Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom.
Fair Warning: I haven't really written anything in at least 4 years, I haven't updated anything in 7 years, so please don't expect a masterpiece.
I'm still kind of deciding who I want this story to be about. Either gonna be a love story for Dani and Sam or Jazz and Thrash (from Master's Blaster's). I think it would fit with a few details of each, but I haven't made up my mind yet. If you have an opinion, please share. This first chapter is just about Jazz, or Dani based on whose story I end up going with.
It was my first week of college. At 18 years old, I decided to move almost 1000 miles away from my family to come to college because I needed to be independent, I needed to be my own person, and I just kind of thought it would be fun. We'll just have to see how that goes, though.
In addition to the class I was taking for my major, I took a handful of general education classes- English, Gym, History, French, and Math. I'd be taking a Geology class next semester instead of my language credit, but that was all I could fit on my plate according to 'campus policy.'
I'd always been a fan of tradition, so of course, I chose a school that has a rich history of tradition, from our big homecoming bonfire to our football traditions. I just thought they'd be fun. In fact, we used to have a tradition where Freshmen used to wear a specific baseball hat every day until Homecoming. That tradition ended in the late 80s, but I liked it, so I decided I was gonna do it.
I was never great at making friends, but I have a couple of people I'm casually friendly within my classes. They supported that I'd been sticking with the tradition, so I appreciated them even though I wasn't sure I would ever talk to them if it weren't for a class.
On my first Thursday of the school year, I walked into the English classroom on the third floor where I was immediately greeted by my class friend Liz. I took a seat next to her.
"Have you heard of this app, YikYak," she asked me while I grabbed a textbook from my backpack.
"Yeah, I heard of it a few times, but I haven't downloaded it." My roommate had it downloaded and mentioned it in passing. It's some anonymous app where people could just post about whatever without it really coming back to them. I never saw a huge reason for it when there are others that serve about the same purpose. I could tell that there was more to the conversation, but she didn't seem sure about how to go on. "What's going on with it?"
"Well, I was scrolling through this morning and I saw you on it." She grabbed her phone out of her bag and opened the app to a picture of me in the dress I was wearing walking across campus in my hat. The caption was about as mocking as I expected it to be; 'What kind of loser would wear their slime cap on campus?'
I didn't want it to hurt, but it did. I was so embarrassed, but I didn't want to be. I wanted to keep sticking with the tradition. I was never good at standing up for myself or doing something after getting backlash, I wasn't good at it in Middle School, in Junior High, in High School, and I'm apparently not good at it in College.
"Oh well," I told Liz, trying to be nonchalant even though I was dying on the inside. "Maybe I'll get the app later and see what's up."
My phone was already in my other hand, typing the name into the search bar of the app store. I was We had about 2 minutes before class, so Liz and I kept talking while 'Trey' set up for the lesson. I don't care what he said, I was not okay with calling my college professor by his first name.
Every few minutes for the duration of the class, my mind would circle back to the picture. I hated the caption, even more, I hated the picture. I just feel like I looked awful even though it was a picture taken across a courtyard, zoomed in on a phone camera.
After 75 grueling minutes, the class ended and it was time for me to go back to my dorm for the day. I grabbed a drink on my way back but basically made a bee-line for my dorm, getting back to the safety of the room as fast as I could. I opened the app and tried to find the picture again, desperate to see what others were saying about me.
'What's wrong with you? She's just having fun'
'Are those things still around?'
'Shut up, she's actually super nice' I was pretty sure that was Liz. I kept scrolling. Some comments were defending me, some weren't. Not a lot that I can do about it at this point. I didn't want to comment and get involved in this stuff.
'Eww…' That was the comment that broke me. I couldn't just keep wearing the hat even though I thought it would be fun. I looked back at the picture again, searing it into my brain. I hated the way that I looked. I hated everything about the picture. It made me sad to look at. I hated how much I weighed, how thick my arm was in the profile shot. I started to dread my decision to come to school here, to wear anything without sleeves, to wear this stupid hat.
My roommate came back later and told me about the post. I thanked her for letting me know, but let her know that one of my classmates told me about the post earlier.
A few weeks later, I started dating someone that I met online. He didn't seem like he had seen the post about me on the app, so I didn't feel constantly embarrassed about it. I wasn't happy with myself during most of that relationship. I ended up only really eating one meal a day for about the next 7 months. I lost about 30 pounds in a month and a half from not being willing to leave my dorm to go get food. When I started to feel more okay about leaving my dorm, I also started to go to the school's gym regularly because I was not losing weight at a constant rate anymore. By Christmas, all of the clothes I got before coming to school were about 2 sizes too big for me.
I posted about my weight loss on YikYak and got a lot of support from strangers which was nice. It was strangely validating to me.
In addition to my roommate and my boyfriend, I had one more friend outside of classes, Mike. He was the only person I would regularly go and hang out with off-campus. He had friends who he would hang out with and I was normally invited to go with them. We passed a restaurant one day called 'Wise Guys' which was a Chicago themed place. I thought it was interesting, so I asked if we could go. We went and it wasn't remarkable, but it was a taste of the Midwest which was sometimes just familiar enough for me to bother getting out of bed for.
The cashier mentioned that they were going to start offering karaoke there and I thought it was awesome until I learned that it was a last-ditch effort to draw in business before they had to shut their doors. They ended up closing a few weeks later, while I was back with my family for Spring Break. By the time, I got back to school, YikYak had required everyone to choose a 'handle' that could be turned on or off for different posts. I went with my regular Instagram handle because I didn't plan to use the handle very often.
My boyfriend suggested I change it because it wasn't safe to attach an account I actually use with this anonymous app. He was right, so I changed it to ILoveYou7. As I expected, I almost never turned on my handle. Not a big deal, didn't end up changing my life at the time.
I started to see a few handles that would post pretty often, NotUniPD, ActualBulbasaur, FullMetalPuppet, TheOwl, MidnightPieGuy, and Million$Loan. I posted a Pi Day post on March 14 and PieGuy responded. That was the first time I ever actually got 'noticed' by one of them.
Let me know if you think the story should be about Dani and Sam or Jazz and Thrash. There's a reason I decided to go with the Danny Phantom Universe, but I'm having some trouble with the decision. Or if you guys can think of other ships, let me know. I think these would make the most sense based on where the story is going, but I'm open to other suggestions.