#mostly because i dont want it to be in tags sry i got onions that are more for my own portrayal-

[bells-of-black-sunday]

Re-reading Danny's tome for probably the 4th or 5th time and really paying attention to it while talking with Egg has got me thinking about a lot of things in terms of him and how he acts. Tiny little lines that are easy to miss on my first read throughs that I really paid attention to now that I think say a lot about how and why he acts. Even his dumb little edgy anime monologues. This is just going to be me quoting lines from the tome and talking about them, The full tome can be read here [link]

This got way too long I'll make a second post for how it comes into play for my Danny-

"But the adrenaline wasn’t what he enjoyed the most. No. It was something else. It was… he wasn’t sure what it was… He didn’t want to save the world, or win the Olympics, or travel to a foreign country to see something new and exotic. He just wanted the horror to end. He wanted his life back."

I want to highlight: "He just wanted the horror to end. He wanted his life back." It's thrown out so casually since he continues to praise his fathers stories again after, but... there's something so haunting about that. He wants his life back. We know as much as Danny likes to frame it as his dad killed people for fun, it's pretty obvious his dad is just a Vietnam war vet. With sections like:

"His father wanted him to design stories just like he did. Follow his path. Hunt and murder human beings in the shadows. And he did.

Just not in the way his father had intended.

And now Danny designs better stories. Much better stories. Better because of the setting. Because they could happen anywhere, unlike his father’s stories which took place in what experts called ‘abnormal circumstances’ where scary and gruesome stories were expected."

It's pretty clear Danny's father was preparing for him to follow him in war. And lets be quite honest with what Danny mentions so casually like the boot camps he was put through and waking up at dawn, it's not that far of a stretch to say his home life was abusive. Especially with how Danny's father seems really proud of all the people he's killed if we're taking what Danny says about his father's stories as true. Even today "corporal punishment" is common among people "teaching" their kids, I don't think it's an assumption to say with how much his dad wanted him to be like him that it was used to an extreme.

Yet he still idolizes him. He holds him up as this perfect figure who was better than anyone else and one of his main inspirations.

I also find it really interesting in how none of tome mentions his mother. I think if she walked out or cheated on his father and they got divorced, Danny would've mentioned her since he idolizes his dad so much and yet- nothing. He only talks about his father in this really idolizing way.

"He took a class in anthropology once. And he remembers the heated debates with his teacher who tried to make him believe in this ridiculous theory of the homo sapiens — that humanity was intrinsically curious and intelligent species that evolved toward peace and prosperity with its many civilisations and achievements.

Danny argued the opposite. He argued humans were intrinsic killers—killers that evolved to enslave, acquire, destroy and eventually self-destruct. That the achievements and the civilizations were tools for blood. That the mask of civilization was a façade, a farce, an elaborate design to hide the true face of humanity—the bloody face of horror, as he often liked to call it. The bloody face of horror always found a way to break through the mask. Always. The more we contained and hid the truth, the stronger and more creative it got in breaking free. As if it had a life of its own. A need of its own."

[....] "His teacher raved about tractors and the Green Revolution, and he raved about tanks and Agent Orange. His teacher pointed to the airplane and all the great opportunities flight brought humanity. And Danny pointed to the bombs. And that was the end of the argument."

"Ten years of blood for every day of peace. That’s what his old man said almost every dawn when he’d drop a penny on his bed to check if it was made properly. Stern as steel. Hard as a rock. Crazy as a loon. But not wrong. Definitely, not wrong."

There's a lot to unpack in these shortened few paragraphs. First: Danny's mindset. He genuinely believes that was he's doing is only a natural progression of humanity, that even if the moral laws humanity gives itself it still finds ways to kill and main each other in horrific ways. He views what he's doing as no different.

Every day of peace paid in ten years of blood as his dad used to say. Yet- he calls "civilized" society a mask. A façade people play out to find some sense of normalcy. Another point is that he does knowledge his dad wasn't normal even though he treats everything they did as normal.

The way he's so confident in that too really shows just how much violence is either normalized to him and has been for a while (really how he treats his fathers war stories is telling enough) and then of course alter in his tome you'll see how he idolizes serial killers. He sees what he's doing as nothing more than another story in the paper, something to break up the monotony of modern life.

Just another murder that'll fade into the background with the rest of the violence that's talked about every day.

"In the hot and humid sedan Danny visualizes slipping the knife through John’s neck and severing the tongue mid-scream—freezing his face in wide, gaping terror. He knows if he visualizes the kill several times it will improve his odds at success. His father taught him that. Taught him to visualize every beat of the design. He assured him it was what made him a medal-winning hunter of human beings. The thing they don’t teach you in killing school."

Another mention of his dad, this time his dad literally telling him how to visualize killing people. His father told him exactly what to do and he jokes about it. All of this is normalized to him. Berated into him so that he'll be something that outlives his father's legacy. I just find it so fascinating.

"He scrunches his fist into a ball, sighs heavily and doesn’t understand the humour. There’s nothing funny about what he does. He provides a kind of misunderstood therapy for those suffering from the madness of suburban living. He makes the citizens of Roseville feel good about their monotonous lives. He gives them respite and relief. He protects the mask of civilization with his mask, and they’re laughing at that. Just like they laughed at his father when he returned."

He doesn't find any humor in what he does, he sees it as a high form of art. A careful story made, planned and designed to scare people yet they're very real. He really believes what he's doing is a good thing or at least he's rationalized it as, but really what I wanted to focus on is that last line: "Just like they laughed at his father when he returned."

More father talk. More of him living in this other mans shadow that he idolizes so much, more references back to Vietnam and how those that went were treated when they came back. They're laughing at him just like they laughed at his father. Everyone is laughing at trauma he's suffered and channeled into his writing and how he acts. They're all laughing at him and he can't stop it. He's lost the little bit of control he has over his actual life.

Not Jed, not any names or lives he's lived before, Danny J*hnson.

"He reaches out and touches a caricature of the one they called The Miner. You don’t laugh at legends… His mouth gapes open. His lips tremble. He hasn’t felt like this in years.

You don’t! Laugh! At legends!

He tries to turn away but his feet are blocks of cement. He feels prickles all over his body as blood courses violently through his veins and something contained begins to stir.

He closes his eyes and counts to ten. He hasn’t improvised since his first design and that didn’t go very well. He has to find his centre."

First of all: Hey! Evan mention in his lore probably, also extremely interesting to include him since his tome is all about cycles of abuse at the hands of his father (including being forced to reenact how his dad killed his mother) and Danny also has issues with his father we just don't know what exactly though we can speculate and I will.

Secondly: This entire passage from the tome is so long and I don't want to copy and paste all of it, but I highly encourage reading it since it's so fascinating just his entire commentary on military propaganda when it comes to the people that are making parodies of him is interesting.

The way just how these people that don't take him or people he idolizes personally is jus... so fascinating. "He hasn't improvised since his first design" aka it brings him back to when he killed his father that he calls rushed and sloppy, too full of emotion that muddied everything.

"He stares up at the wall of parody and takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes and counts down from ten. Then he opens his eyes to see all the warped and ridiculous faces laughing at him." The way he views it as them laughing at him is so funny, but also really gives insight into how seriously he takes his work. It's not a game to him. It's not a fun hobby. It's his life's work.

"Hunting the three stooges in slow motion through the cool, misty arena. And now he yanks the gleaming hunter knife out of a pulpy face rendered completely unrecognisable.

Shit. I must have stabbed him a hundred times in the head.

Danny narrows his gaze on the face but the strobe light plays tricks on him. Makes the face look like his past victims—the faces changing with every blink of light."

"What about Pete? No. Can’t be, Pete. He’s pretty sure he decapitated Pete. It’s not what he intended, but shit happens. He pushed the knife a little too hard. Cut a little too deep. A little too fiercely."

"The last time he improvised a design was with his dad. Bless his soul. He deserved a better design, a much better execution, but he hadn’t realised how much he had bottled up inside. All those training drills and unrealistic expectations to bring back stories and medals pushed him over the edge.

It just came pouring out one night while camping in a way he hadn’t expected. Happens all the time. Every day. To the best. He just didn’t think it could happen to him. And here it is happening again."

It's spoken about further in this same entry, but again I don't want to copy and paste the entire entry, but Danny isn't wearing his mask during this. This isn't the ghost of Roseville doing this. This is Danny's work.

"That’s because The Ghost Face has nothing to do with this. This is something else. There’s no way he’s crediting The Ghost Face with these clumsy yet incredibly satisfying kills."

The ghost is just a character he plays and crafts. These people as much as he'll never admit it, personally insulted him. He's not mad about them mocking the character he plays for night time news and headlines, they were mocking him and everything that was drilled into him from a young age. Every little emotion he though he had gotten rid of a long time ago exploded out and now he's dealing with putting them back inside.

"Danny smiles. Sorry, I didn’t really get that. You’re gonna have to speak up, buddy. Take a deep breath… enunciate. Come on… you’re so full of fuckin' opinions… I’m sure you have an opinion on how you’d like to be remembered."

How even now that he's done the deed and mocking his victims with headlines, he's still pissed. He's still angry that these people tried to insult him, his fathers, and his life's work.