currently not a believer in the ratoier thing being LITERAL, i think its some kind of hallucination, but i do definitely think he's being experimented on by the federation. i mean.... in his hallucinations turning him into a literal lab rat would make sense.
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I think my favorite deleted scene from Dead Poets Society, or at least the scene I think about the most, is the scene where all the boys are sitting at their desks with blindfolds on as Keating is playing classical music. The bell rings, Keating talks to the boys, and they all leave except for Neil. He stays in his seat with his blindfold still on and then him and Keating talk. The scene is so simple, yet it makes me tear up every time I think about it.
Neil just looks so young and so happy while the music is playing. He looks optimistic in a way. He has decided that he is going to do the play despite his father's wishes. He is going to do something for himself, even if it means lying to both the male figures in his life that we are shown.
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hmm this may interest you, do you have thoughts on this subject matter character-wise or in a meta sense?:
https://www.tumblr.com/thecruellestmonth/740875315694501888/batman-turning-points-3-batman-under-the-red
personally i'm not a fan of bruce's disavowal of fatherhood much for the same reasons that i'm not a fan of his installing the good soldier plaque. these to me are both writing choices driven more by writers' desire to explore theoretical concepts than they are driven by a character study of bruce himself. the concept of robin as an occupation inherently equivalent to child abuse is interesting. the concept of wondering what right a father has to children he has adopted towards that end is interesting. that being said, exploring the former concept didn't necessarily demand eliminating robin altogether. exploring the latter concept didn't necessarily demand bruce completely disavowing himself of any accountability. and ultimately both writing choices ignore that a core aspect of bruce's relationships with the robins was wanting to be a good parent, or at the least a good guardian. certainly something more than a mere ally or friend. he took responsibility for these children because he wanted to help guide them towards a certain path in life where they would no longer be ruled by their trauma the way he was and is by his. allowing them to become robin to that end was obv more than questionable, but all too many writers forget and even go so far as to ignore that bruce knew that. he was well aware of his status as an enabler and he eventually hated himself for it deeply. he felt perpetually guilty and reluctant to ask dick for any support once the latter became an adult bc he didn't want to sanction and (in his mind) effectively require dick to do something that would endanger his life on his own orders. he could realistically never stop dick from pursuing vigilantism, but he could at least refuse to ask dick for that commitment any longer so that dick had complete freedom to make his own choices as to the matter. regardless, bruce had to live with the guilt of having enabled the existence of robin to begin with, and he intended to live with that guilt. it was his closest friend and his primary means of survival
if anything, that to me is precisely why his disavowal of fatherhood doesn't make sense. bruce is a poor communicator and he has a tendency to take upon all burdens at the expense of his loved ones feeling like he no longer values them or their support, but that doesn't negate the fact that he's quite hyperaware of his flaws. he's a far more relentless critic of himself than he is of others, and that stems as much from self-righteousness as it does guilt. he's supposed to be better. he's supposed to set an example. he's supposed to do the right thing. he's supposed to save the whole city even if he's only one person. and so on and so forth. bruce is possessive of highly unrealistic expectations for himself bc he's a ridiculously emotional person trying to tell himself to act like a robot. he repeatedly sets himself up for failure and then when he inevitably fails he kicks himself down like a dog. he is essentially a walking man-child simply because he cares too much and that often leads him to make stupid, emotionally driven choices: like taking random children into his home and teaching them how to channel their emotions through fighting crime, because if it worked for him it might work for them too, esp when they've got the added benefit of his supervision and well-intended (albeit awkward) companionship
all of bruce's circumstances and internalizations and traumas point to him taking what i would term excessive ownership of his crimes. he's a self-made pity puddle because he thinks everything is his fault. dick barely having a life outside of vigilantism is his fault. dick nearly falling to his death is his fault. jason failing to properly process his parental trauma is his fault. jason getting blown up by the joker is his fault. i simply cannot imagine a world where bruce isolates himself from caring or from taking the blame because doing the latter has been his modus operandi for so long. it makes more sense for bruce to disavow fatherhood in the specific context of not wanting to take the place that john and mary or willis and catherine will always occupy; it makes less sense for bruce to disavow fatherhood in the specific context of raising and loving dick and jason as if they were his own. it's very much a you don't have to call me dad but when i call you "chum" i mean "son" situation. he's never one to burden others intentionally (although we obv know this rarely plays out the way he wants it to), rather he intentionally burdens himself. that's precisely what knightfall as an arc is stellar at depicting, regardless of the fact that it coincides with the existence of the good soldier plaque. bruce in the aftermath of jason's death has to blame himself excessively because it's the only way he knows how to cope. i've never understood depictions of his grief with an emphasis on jason's share of the blame bc not only is it classist towards jason, it's also inconsistent with bruce's own character and tendency to believe that every bad thing that happens is his fault. it's why i'm not really a fan of gotham knights #43-45. a death in the family makes it clear that bruce blames himself for not allowing jason to have the space and time to process his trauma properly before throwing him into the suit. allowing him to have hope never even comes into the picture
and i'm not sure if anyone has ever considered this, but the disavowal of fatherhood really confuses me when you remember tim exists. why is bruce's disavowal with regards to jason even necessary when the crux of tim's entry into the mythos is precisely the fact that he isn't someone over whom bruce can similarly exercise responsibility and ownership.. it's far more interesting to explore the tightrope bruce walks with that partnership because he's easily in a place to deny responsibility and yet obv he ultimately can't because despite whatever reluctance he expressed initially, he eventually gave in. the tone of the grant/brefoygle run also helps with depicting that dilemma. we're not primarily privy to the bruce of old anymore, who while quiet and awkward nonetheless expressed a capacity for caretaking. there are remnants of that of course (esp after tim's mother dies). but the bruce of the 90s is more imperious and domineering because he's been hardened by trauma. he delivers grand speeches about vigilantism and justice. he sends tim across the pond because he needs proper training. the fact that they're neighbors and get burgers together sometimes doesn't detract from the physical divide present there because tim is ultimately someone else's son and possessive of a life entirely divorced of what he does in the mask. he can walk away without preamble in a way that dick (at least until adulthood) and jason never could. plenty of writers recognized that and personally i believe it's what made the 90s robin run interesting to read, but i also believe writers retroactively projected the necessity of an emotionally distant bruce to that narrative onto the bruce of old. it was progressively rewritten to be a constant rather than a development in the wake of a highly transgressive event. and unfortunately that's tainted every interaction and/or recollection that he has with/of jason afterward
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Hey guys just another drawing of the thr- wait what happened to them.
(bonuses + notes under cut)
i've actually been sitting on these designs since september - october/november. The color are... subjective to change. I chose Mac and Winn's colors today. I think Winn's is fine but Mac's keeps throwing me off. Here's the first drawings I did for Mac and Winn.
I like to imagine they're in their own little department. Something to do with tech like an IT department (also to kind of play off of how they're not in the game but run a lot of important events outside of it). So they're not any cog type in specific (like boss, board, law, etc..etc).
Mac's a Macintosh 128k and Winn is just a computer mouse (the tail is supposed to be a little mouse pointer and those are wires in the back. Technically speaking, wires for mice are in the front by the scroll but we can get inaccurate here). Mac's screen can change colors and display options. Together they make the Matrix Team
Here's some Brian's that I did during class last semester. He was originally a mouse, but I found trying to design him was much more annoying than I thought. Then one day during class I had a beam of light hit into my head and made him a big. He's not specific or anything, I tried to do just a stereotypical bug (like how all dogs/cats in game are the same type). He has a triangular head to match his faceplate though :-] you could maybe imagine an ant if you'd like. I figure ants work like cogs in a machine.
The desk jockeys are there too! I haven't really drawn them, but they remain somewhat the same. Instead of being made by toons to look like cogs, they're now made by cogs to look like toons. They also can't teleport so it takes Brian 3x longer to get places, but do they act as multitoons kind of.
This is the only drawing I really have to show my design basis. And YES they are still taller than him because its funny. Ok I think that's all
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thinking about how one of the messages of Christianity is not that bad things will not happen, but that bad things are not the last things. of course we will all suffer - even Jesus suffered and died a horrible death on the cross - but that's not how it ends. it ends in victory over sin, over sorrow, over death. Christianity asserts that the way will be difficult, but also that difficulty is not the end
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