#No one in Amity realizes they're getting more liminal

[mutable-manifestation]

Love the take. Love the implications.

Maybe liminals are naturally angry.

Maybe ecto craves to be in the zone (the dead are made to be in the land of the dead, the ecosystem of the living simply isn't built for them). So liminals - who alive but not quite?

They feel out of place.

Like an itch under the skin of a pebble in your shoe.

Annoying.

Constant.

Wrong.

Worst of all, this is an annoyance that can't quite be fixed.

Not normally, at least.

Ever since the portal came on, the people of Amity have grown steadily more liminal.

When the city was taken into the Zone itself? There isn't a single non-liminal left.

Locals become moodier when they leave Amity. Journeys away are infrequent, short. Why would anyone move away when home is so perfect?

And Amity is perfect.

Because Amity Park? The location itself is liminal.

The land, the air, every inch of amity is halfway to the Ghost Zone.

The portal may be in the Fenton basement, but the veil is thin throughout.

The entire city dwelt in the Zone - briefly, perhaps. And perhaps there was a shield, sure.

A shield can only do so much.

To dance with death you must touch it, and Amity Park has been dancing since the day Danny Fenton tripped in his parents' portal.

A liminal city - a place just as alive as it's citizens. Just as touched by death.

Amity Park is Home to liminals.

Home in the way the Far Frozen is to the Yetis.

Home in the way Dora's Kingdom is to her people.

Amity Park is the Living Lair of Liminals. Phantom is their Frostbite in ghostly matters, Vlad is their Frostbite in living matters.

For all the man comes across as sketchy, Vlad Masters is a competent mayor.

(Vlad hardly notices himself becoming less hostile to Jack as the ecto levels of the city increase.

Hardly notices when he no longer wants to kill the man, when plans switch from murder and marriage to finding ways to fight both of the elder Fentons.

Hardly notices how much he holds back against both, more playing than fighting. How his goal switches from 'remove obstacle and obtain human' to 'bond-fight with frightmates to make them stronger and also Quality Time.'

Jazz does. Danny does.

Jazz adds a section on dehumanization (deghostification?) of human lives as a form of paranormal bias potentially as a response to and expression of past-self-loathing to her thesis.

Danny just breathes a sigh of relief that the fruitloop might actually be done with the whole murder thing - as weird as it would be to accept him as an actual sort of uncle-figure, it'd be better than worrying about his dad dying and his mom being kidnapped all the time.

Not that either of them realize the cause of this. Amity is very oblivious to its increasing liminality, including Jazz and the trio. Even with Valerie's Suit Powers smacking them in the face.)

Is it any wonder Jason doesn't want to leave? When he spent so long feeling awful he forgot what it was like to feel okay?

To feel better than just okay?

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

Funny enough, what brings them to Amity is the same thing that once kept them away.

Amity Park has been a ghost-themed tourist city for as long as it's existed, stuffed with haunted houses, spooky cemeteries, and eerie scenery. When the city started reporting 'ghost attacks' on their news channels, the JL didn't bother to check in.

After all, they hadn't gotten any distress calls about it. It was just another cash grab to lure in tourists.

(The GIW feared the JL would be 'overly sympathetic.' Rerouting JL line calls would be a problem. But calls out of Amity Park? The GIW ensured their attempts to reach anyone but the GIW never got off the ground.)

This belief suffered damage when tourism dropped.

It wasn't just a matter of a poor season either. Hardly noticeable at first, truthfully.

Reports of haunted houses in the city closing here, a ghost show being denied a request to view a house there, tourist reviews reporting a sense of hostility from the locals there.

It snowballed.

They only really noticed because Tim decided to cyber stalk Vlad Masters after he declined Bruce's invite to a gala - an invite the man had been angling for for literal years.

Having become a mayor recently, the man should have found networking all the more valuable.

Tim started his research by looking at the city itself: Amity Park, 'The Most Haunted City in America.'

The official city website was just a few dozen red flags in a trench coat.

The home page read (Un)Welcome to Amity Park. There were standard tabs - news, utilities, tourism.

News showed the same funny ghost theme, except...the article were all played straight. Masters' official addresses to the city even played the ghost topic straight - there were videos. He talked like he was serious about 'installing a new lattice of ghost shields to prevent damage to roads and sidewalks in future attacks.'

Utilities included 'Public ecto-device updates & maintenance' as well as a personal version. The sections were fully functional and the forms would actually be sent to the city.

A quarter of the city's budget claimed to be dedicated to this service.

The tourism page managed to be the most alarming.

Amity Park's ghost theme was due to it being a tourist trap.

The tourism section stated, in large, bold, underlined letters:

Closed for Tourism

"Of the 257 tourists to visit Amity in the previous month, 2 died and another 19 were seriously injured due to a failure to adhere to local warnings and safety practices. If you must visit Amity Park please obtain a brochure from City Hall immediately and read it in full. Take care to adhere to all safety measures when within city limits. Thank You."

What followed was a long list of 'closed' businesses - all tourist traps and attractions, plus a few hotels (it hadn't been a large city to begin with. More of a town at 'barely scraping 20K people').

At the very end was a list of resources for people who "intended to visit anyway, or to move to the city" with a few small bed & breakfasts and houses for sale or rent.

If the 'attacks' were meant to drum up tourism, why shoot down would-be tourists at the gate?

Looking at footage from the 'attacks' only added to his suspicions.

Early on, the supposed ghosts were staticky blurs of color, barely noticeable on the screen.

Fiddling with the image resolution and sharpness didn't have any affect on it - though it did make the trees and cars in the background clearer.

Eventually he gave it up as a lost cause and started looking through the rest of the videos - and boy were there plenty of them.

Going in chronological order, he noticed a trend.

Over time, video and audio quality got worse. Like the camera itself was slowly becoming distorted.

Except much of it was amateur phone footage, meaning every camera in Amity Park would have to be degrading at the same speed.

Then, it worsened drastically all at once.

One video was slightly blurry and staticky throughout, but he could still make out what things were well enough.

The next video? Incomprehensible.

Noise and color and blurs.

Staticky-noise that, if he listened closely, almost sounded like whispers and screams and cries.

There was nothing recognizable.

It made his hair stand on end.

He got back to digging.

There wasn't much else to find. Or rather, what he found was a lack of what he should be finding.

Locals' social media pages were all dark, chat rooms for the city's people were inaccessible no matter how hard he tried. It was like the firewalls were coming alive to eat his code when he tried to force his way in.

Trying to hack a device in the city was worse; whatever code showed up on the screen was a type or OS he recognized. It gave him malware.

He almost went nuclear on his computer to protect his data, though he thankfully found a built-in off-switch before he had to do that.

Still.

Something was up with Amity Park.

He had to know what.

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

When Tim debriefs the rest of the family on the weird situation, Bruce assigns him to investigate personally.

"Constantine checked in on the place a little less than two years ago to ensure the attacks were just tourism grabs, but it's possible he missed something. Or that the situation changed."

Going out of the city on a mission alone is, of course, not an option.

What better cover story to visit the city inconspicuously than Tim Drake-Wayne and Jason Todd going on a bro-bonding road trip to a city that explicitly asks people not to visit.

It seems like something an eccentric rich person would do as a family outing - good for the mission and good press.

Jason was rather in need of more news appearances. He'd only made two notable headlines since his 'miraculous return' - to the public eye, at least - and keeping his head down now that people knew he was back would only lead to more questions.

Half-hearted as he was about it, Jason agreed.

Dp x Dc prompt

Amity Parkers stare (slightly) hostile at any outsider that walks into their city

(it's theirs and strangers just keep walking in)

This inclides Tim when he and Jason have to go through it / investigate it

Which means the passing glances, resulting in double takes and surprised staring are weirding jason really out

It's like he passes as one of their own at first glance

(the green in his veins sings at being around community)

[little-pondhead]

DP x DC idea:

Paulina Sanchez becomes the Wayne family's new PR manager. She works hand-in-hand with Alfred and Tim's secretary (maybe another Amity Parker?) to coordinate meetings with the press and keeps a lid on the family's more unique civilian adventures.

Everything is going well until she suddenly comes onto the comm system late at night, startling Nightwing so badly that he almost misses his next flip.

"Robin, don't forget to assist the civilian. They're recording the fight and will probably post it on their Instagram later."

"Batman, turn to the left a little bit. The street lamp is casting an ugly shadow; you need to seem more mysterious."

"Red Hood, don't forget to return the heads of the gang leaders in a canvas bag this time, not polyester. It'll add to the ambiance of the situation."

Little snippets like these filled their ears each and every night, despite all surveillance indicating that Miss Sanchez was home asleep in her bed. Was someone copying the manager's voice on purpose? Why couldn't they trace where the extra comm signal was coming from? Was Paulina Sanchez a spy sent to rattle their resolve? What was going on???

It was a lot more innocent than the paranoid-stricken Waynes thought. Paulina was simply doing her job according to Amity Park's logic.

Most people didn't have some weird lair in their basement, usually filled with world-ending secrets. But 9/10 Amity Parkers did, so it was a cinch to find the entrance to the Batcave on her first day. And when Paulina signed on as a manager, she didn't realize that the job did not extend to the family's nightlife. Nor did she realize that no one else knew who the Batfamily were since Amity Parkers could clock secret identities in an instant. (Thanks for that wish, Wes.)

So while the Waynes are freaking out about the breach in their system, Paulina is mentally patting herself on the back for being so good at her job. She even utilized her hard-earned sneaking-out and liminal skills to create a fake body double to confuse any aggressive intruders that crept into her apartment while she was gone. And honestly, the Bats have never had such a positive online reputation! Getting Tucker to encrypt her secondary social medias was the right call. Now she can post about her bosses without anything being traced back to her.

Paulina is a little peeved about her overtime pay not showing up on her paychecks, however. Maybe she'll bring that up to Mr. Wayne the next time she sees him.

[infinizero]

Danny as The Ghostly Informant TM except nobody realizes it's the same person

Danny after retiring, maybe because the portals are closed or maybe because he became Ghost Royalty or Important Ghost TM who told everyone not to come to Earth, decides to go travelling like or with Dani/Elle

Its really up to anyone whether it was reveal gone right after graduation and dude wants to find himself before doing the whole college thing or reveal gone wrong and is running away maybe in another dimension maybe in the same and Amity Park is a blind zone in any case he goes travelling

The first one he encounters is a more easygoing JL member maybe Flash maybe Wonder Woman trying to figure out how to defeat a Realms ghost so Danny, seeing them struggling, decides to help and either talks the ghost down or soups them

In both cases he opens a portal to the realms and lets them go back through.

They talk a little, Danny as Danny introduces Infinite Realms ghosts as they are trying his best to figure out if they also want to hunt down ecto-entities. The JL member would want to learn more so they exchange information details just in case something like this happens again

Around this time, a JLD member gets wind of the new Important Ghost around the area and needs to find out more about them. After scouting around a little, he finds a way to summon what seems to be a young protective spirit who seems close to the Important Ghost.

Spoiler alert: the protective spirit and Important Ghost are both Danny. All the time travel stuff are attributed to Important Ghost and the beating up other ghosts who come near a specific place to protective spirit. Bonus points if there is a misunderstanding that Important Ghost is protective spirit's parent that's why they beat up Pariah Dark

So they summon Danny as Phantom to ask questions and eventually get the ok to summon him again just in case they need to know things, with the understanding that neither will hurt each other (the JLD member also has the vague idea of asking Phantom to bring Important Ghost over to their side if another worldending thing happenes again)

Soon enough, Danny as Danny meets one of the younger JL adjacent teams (Teen Titans or Young Justice when they're babies? Maybe even Damian's team that I don't know the name of? Maybe the Outlaws?) and helps them out against one of his rogues.

If it's the same dimension, Danny sees that they are younger superheroes and/or not as connected to the government as the older ones, so he warns them about the anti ecto acts and being careful since being so close to death is very slowly making them more liminal/if they're liminal then tells them to stay away from GIW

If not the same dimension then he just gets talking to them about ecto-entities and does basically the same thing as the first JL member he met, eventually exchanging contact information

This pattern continues for a while as Batman receives reports from whichever Robin about ecto-entities being a thing and either holding a meeting because of the anti ecto acts or because there is an entire species that could destroy all of us by possessing Superman and none of you JLD thought to inform me???

At this point of time, most of the JL has met and some even asked for his help and they talk about the various things they've learned from their Informant(Danny) and because it's Danny they slowly get a full picture of everything because he talked about obsessions with one person and cores to another and so on so forth

They all eventually come to the conclusion that they should ask for more details from their Informant

Cue Danny being bombarded by text messages of all the people he's helped asking him about the Realms while being summoned as Phantom.

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Whoopsie Danny made a Halfa

Normally, I delete the prompt list after figuring out what to do with them, but I feel like you guys should see this one. halfa dick, danny x sam x tucker, good parents maddie and jack, danny x dick, injury, blind date, psychiatrist jazz, cryptic clockwork. And this isn't even my craziest or most difficult list I've gotten from the prompt wheel. I did drop "no romance" and "danny x damian" because I feel like that's going beyond my abilities to bs a prompt into existence. Also, it would be weird for damian and dick to date/have dated the same person.

Enjoy the prompt!

Danny, Sam, and Tucker have moved out of Amity Park to Metropolis or Gotham. Jazz moved to Bludhaven.

On a video call with Jazz, Dani, Danny's parents, Danny notices a green sticky note appear behind his parents. Jack reads the note that basically says that Danny should look out for injured birds.

While visiting Jazz in Bludhaven, Danny finds a very injured Nightwing and tries to help him. He gets him to Jazz's apartment because it's close, and they get to work. What they're doing isn't helping. So, Danny reflexively taps into the little amount of ecto that is slowly making Nightwing liminal and accidently pores in too much ecto right as his heart stops.

Then, Nightwing's alive. Sorta. Not quite. Danny might have turned him into a halfa. Just a little bit. Ok, it was probably completely his fault. Danny gets sucked into teaching the new halfa about how his new powers work.

Meanwhile, Sam and Tucker are trying to convince him to meet this cute guy they want to add into their polycule. Come on, Jazz has already met and done the entire Older Sister routine!

Danny finally caves and goes on a blind date with the guy. They hit it off. Now, Dick just has to figure out how to get his partners to realize that he's Nightwing without everything getting weird. Oh, and avoid the awkwardness that comes with them trying to tell him about Danny being a halfa.

It's really too bad that Jazz decided to team up with Dani for a little light hazing. Nothing says "welcome to the family" more than preventing the new guy from being able to share secrets with his significant others.

[absolutely-esme]

My Headcanon for Liminals

I've been having a lot of fun posting headcanons, and I'm starting to realize just how many I've built up over the years, so here's another one.

So I've stated before that part of the reason why Danny and Vlad are so different is because Danny was inside of a portal when it turned on whereas Vlad just got a face full of energized Ectoplasm and other assorted nastiness. The still human and already ghostly halves of Danny fused into a cohesive whole in order to survive the opening of the portal and continued supporting eachother. Vlad's human half forcibly integrated his resistant ghost half as it formed in an effort to survive. Rather than a cohesive whole, Vlad is two dischordant halves.

That said, I do not consider Vlad's state the default result of humans being exposed to ectoplasm.

Part of it is because the exposure was violent and his human body was so incredibly unwell that it made sense for the part of him with less emotional attachment to it to want to escape. This illness did not stem directly from the ectoplasm. We know this much because other people exposed to ectoplasm did not get ecto-acne, and figuring out the involvement of the cola was what allowed the Fentons to cure it.

Part of it is because Vlad has a superiority complex. This means that, in any given state, Vlad considers his current way of being superior. As a human, Vlad considers humanity superior. As a ghost, Vlad considers ghosts superior. This leads to a whole lot of clash between the parts of his psyche which each consider the other half to be lesser. Combine this with the fact that each half despises the illness and associates the illness with the other half, and you get a whole lot of internal toxicity.

For the average person with ectoplasm exposure, there wouldn't be so much of a clash. They would take on some ghostly traits (more and more over time, with continued exposure) and maybe start doing some prep-work for ghosthood, but they wouldn't be trying to leave their human lives early. They probably won't have insane healing factors like Danny, but they won't be tearing themselves apart like Vlad either.

They're preparing for the afterlife, but they wouldn't be so eager to discard the human life they are still living. If you've ever had a favorite hoodie that you wore all the time until you loved it to pieces and it came apart at the seams, that's kind of the feeling. It's not the end of the world when you can't wear it anymore; you can wear other jackets when you're cold, but you want to hold onto it for as long as you can.

The more someone is exposed to ectoplasm (in terms of both frequency and amount), the more ghostly they will become over time.

A random person who just happens to live in Amity Park on the opposite side of town from Fenton Works and and was somehow never at the sight of a ghost fight, will probably just experience a slightly increased awareness of ghost-related stuff and perhaps a slightly smoother transition when their time comes.

Other kids at Casper high, who attend school with Danny every day and get caught up in ghost attacks sometimes will probably start to form the wispy beginings of their ghostly self. Sometimes you just catch a glimpse of what sort of ghost they are going to be. They may also develop some slight powers while still alive.

You look at Paulina carefully shaping and lacquering her nails into something both beautiful and dangerous, and for a split second you just know that, someday, she's going to be all claws and glittering scales and passionate pursuit of her goals. She will transcend the human form and shape herself into a work of art of her own design and a powerhouse none can deny. Then she turns to her friend and giggles over a funny story, and the moment passes; she's just another kid steadily making her way to adulthood.

She's just another kid until some jerk at the mall oggles her a little too blatantly and her jewelry flashes brighter than the lighting should allow, blinding him so that he trips into a fountain, and Paulina smugly watches him sputter before turning to walk away with a satisfied spring in her step.

Sam and Tucker, Who hang out with Danny every day and frequently explore the ghost zone with him, will start forming more of the foundation of their ghostly selves and probably develop more powers sooner. They are more likely to develop to a point of being able to take on a ghostly form while still alive.

Typically, a halfa formed through extreme, prolonged exposure like this would have a bit of separation between their human and ghostly halves, but without much discord between the two. However, with Sam and Tucker spending so much time around Danny during their formative period (and having so much less contact with any other ghost than with him), it's entirely possible that they would subconsciously learn the integrated system approach, in much the same way people pick up habits of speech from the people around them.

[mutable-manifestation]

Manually writing my tags bc they WON"T STAY IN THE RIGHT ORDER

*distant, loud sobbing*

#dpxdc #danny phantom #liminal amity park#literally#the people And the Actual City Itself #John Constine: *sees Phantom* #Constantine: *sees thousands of years old depiction of him as a hero* #Great. Like to call this a 'Not My Problem.' Better make sure those normie JL idiots don't come here and #get possessed or something tho #Constantine: *leaves vague notice that Batman takes as a 'there's nothing happening here but I can't be arsed to give a proper report bc I'm Like That'* #Amity Park: “And I took that personally” #Also Amity Park: “And they ask you how you are and you just have to say that you're fine” #Amity Park: “But you just can't get into it bc they would never understand” #idk how long Vlad had his own portal or if it was always there but for this AU I'm saying “no” #and the lack of ecto on top of excess isolation drove him “pit crazy” instead of pit angry #moving to Amity actually helped him mellow and is helping him mellow more overtime #being around liminals is mellowing him even more bc peer species interactions #like a dog being raised by bears then meeting other dogs #but like on a subconscious level? #anyway he happy #he still has Issues(TM) #but he's more “i'm going to cause problems on purpose” than “i'm gonna kill my ex-bestie and steal his wife aka my other ex-bestie” #(the 'ex' is slowly disolving. He's gonna have an existential crisis the next time Jack makes them do a group hug and he enjoys it) #No one in Amity realizes they're getting more liminal #If the people are fightier. Well it's all friendly fighting anyway. And it's good practice for dealing with ghosts.#And if they're fighting ghosts more instead of running/waiting for Phantom #well #Fenton gear is more common so now they CAN#ofc they want to help their hero

Dp x Dc prompt

Amity Parkers stare (slightly) hostile at any outsider that walks into their city

(it's theirs and strangers just keep walking in)

This inclides Tim when he and Jason have to go through it / investigate it

Which means the passing glances, resulting in double takes and surprised staring are weirding jason really out

It's like he passes as one of their own at first glance

(the green in his veins sings at being around community)