#dannymay 2022 day 12: elements

[five-rivers]

Elements

Innocent questions could take a person down dangerous rabbit holes.  Questions like, for example, “Why doesn’t ghost ice melt?”

He hadn’t really thought about it before, but, surrounded by the icy caves of the Far Frozen, it seemed a natural enough question.  He hadn’t a lot of time to ask about it when he was here before, in ice power bootcamp, trying to get enough of a handle on them to fight Undergrowth without freezing to death.  

But the crystal he’d given Sam had yet to melt, and even when they’d held it over a tea light, it had retained its shape.  They’d only been able to melt ghost ice with ghost fire.  It was cool, but also weird.  

Frostbite beamed at him.  Frostbite did a lot of beaming, actually.  It was a welcome change from how most people looked at him.  

“An excellent question, Great One!  How familiar are you with elements?”

“Are we talking about fire, earth, water, air, or about, like, the periodic table?”

“The latter.”

Danny shrugged.  “Vaguely?  I mean, I’m in chemistry, but it’s high school and I have bad grades.”

“Do you know what elements are made of?”

“Atoms,” said Danny.  

“And atoms?”

“Electrons, protons, and neutrons.  Protons are what determines the type of element.”

“Quite so,” said Frostbite, smiling broadly.  He directed Danny down a branching passage.  “Do you know what protons and neutrons are made of?”

Danny frowned.  “I thought that was as small as you could go,” he said.  “Except light, I guess.”

“Photons are indeed different,” said Frostbite.  “The matter made from protons and neutrons is baryonic matter.  Or, as Walker dubs it, ‘real world matter.’  The term is highly misleading, of course.”  Frostbite scoffed.  “We have our share of baryonic matter here as well, and the Infinite Realms are very real.”

“Huh,” said Danny.  “I’d always wondered about that.”

“Some people simply do not take death well, it seems,” said Frostbite, sadly.  “But protons and neutrons are made of something I believe humans call quarks.  Electrons are leptons.  Photons are bosons.  Quarks, leptons, and bosons are all elementary particles.”

“Okay,” said Danny, feeling as if all this was going over his head.  Far, far over his head.

“Ectoplasm is largely made of entirely different elementary particles.”  He opened a door for Danny.  

“So…  Is ghost ice, um, made of water made out of those different particles?”

“Alas, the physics do not quite work out that way,” said Frostbite.  “Ectoplasm has its own analog to atoms, but none of them directly correspond to those that create water, or any other earthly element.”

“But I’ve seen water here.  I see ice here.  Even if it doesn’t always behave like regular ice.”

“Yes,” said Frostbite, “but that water is hydrogen and oxygen.  Baryonic matter.  But ectoplamic matter and baryonic matter can interact.”

“So, ghost ice acts the way it does because it’s ectoplasmic matter and baryonic matter interacting?”

“Indeed, Great One!  When we reduce the temperature of our surroundings with our powers, we are in fact appending a specific ectoplasmic particle to the other particles surrounding us.  The addition of the ectoplasmic particle absorbs energy - heat.”

“An endothermic reaction?  That’s what that’s called, right?”

“That is largely correct.  But the ectoplasmic particles associated with our ice powers tend to break down and decay into other particles rather rapidly, with a few exceptions.  One of those exceptions–” Frostbite tapped his knuckles against his ice arm, “--is when it has bonded to water.  The ectoplasmic particles change the structure of the ice enough to make it far more stable than regular ice and allow us to control it or melt it at will.”

“Is that why it melts with ghost fire?  Because it messes with the ectoplasmic particles?”

“Yes.  Anything that disrupts the particles too much will cause the water molecules to act as they usually do.  But there are few things that can do that, and we can invest more power in our ice to make it stronger.  For example, I regularly attempt to infuse my arm with more ectoplasmic particles, although I fear I have long since reached saturation.”  He smiled, ruefully.  “Ah, and here we are, Great One!  A room for you to practice.”

He opened the doors to a large and completely empty cavern.  

“You know,” said Danny, “my aim has gotten better.  I had just recovered from almost dying, last time.  I don’t think I’ll hit anything I don’t want to this time.”

“I think it is still best to try it out here, first, just for all our peace of mind.”  Frostbite patted his shoulder.

“Okay,” said Danny.  He didn’t really mind, per se, and he’d felt really bad about hitting the other yetis, but…  He’d also sort of liked having an audience that was cheering for him.  

“Before you begin, though,” said Frostbite.  “Who do you know that can use fire?  It sounded like you have done some tests.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  “I just used mine.”

“Pardon?”

“I just used my fire,” said Danny, raising a finger and summoning a tongue of flame.  

Frostbite blinked at it.  “That,” he said, “is highly unusual.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, most people who use ice cannot also use fire.  Different forms of energy control.  Have you ever used electric attacks?”

“Yeah, but I’m not very good at it, and I don’t like it.  I end up shocking myself.”

“Fascinating.  May I?”  He gestured at Danny’s hand.  Danny extended it to him, and didn’t protest when he started to examine it.  “How is your general telekinesis?”

“No good in a fight, I have to concentrate too much.”

“Have you ever moved the wind?  Manipulated water?  The weather?”

“Only for a little bit,” said Danny.  “Right after Vortex hit me with lightning that one time.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Vortex hit you with lightning and you gained powers?”

“Yeah?”

“The Ancient Vortex?”

“I don’t know how old he is.”

Frostbite stared at Danny for a long moment, then sighed heavily.  “If it didn’t show up in your exam today, it is probably fine, but that is the sort of thing to tell your doctors.”

Danny shrugged.  “I forgot,” he said.  “So…  What are we going to do today?  Anything…”  He grinned.  “Cool?”

Frostbite chuckled.  “Great One, everything we do is ‘cool,’ as you put it.  Now, let us begin with some basic exercises.”

“Would you call them… warm ups?”

“Sometimes, I fear I will never understand human slang.  Particle physics is much more straightforward.” 

[angelic-ish-phantom]

Dannymay12

Elements

Fun premise that an ice core isn’t actually a thing. Or well, it is for the Far Frozen, a small, localized tribe with a whole Arctic theme.

So most ghost’s cores tend to be immature, cosmic, temporal, somatic, (etc.) or elemental. When cores mature most tend to be elemental, just typically leaning towards one caveat. Like fire as is most common. But they can all still use other elements.

[Imma write something for this later I’m so busy rn]

[kostektyw]

Dannymay 2022 Day 12: elements

[this-is-z-art-blog]

[ID: digital drawing of Ember McLain from Danny Phantom. She is playing a purple electric guitar and singing into a microphone on a blue stand. She’s wearing a gray shirt with a ripped collar and purple pants with large tears, and well as a black jacket with spikes along the shoulders, and she has a number of rings and piercings. She is backlit by a large, brightly glowing blue fire, which curls upwards like her hair and is throwing off a number of sparks. Her expression is fiercely happy.]

♫ Let's go out in flames so everyone knows who we are ♫

Dannymay  2022, Day 12 ↳ Elements

[iamaghost-fearme]

Spirit World

DannyMay 2022 Day 12: Elements

Word Count:

AO3 Link

A very loose interpretation of the prompt. This was turning out to be one of the weirdest places in the Ghost Zone and he wasn’t alone here.

Danny floated through the endless green expanse of the Ghost Zone toward the misty island in the distance. He hadn’t been out this far yet and felt the curiosity of exploration thrum in his core. It wasn’t space, but it was almost as unknown. The mist reached out from the island engulfed him well before he reached the island. An impossible chill surrounded him and he shivered. This was racking up points to be one of the weirdest places he’d visited in the Ghost Zone. It was almost like a separate world.

Touching down on the swampy ground, he hesitated. Silence pressed against him as thick as the mist despite the feeling of movement through the gloom. Peering around, he noticed a lightening of the darkness in the distance and set off for it.

Emerging from the chill fog, he confirmed what he’d felt from inside the silence: he wasn’t alone here. A humanoid figure was wandering aimlessly around the field. It looked to be a human boy, maybe 12 years old or so. Concern quickly replaced curiosity. The Ghost Zone was no place for a human, especially not a kid and he hurried over to him, eager to help him get back to wherever home was.

His swift approach wasn’t noticed by the boy and the sudden appearance startled him. He jumped back nimbly with moves that resembled a form of martial arts. Danny remained still, hopefully to project a non threatening presence. On closer inspection, it was definitely a human boy - no tell tale glow or semi transparency of a ghost. His clothes were odd, they almost resembled something he might have seen on monks in temples, and his bald head was divided down the center with a large tattoo of an arrow.

“I always forget bending doesn’t work in here,” he muttered, clearly thinking Danny couldn’t hear him. He didn’t sound particularly worried and did he imply he’d been here before? And what did he mean by ‘bending’?

The kid stayed crouched in his maybe-martial arts position while Danny continued to stare. “I’ve never seen you before, who are you?”

Again with the suggestion that he’d been here before. “I’m Phantom. The real question is how did you get here? Who are you?”

“I’m Aang. I’m the Avatar.” He paused like that was supposed to mean something.

“Okay, but what are you doing here? How did you get here?” Danny was beginning to get exasperated. The kid - Aang - wasn’t understanding that it wasn’t safe to wander around the Ghost Zone.

“Um, I’m the Avatar,” he said slowly like Danny wasn’t understanding him or was maybe a little stupid. “It’s not like it’s hard for me to get to the Spirit World.”

“So you came here on purpose?” He must be missing something. What could possibly prompt a living person to come here on purpose?

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I just needed a break.” He finally relaxed, deflating a little like the things he needed a break from were physical weights.

“What could be so bad that you’d come here to get a break? You’ve gotta be like 10” Danny froze, realizing what he said. He was 14 when he died and started ghost hunting. Being young didn’t mean you couldn’t have overwhelming responsibilities.

“Everyone expects me to have all the answers and solve every problem. The Avatar is supposed to be this bridge and peacekeeper and stuff but I don’t have any idea what I’m doing. I thought maybe I could get some time to myself after defeating the Fire Lord, but that just made it all worse!” He was shouting by the end. Voicing all the thoughts he couldn’t tell anyone at home to Phantom.

Danny still couldn’t figure out what an avatar was or who the Fire Lord was supposed to be, but outside of that, the story sounded depressingly familiar. Too much responsibility, too young and no way to deal with it.

“Isn’t there someone you could talk to? Tell them how you feel?”

“I don’t want to worry anyone. Katara and Sokka are busy helping rebuild the Southern Water Tribe, and Zuko has the whole Fire Nation to restructure. Toph isn’t really the advice-giving type.” He shrugged.

Imaginary alarm bells rang in Danny’s head. It was almost word for word the same type of excuses he always used to come up with about why he’d leave his friends out of the loop on ghost stuff. He couldn’t believe it, but he had to give advice to this kid.

“Look, there’s always reasons not to tell people about your problems, but if they’re your friends, they’ll want to help. I promise. Just tell them. They won’t feel like you’re a burden or any of the other excuses you tell yourself. Trust me, I speak from experience.” Aang stared at him as though trying to examine his trustworthiness. “Now will you go back home? It’s really not safe to be wandering around here.”

Aang slowly nodded, deep in thought. Hopefully about how he was going to tell his friends about his feelings. “Yeah, I’ll go back. And I’ll talk to Katara.” He sat down on the ground as though preparing to meditate. “And, thanks.” With that, he was gone.

[dailudannos]

DannyMay 2022 - Day 12 - Elements

Well if it isn’t the king of elements himself!