Oh Yeah. I'm Tired And Feel A Bit Out Of Body From Morning To Night Dance Moves Pat And Immfeelingalright

Oh yeah. I'm tired and feel a bit out of body from morning to night dance moves pat and immfeelingalright right now but I had an idea about why Murdoc got like that with 2-D to begin with. Like yes okay I understand that once the stone is kicked down the road there's no way of stopping it; I always accepted that Murdoc was just never gonna be normal about him, but I also can't... Recall any one moment when we were ever told why, like. Why.

Why what? Why everything, why the core question at the centerpoint of everything, why is Murdoc so fucking angry with him all the time. Cos it sure as Hell isn't because he hates him; we're way beyond that now, and we know that that's a lie and most likely always has been. But Murdoc really likes Noodle too, she's his kid after all, his little girl, and he's never treated her the same way even remotely. If the reasons why he's always bullying 2-D is simply "well he's a control freak and gets affection mixed up with beating people half to death because that's what his dad did so he does this to everyone" then why doesn't he ever act this way with anybody else?

Well, the reason I accepted up until now is because Noodle and Russel can't be pushed around as easily. You try to hit either of them and they hit you back way harder and you crumple to the floor like a sack of wet rags. Obviously the logical next move after that is to try to suck up to them instead so you can get them to at least tolerate you, and maybe decide to stay and not set off the ole' abandonment issues as bad. Russel states at one point that 2-D is the only person Murdoc can reliably win a fight against, presumably because he'd never have the idea to swing back. It's not that he's that weak or whatever. He's just, well. Not a fighter.

I had another idea though. A real devious one, this one. Evil shit cooking. I'm an angst wizard where was I going with this

Ever notice how when Murdoc opens up to someone emotionally it's somehow always 2-D? Like, without fail? Okay, sometimes he has full scale mental breakdowns and opens up to Literally Everybody (see; Pirate Radio) because lord knows he isn't very good at keeping secrets, or at pretending to be cool. But also remember that comment he makes about making 2-D dictate his autobiography during, like... YouTube comment section impromptu QnA, space between Song Machine and Cracker Island, I believe. We never got that autobiography. We probably never will get it to be honest. All I remember is 2-D broke his fuckin hands writing it all down.

And, okay, time to beat the same dead horse again, I'm about to bring up arguably some of the most infamous 2-D Moments™ in GZ history but behold;

the other two times. I'm not sure how to put this objectively. Whenever Murdoc ends up crying and spilling his whole tragic backstory in someone's arms it's, like, 2-D 90% of the time. Coincidence? Gods no 2-D is just the person who's around him the most. Because he can't leave. He's also just more... Compassionate and forgiving. At the risk of making him sound like a dumb little baby again #let2dsayfuck he's been shown to be very empathetic and quick to forgive and all. If someone's having a mental breakdown, you try to comfort them. Isn't that how it works? But Noodle is too practical (and doesn't deserve to deal with her own shit father's mental breakdowns, trust me, speaking from experience, it sucks ten times more when it's your parent, especially if they do it often, you do NOT wanna parent your parent it's the most unfun experience I've had period, and I think or at least hope and headcanon that she's resilient enough to go no I am not dealing with this why are you crying get the fuck off the floor) and Russel possibly too mad at Murdoc to even get himself into this situation, so if there's any one person in the band you *want* to be crying in the arms of, it's probably 2-D, right? At least if you're Murdoc.

But. That's a bit annoying, isn't it. You slip up one time and suddenly you wake up the next morning and realise that this... This little fucking twerp has suddenly got immense power over you. Last night you took a Floor Pill off the dance boards of a shady nightclub and it made you think you were legitimately dying, and he was the only person technically in the band at the time, and you'd only first met him a couple weeks ago, but he was the person to go looking for you. Nobody's ever really done that before. And then he tries to help you, shit, he even gets on his knees on the pavement to help peel you off it, and you can't recall anybody ever being that kind to you in your life, and you break down completely, and you cry and hold onto him so hard he complains you're gonna break his spine and you make him promise to never ever ever leave you et-cetera. And instead of going "fuck off man" and disappearing into the night like everyone else you've done this with he actually does promise. Which has also never happened before. And then you wake up the next morning and have to deal with the fact that, on pure god damn accident, you gave that skinny little fucker your whole heart, and you can't take it back.

What's worse, 2-D doesn't understand the weight of what's just happened. Nor does he understand it the next time, or the next time, or the time after that. He doesn't think he's special, he doesn't understand what he's got and that you can't take it back. He's not malicious. He's not laughing at you. He's just confused, confused and very, very open. He's practically parading around your biggest secret like it means nothing.

And don't get me wrong: Murdoc is fine telling people about his past, in fact he seems to like it; he tells Cass Browne about his childhood so he can put it into Rise of The Ogre. He slips in that bit about the lunch lady iykyk as a joke, mid-interview. It's not about the backstory itself. It's about the emotional distance he has from it. And when you're fresh off an acid flashback I don't think you've got any emotional distance from it at all.

2-D doesn't connect the dots at least not until specifically Song Machine If Murdoc thought he was special he wouldn't be hitting him, right? He probably isn't even in the top ten of his favourite people. That's why the times where he's suddenly so familiar, and on top of that so vulnerable, just confuses him. He tells the story about the strawberries as a "weird thing that happened on tour," and the subtext (which we can quite easily spot from an outside perspective, like, come on,) flies completely over his head.

Can you imagine being Murdoc, and reading that interview after it was posted? Skimming through 2-D's synth article in the G-mag while editing because it's probably just stupid anyway, missing the bit about the acid flashbacks, and only noticing it two months later and everybody acts surprised you even care in the first place?

I think if I was Murdoc and I accidentally laid bare the depths of my soul (got a normal amount of vulnerable) and the mother fucker I did it to just started telling random people about it I would become the Joker immediately.