#and he's known you for as long

[rickybaby]

No matter how much Helmut annoys me at times, but this man really was there for the beginning of Daniel's career. No wonder Daniel knows what he has to do to impress him. Their relationship is wildly complicated.

en.espn.co.uk/hrtf1/motorsport/story/53044.html

Imagine you're Helmut Marko. You've seen hundreds of young drivers come and go. You've made the careers of some, and broken the careers of many more others. It's 2007 and you see this lanky guy with big poofy hair come 6th in some regional junior championship and you think he's maybe quick enough to be part of your junior team. And then he shows up to meet you and the team boss for the first time with his shoes squelching water all over the floor because he fell into some fountain outside because he was too busy gawking at the Red Bull headquarters. Surely, you wouldn't have much hope of him surviving the shark tank that is the red bull junior academy, but yet he surprises you by jumping through every hoop you throw at him, by his sheer dogged determination to show you he can be your next golden boy. So, of course, he's going to have your grudging respect and you wouldn't mind playing godfather for a bit and use your influence to get him a seat at some struggling team - it's like here's another challenge for you, show me what you can do.

[sharkylad]

Thinking about the fact that Mabel and Dipper didn't know they had two great uncles.

Yeah they are 12 and at 12 I had a shotty understanding of my family tree- But really? Nobody brought up their great uncle? Stanley? Especially since they'll be staying with his twin brother, Stanford?

Shermie never went to Stan's fake funeral, which to me means the twos relationship was strained on some level. If Shermie is older that means his view of Stan was poisoned in some way, that even as kids they weren't close. If the Shermie is younger then he never even got to meet Stan and all he knew about him was how he failed his family. Hell, people probably barely mentioned Stanley TO Shermie.

The fact that Stan had become a black stain upon the Pines family name makes me so vividly upset. Stanley faked his death and the family just- seemingly decided to strike him from the record. To pretend he didn't existed to spare themselves the sadness and shame.

Stanford and Shermie Pines. The only children worth mentioning of Filbrick and Caryn Pines.

It was never Stanford that was lost to the world. It was Stanley, ever since he had to leave New Jersy- it was always him that had to be struck from the record. Change his name, change his state, change his affiliations, destroy the remains of ghost that was Stanley Pines. Kill him so the family doesn't bring him up, doesn't ask questions, stops asking "Stanford" about his twin.

I just keep thinking about the fact that since the day he made one single mistake all the way up until Ford walks out of that machine- Stanley Pines was killed and did not exist. And Stan himself had no one to blame, he had to play the part in his own demise- He is the only one who ever knew Stanley was alive and has been for decades.

He lives in the multitudes of every personality he's ever taken, all in the hope that he himself can stop being Stanley Pines.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 170

Once again on my Ras & Danny being training rivals thanks to time travel bullshit. 

Look, Danny knows about the league of Assassins, but he almost dies of laughter when he realizes it’s the modern name of the league of Shadows. He’s an adult now, has been for a while, he’s allowed to find the situation he’s found himself in amusing. Hell, his sparring buddy who is somehow still alive is laughing too. 

And no one else knows what’s going on, okay? This random man walked into their secret base, completely ignored the many assassins trying to stop him, and called their illustrious leader a “Little Bitch Man” and they are now fighting?

The fighting is familiar, but why the fuck is Ras cackling and saying things like “Ayreh Feek” back. Practically saying “Fuck you,” while laughing and oh Pit, they’re Bantering this is terrifying, why has Ras not won yet, why has this man not died yet and- bodies aren’t supposed to bend like that what the fuck- 

Ras on the other hand, has One friend, who is immortal like him, actually remembers the shit he complains about, is also down for saving endangered animals, and actually knows how to spar! It’s not a proper spar unless someone loses at least a hand that has to be reattached! And honestly, people nowadays should know that the proper greeting to an old friend is to instantly try to kill the other. 

[syn0vial]

my gun-loving, car guy, "i'm the straightest man i know" brother who just finished baldur's gate 3 talking about astarion:

[turtleblogatlast]

Big Mama must have lost some serious standing in the yokai underworld because it’s gotten apparent that she keeps being beaten by a small group of teenagers and the occasional rat man, and when it’s not them then she’s taking L’s from her own schemes working against her.

And in the ensuing power vacuum, the Hamatos accidentally become the most feared crime family known to all the big bads of the Hidden City.

After all, they’ve publicly outplayed Big Mama multiple times, a couple of them have taken out the heads of two of the most well known criminal organizations, one took out Heinous Green, two are responsible for the destruction of Witch Town, they have ties to both the infamous Baron Draxum and Captain Piel, they won the Doom Dome death race, they’re Battle Nexus Champions, they’ve displayed insane feats of power and defeated impossibly strong enemies, most of them have been to jail, and they regularly mingle with humans.

You can just imagine the notoriety they’d accumulate from word of mouth alone.

[racke7]

De-aged and injured Danny

Danny is found out by his parents. They don't take it well.

Clockwork is very upset about this, because he'd gambled on almost-certain odds of them being chill about it. So now he has to run damage-control before this very unlikely time-line goes even further off the deep end.

Unfortunately, Danny needs to be in the living world, not the Infinite Realms. Which means that Clockwork needs to put Danny somewhere safe. Somewhere where nobody will find him.

And double-unfortunately, the only place that remotely fits this bill is to contact Lady Gotham.

City-spirits aren't... super-reliable. They're Neverborns who very very rarely consider "humanoid shapes" worth figuring out. So they just kind of... exist. An ectoplasmic presence that's undeniable, but also extremely difficult to have a conversation with.

Thankfully, Lady Gotham is (for all of her... quirks) generally very hero-aligned. Which is why she's the best one to ask for sanctuary for Danny.

Danny who Clockwork de-aged as a way to "limit his injuries" of being vivisected.

Lady Gotham agrees, but she only has one "safe place" to put him. And her Knight is a little bit too paranoid for her to just dump an injured child in his lair, without causing more trouble than it's worth.

But it's hardly a difficult thing, to arrange a few things, and place Danny in a spot where his injuries will cause her Knight to hurry to his aid.

Such as... in a room filled with medical equipment, right next door to where Joker has just lost a fight with Batman.

Things escalate somewhat when Batman finds him and makes some assumptions about what Joker has been up to. Tempers run a bit high, someone loses a few extra teeth, someone else has to physically drag Bruce off Joker's body before he beats him to death, and the Joker considers the whole thing a grand old laugh (he has no idea what's going on, but it sure pissed off Batty, and that's always a treat).

Of course, the Batfam has to actually investigate the scene, evacuate Danny, give Danny medical aid, and then also ask Danny about what happened.

Danny wakes up and is very confused about a lot of things.

He's no longer being vivisected. Great. Love that part.

He's somewhere he doesn't recognize (the Batcave). Could be good, could be bad. At least the bed is pretty nice?

He's very small. This feels like a personal attack. He might not have gotten a good growth-spurt yet, but taking away what he had is cruel and unusual.

And there's a weirdo in an... armored bat-costume? Who isn't setting off his ghost-sense? What the hell kind of "normal" person wears something like that?

Still, Danny does answer the questions that Batman asks him, because... well, there's a green post-it-note in his pocket that says he shouldn't lie.

So Danny tells Batman about his parents cutting him up "for science". And Batman hears that the Joker somehow managed to hire two mad scientists who (upon the tiniest bit of suggestion from the Joker, who'd definitely seen the similarities between Danny and Jason and thought it would be a "funny prank") had leapt at the opportunity to vivisect their own son.

This is definitely worrying, because from the phrasing, they'd been "wanting to do it for a long time". And considering Danny's slow heartbeat and low body-temperature? They'd been wanting to do it because he was a meta.

So, somewhere out there (the Bats had found no trace of the two) were two deranged lunatics who wanted to cut open metas to "see how they worked".

Batman does the very reasonable thing and actually contacts the rest of the Justice League with their descriptions, just in case they'd managed to leave Gotham before the Bats had tracked them down.

[ew-selfish-art]

DP x DC AU: Danny desperately wants to find the explosion guy. Tim is really good at covering his tracks... he didn't account for ghosts.

The explosions make it onto TV as purported terror activity and most people haven't heard of that part of the world much less ever given a second thought to care about it. The only real reason it gets reported on has something to do with the Justice League and... Danny knows too much.

He's been in training for Clockwork's court (which he's suspicious of- feels like kingly duty bullshit- but Danny is playing along out of curiosity for now) and he's learned a lot about how the living and non-living worlds collide. That means learning about CW's usual suspects- one of which just happened to have a ton of bases around the area Danny was seeing on the news.

It didn't take long for Danny to try to piece together that whoever blew up Nanda Parbat was trying to fuck with the League of Shadows, and was doing it successfully. Less green portals in the world the better, same goes for assassins. But it gets Danny thinking... Maybe he can employ similar tactics on the GIW Bases that keep spawning on the edges of Amity Park. It would at least set them back while he and his friends navigated the help line desk to request Justice League intervention. None of them can leave Amity Park, so outreach is going to have to be creative.

So Danny figures he'll just find the guy. Call up some ghosts who were there, or er, came from there and get a profile and track him down. But the ghosts keep saying it was The Detective. Annoying!

Danny goes full conspiracy theory, gets Tucker and Sam involved, and begrudgingly asks Wes Weston his thoughts.

He hadn't expected Wes to garble out a thirty minute presentation (that had 100 more slides left to go before he cut it off) about how Batman totally trained with a cult and so did his kids. Danny kind of rolled his eyes but... hey, new avenue of searching in the Infinite Realms at least.

The ghosts confirm that Bombs is for sure not Batman's MO- But maybe his second kid would know? The second kid was already brought back to life though, so no way to easily reach him... Danny starts to realize that this might be the work of a Robin now. Wasn't the red one known for solving cold cases? (Sam provides this information- its a social faux pas to not know hero gossip at Gotham Galas- everything she's learned is against her will).

It all comes to a head when Danny goes about the hard task of opening a portal for the guy to come through at just the right time, explain the infinite realms so he doesn't panic and then describe what the fuck was going on with the GIW. It takes months, just over a full year, of random (educated guesses) portal generating- Finally, Red Robin drops into the land of the dead.

"So, you're the guy I've got to talk to about explosions right?" Danny enthusiastically asks.

Tim thinks he's died and landed in the after life following 56 hours of being awake and plummeting off the side of a building into a Lazarus pool. Nothing makes sense about the kid in front of him.

"Yeah, I got a guy for munitions." Tim answers cooly.

"How do you feel about secretly sanctioned government operations that violate protected rights?"

"Gotta get rid of 'em some how. Need me to point you in the right direction?" This might as well be happening.

[bamsara]

So is the reason for Tyren getting more unhinged the side effects of the devotion necklace, or was this a downward spiral he would have gone done regardless of the necklace? I remember you talking about how the necklaces have consequences, and I'm curious if this is one of them.

Yeah!

Tyren would have been an already overly-doting and even jealous character on his own without the loyalty necklace, (and had been due to his crush on the Lamb even before recieving it, and what happens when you reject followers in-game) but his spiral into a unhealthy obsession and idolization was aided by the loyalty necklace.

If it was given to perhaps a regular, less devoted follower, the effects maybe wouldn't have had such severity. But Lamb got the materials/necklace from the mystic seller and isn't fully aware of the effects it might have on their followers yet.

So, dog is unhinged a bit on his own, but amplified by the necklace. He's originally friendly, caring and sweet. But you take good traits, too much of a good thing, and they can turn bad

[phoenixkaptain]

A story like Thousand Autumns is very subtle in its romance.

Shen Qiao has only ever known his sect. He knows it very well, because of this fact. He knows the people, he knows the rules, he knows the daily doings and who is doing them. He knows every blade of grass and every stone. He’s like a lonely mountain flower, on the highest peak, unseen by any but a few birds and unknowing that there’s more it might never know.

When he finds himself away from his sect for the first time, he’s confused. At most, he’s gone to the base of the mountain, maybe the fields surrounding that, but no further. The flower was plucked and tossed aside.

For a man stumbling blindly in the world, literally and figuratively, there really isn’t a better guide than one that knows just about everything. And that’s, without a doubt, Yan Wushi.

Yan Wushi has lived longer than Shen Qiao, has been more places than Shen Qiao, and has fought more battles than Shen Qiao. Yan Wushi is the perfect example of something out of reach even for someone out of reach. He’s the only one who could answer any questions asked of him, but especially the questions that Shen Qiao would want to ask him.

And there’s no question in my mind that Yan Wushi doesn’t fall for Shen Qiao at first sight, but he’s certainly attracted to him. Not in an overtly sexual or emotional way, but Yan Wushi, the way his character is set up? It’s impossible for him not to be fascinated by Shen Qiao.

He knows Shen Qiao is the very picture of a peerless immortal. He’s well aware that Shen Qiao is considered untouchable by even the people closest to Shen Qiao. He’s most aware that Shen Qiao is Qi Fengge’s (coughhndisputedcough) favourite disciple, and honestly that’s enough for him to overwhemingly want to mess with Shen Qiao.

There are a lot of reasons for Yan Wushi to fall for Shen Qiao. Most of the people in the novel fall for Shen Qiao, after all, there is a precedent.

But the one I’ve seen questioned is Shen Qiao’s affection for Yan Wushi. Where does it come from? When did it start? Does Shen Qiao even fucking like that asshole?

The easy answer is: yes, he does. The novel tells us that. Shen Qiao, despite everything, does fall for Yan Wushi’s, um, “charms” in the end. This is made clear.

But why? A thousand voices cry out. Why the fuck would any reasonable person like Yan goddamn Wushi in any capacity?

Well, there’s your first mistake. Shen Qiao is not a reasonable person.

Shen Qiao as a character is absolutely terrifying. He could absolutely destroy the world given half the inclination, but he just doesn’t want to. He’s already considered unmatched before he’s pushed unceremoniously off of a mountain, and his journey only increases his strength. He isn’t quite equal to Yan Wushi, but he’s the only person Yan Wushi ever sees as equal to himself.

Shen Qiao’s best and worst trait is his patience. He’s unwavering. He really just embodies taoism, especially as it’s presented in the novels. He is the picture of a river that doesn’t stray from its path.

Which is why it’s hard for him to reconcile his own attraction to Yan Wushi, but let’s all be clear here. Yan Wushi absolutely starts seducing Shen Qiao on day fucking one. If he could’ve (if Qi Fengge hadn’t been there) he would’ve tried to eat that cabbage when it was just a little sprout. Shen Qiao is unpracticed in most social interactions, to be frank, but he’s especially unused to romance and Yan Wushi really is his first introduction to being hit on.

Yan Wushi is far from good, at really any point, to anybody but especially to Shen Qiao. But that doesn’t particularly matter because Shen Qiao chooses to forgive him, again and again. And I really think, after giving Shen Qiao to a confirmed terrible, awful person who has already promised to do terrible thing to Shen Qiao, that Shen Qiao himself wouldn’t forgive literally anyone else for doing that. And he shouldn’t, because it was really fucked up, but that still doesn’t matter because Shen Qiao ultimately DOES forgive Yan Wushi.

What am I saying? I’m saying that Shen Qiao fell for Yan Wushi first. It is the only way the story makes any sense. Shen Qiao is annoyed at him, he’s furious at him, he’s so fucking pissed he could kill that man, but he likes him. He likes Yan Wushi’s company. He likes that Yan Wushi gives him a challenge. He’s exasperated, but he likes it.

Shen Qiao forgives Yan Wushi SO MANY TIMES. Yan Wushi humiliates him and mocks him and is the absolute worst, but Shen Qiao forgives him and more than that, Shen Qiao always is waiting for Yan Wushi to come back to bother him more.

Is there more to Shen Qiao’s attraction? Probably. Is it a daddy kink? It could be. But I honestly can’t help but read it as Shen Qiao falling for the absolute pits of a man that is Yan Wushi. Shen Qiao likes that old bastard and decides to spend the rest of his life with the fucker and he is just too much of a block of ice to show it.

[formerprincewille]

Something that really sets Wille and Simon apart from other queer ships is that when we say their love language is physical touch, IT REALLY IS PHYSICAL TOUCH. And I’m not speaking of just sex. Over the course of the show, the amount of touching between them is astronomical. And that’s really something rarely seen in queer media. There may be moments here or there, but often times there’s a lack of physical contact unless it’s for “the plot”. Wille and Simon feel like a real couple in the way they’re always physically reaching out for each other.

[hanzajesthanza]

geralt "i will NEVER deadname my best friend" of rivia

"he will ALWAYS be dandelion to ME"

[1495-gauge]

there's that fucked up three-eyed thing that lives in the woods. whose turn is it to chase it off again??

[willowser]

you know, the thing that i think is so endearing and also heartbreaking about prince touya is that he tries so hard to be the crown prince his father wants him to be and feels the full weight of his future on his shoulders while also still managing to lose out to shouto, somehow, and when his marriage has been arranged and he's sacrificed another sliver of his life for the sake of the todoroki rule—he's just not expecting you to really care about him at all. and when you do, it is just so disarming for him.

[casualavocados]

...Nothing.

Chen Bowen as CHEN YI & Chiang Tien as AI DI KISEKI: DEAR TO ME (2023)

[harrietvane]

Doorway onto the Renaissance spiral staircase in the Château Royale, Blois

[starry-bi-sky]

Clone^2 danny headcanons and/or facts that i wanted to expand on but didn't have the motivation or inspiration to write a ficlet about. Ultimately most of these are ideas that already exist in canon clone^2 but are only now being expanded on/explored/stated specifically.

Because I'm procrasinating cfau and passively thinking about clone danny and damian again.

1 - As he's liminal, Danny generates his own ectoplasm. He generates it at a slower rate than the casual ghost but faster than the average liminal. It's what gives him an ecto-signature and results in him triggering his parents' weapons and ecto-sensors.

The ectoplasm he generates actually has a use, and he tends to burn through his supply while he's fighting because of all the physical energy he spends + the use of his scary eyes requires (albeit really minor amounts of) ectoplasm to use. It also has health benefits, as using his ectoplasm keeps his heartbeat steady and lessens the risk of his arrhythmia flaring up due to all of his physical activity and adrenaline.

It does happen occasionally that he uses up more ectoplasm than he can replace, and this has the expected negative effects on his health as all that adrenaline and stress catches up to his heart without a buffer to mitigate it. He carries a canteen full of diluted ectoplasm with him in order to give his system the boost it needs in order to stabilize itself, which he can usually tell when he needs due to excessive fatigue/chest pains/dizziness/other arrhythmia symptoms he gets that means he's low on ectoplasm.

2 - Danny's arrhythmia is a form of bradycardia (which is a slower heartbeat) -- what type? Unspecified / Unknown thanks to it being ectoplasmic in nature.

3 - In that same breath, Danny also has to burn that ectoplasm off in some form or another because if he doesn't it builds up and causes him the same issues as if he was too low. It also causes him to become more emotionally volatile, restless, irritable, overstimulated, etc, which the stress of that then makes his heart condition worsen. If too much ectoplasm builds up, it'll cause a physical electrical shock/shortage. This is rare however, and usually is the equivalent of giving someone a painful static shock. At best it makes the lights flicker or technology fritz out for a few seconds.

While it doesn't have much effect on the physical world, it does expend a good chunk of ectoplasm. Think like dumping out a heavy bucket of water that you've been carrying for a while, or getting into a hot shower after being outside in the cold for hours. It's emotionally draining but very relieving.

4 - Danny can replenish ectoplasm or generate ectoplasm faster by resting, eating, consuming other ectoplasm (fastest), fulfilling his interests / doing things that makes him happy, or by being exposed to high amounts of ectoplasm in the area. He can also rapidly generate it by being in a volatile emotional state, but that drains ectoplasm almost as quickly, and runs the risk of causing flare ups in his arrhythmia.

5 - this is actually canon to the au but I figured it wouldn't hurt to expand more on it / clarify / confirm, but Danny post-Damian has chronic pain in his hands from the nerve damage he sustained. He has daily physical therapy exercises he's supposed to do that he does in the mornings/evenings and whenever his hands hurt/feel stiff. He wears compression gloves in his day-to-day life and gets Sam and Tucker's help to brainstorm ideas about how to make compression gloves for Phantom that can include his knuckledusters. His grip and hand strength is weakened.

He has bad hand days where his hands hurt more than usual. This can happen at random, but is more common after he's overused/strained his hands either the day before or earlier in the day. His fingers stiffen up for similar reasons, and he gets tremors. It's happened before where (for example) he's braiding his hair and unbraiding it, only to need someone else to finish the braid because his fingers stiffened up and don't want to work like he wants them to.

Massages, heat, pressure, etc. helps soothe the pain, and since Danny's a fidgety person his friends and family can usually tell when he has a flare up because any hand movements he was doing prior ceased/slowed suddenly, or he starts massaging his hands / stretching out his fingers.

Damian very stubbornly insists on massaging his hands for him when this happens, he has a lot of intense guilt for being the reason for Danny's chronic pain so he wants to alleviate it in anyway he can.

6 - Danny has what I like to call "Bruce-isms", a word I came up with just now that means he has Bruce Wayne mannerisms that come from the fact that he's still Bruce's clone. A Nature vs. Nurture thing. His Bruce-isms include the Bruce Grunts Of Ambiguous Tonal Meaning ("hm", "hrm", "hn"), his workaholism, his paranoia (on a milder scale), etc. They're small, relatively non-defining things that are quirks but don't make up his personality.

He's got what Sam and Tucker like to call "Bruce Wayne Moments" which are essentially Bruce-isms but only ones that Danny and his friends are aware of considering they only know Bruce as Brucie Wayne and not Batman. "Bruce Wayne Moments" include Danny being clumsy, doing something air-headed, being oblivious, etc. It's not a common joke among the three of them since Tucker and Sam know that Danny's still pr sensitive to the whole clone thing. So they only bring it up when he's done something stupid but hilarious.

7 - while clone^2 focuses more on Danny and Damian's relationship and Danny helping Damian develop his identity beyond just "Damian Wayne's Clone", Danny still suffers from his own identity crises. He sometimes gets jealous of Ellie and Damian for being "lucky" that they always knew they were clones, rather than finding out later in life.

He's aware that this is not fair to think and that Damian and Ellie both have their own struggles as clones, but he can't help it sometimes.

He tries not to think about it too much, but when things get too quiet or when he's not busy, Danny can't help but wonder how much of himself is things he's learned on his own and come from him, and how much of it comes from being Bruce Wayne's clone. He has to stop and count how many things are unique about him specifically when he starts to emotionally spiral. It's not rational, but it's not supposed to be.

As a result Danny kinda, hm, clings to his identity as the Phantom, just a little bit? He thinks it's one of the few things that he has autonomous control over as "Danny Fenton", rather than it being a result of him being Bruce Wayne's clone. Because Bruce Wayne isn't a vigilante! Right? Right?

Consequently this becomes one of the reasons that Damian keeps mum about Bruce Wayne's identity. The original reasons were because Danny asked not to know much about the LoA beyond what Damian already told him, and Batman was technically "apart" of the LoA, and secondly because he just didn't want Danny to get involved with Batman and co and Danny knowing about Bruce Wayne's identity could potentially cause that.

But as time goes on Damian kinda notices like, just how being a clone is affecting Danny even if he hides it from Damian pretty well. He can't really comprehend what it was like for Danny to grow up thinking he was normal like everyone else only to find out he was a clone, but he does see the hurt it's causing his brother. And he does notice that Danny was holding onto being Phantom quite a bit, and figured that if he found out Bruce Wayne was also a vigilante, it would hurt him beyond belief.

8 - So Danny's creation has been kept relatively,,, mmm,,, vague? considering I've been struggling for a time how I could plausibly have his creation happen without Bruce finding out about it immediately. And my conclusion is that around the time Danny was created, Bruce met up with the Fenton parents again for some reason or another -- checking out their tech under the guise of wanting to catch up with them.

And I can imagine that, due to being close friends in college, the Fentons literally just outright told him, "Hey we wanna 'nother kid but don't want to go through the risk of pregnancy again, so we're gonna make a clone of one of us instead"

and in true Bruce fashion, he mentally went "wow i should learn Everything And Anything About This Thing Specifically. Just In Case." and outwardly went "woah cool! ahaha how does it work"

and since the Fentons consider Bruce a close friend and are also incapable of Not Talking About Science, turned and went "OH WE CAN SHOW YOU" and showed Bruce their entire cloning process up to and including how they (safely) extracted the DNA they were gonna use. of which they already had. they were gonna just extract Jack's DNA a second time as an example, but it was Bruce who said "hey you should try me instead" in order to gauge how exactly safe this was and if there were any symptoms he would need to recognize in cloning.

so with his consent they did, and then showed him how they were going to use the DNA to make a clone without actually going through the process. Without prompting from Bruce, the Fentons went "we're gonna throw your DNA away though since we don't want this lying around and because we have no use for it" and visibly showed him that they were disposing it.

Bruce came to the conclusion that the Fentons weren't planning anything nefarious, they just really wanted another kid, and (reluctantly) left afterwards. The mixup comes when Maddie, surprisingly, misplaces the cartridge with Jack's DNA in it and while they could have always gotten another sample, it was better and safer to just try and find the original before that.

Jack finds Bruce's in their disposable. In his excitement, he forgets that it was Bruce's DNA, and manages to get it out safely. Maddie wasn't looking when he found it, and in her excitement also forgot to ask where Jack found it. They used that cartridge instead.

When they found out they used the wrong DNA, Danny was already about year old and while Jack and Maddie are morally dubious, they're only morally dubious towards ghosts. Danny was their beloved human baby, they would never do anything to him.

That being said, they were still horrified when they found out, and really, they genuinely did consider reaching out to Bruce to tell him. They thought it was something he deserved to know since it was his DNA that got used instead, and they felt awfully guilty after he trusted them enough to let them draw DNA from him. The only reason they hadn't is because, at the time, Bruce had been really busy with something in his public life and they didn't want to bother him during such a stressful time.

So they were going to wait, and in Fenton-like fashion, forgot to tell him. When the subject came up again sometime later, they assumed they already told Bruce and went about their day.