This comic ia a companion piece for @the-fenton-anticreep-stick 's genius fanfic:
Hold My Dying Breath
Also check out this amazing art that @mysteryhat21art made for this fanfic!
All the love and hugs to @invisobang and their beautiful mods for making this event possible. This is my second time participating and i can honestly say that IB has grown to be my favorite event in the phandom. I've met so many inspiring and amazing people because of IB and I will continue to participate for many years to come.
When a true baby ghost is born— a ghost not born of dying, but rather through the desire of another ghost— they are little more than a core with wispy ectoplasm emanating from them for about a month. During said month, they take on influence from their surroundings in order to figure out the form they’ll take, hence why so many young ghosts look like their parents.
Because they aren’t fully formed until a month after their birth, the parent or parents will take on a far more aggressive, primal form in order to protect their child. The parent’s form will become incredibly monstrous, and their size will increase, with triple their normal size being most common among parents. Their mental state also becomes incredibly instinctual, higher intelligence temporarily being replaced by aggression towards anyone the ghost doesn’t consider family. They stay in this state until the baby is fully formed.
Of course, Danny “don’t worry about it” Phantom forgets to add this bit of trivia to his explanation to his fellow heroes as to why he was taking paternity leave. In his defense, he didn’t expect them to visit during that month.
And he definitely didn’t expect his brooding brain to latch onto most everyone who visited as “part of his brood.”
the fact that there was a perfectly gossipable and inappropriate closeness between WWX and JYL, peppered with WWX causing the break of her betrothal and WWX beating up her ex-fiance, culminating in WWX killing her husband and JYL shielding him with her body...
and the actual gossip in the Jianghu at the time of WWX's death was that JC had been the naive childhood sweetheart too gone on WWX.
the gorgug-porter conversation is interesting to me because like. yea for the overwhelming majority of the conversation porter’s being shitty & trying to fit gorgug into a box that gorgug just does not fit into by trying to make gorgug’s relationship with his rage more focused on the aggression aspect of it. but then there’s also this specific thing that brennan brought up again in the ap, which is that gorgug’s relationship with his rage is wholly “this is a tool i use to protect my friends.” which isn’t a bad thing! but that’s his Whole relationship with it, & gorgug seems to place next to no value on his rage in relationship to himself. which is problematic, because it’s first & foremost his rage.
being raised in a household with a sort of toxic positivity largely meant that, whether or not it was his parents’ intention, gorgug internalized the message that more traditionally “negative” emotions such as anger are the wrong response to something. part of the reason he prioritizes his artificing is probably because it’s “fixing” things. in comparison to being a barbarian, which gorgug associates with “breaking” things. good vs. bad behavior, in his eyes.
it’s a totally unacceptable bar to measure a 16 y/o by, but i do think part of porter’s reasoning for not letting gorgug multiclass is him recognizing that gorgug generally does not value anger as a valid emotional response to something, at the very least for himself. & that directly conflicts with what being a barbarian is, because whether you like it or not, that rage is what fuels you. but again, barring a kid from pursuing something they deeply care about in part (not entirely, porter has a lot of more bullshit reasons) because of their fundamental values & world outlook is crazy.
so yes, 98% of porter’s reasoning is pretty shitty, immature, rife with a toxic view that there’s only one proper way to access rage, & generally not a good thing to do as a teacher, but also within that reasoning is the 2% of ‘there is a fundamental part of yourself that you only value if you can use it to take care of other people & you need to accept that as something that can take care of you, too.’ but that’s something to discuss with a therapist or a guidance counselor, not something that should hugely impact gorgug’s academic future.
I think people forget that Nine actually offered Mickey a travel in the TARDIS and that Ten was the one who was reluctant to bring him along. Like, despite Nine calling Mickey "Rickey" and an "idiot" and everything, he not only offered Mickey a shot travelling but also covered up for Mickey and was willing to look like an ass so that Mickey could still look alright to Rose. Nine wasn't always great at showing that he cared about humans other than Rose, the one-episode characters, and occasionally Jack but he DID.
(Also this is why I think that despite the fact that Mickey was jealous of the Doctor, especially early on, he came the moment Rose called in Boom Town and was down to hang out with the TARDIS team, help saved the day, and honestly felt like an extension of the poly vibes that Nine, Rose, and Jack had, fitting in rather easily if always a bit uncertain of his place/still prone to jealousy sometimes. Also why he helped Rose get back to the Doctor in the Parting of the Ways. Because he could tell that Nine DID care. It's only when Ten comes along that things get rocky again.)
honestly one of my wishes for Rebirth is that Barret's date is taken a bit more seriously
like i know the scene in the OG is very funny and iconic with Cloud going "hoo boy" and all that but i wish they'd take this opportunity to open up to each other a little. i hope they have a more meaningful/mature conversation this time around even if they still add the comedy bit