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linklethehistorian · 1 month ago

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Linkle’s Fazbear Frights & Lore Insights #1: Into the Pit

[Read the general disclaimer and important notes for this series of articles here.]

[View the Masterlist of all completed articles here.]

Some Into the Pit specific notes:

I will be discussing the game version of this story to a limited degree, which as per ‘Frights Fiction’, would be a video game in the in-universe canon, based on the book by the same title, just as it is in our world. If you don’t want spoilers, stop here.

I will (mostly) be dismissing any Easter eggs throughout the game version that do not have a crucial part in the story, as per Frights Fiction these merely exist because the game was made in context of all of the various fictionalized stories born out of a desire to discredit the true canon, unless they do not conflict with the games’ canon and would genuinely bring something of value to the table in terms of discussion. There are two in particular I want to knock out of the running for very specific reasons, but discussing individual Easter Eggs is spoilers, so it will be saved for the actual discussion instead of thrown out here.

Apart from where I feel it relevant, I won’t be doing a deep-dive into the changes between the book and the game, since they are both fictional media within the FNAF universe, and thus the retcons and changes mostly have no value in the discussion of the lore or canon. If someone else wants to scream about how they got so much wrong because they feel the book was done dirty or something, I absolutely encourage you to go write your own article! But this isn’t about that.

Now with that out of the way, let’s get below the cut and get talking! This is your last spoiler warning for Into the Pit (both the book and game), so if you want to turn back, do so now.

Overall Impressions

The Book:

I mean, I liked it. I had been waiting until after I finished playing the game to read this, and it was technically my first in the series (I had seen the comic version of Fetch prior, but not read the actual proper written story), so getting used to the formatting of the books was a bit…unusual, I’ll say.

There are some things about the book that are not to my particular tastes, writing style-wise, such as the constant use of ‘said’, but thankfully, when you’re consuming it in the form of an audiobook (which I did), you can usually tune it out and not notice it as much as you would if the word was staring you in the face all the time.

As for the story itself, I really enjoyed it. Oswald is a very likable kid on the whole with sympathetic plights, his mom is cool, and his father seems like a good and surprisingly not one-dimensional character, for as little time as he’s actually physically present in the book. We get a very good feel for his family and who they are, how much they care for each other, yet are struggling because of the slow death of the town they live in and their inability to move, and no character feels out of place or unnecessary in the book.

I admittedly do feel that having Oswald immediately find his father with minimal trouble once he got to the ballpit again, the day after he was kidnapped, was a bit of an anticlimactic thing — at least, considering what I was expecting, having just come from playing and finishing the game earlier that day.

At the same time, though, the book makes phenomenally more sense than the game because of this choice, and raises far less difficult-to-answer questions, so it probably just comes down to a matter of personal preference — especially when the two are so wildly different.

I think, overall, I do like the book version the most, in terms of story, but I appreciate more what new things the game brought to the table in terms of lore relevance (which I’ll discuss in the ‘lore relevancy’ section, obviously).

They’re both good in their own ways.

The Game:

I don’t have a lot to add here in terms of characters or their personalities, since, for as many differences as the two have, a lot of this particular aspect of the story is the same as in the book. The only one that I’d say somehow feels both slightly more irrelevant and slightly also too relevant in the game version is Dylan Cooper, the bully at Oswald’s school, and the lack of inclusion of any mention of Oswald’s best friend, Ben, removes some of the feeling behind why Oswald is so frustrated with his life situation and his Dad, which I think is a bit of a shame after reading the book.

The added ability to pick up the Dad’s items and view little stories about Oswald and his family is a really nice touch that I appreciated, and Oswald thinking in one of them about how much his Mom losing her husband would devastate her was heartbreaking. As for some of the other changes, I have very mixed feelings; although I did think it was cool to have the search for Oswald’s Dad extend for a few days and give us a longer glimpse into the past in doing so, as mentioned before, it also raised many more questions in terms of why there were several additional kids that Oswald had to rescue, whether the kids in the Party Room at the beginning of the game were dead in that version because it was only strongly suggested but never fully confirmed as opposed to the book which was explicit about it, and also the actions of Spring Bonnie (or the Yellow Thing™️, as it is called in the book) throughout, which I could get into, but I feel might warrant an entire mini-article itself. (If you’re interested in that, maybe drop me an ask and I’ll write about it sometime.)

Also, all the random Easter eggs are super cool, but I feel like anyone who still somehow thinks the books and games based on them are actual 1:1 events that happened and not just in-universe books and games are going to use tons of them to go wild with theories about retcons and all sorts of stuff that is just…clearly not the case, so…meh. I’m divided.

As for gameplay, it’s good! It’s the first FNAF game to have different difficulty settings at the start of the game (except UCN), which is awesome, though I feel like quite honestly, it’s the easiest game of them all, as well. I have no difficulty whatsoever beating it on Frightening mode (the normal mode), and can barely tell the difference from Creepy (easy mode). I haven’t played the other modes yet, so I can’t comment on those, but I suspect I could easily beat the hardest one with minimal issue.

Lore Relevancy

In what is an extremely ironic turn of events, despite this story — out of all of the four I’ve listened to thus far at the time of writing this, at least — having the most blatant connection to the game’s canon lore, I honestly think that this will probably be one of the books that I have the least to say about in terms of breaking down the lore and going over it, mostly because I feel that it being so heavily tied to a specific part of the canon we know a lot about from the games just….really makes it blatantly clear which parts we definitely can’t trust.

So, most importantly, I guess let’s start with some examples of the one advantage Into the Pit has over literally every other book in the series that I’m aware of thus far: the things it tells us that we can know aren’t true.

The Lies and Half-truths

Funnily enough, the thing we know we can absolutely discard the most is any of the details of the murders that happened in 1985 — at least, in the way Into the Pit presents them.

In the book (and perhaps the game? The image isn’t clear enough to be sure), there are six victims (plus the game version adding a whole potential four others whom he tried to kill and failed thanks to Oswald), but we know for a fact that, while William had six victims total when we’re including Charlie Emily, there were only the five others at most who died during that year. So can we trust the number of victims? No.

Can we trust the method they died in, then…? Also no; in both the book and its game adaption, we are painted a scene of families and kids running and screaming in terror from a monster that was mass nabbing and killing kids, but we know for a fact, from multiple canon games both old and new, that William lured the children into the back before killing them covertly and was never actually seen doing it except in costume via cameras, and that this must have happened one by one and not all at once, contrary to what Into the Pit purports, as the order in which they died is brought up several times in the more recent canon games as being in some way worthy of mentioning, which it would not if their deaths only varied by a matter of seconds or minutes at best.

So what can we trust in and rely on about the MCI (Missing Children’s Incident) murders? Well, honestly, just that it takes place in 1985. That’s literally it. That’s all that’s definitely relevant to the canon of the main games from this story in any way, when it comes to the MCI itself.

Now, that’s not to say there’s nothing else in the story that’s of note at all, though; there’s actually a lot that I think is worth paying attention to and speculating on, it’s just that very little of it actually has to do with the crime that was committed, as most of that is, unsurprisingly, heavily played up, exaggerated, and sensationalized; after all, that’s the entire in-universe purpose of these books and games existing — to discredit and make light of the real events by turning bits and pieces of them into spooky fictional stories.

Before we get into what I think is of value, though, let’s just rule out two more things from the game version of Into the Pit that I think we need to firmly take off the table — namely, the toy airplane from the FNAF movie, and the photo taken from the Silver Eyes trilogy of Henry beside a fully mascot-costumed William, which was placed in the shadows on the wall in the hidden room where Oswald’s Dad was being held captive.

These are literally just Easter Eggs referencing alternate universe stories with no relevancy to lore.

How do I know this? It’s very easy, actually.

With the airplane, there is literally no way that this has any implications on the lore, because Garret — the one whom the plane belonged to — was not one of William’s victims within the canon of the main games; he was William’s son, who died tragically from an accident that occurred during one of Michael’s pranks, and became the catalyst for everything that William did in FNAF in the first place.

And as for the photo, we actually have an in-game, acknowledged and recognized photo picked up by Oswald and crucially used in the true ending which depicts William and Henry — both in black and white within the in-game and out-of-game trophies achieved when picking it up, and in color in the unused data — looking entirely different from how that alternate universe portrays them, with Henry maintaining his design from the official Encyclopedia, and William possessing a (as far as I am aware) mostly new and unique design of his own. There is no reason to assume we should trust something barely visible on a random wall over something that actually has plot relevance to the game itself and is required to get the true ending.

The Truths and the Likely-Truths

So, we’ve talked about the lies, but what about the story do I think does have relevance to the lore of the main canon? What do I think the story is trying — or could be trying — to tell us?

Well, first of all, as I said before, that the MCI takes place in 1985, and we have a canon William and Henry design for the main game universe through the plot-relevant photo in the game version of Into the Pit — YAY! — but I think these ones are pretty on-the-nose. I don’t think anyone really needs convincing of those facts, and, if they do, me pointing out the obvious again probably isn’t going to be the big thing that convinces them, so…moving on, let’s see what else we can glean or make note of from the story that seems like it might have some connection to a canon event or phenomenon and could be useful information to take away regarding it:

1: We can infer, looking at it from the perspective of Frights Fiction, that since these stories are being made for the people of the main FNAF universe, and the story references many IPs that exist in our own world, that these IPs also exist within the main FNAF universe.

Not really a big deal, but it’s a pretty cool little side note for those of us interested in the details of the greater world-building of FNAF.

2: We can reasonably assume that the building the MCI took place in likely looked a lot, if not exactly, like the 1985 version of building we get to visit in the game version of Into the Pit, back in its heyday. We can definitely confirm, if nothing else, that some of the posters and drawings were real, because they were in some of the canon main games, too.

3: It’s likely that this confirms that Foxy had already been temporarily retired in 1985 in preparation of making the failed Toy Foxy that became Mangle, since it’s mentioned in the Into the Pit game (I can’t recall in the book if it was the same) that he wasn’t in use and would be gone for awhile, and there’s no reason in particular to doubt that this is true, as it doesn’t conflict with any known information.

4: The way that Spring Bonnie goes unnoticed by everyone but Oswald in the story is….interesting, I’ll say; I definitely feel that the cause of this is an illusion disc and that this is Scott once again drawing us back to this concept to remind us that it exists, especially since it seems highly likely based on FNAF 4 and UCN that the Nightmare Animatronics were, in fact, the FNAF 1 animatronics effected by illusion discs. (If you’re interested, I recommend checking out GiBi’s long FNAF video here.)

Having the privilege of having listened to a few stories already at the time of writing this, I can say that this is something that is present in at least one other story so far, too, even within the very same book. Just something to note, I suppose.

5: Speaking of things that seem to keep coming up, even though there’s no point in the main games yet where I can say there’s been a clear example of this happening, I do feel that there’s definitely something going on here with the concept of someone’s will being able to shape reality to some extent, and not just in the Fazbear Frights books, either; even in the alternate universe in the Silver Eyes trilogy — which is entirely separate from Fright Fiction, as far as we know — there was an element of this, too, with Henry’s pain and sorrow, and even later his anger, over Charlie’s death having the power to essentially bring her back to life in the form of a living doll, through his own tears. I don’t know quite yet exactly what is trying to be said here, but I know there’s something being said. It’s important in some way, or it likely will be. I just don’t know how yet. I have some….theories, but I’ll get to those another time, elsewhere.

6: For those who believe in the concept that Gregory is an advanced robot of Garret a la the Silver Eyes trilogy, one of the Bad Endings in Into the Pit’s game adaption — in which Oswald appears to have been turned into an animatronic, yet retains his child form — is certainly food for thought. I don’t know how much stock we can put in it, but it is worth noting.

7. In the game version of Into the Pit, there’s also some implication that Oswald’s dad may very well have been the Freddy Bully, one of Michael’s friends, who participated in the prank that led to Garret’s death. Considering Oswald’s Dad’s unwillingness to talk about what happened in regards to Freddy’s in the book, and the fact that Help Wanted 2 strongly implies Cassie’s father is Bonnie Bully, this makes it very likely that we are now being given information in some form about Michael’s various former cohorts when he was a teenager, and how William seems to hold a grudge against all of them in some shape or form, and they frequently meet bad fates. Obviously, the events of the story couldn’t have played out as they did in the main canon, because of the numerous impossible discrepancies we’ve already discussed, but it does make me wonder if Oswald’s dad really did in some way meet a terrible fate or have a brush with William in some context, at some point in his life, or not.

8. This particular entire book — including Into the Pit, To Be Beautiful, and Count the Ways — for reasons you’ll see going forward as we review each story, definitely have a theme going on of “Feeling unlovable, unwanted, and like life is meaningless in its current state”…. This will come up eventually in a future post. I promise. Just bear it in mind for now.

9. Saving the most in-depth and (to me) most interesting for last, I…kind of want to talk a little bit about potential parallels here. After listening to several stories by now, something that’s kind of stood out to me is the idea that a lot of these books could actually have something important to say about — or, even when not exactly about, at least posses a strong and important connection to — one of the Aftons or the Emilys.

Obviously, this is going to rely a lot on personal interpretation, and I know there are going to be a lot of people who disagree with me on this, but…to me, I think Into the Pit — and actually the entire book it’s in as a whole, minus the Stitchwraith — is actually sharing insight about Michael, and his relationship with his family and with himself.

I know there are plenty of people who probably think that if anyone’s a parallel to Oswald, it’s Garret, and if anyone’s a parallel to To Be Beautiful’s Sarah, it’s Elizabeth, but I couldn’t disagree more; there’s actually very little alike between these characters at all from how we know them in the game’s canon.

I’ll get into explaining my thoughts on To Be Beautiful later when the time comes to discuss that story, but as far as Oswald and game canon Garret, they only really have three common threads, and even then, that’s only if we dig super deep into things: he’s scared of a golden animatronic, he (in the case of Garret, thinks that) saw something at the Pizzeria that was terrifying, and he has a bully that sometimes bothers him.

One of these connections, too, is also extremely surface-level: while we could at least make the argument that Garret likely thinking he saw a person being eaten by an animatronic when they were being put into a plush mascot costume and growing to fear Fredbear from it has at least some vague similarity to Oswald seeing the Yellow Thing™️ murdering kids and then fearing it, Oswald’s bully is less of an active tormentor in his life (especially in the book, which is the original version of the story), and more just a general, constant annoyance when he goes to school who has no real connection to the rest of his plight. It’s also important to note that, not only are bullies a common issue to come up for children, but in the FNAF series, so are animatronics doing scary things and killing people, and the main antagonist in the series famously is a golden one, so it’s really not like this is some big smoking gun.

Meanwhile, let’s look at the parallels between Michael and Oswald in the actual main bulk of the main plot itself, rather than random attributes:

While Oswald on the whole does clearly love and care about his family, he and one particular family member frequently get into arguments and get on each other’s nerves because they are around each other constantly. This culminates one night into him deciding to play a cruel prank on that person and scare him, only for that prank to go horribly wrong, resulting in a golden animatronic taking that family member away from him (and, I might add, also a sustained head injury by said family member).

This is already literally the plot of FNAF 4, according to both it and multiple other games, and that’s not even taking into account the more controversial stance I personally take that the main night sections of FNAF 4 are actually William testing out his illusion disc technology on Michael by attaching illusion discs to his FNAF 1 style animatronics and setting them loose in the home a la The Twisted Ones (as supported by UCN), which we can connect again to Into the Pit and Oswald, as Oswald is, after his prank which ultimately took his family member from him, henceforth tormented by a version of Spring Bonnie extremely reminiscent of the nightmare animatronics, and has to set out on a journey throughout the rest of his story to right his wrong in whatever way he can, just as Michael dedicates the rest of his life to helping his lost brother and sister and the other lost spirits (which the game adaption of the book connects to further, by having Oswald save several children throughout many nights). It is also interesting to note that the game version choosing to make Oswald’s father one of Michael’s teenage friends also adds yet another connection to Michael and the incident that I suggest Oswald’s story parallels.

And not only that, I would also like to draw attention to one specific line Michael canonically wrote in the Security Logbook, when asked to list his favorite characters from movies, books, and television who showed bravery in the face of extreme obstacles, and talk about how he can relate their heroic journeys to his current experiences, he answers, “Clara, from The Immortal and the Restless, because everything about this place is crazy, and nobody seems to notice except me.” This is a direct parallel to how Oswald is stated to feel about his Dad and his current situation numerous times throughout the book, as he is told by everyone around him that everything is normal and no, there is no giant Yellow Rabbit around and his Dad isn’t missing; that is his Dad right there, even as he sees clearly that it is not.

Okay, so…let’s say it is possible to interpret this as being an intentional parallel to the incident of the Bite of ‘83 and Michael, as I purport; what, then, could the story be trying to tell us about him? What is it trying to get people thinking about that we don’t already know?

Well, firstly, as I said, I believe that every story in this particular Frights book has a strong connection and relevancy to Michael, so I think that the blatant parallel to his situation existing in the opening tale was placed there on purpose to get your attention and get you thinking about all of it, but I do feel it’s also trying to say something about the incident, as well — about part of Michael’s motivation for escalating his pranking towards his brother to the point of the incident which accidentally caused Garret’s death, and a potential glimpse into his general state of mind at the time.

In the book, Oswald had been growing increasingly frustrated with his home situation in general — feeling bored, entirely ignored and abandoned and displaced, and that his father had essentially chosen their entire town and Oswald’s grandma over Oswald himself — when his now-long distance best friend contacted him to coincidentally tell him by contrast how well his own life was going. This led to Oswald and his father getting into a fight in the car on the way to Jeff’s pizza about how much the boy’s life sucked and implying how little he felt his Dad cared about him and his well-being by comparison to everyone else, and once Oswald had been dropped off, this argument was the final straw in making him decide that he was going to actually act out in order to force his father to finally, truly acknowledge, put effort in, and show care for him, by hiding in the ballpit and making his dad worry about where he was.

By figuring out what the obvious parallels are here between Michael and Oswald, I feel that we can get a fairly clear and easy picture of what it would say about Michael:

Even if for something of opposite reasons, William and Oswald’s father both would have been very busy with their jobs — with Oswald’s Dad doing it because of their family’s financial troubles, and William doing it because…well, he was a co-owner and crucial worker and performer at a highly successful, award-winning, up-and-coming restaurant and that sort of job is just naturally demanding.

Combine this with the fact that it’s very clear based on the main games’ canonical lore that Michael was the least favored child of the Aftons in at least Williams’ eyes (no, the Silver Eyes’ lore does not count, as that is an alternate universe story, and, as I will later get into in the post about To Be Beautiful, Elizabeth being ‘unloved’ and/or borderline abused was very clearly not something that carries over from that universe into the games’ lore), and that the (accurately translated) UCN cutscenes very clearly imply that just as Michael turned a blind eye to how serious Garret’s suffering was despite how good he seemed to have it, Garret also didn’t pay enough attention to realize that Michael was suffering in his own way as well, and they thus both took out their frustration on each other in their own ways, and it becomes very clear that Michael’s feelings about his own Dad were likely the very same that Oswald felt about his.

From Oswald’s perspective, his Dad cared more about the town and the inconvenience his grandma would face at having to travel to the next town to visit if they moved than he cared about Oswald and how their current lifestyle was causing him to suffer.

From Michael’s perspective, his Dad cared more about his business (and the town by proxy, as they were the ones bringing in his success) and paying attention to and doting on his other two children than he cared about Michael and how forgotten and sidelined he felt as the oldest sibling.

And just like Oswald had a friend, Ben, from whom he heard about Ben’s obviously ‘better’ life and parents, and whom he complained to about his own, Michael very clearly also had several friends to tell him about their potentially ‘better’ lives and more attentive parents, and whom he likely told about his troubles and how his younger siblings stole the spotlight from him, with Garret being the ‘worst’ culprit of them all, as not only did he prank him back and they got on each other’s nerves from time to time, but he was also William’s ‘favorite’ Afton child.

Putting two and two together, then, it’s fairly clear that the conclusion we come to is, while the two boys did prank each other and annoy each other already, each turning a blind eye to the other’s suffering, it was Michael’s feelings of being the unloved and forgotten child of the family that caused him to start acting out further, believing — like Oswald — that the only way to make his Dad remember he existed was by being a troublemaker (an “any attention is good attention” mindset) until William was finally forced to take notice of him.

That is what, at least according to my own understanding of the novel, I personally believe Into the Pit is trying to say, at least on a deeper level beyond the surface level non-conflicting information, like the year the MCI took place.

Taking it a step further with the William = Oswald’s Dad parallel, we could even say that in a way, Oswald’s Dad preferring in the book to refuse to acknowledge that their dead town was a lost cause and pack up and move on with his family is also a quite interesting and fitting metaphor to William’s later refusal to accept Garret’s death and move forward by focusing on the family and children that he still had left…

However, I believe I myself have said all that I wanted to say on the story by now, so I will just leave you with all of these thoughts to ponder on your own time.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you look forward to the next installment, which will be To Be Beautiful. :) I’m not sure when I will get to it just yet, as I’m currently not at home and don’t want to push myself too hard when I have many other projects on which I’d like to get a little work done, but I’m sure it won’t be so terribly long.

Until then, take care, and I love you all. 💕

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gothamite-rambler · 8 days ago

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Jason has not washed his jacket in a few months due to his hectic schedule… Roy wears a trucker hat.

Roy: I’m not getting in the car until he burns that jacket.

Jason (shrugging): I won’t wear the jacket if you don’t wear your hat.

Harley and Artemis groaned, Artemis visibly aggravated that this argument was happening again.

Roy (raising an eyebrow): What? What’s wrong with my hat?

Jason: You say my jacket stinks, so I argue that your hat stinks and makes you look like a trucker from the South.

Roy (incensed): It does not!

Jason (smugly): Correction, an inbred trucker from the South.

Jason turned away, crossing his arms.

Artemis (rubbing her forehead in frustration): Just take off the stupid hat so we don't have to drive with the windows open again.

Roy: My hat doesn’t make me look like an inbred trucker! It's not my fault he hasn't washed his awful jacket in months!

Jason (scratching his head): It's not my fault you idolize Ashton Kutcher.

Roy (enraged): Take that back, you son of a bitch!

Harley stepped in, pushing a red-faced Roy back.

Harley: Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t sling those types of insults around.

Jason: I’ll stop as soon as he tosses his hat in the trunk of my car. Until then, Florida Man and I will be staying right here.

Roy (insulted, raising his voice): FLORIDA MAN!

Harley: Roy, he doesn't mean that as an insult… right, Jason?

Jason looked at his phone, refusing to leave or admit defeat.

Roy: My hat doesn't make me look inbred, like Ashton Kutcher or Florida Man! You look like a… prostitute boy!

Jason's jaw clenched at the strange but surprisingly hurtful insult, while Harley nervously nibbled her fingernail. Artemis simply nodded at Harley, silently confirming that yes, the argument over a hat and a coat had happened before.

Artemis (whispering as she shook her head): This argument started because Jason can't go to the cleaners.

Harley stepped in front of an enraged Jason.

Harley: All right, all right, nothing said here is true. We've all had a tough day; let’s just—

Jason shoved Harley out of the way and stepped closer to Roy.

Jason: Stinky hat!

Roy: It doesn’t smell like someone sprayed air freshener and cheap body spray on it! So take the jacket off and toss it in the trunk!

Jason: Oh yeah? Your stupid hat smells like cheap hairspray and gel. Stinky hat!

Roy: A bodysuit and a worn, awful-smelling jacket don’t make you look tough!

Jason: Oh yeah? Well, a stinky, stupid hat doesn't help you shoot arrows well! It actually hinders it!

Roy (loudly): Your jacket had maggots in it once!

Jason (even louder): Your hat stinks!

Roy: Brown, cheap leather jackets stopped being cool in the 2000s!

Jason: Your hat is still stupid, and it was never popular.

Artemis let out an exhausted sigh, placing her hands on her hips.

Artemis: Oh my gods.

Jason: I’m not taking off my jacket until he admits the hat has always looked dumb.

Roy: Your jacket looks like you stole it from a homeless man!

Jason: Stupid hat!

Roy: Your coat smells like a dead man!

Jason: Oh yeah? Well, you have a stupid hat!

Jason and Roy continued to argue, while Artemis and Harley glanced back and forth between the two, watching them shout over one another. Finally, Harley jumped in between them.

Harley: Stop it! The both of ya's! Six feet away from each other!

Jason and Roy begrudgingly moved apart. Jason lay back on the ground, gazing up at the sun while Roy sat down on the dirt, a short distance away.

Artemis (checking the time on her phone): Oh my Zeus, we have to leave! We’ve been here for ten minutes, and Bizarro is already in the car!

Harley (mumbling): I’m starting to get why he went to the car now.

Meanwhile, Bizarro sat in the car, listening to opera and observing the scene unfold through the closed window.

Bizarro: They are not arguing about the coat versus the hat again? Geniuses.

Artemis: We’re never going to get to the forest! Just put both items in the trunk, and we’ll wash them later.

Jason: Not until he admits that trucker hats are dumb and fell out of style after Ashton Kutcher left Punk’d!

Roy: Screw you, jerk!

Artemis (sarcastically): Right, glad you guys are acting like adults about this. Harley, do you have any suggestions?

Harley: Well, clearly, this requires a mediator. Which is me. I’ll be right back with something that can fix this.

She strode off, determined to put an end to the absurd standoff.

Twenty minutes later, Artemis drove Jason's car down the road while Roy and Jason rested their heads on each other’s shoulders, fast asleep after Harley had done the meditative deed and knocked them unconscious, tossing the items that had sparked the fight into the trunk. Bizarro sat in the back with them, chuckling at the sight of the two men, finally at peace instead of arguing, before turning his gaze back to the window.

Harley (sheepishly): They won't be mad at me for knocking them out, will they?

Artemis (chuckling): No, we've all had to do it to each other. That just makes you an official outlaw.

Harley nodded with a smile.

Bizarro: Starfire said they were easier to handle; we just got unlucky.

Harley: Right, opposite talk! We did, Biz.

Artemis (genuinely): Harley, I think you're going to make a valuable asset to our team.

Harley: Thanks, girl.

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