#which is ironic considering him and danny

[charlietheepicwriter7]

"I'm telling you, she's the best bloody runes expert this side of the Mississippi," John Constantine told the other members of the Justice League as he raised his hand to knock on the old screen door. He hadn't expected his ex-wife to stay here, in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, but Spittoon, Arkansas, was the hill-billy hole it was when he last left. "If anyone can decipher the ritual to summon the ghost king, it's her--"

The door disappeared before he could knock, and a shotgun was shoved in his face. John smiled the best he could. "Hey, sweetheart."

Alicia Walker glared back at him. "Constantine."

*******************************************

This is the "John Constantine used to be married to Danny Fenton's Aunt Alicia" AU. Some idea's I've had:

Maddie introduced them. Maddie had dragged Alicia into studying ghosts, but Alicia ended up fascinated by the occultism of ghosts, more metaphysical than scientific. Maddie, wanting to support the sister that was supporting her, found Constantine, introduced the two, and they got along enough to bang.

it was a shotgun wedding. Alicia got pregnant and damn if she was going to let her baby be born without a father, so John ends up marrying her. He doesn't really mind since Alicia's nice enough and the sex is good, but he isn't exactly an attentive husband.

The baby is actually twins! a boy and a girl.

The babies are born without complications, but the baby boy, the first born... goes missing.

In addition to selling his soul to multiple parties, John had also sold the soul of his first born... probably to multiple parties. And he'd forgotten all about it until Alicia calls him, sobbing, saying their son has gone missing.

Needless to say, once she knows, John is divorced within the week.

the newborn daughter is given to Maddie to take care of; Alicia can even look at her without remembering her dead son, she knows she wouldn't be able to take care of a baby the way it needs. she can barely take care of herself.

(Jazz finds out that her aunt is her biomom when Danny is born. She never hates her aunt for giving her up; in fact, it's Alicia's depression and grief that makes Jazz want to study psychology in the first place)

Alicia moves to Spittoon to isolate herself, but the close knit community won't let her self-destruct. They help her rebuild herself in the middle of nowhere and she discovers a love for farming rhubarb.

John only shows up once before for Alicia's help, but the town chases away that nasty ex-husband of hers before she sees him, with his yuppie-accent and dirty clothes. They don't want him around her.

Alicia grows content with her life. She keeps all her occult books locked in the attic, out of sight and out of mind, and while she might regret not having been able to raise her daughter, she loves her niece and nephew and spoils them when they come to visit.

All's right in the world.

Until one day, Jazz and Danny come to her door in the middle of the night, desperate and injured.

Not too long after that, her yuppie ex-husband come around, asking her to look over some nonsense summoning circle. What's Constantine trying to summon anyway, the demon of astrology!?

[deadsetobsessions]

Alley Drunk!Danny AU- Part 3

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.4]

“Have you considered anger management classes?”

The Batman turned sharply, cape flaring out as he raised his weary fists in preparation for another fight. Only to pause, as he caught sight of a bedraggled man leaning against the pockmarked, water worn, Gotham variety stone of the abandoned post office. Non-hostile. Scent of booze, not strong enough to be fresh, but prominent enough for him to clock the stranger as a habitual drinker. Young. Sympathy softened Batman’s stance. Still, Batman kept his guard up. Good thing Robin was benched, he was off his game today if he hadn’t noticed the young man.

“Nevermind. You run around as a bat. Clearly anger management classes aren’t on your to do list.”

“What do you want.”

He’s young. Not as young as Robin, but… enough that it made Batman gentle his approach. The young man pushed away from his spot, fearlessly slouching towards him. Casual. Unafraid. How curious. Even Gothamites were wary around him, correctly assuming and witnessing his takedowns of Gotham’s Underbelly.

“You do this a lot, don’t you?” The bedraggled young man asked, head tilted neutrally at the bodies strewn around the Batman.

“Hm.”

“Why do you never swing by Crime Alley?”

Batman’s guard faltered at the blunt question, but he regained it quickly.

“I do.”

“You don’t.” The man disagreed amiably. He reached down towards the victims but Batman grabbed his arm in an iron hold before he could rifle through their belongings. The young man laughed and pulled back agreeably. “Is it classism, why you avoid us? The poor isn’t good enough to deserve protection from Gotham’s knight?”

“No. I do this for Gotham. All of Gotham.”

“…Well, there’s always room for improvement, I guess?”

The stranger pulled back and broke Batman’s hold, which had the vigilante sharply focusing onto the man. The stranger was strong, despite how skinny and starved he looked. Few people could casually break his hold and tonight, he added one more to the tally.

“You should tell your sponsor to look into creating job opportunities in Crime Alley. The problem isn’t actually the crooks,” the man told the vigilante, gesturing around them. “That’s just the symptoms. The actual problem is the poverty.”

“I know.”

“And yet, you still avoid Crime Alley.”

“Who are you.”

The man began walking away, throwing a dry “The Crime Alley Drunk, apparently,” behind his shoulder. When Batman took to the roofs to track him, the man had thoroughly slipped away.

“Agent A, did you catch that?”

“Yes, Batman. It appears you’ve gotten the wool pulled over your cowl by a rather mysterious youngster.”

Batman heard a younger snort of laughter. Robin. Who was supposed to be doing homework.

“Please stop making fun of me.” Batman sighed half heartedly.

“Not on your life, B.” Robin chirped.

——

“Ya talked ta Batman?!” Jason crowed at him, excited. Danny had done as promised and met him at the chili dog stand at the correct time, which increased his credibility in Jason’s eyes.

“Sure did. He knocked out like, five guys by himself. It was pretty cool.”

“Fuckin’ woah.”

“Right?” Danny smiled tiredly at the kid. He stayed up all night to pull his shit together, and outright bought an apartment for them to stay in. That safe had a lot of cash, after all. “Come on, kid. We’re heading back to base but before that, we gotta pick up a few things.”

“Like what?” Jason asked suspiciously.

“Like curtains in the color you like, groceries, and blankets and bedding, and general cleaning stuff.” Danny ticked off a finger per item.

“We killin’ someone?��

“What? No!”

“Ya said general cleaning stuff!” Jason defended himself. The raggedy kid peered at Danny cautiously, and brightened when Danny only snorted in amusement.

“Oh my ancients, you Gothamites. No, those are for like, actual cleaning. You know, for the apartment I just got you.”

Danny missed the burn of booze, but when Jason looked at him like the child he’s supposed to be had Gotham’s streets never laid its claim on him, Danny didn’t want to fail the kid.

Even if the kid thought he was buying chemicals to clean up a body. He’s the son of two mad scientists, he knows how to get rid of a body, obviously. As if he’d need chemicals to begin with, honestly. His ghost powers are quite versatile.

“An apartment?”

“Yep. It’s shitty, but it’s got all the utilities and I kind of miss having warm water to shower with.”

Jason straightened and trotted alongside the Alley Drunk with a little more purpose. People avoided them. Danny lead the kid to the apartment, handing him a key and letting him explore the sparsely decorated place.

“So, first thing’s first. You go shower. Then, we’ll go shopping for clothes, register you for school, get your school supplies, and grab some lunch. Not necessarily in that order, but ya know. And cleaning supplies.” Danny grinned.

Jason whipped his head around from where he was closely inspecting the windows for insulation- like Danny would let the actual kid live somewhere with drafty windows- and spluttered. Hope, fear, uncertainty battled across Jason’s face as he tried to say something. Danny watched Jason open and close his mouth several times before he finally managed to whisper something.

“I- I c’n go to school?”

“Yes. You are, in fact, legally required to do so, Jason.”

A pause as the kid grapples with the idea, of something he didn’t think he’d ever get to do. A grin bloomed over his face as he realized Danny’s sincerity.

“Then what are we waitin’ for?!”

“For you to shower. C’mon grubby, the shower’s that way. Towels are in the cabinet, and there’s some extra clothes in here,” Danny tossed Jason the plastic bag of clean kid’s clothes he bought from Gotham’s version of Walmart, a store that somehow had the energy of a Tesco and a Denny’s parking lot.

“Fuc- I mean- yeah! On it!”

——

Clearing out the drafts- feel free to continue ^^

[luxaofhesperides]

Accidental Bride Sacrifice ; requested by @starlightcat04!

Danny has long since gotten used to the feel of summonings. They don’t happen often, but sometimes the right components are put together to force him into answering, and he’d have to go as the new Ghost King.

Which no one told him was a thing! He hadn’t protested too much about the whole Ghost King deal when they finally told him about it after he graduated high school. It gave him a good excuse to ditch life in the living realm and not worry about college or a career, and let him really embrace his ghost side. 

The summonings are a problem, though. They always feel staticky and bad, like a dumpster that just got struck by lightning. The taste of iron on his tongue, a clear sign of blood being spilled, lets him know that it would be one of end the world for us summonings, because some people can’t put in the effort to do it themselves, apparently. 

But this time, the summoning feels different.

Danny pauses, eyes going unfocused in the middle of his conversation with Jazz. He had been looking forward to spending the week with her, now that she’s on winter break, but his luck is as bad as always.

“I’m being summoned,” he tells her, cutting off her rant about a transphobic professor she had. 

“Oh, no. Do you need me to do anything? Should I go with you to beat up whoever it is that’s summoning you?”

Danny tilts his head to the side, considering. The taste of blood is noticeably absent. In fact, this summoning pull doesn’t make him feel sick at all. It makes him feel warm, as if he’s just been wrapped in a hug.

“No,” he says. “I think I’m good. This one feels different.”

“A good different?” Jazz asks, worry clear in her voice.

“Yeah. A good different. I’ll come back soon, okay?”

“Alright. Be careful, Danny.” Jazz pulls him into a quick hug, then steps back to watch as Danny stops fighting the pull of the summoning and disappears into a swirling white rings that flashes into existence behind him, blinding her for a moment, and is gone when she manages to blink the spots out of her vision. 

For a minute, Danny drifts in a void of stillness, traveling through the realms as the summoning draws him closer to the correct realm. And then he’s rising out of the ground in a dark building made of concrete, candles of green flame scattered all over the place.

“Great One!” someone in a hooded cloak cries, raising his arms in jubilation. “Our calls have been answered!”

“I’ll fucking kill you!” a mechanical voice yells from farther back. When Danny looks past the cultists’ heads, he spots a man in a red hood and leather jacket chained to a pole, along with a bunch of other people in strange costumes tied up, desperately trying to free themselves. 

“Silence!” The leader of the cult, or who Danny assumes is the leader, snaps at the hooded man and gestures to the people off to his left. They force another costumed person forward, this one in yellow armor. He can see the blood running down their face from beneath their helmet and from their nose, dark lines of blood cutting through their brown skin. 

The cultists throw the armored person forward, forcing them to kneel. Then they bow to Danny and step back.

“Great One,” the leader says, voice unpleasantly reverent and grating, “Welcome to the mortal realms. We offer you this sacrifice to feed your strength. He will make a fine general for your undead army in your crusade to rid this world of its filth.”

The people in the back begin shouting all together, panicked voices overlapping, and Danny is left staring down at the cultists in shock.

The summoning had felt so nice. What the hell was this? He did not sign up for another ‘end of days’ insane cult. He just wanted to be hugged. 

His silence makes the cultists nervous. They begin to shift uneasily, whispering to each other, and the leader clears his throat, then pulls a large crystal dagger out of his cloak. “We shall prove our devotion to you through an offering of a hero’s blood!”

And then he moves towards the sacrifice and Danny snaps out of his shock to yell, “Wait!”

The entire room freezes. Even the costumed people in the back go still. 

Danny winces, then tries to smother his power, make himself more palatable to the humans of this dimension. “Wait,” he says again, and he sounds closer to human now. If he could, he would drop his ghost form entirely, but he knows better than to endanger himself like that. “What, exactly, did you summon me here for?”

The cult leader stares at him for a moment. “To… To rid the world of filth and allow your loyal followers to spread word of your power. You will be worshiped again, Great One, and serve as a reminder to man that Death shall always prevail.”

“Okay, I get that, but I was talking more along the lines of the summoning. What ritual did you use? What specifically were the summoning requirements?”

Normally, he’d be able to figure it out himself, but these cultists didn’t use a summoning circle. So they did something else, something less visible and therefore harder to figure out, in order to bring him here.

A woman standing off to the side speaks up, stepping forward hesitantly. “I had pieced together a few summoning spells from this book to bring you here. You had to accept our chosen sacrifice to your side in order for the summoning to work.”

“Hold up that book for me, please?”

She does, and Danny flies down to grab it from her hands. “Point out which lines you used,” he says, already reading a few of the words written down. It’s definitely ghostspeak written down, which should be near impossible for living humans to translate without being skilled in magic.

“Ah, these ones.” She points to each line, reading them out for him, and Danny starts understand what, exactly, went wrong.

“Is there a problem, Great One?”

Danny returns the book then floats over to the sacrifice and picks him up. The costumed people make alarmed noises, but quietly quiet down again when all Danny does is move him away from the cultists.

“Okay,” he says, “So. The lines you used to summon me were not translated properly. What you interpreted as ‘accepted to stay by the king’s side in loyalty and strength’ is not meant to be, like, him being part of my undead army or whatever. It’s a royal marriage vow.”

“They married us?” the sacrifice shouts, disbelieving. The cult leader buries his face in his hands and sighs.

“My deepest apologies, Great One. We meant no offense. We simply wanted to aid in your destruction of this depraved world.”

Danny scrunches his nose and shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s not gonna fly with me. I do not do the biding of random people, especially those who are ready to murder innocent people for no reason. Frighty, if you would.” He snaps his fingers, calling up Fright Knight who always enjoys getting to torment the people who summon Danny for murderous reasons.

Fright Knight appears in a swirl of darkness and screams. Shadows swallow the room, and when they recede, no cultists remain.

“Thanks, Frighty. Have fun with them. I need to figure out all… this.”

Fright Knight bows to him, then disappears. Danny lets out a breath, then floats down lower to be eye level with the sacrifice. “Hey,” he says gently, with a smile, “I’m so sorry they did this to you. I’m Danny. What’s your name?”

“Du— Uh, Signal,” the sacrifice says, sounding rather dazed. 

“Signal,” Danny repeats. “Like… a traffic signal?”

“No. I mean, maybe? But it is Signal. That’s my hero name, not my real name.”

“Oh, you’re a hero!” His getup makes more sense now. Danny checks him over for any signs of injuries. So far, only his head and nose seem to be injured, but his wrists are tightly bound behind his back. Carefully, Danny calls upon his ice and shapes it into a sharp knife, then cuts through the zipties.

He helps Signal up to his feet, floating by his shoulder. “All good?”

“Yeah, man, all good. Let me just get the others free.”

“Oh, I can do it!” Danny flies over to the other costumed people, who must also be heroes. All it takes is one link in the chain being frozen and broken for the entire thing to go lax, allowing them to free themselves. Hooded guy spares Danny a single glance, then hurries over to Signal to check on him. The other three, a man with a blue bird across his chest, a blond girl with a yellow bat outline on her chest, and a guy with bandoliers and a golden bird emblem, all watch him warily as he floats back towards the center of the room.

“So,” the blue bird man says, “If they summoned you with a marriage vow, and you accepted, does that mean you’re planning to steal Signal away from us?” He’s smiling, but it’s not a nice smile.

“No! I had no idea they did this! I am so sorry you all got caught up in this. You most of all, Signal.”

Signal shrugs, nudging hood guy away from him. “Nah, man, it’s all good. This is definitely the better outcome.”

“I don’t know, being married off isn’t really a good thing.”

“Hey, at least they married me off to a decent guy.”

“You don’t know that,” Danny says, “What if I’m secretly evil?”

“If you were secretly evil, you’d be destroying the world right now. I think you’re fine.”

The blond girl waves at him, demanding his attention. “Quick question! They were calling you ‘Great One’. Are you a god or something?”

“Not really? I’m the Ghost King. So I’m a ghost who rules over other ghosts and also a majority of the Infinite Realms.”

She nods as if this is all totally normal for her, then shoots Signal a grin. “Congrats on bagging a king! Not the worst way to spend a night, right?”

“Can you break the marriage?” blue bird man asks, the lines of his shoulders tense.

Danny awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, not looking any of them in the eye. “I honestly don’t know. I can look for a way! But I genuinely have no clue. This was unexpected.”

“But you accepted.”

“I didn’t know what I expected! It just felt like a hug, and I wanted a hug! I thought I was being summoned for something nice for once!” Danny curls up, bringing his knees up to his chest, and hides his pout behind his hands. He knows he’s being childish, but he can’t help but be upset that he couldn’t have this one good experience from being Ghost King. 

It’s always responsibilities and death cult summonings and fighting ghosts who don’t think he should be king. Sure there have been some good things, but they’re comparatively few when looking at all the other stress and pain that comes with the crown. Sue him for wanting to have a nice night for once. Hell, at this point, he’d take being summoned to help with some kid’s homework, because at least then he could have a quiet night helping someone.

“Hey, man, can you come down here?” Signal asks. 

He wants to stay out of reach, hiding himself away for a bit longer, but Signal is his new, surprise, accidental husband, so Danny lowers himself to the ground and peeks through his fingers to look at him.

He tenses when Signal hugs him, soft and warm and comforting. It takes a moment for him to realize what’s going on, and then he’s melting into Signal’s embrace, dropping his hands to wrap them around Signal’s back.

Distantly, he can hear the other heroes talking quietly amongst themselves. He blocks out the sound as much as he can, determined to enjoy this hug while it lasts.

Which is… fairly long. Signal makes no moves to end the hug, so Danny closes his eyes to really savor the moment. 

“So,” Signal murmurs into his ear, “As newlyweds, how about we get to know each other a bit better before we start working on fixing all this?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Let’s ditch these guys and take some time to ourselves.”

“I promise I’ll get this fixed,” he says, just to make sure Signal knows. “Genuinely, I am so sorry to have married you through an old Realms vow when you had no say in it.”

“Hey, if it lands me a very nice, very attractive king, then I don’t mind at all. I could have done without the murderous cultists, though.”

Danny huffs out a small laugh. “Oh, for sure. Thanks for being so cool about this. Want me to fly us out of here?”

“Yes please,” Signal says. Danny smiles and tightens his grip on Signal, then lifts them both up. “I’ll see y’all later! Have fun with the rest of your patrols!” he calls out to the other heroes, who start shouting at him.

Danny flies them right out the roof before the other heroes figure out a way to kick his ass. The city they’re in is smoggy and dark, tall buildings rising up into the cloudy sky, and police sirens ring through the air. There’s no where that looks like a particularly nice spot to land for a conversation, so he asks Signal where he’d like to go and follows his directions from there.

They end up phasing through a building, then into the floor, which leaves them in what Signal calls The Hatch. 

Danny takes a quick moment to freak out over being in a hero’s secret hide out, the composes himself and finally pulls away from Signal.

“So,” he starts, looking around The Hatch and taking in the giant computer, the workstation, the motorcycle farther down the way, “What did you—Woah!” Danny spins around, slamming a hand over his eyes the instant he realizes that Signal is taking off his helmet, leaving his face bare.

It’s not like he’d know who Signal is anyways, being from a different dimension, but it’s the principle of the matter.

Signal laughs when he sees Danny’s attempt to keep from looking at him. A warm hand wraps around his wrist and gently pulls it away. “It’s okay, Danny, you can look,” he says. “It would be pretty weird if my own husband didn’t know my face.”

Slowly, giving Signal to change his mind, Danny opens his eyes. He moves his gaze up, going from Signal’s armor to his face, his very cute face and his warm brown eyes, and Danny stares for a moment. 

“Hi,” he whispers.

“Hi,” Signal says, fondness coloring his voice. “My name’s Duke. Are all Ghost Kings as cute as you?”

“Duke,” Danny repeats. “Hi. Um, no. The last one really sucked, actually, which is why I fought him. He was so bad the Infinite Realms didn’t want him anymore, so though I technically didn’t beat him in single combat, it was enough for the Infinite Realms to kick him out and get me on the throne.”

“Man, I can not wait to hear more of your stories. Think we got time for that while we search for a way to undo that marriage vow?”

Taking his chance, Danny says, “Sure! It’s a date.”

He’s awarded by Duke’s bright smile and idly wonders how long he can keep them married. Hopefully long enough for them to get into a real relationship where he can propose properly. And then he can get Jazz’s blessing too—

“Oh shit,” Danny realizes. 

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I need to tell my sister or she’s going to actually kill me.”

Duke winces. “And I should probably tell the others before Spoiler makes a mess of things… B is not going to be happy with me.”

They share a despairing look, already dreading the amount of scoldings they’re both going to get. He’s not looking forward to it.

“...Put it off until tomorrow?”

Duke nods. “Yeah. That’s a tomorrow problem. For now, how about a late dinner?”

“Sounds perfect.”

. . .

[send me a ghostlights prompt!]

[hailsatanacab]

a father's son

Happy holiday truce, @dashing-through-ecto!! I was your gifter this year, I hope you enjoy the fic! Based on your prompt: "Do you need any help, Dad?"

Word count 2.2k - ao3 link

Things have not been going well for Danny Fenton.

Not only did he fail in intercepting Lancer’s call home, so now Mom and Dad know about his latest grades—he didn’t even get enough answers for an F this time, not when he fell asleep within the first five minutes—but they also caught Jazz taking the trash out for him.

“That’s one of your chores, young man! Heaven knows you don’t have many of them, which is why you need to be responsible and actually do the ones that we give you! It’s just not good enough, Daniel James Fenton, do you hear me?”

The full name.

It’s not often he gets it, but it sucks each and every time he does.

What sucks even more is that now, with what little free time he has, he’s cleaning the lab. It’s just not fair!

Broken glass skitters along the floor as he sweeps it up into the dustpan, ectoplasm still clinging to the bottom of the beaker. 

He can’t even goof off—can’t even use his powers to finish quicker—because his dad is sitting at the workbench tinkering with whatever his newest interest is.

Great. Looks like he’s stuck cleaning the boring, human way.

The lab is quiet, but it isn’t silent. 

Ectoplasm drips, maddeningly, from the gloop stuck on the ceiling. That’s a form of torture, isn’t it? Danny’s pretty sure he’s heard that before, that the constant sound of water droplets will drive someone insane. He can relate, because this is certainly testing him.

Dad’s talking to himself, too, little murmurs about what he’s doing, where he should be soldering, how it should be working and why it isn’t. 

Vaguely, Danny wonders what he’s working on. Sure, it’s probably some ghost thing, but that’s not all they do! His parents made some pretty great advances before the portal switched on and monopolised all of their thoughts.

Yeah, that might be wishful thinking, but stranger things have happened! You never know.

Every 30 seconds, the motor on the ecto-filter whirrs into life, syphoning off the excess, pure ectoplasm from the portal and filtering it into something less volatile. In theory.

Underneath everything, the portal hums.

A droning beat that pulses in the same rhythm as his heart. Sometimes, he catches himself staring at it, leaning closer as it calls to him.

It scares him.

“Shit!” his dad shouts, dropping the soldering iron with a loud clang. 

It’s enough to knock Danny out of whatever daydream he’d lost himself in and he whirls around to see his dad sucking on one of his fingers.

They lock eyes, both widening as they realise what’s happened.

“Ah, I mean, suffering spooks! That really hurt…” He shoves his fingers back into his mouth and his shoulders droop as he considers Danny. “Don’t tell your mother.”

Danny laughs.

“Are you alright?”

“It’d take more than that to put Jack Fenton down! All good, Danno, don’t you worry,” he smiles back before shaking his hand out and turning back to whatever he was working on. “Or, I would be, if this hunk of junk was cooperating with me!”

“What’s up?” Danny asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

Normally, he likes to stay out of the lab, as much as he can. 

Obviously, what Phantom does doesn’t count. Phantom can’t help but come into the lab, set ghosts loose into the Zone, trash whatever weapons his parents have got going on, sneak out into the Zone when he can for some much needed R&R. The ectoplasm just hits different there.

“I’m trying to repurpose this toaster, but the ecto won’t run smoothly through the wiring. I think it keeps getting cooked by the element.”

“Oh? Do you need some help?”

Danny doesn’t like spending time in the lab, because if he’s in the lab then he’s either Phantom and he’s trying hard not to be seen or heard, or he’s Danny and he’s being punished.

But his curiosity is piqued.

“Yeah, come here, have a look! Perhaps another Fenton brain can knock some sense into it!”

So, he does.

Hell, anything beats cleaning the lab.

“You’re trying to run it through here?”

Dad nods and shifts in his seat to give Danny a better view.

“But you can’t, because the ecto is tripping the heating element… which is way higher than a toaster has any right to be, wow. No wonder it’s destabilising the ectoplasm, that would destabilise anything.”

Danny pokes around the casing, wiggling the wires back and forth to get a better look at the absolute mess his dad has made of it all. Sometimes it amazes him that his parents' inventions work at all.

“That’s what I’m thinking! But it has to be that high so we can completely break down the ecto!”

“You want it to break down?”

“Yep!” Dad says, clapping him on the back hard enough that he wheezes. He grins down at him when Danny turns around reproachfully. “Think of it, boyo, if we could figure out how to flash fry that ectoplasm high enough so that it evaporates—which it should do, it’s goopy gross liquid, after all!—then you wouldn’t be stuck down here cleaning for so long! We could take it to the streets after a ghost fight and clean up the whole town!”

Well, it’s not a Nobel Prize level invention… Danny’s pretty sure at this point that his parents would be laughed out by the Nobel committee. But, a quicker cleaning of the lab does sound nice.

It would mean he’d be stuck down here a lot less.

Besides… It's interesting.

“What if we…” Danny trails off and pulls the metal frame towards him, grabbing the tweezers as he goes. Vaguely, he’s aware of his dad leaning over his shoulder, the weight of him watching is a comforting presence that he’s not felt in a long while. 

The real trouble is that you need ectoplasm to affect ectoplasm, and that’s not going to work if the object of the game is to evaporate it. 

So what if they don’t introduce the reactive ecto until the end?

He makes quick work of stripping down what his dad’s already done and starts again, this time focussing on keeping the heat contained separately away from the ectoplasm. Just as he’s piecing together a trigger to concurrently shoot a blast of ecto towards the heated tip, Dad exclaims as he realises where he’s going with it.

“Oh! Danny, you’re a genius! Look at that!” Dad laughs and squints closer at what Danny’s doing. “Just wait until your mother sees this, she’s going to be so happy!”

Danny can’t help but grin as he ductapes everything to a piece of toaster casing to give it the first test try. Dad’s enthusiasm is catching as he whoops when the first puddle of ectoplasm burns off in acrid smoke.

They spend another couple of hours perfecting it, welding a case together and branding it with the Fenton F.

It’s not pretty—but then again, when are his parents’ inventions?—a long stick with a cattle-prod-like taser at the end. Instead of electricity, it launches ectoplasm from one rod and superheats the other. When activated, all you need to do is touch the tip to a puddle and poof! It’s gone.

Danny shivers as he watches another pool go up.

But, no! He’s thinking about it wrong. It’s not a cattle-prod, it’s more like one of those sticks you see people using on the highway to jab at the litter on the floor. It’s for cleaning. It’s going to make his lab cleaning chores way easier! It’s—

“Danny, just look at it!”

Danny looks at it, and then back to his father’s face when he can’t bear to see the smoking ecto anymore. It’s painfully happy and Danny does his best to be happy, too.

“Here!” Dad shoves the contraption into Danny’s arms. “You use that and finish what you’re doing and then when you’re done—I can’t believe I’m saying this, galloping ghouls, I’m so happy, I’m working with my boy—we can get to work transferring it over to the Jack o’ Nine Tails! Imagine it, Danny, with one whip and that pesky poltergeist Phantom will be gone!”

Danny freezes.

It feels as if Dad’s just dumped a bucket of ice water over him.

“Poof! Up in smoke!”

The fumes are getting to him. That must be it. His head is swimming and his stomach is churning. There’s a ringing in his ears and it melds with the sharp, stinging whirr of ectoplasm sizzling. It pulses in time with the portal behind him.

He stumbles, almost goes down—almost throws up—but it doesn’t matter. Dad doesn’t see him, already turned away back to the work bench.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter.

You know what, it’s okay! It’ll be okay, Danny can sneak back down here later tonight and he can undo it all, it doesn’t matter!

Take a deep breath, now, finish cleaning the lab, ignore Dad—it doesn’t matter—and get this over with. Being here makes his skin crawl, he needs to finish—

“I’m so proud of you, Danny.”

For the second time, Danny stops.

Dad doesn’t say anything else, just sits with his back to him, opening and closing his hand over a screwdriver with the Jack o’ Nine Tails splayed out in front of him.

It takes longer than Danny wants to find his voice, but he manages to croak out, “What?”

“I’m proud of you, Danno. I know this year hasn’t been easy for you, don’t think we haven’t noticed. Your mom and I have been talking about how you're doing at school. We're not blind. We know kids can be cruel, and that Dash Baxter… But we're so proud of you for not rising to it. We love you so much, Danny.”

A lump grows in Danny’s throat and his eyes prickle.

His fingers bleach white where they grip the Fenton Evaporator too tight.

“Look at what you can do when you try, Danny! This is the boy that I know, this is the Danny that I love. I’m so proud of what we’ve done here today. It’ll make the world a better place, just you wait! Now, come on, boyo, pass me that soldering iron and let’s really get stuck in!”

And… And Danny does.

With shaky limbs and tears threatening to spill, Danny reaches over and passes Dad the soldering iron, watching as he gets to work, and when his dad asks him to get his hands dirty—“Here, run this wire up the rope, there’s a good boy!”—he does.

Danny does it all and he does it well.

He sucks in a deep breath, swipes a hand over his eyes, and he helps his dad.

He laughs when Dad tells his stupid jokes:

“Quick! What’s red, white, and blue all over?”

“I don’t know, Dad, what’s red, white, and blue all over?”

“A ghost that we’ve beaten into oblivion!”

And he hopes that his mom is going to be just as proud as Dad says she will be when she sees what they’ve done.

It’s easy, really.

If he doesn’t think about it, if he tucks his mind away and just lets his hands get on with it, then he’s just helping his dad and he can do that. He can do it.

He can do it.

So, no, he doesn’t sabotage what they’ve built. He doesn’t add in a failsafe. He doesn’t loosen a few screws, or overload the element, or untwist a few wires.

Danny does his best and at the end of the day his dad holds up the new and improved Jack o’ Nine Tails and absolutely beams at him. A work of art, he calls it.

Danny doesn’t sabotage it then and he won’t sabotage it later, because it’s a work of art. This is what he and his dad built. Together.

Danny can’t help but grin back, happiness curling in his belly even as it gives a sickening lurch.

He doesn’t eat dinner that night, he can’t.

He stays downstairs long enough to present the new weapon to Mom—very pointedly ignoring Jazz’s look—and then he heads upstairs. There’s an English essay he needs to get started on, after all.

He doesn’t miss the look Mom and Dad share, the fond tenderness, the love, the hope, all directed at him.

He’s happy.

They’re happy.

They’re proud of him.

And despite it all, he had fun today! 

When he lays down on his bed, he smiles and he can’t stop the laughter bubbling up as he thinks about his dad. At one point, he had been holding up a circular piece of metal he’d cannibalised from the lamp shade to his eyes, moving it back and forth as he pulled his funny faces, and some of that full belly laugh creeps back in as he remembers doing the same back.

He laughs so hard until he cries, and he cries, and he cries. 

Today, he and his dad built a weapon. 

Tomorrow, it'll be used on him, but that's okay. 

It's okay because today, today his dad was proud.

[halfagone]

Is it Canon or Fanon?

A little over a week ago, I received a very thought-provoking ask that wondered whether the Fenton parents could be considered good parents after everything they've done throughout the show. I did leave a response to that ask, and you can find the original answer here. But even afterwards, it had me thinking:

Why did we start depicting Jack and Maddie as Bad Parents to begin with?

I aim to answer this question through canon evidence to see where this argument might have come from. Now, something to keep in mind is that we still tend to ignore canon a lot of the time, so there may be some people who won't take this meta to mean all that much anyways. But for the purpose of fanfiction, we have to acknowledge that there needs to be an in-universe explanation to these events and sadly, the 'it's a Butch Hartman show' or 'it's an early 2000s cartoon' excuses don't really cut it.

So let's start with some basic stats. There are 49 episodes to the Danny Phantom cartoon (we will not be using the Graphic Novel, A Glitch in Time, for examples); 20 for the first season, 17 for the second, and 12 for the third. If you looked this up on Google, you might notice that these numbers don't line up with the episode list provided. This is because I counted any two-part episodes as one for convenience's sake. Season 2 has three two-parters: "Reign Storm", "The Ultimate Enemy", and "Reality Trip". Season 3 has "Phantom Planet".

Jack appears for 43 of those episodes, although he does not have any speaking lines in the episode, "Frightmare". Maddie, on the other hand, appears in 40 episodes. The three episodes that Maddie does not appear in, but Jack does, are as follows: "Memory Blank", "Flirting With Disaster", and "Double Cross My Heart".

Let's Start with Season 1:

"Mystery Meat": Jack is shown as dismissive to Danny and his friends' preferences, telling them, "True, I've never seen a ghost, but when I do, I'll be prepared. And so will you, whether you want to be or not." Later on, when Sam and Tucker are visibly shaking and Danny is panting from exhaustion, he doesn't realize something is off about this. When Jazz offers to drive Danny to school, the Fenton parents quickly assume that she's a ghost and go off to track them down... even despite her previous argument that she was mentally an adult (should I be concerned that Jazz called Danny an 'abused, unwanted wretch' to make a point to their parents?) A POINT TO MADDIE, she worried about hurting Jazz if she really wasn't a ghost but Jack quickly dismisses that, as their ghost-hunting device only hurts when gets into human hair (spoiler alert, it gets into Jazz's hair). She also insists that Danny is not a ghost, but unfortunately she ultimately doesn't try to stop Jack when he insist Jazz is a ghost. Standing aside and letting abuse play out does not mean Maddie is innocent of hurting her daughter too.

"Fanning the Flames": When Jazz and Danny are struggling to study for an upcoming test, Jack decides that they should put their kids into the 'Fenton Stockades' which is basically an iron maiden. And yes, the Fentons have an entire floor that is meant to torture people. I feel like that should probably be addressed at some point. A POINT TO MADDIE, she stood her ground and refused to let him put their children inside, and even locks him inside instead.

"Teacher of the Year": After hearing displeasing news about the state of Danny's grades in a parent-teacher conference, Maddie lectures Danny by saying, "Get this straight Danny. You're a Fenton. Fentons get As. Or in your father's case, B minuses." Before this, when Danny tried to explain himself, Jack shuts him up with, "Now that's enough of your sass talk mister." Do a lot of parents act like this? Yes. Does that make this a good, conductive way to help your child improve their grades? No, it does not. In fact, Maddie's response in particular probably reinforces the idea that Danny doesn't fit in with the rest of his family and further proves that Jazz is the favorite child. Not a great parenting moment.

"Fright Knight": In this episode, Jack tells Danny, "If I didn't consider it a sign of weakness, I'd weep with joy!" Not a very promising sign when a parent tells their child that it's wrong to show emotion. It's especially telling, however, when it's crying from joy and not even sadness. Yikes.

"13": This is the episode where Jazz 'dates' Johnny briefly, and we see Danny stalking them on their dates. I've seen people give Danny a decent amount of flack for that as well, so this would be a good time to say that the Fenton parents were there too and even encouraged him to keep stalking his sister. Danny was wrong to ignore Jazz's privacy like that, but he definitely learned it somewhere.

"Public Enemies": Here we see more of the Fenton parents' aggression towards ghosts. We get a line from Jack: "I'm gonna tear that ghost kid apart into a million different-" Notice something here? He recognizes that Phantom is a ghost 'kid' and yet still fully intends to shoot at him with the intent to hurt if not straight-up kill him. The only time Maddie disagrees with him is to insist that she does the dirty work because she has better aim than him. These are not the type of people you should let children stay with.

"Maternal Instincts": Okay, I gotta say it, this is a really cute episode. We get to see Maddie reminiscing over how close she and Danny used to be and wishing they had that bond again. Unfortunately she does get some points docked off for deciding what they should do as a bonding activity instesd of asking what Danny wanted to do and maybe learning more about his interests and who he is as a person now that he's a teenager. But there is this really sweet moment where Maddie tells Danny 'I love you' at the campsite which absolutely melted my heart and then later on when she saves Danny from the ghosts, Danny tells her she's awesome and gives her a hug. So sweet. But then she kinda ruins it by asking her son to act as a distraction and- Please do not ask your teenage children to keep skeevy old guys 'entertained' when you know he's a creep. A POINT TO JACK, while all this is going on he's defending his daughter and even shouts, "Back off, she's a minor!" That's some Dr. Doofenshmirtz energy right there, I respect it. He also talks about making Jazz an action figure, which was a really cute moment amidst the chaos.

"The Million Dollar Ghost": This episode is filled with some great Danny-Jack bonding moments and goes to show how much Danny cares about his father that he's willing to get caught to make Jack feel better about himself. We also get to see how much Jack cares about how Danny views him and he wants to be someone in Danny's eyes. Unfortunately, this is the episode where Danny gets lectured for not doing all his lab chores, such as cleaning the beakers and changing the ecto-filtrator- despite knowing that the portal could blow up if they don't change in time and knowing that Danny is bad at cleaning his own room. And we literally get a scene where Jack knocks something over and tells Danny to clean it up because he was too busy running around to do it himself. Is it important to give children chores? Yes, it teaches them responsibility. You should not be asking them to deal with hazardous, dangerous chemicals that can literally cause an explosion capable of killing people. Something to keep in mind.

Now let's look at Season 2:

"Doctor's Disorders": In this lovely (sarcasm) episode, we have Jack saying to Danny's face: "Poor Jazz. She's always been my favorite." I don't feel like this one needs much more explanation for how horrible this is. Also, this isn't really too relevant to the bad-parent-thing and more to the "they wouldn't take Danny's reveal well under other circumstances" thing, because Maddie literally says to Tucker: "Everybody knows humans can't have ghost powers." Which would technically, probably, dehumanize Danny in their eyes.

"Identity Crisis": There's one line in particular in this episode I wanted to point out, which is from Jack where he says, "Safety features? Why, safety features are for punks." ...I know this is probably supposed to be a joke, but when you think about it, it's even worse than you might think. In fanon we do tend to stress how forgetful the Fentons are when it comes to lab safety, but it's one thing to forget and it's a whole other thing to purposefully dismiss it. I could even argue that we're doing the Fentons a service by characterizing them as simply forgetful.

"The Fenton Menace": This is one of the episodes I referenced in the original ask as well, for its... plethora of concerning material. There are lines such as, "Whether it's air land or sea I won't stop until we capture a ghost and tear it apart. Molecule by molecule." A POINT TO MADDIE, she told her family she loved them by saying, "Nothing like spending quality family time with the people you love." However she immediately loses those points when she and Jack attempt to 'spin the crazy' out of Danny. The episode transcript reveals Danny's reaction to this, which is described by, "Danny screaming, his face and hair flying around. Zoom out to show him strapped to a table, which is attached to a metal arm. Zoom out to show the metal arm connected to a centrifuge-like device on the ceiling." As well as, "Danny is shaking, hair sticking up with bags under his eyes." Is this supposed to be a joke? I wouldn't know because quite frankly, I'm not laughing.

"The Fright Before Christmas": So in this episode we learn why Danny hates Christmas! Which is because he got peed on by a dog. As a baby. What kind of parent lets their baby get peed on by a dog? Again, child neglect is a criminally punishable offense, and if they had left him out, in the cold, with dog piss on him, we could have had a lot bigger problems here. They also ignore both their children for most of this episode due to their arguing, although they go back later on and tell Danny that he shouldn't be alone for Christmas and where was all this concern before?

"Secret Weapons": Ah... This is the episode where it happens. Here we get the infamous interaction. Please note how a ghost is referred to as an 'it'. Not a person, not even a kid. But an 'it' that can feel pain that will go ignored.

Jazz: "Does it hurt the ghost?" Maddie: [laughs] "Oh, Jazz! You know your father and I don't care about that. Jack: "Yeah! If we hear it scream, then we know it's working."

"Micro-Management": At the very end of this episode, Jack makes a comment to Danny, "I'm so proud. Our boy finally has the physical prowess of a 60 year old president. Here's to you son." Clearly it's meant to be a compliment, but I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't take this as a compliment.

"Masters of All Time": This one takes a more distressing turn, because after Maddie catches Danny for snooping around, she has his strapped down to a table and fires a laser at him to interrogate him, thinking he's a ghost (though the laser doesn't hit him, just threatens him, which... isn't much better). And this is after he's already insisted that he's her son. He is still very clearly a child, and even if she doesn't believe that he's her son (for admittedly understandable reasons, people usually remember when they bear children), the fact that she strapped him to a table at all does not look favorably on her. Especially when he very clearly believed that she was his mother, and he was her son. And she still did this to him. Yes, there were time shenanigans involved, but that doesn't make this any easier on Danny just because he knows the truth.

"Reality Trip": This episode showcases that the Fenton parents can actually be decent parents. While they have a hard time believing the truth at first, they do eventually accept it. However, it is still important to remember that Danny could have never known what their reaction would be, so his fear is understandable and rooted in real concern for his life. Here are some of the best points from this transcript:

Jack: "Imagine, our own son has had ghost powers all this time and has kept them a secret from us. [confused] But we love him! [turning to Maddie] I wonder why he didn't trust us enough to tell us." Jazz: "[sarcastically] Hmm, let me guess. [mimicking Jack] "Hey, Maddie, let's destroy the ghost!" [mimicking Maddie] "No, Jack, let's dissect the ghost." [mimicking Jack again] "I know, let's catch the ghost and rip it apart molecule by molecule!" [normal voice, sarcastic again] You guys are so understanding." [Jack and Maddie drop their gazes, ashamed.]

Moving onto Season 3:

"Eye for an Eye": This is more a passing mention, but Jack seems to be a little obsessed with the GIW and huge fans of their work, and you do see it some more in "Livin' Large" later on in the season as well.

"Girls' Night Out": We see Jack trying to make an effort with Danny in this episode again. I did point out in the original ask reply that Jack was obviously trying to be a good father for Danny, which definitely deserves some points. However, it is still important to point out how generally uninterested Danny was in the bonding activity. It goes back to how Maddie ignored the chance to give Danny a choice, and how dismissive they tend to be towards him. I still want to award Jack a point for looking for advice from 'Father/Son Relationships For Stupids!' but I do so half-heartedly. Their interactions in this episode definitely reek with discomfort, but considering everything that has gone down in between now and "The Million Dollar Ghost", that does make sense.

"Torrent of Terror": This is another instance of extreme lack of safety precautions- the airbags don't deploy? In the GAV??? Somewhere out there, OSHA is crying.

"Forever Phantom": Maddie and Jack show a lot of anti-Phantom rhetoric in this episode. So this tracks how uncomfortable and/or threatened Danny might feel at home. Some examples include:

Jack: "He keeps this up he's liable to make people forget he's nothing but a putrid rancid ball of self-aware protoplasm."

Maddie: "Don't be fooled sweetie. He's up to something. Remember that time he attacked the mayor? Or stole everyone's Christmas presents? Once a filthy ghost always a filthy ghost."

"Livin' Large": Something to remember, the GIW intend to fire a missile into the Ghost Zone after gaining access to the Fentons' portal. While they didn't have the password right away, it cannot be understated that the Fentons basically gave away their house in exchange for wealth. Thankfully the missile was just a fake and not a real weapon of mass destruction, but do not mistake this to mean that- had it been real- the GIW wouldn't have gone through with it. And the Fenton parents would have been just as responsible.

And that concludes our canon research for this argument! Let's wrap things up with some stats. Of the 49 episodes in the show, we have evidence in 21 episodes. That is roughly 43% of the show, and this does not include comments that Danny has made about his parents and how they treat him. Obviously, at the end of the day, human error is possible. There is always a chance that I could have missed another piece of information, or perhaps another thoughtful addition to this list. However, 43% is no laughing matter.

Yes, the Fenton parents had their shining moments, but with all the other evidence presented that overshadows those little gems, can you confidently say that they are good parents? And most of all, if you were in Danny's shoes, would you say the same thing?

It's easy to excuse this as a cartoon. When you're writing in this world, playing with these characters, that excuse instantly evaporates.

Thank you for reading, I hope you all learned something about the Fenton parents like I did.

[dat1angel]

May I Have Your Name?

DP x DC au where ghosts are basically the fae. Danny being half ghost gives him access to the fun bits like the fae magic, trickster abilities, and being able to eat/drink fae food with little to no side effects while he is less affected by the not so fun bits like being incapable of lying(he can but he feels really weird when he does) and being burned by iron(it'll give him a rash if in prolonged contact). Due to fae having extremely long life spans, he has outlived all his loved ones and moved into the infinite realms permanently after their deaths. This has caused him to lean a lot more into the fae traits as the years pass. He occasionally takes trips into different dimensions to cause mischief.

One such trip brings him to Gotham. He's in a park and due to his fae-ness the local fauna are extremely trusting and drawn to him so he has a small collection of birds, squirrels, and maybe even a stray cat or two following him around. This catches the attention of Damian who just so happened to be at that park. Damian walks over to this strange boy who has such an affinity with animals, and starts a conversation with him.

"How do you get them to follow you?" Damian asks as he slowly approaches, voice low to avoid scaring off any of the creatures. Danny glances over at Damian, a smile flitting across his lips, before turning to the gathered animals.

"Patience," he replies, lowering a hand for a young squirrel to climb on, lifting his hand, and cradling it near his chest, "and kindness". He turns back towards Damian and reaches for his hands, which Damian let's him take, and gently deposits the squirrel in his gentle hold. The squirrel looks up at Damian curiously, looks back to Danny who gives an encouraging nod, and then climbs up Damians arm and settling upon his shoulder. "It takes a truly gentle soul to gain an animals trust," Danny says, "Something that I have a feeling you possess. You are intriguing."

If it were anyone else, they may have clocked the way Danny spoke as strange, but Damian was too in awe of both Danny and the squirrel who was currently snuggling against his neck to notice. Even if he wasn't, however, he wouldn't have noticed as he himself was often told he spoke strangely, though he never thought so.

"This is incredible," Damian said, ever so gently bringing a hand up to stroke the squirrels fur. Danny smiled as he watched Damian interact with the squirrel, so kind and gentle, his curiosity and interest in the human growing by the second.

"May I have your name?"

Damian, who takes great pride in his name and would never consider hiding his identity, proudly proclaims, "Damian al Ghul-Wayne".

Danny's eyes sparkle with mischief and his smile grows into something a little too wide and suddenly all his features look just this side of odd. His ears a little too pointed and his teeth and nails a little too sharp and his eyes a little too bright, did they always look like that?

"Well Damian," and when he says his name something shifts in him, like he has no choice but to listen, and... what was his name again? This boy just said it, why in the world can't he remember what it is? "I think you'll be coming with me."

Damian can't stop himself from allowing Danny to take his hand and lead him further into the trees. What was supposed to be a small patch of trees in a park seem to thicken before his eyes, fog rolls in and licks at his heels and they emerge into a clearing that definitely wasn't there before. When he looks around, he can't see any of the park through the tree line. The air in front of them seems to ripple and waver until it divides itself and creates a gateway of sorts to a place Damian doesn't recognize as anywhere in Gotham.

"Come along Damian," Danny says and once again, he has no choice but to comply, allowing this stranger to take him away.

~~~~~~~~

So basically Danny is a fae and meets Damian and decides, hey I like this one, I'm gonna keep it and steals his name and takes him home. I picture it as Dead Serious but it doesn't have to be taken that way.

Other things I envision for this au include:

Danny showing Damian off to his friends in the realms(Kitty, Johnny, Ember, Skulker)

they congratulate him on his "first catch" and coo over Damian as if he was a new puppy and not a whole human person

Damian being very distraught over his inability to remember his name

Danny tells him that it doesn't matter and his name(and by extension Damian himself) belongs to him now

But if he really wants something to call himself he may go by Dove

Damian always keeps a communicator on him which he uses to contact his family and tell them what happened

They try to track his location but as he is in another realm they cannot

They reach out to Constantine because they need a magic user's help

Constantine hears that Damian got taken by the fae and nearly shits himself

He gives the batfam a run down on fae etiquette and then takes them on a field trip to the fae realm to try to convince Danny to give Damian back

Danny does not want to give Damian back

Anytime Danny gives Damian an order in which he says his name Damian has no choice but to comply

Danny doesn't intentionally abuse this but after centuries without normal human interaction he's lost touch with what is and isn't considered cruel

As if stealing someones' name and kidnapping them is in any way not cruel

So sometimes he ends up being a little mean

Forcing Damian to shut up if he starts being rude

Forcing him to sit or stand or go here or don't move

Once, in an attempt at defiance, Damian refuses to eat and Danny gets this cold expression and his features once again take on that just-this-side-of-odd look and he says "Damian, eat"

Danny goes out of his way to get food from Damians universe because he doesn't want him to have any side effects from eating the fae food

He wants to keep him and doesn't want to risk anything potentially harming him

Time across dimensions is kinda fucky

Idk if I'll continue this cuz I don't really know the DC universe well enough to write it. Everything I know I learned through fanfics. If anyone wants to try their hand at writing it you have my full permission just please tag me because I'd love to see what you do with it. It's up to author interpretation if Danny ever gives Damian back or not. Maybe he makes the batfam do some tasks to prove themselves to convince him to give him back or not. Maybe if you take the Dead Serious route then as they come to truly care for each other Damian is able to convince Danny that he wouldn't be happy living the rest of his life in the fae realm, unable to leave or see his family, and that is what eventually gets Danny to release him. But at that point they really care for each other(maybe already dating) so they keep in touch and Danny visits often and starts getting accustomed to socially interacting with humans again. He is very embarrassed about some of the things he did while Damian was under his possession after relearning human social norms.

[strong-with-the-sarcasm]

Part 2 - let the world know

“I wish I could let the world know that it’s okay to let the pain show and even though times seem bad, it always rains before the rainbow.” -A Little More by Machine Gun Kelly

Dp x DC: Regent!Jazz AU Vigilante!Jazz AU

Prompt Masterlist

In traditional Fenton luck, shit goes sideways when Jazz wasn’t looking.

The Joker breaks out of Arkham.

Now, Jazz is fully aware of the Clown’s evil-ness and Danny’s trauma with all things Circus thanks to Freakshow has her hackles raised when the spirits of Gotham start screeching in her ear mid-patrol that “Joker is free!”

Like hell the guy would stay that way.

Lady Gotham is anxiously watching the Regent stomp towards Arkham, where the Mad Clown had yet to fully leave the premises into Gotham proper.

Would Jazz kill the Clown?

Many of the Unquiet Dead of Gotham are the staunchest supporters of kill, kill, kill on a good day, but with the Clown?

They seethed, they writhed, they thirsted for their vengeance and with every life taken by the Joker, the number grew.

Jazz hated the thought of death, ironically.

It’s one thing to rule the Dead and Never-born, but to add to the Realms' population by her own hand?

(It wouldn't be the first time.)

Well, Jasmine Nightingale would have to check her morals at the door, because when Lady Gotham begins to hesitantly (then vivaciously) root for you to “please end him, dear” one has to reconsider a few things about themselves.

For instance, how would she avoid becoming the next Joker? It was a hushed confession of the Lady that made Jazz hesitate at the border between Gotham and Arkham-

A dead man's switch would trigger a Joker Venom bomb, infecting those nearby.

Would the gas affect a Liminal?

True, Jazz was very much a living being (she often woke up in a cold sweat with a hand at her neck, heart beating against her fingers), but she was Death-claimed.

Was this how Danny felt as a Halfa? Weighing the living half vs the dead to see which would win out in a fight?

Not for the first time, Jazz found herself thankful that she was only Liminal.

Heart in her throat, Jazz considered her options.

It would be easy to just run him through with her ecto-sword, a gift from her once-mentor Pandora, but she would likely have to fight her way through bats and birds to both get to and away from the Clown.

Jazz could also just ask for aid from Lady Gotham and/or the Unquiet Dead to enshroud her from vigilant eyes as she absconds with Joker to Crime Alley.

(Jazz was sure Red Hood wouldn’t mind if she dropped a dead clown at his feet. He seemed the type to appreciate a job well done.)

(If her heart raced slightly in response to that thought, no it didn’t.)

Despite all her reservations about murder, killing the clown felt like an honor for the Regent.

(Blood had long since been on her hands.)

The morning would bring chaos as the people learned of the Joker's fate, Batman's failure to return him to Arkham, and how someone finally had enough of the black furry's inaction to stop the clown.

Sometimes, inaction is just as bad as action.

(A Fenton who learned that well.)

Jazz, in full Regent armor, mounted the Joker's head at the mouth of her alleyway, the same one that she used as a checkpoint between her apartment and the Park Row graveyard. A grotesque trophy that would be used as a symbol of the Regent's authority to avenge, of her willingness to cross the line of morality.

The Unquiet Dead who owed their demise to the Joker could now pass on and Jazz could call it a night.

That was, until whatever tomorrow brought around to spite the younger Fentons.

Typical.

=============================

[This was more of a short fic rather than the prompt I first started with, but it just came to me. I want to explore some things with events leading up to Danny and Jazz in Gotham, but I'm not sure. I need help to describe Jazz's armor because I have a general idea, but I'm not sure about the details. Ideas?]

[Hopefully I'll be able to put more Regent!Jazz than Vigilante!Jazz, but I also really like Jazz as one. Bet you can't guess the name I use for her as a vigilante!]

[anti-the-glitch-bitch]

To be or not to be (a blackmailer) part 3

Duke thinks of how ironic it is that he named his ability the ghost sense when he never believed in ghosts. He understood the confusion when people found out about it for the first time. For the record, Duke has seen some absolutely crazy things, but he has never seen a ghost. He knows Justice League Dark has a ghost informant that was made by magic or something like that, but he doesn't know if that actually counts as a ghost.

Imagine Duke's surprise when he was walking around the shopping district of Gotham, and he sees this bright light in the vague shape of a person also walking around. Well, he wouldn't call it walking. It was more like floating. Anyway, it seemed to go from store to store where it would disappear for a few minutes inside the store and then come out again a little bit later. Whatever the thing was filled Duke with intrigue and, just like the rest of the Batfam, he had to investigate this phenomenon.

That was harder done than said. At times the vague shape would look exactly like some guy who looked kinda familiar but also not really, and then other times, it was so bright he had a hard time looking at it. It also seemed to get faster the more he followed it. A few times, when the thing looked more person like it seemed to stare directly at him with a cocked head, and then it would take off and disappear for a few minutes. It was really, really weird.

After a good couple of hours, Duke finally lost the weird thing in a crowded grocery store, where it disappeared through a wall and never reappeared. Confounded, Duke immediately called for a family meeting because if ghosts were real and his ghost sense wasn't just a made-up name, then he wanted to know so he could freak out later.

Bruce immediately called up Constantine (it took several calls to the weird magic guy and a call to Zatanna before the guy actually answered the phone), who started cussing worse than any sailor and told Bruce that he'd be there in a few hours to take a look around. Chaos erupted at that news, and the clan gathered around Duke, bombarding him with a million questions that he didn't have answers for.

Duke did, in fact, freak out later that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny just wanted to check out the stores in the nicer parts of Gotham without having to worry about being mugged or some crazy villain popping up where he was, so of course, he went there invisible and intangible. Imagine his surprise when he caught some guy following him around. At first, Danny thought it was just a coincidence. It wasn't until he came out of the third store that he noticed the guy staring at him with shock and confusion.

He did a few experiments and visited a few more stores before being absolutely certain that he was being stalked. It would have been pretty unnerving if Danny had been honest with himself. He didn't need any of the Bats catching wind of him here. He's dead, which is a medical condition, but Batman may not see it like that and consider him meta.

Everyone knows how Batman feels about metas.

The guy followed Danny for hours until he just couldn't take it anymore. He went into the busiest store he could find, which just so happened to be a grocery store. The creep, of course, followed him in, but Danny lost him by walking out the back wall of the store and flying off.

He was quite upset that he couldn't buy anything while he was out. He'd just have to wait for another day off to actually go shopping, not that he could afford much in this part of town. Still, it was coming up on Tim and his 4-month anniversary, and Danny wanted to get him something special. Maybe his boss will let him leave work early tomorrow?

[madame-mortician]

Random Evil Dead Fun Facts!

Because I'm hyperfixated on it :P

Originally, Ash was supposed to lose an eye in Army of Darkness, but this was scrapped.

Currently Evil Dead (2013) has the most fake blood used in a film, with 50,000 gallons being used. This isn't that suprising considering that during the final 10 minutes of the film, it is raining blood non-stop.

Freddy Krueger's glove is in the workshed in Evil Dead 2. This is a reference to how in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Nancy watched The Evil Dead. Ironically, that was a nod to how Wes Craven's "The Hills have Eyes" poster was in The Evil Dead. That in turn was a nod to how in The Hills have Eyes a torn Jaws poster is seen on the walls. Very confusing easter egg.

Ironically, Ash actually does say the correct words during the Necronomicon scene in Army of Darkness, but it's hard to hear due to Bruce Campbell coughing his way through it, which sounds like something Ash would do honestly.

Speaking of that scene in Army of Darkness, it is actually established that Ash isn't good at remembering phrases, shown by the scene in The Evil Dead, where Ash tries to recite a greek quote but fucks it up.

Evil Dead Rise confirms that the original trilogy takes place in the same universe as the remake and Evil Dead Rise. For one, they confirm there are three volumes of the Necronomicon, being the ones seen in Army of Darkness. The first Necronomicon, Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, was found by Prof. Knowby and read by Ash and his friends. The second book, Naturom Demonto, is the one Mia found in her family cabin and the final one, also named Naturom Demonto, is the one locked in the bank vault in Evil Dead Rise.

Each deadite in Evil Dead Rise has different eyes referencing the older ones. Ellie has unique silver eyes, Bridget and the neighbours have golden yellow eyes (like in the 2013 film) and Danny has pupilless white eyes (like in the original trilogy.)

The character names in Evil Dead (2013) start with letters that spell the word "DEMON" (David, Eric, Mia, Olivia and Natalie.)

Similarly, the building in Evil Dead Rise, the Monde, is an anagram for Demon as well.

A reocurring theme in the Evil Dead films, is a sister getting possessed and tormenting their sibling. This is shown with Cheryl and her brother Ash, Mia and her brother David, Ellie and her sister Beth and Bridget and her siblings Danny and Kassie.

All the characters in Evil Dead Rise are named after actors from the Evil Dead films, which I elaborate on here.

Originally Army of Darkness was named "Medieval Dead."

The original ending of Army of Darkness showed Ash waking up in a post-apocolyptic future, but it was changed to the more optimistic ending. Despite both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell preferring the original ending, the redone ending was used to continue the story with Ash VS Evil Dead.

The original ending was also supposed to lead into Evil Dead 4, where Ash would've fought deadites in the future with robots and other futuristic tropes, but because the ending was changed this never happened. Ironically, the same thing happened to Ash VS Evil Dead, when Season 3 ended on a cliffhanger so that the next season could be in the post-apocalyptic future, but this too was cancelled.

The German version of Army of Darkness incorporates both endings. It starts with the deleted ending, where Ash incorrectly takes 7 drops instead of 6, but as he sleeps it cuts to black and says Ash began dreaming over the centuries. Then it cuts to the regular ending where Ash is in the supermarket and is hailed as a hero before cutting back to him waking up in the post-apocalyptic future. Ironically this is my favourite ending, but it's not-canon.

Evil Dead (2013) had a bunch of different endings before settling on the, supposedly, canon one. One ending had Mia simply leave and the film ends, another had her go to leave before being jumped by a demon (like in The Evil Dead's ending), another had her collapse on the road and get rescued only to reveal she was still possessed and another had her go to leave but start floating before she exploded. The canon one is likely the theatrical ending where she simply walks away, and since we never see Mia again we have nothing to confirm or deny this.

The Abomination from Evil Dead (2013) is inspired by the poster of The Evil Dead, which depicts a woman being dragged into a grave. The Abomination even does the same pose when it rises.

Speaking of The Evil Dead posters, the promo images for The Evil Dead, showed Bruce Campbell and Bridget Hoffman being attacked by a skeleton prop, and defending themselves with a chainsaw. Despite being in all the promotional images and being on the literal cover, Bridget Hoffman was not in the film, though it's likely she is supposed to be a stand-in for Linda. She also played a cameo role as a sword fighter in Army of Darkness, and the voice of the Lori doll in Ash VS Evil Dead.

In The Evil Dead originally it was written that the characters would be smoking weed whilst listening to the tapes, perhaps as a way to explain why they would willingly play the tape, and as a way to rationalise the characters dumb decisions for the rest of the film. This however, was scrapped when the actors did smoke weed for the shot, but got too high and became uncontrollable.

The opening shot of The Evil Dead was filmed by Sam Raimi who stood on a boat, whilst Bruce Campbell pushed him along.

One of the demon passages in The Evil Dead translates to "Sam and Rob are the hikers on the road" a reference to the fact that the two hitchhikers at the start of the film are literally Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert.

During The Evil Dead, a cameraman slipped and dropped his camera onto Bruce Campbell's face, which caused several of his teeth to fall out.

Apparently during filming for Evil Dead 2, after one of the slapstick scenes Bruce Campbell heard somebody making funny noises above him and thought they were making fun of his performance, only for it to turn out that guy got electrocuted. I say apparently because even though Campbell said this himself, he could've been kidding.

Originally the idea with Evil Dead (2013) was that it would get a sequel, similar to Evil Dead 2 but with Mia, and then Ash's story would get a sequel with Army of Darkness 2, and then a third sequel would be made that would have Mia and Ash's stories merge and have the two characters meet, explaining the random after-credits scene in 2013. For some reason they never made the sequel to Evil Dead (2013) and the sequel to Army of Darkness was scrapped for Ash VS Evil Dead instead. The 2013 sequel was replaced with Evil Dead Rise, and Bruce Campbell has since retired as Ash in live-action.

In Japan, Army of Darkness is called "Captain Supermarket" probably being in reference to how Ash works in retail.

So far Evil Dead Rise is the only Evil Dead film without Ash's yellow delta, though apparently the chainsaw used by Beth is the same exact colour as the delta, being a double-reference.

Speaking of the delta, Ash's car appears in Evil Dead (2013), sitting abandoned in front of the cabin. It is most likely just an easter egg and has no lore implications.

Mia and David are half-siblings with different fathers. Originally it was intended for Mia to be Ash's daughter, but this was changed by Raimi. Ironically Ash did end up getting a daughter in the TV show.

Speaking of, Mia was supposed to appear in Ash VS Evil Dead, but it’s likely she wouldn’t have fit since her movie and experience was way darker than Ash’s, and she wouldn’t fit the tone.

The canonical reason Evil Dead (2013) is so similar to The Evil Dead is because the Necronomicon can cause history to repeat itself and likely lured the 5 friends to the cabin (which could also explain why some of the randoms are even here). This is why the 5 characters play very similar roles to the original film, Eric is Scotty, Natalie is Linda, Olivia is Shelly, and David is Ash whilst Mia is Cheryl. The reason Mia survives instead of David, and becomes more like Ash in the finale is likely that when David saved Mia, which Ash failed to do with Cheryl, the Necronomicon decided David should die and Mia should take Ash's role instead. It's also possible that David took the role of Annie in the finale, with him helping before being killed last second, but this is a bit of a stretch.

Bruce Campbell has two cameos in Evil Dead Rise. First is his voice being heard on the first tape Danny plays, where he plays a priest yelling “It’s called the Book of the Dead for a reason!” The second is simply the biting noises when Ellie bites Gabriel’s eye out, being Bruce Campbell furiously biting an apple.

Lee Cronin (Writer/Director of Evil Dead Rise) stated that Bruce Campbell’s cameo was intended to actually be Ash Williams himself. His reasoning was that Ash has found himself in the wrong time period a lot, and it would make sense for a time-displaced Ash to try and get rid of the Necronomicon in the past, before shit hits the fan.

Chet Kaminski was invited by Ash to go with them to the cabin. He chose not to come because Cheryl was also going and he didn’t want Ash to find out he was dating his sister as he feared it would end their friendship. This ultimately ended up saving his life.

In the Evil Dead films, the only characters to be possessed after they died were Scotty, Eric, David, Danny and the neighbours (Evil Dead Rise).

Shelly is never mentioned ever again after The Evil Dead. Scotty is mentioned once, in Ash VS Evil Dead.

Whilst shooting the recap scenes in Evil Dead 2, originally it was intended to have The Evil Dead be more closely followed, with Scotty, Cheryl and Shelly being there with Ash and not just Linda. Sam Raimi himself was going to play Scotty, but it was scrapped in favour of it being only Linda. It’s this recap that led to many fans and viewers being confused and assuming Evil Dead 2 was a retcon or remake when it was not. They couldn’t simply use footage from The Evil Dead due to licensing issues.

[nelkcats]

Special delivery: Surprise Mini-box!

It had been a while since Danny was a hero in Amity Park, now that he was king he actually had fewer responsibilities than before, which was pretty ironic all things considered.

Meeting with the Observants was the most boring part of his day, but he had recently been entertaining himself with the Zone's ghost children, apparently many of his ex-rogues considered him an honorary godfather. The kids loved him so much it was almost worth missing out college.

His hero past wasn't a problem until Box Ghost told his daughter about his adventures when he fought Phantom on a daily basis, and how it was comforting to have your own hero. Lunch Lady joined the conversation and that could only end one way: Box Lunch wanted to be a rogue.

But she could not be one in Amity Park, her godfather took great care of it and that was already the place of his parents, so after she found a portal she began her search through different cities to find her ideal "hero" rival.

Neither the League nor all of their associates were ready for the baby ghost, the intangibility though basic had thrown most heroes off balance, eliminating the small list of colorful heroes Box had in her hand.

In exasperation she headed towards a new destination "Gotham"; by the time Danny found out about the mess from a guilty Box ghost, Box Lunch was making a mess on Crime Alley. Danny really hoped the vigilante would notice that the cause of the disaster was a child.

[bonefall]

I kind of feel evil for asking this, but how does the fact that Brightheart is considered the hottest molly in the forest while Cloudtail is considered rather ugly affect their relationship? (Also the love the Better Bones Au!)

I think in other couples, it might, but for them it doesn't. Y'know? Other cats might be shallow, or insecure that they're considered so unattractive while their mate is "out of their league," but that's simply not Cloudtail and Brightheart.

You see, a short king like Cloudtail only has a certain amount of floorspace with which to store their confidence. In a tall guy, it spreads all out and gets thin. In a boy who is short? It's concentrated. Absolutely distilled to its purest essence. You cannot divide him. This man is a carbon molecule, and babey, Brightheart is 6 electrons.

He's like Danny Devito. When does Danny Devito ever stop and lament his appearance? That man is a comedic orb. That's Cloudtail.

Brightheart ironically is the one who's more insecure. The death of her cousin and Bluestar's Dishonor Title, Swifthound, really wrecked her. She has a bad habit of feeling like she doesn't deserve the good things she has.

In BB's Clan Culture, scars are desirable. She feels like she doesn't deserve to have such markers of strength. What she did in following Swiftpaw towards the dogs that night wasn't noble, it was foolish. So walking away from it with trophies that she feels she didn't earn is painful.

In a way, she feels like that with Cloudtail, too. What did she do to deserve him? He supports her in everything she does. He does everything in his power to make her feel better. When she suggests surrogating for their friends in other Clans? He thinks that's great! If she wanted to go on a trip with Cinderheart to the town? He'd cheer! She knows, deep in her heart, if she ever DID want to become a Cleric, Cloudtail loves her enough to let her go.

And that hurts, sometimes. When she struggles with self-worth. She feels like it's not fair she's loved so much.

So... basically, maybe in another couple who was more shallow. But these two have something a lot deeper going on.

[teruel-a-witch]

danny is so happy about his best guy bro potentially getting married...oh, wait...

he's not.

considering danny is a detective and a professional at keeping secrets it makes no sense that he would suddenly be unable to wait to spill the beans. therefore my theory is that danny was hoping that someone else (like lou, maybe) would tell steve what a dumb idea it is to propose to someone just because it's 'the next logical step'.

unfortunately for danny, it backfired and everyone else was supportive, ironically it also pushed steve further towards that ill-advised decision which brings us to steve's reaction ↓

that does not look like the face of someone happily in love who wants to shout about his love from rooftops.

if it had been such happy news steve would be unable to contain it himself, but instead he's feeling annoyed and even somewhat betrayed by danny.

by telling danny about his plans first steve was clearly hoping danny would object (perhaps because he had feelings for him), but not only was danny weirdly enthusiastic about him proposing to cath (which should have been his clue, when had danny not ever been doom and gloom about marriage?) but by telling everyone else about his tentative plans, danny locked him in, trapped him in this decision because now he couldn't change his mind because it would look like he chickened out.

the biggest clue towards steve's real feelings on the matter is that when talking about the reason he has to do it, he doesn't say it's because he loves her, nope, he just says 'it's been a long time coming' which makes it sound like an obligation, a box he has to tick off, this is textbook steve mcgarrett doing what he's supposed to do, what's expected of him, and not what he wants. comphet in action if I've ever seen one.

it's just another mission he has to complete, nowhere love is a motivating factor. compare this to danny's proposal story where he had proposed with a soda can ring because he couldn't wait....

this entire thing was a cluster fuck from the beginning and both steve and danny backed themselves into a corner. no wonder steve was grasping at straws for a reason not to propose just two episodes later. his heart was never in it to begin with.

[meowmeowmeowmeow4x]

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Part 9

MASTAPOST

Byleth trembled as the Guard gathered in the barracks later that night. He had been found floating belly up near the top floor after having sounded the alarm.

It wasn’t his fault! T-there was a s-s-SIREN. Right there! In front of him! It looked thin and waspish and starving, and he was sure it was gonna maul him to death right then and there. Did you see the teeth on that thing?! Byleth shuddered. His hand went to cover his gills. Imagine being chomped on the neck by that stuff. The stuff of nightmares.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he wasn’t the only one terrified. Well, that was a little misleading. Byleth stood at attention in line with his fellow guardspeople, awaiting dismissal. The debrief was long and agonising, hearing details about how the siren lurked around unnoticed for hours, but most of his comrades were just irritated, or even disappointed. He glanced to the right, where Ableth was nursing his wounds from trying to tackle the little demon, and he wasn’t even fazed! Like, holy shit. If the siren got that close to him, he’d probably shit his pants right on the spot!

No, the one who was terrified was apparently the local administrator, currently having a ‘conversation’ (more like a shouting match) with their commanding officer out of sight, but definitely not out of earshot.

“It was a child! A baby! Do you even begin, begin to comprehend how bad this makes you, and by extension, me, look?! King Arthur will have our heads! Our heads!”

Their commander audibly sighed (which was a big yikes, considering how patient the guy was even on a bad day). “I understand your concerns, administrator, but this guard have done the best they can. The siren child was armed with weaponry the likes of which we have never seen before, and the raids have been tireless besides.”

“Blah blah blah blah do you even hear yourself? Maybe if you had trained these grunts better they wouldn’t have been out-matched by a toddler!” Byleth took offence to that. He’d like to see the office suit face up against that monster!

“Only one man was hurt, and he’ll be disciplined for his recklessness. The child did not set out to attack anyone, he was only stealing supplies, and fled when resistance appeared. It’s the same story as ever.”

“It sounds like your guards are as incompetent as ever!”

“The sirens have no way to access such advance weaponry. Do you understand what this means? If we don’t speak up, what will we do when a proper war band appears, each bearing these weapons? How many towns will they have razed before your dead spirit will be ready to admit the consequences of this cowardice?”

The administrator sputtered. The ridiculous loss of composure, and the raucous laughter of Byleth’s friends helped sooth the abject terror of a hundred more sirens appearing out of the ravines. By Poseidon spare them!

Line breakening~~

With the adrenaline running low, Damian ran on fumes as he twisted through the ravine, tracing back his fin-strokes to the cave where he’d left Phantom. Against all odds, he found it, and almost cried in relief. Throwing his newly acquired loot to the floor, Damian let his body drop like a cold iron, and passed out.

Danny felt pain. Like, all over. Everything hurt. Normally he’d be able to heal any injuries he got while siren fighting, and what a blessing that was. He wasn’t sure just how dense his parents could be, but he didn’t want to test it. The aching agony all over his body reminded him just how little he ate that morning, and man was he regretting it. Stupid Skulker and his stupid hunting dog dolphins. His stupid hunting doglphins. And stupid Damian for making him come close.

Well, that was a little harsh. He couldn’t blame the kid for believing the dolphin propaganda. They had a tight grip on the world, man.

The smell of blood prickled his nose. Danny shot up, fully awake. “Damian where ar-”

There the kid was, collapsed against the rocky floor of their makeshift hideout. Beside him, bags and satchels spilled out with food, bandages and weapons?! Guilt rocked up Danny’s body. Did Damian go hunting for food while he was unconscious? The kid’s tiny body was littered in bruises, and raw patches where the scales barely healed over. His sail was bent at an awkward angle too. Where the hell did he go?! Where did he get weapons?

No wait. Danny came closer and sniffed the loot closely. You had to be kidding him. There were Atlanteans nearby?! Part of Danny very much doubted the idea that the Atlanteans, probably the number 2 siren haters in the world aside from his parents, would just hand Damian a gift basket if he asked them to. So he stole from them?

Jazz would call this catasrophising, but she wasn’t around, so Danny felt pretty justified in panicking a little. Like, what was he thinking?! The Atlanteans would’ve skewered him without a second thought.

A small whimper caught his attention. Danny’s mental disaster train screeched to a halt. Damian was shivering, violently. Oh right. It was like, midnight or something in a deep ocean ravine. The kid was probably freezing. And if he wasn’t healing, that meant he was low on nutrients, and even lower on body heat.

Right, needed to care for the kid. Crap. He was planning on staying near the surface for most of the trip. A blanket was big and cumbersome and he didn’t have much storage space on him.

But goddammit if he let the kid freeze to death on his behalf. Resigning himself to a fate of being bitten once Damian woke up, Danny picked up the tiny, fragile guppy, and tucked him underneath his fins. As Danny began to eat his fill, he wondered just what kind of person he was going to be swimming across two oceans with, to be brave enough to go out singularly into the unknown…

Damian awoke to the sound of chewing, and gentle purring. He missed Alfred the cat. Poor kitty. He probably missed Damian too. It’s ok, Damian can make it up to him. He’ll give the little kitty all the pets and grooming he could ask for.

A weight settled on his hair, and- oh… oh that was so good. He didn’t know Alfred could pet him too. Maybe this was one of the good endings to his life, one where he’d spend life as a kitten, without a care in the world. That would be so nice, just being there and safe and warm. The hand stroked and straightened his hair, and it snaked down to where his ears were and scratched them. It was pure heaven. Damian thought that such a place would be forever closed off to him, but maybe the world had decided to be kind…?

“Woah, you’re actually lowkey super adorable like this.” Alfred said. Why did Alfred the cat sound like a pasty-faced teenage boy? He’d always imagined him like the real Alfred: prim, proper, distinguished.

“You sound strange, Alfred.” Damian mumbled. The hand scratched his ear again, and Damian’s purring intensified. “Please return to your proper voice at once.”

“Dude, I have no idea who that is.”

Nonsense. Damian had named his cat after a very distinguished man, and let him know it every time he saw him. How could he not know his own name?

“That is preposterous. You are Alfred the cat, my esteemed pet and loyal member of the family.”

Aflred the cat snorted. He snorted. “Oh my god that is so gold. I’m going to hold this over you literally until you grow old and wrinkly.”

Damian felt… offended. That was so mean! Why would Alfred the cat say such a thing, to him, Damian, his owner and friend! Damian always made sure to treat his pets with the care and respect they deserved, and this is what he got!?

“B-bad kitty. You will be disciplined.”

And Alfred the cat just kept laughing! Alright, the air of relaxation evaporated as Damian started getting annoyed. He opened his eyes, ready to teach his wayward cat some manners when-

The last 24 hours caught up again. Before him was not Alfred the cat, as he had thought, but Phantom completely healthy again, lying on his back, laughing his heart out. Almost literally, too. Damian watched as Phantom’s still beating heart, and water-filled lungs bounced and jiggled inside his chest cavity with each half-choked laugh. It was mesmerizing, and kind of nauseating.

Suddenly Damian couldn’t find it in himself to be angry, just an overwhelming feeling of relief.

“Phantom!” He cried out, voice almost cracking. Phantom tackled him into a hug, and Damian only put up a token resistance. It just felt so… right. “You are… You have recovered from your injuries.”

“It’s Danny, actually.” Phantom, er- Danny, said, voice soft, quiet. Almost vulnerable… “Danny Phantom. Most people just know the Phantom part.”

Danny… Daniel…. “I was foolish. I should not have ignored your warnings. Forgive me, Daniel.”

“Hey now, don’t you start picking up the Fruitloop’s habits. It’s never Daniel. Just Danny. Daniel’s a randomass human name, but Danny’s mine.”

“It does not change the fact that it sounds like a nickname. I… I do not do nicknames.” Damian said. Normally he paraded this fact as a matter of pride. With Richard, Drake, even Kent. Now, with Daniel encompassing his body in warmth, he felt strangely small.

“And I don’t do self-deprecation. So what about a deal? I’ll forgive you, if you promise to call me Danny.” The older boy said, voice leaving no room for argument. And yet, the playful tone underneath it gave Damian something akin to comfort. The way Richard did in the early days, despite Damian’s barbs and open threats.

“Very well, D-Danny.” Damian forced out. The name felt alien on his tongue. “This is a privilege few can boast to.”

Daniel- no, Danny, chuckled again. “You sound like a kid saying a swear for the first time and they’re really scared of being caught.”

“I am not a child.” He was never allowed to be.

“You are crazy though. And reckless. And that’s coming from me!”

Ah, so Danny figured it out. “You noticed the smell of Atlantean.”

“What were you thinking? They hate sirens. With a capital H.”

“I will not apologise for my actions in there. You needed food. It was my own poor judgement that got you injured, so it was my responsibility to rectify that.”

Danny was quiet for a moment. “I’m really trying to channel that ‘angry because I’m worried about you’ energy that my sister does, but you’re making it really difficult. Now I just feel bad.”

“They posed no threat to me. It was an easy operation.” Damian said. Danny sighed again.

“What am I gonna do with you? Outside of taking you home, that is.”

“For one, you could unhand me.” Damian’s words were hollow, even to him.

“And let you freeze to death? No chance. Now come on. The sun’s about to rise, and you need your breakfast.”

“Have you eaten enough yourself?” It would not do to let this foolish teenager hurt himself for Damian’s sake again.

“Dude, I’m like triple your size and age right now. It’s my job to be worrying over you.” Damian harrumphed.

It felt nice to be cared for again.

LINE BREAK BABY

Bruce hung up the phone. Dick was about ready to riot, and the others were on a wire-thin line too. It was one of the most exhausting calls he’d done in his life, but it had to be done. He wasn’t going to leave his family in the dark, not after Jason.

It wasn’t just he who had potentially lost a son, however. In his hours of maddened searching, he’d glossed over the fact that the son of local siren hunters, the Drs Fenton, had also gone missing. Tim was already on the case, sifting through thousands of hours of CCTV footage to analyse the kid’s behaviour of the course of the last six weeks. Two unrelated boys going missing at the same time. And one boy had been displaying suspicious behaviour for months before hand. Something was up.

And so Bruce straightened his tie. He refused to wear any form of black. Not now, not yet, while there was still hope to be clung to. His trip to Fentonworks was in part to share condolences, and in part to investigate. Wherever Damian was, the clues lay somewhere surrounding Daniel Fenton.

He just hoped Damian had to be ok. If this hope died, Bruce felt like he might die with it.

[idekwthmuistb]

Half thought out hot take:

It'd make more sense for Danny to have a space obsession when you consider his power set.

Cryokinesis? It's damn freezing out in space ofc he's gonna have ice powers!

Wail? Ironically enough there is no sound in space because there's no oxygen so all the sound gets 'eaten up' (I think) but each star and planet have their own sounds regardless so why wouldn't he be able to scream really loudly?

Dan? Honestly I feel like there would potentially be issues with combining two opposite cores (if you went with Vlad having a heat/fire core) unless, however, they were somehow harmonious like say.....a star thriving in deep space? And stars make a lot of noise which would fit with Dan learning his Ghostly Wail.

Pyrokinesis? Again, going back to the fact that stars have high temperatures and planets (like earth) have molten cores!

Photokinesis? It's light!!!! Literally all natural light comes from stars n such in space!!!! .....or bioluminesent animals but that's more of glowy than light. Not to mention when he pulled all light into him and made the surrounding pitch black, like????

Though there are a few that I just dont know enough about/don't know how they'd fit such as Repulsion. And I'm not putting in the base set all/most ghosts seem to have!

Also, while his electricity-based powers might not support this I do think those are generated from How He Died, yknow?

[hashtagdrivebywrites]

Y'all bear with me on my bad phone pictures and excessive notes lmao, but, uh, ask and you shall receive.

Here's my concept art for Jason in my fic Imprint, where he's a halfa and Danny's biological dad and the king father/king regent? of the infinite realms.

Here's the first ever sketch I did somewhere around chapter 2 or 3:

Featuring larval Ghost!Jason, Pit madness/Lazarus Water and little bitty Ghost!Danny.

I was already thinking about the possibility of a crown but didn't know what to do with it yet so I just left a halo as a placeholder DBZ-style, which you'll see in the next few concept stages until I finish the latest one.

Ah, the oldest concept I had for the Pit is that it laid dormant in Jason's mind and would physically pull itself out of his head, which is why it's kind of half melded with Jason's helmet in this one. And I'm still kind of considering that idea, but I'm leaning more towards it coming from the bulk of Jason's body instead, as we see it in chapter 8 of Imprint when readers get to see Jason's ghost nonsense from an outside perspective. They (the Pit) is definitely more tiger-like now, and you'll catch a glimpse of a sketch dump where I'm trying to get a handle on tiger shape language (?). They'll still be water based and colored like the pits/a lagoon. It may be hard to picture- just trust me.

Uhhh let's see....the "lantern ribcage" is a part of the design that's really important to me so you'll see me consistently playing with it as I go through these early concepts. That's his core nestled in the lower part of his ribs, visible but protected behind the iron cage of his bones.

I wanted to incorporate Jason's helmet and other parts of his vigilante/hero uniforms in his ghost form since that part of his life is deeply personal to him.

I also knew that I wanted him to have a very monstrous aspect to his design- and I can't resist slapping pointy teeth on any of my concepts that deviate from being strictly human. So those aren't going away. Nostrils to breathe smoke and fire so Jason can better emote with most of his face being metal.

Danny's default ghost form, opposed to Jason's will still kinda be the one he has in his original dimension- black and white suit and the classic DP symbol on the chest, but probably better armored and with a bat emblem thrown in somewhere. So thats what I drew him with here- though little kid sized, with an added black streak in his hair to complete the inverse of the Lazarus Pit streak he has in human form.

In ghost form, when Jason needs precision, his go-to weapon will be the All Blades, which I have kinda illustrated here.

I may kinda set the bones of this design aside to use as a more humanoid ghost form that's closer to his living form, but that's still up in the air.

Here's concept 2, which I did on chapter...5? I think? Which is when I decided I wanted to make Jason's most comfortable ghost form to be kinda big and outrageous:

This one's got some notes doodled around it- but I'll type them out in case you can't read my handwriting.

Jason was definitely leaning more toward dragon (and I'm still trying to find the balance between dragon and phoenix that works nicely for him, but we're getting there.)

I decided not to put heat pits on his face recently so that the parts of his head modeled after the helmet are smooth metal armor. I tried to elongate the head but still keep the lines of his helmet in the design.

This is also the first time I started messing with horns- which have been bent in just about every direction at this point trying to make them mesh well with the rest of his design. The uppermost notes in the image mention basing the shape of his horns off of one of his weapons. I thought that the flaming all blades would just be overkill at that point and decided to play with using the Kris knife he gets from the League. Which is....still overkill but it's less fire to draw, so we'll call it a even. There is also a note on my decision to make his horns into a pair only because of being Bruce's second son and the second Robin. (I have put way too much fucking thought into this if you haven't figured that out already).

Tried a different look for the teeth and ended up scrapping it.

I also started leaning more into making his back look as messed up as possible at this point and started thinking of the....mountain range in plated rows like a croc's back.

And here's concept 3, which also starts playing with colors and the all-tail, no-legs look that I decided to stick with:

This is definitely the biggest jump between concepts so far and was sketched up while writing chapter 7, which I think is the first time we get to experience his ghost forms (there's 2 that we saw in that chapter).

So I continued to smooth and lengthen the head and tried a different thing with the teeth- which I kept. I also felt a lot better about the lines from the helmet with this concept. I tried curling his kris knife horns forward, trying to play with their form. Those have changed since.

This is the first time I added hair, but it's hard to see. He, like Danny, has an inversed streak of black at the front of his 'do to reflect the Lazarus stripe.

Again with the halo placeholder because I was still on the fence about the crown. Started trying to make the mountains of his spine more volcanic looking. Don't know if I'm keeping that or not yet.

So the three major differences between this and it's predecessors is the 1) mantle of smoke that is constantly being expelled from his body that is supposed to imitate a kinds cloak/mantle; 2) the tail, which has since been changed into a fiery tail instead of a ghostly one; and 3) I slapped his Robin 'R' from the movie UTRH on him to make this form more...him, I guess, and also to make Bruce cry like a baby.

So the things that I have changed is the ribcage, the shape of the horns, the crown (which finally has a rough design and a name based on the fight he has to win to earn it- yes, I already have that arc scribbled out and will most likely be adding it into the story) and I added some extra stuff to the face to match the written descriptions in Imprint.

SO. -Claps hands together- I'd love to hear your thoughts on everything, and I am always interested in hearing how y'all have interpreted these characters for yourselves.

If this is something you want me to do again with other character designs, let me know and I will. I am working on Jason, of course, and the Pit, Frankie boy, Danny's big long boi form, Gotham and some other odds and ends.

(Whoops forgot tags again)

[strong-with-the-sarcasm]

Part 10- keep me from my grave

"Well, don't sing me praise. Just keep me from my grave." -Me Against the Devil by The Relentless

Main Masterlist Regent Series Part 9

They met at a bookstore. 

It had been almost two full months since the Joker had met his end, his head mounted and strangely not decomposed, with Jason returned to the Batfamily Gotham had settled into a lull. Not a quiet one, but a lull nonetheless. 

Jason was taking a break from sorting through cases with Dick, head throbbing from the lack of sleep and patience for annoying siblings wearing thin. 

The bookstore, tucked away in a quiet part of Old Gotham, was often empty of people during the day. Despite its large bay windows, comfy seating and welcoming atmosphere, the Page-Turner would remain a hidden gem to the city dwellers. For Jason, it was a haven he could never feel bad about keeping to himself. 

He’d branched out from classics some time ago, deciding to try other genres he’d long since ignored for the Bard, meandering around the shelves to find a title that caught his eye. 

It was between the mysteries and thrillers that he found her. 

Her. 

She was sitting on the ground with her back pressed against the thriller shelves, slender jean-clad legs tucked towards her chest to cradle a book, eyes never straying from the pages, red hair tied into a low ponytail with what looked like a small braid tucked behind one ear. Jason couldn’t tear his eyes away from her soft features, desperately wanting her eyes to meet his, her lips to offer him a smile and her hands to cradle his own.

 For the first time in his life, Jason finally understood what the regency novels meant by love at first sight… because the man was halfway there already. 

The Page Turner was a haven admist the chaos that was Jazz’s life, especially once she finally admitted to herself and Danny that she needed help to manage her depression. Her little brother was concerned, but also relieved when she confronted the elephant in the room first. He’d been weary of bringing it up himself, not wanting to worry her more. 

(Silly brother.)

(It was her job to worry.)

Nonetheless, Jazz asked around among the living and dead for a therapist recommendation, which she was correct about it being difficult in Gotham, but Jazz didn’t want to branch out just yet. A toss up between disbelief and enthusiasm awaited her, but she didn’t let it deter her from contacting the recommended psychologist- Harleen Quinzel. 

A bit awkward to be in a session with the reformed rogue, dutifully ignoring whatever lingering shades wanted her attention. Harley was a great listener, more importantly she cared about Jazz as a patient, as a human being. Whatever Bozo the Clown had done to her, what she had survived, had given Harley a new lease on life with his death (ironically). 

“It sounds like ya never been allowed to simply be, Jazz.” Harley spoke plainly and evenly, her brooklyn accent barely clipping her words. The redhead had spoken of her childhood, her brother’s death, the neglect.

Opened up about the nightmares, how Danny’s destroyed grave haunted her. Let the truth spill from her lips, free to simply exist in the space between the two women. Sure, Jazz would never spill secrets about the Realms, but where it concerned her guilt, or lack thereof, about the blood on her hands- yes, Jazz knew Harley wouldn’t judge her. 

And it was true, Jazz had no childhood. She was Danny’s caretaker, his first memory, his first steps towards, the first to have his back. There had never been just Jazz, only Jazz and Danny. Every dream she’d once had, broken and scattered in the ashes of Danny’s grave. 

(Danny had no hope of reaching the stars, of being an astronaut, with his death.)

“Sweetie, Danny sounds like he is capable of taking care of himself for a while. Have you considered finding a hobby?” Harley questioned, sincere in her wish to help. 

Jazz sighed, “I wouldn’t know where to begin.” What did she have outside her little brother and work as Regency? 

“Do ya like to read?” 

Jazz huffed, finding amusement with that question. Of course she liked, no, loved to read. It had been her one escape from the nightmares so long ago, but she hadn’t found the time since taking regency to lose herself in a good book. 

Harley didn’t need her to respond, offering a sincere smile in response to Jazz’s lack of reply. 

“There’s a bookstore in Old Gotham, the Page Turner, ya could check out? There’s no pressure to pick up a book, but it would be enough to just get through the door, yeah?” 

“I’ll try.” 

“That’s a good start.” 

As it was, Jazz wasn’t able to find time between Realms Work and patrol to do anything other than sleeping, eating, and various other tasks that filled her days (and nights). The more it itched at her, to listen to the therapist she liked, the more Jazz wanted to read a book. To get lost in a good story, just like she used to. 

Patrols were harder with Hood back, his haunt under his command once more and streets protected by a vigilante in red. Only twice in the few weeks since Jason had been moved from her side to the batcave had the Regent caught a glimpse of him, both as his nighttime persona, and from a distance Jazz hadn’t been able to sense him as clearly as previous. He did seem healthier with the pure ecto and his Proto-Core, though Jazz was in no mood to test her luck by crossing into his Haunt. 

The girls were sad to see the Regent less, even though Jazz remained firmly in the Phantom haunt and was barely a few minutes away at any given time, but it was the principle of the thing. The Regent was one of the good ones and a woman at that. A woman who could kick ass wasn’t rare, but it was rare that they would take up a vigilante role for the occupants of the Alley. 

Red Hood, while awesome and respected by his people, was a man. 

Some of the girls were gradually drifting into the Phantom haunt, or a shitty part of Old Gotham that bordered on the Alley. Regardless of it’s quality it belonged to the Phantom Fraid… and Phantom was a Protector Spirit. 

(With the Regent and the Phantom, crime was all but extinct in their haunt.)

With the decrease in crime, Jazz was finally able to dematrilize her armor, set down her sword and enter the Page Turner. 

A distinct mix of old books, ink, and some kind of body spray welcomed the redhead once she stepped inside, intrigued by the sense of calm that greeted her in place of a human. 

Which was fine, Jazz preferred to browse in peace. 

Grateful for the shelves being categorized, Jazz found herself enthralled by a thriller (They Never Learn by Layne Fargo) and didn’t notice another person in the aisle until they were within arm’s reach. 

Jazz flinched back, embarrassed by her lack of focus and attention to her surroundings, dangerous when one is a vigilante in Gotham. She greeted the man in front of her after a few moments of awkward silence, his stare making the redhead even more embarrassed, but now by her appearance. She'd been too tired to fuss with her hair or clothes beyond ensuring the orange-red strands were brushed into a semblance of order and her clothes were somewhat decent. 

(Jazz was more concerned with her bracelets being concealed under glamour and sleeves.)

(The metal, eternally cool against her warm skin, offered some comfort in times like these.)

(She was the Lady of the Acropolis, once student of Pandora, the Ancient of Peace.) 

(There is nothing that can make her feel lesser without her consent.) 

“Uh, hi.” 

(Oh how eloquent, Jasmine.) 

“Hi.” The deep voice, smooth and accented like a native Gotham, made Jazz finally move her gaze from his chest- nice chest as it was, it was his eyes that made her breath rush from her lungs. 

Jason. 

.....Jason!

(Oh yes, Jazz picked a good day to walk into the Page Turner.) 

(She was finally able to talk to her dream man.)

(She wasn’t disappointed.) 

(And by the smiles they had as walked away, neither was Jason.) 

A/N:

This isn't the best, I know. Hey, they finally meet! Keep an eye for the updated masterlist, because I'll be putting the link up and changing some of the chapter titles. Thanks for reading!

Update: “They Never Learn” by Layne Fargo is an actual book, with a female Anti-Hero who kills bad men. I don’t want to say more because I’ll spoil something, but it’s a great book.