#With how common a trop this is how is it not a tag alreday

[broadwaytheanimatedseries]

HEY SHUT UP IM BACK AT IT AGAIN LETS GO

So im thinking he takes mostly after the mime aspect, really committing to the bit and only very rarely cheating with invisible items, mostly he uses this method to practice at home (whether that's an actual apartment or a secret hideout is TBD) and does actual mime work for his acts, both criminal and genuine performances for entertainment purposes. Obviously his criminal career clashes with the clown code so he can't register as an official clown, but he still puts on shows at Arkahm Asylum for the inmates sometimes, he doesn't really get sent there himself he just likes busting into the place. At first it was to annoy Jazz at work but he's become something of a favorite to a lot of the regular rouges there.

Now the thing about Danny is that Mime is a weird vibe for him to go with, right? I mean we know Danny, the guy cannot stop quipping to save his half life! So what's the deal? Why mime? Can't just be the black and white aesthetic right?

Well, I posit to you, dear Phandom: There's a very good reason why Dan only developed his ghostly wail when he did, and Danny should not have been allowed to develop his so soon.

It is made a big deal out of that he's even capable of this at the age of 14, but it is a power born out of necessity and desperation in its case and like a lot of drastic measures, it takes its toll.

Not only is this ability a strain on the rest of his ghost power, as we've previously seen it physically drain his energy, but it also wasn't meant to be used by anyone with a physical, mortal body. That's why Dan is able to develop this ability with seemingly no backlash, he takes the time to get to know his new form and learns how to harness its power to the fullest, studies his strengths and weakness and only then unleashes this destructive new power.

Danny didn't have the time to do all of that, so when he realized what he had been doing, how he was slowly destroying his vocal chords, he had to make a decision before the choice would be taken from him by his body's continuing deterioration.

Does he continue using the ghostly wail and eventually destroys his voice as Fenton, destroys his human vocal chords allowing only Phantom to be able to speak? OR! Does he take a vow of silence as Phantom, never again using his ghostly wail or speaking a word in his ghost form, so that Fenton could keep his voice?

Fenton only ever had his voice, and now he had Phantom too, but that couldn't always be relied on and was too often a hindrance as much as it was help.

So Danny made a choice, but that didn't mean he'd stop using his powers to help, in his own feral way.

He recalled enjoying the freedom of being a circus act, just not exactly loving the not freedom of being mind controlled into it, and seeing as the truth of his origins had come to light he figured he could lean into both the comedy and the darkness, become a goth clown, Sam would love it!

Gotham comes to know him as a whispered shadow, much like Batman once was when people weren't sure if he was even real.

Their Silent Knight.

(I don't have a concrete name for him yet, that's just what Gotham calls him the way Batman is the dark knight, but one name I'm playing with is Dead Air. Yknow cuz like, aerial stunts, and also ghosts, and also synonym for silence? There's precedent for names like that with Deadman... maybe he should be Deadair? That don't look right to me tho... anyway, workshopping it!)

He uses his powers of speed strength and flight to pull of literally impossible feats of acrobatics that make Dick jealous, ice and ecto blasts make for easy slapstick and can be shot discreetly enough that really only the bats and even then, only the bats who are actually there to witness it happen would ever notice, as ecto activity has a hard time showing on camera fully in tact if it even showed up at all.

And despite never using his voice, he never had an issue expressing his sass and roasting both bats and rouges through miming alone.

Anyway yeah that's all for now, let me know if you want more of this AU!

I found a chart for some simpler clown breeds in case anyone was wondering about the breed of their beloved clown companion(s)

(I don't know who to credit as this has been re-posted on many platforms many times)