#danny totally ignoring objectively horribly things

[five-rivers]

Three Twilights

Can be considered a loose sequel to Deep Sea Diver (same vibes).

Warnings: Soft body horror, Danny totally ignoring objectively horrifying things

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“I was thinking,” started Maddie over breakfast, “we could start observations of that island that came into view last week, the blue one.”

Danny shook his head. “You’ll have to use the Speeder, then,” he said. “I’ve got an errand to run.”

There was a pause as both of Danny’s parents looked at him, confused. He didn’t blame them. Danny rarely went out as a human anymore, and certainly not for anything like errands. Looking like he was still fourteen after all this time made doing anything even remotely official difficult.

But this wasn’t a human errand. “Yeah,” said Danny. “In the Ghost Zone. I’ve got to go to Three Twilights.”

“Where?” asked Jack.

“It’s, um, a city,” said Danny. “Well, three cities, I suppose, depending on how you want to group them. One Realm. On the shores of the Celestial Sea. I’m sure I’ve put it in your files.” Probably a direct copy from his files from before he came clean to them, but still. He stirred his cereal counterclockwise, letting his ice powers chill the milk.

“Yes,” said Maddie, “but there are a lot of places in there. I’m not sure we’ve had a chance to properly look at them all, much less memorize them.”

“Okay, yeah,” said Danny. “I guess that makes sense.”

“What kind of errand are you running, Danno?”

“I’m picking something up for a friend. A book,” he clarified. “They lent it to someone there, but they need it back.”

“A book,” said Maddie. “For the Library of Tongues?”

“No, they’ve got a contract service for overdue loans.”

“Contract service?” asked Jack.

“Yeah. Moonlighting bounty hunters mostly.”

“For a library?”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Danny, shrugging. “They’re really serious about their work.”

“If it isn’t for them, who is it for?” asked Maddie. “The princess? Wulf?” Wulf had actually been over a few times, and his parents had… Well, saying they got along would be an overstatement, they didn’t really have anything in common beyond ripping portals in the fabric of the universe, but everyone had been civil. “The boy at the school?”

“No,” said Danny. “Wulf would just get it himself.”

“Who, then?” pressed Maddie.

Danny put a spoonful of cereal in his mouth, delaying. Maddie hadn’t eaten anything since Danny had mentioned the errand. The errand was, in fact, for Clockwork. Danny was always more than happy to do anything for Clockwork. The older ghost had saved him too many times for him to be otherwise. But Jack and Maddie were wary of Clockwork. Danny didn’t get it, but talking about it hadn’t been productive so far.

He didn’t want to lie to his parents. Not ever again.

“It’s for Clockwork,” he said.

Ah, yes, there were those suspicious looks. The ones Danny could have interpreted even without being able to almost literally taste emotions.

“I see,” said Maddie.

“Anyway,” said Danny, quickly, “if I haven’t shown you Three Twilights yet, it’s really cool. I don’t want to take the full rig, but maybe the little ectocam would be okay? The one that I can clip on.”

“Why not the normal camera with an ectofilter?” asked Jack. “That has more features, and it’s easier for us to get data from.”

“Three Twilights. It’s dark there,” said Danny. “It might work in Civila, but not so much in Naŭtika and Astronomia, and I sort of want to go down to the beach and see if I can find any star pearls, and that’s really dark, so if you want to see anything properly, it’ll have to be the sonar setup, which I’m not doing, the noises that thing makes are offensive, or the ectocam.”

“And the Fenton Phones?” asked Maddie.

“Sure,” said Danny. “But I always bring those.”

“Yes,” said Maddie, after a moment. “You do.”

“Great. It’s settled, then.”

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Most of the journey to Three Twilights could be made by air. Or, rather, what passed for air in the Infinite Realms. But when the rocky edge of an island came into view, Danny touched down. Further in was a blue wood, and Danny walked under its inviting branches.

The atmosphere started sunny, summery. The leaves and needles of the trees were the color of a clear blue sky. But as he got deeper, the leaves were touched with sunset colors: golds, reds, oranges, purples, and pinks. They fell to the ground, crunching beneath Danny’s feet. The sunset grew longer, deeper. The leaves on the trees grew sparser, revealing patches of sky.

By the time only bare branches framed the sky, it was a dusky, dim, purple. A few lonely stars twinkled in the sky.

He passed out of the forest. The city of Civila rose above him. Windows glowed in the near dark like eyes.

Danny had changed, too. His aura had dimmed. The whites of his suit were now dark gray, and patterns swirled on its surface like camouflage, like wind-twisted clouds, like nebulae.

Shadows bled around the corners of the city buildings like ink in water. Will-o-the-wisps bobbed, casting pools of illumination in lieu of streetlamps. Ghosts walked up and down the streets, or floated only a few meters up.

The buildings glittered. Everything was dark, vibrant, colors. A sharp, sweet scent filled the air, something dark and rich beneath it.

The canals in the center of the street were filled with flashing fish. Or perhaps serpents. Or perhaps worms. Between how fast they moved and the dimness of the light, it was difficult to tell.

Danny could feel his irises contracting, shrinking down to needle-thin rings. His teeth were sharp. He matched the other ghosts around him. This was how the Civila liked it, how things were in this part of Three Twilights.

Everything in order. Everything peaceful. Everything civil.

Danny walked through the market square, and bought some charcoal-colored cherry pastries from a vendor who looked like someone’s nightmare demon with a chip of ghost ice.

Much to his parents’ protests. They didn’t care for him eating ghost food.

There were seven bridges to Naŭtika, which was built half underwater and half on boats that floated both on the water and in the air. As the dark waters of the inlet lapped at his feet, Danny felt the changes ripple across his skin. To a human, he would look pure black, except for the faintest glimmer of rim lighting and the stars of his eyes. He and the other ghosts moved silently, cutting through the waters like shadows.

To Danny’s ghostly senses, the place was alive with emotion and force, energy loud and crackling against his senses.

“We’re solely on the ectocam, now,” said Maddie. “You were right about that.”

“Mhm,” said Danny, half distracted by a whispered sea-shanty backed by a choir of not-voices and not-sound that wove together with the mastery of a hundred years of practice.

He glided up a rope net, and began to navigate the ropes to the taller ships. The very tallest, the ones that scraped the ever-darkening sky and blotted out uneven sections of stars, moored the glass-like ships that floated above. He’d need to reach them, to get to Astronomia.

“What’s that?” asked Maddie, breaking his concentration on his path.

“What’s what?” asked Danny, whisper soft, drawing some looks. He turned, slowly, on the spot, planks barely creaking under his steps. A gentle wind ruffled his hair.

“There,” said Maddie. “By the ghost that’s registering red.”

It had taken Danny a long time to learn what color on the ectocam’s artificial sensor signified what, but he had, if only to reduce the guessing when they played this game.

“Star pearls,” said Danny, eyeing the ropes of stone that glimmered brighter than his eyes currently did. They were one of the only reliable forms of light, out on the Celestial Sea, although they were valued for other things, too.

“They’re putting out a massive amount of energy,” said Maddie.

“You mentioned them before,” said Jack. “You wanted to look for some?”

“On the shore,” said Danny. “Out past Astronomia.” He wanted to find his own, rather than buy them.

Partially because they were expensive. He didn’t really want to think about how much unmelting ice he’d have to conjure up to equal one of them. They were usually bartered in exchange for… more significant things.

The ghost by the pearls beckoned him closer, clearly hoping to make a sale. Danny shook his head, broadcasting regret and admiration for his wares. Speech might be faster but, under these circumstances, it would not be polite.

When Danny left, the social rules of Three Twilights would only leave the faintest impression on his mind. But, for now, they were a heavy, but not uncomfortable weight. One he could shrug off if necessary, but which was currently useful.

“What are they?” asked Maddie, as Danny turned away.

“They happen when big enough things fall into stars,” said Danny. “They’re all the memories of what they used to be… and the imagination of what they could become, when the star dies. Well, that’s what they’re supposed to be. I don’t think anyone really knows for sure.”

“And you can just… find these? Lying around?”

“Not… not really,” said Danny, slowly drifting towards a crow’s nest. “It’s like that one national park. That one where you can collect diamonds? You never really find anything good, but you can look.”

“I see,” said Maddie. “So, you don’t expect to find one?”

“Yes and no,” said Danny. “If I don’t expect to find one, I probably won’t. Unless the sea is feeling ironic, which it usually is, apparently. I mean, it’s an ocean and the stars. And prophecy is, like, ninety percent irony, but mostly for an outside observer. Which honestly makes sense, I think. An observer, not an Observant. Those are different things.”

The kind of silence on the other side of the line was the one that emerged when Danny used too much ghost logic.

“Anyway,” he continued as he scaled the crow’s nest and started traversing the glass ropes and chains to the all-but-invisible glass ships, “no, I don’t really expect to.”

The path to Astronomia was a staircase carved from moonstone harvested in October, when the moon was full and orange-red. It burned Danny’s eyes to look at and feet to walk upon. Like many ghosts who fixated on things like astronomy, he adapted quickly and thoroughly to the spiritual dark.

This darkest twilight was built of delicate bubbles, whorls, and arches of glass, any of which could cradle a ghost, all of which could be phased through with impunity. There were no true roads here, but certain places were easier to travel through. Addresses were carved in the glass in glimmering, holographic sigils made from glass-caught starlight that humans would never be able to read, but Danny could understand with a glance. It was not silent in Astronomia, the high wind sung through the glass like the immense instrument it was, playing ethereal and eternal music that mirrored heaven.

As always, Danny was enraptured. Perhaps the stars here were not true stars, only their memory and imagination (or simulacra made from stripped ghost cores, he remembered with a shudder), but he felt so close here.

“Danny? Are you still with us?”

Danny started to reply, but realized he had forgotten, once again, that he had no mouth here.

A phantabulist played a story for a group of not-quite-children, characters made of carefully constructed light chasing each other about with vigour. Danny stopped for a while to watch the story, a parable about spiders and fish. They were common here, storytellers who plied their craft this way. The stories could be pressed into glass prisms and orbs that served as books and viewed even in other environs of the Ghost Zone.

He moved on, passing through a glass bubble full of ghosts that snatched at and stroked him as he passed by, leaving stars and dark clouds to swirl across his skin. His suit had long since smoothed over and sunk in. His skin was a thin surface, a membrane holding in liquid night. He was like smoke, like vapour, thin and easily overlooked.

The places he passed were homes, places of business, warehouses, and hotels, organized without any apparent reason. A phantabularium glowed like a struck match, snatches of story visible inside its walls. He walked by.

Eventually, he reached the palace at the city center.

The ghost who lived there was old. Older, perhaps, than Pandora. She filled the vessels of her palace in placid pools connected by crystalized threads and looping tubes. Seven round-bottom flasks, radiating outward, like the spheres of heaven. The music here was almost deafening.

This was Urania, Muse of Astronomy. Astronomia was her city, and subordinate to her will before all else.

Danny resisted the urge to kneel. He was not here as a supplicant, and they both knew it.

The lowest pool bubbled, and slowly a glass prism, a dodecahedron, floated to the top. Danny took it with careful hands and left Urania’s direct presence as quickly as possible.

Being near her was always difficult. She was the Muse of Astronomy, and she felt he did not indulge his second Obsession as much as was proper.

Indeed, she thought it should be his first.

(The starlight inside him pulsed. He was never sure how much influence Urania could exert on him when he visited Three Twilights, never sure how much the relationship between his passions shifted when he was here. He loved it here too much to stay away forever.)

Astronomia did not end all at once. Instead, as one walked farther from the palace, the delicate, clear glass was replaced by black sand. When Danny had feet again, and could feel the grains beneath them, he knew he was no longer in Astronomia, but on the Shores of Night. The Isles of the Moon were faintly visible in the distance, sea-spray framing them in silvery halos.

He felt human here. His breath moved in his lungs, and his skin rose in goosebumps, the sleeves of his t-shirt fluttering in the wind. The sea and the sky were the same, and twice as beautiful for it.

“Sorry for going silent on you there,” said Danny. “I keep forgetting I don’t have a mouth there.”

“How do you forget that?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know.” Danny shrugged, even though he knew Jack couldn’t see him. “Do you think the ectocam might be able to spot buried star pearls?”

[pitch-pearl-void]

Anyone interested in a WIP Pitch Pearl series rewrite?

A click resounded off the walls of the dark tunnel. Danny's heart--already racing--shot an extra burst of adrenaline through his system. He spun on his heel and booked it toward the exit. A high-pitched hum began, and his eyes widened. He had reacted so fast because he thought his parents' ghost portal had a ghost haunting it already, but the reality of what was happening set in as the electronic hum grew louder.

The portal was turning on--with him inside.

"Danny?" Sam called, her usual drawl replaced by fear.

Tucker, more tech-savy, skipped fear and latched onto desperation, screaming, "Get out of there!"

The warning would have come too late if Danny hadn't already been on the move.

Green light began to fill the tunnel, but Danny didn't linger to see beyond that initial flare. He leapt forward and landed painfully on his chest outside the tunnel, sliding a few inches across the metal floor.. Something burst from the tunnel, surging above him, pulling at his hair, screeching in his ears. Tucker and Sam screamed his name. Danny pressed himself flat on the floor and didn't dare to so much as breathe. He could feel the burn of electricity singing the side of his face, the only part of his body not protected by the jumpsuit.

It lasted only a few seconds, but even after the energy dissipated from the air and the tunnel's humming was replaced by an odd-sounding song, Danny didn't move--couldn't move. He was paralyzed. Tucker and Sam landed on their knees on either side of him and had to bodily lift him up. Still limp, however, his muscles refusing to respond in any way, he couldn't sit up on his own. He slumped against Sam, but she didn't seem to mind. She wrapped her arms tightly around him. Tucker did the same on Danny's other side, pressing his face into Danny's neck.

Finally, Danny's lungs started working again. He gasped in a breath. And then another. Another. Another.

"Holy shit!" Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. "I--I--"

"You're okay," Sam said, more to herself than to Danny. "You're okay..."

"I almost died!"

Tucker squeezed Danny tighter. "Don't," he said, his voice thick, strangled, "don't you ever scare me like that again."

"Scare you?" Danny laughed. He lifted his hand. It was trembling so violently he couldn't hold it level. "Holy shit..."

Frightened as he was, Danny was sure he could have remained in his friends' arms, safe and loved for at least an hour, but the odd song behind them altered pitch, and a voice called out, "Um, excuse me, but what the fuck?"

The group hug became rigid.

"Danny," Tucker whispered, "did you say something?"

"My voice doesn't sound like that, Tuck," Danny hissed back.

"I mean, it sort of does. And if you didn't say anything..."

Slowly, Sam and Tucker turned their heads to the side. Danny, his back to the portal, held absolutely still. Whatever his friends saw, they didn't exactly hug him tighter, but Tucker leaned closer and Sam whispered a prayer.

Danny swallowed. "What is it?"

"Uh," Tucker said, "the, uh, the good news is the portal is working!"

Danny sucked in a breath. He wouldn't call that good news. Having a portal that led to the ghost dimension inside his house wasn't something he had been looking forward to, but if that was the good news... "What's the bad news?"

"There's a boy in the portal," Sam answered before Tucker could. "He's just kind of floating there. Inside the portal. But I think he's stuck." She waited a moment, watching the portal--watching the boy--and then her arms relaxed around Danny. "Yeah, I think we're safe. I don't think he can get through."

That was a relief, if true, but Danny needed to see it for himself. He shifted on his knees. Sam and Tucker pulled away, but Danny's legs were still shaky, not quite steady enough to stand on his own. "Um...guys, could you...?"

Danny's friends stood and then reached down, grabbed his hands, and helped Danny climb to his feet, neither one taking their eyes off the portal.

"He kind of looks like you," Tucker whispered.

"Would you stop?" Danny whispered back. "That's gotta be, like, bad luck or something, saying someone looks like a ghost."

"I didn't say you look like a ghost, I said he looks like you."

"Same difference!"

"Guys," Sam hissed.  

Slowly, reluctantly, his heart beating wildly, Danny turned around. The boy inside the portal stared back at him, his head tilted slightly to the side. The portal itself appeared as a swirling green vortex, and in between that vortex and Danny floated the boy. He had raised his hands and seemed to be placing them against...some sort of surface on Danny's side of the portal.

If not for the green vortex, his unnaturally white hair, the acidic green of his eyes, or the fact he had no legs, he could almost pass as a human. Danny had always imagined a ghost would look more...monstrous. Like the turkey and ecto-weenies his parents sometimes brought to life.

This boy had normal-looking human eyes, not the solid green pits Danny had seen before. He wasn't baring sharp teeth at them and he wasn't...doing anything threatening, really. He wore a black t-shirt that sort of floated around his chest, and his hair--cut in the same style as Danny's but a pure bright white--swayed slightly as the boy ghost bobbed up and down.

"See?" Tucker whispered. "He totally looks like you."

"In the face, maybe," Sam whispered back. "But I think his shoulders are broader than Danny's. And maybe his arms...."

"Gee, thanks," Danny whispered sarcastically. "Why not point out I actually have legs while you're at it?"

The ghost boy raised an eyebrow, and a horrible suspicion occurred to Danny. There was a tiny popping sound and then the ghost's tail--previously undulating like an eel--split into a pair of legs clothed in a pair of ragged jeans. Despite his new feet, the ghost continued to float above the ground--if he even had ground on his side of the portal.

"I have legs," the ghost said, speaking at a normal volume, confirming Danny's fear, "when I want them, anyway."

His voice had a strange overlay to it, as though it was both hollow and resounding. It raised the hairs on Danny's arms and neck. He backed up a step.

"Who are you?" the ghost continued. "What are you?" He tilted his head farther to the side and narrowed his eyes. "And what did you do to my lair?"

"Oh shit," Tucker whispered, more quietly than before.

Sam stepped forward. "We could ask you the same thing. Who and what are you?"

The ghost's eyes finally moved away from Danny, sliding over to Sam instead. "Phantom. I'm a ghost who just had his home destroyed by an artificial portal. I'm guessing that was your--" his gaze scanned the three of them "--fault. Natural portals don't get ripped open, and they definitely don't open inside a ghost's lair. So what is it you're after? Who and what are you?"

"Dude, we're just human kids," Tucker said, holding up his hands. "It wasn't even supposed to turn on!"

"My parents built it," Danny said, taking another step back. "But it didn't work. It wasn't supposed to work! They gave up on it!"

"Yeah!" Tucker nodded vigorously. "Yeah! We just dared Danny to go in there because he was being a complete chicken about it--"

"I was not!"

"You were!"

"How did it turn on, anyway?" Sam asked.

"Danny must have pressed an on-switch inside the tunnel," Tucker said. "Since we didn't unplug anything it turned on while he was inside. That's not supposed to happen. You're supposed to turn it on and then plug it in. Your dad must have forgotten to press the on-switch before they plugged it in or something."

"Sounds like Dad..." Danny muttered.

"So..." the ghost, Phantom, said slowly, "it was an accident?"

"Yeah!"

"Total accident."

"Basically."

Slowly, the ghost's rigid posture eased, settling into a more relaxed pose. "Oh," he said softly, warily. "That's...good. It doesn't help me get my lair back--or get out of here--but that's...good."

"You could go back to your world," Danny muttered.

Sam elbowed him in the side and he grunted.

"I can't, actually," Phantom said. "There is a barrier on that side as well. I'm stuck inside...whatever this is."

Sam sucked in a breath. "You’re stuck?"

"Oh no," Danny groaned.

"Like in a cage?"

Tucker sighed and rolled his eyes. "Here we go..."

Sam rounded on her friends. "We have to get him out!"

Danny held up his hands, shaking his head. "Nuh-uh, no way, Sam. We can't just, like, open the door to the ghost world. What if he's dangerous?"

Tucker looked at the ghost trapped inside the portal. "Are you dangerous?"

Phantom cocked his head to the side. "No?"

"Ha!" Sam cheered.

"That doesn't prove anything!" Danny objected. "He could be lying!"

Tucker, smirking, asked the ghost, "Are you lyi--"

"Tucker!"

"Well, we can't just leave him trapped in there forever." Sam walked toward the portal, ignoring Danny hissing her name. "How would you like to be trapped in a vortex for the rest of your life?"

"It's more like a tunnel than a vortex," Phantom admitted.

"A cage is a cage!" Sam placed her hands over Phantom's, the barrier acting like a glass panel between them. "And we're getting you out of this one."

---

An au in which Danny has ghost phobia, Phantom doesn’t know anything about the human world, and Sam and Tucker are determined to befriend a ghost come hell or high water lol. Some of the Danny/Sam scenes will be replaced with Phantom/Danny (because that was what started this) but because Danny has an extreme fear of ghosts, brought on by his parents experiments and stories, it’s going to very slow burn. By comparison. 

To keep from rewriting, like, everything, I’m thinking I’ll try condensing the scenes that don’t change (the food fight in Mystery Meat for instance) as either a diary entry or as a rushed description of events? Whichever way feels more natural...I want to get at least one full scene written for each episode.

This may be too ambitious but idk, I would love to hear your guys’ thoughts!

[theabominableblogger]

Rewatching “Batman Returns”

*zips up coat*  Welp, it’s snowy out.  It snows a lot in this movie.  Might as well watch it cause Netflix put all the other Burton-Schumacher movies up. 

*in best Han Solo voice*  I got a bad feeling about this....

[Mr. Cobblepot stands in front of the window as his wife is giving birth in another room] *in best Pee Wee Herman voice*  PEE WEE?!?  What are you doing here?!?

YOU LOCKED THE BABY [Oswald] IN A CAGE?!?

I feel like this movie gets even more Tim Burton-y as it goes on.

*jams along to the Batman theme*

Yeah no way.  That baby’s dead.  End of movie.

Stan Winston!

So... the Batman opens with the creation of the Penguin. 

*nods*

DC Comics *ding*

[Directed by Tim Burton] Yes, we know!

Matte painting!

“Man or Myth:  Or is he?”  Bum bum BUUUUUMMMMMM!!

Hey Alfred!

Is that Felix the Cat as the logo for Shreck?

Oh my Godddd, Christopher Walken....

“Frankly, I [Shreck] cringe, Mr. Mayor.”  It needs more cowbell!

You can tell they tried to make Michelle Pfeiffer really frumpy before she put on the Catsuit

The dude who plays Schreck’s son is trying his darn best to replicate Christopher Walken’s accent

“Remind me [Shreck] to take it out on what’s-her-name.”  You had her [Selina] as your secretary for God knows how long and you don’t know her name?

Ominous red lighting...

*The clown henchmen run out of the giant present*  I SAW DOUG JONES!

I totally forgot that @actordougjones was in this movie!  Holy crap!

Ohhhh that’s an awesome shot!

I wanna be that one random clown henchman just casually walking down the street on stilts and completely ignoring everything that’s going on.

“That was very brief.  Just like all the men in my life.”

Of course there’s a graveyard in this movie.

Wait, isn’t that one sculpture the one thing that pops up in Beetlejuice?

Gotta admit, the makeup on Danny Devito looks awesome

“You [Shreck] and I [Oswald] are similar.”  You both have hair.

“What, is that [umbrella] supposed to hypnotize me [Shreck]?”  I literally just had that same thought.

Wait so if Penguin doesn’t know his human name, how do his henchmen address him?  Do they just call him “Penguin-Man” all the time?

“Honey, I’m home!  Oh, I forgot- I’m not married.”  Gotta hammer it in that she’s single

I want that black cat like now

Why does Selina have a pair of tomatoes in the window?

WHY WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR CAT MILK?!?

Why would you [Selina] even open the protected files?

Worst.  Secretary.  Ever.

Green screen!

Yep, nope, she [Selina] dead.  There should a puddle of blood around her.

Here’s a fun fact:  cats will eat your dead body.  No joke.

Those tights are covered in runs.  Selina, were you even thinking while getting dressed this morning?

So is she [Shreck] just repeating the actions that she did before Shreck tried to kill her.

“... a candlelight staff meeting for two.”  Holy crap, how did I never catch that?

WHY ARE YOU SHREDDING THE STUFFED ANIMALS?!?  ESPECIALLY THE SOCK MONKEY?!?

Though in all seriousness, if she did shred them in the sink like this, she’d only get like half of one properly shredded.  Pretty sure sink shredders don’t work like that.

Where did the random black spray paint come from?

Is that wire?

“I don’t know about you, Ms. Kitty, but I feel so much yummier.”  Who wrote the script for this?

Hi Doug Jones!

So the Penguin is on this rising duck mechanism but then he’s able to pop fully out of the sewer in the sidewalk and step out?  Did his seat have a rising platform as well?

For a Batman movie, I’m 35 minutes in, and there hasn’t been a lot of Batman.

If Penguin doesn’t know his birth name, how the heck is he gonna find his parents in the public records?

Snowwww... all the snow...

I’m digging the top hat Penguin has

Are those black roses Penguin’s putting on his parents’ grave?  Of course they are.

“I was their number one son, and they treated me like number two...”  Oh my God...

So how is Selina able to beat up dudes when she even says that this is her first time doing that?

Can’t Bruce just sit next to Shreck or something so that he doesn’t have to toss the report across the table?

Freaking Bruce’s mouth stays open the entire time Selina is in the room.  Close it before a fly goes in!

So if Shreck were “the people’s man,” shouldn’t he have let Oswald finish eating the raw fish upstairs in his den before escorting him down to the surprise?

And why is Oswald’s hideout above a public workplace?

Why would you elect Oswald mayor anyway?  Why would Gotham ever think that this was a good idea in the first place?!?

“I’d like to fill her void.”  Noooooooooooooooo......

Did Shreck just reference the Reichstag fire?  Buddy, no.....

Doggie!

Gotham looks so much smaller than it did in the first movie

*Batman programs the Batarang to hit all four people*  Whaaaattt?

Most iconic shot of the whole movie.

Where’d she get the whip?

*Catwoman starts jump roping with the whip*  I mean... same though.

Wilhelm Scream!

He [Batman] just killed that dude!

Why does the store have a functioning microwave out in the first place?  At night time?

“Meow.”  Fun story:  so my dad and my sister I were watching this on FX and my dad refused to leave the hotel for supper until after this scene because he thought this part was hilarious.

It’s [the Penguin’s umbrella] actually a helicopter... 

*instant Star Wars Rebels flashbacks*

Matte painting!

Is that actually eyeshadow Michael Keaton’s wearing underneath the cowl?

*actually turns off the volume when Oswald flirts with one of the younger voters*

“Just the pussy I’ve been looking for.”  What was the age demographic for this movie again?

*Catwoman starts giving herself a bath*  Eewwwww....

I want Selina’s coat like now.

“Who are you [Oswald]?”  The dude’s running for mayor, and you don’t know him?

“Sickos don’t scare me.  At least they’re committed.”  “Well.. yeah...”  I mean...

“I will relay the message.”  Alfred is the best wingman imaginable.

Gotta get out the rubber cowl...

So how the heck was Penguin able to break into the Batmobile if he hadn’t even seen it before?

*The Ice Princess falls right on top of the fuse box*  Yeah, no, she’s dead.

*quotes the mistletoe quote*

[Catwoman literally licks Batman across the mouth]  *barely audible* Whyyyyy.....

“Let’s consummate this fiendish union.”  Nooooooo....

Now that I think about it, this movie is basically 70% one-liners and sexual innuendos

Oh, now the Batmobile detects a foreign object?

There’s a poster in the crowd that says “Oswald Means Order”

“Security?  Who let Vicki Vale into the Batcave?”  He’s [Bruce] got a point there, Alfred.

[Frequency Jammed]  Is it raspberry?

When the heck did Batman record Oswald during the Batmobile takeover?

OK guys, who brought the lettuce?  Is there always a random farmer’s market who always hangs out at important speeches for that reason only?

“Why is there always someone who brings eggs and tomatoes to a speech?!?”  Exactly!

“Did you miss me?”  Andrew Scott said it better.

“I am not a human being!  I am an animal!”  Why you gotta try and reference “The Elephant Man” like that?

Did I just hear the opening notes for “Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer?

I like the dude in the background that has the the Leaning Tower of Pisa as part of his mask

Mask of the Red Death in the background!  And on a staircase nonetheless!

*sings* WHY SO SILENT, GOOD MONSIEURS....

I want Selina’s dress.  I don’t care that it’s probably gonna show off my scoliosis but that’s a super nice dress.

Batman even has his own customized stationary?

“Many of you won’t be coming back.”  Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice... I am willing to make!

*jams out to the Batman theme once again*

Fun fact:  they used actual penguins for this scene when they’re running around with firecrackers on their backs.  But not actual firecrackers because hello, what’s wrong with you?

“Estimated casualties 100,000 people.”  I think the most we’ve ever seen in this movie concerning the townspeople is like 50 or something.

Random question:  how come we never see Penguin actually swim?

*The duck boat thing drives up the stairs*  Would that even be possible?

Oh, so Batman comes out of the crash totally fine?  Dude, your cowl is freaking rubber!

*Penguins sets off the firecrackers attached to the penguins*  WHY?!?!?  YOU KNEW THAT THEY WERE STANDING LIKE TWENTY FEET AWAY FROM YOU!

*The Arctic World sign collapses*  No, not the polar bear!

*Bruce tears off the main part of his cowl* 

So how does the whole actual nine lives left?  Selina got shot in the shoulder and side, so those aren’t kill shots.  So technically, she still has four lives left instead of two.

*Bruce finds Shreck’s electrocuted corpse*  Wow, “Mars Attacks” looks horrible, you guys.

I’m pretty sure Oswald’s just spitting up green goo or something because that’s definitely not blood.

“I need a cold drink of ice water.”  Those are terrible dying words

Netflix just captioned the mourning penguin noises as “Awk Awk”

Aaawww the cat!

Why do you have the front passenger window open, Alfred?  Bruce is gonna be freezing sitting in the back.

*Catwoman looks up toward the Batsignal*  There ya go

[africanotaku92]

Ma'am you just put everything I love about space into words in the ghost zone and it's pleasing me

Three Twilights

Can be considered a loose sequel to Deep Sea Diver (same vibes).

Warnings: Soft body horror, Danny totally ignoring objectively horrifying things

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“I was thinking,” started Maddie over breakfast, “we could start observations of that island that came into view last week, the blue one.”

Danny shook his head. “You’ll have to use the Speeder, then,” he said. “I’ve got an errand to run.”

There was a pause as both of Danny’s parents looked at him, confused. He didn’t blame them. Danny rarely went out as a human anymore, and certainly not for anything like errands. Looking like he was still fourteen after all this time made doing anything even remotely official difficult.

But this wasn’t a human errand. “Yeah,” said Danny. “In the Ghost Zone. I’ve got to go to Three Twilights.”

“Where?” asked Jack.

“It’s, um, a city,” said Danny. “Well, three cities, I suppose, depending on how you want to group them. One Realm. On the shores of the Celestial Sea. I’m sure I’ve put it in your files.” Probably a direct copy from his files from before he came clean to them, but still. He stirred his cereal counterclockwise, letting his ice powers chill the milk.

“Yes,” said Maddie, “but there are a lot of places in there. I’m not sure we’ve had a chance to properly look at them all, much less memorize them.”

“Okay, yeah,” said Danny. “I guess that makes sense.”

“What kind of errand are you running, Danno?”

“I’m picking something up for a friend. A book,” he clarified. “They lent it to someone there, but they need it back.”

“A book,” said Maddie. “For the Library of Tongues?”

“No, they’ve got a contract service for overdue loans.”

“Contract service?” asked Jack.

“Yeah. Moonlighting bounty hunters mostly.”

“For a library?”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Danny, shrugging. “They’re really serious about their work.”

“If it isn’t for them, who is it for?” asked Maddie. “The princess? Wulf?” Wulf had actually been over a few times, and his parents had… Well, saying they got along would be an overstatement, they didn’t really have anything in common beyond ripping portals in the fabric of the universe, but everyone had been civil. “The boy at the school?”

“No,” said Danny. “Wulf would just get it himself.”

“Who, then?” pressed Maddie.

Danny put a spoonful of cereal in his mouth, delaying. Maddie hadn’t eaten anything since Danny had mentioned the errand. The errand was, in fact, for Clockwork. Danny was always more than happy to do anything for Clockwork. The older ghost had saved him too many times for him to be otherwise. But Jack and Maddie were wary of Clockwork. Danny didn’t get it, but talking about it hadn’t been productive so far.

He didn’t want to lie to his parents. Not ever again.

“It’s for Clockwork,” he said.

Ah, yes, there were those suspicious looks. The ones Danny could have interpreted even without being able to almost literally taste emotions.

“I see,” said Maddie.

“Anyway,” said Danny, quickly, “if I haven’t shown you Three Twilights yet, it’s really cool. I don’t want to take the full rig, but maybe the little ectocam would be okay? The one that I can clip on.”

“Why not the normal camera with an ectofilter?” asked Jack. “That has more features, and it’s easier for us to get data from.”

“Three Twilights. It’s dark there,” said Danny. “It might work in Civila, but not so much in Naŭtika and Astronomia, and I sort of want to go down to the beach and see if I can find any star pearls, and that’s really dark, so if you want to see anything properly, it’ll have to be the sonar setup, which I’m not doing, the noises that thing makes are offensive, or the ectocam.”

“And the Fenton Phones?” asked Maddie.

“Sure,” said Danny. “But I always bring those.”

“Yes,” said Maddie, after a moment. “You do.”

“Great. It’s settled, then.”

.

Most of the journey to Three Twilights could be made by air. Or, rather, what passed for air in the Infinite Realms. But when the rocky edge of an island came into view, Danny touched down. Further in was a blue wood, and Danny walked under its inviting branches.

The atmosphere started sunny, summery. The leaves and needles of the trees were the color of a clear blue sky. But as he got deeper, the leaves were touched with sunset colors: golds, reds, oranges, purples, and pinks. They fell to the ground, crunching beneath Danny’s feet. The sunset grew longer, deeper. The leaves on the trees grew sparser, revealing patches of sky.

By the time only bare branches framed the sky, it was a dusky, dim, purple. A few lonely stars twinkled in the sky.

He passed out of the forest. The city of Civila rose above him. Windows glowed in the near dark like eyes.

Danny had changed, too. His aura had dimmed. The whites of his suit were now dark gray, and patterns swirled on its surface like camouflage, like wind-twisted clouds, like nebulae.

Shadows bled around the corners of the city buildings like ink in water. Will-o-the-wisps bobbed, casting pools of illumination in lieu of streetlamps. Ghosts walked up and down the streets, or floated only a few meters up.

The buildings glittered. Everything was dark, vibrant, colors. A sharp, sweet scent filled the air, something dark and rich beneath it.

The canals in the center of the street were filled with flashing fish. Or perhaps serpents. Or perhaps worms. Between how fast they moved and the dimness of the light, it was difficult to tell.

Danny could feel his irises contracting, shrinking down to needle-thin rings. His teeth were sharp. He matched the other ghosts around him. This was how the Civila liked it, how things were in this part of Three Twilights.

Everything in order. Everything peaceful. Everything civil.

Danny walked through the market square, and bought some charcoal-colored cherry pastries from a vendor who looked like someone’s nightmare demon with a chip of ghost ice.

Much to his parents’ protests. They didn’t care for him eating ghost food.

There were seven bridges to Naŭtika, which was built half underwater and half on boats that floated both on the water and in the air. As the dark waters of the inlet lapped at his feet, Danny felt the changes ripple across his skin. To a human, he would look pure black, except for the faintest glimmer of rim lighting and the stars of his eyes. He and the other ghosts moved silently, cutting through the waters like shadows.

To Danny’s ghostly senses, the place was alive with emotion and force, energy loud and crackling against his senses.

“We’re solely on the ectocam, now,” said Maddie. “You were right about that.”

“Mhm,” said Danny, half distracted by a whispered sea-shanty backed by a choir of not-voices and not-sound that wove together with the mastery of a hundred years of practice.

He glided up a rope net, and began to navigate the ropes to the taller ships. The very tallest, the ones that scraped the ever-darkening sky and blotted out uneven sections of stars, moored the glass-like ships that floated above. He’d need to reach them, to get to Astronomia.

“What’s that?” asked Maddie, breaking his concentration on his path.

“What’s what?” asked Danny, whisper soft, drawing some looks. He turned, slowly, on the spot, planks barely creaking under his steps. A gentle wind ruffled his hair.

“There,” said Maddie. “By the ghost that’s registering red.”

It had taken Danny a long time to learn what color on the ectocam’s artificial sensor signified what, but he had, if only to reduce the guessing when they played this game.

“Star pearls,” said Danny, eyeing the ropes of stone that glimmered brighter than his eyes currently did. They were one of the only reliable forms of light, out on the Celestial Sea, although they were valued for other things, too.

“They’re putting out a massive amount of energy,” said Maddie.

“You mentioned them before,” said Jack. “You wanted to look for some?”

“On the shore,” said Danny. “Out past Astronomia.” He wanted to find his own, rather than buy them.

Partially because they were expensive. He didn’t really want to think about how much unmelting ice he’d have to conjure up to equal one of them. They were usually bartered in exchange for… more significant things.

The ghost by the pearls beckoned him closer, clearly hoping to make a sale. Danny shook his head, broadcasting regret and admiration for his wares. Speech might be faster but, under these circumstances, it would not be polite.

When Danny left, the social rules of Three Twilights would only leave the faintest impression on his mind. But, for now, they were a heavy, but not uncomfortable weight. One he could shrug off if necessary, but which was currently useful.

“What are they?” asked Maddie, as Danny turned away.

“They happen when big enough things fall into stars,” said Danny. “They’re all the memories of what they used to be… and the imagination of what they could become, when the star dies. Well, that’s what they’re supposed to be. I don’t think anyone really knows for sure.”

“And you can just… find these? Lying around?”

“Not… not really,” said Danny, slowly drifting towards a crow’s nest. “It’s like that one national park. That one where you can collect diamonds? You never really find anything good, but you can look.”

“I see,” said Maddie. “So, you don’t expect to find one?”

“Yes and no,” said Danny. “If I don’t expect to find one, I probably won’t. Unless the sea is feeling ironic, which it usually is, apparently. I mean, it’s an ocean and the stars. And prophecy is, like, ninety percent irony, but mostly for an outside observer. Which honestly makes sense, I think. An observer, not an Observant. Those are different things.”

The kind of silence on the other side of the line was the one that emerged when Danny used too much ghost logic.

“Anyway,” he continued as he scaled the crow’s nest and started traversing the glass ropes and chains to the all-but-invisible glass ships, “no, I don’t really expect to.”

The path to Astronomia was a staircase carved from moonstone harvested in October, when the moon was full and orange-red. It burned Danny’s eyes to look at and feet to walk upon. Like many ghosts who fixated on things like astronomy, he adapted quickly and thoroughly to the spiritual dark.

This darkest twilight was built of delicate bubbles, whorls, and arches of glass, any of which could cradle a ghost, all of which could be phased through with impunity. There were no true roads here, but certain places were easier to travel through. Addresses were carved in the glass in glimmering, holographic sigils made from glass-caught starlight that humans would never be able to read, but Danny could understand with a glance. It was not silent in Astronomia, the high wind sung through the glass like the immense instrument it was, playing ethereal and eternal music that mirrored heaven.

As always, Danny was enraptured. Perhaps the stars here were not true stars, only their memory and imagination (or simulacra made from stripped ghost cores, he remembered with a shudder), but he felt so close here.

“Danny? Are you still with us?”

Danny started to reply, but realized he had forgotten, once again, that he had no mouth here.

A phantabulist played a story for a group of not-quite-children, characters made of carefully constructed light chasing each other about with vigour. Danny stopped for a while to watch the story, a parable about spiders and fish. They were common here, storytellers who plied their craft this way. The stories could be pressed into glass prisms and orbs that served as books and viewed even in other environs of the Ghost Zone.

He moved on, passing through a glass bubble full of ghosts that snatched at and stroked him as he passed by, leaving stars and dark clouds to swirl across his skin. His suit had long since smoothed over and sunk in. His skin was a thin surface, a membrane holding in liquid night. He was like smoke, like vapour, thin and easily overlooked.

The places he passed were homes, places of business, warehouses, and hotels, organized without any apparent reason. A phantabularium glowed like a struck match, snatches of story visible inside its walls. He walked by.

Eventually, he reached the palace at the city center.

The ghost who lived there was old. Older, perhaps, than Pandora. She filled the vessels of her palace in placid pools connected by crystalized threads and looping tubes. Seven round-bottom flasks, radiating outward, like the spheres of heaven. The music here was almost deafening.

This was Urania, Muse of Astronomy. Astronomia was her city, and subordinate to her will before all else.

Danny resisted the urge to kneel. He was not here as a supplicant, and they both knew it.

The lowest pool bubbled, and slowly a glass prism, a dodecahedron, floated to the top. Danny took it with careful hands and left Urania’s direct presence as quickly as possible.

Being near her was always difficult. She was the Muse of Astronomy, and she felt he did not indulge his second Obsession as much as was proper.

Indeed, she thought it should be his first.

(The starlight inside him pulsed. He was never sure how much influence Urania could exert on him when he visited Three Twilights, never sure how much the relationship between his passions shifted when he was here. He loved it here too much to stay away forever.)

Astronomia did not end all at once. Instead, as one walked farther from the palace, the delicate, clear glass was replaced by black sand. When Danny had feet again, and could feel the grains beneath them, he knew he was no longer in Astronomia, but on the Shores of Night. The Isles of the Moon were faintly visible in the distance, sea-spray framing them in silvery halos.

He felt human here. His breath moved in his lungs, and his skin rose in goosebumps, the sleeves of his t-shirt fluttering in the wind. The sea and the sky were the same, and twice as beautiful for it.

“Sorry for going silent on you there,” said Danny. “I keep forgetting I don’t have a mouth there.”

“How do you forget that?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know.” Danny shrugged, even though he knew Jack couldn’t see him. “Do you think the ectocam might be able to spot buried star pearls?”