#danny's going to think vlad has a crush on him before long

[vladdyissues]

Danny Phantom AU, where Vlad has mind control bites, that only work on ghosts (humans + halfas are immune) ... What if Vlad's bite mark can also tell Vlad where a bitten person is located? (Almost like a supernatural GPS!) ... So, Vlad can sense where Danny is, all the time (even though Danny is immune to Vlad's mind control)... Would Vlad use this to his advantage?... Would Vlad bite Danny again, if the bite mark fades? 🧛👻🧛

Vlad's built-in GPS (Ghost Positioning System) is accurate to within a tenth of an inch 📡👻

[alyakthedorklord]

Welcome to Danny’s Part 2

People have been asking for more of this ^^ so here you go, have a really long word vomit of stuff i think is funny

(IM NOT WRITING THIS FIC GDI I HAVE ENOUGH WIP’S!)

Danny’s restaurant is ALSO manned by-

Tucker, who will fix your tech for free, has tattoos of hieroglyphics and lines of code that shift around when he gets busy.

Sam, who makes an express line for veggie orders. If you try to order meat from sam all the potted plants start trembling.

Jazz, who has a special booth in the back and Magically makes people dump their deepest secrets to her in streamlined Liminal Powers Therapy. (It’s a bit weird but hey the people she targets feel better so whatevs.)

Dani, who shares pictures from tourist traps she's visited, though there’s also some REALLY WEIRD pics of alternate realities and cult shenanigans mixed in. Some of the older patrons are concerned. She’s a little too young to do all this alone- actually, how old is she? Her father looks like he’s in his early twenties…

Dan, who is working here while “on parole” and often loudly argues with Danny about it.

“I don’t want to work in your stupid shop, Dad!”

Dan is two whole feet taller than danny and three times as wide i will not be taking constructive criticism. He’s a whole silver fox. There are some ladies who have a crush on him and they’re really concerned if he’s legal bc danny is younger than them how is Dan his child-

“Dan, how old are you?”

“I don’t know, like, a hundred sixty something?”

(Lady turns to look at Danny, who shrugs and smiles.) “time dilation. What a world we live in. Dan, kiddo, can you get some more napkins from the back?”

“Ugh, fine, dad.”

The first villain Danny ACTUALLY fights isn’t the Joker. It’s Condiment King. Dan runs away from him, which is already weird bc guy is MASSIVE, and the condiment king chases him bc YES SOMEONE FINALLY FEARS HIM PROPERLY.

Danny bursts out of the shop in righteous fatherly fury and beats the snot out of him. Everyones is confused bc… what? Dan is massive? Why is he scared? Why is the twink beating the snot out of condiment king?

“Dan had a traumatic experience with Burger Sauce.” Danny explains, glaring down at the rouge at his feet. He kicks him, growls, “Don’t mess with my kid.” And walks back inside.

No one asks, bc this is gotham. Asking is rude, and also it lessens the Mystery that is Danny’s. No one knows how the kids came into existence. No one knows, before someone from out of town (metropolis, ugh) asks about the sign.

The sign outside the shop says:

Welcome to Danny’s!

Do no harm and no harm shall befall you.

Start nothing and nothing will be ended.

We have baseball bats and fists and a mean swing.

This establishment does not serve- guys in white (suits), Vlad, Transphobes, Vlad, Clowns, VLAD.

Do not ask for the secret menu. If you can get it, Danny will offer it.

(Don’t scare the other customers, please.)

When asked who Vlad is, bc he’s banned three times, Danny just kind of sighs.

“He’s my kid's other parent. He’s an obsessive creep who completely ignores Danielle because she’s a girl, rolling in money but won’t pay his child support. You know how it is.”

Several goons ask what he looks like so they can keep an eye out. Dani happily tells them “look at Dan, take away Dad’s features, then convert 30% of his height and weight into smarminess.”

It's an effective description. Vlad gets full body tackled the moment he enters the neighborhood. Danny gives the goons free fudge (family recipe, one of the restaurants signatures)

One of the reasons Danny’s is so popular is bc its open 24/7. (Unless its one of those weird times where all the doors are locked and if you look through the window blinds theres nothing but a starry void.) One of the reasons Danny’s is so weird is bc Danny is ALWAYS behind the counter. Always. Round the clock. He doesn’t sleep, eat, anything. Some people swear he has a twin he swaps out with (clones).

Sometimes, after a really difficult customer, Danny will let out a really long sigh and mutter “time out” before glitching into a new position, with a new shirt and combed hair. No one mentions it.

Theres a deal that’s just, “beat danny in a fight you eat for free.”

The deal extends to both Dan and Dani as well. Even if you lose you get fudge as a reward for courage.

No one ever wins.

One time, a couple brought their kid, recently discharged from the hospital. Danny comes over to them and grins. “Hey, kiddo! Bet you gave your parents a scare, huh? Pulled through in the end. That means you get the secret menu!”

Parents: hey wtf?

Danny, handing over a perfectly normal menu: 😀

Kid: “ooh mommy look at the glowy stars!”

Parents: !?!?!?

Danny: 😁

Old man Dave, whose heart has stopped like three times now: “Oh don’t worry about that, prices are the same and it will help your kid feel much better. Danny’s just a little weird.”

After all, it’s not just full ghosts that get the menu. If you’ve been dead, heart stopped, soul out of body before being popped back into place, then you get it. There’s actually a pretty high number of people who get it, bc this is Gotham. People get resuscitated after rogue attacks. The ecto actually helps stabilize their soul after getting jerked between life and death so rudely.

The secret menu that they’re given is just a normal menu, scribbled over top with an ecto pen, invisible to non-secret menu havers. Different “ecto-levels” to choose from, and three extra dishes. There’s also instructions to get into the “back room” for those who can’t go intangible, though it comes with a disclaimer “not for the faint of heart.”

There’s also a small note at the bottom- “do not share food.”

Anyways, as per original post. Tim herds Joker into Danny’s radar bc he Cannot Deal Right Now. He salutes Danny, who waves back, grinning like he didn’t just come at the Clown Prince of Crime like a feral badger on crack cocaine. “Heya, Red Robin! You want a coffee?”

“Please.” Tim sighs. “You’re the best, Danny.”

Jason looks between tim and the shop danny just vanished into. “Uh, what?”

“Danny doesn’t like clowns.” Tim explains. “Or condiment king. They get close, Danny takes them out.”

Jason is incredibly confused, bc he just came back from an out of town mission, but this place is right on the edge of his territory and he should definitely know about it. He asks tim, who just shrugs.

“That shop is weird. It’s like a grocery store at 3am. I stumbled in there after a rough night and Danny just whipped me up the best coffee i've ever had. Still can’t find their website. I swear it’s bigger on the inside and the door keeps swapping from one side of that fire hydrant to the other.”

Danny comes out and passes Tim a massive coffee cup. “Come back and talk shop with tucker, okay? You’re welcome any time. Both of you, actually.”

He gives Jason a weird look and then goes back inside.

Jason, who is a little concerned that the reverence tim has is more than his average weird worship of coffee (it's just that good) goes back the next day in civvies.

He gets offered the secret menu, danny does the eye thing, Jason retreats to look at the secret menu. Unsure of what just happened, he texts tim.

Jason: Why was i given a “secret menu”

Tim: WTF WHAT DID YOU DO TO GET THAT

Jason: IDK THATS WHY IM TEXTING YOU

tim: I'VE BEEN GOING FOR MONTHS I’M A LOYAL PATRON WHAT DO YOU HAVE THAT I DONT

Jason: the secret menu apparently (image)

Tim: …thats just the normal menu???

Jason: no? It looks like a kid went ham with a neon green marker tf?

Duke: you know this is the family chat right?

Steph: order the waffles

Jason: you order the waffles. Wtf is an ecto-level.

Jason asks for what danny recommends, Danny immediately gives him a milkshake and tells him it's on the house bc he “looks rough.”

Jason is kind if offended, bc he actually got a decent sleep- but then he tries it and its like.

Oh.

Now. Between the stink Tim is making, and the sudden worship that Jason has of this shops milkshakes, the BatFamily is now Curious and will Investigate.

Are the milkshakes really that good?

The full force of the Wayne Family™ isn’t exactly subtle, so they go in twos and threes over the course of a week.

Damian gets offered the secret menu, and is also directed towards Sam’s express vegetarian line. Danny just Knew. Damian accuses Tim and/or Jason of pulling a prank on him, but they both swear up and down they didn’t say anything.

Both Steph (i think? Did she fake her death or actually die idk) and Cass get the secret menu, and they keep trying to ask Tim what certain things on the menu mean. Tim Cannot See what they’re talking about. He’s starting to get frustrated. Is it some sort of magic spell?

Tim takes Kon to Danny’s. (Is it a date? A test date on a low-stakes investigation? Maybe.) Danny, who is really starting to enjoy messing with Tim, gleefully offers Kon the secret menu, and Tim the normal one. Tim bangs his head on the table.

Dick doesn’t get a secret menu, but he does notice a couple disappear through the wall. He’s almost certain he’s seen them before, but it will be a while before he remembers Kitty and Johnny from his early Robin Days.

Duke is also not offered a secret menu, but he can see the writing anyways. He can also see that some of the patrons have weird auras, and what on EARTH is up with Danny himself? He tries to ignore it, up until Steph gets him to order one of the specials off Cass’s (secret) menu. And Danny just kind of sharpens, the air going cold.

“I didn’t give you that menu. Just because you can read it, doesn’t mean you want it. Order off the right menu, please.”

Duke, freaked the hell out by the Biblically Accurate Horror that Danny is shifting into, orders off the right menu and apologizes.

“Oh, it’s alright!” Danny flips back to cheerful in seconds. “It’s just that it wouldn’t be completely healthy for you to eat it, even if you are part immortal.”

Duke bluescreens.

Alright, somethings definitely going on.

Tim and Jason both order the same thing- an oreo milkshake, one off the secret menu, one off the normal menu. Jason confirms the one from the normal menu does not taste the same and isn’t as good. Tim cannot confirm the other way around, because Jason nearly punches him when he attempts to taste it.

They take samples home, analyze them, and go over anecdotes from other patrons, trying to figure out what makes Danny’s so weird. What makes Kon, Cass, Jason, and Damian different?

Wait a second. Kon, Cass, Jason, Damian. The ones that died and came back to life.

It’s around this time that Dick remembers where he’s seen Kitty and Johnny before. Lovers from two houses, both alike in (in)dignity, had a romeo-and-juliet-esque escapade across Gotham, ending in high speed chase with Kitty’s gangster father and a fatal motorcycle accident. Both are dead. Both are in Danny’s.

Danny’s has something to do with death.

Having heard a couple stories about food of the dead, they notify Bruce (who is very concerned as to what exactly his children have been putting in their mouths) and then call in the magic users of the justice league.

It’s a mess. Dan calls Constantine a whore. Deadman and Secret (i think thats Tim’s ghost friend?) get abducted to the backroom. Dani clocks Capt. Marvel as another kid who looks older than he actually is, with magic powers, and his showing him her REALLY interesting travel photos. Zatanna is like “this place needs an exorcism” and danny just goes “ma’am please don’t exorcize my customers.”

Tag list (if you saw me attempt this before no you didn’t)

@nappinginhell @apointlessbox @thegatorsgoose @chaos-n-kindness @mimilikey @phoenixdemonqueen @treepainting @sjrose1216 @akikkobara @malice-of-the-sunrise @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @randomkiddoscrewingaround @call-me-strega @blankliferain @somera-rubina @wordsgohere95 @rukiaai @mirellacoco @stargazing-bookwyrm @bathildaburp @littlefeather345

[bwabbitv3s]

Good Godfather Vlad AU - Part 4

Link to Part 1 Link to Part 2 Link to Part 3

This took way longer than I expected, but it is done!

@kaitouhime @krzys2000 @moobloomrights @spooky-fm @undead-essence @theblackcatscratchpost

Concerns and Realizations

The next day passes in a bit of a blur up to the evening dance in the old high school gym. He almost does not know what to do with his plans all crushed and swept away with the revelation earlier in the week. Vlad feels himself being tugged along as if in a dream he had long ago thrown away. It is almost like when they all first meet and Vlad found some of the first people to take his racing mind and sharp tongue as interesting not off putting. 

He does notice that the Fenton’s son seems to be a little jumpy today. Glancing off at the ceiling, windows, and floor for some time before nervously going on with his time. Jack tells him aside away from prying eyes that Danny has been having some anxiety issues. Grades are dropping and he has become more accident prone to the point they bought an entire set of plastic plates and glasses. He has not been sleeping well with reports from teachers about him sleeping in class. 

He and Maddie are trying to be very thoughtful about approaching him as he had issues in the past with bullies. It has not been going well as the boy keeps dodging the topic every time they try to talk to him about it. They want him to know he can talk to them about anything and they will support him. It is why they brought him and Jasmine to the reunion. A chance at a break from school and seemed just the thing to help. 

Whenever he spots the boy it appears to get worse as the day goes on. What was easy to brush off as a nervous tick has become a real concern. By the evening Danny looks like he is expecting something to jump out and try to murder him. Vlad decides to try approaching Danny about it even if it is just to give him an excuse to get out of the Fenton’s smothering.

“How are you Danny? I can hardly imagine what you and the other children are very interested in watching all of us go about things from before you were born.”

The boy practically jumps, hands twitching towards something not there at his waist. 

“Uh, yeah. This is pretty boring you would think after a few days everyone would be caught up by now.” Danny nervously answers. 

“It has been quite a long time since many have seen each other. Not everyone can sum up a decade of time quickly.” Vlad says. Allowing the deflection to stand. Danny seems to be calming down a little. 

“Say, do your parents still go on ghost hunting trips or did they stop after graduating?” Vlad asks in curiosity. Ghosts and the portal had become a taboo topic since the revelation earlier in the week. As soon as Vlad finishes asking Danny gets a long stare as if seeing something in the distance.

“Not too often anymore. I mean they don’t need to go someplace to hunt ghosts anymore. Now with Amity being so haunted since the portal opened.” Danny bitterly says. 

“They actually got the portal to work!” Vlad exclaims in surprise. 

“Yes, have they not gone over their greatest scientific breakthrough with you yet?” Danny answers with a surprised look.

“I don’t think they want to talk about it as it is close to the accident.” Vlad responds mind racing. 

How did they get it to work? He had tried over the years to get a version of the portal to work himself. Tried different locations of thin spot to connect to it. After his powers started to manifest in a bid to get answers. It never worked. Not so much as a spark. Let alone something stable if it is causing an entire town to be haunted. His latest project to work was a short range tracker of sorts to locate the echos a natural portal left behind. It is how he was able to find the ghosts he had initially hired. Shaking away from that though he looks back at Danny. 

“That is surprisingly emotionally intelligent of them.” Danny says. 

“Did they ever get through the stabilization issue?” Vlad asked in curiosity.

“It just sort of stays open. They had to build a blast door to keep it sealed off. I am not sure how it stays open.” Danny responds.

“Fascinating.” Vlad says. 

"I just wish it would keep the ghosts from coming through. Been weeks since I got to sleep without the alarm going off that something has come through." Danny sighs out.

"Ghosts have been coming through that regularly?" Vlad asks in curiosity.

Most of the natural portals he had gotten to study rarely let things through even the ones that stayed open for a week.

"It is like nearly every other day. Sometimes every day something even just an ectopus comes out. I just want to not have to deal with them so much " Danny says.

"Deal with them? I am surprised your mother has not caught enough to cataloged them in a scientific paper yet. It was always her dream to get tangable proof of ghosts." Vlad says.

"Yeah by ripping them apart molecule by molecule. I am sure eventually they will if they could keep them from escaping. Kinda hard to catch something that can slip through solid objects." Danny says turning away a bit.

Vlad nearly flinches at this. One hand going to grip his wrist as memories of the hospital surface. A slow bubbling horror of what his newly renewed friends would do if they found out he was part ghost. It would not even be on purpose. Just can you do this test Vlad? Only a little blood to look at under the scope. The panic spiral screeches to a halt when he sees the self soothing gesture that Danny is making.

Stepping closer to him in concern while shoving down his own fear to process latter he feels it. That flush of warmth that signals a ghost is nearby. Tensing he scans the room stepping closer to Danny. There should be no ghosts here. Had one of the ghosts he hired decided they were not happy with payment? It increases as he steps closer again to Danny. As the boy shivers and breaths out and a cloud of frost despite the warm room. That is the final missing puzzle piece that clicks into place for Vlad.

~ Sorry for the abrupt end to part four. I just needed to update it now despite the end not being quite where I wanted it to be. Better done than perfect~

[yetanothergreyjedi]

What We Might've Been: Part 2

Part 1 Part 1.5

Part 3

Inspired by @liminalhollow 's Spork AU

For @dargeon-lissa @dp-marvel94 @aethtalon

...

“I- Uh- I’m not you- I-“ Danny racked his brain for an explanation that wouldn’t immediately get him killed. He'd entered the ghost's haunt. How had his room become a ghosts haunt?! But the thing didn't attack, didn't possess him, or use some mind altering power. It only tipped its head and watched him flounder for words. It seemed to notice it’s disguise slipping. The light in its eyes faded, leaving behind a dead grey-blue.

It sighed, "Did Vlad do this?"

"W-what?"

"Vlad Masters. Did he do this?"

"Why would Dad's creepy friend send me to the future?" He still didn't think it was the future, ghosts could have some crazy powers but that? No.

"Because he's a fruitloop." It answered immediately, and accurately, the guy from Wisconsin wouldn't leave his mom alone. But why, how, could he have anything to do with this?! The thing stopped, its eyes flashed green again for a moment as it said, "Wait- Future?!"

Danny nodded, he'd barely been sure what was happening but he was certain that's was what the ghost had said. Surely one ghost's explanation would be more accepted than the other?

“Where’s your medallion then?”

“My what?”

“Clockwork’s medallion. I know how time travel works."

Danny opened his mouth, then closed it. Ignoring the utterly bizarre statement. This was a trap, a trick. The ghost masquerading as him either wanted the object for itself or it wanted to remove his only protection against the other one, the one that had frozen him in place without seeming to expend a drop of energy. No, no, it couldn't have it. But there weren't many other options. He should've known better than to bring up the time question! He needed to get out of here!

He threw the first thing he could reach, hoping to catch it off guard and ran towards it— Through it, even better. He sprinted down the stairs. There was a flash of bight light behind him, he dodged low, almost throwing himself down the stairs before he realized nothing had been fired.

"Whoa, hang on!" Its voice echoed in a way it hadn't before. He kept running, not wasting a moment to glance at it, and ran directly into someone.

"Whoa! Hey, Dann-o! You came outa—"

"Ghost! In my room!" His dad didn't miss a beat, the gun was up by the time he finished the word 'ghost' and he was firing by time the sentence was over.

The specter dodged the first blast, made a shield for the second and paused to speak, "So not cool, man!"

His mom heard the commotion and joined the fray, while Danny sprinted to the basement. He needed a weapon, that thing had been mimicking him. He barreled into the lab, to the weapons case. Opened it and—

Crash.

He barely jumped back in time to avoid getting crushed.

What?!

Who filled the case with all this junk?!? The case was the second most important piece of the lab (the portal took first), not even Dad wouldn't do this?!

"Danny?" Sam looked at him from the other end of the room, slightly baffled. Tucker was also staring. "Did you bring it?"

"Bring wha—"

"Dude, what's with the jumpsuit?" Tucker cut him off, "Is it really that dangerous? I thought you said you blasted it?"

"What? We talked about the jumpsuit!"

"Did we?" Tucker looked to Sam.

"No." She affirmed.

"Could you explain it again, then?"

"Its cause of all the ghosts..." Danny said slowly, they should know this, he'd been wearing them since the first ghost attacks... Suspicion crossed both his friend's features.

There was a long pause, the pair shared a look and Sam demanded, "Secret word."

"Uh, what?"

"What's the secret word." Tucker clarified, as if that clarified anything.

"What are you guys- Hey! Whoa!" Three ectoguns were now pointed at him, Sam with twin wrist blasters and Tucker with a laser-y thing that had come out of his PDA (When did he do that? It was a very good idea).

"Who are you?" Said Sam.

"Is Vlad cloning again?" Asked Tucker.

"What? No! I mean I don't know! I'm not impersonating me, the ghost upstairs is impersonating me!"

"Nice try. Now answer."

"Uh... Sam?" Tucker was focused on the PDA screen. She glanced at him, quickly, before focusing back on Danny. She'd used these before, not like Sam... His Sam, who avoided any involvement with ghost hunting, who refused to accept that they were just monsters. "His scans are weird..."

"What kind of weird?"

"He's a level 2.5." Tucker switched to a whisper.

"What?" Sam followed suit, "That's too low for a shapeshifter."

"Uh... that's normal..." Danny lied, well kind of. He normally was a level 1.3 but he'd also just been in a ghost's lair (two lairs if you counted not-future-him's bedroom) and had a ghostly artifact in his pocket. Those things were likely to temporarily raise an ectosignature's power rating. He was 76% sure.

Another pause, Sam tried to gesture something while still aiming, there were some whispers he didn't catch. Then Tucker asked, "Did Vlad... raise you?"

"No!? Why does everyone keep talking about Vlad?! The Fruitloop lives in Wisconsin, I've seen him maybe twice!" The pair shared another look. He had no idea how to read those expressions.

He sighed, "You guys won't believe me."

"Try us."

"Yesterday I was at the—"

"Guys! We have a problem!" His hair stood on end as the ghost dropped through the ceiling. Danny shuttered. It was so much worse now that he got a look at it, it was wearing a Fenton hazmat suit, his suit, no, a mockery of it. The colors were inverted and the FentonWorks logo was replaced with some other symbol. That wasn’t the only thing inverted, twisted, he was staring at his own face only not. It’s tintless white hair stuck up just like his, and it’s eyes burned deadly ectoplasm green. Danny still didn’t have a weapon. “Oh, you found him! We have slightly less of a problem.”

“He’s saying Vlad has nothing to do with this... I’m not sure if I believe him.” Sam lowered her blasters, because he was somehow more of a threat than the monster crackling with unused power.

“Yeah, no... he said something about time travel—“ both of his friends groaned, “Then! He sicced my parents on me,” It turned his attention to him, “which is rude by the way! Honestly, I was getting close to being able to ask about a truce, but now they’re gonna be chasing me around for ‘attacking their son!”

“Oof,” Tucker added, as Sam asked about something the ghost could do to get his parents back on his side. Danny stopped listening and scanned for something useful in the pile of discarded machinery. Weapon, weapon, weapon... this wasn’t promising. There were blenders and half disassembled watches and a few things that looked like they’d been pulled out of a trash fire. The thing that looked the least like junk was probably a scanner, but his parents had started putting tasers in those, so it was something.

“Hey,” too late. the ghost was in front of him, he dove for it. Grabbed it. Rolled with the momentum and brought the scanner up as he got to a kneeling position. The thing came to life with a whirring sound.

The ghost laughed, the sound lasted longer than it’s mouth had been open, “That’s the ghost Gabber.”

“That’s the Ghost Gabber. I am a ghost, fear me!”

“Look, I don’t know what’s up with you, but really it’s better for everyone if you go back to whatever time you’re from.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s up with you, but really it’s better for everyone if you go back to whatever time you’re from. Fear me.”

“Could you please turn that off.”

“Could you plea—“ The sound died as Danny flipped the switch and tossed it back on the pile. Why did his parents even make that?

“Why should I trust you, Ghost?!”

[ashdoesfandomarchieved]

Hi! I saw that you're looking for prompts. For DP, how about Jazz finding out that Vlad cloned Danny and about Danielle?

ao3

Jazz Fenton likes to think that she’s a fairly grounded person.

There had been the initial shock, of course, when she realized that her nerdy, dorky, baby brother was, in fact, the Danny Phantom--ghost turned ghost hunter extraordinaire--but after the first couple of minutes of realigning her world to accommodate for this huge, life changing realization, she was back to being her usual, unshakable person.

Over the past year or so, she’s continued to maintain that maturity. No matter how many scrapes or misadventures Danny and his weird friends somehow drag her into--or the tragically laughable amount of stress her parents put on her to be the adult--she always manages to pull through.

Being Danny’s rock is what Jazz prides herself in. She likes being the person that he turns to for help, or comfort, or just to complain to for a couple of hours.

And god, yes, she knows it’s lame that the majority of her validation lies solely in whether or not her baby brother wants to spend time with her, but who cares? She and Danny didn’t really inhabit the same space for years, but now they found themselves orbiting around the same secrets, confiding to one another.

There was hardly a facit about Danny’s life that Jazz didn’t know about--from his weird antagonistic relationship with Vlad Masters to the crush he still distantly harbored on Valerie Gray.

So imagine Jazz Fenton’s surprise when she opens Danny’s bedroom door, on a chilly afternoon in October, to find two Danny Fenton’s sitting on the floor.

“Jenga,” one of them says as the tower topples over.

The one with the shorter hair--her Danny, if Jazz is guessing correctly--rolls his eyes. “That’s not how you win Jenga. Oh, hi Jazz.”

The Danny with the ponytail, wearing a crop top that clearly came out of Sam’s closet, whips their head around. “Oh! Hi!” They jump to their feet with a disconcerting amount of energy.

Other Danny follows more warily. “Jazz, this is Danny.”

“With an i,” Danny--Dani adds quickly, a flash of a smile on her (?) face. “Hi. Oh, I already said that, didn’t I?”

“Hi,” Jazz says, faintly back. She looks from Dani to Danny. “I-Danny what is. What.”

Danny--the first Danny, her Danny--rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “So, funny story,” he begins--an immediate tell that indicates that this isn’t going to be a funny story-- “but you remember how Vlad was trying to get me-”

“To dump your family and let him adopt you? Yeah, I think I remember him being generally creepy about it.” She doesn’t take her eyes off Dani. “What’s that got to do with you having a secret twin?”

“Clone,” Dani corrects. She drops down onto Danny’s messy bed and stretches out. “I’m Danny’s clone.”

Jazz blinks. Stares at Dani. Turns to Danny.

“Vlad cloned you,” she says flatly.

“Yup.”

“Vlad was so obsessed with having you as his kid that he created a biological clone of you.”

“Sums it up. And before you ask, yeah, she can go ghost.”

Jazz has a hazy memory of a Danny Phantom look alike running around Amity a week ago. She closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose as an oncoming headache makes itself known. “Great. So there’s two of you.”

“Not for long, I’m just visiting,” Dani replies, looking unbothered by Jazz’s existential crisis.

“She was having issues with her,” Danny flicks his fingers awkwardly, “ghost form. Val and I fixed it.”

“Val and you-”

“Oh yeah, she’s cool,” Dani says, with the same love-struck look in her eye that Danny gets when talking about the red-clad ghost hunter.

Goddamnit, there really are two of them now, Jazz glumly thinks.

“You could stay, you know,” Danny says, a bit shyly to his lookalike. “Val is cool with you now, and none of us would mind. Right, Jazz?”

Jazz can barely handle one Danny, let alone two of them. But this kid looks like she’s barely over twelve and not a day wiser.

Jazz is also keenly aware that this girl doesn’t have her own Jazz Fenton in her life.

“It’d be really cool if you did,” she says, forcing a smile on her face. “I’m sure we could spin some story about a long-lost cousin to Mom and Dad.”

Dani perks up in tandem with Danny. It’s cute. And annoying.

God, two of them.

Jazz mentally upgrades her status of big sister to one annoying ghost brother to big sister of two annoying ghost siblings. She’s a bit more pleased about it than she lets on. Heaven forbid she has two Danny’s with an ego.

“So,” she says with a sigh, sitting on the floor in front of the massive pile of jenga bricks. “Jenga?”

[thesoulspulse]

So yesterday I was talking to a couple of people on my discord and this is something I’ve been meaning to do anyway for a long time, but I wanted to create an oc worthy of being a romantic interest for our favorite fruitloop. We talked about a few concepts but the idea of these two being part of a Bonnie and Clyde sort of couple is too good to pass up! Basically what that means is this woman loves how wicked Vlad is and genuinely cares for him, like if you hurt him she will not hesitate to crush you.

I kinda imagine her a lot like Fox from the old Disney Cartoon Gargoyles who isn’t only extremely smart, but she can hold her own in a fight too.

It took me a while to come up with a good name before I eventually settled on Veronica since it has a nice ring to it, Veronica and Vlad. As for her personality, she’s not above smiling and pretending to be all sweet while secretly or not so secretly flaunting how much better she is for him than Maddie since we don’t really see that in the show. Maddie having any sort of rival I mean besides Sam’s mom sorta, but it’s not like those two can get into an epic martial arts fight! So even if Maddie doesn’t want to be with Vlad since she’s already happily married, I’d love to see her get super annoyed interacting with Veronica, especially if Veronica has a soft spot for Danny too and believes Vlad and her would make much better parents to him and Jazz.

This character is still in development but Veronica is either going to be an old flame of Vlad’s we never knew about, or someone who had a crush on him back in college but could never get close because of Maddie. Not to mention when Veronica actually TRIES to visit Vlad in the hospital they wouldn’t let her in and then some family drama forced her to leave. But I like to imagine she’s been working hard since then to get close to him again, not because of his money, but because she never stopped loving Vlad. It just depends on how long she’s known him, though it might be cute to make it a forgotten childhood crush.

And even more surprising, when Veronica learns Vlad’s half-ghost...she’s more fascinated by that than anything in an entirely different way than Maddie would have been. She doesn’t want to dissect him or anything, but Veronica thinks that power makes him even more incredible. Not only that, but since she’s just as smart as Vlad if not smarter, she helps elevate Vlad’s capabilities to the next level to become even more formidable which is terrifying but awesome! Better yet, Veronica might just be clever enough to help him bring Danny into the fold using some sneaky methods he never considered before...

Dun Dun DUNNN!

Also, a quick note about the design, I pretty much used one of the original concepts for Maddie that had dark hair and blue eyes which frankly would have looked amazing!

[five-rivers]

Changeling Chapter 1

A DP Fae Au fic. I've been promising you this for so long XD. I can hardly believe I'm finally delivering, even if it's only one chapter for now.

.

Chapter 1: In the Beginning, There Was an Offer

.

They studied legends. According to those legends, today, Beltane, was a time of renewal, of birth, of fertility.

It was not supposed to be… this. Their dreams weren’t supposed to be crushed today. Not under this sun, not under these blue skies and among softly blooming flowers.

This kind of news should have come with rain. It should have come with storms.

Maddie wiped tears out of her eyes and Jack patted her on the back. The air smelled sweet and dusty at the same time. The bench was uncomfortable.

“We could try adoption,” said Jack. He sounded shocked, too. Drained. His voice was pulled taught over a great hollowness. “Lots of people adopt. We can- can do some good in the world, maybe.”

Maddie sniffed and cried harder. She’d wanted her own children, and Jack knew it. Adoption was all very well and good, but at this point the suggestion felt like some consolation prize, and she felt terrible for even thinking it was, because Jack was right, it could be a good thing, and…

She wanted children. Her own children.

“Excuse me, I believe I can help.”

There was something about how he said that, about how the voice wound and slipped through her ears that had Maddie’s head snapping up. The man who stood to the side of the bench wore a long coat with a deep hood. Symbols, symbols that Maddie had spent hours, days, weeks, researching were stitched into the fabric. His eyes glittered in the shadows. The fingers of his hands, clasped in front of him, were too long, their coloring faintly lavender, as if they had been dipped in ink and retained the stain even after they’d been washed clean.

This was not a human.

“How?” asked Maddie, feeling hope drip back into her limbs even as Jack tensed behind her. “How can you help?”

.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” said Jack as they drove home. “We really shouldn’t have done that. Maddie, they’re evil, there’s always a catch and it’ll always be looking for a way to push us into it.”

“The catch is in the open,” said Maddie, leaning back against the seat of the car and closing her eyes. “It isn’t as if it’s in the fine print and we’re going to stumble into it. We have one, and then I get my tubes tied, or you get snipped, and we go on with our lives.”

“What if we have twins? Triplets? Maddie, we should have talked about this.”

“There wasn’t any time,” Maddie said defensively. “I had to decide right away.”

“What are we going to do if we have twins, Maddie?”

Maddie bit her lip, her eyes opening without her full permission as she thought. “We know how to deal with things like him.”

The car jerked just a little to the right as Jack failed to suppress his flinch. “Do you remember our work on motivations? On why they take artists, musicians, children?” he asked. He forged on without waiting for an answer. “Creative sterility, we called it. For this one to be able to cure sterility, he has to be powerful. I don’t think nails in pockets and inside-out clothing is going to stop him.”

Such protections were hit and miss to begin with. One faerie might hate bread, another might love it. The sound of bells would drive off one, and another would wear them in their hair. Even cold iron was no guarantee against them.

“We’ll have to find something better, then,” she said, firmly.

.

Maddie laughed. Not a twin. A single child showed on the ultrasound monitor. A girl. A beautiful baby girl. Perfect.

On the other side of the bed, Jack sunk into a chair, obviously relieved. “She’s healthy?” he asked the OB/GYN.

“Completely,” she said. “This is quite the miracle the two of you put together here.” She shook her head. “We must have gotten something wrong during our examination. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am to have put you through all that, and I won’t blame you if you wanted to find a new doctor.”

“It’s fine,” said Maddie, patting the woman’s arm. “It happens.” Yes, being approached by a powerful fae just ‘happened.’ “The important thing now is to make sure there aren’t any complications.”

.

They made sure Jazz was born on a Sunday, with two middle names, one of which Maddie made sure to forget. They scheduled her baptism for as early a date as possible, even though both Jack and Maddie were as lapsed as it was possible to be.

Precautions.

Jack had his surgery only a month later.

They were safe. They had won.

The family of three snuggled together on the couch. Well, Jazz snuggled inasmuch as a newborn was able. They watched TV.

“Jack, dear,” said Maddie, roused to awareness by a news story about a rising young businessman. “Is that our Vlad?”

Jack blinked at the screen. “I think you’re right,” said Jack. “I haven’t seen him since college. I don’t think we’ve talked to him since college.” He frowned. “Did something happen? The three of us used to be so close… He was the only one in the whole folklore department that would put up with our theories, do you remember?”

“I don’t know,” said Maddie, trying to remember. “It was like he was there one day, gone the next.”

“Do you think he’ll mind us getting back in touch?”

“Only one way to find out.”

.

(As it turned out, Vlad did not particularly care to get back in touch.)

.

Jazz was not a normal child.

She saw too much. She understood too much. Her teeth grew in early. She learned how to get the milk out of the fridge at about the same time she learned how to walk. Her eyes were too large, even for her age. She didn’t start talking until she was almost two, and when she did, it was in complete sentences. She took to responsibility like a duck to water. No, she demanded responsibility, from waking up the family in the morning to answering the door. She loved rules and games, and the rules of games.

But they had never raised a child before. Perhaps this was simply how they were. Perhaps this was within the expected variety of humanity.

Most importantly, Jazz was theirs. Completely.

.

Maddie was not terribly concerned when her period missed a few days, or even when it was late by a week. But when it started pushing two…

She bought a test.

It came back positive.

.

Danny’s birth was different from Jazz’s in almost every particular. Instead of being infused with a sense of joy, proceedings were overshadowed by dread. Jazz had been born in a hospital. Danny would be born at home, behind every ward and protection Jack and Maddie could conceive of. The midwife they hired was more than used to odd belief systems and threw a few of her own traditions in as well.

It couldn’t hurt.

.

It didn’t help.

After the birth, Maddie held Danny in her arms. He’d been born in a caul, which had been slightly alarming, even though Maddie had known that it was a thing that happened regularly, and that, by most accounts, it was lucky.

He was such a tiny little thing. Smaller than Jazz. Which made sense, he was a little premature.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” she promised him, whispering into the silky, wispy curls on top of his head.

Someone knocked on the door. Maddie jerked her head up, even though the front door wasn’t at all visible from the basement. Jack flinched hard enough to drop the towels he was holding. The midwife froze.

“Hospitality,” croaked Maddie. Those rules were always humanity’s first defense against the uncanny. Don’t want something in your house? In your life? Don’t invite it in.

Although, she had arguably already invited in the fae they were worried about. Hence all the other contingencies.

The knock came again. And again, louder.

Jack let out a sigh of relief. “It can’t get in,” he murmured. Then he smiled, broad and bright. “We just have to wait it out.”

Maddie nodded, tears in her eyes. The knocking continued. This was far from ideal, obviously, but she’d been half expecting the fae to simply rip through the wards like tissue paper.

Perhaps the theory that more powerful fae were more bound by custom, more vulnerable to their weaknesses, held water? She and Jack had always dismissed it as fanciful, but they’d never been able to gather evidence before.

Then, a sound that made her heart stop.

“I’ll get it!” called Jazz, childish voice muffled by distance and the obstacle of the floors above. She’d been told not to answer the door when Danny was being born, to wait patiently in her room, but for all her unusual maturity, she was only three.

Faster than she’d ever seen him move, Jack bolted for the stairs, pushing aside several pieces of furniture and medical equipment in his haste. He took the stairs four at a time and nearly taking the door off the hinges.

He wasn’t fast enough.

“Who are you, mister?”

“Me?” said a voice Maddie had prayed against ever hearing again. “I am your uncle, my dear. Did your parents not tell you about me?”

.

Jazz tipped her head to one side and stared up at the man, making her eyes extra big. She knew it made a lot of people uncomfortable when she looked at them like that, so she treated it as a kind of test.

The man smiled, kind and patient. He was kind of funny looking, but in a good way.

“No,” she said finally. “Are you Mommy’s brother or Daddy’s brother?”

“Ah, you already know about uncles, then. I was worried I’d have to explain. May I come in? I would like to greet your little brother, as your parents promised I could. I have gifts for both of you.”

Jazz liked gifts. “Okay,” she said. “But I dunno if Danny’s been born yet. Mommy said it can take a while. And I dunno if he can have gifts, yet. He’s gonna be really little. That’s what all my books say, and also the internet.”

“Jazz! Don’t!”

Jazz turned to see her Daddy skid around the corner, just as her uncle stepped across the threshold.

“Not quite on time, I fear,” said uncle. “Young Jazz has already let me in.” He patted Jazz on the head. She ducked away and stuck her tongue out, like she always did when Daddy did that. “Having greeted my niece, I would like to see my nephew.”

.

The fae did walk past the rest of the wards as if they weren’t even there. It didn’t even break them, just ignored them. Some of them he even commented on, as if approving.

He gazed down at Danny with his otherworldly eyes. The midwife had retreated to the corner of the room, refusing to look at what was happening. Jack had attempted to attack the fae with his bare hands, only to be pushed away with something approaching gentleness by an invisible wall. Maddie didn’t know where Jazz was. Upstairs, somewhere, hopefully.

“So beautiful,” the fae said, brushing Danny’s forehead with his off-color fingers. Faster than Maddie could react, he had a pair of scissors in his hand and was cutting off a lock of hair. “A lovely child.” The lock of Danny’s hair disappeared into the fae’s coat.

If Maddie didn’t know better, she’d call the expression on the fae’s face love. But she did know better. Love was as incomprehensible to the fae as fae laws were to humans, so she’d call it by its true name: avarice.

She tightened her grip on Danny, as if she could keep the fae from plucking him from her arms.

“Not now,” said the fae, after another moment. “Soon, I should think.” It ran a hand over Danny’s head. “Soon.” The fae looked up, meeting Maddie’s eyes. “I will return,” he said, “in one year.”

“For what?” demanded Maddie, unwilling to get her hopes up.

The fae blinked slowly. “For his birthday.” He tilted his head. “To determine whether or not he is ready. Perhaps, also, to visit my niece.”

“You stay away from Jazz!” snarled Maddie. “You have no claim on her.”

The fae merely shrugged, then smiled, slyly. “She does, however, have a claim on me. I promised her gifts, before your husband whisked her away.”

“Gifts,” repeated Maddie, hoarsely.

“For the sister of my child, yes,” said the fae, voice and face as calm and even as ever. “Would you ask me to forswear myself?”

“Then,” said Maddie, “you can leave them here, with us.”

“You will give them to her?”

“Yes,” said Maddie, through her teeth. She did not say how long she would let Jazz be in the presence of these ‘gifts.’

“Very well, then,” said the fae, pulling a number of boxes out from beneath his coat. “One year. Be prepared.”

And, with that, the fae faded from view, as if he had been an illusion all along.

Danny was still with them. Their son was still with them. Still theirs.

“One year,” she said, breathless. “Only one year.”

“One whole year,” corrected Jack, rushing to her side. “You’ll see, Maddie. Next time, that fae won’t know what hit him!”

“One whole year,” echoed Maddie, weakly.

“One year to prepare,” said Jack. “Look what we did with half that time! We’re Fentons! We can do it!”

“We can do it,” breathed Maddie. “One year. We’ll be ready.”

Jack nodded, firmly. “We’ll be ready.”

[dreamwraith]

Teleport

Summary: Danny finally learned how to teleport, but where is the 'off' switch? Pairings: Hints of Sam crushing on Danny Warnings: Danny accidentally teleports into the girl’s locker room, but only for a few seconds; he’s as startled as they are. Danny and Tucker have a no-homo thing going on, they should probably just hug it out already.

On Ao3

-

"Hey! Sam! Sam, wait up!"

Sam glanced over her shoulder. When she saw Tucker chasing after her with an anxious look on his face, she stopped walking down the sidewalk. Tucker was able to reach her in no time, but he had to bend over and gulp in large breaths afterward.

"Something wrong, Tucker?" she asked after giving him a few seconds to catch his breath. "I thought I was meeting you and Danny at school today?"

"Well, yeah," Tucker panted, "that was the plan, but…Have you seen Danny?"

She raised an eyebrow. "No. Why? Did something happen? Is he in trouble?"

Tucker waved his hand, chuckling between gasps. "No…well, yes…well, kind of…"

"Tucker…"

"No, he isn't in any real danger. Yes, his secret may be in jeopardy."

Sam widened her eyes. "His secret might be in what? What happened exactly?"

Tucker stood up straight, using his beret to wipe his sweaty forehead. "Well, this morning, while Danny and I were walking to school, he had a breakthrough on teleporting. He practiced it a couple times by teleporting up and down the sidewalk when no one was around, getting farther and farther away. He was getting really good at it!"

"O-kay," Sam said slowly, "so somebody saw him doing this?"

"Um. No."

"What went wrong then?"

"Well, we were almost to school, so he changed back to Fenton. But a few seconds after he did, he disappeared and—"

POP!

"Tucker!" Danny jumped on Tucker. His best friend screamed and would have shot three feet in the air if Danny's Hug of Death was any less secure. "Finally! I've been trying to get back to you for who knows how long now! Oh, hey, Sam! Wait, where'd you come from?" He loosened his hold on the trembling Tucker and looked around. "This isn't where I left you, Tuck…"

"He came to find me after you apparently disappeared," Sam explained for their shell-shocked friend. "Danny, what's going on? Are—"

"I can't stop teleporting, Sam!" Danny all but shouted, unwrapping one arm from around Tucker so he could wave it around for emphasis. "One minute I'm walking peacefully down the sidewalk, the next I'm in my room! So far I've teleported to school three times, to the Ghost Zone twice, my room five times, yours once, Tucker's three, Vlad's house one time too many, and once I somehow ended up, like, fifty feet in the air! I can't control it!" He released Tucker, and latched onto Sam's shoulders, earning a surprised gasp from the Goth. "Make it stop, Sam! I can't take it anymore!"

"Danny, calm down!" She brushed Danny's hands off her shoulders, but he quickly grabbed her wrists. She scowled. "Danny, let go of me before I show a very incriminating photo of you and Tucker to Jazz."

Danny's hands flew away from Sam like she was an evil ghost in disguise. "I thought you burned that!" He hesitated before giving Tucker a one-armed hug again.

Sam smirked. "Why would I get rid of perfectly good blackmail material? Is there a reason you keep grabbing onto us, Danny?"

"Yeah, dude," Tucker said, finally regaining his wits enough to eye his strange friend. "It's getting awkward."

"I am being teleported all over the place without my consent," Danny reminded them, "can't I get a little sympathy from you guys?" They gave him bland, completely unsympathetic looks. "Alright, fine. By holding onto you stationary people, I'm hoping you will anchor me and stop me from teleporting."

"Wouldn't we just teleport with you though?" Sam asked.

Tucker's eyes grew large and he struggled against Danny's hold, but even in human form Danny was stronger than him.

"No," Danny grunted, "because it takes a lot of control to be able to teleport more than one person, and clearly I don't posses any control over this, whatsoever."

Tucker relaxed but his nose wrinkled. "It still feels awkward, Danny. Go hug, Sam."

"I'm not hugging you," Danny protested. "This is a manly arm grip!"

"It doesn't feel very manly."

"Doesn't look like it either," Sam said, smirking.

Danny huffed. "Fine." He dragged Tucker closer to Sam and then threw his other arm around her neck before she could protest. Sam gasped and struggled, upset—if her red face was anything to go by—but Danny started walking, and his friends were forced to follow. "Alright! Now this is teamwork!"

"More like kidnapping!" Sam shouted.

Tucker teased, "You know you like it, Sam."

"Oh, yeah, I just love to be held against my will."

"It's only until this stops," Danny tried to reason.

"Oh? And when will that be?"

"Uh…I don't know…"

She sighed, resigned. "This all started after you changed back into Danny Fenton, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, maybe you'll have more control of it if you're in your ghost form. Seems to me your ghost half would have more control over your powers than your human half would."

Danny hung his head, wishing he could face-palm without losing his anchors. "I should have thought of that…"

"That's what I'm here for. Now hurry up and change while the streets are empty."

Danny nodded, and in a flash of light, he became Amity Park's number one ghostly hero.

After a few seconds, Sam cleared her throat. "You'll have to let go of us to test this, Danny…"

Danny flinched. "B-but what if it doesn't work and I start teleporting like crazy again?"

"Then we'll just have to think of something else!" Sam hissed, "Now let go of us before somebody sees Danny Phantom hanging out with Danny Fenton's friends!"

Danny grimaced. He slowly, very slowly, released his best friends. They walked a few steps farther ahead before stopping and facing Danny again. He had his eyes pinched shut and his hands fisted at his sides.

"Did I teleport?" he asked, keeping his eyes sealed.

"No." Tucker chuckled. "But you look constipated. Loosen up, dude."

Danny cracked an eye open, but upon seeing the same setting as before, he grinned, and jumped in place. "Alright! Way to go, Sam!" He went to high five her, but seconds away from making contact, Danny became consumed by green mist. The mist disappeared along with Danny, followed by a popping sound.

Sam lowered her hand slowly, and exchanged glances with Tucker. "Uh, I guess it didn't work…"

Tucker sighed. "We might as well get to school, Sam. He's not going to show up here any time soon…"

-----------------

POP!

"Paradise Lost!"

Danny's momentum carried him through the motion of the high-five, but because Sam's hand wasn't there to meet his, his swat carried into a somersault in midair. "Whoa!" He righted himself and jerked his head from side to side. The faces staring up at him were familiar, but the location wasn't since only teachers and their favorites were allowed inside the teacher's lounge.

Danny laughed nervously. "Um, uh, whoops?"

Mr. Lancer was the first to regain his composure. He stood up and fixed his tie in a nervous habit. "Mr. …Phantom, what is the meaning of this?" Sweat noticeably broke out over his forehead.

Danny flushed. "Um, I'm having a few technical issues with my powers…" He cleared his throat and floated with his back straight, adopting his 'hero' voice. "Sorry for the inconvenience, citizens. I'll just be going…"

But after a few seconds, Danny still floated in place above their table, staring fixedly into space. The teachers looked at each other in confusion. The Art teacher pulled out a sketch pad and started sketching the focused Ghost Boy in profile.

"…Any second now…"

If they had crickets in the staff lounge, they'd be chirping.

"…Any second…"

Mr. Felucca stepped forward, his index finger poised in question. "What power are you having difficulties with, Mr. Ghost Boy? As a scientist, perhaps I can be of assistance."

Danny grimaced. "Uh, actually—"

Ms. Tetslaff slammed a fist on the table, and the sudden violence made Danny start in surprise. "If it's power he's having trouble with, it's me he should be coming to for help! I'll whip him into shape!"

He winced, and drifted away from her. "Uh, it's not really a physical power—"

"I have studied many classical stories that teach great, historical lessons," Mr. Lancer said. "Perhaps one of those will be of some use to you, Mr. Phantom?"

"Thanks, but I don't—"

The Mythology teacher scoffed. "Your literature is of no use to a being of exponential power. My myths have way more value to him than your 'fiction'."

"I don't need—"

The Psychology teacher snapped her fingers. "It may be psychological! Please feel free to tell me all about your problems. I'm here to help!"

"I don't have a psychological issue! Why does everyone always think that?"

Ms. Loretta gazed at Danny's skinny body with a critical eye. "Perhaps it has something to do with malnourishment. Do ghosts have to eat? I can make you something, boy."

"…Uh…no…"

The Government teacher trembled in his seat, staring up at Danny in fear. "W-we should call somebody about this! Call the Fentons! Call the Guys in White! They'll know what to do!"

The Art teacher reached out and pinched a fold of Danny's jumpsuit. "Is this latex?"

"Hey!" Danny knocked his hand away and floated a few paces away from him. "No touching!"

"We should give him a physical!"

"He needs to learn a moral lesson!"

"What he needs is more meat on his bones!"

"Oh, how am I going to capture that glow…"

"Something must be wrong with the inner workings of his mind!"

"The FENTONS!"

"Perhaps it is his molecular structure that is causing the problem!"

"QUIET!" Danny shouted. The teachers instantly quieted. "There is nothing wrong with my body, my mind, or my morals, alright? I just developed a new power and I'm having some difficulty controlling it. That's all!"

The teachers backed away from the panting ghost boy.

Mr. Felucca was the first to gather his courage. He asked, "What kind of power?"

Danny relaxed. "Teleport—"

POP!

The teachers gasped, and stared at the spot where the Ghost Boy had once been.

"NOOO!" the Art teacher cried, and threw down his half-complete sketch. "I was so close!"

-----------------

POP!

"—ation."

"Breach in Sector 8! We have a breach in Sector 8!"

Before Danny had a chance to gather his bearings, several ghost nets crashed into him and bound him to the floor. Where the net touched him, little bolts of electricity shot into his system like static jumping to a doorknob. Danny growled and struggled against the painful bindings, but the whirring of a ghost gun made him freeze. He looked up into the tinted sunglasses of a GiW operative.

"D-Don't move, Phantom!"

Danny's eyes half-lidded in boredom. "Oh great. The Mr. Clean Groupies…"

"Quiet, ghost," another agent ordered. "We have you surrounded."

Danny looked past the two standing over him. "Let me guess, the reinforcements are invisible?"

Danny wasn't able to see his eyes, but the second agent's brows furrowed, and his mouth turned down.. "I don't like your tone, boy."

Danny used his infamous cocky smirk. "Like I care? With only two agents, why should I worry? I could take you guys out easy."

The first agent, the one who had stuttered, gulped. Without warning, he shot at Danny.

Danny gasped, and dove to the side. He needn't have bothered, though. The shot was way off target. It crashed into the wall five feet behind Danny.

"Agent N!"

Danny eyed the scared agent warily. Like cornered wolves, frightened hunters packing heat were dangerous. "New agent?" he asked the other guy.

He grunted. "As green as they come. Listen, kid," he faced Agent N, "there is a rhythm to these things. We exchange witty banter, and then we start shootin' them."

Agent N nodded his head rapidly. "Y-yes, sir. Understood, sir! Should I tranquilize him, sir?"

"Wow, he is green."

The senior agent scowled. "Tranquilizers don't work on ghosts, recruit. Get your facts straight!"

Agent N stuttered apologies. Danny rolled his eyes and wished he would teleport out of there already.

"W-what do we do then, s-sir?"

The other agent grinned sadistically. "We shock him until he loses consciousness."

Danny flinched, but tried to hide it. "Gee, so humane. You must be very proud of your species."

"I am." The senior agent pulled a button switch out of his pocket, and poised his thumb above the large red button. Danny breathed in a deep breath, readying a Ghostly Wail. Passing out and transforming in front of them wasn't an option. "Or, I don't care about yours. Prepare yourself, ghost scum."

POP!

-------------------------------

POP!

The first thing Danny noticed was the absence of annoying static shocks. The second thing he noticed was the absence of everything else. Including air. He was really glad he took a deep breath before, though the breath was almost stolen from him when he looked down at the Earth. Like, the Earth, the blue planet Earth.

I'm in space! he thought, grinning goofily. He gazed around himself in wonder. He had been to space before, but he'd been too busy fighting to really admire the scenery.

Stars in every direction, as far as the eye could see, he was on the sunny side of the Earth, but he could see the moon poking out from behind the rocky planet. A comet was off in the distance, its ice and dust particles trailing behind it as the solar wind tore at the ice rock. He closed his eyes, and lights danced behind his eyelids as the solar wind hit him.

Danny sagged, and his expression became dreamy. It's so beautiful…this just makes me want to be an astronaut even more! I wish I could stay—Air! He gripped his throat. Air! I need air!

POP!

------------------------------

POP!

"Chronicles of Narnia!"

Danny gasped in air, like he'd never tasted anything so sweet. Space was awesome, but it'd be a lot better with oxygen.

"Danny Phantom!"

Danny spun around, and found his first period class staring up at him the same way he had stared at Outer Space. A nervous smile worked its way onto his lips. "I'm just dropping by. I'll be gone in a second, so please, don't let me interrupt."

The class started whispering to each other in excitement, looking like they were seconds away from mobbing him. In the back row, he saw Sam scowl. She hated his 'hero' voice. Tucker waved discreetly to him, and Danny subtly nodded back. He was glad Valerie didn't have his first hour…

"Mr. Phantom!"

Danny looked over his shoulder at Mr. Lancer. "Uh, hello again…"

Lancer frowned. "I take it you haven't fixed your 'problem'?"

"…No."

"Then perhaps you would like to sit in for my lesson," he said, smirking like he had just won a contest. "Perhaps you will learn something."

The students screamed. No longer able to contain themselves, they jumped out of their seats and rushed for Danny. He floated out of their reach, feeling nervous and slightly nauseous. Tucker and Sam joined them in order to keep up appearances, and Danny was annoyed to see Tucker filming it all on his PDA. His classmates gathered below him, shouting for autographs.

Danny backed away, breathing fast. "Uh, I don't know if that's such a good idea! Besides, I probably won't be here for much longer, or at least I really hope not, so I—"

POP!

-----------------------------------

POP!

"…and that is why, I believe we can use the town's little ghost problem to our…" Vlad trailed off when it became apparent he didn't have his audience's full attention. "…advantage…"

Despite the meeting being comprised of mostly professional reporters and self-important civilians, they were whispering rudely amongst each other, laughing and pointing at something behind Vlad. He looked behind him, but all he saw was the red curtain. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"…As I was saying," Vlad said, turning back to the microphone on the podium, "with an interest in ghosts growing worldwide, more and more people will be traveling to Amity Park in search of the fabled beings—one in particular, I might add. I say we encourage this by building tourist attractions that will bring in large crowds of people."

"What?" a familiar voice exclaimed. Vlad smirked, his suspicion confirmed. Danny Phantom flew in front of him, his arms thrown out. "You can't bring more people here! I knew you were a fruitloop, Vlad, but this is going a bit far!"

"Ah," Vlad said suavely, "Amity Park's famous Ghost Boy. So nice of you to join us."

"Cut the crap, Vlad…er, Mr. Mayor…" Danny blushed and glanced over his shoulder at the flashing cameras and excited audience.

Vlad chuckled. "If it puts you more at ease, you're welcome to use my first name. It's the least I can do for our star attraction."

Danny refocused his righteous gaze on Vlad, but he floated to the side of him so his back was no longer to the cameras. "You can't bring tourists here, Masters."

"Oh? And why not? It'd be very profitable for this town."

"You mean it'd be very profitable for you," Danny corrected. "And you can't bring them here because, in case you haven't noticed, this town isn't very safe. The people living here know to run when a ghost attacks, but tourists will get closer because that's what they came to see. People could get seriously hurt…"

"Do you doubt your ability to protect them, little hero?" Vlad questioned, smirking mockingly. "We can use the funds the tourists bring in to hire more competent ghost hunters, so I assure you there is no need for such fear."

Danny scowled at the 'competent' part. "You're making a mistake, Masters. You can hire a hundred ghost hunters, but they won't be enough to—"

POP!

Vlad raised an eyebrow. Interesting… He hadn't expected the boy to develop his teleportation powers so soon, but his apparent lack of control more than made up for his accelerated growth. He'd make the boy suffer a while longer before he approached him.

He turned back to his murmuring audience. "Any questions?"

The crowd shot to their feet.

-------------------------

Ms. Tetslaff blew her whistle. Her students looked at her with hope in their eyes and sweat covering every inch of their exhausted bodies. "That's enough for today," she said. "Shower up, you lazy maggots!" The students silently cheered and limped toward the locker rooms.

Tucker almost fell over in relief. He'd take helping Danny fight ghosts over gym any day. He was tempted to curl into a ball and fake dehydration, just so he could sit and relax for a few seconds. Sadly, it was not to be. Sam bounced to his side, and Tucker for the second time that day cursed the girl's athleticism.

She grabbed his arm, and forced him to stumble toward the locker rooms. He muttered complaints, but being the good friend she was, she ignored them.

"Any sign of Danny since this morning?" she asked him quietly.

"Once," Tucker replied. Even his voice sounded tired. "He made a brief appearance in third period chemistry class, and I mean brief. He was there for all but five seconds, but it was still enough to disrupt the whole class and get us out of homework." He grinned. "It was awesome! What about you?"

Sam shrugged. "He popped into second period Art Class. Everybody started sketching him, including Mr. Coal." She smirked. "Danny looked so embarrassed."

Tucker chuckled. "I bet. How long did he stay?"

"Five or ten minutes. There were a lot of disappointed groans after he disappeared, but Mr. Coal managed to finish. It looks really cool too…I also heard he made an appearance for History Class, and Government." She rolled her eyes. "The Government teacher tried to call the Guys in White, but he got taken captive by his class."

Tucker laughed. "Oh man! I wish I had seen that!"

"We can ask Danny all about it once we see him again," Sam pointed out. "If he stays long enough…"

Tucker chuckled.

They split into their gender specific locker rooms, waving goodbye. Still chuckling, Tucker grabbed his shower supplies and strolled into the shower area. Because of a recent ghost attack, tarps littered the area, for once creating some much needed privacy. Too bad Danny was missing it. Mr. Modesty would most definitely appreciate the seclusion.

Tucker stripped down, and was just about to turn on the water when…

POP!

"Tucker!"

Tucker jumped.

Danny nearly hugged him like he had that morning, but he stopped at the last second. He pulled slowly away, making a face. "Uh, you're my best friend and everything, Tuck," he said, "and I love you like a brother, but I am so not touching you when you're naked…"

Tucker hurriedly wrapped his lower half in his towel. "Well no asked you to!" He looked at his best friend, noticing the tousled white hair, the tear in his jumpsuit, and the way his eyes twitched and darted around the room. "Having a rough day, Danny?"

"Like you wouldn't believe!" Danny pulled on his own hair—explaining why it was so messy—and stared at Tucker with unnaturally large eyes. "I never know where I'm going, or when I'm going there! It's all completely random! And I've seen things, Tuck! I've seen things…"

Tucker held his fists against his naked chest, mocking a scared expression. "Were they dead people?" he whispered.

Danny blinked, scowled, and crossed his hands over his chest, sulking. "Oh yeah, ha ha. Laugh at the poor kid who just saw Ember and Skulker making out."

Tucker's jaw dropped and his face turned slightly green.

Danny smirked. "Yeah! Not so funny now, is it!"

POP!

Tucker stared at the empty space before him for a moment, wondering where his traveling friend would end up next.

------------------------------

POP!

It happened very fast.

Danny saw what every straight guy dreams about, committed it unintentionally to memory, and was then deafened by shrieks. He screamed too and quickly covered his eyes with his hands. He turned around and tried to fly out of the Girl's Locker Room, but he forgot to go intangible, and he crashed into the lockers. The girls started throwing towels, hairbrushes, and other items at him.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" he shouted over their screams, cowering in a corner. "I have no control over where I'm going!"

POP!

------------------------------------

POP!

Danny was never so glad to hear that sound. Still, he stayed in a fetal position, too afraid to see where he had teleported to. Maybe if I stay still, he thought desperately, I won't teleport!

"It's alright, Danny," a kind and familiar voice said. "You're safe here."

Danny opened his eyes slowly, and stared up at Clockwork. The Time Ghost in, the form of an old man, smiled kindly back down at him.

Danny grinned and jumped to his feet. "Clockwork! Man, am I glad to see you! Listen, you have to help me! I can't stop teleporting everywhere, and I'm seeing things I really don't want to be seeing, going places I shouldn't be going, and you probably already know about all of this, because you're the Master of Time and everything, but I have to tell you because—"

"Danny, you have something on—"

"—I'm freaking out here, because I can't stop teleporting—"

"Danny, your head—"

"—and I'm seeing things I should not be not be seeing, and it won't stop, Clockwork, make it stop!" Danny leaned his head against his Guardian/mentor's chest, whimpering pathetically. "Make it stop…"

Clockwork hesitated, unsure. He reached up a hand, and patted Danny awkwardly on the shoulder. "I…I'm sorry, Danny," he said, sounding sincerely apologetic. "It's not my place to help you."

Danny's shoulders slumped in defeat. He drew away from the timeless ghost and shook the hand off his shoulder. "Yeah…I should have figured that…Sorry for putting you on the spot, Clockwork."

Clockwork changed into a toddler. He sighed, and shook his head. "There is nothing to apologize for, Danny. You ask far less of me than most ghosts. However," his tone made Danny glance despondently up at him, "I can tell you it will end soon."

Danny straightened, and his eyes brightened with hope. "Really?"

The Time Master nodded sagely. "Indeed." He smirked, and it was very odd to see such a sarcastic look on a kid's face. "By the way, Danny. You have something on your head."

Danny frowned. He brought his hand to his head and pressed down, immediately feeling something lacy. He grabbed it and brought it down to eye level. It was a white bra. Danny let out a half-yelp and quickly tossed it away from him. He wiped his hand against his pants, making a face.

Clockwork chuckled, now a middle-aged man. "I thought you were over the 'cootie' stage by now, Danny."

Danny grimaced. "I'm fourteen, and I have an older sister. You do the math."

Clockwork nodded. "Fair enough. You have ten seconds before you teleport again."

Danny looked dismayed. "So soon? Can you tell me where I'm going?"

"Home, Danny. To Fenton Works." Danny smiled in relief. "But you won't get a warm welcome."

He frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"Five…"

"Clockwork!"

"Four…"

"I can't believe you're counting down!"

"Three…"

"Whoever heard of Master of all Time counting down the time?"

"Two…"

"'Hey, I'm Clockwork! I'm counting down because I'm awesome like that—'"

"One."

POP!

--------------------------------

POP!

"GHOST!"

"Ghost!"

"Warning! Warning! Ecto-entity in the lab."

Danny blinked. "Wow. What a welcome home…"

His mom grabbed an ecto gun off one of the lab tables and shot at Danny. He gasped and quickly dove beneath it, escaping the shot by a hair. Jack shot a net at Danny, but it missed him completely. Still in a ball, it ricocheted off the wall and expanded over Maddie, knocking her to the ground and sending her gun flying. Danny clamped his hands over his mouth, trying to smother his giggles.

"Jack!" Maddie shouted angrily, struggling inside the net.

"Sorry, sweet cheeks!" Jack dropped the net launcher and grabbed the weapon they'd been working on before Danny arrived. "I'll get you out of there as soon as I capture this ghost!"

"Jack! We haven't fixed the—"

"BONSAI!" Jack pulled the trigger. Ectoplasmic goop shot into his face.

"—trigger…"

Danny wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed by his father (again), or be grateful he messed up an attack (again). He just chuckled weakly, and rubbed the back of his neck.

POP!

-----------------------------

POP!

As soon as the green mist cleared, Danny looked around his new surroundings. What he saw made him grimace, and not just because the green and gold color scheme was an eyesore.

"Ah, Daniel. I was wondering when you'd 'pop' in."

Vlad stepped out of a darkened hallway, haunting smirk in place. Danny spun around and crossed his arms over his chest, lifting an eyebrow. "Do you always have to make a creepy entrance, or is this another fruitloop thing?"

Vlad huffed, looking offended. "It's dramatic, Daniel, not creepy."

"Where'd you learn it from, Villainy for Dummies? Seems like overcompensation if you ask me."

Vlad's eyes flashed red, before he schooled his expression into one of mocking regret. "I was going to offer you my expertise on teleporting, but if you're going to be immature, I have more important things to do." He turned around, walking back into the dark hallway.

Danny gasped, and quickly flew in front of the man. "Whoa, hold on!" He held up his hands in front of Vlad, forcing him to stop. "You can stop this? You can make me stop teleporting?" Vlad nodded, and Danny smiled happily. "Great! I—Wait." The smile fell from his face, and he eyed the man suspiciously. "What's in it for you?"

Vlad's lips twisted into a smirk. "No longer naïve enough to expect anything for free. I'm proud of you, little badger. My price is the usual."

"Renounce my dad and become your evil apprentice?" Danny crossed his arms again. "Forget it, Vlad."

Vlad shrugged his shoulders. "Then enjoy the rest of your life filled with uncertainty." He walked around Danny, raising a hand in farewell. "Ta."

Danny winced. He chewed on his bottom lip, thinking. He hated teleporting. If he ever got out of the rut he had fallen into, he swore the power would definitely be crossed off his list…He groaned, and flew after Vlad. "Vlad wait!"

Vlad halted, his expression triumphant. "Yes?"

Danny refused to meet his eyes. "I…The reward isn't worth the price, Vlad, but…will you teach me to control this power for…Mom's cell number?"

Vlad's eyes sparkled in interest. "You'll give me her phone number?"

It was difficult, but Danny managed to keep from grinning triumphantly. "She'll probably never forgive me, but yes. I mean, it's not like you'll get anywhere with it…"

Vlad smiled cockily. "I assure you, Daniel, I can be quite charming. I'll be your legal father in no time." Danny gagged, and Vlad rolled his eyes. "I suppose we have a deal?" Vlad held out his hand.

Danny stared at it, making a show of hesitating. "Alright…" He reached out and grabbed the other hybrids hand. "Deal."

POP!

-------------------------------

POP!

Danny blinked, and when his eyes opened, it wasn't Vlad's ugly décor that greeted his sight, but Amity's newspaper office. People occupied cubicles, writing down stories on computers and scribbling notes in their notebooks, but no sign of Vlad.

"No!" Danny screamed, frantically searching the office for his savior. He could have followed him in ghost form, right? The sound of typing and pencils scribbling on paper instantly ceased, but Danny didn't notice. "I was so close to ending this!" He ran a hand through his hair, pacing back and forth on the open air. "I finally outsmarted the creep, and I get whooshed off before I can even celebrate! Where's justice in that? Is this some great cosmic joke? Just—"

POP!

-----------------------------

POP!

"GHOST!"

"Jack! Get this net off me!"

"—how many people are laughing at me? The Observants—"

POP!

----------------------------

POP!

"Danny Phantom!"

"—are probably having a grand ol' time laughing at me, the jerks. No doubt Vlad finds this whole thing amusing—"

POP!

--------------------------

POP!

"Breach in Sector 11! Again!"

"—because he's a total bastard like that. Clockwork, Master of all Annoyingness, acted—"

POP!

--------------------------

POP!

"BEWARE!"

"—all sincere, but I bet he's laughing on the inside!"

POP!

--------------------------

POP!

"Mr. Phantom! A few questions—"

"And don't even get me started on my friends—"

POP!

--------------------------

POP!

"—probably laughing about it at this very moment! Some friends!"

"Danny?"

Danny spun around. His friends stared up at him, along with the whole Casper High cafeteria. He was floating over the lunch line, and even the lunch ladies were gaping openly at him. Slop slipped off one of their spoons.

Danny laughed. "Great. Just great. Of course I'd wind up here, again."

"Danny," Sam hissed, "go invisible!"

Considering the students were starting to rush in his direction, that was sound advice. Danny turned invisible. His fans slowed, groaning in disappointment, but Danny felt no sympathy. He placed a hand on Sam's shoulder, and whispered, "I'll meet you guys at our table." She nodded and whispered the message to Tucker.

Danny sat in his designated seat and placed his head in his hands, just taking time to relax and not think about anything. A few minutes later, Tucker and Sam sat at the table on either side of him.

"Danny?" Sam asked quietly. "Are you still here?"

Danny nodded his head, but realized they couldn't see it. He sighed. "Yes."

Tucker stuffed some mystery meat into his mouth. "So how's your day been?" he asked cheerfully.

Danny groaned.

"Aw, it can't be that bad." He grinned, and nudged what he hopped was Danny's shoulder and not his head. "Sam says you teleported into the girl's locker room while they were changing…"

Sam stabbed her salad, growling low in her throat. She muttered what Danny assumed were threats against mankind.

"They nearly killed me, Tuck."

"Yeah, but you would have died a happy man!"

Danny's lips twitched. "True…"

Sam slammed her spork down, her face flaming. "We are never speaking of it again, and you—" she pointed a threatening finger at Danny's seat "—are going to forget what you saw. Got it?"

"…I don't think I can, Sam…"

Sam growled, and Tucker laughed. Danny smiled, though they couldn't see it, and snuck a fry from Tucker's tray. Being invisible had its perks.

"The school is in an uproar, Danny," Sam said after a minute of silence. "…More than usual. Valerie is going crazy trying to find you, Paulina constantly fixes her makeup, and the teachers seem to be competing against each other…"

Tucker nodded. "There's even a bet going around about where you'll pop in next!"

Danny raised an unseen eyebrow. "Do I want to know who started the bet, Tuck…?"

Tucker coughed into his fist. "Depends on what you plan to do to him—or her! For all we know, the evil, clever, and no doubt charming mastermind might have been a girl."

Danny rolled his eyes, and stole another fry from the 'clever mastermind'. "Uh-huh."

"Have you learned any control yet?" Sam asked.

Danny grumbled. "No. I convinced Vlad to help me, though."

"How'd you manage that?" Sam asked.

He smirked slyly. "By offering my mom's cell phone number."

Tucker frowned. "But your mom doesn't—" His eyes cleared in understanding. He smiled at Danny. "Niiice, dude."

"So, you know how to stop now?" Sam asked.

Danny sighed. "No. Before he had a chance to tell me, I teleported away."

"Well," Tucker said, "that explains the rant. That must have been really frustrating."

"I wasn't ranting!" Danny protested. "I was…expressing my anger to the universe."

"In other words, ranting," Sam concluded.

"…Alright fine, I ranted."

"Maybe there's a pattern to it," Sam suggested. "You've been here for a while. What are you doing differently now?"

Danny shrugged. "Talking to you guys, focusing on not teleporting so I have a chance to relax."

"Maybe that's the answer then. You just have to concentrate on your surroundings and on staying in one place."

He grimaced. "I don't know, Sam. What about when I—"

POP!

Sam groaned, and leaned back in her chair. "Great. Here we go again."

Tucker chuckled. "Look on the bright side, Sam. At least the bet—that I had no part in making—is still on. I'm going to be rich!" He went to grab a fry, but the bucket was empty. He frowned down at his tray. "Where'd my fries go?"

[ghosttrolls]

I would love to read your take on the "Danny's obsession is helping, and he literally can't control it, so if he hears the word 'help' he's compelled to do whatever he was asked" that has been doing the rounds lately on here. I think it was popularized by @/floralflowerpower, with her Jazz/Hospital fanfic, but I'm not sure.

Danny was trapped. Not by any physical cage, nobody could really keep him in any one place for very long. He had gotten very good at escaping traps. But he still felt trapped. Every time he walked to school, he hoped he wouldn’t hear anyone call out - not for the one thing he’d come to dread most.

He hoped nobody needed his help.

You see, Danny was half ghost. One thing that almost every ghost gets when they die is an obsession. When they cross over, where they are, what they’re doing, and who they’re thinking about all culminate into an instantaneous transformation. The ghost of the Lunch Lady - when she died, she was working on the menu. She became obsessed with the menu, “maintaining a balanced meal,” and gained power over food. The Box Ghost, in a past life, worked in a warehouse, crushed by boxes in an accident. He gained power over boxes as a result.

But with Danny it was a little bit different. When he had gained his powers, when he’d become half ghost, it was an accident in his parents’ lab. He’d been there unsupervised (aside from his equally inexperienced friends), and went into the portal alone. And when he turned it on without realizing, he was flung into a world he didn’t know. In an instant, with the flip of a switch, he felt his humanity begin to tear away from him. For those few long seconds before his friends had gotten the portal turned off, he thought of only one word: HELP.

But of course, there was no one to help Danny. Not during the accident, not after he got his ghost powers. He had the support of his friends, but ultimately they knew less than he did about ghosts. They all had to teach themselves. Vlad Masters, an old family friend, was half ghost like Danny, but he was more into fighting than talking. And so Danny was on his own.

The intense need for help, that cry that rang out so strong and silent that night in the basement, that became Danny’s obsession. Any time he hears someone calling for help, he becomes compelled to answer the call. At times, he’d go to help against his will.

The thing was, he didn’t hate helping people. He really liked it, most of the time. He liked knowing that he was doing something with his powers that improved the lives of others. But he didn’t like how he didn't have a choice. Whenever he heard a cry for help, his obsession forced him forward. That was what trapped him.

But, many ghosts figured out how to use their obsessions to their advantage. While power over cardboard boxes is kind of lame, The Box Ghost found once that he could control Pandora’s Box… maybe there was a hidden advantage that Danny hadn't found yet. He looked forward to that day: the day when he felt like he was useful for his own actions, rather than something he had no control over. Until then, though, he had to make do with what he had: a deep, powerful urge to help anyone and everyone. There were worse curses to have, after all.

[constellaj]

16

Please talk more about your reboot!

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

okay so how i would re-do CANON is completely different from how i would talk abt a reboot so im gonna touch on a couple things in both contexts! the reason for the difference is canon rewrites imply i can go back in time and introduce dp fresh and new, before anyone knows what it is; but for a reboot, id be working with an audience that has a better understanding of the source material, so i dont need to spend as much time explaining, but i also need to keep everything recognizable

Valerie

REWRITE: i would def make it more danny's fault that her dad lost his job, like danny was intentionally being reckless and shattered some security stuff, and he has a whole mini lesson about learning to not just run in guns blazing. i would probably remove the dating stuff with her and danny (and tuckers crush) too, I think them wanting to be good friends is good enough for freshman year

REBOOT: the fandom already knows valerie exists, so i would actually skip the whole shades-of-gray introductory episode and have her be present as the huntress from day 1-- probably even before danny got his powers. cujo is also HER dog, and her backstory-- we'd find out in like, season 1, that a natural ghost portal (maybe one wulf opened) ripped open on her dog and killed him, and since then shes had a vendetta against ghosts cause of how reckless they are and their disregard for life-- of course, cujo isnt actually dead. cujo is a halfa. a puby halfa. anyway instead of a hoverboard she actually rides cujo around cause he can fly and its big and epic. valerie has BEEN amity parks ghost-eradicating superhero for at least a year (tho shes been in the shadows abt it) and her hatred towards danny actually just becomes really petty, like them flying next to each other chasing skulker just going "I got this. no I got this. no I got this" and they just get in each others' way and its a mutual grudge.

BOTH: i am NOT keeping in vlad giving her the suit to watch danny under any circumstances. it was only utilized half assedly in canon (when vlad couldve just had an invisible duplicate watching him instead) anyway, and I dont have any reason to keep it in a reboot either. instead i want her tech to be a combination of half-stolen and half-gerryrigged stuff and she slowly slowly learns how to build her own.

I also dont want anyone knowing her secret identity, except maybe her dad, and sam or tucker. i think it works better if danny isnt privy to this magic info

Freakshow

REWRITE: i would honestly just remove him. the episodes hes in arent particularly interesting, theyre just generic "we need a plot about x" filler and he's not compelling enough a character (at least in writing) to carry a better plot that another antagonist couldnt. i'm serious

REBOOT: unfortunately in a reboot he's gonna have to pop up somewhere or else ppl will be like "where IS HE" so I'm going to stick with running some kind of ghost circus, maybe a few occult things, but cut out a lot of the spooky magical knowledge and mcguffin stuff. maybe i could make him like, someone from vlad/jack/maddies college who always felt pushed around by them and so he has a vendetta? and theyd be the only reason he even learned abt ghosts in the first place. idk in either way I want to force him into being irredeemable but also include LYDIA (the tattoo girl ghost) way more-- I want to give her an arc that ends in her tossing freakshow aside and running off to be a ghost vigilante.

BOTH: dear god the infinity gauntlet is stupid that needs to GO AWAY. especially for the reboot cause it would exist in a post-mcu world and way too many people would complain about it

Vlad

REWRITE: amp him up to a far more sinister and villainous character. the crushing on maddie isnt enough, I want to show him on-screen performing experiments on ghosts and himself, dismissing everyone else cause he thinks hes smarter than them. i want him to be actively sabotaging the fentons at every turn. i would also clarify that he doesnt actually want danny as a son, but as a trophy-- a line where danny says something along the lines of "you don't want a son. you want a slave". i want to make him a character who wants to destroy the entire planet and put it in the ghost zone so he can be the true ghost king and i want to make this all evident from day one. if i'm writing a series villain you can bet i'm going to write a GOOD one. less petty drama here and more actual stakes.

REBOOT: it seems silly but sense with reboot we have the benefit of hindsight and recognizing that vlad wasn't a big series villain, theres no way i'd actually go back and write him to be such. for starters, of course, theres the fact that anything he does would really be an exaggerated part of the original, and it would bore an audience to see the same story again-- theres also the fact that it doesnt seem right to take a character who was treated as a joke half the time and suddenly make them big and important. no, instead for my reboot i want to lean into the petty gay uncle vibe. he had a crush on jack and now just casually insults him. he moves mansions every now and again by just haunting the family who lives in the one he wants, and taking over-- i mean, who is gonna believe that an actual ghost haunted you. he dislikes danny not because he has some concept of 'evil' and 'good' but bc danny is just too damn active. of course he actually does care about danny and his safety deep down, it's just on the surface they have very conflicting motivations-- not to mention that danny has been raised on legends from his parents of the villainous Wisconsin Ghost, who has to be stopped at all costs.

BOTH: i want jack and maddie to KNOW he's a half ghost and to actively be hunting him down for it, maybe bc they think hes possessed, or been a ghost tricking them this whole time, or the victim of a tragic lab accident who needs to be put to rest, etc. whatever the case it will give vlad actual tangible reason to despise them and genuinely suspect they dont have dannys best interests at heart. i think it would be neat if vlad was cynical and every time danny hit him with the "I'll expose us both. at least theyll still love ME" vlad could be like in the back of his head "oh god theyre going to kill this child"

Dani

REWRITE: cut her out. we don't need her character at all. maybe replace her with a more ominous shadow duplicate / clone that actually looks like danny himself and doesnt really have a name? you could probably combine her and dark dans characters for their arcs

REBOOT: instead of a clone from vlad, she's a guys in white creation using some of dannys dna after he was captured (and vlad broke him out bc he was like "ugh i guess i have to save this child")

BOTH: vlad actually cares abt her (duh), shes nonbinary (double duh), she gets the funny dissolve into goo powers

i had more i thought i was gonna write but this post is already very long and also im running out of coherency for this LUL

[burning-clutch]

If A Ghost Howls In A Forest…

cross posted to a03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30503925 Danny was hoping his time at a summer camp would be ghost-free, and well, of course not. When would things in his life ever NOT involve ghosts? At least he can hope to get some decent rest tonight, right? RIGHT? Warning: mild descriptions of death 

-.-.-.-.-

Prompt by: KC Summer Camps is not complete without a courage test of walking to the haunted woods at midnight. Amity Park campers are weirdly prepared for this. Other campers are not sure how to deal with that

-.-.-.-.-.-

“Why are we doing this?”

“It’s a sort of initiation type of thing.”

“But WHY?!”

“For the spooks?”

“I’ll get the lipstick…”

“Wait what?”

Danny sighed as he watched Tucker neander off back to their cabin to fetch the Fenton lipstick ray, ignoring the looks of confusion that was shot his way from the other campers that he didn’t know from school. Dash and Kwan had thankfully been, well, not assholes the WHOLE time they had been in the camp. Though to be fair, it had only been a day in this week long fun filled… whatever this was.

Apparently, while things seemed to start out well they were told around the evening campfire and cookout, (which was mostly just them poking hotdogs on sticks and trying not to burn themselves when they ate them,) they were told about a tradition about the new campers being lead up to spend a few hours on their first night on a midnight hike through the ‘haunted’ woods.

Danny was the first to groan hearing this followed by Tucker. Even Dash and Kwan looked unamused as well as the random soccer player that Danny vaguely recognized from school.

To say the councillors were confused by the amity park kids’ reactions would be selling the gambit of expression the councillors had. Teenagers being put in charge of slightly younger teenagers, yeah, nothing could go wrong here, nothing at all…

Tucker came back and tossed Danny a wrist ray while tucking the lipstick he had retrieved into his shirt pocket. A boy from some small farming town an hour’s drive from the camp shuddered. “Haunted Woods? How are you not worried about dark haunted woods? Ghosts are in there!” he exclaimed.

“Cuz it’s just ghosts right?” The Amity soccer player shrugged.

“Yeah, I mean the story they told us said that right? Those hikers that got hurt and died in the woods still haunt it to this day” Kwan supplied with a roll of his eyes. The jock wiggled his fingers doing a decent impression of the box ghost with an even more intimidating “OoooOOOoooOO”

“Yeah, unless they’re gonna be sporting some cool gore this will be lame,” Dash added with a yawn. “Pass.” Dash waved the councillor off before trying to turn and head off.

“Well, you don’t HAVE to go on the hike. But those who skip out will have to endure the punishment tomorrow. If you wanna peel hundreds of potatoes tomorrow morning at the ass crack of dawn you’re welcome to head back…. We’re also going to label you as a coward too so there’s that.”  One of the councillors says with a smug smile on their face.

“Has anyone ever seen anything like that?” A nervous looking twig of a boy asked, wringing his hands nervously.

“Oh I won’t say anything on that matter” The second councillor, Jeff says. At least Danny thinks he remembers the name as Jeff. He should probably learn that given this guy was in charge of the cabin he was staying in, “It’ll be better to leave it as a surprise.”

The first councillor, a jock looking guy, built like a brick house with thick shoulders and neck but a tiny waist and legs looking very much like he needed a few more rounds on leg day, eyed the Amity group with a look as though he were going to try to take scaring them as a challenge. Danny looked the guy over, raising a brow when their eyes locked.

Great, he and Tucker looked like an easy target. He knew that look all too well having spent plenty of time being bullied as well as with angry ghosts who underestimated him. More fun tonight will be had by all he was sure.

“Don’t worry We’ll make sure you’ll get some proper spooks.” the brick house says with what Danny assumed the other thought was an intimidating grin.

Dash snorted. “Fenton’s probably the only one who’ll get scared of the ghosts out there. He runs away from all of them back home.”

“Have you seen my parents? Get too close to a ghost and it picks up some contamination you know exactly what they’ll do!” Danny spat back with a glare of his own only barely managing to stop his eyes from glowing in his rapidly souring mood.

The other kids at the camp blink in confusion. “Wait… You guys are from that tourist town that goes way too far with the ghost theme right?” asked a pale kid with brown hair.

“Oh please, that’s just a gimmick” Answered another kid who crossed his arms in a huff.

“It’s not a gimmick dude, we even have our own superhero!” Kwan answered.

“Uh-huh. Well you’re superhero ain’t gonna save you from the ghosts out here”  Jeff shot back, crossing his arms. “Right, Tom?”

The brick house, Tom apparently nodded knowingly. “Yep, these ghosts are very dangerous and angry ya know..”

“So? It IS Monday,” Tucker offered flatly, earning a snort from the soccer player.

“Can we just… not do this?” A darker skinned nervous boy whined holding onto the arm of the brown haired kid reminding Danny of him and Tucker from two years ago before they got jaded from ghost attacks.

Kinda made him wonder what could have been…

“Nope we're going, so move,” Tom ordered taking up the place at the back of the line while Jeff took the place at the front.

Danny groaned. “Wonder if there will be any ghosts in there?” He wonders to tucker as they were all forced into a line for their ‘spooky’ hike.

“Maybe it’ll be one of Vlad’s abominations?” Tucker suggested.

“Honestly I wouldn't be surprised.” Danny sighed back with a frown. At least if it was a real ghost his ghost sense would alert him to the danger before they got too close.

They entered the treeline and started heading up a hill and towards the supposed site where the hikers had fallen and gotten trapped by a rock or something falling on them. Their legs were broken and crushed and stuck in place, they apparently died unable to get food or drink and unable to free themselves alone, and not able to scream loud enough for help. They still haunt this area… apparently.

Danny had to admit while the tragedy would be able to spawn a ghost but he also doubted there was one sentient around here if there was a ghost at all. He couldn’t sense very high ectoplasmic concentrations around here. Any ghosts that weren’t purely animalistic in nature wouldn’t last long out here without a boost of ecto-energy.

Which means if there was an animal ghost, that boost of energy could come from attacking humans or eating things as animals tend to do... Again attacking humans but instead of feasting on their emotions, well it’s just getting mauled.

More than anything it meant that if there was a malevolent ghost out there that they would have to be on their toes, and Tucker would have to run interference to make sure no one sees Phantom this far from Amity Park.

Well, at least none of the Amity park residents see Phantom this far from Amity.

As they walked up towards the crescent of the hill they noticed it was significantly colder, though it wasn’t a ghostly cold, at least those from Amity knew it wasn’t. The other kids though?

“Oh, man… Why is it so chilly?!” “You think that means the ghosts are close?” “No way man stop saying stupid stuff.”

“It’s probably the river,” Tucker said simply, pointing to the side where there was a winding stream just below the side of the hill. “The way the winds are blowing it’s cooling this area more.”

Danny smirked at his friend's explanation. It was a neat trick sure, but it wasn’t enough to scare the Amity kids. Frowning but not discouraged, the councillors led their troupe up and around towards a cave that was making a moaning noise every time the wind blew.

“They say this is where the hikers were killed, just at the mouth of this tunnel looking for shelter,” Tom says smirking, enjoying the shudders some of the younger teens were giving at the howls of the tunnel. “If you listen you can hear them screaming still.”

“The wind in the tunnel opening?” Kwan asked helpfully.

“No, it’s the howls of the damned.” Jeff encouraged

“And if you look close enough you can sometimes make out the glowing soul of their spirits,” Tom added ignoring the Amity jock.

“Oh neat! I didn’t know they had Panellus stipticus in this area!” The soccer jock said overly happily.

“Dude, when did you become a nerd.” Dash huffed out teasingly.

“I’m studying Bio to get into Uni for Mycology. Dude mushrooms are totally awesome.” Came the smug reply.

“You would know Kevin” Dash snapped back

“Moving on!” Tom called out before shooing the kids away. This was not going according to plan at all… Why are these Amity kids so prepared for this?! Well, hopefully, the next bit will get them…

As they round the cave towards a small rocky outcropping the councillors do their best to draw the younger teen’s attention towards the crevasse where there was supposedly still a shoe from one of the deceased hikers. “If y’all look hard enough you’ll find it I’m sure~,” Jeff told them.

Frowning the kids shined flashlights down into the ditch looking about before one kid called out, “I found a shoe!”

As they did several things happen at once. There was a roaring sound of pain before someone came bolting out of the woods with yellow and green glowing spots all over them. Tucker raised a brow but side-eyed Danny who shrugged.

The Amity kids watched in more confusion than fear as the ‘ghost’ ran out of the woods towards them and took a swipe at one of the youngest teens in their group. “So that’s your ghost? Lame.” Dash huffed out arms crossed. “It’s not even the right colours.” he added with a wave of his hand ignoring the screeching of some of the other kids who were clearly more startled by the ‘ghost’ than he was.

“So, can we go now?” Danny asked with a yawn as the ghost, or really one of the councillors with broken glow stick goo all over them came close to him with an ‘oooooOOOOoooo’

“You guys really didn’t even flinch?!” the ‘ghost complained.

“Oh hey, there you go now THAT looks more convincing.” Someone says just as Danny’s breath fogged a bit before his face.

The halfa looked to where his ghost sense had pointed him to see a big giant green drooling monster beast glaring at the humans towering over the majority of even the tallest in the group. “Yeah, that looks more like a ghost! How’d you do that?” The soccer player said, (Danny really needed to learn his name)

Tom and Jeff and the ‘ghost’ that was harassing Danny all yelp and take a few steps back while the non-Amity kids scrabble and scatter back the way they came.

“No he’s real,” Danny offers with a sigh of exasperation. “Here Cujo down!”

The beast barked and wagged its tail before shrinking down and giving a yip of delight before rushing over to Danny, legs never fully touching the ground as he flew over to the boy.

“Heel! Sit!” Danny calls out stopping the dog in its tracks before the beast could cover him in glowing green slobber.

Cujo did just that sitting practically on Danny’s feet and wiggling his tail so fast it made his butt jiggle back and forth in the effort. The teen sighed and scooped the wiggling beast up into his arms with little effort, mostly due to the fact that ghost dogs only weigh half of what their flesh and bone counterparts would.

“Figures Fent-freak would have a freaky ghost dog” Dash taunted crossing his arms though when Cujo growled, Dash’s smug smile fell.  

“Tha-That’s?” Jeff stammered out, pointing a shaking finger at the wiggling green bean in Danny’s hands.

“A typical Amity park ghost yeah,” Danny replied with a grin.  “So it's cool if we call this hike a night I’m kinda hoping to get some sleep, that’s kinda why I wanted to come here to catch up on that more than anything…” Danny admitted the last part a little quieter as he put Cujo back down.

The councillor nodded dumbly, moving back away from the teen and the ghost dog, looking as though he wanted nothing more than to bolt when Danny picked up a stick and threw it for Cujo to fetch.

“Awe man I think I stepped in Fen-turd’s dog’s invisible crap!” Dash complained as they all started moving back, Cujo yipping as he came back with the stick giving a snort at Dash before loyally following alongside Danny and phasing through trees as they walked.

Seeing this, Tom decided that it would be best if he hurried back to the cabins to get them ready for the new campers. Yes, That’s exactly what he’s doing…

“Dude you can’t seriously be thinking of keeping Cujo around here he’ll destroy the camp,” Tucker muttered to Danny watching the little pup chase its tail as he followed them.

“Eh, It’s not really fair to keep him in the thermos for the week. Besides I’m sure I can use this guy to get you that extra helping of bacon you wanted.” Danny bribed his friend.

Tucker’s eyes light up and he grins brightly “Cujo here boy! Come see the T-man!”

Danny rolled his eyes, but so long as that was the only ghost they encountered out here, he might actually have a decent week of sleep ahead of him.

He can only hope.

Besides, using Cujo as a threat to Dash sounded like as good a plan as any, and if the councillors were too scared to go near the ghost dog that they would let him sleep in, all the better for him.

Danny smirked, perhaps camp wouldn’t be so bad after all~

-.-.-.-.-.-

Complete Total:  2363

[catsauceeartofficial]

Things I Would’ve Loved To See In A Danny Phantom Reboot

I’m a big enthusiast when it comes to storytelling, and Danny Phantom literally has so much potential. And I’m very upset Butch was too coward to go darker. So here are my thoughts on if DP had a reboot:

Deeper ghost lore and kinds of ghost, A lot of fanfiction I have come across have so many versions of lore that all totally make sense and are supper cool (e.g. Ghost core types, states of ghosts, the idea of ghosts being ghosts, ghosts’ obsession). Ghosts that wreak havoc upon Amity Park because they are so filled with rage and need to be contained and put back in the ghost zone. Ghosts that, despite having moved on from their past, stay because they want to see the next Cowboys vs Aliens 3 movie happen and only cause trouble for the fun of it (exhibit A, Johnny). 

Spookier ghosts, just give us way meaner ghosts! Ghosts that have eyeballs hanging out! You can’t just give us funky ghosts and funky ghosts only. From the physically gore-ish to the psychologically horrifying ghosts (Like Penelope Spectra!), I would have loved to see these kind of ghosts and episodes.

Different cultural interpretations of ghosts. Of course, done respectfully, with deep research and understanding of said culture. So many cultures touch on the spiritual aspect of ghosts and spirits. It makes for incredible stories and ideas.

Danny Phantom being Trans, need I say more? (Butch Hartman can suck a dick)

Danny Phantom with much more unique, mysterious powers, he’s a Halfa, of course he’s a mystery, a phantom! While other ghosts have powers solely linked to an obsession or something they relate to closely, Danny doesn’t have that. He’s a mystery. I want seasons of Danny exploring and discovering powers he doesn’t have the means of understanding or controlling because it’s just that bizarre and one of a kind. Maybe he can tap into the memories of ghosts when they are extremely emotional, something about having the human connection?

Hilarious quirks about being a half ghost, like Danny showing up in photos looking like a cryptic entity, being super silent, scaring the shit out of people. Fun ghost stuff.

The bullies need to have their character development moments!! They had so much potential for character growth and exploration. Topics like toxic masculinity, abuse and bullying could’ve been explored through them! GIVE THEM THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT THEY DESERVED

The friendship between Tucker, Sam and Danny being tested in the form of their own self reflection. People have also written good fanfiction about it, and the one I love the most is when Sam is being questioned about being friends with Tucker and Danny because of her favoritism towards unconventional-ism to spite her parents (Of course, Sam loves her friends with a passion). Or maybe when Danny has had a tough day (i.e getting found out by his parents and just showing up to Tucker’s home) and the two have no idea what to do, but in the end, they just needed to be there for Danny and likewise. Friendships like relationships are complicated. I would love to see these things being explored.

Danny’s ghost powers becoming a little more unpredictable in the later season. In relation to the earlier comment about ghosts obsession, ghosts can also become powerful with fickle emotion, especially aggression. Danny has always tiptoed the line of human and ghost, but when he gets too angry in a particular episode, he goes absolutely feral, intense ghost form and stuff. It’s a new thing he has to struggle with and it even makes him fear becoming ghost.

More Danny and Jazz moments, because siblings need so much screen time to annoy each other. But also, I would love moments where Jazz has Danny’s back and sometimes, covers up Danny’s disappearances in front of their parents with humorous excuses.

Danny’s secret is revealed to his parents in an unfavorable situation, and his parents struggle to accept and understand Danny’s revelation. Jack and Maddie have spent their whole lives thinking ghosts are bad, and the only way to solve a ghost problem is to shoot at it. With Danny, its a whole ‘nother stack of cards to deal with. From the fact that their son is no longer human, throwing a wrench into everything they know about ghosts, to holy shit, we actually killed our son. Maddie especially finds it harder to accept, believing that they need to help Danny get rid of his ghostly half, even if it meant destroying his core. But Danny doesn’t need help, he’s long accepted that he’s Halfa. Slowly, the Jack and Maddie learn to accept it, and a comically unsure about their jobs as ghost hunters.

Hey that movie about Planet something, never existed. Saving a planet from an asteroid is suppose to be the peak finale of Danny’s reveal to Amity Park as a half human half ghost?? Get outta here

Instead, let’s have a season finale of an epic ghost showdown that even Danny himself, will struggle terribly to defeat. He has to face off against a ghost that even with the help of his friends and his ghost powers, seems almost impossible. Even the ghosts of Amity Park are threatened if they ever get in their way of world domination, and they don’t hesitate to crush the cores of the ghosts. Its a culmination of the past relationships he has made with the ghosts, friends, family, allies, and even nemesis, working together to stop an ultimate evil. Because when he first faces off the ghost, he’s alone, and in their final showdown, he has people who will stick with him thick and thin. With everything he has learnt, struggled to control, and mastered his ghost powers, there is an epic showdown.

Trust me, I have so many ideas for the season finale showdown in my head. The ghost having the power to just grab and destroy a core, or control it. They have their ghost armada and they enjoy playing mind games, torment any poor soul who dares get in her way. Danny Phantom attempts to stop her in the ghost zone before she can enter the human world, but he gets absolutely destroyed, almost having his core taken from it and you can bet that shit will hurt like hell. He gets trapped in the ghost zone, too weak to make it back to the human world and alone, until Vlad of all ghosts, manages to fish him out of the ghost zone and Danny finds that the humans and ghosts have taken refuge from the big Ghost boss. 

As much as I dislike Butch Hartman and his homophobic cowardly ass, make no mistake that he pioneered a generation of cartoon and art. He made a style uniquely distinct that even artists reference when it comes to character design. But his stories have so much potential that we can’t shy away from. We need more mature themes for kids to learn, more openly LGBTQ+ friendly episodes and of course, more diverse characters and cast.

Feel free to add more! There’s just so many ideas for a DP reboot, and they really are amazing

[flutteringdreams-matw]

Out of Time (8)

First/Last

Read on AO3

Word Count: 4108

Previously: "Dan Phantom grew up to be one of the worst ghosts in the history of the Ghost Zone; he destroyed the world, and the ghost zone, multiple times over. In meeting you, he inadvertently created the one ghost powerful enough to stop him. He would have continued to raze the world if I hadn't saved your family, leaving no one left to stop him." Clockwork's smile fell, and dread started to pool in Danny's stomach again. "This paradox is the best shot of defeating him once and for all."

Danny nodded, feeling the crushing weight of his powers and responsibility. "Three outcomes?" he asked, bringing it back to Clockwork's original conversation.

"Three outcomes," Clockwork confirmed, frowning.

"One favourable," Danny finished, closing his eyes. Silence descended on the pair for a few minutes, Clockwork watching Danny's body stiffen as he slowly realized what that meant. "Clockwork," he said eventually in a small voice, looking up at the Time Master. "I'm not… I don't… survive this…. do I?"

Now: Danny meets with Valerie, Dani and Vlad.

Link to the next chapter will be in the replies once posted. As always - please let me know what you think!

---

"Okay, spill," Tucker said, glancing at Sam from the corner of his eye as he worked at the console. The girl in question looked at Tucker with wide eyes. "You've been mopey and distant ever since you came down here. Something must have happened." Sam sent him a weak glare of annoyance. Tucker chuckled quietly as he continued to type in code at the computer. He paused, looking at the screen in thought as he pulled up the shield schematics.

"Any luck?" Sam asked, breaking her silence.

Tucker sighed. "Kind of – I think we have the energy to create a shield of this size, but separating Danny's ecto-signature from his jerky self is difficult. I thought if we just used the sig from the booo-merang, it would be enough, but using that will either keep Danny out of the town or allow Dan to manipulate his way into it." He put his hands under his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I mean, it would help if we could get Plasmius' ecto-signature and try and figure out ratios, but something tells me that's an even worse idea at the moment. The only good thing about all this is we know that they have different ecto-signatures. We still have no idea why or how… but the fact they do means we can figure this out." Tucker swivelled his chair to face his best friend beside him. "Now, what's eating you? I could use the break and your presence is dampening my mood."

Sam sent the boy another glare, but sighed as she realized he wasn't going to let this go. "I was upstairs looking at some photos, ran into Danny…" she said, blushing slightly at the memory.

Tucker sat straighter in seat, eyes gleaming with excitement as Sam shifted uncomfortably. "Wait – you told him!?" Tucker exclaimed, gathering a few strange looks from the ghosts in the basement.

"No!" Sam yelped back, her face completely pink from embarrassment. "And would you keep it down?!"

Tucker held up his hands as an apology and gestured for her to continue. "So what happened?"

Sam sighed. "We were talking, next thing I knew he was bringing up Nocturn and…" she trailed off, suddenly crestfallen. "I stopped him before he said anything he was going to regret."

Tucker blinked, mouth opening and closing from the cluelessness of both of his friends. "Let me get this straight… Danny, our Danny, the most clueless idiot on the planet when it comes to his own feelings, was about to tell you how he felt about you and you stopped him?!"

"Of course I did!" she shot back. "He has no idea what he's feeling right now with all of that time energy and the visions going through his head. Didn't you hear what Mrs. Fenton said? He's reliving parts of a timeline where we all died, Tucker. I don't want –"

"To get your hopes up," Tucker finished, pointing a finger at the girl. "Sam, all three of us know how you and Danny feel about each other. I've known longer than probably both of you even realized it. You've been doing this dance for almost two years. If he's finally coming to his senses, regardless of whatever is happening, I think you should be jumping for joy. Or whatever Goths do when they're happy."

Sam sat silent for second before sighing. "I asked him why now," she admitted quietly. "He said he wasn't afraid anymore." Tucker made some excited gestures in victory as she continued. "If Clockwork hadn't interrupted, I'm fairly certain he would have said something."

Tucker watched as Sam looked down, lost in thought. "Sam," he said kindly. "Do you want things to change?" Violet eyes met teal ones as Tucker pressed on. "Danny just told you he's not afraid anymore… so what are you afraid of?"

"Of him not coming back," she said softly, looking away. Tucker's eyes widened as the words tumbled out of her mouth. "He's choosing this moment, the one where he's about to face off a big enemy, to tell me. Why would he do that if he didn't think he'd make it?"

Tucker sighed, annoyed. "You idiot." Sam's head whirled back to her best friend at the insult. Tucker's face was serious, but his eyes sparkled with amusement. "The both of you. Sam – he knows what's at stake. Danny's not trying telling you to fulfill some stupid self-sacrifice ritual. He's trying to tell you to make sure he comes back. Sure he has a bazillion reasons but there's only one person that gives him the hope to fight through anything. He wants someone to fight for."

Sam stared at Tucker as his words sunk in. Tucker sighed as he turned his chair back to the screen in front of him. "Besides, if anything goes down, we're going out there to save his ass. The both of us - not just you lovebird. He's my best friend, I'm not going to let him lose to some jerkface. So stop being a Negative Nancy, go upstairs and tell our clueless Ghost Boy you like him."

Sam smiled, feeling more confident than she felt in a long time. "Thanks," she said quietly. Tucker smiled, not looking away from the screen and waved her off. She stood up, walked a few steps towards the staircase before stopping. She turned back to Tucker with an eyebrow raised. "Did you just say 'Negative Nancy?' What are you… 80?"

Tucker grimaced. "Shut up," he said, embarrassed. "I said what I said."

Sam chuckled a bit, turning, and came face to face with Clockwork. "Whoa!" she said, taking a few steps back. Tucker looked up at the pair, turning to face the mysterious time ghost with a small frown. "Clockwork! Is Danny still upstairs?"

Clockwork's red eyes looked over the human carefully, his face emotionless as ever as he floated toward the ground. "No," he said simply. Suddenly, he sighed. "I'm being summoned," he said, a hint of disdain and promptly vanished.

Sam and Tucker looked at each other in confusion as the world continued around them.

:-=-:

Green light illuminated Danny's face as he flew through Amity Park. He sighed, looking down toward the town; it had taken a lot for his parents to convince Vlad that the town was in danger and had agreed to up security. Now to add some more he thought as he continued to fly into the outskirts of Amity and into Elmerton, just under the shield.

There are only three possible outcomes here – only one of them is favourable.

Danny frowned as Clockwork's words came across his mind once again. It wasn't like he expected anything different; he knew that this battle would be difficult. He was literally his own worst enemy – powers, strategies everything. Well, almost everything. He shivered slightly as he remembered the coldness of Dan's voice threatening him. If there were three outcomes there had to be one of Dan winning. The jerk could take him out; in fact, he almost did a couple times already. There was also a possibility of him defeating Dan – though with the shield around the town and time energy attacking his core, that was looking pretty slim. Resignation filled the teen as he mulled over the last possible option before he shook his head; right now he had to focus.

Green eyes scanned the apartments below as he attempted to find the right building. Valerie's apartment should be around here somewhere. Danny landed onto the roof of the nearest building, crossing his arms in thought as he tried to remember her address. Without warning, blue sparks of energy coursed through him. Surprised, Danny let out a sharp groan of pain as he fell onto his knees, curling into himself. "Really?" he asked, annoyed as more time energy moved through his body.

The last time he had seen Valerie was the funeral. Why did she get to be so free? Why was it his burden? The hunter would pay; If his family was gone, maybe hers should follow.

Danny gasped as the vision left him, feeling ill as he tried to let the vision pass. He breathed hard, putting one hand out to steady himself as he felt more electricity come to the surface. "Not now," he said, pushing back against it. His core responded, flaring slightly as the energy started to dissipate. A few minutes later and Danny was left panting on the rooftop. "Still… not loving this," he grunted, finally regaining his bearings.

A whine of an ecto-gun from his right made him stiffen on instinct before he sighed heavily. His body relaxed slightly, feeling slightly more in control as he still knelt on the rooftop. "Hello Valerie," he said softly, not looking in her direction.

"Phantom," Valerie replied curtly, as she stopped the charging weapon. She floated in full ghost hunting gear, the red and black sled bobbing up and down in the wind. She put the gun in her holster, flying down to the rooftop and retracted her sled. The ghost in front of her still held his position on the ground, making her frown in confusion. "We've been looking for you."

Danny's head whipped up, looking at her through tired, confused eyes. "We?" he asked.

Valerie crossed her arms and cocked her hip. "Yo kid!" she yelled. "I found him!"

A grey and black blur flew upward toward them, landing next to Valerie gracefully. "Danny!" Danielle yelled, running over to her cousin quickly. "You're okay!" She threw her arms around the stunned boy in a large hug.

"Dani!" Danny exclaimed, standing slowly as the girl released him from the hug. Danny frowned worriedly as he looked between Danielle and Valerie. "What are you doing here? Are you okay?"

Valerie rolled her eyes, annoyed. "She's fine, I didn't hurt her," Valerie told him evenly. Dani frowned as she looked between the hunter and her cousin. "She got stuck here when you put up this stupid shield. She's staying at my place to avoid Plasmius."

Danny's eyes widened slightly, still frowning as he looked Danielle over. "How long have you been here?"

Danielle shrugged. "Almost a week," she said nonchalantly. Before Danny could protest, she pressed on. "Are you okay? We saw your fight on the T.V. yesterday. Who was that ghost? Why did you put the shield up? Who were the ghosts that helped you?"

Danny sighed tiredly, crossing his arms. He looked over at Valerie, who was surprisingly content to observe them. "I've been better," he told them cryptically. Valerie shifted and Danny saw her eyes move up and down, assessing him for any lies he may tell. "Had another run in with him last night too." Danny put a hand on Danielle's shoulder. "I'm glad you're here – honestly we could use the extra fire power." The younger girl beamed at him.

"Who's attacking the town?" Valerie asked bluntly, causing both ghosts to turn back to her.

Danny's face darkened. "A really long story," he replied. He caught Valerie's eye as the two teens stared at each other. Danny broke their gaze first, staring up at the shield. "He'll attack again tomorrow and I don't think this shield will last much longer."

Both Valerie and Danielle looked at him worriedly. "Danny, what are you talking about?" Danielle asked, confused. "The shield's been up for days! There's no way it'll break that easy."

Danny ignored her, looking directly at Valerie. "I need your help," he admitted. Valerie looked at him questioningly. "This ghost is something you have never faced before and will not hesitate to take out the town. If my shield goes, for whatever reason, I need you to protect it."

"I always protect the town," Valerie replied with a huff, looking away. Danielle looked at her quizzically, remaining silent as she looked between Danny and her new friend.

Danny sighed. "Valerie," he started, getting her attention again. "Regardless of what you think I am, Dan is much, much worse."

Valerie laughed. "Dan?" she asked. "Really? There are more of you named Danny Phantom?"

"Hey!" Danielle exclaimed indignantly. "I didn't ask for this name! Besides, I like it!"

Danny brought a gloved hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to lose his temper. "We don't have time for this," he told her urgently. His hand hands flew outward, moving quickly as he tried to press on. "If my shield goes down tomorrow, take whatever weapons you have, and defend Amity Park. You need to destroy him; take him down with whatever means necessary."

Danielle gasped as Valerie looked at him with wide eyes. Phantom never destroyed a ghost in a fight – Valerie had been stopped by him multiple times for trying to do just that. The fact that he was here, almost begging her to do just that was a testament of how desperate he must be. They were silent for a long time, Danny's words weighing heavily. The ghost boy looked away from the two teens in front of him, while all three tried to figure out what to say next. It was Valerie who broke the silence.

"Where will you be?"

Danny laughed darkly at the question. "It doesn't really matter where I'll be," he said bitterly. "If that shield goes down, it means I failed."

Both girls gasped at his tone. "Danny, no!" Danielle cried, grabbing him around the middle. Danny looked at her, surprised. "Let me go with you!"

Danny smiled gently at his cousin and knelt beside her. "It'll be okay," he said reassuringly, hugging her back. "I need you here – Amity Park needs one Phantom that can kick ghost butt." He heard her laugh into his shoulder. Pulling away, he put his hands on her shoulders. "The Fentons are working on a shield to keep Dan out; you should be safe because they have your exact ecto-signature from the last time you were here. If my shield goes down, their shield will go up. I'm not alone in this." He looked at Valerie once more before looking to his young counterpart. "Stick with Valerie. She'll protect you."

Danny stood again, patting Danielle on the shoulder affectionately. Green met green as Danny locked eyes with Valerie once again, the latter finally realizing the gravity of the situation. "Hey Dani," she called. "Can you give us a minute?" Danielle glanced at both older teens apprehensively, Danny giving her a small nod of approval before she agreed.

Valerie waited until she felt Dani was far enough away before she addressed the boy in front of her. "You were right," she said directly. Danny's eyebrows rose in confusion. "About Vlad – I went back after I released you that night… he really is Plasmius huh?"

Danny observed Valerie carefully before letting out a long breath. He didn't look her in the eye. "Does he know?"

Valerie shook her head. "If he does, he hasn't come after me," she told him. Danny's shoulders relaxed slightly but said nothing. "You've worked with Plasmius before, haven't you?" Danny nodded. "Are you going to him next?"

Danny's arm found the back of his neck awkwardly. "Unfortunately," he said. "Vlad might be an insane mastermind, but he is mayor of the town and powerful to boot. The Fentons have already reached out to create a security plan – I'm headed there to ask him to defend the town too. I doubt he would give up a chance to be the 'Saviour of Amity Park.'"

Valerie took off her helmet, her long hair dropping to her waist as she regarded the ghost in front of her. Neither teen spoke for a few moments, just staring at each other from across the rooftop. "I've seen that look in your eye before," she said softly. Danny looked at her, confused. "During the Ghost King attack - you took my mask off in front of my Dad. Back then, I thought you wanted me out of the way to trick the town. I went looking for you afterwards, to kick your ghost butt back to the Ghost Zone… but you were gone for almost a week afterwards." The two teens locked eyes again. "You're going to face this…Dan, aren't you? Just like the Ghost King." Valerie shifted her tone into an accusation. "You're not here for another team up, you're here in case that ghost wastes you."

They stood in silence for a few minutes after that, before Danny wordlessly nodded. The dark skinned girl was taken aback by his honesty, how much older and tired he looked in that moment. He was injured, almost begging for her help. Snow white hair moved softly in the wind, making his green eyes spark with determination through whatever he must be going through. He was the reason she became a ghost hunter and vowed to destroy... willing to risk his afterlife for a town of humans. She didn't understand –couldn't understand - but regarded him with determined eyes anyway.

"Okay Phantom," she assured. "I'll protect Amity Park and Dani from anyone who wants to hurt them. If that shield goes down, I'll go after this Dan with whatever I got."

Danny's entire body relaxed as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. Valerie observed him carefully as he masked any uncertainty he must feel in her presence. "Be ready," he told her before teleporting away.

Valerie stood tall as she scanned the shield around the town. The mantle was passed – all she had to do was wait. It wasn't until Danielle came back to the rooftop and asked her what's wrong that she realised she was crying.

:-=-:

Clockwork sighed heavily as he watched many Observants fly off in different directions. He moved slowly, hovering feebly as he made his way inside of the Observant Tribunal Headquarters. As he entered, many more Observants flew about, often yelling about the 'end of the world.'

"Clockwork! There you are!"

The Time Master sighed again as an Observant came into view. The large eyeball seemed to be more accentuated by the deep black collar of his robe. Clockwork kept his staff on the ground, holding himself in place as the Observant came toward him.

"Is there any news?" the Observant asked desperately.

"As I have told you the previous seven times you've summoned me here – no," Clockwork replied firmly. "There has been no change to the time stream, nor the events that are to come."

"Are you sure Clockwork?"

Clockwork scoffed irritably. "If I could see past a paradox, believe me, I would have told you by now." He gestured to his appearance. "Or at least make myself younger – these trips are becoming tiresome."

The Obersvant's eye narrowed. "Your powers are fading – just like ours." When Clockwork didn't respond, the Observant continued. "So this is truly the end of time? The boy will lose and Dan Phantom will rule the world once more?"

Red eyes rolled in exasperation. "How are you so sure he'll lose?" Clockwork asked, ignoring the question. "He's beaten him before."

"Because of your interference!" the Observant snapped. "Even you can't stop a paradox Clockwork! Once these two face off, your powers will be locked until it is all over."

Clockwork turned his back toward the Observant. "I know my role during a paradox," Clockwork said dangerously. "The next twenty four hours will determine the pathways to the future. Will the Observants face the future head on or run away like the cowards they are?" Clockwork looked up at the Observants flying frantically in every direction. "How many times have you all asked me to intervene to save the timeline? How many times I've refused? You have no right to lecture me when I only interfered because the Observants asked." Clockwork pressed a button on his staff, engulfing him in a blue light. "I will be there when Time recovers, as I have been for centuries – regardless of what happens in this paradox."

The Observant scoffed at Clockwork's tone. "Your fondness of the boy has clouded your judgement," he accused.

Clockwork's red eyes narrowed as he looked back toward the Observant. "My fondness has done nothing," he replied coldly. "Danny Phantom will face his future self once more and once it is all over, I will return to my duty as the Master of Time, regardless of the outcome. You, however, will continue to be blinded by your fear and hatred." Clockwork looked up at the frantic ghosts one last time in disdain before he disappeared.

:-=-:

Dan's eyes were closed as he felt more shadows appear in front of Amity Park. His army was growing, made more powerful by his undeniable rage he felt for his younger self. How has the boy scraped by so easily, Dan thought angrily, eyes opening as he flew upward. He could see the shadows at the shield, ready to attack once he gave the signal.

The boy still had twelve hours left before they attacked. He observed the shield calculatingly, trying to find a weak point to destroy any pitiful resistance that the humans of Amity Park would attempt.

Danny will rue the day he locked me in that infernal thermos.

:-=-:

As he touched down in the Mayor's office, Danny grabbed hold of the closest solid object he could find and doubled over, gasping. His vision swam slightly, vaguely seeing a mass of ghosts attacking the shield as he tried to desperately focus on the task at hand. He felt the sparks of electricity run through his body again, grimacing at the now common event.

"It's about time, Daniel," the annoyed voice of Vlad Masters brought him into focus. Vlad turned at his desk, glaring at the young ghost. "Now, care to tell me what the hell is going on?" Danny said nothing, not quite catching his breath. He fell onto his knees, transforming back into Danny Fenton in the process. Vlad's face shifted from annoyed to concerned quickly, standing up slowly as he regarded the boy in front of him. Danny blinked rapidly, shaking his head as if he was trying to focus, panting from exertion. Vlad could sense the exhaustion the boy felt from where he stood, and sighed heavily. The man walked over to the wall and turning his hand intangible, he stuck it through, pressing a button. In an instant, the wall parted, revealing a steel blue safe. Vlad opened it and pulled out a small black pouch with Phantom's logo on it.

Finally making his way over to the teen, Vlad knelt in front of Danny. "Here," he said gently, helping the boy into the armchair that he was currently gripping for dear life. Once seated, Danny deflated slightly, finally starting to calm down.

"Vlad?" Danny asked, confused.

Vlad frowned as he watched Danny closely; the young half-ghost's breathing finally became normal, but was still quite weary. "Daniel," Vlad said softly. "You've had the shield up for four days now. It's exhausting your core; if you keep this up –"

"I know," Danny said, cutting him off. "But I need to keep them out."

Vlad's frown deepened at the boy's insistence. "What's going on?" Vlad pressed again.

Danny sighed heavily. "Apart from an evil version of me from the future trying to kill everyone I care about and the end of time?"

Vlad blinked, nonplussed, before regaining his thoughts. "You mean to tell me that the evil ghost that's been causing havoc both here and the ghost zone is you? Goody two-shoes Danny Phantom?" he asked incredulously.

"It's a long story," Danny replied ominously, looking away. "A lot had happened."

"Really? Did someone steal your thermos?" Vlad asked sarcastically.

Danny's head whipped forward and glared at the man in annoyance. "More like an explosion killed my friends and family, got sent to live with my cheesehead arch-enemy, asked you to rip out my ghost half who went crazy and merged with your ghost half and destroyed the world," he told the older man darkly.

Vlad blinked as the boy's words sank in, leaving a small silence in its wake. "And you know this how exactly?"

"Clockwork."

"The Master of Time?" Vlad asked incredulously. "You do get around, don't you."

Danny ignored him. "I stopped him once," he continued. "In an alternate timeline. But he exists out of the time stream-"

"Creating a paradox?" Vlad surmised. Danny nodded. "How far in the future are we talking here?"

"10 years."

"Meaning he also had my powers for 30 years," Vlad mused. He looked at his rival young again, noting how rigid the boy was in front of him. "How did you beat him last time?"

Danny looked away slightly, avoiding the question. "Vlad…" the younger half ghost gripped the arms of the chair harshly. "If the shield goes down… I need you to protect the town."

"Daniel?" Vlad was worried at the sudden shift in tone. Steely blue eyes watched as Danny shifted tiredly, grimacing at some unseen force wracked his small frame.

"Promise me," Danny said, looking at the older hybrid desperately. "He'll go after my parents, Jazz, Sam, Tucker. If I'm not strong enough-"

"Not strong enough? Daniel what on earth-" Vlad stopped, wide eyed as he realized what this was. "Daniel, no - I don't care what infernal complex you may have, but facing that ghost the way you are now? That's suicide."

"It's the only way," Danny said softly, shaking his head. Vlad scoffed at his tone. "Vlad, he basically has my ecto-signature. There can't be two of us in one time stream. The only way time can move forward again is if I face him."

"Alone?" Vlad sneered. "Contrary to what you believe little badger, the world does not rest on your shoulders."

"Vlad," Danny started, letting out a large breath. "He has an army – look at me. You and I both know I have no chance alone. Mom and Dad have a plan, so all I need to figure out is to get past to face him - just to make the time lines restart. When that happens, hopefully we'll figure out how to destroy him once and for all."

Vlad raised an eyebrow, questioningly. "We? Are you asking for my help?"

"Dammit Plasmius!" Danny exclaimed, stunning the billionaire at the outburst. Vlad took a few steps back at the sudden volume. "You think I want this? You think I like knowing there's an evil version of me waiting to destroy my friends and family and me? You think I wanted to come here today to beg you to save my family?" Danny's eyes lit up green in frustration. "Fine! I'm begging you, please: When my shield falls; protect my family and friends okay? Happy?! Do what you can to destroy him. You hear me? Whatever it takes."

They sat in stunned silence for a few moments, Danny's chest heaving from his outburst as he started to calm down.

Vlad recovered first, swallowing slightly.

"You said when," he said quietly. Danny looked away from the man. "Danny, you said when your shield falls. Not if." Danny stayed quiet, confirming Vlad's suspicions. The white haired man sighed, resigned to the boy's decision. "You have my word."

Danny deflated, nodding in acceptance. A heavy silence enveloped the room, neither half-ghost speaking. Vlad moved tentatively toward Danny, kneeling next to the boy once more. "Here," Vlad told him. He offered the small pouch he took from the safe to the teen. "I had these created after our run in with the Ghost King."

"What are they?"

"I call them Ecto-Enhancers," Vlad explained. "Think of them like an energy drink." He unzipped them and showed the teen three syringes, all glowing neon green. "They'll give your powers a bit of an extra boost when you're exhausted or hurt. It'll give your body a chance to recover if you're using a lot of energy. Only use them for extreme circumstances; use one every few hours." Danny nodded, taking the pouch. Vlad stood up, turning his back to the teen. Silence descended on the pair once more for a few minutes before Vlad broke it. "Daniel…" he started, before sighing, shaking his head. "Are you sure about this? Facing him?"

"Not like I have a choice," Danny mumbled. Vlad heard the teen grunt behind him. He turned to see to boy standing. "I should get going. Thanks for the Ecto-Enhancers."

"Danny wait," Vlad said, stopping the younger halfa in his tracks. They stared at each other for a second, neither speaking. There was so much Vlad wanted to say to the boy; they were so similar and yet so different. Eventually, Vlad broke the silence with a sigh. "Be careful."

A look of confusion washed across Danny's face briefly before it changed into a sad, guarded mask. Vlad saw it now; Danny's reserved acceptance of his fate, the understanding that he'll probably never make it out of whatever disaster awaits him. A small nod was all Vlad got as Danny transformed and flew out of the office.

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom season 2, ep 12-16 thoughts! these episodes, in comparison to the first 10 or so, felt way more laid back and low-stakes, which I appreciate sometimes. I didn't appreciate how lazy jack's halfa design was in masters of time, it made me so annoyed I redesigned it. 👎🏻 u_u

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-'picking a fight with me and my upgraded form!' 'you upgraded to a mullet?' DANNNNY. YOU CANT SAY THAT TO TECHNUS. YOUVE HAD A MULLET TWICE NOW ('fun' split danny, and evil future danny BOTH HAD THEM). I HAVE THE RECEIPTS.

-danny seeing technus hurting valerie and yelling I AM GOING TO BREAK YOU IN HALF. SAMEEEE <3

-axion labs is now a part of vladco. FUCK YOU VLAD. hes not even really IN this episode, but just thought I'd throw out a nice fuck you anyway.

-'capable of blasting a single person into space in (2) minutes!' tucker. that would kill someone. i mean yeah they might get to space, but theres NO WAY THEY WOULDNT CATCH FIRE, OR THEIR ORGANS WOULDNT LIQUIFY BECAUSE OF THE STRAIN. THEY'D PROBABLY PASS OUT BEFORE THEN, BUT. ...no, okay, I get why vlad bought this company. this is RIGHT up his alley.

-danny KNOWS VAL DIDNT DO THIS, THAT SOMEONE STOLE THE SUIT. AND SPENDING ALL NIGHT CHATTING WITH HER. <3 and val is a 9TH DEGREE BLACKBELT?? danny's mom is, too!! omg and she hunts ghosts, his parents would love her. and her fav fruit is kumquat bc its a funny word. im so with danny val is amazing. I love her and I Do Not Want To Hear It From Sam.

-I knew danny wanted to be an astronaut, but the bowling tidbit is like. yes give me more useless info abt these characters, I love tiny details that make them feel more human, and im glad hes got hobbies aside from ghost stuff, we dont really see a lot of that!!! (I mean, we knew 'fun' danny from when he split himself in half liked bowling, so obv it makes sense he LIKES it, but hes very GOOD at it. so proud of him, bowling king) val calling him neil armstrong and them teasing each other. LOVE THAT.

-technus you are my favorite grandpa for setting this up. SAM WHY ARE YOU BEING SO CREEPY BE HAPPY FOR YOUR FRIEND!!! STOP SPYING ON THEM!!! who actually cares if technus did 'set them up' together, theyre having fun and enjoy each others company!!! 'you think the universe wants you two to be together?' 'i dunno, but maybe /I/ do!' EXACTLY DANNY!!! SOO TRUE.

-and valerie being happy sam said she wants to try and be happy for them and make room at the lunch table for them. and hugging sam over it. VAL NEEDS MORE FRIENDS.

-VAL GOING AFTER TECHNUS IN HER SUIT WITH (1) MILK, AND (1) TREE BRANCH AND KEYS!!!. I LOVE YOUUUU BEST GIRL. her new suit kicks ass

-dannys like 'HEY IM AN ASTRONAUT :D' AW. ...HES IN SPACE... the fact he's actually intending to give her the ring. with SAMS NAME ON IT?? IM CRINGING DANNY NO. YOU CANT DO THAT...thank god he didnt. thank god valerie cut it off and said they can just stay friends for now. tbh, they both have a lot on their plates!! they obv both still like each other...it can be a future thing!! when she knows about phantom! youre 14 theres no need to rush. I just want her to have friends and be happy :(

-...danny struggles to do (1) pull up. SAME. but all the ghost fighting in phantom form REALLY doesnt carry over at ALL? that sucks

-sam being as fit as she is, is not just a goth. shes a goth jock.

-honey I Shrank Our Kid, One of his Enemies, and his Bully: the episode

-dash's crush on phantom is So Obvious. fitness buddies :) watching them interact always makes me laugh. also, phantom, with PANTS. 'how many costume changes you gonna go through, what is this, vegas??' DASSH DJKSFHASKDF

-MADDIE GOING AFTER THE MOUSE WITH A BROOM, WHAT THE FUCK. AAAH. JUST BUY SOME KIND OF MOUSE TRAP.

-danny likes lime and vinegar chips. which sound very good.

-'our boy finally has the physical prowess of a 60 year old president!' ...poor danny LMAO

-'what's wrong with beauty pageants' oh tucker you sweet naïve child. what ISNT wrong with them. who approved this for a high school?? (I mean, yes. unfortunately child pageants exist, but...) also danny and tucker once again treating the pretty girls like objects. I need to meet the grown man who wrote this, I just want to talk...

-prince aragon's dragon form reminds me of maleficent (color scheme wise) which is always a bonus. considering the episode is called beauty marked, I feel like the sleeping beauty references are deliberate

-sam with the fake fangs. once again her accessories never miss. hate the 'not like other girls, girls who get sucked into this kind of thing are all shallow and all want to be carbon copies' bs tho.

-sam trying to be the Worst Bride, being rude as shit. DORA IS GOING TO GET KILLED. DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE SHE SAID THE PRINCE WILL HAVE HER HEAD IF YOU ARENT THE IDEAL BRIDE. YOU /KNOW/ DANNY WILL COME SAVE YOU. JUST ACT CHILL UNTIL THEN. even if you were doing fine to get him to take off the crown, consider maybe not letting his poor sister get punished also?? sure, she could also take off the crown and has dragon powers, but did you know that for sure?? dora didnt even really realize it until you guys talked!! (or at least, she was scared to stand up to him. you had no guarantee she would...) but. good for dora. ANOTHER friendly ghost to add to the List :)

-tucker is so under appreciated in his time. if he was doing a tech-based campaign today he'd have a better shot. people in 2004 had NO IDEA how much tech would be a part of our day-to-day lives...altho. tbh if you're going to be running for student council president, maybe you should..focus on things to actually improve the school? since he's going for a tech angle, he could say like, he would be running fundraisers for the schools computers to be upgraded, etc? we've already SEEN he can be good at money-making entrepreneur type stuff!!

-oh my god wait. this episode is JUST YUGIOH?????! A REBORN PHAROH USING A TEENAGER AS A VESSEL?? YESSSSSS

-tucker using his new minion to feed him grapes and carry him. AND LOCUSTS ONTO THE BULLIES. I love how when he's possessed, he gains winged eyeliner.

-this episode is giving me big 'plankton makes everyone in bikini bottom his slaves and build monuments of him from the spongebob movie' vibes. and the pharaoh has a traitor who works for him? VERY big yugioh vibes. aknadin confirmed

-I like that danny is still completely exhausted after using ghostly wail. (still patiently waiting on him to get duplication)

-LOVE the fenton's 80s outfits. I get hes 14 and embarrassed by everything they do because theyre his parents, but. cmon, this is one objectively cool thing theyve done. love 80s fashion.

-...was vlad just standing on that streetlight waiting for danny to come out? how'd he know they'd be coming out the back? how long has he been up there???

-oh, wait, his ecto-acne has flareups? that SUCKS. danny was...well I dont want to say he was LUCKY HE HALF-DIED, but he was lucky his was pretty instant (I'm assuming that had to do with the power/scale of the portals being different?) I remember in the ep we met him, vlad made a point of saying he was stuck in a hospital for a long time, so. that really actually sucks and I feel bad. not that it excuses anything he's done...but like. it does suck.

-vlad being so sure danny wouldnt help him he made it somehow contagious to his friends to make sure he'd get help? danny is a nice boy, he wouldve helped if it was anyone else. the only reason he wouldn't have is because of the shit vlad did to him, on purpose. vlad 100% dug his own grave by being the biggest asshole, so it is very hard to feel bad for him.

-clockwork is back!!! and making danny learn lessons The Hard Way. Uhhh, okay. I kind of get Danny’s logic, that time traveling this far back would prevent vlad from becoming a halfa also, ergo no arch nemesis or ectoacne to worry about. But the fact that was basically the first solution Danny came up with to solve this problem is actually so funny. It’s so extreme

-APPRICIATION FOR THESE 80S LESBIAN BG CHARACTERS.

-vlad telling maddie in the lab (in the 80s) he has something he's wanted to tell her 'for a long time'...how long have they known each other? I assumed they met in college, since jack always calls vlad his college buddy/roommate, so jack and vlad for sure met in college, but did vlad know maddie longer? thats surprising if so. Tho we don’t know what year of college they’re in so they could mean they met as freshmen and a few years have past…speaking of maddie shes crushing the 80s look.

-vlad blames jack, but. maybe dont stick your face 2 inches from the portal??! THIS FEELS LIKE LAB SAFETY BASICS. IF SOMETHING HAS POTENTIAL TO BE DANGEROUS, DONT GET NEAR IT. WITH YOUR FACE UNPROTECTED IN ANY WAY. (altho jack didnt really give a Big Warning besides screaming BONZAI. so. also that, but cmon.) also, they need gloves, goggles, and to pull all of their hair back tbh. but fuck lab safety, I guess!

-cryyyyinnng at how lazy they were with jack's ghost form design, its just plasmius' design on jack!!! you couldve given him his own design!!

-there. I did that in about 10 minutes and its somehow less lazy than what made it into the show. embarrassing! better yet, I think the episode would've been better if maddie would've gotten the ectoacne. or maybe its just me, wanting to see her design! anyway. I'm sure people have already done redesigns of them both as halfas. I have to go look after I finish this watch through. Also mildly frustrated jacks resentment and bitterness is basically also a copy paste of vlads backstory. They’re different characters, I really don’t think jack would stew in bitterness and jealousy the same way vlad would!! I also don’t think he’d give up after one time of trying to hunt ghosts and getting laughed at. Our canon timeline says different…I dunno, I get it was for laughs, but I’m annoyed because the POTENTIAL this plot has…

-did vlad really wear a stupid cheese hat to his wedding. ok actually that kinda rules. and the cheese door knocker. the dairy-only buffet table. vlad still got rich, just on being the New Dairy King. (Assuming that means he owns a lot of dairy businesses?) ok! this actually is great. hope maddie isn't lactose intolerant!

-'no matter how hard I tried, I could never get rid of my ghost half, the half I knew Maddie could never accept' ohh, ouch, what a horrible thing to say to her HALF GHOST SON. 'YOUR MOM WILL NEVER ACCEPT YOU' BASICALLY.

-maddie strapping danny to the table with a lazer pointed at him in a secret lab she keeps from vlad that she makes a point of saying is sound proof so he can scream all he wants...CHRIST. DANNYS POOR PYSCHE.

-also, not to feel bad for alternate vlad (because, he did lie to maddie saying jack blames her and never wants to see her again...) but. being married to a woman 20+ years and she immediately goes back to jack? if she didnt love vlad and feels like she had to hide shit from him, and says she wasted her best years with him, WHY MARRY HIM. it feels like leading him on!!! cannot believe im feeling bad for vlad, but. this alternate timeline vlad is significantly Less Horrible than Our Vlad. did she not think she'd get funding for her ghost stuff? (which, fair assumption since they're considered 'ghost fanatics/nuts in canon...but...) why did she think jack or vlad would be her ONLY OPTIONS? be like your sister. be single. Actually, this au could’ve been really interesting if after the accident, vlad lied to her and said jack never wanted to see her again, but she stays single. Imagine how much that would bug vlad… like, in her mind, it was never a competition it was jack or no one type situation…

-danny being like 'leave him ALONE' this jack is a HOMEWRECKER, DANNY. let them go to court and settle this at the least. ...or just throw vlad into the portal. (100% human, defenseless vlad) CHRIST, MADDIE THATS BRUTAL. THATS MURDER.

-danny seeing his mom immediately accepting him and his dad being half ghosts in this universe, if I was him this would be a great sign that his universe's maddie would also.

-*maddie voice* "clockwork will help!" *2 seconds later, with clockwork* "I will Not Help." TOUGH LOVE KING. YES LET DANNY SEE THE SODA HIMSELF AND DEVOLP BETTER OBSERVATION SKILLS.

-when clockwork ""reset time to the way it was"" just before danny "meddled"" ...did he really erase a whole alternate timeline? ...damn. because maddie and danny both called it an alternate timeline by name, it splitting when the college incident went different, so it wouldnt have really mattered if he reset it, right. like because danny's timeline is on a different stream? why didnt clockwork just. show danny a replay and not Reset That Timeline. wh...I wonder how many people that Erased From Existence. Anyway! once again stating clockwork is casually terrifying!

[goldenchan-fx2thepeacock]

Don’t Go Running Off Into Danger, Even If I Do pt 4

Aight bitches, this’ll be the first chapter when the title starts to make sense. Dipper and Mabel are complete idiots and manage to get lost in the Ghost Zone trying to find Danny, who knows the place. Also, Tucker and Sam. I’m contemplating making one of them nonbinary, prolly Tucker. Yup. And Sam may or may not have she/they pronouns. I think that’s all. Enjoy my chaos.

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Chapter 4

Danny did not sleep. Skulker, Ember, Johnny and Kitty decided it would be a great idea to wreck havoc. Ghosts do need order. They said that they only did it because they have no leader. Danny suspected Clockwork was behind it, but he was too tired to string together much of a coherent thought. So, goodbye sleep schedule! He’d sleep in Lancer’s class. What was one more detention? 

He greeted Sam and Tucker at the doors. The Pines Twins also showed up.  “Danny, did you get a new girlfriend while we were away?” Sam joked.  “Shutup. I’m not in the mood,” Danny grumbled. “Oh, it’s cranky pants!” Tucker laughed. They seemed to think his fucked up sleep schedule was a joke. “Don’t blame me, blame Skulker and Johnny,” “Those two usually have Kitty and Ember with them,” Sam said. She had a point. “Yeah, yeah. You know the gyst. Anyways, this is Mason and Mabel,” He gestured to the twins. “They accidentally caught me transforming. Also, we have to make a trip to the Ghost Zone,” “Call me Dipper!”  “Once again, I’m not using your stupid nickname,” “Come on Danny, don’t be a dick,” Sam laughed.  “Bold of you to assume I can be one,” Danny snorted. Tucker slung his arms over the other two.  “Only you get to make trans jokes. And maybe not in earshot of Dash,” They pointed at the quarterback. “Eh. I’m the heir to the Ghost Throne. What can he do?” “You’re the what now?” Sam and Tucker yelled in unison. “Clockwork told me yesterday. Also, they’re immune to Time Outs,” “How is that possible?” Sam was confused. Danny didn’t blame them. “We had a run in with Bill Cipher,” Mabel said confidently. “Sounds boring. Why would the guy with powers be called Bill?” “You’re just salty because you got called InvisoBill,” Tucker comforted him. “I have half a mind to reveal myself to the entire school,” “Bill was extremely dangerous,” “Danger dorito!” Mabel chimed in. “You are not helping me take this seriously. Tucker, get off,” Danny shoved Tucker off. They were elbowing him in the ribs.  “Oh come on, you know you like it. Mwah!” Tucker kissed Danny’s cheek. Danny became a tomato.  “Hey! Not in front of the entire school!” He was completely gone. He’d been dating Tucker for about a month now.  “You guys are dating?” Mabel looked heartbroken. What the fuck? “Uhh, yeah. Tucker’s into guys and I’m bi. But we’d prefer not to announce it to the entire school,” “You know what you should announce to the entire school? That you’re Danny Phantom. Only if you take the crown though,” Sam said. “I’m doing it. Jazz said it would be a good idea,” “We’ll need cover then. Dipper, Mabel, you get to guard the portal!” Sam said way too enthusiastically. “They’re new! They know nothing about it!” Danny protested. “Well, if it’s anything like Great Uncle Ford’s portal, we can handle it,” Mabel said.  “That shut down the moment he walked out Mabel,” “My parents’ Ghost Portal has been going strong for two years!” Danny said. “And caused all of the madness in Amity. Never mind half killing you,” Sam said. “That was entirely your fault,” Danny replied. “I concede to that point,” Sam accepted her fate.  “Good. Now, are you guys sure you can handle this?” Danny was skeptical. “Yup!” Mason and Mabel said. 

Sleeping in Lancer’s class was a one way ticket to detention. But what did that matter? At lunch, he ran up to the stage in the caf and transformed in front of the entire school.  “FENTON IS PHANTOM?” “HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!?” “I’VE BEEN CRUSHING ON NERD BOY?” Ah, Paulina.  “Anywho, now that you’re all done panicking, yeah, it’s true. Tell whoever the fuck you want. I’m tired of lies and secrets. Also, I’m trans!” He flew off. He had to deal with a ghost. Val caught up with him before long.  “Are you a complete idiot?!” “Yup. But hey, who gives a fuck. Wes might get a kick out of it,” “You’re going to get yourself killed!” “Been there done that Val,” “Why?!” “Turns out I’m the heir to the Ghost Throne. Who the fuck is gonna mess with the all powerful Ghost King?” “You aren’t yet!” “I will be by the time school is over. Clockwork told me he’d help me out if I needed it,” The GAV came up under him.  “DANIEL FENTON! GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!” His mom yelled. “Nah, I’m good. You know, I’m surprised you didn’t notice your own son DIED,” “Danny, don’t be like that,”  “Don’t be like what Dad? Don’t be dead? Don’t protect Amity from ghosts? Oh! I’ll do you one better, don’t panic when you scream that you’ll rip me apart molecule by molecule? Now if you don’t mind, I didn’t sleep last night and the Box Ghost is back,” He rushed into the fight before they could see the tears.  “Danny!” He heard his mother howl in anguish.  “Hey bub. Fought you yesterday. I’m seriously not in the mood for a fight, so get in the fucking thermos!” He held out the thermos.  “BEWARE!” “SHUT UP!” He yelled and became invisible.  “Danny, we know you’re there,” Mom said.  “SO?! You know, I kinda hoped you would notice, but only Wes was smart enough to notice. I spent two years hiding. Now, I’ve got a Crown of Fire I need to take,” He sped off. There wasn’t gonna be more hiding.  “Wait, like Pariah Dark? Danny, that will corrupt your mind!” “Like being a half ghost has done? Oh, and just FYI, Vlad is half ghost too. Remember Plasmius? Vlad. Have fun!” He sped off for real this time.  “Vladdie’s a ghost?” Dad looked baffled. Danny sped past the school and grabbed the group.  “Was that really the best way to go about that?” Sam said. “You’re going to be all over the news!” Tucker screamed. “Meh. I was already. At least I’m not public enemy one anymore!” He dropped the Twins and sped into the portal. Sam and Tucker had put on the Fenton Phones already.  “Wes is having a field day,” Sam panted.  “Figured he would. Let’s go in,” They walked into Pariah’s Keep.“CLOCKWORK!” “Ah, I see you made the desicion to come,”  “Yup. Does there need to be a ceremony or something? Cause I just announced my identity to the entire school,” “Like a fucking dumbass,” Tucker muttered. “Bold of you to assume I could be anything but,” “Sorry Tuck, Danny’s right,”  “Yay! I can be right for once! Take that Jazz!” “About your dumbassery,” Tucker groaned. “Semantics. Let’s do this,” “You just need to place the crown atop your head, then place the ring on your hand. Right hand, ring finger,” “Does it have to be just like that?” “Bad things happen if you do it any other way,”  “Okay,” He sighed and did as told. He shivered as the crown became ice and a black billowing cape came off his shoulders. “Weird,” “Dude, you’re the Ghost King!” Tucker screamed.  “Ahh! Advanced hearing! Where’d that come from?” Danny covered his ears.  “When you become king, all of your existing abilities become amplified and you gain new ones,” “Oh yay. More powers to master,”  “Okay, this is great and all, but what does he do now?” Sam said.  “My ears,” Danny cried.  “Sorry,” She whispered.  “Your eyesight will also be advanced. You won’t notice it much here, but in the human world, it will become obvious,” “And painful to adjust to,” Danny muttered.  “Brrr. Danny, it’s freezing,” Tucker shivered.  “If I was bad at controlling that before, you think I can now?”  “Sorry dude. Let’s head back,” “I need to tell the people my first rule real quick,” “What’s that?” “Don’t wreak havoc in the human world. They can still go, but don’t do anything that endangers the humans,” “Huh. Good plan,” Sam shivered. “You sure you can’t control that?” “I’m doing what I normally do to fix it times 10!” “So it could be colder?” Tucker shivered. “Go home and get jackets,” Danny sighed. He pointed and a portal opened. “The fuck?!”  “Congrats dude, you can make portals!” Tucker clapped. “At least we won’t have to use the Fenton one anymore,” Sam shivered into her shirt. Danny concentrated and made portals directly into their houses. He grinned. 

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Dipper and Mabel heard footsteps coming into the basement and had no place to hide, so they jumped into the portal. The place was terrifying.  “Mabel, this is freaky,” Dipper shivered. It was oddly cold.  “You think Grunkle Ford felt this way when he travelled through dimensions?” “Not that he told me,” They both shivered. A strange vehicle came rushing past.  “Was it always this cold in here Mads?” Jack Fenton said.  “Not that I remember,” She shivered. The temperature fluctuated randomly.  “He’s in here somewhere!” Jack exclaimed and sped off.  “That’s Danny’s parents! We gotta find him!” They followed the strange machine. 

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Sam and Tucker took five minutes to get jackets. He’d managed to grab Jazz in the mean time.  “Hoodie. I’m not wearing the stupid jumpsuit with this cape,”  “Since when do you have a fashion sense?” Sam laughed. “Since never. I just like the hoodie more,” He pulled the hood up. The temperature went up. “Hey! That’s neat,” It went down again. “Heh,” “Don’t get excited until you figure this out better,” Tucker groaned.  “Deal,” He laughed nervously. “Okay, how do I get them all to come here? I’m not the greatest at this,” “Just yell announcement. That usually makes them teleport directly here,” Clockwork said. Danny obliged. His voice was really loud.  “I guess that’s another one to add to the list,” He chuckled. All the ghosts in the Zone teleported to his feet. They grumbled. “Uh, hi guys. I’m not very good at this royalty thing, so I’m only gonna really give you one new rule. I’ll get rid of all the stupid rules later. Just, uh, don’t wreak havoc in the human world. Don’t endanger humans. Like, you can still go, but avoid being dangerous,”  “King Phantom, are you sure that’s the best plan? You are going to enforce rules that protect us from the humans too, aren’t you?” Dora’s voice rang through. “Oh shit. The whole guys in white incident a while back. Yeah, I’ll come up with something,” He rubbed his temples. “Also, can I get some help learning how to make it less freezing all the time?” “Of course Great One. The people of the Far Frozen would love to help,” Frostbite said. “Thanks Frostbite?” He grinned. At least until he saw the Spectre Speeder pull up. Fuck.  “Look at all these ghosts! I’ve gotta catch a few!” His dad yelled. The ghosts looked terrified.  “Hey! You aren’t going to do that! HOW DARE YOU?!” Danny sped down to the Speeder. “Danny, I can’t believe you aren’t trying to capture these ghosts for science!” Jack said. The world became very, very cold.  “These are sentient people that you just decided to barge in on! You’re always like this! And it’s my job to protect them just as much as I protected you! GET OUT OF THE ZONE NOW!” He screamed.  “Danny, calm down. We just want to help you,” “No you don’t. I won’t let you endanger ghosts for ‘science’. It’s cruel and wrong. Would you do that to a human?” “Of course not. But ghosts aren’t sentient. Their emotions aren’t real. Just displays put on to convince you that they have them,”  “HOW. DARE. YOU! You have no right to barge in here and threaten these people. Some of them may have harmed you, but the way you act like they’re nothing, like they aren’t standing here right now, is horrible. This is Frostbite,” He grabbed Frostbite. “ He leads a stable society in the Far Frozen. He’s never left the Ghost Zone and never once harmed me. You know what the first thing he did when he met me? He gave me a hug. And you would torture him just for being a ghost. You think you know everything, but you know NOTHING! LEAVE NOW!” “Danny, is this really how you feel?” Maddie looked sad.  “Get. Out. I’m destroying the portal on your way out. If I EVER find you back here, I will not hesitate to cause harm,” “The crown’s already begun to corrupt you!” Jack protested.  “No, my views haven’t changed. You hurt ghosts. You hurt me! I’m trying my hardest all the time all you care about is your beliefs,”  “They’re true!” “No, most of them aren’t. You don’t even bother talking to a ghost. Ghost have feelings, feel pain, have a society. Maybe it’s different than what you’re used to, but that doesn’t invalidate it,” Danny sighed again. “Just leave,” He turned around and flew back up to the chunk of land.  “Danny...” “DIDN’T HEAR ME?! LEAVE!” He whipped around and yelled. 

Sam, Tucker and Jazz followed him into the castle. He stared at Pariah’s sarcophagus.  “Danny, I know that was difficult, but you were right to do it,” Jazz put her hands on his shoulders. He must’ve been freezing.  “They really don’t listen. I have no clue what I’m doing, but I do know that the ghosts have a right to my protection,” He heard screaming. “You know what’s weird? If I close my eyes tight enough, I can see all over the Zone. And I think the Twins got lost in here,” “Let’s go get them,” 

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The Fentons came rushing past again. They didn’t seem to have Danny though.  “I can’t believe he’s protecting ghosts!” Maddie sobbed. “He’s gonna destroy our life’s work!” “I know,” All of a sudden, Danny appeared before them.  “Hey guys. Get lost?” He smiled. The crown floating above his head serving as a daunting reminder.  “Yeah, we were trying to find you to warn you about your parents,” “I dealt with them,” The temperature fluctuated again. “Sorry, my hands are cold. But you need to get home,” He opened a portal and they flew threw it. He teleported away. 

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He went down to the basement and destroyed the portal. His parents looked mortified.  “Finally. I won’t be constantly reminded how I died,” He sighed. Maddie and Jack said nothing. “Humph,” He teleported away and made a portal back to the Zone.

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Aight. That do be a chapter bitches. I’ll make a tag for it now. Just the acrynom, but meh.

[ladylynse]

So, I've seen you reblogging some random My Hero Academia fanart lately, and I was wondering how much of it you know? Why? Because I'm curious if you have any idea about a possible crossover with Danny Phantom. (it's surprising how well DP can be crossover-ed with basically EVERYTHING and still make sense...)

I have seen the show. I...think?...I’m caught up on the show. I have not read a word of the manga. 

For a crossover with DP, I like the idea of Danny falling into their world rather than the other way around; it’s just easier, even if you toss in a time travel/dimension kind of quirk thing gone wrong and rely on Clockwork to get them home again. Me, I’d do this one of two ways, depending on whether or not Danny ever has a chance of going home again. Or, perhaps more accurately, how slim that chance is, because he’d still have a chance.

Option 1: Danny’s stuck in their world. Forever. Or near enough. Because he was trapped in a thermos for years, longer than anyone would expect him to be alive, and his time doesn’t exist, it’s past, it’s gone, because it hasn’t just been a day, it hasn’t just been a month, not even a year, and every human he ever knew and loved is gone. He couldn’t even find his family if he tried. It’s been too long, the world’s changed, and there are these things called quirks now, and he just.... He holds onto the faint hope that Clockwork can get him back home, that Clockwork will agree to let him go back home, that this can just be a few extra days or weeks or whatever lived in his life but otherwise it’s fine and like he was never anywhere else, but the stable portals he knew are gone, he doesn’t know how to find and can’t create the natural ones, and ghosts like Wulf and Cujo wouldn’t even know he was back. 

He can’t remember very well how he got into this mess. Maybe Vlad caught him and buried him on the other side of the world; maybe Vlad tossed him into the Ghost Zone, never really expecting Danny to get out. Everything is muddled, confused, coming back in pieces, and not like a moment frozen in time where he gets out and immediately remembers everything. It’s not like it normally is. But maybe it’s because he wasn’t released like he normally is, since he didn’t get out until the thermos degraded to the point that there was a hole he could slip through. Maybe it’s just because he was in there too long. He...he doesn’t know.

Option 2: AKA my old standby for DP crossovers to worlds that aren’t enough like his own, a door or portal in the Ghost Zone. Maybe Danny meant to go through, whether he was exploring or running from something with five sets of teeth that was faster than it had any right to be, or maybe it popped up in front of him and he was through before he could change course. He doesn’t have more hope of getting home in this scenario, exactly, but he’d be more hopeful, because this obviously isn’t the same world, it can’t be, so he can get back and get home and it’ll all be fine. 

In both cases, you can ignore the language barrier--write it off as a ghostly ability Danny didn’t realize he had, though that logic fails a bit when Tucker understands Wulf the best, or maybe Danny hearing it for years while in the thermos and just sort of absorbing it--through osmosis, if you like. But if you acknowledge it. If you accept the fact that Danny suddenly finds himself in a world where he can’t speak the language, can’t read or understand or even be sure he recognizes the language--because what is that, Chinese, Japanese, Korean? He has no idea. It might not even be any of those if it’s been how many years since, what with evolution of language. He just knows he doesn’t know the alphabet at all--then you can easily force other characters to interact with him once he gets in trouble (as will happen; it’s Danny) and maybe bring in a convenient universal translator hero support prototype, initially designed to help heroes better communicate with victims who don’t speak the same tongue(s) with plans for further development outside of heroing if it’s successful. Such a device would also give Danny a convenient excuse for when he says something that receives blank stares, as he can pretend it glitched.

Now. Danny will be trying to get home. That might be his entire thing--that and potentially acceptance that he can’t go home, depending on how things pan out. If he came through a portal/doorway, then he might be keeping an ear to the ground to find out why if there’s some reason why he’s here, but if he was just stuck in a thermos, he’s going to assume he got out because of pure dumb luck/erosion and focus most of his energy on finding a way into the Ghost Zone, which may or may not come back to bite him later. Especially if he didn’t just get out by chance or is here for a reason and doesn’t know enough to understand what that reason is.

The obvious thing to consider is how quickly Danny realizes these guys only have one ‘quirk’, even if they can use it in multiple ways. If he gets any inkling at all from them that having more than one quirk is odd and potentially suspicious, you can bet he’d try to hide it. He’s used to that. He’s had to hide from so many people. He can hide from these people, too. Or at least try his best. Me and my penchant for misunderstandings would obviously choose to have him hide his multiple abilities and not just, y’know, tell or show them straight away.

I mean.

Say they saw Phantom before they ever saw Fenton. Flying. Phasing. Shooting ectoblasts. That’s not normal.

And if Danny saw something happen and jumped in to help without entirely understanding the situation? He might try to take down both heroes and bad guys because geez, those people almost got crushed when that building fell, and another bystander nearly got flambéed, and he knows he’s destructive when he’s trying to save people, but still. Giant Lady is a pretty good distraction if you need a distraction, and she could get away from the good guys fast enough, and that guy just walked through a brick wall, so there’s a good chance he’s overshadowed even if Danny’s too far away for his ghost sense to go off, and--

Point is, they (some) might mistakenly peg Phantom as a villain, at least until the next fight where they have time to talk. Danny, who very definitely Not Going Ghost until he figures out what the heck is going on, is found in the aftermath and assumed to be a victim--a tourist, probably, since they can’t understand him and he can’t understand them--and probably picks an ability to call a ‘quirk’ even if pretending to be quirkless would be smarter because he’s not convinced he might not do something almost on instinct, and then where would that get him?

Danny does not overhear the speculation that perhaps this Phantom is after him. He does not overhear the concern of the UA students who witnessed the fight. He does not know how many strings were pulled to get him released from the hospital--where he Very Obviously does Not want to be, but he can write off weird abnormalities as, say, part of his Ice Quirk powers; after all, sneaking away probably won’t do him any favours, even if he has to get out of there before they realize exactly how fast he’s healing--or how difficult it was to get him released into the protective custody of the good people at UA (or, more specifically, those who rallied for him to get the opportunity). Because he’s wary and spooked and confused but still ready to fight, and they can see that, and they want to help him. They’re not even sure how much training he’s had with his quirk, since even after extensive questioning and a subsequent exhaustive search, they can’t find any record of a hero named Frostbite.

They can’t even find a record of Daniel Fenton. Not someone with an Ice Quirk who matches his description, anyway.

Which makes some people wary, even when others are eagerly including him, because what if he’s a plant, a spy, otherwise not on their side even if he’s not working with any known villains, and--

Hogwash. Poppycock. Pick your old-fashioned word for it, but that’s pretty much how your thinking is going, someone else would say. Because the kid’s got a good heart, and anyone can see that. He wants to help people. He does, even when it hurts him. He’s got the heart of a hero.

With what they’ve seen of him, it’s enough to quiet the mutterings.

Until the day Danny forgets himself and displays another Quirk in a way that can’t be explained, especially in light of all the other incidents that were.

(related - Dani)