#i call this how to get away with murder au in which sam and tucker were present for the accident that killed danny totally | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

shadow-pixelle · 10 months ago

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The snippet continues...

Part one is here, and part two is here.

I've actually had this bit done for a while now, and I've got another couple of scenes ready to go. Plus I've started figuring out how we got here and some of the other worldbuilding stuff, too.

Might need to actually give this AU a name sometime soon.

Until then, though, enjoy the next chunk of things!

Danny felt a little bad for how quickly he relaxed once Hood was out of sight. It wasn’t like it was the guy’s fault that his core was fucked up.

But still, the pressure of not giving in to all his instincts calling for him to take the kid and run had been… difficult. Especially considering the atmosphere of the room.

He hadn’t been wrong earlier that kidnapping was a bad idea, right now.

Sam and Tucker both relaxed as well, which made Danny feel a little better about his reaction, and took their hands from where they were grabbing him. It wouldn’t have helped if he’d decided to say fuck it and lunge, but the pressure of them holding onto him had helped him remember not to phase into intangibility and portal out.

The tension wasn’t much better, though.

Nightwing was frozen, reaching out towards where Hood had ran like he could somehow grab the guy’s shoulder and stop him from bolting. The others in the room- Red Robin, Robin, Batman- were just as still; the two Robins staring at Danny, Batman staring at nothing.

Batman.

There was a twinge in the air, in their bonds, from Sam. She wanted to strangle him, and honestly, Danny wasn’t too inclined to stop her right now. That was probably the Protection spirit talking, really, rather than any sort of logic, but hey, sue him. He was a halfa and his Obsession was just as there as any other ghost. That meant keeping people safe.

And that was before he got into any of the Ghost King shit.

He felt Tucker reach around Danny’s back and grasp Sam’s elbow, apparently sensing both her wish for murder and Danny’s general lack of care.

“I think we should go.” Tucker said, quickly but quietly, in Danny’s ear. He huffed a little, but nodded, transforming back into his ghost form with a flicker. It would be a good idea to let everyone cool down after that, plus it would get Sam away from her current plant food target.

The shift seemed to snap the Bats out of it, at least a little. Nightwing snapped over to look at them, and Red Robin made a small sound. “Go?”

“And let you… process.” Danny said, wrapping his tail around Sam’s waist. She huffed, a sharp and violent sound, but finally relaxed entirely into him rather than preparing to snap, which was good. “I understand that there was a lot of information there, that you likely want time to think through.”

Tucker leaned a little forward again, a small nudge, and Danny nodded, knowing what he wanted. It was easier to focus on their Grief bonds now, with Hood’s core not in the room and making it hard to think beyond instincts if they weren’t talking.

“We’ll make contact with you again in a few days, or you can contact us.” He added. It wouldn’t be hard, Tucker had been working on figuring out some kind of link to them since they arrived here, and being in their home base would’ve helped. “But for now I think it would be best if we left.”

“But-” Nightwing glanced in the direction Hood had ran again, then back to them. Sam softened, a little, at the display of care, the air crackling with it.

“We’ll keep an eye out for him, and discuss the situation with our people.” She told him. “Don’t worry. We’ll find a way to help.”

“Thank you.” Nightwing said, voice cracking. Danny waited a moment, to see if any of them had anything else to say, then cloaked both his Griefmates in invisibility and intangibility in the same moment, moving to grab a more firm hold of Tucker and tightening his tail around Sam.

The Batman still wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t even moving, and Danny would’ve been more concerned if he’d had the room, but-

It had been a lot, and he was tired. More tired than he expected, just holding back the need to run away with Hood bundled between them.

And he still needed to call the Council, too, which was always going to be a nightmare.

A portal would have been too obvious, so Danny just flew straight up instead, pulling both his partners with him, and passed into the rock. From below them, there was a faint echo of something being thrown, and Nightwing’s voice shouting, “What the hell, B-?!” Danny winced a little and flew faster, all three of them keeping silent until they were well in the air- above the massive mansion above the Bat’s base, which was a wild thing even when they were used to the Mansons- and starting back towards the lights of the city.

“I’ll go and look for him.” Sam said, after a few minutes of flying. “I don’t- it’ll be hard, but I’ll be able to handle it.”

Danny would be the best to find Hood, with his ghost sense and the few powers the Crown granted him sometimes, but he was also the worst, because of his status as a halfa and Protection spirit. Tucker could probably do it just as well as Sam could, but his talents meant bunkering down with their computer setup and searching that way would be better than him looking in person.

So Danny just nodded. “Alright. Let’s go back to the apartment, first, and we’ll get one of the whistles out for you. I need to go to the Realms, so I won’t be able to make portals for you, but you can call Cujo to do it instead.”

“You think he’ll want to come to the Realms?”

Danny shrugged, a little. “Maybe. I think… he’s scared, probably. And I don’t think this place is safe for him.”

“The city or the dimension?”

“Not sure, yet. We’ll have to look into it more. But I don’t think it matters, whether it’s the city or the dimension. I don’t think this place is safe for him, and I think he might be scared. Admittedly he might be scared of us, which is bad, but I’m hoping he’ll let us try to help even if he is scared of us.”

“I’ll try to answer his questions, if he’s got any.” Sam frowned audibly, and both Danny and Tucker chuckled. They knew full well how difficult it was for Sam to tolerate people for any length of time, and explaining things was a nightmare for her if people didn’t listen, so hopefully Hood wouldn’t end up on the wrong end of her patience at all.

“Drop me off at the apartment too.” Tucker put in. “I’ll man the computers and see if I can find Hood anywhere on the cameras in the city.”

“Thanks, Tuck.” She smiled up at him. “I think I can guess where he went? But having some kind of eyes in the sky would be good.”

“You do?” Danny asked, looking down so he could raise an eyebrow at her. “How?”

“You know we thought there was a Haunt here?”

“Yeah, that Park Row place.” Danny nodded slowly, then paused. “Oh. You think that’s it?”

“I mean, it’d make sense, right? A ghost’s haunt always feels a little bit like them, and with Hood’s core as torn up as it is…”

Tucker nodded against Danny’s chest, humming. “Yeah, that would make sense. I didn’t think of that.”

“That’s what we’re for.”

“Ok, so Tucker back to the apartment, Sam to grab a whistle for Cujo and then out the door, and I’m off to the Realms.” Danny sighed a little. “Great. You guys get all the fun jobs. I get to enjoy fighting with the Council for like a week trying to make sure they don’t declare war or something while we’re still investigating. That’ll be just our luck.”

“Eh, I’m sure you can do it. They like you, after all.”

Danny just sighed again.

The rest of the trip back into the city and towards the apartment they’d rented wasn’t long or difficult, especially not when flying, and Danny easily phased through the window into the building proper. The second he let go of his Griefmates, they were off; Tucker went straight for the pile of tablets and PDAs and laptops that he’d built up, starting them up all at once with a push of power, while Sam went for the bedroom and their lockbox full of ghost stuff, coming back with a silver whistle that she tucked down the front of her dress so only the chain was showing.

“Want a lift?” He asked, and Sam laughed.

“No, I’ll be fine. Get moving, your Highness, you’ve got places to be.”

“Fiiiiiine.” Danny sighed again, flopping backwards dramatically just to see them laugh, and opened a portal to his Lair.

The feeling of being at home again settled over him like a weight, and he took a moment to shake himself out and settle into the feeling before starting to move.

Luckily, there were protocols and stuff for this kind of thing. And even more fortunately, Fright Knight was nearby and not roaming like he could have been. Danny barely got the doors open from his portal room into the main Lair before the Knight was there, hovering not far into the hall.

“Fright Knight.” Danny inclined his head, pulling at his core. The Ring and Crown formed with only a small amount of fuss- his living half causing them to complain, he knew- though he didn’t bother with any of the rest of the regalia he’d created in the past for situations like this. As strange as it sounded, this felt like something he had to approach more as Phantom, the Protection spirit and halfa, rather than the Ghost King, even though he knew he needed the Crown and Ring with him.

Instincts like that were strange, sometimes.

“Prince Phantom.” The Autumn spirit replied, saluting him. “Is something amiss?”

“We need to call the Council together, Fright.” He said, a small sigh. Him calling the Crown and Ring would have already started that process, with some of them, but not everyone was going to be in a position to notice that stuff, so it was better to tell Fright Knight so he could help get things going. “We’ve got a really bad situation in that world, and it’s going to need a lot of work.”

“How so, my Prince?” Fright Knight asked, even as his core flickered to call the various underghosts of the Lair to attention.

“The sort of thing where we might be declaring outright war on some people.” Danny told him, and watched the Fright Knight freeze.

“I see.”

#dcxdp #fic writing #my writing #random scenes from the abyss #danny phantom #sam manson #tucker foley #at some point this will get a name i swear #braided fates au

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artistfingers · 3 years ago

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Do Sam and Tucker have their theories on how Danny Phantom passed away? In the undercover au, if so what are they? and how ridiculous do they get after they finally start hanging out with him????

[Undercover AU]

Sam and Tucker’s Theories on how Phantom Passed Away…. Yeah, I’ve got ideas there 👀

Below the cut: ramblings on their theories about Phantom in general, including how he passed away, and if he’s different from other ghosts. One or two spoilers for the comic I’ve got in progress and some I have loosely planned, btw.

Before they met Phantom, Sam and Tucker’s theories were in line with everyone else in town. One leading idea, that could have held a grain of truth, was this: that Phantom was murdered young and came back as a ghost to seek vengence… against the very ghosts that ended his life. Sure, it’s dramatic, but it makes a good story, and it kinda explains why Phantom protects humans. But they’re pretty quick to discard this idea once they befriend Phantom; it’s just not accurate to call him vengeful. But what do they surmise instead?

Well. It starts with little clues that Phantom doesn’t realize he’s giving away.

Early on, they learn Phantom is 15. Was he 15 when he died? Has it been 15 years since he died? Something else? How do ghosts count their age? They don’t really know. Phantom won’t really say.

Then, Phantom mentions he wanted to be an astronaut before he died. And that sends Sam down a rabbit hole to set out a potential time frame for when he lived and died. The Space Age began in 1957, with the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite. And if you account for the fact that Phantom’s an American teenager (assumption: his accent), then a likely candidate for his interest in space was the Moon Landing in 1969. Maybe Phantom lived through it.

Running with that assumption, and if Phantom died at age 15… The earliest he coulda been born was like, 1954, or thereabouts. Of course, he coulda been born any time after that, but it’s a good starting point.

Later they learn from an offhand comment that Phantom likes Nasty Burger. He went all the time before the accid—he used to go a lot, like, every week. Which gives Sam and her little detective notebook another clue: Phantom lived in the region where NB’s popular. I’m picturing Nasty Burger as a regional chain, like how In-N-Out’s mostly a West Coast thing, Nasty Burgers are pretty difficult to find outside the Great Lakes region. So that vastly narrows down for Sam where he lived.

...Honestly, Sam’s got one of those cork boards covered in pins and yarn and newspaper clippings. All Tucker can do about it is stand back and say, “Sam, this is getting a little creepy.”

After all, he’s more content to let Phantom open up when and if he’s ready. But Sam makes it difficult to resist thinking about, and she needs someone else’s perspective to bounce ideas off of.

And it is interesting, especially because Phantom is so close-lipped about his life and death. They have to wonder, is there a reason for that?

They even ask him point-blank: “Do you remember your life?”

And Phantom shifts uncomfortably, looks up at the moon that’s fat and full and bright, and says, “Yeah. A little too well.”

The strained look on his face tells them that they shouldn’t push it any further than that.

They start to research teen deaths that fit the right region and timeframe Sam drew up. Beyond their insatiable curiosity, maybe there’s something nice they can do for him if they can learn a little more. Celebrate his birthday? ...no, that’s in poor taste.

In more than sixty years of obituaries, there’s altogether too many young deaths. They find more Phantom-Likelies than they’d like. They don’t even know how he died, aside from one or two small things. They did learn he died in an accident, though (Sam tosses out all candidates that were murder or natural causes). The bigger clue is that the accident that killed him fucked up his right hand. Like, a lot. It’s pretty nastily scarred in his ghost form.

(As a side note, the scar isn’t visible in his human form, but in both forms he deals with chronic pain in that hand; maybe even a loss of sensation in those fingers. He’s taught himself to write with his left hand by now. Later on when Sam and Tucker meet Fenton, some of their theories about the Phantom-Fenton connection might utilize the fact they’ve both got messed up right hands.)

Even if his death is a touchy subject for Phantom—as with any ghost—I can see him using dark/morbid humor and quips around it. Close call with Technus and electricity? “Wouldn’t be my first rodeo.” or, the three of them giving a burial to a bird that got caught up in the telephone wires? “I know how you feel, little guy.” and so on and so forth. (Sam: I’m sensing a theme here….)

Tucker throws out some pretty ridiculous ideas. “Maybe he worked in a power plant and a hurricane tore through the place and he got buried in wires—” “Tucker, how old do you think you have to be to work in a power plant??” “I was just saying!”

Sam’s theories are a little more grounded (hah), but either way, the two of them agree that Phantom’s death must have been grisly. Not only for Phantom to die so young, but for Phantom to become a ghost at all, let alone such a powerful one.

It’s a pretty well-known fact by now that natural, peaceful deaths don’t generate ghost cores.

...and finally, because we can’t not beat up Danny a little bit, after helping him out in enough conflicts, Tucker and Sam start to notice that Phantom’s injuries are not like other ghosts’. He actually bleeds ectoplasm. Bleeds it like blood. Other ghosts are a bit loosey-goosey with their ectoplasm; it congeals and coagulates quickly, and often can be bent to their will much the way the rest of their body is, at least until the point of destabilization or complete separation from the core.

While Phantom neither destabilizes nor breaks down, his ectoplasm doesn’t coagulate like that. It flows out of him like, not nearly as viscous as it should be. And every time it does, the pain on his face is way too alive for comfort.

So there’s something about Phantom, something that’s different. Sam and Tuck can’t confirm too much, but this is Phantom; this is their friend. And they’re worried about him.

#danny phantom #sam manson #tucker foley #undercover phantom au #ask #anon #art writes #Undercover Asks

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ayamari-no-goshi · 4 years ago

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Eidolon 11 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary: AU: What started off as the result of a simple act of rebellion ends up causing his life to spin out of control. How will young Danny cope with the results as well as a past that has a strange habit of coming back to haunt him.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, kidnapping, and various other things

Parings: hints of Danny/Sam much later on

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr

11: Alternative Paths

The police officers told him they needed to ask him a few questions. What they forgot to mention was he would be locked in a small, remarkably bare room for five hours with a police officer who was dead set in viewing him as a suspect. Danny had never been more relieved to get out of a room before in his life. Yeah, he understood family members needed to be questioned due to the statistics surrounding such crimes, but seriously! Did someone as scrawny as him really look like he could have hurt Winston that badly without getting any sort of injury in the process?

However, he couldn't really blame them for being suspicious, especially when it came to his whereabouts the previous night. How do you rationally explain you were chased by a murderous robot-ghost-thing? The obvious answer was to avoid the topic all together. He hoped he was convincing enough when he said he and his friends had taken a walk in the evening and returned to Sam's house to watch some movies. He specifically avoided mentioning the park. There was no telling what the officers would think if they learned he might have been around when it got torn up. He was actually kind of surprised no one in the precinct had mentioned it.

A few times during his interview, he had nervously flattened his bangs a few times, hoping to hide the cut he had suddenly remembered getting at the beginning of his terrifying adventure. The officer interviewing him had noticed the motion, which caused him to leave it alone the rest of the time he was in the room. Surprisingly, Danny wasn't asked about it. A little wary after he was finished and allowed to exit the room, he touched the spot only to find smooth skin. It took a lot of self-control to not dash to a reflective surface and examine his forehead. There was no use in making the officers more suspicious. As weird as a missing cut was he could wait until he got home to check.

Scratch that… he could check after he found a place to stay for a while. As he was about to exit the station, an older officer kindly reminded him of the fact his house was currently considered a crime scene. After apologizing for a lack of effort from the staff for trying to contact his family and promising to personally look into it in the morning, he directed Danny to a nearby phone situated at the front desk.

Danny was a little surprised at the kind attitude of the officer as he had been dealing with a special type of dick for the past several hours, but it was a nice change. Shaking his head a little, he moved to the phone to call Sam, praying she was still awake as it was approaching midnight. Both of his friends told him they wanted an update, but with it being late and he being emotionally, physically, and mentally drained, the only topic he wanted to discuss involved where he would be staying for the night.

As he was dialing her number, the door to the station opened and a tall man strolled in. The newcomer was tall and rather thin. He wore a clean black business suit which appeared to be expertly cared for and rather expensive. Gray hair had been slicked back into a neat ponytail, and calculating cold blue eyes surveyed his surroundings. Danny dropped the phone in surprise as he realized the man in front of him was the one and only Vlad Masters.

The sound from the phone brought him to Masters' attention, causing the man to adopt an unsettling grin. "Why here you are! I've been looking all over for you!" The tone of his voice and his expression adopted a semblance of concern, but it did not reach his eyes. "I was so worried after I found out what happened to Winston. My condolences, but I'm glad you're safe and sound."

"Don't talk about Winston like he's dead!" Danny snapped. "Look, can you just go away? If you haven't realized, it's been a pretty bad day for me, and I don't feel like talking to you right now."

"Of course. How inconsiderate of me. After everything you've been through today, you must be exhausted. Come, I'll make sure you're well taken care of."

It took Danny a moment to grasp the implications of Vlad's statement. "Wait… what? There's no way I'm going with you!"

"Poor boy, you must be more tired than you realize." The businessman pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a dramatic sigh. "Don't you remember? It was determined that you would be placed into my care if anything were to happen to Winston."

"That's news to me!"

"Excuse me, but what exactly is going on here?" The sound of the officer's voice made him jump. He had forgotten there was another soul in the room. However, he couldn't be more relieved. Being in the room alone with the businessman was an unnerving thought. It was even more relieving when he realized the officer seemed to be equally suspicious.

In a truly professional manner, Vlad introduced himself and explained his relationship to Danny as well as his involvement in the custody battle. Again, he mentioned how he was now to act as a guardian in Winston's stead.

"I already told you, I'm not going anywhere with you!" Danny growled as he glared at the man. Something was very wrong with the picture. Winston didn't trust Vlad, and there was no way he would let him fall into the billionaire's hands.

"You have to forgive the boy. We had a little spat the last time we saw each other, and I'm afraid he hasn't forgiven me," Vlad apologetically explained to the officer.

"Spat? You broke into my house?"

Before Vlad could respond, the officer held up his hand to halt the brewing argument. "Mr. Masters, do you have some sort of proof you can take the boy?" Vlad's expression quickly changed from shocked to insulted as the officer spoke. "Surely a man of your standing can understand our position. With the way Mr. Wolfe was attacked, we cannot rule anyone out as a potential suspect. With you being involved in a custody battle and Danny's status as a minor, we are rather uncomfortable sending him on his way like this. I'm also fairly certain you weren't notified of the situation…" The officer's eyes narrowed as he appraised the man. "Which leads me to wonder how you found out."

"One of my staff members was going to drop off some papers at the house when she saw the police cars and asked what happened" Vlad explained with an impatient air. "But that's not important right now…"

As he watched Vlad begin to argue with the officer, Danny couldn't help but feel a rush of gratitude. For whatever reason, the officer did not seem to believe Vlad's story and generally seemed concerned for his wellbeing.

Everything seemed to be going in his favor when Danny was nearly bowled over by a sudden blast of cold air rushed by him. Startled, he started looking around to find some possible source… and open window, a vent, something to explain it. While he tried to wrack his brains for some other answer when the normal explanations were ruled out, he noticed the officer stumble slightly. He didn't think anything of it until the man rubbed his forehead and excused himself for a moment.

Rather unsettled by the officer's display and being left alone with Vlad, Danny moved back to the phone to attempt to resume his call. Though he was able to reach Sam's house this time, a presumed butler answered and informed him that "Miss Samantha is asleep and no longer taking calls for the night." While Danny was pretty sure it was a lie, he went with it and asked the man to give a message to her when he could.

Displeased by the turn of events, he was about to try calling Tucker when the officer returned to the room. Something did not seem right as he looked at him. The man's posture seemed stiff, and his eyes were unfocused and reddish. Wait… Danny blinked and rubbed his eyes before checking again. The man's eyes were actually red! Weren't they brown before?

"Sorry for the inconvenience." The officer's voice had an unusual mechanical quality to it… almost as if the words he was saying weren't actually his. He held up a document of some sorts as he spoke again. "It seems like someone did verify this earlier, but just forgot to place it somewhere it could be found."

"Does this mean everything's in order?" Vlad asked with a voice filled with hardly concealed delight.

"Yes. You can take the boy. We'll be in touch within the next few days to let you know how Wolfe is doing."

"Splendid! Come on my boy, it's time to go!"

Danny backed away as Vlad beckoned to him, nearly tripping over the desk in the process. His mind was screaming all sorts of warnings at him. The entire situation felt wrong, but he had no idea how to escape it. Vlad was blocking his way to the front door, and he doubted the few officers left in the building would appreciate a desperate search for the rear exit.

"What did you do to him?" he demanded as his eyes darted between both men before he pointed at Vlad. He knew he probably wasn't going to get an answer, but he hoped he could stall the man long enough to come up with some sort of plan.

"Pardon me? Whatever do you mean?"

"Y-you know what I mean!" While he tried to keep the anger in his voice, it was quickly giving way to panic. Vlad kept moving towards him wearing an increasingly predatory expression which was really creeping him out. Strangely, the thought of accidently falling through the wall crossed his mind. Unsettling as it was, it was a far better situation than the one he was currently in. "The officer's not acting right!"

Vlad replied, but his words were drowned out as a strange coldness started to seep into his body, quickly filling every aspect. He tried to escape, thinking it was somehow tied to where he was standing, but his legs wouldn't respond. They felt heavy and strangely detached; his arms were beginning to feel the same way. He tried to yell out without any success. He soon realized his mind was being pushed further away from the sensations of his body and into something like a dark crevasse to be stored and forgotten.

But the coldness was not finished. It briefly brushed against his mind and seemed to whisper in an almost familiar voice, "Relax… It'll be safer for you and me if you do…"

Danny's last conscious thought before the darkness completely took him was to wonder if he was ever going to wake up.

….

When he came to, Danny found himself lying on his back and staring at an unfamiliar white ceiling. His mind felt groggy and his body heavy. Though he wasn't sure, he felt as if he had been asleep for quite some time. Sitting up, he tried to remember how he got where he was… only, he didn't know where that might be.

Looking around, he realized something wasn't right. The room he was in was rather large. It was a bedroom, not much different from Sam's, only it didn't have any posters or the same dark decorations. In fact, the room was mostly white save for some wooden furniture. Even the four-poster bed he was sitting on had a white comforter and curtains. The only real decoration in the room was a painting on the wall directly across from him which seemed to show military conquest with… a paranormal influence. It was rather grotesques.

The blank room gave him an uneasy feeling. Although it definitely wasn't, it gave him the feeling he was in a jail of sorts. Unnerved, he slowly got up and moved to the room's single window. After moving the curtains aside, he cursed as he realized the glass was heavily frosted, preventing him from seeing any scenery. His next move was to try the door, but it was locked.

After a panicked few minutes trying everything he could think of to attempt to open the door, he placed his back against the door and slid down it. What was he going to do? The better question was what was going to happen to him? With the room being blank, it gave him no indication of what he should expect. He should, he supposed, be thankful for it, but the wait might be too much for him to handle. What was the old adage? The suspense is worse than the actual event? He really hoped that wouldn't be the case.

xxxxxx

The sound of one of her parents calling for her to come into the downstairs wafted through the room, however, Sam was dead set on ignoring the summons. There were far more important things on her mind than dealing with whatever new 'daughter improvement project' they had come up with.

She was incredibly worried about her friend who neither she nor Tucker had heard from in a little over two days. At first she thought it might be due to being overwhelmed by suddenly finding out the man who raised him had been severely attacked and/or the police being jerks, but a call earlier in the day really concerned her.

She had been thinking about calling the police in the morning (while skipping class due to a feigned illness), however they beat her to the punch. Around eleven, she had received a call from one of the detectives asking her if she had heard from Danny. She told him no right before demanding to know what was wrong. Though it took a little bit of coaxing (and a reminder of her parents' influences), the officer admitted they had no idea where the boy was. He disappeared after his interview with another officer, and though they hated to admit it, after failing to contact him or anyone else who might have the boy, he was being labeled as a missing person. Her immediate response was to insult the competence of him and the rest of the force as the boy had gone missing from underneath their noses, but after she calmed down a bit, she promised to help in whatever way she could.

Sam sat down on her large purple clad bed and stared up at one of the posters on the ceiling as she tried to understand the situation. Her friend, who seemed to attract terrible and odd events, was now missing. Danny had tried to contact her the night he disappeared, but her family had forbidden her from further calls when she had returned home that night after they learned about the attack on Winston. Somehow, they had gotten the notion whatever had harmed Winston could attack her if she continued to talk to Danny. Though it was kind of nice to know they cared, they had taken it way overbroad.

But what was strange about the situation was there was no security image of Danny leaving the precinct. The officer had explained to her they had installed cameras a while back after someone had tried to break in to the office in an attempt to steal their guns. Due to safely concerns, they regularly had them checked, but the night Danny disappeared, they had a major malfunction. There was an image of him entering the entrance area, but after a few minutes, the image distorted so badly they could not make heads or tails of it. It also seemed to return to normal rather suddenly after a while, but Danny was long gone by then.

A look at the clock told her she was going to have to wait a while before she could contact Tucker. Unlike her, he had been forced to go to school. She had no idea if he already knew Danny was missing, but no matter what, he was going to help her try to find him. Tucker was the probably the only person in town who could possibly get an image off of the damaged security tape, and the only other person (besides her) who Danny had trusted with his issues. They had to try and do what they could to help him.

…

"So, any luck?" Sam asked the boy currently sitting on her rug surrounded by any number of other electronic equipment. He had been staring at the screen of his PDA with an intense look for quite some time.

She had managed to contact Tucker mere moments after he was finished with his classes for the day and explained the situation. After freaking out a bit, he told her he would be over soon after he made a quick stop. He arrived about forty minutes later looking more determined than he had ever seen him while carrying a bookbag filled to the brim with tech supplies she had never seen before. After asking if he needed anything, Tucker quickly went to work with his task.

"…Whoever did this to this footage is really good…" he eventually replied after a few more minutes of silence.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked hesitantly. It was rare to hear such a tone in Tucker's voice when it came to technology. He could usually work his way around a system in a few seconds, minutes if it was more complicated, but this was really causing him problems.

"It's hard to explain… Usually, people just modify existing images when they don't something seen, but this guy actually managed to replace some of the footage with an error screen…"

"So… it's gone… Like completely, gone? You can't trace it or anything?" There was no way for her to hide the hint of panic in her voice. If Tucker couldn't bring up anything, no one could… which meant they weren't going to have anything to use to find Danny.

A small laugh escaped Tucker, which caused her to stare at the boy. "Jeez, Sam, you shouldn't think so little of me. Who do you think I am? This guy, though good, made a small mistake. I guess he got interrupted or something because he started just covering up the image after a while instead of changing it. To most people, it's nearly impossible to catch, but it's there. Just give me a little bit of time…."

"A little bit of time?" Sam repeated as she watched him frantically work with his PDA. "How long are we talking about?"

He hit a few more buttons on the screen before he looked up and smiled. "Does 'now' work for you?"

"Tucker, you're amazing!"

"I know, I know. But it's nice to have my fans remind me."

Sam pulled down his hat in response as she sat next to him on the floor. "Anyways, do you have the entire footage?"

"I couldn't get part of it due to the replacement… but it looks like a little less than half was just modified…. So, let's see what no one wanted us to find…." He pressed a button on the screen and a fuzzy image began to appear. On the footage, they could see Danny backing away from someone standing near the door. It was difficult to make out, but judging from Danny's posture, he did not seem to be happy to see the person. After a little bit, Danny stopped retreating and followed the unknown man out the door.

Without any prodding, Tucker tried to see if he could clear the image a little or at least clear up the image of the suspect. After frantically trying several different techniques, he sighed and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. According to him, even though the person had changed methods, they were still able to damage the rest of the footage.

"I'll continue to work with it when I get home," he promised. "This is going to require some big guns for me to get something useful out of this. But don't worry; I'm not going to give up. After he saved our lives, I think this is the least I can do for him."

…..

Tucker had been booted from the house as soon as Sam's parents caught him being there. Thinking back, she was a little surprised he had managed to sneak past them in the first place since they were particularly good at catching people going up to her room. They had punished her in response by having her stay in her room for the rest of the night, which didn't bother her in the least bit.

Around seven in the evening she received a call on her cell. Noticing the number, she picked it up as quickly as possible, hoping her parents didn't hear it ringing. "Did you find anything?" she asked the caller as a form of greeting. The caller's reply was spoken too quickly and frantically for her to understand. "Whoa, slow down Tucker! I can't understand you!"

"Sam… it's worse than we thought!" came his panicked reply. "I managed to identify who was in the police station with Danny."

"Yeah? Well, who was it?"

"It was… Vlad Masters…."

Sam barely registered the phone slipping from her fingers and landing on the floor. How could she be so stupid? She knew that man had an interest in getting hold of Danny and should be the first logical suspect, but she didn't realize he would have stooped so low.

Angry with herself, she reached down to grab her phone so she could calm a frantic Tucker but stopped midway as a thought crossed her mind. How were they going to be able to get Danny back from a man who had mastered in lies with an unimaginable fortune to back him up?

=============================================================

I just wanted to point out that the way these officers are depicted is due to experience. The ones in the borough where I grew up were usually nice, but if they had it in their minds you did something wrong, you could be treated like trash. But at the same time, they're the reason why my childhood bully wasn't excepted into the NFL - they slapped him with assault charges when he decided to get into a fight while he was in college. I have mixed feelings. The officers from the neighboring borough were wonderful.

#Eidolon #danny phantom #danny phantom au #dp au #dp #alternate universe #fanfic #fanfiction #my writing #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #vlad plasmius #fantasy #paranormal #supernatural

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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 5 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Danny Fenton & Wesley Weston Characters: Danny Fenton, Wesley Weston, Jazz Fenton, Maddie Fenton Additional Tags: Walker is mentioned repeatedly, Phantom Family AU, Revelations, being a lil shit is genetic apparently, Danny swears in stars and constellations and space stuff, Wes swears with cuss words Summary: Prompt from Tumblr: I wish you would write a fic about Danny being a little shit to Vlad by revealing him to Wes. Wes comes over and nearly gets Danny’s half life ended, which leads to further family revelations that leave Danny’s head spinning.

Danny Fenton was having a weird and not particularly pleasant week. His Dad had finally encountered the Box Ghost, who took one look at him and glitched out like a Bethesda character before apparently regaining his memories. Apparently, the Box Ghost was Jason Fenton, older brother of Jack Fenton. The Box Ghost was Danny’s Uncle. That was weird as fuck to discover, especially when he implied that Box Lunch would be a person he’d have to deal with soonish. He was going to have a cousin. His already living cousin, Wes, had decided later that week to ruin Danny’s life by asking him right in front of Jazz and Mom if he still had that giant green dog thing he’d crashed a game with. Danny dragged him up to the third floor of Fentonworks, shoved him into his room, and learned very quickly that Wes had figured out that he was Phantom the moment he focused on him. “Orion, man, you can’t just imply I’m a ghost in front of Mom or Dad!” “Why not?” Wes stared at him like he’d grown a second head - he hadn’t, he knew the sensation - and Danny took a moment to redirect the energy surging to his eyes over his skin and outward. It blanketed the room in a wave and left what Tucker had described as the feeling of touching an old tv and feeling static on your fingers all over the place. Wes rubbed his arm and raised a brow at him. “Wes, tell me what Jack Fenton is going to think if you tell him ‘hey that ghost kid you shoot at all the time is your kid’? Actually, no, how the fuck did you even figure it out?” “You look like you put on your suit and then someone turned on the color inversion filter on their camera. Blue skin, white hair, black and white suit.” Wes paused and poked Danny’s cheek, looking him in the eye. “Your eyes should be orange instead of green though if that were the whole case. How’d this happen? Last time I talked to you, you n Tucker were talking about building a motorcycle that could fly.” “The hoverbike has sorta been put on hold, I’ll admit,” Danny grumbled, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. He pulled his hands away from his face and Wes was still there, tall and stupid and overly observant. “If I tell you what happened, do you promise not to out me to my parents?” “I-should I treat this like you’re in the closet?” Wes snorted at the idea. “Closeted dead guy. Alright, I can get that. But uh, if you’re dead, why are you still…” he wiggled his hand and then gestured at Danny’s room. “In a house with ghost hunters?” “Well, to start with, I’m not actually dead. Not entirely, anyway.” Danny sat down on his bed and Wes followed, and after taking a moment to triple check that Vlad’s bugs weren’t in his room with another wave of energy, Danny told Wes the story of the Accident. It was a short story, but he was slow about it. He��d never really discussed it with anyone, Sam and Tucker just sort of knew better than to bring it up and Jazz probably thought he’d tell her himself in his own time. By the time he finished, Wes looked almost as uncomfortable with the situation as Danny felt. “You know, not to sound like a cheesy 90’s cartoon character but this is why you shouldn’t give in to peer pressure.” Danny snorted and laughed at that, and Wes grinned even when Danny elbowed him. “Ok, so I’m putting together that you did a bunch of dumb shit and found yourself decided to be a superhero. What the fuck was up with the dog, or the mayor getting kidnapped? Your eyes were fuckin red when you stole a bunch of shit that one time too.” “Ok in order of what all happened: Axiom labs euthanized their guard dogs and one of them came looking for his squeaky toy but forgot where it was and no matter how many times I shoved Cujo back into the portal-” “ Cujo ?” Wes snorted and ruffled Danny’s hair. “Have you been reading the stuff Sam gives you or did your emo phase just never really end? You have the emo bangs.” “I do not!” Danny huffed, running a hand through his curly hair that, well, Wes couldn’t really ruin a mess, could he? “You’re the one with actual bangs, sasquatch hunter.” “Acknowledging that Big Foot is real doesn’t mean I’m gonna go and shoot it.” Wes crossed his arms and rested them on Danny’s head. “By the way, any idea when that growth spurt is due?” “Bold words for someone with his shins within targeting range.” “I can and will put you in a headlock Astroboy.” “I can slam dunk you through a hoop like your precious balls.” Wes said nothing to this and simply leaned more onto Danny’s head. “If I snap my neck because of you I’m suing. Anyway no matter how often I yeeted Cujo back into the Ghost Zone-” “I beg of you to call it something cooler. Call it the afterlife even, just. Please.” “He just kept digging his way out. So, I looked at his tag, saw that he came from Axiom, and we ended up in there, while getting shot at by the Red Huntress-” “Valerie, right?” “H-” “She appeared as the Huntress literally the same time the dog shit was happening, and I am getting increasingly worried that no one has noticed that she sounds the same in her Red Huntress suit as she does in the Nasty Burger mascot suit.” Wes dropped his arms to Danny’s shoulder, but still rested his chin in his hair, humming loudly. Danny slid into that spot between and snorted when Wes fell onto the bed. “I can’t tell you how pissed she was that I outed her to her dad about being the Huntress so that she wouldn’t get herself killed fighting Pariah Dark. Pretty sure if you tell her or anyone else about that, she’ll shoot you.” “I mean, it’d probably get her swarmed by so much hostility she stops shooting at you, so that’d be a plus. I’d just come back and bug you anyway.” “You’re a jerk, but I guess you’re alright.” Danny flopped back. “The mayor thing was a ghost, this douche bag prison warden named Walker in the GZ who decided that since I broke out of his prison I owe him over a thousand years and he’d make my home a prison instead.” Wes stared at him, clasped his hands flat against each other, and took a deep breath. “There are so many things wrong in that sentence. Why were you in ghost prison?” “I did ghost crimes.” Wes looked and sounded like he was in some deal of pain, and Danny couldn’t help but grin. “Dad’s anniversary present for Mom fell through the portal while I was cleaning up by shooting things into their proper place,” he covered Wes’ mouth as he opened it, “and so I flew in after it, but it was a ‘real world item’ as though the Ghost Zone is fake somehow, and that was ‘Against The Rules’ according to Walker.” Danny rolled his eyes. “I got the present out and back to Dad but I had to like, get to him at your mom’s place.” “Did you fly all the way from Minnesota to Arkansas for a present?” “Arcturus, no, not with my powers.” Danny laughed, laying back on his bed. “That’d take me like, 8 hours at top speed. No, I used the Speeder.” “Have you modified it to get into space?” “Not yet.” “Do you have permission to mod it for space travel?” “Do I have permission to be dead?” “Touche.” “Anyway, Walker is stronger than me, even when possessing a human, so when all eyes and cameras were on me he possessed the mayor and dragged me back inside to make it look like I was dragging him in. Whole invasion was his idea.” “Danny?” “And then with the robberies when my eyes were red, did you know about Circus Gothica? Cause me and some other ghosts were under the control of the ring master of the circus, Freakshow, who had this freakin crystal ball thing that could control ghosts attached to his staff. It shattered after a very long fall, thank Astrea.” “That’s really fucked up. You’ve had a fucked up life.” “Yeah.” Danny shrugged. “I guess I have.” “Know what’s more fucked up about this?” Wes had a too big grin on his face and Danny narrowed his eyes. “Do you remember my mom’s last name?” “Wal..ker… no. ” The two of them were thundering down the stairs in seconds, Danny half shouting in the livingroom. “ Mom was your dad, by chance, a law enforcement officer, or jail warden or something?” Mom looked up at him from the staff she was tinkering with on the table - note to self, sterilize the table before dinner - and blinked at him a couple of times before smiling and nodding. “Why yes, he did. Warden James Lamont Walker ran the Spittoon prison when he was alive. He was a good man, if a bit strict. To my and Alicia’s fury and grief he was murdered during a prison break.” Mom stared off in the distance, the air around her curling with a dark cold that Danny was sure only he could see. Then she softened up a bit and smiled softly at them. “Why?” “No reason, auntie, I was just curious about something and Danny thought we should ask you.” Wes played with the hem of his shirt while maintaining eye contact and Danny wondered if he had a tell for awkwardness like that. Then he realized he was rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you have any pictures of him?” “Oh, yes! They’re in the shed! My boxes are actually labelled.” “Uh oh, careful, Dad might hear of organization and come to tear it up,” Danny said with a laugh, half dragging Wes out the back door. When they were out of his mom’s considerable ear shot, Danny said softly, but with feeling, “Fuck.” “Got locked up by grandpa, huh? That’s like, the worst way to get grounded ever .” Wes snickered and watched Danny run-walk up to the shed, hand glowing so softly you could only see it by staring directly at it as he turned the knob. “There are odds, slim ones, that this is a whole different Walker. It might even be his first name.” “Who the hell names their kid Walker?” “Walter, Wayne and Wesley Weston.” “Alright then.” For a few minutes the two of them searched through the mess known as the Fenton Family Shed for a box with a label neither had thought to ask for. Eventually, they found one labeled Scrapbooks and carefully eased it out of the mess of it all. “Y’knonw, Danny,” Wes said as they opened the box and started flipping through scrapbooks with just enough care not to damage them. “I’m feelin kinda good about investigating a ghost with you. Is this how it is with you n your boyfriend and best friend?” Danny almost tore a page out, turning to stare at Wes. He must’ve felt the temperature drop for a second because he looked up with a raised brow. “What?” “Boyfriend?” “Tucker. Tucker Foley.” Danny’s jaw dropped and Wes’ confusion morphed into a shit eating grin. “You know, Tucker spends most of his time with you Foley? The one you build shit with all the time? The nerd that you get sick in sync with? I’ve seen you lose a pencil and then he puts one behind your ear while you look for the one you lost. You made him a custom gaming computer disguised as a console.” Danny’s face burned red as a tomato at this point and he shoved Wes. “Shut up I’m not dating Tucker!” “I have to ask Jazz about this now, you’re killing me.” Wes snorted and flipped a page. He blinked down at the scrapbook and pointed at a picture. “James Walker. This look anything like him?” Danny took the book and looked at the picture. Looked at the several pictures of the man with his daughters, wearing a black pinstriped suit in a handful of them. And he let out a long, loud groan. “I hate this week, I hate it so much.” Wes started cackling and Danny scowled. “That reminds me.” He kicked Wes in the shins and grinned. “Much better. Also, Wes, I gotta tell you. I’m not one of a kind, as far as my living status goes.” “Oh what, there’s another Schrodinger’s little shit flying around out there?” Wes rubbed his ankle and hissed. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but that fruitloop we call a mayor may have been elected because he possessed literally everyone that was voting.” Wes went silent and stared at him, and Danny nodded. “Think you can pester him instead of me? He wants to kill Dad and thinks that he can get Mom if he does that.” “Danny. My Dad works for Masters.” “This puts you in the perfect position to mess with him, I say. Just act like you’re there to see your dad.” “You oblivious asshole. I fuckin love you, cous.” “Same here, skyscraper.”

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Wes Weston #Jazz Fenton #Maddie Fenton #Walker #james walker #Box Ghost #fanfiction #fanphiction #phanfiction #phanphiction #phanfic #fanfic #fanphic #phanphic #prompt fill #Rexy Writes #Phantom Family AU

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galaxyghostart · 5 years ago

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like looking in a mirror - ao3 link

an au fic in which phantom isn’t what he seems. aka, i take my “what if danny isn’t actually phantom” idea and make it angsty. it got very out of hand, very fast.

Danny Fenton couldn’t tear his eyes away from the TV. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It couldn’t.

Phantom, they were calling him. Amity Park’s new hero, menace, monster. Whatever you wanted to call him. He wasn’t any of those things to Danny.

Sam couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. “...Is no one going to say it?”

Tucker shot her a warning look. “Don’t, Sam.”

“What? Isn’t it freaky? That ghost looks just like Danny.”

“I know,” Danny said, too quietly. Sam had a hundred theories lined up already, but Danny was already standing up before she’d even gotten a chance to speak.

“...Danny? Where are you going?”

“I’ve got someone to find.”

The door shut.

Sam looked to Tucker, incredulous. “Did I strike a nerve? It wasn’t an insult, it’s just- Look at him.” She gestured wildly at the news, still broadcasting footage of Phantom flying across the sky. “It’s not like Danny’s dead. Who the hell is that, and how does he look so similar?”

Tucker hesitated. The idea was almost too awful to contemplate, but Danny had clearly thought the same thing he had when that familiar figure made his way across the screen. He stood up, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

“I don’t blame you for not knowing- It happened before you moved to town. C’mon, I’ll tell you on the way. We should find Danny before he does something stupid.”

---

For once, his parents’ ghosthunting technology was coming in handy. Danny never believed in this stuff before- honestly, part of him still didn’t,- but somehow, it seemed to work. The machine detected ectoplasm, and Phantom may as well have been a beacon for all the power he gave off.

This is bullshit, Danny thought, even as he followed it like a compass.

It led him to- of course it lead him here. The observatory. The project had been abandoned a while back, but the skeleton of the structure remained intact. The metaphor didn’t escape him. On the contrary, it was pretty much punching him in the face. Abandoned telescope, abandoned dreams, abandoned life.

It wasn’t hard to hop the fence. Okay, it was- It took like, 15 minutes, a few falls and a whole lot of swearing, but he finally made it to the other side. The machine in his hands was beeping faster, like a frantic heartbeat.

Shut up, he silently willed it. It didn’t.

Making his way carefully through the rusted doors of the place, he couldn’t help but feel a chill. Somehow, he didn’t think it was from the temperature. He turned the machine off and stuffed it into his back pocket- At this point, he didn’t need it to feel the energy radiating off of the place. It was everywhere. Wrapping his arms around himself, he stepped to the middle of the circular room.

“I know you’re here,” he called.

No response.

He gazed up at the unfinished ceiling, narrowing his eyes. “It’s me.”

Still nothing.

He couldn’t take it anymore. “James. I know it’s you.”

Just like that, he felt the energy in the room shift. He still couldn’t see him, but he knew he was there. A quiet voice echoed out from the shadows.

“...how?”

“You’ve been all over the news, man. Amity Park’s newest hero, I’m hearing.”

“not that. how did you know it was me? i’m not exactly... normal looking.”

Danny let out a halfhearted chuckle. “You know we have the same face? Can’t exactly change that with a fancy new hair color.”

“...”

“...Besides, it’s not like I’d forget my own brother.”

“...you got me.”

There he was, finally. A dark shadow right in the corner of Danny’s eye. No- There he was again. More solid, more... real.

Not by much, but enough.

“...Hey.”

“...hey.”

Danny had been thinking this over the whole way here, but everything he’d planned to say seemed to have disappeared all of a sudden. What was there to say? It had been years since it had happened, and part of him still couldn’t accept it had happened at all, even now. It didn’t seem... real.

Ghosts weren’t supposed to be real. It was supposed to be nothing but the made-up fantasy that got his brother killed. That stupid portal. It was less of a portal and more of an electrocution hazard, which Jazz had pointed out, not that either of them had listened. Not until it was too late, that is. It hadn’t worked. Why his parents had tried again after that, he had no idea, but they had, and now he was here. Against all odds, he was here.

Meaning he’d been there all this time.

And Danny had left him behind.

“You look...”

“older?”

“...Yeah.”

“so do you. guess that’s how this works.”

“Maybe.”

They’d always joked about some psychic twin connection. Danny might’ve made some quip about it now, but the humor he often used to cope was starting to feel hollow. James was here. Not alive, but here. What the hell was he supposed to say?

“I... missed you.”

“i know. i missed you too.”

“Why didn’t you come home? I had to see you beating up ghosts on the news to realize you were back. Could’ve said hello.”

There was humor in those glowing green eyes, but not much. “think i didn’t try? mom and dad had a nice hello waiting for me in the form of big ol’ ectoguns.”

“...Oh.”

“yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“it’s not your fault.”

“Not just about this, about- About everything. That stupid dare. Not... Not looking for you out there.”

The phantom’s form solidified a little more, just enough to see that familiar smirk on his face.

“what, you think you should’ve summoned the dead just to bring me back? doesn’t work like that, buddy. you probably would’ve just gotten a demon.”

“It’s just...” Danny’s voice wavered a little, and he took a deep breath. “It’s just not fair. Why you? Why’d this have to happen to you? You’re back now, but you’re still...” He swallowed, trying to hold back the tears that had been threatening to spill the entire time. “You’re still...”

Denial was the only thing standing between Danny and a full-on mental breakdown. He’d figured it was an impostor. If not that, a coincidence. If not that, some weird dream. A hallucination. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be real. James was gone.

And yet, here he was.

“Why aren’t you angry? It was my dumbass idea, and you’re the one that kicked the bucket. You should be pissed as hell. You should hate me.”

“...”

Danny’s voice was shaking. His shoulders, too. James drifted a little closer, concern making its way onto his ethereal face.

“Why don’t you hate me?”

Everything went cold. For a moment, Danny thought he’d been dunked in cold water, until he noticed the gloved arms wrapped around his shoulders. James had made it the rest of the way across the room, and was hugging him as tight as one could when they weren’t fully tangible. Danny froze, then slowly lifted his arms to return the hug. James seemed to be getting more solid by the moment, and now that there was a shoulder there to cry on, Danny did. He let it all out- The repressed guilt, the self-hatred, the sadness, the loss. He cried until he couldn’t anymore. James stayed there, solid as a ghost could be.

“...maybe i was a little pissed at first,” he spoke softly, after what seemed like forever. “okay, a lot pissed. it was a dumb idea, and a dumb portal. but i had a lot of time to think about it while i was gone. lots of ghosts get so pissed and so sad that they just lose themselves completely. go nuts. turn into a big ol’ murder monster or whatever. i didn’t want to be... that, especially not when i knew you were out there probably hating yourself enough for both of us. besides... you’re my twin, dude. i don’t think there’s anything you could do to make me hate you. so i learned to live with it, y’know? well... not live with it, but you get what i’m saying.”

“...Kind of,” Danny sniffled.

Phantom pulled away from the hug and grinned. “what i’m saying is that i’m okay, danny. it’s okay. i’m back. and besides- you know what i can do now? check it out.” He raised a hand, which immediately began to glow. In his palm, tiny, glowing green stars began to form. It seemed to be taking a little bit of effort, but after a while, he clapped his hands together and then raised them, letting the stars loose. Throughout the observatory an ectoplasmic galaxy soared around them, and James’ face was full of light. He looked... happy.

“see? isn’t it sick?”

“Y-Yeah, I guess so,” Danny chuckled, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “Guess being a ghost has a few perks, huh?”

“yeah.” Phantom smiled, then gave a small sigh. “listen. don’t tell mom and dad, okay...? they won’t... get it.”

“Are you sure...?”

“big ol’ ectoguns, danny.”

“Fair point. I’m... sorry.”

“holy shit, danny.” James smacked him lightly in the shoulder. “stop apologizing!”

“Sorry!” Another smack. “Ow! Okay, okay, I get the point!”

“good.” He looked like he was about to say something else, but a sudden chill came over the room, even worse than before. James looked suddenly agitated, and soared quickly to the window. The stars vanished. “listen, i really wanna catch up more. like, you have no idea, i missed you so bad. but i wasn’t the only ghost the portal let out. there’s lots more, and they’re mean, and i’m pretty sure there’s a new one out there right now. i better go make sure they don’t kill anybody else.”

“You don’t have to do it all by yourself.”

“i’m the only one of us who doesn’t have to worry about getting killed. i’ll see you later, okay?”

“Wait-”

“i won’t disappear, promise. show me all the pokemon games i missed when i get back.”

And with that, he was gone. The room was suddenly several degrees warmer, but emptier, too. Danny wasn’t sure how long he was standing there before a voice from behind him made him jump.

“DANNY!”

“Ack! Sam?”

Upon leaving the observatory, there they were- Sam, pacing around and calling. Tucker, lying facedown in front of the fence, clearly having messed up his footing.

“Danny! There you are,” she exclaimed, jogging over as Tucker managed to get to his feet. “We were worried you were going to get possessed.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry about before, by the way. I didn’t know.”

“Are you alright?” Tucker asked, finally having made his way over.

“Not really,” Danny replied.

He’d spent the last few years feeling like half of a pair. It had always been Danny and James, Danny and James, Danny and James, until one day it was suddenly just Danny. But now... now?

His missing half wasn’t missing anymore. Different, yes. Weird, for sure. Probably just as annoying as he’d ever been. But not missing.

Danny glanced over his shoulder, back at the empty observatory. It didn’t seem so foreboding now.

“...But I think it’s gonna be okay. Eventually.”

#fic #fanfiction #danny phantom #twin au #death cw #my writing #this was supposed to be like 3 paragraphs long #how did it end up like this

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misterewrites · 6 years ago

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Danny Phantom: Untitled AU

Hello everyone, E here with a kinda update. My good friend @hains-mae asked me for a Danny Phantom story and here it is! YAY! I’m gonna level with you, it’s been a looooooong time since I last saw Danny Phantom and I was really practicing to get back in the groove of writing so I’m sorry if it’s a little off from the show or even my usual writing.

So the big thing about this is she asked me to do a kinda au of the original plot. Basically I set it up in a way that lets me explore it further if it comes up hence the whole untitled au uptop.

So Phantom Planet never happened. Danny, Sam and Tucker kinda just kept going with the adventures but now college has come and the trio has split up and despite their best efforts, kinda last touch with each other. and this is where the story starts with Tucker setting up Danny with a blind date as a way to apologize for his absence.

I hope you enjoy, faults in all and I hope you have a great day!

18 year old Danny Fenton coughed awkwardly, giving the unamused waiter a sheepish smile as he quietly placed his fork embedded potato back onto his plate.

“First time here, sir?”

“How could you tell? Too much starch on my shirt?” Danny gave a hopeful grin, playfully gesturing to the potato.

The waiter eyed his casual t-shirt/jeans combination distastefully “Here for a date?”

“Yes because if I was alone, that would be pathetic”

“Advice sir?”

“I don't have to pay extra for it, right?” Danny asked with an unsure tone.

“You should really learn better jokes sir.”

“Hey!” Danny cried indignantly “My jokes are to die for!”

“I assure you sir” The waiter murmured softly as he walked away gracefully “Boredom is not a pleasant way to die.”

Danny frowned unhappily after the retreating figure of his waiter, quietly mumbling under his breath “I can make a comeback too if I wasn't so nervous.”

Danny glanced around the restaurant, anxiously taking in the grandeur of it all.

It was certainly one of the more fancier places Danny had ever set foot in if you didn't count the various high societal locations he routinely fought ghosts in.

Four years he had been battling the supernatural undead of Amity Park. Four years of basically cleaning up the town of its ghostly presence and some part of him knew it was beginning to fray on his life.

It hadn't been so bad when he first started but that's when he had Tucker and Sam at his side which wasn't the case so much these days.

Ghosts really had no perception of time since they were kind of dead but time held sway over the living and Danny was half alive.

Mostly.

Days turned into months, months into years and before he knew it high school had ended and college was rapidly approaching.

There was no real choice for Danny. He couldn't leave Amity Park for too long given how often his rouges gallery of spooky spooks showed up to cause trouble in his beloved town and as much as he loved and resp....loved his parents, he knew they would have a hard time dealing with these otherworldly threats.

So Danny chose to apply to Amity Park Community College, somewhere close to home where he could pursue his education and still keep an eye on Box Ghost, Ember, Skulker and whoever else decided they were bored of the Ghost Zone.

Tucker and Sam wanted to stay but Danny knew he couldn't let them. He knew they (Sam) would do so without a second thought and while he appreciated their (her) commitment to the fight, it wasn't fair to them.

Sam had opted to pacify her parents by agreeing to try some college out of state that her mother had gone to while Tucker decided to laze about at community college for a bit before deciding on which university offered him a better scholarship.

The trio lost touch quickly despite their best efforts over these last few months: Between being a full time student, time zones and the beckoning call of activism, communication between him and Sam slowed to virtual nonexistence. Tucker, despite being significantly closer, had found himself spending all his time chasing any cute girl he laid his eyes on and since Sam was no longer within shaming range and Danny was too busy with school and ghost hunting, he went unimpeded in his pursuits.

And this was how it had been for months: Isolated and alone with nothing but snippy ghosts for company.

Until yesterday when Tucker called him unexpectedly.

Danny half expected to save him from some jealous boyfriend or hide him away from an angry crowd of girls but Tuck just wanted to talk. Talk and drop that he had set up a special blind date for the half ghost.

Maybe it was oppressive loneliness setting in, maybe it was a favor to his best friend who clearly felt bad about ditching him these last few months or maybe it was the fact he just needed a break from everything but for whatever reason, Danny agreed.

Although now he wondered if it was a good idea. He didn't even know who he was meeting and now his anxiety was steadily growing.

Danny took a deep calming breath. At this point it was too late to back out. Better to ride out this disastrous date and try to end it on a decent note.

“Danny?”

Danny could feel his face flush, his heart skipping a beat at the sound of Sam calling his name.

He rose to his feet eagerly, pivoting on his heels.

He took a sharp breath as he saw Sam for the first time since she left, her hair pinned up in a bun with a new leather jacket covering her normal outfit.

“Sam!” Danny shouted loudly, flinching as everyone shushed him all at once “S-sorry.”

Sam smiled brightly, her gaze softening at the sight of her best friend.

The pair took their seats opposite from one another, wide matching grins etched on their faces.

“So....” Sam spoke quietly.

“So...” Danny answered nervously “Do we kill Tucker now? Or later?”

“I think we should see where this goes before committing murder.”

“Murder is a big first step. Let's order lunch for now?”

Sam shifted guiltily “I'm sorry I didn't text or call often. School's been...”

“Rough? Yeah I hear you. If I'm not getting my butt kicked by textbooks, it's Skulker or Ember.”

“How are all the ghost?” Sam inquired curiously.

“Still a pain in the butt and love showing up at the most inconvenient times. It's like someone posted my schedule up in the Ghost Zone.”

“Ugh, they're the worst.” Sam said while eying the menu.

“Tell me about it. So how long are you town?”

“Oh, I'm moving back next week.”

“Really?” Danny tried to keep his voice leveled and controlled despite his joy “How come?”

“Protesting my school is greatly frowned upon apparently”

“Gee, you getting in trouble for voicing your opinion and trying to get others to rebel too? Noooo, doesn't sound like my best friend at all.” Danny rose a playful eyebrow

Sam shot him a knowing smirk “What can I say, I learned to make trouble from the best?”

“Who? Tucker?”

“You doofus.”

The two shared a cheerful laugh, the smiles lingering a moment longer as they caught each others gaze.

“I missed you” Sam admitted softly.

“Me too Sam” Danny replied “Umm....so....did Tucker....say anything particular about this...meet up?”

Sam's cheeks flushed with a pink hue “What? No! No, he just told me I was meeting you today for lunch and to share the good news. I mean I just found out I was expelled yesterday and I called him to see how you were doing because I thought you were busy with ghost stuff and he said you wanted to meet up for lunch and here we are. At lunch. Together. Why? Did....did he tell you something different?”

“Noooo” Danny shook his head quickly “No, no. He...he said he was going to treat me out for lunch and we would have a surprised guest who, I'm going to be honest, thought was going to be his girlfriend or something. I didn't think it was going to be you.”

“So Tucker left us with the bill huh?” Sam chuckled.

“That's so Tuck” Danny joked.

“Ah” The waiter walks gracefully towards the pair “Your date has arrived I see.”

The two teen blush uncontrollably.

“I'm not his...” Sam begins.

“We're not on a date” Danny adds in.

The waiter studies their faces for a moment, eyes narrowed in suspicion before easing into realization.

“Ah. My mistake. Forgive me.”

“No problem” Sam answers.

“Thanks buddy” Danny says with timid edge.

“Teens” The waiter thinks to himself with a mental eyeroll as he takes their orders.

#danny phantom #story au

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fountainpenguin · 8 years ago

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Just a little bit of philosophy for you: is Danny Fenton identical to Danny Phantom? What makes them the same person? The same body? The same brain? The same memories? If Phantom does a bad thing (like killing someone), should Fenton feel guilty? Or was he not responsible for Phantom's actions? If the punishment for Phantom's crime was imprisonment, could Fenton object because it would impinge on his freedom of movement? If the two separated, who would be the real Danny?

I keep getting Danny asks and you people don’t understand that my DP headcanons aren’t fully in place yet. I’m new here and, with the exception of “Pirate Radio” and “The Fenton Menace”, have only seen every episode once or twice and I don’t know whose toes not to tread on in the phandom.

But you’ve just nailed the main reason I prefer “Livin’ Large” to “The Ultimate Enemy”, so congrats. This post turned out long, so the rest is under the cut. You’ll have to scroll a bit to get to your actual questions, but they’re in bold.

“Livin’ Large”? What? I know! It’s so well-written, and it baffles me that it’s one of the most hated episodes in the series. Sometimes the most hated one, depending on who you ask. Do people in the phandom… hate… happiness…?

I’m sorry, but I’ll take slow psychological spiral downhill into accidental jerkhood (followed by a realization of said jerkhood and repentant rush to set things right) over an inexplicable rapid flip into deliberate and evil jerkhood any day.

Enemies teaming up > deus ex machina master of time intervention ending, tbh. This is what happens when you spend a decade writing and a few more years interning for editors, I guess? At least with those that I worked with, deus ex machinas are huge no-nos among editors. “Ultimate Enemy” is like “Nightmare Before Christmas” to me: entire story makes no psychological sense and ends with a deus ex machina too. Why would you not try the other holiday doors, Jack Skellington? Answer me that! Why does the romance serve absolutely no purpose? Why was that girl whose name I can’t remember even in this movie? Why are those three kids like that? Who even is Oogie Boogie? Just. Why?

I reacted to “Ultimate Enemy” the same way I reacted to that “Doctor Who” episode where The Doctor left Rose on the beach. I KNEW it was coming. I just didn’t know HOW. With “Doctor Who”, when we reached that episode I was thinking, “This is IT! This is the moment when he tells her to step out and do him a favor or something, and he proves his moral grayness when he abandons her and leaves, and she runs across the sand towards him sobbing because he’s left her on a deserted island and it’s going to be a classic case of “I did it to protect you because I don’t want to see anyone else die”-

Ahaha. No. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Literally I don’t think I could have been any more disappointed than I was. I was in shock for days at how badly I personally felt it was done (My blog, my opinions; I can be subjective if I want).

Geez, I dislike “Doctor Who” a lot… I’m not a fan of most AUs, and this show is just a string of “AU where this happens” and “OC meets and befriends famous people” episodes. Deaths mean NOTHING when it’s so predictable I can sit there and call out, “Yep, camera stalled too long on this person, they’re on the chopping block”. I feel nothing. I care about no one except Mickey. Too much romance. I would like to see the Doctor have a cheery old lady or grumpy old man companion instead of a young girl who’s in love with him, please. And horror is absolutely not my genre in the first place (I prefer cheerful worlds with subtle dark undertones), but every time I come home, Mom has this brilliant idea to order us all in front of the TV because she thinks this show is amazing… Heh heh. We all have our ridiculous first world problems and this one is mine.

We just watched “The Doctor’s Daughter”. I would like to see any FOP/“Who” fan who bashes Chloe but loves Jenny at my front desk. Like. Give me three episodes in a row where The Doctor has no one to talk to, so he runs through the episodes speaking very little and the viewer has no idea what his thought process is or what the weaknesses of those enemies are. Let him spiral into the moral gray zone. Instead of telling me he needs a companion, try showing me for once. Being a TV show doesn’t excuse you from that need. And then those enemies can come back in a later episode when he actually has a companion again and we can learn their history/flaws. Then I’ll be willing to compromise.

ANYWAY. Wow. Sorry ‘bout that. But “The Ultimate Enemy” felt like that. I was really excited for Dark Danny. When a cartoon hero goes bad, typically the only logical explanations are the good “sliding into moral gray”, the usually-poorly-done “they were faking it” (I’m so sorry “ChalkZone” fans, because I know Penny’s a good person, but I really, really liked jealous Penny snapping after Rudy breaks his promises and so I prefer “Chalk Queen” as a mixture between this option and the first rather than 100% this one, because COME ON, she totally owned that scene where she dangled Snap above the boiling salsa! Those two are always at each other’s throats and I loved it), and the cheap “hero gets possessed” option. I had such high hopes for Dan and they all crashed when I saw this episode. Like Ella in “Pahkitew Island” all over again.

If “Ultimate Enemy” had come before “Identity Crisis” rather than immediately after it (Remember that I binge-watched, so I saw them in the same day), it might have had a better shot of me liking it. But the thing is, I LOVED “Identity Crisis”! I’m a sucker for duplicate episodes because I always wish I had some myself, so that I could have one of me go to school and the other work on writing all day, go to work, et cetera. It was a very creative episode because instead of two clones who were exactly the same except one was “the original”, NEITHER side was quite like Danny. He was split in half, with one lazy goofball and one self-righteous guy with a hero complex, and it was AWESOME.

So I don’t get why in “Ultimate Enemy”, Vlad ripped the ghost out of Danny and that ghost part of him wasn’t like that. At all. Where was my beloved hero who wears bedsheets for capes and overshadowed his other half because even he, the hero, has a selfish side?

Ignoring the headscratcher of why Danny elected to stay with his mortal enemy when he has an awesome aunt in Arkansas, I’ll believe he goes there because Vlad offered to teach him how to use his ghost powers. Wait. Danny… didn’t want to learn to use his powers? What the… Why… Oh, we’re just gonna… Ghost half goes bezerk and attacks Vlad, okay, I’ll believe that. Everyone he loved just died and he’s striking out. This is super bizarre because Danny came to Wisconsin to ask Vlad for HELP and all logic suggests his ghost half should know what’s going on, but I’ll let it slide this time. Or. Um. Two times. Okay, we’re just gonna fuse (not possess: fuse) with the evil guy’s ghost form now, because if I were a good guy then that would be my first thought in that situation too… And let’s just flip our waffles and murder our human half for absolutely no reason, okay. Aaand we’re done suspending our disbelief today.

I mean, that’s totally FINE if people like “Ultimate Enemy”. An evil adult version of yourself who’s fallen outside the constraints of the timestream is an interesting concept to play with once or twice. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it and everyone has the right to like what they like. These are merely my personal thoughts on why it doesn’t click well with me.

It’s just that after I saw it, I started daydreaming of an episode where Danny would again remind us that he’s not perfect, and get into a fight with Sam and Tucker over something petty. His moral grayness would be obvious. Instead of saying “my evil ghost half fused with yours”, Vlad would be portrayed as a person with likes, dislikes, and silly quirks of his own like baking bundt cake that don’t involve him admitting he views himself as evil (which is generally a huge red flag for me, because I work best with moral grays, not moral blacks- when do you ever meet people in real life who offhandedly say, “Yeah, I do evil for a living”).

Finally, after being selfish for awhile, Danny would decide for himself to change for the better- no one would force him to. And rather than ending with a deus ex machina, this imaginary episode would have an ending where Danny teams up with several reluctant ghosts to save the day. Plus, there would be really great worldbuilding in this episode. As an added bonus, Youngblood would make another appearance without his parrot so I could continue my “Y.B.’s guardian figure literally died when Jazz shot him during “Fenton Menace” and his head landed in Youngblood’s lap” headcanon, and Y.B. would get speaking lines and have a really cool quote. But what were the statistical odds of that?

Apparently, pretty awesome. So “Livin’ Large” is one of my favorite episodes for reasons that seem to be specific to me alone. It was right up my alley and is totally the kind of episode I would have written. Which is really concerning given how hated it is and how I want to write novels and/or cartoons someday. Hm.

I mean, come on! You all know how much I adore H.P. and the Pixies. People getting carried away with money and power is kind of my thing. And to be fair, there were a lot of zeros on that check.

AS FOR YOUR ACTUAL QUESTIONS:

Is Danny Fenton identical to Danny Phantom?

Identical wouldn’t be the word I would use, but I see them as the same person, yes. Apart from that scene in “Ultimate Enemy” about the bezerk ghost half that I hate, there’s no show canon to suggest they’re very different. Between Mike from “Total Drama” and Foop from “Fairly OddParents”, I have enough multiple personalities to write fanfics about. I don’t need multiple Dannys too.

As for whether they think the same, the answer would be no. I direct you to the fact that multilingual people often say they think a bit differently depending on the language they’re using, and they answer personality quizzes in a slightly different way too.

It’s just psychology. Like that thing about how if you force your mouth to smile (ex: holding a pen between your teeth), it triggers the happiness response in your brain. If you stand with your legs spread slightly apart and your hands on your hips, you’ll feel more powerful / in control.

Admittedly I am partial to the concept that the Phantom half of him likes Sam best and the Fenton side prefers Valerie, buuuuuut…

What makes them the same person? The same body? The same brain? The same memories?

Same person, same brain, just different situations. Are you the same person hanging out with your friends that you are at the dinner table with your parents? Same person, yes. You may act differently, though.

My view would be, Phantom tends to be reckless and brave, Fenton is more reserved and compassionate. In either form, Danny loves and cares for his parents. However, he would definitely feel more detached from them when he’s Phantom. I’m willing to side with the theory that ghosts tend to feel lonely and detached because that’s just in their brains and biology.

If Phantom does a bad thing (like killing someone), should Fenton feel guilty? Or was he not responsible for Phantom’s actions?

Danny would have to answer to it, yes. He’s more likely to get carried away in ghost form, but he always has a choice.

If the punishment for Phantom’s crime was imprisonment, could Fenton object because it would impinge on his freedom of movement?

Depending on which U.S. state he lives in, he could try to argue for “not guilty by reason of insanity”. In some states, he could plead “guilty but insane”.

However, if he did either of these then I (as a person who’s seen him in the show, not as a bystander in real life who doesn’t know his situation) would feel uncomfortable with it because he would be arguing he didn’t have any control of himself and didn’t understand what he was doing, or that the actions he was taking against people could hurt them, when in my headcanon he does.

Makes me wonder where you’re going to jail a ghost who can walk through walls.

If the two separated, who would be the real Danny?

As previously mentioned, I approved immensely of “Identity Crisis”. Very well-written episode, that one.

But if we’re throwing that out of the equation because those two were the extremes of Danny’s personality… you… can’t split Phantom and Fenton. They’re the same person. You’d end up with the Dannys that Danny was actually trying to create in that episode: Very similar personalities, but one is always on “I feel powerful and in control of the situation” high and one is always in the mindset of “Being the city’s superhero isn’t my problem anymore”.

Basically, Danny would go back to the way he was before he got his ghost powers: A kind, awkward, unpopular boy who wants to be an astronaut.

TL;DR, someone PLEASE write me an AU one-shot where Danny stays with his aunt in Arkansas instead of going to Vlad, because I need this in my life.

#Anon #asks #ridwriting #Going Ghost!#Livin' Large #The Ultimate Enemy #Identity Crisis #Prisoners of Love #Main Phantom trio #Doctor Who #rid rants #Rudys got the chalk!

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