#danny fenton is a huge nerd

[kokoa-la]

Prompt from @help-i-need-a-cool-username

Jason has once again snuck into Gotham University. Now, before any assumptions are made onto why the crime lord would break into a college, the reason is because he likes the library. That's it. The public library is trashed and small, barely taken care of, but Gotham U's? It's beautiful. Multiple floors, organized and in sections, taken care of, alphabetical order, it's magnificent. The chairs were a reason alone to sneak in, but the students here added an extra charm. 

He had gone to the very back of the library on the second floor. This area was  pretty well hidden and enclosed. He would come here to read without anyone questioning him, even hiding the books he wasn’t finished with yet to continue on later. Jason wasn’t expecting someone to be so close to his spot though. A few tables across stood a student, thin, tall, with pitch black hair, baggy cargo jeans, and a white t-shirt. The other hadn’t noticed him yet, so he remained quiet and just watched. He was in front of a large white board on wheels, seemingly taken from the rooms he saw down the hall. 

“That doesn’t work, goddammit.”

On the white board was lines upon lines of equations- at least he thought they were equations, with most of them being letters and symbols rather than numbers. It made the vigilante’s brain hurt. The student - assumed STEM major - just kept mumbling to himself.

“Stupid physics, won’t allow interdimensional travel”

What? Jason may have been out of school since 15, but he knew no courses were asking for the answer to traveling between dimensions. It seemed the student had a habit of talking to himself when worked up or focused, possibly why he isolated himself from the rest of the library. 

“If your parents could do it, why can’t you? Think Danny, think!”

That sentence wasn’t concerning at all, but at least Jason learned the boy’s name. Danny seemed to have a strange background, what did he mean by ‘if your parents could do it’? Had his parents managed to travel between dimensions? The other was chewing on the cap of the white board marker, his other hand resting on his hip as he swayed back and forth.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! That! The thing! That thingy!”

Jason could practically see the lightbulb go on above Danny’s head. Just then the other erased a solid portion of the whiteboard and dropped to his knees, ouch. He started frantically scribbling, fast and messy, barely cohesive. Though, Jason was sure that if it was Tim sitting where he was instead, the boy could probably understand everything on that board. He’d stick to English literature, thank you very much. 

“That’s it! Oh my ancients! I got it!”

Danny practically jumped in the air, punching the air in triumph. Jason almost felt proud of him, this complete stranger he’s been watching, wow he was being creepy, huh? Danny shot both of his arms straight up, the marker gripped tightly in his right hand fist. 

“I did it!”

He looked so happy, so excited. He began to buzz, even spinning, before stopping mid loop and turning around slowly. Shit, Jason had been caught. To be fair, Danny hadn’t exactly turned around the whole time, meaning Jason was just watching his back the whole time as he worked through his… problem? It’s such a shame, Jason was thoroughly entertained by this random kid. 

“Uhhh, hi? How long have you been there?”

Oh shit, Jason had to talk now, didn’t he?

“Not very long, but long enough to know you were trying to solve interdimensional travel before apparently succeeding.” 

The color drained from Danny’s face. Whoops?

“Uhm, no I didn’t.”

Now that he got a closer look, the student looked like someone Bruce would adopt. Black hair, clear blue eyes, tan skin, sharp features, the whole nine yards. He was actually fairly attractive, maybe even cute. 

“Really? I could have sworn that you said ‘stupid physics won’t allow interdimensional travel’”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah sure, and I’m a student here.”

“Wait, you’re not a student here?”

“That’d only be true if you were lying.”

“Well I’m not so-”

“Uh huh, sure you’re not.”

“Look dude-”

“Jason.”

“Look Jason, there’s no way that I could solve interdimensional travel, the multiverse doesn’t exist.”

“Look Danny-”

“How do you know my name?”

“I won’t tell a single soul if you explain how you did it to me”

Curiosity won his gambit. Would he regret what he was about to say? Perhaps.

“Maybe over a coffee?”

He knew it was worth it when the marker hit the floor and Danny moved his hand to cover his red face. Well, it wasn’t the first time he’s done something he regrets, maybe this time it’d be a cute STEM major who knows the secrets to the multiverse. 

[pricklenettle]

I’m so excited to finally show the illustrations I did for this year’s invisobang!

These are from the first chapter of @wingedflight’s story, Something Rotten

It’s based around Hamlet, and it is so cool and tragic to read the characters in their roles, please go check it out!

[samuelcolon]

was recently thinking about The Awakening by Kate Chopin and realized there’s this adorable parallel between something Edna (the main character) said to Madame Reisz (one of her friends) when describing her lover and Danny/Valerie when describing each other in Flirting with Disaster

When asked ‘"Why do you love him when you ought not to?"

Edna, with a motion or two, dragged herself on her knees before Mademoiselle Reisz, who took the glowing face between her two hands.

"Why? Because his hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a square chin, and a little finger which he can't straighten from having played baseball too energetically in his youth. Because - "

"Because you do, in short," laughed Mademoiselle.”’

And when Danny and Valerie are asked by their respective friends what they see in each other, Danny says “I know she wants to waste Danny Phantom, but did you know she's a ninth-degree black belt? That her favorite fruit is kumquat because it's a funny word?” and Valerie says “Do you know that he wants to be an astronaut? That he bowls with a 150 average?”

Facts like these seem mundane to their friends, but are so important to them bc they are in love!1!1!! Danny loves Valerie because she’s Valerie and Valerie loves Danny because he’s Danny!!

[five-rivers]

Season of the Skies

I started playing a game called Sky: Children of the Light recently, and although this isn't a crossover, it's definitely inspired by the vibes of that. It's a cute game!

Also, based on the feedback I got on AO3, there seems to be a significant overlap between the Phandom and Sky: Cotl players? Is that the case?

.

Reality had broken a month ago, and Danny was having the time of his life.  

He leaped lightly from rooftop to treetop and back again, gravity a dreamy afterthought.  The tiles and bark were rough beneath his bare feet, but not so rough he regretted not wearing shoes.  His impacts shook loose pollen, glitter, and a few stray petals, but did the trees no harm.  On the roofs he was silent, and no one came out to yell at him, but the window glass chimed with flashes of light.

The colors around him were bright and soft. Easy to look at, easy to fall into. The sky above was marbled with dawn-colored clouds and stars caught among distant nebulae.  Light and color were some of the first things to break, and Danny wasn't sorry to see light pollution go.  Most Everything glowed, now, and stargazing would have been terrible if eyes still worked the same way.  

At his next jump, this one taking him up a good ten feet, the feather-soft edge of the shawl he was wearing flared out behind him, brushing his arms.  The shawl was huge on him.  An old project of his great-grandmother's, it had been made with the typical Fenton girth in mind.  Honestly, it fit him more like a cape than a shawl, but he liked it that way.  

He landed safely and straightened the cape.  His dad’s needlepoint hobby had been inherited from her, so the dark blue fabric was covered in fine embroidery, lace, and tiny glass beads in shades of clear, pale blue, and white.  Great Grandma Fenton hadn't been into ghosts the same way the current Fentons were, but she'd been into something, so the patterns were strange.  Icicles, snowflakes, stars, clouds, and trees competed with lightning, runes and sigils, and strange, spirit-like creatures.  

“Hey!” shouted someone from the street below.  “Hey, Fentwerp!  What the hell do you think you're doing?”

Ah.  Dash.  Charming.  Danny leaned over the edge of the roof.  “What does it look like I'm doing?” he asked agreeably.  

“Getting your dumb nerd self killed is what it looks like,” said Dash, glowering up at Danny, his face turning red.

There.  See.  That's what Danny didn't understand.  No one else seemed willing to experiment with how the world was now.  They were all operating under the old rules, or, worse, looking for ways to fix things, as if the new world wasn't better than the old.  

Sure, it had been scary the first few days.  The suddenness.  The uncertainty.  The way systems they had relied on for so long had stuttered or failed outright.  Danny knew people had been hurt, that, in some places, they were still getting hurt.  He had been one of those people, having been in the hospital when the change rippled through the world, a result of an equipment malfunction in his parents’ lab.  

Maybe his opinion would be different if he was still getting hurt.  But as it was… why would he ever want to go back to how things were?  Why would he want to leave this world, where the colors were soft and bright, and the light sang?  Why would he want to leave this world where the air itself seemed to bear him up?  Where the possibilities seemed limitless?

There was so much more potential for good, with the world as it was than as it had been.  So much less potential for harm.  This was a more finished version of the world.  All the rough edges were gone, and filled with wonder.  He could feel it.

“Get down here!” demanded Dash, when Danny didn't respond.  

“No,” said Danny.  

“Get down here or else.”

“Or else what?” asked Danny, genuinely curious.  Dash couldn't get up here.  No one else could, as far as Danny knew. They hadn't taken the time to work out the new rules for gravity. 

Dash clenched his hands into fists, then stooped to grab a fairly large rock.  Danny, seeing no reason to just let Dash throw it at him, left.  

“Hey!” shouted Dash.  “Hey!  Freakton!  Get back here!”

Names like that were a lot less distressing when the people using them had no power to hurt you.  

Danny continued on his path upwards, touching on higher and higher buildings.  It was tough to get the proper amount of momentum to make some of his jumps, especially since he'd stopped to talk to Dash, but he managed to make all of them, and soon he was standing on top of the tallest building in Amity Park.  

In the center of the roof was a small tree, a sapling.  It hadn't been there the first time Danny had made it up here, and it had grown rapidly since then.  Next time he came, it'd probably be taller than he was. 

For now, though, Danny knelt to check the roots where they grew through a widening crack in the building's roof.  He'd warned the people in the building (he had warned everyone in buildings that had suddenly found themselves with roof trees), but he hadn't heard that anyone had done anything about it, and the roof trees felt friendly to him, so he hadn't pushed the issue.  From the descriptions and pictures Sam had given him, this one seemed healthy enough.  

He pulled a bottle from his backpack and gave the tree a generous sprinkle.  Then he stood up, gave the crown of leaves an affectionate ruffle, and made his way to the edge of the roof.

The city spread out in all directions below him, vibrant and changing.  Towards the edges of town, some buildings had lifted off their foundations, becoming floating islands.  Across the viridian, iridescent forest to the north, he could see blue-bright-gray flashes of Lake Eerie.  Fentonworks was easily visible off to the west, silver dishes and spires chased with green halos.  The parks bloomed with flowers both alien and familiar, vines trailing up into the air, trees growing explosively fast.  A breeze from behind turned his attention south, and he saw high clouds letting down shimmering curtains of rain.  

It wasn’t like Amity Park had been drab and horrible before, but why would anyone want to go back?

He looked away, back down at the street far below him.  Steeling himself, he grasped the edges of the shawl, he spread his arms wide.  

“Time to lift off,” he said, quietly.  “T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two–” Where he would have said one, he instead inhaled deeply.  Where he would have said zero, he jumped.  

For a heart-stopping moment, he wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake, if he’d made an error in his calculations, if reality had chosen that moment to reassert itself and he was about to drop like a rock.  

The moment passed quickly.  He was flying.  Or, at least, gliding.  

He laughed, and flapped his ‘wings.’  The shawl snapped behind him and gave him a small amount of lift.  

He was doing it.  He was doing it.  

And now that he was doing it, it felt as natural as breathing.  All that planning, all those calculations, all that running, climbing, and jumping–

He could fly.  

Oh, maybe it wasn’t as impressive as it would have been in the old world, where gravity was a cruel mistress.  But it was still flight, unpowered, human flight, and no one he knew of had done this before.  

He laughed, and banked to the side, flying in spirals.  He wasn’t brave enough to try a loop, yet, but he would, eventually, when he learned more about this.  

His spirals took him over the park, the school, the mall, even the Nasty Burger.  But he was losing altitude, his arms were getting tired, and he knew that if he got too close to the ground, gravity would get him again.  Not to the point of hurting him at all, but he didn’t want to land just anywhere after all this work.  

He tipped his wings westward, and started gliding home, pumping his ‘wings’ as infrequently as he could get away with.  He didn’t quite make it all the way back to his front door, but he got close, just a few houses down the street.  He rubbed his shoulders.  That was going to leave him sore.  He’d have to work out and practice more if he wanted to fly any real distance.  He'd also need a way to take off that didn’t involve climbing the tallest building in town. 

The front door of Fentonworks slammed open, revealing a pale Jack and a furiously pink Maddie.

“Daniel James Fenton!  What do you think you're doing?”

Danny looked down at his bare feet, then back up at his parents.  “Walking?”

Maddie sucked a breath in between her teeth.  “Inside,” she said

Danny hurried to obey, taking the steps up to the door two at a time and squeezing past her and Jack to get into the house.  Maddie closed the door behind him. 

“So, um,” said Danny, shuffling from foot to foot.  “What, um.  I thought you guys were going to be working all day today?”

“On the Ops Center,” said Jack.  “Not in the la– Not downstairs.”

Danny made note of the near-slip but didn’t comment on it.  He was already in trouble.  He didn’t need to remind them that the lab didn’t exactly exist anymore and make their mood worse.  

“Oh,” he said.  “What were you–?”

“Never mind what we were doing.  What were you doing?  What were you thinking, jumping off a building like that?  You could have died?”

“Or been seriously hurt!”

“But I wasn’t!  I’m fine.  I planned it all out, and it worked.”

“And it shouldn’t have!” shouted Jack and Maddie at the same time.  

Danny blinked up at them.  “What?”

Jack explained.  “We’ve been tracking the changes to gravity, too, Danny.  We’ve been measuring it, measuring all the changes, to see what those darn ghosts did.”

Danny held back a sigh.  There still wasn’t any sign that ghosts had done this, or even that ghosts existed.  

“Gravity might have changed a bit,” continued Jack, “but not enough to keep a human being airborne like that.”

“There are whole buildings floating,” said Danny.  “I’m a lot smaller than a building.”

“The rules seem to be different for different masses, as well as different altitudes,” said Maddie, making a face.  

“Yeah!  It’s really exciting.  We’re trying to measure the ectoplasm levels– It has to be related, but we haven’t been able to detect any yet– Those ghosts are tricky, son–”  

“Well, yeah.  But the rules are also different for things that are alive.”

“Really?” asked Jack, leaning close.  

“Uh, yes?  Otherwise I wouldn’t have done, um.  That.  I tested it.”

“You tested it?  Did you write it down?”

Danny nodded, cautiously.  Jack swept him off his feet.  “Our boy has been doing science, Mads!”

“He’s been jumping off of buildings!”

“Putting his research to practical use!”

“He’s been jumping off buildings without being peer reviewed!”

“Oh, yeah, son, you should have had someone check your work.”

“You never get peer reviewed,” said Danny, scowling.  

“That’s different,” said Maddie, quickly.  

“If anyone else believed in ghosts, you’d be sure we would be!”  

Hanging limp in Jack’s arms, Danny grumbled.  

“Danny,” said Maddie.  

“Yes?” he mumbled.  

“No more testing theories without checking in with us first.  Safety first.  You should know this by now.”

Danny hunched his shoulders and tried not to think too hard about his scars.  They weren’t very visible, and the doctors had said that they’d fade away, probably entirely, eventually, but they were still there now, if you knew where to look.

A month ago, reality had broken.  

A few days before that, Danny had almost died.  Lab accident.  It turned out that his parents thought portals to other dimensions which may or may not exist needed a lot of electricity and chemicals to function.  Danny had been curious.  He’d wanted to explore, to investigate.  He’d stepped on a loose wire that had led to a capacitor.  He’d been horribly electrocuted, and then exposed to a chemical cocktail.  Sam and Tucker, who had been in the lab with him, had called for an ambulance, and he’d been brought to the hospital.

At least, that’s what he was told, later.  He hadn’t woken up until he’d been in the hospital for a few days.  Of course, when he had woken up, he did so because a bunch of the medicines going into him had started to do weird things while reality restructured itself, and that had been… incredibly unpleasant.  Everyone had been grateful that only a very few things - like whatever Danny had been on to take care of the chemicals he’d picked up in the lab - had acted like that.

Later, Jazz had told Danny that for a brief period of time between the accident and reality breaking, Jack and Maddie had sworn off ghost hunting.  Presumably forever.  But once the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology started to rebel and twist, they’d taken it back.  Well, to be fair, apparently they didn’t take it back until the lab disappeared.  And the Fenton Stockades.    

Although, to be fair in the other direction, it was more a case of everyone’s basements disappearing and being replaced by weird misty caverns than ghosts specifically targeting his parents.  It was a whole thing. 

(Personally, Danny was glad to see them go, although it had sounded like Sam was mourning hers.)

“Danny,” said Maddie, “tell us that you understand.”

“I understand.  I don’t test theories without you,” said Danny, grudgingly.  “Not even about cool things like flying.”

Maddie scowled.  Jack beamed.  

“Great!” shouted Jack.  He whirled Danny around again.  “Let’s go see your data!  Where is it?”

“Upstairs,” mumbled Danny.  “I’ve got a notebook.”

“A notebook, Mads!”  

Maddie sighed.  “Alright, let’s see the notebook.”

[swamp-spirit]

Gritty Danny Phantom Netflix Reboot

It's inevitable. Here's my pitch.

So obviously the title is ‘Phantom’. It’s reboot inevitably that it’s gonna be the edgy, one word version of the original title.

For tone, leaning a bit into the dark/horror elements and getting a bit worldbuilding heavy, but also trying to keep a fun action feel that’s not too scared to be silly. Obviously, with me writing, being ‘half-ghost’ is a lot about being a community outsider and a lot about going through something traumatic and feeling like the you from before is gone.

Characters:

Danny Fenton

In the main show, he’s a bit of an ‘everyman’, so I want to get a little more specific with him,

He’s supposed to be a huge nerd, but he doesn’t act that nerdy. He’s pretty confident and straight laced.

I like the idea of Danny as a character who, especially growing up with Jazz and his parents fighting, wants to keep everyone happy, even when it isn’t practical. He focuses on trying to get people to get along and not taking sides, even when it’s a bad idea. He often ends up trying to make peace between Tucker and Sam and pulling the ‘both sides have points’, even when one of them is clearly wrong. He goes along with his parent’s ghost hunting while not believing in it, and tries to convince Jazz to ‘be reasonable’.

In Phantom form, his actual opinions start to surface. He’s frustrated that people can’t just be nice, and frustrated at feeling like he’s always cleaning up other people’s messes. He’s free to be opinionated, aggressive, and take action for what he believes. On the flipside, Phantom is prone to making irrational, emotional decisions and following poor priorities.

Besides being caught between two emotional extremes, he’s physically and metaphysically ‘caught between’ living and dead. His ghost form feels unstable and insubstantial, but, in his human form, Danny is hyperconscious of his own death. His heartbeat and pulse feel wrong‘.

Sam Manson

So I think the trick with Sam is every CW/Netflix teen show’s attempts to write very political characters, especially women, is… very bad. Very surface and ham-fisted. First, instead of updating Mall-Goth to E-Girl, go for a crunchy goth/punk/grunge look, especially for a rebelling rich kid. Shoes held together with duct-tape, big jackets she wrote on in sharpie, but keep the stompy boots.

Avoid the whole ‘haha she’s going too far’ and vegetarian jokes, and give her some specific local politics to be involved in (that can help inform later plots). 

As an ‘outsider’ teen activist, she probably doesn’t have many people her own age who don’t see her as weird and pushy, so maybe has an older group of acquaintances. Teen goth with phone contacts full of old activist ladies maybe? 

She has a very strong moral compass, but is insecure about her own wealth and privilege and compensated by being a bit blind on certain issues. She can also be unempathetic to people’s personal circumstances.

Tucker Foley

The teen Cassanova bit gets a bit cringy, so first I want to change this from ‘hanging outside the girl’s locker room’ cringe to ‘oh no, this 14 year old just read a wiki-how article on how to be confident’ cringe. He’s sincere and good hearted, but much more of a teen boy trying to be cool and it just highlighting his insecurity. As the show goes on, he becomes more confident as a Teen Hero and stops trying to impress assholes.

He’s a tech nerd from a middle class family, so is an expert at working with the supplies he can get. He is also prone to going to ‘hang out with Danny’ and then ditching Danny and Sam to obsess over Maddie Fenton’s latest tech. All attempts to be cool are lost in the face of Neat Electronics.

Jazz Fenton

Pretty much the same situation as canon. Her parents are immature, so she’s decided she’s Danny’s parent, but she’s also a teenager herself and not as mature as she’s decided she is. She barges in to fix problems when it’s not helpful/wanted, but she is also the only reason Danny lived to age fourteen.

Maddie and Jack Fenton

Mostly the same as canon. They do everything 100%, and don’t always notice the world around them. Jack is pure enthusiasm, and tries hard to connect with his kids while utterly failing to notice that they have their own interests and lives. Maddie is a little more perceptive, but easily distracted by her passions.

The family has a decent fortune on a previous Fenton Thermos prototype getting sold as the next Hydroflask. It’s a super trendy, high-class thermos, and Jack and Maddie are endlessly frustrated that their money comes from their world-saving ghost capture device being used as an actual soup thermos. It also means there’s a handy yet unreliable ghost thermos around whenever the story needs it.

Vlad Masters

A lot of Vlad’s goals stay the same, but a slightly more serious tone means he needs to be a bit… less stupid. He’s just as manipulative and self-centered, but he’s a bit better at putting on a polite face to get what he wants.

His ghost form gives him powers, but, like Phantom, it’s much more emotionally volatile. Vlad will often carefully set the stage, only for Plasmius to ruin it all for a chance to get one over on Jack or impress Maddie. If Vlad is trying to convince Danny to work with him, Plasmius will lose his temper. If Vlad is trying to attack, Plasmius will fall to base emotional manipulation.

Valerie Grey

Like Jazz, I pretty much like what she’s already got going on. Get pissed, join the villain, become a reluctant ally as a super and a protective GF in normal life.

Some Major Shifts:

-Tucker and Sam are not initially aware of Danny’s death and find out mid-way through Season 1

-When the story begins, Vlad and Jack are already ‘reconciling’, and Vlad is present around the Fenton house

-The sci-fi elements of the world belong purely to the human realm. The ghost realm is dreamlike and magical, while things like portals and shields are human ways of interfering with the metaphorical and metaphysical.

-Speaking of which, Danny is less ‘gene-spliced half creature’ and more ‘dead ghost possessing his own living body’

-Danny takes longer to become a known presence, managing to keep hidden for most of the first season, then going from ‘legend’ to ‘oddity’ to ‘yeah, the ghost hero, we all know him’

Ghost Powers:Keeping some Phandom lore here. Since it’s not a kid’s show, most ghosts can be actually dead people with regrets. Also keeping ghost cores and Obsessions because it gives an excuse for weird, campy undead on wild missions. (cores - a ghost’s center organ, and also sorta their soul, Obsession - the tendency of ghosts to become wholly focused on their passions or regrets to the point or irrationality)

For Danny specifically, I’m switching from Magical Transformation to Astral Projection. Part of this is for tone shift reasons, but it also adds a few narrative levers. There’s a ticker timer for Phantom to return to his body as Danny could perma die and leave Phantom stuck as a ghost. It also leaves Danny’s body open to possession while his ghost is away. (On the helpful end, it means his body can rest while Phantom does the teen superhero thing)

Phantom is naturally invisible and intangible, but becoming tangible forces him to become visible and neither is easy.

In human form, Danny retains access to extra strength and healing and, eventually, his ice powers, but lacks most of his more ghostly abilities.

Other Worldbuilding Things

The Ghost Zone serves two functions. First, it makes a cushioned pocket between life and death so the realms don’t damage each other. Second, it gives a place for those not ready to move on to dispel regrets. It’s intentionally separate from the human realm because watching the living world tends not to dispel regrets. Concepts from the human world tend to ‘echo’ there, and there’s a second society that some ghosts choose not to leave, sustaining a second life in the Ghost Zone. Most of the non-dead entities (like Clockwork) that live there exist to protect the Zone and keep it stable and functional.

Besides moving on, the way to escape the Ghost Zone is ripping through the border. It takes incredible will, so is usually only doable with a very meaningful ‘unfinished business’. It also does extreme damage to the spirit, leaving them weakened and confused. Entities in the ghost zone also work hard to prevent this as weakening the borders could lead to the collapse of the entire Zone.

The Fenton Portal created a weakened spot between the Zone and the living world and Danny ripping through it turned the weak spot into a permanent gap. Ghosts can cross full without damage and at full power, even if their goals in the human realm are mundane. It’s the gap in the fence all the local teens know, and it can’t be patched.

Stylistic

This will get me eaten alive, but I like switching the jumpsuit for pajamas so the ghost form has kinda loose, simple clothes.

Overall, the show brings big budgeting issues. I like the idea of using underwater footage to get ghost movement and get that floaty look. The ghost zone in general, use everyday sets, but with a strong purple light and a teal kick light. Using sets from other things and taking advantage of the nature of sets to wander between locations in ways that don’t make sense is a plus, but shoots could be at night pretty much anywhere.

I also suggest using different locations for the same location, for example, shooting a scene at a ghost zone diner at various diners, even mid scene.

Romance Thoughts:

It’s the CW reboot. There’s got to be romance, but I’d prefer to keep it on the back-burner. 

Personally, I think Danny/Val has that good ‘conflicting identities’ thing, and it’s a romance arc that isn’t obvious from page 1, which I like. Before that, I think Danny should have at least one tragic romance with a ghost.

Lesbian Sam feels stereotypically predictable, but I also enjoy the idea of shipteasing Danny/Sam before it’s revealed that Sam having a ‘crush’ on Danny has been a long series of misunderstandings as she attempts to hide her huge crush on Jazz. 

Tucker gets an internet girlfriend who nobody believes is real for a solid season. They met getting into petty forum wars over an MMO they both play. Once he has a girlfriend, he switches from Casanova to just constantly bringing up his Girlfriend, Who is Real and Hot and Plays Video Games.

Episode 1: Origin Story

Episode opens with Danny clearly stretched too thin. Sam has managed to force Tucker hiking and wants Danny there too, Tucker wants him there for emotional support, and Jazz thinks Danny should stay home and work on homework. Danny has promised his parents he’ll join them on a ghost hunt. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all point out that Danny doesn’t even believe in ghosts and he always lets himself get dragged into this stuff, while Danny insists this hunt is extra important to their parents.

It’s revealed that the reason for this importance is the Fenton parents reconnecting and reconciling with their college friend Vlad. Vlad is polite, but keeps subtly avoiding saying anything nice about Jack while paying attention to Maddie. (“It’s wonderful to see you again” vs “It’s been a while”) He brings gifts for the kids and asks about their lives.

Jazz is immediately taken with Vlad. He talks about her school life and seems polite and educated, an example of an adult who can handle himself. Danny is a bit more hesitant, pointing out that he doesn’t seem that happy to see Jack.

The Fentons excitedly show Vlad the new portal. Vlad makes an excuse to get everyone out of the room. Afterwards, he excitedly asks Jack to demonstrate the portal. (A later episode confirms he intentionally sabotaged the portal for revenge, but him getting people out of the room should be as plausible as possible so viewers can feel proud for putting it together). Before they can show Vlad, Jack rushes them out on a ghost hunt. He says the portal takes time to warm up

It’s a long, boring car ride. During the ghost hunt, there does seem to be an actual ghost. Danny keeps seeing glimpses of the haunting and is getting genuinely scared. The adult Fentons, meanwhile, are excitedly chasing various non-paranormal occurrences, certain it’s ghostly activity.

They come home late and Maddie insists the portal be left until morning so they can eat and get some rest. Danny decides to get online with friends instead. He realizes the computer won’t work because the portal’s on and tells his friends he’s going to go shut it down while he plays, then sneak down to boot it back up.

We see the ghost from earlier watching and static building on the portal. He reaches out to touch it and the scene becomes surreal. We hear Danny’s heart racing. Danny collapses and, at the same time, is pulled across the portal.

In the final shot, we hear dead silence, no heart beating, and Danny lying lifelessly on the floor. The camera pulls out and his ghost form floats on the other side of the portal, away from the body. He looks confused and frightened and, as the show ends, he’s pounding on the door.

Episode 2: The World Without You

Danny pounds on the wall between him and his body, panicking, and is pulled away by a female ghost (later revealed to be Ember). He’s angry with her, but she points to the guards coming to see what the disruption was about. She tells him he’d never make it through anyway, because he’s not angry enough.

She tells him that she’d never cross over herself, preferring to avoid the madness that comes with breaking through to the human realm, but his case is different. His body is still alive, and, if he returns, he could live again. She asks him what he’d regret if he died now, and Danny talks about his dreams to go to space. It’s not enough, so she attempts to get him angry, but it’s not working. He’s just sad and scared. Finally, she seems to have an idea.

They enter a ghost town and she walks him to an old-style theatre. There is only one movie showing, “The World Without You”. The ghost tells Danny everyone comes here at least once, even though it’s not anything good, but it might help him. She hands Danny his ticket and goes to wait outside. Danny sits down to watch the screen.

We cut to Sam and Tucker. Sam’s trying to text Danny to see what’s taking him so long and Tucker says he’s probably asleep. After an hour, Sam starts to panic, but Tucker points out he had a long day and keeps insisting fell asleep.

Jazz comes down in the morning and finds Danny dead beside the portal. She goes into fix-it mode, refusing to admit he’s dead. Maddie tries to force Jazz away and let the EMTs do their work, Jack looks confused and frightened, and Vlad looks shocked and a bit ill.

The scenes get faster and we see Danny’s community fall apart. Sam blames Tucker for saying it was fine, Tucker points out his death was instant and is sick of taking the blame. Sam runs away and Tucker loses energy for his passions. Jazz is furious with her parents, saying their obsession killed her little brother. Jack becomes obsessed with trying to contact his dead son, leaving Maddie alone to deal with the reality of death.

We cut back to the theatre. Danny sits in an audience of ghosts. All, including Danniy, are crying glowing green ectoplasm. He rushes out and towards the portal. He thanks his guide, and she smiles and tell him to ‘remember he owes her’

The same guards arrive, forcing Danny to fight his way past them. He makes it to the border between realms. Ripping back to reality seems even more violent than the fight, an act of rage against the unfairness of death. He goes to his body and attempts to line himself up with it, muttering hopefully.

There’s a pause and then we hear a strange, sludgy noise that isn’t quite a heartbeat. It speeds up, sounding more like a heart and more like static, building to a frantic roll, then stops again. There’s a single beat, then another, until there’s a strangely slow and shallow, but constant, heartbeat.

Danny’s eyes open with a gasp and glowing green fades to blue.

[ashboy-3]

Someone Believes in You

Written for Dannymay event 2023 Day 24 Prompt: NASA Fandom: Danny Phantom Character: Danny and Lancer Words:1,054 Summary: Danny wants to get into a good college for Space, but he doesn't think he's able to do it. Lancer believes in him.

“Alright, kids. Today we will be discussing jobs. What do you want to be when you grow up?” an older lady asked her classroom of five-year-olds.

“I want to go to space!” a small five-year-old Danny yelled, jumping up and down for joy.

“That’s nice Danny, but we are talking about Jobs today, not plans,” she said gently, trying to not hurt his feelings, as the class laughed at him.

During free time Danny decided to angrily color space and the planets to get his feelings out. “I think space is really cool!” a dark-skinned boy said, walking up to Danny, sitting next to him.

“Do you really!?” Danny asked, eyes shining with excitement.

“Maybe not as much as you, but I think it’d be cool to go to space one day.”

“My name is Danny!” the small black-haired child said, holding out one of his crayons for the other boy.

“I’m Tucker!” Tucker smiled as he took the crayon offering. A friendship was born.

“Alright, class we’re finally starting our section on space,” a tired teacher said, clearly not ready to deal with the middle schoolers before him.

“Finally!” Danny shouted excitedly, cheering in his spot.

“Quiet Fenton. This will not require a discussion,” the teacher rolled his eyes as Danny blushed, Tucker patting his back supportive as Dash and Kwan laughed at the two.

“What nerds,” the Jocks teased.

“Don’t listen to them. I think it’s pretty cool how excited you are for space,” the new girl with short black hair whispered, sitting behind him.

“Really?” Danny asked.

“Hell yeah,” she smiled at him.

“Manson! Fenton! Watch the video and stop whispering!” the teacher shouted as they paid attention.

After class Sam walked in front of the best friend’s desk. “I’m Sam Manson,” she held out her hand.

“Danny Fenton,” Danny shook her hand as she looked over at his best friend. “Oh um, I’m Tucker Foley.”

“Want to go to the Nasty Burger after school and do some research on the different planets within the solar system?” she asked as Danny’s eyes went wide.

“Oh um sure!” Danny shook his head excitedly as Tucker teased him.

“Don’t know what you’re laughing about. We can’t research the whole thing alone,” Sam rolled her eyes as she walked out of the classroom to her next class.

“So what do you want to do when you get out of high school?” Sam asked as Danny showed them the portal his parents had just finished building.

“I want to be an astronaut and work for NASA. I’m good at science and mom is always willing to help me out, but I’m not so good in the math department. I think that’s what’s going to give me the most trouble,” Danny shrugged.

“Makes sense. Your parents did build this huge portal,” Tucker said.

“A portal that doesn’t work,” Danny scoffed.

“Since it doesn’t work let’s get a few pictures,” Sam asked.

Later this day Danny Phantom was born, of course, he did spend two weeks in the hospital but that’s more because of the electricity that he was shot with.

“Alright, kids! College applications time. If you need help come see me after school or during my lunch period,” Lancer said, passing out applications to the seniors, and waiting for them to hand them back in.

It was a week later that Danny was called into his office. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Lancer?”

“Ah, Mr. Fenton yes. Please come in,” Lancer said, Danny, closing the door behind him as he sat down in the free seat. “I’ve reviewed your applications and you want to apply for an Astronomer?” Lancer asked.

“Yeah I’m not fully sure what I want to do, but if a college will accept my horrible grades I would like to go into something space-related,” Danny shrugged.

“Danny you’re grades are not as bad as they were your freshman year. You have done an excellent job of bringing them up. I fully believe that you will be able to get into a space program, that’s not why I called you in here,” Lancer said carefully, looking at the boy who thinks he has already ruined his chance at higher education. Lancer watched as the boy looked up at him with a look in his eyes. A look that Lancer has seen in many of his students that he has tried to save from an edge. A look of surprised hope.

“You really think that I can do it?”

“Danny you are a smart kid. I’ll admit you’re grades gave me a small scare when you were a freshmen, but you have been doing good. I believe that you could be a part of NASA with how good you’re doing,” Lancer praised him.

“Thank you, Mr. Lancer. Really,” Danny beamed at him.

“Now I called you here because you didn’t write down a college, you just wrote down a few states,” Lancer put the application in front of him.

“There are so many options I couldn’t decide,” Danny shrugged.

“Well if you want to get into a good science program I recommend this college here in California,” Lancer said writing down the name. “It’s in one of the states that you wanted to attend so I think it’ll be perfect for you. Just be warned that this course is meant to challenge you it will not always be easy,” Lancer warned.

“I want in,” Danny said, determination burning bright in his eyes.

“You will need to study harder. Take the ACT again and try to score better. I am willing to help you if you are willing to make the time,” Lancer suggested.

“I am. I want to get into this school,” Danny said again, writing down the name of the college on the application.

“Meet with me every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for your lunch period and we will get you ready to take the ACT. As a just in case we will also study for the practice exam.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lancer! Really,” Danny smiled, grabbing his book bag to walk out.

“I expect great things from you, Mr. Fenton,” Lancer smiled back. He knows that the young boy will put in the effort and he knows that Danny will truly be a brilliant student meant for the field of astrology.

[phantom088]

Weird Ass Danny Phantom ships

Danny Phantom is one of my most favorite shows, and it has a place for others as well. The character pairing is a bit rough in the show, and admittedly the love line was a bit boring. (Plus the fact that Sam is one of my least favorite character due to the fact she's toxic af.) But it is what it is, and apparently people agree with me on their hate on Sam, so they have started to pair Danny with different characters like Ember, Val, Kitty,... Vlad... wait what?! Vlad? Seriously? Okay that just ain't right, and trust me, there are a whole bunch of ships that just are not right and here's my list on them and why they shouldn't exist. (And these are ships I found people supporting online.)

Danny x Vlad: 1: They are arch enemies (And don't hit me with the enemies to lovers shit.) 2: Vlad wants to fuck Danny's mom! 3: Danny is like 14 while Vlad is a grown ass man somewhere in his late 40s to his early 50s, just like.... WHY?!

Danny x Jazz: Yes, this is a thing and all I gotta say is Sweet home Alabama. (Seriously, they are siblings!)

Dan x Jazz: 1 2 3 go! Sweet home Alabama, Where the skies are so blue, Sweet home Alabama, Lord comin' home to you. (I mean, Dan is still technically Jazz's brother, just from a different timeline.)

Danny Phantom x Danny Fenton: 1: It's pretty much narcissistic 2: It produces weird ass fan art 3: It's basically impossible anyways

Danny x Dash: It's just seems wrong, okay! It's just my view, but I never liked bully/nerd dynamic to lovers, it's just toxic.

Danny x Clockwork: The same thing, HUGE age gap, like I'm talking billions upon billions of year. Clockwork is better off as Danny's mentor then lover

Honorable mention:

This one belongs in the Nicktoons Unite catergory, where people go for Danny x SpongeBob. Yes you heard, SPONGEBOB, a seasponge! It's the worst of them yet, not only is there like a 20 year age gap between Danny and SpongeBob, it's also crossbreeding species! (No offense furries.) It just seems so wrong.

And I've notice the ships I went over is mostly just Danny x _______ ships, and that's not on purpose. I just couldn't find and weird and appalling ships between two characters who aren't Danny and someone else. But I suppose since Danny is the main character, alot more people pay more attention to him and who they want him to love or something, idk.

Other then my random rant of frustration at people who like weird ass ships, this is it lol

[imekitty]

Star Error VII

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Star investigates Danny’s glowing freckles.

-----

"Star, where have you been?" asked Kwan.

Star took her normal seat at the A-List table in the cafeteria. "Nowhere. Sorry. Just had a thing I needed to take care of."

"Aren't you going to eat?" asked Paulina, taking a bite of her chicken salad.

Star looked down at the empty table space in front of her. "Oh. Uh, actually, I already ate."

"What did you eat?" Dash grinned, chewing his food as he spoke. "Fenton's face?"

Star balked. "What kind of a question is that?"

"He walked in literally a minute before you did," said Dash, looking over in Fenton's direction where he was sitting with Manson and Foley a few tables away. "His loser friends were here on time as usual, so that means he was also 'taking care of something.' That 'something' probably being you, right?"

"So you and Danny are really hitting it off, huh?" Paulina playfully elbowed her in the side.

"No!" shrieked Star. "You guys have got it all wrong."

"Star, you don't need to keep denying it." Dash took a huge bite of his burger, a glob of ketchup smearing above his lip. "Paulina's dated him, too. Clearly that nerd's got something going on you girls like."

Paulina made a face. "I don't know what you're talking about, but could you please use a napkin, Dash?"

Dash wiped his mouth with his hand. "Paulina, we all remember that week when you were attached to Fenton's hip and we had to temporarily kick Kwan out of the A-List to make room for him."

"I could never forget," sighed Kwan with a pout.

"You're all crazy," said Paulina. "That never happened."

"Come on, Paulina." Dash took another bite, even more ketchup dribbling down his chin. "Just tell me what that nerd's secret is already. I mean, why would you date him of all people before me?"

Paulina pursed her lips. "Well, for one, he's not gross."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Stop talking with your mouth full, Dash! See, Danny's not a pig like you are."

"That's because Fenton barely eats at all. He's a twig."

"He's not a twig." Paulina looked in Fenton's direction and twirled a lock of her hair. "He's put on some muscle this past year. Don't you agree, Star?"

Star rolled her eyes. "Who's keeping track of that?"

"Look, all I'm saying is, I could kick his ass from one end of this school to the other." Dash sighed. "God, I actually kind of miss whaling on him. Coach said I had to knock it off or I'd get kicked off the team."

"Does Fenton know that?" asked Kwan.

"No, and I'm not gonna tell him." Dash smirked. "I'd rather him live in fear that I could pound him any day now."

"He's not afraid of you, you know," said Star with a shrug.

Dash furrowed his brow. "What did you say?"

"Fenton's not afraid of you," said Star more slowly.

"And just how do you know that?"

"He told me."

"Oh, did he tell you yesterday on your little date?"

"It wasn't a date, as I keep trying to tell you, but yes, it was yesterday at the cafe."

"He was probably just trying to impress you." Dash laughed. "You know, act like he's tough for his new girlfriend. But I think it's real cute that you two are starting to get to know each other so well."

Star wrinkled her nose and pouted.

"So how is he?" Paulina nudged her.

"What? How is who? What do you mean?" asked Star irritably.

"Danny," said Paulina. "I mean, is he a good kisser?"

"Shouldn't you know, Paulina?" asked Dash. "Surely you sucked face with him at least once when you were dating him."

"Shut it, Dash." Paulina glared at him. "I'm asking Star a question."

Dash rolled his eyes and stuffed the last bite of his burger into his mouth. "Yes, Star, please tell us what it's like to kiss one of the biggest geeks in school. We're all dying to know."

"I just want to know if he's better than me," said Kwan anxiously. "He's not, right?"

Everyone looked at her expectantly, waiting. Star chewed the inside of her cheek as her eyes darted between them.

And a few tables over, Fenton was chatting it up with his friends, all smiley because he had the upper hand again.

And then Star got an idea.

"Well, actually…" She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. "We haven't kissed yet. Fenton—I mean, Danny says he wants to practice a little more first. You know, to make sure our first kiss is perfect."

"Practice?" Paulina tilted her head.

"Yeah," said Star, grinning. "He has all these dolls and pillows in his room that he likes to practice on. They all have pictures of girls at our school taped to them. He says it makes it feel more authentic."

"Ew, are you serious?" Paulina crossed her hands over her chest and shuddered.

"No way, he doesn't do that, does he?" Kwan's eyes were wide.

"He's got at least a dozen of them," said Star. "He mostly uses pictures of cheerleaders."

"Oh, I have to tell everyone right now." Dash whipped out his phone and began furiously typing out a text message.

"Cheerleaders, so does that mean he has a doll or pillow with my picture on it?" asked Paulina.

"Oh, yeah." Star nodded. "I think he might practice with yours the most."

"Ugh, gross." Paulina stuck out her tongue. "But is it at least a good picture of me?"

Star's smile dropped. "Is it—what?"

"Just tell me it's not that picture of me after I ran that marathon last semester, is it? Where I'm all sweaty and my eyeliner is running?"

"Uh—"

"I know it's been circulating between all the boys, so please just tell me he's not using that one because I really hate it."

Star rolled her eyes. "He's using a great picture of you, don't worry."

Paulina sighed. "Okay, good." She also pulled out her phone. "The other cheerleaders are going to want to know about this, though."

Star smirked triumphantly as Dash and Paulina busily typed away on their phones, then she turned to look at Fenton across the way, catching his eye after just a few moments. She waved at him and flashed her most dazzling smile. Fenton's brow furrowed, his bottom lip sticking out slightly in a puzzled frown.

Star flipped her hair over her shoulder as she turned away. The game was back on.

Part 8

[void-multimuse]

Muse Profile: Danny Fenton

Name: Danny Fenton / Danny Phantom

Age: 16

Pronouns: He / They

Orientation:  Biromantic Ace

Height: 5'6"

Occupation: Part-Time Superhero

Moving From: @hybrid-phantom-archived

Character Bio:

Danny is smart-mouthed and generally sarcastic around people he doesn’t trust. He also has a sense of humor and loves to use wordplay to insult any opponents who challenge him.

In human form, he’s known to slouch and sit out in the background to most situations, keeping to himself, his close friends and his sister. He’s generally shy and dorky in public as long as there are no ghosts around.

He’s a huge nerd. When he has free time, it’s often spent playing his favorite video games like Doomed or reading comic books, mostly involving superheroes. (He doesn’t really like picking between Marvel and DC because he has equal fascination in both.)

In ghost form, his personality does a one-eighty and he’s cocky and confident. The freedom of not having to be anyone society constrains him to be, as well as having massive amounts of power allows him to express himself without fear of retribution.

Though he does have an image to upkeep as a ghost too, a fearless hero, and there are some instances that prevent him from keeping up his masks in either form.

Constant ghost hunting when the town is in danger has caused a slip in Danny’s personal life, leaving him tired at all hours and more prone to falling into ghostly instincts.

But overall, Danny has a softhearted disposition, and is ready to take the fall for anything if it means they day is saved and people are safe. Snarky as he is, he always puts other’s lives before his own in every way.

TAG DUMP:

[josnhoes]

Aunty, I like hearing from you because I like you, alright? Anyways, I never watched Danny phantom growing up. My parents thought it was demonic... but yeah. I'm happy it brings you joy. What is the series even about? Sincerely, a wolf.

The series focuses on Danny Fenton a boy who has Ghost hunting mad scientist for parents. His parents built a portal into the 'ghost dimension' (also known as the infinite realms) but the portal doesn't work.

Danny's friends Sam (goth girl social activist and ultra recycled vegetarian) and Tucker (tech nerd who is a carnivor) want to explore the parent's lab (which is in the basement of Danny's home) and while doing so see the portal. Sam convinces Danny to go into the inactive portal and pose for a picture.

While in the portal he trips on some wires and hits the internal on button and the portal activates with him inside. Which essentially kills Danny. But due to the flood of ectoplasm rather then staying dead he comes back. He is now half Ghost, something they call a halfa (dumb name I know) and with it comes a bunch of powers and a ghost form he can take at anytime. It's Danny but inverted colors.

Now that the portal is working a bunch of Ghost start slipping out of it into the mortal plane and after they attack his friends Danny takes it upon himself to become a ghost hunting vigilante with a catch and release into the ghost zone policy.

The show focuses on Danny and his friends lives as Danny learns to control his powers, juggle his school life, family life, and trying to keep his vigilante self secret. Which is a struggle because his parents are unknowingly hunting him in his other form. While most of their inventions don't work on occasionally they make something that does; those things *can* hurt him. But he can usually manage safely with the help of his friends and later his older sister who stumbles on the secret.

The show is a lot of shenanigans and as the series continues gets more complex. Like when the government issues an anti-eco acts (all Ghost and ghost like being Aka liminals are classified as not human and to be hunted down and experimented on) and an introduction of the ghost investigation ward. Or as everyone calls them the guys in white. Because they wear full white suits and act like the men in black rip offs. Though MiB doesn't exist there.

He also has a cast of regularly returning villains, some of which slowly kinda become friends but still fight him and cause chaos.

Then there is Vlad Masters which is a *huge* plot point that I can expand on but the tldr is he was friends with Danny's parents in collage and a smaller but similar accident happened to him as Dany just not as serious. He's obsessed with Danny's mom (Maddie) and hates his Dad (Jack) and plans to steal Maddie from Jack. But he plans on using Fanny and Jaz to do is by winning them over. The fact he too is a halfa is revealed and he and Danny fight. Vlad becomes obsessed with the idea of becoming Danny's new father for a few reasons: they are the only two beings like them to exist, scorn Jack, and with Danny's help win his mother and sister over. When Danny refuses he starts trying to kill Jack and Danny struggles to fight him off and again keep his identity a secret.

Meanwhile Danny's parents have *no* clue about what Vlad is thinking, planning, and doing so they continue to treat him like a close family friend. Much to Danny's pain.

There is sooo much more but those are some of the major plot points which is impressive for such a short series.

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

Not Enough

has anyone else just wanted Danny to go completely fucking feral at Dash? anyone?

yeah me too

this is some truly self-indulgent shit y'all

"Hey Fenton!"

Danny slammed his locker shut, sighing as Dash clapped him roughly on the shoulder.

"I'm throwin' a huge ass Halloween party this weekend, ghosts are all about Halloween right? You should totally come!"

It wasn't the first party Danny had been invited to since being outed as Phantom, but somehow Dash didn't seem to get the hint that he wasn't even remotely interested.

"No." Danny snapped, he threw his bag over his shoulder and turned his back on Dash, walking away without another word.

"What's your problem?"

Danny stopped, turning back around with a face of utter disdain.

"Excuse me?"

"I've been trying to be nice, but all you do is just brush me off! Like you can't even pretend to be busy or something?"

Danny stared, mouth halfway open as he tried to find the words to respond.

"Are you actually serious?" he finally choked out, almost too bewildered to be angry.

Almost.

"You're not still mad about all that stuff from before right?" Dash asked. "Like, I don't even do that shit anymore, it's over."

"Is it?" Danny's eyes flashed brightly and Dash took a half step back as the air went cold. "Because I'm pretty sure it was just yesterday that I pulled Mikey out of his locker."

"Well, yeah but that was Mikey." Dash laughed. "C'mon man, I wouldn't do that to you. We're totally cool now, so why you gotta keep blowing me off? You talk to Kwan like it's not big deal, and he used to wail on you all the time!"

Danny took a deep, slow breath, then another.

"Have you considered that maybe it's because I don't like you?" Danny said through gritted teeth.

Dash huffed, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring at the ground.

"Look, I get it, I was a jerk, but it's over! I'm actually trying to be nice, now you're the one being an asshole."

Danny looked as though he'd been slapped.

"You're such a fucking idiot Dash." Said Danny, his voice trembling with barely restrained rage. "You can't just treat someone like shit every single day for two years and then expect them to get over it because you invited them to a few parties."

"Then how come Kwan gets to hang out with you?" Dash could feel his face heating up. "You're just gonna let him off the hook? That's not fair!"

"HE APOLOGISED!"

In one thunderous moment, every locker in the hallway slammed open, sending papers and books flying across the floor. The few students still packing up their things got the fuck out of dodge, whether this was a ghost thing or a Fenton thing (was there even a difference at this point?) they wanted no part of it.

Dash couldn't move, his feet felt heavy, he wasn't entirely sure if Danny had done something to him with his ghost powers, or if he was just afraid.

Because he was certainly afraid.

Even after everyone found out, Danny still didn't use his powers at school unless it was a ghost emergency. He didn't use them for pranks, didn't use them to get even, didn't even use them to show off.

But he was sure as hell using them now, and Dash suddenly realised why he was always holding himself back.

He was terrifying.

Danny took a few steps forward, stopping barely an arm's length away from where Dash was rooted to the spot, trembling.

"Kwan apologised to me." He said, quietly this time. "He apologised to my friends, he even apologised to some other kids, and when I told him that I wasn't ready to forgive him, he accepted that and left me alone until I was ready to talk to him again."

Dash wanted to speak, but he couldn't seem to make his brain form the words he needed, it was too busy buzzing with danger run danger get out run run RUN.

"You made every single day of my life miserable for two whole fucking years, and that isn't even counting the bullshit you pulled in middle school. How do you feel right now Dash? Does it scare you to be around me? Does it scare you to be at the mercy of someone that you know damn well can hurt you?" Danny leant in, grabbing a fistful of letterman jacket. "I hope it does, because now maybe you'll have an idea what it was like for me going to school every fucking day knowing that you would be there, ready and waiting to hurt me. Every single FUCKING day."

Dash found himself being thrown backwards, his feet finally able to move again as he caught himself.

"I'm s-sor-sorry." he mumbled, his lips felt numb and tingly and his head swam with panic as he struggled to get the words out. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Are you?" Danny's voice cracked, his face wasn't twisted in rage anymore, his eyes were blue once again, and shining with tears. "Are you really sorry for hurting me? Or are you just sorry that the guy you were beating the shit out of turned out to be Phantom?"

"I didn't... I didn't know." Dash gasped out, he could barely hear his own words, all he could hear was his own heart beating loudly in his ears as he struggled to draw in breath. "I didn't know it was like that, I just thought-"

Thought what? What had he thought? That he wasn't really hurting anyone? That it wasn't that big a deal?

No, he hadn't thought that, because he hadn't thought at all.

"And you're gonna stand here and tell me I'm an asshole." Danny was almost sobbing as he raggedly spat out each word. "Because I won't forgive you for something you never even apologised for. This is the first time you even acknowledged that you were an absolute jerk to me, and you followed it up by demanding that I just get over it."

Dash stared down at the floor, it sounded terrible when Danny put it like that.

"I wasn't... demanding anything." he said, he was embarrassed by how whiny he sounded. "I was just trying to make it up to you, I was trying, I just thought... it's not fair that I can't have second chance. I was trying so hard and all I wanted was a second chance-"

"I DON'T CARE." Danny's eyes were screwed up tight, but it didn't stop the tears of fury from pouring down his cheeks, his voice so shredded with pain it was barely recognisable. "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT. I DON'T OWE YOU A SECOND CHANCE. I DON'T OWE YOU ANYTHING. YOU FUCKED ME UP AND YOU. CAN'T. FIX IT."

Dash didn't know what to do. Danny was openly sobbing, his breaths came out in grunts as he couldn't hold the rage and misery back.

He was still standing within arm's reach, Dash cautiously put out a hand, to comfort him? He wasn't sure, but he barely brushed Danny's shoulder before Dash found himself spinning violently and his cheekbone exploded with sudden pain as he hit the floor. Cold hands drew away from him roughly.

"DON'T TOUCH ME." Danny screamed. "DON'T YOU EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME EVER AGAIN."

Dash watched as Danny grabbed his backpack and his footsteps disappeared down the hall.

It was over, just like that it was over.

Dash sat up and touched his face, he wasn't bleeding but he knew it would bruise pretty bad. It hurt, he would be squinting through one eye for a few days.

Danny could have done this to him at any time, he could have done it to him every day if he wanted, and maybe he would, now that he'd done it once.

The thought made Dash feel cold as dread pooled in his stomach.

The next day Dash told people he'd gotten his black eye from playing football, his team knew it wasn't true, but they didn't ask. He kept his eye out for Danny, wondering if he would pop up invisibly and knock him off his feet, or drag him through the floor, or hit him when nobody was looking.

He clung to Kwan's side all day, afraid to be alone.

Phantom could be anywhere, he could get him anywhere, if he wanted to hurt Dash nobody would be able to stop him.

Nobody had been able to stop Dash, and he didn't even have superpowers.

But in the end, nothing happened.

Dash went through the day untouched. Danny didn't even look his way. Not once. He just acted like yesterday never happened.

But it did happen, Dash still had the bruise on his cheek, and the terror set deep in his bones.

In the following days, weeks, months, Danny still never touched him, never looked at him, never talked to him. Dash realised that Danny probably wasn't going to do anything else after all, that maybe he hadn't even meant to hurt him in the first place.

He was a hero after all, he protected people, even people he didn't like. The only time he had ever come into contact with Dash again was to haul him out of the way of a ghost, and he did so with the same care as he would with anyone else.

Danny wasn't like him, he didn't gloat about hurting him, he didn't revel in the fact that Dash was scared of him. He just went about his day, acting for all the world like Dash didn't even exist.

Dash never gave him a true apology, it was clear Danny didn't want one, it was far too late for that.

It left Dash with a sick feeling of unfulfillment. He understood now what Danny had been going through, the pain, the terror, he wanted Danny to know that he was truly sorry, that he really had changed this time.

But he couldn't, because forcing an unwanted apology on him would just make Dash the asshole all over again, he was trying to steal a forgiveness that he could never have.

So he had to find his closure somewhere else.

He stopped picking on Mikey, and Nathan, and all of the other nerds he frequently hassled. He even tried apologising to them, some forgave him, others didn't, and he had to be okay with that. He struggled not to lash out, it still felt unfair, the world had always told him that you were supposed to forgive people when they apologised. It always happened that way on tv, in the cartoons he grew up watching. The mean kid would apologise, the other kids would forgive him, and they would all become friends.

He was realising that the real world was a whole lot more complicated than that, he didn't earn forgiveness just because apologising was hard, he was learning fast that he didn't earn any brownie points for taking responsibility for his actions. He was just doing what any decent person should.

It took him a while to come to terms with that, to stop being angry at people for not letting him make it up to them. For not letting him prove that he had changed.

All it took was to occasionally pass by Danny in the hallways for him to cool his jets and think more clearly. To remind him that he was the bad guy, he was the one who hurt people, that his victims did not owe him anything.

In his last year of school, he had found himself watching the juniors below him falling into the same behaviours, the same struggle for power and control. Pushing other kids around without so much as sparing a thought to how it made them feel.

After a lengthy chat with Mr Lancer, Dash was given permission to pull out younger students from detention one day a week. He would talk to them, ask about their lives, ask about their feelings. He would ask why they lashed out, why they thought it was okay to treat people that way. Most of them didn't have an answer, or simply refused to give one, but he would push, he wouldn't let them hide in ignorance like he did.

Some of them did feel guilt for the way they treated people, and they only needed someone they could talk to who could understand what they were going through, so they wouldn't take it out on whoever was around at the time.

Others would take more effort, they need a far stronger push in the right direction, they were defensive and combative, selfish and unapologetic.

Dash had been one of those kids, he knew they would be hard work, but he did his best. He couldn't help all of them, some were simply unwilling to change.

So he contacted the school-board, he pushed for better protection for students, more programs to help troubled kids, he volunteered to keep running his own counselling groups even after he graduated.

It still never felt like enough.

After graduation he turned down his favoured college to attend one closer to home so he could continue his volunteer work. He joined petitions and rallies for change across entire school districts, he spoke at other schools' anti-bullying campaigns. He'd attended enough of them in his own childhood that he knew they did next to nothing, but it gave him the opportunity to reach out to kids for one on one support.

He found more volunteers for his counselling groups, he helped people start them up in other local schools. It was a lot of work, especially when he was also juggling his college studies. He was taking a major in psychology, it was brutal, Dash had never been good at studying, but he'd decided that this was what he needed to do, this was important to him.

It still wasn't enough.

It would come at him in the night, as soon as he laid his head down on his pillow. He would see the faces of all the kids he hurt, it felt so much worse the older he got, they just looked younger and younger every time the memories came back to plague him.

He had beat the shit out of children. Kids who were the same age as the students he now counselled. He beat them until they were bloody or bruised, he shoved them into lockers, pulled pranks that humiliated them in front of the whole school, and he had laughed.

He'd laughed at their pain.

When the guilt weighed him down, he would begin searching for new programs to volunteer for, new petitions or rallies to get behind, always finding another way to help protect kids like Danny from kids like him.

And to protect kids like him from doing things that would one day haunt them.

He had spread himself thin across every school in the district, barely keeping afloat at college, but it wasn't enough.

It was never enough.

Kids still slipped through the cracks, schools were still too lenient, there were too many kids, not enough volunteers.

Casper High was holding another anti-bullying assembly. It had been a few years since Dash had attended one at his old school. This year they had excitedly announced that they'd even secured an appearance from Phantom himself.

Dash's blood ran cold, his hands shook as he went over his notes, he was slated to do his speech alongside Phantom's, they would be sharing the stage for a solid 75 minutes, barely a few feet from one another.

When Danny showed up he was already in Phantom form, Dash spotted him discussing emergency exit plans with one of the organisers in the event of a ghost attack.

He was so different from when they were in school.

He was tall, and broad, he stood with confidence and had a good natured charm to him. He was a hero, he was strong, he was brave. He could fight monsters ten times his size with a smirk and a witty one liner. He could take on anything, he wasn't afraid of anything.

He was a kid, running down a hallway, screaming words that still pierced through Dash's mind every time he saw the hero's face.

"DON'T TOUCH ME."

Dash's hands clenched around his notes, shaking so violently that they barely even looked like words.

"DON'T YOU EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME EVER AGAIN."

"Dash?"

A deep voice cut through the chaos in Dash's mind as cold hands closed over his tremblings ones.

"It's good to see you again."

Phantom was smiling at him, his hands still closed around Dash's.

"Good... good to see you too." Dash mumbled, not able to meet the man's eyes.

Phantom paused before releasing Dash's hands.

"I've heard all about your work." Phantom grinned as Dash finally looked up and met his eyes.

"Yeah." he said, and then before his mind could catch up with his mouth, he blurted out, "I'm sorry, for everything."

Phantom's eyebrows rose for a moment, before he gave a gentle smile and clapped a hand on Dash's shoulder.

"I know." he said warmly. "Thank you."

They gave their speeches, Dash had told his story many times before, the victim that he'd pushed to breaking point, the boy whose words drove the change that made him the man he had become.

For the first time ever, that boy was listening.

After the assembly had packed up and the volunteers were heading home, it was Danny Fenton who approached Dash and asked if he wanted to go grab a beer together.

Dash thought it would be rather awkward, but Danny had plenty of experience socialising with the public, awkwardness slid right off him, and soon enough Dash found himself laughing alongside Danny as he told a story about the new misadventures of the Box Ghost.

He returned to his dorm that night, head still swimming from one too many beers, and he had the best sleep of his life.

He pulled back on some of his volunteer work, hunting for new people to take his place as he focused on college. He was falling far behind, but he would work hard to make his way back. As a volunteer he could only do so much, but with the right education and training, he could do so much more.

The guilt still haunted him, every so often when the pressure and the stress weighed heavy, it would creep back into his mind. It would probably never go away, not entirely, but at least now he had his closure.

Finally, it was enough.

[artistfingers]

I’ve realized after reading EVERYTHING in the Undercover AU that there is very little mention of Dash. How is he in this au? Just as bad? Worse? Better? Still a Phantom fan?

[Undercover AU]

oh my god i’ve literally never mentioned dash in this au have i?? Which is wild because i actually really like him as a character.

Hmmm. Dash is a big Phantom Phanboy, of course. (like Paulina, he really wants one of those coveted color-swapped DP hats). And on the whole, he’s still a bully, but… not to Danny. I’ve pictured Danny leading an extremely isolated life as his human self in this au; he doesn’t have a strong connection to anyone, not even Dash, and Dash doesn’t have any reason to push Danny around when he doesn’t even really know who he is, let alone if he’s a weird weak nerd or not. In fact, the only blip Danny is on his radar is as Jazz’s little brother (who is kinda cute); even Jazz he only thinks of in terms of “that girl who’s tutoring him (and is kinda cute)”

Reason being, since Danny does as much as he can to stick out as little as possible as a human—both before and after having a huge half-death secret to keep—and that includes being low-key about his family’s professions, so not even that name means much to a lot of kids for a long time. People in their grade barely know who Danny is at all.

until. Until. Danny starts having more and more of a presence around the school, around ghost attacks, visible friendships with Known Entities, the Local Goth and Geek Freaks. rumors eventually get around that the three of them are friends with Phantom, and you know Dash is trying to convince them to give up their secrets as to how they met and befriended him so that he can replicate it because why should those three weird nobodies be the only ones who get to hang out with Phantom??

(oh ALSO i posed the Dash question to Jube and we started kicking around the can on dash having a bi-awakening crush on Danny in this AU despite having only ever spoken two words to him while being tutored at the Fenton household which honestly, i love that jsadhflksd SO,,, take it as canon or don’t but i just might)

[jknerd]

Danni Phantom AU: Tulie Foley

Gender: Female  

Age: 15  

Species: Human  

Occupation: High School Student  

Residence: Amity Park  

Aliases: Tully, Technogeek  

Interests: Technology, meat  

Friends: Danni Fenton, Sam Manson, Jass Fenton 

Love Interests: Valiant Gray (formerly), Skylar   

Enemies: Dash Baxter, Paulo Sanchez, Ghosts, Vlad Masters  

Relatives: Maurice Foley (father), Angela Foley (mother)   

Character  

Tulip "Tulie" Foley is one of Danni's two best friends and a huge techno-nerd. She uses her expertise in the field of technology to help Danni fight ghosts. Having stated she is Danni's close friend "since forever", she usually helps Danni through the use of her PDA and phone, which she uses to hack into various technological systems such as Skulla's armor or Nicole Technus' techno-suit. It was further revealed that she is a reincarnation of Egyptian Pharaoh Hotep-Ra's beautiful wife "Anck-Su-Namun" whom she has strong resemblance with as well.   Very optimistic, talkative and light-hearted with jokes, her cloying geeky, and appealing nature is not popular with the other students of Casper High, but she is clueless of Skylar's feelings for her. But her "true love" is technology as she "lives" for her phone, PDA and laptop. She is also highly observant of the situation, catching Sam's feelings for Danni.

[ladylynse]

what are your thoughts on scary/creepy danny? to me danny's never been good at scaring people beyond prank scares but gives off huge uncanny valley vibes once his powers settle because of things like being too cold, forgetting to breathe, dismissal and quick recovery from large injuries, moving too quietly and sharp teeth, I also like the idea that he can tap into his more ghostly side and press that part of people's brains that screams *get away from this thing it's dangerous* if he needs to.

I love the idea of it but have never written it. I admittedly never thought about Danny essentially weaponizing his ghostly side like in your last example, though. That’s a neat idea. So’s the uncanny valley feeling; that makes a lot of sense, and I love it. I just. Hmm.... What if I just....

-|-

EDIT: Now reworked and expanded on the AO3 as The Curious Case of Danny Fenton (FFN).

-|-

“What is up with that kid?” Wes whispered, loudly enough to be heard by the girl beside him but hopefully not by the kid in question. He hoped his nod in the appropriate direction was subtle enough, too.

The girl frowned and pointed at him with her nail file. “Why are you talking to me?” she asked.

Wes blinked.

The girl behind the first girl added, “Just avoid Fenton if you don’t want to be a loser like him.” The two of them laughed and walked off.

Fenton. That was Fenton, the kid with the crazy ghost hunting parents?

The kid in question glanced his way, and Wes looked away and tried to suppress a shudder. There was something about him, something…something…something wrong. Wes couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but he was going to find out.

XXX

In less than a week, Wes realized two very important things about Danny Fenton. One: Star’s assertion that Fenton was a loser was reinforced daily by the school bully. (Wes himself had enough athletic ability to stay off of Dash’s radar.) Two: Dash’s star quarterback status wasn’t the only reason the teachers turned a blind eye to the treatment.

Wes had seen Fenton picked up by his shirt and shoved into his locker more often than Mickey was into his, but the math nerd showed the treatment of it. He had bruises. Scratches. He still smiled, still had a cheerfully subservient attitude in the hopes that it would prevent further treatment, but he’d walk with a limp or eat only soup for a few days or stumble into class just before the bell with red marks crisscrossing his skin.

Fenton did not.

He’d be punched. Tripped. Kicked. All manner of ‘accidentally knocked into’ and ‘accidentally knocked down’. And it never showed. It wasn’t just that he didn’t bruise easily—or at all, as far as Wes could tell. He wasn’t favouring any limbs. He didn’t complain—at least in Wes’s hearing—of being sore. He didn’t act as if he were hurt. Ever.

No one else ever commented on this, so Wes kept his mouth shut and his eyes open.

That was why, months later, Wes saw something he was pretty sure no one else did.

Fenton was banned from handling glassware in chemistry, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help Manson move some drama props for a prank or a protest or whatever he was up to, and Wes was coming out of the washroom after basketball practice when he saw Fenton drop some glass orb.

It broke, and Fenton cut himself when trying to clean it up. Wes heard the quiet crud muttered even as he stepped back to hover in the alcove by the washroom, and he peeked out just enough to see Fenton press some tissue into his hand and then pick up the glass.

When Wes walked by later, all he saw was a forgotten glimmer of glass and a trio of red splotches staining the floor.

The next day, Wes made a point of looking for it, but Fenton didn’t have so much as a band-aid on, and there was no sign of a telltale scab.

XXX

By their senior year, Wes had it all figured out. He’d long ago pointed out the truth—that Fenton was Phantom—but no one believed him, despite all the evidence he trotted out again and again. Worse still, Fenton didn’t even try to hide it around him anymore.

Wes always saw a flash of fangs when Danny’s smirk inevitably grew into a grin when he noticed Wes watching him, even when other people were around.

Entirely too often, Fenton would just appear, and even though others wrote it off as ‘not noticing the loser’s approach’, Wes knew it was so much more than that. And, okay, fine, it wasn’t always literally appearing out of nowhere, but no one should be able to walk that quietly over fallen autumn leaves. It just wasn’t natural, which was his (entirely ignored) point.

One time in gym class, Wes was the only one close enough to Fenton to hear the sickening crack when he slipped and fell on his arm and it bent the wrong way. Fenton never said anything about it, but he did favour it. For the rest of the day. The next day, it was business as usual for him.

No one thought it weird that Fenton didn’t dress for the winter weather. If he bothered with a coat over his T-shirt, it was never done up anymore. But they also didn’t find it weird that it was always cool around him, even in the heat of summer. Assuming anyone else acknowledged it, they’d blame the air conditioning or a sudden gust of nonexistent wind, as if that made any sense at all.

That permanent cold spot might be why no one seemed to think it weird that Fenton wasn’t ever warm to the touch, either. Not that Wes could bring that up without a lot of teasing for all the wrong reasons, but every time Wes had brushed by him, Fenton had been cold. Not just cool, not just chilly, cold. Cold enough to give Wes goosebumps.

It didn’t help that Fenton’s only redeeming quality in the eyes of the popular kids was that he could hold his breath for a long time. It had been discovered during one of Dash’s more questionable bouts of bullying, but it had earned Fenton some grudging respect. He hammed it up instead of brushing it off, and no one questioned the fact that he could hold his breath for five minutes, despite how insane that was, especially for kids their age with zero training.

No one noticed the fact that Fenton never took a giant gulp of air before doing that, either.

No one realized that he simply didn’t need to breathe, at least not as often as a normal human if he did.

There was just…. It wasn’t normal. None of it was normal. It drove Wes nuts, and no one else seemed to see any of it.

XXX

On their last day of high school, Wes managed to get Danny alone.

Well.

Sam and Tucker were hovering in the background, snickering, but it was as alone as they were going to get.

“C’mon, you have to own up to this,” Wes said, trying not to make it sound like the plea it was. “You just…. You can’t pretend none of this…. You can’t let everyone keep thinking I’m Phantom when you’re, y’know.”

Danny smiled, his teeth just a touch too long and just this side of too sharp. “Whaddaya mean?”

Instinct was telling Wes to get out of there, but he held his ground.

“You’re Phantom,” he said. “I know you’re Phantom. I’ve seen you change.”

Danger, shouted his mind as it reminded him of all possible exits. Run, thundered his heart, beating faster with each passing second. Get away, screamed his muscles, tensed and ready to spring.

He was standing there waiting for an answer, gulping in lungfuls of air, before he realized the unnerving feeling had entirely disappeared.

Danny was frowning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His teeth looked normal. His face, his demeanour…. It all seemed perfectly normal.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about!” Wes hissed. “The…the glowing eyes, the freaky stuff you do, everything!”

Danny raised an eyebrow.

“Stop doing that! You know what I mean!”

“Phantom’s dead, Wes,” Danny said. “He was long dead before you ever moved here. No one seriously thinks you’re him.”

“So you admit you’re dead, then? Because you’re Phantom?”

Danny snorted. “Phantom’s a ghost,” he said. “Ghosts are dead. I do not need to have grown up with the parents I did to know that. Do I look dead to you?”

He really didn’t, not at that precise moment, but Wes growled out an affirmative anyway.

Danny shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I can’t make you not believe your own crazy conspiracy theory. Have a good rest of your life, Wes.”

He started to walk away, his soft footsteps on the linoleum sounding loud to Wes’s ears.

“Hey, wait, I’m not done!” Wes yelled. He sprinted after Danny, easily catching up to him, and reached to grab his arm.

Wes watched his fingers pass right through Danny’s arm and backpack as Danny reached Sam and Tucker. Wes stared at his hand for a split second and then looked up to confront them with this obvious bit of proof, but the hallway was empty.

He couldn’t hear any footsteps leading away, nor any muffled laughter at his expense.

Wes stood entirely by himself, left with exactly as much concrete proof of the truth as he’d ever had.

Nothing.

(see more fics | buy me a coffee?)

[khannooniensinghthings]

Danny Fenton. Huge star trek nerd, non-binary, ace and best friends Sam and Tucker are furries. This is my au I do what I want lol. Art by Lyraamst UwU

[phantasmalbeans]

please inform us of the virtues of 2000s clothing in superhero narratives like I’m 99% sure ur not on about why it’s important for superman to rock up to a fight with gel shoes but I can’t stop thinking about it as a result - croc anon

I tried to explain myself, but couldn’t summon up the strength to write anything more coherent so? I’m just gonna... copy+paste that draft i mentioned, because “haven’t slept in 2 days, feeling emotions about pants” bo said it better. 

(I’d like to apologize in advance, I’m sure you, croc anon, are not a sad person in a 60$ cardigan. this statement will make more sense later.) 

the nineties and naughts were 100% the most superhero-friendly decades

not because people were more pro-vigilante-justice or bc there was less surveillance, but because the clothes. god, what did anybody’s legs look like? who the fuck knows?? JNCO jeans were popular. Then, in the 2000s; bootcut jeans, and huge cargo pants. You could go outside wearing multiple popped collars. absolute, foolproof anonymity. you aren’t a superhero, you’re a skinny nerd with excellent fashion sense

like. imagine getting into a terrible, awe-inspiring lab accident now. like, it’s probably SUPER potent, bc we’ve gotten better at efficiency + also everything sucks 1000x worse now, so you’re probably like 5 hulks in a trenchcoat, powerwise, but you’re one, sad person in a 60$ paper-thin cardigan fashion wise.

you wanna hide superhero calves in skinny jeans??? you’re gonna cover your superhero lats with a fucking t-shirt??? it’s 2020, you can’t wear a turtleneck outside, are you crazy? that’s more suspicious than being absolutely jacked!

so basically danny fenton still wears those jeans in every timeline,