#I WILL be back with my metas though and that's a threat

[randomfoggytiger]

Mulder's Alien Baby Baby Trauma (Part XXIV): "There Has to Be an End"

This part of Essence and Existence is, quite frankly, exhausting, illogical, and lopsided. To solve existing problems, the characters make the worst possible choices without properly addressing or explaining other more reasonable alternatives. Further, the one justification these choices could have had-- Mulder in a state of panic brought on by a flair of fight-or-flight PTSD-- is not only underutilized but shamefully forgotten.

However: this meta is not focusing on the demerits of Season 8's finale; instead, we shall follow the thread of Mulder's choices, their outcomes, and their (too late) retraction. Even though this two-parter bungles its arc and its characters, it also attempts to course-correct its flaws (which is even more frustrating, since the corrective measures are not only in-character but should have been planned and executed from the start.)

A (SINGULAR) HELPING HAND

Scully's car won't budge-- more accurately, it can't: Billy Miles (we are left to assume) has blocked its exit by shoving two cars close to its front and bumper. Mulder and Scully begin to silently panic as he bashes the car backward, forward, and backward again.

"Mulder, lock your door," she says, jamming her fingers down in an automatic motion.

His "I don't think that matters much, Scully" assertion is immediately proven correct: Billy Miles appears from the building, laser-focused on his targets.

They remain like sitting ducks: Scully clinging to the false illusion of safety (i.e. the locked car), Mulder frozen in place as the threat advances (a combination of rational motives-- unable to move his partner quickly to safety-- and irrational reactions-- his freeze response, post here.)

And then Krycek appears, running Billy Miles over with his car and rolling down his window with theatrical aplomb. "We haven't got much time-- get in," he announces; "Let's go!" he repeats when both agents stare back in stunned stupor.

Seeing their pursuer begin to rise from the asphalt, Mulder and Scully flee, she vaulting over the dividing panel in her eager scramble to safety and he steering her from his door to Krycek's backseat.

All three are shut in the escape vehicle and peeling away into the night before Billy-Miles-That-Was stands to his full, posturing height.

THE DESOLATION OF INTELLIGENT LIFE

The next scene is a cornerstone in the insane reasoning (or lack thereof) that guides the rest of the two-parter: Mulder entertaining Krycek's rambling about aliens and God in an effort to find the truth, Mulder and Scully splitting up, Scully willingly driving off with Agent Reyes to hole up in the middle of nowhere.

There's a logical explanation that could have explained most of, though not all, of Mulder's and Scully's and Skinner's and Doggett's decisions and actions: discouragement. We see the signs plainly-- Scully slumping in a chair at the FBI, Scully ripping off the band aid no one wants to touch ("They want my baby-- why?"), Mulder switching into easy belief rather than analytical denial, Skinner pulling the trigger on Krycek, Doggett losing trust in his friends at the Bureau, and other, littler signs. Near hopelessness, grasping at any opportunity to set the world right and make it make sense.

Because the writers don't flesh out those reasons, the goal for each character is lost in a sludge of narrow-minded unfeasibility; and, ultimately, it doesn't matter which particular argument moved the needle or not because Existence erases all of it by killing off Krycek and revealing the baby is a normal miracle and giving Mulder and Scully a happy ending.

Mulder listens to Krycek's grand and glorious surmisings of the aliens' beliefs in the baby, and their fear of its larger meaning-- a sign of God, a miraculous existence, an impossible happening any which way you slice it. He, like his partner, is discouraged: Mulder came back from the dead, resigned from the files, and did his best to move forward; but his efforts weren't enough, not for those who will endlessly take and take and take. And in this sense of defeat, he makes two self-destructive choices: Scully and the baby need to disappear for the birth, and he must be as far away (and ignorant) as possible to not pose a threat to their welfare.

Mulder, in short, knows the Conspiracy-That-Be keeps close tabs on them both; and lopsidedly leaps to the conclusion that he can stay behind-- a distraction--- while Scully sneaks ahead with her life, safe. (The truth is, he needs to move forward with her, a lesson he finally learns at the climax of this episode.)

"Agent Doggett. Get on the phone," he commands, sharp and succinct above everyone's temper. 'If we're going to get Scully out of here we're going to need some help."

And everyone, without a better idea, follows his plan.

Yes, it's a stupid strategy. That aside, why did Mulder decide it was safer for he and Scully to be separated instead of disappearing together?

Although Canon never clearly answers the question, Existence fleetingly touches on a clue: Mulder turns on Doggett when the latter speculates if all the secrecy is worth it ("I'm beginning to think that the fact that I know is going to catch up with me if AD Skinner's any indication.") Snapping ferociously-- panicked-- he demands, "You don't tell anybody where she is. That's the deal, right? Not even me." This leads us to infer two important narrative details:

Mulder not only created a ruse for his partner to escape, but he also considers himself a liability to Scully's safety, unwilling to definitively believe that he won't give up her location if caught or interrogated. That is a startling thought: that Mulder, a man who would rather sacrifice himself than harm his partner, is now denying himself out of that same sacrificial nature in an effort to protect her. That is a new development; that is a juicy insight; that is never touched on ever again.

Mulder placed greater faith in Doggett's circumspection than his own instincts. Perhaps he believed Doggett had greater protection because of his friends inside the FBI; perhaps he believed in Doggett's capabilities after testing them in Vienen and Alone and Essence one-on-on (posts here and here.) Or perhaps it's a lesser of two evils: that Doggett would be a better bet than himself. That, again, is significant; and that, again, is never developed.

These inferences point to characterological changes, ones still in line with his old tendencies-- new branches grafted onto recent bark scars. They inform Mulder's actions in every episode after Deadalive; and materialize unavoidably in Essence and Existence. They are crucial to understanding why he made these idiotic choices-- offshoots of his trauma and reactionary gambles-- but are only examined minutely in the first part and mentioned once in the second.

Doggett and Reyes call up from the ground level: Billy Miles is on his way up-- time for a quick reroute. Thinking on his feet, Mulder decides to enact his role as a distraction... by shoving his pregnant, very wanted partner right into the hands of his sworn nemesis.

The ridiculousness of this scenario isn't just that Mulder shoved his pregnant partner over to Alex Krycek: the group let the latter into their plans; then iced him out from the elevator; then came back and redirected Scully towards him, needing help. They lucked out: if Krycek had had an ace up his sleeve, Scully and her baby would have been handed over to the enemy in three seconds flat.

As a side note: Is it out of the realm of possibility that Mulder and Scully and Skinner and Doggett would trust Krycek in this situation? Perhaps not; and it worked out in this case (to a degree.) But it was a risky maneuver that Mulder wouldn't have committed unless under extreme circumstances, and Scully wouldn't have agreed to unless in the direst of straights-- this was neither. There were many other options he (and Scully) could have resorted to: most obviously, it would be in Mulder's best interest to ferry his partner around, since he knows the FBI's layout more thoroughly than Alex Krycek (theoretically) and would be able to slip away with his partner and Monica Reyes had the chance arisen. And while this plan is one he'd already decided against, it would have been part of his inherent nature to escort her as far as he could, regardless, rather than hand his family over to the backstabber that got both X-Files investigators abducted. This action was not justified; and was corrected extremely late, and to little effect. Poor writing all around.

A drawn out chase scene later, Scully and Reyes escape; and Mulder watches them leave with turmoil in his eyes: relief at the plan's success, anguish at not being able to go with his partner.

MULDER'S JOURNEY FROM REQUIEM

Mulder and Doggett have a pivotal exchange while purity testing the latter's source-- one that is lost amidst the wash of bad writing and bad actions scenes. Which is a shame, as it ties in not only Mulder's long-held beliefs about the Conspiracy and his place in it, but his loss on how to break free.

Doggett, not seeing the difference between an entirely truthful or an untrustworthy informant (in the greater scheme of things) barks out, "What difference does it really make?"-- and Mulder points out, "It doesn't make any difference at all. Unless you want to protect Scully and that baby."

"And then what?" Doggett asks, cutting to the heart of the matter-- the heart of Mulder's journey post-Deadalive. In fact, the heart of Mulder's journey since he and Scully trekked back to Bellefleur: "How long can you keep this up? How long until the next Billy Miles rears his head? The next threat? The next phantom? You ever stop to ask yourself?"

Mulder shifts uncomfortably as the other man continues.

"All the sacrifice, the blood spilled-- you've given nearly a decade of your life. Where is it all going to end?"

There's a longer than usual pause before Mulder softly admits, "I don't know. Maybe it doesn't."

I've gone back and forth on the motel conversation in Requiem (post here)-- its purpose, Mulder's meaning, Scully's response-- but Existence, at least, illuminates what the writers (namely, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz) meant.

In Requiem, Mulder has been ruminating on Scully's happiness while holding Teresa Hoese's baby when she joins him-- sick and a tad fearful. Both of them connect her abductee status with the Bellefleur case; but only one of them-- Mulder-- is willing to discuss the possibility out loud.

"It's not worth it, Scully," he begins, elaborating his thoughts quietly. "I've been thinking about it. Looking at you tonight, holding that baby... knowing everything that's been taken away from you. A chance for motherhood and your health and that baby. I think that... I don't know, maybe they're right. The FBI. Maybe what they say is true, though for all the wrong reasons. It's the personal costs that are too high. There is so much more you need to do with your life. There's so much more than this. There has to be an end, Scully."

Of note: Mulder concluded his monologue about her losses with "you need to do with your life"-- meaning, Scully needs to break away.

Does that eliminate the possibility that he was planning to step back, too? No-- but the contemplation of his own departure from the files was not as clear-sighted as Scully's. While Mulder was still lost in the realm of theory then, we've seen him use similar, one-sided logic before: in Fight the Future, he "needs" her on this but later tells her to "go be a doctor"; in Amor Fati, he leaves Scully for her own "good" and martyrs himself to a life locked inside his head. Again, that thought process is brought back in Requiem; and Existence pauses for an all-too-brief second to flesh out this reoccurring mindset:

Mulder either hasn't considered walking away from the files, truly, as Doggett posits here; or

Mulder has considered it but sees no way out ("I don't know. Maybe it doesn't.")

Scully can escape-- "Go be a doctor," he insisted in Fight the Future's close; "There has to be an end," he intones in Requiem-- but Mulder believes he cannot. It's no longer a self-sacrificial pursuit (an ugly reality he confronted and overcame in Amor Fati), but it's still no less a chain his parents forged with the Conspiracy through their complicit silence. A chain passed down to the next generation; and one he must break for his own family to live in peace.

(Sidenote: I checked the script-- post here-- and it, too, indirectly confirms that Mulder feels bound to the files. See above.)

How, and when, does he escape?

Existence offers Mulder the way out-- the chance to choose right: abandon the quest and run back to the greater truth, i.e. leave Skinner and Doggett to sort out the mytharc mess and fly as fast as he can to Scully's side. The episode later reinforces that choice as the right one by showing Mulder unlocking Scully's apartment door (post here)-- a pivotal, first-time undertaking that authenticates his new perspective of (and place in) the world-- and holding his normal, everyday miracle while kissing Scully as her equal, loving partner.

"There is so much more you need to do with your life. There's so much more than this. There has to be an end, Scully" transforms into" I'm sorry. I don't mean to be cold or ungrateful. I just... I have no idea where I fit in. Right now"; and finishes a journey of seven years-- a search to find his family and heal them with the truth: "I don't know. Maybe it doesn't"-- with "The truth we both know."

The pieces are there, but not elegantly slotted together-- a missed opportunity for the writers and viewers.

A TOUCH OF TRAUMA

Alex Krycek catches Mulder alone; but before he can complete the kill, Skinner intercepts his efforts and-- after a second's hard deliberation-- sinks a bullet into his skull. The A.D. is freed from Krycek's control.

Mulder spares a lingering glance at his nemesis's body, then shuts out any consideration other than joining Scully-- the decision he should have made from the start. (It's a hacky piece of writing: pretending that Mulder learned a lesson without properly exploring an initial weakness, or sin, and its consequences; but I digress.)

"I'm going to go to the airport. I need that location from Agent Doggett." His face has hardened-- Krycek is dead, and his death was deserved. Mulder will not spare guilt for someone willing to kill his partner or barter over a baby's life.

As he swiftly charges towards the car, Mulder notices Skinner standing in place, still staring down at Krycek's body. His expression shifts again: sharpness melting at the edges in concern.

"Skinner, are you with me?" he asks, eyeing his former boss until the A.D. sweeps his address aside and orders him away ("You just go. I'll get him.") It's an excellent, too-short character beat that could have been more: Mulder recognizing the trauma in someone else and, perhaps, showing what would work for him by offering it to Skinner-- a reversal of their roles in One Breath. But alas, that, too, is a mention-and-gone moment.

TRYING TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT

There are many scenes in Existence that serve to tie up old threads-- Agent Doggett's friendship with the super soldiers, Monica Reyes and Scully's misadventure, Krycek's double-dealing downfall and Skinner's revenge, etc.-- but don't slot thematically with this analysis. What does work (and will remain) is Mulder's panic over Doggett's reconsideration-- see above-- and his realization that everyone has been had by his partner's partner's FBI friends.

After Skinner saves his life, Mulder books it to Georgia as fast as possible. And what is the fastest way to get there? A helicopter.

Mulder arrives minutes-- even seconds-- after the big event, jumping from the hovering cabin into the fleet of cars.

Screaming above the retreating vehicles, he yells at Scully's unwanted visitors, demanding to know if they know where she is.

"Mulder!" Agent Reyes yells from the house, intercepting his increasing frenzy with a come-hither motion.

Darting over, he shouts, "How is she?" above the whir of the chopper wings.

"She's inside. She needs to get to a hospital!" Reyes insists, gripping Mulder's arm before he can whizz past.

Alerted, and alarmed, he stares at her face for a split second before rushing into the dark.

All in all, a sorry conclusion to his child's arrival: not only because Mulder wasn't there for the birth, but also because there was a probability that he could have made it in time-- one that was cruelly dashed for another pseudo-anticipatory "Is the baby all right?" question that is answered two scenes later.

THE BRIGHT SIDE TO THIS DISAPPOINTING CLIMAX

To make up for the rugpull of the first three-fourths of Existence's runtime, the writers etched in some bright spots for the characters.

If Mulder must be away for the birth, he was at least present shortly thereafter, able to whisk his family away to a hospital; and Scully and the baby weren't given the indignity of being stuffed back into a car to drive elsewhere for medical care.

Scully, apparently, had no-- or little-- complications. Travel is not recommended after childbirth; and absolutely discouraged after medical complications, e.g. heavy bleeding or a C-section; yet, within days (or a day) after the baby's arrival, his mother was back in Georgetown amidst her cottons and silks, baby powder and balloons. Either she was passengered nearly twelve hours by car back to D.C. or flew an hour and some minutes commercially (or stayed on the helicopter all the way back to the FBI-- you never know, with canon); but, regardless, Scully arrived home on her feet, whole and contented, for the finale conclusion. (Another miracle?) No matter which way the evidence is scrutinized, it all turns in one direction.

And lastly, the baby was born a normal human being: one the Parenti Project extension hoped would be "A perfect human child but with no human frailties" and one the aliens assumed would be a Messianic threat to their Pinky and the Brain schemes for global domination-- and one that proved them wrong on both counts (if we discard Season 9 onward as canon.) Existence's final lines confirmed this hypothesis, as does the thematic throughline of the entire season: miracles through ordinary means-- an infertile woman, pregnant, and a dead man, alive, through science (and some grounded science fiction.) Even if one were to factor in Season 9's magical baby powers, those were completely neutralized (until the Revival erased that plotline, too): a reset back to the original intent, the "normal" status quo-- a child born from Mulder and Scully's partnership, the most ordinary and beloved truth they'd ever known.

CONCLUSION

There is still one last part to go: Mulder has yet to officially meet his child, after all.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[karamazovposting]

I really wanted a meta I'm quite proud of to be out by the end of this month but I still have to finish AND then edit it and it's been twenty-three days since my last cigarette y'all I'm in the trenches I can't do this

[clockwayswrites]

Bird Brained, or something. Part 22

masterpost NGL this part might be really rough. This migraine is killing my, but I wanted to get it written.

“Just stay behind us, Mr. Wayne,” Maria Ramirez ordered.

Bruce nodded as he paced. Facts about her ran through his head without his bidding. Ex Air Force. Bruce had hired her after she left, angry and with an honorable discharge the Air Force hoped would keep her quiet while the man who assaulted her got a pension. She was a little hot headed, took shit from no one, and was impressively competent.

If she continued this way, she’d be Bruce’s choice for the next head of security.

He still didn’t want to listen to her.

His kids were at the end of that stairwell along with the Mad Hatter and several of the man’s goons. Bruce was confident in Robin and Red Robin’s abilities to protect themselves from the threat, but this was different. This was Damian and Tim.

Robin might be magic, but the child in the suit was just a child. And children could die.

Bruce shook his arms out to try and get rid of the nerves. He could afford the motion as Bruce Wayne where he couldn’t as Batman.

As Batman he could have been at the front of pack and already through the door.

Bruce measured his breathing, forcing it to slow.

Ramirez held up a fist. The rest of the security force readied themselves.

One—

Two—

Three—

They breached the door with shouts of ‘hands in the air’ and ‘get down on the ground’.

“I work here! Doctor Daniel Fenton, R&D,” Danny’s voice called out.

“Get on the ground, hands behind your head slowly,” Ramirez ordered.

Bruce burst out of the stairwell. “I can vouch for—” Wings. Danny had wings. He was still human, human enough, but he had inky black wings that were spread wide along with his raised hands. “—Dr. Fenton.”

Ramirez glanced at Bruce, but kept her tranq gun trained on Danny. “Sir?”

“I can vouch for Dr. Fenton, he’s a friend of the family,” Bruce said more evenly as he took in the rest of the scene.

There was a remarkable lack of blood for the bodies scattered across the small space. Some were unconscious while others clutched their heads. The floor was scattered with crushed mind control devices and the occasional feather. The Mad Hatter was as far back in the elevator as possible, mumbling about ravens and writing desks. Danny stood in front of the door to the safe room. His spread wings assured no one got past him. The outside of Danny’s wings were white, Bruce realized. It was like they were inverted from the larger bird form.

“Tim and Damian are in the safe room,” Danny said quickly, breaking through Bruce’s thoughts. “They’re not hurt.”

Bruce’s shoulders slumped. “Thank you.” He ran his hands over his face and sucked in a purposefully even breath. Then he dropped his hands and looked at the security squad. “Dr. Fenton’s meta status is a personal mater not to be discussed, am I clear?”

There was a course of ‘yes sir’ from security and a soft, relieved, ‘thank you’ from Danny. Bruce nodded and strode towards the safe room. He snagged Danny by the wrist as he passed and pulled the stunned man along with him.

“Bruce?”

“Thank you,” Bruce said again as he started the biometric scans for the safe room. His thumb ran rhythmically over the back of Danny’s hand. The skin there was soft, like the down feathers of a chick. “Thank you for protecting my boys.”

“Of course, I always will,” Danny said, sounding completely serious, though Bruce could feel Danny’s hand trembling in his own.

The vault like door hissed as the air seal released and it started to open. Bruce knew that Danny said that the boys were fine, but as soon as the door was open enough, Bruce pulled Danny into the room and the semblance of privacy that it offered.

“Are you alright? Are you both alright?” Bruce asked. He rested his hand on Tim’s cheek while he looked to Damian, who was standing against the side wall, arms angrily crossed.

“No one even laid a hand on us or got close,” Tim said. “Danny, Dr. Fenton, made sure of that.”

“Which was completely stupid,” Damian bit out, his words harsh and angry and hurt.

“Damian,” Danny tried.

“No! It was stupid! You willing deprived yourself of allies! If you insisted on us being in the safe room then you should have been in it also!”

Danny’s wings drooped. “Damian, honey, this… this form of mine is still new. I didn’t want to risk—”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt us.”

“I would never, but there’s still things that could go wrong—”

“Shut up!”

Danny flinched back at the should, wings pulled tight against his body. Then he took a carefully measured breath and made himself relax. The wings opened up again a little and, with clear uncertainty, Danny opened his arms.

With all the speed of his training, Damian dashed forward. He rammed into Danny hard and wrapped his arms around Danny, clutching him tightly. Danny leaned down a little. His wings came forward to wrap protectively around Bruce’s youngest.

“You are an idiot,” Damian said harshly into Danny’s sweater.

“Some times,” Danny agreed, “but it’s alright. We’re all safe. It’s alright, little chickadee.”

[deadsetobsessions]

Some night, he flew above the twinkling lights of Blüdhaven’s buildings, wind rushing through his hair and the feeling of weightlessness pushing at the curve of his back.

There were a multitude of things that Dick Grayson appreciated, loved, Bruce for. One of those things would always be that his adopted dad allowed him to fly once more, even after his parents’ wings were cut.

In the air, he was home.

In the air, Dick Grayson felt like he was living up to, flying alongside, the Flying Graysons. Every flip, every trick he used to go faster, to fight better, felt like his parents were there guiding his every move.

Time healed his hurt, but still, the hole in his heart remained.

So when one of his best friends, a ghost vigilante by the name Phantom, asked him if he wanted to see his parents, he froze like a deer in bright white headlights.

“What…?”

Phantom did a flip in midair. “Wanna see your parents? They’ve been asking if they could talk to you.”

“My parents… are ghosts?” That was the least pressing question he had right now, but it was all his mouth could speak.

“Kind of. It’s complicated,” Phantom side-eyed him. “It would require going into the zone.”

And just like that, Dick understood. After the Amity Park came onto the map and the Justice League fixed the human and alien and meta rights violations that were happening right under their nose, Phantom had permanently closed all access to the Zone. Save, of course, for himself and a few magic users, who all refused to anger the King of the Dead.

“The only way you’re getting to my people now, is through me. Should anyone try to get into the zone, without my permission… I will make sure that you and your family’s afterlives will pay the appropriate price.”

No-one wanted to test his threat. The afterlife is something few fucked with and came back whole.

The Phantom they’d seen on the news then was incredibly different than the one in front of him now. Dick knows, understands now, that it was because Phantom trusted him. After years of being denied help, years of struggling all by himself to keep reality from collapsing while avoiding getting experimented on by humans understandably closed his heart.

“You’d take me into the Zone?” Dick didn’t know what he was feeling. Hope, fear, trust, touched, happiness, something.

A lot of things.

Danny shrugged. “Yeah. I trust you,” he said as he glanced back at Dick-at Nightwing. “Only you, though. No one else.”

The question that remained was whether Dick trusted Phantom too. And considering the fact that the ghost king ironically saved his ass from being killed a couple of times meant, “Yeah. I- I’d love to.”

Danny smiled, all pointed teeth and solemn trust. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Now?!” Dick stood up anyways, his heart in his throat. Danny held out a gloved hand.

“Yeah, now. Haven’t you heard that death waits for no one?” At Dick’s concerned look, Danny added, “Don’t worry. You won’t actually die. You’ll come back whole and alive, I promise.”

“Oh, okay. Let’s go, then!”

——

Clark Kent threw himself out of the window, Superman suit already on.

Seonds later, he was hovering in front of Bruce’s shadowy form on top of a gargoyle.

“Clark,” Batman greeted in his gravelly voice, irritated. “What.”

“Batman, Nightwing’s heartbeat- it disappeared!”

Bruce’s heartbeat stuttered.

[evilminji]

*slams the door open, eyes manic* Sovereign State!

A Sovereign State: "International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, a government not under another, and the capacity to interact with other sovereign states."

The USA already HAS several that exsist within its boarders? And there was that Gay Island of Australia (no really, look it up.) There is a LONG history of humanity going "well fuck you too then, I'm leaving. But also I refuse to leave. I am METAPHORICALLY leaving." *leaves your country and makes their own*

And??

Where's the FUCK were you? Mr. President? During that INVASION by Pariah Dark??

No, really. Social contracts, my dude. That is WHY you have AN ARMY. For INVADING FORCES.

You ALSO have declared us, your citizens, non-sentient and stripped of us our Constitutional Rights WITHOUT hearings, studies, or any due processes. Not to mention just desecrating the dead like it's NOT a well known religious and moral taboo. AND attacking out dead family members! The list goes on!

Why do we pay you taxes, if YOU are the active threat to us AND you offer us no social services?? You've all but cut Amity off anyway!

.......*Takes our ball and goes home* FUCK IT.

They are literally Limnals. It's a TOWN OF METAS. Can you honestly tell me that they WOULDN'T look at the Ecto-Acts and just think: "Yeeeeeah, how about No. Hard Pass."

You can have your INCREDIBLY stupid and offensive law. In OUR country, that's illegal. "We can't do that?" Yes. We can. We informed you in a Formal Document, which you received, you had the opportunity to STOP us, you did or could not, AND we got Regonized by another government.

It's a Ghost Goverment. We, the city state of Amity, were recognized by like... going on 23 at this point. We have a list. All Ghost Goverments, too. Sucks for you that you don't recognize those, they've decided not to recognize YOURS back until you do.

Politics, baby~

Aaaw D:> Does the Upset Baby wanna call, Superman? Boo Hoo. Somebody's forgetting the Justice League serves EARTH, not AMERICA. Suck on a lemon and die mad about it. Better not come back as a Ghost though! Your Goverment will declare you a lab specimen!

Now if you'll excuse us, WE have interplanetary trade routes. Because WE can use alien tech from our Ghost Buddies. And the Fenton Anti-Creep Barrier means you can't do SHIT. So *large crowd of teenagers making rude noises at frustrated government officials*

*Justice Leauge taking picture in the background* You're doing great sweeties! Aquaman is? So proud of the younger generation? They really are the future, you guys. Can he come in?

Oh of COURSE, your Majesty! *somehow ONLY Aquaman is able to get past the barrier, much to the impotent fury of the GIW and various officials*

@hdgnj @stealingyourbones

[mimiiiiiiiiisstuff]

Girl I have so many questions about your story it’s actually ridiculous!

(I don’t want to overwhelm you though so imma hold back)

is reader becoming a snake person a reference to snakes preying on bats and birds?( and will the snake being joker’s be important?)

Is Tiffany going to have to put effort into pretending she’s the ✨perfect sister✨ now that reader obviously isn’t going to do jack for them anymore? (Because ungrateful families don’t deserve muffins 😒)

Is reader going to be a hero or villain, or maybe something in between?

will we be able to get an idea of why the batfam treats reader like they’re some sort of pest?( you’d think they’d be more careful since reader could easily expose their identities if they thought about it 😒😒)

and finally.

Tim had a very…different…reaction to reader ‘framing’ Tiffany- is that important?

-🚚

yay ok this is my first like real ask! Yall have been making me so so happy with all the love! It really encourages me! And don't worry about overwhelming me! I can take it :) i'm answering this and then signing off to go to bed because I have the worst flu ever.

Ok so yes! Reader becoming a snake-meta-person does have to do with snakes preying on birds, honestly that was a little easter egg for funsies. Im glad you caught it! reader's gonna eat those hoes up !!!!!!! ( and they'll lock her up right after)

Tiffany will for sure try to imitate reader at first but that will eventually lead to her downfall! she can only keep it up for 6 months and then she'll be discovered. she can't imitate the genuine love and care reader puts into these things so they'll always be off no matter how much she tries. the batfam will end up realizing what they lost and do whatever it takes to get it back.

And yes, the snake being the Joker's will be important bc he's the joker and is so fucking insane that even his snake has to be special! all powers have consequences and these will be heavy. it will put reader through it, but will really shape them as a person.

Im leaning more toward reader being a hero??? but with the snake being literally radioactive it might be a kinda venom dynamic. im still not too sure tbh. with all the angst and neglect and the troubles of being a teen, she might be a bit of an anti-hero! she might pull a jason (ironic, i know) and go around killing all the villians!

the thing about the batfam, is that they don't even realize what they're doing to the reader. they literally see her as irrelevant so they don't notice their neglect or how much it affects reader. she's not even on their minds enough to be perceived as a threat. the only ones purposefully being mean are Damian and Jason, Damian because he sees reader as less than/ a threat and Jason because he is trying to push the reader out his life and not 'taint' her innocence.

Tim's reaction is different because he's suspicious. he thinks he would've noticed if reader was capable of doing something so sneaky and underhanded. he's the only one who is suspicious because he simply doesn't think she's smart enough to do this. he's gonna be the first to see Tiff's true colors.

Goodnight yall!!! i'll be back tmrw morning! keep sending more asks! I take requests so if you have any ideas you want me to write just send them in! I'll yandere platonic or romanitc. SEND THEM IN!!!!!!!!

[room-surprise]

Theory: Kui's modern joke comics are set on Wa Island.

My most niche, ridiculous, and completely irrelevant theory about Dungeon Meshi is that Kui is loosely setting her modern gag comics/illustrations in the same place, and it's supposed to be a modern version of Dungeon Meshi's Japan, Wa Island... and that's why there's Japanese festivals, restaurants, malls, brands, etc...

Obviously the real reason is because Kui lives in Japan and so when she imagines the "modern day" she thinks of modern Japan, and it's funnier (and easier) to place her non-Japanese characters in Japanese settings that she doesn't have to research. The very fact that they don't belong there makes it inherently funny when she puts them there.

These are about the party being in an underground Japanese-style shopping mall. She drew this one REALLY early on. I think if she drew it today she probably would have put them in modern clothes lol. Though the absurdity of Laios in his armor at the shopping mall is super funny too.

All of these are about the characters eating Japanese food and/or being in Japanese restaurants.

These comics being set on the island of Wa might be why there seems to be a lot of dwarves or gnomes doing typically Japanese things (running shinto festivals, lining up for autographs). Wa Island historically means "island of dwarves" so it may be a little meta-humor.

This summer comic with Izutsumi is probably meant to be Okinawa or another southern Japanese island, since they're a popular vacation spot in the summer for a lot of Japanese people. And the summer festival is, well, a Japanese festival.

She also drew a bunch of dwarves lining up in a blog post about doing an autograph session, which might be a joke about herself and her Japanese fans being "dwarves" (people of Wa):

So either the characters live on Wa Island (Laios' party), or they are visiting (the elves, others). That would explain why Marcille and the Toudens have such a long flight to get back to where the Toudens are from:

Because if all of these were set in a modern day Merini/Melini, it would be a really short flight to get back to the Northern Continent!

Incidentally, this art from Kui's blog was named "norway.png" and was released around the same time as all the other travel comics, which suggests that she either used an experience in Norway during her world tour, or a photo of Norway as inspiration for this illustration. Norway is definitely one of the real world inspirations for the Touden family's home.

Mithrun tries to buy a Japanese-style book token in the Christmas gift exchange art. Aside from "he's behind the times because he's been depressed so long," if we assume this isn't Mithrun's first time in Japan (the dungeon), and the last time he visited was a long time ago, it makes sense that he'd assume he can still buy book tokens. It's a modern setting but he's still an elf:

Kui even calls out the goofiness of the premise with these captions in the Christmas gift exchange. Kabru breaks the 4th wall to ask, if Christmas exists (Christianity doesn't seem to exist in Dungeon Meshi), where are they, and what time period is it? Do dungeons still exist at all? Obviously that would concern him, since his entire life motivation is protecting the world from dungeons. What would he do in a modern setting where dungeons don't exist, and aren't a threat?

The plate Kabru is holding is a Japanese-style flat, square plate, and he's naming modern Japanese stores that he thinks the plate may have come from. Obviously those things wouldn't exist in the medieval setting of Dungeon Meshi, which is of course the punchline of the joke.

Anyway, there's not really anything else to say about this, it's all very silly, but I hope someone else might be amused by it.

[raayllum]

Invert Life and Death Theory

Yesterday, the fandom received two season seven synopses that detail similar mysterious concepts:

The stakes have never been higher as Aaravos and Claudia are on the warpath, determined to destroy the Cosmic Order and invert life and death. With the world’s fate on the line, our heroes must be ready to sacrifice everything to save it.

As Aaravos and Claudia seek to destroy the Cosmic Order and invert life and death, our heroes must be literally ready to sacrifice anything and everything love and believe in to save the world!

I will touch on the 'sacrifice' portion likely here, and then further in another meta that was actually already sitting in my drafts about it (as we've known for a while that S7's main theme is sacrifice, even if I didn't expect it to be so blatantly spelled out in the summaries). But I digress.

Aaravos (and Claudia) want to destroy the Cosmic Order. They want to invert life and death, to turn it upside down (much like Aaravos' chest star I might imagine). Presumably this is to make the Cosmic Order mortal-mortal so that they can be permanently killed and Aaravos can have his proper revenge. He might also be working towards trying to reassemble Leola's spirit somehow.

But what is that attempted inversion going to look like? Well... It does contextualize the weird consistent emphasis his plans have had on the Moon and Sun specifically:

And we might finally know why:

Sun and Moon, Life and Death

In previous posts, I'd speculated there was more than just politics or revenge at stake in Aaravos seemingly killing Luna Tenebris and Queen Aditi 300 years ago. Of course the in-story explanation that's most obvious is that he wanted political instability, which I think is certainly true.

However, thus far there's not really a Reason in-text that it had to be those two. Why not another Earth dragon instead, or a Tidebound king? Throughout the series the elves that have gotten the most focus and worldbuilding have routinely been Moonshadow and Sunfire elves, and it didn't really have to be. And of course we could get into the weeds and say that Earth could've been associated with Life and Sun with death, etc etc. but the point stands that I think this series long focus on Moonshadow and Sunfire elves/philosophies in addition to Aditi and Luna Tenebris' deaths/disappearances makes a lot of sense if Sun = Life and Moon = Death, and these are the things that Aaravos wishes to invert upside down.

The fact that this reflective relationship between Sun and Moon possibly ties into Aaravos being in a mirror, characters having shadow selves running around in the narrative, and the emphasis on mirrored images in the dark magic dreams we see also makes sense.

Aaravos already toppled the Sun Forge and thereby Sun Primal on his way through to the Storm Spire. Going back to the Moon Nexus in S6 was a welcome callback to Through the Moon, but the Moon Nexus specifically having a portal between life and death... reminding us of that location because it's going to play a much bigger role next season (potentially like other characters, like Aanya) could be on the table. In taking Lux Aurea, Aaravos got the corrupted Sun staff after all.

Speaking of which, let's talk about

Rayla and Claudia

I don't think I have to explain why or routinely how Rayla is associated with the Moon as a Moonshadow elf. Secretive yet open, caught between love and duty, life and death, truth and lies, light and dark, Rayla embodies all this and more. Callum has also asked for her to be his Death if push comes to shove and he's possessed again, but she's also what has saved him in S6 from said threat of possession (and likely will again). This isn't to say that Aaravos needs a Moon arcanum and is going to take Rayla's (though I suppose he could), I think the likelier outcome is corrupting the Moon Nexus (and hence why you animate/rig Lujanne, Allen, and a new Phoe-Phoe design under your software at all). But it does mean I think Rayla will be a mirror to Claudia / whatever is happening with the Moon Nexus as a way to manipulate Callum, per usual.

Conversely, Claudia has wielded the corrupted Sun staff — a literally corrupted light that represents dark magic to her outright in S6, and one that she uses as a literal and metaphorical crutch ��� since season three, only occasionally using her father's staff with Viren only using the Sun staff for the Hearts of Cinder spell. She's a sun that's already been eclipsed by Aaravos, by death, in more ways than one. Someone who's walked a continually bloodier, darker path the further the show has gone on.

If and when Claudia gives up dark magic, she'll be 'restored' as the Sun — uncorrupted, bolstered by the truth ("Careful, if you tell the truth you will lose her"), shining brightly again. In the meantime, though, if Claudia is brought home in parallel with Callum being saved from dark magic corruption in S6, I think someone else will be Claudia's 'sun'. So let's talk about it.

Trials and Tests of Love

While we might see more — I could see Karim getting a trial on a technicality in S7 — as it stands now we see three former trials in the series. The first is in S4 among the Sunfire elves with Lucia, who ruined a sacred ritual by putting out a light, and is declared not innocent but worthy of life over death. Then we see Leola, who despite being truly innocent is condemned to death by the Star/First Elves and is made into nothing more than a light star known as Leola's Last Wish. Finally, we're going to seemingly have Rayla, whose actions did lead to the death of her troupe of Moonshadow assassins in the Silvergrove.

Just like with starlight vs moonlight vs sunlight with the Celestial elves, and Astrid + star magic creatures like Sir Sparklepuff in particular....

AARAVOS: Otherwise the sun will rise, and you will not.

We see this pattern of sun, star, and moon again with the trials alongside ideas of mercy, innocence, and concepts of paying the price.

Meanwhile, in season six, both Claudia and Callum were searching for their deep truths. Their path. Callum found his in Rayla and accepted it wholeheartedly. Claudia thought she'd find hers in Viren ("I'll look at him and I'll know / I need him to show me the right path"), but found only his body and the prison he left behind. Of course, the main reason that Viren died in season six was that he wanted to save Katolis, and more than that, he wanted to save his son.

She said that this was my home, and that my brother and I needed each other.

If Claudia is an eclipsed sun, a form of life turned death, than Soren is the uncorrupted version of the sun, ready and willing to guide her back if she'll just give him the chance. And in going back to Katolis, in sparing/saving Soren, Viren did help give Claudia what she needed in order to find her true path some day, too: a life with her brother and Terry at her side.

Claudia's first real test of love in the series was whether to choose the egg — the world, her father's wishes — over the safety and wellbeing of her family — her brother. She made the right choice.

I'm here.

It'd make sense if one of her final tests of love was a similar trial — maybe even if Callum under possession/Aaravos' control hurts Soren ("Oh I've been stabbed by the stab-prince!") — and Claudia once again chooses her brother over everything, just as he chooses for and fights for her. She ultimately chooses life over death, reflecting the massive change in herself and her character arc.

Likewise, Rayla being a Moonshadow elf saved from death ("I leapt to my certain death, but you spread your wings and you saved me" / "Finnegrin was going to kill you, I didn't have a choice") from Callum means breaking his promise, yes.

However, it also frees her up from needing to be an assassin and therefore from needing to behave like she's "already dead" or that Callum is. The possession/corruption would be a fate worse than death / metaphorical to literal death and rather than delivering either, Rayla would save him in turn. Like Claudia, she chooses life over death, symbolizing the same turning point. Callum, meanwhile, could get the Moon arcanum by realizing he has dark and light inside him; this may not mean a total blank slate (idk if they'd repeat that) from corruption, but a way to permanently throw off Aaravos' control of him regardless.

Life, over death.

Life and death working in harmony under principles of justice, mercy, and compassion.

Conclusion

This is more of rambling "notes on top of all this" place than a proper conclusion, but just a summary of stuff / some speculation for later:

Aaravos needed Moon and Sun stuff specifically from Luna Tenebris and Queen Aditi and that's why he killed them

Aaravos is going to successfully make the Cosmic Council mortal, even if that means making himself mortal.

This makes him more powerful than the Council and they may have reason to ally with our main team in order to take down Aaravos and/or be destroyed themselves

Rayla as Moon and Claudia as Sun reflect both life and death, but each will likely choose life over death; for Rayla this is about a certainty, for Claudia it's more up in the air if she'll have her redemption arc yet (I could see it getting pushed further to arc 3).

I think it'd be really nice if the inversion of life and death had broad implications meant some characters got to say goodbye, like Callum and Ez having a moment with Harrow and/or Sarai

And I think that's about it! What do you think inverting life and death may mean?

[tinylongwing]

Vide Noir's dual narrative structure

All right, here it is, me making good on at least one of my meta threats. Lord Huron's album Vide Noir can be interpreted as an album with two parallel, contrasting narratives - that of the lead protagonist Buck Vernon, as well as that of Johnnie Redmayne.

Disclaimer: this is an interpretation I think is pretty sound and well-reasoned, but I make no claim to any of this being proven canon information.

---

For those unfamiliar or who need a reminder, the primary narrative is this: the year is 1967, and we start near the end of Buck's journey, as he awakens from being black-brained (Lost in Time and Space). Having just suffered an overdose on the drug vide noir, his memories are slow to return to him, but return they do - his fiancee, Leigh/Lee Green (from here on Leigh but both spellings have been used), left him without a word one night, and he decided to follow, heading west to Los Angeles from their home town of Detroit, Michigan. He's been struggling to find her, checking every bar in the city in case she was booked to sing at one as her move was the result of her chasing her dream of becoming a singer. He doesn't remember a lot about himself, really, after that overdose, but he remembers her, and his love for her makes him desperate to find her.

We're then taken back to the night he left to find her (Never Ever) and his journey is mostly linear from there - he meets a fortune teller, Lady Moonbeam, who tells him that pursuing Leigh will end in his ruin, but he refuses to accept her advice and pushes on (Ancient Names I & II). He laments that he's been some kind of fuckup, that maybe he chased Leigh away through his own behavior, but that he still loves her and begs for her to return (Wait By the River). At some point around here he also learns of the drug vide noir and contemplates using it himself for clues.

(Note that unlike in the movie, in the album, nothing suggests that Buck suffered from a murder attempt by Z'Oiseau's henchmen but that instead he may have overdosed himself in an attempt to find Lee. However, there's plenty of reason to suspect that the film is the canon interpretation here anyway and the henchmen kidnapping Buck just doesn't make for a song I guess.)

One way or another, he winds up black-brained, where some deep existential truths of the universe are revealed to him (Secret of Life - namely that everyone and everything dies in the end, and that a human life is brief, fleeting, and ultimately meaningless within the context of the universe as a whole). He somehow reawakens rather than dying (Back from the Edge) and, again, understands that nothing he does will ever matter, has never mattered*, but that *even though* he's suffered greatly already on this quest, he's still committed to trying to find Leigh, pitting himself against that careless universe (The Balancer's Eye).

So he keeps searching (When the Night is Over) until he finds a clue, or a helping hand of some sort, that leads him on the right path to his beloved Leigh (Moonbeam). We get one more reminder of the forces at work here - vide noir is some awful stuff, it nearly killed him, Leigh herself is hooked on it now, it shows you terrible truths and nightmares beyond human comprehension (Vide Noir) - and when all is said and done, as Buck thinks he's about to "rescue" Leigh from her fate and bring her back to his fantasy of a perfect happy life together, she rejects him. He came all this way through time and space, and she doesn't love him at all in the end (Emerald Star).

---

I consider this the primary narrative here because it makes use of all the songs on the album, it has a clear start and ending and a mostly linear structure, and the album basically serves as a soundtrack to Buck's fool's errand. The film agrees - every scene is centered around his journey, after all. But we have context from Lord Huron's other albums, as well as the lyrics and musical stylings of multiple songs on Vide Noir, that show us that Buck isn't necessarily the only narrator on this album. Strange Trails, of course, came out three years prior, and features songs by multiple fictional bands performing songs which serve as narration for a diverse cast of characters. Unlike on Strange Trails, where each track has a writer or band specifically named and assigned to it as well as a character narrative, Vide Noir does not give us such conclusive information, but we can still put clues together to understand at least some of who the in-universe performers might be on Vide Noir.

Most likely, multiple of these songs are by the Buck Vernon Band - this is pretty obvious. Buck's semi-autobiographical music is all over Strange Trails, usually referencing a girl he loves, sometimes referencing that the girl left him, often giving her different names, all starting with L (Fool For Love's "Lily", and "Louisa").

But the other band that we can easily identify as performers on Vide Noir are the Phantom Riders. For those who need an introduction, this is the band composed of four members of the World Enders gang, with Dale Redmayne at the helm as lead writer. They were seen previously on Strange Trails as well, with banger surf/rockabilly hits like Hurricane, Until the Night Turns, and The World Ender. As a storytelling tool, they are primarily brought in to tell us about the man-turned-undead horror entity known as The World Ender himself, and then otherwise mostly we get their songs about Dale's brother Johnnie Redmayne, who is introduced to us in Strange Trails as a fun-loving and presumably fairly young guy, a thrillseeker and hedonist, who lives for the moment as if the world could end any day. The Buck Vernon Band jumps in between some of these songs with an interjection to tell us that wait, Johnnie is dead, or was, but he got back up. In Dead Man's Hand, Buck speculates that Johnnie could have been murdered or may have killed himself, accidentally or intentionally, upon first seeing him. It's in Vide Noir that we actually learn more about the circumstances of Johnnie's death.

Before we get to that, let's first identify which Vide Noir songs are by the Phantom Riders. This isn't all that hard to do. Any song that references The World Ender is presumably theirs - that gives us Secret of Life right away ("I sit alone in the dark, and I try to remember the words you spoke when you summoned the Ender"). This is reinforced in the Alive From Whispering Pines webseries, episode 423 - Secret of Life, when played, shows a skeleton prop the band has jokingly referred to as Cobb Avery on their social media posts in the past, and after the song ends in this episode, the tune continues in a slowed and distorted fashion through a clip of a WBUB movie version of Dead Man's Hand showing Johnnie rising from the pavement when Buck is about to bury him.

Ancient Names Parts I and II are presumably written by the same band as a two-part song. In the Vide Noir film, the Phantom Riders are performing Part II in the underground club. Additionally, in Alive From Whispering Pines episode 426, after Tubbs Tarbell is done reminiscing about the band and their nihilism, Ancient Names Part II is the next song covered - and often in this series, the structure of the segments between songs are intentional and related to either the song they precede or the song they follow, so it's likely that the placement of the Phantom Riders' appearance followed by a track they're associated with is meant to help confirm them as the performers. In addition, Ancient Names Part I references a fortune teller, and we know from the film that the fortune teller in question, Lady Moonbeam, is associated with the World Enders and knows the Redmaynes.

The last track on Vide Noir that is most likely theirs is the title track, Vide Noir. We have two points of evidence for this - one lyrical ("Many evils have I enjoyed, prowling the night raising hell with the boys" which feels like a pretty direct reference to the World Enders' nighttime violence) and one musical - the main melody of Vide Noir is identical to that of Ancient Names (and Fortune Teller's Theme, actually). In Strange Trails, using the same melody for multiple songs was an easy way to tie Frankie Lou's songs together, and here we can see that it ties two Phantom Riders tracks together directly, indicating that not only are they both by the same band, but that Vide Noir is a followup to Ancient Names part I, in which our fortune teller did warn us things would go very, very wrong.

(And besides all of that, the Phantom Riders tracks on Vide Noir all tend to be similar in musical style - psychedelia-flavored garage rock with a heavy bass line, in contrast to other songs on the album.)

With those songs identified, we should also be aware of just how much Lord Huron seem to love their dual narratives. In Strange Trails, we have a really concrete example of this with The Night We Met. This song was in-universe written by Frankie Lou, presumably about her doomed relationship with Z'Oiseau and how much she wishes she had never met him to begin with (as she echoes in her dialogue in the Vide Noir film when speaking to Buck in her dressing room). However, the music video for this song shows not Frankie and Z'Oiseau, but instead Buck, driving west, while reflecting on his own failure to keep Leigh, wishing he could go back in time and fix things, and meanwhile kind of hallucinating her as he goes. In the album Long Lost, we get another dual narrative in I Lied, which is performed by Donny and Midge but is also sung by Leigh in Vide Noir, foreshadowing her breakup with and lack of love for Buck. There are certainly other dual narratives in both of those albums to be found as well - so what we should keep in mind here is that often, songs can be written and performed by a character or band in order to narrate for themselves or someone close to them, but that just as in our real-world movie soundtracks or our favorite character playlists on spotify, those songs can be applied to other characters in different (but somewhat similar) situations than the ones they were written for.

So! We have four Phantom Riders tracks on Vide Noir, all of which were presumably not written originally in-universe about Buck Vernon, because why would they be, Buck and the World Enders only briefly cross paths and at the very least we know that Ancient Names Part II was written well before he ever met them. Instead, it makes the most sense if like the bulk of the Phantom Riders songs, these tracks serve Johnnie's narration instead.

---

If that's the case, what does that give us? Winding around and through Buck's journey is this second storyline. Johnnie Redmayne, having used and enjoyed vide noir himself abundantly ("I had a vision tonight that the world was ending" as one probable example), decides it's time to get his hands on bulk quantities so as to get the Enders in on controlling the flow of the drug in LA rather than letting Z'Oiseau maintain a monopoly, thereby also increasing revenue for the members of the gang.

It's Moonbeam who warns him to knock it off first. We know, thanks to the film, that he'd spoken to her at some point about his plans to investigate the source of the drug at Tobey's arcade and try to get his hands on some to sell. Whatever his exact plan was, in Ancient Names Part 1, Moonbeam warns him that pursuing this is going to get him killed. Vide noir isn't just a drug, it's something extremely dangerous, tied to dangerous people, and he needs to get away from "her" (and note that frequently throughout music history, drugs have been personified as a "her" or an unnamed lover, whether for poetic reasons or to evade censorship that might come from talking directly about drug use - and Cursed, off Strange Trails, is one more in-universe example, where "her" refers both to Leigh Green and to drug use, specifically vide noir).

Immediately afterward, Ancient Names Part 2, in addition to serving as a very classic sort of World Enders nihilism anthem, can easily be interpreted as Johnnie saying "fuck that, I do what I want, you only live one life anyway and even if it kills me, I want to make my mark before I go out." Death is something hypothetical - sure, it'll get him some day, it gets everyone, and maybe Moonbeam is even right, but he isn't going to let her warning stop him.

On Strange Trails, Buck and Johnnie cross paths at Dead Man's Hand. On this album they only cross thematically, and the pivotal moment of intersection might be Secret of Life. This song may be the point at which Buck learns some forbidden secrets revealed by taking vide noir as discussed above, but its lyrics speak a lot more specifically to Johnnie's experience, implying some connection between him, vide noir, and the World Ender.

It may be that as we see with Buck in the film, perhaps Johnnie too has suffered the effects of being black-brained prior to taking it due to the time and space-bending effects of the drug (notice, for example, in Strange Trails we get Johnnie's story in a scrambled chronological order) and here he's confronted with the harsh truths of what those past visions of his possible future mean for him: he has been set on a path that is no longer avoidable due to his eventual future overdose. So perhaps it's at this point that he acknowledges that he is going to die sooner rather than later and that his life and death will not have meant anything to the greater cosmos, but this information, which was new to Buck, is not something Johnnie fears. Johnnie is hardly new to this point of view. He's seen past echoes of the knowledge imparted by vide noir throughout his life, both in his future visions of the end of the world (again see Until The Night Turns) and in the knowledge passed on through other World Enders, including their own motto ("The fair, the brave, the good must die", or in Secret of Life here, "The darkness comes for all of us").

(As an aside, there's still a lot to unravel with Secret of Life that I haven't touched on here. It's a fascinating song with some really mysterious lyrics. I've speculated at length in the LH discord about some additional interpretations this song could yield but won't veer off topic here.)

And yet despite what looks like a very certain and dire end, Johnnie maintains hope that perhaps he, too, will live past this. Because if Cobb Avery did, why can't he? This is part of the gang's core mythos - their founder is a dead man. He clawed his way back out of the grave for revenge, they thought it was just so fucking cool that he was unkillable that they had to join him, and together they dismantled the Winthrop Corporation, one murder at a time. When the police finally caught up to him, they lynched him - but the noose did nothing, for he was already dead, and now in the form of a skeleton, he called the gang to his side (see Strange Trails: The World Ender comic book). In the ensuing chaos, he flees, the gang heads west and relocates to east Los Angeles, and in the time contemporary with the events of Vide Noir, he is still present among them but this appears to be unknown to the public (Daily Trails prop, by Kim Berens, used in both Vide Noir and Alive From Whispering Pines where it was modified to Ten years later).

Whether The World Ender is readily visible to and known by most members of the gang at this point is unknown, but we know that those who were black-brained can see him (in the film, Buck sees him approaching, bumps into him, plunges into a hallucination of his own future, and when he comes too, the Ender is gone). Given the Secret of Life lyrics, it's reasonable to guess that Johnnie at least can see the World Ender just fine and one way or another, in speaking with him and in conjunction with consuming vide noir, has learned enough secret knowledge to make some kind of choice - and this is what later enables him, too, to drag his way back to the world of the living.

Fate catches up to Johnnie and as we learn in the film, his death was at the hands of Z'Oiseau's henchmen for trying to gain access to dealing in vide noir. Like Buck, he is black-brained - forced to swallow enough of the drug to kill him. And so the track Vide Noir opens with the Fortune Teller's Theme previously heard in Ancient Names Part 1, and that tune is woven through the track - Moonbeam's "I warned you, I told you so" to both of these fools who disregarded her advice. Although, again, the lyrics are clearly meant primarily to narrate for Johnnie - "Many evils have I enjoyed, prowling the night raising hell with the boys, getting high on a pure black void" sounds a lot more like what Johnnie gets up to than Buck. We are given a glimpse of his last words and final thoughts as life slips away and his consciousness is sent straight to the final edge of the cosmos.

---

So ultimately, this is what we're left with:

Vide Noir is an album that tells the story of Buck Vernon, whose fiancee has left him. His journey culminates in a near-brush with death, in finding Leigh, and in learning that she does not love him and that he's nothing, his life is worth nothing more than dust and that none of it mattered or will ever matter, that once he eventually dies he will vanish and be forgotten in time.

Vide Noir also tells the story of Johnnie Redmayne, who for once tries to do something that isn't just for his own hedonistic pleasure but that might actually help bring in money to support his friends and family, but he's too headstrong and impulsive to listen to the warnings he's given, and is killed in the attempt.

One lives who probably shouldn't have and comes out at rock bottom and now has to work out how to move on from here, and one dies a nihilist who should presumably just accept the inevitability of death, but has the knowledge and absolute stubborn determination to enable his eventual return, following in the footsteps of Cobb Avery.

And what happens to both of them afterward? Well, we don't know. Hopefully some day (SOON?? BEN PLEASE) we'll get the opportunity to find out!

[jozor-johai]

I noticed a little subplot happening in the background of ADWD, and I’m wondering if anyone has any theories on where this is going. I have my own theory, which I'll explain in full at the end, but is essentially this: I think that GRRM is placing these Dothraki khalasars strategically along the Rhoyne and telling us about them in ADWD so that if Dany commands the loyalty of the entire Dothraki in TWOW, she'll already have loyal armies in place right by the Free Cities, rather than having to wait transport troops anywhere—even though the Dothraki aren't a threat now, the Dothraki will be in place to attack the Free Cities while the Free Cities have sent all their armies to fight Dany's forces at Meereen.

I'll explain my reasoning, and where I think GRRM is putting the pieces into place here—under the cut, since it's a slightly long post with maps.

We first hear of Dothraki along the Rhoyne in ADWD Tyrion III:

“Griff means to strike downriver the instant we are back. News has been coming upriver, none of it good. Dothraki have been seen north of Dagger Lake, outriders from old Motho’s khalasar, and Khal Zekko is not far behind him, moving through the Forest of Qohor.” The fat man made a rude noise. “Zekko visits Qohor every three or four years. The Qohorik give him a sack of gold and he turns east again. As for Motho, his men are near as old as he is, and there are fewer every year. The threat is—” “—Khal Pono,” Haldon finished. “Motho and Zekko flee from him, if the tales are true. The last reports had Pono near the headwaters of the Selhoru with a khalasar of thirty thousand. Griff does not want to risk being caught up in the crossing if Pono should decide to risk the Rhoyne.”

As a reminder, Dagger Lake is where the Rhoyne in the east meets the Qhoyne in the west to make the full-force Rhoyne that we know and love.

Illyrio dismisses any reason to be concerned with these particular Dothraki, and perhaps he is right. But we do get our first preview into the concerns of Khal Pono, and the premise of Dothraki along the Rhoyne. Are they doing to be placated by gifts, like Illyrio says? Or is something different afoot?

Next we get an update in Tyrion VI, by Selhorys.

Haldon Halfmaester explained. “On the way down from the Sorrows to Selhorys, we thrice glimpsed riders moving south along the river’s eastern shore. Dothraki. Once they were so close we could hear the bells tinkling in their braids, and sometimes at night their fires could be seen beyond the eastern hills. We passed warships as well, Volantene river galleys crammed with slave soldiers. The triarchs fear an attack upon Selhorys, plainly.”

Another reminder for geography, Selhorys is significantly south from Dagger Lake. Like, further than King’s Landing is from the Trident. Once again, we have this concern: will Khal Pono cross the Rhoyne for Selhorys?

That concern is brought up again in Tyrion VI:

“Three,” Qavo allowed, “against thrice three thousand enemies. Grazdan mo Eraz was not the only envoy sent out from the Yellow City. When the Wise Masters move against Meereen, the legions of New Ghis will fight beside them. Tolosi. Elyrians. Even the Dothraki.” “You have Dothraki outside your own gates,” Haldon said. “Khal Pono.” Qavo waved a pale hand in dismissal. “The horselords come, we give them gifts, the horselords go.” He moved his catapult again, closed his hand around Tyrion’s alabaster dragon, removed it from the board.

As predicted by Haldon in Tyrion III, here is Khal Pono across from Selhorys. We hear that Qavo is unconcerned with Khal Pono, despite Haldon’s concerns.

This might be a bit of a meta opinion, but whenever someone is as flippant as Qavo is being here, expect them to be wrong. They definitely aren’t going to go away with gifts, Qavo is totally jinxing it—that’s my prediction.

Then we get another update later on, in The Lost Lord:

Haldon’s horses did not please him. “Were these the best that you could find?” he complained to the Halfmaester. “They were,” said Haldon, in an irritated tone, “and you had best not ask what they cost us. With Dothraki across the river, half the populace of Volon Therys has decided they would sooner be elsewhere, so horseflesh grows more expensive every day.”

By this point, they’re in Volon Therys, which is only barely outside of Volantis—think roughly the distance between King’s Landing and Duskendale, for comparison. And here, too, there are Dothraki on the other side of the river. Are these the same Dothraki, are they traveling south at the same pace as Tyrion/JonCon? Or is this yet another khalasar? We haven’t heard any update from Qohor, and this is the first time that we’ve unexpectedly encountered a khalasar—are they here to meet with the Volantenes about Meereen, like Dany’s advisors fear? Or are they here for another reason? Is it possible that Illyrio and Qavo are wrong?

The last update we get is in ADWD Victarion, when he captures a ship from Myr heading for New Ghis and Yunkai:

Sailing out of Myr, the Dove brought them no fresh news of Meereen or Daenerys, only stale reports of Dothraki horsemen along the Rhoyne, the Golden Company upon the march, and others things Victarion already knew.

Unfortunately, this is stale news for both Victarion and we the readers—this is like a snapshot back to Tyrion II/III, when the Golden Company broke its contract and started marching east, and when we first heard about the Dothraki on the Rhoyne in my first quote.

However, despite this being a snapshot back in time to old news, I wonder about GRRM’s choice to include this again so close to end of the book—is this a reminder for the readers about these Dothraki on the Rhoyne? We’ve learned why the Golden Company marching ended up being important, could this passage from Victarion be a reminder of these tidbits of news because they will continue to matter moving forward?

I am doubly interested because it’s in this same book, in the very midst of all this talk of Dothraki on the Rhoyne, that we hear the tale of a previous time the Dothraki came. This is back in ADWD Tyrion IV, between the reports of Motho and Zekko on Dagger Lake and before the talk with Qavo about Pono. I’ve bolded the relevant sections, because it’s long, but left the rest for context.

“The war left the Disputed Lands a waste, and freed Lys and Myr from the yoke. The tigers suffered other defeats as well. The fleet they sent to reclaim Valyria vanished in the Smoking Sea. Qohor and Norvos broke their power on the Rhoyne when the fire galleys fought on Dagger Lake. Out of the east came the Dothraki, driving smallfolk from their hovels and nobles from their estates, until only grass and ruins remained from the forest of Qohor to the headwaters of the Selhoru. After a century of war, Volantis found herself broken, bankrupt, and depopulated. It was then that the elephants rose up. They have held sway ever since. Some years the tigers elect a triarch, and some years they do not, but never more than one, so the elephants have ruled the city for three hundred years.”

Maybe this wasn’t just to set the stage for the Volantene elections, but to remind us that the Dothraki can come out of the east to wreak havoc…. when the Free Cities are weak. And boy, is Volantis looking undefended right now: the Golden Company is gone to Westeros, other sellsword companies have gone to Meereen, the Volantenes have sent their fleets to Meereen.

Before I continue, here’s a map of the locations of the Dothraki khalasars along the Rhoyne:

Why we should care

We can be almost certain that Dany has to return to Vaes Dothrak to visit the Dosh Khaleen. Though we don’t know for sure if Khal Jhaqo’s forces are going to outpower Dany and Drogon, Dany is already envisioning the future where she returns to Vaes Dothrak when she sees Jhaqo’s outrider at the end of ADWD:

One rider, and alone. A scout. He was one who rode before the khalasar to find the game and the good green grass, and sniff out foes wherever they might hide. If he found her there, he would kill her, rape her, or enslave her. At best, he would send her back to the crones of the dosh khaleen, where good khaleesi were supposed to go when their khals had died.

Of course, we ought to already have known this from Dany’s vision in the House of the Undying:

Beneath the Mother of Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed.

If Dany was truly seeing her future—and I believe she was—then we know we will inevitably be seeing her return to Vaes Dothrak to accept the homage of the Dosh Khaleen.

However, this creates a bigger problem: we need Dany to get to Westeros, and potentially have time to also reach both Volantis and Pentos (though whether or not Dany will actually go either of those places is purely speculation, however well-founded). Vaes Dothrak is in the entirely opposite direction from where she is now—that would be heading east, away from Westeros, not closer to her end goal.

For some readers, this isn’t a concern: we might trust Quaithe, who reminds Dany that:

To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.

Some readers, though, wonder about the time and ability for TWOW to contain this storyline within its time. GRRM is realistic about how long travel time takes, which is great for the realism, but presents immense logistic problems.

Dany doesn’t need to worry about the time it takes to travel long distances as mucha as she used to—if she can begin to control Drogon, she can fly around at will. However, that’s only her; if Dany does gain the allegiance of the Dothraki at Vaes Dothrak, how can she actually leverage that in a meaningful way when they’re constrained to horseback? While the AGOT timeline is largely unclear, we can use Dany’s pregnancy to at least be sure it takes months to get from one side of the Dothraki Sea (in Dany III) to Vaes Dothrak (in Dany IV). Does Dany have months to mobilize Dothraki from one side of the Sea to the other?

With the Dothraki along the Rhoyne, though, she doesn’t need to wait for anyone to ride across the sea. Conveniently, they’re already there. If there’s some way to send a message that the Dosh Khaleen have decreed that the Dothraki will follow Dany, that she is the Stallion Who Mounts the World, then she has a ready-made army just waiting for her word to cross the Rhoyne after all, and take the Free Cities. Then Dany can fly over there on her own and just meet them.

I know we’re all looking forward to Dany taking Volantis, so I don’t want to propose something too contrary, but how about this: sicne we’ve been hearing all through ADWD that there are a ton of Dothraki already in place, conveniently for story purposes, ready to accept their regular gifts… or perhaps ready to act if, for example, word came that the Stallion Who Mounts The World has come after all. That might speed things up a bit. We know Volantis is only weakly defended, we know there are Dothraki outside of Selhorys, Qohor, and Volon Therys. Dany has spent five books searching for home and finding one among the people she’s freed. Maybe this is how she makes sure it’s the Volantene slavers who don’t have a home to go back to this time.

[deaddovedecadence]

Meta reader anon here! (Got nervous when I asked 😭)

Anyways, how would the Batman react to a reader who’s kinda been through a situation like the one Jason was in? (Lowkey trauma dump I’m so sorry-) like my father’s a really manipulative and narcissistic person so I have a much easier time picking up on stuff like that. Reader would legit already be on high suspicion (not like they weren’t already but like 10x more-)

Also keep up the good work! Really enjoy your stories!

A/N okay but learning about duke in the moonlight verse hours

”Why are you so afraid of me?” Duke asks curiously, some of thier braids swishing into their face.

You shrug, not meeting their eyes because you know that if you do then they’ll know something you don’t want them to. they’ve always been too observant for your tastes and looking at them makes something under your skin crawl.

You know hat Duke is a meta because signal is a meta even though they’ve never used thier powers around you, never made you feel afraid on purpose.

In fact Duke is always gentle with you, like you’re something that could break, something that they’re choosing to keep whole.

“Who are you?” You ask, staring them straight in the face. They smile (it’s not real), “I’m duke, your sibling.” YOu want to scream liar because they aren’t your sibling, because there is something wrong with the way that they are.

“What happened to you?” you try, keeping your expression gentle, open because there’s somethign that they just aren’t telling you.

They laugh,, “nothing, I’m all good.”

“Liar.” You snap, abandoning your game of pretend.

Duke gives you a too sharp smile, says, “I’ll tell you what happened to me if you tell me why you’re always avoiding me.”

That’s an easy choice to make. “You’re off. It’s like you’re constantly hiding something under your kindness.”

They laugh bitterly, the first sharp sounds that you’ve ever heard from them. “I was adopted two years before you. My parents were caught in a fight between Joker and batman. My mother was immunocompromised and joker used his gas to try and finally kill the terror of our city, the batman. Bruce found me, holding her dead body and he took me in. I didn’t have a choice and there was no one there to keep me from making mistakes.”

They pull back their sweater enough for you to see seven tally marks. “One for every member of the family,” Duke says absently.

“So they never forget where they belong,” Bruce cuts in, appearing out of nowhere. He puts a hand on Duke’s shoulder and you watch the way they bristle, but don;t bother moving.

There’s an implied threat in the way that bruce speaks, a warning that you could share the same scars with one addition, Duke’s.

[casscainmainly]

Small question, does it have to be Gotham for Cass? There's charas like Dick that can go establish their identity in a different city. Then there's Bruce, Steph, Jason and Duke who are so intrinsically tied to Gotham that this has to be the city for them. Where does Cass lie on this spectrum? Tq!

EXCELLENT question. I think Cass' situation is somewhat unique because of the way her character was handled post-Batgirl (2000).

In favour of Cass not staying in Gotham, she doesn't have the same emotional connection to Gotham as the four people you listed. She wasn't raised there, and in Batgirl (2000), she has next to no ties to Gotham civilians. In fact, it's when she moves to Bludhaven in Gabrych's run that she gains her first civilian friend and civilian love interest. The iconic volving panel is from Bludhaven, too. It's undeniable that the distance from Gotham, from Bruce (and arguably Babs), helps her grow:

Batgirl (2000) #71

It can't be overstated how important ownership is to Cass. To own something means, necessarily, that you not an object. You are a person who something belongs to, and who belongs to something. By calling Bludhaven the "first place that's ever been... mine," she's explicitly saying that Gotham was not hers. Bludhaven was the first place that made her feel fully human.

But there are caveats to this. Cass goes to Bludhaven in the wake of Stephanie's death, a Gothamite through and through. It's probable that Steph's death colours her view of Gotham here, and her willingness to embrace Bludhaven is in response to the pain that Gotham now brings her. (This is also after Babs calls Cass stupid). Feeling like Gotham doesn't belong to her might stem from these specific circumstances, and not be applicable in current canon.

Still, if the story had ended there, I'd say Cass doesn't need to stay in Gotham. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

Red Robin (2009) #17

After Bruce's death, Cass goes to Hong Kong. Well, 'goes' is putting it nicely. She was written off to make Steph Batgirl, which resulted in Cass a) not appearing in most comics, b) being stripped of the bat symbol, and c) being isolated from everyone she cares about, besides Tim. It's a horrific and undeserved fate, reversing everything Cass' story once stood for (narrative agency; becoming a hero; finding a family).

Though Cass regains the symbol and becomes the Bat of Hong Kong, she is no longer part of the narrative; her distance from Gotham became a representation of her distance from narrative importance. That's the real danger of Cass leaving Gotham - unlike Dick, who is a big enough character to be guaranteed solos in Blud, Cass leaving Gotham will forever hold the threat of erasure.

I'm discussing this in a meta-textual sense, but textually Cass knows the danger too.

Gates of Gotham #5

Here, Cass rebuffs Dick's assertion that Gotham will never keep either of them because they don't belong. She says, "It's about how you choose to see the world. Everything else is just an excuse." She's repudiating multiple things: editorial's decision to boot her from Gotham; Bruce's decision to take Batgirl away; even, somewhat, Dick's ascension to the Bat mantle when she wasn't given a chance.

This is ultimately why, though Cass could work elsewhere, I think she should work in Gotham. It's the place she ran to after David Cain, the place she chose to stay in, and the place that gave her Batgirl. Most importantly, it's the place that rejected her. It's not about Gotham itself - It's about how she was ejected from it, and how she fought her way back, over and over again. Cass staying in Gotham ensures history doesn't repeat itself. It rewards Cass fans who survived OYL, Batman Inc, and New 52 with the light at the end of the tunnel.

This is just my opinion! I do love her stint in Bludhaven, so I understand other people preferring her elsewhere. Just for me, she may not belong to Gotham in the way Bruce, Steph, Duke, Jay, or Babs does, but she deserves to be there.

[river-fisher]

The Real Bobby Fulbright and Morality

Hey hey! I am back with yet another analysis post, this time focusing on Fulbright's morality! I often see fanon interpretations of him - that are super fun! - but I also feel like they focus on the positive aspects of his personality and avoid the darker ones, so I will be rambling about that under the cut! Enjoy B)

Before we get into specific examples, it is worth pointing out that this analysis is based off of:

The theory that Dual Destinies didn't originally have the phantom as the main villain.

That the phantom was included later in the story after several chapters were already finished.

The theory that Dual Destinies was going to deal with darker themes before it got altered.

Now, although I have more detailed arguments on why I believe in these points, this post is not about that (Though if anyone wants to hear my thoughts about it, I'd love to yap about that in another post ^^). In a nutshell, Fulbright's behaviour changes in between cases, in a way that suggests that his character was revamped. I believe that Fulbright was originally written without the phantom in mind.

Thus! While his character might've had his purpose shifted, if my belief is correct, then The Monstrous Turnabout - the first case with Fulbright - is the most accurate glimpse into what the real Bobby Fulbright was like. Yes, we are meta analysing it up in this house!

Via the assumption that The Monstrous Turnabout has the original idea for the real Fulbright, we can make some interpretations of what he's like, despite the canon saying it was the phantom impersonating him! ^^

So, onto actual examples (lovingly chosen from my transcript) and analysis!

Starting off strong, we first meet Fulbright with him wanting to arrest Apollo and Athena. Yes, there is the potential reasoning of "disturbing a crime scene", but the lawyers had only just gotten there. They had done nothing wrong. That is unlawful arrest! Them coming to the crime scene had several explanations, and yet Fulbright won't even hear them out:

[???] “Hey, who are you and what are you doing here? This is a crime scene!”

[AJ] “And who are YOU? Are you with the police?”

[???] “I asked first! Who are YOU and what are you doing here?! On second thought... I’m placing you under arrest for disturbing a crime scene!”

He prioritizes lunch over actual, genuine justice here, not even bothering to hear them out. He only changes his tune after finding out that they're lawyers. Even then, he doesn't allow them to investigate. Though that is what all Ace Attorney detectives do, I think the subtle threat that comes afterwards is important.

[AJ] “Ack! Under arrest?! B-B-But...”

[???] “Save it for the boys back at HQ! Now, come quietly or else! I don’t want to be late for lunch!”

Yes, he never pulls out a gun in the series (besides attempting to do so in Turnabout for Tomorrow as the phantom), but I believe that the inherent threat and power that Fulbright holds in this situation is worth mentioning. Apollo's assumption that Fulbright could pull out a gun is also quite telling in my opinion. Fulbright is a cop at the end of the day.

[BF] “Cease and desist at once, or you’ll have to deal with my little friend here!” { Hand goes to his holster }

[AJ] “Ack!” (Yikes! Is he reaching for his...?!)

[BF] “In justice we trust!” { Shows badge }

[AJ] “...!” (Phew, it’s just his badge.)

[BF] “This door simply will not open! We’ve tried and tried, but it won’t budge! It’s an essential part of the culture found in this manor, so we can’t blow it up either!”

The next concerning aspect I've found, is the seemingly normalized use of excessive force. The only reason they're not blowing up the door is because of its cultural significance. That is insane! It can be argued that it's not Fulbright's decision, however, the lack of reaction from everyone involved signifies to me that this is the norm.

With this moment, I wish to point out Fulbright's black & white thinking. I acknowledge that this is consistent for all detectives in the series, but it is a piece of characterization that is very important - Fulbright is very quick to call Tenma a villain, evil, a fiend. Thinking that someone is guilty and thinking that someone is evil are quite different imo.

[AJ] “So you still think Mayor Tenma is responsible?”

[BF] “That’s right! Damian Tenma is an evil fiend who must be banished from this world! Now, take my hand and together we will defeat this evil!”

[BF] “I won’t fall for that, you shameless rascal! I only help good little boys and girls!”

In general, Fulbright tends to think in an us vs them mentality - the people he likes are good, while the ones he dislikes are bad. He helps good people and puts away bad people. In a sense, yes, that's what a cop is supposed to do.

[BF] “Ha ha! My investigations are as thorough as they are foolproof, or my name isn’t Fulbright! I vow to resign immediately if I ever make a false arrest!”

However, this line paints a grim picture. Fulbright implies that he has never made a false arrest. That is statistically impossible, and implies that he has not only made false arrests before, he has also managed to get them convicted! The fact that the first time we meet him, he tries to arrest us only amplifies this point!

[BF] “What?! Are you questioning my sense of justice?!”

When he is confronted with an argument against his beliefs, he hides behind justice. In a way, he hides behind his badge, the very item that allows him to make the decisions on who is being painted as guilty, and who is not. In fact, he doesn't even question his beliefs.

[BF] “Prosecutor Blackquill! We’ve had enough of your hijinks! The foundation of justice is fair play, and you are in serious violation of that!”

And finally, the so-called 'jolts of justice'. I've seen arguments in the past claiming that the real Bobby Fulbright would never use electrical shocks on Blackquill. I politely disagree. Considering all the previous examples, I think it aligns with his behavioural patterns and is the epitome of his morality.

And thus, I would like to briefly propose my personally crafted theory about Dual Destinies: The game was originally going to delve into darker themes, and Fulbright's corruption was at the center of that.

Yes, Fulbright believes in justice, in good and bad. He has good intentions. But at the end of the day, he is a cop that holds power over others and justifies his wrongdoings with... well, justice. So long as he believes that he is doing the right thing, he is willing to reach for extremes.

I think this is often missed due to Fulbright's comical mess ups and overall cheery and charming demeanour. The characters don't really react to his more... extreme decisions either.

Consider a world where the phantom was not the main twist of the series, but some aspects remained. Such as... The tampering with evidence... Abusing police position to cover up a crime... Framing innocent suspects... It fits into the previously showcased negative traits of his.

Ergo, the real Bobby Fulbright might not be as justice-driven as many may believe. There are many details that tend to get overlooked when it comes to him, especially in fanon. Which is fine and good! It is comforting to think of a policeman that does his job properly. However, I also find this darker side absolutely fascinating and worthy of discussion.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this silly analysis post! Do feel free to argue or ask questions, I love a good debate and I love yapping <3

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hey! Love your meta and your blog in general!!🥰 One small thing I’ve always been curious about is when DreamStat(my beloved, I want to watch him follow Louis around and make bitchy/supportive comments forever) laughs when Louis and Armand exchange “I love you’s” it’s when Armand says it to Louis, not the other way around. Mostly I was just wondering if you have any thoughts on that. Like, I think, given how it seems, at least in the show, Louis never said it aloud to Lestat (I will eat fics where Lestat bursts into tears when Louis does say it for the first time post reunion for breakfast lunch and dinner) the real Lestat would have Words and Big Emotions about Louis saying it to someone else- though I don’t know if Louis would have really wanted to acknowledge that at that point or in general during the interview🤔 And also I always sort of read Lestat’s presence and mockery in the moment as an indication that Louis didn’t mean it when he told Armand he loved him, but if I think about him staying (cuntily) silent until Armand says it back I’m not sure anymore. Was it Louis’ subconscious drawing attention to a suspicion at Armand’s lack of sincerity? Both? Neither?? Send help please and thanks🙏

Hey!

Glad you like :)

So to address the missing "I love you", you need to be aware of the fact that this is a book canon trait that the writers put in for show Louis. They called it "leverage of withholding", a weaponization of language (their words not mine).

This "weaponization" can only hurt when it is meant. Louis withheld the "I love you" from Lestat, on purpose.

And the other thing is... "DreamStat"... is not Lestat.

That's LOUIS.

Louis, mocking himself. Louis being sarcastic about something Armand says in his own mind. Louis, hating that he never said the words. Louis, reading himself for filth at times. Louis punishing himself.

Louis does not believe Armand. That he actually loves him that is.

The little snort Dreamstat gives when Armand says that it's not easy for him makes that very clear for me, he just doesn't believe it - because it feels not the same for him. And the reason why it is not the same, totally apart from his actual feelings that might have developed under different circumstances follows immediately, because Armand spells it out for Louis, namely: "I keep your secret."

That is a statement, as well as a veiled threat.

And it pisses Louis off, he literally addresses it when he makes the candle light back up, that it works best when he is pissed.

Armand then says: "I try and find the vulnerability within the object."

And that... is another barely veiled prod, threat, and one Louis understands very well (remember, Armand threatened to burn him before), because he immediately relents. And offers to come around more though he hates it at the theatre. And offers an "I love you", with a pasted on smile.

And mocks it within his own mind, via his own inner DreamStat. Laughs when Armand says it back! (Which is soooo bitter when you think about the fact that Armand could read that in Louis' mind!!)

Louis does not believe Armand has actual feelings (like that) for him.

And the thing is, I think Armand does, and that is the tragedy of it all. Because to get Louis' love Armand uses coercion, veiled threats and manipulation, which is rooted in book canon. And he thereby loses it, almost immediately after that initial infatuation phase.

Louis will tell Lestat eventually. He does in the books, and if you read the writer's thread then you know they have... plans :)

And until then we have fanfiction :)))

[haitang-blossoms]

On Differential Methods, Politics, & Intimacy for Early Novel!Cezhou (haitang-blossoms' Qiang Jin Jiu meta)

Note: This analysis goes up to Chapter 42 which is where I had read up to before Lianyin's fantranslation was taken down due to official English licensing by Seven Seas. This is also the source of my quoted screenshots of the novel.

The way both Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye weaponise perceived incompetence (through fabricated images of "grateful helplessness" and "devil-may-care hedonism" respectively) is so compelling and really serves to flesh out the realities of the environment they are forced to navigate.

It is a recurring narrative motif that both Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye are "beasts" trapped and restrained by the political system of Qudu. However, the difference in social position and status between them is key to why they choose the masks that they do.

Shen Zechuan, both as a by-proxy-traitor to the nation and as the son of a dancer, has always had to keep his head down and not act beyond his station. Thus, it is perfectly natural that he operates within this expected framework: both to survive in the hostile political landscape as well as to conceal his own intentions and moves within the shadows.

Xiao Chiye, on the other hand, was born into relative power. While the Xiao Clan of Libei was never in the favour of the Empress Dowager, they are nonetheless a reputable cavalry with a hereditary title. Xiao Chiye, as the second son, has both less direct political influence as well as responsibility than his father (the prince) or his elder brother (the next-in-line). This is how he is so easily made a "bargaining chip" and assigned to what seems to be a hopelessly dead-end job in order to keep a metaphorical "leash" on any rebellious intent that Libei may harbour. Given his wealth and inevitable position of being constantly in the public eye, the easiest way to cover up the target on Xiao Chiye's back is to present himself as a frivolous hedonist who is too busy chasing after liquor and bed-partners to pose a real threat to the established power dynamics of the capital.

The difference between their methods can also be observed in the way that their preferences are perceived by others:

Xiao Chiye presents himself as genial: he loves to drink, he is sociable enough to go out with friends frequently etc. However, as seen in the quote above, Xiao Chiye's "friendliness" is actually quite distant in that even the people who think they know him well are unaware of his true preferences. Yet he conducts himself in such a manner that they would not even think to ponder such things. It is a very effective approach for gathering intel: make the other party assume you are giving away much more about yourself than you are, opening the door for them to carelessly overshare from a sense of fabricated comradery.

Shen Zechuan is the opposite: going along with how he is forced to constantly humble himself and downplay his abilities, his preferences have to be presented as equally accommodating to the will of others. There are many instances where he seemingly goes along with others, secretly gritting his teeth the whole way, in order to "soften" them up to be played into his hand later.

And this goes into my next point:

Even though Shen Zechuan has an image of seductiveness, his entire method revolves around NOT having openly expressed desires because that would only serve as a vulnerability. Xiao Chiye, by contrast, predicates his mask around devil-may-care hedonism.

In this way, desire is both much more familiar to Xiao Chiye as well as easier to integrate into his established reputation than for Shen Zechuan. 

This is key to why Xiao Chiye is the first to accept his feelings and why he is much more comfortable with unabashedly expressing them. Thus, I think the differences in how Cezhou present themselves and the contrasting methods they use to stay ahead in their environment have bearing not only on the political games of their world but also on their relationship and how they relate themselves to each other.

[fancyfade]

Damian's intro in Batman and Son analysis

Okay so. This will be shorter than my Lonely Place of Dying meta (link) because rather than focusing on multiple story elements, I want to just focus on how Morrison presents Damian to the audience.

Again - this is not me saying this comic is bad (I mean. The treatment of talia definitely is bad but this post is about how Damian is presented) or 'you can't like this comic'. Just an analysis of what the audience sees.

General thesis: Morrison doesn't try to make Damian likeable, and does what they can to make him unlikable, but he is not presented as a villain, even though he does villainous things. He's presented more of an obstacle, a spoiled kid who happens to have assassin training.

Okay so let's start with his very first appearance.

Damian is obscured in shadow, or only a small portion of his face is visible, for the first two issues he appears in (until the very last page of the second issue) to keep a mystery on who he is. This is a pretty common technique for hiding character's identities in comics. It's also what the artist does for Talia, though we see her face a little earlier than Damian's.

We don't see Talia's face until Batman recognizes who is behind it, and even after that Damian is in shadow (clearly visible to Batman, but Batman doesn't comment on him) until Talia introduces him.

This is the first time we see him fully on panel.

Okay, so we've covered how Damian is presented on panel before we know who he is. Now lets get to what information is presented about Damian?

From the first thing Talia says about Damian to Batman, Damian is portrayed as out of control, something that continues into the next comics.

When Damian gets to be Batcave he:

Is generally unimpressed with the Batcave

scoffs at the idea of fighting crime

starts touching Bruce's unfinished projects

Clarifies his mom was not present in his childhood and let him do whatever he wanted

Tries to fight Bruce

Dismisses Tim

Cusses out Alfred

Then in Wayne Manor

Demands a laptop

Implied to have been insulting Alfred this whole time ("My patience for colorful insults is wearing thing")

Throws food at the wall

I think any one of these things might make the presumed comic reader slightly predisposed to disliking him. All of them at once is like. "He doesn't have the morals that the rest of the cast does (they want to fight crime, he doesn't). He wants Bruce's approval but does not verbally respect him. He has no regard for fan-favorite characters like Alfred or Tim". Pretty much trying to make him unlikeable for many readers.

It's also notable that even though Damian is a jerk to Tim and Alfred, the author never presents it as being justified. It's not like "this new character is a jerk to fan-favorties because I don't like them and want to put them down".

one complaint I often see is "Morrison doesn't like Tim", but I think it's notable that Tim is portrayed as someone who's supposed to be reasonable here. He tries to be friendly to Damian when Bruce introduces them, he offers to spar with Damian and "go easy on him", even if behind the scenes he does express frustration to Bruce.

Damian also isn't really portrayed as utterly trouncing Tim. Their actual fight scene:

Only lasts three pages, and for most of it Tim is not actually trying to fight back.

For a "Character is beat up by a 10 year old" that's a pretty gentle scene, in terms of competence of the character. He's trying to help. He's not fighting back seriously because he views Damian more as a kid than a threat. He's concerned about Alfred. I'm like jeez I wish the writers who hated Damian would be that gentle with not disparaging competence, putting in extenuating circumstances and him being genuinely concerned for people when something that wouldn't normally happen has to happen to further the plot.

Anyway - then when we do see injured Tim, the focus seems to be on the severity of the act. There's no downplaying it.

When Bruce finds Tim, he's horrified and angry at Damian ("You did this"), he keeps Damian with him because he's too dangerous to be left alone.

So it's pretty clear that Damian beating up Tim and intending to replace him is something intended to make him more unlikeable, not something to besmirch Tim.

Okay, so why is Damian an inconvenience rather than a villain?

Damian in general lacks the motive to be a villain here. He's not framed as someone who has a big master plan - that's Talia (framed badly by Morrison who retconned a lot of her character - but that's another post).

Meanwhile, this is what Bruce says about Damian

And when Damian is yelling about wanting stuff:

Even when Damian does attack and assault Tim, it's clearly not due to some larger plot, or even that he genuinely hates Tim and wants him dead, but the fact that in the place he was raised, that's what you did

And Damian is instantly ready to be on Bruce's side after his attempt to replace Tim fails:

Yeah you're not seeing a supervillain begging to be useful to Batman. It is pretty clear he's supposed to be read a disruptive, amoral kid.

Anyway, so comparison to Lonely Place of Dying:

Both comics start with the premise that the reader presumably likes the established characters. I already got into how much LOPD relies on the comic reader being a fan of Batman and Robin, but I think it's clear here that that's the case as well. Morrison does make plenty of references to the past (whether they understand them or not is a discussion for a different time) with Bruce's previous LIs, mischaracterizing Talia and Bruce's earlier relationship, the man-bat characters, what Bruce has been up to in the one year since Infinite Crisis. They also portray Tim as someone who is generally trying to help and competent, with 1 or 2 bits of realistic pettiness or annoyance thrown in (like him saying (privately, to Bruce) that Damian should earn Bruce's love and respect like everyone else - interestingly enough, a premise Damian does not disagree with), just not the main character of the narrative. And if you include this to other things that Morrison wrote with Tim (like some of the Black Glove plots) its clear Morrison is not trying to 'depower' tim or anything.

So Damian beefing with Tim and assaulting him and Alfred is another thing that makes him read as less likeable to the audience, rather than something that puts Tim and Alfred down. This contrasts greatly to how much Tim respects and admires Dick in LOPD. In both cases, the established character (Tim for Damian, Dick for Tim) has other things going on that justify why a new character might show them up or be useful/a threat. (I got into my post in LOPD about how they were careful to not let Tim 'show up' existing characters).