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vigilant-insomniac · 2 months

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Missing Context (Danny Phantom Fic)

One shot, 2300 words

There is a supernatural reason why no one recognizes Danny as Phantom. A color swap alone would not be enough for sure. Good thing Mr Lancer is not that easily fooled

Featuring: some Danny & Lancer, vague descriptions of injuries, identity reveal

---- William Lancer's spine popped satisfyingly in all sorts of places when he stretched in his chair, where he spent the last few hours grading student essays.

Like he did most Saturday evenings.

It wasn't the best part of the job, he much preferred teaching and direct guidance, but it still was enjoyable at times.

Some students rushed their work, sure, but there were always some essays in the mix that would show him a fresh perspective that he himself even hadn't considered before. Sometimes it was also just interesting to see his student's personalities bleed into their work. By that, he didn't mean the persona they each used in front of their peers, but something more genuine, something more real.

That's why he didn't dislike this kind of desk work. As a teacher there was so much responsibility in recognizing red flags and intervening before things escalated.

Be it difficult home lives, mental health issues, social issues…. His students might rarely talk to him but he heard them in their writing.

Usually it was the gaps between their personalities and their personas that drew Lancer's attention.

Like Mr Baxter's… the boy was high up in the social hierarchy, but used the resulting power to push people around. In his writing, however, he usually showed a lot of understanding for the disadvantaged protagonists, who have to fight their lot in life.

It only took a parent-teacher night for Lancer to connect the dots and has since been working on a way to help with Mr Baxter's troubled home life.

At last the boy had confided in him somewhat. So hopefully they would soon make progress and arrange for a relative to take in the boy while his father took therapy and went to AA meetings.

Things were still in the draft phase, but Lancer was confident that by the end of the school year, Mr Baxter would be able to see a safer environment for himself.

But that was one of the more straightforward cases, even if it was sensitive and worrying.

This year he had another troubled child in his class, and the problem was… Lancer knew something was wrong. But for Orwell's sake, he couldn't figure out what it was.

Danny Fenton was a complex puzzle. The signs pointed in all sorts of directions.

Some said "parental abuse" but then they said the kid was obviously well loved… even when the parents showed a concerning mix of neglect thanks to their workaholism and helicopter vigilance.

He was jumpy some days and lethargic the next, he would sleep in class or not show up at all.

His work ethic was all over the place as well. He obviously cared about his grades and his school work. Lancer could tell whenever he did turn something in.

Young Fenton also cared a lot about justice in his essays. He often pointed out the flaws and pressures society put on the characters of their fictional worlds. It somewhat extended to reality as well and Danny would call out his bullies on their behavior, almost self-sacrificially when it came to protecting his peers, but then, paradoxically he would run at the slightest sign of Amity Park typical troublesome ghosts as if even his friends' safety meant nothing to him.

Even if not by his parents, abuse was still high on the list of his theories of what made Danny so offset. Maybe more than what he’d get from bullies too, since those somehow didn't actually faze Fenton, as if he was used to much worse… and wasn't that a scary thought.

A small kid like Danny, in a small town like Amity Park couldn't be in a gang. This sounded like denial even to his own ears, since that might actually explain some things, but he also just knew that it wasn't that.

There were several signs missing for that scenario, and overall Daniel's personality and sense of justice wouldn't allow it.

Much more likely would be that the kid was actively looking for fights by butting into bad people's business. Maybe vigilantism of sorts.

But again, Amity Park just wasn't that big of a town to make this theory make sense.

William put down the pen and rubbed his face exhaustedly.

He had already visited the Fenton home, had spoken with Jasmine and even attempted to get something out of Danny directly. But nothing had led anywhere so far.

And tonight wouldn't get him anywhere else either.

With a sigh he decided to take a break and go for a walk. It was almost dark and the air should be refreshingly crisp.

After another spine popping stretch he got up and made a detour to the kitchen. He might as well take out the trash.

The building was quiet when he left his apartment. Only some sounds of TVs or Radios filtered through the closed doors of his fellow tenants.

The air outside was fresh bordering on cold and if he hadn't brought the trash with him he might have reconsidered stepping out of his home.

So he hunched his shoulders a bit as he made his way around the building, bracing against some breeze that cut through his shirt and made him shiver.

The bag was thrown away quickly and he was already turning around when he heard something.

A groan. Of pain. Lancer turned back towards the alley and squinted into the shadows while reaching for his phone in case he was about to be mugged or attacked by a ghost.

Once he had it ready to call the emergency line, he held his breath and listened.

Had he imagined it? He wasn't sure. The dark always spurred on his paranoia.

But after a moment he heard another muffled gasp. Something was there.

"Hello? Do you need help?" he called carefully into the dark as his heart picked up pace.

Then he noticed: No… not dark.

Something was illuminating the alley. He hadn't realized at first, but now that his eyes were adjusting he could make out a faint green glow coming from next to a dumpster further back.

"If you're okay, say so, otherwise I will come over now, please stay calm, I just want to help" Lancer announced with false confidence. His heart was beating a mile a minute in anticipation and sweat was starting to form at the back of his neck.

Someone who was hurt or scared might lash out and he was not sure how to deal with that. William Lancer wasn't a fighter after all, so he relied on language to project his intentions and hoped for the best.

There wasn't a reply other than some irregular breathing and more sounds of someone in pain.

He was almost there when the mystery person ( because this was too loud for a rat, and what else would take breaths like that, if not a person?) did gasp something out that Lancer couldn't quite catch but sounded a lot like "Stay away". But even though Lancer couldn't quite understand it, his heart skipped. The voice sounded young. And scared.

Dread filled him and Lancer stopped his stalling. He took the last few steps and when he reached the dumpster and peered in the gap beside it, it gave away to a short figure, bracing itself against the side of the container and clutching their side. Not a Person. Not a human. Yet someone very familiar was huddled in the gap.

Toxic green eyes stared up at him with hostility and apprehension.

"I said, stay. Away." Phantom snarled with bared teeth.

His whole posture, no, the whole aura around Phantom, radiated danger.

Lancer's phone clattered on the stone floor of the alley as he staggered a few steps back.

Almost every instinct told him to run. To get out of here while he still could, that the thing in front of him could rip him apart. That he was facing a cornered animal.

Almost all of his instincts were sure he was in danger. Almost.

Even with all the alarm bells, Lancer forced himself to take a stuttering breath. He never had been the wisest person.

The voice sounded young. Even the second time around when there was venom and Spite and bared teeth gnashed and snarled and the oppressive threat of- no. That wasn’t what he heard when he heard the painful sounding gasps earler… he shook his head.

Something was wrong here.

Now it was instinct against instinct. Lancer could feel them clash painfully as if it was tearing him apart. There was the desire to flee, to run, to get back to safety, to run from the beast in front of him that could disembowel him with one claw…

And then there was his instinct as a teacher that right now screamed against his fear that there was a child right in front of him and the child needed help.

He tried to look at Phantom again. Really look at him. Something he had never gotten a chance to before. Phantom right now. Was……… He couldn’t see. He couldn’t properly pin down what he was looking at. His brain screeched “Monster”, but it was more like his imagination overlaid that image.

Against the pull of his mind, he slowly crouched down to eye level with the ghost, who still stared at him with his teeth bared and coiled to strike growling and hissing at him to back off…

Lancer squinted at the figure again and tried to really look. It was as if there was a filter. As if something prevented him from really seeing the creature in front of him-

Like an optical illusion or an after image all conjured up by his fears.

"I said. Get away." Phantom…. snarled?… no. It wasn't a threat, it sounded more like you'd expected someone in pain to sound. Something more like a plea to be left alone. Not aggression, but desperation.

Lancer blinked a few times against the weird haze of confusion. Phantom wasn't coiled to strike either, he was fighting to even stay crouching. Green oozed out from under his hand he had pressed to his side. His face was tense with clenched teeth against pain.

"You're hurt." he observed and something flitted over Phantom's face.

"you're hurt and you're…. you look…" William trailed off. What did Phantom look like. Like a Child? Small?... Familiar?

Phantom's expression did something complicated between pain, horror and fear. Phantom's expression, there was something about… his face… his features. Lancer knew that face. He saw it every day he felt like. The colors felt wrong but the more he squinted against the fog, the more his mind screamed at him that this child was someone he knew and cared for. He took the figure in once more and furrowed his brows, he knew this person, why couldn't he place them-

Out of nowhere a sharp pain flashed through Lancer's head and for a moment he only saw white, he thought Phantom had done something. He clutched his head as if he had to hold it together.

Then, as sudden as it had come it disappeared.

When Lancer looked up again, with sweat on his forehead and breath coming in short bursts almost matching with the ghosts labored wheezes, whatever had been distorting his perception was gone. His vision was clear as day. No haze, no fog, no distortion.

He couldn't marvel at the phenomenon though, because now that he wasn't seeing through a filter anymore, he was no longer staring at Phantom.

The kid was the same. But there was no mistaking it.

He was without much doubt looking at his student.

Lancer had been close to a panic attack for the last few minutes now. But this was giving him whiplash. He recoiled and landed gracelessly on his butt when the realization hit him like a stack of books.

So this is what he had been missing? The big centerpiece of the puzzle? The one thing that made all his observations finally point into the same direction?

In front of him was his troubled student.

Danny Fenton. Who had white hair, green eyes, glowing skin… and was currently bleeding out behind a dumpster in an alley.

And really, there was no mistaking him. Kids dyed their hair all the time. Some of the goths even used colored contacts on a daily basis. It was impossible to look at the kid in front of him and not recognize Danny Fenton.

"Hot cat on a tin roof," he commented.

Fenton picked that moment to gasp in pain and to curl in on himself further. Barely managing to look back up at his teacher, but what Lancer saw was fear. Fear of William.

The teacher carefully reached out to his student and helped steady him by his shoulder. He felt like ice.

"You're- Danny, you're hurt! I have so many questions right now, but first, how do I help? Can you stand? Should I call your parents? An ambulance?" he tried to sound steady, this was no time to panic, even though his student was blee- no. He had to focus on the now.

"No hospitals, it's not safe." Fenton mumbled. A bit more urgently the amended "parents don't know, you can't tell them… please."

Lancer swallowed hard, this was bad.

And immediately it got worse.

"s'ry i feel- kinda dizzy" with only that much as a warning Danny went slack under Lancer's grip who barely managed to catch the teen as he sagged against his teacher.

Then to his surprise, rings of light flashed to life and the icy body in his arms was replaced by a warm and much more familiar version of his student.

Reading Danny’s essays through this new lens was going to be an interesting endeavor from now on, William thought through stress induced amusement.

#danny phantom #mr lancer #identity reveal #danny fenton #fanfic #oneshot #writing #phandom #ao3 #ao3 writer #fan fiction #fandom #archive of our own #mywriting #originalwork #mydannyphantom

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julictcapulet · 9 months

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for nari, my favorite violently unhinged woman 🫶🏻: 💥🌙 🪤 🔫💧💔

OC EMOJI ASKS. for my favorite violently unhinged writing partner @asystcle

💥 COLLISON - what emotions do they have trouble dealing with?

Truly, Nari has trouble dealing with most emotions. She is a very apathetic, detached person and I don’t think it comes from a willful place. Cami, for example, is a genuinely emotional person who has repressed them all on purpose. Nari is emotionally repressed, even more than Camille is, but they don’t fester inside her and spill over. She’s unaware of just how emotionally unstable she is which is why the point where she finally breaks is going to be absolute carnage. It’s going to be a manifestation of realizing everything you’ve ever been capable of and denying any semblance of control you’ve forced yourself to submit to all at once.

🌙 MOON - what is your oc's greatest wish? how far are they willing to go for it?

I don’t think she has any. She’s very diligent, very hardworking, but she’s also got no ending in sight. Her ambition isn’t directed towards something, it’s just who she is. She’s a workaholic who doesn’t care about work, an obsessed artist who doesn’t care about being recognized for her art—she’s just obsessed with her art. In a way, it’s almost more dangerous than having that final goal to work towards because she has no sense of perspective. She’s willing to go farther than most people ever would for the smallest thing, whereas anyone else might pick and choose the lines they want to cross. Nari isn’t interested in choosing.

🪤 MOUSE TRAP - what will always lure them into certain danger? a loved one in danger? a promise of something they are always searching for?

I think a part of Nari will always like whatever danger can bring and she genuinely gets a thrill from it. But aside from her having a death wish and kind of wanting to die just 95% of the time,

🔫 PISTOL - do they trust people easily? how easily will they turn their back to someone? have they been backstabbed before? will they betray someone if given an ultimatum?

She's disgustingly careless with who she trusts if they're able to have a strong enough effect on her. It's a side effect of the naïveté, being able to hand herself over to someone without a second thought because they've enchanted her, not realizing they're holding a knife to her throat because she's too busy looking at their eyes. One thing about Nari that's so essential to her character is that even though she doesn't care much about people in general, when it comes to the people she loves, nothing else matters to her except them. It's why she's so enamored by Samir because the second she realizes just how essential he's become to her life, she doesn't have to trust anyone else ever again—why would she when she has him? She's no stranger to backstabbing, especially when it comes to her father, considering he had someone killed when he found out they were in a relationship (good riddance, though). Nari, though, wouldn't hesitate to backstab someone. She's not very loyal because she doesn't have any to be loyal to, and even her loyalty to them can waver depending on the circumstances.

💧 DROPLET - random angst headcanon

Nari has many issues, primarily revolving around her mental wellbeing. She's almost fragile, a china doll who doesn't know she's capable of being broken because no one's bothered to test her. She's incredibly emotionally neglected and I think a big part of her is grateful for Samir wanting to kill her because it proves that someone would care if she was gone. The fact that he isn't able to kill her because he's too attached to her is even better for her. I don't think Nari is aware of her own existence outside of who she thinks she belongs to because she's only ever been a possession and even that act of belonging to someone isn't enough sometimes. She's got a masochistic streak in that way, or a self-sacrificial lamb at least, willingly putting herself up for the slaughter because she likes the idea of being memorialized, not as a martyr, but as someone's dearly departed.

💔 BROKEN HEART - what could their partner do that would absolutely break their heart?

Turn her away or reject her in any way. Obviously, we're talking about Samir here; there's only ever been one person before him and he was inconsequential—and dead, now. I think, aside from the fact that Samir and Nari are ✨soulmates✨, they've chosen to stay together and they always will no matter what lifetime they're in. I think that's something that Nari resents about their connection to each other, that she feels she has to prove they aren't just together because fate decided so. But Samir is the person who, in Nari's mind, helped shape her. She doesn't consider herself to have been a whole person before him and that's not a good nor healthy thing but it doesn't matter to her. If he were to mold her to his liking, encourage her to embrace any part of her that he brought out, and then turn away from her, I don't think she'd ever be able to recover.

#answered #asystcle #💖 mutually assured destruction 💖#(meme. mine)#(meme. nari)#>:)

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lawrenceop · 5 years

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HOMILY for the 16th Sunday per annum (C)

Gen 18:1-10a; Ps 14; Col 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

The central claim of Christianity, the kind that turns the whole world upside down is summed up by St Paul with these words: “the mystery is Christ among you”. This means that God is among us; God is with us; God dwells among men and women; God is truly present in our midst. And this bold claim, St Paul says, is something revealed to the saints, meaning, it is something that we know by faith. We believe, we Christians – and especially we Catholics with our belief in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist – that Christ is present and active among us. Hence, Jesus is the head of his mystical Body the Church, he governs the actions of men and women through his Providence and grace, and God acts in our lives to save us and sanctify us through the sacraments of the Church. This is what it means to say that “the mystery is Christ among” us.

And, of course, this is a claim that has been contested. There are those who, from the beginning, did not believe in the resurrection of Christ and so they denied the divinity of Jesus. He is not God, so God is not among men, they say. Hence, in the Acts of the Apostles, the Jewish authorities repeatedly arrest the apostles for preaching the resurrection, and for healing in the name of Jesus. They try to suppress these signs of divine activity in the world because they deny the central claim that God is alive and active among us. So, too, the Quran scolds the Christians for believing in the Trinity, and so, for claiming that Christ is divine; that God is with us through the incarnation of the divine Word of God. For God is transcendent, Other, too great to become part of his creation. And yet, St Thomas Aquinas argued, it is precisely because God is great that he can become small, even as small and dependent as a human baby. For St Thomas, and for us Christians, therefore, the mystery that God is with us, present among us, is brought home to us with the birth of every human baby. For life is sacred, a gift from God, a revelation of his goodness and love.

In our time, the claim of the mystery of Christ among us, of God active in the Church, has become, at times, somewhat difficult to sustain. Not only because of the blinkered viewpoint of scienticism which denies the existence of anything that cannot be investigated by the empirical sciences. But, leaving aside the fallacies of atheism, there is the simple but tragic fact that the scandals done by the clergy and then covered up by the leaders of the institutional Church have deeply wounded the integrity of the Church. The public sins of the few, especially of those who are meant to have represented God, have shattered the trust of the many. Hence the claim that Christ is among us, that the good God acts in and through the Church, is harder for many of our contemporaries to swallow. Where is God, even if he exists, they wonder?

However, at an even more fundamental level, many of us Christians have a weak faith. With a certain pragmatic skepticism, we don’t see how God acts among us, how he is relevant to the problems of our time. So, prayer becomes the last resort of desperate cases, rather than the necessary foundation of our lives and of all that we do. For, as Jesus says, “apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5)

But, because our age tends towards an anti-intellectual faith, we rely less on good theological reasoning, which requires hard thinking, and more on feelings and soft intuitions when it comes to matters of faith. The result is that we do not really know, with the certitude of faith that comes from God’s revelation, that God is with us. Why? Because we don’t feel his presence, and the mystery of Christ in our midst remains hidden, as it had been for many ages. As such, many Christians do not seem to know that God is with us; that his grace, coming from the sacraments, empowers us to consciously turn from sin, and to embrace holiness. The decision to live lives pleasing to God and to reject sin, like the decision to love, is a conscious rational choice – one that needs to be made daily. And God’s grace is at hand precisely to help us and strengthen our free choice for the good. It is the same within a marriage: God’s grace strengthens and elevates our commitment to love one another. We have to pray for this grace, and then actively choose the good and do it, will it. But, instead, many go with the flow of their feelings, thus falling into old familiar sinful habits, or develop vacillating patterns of prayer. Swayed by feelings and moods, they do not know God’s saving love and mercy; they do not know that, with the certitude of faith, that God is present in our midst, a rock on which to build our lives.

Or perhaps we like it this way. It seems ‘safer’ and easier to keep God compartmentalised. He belongs in Church, during special times, or maybe just for an hour or so on a Sunday. But otherwise, God is not really in our midst, certainly not in our streets, or at work, or in our living rooms and in our homes… God isn’t really present in the messiness of our lives.

But he is. And indeed, the true God is One who comes in search of us. The magnificent reading from Genesis, where the Blessed Trinity, seen as three angels, comes to the Oak of Mamre is all about God coming to us. God is in our midst, wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, and he is present to give us his grace. But first, he seeks our hospitality. For God is courteous, never forcing himself upon us, but he wants us to freely welcome him, to invite him into our homes and into our hearts, and to consent to the transforming work of his grace. Sarah and Abraham welcome God, and they consent, and so he turns their life upside down: he gives them, in their old age, a child; a precious, longed-for, long-desired, child.

For the fact is that when God enters our lives, when we invite him in, he disrupts our lives. Martha, so used to rushing around and serving – perhaps she is a bit of a perfectionist or a kind of workaholic – has to interrupt her work, and pause a little, and rest at the feet of Christ who is love himself, alive and active among us. Our Sunday pause for Holy Mass is precisely this: here is the myestery of Christ is among us, and we interrupt our work, our play, our everything, and we come here to sit at the feet of Christ, to listen to his Word, to learn from his example of sacrificial love. We come here to grow in charity, divine love.

But so many choose not to come here, many have turned away perhaps because they don’t want their lives to be disturbed by grace. But through this free choice, they have deprived themselves of what Jesus calls “the one necessary thing”, which is to be with him in prayer, here in the Mass, and to receive from this place, God’s love, mercy, and grace.

However, you and I are here, this is what matters now. So, listen again to St Paul: “The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory: this is the Christ we proclaim, this is the wisdom in which we thoroughly train everyone and instruct everyone, to make them all perfect in Christ.” The point is that Christ is present among us not because we’re already perfect, hence sin abounds in the Church still. But, rather, Christ is present among us because God knows we need him. We need God’s Holy Spirit to train us and instruct us in the way of perfection; his sacraments and his grace does this for us. So, for those who are scandalised by sin, or by a bad priest, or by incompetent bishops, the Lord says: “you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one.” We need to sit at his feet, which is the posture of the disciple. In other words, the one necessary thing is to learn from Jesus how to live well, how to love, how to be a true child of God.

St Paul says that God has revealed the mystery of Christ among us to the saints. This is true. Because it is among the saints – not the sinners in the Church – but among her saints, that we see most clearly the amazing truth that God is with us; that God changes and transforms sinful human lives; that Christ is in our midst. Hence, as we sing during Holy Week, “where true charity is found, there is God”. For the saints, whose lives and behaviour radiates the charity of God, testifies to the central Christian mystery: that Christ is among us; God lives in our human hearts.

So, our best answer to the objections and sceptical queries of our contemporaries is this: ask God to make you a saint. Today, we come to sit at Christ’s feet, and we say: “Lord, give me the better part, the holiness and grace and your own Self, just as was given to Mary.” Amen.

#grace #Holy Mass #Sunday #God with us #Emmanuel #sanctification #discipleship #incarnation

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poisedalacrity-blog · 6 years

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character flaws in neat lil list form

-- Dishonest. Veles tells myriads of white lies every single time she ends up stuck in a conversation she may not like, series of half truths, and other times she just lies through her teeth without batting an eyelash. While learning how to lie ( and be damn good at it ) was necessary for surviving her previous relationship, she has yet to break the habit. Lying almost brings her a sense of comfort. There was a point during her self isolation she’d even lie about what her name was, though she’s definitely a damn sight better nowadays.

-- Possessive. An unfortunate combination of things from her days as a raid scout, losing too many people in the whole mess of unfortunate events in the Destiny timeline, her shitty ex-girlfriend rubbing off on her, and her aversion to forming new social bonds to begin with. Once she acknowledges someone is close enough to her to be important, she can get a little...weird. Not to a terribly toxic point, no, but enough to possibly get a little bit clingy if someone she doesn’t know is getting too touchy-feely with someone she does. Veles might hang onto a friend’s arm, for example, if a stranger is standing too close to them while chatting or seems a little too generous with casual touches. She’s deathly afraid of being left behind and forgotten if someone new rolls along that’s “better” than her.

-- Workaholic. Spend enough time around Veles and it becomes painfully obvious she thinks having fun or catering to her own hobbies is a monumental waste of her time. She’s got just one kinda immortal life to live, she’s dead set on spending every second she possibly can on working. Whether it be research or fieldwork, it drives her nuts to sit still for too long--to do “nothing” for too long. It’s bad enough to be excessively unhealthy. Nonstop work coupled with her phobia of sleep? It’s no wonder she’s not faring too well in the mental and emotional health departments, no matter how good she is at pretending otherwise. Kidnap her and take her on vacation for the love of the Traveler--

-- Hypocritical. She’ll say one thing and do the other and she never follows her own damn advice. Plain and simple on this one.

-- Secretive. She learned early on certain opinions must be kept to herself. Her work must be kept to herself. Everything she finds important is kept to herself. Veles has a carefully constructed persona she exercises around other people--even with Boss, and Boss is as close to her as anyone will ever get. Another byproduct of an unhealthy relationship. She’s had it ingrained in her mind that anything and everything she holds dear will be put under fire the second she even talks about it, and so everything is held incredibly close to her chest.

-- Disloyal. Now, that isn’t to say she can’t be loyal. But her allegiance is excessively difficult to earn and even harder to keep. Veles will turn her back on something the second she thinks it’s no longer worth her time or has proven harmful in some shape or form. Very much a free agent sort of deal--she’s dedicated to herself, her views, her work, her daughter, and her very few friends. But if something or someone can hold her trust and loyalty, oof. Oof. She’ll go to the end of the universe and back again for someone or something she believes in.

-- Martyr. She’s incredibly self sacrificial. A dumbass through and through. Catch her never putting herself first when it really counts and digging herself a deeper hole than she’s already in. No matter how much something hurts her, or if something will end up killing her, if it’s important to someone she cares about, all sense of self preservation goes out of the window. Dumbass.

-- Obsessive. Pretty self explanatory I think lmfao kfdjfdkd

there’s more but this is getting a bit long oops

#too lazy to rework the bio page to fit in more neat fun fact lists so pfpfpfpfpffpfppffft canon tag bois #;; ʳᵉᶜᵒʳᵈˢ ᵏᵉᵖᵗ ᵇʸ ᵇᵒˢˢ ᵐᵃⁿ {CANON}#long post cw

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wavenetinfo · 7 years

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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains plot details from Monday night’s season 3 finale of Better Call Saul, titled “Lantern.”

Chuck McGill was not exactly an easy character to like. He was priggish, self-righteous, bull-headed, and dismissive. He claimed to suffer from an allergy to electricity that prompted him to wear a space blanket around the house and to force all people who came into his orbit to surrender all electrical devices. This illness, however, was ultimately proven to him (in a public hearing) to be more mental than physical. Let us also not forget he ruined his brother’s chances at becoming a partner at his firm, in part because he always felt his brother unjustly accrued the lion’s share of love from their mother.

Chances are that you wished some form of comeuppance upon Chuck. But chances are that it wasn’t that.

At the end of Monday’s season 3 finale of Better Call Saul, Chuck (Michael McKean) apparently decided enough was enough, and instead of continuing to face his daunting demons, he gave into the darkest instinct of them, taking his own life by literal lantern light. The decision, made by someone clearly in an altered, tortured state, came as a shock after he recently confronted the realities of his illness and seemed committed to change, putting in the hard work with Dr. Cruz (Clea DuVall). The results were tangible. He was shopping for groceries again, and could even hold a lamp for a short time.

But after his ego-crushing exit from the law firm he co-founded — his longtime partner/ally, Howard (Patrick Fabian), couldn’t usher him out the door fast enough, handing him a $3 million check drawn from his own personal account — and after a devastating conversation with his brother Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk), the sibling with which he waged many moralistic wars and the one he dismissed from his house by saying, “You’ve never mattered all that much to me” — something in Chuck finally broke. (It was all the more surprising after Jimmy showed up at his house and Chuck looked as good as we’d seen him in recent years, listening to music, surrounded by electrical light, etc.)

After taking a pill and reviewing the journal where he tracked his progress in exposing himself to electricity for the last time, Chuck decided he just couldn’t do it anymore. He shut down the power in the house, unscrewing lightbulbs, and ripping his home down to the studs in search of the one last electrical charge that was causing his meter outside to keep ticking. He never found it, spiraling further into chilling mania. In the final moments of the episode, Chuck sat in his office in a numbed-out state, robotically slamming his foot into his desk, where a lantern was perched precariously on some papers. Finally, one of the kicks did the job, sending the lantern tumbling onto the ground and quickly setting the room ablaze, presumably marking a fiery end to a fiery character who stoked the ire of fans.

RELATED: Michael McKean explains that Chuck shocker in Better Call Saul finale

One can only imagine the damage this tragedy will have on Jimmy, who was destroyed by that conversation with Chuck, one in which his brother also urged him to acknowledge himself for who he truly was. (“In the end, you’re going to hurt everyone around you. You can’t help it. So stop apologizing and accept it. Embrace it.”) The battle for Jimmy’s soul, though, was still ongoing. He attempted to right last week’s wrong of using innocent old lady Irene as a sacrificial lamb in his desire for Sandpiper lawsuit money. He returned her to the good graces of her mall-walking friends by trashing himself, ending his own elder law career that waited on the other side of his one-year suspension. (Yet another piece of ground-laying track for Saul Goodman.)

RELATED: The Cast of Better Call Saul‘ on the Pressures of Following Breaking Bad’ Elsewhere in the episode, Kim (Rhea Seehorn) finally saw the light of workaholic ways after her dangerous car crash and decided to focus on her recovery. She also more than hinted at a future, or at least future office, with Jimmy. Meanwhile, the dark-but-weak-hearted Hector (Mark Margolis) almost met his maker but was resuscitated by Gus (Giancarlo Esposito). This marks the second curious sparing of Hector’s life in a year by Gus, wasting the efforts of fellow Salamanca haters Mike (Jonathan Banks) and Nacho (Michael Mando). One of these men is already starting to find himself in the employ of Gus; the other’s fate remains unclear.

There are plenty of questions surrounding “Lantern,” so let’s flip on the circuit breakers and dial Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould, who just might illuminate a light bulb or two over your head.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start at the tragic end. When did you decide you were going to kill Chuck? Or rather, that Chuck was going to kill Chuck? PETER GOULD: It happened during the season. We had a choice, and Chuck had a choice. After the midpoint of the season — that great episode “Chicanery” that Gordon Smith wrote — there was this powerhouse confrontation between Jimmy and Chuck, and Jimmy won. Chuck was humiliated and there were a lot of choices that we could have made at that point. One choice would have been to have Chuck redouble his efforts to get his brother, to try another round of tricks. That didn’t feel right, and it’s interesting — the moments that I find most satisfying in the writers’ room are the moments where the characters surprise us, and our first reaction, of course, was what I just said: “Okay, now how is Chuck going to bounce back and be even worse?”

And the more we talked about it, the more we thought about what a brilliant man Chuck is, and what he would actually take out of this experience. We came to the conclusion that maybe this could be in some ways good news for him. Maybe there’s a chance for growth, even? [Laughs.] So while Jimmy is kind of wallowing in his anger — the winner in the conflict is the angry one — Jimmy is pissed that he has to go to community service, he’s struggling to make ends meets and keep the office with Kim — Chuck actually takes what we always used to call his hero’s journey. He goes out of his safe house and goes out into the world and makes the call to Dr. Cruz [Clea DuVall]. And of course, Chuck previously has been vociferous in denying that there’s anything wrong with him other than sheerly a physical ailment. Chuck has been dead set on avoiding any confrontation with the medical establishment. Of course, the whole end of season 2 turned on that. But now Chuck is actually reaching out to this person who he’s never trusted and never liked, and he does some of the work. And you see it in subsequent episodes that he’s under this doctor’s care, he’s starting to make real progress to the point that in episode 8, you see him go out to the grocery store and get his own damn soymilk, which for some of us is not a big deal, but for Chuck, it’s the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest barefoot and without oxygen.

That just all felt very natural, but we then realized that it’s one thing to make the choice to get help, but the bigger, more difficult problem in life is to carry through with change. And there’s really nothing more difficult than changing yourself. We’ve all tried it, it’s not easy to do, and under stress, as things continue in the season, Chuck reverts. Instead of taking it step by step as Dr. Cruz suggests, instead of really starting to understand himself in a deep way, he turns to the outside world and he starts blaming the outside world for what’s happening on his insides. Of course, the ultimate version of that is, after he has what might be the terrible final confrontation between the brothers, when Chuck says those terrible things to Jimmy, then he’s got an itch that he just can’t scratch. That’s when it all falls apart. And for me, one of the most heartbreaking moments in the finale is when he actually does call Dr. Cruz and there’s a moment where he could actually say, “I’m in crisis. I need help right now,” which is, by the way, what I would encourage anyone who’s in that position to do, but his pride won’t let him. Somehow, his pride keeps him from asking for help when he really needs it the most. And the results of that are, to my eye, tragic.

Now that he has been suspended from the law for a year, we’ve been asking a question in the second half of this season: Who is Jimmy McGill without the law? But for Chuck, in a way, he was nothing without the law. How much did Howard calling his bluff and removing him from the firm contribute to that downward spiral? And he really had no family left after what happened with Jimmy, including that devastating last conversation. What, in sum, led him to take his own life? It’s a little bit of a watercooler question: What drives Chuck to do what he does? I would point out, though, he is expelled from HHM with a giant bonus, and he still has his law license. As he said to Howard in the previous episode, he is getting better. There’s nothing to say that he couldn’t practice law himself. There’s nothing to say that he couldn’t turn around and try to hang his own shingle out in a very luxurious office or even join Schweikart & Cokely, or any of the other firms. There’s the possibility for renewal, and when Jimmy comes to Chuck’s house, Chuck is dressed properly, he’s listening to music, and he’s got it together enough to confront his brother and just cut him to the core. It’s only after he has that terrible scene with Jimmy that Chuck’s downward spiral begins. So to me, that means — however important what happened at HHM might have been — somehow it’s the scene with Jimmy that’s the trigger.

NEXT PAGE: Gould on McKean’s reaction when he learned the news, fan hatred of Chuck

20 June 2017 | 6:16 am

Dan Snierson

Source : Entertainment Weekly

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June 20, 2017 at 12:46PM

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