#dogbarks

Danny-focused hcs:

Danny doesn't need to eat much human food (and has a very reduced appetite) while in Amity Park or other ectoplasm-rich places, since his body naturally absorbs energy from ectoplasm. Though his friends and Jazz will still push him to eat even when he's not hungry, to keep his human body healthy. Whenever Danny's in places with less ectoplasm, his appetite returns with a vengeance.

Danny has an ice core and overheats easily in the summer, but in contrast handles winter months with ease. [Sometimes I like to do a reverse of this hc, where the ice core is helpful to him in the summer, but becomes detrimental to his human-side when it gets cold.]

Following the accident, lightning and other sources of raw electricity give Danny anxiety. I like to imagine that during storms he feels the static prickle on his skin.

Danny purrs when happy or content like a cat. In general, I like to imagine cores making all sorts of vibrations, hums, chirps, and other sounds.

Danny has no heartbeat in Phantom form, and doesn't need to breathe (but does so anyway out of habit). In contrast, his heartbeat and breaths per minute (as well as his core body temperature) are much lower than a standard human's.

Danny is trans and came out at a young age. Following the accident, the shock of the portal messed with his glands/hormones and he hasn't had a period since. He also hasn't grown since, with his height being stunted at around 5 foot. (In general, I like to HC that Danny takes after Maddie more in height, with Jazz getting all the tall genes from Jack.)

I like to imagine that Danny loses interest in becoming an astronaut after the accident. Existential dread + gaining the ability to explore a vast realm with many more interesting things in it will do that to a bastard.

I like to do Ghost King stuff with Danny sometimes, but I honestly prefer the idea that he just like has a claim to the throne, but in the same way that a king's 57 bastard children all would have a claim to his throne. (But the king isn't really gone anyway, so anyone with that claim is just sitting on a useless prince title while Pariah slumbers.)

I love the idea of ghost obsessions, and Danny specifically having one that is either focused around protection or helping. If the obsession is in regards to protection, I like to imagine it stems less from him thinking Sam and Tucker were in harms way when the portal went off, and more from him wishing someone would protect him/that he could protect himself.

I like to imagine that Danny (and all ghosts) won't outright fade if they fail to perform their obsession, however. I just imagine that it makes them extremely unhappy, anxious, and sickly. Danny, due to only being half-dead, has some more resilience with this too, I imagine.

I love giving Danny lasting scars, especially lichtenberg figures from the portal. I think it's particularly fun to have the scars wrap up his arm and across neck and/or face.

In addition to his scars, Danny experiences chronic pain and nerve issues in his arm associated with the accident.

I love the hc that Danny's wail is the same sort of scream he let out when he died in the portal.

In terms of orientation, I hc Danny as being asexual and then either biromantic or homoromantic, depending on what I'm feeling for the story. I both love the idea of him being biromantic, or him thinking for a long time that he had to like girls as a trans boy, before later accepting that he was gay. (I also love everlasting trio as a ship, so polyromantic is on the table too.)

Sam-focused hcs:

Sam gets a much better grip on her activism in late high school, after getting humbled a bit. This includes shifting her focus to supporting more sustainable forms of farming, rather than outright decrying the slaughter of animals. (I imagine she herself becomes a vegetarian after this, rather than a vegan.)

Sam was already on the fence about eating meat prior to the portal, but gave it up for good (and briefly became very belligerent about it), because she couldn't get the smell of the portal accident out of her nose. Cooked meat makes her feel sick for a very long time, especially pork.

I love hcs that Sam either dyes her hair and/or wears colored contacts.

Sam becomes rather liminal from being around Danny and the Zone, and retains some plant-based powers from Undergrowth. Overtime, Sam will start to develop a proto-core and have her senses altered by it.

Linked with the previous hc, I like to hc Sam as being prone to sensory overload, and this being exacerbated by an increase in her hearing following the portal.

As an adult, Sam funnels her passion for activism into journalism.

Tucker-focused hcs:

Tucker is hard-of-hearing and requires the use of hearing aids. Being reliant on technology from a young age helped kickstart his interest in it. Also, because of Tucker's disability, both Danny, Sam, Jazz, and eventually Val learn sign language to converse more easily with him.

Following the portal, Tucker is forced to modify his tech (and in particular his hearing aids) to interact more neutrally with ectoplasm.

I like to imagine that Tucker is very forceful with hitting on girls as, similar to Danny, he is fighting against some internalized homophobia. In terms of orientation, I imagine he is pansexual, with a preference for masculine individuals.

Like Sam, Tucker becomes rather liminal following the portal accident, and may develop tech-based powers. While Sam's ears are much more affected by liminality, Tucker instead experiences a dramatic shift in his vision.

Tucker might be an only child, but he comes from a very large, very supportive family that's all over various parts of the US.

Tucker has some food sensitivities, especially in regards to texture. He's definitely somewhere on the autism spectrum, alongside Danny and Jazz.

Tucker was the one to initiate friendship with both Danny and Sam. He met Danny when they were in preschool and insisted on being friends, and dragged Sam into their small group later on after meeting her in elementary-middle school when her family moved to Amity.

Tucker's eyes are brown or a dark hazel, rather than the teal they're depicted as in the show.

Val-focused hcs:

After getting ousted from her previous friend group, Valerie feels more comfortable with exploring some hobbies she previously didn't feel comfortable with around Paulina and Star. This includes video games, card collecting, and skateboarding.

Val's mother passed away when she was a very young child, and she has little to no memories of her.

Val's eyes are brown, rather than the green they're depicted as in the show.

Val becomes very liminal due to her suit-- much more liminal than both Tucker and Sam. By the time she's an adult, Val has a proto-core at the very least, and a sizeable grasp on controlling tech.

Valerie is bisexual, with a large preference for women that she doesn't explore until being ousted from her old friend group.

It isn't until college, when they've learned more about themselves and their internalized biases, that Val starts to reconnect with her old friends.

Jazz-focused hcs:

Jazz is much taller than Danny, and reaches over 6 foot tall by the time she stops growing.

Jazz is bisexual, and has known she is for a long time after helping Danny come out as trans and doing some of her own personal research.

I like to imagine that Jazz either becomes a child therapist or teacher after watching her little brother and his friends struggle in their formative years. Though I also really like the hc that Jazz, rather than Danny, becomes very interested in the technical and tinkering aspects of their parents' work.

I imagine around the end of HS that Jazz realizes she really shouldn't be psychoanalyzing and giving therapy to family and friends.

Jazz's driving is just as terrifying as Jack's, and her car is a beat-up old mess covered in dings and scratches.

Jazz likes to cook, but creates the biggest messes while doing so. In general, organized chaos is her MO.

Like Danny's friends, Jazz is rather liminal. She's less liminal than Val, though more so than Sam and Tuck, due to living directly over the portal. I imagine this comes with a heightened sense of emotion, as well as hearing.

I like to imagine that Jazz is just as, if not more nervous than Danny about him revealing his secret to their parents. To her, it feels similar to the danger of a trans kid coming out of the closet in a transphobic household, and while she'd like to believe their parents would accept Danny as a halfa, she's not willing to chance the risk while he's still dependent on them and they have not changed their tune on ghosts.

Jazz is so focused on helping Danny survive his teens that it isn't until she's like 25-30 that she really starts to unpack her own trauma.

General Amity and ghost hcs:

Amity Park is a bit colder than the surrounding region, due to the heavy presence of ghosts.

The ghosts have also altered the native wildlife. Many native species of animals have fled, or otherwise adjusted their behavior to account for ghostly neighbors. It's not uncommon to see ghostly ducks swimming alongside living ones, or feral groups of cats with some being more transparent than the rest.

Because of the Box Ghost, many residents in Amity Park start to get into the habit of unboxing their groceries as soon as possible. There's more than one spot where boxes can be left in a pile, and it's rare that they remain there for more than a day.

In general, I like to imagine that Amity really embraces the ghostliness, with some shops even taking it up as a theme. It's not uncommon to see Halloween decorations all year round, including ghosts with little Santa hats come Christmas.

Because of all of the ectoplasm in the air, technology has a habit of acting very strangely in Amity Park. Most advanced tech needs to be altered to work correctly within city limits.

Blob ghosts are very endearing, and more than one Amity Parker has one as a pet.