The Backrooms is just the infinite realms. Imagine this:
Danny chillin playing Doomed in a house with reversed signs. Then suddenly someone falls from the ceiling and lands in front of him. The being bounces once with a grunt. “Fuckin’ ow.” The person says into the floor. Just laying there for a moment. Danny pauses his game, looking at the lump of a slender man in a cape on the ground.
“You good man?” Danny asks, eyebrow raised.
“Peachy.” The human (?) said. They raise their head with a groan and look around. The person has shaggy hair and a domino mask over their eyes. They seem to scan the area as they get up. Looking at Danny, they ask, “where am I?” Danny cocks his head to the side. “The realms..? Who are you?”
“Red Robin. What’s the realms?”
At this the room shifts. “Well geez. Guess it’s time to go” comments Danny. He packs up a bag, grabs Red Robin by the upper arm and pulls him up and drags him behind him. Red Robin looks around to see the house changing into colors of yellow and shifting into what seems to be an old office space. “Wha-what’s happening?”
“The rooms are shifting. This part of the realms shifts a lot. The yellow usually means something is hunting nearby. I don’t feel like dealing with it and you seem like you need help. So, we rollin’.” Danny explains in a nonchalance way. Red Robin looks around in curious bewilderment. “Yellow… office…” the vigilante pulls on Danny’s arm. “ARE WE IN THE FUCKIN BACKROOMS?!”
Danny hisses at the noise and pulls RR against the wall and covers his mouth. “I said something is hunting nearby. And you decide to scream?! Your self preservation must be shot for a cape. Not even I’m that bad and I’m half dead.”
They go through a door and enter what looks like a bedroom full of space themed paraphernalia.
“Okay. Now. Give me the low down on how you got into the realms and we can get you back to where you’re from. Also, what the fuck is the Backrooms?” Danny says as he falls into his desk chair, booting up his clunky desktop computer. The fan spinning and whining to life.
Looking around the room, Red Robin gets retro vibes from his point of view. ‘This all looks millennial’ he thought as he looked at a calendar hanging above the desk. “Um, dude, what year is it?”
Holy ghosts this was a prompt where I couldn’t find anything to do with. Becauseeee, I don’t want to spend too much time on drawing these prompts. But thanks to all the friends that helped me to figure stuff out :D <3
“Anyone seen Danny?” asked Maddie, glancing around as she stood in front of the table. “Thought he was going to help with the garage sale.”
“That little shit went on a run again,” hissed Jack, his voice low, narrowing his eyes.
“Jack!” yelled Maddie between closed teeth, crossing her arms against her chest and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t talk like that about our son. He has been helping with setting up the garage sale like a good boy, until that ghost scum of a Phantom showed up.”
“You’re right, Mads.” His shoulders slumped. “At least I sucked that ghost into the Fenton Thermos.”
“Yes, that’s all right,” she said and exhaled heavily, turning around to look at the table that was cluttered with FentonWorks devices. “I suppose we can deal with that later.”
“Now,” began Jack, “let’s sell some anti-ghost stuff to the townspeople so they can begin to protect themselves.”
“Yes,” said Maddie. “We should put up a sign as well. Don’t you think?”
Amity Parkers know that Danny Fenton is nothing to look at.
They've seen the dude eat shit so many times, they're legitimately surprised his chin isn't permanently bruised from how often it hits the ground after he trips. He's the son of the town crazies and there's even rumors that he's cursed or something, since there's been witness accounts of Fenton's eyes glowing green or disappearing in plain view. His entire time in middle and high school was spent being shoved into lockers, put into wedgies, eating the quarterback's underwear - Daniel "Danny" Fenton was not a prize and was honestly the bottom of the barrel for only the truly desperate.
So, explain to them why the fugly nerd managed to pull so hard once he left Amity?
Every other day, there was a new image or clip of Fenton interacting with a Wayne - the cream of the crop, the ideal of ideals, the ones someone could only dream of the chance of being in the same building as - and a headline detailing some new dramatic action the Wayne kid had taken to fight their siblings for Fenton's attention. If it wasn't a Wayne, it was some other famous person - even Superboy, the teen dreamboat, seemed to shoot his shot with Fenton.
Was there something that Amity Parkers were missing? Fenton didn't exactly look all that different from when he'd graduated high school. Why was the world suddenly treating Fenton like... like a diamond in the rough? It didn't make any sense!
Finally, they think in near unison, watching Fenton bite dust on live television, maybe the world will finally realize that they'd been irrationally attracted to a loser.
Instead, they watch as the world collectively is endeared by how clumsy Danny is and isn't that cute? A little flaw for what is otherwise a perfect person.
And then Amity Park and the entire world sees the demon that came out when Danny curb stomped Joker.
Joker didn't even have anything planned! He was just casually walking in disguise when the clumsy cute and sometimes clueless to the social cues ray of hope that is Danny Fenton, just ran from the most recent Wayne brawl and flew a flying kick to his head.
Several people tried to get him off of the 'innocent civilian'.
Yes, most Amity Parkers reveled in the thought that finally people would see his cute boy persona was a fake and see the disgusting thing that lied beneath. Except it never comes. What does come however is the reveal that he was attacking the Joker and he was getting PRAISED FOR IT???
Danny for his part was just spitting venom essentially. Cursing the Jokers name and that made everyone especially Jason fall for him even more. Most of what he was saying was just too fast for anyone to really catch mostly just some names which everyone figured it was the names of victims.
Amity Parkers are basically left to pull their hair out 'how can they find him cute?' They shout to skies.
The news interview with Danny was at best by Amity Parks standards an absolute shit show yet to the rest of the world he was akin to God appearing on the news 'What do you mean you smelled a clown? That doesn't even make any sense!' Amity Parkers by now were eating their hats or buying new hats to eat.
Amity Park is left feeling like everyone else lost their minds.
This is a part of my wheelchair/cane user Danny AU, and while I first had plans to draw Vlad and Dani in this AU- I just had to try my hand at drawing Cujo.
Cujo is a mobility assistant dog, he provides Danny with an additional level of balance support when Danny walks. He also has other tasks like item retrieval and "opening" doors.
He's also a trained diabetic alert dog! May as well put those heightened ghost dog senses to work.
More design explanation and little "rambles" under the cut, as always!
Someone in one of the other posts mentioned Danny using a hurrycane, and while I originally gave Danny a non-folding acrylic one for the aesthetic, I did want to give drawing different cane styles a go. This one has a wider base that swivels as he walks, and a small model of Pluto attached to the strap.
I imagine that, even though Danny would probably take the NASA designation very seriously, Pluto would become his favourite 'planet' after he develops his ice powers. Plus, in roman myth, Pluto is the equivalent of Hades- Hades has the dog Cerberus. And Pluto is a dog name- it was just too perfect.
When Danny brings Cujo to school with him, he brings a pouch of specialty ectoplasmic dog treats and Cujo's squeaker toy. He keeps those attached to his hip with a carabiner
Danny's new cane in this art has glow in the dark star stickers stuck all over it.
Cujo is modelled after a mastiff and bully- for no reason other than I wanted him to have the mastiff fur pattern and big ol' cheeks
Cujo being a diabetic alert dog actually comes from a gag line from a comic I've been working on. Danny was trying to get out of detention and fight a ghost, but Lancer rejects each of his excuses before he can make them, and one is "No, you may not go get Sam some juice or a snack, if she has low-blood sugar, I will get something for her."
But then I think it could just be a nice thing to train Cujo to do; I imagine that when Cujo is out with Phantom, he's alerted to a few random citizen's blood sugar levels
Cujo's full list of tasks include:
balance support for Danny while walking
"opening" doors (touching his nose to them to turn them intanglible for Danny)
item retrieval (less used due to how difficult ectoplasmic dog drool is to clean)
circling (where Cujo paces around Danny's chair in crowded places to give Danny space to move, stand up, or sit down)
wheelchair pulling (this is NOT an average mobility dog task- this is EXCLUSIVELY because Cujo is a ghost, he's got ghost strength)
and diabetic alert for Sam and other civilians.
More design rambles
Cujo's muzzle is non-restrictive. It's merely there as a signal to Cujo that he's still working, even if one or both of his vests have been removed.
The mobility assistant vest is inspired directly by a harness from Bold Lead Designs. I chose that one due to the adjustable height of the main bracer, but made a few changes; there is a leather bracer in front that's short and stays upright. The metal bracer can rotate back to lay against Cujo's side when it's not needed- and the plastic handle is moulded to curve around the shape of his body to make it lay flatter. There's a wool lining around the main parts of the vest for Cujo's comfort.
Here were my reference images:
The patches on the purple vest include "Mobility Assist" and "Diabetic Alert", a "Danny Phantom Certified SAFE GHOST" patch, another patch that says "Service Dog: Do Not Pet", and Danny's Casper High ID.
The light and dark gradient of Cujo's eyes is the reverse of what the humans have. Humans have highlights at the top of their irises and darker shades at the bottom, but Cujo has dark on top and highlight at the bottom.
Cujo's Axiom Labs dog tag has been replaced with a Danny Phantom tag.
The patches on the purple vest include "Mobility Assist" and "Diabetic Alert", a "Danny Phantom Certified SAFE GHOST" patch, another patch that says "Service Dog: Do Not Pet", and Danny's Casper High ID.
The light and dark gradient of Cujo's eyes is the reverse of what the humans have. Humans have highlights at the top of their irises and darker shades at the bottom, but Cujo has dark on top and highlight at the bottom.
Cujo's Axiom Labs dog tag has been replaced with a Danny Phantom tag.
Phew. That's a big list. Hope I didn't forget anything.
And that's about it for now. Like I said, I have plans for Vlad and Dani- but for now I just want to say this:
Thank you all so so much for the overwhelming support on my original post for this AU. 2K notes on the first drawings I did is insane- I have been blown away by how kind and excited ya'll have been about my design choices and art! And I'm so so so incredibly grateful for all of the wonderful people who gave me their feedback and advice, and corrected me on some of my mistakes.
I hope that as I post more, I continue to learn and improve.
also if I knew it was going to get so much attention I would have drawn backgrounds for the first two posts. They look so unfinished to me now ;-;
When I get time I'm going to go back and add some simple backgrounds to those two posts.
Thank you for sticking around and reading the rest of this post!
