id love to see your AU's take on that episode where he separated his ghost half from his living half.

omg so i rewatched the episode in order to refresh myself. honestly, one of the best episodes of the show. wouldn’t change much (other than update it with modern sensibilities, DP hasn’t aged gracefully. As well consider how modern cartoons handle long-form story)

I’ve talked about this in other posts but to boil down what my AU’s Danny’s Halfa science: basically he’s a fusion of infinite timelines that covers the 1 hour of the incident. You can sort it into 2 camps of infinity: one timeline where the portal accident happened and one where it didn’t.

So Danny thinks he’s gained super powers from the portal and that he’s “a human with ghost abilities” and not a Real Ghost.

In reality, he’s infinite versions of himself merged into one, who can shift into different “states” of those timeline selves. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the simplest I can make what Danny is. In my AU it’s referred to as “The Halfa Paradox” which honestly? a banger. i’m proud of that one.

Anyway the Fenton Ghost Catcher.

Since Danny isn’t a human with Ghost DNA like he is in the show (and you could speculate all day on the true nature of whatever that means) I’m just going to focus on my AU’s logic. Danny has ectoplasm in him, but it’s fused into him by a time-stream that’s fused together like glue. The catcher can’t remove it without completely hitting the Halfa Paradox like a truck.

As you could guess, this has some Mixed Results.

To be clear: Halfa!Danny is one person. While the fusion’s initial results are drastically different (literally life and death) it’s only the course of one hour. the separate timelines that make up Danny are joined together and don’t exist elsewhere… Danny is still just Danny. He’s not an amalgamation of different voices and memories (aside from that one hour).

To split him into two, what you’re really doing is splitting infinity into two different infinities and merging them into two people. Both of these two people still are functionally the same person with the same memories and personalities… is what I would say, if this was a clean break. I’m keeping the personality split that the show did. It’s silly and when taken seriously, very thought provoking!

Fun Danny has the body of a Danny who never went into the portal, so no scars. Danny’s personality is scrambled and, like how ghosts are defined by their perception and emotions, Danny’s personality is changed to fit to how he views his “human half.”

The danny pre-accident was aspiring to be an astronaut. A child prodigy just like the rest of his family. then Danny had to wrangle ghosts in secret and his grades plummeted like my mental health in 2020.

Danny is told “you’re a slacker. you’re rude, you’re a bad kid.” He’s internalized that so severely, that’s who he’s become.

Likewise, Phantom has the ghost body of a Danny who did die. Both halves don’t understand the situation and Danny’s kinda having this crisis “oh god now i really AM a full ghost.” (To visibly represent this, Phantom has a bigger scar while Fenton has none.)

The body itself doesn’t have the “split” form that my AU’s Danny has, so no black/white marks over the suit. Like in the show, Danny grabs a white sheet to be his cape -except now, he takes the time to sew a “D/P” symbol onto the suit. Cause he’s a dork.

His hair has stayed the same length as his time of death, while Fenton’s has grown out. A subtle way of showing Danny hasn’t aged as ghost.

The dynamic of the two Dannys reflect the internalized split between Danny’s alter egos.

^ probably paraphrased, but that’s an actual back and forth from the episode! Phantom in the show quickly reasons “Okay, then we fuse back!” and then overshadows Fenton -not realizing it’s overshadowing and not fusing. That’d probably still happen here but I ain’t drawing all of that.

Anyway, assuming I ever get around to making my AU a fic, I’d imagine my writing style would be different from “one story within one episode” format the show had. So i won’t go TOO into this as this would defs be on my list of episodes I’d cover.

If this was “what if Sam got in charge of a full reboot” I’d make this a story arc that lasted a few episodes at the very least, cause there’s a lot you can explore with this situation!

I don’t support underage drinking/smoking so that most defs DOES NOT happen, but don’t tell me Fun Danny wouldn’t attempt to. Kyle is 18 and is a stoner so he can smoke all he wants tho.

Happy 4/20.

Anyway, GOD imagine if Kyle and Wes were in the show for real in this ep. that’d be so funny. Fun Danny and Kyle are so similar -Danny wants nothing to do with ghost hunting and Kyle doesn’t believe in ghosts. Perfect match for friendship.

Jazz is already thinking she’s losing her mind in the canon episode so imagine WES’ breakdown. poor guy, but hey. A Jazz and Wes team up would be funny as hell so I’m down for it.

They’re all dumbass teenagers. Sam’s activism is very performative and guilt-trippy -at this point they’re 15. and tucker is still a twitch streamer -who’s lack of updates has scaled back his follower base. This would make for two fun subplots where Danny enables each of his friend’s goals -abusing his responsibilities and obsessing over each activity in an unhealthy degree. (because what else is he going to do? school work? hell no.)