Actually? WOULD Earth be the ones to petition Oa?
They are interstellar Space Interpol. You don't usually call them on different parts of your OWN settlements or systems. You call them in when someone is breaking THE Laws. Not necessarily YOUR laws, though obviously by breaking THE laws they clearly ARE. But THE Big Laws(tm).
Like Geneva Convention for Space type laws.
You have discovered Planet or King X is committing WAR CRIMES. Call Oa. Tax fraud? That's an inter-personal planet side issue they can't help you with. Pointing Nukes at your nursery settlement and threatening to blow up the infants there unless you give them sex-slaves?
Knock-knock! Taste HARD Light Constructs!
But if so? Then how would the situation get so out of hand on Earth? With the G.I.W.? Simple. Tell me, Mr. President, what do you know of the current day to day life of villagers in rural Siberia?
That they exist? Could you even NAME their village, if I referenced specific individuals? Likely not. And no one would realistically expect you too.
There are countless planets out there! With Leaders busy with local industrial conferences and infrastructure bills. Farming regulations. Talks with that planet a few stars over. Very busy. What do THEY know of Earth? Why would they NEED too?
But! As we know, Ectoplasm is EVERYWHERE. Not just earth. And? Thin spots are not just an Earth-centric phenomenon. Other planets most CERTAINLY would have them too. And depending on the species? The culture? To quote the wise sage Bill Wurtz "you can make a religion out of this!"
After all, chosen few, returned from death... glowing and more powerful then before? Immortal? It's a pretty reasonable conclusion to come too. They are clearly Gods Touched. Some sacred task they must complete.
It would likely even shape the ghosts of the region themselves. After all, they TOO, would believe they were chosen for some Important Religious Task. Be it study or collecting rocks. To what end? Unknown. Who are they to question The Gods?
But! Oh happy day! The old tyrant is no more! A chosen Hero! They go to greet him! Honor him, as you do. Traditional gifts and ballads. Maybe some sacred rocks. A fancy hat. But? Oh? The Champion is wounded! Gasp! Still? But the fight with Pariah happened-
And then they are given Grave Warning(tm). Don't go to Earth. Heretics attacking people. KILLING souls! Trying to KILL the king of all the Infinite! He is somber because his living parents were hurt. Preventing the END OF ALL THINGS!!!??
WHAT!?
These "People In White" tried to EXPLODE the very FABRIC of all realities!? Several of them faint. Truely, these Fentons MUST be chosen by the Gods! Heros. Legends. Such bravery in the face of such HORRORS. Please, let them be brought to their Living counterparts! The hospitals are quite good!
And you know what? Fuck it. Danny will take that. Because his Mom n Dad got hurt. BAD.
They learned he was Phantom at probably the SINGLE worst time imaginable and still chose HIM. Chose THEM. The GIW were coming for him. Gonna hurt Jazz. And his parents told them, with fire and blood, it'd be a cold day in hell before they let them so much as TRY it.
They BLEW UP their own life's work. Went literally scorched earth. And now? They're not doing so good.
Because the Zone isn't made for the living. No food, no water, and no real human-safe medical supplies. They've run out. Danny will take what he can get. He'd even go to Vlad but... his Portal's gone too. And the Buzzards said he looked... spirally. Very... "suicide runs until everything BURNS".
So, yeah. No one's doing so great.
Alien planet it is.
They are greeted with fanfare and respect. The best medical teams on the PLANET. The King and his family is there, to welcome him. It's... it's beautiful. Hardly some perfect utopia, but the air is lite. Art everywhere. The stars vivid and so easy to see, at night.
The King kinda reminds him of Mr. Lancer to be honest. Balding and a bit round around the middle, stern but endlessly fair about it, wants people to do their best and succeed in life. Maybe that's why Danny finds himself opening up. Because... because here is a real, honest to God, KING king.
Somebody who was actually TRAINED to do all this King stuff.
Unlike Danny.
And Danny? He's scared. People expect him to Lead now. To know what he's doing. To somehow just... suddenly KNOW how to do all these things he's never even heard about. He only barely just died. Has BARELY been keeping everybody safe.
BARELY stopped Pariah.
He doesn't know what to do. But he pours his guts out. All the things that have bottled up. And King Not-Lancer listens. Somber and thoughtful. There is little, if anything he can TRUELY do to help. But... there ARE things he can do. Lessons on statescraft, while he's here, for one.
As for the other? Well, as King, he does have the local Lantern's Call Sign. Not to be used lightly, mind you. But what Danny describes? And from what the Sacred Ones have reported? THAT must be reported to Oa. He can show Danny how to do that.
(He does)
[The Lanterns of Earth get a VERY exciting call from Oa. Are every different shade of pissed. But? Whoops! Looks like they ACCIDENTALLY put the Watchtower into a complete Quarantine! Well, dang. Guess we're all stuck here for two weeks!
Reset it? *sound of smashing computer terminal* Yeah, don't think that's gonna work! :)
WHO WANTS TO PLAY 20 QUESTIONS?? We'll start! :) Who here has heard of an organization called, and I quote, The Ghost Investigation Ward? :) ]
@hdgnj @ailithnight @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter
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Can be read as a continuation of this
.・゜-: ✧ :-
It's been a few weeks, really, since the day he met his biological father.
The oversized hoodie drowned him, a perfect haven while he waits near the entrance to arkham asylum.
The whole week rushed by after the event. His mom, wonderful, black belt, kickass mom had fretted over him the whole time, messaging his therapist not long after and getting an appointment.
His dad had been clingy, giving him bear hugs left and right, it felt nice. Jazz hadn't let him out of her sight for one moment, always searching, always studying.
Man, he loved his family.
"Are you going to visit him?" The gruff voice of Batman asks, and danny shrieks, jumping away as he looks at the vigilante with wide eyes.
"Oh Ancients—! Don't scare me like that!" Danny scolds, hand over his chest and breathing hard.
He can feel the amusement wafting off of Batman. Or something.
Huffing, the child leans against the brickstone pillar holding the gate again.
"No," he ends up answering. "I'm not here to visit... him."
Batman listens quietly, simply standing next to him. He doesn't pressure nor demand anything. If danny thinks more of it, he might get a headache.
"My sister is an intern in Arkham, we're gonna have dinner with Harley and Ivy today." A shrug, and the wind lovingly pushes him.
"Good." The man states, he hesitates a moment before he stretches his arm out towards danny, opening his hand and showcasing the items.
First is a lollipop, famous for being handed over to children after being saved by the bat himself. Second is a pin, in the shape of Batman's signature bat, it had a red button on the other side however.
"It's an emergency alert, in case anything like this happens again." Is quickly explained and Danny takes them, if not a bit tense.
He is unused to the trust the man shows him despite how short their time was spent together. Danny wonders if the bat already snooped around.
"Thanks—"
"Danny!"
His head snaps to the gate opening, brightening up as Jazz runs through and hugs him.
"Jazz!" He eagerly hugs back, thank looks up at her.
"You gotta meet Bat—" He trails off when they turn to the empty spot next to the pair, wind rustling leaves just as he finished. "man..."
Damn batman.
Danny huffs and tugs at Jazz's jacket. "Nevermind then, c'mon let's get a nice present before we visit harley."
Simply bringing her up seems to have Jazz excited. "I still can't believe we're having dinner with THE Dr. Harleen Quinzel!!!"
"And her wife."
"aND THE Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley!!!"
Her enthusiasm is rubbing off on him, he grins, hooking up his arm around hers, and they're skipping towards town, laughing like maniacs.
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For some reason, I was always under the impression that Machete (through various misfortunes and happenstance) just sort of... BECAME a priest - I wasn't aware that be actually WANTED to be one :0 what was his reasoning for that line of work? I mean, I guess growing up in and around the church might foster an interest, but...?
Well, priests were held in extremely high regard at the time. Apart from nobility who had the benefit of proper education, they were usually the only people who were literate, and being able to read was a massive advantage. Social classes were extremely rigid, if you were born a peasant you died a peasant and so on. But if you managed to join the clergy, had luck on your side and didn't do abysmal job, you might be able to ascend to a higher status, accumulate more wealth and live reasonably comfortably regardless of your origins (to my understanding the main reason people didn't choose this path to escape poverty and hardship was because of the literacy requirement. I've read that some village priests could only write their name and memorized everything else, but for the most part you had to be able to write, read and speak at least passable Latin). Committing crimes against men of God was a severe offence, more so than regular laypeople, and (at leasts in some eras and places) priests themselves couldn't be tried in regular courts and had their own ecclesiastical courts instead, all of this made clergy kind of a protected class.
Machete spent his early childhood in a monastery, after his parents left him there (he was sickly and his family was stretched thin and couldn't care for him anymore. Before orphanages monasteries sometimes housed orphans and foundlings until they were old enough to be apprenticed). He grew up in a strongly religious environment so a certain sense of spirituality and fear of God was ingrained in him from early age. He was a quiet, meek, punctual and polite kid, and because he didn't like to play outside and was so well behaved, he was allowed inside the scriptorium and the library. He was inquisitive and very fascinated by books so the monks taught him to read, and when they commented he'd make a good priest he was instantly entranced with the idea. He wasn't interested in preaching, but if there was a chance he could be safe and respected, even regarded as holy, he felt he had to do everything in his power to attain that. Sure he was sort of guided and trained towards that goal all along, but he also genuinely thought it was something that would give his existence meaning and significance, after being discarded by his birth family and feeling vague worthlessness and lack of belonging ever since.
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Ever since watching The Wire for the first time, my brain has doggedly kept working away at the Especially the lies of it all, and specifically at how much the structure beneath the different stories Garak tells contributes to the overall meaning of what he’s trying to say. While the contradicting narratives of course expertly obscure the factual circumstances of his getting exiled, using them also allows him to tell aspects and facets of the emotional truth I don’t think he ever could have, if he’d simply told the actual story of what happened. (It’s very Varric-core of him honestly.)
The first story — the ‘oh, you think you know me?’ story — says I have done things that would sicken you if you knew any detail of it. It’s clearly meant to scare Bashir away so he’ll leave him to die shamefully in peace already lol. But it’s also one of his (probably much-needed lbr) little lessons to Julian that are so frequent in the beginning, given while Garak still has some hold on himself — “Don’t be so quick to forgive me if you don’t even know what I’ve done; what would you do if this really were the sum total of what I am?” (And Julian seems to surprise him by going ‘Well, exactly the same thing, because no matter who you are I am a doctor. But I sort of take your point.’)
The second story — the letting the orphans go story — says I have failed to smother my soul in its cradle when it was required of me, and I regret that more than anything I’ve done. To my ears this is the one most shot through with active self-loathing too, which is interesting. He’s officially lost the control he’s been clinging to and it’s about to get ugly. His TL;DR is ‘Sentiment is the greatest weakness of all’, even all the way back here. (Which is the one lesson Julian steadfastly refuses to learn, which I think in turn does some serious rearrangement of Garak’s soul over the course of the show haha. Get uno reversed into the process of loving and being loved without shame asshole.) This is also where he builds up to admitting to having any sort of need for companionship or closeness at all and — so much worse — that Julian’s role in his life actually has fulfilled some of that need, and he’s DRIPPING with defensive venom over it b/c well I get it Garak vulnerability is scary it can take a person like that.
(I also feel there’s something honest and forbidden in ‘Suddenly the whole exercise seemed utterly meaningless’. I suspect ‘actually… why the fuck are we even doing this???’ is not a welcome sentiment in an Obsidian Order water cooler environment, no matter what you’re saying it about lmao. The very first seeds of him deconstructing the things he’s been taught about Cardassia and his work might be hinted at here, though they of course take a looong time to come to any real fruition.)
The third story — the ‘Elim was my best friend’ story — says hey, remember that thing you said once, about how sometimes, you have to be loyal to yourself before you can be loyal to anything else? Well. guess what. I couldn’t even be that lmao. It also furthers that thread of being divided from yourself, split, that having ‘Elim’ as a separate person around in all versions of the story brings in. He’s in control of himself again, but he essentially hands his life and soul over to Julian to decide what should be done with them.
I’ve done horrible things and it finally caught up with me, I’m getting what I deserve → I let sentiment master me and the fact that I’m too weak to do what’s needed of me shames me more than the evil I’ve done → I fucked up. I betrayed myself and everything I held to, all for nothing, and I have no one to blame for it but myself. But it’s very nice that you’re here anyway, Doctor. (Wow. I didn’t realize quite how isolated and lonely that last one was before right now. The way Tain has shaped him really has just… locked him completely into himself, huh.) We can also see a movement through from a completely professional context in the first story, to an intensely interpersonal and internal context in the last one — even his fake stories spiral in towards intimacy, which I think is what he longs for here even if he can’t quite like. Touch that without the stories as a buffer yet, it’s clearly like touching a hot stove for him to interact with it too directly.
And you know what I find incredibly interesting the whole way through? Even on his deathbed, where he’s dying from the thing Tain had put in his head, he’s protecting Tain. He puts all the blame for where he is on himself (‘My future was limitless, until I threw it away’), even if he has to employ a strange twisty logic where he’s split himself into two to do it. Don’t get me wrong, Garak has done horrific things all on his own haha, but it’s notable that he almost isolates Tain from that. ‘Tain was the Obsidian Order. Not even the Central Command dared challenge him. And I was his right hand.’ Tain in Garak’s stories is this infallible implacable weirdly distant figure, even now. Indeed, as will make a lot of sense with the revelations further down the line, more than anything it seems the gaze of an abused child desperate for recognition looking up at an idealized (if not in any way nurturing) parent.‘He was retired at that point; he couldn't protect me’, Garak says, as if what he’d need protection from in the first place isn’t Tain himself lmao, as if Tain had no active part in any of this. He never lets blame touch Tain at all. At this stage he would rather consider himself a broken flawed tool than accept that the hands that have wrought and wielded him have ever had any fault in them. AND in the middle of it all, with plausible deniability, on death’s door and knocking meekly to be let in before he must finish the mortifying ordeal of being known and test the even more daunting possibility of being loved, Garak at the same time manages to drop the breadcrumb trail of clues to make it possible for Julian to find Tain if he so chooses and gets in the ‘sons of Tain’ thing too for future dramatic irony purposes. Truly he is the Michelangelo of lying. Every falsehood a multifaceted masterpiece. Elim ‘achieving a state of intertextuality in real life is possible if you work hard and believe in yourself’ Garak. I love him so much.
I think all of this is why “I forgive you. For whatever it is you did,” works so well, because it too works on a structural level. It’s such a deceptively multilayered response — it has the syntax of a joke, in a way, and it is kind of funny even under the circumstances, but delivered with such earnest warmth and fondness. It’s both recognition and acceptance (forgiveness!). It’s saying ‘I finally understand enough of what you’re trying to tell me beneath and through all that, in whatever way you’re capable of, I see you’ and ‘my answer hasn’t changed (bitch)’. The forgiveness Julian offers here is complete — on principle, and out of personal feeling and empathy (only one of which Garak deigns to respond to during the second story, where he calls it ‘smug Federation sympathy’, placing it more completely on the principle side than it probably is. ‘Dude you’re my friend please don’t just lie down and die in a completely avoidable way on me, who else is going to not only tolerate but actually gleefully enjoy me being annoying as fuck over lunch’ seems to be the subtext that’s a lot harder to acknowledge and invite in for both of them. And yet Tain seems perfectly clear on the fact that Julian is Garak’s friend, which, y’know. Must be fun living with the knowledge that Tain has eyes everywhere looming over you every day haha guess you’d just have to tune that out.)
Most of all — ’Don’t give up on me now, Doctor’... and he didn’t! He didn’t. Augh. Ow.
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