#but yeah Danny's kinda avoiding them

[calypsoul]

Danny and Batfam talking bc Wait so you're genuinely not making your city up?

Technus, showing up with Tucker: Great one-

Danny: Hold on guys *doesn't mute* I thought I told you guys not to call me that!

Technus: We are bound, Great One, until you undo the magic. But I'm here to tell you we may have made the first interdimensional game by linking it to the Infinite Realms

Danny and Batfam: ... what.

Danny: oh shoot I didn't mute-

Batfam: INTERDIMENSIONAL??? INFINITE REALMS???? GREAT ONE??????

Danny: uhhh yeah so-

Danny: bye *disconnects*

Dimensional Game

After Tucker and Technus became friends and warmed to the idea of ​​developing new technological gadgets together, Danny let the ghost experiment with the existing technology in his house. As long as Technus promised to prevent world domination.

The ghost in question was excited and began to develop a game with the descendant of the Pharaoh, they both assured it would be the best game they had ever seen. However, because the game was set between the world of the living and the Infinite Realms, it wasn't uniquely available to Danny's dimension.

The game went online for all possible dimensions. This very quickly caught the attention of a family of bats a dimension away, who had gathered that day for the typical family bonding game of the week.

Tim noted that the game's graphics were excellent, and he liked the visual scenes, so he recommended it. Jason and Damian were excited by the gameplay, Dick and Steph were absolutely thrilled to find out that the characters were customizable and you could carve some character lines into them, Cass was happy that it seemed to be an open world adventure and Duke liked the story the game had for those who were interested.

The game became popular quickly, but the creators seemed to be nowhere to be found, which was quite strange. The family decided that they would play it anyway.

Tim out of boredom decided to hack the game, he was surprised when the digital security walls were reinforced and a symbol resembling a combined DP on bright green was displayed on his screen.

He showed his siblings the symbol but none of them were familiar with it. In the end, he found nothing about it and decided to complain to his friends online.

That's how Team Phantom ended up listening to Batfam's lengthy speech about the game's mysterious ghost creator. Danny couldn't help but laugh at the unintentional pun. Too bad he couldn't meet his new friends, who kept insisting they lived in "Gotham", he supposed they would eventually tell him.

[schnee-gheist]

dp fanfic ideas are getting to me again goddammit

[plainclothesdisaster]

DPxDC Mechanical Engineer Danny

Danny caught the attention of Batman while studying at Gotham University for his alternative energy projects. He’s hired right out of college to work on the Watchtower.

He shows absolutely no tell of his abilities till there’s a dire situation- Flash’s electric discharge messes with one of his projects in progress and the whole base would have lost air pressure if he hadn’t done a quick fix using telekinesis and ice.

Of course Batman notices.

Batman assumes the worst- he suspects Danny’s a rogue of some kind, someone who has infiltrated the Justice League with an ulterior motive. But he can’t just fire Danny now- he’s the only one who knows how the new Watchtower energy source works. Plus, he’s not letting Danny go anywhere until he’s figured out his true motives.

Cue Batman subtly testing Danny- tossing things at him to trigger inhuman fast reflexes, having him lift too-heavy machinery, setting up convenient opportunities to steal or snoop or otherwise be up to no good. Danny does take advantage but only once, to use a computer terminal with unlocked clearance. He didn’t plant any bugs that Barman could find, and he otherwise kept up his powerless civilian act perfectly.

Still, Batman’s not satisfied. He brings an infrasonic sound emitter to Danny’s lab one day, and that, of all things, is what gets Danny to break.

“I know what you’re doing,” Danny admits with a sigh, finally. “If you’re really that suspicious of me, I can leave, but I kinda like my job so I’d prefer not to. The benefits are insane compared to what’s standard.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure. yeah. How about you turn off the freaking noise generator and we can talk?”

“Hm.” Batman obliges, and he takes the stool next to Danny at his gesture.

“Number one, I’m not a meta. Despite all the data and conclusions you’ve probably drawn otherwise. Number two, I’m on your side. I’m here to work on the base, that’s it. I follow your rules to the letter.”

“The-“

“The classified files I looked at? Yeah that was the one exception. You already know what I looked at, I’m sure, but maybe you haven’t figured out why. It goes back to point one- I may not be a meta, but I am something that organization, the GIW, cares about. I looked at your files on them to sus out your relations. Seeing as I don’t particularly love being the victim to twelve degrees of human rights violations if I can avoid it.”

“Hm.” The Ghost Intelligence Ward was one of many government agencies that the Justice League hadn’t worked closely with. But they also hadn’t been flagged for Justice League investigation. Danny’s comments made him doubt that call.

“Any other questions?”

“If you’re not a meta, what are you?”

“I’m an engineer. A pretty decent one. And I’d really, really like it to stay that way.”

Batman considers, and ultimately lets him stay. He likes Danny (everyone likes Danny), and it would be a massive pain in the ass to replace him. He really is a good engineer.

It’s only much later that his faith in Danny is repaid in spades.

Batman finds Danny on the Watchtower command bridge. Alarms are blaring, the station has been knocked out of orbit, out the window there’s shrapnel floating everywhere as a space battle rages around them.

On the station it’s chaos. Technicians run around, shouts from the med bay, sparks from the walls.

Batman and Danny stand at the main controls, watching the battle outside, stoic, unmoving.

Wonder Woman’s harried voice crackles through on coms: “We need backup.”

“There is no more backup.” Batman replies, while looking pointedly at Danny.

“What?”

Batman doesn’t move.

“What.”

“The impact from Darkseid’s initial attack should have sent this station on a terminal trajectory toward the planet.”

“Well. We aren’t currently plummeting to our deaths, so turns out it didn’t do that.”

“You did something.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lying.”

“Maybe Superman nudged us back on course in all the chaos.”

“I’ve been watching the trackers. No one else with the capability has come near the station.”

“Can’t you just be grateful we got lucky?”

Sounds of peril screech over the coms. Danny’s face scrunches.

“Luck had nothing to do with it. As it is now, we are going to lose this fight.”

“Isn’t there anyone else you can call?”

“I’m asking you. You can help, can’t you?”

The glare-off lasts a long moment more before Danny breaks.

“Fuck. Fuckity fuck.” Danny runs his hands through his hair. “Shit. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking you to save this and countless other worlds from a genocide. I’m also asking you to save my friends.”

Danny looks at him, hard, weary, and with a kind of deep resolve that feels far too ancient to be on the face of a supposed twenty-something.

“Fine. Fine. Okay.” He steps back and transforms. If Batman is surprised when he shakes off his human appearance like an old coat, he doesn’t show it. But what’s undeniable is the being in Danny’s place has the unmistakable presence of power.

“No one else can know.” His voice echoes in a way that’s sonically impossible, both sounding closer and further away than he should be.

He pulls a gear-shaped medallion seemingly out of thin air and puts it over his head in one motion.

“If I get in trouble for this, I’m blaming you.”

He vanishes. Outside, the shape of the battle changes instantly. The stars seem to glow brighter as the arms of the galaxy flash with the colors of the aurora. Then it’s like the void of space itself comes alive. It moves the spaceships back like they’re toys, plucking them from one side of the field to the other. It finds Darkseid at the heart of the chaos and massive arms of nothingness and darkness wrap around him. He’s screaming as it swallows him whole.

His armies scatter. The battle turns. The JL deal with the stragglers, but the air of relief is palpable.

Danny reappears next to Batman, once again donning his grease-stained coveralls. Arms folded.

“Happy?”

It took all of five minutes. Less, probably. Batman tamps down a thousand questions.

“Thank you.”

“I’m gonna need two weeks off minimum.” Danny snaps. “One to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare you’ve just caused me, and another to recover from the headache.”

Batman blanks. “Granted.”

Danny sighs. “And I’m not fixing the station until I’m back. It won’t fall out of the sky as is. Make up whatever excuse you want.”

“Done.” He considers. “I would prefer to tell them the truth. That you saved us.”

Danny glares. “I’m not supposed to save you. I made a pact not to use my power to influence the mortal realm.”

“A pact with who?”

Danny rolls his eyes. “The embodiment of Time. The concept of Justice. Among others.” He smirks at Batman’s confusion.

“And what, exactly, does that make you?”

He stands, framed by the space window, haloed by the stars. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

Batman frowns.

“Look. I like you guys. I like working on your base. I like supporting the work you do. But you can not go factoring me in to any of your plans or contingencies. This was a one time thing.

“So to answer your question again: I’m an engineer.”

[sistertotheknowitall]

Some Guy on Fear Gas (can apparently turn invisible)

Masterpost

“Danny was supposed to be in class today.”

There was a round of sighs in the coms. See Danny didn’t react in the same manner as the rest of the population when exposed to fear toxin (or in general, but they were mostly used to that). See Danny didn’t scream, he didn’t cry, he didn’t get violent. He got unnervingly paranoid.

He got so unnervingly paranoid about being watched, specifically by the government if the muttered and whispered words were to be believed. His eyes tracked nothing while he slowly moved around invisible people. It wasn't like dealing with someone in an active hallucination experiencing a psychotic break. It was like dealing with someone in a paranoid delusion. He wouldn't let any of the bats near him and often took off, disappearing into the chaos.

Four months into seeing this kid everywhere and their suspicions were confirmed when he literally disappeared after the second time being poisoned.

Danny was a meta and he was afraid.

That’s not the reason for the exasperation felt by this family though. It was what always happened after. The first time he ignored every vigilantly when they tried to bring it up. After the second time he attempted to avoid everyone, extended family included.

(He had asked Kate if she was also Batman’s kid. “More like their aunt.” “Oh okay so it really is a family business. Like that show Unnatural. You don't happen to have also lost your parents at a relatively young age and now go on to fight a dark presence in their honor, do you?.” Kate had stared passively at him, the others had warned her. “….. okay… are you more of a Zuko honor type?”)

However, it was like the universe conspired against Danny. Even Bruce agreed that there had to be some god or being doing this (nothing is ever a coincidence). They kinda felt bad for him. He was very obviously trying to avoid them and he was either really bad at being evasive or a deity was laugh at him. Once he had thrown himself behind a lamp pole smaller than himself and closed his eyes to avoid Stephanie.

(It was very awkward. He could turn invisible and knew they knew so why…..? She had politely continued past so not to embarrass the poor guy further. Cause this was embarrassing and they both knew it.)

Finally it was Duke who pulled them all out of limbo. He had come across Danny on the roof of another bank. A lesser known capital union closer to crime ally this time.

Danny hadn’t been avoiding Duke in the same manner as everyone else. He still stopped to give Duke food but he never spoke and he ran after. Duke thought it would be weird to chase him but it was also weird to turn around, have an orange shoved into his hands then watch his friend run away.

However, this time Danny didn’t run as Duke approached so Duke sat next to him. Pulling out a granola bar, he handed it to Danny, “that’s why you feed me all the time right? Cause you know how many calories we need as metas.”

Danny had laughed, “no actually, that was a bit that morphed into a habit. I just thought it was funny.”

“….what.”

“Don’t get me wrong, now that we’re friends I am more than happy to feed you but yeah. The first candy bar was a thank you and then the second time I thought ‘I have fruit.’”

“….. wow… okay.” There went his plan of empathizing. They sat in silence as Duke tried to reorganize his thoughts.

“I’m sorry for avoiding you all.” Duke turned his head to face Danny, who kept his eyes forward, “you know no one cares that you’re a meta.” “Obviously. It wasn’t the invisibility that I was upset about," Danny said.

“The muttering. The paranoia.” Danny grimaced and didn’t say anything.

“You don’t have to tell us till you’re ready, man. Just let us know if you need help. Please, are you safe?”

Danny nodded and Duke nodded back and they had both continued to sit. When they parted ways Danny handed Duke a small bag of chips.

Danny had apologized everyone one at a time even though they had heard it from Duke. Danny never explained nor did he want to talk about his it. His power of invisibility was also a subject off limits. All of them were worried but they didn’t want to force him to talk about it. They had to trust that he would one day feel comfortable doing so with any or all of them. (Still, it was hard seeing their friend so paranoid that he flinched back from them. )

Post Six

[glow-in-the-dark-death]

Damian did not like DW, a girl half his age he met in the park. No he's not jealous of her size changing dog, shut up

Damian did not trust her when he learned the W stood for Whitney. No it's not because she and the dog are apparently also ninjas with how easily they both avoid him in the park, shut up

Damian did not stalk DW Nightingale to steal her dog, shut up

Damian was not ready to meet her father

Danny, happy: Damian, how are you?

Damian, shocked: You're supposed to be dead!

Danny "Commit to the Bit Fenton: I am dead. *Pretends to take off wig to reveal white hair* I'm just good at faking being alive

Damian: ...are you here because you adopted a child?

Danny: Oh no, she's mine. Also did you know ghosts can still breed?

Whitney is a pun on "with an i"

I love the dynamic between Damian and DW kinda reminds me of raccoons in an odd way for some reason ヘ(￣ω￣ヘ)

Also I might have just missed it but is this an AU where they are related/brothers?

Danny doing ghostly bullshit to do a wig pull is iconic.

( I kinda want to see that drawn kinda like Perry the Platypus

Damian: "DW's dad?"

Danny pulling his black hair off to reveal white hair underneath

Damian: "MY GHOST BROTHER!" )

ALSO!

Damian: "Ghost can breed, how does that work?"

Danny: " Yeah..so you know how a lot of parents tell young children that the way you make a baby is by kissing to not give them The Talk TM yet?

Totally legit with ghosts don't ask me why or how I was still in shock when my doctor was explaining it and missed more than half of what he was saying."

[bluerosefox]

Gothamites Never Really Rest

Small warning in this: very light swearing, light mentions of deaths, and tw light touching on the subject of abuse, like very light. But still an fyi.

Danny was used to his main Rogues (Boxy, Ember, Skulker, etc etc, you know those guys) showing up randomly and at odd hours, causing some chaos around town due to their own boredom or just wanting some fun (the more deadly ones were rare to show up and his main Rogues do at least respect him enough to give him the rest of the day off when they sense a ‘big bad’ fight), he fights them, wins, before he send them back to the portal. Then they rinse and repeat this for the next day.

So as he really wasn’t expecting, especially since he had just sent his ghostly quota for the day back to the portal a few hours ago (Boxy of course, and Youngblood (dressed as a Firefighter this time, though the ending for their fight actually ended on a good note. YB had been asking Danny about space, Danny kinda hoped YB will be an Astronaut next time cause that would be fun)), Johnny 13 (and Shadow) to phase into his room as he was heading to bed.

Honestly (he groaned when he realized who it was, dealing with Johnny, Kitty (and Shadow) during a ‘break up’ or ‘lovers spat’ always was a pain) he was expecting Johnny to just start attacking but before Danny could demanded to know what he was doing in his room Johnny hesitatingly asked if they could talk.

Now Danny, talking to his main Rogues, like legit talking was a very rare thing. But it has happened a few times.

With Johnny asking if they could talk, his face nervous but not in a 'I pissed off Kitty and idk where she ran off to again', Danny nodded and agreed.

"Hey, so like I know we all kinda agreed not to go roaming too far from Amity because of the whole government suits guys and bringing unwanted attention to us ghosts in the names of the Super Dorks but is it alright if Kitty and I head across the state for a few days? I promise we'll be back and stay under the radar..."

"What?! Why would you guys need to something like that?!"

"....."

"Johnny, look dude I know Amity can get boring sometimes but-"

"Someone killed Kitty's abusive waste of space father three weeks ago, you know that fucker that killed us in cold blood when he found out Kitty and I were enloping. Yeah him. We felt it, we felt him die and... kid I can tell you how our cores SANG about it when he croaked. Whoever ended him, they did so for us. It was a revenge kill... It felt amazing. Its why you havent seen us too, we... we needed time to process that." Johnny quickly explained and that shut any protest Danny had up, he knew a bit of the story how Johnny and Kitty died, and it was respectful to allow one's fellow ghost to talk about their deaths should they talk of it.

With a melancholy smile and a hand petting a chirping Shadow who sprung up to comfort his other half, Johnny then said "Kitty's been avoiding returning to Gotham for ages since we woke up in the Realms and whenever we found a natural portal back to it. She's always been terrified of running into him and even being a ghost she's still can't. But he's gone now, we felt his life end and he isn't a ghost either! Like legit, if he became a ghost we'd still be able to sense our murderer you know!... Anyways she wants to visits her old haunts and maybe see if we can find some old friends, see how they're doing you know. We won't mess with them or anything, just a small pop in..."

"We... We also kinda wanna find the guy who did it too... We could feel his emotions when he ended Kitty's old man and firstly let me tell you, rage. Like a lot of it. But also we felt his need for justice and... he felt familiar... like someone we knew and he knew us. That's how we know it's a revenge kill. Someone did that for us and well.... Kitty and I wanna thank him you know."

-x-x-

Meanwhile in Gotham about three week prior.

A budding Crime Lord had crossed out the face of a older man from a photograph pinned onto a corkboard, below and connected by red strings was two other papers as well. One held the newspaper clipping of two bodies being found in a ditch with the remains of a busted up motorcycle, a young male and female were reportedly found halfway buried in it. The male was reported to be a trouble maker from Crime Alley, knowen for stealing tires while the female was the daughter of a suspected mob boss.

The other string however, lead to a small, yellowed from age and tiny bit damaged photo of three people. The photo held two older, nearly out of their teens, male and female both looking like rough city street kids. A motorcycle could be seen behind them an it was missing a wheel. The young man with blonde hair was kneeling on the ground, his hands holding onto a tire iron and he looked rather proud, the young female was wearing red and had some dye in her hair and was smiling as she held the camera taking the picture in a selfie as best as she could.

In between the two was a young kid, blue eyes and black hair, a beaming smile on his face as his own hands were on top of a tire wheel. A wheel he had finally learned how to take off in record speed thanks to Johnny teaching him.

Green eyes that shifted for a second to teal stared at the photo for a moment before saying

"Hope you both are resting easily now. Kitty, Johnny."

[the-oblivious-writer]

Touch Tank

Tara Carpenter x Reader

One-shot

Summary: Tensions are high when you go over to the Carpenters' apartment after telling Tara you would fix their sink; Sam isn't exactly what you would call your 'biggest fan'

Warning(s): Swearing, Tara & R aren't together, & no pronouns used

Notes: Another work based off of Gilmore Girls! Currently re-watching it and I'm slowly inching towards s3 ep 19... I'm avoiding it like the plague (I wanna stay in literali bliss just a lil longer 😔)

4/7 for Seven Days of Christmas

You made the mistake of agreeing to fix Tara’s sink.

Somehow Tara roped you into agreeing. Plumbers were expensive, and with paying rent in New York while also paying for college, they were already on a tight budget. You offered them a cheaper price, and you honestly didn’t mind giving Tara a favor.

That was before you remembered Sam would be there too.

You have known Tara all of five months, and in that time you haven’t exactly left the best impression on her older sister. Sam has already caught you sneaking in ten times—you got lucky every other time—and it didn’t help that you had an attitude. 

Tara wanted nothing more than for Sam to get to know you—to not just go off the you she made up in her head. So, when Sam found out you would be coming to fix their kitchen sink… she figured it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to give you another shot. Besides, she was doing this for Tara. She wasn’t sure as to why Tara was so persistent on it, but all she knows is that Tara wants you and her to get along. 

—

You walk up the stairs to the shared apartment after getting buzzed in by Tara. Once you get to the door you knock and the door opens.

“Hey,” Tara greets.

“Hey back,” you reply. Tara moves to the side, letting you in. Once you’re inside you look at Tara once again before smiling to yourself.

“You’re very punctual,” she remarked—watching as your eyes wandered.

“Yeah, well, it was either this or more apartment hunting with Danny.”

“You’re moving?”

You shrugged, “I don’t know. Don’t really get the point—the apartment’s fine. He says there’s ‘interior damage’ or whatever. Nothing I can’t fix.”

“Who knows; a new place could be nice.”

“I guess. He’s kinda eyeing the vacant apartment that’s not too far from yours.”

“Really?”

“Yeah… not saying it’s a sure thing but if we do move, can you promise you won’t get sick of me?”

“Sick of that face? Never…” She gently pinched your cheek teasingly; heat rushed to your face. 

“Did you change your hair?” You asked suddenly, changing the subject.

“What?”

“Your hair looks…different.”

“So segway’s not your thing, huh?�� 

“Is it?” 

“Uh, no. I wear it like this a lot. Why?”

“Just…” You shrug, “Different.”

“Oh. Bad ‘different’?” She tugged on the hem of her shirt, suddenly feeling nervous for some reason. 

You smirk, about to answer her question, but turn your head when you hear a noise coming from down the hall. It sounded like Sam yelling a curse before Tara looked back at you with a light chuckle.

“The sink hasn’t been putting her in the best mood,” she elaborates. 

“She’s usually in a good mood?” You quip with raised eyebrows, tone laced in sarcasm. Tara scolds you with a look, causing you to back down. “Alright, alright.” 

“This fucking sink is driving me insane–” Sam cuts herself off, stopping in her tracks when she sees you. 

“Oh. Y/N. You’re here,” she says and you simply nod at her words. “Refreshing to see you use the front door for once…” She murmurs but you and Tara hear it. Tara scolds her with the same look she gave you just moments before. 

“If you want there’s Dr. Pepper in the kitchen,” Sam reluctantly offered. You looked at Tara then at Sam before briefly nodding. 

After a few seconds of silence, Sam clears her throat. “Okay, well, everything’s in the kitchen if you want to get started. The toolbox, and gloves are all there. If you need anything else just call one of us.” 

Tara looks between you and Sam before speaking up, “Come on, I’ll show you.” She extends her hand, gesturing to the direction of the kitchen. You begin to walk in that direction but before Tara follows behind, she gives Sam a look.

“I’m trying,” Sam huffed. 

“Well keep it up pleasee,” Tara requested as she walked away to the kitchen. 

By the time she was there, you were already setting up. “Question,” She states.

“Yes?” You put the pair of gloves in your back pocket, looking over at Tara.

“You come over. You seem to have a very firm grasp of the English language. You put together several full sentences—even using a couple of words that contain two or more syllables. And then my sister appears, and suddenly we need a thought bubble over your head to understand what you’re thinking. Can you tell me why that is?”

You looked down at the four-way silicone key in your hand before looking at Tara again with a  response. “The verbal thing comes and goes.” 

Tara sighed, lightly rolling her eyes. “I would really appreciate it if you would try to get along with my sister.”

“I took the Dr. Pepper,” you stated as a matter of factly. 

She furrowed her eyebrows, “I know.”

“Personally, I think it’s a little crazy to put lemon in Dr. Pepper—buuuut I took it anyhow.” You reached for the bucket and rag as you heard Tara huff.

“Stop it.”

“Ooo, stern face,” you say as you lift the tool and bucket to place by the sink. Tara continues, following you as you crouched down by the sink.

“Look. I went out on a limb for you, trying to get my sister to give you the benefit of the doubt. Okay? So, I don’t think it would hurt you to try to be nice.”

You put down the wrench you had just picked up, now fully turned and standing to look at Tara as you spoke. “Why?” You simply asked, taking off your jacket.

“Why?” Tara mirrored.

“Yeah. Why?” 

“Because she’s my sister—and she and Danny are dating.”

“So?” You tossed your jacket on top of a nearby chair.

“What do you mean ‘so’?” She asked incredulously; her eyebrows stayed furrowed.

“So, just because she’s your sister or Danny’s girlfriend doesn’t mean that I automatically have to get along with her,” you stated with pure conviction, rolling up your sleeves. 

“Y/N, my sister is a great person. She’s also my best friend—so if you care about me at all you will take that into consideration,” Tara was now crossing her arms as she stood her ground. “And you will be mildly polite to her.”

You couldn’t help but smirk, looking her up and down before responding. “What makes you think I care about you?” Tara didn’t need eyes to know you were smirking and enjoying this way too much.

She blushes, looking down at the ground and shaking her head as she grows flustered. “I–I don’t mean care-care. Like—care. I mean if you like me at all—not like-like! I just meant that–” Tara stumbles over her words, tucking in a loose strand of hair behind her ear. You watch her with amusement, a soft smile grazing your face as you let out a light snort.

“If you think of me remotely as the sort of person you could occasionally stand to talk to then you will try to get along with my sister. That’s all.” 

Your eyes never pulled from her once, only looking at her with fondness as you finally said something. “Okay,” you nod.

“Okay?”

“Can’t guarantee that it’ll work but I’ll try,” you confirm. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome…” You glance at the sink then back at Tara. “Should probably get to work.”

“Right. Sorry—go ahead.” She turns to walk away, looking at you one more time before leaving the kitchen. You crouch down by the sink again, not meeting her gaze but feeling it. She doesn’t see how you grin to yourself; your mind being plagued with thoughts of the younger Carpenter.

Guess it wouldn’t hurt to make an effort. 

—

Later that night, you decided to stop by Tara’s window for a surprise visit. You looked at her for a few seconds—admiring how peaceful she looked—before lightly tapping on her window. She turned to look at the window, a grin grazing her face when her eyes meets yours.

She lifted the window with a smile as you looked up at her fondly. “Hey,” you finally said after the window fully opened, expression never faltering as you leaned your head against the window frame.

“Hey back,” she replied. “Didn’t you say something to Sam about not coming through the window anymore.” Tara heard from Sam that you managed to hold somewhat of a conversation with the older Carpenter, actually making an effort to try with her. No matter how awkward it might have been on your end, at least you tried.

“You talk about me with Sam?” You asked smugly.

She rolled her eyes with an infectious smile. “Just get inside.”

“I didn’t hear a no~” You say in a sing-song voice. Tara pulled you in by your sleeve, roughly, might you add. “Watch the shirt,” you complain while you’re pulled inside her room.

“Quirk it.”

“How gentle,” you sarcastically complimented; you dusted your pants off with your free hand, not commenting on how Tara still held a grip on your other arm. 

“So,” Tara began as she sat on her bed—dragging you with her, “What are we watching tonight?”

“I can’t do Freaky Friday again.”

“Fine.”

“How about Cursed?” You inquired. Tara was leaning her back against your chest; she looked up at you with those beautiful brown eyes.

“That movie’s terrible.”

“One-hundred percent, but Milo Ventimiglia is in it.”

“Doesn’t he only have like six minutes of screen time?”

“But in it, nevertheless.”

“You drive a hard bargain… Get the laptop?”

You respond by reaching over to the night stand, grabbing her laptop. You hand it to her and she opens it on her lap. 

Tara would never comment on how she was the only one who got this side of you—the gentle, kind, and considerate side. Well, when she wants to see you squirm she comments on it. But for now, she’ll keep it to it herself.

-----------

A/N: the urge to write a paper on how jess mariano is a truly misunderstood character grows each & each day...

(I got beef with star hallows. we leave it at that.)

[evilminji]

Okay, But, >.> Listen...

So MAYBE, just MAYBE, I am an incureable RoFan Isekai nerd. Shut up about it, maybe. What're you a cop? Mind your business. BUT! And hear me out...

W...What would actually? HAPPEN if Danny went into a Visual Novel? Some Otome game? You know, aside from being vague flustered by and then DEEPLY ALARMED by these walking Red Flag Fruitloops that girls are supposed to find "dreamy" or something?

Like we know how MMOs work for him. And probably OTHER open world games? But a visual novel? Would it be like the Christmas Episode? Would he hear narration? Be stuck in static "scenes"? Or would it be like a cut together "only the interesting parts" movie that he's somehow IN?

Like?? At SOME point his curiosity is gonna get the best of him. He's gonna want to know what different video games are LIKE on the inside? What's Pong like? Tetris? Mario? One of those Mama's cooking games? Etc etc.

He probably hits up a game sale. Buys a box or two. Figures he can always resell um or just give them away for free. Might even use them for parts. Who knows. And?

It's kinda cool!

It's even SCIENCE! See? Tucker's in charge of notes. Sam's in charge of hilarious commentary and pizza. Jazz is keeping them from drinking and doing ghost shit (terrible combination, we never speak of What Happened(tm) again). And the Dr's. Fenton got distracted by making fudge and debating what games should be counted towards which categories.

They've made an afternoon of it.

And NOW? They've reached the bottom of box one. It was "Survive The Villainess! My Rose for You!" Or... judging by Sam's climbing eyebrows and growing scowl? A DEEPLY unpleasant porn game about school girls.

You could not PAY him enough.

Yeah, he DOES realistically kinda want to know what happens.. if.. like? You know... sexy games... like would he? Or does he just WATCH or...? *awkward cough* But! That's NOT for Family Science Night! And DEFINITELY not THAT game, THANKS.

He'll find himself an ETHICALLY SOURCED smutty game full of consensual boning. For PRIVATE TIME. Those test results are gonna show up like MAGIC and we WILL NOT be talking about them! Got it? Good.

Now what the fuck is he look at here?

Jazz is surprisingly knowledgeable. They are not allowed to ask. They respect it. The main character "wakes up" inside the body of a "villainess" and must survive. Turn her terrible reputation around. Avoid "death flags". Preferably romance one of the hot guys?

Uuuuuuuh... you realize Danny's in a committed relationship, right?

Sam and Turker allow it. But they reserve the right to blast his taste in Fantasy Guy's. Chose carefully, for their roasting shall be BRUTAL. Luuuuuv yoooou~♡

He wants a divorce. They're not even MARRIED and he wants a divorce. You see how they mock him, Jazz? The cruelty he suffers? He's taking the Blobs and moving to Frightknight's. They always warned him about you living folks and your fast ways, but he didn't listen! *continued dramatics* *is smacked with a pillow*

But actually going IN? The weirdly, vaguely European over the top EVERYTHING? Giant jewels and ridiculous, fancy dresses? The walking red flag Romantic Archtype Leads? He wants to PUNCH half these guys! This is ABUSE! Are people OKAY!?

Like? I feel like he'd stay way, WAY longer then he needed too? Just out of morbid curiosity? W-where is this plot GOING? It's so dramatic. Why is my dress MORE dramatic now? Why is everything so... Sparkly.

It would be? AMAZING and baffling and I would pay real money to hear their live commentary. "Why not simply judo flip the crown prince off the balcony, then take over the country, sweetie?" "Solid plan, honey! He deserves it!" Beautiful. Flawless. Sage advice really. Too bad Danny can barely walk in his five million bows dress.

It's the BEST Au and I might be a genius. Or deeply sleep deprived. Meh. We'll 50/50 it, six of one, half a dozen of another.

@hdgnj @ailithnight @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter

[bonchobrick]

tw: slight suicidal actions (but not really the batfam are wildly clueless to the actual context to danny's bullshit hes not suicidal--in this fic--he's dead get it RIGHT brucie)

Au where Batfam are entirely convinced that the new vigilante in Gotham, danny, has time travel powers because he can vanish away from their senses completely

This becomes a problem however when 

Bruce searches for him because wants to save Jason. Danny can save Jason not in the--im a time traveler and i can bring him or you back from or to the past--but in the, I’m a ghost king and have domain over the dead haha

Batfam become really concerned watching Phantom fight because “if he has time travel powers why doesn’t he avoid getting hit every time he can” and get worried phantom is purposefully letting himself get hurt

Danny in all honesty is just vibin the entire time while the batfam is going crazy at every sliver of info they get about danny because like

okay hes a time traveler thats established they got over that

This guy whos somehow been able to stop and rehabilitate rouges (ghosts) in his town is 15??

he may be the kindest most self destructive kid they've ever met like who immediately agrees to help people who were trying to capture and interogate him because he 'thinks we are better than the last billionaire who did this' what the FUCK

Oh yeah and they find out as a bonus in the end that his normal unpowered form he is a teen with black hair and blue eyes (bruce no no dont do it dont--)

---

Bruce is losing his mind

Okay so at the start of this there’s an unknown vigilante (danny) that Batman tends to bump into. Except Batman isn’t sure what he is.

Every time they run into each other Batman can tell there should just be a person beside him but before he gets a glimpse and opens his eyes to empty fresh air.

A vigilante that can vanish before their very eyes?

What do the bats think about this?

They think this vigilante can control time and is doing that to sneak out of their gaze.

Now here’s where the funny part comes in

Bruce goes on a wild hunt to search for the vigilante with a plan. To make them turn back time so that he can save his son.

The problem with this?

Danny is not a time traveler most days–scratch that he's not one at all. He can save his son Jason though, in fact he wants to, it’s just he needs to figure out a way to do this whilst not blowing his cover that he is the goddamn ghost king.

So he pretends that he does have time powers and that he just… uh… needs a minute to figure them out… yeah that!

Cue Batfam getting progressively more worried about Danny because ‘if he could turn back time—why doesn’t he avoid those hits?’

They all kinda think Danny is like purposefully hurting himself so now Danny is forced to eat breakfast with them and sleep at their manor.  I mean he’s confused at why they always look so worried about something but he’ll make sure Batman’s son gets home soon! Plus the rich people temporary-living-situation without all the ‘I want to adopt you’ billionaire bullshit is pretty sweet!!

(somewhere in the ghost zone jason is tearing up laughing at the batfam as they struggle to not burst into flames trying to figure out danny-- like for christs sake they think the ghost king is an american doctor who and are trying to get him to spill where his tardis is)

[siri-ike]

Danny's Phanclub

From this prompt

(This is connected to Summer of change, Jazz Al-Ghul, Mad Science Private School, empty, and a little crime as a treat)

On december 9th, 7 people who were not busy that afternoon gathered in a dimly lit garage on the request of one person.

Angie (15) head of the Danny Phan club's theories division: You're probably all wondering why I asked you here today.

Su-Jin (19) in charge of keeping the websites updated: Yeah, the urgent message with no explanation was kinda jarring.

Jónatan (16) event organizer: couldn't have given a little heads up?

Carmelo (14) treasurer: And I don't believe we needed this many snacks.

Rowan (17) President of the Phanclub: Let's hear her out.

Suddenly, a bright light flashed above them.

Harriet (17) made matching t-shirts: Got the power back on. What are we talking about?

Angie: I'm sure you've all heard that Danny Phantom somehow managed to freeze that giant plant ghost last summer?

S,J,C,R,H,D:*murmurs of agreement*

A: And everyone knows ghost poweres are based on how one dies. As was proven last year with that ghost who was perpetually soaking wet and kept spiting up water

She turns dramatically away from the pool conference table.

A: Before now, he could just do the same things as all other ghosts. Invisibility, intangibility, flying. Plus, those blasts, which are probably just concentrated ectoplasm.

She drags in a large corkboard and looks at the others when she flops it around. Revealing newspaper clippings of Danny using each of his powers, a grave yard, some mountains, and... ski resort pamphlets?

A: Now. Let's look at the evidence.

1. The snow. That came out of nowhere, right? - Wrong. Before the Christian version of Hell, there was the Norse Hel. It was where everyone whet when they died, provided they didn't die in battle. It was thought to be a vast wasteland covered in ice where you could spend eternity with those who were with you when you died.

2. His appearance. He wears a onesie. There are a few reasons one might wear a onesie. The main reason being, you don't want something getting into your clothes. For example, bees. But he has nothing to do with bees. It would have to be something else, something he is connected to... like snow. Like his hair. *pause for effect* it's snow white. The chances of someone being born with white hair is less than 0.001% or one in 17 to 20 thousand. It can also be caused by a deficiency in vitamin B12 or pituitary or thyroid issues. You can all refer to the group chat for articles on those.

*Angie knows no one ever reads her sorces, but damn it, she did her research, and she's gonna site it.*

Jónatan: When did you have time for this? School only finished yesterday.

A: What I think is more likely is that his haircolor changed post-mortem. But why white?

*pause*

A: I think he froze to death.

The room went silent. It had crossed each of their minds, but no one had wanted to say it. Enter Angie 'can't read the room to save her life' Sage.

A: Considering the multiple ski resorts in Illinois supporting the theory and how much more aggressive he is in December, probably due to the anniversary of his death. It could also explain why no other ghosts show up in December. Either they're too scared of him or they're giving him space. He has seemed to be somewhat chumy with some of the other ghosts, despite their combative relationship-

Rowan: Angie, stop.

Quiet.

She looks around the room. Four people are looking down, seemingly avoiding eye contact, and two look at her. Rowan, looks right at her with stern yet sympathetic eyes.

R: Everyone take five. We'll pick it up from here. Angie, a word.

Oh great, she must've offended someone. If only she could remember to look at the faces. Shurely, there must be some signs she could look out for.

R: I know you like theories, Angie. But can you tone it down? You're talking about someone's death. That's not the sort of thing most people are comfortable with.

They're one of the most patient people she's ever met, but sometimes even Rowan doesn't quite make sense.

A: But... he's a ghost. We all know he died.

R: We do. But, I think this whole conversation could be easier if you remove the "post mortem" and the "to death" parts of your presentation.

A: I guess I could change the wording a bit. Leave out the more gruesome parts. But I need someone to hear those out, a second set of ears to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Rowan looks to the corner of the room, where a 12 year old girl sits on a barstool with a wide-eyed grin ear to ear. She nods as though knowing exactly what they want.

R: Dani can hear you out on those.

Dani (12 (real age 1)) a gremlin, somehow always has time for this: I look forward to working with you.

~~~~~~~~

Angie's articles

Premature gray/white hair

One in 17-20,000

BTW I'm not gonna continue this.

Guess I'm continuing this.

Pt 2

Masterpost

[redflagshipwriter]

Halfa Cass 11 pt 1

masterpost

They had a teensy bit of a war council about the new problem when Danny came back from work.

“On the bright side, they did send someone to take away Brick,” Danny said optimistically. He tried, anyway. He had a grim and depressing certainty that he was going to have to do something drastic and violent to solve this problem. That sucked. It sucked so hard. He looked at his knees. “But. Yeah. They probably will come after you to make me make some dumb ugly guns or whatever.”

“Okay,” Jazz said calmingly, “Every problem has solutions, Danny.” 

…He scrunched up his face. He didn’t outright argue but he didn’t really see a great solution off hand.

Jazz’s big brain was clearly churning through the angles. She went quiet for a while, and then broke the silence in a thoughtful tone. “We could theoretically just kill the mob. All of them.” She looked up at the water stained ceiling and mouthed something that might be calculations. How many mob members she thought there might be? A plan to do this?

Danny blinked at her from his perch on the kitchen counter, hunched under the cupboard in a way that made him feel secure. “I thought this was going to go the other way. Like, with you telling me not to overreact.” He watched his big sister with a sort of horrified fascination.

Jazz waved that away with a hand. “I am not starting over again. I’m halfway through with my Gen Eds.” The dark smudges under her eyes looked even deeper in the shitty artificial lighting of their apartment. “The problem with that is that I only make about 1200 a month, and at that rate, we will never get you your identification.” She scowled and dug her fingers onto the tabletop as if she was going to squeeze cooperation out of it by force. “We sort of need that income source to get you into university on time. It’s important for your social development to get you back around your age mates sooner rather than later.”

He raised a hand like he had a question in class. “I thought the problem with that was going to be that murder is bad,” Danny said hesitantly. He was used to Jazz being the voice of morality. Were they doing something different now?

“The worst thing that happens to them is that they have to live near Skulker,” Jazz said waspishly. “Anyway, it’s on them for trying to make you build weapons. They’re the rude ones. They don’t get to throw off my twenty year plan.”

…Danny pinched his lips together to avoid the petty correction that they wouldn’t be living near Skulker, per se. Fair enough. The whole life or death thing did feel a bit less serious when you hung out with lots of dead people and they were just, like, people. Murder was, like, a conversation from a meat existence to a goo existence. It wasn’t nice, but it also wasn’t nice to threaten people’s sisters. 

“Speaking of, I need to get to work so that I have my perfect attendance record for a good recommendation for the next job.” Jazz scrubbed at her face with the back of a hand and then dragged it down, squishing her cheek. “Do you want me to bring back breakfast?”

Yes.

“No,” Danny lied. He shimmied down off the counter and into his shoes. “I’ll walk you there. I’m sick of being inside. Maybe I’ll pick up groceries.”

Jazz snorted and rolled her eyes, but she grabbed her bag without making fun of him. He walked with her down cold, filthy sidewalks and waved goodbye on the street across from her building. Danny pretended not to worry. She did him the favor of not pointing out that he was definitely going to come back at 4:30 am to walk her home. 

Danny locked the door when he got back in, but he felt kinda dumb about it. 

If this mob or gang or whatever (was there a difference?) knew where he lived and wanted in, the door was not going to keep them out. Maybe he should just leave it unlocked so that they didn’t bust it open and break the lock, actually. A lock was what, 40 bucks? He didn’t want to have to replace that.

He went back and unlocked it on that basis. Then he screwed up his face to think.

…There wasn’t really a reason for them to come. He hadn’t made them mad yet. It would be different once they came back and he said he really wasn’t going to make them any weapons. 

Danny locked it anyway and then set a timer for 4 in the morning. It was early for him to turn in but he grabbed the pillow off of the shelf and put it back on the sofa anyways. Hopefully he’d get to sleep like, right away.

[crowleysgirl56]

IT’S FINALLY HERE SQUIRRELS!

OMG I’ve been biting my nails for weeks on how he is going to react. Already from the thumbnail we can guess that he is not happy and has reacted the exact same way as us.

So let’s dive into my highlights of his reactions. As always, under the cut to avoid spoilers. Here we go.

- Already from Danny’s opening monologue he’s guessed exactly how most of this episode will go in terms of plot beat and story structure. But it is clear he doesn’t know about the 90 minute finale.

- Love how Danny’s immediate response to Crowley’s heaven disguise is “You’ve only made him hotter!” Funnily enough he mentions “it looks like he invented whiskey”. Funny considering David Tennant did that add for whiskey…

- Danny is everyone when he heavily sighs when Maggie accidentally invites the demons in.

- Danny finally gets his payoff about the fly being the key.

- About Beelzebub and Gabriel. He so casually says “I kinda want them to fall in love and I’ll murder anyone who disagrees with me”. Yeah, well…at least ONE angel and demon couple got to do that and go off together! I also love how within 6 minutes he is 100% invested in their relationship.

- “David Forgettit. Azirawho”. HOW DARE YOU SIR!

- Good Omens fandom: deep dives into why no one recognises The Metatron when he’s in his corporal form. Danny when the Metatron enters the books shop: Who’s this guy? Is this God? Did they recast God?! (Crowley then says the last time he saw him he was a big floating head) Oh it’s Zordon! Proving that, yep, it is THAT simply to trick everyone, no deep dives necessary.

- Danny points out Muriel is holding the Crow Road, but then doesn’t try to deep dive into why that’s important. And yeah, if you didn’t know what that book is it doesn’t really mean anything, but looking back at that scene, it is framed so deliberately that it HAS to mean something.

- And now we finally get to it. Danny’s ENTIRE journey of reacting to the final fifteen. I could devote an entire post to everything that he says and does. The clutching of his chest and chair, the pleading of David Tennant to stop being such a great actor, his joy and heartbreak and yelling of “THEY KISSING!”, the depths of despair of wanting to start up smoking, to getting really drunk even though it’s 11am, and to becoming addicted to cocaine. WE. ARE. ALL. STILL. THERE. MY FRIEND!

- It’s funny how Danny went from being such an advocate for Aziraphale this entire time to just holding his head in his hands exclaiming “what the fuck I can’t even, I can’t even, why would you do that?” right at the very end.

Danny’s whole reaction is interesting in that it’s such an immediate reaction, he doesn’t have the luxury like us who have spent the last year and a bit overanalysing everything with a fine tooth comb. Because it’s almost like, maybe that is how we should be reacting? Love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this and his reaction.

And that’s the end. Hopefully he will react to the final 90 minutes once it’s released. What a journey. Now, I really feel like I need to rewatch the entire show over again.

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - How Not To Resurrect A Half Demon Lord

@lexiepiper @Ghostfox_fuyu

Being both an adventurer AND technically a monster wasn’t exactly the best mix to avoid fights, so it’s a good thing Danny actually LIKED fighting even if he couldn’t exactly ‘go hard’ against humans to avoid, you know, KILLING THEM. Other adventurers though? Yeah they didn’t exactly enjoy fighting what they thought was a weirdly powerful dungeon spawn.

Danny runs, skidding across the ground on his claws, the scrapping sound is loud but nowhere near the volume of the explosion happening right behind him. His tail nearly gets nicked! He’s not happy, not one bit. “WOULD YOU STOP THAT!”.

The mage with a frankly obscenely large hat damn near growls at him, which hey, growling was Danny’s thing. “Silence! Foul demon!”.

For fucks sake! Like yes, he gets that he looks like a demon. He gets that. But could people please just stop assuming that he belonged to whatever dungeon he and they happened to be in? This place was a goddamn lava dungeon, he was an ice demon with a black and white theme! Use your brain! Why would a fucking ice demon be in a lava dungeon!

Which, to be fair, him going into a lava dungeon wasn’t exactly smart or using his own brain; but Sam and Tuck thought this one would get them some sick ass gear so off they went. Of course they wound up getting separated, and of course Danny wound up running into other adventurers with the same idea as his party, and of course they mistook him for a dungeon beast. That’s his classic luck right there, everybody!

Ramming one set of claws into the wall and climbing up the hot rock as fast as he can, channeling some ice to his palms to avoid burning himself, it also was making some super cool-looking mist sizzle off of the rock so that was a neat bonus.

The adventurers trying to annihilate him seem to agree, the dude in black armour muttering to another mage with super orange hair, “hey if I equip ice gauntlets you think I could do that, it looks cool as Hell”. The mage whacks him over the head, ha!

Danny snorts to himself, jumping on to a ceiling stalactite of solid hot magma, ow ow ow ow ow, stupid ice core, stupid Tuck and Sam dragging him into a lava dungeon, stupid him for jumping onto solid magma, stupid stupid stupid. Ugh. But Danny does what Danny typically does when presented with pain, quips, shouting down, “why don’t you give up if you keep misting me!”. Ha! Good one, self. Ow.

The armoured guy chuckles, “I love it when monsters have a sense of humour, makes it so much more fun”, and hurls a goddamn spear at him. Nice, Danny can do spears and show off a little.

Danny launches himself down, grabbing the spear in between his teeth, fangs making it easy to keep the spear in there, and uses the spear head stabbing into the ground below to allow him to basically land going face down before gripping the shaft with his hands and spinning himself into an upright position. Him yanking it out of the ground and spinning it dramatically, grinning meanly, “oh I love free gifts, how’d you know it was my birthday?”, it’s totally not, he’s just being an asshole.

Big hat mage scowling at armoured guy quickly, “nice going, Salient”, then glaring back at Danny. Okay so armoured guy is named Salient, weird but okay. She shoots a fire last at Danny, Danny bats it away with the spear head snickering all the while. Then the other mage hits him with a holy-blast, because of course she does, and sends him into a wall.

He absolutely dropped the spear. Damn. He wanted to add that to his collection, which sure was definitely something he wasn’t doing before the whole resurrection gone wrong crap happened and he some how wound up getting his human souls wires crossed with Hell itself. A fuck up of hellish proportions.

Him shaking off the burn and sizzle from the holy power, at least still being kinda human and alive would stop that shit from outright smiting him, just burned and hurt like a motherfucker. The biggest annoyance his holy sensitivity usually caused him was not being able to use holy based healing potions… which were the cheapest kind aka the kind his party usually used to buy. Demonic based healing potions were the shit for him though, especially since he never had to worry about them debuffing or cursing him.

Orange hair mage huffs, “damn it, that didn’t do it”, scowling, “this place has some seriously strong demons, we might have use a hearth stone if it keeps up like this”.

Danny sticks his hands out to the side, tail twitching, “or maybe! Think a little and realise I’m not from this freaking dungeon!”.

“As if we’d believe a snake tongued demon!”.

Okay that’s just rude! It took him a very long time to learn how to talk with a forked tongue and he had to put up with a lot of mocking from Tuck! He sticks his tongue out at the group before having to climb up a wall again to avoid some thunder bolts from big hat mage and an arch of fire from Salient’s sword. At least he’d learned not to throw solid objects that Danny could grab, progress; progress for them and not him specifically. A very unfortunate specific.

Danny sending out a bit of icy flames that glowed black with his demonic energy to destroy another flame arch from Salient while moving sideways across the wall, he hates this dungeon it’s too fucking hot, goddamn. Zipping up to the ceiling and smacking his claws and palms on it, sending out a powerful wave of pure cold to force the ceiling to start snowing, which of course turns into very hot burning rain by the time it gets down to ground level. The party starts screaming and ducking for cover, that was surprisingly more effective than he expected and he absolutely had not intended to basically rain down boiling demonic water on them. Oops. He figured the snow would melt but not to the point of becoming boiling hot! How much energy was his core expending just to keep him fucking cool in this goddamn hellscape?!?

Danny skittering his way across the ceiling and in-between a gap between a stalactite and the dungeon ceiling, shouting a quick, “not trying to boil ya! Sorry!”. As he goes. Maybe they’ll be too busy hiding to realise where he’s tucked himself away. That would be nice, real nice.

“What kind of demon says sorry!”.

Don’t quip back, don’t quip back, don’t quip back. He’s trying to hide and quiping will fuck that up… “MY SORRY DEMONIC ASS!”, ah goddamn it, why does he do this to himself? Unsurprisingly the stalactite his hiding above gets fucking shot at by a holy bullet. That’s… that’s not great. Those sucked to get hit by and he’d one hundred percent need to be resurrected again if that shit hits his core enough times. But hey! Maybe that would un-demon him! Stupid plan, but hey! At least it is a plan! Plus that did not work when he accidentally fell into a pit of pure holy water. That had been the worst.

The stalactite gets shot at again, this time piercing through it and skimming his shoulder; him making his lip bleed by biting down to avoid yelping. Still hissing out a, “bloody hell”, though, because he could never just shut the fuck up could he? Also, he is officially panting, because it is too fucking hot here and his breath is making a bunch of mist aka giving away his spot more than his stupid quip did. Fuck him entirely.

He’s got three options:

One: start killing adventures like a proper full demon.

Two: overheat and pass out, possibly falling into hard ground or a pool of lava only to be descended upon by adventurers who would definitely hit unconscious him with a holy attack.

Three: leave his hiding spot and start looking for cooler areas while avoiding getting hit or doing any major hitting.

Four: use a hearth stone to teleport out of the dungeon, seems like the obvious choice right? Except when Danny’s half demon ass did that he wound up in Hell every time and Sam and Tuck would have to go through the hassle of getting him back out of there. That crap always resulted in them having to track down yet another ice dungeon and use forbidden demon summoning magic. Meanwhile he’d go throwing hands with demons for however long it took his friends to get him. Not ideal.

Then it turns out that there’s actually a fifth option, a wall blowing up and sending his bullet hole riddled stalactite crashing down towards the ground and exploding in hot semi solid magma. OW! Danny sputtering and shaking himself off aggressively, “oh fuck! Bloody hell! Me damn fuck it! Stupid fucking lava dungeon! Stupid fucking adventurers! Where’s my teammates when I me damn need them!”.

“Shit since when do goddamn demons team up! We need to hurry this up!”.

Then there’s a very loud thump, Danny squinting his fucking burning eyes up at the noise, fuck yeah! It’s Tuck! Nice! The guy’s landed directly on top of the orange haired mage, pointing his fricken lightning cross bow right in her face. The Salient guy getting hurled into a wall by vines seconds later, and a few more seconds and said vines are on fire and brunt to a crisp.

The big hat mage jumping back from the newbies assaulting her group, “great, how many different kinds of demonic vermin does this dungeon have!”, her creating an explosion with electricity to make something of a smoke screen for her to grab Salient out of the hole in the wall the guy made.

But! BUT! That puts their backs to Danny, and Danny might object to killing people but he did not object to bruising them up some. Meaning he launches himself at them, grabbing the back of both of their necks, and slams them into the ground; using his tail to tie their ankles all together. He also grabs the hat mages hat with his teeth and eats the fucking thing as a probably insane looking show of superiority.

Tuck, not looking at Danny and still staring violently down at orange hair mage, “you good, Danny-man?”.

Danny growling, “I’m annoyed, burnt, and vaguely considered making y'all haul me outta hell again for dragging me to this shit ass place”.

Sam walking calmly through the destroyed wall and into where they all are, “honestly I hate this place too. My plant magic is completely useless and I wrecked my helm”.

Danny snorting, “ha! Serves you right!”, he gets elbowed in the chin by Salient for being distracted. But well, an elbow, even armoured, isn’t gonna do much to Danny, so he just growls down at the man while said elbow is being pressed up into his chin.

Tuck snorts at the scene, “I’d stop that, Danny’s an obsidian rank combat warrior”. The mage beneath him scowling, “that is a demon spawn or are you fucking blind?”.

Danny takes offence to that, demon wise he was on par with a demon lord! Not a freaking basic hell spawn! “Excuse you!”. But Tuck laughs at Danny’s expense, “that’s what you get for never fighting back, moron”. Danny sticks his tongue out at the guy.

Sam shaking her head as she walks over to Danny, “seriously, if they attacked you first who cares if you hurt them”, grabbing the unconscious ex-hat mage out from Danny’s grasp, shit he hadn’t actually realized he’d knocked her out. Whoops. Sam pointing a finger at Salient, whose elbow is still pressed into Danny’s chin, “you wouldn’t be holding your own for shit if Danny took you seriously”.

“Pfft, I could take him”.

The orange hair mage snapping, “are you serious right now?! You are literally being pinned down you idiot!”.

Danny nodding, “glad we’re on the same page on that”; rolling his shoulders as he can feel some of the burning healing itself, he’d be healing a hell of a lot faster if he wasn’t in this damn hot lava dungeon though.

Tuck rolling his eyes before staring down at the orange hair mage, “look. Danny’s an adventure, he literally has a license on him right now. The only reason he’s in this dungeon is ‘cause we heard there was some bomb ass equipment in here, same as you guys probably”.

Sam laughing a bit meanly as she gives the ex-gay mage a healing potion since Danny probably gave her a concussion, “Danny’s not a ‘hell spawn’ he’s a fucked up resurrection spell gone wrong”.

Salient snorting, “prove it! And how the Hell did that happen?”. Danny snickers, “hell happened”; Tuck moving his crossbow out of orange hair mages face specifically to shoot Danny with it.

“Ow! You jerk!”.

Unfortunately orange hair takes that opportunity to blast Tuck nearly point blank in the stomach with a holy blast, sending him smashing up into the ceiling. Oh Hell fucking no, attacking Danny was one thing, he was a demon-looking mother fucker and could take hits like a champ; attacking his friends was a whole ass nother matter. At least Sam catches Tuck with some vines as he starts falling down from the ceiling and Tuck wasn’t knocked out by the attack.

Still though. Danny is none too impressed. And he refuses to tolerate a repeat of that, so just as the orange haired friend hurting asshat gets herself up off of the ground Danny lets himself loose more than a little bit. Limbs extending, spines pulling up out of his upper back and shoulders, second set of kudu horns extending out, ribs cracking and expanding through and over his torso skin to settle into a bigger form, that stupid gharial crocodile skull boiling and forming out of and off of his head; him all but shoving orange hair back into the ground and pinning her there with a single hand. Slamming the other hand down near her face, using a foot to keep the Salient guy pinned. Danny snarling, snout opening right over the mages face, “shoot at me all you want but you don’t get to hurt what’s mine”.

Tuck’s shaking off all that holy power, grumbling about stupid trigger happy adventurers as if he wasn’t one himself and stomps over to fucking shoot orange hair in the face with some sand; her unable to do anything about it because of Danny.

Salient muttering, “holy fucking shit, goddamn”. While Sam stops over to him, Sam smacking Danny’s ankle, “give over your license, you demonic horror”. Danny huffing out an icy breath in orange hairs face, moving his tail to use the many little quill hair spines on it to grab out his license from his torso inside his ribs, slipping it into her hands, “thank you”, she shoves the license in the probable warriors face, “see? Adventurer. You really think Clementine would approve him without goddamn checking him and his bullshit out?”.

He grunts from under Danny’s foot, “fair ‘nough. You tryin’ to crush me here?”.

Danny huffing another icy breath, “maybe”. Sam smacks his ankle again so Danny, with a shrug, lifts up his foot and lets the guy up. Danny thinks some mild crushing is totally deserved in this case, even if that was maybe influenced by these guys hurting his friends and making him feel all possessive and shit. Demon crap could be so annoying; being in this hot ass place only making it more annoying.

Salient rolls over and sits up, rolling his shoulders, “ow yeah, definitely not a spawn, damn”, eyeing himself over, “aw man, you cracked my shoulder pad. License doesn’t look fake though so”, looking up at Danny, “bad ass ability though”.

Danny tilts his skull head at the guy before looking back down to orange hair, “you gonna keep trying to annihilate me?”.

“You’re a demon”.

“And?”, lifting the hand that isn’t pinning her and waving it around dismissively, “it’s only a by half thing anyway”.

Tuck chuckling down at her, “need I point out that Danny could absolutely just crush you right now? Yeah, okay, so he’s sorta a demon, and sorta dead and not dead, but he’s not confined to a dungeon or Hell and he’s an adventurer. adventurers run into weird shit all the time, it’s not his fault he is the weird shit”. The girl glares but sighs, clearly giving up, so Danny basically forces himself to compact, puffing icy steam everywhere. Tuck grinning, “so dramatic”.

Danny pointing a normal standard human length clawed finger in the guys face, “hey, if there’s one thing I do well, besides confusing people and myself, it is dramatics”; if he was gonna be stuck as some weird dead but not dead, from the afterlife Hell but not from Hell, then he can be an overdramatic asshole about it.

Orange hair gets up immediately and moves over to the still unconscious ex-hat mage, muttering, “good, they didn’t poison her or anything. Damn demon worshipers”. Oh for fucks sake, was it really that hard to understand that he was a good guy and just a weird but typical adventurer? Ugh. Plus! He’s definitely a higher rank than her, so rude.

Salient standing up and shaking himself off, shouting at his teammate, “Lily good?”; nice, Danny’s got another name.

Orange hair sighs, “yeah. They didn’t do anything to her besides knock her out”. Oh everyone’s a critic.

Danny rolling his eyes and huffing, “you say that like you guys weren’t trying to fucking destroy me. Again, you gonna keep doing that shit? ‘Cause I’m positive all three of us outrank you guys, we just don’t exactly want to start having to fucking kill people just because people keep thinking I’m a me damned dungeon monster”.

Sam shaking her head and moving to be over by Tuck and Danny, “at least they didn’t think you were the dungeon boss this time”.

“Oh Hell that had been such a pain”.

Salient chuckles and looks at him, “you make a lot of ‘Hell’ comments and shit”.

Danny shrugging with a smirk, “hey if I’ve gotta be slightly, vaguely, hell bound then I might as well take the piss outta it”.

Orange hair glaring at Salient, “seriously? You’re making friendly with it now?”.

Danny pouts, “hey, rude much”. While Sam and Tuck laugh at him meanly.

Salient shoves her, “chill, aren’t adventurers supposed to at least try to get along. At least he’s not another psycho paladin who's just using his god as an excuse to commit way too much murder”.

Danny’s entire little party nodding, “yeah fuck paladins”. Earning them a scowl from orange hair, “we all know why you demon-lovers wouldn’t like paladins”.

Then Lily groans a little, sitting up and holding her head, “well at least I’m alive”.

Danny snorting, “yeah I have a thing against committing murder”.

“That is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard a demon say”.

Danny pouts at her. He gets that demons have a terrible rap, an earned terrible rap, but cut a guy some slack will ya? It would be so nice if he could shapeshift to look fully human, he bets that in some other universe he definitely could and he is jealous of that version of him. Stupid fucker probably got all the super sneaky useful abilities. Like being able to turn invisible or something, that would have been so useful today. Ugh.

Lily looking to her party members, “so care to explain what’s going on here?”.

“Demon dude is a legit adventurer, licensed and everything”.

Orange hair just grumbles incomprehensibly.

Sam crossing her arms at the three, “I’m Sam, platinum rank herbalist and green mage. The one with the crossbow is Tucker, silver rank earth mage and gear smith. And the half demon, that you are to stop attacking, is Danny, obsidian rank combat warrior as already mentioned; he’s also a weapons smith and death magic apprentice. Yes he’s a resurrection spell gone wrong, he did it to himself somehow, but people screw up spells all the time so whatever”.

Danny shrugging, “I mean, typically they don’t screw up so impressively they fuck up half their genetic species but yeah”; Sam swats him one, expertly avoiding the horns.

Salient snorts, “you’re a death magic apprentice and you made your self half dead? WOW you suck”.

“Hey!”, Danny puts a hand to his chest, “technically it’s useful, this way I can actually go to one of the death planes now without slowly dying”.

Lily shakes her head disbelievingly, “ridiculous and inane”, gesturing at herself, “Lily, steel rank lightning high mage”, gesturing at Salient, “Salient, silver rank knight”, gesturing at orange hair, “Gemine, iron rank white mage and apprentice priestess”. Tilting her head, “why is an obsidian with a platinum and a silver? He’s three and four ranks above you two respectively?”.

Danny waves her off immediately, “eh, I was gold before the demon shit fucked my shit up. And I am the leader so it’s not that odd”. Sam nodding, “if anything it’s weirder that an iron is travelling with a silver”.

Gemine scowling, muttering to herself, “of course the demon is the leader, disgusting”. Lily cuffs her over the head, making the girl pout. Lily nodding, “demons are more powerful than the living so I suppose that is logical, and a lower rank priestess will best any higher rank warrior”, glancing around, “where’s my hat?”.

Sam and Tuck stare at Danny judgingly, him rubbing his neck, “I ate it?”; it was a heat of the moment thing okay! He makes really dumb decision when he’s put on the spot!

Salient nodding with a smirk, “yeah, it was pretty weird”.

Danny pouting, “I’m not paying you back for it”, twitching, “and can we get the fuck out of this hot ass place already?”, looking at Sam and Tuck, “if you found nothing good I’m gonna be so annoyed”. Sam rolling her eyes and digging in her bag, pulling out a little unassigned demon core. Yum! Him brightening up immediately, “oh nice! This was so worth getting shot by holy bullets!”.

“Danny!”.

“Dude what!”.

Danny grabbing the core and biting into it, much to the disgust of his unwitting onlookers, “eh it was just a shoulder nick and I am literally covered in lava and holy light burns so that’s kinda not what I’m focused on”. Basically dumping the demonic energy down his gullet with a happy purr.

Salient pulling a face, “wow that is disgusting, awesome”. Lily sighs tiredly before gesturing at Danny’s party, “so are we good to just go our separate ways?”. Danny’s down for that, his burns were healing much better now even if he was still hot as hell.

Sam crossing her arms, “depends on if you’re going to keep harassing Danny”; Danny’s just content to lick his chops in demonic satisfaction. Gemine pouting, “I won’t be able to vanquish him so fine, I won’t”.

Danny giving her a thumbs up, “that’s the spirit, now let’s get the hell outta this furnace before my core decides I deserve to over heat”. Sam and Tuck roll their eyes at him and laugh, Tuck patting his shoulder as they all turn to wander off to the exit. The other party of adventurers awkwardly heading deeper into the dungeon.

Danny stretching a little, going all demon always made him feel like his bones were all fucked up and needed a stretching, “so find anything else?”.

“Lightning bolt in a bottle”.

“Bone dagger. Lots of bone daggers”.

“Oh and a whole ass dragon hide, it’s in the dimensional pocket”.

“We did put all the random gem stones in there too right”.

“Uh…”.

“Damn it, Tucker”.

Danny laughs to himself, shaking his head. This day was some bullshit but at least they didn’t leave empty handed, and wasn’t finding treasure and getting to throw fist-a-cuffs the whole point of being an adventurer? Even if he’d rather be beating up dungeon monsters than constantly having to duke it out with other adventurers.

---

Of course they don’t even make it a full day before running into the very same party. At least this time they’re at the adventurers guild so there’s no way he’s gonna get attacked again.

Gemine blinking at Danny, “so you actually can leave the dungeon”.

Danny rolling his eyes, “yeah it’s almost like I was telling the truth or something”. Hell, he seldom lied about shit, people just thought it was all too ridiculous to be true.

Lily looks to the desk lady, quirking an eyebrow then gesturing at the demon in the room. Juhe blinking and smiling, understanding quickly, “yes the demon is welcome here, yes he’s an adventurer, no you’re not allowed to vanquish him, and no he’s not mind controlling anyone”.

Salient chuckles, putting a hand on his hip, “wow it sounds like this happens a lot”. Tuck shaking his head, “you have no idea”; before Sam goes up to make their report to the guild master. Technically Danny’s supposed to do that, being the leader and all, but head office had a barrier around it and they refused to take it down just for Danny’s sorry ass, meaning compromises were made.

Danny nodding at the guy, “anytime we go into a dungeon and run into a party that hasn’t met me before, it turns into a fight”, rubbing his neck, “which has earned me the title of adventurers bane since I keep basically having to beat down adventurers until they give up”.

Juhe nodding, “and he helps out the enforcers sometimes, since he can be quite the intimidating presence”.

“Boo, having a demonic aura isn’t my fault, and if just a simple demonic aura is enough to scare someone they probably shouldn’t be an adventurer”.

“You forget most adventurers do gathering quests and less dangerous dungeons”.

“Pah!”.

“You also forget that your demonic aura is that of a demon lord not a simple spawn or lesser demon”.

Danny’s only response to that is a pout.

Lily had been about to go up and make her own report, one foot stopping in midair, “that one is… a demon lord?”, and looks very concerned at Danny. While Salient grins to himself, “sweet, I got to fight a demon lord. Man that’s cool”.

Danny blinks, shrugging, “I was a wee bit miffed about suddenly being very literally in hell one time, not the time I fucked my resurrection up, and went demon killing happy. Two might have been demon lords and one was definitely a death god”.

All three look at him in shock, horror, or looking just plan impressed in Salient’s case. Lily shaking her head, “alright, you very well could have annihilated us”.

Johe glancing at some paperwork, “you three are silver, steel, and iron? Yes, you would not have stood a chance if taken seriously by him. He’s officially listed as obsidian, but he’s closer to iridium, which still stands as our highest class”.

Danny blushing, “aw shucks”.

“Don’t you ‘aw shucks’ me, if you’re that flattered then stop leaving your tail quills in the lobby wall”.

“Hey! It has a mind of its own”.

“It’s still attached to you, ain’t it?”.

Danny pouts at her, tail twitching near the ground, he’s half tempted to stab the wall with it just to be petty. He did petty very very well after all.

Lily shakes herself before finally going up to give her report; Danny absolutely hearing Sam whisper a threat at her, “Danny’s a lot nicer than the rest of us, don’t pull that shit with him again or else I won’t hesitate using a mind vine to make you break your party members”, as they pass in the stairway. He makes a point to roll his eyes disappointedly at her when she makes it down fully.

His friends were great but so over protective and possessive of him, it was nice but also a pain. She rolls her eyes right back at him as the three of them head out, waving bye to Salient and Gamine as more of a form of pleasantries than genuine fond fair-wells or whatever. They ain’t friends and weren’t gonna suddenly become them, something Danny was frankly fully uninterested in. He had his Sam and Tuck and was definitely not interested in sharing them.

End.

Prompts: Fantasy/rpg setting. Danny died, but the resurrection spell went wrong, and now he’s trapped as something not quite dead but not fully alive either. Not that he’d ever let that stop him from becoming an adventurer, even if he does get mistaken as a resident dungeon monster by other adventuring parties every now and then… Demon!au

[girl-named-matty]

20 questions for fic writers

thank you for the tag @rypnami <33

How many works do you have on AO3? Seven currently! Idk how many more there will be but for now it's seven!

What's your total AO3 word count? 627,138!

What fandoms do you write for? Hogwarts Legacy but I'm more currently writing for a different fandom.

Top five fics by kudos? Passion || Sebastian Sallow is my most popular fic!

Do you respond to comments? Yes. I sometimes forget I have ao3 ngl but 99% of the time I respond to comments on wattpad if I can remember.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Usually I try to give happy endings to stories because I'm that kind of person. So towards the end I'll have something angsty but the very end will usually end on a better note. But In The Shadow of Her has a decently angsty towards the end because it follows along with the game and In The Shadow of Magic has is angstier towards the end for several reasons lol.

What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Honestly--outside of my full fics, my one shot "Moving in" probably has the happiest ending.

Do you get hate on fics? Perhaps??? I'm not really sure. I've gotten a few off-handed comments that make me go "???" and any hate comments have been very rare.

Do you write smut? Lol nope and I never will. I'm okay with writing stories without it.

Craziest crossover? Ummm I can't really remember ever writing a crossover but me and my bsf would joke about Sebastian and Ominis going to a Jackson Wang party so?? Does that count? 😂

Have you ever had a fic stolen? YES ACTUALLY LOL. It was ages ago and I was literally like 12 y'all HAHA. The fic wasn't even GOOD but it was on Wattpad and got reposted on NovelHD. It was crazy for me to find out ngl. I didn't really care, especially cuz the fic was garbage (in my opinion now) but yeah LOL.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I can recall.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes. Many times. Me and my old fandom buddies from a long time ago would do it.

All time favorite ship? AAAAAAA. I hate this question because I can never decide lol. I don't really have a favorite ship but I do have some I like. I'm not going to say any outside of the HL fandom but I will name a few from my friends. @rypnami's Jamie and Jack have had my heart for so long <3 @morelikeravenbore's Aurelie and Sebastian. Ugh I just love them sm <3 @catohphm's Danny x Adelaide is SUPER cute and I love it sm <3 @keri-mcberry Keri x Sebastian OHHH MY GOSH. Keri is literally my favorite artist and everything from her is just so cute and adorable and omg I love it. <3 @boxdstars Amara x Natty. Super adorable, super funny. Props out to Natty for dealing with Amara. Love them sm <33

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? My old fanfics from old fandoms that have just been sitting on my computer for four years LOL.

What are your writing strengths? Fluff, usually. I'm good at Angst too. Romance eehhh kinda?? I've never been in a relationship so I don't really know how it works but I've written several relationships that I think were good.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I used to do this a lot actually. But I doubt 100% of it was correct. Now that I'm older, I definitely hesitate more with it. But I think it's super cool and I planned on doing it for my fics but my MC's first language is Irish (Gaeilge, Irish Gaelic whatever you wanna call it lol) and in the 1800's it was even harder than it is today SOOOO in order to avoid mess ups, I just used one-word expressions most of the time.

First fandom you wrote in? Oh gosh, I can't even remember. Maybe it was Merlin??? Spirit Animals?? I don't even remember cuz it was so long ago.

Favorite fic you've written? My favorite fic is probably not even and HL one LOL. But to keep it HL, all of my books have a special place in my heart and I really can't choose. Some of them have strengths over others and that much is clear but idk if I'd ever be able to choose.

No twentieth question - I LOVE YOU GUYS AND THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO ME YAP LOL <3

tagging: @plxnetn1ne, @endeavour12345, @superconductivebean and anyone else who wants to join in and talk abt their writing! <3

[emberdew]

Be More Ghost Chapter 9: Sync Up

Summary:

A Be More Chill AU where Danny gets a Super Quantum Intel Unit Processor (or Squip) to help him become cool and win over Valerie, but things don't really go as planned.

Masterpost | AO3 Link | Word Count: 2,126

Still not gonna be the cool guy, but maybe not so left out. Of all the characters at school I might be the one who the story’s about now that someone’s helping me out.

Danny jolted awake the next morning, eyes flashing green before settling back to blue as he looked around his empty bedroom. Despite all the strange things Danny had experienced in his half-life so far, it was still hard to believe all the stuff from yesterday had actually happened.

“Hello?” Danny tapped the side of his head. Where was the Squip? “Are you on? Helloooo?”

“Danny?” Jack called through Danny’s shut bedroom door. “Who are you talking to? Is there a ghost???”

“No ghost, Dad!” Danny quickly reassured. He didn’t want his dad breaking down his bedroom door. Again. “Just talking to myself, I guess.”

Danny got up and felt a shiver as his ghost sense went off. 

“Ugh, really?” Danny raised his fists into his transformation stance. “I’m going gho-”

He was interrupted by a sharp poke in his back. “Ow!”

What are you doing? Squip-Phantom said with a disapproving tone from behind him. Danny turned around to face the Squip and saw it had its arms crossed.

“Uh, going to stop whatever ghost is around?” Danny pointed his thumb toward the window. He didn’t see any ghost there, but he felt with his lingering ghost sense like a chill at the back of his throat that it was still nearby. “It’s kinda my responsibility and stuff.” 

Aren’t your parents ghost hunters? Or what about that huntress girl you’re so infatuated with? Why not let them handle it?

Danny glanced out the window again. Sure, it felt like this ghost wasn’t that strong so probably some other hunter could handle it, but he always felt better if he checked himself.

He shook his head. “I have to go.”

You can’t lie to me Danny, I’m inside your brain. You don’t have to go, you just want to. Go get dressed instead. The Squip gestured to the shopping bag Danny had ended up dropping next to his bed last night. 

Danny’s door opened and Jack poked his head in. Predictably, he was wearing an orange jumpsuit. 

“Almost ready, son? I’ve got prototype number three of the Fenton Freezer done! If you have time before ya leave for school I can give you a demonstration!”

Danny just nodded, and Jack closed the door again.

That’s the source of your genetic material? Squip-Phantom looked unimpressed.

“Yeah, that’s my dad,” Danny pulled on his Chip Skylark shirt, a green plaid button-up, and some dark-colored jeans from the back of his closet. 

Hmm. Squip-Phantom took in his outfit, then grabbed a baseball cap and put it on Danny’s head. It nodded its approval and Danny left his room. 

On his way to the bathroom, Jazz stopped him after she took a look at his outfit. “What’s with this? Did you split yourself again?”

It was a fair question since he was wearing the same button-up and cap that “Fun Danny” had worn when he used the Fenton Ghost Catcher to split his human and ghost halves several months ago. Danny definitely did not want his sister psychoanalyzing his choice to follow the directions of a computer he had put in his brain, so he couldn’t tell her the truth.

“Nope, just uh, trying a new look.” Danny shrugged and walked past her into the bathroom and shut the door so he wouldn’t have to explain further. Hopefully he could avoid Jazz cornering him about it later, but knowing how nosey his sister could be, he was just postponing the inevitable.

After finishing his morning routine, Danny snuck past the kitchen to avoid any more conversations with his sister or his dad and walked out the front door. Around the corner from his house, he saw Valerie in her ghost hunting gear sucking up an ectopus with her red thermos. So apparently the Squip had been right about someone else being able to handle the ghost attack earlier.

Of course I was right Danny. You really have to trust me, Squip-Phantom said, which startled Danny. He hadn’t noticed when the Squip had started floating by his side. 

“Yeah, I get it,” Danny conceded. Squip-Phantom hadn’t steered him wrong yet, so he really should be following its directions. 

Danny walked into an empty alleyway and went ghost. As Phantom flew towards the school, he was wary that the Red Huntress was still close enough that he would trigger her sensors, but it turned out she had already flown far enough away on her hoverboard that he was safe. 

“Well, I might not be the cool guy,” Phantom mused, “but maybe now I won’t be so left out.”

With the Squip there to help him, maybe school wouldn’t be so bad today. When he saw Tucker he could tell him all about it. And they could text Sam while she was on vacation to tell her she was wrong and that getting a Squip was a great idea, actually.

Phantom landed in an empty spot near the school and detransformed. As Danny walked into the building, Squip-Phantom floated by his side and started to explain how having a Squip works.

I’m a learning computer, Danny. With every interaction, I evolve, Squip-Phantom waved its hand at the students in the hallway, simply walk and observe. 

Danny looked around the hall and saw the A-Listers were chatting by their lockers. 

“What’s up bro, nice kicks!” Kwan said as he fist-bumped Dash as a greeting. Both jocks were wearing their usual red letterman jackets. Dash’s new tennis shoes did look pretty nice. 

“Shut up dude!” Dash blushed slightly, which surprised Danny. “Are we gonna hang after school today?”

“Ask me later, yeah?” Kwan said while looking at his phone. Dash got out his phone too.

“We’ll sync up!” Dash and Kwan both agreed.

This one participates in sports and clubs to avoid the feeling that deep down he’ll never be good enough, Squip-Phantom said, pointing to Dash. 

“But Dash is popular!” Danny was confused. Dash couldn’t be insecure, right? But if the Squip said it was true then maybe it was, despite how unbelievable it seemed.

Those facts are not mutually exclusive. The Squip directed Danny to listen in on another conversation, this time between Paulina and Star. 

“I’m shook, I’m blah, I’m just-” Paulina started.

“There, there,” Star patted Paulina’s shoulder.

“Star!” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s not fair!” Paulina clenched her fists. Danny wondered what was going on that was making Paulina so distressed.

“Yeah!” Star agreed.

“I know.” Paulina nodded and both girls started tapping on their phones in sync.

That one is obsessed with status because she’s afraid of losing it, Squip-Phantom said as it pointed to Paulina. 

“Paulina isn’t scared of anything!” Again, Danny found the Squip’s assessment of the A-Lister hard to believe. But Paulina did look kind of stressed right now.

Everyone is scared of something, Danny, Squip-Phantom said. The most dangerous people are the ones who pretend they’re not. 

Danny considered this as he watched Ashley walk up to the two A-Listers. 

“Paulina!” Ashley waved to get her attention. Paulina reluctantly looked up from her phone. “Guess who I saw at the mall last night?” Ashley paused for a second for emphasis, “with Dash!” 

That immediately caught Paulina’s attention. She took a step closer to Ashley.

“I want details.” 

Ashley uses gossip to get attention from her peers but as soon she shares it, they ignore her. Squip-Phantom gestured as Ashley talked to Paulina for a bit before Paulina went back to looking at her phone. 

“That’s sad.” Danny watched as Ashley walked away dejectedly. Danny didn’t know Ashley that well, but he felt kind of bad for her. “What should I do?”

You should ignore her.

“Yo! Freak!” Kwan slapped Danny’s back, which made him jump. “Where’s my money?”

Up up, down down, left right, A.

Danny barely had time to register that Squip-Phantom had said a cheat code out loud before he felt a jolt in his head that made him wince.

“Ahh!” Danny and Kwan both cried out at the sudden headache. Kwan recovered first and his eyes lit up with realization.

“You got one?” 

“Yes!” Danny said. Then he remembered that he was supposed to have paid Kwan for the Squip. “Sorry I didn’t go through you.”

“Danny, this is awesome!” Kwan gently punched Danny’s shoulder in excitement. Then it seemed like his excitement faded as he thought about it some more. “I mean, yeah, I could use the money.” Kwan kicked the ground awkwardly. “‘Cause things are kinda… rough at home. If you know what I’m sayin’.”

Danny had no clue what Kwan was talking about. But then Squip-Phantom waved its hand to get Danny’s attention and mimed drinking something and it sort of made sense.

“Yeah, uh, my dad,” Danny tried not to cringe at the lie, “...drinks too.”

It seemed like Kwan bought it since he immediately perked up.

“Yo, frickin’ Dads, right?” Kwan shook his head slightly as he frowned. “He usually passes out by nine!” Kwan’s mood seemed to shift again and he smiled at Danny. “You should come over and play Xbox!”

Kwan tapped the side of his head as he started walking away. “You know, with a Squip the only controller you need is your mind!” He waved and Danny waved back.

Danny wondered if controlling a video game with his Squip would feel different from using his ghost powers to go inside a video game like he had with Doomed in the past. Maybe he could try it with Kwan later. Wait, since when was he such good friends with Kwan?

Danny looked around, and it seemed like everyone in the hallway had also noticed the strange interaction.

“Kwan and Danny are chill now?” Ashley said as she typed away at her phone, already spreading the gossip around the school.

“Looks like Fenton’s killin’,” Dash said with a surprised look on his face.

“What’s the deal with that?” Mr. Lancer muttered to himself as he walked into his classroom.

“What was that about?” Danny looked back at Squip-Phantom, just as confused as everyone else.

I synced with his Squip. Now his desires are compatible with your own, Squip-Phantom explained. 

“So that makes him act like we’re friends?” 

What is friendship but a bond between two people? Squip-Phantom shrugged. Now you and Kwan have a bond, it’s just digital.

Danny nodded. That did make some sense. As he rounded the corner on his way to his first class, Danny thought he saw Tucker’s signature red beret in the crowd.

“Oh, Tucker-” Danny cut himself off as he realized Tucker actually wasn’t there. Weird.

“Hola, Danny!” Star tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. Danny’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Oh, Star!” 

“I’m digging this new look,” Star said, gesturing to his outfit. “Hella retro and muy coolio,” she paused for a second, “that was Spanish. Paulina’s trying to teach me!”

“Sí,” Danny replied in Spanish.

“See what?” Star said, not understanding. Danny just laughed it off.

“Uh, how was Phantom Phroyo?”

“Scary! Apparently, the ecto-lime flavor has real ectoplasm in it! That’s like, not edible for humans so I don’t know who thought it was a good idea for phroyo.”

Danny made a mental note to check that out later. His parents had always made ecto-contaminated food but he had actually started enjoying it after he became half-ghost, so ecto-lime phroyo with real ectoplasm sounded good to him. Before he could respond, Paulina came up to them and started pulling Star away.

“Star! Vámonos!”

“Sorry, bye!” Star waved as she and Paulina walked further down the hall.

“Let’s sync up!” Danny said as he waved back. Star nodded and Danny turned back to Squip-Phantom, who was still by his side.

You see, Danny? Life is not unlike a video game, Squip-Phantom waved its hand in the air as it explained, and in a video game success requires just two things: good hand-eye coordination… And a cheat code!

The rest of the school day passed without anything notable happening. Danny did have to deal with a ghost attack- a giant ghost penguin- that took up the whole lunch period, but he was able to snack between classes afterward.

“All in all, a not-too-heinous day,” Danny muttered as he walked to the classroom where the ghost hunting club met. 

He was actually feeling pretty good for once and he was excited to see Valerie again. With his Squip, he was sure to win Valerie over and they would start dating again! So yeah, today was going pretty well and Danny was hoping it would just get better.

[duchi-nesten]

What’s This! The Consequences of My Actions!

Summary:

It was about damn time Danny did something irreversibly stupid and started dealing with the consequences.

Word Count: 2779 || AO3 Link

[First Part]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH this fic ate my son. Anyway, this is a filler meant to connect Treats and Threats to a longer fic that I’ll hopefully start on soon, because of course this AU is now getting fanfic’ed >:3c

[Shared Cujostody AU Masterpost]

—-

Danny carefully looked out around the corner. The school hallway was as always full of other students making their way to the next period, but he was looking for one person in particular.

Sighing in relief when he confirmed Valerie was nowhere to be seen, he relaxed a bit and started walking towards his locker. Making sure to keep an eye out for her pretty dark curls just in case.

It was honestly a miracle he managed to avoid her for so long. He was sure she would hunt him down like an animal (or more like his ghost half) before the first period even started, but he hadn’t even seen her all day.

Was she even at school? A sudden guilt filled him. What if him knowing she’s the Red Huntress had stressed her out so much she was now laying in bed terrified that he told everyone at school?

Of course he would never. He knew exactly what it’s like to have a secret identity, but she didn’t know that.

(He also tried to ignore how the idea of her not trusting him kinda hurt. He had no right to feel that way, he was literally lying to her every time they spoke lately.)

He was focused on pulling out the right books for his third period when someone approached him from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. Yelping, he immediately spun around to be greeted with a sight of a laughing Tucker.

‘’I hate you.’’ Danny spat annoyed, turning back to his books.

‘’Is he still afraid of Valerie finding him?’’ he heard Sam ask as she approached the two of them.

‘’I’m not afraid.’’ he said at the same time as Tucker confirmed with a ‘’Yep.’’

‘’Honestly Danny, you did this to yourself.’’ Sam continued. He gave up with the books so he could look at her, but the moment he did, he saw a disapproving expression on her face. ‘’How many times did we tell you to be careful? You slipped up so many times already, it was about damn time you did something irreversibly stupid.’’

‘’Might as well fess up everything, you know.’’ Tucker butted in.

‘’What? No.’’ Danny glanced at him in disdain. ‘’Are you kidding? She would kill me.’’

‘’Isn’t she gonna do that the next time she sees you anyway? Either of you?’’

‘’No. I’ll charm my way out of it.’’

Sam made an unimpressed noise, while looking behind his back. ‘’Better start working that charm then, ‘cuz here she comes.’’ she pointed out.

Danny turned around in horror and yep. There she was. She just walked out of Lancer’s class and spotted him. He didn’t manage to even think of disappearing into thin air. Valerie’s eyes widened for a second before turning into an angry glare. She started making her way over to him.

He was in trouble alright.

‘’Good luck man. It was nice knowing you!’’ he heard Tucker say as he and Sam ditched him. Some friends they were.

Well he just had to act casual. Like nothing was wrong! Yeah! That sounded like a great plan!

When she was close enough he gave her an awkward wave. ‘’Uh…Hi Val! What’s up? Did you do that trig homework Lancer assigned us? It was horrible-’’

‘’We need to talk.’’ she interrupted and without stopping started dragging him somewhere by the collar of his shirt.

She didn’t even bother to make sure that no one sees them when she promptly shoved him into the janitor closet and locked the door behind them. The gossip girls were gonna have a field day today.

Thanks to his in-human sight he could clearly see her struggle to find the light switch. He kinda hoped she wouldn’t, just to prolong the inevitable butt kicking he was about to get, but she eventually turned on the weak light bulb hanging over their heads. Now he could see her green gaze peering into his more clearly.

His heart was beating out of his chest for more than one reason.

‘’Did he tell you?!’’ she whispered angrily.

That was not what he expected to hear.

‘’Did who tell me what?’’

‘’Did Phantom tell you?’’ she asked again, slower, more uncertain. She backed away a bit, her back leaning against the closed door. ‘’…Who I am…?’’

Of course she’d blame his alter ego first. He shouldn’t even be surprised at this point, but the question still caught him off guard.

‘’Who you are…? You’re Valerie Gray? We’re friends…? I don’t need a ghost to tell me that.’’ Yes. Play dumb, Fenton. Maybe she’ll buy it. Could he actually gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss his way out of this?

‘’Don’t try to gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss your way out of this, Danny.’’

Damn she knew him well. Kinda embarrassing for her to not have figured out his identity yet.

‘’He didn’t tell me. I…uh… figured it out on my own.’’ he tried again.

‘’How?’’

See, this was also why he wanted to prolong the inevitable. He still needed to come up with a good enough excuse for why he knew her secret identity in the first place. It was originally Sam who made the connection, but he couldn’t tell Valerie that. It was better to not involve Sam and Tucker into this mess he got himself into.

On the other hand putting the blame on his alter ego was also not the way to go. Valerie could barely stand Phantom, not to mention he already had a rain check on the ass kicking from yesterday. One wrong move and she might ignore the truce and blast him. Probably.

Sometimes it felt like the only reason she stopped trying to actively kill him was because of Cujo.

Who was he kidding? That was exactly the reason.

‘’Well?’’

He focused back on her. She didn’t look as angry anymore. Mostly stressed about her secret identity being on the line.

‘’I saw you put the suit on!’’ he blurted out.

That took her by surprise. She paused for a second, eyes wide before clutching his shoulders and shaking him desperately.‘’What?! When? Where?’’

‘’A while back.’’ he turned his gaze to the right. If he had to lie he could at least lie to a broom and not to Valerie’s face. ‘’Uh… It was behind the Nasty Burger…I didn’t mean to! I was just by the dumpsters and you didn’t see me!’’

She loosened her grip on his shoulders, but still kept her arms there. ‘’Why were you even there?’’

‘’...Looking for my dignity which I lost after becoming a tiktoker.’’

She just stared at him and he could feel the sweat rolling down his back. Which by the way was pressed hard against all the shelves with cleaning supplies. If he wasn’t cornered by a stressed out badass girl who could kick his ass at any wrong move, he would’ve complained.

Finally after what felt like hours, she let go of him with a sigh. ‘’Of course you of all people would be recording a tiktok by a dumpster.’’

He could swear her lips twitched into a small smile for just a millisecond.

‘’Yeah… you know me. I do stuff like that all the time!’’ he laughed nervously rubbing the back of his head.

She smiled a bit more at that, but her expression quickly changed back into a worried one as she looked to the side. ‘’You…didn’t tell anyone, right?’’ She turned her gaze back to him.

‘’Of course not, I can only imagine how stressful it is…to have a secret identity.’’ he could absolutely imagine it. Which now made him realize exactly just how stressful this entire situation must be for her.

Hell, if any of his classmates revealed that they knew he’s been Phantom all this time he would probably have a heart attack and die again on the spot.

She nodded her head solemnly. ‘’Yeah…and I’m scared you’ll be in danger now that you know.’’ she said.

Oh great she was worried for him now too.

‘’Val, it’s fine. I can take care of myself.’’ he gently took hold of her hands in hopes of calming her down a bit.

She sent him a doubtful look.

Okay. Rude. He absolutely could take care of himself.

‘’I’m literally the ghost hunters’ son???’’ he defended weakly.

She just shook her head a bit. ‘’With all due respect, Danny. Your parents aren’t very …uh… aware.’’

That was true. He couldn’t really deny it, so he just let her continue instead.

‘’You literally babysit Cujo and let Phantom hang out in your room, which, by the way. What the fuck Danny?’’

He shouldn’t have let her continue.

‘’Well I mean… I wouldn’t call it hanging out uh… I might or might not…sneak some Fenton tech to him. Sometimes.’’ he answered nervously. ‘’I can sneak some for you too if you want!’’

Yeah, try to buy her with guns. Girls love guns.

‘’Why would you do that?” she asked, totally ignoring the last part. “Is he threatening you? I swear if he dares to hurt you I will end his entire existence.’’

That made him feel real safe. ‘’Uh… Don’t you have a truce…or something?’’

‘’Doesn’t mean I trust him. He’s a ghost.’’

‘’So is Cujo.’’

‘’Cujo’s different.’’

‘’Sure.” he stated flatly. It was not the time to have this conversation. “I’m fine though, really. Please don’t worry about me.’’

‘’You’re important to me, I don't want you to get hurt.’’ she said, squeezing his hands softly. Right, they were still holding hands. He blushed looking down at them as she continued talking. ‘’The sole reason I broke up with you was because I wanted to protect you.’’

This made Danny instantly raise his head back up to meet her eyes. ‘’I thought you broke up with me to have more time to hunt ghosts?’’

‘’No! I mean, kinda! I mean- UGH.’’ she sputtered. Pausing for just a second she closed her eyes and took a small breath. ‘’I was very close to giving up ghost hunting for you, but then I realized I’m way too deep in. Someone needs to protect this town and if I don’t do it then who will? I just didn’t want you to get caught in the crossfire.’’

A silence. She sounded so sad saying that.

He knew she considered giving up ghost hunting for him, he heard her say it. But then the thing with her new suit happened and he assumed she just decided kicking his ass was the real priority. Yet it looked like she apparently didn’t want to drag him into a mess he was already a part of anyway.

‘’Val…‘’ he started softly.

‘’I’m sorry.’’ she interrupted, finally letting go of his hands. ‘’It’s just been a lot to deal with and…a lot of hard decisions…I’ve never really talked about it with anyone before.’’

He furrowed his brows. ‘’That must feel pretty lonely?’’

Valerie looked at him sadly.

The guilt that overcame him in that moment was unbearable. This entire situation was his fault. He was too busy being self centered, only ever caring about keeping his secret in tact. Never in his wildest dreams did he even consider how lonely Valerie must have felt all this time.

They weren’t so different after all, both of them wasting their teenage years doing some vigilante bullshit, but he always had Sam and Tucker (and then also Jazz) to support and help him out with ghost hunting. Meanwhile the only people who knew about Valerie were her dad, who disapproved of the entire thing and someone she considered her sworn enemy.

He should’ve come clean the moment she agreed to a truce. Maybe then she’d actually believe he wanted to support her. Instead he ended up weaving this web of lies, so intricate he barely could keep track of it anymore.

Heck, they were having this conversation only because he messed up yesterday. He put so much unneeded stress on her shoulders. This wasn’t fair to her in the slightest.

The only thing he could do now was be there for her as someone she doesn’t entirely hate yet.

‘’Well. Now you have me.’’ he said, forcing a soft smile on his face. ‘’I’ll always be here for you if you want to talk about…this.’’

And meanwhile I’ll just keep lying to you. He thought cringing inwardly.

Unaware of the crisis he was going through in his head, Valerie returned his smile with one of her own.

‘’Maybe it’s a bit egoistic, but…I guess I’m kind of happy someone knows. And of all the people who could’ve found out, I’m happy it’s you.’’ she made a point to look him in the eyes as she added ‘’I trust you. Just please make sure to not get into trouble.’’

He stared at her for a moment.

How could he do this to her? She trusted him! She just said so herself! He felt like the biggest jerk alive (or half-alive).

It’s not like he could just come clean though. Especially not at this moment. Revealing his identity would be an entirely different kind of betrayal. She would be absolutely furious. The kind of furious that even Cujo wouldn’t be able to save him from. That wouldn’t help her.

Sam was right though. He did this to himself. He should’ve listened to his friends from the start and stayed away from her as Phantom. Let her live her own life. Instead it was almost as if he craved any kind of interaction with her, even in the form of being shot.

And then Cujo came around. He somehow managed to make her listen to him as he explained what really happened with the dog. Slowly she started warming up to the puppy and that made Danny believe that maybe she’d warm up to him too, so he started pushing himself into her life more.

For fuck’s sake he got a second phone only to text with her. (She only answered messages involving Cujo and started conversations only when she suspected he did something wrong, but still.)

And okay, he did like annoying her with the family jokes a bit too much, sue him. He loved getting a reaction out of her and she always got so exasperated. (And maybe it was also a self indulgence. Taking care of Cujo has been their little thing. Only for them!)

He did feel a slight guilt when he messed up the first time and Danny Fenton got accidentally roped into ‘’babysitting’’ Cujo, but he ignored it for the most part. She actually bought into that flimsy excuse and he got to relax more when recording his tiktoks, not having to worry about whether Cujo came into view or not.

This though? This made him feel awful. Like he was finally truly breaking her trust. He was an awful person and a coward.

Suddenly his silly little game of house wasn’t so fun anymore.

‘’Trust me you’re the farthest thing from egoistic right now.’’ he said, forcing another pained smile on his face.

She sent him the cutest smile back. ‘’Thanks Danny. You’re really sweet.’’

Fucking hell. If only she knew the truth, she wouldn’t think that.

Before he managed to say anything else (which would probably be a lie anyway) the bell rang.

Valerie looked at the still closed door and moved to open it. ‘’I better get to my next class. Don’t wanna get detention. I’ll see you around?’’

‘’Yeah.’’ he mumbled just loud enough for her to hear before she turned around and left. Leaving the door slightly ajar.

Danny stood there for a second more. Trying to process what exactly just happened. He slid down to a sitting position and hit his head repeatedly against the cleaning supplies shelves.

Later during lunch, he joined his best friends at their usual spot and put his head in his hands on the table.

“Guys I fucked up so bad.”

“I told you so.” Sam answered unimpressed. Tucker just straight up laughed.

Some friends he had.

‘’It’s not funny, Tucker.’’ Danny groaned, raising his head to glare at the other boy.

‘’Yes it is.’’ Tucker answered, wiping away a non-existent tear.

Sam rolled her eyes at the both of them. ‘’The question is; what are you gonna do now?’’

Danny stared at the table in thought. There was only one thing he should do at this point, though it wasn’t going to be easy.

‘’I don’t know how yet…’’ he started looking up to meet his friends’ curious stares. ‘’…I’m gonna tell her the truth.’’