Tumgik
#badger cereal
lilianade-comics · 8 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Babysitter Vlad AU! (Jack and Maddie went through the babysitting services of every eligible mom and teenage girl in town. Ironically, their house is extremely haunted whenever they're not there, so literally everyone is too scared to babysit. This means there's only one person in the entire world who they would trust to watch their kids who also wouldn't be bothered by the rampant paranormal activity. And they're sure he'll be DELIGHTED to receive a random desperate phone call from his old college friends!)
[Also, COMMISSIONS are OPEN!]
6K notes · View notes
sinclairsolutions · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
Turns out, Vlad being redeemed doesn't change how often he gets the shit beat out of him, it's just that now he's getting the shit beat out of him in the course of helping Danny rather than causing problems on purpose
...Though I'm sure he still causes plenty of problems, on purpose or otherwise
1K notes · View notes
picturejasper20 · 17 days
Text
Fics that have Danny and Vlad being captured by a ghost or GIW and them being put together inside the same cell space are funny because it is like putting two rabid dogs in the same room except one is a chihuahua and the other huge police dog and waiting for how long they can go without beating the shit out of each other.
520 notes · View notes
schnuffel-danny · 7 months
Text
Danny getting injured and Vlad wrapping him up in his cape like it's a shock blanket.....
611 notes · View notes
justaphantomhuman · 14 days
Text
Danny, after blasting Vlad in the face: you are SUCH a loserpilled cringemaxxer Vlad, incredulously gesturing: CHEESE AND FRIES, DANIEL, WHAT IN THE FUDGE BUCKETS DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!
241 notes · View notes
vladdyissues · 8 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
A Stitch in Time
738 notes · View notes
halfa-failure · 22 days
Text
Tumblr media
It’d be like that sometimes
136 notes · View notes
dp-time-police · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Danny Phantom in: THE TIME POLICE
Buddy-cop duo Vlad Plasmius and Danny Phantom are from another timeline, tasked by Clockwork to enter other timelines to prevent their implosions at the hands of a very powerful and highly coveted magical artifact. Is your timeline next?
Edited to add Clockwork
1K notes · View notes
five-rivers · 11 months
Text
Turpentine
An AU following the same 'ages' concept as Baroque. You do not have to read Baroque to understand this.
.
As a superhero, ghost-based or otherwise, Danny tended to be hyper-aware of changes in his environment.  So long as he wasn't sleep-deprived, anyway.  Which he was.  Frequently.  But Frostbite didn't spar with him when he was sleep deprived, so, when he called a time out to their bout, he wasn't.  
"Is everything alright, Great One?" asked Frostbite.  
Danny, a little out of breath despite not needing to breathe - it was a psychological thing, okay? - shrugged and pointed.  "What's that?"
Frostbite turned to look and stiffened.  Danny didn't blame him.  The sight had surprised him, too.  A flat, black disk, about the size of his pinky fingernail held at arm's length, hung in the Ghost Zone sky, over what had formerly been its brightest part.  It looked like an eclipse, only with a lot less light escaping from around the edges.  
"Oh, dear," said Frostbite.  
"What is it?" 
Frostbite turned and flew quickly out of the training stadium.  
"Driftice!" he called.  "The age is turning!  We need the telescope!"
"The telescope?" asked Danny, matching his pace with Frostbite's.  
Frostbite spared a moment to smile down at Danny.  "It's very impressive, I think you'll like it."
Danny nodded.  He’d never met a telescope he didn’t like.  
By the time they reached the buildings proper, yetis were starting to stop and stare at the black spot.  A few of them would then start running, doing something, but others just… kept staring.  
“The telescope!” Frostbite called again.  That spurred a few more yetis into action.  He started giving people directions.
Soon, they were dragging a long, ridged tube from within one of the larger caves and hooking it up to all sorts of equipment.  The lens inside winked at Danny, its curve seeming highly exaggerated for the length of the telescope, until Danny realized it must be made out of ice, which didn’t bend light as much as glass.  
… He may have looked into making a few ice telescopes of his own.  Hey, having a hobby under his circumstances was hard!
“What’s going on?” asked Danny, after Frostbite paused in his orders.  “Are we being attacked or something?”
“Not… as such, no.”  Frostbite looked back up at the black spot, clearly worried.  “Every so often, the Realms… change.  We call it the turning of the age.  It begins with the color of the ambient ectoplasm, and the color tends to indicate the character of the age.  So far, we have been experiencing a green age, which tends towards the more natural or chaotic, with differences between ghosts exaggerated.  With ghosts themselves exaggerated to a degree.”
“Okay,” said Danny, “so… it’s not normally like this?”
“Normal is relative.” Frostbite waved his hand as if dismissing the entire concept.  “Ages can last from anywhere from one year to thousands.  This one has lasted only a few hundred.”
“And I’m guessing black isn’t a good color?”
“It is somewhat more complicated than that.  It is possible that it isn’t true black, which is why we’re looking.  To make sure.  It could be a very deep blue, or green, or red, which tends not to be terribly comfortable, but is still bearable.  It could be the color of a starry night, which is a good deal better.  It could be a color we do not have the senses to see directly, such as ultraviolet or infrared, both of which give rise to rather alien ages, but…”
“But black?” prompted Danny.  
“I do hope it is not truly black,” said Frostbite.  “How to put this… There are certain popular conceptions of afterlives, and other… let us call them worlds beyond worlds, yes?”
Danny nodded, not sure where this was going.  “Like heaven and hell, or the Greek underworld?” he asked, to clarify.
“Indeed,” said Frostbite.  “The Realms reflect those.  Or, perhaps, they reflect the Realms.  Again, the color is the indicator.”
“So, what does black mean?  Hell?”
Frostbite shook his head.  “No.  Hell is red, and… to be truthful, Great One, despite all the woes that come to the fore when we become demons, red ages have positives as well.  Black, true black, is… nothing.”
“Nothing?” repeated Danny.  He was hoping he was misunderstanding.
“Nothing,” confirmed Frostbite.  “Cessation.  Nonexistence.  Not Ending, but stopping.  It is–”
“You’re going to die?”
“No,” said Frostbite.  “As I said, no Ending.  Typically.  But… if the age is truly black, then we will cease to exist until the next age, only returning when it turns again.  It is not sleep.  It is not death.  We simply will not be.”
Danny wasn’t sure if that was better, and he was sure that showed on his face, but Frostbite didn’t look all that enthused, either.  
“The black ectoplasm will spread from where it began, affecting other ectoplasm constructs, including ghosts, on contact.”
“So, if it touches you, you just… stop existing?”
“There is generally a small amount of time between contact and cessation, but… yes.”  Frostbite turned more fully to Danny.  “That is why, if the age is true black, you must leave and not return until the age changes again.”
“What?  Why just me?”
“Think, Great One.  We are fully ghosts.  We cannot survive without ectoplasm.  Yes, some might try to hide in the human world, and avoid the touch of the black.  Some might even succeed.  But they will be much weakened, perhaps even to Fading, should the age last long at all.  But here, we will return, even if much time has passed.  But for you… You are different.”
“Because I’m a half ghost.”
“Yes,” said Frostbite.  “You may be affected just as we are, but imagine, what might happen to you if you suddenly lost your ghost half?”
“I’d… lose my powers, at least,” said Danny, swallowing against sudden nausea.  That was a little too close to what had happened in the bad future, even if it was in the opposite direction.  
“Yes, and if that happened here, while the black was coming, you would not be able to escape.  You would simply fall, unless you managed to hit something.  What is the other option?”
Not one Danny wanted to consider.  “I might… die.”
“And your ghost might come back at the end of the age, or… it might not.  I do not mean to frighten you unduly, Great One, but let me say it again: if the age is black, leave, and do not come back.  Close your portal, leave town, go where you will not be found.”
“Because other ghosts might be affected and bring it through the portal?”
“Because the portal itself would go black, and radiate throughout your town before collapsing.”
“Oh,” said Danny, softly.  “Okay.”
“I would not wish to come back to this world, only to find that you were unmade by black ectoplasm.  I would far prefer to learn that you had died after a long and happy life.”  He smiled.  “But the age might not even be black!  There could be stars, or–”
“Chief Frostbite,” said one of the technicians, nervously lacing and unlacing his fingers. 
“Yes, Flashfreeze?”
“It’s black.”
.
“I’m so sorry, Danny,” said Jazz.  
“It’s not like anyone is dying,” said Danny, mouth dry.  No one but him, if he screwed up.  
No one but him, Vlad, and Dani.  
“It’s still a loss,” said Jazz, who looked like she wanted to cry herself.  “How are we going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“I–”  He hadn’t made a decision to tell them anything.  “I don’t know.”
“They won’t close the portal unless one of us says something,” said Jazz, which was very true.  “We’re going to have to tell them, especially if we have to move away to get away from the natural portals.”
“I know,” said Danny, hunching his shoulders.  
“I know,” said Jazz.  “This is awful, but…  I don’t want you to die, Danny.  I don’t even want you to have to lose your powers.”
“I know,” said Danny.  “I know.  I’m just…  I think I need to talk to Vlad first.”  Vlad was out of town for the rest of the weekend for some business thing, but he’d be back on Monday.
“What?” asked Jazz, making a face that was a very appropriate reaction to Danny suggesting they talk to Vlad.  
“He studied the same stuff they did.  He’ll know how to explain it to them.  And he might know how to find Dani.”
Jazz cursed softly under her breath.  “I didn’t even think–  You haven’t heard from her lately?”
Danny shook his head.  “Last time, she was in Eastern Europe and it was a payphone.  She’d broken the burner Sam got for her and couldn’t get a new one.”
“Crap,” she said.  “Wait, what about Valerie?  Isn’t her board powered by ectoplasm?”
“I don’t know,” said Danny, chewing his lip.  “Maybe.  Oh, gosh, what if she falls out of the sky or something?”  He rubbed his face.  “Do I have to tell her, too?”
“Maybe we can get Mom and Dad to warn her,” said Jazz, in a blinding display of optimism.  “Maybe after we tell them, they can make a public service announcement or something.”
“Maybe,” said Danny, significantly more dubious.  “I just– I think I need to tell Vlad first, that’s all.”
Jazz nodded, then paused.  “We have time?”
“Yeah, it didn’t look like it was getting any bigger from where I was,” said Danny.  “Frostbite said it could take months for the age to completely flip over, depending on stuff like where it started.”
“Okay,” said Jazz.  “Then we can wait until you tell him.”
“Okay,” said Danny.  “Great.”  He rubbed his arms.  He itched to leave, to run, to fly and put this behind him, but…  The idea of a touch of black, then falling–  
Jazz hugged him.  “It’s going to be alright,” she said. 
Danny hugged her back.  “I hope so.”
.
“Anyway,” said Danny, picking at a sliver of veneer that had come off Tucker’s desk.  It was only attached by one end.  “That’s it, I suppose.  The end.”
“That’s… a lot,” said Tucker.  “Are you… okay?”
“Not really,” said Danny.  “It’s–  Maybe it’s a good thing?  I won’t have to fight ghosts anymore and all that, right?”  He rubbed his eyes.  
“I mean, maybe?  I’m a little… stunned about it, too.”
“So am I,” said Sam.  “It’s just going to disappear?  All of it?”
“Yeah, apparently.”
“How long?”
Danny shook his head.  
“Oh my gosh.”  Sam got up from the beanbag chair and started to pace.  “It’s just, we have friends there.  And they’re just going to–?  Are you sure we can’t do anything?”
“Frostbite was pretty sure,” said Danny, curling up.  
“But–”
“I don’t want to die again, Sam.”  That brought Sam’s pacing to a stop.  “I’ll always fight if it seems like there’s a chance, but.  I really don’t want to die.”
Sam sat back down.  
“Frostbite really made it sound like there was nothing we could do,” continued Danny.  “He’s been around for a while, you know?  It sounded… It sounded like he’s done this before.”
“Okay,” whispered Sam.  “What do you want us to do?”
Danny shrugged, then made himself laugh.  “Get into whatever college I do?  That’s a joke.”
“Hey, you tell us where you’re going, and we will,” said Tucker.  “Fast as anything.”
“At least the same city,” said Sam.  
.
Danny had to ring the doorbell three times before Vlad opened up.  Jerk.  
“Why, Daniel,” purred Vlad, who had clearly just been taking his time, “are you skipping school for this?”
“Shut up,” said Danny, already annoyed by Vlad’s whole… everything.  “We need to talk.”
“By all means, come inside.”
Vlad’s mansion was as opulent as ever.  
“Can I offer you some breakfast?  Guaranteed not to come alive.”
Danny forced down the thought that soon his home wouldn’t be at risk for that, either, and shut the door behind him.  “No thanks,” he said, and began to share what Frostbite had told him.  
As he did, the smug look slipped off Vlad’s face, replaced with something stonier.  
“I’ll have to confirm independently, you understand,” he said.  It didn’t sound like a taunt or a joke, just a fact.  
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.  I have to go to school, so don’t get yourself killed.”
“I’m touched by your concern, Daniel, but unlike your father, I do understand basic lab safety.”
That had to be a new addition since college, but Danny kept the snark behind his teeth and just let the door bang behind him on his way out.
.
Vlad was waiting in the parking lot for him when school got out.  
“Why’s he here?” asked Sam.  
“Probably because he’s just as freaked out as I am,” said Danny.  He sat down on the steps.  “I’m going to wait for Jazz.”
“You sure, dude?” asked Tucker.  
“I’m sure.”
“Okay,” said Tucker, dubiously.  
“Call us if you need us to kick some vampire butt.”
“Got it.”
Danny only had to wait a few more minutes before Jazz came out.  “Why’s he here?”
“Dunno,” said Danny, getting up and brushing off his pants.  “Want to find out?”
They walked over to the running car.  It wasn’t quite a limo, but it was long, and the back seats faced each other.  
“So?” asked Danny, climbing in.  
Vlad looked wrecked.  “You were right,” he said.  
“Wow, no kidding.”
Vlad waved off his sarcasm.  “This is not time for jokes, Daniel, I–  Jasmine.”
“Vlad.”
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Well, you get both of us or none of us,” said Danny.  “You can drop Jazz off at home just as easily as you can drop me off.”
“And Jasmine’s car?”
“Aren’t you rich or something?” asked Jazz.  “Just drive me back.”
Vlad rolled his eyes.  “I can send someone to come pick it up.”  He leaned over to close the door after Jazz, then tapped on the closed divider between them and their driver.  The car started forward.  
“So, you’ll tell them?  Our parents?” asked Danny.  
“I’ll try.  But do you really think that will stop them?”
“Yes,” said Danny, forcefully.
“If they know it’s something that could hurt Danny, they’ll stop.”
“I certainly hope you’re right,” said Vlad.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Vlad’s sneer was a shadow of its former self.  He looked genuinely ill.  “Daniel, they already know their research has hurt you.  Or do you think they forgot about bringing you to the hospital after your accident with the portal?”
“That’s different.”  That was an equipment problem, not an issue with the content of their research itself.
“Is it?  They are very aware that the same research landed me in the hospital for years, no matter how much they like to ignore that little fact.”
Normally, Danny would dismiss this as just another ploy of Vlad’s, an attempt to turn him against Jack and become Vlad’s evil apprentice, but…  Not today.  There was a little too much truth to his words.  
“Did they even put up any safety measures after that?  How about when they learned their portal was spewing dangerous ghosts into town at all the hours of the day and night?”
“They did,” said Jazz, although her tone rang false to Danny.  It was true that they’d installed the doors on the portal, and the ecto-exodus alarm, but… for all they claimed to be dedicated to protecting people from ghosts, they hadn’t done much else.
Vlad leaned back.  “As I said, I hope you’re right, for both our sakes.  Based on my calculations, we should leave town before the month is over, to be safe.  If they haven’t left by the thirtieth, I advise you to come with me.  My lawyers can sort everything out after the fact, and if not, I have enough contacts to be able to create entirely new identities for both of us.”
“Do you have any idea how threatening that sounds?” asked Jazz, peeved.
“It’s a service Daniel might find himself in need of, if Jack and Maddie are unreasonable.  I have no intention of dying or letting Daniel die because of this.”
The declaration made Danny feel better.  Not much better, but better.  
The car rolled to a stop.  “In the meantime, I will try to use less drastic measures.”  Vlad raised an eyebrow.  “The question now, I think, is whether or not you will tell them.”
Danny hunched his shoulders and fiddled with the door handle.  “Yeah,” he said.  
“Excellent.  Then we can begin.”
“Wait,” said Danny.  
“What?” asked Vlad, flatly, clearly annoyed.
“Do you know where Dani is?” asked Danny, reluctant to bring Vlad into this particular problem, but unwilling to give up even the thinnest lead.
Vlad gave him a baffled look.  
“Danielle,” clarified Danny, annoyed.  
“Yes,” said Vlad.  “Don’t look so surprised, Daniel.  We may have parted on less than amicable terms, but she’s still my daughter.”
“You tried to melt her.”
“A misunderstanding.”  
Danny wasn’t sure how that could be a misunderstanding.  
“We all do unwise things under the influence of our passions, Daniel.  The important thing is that we rise above them.  You’ll understand someday.”  He climbed out of the car. 
“I hope not,” muttered Jazz.  
Then, some of the conversation’s implications caught up with Danny.  
“Wait,” he said, phasing through Jazz to get out fast and jogging after Vlad.  “Wait.  You don’t expect me to tell them now, do you?”
“Daniel, there is no time.  Tell them now, or tell them never.”  Vlad opened the door and walked in like he owned the place.  
“Vladdie!” exclaimed Jack, who had been tinkering at the kitchen table.  He leapt up and embraced Vlad, swirling him around.  Vlad looked like he wanted to die again right then and there.  
“Hello, Jack, is Maddie home?”
“Yes,” said Maddie, coming up the stairs from the lab.  Her voice was about as warm and cuddly as sandpaper left in Antarctica for three months.  “What do you want, Vlad?”
“I have discovered some disturbing news,” he said, “but I’m afraid that much of it will only make sense in the context of what Daniel is about to tell you.”
Everyone looked at him expectantly.  Jazz gave him a small thumbs up.  
Danny very much would have liked to strangle Vlad.  If someone had to out themselves, why couldn’t it be him?
“What is it, Danno?” asked Jack.  
Danny swallowed.  “Do you remember that time I got shocked by the portal?”
.
As far as reveals went… it was neither everything he’d feared nor everything he’d hoped for.  There had been a lot of shouting.  No one thought he was dead or possessing his own corpse.  Jazz had accidentally outed Vlad somewhere in the middle of an argument.  He was able to go to sleep in his own house without being afraid he was going to be dissected.  His parents had agreed to start the process of shutting down the portal.  The only reason he wasn’t super ultra forever grounded for the rest of his life was because of the whole ‘might die soon’ thing.  
It was exhausting.  Danny didn’t know if he was glad it was over or not.  
This whole week was exhausting.  
He pressed his face into his pillow and swallowed back tears.  He was going to miss his friends. Heck, he was going to miss his enemies.  
He didn’t want to die.
.
Every time he went to school that week, every time he went to Sam’s, or Tucker’s, or the Nasty Burger, or anywhere in town, he was acutely aware that it might be the last time he was in any of those places.  Every time he went ghost, he understood that this time might be it.  Every time he shooed off an animal ghost or spotted Valerie in the hall, or saw the green glow of ectotechnology–
It was ending.  It was all ending.  At least for Danny.  
He wanted to hold onto it.  He wanted to stop time - and wasn’t that a temptation?  To try to find Clockwork?  But he’d learned his lesson about meddling with time, and there was no guarantee Clockwork was even still…  
Danny settled on the word awake.  
So, he did his best to savor it all, even the bad parts.  It didn’t always work very well.  There was too much tension, too much fear.  
Tension and fear did wonders for his Doomed score, though.  He was actually close to beating Sam, for once.  
Except, no he wasn’t.
“No, no, no,” said Danny as Sam pulled a power move out of nowhere.  “Argh!”  Annoyed, he pushed his rolling chair back so he could stare more directly at Sam, where she was playing on the other side of Tucker’s attic.  She wasn’t even looking at the screen, but staring over her shoulder to grin smugly at Danny.  “You suck,” he said.  
“No, that’d be you.  You know, the one whose screen says ‘you died’ on it?”
“Ha!” exclaimed Tucker.  “I’ve got the key!”
Danny turned back to the computer and started smashing the resurrect button.  
Danny’s phone began to ring.  He juggled it open with one hand.  “Hi, sorry, Jazz, I lost track of time and–”
“Don’t come home,” said Jazz.  
“What?”
“They–”  Jazz inhaled sharply, angrily.  “The ectoweenies are dead.”  
Danny’s hand fell still.  “What do you mean… dead?”
“They’re just.  They’re hot dogs!  Rotting hot dogs.  I don’t–  I think they’re experimenting with it.  Mom and Dad.  I overheard–  I think they found some, and they’re experimenting with it, and some of them got into the fridge full of stuff we eat because neither of them ever heard about lab safety, and I don’t know if it’s safe for you to be around me, Danny.”
The death jingle played tauntingly over the speakers, three times over.  
“What- Why wouldn’t it be safe for you to be around me?”
“For you to be around me.  I could have black ectoplasm on me and not even know it.  I don’t think it’s really detectable without an energy signature, is it?”
“Jazz,” said Danny, voice cracking.  “Do you– Why?”  He gasped.  “Why would they–?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to know!”  Danny had to know!
“They said something about fixing– I don’t know if I heard it right.  I just–”  Her voice crackled over the phone.  “Go to Vlad’s.  Forget whatever they promised.  Leave now.  I’ll– If they ask, I’ll say you’re in bed.”
Danny closed his eyes.  His face was wet.  “Okay,” he said.  “Okay.  I– I love you, Jazz.”
“I love you, too, little brother.  Stay safe.”  She hung up first.  She must have known he wouldn’t.  
“You have to go, don’t you?” asked Sam. 
“Yeah,” said Danny, hoarsely.  He scrubbed at his face.  “I do.  But… I will see you guys again.”
Tucker nodded.  “You’ve still got our numbers and our Doomed codes, right?” 
Sam threw a pen at him.  “Not the time?”
“Then when is the time?” demanded Tucker, rubbing the back of his head.  “When is the time, huh?  When he’s gone and can’t contact us because he doesn’t have our phone numbers?”
“I have them,” said Danny.  “Memorized.  I– I’ll call.  As soon as it’s safe.”
“You’d better,” said Sam.  
He hugged them.  
(He hoped it wasn’t the last time.)
.
The sun was just beginning to set when Danny reached Vlad’s house, and the comparison between the darkening sky and the darkening Ghost Zone made him shiver.  He bypassed security and knocked on Vlad’s door.  
“Daniel?  What are you doing here?” Vlad asked.  Unlike before, he was wearing clearly casual clothes.  “Did something happen?”
“You were right,” said Danny.  “They didn’t stop.”  Danny’s voice cracked and he swallowed.  “Jazz says we need to leave, now.”
“Oh, Daniel,” said Vlad.  “I’m so sorry.  Genuinely, I would have preferred them to see reason, for both our sakes.’”  He reached back inside and grabbed a pair of long coats.  The first he threw at Danny, the second he put on around his own shoulder.  “Can I assume that second bag is your ‘go-bag?’”
Danny nodded.  He’d kept one at the school, and hadn’t brought it home after the reveal.  He hadn’t thought to.  He’d raided his locker on the way to get it, and before he’d left Tucker had shoved a lot of other stuff at him that had gotten squished either into his backpack or the go-bag.  
“Good.”  Vlad knelt and phased a hand through his entryway tile before pulling out a hefty duffel bag of his own.  “Then we don’t need to wait.  I’ve had my plane fueled and ready to go at a moments’ notice since you told me.”  He took two steps back into the house.  “We will transform and fly there invisibly, to avoid notice.  Can you maintain that for the entire journey?”
“Yeah,” said Danny, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.  
“Don’t let your pride get in the way.  Can you?  Surely, you’ve noticed our abilities becoming more difficult to access.”
Danny had thought that was just him.  Some kind of psychological thing.  But if Vlad had noticed it, too…  “I can do it,” he said.  
“Good,” said Vlad, transforming.  “Follow me.”  He turned invisible and flew through the ceiling.  
Danny paced him.  “So, where are we going?” he asked.  “On the plane,” he clarified, catching Vlad’s look.
“For now?  Missouri.  I have properties there that I never involved in my research and which should be safe for us.  Afterwards, we will be able to assess our situation and move from there.  I will have to contact my lawyers - our lawyers, now.  The child endangerment and neglect case against your parents will have to be absolutely airtight, which shouldn’t be too difficult, considering the deathtrap they have downstairs and how long I’ve been collecting evidence.”
Danny wrinkled his nose.  “And how long have you been collecting evidence?”
“Quite some time.  Don’t forget, I’ve just been vindicated, Daniel.”
He wouldn’t.  Not for a long, long time.  “Is there anything else I ought to know?”
“I was able to get into contact with Danielle earlier today,” said Vlad.
“What did she say?”
“Not much to me,” said Vlad, with a hint of wryness.  “She wants to hear everything from you before she believes anything I say.”
“And you didn’t call me?”
“She hung up on me.  Don’t worry, she’s far away from any major supernatural hotspots.  I thought I’d give her time to cool down and then contact her again while you were present.”
“Fine,” said Danny.  “Where is she?”
“Poland, at the moment.”  
They reached the airport and descended into the plane.  Danny let go of his invisibility with a heavy sigh as Vlad went about turning on the lights.  
“Our pilot will be here momentarily,” said Vlad.  “Make yourself at home.”
Home.  Danny put his bags on his lap and hunched around them.  He’d been bracing himself for this.  Really.  He’d known he was going to have to leave for a whole week, now.  
It still felt worse than getting thrown clear through a building.  
.
“It’s true,” said Danny, looking out the landscape windows of Vlad’s Missouri estate.  “I’m with Vlad, the Ghost Zone isn’t safe, the…”  He trailed off, not wanting to recap everything.  “I’m the one who told Vlad it was happening.”
“Okay,” said Dani, voice small and distant.  “So… What should I do?  If even your powers are getting harder to use…”  She trailed off, but she didn’t have to finish the sentence.  In more ways than one, Dani’s existence depended on the careful use of her powers.  
“Let Vlad bring you back here.  It’s– I know,” he said in response to Dani’s groan.  “I know.  But he doesn’t actually want either of us dead, and he’s got, you know, resources.  And– And I don’t want you out on the streets in a foreign country, okay?”
“All countries are foreign to me,” grumbled Dani.  “I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“Please,” said Danny.  “Even if it’s just long enough for him to set us up in a boarding school or give us our own apartment or something.”
“You think he’d do that?”
“I have no idea,” admitted Danny.  “He’s rich enough to.  Please come, Dani.”  Vlad was… not being as terrible as he could be, about all this.  Actually, he was being… fine.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.  “Alright,” she said, finally.  “I’ll come.”
.
Living in Missouri…  Well, living in Vlad’s version of Missouri was beautiful, lavish, luxurious.  Vlad was definitely going all out.  But every day Danny spent here, it felt more and more like living in a photograph.  The sunlight, the grass, the leaves on the trees… it all felt flat, as if something vital had been drained from underneath the world.  Even sitting in the garden, bare feet in the fountain, felt unreal.  
Danny didn’t know if that was just him, or if it was another side effect of the Ghost Zone going dormant.  He hoped it was just him.  That would mean it might go away if he got a grip.
“Daniel,” said Vlad, shoes crunching along the gravel path.  “I think you’ll be pleased to know the court case is going well, and I am attempting to develop a decontamination procedure that might allow Jasmine to visit us here someday.”
“Okay,” said Danny.  He swished his feet through the water.  “Do you feel like…”  He sighed, not being able to find the words.  
“Every day,” said Vlad, sitting down next to Danny.  “We won’t be able to stay here longer than a year.  Our own ectoplasm will tend to form a thin spot.”
“That’s fine,” said Danny.  “Dani likes traveling.”  She liked traveling, and hopefully Vlad would hurry up and get her fake passport made already.
“I hope you will come to like it, too…  Although, I’m not sure we’ll need to keep up that pace for very long.  Our ectosignatures are fading.  I suppose we owed more of our powers to the Ghost Zone proper than I expected.”  He shook his head. “In any case, we should look towards the future.  Our futures.  You want to be an astronaut, don’t you?”
“Does that even matter, now?”
“Daniel, you are aware of how rich I am, aren’t you?  I could buy NASA.”  Vlad’s dramatic gestures matched his words.  He even went as far as to light his hands with pink ectoplasm.  Danny watched them flicker through the reflection in the basin of the fountain.  
“No, you couldn’t.”
“No,” said Vlad, lowering and extinguishing his hands, “I couldn’t.”  He kept looking up at the sky.  “It’s strange, isn’t it?  It’s strange.  All this power we’ve had, and our passions, all our goals, simply… remained out of our reach.  But now we’re losing them.  Our powers.  Our passions.”
“Do you think we’ll find them again?” asked Danny.  
“Perhaps.  Perhaps if we live long enough, if we fight hard enough.  You do want to be an astronaut, don’t you, Daniel?”
Danny looked up, but not towards Vlad.  He focused on the thin, faint gibbous moon, visible even in daylight.  
“I guess,” he said. 
Vlad patted his shoulder as he stood.  “There,” he said.  “Then we should start discussing your education, little badger!  You can’t become an astronaut by moping around my mansion all day!”
Danny turned his head to regard Vlad with a mixture of disbelief and disgust.  “Don’t call me that, fruitloop.”
“That’s more like it!  Now, come along.  We have tutors to vet!”
.
Thinking about potentially doing more with this continuity.
487 notes · View notes
black-rose-writings · 7 months
Text
Unexpected Consequences (Danny Phantom One Shot)
Also on AO3
Inspired by and referencing the events of this comic by @lilianade-comics
By the time Danny Fenton was four, his parents have gone through all of the available babysitters in the entirety of Amity Park and Elmerton. Well, technically not all of them, but apparently, there is a critical percentage of babysitters scared half to death, at best, which makes all other babysitters turn you down no matter how high the pay.
Of course, in this case, the problem was with the house, not the kids, but the Fentons would not be convinced that their house is anything but the safest place for their children to be. What if a ghost came to the babysitter’s house? How would they defend themselves? Do ignore the fact that their own house was a magnet for ghosts, because that’s exactly what they did.
And it brought them to him.
The last thing Vlad Masters expected to hear during his Thursday dinner was his phone ringing.
Well, that was not entirely the case. He was running a rather large company by then, and he was known to take after-hours calls. Not happily, but it wasn’t as if he had any sort of life outside of work – not one that he could be open about, anyway – and with the global expansion of his enterprises in the last few years, sometimes people simply forgot about the existence of time zones.
He didn’t expect to find his personal phone ringing. A small thing that he modified himself and was fairly certain only his mother and a certain annoying definitely licensed and absolutely not shady or paranormal in any way psychologist had the number for. This was neither of them.
He was sure Spectra would give the number to someone just to piss him off, but no living being (and very few dead ones) even knew of their connection. Which left his mother, whom he did instruct to not give the number to anyone, under any circumstances. Of course, telling a Masters to not do something was entirely pointless if said family member did actually want to do the thing.
He hoped to all Ancients his mother wasn’t trying to set him up with some pretty single girl or a recently divorced single mother from her church again.
And while that prayer had been answered, it was much like making a wish to Desiree – somehow worse than the thing he wanted to avoid.
On the other end of the line was Jack fucking Fenton.
It took considerable willpower to not immediately crush the phone and burn the remains to nothing. He did, however, transform before Jack even finished the first sentence.
What ghost wouldn’t get defensive, hearing the voice of their ghostmaker, for the first time after a decade of silence, talking cheerfully and excitedly? Like he hadn’t killed him with his impatience. Like he hadn’t left him to rot. Like he didn’t turn him into an abomination. Like no time had passed. Like nothing had changed.
How dare he talk like that? How dare he ask for favors?
His ghost half may have been the more emotional one, but there was also a level of confidence and power that it brought. Things that he was going to need if he was to talk to Jack Fenton and not let the oaf know anything was wrong. He was fairly certain the man wouldn’t notice either way, but there was no way to know when Madeline could be listening in.
Jack – no, both of them – were asking for a favor. They needed someone to babysit their kids.
Vlad was vaguely aware the two of them had produced two children – the thought of Jack’s clumsy hands anywhere near Madeline made him see red every time – focus, Vlad.
It seemed the couple had bought a haunted broadcast tower to work in and had transformed it into a livable house (or so they claimed). Unfortunately, it seemed that while the ghosts haunting the tower steered clear of the Fentons, babysitters had no such luck, and neither did their kids – though they taught the kids basics of ghost defense (Vlad didn’t know much about kids, but he was fairly certain ghost fighting skills of any sort were not standard curriculum for four and six-year-olds).
It took Vlad a considerable effort to not send Jack to hell and tell him that it’s their own fault. He thought of Madeline. They were her children too.
Of all the plans he had come up with, of all the ways he considered wooing her, this was not one that had come to him before. Things have changed. They weren’t in college anymore. His Madeline was a mother, now.
Perhaps all he needed was to show Madeline that he was a better parent than Jack Fenton. It couldn’t be that hard, right?
***
If you told Vlad Masters the day he (run from) left the hospital that there would come a day when the love he felt for Madeline was going to be but a distant echo or that he would love children sired by Jack Fenton as if they were his own, he would probably laugh at you.
If you said to him the day he received the notice of the birth of their first child, that he would one day destroy any creature that would even dare to look at her meanly, that he would endure any pain, put himself between any weapon and this child, he might have blasted you to pieces. He would endure. But she was so human. So fragile.
If you told him the day he found out about their second child that one day, that the child would be the first human to find out his secret, he might have just flown over and throttled the baby in its cradle, just to be safe, and felt exactly zero remorse about the action. Nobody would ever know. Babies die all the time. Especially with parents like his.
If you told him the day he received that fateful phone call that one day, he would be the first to hold Danny Fenton after his death, the only way he would imagine such a scenario happening would be he was the one to kill the boy. Why else would he hold Jack Fenton’s son?
If you told him, any time in those 18 years between his transformation and today, that the Fentons would make their own child a halfa with their negligence, he would have nodded along. Perhaps he would have even been excited about finally having someone be like him, someone he could teach, someone who would share the hate every ghost feels for their ghostmaker for Jack Fenton. It didn’t surprise him – they never changed in that way. And if there was some excitement, when he found out, he could never imagine how much it would hurt.
If you had told him how much the second fateful call would hurt, what emotions it would ignite with him, how irreversibly it would alter him, he would have never picked up the first one.
But he picked up both and there was no going back.
***
Danny’s hands were shaking as he carefully put in the numbers into the phone.
He felt so stupid. He knew it was stupid. He knew it, and he did it anyway.
And for what?
He had been so proud when his parents left him alone at home for the whole weekend for the first time, when Jazz convinced them to take a campus tour at one of her top choices for a university.
She was sixteen for god’s sake, she had so much time for that stuff.
So, of course he invited his friends over. Of course his techno geek and goth best friends wanted to see the stupid ghost lab his parents had in the basement.
Of course they dared him to go into the ghost portal. It wasn’t working. Danny knew that. He also knew it was dangerous. If he could avoid touching any of his parents’ stupid invention for the rest of his life, he would. Which was kinda hard when half of the house counted as one of those inventions.
They called him a coward.
Tucker was one to talk. He was afraid of hospitals for no good reason. Danny could name about a hundred reasons why messing with his parents’ tech or ghosts was a bad idea. It didn’t bother him that Tucker called him a coward. They were losers and cowards and that was one of the reasons they were friends in the first place. Okay, maybe it bothered him a little, but he would never admit that.
Sam, though, it hurt from her. The girl seemed to not be afraid of anything and she was fascinated by all things strange and dark. All the things that pissed off her parents. And as much as Danny told himself she was a friend and he didn’t want to make it weird, anyone with eyes could see the giant crush he had on her.
Sam wasn’t afraid of anything. And even though he could name all those reasons for why he shouldn’t do it, why they shouldn’t be in the lab at all, why he just wanted to spend the weekend playing videogames and raiding his dad’s snack hideouts and why that’s exactly what they should do, none of those words came to mind as Sam goaded him.
He never asked to have a weird family. He just wanted to be normal and deal with just the normal kid problems. He just wanted his friends to understand that unlike them, he wasn’t a weirdo by choice.
Maybe he snapped at them a little. Maybe he raised his voice a little. Maybe he called them just as shallow and image-obsessed as the A-listers. Maybe he called them boring and attention seeking. Maybe he cursed them out a little.
Maybe a lot more than little.
And they left.
He sat in the living room, watching the clock, alone.
Of course he was alone. He yelled at his only friends.
And for what?
Maybe they were right. Maybe he was just a coward. The portal wasn’t working. How dangerous could it be?
As the minutes ticked by and he felt worse and worse about what he did, he got up and headed back into the lab.
He put on one of the small hazmat suits his parents had for him. He had meticulously torn off and threw out all of the stupid patches with his dad’s face that the self-obsessed mad scientist put on them, months ago, in the off chance he was forced to wear one outside or near a camera. He knew that Sam would mock him for it. But with his parents inventions, he’d rather be safe than sorry. Or dead. Or worse – a ghost.
The thought terrified him. If his parents were to be believed, ghosts were nothing more than echoes of human minds, twisted, either entirely animalistic or evil. Monsters, wearing the face of the dead.
He didn’t even believe in ghosts. He had memories of them from when he was a kid, but they could have just been dreams. With how much their parents talked about the stuff, of course his mind would haunt him (ha!) with them in his sleep.
He realized Sam had left her new camera on the table. She had shown him and Tucker how to operate it a few weeks earlier when she bought it.
Danny turned it on, started recording and left it on one of the tables, pointed at the portal.
“Hey, Sam, Tucker… here’s to show you I’m not a coward. I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier.”
He waved at the camera, took a deep breath and stepped into the portal.
It didn’t work. How dangerous could it be?
How dangerous could it be?
He couldn’t get that thought out of his head as he stumbled out of the portal. It hurt. It hurt so much. And he wasn’t himself. Not anymore.
Twisted monster wearing his own face. A monster his parents would probably hunt and tear apart for stealing his face, for stealing their child away from them.
He sat on the couch and cried. He wished so much to just be himself again.
He couldn’t be dead, right? Everything hurt. He couldn’t be dead. Ghosts didn’t feel pain.
He looked at his arm, at the formerly black glove, now snow white.
He just wanted to be himself again…
He watched as white light appeared, first around his waist and then travelling along the rest of his body, turning him back into himself.
But his parents said ghosts could sometimes pose as living humans.
He felt his heart beating in his chest, now.
He couldn’t be dead if his heart was beating, right?
It didn’t just moments ago.
The rings.
A memory came up. A memory he dismissed as another dream.
He must have been really small, one of the first times uncle Vlad was watching him and Jazz. He was making smoothies in the middle of the night.
Danny wanted to see what was going on and he saw uncle Vlad, with those same rings around him. His normally silver hair seemed pitch black, before the black rings swept across him and turned him into his normal self. He was too young to have gray hair even now, and more so then. His parents explained that it was because of an accident back when they were in college. And accident with a portal prototype…
Vlad gave him candy to promise to never tell anyone what he saw that night. Danny did very distinctly remember eating it all at once, because he was a four-year-old given an irresponsible amount of candy, and how sick he wound up being after.
He thought the whole thing was just a dream. And maybe it was.
When he looked at his hand, he couldn’t see it. He still felt it there, it still made a dent in the couch pillow, but it was invisible.
Something was very, very wrong and he needed to solve it before his parents got home.
And there was only one person that might have the answers.
He called uncle Vlad.
***
Vlad told him to not panic.
That was easier said than done.
He tried to. He tried to keep himself occupied. He took off the stupid hazmat suit.
He other him was still wearing his.
He wanted to watch the TV, but after the remote phased through his hand and fell beneath the couch, he gave up on that.
He could just go to bed. Vlad lived a few states over. It would take him a few hours to arrive.
Maybe he would wake up in the morning and find out it was just a bad dream.
It couldn’t be. Bad dreams don’t hurt.
Most of the pain had faded by now, though he still felt sore, especially in his own body. The other him didn’t hurt that much – but Danny was scared if he fell asleep in that body, he would never wake up. Not as himself anyway.
He was staring at the living room ceiling as the sun set outside. His whole body felt numb. He was tired, but in a different way than needing to sleep. He didn’t have the energy to get up and turn on the lights.
As the darkness crept up more and more, he realized that he could see in the dark a lot better than he did before.
He felt cold, he realized. Not horribly so, just barely colder than would be comfortable.
Cold like the dead.
A horrible thought crossed his mind.
His parents said ghosts could possess human bodies. Maybe he was already dead, his body growing cold slowly, but he just refused to leave it.
Maybe if he closed his eyes, he would never wake up. He could just let go.
Uncle Vlad would arrive in the morning and find his dead body, laying here on the couch.
A shiver run down his spine, and he would swear a cloud of mist escaped his lips.
Maybe it was just cold in the house, and he was freaking out over nothing.
Then, the light turned on.
He jumped up to see who did it.
Uncle Vlad stood by the door leading from the kitchen, looking him up and down.
It took Danny a moment to realize he was floating and that he didn’t have legs.
Instead, there was a wisp-like tail, moving with a mind of its own.
He may or may not have screamed in shock and moments later, he was back to his old self and hit the couch.
He poked his leg. Solid. Normal.
He gulped and looked up at uncle Vlad.
“Danny…” the man whispered. Danny knew his uncle. His voice was always comforting. It was now, too. But there was something else, that he couldn’t put a finger on. Vlad breathed in as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.
He sat down next to Danny and pulled him into a hug.
Uncle Vlad was always warm. Too warm. And he was always super weird about it. But right now, Danny felt the chill that had plagued him since he stepped out of that stupid portal melt away. For the first time since that scream left his throat, he still felt it hurt, he felt like he could breathe properly.
For a moment, it didn’t matter what happened, or if he was some kind of monster now. He felt safe.
He began to cry. He cried into Vlad’s stupid fancy suit, because the man apparently didn’t own any other clothes.
He felt his body tingle the same way it did when he dropped the remote and he feared he would slip from Vlad’s grasp. But he didn’t.
“If you don’t want to hug, you can just say that.” Vlad muttered.
Danny sniffled and looked up at him. “What… what do you mean?”
“Intangibility. But I think you didn’t do it on purpose, did you?”
“I… I don’t know.” Danny admitted. He didn’t want to let go, but he felt like a baby sobbing into his uncle’s chest like that. Vlad run his fingers through Danny’s hair.
“It’s okay. It takes time to learn to control it.” Vlad said. “And I’ll help you in any way I can, little badger.”
“Do you… do you know what…” Danny paused, looking for words, unsure of which question to ask first. “What happened to me?”
Vlad seemed to have just as hard of a time finding words.
“Am I dead?” Danny whispered after a moment.
Vlad sighed. “Yes. But you’re also alive.” Vlad run his hand along Danny’s left arm, where he still felt echoes of the electricity that went through it not so long ago. The electricity that killed him. Vlad let go of him and moved away. Danny didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to go back to the cold. “I want to show you something.”
“Oh… okay.” Danny muttered, letting.
Vlad took Danny’s hand and placed it over his own heart. Then, he laid his own over the center of Danny’s chest, where the cold was coming from.
“Like this, we’re still alive. Our hearts are beating. We need to breathe. We need to eat and sleep like any other human.” Vlad paused for a moment. “Can you transform?”
“I think so.” Danny nodded. He had tried turning back and forth a few times while waiting for Vlad. All it took was a thought.
Vlad turned, too.
If he looked closely, he could still recognize his uncle. The shape of the nose and face, the stupid goatee. But if he didn’t look for his uncle, he probably wouldn’t see it. The ghost had blue skin, red eyes with no whites or pupils, pointed ears and when Vlad spoke, Danny could see sharp fangs glint inside of his mouth. Even the shape of the body was different – mom said uncle Vlad had never fully recovered from his accident and the resulting hospital stay. It seemed that the ghost half of him had no such problem, and probably much more resembled the shape the man had been back then. And if his human body had been a little too warm, this one was basically a walking space-heater.
“Like this, no heartbeat.” Vlad whispered. “No need to breathe and no need to eat human food, either.”
“What about sleep?”
“Unless you’re in the ghost zone, yes.” Vlad nodded. “But you can’t stay in one form for too long. If you stay human for too long and don’t use any of your powers, they will simply happen on their own, whether you want it or not. And if you stay as a ghost for too long, your human body will weaken.”
“Will it go away?”
“No. This is you, now.” Vlad sighed. “But you’re not alone in this. I’ll teach you. I’ll help you.”
Vlad turned back to his human form again and Danny followed suit. He could now name the feeling that happened when he did. The suddenly loud thump of his heart, the need to breathe.
“What was that… tail thing?” Danny asked. It had been bothering him the whole time.
“Sometimes, ghosts do that, when we’re flying. Not all and not always, but it does make flying a little more effective.”
“Am I a monster, now? Mom and dad said all ghosts are monsters.”
“Your mom and dad are too obsessed with being right that they get a lot of things wrong about ghosts. Ghost are much like people. Some good, some bad, and most just kind of in-between.” Vlad said. “They are… different, though. Their society, their rules and traditions, it’s very different from human ones.”
“Why do I need to know that? I’m not planning on hanging out with any ghosts… except you, I mean.”
“Some of those customs and values are inherent to being a ghost. It will not be right away, but your view on those things will likely change to a more… ghost-like one.” Vlad explained. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
“Vlad… do mom and dad know about you? What you are?”
Danny saw Vlad’s eyes flash red. He had seen it before, though he was sure he was imagining things. Often whenever his accident was brought up. Or when dad said something stupid and insensitive – so most of the time dad talked.
“No.” Vlad said after a moment. “No, they don’t know what I am. And they must never find out about either of us. Nobody living can.”
“Why? I mean… yeah, they are ghost hunters, but I’m still their son and you’re still their friend.”
“Are we? Or are we monsters wearing stealing their faces?” Vlad shook his head. “Your parents have very hard time accepting they were wrong about something. What you are… what we are… goes against all of that, all that they think they know. You might be right. Maybe their love for you is stronger than their stubbornness. And maybe it is not. It’s better we never find out.” Vlad sighed, pulling Danny closer to himself again, seeing the boy shivering again. “And they are not the only ghost hunters out there. Even if they do accept us, the others would not be so forgiving. We must be careful to not leave any evidence of what we are.”
“The camera.” Danny exclaimed suddenly.
“What camera?”
“I… I was recording myself when I went into the portal. I wanted to show my friends I was not a coward.” God, he felt even dumber saying that out-loud.
“Is it still in the lab?”
“I think so.” Danny nodded. Vlad stood up and headed there immediately. Danny followed him.
He always knew Vlad seemed to make no sound while he moved. For the first time, Danny understood how.
“High ectoplasm can mess with electronics. If we’re lucky, the recording doesn’t show anything.” Vlad muttered, seemingly talking more to himself than Danny. The camera was still recording while he picked it up. That was not a good sign.
Vlad began to watch the playback of the video. Danny cringed at the awkward intro he did. And then, moments later, a piercing scream echoed through the lab. Danny felt a sharp stab in his chest at the sound. Even through the recording, it was awful.
Vlad’s features seemed to be made out of stone, but somehow, Danny was certain the man was furious. As the figure of ghost Danny emerged from the portal, Vlad closed the camera and his palm erupted in magenta flames.
Danny stepped back.
“You could have just deleted the video.”
“There are ways to recover deleted videos. This is more certain.” Vlad said, the poured the charred dust from his hand into the hazardous waste disposal. When some of it refused to come off, Danny watched Vlad’s hand change – it seemed almost like static on a TV, but in real life. Vlad’s hand was now perfectly clean. “I’ll buy you a new camera.”
“It was Sam’s actually.”
“I’ll buy her a new camera.” Vlad corrected himself.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” Danny asked.
“It will not be possible right away, but once your core settles a bit, it should come naturally.” Vlad nodded. “I promise, I’ll teach you everything I know. But first, dinner. I’m sure you have a million more questions. You can ask them while I cook.”
***
Vlad Masters was not a father. Not that he knew of, anyway.
And Vlad Plasmius wouldn’t even consider exposing himself to such a weakness.
But cores are as fickle as they are stubborn.
Vlad wasn’t Danny’s father, and perhaps in a different lifetime, that would have mattered to him.
It didn’t in this one.
It mattered that the boy he had watched grow up was dead, because of his parents’ negligence.
It mattered that he was alive, stuffing his face full of pasta, badgering him with questions about a subject he had no interest in until that day.
By human law, he was the boy’s godfather and the assigned guardian, should something happen to his parents, just as he was for his sister. Some days, he was tempted to make something happen. Today was one of those days. But he looked at Danny, remembered the conviction with which he claimed his parents would accept him, both of them, even as the abominations they both were now. The boy would mourn. The boy would break. The boy loved his parents, because he was a child and that’s what they do. It was for that look, that conviction, that Vlad held back the inferno rising through his body. The Fentons were lucky their son Remained – had that scream in the portal truly been the boy’s final breath, Vlad knew there would be no holding back.
By ghost rules, however, the boy was his child. Nobody, living or dead, had a greater claim to Danny than he did. Danny couldn’t understand it yet, but the trust he had put in Vlad, the love he held for him, and whatever it was that Vlad felt for the boy in return, had bonded their cores. Perhaps the boy would never realize – his core was so soft and new when the bond formed and would be such a natural part of it by the time Danny would start to understand his core that he wouldn’t even notice it.
Vlad wasn’t sure what he felt for Danny could be called love in the human sense, but after ten years of fighting it, he knew it would be recognized as such by ghosts. Ghost love was like that. Possessive, obsessive, a powerful and unbreakable bond, built on strength and devotion.
Danny was his.
He had let go of his old obsession long ago, perhaps on that fateful night, but he knew the parts of him that still clung to the rage of death would rest easier from now on. In the battle between himself and his ghostmaker, he had won.
380 notes · View notes
wonderlandsakura · 2 months
Text
Do you ever see the backstory of two characters that just mesh in weird way even tho they might hate each other and go:
Ah. It's the Trauma~。⁠☆*⁠.⁠✧
122 notes · View notes
lilianade-comics · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
A year's worth of progress! Instead of doing a straightforward redraw I decided to improve upon the original concept by drawing sequences instead of singular poses. I don't enjoy redrawing old work beat for beat, so this reflects my current skills more effectively and also does the concept better justice than what I was capable of last year!
The 2023 art
2K notes · View notes
aroace-madness · 7 months
Text
Danny Phantom au/prompt where vlad is actually a good guy and doesn't show up as Plasmius untill he sees Danny fighting a ghost
He turns into his ghost form and drags Danny away from a fight while saying stuff like "you're in big trouble young man" which makes everyone believe that he's (Plasmius) Phantoms dad
293 notes · View notes
picturejasper20 · 3 months
Text
On one hand, Badger Cereal as dynamic has a lot of potential for character exploration, conflict and development due to core of the relationship being pretty complex. On the other hand is really funny because you can have things like: ¨We are having maths studies today, our weekly deadly beat-the-shit-out-of-each-other match gets postponed to Friday¨
173 notes · View notes
dragonofthedepths · 1 year
Text
Two for the Price of One 17.2.23
DP x DC. Danny Phantom, Vlad Plasmius, Batfam, Superfam.
The GIW manage to capture Vlad. It takes a few days for Danny to realize and rescue him, and that’s a few days too many.
They remove his core.
The core is a ghost, everything else is just incidental ectoplasm (and their body, their ability to move, to sense and experience and act on the world around them, but the core is the important part) that melts into goo with the core gone.
Danny is (seconds) too late to stop them from removing it, but not too late to stop them from stealing it.
Danny grabs Vlad’s core (Vlad), shoves it (him) into his chest for safety, and runs. He makes it to the Ghost Zone and keeps going, because they know about halfas now. They know about halfas now and Danny can’t even transform, because his ectoplasm is the only thing keeping Vlad alive and safe and healing, and transforming might just kill him.
The Ghost Zone isn’t far enough, they need to be so far away that trackers and systems can’t tell they even exist.
Clockwork obligingly drops them in a new universe.
Which is how the Batfam comes to deal with a very glowy (very very glowy, if you ask Signal) teen skulking around Gotham, snarling worse than a feral cat whenever they get near and booking it through walls.
Alternatively; they land in Metropolis and Superman can always locate them because of the humming sound their cores make, and he may not know what lead to this situation but he can tell it’s not good, and he’s turning up the farm-boy charm 100% to try to get Danny back to the Kent farm for a meal.
Alternatively alternatively; Clockwork is Kronos and told Danny to find Wonder Woman, because she’s honorable and (his granddaughter) if given a choice between the doing right thing and following the laws of men will choose the right thing. Wonder Woman is slightly freaking out, wondering why the heck Lord Kronos told her to take care of this teen and his currently-an-energy-parasite uncle. (She’s also doing it, because he’s right and she is honorable and dedicated to doing to the right thing. It’s just the LORD KRONOS part that’s throwing her.)
Day (627/100) in my #∞daysofwriting @the-wip-project 17th of Feb
626 notes · View notes
pillowcaselemonade · 8 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Au where only danny is genderbent
After arching her several times and finding out she's a half ghost, Vlad hide his identity and lied to her about being a half ghost too.
He pretends he's just some villain scientist who's curious about half ghost's existence
He realized that this kid have no idea about what is happening to her and she is freaking out inside
so someone comments about being curious about what they are saying, and I translated the dialogue
Thank you chatgpt
246 notes · View notes