Bright

http://www.scp-wiki.net/codebrown

Part 1: The Background

Greetings and Salutations gentle readers! I am your humble guide on this Declassification of the classic tale ‘Code Brown.’ Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste, Tamlin by my most common name.

I’m not what you’re expecting, I’m sure, but… well, let’s explain me, before we explain the story, shall we? Those of you who have heard of me have heard of me by multiple names. Joseph Tamlin, Joey, Dr. Tamlin, Yoshua Bin Yosef… but I haven’t used that last name in 2000 some years. It was a real pain in the palms. In this timeline, I am the son of Alice Erdich, and her husband Jason. Alice was the daughter of Doctor Prometheus, and great granddaughter of Mikell Bright through her mother.

I was created by the Duckman (I’m sorry, he’s back to Bright now? I really don’t care, he’ll always be fowl to me.) to act as caretaker for the Tamlin House. (More on that later. It’s all backstory at this point.) I was created as the human embodiment of Time, as focused through the House. I was also created as a ‘too powerful’ character, one whom these days would best be described as ‘meta.’ One of those characters who can hear the narration, and respond to out of characters comments. (I will mention that the Duckman was clearly heavily influenced in this by Simon Hawke and his ‘Inadequate Adept’ series.) Hence, when he sought to write a declassification of a story with me in it, what else should suffice but I be the one to do the explaining? I am often seen as quirky and a little wacky, being able to comment on things that the average character, with no knowledge of a higher world, could do.

Now, moving on, the House itself! It was originally created as a DND campaign, one of those epic, always changing dungeons. Roll 1d1000, check the mighty list, and make up a description based on the title of said room. The House is a multitude of things, being a physical representation of all space, and also the holding place for the Emperor of all Djinn, known as Jager. In a nod to John DeChancies ‘Castle’ series, the House is said to have 100,000 rooms, but only a thousand of them are amicable to human life at any one time. One of the best known entrances to the House is in the Australian outback, underneath the rock formation known as Uluru, which I have claimed was built to contain it.

Whew! Are we done with backstory? Almost!

Code Brown takes its name from an entry in the List of Things Dr. Bright is Not Allowed to do in the Foundation. Specifically, that there is no emergency code for a Bright Family Reunion, which is scratched out with the addendum ‘Yes there is, it’s Code Brown, lock yourself in your room and leave offerings of booze outside your door.’

I should also note that thanks to time travel, a liberal attitude towards sex, and messed up genetics, the Bright family tree has often been compared to a wreath instead. It doesn’t help that my actual body was born several years ago, but I also founded the family line roughly 2000 years ago. Temporal movement forward is often just a suggestion, not a rule.

Part 2: The Foundation Side

We start with Dr. Jack Bright, everyone’s favorite body hopping Doctor. He’s bound to SCP-963, which is its own whole mess. He’s most likely over a hundred years old, sometimes close to 150. Time and age is wibbly wobbly with the Bright family lineage, and adjusts based on what is needed for the story. He’s best known for a list of things he’s not allowed to do, which he assures me is not canon. He’s generally a fun loving, friendly fellow, hiding a dark depression behind an easy smile. The author claims that Jack was Fated (in universe) to be immortal, and if he hadn’t gotten 963, something else would have done it.

(Jack originally started life as a Son of Ether from the White Wolf HTML forum chats. At that time, he was a crotchety old man, with his skin covered in burns, and hair that was literally silver. He had a penchant for turning toys into robot servants, and arguing with anyone who would listen. His second incarnation was as a super villain in a forum game, who went by the name ‘Brain Tap’ and was undercover as the Superheroes doctor. His power was to tap into the unused portion of peoples brains, so the more people who were near him, the more psychic powers he had. His third incarnation was here at the Foundation, where he made his home.)

And then Mikell Bright enters. He’s the eldest of the Bright siblings, and quite the curmudgeon. He spent years as an active agent for the Foundation, working his way up the ranks, until he became a well known and respected agent under the use name of Cowboy. Like his father before him, he first became the Hand Sinister, a trouble shooting agent working specifically for the O5 council handling things that might not look good on paper, and then an O5 himself. It has been stated by the author that Mikell is also anomalous, although whether his power is luck based, or gun related has not been nailed down.

(Mikell started life in the same place as Jack, as a Dreamspeaker Maruader, who had gone insane and thought himself to be a Gangrel. He really didn’t fit in there, so I’m glad he showed up in this universe.)

Neither of them think this story is a good idea, and I quite agree with them. Present tense? Please.

[“This is a bad idea,” mutters Dr. Jack Bright,]

[“I think it’s a fucking horrible idea. But-” O5-6,]

I am informed by authorial intent that the elder two Brights are in reference to the meet up which is happening. More about that later.

The two of them are discussing their sister, Claire Bright (more on her when she shows up) who was apparently the one who called the meeting. They don’t nessacarily trust their Little Sister, and feel odd that she has aged, when both of them have pretty much stopped aging, one due to an immortality serum, the other due to body hopping.

Jack is taking care of TJ Bright, aka SCP-590. 590s shtick is that he can heal anyone he touches, but he takes on the damage, albeit healed, himself. So, if someone has a gaping chest wound, TJ could heal it, but suddenly have scar tissue on his chest, and some trouble breathing. He has been reset to base several times over the years by SCP-500, and, thanks to power creep, sometimes can heal himself as well. It has been hinted over the years, the RP, and the stories, that there is a long term Xanatos Gambit by the three brothers of which TJ having to be seen to be of reduced mental capacity is a part.

Speaking of said mental capacity: TJ is most often portrayed as having the mind of a child. It is hinted that this was done Jack to protect TJ from the pain he suffers when he heals people. Stories have mentioned that this was actually done as a form of supposed punishment. Back in the day before the Foundation cracked down on such things, friendly humanoid SCPs actually worked WITH the Foundation. TJ was one such, and he fell in love with a young lady, who happened to be the daughter of an O5. She got pregnant, but poor TJ got the shaft, and all humanoid SCPs were no longer allowed to free roam or help out.

(TJ also began life on those same forums. He was a Celestial Chous Nephandi…. It got weird.)

Which brings me to… 3 pages in, and we’ve only covered the first three paragraphs. Whoo!

Paragraph four introduces us to the only character in this tale who is NOT a creation of the Duckman. Yoric Elroy is a confidence man and grafter who someone managed to accidentally trick his way into joining the foundation, and, through the Active Duty roleplay, was discovered to be the grandson of Dr. Jack Bright. He was the author avatar of the writer of the same name. Yoric’s only shown anomalous ability is always being in the right place, at exactly the right time, even if it may feel wrong at the time.

[“I feel like she was involved with the ruckus at Site 23, someone said.”]

The Ruckus at Site 23 he mentions is part of said RP, wherein SCP-239 was trying to fulfil her bet laid out in ‘Games Reality Benders Play’ to give one of the Brights a Happy Ending. Jack got his own body back, TJ was cured, Mikell fell in love… and then it was all found out to be the result of reality bending, and it fell apart.

Which is what Serra is referencing in her looks towards TJ. Serra is also an import from the SCP rp, Duckmans main player character, the others being NPCs used to drive plot. She was a gun nut, a sniper for the foundation, the daughter of SCP-590 and an unnamed O5’s daughter, which she didn’t know at the time, and a ‘Foundling’ which was the term created for Foundation orphans, raised by their own system. Since then, specifically in the tale ‘Rest in Peace,’ she has risen in prestige, having earned the title of Hand Sinister, and the special guns that go with it. Serra has demonstrated no anomalous abilities as of yet, which is anomalous in and of itself.

Speaking of those guns! Head canon is that they are forged from the bones of the first reality bender the Foundation captured, and as such, give the wielder a little bit of stability, resistance to reality bending, and the like, that extra little edge to keep her at the top of the game. If you have read the Duckmans other tales, ‘Ecce Perago’ and ‘An Non,’ this item is sibling to those used by the various member of the O5 Council. Word of Duck is the more O5 are together, the more stable and hard to bend the area around them becomes… but too much stability is just as bad as too little. Anything else the guns can do depends on what the writer needs.

Serra is named after the Serra Angela in magic the gathering. Her last name, Argent, is simply a synonym for Bright, which is how many of the Bright spin off families are named. Makes you wonder about Dr. Sophia Light, huh? In universe, her first name is a reference to TJs younger sister, who we shall discuss later.

Part 3: The Other Side

Which brings us to the other side of the family. While the majority of the well-known Brights are part of the Foundation, several of them are on the other side of the fence, working for various Groups of Interest. Well the Brothers can be said to mostly side with Law, the other side are the fans of Chaos. Both like to think they are on the Good end of the spectrum, however.

I, of course, am True Neutral.

Excuse me a moment, I need to make sure a certain fowl minded writer doesn’t hurt himself from laughing so hard at that.

So, the other side goes in reverse order of age, kind of. That’s actually on purpose, it was supposed to highlight the difference, kind of thing.

First through the door is Claire Lumineux the Third. (Remember I mentioned synonyms for Bright? Lumineux is Bright in French.) She was first outlined in the aforementioned Active Duty RP, where she was a hacker extraordinaire, a member of the Serpents Hand in good standing, and a Technopath. It was her skill with computers that that led Nobody to seek her out in the tale ‘Snippets from the Serpent’ and make her his successor. Claire 3 is trans. She currently uses her skills of not being seen and computer fuckery to do the Social Justice Warrior thing, writ large.

While both sides of the family work together, from time to time, they rarely trust each other. Too much bad blood, which explains C3s suspicion of the brothers.

Jack can see Nobody with some effort, even when she’s trying to not be seen. This is attributed to him not keeping his mind inside his body, but in the amulet.

Sarah is the fifth, and youngest member of the main Bright siblings. She is currently best known as SCP-321. She was stillborn, and brought back to life through use of 590s powers. In many versions of the stories, it was this action that brought him to the attention of the Foundation, and causes his containment, and hers as well. Despite what Adam may believe, there is nothing of an actual child inside Sarah, she is a mindless humanoid, who, eventually, becomes host to the Queen of the Faeries, in ‘In the End: We Dare Not Go a Hunting.’

Claire Lumineux the Second is one of the most undefined of the family, as she was only ever created as a gap between the First and Third. The Third had to be a younger sort, and, at the time of creation the Bright family was not as promiscuous as it became, so Claire just having a younger daughter was not taken into account. Second was thus designed to be forgettable. Not as much as Nobody, but she blends in to crowds, seems like part of the scene, until she’s needed. She mostly does recon, but, in rare circumstances, she’s been known to do wetwork. Her special ability is electrokinesis.

[“That girl notices more than you might think,” says the mature woman who follows her daughter into the room.]

This line about is a throw away line, the Second trying to one up the Foundation side.

David Blindman did not exist in the Bright family canon prior to this tale. He is the son of Mikell, the only child that Mikell has acknowledged, mostly because he is the only one who was born to Mikells wife. David was born with visions, he could see things in the future, not quite as powerful as Claire 1, and not as controlled. He would go into fits where he couldn’t help but spout about the future, or draw it as he saw it. This caused his father to go to extreme lengths to remove his eyes, and, hopefully, his powers, so he wouldn’t have to lock up his own son. All this, and Davids subsequent joining of the Hand, is detailed in his own story “Insert story.”

[David Blindman, often called The Legitimate Son, or the Legal Heir,]

David represents the Unnumbered Brood, the Bright Brood, or the Bright Bastards, as they are alternatively named, all the children born on the wrong side of the sheets. The Bright family motto is “Latin” or, roughly translated “I’m going to put my dick in it.” At this point in canon, all the Brights are pretty liberal with where their DNA goes, no matter their gender. The idea of the Unnumbered Brood is that there ARE Brights everywhere, so, if they are needed for something the author can just pull one out of his ass and make it work. The idea is highly influenced by the Grey Bastards, from the Secret History series by Simon R. Green. It is Davis job to track down those bastard Brights who might have slipped from notice, and help them as best he can.

David has a seeing eye pet. The exactness of it is sometimes changeable, as the author is trying to figure out what is the funniest thing. It is a big beast, most often some form of chupacabra crossbreed, sometimes poodle, which is a reference to Jim C. Hines’ Libriomancer series. Her name is Mister Snuggles. Or Mister Muffin. It changes depending on what the author finds funny.

David is gay, most likely out of a subconscious desire to never add any bastards to the growing numbers the rest of the family does. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t. It just means he tries not to.

Needless to say, David and his father do NOT have a good relationship.

(It should be noted that David as well first appeared as a Mage: the Ascension character, in a larp, where he was a Dreamspeaker homeless veteran.)

Last into the room for the non Foundation side is Evelyn Navon (a Hebrew synonym for Bright, of course.) She is the mother of Mikell, Jack, TJ, Claire, and Sarah. She is a geneticist par excellence, capable of creating bizarre genetic clones, interbred with animal DNA. She sues these powers to create her Stacked Deck for Dr. Prometheus, as a counterpoint to Wondertainments Little Misters. She has extensively experimented on herself, leaving her with a body that is anything but human underneath.

She is romantically linked with Wondertainment. She bears the name Echidna after the greek myth, the Mother of Monsters. It is unknown if she is referring to her original children, or the ones she creates now. She was also one of the original 13 member of the Foundation, and an O5 before they kicked her out for meddling in things man was not meant to know.

It should be noted that Evelyn and Adam are the only married couple in the family stories that are shown AS a couple. Jack, Mikell, Claire 1 & 2, have all been married. TJ, Claire 3, Yoric, Serra, and David, all have had significant others and lovers. These other tend to show up in nameless cameos, not because they are not real people, but because they are not Bright, and aren’t important to those stories. Were Adam and Evelyn two distant branches of the same family, joining to become one uber-Bright Lineage?
Yup, they sure were.

[“Your father couldn’t make it?” She addresses the question to Mikell, but it’s Jack who answers.]

Adam Bright is not featured in this tale, but, since he is brought up, I suppose we should discuss him. He was an O5, 3 or 12, depending on the tale, and one of the original founders of the Foundation, alongside his wife. He was also the first Hand Sinister, using his trademark pearl handled revolvers to fight evil. And, in his day, it really was evil. He hails from an era of four color superheroes, men of action, adventure, that could lay a villain out with a single punch to the jaw. He has, sadly, lived to see the world devolve into shades of gray. He has recently become the first member of the O5 to quit as opposed to having died in office, in the imaginatively named story, ‘I Quit.’

Currently, Adam is the most boring of the family. He spends his time fishing, reading, and basically trying to ignore all the things he’s done with his life.

Adam and Evelyn split on… not good terms. He has tried repeatedly to end her influence on his family, mostly through the judicious application of bullets. If the two were to meet again today, it is unknown which of them would survive.

And yes, Adam and EVElyn were authorial intent. Subtle, huh?

And then the star of the show enters, which, of course, is me.

I kid, I kid, but we already discussed me above, so let’s move on, shall we?

Part 4: The Gifts

As can be inferred from the text, Claire is Clairvoyant. That… wasn’t actually an intended reference. The authors sister is named Claire, and he figured he’d slide her in, never realizing how important she’d be to the universe.

Claire is the matriarch of the Lumineux family. While in this scene, we only have her most direct descendants, there are a host of others, the back bone of the Serpents Hands Underground Railroad. They are dedicated to keeping non murderous humanoid SCPs out of the hands of the Foundation.

Claire herself, unlike her brothers, is not the adventurous type. She’s more used to sending other people into danger, with forewarning of what they will need to accomplish heroic tasks. As a seer, she tries to go for the vague and subtle style of warnings, handing someone an object with a muttered ‘You’re going to need this.’ Or subtly changing objects in a room ahead of time to make sure it’s safe. She was the one who taught David how to best harness his powers, which may or may not have been part of her long term plans.

The entire Bright family has more Xanatos gambits in play than… well, I really don’t have a good analogy. Be assured everyone has a good half dozen escape plans for any situation, and Claire had much more than that. It is highly implied that even her Death was only to further her own plans.

Blah, blah, signs of grief, showing even hardened monsters can still cry.

I tell you it was rather tough to find a reliable VCR these days. I had to step back to a high school in the 80’s and raid their AV club.

So, we get our first view of Claire. As stated previously, she was originally based on the authors own little sister. In canon, while she was one of the few Brights to grow naturally old, she had a rejuvenation, putting her in the body of a younger African –American girl.

Now, the literary convention used here is the simple one of mourners at a will reading. But, the difference here is that, because the deceased was precognitive, she is able to foresee what people will say, and respond to it, so, honestly, it just comes off as a conversation, albeit an odd one.

[Jack frowns at the screen, and closes his mouth. For several minutes, there is silence, the real life Bright staring at the onscreen Bright, as if each was seeking to outlast the other. Everyone else shifts nervously, unsure of what to expect. Finally, Claire, her eyes narrowing into a glare, speaks again. “If you don’t say it, I can’t respond to it, you know how this works.”]

Jack shows that he is the middle child, and thus the stubborn, troublemaker. But Claire is used to dealing with her big brother, and forces him to finally ask the question he wanted to.

While the exact method of death is not described, we can assume it is quite gorey, leaving no doubt as to the fact that she is indeed dead. Knowing Claire, it is likely she recruited someone from the Hand to make sure she died the way she wanted to.

Dark here is a nod to the character from Marshall, Carter and Dark, whom, in several stories, has been shown to have written letters to the future, to ensure the profitability of the company. Harry Seldon is of course a nod to the Foundation series by Issac Asminov.

Claire begins giving out gifts to her family, like a deceased Santa Claus. Each gift has been specially chosen, both out of love for her family, and to ensure that her plots continue. Now, one might think knowing that she has plotted would enable you to, say, throw out a gift, so it doesn’t do anything, but, what if that’s what she had planned on happening? When you start trying to out guess a precog, you generally just end up with a headache.

[She reaches out slowly, hesitantly, and flips up the lid. Her face is a mask of wonder as she stares with-in, multi-colored lights reflecting on her face. She carefully turns the box so the rest of the family can see it, and is rewarded with gasps of delight. Inside the little box is an egg, no bigger than a chicken's egg, but the shell is covered in a slowly shifting array of colors. It glows from the inside, a warm, healthy glow. Evelyn closes the box with some reluctance, and draws it back to her, her hands clasped above it.]

Her first gift is to her mother. As a creator of life, the gift of more life than she could ever experience is an awe inspiring gift. The idea of the Mundane Egg is taken from the Books of Magic, by Neil Gaiman. The author spent many happy years portraying Tim Hunter on the Milliways Bar Livejournal panfandom game.

[Leaning forward, Mikell unlatches the case, and studies the contents with a look of confusion, before turning it to face his family. Inside are the remains of a broadsword, nestled in a fitted red velvet casing. A foot and a half of handle and blade fill the bottom, while the top holds several shards of the blade strapped in with elastic. He turns his quizzical gaze to the screen, one eyebrow arching. “What the devil is this?”]

Being a little sister, Claire uses her gift to her eldest brother to both tease and aggravate him. Mikell will spend many long nights pondering the sword, which may have been what Claire intended.

While Jack still works for the Foundation, he is also, technically, an SCP. As such, there may be times when he becomes aware of anomalous humanoids, that don’t pose any threat, and may, you know, just, accidentally kind of tip off the Little Sisters before these poor skips end up stuck in Foundation custody. While Jack is a loyal Foundation man, he understands that many skips are just humans, and not all of them deserve to be locked away for something they had no choice over. A lot of the reason he does this is the guilt he has over TJ, having been the one who turned his brother in to the Foundation, and having been his caregiver over the years.

Claire ruthlessly exploited that guilt. It’s what she does.

[Dr. Tamlin pulls a bottle from his pack of many things, a bottle whose very shape causes Jack to gasp, and his face to light up in delight. The bottle appears to have been made by a glass blower with a bad case of the hiccups, and the liquid within it is dark, a little syrupy, and has a deep blue tint to it.]

Jack is known as a brewer. He’s famously used SCP-184 inside of one of his stills, to make a liquor that not only naturally glows, but also has a tendency to cause the imbibers to mentally travel to alternate times and dimensions. It is affectionately known as 307 Ale, because it is 153 ½ percent alcohol. Yes, that doesn’t make sense. Are you new? It has also been called Mostly Apples, because, well, it is made from Apples. Mostly. The only bottles known to be able to contain this powerful liquid are Klein bottles, which are like 3d Mobius strips, where the outside and the inside are the same side.

307 Ale is a reference to the song of the same name by Tom Smith. It’s about a beer brewed in a tesseract, and, well, it definitely fits. Mostly Apples is a reference to scumble in the Discworld series by Terry Prachett. It’s only allowed to be served in wooden cups, as it eats metal.

[“No.” TJ is sitting upright in his chair, his eyes on the screen, paying attention for the first time, his eyes unusually aware, and intelligent.]

Moving on to TJ, we see that he may have some precog abilities of his own. He’s aware of what his sister wants to do for him, and does not want it. Believe it or not, he’s happy where he is. While Claire is a master manipulator, TJ is a spider, sitting in his web, watching everything happen knowing that no one thinks of him as a threat.

Jack and TJ have a lot of plans set up, plans within plans even. Oh, and, since I didn’t mention it before, the boys names have changed since they joined the Foundation. Jack was born James, Mikell was born Michael, and TJ was born Thomas.

[The Runners will listen when you call, and the Deep Beneath has pledged itself to your service. All of the rest of it is in the case.”]

She then leaves the running of her skip Underground Railroad, the Little Sisters, to her daughter. Here we can see a habit the writer picked up from author Simon R. Green, wherein he puts names of things that sound really cool, such as the Runners, or the Deep Beneath, but then doesn’t give you any further information on them. Sometimes he’ll run off a line of them, like Winter Wolf, Crossroads Runner, The Molten Lake etc, etc. If he doesn’t give definition when first introduced, then he can maybe use it later when he thinks of a cool idea for the name.

[My brother, screaming Heebie Jeebies, would you tear out his vocal cords, so the Foundation wouldn’t come for him? Doesn’t always work, removing the source of the power, does it? What about Poor Tessie Shakes? Gonna cut her spine, keep her from moving so she can’t make things fall?]

We see this come into play again during Mikell and Davids argument, with David tossing off the names of Bright Bastards. We can also see that this is an old argument between the two, one they have likely had dozens of times over the years. Mikell believes in the appearance of normalcy, whereas David believes in the freedom for people to be people, no matter their powers.

Once again, TJ intervenes, showing there may be more to this young looking healer than most people think. It is clear he does not like being used as an example , and just as clear that there may be something between him and David.

Her gift to David is just as practical as her gift to her daughter. Stuff that they can use to further their cause. Nothing hidden or unexpected, really, except the promise of ever more Brights.

The time in Tibet has not been explained before or since. The author may eventually write it up, if he can think of something fun with it, involving a gravestone.Probably the graveyard of the immortals. In reference to it, Yoric references a popular headcanon that the Chaos Insurgency is an MTF of the Foundation, and one he has worked in before.

One of Yorics defining traits is constantly seeking immortality. Something he inheirited from his grandfather, perhaps? Claire line here if a direct reference to the story ‘An Non’ where Yoric becomes the new holder of 963-2, his mind and body taken over by it.

[He reaches into the bag and pulls out a leather belt, a beautifully crafted and tooled thing, with dozens of tiny scenes of fantastical creatures carved into its length. Attached to the belt are two holsters, both clearly made with the same level of care.]

The belt is of course, a magic item. Originally worn by Adam Bright, it was made for him in gratitude by a people he saved from a rampaging monster of some sort. Since it has been in Claires hands, she may have had more added to it, if the writer feels the need to add any tricks or traps later in the story. What exactly the belt does, besides feel good, is unknown.

I should point out here, that the Duckman has a rather unique approach to writing stories. Whereas many people will pin down every last detail, knowing what their characters favorite book is, where they went to school, and what they had for breakfast, Duckman has a tendency to leave things open, simply because if he needs to change it later to make the story better, he can. So things like the dates of birth for the Bright siblings tend to wander between the later 1800s to the mid 1900s. The parents either were part of the founders of the Foundation, or emigrated to America in the early 1930s, fleeing the rise of anti-Semitic nationalism.

It has not been noted previously in this document, but the Bright family is Jewish. Jack in his time has even gone through Rabbinical studies, before he joined the Foundation. While working for the Foundation has pretty much soured all of them to religion, it is still a major part of at least the older ones outlook on life.

Both myself and Claire end the viewing with requests for the family to draw together. In her case, because she saw something in the future that would require both sides working as one to defeat. Me because, well, I like my family whole. Squabbles are so untidy. Plus, I’ve been to the futures, I know what a combined Bright Family can do to this world.

The leavings are nothing special, besides Serra becoming aware that Nobody is there. She may not have as good of sight as Jack or me, but she’s starting to get there. Being trained to be something more.

When I leave the room, it’s with a notice to Nobody, letting her know I know she’s there.

Nobody and Claire converse, doing that thing where they hint at great and terrible things to come. You know, if the author ever gets around to writing them. It does seem to imply that even though there are two sides of the family, Claire is working for the greater good of the family as a whole.

[“Anything for the family.”]

That, then, is the Bright family in all its glory and shame. Any questions?