scientific inaccuracies to really enjoy science fiction. So it was always “their thing” and knowing that Phantom did it too was...too human. 

“Yeah, I didn’t...really expect him to still be haunting them,” Maddie said. Jack could tell that this was disturbing her a little. 

“But ghosts can retain their memories from life it seems,” Jack spoke up. Maddie stared at him. “The dog remembers commands from his life as a guard dog. What extent, I’m not sure.” Maddie hummed curiously.

Jack picked the book up again, skipping through more boring logs to other words. 

April 29

Ember: 2; captured

Fenton Thermos: full, empty

The past few weeks have been terrible. I have definitely come to the conclusion that I really am developing a crush on [scribbles]. Or maybe I always had one, I dunno. Is this really just an effect from Ember’s supposed spell? Does ghostly mind control really last? I think I always knew that I liked her though. I mean, ever since I told her that [scribbles], she’s been so supportive. She even cut my hair for me, which really pissed my parents off, but they ended up admitting that I looked better with my hair short anyway. Almost like it’s meant to be, huh? Ha. [scribbles] is also one of the only two people who know my deeper secret. She’s been so supportive through that too. She calls me Danny, and every time she refers to me as that, it makes my heart go crazy.

But would she even like me? Would she even wanna be with somebody like me? I don’t think I’d be her type. Some other friends I met at this local support group have complained about the struggles of dating. The stories are depressing, and it makes me worried that while [scribbles] will always love and accept me as a friend, that she’d never be able to love me as a boyfriend. I hate my life.

“Aw, Phantom has a little girlfriend,” Jack half-joked, only for goosebumps to raise and an odd chill run down his spine. He looked to Maddie for her opinion, and her face was scrunched up.

“That’s a bit creepy,” she commented. “He’s pretending to be human.”

“I dunno, Mads,” Jack shrugged. He re-read the ghostly teen’s internal conflicts. “Why would he pretend to be human in a journal that nobody’s meant to read?”

“He has to be sharing it with his allies,” she argued. “Those people he’s been scribbling out. Phantom has to be pretending for them. To keep them around. He even mentioned ghostly mind control.” 

She pushed her mostly-finished plate from herself, motioning for Jack to hand over the journal. He complied, and Maddie flipped through it. She stopped, and she set the journal down on the table once more. Leaning over, she studied the spine. A finger ran along the inner spine, and she frowned.

“Pages are missing,” she noticed. Jack pushed his plate out of the way to lean over as well.

Indeed, the top of the diary revealed that it was meant to be a normal, full diary. Now that Maddie pointed it out, it looked like well over a fourth of the diary had missing pages. Jack squinted, pulling his hood over his eyes. He used his googles to better examine.

“They weren’t ripped out, like in a ghost fight,” Jack told her. He pointed to what remained of a page, a barely noticeable strip. “It was carefully cut out.” Maddie narrowed her eyes to get a better look.

“You’re right,” she mused. “Phantom did this purposefully. Probably to hide stuff from his allies.”

“But why hide some stuff and not others?” Jack wondered aloud. “Clearly this girlfriend figure is an ally, but he can’t be...sharing this with her, right?” Maddie pulled back from the notebook to lean in her chair with a heavy sigh.

“...I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t think he would. But he’s also a ghost, they do weird things.” Jack didn’t know how to reply, and so he continued to read.

May 16

The past few days have been so full of drama. Walker ruined my life. He absolutely ruined it. He set out to make me the most hated person in Amity Park out of pure spite, and he succeeded. I’m public enemy number one. I can never win. For a while now, I had debated telling my parents, because I so desperately want their support, but they were part of the news coverage calling me a disgusting, evil ghost. I ended up crying yesterday. I don’t think they’ll ever truly love me if they knew. I also failed Wulf. Another failure on my plate. I’m just waiting for it to all crash down on me.

Walker: 1; sent to the GZ

Wulf: 1; sent to the GZ

Walker’s goons: at least 14, all captured

Fenton Thermos: overflowingly full

“Oh this is just becoming nonsense,” Maddie complained. “He’s lying. We were there, Jack! We saw him attack us.”

“I know, I know, he did, yeah, he did,” Jack tried to gather his thoughts. “But why would he lie in this? I don’t think anybody was meant to read this?” Jack flipped through the pages. The further he flipped through in, the more he could tell that some sections had more carefully cut out papers than others. Why was Phantom cutting out? What was he hiding? Why was he hiding it?

“He meant for somebody to read this,” Maddie lightly argued. 

“Yeah, it seems like it, but…,” Jack trailed off. He shook his head a bit, flipping back to where they had left off. “I dunno.”

“Hold on a second,” Maddie urged him, standing up. “Let me get something to write with, we should take some notes.”

“We can just use the scanner to make a copy of the journal afterwards, and we can further analyze it afterwards,” Jack suggested. Maddie thought on this, and she nodded, but she still reached for some scrap paper and a pen.

“Good idea, we should probably read through it fully first anyway,” she agreed. “But I still want to jot down some thoughts.”

“Of course, of course,” Jack replied. He knew that’s how she thought and processed information best, and it was always from her notes that he could visualize his own theories properly. He took a drink of tea before he continued reading the next true entry.

May 24

My entire relationship with my other crush (not [scribbles]) was a lie. She was being overshadowed by Kitty the entire time. This was my first real girlfriend, and it was all fake. I had assumed I was so lucky. I found a girl who knew and was okay with both of my biggest secrets. When I got home I ended up just going straight to my room. [scribbles] brought me dinner, but I didn’t feel like eating. Is this what life is going to be for me? I don’t want it to be like this. The only good thing is that [scribbles] doesn’t know either secret alongside our brief relationship.

Least Kitty and Johnny seem happy again. For now at least. I swear, they’re always breaking up and getting back together. 

Kitty: 1; sent back to the GZ

Johnny 13: 1; sent back to the GZ

Shadow: 1; sent back to the GZ

Jack could lightly hear Maddie taking notes on her scrap paper, the pen scratching at the surface. He didn’t comment on it, silently flipping to the next page, and he continued to read. 

August 19

I was forced to really face the reality of how much I fucked up [scribbles] life. I hate it. I’d do anything to take it back. It makes me wonder if I should just retire. Am I even really doing anything to help? Am I just a nuisance? Everybody thinks that. 

Rationally I know I can’t. I’m the only one who can properly deal with the ghosts, who has the power and abilities to fight back without getting killed. I have to do what I can, but I just wish I could do it without making so many mistakes. [scribbles] said that it’ll be okay, and that it gets better, but it sure doesn’t fucking feel like it.

Skulker: 3; finished

Red Huntress: 2; temporary truce?

“He’s so full of...emotion for a ghost,” Maddie finally spoke up. 

Jack glanced at the paper she had in front of her. There was some notes of what they had been learning so far, and there were emotions written in all caps with a line under, and a list of various emotions. Emotions Phantom seemed to be displaying. Guilty, despair, loneliness, self-hatred, self-doubt. Despite the few entries, it was already quite a list.

“It’s not just him either,” Maddie continued. Jack rose an eyebrow at her. She didn’t immediately reply, fingers on her lips as she stared down at the journal. “He’s giving emotions to other ghosts too.”

Jack stared down blankly at the journal in his hands. 

“Where?”

Maddie began to write, and as she wrote, it clicked. Spectra’s joy in hurting others. Kitty and Johnny’s relationship. Walker’s spite. Cujo being a playful puppy. According to Phantom, and against what they knew as scientists, ghosts were experiencing a wide variety of emotions and for different reasons. It was weird. 

Jack continued to read.

October 17

I don’t know what happened the past few days. It’s this weird blur. According to [scribbles] and [scribbles] I did a lot of bad things under Freakshow’s control. [scribbles] hugged me and told me that it was nothing that we couldn’t fix, but I doubt that. Why does this keep happening to me? I don’t want to hurt people. I want to be a good person, and I want to help Amity Park, but I don’t know what keeps happening. Everything’s a fog, and I’m exhausted. 

Freakshow: 1; arrested by APPD

Circus ghosts: freed from Freakshow’s control, went back to the GZ

Replace Fenton Anti-Creep Stick, print out another sticker to put on it

“Freakshow...that was the weird circus guy,” Jack interrupted himself. Maddie nodded.

“Yeah, and if Phantom’s right...he could control the ghosts,” she mused. “So there’s a way for humans to take control of ghosts...That’s something to look into. If we can control the ghosts into staying away, it’d be such a massive scientific breakthrough.”

“We should look into Freakshow more, and see if we can talk to him!” Jack agreed. “Maybe he’ll share something with us.” Maddie smiled softly.

“I doubt that,” she replied gently. “But there’s no harm in trying. What else does it say?”

November 8

I have to fight Pariah Dark. I’m terrified. I don’t think I’ll live through it. How can I live through fighting the actual ghost king? I may never see my family again, and I can’t even tell them what happened to me if I die. I’ve been debating telling [scribbles] that I like her, but I don’t think I could bring myself to do it. 

What happens if I die? I have no clue. I’m scared to find out. I can’t die now. I have to make it back. I’ll go missing, and I won’t even be declared dead as my parents’ son. Nobody will know who to really look for. I have to come back. Maybe if I succeed, and people like me again after this, I can tell my family everything.

November 10

I couldn’t tell them. My parents still despise part of me, despite what I’ve done. I know they love me, cause my mom’s already been fussing over me like crazy because of my injuries. [scribbles] said she cried when they couldn’t find me, and that my dad had gone out looking for me all over the city, even in the dangerous parts. They of course love me, but do they really love me unconditionally?

Jack felt his voice trailing off as he hit the end. He coughed lightly, and he took a long drink. Maddie stared off into nothing. The only thing he could think of was his own search for his baby girl. He wasn’t alone, bumping into several other parents desperately looking for their missing children, and several children who got separated from their parents. The entire day was somber and frightening, and Maddie had spent the entire day glued to the phone. In case she called them. 

It was all...too real, and Jack flipped past more logs. He couldn’t help but begin to take note of how every single day had a log of ghost fighting activities, even if Phantom didn’t write down his feelings every day. This was so much more than the ghost hunting duo ever expected, more attacks than they were recording.

His eyes rested only for a moment on December 19, and he decided to just skip it. They had already read it earlier. No need to refresh those memories. More logs, and more missing pages, and he came upon another one. 

March 26

I ripped out a lot of pages, more than I intended. I can’t risk anybody finding out what happened, but also other pages revealed too much, so I kept them tucked away where nobody could ever find them. I’d burn them, but I don’t want to lose the ghost hunting data. It’s okay now. I fixed the problem and assured that everything’s going to be fine. Possibly better. I made the right choice this time, and now I know that one day, I will grow a sick beard. 

I know somebody knows my secrets now. All of them. She had known for months but wanted me to tell her. She asked me if I had a name, and ever since I told her that it was Danny, she’s been calling me that whenever she can. It made me cry the first time. It’s so great to have her know everything now. She loves me no matter what. I couldn’t ask for a better person. Even though she found out because I’m an idiot. This entire thing also made me realize how important it is to keep those secrets, and how poorly I’ve been keeping them. 

I didn’t ever mean for this to turn into a diary. I wanted to keep track of ghost fights. But it honestly helps with both the dysphoria and the stresses of being a ghost. I just went back and scribbled out names. Just in case. In the future I need to be more vague. 

But this is also the end for one secret. If things go wrong then well. I don’t know. I’ll make it up as I go along. But I know that this is who I am, and that I’m hitting a point where I need help to just be me. 

Him: 1; captured for good

Skulker: 2; captured

Desiree: 1; captured

Ectopusses: 1; captured

Cujo: 1, sent back to the GZ

Fenton Thermos: full

Fenton Anti-Creep Stick: destroyed, get new bat and sticker to put on it

Also learned a new ghost power: Ghostly wail. A scream that can just absolutely fuck somebody’s day up. I have to use it sparingly though.

Jack closed the journal, and he set it flat on the table. His mind was blank, and he couldn’t read Maddie. She continued to stare at the closed book, hand in pen but almost unsure as to what to even jot down as a note. He leaned in his seat, finishing his drink. Maddie exhaled deeply, dropping her pen in favor of stretching.

Neither said a word. Jack knew that this journal was not any kind of trick. It was too raw and emotional to be anything more than the thoughts of a teenage ghost. He regretted reading it. It held some interesting information, and he was sure if he dug deeper, that he would find more. But as it stood, his own intense guilt was settling as he knew that he just took too personal a look into the private emotional afterlife of Phantom.

“This is a lot to take in,” Maddie finally spoke. Jack only nodded.

The basement door opened, and they heard dual pairs of footsteps hop downstairs. Jack instantly brightened, and he turned in his chair to smile as his kids soon came into view.

“Hey, is this a bad time?” Jazz asked. She glanced between them, and Jack immediately shook his head no. 

“No, no,” Maddie replied quickly. Jack saw her push the journal and her notes, along with her pen and a few spare lab tools, carelessly into a drawer to help assure the Fenton kids that they weren’t interrupting anything. “What’s up, sweetie?” 

“Well, I have something that I wanna talk about,” their youngest spoke slowly. Jack noticed that she had finally taken off her hoodie, and that while she wore her normal tomboy attire, that something was a bit off about her. He couldn’t place it. Jazz stood close to her, an arm full of books clutched to her chest, though he couldn’t make out any titles. “It’s something important, and I don’t really want to put it off any longer.”

“Is something wrong? Are you in trouble?” Jack asked. His daughter shook her head no. 

“Oh, no!” she said. “It’s just…” 

She took a deep breath, and soon, their son began to explain.

[datawyrms]

Ectoplasmic Bonds

Dannymay2020 Day 30: Family

“AHA! I have found you, ghost child. You are no match for my peerless intellect!”

This was weird. Not the ranting and dramatic posing in midair, that was just Technus being the weird little boaster he was. The fact he was boasting at a park with no gadgets in sight was the confusing bit. He’d expected the Box ghost or some random animal when his ghost sense rudely interrupted his Saturday, not the tech crazed monologuer. 

“I didn’t know we were playing hide and seek!” His hands glowed green, ready to blast the second his foe made a move. “I know a great place you can hide though!”

“Playing? No, we are not playing hide and seek!” the ghost crossed his arms, almost looking insulted. “We are playing BASIC HEALTH EDUCATION, for your feeble mind is clearly LACKING THIS DATA”

“Uh. What.” Danny blinked, eyebrow raising in bafflement. Blasting the ghost would probably be best, but he hadn’t even taken advantage of his blank stare.

Technus shook his head and tisked at him. “Your cousin let us know about your RECKLESS BEHAVIOUR, ghost child! It is a wonder that you haven’t collapsed!”

“My cou-Dani? Wait why would Dani be buddies with you?” the green glow snuffed out, brain struggling to figure out what was going on. Was it April first? Was this a really complicated distraction plot?

The green skinned ghost tisked again. “By being as reckless as you! Young and thinking you are invincible!”

Well that answered approximately nothing at all. Yet the ghost did seem to be serious, he was getting the distinct impression Technus was scolding him. For something. Maybe he was just having a weird dream. “I still have no idea what you’re babbling about.”

“Your education is LACKLUSTER, child! How can you not know you are starving yourself? You are more a ghost baby than a ghost child!”

“Well excuse me for not getting the ‘ghosts for dummies’ book!” he snapped back, wondering if he should go after the ghost for that baby comment.

“Ah, ah, I am not fighting a half starved toothpick! You put those fists down, child and listen to your elders!”

He was totally scolding him, what the heck. “Ghosts don’t eat, what are you even on about?”

Technus put his face in his hands. “The youth of today! So uneducated!” Yet when he looked back up he just seemed more determined. “Fear is all well and good child, but it is no replacement for ectoplasm! The state of your cousin was appalling!” He seemed to notice how Danny tensed at the mention of ‘cousin’ and continued. “She is FINE thanks to our cardboard enthusiast!”

“Well uh. Thanks for helping her out?”

“It was AVOIDABLE! If you were not so reckless in hanging around over here all the time! Do you WANT to start falling apart from lack of ectoplasm? It is distinctly UNGROOVY”

...Was he actually worried about the two half ghosts? Weird. “Errr no, I would not like to do that, thanks.” He had enough nightmares from just seeing it happen to the other clones.

“Then you must stop AVOIDING returning to the ghost zone! You have not come in over a month! Perhaps exhaustion is a thrill to you, but you take it to RIDICULOUS levels! The cousin was quite WORRIED for you, ghost child!”

Dani had managed to set Technus on him for...not going into the ghost zone. What. That was important? “I don’t think I have to-”

“YOU DO! Do you think ectoplasm will rain from the sky for you here? NUH UH. IT DOES NOT.” He seemed larger,  looming over the teenager as he pointed at him. “You might have a big battery but it will still RUN OUT. Then no more RECKLESS ghost child!”

Why did he feel so embarrassed? Why was he even letting Technus of all people chew him out? “Okay, okay! I get it!”

“GOOD. Puddles are very BORING nemeses!” He glared at the jumpsuited teenager for a moment longer before vanishing, apparently planning to keep his word on a lack of fighting.

He really, really hoped all this was just a very dumb dream. People had definitely seen the encounter, it was pretty hard to overlook two ghosts yelling in a park in the middle of the day. Mom would probably call it proof that all his fights were staged, or something fun like that. Not that the truth of ‘he came to yell at me because I’m bad at being a ghost’ was much better.

Mom’s pondering at the table in the evening shot any hope square in the chest. “I suppose they do look similar, colour scheme wise. I’m not sure it’s any proof of a familial relation though, there’s no real reason for such relationships”

Jack nodded, scratching at his jaw before adding his thoughts. “Maybe new ghosts cling to older ones at first before separating off to do their own thing? Phantom’s got some electricity powers, doesn’t he?”

“He does, they do share the tendency to never stop talking as well, come to think of it.”

It was very difficult to not respond to that remark. He was not the kind of scenery chewer Technus was! This was going to be a looooong night.

“It’s just strange. They’ve never shown to have a friendly relationship before now. If they wanted to take the town for themselves it’d make more sense to let Phantom stay ill.”

“Even ghosts want to protect the young of their species?” Jack frowned “I didn’t think the spook was actually a young spirit though.”

“True. Technus might only call him a child because of his appearance. Yet it did look like a parent scolding a child, didn’t he complain about the youth?”

“Well if we can nab one of em, we can see if they share or have similar ectoplasmic signatures! It could be an instinctive thing if they’re ‘related’ that way.”

Danny worked to suppress a groan, rubbing at his forehead. Great. Now they thought Technus was his ghost dad. All his dated references were going to be way worse now! He so wasn’t like him! The second his friends found out it was going to be their new favourite joke.

-

He never did manage to figure out how to track Dani down, instead getting surprised by her with a tackling hello.

“Does this count as a ghost attack?” he asked, smirking as the the ghost snickered at the question.

“I dono, does it? You aren’t fleeing in terror.”

“Maybe I’m just an out of towner that doesn’t believe in ghosts“

Dani shrugged before landing, taking a few glances around before shifting back to her human form. “Then I guess I’m a ghost that doesn’t believe in ghosts either.”

“New outfit?”

“Yup! And it’s all mine,” her grin was infectious as she grabbed the edge of the thick purple hoodie, fiddling with the dark lining that seemed to have a scattering of stars. “I don’t even feel cold in the zone with this on.”

“You know you don’t have to live in the ghost zone, right? Jazz can probably make up some forgotten branch of the family you’re from, or something.”

“What, and join you in tip toeing around ghost hunters that love and hate you at the same time? No way cuz. If I wanted that, I’d be with Vlad.” she paused with a frown. “Well okay, it was fake love but you get it.”

“Too well.” he shrugged, trying to ignore the rush of irritation from his parents being compared to that absolute fruit loop. “What did you drop by for then? Seeing as you sent Technus after me last time. Which I’m still mad about.”

“Oh you know, catch up with Val, enjoy some sunlight. Nothing big.” she rolled her eyes “I didn’t send him after you! I just mentioned to Boxy how you don’t go to the ghost zone much and I guess he spread it around?”

“Well thanks to that people think Technus is my dad!”

“What, he’s not?” she burst out laughing from the other half ghost’s full body shudder, ducking the half hearted snowball thrown her way.

“Oh you think it’s funny now, just wait until they start saying it about you too.”

“Nope, still funny! Besides, I already got a ghost dad.”

“You what.” he stared, but she didn’t seem to be kidding. 

“Well after the whole Boxy making sure I didn’t drop dead from lack of ectoplasm thing a lot of ghosts kinda felt bad for me?” the dismissive wave of her hand seemed a bit forced. “Way easier to deal with over there than with humans. They knew I didn’t really have a place that was mine so they let me stick around for awhile.”

“I guess that was nice of them. You sure it isn’t some trick?”

“You worry too much cuz. You really think I wouldn’t have been super suspicious at first? Already did that once!” her glare made him blush, rubbing the back of his neck. Stupid question, of course she’d be careful after Vlad. “Being a clone with no papers is way easier in the ghost zone, so spending most of my time there just makes sense.”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” He couldn’t imagine wanting to live in that green chaotic world, but he actually had a decent amount going for him on this side. Dani...didn’t.

“So yeah, basically got adopted by Nocturn. He helped me figure out the design, it’s reversible.”

“Wait wait NOCTURN? The guy who tried to put everyone to sleep to take over the world? That one?!” he sputtered, only causing his clone to laugh again.

“Yeah? Everyone likes to try and see how powerful they can be sometimes, did you take it personally?”

“Yeah a little! People could have been hurt! And he dumped me on a random rock in the ghost zone! Then tried to kill me!”

“Everyone tries to kill you.”

“Like that makes it better?! He’s a nutcase!”

“Or maybe you’ve only actually met him once? Everyone wants to try messing with Amity Park at one point. It’s just a thing to try, since you never really seriously hurt anyone.”

“Now you make it sound like the ghost attacks are my fault.” he muttered, quickly realizing Dani didn’t care if he wasn’t exactly a fan of the dream ghost.

“Well they’d come anyway because the human world is cool. Some of them are totally only coming to try stealing the town from you though, sorry cuz.” she shrugged again “Oh! Noc’s pretty impressed by your ice attacks by the way, but he’s still pretty sure Frostbite could help with a few things.”

She nicknamed him! “Noted. Uh. Maybe tell him not to do the whole take over the world and kill me thing again?”

“He won’t. One, I consider you family. Two, watching and learning from dreams is more his thing. The take over the world bit was more of a ‘sure why not give it a go’.”

She seemed so relaxed, even while his mind was yelling that she couldn’t be safe around a ghost like that. Yet she was the one who mostly lived in the ghost zone. She probably would know a lot of his foes better than he actually did...though it still rankled. “Well I’m glad you found more family over there. But I’m not inviting him for lunches.”

“You’ll have to be the one to come visit sometime! You have no idea how scared some ghosts are of you, it’s hilarious. They don’t know you’re a total dork.” She perked up when he stopped crossing his arms.

“Hey, that just makes you dork squared ya know.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Sure it does. Or not. I’d have to ask Tuck.” he managed to keep smiling, trying not to think too hard about why he’d be considered terrifying to ghosts.

“Or you could ask your daddy” her smirk was vicious as he let out an offended squawk, flinging another snowball after her.

“Don’t even joke about that!”

“Tooooo late! Bye cuz!” her laugh was warm and carefree as she fled from her flustered cousin, vanishing as she darted behind a large bush.

Probably off to go find Valerie now then before headed back home. Still, it was good to know she had a home to go to now. Even if it was with some ghosts he usually had to beat up. Family reunions would be a whole lot messier if she kept that up. Though really, she deserved any kindness she got.

He still wasn’t going to forgive her for the Technus thing though. He was going to need to brush up on dream and sleep puns for proper retaliation. 

[darks-ink]

buddy pal,,, u cant just tell me ur still open for requests and then n o t expect me to come bug u. hb u continue the snow//reveal fic?

Listen… it was a very deliberate choice, ok. I wanted to write Snow as a full reveal, but I ended up not going there because I didn’t want it to end up too long. Which, as it turns out, was a good decision! Because this one ended up even longer than the original, whoopsie. (for people looking it up in my fic archive or on AO3/FFn later - it’ll be listed as Avalanche)

[Snow can be read here, or check my fic archive for links to AO3 or FFn]

—

“Danny,” Maddie said,gently, as they approached him. He’d been watching them the wholetime. Since Jack had caught him in the act of forming a snowball withhis ghost powers, really.

It was painful, seeing hisown son look at him with such clear suspicion. With so little trust.

God, they’d reallymessed this up, hadn’t they?

“Yeah?” Dannyeventually replied, warily. “I thought we were in a hurry? What wastaking so long?”

“We were just…”Maddie looked over at him, but he had nothing to offer and shrugged.“Just… talking.”

“About what?” heasked, now even more openly suspicious.

Jack stepped closer toDanny, but stopped when the boy flinched back. Rather than wrap anarm around his shoulders like he really wanted, Jack held out hishands. Showed him that he was unarmed, that he didn’t mean harm.

“About how proud we areof you, Danny-boy.” He made sure to pour all his love, his care,his adoration, into his words. He wasn’t sure if ghosts could feelpositive emotions like they could feel negative, but god, hewanted his boy to know how much he meant those words. “You’vedone so well, and we’re so, so proud of you.”

“Oh,” Danny said,weakly, pressed against the RV. “I– oh.”

This time, he didn’tflinch away when Jack reached for him. He curled his arm around theboy’s narrow shoulders, pulling him against his warm side. His hairwas still white with snow, and he idly brushed some of it out,leaving it a mix of black and white.

“No matter what, we loveyou, Danny.” He could feel the boy shaking against his side, and hewondered how genuine the emotion was. How diluted were Danny’semotions? How much of his boy was left? “You’re our son. You’llalways be our son.”

“You’ve done so well,”Maddie added, stepping closer so she could join the hug. “Youmust’ve been so scared, and it must’ve been so hard, but stillyou’ve done so well. We’re so proud of you, Danny.”

“Mom,” the boystuttered, shaking between them, “D-Dad.”

“Shh,” Maddie shushed,one hand nestled in his white-black hair. “Shh, it’s okay now.We’re here. You’ll be okay. It’ll all be better now.”

They pressed closer toeach other; Danny trapped in-between him and Maddie, like they couldkeep him safe from everything that had happened to him in the lastfew years.

“I– I’m sorry.”Danny sniffled, trying to covertly wipe a hand past his eyes. “I’msorry for not telling you. I– I–”

“Shh.” Jack rubbedDanny’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We understand, Danny. You must’vebeen so scared. Being a ghost, after all the things we’ve said –and continued to say.”

“I– Yeah.” The boyhuffed out a laugh, his breath cold against Jack’s cheek, and theman spared the tiniest thought to wonder about Danny’s ability toplay human. How far did it extend? How had it fooled them for solong? “Yeah, it was… It was a whole thing.”

“It’ll be better now,sweetie, we promise.” Maddie looked at Danny, her eyes as watery asJack’s felt. “We’ll help you figure this out, okay? Whateveryou’ve been doing to stay true to yourself despite… despitebecoming a ghost, we’ll help. Okay?”

“Um.” Danny blinked,then wiped a hand past his eyes with more force. “Wait, what do youmean?”

Jack felt a chill crawlover his spine, completely unrelated to the cold.

Maddie glanced over athim, but must’ve seen that he would be no help, because she settledfor trying to explain herself. “The… The staying true toyourself? That you haven’t changed, haven’t become malevolent,despite what happened?”

“Why would I… becomemalevolent?” Danny frowned, looking between them. “I mean, Iguess ghosts tend to be a bit fickle, but I’m not…”

His eyes widened. “Oh.You think I’m… Oh.”

“We think you’re…what?” Jack hesitantly asked, hoping that this wasn’t going theway he thought it was. If Danny believed that he wasn’t really aghost, if he’d gotten this far by pretending, blowing thesecret could be disastrous.

Danny shook his head, thencovered it with his hands and groaned loudly. “I can’t believe–I should’ve known, dammit.”

“Language, young man,”Maddie corrected, then looked startled at having done so. Dannyrolled his eyes, but it seemed to have broken him out of his moodagain, at least.

“You think I’m…dead?” he guessed, cocking his head. They nodded, and he noddedback. “Yes, well, I’m not.”

Maddie glanced over atJack, and he grimaced back. He didn’t know how to deal with this.How do you tell a ghost that he’s dead, that he’s a ghost,without risking him turning violent?

“Danny, sweetie,”Maddie finally tried, “You have ghost powers.”

“Well, yeah.” Dannyraised one hand to his neck, starting to rub it in that way he’dalways done, ever since he was young. “But I’m not a ghost, notreally.”

Jack raised a skepticaleyebrow at the boy, and he started spluttering immediately.

“I’m not, I swear!It’s– Alright so it’s kinda complicated and I don’t reallyunderstand it because the only guy who’s got the same going on is adick, but–”

“Language!” Maddiesnapped again.

Danny waved a dismissivehand, then picked up right where he’d left off. “Alright, so theother guy is a bastard who refuses to share. Anyway, as I was saying,I’m not really a ghost. I’m only half ghost.”

“Half?” Jackreluctantly asked, his heart clenching at how frantic Danny looked.God, had his boy really constructed this whole lie, just so he couldpretend he wasn’t a ghost? Was this what he’d told Sam, andTucker, and Jazz, to make them believe that he wasn’t hurting?

If Jack figured out whatbastard had made Danny believe this, or god, who might’ve even madeit up in the first place, they were gonna have words.

“Well, yeah!” Dannymanaged to wrench himself out of the hug, which had loosened over theconversation, and moved a few steps away. He gestured at himself, butJack wasn’t sure what they were supposed to see. “See, totallyhuman like this! Well, okay, not completely 100% human, but mostly!”

“Danny–” Maddie said,her voice heavy with emotion.

“No, no,” the boyinterrupted her, holding up his hands. They were still red with cold,starting to turn blue near the tips of his fingers. “I just gotta–Wait, you’ll understand it if you see it. Jazz did too!“

“See what?” Jackasked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.Danny and Phantom were one, they were pretty sure of that, but thatdidn’t mean anything. Ghosts didn’t necessarily have setappearances. Danny could’ve made two distinct forms for himself,especially if he thought he was something ridiculous as half-ghost.

“This!” Dannyexclaimed as a white spark burst from his body. It circled around hisbody, forming a halo, searingly bright and almost impossible for Jackto look at. The light seemed to sweep over Danny, replacing his thickjacket and loose pants with an oh-so familiar black jumpsuit.

God, and how often had heand Maddie wondered about how familiar Phantom’s suit seemed? Howoften had they looked at it, its design that exactly matched theirown, and not recognized it?

“See?” Danny gesturedat himself again, his boots as white as they snow they were buriedin, his black suit stark against the backdrop. “And now I’mmostly a ghost! But still not 100%, just I wasn’t 100% human inthat form!”

Jack shared a pained lookwith Maddie, a silent conversation on how to tackle this. Theycouldn’t… They couldn’t let their son lie to himself like this,right? Even if he was… Even if he likely would be hurt, knowing thetruth. A white lie, an untruth, would only hurt more. Right?

“Danny,” Jack finallysaid, as gently as he could. “Son. Who told you… Who told you youwere half-ghost?”

“I, uh…” Dannyshrugged, his eyebrows scrunching together like he hadn’t expectedthem to so easily accept the whole Phantom thing. “I mean, I cameup with it, initially? Or, well, me and Sam and Tucker, I guess.Since things didn’t quite check out? But I got plenty ofconfirmation after. Just ask the ghosts, or Plasmius.”

“Plasmius?” Maddierepeated uncertainly. Jack frowned at this, too. Plasmius soundedlike a ghost name, but it wasn’t one he’d heard before. Had aghost been in repeated contact with their son without them realizing?

Well, it wouldn’t beimpossible, he supposed. There might’ve been moments whenPhantom went unnoticed, when he wasn’t fighting. He easily could’vemet with other ghosts during those times.

“Yeah!” Danny nodded,leaning back a little as he lifted off of the ground, floating likehe’d always done so. Jack, with pain in his heart, added anotherstrike to his “Danny actually being a ghost” list. Floating camenaturally to ghosts, to ectoplasmic beings, not gravity-bound humans.“He’s the other half-ghost I mentioned! But like I said, he’s ajerk, so he refuses to tell me much about it. Most of the stuff Iknow I figured out myself, or some things I was told by otherghosts.”

“Sweetie… Don’t youthink those other ghosts might’ve lied to you?” Maddie made acomplicated face, clearly trying to get Danny to figure out the truthslowly. Without having to break his heart directly. “You don’texactly get on well with them, after all.”

Danny shook his head.“Nah. I mean– You’re right, I don’t get along with most of theghosts, but that’s not… There’s no point in them lying aboutthis. Believe me, it was already pretty clear that I was onlyhalf ghost before I ever even met another ghost. And I’vegot allies – friends – among them too, and they… they wouldn’tlie to me about this.”

Light flashed, blindingwith all the snow around them. Danny landed easily, his sneakerssinking into the snow. The snow, which hadn’t been present inPhantom’s hair, was still in Danny’s. Still a mix of black andwhite.

“I mean, I was alwaysconfused why no one connected the dots before. I mean, most peoplearen’t looking to connect a human identity to Phantom, but Ifigured that you two would figure it out sooner or later.” Heshrugged easily, even if his expression didn’t match the casualnessof the motion. “But based on your confusion, I guess you two didn’tthink it was possible? Or, uh, still don’t think that it’spossible, I guess. But I promise you, it’s true. I’m half ghost,and half human.”

Jack and Maddie sharedanother uncertain look. They didn’t just think it wasimpossible, they knew. Years and years of research intoghosts, into ghostly illnesses and the effects of ectoplasm on thehuman body, it all taught them one thing: you couldn’t combine lifeand death in one body. One couldn’t be alive and dead, living andghost, at the same time.

“Danny,” Maddiefinally said, voice pained. “Please, just listen to us.”

“No!” he snapped back,his eyes turning a vicious acid green, their glow casting eerieshadows on his face. “You listen to me! You’realways acting like you know so much about ghosts, but youdon’t! You never listened to me as Phantom, when I tried to tellyou that I was good, and you’re not listening to me now,when I’m telling you that I’m okay!”

“You are okay,Danny,” Jack tried, gently, holding up his hands. “Ghost or not,you’re still our son, and you’re still you.”

But Danny vigorously shookhis head. “No, you need to listen to me! I’m not dead, andI’m not a full ghost! And if you refuse to believe me because ofyour damn research, then– then–”

He halted suddenly, eyesgrowing wide, the green leeching out. So soft it was barely awhisper, he said, “Your research…”

Again, Jack shared anuncertain look with Maddie. But before they could come to anyconclusion, any discussion, Danny stepped forward, towards them.

Jerkily, he stuck out oneof his bare hands. Pulled back his sleeve to bare his wrist.

“Test it,” he said,voice flat. “Your research says that ghosts can’t replicate aheartbeat, no matter what, right? So test my pulse.”

Jack licked his lipsuncertainly, then pulled one of his gloves off. Slowly, he put themassive fingers to his son’s wrist. He knew what he would feel, ofcourse. There would be no pulse. Because his son… his son was dead.A ghost. And ghosts didn’t have heartbeats, no matter what theybelieved.

A thump. Jack froze.

Another thump. And thenanother. A steady, if somewhat slow, rhythm.

“No way,” Maddiegasped, and he easily moved when she shoved him aside. She laid herown fingers on Danny’s wrist, and must’ve felt the same, becauseshe grew wide-eyed.

“Uh,” Danny said, hisother hand rubbing his neck, “Surprise?”

[ladylynse]

The Trouble with Ghosts: Lancer hadn’t realized how closely young Mr. Fenton’s school troubles–and the secrets he surely wasn’t telling his parents–were tied to ghosts until after that encounter with Phantom.

<<  < Part XII [FF | AO3]

-|-

Lancer wasn’t entirely surprised to see that he was missing one of the shrubs on his front lawn. The Shakespeare lawn ornament wouldn’t be salvageable, either; the poor fellow was bent up enough to have written Richard Armour’s Twisted Tales from Shakespeare himself.

Still, he stepped aside to allow Mr. and Mrs. Fenton into his house without a word.

“You said Danny’s safe,” Maddie was saying. “Where is he? What happened? Did he tell you?”

“Did you just find him after he got away from that no-good ghost?” Jack put in. “Did—”

“Danny’s doing remarkably well, considering the circumstances,” Lancer said. “Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, might I have a word before you go to visit your son?”

A trace of a frown crossed Maddie’s face. “You mean before we pick him up to take him home.”

“I sincerely hope that to be the case.” He gestured toward his living room, where he’d set out another chair and cleared up most of his books, banishing everything that didn’t fit on the bookshelves out here to his bedroom. He planned to find more permanent homes for them all once these more pressing issues had been addressed—which is to say, he planned to buy and assemble at least one new bookshelf, once he found one that would fit within his remaining wall space. It would be a rather cathartic exercise after all of this. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

“If this is about Danny skipping his detention again,” Maddie said slowly as they all settled into their seats, “I’m sure you’d agree that being caught in a ghost attack is a reasonable excuse for his absence, at least in this instance?”

“That ghost scum is determined to attack our family,” Jack added, not bothering to clarify which particular ghost he meant. Lancer dearly hoped he didn’t blame Phantom for all of this.

“On the contrary, Mrs. Fenton, it has come to my attention that your son has a very honourable excuse for all the detentions and classes he has missed.”

“Oh?”

“I’m afraid it’s his right to give you the details, and he’s agreed to do just that.” Under pressure, admittedly, but Lancer couldn’t see how they could do this without the cooperation of the Fentons. Besides that, it wasn’t right for Danny to keep this secret from them when it endangered his life. Were he a parent, he would rather make amends than continue to target his own child. The very idea of allowing this to continue as it had…. It was appalling.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Your son has, shall we say, done a considerable amount of community service. While I cannot merely forgive every failing grade, I do believe that I can ensure that he receives partial credit for his work. I will also speak to my colleagues and see that they are more understanding of his absences, tardiness, and—if you’ll allow me to be quite frank—his inability to remain awake during class. With special allowances, Danny will be able to write makeup tests for those he misses and submit additional assignments for extra credit when need be.”

Maddie’s eyebrows rose, but Jack beat her to the question, saying, “You’d do all that for Danny-boy?”

Lancer spread his hands. “Really, it is the least I can do. I cannot speak for my colleagues, and I’m not sure how much he’ll allow me to share with them, but I do have considerable influence. We all know your son isn’t stupid; we merely had no idea what the problem truly was.”

“And his problem, so to speak, was community service?” There was a touch of hesitation in Maddie’s voice. The barest hint of incredulity. She knew that wasn’t strictly correct, but she couldn’t imagine the truth.

Frankly, Lancer couldn’t blame her. He’d have never dreamed it, either.

“Let’s just call it some rather unconventional extracurricular activities for now, shall we?”

“He was doing that—whatever that is—when the ghost found him,” Jack guessed. “So it’s made him a target of ghosts? And he can’t even carry around an ectogun in school? Are you going to talk to the board? Try to get them to make an exception for those who can prove they know how to use them? They shouldn’t cause more than a mild burn to human skin—”

“The no weapons policy will still include ectoguns,” interrupted Lancer. “At best, I can draft a proposal for your Fenton Thermos—a purely defensive weapon which cannot be used, accidentally or intentionally, against other humans in any way other than a conventional thermos might—but you would have to be prepared to draw up a distribution plan for those thermoses, as well as designated days they can be emptied or traded for empty thermoses. And I’m rather afraid the testing period would be quite extensive; we have no idea how someone might try to modify your thermos to achieve more nefarious effects, and we cannot hand any of our students, however much training they’ve had, a weapon that could be turned on others. Of course, the propriety of your design—”

“Perhaps,” interjected Maddie, “you could keep your proposal to just Danny and Jazz, given their experience and likelihood of being targeted?”

“There would still be no guarantee. Lockers are hardly impenetrable.”

“But they would be more likely to allow it, considering what happened to Danny.” Jack crossed his arms. “Extra activities or not, he was still on school property. At least try.”

Lancer ducked his head, acknowledging their points. “It is certainly something to consider amending—”

“I’ll draft the proposal and submit it to the school board,” Maddie said, “if you’re so reluctant to be associated with it. This is for my children’s protection. Even if it’s first dismissed, I want it discussed.”

She might not be quite so adamant when she realized how those very thermoses could become a detriment to her son, were someone to capture Phantom. True, Lancer didn’t think there were many sympathizers with the various ghost hunting groups that came through town, but Phantom had a lot of fans, and that wasn’t always a good thing.

Still, that was something that could be addressed in the future, and given what he’d learned from Danny, there was something else he wanted to address now. “Speaking of your children’s protection,” he began slowly, not sure if this was his place but not willing to let it go unspoken, “have you made any, ah, more recent safety amendments to your home laboratory?”

Jack and Maddie exchanged guilty looks, and Lancer had his answer before Maddie said, “The kids have their own HAZMAT suits, and they know basic lab safety and first aid.”

“Teenagers often believe themselves to be invincible,” Lancer said dryly, “and cannot always be trusted not to touch what they shouldn’t, even if they know better. Besides which, the safety of your own weapons and prototypes—”

“Danny told you how many of our weapons mistakenly target him?” Jack interrupted. “I’m working it out. I keep trying things. I’m going through them one by one. I’ve eliminated so many—”

“Please,” Lancer cut in, and Jack mercifully fell silent. He’d worried the man would bowl over his words in an attempt to justify what Lancer was beginning to think was a negligence so ingrained it felt normal. “I’ve seen a variety of your weapons. I own a few of your defensive ones. I can only guess how much you have stored in your basement and how dangerous even a handful of those weapons might be. I know it cannot be easy nor lucrative to be inventors, to run your own company, but you need to look into locating your lab somewhere else. It’s not just your safety or that of your children, though I hope that would be reason enough; were something to go catastrophically wrong, you might endanger your neighbourhood. Surely your desire to protect them in the future won’t drive you to continue to compromise their safety now?”

Jack raised a hesitant hand. “Did Danny tell you about changing the ecto-filter on the Fenton Ghost Portal? Because I, ah, might have exaggerated the consequences to get him to do it. More than once.”

Judging by the look on Maddie’s face as Jack said this, Lancer doubted she thought Jack had been exaggerating terribly, and that just made it worse. They were aware of what could go wrong and hadn’t sought to even look at potential properties to continue their research? Money was a factor, it had to be, more so than convenience, and pride might have kept them from asking Vlad, but considering the quality and quantity of weapons they produced, they were making something.

Perhaps, if they reinvested in infrastructure instead of buying new supplies to craft different weapons….

But perhaps that wasn’t what was holding them back at all.

Perhaps it was the ghost portal in their basement.

And the accident that could very well involve it, if Vlad’s had involved its prototype.

It made a cruel bit of sense. If Danny’s accident was indeed tied to the ghost portal, his parents did not know the details. And that meant that they couldn’t know everything that Danny had done with the portal, how he had tweaked their settings or whatever had gone on, and that meant they weren’t sure if they could replicate their results.

And they were afraid that they couldn’t.

Even if they didn’t know the truth, even if they didn’t suspect the truth, they knew there was something they didn’t know, and that had kept them from trying to separate their work and home lives even once safety had become an issue.

“Danny has left me to draw far too many of my own conclusions,” Lancer said slowly, “but he’s told me enough to give me cause for concern.”

Maddie straightened in her seat, recognizing something in his words before her husband. Not the right thing, perhaps, but enough of it. “Surely you don’t think we don’t care for Danny and Jazz?”

“I think you care a great deal indeed,” Lancer said, “but I fear that when it comes to your chosen occupation, you can both be rather…overzealous. To the point of preoccupation.”

“You really believe we care more for our work than for them?” Maddie’s voice was quiet. Cold. Lancer had never heard her angry before. A glance at Jack revealed hurt in his eyes at the thinly veiled accusation, but he held his tongue.

“I think your beliefs about ghosts can be a rather complicating point in your relationship with your children,” Lancer said carefully.

“We care about our kids,” Jack growled, “and we care enough to stop ghosts from doing anything else like this. The Fenton Spectre Deflector—”

“Mr. Fenton, I suspect both your children are more than capable of handling themselves in a ghost fight.” If Jazz knew the truth about Danny, she would have been helping him whenever Sam and Tucker could not—most likely, whether or not he thought he needed that help. She would be involved in more than a few isolated incidents, and she clearly knew the full truth about Vlad. “I do, however, wonder if you’ve ever taken the time to listen to them speak about the subject, or if you’ve simply contented yourselves with lecturing to them.”

“Of course we listen to them.” Maddie got to her feet, and Jack jumped to his as well. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lancer, but if that’s all you have to say, I’m afraid it can wait until after we’ve taken Danny home. If you would like to have a candid discussion about how Danny’s doing in school or at home, we can set up a conference once we know Danny is safe.”

Lancer didn’t rise from his chair. “I can assure you that is my intention.”

She smiled at him, but though her anger no longer showed in her voice, it came through in the lack of warmth in her expression. “Excellent. We’ll speak with you early next week to arrange a time.”

They didn’t want to listen to him right now.

He hoped that was merely out of concern for Danny and the fact that this conversation was keeping them from their son.

He hoped he hadn’t been wrong.

“Danny is just down the hall. In the bedroom on your left.”

Jack and Maddie murmured polite thank-yous before heading down the hall. Lancer took a few deep breaths but couldn’t steady his nerves. After everything that had happened…. Oh, for the love of The Railway Children, he hoped he hadn’t made a mistake, but it was far too late for him to second guess his decisions now. He’d make more tea—he’d happily drink the entire pot himself if no one else wanted any—and then join them. If nothing else, he’d have to apologize to Danny. His conversation with Jack and Maddie had not gone nearly as well as he’d hoped.

-|-

His parents burst into the room, all questions and concern, and Danny was happy he’d only eaten a little; his stomach was twisting enough that he wasn’t sure even that was safe.

Valerie pushed herself up and sat at the foot of the bed, neatly avoiding his parents as they came in with hugs and kisses and more questions.

Too many questions, considering they wouldn’t want to hear the answers.

“Mom, Dad, it’s okay. I’m fine.” A lie. His usual one. Habit. “Mr. Lancer’s been taking good care of me.”

“How long have you been here?” Maddie asked.

“Which ghost took you from the hospital? I’ll tear it apart molecule by mol—”

“It wasn’t a ghost.” If he was going to tell them the truth—and he couldn’t very well chicken out with Valerie right there, which come to think of it was probably the real reason she’d stayed—he might as well start there. “I didn’t…. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I…I asked Mr. Lancer to take me to his place.”

“Sweetie, you know if you’re concerned about ecto-contamination, we’re much better equipped at home than the hospital, and we’d understand—”

“It’s not ecto-contamination.” He bit his lip. “I mean, I don’t…. I don’t think it is. Maybe it is. I just…. It…. That part doesn’t matter anyway. These—” he gestured at his injuries “—didn’t come from a ghost.” They came because I was the ghost. Except he couldn’t make his mouth form those words. “It was an accident.” Everything was an accident, except for the part where Vlad had specifically targeted him. “Phantom—”

“I knew that putrid piece of protoplasm was going to be involved!” Jack exclaimed. “Don’t worry, Danny, when we find him—”

“You don’t have to look for him.” He had to bite his tongue and swallow the urge to follow that statement with lies. Anything to mislead them. “He’s…here.”

“And not responsible,” Valerie said loudly as Jack and Maddie produced various weapons. “For any of this. Trust me, I was there, too. I was just lucky enough to get out of it unscathed.” They turned to her, but she answered their question before they could voice it. “I didn’t see Danny or I would’ve said something. I didn’t realize he was there until later.”

Man, she was good at that. Maybe that’s why she’d gotten away with ghost hunting for so long. He’d always figured her dad was more aware of her activities than his parents were of his.

Of course, now she was looking at him, obviously waiting for him to take what she figured was a golden opportunity.

Why did this have to be so hard?

“I was…hiding.” That wasn’t the right word for it. “I mean, I was there, but Valerie didn’t know I was there. No one knew I was there.” He didn’t know how to start explaining this. All he knew, now that those words were out of his mouth, was that this was not the best start. “She didn’t recognize me.” Was that any better?

“What do you mean, honey?”

Okay, clearly not any better. Why couldn’t he just come out and say it? I’m Danny Phantom. That’s it. That’s all he had to say. Three little words.

They probably wouldn’t shoot him immediately, considering Valerie was in the room.

Her presence should be enough to make them pause long enough to question him, as opposed to the usual ‘shoot first, ask questions never’ policy. They shouldn’t automatically assume that this was a trick of Phantom’s, that he’d developed the ability to shapeshift or something and was trying to pretend to be their son. Even though they already assumed ghosts were out to get them and were willing to use any trick in the book and….

Still. Valerie had taken it well. And his parents had in the past. Granted, they’d been a bit more prepared for it in the past. Somewhat. This wasn’t….

He should just spit it out.

“Do you remember when you first built the portal?” Maybe that was a better place to start.

His parents exchanged glances. “What are you getting at, Danny-boy?”

“My accident. In the lab. When you guys weren’t home, and I convinced you I didn’t need to go to the hospital once you got back. That I’d be fine. That I was fine.” He hesitated, watching as their expressions pulled into confused frowns. “I wouldn’t even have told you if I’d thought you wouldn’t notice we’d been down there. Me and Sam and Tuck, I mean. Because I was…scared.”

“Sweetie, you know you don’t need to be afraid of us. We don’t want you touching our prototypes because we’re not sure they’re safe for everyone else to use yet, and we don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“I know. I…. Even though the portal was done, even though it wasn’t working, I just…. It was stupid. We were being…. We weren’t thinking. I mean, I still put on my HAZMAT suit, since I was poking around, but it was…. It wasn’t that I tripped on a cord and caused something to short out and something else to start working, or whatever we told you. I can’t even remember. The thing is, I actually went inside the portal. And then it…turned on. I mean, I…. I hit something. And then it started to work. While I was still inside.”

Silence. Fear on their faces. Concern, more like. His mom had gone white, and his dad put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. “Danny,” she whispered, “that could have killed you.”

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? It nearly had. Maybe it really had. He still wasn’t even sure what he was. Poindexter had called him a halfa, and Danny had joked about being half ghost, but half ghost wasn’t really a thing. Half dead wasn’t really a thing, either. True, he hadn’t exactly tested the boundaries as far as he could have while Phantom—he still took air with him into space, even though he’d gambled that the cold and the vacuum wouldn’t immediately kill him, but…. Shouldn’t it have? If he was really human at his core?

He hadn’t thought about it at the time.

He hadn’t thought that he might not be able to change back.

Did that mean he really was more a ghost that could pretend to be a human than a human with ghost powers? What he and Vlad did, what Dani could do—was that just an extremely unique ability? Like his ghostly wail? Was that ability what really defined a halfa, just like shapeshifters had a greater control over their form than the average ghost?

Or was it just what Jazz had theorized, some infusion of ectoplasm messing with his DNA? Maybe it was just extreme ecto-contamination that should have killed him but hadn’t. Because of how he’d gotten it.

Just like Vlad.

“I know.” Danny looked away, not wanting to see their faces. He caught sight of Valerie’s horrified expression and turned away from her, too, only to find Lancer at the door. He had no idea how long Lancer had been standing there. He’d never heard the kettle whistling, but Lancer had reset the tray with a tea pot, a box of hot chocolate mix, and an array of empty mugs and spoons. His expression was more of grim acceptance than horror or surprise.

Maybe he’d guessed as much from what Danny had told him earlier.

Maybe he’d just guessed as much because he knew the Fentons pretty well after all those parent-teacher conferences he kept calling, not to mention all the ghost attacks he’d witnessed.

Danny tore his eyes away and stared at his hands instead, knitting his fingers together and breaking them apart and twisting them together again. “The thing is, when I first woke up…. I thought it had. Killed me, I mean. I was…. I was terrified. I wasn’t…. I wasn’t myself.”

He should look at them. Try to read their reactions. Gauge the situation. See if they’d figured it out, so he didn’t have to say it.

But he was afraid he might see something else in their eyes or their expressions. Something he didn’t want to see.

“My reflection wasn’t mine.” He didn’t want to be doing this. Why had he agreed to do this? He could have convinced Lancer to give him a bit more time, surely. Or at least managed to get Jazz here. She’d be good at damage control. She’d anticipate their questions and have answers at the ready, while he…. He wasn’t sure how much he was thinking and how much he was just talking to keep from outright panicking. “The boy in the mirror that looked back at me…. It was Phantom. I’m Phantom.”

He waited for questions.

He waited for denials.

He waited for the telltale whine of any of their myriad of weapons to power up.

Instead, springs creaked and the mattress shifted as his mother sat down on the bed between him and Valerie. Looking up, Danny saw his father sink into the chair Lancer had abandoned earlier. Neither of them said anything.

No one else did, either.

“Sam and Tucker knew from the start, since they were there when it happened,” Danny said into the stretching silence. “Jazz figured it out a long time ago. They’ve been helping me. I…. I didn’t know how to tell you, so I asked them not to say anything. To anyone.”

Maddie reached out and pried one of his hands free, gripping it tightly in her own. Now that he couldn’t go intangible, he wasn’t sure it was a grip he could break and stay free, and for a few panicked milliseconds, he thought she was grabbing him to keep him in one place. He wanted to pull back—had to actively fight the urge to pull back—and wait.

He knew it couldn’t have been a long wait, but it felt like an eon passed before Maddie said, “It doesn’t matter how you told us. It…it matters that you’ve told us.”

He couldn’t read all the emotions in her expression, but she wasn’t angry. She wasn’t ready to blame Phantom, to call this a trick, to pull him closer and hold an ectogun to his head.

And when his eyes flicked to Jack’s, he saw pride there.

Maybe they believed him after all. Maybe this wasn’t going to go as horribly as he’d imagined. Maybe—

“Breathe, Danny,” came Valerie’s voice, and he remembered to suck in a much-needed breath and relax.

And then he let himself change.

He wasn’t sure if his mother’s flinch was in reaction to the sudden light or the fact that the hand she now held was the gloved one of a ghost she’d long considered an enemy, but it still hurt.

It really, really hurt.

Even if she hadn’t meant it to.

“Danny-boy,” Jack breathed, but he didn’t say anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Danny whispered.

Maddie squeezed his hand and glanced back at Jack before saying, “We’re sorry, too, sweetie. For not listening.”

“And for making you afraid to tell us,” Jack added. He got to his feet and wrapped Danny and Maddie in a hug. “We still love you, son. Don’t think we don’t.”

Danny was pretty sure he heard Valerie mumble I told you so under her breath, but he didn’t care. He just hugged them back and let his tears soak into their shoulders.

(see more fics | next)

[dustedmagazine]

Derek Taylor 2019: Keep Going

Two words coupled by Harriet Tubman and coined into a credo essential for negotiating the human condition. It's also the title of and invocation to a sublime duo album by Joe McPhee and Hamid Drake released this year as rejoinder to their first recorded ten-years earlier. Taking stock of that decade is something we at Dusted did recently and as the New Year arrives it’s an exercise that feels all the more important, particularly in the extra-musical sense of recognizing the folly of where we’ve been as a world and where we really want to go moving forward. As always, music is both balm and adhesive in remembering that no matter how divisive and discouraging everything seems, we’re still all in it together.

Joe McPhee

Seventy-nine-years young and still a human dynamo of energy, empathy, and optimism, the Powerhouse from Poughkeepsie’s been a constant of these retrospective essays for as long as I’ve been writing them. I haven’t done a hard count, but his horns grace at least a dozen releases this year. Duos with Mats Gustaffson (Brace for Impact), Fred Lonberg-Holm (No Time Left for Sadness), and Paal Nilssen-Love (Song for the Big Chief) join the dyad denoted above in delivering dialogues as personal as they are potent. Tree Dancing assembles the super-group of Lol Coxhill, Evan Parker, Chris Corsano, and McPhee collectively and in component combinations with bassist John Edwards on board for a culminating cut, while Six Situations realizes a dream of bassist Damon Smith in teaming him with McPhee’s tenor and now dearly departed drummer Alvin Fielder. The Fire Each Time bundles six concerts of McPhee in the company of the DKV Trio from a 2017 tour that took James Baldwin and John Coltrane as lodestones. Saving perhaps the best for last, Invitation to a Dream comingles McPhee’s pocket trumpet and soprano with pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn and old confrere Ken Vandermark in a tripart colloquy delivered in crystal clear sound.

 Peter Brötzmann

A year younger and another fixture in my yearly firmament, Herr Brötz has always had ears attuned to the early pioneers of improvised music through the unabashed embrace of Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, and others. Those unerring affections erode some of the surprise from I Surrender Dear, an album of tenor-rendered jazz standards and originals, but also enhance the overall experience in how literally he makes good on the debt. It’s arguably his best solo album since 14 Love Poems and bolstered further by the focus on a single central member of his reed arsenal. Also of note, Fifty Years After commemorating the golden anniversary of Machine Gun with longtime confreres German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and Dutch drummer Han Bennink,

 Rob Franken Electrification — Functional Stereo Music (678 Records)

Four-hours of Fender Rhodes heaven recorded in elite Dutch studios between 1972 and 1981 that puzzlingly never found commercial circulation until last year as a six-LP series. The 2019 edition transfers the archive to three-CDs and only rarely flags as Franken’s fonky keys front guitar, bass, drums and a revolving cast of fellow aces fielding other instruments. Economy is the informal edict as morsel-sized originals alternate with covers of tunes by Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Atilla Zoller, and even Steely Dan. The utilitarian intimations of the title aren’t just lip service. Franken originally envisioned the music as an homage to the muzak strains common to “shopping malls, hotels, elevators, department stores, and airports.” Much of it sounds far better aligned with the kinetic cop and detective pot-boilers that populated television and cinema of the decade.

 Brian Groder Trio – Luminous Arcs (Latham)

Keeping a working improvising ensemble together is no minor accomplishment, yet Groder’s been able to maintain one in his name with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Jay Rosen. This disc joins two previous albums in demonstrating both the depth of the musicians’ bonds and their shared zeal in exploring and capitalizing on them. Any novelty surrounding the particulars of a trumpet-led piano-less trio is fortunately long since lapsed. The precedence allows them to marshal their attention to shaping music that is simultaneously the sum and multiplication of the substantial parts.

 V/A — Pakistan: Folk and Pop Instrumentals 1966-1976 (Sublime Frequencies)

Seattle-based Sublime Frequencies weathered a stretch where the “weirdness” quotient of their audio excavations appeared to outweigh accompanying scholarship and attention to edifying annotations. This scintillating compilation suffers no such skew in the balance of carefully sourced sounds and accompanying copy to shore up the context. Sixties rock, specifically surf, is a through-line in the preponderance of reverb-riddled guitars and buzzing Farfisa organ on many of the tracks, but indigenous melodies and rhythms are also frequent fodder for enthusiastic appropriation. Best of all, there’s a pervasive sense of fun to the sequencing that makes it a handy soundtrack for soirees of all sorts.

 Jaimie Branch — Fly or Die II (International Anthem)

If her ascendant flight pattern is any indication, death, artistic or otherwise, isn’t even an option for Jaimie Branch. This follow-up to her meteoric (and long overdue) 2017 debut builds organically on previous cosmetic aspects (core quartet, cover art, etc.) while making progressive-pronged politics even more prominent. “Prayer for Amerikkka” doesn’t mince words in proffering a platform of resistance and the musical propellant to keep it confidently airborne. A robust touring schedule and well-earned media attention are only furthering Branch’s designs at getting the sounds into as many ears as possible.

 Sam Rivers

The Sam Rivers Archive Series is the brainchild of producers Danas Mikailionis and Ed Hazell. A projected eight-volume celebration of the music of the eponymous composer/improviser/educator/doyen curated from a vast trove left in the care of Rivers’ daughter after his passing in 2011, it’s also probably the jazz news that most set my heart aflutter with anticipation this year. The initial pair of entries, Emanation and Zenith, certainly live up to the promise in presenting clean fidelity concerts by a high profile trio with bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Norman Conners (pre-disco) and a workshop quintet involving tubaist Joe Daley, bassist Dave Holland and the eight-limbed drums juggernaut of Barry Altschul and Charlie Persip. Both discs are essential.

 Jimi Hendrix — Songs for Groovy Children (Experience Hendrix)

Not a long-lost Hendrix kids’ album despite what the jejune title might suggest. Instead, it’s four nearly complete concerts from the guitar deity’s iconic New Year’s Band of Gypsies engagement at the Fillmore East in 1969/70. Producer Eddie Kramer largely quashes his invasive impulses in mastering the tapes, leaving the only real minuses to manifest in the occasionally extra-loose interplay and Jimi’s decision to indulge Buddy Miles’ mic access to a regrettably arguable fault. Math done, there’s nothing stopping an instant trigger-pull for true believers, even folks who have it all already in bootleg form.

 Ezz-thetics

Fingers remain collectively-crossed that Werner X. Uehlingher will one day decide to write an autobiography of his countless adventures as a stalwart producer of improvised music. Ezz-thetics is just the latest chapter in the future tome’s story arc that started with the founding of the Hat Hut label back in 1974. The new imprint, named after a classic George Russell composition, balances reissue and archival releases with new ones, packing them with branding that memorializes the old while consecrating the new. Discs by Jimmy Giuffre (Graz Live 1961), John Coltrane (Impressions Graz 1962), and Albert Ayler (Quartets 1964 Spirits to Ghosts Revisted) are the marquee name highlights, but the entirety of the imprint’s releases to-date have had their merits.

 Stephen Riley

The tenorist is no longer my favorite under-forty plier on the instrument simply because he’s aged out of the bracket. Oleo builds on last year’s transparently veiled Sonny Rollins’ tribute Hold ‘Em Joe by adding the sturdy trumpet of Joe Magnarelli to the equation and turning the referential calendar forward to the saxophone colossus’ collaborations with Don Cherry. It’s a beaut from a brisk beginning sortie on “Ornithology” to lengthy slalom on the Ducal “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” Tangerine Rhapsody is technically under Dutch drummer Snorre Kirk’s leadership, but it wouldn’t be nearly the album it is absent Riley’s supple and sagacious involvement.

 Milt Buckner & Jo Jones — Buck & Jo (Fremeaux & Associates)

Curious about what makes an individual improviser tick? Duo contexts are arguably the best aperture to gain edification and insight. Even better than solo or ensemble configurations, the dyad distills things down to solo and dialogue. This four-disc, four-hour-plus collection is a remarkable case in point and surprise that it even exists at all given its vintage let alone its scope. Thank French impresarios the Panassie Brothers who invited ur swing organist and ur swing drummer to indulge themselves with only the gentlest of producer-dictated strictures. The results are fascinating, whimsical, bombastic, and above all, endlessly entertaining. An epitome of intimately undertaken jazz tête-à-tête before it was anything resembling a regular thing.

 Del Shannon — Two Silhouettes (Bear Family)

Preconceptions can prove obdurate edifices. Prior to my forty-eighth birthday this year I dismissed Del Shannon as one of the disposable princes of bubble gum pop on the rare occasions he entered my consciousness at all. “Runaway” remains an influential song, particularly in its use of musitron organ, but it’s hardly the makings of unassailable genius. Bear Family’s exhaustive single-disc survey levies a much more convincing appeal for the crooner’s embodiment of a nexus of odd congruencies as moonlighting jazzmen conspire with duck-tailed rockers and barbershop harmonists. Dennis Coffey and Hargus “Pig” Robbins show up as sidemen and there’s even an S&M-tinged canticle called “Torture” replete with whip cracks and a Greek chorus of moans, leaving one to wonder what Ward and June Cleaver made of it all?

 Sun Ra

Cosmic Myth and Modern Harmonic continue to advance the mantle apparently abandoned by the Art Yard label in keeping Ra-related albums in circulation. The erstwhile Mr. Mystery employed numerous vocalists throughout his career, even contributing his own less-than-stellar (pun intended) pipes to the cause on occasion. None among that eclectic number could match June Tyson, who brought joie de vivre to the lyrical manifestations of Ra’s cosmic-afro-centrism that was at once wholly believable and infectious. Saturnian Queen of the Sun Ra Arkestra does right by her memory by culling an hour’s worth of highlights from a vast and varied recorded archive. Monorails & Satellites (now in three volumes!) and newly minted editions of Pathways to Unknown Worlds and When Angels Speak of Love were also welcome arrivals.

 Derek Bailey/Han Bennink/Evan Parker — Topographie Parisienne: Dunois, April 3rd, 1981 (Fou)

The Topography of the Lungs trio in concert and at length with decent sound eleven-years after their initial seismic contributions to free improv. Bailey and Parker weren’t yet at irreconcilable loggerheads but there’s still a galvanizing and palpable tension that suffuses their interplay. Bennink can’t help being anything but Bennink, bashing away one moment and pattering at barely a whisper the next while keeping ears cocked with split-second focus to the contributions his compatriots. Duos combine with solos from Parker sweeten and season an already delicious aural pot.

 Fred Anderson Quartet — Live at the Velvet Lounge Volume V (FPE)

Leftfield guest Toshinori Kondo and drummer Hamid Drake were one half of Peter Brötzmann’s Die Like a Dog outfit when this 1994 concert was committed to tape. That take-no-prisoners context allowed his plangent, frenetic, effects-saturated brass free and ferocious rein. Anderson’s outlets didn’t usually involve electronics and its instructive hearing the adaptations to the roiling controlled-chaos within his customary cerulean-hued improvisations. Drake and bassist Tastu Aoki maintain a stout terrestrial tether enlivened by a revolving array of undulating grooves. Extra points earned for incorporating the original Velvet Lounge wallpaper scheme into the production design. Bottom line: I miss Fred.

 V/A — Hillbillies in Hell: Tribulations: Country Music’s Tormented Testament (1952-1974) (The Omni Recording Corporation)

Amusing alliterative appellation aside, this series has managed the no-meager-feat of avoiding diminishing returns while mining the same expanse of time over successive volumes. The fifth entry tilts the lens even more sharply toward the sort of fervent tent show revival circuit favored by fictional religious reprobates like Rev. Harry Powell and Elmer Gantry and comes up with a bonanza off-kilter cuts from names both famous (Hank Williams, Louvin Bros., Tex Ritter) and arcane (The Burton Family, Durwood Daily, The Sunshine Boys Quartet). Ernest Tubb’s “Saturday Satan, Sunday Saint” persuasively sums up the ecumenical ethos, but every song exudes its share of sinful charms.

  V/A — Sacred Sounds: Dave Hamilton’s Raw Detroit Gospel (Ace)

As a both prolific and preternaturally talented producer, Dave Hamilton’s usual purview was left-of-center soul and funk. Urban (but not urbane) gospel offered a less-publicized commercial side outlet and he brought comparable emphasis on authenticity and creativity to the various acts he championed. This compilation comprises all-killer-no-filler assemblage that lives up to the unvarnished signifier in the title. It’s nearly eighty-minutes of jangly guitars, tambourines, and impassioned sanctifying and proselytizing of all sorts, as suited for Sunday morning as Friday or Saturday night depending on the preferred mood of your personal household. I’ve enjoyed equal fun plying it in both.

 Art Pepper — Promise Kept

Laurie Pepper, like Sue Mingus and other jazz widows before her, remains a passionate arbiter and steward of her late husband’s recorded legacy. The title of this box set collecting a singular tributary of Art Pepper’s later career aspirations could just as easily serve as a signifier of that bond. In truth, it’s reflective of a pact the couple made with producer John Snyder and a string of studio sessions largely left unissued during the Pepper’s lifetime. Rivalries real and imagined are revealed across the recordings as the altoist wrestles with his insecurities and the realities of choices made and paid for as a consequence of his addictions and fictions. Straightforward and vital, the music avoids gestalt in remaining consistently strong and emotionally true.

 Paul Bley/Gary Peacock/Paul Motian — When Will the Blues Leave (ECM)

The prevailing mystery behind this twenty-year-old concert rests on the reason(s) why the fine folks at ECM left it in the can for so long. I don’t have an answer but rather a simple expression of gratitude that they finally decided to rectify the error and get the sounds out into the world. Bley, Peacock and Motian were already three-decades deep in the periodic associations that quietly helped open chamber jazz to free improvisation when they took to the Swiss stage. The ensuing masterful performance manages to feel simultaneously like three old friends shooting the shit and a trio of improvisatory experts operating at peak collective capacity.

 Prince — 1999 (Warner)

Residency in the Twin Cities for the better part of two decades has resulted in many boons, personal and vocational for this writer. As with any life lived, the red side of the ledger has entries, too. Folded among them is the frictional, frayed listening relationship I harbor with the region’s most famous musical export. Nearly three years after his premature passing Prince is still everywhere and everything here. That perpetual, and perpetually irksome, ubiquity is what makes this five-disc+DVD beyond-exhaustive box so refreshing to my patience-tested purview. It contains lots of impressive material from arguably his most creative and questing period. It also has plenty of songs that feel competent but quotidian by comparison. That blend of bliss and banality is as effective a corrective as I can think of to the cult of purple sainthood that persists around these parts.  

 And as is my habitual wont, 25 more in no hierarchical order… thank you for reading and Feliz Año Nuevo!  

Josh Abrams Natural Information Society (Eremite)

Michael Formanek’s Very Practical Trio – Even Better (Intakt)

Charles Gayle/John Edwards/Mark Sanders – Seasons Changing (Otokroku)

Dudu Pukwana/Han Bennink/Misha Mengelberg – Yi Yole (ICP/Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Nat King Cole – Hittin’ the Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1945) (Resonance)

Willem Breuker & Han Bennink – New Acoustic Swing Duo (ICP/Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Whit Dickey & Kirk Knuffke – Drone Dream (No Business)

Mark Turner & Gary Foster – Mark Turner Meets Gary Foster (Capri)

J.C. Heard & Bill Perkins Quintet – Live at the Lighthouse 1964 (Fresh Sound)

Stan Getz – Getz at the Gate: November 26, 1961 (Verve)

Rita Moss - Queen Moss 1951-1959 (Fresh Sound)

Bill Frisell & Thomas Morgan – Epistrophy (ECM)

Marion Brown & Dave Burrell – Live at the Black Musicians’ Conference, 1981 (No Business)

Jon Irabagon – Invisible Horizon (Irrabagast)

Tom Rainey Trio – Combobulated (Intakt)

Joe Lovano & Enrico Rava Quintet – Roma (ECM)

Tomeka Reid Quartet – Old New (Cuneiform)

Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis – Ow: Live at the Penthouse (Reel to Reel)

Takahashi Miyasaka – Animals Garden (Kojima/BBE)

Tiger Trio (Joelle Leandre/Myra Melford/Nicole Mitchell) – Map of Liberation (Rogue Art)

V/A – Jambu: E Os Miticos Sons da Amazonia (Analog Africa)

V/A – Put the Whole Armour On: Female Black Gospel 1940s/1950s (Gospel Friend)

V/A –Alefa Madagascar: Salegy, Soukous, & Soul from the Red Island (Strut)

Horace Tapscott with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and the Great Voice of UGMAA - Why Don’t You Listen? Live at LACMA 1998 (Dark Tree)

Duster – Capsule Losing Contact (Numero)

[kiraraneko]

CATS as reviewed by a furry

Apparently this is a movie review blog now lmao (listen I just have some Opinions™ I feel like writing down lately) You’ve already heard from a hundred sources about the terrible CGI and bad quality of the film overall, so I’m going to focus more on the characters themselves and how they’ve been translated from stage to film. As someone whose been a fan of CATS since childhood AND is active in the furry community, I hope this will be different from the other reviews. (YES THERE ARE SPOILERS)

Let’s just start this off by saying - everyone who keeps comparing this film to “furry porn” clearly is not familiar with furry porn, because the alleged “hornyness” of the actor portrayals is pretty in-line with the stage play. The only reason this movie comes off as so much more sexual is because the bad fur CGI doesn’t keep your brain from knowing these people are all basically nude. The stage play costumes feature fur tufts and limb wraps that work to somewhat hide the human silhouettes, whereas (even with some characters in coats and accessories) everyone’s fur in the movie is so skin-tight they end up being unmistakably human, so every sway and hip-thrust comes off as slightly disturbing in an uncanny way instead of feline and graceful.

Victoria the White Cat Now here’s where I’ll admit to my blatant bias - Victoria has always been my favorite cat (other than Rum Tum). Here’s a bit of trivia for you: Ever wonder why my fursona is a white cat? (Jumpcut to me as an 8 year old wearing a scarf around my waist, pretending to be Victoria). Her role in the play is small but she’s elegant, beautiful, and an incredibly talented dancer, and I always idolized her for that. So, you can imagine I was pretty delighted to find that she plays the role of “main character” in the film. Now in the play, the cats explain to the audience about who and what they are, with Munkustrap (the grey tabby) serving as a kind of narrator/translator and leader. Since you can’t exactly address a stage audience in a movie, Victoria fills that role of the “questioning onlooker”, which I feel fits her character very well considering she’s both a younger/newer cat to the Jellicle scene and she was the first to accept Grizabella, which connects her nicely to the entire story (both in the play and the movie). What I was markedly less jazzed about was the addition of her own song in the movie. I think it was a nice attempt to expand her role, but as an extension to Memories, I found Beautiful Ghosts to be frankly kind of boring and unnecessary. She’s essentially saying to Grizabella “I was just abandoned and I don’t have anything, at least you have good memories to look back on” which to me, came off as belittling to Grizabella with a dash of “poor me” for Victoria. However, the reprise version with Old Deuteronomy I actually ended up liking much more. It is less condescending when two old cats are singing to one another, versus a kitten who has their whole life ahead of them lecturing Grizabella about a past she knows nothing about. One last thing I’ll note about Victoria is her slight re-design in the movie - she’s been given some light striping patterning as opposed to being a pure white cat. This doesn’t bother me at all as I assume when it comes to lighting and rendering, pure white fur would have been too distracting on screen. Jennyanydots / The Gumbie Cat I’ll just come right out and say that this segment was probably the worst translation from the play in the entire movie, and it happens early in the film, so you’re already questioning what the hell the rest of the movie is going to be like. In the play, she’s a slow-paced and motherly type cat that only becomes energetic at night, when she sheds her fur to reveal a vibrant coat and goes to work teaching vermin of the house good manners and skills like crocheting (as opposed to hunting them, like other cats would do). In the movie, she’s flitting about the kitchen like a hyperactive rabbit, rampantly consumes some of the insects she’s painstakingly coached, and whines about wishing to leave her household. If this butchering of her character weren’t enough, they actually included the fur-shedding bit in an incredibly disturbing skin-unzipping sequence where she steps out of her cat skin to reveal a sparkly dress underneath. Characters in the CATS play occasionally do wear some clothing accessories, but this movie does not know the meaning of subtlety, and various characters are wearing fullbody clothes which even further breaks any illusion of these characters being cats. It just constantly wants to remind you that these are human people in unitards jumping around on a greenscreen. Rum Tum Tugger Undoubtedly a fan favorite, Rum Tum is the rockstar cat who swoons all the kittens and makes a general ruckus, with stylistic influences of Mick Jagger and Elvis. To say the least, I thought his part in the movie was fine, but certainly doesn’t quite have the punch to it that the stage play does. The movie has him breaking into a 50′s style diner while milk is liberally poured for all the younger cats. Both his character and that of the Gumbie cat’s are diminished further as she makes fun of his singing and dance moves - which may have been a funny addition, if it weren’t for her alleging his show-offiishness to a recent neutering. This joke just went a little too far in my opinion, and really detracted from the rest of Rum Tum’s performance. Bustopher Jones A very charming and gentlemanly cat, Bustopher’s sequence started well and then just got really weird. His song prominently describes his love of fine dining, his cheerful demeanor, and his well-groomed fur. The last of which was directly contradicted in the movie, as he rolled around in actual garbage making an utter mess of himself. He’s shown gorging himself through the entire segment with increasing fervor, until it’s just a bit too much to bear witness to. At one point, he’s meant to trapeze into a trash can, but the cat who jumps on the other end of the catapult is markedly smaller, and nothing happens. This is actually quite a funny moment, until once again, the joke goes a little too far and Bustopher comments being “sensitive about his weight”. This is just.. a bizarre comment considering he’s sung an entire song about being charmingly large and we’ve just watched him unabashedly stuff his face for five solid minutes. Applying human weight-shaming to the ideals of a cat is just completely unnecessary, awkward, and contradictory to his character. It changes him from an indulgent but experienced chap into something to be pitied. Asparagus / Gus the Theatre Cat Possibly my favorite segment of the movie, this is the only part I actually teared up at. As a child, I always thought Gus was a very boring character with a boring part, but watching as an adult I can understand and appreciate him much better. Sir Ian McKellen did an absolutely phenomenal job of channeling the frail, endearing, proud character of Gus (despite the wonky camera work of the scene). This might be the only part of the movie that matched, or perhaps even exceeded the stage play version, and I don’t think it’s any surprise that it also happens to be the most subdued sequence, relying almost entirely on character acting and line delivery, instead of fancy effects cluttering up the screen (as this musical should be). The end of his storytelling features some “lightning strikes” for emphasis, created by what I imagine would be a simple shadow stencil, and it added some genuine atmosphere to the idea of Gus as a performer with simple stage effects. It was a nice subtle touch, and I only wish the rest of the movie could have been more like that. I found his line condemning “modern productions” to be more poignant than ever before, and it makes you wonder if this movie suddenly became painfully self-aware.  Also I just want to throw this in: Before Gus’s song, there’s an unintentionally hilarious shot of Mr. Mistoffelees walking up on him drinking milk from a dish, except Gus is mostly in shadow with his cat features obscured and is standing fully upright, so he just appears to be a hobo man lapping at a dish, like someone legit just walked up on Ian McKellen being a complete fucking weirdo.  Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer This segment was another one that just didn’t come across quite right. These two are mischievous partners in crime, causing mayhem and stealing treasures. The '98 film version characterizes them as playful and upbeat, delighting in trouble-making, but they don’t seem to be quite experienced or clever enough to get away 100% of the time. The 2019 version came off as almost.. sinister to me. They coerce Victoria into stealing, frame her, and then leave her to what could nearly be her death, all while sort of talking through their lines with a cold inflection. This is supposed to take after the original “languid” London version, but they don’t play off each other very well and you don’t get a sense of the fun, amusing partnership they’re supposed to have. It’s mostly just watching them destroy several rooms of a house and then leaving Victoria to her fate like utter assholes. I don’t really have anything more to say on these two, it was just kind of bland and forgetful and leaves you disliking them instead of enjoying watching them have a fun romp. Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat I would give Skimbleshanks the award for “most baffling redesign”. As mentioned earlier, this movie takes cats-wearing-clothing to an uncanny level, and this is certainly the uncanny-est. While the play version has him in a cute waistcoat and arm warmers with elbow patches to give a “train conductor” vibe, the movie has him in full bright red overalls, with other reviews calling him “gay nightclub Mario”, lmao! As much as I wanted to enjoy this number, the sight of him was just too weird to look past.  The tap dancing during his skit was a fitting addition to his character - he is quite bouncy and light on his feet, so I thought it suited him very well and really liked that part. His song picks up after that, with all the cats dancing on the rail and there’s more weird camera work, at one point zooming out so ridiculously far it’s actually jarring. The rest of his song was okay, a CGI greenscreen that can do anything you want unfortunately just isn’t as creative and inspiring as watching actors build a train engine representation out of junkyard scraps on an actual stage.  Magical Mr. Mistoffelees The movie really took some liberties with this character, and I’m still on the fence about whether it was a good choice or not. In the play, Mistoffelees is a magician cat, performing tricks through his segment (including the most complex dance routine of any character) while other cats usually sing about his feats (in the ‘98 film, it’s Rum Tum). They went for the younger, unsure version of Mistoffelees in this new movie, and doubled up on it by turning him into something of a comedic-relief character. He doesn’t quite have a handle on his magic, and he trips up on his words and his feet several times through the movie. This would have been fine if his musical number hadn’t been such a let down. This is supposed to be his grand moment, but his “magic” ends up being underwhelming and the chorus repeats for SO long you’re practically begging for it to end. Where “Oh! Well, I never! Was there ever a cat so clever as Magical Mr Mistoffelees?” was once a cheerful and upbeat line, it will certainly become a droning echo in your mind after watching this movie. The added plot of his implied attraction to Victoria I also found kind of weird, though I’ll admit that might just be my personal tastes. I always liked Mistoffelees being a more aloof kind of cat.  Grizabella / The Glamour Cat Alright buckle in, I’ve got some strong opinions about this one. Grizabella is undeniably the star of CATS - she’s an incredibly emotional character, visually intriguing, and her performance in the musical is nothing short of heartbreaking. She was referred to as “the Glamour Cat” in her prime, but it has turned into an almost mocking title as the other cats reject and shun her. We never really know why, but it can be implied she may have been cold and elitist to the other cats who once adored her, or had some other tragic and sudden fall from grace. Despite Jennifer Hudson putting in a damn good effort to play the role of this character, the movie itself let her down. The CATS play and the Jellicle ball which it centers around, while being a musical, is foremost a ball in which cats perform for the honor of being chosen. The dancing is just as important as the singing, and Grizabella’s character is heavily communicated by her posture. She’s hunched, stiff and limping, reaching out for others to accept her, and at one point even attempts to mimic some of the other cat’s dance moves before slinking away in shame. The 2019 movie paradoxically chooses to use extremely tight face-shots for just about every character routine. It is frustrating and claustrophobic to watch a movie where cats who are supposed to be expressing their character through movement are shown from only the shoulders up, just standing there singing into a camera - and this frustration is paramount at the Grizabella sequences.  Jennifer Hudson, singing her absolute heart out with tears pouring down her face, is still emotionally lacking because of the terrible cinematography refusing to show her doing any actual acting. I was so distracted by the mucus running down her face that I couldn’t even connect with her. I thought the costuming of Grizabella was very well done, but you barely got to see any of it. Overall a very disappointing performance, because Hudson was doing all the right things, and it could have been great if the movie had met her even halfway. Macavity the Mystery Cat Played by the incredible Idris Elba, Macavity underwent some heavy changes and expansion in this new movie. He’s the main antagonist of the play, and most of his antics like committing serious crimes and alluding the police are sung about as rumors but doesn’t himself sing, and actually doesn’t have any speaking lines in the play, adding to his mysterious character. When he eventually appears, he battles with Munkustrap and steals Deuteronomy (who is brought back by Mistoffelees). Macavity is usually depicted with vibrant clashing colors, wild hair, and uses quick threatening movements, while the Idris Elba version rein-visioned him as extremely sleek, black-furred, and sly and cunning, often emerging from the shadows to tempt other cats with their vices. He is given numerous speaking lines, and his villainy is expanded on as he kidnaps the other cats in an attempt to be the chosen Jellicle. I actually quite like this interpretation of the character, and it makes him a little more relatable instead of the vicious enigma he is in the play.  Something of note is just how literally the new movie took the rumors of Macavity’s powers. His abilities, which were muted and used sparingly in the play, were used constantly and without hesitation in this movie. He spends most of his time teleporting other characters and creating illusions, but then uses trickery to try and win the Jellicle ball, and fails to demonstrate his power of levitation when it really matters. So whether he does or doesn’t have real powers seems to be.. situational to say the least. Another thing I want to point out is just how uncomfortably sudden Macavity’s reveal is. He spends most of the movie in the shadows hidden under an oversized coat and hat, and then suddenly appears at the Jellicle ball without any disguise on whatsoever. Idris Elba is a damn fine looking dude, and you can clearly see his very human-shaped abs beneath his sleek Macavity fur, which is so close to his actual skintone that I’ve seen him described as “extra naked” and it’s pretty accurate. You just really aren’t prepared for this moment when it happens. Growltiger This guy is a rough and rowdy pirate-esque character with a dramatic love life. His segment was cut from the ‘98 film, so seeing the play in person is just about the only way to experience it. Because of this, it’s probable that many people may not even be aware of this character, so I was pretty excited to hear that he would be featured in the 2019 movie. Growltiger is quite overdue for his time in the mainstream spotlight. Turns out, unfortunately, Growltiger's Last Stand is not what you get. His appearance in the movie is more or less a cameo with a short introduction, and the rest of the time he’s serving as Macavity‘s henchman in the background. This is based on the 2015 revival of him as a dock worker, but I feel it was a weak representation of his character, and really wish he’d been shown in a better light. The movie cuts out pretty much every fight scene, and Growltiger‘s would have been dramatic and fun to watch, especially after Gus’s reminiscing. Instead, he was kind of lazily thrown into a river by Gus, who previously bragged about playing the role of Growltiger on stage, which is kind of an interesting juxtaposition if you don’t think about it too hard. Old Deuteronomy A surprising change was the decision to make Deuteronomy female, played by Judi Dench. I love old grandpa Deuteronomy, but this didn’t really bother me. Deuteronomy is a wise, beloved leader of the Jellicles and there’s not really anything integral about the character that says they couldn’t be female. Deuteronomy carries himself with dignity, but isn’t afraid to dance along with the songs of the other more lively cats, and Judi Dench certainly has an air of authority and respect about her. The character’s songs are reflective and thought-provoking, but once again, the 2019 movie fails to make any of these sequences actually entertaining. The absolute worst part of the entire movie comes at the very end, when Deuteronomy makes horrific, unblinking eye contact with the camera, and slowly talks her way through the Ad-Dressing of Cats. This is absolutely bewildering considering how the movie deliberately sets up Victoria as a main character in place of the audience, only to completely chuck that out the window of a moving car just to break the 4th wall in the most uncomfortable way possible and directly address the audience anyway. What is even the point? I can’t imagine there’s a single person that would watch that and be okay with it. The Ad-Dressing of Cats is supposed to be a cute, fun little recap of everything the cats supposedly taught you, but this movie made it feel like a lecturing stare-down. Other notes The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles was cut entirely from the movie, which is fine because it isn’t integral to the story or anything, considering it was also cut from the stage play when I saw it live. I kind of shudder to think of how The Great Rumpus Cat would have been interpreted in this movie, so I think we were all probably spared some indignities.  While this movie was watchable and certainly an interesting take on the play, it creatively added very little and only succeeded in making me desperately want to go watch the ‘98 musical. I thought at least this movie would be a fun soundtrack to view, but many of the songs just didn’t have the punchiness, joy, charm, or energy that I’m used to. There were parts of it that I liked enough to say this isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but that’s not exactly a glowing review. From the perspective of a theatre fan and a furry: If I want to see CATS, I’m most certainly going to choose the filmed musical over this new movie any day.  I’m infinitely more charmed by the graceful 80′s style dancers of the play than I am by the uncanny valley, painfully human cat-people of the new movie (and honestly I haven’t seen a single piece of fanart for it, so that really tells you all you need to know).

[sage-nebula]

Farm Beautification Efforts

As some of you may or may not know, I have become obsessed with Stardew Valley over the past month (having clocked 170+ hours into it), and during this time I’ve wanted to take steps and measures to beautify my farm, since I’ve seen some videos of people whose farms are truly gorgeous and it really makes me want to work on my own. Of course, there are a few problems with this. One, I’m not the best designer, and two, I’m playing on Switch, so I don’t have access to any mods, including cool ones like ones that allow you to put furniture on your porch or add cool items to the game. Nevertheless, I’ve been doing my best, and so I thought I’d share some screenshots of my efforts.

First up, the inside of my house! The top floor has the living room, along with the nursery which will be forever unused and unoccupied (save for two Junimo plushes) unless something is added that makes having the children actually worthwhile. I have a storage chest full of gifts blocking entry into that room for specifically that purpose. On the bottom floor we have the kitchen and dining area (complete with my in-game husband Sebastian), along with a little reading area over by the fireplace (which is on the bottom floor to help keep things warm in winter, because heat rises), and of course, the bedroom and Sebastian’s spouse room with his terrarium, computer, et cetera. The tea table in the bedroom is more for Sebastian than myself, since I learned recently that he loves jasmine tea, so I figured it’d be nice to set up a little tea area since I got a tea set as a gift from Pam. I also decorated with the idea that the house should represent both of us, although when Sebastian changed the wallpaper and flooring in the kitchen I immediately changed it back because his choices were hideous. Sorry, Seb.

Oh, and of course . . .

The basement is a starfruit wine cellar, too. ;)

Outside! Seb’s motorcycle is in the back, with Epona’s stable close by the house so I can have easy access to her. The crystal on the porch rings when you tap it; although no one ever uses it, I like to think of it as a doorbell. The decorations in front change every season.

The shed here is less a storage shed and more a production shed; I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but that’s where I have my kegs, five preserves jars, looms, mayonnaise makers, cheese makers, workbench, catalogues, furnaces, crystallariums, et cetera. At some point I might add another, but this works well enough for now. I also have the well there, and I suppose it’s useful, but since I have sprinklers set up everywhere I don’t need to water things as much, so that was mostly to fill space. I’m still trying to think of what to do around it.

The greenhouse, fruit tree grove, grandpa’s shrine, silos, and mill. I have some preserves jars right by the grove, as you can see, so I can easily chuck some fruits into them; even though standard fruit preserves don’t earn as much as starfruit preserves, it’s still worth it, I feel. The greenhouse exclusively makes starfruit, ancient fruit, and sweet gem fruit year-round. I would have taken a picture of the inside, but . . . I forgot again. :/ I decided to use wood pathways along the grove because I felt it better fit the nature feel of it. I do this in a few other places as well, such as . . .

The flower/beehive area. I learned recently that if you grow flowers near beehives, the honey is worth more, because it’s flower-flavored. So I set up a little area for that to happen. The lightning rod area is also there, but I’m thinking of moving that, or else possibly getting rid of it altogether since APPARENTLY lightning rods don’t guarantee that lightning won’t destroy shit. >( But we’ll see. It just looks so ugly compared to everything else . . .

Down here we have the lava eels in their pond of lava. The pond was actually a standard water pond at first, but the lava eels changed that soon enough . . . somehow. I’m not sure how. But then again I’m also not sure how a Dwarf Scroll III helps them be healthier, but that’s what they said would help them, so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The ways of the lava eel are mysterious indeed.

This is the piggos’ area, and as you can see, at the time I took this picture the truffle hunt was in FULL SWING (or kind of wrapping up, since they usually go in around 5/5:30). Truffles aren’t appetizing to look at at all, but they fetch a high price, especially since I have a skill perk that makes all of them Iridium Quality no matter what (for those who don’t play, Iridium Quality is the highest quality). Although I’m not much a fan of piggos, I have twelve of them for this reason. Their names are Waddles, Grumpig, Cello, Rukie, Chetso, Nokaboo, Zuburu, Rollo, Kotso, Wilbur, Spoink, and Pignite. You can probably tell which ones I named intentionally, and which ones I just randomized lol. Also, normally I’d provide grass for all the animals, but finding truffles in grass is difficult, so the piggos just have to live on hay in the barn. It’s fine, they’re all just as happy, it’s not as big a deal.

This is the non-piggo barn area, and . . .

These are the community barn animals. As you can see, I have six cows, three goats, and three sheep. Unfortunately I did not manage to get a picture of the cows smiling, which sucks because they have the cutest smiles. Their names are:

Brown cows: Hershey, Nestle, Ferrero, Ghiradelli

White cows: Kabelle, Brime

Sheep: Wooloo, Dubwool, Mareep

Goats: Faff, Tellono, Knockell

Again, you can probably tell which ones I purposefully named and which ones were randomized. Fun fact, Ferrero and Ghiradelli are Nestle’s daughters. Somehow. I have no idea how because there are no bulls in this game. My working theory is that Hershey and Nestle are wives and somehow gave lesbian birth to Ferrero and Ghiradelli. Until ConcernedApe himself tells me I’m wrong, I’m right. (Note: Either Kabelle or Brime could be the other mother as well. The only for-sure lesbian mom is Nestle.) Also, I named all the brown cows after chocolate brands because brown cows make me think of chocolate milk. I have no idea why, they just do.

This is the coop area, and . . .

These are the coop animals! As you can see, I have five chickens, four rabbits, and three ducks. Yes, the coop outside area is much smaller than the ones for the barn animals, but the coop animals are much smaller themselves so they don’t need as much space. Anyway, these lovely little animals are named . . .

Void Chicken: Ghost

Blue Chicken: Cojiro

Brown chickens: Hetta, Bamello

White chicken: Winona

Rabbits: Cinnamon, Jazz, Lucky, Melody

Ducks: Goose, Zillo, Psy

Again, probably obvious to tell which ones I named and which ones I randomized. Also, for anyone who is like, “Scrawlers, ‘Cojiro’ should be spelled with a k,’ no, you are wrong, I did not name her after that fool of a man in Team Rocket, I named her after the blue cucco in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, whose name is spelled Cojiro, with a C. So. Just so we’re clear on that.

Finally, my crop area. Top right is growing red cabbages at the moment, I think, while the bottom right is SUPPOSED to have wheat(/hay) through this season and the next, but I forgot to go buy more wheat seeds before Pierre closed up shop. (: The top row is all blueberries, while that huge patch in the middle is corn since corn grows in both summer and fall and continues to reproduce after first harvest, so I don’t have to worry about replanting in that huge area again until spring. And then over on the left I have hot peppers, which (like the corn and blueberries) continue to reproduce after first harvest, and reproduce like every four days, which is nice.

And lastly, to check in with some of my scarecrows, THIS guy is a champion and truly earns his title of “deluxe scarecrow,” given how many he has scared away. And on the other end of the scale . . .

We have this guy, who has never worked a day in his life.

The duality of scarecrows.

[auberginesdonthavelimbs]

Phanniemay Day 11: Redesign

Word count: 652

“Oh, god, Jack, come look at this.” Maddie was sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over the blueprints for the ghost portal, as both she and her husband had been every night since the portal had been completed, and had failed to work. Specifically, she was looking over some circuit diagrams that Jack had drawn up fairly early in the build. Jack looked at her pale face, and then at the place she was pointing to on the diagram.

“What is it, Madds? I don’t see anything.” The diagram looked just as it had when he had drawn it, and just as it had a few days earlier when they had finished building the portal. Well, the prototype. It wasn’t exactly a portal to anywhere, right now.

Maddie took a breath and started tracing a particular line, and Jack closely followed her finger with his eyes. When she had finished, he traced the same path again, willing the result to be different when he did it. It wasn’t. Now his face was beginning to pale, too.

“We … no, we couldn’t have missed something like that.” He searched his memory, trying to find any hint of the flaw that was now staring him in the face. Truth be told, he barely remembered the process of building the prototype, let alone drawing the blueprints. They had been working so frantically, and lost so much sleep … maybe they could have missed something like this. Maybe they could have put the on button inside the active part of the portal.

“If one of us had gone inside to turn it on,” Maddie began, apparently as lost in thought as Jack had been, “they would have been electrocuted, at the very least. And probably torn apart by the dimensional forces.” Her eyes suddenly snapped up to meet her husband’s. “Jack, we let the kids go into the lab.” There were tears in her eyes. “Oh my god. What if Jazz, or Danny …” She didn’t need to finish the sentence. If one of their children had gone into the portal and pushed that button, they would have died horribly. And it would have been all his fault.

“The kids are smarter than that, Maddie,” Jack said, trying to reassure himself as much as his wife. “They wouldn’t be playing around in the portal, and there’s no way they would touch anything. They weren’t in any danger. We’re not …” We’re not bad parents, he thought, but he couldn’t say it. This was hardly the first time they had left dangerous ghost technology where Jazz or Danny could get to it. They’d always convinced themselves that the kids were too smart to get hurt, but this felt different. This was far too close, and the consequences far too severe. A press of a button, that was all it would have taken to lose one of their children forever. Maddie seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“We need to make some changes. This can’t happen again.” Jack nodded. “We should lock the lab. Nobody goes down without parental supervision.”

“And we can’t keep pulling all-nighters,” Jack added. “We can’t be making mistakes like this, not when the stakes are so high.” Maddie looked at the clock.

“You’re right. Of course you’re right, we need to sleep. We should go to sleep. But tomorrow we’re putting a lock on that door, and we’re dismantling the portal.” She sighed and shook her head. “We need to completely redesign it.”

“Not completely. We just need to reroute the power source and move some other stuff around to compensate. Don’t you see?” Jack put a hand on Maddie’s shoulder, and he was smiling despite himself. “This means the design didn’t fail; we just never really turned it on. All our tests and theories point to success, here, Maddie. We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do it right.”

[pseudinymous]

Doing Math on the River Styx - 2

[Read Ch. 1 Here]

Phic Phight / Team Ghost / word count not final

Prompt by Zainymusings:

In an effort to keep Danny from failing out of Casper High and becoming Dan, the ghosts band together to tutor Danny in various subjects (Technus in math, Ghostwriter in Language Arts, etc.) Shenanigans ensue.

Chapter Index: 1 / 2

Danny had taken two painkillers before he’d gone home that night.

The headache. God, the headache. He’d always sort of known ghosts must be talented in their respective fields of obsession, but he’d never really witnessed it first-hand because he was usually too busy being attacked by them. Technus knew what he was talking about, he just had no ability to pass that knowledge on to anyone but himself. Ghostwriter clearly knew how to teach, but his advice was so backwards compared to common knowledge that Danny scarcely believed half of it.

And then there’d been the drills. The drills. Ghostwriter had been attempting to teach Danny how to write essays while teaching Technus how to actually teach, and so, in the middle of giving weird left-of-field helpful tips, had been constantly breaking face to yell at Technus. Don’t say it that way, he had impressed. Don’t present information without context. Don’t assume knowledge is inherently there when it isn’t. Don’t you dare touch that book Nicolai, or I’ll—!

Technus was like a child. A savant child. With bonus bad behaviour and a clear problem with indignation. Mathematical intelligence from here til Christmas, but God, at what cost?

And then there was Ghostwriter. His problems were centered around never knowing when to stop — Danny was more than just beat, he was exhausted. It was three in the morning when he’d hauled himself back through the Fenton Portal, and four before he managed to calm down enough to get some sleep. The Friday morning sunlight had come in not long after that, and then it was time to get up and do it all over again.

Danny dragged himself through school. Lancer probably thought he’d been playing Doomed all night. Must’ve looked it. Somehow he managed an answer about Orwell when called upon, but it was just as likely he’d hallucinated the whole thing.

… At least the ghosts left him alone, that day.

When the day was done and he’d managed to drag himself home, he was greeted not by his mother, father, sister, or the newest Fenton death machine designed specifically to peel the skin off his ghost half like a particularly unfortunate orange — it was Clockwork.

“Having a long day, aren’t we?” the old time ghost grinned from inside Danny’s room’s doorway.  He leaned casually against the frame. “I see you’re working hard.”

“No thanks to you,” said Danny, throwing his schoolbag on top of his bed and quickly closing the bedroom door behind him. Clockwork phased through it. “Are you joking? Why the heck did it have to be Technus and Ghostwriter? Surely there’s gotta be other ghosts that can do it!”

Time was stopped. It had to have been. There was suddenly a time medallion around Danny’s neck, after all. Clockwork’s form changed to his youngest incarnation, moving now to lean upon his staff instead. “I was under the impression you were doing quite well. You even answered that Orwellian question in English class today. I thought it was quite articulate.”

“You were watching — was that a pun?”

“I’m always watching,” said Clockwork calmly, smugly. Danny wasn’t sure whether to shudder or just get angry instead. “And as for whether or not that was a pun, I’m sure by now you know the answer. You’ve seen some benefit from these lessons already and you’ve only attended one of them.”

Fine. Danny didn’t want to agree, but the English lesson had at least gone kind of well, as much as it had also destroyed him. But then there was the sticking point: “What about math?” Danny demanded, his hand gesturing wildly as if to prove his point. “Technus is crazy! He just gives me problems and expects me to know the answers! He doesn’t know how to teach at all!”

“Oh, I’m sure something will come of it.”

Danny hated the way Clockwork smiled knowingly like that, all the damn time. He knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what was going to happen, it’s just that Danny couldn’t see any possible avenue to ever learn from Technus, regardless of the Ghostwriter’s best efforts to reform him. It was like trying to thread a six metre wide steel cube through the eye of a sewing needle — you had to be stupid to even try.

… Stupid or desperate, anyway.

Clockwork seemed to sense the tension. Scratch that — he probably knew about the tension six decades ago. “I wouldn’t put you in a situation like this unless it was absolutely necessary, Danny,” he said, slowly morphing into his more familiar adult form. “You can at least trust me in that.”

He didn’t feel that way, but it didn’t matter. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, brushing Clockwork off all the same. “So what about the other subjects, anyway? The math and English tests are next week, but the week after that I’ve got, like, science and home economics and history. Who on heck’s going to teach those?”

Clockwork raised one of his eyebrows, which disappeared beneath his hood. “I thought you were doing rather well in home economics,” he suggested, “But if you’re feeling as if it’s a struggle, I could always request the services of the Lunch—”

“—I’m fine,” said Danny, quickly. “Just science and history. God, just science and history please.”

Clockwork nodded. “Well, you might be surprised, but Spectra—”

“Spectra?!” Danny spat.

“—You have objections?” asked Clockwork.

“Oh come on!” said Danny. “You know everything, don’t you? You know what she did to me! She even tried to kill Jazz! She’s — she’s like, the most messed up of any of those ghosts!”

Clockwork sighed and tapped each of his ten fingers in sequence around his staff. “I do. It’s just regrettable that in this timestream she is — unbelievably — one of the best people to teach you science. I give you my guarantee she won’t bring you or your loved ones to harm, however.”

Danny steamed slightly. Of course Clockwork wouldn’t lie to him, but the situation was still about as palatable as a pint of motor oil poured on slice of bread, and the small half-ghost wasn’t going to give it a rest until he was very sure his conversation partner knew that.

“You might at least like my final suggestion somewhat more,” Clockwork added. The grin was no longer unpleasant, just a calming smile, and Danny almost disliked how at ease this put him. “As far as history’s concerned, I’ll be happy to teach you that myself.”

It was as if Danny’s brain had jammed in gear, squeaked, and then fallen off the side of a mountain. “You’re going to teach me history?”

“Yes.”

“Do you even have time for that?” Danny sputtered. “I mean, like—”

It was finally time for Clockwork to cut him off. “I am the Master of Time, Danny, as you put it — there is always time.”

“But—“

“However, the time for our little conversation is almost up,” Clockwork continued, effectively silencing him, and completely ignoring the little logical plot hole he’d just created. “For now, just do your best with Technus and Ghostwriter. I’m sure it’ll be better than you expect.” He paused simply to hold up his staff, and that’s when Danny knew this was the end of it. “You have my word.”

Clockwork disappeared from existence. Moments later, the time medallion around Danny’s neck vanished too.

… There were five possible hours of sleep before his next lesson. He decided to catch them.

Chapter Index: 1 / 2