AKA "Danny moves to Gotham and records TikToks with absolutely deranged captions. He films Get Ready with Me in Gotham videos, fit checks, and even A Day in the Life of a Ghost in Gotham! Except everybody is freaking the fuck out in the comments" prompt idea!
No, you don't understand, I'm obsessed. Like, what if Danny's idea of "safe" is just... anything that doesn't actively try to kill him? So Metropolitians, Star City, and Central City citizens are literally biting their nails and sweating bullets every time he posts, because what if he gets merc'd by the "Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag" Red Hood?? And that's one of the nicer villains in Gotham. And Danny's just like wow, this place is niiiiiice, I haven't even been murdered yet!
Maybe Jazz took a 12-year-old Danny to Gotham to escape their parents. Gotham's cheap, dirty, and doesn't ask questions: it's the best place to go to disappear because damn near half the city's population are either super villains, hostages, dead, or vigilantes. She gets a job at an understaffed hospital as a clinical psych intern. She enrolls Danny for online schooling because she's scared a public high school would be too easy for their parents to track.
Which leaves Danny alone for hours. He makes a TikTok account called "Danny Phantom" because, c'mon, he's a kid. And, like most kids, he doesn't really comprehend the idea of a digital footprint or that his account is public, accessible by literally anybody.
He's also a little shit. So, the first TikTok he uploads is of a man getting carjacked, but the caption reads: love to see people helping each other. remember it's always okay to ask for help! it's okay, I don't know how to parallel park, either :)
And you just see this guy in a mask shove a businessman away from his car, gesturing with his gun, before getting into the driver's seat. Except the car is parallel parked so the carjacker just slowly inches back and forth between a Prius and a Honda until he can wedge himself out of the parking space. And then gets stuck in stand-still traffic. The TikTok goes viral. It's talked about on the Gotham news and Gothamites are losing their shit, pointing out the exact moment you can see the carjacker start to soundlessly cuss through the car's windshield or the way the businessman is just... standing on the side of the road, watching with a deadpan look.
Danny doesn't know about it being on the news, but he sees all the comments, likes, reposts, and feels something. He wonders if this is what Ember feels every time people listened to her music. So, he keeps posting. Usually, it's short three-second videos of a hilariously unexpected situation with an even more deranged caption. But then he's accidentally caught in the reflection of a store front while recording and doesn't know, posts it like he always does; only for this TikTok to go viral, too. Because "Danny Phantom" is a child??
He doesn't notice the shift in his comments, but the public opinion quickly changes from wow, Gothamites are just like that huh lol to what the FUCK, kid, get inside!!! anytime he posts.
Except Danny never gets hurt. Even in the most dangerous situations, when you'd think this kid is a goner for sure, he's just happily yapping in the background. He's so different from Gothamites because he lacks that dead-eyed, despair-inducing aura of someone who's lived in a hellmouth their whole lives. (A couple people post that Danny kind of reminds them of Golden Boy Brucie Wayne, all air-headed and unrealistically optimistic, and suddenly there's memes of "what happens when you've never gotten shot in Gotham" or "how i act when Commish Gordie accuses me of shoplifting again" with them side-by-side.)
And then Danny's posts go viral again and again. Danny doing a fit check with a blond-haired woman with a checkered outfit, she ruffles his hair and kisses him on the cheek. A picture of him wearing an old jean jacket with a bright red lipstick smear on his cheek is trending for weeks. Spoiler, fully suited up in an all-purple vigilante attire, and him shoving gas station hotdogs in their mouths. He even has videos of him clearly in Killer Croc's lair, with comments of are you in the sewers??? DANNY??? and he responds, no, i'm in mom & dad's basement :) (Waylon Jones is actually sitting behind him in one of the videos, intently watching a TV show on an iPad.)
Everybody adores Danny - Rogues, Gothamites, even the Bats. (There's at least six videos of Nightwing teaching Danny how to do backflips, handstands, and other acrobatic moves. Even the youngest Robin has been caught on camera quietly talking with Danny, a shocking lack of violence that left half the city's population suffering from cuteness aggression for the kids.)
So, yeah, Danny belongs to Gotham.
But the internet is widely accessible and Danny made it so, so easy to find him. Jazz obviously didn't know he was posting videos of himself publicly; she was too tired after back-to-back 12 hour shifts at the hospital that she hadn't even checked social media in months. Otherwise, she would've told him to be careful, to never show his face or post his real name on the internet. Then again, Jazz would never have expected all of Gotham (and Superman himself, totally endeared by the kid after Kon and Jon showed him a couple TikToks) would beat the absolute shit out of anybody going after Danny.
Imagine GIW's surprise when they track down Amity's former residential Ghost only to find an entire city frothing at the mouth to protect their Phantom.
“It’ll be good for you!” Dick threw an arm around Tim’s shoulders as he beamed his way through Gotham U’s campus.
“I could have done this online. They have virtual degrees. I could have hacked my way into one.”
“Yeah, but then you wouldn’t get the authentic experience!”
The group arrived at the dorm building, one of many, and Damian gave it a dubious once over.
“If this is authentic, I refuse to be a part of the locals.” Damian quietly remarked, before peering cautiously at Dick. “I have obtained my degrees. I do not need this experience.”
“It’s really not that bad, guys.”
“How would you know? You went to Blüdhaven for college.” Tim retorted with the voice of a young man resigned to despair. “You lived off campus and your door pin was Zitka’s birthday, month first then date second.”
“… Tim, why the fuck do you know that.”
“When I knocked on your door, that was just common courtesy. I didn’t actually need you to open it. I could have opened it myself.”
Dick’s smile brightens even further, with the light of an LED bulb instead of his usual sun, and places a hand on Tim’s head. “You’re creepy sometimes, you know that?”
“And you’re careless sometimes, you know that?” Tim groused. “Ugh, whatever. Let’s just get this over with. I can’t believe I’m going to have a roommate.”
“It’ll be fun! And if it isn’t, you can always swap roomies. We have enough pull to have that happen.”
“Doubtlessly.” Damian said. “This campus barely passes the bar of acceptability. Why is the campus like this. Why is it incorporated into the city.”
Tim smirked. Even though Damian spoke with formal language only found in the highest of echelons of society, Jon’s influence was beginning to make itself known. Good for him, the little shit. Privately, Tim thought the presence of a Kryptonian brought out the better sides of a bat. God knows Kon did, for him.
“Okay, enough whining you two! Let’s get Tim settled in.”
Tim elbowed Dick in the gut and kept walking into the building as his big brother wheezed dramatically. Damian rolled his eyes- he’s seen Nightwing take harder hits than Drake’s pointy elbows and walk it off- and followed. Unbeknownst to them, Dick all but beamed with joy at their solidarity. His plan was working.
——
Tim settled into the dorm, disgruntled at the small and uncomfortable twin mattress. The dorm smelt of faint mildew, had at least ten safety code violations, and had ventilation that probably hasn’t been cleaned since the last fear gas attack. The vent thing honestly might explain the state of Gotham U’s students and their proclivities to become supervillains. Tim is more tempted to go into villainy than ever before with these conditions.
That is, until his roomie walked in.
Step 1) reboot brain.
Holy shit, his roomie was HOT.
Step 2) notice all the weird things his roomie all showed unconsciously. Too graceful. Walking carefully, like how Kon does sometimes when he’s remembering to be careful with his fragile surroundings. Meta? Too sharp teeth.
Wait. Sharp teeth?
“Uh, hi. I’m Danny. You must be my roommate. Tim, right?” The guy, Danny, had a deep voice. And too sharp teeth. Because he smiled. It was a damn nice smile.
Step 3) bi panic. DID TIM MENTION HE WAS HOT??
“Uh. Hi. Yeah, I’m Tim.”
“Cool. What’re you majoring in?”
“Forensic Analysis. You?”
“Aerospace engineering.”
They looked at each other awkwardly. “Cool, I’m just gonna set my stuff down.”
“You’re not from here, right?” Tim asked and promptly flushed when an amused smile gets thrown his way.
“The accent give it away?”
“Yeah. Uh. You want a tour, man?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
——
It was flashes of things.
“Oh. I don’t go anywhere without my thermos.” Danny smiled, patting the dented thing. Except, Tim’s never seen him drink from it.
Or:
“Oh, woah. Food’s not attacking me.” And the thing is, Danny actually looked apprehensive before poking at the cafeteria food.
What??
And a month passes before Tim realizes he’s one hundred percent absolutely fucked.
Because it’s one thing if it’s an extremely attractive dork with brains and humor.
It’s an entirely different thing if the extremely attractive dork with brains and humor was a complete and total mystery. Tim is an absolute sucker for mysteries. It’s even more attractive than smacking him in the face with a brick!
“Hey, Tim?”
“Uh. Yeah?” Tim screamed at himself. He’s dated like fifteen different people! Why the hell is he so awkward with Danny?
(Tim was always awkward. He has that autistic rizz.)
“Tell me more about blood splatters?” Danny asked with a hopeful smile. Tim folded like wet paper. (It helps that he knows a lot- too much- about analyzing blood splatters.)
——
Outside of their window, Nightwing cackled to himself. It was worth using the Wayne name to get Tim the most interesting college kid Dick could find as a roommate. Who said Tim had the market corner on stalking anyways?
Nightwing flipped off of the roof, all but skipping home.
Robin, his patrol partner for the night, grimaced. For all Richard was his favorite, the man unsettled him at times.
Danny goes to college after he becomes ghost king and gets bored when his life is no longer packed with chaos.
Sure he could head to the realms and fight some ghosts but that was just regular chaos and he wanted to mix things up a bit.
It’s around this time that Danny learns about the young protégés of the Justice league.
One day while the JL are at the watch tower having a meeting IN SPACE they are interrupted by a teenaged invader.
The whole team goes on the defensive when much to their surprise, the teen passes out his resume and pulls up a PowerPoint title “Phantom:Villain for hire”
He then goes on to explain that he’d been in the hero game for years in a small town where the media actively portrayed him as a villain for years before going completely dark on the matter when Vlad was kicked out of office.
He explains that he’d been in fights with various levels of villains and is incredibly versatile with his power output and fight difficulty.
Which is why he would be the perfect villain to have their protégés practice against!!
He can be their villain of the week that helps them learn valuable life lessons while giving them a very real challenge WITHOUT the risk of death or dismemberment!
he can even create schemes catered to lessons they want to teach their proteges
for a price of course….
years down the line when each of them officially join the league. one by one the team has a mental breakdown when they find the bane of their existence eating a bagel in the league cafateroa
Bruce truly hates magic with every pump and beat of his heart.
What kinda curse is Slang, anyway?
“This is the best day of my life.”
“You thought you ate that.” Bruce physically feels a full body shiver, charged with nausea and cringe. “This is level 10 cringe. Can’t have shit in Gotham.”
Dick is his earth bound angel, but he laughs like a demon at him, holding onto Jason for support, pledging his eternal loyalty to Zatana and her pettiness.
—
“Hey, old bat, hook me up with an adrenaline shot.”
What he wants to say is Jay, do not try and fight with 6 bullets in your stomach.
What comes out instead, through Bruce’s grit teeth and intense, fierce glaring, “Not you trying to go back to your corpse era. See how I only took 2 shots? Very demure. Very mindful.”
Jason passes out from blood loss, but mostly laughter.
—
“Chat, is this real?”
Stephanie barely bites back a full belly cackle. “I think he just asked us if we copied.”
“I wish I was Jason, 15.”
—
“This is not a slay environment. Killing is flop behavior.” He keeps his eyes shut and buries his face in his hands. Trying to convince Damian not to stab someone doesn’t seem to work.
Damian gives him a pat like he’s a pitiful cat. “I’ll only stab the non lethal areas.”
This comes back to bite them all in the ass when the curse wears off but Bruce still remembers. While he's back to business as Batman, when he's Brucie ...
And that's how Bruce wound up as a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race.
Tim: I can’t tell dick?? I don’t want him to think I’m crazy or not trustworthy bc I’m doing something reckless??!
Jason who saw Dick make out with a mark to steal something from his pocket when Dick was 17:…
Bruce who saw Dick jump off a moving plane and hum the song “I need a hero” instead of calling for Superman:
Wally who say Dick go fuck it and infiltrate a sex trafficking ring as a stripper bc someone said he was too pretty to work for the mob:
Roy who has smacked dick out of delusions 15 times too many:
Clark who saw dick stay in a radioactive city for vibes:
Diana who has heard Donna’s concerned ramblings since she was like 12:
Damian who saw that Dick turned the bat ears into projectiles that can electrocute you:
Steph who saw the same thing:
Tim who refuses to believe Dick Grayson can do anything that isn’t brilliant, premeditated and completely the best option: I CANT HE’ll be so disappointed:(
When the Justice league finds out that Captain Marvel is a child, they are NOT happy. He’s able to stay, but the relationship between him and league members is rocky at best. No one is really comfortable with talking to him anymore, and they’re all trying to act parental, which Billy HATES.
The JL still cares, obviously. They care about him a lot. It just hurts to see the real face behind the facade. To be shown that their coworker, someone they look up to, has been leading such a lonely life.
Cue a fanfiction where each chapter is the JL seeing Billy in his element. Helping a magical creature. Doing a whiz broadcast. Getting Constantine to help the JL. Getting Metron to help the JL. Persuading demons in a bar to lay off the JL for a while. Using his Champion status to get his teammates into a galactic embassy.
They’re shocked to see how good he is. How so many magical beings respect him despite his age. How even demons will cower in front of him and Doctor Fate will trust him with a well guarded secret. How Sterling Morris’s emails to the kid sound like they’re from a close drinking buddy rather than an unwilling boss.
It’s like they’re seeing the Captain for the first time again. His charisma, his intellect, his kindness. And they realize that not once has he gone off on them for hovering so much, for worrying so much. Because deep down Billy can’t help but be understanding. He can’t help but try to look at things from several points of view because that’s just the kind of person he is.
Though they don’t like how they got here, the JL is grateful that they got to see Billy in action. And over time, they realize how stupid, how awkward they were being to this kid who really didn’t want to cause them trouble, this was just his job. They remember that this is their friend who listens and loves and cares for them.
And if Billy noticed how the gazes locked on him went from nervous and anxious, to fond and caring, he didn’t say a thing.
The magic users are rolling their eyes because no shit he’s good at his job. Why do you think you haven’t gotten a message from another dimension or intergalactic shenanigan in space to worry about?
You may or may not have seen my HH stuff on Tiktok 😭😭
I wanted to post my Hazbin redesigns on here one bc l've literally been neglecting Tumblr and I feel bad and two, they've been getting a ton of love on Tiktok so I wanted to share them here as well!
vaporwave
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