#i also at long last have danny phantom a glitch in time! i can finally experience new physical content woooo

[speedyowl152]

I asked for an animal plushie for Christmas based off of a familiar in a fanfiction I adore. I did not get it. However! I got an Appa plush and he's sooo soft. Also. I got a blue/peach moonstone kwagatama and some rope and bits to turn it into a necklace and I asked for just the stone like 6 months ago for my birthday for my félix cosplay but! With the blue colour and black leather like rope it would also double as the magical focus that blorbo from the fanfiction wears at all times. By complete coincidence. Love when u obtain an item that can fit with multiple characters, never taking this off.

Hope everyone else is having a happy holidays too!

[bet-on-me-13]

Cass joins Team Phantom

So, we all know how Cass escaped her terrible dad at the age of 8 right? And how she is adopted by Batman at the age of 16-17 right? Well, what happened in between that time?

Cass has been on the run for Years now. She is 13, and at this point she has been on the run for nearly half of her entire life. So it's really no wonder that when she finally got to a relatively safe place after weeks of little food, little rest, and constant attacks by her pursuers, she accidentally fell asleep.

She woke up in a nice comfy bed, in a room that looked like an Astronomy Geek's dream. Once the people who found her noticed she was awake, they explained what had happened.

Their son, a boy named Danny, had found her passed out in their Shed the previous day while cleaning up. He had quickly brought her in and offered his Room so she could rest comfortably.

Cass doesn't really trust them, and tries to run more than once, but her weeks of constant exhaustion have finally caught up with her and she is stuck staying with them until she is fit to leave.

And unfortunately for her, the Fentons are very Endearing.

By the time she is healthy enough to leave, she genuinely wants to stay. So they unofficially adopt her, letting her stay in their house and sharing a room with Jazz (Danny did kind of need his room back, and Jazz was a good sister like that)

She ends up going to the same school as Danny and ends up befriending both of his friends, Tucker and Sam.

The day of the Accident, Cass is right there alongside Tucker and Sam as the Portal kills Danny.

After the Accident, she is a great help in teaching him some calming routines and meditation techniques so he can get a handle on his Powers much easier.

They also find out that standing in front of a Portal as it rips reality apart is just as bad as being inside of it. They all end up extremely liminal and get Powers. Tucker has Technomancy, Sam has Plant Powers, and Cass gets Shadow Manipulation (or whatever you think fits her)

She is having the best time of her life, but unfortunately it can't last forever.

About 2 years after the Accident, the GIW get a lucky shot on Danny. They were using one of the inventions the Fenton's had made before the Reveal (which was a good one) one that made Ghost Powers weaker for easier capture. While it didn't hurt Danny too much, it did weaken him enough that he flickered into his Human Form for just long enough for the GIW Agents to see him.

Now with Danny's identity exposed, the GIW could track down the Identities of the Humans who had been helping him all this time, aka, Tucker, Sam, and Cass.

During a Raid on Fenton Works, they all got seperated somehow.

Danny got injured protecting the Team, and had to be rushed to the Ghost Zone by Jazz, a stray shot from the GIW blowing up the Portal behind them. They ended up in the Far Frozen, to get Danny fixed up.

Tucker was arrested and sent to prison for a little while before a glitch in his cells Security System allowed him an opening to use his Powers to escape.

Sam was chased out of the Town by the GIW and ended up in the Forest nearby. She had to use her Powers to run away, disappearing too deep into the Woods for the GIW to follow.

Cass managed to sneak out, and ended up trying to save Tucker on his way to prison. She failed though, and the GIW chased her all the way to New Jersey before loosing her trail.

This is how she ended up in Gotham, and got adopted by Bruce Wayne. But she would never forget her first Family, and would try for years to see if she could find where they ended up.

Potential Part 2? Maybe, I have some ideas...

What do you think?

[andydona-chan]

Glitching App

Just a little something I write cause I have some spare time, my first Danny Phantom fic in a long time, brong from a silly conversation, you can also find it at AO3 , nothing else, nothing more than getting used to this again.

                                                          *****

Danny Fenton, while not one without things to do, had needs, regular, basic needs like the need to eat, sleep, change his clothes every once in a while, and if he wanted to fulfill them he needed money, and as much as it was rewarding to keep the town safe and finally be recognized for doing it, but he wasn’t being paid for it.

But there were not many jobs out there that allowed him the time to get out and fight a ghost whenever the need aroused and even less that could give him time off to make his homework if he needed to do it, much less anyone who would be understanding of him sporting some injuries after fighting ghosts without freaking out. So as it was, Danny had to find something that could fit all of that, without the need to start a small business by himself, although his parents were way more eager to get him into offering their inventions when most of the population didn’t really have the need to use it that much, he usually managed to take care of it and they were also very enthusiastic when it came to ghost hunting, so with their help and usually the Red Huntress too it wasn’t as if people were in danger. On top of that, those who were interested and wanted to make sure there was a higher level of security had already reached out to the Fentons in order to get what they needed.

That’s how Danny had found himself, new motor bike and all using an infamous app to deliver food. He could be able to make some delivered without missing too much time and also stop it in order to take care of other important things. Most of the time he took the short routes, made sure he followed the gps and had for the past couple of weeks managed to get a good sum out of this new job. So far he had managed to do all of this as Danny Fenton, though there had been times where he had almost used his powers.

It could have been good if his luck had remained the one of a regular person, he could handle that, he could even spend some time dealing with traffic if it meant he could get the money to pay for his books, the service of his phone and wifi, and the occasional snack he needed now that he was focusing on school. His parents were helping him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have the urge to feel independent now that he was in college. But speaking about his luck again, it wasn’t his fault that Technus had showed up just a couple of minutes after picking up his last delivery; he had personally taken care of him, parking his bike in a deserted alleyway, it was good that nothing had been lost or damaged during the couple of minutes it took, but the technology ghost had really made a show and caused damage to part of the main streets and traffic had real heavy in the minute it took him to go back and start the motor again.

He looked at the gps, there were some streets he could detour to arrive but it will make it longer than expected and the customer had already sent him a couple of worried texts, he answered mentioning the issue with Technus, but it seemed the person wasn’t going to go easy on him just because, he seemed to think that since he was on a motorcycle he could just skip cars or even skip some red lights and drive next to the traffic on the sidewalk to complete the delivery… If only things were that easy.

So after a bit of a text match he said he will try to deliver as soon as possible and started making his way through some streets trying to avoid the traffic. He was doing fine for a couple of streets but of course the issue that Technus had caused was just going to catch up at some point, so after a couple of turns he found the traffic was being affected on each way. Frustrated and really wanting to ignore the last message to hurry up from the customer he had to deliver the food to, he made a decision and transformed into Phantom. Once like that and wanting to avoid leaving his motor behind he turned everything intangible and flew, just like Johny 13 but without the actual roar of the motor, from here just pointing in the right direction he managed to skip a good part of the traffic, then he became human and tangible again on a side street and sent a notification of ‘I’m here’ to the poor desperate and hungry customer that had been waiting for him. (Yes, he was upset now, sue him!)

He approached the house, phone in hand and saw the person coming out of the front door looking at the phone with confusion. Danny confirmed the name and completed the delivery making sure to mark it fulfilled on his phone too, he knew the customer could still be upset so, not waiting for a thanks or anything more, he turned to leave, but was stopped by comment of the person behind him.

“That was a heck of a shortcut you took, for a moment I got worried my app was glitching or my internet lagging, the small bike… uh, the pointer seemed to float over the last couple… well, no many blocks”

Danny opened his mouth to answer but he couldn’t just straight admit what he had done to arrive there and tried to look for another way to explain it. “I… maybe it was my phone, some of the ecto… the static left behind by that ghost… may have messed with the signal… ?” he didn’t sound so sure and thanked everything that it had been Technus and not any other ghost or his explanation would end up being not that believable, but maybe the person didn’t know much about it either cause he waived a hand in a ‘whatever’ motion and pocketed his phone. “Have a nice day” was the last thing Danny said before turning around again, making a silent promise to never do something similar again.

[sovio-studio]

To understand a ghost kid

[Maddie decides to interrogate Phantom in a final effort to discover his ghost obsession. The conversation ends up taking a more emotional turn than she expected]

~~~

"You won't be getting out anytime soon. That's a new anti ghost-power design."

Danny struggled in the luminous green net for a few seconds more before ultimately resigning with a sigh.

"I thought things were going well! You haven't tried to capture me for months."

His mother seemed surprised at his remark. She probably hadn't thought he'd paid much attention to their truce, thanks to her prejudices about ghosts not having emotions all together. However, she composed herself quickly as usual.

"A deal is a deal, I don't plan to harm you this time."

"This time?"

She ignored him. "I need to ask you some questions?"

"Then just ask me! No need for the stupid net." He retorted, pushing against the net once more.

"The net is a precaution. I can't have you running away before you can answer."

"Geez what kinda question is this?"

"It's about your origins. How you died to be more precise"

"Oh… oh! My er-" He settled uncomfortably onto the ground in a cross legged position, despite the net. This would be interesting. "Why do you need to know about that anyway?"

"We've recently been trying to make connections between ghosts, their obsessions, and their deaths. Majority we have solid hypotheses, and a couple we've even confirmed." Now that, Danny was curious about. They actually managed to track down who some of his enemies were before death?

"Go on." She seemed surprised but excited by his will to listen.

"Ghosts come from a range of eras which comes across in their mannerisms, and their passion at time of death is their obsession, which becomes more warped overtime. Whether it be passion as in love or their career, or as in revenge or desperate wants."

Maddie paused her pacing and glanced over to see if he was still listening. He was. She continued, now stood resolutely still.

"You are one of the very few anomalies we found"

"How so?"

He could guess.

"You have no indicators of how you died. Not only do you use modern speech and even slang, you wear a modern hazmat suit, that looks strikingly like ours at that."

That's cause it is.

"So I have two questions. When did you die, and what's your obsession?"

Danny wasn't sure if she was pausing for an answer or not. It was likely her way of testing his cooperativeness, but he had a question of his own.

"I appreciate your curiosity but this doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd go through the trouble of trapping me for. Why do you really want to know this?"

Maddie walked closer to the net, her calm pace and lack of a weapon showing the gain of trust the two had gotten over the months, even if it wasn't perfect.

"That's pretty simple: I'm a scientist. I do research. And while I can't do physical tests on you as I originally wanted, I can at least do as much research as I can into how ghosts work without that. And your obsessions are extremely important to this." She leaned down towards him as he was still on the floor and pointed a finger upwards, like a teacher telling off a preschooler. Danny bit back an amused smirk. "You seem to break the clear rules that have worked just fine so far, so what I need to know is why."

"You didn't say anything about me breaking any rules."

Maddie stood back up straight and crossed her arms, Danny carefully stood up to join her as she talked.

"You've broken a few. The main being that you seem to have no obsession. My first assumption was that your heroics where just that. It would explain your desperate need to help people and likely meant your last moments involved saving someone, or wishing to be saved yourself."

That made Danny think. Had he wished someone could save him back during the accident? It was a pretty likely reaction considering how much that amount of energy had hurt, but he'd never considered it actually altering his perception or feelings.

"But," his mother's continuation snapped him back to the present, "I ruled that out. In most cases ghosts will stop at nothing to stick to their obsessions, including contradicting other aspects of themselves, or making unlikely alliances, excetera. But while I've observed carefully, every time I've encountered you over the last three weeks, you will often go on unusual tangents."

Tangents...?

~~~

Based on the look in the ghosts eyes he didn't know what she meant. He likely just hadn't recognised that his own behaviour was unusual. Not surprising, but she couldn't make any judgements until this mystery was resolved.

"In short, you aim to help people, but will go off elsewhere to finish a fight, or alternate between fights. You've also paused battles altogether to chat or tease your opponent. And how frequently you are late and disappear after or during fights or helping people. Whatever the reasons for that are, a ghost typically should follow their obsession no matter what, and at all times. In other words, you can get distracted which isn't right."

Not right for ghosts at least. It was definitely more of a human trait, but she left that out.

"So what's your next theory? Or do you have some explanation in mind for why I'm different?" Maddie looked intently back at Phantom to see an incredibly focused expression that was rare on the young spirit. He was strongly invested in this topic, but she couldn't tell why. Did he know something she didn't that had an impact on her theories?

"I had a couple other hypotheses for your obsession that fell through for basically the same reasons." She crouched down to unpin the net, carefully slinging it off of him. She was confident he wouldn't leave at this point. He watched it fall and smiled gratefully, but didn't try to move. "That's why I decided to ask you personally. Though I wasn't sure it'd be something you were willing to talk about."

"Why, because it supposedly involved my death?" He promotes. She hadn't expected him to be so blunt about it but,

"Yes, mostly. Do you actually have any memory of it? If you don't mind me asking?" Honestly that was the question she had wanted to start with. Phantom merely looked away in thought. Not as if he was avoiding it or recalling something, more like he was contemplating. Perhaps he was deciding how to explain.

"I… I remember having a family. And friends." He finally responded. She didn't fill the silence between his sentences hoping he'd add more detail. "I was just, erm, 14, and there was… an accident. It involved an explosion. Of sorts."

"An explosion?" That was awfully dramatic for just a child's death. He looked a little older than 14, but that part was sure believable.

"It was um, not a big one. A device in our home malfunctioned and I just happened to be around it at the time. It was a mistake." If it was an accident how could it also be a mistake? He was definitely leaving out some details but she couldn't bring herself to pry. This was clearly a touchy subject, for obvious reasons.

"So you do remember." He seemed to be startled back into reality and he looked back up at her, the energetic green glow she hadn't noticed had been gone until just now quickly coming back into his eyes.

"Yeah- sort of. It's a little fuzzy."

"Does anything about what you remember give us any clues to what your obsession is?" In other words, what he thought about right before death. That part of the question didn't need saying for him to seemingly pick up on it.

"I don't know exactly, no, sorry. I'm as curious as you are to be honest."

"What about? Your obsession or your death?"

"Both?" Phantom answered vaguely with a shrug.

Maddie had also secretly been digging for any strange circumstances around his death. If they couldn't find a plausible obsession, maybe they could find the reason he didn't have one instead. But his description sounded pretty normal. A household accident. An electrical glitch most likely. While it wasn't a common cause of death it wasn't as erratic as getting mauled while illegally hunting a rare species or burning your house down with you inside it over a guy. There was nothing to go off there, except…

Maybe she'd have to pry a little after all.

~~~

"You said it was a mistake?" Danny pouted at the tricky question.

He'd carefully spun his freak portal accident into a more believable and unrelated tale. She'd managed to catch his little slip up after he had dazed off into the memory, but at this point he'd stick to his half-truth story. He wasn't a very good liar after all.

"It was my fault really. I wanted to show my friends something cool but we shouldn't have been there at all. At least it wasn't either of them that got hurt because of me."

He could tell she was a little frustrated at how vague he was being, but any further would be too much. He stopped there.

"Maybe regret has something to do with it?" After a long moment of awkward silence Maddie eventually resigned back to her theories. "Regret that you went somewhere you shouldn't, or more likely, regret that you died young."

Danny was a little startled by her conclusion. She'd said that last couple words so clearly; she was sure of this.

~~~

Phantom's reaction only made her feel more strongly that this was the one. It actually explained so much. He acted like a teenager: he was up to date on what kids are into and how they talk, plus he acts just like a kid often. Getting distracted all the time actually complimented this obsession instead of contradicting it. His whole heroics act wasn't really that much of an act, because that was just his innocent moral compass, that he miraculously maintained in death thanks to desperately wanting to continue living out his teenage years like his friends could. It's why he seemed so human. He practically still was one because his obsession was to remain human or 'alive', and making the most of his second chance at existing. It wasn't an exact answer but it was too clear now to argue with.

Maddie turned to the ghostly teenager. She could see him in a slightly different light now that she knew his drive really wasn't secretly malicious after all. Not that she'd truly believed that recently anyway.

"You seem pretty human sometimes, Phantom" she commented, smiling.

Phantom looked up at her suddenly and his eyes widened a little. He stared at her for a long moment, seeming nervous. After a moment, he blinked and wiped the expression off his face, but his shoulders still looked tense.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I think that has something to do with your obsession. It's the only good explanation for your more unexplainable behaviour ironically." Maddie admitted.

“Ah.” Phantom’s tension eased and he looked down at the floor. His eyes seemed tired... He didn't look relieved, more… disheartened? Had he been expecting something else? And had he wanted to hear that or not, as neither reaction had been positive. She resorted to asking a question she never thought she'd be asking a ghost. Let alone one she spent half a year trying to catch and examine.

~~~

"Are you okay?" Danny heard Maddie ask, her strongest motherly tone coming through clearly now. He didn't look up at her yet, afraid he'd see her concerned expression and just break character completely.

"I'm alright, thanks. It's just been a slightly different conversation than I expected."

"Alright. I suppose this topic is hard on you. I know you might not think you can trust me but I'm here to talk if you need it okay?"

Danny smiled. She'd said this to him a million times before. "I know mom. Thanks."

~~~

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Danny had just finished dealing with one problem when a sort of old problem reared it's ugly head and made itself a priority.   For once, he may have to deal with a supernatural entity the same way any Fenton traditionally would.

trigger warning for suicide mention and school shooting mention

“Uh, well, I know a way I can help.”  Danny smiled, rubbing the back of his head.  “Sorry for making that wish without asking your permission but I have a feeling you’ll like this one.”

“I’m certain.”  Desiree sighed and turned to fly away, but Danny couldn’t just let her go like that.  People made wishes haphazardly all the time, and interpretation was a horrible thing to mix magick into.

“I wish that you were free of the curse that was laid on you.”  She froze, turning to stare at him with wide red eyes.  Pink and green light gathered around her fingertips and she raised her hands.

“So you have wished it… so shall it be.”  A cloud of smoke enveloped her like a cocoon, and Danny squinted into it.  A wave of force exploded from the cloud and all the booths shook with the energy released, Danny being knocked to the ground.  When he looked up, Desiree was blue-skinned, her silver armbands violet and her dress a dark green.  Eyes like stars looked down upon her new form, bottom half still a cloud of wispy mist, and she slowly began to smile and laugh.  “I’m… free?  I’m free!  Thank you, Danny, thank you so much!”  She flicked her hand, pink and blue ripples of light fixing up the cotton candy explosion and even setting Danny on his feet properly.  “I had thought I’d never be free of that wretched curse!”

“No problem!  Just, if you can avoid it, please don’t go hurting anyone?”  She arched a brow at him and Danny winced.  “I mean, I’m kind of trying to keep everyone, ghosts and humans alike, safe in my town, you know?”

“I cannot promise not to hurt anyone but I won’t be staying in this Realm for long.”  Desiree smiled, a sharp and dangerous baring of teeth and a gaze fixed on something far beyond them that Danny felt pity for.  “After all, I have to find the fool who did this to me and show him how it feels.  And then, I’ll return to my own realm, and a queendom of my own shall be mine!”  She laughed, lights and swirls of colors that his brain had no way of making sense of dancing around her, and throughout the park.  After a moment, she sighed and patted his head.  “Thank you, Danny.  Stay safe.”  And in a swirl of pink that might not have actually been pink, she was gone.

Danny took a moment to feel all warm and tingly inside about how he helped someone so easily, and then he let everything slide past him and through him, flying into the ground and then back up under the table.  The cold of his ghost curled back up into a ball somewhere within him and his skin regained its color and warmth, the world settling back into a thin extreme indigo lense.  He crawled out from under the table cloth and found Tucker, staring at where he had been, and tackled him.  They tumbled to the ground with a yelp from Tucker and Danny laughed, rolling away from the zap of the belt.  “Dude, Desiree is a Jinni!  I wished for a dick and now I have magickally transitioned.”

“Don’t let my being crushed into the ground by you fool ya, I’m genuinely overjoyed for you about that.”  Tucker lifted his head and laughed, deactivating the Specter Deflector before dragging Danny into a hug in the grass.  The hug lasted longer than he felt this deserved, even if he was over the moon about it.  It was also tighter than it should be, and Tucker’s gold was streaked with all kinds of wild blurples, marshons and even some grick.

“Dude, are you alright?”  Danny patted Tucker’s back when he just squeezed tighter and sighed.  “Ok.  We can do this, but like, we’re gonna get stepped on.”  Tucker relented, finally, and they got up, dusting the dirt and grass from their clothes before Danny was hugged, again.  “Tuck?”

“I… we need to talk, with the others too.”  Well, this promised to be interesting at least.  A good distraction from what happened before, hopefully.

It was not, in fact, a good distraction from the shapeshifter that had essentially murdered him (Sam was not the cause, no matter what she probably thought, and he needed to tell her that at some point, she deserved to hear it).  No, instead Danny, Sydney and through the skype call Sam listened to Tucker tell them about how he’d wished that Danny hadn’t gone into the portal and apparently all hell broke loose from that.  On one hand, it was almost freeing to know that even if Danny hadn’t caved to peer pressure like an idiot, the portal still would’ve been wrong when it turned on.  It ached to know that if he hadn’t died in there, his sister would’ve died out here.

But the burning in Danny’s soul was nothing, apparently, compared to Sydney.  “Wait, Tucker, did you say, Spectra?  As in Penelope Spectra?”  Oh boy, Danny knew that tone and he didn’t like it.

“Yes…” Tucker backed up a bit, while Danny shifted to stand in front of him, hand in his pocket.  “She’s the guidance counselor at Casp-”

Sydney glitched, glitched hard.  His features stretched, twisted, overlapped before settling on the image of a corpse, blood dripping from his mouth and the back of his skull as he hissed fury that made the skype call lag and crackle with static.  “Penelope Spectra should be dead like the rest of us!  I- show me a picture of her.  Now!”

“Ok, ok,” Tucker said, pulling up a picture from the school’s website.  “There’s surely plenty of people with that name, Sydney, no need to freak out.”

Except, he did.  When they pulled up the image of a ginger woman with hair done up in what looked almost like horns and a red business suit, the air around Sydney shone with green and his eyes were pits of red light.  “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!  NO ONE CAN SURVIVE A BULLET TO THE HEAD LIKE THAT!  I SURE AS HELL DIDN’T AND NEITHER DID ANY OF THE OTHER BULLIES LIKE HER!”

Tucker, slowly, exited the browser and reactivated his Specter Deflector™ while Danny gently tugged Sydney back from the screen.  It stung, the dark reddish colors radiating off Sydney like heat, anger that wasn’t his own boiling in his chest.  Danny took a slow, deep breath, and when he breathed out he pushed the anger out of him with it.  “Breathe with me, Syd.  Can you do that?”

“I’m dead buster.”

“Yeah, and you don’t need to breathe, but can you?”  The glitching slowed ever so slightly, and Danny brought his energy as close to the surface as he could while still human.   “In and out, c’mon.  In,” the heat receded, concentrated, burned darker for it.  “Out.”  It dissipated in waves, ripples of static on his screens and Tucker grabbed the laptop to keep the current from ruining it.  They did that, breathing, for a while until Sydney looked less like a floating corpse and more like a monochrome translucent image.  He rubbed his arms and looked away while Danny turned to lock eyes with Tucker.  Tucker was busily typing away on the laptop now that nothing was interfering with the wifi signal.  “Tuck?”

“It’s a good thing Sydney stays away from the school,” he muttered, Sam snorting over the line.  “Is it possible for an unagitated ghost to have some color and look like a human being?”

“Uh, not that I know about.”  Danny glanced at Sydney and gave him a pat on the back.  “Syd?”

“I-I don’t know… I’ve been a bit stuck, on the other side you know?”  Sydney was becoming fuzzier at the edges and Danny sighed when he realized the other boy was invisible.  “Maybe someone else would know.”

“Right,” Tucker drawled.  “Syd, do you wanna come with us to go ask Agatha about this?  If we’re dealing with a well-hidden ghost, then I wanna make sure you two are on top of your game.  A hearty meal, or I guess a ghouly meal, is essential for any fight.”

Sydney at least flickered back into something easier on the eyes if not fully there, and he chuckled.  “Uh, maybe?  Who’s Agatha?”

“Agatha Reece,” Sam said over the call, pausing to cough into her arm.  “She’s the ghost of a lunch lady at Casper.”  Sydney’s white eyes went wider than humanly possible, a touch of sepia seeping into his greyscale.

“Ah, you know what, I think I’ll just head out and go see some sights.  I’m sure you two don’t need me to help you grab a snack.”  With that, Sydney flew through Tucker’s ceiling, and Danny leaned back in his chair, a heavy sigh on his lips.  It felt like a lot of pressure just rose off of his chest, though there another pressure entirely coming from his swirling thoughts.

“It’s a damn good thing I got Sydney out of the school before he actually saw Dash doing the shit I ranted to him about.”  They all laughed at that, and Danny felt a bit lighter still.  “Though, I imagine school’d be pretty interesting without him.”

“Yeah, we could actually walk around without worrying about getting shoved into a locker.”  Tucker stretched his limbs out, and Danny felt an ache in his joints just at the reminder.  “What a stereotype.”

“As much as I’m glad to cheer on the virtues of Jazz’s therapy sessions with Sydney,” Sam cut in with a shaky, light laugh of her own.  “We still need to figure this Spectra thing out.”

“I’m looking her up and while she’s not stupid enough to use the same name over and over again, her picture is sorta everywhere over the past five decades,” Tucker muttered.  Danny got up and rested his chin on Tucker’s shoulder, taking in the image of a barely, if at all, changing face go throughout the ages back to the 50s.  “Cause if she’s a ghost, she’s gotta be using a lot of energy to keep looking like that.”

“That’s if she’s a ghost,” Sam said.  There was a long moment of quiet after that, and Sam went off-screen, grabbing some book that looked older than Spectra.  “Guys, you just said a Jinni flew off to get revenge on a ghost, how do we know there aren’t other things out there.”

“Mom and Dad have been to other places before…” Danny felt his hand slipping out of reality as the realization hit him like a football to the face.  “They’ve made so many windows to other places and then if a drone could survive going in, they went in, and then Jazz and I went in with them.  Holy shit, what if there was stuff in there we just couldn’t see?”

“What did Sydney and Agatha call the other side?”  Sam sniffled.  “The Infinite Realms?  There’s probably a whole lot of things that Spectra could be.”

“Based on this track record of depression, she’s either a shitty psychologist who doesn’t get how the human mind works, or she’s fucking up people’s lives on purpose.”  Tucker shifted so Danny could see the news article that he was looking at better.  “That’s a lot of people who went from average mental states to killing themselves, or going into self-isolation.”

“Maybe she likes ruining people’s lives,” Sam muttered.  “There’s plenty of legends and myths about things that like to do that.  Danny, have your parents made anything that might help reveal a supernatural being hiding as a human?”

“I… maybe?  I’ll have to check, I haven’t been paying attention to their weapons or anything lately.”  He had been actively avoiding anything offensive that his parents made besides the plasma rifle he had.  He wasn’t looking to have things go off on him, after all.  “Tuck, you check with Agatha about what Spectra might be and I’ll head home, see what Mom and Dad have worked on.  Sam, you see if you can find anything on, I dunno, emotional vampires or straight-up assholes who love ruining lives in folklore.”

“Can do, captain, but there’s a lot of the latter in every kind of story.”  Sam offered a wave before ending the call and Danny sighed, sagging in his chair.

“Look at you, takin charge like a hero.”  Tucker hugged him again, and Danny leaned into his side.

“Yeah.  Let’s hope I can keep being a hero.”

[astrodances]

This is That AU + bonus Resistance Cell AU (Danny Phantom)

(This turned out way longer than I intended, but god it’s a fun idea. If anyone creates anything out of this, please send it my way! And if you have any ideas to add, feel free!)

Danny Phantom “The Ultimate Enemy” AU where the future is the Ghost Zone and the Ghost Zone is the future (aka they’re switched, and the future is thought of as a location in time).

Skulktech’s medallion falls off? The gang’s sent 10 years forward in Amity Park, and Danny’s introduced to the mayhem he causes firsthand. Perhaps Clockwork has headquarters set up there now bc Dan drove him (and all the other ghosts) out of the Ghost Zone.

The Ghost Zone itself, much like the human realm, is also destroyed, but even more so. When Dan was done with Earth he invaded the GZ and didn’t look back. He declared himself the Ghost King, and when he learns the Ghostly Wail, he uses it to wreak even more havoc and scare off any lasting threats to his reign.

The ghosts that dare to stay in the GZ are either:

trying to appease Dan by doing his bidding so they’ll be spared (not that it helps much)

actually want to side and fight for him (like the Fright Knight)

got stuck in the aftermath of the invasion and are basically prisoners

or are part of the small resistance cell that tries to take Dan down (like Valerie in TUE)

So Danny and co. end up running from Clockwork into the GZ (which is also 10 years in the future) and Danny meets Dan and all that. Things go pretty much like the episode, except everything’s adapted to the switched environments:

The trio doesn’t need the medallions to stay in/leave the GZ, but perhaps they’re still wearing them from their fight with Clockwork anyway. Perhaps they work the same way for Sam and Tucker, but when they take them off before being crushed, they end up back with Clockwork in the future and not back in present-day Amity Park.

Since Dan knows keeping Danny’s medallion tethered to him would be pointless, he just takes it and uses it to go back to present-day Amity to ensure his future.

Dan throws a tied-up Danny through his self-created portal back to Earth. Whether Danny ends up back where he started with Clockwork or somewhere else entirely is up to you, but oooh, consider the ramifications of both:

He goes back to Clockwork:

he’s with Sam and Tucker again. He can explain everything he learned to them and they can come up with a plan, perhaps form a team with Clockwork and others.

BUT as a result, he doesn’t learn the Ghostly Wail (at the very least, not here, and possibly not at all bc up to this point, he probably hasn’t seen the Wail in action: he didn’t see Dan through one of Clockwork’s screens, and Dan didn’t use it on him during their first encounter. So it’s likely that the first he’ll see of it is when Dan uses it during their fight at the present-day Nasty Burger).

He ends up somewhere else entirely:

he could end up alone somewhere random, and possibly the only thing that saves him is the Boooo-merang that’s floated through time and the GZ (bc Jazz probably doesn’t know which realm he’s in in the future?) and found a natural portal to Earth?

Or maybe he ends up exactly where he needs to be, in Vlad’s lair, and although he doesn’t need the medallion removed, Vlad can at least free him from being tied up and can explain things, maybe help him get back to Clockwork.

Or maybe he ends up alone but then finds/is found by some ghosts (much like in canon). Maybe they still act like his enemies and he gets aggravated enough to learn the Ghostly Wail (à la canon). Maybe he doesn’t and they destroy him and (unknowingly) their chance to have things be different. Or maybe he can convince them that he’s not the same guy as Dan (yet), and they work together to organize an attack against Dan, maybe even with some humans (since this is Earth, and Dan destroyed both their homes, I’m thinking at least some groups of ghosts and humans would sympathize with each other and learn to live together). They also find Clockwork, Sam, and Tucker, since they need Clockwork to go back in time. (And maybe even future!Valerie, if she’s around?)

Or maybe Danny just ends up alone and stuck somewhere, and just...dies completely, leaving everyone and everything doomed.

However he gets back (if he does) and whoever with, the present-day story has a few key notes:

Unless Clockwork decided to send Sam and Tucker back, Jazz’s role is pretty much the same, only she might be a bit more worried about not being able to find Danny or his friends anywhere to confront him about cheating. When she sees Dan (posed as Danny) for the first time, she might be a relieved at first, maybe even hugs him, before going into the cheating thing. She’ll also try to send the Boooo-merang, but again, the odds for it finding Danny in the future are very slim since he’s in the human realm.

Also regarding Sam and Tucker: if they return, they end up tied to the sauce at the Nasty Burger like in canon. But if they’re still with Clockwork when Danny finds him?? Hoo boy, just you wait.

The final battle with Dan is the big present-day difference:

Danny likely doesn’t have the Ghostly Wail, so unless he learns it like right after Dan uses it against him, Dan will probably win and ensure his future (particularly if Danny fights him alone).

But if Danny has allies (regardless of how he got them/who they are)? You better believe the odds go up in his favor. That’s a whole lot of organized firepower, and it leaves Dan with only 2 truly useful powers: the Ghostly Wail and duplication. But Team Danny did a lot of training. Heck, the ghosts probably told Danny about the Ghostly Wail, so even if he doesn’t learn it/hasn’t actually seen it yet, they can all be prepared to take cover or whatever when Dan uses it.

What’s more, while most of the team is fighting Dan, a small group (either humans with ecto-weapons or w/ghosts’ help) can free Jack, Maddie, Jazz, and Lancer (and Sam and Tucker if they’re tied up, too; otherwise they’re probably leading this whole group). Now they got all the Fentons fighting Dan (and a much more motivated Danny).

Basically, Team Phantom wins and then some.

But consider this: in any of the scenarios where Sam and Tucker are fighting Dan alongside Danny from the get-go, something glitches in the plan and while they’re able to defeat Dan, they’re not able to save Danny’s family + Lancer. And for whatever reason (either Dan defeated him or he just decides to let this one play out or whatever), Clockwork doesn’t reset the timeline.

What does that leave Danny with? Two best friends (and possibly some allies, maybe even future!Valerie (which is a whole ‘nother rabbit hole to dive into)) that support him through the grief and loss. Perhaps they make him feel less alone, and he grows stronger bc of this and learns some lesson about the value of friendship or “some such nonsense.” 😉

But maybe Danny doesn’t see that lesson. Maybe Sam and Tucker are there to see him struggle with this new reality. Time after time he tells them that he’s afraid of turning into that monster, and no matter what they do, they watch as their best friend slowly evolves not into a Dan created through a fusion of two ghost halves, but a (still half-ghost?) Dan bred out of fear, anger, and self-hatred. Not the same Dan as the original; perhaps something much, much worse, and much more personal (YOU try shooting your evil best friend when you know there’s still good in him, you hope).

And yet another alternate ending to all this (bc apparently I can’t be stopped): perhaps Dan does survive the Nasty Burger fight and sees his goal through of stalling Danny just long enough to see the Nasty Burger explode and ensure his future (or so he thinks). He just isn’t able to defeat all of Danny’s allies. Heck, maybe they’re even able to free the Fentons + Lancer in time. All that’s for certain is that when the Nasty Burger explodes, Dan vanishes, leaving Team Phantom with their Ultimate Enemy™️ at large (and likely still with a time medallion).

Enter the Resistance Cell AU (and the opportunity for me to work in DS9 references): all the survivors of the Battle at the Nasty Burger band up behind Danny, and while everything’s fine in the world at first, they immediately start hunting down Dan to try to stop him before he can screw things up again.

This, of course, is way harder than it sounds (and depending on Clockwork’s status/willingness to help, could be even doubly so).

Depending on the original battle’s outcome, Danny might be motivated in part by a desire to avenge his family (which could lead to some conflict within the group). In any case, he’s definitely motivated to not turn into Dan, though sometimes he needs reassurance from Tucker and Sam late at night.

The way I picture it, Dan slowly sends the world into chaos yet again, with Team Phantom usually one step behind him. (Though maybe, they’re able to at least form some relief teams to help victims after they hear about an attack and try to gather clues to hunt him down? And maybe these victims join the team and help the fight, and maybe Dan doesn’t end up as powerful this time.)

But to go the angsty route, Dan basically gets a second chance to take over the world and GZ, and ten years later, the only thing stopping him from achieving complete domination is an undercover resistance group led by a young man who’s kept his vow to never become like him.

The only thing is, Dan has an ally of his own this time around (one more powerful than the Fright Knight): Vlad Plasmius.

[dentalrecordsmusic]

Album Review: Origami Angel - “Somewhere City”

Words by Ari Jindracek

I’m going to be clear: I didn’t find out about Origami Angel until after they were teasing their newest album with an online ARG I’m not bright enough to figure out. Once I did go check out the Somewhere City teaser material, though--sometime shortly after “Doctor Whomst” -- I was pre-hooked on the album. I’m a sucker for music with narratives, and if all those blog posts about aliens were indicative of anything, it was an intriguing narrative. I don’t think I got aliens while listening to Somewhere City necessarily, though. What I heard when I pushed play for the first time was grounded in several realities: in running away and missing people, watching cartoons and going to amusement parks, being bullied and left behind, and wanting to love and be loved. It feels somewhat larger than the two-piece that created it (Pat Doherty on drums and Ryland Heagy on pretty much everything else) in its universality. The city is everywhere, it seems.

The opening moments of Somewhere City, in “Welcome To…” are tranquil, woodsy--soft guitar, gently piercing vocals, and drums that feel somehow cinematic--until the quiet comes to a screeching halt, the metaphorical city limit. “You don’t have to do anything or be anyone, just follow the road / just come with me / you have to see / there’s something in the air out here” makes it eminently clear: this is going to be a concept album. If “this city never lets me down” isn’t about the artists’ hometown, it’s got to be the beginning of something more narrative. You don’t need to know about all the cryptic lead-up; you don’t need to solve Origami Angel’s puzzles. You just need to listen to the way the instrumentals vary between springy, rhythms to bounce on your toes to, and sweeping buildups like the swell of a wave, and think about how much fun it would be to scream the lyrics back to the band. “Welcome To…” stands for itself on its quality, but it can’t stand alone--obviously, obviously, there’s a lot more to follow. “24 Hr Drive-Thru,” the first single off the album, is the immediate follower to the intro sequence, and it has the pop-cultural references I have come to expect from Origami Angel after listening to them for a little bit, even if they’re on the vaguer side, just drive-thrus as a concept, Dr. Pepper filling free water cups, and the reference to a “mobile phone”, which slingshots me back into 2004 when people unironically used that language. “Kenilworth Avenue to 193” is more concrete--I don’t know what it references, really, but it’s very grounded. It’s a song to dance to more than a song to mosh to. The bouncy “Okay! Okay!” section in the middle is my favorite bit, just because the way the tightly-played guitars, the unrelenting drums, and the “bop bop bop” vocals balance each other out perfectly to create a sound of pure fun, which takes an easily-missed but incredibly-complicated guitar riff as an exit ramp. I didn’t have a lot of teenage experiences going out for fast food with friends on summer nights between years of high school, but this song sounds like something that should be playing if I did. The opening of “666 Flags” breakneck-speeds into a song that is both about roller coasters and sounds like a roller coaster. The lyrics almost blur together at some points and climb at others; there is a brief pause when what actually sounds like the wheels of a roller coaster car plays to cap off the metaphor. “It’s a long way from here to where I wanna be” feels like a disembarking from the ride, and here my theme park metaphor breaks down until the very end, when the guitars and drums shred themselves to pieces, replicating the feeling of terror I get when I even look at a steep, two-hundred-foot drop (I am not a roller coaster person). The softer middle section is stunning not as much for the way it catapults you around hairpin turns and into the stratosphere, but for the lyrics and sentiments of hope for the future, which is a theme I can always get behind. “All these microscopic moments make me feel like I’m not helpless / I’m okay” is stunning because it is painfully, ecstatically real. Listeners take that reality into the fantastical final stretch of their wild ride.

The second single, Tumblr-ishly named “Doctor Whomst”, goes on a brief nostalgia tour of pop culture, as the title reference implies, but also on a joyous rooftop-screaming self-esteem bender. I like the juxtaposition of “just how I used to feel / watching Danny Phantom, eating Happy Meals” with “I think I’m starting to like myself.” It puts the youthful innocence and hard-won adult self-love back to back--the same feeling, several long years apart, facing down the interval between. I can relate to the sentiment, while I jam to the blur of drums, the heavy bass, and the bridge’s intriguing whispery backing “vocals” that sound exactly like the noises I make at my cat to get her to look at me. The sample from some movie that I don’t know off the top of my head crawls into the slow introductory verse of “Say Less,” which is just as relatable: “maybe I would be just fine if I could just change everything that’s wrong with me / but it’s not that easy” could be something I said to my therapist. The realization of how hard change can be rockets the listener out of softness into thick bass and thundering, monolithic guitar hits. “Say Less” feels more like a part of the world you’re escaping from when you run away to Somewhere City, not a part of the world that has, so far, been portrayed as, essentially, a birthday party bouncy castle full of fond childhood memories that you can catapult around at will. This song, though, is about being insulted and getting into fights. If that’s what happens in Somewhere City, like it happens in every elementary school, where’s the escapism? Ironically, “Escape Rope” doesn’t get you there, although it’s definitely a getaway for some other, unnamed “you.” The narrator begs someone--a friend heading out of the house, or someone more desperately needed--to stay. The quick, bright guitar feels like a computer error, a glitch in how things are “supposed to be.” As the speaker pleads--“tell me all the things I already know” feels particularly desperate in its tone--you can tell that it’s having no effect. The friend is still leaving, for their parent’s house or college or another city or just anywhere else. It’s not the desired narrative, but it is still the narrative.

The cheekily named “The Title Track” provides the actual escape, the travel brochure to Somewhere City. As a bassist, I am amazed as to how the bass, drums, and guitar can go off so machine-gun fast that there are moments I can hardly parse as anything but a wall of sound. “The secret is it’s in your brain” is stunning in that it actually stunned me the first time it came up. As I type this, I’m still reeling from that a little bit. The image of “how the sun hits the water at six in the morning on every single day” is beautiful too, and it makes me want to see it, but I think, of all the lyrics I could pull meaning out of in the album so far, the concept of the ultimate escape, somewhere where I couldn’t be found but where I wouldn’t be alone or hiding, being within me is true in a way that somehow confuses me. “You won’t be the same” is right! The song as a whole packs quite a bit of musical odyssey into two and a half minutes.

“Skeleton Key” starts off soft, migrating from a blanket of soft, fuzzy guitar, to a heavier, harder wash of sound, to the boppy dance sound I’m coming to expect from Origami Angel. This song is less city-related and more a loving reply to the person from “Escape Rope,” a postcard-back wish-you-were-here song about missing someone beloved. It’s not wish you were here, though, it’s “I wanna be there with you.” The throat-rending desperation of the last “I hope you know” is indicative of how much love lies in the song. Short of being there, though, the speaker can only send their love. “Find Your Throne” is a distortion-charged song filled with a similar love, an awe of someone else, positioned as a genius, “the goddamn king of the universe.” It’s not self-love but love of others. It fits neatly into the escapist narrative, with the idea of a trip to somewhere, the “throne,” where the person will be among others, loved, recognized for their awe-inspiring contributions to the world. This person is absent, missed, however; they are not in the city, and they want the speaker to return. The lyrics sound like an exchange of letters, catching up. I am also struck by the impact that the simple “I love you”s have--I feel as though music usually takes a roundabout way of displaying love rather than just saying it outright. Sometimes, in the world of “show don’t tell,” telling is more effective. 

“The Air Up Here”, a final letter, wraps up the narrative with “I’m never gonna come back home”--the escape, started from the first moment city limits were crossed, is complete. Somewhere City is the narrator’s home now; the world they left is gone. The song reprises “Welcome To…,” “Skeleton Key,” and a mash of others I can hardly pry apart due to the tangled mass of drum, guitar, and vocals. It is the full experience of the city rolled into one tight ball, ending with a huge, choral “this city never lets me down.” Why go back to somewhere that does? I’ll admit, having seen narratives like this in the media before--and heard them from relatives who didn’t like me moving far away--I kind of expected the ending to the album to be an encouragement to return home. But Somewhere City has become home, at this point. As the album loops back around, perfectly, to the first song, and I start listening again, I think I can get behind the message, not just because I can relate to the whole “moving to a new city I love” thing, but because Somewhere City isn’t a place as much as a state of mind. 

I chopped this review up into a review of each song, but, obviously, the album should be listened to as a complete whole with no breaks. There’s a lot that I missed going song by song to make sure I could wring every drop of meaning out; the transitions between songs are flawless and the way the album paces out the slow and fast sections of songs. It was pieced together masterfully. Somewhere City is much bigger than the sum of its parts, and all of those parts individually are huge. I obviously play favorites--I’m a sucker for reprises and big meaning--but I’d be proud if I’d written even one of these songs. The album stands as a beautiful colossus, glittering in the sun, a paean of love for self and others, and a place you can go to find it, inside or outside of your head.

Listen to Somewhere City on Bandcamp here.

Ari Jindracek is looking up apartment prices in Somewhere City right now. If you find any good listings, you can find Ari on Twitter.

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