#Danny still holds something’s sacred

[mkarchin713]

Even with all Danny’s shenanigans and being anti police/government/bigotry etc there are still things he holds sacred.

No matter how much he wants to Danny refuses to steal space rocks, NASA memorabilia or interfere in any way that could potentially interfere with a planed space flight.

Danny loves space but refuses to have others suffer just so he can be happy. Danny leaves objects that make his core sing behind because he wants everyone to enjoy them and, in a sense, he wants to protect their dreams of one day being an astronaut. Because no one was around to protect his.

If ghosts are declared legally neither sentient nor sapient >.>

Then? LEGALLY? Anything they do? They can't be held responsible for. After all, they don't know any better.

Danny should start a harrassment campaign. Clear Activist actions. Publicly. Loudly. And with the world watching. Wear it on a tee-shirt. Keep repeating it.

"I'm not legally sentient or sapient. Not MY decision, this is what YOU decided."

Openly steal from the rich. Like, OPENLY and on a petty level. Sweep wall street. Hit major companies for food and water and give it too people. Kick presidential candidates in the balls. Cause expensive but not life treating inconvenience to the world.

You can't be a criminal, after all.

It's literally the Jesus approach. "Turn the other cheek". If you strike me AGAIN, you are acknowledging me as an equal. So which is it, oppressors? Am I less then you and free to rebel, or am I equal and capable of being held accountable?

Charm campaign with his enemies money. End world hunger. Take their wealth. Chaos and Discord. No, sorry, you CAN NOT negotiate with me! I'm INCAPABLE remember?

Neither sentient nor sapient!

Shame. Better fix that! Hey? Who's yacht was this? YEET! Guess it doesn't matter now! It's in ORBIT! Have a GREAT daaaay~☆

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Monsters at Your Doorstep

DPxDC Week Day 3: Tim Drake / Eldritch Danny / Teeth

Read on AO3 [here]

Summary: Bruce falls into a cave of bats and meets the darkness-- or whatever it is that lives inside it.

///////

WHEN BRUCE IS SEVEN THE GROUND SWALLOWS HIM WHOLE.  The earth beneath the sacred grounds of Wayne Manor crumbled with one hasty misstep, taking him far away from the sunlight’s reach. 

The bats swarmed at him immediately. A thousand eyes, a thousand screeching mouths, a thousand beating wings, engulfing him in their fury. His screams are drowned out by their cries. His skin cut and scraped by their claws. His ears bursting with the sound of their unholy cry. And for the first time in his life, Bruce learns what it means to fear. 

And then the bats just stop. 

He did not know what scared him more: the bats, or the silence.

Bruce craned his head up from beneath his arms. Darkness met his gaze. A deep and impenetrable dark, deceptive in its shadows. He stumbles back and slowly, ever so slowly like a deer caught in the crosshairs, shuffles himself towards that slim shaft of light in the cavern. He bites his tongue when the soft flesh of his palm cuts itself on a rock. 

The cut weeps a deep carmine red down his wrist as he holds his hand up into the light. 

Suddenly, the darkness spoke.

“Are you hurt?”

The darkness sounds oddly young to Bruce’s ears. Older than Bruce, but nowhere near as deep as his father’s, nor as rich as his mother’s. (But there is a sound there that isn’t registering in Bruce’s young mind. A sound that dances just beneath the facade of a boyish voice.)

Bruce calls out— “Hello?” —flinching at the cacophony of echoes repeating his words back at him.

A beat of stillness. Something shifts in the darkness— no, that isn’t…that isn’t right. It’s more like the darkness itself shifted. The edges of the shadows moved as if it were fabric, all too tangible. 

“Hello,” the darkness said again. 

Bruce steeled his nerves with a shaky inhale. “Can you help me?” He points up to the crack of blue sky. “I— I fell. I need to get back up.”

There is a sounds that feels almost like the cross between a slither and a thousand whispers. Unintelligible words building in a rising crescendo, echoing all around him and overwhelming his senses and he cannot think he cannot think he cannot think he cannot hear himself at all—

The darkness spoke, and all at once silence reigned supreme once more. “You…want my help?”

Bruce swallows the lump in his throat. “Yes?” He tacks on the ‘please’ as an afterthought.

“You want my help,” the voice echoes (and echoes and echoes and echoes—).

“Will you?”

“Yes.” the darkness answered less than a second after Bruce spoke. Eager. Giddy. Almost desperate. “It’s been a while since someone needed me. Close your eyes.”

“What—?”

Something pries its way from the darkness. It’s—

It’s—

(Even decades down the line, Bruce is never able to describe what he saw that day. There are simply no words, no method in all of living time and history to describe the incomprehensible. What parts he can explain hold no candle to the truth. They are but ghosts— imagos of the creature that he laid eyes upon that day. A shock of what might have been bone white hair. A glimpse of eyes—two, four, eight, twelve—that could have been green. A gaping maw that stretched itself into a grin. Nothingness, the void, where the legs might have been. The parts of a boy that came together all right and all wrong.)

Bruce shuts his eyes. Tight.

When he opens them again, he is back on the surface. In the sunlight. Bright and warm and safe. He turns to run back to the arms of his mother, when a whisper—whispers—invade the depths of his mind.

Call me if you need me.

***

Bruce never has to call. The creature—whatever it is—always lingered nearby ever since that day. There was a loneliness to it that tugged at his heart strings, and despite all the warnings that the little Alfred inside his head says, he invites the creature to play.

Initial fears aside, Bruce delights in this new friend that he’s made. It’s a secret that’s his and his alone, and he relishes in that fact. 

The creature is like no one else. It summons ice and fire and makes the elements take shape into something beautiful. With a touch of its shadowy hands, he can make trees and walls disappear at will. Once, it made the ceiling of Bruce’s room invisible and mapped out each constellation with depth and passion unmatched. And now, when Bruce looked at the night sky, it was no longer just a cluster of stars that he saw, but an infinite mural of rich pictures, stories of myths and legends come alive and preserved in starlight. 

It’s a shame that a creature that loved the sky so much would spend most of its time underground. 

“It would scare you if I was out in the daylight,” the creature said. 

“But you’re already scary right now!”

“It’s not like I want to be.”

Bruce bounced the ball into the little void in the corner of his room. The darkness shifted, moved, and tossed the ball back. “But at least you won’t have to leave every time the sun comes up.”

The shadow laughs (at least Bruce thinks it’s a laugh, it’s more like static, a harsh buzzing sounds that jumps in frequencies like the tuning of an old radio). “Maybe one day. It’s not pretty, but if that’s something you want then I will.”

“That’s a promise.”

***

There’s shouting and arguing, and his father has his hands up and that nervous smile on his face but the stranger is mad, is madmadmad. Bruce’s mother hides him behind her back and tells him to cover his ears. Don’t look. Everything will be alright. Close your eyes. Don’t look. Your father will handle this, everything is alright.

The man keeps telling them to shut up shut up and hand them over— hand what over? He shouldn’t be listening, he knows, his mother said not to, but Bruce is a curious child and he’s scared and he wants to know what is going on—

BANG—

His eyes shot open.

BANG—

There was—

The  man—

His father—

Mother—

***

Bruce screams without uttering a sound. He screams and he wails, the sound locked inside his mind because he can’t— he can’t remember how to open his mouth. How to work his throat. How to, how to breathe—

His parents need help. There’s a hole in his father’s shirt. A bright red stain on his other’s dress. Her pearls are— she loves those pearls, she’ll be so sad if they’re lost and—

Mother’s glass eyes stare back. Unblinking. 

Father’s chest doesn’t rise or fall. Silent.

Bruce’s fingertips are stained red, his cupped hands overflowing with pearls.

***

Bruce calls for the darkness. Calls for the creature that existed inside it. He doesn’t know its name. Doubts if it even has one. But he calls, prays, wishes with all his might that it would come. 

And it did.

There is a shift in the darkness of the alley. The shadows seem deeper, fuller almost; alive in the way the darkness was alive in that cave. It moved, gathering like a blanket over Bruce’s shaking frame, shrouding his vision in a haze. 

Its mournful crooning echoed in his ears, a thousand voices crying aloud as one when he could not muster the strength to. “You shouldn’t see this,” the voice quivered as he spoke, as if familiar with the pain. “No child should see this.”

You’re here.

“Of course I am. You needed me.”

Please.

“Yes?”

Please don’t leave me alone.

The shadows envelop him tighter and Bruce clings to them like a lifeline. 

“I won’t. You know I won’t. I’ll keep you safe.”

***

The darkness stays with Bruce that night, keeping silent vigil over Bruce in his room as he mourns. When the first rays of daylight began to bleed between the cracks of the curtains, Bruce panics. He feels the creature’s form try to recede back into the cracks and crevices of his room. Feels the room suddenly become bigger and emptier and alone-alone-alone. 

His hand shoots out to grab at those tangible threads of darkness. “You can’t— you can’t go.” 

The creature croons sadly. “You know I have to.”

“But you promised me. You promised.” 

“You know I’ll be back.”

“No. Even during the day. You said— you said you could do it. You would do it, if I asked.”

The shadows ripple and sway, slowly as if in contemplation. Uncertainty hung thick in the air like the heavy pendulum of the great grandfather clock in the library. Bruce held onto his breath, watching and waiting to see where the creature’s choices would swing.

Finally, the shadows stilled. “You’ll see me tomorrow then.”

His heart sank. “You’re leaving?”

“Not for long,” it said. “I need…I need to get something. It’ll take some time, but once I get it then tomorrow, tomorrow morning even, I’ll see you.”

“And you’ll stay.”

“And I’ll stay. For as long as you need me.”

Reluctantly, Bruce lets go. The darkness disappears and light engulfs the room. 

The sunlight has never felt so cold. 

***

At dawn the next day, a boy appears on the steps of Wayne Manor.

He’s young, though not as young as Bruce, but his hair is just as black and his eyes and even paler shade of blue. He’s tall and gaunt with skin as thin as paper and as white as bone, lips tinged a deathly blue. There are holes in his ratty shirt and mud staining his shoes. When he moves, it isn’t in any way that is natural. Like a puppet loose from its strings, or a person that’s forgotten how to walk, learning how legs work again.

He smells of wet earth, the bitter cold, and the moment when autumn leaves begin to rot. 

The boy was unnatural, unexplainable, and terrifying.

But the warmth in his voice—and the twisting shadows beneath his feet—were all too familiar to Bruce. 

“You’re here,” Bruce gasped, running to embrace the creature even as Alfred yelled at him to stop.

The creature caught him, stick-thin arms deceptively strong. “To stay, if you want.”

“Of course!” It would be difficult to explain to Alfred, or the police, or the hundreds of people that came knocking to his home. Bruce will find a way, though. As long as he can keep his friend and keep Alfred by his side, as long as he isn’t alone, then he’ll do anything.

Alfred clears his throat, yanking Bruce away from the creature. “It appears, sir, that I was not informed that we were to have any visitors today.” There’s a hard edge to Alfred’ voice that Bruce has never heard before. Something dangerous. Something scared. “May I inquire as to your name and purpose here?”

The creature tilts his head so quickly Bruce hears something crack. And when he holds out his hand, Bruce could see the heavy layers of dirt beneath his chipped fingernails. Coupled in his appearance, it almost seemed like the creatures spent the entire night out digging. 

“I’m here because Bruce said he needs me.” Its smile was too wide and too sharp; unnerving despite its attempts to look friendly. “You can just call me Danny.”

[loraliewritesthings]

Danny Phantom but make him a circus/freakshow attraction headcanons

Maybe he was sold maybe he was captured. Danny couldn't quite remember threw the pain. The lab accident felt like decades ago but time goes slow when your hurting

The blood blossoms were always underfoot. The cage was small his muzzle tight and he was hungry.

So so hungry

Still he didn't look forward to his preformances to the gawking masked people or the salt circle his cage would be placed in or turning from boy to ghost for entertainments sake.

The first time he tried to escape when his box was opened.

That of course only made his capturer mad and earned him more blood blooms.

Dick hated places like this. Cruel hurtful places sullying the name of the circus. Maybe that's why he jumped at the chance to help spy on the freakshow that had recently come to town despite Bruce's worried expression. It wasn't hard to convince Bruce to let him go though. He knew circus lingo better than anyone else in the family after all. Sure his slang MAY be a little outdated but it didn't matter too much for just a few nights.

Dick has seen some horrible things and stayed pretty lighthearted, but because the circus is so sacred to him I think he takes this mission very seriously.

In the end it's him Bruce on the mission.

It wasn't hard to locate where the metas and "freaks" were being kept.

He entered the tent and between a man labeled "the cannibal" and Killer Croc who somehow got dragged into this, there was a young man in a muzzle kneeling on what looked like flowers.

Something about his eyes made him look almost haunted.

He moved on to the next row taking note of every poor soul there.

He was going to get them free.

Sure Bruce didn't like metas, but he wasn't heartless. It didn't take long for him to divide the staff into the willing and unwilling participants. It took him even less time to tie up the willing workers and to call in the Gotham police department.

When batman went to talk to the victims one stood out to him. The boy was muzzled his eyes rapidly switching from blue to green.

He couldn't have been older than Jason.

No one else there was muzzled.

He wondered briefly what made him so dangerous.

The question nagged at him as he asked person after person how they got here.

As expected no one was there voluntarily.

Speaking to an albino set of twins, the last to be questioned, he asked about the boy in the muzzle.

One twin merely shrugged and said he had been there the longest.

It was enough to strike empathy in him.

He approached carefully removing first the lock then the muzzle.

The young man almost pushed past him to get out.

Starting his questioning he asked where he was from and what his name is.

The young man, Danny apparently, didn't seam to remember much outside of the circus though. Where some of the more recently "aquired" captives remembered the older ones didnt

He could only imagine it was trauma holding them back.

Because this place was all he could remember, Danny didn't know what he wanted to do after he was free besides get far far away.

Bruce asked him no more questions.

General headcanons:

Danny is still sassy in this au but he's also bitter.

He doesn't talk much at first cause he's not used to it cause of the muzzle.

It takes quite a while for him to become more like his own self.

Sits on top of Wayne manor staring at the stars he doesn't remember why though.

He has "sad eyes" as babs and steph phrased it.

Bruce didn't mean to keep danny. He's basically a foster fail.

He will never here the end of such from Alfred.

Talking about Alfred he handles the new addition just fine

After all Danny broody and sassy.

He even has the light eyes dark hair combo.

Danny is kinda a foil to Dick. Where Dick is cheerful, Danny is jaded

Where Dick sees the circus as sacred Danny sees it as a trigger

They get along ok weirdly enough.

Jason swore when he first saw Danny.

"Bruce you got another damn kid"

Offers to take him away from Bruce if ever needed. Offer always stands.

Tim doesn't notice the ghost boy for about a week. He was just too sleep deprived.

When he did he assumed danny was a sleep deprivation hallucination

Now he doesn't know how to approach him so he treats him like he's always been there.

Cass understands Danny.

The silence between them is comfortable and amicable

Damian is Damian.

He isn't sure what to think so at first he comes of as aggressive.

That stands until he sees Danny in a fight for the first time.

Now he only wonders now this meta who can turn invisible and fly got caught.

He thinks better then to ask.

Slowly Danny learns to trust again. To live again.

[oliverreedmasterass]

Oakland SCWT Recap:

My cousin said the instrumental music they play at the start of the show made him feel like he was waiting in line to go on a Disneyland ride and he’s so right

After The Falling Sky Josh was like “I hope we passed the audition” (nice Beatles nod there dude)

Josh introduced Lover, Leaver by saying “We’re gonna do a harder one now, just pure sex” and then Jake tore into the opening notes

Sam and Josh had their dawgs OUT for basically the whole show

Sam kept trying to tune his bass while playing his solo on Lover, Leaver and Jake and Josh were off to the side of the stage, pointing and low key laughing at him

I think Josh might have been held up backstage when he left during the Lover, Leaver jam session because he was singing along while offstage

Danny was having a field day spinning his drum sticks around, standing up behind his kit, and sticking his tongue out

Jake for the most part stayed off the catwalk…I think he’s still scarred from the amp

Josh stopped mid-monologue to tell a fan in the pit that he loved them, and he grabbed a necklace from someone and put it on in the middle of a song

Jake did the Rockin Robin riff and we got Rhapsody in Blue from Sam and Danny before Light My Love!! They also did their finger wiggle thing at each other when Danny came back on stage for the encore

Jake also played a bit of Norwegian Wood before Meeting The Master and I almost died

Danny’s solo went HARD and everyone chanted “DANNY! DANNY! DANNY!” When he finished, he pretended to shoot an arrow over to the b stage where Sam and Josh were applauding him. Josh mentioned that was the first time they got the timing right on that one

Sam and Josh chugged tequila on the b stage

Josh introduced Jake as a rock n’ roll Sherpa again before The Archer

Jake was literally on fire playing the guitar. Oh, and the stage caught on fire again - a stage hand had to come out with a fire extinguisher

Also god with that long tail on his coat, he was leaning a little bit too close to those flames during The Archer…I was so stressed out

Josh needed someone to carry his train behind him when he re-entered the stage for Sacred the Thread

Jake got really into his solo during Farewell For Now and had to book it back to Josh at center stage to sing the harmonies

Danny was singing along and mimicking Josh for holding out the last line of Farewell For Now

Someone in the pit had a sign that said Resurrect Oliver Fucking Reed and I love them

I’m pretty sure Sam and Josh pretended to either fence or play badminton or something on stage after their last song, and Danny did a pretty impressive golf swing. Jake tried to chuck a pick into the stands on the right side, waved, and then took off

That’s all I can remember right now but GOD they put on a hell of a show!!!

[underforeversgrace]

memories of the grave

DannyMay 2023 Day 18: Grave

title: memories of the grave

Words: 2166

Complete

Warning: Major Character Death and Everlasting Trio

Summary/Excerpt: Songfic to the song Sacred by Citizen Soldier - He frequently thought about death. His death, at least.

~~~~~~

Chasing ghosts, chasing dreams

What is next? What might be?

Never content, always hungry

Overlook this moment and you'll be sorry

It was, unsurprisingly, Jazz who first brought it up, towards the end of high school.

“You’ve gotten taller!” She said, clapping her hands together in excitement.

“Uh, yeah? People do that?” Danny answered, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah. People do.” She’d responded, giving him a Look.

“Jazz, Vlad’s aged. We already knew I would. We just don’t know what happens… later. As far as Vlad can tell from the tests he ran after his accident, he’ll still die, he just may live longer than expected, though. Everything’s fine.” Danny said, waving his hand boredly as though brushing the topic away. Sure, death was something he often thought about, there wasn’t really any avoiding it with how injured he got - even if he did disregard the whole half-ghost-half-dead-kid thing. Honestly, he didn’t think he’d live long enough to have a natural death regardless, not with how often he got his ass handed to him, even if that was growing less and less often. He frequently thought about death.

His death, at least.

Don't take the ones you love for granted, not for a second

If you do you've got the rest of your life left to regret it

You're gonna miss these days, I hope you never forget it

The present is precious

It was in his mid-20s, after successfully completing college and graduating easily, his secret long since exposed, that he realized he loved Sam and Tucker more than anything else in the world. They had been roommates their entire college career and when it came time to leave, he didn’t want to. He’d lost track of the number of times they’d ended up all sleeping in one person’s bed, platonically snuggling into each other as they studied and quizzed each other until they all succumbed to exhaustion.

He’d felt nothing but relief when, three days before they were all set to go their own ways, Sam called a meeting and disclosed she felt the same way, Tucker and Danny’s confessions following. 

It helped that being ‘weird’ or doing things an uncommon way was just a state of life for the trio at this point. Side effect of one of them being a ghost superhero and his friends. So all loving each other… it had come easily. Sleeping every night in the same bed, swathed in love and happiness, was just that - easy.  

You get one life, one chance

Give it everything 'cause this is all we have

If this day was your last

Could you hold your head high? Could you live with that?

So take it in, just embrace the adrenaline

This is sacred, we'll never get it back again

It was in their 30s, when they started genuinely discussing adopting a child, that the realization hit. Danny had stopped growing. While lines and the occasional gray hair had begun to show on his lovers, Danny’s face remained unchanged. No laugh lines, no wrinkles, nothing. Still, they kept their belief that it was just Danny aged slowly.

The topic of kids never came back up. Danny always felt like that was his fault, despite Sam and Tucker’s constant reassurances otherwise.

Wasted time, wasted love

What you have now, why can't that be enough?

What you're most terrified to lose

Take it for granted when it's right in front of you

Jack would be the first person Danny ever truly lost. Sure, he’d lost his grandparents as a child, but he barely knew them. But this was his father, who had lifted him above his head and ran around while Danny pretended to be a rocket. Who helped him with his homework, who wholeheartedly accepted Danny when he’d come out to them - both as a ghost and as having two lovers.

Who didn’t listen when his doctors told him he needed to take better care of his health, who didn’t lay off the fudge when they suggested it.

His father’s grave was the first Danny had ever stood next to and sobbed, beside his sister and mom, Sam and Tucker trying to soothe him in a situation that knew only grief. Danny and Jazz had handled the burial, the finances, letting their mother grieve the loss of the love of her life.

Yeah, you're such a slave to anxiety

Your future, your past, pulling you away

It made you so blind, now that must change

'Cause right now with who you love, this is everything

Maddie didn’t outlive Jack by more than a few months. She went peacefully in her sleep at home, at least, didn’t have to suffer through heart failure in a hospital until her last breath.

Danny had taken over the funeral arrangements for his mother, burying her beside his father. Jazz kept trying to help but he could practically feel her pain and grief every time she tried to do so. There was more to do with their mother’s passing. With both parents gone, it fell to their kids to close bank accounts, to notify friends, to sort through documents upon documents, to decide what to do with the house, which had long since been transformed back into a normal family home, when even Maddie could no longer chase ghosts. They knew Danny would do it, after all. They’d had faith in him - in Phantom - even before Danny had confessed. It had been their slow acceptance of his ghost side that had allowed him the confidence to tell them, after all.

When he stood over his father’s grave again, now with his mother’s headstone beside it, he hadn’t even been able to hold himself up on his own two feet. Sam and Tucker had been just as instrumental then as they had been every other time in his life.

You get one life, one chance

Give it everything 'cause this is all we have

If this day was your last

Could you hold your head high? Could you live with that?

So take it in, just embrace the adrenaline

This is sacred, we'll never get it back again

Vlad lived almost another decade beyond Danny’s parents. It was only a few months before Vlad passed that the three of them - now nearly fifty - had to accept fact.

Danny had stopped aging. He forever looked like a college student. Sam and Tucker had begun to pull away from him. He just looked too young and it made them uncomfortable. He’d understood, when they began to pull physical intimacy away from him. He couldn’t blame them.

He’d forever be grateful they never asked him to stop curling up in the bed with them, long since used to the chill of his core, safe with the people he loved.

Vlad’s best guess was since Danny’s fusion with the ectoplasm had been so much smoother, so much more instantaneous than Vlad’s own, is why Danny stopped aging while Vlad continued. Danny was truly half and half - Vlad wasn’t.

Again, Danny was the one left handling the funeral and Vlad’s substantial wealth. Vlad had mellowed out towards the end of Danny’s high school career and they had bonded in that time. Vlad had genuinely become something of an uncle or godfather in Danny’s life. At least Vlad had a will. Danny mainly just had to sign off on some papers occasionally.

When he cried over this grave, Sam and Tucker to either side of him, he mourned more than just Vlad. He was the only halfa in the world, he was the only one of a species. And as he watched his friends, the two people he loved most in the world, age, he feared when he would be entirely alone. Even at fourteen, he’d known the consequences of immortality and been relieved he wouldn’t have to face them.

Now he was facing eternity on his own and he didn’t know what to do.

In this moment, will you live?

Embrace the unknown, your past forgive?

Every minute's a priceless gift

It's all yours, so what you gonna do with it?

Jazz’s funeral was the first he didn’t have to help with, allowed to just grieve. Her son - already in his thirties, Danny remembered when he was born - had handled everything, allowing Danny to simply be. Her son had been confused by Danny, he hadn’t met his uncle since he was a young child. That had been a decision Jazz and Danny had come to together, as ghosts faded back to myth, as his identity fell into legend.

He had never met any of her other children, all born later, though Jazz had made sure to keep him up to date on everything in her life. So he couldn’t blame them for staring at him - an apparent 20-something year old man sobbing until he couldn’t breathe over their mother’s grave.

If they recognized him from her wedding pictures, from where he’d been best man, they didn’t mention it.

Danny couldn’t help but avoid Jazz’s second son. Named Daniel, in honor of Jazz’s lost brother. In honor of him.

Don't take the ones you love for granted, not for a second

You're gonna miss these days, yeah, the present is precious

When Tucker died, Danny thought he would, too, his core ached so deeply. They’d known it was coming. Tucker had gotten pneumonia and fallen and in his advanced age - nearly eighty five now - his odds had never looked good.

Danny hated how helpless he felt then, waiting for the man he loved to die, watching him wither away the longer he was in the hospital - somewhere Tucker hated so fiercely. It was a small miracle he’d never really regained true consciousness after the fall. He’d have hated this so much. 

He had so much power yet he could do nothing against human illness, against the march of time, no matter how much he pleaded with Clockwork, how much he begged to not be left behind.

He’d lived long enough, he was ready to rest. Over eighty years was a good run, he’d had a good life.

“I’m sorry, child,” Clockwork had said, and Danny believed him. “I cannot intervene. Even Pariah Dark could not kill you now. You are strong and your core is long matured. Everything will be okay.”

Still, that didn’t keep him from crying when he was in Tucker’s room as the heart monitor flatlined and never restarted.

You get one life, one chance

Give it everything 'cause this is all we have

If this day was your last

Could you hold your head high? Could you live with that?

So take it in, just embrace the adrenaline

This is sacred, we'll never get it back again

Sam went next, several years later. Every time he’d had to fill out paperwork for her, listing himself as a family friend instead of what he was - her husband, her lover - his heart had broken. But she was over ninety when she died. And he was forever twenty five.

He’d buried them beside each other, just like his parents had been. They’d spent their entire lives together, after all. It made sense for their bodies to rest near each other forever.

“Well, that turn out was more than I expected.” Sam said to his side, pulling Danny from the graves at his feet. He turned to her and smiled. Death had returned her to her youth and she grinned at him, floating a few feet to his side, clad in clothes made of plants, gently coaxing some flowers out of the ground.

“I still had more!” Tucker protested to his other side and Danny laughed. While Tucker had accepted the pharaoh aesthetic upon his death, he still looked like an ancient Egyptian mixed with Technus, technology even now his third love (after Sam and Danny, who tied for first, of course, he insisted).

“Yeah, ‘cuz they hadn’t died yet!” Sam shot back. “You can’t compare it when half the people we knew have kicked the bucket since your funeral!”

Comfort surrounded Danny, filled the air. They had stayed, they had clung to life so fiercely after death, just so he wouldn’t be alone. And as soon as Sam had died, Clockwork had arrived and married them the way they never could have in life.

“Oh shut up, guys,” Danny joked, rolling his eyes and jumping up, letting his transformation to Phantom slide over him. “Let’s go home.”

As the three flew away, playfully chasing and dodging each other, Danny let himself feel a comfort he hadn’t in fifty years, finally no longer being left behind, and remembered what Clockwork had said at the end of the trio’s ghostly wedding.

He’d placed his hand on Danny’s shoulders and smiled. “I told you everything would be okay.”

One life, one chance

So take it in, just embrace the adrenaline

If this day was your last

This is sacred, we'll never get it back again

Song: Sacred - Citizen Soldier

[mdhwrites]

How do you think TOH will hold up in the future? I imagine it will still have die hard fans aggressively defending it in spite of all its flaws. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that audiences are fickle. They’ll praise something like it’s a sacred masterpiece one minute, then turn a 180 and treat it like overrated trash the next.

So my immediate response was that it would end up like Danny Phantom or Kim Possible where some people will still love it so much as to make it what they do, some will remember it fondly and most will just forget about it and never bother going back for it. And I say that as a fan of both shows. Just... They didn't become cultural touchstones. It's very hard for most cartoons to do that. One could easily argue we haven't had one (for a new IP especially) since Gravity Falls or Steven Universe and you'd probably have a decent case for saying Gravity Falls still doesn't count compared to Steven Universe. This is probably what's going to happen to Amphibia even just because there's a lot of media out there so getting picked up as a household name that isn't forgotten is hard.

But... I think TOH will just kind of get forgotten. For most, the most special part of it is either that Luz made them feel seen, and for those the show will never fade, or the specific ships they cared about which will eventually get replaced. But I actually don't want to try to assume how the fandom will be in five years. Let's actually talk about, now that the show is said and done, the simple question of: How do you pitch watching TOH's final product? Because even the CURRENT fandom constantly has to use excuses for the storytelling. To justify it being special, they already have to narrow its scope like "the first gay main character in a Disney television cartoon" or they have to cherrypick what they're aiming against, like saying Belos' death is good because they don't like the SU ending or that Luz getting to keep her found family is unique because the only other isekai they've watched is Amphibia. That's all really hard as far as pitches in general go.

So what do you tell someone looking to get into it from the perspective of a fan? Do you warn them that some plotlines don't get resolved properly because of the shortening? How many elements do you have to prepare a new viewer for with that excuse? What's worse is... TOH is just a worse product now that it can be binged. Those who watched S1 before S2 came out got to revel in the best versions of these characters. Any potential Amity had though is crushed like her necklace two episodes into S2 and only becomes more and more obvious as the season goes and you don't have months of waiting between those two versions of Amity. You don't have multiple hiatuses between murder happy Collector and "What's death?" Collector which would make the contrast MUCH WORSE and much harder to ignore. In fact, because so many of TOH's character arcs rely on revisionism to just make an audience forget who a character used to be, binging it's going to make that process much harder in general. Future audiences are just more likely to notice the lack of effort in so many elements just because the whole show will be fresher in their minds.

And most of them won't have the fandom and the like to pull them along or tell them why certain things are the way they are, though not even the fandom always has answers. Why isn't the Grimmwalker reveal setup AT ALL unless you're combing literally ever element of each episode? And even then only once? Well... *shrug* But it's a big deal now so you better just be okay with that.

Frankly, as much as I don't want to be mean about this... I think being forgotten besides by the rose tinted glasses of the fandom is its best fate. Or that it will be known as a show that had a really good first season, a good first half of S2, and then dive bombed in quality, especially in S3, and that the only really notable thing about it is the sapphic ship between the main character and her love interest.

It is a show that only functions if you know the FULL context for it coming out. And even then, like with how much the fandom contracted during S2, let alone with each special of S3, that context wasn't even always enough to keep people watching.

So yeah, I think the fact that a lot media gets to just gracefully retire with its fans nowadays, since being a classic is so much harder when there's SOOOO much more media being produced, is probably going to be a boon for The Owl House. It can just be that little witch show for those who loved it and for those who disliked it... Well, something is always new on the horizon. I know I'm keeping my eyes out.

========

Okay so I wrote this last night. This morning I had errands to run and my sister helped me since she has a car. She convinced me to pick this up.

Looks cute. I was warned it gets dark eventually which... *looks at the goth art style* Totally couldn't have guessed. Also before anyone even thinks it: The comic originally began being published in 2015.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Vast!Jon Au - time for some REVEALS

Oh, oh, oh, there are some BIG CLUES as to what's going on in this scene.

Fair warning: We don't know no stinking timeline. I am back on my self-indulgent bullshit, y'all, and that means it's ALL going in the pot.

Martin/Jon Childhood Friends

Vast!Jon, professional photographer

Lonely!Martin, YouTube baker

A plane crash! Angst! Drama!

Old guys playing dice with the universe!

Stoker brothers! Archivist Sasha!

Agnes Montague?

Mike Crew???

Nothing is sacred here.

And now... phase two.

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

A week of nothing is good for them all, surely.

Jon and Martin text constantly, but Jon will not show his face, or say what he’s doing. So that’s fine.

Sasha swears she’s okay, and shows up for dinner with the Stokers. She won’t talk about Jon. So that’s fine.

Martin is sure none of this is fine.

But he’s in a holding pattern until Friday, which is when he must be at the top of his game. He spends some of his waning bank account on a haircut and a manicure, ensures his clothing and makeup are on point, and prepares for the show of his life.

Not one job application he's sent out has gotten a nibble.

This Lukas thing, whatever it is, has to work.

#

Tim calls it The Martin Effect.

Danny calls it a little bit spooky.

Martin calls it working the room, and considers it an easy performance. Even when performing for a bunch of weirdos.

The Lukas family is… more than a little bit weird, actually?

They’re all tall and freakishly pale, which has to be genetic. Eyes like ice, all of them. They stand in a cluster, watching their guests, like freaky gods made of stone and misanthropy.

Oh, their smiles are friendly, and their handshakes are good, but Martin is skilled at reading people and knows damn well not one of them is actually friendly at all.

But they sure do have a fancy as fuck house.

They'd invited him to their manor, in Kent - which is nearly eighty miles from London, and would have been an automatic no (Martin has seen horror movies) - except that they prefaced the invite by explaining it had to be on a certain date because others’ schedules weren’t very flexible.

Those others were several people like him (nobodies) and several of those YouTubers mentioned in the note (nobodies who’d made good).

The Lukases even sent a car to get him. With drinks.

Fancy. 

Also weirdly lonely, because there was a divider so he couldn’t even speak to the driver, and the car wasn’t a limo but it was too big, and Martin sat in the back and played on his phone and felt severely out of place.

He’s still doing this.

The Mooreland House came looming out of an unseasonable fog like something in a ghost story. Huge, all gray stone, somehow both absurdly posh and weirdly featureless, it does not feel welcoming.

Martin arrived at the same time as everyone else, coordinated. 

Then it was awkward-as-fuck meetup time, which is fine by him.

“No, that’s completely reasonable,” he says to his fellow nobody’s absolute rant about comment misbehavior. “It feels very personal, really.”

His fellow nobody beams like Martin gave them a prize.

Martin doesn’t mean a word because the rant is stupid. They’re internet comments. Yes, humans make them, but it’s humans on the other side of a screen, faceless, nameless, person-less.

Which is how they view you, even though they have your face and name, he thinks, but outwardly commiserates with BabyBrian (whose makeup isn’t very good, but Martin won’t tell them that), then moves on to meet the next nobody in line.

He’s spent time with nearly all the nobodies now. It’s horribly familiar; same as moving every few months and first trying to make friends, then moving every few months and just trying to make peace, same as not mattering and nobody mattering and sinking slowly into himself and his mum not caring, until they came to Bournemouth, when he was six, and his father walked away, and mum didn’t want to move again.

And Martin found Jon.

And for the first time in his life, felt seen.

He remembers that. Even though he was young, he remembers meeting Jon, more clearly than he recalls his father’s face.

But that doesn’t matter, because none of these people are Jon. 

It’s so damn fake. Martin’s good at fake. He knows how to stammer just so, when to drop his eyes, how to smile. 

Just keep it together, he tells himself, because he doubts very highly that the Lukas family (who is watching all of this with unreadable expressions) is going to give them all the golden ticket.

It’s obviously some kind of competition, though to what criteria, he doesn’t know. 

So. He’s himself.

The part of himself that doesn’t have Jon, that is.

There are two nobodies left to talk to in this group, and lucky him, they’re standing together, making it easy. “Hello!” says Martin brightly as he walks over.

So, two things immediately jump out at him.

One: they are absolutely nothing alike, but when they turn as one to look at him, he feels in his core that they are absolutely the same.

Two: that something same is whatever horror now lives in Jon.

It damn near throws him.

They’re connected. They’re serving evil gods. He’s certain.

Martin smiles more brightly to cover his spike of terror and offers his hand. “Martin. I bake muffins.”

The guy responds first, smiling just as brightly and shaking his hand. “Mike. I do optical illusions.”

“Oh, I’ve seen those!” says Martin brightly. “I recognize your voice. CrewsClues, right?” It is a hell of a channel. Obviously, it must be camera tricks, some kind of manipulation, but no one’s ever figured out how he does it.

For the first time, Martin is afraid that maybe it isn’t technical prowess behind those tricks.

This guy can livestream, and while livestreaming, twist a road into spirals, or make it seem like the building he’s walking by has just rusted itself to holes and timber, to mold and curling paint. Fascinating stuff.

Mike also does gross food stuff, but Martin loves food, and won't think about that.

However, he wonders why the hell this guy isn’t on camera.

Mike is fucking hot. Fit, toned, tanned; nearly white hair, shocking blue eyes - and, intriguingly, the branches of some kind of lightning-scar peeking above his shirt to kiss his throat.

Maybe he doesn’t go on camera because his smile is as fake as Martin’s.

Something in the eyes…

Mike Crew is not a friendly person, and Martin logs him away as dangerous.

“That’s me,” says Mike. “This is Agnes.”

Agnes is… Well. Intense is one way to put it. She is unblinking, still as a sheathed knife, and does not smile. Her hair is long and auburn, her eyes seem almost orange, and she’s nearly as tall as Martin.

She also doesn’t shake hands, apparently. “Hello.”

“She’s got that It All Burns channel,” says Mike.

“Oh! Oh, that’s… wow. Fascinating,” says Martin, looking fascinated, internally terrified.

It All Burns somehow combines an unnerving, visceral fear of the dark - of what’s in the dark, unseen - with sudden and violent flame, and there’s never any way to know just what she’s going to set on fire.

Martin hadn't even know the channel was run by a she. The host never speaks.

Of course, it isn’t real, say the comments, because it’s illegal, the things she burns - from as small as fancy men’s watches to entire derelict flats. Because someone would have caught her if she were actually doing arson, and besides - no matter what she’s burning, the flame she sets always looks the same.

It’s white. 

The last time Martin glanced at her comments, speculation was still rife as just what she was doing to make flame white, regardless of fuel.

He stopped checking after that. Agnes’s videos disturb him.

Agnes disturbs him more.

Now that he knows monsters are real… “It’s great to meet you,” he chirps, smiling brightly. “Hey, can I refill your drinks?”

“Naw, I’m about to bail,” says Mike with a shrug that stretches his half-buttoned shirt (white, to make his tanned skin more interesting). “I don’t think this is for me, anyway. I was curious, but I don’t really need the help.”

“Lucky you,” Martin laughs. “Well, I’m glad I got to meet you.”

“Yeah,” says Mike, with an unexpected and appreciative look. “You’re cuter than on your videos. Maybe we should collab, sometime.”

Martin laughs like that wasn’t absolutely audacious flirting. “I don’t really know what baking and illusions could do together.”

“Could do a test. See what happens to muffins over time.”

Mike had a couple of live feeds constantly monitoring food allowed to rot.

Martin pushes those out of his head, because they’re gross. There are maggots.

Why the fuck live feeds like that had an audience, he has no idea, but he’s not letting anything like that near his muffins. “Not a bad idea. Let’s chat about it sometime, okay?”

Mike knows.

He knows he just turned Martin’s stomach.

Mike's smile is cruel.

Martin’s is sweet and sunlight and fresh-found honey.

“See you,” says Mike, and leaves.

“So that was - ” Martin starts, but Agnes is leaving, too. Did they come together? “Not for you, either, huh?” says Martin.

“It’s a trap,” says Agnes.

Martin can’t quite hide this reaction. His eyes go wide, and he goes too still, just for a moment. “What?”

“I like you. I hope you lose,” says Agnes, coat donned, hair pulled free from her collar. She meets his eyes, pinning him again. “Good luck.” And she leaves.

“But what are you - ”

Nope. She’s not going to tell him what the trap is. She’s gone.

Oh, Ariana, we’re really in it now, he thinks hysterically, and sips his drink to cover it.

So does he leave?

He has no other options. He tried to get a job. He tried to get a loan. He has to do this.

He can’t take his mother into his closet-sized flat. Not only would her hospital equipment not fit, they would definitely kill each other within a week.

Jon…

He knows Jon would take him in.

He knows Jon would spend his own money to care for Martin’s mother.

Martin will not do that. He’s refused the offer before. He won’t.

He doesn’t even know why, but he won't.

“Excuse me, everyone,” says a cheerful voice, and Martin turns to find yet another Lukas has joined the fray.

This one’s different, though. He’s not so pale. His smile reaches his eyes. “Thank you all for coming! My name’s Evan. I guess you all know why you’re here, so I won’t drag it out. Leave the long speeches to the old guys, right?”

And it’s not really funny, but his delivery is so charming, and so personable, that Martin finds himself chuckling with the rest of them. 

“It’s time for your individual interviews. Now, I need to stress this: just be yourself. A front isn’t something anyone can maintain forever, and we’re looking for genuine above all else here. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, only one of you is going to get the sponsorship this quarter.”

Yeah, they’d all guessed. A few people sip drinks, nervously.

Martin is not one of them.

“We’re going in alphabetical order,” says Evan. “And hey - there isn’t anything to be afraid of, all right? In fact, we’re giving you all financial compensation for spending the day with us so nobody feels like we wasted their time. Right! Martin Blackwood?”

Oh good, I’m the guinea pig, he thinks, and raises his hand and smiles. “Present and accounted for!”

“Come on dooooown,” says Evan.

Martin snorts. Only one other person in the room seems to get the extremely dated Price is Right reference - the sea captain, Peter Lukas.

Everyone else's looks are just... stone.

“Follow my aunt Susie.” Evan shakes Martin’s hand. “Love your muffins, by the way. They’re great for parties.”

“Right? Thank you,” Martin says, feeling like this is the first time he’s smiled for real all day, and follows aunt Susie down the hall.

[cjsmalley]

Ghost Customs:

(TW: Discussions of Pedophilia and rape)

“Hey, King Babypop!” Ember led the parade of ghosts coming towards them, “We come in peace; heard ya had a baby now. The others and I got gifts, like we did with your Neverborn.”

Danny stood down warily, motioning for his guard to do the same, “You guys really didn’t—”

“We wanted ta, Kid,” Johnny spoke for everyone as all the ghosts made for the ground.

“My goodness!” Lunch Lady exclaimed at the sight of such a little baby human, “my goodness. And someone just Sold him to you?”

Danny, Sam, and Tucker all nodded tiredly.

The ghosts looked murderous; Selling Souls was not to be done lightly and for a child, a baby to be Sold.

Thank the Ancients it wasn’t to the Tyrant King.

“Does he have any ecto in him?” Spectra ask in interest, looking over her glasses at the baby.

“A little but it’s rancid,” Danny nodded, “Mom, Dad, and Frostbite all think the regular pure stuff, from Amity itself, will clear whatever he was dumped in…or whatever his birth-mom was dumped in. Whatever it is, it’s just plain nasty. He’s also getting a little clean ecto from Sam’s milk.”

Everyone praised Sam for feeding Damian her own ectoplasm; it was an almost sacred thing, to share ectoplasm. Something usually only done between lovers or parent and child.

Especially parent and child as Neverborns often had to be ‘nursed’ by a parent or Guardian and to share one’s ectoplasm left one weaker until it regenerated or was elsewise replaced.

Even Danny had nursed Danielle in a way; with the stabilizing injections of his ectoplasm, and Sam’s DNA. He hadn’t been aware he was doing what every parent would or that sharing ectoplasm was something special. He had just been following his instincts that said his Neverborn needed ectoplasm.

Sam flushed under the praise but looked confused; all three teenagers did.

Lunch Lady gently explained what was so praiseworthy; Danny promised to have cultural lessons added to his tutoring because they hadn’t known.

They thought the goth was just being praised for breastfeeding.

“Oh, you’re being praised for that too,” Kitty agreed, “’cause that’s just like the human method of sharing ecto, right? No shame on those that can’t though. ‘Cause we, like, know some women can’t.”

“Well, dearies,” Lunch Lady said, “Boxy, dear, come here.”

The Box Ghost came from the mass; he was holding a box, of course.

“This box holds a month’s worth of casseroles,” Lunch Lady said, “made with the purest ecto I could get; all, um, vegetarian, I think the term is. No meat, all vegetables. I do remember how it was to have small ones around.”

“I, the Box Ghost, give this box of all storage!” the Box Ghost proclaimed, “It will hold whatever you want!”

“Thank you, you two,” Danny became the trio’s spokesperson, accepting the box of meals, “we’ll make sure to use them.”

And so it went; each ghost gave a gift, something related to their own Obsessions but still useful (“Promise, Babypop, no hypnosis on this one,” said Ember, brandishing a CD case; two weeks later, noticing the kids were flagging, she would give them one that included hypnosis in the lullabies, Suggestions for anyone listening to go to sleep).

Valerie arrived, ready for war, as the impromptu baby shower wound down.

“Stand down, Val,” Tucker called, motioning to the pile of gifts, “they’re friendly, this time.”

Valerie paused, before saying, annoyed, “You guys should have told me! I’ve some stuff for Damian too!”

“We didn’t plan this,” Sam replied, in the middle of nursing Damian, half covered by a blanket to preserve her modesty while out in the open, “they…ambushed us with presents.”

“Ambushed, huh?” Valerie pressed a button and her board disappeared while she pulled down her mask.

“We heard about the baby,” Kitty explained, “me an’ Johnny. When Phantom confirmed it, we decided ta tell everyone. We gave Phantom’s Neverborn gifts too.”

“What’s a Neverborn? You’re talking about Dani, right?” Valerie questioned.

“A Neverborn is a ghost who was never alive, that is, never born,” Pointdexter explained, pushing his glasses back into place as he did so, “Danielle is a…complicated case as she technically is alive but was not born as a human or other fully alive being. She did, however, come from Phantom so she is considered his Neverborn.”

“Are these Neverborns common?” Danny asked, as no one had explained such concepts.

“Some ghosts get the need to have kids,” Ember explained as Pointdexter blushed and hid his face, strumming a soft melody on her guitar, “especially when they have partners. Usually they take some ectoplasm and pieces of their Cores and mix it all together to make a kid. It’s not something done lightly or by accident. What Plasmius did to you, Babypop, is…like a violation. Like rape. He didn’t do it the normal way but he made a Neverborn with your ectoplasm without your consent. You and your girl, you were…Ancients, that sicko…”

“Oh,” the trio said faintly together, each looking horrified and sick.

They had known Danielle’s creation was wrong but framed like that…framed like that…

“’Specially since you’re so young, Phantom,” Kitty agreed gently, “it’s a…miracle you produced enough ecto for both you an’ your Neverborn. Usually it’s only past the first century when ghosts start thinkin’ about makin’ Neverborns. An’ they stay in the ecto-infused Realms to make things easier.”

“Probably ‘cause the Neverborn needed human DNA,” Johnny pointed out, “Sam’s DNA must have some ecto too. An’ Plasmius must’ve shared ecto when she was…uh, born? Made?”

“Usually, Neverborns have two fully ghost parents to…nurse ectoplasm from,” Pointdexter further explained, “and everyone involved stays in the Zone, where ectoplasm is plentiful and it is easier to replace and heal from a broken Core. And the correct term, Johnny, may be decanted.”

“I need to sit down,” Danny said, collapsing into the grass, landing on his rear.

His friends followed him, though Sam put Damian, now done nursing, into his stroller first.

Danny covered his face, saying shakily, “I knew Vlad was evil but…you’re really saying he acted like a pedophile.”

“Is a pedophile, by Zone custom,” Ember was so damned gentle, “Pha—Danny, we’re so sorry. We knew there was something wrong with him but if we had known…we would have Shattered him for you. We will Shatter him if we ever catch him.”

Each of his Rogues made the same promise.

Valerie nodded, “It’s on sight. If I ever see him again, I’ll destroy him myself…Danny, you need to talk to someone about this…about what he did. It’s not traditional rape but—”

“I have to tell my parents,” Danny choked, “and what do we tell Dani? We love you but your very existence is evidence of a crime?”

“We’ll find a therapist,” Sam promised him, hand on his shoulder, “a specialist…They have counsellors for—this sort of thing. We’ll find the right one and get them under NDAs.”

“Oh, dearies,” Lunch Lady spoke sadly, “we thought you—”

“Who’s your Guardian kid?” Johnny cut in.

“Guardian?”

“Yeah. Every young ghost should have a parent or Guardian. Someone teaching ‘em the way of the Zone.”

“I don’t…don’t think I have one.”

“You’ve really slipped through the cracks, didn’t you? Damn, whatabout Ol’ Clockwork?”

“He’s just a mentor…He never explains things I didn’t ask about first. And he’s really cryptic too,” Danny’s voice was still trembling…Vlad was the closest to someone who explained ghost stuff…I’m the King and I didn’t…guys, how much don’t I know?”

“It’s not your fault, Danny,” Kitty knelt before him, sympathy but not pity in every word, “you literally could not have known….an’ we…we thought you were a lot older. Ghosts fight for fun and well, we hadn’t been in the human world in forever…”

“That’s it, I’m now your Royal Bard,” Ember declared, “so you know you have someone who’ll give it to you straight.”

Danny laughed wetly but agreed.

It was with a somber mood that the gathering slowly broke up; the trio and Damian returning to FentonWorks to have a painful discussion with the Fenton parents.

Wished Away 9

Tylers meet Phantoms:

“Christ, Mum,” Rose said as she took in how Jackie, Pete, and Tony were dressed, “we’re just meetin’—”

“Royalty!” Jackie squeaked. They were all done up like they were meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace itself!

“Honestly, Mum, they don’t care,” Rose rolled her eyes, grabbing her mother’s wrist and tugging her through the console room and to the wardrobe room, “I told ya ta dress casually. Let’s just hope the Ol’ Girl has clothes fer ya.”

It took about an hour to get everyone redressed, in things much more casual but still nice, before Rose led them back to the console room.

Jackie was clearly anxious, “Are ya—”

“’m sure, Mum. Danny an’ Sam don’t do formal unless they have ta. Unless you’re an annoying subject or someone threatenin’ war, ya don’t even have ta call ‘em by their titles. They’re just Danny an’ Sam ta family.”

“Lookie what I found,” Jenny bounded from the innards of the TARDIS, holding a tiny bike helmet.

She went to her toddler uncle and put it on him, making sure it fit right, “Landings in the Realms are worse than normal ones. The TARDIS does Her best but the Realms give her…nausea? A headache? She just doesn’t do good.”

“Oh, goody,” Jackie said lowly, hugging a strut for dear life already.

“Let me protect Anthony,” Bad Wolf came out, holding out her arms; without hesitation, Pete handed his son over.

Bad Wolf settled Tony in her arms, against her chest and shoulder, and then spread her feet and crouched slightly, clearly bracing for impact; she stayed steady even as the TARDIS began Her flight.

Everyone else was thrown about the console room, the Doctor and Jenny barely holding on to work the console, but Bad Wolf and Tony did not move an inch.

The landing was rough, just as Jenny said it would be, throwing even the Time Lords to the grated floor before the TARDIS stopped quaking.

Jenny recovered first and stood up, rubbing her shoulder, to peek out the doors, “We’re in the Palace. Uncle Danny and Aunt Sam are waiting…”

Slowly, everyone picked themselves up and Rose reemerged, straightening with some popping from her knees.

Jenny led the procession out, racing to hug a man and a woman, “Uncle Danny, Aunt Sam! How’re you?”

Danny and Sam chuckled and hugged her as one, “Good, doing good. You?”

“Perfect!”

She let go of them to drag Jackie, who was hesitant, forward, “This’s my Gran, Jackie. Mum’s side, duh. Completely human. He’s my step-granddad, Pete, and Mum’s holding my uncle, Tony.”

“Yer Majesties,” Jackie tried to curtsy even though she was in trousers, “an honor ta—”

“Oh, enough,” Sam chuckled, “didn’t they tell you? We don’t do formalities with family.”

“Family?” Jackie’s eyes were wide, “I know Rose said—but—”

“We count Clockwork as family,” Danny explained, “and he’s claimed the Doctor as family. The Doctor and Jenny. Rose’s basically married in by this point. Common-law, you understand. That makes her family our family. Welcome to the Palace, your home in the Infinite Realms.”

“My god,” Pete muttered, somewhat disbelieving.

“Not a god, not yet anyways,” Danny winked.

“Where’s Dani?” Jenny burst out, “Is she still in school?”

Sam grinned, “With Anakin, in the nursery. We let her stay home today.”

“Oh, Gran! Can I introduce Tony to Anakin? Please!” Jenny nearly begged.

“Anakin’s our youngest,” Danny explained kindly, “around Tony’s age, actually. We also have a nanny looking after them, Nanny Clara. He’d be perfectly safe.”

“Well…” Jackie looked to her husband, who nodded, “if you’re sure.”

Jenny cheered and took Tony from Rose, dashing off with him deeper into the Palace.

“Jenny knows the Palace as well as anyone,” Sam assured, “and if she gets lost, she can flag down a servant for help. She’s heading directly for the nursery. It’s the most defensible part of the Palace.

Danny stood up, helping Sam, “C’mon, we can talk over food; stay close, Tylers. Doctor?”

“Rose and I can bring up the rear,” the Doctor agreed, taking Rose’s hand as they began walking.

The Palace was a gothic masterpiece, in a very literal sense, though even Sam had wearied of all the gloom and had sought artists and artwork to fill the halls, soft, plush carpets and tapestries to keep the warmth, glassworks to fill the once barred windows. Statues and busts dotted the hallways, some classical, some avant garde

Masters had given their masterpieces, their magnum opuses; they were paid handsomely of course, in either coin or material.

Oils, watercolors, acrylics, textiles, glass, all created for Her Majesty the Ghost Queen. For His Majesty the Ghost King.

It wasn’t yet a riot of color, nor would it ever be, but it was more alive.

Jackie gasped and the group stopped, turning as one to see what had captured her attention.

“When they said the family was huge…”

Ah, it was the most recent family portrait; all the children were gathered around Danny and Sam, all in formal wear.

“We…sometimes people sell the souls of children to me,” Danny started, causing her and Pete to whip around to him in horror, “I know, it’s horrible, isn’t it? But anyways, we adopt the kids. Only Dani—Danielle—isn’t adopted.”

He pointed out each child and gave their backstory.

“Good Lord, you were young!” Pete said at Damian’s story.

“Old enough to be king,” Danny shrugged helplessly, “it…it wasn’t easy, we had help, so much help, and we made mistakes…”

“All parents do,” Jackie told him softly.

“So we’ve been told,” Sam smiled just as softly, “and we’ve learned and made new ones with each kid.”

Danny coughed and continued to point out kids and tell stories, until all had been covered and then they moved on.

As they neared the dining room, Danielle and Jenny joined them with each holding a toddler.

“Oh my,” Jackie said, taking in the Anakin Skywalker; she knew who he grew up to be, or would have if he had not been adopted.

“We’re hungry, Dad,” Danielle said.

Danny waved them into the dining room where the smaller table was already set for a meal; there were two chairs with booster seats and Jenny and Danielle put Tony and Anakin in them before sitting beside them and helping them get food.

The group chatted over the meal, Jackie and Pete slowly relaxing at how easy going the Royals were, and generally had good cheer.

After the meal was done, Jenny asked, “Do we put their photo up on the family wall now? I know you’ve got me, Dad, and Mum…”

Danny chuckled, “We can, if they’re okay with it.”

“Family wall?” Pete questioned.

“We keep walls of pictures of the extended family,” Sam explained easily, “you know, like Rose, the Doctor, and Jenny. Harry’s and Neville’s parents. Damian’s paternal birth-family. The Royal Portrait is just the immediate royal family. The walls are for everyone and everything else.”

Danny and Sam led the group out of the dining room and down another hallway; the walls were plastered with photographs. Some were professional, most were candid and amateur.

A common camera sat on a small round table; a high-end camera but nothing too expensive or professional.

Danny picked it up, saying, “If Jackie, Pete, and Tony don’t mind—”

Jackie decided it would be a family photograph and dragged the Doctor in; Rose and Jenny came without complaint.

Danny took a set of pictures.

After that was done, it was decided it was time for the Tylers to leave, taking pity on the still disgruntled TARDIS.

They were, however, invited to the next family gathering.

[another-shameless-fangirl]

Twilight

This is a continuation of Fairy Circle.

In the near dark and thinning light, a soft transition of golden color marked twilight as the sun no longer peaked over the densely wooded hills.

In no way did it reflect the moods of the study group, now one member short.

"Oh my God, oh my-what do we do?" Gina gasped bringing her dark fingers toward her face around the straps on her backpack holding on as if she were the next to be swallowed up.

Star's academic fascination was gone and her knowledge of the paranormal seemed to be depleted as she shook her head numbly.

Kwan circled the ring of mushrooms now dyed orange in the twilight and offering no answers.

Dash grit his teeth.

"He's faking it." He said flatly even as his heart pounded. "Fenton's gotta have some crazy invention that made him do that."

Kwan picked up a jagged gray stone from the forest floor and took a step back. He tossed it into the circle and nothing happened. The rock bounced in the grass leaving more impact than Fenton did when he fell.

"See," Dash pointed at the mushrooms. "It's not a portal. Fenton's pulling a fast one on us."

"I dunno, dude. Maybe the fairies didn't want the rock now that..." Kwan's eyes widened and he pointed at Dash. "You sacrificed Fenton!"

Star crossed her arms against the quickly approaching cold and to protect herself from the accusation laying heavy in the air.

Gina gasped softly and Nathan frowned.

Now all attention was on Dash.

He frowned at them.

"I didn't sacrifice, Fenton. Look." his heart leapt to his throat as he stepped into what was apparently sacred territory. The others startled and he smirked at them from the middle of the ring.

"See? Nothing."

Kwan shook his head.

"You gave them Fenton. He was the offering and now we're safe from the fairy people." Kwan looked down and around as if little wings would flap into sight. "This is messed up, dude."

Dash bristled.

"Shut up, Fenton's fine."

"Then where is he?" Star glared at him and Dash found his own bravado fading as the girl also managed to look worried about that loser.

"I dunno. Probably back at camp laughing it up with his freaky friends." they were probably in on it. They probably set all of this up to make him look bad.

"Take us back to camp." He snapped at Kwan who looked again at the mushrooms the best he could in the fading light.

"You really think he could do that?" He wondered. "The gadget just makes him fall through stuff. How could he come back up? What if he's still falling and we're about to leave him here?"

Dash stood there thinking about it.

If Fenton really was taken by fairies then he's gonna be in big trouble for losing a group member.

If he wasn't taken by fairies and he really did fall through the earth then Kwan was right.

What if Fenton was still falling? What if he didn't come back up? What if he tried to stop himself by turning tangible again and got stuck underground somewhere miles below the surface?

What if Fenton was worse than dead?

He frowned.

And what if this really was a dumb joke and the boy was back at camp somehow?

His throat felt tight despite repeating his preference.

"Either way, we need to get back to camp. There's nothing we can do to help Fenton if something is wrong..."

The others looked at him, then slowly came to an agreement. They were all weak. Dash was strong but he didn't have the tools he needed to help Fenton if anything was wrong.

Maybe his friends knew more about these fairies or whatever stunt Fenton pulled.

This better be a stunt.

If it was, Fenton would be dead for real before this weekend was over.

For his own sake, Danny Fenton better be dancing in the twilight.

-000-0000-000-

This has been a continuation of Fairy Circle.

Ectober 21 Day 5- Fairy Circle

Ectober 21 Day 6- Twilight

Ectober 21 Day 7- Swamp

[redrobin-detective]

give lilies with full hands

“Ghosts at the cemetery, why am I not surprised?” Valerie grumbled under her breath as she glanced at the glowing dots congregating near Heavenly Gates, Amity’s largest cemetery. It was just after 5pm on a Friday; Valerie should be at home getting ready for a fun and relaxing weekend. Instead, she was speeding forward in the dreary pre-rain mist about to tackle a hoard of the undead. Her life was so strange and unfair sometimes it just fueled her hatred for everything ghostly.

As she approached the cemetery, she slowed down and had her ectoweapon up and ready to shoot. Instead of a fire fight, she found an eerie, unsettling quiet that sunk deep into her bones and made her unable to move. She just hovered above the cemetery and took in the full scope of the scene. The Fentons were here, hard as they were to miss but like Valerie, they were also frozen with unease. Mrs. Fenton kept fiddling with her weapons but couldn’t manage to lift it in a meaningful way. 

The fog hung heavily around the cemetery, clinging like wet paint dripping down an unfinished picture. She could make out the unnatural glow of several ghosts, a few of which she recognized. That annoying child pirate ghost none of the adults could ever see was sobbing silently, curled up in a fetal position on the ground as if he were trying to make himself as small as possible. The biker guy and girl were cuddled into each other, leaned up against a grave looked scared and worn, flickering dangerously like static on TV. Val spotted Ember looking frightened and quaking looking like she wanted to run but was unable to. Her soft glow alerted Val that there was another ghost she’d initially missed.

The ghost was more shadow than anything, the fog moving through and from them. They were a swirl of greys and blacks in the approximation of a long cloak covering their face entirely. Pinpricks of bright lights shone from underneath the cloak’s hood. They bore down on Ember as if it were seeing deep into her soul and found her lacking. 

Phantom was there too, he looked almost normal compared to everything else going on so it’s not surprising she’d missed him at first. The fog dampened some of his ghostly glow and he was standing properly instead of floating. Like Val and the Fentons, he seemed unable to move. The heavy drizzle in the air flattened his normally gravity defying hair. If she hadn’t known better, she’d say he was a normal person standing there, albeit one with weird fashion sense who went a little crazy with the bleach. And if Phantom looked human in comparison then just what was this new ghost?

“Amber Jablonski,” The ghost whispered quietly within the cemetery but Valerie could hear perfectly well, as if were being spoken into her ear. From the shivers she saw come from the Fentons, they were experiencing the same thing. Ember moaned, something deep and agonizing. She fell to her knees as more of her glow faded. “An eager musician just making a name for herself in her small town. A performance at a barn had faulty wiring. The building caught fire and Young Amber was trapped by debris and unable to escape.”

The flame in Ember’s hair burst into brilliant blue flames before painfully sputtering out like a candle on the verge of going out. A wisp like ghostly hand reached out and tenderly ran a finger down the side of Ember’s face like a mockery of the tears she could no longer shed. “Cause of death was severe burns across her whole body and smoke suffocation at the age of 22.”

“Enough,” Phantom announced suddenly, stepping forward through the ghostly arm putting himself squarely between Ember and the wisp ghost. The dead rockstar barely noticed, her whole form trembling as she looked down at the cold earth with absolute horror. Val wondered if she was feeling the cold of the cemetery or the burning heat of an out of control fire. “You’re killing her.”

“She is already dead,” the ghost answered, “as are they all. They are but echoes of lives come and gone.”

“That doesn’t mean you have the right to remind them,” Phantom said, looking more ghostly again. His aura flared suddenly and his eyes lit up like angry lightning bugs in a jar. “Death is sacred, it’s private and you’re using it to hurt them.”

“It is my duty, I am the Mortem Obire. I make the restless dead confront their own mortality, remind them of what they lost.” The ghost stared down Phantom who flinched but overwise stood his ground. “It is because of you, Danny Phantom, that I have been summoned to this realm. Your life essence has made these ghosts forget what they were. They flock to you, drawn to your vibrancy, seeking what they’d lost. The dead were straying from their existence, emboldened by your example, they were forging new purposes. I am merely correcting their assumptions to preserve the delicate balance that maintains the two worlds.”

“But death shouldn’t have to define them, I mean us,” Phantom pleaded. “They can grow if they want, experience new things. The end of life isn’t the end.”

“How very human of you,” the other ghost said breathily, an unnatural imitation of a chuckle. “Your death, if we can call it that,” the ghost said, “was born out of innocence and ignorance. Nature demanded the experiment fail but your naivety allowed for the flow of life and death to be disrupted. You looked at a machine you could neither understand or control and made the attempt anyway. Your hubris consumed you in the form of electricity, pain firing through your whole body as you screamed for a relief that never came. Your old body was obliterated and remade into the abomination you are now.”

Oh god, Phantom was electrocuted. He had lived his last moments as a human screaming and in pain. She knew he was vaguely around her age but it was one thing to know a kid her age had gone through that and another to hear it described. Without thinking, she lowered her weapons. 

“Yeah I know that,” Phantom said weakly. “I took out the power in the whole city for a few hours which I felt bad about afterwards. What’s your point?” His glow was completely gone, the wet humidity of the air clinging to him much like how it fogged up Valerie’s suit. The shadow of the sinking sun made his white hair look dark and the greens of his eyes had faded into a less unnatural blue/green. 

The only think remotely otherworldly about him was a faint pulsing glow coming from the center of his chest. It beat like a heart, a soft brightness that seemed to dispel the overwhelming feeling of death. Ember looked up from the ground, the pirate kid uncurled himself a little, biker guy and his girlfriend became a little more solid. They looked at Phantom with such awe and envy and grief it was almost painful to watch them stare at what they clearly lacked. 

“My words hold no domain over your heart now, child of two worlds,” the ghost wheezed, floating past Phantom. “But someday you will greet death properly, be made humble by it, and I will be there to remind you of how fickle and fleeting that precious life of yours is.” 

“I-” Phantom defended, glowing slightly with his eyes once more an ectoplasmic green. But now it was obvious to see how much more lively and present he was compared to the others. She still hates him, will probably still hunt him but while she knew Phantom was a ghost she knew, whatever he was, she couldn’t call him dead. Not with eyes so sympathetic and expressive and alive.   

“Be gone, all of you mortals, this is a place for the dead,” the ghost commanded. The ghost hovered over to the Box Ghost who had been shivering behind a tombstone the whole time and suddenly went still as stone. “Your compassion for them does them no favors. This is the price for their existence, the dead cannot and should not forget. That is their purpose and this is mine. This is not an end to their existence, merely a reminder.”

Valerie never thoughts she’d see the Fentons flee from a fight but still she watched as Jack and Maddie slowly backed up until they reached their garish assault vehicle. They fumbled for the handles, not willing to tear their eyes off the ghosts before climbing in and driving off. Phantom looked torn, grief stricken as he watched the mist ghost, the Mortem Obire, speak softly to the Box Ghost. He looked like he wanted to interfere, to place himself in-between again but his shoulders slumped as he realized the futility of the action. This was the nature of death and memory and the living were not to interfere.

He glanced up at her, wary and saddened before disappearing from view, going off to wherever it was he lived his life when he wasn’t causing her problems. Valerie swiftly turned her board around and sped quickly in the direction of home. This had left her a lot of things to think about, about Phantom, about ghosts, about what it meant to stick around once your number was up. 

But that was for later, for now she wanted to get out of chill before the rain started in earnest. She wanted to drink something warm, sit close with her father and feel their hearts beating in time. Valerie Grey wanted nothing more, in that moment, to simply breathe in and appreciate her life before it was taken and those happy memories used against her. She would not die full of regret for what she had missed.

[maria-scribbles]

we’re just like kevin bacon!

prompt: for @bricksatanakinswindow​ ‘s halloween writing challenge! this was initially inspired by "mortal enemies accidentally showing up in matching costumes every fucking year" but once i started writing it kind of snowballed from there and i ended up with this lmao

ship: jj maybank x fem!reader

word count: 4.6k+ (i think this is the shortest thing i’ve ever written lol)

warnings n stuff: childhood enemies to lovers, swearing, mention of underage drinking, halloween shenanigans, makin' out, smut (not too explicit but i still think it's spicy enough to need an 18+ warning), jj and the reader being cute lil nerds and quoting movies back and forth, the author blatantly using some of her personal favorite movies/shows as inspiration for costumes, the author also making her opinions on ghostbusters clear (instead of the human trash can peter venkman, stan the adorable dork known as ray stantz for clear skin)

a/n: this was hella fun to write and i already have so many more halloween fic ideas bouncing around in my head (it's spoopy season, y'all!). title of this fic comes from guardians of the galaxy 😊

Of three things in life you were certain.

One, you loved Halloween more than any other holiday of the year; after all, you and your twin brother Mason were born just after one AM on October 31st so you could say a penchant for all things spooky was in your blood.

Two, Sarah Cameron was your best friend. Being neighbors your whole lives, the two of you were thick as thieves and spent almost every day together, much to the annoyance of both your brother and hers; as much as you loved Mason, sometimes you wished Sarah was your twin instead of him and you knew without question the blonde girl would trade Rafe for you in a heartbeat (with little to no guilt, in fact.). 

And three, you absolutely hated JJ Maybank. You'd been at the top of each other's shit lists ever since you were both six years old, when he made fun of you for the stutter you'd had back then and you dumped a full milkshake over his head as payback, and even as time passed and you grew out of your stutter, your disdain for the blond pogue only grew stronger. He was infuriating, plain and simple, and the mere mention of his name made steam come out of your ears. 

The boy was just good at being annoying and seemed to love pushing everyone's buttons, yours especially, and always found ways to get under your skin without fail every single time your paths crossed (which was way too often for your liking, but running in the same friend group made it hard to avoid each other). It became an unspoken thing, the great Y/L/N-Maybank feud, with both of you trying your hardest to piss the other off until one of your mutual friends or your brother broke it up and pulled you to opposite corners of the metaphorical ring to take a breather before the next round.

You'd never admit it but deep down you kind of liked it. You liked being at the center of his attention (granted, it was antagonistic in nature but it was attention all the same), his bright blue eyes following your every move whenever you were within his sights and you liked that you were in his thoughts even when you weren't around, a fact proven to you by the tiny notebook Kiara carried around in her pocket recording how many times he mentioned your name. Knowing you lived rent free in his mind brought you an embarrassingly high level of satisfaction that you'd absolutely deny feeling if anyone ever asked, just as you'd deny the fact that he lived rent free in your mind, too.

...At least for most of the year. Everyone, including JJ, knew that to you Halloween was a damn-near sacred time. He knew never to mess with you during the weeks leading up to the holiday and definitely never on the day itself, lest he want yet another milkshake dumped over his blond head. He knew that, the whole damn island knew he did and yet...somehow, some way, he managed to get your blood boiling every. single. year. And you, like a masochistic idiot, let him. 

It all started when you were twelve.

You, Mason, and your friends were finally old enough to go to the annual youth party held on the sprawling lawn of the Island Club, an event you'd been looking forward to attending every Halloween since you were eight. Of course, you were excited for the dancing and games and food but the thing you couldn't wait the most for was the costume contest, a chance to show off your skills and prove to everyone on the island that Y/N Y/L/N was the undisputed queen of Halloween.

So what if your hopes were a little too high (considering you were only twelve and going up against kids ranging from your age to fifteen), you were still gonna give it your all; you spent weeks perfecting not only your costume but your brother's as well with your mom, helping her cut fabric and sew zippers, styling wigs and painting props until everything was perfect. 

"Oh my God, Y/N!" Sarah, dressed as Cinderella, yelled from the passenger seat of her dad's SUV when they swung by to pick you up. "You look amazing!"

"So do you!" You said, slipping into the back seat in between a miserable-looking Rafe as Sarah Sanderson ("I lost a bet," he explained with a scowl) and Mason, holding your mini R2-D2 on your lap. Was it kind of cheesy, dressing up as the most iconic twins in movie history? Probably, but you really didn't care because Leia Organa was a total boss bitch and Mason was practically over the moon that he got to be his ultimate silver screen hero and swing around his very own lightsaber as Luke Skywalker.

"The Force is strong with you two." Ward joked, earning an eye roll from both of his children as he drove to the Island Club to drop you off. Rafe immediately disappeared into the crowd to meet up with Topper and Kelce and the three of you went off to find your own friends, skirting around the edge of the party toward the snack tables, also known as the most likely place for them to be.  

You spotted Kiara first, looking like an actual princess in her Tiana costume and waved, smiling when she waved back and beckoned you over as she said something to Pope, dressed as Albert Einstein, that made him start laughing hysterically.

"What's so funny?" You asked, reaching between them to grab two handfuls of pretzels and immediately dropping one into your brother's outstretched palm, careful to keep the sleeve of your white dress away from the bright orange-iced cupcakes on the table. 

The two of them exchanged a look that instantly made you realize something was Up™ but before either of them could answer, Mason asked around a mouthful of pretzels, "Where're Tweedledee and Tweedledum?"

"J, why didn't we think of that?" John B's voice came from somewhere over your shoulder and when you turned to face him, you nearly dropped both the droid cradled in the crook of your elbow and the snacks in your hand. Not because of John B and his hilarious Chewbacca costume but because of the fact that JJ Maybank, the one person you hated the most on the whole entire island, was dressed as Han freakin' Solo. 

"Yikes." Someone muttered behind you -it sounded like Sarah but you weren't really sure- and Mason nearly choked on his pretzels as he tried and failed miserably to keep himself from laughing. 

"You've gotta be kidding me." You huffed, rolling your eyes as JJ crossed his arms and glared in your direction, blaster hanging from the holster on his hip.

"Listen, Princess, I'm not too happy about this, either."

"Oh, shut up, you nerfherder."

"Who you calling-" Mason and John B cut in and pulled you both in opposite directions before either of you could turn it into a shouting match, your brother physically grabbing you around the waist and carrying you off while the latter caught the back of JJ's vest and dragged him away. Despite their best efforts to keep you apart, you ran into each other more times than you could count and spent a minute or two squabbling like cats and dogs each time until one of them intervened once again. It was childish, it was immature, and it was fun, even though you'd never, ever admit it. Ever.

You didn't win the costume contest that year in the way you'd imagined at all. Still, first place in the group category was a win in your book and it felt good, even if one of the members of your unintentional Star Wars posse was someone who tested every bit of patience you had. The four of you split the cash prize and you went home 25 bucks richer, stashing it away for next year's costume and pushing the thought of accidentally matching with your mortal enemy from your mind. 

You had no idea this thing was only just beginning.

The next year, you let Sarah and Kiara convince you to match with them and the three of you rolled up to the party as the Pink Ladies -you as Rizzo, Sarah as Sandy, Kiara as Frenchy- only to run right into the boys, your brother included, dressed as the T-Birds. John B, perfectly in character as Danny, immediately whisked Sarah off to dance while Pope, the most adorably awkward Doody you'd ever seen, went to grab some snacks with Kiara, leaving you stuck with the bane of your existence as, of course, fucking Kenickie (Mason, as Sonny, dipped sometime before then without you noticing). The two of you spent the whole evening glaring at each other and hurling insults back and forth at breakneck speed, more in character than either of you'd ever want to acknowledge and for the second year in a row, you won first place in the group costume category.

At fourteen, you went as Princess Buttercup and JJ showed up as Westley, fake sword in hand as he followed you around all night like an annoying fly, sarcastically drawling "as you wish" every time you so much as glanced in his direction. Your brother, dressed as Inigo Montoya, nearly pissed himself laughing and you wanted to snatch both of their prop swords and shove them up their asses. You came in first again in the group costume contest and begrudgingly split the prize three ways. 

At fifteen, you worked hard on a Dr. Ellie Sattler costume from Jurassic Park, he strolled in as a disheveled Dr. Alan Grant with mud splattered boots and tattered clothes, and you really regretted not taking the offer to be the Tai to Sarah's Cher and Kiara's Dionne. Once again, Mason laughed so hard his face turned red and you were tempted to grab the sword he was holding and beat him over the head with it, not just for laughing at you but also for the completely atrocious Jack Sparrow costume he wore. To your absolute horror, you and JJ won the contest in the duo category and you wanted to melt into the ground when they called you onto the makeshift stage to collect your reward. 

When you were sixteen, you and your friends "graduated" to the party held for the older teens inside the club itself. With costume rules a little more lax than they were for the younger kids, you decided to go as (an only slightly sexy) Janine Melnitz, complete with a prop telephone you answered every so often with a loud "Ghostbusters, whaddya want?!" much to the embarrassment of Mason, who was once again dressed as Luke Skywalker, this time in the fatigues he wore while training on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back.

You strutted into the party in your heels and pencil skirt only to nearly fall flat on your face when you caught sight of JJ in a terrible black wig and glasses, proton pack strapped to his back and 'Spengler' printed on the front of his jumpsuit. Your brother winced when you all but screeched "Again?!" right into his ear and grabbed your elbow, dragging you over to an empty table and depositing you into an open chair.

"There's no way this is a coincidence anymore! He could've picked Venkman, with all the womanizing and lowkey being a creep and thinking he's God's gift to mankind? It would've been the perfect choice! He's not nearly adorable or dorky enough to be Stantz or sassy enough to be Winston-"

"Jesus, you have a lot of feelings about Ghostbusters," Mason muttered, rolling his eyes when you shot him a withering glare.

"Shut up! Listen to me, there's no way in hell Maybank randomly decided to be, out of alllll the 'Busters, Egon fuckin' Spengler, okay? He had to have somehow known I was coming as Janine and did it just to piss me off!"

Your brother heaved a deep, heavy sigh that made you want to smack him and fixed you with a deadpan stare. "Or, have you pulled your head out of your own ass long enough to think that maybe you're just becoming...predictable?"

You really did smack him then, hard on his exposed shoulder and he yelped, scowling as he rubbed at the red mark you left behind. "Ow! What the hell, bitch?!"

"Don't you dare call me predictable, you dickhead! I pride myself on my costumes being very unique and unexpected -you know, out of the box!"

"Hate to break it to you but they're not really out of the box if Maybank shows up in a matching one every single year." He said with an infuriating, shit-eating grin, patting your shoulder before straightening the plush Yoda strapped to his back. "I'm gonna go get some food, wanna come with?"

Still miffed at his comment, you shoved his arm away and glanced down at your lap, ignoring your brother's sassy "your loss" as he headed toward the snack tables. Not even a minute passed by before his empty seat was taken and you groaned when you looked up to see who it was, your eyes meeting a pair of bright blues behind tacky, oversized glasses. 

"Hi, Janine."

"...Egon."

The two of you sat in silence after that, watching the dancing crowd under the flashing neon lights and sparkling disco ball until you saw him turn to face you out of the corner of your eye.

"Why Janine?" 

"Huh?" You turned to face him, too, one eyebrow raised in a perfect arch as he gestured toward your costume.

"Why did you dress up as Janine, Y/L/N?"

"I've always liked her sassiness and 'I like to play racquetball.'" You offered a casual shrug of your shoulders and carefully stuck a finger under your wig to scratch an annoying itch above your ear. "Why'd you pick Egon, Maybank?"

"He's my favorite." He answered simply with his own shrug, shooting you a genuine, real smile that you, for who knows what reason, found yourself returning without a second thought. "Smart, hilarious -plus, 'I like to collect spores, mold, and fungus.'"

For the first time in your life, your eyes rolled out of amusement and not annoyance at something that JJ Maybank said and, to your complete surprise, it kind of felt...right. "Really? I'd have pegged you for a Venkman stan."

"Are you kidding? He's the worst!" 

Never in your wildest dreams did you ever think you'd sit across from your hated enemy, not only having a civil -hell, downright enjoyable- conversation but actually smiling right along with him, laughing at his jokes and doing your best to ignore the sudden flutter in your stomach each time you caught sight of his slightly crooked teeth when he grinned. You didn't even notice when your brother returned with Kiara, dressed as Moana, at his side and two heaping plates of snacks in his hands until his chair scraped gratingly across the hardwood floor. 

"Kie, are you seeing this? Pigs must be flying 'cause they're actually smiling at each other." Mason said, cackling as Kiara turned to squint out the window.

"Yeah, I think I see one or two soaring around out there." She giggled and sent a mischievous wink in your direction. With your face feeling like it was on fire, you flipped them both the bird and took off, disappearing into the crowd and leaving all your traitorous, confusing thoughts about JJ behind with the boy himself; it was Rafe's last party at the Club and he owed you a dance anyway, but even as your best friend's older brother, cute as hell in his Thor costume, playfully twirled you around the floor to the Ghostbusters theme song, you felt more than your partner's blue eyes on you.

To no one's surprise, you and JJ won the duo category for the second year in a row and when you joined him onstage to collect your prize and didn't feel like you'd rather die than be up there by his side, you suddenly realized you were only certain about two things in life instead of three. 

At seventeen, you were confident you and JJ wouldn't be matching for once (after last year, though, you were kind of thinking it wouldn't be that bad of a thing). You'd gone cult classic for your costume, pulling inspiration from your mom's favorite move, 1999's The Mummy, and put together a screen-accurate Evelyn Carnahan in her iconic black dress, including a handmade Book of the Dead and matching key. You blackmailed Mason with pictures of him, drunk as a skunk and dressed in your Janine costume from the previous year, and got him to go as Jonathan, complete with a pith helmet and prop bottle of The Glenlivet.  

But, as always, JJ managed to surprise you. You literally ran right into his chest and if it wasn't for his arms instantly wrapping tight around your waist, you would've bit it hard.

"Whoa, careful there," He said, one hand keeping you close while the other moved to help you hold the book in your arms. "'The Book of the Dead? Are you sure you wanna be messing around with this thing?'"

Of course he'd make the perfect Rick O'Connell, you thought as you playfully raised one eyebrow and curled your fingers around the strap of the gun holster draped over his shoulder. "'It's just a book. No harm ever came from reading a book.'"

Mason was a little too in character as well as he dramatically rolled his eyes and wandered off, muttering "puh-lease" under his breath and shooting Sarah a conspiratorial wink that you didn't see. The blonde girl glanced between the two of you -arms still around each other and identical smiles on your faces- and grinned. The party flew by in a blur of movie quotes, laughs, and more dances than you could count and by the time you made it home, 50 bucks in the pocket of your dress and another group costume win under your belt, you were almost positive you never actually hated JJ Maybank in the first place.

Now at eighteen, you pulled out all the stops for your last party at the Island Club. You'd spent the last few months slaving over your costume, sewing custom pieces, hand-crafting your prop, and spending way too much money on body makeup and a wig but when you saw the final product in the mirror, you knew it was all worth it. You were ready to slay the competition this year and take home first place for the final time.

Mason, indifferent as always about the contest but willing to do anything to keep those pictures from seeing the light of day, didn't protest one bit when you forced him into the matching costume you'd made for him -in typical Mason fashion, he liked that he didn't have to wear a shirt and could show off his muscles- and spent a few hours perfecting his makeup.

You felt on top of the world when you walked into the party that night as Gamora, a replica of her Godslayer sword in hand and skin painted a perfect shade of green, followed by your brother as Drax, already flexing for anyone and everyone looking his way. The rest of your friends came to win as well: John B and Sarah as Flynn Rider and Rapunzel, Kiara as Eleven, Pope as T'Challa, and, of course, JJ as Peter Quill, Baby Groot perched on his shoulder and twin blasters at his hips. 

"Lookin' good, Gamora!" He called over the music, shimmying his way over to you with some dance moves that would impress Star-Lord himself.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Quill." You replied in a sing-song voice, even as you took his outstretched hand and let him pull you into the crowd of bodies hopping up and down to some terrible EDM beat under the twirling disco ball.

"It got you out here with me, didn't it?"

You rolled your eyes and hooked the sword to your belt before stepping closer and draping your arms around his neck, twirling your painted fingers in his hair. "Just remember, 'I know who you are, Peter Quill. And I'm not some starry-eyed waif here to succumb to your pelvic sorcery.'"

You should've known you spoke too soon the second you saw the spark in JJ's eyes that all but screamed 'wanna bet?'

And that's how you found yourself in the middle of the single hottest make out session you'd ever had the pleasure of participating in an hour later: back pressed against the locked door of someone's deserted office, legs wrapped tight around his waist and his hands hooked under your ass, both your sword and his blasters abandoned on the floor at his feet, and he was either a sinfully good kisser or trying really, really hard to blow your mind.  

"I'm not gonna end up green after this, am I?" He mumbled against your mouth before trailing his lips along your jaw and you breathed a laugh, tightening your grip on his hair.

"This is professional makeup, dumbass. It's gonna take more than some kissing to smudge it."

"I'm down for some smudging if you are." 

You pulled him back for another kiss in response and gasped into his mouth when he walked across the room, one strong arm reaching out to sweep whatever was on the desk to the floor before setting you down on it.

"Confident, are we?" 

JJ smirked at your breathless question and the way you hooked your ankles around the backs of his thighs to pull him closer. "So is that a yes to the smudging?"

"Just shut up and kiss me." 

He did -very well, you might add- and you kissed him back, untangling your hands from his hair to slide them under his jacket instead; you helped him push it off his shoulders and it had barely hit the ground along with poor Baby Groot before your fingers were tugging his shirt from the waistband of his pants.  

"Someone's impatient." He teased, leaning back just far enough to let you pull it over his head and toss it somewhere behind you.

"Someone doesn't know how to stop talking." You whispered your reply low in his ear and then trailed your lips down his neck, smiling in satisfaction at the tremble in his voice when you kissed the purple mark you'd left behind earlier.

"N-never was very good at that." 

"'You should've learned.'"

"'I don't learn, it's one of my issues.'"

One of his hands gripped your wig, pulling your head back a little roughly -you'd have so been into that if it had been your real hair he pulled- and you winced at the way the bobby pins holding it it place tugged painfully at your roots. "Ow, not so hard!"

"Wait, what the fuck? I thought you were wearing a wig!" 

"I am but it's still pinned to my actual hair!"

"Sorry, but how the hell was I supposed to know that?"

The sight of JJ's face slowly turning red made the butterflies in your stomach go haywire and so you just shook your head, mumbling "don't worry about it," before pressing your lips to his once again. He was gentler this time with the pulling and you dug your nails into his bare shoulders at the thrill of his mouth against the exposed column of your throat, leaning back further and further until you laid flat on the desk.

His fingers had just unbuttoned your pants when your phone started to ring from your pocket, blaring the Star Wars theme you had set as your twin's ringtone. 

"Mason's timing is impeccable," JJ said sarcastically, chuckling as you clamped a palm over his mouth and answered the call.

"What the hell do you want?"

"Jesus, no need to be pissy!" Mason loudly replied over the applause crackling through the phone's speaker. "I just thought you'd like to know that we just won best group costume with Maybank. Again." 

The blond winked at the mention of his last name and pulled your hand away from his mouth, pinning it to the desk beside you with one of his while the other started tugging your pants down over your hips.

"Oh, that's cool, Mase-" You inhaled sharply when his lips touched the edge of your underwear, so close to where you wanted him most but at the same time so far away, and your fingers held your phone in a white-knuckled grip. "But I-I'm kind of in the middle of doing someone -something!- right now."

"Smooth," JJ said, not even trying to be quiet as he released your pinned hand to finish pulling your boots off, along with your tight leather pants that he casually tossed aside. "And I knew you weren't green under these!" 

Your laugh quickly turned into a gasp when his fingers hooked under your panties and pulled those off, too, and the touch of his tongue against the skin of your inner thigh sent white-hot lightning racing through your veins; the phone slipped from your grip, falling with a clunk onto the desk as your fingers tangled in his hair and he lifted one of your knees over his shoulder.

"Okay, I'm hanging up now! I already know you're getting laid but I don't need to hear it." Mason's loud grumble drifted up through the speaker and if you weren't so preoccupied with the boy between your thighs doing some downright wicked things to you with his mouth, you might've noticed that your brother didn't actually sound that grumpy before he ended the call and your phone's screen went dark, right as you lost control of your voice.

"Fuck me."

"Funny, I thought that's what I was doing?" You felt more than heard his response against you and a shiver ran down your spine when his bright blue eyes flicked up to met yours in the dim light of the office.

"You know what I meant, Maybank."

"Trust me, Y/L/N, I know. Question is: where do you want me?"

You tugged on his hair, grinning wolfishly at the way his eyes fluttered closed and a low moan rose from his throat. "Everywhere in this damn room, starting right here."

"I was hoping you’d say that.”

- Back at the party, Mason looked up and met Sarah's gaze, both of her eyebrows raised expectantly as she asked, "Well?"

He took his time slipping his phone back into his pocket before giving her a quick nod, grinning triumphantly when she immediately burst into gleeful giggles.  

"Yes! I just knew they had a thing for each other! Mortal enemies, my ass."

"I think that was the very first time in my sister's life that she didn't give a shit about the contest." Mason said and reached over to snag a cookie from her plate, chuckling when she pushed his hand away from the chocolate chip ones and toward the peanut butter. "We couldn't have pulled this off without you. I mean, making sure they showed up in matching costumes every year? Genius, Sarah. Absolutely genius." 

The blonde girl grabbed her own cookie with a wink. "Think they'll ever figure it out?"

Your brother just threw his head back and laughed. "I hope not! I wanna save that story for my best man speech at their wedding."

taglist: @sinkbeneathwaves @cordeliascrown @maysbanks @jjpogueprincess @jiaraendgame @alexa-playafricabytoto @sexualparkour @agirlwholovescoffee​ 

[snackleggg]

City of splintering hopes: Chapter 3 "Carvings in the walls"

~~~

Ao3

~~~

As Danny flew through the city he became more and more amazed.

It was obvious the place had been abandoned for a long long time but even so there was no sign of decay, everything seemingly perfectly persevered. Of course there was rubble, entire blocks of buildings that was nothing but collapsed stone but for the most part the ancient city was intact.

He landed down in one of the streets. And took stock of his surroundings.

The stone buildings wooden doors all shut, apart from the rubble and rocks the streets were almost pristinely clean.

From flying over head Danny had noticed that the whole city was built in a very organised system. Rows of houses that led upwards encircling around the large island, every once in a while there was a break in the autonomous rock with what Danny thinks were once well kept parks, now overgrown and spilling out into the streets.

In the center of the city, at the very top of the upwards hill of the island was a very large immaculate building. Danny wouldn't call it a castle per say but the architecture did remind him of ancient Greek and Roman architecture when building lavish housing for emperors.

There were a lot of narrow alleys between houses and buildings that may have been storage or served some other purpose, Danny couldn't tell. There were the standard 'roads' which were paths of stone in regular intervals between buildings, being connected together through the city like a huge grid that wrapped perfectly around the entire island. And then there were very open places, places which crowds may have once gathered or, from the looks of the marks on the ground, merchant stalls may have once been.

All in all it was a very human city.

He had never seen anything like it in the Ghost Zone. The longer he spent there the more sure he was that this was where Halfas had once lived.

He slowly began making his way to the center building, going up stairs and slopes as the ground started curving upwards.

Something else he noticed were common carvings in the walls, most just looked like normal graffiti but every time he came to one of those big open spaces that would have been able to hold lots of people at once the carvings were much more professional, deliberate.

The carvings depicted lots of things. Little stories Danny had no cultural context for, writings in a language that looked vaguely like ghost speak written down but just different enough that Danny couldn't actually read it, like it was the same language but a different dialect.

The most common things carved into the walls, he noted, were birds. Lots of different kinds of birds. Two birds that showed up the most though were crows and owls. That made an ominous sort of sense for a people that lived on the border between life and death.

Finally the compact buildings opened up as he nearly reached the top of the island. There were overgrown fields of strange Ghost Zone plants around the center building, it was obviously important, sacred maybe even.

Not for the first time Danny considered turning around, going home, it was obvious he wasn't going to learn anything from this so why risk accidentally disrespecting a race of people who deserve peace? But again his core seemed to disagree as it tugged at him to go forward.

Danny sighed.

He stood on the steps just before entering the open front of the building, again reminding him of Roman architecture by the pillars and open outside hallways. From the top of the large island now he could see far out into these "Hidden lands".

Unlike the rest of the Ghost Zone there weren't any doors floating in the abyss, not even any random debris. Not a ghost was floating in sight, it was quiet and Danny realised he might be the only living, so to speak, thing here. The quiet was just so suffocating, so absent of just anything.

Ghost were naturally very quiet but even they gave off the smallest sounds of existence. Their cores hummed in a consistent way that other ghosts recognised almost unconsciously. Even the Ghost Zone itself seemed to have this hum to it, a never ending rhythm that nobody else noticed because it was just the constant. Like how nobody on earth noticed the world was turning.

But here even that hum was quiet, as if the Ghost Zone itself was holding it's breath.

Danny was still distracted by the strangeness of the "Hidden lands" to really take note of it when he took a step forward off of the steps leading up to the building to properly stand infront of it and under the overhanging roof.

He did take note of it though when the area around where his foot was started glowing a bright yellow, almost white, light. He jumped back, startled as the light moved forwards quickly in a line. The line lead down the side of the open hallway and as Danny leaned over to see where it was going he noticed something about the walls of the building.

There were large openings and inside the alcoves were strange statues. Bird like statues, except also not. They stood on two long legs with three sharp talon like toes, lines almost like joints scattered across the legs with the most noticeable being where the knee would be on a normal creature. The torso of the statues was an upside down trapizium shape, thin towards the bottom but consistently broadening in a slanting line all the way up to the shoulders.

There was a symbol on the torso, Danny had seen that symbol appear quite frequently carved above every door and on the overhang of the building before he had passed under it. Was it the symbol of these people perhaps? Did it have some meaning Danny would never have the context for?

The arms, similar to the legs, were very long. They had the same strange joint like lines as the legs with the line of where the elbow would be being the most pronounced. They didn't have any hands, instead three long claw like fingers at the end of each arm that had their own joint lines. There was also something else about the arms but pinned against the statue's side Danny couldn't tell what.

The bird similarities came from the head. Each head of each statues was a little different while their bodies were virtually the same. All of them either had beaks or someone kind of carving in their semi flat faces to imitate a beak. Their lifeless and empty round eyes stared ahead unseeingly. All of them had some kind of crown of what looked to be stone feathers carved towards the back of their heads.

Danny examined the strange statues closely, then he looked at the glowing line in the ground that still led down the open sided hallway.

Sighing, Danny followed the line. It had obviously been triggered when he stepped up onto the level of the building which must have meant something. Suddenly Danny's mind jumped to the thought of boobytraps but he shook his head of that notion. An ancient civilisation could never really guess when they were about to fall, let alone have the forethought to install boobytraps for people they could only guess would come to the ruins of their civilisation in the far future. It was one of the things that Danny always found unrealistic in tv shows or movies.

Eventually the glowing line turned inwards towards the wall and split off into two parts that surrounded the outline of one of the alcoves that held the strange statues.

Danny stopped infront of the statue and stared at it. Why had that glowing line appeared and why did it lead to this statue? It didn't appear any different from all the rest.

Then the tall statue that was easily twice Danny's height, it's eyes started to glow and then it blinked.

It blinked before tilting it's head downwards to meet Danny's gaze. Now with the eyes glowing that same light yellow-ish colour as the line that had led him there Danny could see the eyes had thin pupils that ran from the top of the circular eyes to the bottom, distantly in the back of Danny's mind they reminded him of a cat's eyes. More at the forefront of his brain Danny internally screamed 'RUN' before physically turning back to the direction he had come from and bolting.

Another far away part of Danny's brain tried to remind him he could literally fly but he disregarded that as he was currently using all his brain cells on focusing on running and not looking back.

He reached the stairs and started taking them two at a time, still not remembering his powers of flight, his feet hurt from how hard they were hitting against the sturdy stone. Then, in a classic Danny Fenton way, he tripped.

But instead of faceplanting he found his face hovering just a few inches from face planting on the stairs and he was hyper aware of the fact that he hadn't used his powers to catch his fall. In fact he hadn't caught his fall but two sandy pale stone arms encircling his midsection told him exactly who had.

Danny turned his head slowly to get a look at the statue-come-to-life that was holding him like one might pick up a small kitten.

The statue's glowing eyes stared down at him, blinked with a small clicking sound as if they were the lenses of a camera taking a picture, then the statues-come-to-life tilted it's head before going "You should be careful when going down stairs" in a monotone yet also seemingly amused voice.

Danny wanted to shriek, to pull his hair out, to do something because the statues-come-to-life that didn't have any visible mouth just spoke. Instead of any of those things Danny's body did the first thing it thought of doing, twisting around awkwardly to hold one of each of the stone arms before pushing them apart, letting him fall to the awaiting stairs.

Thankfully this time he remembered 'Oh right, ghost powers' and before he could hit the ground he flew away, quickly.

His legs formed into as wispy tail behind him to let him go faster because he needed to get out of here.

He soon flew out of the city limits and towards the cave opening in the side of the mountains. All he could think about was going, go, get out, thanks for the cool clues to Halfa past but I think I'll pass.

Then when Danny was just about to get to the cave entrance, barely 15 feet away, a certain bird statue-come-to-life landed infront of him. Of course this time his brain worked, he would go intangible and phase right through the thing, it was too late to slow down anyway. Except that wasn't what happened because instead of going through the statue he just crashed face first into it's chest at full speed.

Danny heard a crack as his face became acquainted with the symbol carved into the statue's torso and he silently said goodbye to his 1 whole week of no injuries streak because before the pain even blossomed on his face he knew he had broken his nose. All he could hope for was that he didn't break anything else along with it.

The statue didn't even move an inch, not even a flinch. Danny was reminded of the saying an unstoppable force meets an immovable object only in this case Danny wasn't as unstoppable as he liked to think.

Before he could fall the rest of the way to the ground he could feel his arms suddenly pinned against his body as three long claw like fingers held him above the ground and at a literal arms length of the statue creature. Danny tried going intangible but it seemed that didn't work on this creature as his nose had unfortunately come to know.

Then he was being gently set down on the ground and he found himself staring eye level with the statue as it hunched over awkwardly to look him in the eye. Another part of Danny was reminded of those 'How to talk to short people' memes and he almost snorted at the mental comparison before stopping from the sudden pain of moving any of his facial muscles.

"You are hurt" said the voice of the statue-creature-thing.

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious" Danny deadpanned, his voice sounding off and a little ridiculous from the unfortunate fate of his nose.

The weird bird statue tilted it's head to the side and blinked it's eyes again, the clicking sound the blink made echoing in the silence.

"What is your name?" It finally said after a brief pause.

"Danny Phantom. What are you?" Danny asked stepping around he statue-come-to-life to examine it from all sides. He could now see from it's arms that it had stone feathers, again hitting Danny with it's strange resemblance to a bird.

The creature's gaze followed Danny as he went around it, thankfully it's head didn't do some creepy 360 or even a 180, just turning around to the other side to see Danny when he left it's view from one side.

"I am an information retrieval droid, model K-18" it answered monotonely.

"So you're... a robot?" Danny asked as he stopped infront of it again.

The bird statue blinked once more before replying "Precisely". Despite the monotone voice it still somehow managed to inject some emotion into it's words.

"Well, you scared the shit out of me coming to life out of nowhere like that" Danny commented dryly. His face hurt and so did his feet, he just wanted to go home and curl up in bed and never doing anything ever again.

The robot bird jerked it's head back a bit when Danny swore, Danny confirmed it specifically reacted to the swear when it said in a repreemanding way "Language"

Again Danny almost snorted before remembering the broken nose dilemma and he sighed.

"Okay, I'm officially too tired to deal with this. Bye!" He said, walking around the robot and towards the cave entrance.

He heard the sound of heavy stone footsteps behind him and he turned around to see the robot bird following him.

"What?" Danny asked a little snappily.

"I am coming with you" It stated matter-of-factly.

Danny was so exasperated. He didn't want to deal with this.

"No, you're not" Danny said.

"Yes, I am" It replied as if it was the most simple thing in the world to understand.

"No. You are not" Danny insisted.

Another blink from the bird statue "I insist on accompanying you Danny Phantom" it said and Danny just knew there was no getting around this. This weird statue robot bird thing was going to follow him whether he liked it or not.

A tired sigh escaped Danny as he assessed the stone being infront of him "Why?" He asked.

"Because it is my duty to keep you safe. It has been officially added as my top objective" The bird robot said and Danny once again felt like pulling his hair out.

"I'm not going to be able to get rid of you even if I tried aren't I?" Danny stated more than asked.

"That is correct Danny Phantom" It nodded, as if Danny finally understood.

"Just call me Danny" He said before turning back around towards the cave. The only indication that the bird robot was still following being it's heavy footsteps behind him.

~~~

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I'll be tagging all content do to with this story with the tag City of splintering hopes so if guys want to you can follow the story easier. You can also use that tag for any questions or content you guys make of the story!

[insomniamamma]

Liminal: Ezra and Cee

A/N: Contemporary AU in which Ezra becomes his niece, Cee's caretaker after an automobile accident kills his brother, Damon, and costs him his arm. Same AU as "Ferris wheels are for old people." No reader insert character, just Ezra and Cee on the road. Written for @autumnleaves1991-blog​ ‘s Writer’s Wednesday.

Warnings: Mentions of past trauma/injury. Drug references in a song. Some language. I tried to research body powered transhumeral prosthetics to get some idea of how Ezra's prosthetic arm might work, but then I fell into an overthinking morass, any inaccuracies are mine.

"Willin'" is written by Lowell George. The version referenced in the story is recorded by Linda Ronstadt.

lim·i·nal /ˈlimənl/

adjective: liminal

   1.relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.    2.occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

--"Willin'"--

          "’... been warped by the rain, driven by the snow,’" Cee sings along with the music rattling through the truck's speakers, "I'm drunk and dirty, don't you know. But I'm still willin'..."

        The road stretches long and straight in front of them, harsh, rust-colored land dotted with scrub under the arc of an impossibly blue sky. Ezra asked Cee to compile the playlist. You are my co-pilot for this mission, he'd told her, and as such your duties include, but are not limited to, navigator, snack supervisor and DJ. DJ? Really? Make us a playlist, Little Bird, every adventure needs some good road music. And she had really delivered.          "’...Out on the road late last night, I'd see my pretty Alice in every headlight, Alice, Dallas Alice...’"  Ezra'd expected hours of auto-tuned pop or loud screamy music where he couldn't understand the words, and while there was some of that, Cee had taken her duties as DJ very seriously, creating a huge genre-bending list that all worked together.

     He knew a lot of it. When he was still weird Uncle Ezra and not Legal Guardian Ezra, Cee made a habit of pawing through his vinyl collection when she and Damon would visit, picking a record to play and then peppering him with questions about it. Still, some of the tracks she picked surprised him, like this one, Linda Ronstadt's version of "Willin'" a road trip anthem if there ever was one, but something he didn't expect Cee to be familiar with.  On their first go through the playlist, he'd asked her, where'd you hear this one, Birdie? You remember that movie, The Abyss? It's in that movie, the director's cut though, not the theatrical cut, the theatrical cut is bullshit--and he'd just listened to her go off about all the things wrong with the theatrical cut, the movie itself he barely remembered, something about divers finding aliens underwater, he'd listened and grinned, Cee could go so quiet sometimes. It was always a relief to hear her sound alive and interested, especially after--          "’And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari," Cee sings and Ezra joins her, "Tehachapi to Tonopah...’" Cee's voice is sweet. Ezra's voice is not, but that's never stopped him. They've got the windows down. The AC started smelling funny a couple days ago, and, in this part of the world, a breeze to evaporate the sweat is just as good as AC. Cee's hair makes a flyaway halo as they sing--          "’Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made, Driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed. And if you give me...’" Ezra and Cee smile at each other, suck in deep breaths for the big chorus, "’...Weed, whites and wine, and you show me a sign...And I'll be willin' to be movin'"

--Petroglyph--

       The rust colored forms on pale stone walls peer out at them. Some loom large in the foreground, others recede into the background as if the weathered rock is a portal a window into some other place that lives just below the skin of the world. The back of Ezra's neck prickles. Sometimes the world is thin. Sometimes he feels as if there is a larger world moving and shifting beneath the surface of this one. Sometimes he feels like things are happening out of order, reality stripping and skipping like a loose bicycle chain--        Cee's warm hand creeps into his, "They're a little scary, aren't they?" She says.        "Indeed they are," says Ezra, "One has to wonder what they were thinking. What they were trying to say. Are these gods in these pictures? Or just regular men?"        "Does it matter?" Asks Cee, and he jerks his head to look at her. She is utterly entranced by the red figures and sigils.        "Of course it does," he says, "You don't think so?"        "I mean, it matters, I guess, but what matters more is that people made these," she says, "People like us. People with hands. Not that Ancient Aliens bullshit." Ezra laughs. Cee squeezes his hand.        "C'mon," she says, "let's see more."

--Rest Stop--

       "Hey MOM!," a child's voice snaps Ezra out of his reverie. Cee is in the truck stop, using the restroom and restocking their snack supply. At these stops he fuels up and then gives her some cash and sets her loose inside. And then they stretch their legs and sit outside for a spell. Ezra sits at a picnic bench letting the sun hit his closed eyelids, "MOM! That guy's got a ROBOT ARM! Like WINTER SOLDIER!" Ezra opens his eyes to a little boy, maybe four with a bunch of curly hair and big eyes, pointing at him.        "Daniel!" His mother hisses, and pinches at his arm, "That's rude. I'm so sorry. Danny, what did I tell you about staring--"        "Ma'am? It's quite alright, Ma'am," says Ezra, and hunkers down so he's eye level with the little boy.        "Hi there," he says, "Daniel, is it? I'm Ezra." He offers his right arm, the double hook at the end open, titanium alloy padded with silicone. Daniel solemnly grips the hooks and shakes.        "You've got stickers!" Says Daniel, and for a second Ezra is confused, and then he grins, looking down at the bedecked black plastic of his prosthesis. He stands.        "My girl decided that I must have a sticker for every state we stop in," says Ezra, he stands and smiles at Daniel's mom, "Like an old steamer trunk. I'm afraid I didn't catch your name--"        Cee steps out of the air-conditioned cavern of the truck stop, slits her eyes against the brightness of midday sun glittering up from the concrete, plastic bags full of crap-snacks and energy drinks threaded over her arms. Ezra handed her a couple twenties and told her to go nuts. Re-supply runs have turned into their own sort of game. She always grabs the usual stuff, chips and Snickers bars and Paydays (Ezra has an absolute weakness for Paydays. They don't taste like they used to, he'd griped, but that didn't stop him from eating them), but somewhere along the line, Cee decided to turn this into a battle of the wills. Her unspoken mission is to find something so utterly weird at one of these stops that Ezra won't eat it. So far, she has been unsuccessful. The closest thing was an aloe juice and cucumber drink that smelled amazing, but felt like swallowing cold snot. That one was a draw. She has high hopes for the dill pickle-sriracha gummy worms nestled in the bottom of the bag. The packaging looked like Christmas in hell. More important than the snacks is the plain, flat paper bag she holds.                                                                                     Ezra's near the picnic benches chattering at some lady with a kid. Menace, she thinks, but smiles. Ezra was always the extrovert before, and it's good to him smiling so big and open in the sunshine, making friends with random people at a truck stop. She sees an echo of her and him before, when she and Dad would visit when she was small and he'd tell her some outrageous tale and she'd say Uncle Ezra, you're so weird, and he'd scoop her up and swing her around, planting a prickly kiss on her cheek and saying oh, little bird, you have no idea, and this always made Dad laugh.

       "Oh, Ez-ra," Cee calls, and when he turns, he sees her devilish grin, holding a small brown paper bag up beside her face like it's contraband, "Look what I found."         "So I get to witness the sacred stickering?" Asks Ezra's new friend.        "Indeed you do," says Ezra, "This is Cee. Cee, meet Jody, and that little man playing in the dirt there is Daniel."        "Nice to meet you," says Cee, "Stick your arm out, old man."        "Don't you want to document this momentous occasion?"        "Oh, right," Cee pulls out her phone, "Hey, uh, miss Jody? Can you take some video? I got it all set up."        "Cee is documenting our adventures for posterity," says Ezra. He extends his prosthetic, already covered in overlapping ovoids, enough that they are starting to resemble dragon scales, "What do you think?" Cee and Daniel circle round.        "How bout here?" asks Daniel, tapping just above the articulated elbow.        "That's a good spot," says Cee and peels the sticker from it's backing with a flourish. She smiles up at her phone recording in a stranger's hand, "We have now infiltrated the state of Nevada," she grins, "Evil-doers beware."        "Yeah!" Says the little boy, pudgy hands planted on his hips for the benefit of the camera, "Or Winter Soldier will KICK YOUR ASS!"        "Daniel!"

--Stars--

       Cee wakes in the dead of night, disoriented, a darkness so thick that for a moment she's not sure where she is, and then she hears Ezra's rhythmic snoring off to her side, reaches out and brushes fabric of the tent and lays back, puzzled, muscles pleasantly sore from a day spent scrabbling up and down eroded granite boulders that looked like they belonged on Mars or Tatooine, walking trails and marveling at the strange ecology of the high-desert, so unlike back home. Bad dream? She wonders, probably. She feels her eyes getting heavy, feels herself lulled by Ezra's sleep sounds, snores punctuated by mumbles. Sometimes full sentences, his side of whatever dream-conversation he's having. Probably has no idea he does it--        Cee sits bolt upright, hands clutched in fists against her chest, a high-pitched wail cuts the cold night, a sound like a woman screaming, and another wail threads through the first, so loud it could be right outside the tent, and then a sound like gruesome laughter. The back of her neck prickles and her heart pounds in her throat. She tells herself that it's just some wild animal making noise, some desert bird maybe, but wasn't the California desert the last known home of the Manson family? Maybe not this desert, but still--        "Ezra," she hisses, and he mumbles something incoherent, "Ezra, wake up!" She reaches and pokes him hard, "Ezra!"        "Whazzit birdie?"        "Listen!" The screams rise and fall again like something from a horror movie.        "s'just coyotes," says Ezra, "probly next county over. They don't hurt people, they're just loud."        "You sure?"        "Go back to sleep, Cee."

       "Ezra," He's dreaming, some place with Joshua trees the size of skyscrapers, spiked limbs under a red sky. Cee's with him somewhere in the bloodlight but he can't see her, just hears her calling--        "Ezra!" He blinks awake, the red sky receding. Cee is shaking him.        "Yuh. M'awake birdie,"        "I gotta pee," she says.        "You know where the outhouses are, just right down the trail,"        "I'm not going by myself! Not with those things out there!" Ezra pushes himself up and shakes his head, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He can just make out Cee's form against the faint light of the sky leaking through the tent.        "Alright, just gimme a second," he says.        "I'll get the light,"        "We don't need it," he says.        "Ez-"        "We got night eyes now," he says, "No light pollution out here. You'll see."

       Ezra stands transfixed in the chill dark, head cocked upward. The more he looks, the more he can see. More stars than he's ever seen in his life spread across the vast inverted bowl of the sky, no summer haze out here, no light-wash from streetlights. He is dizzy with it, the vast sweep of the sky, and as he stares and his eyes adjust further, he can see the arm of the Milky Way angled across the black, can actually see the dark band of dust threaded through the silver-blue light. He doesn't hear the outhouse door shutting, doesn't notice Cee beside him until she folds his hand into hers.        "Look up, Little Bird," he breathes and it feels like a prayer, his heart suddenly full, squeezing in his chest, Cee small and warm next to him.        "Oh, wow," she says, barely a whisper, "That's the Milky Way isn't it?" Tears blur the stars and fall hot against his cheeks.        "It is." He looks at her, her face upturned, cheeks and hair frosted in star shine, limning her eyes, her smile. They've lost so much, him and Cee, but they've gained each other, and that's not nothing is it?        "We're so small," says Cee, "Us. People. This whole planet. All of us. We're just a little dot." Ezra smiles in the dark, even as tears dry in his lashes. He squeezes her fingers in his.        "C'mon, let's get back in the tent before we freeze."

--Hoodoo--

       Cee sleeps in the passenger's seat. She'd helped break camp and pack everything up even though it was early for her. They had spent an extra night in Joshua Tree and now had to make up the difference. It's time to go home. There are things he wants to do before Cee goes back to school, things they need to take care of. So he woke them early, promising Cee that she could sleep in the car as long as she needed. She'd helped him get ready, half-peeling a couple candy bars and putting them were he could easily reach.        "You want the playlist?" She asked, "I can get it going."        "Not right now. I want some quiet."          “'Kay," and Cee was asleep before they were to the next mile marker.

       Hoodoos rise on either side of the highway, striated red cliffs against the slowly lightening sky, cut into improbable formations by long gone rivers, thin spires topped with boulders, first glints of sun hitting the higher cliffs while everything else still exists in that liminal space between day and night. Ezra glances over at Cee, hair in a messy halo, face slack in sleep, cheeks sun-reddened and newly freckled, closed eyes moving, dreaming. Ezra thinks of those first days, wracked with pain and trying to navigate the new, dark-shrowded territory of her and him, each of them crippled by loss, each willing to lash out at the other. Ezra thinks of how far they've come since then, uncurling like relaxing fists and learning to be with each other. They drive into the dawn and the first bit of light touches her hair, turning it to fire. She shifts in her sleep, turning away from that first hint of sun. He doesn't know if she's awake or not.        "I love you, Cee."        "Love you to, Ez," she murmurs and settles back into sleep. Ezra looks out over hoodoo country spread red tinged and stark against the rising light, the miles of road ahead. We're gonna be ok, he thinks and means it.

[sylph-feather]

Summary: Danny had known the rules— that being beaten would lead to transfer of the crown, instructed to him by their ominous guardians— but he hadn’t exactly considered all the implications of that.

For: @ghost-strawberry

Prompt: (Danny is ghost king hc) Danny loses a fight with Sam and the title of ghost king is transferred to her, despite Sam not being a ghost.

Words: 3,344

“Haha!” Sam barked triumphantly, standing over her defeated enemy in a display of dominance while stomping a scary combat boot, “I won.” 

Danny let out nothing but a low keening sound, slumping on the Nasty Burger table and leaving his arm in its defeated position. 

“Darn,” Tucker chimed in, “I thought that with all the ghost fighting and workouts you’ve been doing, Sam finally would stop being the reigning arm wrestling champ.” He paused, melodramatically draping a hand over his forehead and intoning, “alas.” 

Danny only repeated the same mournful noise, all the sentiment of my arm is going to bruise and Sam will never let this go packed into a drawn out moan. 

Before Danny could construct his complaints into something that took the form of language, there was a great burst of green fire that ensconced their cheap, plastic table. In the time it took to flinch, the ghostly flames had already washed over the group— and… done… nothing? 

No, that wasn’t right— it hadn’t hurt them, to be more accurate. Their table, and the tile around it, looked like someone had carved a circle into the floor, taken everything within that circle (read: the trio, several overly greasy foodstuffs, and three shakes) and dropped it right into the Ghost Zone, if the swirling green abyss was anything to go by. 

(Back in the human realm, the patrons of the Nasty Burger were left with their own overly greasy foodstuffs visible in their mouths held ajar as they stared at the smoldering circle that once held three teens and cheap fast food chain restaurant seating— horribly cheap plastic booths on a table that maybe had the suggestion of meeting bare-minimum sanitary requirements. A lone green flame died out, and acrid smoke wafted away. Same shit every day, a tired cashier thought). 

Before them: the Coroners. Dark-colored ghosts with a litany of dark colors with glowing green antlers that twisted into the suggestion of the shape of a crown, and gnarled hands that all had the same mark of a skull on each knuckle. Between the name and the appearance, they were very ominous, to say the least. 

Danny recognized them from the last time he met them: his own coronation. 

Sam and Tucker, who were not there for that ritual because it occured after the fight with Pariah, were just as confused and scared as Danny was the first time. “It’s ok!” he yelped at his friends who were readying their on-hand Fenton weaponry. “I know them. They’re the Coroners.”

Sam shot him a look that said that is anything but encouraging, and Danny winced. 

“They… do… the coron-ing,” Danny said slowly, because he didn’t know how else to phrase it. “Like, the monarchy ruler stuff.” 

“Down with the monarchy,” Sam intoned almost instinctively, but still pocketed the lipstick laser once again, settling down and taking a more casual sip of her strawberry shake. 

Tucker, meanwhile, just kept his shaky hands locked around the box of fries, determinedly not looking at the wraith-like creatures that had deer skulls sticking out of dark garb. 

Sam paused in her slurping, considering the Coroner’s job in her mind more thoroughly. “I guess it makes sense, ‘cuz the Ghost Zone doesn’t have a pope to do it,” she admitted. 

Tucker relaxed, and snorted. “Ghost pope.” The idea (mixed with the special breed of hysterical comedy that comes with  stress) elicited great humor. 

Fear abandoned, now they just looked confused. Danny was too— because, “why are you here?” He frowned down at himself. “Are you, uh, rebelling? Or do you have an important message? Or…?”

That was one-third of the Coroner’s jobs: rebellion. Or, more accurately, inciting rebellion. To understand, one must understand two-thirds of their job: the second third was that someone had to pass down the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire. After the defeat of Parkah, the ancient ghosts were very grateful that Danny had taken it from Pariah Dark after his reign of tyranny, given that he had destroyed them… because of the first third of their job. See, the Coroners were also supposed to act as some representative electoral body of ghost-kind in deciding who passed a somewhat okay-ish ruler, and if that didn’t work out, they usually incited rebellion against said tyrant, or inevitably did so when a once kind ruler became glutted with greed and violence. 

So Pariah trapped them, which (admittedly) was a rather sensible plan, and (also admittedly) a major design flaw in the ring and the crown. After all, given the requirement for the initial rights to ring and crown were to battle and defeat its previous user to gain access (it could be peacefully passed, but that option had never happened), and really, nothing of the Coroner’s judgement would make an impact outside of someone saying no— that is to say, the ring and crown wouldn’t just poof. Thus, it seemed reasonable to assume that the battler would continue, well, battling for that power. 

The last third of their job is significantly less exciting— as Danny put it: messaging. It simply was to act as ghostly servants; knights, mailmen, whatever the King and the ghosts that needed the King may require. Danny largely told them to use their own discretion in solving conflicts, because he was just one teen barely keeping his grades above Cs, and then left them to it. 

So yes, Danny was kind of worried that somehow, such a dramatic summons would be some kind of ominous warning on the way he was being a king— which, to be fair, he was barely being a king at all— due to the aforementioned second-third of their job.

The largest one with the most elaborately twisted antlers pointed a long, bony finger at Sam. Its voice, which sounded both grand and incredibly spooky, boomed thusly: “this human has bested you in battle. Thusly, according to the sacred laws of the Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire, she shall be bequeathed the title of ghostly monarch. Ye, Danny Phantom, halfa, who have bested Pariah Dark, have lost to Sam Manson, human, and cede your title as ruler.” 

In a circle, the thirteen wraiths whispered, “and the cycle continues.” It was murmured slightly out of sync, but it gave less of an impression of untidiness or lack of professionalism, and more of an ominous feeling, like there were many more voices than just thirteen. 

Danny was slightly less freaked out than Sam and Tucker by it, given they had said a similar thing when he was coronated, but with far less spooky fanfare, and more normal, excited fanfare. Mostly, Danng was spooked more by the suddenness of the thing, and the prospect of it. 

In the hands of the largest one that was clearly the leader, the Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire appeared in a dramatic swooshing of green flame. 

Danny’s eyes widened. “She.” He paused, because he couldn’t really argue with that. It was— technically, sort of— a battle. And in the Ghost Zone, might made right and all that. Still. 

Sam and Tucker stared, jaws agape. Between all the new info and now this revelation, their brains essentially bluescreened. 

Danny, even though he was previously initiated, wasn’t in a much better state— all he managed to get out aloud was an incredulous, “it was arm wrestling?”  

One of the smaller wraiths, its crown of horns barely nubs, drifted forwards to their Nasty Burger island that was adrift in the Ghost Zone, and asked in its voice of crackling dead leaves, “is this the manner in which you were beaten?” 

Sam, herself, recovered from the mental “404” page, and her first reaction was to release a huge guffaw of laughter. 

Danny slid forwards onto the table, thoroughly spent between embarrassment and confusion. All he articulated was a very, very long groan. 

“May we, uh,” Danny said slowly, turning towards the head wraith and looking at the glowing points set in the skull’s sockets, “have a moment to discuss?” 

Tucker made a vague noise between worry and agreement. 

“So long as the queen wishes,” it bowed to her, deeply reverent. 

“Wait,” Sam ordered, smile growing on her face. “If I were queen,” she said slowly, “would I be able to get rid of this monarchy?” 

“Tis not a monarchy, my lady,” one of the thirteen said, antler crown bobbing. 

The whole table of teens processed this for a moment. 

Tucker burst into incredulity first: “you literally called her a monarch just a few seconds ago!” 

“A title, nothing more,” a Coroner corrected. “Nay, you do not hold much sway over them, rather, it is they who hold sway over you, sending message to help resolve conflicts, be they fullscale fights or quarrels.” 

Danny groaned, suppressed memories bubbling up: the many times the Coroners had come to him with arguments regarding ghost territories, many attempting to use Danny as a weapon or a diplomat or bodyguard or— so on. 

Thus far, a handful of months into his kinghood, Danny had stopped one “fullscale fight” that bordered on a war. (...This was also related to territory, however). 

Either way, that was a long way to say: the statement that it was just a title held up. The ring and crown didn’t actually really get him any political leeway with the ghosts— it was more of an… intimidation tactic that some ghosts fled from, because the ring and the crown were no more than power boosters. 

Asides from that, all he got were updates on all the troubles in the Zone that supposedly needed him (most of which actually didn’t). The Ghost Zone was a lawless place, so a title of king was not worth much outside of sheer power display. 

For the most part, the things had just served to place a target on his back, specifically, because any lost battle would mean they were his no more, and that the power would be passed to the victor. 

Sam, seemingly on the same line of thought as he, hummed, “would ghosts know I was the… Ghost Queen?” At declaring herself monarch (even if it was apparently in name only), her face did a bit of an involuntary, complicated twisting motion. 

Danny picked himself up from his pathetic slump, and aimed an intrigued-but-confused look at Sam. 

Tucker caught on a bit faster— “so if the ghosts think Danny’s still the king, they fight him— but there’s no risk involved in him losing.” 

Sam nodded, smiling a little sappily. 

Danny just made a mushy “aw,” sound, seeming to consider it. 

It was hard to read the expressions of the ghosts that surrounded the trio’s private, floating chunk of the Nasty Burger establishment, because said ghosts wore skulls… but they seemed baffled, though reluctantly accepting. It was all in the tilt of their heads and the pause of their voice as they said, “great Queen, whatever thou shall ask of us.” 

Sam nodded again, then paused. Her face cracked into an eager grin— a dangerous grin. “Do I get cool powers from this?” 

After receiving the crown, Danny had gotten a boost in his own powers; nothing new, just everything that was there was doubled. Double the size, the intensity, the spookiness, the everything. Needless to say, being goth and being active in fights as she was, Sam was excited for ghost powers. She was momentarily lost in visions of a sweeping gothic outfit, one of pure black with smokey edges, decked out in spikes, etcetera— in other words, “edgy.” 

Tuck, meanwhile, had a far more practical askance: “hold on. She’s a human, right?” 

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first instance of humans vaguely receiving or being influenced by ghost powers in some way; Undergrowth had done it, there had been that time with ghost mosquitos, and the one with that Egyptian staff, and the whole incident with the dragon-rage amulet… not to mention the halfas themselves, obviously. Still, it was not all that hope-inspiring to consider that all of them save for the halfas were essentially some degree of possession (or, at the least, something infectious and negative). 

Aloud, Tucker continued to contemplate. “It’s not exactly reassuring to call them ghost powers, with uh, death. Involved.” It was a choppy sentence, but it got the point across; Danny was a special case, but even a half death wasn’t exactly desirable. 

The glowing eyes of the coroners seemed to wink in amusement, insomuch as points of light could display emotion. “Ghost powers , says the queen.” 

“Ghost powers,” the others echo— not ominous this time, because they are chortling, seeming to be one step away from elbowing one another. 

Sam flushes a bit. “What’s so funny about that?” she grunts, offended. 

The coroners all bow deeply. “We meant no offense,” speaks one from the crowd, and it is followed by a wave of nodding before any of the trio can tell which one was even talking. “We simply find hilarity on your naivete.” 

“Elaborate,” she ordered with extremely thin patience.

“We were hasty in calling you the monarch yet,” the largest explained in its ancient, crackling voice, slow and thoughtful— annoyingly so. 

Sam pinches her nose, understanding with perfect clarity why Danny had complained dealing with these pretentious, cryptic weirdos. “Elaborate,” she commanded once again. 

“You are not the monarch yet, because you have not died,” it informed with great solemnity. 

The Nasty Burger chunk floated in stunned silence as the trio absorbed that. 

“Die?!” Tucker yelled, banging the table, upsetting both the fries and the silence. 

“You have a fascinating and naive way of phrasing it, but perhaps ghost powers is not so far from the truth,” one of the antlered creatures mused, not really addressing the obvious tension or concern. “For indeed, the ring and the crown do power the spiritual energy—“ 

“They’re just ghost batteries!” Danny interrupted, baffled and surprised. 

Sam herself then interrupted the interruption with a scoff, creating a horrible stack of domino-ing interruptions. “All this pizazz over just a power source that I can’t even use?” 

“You are incapable of using it as you are now,” a coroner pointed out. Something in all their eyes glinted ominously, and their antlers seemed to shine with ethereal light. “You are disconnected while living,” one said. As a group, they began encircling the private bit of Nasty Burger, wraith-like cloaks brushing against disgusting tile that was glossy with grease of burgers long past. “But we will fix that,” the coroners intoned as one. 

Danny finally took some initiative, fluidly erupting from his seat and transforming into Phantom in a singular motion. It felt just a tad ridiculous to he hovering over a Nasty Burger table that was ridiculously out of place in the abyssal green of the Ghost Zone, but that only graced his mind for a moment. Instead, the primary thought was one he voiced aloud: “are you going to kill her?” Danny may have been a C student, but regarding threats he was not slow on the uptake— he’d been in enough fights to get a good instinct. For their part, Tuck and Sam took it too— partially cowering behind Danny while brandishing their own Fenton brand lasers. 

The dark spirits jolted to a stop, and tilting their many skull-heads quizzically— a nonverbal askance of why fight? All their minds were whirring, and the first theory from the group of coroners was this: “are you hungry for this power once again?” The group around chortled, a veritable cacophony like many dead leaves being kicked around by whistling wind. It was a taunt, clearly. “This is the natural order of things, halfa. You cannot deny it. You have lost. She has won, won spiritual power, power we take from you.” An enormous pressure of dread emanated from the threatening beings, seeming to push at Danny’s chest— it threw him off kilter in the emotional sense, but also the literal given that he was midair. “If you desire it returned to you, then beat her as she did you, as is the rites of the Ring and the Crown.” 

“I’m more upset she’s gonna die!” Danny barked, a little sarcastic and a lot tense, gesticulating wildly as though that could free his limbs from the lead of supernatural fear. As he did so, his hands became enveloped in his own charging ectoplasm— like a snowball dragged through snow to gather more icy slush to its mass, so too did Danny draw the pure ectoplasm from his surroundings. 

“I would like not to die,” Sam agreed quickly. 

“If it counts, I’m thirding that motion,” Tucker put in as well. 

The coroners pulled back, seemingly startled. “You… do not want this power. But you do not get to choose. ” Their antlers still held an ominous and powerful glow, which spoke to the fact that they had already made their choice in regards to the whole death thing. 

Sam drew in a breath, preparing her “hell no” tirade— when Danny exploded into motion, wrapping a gloved hand around Sam’s hand that didn’t have a lipstick laser in it, and propped them sloppily on the Nasty Burger table. He held his elbow on the table and their chained hands up. Before she could process what on earth he was doing, he painfully but desperately slammed their linked hands down against the table. 

Everyone was staring at Danny, ghosts and humans alike. Silence reigned— utterly baffled, confused silence. It was though a massive, unspoken huh? has slammed down onto the area. 

“There,” he said, reedy desperation coloring his voice. “I won the arm wrestle match.” 

Sam cottoned on pretty quickly— “oh no,” she groaned, “Danny, you beat me. You won .” 

Tucker shot her a look— the emphasis was a bit hammy— but said nothing, only watched hopefully as the coroners seemed to enter something of a loading state as they processed the turn of events. 

Then, startlingly, they quickly and fluidly bowed simultaneously. “Long live our shortest reigning queen,” they said with great solemnity, “and welcome back, our halfa King. Long may he reign.” 

Needless to say, the trio’s sigh of relief was about unparalleled. 

“If I am to reign,” Danny said slowly, recovering but still trying to sound poncy and official (rather than yell at them as he desired), “may we, in the future… discredit joking competitions?” It was delicately phrased, awkward pauses as he deliberately chose fancy phrasing, but it at least got the point across (even if Danny could swear that despite having skull faces and only pinpricks of light for eyes, the coroners were making faces at him). 

The coroners stares at each other, cloaks rustling but no sound passing between them. 

“Yes,” the largest said suddenly, “such a request is reasonable, for a half-human teenager.” With exasperation, it added: “you already were an exceptional case in your ruling.” 

“And in general,” a smaller one piped up snarkily from the back, to be shushed by what was likely a superior. 

“Right,” Danny clapped his hands together and huffed, relieved but still tense. 

“Now, how do we get out of here…?” Tucker questioned, trailing off and looking at the abyss. He traced his fingers on the table, then his face lit up— “uh, can I keep this? It’s authentic Nasty Burger merch, technically, and it’s nor like they’re really gonna need it when it’s been diverged from this reality, let alone their store—“

Before he could continue, there was a snap from one of the coroner’s gnarled hands, and a great bout of green flames engulfed said hunk of Nasty Burger— for the second time that day. 

When a very stunned Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, and smoldering, partially aflame  with emerald Nasty Burger chunk snapped back into place within the mortal realm, a certain cashier stared balefully at the fused tiles and remnant ghost flame, thought same shit every day once again, and promptly asked: “do you want more to order?” 

And thus, the status quo was restored, for better or for worse. 

[cipheress-to-k-pop]

USM reaction to their GF being scared of a spider

@spacesuitsforemergency​ asked:  Could you do headcanons of the USM Teams gf screaming from somewhere in the house and they freak out thinking they just got stabbed or something but it was really just a spider? Thank you!!

A/N: Thanks for requesting this! It was so much fun to write! Also sorry it’s so late, when I recieved the request it was literally 6 in the morning and I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep.

Peter Parker / Spiderman

Comes running inside with his web shooters ready because you’re screaming like a car alarm

“What?! What! Who?!”

And you’re just standing on the table with a lamp in your hand pointing at a spider on the wall

And he’s like “Really babe? You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“It’s so huge! And it has so many legs!”

“Cool! Maybe it’s radioactive and can give you powers like me!”

“OR You can kill it!”

For some reason he’s completely appalled at the idea of killing a spider

“Babe! I’m literally Spider-man! That’s cannibalism!”

Somewhere in the middle of your arguing the spider manages to slip away into the dark recesses of your house

You turning back to him with the foulest glare

“If I didn’t need you to protect me, you would so be sleeping on the couch today.”

Sam Alexander / Nova

Comes in flying and blasting everything in sight cuz let’s be honest this boy is trigger happy as hell

After his open fire assault on your bedroom you realize he’s hit everything BUT the spider

Cue him getting super cocky about needing to help you

“Oh, does my baby need help from her fearless boyfriend?”

At which point you scoff because like

“Fearless? Let’s see you say that where there’s a bunny in the room—Wait! No Sam!! Please come back! I’m scared!”

He kills the spider no problem

But the important this is how he kills the spider

The man has powers that could fry that thing but no

He chooses your precious pair of pumps to slam into that thing

All the while screaming bloody murder

Luke Cage / Power Man

This guy is a tall as a skyscraper

Has super strength

Impenetrable skin

But he’s scared of spiders.

Spiders of all things!!

Probably joins you on the table while screaming too

“Those things give me the heebie-jeebies!!”

“You literally work with a guy called Spider-man!”

“And I’m not too crazy about him either!”

Eventually the two of you realize that standing around and staring at the terrifying spider isn’t doing anything

At which point you gain the courage to kill to

Ha. Fooled ya.

You’re holding hands and wearing gloves while trying to kill the spider from the farthest distance possible and trying to kill it

Or let’s be real. You call Danny.

Danny Rand / Iron Fist

His heart literally stops in his chest when he hears your scream and bolts up the stairs

Kicks open the doors cuz when there’s a life threatening situation there is no time for them handles

And he can’t stop the relieved laugh that comes out of him

Sometimes when he needs a good laugh or something to cheer him up, he just thinks back to the time he found you screaming on the desk with a flip flop in your hand

He never said anything tho, just stared at you in amusement as you pointed to a spider on the wall

Definitely refuses to kill it

Saying some rubbish like “All life is sacred.”

“What about my life, Danny? Because of you don’t get that thing out of my house then I will have a heart attack!”

He does that thing where he traps it underneath a glass and a sheet of paper and then releases it out of the window

Probably saying something like “Be free little one.”

And you’re just wide-eyed beside him being like “Don’t. Come. Back. Bitch.”

Ava Ayala / White Tiger

Definitely handles this in the most rational and sensible way possible

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t judge you for standing on the table and screaming like Doctor Doom is trying to rob you

“Not that I’m trying to judge your thought process but what exactly does climbing on the table and screaming accomplish?”

At which point you’re just whining and begging her to kill it for you

So, she very calmly goes to the basement where she keeps a can of bug spray and lights that sucker up

But well after the spider is dead, the spray is still going off

And you hear her mutter under her breath

“Take that spider man.” 

Along with a bunch of other curses

You definitely get super uncomfortable as soon as she starts telling the spider how he wouldn’t be going through this if he just trained once in a while

And the fumes from the bug spray are getting out of control

So, you leave the room

And make a very concerned phone-call to Peter telling him to watch out.

[cartoonfangirl1218]

I liked your ava post, do you have more aboout usm. The WHOle usm team?

I can’t say I have many many hcs but I’ll give you where I think they might end up after SHIELD, and two songs that fit them if that works. 

Peter: I don't know why but I feel like Peter would want to look for his parents once he leaves SHIELD and while doing so, he ends up in a lot of team ups and building up more of his rogues gallery. Basically I imagine stuff from the comic with spider clones, dating MJ, briefly rejoins the Avengers then leaves. Yeah I don't have much for him since comic history leaves people to choose what they want. Imagine Dragon's Beliver because he does have such a heavy pain inside, but that's the thing, he keeps it inside until he snaps them into his fight for justice. "First things first, I'ma say all the words inside my head. I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been, The way that things have been.Second thing second, Don't you tell me what you think that I could be. I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea...Taking my message from the veins. Speaking my lesson from the brain. Seeing the beauty through the pain!"

Danny: I'd like to think that he stays in NY to start Heroes for Hire with Luke as soon as they leave SHIELD. They're bros, and he justifies the absence that New York needs Iron Fist more than K'Lun for the moment. He also tries his hand at getting Rand Industries back on track. I also think he does return to K'Lun eventually as King and mystical head. After his work at Rand Industries, he feels more confident as a leader and is willing to stand up to the monks when it comes with changing some of the old ways. Allowing him to travel back to NY to see his friends while keeping the mystical origins of K'Lun sacred. I think Nature Boy rather fits him, soft and melodious and Danny learning he is not alone sort of. "There was a boy. A very strange enchanted boyThey say he wandered very far..Very far over land and sea. A little shy and sad of eye. But very wise, was he."  Les Miserables’ Who am I mainly because I imagine Danny has some identity issues between feeling worthy of the Iron Fist, feeling torn between the US and K'Lun. Ideally, he would end up learning being one does not give up the other part of himself. As one would say they can coexist in a balance. "Who am I? Can I conceal myself forever more.. Pretend I’m not the man I was before?....How can I ever face my fellow men? How can I ever face myself again?"

Luke: As said above, with Danny, when they leave SHIELD, they create Heroes for Hire, they ride or die forever.  Together they clean up their part of New York and Luke comes to terms with some of his past and the people he dealt with in jail. He also meets Jessica Jones during this time and she becomes his new partner (in more ways than one) when Danny leaves for K'Lun. He sometimes does freelance work for SHIELD, mainly at the behest of his parents, sometimes as a favor to Fury. He also sometimes comes by the Helicarrier to be a surprise mentor to whatever new hero they pick up. He is the main instigator of team reunions.

Adam Levine’s If I got locked away totally fits him after the time he spent in jail and scared of being seen as weak, it really fits him and his insecurities. "If I got locked away And we lost it all today. Tell me honestly, would you still love me the same? If I showed you my flaws. If I couldn't be strong. Tell me honestly, would you still love me the same?" One call away also fits him simply for his caring nature and how he'll do anything for his friends, "I'm only one call away. I'll be there to save the daySuperman got nothing on me. I'm only one call away/ Call me, baby, if you need a friend. I just wanna give you love...No matter where you go, know you're not alone. I'm only one call away."

Ava: I think once Ava leaves SHIElD, she has some trouble with the amulet whether form being on her own, knowing SHIELD isn't there watching her every move or just cockiness that she can handle it now. Either way, I see her as  taking a break from the amulet. Reasoning her father wanted her to keep it safe, it didn't mean she had to put it on and be a hero. Ideally, she goes to therapy to work through all these issues before ever putting it on again. I imagine she goes home to PR too. I think she could go into bounty hunting, it's more freelance, she helps put baddies away and she can put her investigative skills to good use. Eventually she'd be White Tiger again but for more superpowered threats than every day patrolling. Just breathe from In the Heights not only for the spanish influences but also the utter fear of returning a failure, "Straighten the spine. Smile for the neighbors. Everything's fine, everything's cool. The standard reply: Lots of tests, lots of papers. Smile, wave goodbye and pray to the sky, "Oh God!" And what will my parents say? Can I go in there and say, "I know I'm letting you down..."  Alyssa Greene from The Prom. The lyrics speak for themselves of the utter perfectionism and drive, "The hair has to be perfect. The As have to be straight...Trophies have to be first place. Ribbons have to be blue. There's always some competition or hoops for jumping through. Just have everything perfected by the time you reach eighteen" 

Sam: Admittedly I don't know much about Nova lore or backstory as the others but I think he'll go back to space. Not necessarily as part of the Guardians because honestly I think they had enough members without him. Maybe as a solo act before he finds the other Nova Corps. I definitely see him as becoming a trainer there, finally being the leader he always wanted to be. I also want him to reconnect with his family so he does travel back to Earth to visit them and then swoops by NY for some reunion with his old team before heading back to space. 

Bieber’s Lonely fits Sam because at the heart of it all, I think that's what he is. Lonely, he's still young and trying to navigate these powers and his place in the world and space and what his identity is. And no one else can quite get that. "Everybody knows my name now. But somethin' 'bout it still feels strangeLike lookin' in a mirror, tryna steady yourself and seein' somebody else. And everything is not the same now. It feels like all our lives have changed Maybe when I'm older, it'll all calm down. But it's killin' me now. What if you had it all, nut nobody to call? Maybe then you'd know me 'cause I've had everything. But no one's listening and that's just f- lonely." Shawn Mendes' Wonder works for similar reasons. Mainly I imagine him singing it to his missing father who inherited so much but knows nothing personally about him, "I wonder why I'm so afraid of saying something wrong, I never said I was a saint. I wonder, when I cry into my hands. I'm conditioned to feel like it makes me less of a man and I wonder if someday you'll be by my side and tell me that the world will end up alright. I wonder..I wonder."  And then a party song for each 

Sam: All I do is win by DJ Khaled "All I do is win, win, win no matter what. Got money on my mind, I can never get enough ('Nough) And every time I step up in the building Everybody hands go up And they stay there And they stay there, up, down, up, down, up, down 'Cause all I do is win (Win), win (Win), win And if you going in put your hands in the air, make 'em stay there" 

Luke: Finesse by Bruno Mars, "We out here drippin' in finesseIt don't make no sense Out here drippin' in finesse You know it, you know it We out here drippin' in finesse It don't make no sense Out here drippin' in finesse You know it, you know it" 

Peter: Another one bites the dust by Queen "nother one bites the dustAnother one bites the dust And another one gone and another one gone Another one bites the dust Hey I'm gonna get you too Another one bites the dust"

Danny: Normally, I don't think Danny would be into party music, too much cursing, too much noise to distort the mind, that stuff. But Rihanna is catchy. "I wanna take you away, let's escape into the music, DJ, let it playI just can't refuse it, like the way you do this Keep on rockin' to it Please don't stop the, please don't stop the music I wanna take you away, let's escape into the music, DJ, let it play I just can't refuse it, like the way you do this Keep on rockin' to it Please don't stop the, please don't stop the, please don't stop the music" 

Ava: Woman by Ke$ha "I'm a motherfucking woman, baby, alright I don't need a man to be holding me too tight I'm a motherfucking woman, baby, that's right I'm just having fun with my ladies here tonight I'm a motherfucker"  This other cool blog is much more into USM and has tons of hcs if you want more of this stuff, @im-rewriting-ultimate-spider-man