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English
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Part 3 of #html_cinematic_universe
Collections:
Social Media Fics, Modern Epistolary (aka Scrapbook Stories), social media and outsider pov fics, «Ajx» Characters Explores Social Media
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Published:
2022-02-12
Words:
2,746
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
354
Kudos:
3,449
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411
Hits:
105,704

do you believe in coincidences?

Summary:

What kind of person would litter instead of properly disposing of a phone?

You know you shouldn’t be looking at the contents of the phone… but… you could find the owner of this phone and then yell at them for littering! Yeah…

Or maybe they lost their phone by accident, and you’d be helping them by giving their phone back. Yeah…

You sit down on a chair by the wall, and pull out your little flip-notebook from your bag.

Time to solve the mystery of this phone’s owner.

[INTERACTIVE GAME FIC]

Notes:

Please leave creator's style on! once again, this is a fic that invites and requires reader participation to proceed!
Click the notebook to start - it might take a while to load, sorry. (try again in a few min if it "breaks" or doesnt load :c )

You won't be required to type things, but you will be doing a LOT of clicking (and scrolling). Anything that you think you can click? Click it. Tap it. hover. Try everything. (every app is scrollable! some apps have more than 1 screen, click around, be as nosy as possible, and you can always click the home button to get out)

Because of the nature of this fic, the comments and end notes will be locked until you can get to any 1 of the 3 endings.

If there's anything confusing in this fic, or bugs, PLEASE let me know.
Mobile readers: remember to scroll to check the notebook for hints, and to reach an ending.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:



yo we got a hacker here? start over

You conclude that the phone must belong to Danny Fenton. By reading the messages sent to and from him across different social media sites, it was pretty easy to get a first and last name for the phone’s owner.

All you knew about him was that he was from the Fenton family – the local scientists and ghost hunters – and he was in maybe one or two of your classes. Unlike his family, the youngest Fenton hated ghosts. Or… he was scared of them. Whenever a ghost approached, Danny Fenton was the first to disappear. Whenever a discussion about ghosts would take place, Danny might tense or talk silently.

For someone who didn’t want to associate with ghosts, he had pictures of the ghost boy in his phone. Scoured the web for Phantom related discourse on occasion.

Whoever Danny Fenton was though, he got involved in something shady recently. A craigslist order that might have gone… terribly wrong, from what you could guess. You wonder if you should call the police and submit this phone as evidence; Fenton might be in serious trouble.

“Hey, you found my phone, thanks!” a voice said from behind you.

You turn around expecting to see the scrawny Danny Fenton – maybe his craigslist order didn’t go as badly as you thought. But when you take in the white hair, the black suit, the unearthly glow, you find yourself staring at resident ghost boy Danny Phantom.

I thought it was Danny Fenton’s phone! You wanted to say. I looked inside it and made a logical conclusion based on what was found in the apps I looked at!

“Your phone?!” you said instead.

“Yes, I have a phone,” the ghost boy responded. “How else do you think I take selfies for Twitter?”

“Isn’t this… Fenton’s phone?” you managed to say. “Danny Fenton, I mean,”

The ghost boy paused.

“Why would it be his phone?” he asked, looking away.

“I maaay have looked into it,” you admit. “Not much! Just so I could find out who it belonged to, so that I could return it to them.”

Phantom was really nervous now. You wonder why.

“But there’s no way a scaredy cat like that Fenton kid would have ectoplasm stains on his phone!” Phantom said with a nervous chuckle. “That Fenton kid always runs away from ghost fights, so he’d never be anywhere near a ghost fight for this kind of spill on his personal property. If it was his personal property. Which it isn’t! Because it’s mine.”

That is true, you concede. You didn’t like to admit it, but maybe you could be wrong. You could review the notes you took down later and figure out where your deductive reasoning went wrong later, after Phantom was no longer sweating in front of you. You didn’t want to talk to the ghost indirectly responsible for your inconvenience any longer than you had to.

You handed him the phone and the ghost boy visibly relaxed.

“Seriously, thanks for finding my phone.”

“No problem,...” you said. “But wait! I think the Fenton kid got involved in some trouble! Can you help him, or something?”

Phantom looked at you confused, before the realization dawned on his face; you’ve already admitted to looking through the phone so of course you’d know about the craigslist order being shadier than usual.

“O-Oh. Uhh yeah! Actually, I was just out saving the Fenton kid, actually! And when I did that, I lost my phone! So yeah, Danny Fenton’s safe, and I got my phone back, so thanks a lot for your help, dude! Bye!”

You wanted to ask so much more, but Phantom flew away before you got a chance to say another word.

How would anyone mistake Phantom’s phone number as belonging to local billionaire Vlad Masters?

It must be related to whatever is connecting the Fenton family to Vlad Masters. And whatever’s connecting the Fenton family to Phantom.

After all, you don’t believe in coincidences.

You conclude that the phone must belong to Danny Phantom, the town's persistent ghost boy vigilante hero.

Ghost boy Danny Phantom was a constant social media presence, his online accounts boasting anywhere from hundreds to thousands of followers. Those outside Amity Park thought the “ghost gimmick” was his way of gaining more followers.

After all, the phone was last seen on several social media accounts clearly belonging to Phantom. The poor connectivity didn’t let you browse much on the phone, but what you browsed was enough to draw that conclusion. Phantom most likely “borrowed” someone’s old phone, and that could explain the presence of other apps or accounts on the phone that Phantom would have no use for.

“Hey, you found my phone, thanks!”

But instead of the ghost boy, you saw Danny Fenton; the youngest from the ghost hunting Fenton family, who are notorious for how much they hate Phantom.

Okay, so Fenton and Phantom both have the same first name and you were a little too startled at the prospect having found the ghost boy’s phone that you forgot one of the Fentons shares the same name as him and you jumped to a premature conclusion…

You're too embarrassed to admit whose phone you thought it was to the Fenton kid.

“Uhhh yeah no problem here’s your phone!”

But now that you know the phone belongs to Fenton instead of Phantom, some of the stuff on it seemed very suspicious.

“Hey, you okay, Fenton?” You asked. “Did you ever get your craigslist order? It seemed like–”

“Photoshop!” He interrupts. “My friends were messing around with photoshop and sent it by text instead of Snapchat! That’s what you saw!”

“But then what about–?”

“Hacked! My phone was hacked recently! That’s why it was harder to find than usual! Broke some apps, logged into someone else’s accounts instead of mine! But anyway thanks for finding my phone for me byyyeeee!!!”

That Fenton kid sure can run fast – probably because he has so much practice running away from ghost fights, you think.

 

“I made the dumbest mistake today,” You tell your brother when he finally came to pick you up.

“I found a lost phone and thought I could find out who it belonged to. I thought it belonged to Danny Phantom, but it belonged to Danny Fenton instead. How could I mix them up? They’re the complete opposite!”

“Oh yeah, I mix them up too, sometimes.” Your brother admits. “Fenton and Phantom.”

“Huh? How?”

“Fenton always orders the exact same, hyper specific coffee order when I’m on shift at work. Sometimes Phantom orders it, too. Since I’m not sure which one it is sometimes, I just label the coffee as an order for ‘Danny’.”

What an odd coincidence.

Maybe Fenton and Phantom were more alike than you realized… Maybe there was some clue about their connection that you might’ve found on that phone. You’ll have to go through your notes again.

After all, you don’t believe in coincidences.

This phone must belong to both Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom, you conclude, because they must be the same person.

The same ghost.

The ghost boy, masquerading as a human? And living as the Fentons’ son? It was the scandal of the ages, everyone had to know!

Sure, everyone has their own secrets – and you shouldn’t have looked into the private calculator app, maybe you shouldn’t have looked into the phone at all, but your curiosity got the best of you – this could change Amity Park as you know it.

“Hey thanks for finding my phone!”

Speak of the devil. The ghost boy, Danny Phantom himself appears behind you, barely floating a couple inches off the ground. You didn't even get a chance to send a copy of the video to yourself before he got here...

“Your phone?”

“Yeah, I lost it yesterday. Tried calling it a couple times to find it. Must be nearly dead now.”

Like I am You expect Phantom to say, but the joke never came.

Phantom truly was just a palette swap of Fenton, and you can’t believe you never noticed it before.

“Y-yeah, no problem,” you said. Regardless of his form, it was his phone.

You handed the phone back on autopilot. That’s the normal thing to do when dealing with a person who lost their phone, and just for a second, you forgot that you aren’t dealing with a person but a ghost pretending to be a person.

But you had to confirm for yourself what you saw in that phone. That it wasn’t just some fancy video editing. You have an idea. A risky idea. “I finished the chem homework by the way, I can help you if you’re stuck on it,”

“Oh sweet! I have a few questions about it! What’s your name?”

Your risky idea very much paid off.

“I’m Wes Weston,” you say.

“I’ve seen you around before, I’m Danny Fe–” The boy stares at his own outstretched arm in shock, words stuck in his mouth.

“You’re Danny Phantom,” you say, to the ghost boy’s shock. “and also Danny Fenton,”

The panic on the boy’s face was all the confirmation you needed. Maybe it felt a little good, too, causing discomfort to the ghost boy responsible for your own inconveniences.

“So this is where you hide during the day, when you aren’t fighting ghosts – in plain sight!”

You pace around.

Your intrigue at solving a mystery and being right for once overpowers any common sense you have; the common sense that would normally tell you to respect privacy or not ask questions you don’t want to know answers to.

“Did you replace the original Danny Fenton? Was there ever an original Danny Fenton? Does the original Danny Fenton still exist, angry that you’re living the life he’s supposed to be living? Who are you? What are you?”

“Shia Labeouf.”

The earlier nervousness you’d seen in the ghost boy was replaced with a shit eating grin. You hope it’s a figurative shit eating grin, and not a literal one.

“Wh-Wha–?”

“Killing for sport, Eating all the bodies, Actual Cannibal Shia Labeouf.”

You groan, recognizing the meme.

You were memed for a couple weeks for accusing pop star Ember McLain for being a ghost in disguise. Ember never publicly commented on your accusation, and she stopped making public appearances some time later, but Casper High never forgot.

Phantom dissolved into a fit of giggles, and you’re stumped how he went from nervous to nonchalant in the blink of an eye. Was it an act? Was he not taking you seriously because of your own reputation as a (hopefully) short lived meme? You might have been wrong before, but you know you aren’t wrong now.

“I know who you are!” you said over his laughter. “I know your secret and I can tell everyone! So why aren’t you taking this seriously?”

“Because no one else will.”

Phantom had stopped laughing.

“You could leak that video and anyone could claim it was just CGI effects or photoshop or whatever. Anyone could claim this phone was “hacked”. The people aren’t ready to hear anything else, no matter how much evidence you shove in their faces, Wes. I’ve tried.”

You think back to the clearly unfinished note hidden in the fake calculator app – Phantom was planning to tell people who he was, someday.

“I don’t have a copy of that video on my phone,” you told Phantom. “The one on your phone is the only copy of it. I couldn’t send it to myself.”. There was barely any signal available, and what you did see through the apps was all cached data.

You’re not sure why you told him. Was it reassurance for him that his secret was still safe? Or a challenge, that you’d try to get evidence again?

“Then this good for nothing phone was good for something after all,” Phantom says, before flying off.

“So apparently Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom are the same person,” you say to your brother after he finally came to pick you up. “And he’s hiding it from everybody! But now that I know it, I can’t believe how I missed something so obvious!”

Your brother is somewhat out of touch with current events, being engrossed with his several part time jobs during his gap year before he heads off to college. This “secret”, or whatever it was, would be safe with your brother,... and besides, you needed to vent about it.

“He’s hiding it? I thought everyone knew?”

“Knew… what?”

“That Fenton and Phantom were the same person?”

Your brother may be “out of touch” but he’s more observant than people give him credit for.

“Why do you think everyone knew that?”

“Well, a bunch of people were wearing white wigs and black suits a few weeks ago, and we were slightly overworked with the sheer number of Phantom cosplayers, we thought there was a convention or something going on. Nah, turns out it was just for some Twitter trend to cosplay as this one guy's LARP character.”

Fenton must be terrible at keeping his secret identity if both you and your brother independently came to the same conclusion – even if your brother Kyle’s conclusion was a little off.

It was almost… a coincidence.

But you don’t believe in coincidences.

You sigh as you wait to be picked up from basketball practice. Normally, you’d be practicing at Casper High’s gym, but a ghost attack destroyed it. So while it's getting renovated, your team is having practice at the park district instead.

You wouldn't have believed it a couple years ago, but ghosts are definitely real and here to stay in Amity Park. Sometimes, ghost fights – usually between resident ghost boy ‘Danny Phantom’ and some other ghost – destroy huge chunks of property, but the town has adapted surprisingly well to its new reality.

Local billionaire Vlad Masters funds all the repairs due to ghost attacks, and local ghost hunters – the Fentons – helped establish evacuation protocols and safe zones around town with ghost shields. There’s never any danger to the people anymore, but maybe teachers could be more flexible with due dates.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but the park district is far away enough that you have to wait to be picked up by your brother instead of walking home yourself. Your brother who just called to tell you he’ll be 30 minutes late because of traffic. You’re gonna be so behind on homework by the time you get back home.

Renovations should only take a couple more days, so by next practice you should be back in Casper High’s gym – unless the ghost boy somehow trashes the gym again and you and your team have to practice in the park district again, and the school administration doesn’t offer you any more leniency (than they already claim they give you for being a student athlete) because they’re just happy to get funding from the local billionaire, again.

Not every town has a local billionaire and a local scientist family, so surely something weird must be going on in town, connecting those two somehow, you think. You don’t believe in coincidences. If there was a mystery to be solved, a truth to be uncovered, you would always be on top of it.

You turn around, deciding to wait your 30 minutes inside – the rest of the team had already left or been picked up after practice – when a glint of light catches your eye. A shard of glass in the bushes? You inch a little closer and find… a cracked phone, tossed aside in a thorny bush.

You carefully weave your arm through the bush, using your gym bag to hold back some of the larger thorny branches to reach the phone. What kind of person would litter instead of properly disposing of a phone?

You carry the phone with you inside the building, when it suddenly buzzes in your hand: you’ve accidentally turned it on.

There’s no passcode.

You know you shouldn’t be looking at the contents of the phone… but… you could find the owner of this phone and then yell at them for littering!

Yeah…

Or maybe they lost their phone by accident, and you’d be helping them by giving their phone back.

Yeah…

You sit down on a chair by the wall, and pull out your little flip-notebook from your bag.

Time to solve the mystery of this phone’s owner.

 

Notes:

There are 3 endings total (2 regular endings and 1 secret ending) -- can you get them all?
Click here (or, the back button on your browser) to play again and try for any of the other endings!
While the narrative only requires you to visit any 5 apps before making you choose an ending,
there are 17 total apps you can visit and scroll through! Please check them all out!
I obviously didn't make all the html mocks for them, so here are the credits:

and also

  • images for the app shortcuts came from iconfinder and other misc icon images came from icons8
  • quite a few transparent stock images came from google -- including but not limited to kindpng, pngwing , pngjoy etc etc
  • Lunapic for quick image edits
  • good old stackoverflow for coding help

thank you to the folks on discord for testing this on devices i dont own and finding any weird bugs + the countless unnamed ppl for direct and indirect inspo (sry this is getting too long)
(join said discord if you want to scream with me about coding and html nonsense)
This was

  1. an excuse to use as many ao3 skins as possible in 1 work -- a bunch that I saw and wished I could use but hadn't yet, a bunch that I wanted to reuse/make, etc
  2. partially inspired by outsider POV stories and "Danny has been kidnapped!" oneshots from phic phight 2021
  3. an experiment in story telling, with the whole 2nd person thing
  4. an attempt to out do myself after my last html fic with something even crazier

If there are werid bugs / display issues / things that don't make sense, please let me know!
Anyway, for the morbidly curious, I have dumped all this code on github if you want to see how it was put together.
And lastly, thank YOU (yes you) for reading and making it this far!

Series this work belongs to: