Written for Phantasmal Nights: A Danny Phantom Fantasy AU Zine, organized and created by @dpfantasyzine.
With music from @maebird-melody, and illustrations by @lilianade-comics, both embedded and linked! Thank you both, for creating such amazing work for this story!
Links to my other works for this zine:
03 - Beau and the Beast
04 - Tell Me Your Secrets
06 - Plant a Seed in Your Soul
10-11 - Birth of an Impossible Star
Summary: Jazz Fenton is spiraling through time to save her brother from death; but will she lose herself to despair in the process? A Madoka Magica AU.
CW: Death, Violence, Light Gore, Suicidal Ideation.
HxH Narrator Voice: Jazz is now drowning in an indescribable emptiness. [SICK GUITAR RIFF]
(Quick plug for a similar phic ideated and written by @kawaiijohn first! "Her Flame Burns Despite the Storm" is phenomenal!)
This version of the phic is a little chunkier than the version written for the zine! If you've read both, which do you prefer?
ao3 | ffn
Jazz Fenton marches through the witch’s lair. Shadows shift and swirl, ebbing and flowing just beyond the reach of her scythe. They had a truce.
The pinprick of betrayal pulls from Jazz’s heart, like a thread drawn taut—pulling her attention—and as she turns, the shadows billow away from her, forming a corridor of mist where before there had been only turbulent darkness.
And at the end of the corridor, Danny—bound and gagged by shadows, dangling like a slab of meat.
But his chest heaves. His eyes are bloodshot and aware.
He’s alive.
Jazz rushes forward—they don’t have time, now that she’s found him. “Danny, it’s going to be okay—I’ll get you down—”
Tears stain his cheeks. Jazz squashes her anger. They had a truce.
Then his eyes widen. He struggles against his bonds, cries muffled by the gag—
Jazz spins with her scythe, and the shadowy tendrils reaching for her fizzle in flashing blue sparks. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
Liar.
The word pulses in her mind, and Jazz realizes her mistake. She twists toward her brother, blue power flooding her hand.
“Dann—”
Crack.
Danny’s body crumples to the ground—head lolling at an impossible angle.
The shadows swarm.
“Failure! Failure! Failure!”
“Your fault! Your fault! It’s always your fault!”
“You killed him! You did this! You keep doing this!”
“Monster. You’re a monster. And you know it.”
“What kind of sister are you?”
The thoughts reverberate—each her own voice, each promising a spiral that would destroy her—but imagine the sweet release—
And finally, the telltale claws slowly slide along her shoulders, creeping towards her neck.
There.
Jazz snaps her hand out—not too slow, but not too fast, either, still pulsing with blue power—the perfect pace and placement to grab Spectra by the neck.
The swarm disperses, revealing Spectra’s form: a shadow cut from Jazz’s figure, its substance clinging to the surrounding mist, its face leering down at Jazz.
Jazz glares. “I told you to leave my brother alone.”
“You never visit, and when I call you, this is the response I get? Pity.” Spectra’s dark claws linger on Jazz’s pulse.
“Danny is off limits!”
“And you know how bored I get. Eating the same misery again and again—it just gets stale, after a while.”
Jazz wills herself to remain stony and cool. She can’t show weakness to this witch—not again.
“I could do with some fresh teenage angst—”
Jazz unleashes a wave of blue energy, rapidly aging Spectra’s figure. Releasing the witch, she turns away.
Jazz stares at her brother’s corpse. The lair shimmers and fades like a mirage, leaving him cold and alone on the concrete floor of an empty warehouse.
Then she spins her scythe, slicing a tunnel through time. 367.
Jazz Fenton steps through the portal.
*~*~*
25.
It was an accident. That’s what the football team says when his friends find him stuffed in a gym locker with their dirty clothes, left to rot over the weekend. That’s what the school tells the paper. Jazz does not attend the memorial.
42.
Jazz fights the monsters at the lake for him. The ghosts, the witches, the cryptids—all of them. When the coast is clear, she finds him face down in the water anyways.
68.
A truck hits him.
*~*~*
Heat snaps against Jazz’s skin. She holds her brother close.
“Jazz, it hurts.” His voice crackles like the fire she’d pulled him from, like his broken skin rasping against her shirt.
“It’ll be alright, Danny—stay awake, you’ll be okay—”
She whips her head up, neck aching. “Help! Please, somebody, anybody, please!”
But she can’t see anyone past the flames and rubble.
Danny whimpers. “I—I don’t—”
“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay—Somebody, please! P-Please…” She swallows a sob. She has to be strong for Danny, he needs her, he needs help, he needs her to stay together and get them through this. She ignores the warmth soaking her clothes.
“Jazz…”
She looks at him, trying to smile. “It’s going to be okay, Danny, I promise.” It has to be okay. It has to.
Then he shudders, and she watches his head loll—feels him go limp in her arms.
“No, Danny, wake up, it’s okay, please wake up—no, no, no—”
The fire billows and reflects in the whites of her brother’s dead eyes.
Danny’s dead eyes.
Danny’s dead.
Jazz wails into her brother’s bloody chest.
*~*~*
89.
The A-Listers did it. His friends did it. Even some of the nerds did it. So why is it, when he tries to snowboard down the school steps on his backpack, he’s the one who cracks his head open on a block of ice?
111.
His best friend dared him. He eats five ecto-infused hotdogs before they kill him.
136.
Where did the black bear come from? Illinois doesn’t have black bears.
*~*~*
“Let’s get this over with. What do you want?”
Jazz crosses her arms as Spectra circles her, smoky form trailing in the darkness.
Spectra tuts. “Oh, don’t be so curt. Is that any way to treat a friend?”
“You’re not my friend.”
Spectra’s chuckle echoes through the lair, and Jazz suppresses a flinch when her cold voice caresses Jazz’s ear. “Oh honey, I’m the only friend you’ve got.”
Jazz turns to face Spectra—but she isn’t there. Of course. She glares at the darkness before her—it’s as much a part of Spectra as everything else here is.
“You killed my brother.” Her voice is sharp.
“And he’s alive now, right?” Spectra reappears in her periphery, just out of reach of her scythe—Jazz feels it in the tug on the emotion she’d let slip like chum in the water.
Jazz doesn’t let herself react, and Spectra lazily circles again. “He’s probably out watching a movie, or playing one of those silly little videogames with his silly little friends.”
“Get to the point.”
Spectra pouts. “You’re no fun.”
“This isn’t about fun.”
“No, of course not,” Spectra tuts. “It’s about your silly, childish, Sisyphean quest to avoid the inevitable.”
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” Jazz retorts.
“So you like watching your brother die over and over again?” Spectra grins. “Or perhaps there’s comfort in the pattern. The sweet relief that you can start over, once you’ve let the boulder slip and run the poor kid down.”
Jazz doesn’t know when she summoned her scythe, swinging it at the shadows where Spectra’s voice emanates—but there’s nothing there. Spectra’s cackles echo in her head.
“Touched a nerve, have I?” The voice swirls around her. “Or maybe a truth?”
“Nothing you say is true,” Jazz says, holding back the mist and shadows closing in.
“Oh Jasmine,” Spectra coos, her voice suddenly intimate, her claws caressing Jazz’s cheek and neck. “You’re the one who said it.”
Spectra’s words worm into her head—then split and divide and echo, morphing into Jazz’s voice, repeating and crying and cackling until all she can hear is “imagine Sisyphus happy” and “over and over and over and over and—”
Jazz slams her scythe into the ground. Blue lightning swirls around her, turning everything it touches to dust.
“I won’t let him die.” She breathes harshly. “I’ll go as far as it takes.”
Spectra smirks as she disintegrates.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
*~*~*
149.
A piano falls on him.
179.
The Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle skids to a stop a foot from Jazz’s face. Her dad bounds from the front seat, completely oblivious. “Hey, Jazzipants! Did you see where that ghost went? I swear I was right on its tail!”
He doesn’t notice his son beneath the vehicle’s oversized tires. Jazz doesn’t tell him.
201.
Rubble from the latest ghost attack falls on him.
*~*~*
“I can help.”
The voice rings clear despite the fire and blood roaring in Jazz’s ears. She blinks tears from her eyes, clutching her brother’s body.
There—just a few feet from her, balancing on a bit of metal.
It’s not a cat, although it sits like one—paws together and bushy tail turned up, little triangle ears attentive. But it has two long, furry tendrils descending from its ears, a little gold loop around each, swaying gently in the harsh, hot wind. Its face looks like a stuffed animal, but its wide red eyes stare up at her, alive.
“What are you?” Jazz rasps.
“I am Kyubey.” Its mouth doesn’t move. “I have the power to grant wishes. You could use a wish right now.”
Jazz hugs her brother tighter to her chest. “You’re not a ghost.”
“Correct! I can help. If you form a contract with me and become a magia, I will grant you a wish. I sense the potential within you to become a powerful magia—your wish could unleash that potential!”
Kyubey hops down and approaches Jazz. She scampers back, dragging her brother’s body with her. “Don’t—don’t touch him!”
The creature stops, glancing down from Jazz to the corpse of her brother. “It’s a shame he died. He also had potential.”
Heart clenching, her vision goes cloudy. She buries her face in her brother’s chest.
“I’ll give you time to think about it.”
Sirens sound in the distance. Jazz jerks her head up.
The creature is gone.
*~*~*
223.
A girl he doesn’t know asks him to go to a ball he hasn’t heard of. Of course he says no. Why would he expect her to turn into a ghost dragon and swallow him whole?
247.
Amity Park has never had gators in the sewers. That’s a New York City myth.
When he falls down the manhole, she can only listen as the ghost gators rip him apart.
264.
A winter evening, she comes home late from the library, after fighting ghosts and witches. Making sure they can’t hurt anyone—let alone her little brother.
She finds him locked out, frozen and alone on the porch.
*~*~*
“Your hope is sickening.”
Jazz laughs and spins, flicking Spectra on the nose, blue power giving it wrinkles. She smirks at Spectra’s disgust and cartwheels away. “It wouldn’t kill you to be more hopeful.”
They both know this is a lie—witches are made of despair.
But this is the longest Jazz has kept Danny alive. Maybe this time she doesn’t have to reset the cycle. And if she can hope for a timeline where Danny doesn’t die a horrible death, she can hope for anything.
“I don’t know why you’re getting your hopes up.” Spectra pats the wrinkles from her nose. “He’s going to die anyway.”
“Not listening!” Jazz sings, slicing through the next attack.
Spectra grins and steps back into the shadows, letting her voice fill the void. “Honey, you don’t have to listen. You just have to look.”
The shadows and mist close in. Jazz twirls and blue light erupts from her, arcing around her, cutting through the lair’s cloying darkness.
Spectra’s voice rings out from everywhere all at once.
“You twist the web of time in knots every time you use your pretty little powers, Magical Girl. Look around you.”
And now Jazz can see it—how her powers have been pushing against time—not against a wall like she’d thought, but along intersecting lines and waves and curves—patterns carving themselves along every axis of space, changing along the arcs of her blue power—changing because of her power.
She tugs experimentally on the heart of her power—shaping it inwards and forwards, rather than just shoving it out—and the blue arcs wrap themselves through Spectra’s shadows, crackling as they shrink them down to nothing.
Spectra snorts. “Impressive. If you were a beginner.”
But Jazz can’t pay attention to Spectra—the patterns of time itself twist around each other—swirl through her—spin from her in paths that wind closer together, driving into a single, blue path that leads to—no, no, no—
“Ah, there it is! The recognition! The horror! The frustration! The crushing despair! There’s the Jasmine Fenton I know!” Spectra claps and cackles her glee, even as Jazz throws her scythe, even as it cuts the witch in half.
Black smoke spills from the wound, whispering in Jazz’s voice.
“You can’t stop it. You’re the reason he keeps dying.”
*~*~*
289.
He tries to help, and Jazz lets him. After all, it’s Johnny and Kitty—they’re harmless.
Then Kitty’s kiss makes him disappear.
305.
He wasn’t allergic to them before. The flowers in mom’s garden are strange and thorny, but the most they can do is prick fingers. He’s been avoiding the garden, though; it’s only after their mom sneaks blood blossoms into his lunch that she understands, too late, why.
333.
She isn’t surprised when the ghost of a bull shark gets him. Just disappointed. And so, so tired.
*~*~*
The smell of smoke and blood lingers in Jazz’s hair. It mingles with the sharp, cloying scent of antiseptic. She asks the nurse to open the window—just a crack, just to let the air flow a little.
She looks down at her hands—she doesn’t need to see the nurse smile sadly at her as he opens the window the full three inches.
The hospital machines and Fenton tech surrounding her beep and whine discordantly—out of time and tune with each other and with her whirring mind. She can’t sleep even if she wanted to.
It’s for the better. When she tried to sleep earlier, she could only see her brother’s dead eyes.
The ghost detectors don’t register Kyubey’s arrival. But Jazz feels its presence, sitting at the windowsill, its red eyes boring into her soul.
She hates the heart monitor’s beeping, and she tries to school her breathing. It’s just a physiological reaction to an understandable amount of stress and emotion. But she feels vulnerable.
“Have you thought about it?” Kyubey’s gentle voice cuts through the noise like a knife.
“What does ‘magia’ entail?” Jazz asks.
“It means you will become magical! A Magical Girl, with the power to fight the terrible creatures of darkness and despair—creatures known as witches!”
“And if I do this, will it save him? Save Danny?” Her voice is small. The heart monitor races.
“That depends on you, Jasmine Fenton. Your power to save your brother is as strong as your wish.”
“So how do I know this isn’t a scam? What’s the catch?” Jazz forces herself to stare into the creature’s red eyes. She’ll be damned if she just lets it manipulate her, just like that.
“Does it matter? You’ve already decided.”
Jazz blinks first. She takes a shuddering breath. Damned heart monitor. Damned Kyubey.
But, if there’s a chance she can save her brother, she guesses she’s damned, too.
*~*~*
358.
Human bodies shouldn’t be phased into walls. His torso is suspended in the corner of a building. His mouth and nose are full of brick.
371.
One moment, he’s walking next to her, on their way to school; the next, his body’s collapsed on the ground, a green, smoking hole in his head where the meteorite hit him.
402.
He’s hit by the Fenton Peeler.
It shouldn’t work—Fenton tech doesn’t hurt humans—but he screams, his skin cracking and peeling to reveal something dead, glowing, impossible—
But she knows it was only a matter of time.
He’s died horrifically more than enough. It was inevitable he’d form a ghost.
*~*~*
403.
“I was wondering when I’d see your pretty little face again.”
Jazz doesn’t say anything. She sits on a coil of mist and looks away from Spectra, tracing the way time eddies and flows below her.
“How’s your brother?” Spectra steps in front of Jazz. “He didn’t look well after your parents flayed him alive in front of you.”
Jazz feels her hands ball into fists—watches time ripple blue with her potential—and loosens her fingers. Lets the potential dissipate.
“Well.” Spectra chuckles. “That’s a loose term for the poor kid, isn’t it. Alive.”
She circles, running her claws along Jazz’s back—almost a caress, but Jazz knows they want to rend and tear. Maybe she should let them.
“It’s never going to end.” The words leave Jazz’s mouth before she can stop them.
“What is?” Spectra asks, hand on Jazz’s shoulder.
“This.” Jazz flings her hand out, and time eddies down darker and darker currents. “All of this. This cycling. This song and dance. And Danny—”
Her breath hitches and her heart aches, and she feels the prick of Spectra’s claws in her shoulder, siphoning energy from her despair.
“Danny dies. He keeps dying. No matter what I do—no, because of what I do.” Jazz buries her face in her hands. Her chest hurts. “Because of me.”
“Oh, honey.” Spectra’s voice drips with false sympathy. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Jazz groans. “Danny deserves better. He deserves a sister who can keep him safe—but I can’t—I’ve failed him. I keep failing him! I don’t want to become a witch, but if I keep going, he’ll keep dying—but what can I do? If I can’t protect him, what can I do?”
“Does it matter?” Spectra grips Jazz’s chin, tilting it up. Her eyes glow red, and her voice echoes around them in the turbulent darkness. “You’ve already decided.”
Jazz tries and fails to hold back a sob. Her chest burns.
“Leave her alone!”
Green light—green like ectoplasm, green like death—tears through the darkness, ripping Spectra away, and suddenly Jazz can breathe again. She collapses to the concrete—not mist not darkness but real, hard concrete—and recoils as cold hands grab her arms, flinching at the pain where Spectra’s claws had torn from her. Channeling power to her hand, she looks up and—
It’s Danny.
His hand bleeds green smoke, and his face shows fear and worry and all the things he shouldn’t show in a witch’s lair.
Her ears ring with the absence of Spectra’s voice, and it takes a moment to catch the words spilling from Danny’s lips.
“—hey! Jazz! I—it’s okay, Jazz, it—it’s gonna be okay, but we have to get out of here—”
“Danny.” The whisper leaves her lips unbidden. She lets her power dissipate.
“Yeah, Jazz! It’s me!” He smiles weakly. “It’s me. And we gotta get out of here.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Jazz, no one should be here—”
“No, you need to leave! I can’t—” her eyes blur. She imagines Danny’s dead eyes. “I can’t save you, and it’s all my fault—I failed you. I failed you! You deserve better than a monster for a sister—”
Danny hugs her. His fluffy hair gets in her face. His face buries itself in her neck.
She tentatively hugs him back—then clings to him like he’s the last bit of hope she has.
In a way, he is. When’s the last time she’s actually hugged her brother, and not his corpse?
“Jazz, it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
He mumbles into her shoulder, and she shifts to look him over. He’s covered in bruises and scrapes; his eyes are teary, dark with exhaustion. He offers a grin to her—one that barely reaches his eyes.
He’s alive.
He’ll die if he stays here.
“Danny, you—”
“I know, Jazz.”
Jazz freezes.
“I don’t know how long you’ve been trying to save me.” Danny huffs. “You’re dealing with all of this—just for me. I love you, Jazz, I love you so much, but… you’ve gotta stop.”
“I can’t stop, Danny—you’ll die if I do!” Jazz blinks tears from her eyes and looks away. “I need to save you—but it all ends in your death, and it’s my fault—I’m so sorry, Danny, it’s always my fault—”
“Hey.” Danny bends down to catch her eye. “Hey Jazz, just—come on, listen to me!”
Jazz looks up at him, eyes wide. He stares back with determination.
“None of this is your fault. You’re my sister, and you’re trying your best, but sometimes that isn’t enough! And that’s okay!”
“It’s not okay! If I don’t save you, you’ll die—”
“Then let me die!”
Danny’s breath echoes in the darkness.
Then Jazz hears a slow clap. Spectra emerges from the mist.
“Aw, what a touching reunion!” Spectra coos. “It’s too bad we have to end it.” She flexes her claws.
Danny grabs Jazz’s hand and squeezes. He gives her a gentle smile, full of love and life. “It’ll be okay, Jazz. I promise. This time, it’s my choice.”
Then he leaps into the air, and in a sweeping, blinding flash of green and white, he invites death itself into his very being. His hair turns blinding white, and his skin darkens and cracks like fire had kissed it. He shoots energy at Spectra, who screeches as the darkness surrounding her dissolves.
Danny’s eyes are green as death—yet still, somehow, alive. “Didn’t know I could do that, huh!” He grins cheekily.
Jazz chuckles and wipes the tears from her face. Dead, alive, or something in between, he’s still her little brother.
She stands, summoning her scythe. “Let’s finish this.”
Jazz unleashes the floodgates on her emotions. Her anger and frustration. Her sadness. Her despair. But also her love. Her happiness. Her hope. Her yearning for a future she could share with her brother, and her determination to grasp that future.
She opens her eyes to time, as well—letting the blue power flow through her, stronger than ever, powered by the emotions she’s unleashed. Before, she had refused to look beyond Danny’s death; but now that Danny has chosen his own fate, she can see the timelines open to endless possibilities.
“No!” Spectra screams, and the mist and darkness writhe. Jazz can feel Spectra’s emotions well up—her anger and hatred, her despair—but beneath that, her yearning: to fill herself with power, to break free of this warehouse and this world and time itself—but also to fill the void within her with something, someone, that could truly understand—
And her terror of it all being stripped away.
The shadows lunge. Danny blasts some of them away, and Jazz dodges the rest—not too slow, but not too fast, either—darting forward to take Danny’s hand.
Danny grins and grabs her, then spins in the air—his free hand blasting shadows to ash, her scythe slicing them to dust—until all that’s left is the shattered shadow of Spectra herself.
Danny goes to destroy Spectra, but Jazz grabs his arm.
“Wait.”
She approaches the weakened witch—a literal shadow of what Spectra once was, curling in on itself in its despair.
“I could have been like you,” Jazz says. “I came close. Too close.”
She crouches next to the shadow. “But then we’d both be drowning in our despair.”
The words pulse faintly in her mind. Like you. Despair.
Jazz reaches out her hands, blue with power, gently cupping the shadow as it churns. She stares at the remnants of Spectra, noting the contours of its shapes, the whirls of its emotions—then blows, gently, as if to blow out a candle—shaping her blue power along those contours and whirls, molding time itself to her own emotions—scattering the shadow into small, blue motes of dust that slowly fade to nothing.
Farewell.
After a moment, Jazz stands.
Danny stares at her. “What did you do?”
“I gave her what she wanted,” Jazz states.
The warehouse is empty except for the two of them, morning light shining through the broken windows to alight upon them.
No.
The light shines on Jazz—but it shines through Danny.
She can see through him, to the dusty floor below.
She reaches for Danny’s hand—but her hand goes through it as well.
He’s fading.
“Danny—Danny, no—”
Danny shushes her. His finger can’t touch her, but its aura is cold against her lips. “I won’t be gone forever—just for a bit. I promise.”
He floats upwards, gazing at something she can’t see. Dust floats through his grin.
“Go make friends, Jazz! Seriously, being a shut in isn’t good for you.”
Then Danny fades completely. Jazz is left alone on the warehouse floor.
But somehow, she doesn’t feel as lonely.
*~*~*
“I wish to undo what’s happened, to protect my brother.”
1.
For @jackdaw-sprite, and for @ectoberhaunt 2025 Isekai Weekend: Another Place, Another Time
CW: Cosmic Horror, Body Horror, Existential Horror, Imagery of Phanon-Typical Dissecc, Lost Time (but make it fucked up)
Word Count: 269
ao3 | ffn
*~*~*
Danny doesn't know how much more of this he can take. His body and mind are broken beyond belief, stretched and twisted and changed in ways he can't ignore. He feels as a million million stars are born, lighting his mind with pinpricks of fire and heat. He senses their deaths, too—the way those stars dimple his everything, slowly pressing against his skin like his sister's finger poking him, like sitting on a crochet hook left on the couch by his dad, like his mom's scalpel against his flesh—pushing into him until they break against him, or until he breaks with them, leaving heavy cold dark in their wake.
Hadn't he wanted this?
Only, he doesn't know what want is. How can he, when he has-is-was-will be everything?
Purple and blue and deep red churn their way into his awareness, and a binary star system creaks and groans. A purple-gloved hand made of time itself brushes against the center of his attention, and a galaxy shudders. The hand takes a moment to strum the galactic filament to which the galaxy belongs, the shudder rising to a resonant frequency as time gives voice to space.
"Clockwork...." Two galaxies crash into each other, swirling like red and green on the floor of the lab, star systems flung in broken sobs of chaos and destruction.
Time smiles, gently caressing the surface of a star, and it blasts into supernova.
"It's alright, Daniel." A star system full of life weeps and screams and mourns as it is slowly, inevitably stretched and twisted and pulled into a black hole.
The second of five villanelles written for @nyaboshi for @phandomholidaytruce 2025! This is based on your second prompt, about Dan and Dani post-Fair Game!
ao3 | ffn
1 > 2 < 3 4 5
The pipsqueak's hope is written in her eyes.
She thinks I'm just a clone whose mind is dark.
I know she'll hate the parts that I despise.
This road trip's not bad, but I realize
She thinks she can give me some story arc.
The pipsqueak's hope is written in her eyes.
She's kind of cool—she steals and cheats and lies.
But I am the bane of Amity Park.
I know she'll hate the parts that I despise.
Niagara Falls is alright from the skies.
I've seen the view—it's better after dark.
The pipsqueak's hope is written in her eyes.
Each day she wants to, but she never pries.
The Vlad in me refuses to remark.
I know she'll hate the parts that I despise.
And so we travel, and each day my guise
Grows thinner than an ash tree's flaky bark.
The pipsqueak's hope is written in her eyes.
I know she'll hate the parts that I despise.
The last of five villanelles written for @nyaboshi for @phandomholidaytruce 2025! This is based on your fifth and final prompt: a crossover with Spiderman! Sorry for the wait! But I hope you've enjoyed these villanelles! Happy Holiday Truce!
ao3 | ffn
1 2 3 4 > 5 <
The Spider swings along his merry way
And faces villains that few others could.
The Ghost flies by to help him save the day.
A boy with black hair watches, far away:
This time, the Spider saves a livelihood.
The Spider swings along his merry way.
A boy with brown hair leaps into the fray—
A robber hits him, clad in guns and hood.
The Ghost flies by to help him save the day.
The ghost hunters arrive with plans to flay;
The Spider slings them up as heroes should.
The Spider swings along his merry way.
The Goblin strikes the Spider near the bay,
But ghostly powers make those attacks no good.
The Ghost flies by to help him save the day.
The Spider and the Ghost are here to stay:
They both protect this friendly neighborhood.
The Spider swings along his merry way.
The Ghost flies by to help him save the day.
The first of five villanelles for @nyaboshi for @phandomholidaytruce 2025! Sorry these are so late! I hope you enjoy! This is based on your first prompt, about Fun and Super!
ao3 | ffn
> 1 < 2 3 4 5
"You're a disappointment to our family!"
Blue eyes meet green twins, searing in their glares.
"Not our family, my family!"
His face reeks of laziness and glee,
His head in disarray with errant hairs.
"You're a disappointment to our family!"
He plays at hero, so he's better than me?
He has no right to judge me with his stares.
"Not our family, my family!"
He doesn't bother trying to be
More than a little boy who never cares.
"You're a disappointment to our family!"
Why should he even bother trying to be
More than a ghost for which nobody cares?
"Not our family, my family!"
It's me! It's me! Not him or them or we!
I'm trapped between two mirrors and their glares.
"You're a disappointment to our family!"
"Not our family, my family!"
So... this isn't the first time I've seen people being incredibly mean to a whole section of the phandom. It's the first time in a while I've seen a post this bad in the main "danny phantom" tag, though. I have Thoughts™ that have been stewing for a while. Thoughts™ that shouldn't be put in the tags of someone else's post.
I'm not going to link anything. These are just my thoughts, raised to the forefront by recent posts in the main tag.
TLDR: I have two main Thoughts™:
No matter what you ship, I welcome you to this phandom. The folks who openly despise real people for shipping fictional things do not represent all of phandom. Y'all deserve better than being called shitty names. Your ships do not make you a bad person, and I personally welcome you.
To y'all who keep trying to draw a line in the sand to define who is "degenerate" or whose work is "degenerate": the moment you draw that line, you create a way for others to shove people behind that line. And the folks who usually get shoved behind that line and called "degenerate" are lgbtqia+ folks, and sa/csa survivors. It's happened before on LiveJournal and FFN, and it's happening now, irl, with book bannings across the USA (and especially in Florida). The only way to protect lgbtqia+ folks and sa/csa survivors from this abuse is to not draw a line in the sand at all. Don't call folks "degenerate" for any reason, unless you're ready to have that finger pointed back at you by a larger and more negative movement.
If you desire fuller context, it's below the cut.
First: no matter what you ship, I welcome you to this phandom.
The views of hatred and disgust that pop up in this phandom don't represent all of phandom. No fandom is perfect, and we'll always see some form of the "logic of disgust" from some folks in any fandom. But no matter what you ship, and whether or not I personally ship it, I welcome you. You will find no disgust from me as I am now.
If you dig backwards into my blog, you might find some anti sentiment. My introduction to fandom was first FFN, and then tumblr, back when I was more of a black-and-white thinker. I'm pretty sure I experienced some form of shock when I really started digging in to the Wild West that is fandom. I don't know if I ever expressed this shock online. But none of you deserve to be called "degenerates" over liking whatever fictional content you like. Y'all are a part of phandom, too, and any attempts to erase you or deride you are wrong.
We shouldn't be drawing lines in the sand and throwing people behind those lines. That's dangerous.
Second: to y'all who keep drawing lines in the sand, please consider the broader context around you.
The moment you draw a line in the sand to delineate between you and your group of people, and "them" and their group of "degenerates", people find ways to shove other folks, including you and your folks, behind that line. Historically, both in fandom and outside of fandom, the folks who get shoved ALWAYS include lgbtqia+ folks, and sa/csa survivors. We saw this with the purging of LiveJournal. We saw this with the multiple purges of FanFiction.Net. We haven't seen this with ao3, as far as I know; but their stance seems to be very anti-censorship for fandom-historical reasons.
Outside of fandom, we are seeing this now. I'm doing my senior capstone project on book bans. According to PEN America's data, over the past school year alone, 154 counties in 34 states have banned 1557 books 3362 times overall. Over 40% of those bans come from Florida counties. And much of the "reasoning" behind these bans is the same logic of disgust that fandom applies to "problematic ships": They call it pornographic and pedophilia. They call it harmful and age-inappropriate. They largely target books about lgbtqia+ people and people of color. And this year, they've also targeted "books on physical abuse, health and well-being, and themes of grief and death" - expanding their censorship to "protect the children".
Censorship doesn't protect anyone. Instead, it prevents people from holding genuine conversations with real people about the censored material.
And if you're not ready to have that conversation, that's fine! You do you! But don't create an environment where other people can't have that conversation. That only breeds the sort of black-and-white thinking that leads to 1406 book bannings in the state of Florida.
This is just speculation on my part: but I reckon every single person who supports those bans would love to ban the same content you want censored. And they'd call for you and the content you love to be lumped in with them.
We all deserve better than that. So please stop drawing lines in the sand.
The penultimate of five villanelles written for @nyaboshi for @phandomholidaytruce 2025! This is based on your fourth prompt, which focuses on the Fenton siblings! I love their dynamic!
ao3 | ffn
1 2 3 > 4 < 5
No matter what, you're always there for me—
You're who I count on, all through thick and thin.
So now it's my turn to be there for you.
When Christmas sucks each year, you fight anew
To keep me sane and drown out all the din.
No matter what, you're always there for me.
But you're aiming for a triple degree
And drowning in work that goes past your chin.
So now it's my turn to be there for you.
When you learned I'm a ghost, I had no clue.
You just waited for me to let you in.
No matter what, you're always there for me.
I see the way you're busy as a bee—
With all you do, you're running yourself thin.
So now it's my turn to be there for you.
For my whole life as far as I can see,
You've always had my back more than is due.
No matter what, you're always there for me.
So now it's my turn to be there for you.
The third of five villanelles written for @nyaboshi for @phandomholidaytruce 2025! This is based on your third prompt, for Gray Ghost! The world needs more Gray Ghost!
ao3 | ffn
1 2 > 3 < 4 5
They say that I might fail—but we'll see.
They do not know you. Not the way I do.
I'll find a way to you if it kills me.
You haunt my dreams and fuel my fantasy
Of you catching the pain you've put me through.
They say that I might fail—but we'll see.
Your antics and your face are on TV.
My heart burns with a need to strangle you.
I'll find a way to you if it kills me.
I know I ruined your life and had to flee,
But I'm resolved to make it up to you.
They say that I might fail—but we'll see.
So when we fight the same ghost enemy,
No matter what, I'll always reach for you.
I'll find a way to you if it kills me.
This knot of lies and truths will not pull free—
I need my strength and care to see this through.
They say that I might fail—but we'll see.
I'll find a way to you if it kills me.
