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fountainpenguin · 7 years

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So... In your "Zone Swap" idea, does Jazz figure out Danny's secret like she does in the main series? And if so, does she try to help keep his secret without letting him know she's figured it out?

Heh heh. It’s not much of a secret, really. I’ll jot out some AU basics here because I’m still trying to figure them out myself and decide where Jazz fits best in the AU. This is kind of a rough draft, so details may change later. Skim to the bold parts if you want to see the answer to your actual question; this first part is just some “ChalkZone” babble as I gather my thoughts on secret identities.

My goal with ZoneSwap is to swap some signature parts of both “Danny Phantom” and “ChalkZone”, but still keep the characters as in-character as possible where I can while taking into account all the ways the worldbuilding has been flipped and taking creative liberties as necessary (like making Tucker a ghost to give Danny motivation to visit and protect the Ghost Zone).

As a result of this swap, Rudy can now “go chalk”, turning into Snap, and even use the magic chalk in the RealWorld (though the effects only last as long as he stays in chalk form, and erase when he switches to normal). I’ve said that he can switch at will, but really, he needs to be standing inside a closed chalk shape like a circle or a square or whatever. If he can’t find one and he doesn’t have chalk of his own on hand, he’s stuck.

He can no longer create portals at will, and has to find them instead. I think they pop up on certain chalk surfaces at random, kind of like the Ghost Zone ones do: for example, instead of drawing the underwater portal in “Water Water Everywhere”, it would have opened itself, flooding the quarry, and Rudy only would have known about it once it started attracting attention.

I can’t decide yet if he would have tried to repair the breach while in regular form or chalk form. Hmm. I’m thinking the ZoneSwap version of this episode would share some similarities with “Life Lessons” from “Danny Phantom”, by which I mean that Reggie would go chalk and try to help Rudy save the town.

Ooh, yes. They go chalk and have to act like they get along in public because the whole town sees them and thinks they’re superhero and sidekick or something, even though they can’t stand each other. Then when the rain finally arrives, he and Reggie end up stuck under a ledge or something in the quarry / nearby area and have to watch the water rise while Penny runs frantically off in search of an umbrella, heh heh.

As much as Reggie doesn’t care for the wonders of ChalkZone, he still appreciates the world as his escape from reality, and he doesn’t want to see it found or destroyed. Presumably, he’d use his cape like a scarf to hide his face and better conceal his identity. Gotta have secret identities! (So, for the most part, it’s Rudy who has the secret identity now, not Danny).

Rudy also has to deal with dangerous Zoners escaping into the RealWorld, and Reggie the Red, Vinnie, and Terry are bigger threats too. Finally, he’ll dissolve in water if he’s in chalk form and it will hurt a lot.

Danny, following his being zapped by his parents’ basement portal, still has ghost powers, but in this AU they only work in the Ghost Zone. Even though the Phantom look doesn’t carry over, he still calls himself by that name when addressing other ghosts, because they feel more comfortable with him that way.

He still has ghost enemies, but makes lots of ghost friends too, including Tucker, who’s been dead for the last two years. He can also create portals into the Ghost Zone through the thermos at will, but only so many before the thermos has to be recharged. Probably by dipping it in the portal in the basement and filling it with “ghost soup”.

ZS!Danny’s entire deal is, whereas Rudy is a fighter now, Danny becomes a lover kind of by default. For some reason or another, ghosts can’t survive outside of the Zone for longer than a few hours or days (not sure how long yet, but preferably hours for plot reasons). This might be because they can’t breathe, or they can’t maintain their connection to the world (the assumption being that the Zone is the only thing that keeps them grounded) and they fade away permanently.

There would need to be a definite negative association with fading for Danny to react the way he does, so perhaps instead of just fading, a ghost becomes “corrupted” when away from the Zone too long. They might start to dissolve, losing pieces of themself and some of their sanity. Ghosts who were once friendly, helpful spirits might transform into bitter nightmare creatures and act like feral or even rabid animals. Yes, now we’re getting somewhere.

Anyway, unfortunately, lots of ghosts either don’t know this, or believe it won’t happen to them (Imagine the stories that get in the news sometimes about parents putting their kids in risky situations at national parks, such as by spreading honey on their children to attract bears. Or compare it to teens who regularly have unprotected sex but don’t consider the possibility of getting pregnant or contracting STDs. That sort of mindset. “This is the kind of thing that happens to someone else”, “I’ll be careful”, “I know what I’m doing”, etc.)

Let’s face it: The Human Realm is attractive to ghosts. Technus wants to get his hands on all the flashy electronics that Walker doesn’t allow in the Ghost Zone. Skulker wants to hunt. Box Ghost wants to add to his collection. Ember wants to play her music in front of adoring teen crowds. Tucker wants to hang out with his friends. Other ghosts want to explore, visit friends and family, or just simply cause trouble.

Danny has watched his parents chase down countless of these “rogue” ghosts that I compared to feral, rabid animals here. And they’re terrifying. After reuniting with Tucker in the “pilot episode”, I presume, he learns some missing pieces from Tuck and puts together this whole “being away from the Zone too long makes these ghosts lose themselves”.

So, he and Sam take it upon themselves to inform all the ghosts about such dangers / keep tabs on which ghosts are out and prioritize which ones need to be caught and returned first. Unfortunately, Danny probably gets pegged as a liar or something, so few ghosts are willing to go quietly back to the Zone and he has to lure them into the portals he creates with the thermos.

And there are some ghosts who are well aware of the danger, but come to him seeking aid, so he has to solve their problems, I guess. Something like that.

Basically Danny’s existence revolves around befriending the restless spirits he can and trying to better their afterlives while having a strict “ghosts are supposed to stay in the Ghost Zone” policy that no one listens to (especially a guy named Vlad who wants to exploit ghosts in some way, possibly by making them pay to leave the Zone? My original idea was that he firmly believed ghosts should be free, but I’m not sure how that will work with this “rabid ghost concept. And later in the series he’d start sending them Danny’s way by painting him as a villain for trapping him… I’m thinking Vlad had a daughter named Ellen who just recently died and he’s also trying to find her. Hmm… Thoughts?)

And of course, on the flipside, Rudy plays hero by keeping Skrawl, Craniac, and various other baddies in ChalkZone while at the same time keeping Vinnie and Terry out of it, and dealing with his school life and Reggie. He has to go chalk in order to draw stuff with the magic chalk, and he’d draw lots of things to fight for him (as opposed to attacking physically) while of course sticking to his oath to never again draw a living thing because he can’t handle the stress.

I’m loosely trying to imagine these two shows as if they were designed and written by the writers of the opposite show, therefore resulting in CZ being a darker and more actiony show and DP being cuter and more focused on world-building. That’s kind of tough though, because I can’t just remove all the awesome worldbuilding from “ChalkZone”, and a show about teenagers and ghosts tends to be angsty by default. I’m trying to find a middle ground.

To answer your actual question, everyone in Amity Park thinks ZS!Danny is a loon who runs around being a goofy ghost hunter like his parents. Since Danny can’t use his powers in the Human Realm, Valerie is Amity Park’s big hero. Instead of Phantom getting his name dragged through the dirt, the citizens of Amity Park by default attribute all of Danny’s good deeds to her, even if she only showed up at the very last minute when the cameras arrived. It’s equally as annoying to him as it was when everyone considered Phantom a villain.

Jazz would have to go into the Ghost Zone to realize that Danny has these ghostly abilities. In the Human Realm, he has to chase ghosts while fully human. Their parents would obviously be thrilled that he wants to join them in the family ghost-hunting business.

BUT Danny is trying to help and rescue ghosts, while his parents want to catch and study them. I think the big secret for Jazz to learn in this AU would be that Danny is using the portal despite their parents thinking it doesn’t work.

She would learn (possibly during that “Snap Out of Water” parody that I nicknamed “Tuck, Tuck, Loose”) that Tuck is a ghost now, and Danny and Sam are friends with him and regularly sneak off to visit the Ghost Zone. I think she would want to be helpful, but her helpfulness probably has its limits.

Jack and Maddie, I guess, would be very worried/upset with A) Danny for befriending a ghost behind their back, B) the fact that he’s been getting in their way and preventing them from catching ghosts, and/or C) having potentially dangerous adventures in the Ghost Zone, or something along those lines. Once Vlad becomes involved, that would add another factor into the equation.

OR! About a year ago, Bill Burnett (one of “ChalkZone”’s co-creators) confirmed that a human who spends 24+ hours straight in ChalkZone will turn into a Zoner permanently, and said that if the show hadn’t stopped airing, we would have met a “British aristocrat kid” who had suffered this fate, and who teamed up with Skrawl in a big special episode (and Bill hints that this is why Skrawl kept stealing magic chalk since only a human can use it, even though we never found out why he was doing this in the show itself).

So, I could take that detail and add it to this AU too- ZS!Jazz might find out through her parents (or probably Vlad) that the more time ZS!Danny spends in the Ghost Zone, the more corrupted and “rabid ghost-like” he’ll become (possibly because he’s half-ghost, so Sam might be immune). She might tell Danny this, but he would be upset, and they’d get into a fight over who knows more about ghosts, since he’s the one who’s visited the Zone more.

Maybe he would begin showing signs of feral/rabid corruption, and she has to keep this from their parents while she struggles to find a cure, despite Danny constantly snapping at her that he’s fine and she needs to get off his back. With him being partly dead, maybe he suffers the same way as the other ghosts when he’s not in the Zone, but his development was delayed. So like, he can’t stay in the Ghost Zone without negative side effects, but he can’t stay out of it without negative side effects either.

If ZoneSwap were a show then Danny would probably show subtle signs the whole season, but the topic of his corruption would probably be the Season 1 finale or something, or maybe Season 2 (Personally I like the idea of Dash building a thermos of his own - possibly with Vlad’s help - as the last scene of Season 1 so he and Danny have the same weapon as a nod to Reggie and Rudy both using magic chalk in “Reggie the Red”, so we’ll make it Season 2).

So yes, in a way, Jazz would discover Danny’s ghost side. Even if he doesn’t become the same exact Phantom he does in canon, he’s still half dead and would presumably be of interest to his ghost-hunting parents, so she does her best to keep him off their radar.

I’m still kind of working out the details, but I’m getting there! I have some vague plans for this AU already figured out, but most of this I’m making things up as I go and get to answer Asks like this~

#ZoneSwap AU #Going Ghost!#Rudys got the chalk!#Ghost Getter Number 1 #asks #Anon #Main Phantom trio #The Val gal #Chalkmeister

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