soundin board

spin's fanfic sb | ao3 | masterlist currently writing for danny phantom main @spinshivers

[ep-10]

This is an unusual request from @spinwrites about Danny battling ghost ants.

An exchange made on trading blog at @danphan-trading-board

[spinwrites]

BRO NOT GONNA LIE I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THIS i love it the expression?? the detail????? THE ANATOMY OF THE ANTS??? ilysm dude <3

[danphanwritingprompts]

Maddie and Jack dissect Vlad.

[spinwrites]

There’s an existing one-shot for this prompt! Role Reversal by Nimrod The Writer, written in 2011. :)

[danphan-trading-board]

Danny Phantom is a very creative fandom where fics and art lived in harmony

Do you have an idea for a fic you’d really like to see written but aren’t good enough with words to do it yourself ? Do you want more art of a specific character but can’t draw to save your life ? Or maybe you just want to challenge yourself to write or draw something completely new ?

Welcome to the Danny Phantom Trading Board !

Here, writers and artists can submit their requests to one another to exchange fanart and fic !

Please read the RULES before any submissions

When you finish your fic/art please use #dp trading board so I can find your work and reblog it !!

Have fun Creating !!

🎨💚📝

[dannymayevent]

Congratulations @spinwrites for completing dannymay2020!

Artwork by @ceciliaspen for your day 8 fic

[spinwrites]

Thanks guys, this is really sweet :)

[lexosaurus]

if danny phantom had decent writers they could have done something really cool with dani (esp if danny was canonically trans) but instead we got a weird gender bent danny that basically existed for drama and so they could have another person with ghost powers to randomly appear in big battles

Yeah that’s so true. She was such a throwaway character. The only kinda cool thing was she aided in Valerie’s character progression, but even then it was pretty weak.

Someone actually DMed me this, and I’m curious, but for those who DO like Dani, I’d love to hear your reasoning as to why. She’s such a popular character in the phandom, and I’d be really interested to hear about why she’s so beloved because I do struggle to really see her value in the show at all.

[gally-hin-phantom]

Time to defend my girl the best I could without spoiling my comic too much *crack knuckles*

Ah and first thing first, sorry for the bad English I will try my best

—

I agree her character is kind of cheap and just a waste (I didn’t even like her that much before writing my comic)

But, I want to say, like a good 80% of the characters (this show isn’t very good with character development or finishing its arcs)

Background characters like Dash or Paulina could had been interesting to explore in the grey area or morality but will never be (not forgiving bullying just explaining why they act that way could had been interesting)

Important characters like Tucker, Vlad and Valerie are just wasted or rushed at the expense of creating even more forgetful and superpowered ghosts; or forgetful awful episodes with arguable lessons (Living Large, Phantom Planet)

And characters who HAD development often had BAD development, like Maddie and Jack (I could ramble about why I think this way, but we are talking about Dani here)

Kindred Spirit happened at the end of season 2, with the whole season 3 mess she didn’t have a lot of room for character grow

IT’S NOT an excuse to explain why Dani is so cheap but I think it’s interesting to analyse first why she is so weak as a character, as a sad recurring syndrome

And now you are saying it, I realize and think you are 100% right the writers probably only wanted to write a ghoslty throwaway character like Danny to make the show more appealing to little girls

We practically didn’t know a thing about her and she only has 2 episodes (PP didn’t count…)

.

So why I “personally” like her despite not knowing that much about her ? It’s because of her humanity

It’s because unlike powerful godlike ghosts like Undergrowth or Nocturn we know JUST enough about her to explore, as a angst craving phandom

She brings so many questions

Her personality and “her interest like space/Humpty Dumpty aren’t they supposed to be nurtured instead of being part of nature ?” (to quote @spinshivers and @dp-marvel94’s old post)

How much of Danny DNA and personality has she ? Has she some of his memories ?

If she likes something, will it be genuine ? of just a remain of Danny’s being ?

Will she get remorse for hitting her brothers clones ? Will she get ptsd by witnessing the Prime clone death ? will she die the same painful way someday ?

Will she still trust people easily after Vlad and Val’s betrayal (she saves her after but still)

What are her purpose ? Why has she been created ? Is she “nothing but a mess Vlad’s not gonna clean up” ?

Being reject by your parental figure is the most human feeling, blood/parents/family are the roots of everyone in life and not having its brings a lot of insecurities and fears (like with Danny’s and his parents)

Will she resents Danny ? Will she be jealous to live in the shadow of her sibling, like some children tend to ?

How much of her is hers and how much is Danny bis ?

Will everyone only will see her as a “weird genderbend” of Danny ?

To add a little more, because it’s make me smile everytime I read “Dani travels happily around the world”

She literally lives and sleep in the street, in the cold and the dirt, and steals to survive at (I don’t know) one freaking year old ?

She knows no one and knows nothing about the dangers of this world

Danny didn’t even care until D-stabilized and let her go AGAIN at the end of the episode

I didn’t say all to keep surprises for my comic, but there so so much more to say

.

To conclude, Dani has a lot of angst potential in a small package (haha)

She is tricky to write and I didn’t read a lot of interesting fics about it but they do exist (go read @aedelia’s fic “Melancolic Eyes” cowards !! do it !)

And some artists made really good fanarts about it too (i’m thinking about @draculastan, @this-is-z-art-blog, @gummy-eyes but I’m sure there’re more, check my reblogs if you are interested I tend to reblog them straight away)

I only talk for me but I like her because this sweet angst is fresh, and I’m confident the phandom has the potential to write and draw incredible stuffs with her

[spinwrites]

HAHA I agree with @gally-hin-phantom: Dani’s draw for me is her unexplored potential that came out of shitty canon writing.

I don’t know how popular Dani is, but I don’t think I’ve seen as much content on her as compared to those centered on Danny/his family and friends/Vlad. I’ve been reading fics centered on Danny for years since the guy gets used as a writer’s outlet for pain a lot, but after such a long time, they don’t have the same impact on me anymore. Not to say the fics aren’t good; I’m just too used to his angst. That’s why I’m down to see how far another character can be taken in fan-created content, especially one with ghost powers and an interesting set of circumstances. 

Dani’s canonical appearances also haven’t endeared her to me. She’s more relatable than likable, especially if I think about her getting scorned by her father, feeling like she’s not good enough, etc. So it’s not too impossible to get into her head when writing her. Coupled with all the questions Gally’s brought up about her (e.g. Is she a real person if she’s a clone? Will she face the same fate as her siblings? Will she always live under the shadow of the great Danny Phantom? What kind of screwed up things is she gonna see living on the streets?), she’s got room for exploration. 

Fresh potential, is how I’d describe her. 

[spinwrites]

target practice

Danny Phantom drabble. The last piece for DannyMay 2020!

-

The pistol in his hand was lighter than he remembered. He had held it once, last summer, when his mother wrapped his fingers around its handle and raised it to a little cardboard target. A blob-shaped cutout – scissored from a paper box and spray painted green – had sat on a metal rod extending from the lab’s wall, its twin black eyes and an O-shaped mouth staring back at him. Danny had scrawled those on with a sharpie, taking special care to color in the eyes.

If it had been a normal gun, he imagined his finger pulling the trigger, the bullet bursting out under his command, towards the little ghost. If he were a good shot, he would have given the target a third eye.

As it was, that gun hadn't been normal. Neither was the one he was holding now, but this time, he remembered its blaster fire scorching his skin. Scars littered his chest, his shoulder, his thigh. They ached.

"I don't think I want to do this."

In the periphery of his vision, his mother peered at him. He didn't want to know what her expression was, hidden beneath goggles and hazmat. "It's good to keep your skills sharp, sweetie. When was the last time you had any practice?"

This morning, thought Danny, with the Box Ghost.

Then, a second thought came to mind: last year. The correct thought.

He shrugged, letting his arms fall to his sides.

His mother answered for him anyway. "It was before you started high school, right? Danny." Her tone dropped, and he turned to her in response to her solemness. "The ghosts aren't harmless. The attack at your school today? You could've been hurt."

He had things to say about Box Ghost's ability to do harm, then he realized she'd likely been talking about Phantom. "But I wasn't."

"You'll never know. It's important to be prepared."

Her eyes were still hidden, but her lips were downturned, pressed together. Sighing, Danny turned back towards the cardboard target. It was a misshapen little thing, barely coated in light green. He didn't remember who had made it, and he decided it didn't really matter.

He raised the pistol and fired. Then, the next target popped out of the wall, so he did it again, and again, and pretended he didn't notice the way charred holes littered the remnants of cardboard on the floor.

-

Written: 31 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 31, Free Day

I've never been good at finishing writing projects. I can't believe I finished the whole month. I called these fics drabbles and most of them are, but each one took so long I didn't think I'd make it to the end. Thank you so much to everyone who's read, liked, reblogged or commented. It means a lot. ;a; ❤

It's been so wild seeing so much hard work and skill put into the other DannyMay fics and art (and I recall seeing even music? goddamn). I keep getting wow-ed by what comes across my dash :")

I also probably should've advertised this earlier, but all my drabbles are compiled in a fic, Amity in May, under the penname spinshivers in AO3 and ffnet. Putting links in posts seem to prevent them from showing up in Tumblr's tags, but the link to my AO3 profile is in my blog description if you'd like to read my other DannyMay fills.

Thank you guys again for making this month so awesome ❤ and to the organisers at dannymayevents for making it possible 💕💕

[spinwrites]

three families

Danny Phantom drabble. 

-

Secrets festered in the cracks of Fenton Works’ walls. They were filled in with ignorance, then painted over with deceit. Once upon a time there hadn’t been that many; now, they were everywhere he turned, and he’d long since forgotten which ones had existed before his accident, and which had arrived after. 

Malice lined the edges of the Mansons’ furniture. The corners of the dining table nipped at his hip, the legs of chairs stubbed his toes. The food glistened with spices that burned his tongue, and the walls hung with paintings framed in heavy gold. 

At the Foleys’ two-storey house, the wooden boards creaked as he walked up the porch. The gentle fan whirred, scattering the scent of meatloaf and hot, melting cheese. It mingled with laughter on the lumpy couch, with the crackle of Star Trek from the television.

Cards splayed across the furred rug, his best friend crowed his win as his parents joined in. Danny bit into his dinner, a warm weight in his stomach, and a lightness in his heart.

-

Written: 31 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 30, Family

[spinwrites]

the sacrifices of children

Danny Phantom drabble. This is set early on in season 1, in which Danny deals with the emotional sacrifices of getting shot at by his parents. 

Me? A fanfic writer projecting onto this kid? Never.

-

The first time she swung the barrel end of her gun at him, his joints locked up, his mouth went dry, and the ectoblasts in his palms sizzled and popped into nothing. 

“Mom.” 

The wind in the distance between them ripped his word away, and the blast ripped through his stomach.

He didn’t know if it was his stomach for sure – maybe it was his diaphragm, or his kidneys; he was a physics-lover and knew jack shit about physiology – but it rendered him unable to fly. So, he heaved himself out of her line of fire, running for the fall-painted trees rimming the park. The oranges and reds of the foliage burned bright like the afterimage of the white noon sun, superimposed before his vision as he ducked beneath the dark cover of the leaves.

As he trampled further past the branches and twigs that bit at the skin beneath his jumpsuit, this niggled at the back of his mind: he was a ghost, he could turn intangible; he should try. But the thought felt distant compared to the loud crumple of leaves – bled dry, ripped open by the force of their boots against them – and the head-pounding need to get away – from Mom – that he shoved it aside and twisted his head about, praying for a place to hide.

Nothing was making sense. All the trees looked featureless, smears of vibrant autumn color against harsh, dry bark, towering over him. The canopy let in smatterings of light, and his gaze leapt from sunlit patch to sunlit patch, until as if God had given him an answer, a low-hanging tree swollen with leaves lay just out of reach of the light.

White-gloved fingers dug into the bark, and he pulled himself up, biting hard into his lip as he glanced down and strained not to stain the trunk with his ghostly blood. It would be evidence. He couldn’t leave evidence. 

The tree was almost twice his height, and up he scrambled, feeling as though he were reliving his childhood, how Mom had encouraged him to climb up trees with Jazz in another spot in this very park, hands braced at his back in case he fell. He couldn’t not think about it as he made his way up, but when his hand reached for the leaves he grit his teeth and willed himself intangible.

It worked. He crumpled into the indent atop the trunk, feeling his breaths coming in quick. 

And then, oh and then, did the pain set in.

It struck him like a snake in waiting, coldness slithering into his extremities, tears and sweat stinging his eyes. But he didn’t dare close them; he let his vision swim and stay on the crisscrossing of branches and leaves above him. He pressed his lips together, didn’t dare breathe, and strained his hearing for the crunch of footsteps below. 

Leaves crackled.

Was that her? Or was that the wind above?

He wondered, then, if he should turn back human. His mother might have brought along his father’s ghost detection device; she had shown it to him over toast and orange juice that morning. Little hand-held devices with indicators that glowed red in response to ectoplasmic activity within a kilometer’s radius.

But a tiny, wild voice pounded this thought into his head: if he released his hold over his ghost, the ectoplasm would transform into blood, and the blood would sink into the fabric of his white shirt. How could he return to his mother, whom he had abandoned in the park in search of the ghost? How could he look her in the eyes and stammer a lie about why flakes of blood clung to his skin, why its metallic whiff permeated his clothes?

Whose blood is this? He imagined her crying. Who hurt you, Danny?

No. It wasn’t worth a little ectoplasm lost, not when his body could now easily make more.

With the comfort of a decision made, he relaxed into the rough bark against his shoulders, let the branches surround him like the bars of a cage, and prayed he would not be found.

-

Written: 31 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 29, Heat

[spinwrites]

dinner conversations

Danny Phantom drabble. Valerie-centric, pre-canon. Omg days are passing by in lockdown so quickly I did NOT notice it was already the last day of May aisojasds.

-

Here Valerie was, dressed to the nines in a A&F tee and slim jeans, and Dad brought her to the Nasty Burger.

“Don’t you kids like this joint?” he asked, over a mouthful of burger.

“There are literally hundreds of other cafes.” She flicked a speck of fry off the table with a finger, and imagined it was like how Dash and the boys punted their football into the goal post – all their pent-up fury bundled into a dense, speeding mass – though she didn’t know where her goal was. The vast expanse of greasy linoleum, maybe.

Out of stray fries, she drummed her fingers on the table top.

Dad stopped chewing. “I just thought it might be good for the two of us. We haven’t spent enough time together lately.”

“We saw each other for breakfast.”

“That’s not what I meant, sweetheart,” he said slowly.

“I know that.” She also knew she was contradicting herself, so she grabbed the soda that had been sitting on the table untouched and sucked its straw. The gassy liquid hurt as it went down her throat. Tears sprung to the corners of her eyes, and her hand gripped the can more tightly, slippery with condensation.

Sorry, she wanted to say. Almost did, but her tongue couldn’t form the words over the lump in her throat. 

Dad pressed serviettes into her hand. Kinda ridiculous, since she could just wipe those tears away. Would have, typically. She’d just swallowed it wrong, too quickly. 

Valerie took the serviettes anyway. Pressed them against her eyes.

“I just want us to spend more time together,” murmured Dad.

“I know.” The tissues were still pressed over her eyes, so she didn’t have to look at her own burger on the table or find out if more tears would stain the paper.

You don’t know, don’t know Mom loved– how would you have known? You never came home.

She shoved those thoughts into a corner of her mind. Imagined locking them away in a tiny box, punting it and the key out of an imaginary window that led out of her head. Or maybe just the key; if she chucked both out someone would find it, and open it for her. Like a Pandora’s box. Picturing this almost made her giggle.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Dad asked. When she didn’t respond, he tried again. “It’s okay if you don’t want to finish this. It’s greasy, for a really late dinner. It’d probably give you a stomachache or just make you uncomfortable–”

He’s trying, she thought.

It wouldn’t make up for lost time. It wouldn’t coalesce into the empty space between them, wouldn’t bring someone back from the dead, not even as a ghost. 

He’s trying.

Valerie removed the tissues from her face. There were damp smudges on it, and she wiped the condensation from her other hand onto it, then crumpled it in her fist. “Can we?”

“...and that would be terri–” Dad stopped, refocusing on her. “You mean, eat elsewhere?” 

“Yeah.”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

He smiled at her, and she felt a little knot in her chest loosen. “There’s this place down the street. I’ve never been there. I heard they have real sushi.”

“Real sushi?” Her father laughed. The sound was nice. “How can I say no to that?” 

-

Written: 31 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 28, Diner

[thegreenirene]

The Gender Politics of Sherlock Fandom: One Year Later

I began writing this essay more than a year ago, on the plane ride home from 221b Con 2015. I originally thought that I would post it once the fandom wank had died down, but it shows no sign of doing so. In fact, it’s back with a vengeance, as the fandom responds to the show runners officially refuting T J L C and people have discussed the history of the conspiracy theory and the impact it has had on Sherlock fandom. As fans have spoken out about their negative associations with the acronym, the conversation inevitably turns to what happened at 221b Con 2015 and its aftermath. Since this essay seems relevant again, I decided to pull this out again and finish it.

This is the first of a series of essays I wish to write on the Gender Politics of Sherlock fandom. There are many things I wanted to say at the official panel but was unable to, since it was derailed by a group of individuals who showed up with the intention of intimidating and harassing the panel moderator. In future essays, I’d like to share my thoughts on femslash, Mary Sues and the fridging of female characters, on heteronormativity in slash, and on queer representation beyond slash (bisexual, pansexual, asexual and trans people in fanworks and fan spaces). I’d like to touch on race and being a queer Woman of Color in a fandom mostly interested in White male characters.

Before I get to those subjects, however, I feel a need to return to the original intended topic: the essay I began writing on my phone on the plane.

And that essay is on the subject of noncon fanworks.

This wasn’t on the list of topics we had prepared in advance as a panel, and I didn’t feel I’d been adequately prepared or had done the subject justice. In the first few hours after the panel, when I felt like a group of fellow fans whose respect and understanding I wanted had attacked me for the kind of fic I read and write, I wanted to articulate how noncon fanworks have changed my life, how they have been a source of deep friendships and personal healing. I wanted to convince those people that I wasn’t a bad person, or a bad feminist; that I had thought long and hard about rape culture and my possible contributions to it, and decided in the end that it was more important to try to engage with rape myths, to digest and transform them, than to eject that part of our collective psyche.

And then, as people began to speak to me privately and share their own stories of being bullied by this same group of people, I realized that what had happened at 221b Con wasn’t actually about noncon fanworks or people’s reactions to them. What happened at 221b Con was that a clique used young fans and CSA and rape survivors as a shield to hide behind while they bullied my fellow panelist for shipping the fandom OTP in the wrong way. So instead of writing an essay on noncon fanworks, I wrote about the bullying that I witnessed and experienced firsthand. But I never quite lost my initial desire to explain myself and my writing. I hoped that it would still be possible to have a conversation I thought was actually worth having, in good faith with well-intentioned people.

I’m still not convinced it’s possible to have that conversation in this fandom, which has become toxically polarized on far more benign issues than this one. I also believe that the tendency for arguments to escalate is inherent in the format of tumblr, because of the way that posts are reblogged back and forth in front of an audience of thousands of witnesses egging both parties on. I also believe the current Sherlock fandom climate is one in which individuals are on a hair-trigger, poised to respond with hostility to anyone perceived as stepping out of line. I am not interested in engaging in that kind of debate for spectacle. But I felt it was necessary for me to collect my own thoughts on noncon fanworks. And as several others have indicated their interest in also reading them, I’ve decided to go ahead and post them so they become part of the fandom discourse.

Keep reading

[spinwrites]

buried

Danny Phantom drabble. Ghosts at a graveyard. Many thanks to @lexiepiper for the beta. :)

-

The ghost picked up the crunch of wet leaves long before she heard the twist of a cap.

“Can’t let a fight go even in a graveyard, dipstick?” she asked, refusing to turn around. Instead, she let the blue flames of her hair flare.

A chuckle reached her ears. He was closer than she’d estimated, making her skin crawl. Ember regarded him then, eyeing the opened thermos in his loose grasp, and put distance between them.

Phantom sent her a sunny smile. “Depends,” he quipped. “You planning to serenade the dead?” His chest rose and fell as he spoke and a rosy tint colored his cheeks from the wintery air. The boy hadn’t even transformed into his ghost.

“This is my grave,” she snapped.

Ignoring his startled ‘oh’ and nervous flicks of his gaze towards her tightening grip around her guitar’s neck, she jabbed a finger at the headstone. It was a pretty thing, silver-gray and clean, unobtrusive among the mess of tombs that sprouted from the field on which the ghost and human stood. Before it lay a bouquet of carnations, its petals browned and damp.

“Sorry,” offered Phantom, hesitantly capping his thermos and sliding it into his backpack. His smart tongue seemed at a loss, and he gestured at her headstone, at the cross atop its base. “You, uh, you’re Christian?”

“My mom is,” she said, plucking at a string on her guitar. It twanged in the silence that blanketed them.

What was she doing?

She turned the question to him. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting my grandparents.” He nodded to the small hill behind them, beyond where the iron gates to the cemetery stood guard. “My ghost sense went off, and uh, y’know.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved a hand. “I ain’t gonna be long.”

He shifted his feet, blue eyes drawn to the headstone where her real name and years were etched, after a discernible conflict of trying to look away.

How human, she thought, tickled by the act.

“My parents are with me,” he said finally, frowning up at her. “Don’t start any funny business and I won’t lead them here.”

“You got my word, babypop.” Two fingers intertwined and slid across her chest, and she sent him a lazy smile. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Phantom snorted at her pun – ironic – and made his getaway. His disappearance was eager and far more conspicuous than his entry, sneakers stomping all over the twigs and grass in his way, before petering off as he rejoined his family.

He had been trying to sneak up on her. Flattered, her flames blazed.

He had also offered up the whereabouts of the city’s ghost hunters, which Ember thought was generous. Delightfully naive. Because truly, her music was far from funny. It had been her life’s work, after all, one her mom once endlessly praised her for. The ghost had faith she still would, even if her daughter was now skull, ribs and femurs – buried six feet under, beneath a cross and aging flowers.

A pat on her headstone later, Ember shot off towards the downtown of Amity Park, her guitar in her hands and a melody on her tongue.

-

Written: 27 May 2020 | DannyMay2020 Day 27, Buried

[coffeecakecafe]

I think they should be friends and travel the world as international cryptids.

Strange for DannyMay 26

[spinwrites]

philo v engineering on the campus grounds

Danny Phantom drabble. Set during Vlad, Maddie and Jack’s college years. It cracks me up to think of Vladdie as a philo kid, he’d be that one guy who re-interprets old texts just so they fit his worldview and be adamant he’s right ajaskdansd

-

Jack Fenton was a strange man.

This information wasn’t new. All of UW-Madison knew his name, his face, his demeanor. Professors were courteous, students were polite, but both spared no effort befriending him. Who wanted to be embarrassed by his ignorance and bumbling about, especially when Jack himself seemed impervious to shame?

Vlad flipped to another page of his reading. “Do not waste the remaining part of your life in thoughts about other people,” droned Marcus Aurelius in Vlad’s copy of Meditations, “when you are not thinking with reference to some aspect of the common good.”

Marcus Aurelius didn’t know Jack Fenton, thought Vlad, but he underlined the quote anyway. Then, he thought about the common good.

“Jack.” He set down his pen and titled his head at the man in question. “Do you know what they’re saying about you?”

Across the table, Maddie looked up from her textbook and shot him a dirty look. Why was she so concerned? A man had the right to be made aware of his social status, and it was for the student body’s good if he gained some EQ. It had been Maddie’s idea to approach him, anyway, and Vlad had known her long enough to tell it hadn’t been entirely out of kindness; there was a spark in her eyes that watched Jack Fenton. It told Vlad she was curious about the man’s mind, and her curiosity niggled at his own. 

The duo sat around a wooden table now, one of the many benches erected around the campus’ courtyard. Jack, on the other hand, was squatted on the uneven pebbled ground, fiddling with a Lego robot he’d supposedly been working on for the past two weeks. Vlad was no engineering major, but even he could tell the robot—if it could even be called that—shouldn’t look like a behemoth of mismatched parts the height of his shin.

Jack turned to them. The robot was dwarfed in his shadow. “That Jack Fenton is a genius in the making!” he said, and laughter bubbled from his throat. His great shoulders shook. “Ain’t that right, Mads?”

“Of course.” Maddie smiled, resting her chin in her palm.

Vlad thought it was indulgent, and rolled his eyes. “A genius—”

A click came from the robot.

Vlad squinted at it. It remained still. “Did you hear—”

Then, the robot unfurled in a series of clicks and whirs, produced a pair of arms that ended in three-pronged claws, and stood up on two wheels.

“Cheese sticks!” Vlad gaped. Jack whooped, all 200 pounds of a man leaping into the air. Then Maddie laughed along, and Jack pulled her into a hug. They high-fived.

“Told ya, V-man!” Jack clapped the other man on his back, nearly face planting the latter into his reading. The quote he’d underlined earlier sprung out at him.

“Common good,” it mocked.

Philosophy is useless, thought Vlad.

Jack’s cheer carried across the courtyard, and when Vlad looked up, the man was cradling his invention to his broad chest like the proud father of a deformed mechanical baby. From the other benches, heads of fellow undergrads turned to them, to Jack, their curiosity palpable. Maddie, Vlad discovered, was watching the big man too. Her violet eyes were wide.

Oblivious, Jack patted his robot child on its head. He gave Vlad a giant grin. “Jack Fenton’s a genius. That’s what they all say!”

-

Written: 26 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 26, Strange

[ghostsray]

things that are NOT canon: ghost speak, elemental cores, obsessions (post-s1 anyway), wes, the name "red huntress", ghost king danny

things that ARE canon: tucker is a furry, danny ate dash's underwear, the fentons have a sex dungeon, sam beheaded a person, danny wore a diaper to school because of butch's diaper fetish, a giant ghost cow sprayed danny and tucker with milk, the ultimate enemy happened because their burger sauce explodes, danny and vlad used their powers to leak each other's nudes, phantom planet, danny hates toast

[spinwrites]

we sat on the wall

Danny Phantom drabble. Always wondered what the characters thought about growing up, especially after I grew older myself :’)

-

As Humpty Dumpty had tumbled from his peak and split, so too, had Dumpty Humpty after years of topping the charts. The bassist’s midlife crisis had him running off to another state to begin anew. This set off the fall-out of the band.

Tucker and his best friends commemorated its end at the Nasty Burger, toasting to half a decade of alt rock that had accompanied them throughout middle school. They crowded around his iPod for a nostalgic hit, then two, before surrendering to the compulsion of singing along. Their impromptu karaoke went unappreciated, and after the trio was booted out of the joint, it ceased. That was the end of it.

The friends split at the junction outside – Sam headed for a record store to drown her sorrows in new artistes, Danny headed home to catch up on sleep before the next ghost fight. Tucker watched their retreating backs, a lingering tune in his head.

It morphed into an unwanted thought: was their friendship a Humpty Dumpty?

That night, his scripts scoured the Internet. While they ran, he clicked on fan theory after fan theory, flicked through forum after forum, and allowed the laments of those left behind by the iconic band to swallow him whole. There was more to the story, no doubt, but the rumors abound revealed no truths about what had transpired behind the scenes.

His code returned nothing, their conclusions no better than the gossip from celebrity magazines.

Would their friendship be a Humpty Dumpty?

Huddled on his chair, Tucker could find no answer, his iPod crooning lullabies of rock just past its time.

-

Written: 4 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 17, Childhood

[spinwrites]

dumb boys

Danny Phantom drabble. Tucker and Danny shenanigans.

-

“Ten bucks.”

“No.” Danny plucked two notes from the wallet. “Twenty. And if anything goes wrong, you’re calling Sam.”

“What? That’s daylight robbery!”

“You’re the one who thought this was a good idea,” said Danny as he set the wallet and its liberated contents on his bedroom floor. Ignoring Tucker’s humph, he focused his breathing. Inhaled a long, calming gush of air, exhaled it all out– then panic crossed his face. “D’you think it’s easier in ghost form?”

Tucker groaned.

“Crud, crud, hold on. Going ghost!” A flash of light passed over them. “Okay.” Danny said this a few more times, before finally: “Wait, should I take my boot out? No, forget it. I’m putting my foot in.” He grit his teeth. “It’s… it’s in!”

“You’re acting like you’ve never done this before.”

“But it’s always stayed intangible.” He did not squeak. “It’s gonna be different this time. Oh my God, oh God, hold my hand.”

Tucker, the true friend he was, sighed and grudgingly complied.

Danny shut his eyes and turned his foot, which he had sunk into the wooden floor up to his ankle, tangible. It felt as if the flesh below ground were pressured by an unforgiving substance. He didn’t want to move it, but he had to keep his word in exchange for the twenty, so he twitched his leg upwards. His muscles tensed; his foot refused to budge. “Gah!”

“What? There’s no blood, right? Oh, thank God.” Tucker pushed his glasses up his nose and shuffled forward. “So it does hurt? I was right?”

“Of course it hurts, it– wait. Wait, no, it doesn’t. You’re wrong!” Danny threw his head back and cackled, reaching for the cash and sliding it in his jeans pocket. “This money is mine. Time to pull this out and– ohh, crap.”

He stared at the boot he had phased out of the floor. Outwardly, it was unblemished, but when he tugged at its sole, it wouldn’t budge from his leg. “Crud,” he whispered, and tried to turn only his limb intangible. His whole boot phased out of the human realm with it. He strained to wiggle his toes, but… “There– there’s like, something hard in my shoe. I can’t move my toes. Tuck!”

“Dude.“

"What? A little busy here–”

Tucker pointed at the floor. Danny followed his gaze and let out a cry.

There was a deep hole, shaped like a boot. It dug past the wooden flooring and into the cement below. White dust lay scattered about the floorboard, like flour dusting on cake.

“I’m just glad we didn’t do this in my room,” said Tucker, getting to his feet.

“Wait, where are you–”

His friend snagged his wallet off the floor and fled the room. “Keep the cash but I ain’t calling Sam!”

“Tucker!”

-

Written: 4 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 6, Stuck

[spinwrites]

existential

Danny Phantom drabble.

-

“Look who’s talking! Are you even real?”

Wes lowered his camera. “Now you’re makin’ no sense–”

“‘Cause at least my only purpose in existence isn’t tied to someone else!” Danny pushed past him towards the Nasty Burger. “So until you act like an actual person, can you please get lost?”

Before Wes could answer, the diner’s doors swung shut. Light peeked out from the gap beneath the entrance, and the chatter within was muted, quiet. He stood at the parking lot, frowning into the camera in his hands. The pictures in it were supposed to be damning, once and for all.

“Am I real?” he asked. The camera did not reply.

-

Written: 4 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 8, Lost