Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Every story must start somewhere, and there's a lot of options to choose from with Danny. He can be outcast and on the run from the discovery of his half-ghost status by both or either his parents and the GIW. He can fall through random or intentional portals in the Ghost Zone. He can be yeeted through the timeline by Clockwork if they decide it would lead to a good future or if Clockwork has a mission they need Danny in that time to fulfil. He could just end up at the circus because his grades aren't great, his vitals wouldn't pass any pre-employment medical screening, and he has an odd set of skills. He could get a taste for motorcycle stunts hanging out with Johnny and simply decide that's what he wants to do with his life (this could also work with Dani, now that I think about it; and she's more of a vagabond than Danny is, anyway). He could have connections that either pull him or push him into it. He could stumble into flame/flame-adjacent lore back home and be shunted off to be kept from discovering Omerta. He could have been kept unwillingly by Freakshow's circus instead of breaking free when he did. He could have been adopted by Freakshow's circus when Freakshow was taken out.

Aaaaaand it's bed time for me now, so I'm just gonna leave the rest of my super rough ideas draft here to extrapolate on later.

--possibly somewhere in canada while the giw are caught up with border bureaucracy
-clockwork? timelines** Mare rings? Giglio Nero & Sephira
-flames close to core->how interact with ice core
->similarly sensitive like ghost core but for flames? can see flame resike
-metal hat/ checkerface dressed weird like ghost, but hitting a different tone of dangerous
-plans on not going, how end up there anyway
-how does the balance of flames maintained by th3 etrinisette interact with the inifinite reals/ influenced by?
-how much info viper has on danny's ghosts? ->interacted with tucker with tech/hacking->or verde; verde vs technus->bros or nemesis or one-sided?-> how would ghost hacking hold up against lightning flames?
-Sam have mafia connecitons w/ rich parents/generational wealth?-> Ida a badass in her own right, if somewhat distant
-Danny's parents and/or vlad have underworld connecitons? dubious research + possible tradition of being hunters of that which lurks in the dark ->acquainted w/ whats-his-face from Vongola?
-vlad shady in general, but he may just eat shit if confronting mafia for the first time bc he's super arrogant in his self-assurance in his ghost abilities
-Danny coming out as American
-Johnny and Kitty show up at some point trying to one-up/scope out the rumoured greatest stuntman
-reborn vs skulker?
long scale broken down into [pre-meeting of Arcobaleno] [Il priselti sette era] [Arcobaleno times] [post-Arcobaleno]
-thundercloud flames for Danny maybe? with the ice core and the electric spark that set him on his path -> green + blue ghost modes, blue turn to purple on crowning? still settling core representing a shift from trying to get people to chill out to claiming them as his own?

Chapter Text

Both of these settings have plotlines dealing with diverging timelines and characters who have some method of seeing the future.

DP has Clockwork and their mirrors, an alternate timeline evil version of Danny, and an entire realm of ambiguous time and space that is in a constant state of flux that causes portals between such to come and go at the merest whim, where the impressions of the past take on a life of their own and can come out to play with those who wander its vastness.

KHR has a bloodline of seers descended from an ancient race of magically powerful superbeings, and its system of power as it is known in the series is held up by artifacts that link their users to forces of past, present, and future. One of these calls upon spirits of the past artifact holders, and one allows the holder to perceive/experience diverging timelines. There's also some way to regain memories of the most probable future and/or briefly time travel, though I'm less clear on the mechanics of that part of the series, just that it works some way that allowed the past to fight the future before returning to their present.

Anyway, there's a lot of opportunity to play with how these forces interact. Are Clockwork and Saphira/Sephora/Saphire lady whatever her name was related somehow? They could be the same person or parent/child or mentor/mentee or past lovers. They could be completely unrelated. They could be fairly unaware of another with the capacity to perceive and play into/alter the future. This could cause them to both be acting in a way to achieve a better future in ways they believe to be the best path forward that directly contradict the other's interference.

Depending on how you want to play it, Danny could be fully just stealing the identity of the original Skull de Mort either intentionally, by accident, or by some comical series of events that force an OG Skull out of the picture as he implores Danny to take up his mantle. This is a good opportunity for misinformation to force Danny!Skull into some 'yes, and' shenanigans because he doesn't actually know what he's supposed to know while he acts as Skull. There's also the opportunity for drama because it makes it ambiguous whether Checkerface intended to invite Danny!Skull or OG!Skull. If you want to keep OG!Skull in, he could come up as the head of the Carcassa. If you wanna be really ironic, you could pull more time shenanigans to make OG!Skull be Dan from the alternate timeline. Along those lines, you could fully pull a Dread Pirate Roberts and have the name Skull be passed down to keep the immortal legend alive with any of Danny's alternates holding the title at any given time. It could be a running gag/deep cover they use when they are sent to the past on missions for Clockwork.

On a different note, the origins of the Trinisette are pretty mysterious. Did Clockwork have something to do with their creation? Do they predate Clockwork? Was Clockwork born of their creation? They're said to uphold the current order of the world, so what would happen if they were to fail? would the world collapse into the ghost zone? would the borders between ectoplasm and flame blur beyond recognition? If Clockwork is sending Danny to infiltrate the Il Priselti Sette, are they doing so to intentionally disrupt the Trinisette? Is the goal to extend the Trinisette's viability until it can be ultimately resolved as it is in KHR? Is Clockwork doing so because the influence of flames/Giglio Nero blurs their knowledge of the future surrounding these things?

Chapter Text

In my mind, there's two ways you can treat the dual magic systems these settings bring to the table: you can treat them as the same thing that's been understood differently due to cultural and climactic differences, or you can treat them as separate things unique to the living and the dead. 

It's an interesting thing to consider when thinking about how access to both magic systems is generally unlocked because they're incredibly similar in this manner. Both are a source of power that is generally unlocked by experiencing strong convictions and emotions during either a fatal or near-fatal event. Either by nature of the types of personalities required to unlock the power or by nature of the powers themselves, the people who wield these powers tend to be eccentric in some way shape or form, frequently to the point of some sort of obsession. With both existing in the world, the difference between what makes a person in that situation a ghost or a flame-active person could be interpreted as whether they refuse to die and reach inside themselves for the power to deny that fate, or they accept that they are dying but refuse to let that be the end of their story as they assert their will on the world around them to disallow their memory to die even as their body fails them. 

Flames could be the humanity Danny reaches for when he switches back from his ghost form. It's possible that his flames are quite a bit stronger than Vlad's (Arcobaleno level, duh) and that reflects some in both the differences in their ghost forms and how much more obsession-driven Vlad is shown to be. It could also lead to Danny's initial adverse reaction to developing an ice core (ice vs flames). Alternatively, the ice core could be related to Danny possessing a "cooler" temperature flame. [Side note: I do find it interesting how the associated temperature of flames is the opposite of the energy of their colors, i.e. the color red actually has the longest wavelength and the lowest energy which is why it's the first and last color you see as the sun rises and sets due to the light warping around the curvature of the earth's atmosphere before it reaches your eye] [subnote: I do appreciate the fact that they made green lightning instead of trying to make it a plant thing like how green is usually treated in color-themed media. Like, mechanically, you could explain lightning flames in relation to plants (if you know anything at all about how plants work), but the writers were like, no, we want to code that as electricity here, thank you very much, and I respect them for that. It's an interesting thought-line to think about them as the middle of the spectrum and that having a polarizing effect on them that allows them to generate that type of energy while still retaining the purpose of the pigment green, which is to absorb the broadest spectrum of energy possible] 

If Danny can sense flames like he can sense ghosts, does he have a way to differentiate the two? He could mistake someone with a particularly strong flame aura for a ghost, possibly assuming they're either possessing themselves or disguising themselves as human, like Spectra did. Alternatively, they could read similarly to a liminal human, if you subscribe to the theory of liminality. In such a case, would particularly strong flames read like a half-ghost? Or is there a set limit to how far they can reach with their flame power without actually being dead? If you choose to explore liminality, whether or not ectoplasm and flames are the same thing becomes relevant, because you get to decide whether the development of liminality id due to people absorbing and taking on ectoplasm, or whether the constant exposure to the volatiles substance was enough to awaken the flames of the people they are calling liminal with the assumption of it being due to the former due to the team having no other reference for the seemingly supernatural abilities being developed by the townsfolk. 

But Irony, you may ask, if the whole town's become flame active, why hasn't anyone from the mafia intervened? Well, there's a few ways that question could be answered. 

The first is that it's small-town Illinois, why would they even bother. I think this take is pretty lukewarm, in all honesty, and really only supported by the logistics of getting people with more productive things to do to drive out to the middle of nowhere to investigate what can be assumed to be a dangerous environment is both hasslesome and fairly risky when you don't actually know what you can hope to gain my doing so. 

I'm also not really sure that you could actually class Amity Park as small-town Illinois. While the school set-up from what I've gathered of it reads as graduating class of maybe 20-50 as the only school in town which indicates and overall town size of roughly 500-2000, there isn't a small cult of farm kids anywhere mentioned. In fact, most of the known town seems fairly tech-forward and wealthy. Granted, you could blame this on the show writers' lack of knowledge of small-town Midwest or their focus on sci-fi and high school cliche, but if you do, you have to include mention of small townisms like town square, parades blocking everything, and seasonal celebrations and decorations. And feel free to make it weird. It's more fun that way. 

Anyway, I think it's more likely that Amity Park is meant to be some kind of Chicago suburb or border town, as it's close enough to Wisconsin for Vlad, who lives there, to cause problems in the town. I don't actually know much about Chicago or its suburbs culture to be able to expand more on that. They've got weird pizza and interesting architecture on account of being built on a wetland and the architects getting really pumped about building and rebuilding there for some reason... now that I think about it, it might have something to do with money laundering. Amity Park would probably have some kind of gimmicky exhibit or festival based around its title of 'most haunted place in America.' The teens probably plan weekend trips up to the big city to visit the mall or the movies or go roller blading and such. Chime off in the comments if you have a better idea of what Chicago and its suburbs are like. This has been massively tangential to my original chapter focus, but now I'm curious. 

My second theory is that someone in the town is in the know about flames and Omerta who has taken steps to ensure the mafia doesn't butt in to the town. I have a lot of ideas on that concept, but I have a separate chapter planned out for that spiral. 

Theory number three is that the mafia did notice and showed up to investigate but were either discrete enough to not be noted by the main cast or were identified as something other than mafia.

On the one hand, they could have shown up, been like "Oh shit, the ghost thing was legit," and noped right out of there, before putting out an avoidance notice in their network about it. This option is good for a funny and/or ominous throwaway comment if you don't want to delve into possible past relations, but I am a D&D player who craves confrontation in their storytellings, so I like it when things collide. 

Option 2 here, and I quite like this one, is that the GIW are mafia. Because how likely is it really that the government just rapidly established an entire branch fully dedicated to investigating ghosts whose personnel don't ever actually seem to investigate anything when their bureaucracy is so slow and they could just send an already existing branch to deal with the incident and then choose to deck them all out in white suits instead of, y'know, actual protective gear? With how rare white suites are in general, I'm fairly certain actual protective gear would be way easier for them to quickly acquire anyhow, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I get that they're supposed to be a knock-off Men in Black, but it would be so easy to frame them as some kind of gang instead. Hell, they could be actively building their schtick as knock-off MIB with an acronym that can be interpreted as Guys in White. Whether they had an actual name with the acronym GIW before they got the white-suited schtick is up for author's discretion, but I do think it would be funny for them to have had to have had a briefing/discussion/panicked improvisation of trying to figure out what to introduce themselves as to the ignorant townsfolk they were trying to fool into believing they were government agents there on legitimate reasons. Just the interna 'Don't say Guys In White. Don't Say Guys In White,; "Ghost Investigation Ward." Flash forward to the teens all actively calling the m the Guys In White, 'Shit! They're onto us!' Lol. 

Anyway, the third option here is just to make shit up. It's fanfiction, it doesn't need a basis to have something in it if you want to make your own. I suppose if you want to, you could base one off of actual American Underground groups, particularly ones operating in or around Chicago if you know enough about them and enjoy that kind of context. I, personally, don't know much about those topics, though if anyone reading this does, I would love to learn if you comment with any. (Also, let me know if you're okay with me adding that context in a future chapter if you do share it.) 

Chapter Text

How does the balance of flames maintained by the trinisette interact with/in influenced by the infinite realms? 

1. The trinisette keeps our world separate from the infinite realms

-Is it the separation itself that allows for the formation of flames rather than ectoplasm?

2. The trinisette anchors the world to a certain relativity within the infinite realms, possibly to the source of energy for flames. 

-Does the creation of permanent portals interfere with this?

-Is there an entity governing this? If so, are the Arcobaleno blood sacrifices demanded by them for this continuance (Do you want to make an Evil!Clockwork AU?) What do they do with them? Are they made into ghosts bound to them for eternity? (Is this why the observants are so bitter?) What does this mean for the Vindice? Are they anti-ghosts? Rejecting that fate because they can't see it? Or did they see that ending and reject it? Or are they one and the same, and they were the only ones with will enough to actually become ghosts and not just fade into oblivion?

*If the trinisette were to fail, would the world collapse into the infinite realms? Would it be consumed by whatever was keeping it in its orbit? Would it be crushed under the weight of a foreign energy? Would it be subsumed by flames as they try to counteract it? Would the flames catch and burn through whatever parts of the infinite realms they come into contact with? (Is that why Danny packs such a punch despite being a relative ghost baby with no obvious obsession to fuel him?) 

3. On the flipside, is the trinisette what's keeping our world connected and adjacent to the ghost zone? Is it a way of harvesting ectoplasm for human use without needing the users to die to access it?

Continuation of color theory line of thought: could be pigment-adjacent instead of light adjacent, i.e. actually absorbing/receptive to everything but the reflected color, which is kinda trippy to think about in consideration to a flame/s color, but considering you're talking about the perception of the manifestation of a soul, we're already in mind-tripping territory. All contained, only excess emitted out. 

If flames and ectoplasm are the same thing, how do the colors correlate? 

In this case, ectoplasm is primarily green which implies lightning flames being the neutral state. Could ghosts be considered flame constructs? Pseudoscience explanation for the "life flashing before your eyes" neurological burst imprinting on and resonating with the neutral lightning energy to create a new ghost. Point of contention and angst for Danny who remembers being electrocuted to half/death. (Was it really just the on switch being inside the portal that opened it? Or was the spark of a life on the edge of death also required to make the connection to that other plane? (Would Danny's parents have known that when they let him show his friends the portal? Were they hoping one of them would be curious enough to go in and 'jump start' it to get it running? (Surely that goth kid will think it's edgy enough for a closer look; Surely that tech-wiz kid will want a closer look at the circuitry; Surely Our Danny will know better than to mess around with the equipment we've raised him to respect (Why was it the Mansons didn't want Sam hanging around Danny, again?) Sure, Danny might be upset at the loss of a friend, but he can learnt to live with it; it's a lesson he'd have to learn at some point or another, anyway; better to learn it now when he can rely on us to catch him than when he's on his own out in the world) Did they know the first time when Vlad got caught close enough to catch radiation off it? Or did that failure tip them off to the possibility?) Did Vlad figure this out before them which is why he believes Jack out to ruin him? (Who di Vlad kill to open his portal? Himself?))

As ghosts grow and mature into themselves, is their color shift gradual as they drift away from baseline green? Do they change to reflect major changes in a ghost's sense of self, or are they changed by environmental factors. Does the ghost's personality change to reflect the internal change? 

In this AU, was Danny's shift from basic green to Skull's purple simply a result of him settling into himself, or is it a change forced by the challenges he's had to face? Is his original settlement on blue ice core, which translates reasonably well to rain flames, a possible reason for Skull's noted non-traditionally cloudy personality? (Did something dramatic/traumatic happen to force that shift? Lal Mirch was once a rain when the Pacifiers blocked/stole/rejected/shifted her flames so that she could only access Mish and Cloud. Could an attempt to remove/block/change Danny's ghost core result in something similar?) Would Danny acquiring the Ring of Rage and Crown of Flames/ his possible ascension to Ruler of the Infinite Realms cause such a shift? 

Chapter Text

Realistically, any character can be given a backstory or connection to the mafia world to help build the narrative into a cohesive unit rather than two separate worlds slapped on top of each other. The actual challenge is choosing where you want the spotlight of the story to end up.

If you want to spotlight the co-existence of the cross-over worlds, the spotlight can go anywhere, really. Is there a sect of the infinite realms dedicated to mafia groups? Do they have turf wars? Are there specific ghosts that are heavily involved with the mafia? Can Wes Weston, conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, uncover the secret superpowers of his fellow Amity Park citizens as they go about their nefarious dealings? Is the hierarchy of high school popularity a cover for keeping those in the know connected and those who don't out? Anything is possible

My focus isn't wholly on the cross-over-ness, however, it's on Danny as Skull, so my focus goes towards connections that are more likely to affect him and his story. For that, I think the Mansons and the Nightingales (his maternal family) are solid jumping-off points. 

I think the Mansons could have come from underworld connections but bowed out of the scene for a life of socialite society at some point in Sam's parents' time, possibly after the death of Ida's husband upon threat of additional damage to them, possibly only having been spared due to Ida's reputation and on the condition of Sam's father being kept out of it and kept ignorant of the secrets of that world. 

I think it would be fun to at the very least have the Nightingales be aware of Flames, even if they aren't necessarily involved in the mafia world outright. It gives interesting implications to Maddie's pursuit of ecto-science. On the one hand, it could be a clever way to go about studying Flames while getting around Omerta by claiming to be studying a different kind of energy. On the other hand, it could be funny if she is aware of flames and simply decided to study an alternate, similar-sounding source of energy. Might explain some of the emphasis put on how she frames the narrative of ghosts all the time. I do think it would be kinda interesting if the Nightingales were a clan of assassins, though, and Maddie's dedication to science wholly out of left field for her upbringing. Perhaps she had an encounter with the Talbot (that's their name!) at an impressionable age and decided that was what she wanted to do with her life. 

If the Nightingales are simultaneously a clan of assassins while the Mansons are actively trying to stay out of anything related to the mafia, there is the added point of interest for the Mansons wanting to keep Sam from getting close with Danny, even if neither are aware of those connections. 

Chapter Text

Ah, writer's block, what a wall to bang your head against, and yet, I am still struck by the restless feeling that drove me to pick up a pen and write in the first place. The wall remains to block my path forward, so I turn my head, a hand against the wall, and walk alongside it. 

Not moving forward, per se, but not staying in the same place at least. 

There is purpose in writing, in telling tales, even one so simple as reveling in the fellowship of not being alone in sharing words. 

Perhaps I can ponder the actual content of what I want to write with my plotting. As much as I enjoy coming up with conspiracies and lore, much of it plays into the background of the average scene and only comes out either as exposition or in moments of realization when they add up to contend with the protagonist. Personally, as a reader, I generally enjoy the latter much more than the former because it gives me the chance to engage with foreshadowing and irony that is often overshadowed when too much is given out the gate. My favorite thing, however, is when there's enough hints to the reader for dramatic irony to kick in while from the protagonist's standpoint something very different is the most likely truth. I adore when storytelling is ambiguous enough to have multiple interpretations that butt up against each other to cause misinterpretations and chaos. 

To this end, some of the lore I'm brainstorming would not do well to be either directly addressed nor actually chosen between. The problem is that I wish to have my characters stare at the conundrum in cosmic horror and think about the implications this has on their lives. 

The thing about having Danny as Skull as the main protagonist is that he has an established set of beliefs about the structure of the universe and is being thrown into a situation with an abundance of unknown factors that he has to figure out well enough to gain his footing while trying to keep his own secrets from coming to light all while the other characters do their bests to keep their own cards to their chests, and I, the author, try to keep him from learning the correct pieces of information that would allow him to see the big picture before it can be revealed for maximum impact. 

To that end, I have to think of things I can use to distract him from coming to the right conclusions. (Side quests, misinterpretations, misinformation). Side quests will be the most important for content, and misinterpretations/misinformation are thangs that can be sprinkled in along the way to add depth to the story. Types of side quests: resource, relationship, skill, subplot. Some may overlap. 

Resources: information, connections, technology, trinkets

Relationships: Arcobaleno, circus, family, friends, mafia - GIW + Carcassa, ghosts, possibly the zone itself as an entity

Skills: ghost abilities, flame abilities, driving, mafia-relevant skills like combat + weapon fighting, possibly observation, possibly games for my own enrichment, possibly fortune telling (astrology + tarot reading) for irony & foreshadowing & my own enrichment

Subplots: Il Prisetti Sette quests, Space Case, Catch 'Em All, The Gift of Prophesy, Need for Speed, Ethics 101, Mine Now

Character - Frission - Play - Internal Goal/Aspiration/Motivation/What have you - Projected Aspiration

Viper - Trust & Truth - It's a Transaction - Belonging - Money

Fon - Malicious Compliance - Seething Pacifism - Persevere - Perfection

Reborn - Kindness & Survival - Conscious Impulsiveness - Influence - Reputation

Lal - Black Sheep - Opportunity Knocks - Proving - Strength

Colonello - Flow - The Real Zen Master - Keeping - Staying

Verde - To Understand - Tangent, Actually - Creation - Inquisition

Danny/Skull - Identity & Ownership - Exasperated Yes, And - Freedom - Connection

Giglio Nero - Fate & Living - Experience-seeking - Continuity - Harmony

Notes:

I haven't seen much solid interaction between Fon and Colonello, not even sure they ever interacted at all in Canon really, but I think they have the potential to be really interesting foils when you actually dig into their characters. 

Verde is probably gonna be fairly different than a lot of portrayals I've seen of him (i.e. your generic, multi-purpose Scientist/Smart Person characterTM), mostly because one of his titles is "The Second Coming of Da Vinci," and for me that implies a fairly high level of creativity and artistic flair in addition to raw intelligence that generally gets overlooked. It's something that I can relate to, and that, in addition to my theories about the interaction and implications of a world with both ectoplasms and flames means he might become one of my favorites to write. 

Viper is Baby. 

Final comments for the day, and this is mostly because I remembered Wes Weston was a character when I was posting that last chapter, I 100% want there to be a small cult following that kinda stalks Wes any time he travels out of Illinois because they think he's plainclothes Skull. Poor guy can't escape being recognized as Danny's doppelganger lol. Mayhaps he falls into trouble trying to hunt down Danny to yell at him for being an icon

Chapter Text

What I gathered from my brief research binge: 

1. The police force in Chicago is historically in some form of understaffed and/or outright corrupt

2. The thing I remembered about Chicago being architecturally notable for being built on a swamp was correct (and the fact that it got mudjacked and put on stilts meant the Underworld part of criminal establishments was quite literal with their being built beneath the stilts of the city), but I forgot about the Great Chicago Fire that meant that a great deal of the city had to be rebuilt in its aftermath

3. Corrupt politicians allowed vice districts to become a huge thing in the city and allowed much blatant crime to occur on the streets in general; this made prohibition a huge problem when it popped up. (side note: the article i read stated there was a massive rise in communion wine sales during prohibition which makes me wonder if that's another reason for the current oversaturation of christian-adjacent sects across america) 

Here we have your classic, all-on-a-different-page adventuring party, featuring: 

Reborn as That AssholeTM AKA would be the DM's favorite but refuses to play as anything other than chaotic antagonistic neutral

Viper as the Loot Gremlin AKA refuses to engage in anything unless bribed with shiny loot even though they showed up to play a game of their own free will

Fon as Lurking and Amused unless combat is actually happening in which case he has built a character to absolutely dominate the field

Lal Mirch as Trying to Keep this Train on the Tracks a little too hard AKA trying too hard to be the DM's favorite and irritating everyone at the table for it

Verde as the mechanics exploitation support build that doesn't really engage with the game except peripherally

Luce as the Power of FriendshipTM feat. schedule conflicts feat. constantly rebuilding the character trying to match the mood of the party instead of actually investing in character development

Skull as the Misaligned Character Concept that the player refused to give up no matter the campaign setting

and Colonello as Retroactively Added to the story when Lal invited her IRL boyfriend to the game and half the party proceeded to like him more than her

Might have to have a Fon/Skull interaction or two about tea (the beverage) because I have opinions about tea blends and a knack for describing food and drink

Context: I'm playing around with the idea that Danny gests some kind of amnesia/disassociation while with Freakshow's circus in that AU, though really it could apply to any situation where he falls out of touch with people who are important to him

Danny in peril at the circus stumbling about under the influence slowly loosing who he is until only Skill is left. A loose end let go to the wolves when it couldn't be easily snipped. Still drawing attention but now without the buffer of a ringmaster calling the shots to keep him from confrontation.

Who knows who knows him. Who knows who knows he isn't himself.

Yet how would he remember? Will his new friends even let anyone close enough to figure it out? Would they be upset should the old him start coming out to play, or are they on the other sides of the same coin of the duality of their comrade in his replacement of himself? Can a balance be struck, or is the difference just too jarring to exist together?

Does it hurt to know you were once a different person altogether?

How can you reconnect with the person you once were when the world has continued moving while you were away and the place you once existed as you have is no longer as it was when you existed there. Your absence has allowed it to shift out of place to compensate your absence.

Even if you manage to realign yourself to the shape of the person you once were, you are no longer able to click seamlessly back into the place you left because the shape of it too has changed wit time. Why even bother trying to fit your new self to the shape you once knew when the place you once fit is changed in your displacement.

Yet in the act of trying to become what you once were you fall out of the shape you became in your absence of that place, and the new place you made for yourself no longer fits you either.

You are left with bits of you that fit ins some places but not others on both sides never able to fully fit yourself in either place any more. Left in a limbo between two beings that are both yourself unable to fully embrace all you encompass.

Isn't it tragic?

You have always been and will always be yourself and yet you yourself are alien to the you you once were. You can try to be the different versions of yourself that are known to others all you want, but when it comes down to the line, you are only yourself as you are in the moment.

We are not made to be linear. We are made to be multiple and contradictory. We are made to be dust in the wind - there one moment and gone the next - because while we cannot escape the person you once were, we cannot be them. We can only be the person we are now. 

What comes for Freakshow's circus after Danny absconds with Checkers, I wonder? 

Do the people catching on to Danny's existence back off from the circus? Does the circus manage to shake them without Skull's boldness to draw attention? 

There could be immediate karmic retribution for the crimes committed against the main protagonist, or the karmic retribution could be postponed for our heroes to catch up to dole it out after they've leveled up their friendship. 

Bit of column A, bit of column B? Sounds good to me. 

Partial fucked over initially that leads to an even more complicated problematic situation for our protagonists to sort through after time has passed from their departure to their reunion. Make it harder to be something straightforward cathartic throwdown. 

I'm not here for catharsis, I'm here to use the power of marketing for evil! If someone wants catharsis they can write it themselves :)

Chapter Text

An Exercise: What's missing from canon?

I was recently reminded that one of the major underlying driver for a lot of fanfiction is to fill in the gaps of what was missing or underexplored in the original canon - whether that be because the point of interest was brushed over or untouched to the focus of the canon work or because the canon just moved away from the concept as its story progressed. 

Now, I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again cuz it's pretty relevant to the topic at hand: I haven't actually watched either of the shows I'm writing about in this crossover, like, at all (I don't often watch things in general, too passive of an activity for me to enjoy most of the time unless its like, live theater). The analysis I'm 'bout to write is based on what I've gathered about these shows from my time spent in the fandoms - and likely some somewhat niche parts of the broader fandoms to boot - so it's entirely possible I'm missing some of the finer details canon touches on, but this is what I'm currently working with. 

I think I'll start with what I've gathered about the content of work first. Set up a basis for what's there before I get into what's missing. 

Danny Phantom was a Nickelodeon cartoon about a high school boy (Freshman/Sophomore, I believe) who is a half-ghost superhero who secretly fights the ghosts that haunt his town while balancing schoolwork and early 2000's high school cliches & cliques. 

His parents are ghost hunters/scientists with a lot of passion for their work, if not the most practical in their applications. His older sister is a book-smart girl with an interest in psychology. His friends are an ultra-recyclo vegetarian goth and a meat-loving tech geek with grand ambitions. 

Danny himself is interested in space, though I don't think it's more than passingly mentioned in the canon, and I get the impression it may have been originally intended as the cartoon shorthand for him being a dreamer than an actual characterization note that actually has an impact on the story. 

I think the plot and themes are supposed to be about self-acceptance and doing what you can with what you have while being wary of outside influences that often have strings attached that you would see if you look for them, but you can't let yourself be distracted by fools gold. 

The general episode setup is a sorta monster-of-the-week that alternates being solved by clever tricks, power-ups, and the occasional power of communication. The ghost crew generally have some kind of theme they are obsessed with, though I'm not sure whether it's a canon or fanon theory that their obsessions are an integral part of their beings as ghosts (though in either case, it's really just a an explanation for the cartoon logic they're built on to make them easier to write). 

My grasp of the actual content and play of Katekyo Hitman Reborn is much less stable, as I migrated into this fandom by reading crossovers people wrote with some of the more mainstream fandoms I read from that were specifically set in the Arcobaleno's Il Prisetti Sette era, which I have since learned is very much not the focus of that anime/manga and doesn't actually have a lot of source material to reference from. It's basically just lore to explain why the world's greatest hitman has the body of a toddler. 

The actual KHR storyline is about a random japanese high schooler (or possibly middle schooler? I think Tsuna's also roughly the age of an American freshman/sophomore, but that age is where the Japanese school system typically splits middle and high schools) who gets singled out to be the next head of a pretty major mafia famiglia. Being a normie kid with low self-worth and not a lot going for him, this shocks and frightens Tsunayoshi, the main character, and he resists this transition. 

Unfortunately for Tsuna, the mafia continues to invade his life as he struggles to navigate what becomes a shonen-type escalation of mafia drama and showdowns with homework, crushes, and learning to manage friendships after a lifetime of being a bullied loner. (Something could probably be said about the similarities and differences of Japanese and American high school tropes comparing these two shows, but that's not the point I'm trying to make today)

And also there's magical girl rainbow powers thrown in with color-coding stereotypes to boot. Power of friendship for the win. 

From what I've gathered, a lot of design choices were made to be silly and somewhat funny. It's a mafia story, but it's meant to be light hearted for the most part. 

So! Counterpoints! And Synthesis!

For DP, there is the horror element that is underlying the series but glossed over on account of it being a kid's cartoon. 

For similar reasons, actual mafia drama and politics in KHR tend to get glossed over in favor of the shonen power crawl. 

They're more set dressing than actually relevant in the OG works. 

From what I've gathered, DP kinda lacks any actual coherent plot lines with any kind of resolution, and has a lot of tech and science concepts that many enjoy digging into the pseudo-science/occultism/mythology of. In my personal opinion, it has a lot of genuinely fascinating and novel character concepts that are really fucking cool but don't really get their own character arcs on account of DP being a fairly short-run cartoon series monster-of-the-week style. 

In direct opposition, KHR characters seem to have a tendency to be really fucking flat. Sure they might be bright and colorful and slightly insane, but as a whole, they don't have a lot of depth to them. 

I've heard that KHR was originally meant to be a slice-of-life genre work but got shunted into a more shonen-style after its initial reception.

(I may just have to include some Way of the House Husband references, cuz it's great)

So! Things to get into: 

-fleshed out, novel character concepts with depth that get their own arcs -> take inspiration from DP character set-ups and apply them to the KHR characters I'm working with

-keep it silly and light-hearted for the most part from a slice-of-life standpoint (cuz it's what I'm enjoying right now) with the occasional and/or underlying DP horror + mythology & KHR political drama (maybe check some court drama series for inspiration, cuz they do this really well) (...might have to get a better grasp on slice-of-life set-ups too that are better than the sitcoms I've seen) (may or may not split up the slice of life and the horror stories, we shall see) (...might just end up making something sorta like Welcome to Night Vale cuz it lives in my brain rent free)

-I feel like there's a good potential for a sci-fi series here, but I'm not really enough of a sci-fi person to get into that overly much. If there's any Trekkies out there reading this, tho

I'm gonna have to think of random bullshit for the characters to have to deal with. And character arcs. That one should be easier to start with, but damn ther's a lot of characters. 

Prolly gonna need more antagonists, too, woooo. 

It'll be good practice for DM setup, at least. Keep in mind that the KHR canon present is the end, not the start of this journey. 

-

-I want problem solving over power crawl solutions, even if it is supposed to be about the world's strongest flame users. 

're the team of the most powerful flames in the Mafia? How would you like to organize the filing cabinets? 

I've lost my pet cat and can't find her (AKA the cat mission from Naruto)

Send them to haunted places chasing remnants of whisps. Good opportunity for Danny's oddness to come into play. Send them chasing after the shadows on the walls. 

Indulge in my wanderlust and send them to cool places I want to visit. 

Send them to an amusement park and have them sit through fun park rides and shenanigans as they try to catch their target without causing problems for the crowd lol. Possibly on mafia land. I'm thinking scooby doo level shenaniganry. The team gets split up and have to engage with their environment as they try to relocate their mark.

I could up the petty antics with the Arco 'prank war.' Who uses what approach? Who frames others? Who uses direct confrontation? Who brushes things off only to leave you stranded when you need them most? Be dramatic and petty. Bring them into game night with these petty grievances

The characters all have to desperately want to make friends with people who might  be able to actually handle their level of insanity, but everyone goes about it in vastly different ways causing misunderstandings everywhere. Like Reborn friendship is chaos and shows of skill and teaching/learning and growing as people together. 

Keep in mind, this will be a much younger version of these people than we see in canon, so, while they may make a show of having their shit together and rocking their adult lives, they very likely don't have their shit together at all and are just going very hard trying to make something of themselves. It's a bunch of 20-somethings who showed up to a club meeting because they thought it sounded cool. 

They may be the most dysfunctional D&D group to ever get together to play, but despite everything, they still each individually made the decision and effort to show up to game night and give it their all. 

A lot of KHR fandom likes to come up with logical, transactional reasons for the Arcobaleno to come together, when it's a silly anime about making friends and making something of yourself in a new environment that you find yourself in (because peer pressure) and you are the only option to take up the mantle. I think it's more compelling, in any case, for the driving reason for the arco to come together to be each individual's desire for a solid group of friends. 

Fon: Feng shui (zen fixation) + tea/herbalism + learning to cook

Verde: there's a world where he's very into numerology and sacred geometry, but I don't have the motivation to get into that kinda stuff, so Imma give him lab rituals and rubber ducky debugging and notebooks full of doodles with random reminders strewn about for trying to pay attention without getting lost in thought

Viper: using money fixation to cover up highly symbolism-based thought process and poetic tendencies + logic leaps that are accurate but don't make sense when you try to explain (poetry)

Lal: commit to the bit beyond it's actual use out of its context. She made this character decision a long time ago and she's keeping it. ...making her the safety rep. (pos. draw inspo. from Marco's intro in Star vs. the Forces of Evil) ...she practices speeches and makes training plans like most people would plan a weekend trip into town (acting)

Reborn: If there isn't a situation, he'll make one for the drama. (was thinking of having him run the gammit of the sliding scale of gender before he fully settles into the 'mafia man' guise, but I think I want that to be more background than focal) Will give life advice unprompted. Enjoys dressing up and taking care of his looks, has a 10+ step beauty routine when resources allow. Upon further consideration, I'm gonna make him super cynical and possibly dig into some existentialism; draw some inspiration from the boo bros and make him the Shane to Colonello's Ryan

Colonello: doomsday prepper/survivalist + rube goldberg machine hobbyist (home alone) There is a universe where he is Wes Weston, and I am going to make it his one because the concept makes me cackle, so (conspiracy theorist)

(Lal takes psychic damage the fist time she sees Skull without makeup bc that's the face of her dumbass set on a shorter and much less overtly muscular body lol)

Luce: she's a boss lady; she gets a lot of flack for her precognizance making her compliant in the Arco's tragedy, and she's often characterized as a motherly figure, likely due to canon presenting her through the lense of her descendants, but she ran an entire mafia and managed the most stubborn group of individuals in the world for some time before they were cursed. She knows how to play people. She knows how to get what she wants. She knows what leadership skills are and how to use them to motivate people to do what she wants. She isn't some passive damsel waiting for people to step up to help her. She's a black widow taking what she wants and cutting down any who would dare stand in the way of the fate she's chosen for herself.