So. ive been going through your billy batson tag bc im very normal and super hinged about this kid and you ARE right about Billy growing up the normal way and how that would effect him, but I need us all to consider the opposite: The Magic went "Ah, he's pure of heart bc he is but a lad", and not *letting* him grow up. Billy being immortal but stuck as a kid forever. The realization everyone is going to grow up w/o him. That he is *always* going to be a kid. That could be a very bad time too.
OH MY HEART. you're so right and i'm kissing you on the mouth. okay i need to marinate in this now stand by
so I think it's fairly accepted now that the Wizard chose Billy to be Shazam when he was so young because all of the previous Champions were adults, and that went Badly (see: Black Adam). So obviously, if the adults can do the whole superhero thing, then we should give the role to a kid. But then, to take it a step further: if the adults can't do the superhero thing, then we should make the next Champion stay a kid.
And like, it takes a hot minute for Billy to notice. Say he became CM at 8 - he doesn't know the average rate of growth for a boy. He just thinks he's not getting as tall as quickly as his peers. It's not like there's adult supervision around to go "hello small small child, why are you still small and a child?" I could see him going at least a few years before realizing there might be something wrong. Then it takes him a little bit to figure out what exactly is wrong, and then a little longer to be in denial, before he finally has to come to terms with, yeah, he really is 8 years old for the rest of forever.
I wonder how it affects him, mentally? Because you could go one of two ways: either he stays mentally an 8 year old forever and doesn't mature, although he gains knowledge and experience with time, or he does mentally mature and becomes an adult, just stuck in the body of a child.
For angst reasons, I like the second one, but realistically, the whole reason he's in this mess is because the Wizard wanted someone who was pure of heart to stay pure of heart. Why go through all the trouble to not let him physically age but allow his mind to change? So now we have an eternally "both mentally and physically a child" situation.
I feel like, when you're that young, you can't really... process how devastating that is? He's only a little kid - at that age, you can't even imagine turning 18 yet, much less living out the rest of your life as an adult. He doesn't know what he's lost. So instead of Billy angst, it's outsider POV angst. Everyone is growing old and watching Billy stay the same as always. I imagine he reveals his identity at some point, a while into being Captain Marvel, and they have a Twilight moment of "I'm 8" "....how long have you been 8?" ("no, but actually, we've known you for 12 years, you can't actually be 8. what do you mean 'a wizard did it'."). Everyone is just quietly mourning the person Billy could have become, had he not been chosen to be the Champion of Magic, meanwhile Billy is living out the eternal childhood dream of Superpowers + Adult Body w/o Adult Responsibilities. It's tragic in a way Billy can never comprehend because of what the wizard did to him.
Feel free to add onto this post!
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s2 episode 7 thoughts
hmm. hmm. that is the sound if me pondering what i just watched.
(i understand that this episode was an analysis into mulder's self-destructive behaviors when faced with overwhelming grief, but. that does not mean i enjoyed vampire hookup time)
well. we shall start from the top!
i read that it was an episode about vampires which i thought was a weird narrative choice because. hello. scully still gone??? but then i remembered that i too ignored the main quest in skyrim to hunt some vampires and that i had no place to judge
(granted, my main quest wasn't finding scully though. might have given that a bit more priority than saving the whole world. because she IS my whole world)
we open with a guy that looks like joe biden meeting with an attractive young woman. they're making out in a hot tub and we just know someone is gonna get slurped upon. and woe, it be upon us! double vampire attack.
back in DC, mulder gets his old office back! it's covered in plastic. he takes some of it off. he adjusts his calendar from may to november, so we see how much time he and scully had been assigned to other tasks, which also has me wondering how she managed to get a new house that quick.
(also, this calendar is... scantily clad women posing next to tools such as hammers and saws. was this allowed? was this acceptable? was it normal? were the 90's a lawless wasteland and mulder an irreparable freak?)
well. scully is an x file now, and he puts her glasses and id into an evidence bag and closes the filing cabinet which was sooooo evil. but he can't bring himself to put her necklace away. oh man. oh he's gotta have it in case he finds her. he has to hold her close. i'm Fine this is Fine.
so. he goes out to california to deal with the joe biden looking fellow being murdered. and he is not wanted on the crime scene. we know this because someone greets him by saying "nobody called the bureau" and he says "well, they should have" and lifts up the tape to let himself in. because one thing about him is that he's gonna let himself into a place he isn't wanted.
he sees the writing of a bible verse in blood on the wall and says something about their grasp of biblical knowledge being "feeble and literal" and i was like okayyy need to have a theological discussion with him
he then scares the other guy who originally wanted to kick him out by reciting a LARGE amount of facts related to similar cases and it's very much giving photographic memory. got me thinking, have we ever seen this man forget something? (directions don't count. they're confusing. but everything else sticks in that man's brain)
he just needs one thing: a phone book. which he uses to call a blood bank and ask about a new guy. who must be the vampire who did this!
so he rolls up to the blood bank and i'm over here struggling because i do Not Do Blood, and i knew at this point this was gonna be a tough watch, but i didn't anticipate the non-blood related reasons why this would be true
anyway he's sniffing around the blood bank and he hears some slurping and wouldn't you know, this dude is tearing into a bag of the red stuff like it's a capri sun. somehow he gets him into custody, where the dude refuses to talk because the lights are on, and mulder comes in with a lamp he put a red filter over, because he was prepared for vampire interrogation.
the vampire is going on about how what he did isn't murder because it's not like animals hunting prey is murder which is. not the greatest approach in terms of legal defense. mulder tells the guard that the guy is delusional and it's best to play along, and he believed this to be true... until he, quite literally, burned to a crisp in the sunlight. and died.
he's talking to the coroner and rattling off a bunch of vampire facts and says he didn't believe in vampires which is so funny to me because like. why is that where you draw the line, my friend. not at bigfoot and definitely not at aliens. but man. vampires are just too out there for spooky mulder. until now!
the coroner has a very funny line: "you are really upsetting me... on several levels" which seems to be the general effect fox mulder has on people. and also because i felt the same way about his dumbass actions during this episode.
coroner finds a stamp on the dead body's hand, which seems to come from a nightclub. so naturally our fbi agent ends up there.
you often see posts saying that "(insert character here) should be at the club". i fear that this is not the case for fox mulder, but it's possible that it's his suit and tie that are throwing me off. he just doesn't seem like he belongs there. i ask myself, where should he be instead? perhaps some sort of star wars convention would suit him better. a book signing with some author he likes. idk, an interior decorating festival. not here.
i shall use my verbatim words to walk you through the next scene:
"pause. he's talking to a woman who was looking into a compact without a mirror. so. vampire suspect. and now why are they getting so close together. and getting a drink. okay now they're leaving to a new spot together? AFTER she admits to vampirism"
(here she did some stuff that required me to look away from my screen due to my Weak Constitution. but also it would have felt necessary to look away anyway because it was getting... charged)
she tries to get him to... suck on her finger... but he won't do it because aids. which is fair. i think that's a smart move, actually. it's just that getting flirty with a vampire he knows was involved with a ton of killings was such a stupid move, i don't know why it's now the braincells start to kick in.
that kills the vibe, though, so she gets another guy to take his place and things escalate.
mulder pulls in at a restaurant called ra. nice! the sun god! and he is... through a window, witnessing some more slurping action. he seems to want to intervene and save this poor soul being feasted upon...
but the poor soul is no poor soul at all! he comes out and decks mulder, and delivers this line with stunning conviction: "i don't know who you are, freak, but we're two consenting adults" and with this, he is forced to flee.
and yeah. it made me laugh. my expectations for the genre were subverted. he signed up for that shit! what he did not sign up for, however, was the next part, where he was killed by the other vampires.
cut to investigating the crime scene. mulder has brought along a forensic dentist, which is a job i had no idea you could go into. he needs to see about those bites, which are very human.
next they go to vampire woman's house. it's a very nice place. mulder... opens her oven. and sees a loaf of bread in there. and i'm thinking, man, i hope this doesn't go where i think it's going. baked goods... ovens... i never want a vampire pregnancy arc. but he cracks open the loaf and something red spills out and somehow, this to him means that she is gone and isn't coming back. he can read the signs of the bread. so add that to his resume. what did the bread tell you, my liege?
he seems to have stayed in her house, however, because he's there when she's back, and says he knows she was using the bread as a charm to ward off evil. because apparently that's an eastern european thing, blood bread to warn off evil. sound off if any eastern europeans in the chat wanna confirm or deny.
anyway. he's IN this woman he thinks is a vampire's HOUSE? what the hell. mulder seriously i need you to stop and think. like you should have stopped and done some thinking a while ago. honestly i'm not mad i'm just disappointed. and he's like "i want to save you come with me before they kill you" ohhh big tough man needs to save her huh. make him feel good inside. huh. certainly no ulterior motive here...
she's monologing about her horrible childhood and how sweet blood tastes. um girl. don't lie to him like that. i have busted my lip open before that stuff does NOT taste sweet and dangerous. it's like a penny with rust that you found in a parking lot.
it seems her vampiric origin story, if to be believed, is that things simply got too kinky. which is a new take on the genre.
(it's also about being caught in an abusive relationship and the damage that inflicts, but it seems abusive boyfriend came into vampirism at his kinky parties and things escalated from there. which. well. it blew the eyebrows clean off my head, to be fair)
at this point we see that he is WEARING SCULLY'S NECKLACE? he says something like "it's from someone i lost" and she says that she "hopes he finds her"
i did not like the undertones here and certainly not the overtones. because i knew where this was going. he was shaving in her bathroom. and let me tell you something: there is only ever a shaving scene in media because the writer needs a way to get some blood out of someone's body and into the real world. and man. i knew it was coming.
but what i didn't see coming was her SHAVING HIM??? girl. i am uncomfy. and she does, of course, cut him, and then they kiss. aggressively. terribly aggressively. can anyone answer what was going on in a satisfactory manner?
but the gag is: the original vampire- who burnt to a crisp in the jail cell, and was the abusive ex she spoke of- HE'S WATCHING THEM THROUGH THE WINDOW!
he breaks in and taunts the vampire woman about how he had to "wait for her to finish" and i was like cool. thank you SO much for that mental image i'm super happy with it. i definitely don't feel like i need a shower. but then he's going on about how he can't be killed.
here, at the tail end of the episode, we learn the rules of vampirism in this world: a vampire cannot be killed by a non-vampire. and a non-vampire BECOMES a vampire by consuming the blood of a believer and also taking a life. it is only here we realize that this woman is not an actual vampire yet, she just appropriates their culture by drinking blood unnecessarily.
mulder's still sleeping in her bed and she's like "you need to leave" and she stabs the wall to make her evil ex think she's killing him. but when they go to break out, mulder ties him up quite handily and he gets in the car to escape with vampire woman. until ANOTHER vampire woman jumps on the hood of their car. and main vampire woman knocks her out for a bit by running into her with said car, which is super effective.
mulder's leaving the place in shambles, his shirt still unbuttoned, wandering down the side of the hill. back at the house, now that we know the vampire rules, main vampire woman says she can finally kill the evil vampire ex. and he's like how!! you haven't had the blood of a believer or taken a life. so. she licks the blood off her hands (unclear if it's hers or mulders tbh) and says she'll take her own life. and drops a match after pouring gasoline.
so. that brings that to an end. and shabby looking mulder sits on a hill as he learns all four in the house died.
the episode ends with him playing with scully's necklace. which i don't even sort of feel like unpacking right now but maybe another time.
probably not, though, because i just didn't like this episode. and yeah, a lot of it comes down to me not wanting to see mulder hook up with people who aren't scully. can you blame me? is it so wrong to have preferences in this world?
but also, narrative wise- do you honestly see the guy fucking off to cali while scully's still missing to deal with an unrelated problem instead of devoting every hour of his life to finding her, like we saw him do in the last episode? you expect me to think he just puts it off for a lil while? the guy who, just last episode, pulled his gun on the ski lift operator to get to the top where she might be a little faster, and then choked his one and only suspect out of fury? you're thinking this is the guy that's gonna go soak up some west coast rays?
and yeah, he was obviously not himself through the episode- very cold and analytical- but c'mon. we all want to bang a vampire. he's not special. i just personally wouldn't do that if my friend were gone. like how is that gonna help the situation. be so for real. time and place!
and also the whole only learning the rules of being a vampire about 5 minutes before they need it to be plot relevant. that annoyed me too.
overall, mulder, like i said, i'm not mad, just disappointed.
let me know what you thought on this episode- i try to not be a hater, but i also understand that hating in small doses can be good for the soul. if it's a widely beloathed episode i'll feel better in my judgement as i join a long tradition of haters who have come before me.
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