GIW made a lot of mistakes and biggest one was going against Young Justice part 5
Masterpost
They thought meeting with Justice League would be soon, maybe week or two after initial attack at worst, but then September turned out to be crazy. Every other day, there was something going on and even when there was a second to breathe, Danny would make himself scarce, citing trouble in Amity Park. He wasn’t lying, ghosts, just like villains, decided to make this month their prime time. But when October rolled in, they put their foot down.
They were all exhausted, barely bothered enough to look otherwise, because Injustice League was a hard opponent. If situation was any different, they’d use national day off of school (and jobs not deemed necessary in disaster relief) and rest like everyone, but situation wasn’t any different. When they dropped Danny off at Amity Park for a night (and to help with disaster relief and because Zeta Tubes were not an option he could use outside of really big emergencies), GIW attacked him before he even left their line of sight. M’gann didn’t know how it looked before, but she thought it was getting worse. Maybe even hoped so, if alternative was this nightmare as a constant element of her friend’s life.
“This concludes information we have about Ghost Investigation Ward, along with the Anti-Ecto Acts,” Kaldur finished, calm and collect, like it was more than fifteen hours since he was almost taken over by Doctor Fate. Rest of the Team insisted, that he didn’t have to lead this meeting if he didn’t want to, everyone would understand if he wanted to stay more on a sidelines, but he was responsible like that. M’gann could do nothing else but admire that.
Big screens blinked steadily, displaying documents upon documents and photos upon photos, with most egregious examples highlighted for readability. Privately, M’gann thought there weren’t really readable anyway, not with how many were there, but it could have something to do with pulsing headache, that was worse when looking at bright screens. It also made focusing on English letters harder than usual. She wondered if she could just shapeshift her eyelids in a way that could let her keep her eyes closed, but without making it clear to people around her.
It wouldn’t do anyway. Now, that the introduction part was over she needed to be as alert as possible, to make sure League took their proposition well.
“Are there any questions, or can we move to out plans for a take down?” Wally asked impatiently, “We have attack plans for each base, categorized from least to most destructive.”
“Red Tornado positively reviewed our ideas already and we made sure to have few contingencies to each one,” Conner added enthusiastically.
“He had some doubts about us going without Justice Leagues knowledge and input, so we ask you to also revise and approve our ideas. We are ready to make some adjustments,” Kaldur put forward.
Flash reached out to scroll trough one of the files, but other than him, none of the adults even made a move to read anything. They just stood there with stormy expressions. It would be easy to assume, they were still compartmentalizing sheer idea of GIW being a thing and wondering how they missed it for so long, but M’gann knew better. She was Martian, she could tell when there was mental conference going on even without Uncle J’onn practically kicking her out when she reached out to check it. Flash stopped reading and looked intently at Batman instead.
Well, two can play that game. She bumped her shoulder into Danny’s, who was close enough that they could lean on each other if standing became too much (they were all running on fumes, okay?) and waited until he glanced her way. She tapped her temple discreetly, to let him know before she linked everyone to Mindlink. He tensed slightly, but didn’t flinch. It was more that she could’ve wished for not too long ago.
“Big League is talking about us, I can’t force my way in, but be ready for some resistance”
“Thanks M.”
Batman glared at them like he was trying to shame them out of talking. Conner just looked back at him, unimpressed. Artemis did too, because she was uncannily good at glaring menacingly.
“So… what are we trying to discuss right now? Or are we just establishing dominance by having our own Mindlink?” Wally asked awkwardly after a moment.
“It’s always about dominance.”
“Cool.”
M’gann just smiled back, hoping it didn’t look too much like a grimace. Her headache got worse, as expected. She wished she could just walk out of here and just sit somewhere dark and quiet for a bit. It would be nice. She’d have to try sneaking away after this whole thing was said and done, if Team came up with some way to spent some time relaxing together.
Few more adults turned to glare at them and it was getting a bit unsettling, but neither M’gann nor rest of the Team got this far by giving up when they got a bit uneasy. Plus, one of the glarers was Superman and with his treatment of Conner, they had about same amount of respect towards him, as they did with some less destructive villains. Other than Danny, he seemed to flip-flop between dunking on a man and trying to have him and Conner reconcile.
“You know, it’s good to actually read the plans if you’re supposed to tell us what you think. Staring at the wall won’t do it for you,” Robin pointed out with this smile of his, that sent low level goons running.
“If you can’t, we can read that part out loud too,” Artemis added with a snark. Focus of multiple glares turned to her, but she kept acting unbothered by clear ire.
“It’s crucial, that you do not take unauthorized actions.”
“We?! Never!” Wally said with faux outrage, like this whole Team didn’t start because he, Robin and Kaldur ignored outright orders (which was good, because they got Conner out of it) and like they all weren’t going to storm whichever base throwing darts landed on, if only Red Tornado didn’t convince them otherwise and weren’t too preoccupied when he finally left.
“Well, what will be authorized actions then?” Danny asked, sounding almost resigned. Team kept acting like it was weird of him, to be so resistant to all ideas of fighting, but M’gann could understand it, a bit. She didn’t fight either. She just escaped, hoping that the world she was reaching for was better than the one she left behind. It turned out worse than the movies, but still worth it.
She promised to make sure, that Danny won’t have to run.
“We are already working on it,” Batman said which seemed against the surprise the rest of the Justice League expressed when they first explained the issue, “However, it’s a delicate and very nuanced issue, that needs to be handled carefully and with a lot of subtlety. For now, it’s crucial that Team doesn’t do anything–”
“What do you mean delicate?!”
“What the hell?!”
“Are you crazy?!”
“What’s so nuanced about human right’s violations?!”
“Do you really think we’ll let them off scot free?! They shot Phantom!!! Repeatedly!”
“They want to treat him worse than a lab rat!!!”
M’gann barely suppressed a winced when sudden shouting made her headache spike. Quiet, dark room sounded lovely right about now. Maybe with something that smelled nice, to distract her from the pain.
“Told you!” Danny said among Team’s outrage, in uncomfortably ‘gotcha‘ tone of voice, but significantly quieter than others. He couldn’t know it, but she was grateful he didn’t shout in her ear anyway, “These are government pigs, they’re untouchable.”
“Shut up, we will very much touch them, we’re asking out of courtesy,” Artemis almost growled.
“I didn’t say we’re going to let them walk free, nor that they are untouchable. However, for now they work legally, even if law they are following is morally dubious at best. We need to aim to change it, through influence of public opinion and… lobbying,” last word sounded, like it had to be dragged out of Batman’s throat, which meant… a lot, considering the fact that most of the time even human members of the Team had trouble understanding this man’s expressions.
“What is lobbying and why did Batman say it like that?” she asked over Mindlink, to not interrupt when actually something important was finally going on.
“It’s basically corruption but legal. Actual definition is long and complicated, but that’s basically it. Like paying member of a Senate to be assigned some nice government job, that one doesn’t really qualify for,” Conner answered, sounding jaded.
“Congrats user, you get a golden sticker! And to expand on that, one of Batman’s biggest things in Gotham, to remove dis from disaster city it is, is by fighting against corrupt… everyone. Politicians, police officers, medical professionals, cps workers, whoever could be corrupted in there probably is and we’ve been at it for five years and there is still very little change and-”
“So it would be using weapon of the enemy, yikes,“ Artemis interrupted before Robin could go on another rant about how horrible Gotham was as a city. He wasn’t wrong of course, and none of them would ever dare to say he was, but it was not the time nor the place.
“Huh. Why is it legal?”
“Because people who make law make money out of it, so why would they change?”
“To preserve elementary integrity and focus on bettering society for everyone instead of just few people? It’s their job, isn’t it?”
“Humans are naturally greedy, especially ones that go for positions of power.”
“Well, that’s depressing.”
“Welcome to USA, the country, where you get to go to school despite constant threat of shooting, are done for if you ever get sick and are poorer than god and will get called lazy for needing support, all because it’s making rich people even more money.”
“Oh my god Artemis, please. You’re not wrong but don’t say it like that.”
“Thank you for compromising your morals for my cause, Sir,” Danny said out loud, interrupting their telepathic bantering.
Artemis reached out around Wally and Conner to playfully punch him on a shoulder.
“It’s your basic human rights, morals are the least we can sacrifice.”
“Please don’t,” Danny pleaded.
“We understand that you crave to take direct actions against GIW, we want it too,” Wonder Woman stated, sounding like she was actually trying to convince them, like they were her equals, instead of being someone who can just be banned form doing something, “However, with government’s power behind them, we need to step carefully, to not agitate them further. Every action we take, can end up worsening Phantom’s situation, if we’re not thoughtful enough.”
“How exactly can it get any worse? They already refuse to acknowledge he can feel pain, and try to hunt him down whenever he shows up in public,” Conner pointed out, voice undercut with simmering rage, “They can’t decide if they want to kill him more than they want to experiment on him until they understand how each cell in his body works.”
“That’s not GIW, that’s my parents,” Danny pointed out, worryingly light, “GIW has pretty set idea that they want to experiment until they understand my… is biology correct word, if that form doesn’t really have life to bio? Anyway, they want to understand how everything ticks, so they know how to make me disappear forever.”
Right, Justice League wasn’t as used to Danny’s nonchalance.
“Kid, you understand that this is worse?” Flash pointed out cautiously.
“Eh, you Flashes always overreact to this. We already talked it over when I first revealed my identity, everyone agreed I’m fine.”
Everyone agreed that they don’t want to fight him on that after he started shooting and bit Red Tornado, but they let Danny believe otherwise. There were plans ready, in case he needed to be extracted.
“Anyway,” he started again after a beat of silence, stretching up, trying to feign being comfortable, “I should probably distance myself from the Justice League and the Team until situation is resolved-”
“What the hell Danny?!”
“This seems like overreaction, Phantom.”
“Are you insane?!”
“We are not doing that!”
“This is opposite of what we’re doing, you’re staying close so we can shoot back-”
“Can you please let me finish? Thank you,” he said without waiting, “I don’t like it either, but I thought about this a lot. I should stay away for a bit, so Ghost Hunters can’t claim, that I overshadowed or manipulated any of you. It’ll just take a lot longer if they spread rumors like that,” he finished, sad and resigned, like he was about to sacrifice himself to unknown gods. She nudged him slightly on the arm.
“Unless you really don’t want to, we’re keeping you,” she murmured, like it would prevent her headache from spiking.
“There is no need for such drastic actions, Team’s existence is not a public knowledge, let alone you being a member,” Black Canary pointed out, “They can’t turn it against you and we need to stay close with you, to coordinate and to keep you safe.”
“And they’d use it anyway, if they knew, no matter if you’d distance yourself or not. Even if you weren’t on the Team and there was just one photo of you talking with any hero, they’d use it too.”
“You can’t know that Meg.”
“I can. I came to see, that Earth shares many similarities with Mars, when it comes to how people treat each other.”
“What does it mean?!” he asked alarmed, looking about ready to go fight someone for her, even if it meant long travel through vacuum of space. It was kinda cute.
It gave her a bit of hope, for the time she’d reveal her true form, if it ever happened.
It also hurt a bit too much to keep Mindlink up, so she just cut it off without an answer. Danny shot her A Look, but she couldn’t focus enough to figure out what it was supposed to convey.
“Alright, I think it’s all we need to discuss today. We’ll meet soon to go over exact strategies,” Batman announced and then just left with a flutter of the cape.
“I’ll let you know what we already did then, sir,” Danny said, ending a bit dejected when hero didn’t acknowledge it.
“Sweet, race you all to arcade!” Wally yelled and darted out of the room before anyone else could say if they’d join him or not. They probably would. M’gann would too, if his yell and calm blue of holographic screens didn’t make her want to curl up and stop existing for a bit. Adults said their goodbyes, more or less awkwardly (Superman talking with Conner was so pathetic it hurt to watch, though it could be particularly bright file that was behind them) and left too. Team also started making their way out, going to locker room to assume civilian clothes before taking well deserved break to goof around in the city.
M’gann considered joining, for a moment, because while her head was killing her, she didn’t want to miss out, she didn’t have to worry them and she genuinely loved playing Earth games. She could probably handle it. She handled worse… Yeah, arcade sounded-
There was hand on her wrist leading her in the opposite direction, right to were her room was. She hummed at Danny confused, but didn’t fight him. Her room sounded even better than arcade. She changed out of her suit anyway.
“You have one hell of a headache and last thing you need is bunch of bright, blinking lights,” he mumbled, sounding almost annoyed.
M’gann decided to examine how nice it felt, to know that he realized despite her efforts, on the later date.
Her room was dark and quiet and she couldn’t help but sigh in relief when doors closed behind them. Danny waited until she lied down, covering her with blanket thin enough to not make her overheat, before turning around to leave.
“Have a nice time at arcade,” she wished, trying to not sounds too sad about being left alone. Danny loved to play games, it was one of the first things they learned about him, it was how he relaxed at the Mountain whenever he wasn’t helping Conner with his motorcycle. Of course he was going to leave. He froze, phased halfway through the door.
“I’m going to make you some tea and ask your uncle about tricks for Martian migraine. I’ll be back in five.”
Yesterday we made a 3 hour drive up to Cleveland and I had the absolute HONOR of meeting the voice of Mojo Jojo himself, Roger L. Jackson!! As you can see I made my own print for him to sign and he seemed really impressed by it. He was just so kind and cheery and he signed it while doing Mojo's voice almost the whole time and I'm still replaying in my head the entire encounter, it was just AMAZING 💜💖💜💖💜💖💜💖💜💖💜💖💜💖💜💖💜💖💜💖💜
We had a lot of junk in our storeroom, mostly a bunch of badly damaged, terrible-quality tribal weapons from when Lansa joined us a while back, and I'm sick of not having any room for important stuff. So, it's time to chuck stuff out!
We used a transport pod to yeet all the tribal weapons and a bit of excess gold (Sneer's transmute steel ability is overpowered and is making us a little TOO wealthy for my taste) at our nearest hostile neighbours: the saurid raider faction!
It's nice to have fewer raiders now. I'm glad that the lovely lizard people of the Kur'Okran Union were appreciative of our hoard of junk it was probably the gold actually but eh
Randy giveth, and Randy giveth EVEN MORE! A new housekeeper cat and potential thrumbo pets?? Thank you for being nice today, Randy ❤️
We tamed the housekeeper cat and named him Duncan to match our other housekeeper cats, Macbeth, Banquo, and Hecate. As long as we don't have any Lady Macbeth housekeeper cats, I think Duncan should survive. We'll see. Maybe Randy is setting us up for a Shakespearean tragedy, who knows?
We haven't managed to tame a thrumbo yet, but we're going to keep trying. Jut has other ideas, but we'll keep him away from the thrumbos no matter HOW good he thinks he is in a fight.
I really like the idea and spamton bonding with pippins
LMAO he gets along fine with (most of) the pippins, the only ones that constantly plague his life are those obsessed mental little DR nightmare pippins. Always clambering all over him and asking him the most invasive things ever. BUT in some ironic way, once hes been through The Horrors™️ and ends up back in the studio, it IS the DR nightmare pippins that he first gets to recognize him via...well, their shenanigans
I've never seen someone as unhinged as you in the TVDU fandom before. Your ramblings are something unique and not-less interesting. Like, how are you able to come up with the stuff, that no one did before you? What's your secret?
Thank you!
As much as it would bring me joy to agree that I’m the most specialist person to ever do it (and in many ways I obviously am, because I’m me), I do think people have thought about these things before, during, and after their watching experience.
The question is whether they’re going to stick around in a fandom that is, at times, contentious and has a strong anti-culture. (And a strong anti-liking-thing-a-but-I’m-allowed-to-like-thing-b-which-is-objectively-just-as-bad culture at that.) Probably not.
And the TVD fandom is old enough that it’s largely decentralized. It’s hard to find people you agree with, hard to find people who like the same things you like, and a lot of the communities you stumble into have had enough time to cultivate Big Name Fans who can be genuinely rude as hell. That pushes fans who enjoy this sort of thing even further out of the fandom—luckily I don’t actually care what some loser has to say even if it is, at times, annoying as hell. (So good luck getting rid of me. It took a lot to get me to leave my last fandom and I doubt y’all have it in you.)
I’ve lucked out and built a bit of a feedback loop: I write analysis and silly posts, and I’ve cultivated a community that reacts and interacts. It’s created that necessary push and pull: I put out content, people engage, and I’m incentivized to keep producing. I think we’d see more of this kind of content if people put attention and care into the communities that already exist. There has to be buy-in from the community to encourage the kind of enjoyment that produces meta and analysis. And I have seen more of it since I started bullying people into making what I want to see—but also, I think that’s because people enjoy creating when they know the audience will show up.
This kind of shitposting-and-analysis mix is definitely common in other fandoms—but people have ideas about what kinds of media can and can’t be “deep.”
And I’ll be real: a lot of this fandom has a misogyny and racism problem. That stuff will kill a fandom by destroying what is needed for a thoughtful ecosystem—fans that are unafraid to produce, to be weird, and joyful. Even when it’s subconscious (debatable) on the part of the person doing it, the fans who want to produce meta and thoughtful fanworks can read between the lines of rants about Marcel, Bonnie, and other characters of color—and they can tell they are not welcome.
The secret is that TVD is no less deep than shows like Stranger Things or, hell, Game of Thrones. Media made for teenage girls still contains themes.
Supernatural came out around the same time, and despite a similar fanbase, one is treated as “deeper” while the other is dismissed as turn-your-brain-off teenage-girl slop. Is that because Supernatural wasn’t as heavily and exclusively marketed to female fans? Is it because, unlike Supernatural, TVD has a female protagonist and a consistently strong female presence in the cast—while there are entire seasons of Supernatural with basically no women?
When people treat certain fandoms as inherently shallow, it shames the fans who enjoy analyzing things like silly CW shows from the early 2010s—shows with famously shaky writing, especially in later seasons. Still those shows had teams of writers. Everything they put in was pre-AI and it was their own work, not generated scenes they half-read with glazed-over eyes. The writing process took effort. And while I’m sure I read into things sometimes, art is also about the connections you can make within it.
(And if my secret conspiracy theory is that there’s a push by a vocal subset of fans to rebrand TVD—and other shows—as “thoughtless slop” as a way to dodge having to grapple with the source material’s racist and misogynistic writing decisions… because if a show is supposedly too shallow to contain a single intentional parallel or—God forbid—a theme worth analyzing, then no one has to interrogate anything beyond how good their fave looks shirtless…. well, I don’t think I’d be wrong for saying it.)
Now, do I genuinely think the writers put that much thought into all the things I “notice” or comment on? No, I don’t. Will that stop me from making those connections? Also no—I like doing it. And “Death of the Author” is actually meant for stuff like this—for making commentary on a work that is outside of the author’s intended purpose and to look at what can be added on top of the work itself.
Do I think the decision to have Tyler killed by Damon—the man who killed his uncle and who Mason spared specifically in an attempt to save Tyler’s life in the long term—was deliberate? Or even having the Elena/Kol/Klaus death scene strongly mirror Klaus/Jenna/Elena’s in season two. I don’t know. But if you told me that the writing team was told “these characters need to die during these arcs” and they chose a method that intentionally worked that way, I’d believe you. Same with smaller choices: Vicki asking Stefan to go home in front of the family crypt in the same episode Stefan brings Elena to the old Salvatore house feels, to me, like the kind of purposeful parallel a writers’ room would do when they’re building an episode around mirrored beats.
The secret is that everything is actually that serious—and that art made for girls is complicated and weird and interesting. Anything can be deep if you want to think about it. There’s a reason we have a whole generation of new parents rushing to reassure people that Bluey is deep, actually—an opinion that doesn’t shock me, despite the fact that I haven’t watched a single episode. It was written by a team of writers! Of course there are thoughtful elements! You have a roomful of people whose job it is to care about that sort of thing. And until proven otherwise, I choose to believe teams of writers care about the stories they’re telling and want to do a good job.
I will always believe in the passion of writers. The showrunner is responsible for the direction of it, sure—but the beating heart? The gritty parts I love? Someone wrote both of the scenes I’m comparing. Someone wrote the dialogue that I’m picking at. Someone thought about the lighting. Someone decided what the actors’ hands were supposed to do.
And unless the writing team publicly announces that nobody ever thought about anything and nobody ever tried to make art, I’m going to keep believing there was something there.
People who tell you “it isn’t that deep” are being stupid. They’re being boring and joyless. They say it because they like to devalue things and because they think cleverness can only be a characteristic of work they make themselves, and because they’re trying to shame you into not being a nerd.
