I'm also noticing on this rewatch that Danny absolutely bought his parents' "all ghosts are evil" talk at first. He genuinely thought that he was the only good ghost and only because he wasn't all ghost. And after the incident with Desiree and Tucker Phantom he probably thought it was only a matter of time. And then he met Vlad and that wasn't exactly reassuring.
The first non-evil ghost he meets is the Dairy King (shortly after discovering that Vlad is an evil halfa), and Danny immediately assumes that ghost is going to hurt him too until the Dairy king says "not all ghosts are evil" and Danny smiles and looks relieved. Then when he realizes what's up with Cujo, Danny says the same thing, "not all ghosts are evil," like it's an affirmation.
Am I the only one 100% convinced Danny was named after Danny Torrence from the Shining? MoaT basically confirmed that Jack picked out Jazz's name so I think for their second child, Maddie had the pick. She probably made a list and went over it with Jack who zeroed in immediately on Daniel. And so Danny Fenton was born and Maddie had no idea of potential ulterior motives until she catches Jack watching his favorite movie with his newborn son.
#one its so cute and maddie would be exasperated but allow it#two the IRONY of a child with powers who comes to fear his beloved father bc of them#three lmao danny was named after a horror character#also three and a half vlad would be so mad when he finds out
i could go on a whole rant about this but its very important to me that I retain Danny's ability to kick Vlad's ass when I'm writing my interpretation of their dynamic. He can and should be able to defeat Vlad.
,,,Just never in his personal/civilian life.
Their relationship is rife with a power imbalance that stems from the wealth/class, social, and age disparity between them. But that only affects them in their human lives due to the society they live in.
When they're ghosts? All bets are off, Danny, even if he struggles with it at first, can and is able to grind Vlad's face into the dirt. When they're dead, they're equals.
The layers to it.
Danny knows he is able to fight against Vlad and can't when he's in public because he's confined by social constraints and conventions. And that's without taking into account his own social standing amongst his peers. And he knows that if he acts out, it'll just rebound back to him and drive his standing with others even further into the ground.
And that's not taking into account the personal connection Vlad has with Danny's family as well, and the way Vlad can just exploit that access to Danny through his relationship with Jack. It'd be very easy to strip Danny of his sense of security and safety by constantly reminding him that, in his human life, nowhere is safe from Vlad for him. Not even his own home. Keep his nervous system shot.
It's the cognitive dissonance as their relationship bounces from being Equals to Not Equals, and the artificial and forced sense of helplessness and powerless that being around Vlad in his civilian life inflicts on Danny.
The most maddening part about it too, other than the fact that Danny knows he has the physical ability to fight Vlad, is that he can stop Vlad in their civilian lives... by revealing what he's done as a ghost.
But that would be at the expense of Danny's own identity as well. They'll both lose everything if Danny reveals Vlad's identity, and there are two ways someone can react once they have nothing else left to lose: they shut down, or they become uncontrollable.
Vlad hasn't attacked Jack outright because he still needs to woo Maddie, so he tries to be underhanded about it. With his chances to woo Maddie gone, there is now nothing in his way from trying to kill Jack right then and there, and putting his all into it. There is little else more important to him than this. He might lose his social power, but he still has power.
Meanwhile, Danny would lose his family, his safety in his civilian life, and a bunch of his security. His friends might be targeted; his family might be targeted. He doesn't have anything to fall back on. And, it wouldn't even guarantee his family's safety either, considering Vlad now has nothing to hold back on.
In the end, the best way to keep everyone safe... is to say nothing. He can't fight Vlad in public, it has to stay behind closed doors.
this idea for a phantom planet alt came to me in a dream. huh.
so. there is actually still a big space rock coming toward earth. and every news source is saying that thing is gonna hit the earth. the news, however, is being contaminated by a scheming cheesehead.
looking at the actual simulations, it’s going to go fast enough to curve right by earth and then spiral into the sun.
that said, it’s still going to get terrifyingly close, and very much visible in the sky. vlad uses this to his advantage, proceeding to convince everyone it is in fact going to destroy the world. the asteroid in this was yellow though?
our hero mr. fenton, however, is very much aware this isn’t the case. he’s actually looked at the official simulations(it’s implied he has for a while now, but now that the meteor is close enough to get accurate ones he knows it’s not a threat), and isn’t going to panick. unlike most everybody else. he’s briefly alarmed when everyone starts talking about the end of the world, but then mr. mayor masters makes an address.
if what he was saying wasn’t suspicious, the look on his face as walked offstage sure was.
but hey. let it play out. keep an eye on that asteroid, ensure it doesn’t actually crash into earth.
anyway plasmius shows up as before, claiming he can erase the threat. everyone mass shrugs and figures, what do they have to lose? let the ghosty help.
he has his own ghost mooks up there already, so he can pretend to destroy the asteroid overnight as they keep it invisible. this doesn’t work, it’s large enough that they can’t maintain it. he tries to convince others, to no avail, and ultimately flies up himself to try and keep it up. which works better and for longer but he also ends up passing out not much later.
after which danny saves him. for some reason? i’m not even sure, everything before this in the dream didn’t have much elaboration either, but seemed easy to figure out. for some reason.
everyone’s pretty confused when phantom drops in with the mayor, unconscious. does it have something to do with earlier when he suddenly vanished from a conversation with four people(his dupe vanishing)? and then danny reveals that masters is plasmius. in the original dream he said he knew because he was also human but i feel like that’s too off. thinking now he’d probably need somebody to vouch for him, but i think miss red huntress would be okay with that.
and then he goes up to the microphone and tells everyone to check a reliable source, for the love of goodness, the asteroid isn’t even going to hit the earth, why would you believe a billionaire over nasa.
and then cut to danny fenton walking home when danielle suddenly crashes into and hugs him, because she hasn’t heard yet that the world isn’t ending and is scared.
and then valerie sees the ghost hybrid girl walking home with danny. and they look really similar in this form, don’t they.
I think the idea that they did in Phantom Planet of Danny getting fed up and replaced and then going on strike actually would've been an interesting idea to explore if they had done it correctly. Like, if Danny hadn't literally given up his powers (that made no damn sense) and Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had backed him up (because why wouldn't they), it could've been interesting for him to go on strike. Get a taste of a life without responsibilities as a superhero. Do well in school, get the proper amount of sleep, and enjoy life as a normal teenager for a bit, until the city is begging for Phantom to return because the Masters Blasters (or maybe even the Fentons could fill that role, it could make them appreciate him more) are fucking things up or robbing them blind. Make Amity Park see what life without Phantom is like and that would make them appreciate him more.
Just another soft reminder that we never see Jack and Maddie use the portal for what they invented to for, to travel into the Ghost Zone and study their world. They make the Spectre Speeder but the only time we ever see either of them use it is in Identity Crisis when Jack tries to shoot Super Danny.
Yes, yes, maybe they did it off-screen, but there’s no proof of that in the series at all. The ghosts they end up catching in the lab could have just come through the portal or they caught them in Amity Park and brought them back. Jazz never even goes into the Ghost Zone until the finale.
At least Vlad used his portal the way they always intended to, he learned about the Infi-Map and the Ghost King, it wouldn’t surprise me if those books he had were stolen from Ghost Writer’s library. I wonder if he made the portal not just to find ways to gain power but as a way for him to also fulfil what him, Jack and Maddie always said they’d do. He wouldn’t ever admit to that being one of the reasons, but I do wonder if he sometimes finds ghost lore and a part of him wishes he could share the joy of his findings with his friends.
Also, a majority of the show takes place in the human world and even when the kids go to the Ghost Zone there’s very minimal world building or ghost lore drops.
I love that it’s technically fully canon compliant characterization that Danny A) once asked if seals were dogs because they bark, and simultaneously B) knows how to successfully land a space shuttle at 14 bc he does simulations online constantly. Truly one of the most Characters of All Time.
Here ya go, Nocturn Fans. I made some edits to get his Dream/Territory/Zone place and Tower in their own photos. The Tower isn’t completely aligned, but I got it close enough. Cool place, I’d sleep there 👌😴💤
a bunch of a-lister family illustrations i have sketched out that i want to finish someday but i havent gotten around to :((( i havent even sketched the one for star's family or val's... maybe someday...
It only takes close to a week before Danny can no longer stay silent about Valerie's shift in attitude towards both him as Phantom, and ghosts in general ever since her return from Metropolis.
After a team-up against Vlad's latest scheme he finally works up the nerve to ask what led to the change of heart. Valerie's hesitant at first. But after they move on to a more private area, she eventually divulges what happened in Metropolis.
Long story short: Lex Luthor himself had sent both her and her dad a personal invite to Lexcorp. And after some small talk once they arrived requested that Valerie, with the necessary gadgets, weapons and any other required equipment provided by him, use her skills as Red Huntress to take out Superman.
Naturally Damon refused, remaining firm even when Lex tried to entice him with the offer of a high paying position as his head of security and Valerie full coverage of a scholarship, as well as reassure them both that she would be closely monitored the entire time.
Taking a different route in his aim to sway them to his side, he attempted to convey how eliminating Superman once and for all would be no different than Valerie's mission to rid Amity of Phantom and all the other ghosts. Valerie's defense of how Superman is an actual hero was quickly shot down by Luthor's usual rhetoric of how humanity shouldn't look to an alien as their savior and the whole "protector of Metropolis" thing was just a long term ploy to hide his true intentions towards all of Earth.
Both father and daughter's answer to that statement was to storm out in disgust. During the long ride home Valerie can't help but start to reassess her stance towards Phantom. While Luthor's tiresome spiel about how Superman was the same as any other alien invader was obviously complete bull, he was unfortunately right about how his vendetta against the Man of Steel was no different than her disdain towards Phantom.
And that honestly scared her. Because she was so certain she had changed for the better upon taking up the responsibility of defending Amity from all ghosts, never looking back once. And now to know that she had anything in common with a selfish and egotistical rich jerk like Luthor, she's not so sure of herself anymore.
Y'all ever think about the fact that nothing in refutes the idea that anyone could replicate Danny's accident and turn themselves into a halfa
There's some fun phanon about Danny having built up a tolerance to ectoplasm from 14 years of exposure prior, but IIRC the only thing in canon keeping anyone else from doing it is a healthy dose of risk aversion and pain avoidance.
Is it a good idea to try it? Probably not. But Danny went through that process two (and a half) times with the same results and there's nothing to suggest that he has any exclusive trait(s) that made it work. So, hypothetically, anyone with the motivation and access to the portal could become a halfa.
I think about it a lot and it mostly makes me laugh because if Danny's powers make him ~special~ but as far as we know the requirements for becoming a halfa are:
okay but this is the exact reason that crossover fics where Danny just outwardly explains how he got his powers to a third party bother me so much
like I'm not hating on anyone who does it like to each their own it's just one of those things that personally rub me the wrong way because
I don't think Danny would trust anyone with that information, let alone someone he only recently met
it doesn't matter if it's another superhero or someone he's grown to trust, because even good people aren't immune to being corrupted by the kind of power being a halfa would afford them, and also he doesn't know who they might tell, whether by choice or by force
it is an irresponsible amount of power that honestly nobody should really have, Danny knows first hand that not even he can be 100% trusted with it because in one timeline he destroyed the fucking world
and he's lucky that the only other halfa had an accident with side effects that inhibited him somewhat
there is no way Danny would give up the keys to that kind of power just out of the blue
I could buy him explaining it as a 'lab accident', or saying it was from long term ectoplasm exposure or something like that, but telling someone in exact detail what his accident was?
no, absolutely not, he would never risk someone else potentially replicating his accident, he would never risk the possibility of another Dan
An unfinished comic of my own take on the classic Danny-Vlad body swap scenario; envisioned as a true homage to Freaky Friday, this version is called Typical Tuesday.
A lengthy description of the ensuing silliness (that is entirely an excuse to peddle my theater-kid-Vlad agenda) is under the cut.
Danny and Vlad reluctantly agree to live each other's lives to the best of their abilities for a day, since they both have pressing engagements they can't miss, and then beat up the mind ghost who switched them around at the beginning (they were fighting in the Ghost Zone and disturbed Psyche, who promptly zapped both of them so they could "learn to see past their differences and get along").
During that day, Vlad goes to Casper High and is immediately found out by Sam and Tucker, who take it surprisingly well, besides Sam's totally unprovoked burst of violence. Before going to class, they try to bring a wildly out-of-touch Vlad up to speed on what kids are into these days.
Vlad directs a snide remark towards Dash, who barely understands what he said but stuffs him in a trash can anyway.
"Some things never change, huh?" Sam says.
They're doing a Shakespeare unit in Lancer's class, and it just so happens that it's presentation day. Danny insisted that he can't miss it because if he does it will tank his grade, and Sam in particular threatens that "he'd better not ruin this for Danny, or else." Vlad glances over Danny's note cards, rolls his eyes, and launches into an extremely dramatic recital of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" monologue. When he's done the entire class is staring in varying degrees of WTF at him, including Lancer, who wipes tears away and proclaims "Midsummer Night's Dream! If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were possessed by the spirit of a true thespian, Mr. Fenton!"
"Why, thank you, Mr. Prancer," Vlad replies modestly.
At lunch afterwards, Sam demands answers. "What, you're a Shakespeare buff in addition to being an evil billionaire supervillain? How many cliches do you need?"
"I am a man of many talents, Samantha, and I don't appreciate being labeled as a supervillain," Vlad replies without a hint of irony, sitting in between her and Tucker and displaying no interest in the tray of cafeteria slop in front of him.
"Oh, I'm sorry! How about 'creepy criminal dirt bag'? That any better?"
"So," Tucker interjects mildly. "How long were you in your high school's drama club?"
"All four years," Vlad says without thinking and then looks ruffled that Tucker clocked him so easily.
"Ohhh," Sam drawls. "Yeah. That makes almost too much sense."
Vlad goes on to recount the story of his high school's Hamlet production during his senior year, how he obviously had auditioned for the title role and poured his heart into it, only to lose the it to a freckly, snot-nosed freshman because the director was his mother.
"I have never forgiven them," Vlad says, brimming with decades of unresolved theater kid angst.
"Uh huh," Sam rolls her eyes, completely unimpressed. "So who did you end up being? Tree no. 2?"
"Nah," says Tucker knowingly. "Not Tree no. 2. You got cast as Hamlet's creepy, murderous uncle, didn't you?"
Vlad twists Danny's face into something absolutely medusan and looks like he wants to say something, but doesn't.
"I'm not hearing a no, dude."
Meanwhile, Danny stumbles his way through corporate meetings, gets tired of spending Vlad's money on dumb stuff, realizes just how empty, lonely, and boring his mansion is, and finds himself on FentonWorks's doorstep. He spends a great deal of this adventure hanging out with his own parents as Vlad, which barely ranks in the top 5 weirdest things that he's ever done.
Back at Casper High, Sam and Tucker have to practically throw Vlad at the attacking ghost of the day, which he complains about the entire time.
I haven't fleshed out the climax of this story as much, but Danny and Vlad manage to trip their way through fighting Psyche and all is made right in the end. The two of them elect to learn absolutely nothing from this incident specifically to spite the mind ghost and continue with business as usual.
EPILOGUE:
"It's good to have you back, man," Tucker says to Danny the following day, somewhere in one of Casper High's hallways.
"It's good to be back," Danny agrees. "Thanks for keeping Vlad in check while I was gone, guys. That must have been an ordeal."
"Uh," Sam says, but is interrupted by a few other students walking by.
"Hey, Danny!" one of them says. "Wow, dude, we're still reeling from from the other day. We had no idea you could sing that well."
"Yeah, congrats on landing the title role!" the other exclaims.
A sinking feeling begins to form. "Um, guys? What are they talking about?" Danny asks, but then Mr Lancer appears and begins shaking his hand enthusiastically.
"Mr. Fenton, we on the faculty had no idea you had such talent, but after yesterday we expect great things from you, young man!"
"Guys, what did Vlad do?!" Danny hisses, and Sam sheepishly rubs her arm while Tucker looks at the ceiling awkwardly. "We tried to stop him, Danny. Honestly, we did."
YESTERDAY. Vlad, in Danny's body, freezes midstep in the hallway, a bulletin catching his eye. He reaches up, intent, and pulls it from the wall. It's a colorful poster with bold lettering and a pixelated jpeg of a distinctive white theater mask. CASPER HIGH PRESENTS: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. AUDITIONS TODAY ONLY!
A smile-- tight-lipped, wide, and unmistakably, gloriously evil--spreads slowly over his face.
Meanwhile, Vlad sits at his desk with his cat in his lap. The phone rings. He snatches it off the receiver furiously.
"Hi, this is Bob with the Loony-Bin Psychiatry Clinic. I'm calling to confirm your Thursday therapy appointment--"
"Cancel it," Vlad snarls and hangs up.
The phone rings again. For the thirtieth time.
"Oh, for the love of--!"
The idiot boy must have called every individual therapist listed in the entire phone book.
In the canon context, there is something extremely funny about Phantom running around with so much ghost gear from Fentonworks.
I assume the Fentons make enough of a spectacle with their ghost hatred that everyone knows they're out here hunting Phantom for bloodsport. Like there's no uneasy truce or tense partnership going on like the Fentons have not partnered with Phantom in any way. There's not even any chance of a secret partnership because the likes of Jack Fenton would not be able to keep a secret like that.
Which really just leaves the conclusion that Phantom stole all that gear. All of it. Repeatedly. And he's still doing it. He's got some brand new FentonTech-of-the-week every week and he Absolutely is not supposed to have that. Like some raccoon in the trashcan the Fentons can't keep out despite all their broom-swinging and lid locks.
The ghost-net wristwatch that Jack Fenton is parading around with at 10am is on Phantom's wrist by 11am. Jack and Maddie have so many pieces of matching gear but if One piece is missing from One of them you can almost certainly bet it's clipped to Phantom's beltloop somewhere. Sometimes Fenton gear on Jack or Maddie will vanish and then reappear and the best idea anyone has is sometimes Phantom steals too many things and just gives the least fun pieces back.
