#look yall im having so much fun

[reallydumbdannyphantomaus]

Reset

the call apocalypse is coming from inside the house school OR danny, paulina, and valerie get a list of suspects. they... aren't wild about it. (ao3)

Chapter 4

Loop 4

“Heeeey, Vlad, how’s it hanging?” Danny leaned his elbow on the library desk, knocking down a stack of books. “Oops.”

“How is it ‘hanging’, you say?” Vlad took three steps forward so he could loom over Danny. “Rather precariously! I’ve found three teenage rascals in my home, sneaking in to my private library. I certainly hope you have a good reason for this!”

Danny chewed on the inside of his mouth and weighed his options. On the one hand, Vlad had information on the key and the Crown that Danny needed. On the other, the urge to sass Vlad was, as ever, unrelenting. He’d always have another try next loop if necessary, after all.

His eyes flicked over to Paulina and Valerie. Paulina stared at the floor, looking more uncomfortable than chastened or scared. Valerie, though—Valerie was frozen in place, face ashen. Danny wasn’t sure she was breathing. He frowned; he thought Valerie loved Vlad? Why would she be scared of him? Did she… know about him?

“I’m waiting, little badger.”

Danny shook his head. Right: the fate of the world was at stake. He didn’t have time to waste on his usual nonsense.

“I’m gonna be straight with you, Vlad,” he said. “I need your help. We need your help.”

“Oh?” Vlad took another step. He was nearly on top of Danny. “Help? From little old me?”

“Yes,” Danny hissed through gritted teeth. Beside him, he heard a sharp intake of breath from Valerie. “The key to the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep and the Crown of Fire. Where are they?”

Vlad straightened, blinking. “What?”

“The key and the Crown. I need to know where they are.”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because the world is ending, bobo,” Paulina said, examining her nails.

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “Paulina, let me handle this.”

“You’re taking too long! Look, Mr. Mayor, for whatever reason, Fenton said you were the last person to have these key and Crown thingies. Someone let a scary ghost guy out with them, apparently, so if it wasn’t you, just tell us who it was so we can leave.”

Vlad stared at Paulina, open-mouthed. “Pariah Dark is out?”

Danny cringed. “Yes?”

“That’s impossible. I still have the Crown and the key and I’m not stupid enough to let the King of All Ghosts out of his sarcophagus.”

Danny coughed into his fist and raised an eyebrow at Vlad, who had very much let Pariah Dark out once before. Vlad ignored him.

“And why would you show up here with these two instead of your usual toadies?”

“Sam and Tucker are my friends, not toadies, you weirdo. Oh wait, you don’t actually have any friends. I imagine you forgot what it’s like to have people around who actually like you.”

“You’re avoiding the question, little badger.”

“So are you! We have way more important concerns than my choice of company, fruitloop.”

“I told you, it’s impossible! I’ve kept both the Crown and the key in my vault, which is utterly impenetrable to ghosts, for nearly two years now.”

“What about humans?” Paulina said. “Did you forget to make it impenetrable to humans?”

For moment, Vlad’s eyes flashed red. Danny winced. Hopefully, Paulina and Valerie would pass it off as nothing but a trick of the light, if they saw it in the first place.

“Listen here, little girl, I will not be talked down to—”

“Look, if Tucker Foley can hack into your surveillance system, I’m just saying—”

“You little—my vault is a separate matter entirely!”

Danny cut them off before the conversation could devolve further. “Just check it out, okay! Just look. If the key and the Crown are still there, then you can lord it over me for the rest of forever. If they’re gone, though… then you’ll know I’m right.”

Vlad rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He reached into his pocket and pressed something on a remote. “If you leave this room, the mansion security system will activate and obliterate you. If you’re just pulling my leg… well, maybe it would activate then as well.”

-----

Valerie felt like she might puke. Or die. Puke and then die. Why did Danny and Paulina have to keep antagonizing Masters? They had no idea how dangerous he was. He could (and would) kill them all without blinking, she was sure.

But Paulina was tapping something on her phone, a bored expression like Vlad’s threat to destroy them if they so much as moved was just a joke. She might have thought that herself not too long ago, to be fair, but she knew better now.

“Hey, so I’m in the mayor’s mansion,” Paulina said, holding her phone up to show the library. “Turns out he’s a total weirdo who—”

Valerie smacked the phone out of Paulina’s hand. “Are you crazy?” she said. “Do you think he was joking about obliterating us?” Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Danny’s face scrunched up in confusion. Of course, he wouldn’t know why she was so scared of the mayor.

“Mierda, Valerie, what’s wrong with you?” Paulina shook her hand out. “It’s just going to reset anyway. it’s not like it matters.”

“We don’t know how this works! Maybe this is the last one!”

Paulina rolled her eyes. “I doubt that. Haven’t you ever watched Groundhog Day? It doesn’t end until he bangs the girl, or whatever.”

“You—you’re basing your actions off a Bill Murray movie?”

“This isn’t the time,” Danny hissed through clenched teeth. “Can’t you two just fight later?”

“She started it!” Valerie and Paulina said at the same time.

“Why do I feel like a babysitter?”

Valerie narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to yell at Danny when she heard footsteps coming back from the weird secret passageway (how did Danny know about that, anyway?). She whipped around to face the hole in the wall just in time to see Vlad Masters reenter, ashen.

“Where is it?” he said, voice dangerous.

“I told you,” Danny said, “someone let Pariah Dark out.” Mr. Masters glared for a long moment. “You know it wasn’t me. C’mon, even I wouldn’t be that stupid.”

Mr. Masters collapsed into his desk chair, face in his hands. “They took the Crown, too. And you—the exoskeleton is out of commission. No one living or ghost could hope—”

Paulina, who had retrieved her phone and was typing on it again, interrupted, “Yeah, so we just need to know who took it.” Valerie barely restrained herself from slapping her again. Now wasn’t the time, she told herself, fingers digging into her arms and teeth grinding.

“What good would that do you, idiot girl? Someone to take your anger out on before the world ends?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“What Paulina means,” Danny said, “is Pariah Dark doesn’t have the Crown yet. For whatever reason, the person who let Pariah out didn’t give him the Crown. So we—”

“—we still have a chance, however miniscule.” Mr. Masters sat back, frowning in thought. His eyes flicked over to Valerie. “Anything to add, Ms. Gray?”

Valerie cleared her throat and straightened. “No—no, sir. Just that—that anything you could tell us would be… appreciated.”

“Of course, my dear,” he said, silky smooth. Valerie clenched to hide the shudder that ran down her back.

Mr. Masters pulled out a phone, tapped it a couple times, then held it to his ear. “Yes. Send me all visitor logs for the past week.” He brought the phone down and tapped to end the call.

“How do you know they’ll be in the log?” Danny said.

“The same way I knew you were here despite you having Mr. Foley hack my cameras. Again. I have more security than you can see. If someone came into the manor, I would have a record of it.” A notification dinged on his phone. “Here we are.”

Valerie worried at her lip. Couldn’t he do this any faster? Even if this did all reset and they had another chance, she couldn’t stand to be near this man, knowing what she knew now. He’d used her to hurt Danielle. He’d been using her for years.

What else had she done in his name?

She shook her head. Not the time. Right.

“Okay,” Mr. Masters said. “According to this, the door to the vault was last opened four days ago, this past Friday. On that same day, there was a field trip from Casper High’s AP Government classes. The cameras don’t show anything suspicious, but I don’t have them in every room. A student could have snuck away, I suppose, though how they got into the vault…”

“Hang on,” Danny said, “you’re saying a Casper High student did this? Why?”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know Daniel. I believe that part of it is your job now. I’ve done my bit, and I will be heading to Cancun to wait out this storm.”

“You’re not even going to try to help?”

“How would he be helpful?” Paulina said.

“Haven’t I already been?” Mr. Masters stood and walked out from behind the desk. “Is this not enough for you? I don’t know anything about your classmates. I’m just a feeble old man. The ball’s in your court, Little Badger.”

Feeble. Ha. Mr. Masters could kill each of them right now and Valerie would be the only one with a hope of survival. He was probably their best option to fight the King of All Ghosts. Danny was probably smart to try to get him to help more. Still, Valerie would rather not fight with someone she couldn’t trust the way she couldn’t trust Vlad Masters.

Wait.

Why did Danny want Mr. Masters’s help? Did Danny know about him? No, if he knew there’s no way he’d be so glib with the man.

Right?

-----

Paulina should’ve just gone on the picnic.

Instead, she was stuck in this tacky mansion with two people who hated her and a creepy mayor who apparently had a vault where he kept ghost artifacts of great power. Why did a small town mayor have these things in the first place?

Ugh, she didn’t even care. She just wanted life to go back to normal.

She unlocked her phone again, opening up the notes app. Her most recent note read: cameras in the hallways, not in individual rooms. secret passage opened by pushing bust on library desk. secondary security system: unknown? She frowned. Knowing more about this secondary security system might help them figure out which of their classmates snuck in, but most likely Masters would have said something if there was something to find. At the very least, he did seem to want Pariah Dark stopped as much as the rest of them.

She made a new line and added: masters: creepy, not to be trusted. val clearly freaked out by him. fenton: hiding something.

How had Fenton known about all of this? Maybe it wasn’t important, but she had a bad feeling about it. Though, that might be the impending apocalypse.

She finished typing out her notes, then put her phone in her pocket. Ahead, Masters’s creepy butler was leading them back through the labyrinthine mansion with the sort of stiff formality she associated with dinner with her papi’s work connections. From the corner of her eye, she saw Valerie glare at her. Turning to her former friend, she returned the glare, flipping her off. 

What was Valerie even mad about now? Valerie was the one who shoved Paulina off the window earlier. She was the one who smacked Paulina’s phone out of her hand. Was she still mad about what Paulina said about her dad? It had been days.

Well, not actual days, but you know. It felt like it.

Finally, they got to the end of the hallway and the creepy butler dude opened the door. “Don’t come back,” he said, and the door closed with a resounding thud.

“What now?” Valerie said.

Paulina scoffed. “Isn’t it obvious? We have to find Phantom and let him know.”

“Oh my god, do you have any other songs, or are you one track only?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you have a better idea?”

“I was asking the question, you’re the one who half-assed the answer.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Fenton said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Can you two not wait until the world isn’t ending to rip each other’s throats out?”

Paulina crossed her arms. “Tell her to stop coming at me all the time, then.”

Valerie mirrored her position. “Tell her to take this seriously!”

“What makes you think I’m not—”

“Enough! Let’s just go to school and figure out who’s in AP Government this year. That—that’ll narrow down the list, at least.”

“That’s easy,” Paulina said. “Kwan’s in that class; I’ll just ask him who else is in there. There’s only one AP Gov class this year.” She tapped out a text and sent it. “Just give him a sec.”

“How do you know this?” Fenton said, raising an eyebrow.

Paulina flicked her hair behind her shoulder. “I know everything about the school, bobo. Give me a couple minutes, and I could tell you how many people skipped yesterday.”

“Well, that’s creepy.” Valerie looked away pointedly.

“Seriously? I can’t do anything without you jumping down my throat, huh?”

“Paulina,” Fenton said. “Please.”

Paulina sighed. “I’m so ready for this whole thing to be over.” 

The three of them waited in silence for a long moment before her phone buzzed. “Here we go.”

From: Kwan

Kwan Huang (me!)

Jeremiah Anders (really quiet stoner kid)

Mikey (he still won’t accept my apology :( i even baked him cupcakes)

Ben (forgot his last name but he’s that dude who keeps dying his hair blue)

Jazz Fenton (she’s taking this class because she forgot to take it last year, apparently)

Nathan Fulson (he likes peanut butter cookies :D)

Sam Manson (she yelled a lot about the supreme court during class this week)

Mads (she also won’t accept my apology b/c i still talk to dash some :()

Pippi Hudson (wears really short socks)

Shaniqua Brown (i think she has four cats!!!!)

Star (she’s cute ;) haha)

Liam Prince (kinda rude)

Billie Prince (liam’s twin, she’s just as rude)

and Vince (he wants to be president. good for him. can’t relate)

Paulina presented the list to Fenton and Valerie. “I take my apologies in the form of expensive shoes.”

“I’m not apologizing.”

“Thanks, Paulina,” Fenton said. “This is great. A lot faster than my idea, too.”

Paulina blinked. She hadn’t actually expected Fenton to be grateful, much less genuine. “What was your idea?”

“Go to school and try to track them all down?”

Paulina snorted, then chuckled, then laughed. It was a high clear sound, so unlike her usual laughter that Paulina almost couldn’t believe it came out of her mouth. “That—just wander around school asking everyone if they took AP Gov?”

Fenton laughed, too. “Yeah, so it wasn’t my brightest idea.”

“No kidding,” Valerie said, frosty. “Lucky Kwan has an encyclopedic knowledge of everyone in his class. Kinda weird, though.”

Just as quickly as it began, Paulina’s laughter choked off. “What the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Kwan’s always been a bully, just like you, Polly. Maybe he’s the one who let out Pariah as some sick prank.”

This time, Paulina’s laughter was low and dark. More like normal, for her. “Kwan? He cried the week we did frog dissections in class because he didn’t want to hurt the froggies. They were already dead!”

“Yeah, well he used to beat people up on the regular, too, so clearly that concern didn’t spread to humans.”

Paulina’s nostrils flared. “I seem to remember you egging him on more than once, even when he didn’t want to.”

Valerie flinched back, flushing. “Yeah, well I changed!”

“So did Kwan! I know he came by and apologized to everyone, including you. Just because you can’t let go of a grudge doesn’t mean that Kwan isn’t a good person now!”

“He could be putting up a front. Lord knows he could’ve learned that so easily from you.”

“Out of everyone in school, why’d I have to be stuck in a time loop with the two of you!” Fenton yelled. “Seriously, every five minutes you’re fighting! Valerie, Kwan apologized a year and a half ago to me and Sam and Tucker. He goes with Sam to poetry nights sometimes. He really is nice to us. Him paying attention to his classmates isn’t a reason to suspect him of plotting to destroy the world. And Paulina, everyone in that class has to be a suspect. We have to look into Kwan just like everybody else.”

Paulina narrowed her eyes. “Oh? So your sister and the little goth freak are suspects too?”

“No!” Fenton recoiled. “I—I mean, there’s no way. Jazz and Sam would never. Too smart for that.”

“Or maybe they’re just smart enough to get past Masters’s security.”

“Of course they are, but they wouldn’t. They don’t want to end the world.”

“I thought goths were all about that.”

“You don’t even know—”

“Shit,” Valerie said. “Is this what we’ve sounded like to you all day, Danny? Because it’s fucking annoying.”

Fenton blushed.

“Look, clearly we’re not going to agree on who our suspects are. Let’s just take the list and start going through it one by one. Don’t rule anyone out until we’ve checked them.”

“I call Kwan,” Paulina said. Fenton and Valerie both stared at her. “What? It’s not like I’d trust either of you two bozos with him. Plus, he’ll talk to me more than either of you.”

“Why should we trust you not to cover for him?” Valerie said.

“Do you honestly think I’d just let him end the world?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh. My. God. Fine, I will talk with him in seventh period, since we’re all in the same class then, and you little creeps can listen. Happy?”

“Thrilled,” Fenton said. “Let’s get going.”

Paulina opened her messages.

To: Kwan

thank u so much for the list

seriously its a big help

and hey you’ll be there for 7th period, right?

smthn i wanna ask you about

From: Kwan

hell yeah, dude!

i’ve got a little surprise planned, actually

but shhh dont tell anyone

Paulina’s fingers froze over the keyboard. A surprise? No. No, it couldn’t be. She glanced up at Fenton and Valerie, who had begun the walk to school. If she told them… they’d assume the worst.

She put her phone in her pocket. Kwan, she thought, please don’t let it be you.

[98chao]

Yummers

[marblerose-rue]

click for better quality!

it's this way! / squirrelpaw and leafpaw

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"And soda; runs off into the street..." "...and soda... is totally okay!"

[arom-antix]

Stars, I have seen them fall

Huge credit to @my-private-tsukuyomi and their Stardust AU for the inspiration for this! Open for better resolution

[fiendishartist2]

"pall, do you remember being born? smuggled away, driving to your new home. boss in front, me in back; i could not wait to be your friend."

"family."

"we can investigate this together."

[rayjayoo]

teef! TOOFERS! CHOMPERS EVEN!! >:D

[marcmorrigan]

finally delivering on the princess tutu headshots i promised... love these dysfunctional teens 🩰💖💕

LOTS of notes about headcanons/design choices under the cut! like. a lot. dont say i didnt warn you

starting with my specialest guy fakir:

i had a suuuper clear vision for fakir, and i couldnt be happier with how he turned out, he looks exactly how i imagine him! trying to translate his Bird-Shaped Hair into my style gave me SERIOUS homestuck flashbacks. my affinity for knights with Problems knows no bounds...

adding the hyperpigmentation around his eyes and his acne scars is what really solidified this for me-- i put those in and was like oh!!! there you are!!! my boy!!! and you can tell because i gave him acne scars + thick eyebrows that he IS my boy... there are very clear trends among my headcanons for my faves lol. big noses, thick eyebrows, skin imperfections, heavy eyebags, long dark hair... and fakir truly has it all 😤 he is so Ideal Character Design to me

i think fakir is actually pretty self-conscious about his appearance tho! we see characters like pike and lilie say hes handsome to ahiru, but i dont know how often he actually hears that? and im sure its hard not to compare himself to mytho, who is straight out of a fairy tale; being a regular teenager dealing with regular teen body stuff is hard enough without your roommate being a magically beautiful eternally youthful storybook hero. i think he probably internalises more that people see him as scary and angry, and that the girls who do have crushes on him always frame it in contrast to mytho, who is Good and Kind and Handsome, implying (or sometimes outright stating!) that fakir is Bad and Mean and... Well...

fakir is very sensitive but quiet about it, so i think its a very private point of self-consciousness. i think he puts a lot of semi-secret effort into his appearance; canonically he has a lot of very funny and clearly customised clothing, and he chooses to keep his hair long and in a very particular style (i have a whole breakdown in my mind of how he achieves that style and it involves a surprising amount of pins and an unsurprising fuckton of teasing. i think his hair is a little fried from heat damage!), and i think that probably extends to other things, too, like manicuring his eyebrows and doing a lot of very Teenage Skincare that doesnt actually help his acne much lol. i think he probably has a lot of self-injurious habits and BFRBs like skin picking and chewing, mostly at his acne and around his nails (both of which he hates, because he knows he shouldnt but does it anyway). i think if he does it enough that theres noticeable evidence it feels, like, world-ending for him, ESPECIALLY if anyone asks what happened lol. do not perceive him except in the very specific ways and contexts he approves of THANKS

on to the narratives favorite princess, mytho:

again, i had a pretty clear idea of the vibe i wanted mytho to have going into this-- i want him to have, like, extreme prince charming vibes, very Classically Handsome without necessarily being 'conventional.' i thought a lot about 'the happy prince' story while i was working on this, and really wanted him to look like a cross between how the prince statue looks in my head and a porcelain doll. and also a cross between jonny brown and brigitte bardot? lots of very direct influences for him lol. so! lots of gold tones, gemmy eye color, cute little tooth gap, quivering wide-eyed thousand-yard-stare doe eyes and big ol dolly anime lashes, which were the very last thing i added because i was NERVOUS about pulling those off lol. they turned out cute tho! ive only done a handful of pieces for this series and i can already tell princess tutu is gonna make me up my lash drawing game considerably, these kids all look like they blink and cause a hurricane from the gale force wind of their falsies

also wait i lied the very last thing i did was add his freckles/beauty marks because he needed that little extra oomph and those were It. i think he probably has some on his hands/wrists too 💕

i was a little unsure if my idea for his hair would translate with this flat-color approach but im pretty happy with it! its supposed to be afrotextured hair (somewhere between 3b and 4c i think? wide range of potential i knowww but im still kind of hammering out my headcanons okay, this is exploratory lol) thats been rolled and finger-styled into his little feather shapes. i think loose, chunky twists would be another fun way to interpret his hair and twists are one of my fave styles to draw do i might draw him like that at some point too...

i guess fakir is the one who styles his hair for him before mytho gets his heart back? i imagine fakir is pretty meticulous about maintaining mythos health and appearance, even at the worst stages of their relationship. i think itd be hard for fakir to frame the way he treats mytho as For Mythos Sake if he wasnt doing some level of actually beneficial care for him, so being really fastidious about things like mythos diet and sleep hygiene and hair care and such gives fakir an outlet for his 'you just have to do what i tell you' thing that helps him convince himself it really is helping, no really, hes doing this for mythos benefit and he just has to be strict with him because mytho doesnt UNDERSTAND he needs PROTECTING and fakir is the ONLY ONE who can do it so mytho HAS to let him because if he doesnt then why does fakir even EXIST, if he cant manage this then what is he good for, and--

yknow. the usual complexes. and their relationship is so complex!!! but also so simple, but like. in a good way. fakirs behavior is complicated but his motivation regarding mytho is SO straightforward which makes that downward spiral into harm really easy to map out... i wont go much into that in this post since this is about visual/appearance-related headcanons but just. augh. i love this show and i love these characters!!! and i hope its apparent in my work that i do love them so <3

im hoping to do a set of these for the girls next!!! i have some other stuff to finish first but hopefully... Soon... Some Birds...

[hashileio]

figuring this out a little more

also here’s ya man @lady-of-disdain :3c

[analogboii]

DONT WORRY GUYS. WE FINALLY HAVE "CONCRETE EVIDENCE"

cant believe i ever doubted him smh. guys its the real lee know 😌

do people not, like, realize reverse image search is a thing. it took me thirty seconds to find out this was a bubble update from a while back.

BESIDES AHAHAH WAIT. I JUST REALIZED. AINT HIS HAIR DARKER RN????

[rexscanonwife]

Ugh fuck I have a camping trip planned back where I used to live in California and I'm getting SO fucking hype now actually!!!!

[vyibunni]

the fontaine characters im looking forward to the most

[arom-antix]

My feral little man

[fiendishartist2]

[sketchy-tour]

The welcome home site had an update!? Oh no I'm still on vacation and now I'm forced to wait a few days before getting to explore the new stuff!!!

*shaking my silly cage bars but the cage is actually a nice cabin and I'm literally not trapped* djsjdjskskkd

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...