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hopeymchope · 1 year

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Hey!

The Junko ask you did reminded me of my own concept where the THH cast use magic alongside weaponry that may be related to their talent or character. Do you have any ideas for everyone except Makoto and Junko, as I already have stable ideas for them?

More specifically,

Leon, Mondo, Sakura, Aoi, and Mukuro are more physical (warriors,)

Kyoko, Byakuya, Chihiro, and Celestia are more magical (mages,)

and Sayaka, Kiyotaka, Hifumi, Yasuhiro, and Toko plus Jack are balanced between physical and magical attacks.

I'm SO sorry for the late reply! I saved an in-progress answer to this a few weeks ago and then uh... I went through some surgery and my S.O. had surgery and basically I lost all track of the fact that this happened.

So. Uh yeah. This is probably too late to add useful suggestions to your concept, as you've likely already cemented a lot more characters in the interim. EVEN SO: Can I offer you an extremely late answer in this trying time?

Obviously Leon has to have a bat or club, right? Even though he'd probably resent it at first... ? Lol. But he'd be excellent at it all the same. Might feel cool to incorporate some loud singing/yelling in a very "punk rock" style into a couple attacks, too. Or is that anachronistic to your setting?

Mukuro can use literally anything, but I feel projectile weapons are the most logical thing for her (besides just a combat-centric knife, which feels too bland/basic). I don't have any idea how medieval OR modern you're making this reality, so: Perhaps she wields a gun, a crossbow, or just a regular bow?

Sakura needs to be the character that ONLY uses their fists and actual martial arts moves. There's always at least one of those in RPGs, y'know. The "Black Belt in Final Fantasy 1"-type character. Or the "Chie in Persona 4," if you prefer.

It's easy to picture Chihiro using some sort of visual equivalent to computing/hacking. Therefore, Chihiro could cast a spell that makes squares and/or cubes appear to float through the air (representations of screen pixels and/or algorithm geometry), which expand into a fractal image that reaches over and builds itself up THROUGH the target, for example, causing damage by impaling them with the fractal. If you don't know what I mean by a random computer-generated fractal, just imagine something like this rapidly growing out from Chihiro's spell to attack the enemy:

5. Pretty easy to figure out Genocide(r) Jack/Syo would use small blades such as scissors or, if that's not logical for your setting, then some knives. But when she's regular ol' Toko, how about she whips out a notebook and starts frantically writing with a pen, only for the words to float off of the page and then fly right into her opponent?

6. I've been thinking about how Asahina might fight, and I'm not sure what to do with her. I figure she might use her legs a lot like a Chun-Li-type because swimming has built up her kicking strength. And we see her practice a few punches in DR3, though we only see her fight using some kind of pipe/rebar/metal thing when confronting Juzo. I imagine she wouldn't use a strictly defined "style"; it'd be more of a hodgepodge of homemade attacks she concocts.

7. Mondo? Punching/boxing and would probably also wield a tire iron/axel. Simple.

8. Hagakure is similarly easy. He can conjure (y'know, do some quick prayer or swirl a hand over an artifact or something) some kind of visible magic (I'm picturing a generic swirling smoke or beam of light; pretty standard stuff) using his crystal balls and other weird possessions. .... Hopefully his attacks are better than 30% effective :P I don't have a vision of how he'd work with performing physical attacks, though... ?

9. I don't know how to handle Kyoko's "magic." Is there some way to visualize the "magic" of someone just being intelligent and using logical deduction? I can't quite grok how to do it. We do know she has some physical fighting skill, however, because of the time she fought Masked Junko off in Naegi's room in DR1. And I can picture how she'd work as a physical fighter: extremely minimalist. She'd so reserved as a person that I think her fighting style would be similarly reserved. She would stand there with her arms crossed, looking unready, and would barely move when actually attacking/fighting. You know, just casually stroll up and then swat an enemy with the back of her fist. Or just stand still and barely sidestep to dodge, then pivot before sending out a very basic forward kick to hit the opponent. It would almost look lazy, but it's actually extremely calculated. Y'know?

10. Maizono would have to have some magic involving music, naturally. Y'know... in season 1 of the Magia Record anime, we saw another Sayaka — Sayaka Miki — use music-based magic for healing. She can sing/hum/play songs that generate visible musical notes as a form of magic. I think it'd be cool if Maizono could do the same kind of thing ... plus maybe she swings a mic stand around and hits people with it like Rise does in Persona 4 Arena?

And that's... kind of all I could conjure up from my brain. There are still four people on your list there, and I don't seem to have any ideas on how to work them. But hopefully you do. Or will! :)

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triviareads · 1 year

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Releases on April 11th

Summary:

In a sequal to Aphrodite and the Duke, Lady Verity Eagleman is experiencing her first season in London with her godmother and her family, the Du Bells. She instantly falls for Dr. Theodore Darrington. Unfortunately, Theodore is the illegitimate son of a Marquess, and doesn't feel like he'll be a suitable spouse for Verity, the daughter of a duke, even as his attraction towards her grows...

My review:

Let me first say that I love this cover, as well as J.J. McAvoy stating right off the bat in an author's note that this is a regency romance with Black aristocracy, because this is fiction. Period. Like, this is all I need and I would love for more authors to write diverse historical romances based on this premise rather than creating some convoluted Bridgerton-esque "love cured racism" plot.

Moving on to the story, I'm a big fan of class differences that result in the hero going like "I'M TOO SCANDALOUS/POOR/LOWLY FOR YOUUUU" and the heroine just refuses to give him quarter and clings on for dear life, which was pretty much the plot here. It was interesting that Theodore admitted his feelings to her pretty much right off the bat, but then backtracks (of course he does lol; because he is, to use his own words, a Bastard). That being said, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to base their relationship on by the time Theodore tells her he loves her (midway through the book; again, pretty early, and despite him still feeling like he's not good enough for her).

Theodore is a cinnamon role hero. He says all the right things (he outrightly says at a dinner party he believes women have "harsh fates" in that their education is limited and they don't have a choice in marrying), and does all the right things (spending all his money on helping people who cannot afford his treatments). Same for Verity; she doesn't enjoy the Season and all its pretty falsities, and she would rather be studying at university or writing. They are characters that are entirely in line with the modern audience's notion of what is Right, which got a little boring at times.

I think the passion between Theodore and Verity could have been amped up a bit. For example, I really enjoyed their clandestine encounter in Verity's godmother's house and there's a lot of back-and-forth about Theodore being *unsuitable* for Verity. The build-up was great, but the follow-through kiss was anti-climactic. Speaking of which-

The sex:

The sex was low-heat, just a few pages and not very explicit. As I have not read J.J.'s other books, this could just be how she usually writes them. I don't think the heroine is aware of what an orgasm is before she has penetrative sex, nor is she aware of how one becomes pregnant (when he tells her he has to pull out, she doesn't get why).

Overall:

If you like diverse, family-centric stories and romances light on spice, then then I would recommend this book to you. That's not to say this book is low on the drama. There's a lot of familial conflict, ranging from Verity's brother refusing Theodore's suit of her, to the fact that Verity suffers nightmares from past abuse by her stepmother, and the drama of the last several chapters, which I won't spoil here but it was a lot.

This book wasn't personally for me, but I deeply appreciate seeing more people of color on the cover of historical romances, as well as reading POC rep in stories down to their skin color and hair being explicitly described, and I commend J.J. McAvoy for this.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

#netgalley #arc review #J.J. McAvoy #historical romance #arc #romance novel #random house publishing group #ballantine books #jj mcavoy #romance novels

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reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 2 years

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A lot of the posts I've seeen around on introducing people to BTS seem to mention a lot the phase of "explains how skin ship works in korea" because apparently Korean men are "closer" in that aspect (idk if that makes sense).

As a Spanish person I don't really see it. I mean, I can see that they are touchy, if that's the right word, but I've met male best friends that are like that and I didn't bat a eye when I saw clips of the cuddled or hugging, which seems to amaze people.

I mentioned my nationality because it's true that we Spanish people tend to be perceived as closer with one another in a physical sense (that's what I've been told, and in my experience it's true). I've had friends that studied in Canada or the UK for a year tell me that they felt lonely or not trusted because people spoke all the time with much more space between them (like the physical space between their bodies) even if they were close friends, and that they didn't really hug as much or weren't really affectionate as a rule.

What I mean, is that this has led me to see a lot of takes online of the members interacting that don't really make sense to me or seem really far fetched. So, I wanted to ask you if you could give your opinion on how this cultural lense on skinship helps people twist narratives. Or alternatively, how it inadvertently gives a skewed image of their relations with one another.

(please don't take this to mean that I condemn every shipper or think that every interpretation of physical affection that points towards not so friendly feelings is completely unfounded, that's not where I wanted to go)

* So thanks for suffering thought this unnecessary lengthy ask, I guess I was just curious on something that people seem to see so clear that I don't get because of what seems to be a cultural aspect. And also I just want to let you know that even if I don't agree with every single one of your opinions I find your blog really interesting and worth following.

A lot of those posts are made with an informative purpose but I also noticed that they're used in order to dismiss other types of closeness between men. Skinship and the knowledge people outside SK have of it is invoked depending on each agenda. Some are saying that skinship is normal between men and it's completely platonic with no room for anything else, others use the skinship to perpetuate their BTS poly agenda which is problematic on its own in some ways (they even made it into a thing when they were at the White House and Hobi barely tapped Jin on his ass when he went to speak) and then there are some shippers who believe that any type of skinship is a clue that indicates a sexual/romantic relationship. I think that what's important to remember is the context and each situation and between which members is happening.

The cultural lens definitely twists the narratives. North American and some Western European fans may as well have a culture shock in regards to skinship because western masculinities don't really have that display of affection. As opposed to Spanish men, or Italian, or any other culture that is not western-centric. etc. The point is, ideas of what is masculinity and how male frienship looks like has been socially constructed and it's heavily influenced by morality and what real manhood looks like. Some aspects can be found in cultures that despite having differences, do have the same model or not necessarily.

In terms of skinship between Korean men and in particular BTS, I think it's relevant to see if a type of behavior is singular and happens between only 2 men for example, or it's a display of affection that transfers to all of them. With BTS, they all like to cuddle, give pats on the ass, or give neck massages or touch their thighs when they talk. If all of them do that and it looks the same, regardless of who does it, then it's not a big deal. It's how they express their affection and closeness. I assume this shouldn't be a shock anymore for any fan who spends at least a month watching BTS content. But the same type of skinship can be charged differently depending on the situation and I'm going to offer here a hypothetical example in a hypothetical boy group. X and Y are besties who do all the skinship that you can think of. They even held hands sometimes, including in an interview. It's normal because they always act like that. But X and Z are also really close and they do skinship, but you don't see them holding hands in a very public setting, like X and Y do. But sometimes they do, in a more private context, but still caught on camera. Now, is that hand holding between XY and XZ the same? Could it be the same because that's how X shows his affection towards his two friends? Maybe not, as the situation in which the hand holding takes place is different and also because the relationship X has with Y and Z is different, despite all being friends with each other. I hope it makes sense what I said.

My point is, generalization doesn't really help in the case of skinship because it gets rid of any situational nuance.

#bmt asks #bts #bts skinship #kpop & skinship

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Having asked your thoughts on designing Frankenstein's daemon, might I now ask your thoughts on bringing Count Dracula from the written word into illustration? (I'm definitely in favour of the 'Hairy Old Mountain Man of Horror pretending he's people' look from the original novel; one of the small tests too many Draculas fail to pass is an absolutely tragic lack of the Evil Beard and/or Wicked Moustache explicitly described by Mr Stoker).

Unlike with Frankenstein, where I think the design needs to be painstakingly thought out in order to achieve the best balance of the creature's traits for horror and tragedy alike, I think with Dracula you can actually just take an approach of "whatever works". Because as I mentioned before, I think much of the appeal and longevity of Dracula is how the character's both a layered villain as well as a shapeshifting narrative force that can be tailored to whatever you want to do with. Granted, there are bad or dissappointing Dracula designs, of course there are, but in regards to the leeway you get for reinterpretation, you get a lot more of it with Dracula than with other literary icons.

Like with Frankenstein, I'm gonna bring up how I'd tackle a less grim, more comedy-centric Dracula first, one that's less a force of horror and more of a charismatic villain, and I think to that end I definitely agree that people are sleeping a lot on the hairy old man barely-passing-off-as-humanoid of the original story. Despite very much loving these performers, I'm actually not a fan of takes that mold Dracula too closely to people who've portrayed him, like Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, partially because I think it's a waste of an opportunity to create your own Dracula design. Since I can't draw (yet), I'll do what I usually do and make a board of images to try and convey some of my thoughts on one way I'd design Dracula.

(Pictured: Kiwi's design for Dracula, Hotel Transylvania concept art, Nandor, Castlevania Dracula, Charles Dance in Dracula Untold, Vladislav, a Transylvanian rug)

I used the images in my other Dracula post and I’ll post it here again because I absolutely adore @kiwibyrd's designs for Dracula and it's main heroes, in particular I love the way it strikes a good balance at making sure Dracula looks distinctly separate from the humans, but not too much that he couldn't conceivably operate in society as just a harmless old man. I also adore the mustache and bushy eyebrows and pointy ears and I think these three are wonderful features to keep on any Dracula design. I'm also very partial to the Hotel Transylvania concept art, even if it makes me incredibly depressed to look at all the great designs they had for Dracula that they threw in the trash because they somehow decided making him look like Adam Sandler was the idea to go with.

I deeply adore What We Do In The Shadows, both the movie and the show, and Jemaine Clement's Vladislav is one of my favorite (maybe even my actual favorite) on-screen Draculas. But I also enjoy Nandor just as much, and I think it's really great that as a character he's completely different from Vlad while also being ostensibly a take on Dracula, and in particular I bring up his Jersey look because "Dracula in common clothing" is a criminally underrated concept for a joke.

As a character, I'm very partial to comedy takes on Dracula that play him up as a decadent aristocratic supervillain, the kind that can get away with talking in third person. I also have this idea for a version of Dracula who dresses ostentatiously in finely-broidered Romanian or Transylvanian patterns, maybe even wearing a rug as a cape, claiming that he's carrying the legacy of his people on his back. And of course he's lying, he's not Vlad Tepes and he's not even Romanian, he is just a parasite pretending to have a history to be proud of, but good luck getting him to admit that. And finally, I'd like this version to be played by Charles Dance, and I consider it a tremendous crime against humanity that he has yet to play Dracula proper even despite being in a film with the character's name on the title.

So that's kinda how I would design a take on Dracula for something more comedic or more based around him as this guest character and personality on-set. Now, if we're talking a more serious version, I think the possibilities increase, and I won't be getting into all of them because I may prefer to keep them to myself, but I'll elaborate a few ideas.

For example, the edition of Dracula I personally own comes with these really scratchy, really creepy B&W illustrations related to the story, that I can't find scanned online so I'm uploading them here so you can look at. They don't necessarily depict the scenes but rather some of the story's moments, like Van Helsing staking Lucy, Renfield in a straightjacket, Dracula as a coachman, and they are more focused on conveying the horror of the concepts at play.

Dracula never looks the same way in any of the illustrations, in fact you kinda have to piece him out of them by trying to find teeth or capes or eyes or bat-features to see where he's hiding this time. In the first, it's the half-man half-bat, in the 2nd, he's the shrieking bat silhouette next to Renfield, and in the latter, he's the gaping jaws and eerily humanoid eyes in the wolf. The effect to me almost feels like if you were to look at a bunch of tv static and then see a humanoid shape form for a split second before everything went back to normal, something like you'd get from Slender Man or other modern creepypastas, and I’ve argued before that Dracula’s form of horror is a very modern one.

In terms of illustrations of Dracula that keep up the original traits while still pulling off horror, I definitely have to hand it to the one at the left of the image above, drawn by regourso on Deviantart (account deleted at present). Going back to Castlevania’s many takes on Dracula, two in particular that stick out to me would be Castlevania: Judgment’s armored dress Dracula, who’s got this great twisted heart/rose motif going on in his outfit, and Dracula’s final form in SOTN where he just sits in his throne and his cape twists into all these monsters, particularly how it’s depicted by witnesstheabsurd’s depiction.

I’m not particularly a fan of how Dracula’s “final form” in these games is usually just some big demon, and part of what I like about his final form in SOTN instead is that, while it’s not a particularly challenging final boss, I do find it interesting the idea of us never actually getting to see what Dracula’s true final form looks like, only an ever-shifting pitch-black torrent of teeth and claws and bloody veins pouring out because that’s ultimately what Dracula is and brings to the world.

On the flip-side of the rotten old monster, we have the charming seductor Dracula, and while I’m really not a fan of how various adaptations have convinced people that “the point” of Dracula is that he’s a seductive force and an allegory for Victorian xenophobia and I’m reeeally even less of a fan of adaptations that make Dracula some misunderstood tragic hero (and I think I’ve made rather violently clear my feelings on interpretations that play up a romance between him and Mina), that the seductive force part exists is impossible to deny, so conversely, while on one hand we can have Dracula as the gargantuan whirlwind of predatory violence, we can also go for Dracula as the tantalizing lover.

I’ve seen a lot of opinions proclaiming Frank Langella as the best Dracula because he was the best at actually being seductive while still playing Dracula, although I haven’t yet seen his performances. If I had to point at one picture I look at and do buy for a second the idea of Dracula as a romantic character, it would be that particular still of Raul Julia in the left of the above image. And it’s strange for me to think of Raul Julia as attractive because I mainly associate him with his brilliant comedy performance of M.Bison (I know it’s far from the highlight of his career but, look, I grew up with Street Fighter, I can’t help it) but those eyes are definitely looking pretty convincing to me, if nothing else.

And I’ve included this still of Sebastian Stan in the right because, during a conversation between me, @krinsbez and @jcogginsa about who could be a good fit for Dracula, jcog suggested Sebastian Stan, partially because he’s Romanian, and I’ve learned recently that Stan was actually interested in playing the character in Blumhouse’s upcoming remake. And you’d think I’d hate this idea considering how much I don’t care for tragic anti-hero Draculas, but who says that’s what he’d have to play?

Do you have any idea how much actors, who are traditionally known for heroic or supporting roles, usually LOVE it when you give them a chance to cut loose as the main villain?

I’d want Sebastian Stan to put all of his charm, all of his talent, all of his good looks and etc, into playing the absolute most vicious, bloodthirsty and irredeemable Dracula put on screen. Someone who is exceedingly, eerily good at being a lovable protagonist, who’s all smiles and charming eyes and politeness mannerisms and maybe even a funny accent, and then it isn't as funny when he's flying through your window intent on kidnapping babies to feed to his brides, except he may take a moment or two to do so because he's feeling pretty hungry himself right now.

Now, admittedly this is kind of a lot to juggle in regards to a single character, which is why my answer for questions like these inevitably has to be “depends on what I’m going for”. That being said, if I was going to try and cast someone who I think could both look the part of Dracula, as well as respectively, play “cartoon aristocrat” Dracula, “mercurial embodiment of evil” Dracula, as well as realistically be an attractive, even seductive performer who can charm viewers even as the character descends into horrible villainy, and juggle these performances even?

I think I’d have to go with Mads Mikkelsen. Not specifically because of Hannibal (I actually haven’t watched it yet), although it’s definitely a factor, the thing that actually made me pick him specifically is, other than his looks, his voice, his reputation for playing sinister characters, the fact that he loves the role and wants to play it, or how many people are deeply in love with this man, or that people already joke that he looks like a vampire, was watching him in Another Round, and specifically that glorious final scene where he’s just dancing to his heart’s content and just, moving with such spring in his step and such joyful vitality even though he’s past his mid-fifties, and that was the moment where, in regards to how much you all love this man, I went

And now I am going to add “casting Mads Mikkelsen as a dancing Dracula” to The List of Reasons Why I Became a Filmmaker.

#replies tag #dracula #horror tag #bram stoker #charles dance #sebastian stan #mads mikkelsen #castlevania #raul julia #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #vladislav #nandor

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the-storyteller78 · 2 years

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I recently watched Encanto and I literally cannot get over how amazing it is. The songs—*sharp inhale* chef’s kiss. The characters—*incoherent shouting because I don’t know how else to express my adoration for this movie* AMAZING. As those who read my Azula&Zuko-centric fic and my Jason Todd fic know, I LOVE FAMILIAL CHARACTER DYNAMICS. Just can’t get enough of them. And the Batfamily is a prime example of a fandom I have spent hours poring over, digging out absolute jewels of fics and filtering out what I clearly consider incest (please don’t, guys, just don’t). So, I wanted to make a connection between Encanto and the Batfam, specifically which songs apply to which members. I’m probably going to write some more when I have time, but Tim’s my favorite child, so let’s start off with him! Just a warning, I have not read any Batman or DC comics. All my knowledge (or lack thereof) comes from fanfics. I tend to embrace fanon more than canon anyway. I hope y’all enjoy my sort-of character analysis of our very own sleep-deprived, caffeine-addicted sad boy!

Waiting on a Miracle - Tim Drake

Tim has always been an outsider in the family. He was the one who forced himself in, not for his own sake and ambitions, but because he believed that Gotham needs Batman to survive. He realized that Robin was the only one who could save Batman, and since Jason was gone, Tim himself would simply have to do. However, as he grows closer to the family, he begins to long to be a part of them and be loved by them, and for a while, he starts to think that maybe it’s a real possibility that Bruce, Dick, and Alfred might actually care about him, not just what he brought to the table as Robin. Then Jason returns. He’s furious that Tim has supposedly taken his place. He nearly kills him multiple times, but is eventually brought back to the fold because he’s the prodigal son coming home at last. Tim is happy. How can he not be? Jason was his Robin, and bringing him home is far more important than some silly feelings he may have about seeing his torturer walk past him in the halls. It doesn’t matter that he flinches at every sudden movement Jason makes. It doesn’t matter that his breath comes a little quicker when Jason slings an arm around his shoulders. It just doesn’t matter. Time passes. Things get better. He and Jason have gotten closer, everything seems to be going well. Then Damian appears. The lost son. He tries to kill Tim, nearly right off the bat. Dick tells Tim to be patient, to be the bigger man, he can do that, right? Because Tim is so mature, Tim’s an adult. Tim is sixteen, but he just smiles and nods. Then Bruce disappears. Tim knows he’s alive, he has the foundations of proof, he just needs more evidence, just needs to find him. He goes to Dick for help. The first Robin, the man he considered his older brother, responds by threatening to send him to Arkham if he doesn’t drop it. He rips away Robin from Tim and hands the mantle to Damian. The kid has tried to kill him three times now. Tim leaves. Months later, he returns with Bruce. He’s applauded, admired, and respected in the hero community, now more than ever, but it feels so hollow (especially where his spleen used to be, but what’s losing an organ compared to the importance of the mission, the mission that can’t go on without his fa—Batman). He never has much time to himself anymore, with all his responsibilities as Red Robin and the CEO of Wayne Industries, a role that Bruce continues to leave to him, saying that he wants to spend more time with his family. Alright. Tim can take a hint. He knows when he’s not wanted, which is basically the story of his life. But on the days where everything is sluggish and somber and sad and his heart feels like it’s about to implode and he kind of wishes it would so he wouldn’t have to deal with the stubborn ache in his chest whenever he looks at the Wayne family loving each other, just being a family… Tim wishes. He imagines. Not to be the first son, or the prodigal son, or even the blood son, but to have a place all his own in the family. Even just a little one. To be seen as more than a tool at best and a nuisance at worst. Tim hopes for a miracle.

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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#when i read about tim i often kind of come to the idea that he's relatively self centered#and that can be both a flaw and a strength#but he doesn't often consider other people's feelings and circumstances#like when dick made damian robin he didn't really consider the situation from anyone else's view#or in his origin story#he doesn't seem to consider how dick would feel about hearing how tim was affected by dick's parents' death#or with the spyral situation#or in regards to him earning robin#and its pretty consistent in fandom characterization even if a lot of writers don't seem to be aware of it#its interesting cause i think its something i think he has in common with bruce#its honestly a surprisingly consistent thing from what i see#and it can be a strength to#it can absolutely lead to some confidence and self actualization#as well as being able commit to fixing something and working hard at it#because you believe you can and don't think anyone else can/will do it via @emenerd

Y’know, what’s interesting to me about these points is the fact that like.....Tim having tendencies towards self-centeredness is actually something that COMPLETELY makes sense and can be quite sympathetic in light of his backstory of having neglectful parents.

In an age of armchair diagnosticians eager to label anyone who expresses a controversial viewpoint while centering themselves as an example, as like, having a narcissistic personality disorder (and with the loaded implication that this makes them a bad person even if its true, instead of just....having a disorder, yay weaponizable ableism) like, it can be important to add in distinctions that even tendencies that share overlap with a lot of things born of entitlement, etc....aren’t always necessarily proof of that.

For instance, in Tim’s case, an overemphasis on himself and his own position in situations and arguments can very reasonably be attributed as a coping mechanism he developed in an attempt to acknowledge and address self-esteem issues he sees himself as having, DUE to parental neglect.

Its not that he thinks he’s the most important person in the room, necessarily, its that he spent so many years not even being considered a person in the room, that now he OVERCOMPENSATES on his own behalf, in an attempt to remind himself that no, his opinion and feelings and situations do matter.....and because he like most of the Bat-characters has a tendency towards hyper-fixating on a problem they’re trying to address, this can also understandably create a kind of tunnel vision. Where he’s so busy focusing on what he’s diagnosed as an actual issue he has that he’s trying to address or make up for, in order to build up his self-esteem....that he neglects to keep everyone around him equally centered in his interactions with them, and remember that like, they have their own issues and ignoring that to focus entirely on his own runs the risk of negatively impacting them in the exact same way he’s still learning to cope with having been negatively impacted in his development as a child.

None of this makes him a bad person, or is stuff that can’t be addressed and developed just by paying the appropriate attention to it and his interactions.

SO the issue I tend to more often have....

Is with how often in fandom and fanon we hear references to Tim’s neglect and emotional abuse and how this impacted him.....much in the same way we see Jason and Cass and Damian and Dick’s various forms of abuse and the developmental impact it had on them....

BUT there tends to then be a disconnect, IMO, because that acknowledgment of the WHAT of Tim’s neglect and abuse and the HOW it hurt him.....isn’t often followed up by an examination/awareness of how it also SHAPED him.....at least, not compared to how discussions/fics about say, Jason’s abuse tend to point out the latter as much as the former.

And this is a big part of my gripe with the ways abuse is centered and tackled as a topic in fics and fandom discussions, because its so often capitalized upon as a defense or shield for a character from criticism, stuff like that.....without ever actually EXPLORING the topic itself, or the FULLNESS of the impact it can have.

But only in regards to some characters.

What I mean is like....we see a lot of focus on Jason’s childhood abuse, yeah? And this often is then connected through headcanons, meta and fics to various aspects of Jason’s characterization as a teenager, and as an adult as well.....with a tendency towards anger or violence, abrasive personality, etc. Don’t get me wrong, its usually presented as such in a SYMPATHETIC light, especially when raised by fans of Jason themselves.....but his abuse is very much present and centered in fics and discussions as something that not only impacted him and made him suffer, but something that actually shaped him to varying degrees as well....with a lot of focus then in fics of him as an adult, like, paid to him going to therapy and unpacking his childhood abuse in an effort to WORK on these aspects of himself that make his present day life harder or less healthy than he’d like it to be. The issue of how his abuse lent itself to various behaviorisms is raised in order to address various byproducts of his abuse as FLAWS that he seeks to eliminate, in order to make himself happier and make himself someone that people want to be around more.

And again, don’t get me wrong - for the most part, this is a GOOD thing. The caveat here is just a personal dislike I have for how often these narratives smack of a kind of saviorism, and act like it was only through the grace of Bruce and becoming part of the Batfam that Jason’s ever afforded the opportunity to better himself as a person. I dislike the hell out of this because it not only pairs all too well with a lot of classist shit, it feeds into the singular narrative we’re so often presented with by media about abused kids: the myth of the victim being destined to become a victimizer, it all being an inevitable cycle. The reason this myth is so easily perpetuated is the exact reason I’m so critical of the saviorism in a lot of abused-Jason fics.....people can very easily fall into the trap of assuming that abused kids are likely to grow up to be abusers because they never have anyone to TEACH them that abuse is wrong, or to lead by healthy example.

The harm of this perception is that it kinda throws under the bus every kid who never lucks out and gets a Bruce Wayne style savior swooping in to not only save them from their abusive environs, but TEACH them that they deserved better and that abuse is wrong.

Because its like, uh, the thing is, plenty of abused kids who never get a personal mentor or savior figure are fully capable of figuring out for themselves that they deserve better and that people hurting them is wrong, because it makes them feel bad and they don’t like that?

Many abused kids don’t grow up in a media vacuum where they simply have no access to glimpses of lives different from their own.....we see kids having happier, healthier family lives on TV or in books and are able to figure out that society overall thinks that’s what family is SUPPOSED to look like, and its ours that is the aberration?

The very fact that we’re taught or have it instilled in us by abusive parents that like, we’re not to bring up instances or examples of our abuse to teachers or friends, that its a SECRET, is like, usually a dead giveaway that there’s something WRONG with it that we’re being instructed - and enforced with abusive consequences - to keep from alerting others to....like, this is basically a blaring siren to a lot of us that no, what’s happening to us ISN’T normal and acceptable, and that’s literally WHY the parent we’re afraid of is so insistent on us keeping the facts of it hidden?

And so like, tons of abused kids figure out for ourselves the difference between right or wrong, based off nothing more than our own feelings about things and a desire to not be like the people who make us feel miserable - like, never underestimate the power of spite to like, keep a kid from growing up doing the same thing to others that was done to them, lol.

But point being, lots of kids never get a Bruce Wayne figure to take them away from their abuse and also teach them that they never deserved it and how not to pass the hurt forward by doing the same things to others. And its kinda condescending as fuck that we so often see narratives that take it as so obvious it barely merits commenting on, that like, ‘of COURSE abused kids grow up to become abusers if they don’t have someone else step in and show them a better way’....mmm, no. Fuck that. But you get what I mean.

So like, its a mixed bag. Its a good thing, to see Jason-centric stories that show him addressing his childhood and seeking just a more fuller, happier, healthier life for himself. Its a less great thing to see this narrative presented as all encompassing, with it never being raised that no, Jason actually could figure out he deserved better and how to treat people in ways he’d want to be treated even without a billionaire guardian angel.....NOT because the narrative wherein someone helps an abused kid figure out what was wrong about how they were treated is like, NEVER valid....but rather it just becomes a problem when looked at as a data point against the larger tapestry of fandom-wide works....and noticing that this specific narrative is pretty much the ONLY one raised or treated as valid. With it just being ASSUMED to be the natural course of events and characters, rather than just....the direction society overall has their perceptions of abuse steered towards due to a singular and constantly reinforced abuse narrative shown to us in media.

And the way this all plays back into my point about Tim and what took me down this road in general.....

Is that disconnect I was talking about, lies specifically in HOW Tim is often acknowledged and regarded as an abuse survivor due to his emotional abuse and neglect......with this abuse and its impact on HIM often taking center stage, much the way Jason’s abuse and its impact takes center stage in his narratives.....

BUT with a key difference being that while a lot of Jason’s narratives go on to denote the specific ways his abuse helped SHAPE him and his interactions with others, and raise and address the ways in which he can better himself and his relationships by unpacking all of this openly....

Most of the stories about Tim’s abuse/neglect tend to just STOP at the awareness of its existence and impact on him. Never taking it that one step further to examine how those specific forms of abuse could have additionally SHAPED him....in ways that sometimes negatively impact those around him and his own loved ones, even if this is completely unintentional on his part. The difference, the disconnect, lies solely in how rarely its ever acknowledged that Tim’s own upbringing can and does play directly into how he interacts with people later on in life.....and in ways that he’s fully capable of addressing and bettering himself so as to be happier and healthier just in his own life, and in his relationships, as someone others want to be around.

Aaaaand once you actually examine or consider WHY there’s this discrepancy between the full ramifications of Tim’s abuse and that which various siblings of his underwent, when there’s full agreement that what he did go through absolutely can be termed abusive as well....like, its the implications of what about Tim makes him more naturally resistant or whatever to being shaped by his abuse in ways that have actual negative impact on others in his life, whereas the same isn’t true of say, Jason.....that’s when the red flags start to go up for me, and the unintended subtext starts to get Less Than Stellar, IMO.

Anyway. Just food for thought on the subject of Tim, his upbringing, the various impacts this had on not JUST him but also on how he interacts with others, and ways in which all of this compares and contrasts with how the subject of abuse is raised and depicted in regards to other Batkids.

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

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Parker: "Teach me to like stuff."

Okay, so. I have some thoughts about The French Connection Job's Parker+Eliot subplot. And I think I wanna approach it separately, scene by scene from each of their perspectives, because we have a couple different things going on here. It's still a little more of a Parker meta than an Eliot meta, but I have enough to talk about on both sides, and they're connected enough not to be in separate metas, that I am going to do it this way.

Also going to put this under a cut because it gets long.

Parker

This whole subplot comes on the heels of the last episode, in which there was a lot of banter throughout about Hardison and Parker's dates, and him wanting to branch out into other things than just bungee jumping or whatever. We have seen hints of this throughout S5 so far, even though we're only a few episodes in at this point. They went on a world tour that was pretty much just jumping off of stuff, Hardison said something about them figuring things out. We saw a cute domestic scene of the aftermath of them watching a movie together, except Parker 'fell asleep again' and missed most of it, and Hardison eventually went off to work on his laptop. Parker tried to comfort him last episode about dust mites and ended up freaking him out instead. She talked about how she liked fire and Hardison complained she was missing the point of his offer for a candlelit picnic. They did end on a very romantic note with her still making the effort to make it happen but getting rained out, and him recognizing her effort and listening to him, and projecting the stars around the dark room then having the picnic inside. They are clearly very happy together and both making the effort to meet in the middle, but there are still some disconnects. Which makes sense this early on anyway, but it's not out of place for Parker to start getting worried about her limited interests here given the context of them contrasting Hardison's more widespread interests.

Starting right off the bat - there's a picture limit so I can't show these early moments, but throughout the first part of the episode we see Parker looking visibly upset/pensive. Hardison notices and asks her what's wrong, but is immediately distracted by his package arriving, and then the team gets into the briefing and he doesn't get to talk to her again. (Sidenote that this is pretty OOC for Hardison, and I have to assume he would at the very least come back to her later, but they were clearly trying to get Parker talking with someone else this episode and apparently couldn't come up with a better way to do it. His writing outside of the kitchen stuff was kinda off this whole episode anyway, what with the whole tip thing.) She was about to open up to him, however, which is important. There's also a scene shortly afterwards where she confides in Nate, again after he notices her being upset and asks what's bothering her. She claims everyone but her has 'a thing', and names a few of them. He asks her what she thinks when she sees Michelangelo's David, and when her answer is an immediate assessment of how it's guarded and what she'd have to do to steal it, he kind of hesitates and then goes right back to running the con. He basically gives up on helping her with this once it becomes clear that a quick sentence or two isn't gonna cut it.

So after those brief, unhelpful conversations, that's when she makes a move. She was responding to others before, but this time she comes up to Eliot, clearly nervous. And she asks him to help her feel something.

(I find it very interesting that she doesn't ask Sophie. Sophie is the person who she would usually go to for something like this, after all. But, aside from this being an Eliot-centric episode and just like them sidelining Hardison's possible assistance earlier the writers want Parker to talk with Eliot not Sophie, I think there are maybe a couple reasons why she might go to him here. First, just distance. Eliot is right downstairs, meanwhile at the moment Sophie is however far across town at her theater. Certainly not saying she wouldn't go to Sophie eventually, but maybe that's why not first. Second, she and Eliot have an understanding, one that's been explicitly acknowledged since the start of S4. They are similar in a way entirely unlike the rest of the crew. So while Sophie may understand emotions best, Eliot is the one most likely to know what Parker is talking about when she says she just isn't feeling anything. Which by the way I'm gonna get more into later on. Thirdly they're in love but that's not actually relevant here since all of the team love one another.)

Eliot

On Eliot's side, she approaches him when he's busy in the kitchen. This whole job is stirring up a lot of old feelings in him right from the start. Toby was someone who 'kept him from falling all the way down', and Eliot is deeply concerned for him. At the same time, the way they are running this con is allowing Eliot to take on the role of teacher. Even though his students aren't anything like the eager students Toby has just had taken away from him, Eliot wants so badly to take advantage of this opportunity to teach them - maybe even all the more because they're resistant. He's being given a very rare opportunity to indulge his belief that food is life and to share it on a larger scale. To use the knife to create, not just destroy. Leverage often walks a line between doing both (taking down the bad guys and helping people) but Eliot doesn't often just straight up get to just do the 'creating' part. (I mean, he loves the destruction too, he genuinely loves beating people up and taking down bad guys, but this is a rarer pleasure.) So he's pretty preoccupied with that at first, and initially dismisses Parker just like the other two guys did.

But when she just looks quietly disappointed at his response, he goes still and watches her. We cut away from them here so we don't see his actual response, but it's immediately clear that he's realizing this is actually something deeply important to Parker, and well worth his time.

On to the next part of this scene below.

[Eliot sets a dish down in front of Parker]

Parker: "...It's just food."

Eliot: "It's not just food! Alright, some people could look at it and just see food, but not me. I see art. When I'm in the kitchen I'm, I'm creating something outta nothing, you know what I mean? And sometimes I crush it, sometimes it's crap, but either way - it makes me feel something."

Parker: "Feel what?"

Eliot: "Just... feel."

Parker: [murmuring] "Feel... okay." [looks down at the food and hesitates]

Eliot: "You know, I didn't feel anything for a long time. Then Toby taught me how to cook, and after he did, I started to feel stuff again. That's why I share it through my food - this is my art. This is my art, Parker." [Parker nods, looking worried] "It's like lettin' a stranger in your head, just for a second. And you allow them to feel what you're feeling." [pause] "Look again." [he pushes the plate a little closer to her. Parker takes a deep breath and slowly sets her elbows down on the counter as she stares down at the plate. Eliot watches her closely.]

Parker

At this point I want to talk a little about what Parker means when she says "feel something" and talks about "having a thing." Because we've seen her have interests outside of straightforward thievery before. Sure, most of her hobbies revolves around stealing - casing local banks for fun, for example. But she clearly has a deep love for Christmas and for chocolate. So why doesn't she count those kinds of things as 'feeling something'?

I think it comes down to what Eliot's talking about here. It's a sense of art. Not even necessarily making it yourself, although that certainly applies. Parker likes sweet things like chocolate and donuts, but although she really really likes them they don't make her feel any truly deep emotion. It's more tactile than anything else, just a pleasant flavor. Her love of Christmas isn't the same either in her eyes because it's not uniquely hers. It's something she loves to celebrate but she can't do so all year round, and plenty of other people like Christmas too. This one comes a lot closer, because it definitely seems to be tied up more in community and family for her than something like enjoying chocolate and piñatas, but it still doesn't belong to her in the same way that cooking does to Eliot or theater does to Sophie. And while theoretically her love of base jumping and so on could maybe count, it is still so tied up in her thieving that it doesn't feel separate. She's really good at drawing but only thinks of it as a useful skill, not a creative outlet - this is similar to that.

She has been branching out into a lot of new experiences and emotions lately, and while she's struck out deep into uncharted waters with her relationship with Hardison, once there she's only seeing more and more things that she just... doesn't get. She loves spending time with him, and enjoys what they do together, but she doesn't understand all of those things. Not on a deeper level. She wants to feel that sense of connection to something, wants to feel deeply emotionally moved by something.

And honestly? I think she's way up in her head about it. I'm not trying to dismiss her struggle here at all, but I do think she is stressing herself out about having something uniquely her own. About having a huge interest that speaks so strongly to her personally. And those are amazing to have, but it's really not necessary. She doesn't need a strong secondary passion so much as she needs to let go of trying so hard to force herself into something.

And what's happening in this scene in particular is that Parker is trying so so hard to force herself to feel something. It's evident in her face throughout the whole scene, in her body language. And she is so terrified that it's not going to work that honestly, I'm not surprised at all that it doesn't.

Eliot

On Eliot's side of this scene, he feels like he recognizes where Parker is. This entire job has him remembering how it was to feel nothing. Her phrasing got to him deeply. He wants to reach out and teach her to see something more, just like Toby taught him.

He knew a bit about how to cook before Toby. But it was only seeing Toby's passion that struck something in him, that awoke a part of himself he might've never known before. For Eliot specifically, cooking being an art isn't just something he likes. It's something that brings him hope.

Eliot doesn't believe in redemption. But he believes in actions. And what Toby did, by teaching him to cook, was to teach him that his actions can be good. That he can create, not just destroy. That all is not lost - not 'for' him necessarily, so much as 'in' him. There is a deep empty place inside himself that he can enter so so easily. The difficulty is crawling back out again. Cooking was his rope out of there. He still finds it difficult to express his emotions very often, particularly verbally, but when he makes someone a meal he puts a part of himself into it. And yet doing so doesn't take anything from him, it just adds more.

This is all very vague and figurative and may make no sense, but the takeaway I want to have is that Eliot is opening up to Parker on a very deep level here. He feels like he recognizes what she's talking about, and it was a very bad place for him. (Again, I don't think she is quite that badly off at this point in canon, but I digress.) And while making food allows him to feel that he is demonstrating his love for someone, that he is sharing a part of himself with them, he recognizes that she isn't receiving that. What she's getting, is just a plate of food. Tasty food maybe, but nothing more than that. And so Eliot verbalizes everything to her in a way he rarely does.

And then he keeps trying. This scene obviously doesn't end up making her feel something, and we don't get to see the immediate aftermath of that, but we can glean a little about how they feel based on their reactions. And Eliot is deeply determined to help Parker feel something from his food. He insists that she play the food critic; even speaks directly to her and reminds her to consider what they talked about.

In the restaurant, we start out with Parker dutifully playing her role but feeling nothing much beyond just the role. Eliot checks in with Parker, she acknowledges that the food is good but doesn't make her feel anything, and he makes improvements based on her feedback. Then something abruptly changes.

Parker: "I can taste garlic, and mushrooms... and something else that makes me feel different."

Hardison: "Wait, was that for me, cause I-I don't get it."

Parker: "No, it's the food. I get it." [smiles] "I feel something."

Parker: "Mmm! These black noodles are amazing!

Eliot: "Parker, it's tagliolini nero con gamberi."

Parker: "Mmm." [eats a huge forkful] "Mmm. Mmmm. These are really good."

Parker

What just happened here? Last we saw from Parker, she'd failed to feel something from the meal Eliot made especially for her in the brewpub, and she was clearly disheartened. She felt it as a failure, very much in the sense of a disappointment. She didn't want to try again, didn't think it would work, and tried to protest when Eliot said she would be the food critic. Even once she got to the restaurant, nothing was happening for her.

The difference wasn't in the flavor of the food. The moment Parker started to feel something was right after she said she felt nothing and Eliot, instead of being disappointed or giving up, took it as a challenge. He changed his recipe, he improved it specifically to better reach out to her. He kept trying.

And yeah, maybe the bone broth helped it taste better. But that wasn't the point, not really. The point is that Parker had gotten herself stuck in a hole, trapped herself in this cycle of not understanding how things make you feel and then believing that she just couldn't. She wanted something of her own and she didn't have it and she didn't immediately get anyone else's thing either, and that was it. She just wasn't capable. She was other. This is an old old fear of Parkers, dating back to Archie or even before. Something in her just isn't capable of being like other people. She wasn't worthy of being in Archie's real family, and she's not able to feel passion for anything outside of stealing. (Setting aside the fact that she loves her team, that all she needed was the right family. That you don't have to be a creator to feel passion, and you don't need to be passionate about any particular thing in order to feel deeply and find beauty in the world.) Parker has empathized deeply with people, has felt so intensely before and is constantly trying to learn more and new ways to be. But because she is noticing her teams' passions now, she has this ideal that she wants to reach, and none of that is good enough for her. She doesn't even know exactly what her ideal involves, but she can't get to it.

But when Eliot doesn't give up, that gets to her. If he views his food as sharing himself with others, Parker finally gets what he's been trying to give all along. It's all about him trying again and again, changing his approach to match her better. That's what she feels, that's what she enjoys.

And once she starts, the floodgates open. She loves the black noodles. She is so happy, she is relieved. There was this huge resistance that she couldn't get past before, but Eliot persisting helped her to break past that and now that she is out of her head about it she can enjoy the food in a way she never has before. Because she feels his love for her in it.

Eliot

Eliot is trying so hard to connect to Parker. It's not really different from what I said in the last Eliot section, and basically the same as what I just said in that Parker section, but I want to emphasize a little more just how much this is about love on his end.

Eliot loves Parker. He loves her, and he wants so much to help her. It doesn't honestly matter that he does this with food, except for the fact that food is what matters so deeply to Eliot himself. He can't reach out to her in the same way through any other medium. And we don't get to see his reaction to Parker's moment of realization. But I think it would be such a deep sense of joy. This is as fulfilling for Eliot as it is for Parker. It's exactly what Eliot has been hoping for this whole episode, to teach someone else to see food in the same way he does. It doesn't matter if it only lasts for a moment or a single meal. That's enough. He has been the support Parker needed through this time of self-doubt. And it is all the more meaningful to him because this isn't just a random student, this is Parker.

He told her he loves her through his food, again and again, and she eventually felt it. She understood. That must mean so much to him.

I wanna end with one more brief note on Parker. Does she get her own "thing" this episode? No. No she does not, and this scene shows us that. Parker is not suddenly interested in food or cooking. The importance of that meal was purely derived from Eliot on the other end of it, focused on her and trying his best to reach out to her.

And I don't think this is something only Eliot could have done for her either, not really. The difference between him and the others this episode is mostly in persistence. However, it's also about her mentality. Hardison has built/done things for Parker before and she felt them just as deeply - but the context was different. She wasn't looking for a sense of beauty or art in the world at large then, and so even though she felt the love in the gift just as much, it didn't make her feel like she could find that kind of emotion in other things. She just wasn't looking for it. Also, it was made easier for Eliot to reach out because there's that connection Parker has with him, that understanding that they are on the same level somehow. She doesn't feel that with Hardison - and she loves him all the more for him being different from her, but he also I think can intimidate her with how good and open he is, with how much he can feel in so many different directions. It's part of why she got so worried about herself not being able to do so this episode.

Like, the team has scolded Nate for not having a life or interests of his own outside the job not too terribly long ago! And Parker has had her own joys before! But she isn't seeing that this episode, too caught up in this fear about not having her own 'thing', not feeling anything that way. So while anyone could have helped her through this, it was easiest for her to let Eliot do so + for him to understand what she needed from him. (Hardison in particular was rudely robbed the opportunity, but they all love and support her and could have reached her. Not to detract from Eliot doing so, but also I don't wanna sound like no other method of reaching out would've worked.)

But as soon as she feels something once with Eliot's help, that relaxes those fears. And then Parker is free to look in other places. She remembers Nate's comment about art, and maybe even tells him what she plans based on him knowing where she is at the end of the episode. And then she goes to visit this statue. In her own way which means breaking in, but without any goal of taking it. She just goes to look at the art. And she feels something again.

Parker doesn't gain some big passion at the end of this episode. She doesn't need to. She never did. She just learns how to let herself relax from that restrictive frame of mind. To simply be in the moment and enjoy things for the sake of what they are. To feel - not really in any way she was incapable of before, but intentionally now. It's a quiet victory, in the end. It doesn't mean she's going to get a new hobby or change her lifestyle at all really. But she's let go of a fear and is now intentionally seeking out new connections with the world beyond her once-limited parameters.

#leverage #leverage meta #parker #eliot spencer #my meta #ugggggh why did this get so long?! i just wanted to jot down a few thoughts!#hopefully it's coherent #i'm like half-asleep at this point which probably accounts for the length since i ramble on when i'm tired. and also hopefully for anything #that doesn't make sense

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stxleslyds · 3 years

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Is there any comic book author out there that would restore your faith in DC's ability to (a) properly characterize Jason Todd and (b) have him to through a believable character arc (whether he progresses or regresses)?

Like, if DC announced that <writer name here> is leading a Jason-centric series, you would think "Finally! Hope for my boy Jason!"?

... Or is Jason's inconsistency and static growth inevitable in business models like DC's and Marvel's? I mean, from my perspective, it appears that their business relies now on quantity than quality. That's why Jason's growth is progressing at the rate of a Dragon Ball Z fight.

Hi!

I would love to see Judd Winick back again writing Jason, what he did was phenomenal, he made Jason unique within the Batman books, so I would love it if he made a mini for Black Label or normal DC.

If we are going for a full ongoing or lets say a 20-issues long book i will go with someone like, Kelly Thompson (Black Widow 2020), Kyle Higgins (Nightwing 2011, Winter Soldier: Second Chances) or Matthew Rosenberg (Hawkeye: Freefall, Tales of Suspense: Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier)

I think they could write amazing Red Hood stories, Kelly writes Natasha who is a spy and extremely skilled assassin beautifully, it’s very well balanced but she makes sure to let the reader know that Natasha is a big deal and her enemies have to be extra careful with her. Also she is big on team-ups and i love that.

Higgins’ Nightwing run wasn't perfect (but i still liked it a lot) but it gave me the sense that he can make a complicated story work and his Dick Grayson felt consistent during his run. His work in Winter Soldier was perfect, Bucky is a complicated character with many issues that he wants to work on. Higgins told his story but didn't nerf Bucky’s skills or anything, he made them shine, and that's what i would love to see for Jason, a new story that doesn't need to nerf Jason in order for it to work.

Rosenberg is funny and he isn't scared of writing characters who kill, he has twists in his stories and he doesn't nerf characters, he adapts the context of the story to the power levels of the character he is writing. Another thing that i love about Rosenberg is the fact that he brings other characters to the book, in Hawkeye: Freefall Clint was joined by Bucky, Natasha, Sam, Luke and others and it worked, if they were with Clint during the whole issue or just for a few moments it still felt like a Hawkeye book and that's exactly what Jason needs too!

Those are writers whose work i have read but i would LOVE if DC brought a (Winick) Jason Todd/Red Hood fan. Someone who loves the character and has new stories to tell with the Jason that we once had. To give an example, i would love to see someone write Red Hood the same way Spider-Woman is being written by Karla Pacheco. Karla respects the origins of Jessica and loves the character, the stories that she is telling are based on events that have happened to Jessica.

I just want DC to find a writer that has loved Jason since his first appearance as Red Hood or someone who wouldn't be afraid of giving us Drug Lord/Underworld Boss Jason Todd. Jason being a badass and fighting people like Black Mask and the Penguin and shit. I want him to be different, to bring duality back to Gotham’s vigilantes.

But here is the thing, they way i see it, the concept of Red Hood as it was in 2005 is something that current DC can’t handle, they just don’t like it. They like heroes, they like people who don't kill because if they are in Gotham then they HAVE to follow the Bat’s rules. Jason doesn’t fit in. Even this washed up version of Jason doesn’t fit in, because his character wasn’t meant to follow the Bats rules!

Someone disagreeing with Batman is considered a villain, the is no gray area for DC anymore and that is what is hurting Jason's characterization. So in a sense the problem is DCs business model but not because they prioritize quantity over quality but because they refuse to be creative or to have some of their characters be dual, anti-heroes are an thing and DC should make use of them.

When it comes to Marvel, I believe that this era is their best, there are a lot of books, yes, but that’s because they want to reach more readers, you have the x-books for the mutants fans, the books directed for younger readers like Champions and Ms. Marvel, there is also the cosmic side that is getting even more interesting with Guardians of the Galaxy...to me Marvel is doing wonders right now.

Sorry for the long answer! I hope you have an amazing day and lets hope that Zdarsky’s Red Hood gets better or that Jason gets the love that he deserves!

#jason todd #red hood #dc comics #asksss

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haunthouse · 4 years

Text

welcome to a meta that, in retrospect, seems glaringly obvious, but that has hit me like a freight train this morning. we’re talking about the lonely as a ghost story.

ghosts as an entity are inherently about disconnect. but kaylee, i hear you say, ghosts are dead people, wouldn’t that make them in the end’s domain? but when it comes down to it, death is a good framing device for ghosts (and yeah, it’s necessary to make ghosts), but people don’t tell ghost stories just because they’re afraid of death. ghost stories are told because ghosts are irrevocably disconnected from the living in a way that terrifies us — sometimes they’re intentionally scary, knocking shit around or yelling boo!, but a lot of the time they’re just... there. and that’s the terrifying part. something that’s there and shouldn’t be; something that can’t interact with the world around it and is completely, utterly, terrifyingly alone.

ghost stories are about isolation, about being a person without any of the framework that being a person requires, without society or connection or love. being unseen and unheard and unknown to all around you — and trying so hard to reverse all those un-words, to be seen, heard, known. that’s exactly the domain of the lonely!

and onto the meat of this meta: all nine lonely-centric statements (and the journey of one martin blackwood) through the lens of ghost stories.

(spoilers for mag170 at the end, but each episode section is clearly marked, so feel free to skip it if you haven’t gotten that far yet!)

MAG013: ALONE

the first lonely statement we get (and also the first in-person statement! which is such a good inversion of the lonely being about lack of connection! jon doesn’t do a great job of comforting naomi, but he does stay with her as she gives the statement when she asks!! that’s beside the point but it is something i really love), and right off the bat, the ghost vibes are off the charts.

truly i am feeling absolutely idiotic for not really thinking about the ghosts-lonely connection before now because this statement? peak ghost story.

naomi’s fiance dies. naomi has several near-death experiences (crashes her car, then is hit by another car and winds up in the hospital), which is also a staple in a lot of ghost stories; nearly dying is set up as a way to get the living closer to the realm of ghosts, able to interact with them more clearly. it was a dark and foggy night in a graveyard, and standing at evan’s (open, empty) grave, naomi hears his disembodied voice leading her home.

when ghost stories are told from a distance, they’re about the horror of it — disembodied howling, faces in the window that keep you up at night. but when they’re told by someone close to the now-ghost, they’re love stories. it’s my grandmother hearing her father’s breathing one last time after his death, giving her a chance to say goodbye. it’s a familiar and loving presence, comforting you. that’s what naomi’s story is — the ghost of evan showing his love for her one final time.

MAG033: BOATSWAIN’S CALL

so, ships are meant to be places of community, right? ron @gerrydelano has a really good post about this regarding shanties. but ghost ships are an established trope of ghost stories: the inversion of what a ship should be, lacking all life and community, silently traversing the waters on its own.

the tundra is a ghost ship. it’s quiet (”very quiet... it was like they were doing everything in their power not to think about each other”) — the people there move around one another as if none of them are there, all so taken by the lonely. their cargo containers are empty. all they’re transporting on that ship is the ghosts of those aboard.

this episode falls into the trope of ghosts want the living to join them — though there’s still a mourning atmosphere when sean kelly is taken fully by the lonely, that final bit of life on the ship extinguished. (”no one said a word, but i could have sworn a few of my shipmates were crying.”)

MAG048: LOST IN THE CROWD

this one’s one of my favorites! andrea nunis’ statement deals with different kinds of loneliness — she begins it with explaining that she prefers to travel alone, but later, that loneliness is something terrifying. she’s in a crowd of unrecognizable people, unable to fit herself into the world she’s seeing — she’s completely separate from the rest of the world. she’s a ghost.

“it wasn’t italian being spoken ... or any other language i recognized. the more i listened, the more i realized it wasn’t a language. there were no words, it was just noise.” “their faces were a blur, each and every one of them.” and, the crowning point: “i tried to talk to them or to shout, to scream at them, but there was no reaction.”

by being taken in by the lonely, andrea’s been turned into a ghost. she cannot interact with or even recognize her environment, and that’s the real horror — it isn’t just being alone, it’s being surrounded by something that should be familiar; a crowd is something she’s been in a thousand times, as someone who travels a lot, and people are the most familiar thing in the world, like looking in a mirror! but it isn’t. everything is strange and she is outside of it all and that’s what a ghost is.

and her connection to her mother is what pulls her out. people have talked at length about how love is the antidote to the lonely so i won’t go on too long about that, but the connection between that & ghosts’ relationships to the living often being what keeps them around is sure something.

also, after getting out of the lonely andrea says “i made sure i was always in sight of at least one other person” — and there’s something to be said there about needing to be seen to be real.

chiara @red-reys brought up this feuerbach quote which fits very well: “that which i alone perceive i doubt; only that which the other also perceives is certain.” being the only one to perceive something (for example, a ghost), or the only one who is utterly unperceived, is a very lonely thing — it isolates you entirely from those who do not perceive it. being perceived, or having someone else see what you see, can give you an anchor.

wow i’m sure that won’t come back later!

also, far be it from me to talk about this statement without mentioning gerry keay. because it means something that he’s the one to give andrea the tools she needs to pull herself out of the lonely. gerry is someone completely lacking in human connection, who is literally haunted by the ghost of his mother and later is seen as a ghost himself. gerry doesn’t have friends; he tells jon “i always wanted my friends to call me gerry,” but in a tone that makes it clear he didn’t have anyone who could’ve. and of course he didn’t. a life so entwined with the entities and cut so short, a life so ruled by the cruelty of others that he certainly did not want to rope anyone else into.

though gerry’s never directly stated to be affected by the lonely, he’s certainly lowercase-L lonely at the very least, and he’s certainly got enough experience with ghosts to understand the lonely.

gerry is the trope of the helpful spirit. he’s the ghost who’ll give you directions on a deserted road and disappear when you turn around. he gives jon the information he needs to understand the entities, he gives andrea the information she needs to not become a ghost.

MAG057: PERSONAL SPACE

alright so this one is, admittedly, more cosmic horror than anything else, but if y’all’ve seen any of my comics you probably know i’m very passionate about space ghosts & haunted spaceships. and as such, i’m extremely interested in how the daedalus mission echoes ghost stories.

carter chilcott’s story pretty directly acts as a ghost story — unable to communicate with the others on the ship even when he tries, unable to interact with the world to the point of looking out the window at one point to find the world entirely missing. this is all stuff i’ve said already about the other statements, so i’m glossing past it, because what interests me more is the daedalus as malicious architecture.

because the daedalus was created specifically for this union between vast, lonely, and dark (all of which i think have significant ghostly tie-ins). everything about how the ship itself and the mission came to be is a mystery, even to those involved — manuela says “i don’t know how he convinced the lukases and fairchilds to help finance the project,” “i don’t know if they were working on rituals of their own,” “exactly how the launch was arranged, i couldn’t tell you.”

a piece of the traditional haunted house is a sort of timelessness, and mystery inherent in its building. hill house in shirley jackson’s haunting of hill house “seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders... it was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a place fit for people or for love or for hope.” the oldest house in the game control is malicious architecture at its finest, and it’s called the oldest house. it predates people. it exists as a giant piece of brutalist architecture smack dab in the middle of new york, but no one knows why or how it came to be. as a real-world example: the winchester mystery house is wrapped up in mythos about its creation. was sarah winchester just a lonely old woman with a hobby for architectural design, or did she create endlessly spiraling staircases and doorways with a steep drop into the yard to keep ghosts away? who knows! we sure do like to speculate, though.

yes, i’ve talked about this in tma metas before. highly recommend jacob geller’s control, anatomy, and the legacy of the haunted house for more of this content.

even manuela dominguez, the only person on the daedalus mission who actually knew what she was doing and wasn’t just there to be a victim of entities they did not understand, does not know how the mission came to be.

and the entire purpose of this spacecraft is to be malicious to its inhabitants! the very architecture is meant to make the people within into perfect snacks for their respective entities! the station is cramped (”so cramped that i could only fully stretch out in the section used to exercise,” says jan kilbride), but when the vast takes hold it’s suddenly endless — “a hollow pretense of a shell that did nothing to separate me from the void.” (cue me shouting about how much trust we put in the places we live, and whether or not that trust is warranted, how easily it can be turned against us!)

a few other bits of this statement that really echo ghost stories: “twice i was woken up by the sound of the door opening, only to find it as tight as it had ever been. throughout the daytime i would occasionally hear footsteps, which shouldn’t even have been possible in zero gravity.” and then the empty, ghostly spacesuit that floats past chilcott’s window — there are so many stories about disembodied wedding dresses or mourningwear walking the halls silently, so why not a spacesuit?

i started this section saying this statement was more cosmic horror than ghost story but i’m finishing it by saying this is actually one of the clearest representations of haunted architecture in the whole podcast. (other examples off the top of my head include upon the stair & a cosy cabin, the latter of which i actually already wrote a meta about.)

MAG092: NOTHING BESIDE REMAINS

the moment i started thinking about the lonely-ghosts connection i remembered this episode, because it’s so clear. complete disconnect, existing entirely alone in a shadow of the world you once knew, unable to interact with the living in any way.

very small bit but. “as the cab pulled away, it seemed to have no driver that i could discern” vs the theme of ghost carriages in older ghost stories. i am looking directly at it.

barnabas bennett can “almost think i hear the mocking joy of my friends, but there is nobody here.” he can see evidence that life continues around him, unseen — “i know that what is done by those i cannot see might be felt here — i have found glasses broken and pages torn that were not so the night before.” just as a ghost is unseen to the living, the reverse is true: bennett can see others having an impact on the world in small ways, and his letter is found by jonah, but he can’t really affect the world in any real way.

MAG108: MONOLOGUE

this one is so exciting to me because theater ghosts are a huge trope in ghost stories! theater people are some of the most superstitious people you’ll ever meet! especially regarding ghosts having an impact on their shows — there’s the superstition regarding The Scottish Play™, the tradition of leaving a ghost light on onstage to appease the spirits. there’s that time all the kids in my production of brigadoon when i was in middle school circled around the makeup mirrors to play bloody mary and got thoroughly chewed out by the adults in the cast. theater’s full’a ghosts!

(i think it’s something about the intense amounts of history behind it — and how, in playing a part that a thousand people have played before, you’re echoing their exact words, becoming a repetition of those long gone. and on a stage, blinding lights in your face washing out any view of the audience — you could, technically, leave the stage and interact with the people down there, but it seems pretty entirely impossible when you’re up there. you’re being perceived but can’t see in return. you’re essentially a ghost putting on a show for the living on a loop.)

the statement-giver for this one, adonis biros, echoes a lot of those sentiments, actually. “your words heard by no one — and in that no one, an entire universe.” “have you ever had stage lights in your eyes? ...you can look out into the audience and see nothing at all. just you.”

i said before that “when ghost stories are told from a distance, they’re about the horror of it — disembodied howling, faces in the window that keep you up at night.” the disconnect between the anonymous audience and the singular actor onstage makes the distance here extreme — so this is the sort of ghost story that’s unquestionably a horror story, focusing on the most chilling aspects of ghosts. their inhumanity, their anonymity. the theater masks adonis sees in the audience are “empty. it was a hollow shape of a man that had no life, no presence to it.” even adonis himself says he “had no doubt that what i had seen was some sort of specter or omen.”

he sees a “masked mockery of a human figure” in a window while walking at night. ghosts looking through windows is enough of a trope that once, when i went on a ghost tour in williamsburg, at least half the stories were about people seeing ghostly faces in windows, and i completely freaked out when i saw someone moving around in one of the houses before realizing, oh, some of them are still actually occupied.

this one’s undoubtably a collaboration between stranger and lonely, but i think that intersection’s one of the best for ghost stories — something not-quite-human-anymore, if it ever was, haunting you.

MAG150: CUL-DE-SAC

a lot of the bare bones of this statement are things i’ve already covered, so i’m not gonna go too in-depth on it. herman gorgoli’s statement is about disconnect (from alberto, and then from the rest of humanity), about isolation, about houses-gone-wrong (his and alberto’s house in cheadle, which he views by the end as a place imprisoning him, and the titular cul-de-sac).

we’ve seen the malicious architecture trope in the form of the daedalus already, but this time it’s on earth. it’s something that should, by all rights, be familiar. the houses in the suburbs are all the same, but it’s at least a sameness you know. but they’re all bereft of any irregularities, ghostly echoes of what a house should be.”there were no lights on in any of the houses.” he even finds a dead body in one of the houses — but the woman who’s body he finds is not the one haunting them.

it’s herman haunting the neighborhood, until his love for alberto brings him out. herman making his way through houses he cannot interact with in any meaningful way, whos details he cannot interpret. “how many corpses lay waiting behind the placid facade of this endless false suburbia?” he wonders, and i have to imagine he’s also wondering if he’s already joined their ranks, if he’s the haunting in a haunted house.

and connection brings him back and the houses are no longer empty, no longer waiting for a ghost to take resident in their hallways.

MAG159: THE LAST (& martin’s journey in season four, generally)

we’ve all analyzed 159 within an inch of its life but i’m here to do it again, with the context of martin’s whole journey into the lonely. because the lonely turns people into ghosts. the lonely takes away humanity and life and leaves a hollow echo in its wake.

literally the powers lonely avatars have involve turning invisible. what else is often associated with invisibility? ghosts. checkmate. i’m running out of steam a bit but i swear these are good points i’m making. trust me.

what makes ghost stories so good is that even if the narrator is not a ghost themselves, just experiencing a ghost puts them at a fundamental disconnect from society. it’s something disbelieved by so many people. (there’s parallels to be made with mental illness here, but i... don’t really feel like making them right now. they’re definitely there, as is the very potent lonely-depression connection that made ep170 hit so hard for so many of us.) in hill house, the more eleanor is wrapped up in the goings-on of the house, the less she’s able to relate to the other people there. the closer martin becomes to the lonely, the less he’s able to talk to the people around him — he’s told not to talk to them by lukas, but he’s also just... unable to relate. their experiences are different than his, at this point.

nicole @brunetteauthorette99 said something really good in our conversation about this, about ghosts “being stuck in... spaces that have moved on without them, reenacting their defining moments in life over and over again without the possibility of change.”

martin is stuck in the institute. he probably has an apartment, but we don’t see it, and i can’t imagine he as he is by season four has put much effort into decorating it or making it feel like a home. every place is impersonal — somewhere he exists without really living.

and the institute moves on without him. jon goes into the coffin and martin doesn’t know until he’s already in there. and martin can impact his environment only in small ways — leaving tape recorders on the coffin in an attempt to anchor jon home, leaving the tape of jon’s victim for melanie, basira, and daisy to find. he will not or cannot speak to or touch other living beings, just move objects around in a desperate attempt to get a message across, a ouija board of tapes and post-it notes. his moment of rejecting the lonely’s plans in 158 is dropping the knife peter has given him — another expression more through his interactions with his environment than any human connection.

martin says the lonely always had him, and with how much his story revolves around people who may as well be ghosts, that’s true. his father disappeared and left only the image martin had of him in his mind, only the echo he himself provided in the mirror, the ghost of someone who hurt him overlaid on his own reflection. his mother was only present so far as she could be malicious, disapproving; a vengeful ghost, taking out the revenging instinct she had for martin’s father on martin. and then everyone else martin cares about dies — sasha’s gone and not!sasha acts as her malicious echo for a while; tim dies; jon dies. and yeah, he comes back — but he’s different. a ghost of sorts. martin’s already pretty ghostly by then, too.

so martin is, essentially, a ghost throughout season four, and probably beforehand, as well. jon literally! asks martin! if he is a ghost! in season one! which brings us to 159: “are you real?” martin asks the first living person he’s really talked to in who-knows-how-long. because martin doesn’t feel real, so how could anyone else be? “nothing hurts here” may be a contradiction of the literal experience of ghosts we see in tma (gerry saying “it hurts, being like this”), but is a very real perception of ghosts in ghost mythology as beings beyond pain, beyond the suffering of being alive. sometimes they exist to cause others that suffering they can no longer feel, but a lot of the time, they’re just melancholy, having forgotten what it’s like to be a person or hanging on just enough to yearn to return to that feeling of life.

“i’m the reason he... i did this to him as much as you,” jon says. in ghost terms: martin died for him. of course his connection to jon, then, would be the only thing able to bring him back.

mag159 is an orpheus/eurydice story — people have made posts about that before, i’m sure, and i have too, how jon and martin invert the orpheus archetype by being saved rather than damned by the act of sight. and it feels obvious to state it, but for clarity: eurydice dies. orpheus, alive, tries to save eurydice from the underworld, where she is a spirit, a ghost, an echo of herself.

MAG170: RECOLLECTION — (SPOILER WARNING!)

this episode is the reason i’m making this post, but i may as well copy-and-paste the entire transcript for this section, because there is truly not a single part of it that doesn’t resonate as a ghost story.

the lonely house as a malicious location. the chairs are all uncomfortable, the house is large enough that just by wandering it (as a ghost might) martin grows tired enough to sit in them regardless. the decorations are wrong — all the rooms are the same and martin doesn’t like it, said he doesn’t know “why i’d decorate my house like this.”

it isn’t a small house. there’s a reason a lot of ghost stories take place in twisting mansions where you can never quite find your way back to where you started. ghost stories thrive on that isolation, that loneliness — if you see a ghost while you’re alone, are you sure you’ll be believed? doesn’t that just isolate you further? architecture can twist around those within it until they’re trapped, doomed to haunt it themselves. “it's such a - such a big house, my house, there must be other people!” martin says.

but the only others in the house are ghosts like martin.

“hundreds, thousands of lost souls, wandering the halls. hollow memories, with eyes full of tears. i’ve seen them. they’re all trying to remember.”

“i found someone else, wandering around. they were all thin and gray. faded. like they’d been here for ages.”

the ghosts cannot remember their names, why they are there, whether or not it is their house they exist in. they’ve become near-inseparable from the fog around them and the architecture that holds them hostage.

and the house itself, it takes all of that, and its quirks — the size, the chairs, the decorations, all of which martin openly does not like — are all made from the people haunting it. the house is wrong because the people within it can no longer change it. martin’s comment on the decorations sticks with me because it’s such a simple example of this: presumably, he could affect the house in some way in the past, but he no longer can, and he’s stuck with the results of his past mistakes, echoing over and over from room to room. the impacts remain even when the people have faded so far as to be practically nonexistent.

and once again: love is what makes him remember, over and over. he remembers jon, and then the lonely steals that memory — but the remembering is what’s important, because the act of loving anchors martin, and it helps him remember who he is, repeating his name over and over.

ghosts lack identity. whether it’s because they’ve been forgotten by all who knew them in life, whether it’s because it’s too painful to hold onto that when they can no longer do anything with it — we assign names to ghost stories, connect them to the living, but there’s always a disconnect there.

and that’s what helps jon find him, helps martin keep himself from fading out again. and even jon says “you were faint” upon finding martin. martin was a ghost haunting that house.

but not anymore.

the lonely is a ghost story. the lonely is about people who’ve become unmoored from human connection and their own identities, who haunt places, or who’ve been lured into places that are hauntings in and of themselves and have no choice but to take up residence as ghosts within those walls.

and ghost stories, often, are love stories. love keeps us tethered to life, and love is what saves people from the lonely, over and over again.

#the magnus archives #tma meta #martin blackwood #the lonely #mag170 #kaylee.txt #kaylee.meta #dfgkjngfd HELLO i didn't mean for this to get quite so long but ty if anyone actually reads it!!!!#this is longer than most fics i write. whoops.

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toflyandfall · 4 years

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I just saw a photo of "What persona. Dick Grayson isn't a mask. Not like Bruce Wayne is" from Detective Comics #725 and I find it interesting that Dick and the rest of the bats, with the exception of Bruce, don't wear "masks" per se. They are who they are with or without the domino mask/helmet. The only time I can really think of Dick faking things is when he pretended to be an incompetent BPD cop. How was he able to avoid creating and living, half the time, through a "persona" like "Brucie"?

Oooh, this is a lovely, meaty question. There’s a lot more analysis of Bruce than I planned because let’s be real, it’s kinda weirder for a guy to run around with half a dozen personas than for someone else to run around as himself. I hope you still find it interesting, but if you want to skip straight to the more Dick-centric stuff, head under the readmore.

A simple but significant factor is that Dick thrives on the company of people in a way that Bruce does not. I suspect if you talk honestly to many introverts, you will find they too have an extroverted ‘mask’ they put on to the larger world, though probably not quite so extreme.

Another factor is that the civilian social circles Dick and Bruce travel in are vastly different. Though they each have a reason for being in those circles, that difference itself enables Dick to escape much of the scrutiny that Bruce’s public identity undergoes, because he doesn’t frequently associate with the much more media-hounded elite.

An interesting thing here is that the large difference in social circles between their civilian lives is actually caused by their own personal similarities: they are 100% committed work-a-holics. It’s just that they have differing civilian approaches to their goals.

I want to start with Bruce because as you point out, his use of persona is distinct among the bats and his reasons for using them in part explain why Dick and the other bats do not.

Bruce is a child of privilege, he has always lived a lifestyle of privilege, regardless of the tragedies that have occurred during it, and his default view of the world, through no fault of his own, is natively that of the extreme upper class. This drastically influences his perspective and approach to change, and changing the world is his perpetual goal, the reason he put on the suit in the first place.

Bruce works a top-down society approach toward systemic change, and he works it all the time. This is actually my favorite but woefully under-emphasized part of him: he is not just someone who punches people on the street ‘for justice’, he uses his company, his money, and his social position toward substantial systemic change. This post does a wonderful job covering the ways he does this through his corporations and personal wealth, as does this one. I cannot recommend either enough because I constantly want to push even the most casual Batman fans to understand: Bruce Wayne is not just a violent punchy puncher man. He is a traumatized person genuinely trying to use all his resources including himself to make the world safer.

Detective Comics #725

Bruce has many personas he maintains, and he uses all of them according to what suits his need--Batman for places the law can’t go, Bruce Wayne the CEO pushing for systemic changes, Matches Malone for street information, and Brucie the society high roller for society information and social influencing. He is rarely ever not in a persona and simply ‘Bruce’.

His top-down perspective of enacting change are what dictated the usage and necessity of these personas. He has the means and capacity to basically disappear from society if he so chose--he in fact does so to train during his younger years so successfully they don’t even know how long he was actually gone.

The Batman Files

So he doesn’t need the personas. Not Bruce Wayne, CEO, or Brucie, or any of them really, to protect his identity. That tells us that Brucie is a deliberate choice he made at some point. He could have been a recluse billionaire Batman indefinitely. Even though he fully has the status and means to not maintain a job or a persona or, let’s be frank, a life outside the mask at all, it’s his own work-a-holicness that led to the creation of his public personas. He’s an obsessive strategist, so if Brucie is a choice, that leads us to why?

Bruce does many philanthropic things with his money, but he isn’t the only rich person around, especially not in a city as old and corrupt as Gotham. But he’s one of the very few ones doing good with it.

The comic you mentioned has a very beautiful moment where Bruce touches on that, and in full context you can feel how consumed he is by this goal of creating the Gotham his parents would have wanted. Batman mentions he never sees himself in that place, and the morbid interpretation is that the city kills him before he reaches it, but the hopeful interpretation is that in that shining city, Bruce Wayne and Batman and Brucie and all his masks will no longer be needed.

Detective Comics #725

Back in the old days they’d call it noblesse oblige: the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. Thomas and Martha Wayne ingrained this feeling of responsibility into Bruce by example, and as all things related to them, he obsesses over it. It urges him to fulfill expectations within segments of society he finds onorous for the betterment of society as a whole in order to carry out their unfinished works.

Enter Brucie.

Brucie serves a two-fold purpose. Since Bruce has chosen to maintain personas among society, it becomes a false face to justify any oddities Batman might bring into the life of Bruce Wayne by setting himself up as a eccentric, popular social scion. But that persona itself also allows him to manipulate the upper crust of society.

I have some insider perspective on the kind of society events Brucie attends. They’re all about the who’s who of making connections, name-dropping and networking, and unspoken class-based elitism. Charity events among the upper class have these things at the forefront and the cause is the background. You don’t get your hands dirty, you don’t go out and make change yourself, you pay money to be socially seen and sometimes it happens to go towards a philanthropic cause. If you want to raise money from the rich and keep people with deep pockets coming in the door, you have to have social currency yourself. This is where, and why, Brucie comes in. I believe Brucie ws crafted to maintain Batman’s cover but still attempt to carry on his parents’ legacy to grease the wheels of the rich in the directions he chooses: one of generosity towards those less privileged.

Superman/Batman #51

The inevitable flaw of Bruce’s approach to his personas and their philanthropy is that in a city rife with corruption, money distributed from the top has many opportunities to disappear well before it reaches the bottom. As in many of ways they are complements to each other, Dick’s approach balances that out, because his approach to helping his fellow man starts out at the street level...literally.

Nightwing #153 (Nightwing: The Great Leap)

Dick, we know, does not come from privilege. His mother was from a middle class family before she joined the circus, and despite being world famous athletes, most circus workers are lower to middle class. The people he grew up with, was comfortable with, were all working folk who expected everyone to pull their weight right alongside each other. He enacts this everyone-together approach in almost all aspects and phases of his life.

Batman #615

Even once he had settled into being Robin and adapted to living at the manor, he didn’t feel belonging to a culture of privilege, materialism, or high society. He preferred shotgun in the limo to chat with the driver to riding fancy in the back. Once he was able to start making his own decisions about where and how he lived, despite having both Bruce’s money and then later inheriting a substantial amount of his own, he chose mostly lower-class communal places.

Batman Black and White #6

Dick also doesn’t see the value of throwing money at a problem when there is an option to fix it with his own hands. We see this frequently, from building his own car instead of buying a finished one or outsourcing the work, to deciding the best way to clean out the BPD was to start at the bottom and work his way up (literally), to quitting college because his classes never got prioritized over crimesolving. Most of his day jobs ended for similar reasons.

Nightwing #153 (Nightwing: The Great Leap)

Despite the showmanship training, he gravitates away from spotlight on the rich and wealthy, who are notoriously the kind of people who do not get their hands dirty or go out and take care of things themselves, and prefers to find or build communities around the kind of people who do.

Finally, Dick is an extrovert. He doesn’t need to act extroverted as Brucie does because he is extroverted. He likes people and likes being around people. Whether by conscious choice or not, he tends to put himself in situations where he is surrounded by people in nearly all aspects of his life. He chooses apartment buildings whose occupants frequently pass each other on the stairs; jobs that involve interacting with many co-workers, patrons, or students; and collects superhero teammates like Boy Scout badges. And all of these behaviors come very naturally to him.

He doesn’t need a mask or a role or a persona for those kind of interactions; his mask is pre-supplied as “neighbor” or “co-worker” or “teacher” by the situations he puts himself in. It helps make him an exemplary leader, because just by acting authentically to himself, he automatically builds up little communities around him any time he arrives somewhere.

Bruce, on the other hand, is an introvert. For him, interacting with people isn’t easy, automatic, or comfortable unless it has a purpose, but as a strategist, he knows the necessity of human interaction as a catalyst to achieving dynamic change. So he adapts personas to suit people’s expectations. Extroverts have more social currency; the life of the party can generate more resources than a brooding wallflower.

So, it boils down to just a few elements: Dick believes in living and interacting at the street level to accomplish the things that he wants to, and he is extroverted enough that the level of social interaction that entails is not a burden to him. He surrounds himself with the types of people he is more familiar or perhaps more comfortable with, which happens to keep him further out from the media’s eye than associating with the upper crust does. The lower profile is more incidental than intentional, but it lessens his need to have a cover story for every single bruise and lets him get away with even less of a ‘persona’.

Bruce, on the other hand, is introverted and follows a more classist view that systemic change needs to be effected from the top down. His personas are more of a self-assumed duty than a necessity, as a way of trying to carry out his parents’ legacy. Any of his children could have chosen to follow his path in business or the high society limelight, but the sense of obligation toward it is something personal to him that most of them don’t share.

#bruce wayne #batman #dick grayson #nightwing #character analysis #dc #comics #meta #o.c.#bruce wayne analysis #bruce + dick #asks #anonymous #cover stories

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umblebumble · 3 years

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Dragon Age: Inquisition Daemons

So here’s another group daemon selection. I make my choices based off of a mix of analysis (The Daemon Forum is my favourite spot, link) and general vibe as well as plot/thematic things. For this, a lot of inspiration has come from fanfiction I’ve read where the daemon choice just makes sense. There will be minor spoilers for these characters personal plot arcs. Please let me know what you think, and share your own headcannons!

*As a note I tend to pick more mammals than anything else and I am working on widening my selections, but I still run very mammal-centric.

Solas - Common Raven. Raven’s are very clever birds and are great problem solvers and strategists. They go after what they want, and while they can roam in groups, they can work on their own as well. They are also mischievous and cocky; they will pull the tail feathers of larger birds to distract them from food or just for fun. This clever, cocky, proud bird is a very good match for our not-so-humble apostate. Thematically, ravens can be seen as death omens since they often eat carrion. However, they are also called ‘wolf birds’ because they have been known to have working relationships with wolves for hunting. Therefore a raven on the shoulder of a wolf would just make sense thematically to me.

Dorian - Scarlet Macaw. Parrots are far too clever for their own good and boredom is their worst enemy. Along with being bright and flashy to match the sparkly mage, their also very loud and opinionated and dramatic about everything just for the hell of it. I think a Macaw would be bold and striking on Dorian’s shoulder, and would have a razor tongue like the mage. However macaws can also be easily stressed and fall into self-destructive behaviour in bad environments. Thematically I think this parrot would have little bald patches hidden under its wings from where it would stress pluck. An interesting healing arc would be the bald patches growing back in as Dorian is accepted for who he is and doesn’t have to hide himself anymore.

Vivienne - Mute Swan. It can be said of water fowl that they appear graceful and serene on the surface but that’s because you can’t see the intricate paddling going on underneath. I feel that summarizes Vivienne well; she is serene and powerful and graceful at first glance, but behind the scenes there’s a lot of work and whispers and gathering of information. Swans are also very strong and assured. They could break bone with the strength of their wings, and they are confident and assured in their place and their power and status. Furthermore, they’re dedicated to their goals and will put in the work to reach them. However, I also like a swan for Vivienne because they mate for life. They are devoted to a single partner, and when that partner dies they mourn heavily. Vivienne appears unruffled and absolutely pristine to everyone around her and that’s because very few are allowed past her mask to see the softer heart inside that loves and then mourns her loved ones.

Iron Bull - Wild hog/Boar. Pigs are very underestimated animals - they appear big and slow, but they are vicious and incredibly intelligent. Pigs are seriously violent and I think this matches Bulls blood-thirsty battle-lust. But like Bull, his daemon would be underestimated; a war machine on the outside but the mind of a great spy on the inside. They’re social animals, and highly adaptable to a range of environments, and they can be very defensive and protective of themselves and those they care about. Overall I think a boar just suits every aspect of Bull visually and thematically.

Cassandra - Ram. *I initially said Mountain Goat but I had meant a Ram/Big Horned Sheep. Usually I headcanon Cassandra with a dog, a hound of some sort, but this was just very interesting and I quite liked it. When looking at a description of a Ram*, I just felt like it spoke for itself: “ Thick-skinned, competitive, and proud... Assertive and quick to put others in their place when they're crossed, definitely the confrontational sort. Highly defensive of their personal projects and themselves. Highly confident, not ones to doubt their abilities... Likely stubborn and highly straightforward, possibly blunt. Possibly planners, probably quite determined and persistent.” Cassandra is a hard-worker, determined and stubborn. She’s definitely the kind to attack a problem head-first, but she does have the capability to be quick, light on her feet and strategic about her approach. Rams are of the sheep family, and thus are very loyal and close to the people that belong in their circle.

Blackwall - Milksnake. Snakes are generally non-confrontational. They don’t pick fights but they will finish them, which is something I can see reflected in Blackwall’s more laid back attitude towards battle than the other warrior companions. Milksnakes are also very adaptable and will do well wherever they are. They’re a mix of solitary and social, they like being around others but also need their own space. They’re also rather internal and have a lot going on inside they don’t let show, not the kind to wear their heart on their sleeve. Mainly I enjoy the thematic meaning of a milksnake. Milksnakes are adapted to mimic a poisonous snake. Their colour pattern is close to that of a much more dangerous snake, and as such they often trick predators into thinking they are something they’re not. I like this thematically for the not-Warden who is pretending to be something much more fearsome than he is.

Sera - Rat. The common rat is an incredibly adaptable, resourceful, hardy creature. They will find a way in whatever circumstances and use whatever they have to their advantage. They are highly social beings and are made to work in groups, in teams and with others - a network much like the Red Jennies or little people. They’re bold, assertive, and even a little aggressive at times. A rat is seen as vermin and unwanted, but they’re everywhere and are clever and have their little hands in everything. Also, rats are thought of to be tricksters in mythos - the Chinese zodiac being an example of a rat tricking its way to the top. Sera uses her tricky playfulness mainly to pull pranks and cause mayhem, but she also uses it to stick up for others and assert her place in the world.

Varric - Vampire bat. Now I like the headcanon that dwarves don’t have daemons due to Fade-connection stuff and instead have weapons/armour like Armored Bears, but for the sake of argument I wanted to find what his daemon could be. A vampire bat is an unusual animal, and I think it, like Varric, would be the kind of person you don’t easily forget encountering. They are very sensitive, aware animals and are very in-tune with their surroundings and whats going on. They’re very social animals and thrive in groups. They have great communication skills and form close bonds with those they’re close to. Varric would do anything for the people he is closest to, and his natural environment is surrounded by people spinning tales and connecting with others. I think it’s an unusual daemon choice but I also like the idea that its a fun parallel to a surface dwarf - an underground animal, i.e. a rat, but in the sky with wings.

Cole - Unsettled. I think that if Cole did have a daemon, it would be unsettled. He is a spirit and he is in constant state of flux, despite having a central purpose of compassion. And even if he becomes more human, he is very reminiscent of a child learning the world and as such I do not think he would be settled until he becomes more settled in himself. (I do have further headcanon ideas about this spirit-daemon stuff but that may be another post, or a later addition to this one. Let me know if you’re interested)

Leliana - Mongoose. Leliana was harder for me because I don’t know her as well. I didn’t play Origins, but from what I know she was a much younger, more playful, less burdened and jaded person back then. I think this suits a mongoose very well. They can be very inquisitive and open and playful in their youth, unfearful of the wide world and ready to investigate anything to learn more. But as an adult they are more cautious and guarded. Mongoose are incredible predators and are very adaptive, able to take on even snakes that others don’t dare attack. They are more solitary and secretive, and I think an elusive, mysterious mongoose would be a wonderful hint at the fierce power hidden behind the cooler facade of her everyday persona. Brutal, subtle, and unexpected, a mongoose fits the spymaster well as far as I know her.

Cullen - Border Collie. I always knew Cullen would have a dog daemon, it was just a matter of which. He’s loyal and extremely hardworking, and so I decided on herding dogs. I chose Border Collie specifically because of their intelligence, independence and ability to think strategically. This is the kind of dog that will happily take orders and follow command, but will also work on its own to get a job done. Of herding dogs, Border Collies also have the ability to be a bit more ruthless, I feel. They aren’t timid dogs and if left to their own devices could become destructive and rough due to boredom and lack of stimulation. Also, they are predisposed to listen and obey and thus could fall prey to poor leadership (as seen in Kirkwall). Any dog I think could fit for our loyal, hardworking Commander, but I think Border Collie is a good fit. A bit of a farm-boy turned soldier, follower turned commander aesthetic fits thematically with his overall arc.

Josephine - Zebra Longwing. This kind of butterfly is beautiful and poisonous, a perfect combination for our ambassador. Butterfly’s are social creatures and do well around others. Furthermore this kind of butterfly works in groups to achieve its goal, suggesting a calm, diplomatic mind that is good at working with others towards a goal. Furthermore, butterflies are very sensitive and aware creatures; they pay attention to their surroundings and are very intuitive about the environment and others. Lastly, with a slightly toxic nature, these insects warn off predators with their flashy pattern that advertise them as dangerous. I like this because I think Josephine’s daemon would be a great hint at how not-helpless she is, a bit of a giveaway to her power and abilities. Plus I think a pretty butterfly perched like a beautiful broach suits her aesthetic.

#dai #dragon age inquisition #daemons #daemon headcanons #wow that was long #daemon au

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cerberus253 · 3 years

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So I Had an Assignment for My Psychology Class...

I thought you guys might appreciate my answer, since it has to do with JCA.

“... What other movie, TV or literary characters can you think of that exemplify a personality disorder? Explain why you believe the character to have the personality disorder.“

Shendu from the cartoon Jackie Chan Adventures has antisocial personality disorder.

To start, Shendu is a demonic dragon sorcerer that lives in a different culture than us humans. In his culture, it is normal to be selfish, have an over-inflated ego, have the desire to control people (enslaving humans), and always help yourself first. However, being connected and caring about biological family is just as important. In other words, his culture may idolize narcissism, but it still holds interdependence just as high in value. So, when figuring out if Shendu has a personality disorder, I made sure to consider his different cultural background.

What I looked at to “check off” personality traits and facets was this document about the DSM-5 criteria for personality disorders. For starters, yes, Shendu is over 18 years of age and his actions are consistent over various situations. No, his personality is not due to substance abuse and/or a general medical condition(s), nor the current age he is. Thirdly, while some traits can be considered a cultural aspect, when placed in the context of how he interacts with his people/family versus how his people/family interact with each other, you can tell there is something abnormal about him. This is what I’ll be going in detail with.

To continue, some backstory: Shendu is a part of a family group labeled the “Eight Demon Sorcerers.” They have ruled Earth and enslaved humans for over at least a millennium. At some point, they were all finally imprisoned in the Hell dimension called The Netherworld by a group of heroes. Another undetermined amount of time passes and Shendu somehow escapes and rules over China for centuries, only to be transformed into a statue by another human hero. Over the show, Shendu manipulates people to help free him, and he succeeds a few times, but ultimately is trapped yet again. Eventually, his siblings have a chance at freedom and attempt to conquer the world, but of course fail. Lastly, the audience finds out Shendu has a son named Drago, who also tries to conquer the world, but him and Shendu get into a fist fight and ultimately throw each other into The Netherworld, never to be heard from again.

Now to psychoanalyzing Shendu. Like I have said, being ego-centric, having the lust for power, and thinking of the self as first is normal for this demon society, however, Shendu takes this to a higher degree. Shendu’s siblings actually care about one another, and even Shendu for whatever reason. The siblings always mention freeing the others soon after their release, however, Shendu fails to say the same. Never once did he talk about helping his brothers and sisters once he was free, and according to them, never even tried. Shendu has shown to care not for their plight, but acts like he does when they threaten him in person. Although it is shown that they despise Shendu, they still include him when they took over the world for a while. While one could argue that is how all demons are to one another, this is actually false. Shendu’s siblings actively look out, help, and include each other in their attempt to take over the world. Yes, they make sure they are in a suitable position first, but they always say they will help the others, which Shendu does not. With Drago, his son, he still harbors little compassion for. Even though he’s more willing to compromise with him, Shendu always reminds Drago that he will forever be beneath his father, not too far off from an objectified pawn.

According to the document from the DSM-5, those with ASPD are characterized with antagonism and disinhibition. Firstly, antagonism: Shendu has an extreme anger problem, with using anger and hostility at even the slightest of problems, and even blinded rage when the problem continues. He can be calm, but that facade evaporates quickly when even one detail does not go his way, whether it be from his underlings or forces he cannot control. He does not care who he hurts in the process of his rage, even if they were not the ones who angered him. Although his siblings have small fits, they never come close to Shendu’s, and they only physically punish those around them sparingly. However, Shendu does have a fake passive side, but this is only when he is around his siblings. It seems that Shendu is well aware of the hatred his siblings have for him, but that does not stop him from digging that hole even further and never learning from his past mistakes. Although his fear is genuine, he uses charm, lies, and fake amiability to try and win their favor to give him a second chance and not hurt him. On the other end, Shendu verbally abuses Drago, and Drago hints how Shendu neglected him as a child. During their fight, Shendu did not think twice about physically beating Drago for his betrayal with him. While Drago did indeed betray Shendu, he still showed compassion for the rest of his demon family and talked about freeing the others, which says that although Drago betrayed Shendu, he did not betray the rest of the family, unlike Shendu.

Secondly, Shendu’s disinhibition. Shendu is impulsive and a risk taker when it comes to his inability to stop himself from going on a blind rage, which I have mentioned before. He does not consider the outcomes of his actions when it comes to affecting those outside of him. If these actions were to directly affect Shendu himself, then he would care. If not, he will not bat a single eye to the problems of others. Deep down, he cares not for his family, but only what they can and will do for them. He only helped them later because they had easy access to torturing him for his lack of compassion. From what I can observe, it seems that it is every demon’s responsibility to free the other as soon as possible, but like I have already mentioned, Shendu failed to take that familial promise up. For a specific example, Shendu promised all of his siblings he would help free them, to which he did, but not in the way it was assumed. It sounded like Shendu was going to free them all and keep them free after every prison break, but what Shendu meant was he was going to free them one by one, and if they ever were sent back, he would do nothing about it. So, technically he kept his promise, but he worded it in such a manipulative way he could have some wiggle room to get away from punishment, but his siblings did not appreciate that and went to torturing him in the end anyhow.

From this information, we can conclude that Shendu cares only for himself and his power even beyond his culture’s standards, with never willingly assisting nor sharing his power with his family. He has shown to have the inability to achieve intimate relationships, nor even care to want any with anyone, even his own son. Although Shendu started to help his siblings later in the show, it was clearly not out of actually wanting to help, but out of fear of what would happen to him if he didn’t. In addition, even at the slightest inconvenience, Shendu expresses anger, very often physically, to his surroundings and holds grudges to an unhealthy amount. When he is able to take revenge, he does it with little to no concern about his limit and personal safety. Despite all the trouble he gets in, he hardly learns from any of his mistakes.

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I’m ded rip in peace to me

#jackie chan adventures #jca #shendu #psychology assignment

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blackcatanna · 3 years

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Reasons Hux is My Favourite Part 2: Less Snappy, More Rambly

While I don't actively ship kylux (though I understand why people do), I think that their relationship is really interesting. This 4am bathtime ramble, I want to talk about JEALOUSY (which is currently really hard because I recently cut my nails down from EVIL BIRD TALONS into something that you'd expect to see atop real human fingers and my phone touchscreen is extremely confused).

Anyway, Hux being jealous of Kylo's force powers and (chaotic) leadership of the First Order is something that's kind of been explored, most notably in that one scrapped script where Hux constantly tries (and fails) to use the force (which, while we're on the subject, gives me major Rudolf Hess (deeply unhinged (as one would expect) Nazi but even Hitler considered him a weirdo: he tried to levitate chairs with his mind) vibes, though that's a ramble for another time).

ANYWAY, I also think it's interesting to consider reasons Kylo might be jealous of Hux (aside from his good looks and excellent greatcoat because I am very biased there).

Now, I don't care as much about Kylo (again, biased) so I don't know much about him other than what's presented on screen but I feel like his "thing" is that he wants to be the biggest, baddest, dark sidey-ist boi he can be, just like Darth (grand) Daddy before him.

So, he's got this whole plan to make himself more edgy and fucked up by severing his attachments and murdering his dad so he can put all of his energy towards teh evulz. However, this backfires somewhat.

Meanwhile, we have Hux who just fucking hates everyone. So much so that when Kylo points out to Snoke that his evil ginger maniac wants to kill him, Snoke's response is basically, "Ya, he wants to kill most people. I'd be concerned if he wasn't actively plotting my gruesome demise. It's totally, like, his THANG." Hux is a guy filled to the brim with fear, anger, hate and suffering which, according to Yoda, makes him perfect edgelord material.

What's more, Hux successfully offed his own dad with zero adverse effects and plenty of benefits. While a sane person might consider it concerning that someone could merrily have their only family killed in such a gruesome way without batting an eyelid, if Kylo knew about it, I just imagine him being like, "WOW. God, I WISH I was that fucked up. Maybe then I wouldn't have got my arse handed to me by an untrained little girl after I killed my dad and wouldn't have to have been rescued by this evil space ginger."

And then Hux SHOULD be jealous of Ren for having people who genuinely care for and love him but that would probably require Hux to acknowledge just how messed up his own psyche is and to re-evaluate his life choices and values, which I don't see happening easily, since the First Order is all he's ever known and Kylo is a terrible example of the product of a world where non-abusive parenting is encouraged.

So, they both have qualities that the other desires: Kylo has power through the force. Hux is driven, focused and brimming with unadulterated dark side emotions. The interesting difference to me is that Hux's qualities are something that Kylo is visibly striving towards whereas Kylo's force powers are forever out of Hux's reach and so he has to at least put up a show of contempt towards them.

Another difference is that Kylo could help achieve his fucked up goals by being more like Hux as a fucked up person, whereas Hux's fucked up goals would be more easily achieved if he could simply take Kylo's powers (now I really want to see how terrifying force sensitive Supreme Leader Hux would be).

To be fair to Kylo/Ben, there are many personal qualities he has that Hux could benefit from (like not being a completely evil maniac) but Hux is probably too unhinged to acknowledge any of them openly...

I wish that their relationship had been explored more in the films... Maybe I will have to read some of the novels and comics, aside from the mostly Hux-centric snippets I've gleaned from tumblr...

The more I ramble (GOD this became long), the more I think about "maybe"s and "what if"s, which is why I enjoy the sequel trilogy, even if the films were badly executed and awful in so many ways...

#yes I really am in the bath at 4am #general hux #kylo ren #jealousy #yes I am trash thank you #reasons why hux is my favourite #why is this bitch my favourite character?#armitage hux #they're both so fucked up and I am here for it

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darkdisrepair · 4 years

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Hailey Upton: Character Study Post-crossover

After watching the FBI/Chicago PD crossover this morning, I have some interesting thoughts about the character of Hailey Upton, who I am very much in favor of as a character, so if you don’t like her, you might not want to read.

Check it out!

Timing is Everything: Hailey & External Factors

Personally, Hailey’s (and to an extent, Tracy’s) “polarizing” label that isn’t really deserved but people do it anyway. The problem isn’t the character, or the actress, the problem is just that she’s gotten kind of crappy timing in many ways. When she arrived on chicago pd, she came on the heels of Sophia Bush’s exit, a character that a lot of people loved and shipped furiously with Jay. I started watching for Hailey not gonna lie so I’m not super attached to Erin or Sophia. I got the impression that some people (not everyone) didn’t like her because Hailey is very unapologetic, and looks very similar to Erin. She was very clearly the person meant to replace Erin, so people started assuming things about her character that were kind off-base, and the crossover (in my mind) proves that a little bit.

From what I saw on Twitter, the FBI fandom seemed very enthusiastic about Hailey’s character, even though the situation is pretty similar to the Erin/Hailey dynamic. Tracy stepped in for another established, liked character (Maggie) while the actress who plays her is on maternity leave. The difference, which explains the lower levels of toxicity, is that there is an assurance there that Hailey will not be staying, and that she is not a replacement, just a guest.

Even though she did clash with OA, people were willing to stay for her side of the story. Now, the people on Twitter might just be the vocal fans of the FBI show, but I think that shows that a lot of the tension with Hailey’s character comes from a) her strong personality and b) the fact that she came in at a very tense time in the Chicago PD fanbase.

Back to the Beginning, by Going on Another Show

I don’t know if I’m the only one who noticed this, but Hailey was on fire in this episode, honestly more so than I’ve seen in many of the episodes on Chicago PD. Don’t get me wrong, I love her in every episode she’s in, but you could tell that the writers really took the time to do her character justice.

She was fierce and sassy and determined and everything I remember her being in her very first episode. This crossover was basically a reset for her, which is what I think Voight wanted, and maybe even the writers too. I’d noticed in CPD episodes prior that she started to lose some of the qualities she started out with. It’s hard to name what they were, but she was becoming too much of a mini-Voight.

Personally, even though she definitely didn’t completely play by the FBI’s usual playbook here, she wasn’t Voight-like here. Yes, she threatened to break someone’s arm, and yes, her interrogation tactics were definitely not ones that I think the FBI show usually talks about, but she did everything by the book, just with her own twist. And I think that’s why Voight was drawn to her in the first place, when he brought her onto the team.

At the beginning of her character arc on Chicago PD, she was very by-the-book, but not in the conventional sense. She knew how to get things done the right way, and stopped at nothing to do so. She knew where the lines were and toed them when she needed to but never let cases compromise her morals, and rarely let emotions cloud her judgement.

This hadn’t happened on Chicago PD for a while. Coming to the FBI and being reminded that there are lines and other ways to get cases done really brought her character to where it should have always been, which in turn made her an even more dynamic character to watch.

Also, side note, but the FBI show is so aesthetically pleasing, which helped Hailey come alive even more :) Major credits to Monica Raymund for that!

Hailey and Voight: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

I’ve never been one to compare Hailey to Voight, and to me, this episode showed how different they are.

She adjusted extremely quickly to the FBI. At first, everyone was hyper-aware that she was not a federal agent, including OA. They doubted her abilities and second-guessed some of her choices.That changed quickly once Hailey saw some action and made some key points in their investigation. OA started to listen to her and take note of what she was doing, trusting her to watch his back, and the rest of the team did, too, even letting her interrogate a suspect.

She inspires people to do better, to learn more. OA realizes that maybe cops aren’t inferior to federal agents. Jubal and Castille recognize her interrogation skills and her strategical skills, too.

This episode, if anything, highlighted the differences between Hailey and Voight.

She wins people over because she knows how to beat the system without breaking it, and uses her deep knowledge and passion to find ways to help people without hurting them (for the most part). People trust her not because they know she can bend the rules, but because she knows when to be vulnerable. See, for example, how she relates to victims of abuse. Voight earns people’s respect because he protects the people he cares about, without restrictions. He connects with criminals through threats and violence, for the most part.

Hailey may have been come to New York because Voight thought she was becoming too much like him, but this episode just showed how different they are. She is more open, more cooperating, and has stronger morals than I think Voight ever will.

It’s hard for me to explain, but to me, they’ve always been very different, and to me, showing up in New York and bringing such warm energy to the unit shows the difference between how Hailey influences people and versus how Voight does.

What the Future Holds for Hailey on Chicago PD

What will happen when she returns to her team?

I think she’ll be more aware of the impact that cases have on her. She got the wake-up call her character desperately needed, and now I think her conviction in herself will be stronger than ever. I think she knows that she can’t keep going down the path she was starting to walk in Season 7.

She might not go back to how intense she was about the rules in Season 5, but I do think she now knows where the lines are and how to get things done without breaking them.

I’m predicting that something will come up that will force her to come to terms with what she’s done with Darius and Gael, in one way or another. She hasn’t shown guilt about those things yet, but I think what she did to both of them really does bother her. She doesn’t want to feel it, but getting Darius killed and fabricating evidence was overstepping, and she knows that even if it was done in the name of loyalty, it was still against everything she stands for.

What direction is her character arc going in?

To me, the writers seem to be leaning toward a massive Hailey-centric episode. The hints about her history with her father keep getting dropped (even on CBS, which was surprising!) and I think the fact that these cases keep coming up is affecting her, even though she doesn’t know it yet.

I was really disappointed when “Intimate Violence” focused on how Jay dealt with seeing abuse, rather than what Hailey thought. I thought for sure she had a better background to interact with Michelle instead of Jay. I also thought the roles would have been reversed, that Hailey would have wanted to rush in and stop the violence while Jay wouldn’t comprehend the emotional weight of the situation.

As a result, I’m hoping that we cover that history and maybe meet some of Hailey’s family. I think that’s part of her past she needs to explore before really coming to terms with who she’s become.

Finally: where is her relationship with Jay going?

It seems like the coronavirus pandemic ruined a lot of Hailey’s upcoming storylines on FBI and Chicago PD. I got the impression that there was going to be some kind of milestone for her and Jay, whether a confession or an injury, that sparked the possible beginnings of a romantic relationship.

I don’t think Upstead will just happen, even though the more we go on the more the show seems to be leaning toward them getting together. I know for sure I don’t want them to hook up right off the bat- I think their relationship is deeper than that.

I do think that Hailey and Jay both need to figure themselves out before they get together. Jay still carries a lot of guilt with the Angela situation and Hailey, as shown throughout the season, seems to be struggling emotionally with her sense of loyalty to her friends and her own inner demons.

If neither of them are in the right headspace, Upstead does have a lot of potential to crash and burn. They need to both be at a stable place in their lives to even think about considering dating. If the show tries to start something before either characters are ready, their relationship and partnership won’t last, so this upcoming season will be crucial.

Part of me doesn’t want them to be a thing, because if it doesn’t work, one of the most central relationships on the show will have been destroyed. Their trust is what makes their bond so beautiful to watch, and I’d rather preserve that than have them date.

Overall, thanks for reading, and sorry this got so long! Share your thoughts. Who is Hailey, really?

#hailey upton #chicago pd #fbi cbs #jay halstead #hank voight #hailey upton meta #upstead #oa zidan

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