Brain Dead

37 she/them writer AO3 linked below

[alienneedshelpplease]

Can we talk about this moment?

Because THIS is the reaction of Danny when Amity Park announces that he is the public enemy. THIS is the reaction of Danny when Amity Park blames him for all the disasters HE fixed, for all the ghosts HE fought, for all the WOUNDS he received while he was protecting AMITY PARK. AND his reaction is not to get angry, not to get sad, not even to be indignant! He looks fucking tired....

And THIS happen until the middle of the season one!

[doitbuckley]

you can tell a character is loved when their fans constantly wish immense physical and psychological harm on them

[asynca]

Write that one-shot. Those 3 chapters will be the best 10 chapters you ever wrote

[beaswellgirl]

yep, pretty much

[crumching]

babysitting yourself or something

(part 2)

[exhuastedpigeon]

Sometimes you hear a song and a fic pops into your head full formed. This is a trap. The fic may be fully formed in your brain, but you still Have to write it down. This is an important step that most people forget about.

[edgar-rain]

Their complicated relationship has always broken my heart… 💔

The loneliness and, in a way, the sense of doom surrounding Goro have always touched my heart… The situation feels hopeless. Even if there were a desire to step back, to abandon his goal and try to fix everything, there is simply no way back. The things that cannot be changed have already been done. The consequences cannot be undone…

But none of that matters in light of one important fact — Goro still remains true to himself. Even if this path leads him to certain death. An immense strength of will and spirit that cannot be broken by anything. And even when given a chance to rewrite his fate thanks to Maruki, he still wants to have complete control over his own destiny…

The most admirable trait one could imagine — even if it borders on stubbornness and self-destruction.

[batboyspinupzine]

A message from @belfry-ghost

I'm Juno! New comics fan, casual DC fan, major Tim Drake fan. This is my first zine, and I'm excited to be here!

[ficcerspam]

The Adventures of a Teenage God (and other such beings)

Hullo!!! I'm joining this year's @phicphight :)

If you remember the last time I joined, then you wont be surprised that this year I am also trying to cram as many prompts as i can feasibly write for into one fic. If you don't, well. surprise!

we'll see how many i manage this time, probably not as much as before, but ive already kind of outlined at least 4 others, so im hopeful! last time I also went a little heavy handed on the angst factor, so this time i'm going full crack treated semi-seriously, lighthearted gags, etc. im in my funny bone era baby!!!!

Anyway enough chatting. Here's the first chapter, which can also be found on AO3!

Original Prompt by @chrysanthemum9484 :

Danny ascended to godhood and no one bothered to inform him.

===

The thing about Danny is that he is, above all else, oblivious. He can recognize this now, can even freely admit it if not out loud, then at least to himself.

And, of course, to his two best friends and a room full of eyeball-headed ghosts.

(Don't even get him started on Clockwork. Danny's trying not to think about Clockwork's involvement. It's not like he can lie to that guy, and thinking about Clockwork and their hand on the current situation is a problem for future Danny, the Danny of Not Now.)

"I'm…a what now?" Danny rasps.

Sam squeezes his left bicep at the same time Tuck nudges him in the shoulder on his right. He feels a little like a sandwich.

"For lack of a better term," one of the aforementioned eyeball headed ghosts, an Observant if they're to be believed, drawls, "a God."

…A sandwich that is thoroughly freaked out, but a sandwich nonetheless. Who may or may not also be a God.

"But." Danny swallows, unsuccessfully with how dry his throat suddenly is, "I'm not even 18 yet."

The squeeze and nudge go tighter. If he were to define what type of sandwich he is, it'd be PB and J. Half and Half.

And if he were a PB and J, his insides would be all over the god damn floor.

As it is, even though it feels that way, all his insides are—well. He's in his ghost form so does he even have organs?

"Contrary to popular belief, age," another observant drawls in the exact same manner as the one before, "is not exactly relevant to Godhood."

"I feel like it should be relevant though." Tucker cuts in, voice rumbling through his chest and into Danny's shoulder and through him. "Can you be a, uh—"

"Ancient." Sam answers through gritted teeth, which he can also feel from the way she presses her body into his left bicep, "They called him an Ancient."

"Right!" Tucker snaps towards Sam, "I feel like Ancient implies a very long livelihood, no?"

"And for that matter," Sam cuts her gaze towards the eyeballs like a scythe through weeds, "He's even younger in ghost-age. He's like, three. You're telling me you want a toddler for a King?"

"Yeah, like, you just show up here," Tucker frantically flails his arms about at the assembled, what, twenty? Observants standing around them, "No crown, no scepter thing, no—"

Tucker snaps, multiple times, before Sam roles her eyes and provides the missing word, "coronation."

"No coronation!" Tucker throws his hands up, looking to the ceiling as if to say you hear this Big Guy?

Danny huffs a weak laugh at that, because Tuck is hardly religious, but his mom is so he's always talking God as if he's some kind of homie or bro and—

That's when Danny realizes he hasn't really been breathing, and Sam has moved to rub circles into his back and he's hardly felt it.

"There seems to be…" an Observant somewhere in the back left cuts in, "a misunderstanding here."

That brings all of them short, Tucker shutting his mouth and trying to find the source of the words in the small assembled crowd with Sam and Danny tensing as if waiting for an attack.

"We are not appointing Phantom as the Ghost King," another voice in the crowd adds in, somewhere to the right this time, "nor are we indicting him into becoming an Ancient."

There's a long silence where the trio glance at each other, and it's clear what they want to say.

So of course, Sam says it, blunt almost hateful. "Then…what are you doing?"

"Other than freaking Danny out." Tucker mutters mulishly under his breath. As if it's a hate crime being committed.

Danny loves his friends so very much.

A collective sigh blows in staggered tandem, which is a little unfair in his opinion.

"Being an Ancient isn't a club." The Observant at the forefront of the gang carefully says, "It isn't something you are invited or crowned. Only the living require acknowledgement of that—Here, you simply are."

Tucker and Sam sputter, but all Danny can hear is white noise. The static isn't loud enough to drown out the next words though.

"You've been an Ancient, you've been Ruler of the Infinite Realms since almost your inception," the leader Observant continues, gesturing to the rest of them and their surroundings, "and this is your Keep—your first visit since defeating Pariah Dark. It is only natural that we be here to welcome you."

"We were worried," one of the smaller Observants titters, nervously, "that perhaps you were wishing to make your Haunt your Keep instead, which would have…unfortunate repercussions."

"My haunt?" Danny rasps, "What do you mean?"

"Your home, the…human city you claim as your territory outside the Realms." An Observant in the back right points out, which—Danny really does need to ask for their names because he's already dizzy with the content of the conversation, and all this bouncing around with almost identical eyeballs is really doing a number on him.

"You mean Amity Park?" Tucker straightens, at the same time Sam growls out, "What kind of repercussions?"

"A haunt is a place of privacy, comfort, perhaps even a place to socialize depending on the entity," A voice behind the middle attempts to summarize, as voice to the back right tacks on, "but a King's Keep is a place of, hm. Work?"

"A haunt conforms itself to the entity's comfort, their needs." The Observant at the forefront, the leader of the pack, begins to tense, it's one eye bouncing back and forth between the three of them as they continue gravely. "The Keep conforms itself to the Realms at large. A place of stability where a Ruler can receive their people and their problems, before sending them along their way."

A feeling of horrible dawning begins to flush over them, a feeling that Danny can relate to and understand despite there being no helpful body language to denote it.

"So hypothetically speaking…" Danny's voice cracks, "If a place becomes both a haunt and a Keep…"

The leader Observant shuts its one eye, answering as if each word is painful. "It will not know which to conform itself to, and become chaos. It will try to be the middle ground."

Suddenly the past three years of Danny's life is beginning to make sense. Suddenly, a sense of guilt and dread washes over him.

"Oh my God." Tucker intones, at the same time Sam starts swearing, "Holy shit, holy shit."

"This…explains a lot." Danny weakly croaks to the crowd.

"Have a seat, you three." The leader of the Observants opens their eye, sternly and brokenly answering in kind. "I suppose we have a lot to speak about."

The crowd begins to mumble and mutter, staccato beats of indecipherable questions and statements said as everyone migrates to a long table that appears behind them.

Sam, Tucker, and Danny all take a seat at the head. Sam to his right, and Tucker to his left.

Once the murmuring peters off, all eyes on him, Danny takes a deep, deep breath.

At a loss, unsure, and honestly a little terrified, Danny has no choice.

He starts at the beginning.

[ficcerspam]

Hello friends!

I did in fact, finish this fic within the last 2 hours of the actual event lol.

I wrote 4 more chapters, which can all be read on AO3!

Sorry that my executives did not function enough to continue at a steady and normal pace. see you over at ao3, and thanks for reading!

[ama-kuri]

creepy tim drake you will always be famous

[sonyaskullz]

the funniest part about danny phantom is that the entirety of the ghost zone somehow decides they have beef with this one 14 year old from illinois in particular. like why don’t you have beef with something that makes sense. like the irs. or the church. like you have all of these cool powers for what? picking fights with teenagers? lame. get a hobby.

[chromatographic]

Danny Phantom just gets wilder the more you know about it, really.

first of all i gotta say that it's not actually canon that he's from Illinois. the show is just "generic American small city" for his hometown and the fandom took context cues from other parts of the show and decided "Fuck it Illinois makes sense" and just kept that.

But I guarantee you, nothing about the show makes sense when you look at it too closely so take everything with a grain of salt. Yes I'm looking at you, Timeline.

the teenager in question is also kind of a ghost, hence part of the reason why the other ghosts are picking fights with him. He arguably picks a bunch of the fights himself.

it's not just the entirety of the Ghost Zone that get put into the antagonist role in the show either. Danny's other antagonists include:

A literal billionaire (who is also a ghost) (and gets himself elected mayor)

his parents (literally ghost hunters. who also fight the ghosts.)

a circus ringmaster with mind control and reality bending artifacts

Classmates at school who bully Danny

the closest thing we get to an adult who is on Danny's side is Mr. Lancer, who also supports the school bullies

the ghost who impersonated a school counselor and was literally in the role of Danny's therapist for a bit that one episode

A U.S. government agency

a girl he dates was actually being controlled by a dragon ghost and didn't actually want to date him. Have fun with that fallout kid.

the girl he dates for a bit who *wanted* to date him also shows up in costume to shoot him on sight.

his clone shows up and is supposed to be his enemy. he adopts her instead. yes those pronouns are all correct.

she's not really an antagonist but one of his best friends arguably kills him twice. once very much on purpose.

his other best friend and whatever happened in King Tuck.

like it's not enough that this show puts Danny (and friends) against the regular ghosts and the God-Like Being level ghosts and the literal Ghost Tyrant King guy

he can't even catch a break at home either

kid's literally surrounded by people deliberately or accidentally making his life harder, there are no safe Adults, there are barely any safe friends, and he is fourteen and half dead.

and his parents canonically want to rip his alter-ego apart "molecule by molecule" i am not kidding with that one.

Like they made us a sandbox of a Nickelodeon cartoon and just half assed it by grabbing a bunch of two-by-fours, nailing them together... and then sticking them on the beach.

and then people still get mad when the fandom shows up to build sandcastles and dig to china. Yeah, we know they didn't make it That Deep on purpose.

But we're here with the good Tonka Toys anyway and ready to dig.

[ailithnight]

This post just slapped me in the face (again) with the fact that Danny is just, never safe.

He's never safe.

Home, school, the zone, hanging out with friends, walking down the street, in anotger state; there is nowhere for Danny to go and be safe.

Most ghosts he's met (pretty sure everyone but Frostbite and Pandora), his parents, his friends, Vlad, Jazz; there is almost no one who has not at least once been his enemy.

Can you imagine living like that? At any moment of any day, anywhere he is anyone; even one or both of his best friends, his sister, his mom and dad; anyone could turn around and suddenly become someone he has to fight.

Danny has to be living his life in a perpetual state of adrenaline response. Every waking moment must be spent on a hairpin trigger, ready to fight at the first sign of danger. Can you imagine how much that is going to fuck you up?

[lolottes]

not to mention that even his food at home is not safe and that the fast food places are also a latent bomb

[gildedphoenix]

My man is struggling and any fics that feature PTSD, cptsd, anxiety, paranoia, or just general mental breakdown? 1000% justified. Canon compliant. More canon than Phantom Planet. (Especially since AGIT retcon'd that trash)

[ashleyreyland]

Doing some math on heights in Danny Phantom has yielded strange results.

Fright Knight and Vlad are about the same height

So are Vlad and Maddie

Making Maddie and Fright Knight about the same height as well.

Jack is significantly taller than all three of them

And based on the math used in this post, Maddie, Vlad, and Fright Night should all be around 194cm or 6' 4".

Do with that information what you will.

[1000-life-hacks]

[archeologist-prophet]

Lovely to see we have spaces where you can gain access to so much literature!

[rozandraw]

Ah forgot to post this here

Danny would 100% fly to see the Artemis II team

[writingwithminotaur]

The creative struggle 😔✊

[midnights-dragon]

[stars-inthe-sky]

A 50-year Trekkie bestows Star Trek history upon the next generation: How fandom and fanfiction sparked the galaxy’s most controversial romance

Beam me up, Grandma

A wonderful piece about fandom history, friendships, and legacies.

[legobiwan]

Dee called AO3 a “candy store,” and said the fan art she has seen, in particular, has been overwhelming. “I cannot get over the art,” she said. “We would have jumped at this. I would’ve given my right tit for all this art when I was in my twenties. Because you couldn’t reproduce it, you couldn’t send it out, but [now] there’s this fabulous art coming out every single day.”

[skyywalkerfen]

Yes. Yes. Yes.  This is how it happened.  Excellent article.

[spockslash]

Thanks to the author for permission to share this here, and for being just a really nice human being, and big thanks to the artist who did my mom’s portrait, above. -Zachary

[wintergrey]

Link as of April 2026