Mullet-verse fic: Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, DVD commentary "disc 1"
Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide
DVD Commentary!
(Featuring every damn thing I can think of.)
Haven't read the story yet? Go do that! Then come back and read this.
Read the story? Then go ahead and read the commentary. But this is your last warning: there are SPOILERS.
(Also, I'd suggest having the story open in another window while you read this, just so it's easier to follow along.)
First of all, let me address the name. "Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide." Do you know what dihydrogen monoxide is? It's water. Plain, ordinary, completely normal water. I found its lesser known name while looking up hoaxes, and it is in fact the very first clue as to the nature of the story. Not exactly a great clue, but still a clue. How many of you actually looked it up? ;)
(Also: yes, kiddies, I've been dropping clues and hints from the very beginning. But don't feel bad if you didn't figure it out. I've also be actively trying to mislead you. XD)
Moving on. From the start, there was a secret to the story. The secret is...(are you ready for this?)...it's all happening at the same time.
Each chapter (except the epilogue, obviously) was divided into three sections. Now if you don't know the secret, it appears to be gibberish in italics, then events of the past, then consequences in the present. (At least I hope so. That was the impression I was going for, at least.) In actuality, it is: Junior's thoughts in italics, the real world, and a mental construct where Junior's consciousness is trapped.
Get it? Got it? Good.
Now for a more detailed account. Excerpts from the story are underlined for your convenience.
Also for your convenience, here is a handy guide to each part of the commentary (though I'd suggest reading it straight through, since I make references to things I say in earlier parts): { Prologue}{ Chapter One}{ Chapter Two}{ Chapter Three}{ Chapter Four}{Chapter Five}{Chapter Six}{Chapter Seven}{Chapter Seven (continued)}{Epilogue}{Deleted Scenes}
Prologue
"When asked by staff how he was feeling, he indicated that he was fine, that he no longer experienced symptoms."
Chapter title comes from David Rosenhan's On Being Sane in Insane Places, which documents an experiment where ordinary, sane people were sent undercover to psychiatric hospitals to see if they would be diagnosed correctly. (Or something to that effect.)
As I was walking down the stair....
Junior's thoughts. Random and disoriented, but trying to understand. As we see in the next section, Goldie goes down some stairs and finds Junior. Obviously, Junior went down those stairs too. Did he meet a man who wasn't there? Does he wish that man would go away? If you've read the whole story, you already know the answer to those questions.
Where am I?
Good question. He's in the mental construct, AKA "the nuthouse."
Next section, Blue/Junior is missing. How do they know? He's not answering his comm. This is just one of his character quirks: Junior never, unless absolutely necessary, takes his comm off. This is both because he is very dedicated to "the cause," and also because it doubles as a hearing aid. (See chapter 4 of Little Boy Blue, re: hearing loss.)
Helping Goldie look for her missing partner, we see "Robin" and "Luke." Robin was first introduced in Legacies and Traditions as the young speedster Tim!Batman had chosen as his sidekick. (You may not have noticed, but Robin's gender and real name are never mentioned. Yes, it's on purpose.) Luke is Luke McDunnagh, first introduced in JLA v3 #65 as the shapeshifting son of Plastic Man. (In the Mullet-verse, he was first mentioned in chapter 1 of Little Boy Blue.)
OMAX makes mention that if Junior's heart stops, "Bug and I would know instantly." This is true of both Junior and Ted, because they have nanites swimming in their systems. (This is something dating back to Mullet-verse "present time.") Also of note, Max sometimes likes to pretend he's above such "human" things as emotion (despite the fact that AIs are perfectly capable of it as well). Mostly, he likes to pretend that when he's worried/upset. (Can you say "defense mechanism"? I knew you could.)
Goldie finds Blue in the basement, where he has apparently caught someone. Now watch, it's very subtle here: "Hey, Gold."
Did you catch it? No? Okay, I'll explain. Blue is his nickname, Goldie is hers. Not Gold, Goldie. Not that big a deal though, it can be overlooked. Now watch this: "Hey, hon," Goldie replied, smiling tentatively. That's not important yet, but it will be in the next chapter. (It'll be subtle, too.)
Then Blue explains away his not answering his comm as the mystery basement guy "Probably jammed it somehow." Okay, that's plausible enough. Not true, but plausible.
Third section! In the white room. If you've ever seen the Stargate: SG-1 episode "Legacy," you'll have some idea what I was picturing. Except no protruding parts of the wall, and with a cot. (This isn't really important, but it helps for visualizing.)
Junior is confused! He doesn't know how he got there, and when he tries to think back, his memory is severely lacking in current stuff. Okay, he can deal with this, it comes with the territory of being a superhero. He'll just do what he always does and wait for things to make sense (either through figuring it out, or the world explaining itself).
Buuut it never hurts to try to speed up the process. And being annoying sometimes helps. If you've also read chapter 4 of The Redemption of Booster Gold, you'll know that the first time Junior encounters the song that gets on everybody's nerves is when Booster starts singing it under his breath while thinking it very loudly in the direction of J'onn, who Booster was not happy with at the time. Booster told Junior that Martians hated the song. Over the years, Junior has learned that most humans aren't too fond of it either.
Chapter One
"But normality and abnormality, sanity and insanity, and the diagnoses that flow from them may be less substantive than many believe them to be."
This chapter title's from Rosenhan, too. Really, I just went through and picked out a couple sentence I liked, then used them according to which chapters I thought they fit.
She tracks them down and calls herself Booster Gold's biggest fan....
Ah Goldie. ^_^ These are more Junior's memories than specific thoughts, and each version of his first meeting with Goldie is true to some extent...in that they all happened. The first one is the most true. Goldie did indeed do that. ...a glimpse of a possible future... It's hard to say for certain how much Booster's decision to accept her as his sidekick was influenced by his brief trip into the future where he saw Blue and Goldie. (And it's perhaps important to note that Booster and Ted never told Junior much about their trip to the future, especially details like Goldie. So this possibility hasn't even occurred to Junior, then or now.) Only that's not how it happened.... This is bull. It happened just like that. Whether it was really Junior's first meeting with Goldie is uncertain, but this did happen. This is perhaps a good indication that something's not quite right here. (This is, in fact, a memory being altered.)
Then we see Junior on the playground, which is a switched POV version of Midst of Rough Earthliness. He does indeed meet a nameless girl in pigtails of a forgotten color. Whether this is Goldie is uncertain. This time saying that's not how he met her is possibly true.
Then college. This one is the least true, but still partially true. Junior and Goldie did indeed share at least one class in college. All that part is true. But taking her home to meet his dad and "Uncle Mike" is not true. Goldie already knew them at that point, and knew that Booster was also Junior's father. And there's no one else to introduce... This is also wrong. Goldie knows Bug, Max, and Skeets at this point. Sunday dinners with family, however, is a tradition with them. (Albeit a tradition that's loosely followed, depending on schedules.)
Basically, this section is memories being altered and Junior's poor brain trying to keep up and make sense of the changes.
Next section, we have Blue acting a little off. Robin's enthusiastic affection surprises him, even though Blue is a very affectionate person himself. Goldie flying him up to Bug makes him tense up, even though she's done that a million times and Blue likes any opportunity to fly.
Subtlety Alert: "You okay, babe?"
Nothing much left for this section except that Luke is just randomly flirting with Goldie, there's nothing between them and neither of them is actually interested. (Luke is actually seeing someone, but I can't talk about that yet.) They're not good friends, but they are friends. And Goldie mentions "Andy." That's Androgenie, first introduced in chapter 8 of Little Boy Blue as one of Junior's exes. This story takes place before that, and actually falls between "Way 4" and "Way 5" of Five Ways Junior Got Lucky. Andy does most of the interrogations and similar for the Justice League because of pheromone-based powers of persuasion. (Though as we find out in Little Boy Blue, there's a bit more to those powers than everyone previously thought.)
Third section...I think I read that leaving him to live out the rest of his life in the space of an eye blink thing, or something similar, in a Flash story. Either a book or a fanfic. That's not actually important, but I like to give credit where it's due.
It was a little like not existing.
Ah yes, one of Junior's deepest, least known fears. He's always been very aware of how he came about, since he remembers his own "birth," and can pinpoint pretty well when he went from "not existing" to "existing." Since his own father was brought back to life in front of his eyes, not existing is a far more legitimate fear, to his thinking, than death. Also, Junior hopes to be remembered long after he dies, and having his existence wiped out of the timeline (worst case scenario) means that no one will even know he ever existed.
So what does he do when he starts thinking about it? He finds a distraction! Usually of the people variety. In the white room? So alone. Until Goldie comes to visit!
Subtlety Alert: "Hey, hon," Goldie said, smiling tentatively.
Did you catch it? Think back to the Prologue. Why yes, it is exactly the same as in the basement scene. There's a reason.
Subtlety Alert: "Okay. Sweetie, y'know I love ya, but...what gives?"
This will come up later. Trust me.
Subtlety Alert: "I'm sorry, babe..."
Check the Subtlety Alert for the second section of this chapter. You see it? "Babe." The significance of this and the "Sweetie" in the Alert above will become clearer later on.
Also, I just wanted to point out that yes, Junior honestly did think that Goldie would like the sounds on her computer to play great moments from classic zombie movies. And she would. Zombie movies are something that she, Junior, and Max bond over. (Not important, but still perhaps interesting to know.)
"You're a danger to yourself and others."
And finally Junior gets a clue as to why he's been sent to a loony bin. Unfortunately, she doesn't elaborate.
Chapter Two
"Thus, notions of normality and abnormality may not be quite as accurate as people believe they are."
Do I even need to say it? Yeah, the chapter title's from Rosenhan. I picked it because in this chapter, we're getting a good look at normal behavior, abnormal behavior, and neither of those is entirely accurate.
Junior's goggles are opaque for a reason....
Just a random scene to show that Junior can't lie well, especially when you can see his eyes (pay attention to that, it'll come up later this chapter), but he does a pretty good crazy impression. Plus I really wanted to use the line ...not your daddy's Blue Beetle.... somewhere. It amuses me. ^_^
Next section, a quiet Blue is an abnormality.
Subtlety Alert: He briefly got a little tangled in [his cowl and goggles]...
What's odd about that? Blue's been doing this for years and wearing goggles most of his life. He doesn't get tangled in them.
Random stuff about the material of Blue's suit, as well as mention that PR is important to team Blue and Gold. (Not especially important. I'm not even sure why I came up with it. Maybe I'd recently hugged someone sweaty.)
Whether Goldie slept naked I leave up to the reader. Follow your own discretion. ;D
Goldie surprising Blue at the computer isn't especially important, but it is worth noting that he usually has a pretty good sense of his surroundings, and an even better sense of Goldie in relation to them. Ditto for Goldie. It's difficult for people to sneak up on them (possible, but difficult), more so for them to sneak up on each other. Also, the fact that he's on the computer will become important later.
Subtlety Alert: "I'm fine, sweetie...."
Sweetie. Look for this word again. Pay attention to it.
Later, Blue has nothing to say about the man who supposedly attacked him in the basement. Quiet Blue is an abnormality, remember.) And blatantly flirts with a female Andy. (For those who don't know/remember, aside from powers of persuasion, Andy can change gender. Not just male and female, Andy actually has four to choose from. Male, female, androgynous, and a fourth one that no one can remember the name of because I haven't figured it out yet. Laaazy. Androgynous is a mix of male and female, and the fourth gender is...well, no gender. It is widely agreed that Andy's fourth gender is creepy.)
"Y'know Blue's dating Pulsar, right?"
Oh yeah, that's right! And Blue is extremely loyal. Okay, so perhaps there is no harm in flirting, but it's still a little odd. Odder still, when Blue's boyfriend (Pulsar) joins him in watching the interrogation, Blue is pretty resistent to being touched by him. (Pulsar is an original character created by timemonkey and generously donated to the cause for guest shots. His first Mullet-verse appearance was in chapter 10 of Little Boy Blue. He and Junior started dating in "Way 4" of Five Ways Junior Got Lucky.)
Subtlety Alert: "Uh, what gives?"
This one's perhaps a bit more subtle than the others.
Basement guy, despite Andy's influence, has no idea what's going on. (Yes, that's important.) Meanwhile, Pulsar kisses Blue and gets punched in the face for his trouble. This is very unusual for Blue. As I said earlier, he's a very affectionate person. Even if he and Pulsar weren't dating, he wouldn't slug the guy for smooching him.
In the third section, we find out that Goldie told Junior ...he could trust the doctors here... and ...he could tell them anything.... Normally, that wouldn't mean much. But Junior's a superhero. "Anything" means in costume and out. "Anything" means they've been thoroughly briefed about the weirder details of Junior's life. Remember that, it's gonna be important real soon.
"One day you're gonna Funky Chicken your way into the booby-hatch..."
This section is the first time that thoughts/memories have appeared outside of the first section. In this particular case, I'm...well, I'm not really sure whether I'm trying to be funny, or suggest that Junior's current state of "supposedly crazy" has been a long time coming. Maybe both.
Yes, Dr. not-Mengele having a shirt with color was deliberate. After being surrounded by this horrible, dull white world, the doctor suddenly presents him with color. As you can see, Junior reacted favorably to it. Mind games and manipulation! :D
Junior's mind wandering right here is not entirely his fault. Remember in the first section of Chapter One where his memories were being altered? This is similar, but slightly different. This time they're just being accessed.
Reference here, in the memories, to chapter 3 of Hairy Situations and Situational Hair, where the newly-resurrected Ted confirms that skinning people is indeed bad. After which we find out that Junior's been writing this stuff down in a little notebook to help him remember these rules and taboos of society that most people learn in their childhood. Not having had one of those, Junior was a little behind.
And another reference, this time to chapter 5 of Little Boy Blue. Maybe in five, ten years I'll get the intricacies of the life and mind of -- That sentence ends with "the AI, but for now I still think like a human." Get it? Ten years. Max said that about ten years ago, suggesting that by now he does get those intricacies. It was...sort of a little joke. (Very little.) Anyway, while remembering it, Junior wonders Why is the memory so fuzzy? There's a reason. It's because even though Ted and Booster went missing and returned those ten-plus years ago, they haven't arrived in the future yet. So the events during that time in the past are...I guess temporally fluid. They won't really solidify in anyone's memory (except Booster's) until the future events happen that close this little loop in time. So while there is some amount of predetermination, there's still enough flexibility that things could be changed. (That's the time travel method/theory/whatever that I'm using for this, anyway.)
"No one calls me Michael."
Just thought I'd point out, this is true. There are some people who think "Junior" is actually his legal name. The only exception is when people call him by his full name (first, middle, last) to emphasize how pissed off they are at him, as seen in the short memory with Goldie and the box.
"Your mother, perhaps?"
There! You see it? Dr. not-Mengele really shouldn't have pressed the Michael thing. Anyone who's been briefed on the weirdness of Junior's life should know that Junior doesn't have a mother. Not adopted, not surrogate, and definitely not biological. This was a huge mistake. It might not seem like it, but remember that this is a fundamental fact of Junior's entire existence.
It made absolute, perfect, logical sense.
And it does. If you don't know the circumstance of his birth, it would make sense to assume that his mother named him. Not the guy listed on legal documents as his uncle. And then we see Junior close his eyes before agreeing that his mother called him Michael. It's a small thing, but it can be used to assume that he's lying. (Also, the smile. Used during his school years because he learned that was a good way to not cheese off authority figures. I probably could've clarified, but it also gives a slight "this has been building for a while" impression, like the Funky Chicken memory above.)
Chapter Three
"If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them?"
Still Rosenban. Also, good question. How shall we know sanity and insanity? This was sort of a question to the reader. Or maybe even a challenge....
Predictive, logical, testable, unfalsified.
Scientific method. Hm, now why could Junior be thinking about that? He's got a theory, perhaps?
Chaney's is a "metahuman nightclub [...] in Metropolis" that Grace Choi used to work as a bouncer for. "Gene queen" is a term big_ringer came up with and shared with me, though he was using it in regards to the Marvel universe. I thought it could be similarly applied to DC, and asked permission to use it. It means, essentially, dating/hanging with a meta or metas because it's fashionable (like some people do with ethnic groups).
Wine being Junior's alcohol of choice was first mentioned in chapter 1 of Little Boy Blue and is for two reasons. One, my thoughts went something along the lines of "wine is old grape juice, raisins are old grapes, wine is raisin juice." Two, I'm amused by the thought of Booster and Ted's horror at raising a wine-drinker. (This is not important at all, but I thought I'd mention it.)
"And a water for--" No-- "--for--" No! "--for Max to pretend to drink..."
Here we see a case of memory and thought colliding. Why? Max. Junior's figured out that something weird is going on, so when this memory is accessed, he tries to keep Max out of it. Whoever's behind it already knows about Goldie, obviously, but Max isn't as easy to learn about. Basically, Junior's trying to protect Max by not thinking about him.
Also, of course all that Max was worried about was publicity. He wasn't worried at all about their personal safety. Right. (Can you spot the sarcasm? ;D)
(And a random little note here. It's "pretend" to drink because Max doesn't actually drink. Because of his physiology, he has no intake/outtake with liquids.)
Max raises an eyebrow. "'We', kemosabe?"
Slight little shout-out to Formerly Known As The Justice League and I Can't Belive It's The Justice League, where that line was used...well, more than once, at least.
"Don't tell Ronnie--"
This is, of course, referring to Max's, ahem, roommate "Ron." First mentioned in chapter 6 of Little Boy Blue, Ron is of course L-Ron and it is strongly hinted that he and Max are more than just roommates.
No, this didn't happen.
This is Junior taking control for a moment and changing his own memories. (This memory actually did happen, by the way.) Some have already been altered by an outside force, and now he's doing the same to protect his loved ones. So he switches it to a birthday he never had. If you know that's what's happening, you can probably see that he's figuring it out as he goes along. (The song is "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. and came out in 1991, 14 years before Junior was actually "born," but the same year that someone his age would have been born. So on what would have been his tenth birthday, the song was ten years old. Not quite an oldie, and certainly not a golden oldie.)
--Uncle Mike likes oldies--
Slight bit of canon here. In Booster Gold #5, Booster says "I'm actually beginning to enjoy the music here!" To which Skeets replies "For the most part the music I've observed you listening to was recorded in the Sixties [...] I believe the term is 'Golden Oldies.'" So if you're wondering how Junior knows a lot of the oldies he sings in this story, there's your answer. ;)
It's his tenth birthday when he first hears it....
This entire part is like a game of mix-and-match. Michelle Carter is already--His mother is already dead... Correcting himself, remembering to use the assumption that Michelle is his mother. ...Uncle Mike is nice, if absent... This part is taken from the first part of his life, before Ted was resurrected (as seen in The Redemption of Booster Gold). The cake is from the store and there are too many candles--No, there are exactly ten... This part is taken from one of his real birthdays, where there would obviously be more than ten candles. Then he takes that a step further by ignoring the significance of blue and yellow candles. Uncle Mike stumbles a little singing Happy Birthday because Ted... Whoops, he forgot for a second that Ted's not supposed to be there. It's a good birthday and uneventful.... That's it, folks! Nothing to see here! Move along. This is Junior trying to discourage spying.
Second section and Goldie is pissed. Blue's not acting like himself, and she's right that Pulsar could have hurt him. (timemonkey had this to say about Pulsar's powers: "energy absorbtion and manipulation (force fields, energy blasts, etc.)" "usually walks around with his forcefield up, when in costume" "is powerful and is well aware of that fact".) This is partially because she's genuinely angry, and partially because he scared the hell outta her. She's worried.
"...acting like a goddamn psycho..."
This is partially to suggest that Blue's sanity is starting to slip. Also, it'll come up in a later chapter.
...I like the word "nutbar." And it's important to note that Pulsar's power level didn't occur to Blue. This is a little like forgetting that punching Superman could get your hand broken.
"...I'll love ya even if you're completely off your rocker, but...you're kinda going above and beyond..."
Yes, another suggestion that Blue's become/becoming sanity-challenged. (Because I enjoy trying to throw you off the scent.)
"Keep the meta-punching to a minimum, hm?"
This is...actually a little unusual. Especially for Junior. It should've been something more like "friend-punching," rather than specifying metas. Does that make sense?
Yes, Blue's suit is bullet-proof (very much so) and has a reinforced cup. Okay, now pay attention, this next part is important. Very important.
"Ow! Dammit."
Did you see that? Take a good look at it. Got it? Now tell me another time that Junior has said "damn." Or I could just spare you the time and effort and say that it's never. This is a personality quirk that...really just came outta nowhere and latched onto him: Junior doesn't swear. Or maybe I should specify, he swears, just...not like normal people. I'm not going to list examples, you can see them any time he's cheesed off in a story. ;)
Anyway, when Goldie hears this completely out-of-character curse, she assumes the absolute worst. Because really, this is a guy who can look armageddon in the face and say "darn." What's going to motivate him to say "dammit"? ...A stubbed toe, apparently. Yeah, okay something's wrong here.
(The evolution of this quirk was unintentional and something I just noticed one day and decided to go with. It started with Ted and Booster trying not to swear in front of him, because they have no clue how to be parents but they're pretty sure you're not supposed to swear around kids. Then it occurred to me that Junior's got their very young memories of slang from a few decades in the past and a few hundred years in the future. That's gotta be a little confusing as far as curse words are concerned. Then there are curse words with multiple meanings, the possibility of mishearing words, and the fact that for a while Junior's pretty much playing catch-up with everything in his life. The result? Junior finally just gets frustrated with the whole stupid thing and decides that intent is more important than the specific words and he'll swear however he darn well wants.)
Subtlety Alert: "Got it, sweetie."
Blue uses "sweetie" again. Yes, this is important.
Goldie makes mention of OMAX's cameras, which were also mentioned in Little Boy Blue (specifically, chapter 6). Twenty-four/seven surveillance means he cares. ^_^
Okay, now here in the third section we get a good look at the new (fake) life Junior has created for himself. His mother (Michelle) died when he was seven, then he went into a funk that he doesn't remember well (thus helping explain away why he doesn't actually have any memories between "seven" and "fourteen" years old), and then his father (Ted) went missing when he was fourteen which was what snapped him out of his funk. As for the seven year "blank" in his memory, Ted wasn't around much and "Uncle Mike" looked after him most of the time. (I know I already went over that, but I figured it should be repeated here with the rest of the This Is Your Fake Life stuff.)
Junior does, actually, have abandonment issues. Not especially bad, but he doesn't like to be alone and he likes knowing where people are.
The sitting and rocking thing. I don't know what's behind that, or why it can be comforting, but I suspect it's womb related. Junior, having never been in a womb, does not find it comforting. (Just a random little "these were my thoughts" thing.)
"If I wasn't crazy before," he muttered. "This is going to drive me there."
Someone actually guessed this line before this chapter was posted. Great minds, I guess. XD
Junior's second session with Dr. not-Mengele focused on memory exercises....
If you guessed that the "memory exercises" were actually an attempt to direct Junior's thoughts to specific information, then congratulations! You win the no-prize. Give yourself a pat on the back. ^_^
"--oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea--"
This is a switched POV scene from chapter 3 of The Redemption of Booster Gold. You can see a few spots where Junior's making minor edits to the memory. Also, I don't know if anyone noticed this: "And his fam'ly." This is back when Junior was still learning how to talk, and about the world around him. He pronounced "family" like that because that's how the TV pronounced it.
Junior wondered what was in the sedative Dr. not-Mengele gave him....
Here we get to see a little of Junior's specialized knowledge. Junior knows sedatives, he uses them in his darts. Doc does not know sedatives, so a lot of this scene is based on Wikipedia's information on benzodiazepines. Any mistakes are probably my own. Let's see...oh yeah, ataxia (for those like me who see that word and wonder WTF) is "unsteady and clumsy motion of the limbs or trunk". And the "Starts with a 'd'? Something about reality?" that Junior's trying to remember is "depersonalization," where a person feels "divorced from both the world and from their own identity and physicality." (Heh.)
Also, you can see here that Junior's starting to crack just a little. The room, the sedative, the alteration of memories, the constant vigilance, they're all starting to take a toll.
Chapter Four
"What is viewed as normal in one culture may be seen as quite aberrant in another."
Rosenban. This is just my obscure way of saying that "normal" for Junior isn't the same as for most other people. Hidden meaning, OMG! ;)
Batman once kept files on all the Leaguers....
As seen in JLA v3 #43-46, "Tower of Babel." A good idea in theory, but Ra's al Ghul got ahold of those files and used them against the Justice League. Naturally, they were a bit pissed at Batman and briefly voted him out of the League. (It was a good story arc, I recommend it.)
Anyway, we also get a small reference to Junior not liking Batman. This is, of course, Bruce!Batman and not Tim!Batman. Bruce helped bring about Ted's death, threatened both Junior's parents, and just generally was never very nice to Junior.
I would also like to thank the Stargate: Atlantis fandom, and fanfic, without which I wouldn't even know what an epipen is. (It's an "autoinjector of epinephrine, used in medicine to treat anaphylactic shock.")
It's not a betrayal, it's a favor. A kindness....
This is perhaps the first point where Batman's plans and Junior's plans differ. Batman's plans were created with the greater good, or somesuch, in mind. Junior's were created to help the very people they were designed to stop.
I think I mentioned in a reply to a comment that Junior knows at least three people who could get past any encryption he could come up with. I don't know why Batman assumed no one would be able to break his encryption. Arrogance, maybe. In any case, Junior found a way around that.
They are written in an illogical hodge-podge of English, Esperanto, Yiddish, "l33t," and a smattering of high school Spanish....
Ta-da. Just a few little notes here, Junior knows Esperanto, and is in fact quite fluent in it, because Booster knows Esperanto. I've probably mentioned this before, but this came about because of a throwaway line in Formerly Known As The Justice League. Bea explains that the way she shook off Roulette's mind control is because the instructions were English and she thinks in Portuguese, to which Ted replies that Booster thinks in Esperanto but it didn't help him any. Now this could just be a reference to the fact that Esperanto is supposed to be a simple language, and thus playing up the "Booster is simple" thing, but I decided to run with it and decided Esperanto would be a common language in the future that Booster's from. (Possibly even making it his first language, though I haven't decided yet.) So Mullet-verse canon is that Booster is fluent in Esperanto, as is Skeets. (Junior, Bug, and Max were taught by them.)
Yiddish I'll go into detail on in the commentary for chapter 7. Aside from that, Junior knows "l33t" because he grew up in a world where it was common. I know people who use "net-speak" out loud (and sometimes do so myself). Not to difficult to figure that one out. And high school Spanish...well, that's exactly what it is. (Though Booster is, apparently, fairly fluent in Spanish as well, as seen in Justice League Quarterly #1 where he's speaking with the locals on behalf of the Conglomerate.)
I was actually surprised when no one asked about the names of the folder and file mentioned. But this is my commentary and I can put in whatever I want, so I'll explain. "FIDO" and "daisy" are about Max. In Esperanto, "fido" means "trust." (Anyone remember what this is referring to? Eh, if you don't, it's coming up later this chapter.) "Daisy" is a reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (which I've never seen, oddly enough) where the HAL computer sings "Daisy Bell" while going offline. Get it? :D
They don't realize he could really do it....
This was supposed to be a bit of an ominous red herring sort of thing. Like "Oh no! Junior's gone crazy and knows how to destroy the Justice League."
Though aside from that, this section also provides a reason why someone might go digging around in Junior's mind.
Next section, Goldie's figured out that something's not right with Blue.
Max...Max has grown up with Junior and Goldie, they've corrupted him with their prankster ways. (But he's still good about maintaining plausible deniability. Some things are just instinct.)
...speeding toward a remote plateau in Arizona.
I am, sadly, not well-versed in the history of J'onn J'onzz, and so don't know if he's ever spent any significant amount of time in Arizona. But it's got a very "Mars" feel to it, so I figured why not.
"Hey, how did you get his exact location?"
This whole part with the mix-up between address and exact location was partly for laughs, and partly to sort of put in mind "Just how powerful is Max?" The reason behind that is to point out that Junior's contingency plans are a good idea, me waving temptation in front of Max's nose, and also as a red herring suggestion that maybe Junior thought there was a good reason to use his plans. (Yes, I pack a lot of meaning in the stupidest things sometimes.)
...showing the image of Bug's human persona.
Bug as a human was first seen in Harmonious Discourse, when she went to Barbara/Oracle for parenting advice. For those wondering, here's about what she looks like. (The glasses will be explained in another story.) And yeah, Bug is screwing with Goldie here for the heck of it. ^_^
"I thought all the aliens were supposed to be in Nevada."
This is, I hope, the first real clue that you actually get as to who Goldie has gone to see. Also, this is a bit of a mistake. I got Area 51 and Roswell mixed up while I was writing this and researching. So yes, Area 51 is supposed to be in Nevada and supposed to have top secret blah blah aliens yadda. But Roswell, New Mexico is actually more famous for UFOs. So anyway, my bad. Luckily, it still works.
"I heard it was Metropolis," he replied evenly.
Ha! 'Cause see, Superman lives in Metropolis. And he's an...alien. Heh. ...Right, moving on.
Anyway, Goldie finally calls him by name and we find out it's J'onn. Hi, J'onn! In this future he is...sort of retired. Though Blue and Goldie occasionally ask him if he wants to help mentor the Teen Titans. (After what a good job he did babysitting the Justice League all those years, he's perfect for the job. ...Of course, all those years are also exactly why he doesn't want to mentor.)
J'onn was a sucker for bright green eyes....
I am...very vaguely aware of something going on with J'onn and Beatriz (Fire). Whether it is/was romantic, platonic, whatever, this is an obscure little shout-out to that.
"...that's not the kind of blows they usually trade."
I would like to apologize, here and now, for this line. It's tacky, tasteless, and cracks me the hell up. XD It is also exactly what Goldie would say. (And, for those who haven't been paying attention, refers to the fact that Junior and Pulsar are dating and obviously "intimate.")
Have you ever woken up out of a deep sleep and had no clue why until you realized that some sound you were used to hearing had stopped or changed? (For me, for a while, it was the hum of my computer. Damn power outages.) Anyway, yes the sound of a person's snoring can change according to the position they're in.
And somehow I just couldn't help making fun of the drama. Of course, it also allowed me to go a little further over the top with it than I would usually write. As for the class...you know, I really have no idea what Goldie does for a living. And that was the line that made me realize it.
"...he could become a danger to himself and others."
Ooh, what's this? Does anyone remember this? How about "It would appear I have no choice." Think back to Chapter One, if you would: "We didn't have a choice. [...] You're a danger to yourself and others." Was that on purpose? Oh you betcha. That was me trying to misdirect you, suggesting that this is where that was coming from. In truth, however, it's just a coincidence.
Third section, here's what I meant about the fido/trust thing in the first section of this chapter: "I'll trust you until you lie to me, Max--" That's a memory of a conversation that took place in chapter 5 of Little Boy Blue. This is a big...I don't know, issue? Turning point? Thing? Anyway, my point is, trust is a big thing between Junior and Max. That conversation took place when they were fourteen. They are now in their mid-/late-twenties and Max still hasn't betrayed Junior's trust. This is sort of in response to the whole "evil!Max, shooty shooty" in Countdown to Infinite Crisis, who sort of betrayed Ted's trust. (I don't know how much Ted actually trusted him, but I assume he at least trusted Max not to kill him.) Anyway...yeah, that's a recurring theme in the Mullet-verse.
...Max insists that last one is just an odd assortment of planes and satellites that have actually lined up to form a shape....
What, you've never made up constellations? ;) Also, during the beta, alba_aulbath mentioned that the next line Junior insists it still counts, and should count for more, actually, because it won't exist for long. was kind of deep. I assure you, this was completely accidental. Though I think, in the back of my mind, I had Junior say it because of the uncertainty of his own existence. It's not likely, but it is within the realm of possibility that one day he could just stop existing (and yes, he knows this). Morbid, perhaps, but that's why we don't dwell on that sentence. Instead, Max calls him a dork.
They're teenagers, so it is at once immaturely shallow and immeasurably deep.
Tell me I'm not the only one who understands this. I remember staying up late, hanging out outside with friends, talking about the stupidest stuff. But in the dark and the late and the whatever, it's easier to say stuff, and somehow it seems bigger, deeper, whatever than it really is. (And that's it for today's episode of Doc Gets Nostalgic! Join us next week for: Pogs!)
...it's probably best if Junior never calls him "brother." Ever....
This was an instance of me just merrily wandering along writing, then stumbling across something that hadn't occurred to me. The relationship between Junior and Max is more like that of cousins, and occasionally brotherly. On the other hand...just looking at Max (without his hologram) you can see the remnants of Brother Eye in him. (Personally, I think of it sort of in terms of a birth defect.) So the word "brother," and especially calling him that, has negative feelings around it.
Also, look closely just a bit before that: ...Max's outline illuminated by the blue glow of--the glow of Chicago... That's Junior editing the memory to remove the fact that Max isn't human. The blue glow was from his eye.
...the city. His city. Their city....
Just a bit of territorial "This is my city, I'm-a protect it." (Though not nearly as extreme as Batman's "Grr, Gotham mine. Get out.")
Max is a businessman....
Okay, this whole part? Amazingly enough, it's real. This is Junior focusing, trying to direct his thoughts toward the more human parts of Max's life. There are rumors that Max is the illegitimate son of Max Lord IV. In the Mullet-verse, the video of Wonder Woman killing Max was never aired, so as far as anyone knows Max Lord just up and disappeared one day. (I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before.) As for "Ronnie," I figured if Max can have a human hologram, so can L-Ron. Why a woman? Why not? It's probably good for Max's reputation having rumors that he's sleeping with his secretary (I know, it's actually "assistant," I'm playing to a stereotype here). The Ronnie description is me trying to translate L-Ron's appearance into "human." (What do you think?) And yes, they make a very good team.
--outside the apartment door, coming home from school.
With this part, I accidentally painted myself into a corner without realizing it. I'd had the scene worked out in my head for a while, but somehow I forgot to figure out when it's happening. So because of this scene, I can't have Ted stop being blatantly hostile toward Max until some time after Junior's started school. Luckily, I've managed to work that out. Still, oopsie. ^_^
I also almost had Max lie to Junior. Which was stupid. Caught myself in time, but it was still close. D'oh! ^_^
Anyway, the Mullet-verse "present time" tends to be mostly from Ted and Booster's points of view. So here we're getting a brief look at how Max feels about Ted. (Apparently Max doesn't like being hated. Who knew.) The "footage" that Max is talking about is of course Brother Eye's recording of Ted's death. I don't know if such footage exists in DC canon, but in the Mullet-verse it does. Fourteen-year-old Max was, naturally, horrified to see someone who was supposedly him cold-bloodedly killing someone who is now supposedly family. And aside from that, it was just generally awful. Max doesn't want anything to do with that. So when he freaks out about it, Junior promises not to let that happen again (yes, this is where the contingency plans got their start), and Max is honestly, sincerely glad.
Also, you may notice Junior's thoughts intruding on this memory. This is a very private, personal memory for him. It's a little like watching someone read your best friend's diary. It's wrong wrong wrong and you want to stop them. This isn't just personal for him, it's personal for Max, too, and shouldn't be intruded on.
Aaand there's the song! Daisy. This is partly Junior trying to get his mind off that memory, and partly someone trying to force him to reveal the meaning of the song. A moment later, he says so: "And the all-seeing eye closes." But if you don't know Max's connection to Brother Eye, or that he's an AI, the meaning gets lost.
(Also, the laughter interspersing the song is because of the line "I'm half crazy." Junior finds it amusing that the song he's singing while in a nuthouse mentions being nuts. Not because he's hysterical. ;D)
"To talk to me, you must answer these questions three."
I was attempting to make a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, without looking it up. Luckily, it appears I got it pretty close. The original quote goes "Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see." Then the Bridgekeeper's first question is "What...is your name?" (Remember him? "What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" Eh?)
"What...is my name?"
"Max" guesses "Junior," "Michael Theodore Carter-Kord," and "Blue." These are, technically, correct. However, they aren't Max's name for Junior. Max's private, personal nickname for Junior is "Jujubee." (Junior might also have tentatively accepted "asshole" or "dork.")
Clearly, as far as Junior's concerned, this is not Max. Max would've had no trouble figuring out that answer he was looking for. (You can see Junior wavering between desperate and depressed here.)
"You lose. Thanks for playing. Better luck next time."
This is a small, brief breakdown. Junior's just had his hopes dashed that Max will be able to help him and the strain of not thinking is getting to him. "Go away, Tinman...." Max was also called "Tinman" in chapter 6 of Little Boy Blue, by Question. It is, of course, a reference to his normally shiny metal appearance. "Calculating the meaning of life, and you don't factor." I honestly don't know where I got this, it just came to me. Thinking about it, I could've subconsciously been making a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, but it wasn't on purpose. (I just liked how it sounded.) "Drai mir nit kain kop!" Yiddish saying that means "Don't bother me!" but translates literally as "Don't twist my head!" This is actually more than me being a smartass, it's sort of a last ditch "please be real" from Junior. When "Max" doesn't get annoyed at what is clearly a long-standing joke between them, he once again fails a test.
"Everything's wrong, but it's cracks in the surface."
Yeah, this is crazy-talk with a method to the madness. I guess the lake is a sort of metaphor for Junior's situation. The ice on top is the white room and the sessions with Dr. not-Mengele and all that stuff. It's a little real, but there's so much underneath it all. "Have to crack up to see it." Clearly, Junior's having trouble keeping everything straight. What he's having to do is not think about his suspicions, not think about his real life, remember his fake life and pretend it's real, keep an eye on his memories, and...well, I imagine it'd be exhausting. And he is, quiet literally, cracking up in his efforts to "see" the truth. The stuff about freezing blue and dead...I guess he's got a feeling that the stuff below the "surface" he's being presented is dangerous..."but at least it's real."
"Ticktock, return to Oz...."
This part is referring to the movie Return to Oz. It featured another metal man, Tik-Tok. In it, Dorothy was taken to a psychiatric ward after insisting that Oz was real and that she went there. The doctor did indeed say she was wrong, but I suppose it's a matter of opinion whether she was right about Oz being real. It's been years since I saw the movie, but I remember that the mental hospital was pretty damn awful (electro-shock therapy, eep!). And compared to Oz, "reality" was washed-out and dull. After that he sort of veers into his own situation and babbles on about the stuff Dr. not-Mengele's been bugging him about. "I like Oz better." basically translates to "I hate this, this place sucks, I wanna go home."
Then Junior gets his metal men mixed up referring to Max before a mood swing hits him and he decides he's had enough of this fake Max. "...jitter in circles till you fall off the table--Get out!" You know those crappy little plastic toys that you wind up and when you let them go they jitter around, hopping or walking or whatever? Only you have to have a flat, hard surface or they don't work. Then they fall off the table. ...Anyway.
...he mumbled to himself about the properties of poppies.
In The Wizard of Oz movie, poppies made Dorothy and the Lion forgetful and sleepy. Poppies, specifically opium poppies, are used to make opium, which can then be made into morphine and heroin. Some side effects of morphine use are impairment of mental performance, euphoria, drowsiness, lethargy, blurred vision, insomnia, and nightmares. Heroin can cause lessening of nausea, hypotension, sedation, and euphoria. Also, Wikipedia relates a legend about the goddess Demeter who "in despair over the abduction of her daughter Persephone by Hades, ate poppies to forget her pain and to sleep." So not only is he keeping with the Oz theme (because he's already thinking along those lines), Junior's also considering his situation and keeping his mind busy by reviewing basic information he's familiar with. (Also, it occurs to me that I've been making a number of Oz references in the Mullet-verse, especially in scenes with Junior and Max talking together. There's no particular significance that I'm aware of, except that Max is a shiny "tinman" who doubles as a "wizard behind the curtain.")
In the next line you can see that Junior's really trying to distance himself from his surroundings and self.
Continue to "disc 2" for chapters 5-7.
Or "disc 3" for chapter 7 (continued), Epilogue, and Deleted Scenes.
DVD Commentary!
(Featuring every damn thing I can think of.)
Haven't read the story yet? Go do that! Then come back and read this.
Read the story? Then go ahead and read the commentary. But this is your last warning: there are SPOILERS.
(Also, I'd suggest having the story open in another window while you read this, just so it's easier to follow along.)
First of all, let me address the name. "Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide." Do you know what dihydrogen monoxide is? It's water. Plain, ordinary, completely normal water. I found its lesser known name while looking up hoaxes, and it is in fact the very first clue as to the nature of the story. Not exactly a great clue, but still a clue. How many of you actually looked it up? ;)
(Also: yes, kiddies, I've been dropping clues and hints from the very beginning. But don't feel bad if you didn't figure it out. I've also be actively trying to mislead you. XD)
Moving on. From the start, there was a secret to the story. The secret is...(are you ready for this?)...it's all happening at the same time.
Each chapter (except the epilogue, obviously) was divided into three sections. Now if you don't know the secret, it appears to be gibberish in italics, then events of the past, then consequences in the present. (At least I hope so. That was the impression I was going for, at least.) In actuality, it is: Junior's thoughts in italics, the real world, and a mental construct where Junior's consciousness is trapped.
Get it? Got it? Good.
Now for a more detailed account. Excerpts from the story are underlined for your convenience.
Also for your convenience, here is a handy guide to each part of the commentary (though I'd suggest reading it straight through, since I make references to things I say in earlier parts): { Prologue}{ Chapter One}{ Chapter Two}{ Chapter Three}{ Chapter Four}{Chapter Five}{Chapter Six}{Chapter Seven}{Chapter Seven (continued)}{Epilogue}{Deleted Scenes}
Prologue
"When asked by staff how he was feeling, he indicated that he was fine, that he no longer experienced symptoms."
Chapter title comes from David Rosenhan's On Being Sane in Insane Places, which documents an experiment where ordinary, sane people were sent undercover to psychiatric hospitals to see if they would be diagnosed correctly. (Or something to that effect.)
As I was walking down the stair....
Junior's thoughts. Random and disoriented, but trying to understand. As we see in the next section, Goldie goes down some stairs and finds Junior. Obviously, Junior went down those stairs too. Did he meet a man who wasn't there? Does he wish that man would go away? If you've read the whole story, you already know the answer to those questions.
Where am I?
Good question. He's in the mental construct, AKA "the nuthouse."
Next section, Blue/Junior is missing. How do they know? He's not answering his comm. This is just one of his character quirks: Junior never, unless absolutely necessary, takes his comm off. This is both because he is very dedicated to "the cause," and also because it doubles as a hearing aid. (See chapter 4 of Little Boy Blue, re: hearing loss.)
Helping Goldie look for her missing partner, we see "Robin" and "Luke." Robin was first introduced in Legacies and Traditions as the young speedster Tim!Batman had chosen as his sidekick. (You may not have noticed, but Robin's gender and real name are never mentioned. Yes, it's on purpose.) Luke is Luke McDunnagh, first introduced in JLA v3 #65 as the shapeshifting son of Plastic Man. (In the Mullet-verse, he was first mentioned in chapter 1 of Little Boy Blue.)
OMAX makes mention that if Junior's heart stops, "Bug and I would know instantly." This is true of both Junior and Ted, because they have nanites swimming in their systems. (This is something dating back to Mullet-verse "present time.") Also of note, Max sometimes likes to pretend he's above such "human" things as emotion (despite the fact that AIs are perfectly capable of it as well). Mostly, he likes to pretend that when he's worried/upset. (Can you say "defense mechanism"? I knew you could.)
Goldie finds Blue in the basement, where he has apparently caught someone. Now watch, it's very subtle here: "Hey, Gold."
Did you catch it? No? Okay, I'll explain. Blue is his nickname, Goldie is hers. Not Gold, Goldie. Not that big a deal though, it can be overlooked. Now watch this: "Hey, hon," Goldie replied, smiling tentatively. That's not important yet, but it will be in the next chapter. (It'll be subtle, too.)
Then Blue explains away his not answering his comm as the mystery basement guy "Probably jammed it somehow." Okay, that's plausible enough. Not true, but plausible.
Third section! In the white room. If you've ever seen the Stargate: SG-1 episode "Legacy," you'll have some idea what I was picturing. Except no protruding parts of the wall, and with a cot. (This isn't really important, but it helps for visualizing.)
Junior is confused! He doesn't know how he got there, and when he tries to think back, his memory is severely lacking in current stuff. Okay, he can deal with this, it comes with the territory of being a superhero. He'll just do what he always does and wait for things to make sense (either through figuring it out, or the world explaining itself).
Buuut it never hurts to try to speed up the process. And being annoying sometimes helps. If you've also read chapter 4 of The Redemption of Booster Gold, you'll know that the first time Junior encounters the song that gets on everybody's nerves is when Booster starts singing it under his breath while thinking it very loudly in the direction of J'onn, who Booster was not happy with at the time. Booster told Junior that Martians hated the song. Over the years, Junior has learned that most humans aren't too fond of it either.
Chapter One
"But normality and abnormality, sanity and insanity, and the diagnoses that flow from them may be less substantive than many believe them to be."
This chapter title's from Rosenhan, too. Really, I just went through and picked out a couple sentence I liked, then used them according to which chapters I thought they fit.
She tracks them down and calls herself Booster Gold's biggest fan....
Ah Goldie. ^_^ These are more Junior's memories than specific thoughts, and each version of his first meeting with Goldie is true to some extent...in that they all happened. The first one is the most true. Goldie did indeed do that. ...a glimpse of a possible future... It's hard to say for certain how much Booster's decision to accept her as his sidekick was influenced by his brief trip into the future where he saw Blue and Goldie. (And it's perhaps important to note that Booster and Ted never told Junior much about their trip to the future, especially details like Goldie. So this possibility hasn't even occurred to Junior, then or now.) Only that's not how it happened.... This is bull. It happened just like that. Whether it was really Junior's first meeting with Goldie is uncertain, but this did happen. This is perhaps a good indication that something's not quite right here. (This is, in fact, a memory being altered.)
Then we see Junior on the playground, which is a switched POV version of Midst of Rough Earthliness. He does indeed meet a nameless girl in pigtails of a forgotten color. Whether this is Goldie is uncertain. This time saying that's not how he met her is possibly true.
Then college. This one is the least true, but still partially true. Junior and Goldie did indeed share at least one class in college. All that part is true. But taking her home to meet his dad and "Uncle Mike" is not true. Goldie already knew them at that point, and knew that Booster was also Junior's father. And there's no one else to introduce... This is also wrong. Goldie knows Bug, Max, and Skeets at this point. Sunday dinners with family, however, is a tradition with them. (Albeit a tradition that's loosely followed, depending on schedules.)
Basically, this section is memories being altered and Junior's poor brain trying to keep up and make sense of the changes.
Next section, we have Blue acting a little off. Robin's enthusiastic affection surprises him, even though Blue is a very affectionate person himself. Goldie flying him up to Bug makes him tense up, even though she's done that a million times and Blue likes any opportunity to fly.
Subtlety Alert: "You okay, babe?"
Nothing much left for this section except that Luke is just randomly flirting with Goldie, there's nothing between them and neither of them is actually interested. (Luke is actually seeing someone, but I can't talk about that yet.) They're not good friends, but they are friends. And Goldie mentions "Andy." That's Androgenie, first introduced in chapter 8 of Little Boy Blue as one of Junior's exes. This story takes place before that, and actually falls between "Way 4" and "Way 5" of Five Ways Junior Got Lucky. Andy does most of the interrogations and similar for the Justice League because of pheromone-based powers of persuasion. (Though as we find out in Little Boy Blue, there's a bit more to those powers than everyone previously thought.)
Third section...I think I read that leaving him to live out the rest of his life in the space of an eye blink thing, or something similar, in a Flash story. Either a book or a fanfic. That's not actually important, but I like to give credit where it's due.
It was a little like not existing.
Ah yes, one of Junior's deepest, least known fears. He's always been very aware of how he came about, since he remembers his own "birth," and can pinpoint pretty well when he went from "not existing" to "existing." Since his own father was brought back to life in front of his eyes, not existing is a far more legitimate fear, to his thinking, than death. Also, Junior hopes to be remembered long after he dies, and having his existence wiped out of the timeline (worst case scenario) means that no one will even know he ever existed.
So what does he do when he starts thinking about it? He finds a distraction! Usually of the people variety. In the white room? So alone. Until Goldie comes to visit!
Subtlety Alert: "Hey, hon," Goldie said, smiling tentatively.
Did you catch it? Think back to the Prologue. Why yes, it is exactly the same as in the basement scene. There's a reason.
Subtlety Alert: "Okay. Sweetie, y'know I love ya, but...what gives?"
This will come up later. Trust me.
Subtlety Alert: "I'm sorry, babe..."
Check the Subtlety Alert for the second section of this chapter. You see it? "Babe." The significance of this and the "Sweetie" in the Alert above will become clearer later on.
Also, I just wanted to point out that yes, Junior honestly did think that Goldie would like the sounds on her computer to play great moments from classic zombie movies. And she would. Zombie movies are something that she, Junior, and Max bond over. (Not important, but still perhaps interesting to know.)
"You're a danger to yourself and others."
And finally Junior gets a clue as to why he's been sent to a loony bin. Unfortunately, she doesn't elaborate.
Chapter Two
"Thus, notions of normality and abnormality may not be quite as accurate as people believe they are."
Do I even need to say it? Yeah, the chapter title's from Rosenhan. I picked it because in this chapter, we're getting a good look at normal behavior, abnormal behavior, and neither of those is entirely accurate.
Junior's goggles are opaque for a reason....
Just a random scene to show that Junior can't lie well, especially when you can see his eyes (pay attention to that, it'll come up later this chapter), but he does a pretty good crazy impression. Plus I really wanted to use the line ...not your daddy's Blue Beetle.... somewhere. It amuses me. ^_^
Next section, a quiet Blue is an abnormality.
Subtlety Alert: He briefly got a little tangled in [his cowl and goggles]...
What's odd about that? Blue's been doing this for years and wearing goggles most of his life. He doesn't get tangled in them.
Random stuff about the material of Blue's suit, as well as mention that PR is important to team Blue and Gold. (Not especially important. I'm not even sure why I came up with it. Maybe I'd recently hugged someone sweaty.)
Whether Goldie slept naked I leave up to the reader. Follow your own discretion. ;D
Goldie surprising Blue at the computer isn't especially important, but it is worth noting that he usually has a pretty good sense of his surroundings, and an even better sense of Goldie in relation to them. Ditto for Goldie. It's difficult for people to sneak up on them (possible, but difficult), more so for them to sneak up on each other. Also, the fact that he's on the computer will become important later.
Subtlety Alert: "I'm fine, sweetie...."
Sweetie. Look for this word again. Pay attention to it.
Later, Blue has nothing to say about the man who supposedly attacked him in the basement. Quiet Blue is an abnormality, remember.) And blatantly flirts with a female Andy. (For those who don't know/remember, aside from powers of persuasion, Andy can change gender. Not just male and female, Andy actually has four to choose from. Male, female, androgynous, and a fourth one that no one can remember the name of because I haven't figured it out yet. Laaazy. Androgynous is a mix of male and female, and the fourth gender is...well, no gender. It is widely agreed that Andy's fourth gender is creepy.)
"Y'know Blue's dating Pulsar, right?"
Oh yeah, that's right! And Blue is extremely loyal. Okay, so perhaps there is no harm in flirting, but it's still a little odd. Odder still, when Blue's boyfriend (Pulsar) joins him in watching the interrogation, Blue is pretty resistent to being touched by him. (Pulsar is an original character created by timemonkey and generously donated to the cause for guest shots. His first Mullet-verse appearance was in chapter 10 of Little Boy Blue. He and Junior started dating in "Way 4" of Five Ways Junior Got Lucky.)
Subtlety Alert: "Uh, what gives?"
This one's perhaps a bit more subtle than the others.
Basement guy, despite Andy's influence, has no idea what's going on. (Yes, that's important.) Meanwhile, Pulsar kisses Blue and gets punched in the face for his trouble. This is very unusual for Blue. As I said earlier, he's a very affectionate person. Even if he and Pulsar weren't dating, he wouldn't slug the guy for smooching him.
In the third section, we find out that Goldie told Junior ...he could trust the doctors here... and ...he could tell them anything.... Normally, that wouldn't mean much. But Junior's a superhero. "Anything" means in costume and out. "Anything" means they've been thoroughly briefed about the weirder details of Junior's life. Remember that, it's gonna be important real soon.
"One day you're gonna Funky Chicken your way into the booby-hatch..."
This section is the first time that thoughts/memories have appeared outside of the first section. In this particular case, I'm...well, I'm not really sure whether I'm trying to be funny, or suggest that Junior's current state of "supposedly crazy" has been a long time coming. Maybe both.
Yes, Dr. not-Mengele having a shirt with color was deliberate. After being surrounded by this horrible, dull white world, the doctor suddenly presents him with color. As you can see, Junior reacted favorably to it. Mind games and manipulation! :D
Junior's mind wandering right here is not entirely his fault. Remember in the first section of Chapter One where his memories were being altered? This is similar, but slightly different. This time they're just being accessed.
Reference here, in the memories, to chapter 3 of Hairy Situations and Situational Hair, where the newly-resurrected Ted confirms that skinning people is indeed bad. After which we find out that Junior's been writing this stuff down in a little notebook to help him remember these rules and taboos of society that most people learn in their childhood. Not having had one of those, Junior was a little behind.
And another reference, this time to chapter 5 of Little Boy Blue. Maybe in five, ten years I'll get the intricacies of the life and mind of -- That sentence ends with "the AI, but for now I still think like a human." Get it? Ten years. Max said that about ten years ago, suggesting that by now he does get those intricacies. It was...sort of a little joke. (Very little.) Anyway, while remembering it, Junior wonders Why is the memory so fuzzy? There's a reason. It's because even though Ted and Booster went missing and returned those ten-plus years ago, they haven't arrived in the future yet. So the events during that time in the past are...I guess temporally fluid. They won't really solidify in anyone's memory (except Booster's) until the future events happen that close this little loop in time. So while there is some amount of predetermination, there's still enough flexibility that things could be changed. (That's the time travel method/theory/whatever that I'm using for this, anyway.)
"No one calls me Michael."
Just thought I'd point out, this is true. There are some people who think "Junior" is actually his legal name. The only exception is when people call him by his full name (first, middle, last) to emphasize how pissed off they are at him, as seen in the short memory with Goldie and the box.
"Your mother, perhaps?"
There! You see it? Dr. not-Mengele really shouldn't have pressed the Michael thing. Anyone who's been briefed on the weirdness of Junior's life should know that Junior doesn't have a mother. Not adopted, not surrogate, and definitely not biological. This was a huge mistake. It might not seem like it, but remember that this is a fundamental fact of Junior's entire existence.
It made absolute, perfect, logical sense.
And it does. If you don't know the circumstance of his birth, it would make sense to assume that his mother named him. Not the guy listed on legal documents as his uncle. And then we see Junior close his eyes before agreeing that his mother called him Michael. It's a small thing, but it can be used to assume that he's lying. (Also, the smile. Used during his school years because he learned that was a good way to not cheese off authority figures. I probably could've clarified, but it also gives a slight "this has been building for a while" impression, like the Funky Chicken memory above.)
Chapter Three
"If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them?"
Still Rosenban. Also, good question. How shall we know sanity and insanity? This was sort of a question to the reader. Or maybe even a challenge....
Predictive, logical, testable, unfalsified.
Scientific method. Hm, now why could Junior be thinking about that? He's got a theory, perhaps?
Chaney's is a "metahuman nightclub [...] in Metropolis" that Grace Choi used to work as a bouncer for. "Gene queen" is a term big_ringer came up with and shared with me, though he was using it in regards to the Marvel universe. I thought it could be similarly applied to DC, and asked permission to use it. It means, essentially, dating/hanging with a meta or metas because it's fashionable (like some people do with ethnic groups).
Wine being Junior's alcohol of choice was first mentioned in chapter 1 of Little Boy Blue and is for two reasons. One, my thoughts went something along the lines of "wine is old grape juice, raisins are old grapes, wine is raisin juice." Two, I'm amused by the thought of Booster and Ted's horror at raising a wine-drinker. (This is not important at all, but I thought I'd mention it.)
"And a water for--" No-- "--for--" No! "--for Max to pretend to drink..."
Here we see a case of memory and thought colliding. Why? Max. Junior's figured out that something weird is going on, so when this memory is accessed, he tries to keep Max out of it. Whoever's behind it already knows about Goldie, obviously, but Max isn't as easy to learn about. Basically, Junior's trying to protect Max by not thinking about him.
Also, of course all that Max was worried about was publicity. He wasn't worried at all about their personal safety. Right. (Can you spot the sarcasm? ;D)
(And a random little note here. It's "pretend" to drink because Max doesn't actually drink. Because of his physiology, he has no intake/outtake with liquids.)
Max raises an eyebrow. "'We', kemosabe?"
Slight little shout-out to Formerly Known As The Justice League and I Can't Belive It's The Justice League, where that line was used...well, more than once, at least.
"Don't tell Ronnie--"
This is, of course, referring to Max's, ahem, roommate "Ron." First mentioned in chapter 6 of Little Boy Blue, Ron is of course L-Ron and it is strongly hinted that he and Max are more than just roommates.
No, this didn't happen.
This is Junior taking control for a moment and changing his own memories. (This memory actually did happen, by the way.) Some have already been altered by an outside force, and now he's doing the same to protect his loved ones. So he switches it to a birthday he never had. If you know that's what's happening, you can probably see that he's figuring it out as he goes along. (The song is "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. and came out in 1991, 14 years before Junior was actually "born," but the same year that someone his age would have been born. So on what would have been his tenth birthday, the song was ten years old. Not quite an oldie, and certainly not a golden oldie.)
--Uncle Mike likes oldies--
Slight bit of canon here. In Booster Gold #5, Booster says "I'm actually beginning to enjoy the music here!" To which Skeets replies "For the most part the music I've observed you listening to was recorded in the Sixties [...] I believe the term is 'Golden Oldies.'" So if you're wondering how Junior knows a lot of the oldies he sings in this story, there's your answer. ;)
It's his tenth birthday when he first hears it....
This entire part is like a game of mix-and-match. Michelle Carter is already--His mother is already dead... Correcting himself, remembering to use the assumption that Michelle is his mother. ...Uncle Mike is nice, if absent... This part is taken from the first part of his life, before Ted was resurrected (as seen in The Redemption of Booster Gold). The cake is from the store and there are too many candles--No, there are exactly ten... This part is taken from one of his real birthdays, where there would obviously be more than ten candles. Then he takes that a step further by ignoring the significance of blue and yellow candles. Uncle Mike stumbles a little singing Happy Birthday because Ted... Whoops, he forgot for a second that Ted's not supposed to be there. It's a good birthday and uneventful.... That's it, folks! Nothing to see here! Move along. This is Junior trying to discourage spying.
Second section and Goldie is pissed. Blue's not acting like himself, and she's right that Pulsar could have hurt him. (timemonkey had this to say about Pulsar's powers: "energy absorbtion and manipulation (force fields, energy blasts, etc.)" "usually walks around with his forcefield up, when in costume" "is powerful and is well aware of that fact".) This is partially because she's genuinely angry, and partially because he scared the hell outta her. She's worried.
"...acting like a goddamn psycho..."
This is partially to suggest that Blue's sanity is starting to slip. Also, it'll come up in a later chapter.
...I like the word "nutbar." And it's important to note that Pulsar's power level didn't occur to Blue. This is a little like forgetting that punching Superman could get your hand broken.
"...I'll love ya even if you're completely off your rocker, but...you're kinda going above and beyond..."
Yes, another suggestion that Blue's become/becoming sanity-challenged. (Because I enjoy trying to throw you off the scent.)
"Keep the meta-punching to a minimum, hm?"
This is...actually a little unusual. Especially for Junior. It should've been something more like "friend-punching," rather than specifying metas. Does that make sense?
Yes, Blue's suit is bullet-proof (very much so) and has a reinforced cup. Okay, now pay attention, this next part is important. Very important.
"Ow! Dammit."
Did you see that? Take a good look at it. Got it? Now tell me another time that Junior has said "damn." Or I could just spare you the time and effort and say that it's never. This is a personality quirk that...really just came outta nowhere and latched onto him: Junior doesn't swear. Or maybe I should specify, he swears, just...not like normal people. I'm not going to list examples, you can see them any time he's cheesed off in a story. ;)
Anyway, when Goldie hears this completely out-of-character curse, she assumes the absolute worst. Because really, this is a guy who can look armageddon in the face and say "darn." What's going to motivate him to say "dammit"? ...A stubbed toe, apparently. Yeah, okay something's wrong here.
(The evolution of this quirk was unintentional and something I just noticed one day and decided to go with. It started with Ted and Booster trying not to swear in front of him, because they have no clue how to be parents but they're pretty sure you're not supposed to swear around kids. Then it occurred to me that Junior's got their very young memories of slang from a few decades in the past and a few hundred years in the future. That's gotta be a little confusing as far as curse words are concerned. Then there are curse words with multiple meanings, the possibility of mishearing words, and the fact that for a while Junior's pretty much playing catch-up with everything in his life. The result? Junior finally just gets frustrated with the whole stupid thing and decides that intent is more important than the specific words and he'll swear however he darn well wants.)
Subtlety Alert: "Got it, sweetie."
Blue uses "sweetie" again. Yes, this is important.
Goldie makes mention of OMAX's cameras, which were also mentioned in Little Boy Blue (specifically, chapter 6). Twenty-four/seven surveillance means he cares. ^_^
Okay, now here in the third section we get a good look at the new (fake) life Junior has created for himself. His mother (Michelle) died when he was seven, then he went into a funk that he doesn't remember well (thus helping explain away why he doesn't actually have any memories between "seven" and "fourteen" years old), and then his father (Ted) went missing when he was fourteen which was what snapped him out of his funk. As for the seven year "blank" in his memory, Ted wasn't around much and "Uncle Mike" looked after him most of the time. (I know I already went over that, but I figured it should be repeated here with the rest of the This Is Your Fake Life stuff.)
Junior does, actually, have abandonment issues. Not especially bad, but he doesn't like to be alone and he likes knowing where people are.
The sitting and rocking thing. I don't know what's behind that, or why it can be comforting, but I suspect it's womb related. Junior, having never been in a womb, does not find it comforting. (Just a random little "these were my thoughts" thing.)
"If I wasn't crazy before," he muttered. "This is going to drive me there."
Someone actually guessed this line before this chapter was posted. Great minds, I guess. XD
Junior's second session with Dr. not-Mengele focused on memory exercises....
If you guessed that the "memory exercises" were actually an attempt to direct Junior's thoughts to specific information, then congratulations! You win the no-prize. Give yourself a pat on the back. ^_^
"--oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea--"
This is a switched POV scene from chapter 3 of The Redemption of Booster Gold. You can see a few spots where Junior's making minor edits to the memory. Also, I don't know if anyone noticed this: "And his fam'ly." This is back when Junior was still learning how to talk, and about the world around him. He pronounced "family" like that because that's how the TV pronounced it.
Junior wondered what was in the sedative Dr. not-Mengele gave him....
Here we get to see a little of Junior's specialized knowledge. Junior knows sedatives, he uses them in his darts. Doc does not know sedatives, so a lot of this scene is based on Wikipedia's information on benzodiazepines. Any mistakes are probably my own. Let's see...oh yeah, ataxia (for those like me who see that word and wonder WTF) is "unsteady and clumsy motion of the limbs or trunk". And the "Starts with a 'd'? Something about reality?" that Junior's trying to remember is "depersonalization," where a person feels "divorced from both the world and from their own identity and physicality." (Heh.)
Also, you can see here that Junior's starting to crack just a little. The room, the sedative, the alteration of memories, the constant vigilance, they're all starting to take a toll.
Chapter Four
"What is viewed as normal in one culture may be seen as quite aberrant in another."
Rosenban. This is just my obscure way of saying that "normal" for Junior isn't the same as for most other people. Hidden meaning, OMG! ;)
Batman once kept files on all the Leaguers....
As seen in JLA v3 #43-46, "Tower of Babel." A good idea in theory, but Ra's al Ghul got ahold of those files and used them against the Justice League. Naturally, they were a bit pissed at Batman and briefly voted him out of the League. (It was a good story arc, I recommend it.)
Anyway, we also get a small reference to Junior not liking Batman. This is, of course, Bruce!Batman and not Tim!Batman. Bruce helped bring about Ted's death, threatened both Junior's parents, and just generally was never very nice to Junior.
I would also like to thank the Stargate: Atlantis fandom, and fanfic, without which I wouldn't even know what an epipen is. (It's an "autoinjector of epinephrine, used in medicine to treat anaphylactic shock.")
It's not a betrayal, it's a favor. A kindness....
This is perhaps the first point where Batman's plans and Junior's plans differ. Batman's plans were created with the greater good, or somesuch, in mind. Junior's were created to help the very people they were designed to stop.
I think I mentioned in a reply to a comment that Junior knows at least three people who could get past any encryption he could come up with. I don't know why Batman assumed no one would be able to break his encryption. Arrogance, maybe. In any case, Junior found a way around that.
They are written in an illogical hodge-podge of English, Esperanto, Yiddish, "l33t," and a smattering of high school Spanish....
Ta-da. Just a few little notes here, Junior knows Esperanto, and is in fact quite fluent in it, because Booster knows Esperanto. I've probably mentioned this before, but this came about because of a throwaway line in Formerly Known As The Justice League. Bea explains that the way she shook off Roulette's mind control is because the instructions were English and she thinks in Portuguese, to which Ted replies that Booster thinks in Esperanto but it didn't help him any. Now this could just be a reference to the fact that Esperanto is supposed to be a simple language, and thus playing up the "Booster is simple" thing, but I decided to run with it and decided Esperanto would be a common language in the future that Booster's from. (Possibly even making it his first language, though I haven't decided yet.) So Mullet-verse canon is that Booster is fluent in Esperanto, as is Skeets. (Junior, Bug, and Max were taught by them.)
Yiddish I'll go into detail on in the commentary for chapter 7. Aside from that, Junior knows "l33t" because he grew up in a world where it was common. I know people who use "net-speak" out loud (and sometimes do so myself). Not to difficult to figure that one out. And high school Spanish...well, that's exactly what it is. (Though Booster is, apparently, fairly fluent in Spanish as well, as seen in Justice League Quarterly #1 where he's speaking with the locals on behalf of the Conglomerate.)
I was actually surprised when no one asked about the names of the folder and file mentioned. But this is my commentary and I can put in whatever I want, so I'll explain. "FIDO" and "daisy" are about Max. In Esperanto, "fido" means "trust." (Anyone remember what this is referring to? Eh, if you don't, it's coming up later this chapter.) "Daisy" is a reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (which I've never seen, oddly enough) where the HAL computer sings "Daisy Bell" while going offline. Get it? :D
They don't realize he could really do it....
This was supposed to be a bit of an ominous red herring sort of thing. Like "Oh no! Junior's gone crazy and knows how to destroy the Justice League."
Though aside from that, this section also provides a reason why someone might go digging around in Junior's mind.
Next section, Goldie's figured out that something's not right with Blue.
Max...Max has grown up with Junior and Goldie, they've corrupted him with their prankster ways. (But he's still good about maintaining plausible deniability. Some things are just instinct.)
...speeding toward a remote plateau in Arizona.
I am, sadly, not well-versed in the history of J'onn J'onzz, and so don't know if he's ever spent any significant amount of time in Arizona. But it's got a very "Mars" feel to it, so I figured why not.
"Hey, how did you get his exact location?"
This whole part with the mix-up between address and exact location was partly for laughs, and partly to sort of put in mind "Just how powerful is Max?" The reason behind that is to point out that Junior's contingency plans are a good idea, me waving temptation in front of Max's nose, and also as a red herring suggestion that maybe Junior thought there was a good reason to use his plans. (Yes, I pack a lot of meaning in the stupidest things sometimes.)
...showing the image of Bug's human persona.
Bug as a human was first seen in Harmonious Discourse, when she went to Barbara/Oracle for parenting advice. For those wondering, here's about what she looks like. (The glasses will be explained in another story.) And yeah, Bug is screwing with Goldie here for the heck of it. ^_^
"I thought all the aliens were supposed to be in Nevada."
This is, I hope, the first real clue that you actually get as to who Goldie has gone to see. Also, this is a bit of a mistake. I got Area 51 and Roswell mixed up while I was writing this and researching. So yes, Area 51 is supposed to be in Nevada and supposed to have top secret blah blah aliens yadda. But Roswell, New Mexico is actually more famous for UFOs. So anyway, my bad. Luckily, it still works.
"I heard it was Metropolis," he replied evenly.
Ha! 'Cause see, Superman lives in Metropolis. And he's an...alien. Heh. ...Right, moving on.
Anyway, Goldie finally calls him by name and we find out it's J'onn. Hi, J'onn! In this future he is...sort of retired. Though Blue and Goldie occasionally ask him if he wants to help mentor the Teen Titans. (After what a good job he did babysitting the Justice League all those years, he's perfect for the job. ...Of course, all those years are also exactly why he doesn't want to mentor.)
J'onn was a sucker for bright green eyes....
I am...very vaguely aware of something going on with J'onn and Beatriz (Fire). Whether it is/was romantic, platonic, whatever, this is an obscure little shout-out to that.
"...that's not the kind of blows they usually trade."
I would like to apologize, here and now, for this line. It's tacky, tasteless, and cracks me the hell up. XD It is also exactly what Goldie would say. (And, for those who haven't been paying attention, refers to the fact that Junior and Pulsar are dating and obviously "intimate.")
Have you ever woken up out of a deep sleep and had no clue why until you realized that some sound you were used to hearing had stopped or changed? (For me, for a while, it was the hum of my computer. Damn power outages.) Anyway, yes the sound of a person's snoring can change according to the position they're in.
And somehow I just couldn't help making fun of the drama. Of course, it also allowed me to go a little further over the top with it than I would usually write. As for the class...you know, I really have no idea what Goldie does for a living. And that was the line that made me realize it.
"...he could become a danger to himself and others."
Ooh, what's this? Does anyone remember this? How about "It would appear I have no choice." Think back to Chapter One, if you would: "We didn't have a choice. [...] You're a danger to yourself and others." Was that on purpose? Oh you betcha. That was me trying to misdirect you, suggesting that this is where that was coming from. In truth, however, it's just a coincidence.
Third section, here's what I meant about the fido/trust thing in the first section of this chapter: "I'll trust you until you lie to me, Max--" That's a memory of a conversation that took place in chapter 5 of Little Boy Blue. This is a big...I don't know, issue? Turning point? Thing? Anyway, my point is, trust is a big thing between Junior and Max. That conversation took place when they were fourteen. They are now in their mid-/late-twenties and Max still hasn't betrayed Junior's trust. This is sort of in response to the whole "evil!Max, shooty shooty" in Countdown to Infinite Crisis, who sort of betrayed Ted's trust. (I don't know how much Ted actually trusted him, but I assume he at least trusted Max not to kill him.) Anyway...yeah, that's a recurring theme in the Mullet-verse.
...Max insists that last one is just an odd assortment of planes and satellites that have actually lined up to form a shape....
What, you've never made up constellations? ;) Also, during the beta, alba_aulbath mentioned that the next line Junior insists it still counts, and should count for more, actually, because it won't exist for long. was kind of deep. I assure you, this was completely accidental. Though I think, in the back of my mind, I had Junior say it because of the uncertainty of his own existence. It's not likely, but it is within the realm of possibility that one day he could just stop existing (and yes, he knows this). Morbid, perhaps, but that's why we don't dwell on that sentence. Instead, Max calls him a dork.
They're teenagers, so it is at once immaturely shallow and immeasurably deep.
Tell me I'm not the only one who understands this. I remember staying up late, hanging out outside with friends, talking about the stupidest stuff. But in the dark and the late and the whatever, it's easier to say stuff, and somehow it seems bigger, deeper, whatever than it really is. (And that's it for today's episode of Doc Gets Nostalgic! Join us next week for: Pogs!)
...it's probably best if Junior never calls him "brother." Ever....
This was an instance of me just merrily wandering along writing, then stumbling across something that hadn't occurred to me. The relationship between Junior and Max is more like that of cousins, and occasionally brotherly. On the other hand...just looking at Max (without his hologram) you can see the remnants of Brother Eye in him. (Personally, I think of it sort of in terms of a birth defect.) So the word "brother," and especially calling him that, has negative feelings around it.
Also, look closely just a bit before that: ...Max's outline illuminated by the blue glow of--the glow of Chicago... That's Junior editing the memory to remove the fact that Max isn't human. The blue glow was from his eye.
...the city. His city. Their city....
Just a bit of territorial "This is my city, I'm-a protect it." (Though not nearly as extreme as Batman's "Grr, Gotham mine. Get out.")
Max is a businessman....
Okay, this whole part? Amazingly enough, it's real. This is Junior focusing, trying to direct his thoughts toward the more human parts of Max's life. There are rumors that Max is the illegitimate son of Max Lord IV. In the Mullet-verse, the video of Wonder Woman killing Max was never aired, so as far as anyone knows Max Lord just up and disappeared one day. (I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before.) As for "Ronnie," I figured if Max can have a human hologram, so can L-Ron. Why a woman? Why not? It's probably good for Max's reputation having rumors that he's sleeping with his secretary (I know, it's actually "assistant," I'm playing to a stereotype here). The Ronnie description is me trying to translate L-Ron's appearance into "human." (What do you think?) And yes, they make a very good team.
--outside the apartment door, coming home from school.
With this part, I accidentally painted myself into a corner without realizing it. I'd had the scene worked out in my head for a while, but somehow I forgot to figure out when it's happening. So because of this scene, I can't have Ted stop being blatantly hostile toward Max until some time after Junior's started school. Luckily, I've managed to work that out. Still, oopsie. ^_^
I also almost had Max lie to Junior. Which was stupid. Caught myself in time, but it was still close. D'oh! ^_^
Anyway, the Mullet-verse "present time" tends to be mostly from Ted and Booster's points of view. So here we're getting a brief look at how Max feels about Ted. (Apparently Max doesn't like being hated. Who knew.) The "footage" that Max is talking about is of course Brother Eye's recording of Ted's death. I don't know if such footage exists in DC canon, but in the Mullet-verse it does. Fourteen-year-old Max was, naturally, horrified to see someone who was supposedly him cold-bloodedly killing someone who is now supposedly family. And aside from that, it was just generally awful. Max doesn't want anything to do with that. So when he freaks out about it, Junior promises not to let that happen again (yes, this is where the contingency plans got their start), and Max is honestly, sincerely glad.
Also, you may notice Junior's thoughts intruding on this memory. This is a very private, personal memory for him. It's a little like watching someone read your best friend's diary. It's wrong wrong wrong and you want to stop them. This isn't just personal for him, it's personal for Max, too, and shouldn't be intruded on.
Aaand there's the song! Daisy. This is partly Junior trying to get his mind off that memory, and partly someone trying to force him to reveal the meaning of the song. A moment later, he says so: "And the all-seeing eye closes." But if you don't know Max's connection to Brother Eye, or that he's an AI, the meaning gets lost.
(Also, the laughter interspersing the song is because of the line "I'm half crazy." Junior finds it amusing that the song he's singing while in a nuthouse mentions being nuts. Not because he's hysterical. ;D)
"To talk to me, you must answer these questions three."
I was attempting to make a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, without looking it up. Luckily, it appears I got it pretty close. The original quote goes "Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see." Then the Bridgekeeper's first question is "What...is your name?" (Remember him? "What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" Eh?)
"What...is my name?"
"Max" guesses "Junior," "Michael Theodore Carter-Kord," and "Blue." These are, technically, correct. However, they aren't Max's name for Junior. Max's private, personal nickname for Junior is "Jujubee." (Junior might also have tentatively accepted "asshole" or "dork.")
Clearly, as far as Junior's concerned, this is not Max. Max would've had no trouble figuring out that answer he was looking for. (You can see Junior wavering between desperate and depressed here.)
"You lose. Thanks for playing. Better luck next time."
This is a small, brief breakdown. Junior's just had his hopes dashed that Max will be able to help him and the strain of not thinking is getting to him. "Go away, Tinman...." Max was also called "Tinman" in chapter 6 of Little Boy Blue, by Question. It is, of course, a reference to his normally shiny metal appearance. "Calculating the meaning of life, and you don't factor." I honestly don't know where I got this, it just came to me. Thinking about it, I could've subconsciously been making a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, but it wasn't on purpose. (I just liked how it sounded.) "Drai mir nit kain kop!" Yiddish saying that means "Don't bother me!" but translates literally as "Don't twist my head!" This is actually more than me being a smartass, it's sort of a last ditch "please be real" from Junior. When "Max" doesn't get annoyed at what is clearly a long-standing joke between them, he once again fails a test.
"Everything's wrong, but it's cracks in the surface."
Yeah, this is crazy-talk with a method to the madness. I guess the lake is a sort of metaphor for Junior's situation. The ice on top is the white room and the sessions with Dr. not-Mengele and all that stuff. It's a little real, but there's so much underneath it all. "Have to crack up to see it." Clearly, Junior's having trouble keeping everything straight. What he's having to do is not think about his suspicions, not think about his real life, remember his fake life and pretend it's real, keep an eye on his memories, and...well, I imagine it'd be exhausting. And he is, quiet literally, cracking up in his efforts to "see" the truth. The stuff about freezing blue and dead...I guess he's got a feeling that the stuff below the "surface" he's being presented is dangerous..."but at least it's real."
"Ticktock, return to Oz...."
This part is referring to the movie Return to Oz. It featured another metal man, Tik-Tok. In it, Dorothy was taken to a psychiatric ward after insisting that Oz was real and that she went there. The doctor did indeed say she was wrong, but I suppose it's a matter of opinion whether she was right about Oz being real. It's been years since I saw the movie, but I remember that the mental hospital was pretty damn awful (electro-shock therapy, eep!). And compared to Oz, "reality" was washed-out and dull. After that he sort of veers into his own situation and babbles on about the stuff Dr. not-Mengele's been bugging him about. "I like Oz better." basically translates to "I hate this, this place sucks, I wanna go home."
Then Junior gets his metal men mixed up referring to Max before a mood swing hits him and he decides he's had enough of this fake Max. "...jitter in circles till you fall off the table--Get out!" You know those crappy little plastic toys that you wind up and when you let them go they jitter around, hopping or walking or whatever? Only you have to have a flat, hard surface or they don't work. Then they fall off the table. ...Anyway.
...he mumbled to himself about the properties of poppies.
In The Wizard of Oz movie, poppies made Dorothy and the Lion forgetful and sleepy. Poppies, specifically opium poppies, are used to make opium, which can then be made into morphine and heroin. Some side effects of morphine use are impairment of mental performance, euphoria, drowsiness, lethargy, blurred vision, insomnia, and nightmares. Heroin can cause lessening of nausea, hypotension, sedation, and euphoria. Also, Wikipedia relates a legend about the goddess Demeter who "in despair over the abduction of her daughter Persephone by Hades, ate poppies to forget her pain and to sleep." So not only is he keeping with the Oz theme (because he's already thinking along those lines), Junior's also considering his situation and keeping his mind busy by reviewing basic information he's familiar with. (Also, it occurs to me that I've been making a number of Oz references in the Mullet-verse, especially in scenes with Junior and Max talking together. There's no particular significance that I'm aware of, except that Max is a shiny "tinman" who doubles as a "wizard behind the curtain.")
In the next line you can see that Junior's really trying to distance himself from his surroundings and self.
Continue to "disc 2" for chapters 5-7.
Or "disc 3" for chapter 7 (continued), Epilogue, and Deleted Scenes.