#me and my son just feeding off each other's lunacy

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

Me: *Mentions an idea previously discussed on Tumblr about the connection between the Shiba Clan and Squad Zero*

My older son: *"Yes And..." my dumb shit...*

Because I was talking about how the transportation used by Squad Zero is the exact same as Kukaku's Flower Crane Cannon.

There was this headcanon that I really like that the Shiba Clan became one of the Great Noble Houses because of that specific contribution to the Royal Realm and Squad Zero way before the Reio's mutilation. (He was already the Soul King before Ichibei — And the Tsunayashiro Head — gave the idea to mutilate the Reio because they were afraid to lose their own power to him, I guess...)

So my son goes like:

"What if they'd started as the original Royal Guards?"

You know... Before Squad Zero starts being formed to the way we know them now...?

It makes sense that the Head of the Shiba Clan was the only one to oppose the mutilation and try to offer another way to keep the Worlds separated.

It also starts making sense that it was so easy to banish and pretty much destroy the Shiba Clan if, as another theory put it, the Shiba Clan was the only ones who tried to repeatedly try to find one amongst them worthy to become the vessel for the Reio's powers and therefore release him from that "existence"...

Let's say Ichibei held a grudge and took the opportunity to influence the outcome of events and take out the Shiba Clan almost completely...

But still, they need them. They need Kukaku and, even though the she keeps moving her house, apparently Squad Zero knows exactly where to find them to send the Tenchūren back to the Royal Realm.

Of course, because we always cannot stay on one topic... Or one aspect of the topic, I then was like:

"Hey! By the way... Have you seen Senjumaru's face?"

At first he was like:

"Her hair style kind of looks like Shinji's..."

Me: "No... Look at the face and the eyes..."

And that's when he arrived at the same conclusion I had...

Senjumaru kind of has the Kuchiki Resting Bitch Face™...

So,of course, I presented my dumb idea:

"What if she was a member of the Kuchiki Clan?"

My son: "Is that why she was the one who didn't kill herself? Because the Historian amongst the Squad Zero needs to survive to tell the story?"

Me:

I mean... Sure... It's really grasping at straws, but...

Putting it in the context of my Sunflowers And Cherry Blossoms series, it becomes even funnier...

Senjumaru was in the 12th squad — Maybe a Kuchiki...

Hikifune was in the 12th squad — The creator of the Ginkon and (in my series) the one who helped Sojun and Kaori create Byakuya through the Reishi Input Pod. A kind of Godmother figure for him.

And Byakuya fucking hates the 12th squad, mainly because of the complete lack of morals from Mayuri...

It's hilarious, actually.

There was also that thing about the Squad Zero's crest in one of the cour 2 scenes, which showed symbols for each element, and Senjumaru's needle and thread heavily evoked the Kuchiki Clan's figures of the cranes they have on their crest.

(I cannot find the picture of that Squad Zero crest... Anyways...)

I just find it interesting that there could be a possibility of Squad Zero, in its inception, having personal connections to the Great Noble Houses.

Ichibei could even be a part of that mysterious, elusive Other House we know nothing about.

My son also mentioned the hands Kukaku used to have "adorning" her house.

"Oh, like the chopped off arms of the Reio?"

And it reminded me that the Shihoin Clan became a kind of Guards Of The Heavens and the "arms" of the Reio.

Imagine if they'd taken over said responsibility directly from the Shiba Clan after their initial falling out with Ichibei?

Just you know... Random thoughts...

[whatareyousearchingfordean]

Happiness Continues

Part 12: Home

Summary: Jensen and Y/n are adjusting to being new parents when an unexpected visitor turns everything upside down.

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Plus Size Reader

Word Count: 3.9K+

Warnings: Language, mentions of postpartum struggles, home invasion, attempted kidnapping

Author’s Note: Thank you all for the endless love, my girls who are always there to cheer me on, and my amazing beta @emoryhemsworth xoxo Alex

Catch up with the series masterlist and then check out Alexandra’s Library for more by yours truly!

4 Weeks Later

Steam billowed up from the mug that sat on the counter. Y/n dipped the teas bags in and out of the boiling water, letting the flavor steep out. Once she was satisfied that it had been long enough since she’d initially dropped the bags in, the mother pulled the soaking pouch from the mug, squeezing the excess water from them into the sink. She pulled open the tabs of the nursing bra she was wearing and stuck one bag into each cup, allowing the warm, humid, heat to surround her swollen nipples. 

“Every time I walk into this room you are doing something strange in our kitchen.” Jensen’s voice had her popping her head up, a soft smile on her face. Her husband was cradling their son in the crook of his arm, the infant cooing as he looked up at his father. 

“I looked it up online; it’s supposed to help with pain,” the noise that fell from her mouth was almost a whine… almost. 

“Have you talked to the doctor about it?” 

“Yeah, it’s likely he’s just cluster feeding because he’s going through his first growth spurt. It should taper off in a few days, but for now, he’s attached to my fucking breasts, so they are not having a good time.” Y/n picked up her mug and headed into the living room to plop down on the couch. 

It was no secret that parents, especially new parents, tended not to get much sleep, but nothing had prepared her for this level of exhaustion. Since birth, Y/n felt like she didn’t get any time to herself. She was a walking milk machine with her body attempting to heal at the same time, and more than once, she found herself in tears out of pure frustration. Jensen had been wonderful, of course, and having Donna around during that first week was a godsend, but they could only do so much, especially now that he was cluster feeding. The fact that Ezra was even letting Jensen hold him at the moment was something of a miracle. She was hoping the tea might help her sleep a tad more soundly, something she had been struggling with since her son was born, her body hyper-aware of everything happening around her, but she had to be careful and watch how it affected the baby. The tip about the tea bags on her sore nipples was a lucky bonus.

Jensen followed her to the couch, sitting beside her as their son babbled away in his arms. The new mother couldn’t even stop herself, her attention immediately on Ezra. She smiled brightly down at him, using her free hand to wipe away the flyaway hairs at the crown of his head. Her husband watched the exchange, an equally wide grin on his face. 

“He’s a growing boy, that’s for sure,” Jensen agreed, watching his wife with an amused smile. 

“Yeah, well, I wish he would stop.”

“Don’t all parents wish that?” He sat back in his seat, laying out Ezra along the length of his lap. The little boy peered up at his parents, his chubby legs and arms thrashing about. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice high as she played with the giggling baby during their conversation. Y/n continued to make faces at the smiling baby as she spoke, her attention divided between the men in her life. “I just know it makes me feel old.”

“It makes you feel old?” He scoffed out a laugh at her comment.

“You know what I mean. He’s already growing out of outfits. I blame you and your damned height for that.”

“Oh, as if height doesn’t run on your side of the family,” Jensen pursed his lips and she laughed at him. 

“Fine, you’ve got me on that one. I’ll just blame my dad.” She turned her attention from the infant, whose eyes had begun to grow heavy, a beaming smile on her face as she looked at her husband. 

“Sounds good to me,” he smiled back at her, leaning in to peck her lips. “I’m going to see if he’ll let me rock him.” 

“Okay, I’ll see you in bed.” Y/n watched as Jensen shifted Ezra back into his arms so he could stand. He turned to her as he got to his feet, the tall Texan bouncing the infant in place as he spoke. 

“It’s seven-thirty.”

“Yeah, so I’ll see you in bed,” she repeated with a pat to his behind as she stood along with him. Jensen shook his head as he headed off, leaving her to get ready for the night with a smile on both their faces. 

****

The cries ringing through the house grew insistent, the pitch rising fast through the baby monitor before she was jolted awake. Her body jumped from the bed on instinct, startling the sleeping man next to her. 

“Again?” He husked, his voice like gravel as he didn’t bother to open his eyes, but he recognized the sound filling the bedroom. Y/n wiped her hand over her face, rubbing her knuckles into her tired and sore eyes. 

“Yeah, it’s the damn cluster feeding,” she replied as she tossed the covers from her body. Jensen moved to get up from the bed at the same time, but she gently urged him back against the mattress. “I’ve got him.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, unless you want to breastfeed him.” It was supposed to be a joke, but she was too exhausted to attempt to hide the aggravation behind her statement. Her adamance about avoiding a bottle had turned into Ezra refusing them, which meant that she and her nipples got no breaks. Not to mention if they wanted to break the cluster feeding, baby-to-breast was the quickest way.

A wide yawn broke across her face as she fetched her robe, slipped it on, and headed to the nursery. She let her muscle memory guide her body through the house, her eyes still struggling to open fully as she shuffled across the floor. The fatigue in every cell of her body was fighting against being awake again. 

Y/n pushed open the door with another yawn, her eyes on the crib as she entered. Between the cries, the white noise machine, and the lethargy, her brain didn’t process that something was off until it was too late.

“Hello, Y/n.” Y/n whipped around, her breath catching in her throat at the sight in front of her. Seated in the glider in the corner of the nursery was Chandler, her son wailing away in his arms as the man rocked the chair back and forth. Y/n opened her mouth to talk, but for once she was truly speechless. Adrenaline was now coursing through her blood, the only thought in her head on getting her son away from him. 

“There’s no way...” When she finally willed away the lump in her throat, the words slipped past her lips, cracked with fear. Chandler’s menacing grin somehow grew wider on his round face as she spoke. 

“Where there is a will, there is a way,” Chandler chuckled to himself as if he’d cracked some code and not just uttered one of the most common idioms in the English language. “See, I overestimated your security system at first. It messed up my whole plan, and I had to improvise. No worries though, he will not notice anything.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Her mind was reeling. Part of her was attempting to assess the situation, looking for any way out, while the other half listened to the deranged words of a sick man, but it seemed Chandler was the priority. That is until he no longer had her son.

“He thought he was doing the right thing by changing out the system when in fact he just made my job of freeing you that much easier,” Chandler went on as if she hadn’t said anything. “Hooking everything up to the Internet just makes it easier to hack. Besides, I was already on your computer—”

“Wait, my computer?” Her voice broke through his rambling. 

“I’ve been waiting for years now to save you, but I had to make sure you were safe in the meantime… so I have been keeping an eye on you,” Chandler explained to her, the nonchalance in his voice terrifying as her son continued to cry in the man’s arms. 

“You cloned my computer.” The realization hit her like she had been slapped. 

“More or less,” Chandler rolled his eyes at her statement. That action somehow irritated her more than the fact that he was holding Ezra hostage at the moment.

“You keep saying ‘save me.’ Save me from what?” At this point, Y/n was only trying to buy herself some time to come up with a plan of her own. Her eyes flickered around the room, landing on the baby monitor sitting high on the wall. The green light on the side of the camera was not shining, signaling that it had been turned off. Whether it was Jensen or Chandler who had done it, she couldn’t be sure. Both her and Jensen were guilty of shutting the device off in the past if their son was still fussy as someone was attending to him in the middle of the night. It was the only way they managed to get an inkling of sleep some nights. Now she was afraid that it could be her undoing. 

“This obviously,” he indicated the child in his arms. The infant was still fussing, but his cries had grown softer in the mere minutes since she had walked into the room. “This cliché of a life you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“What if I told you I loved my life?”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“You don’t even know me!” Y/n reared back at his observation, more than irritated that she had been dropped into the lunacy of this man’s head once again.

“I do know you!” Chandler yelled back, the roar in his voice startling the fussing baby and sending him into another frenzy of cries. He rose to his feet then, and she could now make out the holster on his hip. Y/n stepped back, the revelation of the possible escalation of the situation heavy on her shoulders. “I know you’re way too good just to be someone’s wife and mother!” 

It took her a moment to find her voice again, the frightened woman shaking where she stood as she kept her eyes on her son. All she wanted was for him to put Ezra down, but she had to be careful how she went about it. There was no telling what might set him off next time. 

“So what now?”

“We leave,” Chandler allowed the grin to return to his features, the triumph in his eyes not lost on Y/n. “You and me.”

Y/n bit down hard on the tip of her tongue, wanting to say anything but what she ended up saying next. “Okay.”

****

The faint sound of a distant shout and the continued muffled cries from across the house pulled Jensen back to consciousness. He blinked in the darkness, confusion taking over as he realized what he was hearing. 

He rolled over in the bed, noticing Y/n was still up, making the cries of his son unusual. The still groggy man crawled across the bed and snatched the baby monitor off of the nightstand. He hit the power button, bringing the screen back to life in no time. As it adjusted to the darkness of the room, he could see where his wife stood near the doorway, but she wasn’t holding Ezra, and Jensen couldn’t see him in the crib. The scene perplexed his tired mind. That was until his wife’s voice came through the small monitor.

“So what now?” 

“We leave.” 

The sound of a second voice in the room had Jensen on his feet in an instant. He cursed under his breath as he ran back to his side of the bed and pulled his pistol out of the locked compartment at the bottom of his drawer where it had been waiting for this very moment. Somewhere deep down, he’d always suspected they hadn’t seen the last of the man that haunted his wife’s dreams. Though he’d hoped that it wouldn’t play out this way, he hadn’t disregarded any of the potential scenarios where Chandler may re-emerge. 

Jensen expertly checked the magazine and chamber before flipping off the safety. He ripped his phone from the charger and dialed 9-1-1, putting it on speaker in front of the monitor before sprinting from the bedroom. His long legs brought him to the nursery in no time, his wife’s name on the tip of his tongue.

“Y/n!”

****

“Okay?”

“Yes, just—” The sound of her name had her spinning on her heel, her husband skidding to a stop behind her. His brow creased in the center of his forehead as they made eye contact before he lifted the gun in his hands. The glare that settled into his features as he took in the scene in front of him was downright terrifying to look at. “Jensen, no!” 

“I would listen to her,” Chandler challenged, his actions mirroring that of the enraged husband and father. With the baby in his grip, he was at a disadvantage physically, but the reality was that meant he now held all the cards. 

“Please?” Y/n put her hands up, one towards Jensen and one towards her stalker. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she turned a pleading gaze on her husband. “Jensen put the gun down.” 

“Y/n—”

“I’m leaving,” she hiccupped, hoping he would understand what she was doing, that every action from here on out was about making sure Ezra was safe. Most of all, she hoped Jensen knew that no matter what, she loved him. “Put it down.” 

Jensen searched her face, his eyes scanning over every inch of her tear-stained features, searching for anything to hint she was lying to him, but the truth was she had every intention of going. If it meant Ezra was safe, she would leave and figure the rest out later. It was all she had right now. He nodded, his eyes glistening as he succumbed to the truth in her words. He clicked the safety back on and set it on the ground before kicking it away from him. 

Y/n turned back to Chandler. “See, I’m coming with you, but you’ve got to put my son down. Please, just put him in the crib and I’ll go wherever you want.” The man eyed her before glancing at the crying infant. Carefully he placed Ezra into the crib, his eyes never leaving the couple as he did so. A shuddering breath escaped her chest as soon as her son was out of the line of fire. 

“Go,” Chandler indicated out the door with his gun, the action causing Y/n to flinch, but she did as she was told. Jensen was forced to step back and watch as the woman he loved was carted off at gunpoint. Instinct was yelling at him to go after them, but one false move could mean he risks her life and he had their son to think about too, so instead, he let her go. 

Y/n kept her head forward, blinking back the tears that were blurring her vision as she walked. The unknown laid out before her with every step she made, and it took everything in her to keep from breaking into hysterics. Her chest ached with every fractured breath she attempted, bordering on hyperventilating. Chandler grabbed her arm as she passed the door outside, tugging her back and out the door into the courtyard. She shivered in the night air, the stone wet and cold under her feet as he dragged her along. Her whole being wanted to protest, but there was no use anymore, she was at his mercy. 

He continued to drag her down the driveway and into the road, his grip tightening on her bicep. Her feet shuffled beneath her, her toes going numb from the cold with every step. There was no telling where or how far he would take her. She only hoped someone would be able to find her, or one day she’d be able to find her way back.

Chandler walked up to a parked car sitting at the end of the street less than two houses down from her home. He guided her to the passenger seat, unlocking the door and tugging it open for her. Y/n let out a huff as he shoved her forward, biting her tongue to stop the comment she wanted to spit at him. She turned her back on him before she got in, her eyes going straight to his hands and the gun where he was flipping off the safety. The once irritated woman saw his guard down as her opportunity to run, her stomach now in her throat. It was now or never. 

The woman used this momentary distraction to disarm him, the gun skidding against the asphalt and behind the car. She lunged for the device as he howled from the pain she inflicted to his wrist, picking up the pistol in trembling hands and bolting across the street. Temporarily dazed, Chandler unintentionally gave her a head start before chasing after, anger enticing his actions. His hand reached out just as she got to her feet, gun in hand, his fingers gripping a sliver of the tie of her robe to tug her backward, making Y/n lose her footing. Her body tumbled to the ground, the wet concrete slicing up the exposed skin of her extremities. 

“Stop!” She screamed as she hastily rolled onto her back, the gun aimed at his head as he loomed over her. Her heavy breaths fanned into the night sky in a plume of white mist as she laid out on her back in the middle of the street. 

“Ha, you won’t do it,” he snarled, taking in the way the adrenaline and cold had her whole body shaking. 

“Try me,” she growled back, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing her break yet again. His eyes narrowed as he contemplated whether or not she was capable, but Y/n held her ground, refusing to move first. The sound of police sirens hit before the blue and red flashing lights began to bounce off the nearby houses. Y/n let out a breath as a police car skidded to a stop just in front of them, the headlights bathing the two in blinding light. 

“Drop your weapon!” She heard the shouts coming at her, but she wasn’t ready to give in. More than anything she wanted to shoot him, for the months of worry and stress to be over once and for all, but she knew deep down that it was over. Y/n put her hands up in defense, dropping the clip from the gun before setting it down slowly and pushing it out of her reach. 

Then everything happened in a blurred mess. She was on her stomach, her hands being pulled behind her back and secured into metal cuffs before the officer brought her to her feet. It was now that she finally let the floodgates open, every emotion hitting her at once and racking her body with sobs. The cops must have thought she was crazy, but she honestly didn’t care. 

“Shit, Y/n!” Jensen’s voice had her popping her head up. He was jogging down the street towards her in just his boxers and a robe. The cop turned on him as he approached, stopping in his path. 

“Sir, please, you’re gonna have to stand back.” The cop grabbed him by his shoulders as Jensen continued to try and pass him.

“The hell I am! You have my wife in handcuffs!” Jensen barked as he knocked the hands of the cops away from his body. 

“This is your wife?”

“Yes, now will you tell me why she’s being detained?” Jensen kept trying to peek over the cop’s shoulder, trying to meet his wife’s eye as she continued to sob. The sight hurt worse than watching her walk out the door. After everything she’d been through, now this, and he couldn’t even be there to hold her. 

“She was pointing a gun at this man when we pulled up,” the police officer explained.

“Maybe because he was trying to kidnap her!”

“Sir, please, it's just procedure. Let us take both your statements and we can go from there,” he assured Jensen. 

“Can I at least see her?” The annoyance was heavy in his words. The cop nodded and Jensen didn’t think twice before rushing to her side. He pulled her body into his arms, cradling her head against his chest as he began to cry with her. “Don’t you ever do anything like that to me again.” 

“I’m sorry, I had to for Ezra,” she wept, her inability to hold him as well making everything worse. Jensen sighed, his whole body going slack when her words registered in his head.

“Shhh, I know, I know. I just—I can’t lose you.” He kissed the crown of her head, one hand moving to rub up and down her back as he continued to try and soothe her. 

The police officer returned with the gun now in an evidence bag. Y/n couldn’t believe what was happening. She felt like she was watching someone else’s life through their eyes and not her own. It was all so surreal. The officer took Jensen’s statement before she insisted he go back to the house. He didn’t want to go, but he’d been gone long enough, the baby monitor in his pocket not sufficient for anything longer than he had been away. He reluctantly left her in custody, placing one last kiss on her forehead before he returned to their son.

Once the paramedics arrived on the scene a few minutes later, the cops released her, Y/n’s statement, and Chandler’s record enough to explain the scene they had arrived at. She didn’t want to let the medics clean her wounds, her mind focusing only on returning home, but she eventually relented that it was the best course of action. The second they cleared her, Y/n was on her feet, running back to her house as if her life depended on it because honestly, she felt like it did. 

Jensen was waiting in the kitchen, attempting to feed a fighting Ezra a bottle. He turned when he heard the door opening, relief washing over him that she was back to him. The still shaking woman ran to her family, allowing her husband to properly wrap her in his arms as she held both of her men against her chest. Her face was shoved into his robe on his shoulder as she let the floodgates open, soaking the fabric in her tears. Jensen shushed her through the release, her body shaking as it came down from the high of everything that had happened. There was no stopping the trauma the night had inflicted upon her, no matter how much she tried. 

So she chose instead to let it out. At the end of it all, Y/n would push it all aside and move forward because she refused to let the experience control her any longer. All that mattered was continuing to build and nurture the family that she and Jensen had started. It wouldn’t be easy, but time would heal the wounds if she worked through them now, and her promise to the guys in her life was to figure it out. Her promise was one of a future filled with nothing but continued happiness.

Epilogue 

Forevers: @22sarah08 @akshi8278 @anathewierdo3467 @atc74 @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @briagallen @callmekda @dawnie1988 @deandreamernp @deanwanddamons @ellewritesfix05 @emoryhemsworth @foxyjwls007 @hobby27 @janicho88 @jensengirl83 @katehuntington @lyarr24 @malfoysqueen14 @miss-nerd95 @mrsjenniferwinchester @msmarvelouswinchester @polina-93 @sleepylunarwolf @stiles-stilinski-24-dylan @smol-and-grumpy @suckmyapplejacks @superfanficnatural @supraveng @talesmaniac89 @tatted-trina6 @thoughts-and-funnies @tranquility-or-chaos @waywardbeanie @winchest09

Happiness Continues: @afangirlreacts @anaelsbrunette @ashleyrose0117 @austin-winchester67 @cno92 @deanbowlegsackles @deangirl93 @deans-baby-momma @death-unbecomes-you @dvnmbabe @fangirl199813 @harryhook-lover @hoboal87 @itsdesiree86 @jbsgirl4eber11 @let-me-luve-you @linki-locks11 @lunarmoon8 @neverland14353 @onethirstyunicorn @parinarain @rebeccathefangirl @rebelemilu @smoothdogsgirl @spnfamily-j2 @squirrelnotsam @stoneyggirl @supernatural3002 @traceyaudette @winchestergirl82 @winqhster @zpandaqueen

If your username is crossed out, Tumblr will not let me tag you. Sorry!

[thepilgrimgeek]

Does the Joker Need an Origin Story? Minor Spoilers for Joker (Part the Second)

Within the Batman mythos, there has been an often returned to theme: Batman and the Joker are two interwoven pieces whose relationship is perpetual in its conflict, if not symbiotic in its necessity. As of late, particularly in the work of Scott Snyder, the Joker carries an infatuation with Batman, sometimes akin to that of an unrequited lover. The Joker and Batman are portrayed as two sides of the same coin and one does not exist without the other. Sometimes this is taken a step further: Batman and the Joker are so similar that Batman is always teetering on the edge of becoming the Joker. For a portrayal that is more on the nose, I direct you to The Batman Who Laughs, created by Snyder in the miniseries Dark Nights: Metal. The common theme often employed in recent history is that the Joker and Batman have more in common than they have in contrast. Those contrasts may be significant (Batman does not kill, and lives a by a code), but as the Joker tries to illustrate in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, Batman may only be one bad day from becoming his arch nemesis.

Yet what separates Batman from the Joker, and furthermore what separates all of the rogues’ gallery from the Clown Prince, is a well known and canonized backstory. The presence of an origin story is noticeably lacking in the Joker’s history. Several versions have been portrayed in comics, but the Joker of Batman canon confesses he does not remember his history the same way each time and prefers multiple choice. And here lies the rub with equating the Joker as Batman’s darkest potentiality.  Batman is in many ways a noir hero. He is a protagonist pursuing righteousness in the midst of a corrupt world that feeds off of itself. In the spirit of films such as The Maltese Falcon or pulp characters such as The Shadow, the Dark Knight faces the forces of oppression and malevolence that plague Gotham City when no one else will. And Batman recognizes the humanity and loss of many of his own foes as well. Every foe Batman faces has an origin story that turns them into a tragic or sympathetic villain. Mr. Freeze is motivated by finding a cure for his chronically ill wife; Poison Ivy is an environmental scientist and activist turned mutated eco-terrorist; even the Riddler is sympathetic in the way his obsession with puzzles plays out in his pathology. None of these villains are ever killed by Batman because he fundamentally believes each of them has the potential for redemption. He is familiar with their origins. And each villain has traits that reflect Batman’s own. The Scarecrow weaponizes fear in the same fashion as Batman. Ras Al’Ghul acts with a certain sense of extreme, purifying justice. 

However, the Joker shares none of these traits. The Joker does not reflect a piece of Batman back on himself. He does not have an origin story that stirs up Batman’s sympathies. Instead, the Joker stands as the presence of meaningless chaos in Gotham City. The Joker remains a mysterious force rather than a humanized person. It is his role as an “agent of chaos” that pushes Batman’s convictions to its limits. He has no end goal or motivation like the rest of Batman’s rogues’ gallery. The Clown Prince of Crime is not even motivated by something as simple as wealth or conventional power. He only wants to rob the world of any structure. If he has any motivation, it has been his obsession with Batman (something developed more in recent history by Scott Snyder). The Joker is reminiscent of the character of Satan in the book of Job. In Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, the Joker is the one who looks at Batman’s righteousness and says “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.” It was with this framework in mind that I admit I walked into Todd Philips’ Joker with a some skepticism. It seems to me that the creation of an origin story for the Joker undermines the Joker’s very role in the Batman canon, and it is unwise to stir up too much sympathy for a villain whose sole role is to sow chaos. Imagine my apprehension when Philips appeared to go the extra mile in Joker by taking the Joker/Batman equation to an unprecedented extreme: the revelation that Arthur Fleck was Thomas Wayne’s illegitimate son. The Joker and Batman are brothers. It is a narrative choice that I’m sure made many fanboys squeal with anticipation. The greatest hero/villain relationship in modern history is now a horrible, secret family affair. In this rendition, the Joker is who he is because the esteemed Wayne family has a dark secret. 

The revelation is muddied when Fleck steals his mother’s case file from Arkham Asylum, which confirms Thomas Wayne’s claim that Fleck’s mother is mentally ill, and that she adopted Fleck and exposed him to her abusive boyfriend. Penny Fleck then tells her son that Thomas Wayne used his money to fabricate the documents to cover up their affair. Who to believe? The thread of delusion and unreliable narration on the part of Arthur Fleck runs strong, but the question still remains. Are he and Batman brothers?  In one of the film’s most eerie scenes, Arthur Fleck converses with a young Bruce Wayne through the front gate of Wayne Manor. Both are wearing yellow coats, and Fleck tries to make Bruce smile. He even going so far as to force smile on the boys face with his thumbs through the bars of the gate, which is a great allusion to the times Joker has painted smiling faces on Batman’s image throughout comic book history.  In the end, the subject of Arthur Fleck’s parentage becomes irrelevant, even in his own mind. He murders his mother, then kills Murray the late night host (who holds some place as a father figure in Fleck’s mind). Joker is born of Arthur Fleck’s abandoning of any sense of origin. I wonder if Philips is aware that at the end of the day, the origin of the Joker is not the point of the character, but the chaos and mayhem he incites for sheer hedonistic pleasure.

In the movie’s final scene, the Wayne family exits a movie theater in the midst of the riot. They are confronted in an alley by a man in a clown mask. In a moment comic book readers and movie goers have seen time and again, Thomas and Martha Wayne are shot dead, and their son Bruce is the only survivor. Joker ends with Batman’s origin story. Yet Philips chooses to take a degree of creative license with this iconic scene. It is comic book canon that the Waynes were murdered on their way home from a movie theater. In the canonical version of this story, the movie on the marquee is 1940’s The Mark of Zorro. However, in Joker the movie on the marquee is the 1981 comedy Zorro: The Gay Blade. Rather than showing the film that clearly influences the very imagery of Batman, Philips chooses to replace that reference with the farcical satire.

Are we, the audience, meant to realize we just sat through a farce? Did Todd Philips create some parody which asks “Does the Joker’s origin matter?”  Feel free to tweet or comment below! Thank you for reading my two-part reflection on Todd Philips’ Joker. in case you missed it, here is Part 1! Have thoughts or reactions? Think I’m reading too much into the movie? Have any suggestions for “Minor Spoilers”? Leave it in the comments below or email me at thepilgrimgeekblog@gmail.com. Read the full article

[dunmerofskyrim]

7

A long line straggled across Stonefalls.

Before noon we’d crossed our final river. Hoped that, after, a high and headlong sun would help us dry and find warmth again. But the sky scowled full of clouds. Pale and powerless light; not a single shadow cast and no heat to heal the cold. We lit fires – those of us who could – but had nothing but magicka to burn. Soon they sputtered out.

We lost two from that crossing. Not immediate, but as we carried on. As the riverland valley warped beneath our feet and turned to waterlogged marsh. The cold sapped their strength and gave nothing back. Our long line grew shorter.

One collapsed while we travelled. Heavy working veins on their brow and temples. Sunken neck and hollowed chest and a half-drowned sound to their breathing. They couldn’t catch their breath. We stopped til it stopped, then we started again.

The other was scarce out of childhood. Night took him. Morning found him stiff, with eyes half-open, lashes glazed with frost.

His father was a Colovian Dunmer. A trapper and trader in furs. And his son’s death lit a fuse in him. Nothing at first. A shock that could pass almost for stoicism. And then each morning, for mornings after, we found him shaking, speaking to his son.

“I should’ve kept you warm. We should’ve never come. I’d’ve burnt all I had if I knew. A strong lad, though. You were always strong. I’d’ve burnt them all…”

He turned pilgrim two days later. His faith before had been in hope, and profit, and new beginnings. The belief that with new places will come new prospects. Those are the little gods to which all willing migrants give their prayers. Now he sold it all for the chance to feel his fate had been taken from his hands. A reinvestment.

That was the way with the pilgrims among us. At least the ones from settled Dunmer stock.

The settlers trudged, weighed down by more than they could carry. Packs, sacks, rolled shelters, furled up bundles of wares or goods. Like dragon-cards they held close to their chests, to change their fate in the game’s last round. Or else the dried-up seeds by which they hoped, in the end, to plant a new home. They tore their clothes and the clothes of the dead to have more between them and the cold — for rag-ribbons to bind shut the openings of their sleeves and collars against the frosts that came at night.

But the pilgrims carried almost nothing. Wore thin rags. Whited their brows and eye-sockets with ash and blacked their hands with cinders. Braved the cold both day and night, shrinking like wolves from the fires we lit against the dark. Desperation made them devout. Through clattering teeth they chattered prayers, to saints and spirits and the cast-out-come-again gods of the Dunmer. Prayers for all of us — anyone but themselves.

I spoke to the former fur-trader soon after he had changed. A conversation coloured in shades of charcoal, out in the evening, past our fires.

I’m not sure why. Those were days when religion made me uneasy. Not its existence in the world, but being around it, up close, not knowing the pushes and catches it’s planted in a faithful person’s mind. But I suppose I felt I owed him that much.

In going pilgrim he’d wanted to burn all but all he had. “Mephala, wrap me in cinders. Azura, by smoke, hide me from myself. Boethiah, from the flames let me be reformed.”

But I persuaded him to give me his pelts. Told him that my mother had been a priestess to Blackhands Mephala in Blacklight, counting that he, as a heartlander, would reckon any foreign accent to sound foreign as any other. I told him that the gods felt cheated, being given skins in place of blood and meat and bones. This was before I learnt that Mephala will accept secrets as sacrifice, just as Boethiah will accept well-turned lies. Still, he believed me. Whether because of my story, or my closeness to Tammunei, I’ll never know.

More than that, I was curious. I wanted to know if it had brought him peace. Beyond the death of his son, I wanted to know his reasons.

“My suffering is holy,” he told me. “That’s clear to me now. It must be. A test to turn me onto true faith. To make sure that I deserve a place on Vvardenfell. What other reason could there be?”

The Vereansu pilgrims were different. It was shame that made them strive. Driven supplicant by their defeat at the hands of the dead in Bodram – dismounted, bow-legged, footsore – they cut lines in their cheeks for the kin they’d lost, and asked their ghosts and gods to forgive them. They gave up their yurts and slept beneath the stars to be always exposed to the sky. They made chimes from shards of shell and metal and hung them in their clothes and hair — belled themselves like lepers so they could neither hunt beasts nor hide from spirits as our journey went on, and on.

They were sacred pariahs, I suppose. Cut from their old warbands, the other Vereansu ostracised and respected them in equal degree. Those who once were kin to them brought them knotweed to dye blue their ears and foreheads, clothes and fingers. Those who once were bound to them brought herbs to lend them trances, black pastes to bring numbness. Otherwise, they shunned them like victims of a plague, or a catching lunacy.

Each in our own way, by then, we were all of us partway mad. So runs my reckoning. Or else why did we not turn back? What feels like stupidity now, and vanity, felt then like a mindless need. The world was where we were, and the world was where we were headed. Outside that, nothing but night. Formless, featureless, pointless.

There were times I thought Bodram had driven Tammunei mad. Madder than most among us. But time went on. More likely, I came to think, that Bodram had taken from them much of what would help anyone pass for sane. Speech and sense and feeling, inside and out. No nerves would tell Tammunei when they were thirsty, or when their limbs would give up.

The ashlanders saw it as strength. The settlers as inspiration. The pilgrims took it as piety. All were examples to follow.

For me it was a bond. Tammunei needed me, and that was my madness. Not borne of what I’d lost, but what I still feared losing. A snare drawn tight around me, and tighter it felt each day. Tammunei walked the head of our column, and each day I walked alongside them. First to cross each river and first each night to call the halt. First to see Old Ebonheart unfade from off the horizon.

Shattered domes and fallen spires. The long-keeled cave-ins of tiled hall roofs. A slow decline on either side — the city crawling into the sea, as we crawled into the sea, as the sea crawled always closer.

That night we found an enclosure. A break from the wind that grew worse the nearer we came to the sea. I think it had been a lumber yard. The long bodies of trees lay about us on three sides. Huge trunks like fallen columns, piled up into barricades. Someone had cut them for timber, and something had brought them here.

In the damp and down the years the great trunks had gone to rot. Bark to black slime; heartwood to homes for burrowing things. Tammunei told me they could hear them, living countless inside. New life in the dead wood, thriving and teeming.

I had grown better at reading Tammunei’s silence by then. The tilts of their head and angles of their eyes. The makings and shapings of their silent mouth. I didn’t know what Bodram took would ever be returned. Or that what I’d learnt to do for Tammunei would ever be unneeded.

The pack of Vereansu that had joined with us at Bodram could not ride in the brack-soft ground of the Balda estuary — neither guar nor ponies, for on the mainland one can rear both. It shamed them to go on foot, and to make burden-beasts of their mounts, but under omens of defeat they’d sworn to follow. It would shame them worse to turn back. Unable to ride, they turned to hunting, for meat to feed our long-travelling line, and scraps to feed their pride.

When we made camp there, among the heaps of timber, we had fires for warmth and meat for roasting. Beasts that lived in the delta and that the Vereansu called ‘guriguti’. With their skin on they looked like an odd marring of a marmot and an enormous toad, with bony beaks in place of teeth. Skin off and flesh seared by flame, they tasted a little like rabbit, though with more meat on their bird-thin bones, and a gamier vegetal musk to their flavour.

Tammunei pitched their yurt. Together we squatted outside it, eating gurigut, talking as best we could with the tools that each we had.

“Nords did this,” I said. “Must have been. Trees like this — I’ve never seen them growing anywhere in Morrowind. Never heard of them growing anywhere in Morrowind.”

My Dunmeris by then was a workable thing, fit to any earnest task but too clumsy still for eloquence. I had to invent words. Stitch them from scratch out of what I knew. Speaking for someone to read my lips made me speak slower, more clear than I was used to. And perhaps in its way, that helped.

“Only in Skyrim,” Tammunei told me. “Parts of Cyrodiil, near to the border.”

I nodded, frowning. “The Eastmarch. I used to see barges full of Eastmarch timber, going downriver, out to sea. Never understood how they stayed overwater. Wood floats, I suppose…” Stupid. I rushed to move on. “That was in Windhelm, when I worked on the docks. When I worked with my hands I saw them up close. Then less close, farther and farther as they broke the horizon. But when I worked with my mind – with pen and ink and counting-beads – I saw the numbers they stood for. Sailed for. I used to write the prices attached to them. Prices for if they arrived safe and sold what they carried. Prices for if they sunk. All more than I’d earn in a year. Often far more. And now they’re here. Rotting. Wasted…”

Tammunei waited, wearing a listening face. Nodded when I tailed off. “I know,” they mouthed. The word that followed was difficult. When they split it into syllables, I found I already knew it. “Morayat,” Tammunei said. “I remember from the Morayat.”

A foreign word where it belongs, but one not belonging here. Worlds away from the world we’d walked into. A word from home. The Morayat was the riverward section of Windhelm, carved out between Grey Quarter and the White River’s water. A dry-dock once, hewn from the stone, and filled for as long as I remember with ashlanders still too Velothi for the Quarter itself. A tangle of yurts and moor-ropes. Firelight, drumming, song by night.

“How do you know the Morayat?” I said.

Tammunei’s face shifted. A kind of crestfall and confusion. I think I wore it too. “I was a child in the Morayat. Harrowed in Skyrim. Two of my mothers live there still, I think.”

It was easier to smile than spell out my feelings. I smiled. “My mother too. Not in the Morayat. In stone. Under stone. In the Quarter…” I paused. Spoke before I could stop. “Morrowind fits you. I’d thought you were born here.”

“I was.”

I asked a wordless question with my face.

“Quite near here. A little west, a little south. Between mountains. Between Morrowind and Cyrodiil. Between places. Blacklight came after.”

“And then Windhelm? How?”

Tammunei’s shoulders moved. A shrug or a sign of discomfort. “We were moved.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t ask.”

I’d spent so long with Tammunei asking about Morrowind that I’d never thought to ask about anywhere else. Now a past stretched out behind them. Looking like mine and unlike mine. Feeling from them like a small betrayal. From me like a misstep — callous. But it birthed a brittle hope: Tammunei had been like me once. And for all the Quarter had left its mark on them, and for all Skyrim had raised them from child to grown mer, Morrowind had taken them in. Made Tammunei its own, as they had made it theirs.