#topher's just been scheming since day one

[wheredidalltheusersgo]

Don sees bby Topher trying to crawl into his suitcase and picks him up.

Don: No no no, that is not for babies to play in.

Topher gives him the 🥺 face.

Don: ...Okay, you get five minutes but that's it.

Ten minutes later, Don picks up the suitcase and hooks the strap on his shoulder to leave.

If he's going to the airport, he'll get one heck of a surprise when they put his suitcase through the x-ray

[badgerotter]

i cant take it anymore i need to post my ice cold takes on tumblr.com (sorry for ruining everyone's fun in advance, and no hate to topher fans!!)

topher's popularity is so interesting to me. its my theory that he kept his fanbase because of how the episodes were released with week long gaps between them. of course, everyone thought topher was goofy in the first two episodes. hell even i did, with my most popular post atm being the one where i made a joke about the pride flag in his room that aged very poorly. his cult following only grew as the episodes went on, and by the time episode 8 released, it SHOULD'VE been a dealbreaker. however, people were already so attached to him that it didnt make much of an impact, only really serving to make more people step back and realize how ridiculous topher's popularity has become in the grand scheme of things. hell, the finale didn't help with its very brief addressal of the blackmailing situation.

of course, there's always gonna be some racism involved. i saw a few posts a few days after episode 8 addressing how the fandom always wants to gravitate towards the white guys instead of the canon poc wlw couple. to be clear, i do not disagree with this. as sad as it is, racism and misogyny and things like that are all deeply woven into society and definitely won't be leaving anytime soon, no matter how much people realize how wrong it is. of course, it's probably statistically a fact that there is at least one topher fan who is racist. there are also very likely people who like topher more because of hidden racism that they themselves do not realize or think about.

that being said, i think my earlier theory about topher's carried popularity is a sound reason for why people want to redeem him so much, why people want to uwu-ify the pasty guy, why people want to make the woke straight ally be hopelessly in love with another man. i haven't seen anyone propose this before, but recently i was thinking about why topher is still so popular. while it could definitely play a sizeable contributing factor, i don't think racism is the main reason for topher's popularity. i think it's more of a bandwagon of fanon content that snowballed into topher's giant, unstoppable fandom.

i didn't make this to try and refute the racism claim. i find it justified and valid. but i mainly made this post because i wanted to share my thoughts, ones that i haven't seen said anywhere (on tumblr at least, i basically only use it and youtube nowadays). just wanted to throw my two cents in. that being said, i do think topher is a bit of a goober, but it's kind of a bad look if you choose to ignore the events of episode 8. all in all, if you're a topher fan, keep doing that! unless you're actually racist about it, it's fine to like topher, even if it's because of the fanon content (hell, it's probably better to obsess over fanon topher at this point). i literally did the same thing with van gogh back when i was obsessed with the og show in 2021, even though it was more as a joke since i also found van gogh's popularity funny. expect a post on that later btw, i have SO MUCH to say about fanon van gogh that i've kept bottled up for two years. anyway, topher fans keep slaying if you aren't hurting anyone. i only made this after an indirect reality check i had after reading a khalopatra fanfiction that made me think about canon vs fanon a lot

[shanedakotamuir]

How Watchmen’s giant squid attack changes everything

Looking Glass in Watchmen | HBO

Watchmen’s fifth episode is about gods, monsters, and a psychic squid.

The fifth episode of Watchmen takes us back to the ’80s — the age of hairspray, leather jackets, Howard Jones’s hit “Things Can Only Get Better,” the Cold War, and, in this universe, a psychic squid attack.

The 1980s-era of the Watchmen world is seen through the eyes of Looking Glass, the stalwart police officer with a mirrorball face and the uncanny ability to tell when people are lying. We meet him as a teen trying to promote the good word of Doomsday, how the end is near, and how God has pandas in heaven. To Looking Glass’s chagrin, the apparent apocalypse comes sooner rather than later, and he plays witness to mass death, destruction, and disorder in the form of a genocidal squid storming his local fair.

Though the squid attack is indeed bizarre (director Zack Snyder nixed the cephalopod assault from his 2009 cinematic adaptation, for example), it’s part of the most important question in writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’s graphic novel: Who holds accountable the most powerful people, and what decisions will they make when they’re left unchecked?

Looking Glass finds out the answers to these questions first-hand. He watches a recording of the space-bound billionaire Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias, a.k.a. the villain of the Watchmen graphic novel, who explains that the squid was a fake attack for the better of the nation. Veidt claims responsibility for the scarring event, and Looking Glass learns that Americans are just statistics and disposable figures to the very powerful, including Veidt and the government. And through his revelation, the viewer learns that the ultra-violent squid attack in Watchmen, like everything in Watchmen, means so much more than what it originally seems.

The squid attack is about theology, morality, and choosing between one evil or another

The Watchmen graphic novel encompasses a variety of strange elements, ranging from an omnipotent blue man who prefers to be naked all the time to the power politics at play in the United States and Great Britain in the 1980s (which we’ve come to associate with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher). But the most challenging bit comes at the end of the novel, forcing us to examine our own ideas about morality and humanity — and that would be the squid attack.

Gibbons/DC

Watchmen

In the final chapter of the comic, Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias, unleashes a colossal alien squid upon New York City. He sees it as the only way to keep the world’s superpowers from killing each other in a nuclear war. Ozymandias’s plan wasn’t without its supporters, either. Moore writes the story in a way that gives Ozymandias intellectual authority, and as such, other heroes (like Doctor Manhattan) go along with him.

The squid, with a brain cloned from a human psychic, releases a shockwave that instantly kills millions. Those who survive the shockwave go mad and are driven to violence by the sensory overload. In the novel, World War III: Nuclear Party Time is inevitable, and Ozymandias’s plan works. Countries around the world, including Russia, see the terror in New York City and offer support to the United States, burying any simmering political hostilities until the horrors are stopped.

Gibbons/DC

Ozymandias celebrating his plan in Watchmen

With the plan and the people executed — and the story’s heroes unable to undo what Ozymandias has wrought — everyone who had learned about the plan beforehand is faced with a moral dilemma: Tell people about the mass murder Ozymandias committed and inevitably trigger nuclear war, or remain quiet about the fact that the genocide was man-made. Only Rorschach, the most obstinate of the heroes, doesn’t go along with the cover-up.

Though Rorschach sticking to his morals is noble — lying to people about millions of deaths is unconscionable — the situation is positioned in such a way that if he spills the truth, it will inevitably wreck the fragile peace Ozymandias achieved. In order to prevent that from happening, Doctor Manhattan obliterates Rorschach in the name of the greater good.

The result is two unappealing choices for who is right: the unapologetic, objectivist moralist who risks armageddon based on what he believes to be “good,” or the clinical amorality of a genius utilitarian who kills millions of people to achieve harmony. There’s no simple nor tidy answer, especially with the stakes heightened to the point where Rorschach’s noble deed seems detrimental and Ozymandias’s “saving” the world seems moot. And perhaps the greatest lesson here is not that these are the only two choices, but rather that people should be wary of relinquishing personal responsibility to those in power.

HBO’s Watchmen asks how the squid attack preserves the status quo of government power

At the end of the comic, world peace has been restored. But The New Frontiersman newspaper (which has been referenced in the HBO adaptation) obtains Rorschach’s journal, and it’s implied it will publish Rorschach’s thoughts and observations of his investigation into Ozymandias’s scheme. What we don’t see fleshed out in the original graphic novel is the aftermath of how the attack changes the lives of everyday people, the ones who aren’t privy to the knowledge that the attack perpetrated on them was a hoax.

HBO’s adaptation examines, through Looking Glass’s story, at least one perspective of that. Unlike the heroes in the graphic novel, Looking Glass witnesses the attack firsthand in Hoboken. It shakes him to his core, and today he lives with a type of PTSD and fears the potential for another attack, hence the emergency alarm system and drills in which he’s invested. For Looking Glass, each day is spent revisiting the attack and dreading that it may happen again — a stark allegory for Americans who still remember 9/11 and its immediate aftershocks.

But episode five is not the first to reveal the lingering effects of the giant squid attack.

In the first episode of the series, Angela’s son Topher’s classroom displays a poster touting squid anatomy alongside one depicting America’s presidents, indicating that squids are still very important in this world, and all across the country at that. In the same episode, Angela and Topher drive home from school and pull over when they hear an alarm. Out of nowhere, several dead squid suddenly fall from the sky — or possibly from another dimension. This appears to be another connection to the squid attack of 1985, perhaps a direct result of it.

Topher sees the “squid falls” as little more than a gross nuisance. We haven’t yet seen Looking Glass’s reaction to the event, but judging from how serious he is about the alarms and how worried he is about another attack, I doubt that he’s able to just brush those squids off.

Knowing the backstory of the fake squid attack changes the complexion of the squid falls. We know the squid assault was fake, so presumably the squid falls are fake, too. So what’s their purpose? Who’s orchestrating the squid falls? And what benefit is there to arranging said squid falls?

I’m guessing the squid falls are a government act, as it’s difficult to imagine someone being able to pull off that kind of scheme. I could also see it being Lady Trieu, since she has the resources and money to accomplish such a grand feat.

Regardless of who is orchestrating the squid falls, they manage to keep the ’80s squid attack on people’s minds. The squid falls send the message that there’s danger looming, that the government and military could be the only things standing between you and another attack — which is, essentially, Ozymandias’s end goal in the graphic novel.

And if the squid attacks are used to get people to trust authority figures in this world, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to believe that the people in Tulsa, Oklahoma, should be wary of any authority figure’s power.

What’s a little less clear is how Sen. Joe Keene factors into the big reveal, when Looking Glass learns the attack was a hoax courtesy of Ozymandias. Keene’s planning something, but at this point, his endgame is still a bunch of moving pieces — a teleportation device, Ozymandias’s recording, framing Angela.

What we do know is that this revelation destroys everything Looking Glass thought he knew about the attack that changed his entire life. Finding out it was a hoax, that his whole life has revolved around this fake attack, is shattering. Just like the end of the graphic novel, Looking Glass is now in Rorschach’s position of keeping a secret that could change the world for the worse. The question becomes what he will — or won’t — do with this knowledge.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/32YDhsy

[corneliusreignallen]

How Watchmen’s giant squid attack changes everything

Looking Glass in Watchmen | HBO

Watchmen’s fifth episode is about gods, monsters, and a psychic squid.

The fifth episode of Watchmen takes us back to the ’80s — the age of hairspray, leather jackets, Howard Jones’s hit “Things Can Only Get Better,” the Cold War, and, in this universe, a psychic squid attack.

The 1980s-era of the Watchmen world is seen through the eyes of Looking Glass, the stalwart police officer with a mirrorball face and the uncanny ability to tell when people are lying. We meet him as a teen trying to promote the good word of Doomsday, how the end is near, and how God has pandas in heaven. To Looking Glass’s chagrin, the apparent apocalypse comes sooner rather than later, and he plays witness to mass death, destruction, and disorder in the form of a genocidal squid storming his local fair.

Though the squid attack is indeed bizarre (director Zack Snyder nixed the cephalopod assault from his 2009 cinematic adaptation, for example), it’s part of the most important question in writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’s graphic novel: Who holds accountable the most powerful people, and what decisions will they make when they’re left unchecked?

Looking Glass finds out the answers to these questions first-hand. He watches a recording of the space-bound billionaire Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias, a.k.a. the villain of the Watchmen graphic novel, who explains that the squid was a fake attack for the better of the nation. Veidt claims responsibility for the scarring event, and Looking Glass learns that Americans are just statistics and disposable figures to the very powerful, including Veidt and the government. And through his revelation, the viewer learns that the ultra-violent squid attack in Watchmen, like everything in Watchmen, means so much more than what it originally seems.

The squid attack is about theology, morality, and choosing between one evil or another

The Watchmen graphic novel encompasses a variety of strange elements, ranging from an omnipotent blue man who prefers to be naked all the time to the power politics at play in the United States and Great Britain in the 1980s (which we’ve come to associate with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher). But the most challenging bit comes at the end of the novel, forcing us to examine our own ideas about morality and humanity — and that would be the squid attack.

Gibbons/DC

Watchmen

In the final chapter of the comic, Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias, unleashes a colossal alien squid upon New York City. He sees it as the only way to keep the world’s superpowers from killing each other in a nuclear war. Ozymandias’s plan wasn’t without its supporters, either. Moore writes the story in a way that gives Ozymandias intellectual authority, and as such, other heroes (like Doctor Manhattan) go along with him.

The squid, with a brain cloned from a human psychic, releases a shockwave that instantly kills millions. Those who survive the shockwave go mad and are driven to violence by the sensory overload. In the novel, World War III: Nuclear Party Time is inevitable, and Ozymandias’s plan works. Countries around the world, including Russia, see the terror in New York City and offer support to the United States, burying any simmering political hostilities until the horrors are stopped.

Gibbons/DC

Ozymandias celebrating his plan in Watchmen

With the plan and the people executed — and the story’s heroes unable to undo what Ozymandias has wrought — everyone who had learned about the plan beforehand is faced with a moral dilemma: Tell people about the mass murder Ozymandias committed and inevitably trigger nuclear war, or remain quiet about the fact that the genocide was man-made. Only Rorschach, the most obstinate of the heroes, doesn’t go along with the cover-up.

Though Rorschach sticking to his morals is noble — lying to people about millions of deaths is unconscionable — the situation is positioned in such a way that if he spills the truth, it will inevitably wreck the fragile peace Ozymandias achieved. In order to prevent that from happening, Doctor Manhattan obliterates Rorschach in the name of the greater good.

The result is two unappealing choices for who is right: the unapologetic, objectivist moralist who risks armageddon based on what he believes to be “good,” or the clinical amorality of a genius utilitarian who kills millions of people to achieve harmony. There’s no simple nor tidy answer, especially with the stakes heightened to the point where Rorschach’s noble deed seems detrimental and Ozymandias’s “saving” the world seems moot. And perhaps the greatest lesson here is not that these are the only two choices, but rather that people should be wary of relinquishing personal responsibility to those in power.

HBO’s Watchmen asks how the squid attack preserves the status quo of government power

At the end of the comic, world peace has been restored. But The New Frontiersman newspaper (which has been referenced in the HBO adaptation) obtains Rorschach’s journal, and it’s implied it will publish Rorschach’s thoughts and observations of his investigation into Ozymandias’s scheme. What we don’t see fleshed out in the original graphic novel is the aftermath of how the attack changes the lives of everyday people, the ones who aren’t privy to the knowledge that the attack perpetrated on them was a hoax.

HBO’s adaptation examines, through Looking Glass’s story, at least one perspective of that. Unlike the heroes in the graphic novel, Looking Glass witnesses the attack firsthand in Hoboken. It shakes him to his core, and today he lives with a type of PTSD and fears the potential for another attack, hence the emergency alarm system and drills in which he’s invested. For Looking Glass, each day is spent revisiting the attack and dreading that it may happen again — a stark allegory for Americans who still remember 9/11 and its immediate aftershocks.

But episode five is not the first to reveal the lingering effects of the giant squid attack.

In the first episode of the series, Angela’s son Topher’s classroom displays a poster touting squid anatomy alongside one depicting America’s presidents, indicating that squids are still very important in this world, and all across the country at that. In the same episode, Angela and Topher drive home from school and pull over when they hear an alarm. Out of nowhere, several dead squid suddenly fall from the sky — or possibly from another dimension. This appears to be another connection to the squid attack of 1985, perhaps a direct result of it.

Topher sees the “squid falls” as little more than a gross nuisance. We haven’t yet seen Looking Glass’s reaction to the event, but judging from how serious he is about the alarms and how worried he is about another attack, I doubt that he’s able to just brush those squids off.

Knowing the backstory of the fake squid attack changes the complexion of the squid falls. We know the squid assault was fake, so presumably the squid falls are fake, too. So what’s their purpose? Who’s orchestrating the squid falls? And what benefit is there to arranging said squid falls?

I’m guessing the squid falls are a government act, as it’s difficult to imagine someone being able to pull off that kind of scheme. I could also see it being Lady Trieu, since she has the resources and money to accomplish such a grand feat.

Regardless of who is orchestrating the squid falls, they manage to keep the ’80s squid attack on people’s minds. The squid falls send the message that there’s danger looming, that the government and military could be the only things standing between you and another attack — which is, essentially, Ozymandias’s end goal in the graphic novel.

And if the squid attacks are used to get people to trust authority figures in this world, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to believe that the people in Tulsa, Oklahoma, should be wary of any authority figure’s power.

What’s a little less clear is how Sen. Joe Keene factors into the big reveal, when Looking Glass learns the attack was a hoax courtesy of Ozymandias. Keene’s planning something, but at this point, his endgame is still a bunch of moving pieces — a teleportation device, Ozymandias’s recording, framing Angela.

What we do know is that this revelation destroys everything Looking Glass thought he knew about the attack that changed his entire life. Finding out it was a hoax, that his whole life has revolved around this fake attack, is shattering. Just like the end of the graphic novel, Looking Glass is now in Rorschach’s position of keeping a secret that could change the world for the worse. The question becomes what he will — or won’t — do with this knowledge.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/32YDhsy

[timalexanderdollery]

How Watchmen’s giant squid attack changes everything

Looking Glass in Watchmen | HBO

Watchmen’s fifth episode is about gods, monsters, and a psychic squid.

The fifth episode of Watchmen takes us back to the ’80s — the age of hairspray, leather jackets, Howard Jones’s hit “Things Can Only Get Better,” the Cold War, and, in this universe, a psychic squid attack.

The 1980s-era of the Watchmen world is seen through the eyes of Looking Glass, the stalwart police officer with a mirrorball face and the uncanny ability to tell when people are lying. We meet him as a teen trying to promote the good word of Doomsday, how the end is near, and how God has pandas in heaven. To Looking Glass’s chagrin, the apparent apocalypse comes sooner rather than later, and he plays witness to mass death, destruction, and disorder in the form of a genocidal squid storming his local fair.

Though the squid attack is indeed bizarre (director Zack Snyder nixed the cephalopod assault from his 2009 cinematic adaptation, for example), it’s part of the most important question in writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’s graphic novel: Who holds accountable the most powerful people, and what decisions will they make when they’re left unchecked?

Looking Glass finds out the answers to these questions first-hand. He watches a recording of the space-bound billionaire Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias, a.k.a. the villain of the Watchmen graphic novel, who explains that the squid was a fake attack for the better of the nation. Veidt claims responsibility for the scarring event, and Looking Glass learns that Americans are just statistics and disposable figures to the very powerful, including Veidt and the government. And through his revelation, the viewer learns that the ultra-violent squid attack in Watchmen, like everything in Watchmen, means so much more than what it originally seems.

The squid attack is about theology, morality, and choosing between one evil or another

The Watchmen graphic novel encompasses a variety of strange elements, ranging from an omnipotent blue man who prefers to be naked all the time to the power politics at play in the United States and Great Britain in the 1980s (which we’ve come to associate with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher). But the most challenging bit comes at the end of the novel, forcing us to examine our own ideas about morality and humanity — and that would be the squid attack.

Gibbons/DC

Watchmen

In the final chapter of the comic, Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias, unleashes a colossal alien squid upon New York City. He sees it as the only way to keep the world’s superpowers from killing each other in a nuclear war. Ozymandias’s plan wasn’t without its supporters, either. Moore writes the story in a way that gives Ozymandias intellectual authority, and as such, other heroes (like Doctor Manhattan) go along with him.

The squid, with a brain cloned from a human psychic, releases a shockwave that instantly kills millions. Those who survive the shockwave go mad and are driven to violence by the sensory overload. In the novel, World War III: Nuclear Party Time is inevitable, and Ozymandias’s plan works. Countries around the world, including Russia, see the terror in New York City and offer support to the United States, burying any simmering political hostilities until the horrors are stopped.

Gibbons/DC

Ozymandias celebrating his plan in Watchmen

With the plan and the people executed — and the story’s heroes unable to undo what Ozymandias has wrought — everyone who had learned about the plan beforehand is faced with a moral dilemma: Tell people about the mass murder Ozymandias committed and inevitably trigger nuclear war, or remain quiet about the fact that the genocide was man-made. Only Rorschach, the most obstinate of the heroes, doesn’t go along with the cover-up.

Though Rorschach sticking to his morals is noble — lying to people about millions of deaths is unconscionable — the situation is positioned in such a way that if he spills the truth, it will inevitably wreck the fragile peace Ozymandias achieved. In order to prevent that from happening, Doctor Manhattan obliterates Rorschach in the name of the greater good.

The result is two unappealing choices for who is right: the unapologetic, objectivist moralist who risks armageddon based on what he believes to be “good,” or the clinical amorality of a genius utilitarian who kills millions of people to achieve harmony. There’s no simple nor tidy answer, especially with the stakes heightened to the point where Rorschach’s noble deed seems detrimental and Ozymandias’s “saving” the world seems moot. And perhaps the greatest lesson here is not that these are the only two choices, but rather that people should be wary of relinquishing personal responsibility to those in power.

HBO’s Watchmen asks how the squid attack preserves the status quo of government power

At the end of the comic, world peace has been restored. But The New Frontiersman newspaper (which has been referenced in the HBO adaptation) obtains Rorschach’s journal, and it’s implied it will publish Rorschach’s thoughts and observations of his investigation into Ozymandias’s scheme. What we don’t see fleshed out in the original graphic novel is the aftermath of how the attack changes the lives of everyday people, the ones who aren’t privy to the knowledge that the attack perpetrated on them was a hoax.

HBO’s adaptation examines, through Looking Glass’s story, at least one perspective of that. Unlike the heroes in the graphic novel, Looking Glass witnesses the attack firsthand in Hoboken. It shakes him to his core, and today he lives with a type of PTSD and fears the potential for another attack, hence the emergency alarm system and drills in which he’s invested. For Looking Glass, each day is spent revisiting the attack and dreading that it may happen again — a stark allegory for Americans who still remember 9/11 and its immediate aftershocks.

But episode five is not the first to reveal the lingering effects of the giant squid attack.

In the first episode of the series, Angela’s son Topher’s classroom displays a poster touting squid anatomy alongside one depicting America’s presidents, indicating that squids are still very important in this world, and all across the country at that. In the same episode, Angela and Topher drive home from school and pull over when they hear an alarm. Out of nowhere, several dead squid suddenly fall from the sky — or possibly from another dimension. This appears to be another connection to the squid attack of 1985, perhaps a direct result of it.

Topher sees the “squid falls” as little more than a gross nuisance. We haven’t yet seen Looking Glass’s reaction to the event, but judging from how serious he is about the alarms and how worried he is about another attack, I doubt that he’s able to just brush those squids off.

Knowing the backstory of the fake squid attack changes the complexion of the squid falls. We know the squid assault was fake, so presumably the squid falls are fake, too. So what’s their purpose? Who’s orchestrating the squid falls? And what benefit is there to arranging said squid falls?

I’m guessing the squid falls are a government act, as it’s difficult to imagine someone being able to pull off that kind of scheme. I could also see it being Lady Trieu, since she has the resources and money to accomplish such a grand feat.

Regardless of who is orchestrating the squid falls, they manage to keep the ’80s squid attack on people’s minds. The squid falls send the message that there’s danger looming, that the government and military could be the only things standing between you and another attack — which is, essentially, Ozymandias’s end goal in the graphic novel.

And if the squid attacks are used to get people to trust authority figures in this world, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to believe that the people in Tulsa, Oklahoma, should be wary of any authority figure’s power.

What’s a little less clear is how Sen. Joe Keene factors into the big reveal, when Looking Glass learns the attack was a hoax courtesy of Ozymandias. Keene’s planning something, but at this point, his endgame is still a bunch of moving pieces — a teleportation device, Ozymandias’s recording, framing Angela.

What we do know is that this revelation destroys everything Looking Glass thought he knew about the attack that changed his entire life. Finding out it was a hoax, that his whole life has revolved around this fake attack, is shattering. Just like the end of the graphic novel, Looking Glass is now in Rorschach’s position of keeping a secret that could change the world for the worse. The question becomes what he will — or won’t — do with this knowledge.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/32YDhsy

[gracieyvonnehunter]

How Watchmen’s giant squid attack changes everything

Looking Glass in Watchmen | HBO

Watchmen’s fifth episode is about gods, monsters, and a psychic squid.

The fifth episode of Watchmen takes us back to the ’80s — the age of hairspray, leather jackets, Howard Jones’s hit “Things Can Only Get Better,” the Cold War, and, in this universe, a psychic squid attack.

The 1980s-era of the Watchmen world is seen through the eyes of Looking Glass, the stalwart police officer with a mirrorball face and the uncanny ability to tell when people are lying. We meet him as a teen trying to promote the good word of Doomsday, how the end is near, and how God has pandas in heaven. To Looking Glass’s chagrin, the apparent apocalypse comes sooner rather than later, and he plays witness to mass death, destruction, and disorder in the form of a genocidal squid storming his local fair.

Though the squid attack is indeed bizarre (director Zack Snyder nixed the cephalopod assault from his 2009 cinematic adaptation, for example), it’s part of the most important question in writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’s graphic novel: Who holds accountable the most powerful people, and what decisions will they make when they’re left unchecked?

Looking Glass finds out the answers to these questions first-hand. He watches a recording of the space-bound billionaire Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias, a.k.a. the villain of the Watchmen graphic novel, who explains that the squid was a fake attack for the better of the nation. Veidt claims responsibility for the scarring event, and Looking Glass learns that Americans are just statistics and disposable figures to the very powerful, including Veidt and the government. And through his revelation, the viewer learns that the ultra-violent squid attack in Watchmen, like everything in Watchmen, means so much more than what it originally seems.

The squid attack is about theology, morality, and choosing between one evil or another

The Watchmen graphic novel encompasses a variety of strange elements, ranging from an omnipotent blue man who prefers to be naked all the time to the power politics at play in the United States and Great Britain in the 1980s (which we’ve come to associate with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher). But the most challenging bit comes at the end of the novel, forcing us to examine our own ideas about morality and humanity — and that would be the squid attack.

Gibbons/DC

Watchmen

In the final chapter of the comic, Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias, unleashes a colossal alien squid upon New York City. He sees it as the only way to keep the world’s superpowers from killing each other in a nuclear war. Ozymandias’s plan wasn’t without its supporters, either. Moore writes the story in a way that gives Ozymandias intellectual authority, and as such, other heroes (like Doctor Manhattan) go along with him.

The squid, with a brain cloned from a human psychic, releases a shockwave that instantly kills millions. Those who survive the shockwave go mad and are driven to violence by the sensory overload. In the novel, World War III: Nuclear Party Time is inevitable, and Ozymandias’s plan works. Countries around the world, including Russia, see the terror in New York City and offer support to the United States, burying any simmering political hostilities until the horrors are stopped.

Gibbons/DC

Ozymandias celebrating his plan in Watchmen

With the plan and the people executed — and the story’s heroes unable to undo what Ozymandias has wrought — everyone who had learned about the plan beforehand is faced with a moral dilemma: Tell people about the mass murder Ozymandias committed and inevitably trigger nuclear war, or remain quiet about the fact that the genocide was man-made. Only Rorschach, the most obstinate of the heroes, doesn’t go along with the cover-up.

Though Rorschach sticking to his morals is noble — lying to people about millions of deaths is unconscionable — the situation is positioned in such a way that if he spills the truth, it will inevitably wreck the fragile peace Ozymandias achieved. In order to prevent that from happening, Doctor Manhattan obliterates Rorschach in the name of the greater good.

The result is two unappealing choices for who is right: the unapologetic, objectivist moralist who risks armageddon based on what he believes to be “good,” or the clinical amorality of a genius utilitarian who kills millions of people to achieve harmony. There’s no simple nor tidy answer, especially with the stakes heightened to the point where Rorschach’s noble deed seems detrimental and Ozymandias’s “saving” the world seems moot. And perhaps the greatest lesson here is not that these are the only two choices, but rather that people should be wary of relinquishing personal responsibility to those in power.

HBO’s Watchmen asks how the squid attack preserves the status quo of government power

At the end of the comic, world peace has been restored. But The New Frontiersman newspaper (which has been referenced in the HBO adaptation) obtains Rorschach’s journal, and it’s implied it will publish Rorschach’s thoughts and observations of his investigation into Ozymandias’s scheme. What we don’t see fleshed out in the original graphic novel is the aftermath of how the attack changes the lives of everyday people, the ones who aren’t privy to the knowledge that the attack perpetrated on them was a hoax.

HBO’s adaptation examines, through Looking Glass’s story, at least one perspective of that. Unlike the heroes in the graphic novel, Looking Glass witnesses the attack firsthand in Hoboken. It shakes him to his core, and today he lives with a type of PTSD and fears the potential for another attack, hence the emergency alarm system and drills in which he’s invested. For Looking Glass, each day is spent revisiting the attack and dreading that it may happen again — a stark allegory for Americans who still remember 9/11 and its immediate aftershocks.

But episode five is not the first to reveal the lingering effects of the giant squid attack.

In the first episode of the series, Angela’s son Topher’s classroom displays a poster touting squid anatomy alongside one depicting America’s presidents, indicating that squids are still very important in this world, and all across the country at that. In the same episode, Angela and Topher drive home from school and pull over when they hear an alarm. Out of nowhere, several dead squid suddenly fall from the sky — or possibly from another dimension. This appears to be another connection to the squid attack of 1985, perhaps a direct result of it.

Topher sees the “squid falls” as little more than a gross nuisance. We haven’t yet seen Looking Glass’s reaction to the event, but judging from how serious he is about the alarms and how worried he is about another attack, I doubt that he’s able to just brush those squids off.

Knowing the backstory of the fake squid attack changes the complexion of the squid falls. We know the squid assault was fake, so presumably the squid falls are fake, too. So what’s their purpose? Who’s orchestrating the squid falls? And what benefit is there to arranging said squid falls?

I’m guessing the squid falls are a government act, as it’s difficult to imagine someone being able to pull off that kind of scheme. I could also see it being Lady Trieu, since she has the resources and money to accomplish such a grand feat.

Regardless of who is orchestrating the squid falls, they manage to keep the ’80s squid attack on people’s minds. The squid falls send the message that there’s danger looming, that the government and military could be the only things standing between you and another attack — which is, essentially, Ozymandias’s end goal in the graphic novel.

And if the squid attacks are used to get people to trust authority figures in this world, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to believe that the people in Tulsa, Oklahoma, should be wary of any authority figure’s power.

What’s a little less clear is how Sen. Joe Keene factors into the big reveal, when Looking Glass learns the attack was a hoax courtesy of Ozymandias. Keene’s planning something, but at this point, his endgame is still a bunch of moving pieces — a teleportation device, Ozymandias’s recording, framing Angela.

What we do know is that this revelation destroys everything Looking Glass thought he knew about the attack that changed his entire life. Finding out it was a hoax, that his whole life has revolved around this fake attack, is shattering. Just like the end of the graphic novel, Looking Glass is now in Rorschach’s position of keeping a secret that could change the world for the worse. The question becomes what he will — or won’t — do with this knowledge.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/32YDhsy

[fountainpenguin]

My sense of humor is officially terrible

The Fourth Rebel

“Oh, sure! Blame me for dropping him on the floor. He burned my hand off, Timon. Were you expecting me to shower him in hugs and kisses?”

“Aw C-dog, buddy, get a - snrrk - grip there. You’ll regenerate so long as you don’t step outside D.D.’s temple.”

“He left his robes in Savino’s realm.”

“I know! He can wear-”

“No. Put yours back on, Jake.”

“Whoa, careful, Mac! You almost knocked Whyatt off the sugar jar.”

“Guys, he’s turning blue! Why is no one calling attention to this fact?”

“For Diderot’s sake, get him some water, Bruno.”

“Blue, fetch the boy some water. Go on, girl. Fetch!”

Pushing and pulling, screaming and stomping- in the back of his mind, Lincoln remembered to blink. He did it once because he needed to, and again to prove he could. As he lifted his cheek from frost-spattered marble, a girl with wide dark eyes and hair much the same dropped to a crouch in front of him. In the process, she swung a purple backpack off her shoulder.

“Hi, it’s me! I brought extra CP pills. How much do you weigh?”

“Hey, Dora,” he mumbled under his breath. “What... happened? I didn’t get an invitation. Uh, just one pill- I won’t need two for another few years yet. Do you have cherry flavor?”

She spilled two soft white squares into her hand. Clearly, decades of practice had taught her how to get around the child safety locks. “Just standard issue. Lo siento. I know they might taste a little gross, but they’ll still help you overcome the sickness of trying to exist outside your own dimension.”

“S’okay.” Sure, he was still a new kid on the block, but Lincoln knew better than to make any gesture towards her. Not here, not ever, and definitely not when he could taste his home universe in the smell of his sweat. On his first visit, when he’d been named a member of the Court himself, he’d once made the mistake of patting Blue’s uncovered head with his own uncovered hand. With CPs attempting to build a stable force in the air or not, it had shot off fireworks and blown both of them backwards. His arm had burned for a week after. Since then, he’d picked up on some of the rules. In the temple, which stood on perfect neutral ground and obeyed laws of its own, you did not touch anyone beyond the fabric of their robes.

Dora placed the cartoon physics pills on the floor between them, then screwed the lid on the canister and dropped it into her backpack again. “De nada, Señor Ruidoso. Are you feeling better already? Great! I’m very sorry this surprised you. I understand. I was called in from a foxhunt. I think you should look her in the eyes, don’t make any sudden movements, and give her what she wants. Just don’t let her steal from you. Stealing is wrong.”

“Give her what... Who summoned us?”

“That’s a great question! Do you know who summoned us?” Without waiting for an answer, Dora flipped up the hood of her cloak and scampered off. By the time Lincoln had swallowed his pills and sipped from Blue’s offered water dish, he found himself surrounded. The cluster of figures all dressed in sweeping white robes which bore the same periwinkle stripe and seafoam green triangle stitched across the foreheads. There were at least a dozen of them, all of varying heights (and, occasionally, species). The third time Lincoln noticed that he blinked, it was because his nerves had just stood on end. The puffy blonde hair spilling out from beneath her hood, not to mention the bright freckles across her cheeks, made it a simple matter to identify his tormentor of the afternoon. She stretched both palms towards the sky.

“I greet you under my given name of Amanda Killman, daughter of Elmer Hartman. And I name you Lincoln Loud, shon of Chrishtopher Shavino.”

Here they went again. Suppressing a well-deserved eyeroll, Lincoln made the hand sign back to her from where he knelt on the floor. “I accept my name of Lincoln Loud, and I greet you on neutral ground, Amanda Killman.”

"Now, show a little reshpect, Loud. You shtand in Diderot’sh shacred temple.”

Yep, and that explained the missing wall behind him. Outside, snow fell.

“Um. Yeah.” Other than those two noises, Lincoln did not speak until he’d picked his sore, shivering body off the ground and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. Dora had suggested he hold eye contact, but that wasn’t an easy thing to do. Amanda did tend to be liberal with the ‘s’ words- and the resulting spittle that flew from her mouth. At least Lisa only came up to his waist. After he’d cleared his throat in his fist, Lincoln actually did turn his squint Amanda’s way. “So, what’s the big idea? It’s a school night. At least, it is in my universe. We didn’t decide to up and freeze our calendar for fifty years.”

“Whoa there, nelly!” Foop punched the air. “Two minutes in and it’s already heating up. Remind me to tip our harmonica-playing host for dinner and a show.”

Mac cringed. “Please don’t encourage him.”

Even Perry gave a roll of his eyes and chattered his teeth.

“Uh, he wash inshulting you too, Dr. Vladimir Einshtein. Ahem. Sho, Loud.” Amanda lowered her upper eyelids to half a squint. Her hands went together in front of her chest, swallowed in sleeves. “It hash rechently come to our attention that you have liberally abushed the powersh of your shecond shight. You shtand before Diderot’sh Court today accushed of property damage, attempted manshlaughter, and child endangsherment. How do you plead?”

“What? Hey. Amanda, I haven’t done any one of those things.” Well. Not... all of them, and not intentionally, or recently. “Do I at least get the right to know who’s accusing me?”

She folded and creased the note in her hand. It disappeared into her gaping sleeve. “It’sh me, hotcakesh. I shall ashk again: How do you plead?”

Lincoln looked from one end of the row of faces to the other. “I... I don’t know what you guys are talking about. I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary.”

“Sho, playing hard to get, I shee. I accshept this. Then I wish to see The Map to the Multivershe. BEVERLY!”

Nobody moved. After muttering a long comment under her breath, Amanda turned instead to a squat, squarish man lingering near the refreshment table, upon which sat a boy with only three scruffy tufts of blond hair sticking up from his scalp like caterpillars. “Lord Crump, fetch me Quadrant B5 of The Map, and make it shnappy.”

The boy chuckled as the short man trotted off, and twirled a harmonica between his fingers. “Hello dolly, talk to me. I promise, I’m totally fine with it now. I had windshield wipers installed on my glasses the day after I met you. Check it.” The harmonica disappeared beneath his robes. He placed a hand behind him and pushed himself from the table to the marble temple floor. Once there, he strolled between two rows of hunched cloaks and glinting eyeballs with his hands upturned. Unlike most members of the Court, his hood was down, and he wasn’t wearing the usual seafoam and periwinkle gloves. Lincoln only had vague memories of Bruno from his indoctrination ceremony, and as the guy came forward, he found himself squeezing his eyelids shut and pleading inwardly for the ceiling and heaps of snow upon it to come crashing down.

“Oh c’mon, what part of this involves you this time?” Becky growled. She and the tiny boy perched beside her ear, he dressed in a blue and green superhero outfit not unlike the red and yellow one Lincoln remembered were beneath her robes, set their hands to their waists in sync and stared him down.

“What I want, what you need...” Bruno sprang up as he passed her, swatting a loose curl of her dark hair in the process. She started and winced away, and even Lincoln cringed. But Bruno simply blew the rising smoke from his skin, and rubbed flecks of ash between his forefinger and thumb. “Everything comes up roses in the end. Aw, would you look at this!” He held up the singed scrap of her hair. “Don’t let anyone go spreading lies that boys don’t notice when a girl tries out a new haircut. But seriously folks, she’s a beauty, ain’t she? I for one am loving the new lip gloss.” With a hand to his mouth, he faux-whispered, “The blinding shine distracts me from the natural glare of her ego.”

Foop, Gumball, and Jake snickered in the background. Becky, master of words that she was, apparently decided that the best one to use in this situation, was none. She leaned against one of the temple pillars and crossed her arms. Whyatt clung desperately to her ear as her shoulders took on a sudden slant.

“You newbies always think you’re sooo adorable,” Bruno went on, twisting on one heel to face Amanda and Lincoln again. “Granted, you are. Especially you, Plinko- you’re really looking sharp tonight. Just keep your tangerine color scheme away from my marigold, and I’ll be chipper than chocolate.”

“Bruno,” snapped about seven voices at the same time.

“Okay, okay, you like points, and me getting to them. You all lead busy working lives and I respect that. No time for kids’ games.” He held his hands near his chest and made shushing motions. Then he cleared his throat. “Look, every couple years we fall into the same basic pattern. Someone screws up, everybody cries, I save the day, we leave the temple grounds so we can all hug and kiss and make up without frying ourselves on a hunka hunka burning love... Say, that reminds me.” Bruno snapped his fingers in Gumball’s direction. “That check you mailed me last time? Totally bounced in my ‘verse. I want gingerbread cookies, warm milk, cuddles by the fire-”

“BRUNO!”

That was Amanda alone, and spittle splashed his cheeks. He wiped the droplets away with his sleeve. “Yeesh! I expect double my usual cut if you want me to work under such unsanitary conditions. Listen, I wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you, blondie. Remind me which of us is retired from show biz and runs full-time security in our slice of the multiverse. I work for tips and I even take IOUs. Hey Lincoln-log, if you can throw a quarter in my mouth without straightening what I assume is your backbone, if it turns out you actually have a backbone, I’ll do a funny little dance for ya.”

“Aw, don’t scare ‘em, Bruno.” Rudy didn’t even look up from the chalkboard in his lap, though he did jab a thumb in Lincoln’s general direction. “They’re just kids. Kids can take care of things. I mean, you seem to be doing pretty okay.”

“Hardy har har. Fancy yourself a comedian, I see. No one’s laughing. Hey.” Bruno mimicked Rudy’s thumb jab. “Can somebody fact-check whether the splitzo is actually supposed to be here? Because I’ve been wondering on about that for over a decade-”

Rudy’s head shot up. It was the first time Lincoln had actually seen his eyes. They were olive green, and sagging with bags. And sweat. Lots of nervous and/or angry sweat beaded near his temples. “This is coming from you?”

Bruno took his robes and curtsied. “From a boy with musical talent actually relevant and useful in his story’s plot? Yes it is.”

“Hey, I-”

“Technically speaking,” Jimmy interrupted, using a joystick in his hand to snatch Bruno’s hood in the claws of a tiny but evidently powerful invention and hoist him from the ground, “you have always been significantly under your quota.”

“Bother. It’s the kid with the forehead to rival my own. And his even has shading. There’s no place like home, Auntie Em. Or was it ‘Uncle’?” Bruno kicked his legs. “I did break the Fourth Wall a time or two. The proof’s in the pudding. Just because I didn’t flaunt my gift as much as some of you self-righteous flits doesn’t mean I can’t play the card when it benefits me. Again, I manage multiverse security nowadays- cut a little guy a little break. Geez, it’s always such a monkey house in here. No offense, Jakester.”

“Was that supposed to be directed at me? Ohhh, and here I thought you were talking to my spitting cousin.”

That was enough to collapse Foop and Gumball under a heap of giggles, while Amanda hollered, “I will end you, Spidermonkey!”

“Aw, you guys are like family to me. You don’t let me live with you, I don’t let you live without me, and yet when you need someone to clean up your messes, I’m the first one you call.”

Mac whispered, “Actually, the first one I call is the platypus.”

“That’s right!” Although still struggling, Bruno tilted his head in a manner that suggested if he could turn around, he’d be speaking to the boy behind Jimmy. “You certainly did, Mr. Comeback Kid. And what happened to that mountain in your backyard as a result?”

Clearly, Mac hadn’t expected to be heard. He tightened his grip on the chest of his robes, the oversized hood dangling over his face. Becky placed an arm around him with a murmur of, “It’s fine, you’re fine, watch the skin.”

“What now?” Bruno demanded, this time directing the word in Perry’s direction as the platypus treated him to a stink-eye. “I didn’t say you were clueless, egotistical, or inexperienced. You know I like working with a partner, ol’ One Man Show. This isn’t your playground out here. You should have called me.”

Perry rattled his teeth.

“Clamp a bill on it. BKN isn’t exactly across the train tracks from the Cartoon Network folks in Chessboard Valley. Plus it was past my bedtime when the first tremor went off.”

“It’s getting awkward,” Lincoln whispered to Rudy.

Rudy sketched a mountain on his little chalkboard. “Yeah. He’s always like this. And you’ve only been a member of the Court for one year.”

“Hey, none of you have to like me. In fact, I rather enjoy it when you don’t. It makes throwing sass that much less regrettable. But I’m here to stay, and you all know it. And, I know you’d respect me if I wore bunny ears and dressed in a suit and tie for work.” Bruno pulled in his arms and slipped from his Court robes to the floor, revealing that beneath them, he dressed in blue jeans and a marigold (apparently) hoodie. Jimmy did not look impressed, but he did step away from the sudden exposed skin and clothes, while Bruno adjusted his glasses and stuck out his tongue. When Jimmy didn’t think the others were looking, Lincoln saw him drop Bruno’s robes on the ground and stick his tongue out too.

Amanda stomped back to the main huddle at last, wiping what was hopefully chocolate from her sleeve. Jake and Gumball had taken shelter behind the refreshments table. “Sho, shpit it out, Mishter Shecret Agent Shpy Guy. If you’re shuch an exshpert, what’sh your proposhition?”

“And what part of it involves me?” Lincoln piped up.

Bruno tsk tsked. “So impatient. Mind your manners, sister, or you’ll pull a hamstring leaping to conclusions. Don’t let yourself forget that I eliminated my bully problems permanently by my second episode.”

“And a-what exactly ish that shupposed to mean?”

“‘Eliminated’,” Becky supplied. “It means to completely remove or get rid of something, in this case a tormentor, perhaps by force or some more... underhanded method.”

Lincoln gulped. Amanda glanced at her sideways. “Yesh. Thank you.”

“Hey, it was the ‘90s, wordsmith,” scoffed Bruno as he examined his fingernails. “Back in those days, we actually had to deal with real worldwide threats rather than a batch of lovable city-focused scamps. People got hurt. And okay, I did some hurting. Think the big guy upstairs will really fault me when I kept running into idiots who liked to play with alligators or thought they could survive explosions with a bit of sunblock?”

“How charming,” she said tightly.

“Yes, you are. Now, to business. Have any of you been around the block enough to actually witness the collapse of a universe first-hand? And are you certified to don the gear that lets you swim in galactic cytoplasm? Ever escaped the quicksand of a beach that skirts a black hole?”

“Not this lecture again,” Gumball groaned behind his teeth. Blue lay her cheek on the floor and covered her eyes with her ears. Jimmy propped a hand against Becky’s pillar and proceeded to shake his head after every comment for the next several minutes. Lincoln cast a longing glance at the discarded robes on the floor and fought to keep his teeth from chattering.

Bruno ignored them. “Or how about dug yourself out of cosmic mortar until your fingernails are down to their quicks and there’s more blood on the surface of your thumbs than skin? To dumb it down for ya, does anyone here consider themselves equally or more qualified to do what I did when I hauled tushie to repair the Fourth Wall a few years back after someone nailed it so hard in the gut, it sliced Peck Peak down into the ol’ seeping abyss?”

No one replied- not even Foop, Jimmy, or Becky, though all three of them exchanged narrow-eyed “I can fly in outer space so don’t drag me too far into your analogy” glances. Mac tugged at his collar. After several seconds, Perry raised his hand, fingers spread so the webbing between them stretched. Bruno tilted up his chin.

“Just our other secret agent, then. Well, I’ll be J.S.’s uncle! Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Now, have I got a thingamajig for you lucky contest winners.” After licking a finger, Bruno withdrew a crisp envelope from his hoodie pocket and unsealed its flap. The letter inside, he handed to Amanda. “You two ankle-biters are still new here, so I’ll explain how this works. Anytime you break your toys, I can fix ‘em for you as long as I get a few hours’ notice before Doomsday. Usually, of course; no one’s perfect. But if you have a problem with my personal charm, then I recommend a diet consisting of a teaspoon of prevention over a gallon of cure.”

Lincoln watched the list unfurl from Amanda’s hands into his (he dropped it when it made his ungloved fingertips smoke) and from there to the floor.

“So, judging from what Mandy here said when I could understand her over the roar of Niagara Falls” - Bruno dabbed a speck of Amanda’s spit he’d missed earlier from the tip of his nose - “this is the list of supplies I expect I’ll need to save the multiverse this time around. I figure if everyone pitches in, there’ll still be enough dough left over for me to treat us all to ice cream when I’m done. I work best under pressure, so don’t ring unless there’s real trouble.”

The list continued unrolling past Perry’s feet. Lincoln actually got dizzy after skimming over the first two dozen items- most of which were batteries at volts he was pretty sure weren’t legal in his universe. The prices weren’t pretty either. “Um,” he said, lifting his hand, “again, can I get clarification on exactly what’s going on? And can I maybe also say that I don’t think it’s okay for you to stick up Diderot’s Court for ransom? Money can sometimes be... kinda hard to scrounge up in a big family like mine.”

Bruno locked eyes with him and smiled. It oozed insincerity, and it took all of Lincoln’s strength - every shivering ounce - not to wilt in response. “Oi, stuff the flattery in Mandy’s bra, captain cranium.” (“Excushe me?”) “Ever caught my show? It’s not my policy to give into terrorist demands, nor would I want it to be yours. No, no... Even though I am retired, and even though I like to kill time wandering dimensions after half my home universe actually did cave in back in the early 2000s, and even though none of you have so much as invited me to your Easter Sunday potlucks or ever extended a bit of hospitality once I’d indoctrinated all of you into the Court, which I used to serve good ol’ Master Diderot on alone...” Bruno glanced from Lincoln to Amanda and back again. “This hot cash isn’t for me.”

“You exshpect me to believe that thish is all generic shecurity exshpenshesh? What short of reshcue operation requiresh shtryofoam packashging peanutsh?”

“None that would be relevant to our situation- I just like hearing you say it. Dodging your flying saliva flecks makes up half my day’s workout. Come here, Blue. That’s a good girl. Amanda, say ‘sit’.”

“And you want a new harmonica?” Lincoln asked before she could do so.

“Figured I’d try asking first. You wouldn’t believe how fast those things rust when you’re on the Fourth Wall’s other side, gazing over nothing but the empty white expanses of universes yet to be. Damp skies and pure oxygen there, buddy. Next time I’ll bring you along; your brain could stand a little more of it.”

Foop found this especially hilarious. Lincoln sucked on his lower lip. Bruno just lifted both eyebrows.

“Hey, holding Walls together isn’t a task just any ol’ dog can pull off in arts and crafts with googly eyes and glitter glue. If things get deadly, I want you newbies to know you can always call on your friendly neighborhood tour guide and repair expert for help. If the two of you can’t work things out like a big boy and girl (and after last time I don’t really expect that you will) and you’ve got a problem, call Bruno the Kid. And unless you can give me an exact time limit before all goes kaput, I don’t work after eight o’clock on school nights, during church, or whenever I don’t want to. Yikes!”

The ‘yikes’ was what he said after Blue snarled something in her native canine tongue- a phrase perhaps along the lines of, “Stop toying with them, you filthy rotten lintball of sass.” Even Lincoln remembered the gossip about how much the kid hated dogs. Bruno sprinted across the snowy courtyard with a holler of, “Toodles, you’ve been a great crowd! Call me, Mandy! You know I love what you can do with that sassy tongue! We’ll talk!”

“Buzzard,” she muttered, and tore the top of his list in half. Lincoln gently guided her hands away from it before she could go any further.

The thirty seconds they spent still waiting for Crump wasn’t long enough for Lincoln to cook up an idea of what he wanted to say. In fact, another ten minutes probably wouldn’t have been enough either. Child endangerment? Attempted manslaughter? Weren’t those accusations all just a little extreme? He itched at his ear until another figure he didn’t recognize had rolled a table between accuser and accused. Amanda snatched the offered segment of Map from Crump and flapped it out as though she were about to hang it from a clothesline. The scroll unfurled like a banner in the wind. Most of it dangled off the table’s either side. Automatically, Lincoln flicked his eyes down to the Map and zeroed in on the area that was most familiar to him.

Coincidentally, that was exactly where Amanda placed her crooked fingertip.

“Royal Woodsh; charming little liberal town along the eashtern border of the Shavinnoah. I shuppose that’sh the reashon why you act ash though you don’t believe in conshequences. Now, let’sh move a twitch further shoutheasht of your plache to here. Oh look, it’sh good old-fashioned Muckledunk. My world and yoursh sho happen to be next door neighborsh!”

“Wait,” Lincoln said, recognizing the puzzle pieces much too slowly. “Is this... Does this have anything to do with me freezing time with my remote control again?”

A mutter sprang up around the room; Jimmy flipped his palms towards the ceiling and mimed exploding. For her part, Amanda curled her lower lip. “Well, aren’t we sharp thish evening. If I had a gold shtar, I’d conshider preshenting it to you. Then again, I’d probably prefer leaving you with a shilver.”

“W-wait. Hey. I, uh, I thought we agreed on this the last time you called me up here. I can’t give up the Remote of Time any more than you’ll give up the Remote of Space.” He cut her off a bit there at the end when he said it, and a flash of guilt shot down his spine. He didn’t let it stick around. “Amanda, I know you and Jimmy and Rudy all live next door to me and can feel the ripples in space-time whenever I use it. I promise I feel really bad. But, um... Hey, it makes for good kite-flying weather for you guys over there in Newhartland, right? We were each given one of Diderot’s artifacts, and this one’s mine.” He clasped his hands. “Please, please don’t make me give it up. Please with a... soggy cherry on top. I have ten sisters- you don’t understand what it’s like!”

Amanda slammed her palm on the table, which made Lincoln flinch more than he’d wanted to. “Excushe me! Ish the Fourth Wall jusht a joke to you? I’m not kidding here. It’sh breaking, Loud. Shattering to bitsh and shmithereens.”

One thing a house full of sisters hadn’t made Lincoln into was a pushover. He tilted his head. “Hey, hey, it can’t be just me here that’s to blame... I mean, you’ve got your moments too... What’s that about?”

“I actually know my own limitationsh, bushter. But you are literally breaking it. Oh, the curshe of being the late arrivalsh... Ever shince my town was shigned onto this gig, we’ve had to deal with you and your horrendoush inability to keep your fat mouth clamped shut.” As Amanda spoke, she leaned across the table. Lincoln’s orange shirt was slowly accumulating damp brown spots down the front. “The Wall can handle pressure in shmall doshesh, dweeb. It functionsh ash though it were a shcreen door. A shmall rubber ball every now and again may bounche off it without caushing any harm. But you! You punched a gap shtraight through itsh mosht outer layer. Now you’re drilling a hole between our univershes. Much more of thish and our reshpective worlds are shcheduled to collapshe, like Peck’sh Peak and all the resht they teach you in multivershe hishtory classh. And becaushe. Of. You. If you can’t control yourshelf around Diderot’sh shacred time remote, then maybe you don’t desherve to wield it at all.”

The twitch of her fingers when she spoke- was this her game? Getting her hands on the power to freeze time? Lincoln took a single step backwards. 

“Amanda, listen. I’m really sorry. I promise. But the Remote of Time was a present from Chris himself. It’s not mine to give away. He trusts me, even if you don’t. See, that means the multiverse to me, and it’s not the kind of trust I’m ever going to betray on purpose. Look, I have my license here and everything.” Thankful that he was still dressed in his everyday clothes and not wearing his Court robes, Lincoln drew a little seafoam card from the pocket of his jeans and handed it to Becky. She flipped the card between her fingers, then looked up. 

“Sorry, Amanda. This checks out until the end of Season 3.”

Whyatt signaled his agreement with a thumbs up.

“I’m sure he knows what he’s doing,” Lincoln said softly.

“Why are you all not grashping thish conshept? My people, my town, my money, my friendsh, and mosht importantly me are on the cushp of dishaster here!” Amanda turned her fuming gaze on the meerkat and square blue bat lingering behind her. “Should Newhartland fall, the other membersh of the Nickvershe are next in the domino shet. And we ‘landers are large and shtable. Who ish next to crumble? You all wish to gamble? Play a shlot machine- it’s shafer. That way you won’t be endangshering anybody’sh livesh.”

Timon rubbed behind his neck. “Well, the kid’s kinda got a point there. It helps none of us to plug important business markets full of holes.”

Jake shrugged. “Yeah, I got stock and a few cousins in Petropolis.”

“As much as I loathe to be caught agreeing with a human female,” Foop muttered, crossing his stubby arms beneath his dangling sleeves, “I can’t say I’m opposed to North Newhartland not collapsing with its western corner.”

Mac raised his hands in surrender. “Well, I still think that playing with all this Fourth Wall stuff could be really dangerous, and none of us should be touching anything. I mean, not even Bruno understands how the whole thing works.”

“At the rate you’re sliding downhill, I’m next in line to perish after you two clodheads,” deadpanned Jimmy.

“Right. Uh. Okay, so I’ll take it easy. I’ll lighten up, only use it sometimes-”

“Ha! It’sh too late for that, pint-shize. I’m afraid you’ll need to quit cold turkey to help mattersh now.”

“Amanda.” Lincoln wiped a splatter of spit from his cheek and met her gaze. “I don’t think I’ve broken through the first layer of the Wall to between the Savinnoah and Newhartland yet. I think you are lying to me.”

Five or six cloaked shapes flinched. Dora shot Lincoln a panicked look from beneath her hood and pulled it down over her eyes. Amanda leered up to her full not-very-tall-but-taller-than-you height. Through the dangling sleeves of her robes, Lincoln watched her fists clench.

“Excushe me, Loud?”

“That’s why you haven’t shown me any scientific data. You just want me to return the Time Remote to the temple archives for good.” Oh, he wished he had it on him right then- he’d have enjoyed spinning it around on his fingertip, even as he was creeping away from her. “Because even though you’ve got the Remote of Space that lets you call up random trapdoors and create passageways out of solid walls and stuff, that’s not enough for you. You want mine. Yeah, because all it would take for you is one freeze, right? No one to stop you from getting what you want? From killing someone, maybe?”

For a long moment, she gaped at him, groping for words that wouldn’t spring from her tongue. At last she sputtered, “Shcientific- Ash if there were a printer or program where I could produche- You think thish ish jusht about me?”

Lincoln shrugged. He’d backed up until he could feel the cold of the marble wall beneath his clothes. “Isn’t it? Well, let’s check the facts.” He held up all four fingers on his left hand, and pointed to them with his right. “One, I have the universal remote control that allows me to freeze time and call up alternate versions of my sisters at will. Two, you do not. Three, I mean, let’s be real about this ‘The Fourth Wall is breaking’ thing here- If Dora and Blue never shattered the Wall, I think I’m good for a long time.”

“Oh great, serendipity!” Timon scuttled up Mac’s clothes and perched on his (robed) shoulder. “Now, both kids have got a point. You know that feeling, partner?”

“Uh... I certainly know a feeling,” Mac said, scratching suddenly at his elbow.

“Dora doeshn’t count- Her univershe wash built to withshtand- She- She never had a Fourth Wall! She livesh on an island, shimpleton!”

“She does since Peck’s Peak went under,” Jimmy muttered under his breath. Rudy drew a tombstone on his chalkboard. Mac took the chance to creep away.

Amanda must not have heard Jimmy’s comment, or at least not cared to reply, because she plowed on with, “Loud, do you even get how thish worksh?”

“Four.” He’d saved this one to bear that number deliberately. “In your mind, I’m wasting my gift to freeze time by catching a single breath of quiet during a single moment of a single day. I don’t fit your selfish pattern. And you can’t stand that.”

“I can’t shtand the fact that the livesh of thoshe in my entire univershe are dangling like putty from your handsh! I’ve dedicated a lot of time and bribery dollarsh to working my way up the ladder. Ash it sho happensh, I actshually enjoy being alive. No eleven-year-old should hold that short of power over an entire town.”

“Trust me,” Lincoln went on with a roll of his eyes, “if I wanted to abuse the powers of my remote, I already would’ve done it. Don’t you think I’d like to freeze time to be first in line for the bathroom one morning, or fetch a midnight snack, or sneak away from a dog pile? I haven’t been really liberal with my gift. Just... please trust me. Chris Savino does.”

“Then Chrish Shavino ish a dimwit!”

All in sync, the other members of Diderot’s Court shuffled two steps back. Lincoln tipped his head to one side again. “Wait, wait. What did you just say?”

“I shaid, I think it’sh shtupid he’sh letting you put not just my people at rishk, but yoursh too. If the wall between our worldsh goesh down, you and I both go with it. You’re a ticking time-bomb of dishashter jusht waiting to bursht. You may not care about your family, Loud, but I do.”

“Whoa, hey, stop- You’re just twisting my words- I never ONCE said-”

His eyes fell on his fellow members of the Court. They stood there to one side, monitoring and listening.

And they agreed with her.

Amanda spun on her heel as he was stuttering, her robes whipping around her in a frosty blur like an insult on a winter day. “My cashe hash reshted. Throw him in the dungsheon whilsht we dishcussh thingsh further without him, Jake. Then if you’ll excushe me, I’ve been tashked with building an underground fachility that can withshtand the rupturing of time and shpace. Should you need me onche I leave here, don’t need me.”

“Jake, come on,” Lincoln begged as the spider monkey bounded across the temple towards him on gloved hands and feet. “We’re friends! I ran out in the temple courtyard last summer just to attract bugs that you could pick off my robes!”

“Ehiyeh, sorry, Lincoln, buddy. Amanda has the floor today. Between you and me, the last thing I want to do is add talking animals like me to her blacklist, know what I’m saying?”

“Ugh, you’re not helping anything!”

“Hey, she’ll find a way to bust out of her doomed universe sooner or later, with or without any old Time Remote. We all have worlds we want to protect.”

“I know how to break any fourth wall- I cannot be contained in any cell!” he screamed, because it was the only thing he could think of as Jake yanked him through the open south wall of the temple and into the snow. “I’ll fight this! I’ll rebel, Killman! I’ll end your reign of terror! I- I- I renounce my place in Diderot’s Court!”

Even Jake stopping moving, but only for a heartbeat there. Lincoln drew in a gasp full of snowflakes and icy air that scratched his lungs.

“I- I think from now on, if you’re not with us, then you have to be against us. Just- Imagine a multiverse with no more Fourth Walls. That sounds pretty sweet, right? We’ll find a way. We don’t have to break them down- we just need to add doors. Bruno- Bruno probably knows how! I assume... that’s why he’s... never tried to... Uh, never mind. Jimmy! Jimmy can do it! Or my sister Lisa! Just picture it: All of us free to travel wherever we want, whenever we want to- guys? Hey, guys? Guys, come back! My rebellion- I’m starting a rebellion. Let’s stop this whole living-in-fear thing and create a multiverse where we all can be happy! I’ve got the Remote of Time. Guys?”

They left him in a cell that stood in the middle of the courtyard, snow blowing through its bars.

A triangular cell.

“... Dangit.”