#also I just need to point out that lex is obviously trying to save his own life in the bonus gif... but he's also RIGHT | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

c-optimistic · 3 years

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Not sure if you’re still taking prompts, but I just watched Hozier’s from Eden music video and now I can’t stop thinking about Lena and Kara on the run finding and saving a kid from a bad situation...

obviously slightly different from the video and also an unambiguously happy ending

Alex handed over the keys to the beat up car, her eyes not straying from Kara’s for even a second.

“Travel at night as much as you can. The tank is full, but you need to make it last as long as possible.” She blinked, bit her lip, and squeezed Kara’s hand. “No powers. Not for anything. And no contact. I’ll find a way to let you know it’s safe.”

Kara nodded, pulling her sister closer and enveloping her in a tight hug, trying to memorize the way it felt, the warmth that burrowed into her bones and eased her mind. “We’ll be fine, Alex,” she said, injecting as much confidence in those four words as she possibly could. She was glad that Alex couldn’t see the tears she wasn’t quite able to suppress. “I’ll be listening for you.”

Alex pulled away and opened her mouth to argue, probably to point out that Kara’s statement went directly against the no power rule, but then her mouth snapped shut, like she knew better than to argue.

“Don’t put on any music you like on the radio. You know it makes you want to sing, and that sort of thing is bound to attract attention,” Alex said instead, smoothing over Kara’s shoulders and tugging slightly on the collar of her borrowed leather jacket. “Take care of each other,” she added, clearly no longer able to hide her anxiety behind jokes. Her eyes didn’t stray from Kara, but the comment was undoubtedly meant more for Lena than for Kara. “I love you, Kara.”

“Danvers sisters, right?” Kara said thickly, holding back tears. She pulled Alex in for one more tight hug, taking care to listen to her heartbeat, to memorize its unique rhythm. “I love you, too. You call if you need me. Okay? Do you promise?”

“Promise,” Alex said, pulling away and wiping at her cheeks. “All right. Go. Go.”

Kara and Lena didn’t need to be told a third time. They got into the car, and drove off into the night, Kara’s eyes on the rearview mirror long after Alex had disappeared entirely from view.

Very quickly, they developed a routine.

Hats, thick sunglasses, hoodies, and overall easily forgettable outfits became their norm, much to Lena’s eternal dismay. Kara would pretend not to see her wince as she pulled on sneakers, and Lena returned the favor by not calling Kara out when she used her superhearing to listen for Alex every single night.

They drove throughout the night for the most part, sticking to unpopulated areas as much as they could, not speaking much to the people they ran into at gas stations and diners. When the posters with their faces began cropping up on public restrooms and outside of convenience stores, Lena suggested they die or cut their hair.

During the day, they slept. Sometimes in the car, no relief from the sweltering heat. Sometimes, if they figured it was safe enough, they’d sleep a few hours at a motel before setting off again.

They definitely didn’t use each other’s names. Not once. In fact, they didn’t speak much at all.

(One thing filled both their minds:

Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.

As long as they were on the move, Lex couldn’t get to them.)

It wasn’t much of a life, but it wasn’t all bad either.

It meant Lena would surreptitiously take her hand out of anxiety or a desire to provide comfort when driving past other cars. It meant when Lena’s always busy mind became bored, she’d invent new games to play as they drove along.

It meant huddling up together one particularly cold desert night.

It meant becoming very familiar with the song Lena hummed as she showered.

It meant learning to decipher Lena’s mood based on tuts, clicks of her tongue, breathy sighs, and the roughness of her voice when she would break the silence between them.

No, it wasn’t a bad life, being on the run with her best friend, the only person on this planet after Alex who’d ever made Kara feel at home.

It wasn’t a bad life, with money carefully hidden in the car, under the mats and inside the seat cushions, their every need anticipated and planned for, long into the future. Theoretically, they could stay on the run for years, evading Lex’s long reach.

It wouldn’t be a bad life, but to be fair, when your only goal was survival, having a good life (or really living at all) just wasn’t the point.

Kara chewed on her lip as she refueled the car, her eyes on the meter, her ears on the men coming out of the gas station.

They were laughing, clearly a bit drunk despite the time of day, one of the men complaining loudly as they walked towards their car.

“Costs me a fortune to feed that boy. Clothe him. Give him a place to sleep. And if she can leave him, why can’t I?”

Kara didn’t react. She finished refueling, paid, then slid into the driver’s seat, watching as the drunk men piled into their car and pulled away. Her grip on the steering wheel was tight, knuckles white. Just a tiny bit more pressure, just a little bit more of a squeeze, and she could shatter it in her hands.

“Is something wrong?” Lena asked, reaching out and brushing her hand over Kara’s shoulder, so careful, so tentative. “You seem upset.”

Kara turned to her, still chewing on her lip.“What do you think about getting a good night’s sleep tonight? I know a place we can go. It’ll be safe.”

Lena’s eyes roved over Kara’s face for a moment. “What did you hear?” she asked finally, gesturing with her head in the direction the men had driven off to.

“Just that they’re leaving and won’t be back for a few days.”

Lena eyed her skeptically, clearly knowing there was something else, something Kara wasn’t sharing, but she didn’t comment. “Okay. Okay, if it’s safe. We can both use the rest.”

Kara didn’t respond, but her grip on the steering wheel finally eased. She didn’t speak as she inserted the key in the ignition and started the car, pulling slowly out of the gas station and down the road.

And Lena let out a breathy sigh, the only indication of her displeasure at being kept in the dark, though belied by the slight quirk of her lips.

(And as they drove, windows down and hair billowing in the wind, Kara wondered if Lena felt the way she did:

An aching need to stop running, even for just a moment.)

The floorboards of the house creaked under them as they stepped inside, Lena immediately wrinkling her nose at the smell—something harsh, like paint, and underneath it, the sickly sweet smell of rotting flowers.

“No wonder those men were in such a hurry to leave,” Lena muttered, distaste coloring her features as they stepped further in the home. The floor was littered with empty beer cans and filthy clothes, the smell of rotting flowers growing stronger. “This place is disgusting. Who would live here?”

Kara didn’t respond, just kept walking towards one of the rooms in the very back of the house. She wondered, briefly, stupidly, how Lena couldn’t hear what she could: the sound of a little heart, pounding furiously away in an equally small chest, body and bones rattling in fear.

“Where are you going?” Lena asked, still following dutifully. “Kara?”

It was the sound of her name that made her pause, turn around, and smile. “I had to help him,” she explained in a whisper before dropping to her knees and gently pulling a closet door open, revealing the pale, dirty face of a little boy. “Hi,” Kara said softly, heart breaking as he pressed himself against the wall of the closet in an attempt to create distance between them, his legs tangled in rags that made up what must have been his bed. (And in the corner of the closet, flowers, long dead.) “Don’t be scared,” she continued, though she didn’t advance further. She stared at him, listened to the terrified pounding of his little heart, and she came to a decision. Without thinking about it for longer than a second, she reached up and let her hair out of its ponytail, then pulled off her glasses. “Do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?” she asked, ignoring Lena’s warning hand on her shoulder, silently urging her not to do this.

The boy pushed away from the wall, approaching Kara with more than a little hesitancy. But his eyes never left her face. “Supergirl?” he finally whispered in awe, mouth falling open just a little bit. “Are you really her? Are you really here?”

“Yeah,” she answered, holding out a hand. “Yeah, I’m here.”

He paused for a moment more, as if not entirely sure she was telling the truth, but then he rushed forward, allowing Kara to pull him into a hug. “You’re really her. You’re really here.”

She broke Alex’s rules and used her powers to speed through cleaning the home. Lena was in the kitchen with the boy, digging through the cabinets and the fridge to make him something to eat, eventually settling on soup that Kara heated with her laser vision, much to the little boy’s glee.

Much later, when the child was wrapped in blankets and letting out soft snores as he slept in the only bed in the house, Lena handed Kara a mug of tea and motioned for her to follow her outside. They sat on a rickety bench on the porch in silence, sipping their tea and taking in the cool night air, the miles of empty desert around them. And then:

“You didn’t tell me because you knew it was a bad idea. You knew we shouldn’t have come here.”

“I wasn’t going to abandon this kid.”

“You don’t know this kid,” Lena admonished, sounding tired. And in her tone, something else. Guilt, maybe. “I know what you’re thinking, Kara. But we can’t help him. Lex is still after us. Being on the run is no place for a kid.”

“But what we found him in is?” Kara asked, turning to look at Lena. She took their mugs and placed them on the ground at their feet, then grabbed Lena’s hand. “You can’t look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to help him. I know you, Lena.”

“It would throw everything off. All our plans, the sacrifices we’ve made,” Lena said, pulling her hand out of Kara’s grasp.

Kara felt her back stiffen. “I know you’ve planned for a decade or more, but I can’t, Lena. I can’t live like this. I don’t want to look over my shoulder running from Lex forever. I just. Life has to be more. And this kid needs our help. We can’t use Lex as an excuse forever.”

This was very clearly the wrong thing to say.

“I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you. No one asked you to go on the run with me. It was your choice, if you remember.”

(It was.

But here was the thing, the thing that Kara wasn’t sure how to put into words: she would’ve made the same choice again and again. She would’ve given everything up for Lena a hundred times over.)

“Lena, you know that’s not what I meant,” Kara said softly, reaching for her hand again, grateful when Lena grabbed on tightly.

“We can’t stay here. We’ll have to drive through the day and night for a while,” she said after a long pause. “We’ll need to get him clothes. And you need to explain to him he can’t mention Supergirl ever again,” she added, narrowing her eyes at Kara.

Kara nodded quickly and, absolutely unable to help it, leaned over and pressed a kiss to Lena’s temple.

“Have I ever told you you’re my favorite?” she asked as she pulled away.

Lena just rolled her eyes, picking up their mugs and getting to her feet.. “After Alex, maybe,” she said with a grin, holding out a hand for Kara to help her up.

“That’s different. Alex is my sister. You’re…” Kara trailed off, not noticing the tremble in Lena’s hand, “you’re you.”

“Very eloquent, love,” Lena laughed, the endearment making Kara’s heart skip a beat. “To think you’re a journalist.”

They laughed as they put away the mugs and settled for a sleepless night on the lumpy couch in the living room, Lena’s head resting on Kara’s shoulder as she slowly dozed off.

And Kara sat there, breathing in the smell of Lena’s shampoo, half of her focus on the little boy’s gentle breathing in the next room, the other half of her focus on Alex’s heartbeat thousands of miles away, her thoughts on what it meant to be a family.

It was after several days of driving that they found a place Lena determined to be safe enough to rest.

The boy, who had yet to tell either Kara or Lena his name, ran ahead of them, heading straight for the small garden littered with colorful flowers.

“We shouldn’t stay here long,” Lena said as she grabbed one of their bags from the car, struggling a bit with its weight. “Have you been listening for him?”

Kara didn’t ask who him was. Either it was Lex or it was the boy’s unfit father, and regardless of who Lena was referring to, the answer was yes. Of course she’d been listening for him. “No news,” she confirmed, taking the bag from Lena, swinging it easily over her shoulder. “I have heard some odd frequencies lately though. Not sure what to make of it.”

Lena, who was smiling gratefully at Kara’s help, suddenly stopped, fear taking over her features. She pulled Kara to a halt by the wrist, eyebrows furrowed. “You don’t think—”

“—no,” Kara assured her, shifting the bag so that she could pull Lena into a loose, one-armed hug. “It’s similar to the frequency on Alex’s watch. I thought it was her way of signalling it’s safe but—”

“—but it seems more like a warning?”

Kara nodded, watching as the boy raced back towards them, a handful of flowers he’d pulled from the garden clutched in his fist. “A day or two,” Kara said in an undertone. “Just to rest. Then we’ll move on to the next place.”

Lena didn’t respond, but her hands twisted into the fabric of Kara’s shirt, and she pressed her face against Kara’s shoulder, and Kara figured that was answer enough.

Their routine changed.

It was as if, in their determination to give the child everything they possibly could for as long as they could, the fear and dreariness of being on the run was replaced by laughter and joy.

Lena took them all on a shopping trip, letting the boy pick out bright colored clothes, even rolling her eyes and conceding when Kara got them all baseball caps.

Rather than stay at sketchy motels, Kara would constantly be on the listen for people going on vacation or on weekend getaways, feeling better about ‘borrowing’ the home by making sure the home was immaculate when they left, Lena purposely leaving behind a small stack of bills.

They ate whatever the boy wanted, from sugary snacks to cheesy burgers. There was always music, usually a bubbly pop song Kara liked and they found that the boy preferred, leading to impromptu dances in the kitchen—with one memorable time, which Kara rather thought was seared into the back of her eyelids, Lena making the boy laugh as she grabbed his hands, swinging his arms to and fro, shaking her hips in time with the music.

(And in the dark, long after the child was asleep, Kara and Lena would lay together, heads close, trying to calculate what resources they had left, how much more they could stretch it out, how much longer they could continue this way.

And every night, long after Lena had finally drifted off, her head nestled on Kara’s shoulder, Kara would close her eyes and listen to the ever-closer frequency she didn’t recognize, increasingly worried about what it could mean.)

Then Lena changed their routine again.

Every morning, as Kara would make them coffee, Lena would press a lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth. She had them play the games she’d invent on the spot, winking at Kara when the boy would win every single one. And at night, every night, rather than just fit her head in the juncture between Kara’s head and shoulder, she would tangle their legs, hold Kara’s hand, pressed so tightly against Kara that she could feel Lena’s heartbeat against her skin.

(And Rao, did Kara want to take one of those moments, freeze it in time, commit it to memory, wanting it etched into her heart, where she could carry it forever.

But mostly, mostly, all Kara wanted was to close those few inches between their lips and finally, finally, kiss her.)

One night, weeks after finding the boy, after he’d already been tucked in and reminded that the next morning they would have to move on to the next place, the next town, Lena played with Kara’s fingers as they lay in the dark, the little breathy sighs she let out every few moments warning enough that she had something serious on her mind.

So Kara shifted a little, pulling away so that they were facing each other, hands still intertwined. And she made it a little easier for Lena. “I can practically feel the gears turning in your head. Just tell me what you’re thinking.”

Lena didn’t respond right away. Instead, her eyes were fixed on Kara’s, and after a moment, she used her free hand to smooth over the scar above Kara’s eyebrow. “How do you do it?” she finally questioned, voice so soft that Kara wasn’t sure she’d even be audible without superhearing. “How are you so effortlessly good all the time?”

It wasn’t really what Kara was expecting (and if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t what she was hoping Lena was thinking about either). “What do you mean?”

“You came with me without a second thought. Then, with the boy, you didn’t even pause to help him. You knew he was in trouble, and that was all it took.” She closed her eyes, her brows furrowing, almost as if she was in pain. “But my first thought was how it would make things harder for us.”

“That’s not true,” Kara said easily, and without really thinking about it, she pulled Lena closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You know it isn’t.”

“Do I?” Lena snarked back, but her heart wasn’t in it. She allowed Kara’s closeness, even going as far as burying her head under Kara’s chin.

With her hand that wasn’t still tightly in Lena’s grasp, Kara began to rub comforting circles on Lena’s back. “Your first thought was the danger he’d be in just because of us,” Kara reminded her gently, still rubbing her back. “Besides, I don’t know if you know, but you’re incredible.”

“Kara, be serious.”

“I am,” Kara laughed. “Being good...it’s easy. It’s the default setting. But you, you’re extraordinary. You were told your entire life that the opposite was true. That the only thing you could do was evil. And yet look at you. You did good anyway.” She paused, wanting Lena to soak in her words. “Do you see how amazing that is? Every single time you make a choice, you have to go through years of noise, years of interference, years of lies, and every time, you find your way through all that,” she tugged their joined hands up, pressing it against Lena’s chest, right over her heart, “to this. A good, kind heart.”

Lena pulled away suddenly, leaving Kara wondering if she’d said the wrong thing, but then she noticed the expression on Lena’s face, the blazing look in her eyes. “Do you really believe that?” she asked, voice barely a whisper.

“I mean, yeah, I wouldn’t have said it otherwise, gosh Lena, I—”

But Lena didn’t let her finish. Instead, she swung one leg over Kara, straddling her, and after waiting for Kara’s eager nod, finally, finally, kissed her.

(It was okay, Kara thought as Lena’s hands pinned hers to the bed, that Lena didn’t let her finish her sentence.

There was all the time in the world to tell Lena how much she loved her. For now, showing her would have to be enough.)

The frequency only Kara could hear, the one that worried her so, got closer every day, and so they stopped staying anywhere for more than a few hours.

It was hardest on the boy. He and Lena had especially grown close, falling asleep in the back of the car as Kara drove, chancing a look at them in the rearview mirror every now and then, feeling her heart swell with fondness. But Lena’s whispered concerns, about how he was faring, how he was feeling, felt more and more serious as the days dragged on.

Being on the run was no place for a kid.

“We could fight,” Kara suggested one night as they drove through the darkness, the child asleep in the back, clutching a toy Lena had bought him weeks ago. “Just wait for Lex to find us and fight.”

Lena tugged on Kara’s right hand, pulling it out of its vice-like grip on the steering wheel, then brought it to her lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “We went on the run because we couldn’t fight. Nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed,” Kara said, turning to look at Lena. “What do you want to do?”

“We have a two day head start on Lex, right?” Lena confirmed. At Kara’s nod, she pressed another kiss to the back of Kara’s hands before releasing it. “We’ll find a place, spend one more night with him.” She motioned towards the child. “Then we’ll take him to the police station. CPS, I don’t know. Once he’s safe, we can wait for Lex.”

“No,” came a small voice from the back of the car. Kara watched the boy slowly sit up, toy clutched to his chest, meeting her gaze through the rearview mirror. “I’m staying with you. I want to be with you and Lena.”

(They tried to argue with him, tried to make him see reason, but Kara knew it was a lost cause. There was no convincing a boy who felt he’d found his family that he’d be better off or safer anywhere else.

Kara would know: she’d felt that way after landing on Earth, after Clark sent her away.)

So they made their last stand.

With Lena’s help, Kara found a fairly sturdy home, one that seemed to have been empty for some time, and they began to prepare.

Kara put her suit on for the first time in almost a year. Lena pulled out what she’d called her ‘emergency technology’ and the boy was secured in the house, letting Lena hug him to her as Kara sat nearby, her focus on everything beyond the walls of the house.

The frequency drew closer, the sound almost maddening in Kara’s ear. But there wasn’t much of Lex’s fanfare. No explosions, no gunfire. No whirring of new Lexosuits. There was nothing except for that sound in Kara’s ear and cars approaching.

“Kara?” Lena questioned, taking her hand and breaking her focus.

“He’s here.”

(She could hear it, cars and trucks coming to a halt, heavy footed people beginning to surround the house, the sound of their weapons in their hands loud in Kara’s ears.

And also, something else, something Kara hadn’t heard from this close in a long time.)

“Kara, I’m scared,” the boy said, looking to her, still gripping tightly to Lena.

“That’s okay,” Kara told him, brushing his hair back and then getting to her feet. “But you’ve got nothing to be scared about.”

“Kara—”

But she waved Lena’s concern off. “Trust me. We’re safe.”

One of the people surrounding the house broke down the door, making the boy hide his face in Lena’s stomach. Footsteps approached. A gun was raised. And then:

“Alex. You found us.”

The DEO was loud. Or maybe it was that the city was loud. After being in the middle of nowhere for so long, the sudden influx of noise was a little a little different.

Different, but nice.

“So, you broke all my rules, right?” Alex said as she followed Kara out on the balcony, standing next to her and leaning against the balustrade. “I said to keep a low profile, you kidnapped a kid. I said no powers, I find you in your suit.”

“I didn’t sing,” Kara said with a grin. Lena was still with the boy, holding his hand as he was checked over by doctors, happily sucking on a lollipop that Alex had offered him. “Your watch is broken, the frequency it lets off is wrong, I thought you were Lex for weeks.”

“I had a run in with an Aellon. I knew the watch was acting fritzy afterwards, but Brainy said any changes in the frequency would be ‘nearly imperceiptible.’” She grinned a little, bumping her shoulder against Kara’s. “So, while I was busy working with Brainy, Nia, J’onn, and Kelly to bring Lex down...you and Lena started dating and adopted a kid?”

Kara snorted, turning her head, watching as Lena and the boy (who were clearly done with all the tests) walked over to where she was standing with her sister.

“Pretty much,” she told Alex, marveling at finally having her entire family together again.

#I watched the video once #sooo I'm sorry in advance #supercorp #fanfic

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ectonurites · 3 years

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idk how to quote tags on mobile where is the conner kent essay i NEED it

ALRIGHT OKAY! here’s 5k+ words plus panels & screenshots of me comparing and contrasting the two drastically different versions of Superboy (comics vs young justice cartoon) and going over what makes them such distinctly separate characters. someday i’ll refine this a bit more its kinda just a word dump that’s been living in my brain that i wanted to actually articulate after i read through Reign of the Supermen but here we go:

Pretty frequently I see the question “Why is Superboy so different in the Young Justice cartoon?” float around in DC circles. I think there are two main approaches to answering this:

Why did the writers of the cartoon decide to create a very different version of Superboy?

What factors make this Superboy so different from the comic version?

For the first approach the answer is relatively straight-forward, from the start Young Justice as a cartoon was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the comics. They just used the title and a few elements so they could create their own approach to the DC universe with a focus on younger heroes. For example, Artemis Crock in their show is also COMPLETELY different from her comic counterpart, Zatanna is aged way down to be a member of the teen team, and Kaldur’ahm was created for this show (and integrated into the comics as Jackson Hyde). They were always trying to do different things than the main comics universe, so them making a different version of Conner also makes sense. Their approach to him is also very clearly influenced more by how he appeared in the Teen Titans comic run that was still coming out as Young Justice started airing (his design, and some other elements we’ll discuss along the way), as opposed to his original version from the 90′s/the Young Justice comic.

So the basic “why” is that from the start they wanted to create something unique to their universe, which they definitely did accomplish.

The much more interesting subject to dive into, though, is looking at the differences in Superboy’s story that contribute to him becoming such a different person.

The drastic changes made to the following factors are what I view as the main source of his differences in personality/outlook/characterization:

The conditions and history of the world at the time he is introduced

The circumstances around him being introduced/leaving Cadmus

The reaction Clark has to him and how their relationship starts

The people he first interacted with & became close to, and how he interacts with the world

The timing of him finding out about his connection to Luthor

The State of the Worlds

In the comics, Superboy is first introduced in Adventures of Superman #500 by iconically saying “Don’t ever call me Superboy!”

during a 1993 event called “Reign of the Supermen”, a follow up to the 1992 event “The Death of Superman”. Based on the title of the 1992 event, I think you can, uh, guess what one major difference in the setting here was vs. the state of the world at the time he was introduced in the cartoon. Obviously Clark didn’t stay dead forever, but Superboy first comes onto the scene as a young clone of Superman who insists he is the new Superman (one of the four characters trying to do so during the event). This is in the main DC universe in the early 90’s, which means that heroes in general, including teen heroes, aren’t a new thing! Not only has the Justice League been around for a while but so has the Teen Titans. Once Clark is alive again, Superboy goes off on his own to establish himself as an individual teen hero.

So how is that different in the cartoon?

In the cartoon, Superboy is first introduced in the pilot episodes “Independence Day” and “Fireworks”

on the 4th of July in (what most people consider to be) 2010. This was supposed to be the day that Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm) would get to see the true Justice League HQ at the Hall of Justice, which... doesn’t go exactly as planned.

In this world, superheroes are a newer thing, this is something that the creators have talked about before. At this point, while there is an established Justice League, there are no known teams of teen superheroes. Just the fact that as of season one Dick Grayson is still Robin is a pretty good indicator that this world is early in it’s time with a Batman. Now, the sidekicks aren’t a secret, as they appear very publicly in this first episode, but they are almost always seen acting with their mentors at this point. Again, there is no Teen Titans in this setting, and there never has been.

So when they do form the first teen hero team? It is kept covert-ops. They do not publicize that they act as a superhero team, and the members who weren’t already publicly known heroes (mainly Miss Martian and Superboy) end up being pretty… unknown to a lot of the world outside the hero/villain community! Again their existence is not strictly kept a secret, but they keep the fact that there’s a team of minors who are heroes going on independent missions VERY under the radar on purpose. Thus, those who aren’t going around doing super public hero activities just don’t have nearly as much of a presence.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy is immediately put in a spotlight (he befriends a reporter and is all over tv and literally trademarks the name Superman) becoming known to the world and establishes himself as a solo acting hero YEARS before joining any teams.

In the cartoon, Superboy is kept relatively out of the spotlight, immediately becomes part of a covert-ops team and doesn’t act solo very often. The well known teen heroes in this setting are sidekicks working under a mentor, and Superboy does not actually act as a sidekick.

What does this mean for Superboy?

Superboy in the comics gets to, right away, act on his own and get a taste of what being Superman is like. In the cartoon, he’s brought into the world at a time where there already is a Superman. I think back to this bit from the therapy episode, where he says:

“See, from the moment I first opened my eyes in that Cadmus pod, there’s been one thing I’ve wanted, and feared. To know what it is to be Superman.”

Comics Superboy started out getting to do that! He immediately got a shot at filling that role, and he then makes the choice to relinquish it back to the original once he’s alive again. He (begrudgingly at first) understood that it wasn’t yet his time to be Superman, and knows he’ll someday fill those shoes for real- but in the meantime being Superboy is gonna be his own thing and he’ll embrace it and make it work.

Cartoon Superboy is left in a shadow, not ever truly knowing what it’s like to fill those shoes (except in a doomsday scenario training exercise gone awry that he then just feels intense guilt over). This leaves him a lot more frustrated and lost, and I think is a major contributor to how angry this version of Superboy is compared to his much more ‘chill go with the flow’ attitude in the comics.

Cadmus

In the comics, in that same issue he’s introduced, we find out that Superboy broke out of his cloning tube prematurely and left Cadmus with the assistance of the second Newsboy Legion, who also gave him his first leather jacket, before the programming that would allow Cadmus to control him was implemented.

He quickly gets up to speed with the situation, that Clark is dead. So he comes on the scene starting to save people and saying he is Superman, or at least the clone of the original one. A major thing that does influence his character here is the fact that… this is the 90’s. He is designed around the idea of what is ‘cool’ back in 1993. (look, even his original character design sheets call him cool)

So right off the bat he’s got a stereotypical ‘cool teen guy in that era’ personality, which is often played for comedy to add a little lightness to some of the dark things happening during this event.

Anyways, he has left Cadmus, he’s acting on his own, and he starts realizing that his powers aren’t exactly the same as Superman’s over the course of the Reign of the Supermen story.

After the main conflict is settled and Clark is fully alive and acting as Superman again, the two of them end up going back to Cadmus to find out what the exact deal is with him. I’ll go into this more in a later point, but they find out he’s not exactly a clone of Superman (or Lex- him being actually involved as a DNA donor is a retcon that happened a decade later). They agree to let someone from Cadmus (Dubbilex- the grey guy with the horns in this pic) leave Metropolis with him, as he sets out on a press tour to establish himself as Superboy now that he relinquished the trademark on the Superman name back to Clark.

Let’s pause and look at how this is different in the cartoon.

In the cartoon, when the trio of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad decide to prove themselves to their mentors they run off on their own to attend to a fire at Project Cadmus when the Justice League got called off to do something else. Upon arriving, they accidentally uncover some weird things about Cadmus, like the crazy amount of sublevels, the creatures roaming around, and the fact that it’s not on the main power grids. They eventually find Superboy, still in his cloning tube. They break him out, but then get captured themselves.

When they are then put into tubes by Cadmus personnel, they manage to convince Superboy to help free them by promising him things like getting to meet Superman, and see the moon. The group of four now working together manages to escape from the building and it topples down, where they are then greeted by the Justice League who are Not Happy.

Superman flies away shortly after, and the group of kids explain to their remaining mentors that sure, they disobeyed orders, but they accomplished something good here, and they are going to keep doing it, whether the League likes it or not. The compromise is the formation of The Team, to be covert-ops while the Justice League acts publicly, and the boys are joined by Miss Martian.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy leaves Cadmus pretty independently (with some assistance) to go act on his own as a hero immediately. He returns to Cadmus later for more information, and they reveal truths to him about his existence. After he knows his truth, he goes off to continue establishing himself as a solo hero but lets Cadmus still supervise what he’s doing through Dubbilex.

In the cartoon, Superboy is rescued from Cadmus by Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, without knowing pretty much anything about himself besides the fact that he is a clone of Superman, and is immediately put on the covert ops team.

What it means for Superboy:

Comic Superboy goes to act on his own, even after he admits he’s not the real Superman anymore. Yes he’s not 100% alone in terms of ‘he’s got people (Rex, Roxy, Dubbilex, Tana) around him’, but as a hero he’s a solo act and ends up taking residence in Hawaii. In the cartoon, by joining a team right away, he’s taking on a very different style of being a hero, especially because the team itself is covert-ops. Rather than regularly saving the day all on his own much like Superman, which can help comic Superboy feel like he’s still living up to the name more, cartoon Superboy is working under the radar in a group setting, while still wanting to desperately fill those Superman shoes.

He is overconfident in his abilities and wants to be the hero he was created to be, so him being put into this very different type of superhero situation is another major contributor to the frustration/anger. Even later on when comics Superboy is part of forming the Young Justice team, they were never a secret covert-ops team, they were always publicly known. (hell, a reporter is the one who gave them the team name Young Justice because he’d misheard Bart)

Superboy & Superman

In the comics, as we have established, Clark was dead at the time Superboy first came on the hero scene. Clark comes back to life, during a little bit of a lull in the middle of the huge conflict. He immediately accepts that Superboy is one of four who came forward to try to replace him, and one of the only two (Superboy & Steel) who genuinely only had good intentions in doing so. Clark, Steel, Supergirl, Hal Jordan, and Superboy then all work together in the big battle against the Cyborg Superman.

Once things are settled, Clark is curious about him, and where he came from and his origin, so they end up going to Cadmus together with Guardian and learning more about him, as I previously mentioned. Once it is established that Superboy is in fact a metahuman clone who was created to mimic Superman, but is not actually a clone of him, Superman still accepts him and thinks he’s earned his right to continue using the ’S’ shield and have the name of Superboy.

They part ways so Superboy can go on his press tour, but in general they have pretty positive interactions where they mutually respect each other! Not too much later in the comics even (I forget exaaactly when this happens but it’s definitely before the 1998 Young justice comic), Superman is the first one to give Superboy a real name, “Kon-El”, something he is so happy about he literally cries.

How is this different in the cartoon?

When the boys first escaped, and Superboy first meets the Justice League, Clark is standoffish. Other members of the league need to nudge him over to go actually talk to Superboy, and it’s not much of a conversation before he flies off and away, leaving Superboy frustrated and alone.

This… turns into the standard for almost the entire first season. Other characters constantly telling Clark that he needs to reach out and be support for the boy (like in this iconic diner scene with Bruce and Clark), but Clark consistently being too freaked out by the fact that someone made a clone of him without his knowledge to properly accept Conner. While this does over time get better, this being the immediate reaction when Superboy is brand new in the world definitely… has an impact!

He is rejected by the person he idolizes, and feels neglected and abandoned, and definitely kinda overcompensates with ego to try to make up for it.

So:

In the comics, Superman and Superboy work together from the start, not falling into a hero/sidekick situation but rather acknowledging each other as individual heroes with respect for one another. They grow to see each other as family much faster, and little tension between them. A crucial difference in situations, though, is that at the time these versions first meet Superboy is not actually a clone of Superman.

In the cartoon, Superman at first avoids Superboy, and does not offer guidance or mentorship or anything the boy needs. It is clear that he wants to work with Superman and be like him, since it was what he was created to do. It takes a lot of time for Clark to accept Conner in this setting, and there is a lot of tension for the first several months Conner exists. (they seem to settle this towards the end of season 1/during the gap between season 2, but it still has it’s impact on who Conner is early in his life)

What does this mean?

I feel like this is another major factor that contributes to Conner being so angry all the time in the cartoon, he feels immediately rejected by the person he’s supposed to be someday, rather than accepted by him. Again, very different from how comics Superboy got a chance to be Superman, and a chance to then work with the real deal as equals.

Friendships, Relationships and Identity

When Superboy is freed by the second Newsboy Legion, it’s primarily out of a ‘we’re clones who are stuck here, but you need to be out there, you’re what Metropolis needs right now!’ kind of idea. The first person he actually becomes close to is a reporter named Tana Moon.

Tana and Superboy’s relationship is… bad once it actually becomes romantic due to their huge age difference (she’s around 23, he is for all intents and purposes 16), but during the Reign of the Supermen where they’re still just friends for the most part, it’s not as bad. Tana becomes the GBS correspondent who focuses on everything Superboy (at this time still insisting he is the new Superman) is doing as a hero, and they become close friends.

GBS then also brings in Rex Leech (and his daughter Roxy) to be his agent, to promote Superboy and manage things for him. Rex is exploitative as hell, but Roxy does become another really important person to Superboy. These characters along with Dubbilex are his main supporting cast at the start of his solo comic when he’s in Hawaii.

In this whole era, Superboy is pretty much a celebrity. He’s cool, he’s a superhero, and I think it’s very notable he does not have a secret Identity. For a decent chunk of time, he is always just ‘Superboy’ (until, as I mentioned earlier, Clark gives him the name Kon-El. Even so, he doesn’t adopt a regular secret identity [Conner Kent, although he actually used a different one, Carl Grummett, before that!] until he begins living with the Kents in the early 2000s). By the time he joins any teams, Kon is pretty damn confident in who he is as a hero and has a relatively good grasp on who he is in general, if anything he’s a little too confident.

Young Justice was created in the aftermath of World Without Grown Ups when the trio of Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake) and Impulse (Bart Allen) had teamed up. After they saved the day they realized they worked well together and formed their team, utilizing the old Justice League base in Mount Justice. They were eventually joined by more members, especially relevant here is Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) who Kon later dates for a portion of the Teen Titans run that these four are in after Young Justice ends.

The four of them become close, and when Kon dies during Infinite Crisis it rips a hole in everything they had established growing up together over the past several years (Cassie joins a cult dedicated to bringing him back, Tim tries to clone a new Kon, Bart got aged up and took on the mantle of the Flash, etc) and Bart’s death that followed similarly shook the remaining Cassie and Tim. This group eventually does get to reunite, with Kon and Bart coming back during Final Crisis, solidifying how even things like death don’t keep them apart for long. It’s hard to look at the comic book versions of these four characters and imagine how they would be without their connections to each other... until you look at the YJ cartoon and see a world where they’re not even all part of the same generation, let alone a friend group.

Now in the cartoon…

The first people Conner primarily interacts with are Dick, Wally, Kaldur, and M’gann, along with the League members who interact with The Team pretty regularly, Red Tornado, Batman, and Black Canary. He’s shown to be friends with the other memebers of the team and get along with them relatively well, but in general he’s not much of a social person.

Much like in the comics, Superboy is considered very attractive, and immediately upon their meeting, M’gann is interested in him. Very, very interested in him.

At first it definitely does seem more just like an innocent crush, but it’s later revealed to be a little more… concerning than that. As in ‘Megan subtlety influencing Superboy to become her dream boyfriend based on a TV show she likes’ concerning. Like… she literally gives him the name ‘Conner’ after the TV show character that was the boyfriend of the character she bases her human self and entire identity on. The two date and once that becomes a thing, a lot of their plot lines in the following seasons revolve around the ups and downs of their relationship.

In general in this show, Superboy doesn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself on his own terms. Within months of him leaving his cloning pod, he and M’gann start going to high school with secret identities, so he’s already having to hide who he truly is to blend in with other people, before he even knows who he truly is.

So to compare:

In the comics, Superboy gets to figure out who he is as Superman’s Clone/Superboy very publicly, has multiple love interests and a celebrity status, and over time becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends. He doesn’t use a regular secret identity for the first several years he’s active.

In the cartoon, Superboy has one love interest with a very large impact on him, not nearly as much focus is given to his other friendships, and he immediately adopts a secret identity meaning he needs to hide who he is from the start.

What it means:

These factors play a big difference in his attitude, particularly highlighting how extroverted his comic version is and how introverted his cartoon version is. Comic Superboy never really needed to hide who he was until years into his career, vs being told to do so early on in his life. When you get used to needing to hide things so early, that can definitely lead to being more private/disconnected from others. Also somewhat related- in the comics, when Kon is given knowledge in his cloning tube, more pop culture got included. He mentions knowing Star Wars without having seen it, and references a ton of TV and Movies, vs the cartoon version of him that seems to have been given a lot of history of the world but not the current fun stuff. It’s the difference between knowing what’s going on in the world and what’s popular, vs only knowing the past and what’s fundamental. Not knowing pop culture like this can also really contribute to feeling alienated and lead to introversion. (I just... I think about how in the comics Kon’s favorite TV show is Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, in the cartoon Conner just... watches white noise static)

Also, having a completely different set of friends with different personalities has a big effect, people are always gonna be influenced by the people they’re close to to some extent. Bumping Conner up to Dick’s generation of heroes instead of Tim’s not only gives him completely different friends, but it also puts him in this position of being one of the ‘Original Team Members’. By this I mean, a member of the first iteration of the only teen team, one of the people that younger heroes coming onto the scene and joining the team in later seasons see as an experienced and older team member to look up to (despite the fact that cartoon Conner is permanently 16- they never fixed that for him like in the comics). That just creates a different dynamic entirely, because in the comics even when the Tim/Kon/Cassie/Bart group are more experienced on their team late in the Teen Titans run, they are still always going to have heroes like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Wally West etc as the older generation of ‘original teen heroes’ who came before them.

Also, while I am talking mostly about in-universe reasoning here, I do wanna bring up one slightly more meta reason that might also have contributed to them choosing to go for a more ‘introverted brooding hero’ characterization with him: the fact that their version of Wally already filled the ‘flirty jokey’ archetype original Comics Kon fits into. Having two characters like that in the show from the start would definitely get... overwhelming. And at the time this show was first airing, in the comics, he was relatively devoted to Cassie and not nearly as flirty anymore anyways.

Lex Luthor / Details of Cloning

In the comics, as I have already mentioned and will now actually explain, when Superboy was first introduced he was not the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor as we know him to be today. Kon was a metahuman clone, made with the DNA of Paul Westfield who worked at Cadmus, that they genetically altered to look like Superman, and gave powers based on the energy aura they discovered to exist around Clark’s dead body. This telekinetic field gave Kon the distinct powers he had for his first decade of existence: His Tactile Telekinesis (often referred to by him as TTK)

Lex Luthor was originally not directly involved in his creation, but he was aware that it was going on as is revealed during the Reign of the Supermen arc. Kon’s TTK allowed him to mimic Superman’s flight and strength, but not all of his powers. TTK also gave him powers Superman DOESN’T have, such as his ability to dismantle machinery or mold materials he is touching into different shapes. (The reason this is called Tactile Telekinesis is because there needs to be a tactile element, he needs to be touching the things)

It is not until 2003, a decade after Superboy was created, that writer Geoff Johns in his Teen Titans run decided to alter Superboy’s origin. He established that Lex Luthor had been the real human DNA donor and that Superman’s Kryptonian DNA was actually used in the cloning process. Around this time, Conner also begins to exhibit more of the typical Kryptonian powers, like Clark did around this age.

This information is at first only known by Conner and Tim, because the email had actually been sent to Tim directly. The two keep it a secret as Conner was not ready to tell the rest of the team, because he fears the implications it has, and is afraid of becoming evil or being rejected. This revelation about Lex being one of his ‘parents’ DNA-wise coming years into his hero career changes a lot of things for Conner, and makes him begin to question who he is. Unfortunately, Lex does at one point take control of Conner and force him to break Tim’s arm and attack Cassie directly (as well as the rest of the team, but these two specifically are what Conner expresses the most guilt over after the fact). This era of Conner in the comics is where he’s definitely closest to his cartoon counterpart, because he’s very troubled and dealing with a lot of heavy stuff regarding himself as a person. Yet there’s still traces of who he has always been in there. I mean, if you’re only familiar with cartoon Conner, can you really imagine his final words as he’s dying after saving the world being “Isn’t it cool?”

Now, looking at the cartoon…

Conner finds out about his connection to Lex in November, only a few months after having existed outside of a cloning tube. He finds it out on his own, from Lex speaking to him directly, after Conner went back to investigate the remains of Cadmus and ended up having a fight with Match (another clone who is able to pass for Conner’s duplicate who they… their version of Match is another thing they drastically changed from the comic version but as we’ve established that’s something they like to do so I’m not gonna dwell on it).

In the cartoon, Conner’s powerset is, from the start, different from both Superman and comic Superboy. Here he has heightened senses and strength and the ability to leap really far, but he lacks actual flight and some of the other standard Kryptonian powers, and has no TTK. The cartoon explains these gaps in his powers as being due to his half human DNA, and they introduce these patches that are able to suppress his human DNA and give him temporary access to full powers. Lex uses these patches as a way to manipulate him. Much like in the comics, Lex has a code word programmed into Conner that effects him, although it isn’t quite used for the same amount of ‘total mind control’, and he doesn’t get fully brainwashed and turn against the team or anything. Instead, the code word (here “Red Sun” rather than “Aut vincere, aut mori” [Translated as “to conquer or die" / "victory or death”]) just leaves him stuck in a hypnotic trance.

So:

In the comics, Kon finds out after years of believing he was a metahuman clone who was given powers to mimic Superman, that he is actually a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, which alters his entire perspective on himself! This causes him to become a lot more unsure and anxious about who he is, in stark contrast with how confident he was before. There are still traces of his old self within him, but this is a development in his character that influences him moving forward, making him a bit more serious but still at his core the same person he used to be.

In the cartoon, Conner finds out after months of thinking he was a clone of just Superman, that he has half human DNA and the donor was Lex Luthor. While he always had confidence in his abilities, he was still somewhat lost as a person in knowing who he really was outside of things other people have assigned to him (teammate, boyfriend, superhero, etc), and finding out this information about himself just adds to the uncertainty and frustration.

What it means:

Having this struggle be something Conner has to deal with so early in his existence is one of the most fundamental changes in my opinion. Finding out that Lex Luthor is one of your clone parents is something that will alter your entire perception of yourself and who you are! In the comics, Conner had already been confident in who he was so it shakes his world in a really big way, but in the cartoon he still didn’t know who he really was so it just adds to further confusion.

I think that even with the more serious characterization Kon starts getting in the 2003 Teen TItans run, his history and past as the fun cool 90′s Metropolis Kid isn’t entirely forgotten, it’s still a part of who he is/was. Sure, maybe he’s sometimes even embarrassed by how he used to be, but it’s not treated as though it didn’t happen. All of his history comes together to create the character and who he is by the time he wears just a T shirt as a costume.

By skipping over the fun era of his life and jumping right into who he was when he started facing these huge changes, it creates such a completely different set of challenges for him and that contributes directly to how he’s characterized.

Putting it all together

The ultimate point I am trying to reach in all of this is that, beyond just ‘they made a writing choice to make him different’ the environment that Superboy was brought into and the events that took place right when he came into the world greatly influenced the type of character he would become. Every time an adaptation is made of something like comics, there are going to be changes and alterations to fit the world the creators want to make. Sometimes these changes are minor and don’t actually change who a character is (an example for the YJ cartoon’s universe itself: In the tie-in comics [issue 6] it’s established in this universe that the Flying Graysons weren’t just Dick and his parents, but other family members were active parts of it too. One was an uncle also named Richard, who actually survived the fall that killed the rest of his family but was left paralyzed and thus unable to care for him. This uncle already used the nickname ‘Rick’ which is likely why Dick ended up using ‘Dick’ as a name in a modern setting even though it has fallen out of popularity as a nickname because uh, connotations. This is something that is mostly unique to their world and helps to explain some things, but it’s not like tragically losing a few more family members changed their version of Dick and his backstory that drastically. At his core, he still has many similarities to his comic self) but they’re still changes, and that’s okay. Superboy, though, is such an extreme case where they made so many changes that at his core he really does become a completely separate character. Sure he has the name and design, but I was able to write five thousand words about differences here and am struggling to come up with more similarities beyond that.

I think there still could be specks of the original Superboy buried inside cartoon Conner, and that maybe he could have been more like his original version under other circumstances. Looking at these differences and where they come from is, I think, a cool way to begin to understand what elements contribute to who each version of Conner Kent really is. I think it’s clear from how I wrote this that I prefer the comic version, but there are definitely things that are fun to look at and think about with both.

if u read all of this UH thanks for listenin to me ramble! sorry if this is incomprehensibe!

#rainbowroadimpulse #sam writes #conner kent #superboy

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supercorpkid · 3 years

Text

How you met Maya’s parents.

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader, Kelly Olsen x Niece!Reader

Word count: 2545.

It was a normal Thursday. Until it wasn’t anymore.

Jamie and Maya were in front of the school waiting for their parents to come pick them up. You fell a little behind, because the school counselor wanted to make sure you sent your application for the robotics thing she had you applied for.

“I just want to make sure you won’t miss the date. It's very important and prestigious…” Blah-blah-blah. You know all of this. She’s been telling you about this program for two years now. You look at Maya and Jamie talking, wishing the counselor would just shut up and let you go already, so you could join their conversation that sounds way more fun.

“Oh, my parents are here.” You hear Maya’s voice. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

It’s all a blur after that. There is so much going on it’s hard for you to know what to do next. First, the school counselor is asking something about your project. Second, you hear a car accelerating on the street close to the school. Third, police sirens chasing said car. Fourth, Maya is crossing the street.

“MOM’S HERE, GOTTA RUN!” You yell, leaving a dumbfounded counselor behind. You change using your super speed.

You quickly pick up Maya, putting her on the other side of the sidewalk, and you run to the middle of the street to stop the car with your body. There’s a loud crashing sound, but you’re obviously not hurt. The police car stops behind it, and two cops leave it raising their guns at the two criminals still inside the car. They’re handcuffed and taken away in a little time, and just then you notice the crowd, the phones and the applause around you. You smile a little embarrassed from the attention.

You look to the sidewalk, and run to Maya, who’s being held by her dad while her mom asks her several questions on whether she is hurt, scared, and ok.

“Are you ok?” You add to the amount of questions.

“You saved me.” She says, eyes blown, pupils completely dark. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Superkid.” Her mother says offering her hand, as in for you to shake it. You try not to use much strength, although it is kind of hard given the situation you were just in and you’re still very worked up after it.

“You saved our daughter!” Her dad chimes in, also thankful. “There’s nothing we can say to thank you for that.”

“No need.” You smile, shyly. “Just doing my job.”

“Superkid!” You hear Jamie’s voice coming closer. “That was incredible. You saved her!”

“Thank you, Ja-” You bite your tongue. “Random girl.” Nope, too forced.

“Oh, is this your girlfriend, Maya?” Her mother asks and you blush furiously at the thought of them knowing about you. It takes you a while to realize they are NOT talking about you, but about Jamie.

“Oh, Ah. That’s, um-” Maya tries to use her words, but she’s too confused to do so. You decide to interrupt.

“Well, glad to see you’re ok.” You say looking back at the street where the cars are having a hard time moving because there’s a broken car in the middle of it. “I should take this car out of here.”

You pick up the car, and right before flying away with it, you hear:

“Oh my God, she’s so strong.” Coming from Maya’s mouth.

“That kid is amazing.” Her dad agrees, and you smile to yourself again, while taking the car out of the way.

A few seconds later, though, you’re back in the school, in your old clothes and glasses. Running towards Maya like you were there the entire time.

“Babe, are you ok?” You rush in, holding her hands and looking at them for any bruises. “I saw what happened from the other side.”

“Superkid saved her.” Jamie says, with a grin, like she’s just giving you brand new information, and you hold a laughter back.

“Actually, this is my girlfriend.” Maya says to her parents and they both shake their heads agreeing.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you.” Her dad raises his hand and you, and you shake it, politely.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Rose.” You say, still blushed from when he called you amazing a minute ago. You turn back to her mother. “Mrs. Rose.”

She doesn’t talk for a while. She just stares at you and you can see the wheels on her brain turning. Oh no. Not the…

“You’re a Luthor.” She says, matter-of-factly. Then turns to her husband. “She is Lena Luthor’s daughter. I’ve met them a while back.”

“What?” Maya’s dad lets go of her, turning rigid at the mention of your last name. “You can’t possibly be dating an evil Luthor.”

“She’s not evil!” You hear and you think it came from Maya’s mouth, only to realize a second later it was Jamie who said it, while reaching out, holding your shoulder to support you. “And her mother isn’t evil either. Just because Lex Luthor is the worst, doesn’t mean everyone in the Luthor’s family is too.”

You want to answer. You want to tell them to go fuck themselves because they just said you were amazing, and thanked you for saving their daughter’s life. And now they’re just staring at you like you’ve committed a crime, when you have done the exact opposite. But your words are stuck in your throat and your eyes are filled with tears before you can even form a sentence.

“You understand too little of the world, little girl.” It’s what her father answers. “You have no way to know that her mother is not evil, but I have. I’ve seen how L Corp treats people that dare to go against them.”

“Wait, you know my mom?” Your words finally come out, in complete shock and disbelief. Maya never mentioned any of that. She said her parents hated your family because Lex tried to mind control them, along with everyone else on Earth. And honestly, you know that feeling of being mind controlled by him, so you can’t blame them.

“We’ve met before.” He twists his nose while saying that. “A little too icy for my taste.”

“Dad, please. Let’s just go.” Maya asks, trying to push him out of the way.

You feel Jamie’s grip tightening around your shoulder, like telling you it’s time for you both to leave. You agree with your head, unclenching your jaw, still shooting daggers with your eyes. But, still, you breathe deep.

“Icy doesn’t mean evil. I hope you can understand that.” You say, and smile at Maya. “I’m just glad you’re ok.”

“Come on. My mami is here.” Jamie pulls you by the hand, and you let yourself follow her trying to ignore their looks to your back. Jamie wraps her arms around you and whispers in your ear. “No super hearing. It won’t do you any good.”

“Nothing about this has done me any good.” You manage to say, and Jamie shoves you inside Kelly’s momvan. And you’re so lost and sad, you don’t even understand why you’re going with her when you can just fly away. Weirdly, flying doesn’t feel like an option to you right now.

“Is everything ok? I heard that there was a car chase around here.” Kelly asks when Jamie walks in, and sits on the passenger seat next to her.

“Superkid saved everyone.” Jamie says with a smile, and you can see a smile coming up on Kelly’s face, while she starts driving away.

“Good for you!” Kelly says taking one hand out of the wheel, and patting your leg gently. “You must be so proud of yourself.”

“Yeah, it’s-Mhm-it’s…” You start, but soon you’re crying desperately, being very loud about it. “It sucks!”

“Hey, hey. No!” Jamie looks behind and reaches out to you. But she doesn’t know what to do or say, and Kelly doesn’t really understand what’s going on. They stare at each other for one second, until Kelly turns to the front again, breathing deep.

“Where would you like to go, honey?” You know she is talking to you, even though she’s using Jamie’s pet name. “Do you want to go home? To our place? Maybe you want to tell me more about what happened?”

“I’m sorry, auntie.” You dry your face, holding your tears back. “You can just stop the car here, and I’ll fly to L Corp. I have to work on a project.”

“I’ll drive you there.” She says and you agree with your head, because you really don’t want to fly right now. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I’ll let Jamie fill you in after.” You shrug. “Right now, I just want to think about something else.”

They change the subject, but you don’t really pay attention to any of it. It feels so weird being loved when you’re wearing the ‘House of El’ crest on your chest, and just a minute later being hated on, when you’re wearing your glasses and there’s no alter ego helping you out of Luthor's name. One minute you’re Saving Face, the next one Earth Disgrace.

“Hey, little-Danvers.” Jamie says after Kelly parallel parks in front of L Corp. You look at her. “They’re dumbasses. They are the icy ones, ok?”

“Yeah. Thanks for your help back there.” You get out of the car and make your way inside the building. You know you have to work on your project, but you can’t even think right now, let alone come up with something new and innovatory. “Hey Aly, can you call my mom’s assistant and ask her if she’s busy right now?”

“Sure thing, Miss Luthor-Danvers!” Aly studies your face for a few seconds. “Everything alright, miss?”

“Um, yeah. It’s fine.” You agree and she does what you asked, even though she doesn’t look convinced at all.

“You can go up. She is not busy.” Aly says with a smile, and you match hers. You don’t even know what you’re going to say to Lena, but you feel you need her. You make your way to the last floor, and go inside her office. Lena stands up when she sees you, a smile on her face.

“There’s my little hero!” She says pointing at the images on the TV of you standing in front of the car. Hair blowing in the wind, hands on the waist, looking proud of yourself. Then she looks at you, looking sad and small in front of her. You get now why people think you’re two different people. These two images do not match. “My baby! What’s wrong?”

“I just want a hug.” You think about it for a second when you see her coming closer with arms open. “But I’d like some donuts more.”

Lena chuckles and asks her assistant to go out and buy you a box. She finally comes closer a while later, opens arms, and snugs you in. The tears come uninvited, and she just lets you cry for a while.

“Baby, what happened?” She presses when you don’t talk, only cry, for a few good minutes.

“I saved Maya.” You look at her, big watery eyes. “Her parents were so thankful, and it felt so good.”

Lena agrees with her head, because she understands how good it feels to save someone you love. It’s not the same as saving a person you’ve never met. Sure, both feel good. But saving someone you love is the most powerful and strong feeling you’ve ever felt.

“Then I was out of my supersuit and in my glasses and they just-” You choke on your words, and it’s like she knows what’s coming next. “They hated me!”

“Oh baby.” Lena brings you in for another hug. Tighter than the first one. She kisses your head a couple of times. “I’m sorry they can’t see what an amazing person you are. Suit or no suit. But that doesn’t make what you did today less important. It was incredible.” She holds your chin up, to look at her. “You’re incredible.”

“He said you are icy.” You say, and Lena’s response is a soft chuckle.

“Yes, well, men think that about powerful women.” She winks at you, unbothered. “I take it as a compliment.”

“Well, I don’t.” You pout and Lena cleans your face from your tears, same smile still on her lips.

“My love, they can only hurt us if we let them.” She says, raising her gaze at the door, calling her assistant in with the donuts for you. The box is placed on the table in front of you. Lena waits until she leaves, and turns back to you. “Come on, let’s eat donuts, and talk about how Superkid’s name is on everyone’s mouth today.”

“Is that a good thing?” You ask and she blinks at you like you’re asking a stupid question. You look back at the TV and see your video stopping the runaway car over and over again. Yeah. It’s a good thing.

Your phone rings at text, and you pick it up from your back pocket, while Lena goes for the donuts.

Maya: Sorry about my parents. They’re jerks.

You: Are you alright? It was quite the scare.

Maya: I’m 100% fine! Superkid saved me! Do you see now why she is my favorite hero?

You: Yes, I see now. I’m glad you’re ok. I’ll send a thank you card for your crush.

Maya: You’re my crush! Also, did I mention how sorry I am and how jerks my parents were?

You: You have.

Lena pulls your head towards her and kisses your forehead with a smile.

“You know, it’s not her fault her parents are jerks.” She says and you roll your eyes.

“Stop reading my texts.” You complain pretending to be upset, but you smile a little when she’s not looking.

You: Hey, we are not our parents, right?

Maya: No, we are not. You are the most comprehensive human being on the planet. That’s one of the things that make me love you.

You squeak in excitement when you read that, and stand up feeling so happy your feet don’t even touch the ground. You can’t stop reading the text over and over again.

“Hey! I brought donuts so we can celebrate you saving the people from your school!” Kara flies in, pink box in hands and Lena gives her an eyebrow raise.

“Beat you to it.” She adds with a smile, pointing at the pink box sitting on the table and Kara shrugs.

“The more the merrier!” Kara comes closer to you, pushing your shoulder down, making your feet touch the floor. “What’s with her?”

“Pretty sure her girlfriend just said she loves her.” Lena says with a smile, and Kara beams to you, looking as excited as you are.

“Seriously, you have to stop reading my texts.” You pretend to be annoyed, but you look back on your phone and a smile instantly comes.

You: You do, huh?

Maya: I do.

You: I love you too.

You love your girlfriend. You love being Superkid. You love donuts. And you love your moms very much. Turns out, your life’s insane, but it’s also pretty good.

Notes:

@sophixsa prompted this awesome idea, and I’m sorry it was a little sad at first, but happy ending, at least.

#supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #supercorp #supercorpfamily #kara x lena #kara x reader #supercorp daughter #supercorp fanfic #lena x reader #kelly olsen

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jmoriarty-221b · 3 years

Text

So I saw somewhere a post that talked about how some fictional characters just have a divorce vibe going on, like, at no point in time were they ever married but they just give off that feeling that they got divorced

And now I can only think of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor having that vibe

And I spent close to an hour talking about this to my sibling and how it would be a good idea for a new DC show like, you can make so much money off of just the main Batfam alone and there are literally so many people in there that it’s just an amazing idea to have them all in a show together but kind of like a Good Luck Charlie kinda thing because there’s more than enough angst in the world

But in the case of not having enough of a budget for so many characters in one show I turned to the Superfam (Batfam is Huge like, I don’t even know half of the extended family version and that’s like at least ten characters so I could see why it wouldn’t be entirely feasible to have a show that included everyone while still being good with nice character development without having a billion dollars for the budget)

The Superfam, in my personal experience, is composed of Ma & Pa Kent (farm vibes plus I refuse to have either of them die in my AU), Clark Kent (main Superman), Lois Lane (Lana? was Smallville Lois i guess??? But idk enough about her so she’s not here), Jon Kent (Superboi II), Kara Danvers (Supergirl) & Conner Kent (Superboi I)

Now I’ve stopped watching CW shows like, forever ago??? But my brother kinda keeps up with them and basically the gist is that the ratings of every other show suck Except for the Superman & Lois show (because it’s 💫new💫) and I saw the cover of the poster like “Ah, the werewolf dude. . . mmmhhmmm that’s Lois yes, yes that’s Johnny boi, and um is that???? Nooooo, they wouldn’t do that to Conner right???? Please tell me they didn’t make Conner blonde” and I was informed that the blonde teen is Chris???? Like

Whoms’t do ye speak of

I’m not even joking but the only way I even know of Chris is from a random fanfic I read where Dick Grayson gets his own super from an alternate reality named Chris, that’s my only point of reference for this character

But let’s talk about how Conner Kent (OG Superboi) was excluded

Now I haven’t seen any episodes of this and I probably never will (no hate I’m just really unmotivated to start new shows at all) so idk if they might mention Conner or even allude to him in one scene or something

But this was my main motivator as to my new Superfam TV Show Idea

Have Lex Luthor not be a Superman villain, he’s mainly a successful businessman, a little shady but who isn’t, and he doesn’t want to Kill Superman, he just wants to be able to have some sort of viable protection against a Kryptonian in case of an invasion (see Man of Steel + CW’s Supergirl) or suddenly having a mind controlled Superman on their hands (see Justice League series or just look up what Red Krytonite does) so he makes it like his side thing to figure out ways to neutralize or hold back a Kryptonian, Clark totally thinks that Lex is obsessed with finding a way to kill Superman because they had a bad end to their friendship in high school so he’s always suspicious of Lex, Lex hasn’t really ever tried to kill him though because 1. It’s not that deep Clark ok? And 2. He’s a busy busy man with a very important job position and a company to run so does he look like he has time to harbor an obsession over someone who rejected him back in high school??? You’re more of a constant side quest Clark, so stop trying to put him on the JL watchlist ( btw ik about Lena Luthor, haven’t forgotten her but she doesn’t really play a part in this AU so let’s just have her and Kara off to the side doing their own thing ok? Ok)

Lex, Bruce & Oliver all knew each other when they were kids and went to the same school, this is just an extra detail I wanted to happen because Lex and Ollie definitely know Bruce is Batman and absolutely HATE having to deal with Brucie Wayne because “I know you’re just doing this to irritate me Bruce, you just want to see if you can make a vein throb in my forehead but I will valiantly ignore your dumbassery because I know you hate being Brucie just as much as we hate having to put up with Brucie so suck on that you petty bitch” because they bonded in ye olden days, childhood friends so to speak

Anyway so Cadmus tries to get Lex to make an investment in their company, seeing as Cadmus is shadier than Gotham when it rains Lex is basically like ‘no ❤️’ and doesn’t make a deal with them, Cadmus gets mad at not having Lexcorp financially backing them so Lex has an ‘accident’ and they steal his DNA, then they steal Superman’s DNA somehow and *boom* a Superboi is formed

Because I don’t know much about how the Core Four became friends in the first place (Robin Tim Drake, Impulse Bart Allen, Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark & Superboy Conner Kent) I’m just gonna go with what happens in the show Young Justice except it’s the Core Four becoming the Core Four when they liberated Conner (who at this point believes himself to be a clone of Superman and has only been given Superboy as a name) from Cadmus, same shit goes down meaning that Clark is just straight up NOT vibing with Conner, Conner just wants a mentor please, and the Bats kinda give Clark a passive aggressive treatment for not taking Superboy under his wing or at least agreeing to teach him how to control his powers, especially Tim because that’s his Bestie so yes

Anyway, YJ saves ppl and is on the news or whatever and Lex finds out about Superboy’s existence that way, so he researches this new super on his free time, finds out that he came from Cadmus and claims to be a clone of Superman, yet doesn’t have the whole power set Superman has??? Wait, didn’t Lex reject Cadmus’ proposal and the got into a mysterious accident??? Long story short Lex goes connecting the dots, hacks into Cadmus’ files, finds out he technically has a son with Superman and decides to take Superboy under his wing (I’ll go more in depth as to why Lex would want to do this in this AU later but the abridged version would be that he wants a kid but doesn’t have the time nor interest in finding a wife??? Also the radiation that made him bald as a kid also affected his reproductive system so while it’s not impossible for him to conceive kids he would have a very hard time actually getting to father a kid)

Him and Conner, who still goes by Superboy at this point in time, meet up and Conner finds out that here is a parent figure that is both available and actively wants to be a part of his life, so he agrees to get to know Lex and the series would focus on them becoming a family, with a special episode when Conner asks Lex for help in choosing a name for himself and it ends up with him agreeing to become Conner Luthor, it would be heartwarming and Mercy would make sure it happens within a day (Mercy is Lex’s bodyguard/PA but they’re also besties and she becomes the Responsible yet Chaotic Aunt as Lex and Conner’s father-son relationship progresses)

Obviously Clark becomes super suspicious of Lex getting close to his ‘clone’ and when Conner decides to go public as Lex’s son he’s like *GASP* and calls up Bruce because we need to get on this Bruce, Lex is a villain and blah blah blah but Bruce would be over Clark’s shit and hit him with that “actually, Lex was also an unwilling genetic donor to Superboy, who actually is not your clone either, and has agreed to take him in, I’ve been on this shit since they first met and the kid is doing just fine so if you keep poking your nose in their business then that’s your problem but you better be ready to pay child support bitch . . . have a good day ❤️”

The series would just focus on Conner getting to have a good parent figure in Lex and go more into their civilian lives rather than focusing on the superhero thing, Conner, Bart, Tim & Cassie have a sleepover at Lex’s house at one point, Lex totally Knows what’s up but it’s all good because these are his baby’s friends and they’re good people who are more than willing to prank Superman for rejecting his kid and giving his baby self worth issues (Mercy supports them)

Anyway, that’s basically the idea for a new Superhero Show

#humor #superfamily #that’s new #focusing on Conner (the OG Superboy)#because they are always excluding him #so now Lex Luthor is a caring father to him #because yes #give this boy some love #conner kent #lex luthor #clark kent #bruce wayne #tim drake #superman #superboy #cassie sandsmark #bart allen #the Core Four is here too #Lex isn’t really a villain #he’s not evil either #finding ways to neutralize Superman is just like a side quest #because yes Superman is a paragon of good and Justice #but mind control exists #so pardon Lex for wanting to be able to protect himself from an out of control Superman #Clark totally thinks that Lex is obsessed with stopping him #because they had a bad friendship ending back in high school #but Lex isn’t aware of this ‘rivalry’ he’s supposed to be a part of #so it’s just Clark being suspicious of Lex and Lex not having a clue about this #or just not giving a shit because he’s a busy businessman trying to run a huge company #just a new idea for a new DC show focusing on the Supers

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facepalming-since-chernobyl · 3 years

Note

One could make the argument for Smallville that Clark and Lex with their entwined destines are set up to be the main ship of the entire series. When Clark’s pod landed in Smallville Lex also lost his hair. That event would forge the paths they both ended up going down as young men. Their motivations are also heavily influenced by their fathers and the differences in how they were raised. They parallel each other, with the perfect balance of light and dark. Their relationship is the core dynamic that drives the series. Most of the time, even outside their respective romances. But it’s still never meant to be seen as anything more than a doomed friendship. A broken brotherhood. Nothing sexual about it. Even the Clex shippers in the fandom understood that back in the day.

Now I’m not saying this is the same thing for toxicorp. No. When it comes to Supergirl, since the first episode it’s been established that the Danvers sisters have always been the most important relationship of the series. They are both responsible for the paths they ended up taking in life. I mean, Kara exposed herself to the world to save Alex’s life. And Alex became an agent with the DEO because of Kara. Season 1 was about them learning to work together as a team. Season 2 they both got to experience their own relationships with someone they loved. Season 3 they both had to deal with the loss of those loves and if they could move forward. Season 4 they were tested when Kara had to leave the DEO and then to protect her secret Alex had to forget she was Supergirl. The less said about S5 the better. Honestly, if it were up to me, in that last fight in the finale it would be Kara and Alex standing at the front, together side by side. But the writers obviously decided to show everyone partnered up with their own love interests. Bonus Karamel for us. So I’m not complaining.

What I will unfortunately say about toxicorp however. As much as I hate to admit it, Kara and whatshername do share some similarities. They were both adopted. They have siblings with similar names. They both didn’t want to be defined by their more famous male family members. I think the writers were trying to set up this dynamic early in season 2, similar to Clark and Lex.

But in my honest opinion: Sister Luthor’s constant misguided use of science, with the result of always making things worse, and Kara having to clean up her mess, just got so repetitive, that I just saw their association as a hindrance to Kara. And her being so blind by what she wanted to see, so she never called whatsherface out on it. And S5, well that just sealed the deal for me. How she reacted to Kara’s secret and made it all about her and how she chose to focus on getting back at Kara and everyone else, instead of trying to understand and respect Kara’s agency. No. Just no. A true friend would never do that. Kara deserves better than someone who would treat her the way Lobotomizer did. As Mon-El said in the 100th, she deserves the same compassion she shows others. That’s just my two cents.

Fandumb delusions are another matter entirely. I try my best to pay little attention to them. Because very much like ToxicQueen shippers in the once upon a time fandom and any other non canon slash shippers, they really have nothing to do with the actual show, or how the writers choose to tell the story. They can be as vocal as they want online, but they really don’t have any influence how the story is told. A lot of people just see what they want to see with toxicorp. Some unfortunately have this unhealthy fixation with the actress from Merlin, that I think is their main motivation for shipping her with women. And of course, Kara’s feelings and her choices don’t matter to them at all. Not unless it serves their forced narrative. She’s just a prize for their fave to win. Well, as a Kara fan, I’m only interested in what she wants her happy ending to be. She needs to put herself first. If they don’t like how things end up for the show or her, well they can just suck it. No one’s going to care. In the end we’ll be the fandom who always respected the lead actress, supported her marriage. Held out hope and got our ship reunited (in some capacity) in the finale. And they’ll be just a sad memory, that was ignored and forgotten.

Well, friend, I could have not said it better.

I will just add that Lobotomizer was contracted only for 3 eps but the producers decided to let her stay, unfortunatelly, because it is quite obvious they didn't ans still don't know what to do with her and her storyline.

Her story is repetitive every season, she still hasn't learnt a shit,all she represents is a white privilege in the worst form and it's laughable they try ans fail to make her some strong femonistic icon. Like, there is absolutely no one normal who can identify with her. Ok, I guess sociopaths can. Or rich girls with mommy, daddy and big bro issues 🙄

My point is, Lobotomizer is the cancer of the show that sucks screen time and focus from other characters. Her character was ans will be, it's quite obvious on this point, absolutely wasted. They could have made her interesting at least and her storyline appealing and made her a real villain of the story,who could have admitted in the end she was the villain and really fixing it or making her embracing her morally gray personality,but instead we got a lukewarm butthurt 5 year old,who is excused because Kara didn't tell her a secret 🙄🙄🙄

She is the most ridiculous and pointless character ever.

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quirkwizard · 3 years

Text

Spoiled Sushi

For a while, a certain article has been vexing me. One that seems to have a great misunderstanding of the series it was writing about, missing obvious points and core parts of the worldbuilding. No, it wasn’t by CBR, nor was it by Screenrant. But it was by Cruchyroll of all places. They decided to make an article about the Top 5 Misused Quirks in My Hero Academia. It was not good and has been bugging me. So I decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. I mean they try to shut down whoever even attempts to do what they do, so why not make fun of them for trying to do what I do? Plus you guys seem to like it when I’m snarky, so this could be fun for everyone.

For clarity’s sake, this was written at the beginning of 2019, when the most recent chapter was Chapter 214 and the the anime had only reached Season 3. I’m keeping that in mind as I write. I will also be skipping around some of the parts of the article as I am talking about it. If its not worth mentioning, I won’t bring it up, simple as that. For instance, I’m skipping the intro because it is completely superfluous and would only serve to make a completely different fanbase mad. Might as well, most of what I am passing up are just dumb jokes. But if you are curious... don’t waste your time reading this. Your time is valuable and you have better things to do then read this article.

5. Kurogiri Can Create Free, Renewable Energy

“In all seriousness, though, Kurogiri is probably one of the most powerful characters in the anime, with their being virtually no limit to how far he can extend his Warp Gate portals.”

I mean there are certainly limits for his Quirk. Besides the need to know the coordinates or see where he is moving, there’s obviously a limit to how much he can spread out his body.

“Why then doesn’t he use them to create near-infinite energy? Open two portals one above another, throw in a heavy object inside and watch it fall endlessly. Devise a way to hook a dynamo or something to it and, bam, you have free power that would make Kurogiri a billionaire overnight and a hero to the entire planet.”

This idea has so many problems that I don’t even know where to begin.

One, if this could work, it likely wouldn’t make a lot of energy. Besides the various physics problems involved in this, Kurogiri would just be one guy doing this, meaning that it’s unlikely he’d be able to make enough power to matter.

Two, Kurogiri would still need rest as he is a living being, meaning he wouldn’t to keep up this theoretical contraption forever and you’d get even less energy relying on him. At most, it would work best in a small bunker as a last resort.

Three, that sounds like it would be a lot more dangerous then it would be worth for the energy made. If Kurogiri would to lose focus for a moment, the portals fall apart and there would just be a lot of damage from this heavy object moving at high speeds.

“Even if Kurogiri only cares about taking down All Might, it would still be much easier to do if he had a literal mountain of money/public goodwill at his side.”

What kind of bizzaro universe are you living in where the guy who makes energy could possibly turn public option about the very well liked Number 1 Hero that saves lives every day? That’s literally what Lex Luthor does and people hate him for it.

4. Koji Koda Could Help Feed Billions Of People

“Koji is the resident Class 1-A stoner (get it? he's made of rock? come on) with the power to control ANY creature in the animal kingdom. This would logically also include spiders, meaning that Koji could literally end all street crime in, like, 5 minutes tops by swallowing all the criminals up in a giant arachno-tsunami.”

While this article is infuriating in many ways, it did give us the mental image of an “arachno-tsunami”. Which is totally worth sitting through this jumbled mess of words and ignorance.

“But, you see, Koji is just too shy and nice to be an effective hero. He wants to do good but he just doesn’t have that fighter instinct in him. Which is why he should instead use his Anivoice Quirk to revolutionize agriculture all around the world.”

You can be an effective hero and not beat people up. Sure, it certainly can come up in the job description, but that isn’t all of what a hero is meant to do. Koda’s Quirk makes him great at information gathering and rescue work, two very important aspects of hero work that suit his personality perfectly.

“Give him a megaphone and fly him over American fields, telling feral pigs to stop causing $1.5 billion worth of damage a year in destroyed crops. Fly him to Australia to tell the invasive cane toads and rabbits to kindly lemming themselves off a cliff. Have him tell the aggressive lionfish the get the hell out of the Atlantic. FORCE HIM TO GET OVER HIS FEAR OF BUGS AND MAKE AGRICULTURAL PESTS A THING OF THE PAST. “

There is no possible way Koda could be everywhere at once to pull that off. And considering that the average human voice can only carry for about a mile, IE, about the average size of a single farm. You know, because animals need to hear his voice in order to receive his commands. So even if it was limited to a single farm, its unlikely to do much to help. But by far the biggest issue with this entire plan is that what Koda does to an animal is not permanent. The second his control is interrupted, the animals return to normal, bound to just go back to whatever they were doing before.

So if Koda tries to change anything, its just going to end up undone by the time he leaves, just delaying the inevitable problem that comes from these animals. So even if Koda told the pigs to go away, they’d likely be back by the next day, destroying farmland like nothing happened. Even then, because of the previous limitations, he’d still have to go farm by farm to pull it off. That’s not even mentioning all of the other suggestions. Honestly, if you wanted to do something with Quirk, you should just convince all the animals to line up during hunting season. Dark, yes, but it least it would offer a more permanent solution then what the writer is suggesting.

“If Koji was utilized properly, he could travel the world undoing mankind’s mistakes and creating organic, pesticide-free crops instead of doing what he does now, which is largely sitting around on his ass roleplaying Snow White.”

Which, in spite of many fans joking about his Quirk, has shown to be very helpful quite a few times.

3. Inko Midoriya Would Have Made A Great Nurse

“Izuku’s mother in My Hero Academia has mainly done two things so far: jack and squat.”

I mean she did design Izuku’s costume, even if it got replaced, its is still a corner stone of his design, and she offered a good amount of drama after the fight with All Might and All For One.

“She did try to be a good mother but kind of failed at that when she tearfully apologized to her son because he was born without a Quirk, essentially telling him: “I’m so sorry I gave birth to such a loser.””

Would you believe that this one line was what really prompted me to talk about this? Because that is probably one of the worst takes I have ever in relation to this series. If you honestly believed that is what Inko was doing, the woman who practically raised her child by herself and constantly talks about much she cares for him, you must be watching the wrong series. That’s the only way I could explain why that is.

“So, she doesn’t really have much going on in her life. That’s why she should try nursing instead. I realize that becoming a nurse takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but Inko would be a natural fit for it. Despite her initial shortcomings, she is a very caring person with loads of empathy.”

Inko’s empathic? Could have fooled me. I mean she did feel the need to apologize to her son for giving birth to a loser. No, I am not over that, how could you have possibly gotten that from the scene?!

“She also has the power of limited telekinesis. Inko can move small objects over short distances, and while that would not be helpful for stopping crime, it would be great for, say, removing kidney stones. Or things stuck in people’s throats. Or coins from children’s stomachs.”

Trying to use a Quirk like this in any kind of medical procedure is laughable at best and dangerous at worst. Imagine if Inko had to remove a bullet from someone. From what we see, the process of her moving objects is slow and need several pulls from her to attract the object to her. So if she’s going to try to pull it out and its going to get caught on something, causing more damage to the person she is trying to save. She’s basically going to be keying the insides of whoever she is trying to operate on.

The entire reasons doctors, especially surgeons, train for so long is because the human body can be extremely delicate. It needs a lot of care and time so the doctors don’t make things worse for the patients. It’s why surgeons need to have such steady hands and a lot of time even to due minor procedures. But trying to do that with a Quirk is just going to cause more problems then it can solve. Doing that with a Quirk like Inko’s just lacks a lot of the precision and dexterity necessary to pull this off.

2. Uraraka Should Go Work For A Shipping Company

“Ochaco Uraraka has one of the most well-rounded Quirks out of all the main characters: Zero Gravity. With it, she can make objects and people float, which is great for offense, defense, and rescue operations. As a superheroine, she is doing everything right with her Quirk.”

I mean “Zero Gravity” can kind of be used offensively, but not effectively as other Quirks. Its why she did all of that training with Gun Head to make up for her lack of an offensive presence. Eh, two of three ain’t bad. I’ll take what I can get.

“I just think Uraraka should never have become a superheroine in the first place. Uraraka has actually always been honest about her motivation: she wants dem YEN YEN BILLS YO (for her struggling family.)”

That’s because hero work is an extremely frugal business even super minor heroes can still seem to make a decent living out of it.

“But regular jobs also exist in that world, and that must include shipping companies that would instantly hire Uraraka to Zero-G their freighters, trucks, and planes. Even if she cannot make them float, she can still remove enough gravity from them to save the company tons of fuel. Company profit margins are razor thin.”

First off, its mentioned several times that if you want to use a Quirk for a job, you need to have a hero license. Its to make sure you know how to use your Quirk properly so you don’t end up hurting someone with your powers. So for her to even try this, she needs to go through hero school anyway. Might as well get the most out of it. Second, Uraraka cannot lower the gravity of her target. Either the object is floating or it isn’t floating. There is no in between for Uraraka.

Third, given what we’ve seen from Uraraka, there is no possible way that she could ever lift that much. She’s barely able to lift three lower numbered robots and that was only for a few seconds. So, at the most, she can lift a few tons. How exactly do you expect her to work with something like a cargo plane, which, on its own, can weight over forty five tons, not including fuel or any extra cargo?

Which is another thing I noticed throughout the article: the writer seems to severely overestimate how effective Quirks actually are. The range and scope of Quirks is much smaller then other power systems, even when compared to similar “low level” series like HunterxHunter. Like every kind of application listed goes far beyond what most Quirks are capable of, such as forgetting certain drawbacks. And that is most notable with the last suggestion.

1. Momo Could Solve Literally All The World’s Problems

I bet Kohei Horikoshi was really proud of himself when he came up with Momo Yaoyorozu’s design: No, see, she HAS to dress scantily because her Quirk is Creation, i.e. the ability to create any object she wants through her skin, which must be constantly exposed. Peachy.”

Oh boy, it wouldn’t be any sort of discussion about Momo without beating that long dead horse. What’s next? Bakugou angry? Izuku cry?

“Momo can apparently create anything as long as she understands its composition, and seeing as she’s made an ethanol spray can, infrared goggles, a lighter, and a tracker, it seems like there’s nothing she cannot make.”

Oh boy, it wouldn’t be any sort of discussion about Momo without a grievous misunderstanding of how her Quirk works either. Maybe they are in the fandom. As I have mentioned in my Momo Misconceptions post, Momo needs fat to make what she does. She’s not an alchemist where she can just clap her hands and make whatever she wants. If she doesn’t have enough fat, she cannot make items. By those very rules, some things are just out of her reach because it would just take too much fat. It’s why she limits herself to simpler items.

“Cool. MAKE US SOME HELIUM THEN. The world is running out of the gas and we need it for MRI scanners and the like. Momo could make more of it.”

Actually, we don’t even know for sure if Momo is capable of making gases. All we have seen her make is solids and a few liquids. There is the lighter she made, but that could easily run on lighter fluid.

“Or thorium. She could make thorium that we could use to make thorium-based reactors that are apparently way safer than uranium ones.”

Thorium isn’t even that rare, just as about as common as lead and three times as common as uranium. Even if it was a problem, it would likely kill her, either from burning through all of her fat or from the exposure to radiation.

“Medicine, fresh water, cheap electronics that we could send to developing countries: Momo could crank all of those out in an afternoon.“

Yes, in theory, Momo could do that, but not the extent that she would make a major difference in the world like they are suggesting. There are just more practical and better long term solutions then trying to force a single person to do all of that. It’s almost as if Momo is a regular human being who has limitations you need to keep in mind when making these ill informed suggestions.

“And while spending your life as a walking Everything Faucet might not seem that glamorous, it actually has the potential to change the entire planet for the better.”

Given the kind of set up and effort that would be required to even attempt that, I think “horrific” would be a more appropriate descriptor since it would be done to a living, thinking person.

Honestly, I think that most of these people are doing more with their Quirks now then with any of these suggestions. At least, when you actually think about the rules and limits of the characters. Sure, Inko isn’t doing much, but she is a civilian with a fairly weak Quirk. Kurogiri acts as a major player within the League, getting them around quickly and evading capture. I mean he is using his power to help out a bunch of villains, but my point still stands that he is not “misusing” his Quirk.

In fact, a majority of the people on this list are doing more to help people and save lives by being heroes. Given the limitations of their abilities, using them to stop superpowered criminals who risking damaging the people around and helping victims of these crimes is doing then any of those roles in spite of the fact that the article tries its best to downplay that these people are already saving lives. So, in reality, they are doing far more to help people then doing any of these ideas, you damp sock of a writer.

#My Hero Academia #Quirks

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365days365movies · 3 years

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May 10, 2021: Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (Recap: Part Two)

Said I’d talk about artificial humans in sci-fi, so...

There are a HELL of a lot of examples of artificial humans in science-fiction, as well as the ethical and philosophical concepts that their existence raises. Now, your definition of “artificial” may differ from medium to medium. At its base form, these are humans that are not born, but made. I’ll be talking fleshy organic humans, not robotic ones. The most common of these is, of course, clones.

A clone, strictly speaking, is a genetically identical copy of a pre-existing organism, in this case a human. While this isn’t technology we’ve applied to humans as of yet (due to the NUMEROUS ethical problems and questions), we have done so with animals, mostly sheep and cats. It’s actually a good way to de-extinct certain species, and we’ve already done experiments with that. Of course...that has its own concerns.

Keeping up the Jurassic Park reference streak! Anyway...

There are a FUCKTON of examples of clones in science-fiction, but since I’m a massive comic book nerd, I’ll use Superboy. The genetic combination of Superman and Lex Luthor, Conner Kent is one of the most prominent clone superheroes. He’s not the only clone of Superman, of course. He’s not even my favorite clone of Superman, to be honest...

Bizarro am the worst. ME WILL LIVE ON THAT HILL.

Oh, and let’s not forget THE most prominent artificial human in comic books PERIOD. I don’t care what her origin in the movies is, that’s never been my favorite version of Wonder Woman. Making her a demigod robs her of something important, in my opinion.

...Should I make a comic book blog? Shit, thinkin’ about it.

OK, before I do that, these are just my favorite examples. Fact is, there are FAR too many examples of artificial humans to go into, whether they’re built, grown, sculpted, conjured, or a chemical reaction with an extra ingredient in the concoction.

And look, I could go on all day about this, but we got a long-ass movie to get back to. SO, lets jump back in. Part One is here!

Recap (2/2)

Understandably exhausted, K returns home, confused and conflicted. However, he’s greeted with a surprise from Joi: a prostitute! Namely, this is Mariette (Mackenzie Davis), one of the girls who approached him earlier. Joi’s called her here in order to be “real” for K, the effect is impressive, if somewhat...off-putting. Still, while K obviously didn’t need this to be happy with their relationship, Joi might, and Mariette’s all on board.

And it doesn’t take K terrible long to get on board, either. As both Mariette and Joi strip, it makes me wonder...how much does this subscription service for Joi cost. There’s no goddamn way this is free, right? Like, how exclusive IS this AI? And they cut from that scene to a Joi commercial, where we hear that Joi becomes anything you want her to be, and does anything you want her to do. But something tells me that...well, that it’s not quite so simple.

Once the night is over, Joi tells Mariette to leave, and not nicely either. Mariette leaves, rebuking her on the way out as well. K, meanwhile, knows that the Blade Runners will soon be coming after him. He’ll be going on the run, and Joi wants to go with him. And so, they put her inside of a remote device, while deleting her information from the main apartment console. This gets the attention of Luv, who head over to the apartment to figure out what’s going on.

K goes to Doc Badger (Barkhad Adbi), who analyzes the horse for him. It’s discovered that old radiation can be found there, and that amount and kind of radiation can only be found in areas where a dirty bomb has been set off. This would be in the desolate and weird-ass ruins of Las Vegas. While nobody lives there at this point, K and Joi go to check it out.

An IMMENSELY frustrated Luv, unaware of K’s discovery about himself, goes to confront Joshi about K’s whereabouts. Luv berates her for being afraid of change, and tells her that she “can’t fend off the tide with a broom”. Which is a great line. However, as Joshi is no use to her at this point, Luv just straight up kills her. Which, I’m sure, will go over well with the whole “Replicants aren’t dangerous” thing.

Meanwhile, in Vegas...shit is WEIRD. First off all, the desolate wasteland is full of statues of giant sexy wimmin, and I mean GIANT statues. Beneath one of them is a series of beehives, which K goes into to get a hand of beeeees. After that, he goes into an abandoned hotel/casino, rigged with tripwires and booby traps. OK. What.

So, somebody’s using this place as a hideaway, despite the entire city being destroyed by a dirty bomb, and probably extremely radioactive. K searches around and finds it empty. He begins to play a piano, hoping to draw someone out. He ends up drawing out a dog, as well as the inhabitant of the hotel.

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), baby! Quoting Stevenson’s Treasure Island and holding K up at gunpoint with dog at side is the original Blade Runner himself, Rick Fucking Deckard. God, I love this. Deckard hunts K down throughout the casino, where we see some trippy holograms, and the future of Vegas stageshows (probably).

The two fight, but eventually call a truce and decide to get a drink at the bar. K gets to it pretty quickly, and confronts Deckard on his potential child with Rachael. He confirms that Rachael was indeed pregnant by him, but he had never met his child. Which was the plan, to be fair. He wanted their child to be protected, not hunted down and eventually dissected.

Sometimes, to love someone...you gotta be a stranger.

To an old Frank Sinatra song, a forlorn K (now calling himself “Joe”) looks around, and sees carved wooden animals that resemble the horse that’s haunted his life and memories so much by this point. Which makes sense, considering the foil unicorn from the previous film. Neat little tie-in there.

But paradise is not all it’s cracked up to be, as someone soon comes to find both K and Deckard, despite the fact that K came alone. Although, now that I think about it, Joi may not be one that you can truly trust. Deckard and K try to escape their pursuers, but are caught pretty quickly. In the process, K is injured, but manages to get up in order to fight back. However, this is Luv with these people, and she beats K down EASILY. Turns out that Luv is actually an enforcer, rather than just a secretary. And when Joi awakens from K’s device to ask her to stop, well...she kills the device, and she kills K. In the process, she also takes Deckard away, leaving K behind. Fuck.

K wakes up, only to discover Mariette standing over him in the Las Vegas wasteland. She takes care of him as he wakes up, also stitching up with wounds from the explosion. She tells K to trust her, as well as her compatriots. One of them is the hooded woman from earlier, a Replicant named Freysa (Hiam Abbass). An old friend of Sapper’s she saw the delivery of the child, the “miracle”, and also hid the child away, as it was a symbol that the Replicants are more than just slave, that they are their own masters.

Freysa is building a revolution in order to free the Replicants once and for all. And I’m hard-pressed to disagree with their cause, not gonna lie. However, this comes at a price. In order to prevent Wallace from killing the cause, K must prevent Deckard from leading them to Freysa. They must do what they can until they can reveal the child to the world. For she will be their leader.

Fuck.

Understandably COMPLETELY crushed at this revelation, and more confused than ever, K collapses. Freysa tells him that they ALL wish they were the one, and they all believe. It’s at this point, that K realizes exactly who the Hybrid is: Dr. Ana Stelline. The horse from earlier, it turns out, did in fact belong to her, and she planted her childhood memory with the horse in K’s mind as a Replicant. Damn. DAMN! That’s why the memory moved her so: because it was hers.

Meanwhile, Deckard awakens to a separate nightmare: Jared Leto telling him how he feels about him. After all, Deckard helped to create the first Replicant-human hybrid. He asks him for his help in obtaining the child, so that the key of Replicant reproduction can be further unlocked. And he proceeds in convincing Deckard by playing audio of Rachael and his first meeting (from the first film, of course).

Niander fucks with him further, by suggesting Deckard was summoned all those years ago specifically to fall in love with Rachael in order to father a child with her. But despite all of this, Deckard refuses to give up any of his information. And so, Niander pulls out his ace-in-the-hole...and it’s a real shitty thing to do to a man in mourning.

Damn. Dude rebuilt Rachael, tries to tempt Deckard with her, FAILS, then lets Luv shoot her in the head. Fucking power move, and fuck Niander for playing it. Dude is a DICK. Meanwhile. that one visual from every single ad of this movie is happening, and I can FINALLY use one of the 8000 GIFs of it, goddamn.

Not gonna lie, it’s an iconic appearance, so I get why it’s so famous. Anyway, K considers a suicidal option, now that he knows the truth. However, before we get to see the final decision, we get to see Deckard being taken back to LA for interrogation by Wallace. However, to prevent him from potentially leading Wallace to the secret of Ana Stelline, K suddenly appears, opening fire on their ship.

The craft is downed, and K exits the car to engage in a firefight with Luv. He appears to win, but Luv isn’t killed once she’s shot. The two have a fistfight out in the rain, and Deckard waits for water to slowly kill the craft that he’s still inside of.

As expected, Luv handles herself well, and despite a number of close calls, she JUST. WILL. NOT. DIE. Damn, she’s resilient. However, despite K, Luv, and Deckard all nearly drowning in an INTENSE fight between the Replicants, an enraged and crazed Luv finally eventually drowns, ending her threat for good.

K saves Deckard from the sinking ship, and agrees to stage his death, allowing him to meet his daughter for the first time. Once at her facility, K returns Deckard’s horse to him, knowing that it was a gift from him. He tells Deckard that his best memories all come from her, implying that this makes him similar to Deckard’s son, which he picks up on when he asks if he’s OK.

Deckard goes to meet his daughter, and K hangs out on the stairs outside. He feels the snow fall on his hand, and he just...watches it all fall around him. He sits, and he watches it all. And meanwhile, Deckard meets his daughter for the first time.

...Can I just say...GODDAMN!

That movie was absolutely stellar, and it’s definitely landing in the high ‘90s for me, calling it now. I...wow. Seriously. Amazing.

See you in the Review!

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i-am-vpelno · 3 years

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JUSTICE LEAGUE SNYDER CUT SPOILERS!!!

So, due to the nature of this film my opinions are going to be all over the place and admittedly biased. I am a huge Justice League fan, I hate Zack Snyder, I hated the original Justice League by Snyder and Whedon and I’m not the biggest fan of Batman or Superman.

The Editing:

I’m kind of between the acknowledgment that this was Frankensteined together and wasn’t meant to be released and the fact that Snyder was given like 70 million to make this movie so what’s up? Let’s start with the negatives. This movie could’ve been waaay shorter by editing out SO MANY unnecessary scenes and slow mo. I can distinctly remember several scenes where I felt awkward just waiting for a character to hurry the fuck up and get where they’re going. This is especially prevalent with the Flash as almost every scene with him is in slow mo despite him being a speedster??? Then there are just “walking scenes” where it was just so so so uncomfortable and pointless watching the characters walk from point A to point B with nothing else interesting going on in the scene. There are strange scenes that don’t really add anything or lead anywhere like the Icelandic lady smelling Arthur’s shirt????? And Steppenwolf getting “permission” from Desaad to interrogate the scientists even though we knew he was going to do that already. A lot of these extra scenes interrupt the pacing as well which is a shame because I think the time would be less daunting if you cut them. I think the worst part though was the soundtrack. They only play Wonder Woman’s theme once in the beginning but then every time an Amazon is on screen they start playing this “lamenting tune” over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again!!! If it’s not the same exact clip from the same exact song I will genuinely be surprised. A lot of it just doesn’t fit the film, I definitely prefer Icky Thump to whatever Snyder had Arthur drinking to.

I didn’t mind Snyder’s color palette this time as I feel like the colors are punched up just a bit. I am so glad they chose to change the entire scenery for the final fight, it was so much more pleasing to look at. Albeit it was dark so...not much visibility lol but it’s understandable. I caught myself catching chills from the suspense and the emotional scenes in this. The emotional heart of this film is definitely there! I love the fight scenes!!! Other than some awkward moments with Batman and the Flash they were amazing!!!! Everyone looks great but I think the cgi shines the most here. I can actually see the parademons clearly now and I like their design. Steppenwolf had the biggest improvement, he was kinda blurry before but he looks great and I LOVE how they chose to show off the armor and his anatomy throughout the film. For this film specifically, I enjoyed the “Part One” things because it fit well in explaining part of Snyder’s vision AND was useful when I needed to take a break from the film. I kind of enjoyed the lack of a wide screen. Like Evangelion, I got the sense that there was more happening around the characters off screen and it greatly added to the mood. One of my favorite scenes is the Barry saves “Iris” (I don’t know if that’s actually Iris West.) This is one of the only times I thought Ezra Miller’s Flash was not only charming, funny and had a neat interpretation of his abilities but this is probably the best use of the weird music and slow mo in the film. I thought it was really cute.

The Story:

By far the biggest improvement upon the original, the added context is not only done well but probably the most interesting part of the film. Though not without its own issues, it adds much needed context, stakes and characterization that wasn’t available in the original. I could summarize that “everything makes sense now” but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We learn so much about Darkseid, his followers and his purpose. The whole “science so advanced it’s like magic” thing was so interesting!!! Cyborg finally has a really well done and AMAZING origin story here!!! I love how Cyborg talking to Superman’s ship and the Mother boxes is used to explain the Injustice future and how dangerous the Mother Boxes really are. It’s really hard to put it into more words than I already have!

There are still a lot of issues but they’re not too big, just pacing and preference things. For instance we didn’t need the first scenes with Lois getting coffee but we did need the ones with her and Martha. However it’s not Martha, so what’s the point? We don’t know the Martian like that yet and we have no context showing that he knows Lois is “the key.” The Flash tends to over explain his abilities at awkward points but that’s an issue I’ll expand on later. The entire “Diana explains Darkseid to Bruce” scene is good but goes on far too long and we didn’t need to see them make the boxes even though it was cool. I hated the Injustice epilogue and the intro to the Martian. We didn’t need to see the entire “break into the lab” scene or the entire convo about bringing back Superman, some of that could’ve been cut. I don’t like how they handled Black Suit Superman. From my own knowledge and reading I know that the context for the black suit is that Superman was weakened and not killed so he wears the black suit to gain his power from the sun slowly, more or less. However it’s just a fashion choice here as Supes only lost his memory. Also, no matter how hard they try this movie is not funny. Besides the jokes we’ve already seen, very few hit and I can’t even remember them. I didn’t laugh once.

The Characters:

I wanna jump into it with how bad the Flash is here. Like I said, him saving “Iris” was pretty damn good but everything around that is awkward, bumbling and forced. My biggest issue is that I’m biased towards the CW’s Flash, who is my preferred live action Flash and I completely disagree with how they’ve treated the Flash’s origin and his father. The best part of the Flash is that he’s kind of like Spider-Man in that he’s super smart and strong but lives humbly and spends most of his time helping his community. And like Spider-Man he has great quips but is easily weakened by his arrogance. This Flash is barely above a hobo and only shows the faintest hints of competence. How did he even get his suit???? Did he steal the parts to make it??? The guy who plays his father is so close to being perfect actually, if they could stop him from sounding like a high frat boy. Seriously there’s “My dad is my best friend” and then there’s “I smoke up with my mom’s sperm donor Fred.” I didn’t even like him in the original however I ever so slightly prefer him to this.

Let me tell you I’m not one to get sincerely mad over a movie, it’s all calm critique over here. However, what they did to my man Martian Manhunter is mildly infuriating. Like I said, him being Martha completely ruins that scene and makes no sense in this film. Why doesn’t he help the justice league???? His formal introduction is so blah and lacks the punch that his character deserves. I was hoping he’d get his own movie or at least something similar to Cyborg in this film. So sad!

Cyborg is obviously the star of this film AS IT SHOULD BE. Again, I’m biased but from my reading and watching of the Mother Box story from the comics, ALWAYS had Cyborg heavily involved somehow because it’s connected to his origin. But goddamn does Ray Fisher absolutely shine and I’m glad Snyder saw that in him too. The depth they go into Cyborg’s origin was great and so entertaining to watch. Hands down consistently the best part of the movie. And he was funny!

I’m going to put Batman and Wonder Woman together because I ship them but also because my critique is fairly similar. I was absolutely shocked by both of them, Diana being faithfully more brutal and Batman being to a point off color by being so soft and hopeful. BUT I ADORED BOTH. There is a balance that many people misunderstand when writing these two characters. They both have the capacity for cold calculation but have big hearts and care a lot about saving people. I hope to see more of this characterization from them. Also, we love to see Alfred being the smart capable father we know he is. I do wish they kept the thing about Bruce confronting Diana about being hung up on Steve because it’s annoying and needs to be addressed.

Superman is boring again here, but it’s the way Snyder writes him so I’m not sure what else I can say. I just don’t like how inhuman Superman seems despite his upbringing. Aqua man was shockingly boring as well. I though he was giving a decent performance, being the laid back, giggly badass from the first film.

I think Steppenwolf was amazing, a few weird flops here and there but a compelling performance that really let us get to know him! Desaad was surprisingly intriguing, mostly due to the vocal performance. Eh Darkseid was definitely different. I was missing his almost regal authority, I always thought of him as an evil emperor and I was a little sad that he didn’t act more like it. Even the Harley Quinn show captured his well founded self righteousness.

The Dreams and Epilogue:

Here’s the thing, I already know this stuff was added for sequel bating but I’d like to address some questions and concerns that I still have. I still prefer Arrow’s Deathstroke to this one, but we’ll see. Jesse Eisenburg simply doesn’t fit as Lex Luthor, even that trick he pulled was poorly done. I wonder if Lex’s body guards are Amazon’s like in the comics. Jared Leto continues to try way too hard as the Joker but actually has some intriguing lines here. Kind of alludes even more that he’s a Robin turned crazy or something. Is this leading to Injustice or APOKOLIPS War?

Anyway, it was a good film! I recommend it!

#justice league Snyder cut #justice league #dceu #Snyder cut #justice league spoilers

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spilled-feels · 4 years

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Drowning

Reader and Dabi return from what could have been a tragedy. You both deal with the aftermath. (sorry for the crappy summary!)

Okay so this is the first fan fiction I’ve ever written. I hope you guys like it. I kinda just had an idea pop up into my head of this post apocalyptic type world where crime is just running rampant and its dangerous to be outside and such. Not much background needed really because its just one scene but I thought I’d share what was going on in my head at the time.

Some suggestive themes here but nothing graphic just mentioned. Also language obviously its Dabi. (Still not sure how to tag stuff on here so bare with me.)

Also I gave the reader a name just because it is way easier for me. Not really and OC at this point and time!

It was raining when you both arrived back to the hideout that you currently called home. Dabi didn’t say a word to you as he walked past you to get to the old rundown couch. He sat with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands and just stared at the floor. You slowly closed the door and just stood there, too afraid to move or make a sound. You weren’t afraid of Dabi, you hadn’t been for a long time, but you were scared that if you moved it would break the eerie calm that had fallen over the two of you. You could feel yourself barely keeping your head above water, but instead of having Dabi be there to pull you above and out, like he usually did, he was right there next to you fighting for air as well. What would happen if the both of you sank? Would either of you be able to breach the surface again? That thought alone kept your breathing steady and in your mind you stayed above the water. This time even though you were drowning as well you’d try to help him first.

“Dabi…” you flinched. How was your voice so loud even with the storm raging outside? You swallowed the ball that was forming in your throat and walked toward the couch. Dabi didn’t even acknowledge that you had spoken to him let alone when you walked past him and sat next to him on the couch. You were shorter than him but you had to duck down a little to see his face that was covered by his matted down wet hair. Any other time you would have taken your time to appreciate how handsome he looked like that but now wasn’t the time. This time when you spoke you were ready for your voice. “Dabi…” You felt him stiffen next to you as if he just realized how close you were. You tentatively reached for the hand closest to you but decided against it and instead laid it on top of his knee. “You made it in time Dabi. You saved me, I’m fine, I’m alive.”

He stopped breathing the moment you had touched him. How could you even be near him right now? Knowing what he almost let happen to you? When your words hit his ears his head snapped towards you, eyes wide with a look of disbelief across his face and his body leaned away from you in shock. “Saved you?! What do you mean saved you?! Alex I’m the reason you were there in the first place! If it wasn’t for me none of that would have happened to you! How can you sit there and say that to me?!” His voice rose slowly going from shock to disbelief and then finally anger. You couldn’t tell if he was angry at you or himself and that question in your head made the current you were fighting against stronger. “What? Dabi no…” you had started to say when he shot up from his sitting position to stand over you. You shrunk down but he didn’t notice. “No don’t fucking start Lex! I fucking kicked you out, I made you go out there alone and look what almost fucking happened!? If I hadn’t gone to look for you when I did, if I had waited just five more minutes to leave this room they would have… you would have.” He couldn’t even finish that sentence. The thought alone made his heart clench and his stomach want to empty all of its contents onto the floor. You stood and grabbed both of his arms and pulled his hands away from his head. He had started to run his hands through his wet hair and pull at the roots. He tried to pull away from you but you held on and brought his hand to rest on your chest, above your racing heart.

“You feel that? I’m breathing and I’m alive because of you.” His eyes met yours that had begun to water as you spoke and even you could hear the desperation in your voice.The current was trying to pull you under. “Everything that happened, you didn’t cause Dabi. It was caused by those scumbags who thought they could just take what they wanted from me.” Your voice had started to shake and tears began to fall from your eyes. You were sinking. Dabi instinctively took a step towards you and gripped your hands tighter in his as you kept talking. “It was caused by this shitty universe that just seems to constantly fuck us over but it wasn’t your fault Dabi please whatever is going through your head. I just need you to believe that.” Memories of being blamed and hated for things you had no control over started to surface. “I can’t have you resenting me for making you feel like this. I just can’t.” With those words you went under the water.

You were sobbing at this point as Dabi really listened to what you were saying. Those last words you said could have basically manifested as a person, punched him in the gut while simultaneously ripping his heart out with their bare hands. Resent you? How could he ever resent you for something you didn’t even cause? For something terrible that almost happened to you? He pulled you into his chest and you held on to him for dear life as you sobbed into his chest. He didn’t say anything and if he was being honest with himself he didn’t know what to say. His mind was reeling at the thought that even after everything that happened instead of being angry with him, like he felt you should have been and had every right to be, you were scared he was going to resent you. For what? Making him feel guilty when he damn well should be? What the fuck happened to you in your past that made your mind work that way? A memory resurfaced of him waking up after hearing his mother crying in the kitchen. Red hand print across her tear streaked face while she apologized to him for waking him up. His body shuddered as he gripped you tighter against him and leaned his head to your ear and spoke softly. “I could never resent you for this. You did nothing wrong, none of this was your fault.” He doesn’t know how much time passed while he held you and he didn’t care. He was pulling you up from under the water you seemed determined to drown in and he realized then he always would.

Once your sobbing had turned into a small hiccup every now and then he pushed you away from his chest by your shoulders but still kept you close. He reached for your face and wiped your tears away with his thumbs, being mindful of the cuts and bruises that had littered your face after the ordeal from earlier. He felt his anger begin to manifest again but he pushed it down for your sake. Besides those men would never hurt you again or anyone else for that matter because of him. He distantly wished he just had a little more time with them alone in a dark deserted alley but the end result would have been the same so he settled. His finger brushed over the cut on your lower lip and he leaned down and kissed you softly mindful of your injury. The kiss was short and sweet, the complete opposite of him and when he pulled away to speak you could still feel the brush of his lips against yours. “I fucking love you Lex and nothing will ever change that. Do you understand me?”

You simply nodded a little shocked at his confession. Of course you knew he loved you and you loved him but the way his personality was you never thought you’d hear him say it like that. With so much softness but with so much raw emotion it also felt like he was carving it into your skin with a knife. He kissed you again, harder this time as if to further prove your thoughts of the duality he possessed. Your eyes began to tear up again but this time for the love you had for this man. You had no idea where you would be without him and you never wanted to find out. Before the kiss could progress, you shivered and it was then you realized you both were soaking wet from the rain outside. He pulled away and led you to the bathroom by your hand. “Come on. We can’t afford to get fucking sick right now and I can’t have you getting those fucking wounds infected.” You followed closely behind him and let him clean you up in the shower as he continued to whisper sweet nothings into your ear and further assure you that he didn’t and would never resent you for this. All while you clung to him for dear life, unconsciously assuring him that you didn’t hate or blame him for what he did and what happened to you.

If someone told you years ago that a person like Dabi would be your saving grace, the person to constantly save you from drowning in the turbulent ocean you called your mind you would have laughed in their face and never believed them. Same goes for Dabi never did he think he would be able to care or love anyone again after the hell he had been through in his life. Yet here both of you were holding on and keeping each other afloat and neither of had any plans of letting go anytime soon.

#Dabi #bnha #mha #dabi imagine #dabi x female reader #angst

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hobbitkiller · 4 years

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She-Ra, Supergirl, and Tangled: A Tale of Three Female Relationships: Part 2

*SPOILER WARNING FOR SHE-RA, SUPERGIRL, AND TANGLED: THE SERIES*

For those of you just tuning in, I’m taking a deep dive into 3 female relationships in 3 of my favorite tv shows that all turned into toxic messes at some point. The point of this series of posts is to exam these relationships, where things went wrong, whether there’s a chance for redemption, and what conclusions, if any, we can draw from these relationships about media’s representation of female characters and female relationships.

Oh, and shipping, ‘cause this is tumblr after all...

So, in Part 1 I gave a summary of the female relationships in question in these three shows (Adora and Catra, Kara and Lena, Rapunzel and Cassandra). I also summarized how these relationships began and when they started to go wrong. If you already know that stuff because you love these shows too, you don’t necessarily have to go back and read it, but doing so is always encouraged.

In this installment, I will be exploring 3 themes related to the festering resentment within these relationships: Mother Knows Best, Chosen Ones, and Itty Bitty Boxes. Follow the jump to get started!

PART III: MOTHER KNOWS BEST

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I’ve heard a few people claim that Mother Gothel is not a top tier Disney villain. She doesn’t have the following that characters like Scar or Maleficent have. However, at the same time, I’ve heard many people saying something along the lines of “This is my mother.” There’s something uncomfortably familiar about Mother Gothel in Tangled. I recognized the same putdowns and microaggressions that I used to get from my stepmom in Gothel’s targeted jabs at Rapunzel’s confidence throughout the movie...all done with a smile and “It’s for your own good” attitude.

A lot of media focuses on the relationship between fathers and sons. Mothers in Disney have historically been silent or dead. (Except Perdita. That bitch was awesome).

This, of course, makes it interesting that 5/6 of these characters have verbally (and in some cases physically) abusive, manipulative mother figures. And for Adora and Catra and Rapunzel and Cassandra, that mother figure is the same.

Here are our three abusive mothers:

Shadow Weaver who raised Adora and Catra:

Lillian Luthor who is Lena Luthor’s adoptive mother (and played by the absolute joy to watch that is Brenda Strong):

And, of course, Mother Gothel who kidnapped and raised Rapunzel for most of her life and is the SPOILER biological mother of Cassandra:

There are, of course, good mothers sprinkled in. Rapunzel’s biological mother, Queen Arianna is great once she actually gets lines in the TV show. Lena’s birth mother was also, by all accounts, a very kind and loving person. Kara has two moms, and while both have flaws, both are inherently good people (particularly Eliza Danvers, her adoptive mother).

However, in spite of the presence of some positive examples of motherhood, the relationships between all three of these pairs is heavily influenced by the three narcissistic women above.

All three of these women are dishonest, withhold affection only to give it away as a special treat, and actively manipulate their children. Yet, at the same time, the children can’t help but seek approval. Adora and Catra both feared and desperately sought approval and affection from Shadow Weaver. Lena tries to cut ties with her family, but keeps being drawn back in when Lillian admits pride at her accomplishments or that she does, in fact, care about her. Rapunzel sought affection from Gothel growing up because she was her one human contact, and, when Cassandra learned the truth of who her mother was, Cassandra desperately wanted some validation that the mother who abandoned her loved her on some level.

These mother/daughter relationships scarred 5/6 of our characters (Kara has her own hangups about her mother, but not on the deeply psychologically scarred level as the other five.)

Adora is mockingly called paranoid by Shadow Weaver for understandably thinking the woman who lied to and manipulated her her entire life was up to something. Catra pushes everyone in her life away emotionally for fear of being hurt (only to create a self-fulfilling prophecy when they leave due to her behavior). Lena is constantly scared of being “betrayed” and manipulated. When she’s hurt by Supergirl asking Lena’s boyfriend to snoop on her, she says it was “something my mother would do.” When she and Kara first became friends, Lena was reluctant to do so because of the trust issues from her family (Lex Luthor is obviously also a manipulative, abusive jerk). Even Rapunzel, the embodiment of sunshine, has lingering trust issues. In the Season Three episode “Beginnings” she explains to Eugene that one of the reasons she likes Cassandra is because Rapunzel spent 18 years with someone who lied to her, whereas Cassandra was forthright and said what she was thinking.

Cassandra’s mother issues are a little more complicated. When she was four, Gothel abandoned her in order to kidnap Rapunzel and Cass was adopted by the captain of the guard. Cassandra has deeply repressed this memory by the time we meet her when she’s 22/23. Then, she’s given a glimpse of what life was like with Gothel:

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Early in the series, Cass talks about how her father instilled in her the value of “earning my keep.” It’s clear here, though, that love as a transactional relationship had been instilled in Cassandra early in life: “And when it (love/affection) came, it came with strings.”

This transactional view of relationships is something shared by all 5 members of our “bad moms” squad on at least some level. Adora constantly feels the need to fix things and be useful to her friends. Catra thinks if she just wins enough or is good enough, maybe Shadow Weaver will finally love her. Lena’s approach to relationships largely revolves around buying things for them and trying to unilaterally solve their problems for them without their input. Rapunzel has to go through an entire episode to learn that you can’t buy friendship through doing nice things, and that she doesn’t have to. Cass ties her self-worth deeply to her usefulness to others. They all struggle to find internal validation at times.

The other way mothers play a part in the downfalls of these relationships is the element of competitiveness. This is an issue with Adora and Catra and Rapunzel and Cassandra. As previously stated, both of these couples share a mother figure. And, in both of these couples, there is a deep resentment on the part of the non-golden haired child toward the other. Shadow Weaver did not hide that Adora was her favorite. She frequently praised Adora while berating and abusing Catra even when both had done equally well. Even when Adora abandoned Shadow Weaver and Catra for the rebellion, SW was more concerned with getting Adora back than appreciating the loyalty and accomplishments of Catra.

Mother Gothel literally gave up Cassandra to take Rapunzel.

Both Catra and Cassandra feel completely overshadowed by the blonde in their lives, and part of them can’t help but think that, if only Adora or Rapunzel were out of the way, or had never existed, maybe they would have been chosen as the favored one.

This, of course, brings us to our next topic:

PART IV: CHOSEN ONES

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I’ve never been a big fan of Ron Weasley. I didn’t read the Harry Potter books until I was in my twenties (yes, compared to many of my readers, I’m old), and I think this lead to me being less charmed by his humor or bullying of Hermione than I otherwise might have been. I found his temper aggravating and he is just...the worst...in the sixth book. Like, he purposely starts dating someone to punish Hermione who had already asked him to Slughorn’s party because Ginny pointed out that Hermione had probably kissed the guy she was dating TWO YEARS AGO. No, seriously, read that book again. That’s what happened. Then the seventh book happens and it turns out Dumbledore KNEW Ron was going to ditch the team at some point...

That being said, as I sat down to write this novel-length meta, I found myself thinking about what it’s like to be the support team for the “chosen one.” In the seventh book, Ron could have stayed at home with his pureblood family. He would still be in some danger due to their involvement with the Order of the Phoenix, but it would have been a lot safer than traveling around with “Undesirable No 1.″ Yet, because he loves Harry, he chooses to go on this mission.

In the three pieces of media we’re discussing, 2/3 have literal chosen ones--characters with specific destinies of supernatural origin: Adora and Rapunzel. Kara also largely fits into the trope as someone sent to earth from afar to “save us.” As I somewhat jokingly said in the first part, all three of these pieces of media feature a blond super-powered person who needs to save the world.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be the best friend or “sister” of the person who’s “burdened with glorious purpose”?

On the one hand, it’s constant fear over that person’s safety and wellbeing. On the other, there’s a bit that can’t help but feel resentful. Imagine having a friend that overshadows every accomplishment you’ve ever had seemingly by virtue of just who they are.

Now, of course we know that it’s no easy road being a chosen one. There’s a lot you have to sacrifice, and it usually involves injury, near death, and a boatload of trauma. And the support teams know this. For some, it’s never an issue. But for others...

In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Adora, to Catra, always had the presence in her life of a chosen one, even before she got the sword and became She-Ra. Shadow Weaver had sensed something powerful about Adora when she was a baby, and thus treated her as the “Golden Child” to Catra’s “Scapegoat.”

This idea of the “Golden Child (GC)” versus the “Scapegoat (SG)” rolls a bit into this issue with “chosen ones.” In toxic, narcissistic families, parents often hold up one child as the great one while the other is the one to blame for their problems. Think Olga and Helga in Hey Arnold! (Is that reference too dated for some of you guys? Man, I’m old. Also, I remember finally being old enough to realize Helga’s mom was an alcoholic and it blew my mind.) This also usually entails encouraging a level of competitiveness between the siblings.

In some ways, it’s like a “chosen one” is the whole world’s golden child. Anyone who researches this dynamic knows it’s abusive to both the GC and the SG, which is clearly displayed in She-Ra when Adora is stressed by the pressure of expectations and the knowledge that her mistakes will most likely be taken out on Catra. That doesn’t change the fact that Catra resents the positive attention (the adoration if you will) Adora gets--that, no matter what Catra achieves, it will be nothing compared to Adora. This resentment is a big part of what fuels the escalation of their personal conflict leading to one of the saddest pieces of animation since Fry’s dog died sad and alone on Futurama. In the Season 1 episode “Promise.” (This is, by far, the best episode of the series), Catra airs all of her feelings she’d been repressing about what it felt like living in Adora’s shadow--how it made her feel like a “side kick,” something Adora never consciously tried to do and is shocked to discover.

Cassandra on Tangled:The Series has similar feelings about her role in Rapunzel’s life. Not only is her best friend the one with the magic hair and great destiny, but she is also her boss and monarch. Aside from the two songs I included in my last post, “Waiting in the Wings” and “Crossing the Line,” this conflict is best demonstrated early in Season One in the episode “Challenge of the Brave.”

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Cass didn’t suffer abuse in quite the same way Catra did (though Gothel was the worst mom for her first 4 years), but she does feel disrespected and overshadowed by Rapunzel even before learning about Gothel. In “Crossing the Line”--a song many likened to “Let it Go” when they first heard it, Cassandra lays out these feelings further:

There’s a line between the winners and the losers.

There’s a line between the chosen and the rest.

And I’ve done the best I could,

but i’ve always known just where we stood.

Me here with the luckless.

You there with the blessed.

Now, when this song first came out, there were negative reactions from some fans. How could Cassandra call someone who had been kidnapped and locked in a tower with the neglectful and verbally abusive Gothel for 18 years “blessed”? But, from Cassandra’s perspective, Rapunzel still gets everything, power, respect, etc., purely because she was born a princess while Cass has worked incredibly hard her entire life to achieve one goal, becoming a guard, and is constantly denied.

With Lena and Kara in Supergirl, the resentment, again, is mostly between Lena and Supergirl for most of their relationship. Multiple times during the show’s run, Lena has expressed concern about human’s relative helplessness in the face of aliens like Supergirl who have power. This is why Lena sees some of her shadier actions such as making Kryptonite or trying to give humans super powers as justified. She doesn’t go to the extreme levels of hatred that her brother Lex does, but that distrust in those who are naturally more powerful runs throughout the family as does the resentment that aliens have seemingly usurped the leadership role among humanity that should have belonged to the Luthors.

What makes this interesting is that, in most of her relationships, Lena, as a billionaire, is the more privileged and powerful one. This is really best demonstrated in her relationship with James Olsen, whom she orders around as his boss while buying him expensive gifts and going behind his back to fix his legal problems. And for much of their relationship, this is how Lena sees her relationship with Kara. It’s not a manipulative or cruel thing. Lena just sees Kara as her adorkable reporter friend who is hapless in the face of danger.

Then, all of these preconceived notions come crashing down when Lena learns that Kara is Supergirl. Suddenly, she learns that her hapless friend was actually playing her the whole time--that she was stringing Lena along and pretending to be only human.

Lena’s resentment may not be as explicit in this case as Catra’s or Cassandra’s, but it is layered within all of the emotions Lena Luthor is pretending not to have.

This, of course, leads us to our final subject for today.

PART V: “ITTY BITTY BOXES”

I’ve mentioned a few times throughout this novel-length meta the word “repressed.” Catra, Lena, and Cassandra are not good at expressing their emotions in a healthy manner. Much of this can be blamed on the aforementioned mother figures and the trust and intimacy issues that having narcissistic, abusive parents can lead to.

Narcissistic parents often place the burden of maintaining the emotional wellbeing of the family on the children. It is your job as the child to make sure they don’t get upset. It is you who has to keep the cool head and maintain the facade of positivity. Parents like Shadow Weaver, Lillian Luther, and Mother Gothel do not see it as their responsibility to help their children regulate emotion or address it. To them, “negative emotions” are character flaws.

Of course, anyone who’s watched Inside Out knows that emotions aren’t inherently good or bad and feeling, addressing, and understanding them are vital to good mental health.

Too bad Inside Out wasn’t there for Catra, Lena, or Cassandra growing up.

Instead, each of these characters has learned to bottle up and hide emotions like sadness, fear, hurt, and true, deep anger. Lena even outlines her approach to such feelings when helping Brainy, an alien who is basically like an organic computer, solve a problem:

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I was not the only person that was reminded of this gem after that scene:

Putting emotions away in an imaginary box is a real technique for keeping yourself from becoming overwhelmed in a situation where you need to focus. However, “forgetting the box existed” is not the appropriate use of the boxes. They need to be opened, and the feelings addressed.

Catra is interesting, because in some ways she’s very vocal about her frustration and anger. Yet, that surface level frustration manifests in yelling at her friends and subordinates over their job performance or just being a general jerk. It’s not an expression of her true, deep feelings. Catra doesn’t let anyone see the deep levels of hurt she feels when Shadow Weaver manipulates her to join Adora. Instead, she just almost destroys the world...as you do. Season 4 in particular features a Catra who is more mean to her friends than ever before, yet she is still repressing so much of her true feelings to the point of mental and emotional collapse.

Cassandra also struggles to express her feelings, particularly to Rapunzel. Part of it might be because Rapunzel is her princess, and it’s not Cassandra’s place, but it’s also something she struggles with in general:

The above line occurs in an episode where Rapunzel knows Cassandra is mad at her and keeps pushing her to share her feelings. As we can see, Cass is not a big fan of that. Even though they talk at the end of the episode, it’s clear that there are still some hurt feelings on Cassandra’s side that she doesn’t express until she has electric blue hair and is singing a rock ballad about “Crossing the Line.” This is also fascinating because, as previously stated, one of the reasons Rapunzel likes Cassandra is her honesty. But, like with Catra, Cassandra can be honest about surface level annoyances, but intensely represses anything deeper.

All three of these characters let their emotions fester until they become deadly infections that poison their relationships, not just with their best friends, but with everyone. Many of these relationships could have been diverted from their dark paths if there had been more honest and open communication both between the characters and internally. If Lena acknowledged the real reasons why she was hurt when learning Kara was Supergirl, if Catra had been honest about feeling overshadowed and pitied by Adora, if Cassandra had expressed the pain she was feeling in her relationship with Rapunzel, things could have been different. Instead, those feelings have turned toxic.

NEXT TIME IN THE NEVER-ENDING ANALYSIS:

Blond Bulldozers

I Don’t Care (I ship it)

Just going to do 2, because 3 subjects were a bit much.

Hope to see you there.

#she ra #spop #adora #catradora #catra #shadow weaver #supergirl #supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #lillian luthor #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rapunzel #tts cassandra #cassunzel

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holy-fate-worse-than-death · 5 years

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Okay, hear me out

The Outlaws re-form but it's just Jason Todd and Harley Quinn running around like chaotic bisexual messes working on their unresolved trauma and identity issues, while Poison Ivy is the Tired Lesbian Mom Friend™ trying to keep them all together.

So here's the set-up:

Via Roy's connection to Killer Croc (and yes Roy is definitely alive in this one, fuck you Tom King) Roy and Jason end up working with Harley and Pam.

It's supposed to be a one-time thing, but when Roy hangs up his quiver to be a Hot Single Dad™, Jason finds himself in need of some help, and he doesn't really have anyone else to ask.

This ties into the idea that Jason combats his social isolation by somewhat accidentally forming teams (eg Outlaws 1.0 and 2.0) that are meant to be short-term alliances but inadvertently become like family.

Ideas I have about this AU:

- Harley and Pam are absolutely canon. Not just queerbaiting where they're a bit too close to be friends. They kiss, they call each other "girlfriends" and Jason is absolutely beating the shit out of anyone who says anything remotely homophobic

- Harley and Pam definitely encourage Jason to admit his feelings for Roy (which they know about before Jason does), and eventually there's a lot of Jason and Roy being perfect gay dads

- Harley and Pam definitely babysit Lian at some point when Jason needs Roy to come out of retirement for a mission that only he can do (which also doubles as an excuse for a whole lot of sexual tension, e.g. "I miss spending time with you"-type stuff), and although Roy is incredibly skeptical, it actually works out really well

- Not only are Harley and Pam great babysitters, Roy feels empowered to start working on tech for the new Outlaws and he works as their own version of Oracle; gathering intel, sending them on missions, etc. This is kinda similar to the role he took on in Red Hood/Arsenal (2013), and it allows him to feel a sense of purpose and connection to his superhero days without feeling like he's neglecting Lian. (It's also a great excuse to spend a lot more time around Jason, if you catch my meaning)

- I know some people really don't fuck with the idea of Harley and Jason interacting, but I actually think it would work really well. We already saw somewhat of a precedent in Red Hood/Arsenal (2013) when Jason was trying to connect with Duela Dent (AKA Joker's Daughter). He's able to be compassionate towards her and connect with her despite the fact that she's literally wearing the Joker's rotting skin as a mask

- I think a similar relationship between Harley and Jason would be really healing for both of them, because it allows them to be people who form relationships that aren't necessarily decided by their trauma. I think there were absolutely points in Jason's life where he couldn't have been friends with Harley, and points in Harley's life where she couldn't have been friends with Jason, because of how much they remind each other of Joker. But Jay and Harley being able to have that friendship, and find common ground in other aspects of their identity (in the case of this AU the fact that they're both LGBT+ and don't adhere to Batman or the Justice League's moral standards), means that they've moved beyond their trauma and don't always see the Joker in everyone

- Obviously there'll still be initial growing pains, but I don't think the focus of this story should be on the Joker or any clown-related trauma. At a certain point, trauma just isn't a personality trait and it certainly shouldn't make up the majority of either Harley or Jason's personalities. They're both so much more than that

- At some point later in the story, however, there would be a situation were Harley and Jason come across the Joker and have to fight him. There's an unspoken tension because Jason is worried that Harley is worried that Jason can't handle it; and Harley is worried that Jason is worried that she's going to go back to the Joker. But they're in such an intense situation that they have no choice but to trust each other and trust the friendship they've built, and in the end they save the day because they were able to do that, which strengthens their friendship even further

- Pam routinely makes good points about radical environmentalism, and there are throwaway gags about how -- while the Outlaws primarily do the vigilante work that's too dirty for the Justice League -- they also occasionally break into animal testing facilities or sabotage coal mines/big businesses/other environmentally-damaging institutions

- There are regular cameos from other grey-area vigilantes (e.g. other former Suicide Squad members) and this story really tries to delve into the complexities of morality and why people do things that appear "criminal". It's mainly about dispelling myths and reducing stigma surrounding things like criminal behaviour, mental illness and addiction

- There's a cameo appearance from Killer Croc that deals with addiction and redemption, especially through Roy and KC's friendship

- KC is just so fucking proud that Roy is a dad, and there's probably a cute moment at some point along the lines of, "I may be a croc, but these sure aren't crocodile tears"

- Because this is my AU and I can do anything I want, I'd also like to see this story involve Dr Victoria October. I love her so much, she's one of the most underrated characters in all of DC, and I feel like a snarky, middle-aged trans woman would really round out the gigantic queer mess that this story is

- They come to Dr October for advice in a case that involves biomedical science of some kind, and it's meant to be a one-off. But then Jason gets injured a couple weeks later and Harley and Pam don't know where else to take him

- Victoria and Basil (Clayface) are definitely still dating in this one, and occasionally the Outlaws will team up with Basil for a case (although he's mostly in retirement while Victoria tries to figure out how to stop his powers from causing his brain to deteriorate like in Detective Comics (2016))

- Between Roy and Dr October the Outlaws end up with better tech than Batman a lot of the time

- Victoria is absolutely horrendous with kids but regularly finds herself having to discuss plans and gadgets in person with Roy, so she ends up sitting in his living room surrounded by children's toys, sipping tea and resisting the urge to glare at the adorable, gurgling baby in front of her

- She gets left with Lian at one point while Roy runs off to save Jason's ass, and it basically goes down like this:

- Croc loves babies and the first time Lian sees him she cries (Croc probably sneaks up from the sewers to talk to Roy about something while he's out for a walk with Lian in one of those cute chest harnesses you use to carry babies). Croc is so hurt that she's scared of him

- As she grows older she stops being scared and ends up fascinated by his shiny scales and big pointy teeth

- I'd also like Lex Luthor to be involved in this at some point. I'm thinking that maybe this could slot into the New 52 canon pretty well. Maybe the Roy in this story is the "real" Roy and the one that died at Sanctuary was a LexCorp clone. I'm also just really into this idea because I like Roy's robot arm and I think portraying those types of disabilities is really important and cool. Plus, it separates him from the other archers in DC and kinda epitomises the fact that he's the "tech" guy

Okay that's all I can think of right now, but this AU is basically my OTP + my other OTP + my other favourite characters

... Guess this is another fanfiction I gotta write lol

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hellzyeahwebwielingessays · 4 years

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Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 2

Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 1

Master Post

There were several points a bit more tangentially connected to my arguments in part 1. As a result I decided to leave them until now and hit them up in bullet points.

These are arguments against the superhero genre chiefly perpetuated by the tryhard trinity of Osvaldo Oyola , J. Lamb and Noah Berlatsky.

On the topic of the genre portraying ‘might making right’, the truth is this is part of the ancient inspirational aspect of these figures and can be found in stories like Rama and Sita, Rama of course ultimately never giving up his quest to be reunited with his lover. Which was not a Western influenced story.

Yes the genre involves ‘punching as conflict resolution’. I’m sorry, but that is part and parcel of the genre and the wish fulfilment/fantasy/narrative entertainment value of the stories. If you DON’T like that then frankly it’s like complaining that a romance story involves kissing.

It has been claimed that a black hero wouldn’t punch someone but again, the genre is entirely about people with powers using them to help people by preserving their life. And if they have no other choice but to K.O. a mugger who’s going to stab someone then a black person, or any decent person, would/should do it. But examining the meaning and repercussions of that realistically given the fact that they aren’t white in a white society is something that could benefit the genre.

A common critique of the genre is that crime happens sometimes because of a racist system, therefore fighting crime innately supports racism. Look, obviously we should remove institutionalised racism from the law. At the end of the day though if someone of any race is committing a crime which HURTS people they should be stopped, the reasons which drove them to that should be taken into consideration, but Spider-Man shouldn’t NOT stop a mugger because they’ve been driven to do that through desperation. There is often no time for that and without being able to talk to or trust strangers he or other heroes need to act in the moment.

Superhero fiction on one level is childish, but on a deeper level they’re representative of universal truths and desires which are often boiled down to fairy tales or simple stories. The above shitheads also claims that superhero fiction is written and consumed by children, when the truth is that in the last 20-30 years the opposite has been more true. THAT is partially why sales have been dwindling over the years.

Superman’s values are innate to the heroic and altruistic desires and ideals ALL humanity has expressed throughout its history. They are not inherently ‘white’

Apparently superheroes are white constructs because they reinforce the ‘status quo’. To quote the Atlantic article (see part 1) again:

“What status quo do superheroes reinforce? These heroes fight because everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The only fascists here are the supervillains who disagree.”

Also Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were created specifically to change the status quo of the fictional worlds they were created in. At the same time the entire Marvel pantheon were about changing the status quo of the genre by introducing people who were flawed and different and more human than the DC heroes

Superheroes, despite the assertions by the above fuckwits have at times interrogated the justice system. But generally their lack of interrogation is I think for the same reason their science is so wonky. They don’t know better. They just boil it down to the simplest terms. Muggings and villain threats abound. Hero prevents those. They don’t know enough to tackle something much deeper than that. This ties into the fundamentally flawed aspect of most critiques wherein they are looking to superheroes as intellectual pieces of academic and critical study when...that’s not what they are...at all…

One of the above douchebags once said:

An African American Superman, with kinky, close-cropped black hair, thick, half-reddened lips, high cheekbones, and wide nostrils all bathed in dark Lindt chocolate, resists White supremacist logic, negates Black inferiority mythology, and threatens the established order. Superman’s disconcerting physicality, tempered by his omnipresent cheerfulness calmed and invited White comic readers to imagine themselves as gaudy Caucasian perfection, the Anglo-Saxon ideal. Static in panel, without speech bubbles or thought balloons, Superman Black warps the absurdly developed skeletal striated muscle and eternal hopefulness fans rejoice into a clear and present danger to the American experiment, an unholy figure derived from Tea Party paranoia, Barack Obama’s calculation and Terry Crews’ musculature. Public Enemy’s prescience abounds – were Superman Black introduced on the game-changing Action Comics’ cover, White America would have yet another reason to fear a Black planet.

This entirely depends upon who is doing the perceiving. To someone of a different mindset a Black Superman could be just that. The same thing Superman is except he happens to have black skin.

Also, the author needs to take a major chill pill, Jesus Christ.

Here is another quote from one of them:

Only in White male power fantasies can people blessed with skin privilege and bodies carved from living marble wield heat vision or super speed or unbreakable claws against indigent criminals from broken homes who lack high school educations.

This is again grossly incorrect because the idea of individuals having superhuman abilities and using them to fight criminals predates American society, and if one accepts figures like the Hydra to be stand-ins for threats to human life then the superhumans have been fighting what the criminals represent for eons before the advent of American society. The criminals they use their abilities against are rarely stated to lack education or come from broken homes, but yes okay let’s say that they are that.

Having super humans go up against them and defeat them isn’t a white male power fantasy because their abilities are used to subdue and NOT kill. Injure perhaps but in real life sometimes force is sadly necessary and if someone is robbing a bank or holding a gun to someone in an alley it is justified no matter what skin colour anyone involved in is, or what society you find yourself in, for the perpetrator to be stopped in order to safeguard life. Just because the perp resorted to what they did due to social ills beyond their control, that doesn’t justify their actions at that moment. Stealing someone’s money or trying to murder them is never ever going to be acceptable no matter if we live in a white society or not.

Only in White male power fantasies would women display abundant porcelain cleavage or don starry microskirts to fight crime.

Yeah um, preeeeeeetty sure that actually that’s more of a male SEXUAL fantasy and less than a WHITE male POWER fantasy. That was never the topic of conversation.

Shuttle diplomacy or natural resource husbandry rarely bring metal-faced technological sorcerers to heel in superhero comics; superheroes often save planet Earth through fantastic violence judiciously applied.

Yeah, that’s part of the narrative FANTASY element of the genre that is intended to be escapist. Condemning it for being otherwise is asinine.

More than this, guess what, there are people whom Dr. Doom is a metaphorical stand-in for. And an awful lot of them legitimately can’t be negotiated with. I am of the belief that in the REAL world we should negotiate and use force when there is no other choice and even then only use what is necessary. But the Dr. Dooms and Lex Luthors of the comic book world represent grander themes of evil and social ills, whilst at the same time existing to challenge the heroes physically and mentally. They represent the unmovable types of evil that legitimately can only be dealt with via physical means.

This was the type of circular logic I talked about before. It is looking at the villains as stand ins for EVERY type of situation and therefore the super hero’s use of violence as ‘problematic’, when in reality the superheroes’ use of violence isn’t problematic because it is justified by the extreme circumstances they find themselves in.

Because those situations don’t exist in real life...like in World War II...which was literally about people using force in the face of failed negotiation to halt the advance of fascism…

I submit that the superheroic reflex to subdue evil with violence directly descends from Thucydides and Alexander, from Richard the Lionheart and Dwight Eisenhower.

Yeah...except it isn’t. Again...it came from the same place as Hercules and Sun Wukong, and those came from the natural human biological imperatives to survive.

Superheroic morality requires Western Civilization’s literary canon and political history to justify its callous disregard toward collateral damage. To be clear, superheroes routinely consider innocent noncombatants’ lives (if not their property) when they confront cosmic despots or sociopathic steroid abusers, but comics document the never-ending battle in colorful tomes largely sold after Nagasaki and My Lai, after the time when total ignorance of American military supremacy was vogue. When Wally West as the Flash pulls a hysterical single mother out of her overturned silver 2001 Honda Civic and carries her to safety from Apokoliptian cannons at breakneck speed, comic fans favorably regard his heroism; any dialogue from the frazzled thirty-something file clerk will remind readers how grateful she is to escape otherworldly horror with her life. Superhero comics don’t care about the destruction of this woman’s sole transport; when the gas tank explodes behind the Flash’s blurred strobe, this woman loses her credit cards, her driver’s license, her insurance documents, her six-year-old daughter’s vanilla birthday cake with its beloved artificially flavored strawberry icing. The comics don’t recognize the heroism of this brave woman’s seven-month struggle to rebuild her finances and maintain her identity following Darkseid’s incursion; all we know is for that poor woman, the Flash saved the day. He’s a superhero. Isn’t she grateful?”

Collateral damage and the disregard for it IS regarded. Hence the existence of Damage Control. Furthermore, that is AGAIN part of the escapism and fantasy element of it. THAT is the suspension of disbelief element of superheroes and taking it THAT realistically and criticising it for it is frankly just mean spirited and simply looking for an excuse to hate it.

Furthermore the reason the rescued woman isn’t focussed upon is because it’s not HER story. If you write a story about a protagonist THEY are your focus. Everything is for their benefit. That’s true of older non-white folktales as well.

And yeah readers are supposed to regard the Flash as heroic and the woman grateful because her kid’s birthday cake isn’t realistically as important as her life!!!!!!

This is criticising superhero fiction for being unrealistic even when it is being actively so The woman WOULD probably be grateful that she’s not fucking dead!

I wouldn’t mind seeing the survivors of something like this try to rebuild their lives. And superhero fiction has focussed upon that from time to time, but again...that’s not the point of the story. Criticising the genre fro this is like criticising Harry Potter for having the audacity to focus more upon Harry’s trauma in the wake of Cedric Diggory’s death than his parents’. Harry is the star. He gets the focus.

Superman is a White boy. Superheroes are White people. Superhero morality exacts the Melian Dialogue’s ‘might makes right’ overwhelming force realpolitik with every onomatopoetic Biff! Bam! Pow! gut punch and karate chop combo.

See what I’ve said before about how superheroes are not fascists and how force is often necessary

There exists no genetic propensity for group violence in the human genome. None.”

Er....yeah...there kinda is...that’s part of why wars happen.

racially-informed vigilantism.

This phrase in one of the articles itself sums up it’s own contradictions. Racially informed vigilantism is just one type of vigilantism, a type the superhero doesn’t subscribe to. A superhero would sooner join the likes of the Joker than the KKK style vigilantes and would be all too happy to apprehend them.

One of the articles seems to be conflating basically ALL criminals super heroes fight with people who’re labelled criminals due to racial profiling. Yes superheroes operate to an extent like police officers but you can’t truly complete the analogy whatsoever.

Few of them have legal sanction, which is partially why so many refrain from actually killing anyone as officer’s are allowed to do under certain circumstances. More than this when they take down criminals their methods are entirely different from regular cops. Apart from very loud and overt super villains who may or may not be on a rampage, most of the time when they tackle regular criminals it’s due to them either being informed of a crime that is going to happen (like a hijacking or something) or they literally see something happening whilst on patrol. They don’t profile people beyond what their super sensory abilities or logical observations tell them. Which is to say if someone is following someone else a little too closely then maybe, just maybe they are planning something. If their Spider-Sense or super hearing or something alerts them to something they will act.

Taking that, ignoring it, and then supplanting the superhero for a regular cop who would racially profile people and/or supplanting the criminals they tackle for racial minorities because those are the people who (stereotypically in the real world) would be targeted as criminals is very inappropriate. Not least of all since superhero comics obviously don’t present a wholesale realistic depiction of the real world so what they present isn’t entirely interchangeable with that. And what is more, erasure of minorities was so prevalent that overwhelming majority of all the criminals they ever encountered were themselves white, so again exchanging those for racial minorities who’re profiled as criminals is highly questionable.

It’s all just such a MASSIVE reach!

But I think the panels also work to point out that Miles himself “does not belong” in the superhero tradition. He, like most black and brown superhero characters in mainstream comics, is an outlier. In other words, people like Miles or Trayvon are unfortunately more likely to be victim of a “heroic” vigilante than to be one.

This is conflating the superhero vigilante with the majority of real world vigilantes who are overly violent (and frequently hard conservative) individuals who do take overly simplistic views of the law and use those to profile people. And it’s doing so whilst taking superheroes too literally, bringing their own personal interpretations to the mix and then overlaying them onto the superhero concept before finally accepting it as fact.

Police officers use violence against racially profiled people who exhibit unrest due to a societal system stacked against them. Well shit, Batman punches the Joker. It must be the same thing obviously!!!!!

Look. Without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as people of color, nothing about fanboy and fangirl culture makes sense. What I mean by that is, if it wasn’t for race, X-Men doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the history of breeding human beings through chattel slavery, Dune doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the extermination of so many indigenous nations, most of what we call “first contact” stories don’t make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understand that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible. We are… in the Green Lantern Corps? We are the Oath. We are all of those things. Erased, and yet without us? We’re essential. This is an incredibly important project, because it puts front and center, not only a community that has long consumed and given power to these practices and consumer categories, but it’s a community without whose suffering and struggles, none of [these narratives] would make sense.

I agree with a lot of this but there are some problems with it.

a) X-Men makes sense also because they are a stand in for almost ALL marginalised groups. Racial minorities, disabled people, queer people etc.

b) Actually Star Wars makes complete sense with or without colonialism or imperialism, at least the kind which directly relates to the issues of racism. Imperialism, conquest, these are things which are much older than American society, dating back to even before Ancient Rome. It’s about freedom fundamentally and freedom is a desire shared by ALL human beings innately because at the end of the day we are animals who wish to be free and not caged. Being caged metaphorically within a tyranny is thus something we abhor

c) The Star Wars universe doesn’t begin and end with the story of imperialism. It’s about how Democracy can be turned into an dictatorship and how that has to be prevented, or re-addressed once it happens

When white comics readers claim that they did not need white characters to relate to and enjoy comics (as a way to argue against positive race-bending), that point to their love of Luke Cage or Spawn as evidence of their ability to enjoy characters across race, what they are failing to note is how black, Latin@, etc… identities in the superhero genre are framed by a system of white supremacy.

Again I don’t understand this one. I as a white reader can enjoy Luke Cage rescuing someone from a burning building because doing that is part of white supremacy????

It presumes a white power fantasy is inherently different to a black one. But the power fantasy element of the superhero relates to them having powers and using them to help others and defeat villains. A power fantasy by another race would still have that because it is inherent to the human power fantasy. Non-white power fantasies would logically have all that and more!

Much like Noah Berlatsky explains in his book Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948, part of what made Marston’s original Wonder Woman stories so wonderful, was his expectation that girls and boys would identify with the heroine, to value and idealize her compassionate strength and victory through submission, rather than through cyclical and ultimately futile fisticuffs of male dominion.

Many female readers enjoy the action scenes. Action scenes are good because it enables us to have a healthy outlet for aggression without taking it out into the real world. It is also NOT an inherently male dominion thing. Again this is THEIR projection. Fighting and violence is innate to human beings because we are animals biologically programmed towards it for the sake of survival. That goes for males and females. Furthermore far from fisticuffs just being about male ‘dominion’ the Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman comics were a reflection of impending war. A war that sadly required violence to be solved. That’s what the superhero typifies. Wish fulfilment action in situations where violence was (usually) a necessity. Diplomacy is good and should be our first resort. In life though sometimes things do come down to necessary violence.

There are many ways to craft a racial minority superhero, but if we consider racial authenticity as a foremost concern, today’s Hollywood is simply not prepared for that intellectual labor. The real diversity conundrum isn’t how to include the minority metahuman in the existing comic framework; that’s an art project, a casting decision solved by calling Michael B. Jordan’s agent. The real question is how to write that superhero in a way that moves the medium forward, past the Reaganomics antiheroes of Alan Moore and Frank Miller and past the hyper-emotive Silver Age redux of Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis. Respectable, authentic diversity in superhero comics should redefine the nature of the meta-protagonist to his powers and his audience, with exhaustive attention to cultural detail. I’m not convinced that a Black superhero would wear tights. I strongly doubt that a Black superhero would solve conflicts with his fists. The Black superhero knows that his community watches him religiously, and that any false move will have public repercussions he cannot expect or control. If anything, the Black superhero template plays out on our nation’s cable news channels at all hours. President Barack Obama, with all his clipped vocal inflections and measured language and natural equivocation and faulty dealmaking and perfect family and limitless patience is the closest public figure to a Black superhero America has yet experienced, an international celebrity unthinkable before his ascent. Watching President Obama today, one feels expectation crush into his bones like a gravity well. No matter the political stimuli, Republicans oppose him. The concept of the Obama Presidency struck American conservatives like a Bernard Hopkins’ kidney punch, and in return, President Obama absorbs the vitriol of our coarse public debates more than any President to date (and progressives never tired of calling his predecessor a National Socialist). The agony and the ecstasy of Grant Park has given way for many Americans to the sobering fact that American authority, her global military supremacy and international economic primacy, is controlled and represented by a Black man. Disliked, hated, or worse, the Establishment is Black. I need the Black superhero in print and/or on-screen to reflect that paradigm shift. Superheroes in the popular imagination are Establishment figures; if the Black superhero I’m presented can’t interrogate what it means when the Establishment is Black, of what utility is her story?

A minority hero wouldn’t wear tights or punch people...why?

What do tights have to do with anything? As for solving problems with his fists this is conflating the threats superheroes face with ANY threat, when they are almost always situations which legitimately do require necessary physical force to resolve. If the black superhero patrols an area and sees someone about to stab someone else, yeah he should punch the stabber to save the innocent person if there is no time for anything else.

This is basically asking for the core foundation of superheroes (which transcends racial constructs and is innate to human wish fulfilment and mythic tradition) to be scrapped in favour of something else entirely. Barrack Obama isn’t a superhero. He is many, many things but what Mr. Lamb here is asking isn’t so much for a different template but for something just wholesale different. He doesn’t actually WANT a superhero story in the first place!

Super heroes aren’t establishment figures. Superheroes don’t uphold the law regardless. They uphold the law in so far as a greater need to safeguard innocent lives. Conflating them as inherently establishment figures ignores their origins and over literalises what they do.

At the same time the utility of their story is first and foremost as a story: to entertain and inspire.

It is inherently worthwhile for a little black kid to sit down and open up a comic book where someone who looks like them is being a good person, is helping people, is defending the weak. I agree that minority heroes shouldn’t just be white heroes who happen to have different skin colours. I think they need to reflect the realities of what it means to be black or Asian or Pakistani in white society is necessary and a superhero should do that and should have that inform how they interact with their powers. It doesn’t mean the whole genre needs to abandon what it fundamentally is or that those minority heroes should not do the things a superhero fundamentally do.

Ultimately, yeah these characters were created within a white context, but my point is fundamentally the same thing was created in non-white contexts as well throughout history.

Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 1

Master Post

#Osvaldo Oyola #Noah Berlatsky #Marvel #DC #DC Comics #Marvel Comics #Super Heroes #Superheroes #Wonder Woman #Robin Hood

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fontofmercy-archived · 5 years

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Understanding BvS’s Lex Luthor: CSA and Repressed Homosexuality

(Re-posted with minor revisions after I moved accounts and accidentally deleted this post)

Lex’s motivations are quite explicit in BvS, he has a whole speech explaining why he is doing what he’s doing and what he says is consistently shown throughout his screentime. But I think there is a lot unspoken beneath the surface that most people wouldn’t think of, based on my observations I think that BvS’s Lex was molested by his father and that he’s sexually attracted to Clark, and that his issues with Superman partially stem from the duality of desiring Clark and being afraid of him. That may sound strange, especially the csa bit, but hear me out because there is quite a bit of evidence and it may give you a clearer perspective on the character.

NOTE: I just want to clarify that it is not at all my intention to equate homosexuality with CSA nor demonize CSA survivors, I’m simply observing this particular character who happens to be a villain. Lex being attracted to Clark doesn’t make him villainous, the way he deals with it because of trauma and internalized homophobia is the problem.

1.) Daddy’s Abominations?

“No man in the sky intervened when I was a boy to save me from daddy’s fists and abominations!”

This is quite self-explanatory, Lex just said that his father sexually abused him. The only other possible interpretation I could think of is a more general ‘my dad made me evil because he was evil’ but that’s a really weak explanation especially since the line is equated with the trauma of being beaten by his dad and the way he is very visibly triggered saying that line. When he finishes “abominations” he immediately flinches away from Superman and shakes his hand in front of his face as if desperately trying to erase what he just confessed.

2.) Lolita + Alice in Wonderland

“Plain Lo in the morning, Lola is slacks -“

“Late, late says the white rabbit”

Lolita and Alice in Wonderland...those are interesting choices of literature for a supervillain to quote. You’d think something more threatening and/or pretentious would be an obvious choice for a traditional mastermind-type supervillain rather than two obscure (not very masculine) classics that only have one thing in common: themes of sexual obsession and pedophilia.

Lolita is the story of a pedophile who uses his power as a step-father to groom and sexually abuse a child. Alice in Wonderland, while not having explicit pedophilic content, was written by a suspected pedophile and is obsessively focused on a child that there are photographs of the author kissing on the mouth. These are the two novels Lex relates to enough to quote them casually off the top of his head.

3.) The “it’s cherry” scene

So this is obviously a sexual innuendo but the question is, why this guy? This character is utterly unimportant on his own and this doesn’t affect anything plot-wise which means this action is entirely about characterizing Lex. What are they trying to communicate here? This guy represents a figure similar to Lex’s father, an older businessman who behaved as if he had authority over Lex, and Lex’s instinct to that is to assert dominance in a sexually suggestive manner. This establishes Lex as a character who uses sexuality to dominate and make others uncomfortable, and relates it to a man who who represents his father.

4.) Two Versions Of The Same Scene

Lex caressing Zod’s face directly parallels him caressing around Clark’s face, even the framing is identical. I think these are two versions of Lex confronting Superman, one with the actual Superman where he has to keep his distance and put on a callous front, and the other with a Kryptonian corpse he can project Superman onto. The scene with Zod I think shows how Lex truly feels about Clark. “You flew too close to the sun” he’s saying this and crying as he’s creating a monster to kill Clark which makes me think those words were not for Zod but the god he feels he has to kill. There’s no reason for Lex to cry for Zod, Lex has no relationship with him, it’s much more coherent that this scene is using Zod’s body as a substitute for what Lex can’t express to the real Superman.

EDIT: Upon rewatch I noticed a small moment where the Jolly Rancher Dude (I don’t think he has a name lol?) says with a smile “You want Zod’s body?” and Lex goes “Okay”, it’s a very playful interaction and it I think strengthens the connection between Zod’s body being an implied sex symbol of Superman.

4.5.) The Sexual Tension In The Rooftop Scene

Every moment of the rooftop scene (and all of this film) is so multilayered and intense, I could talk about it for hours but I want to talk a little more about the moment in the above gif.

Seconds before this, Lex was wagging his fingers inches for Superman’s glowing laser eyes but now when he knows Clark isn’t going to attack him, he won’t touch him? Lex is less afraid of having his fingers burned off than he is to touch Clark’s head knowing that he won’t do anything. Because Lex would be happy if Superman burned him, that would prove him right and give him an easy category to put Clark in but letting himself touch Clark in an ‘affectionate’ manner is terrifying.

A straight male villain that just wanted to use physical contact to assert dominance over the hero would have touched Clark here (and also would have no reason to caress Zod’s dead body) but Lex can’t even though he’s literally trembling with desire to and we know for a fact he’s not afraid of invading Clark’s personal space in an even more physically dangerous moment.

5.) The Dual Realities Of An Abused Child

“If God is all good then he cannot be all powerful.”

Now, I’m not an expert in psychology but I will do my best to articulate this. When someone, especially a child, is abused by someone they love it creates an extreme paradox in their mind. They love this person and they have to trust them but they also have to fear them, their brains are forced to compartmentalize when this person is a threat vs when they are a protector. In some cases, like Lex’s, this can lead to someone entirely thinking in absolutes and dualities.

It’s a consistent theme in Lex’s dialogue that he thinks in absolutes. The cornerstone of his ideology is people have to be “all good” or “all powerful” when really no one is either, there arguably is no such thing as either.

It’s also a theme that he has dual views of people in his life, the most prominent being his father and Superman. In one scene he’s reminiscing about wishing his dad would come back, in another he’s emotionally describing the abuse he inflicted. And Lex does the same with Clark as explained in point 4.

Lex even seems to have a dual view of himself. In the rooftop scene he points to himself as “the evil in the world” but his speech about Prometheus at the party is clearly meant to illustrate that he sees himself as a misunderstood savior of humanity (this is even confirmed in the bonus material).

6.) Internalized Homophobia

“I don’t hate the sinner, I hate the sin.”

Two things are important to me with this line. First is that it reinforces point 5 but also this is a very, very common phrase in homophobic rhetoric so for him to say this and gesture to Clark’s body as the “sin” has implications. And yes, yes, I know he meant that Clark’s powers are a sin but things can have double meanings and I sincerely doubt that anyone making a movie in the western world’s current political climate wouldn’t realize that phrase is strongly linked to homophobia.

To elaborate on how it reinforces 5: Lex is openly saying that he doesn’t hate Clark, he just hates his power, which brings us back to the idea of an abuse victim’s dual reality. It’s Clark’s power that is the threat to him but he can still love Clark, same way his father’s abuse was a threat but he can still love his father. Note: Lex calls Clark “my friend” and “Clark Joe” and similar affectionate names throughout their interactions which I think suggests that Lex sees Clark as partially a person.

7.) Conclusion

DCEU’s Lex Luthor was a fresh, contemporary take on the character so it was a jarring difference from the Lex we’ve seen in other recent mainstream media. I also think it was upsetting partially because it took away Lex as a male power fantasy; a buff, suave billionaire who’s hyper masculine and doesn’t let anything get to him including his canonical abuse. Now we’ve got this definitely charming and silver-tongued but effeminate and deeply traumatized Lex that I think is much, much more dynamic and compelling (and definitely fits this universe) but was uncomfortable for people that were attached to the charecter as a male power fantasy.

Nevertheless we need more villains like this. That can be both intimidating and vulnerable, that are human and offer a real ideological opposition to the hero. BvS could not have been the story it is without this Lex. BvS is a brilliant and nuanced film about how fear and trauma affects people’s worldviews, which is an important thing to explore when you have a Superhero that is the embodiment of hope. It’s important to show that not everyone can have hope so easily and to humanize those people.

Anyways this post is really long and I could literally talk for days about DCEU and this film especially so thanks for reading, please be respectful in the notes.

#dc #pro dceu #dceu positivity #bvs positivity #batman v superman #dc meta #my meta #lex luthor #lex luthor jr #clex #clark x lex #txt #my post

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mavrustheunskooled · 4 years

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I keep trying to write my full feelings on black friday, but everything comes out wrong, so here’s one example that kind of sums up how black friday came off to me

in my opinion, we do not know enough about Hatchetfield/PEIP/this universe to get the most out of black friday. this does not mean that the Langs have to pause the musical and explain every tiny piece of every inch of their world to us to help us understand. obviously that’s not how storytelling works. but, we should know Enough to get us through the story and to keep us invested. divulging necessary information at crucial moments is one thing that can make sci-fi/fantasy Great. learning about the world is So Fun. but if we know so little that what should be big moments become meaningless to us, then the world is suffering.

the main example that i’m thinking of is the moment where McNamara goes into the black and white to save the president. Wiggly’s minions are all over the president, so McNamara throws a “knife of truth” to get them to all go away

what is a knife of truth? not that we need to know exactly. maybe it’s a cool sci-fi thing. maybe it’s a PEIP invention. I don’t need to know its exact origins. but what I Should know to give this moment weight is what the knife of truth means to what we know about McNamara and PEIP

I don’t think we’ve ever seen McNamara wield a knife. his gun is his most iconic weapon (ex: ”I’m authorizing you to use my firearm” becoming a recurring thing). are knives a PEIP thing? are they just another weapon that McNamara is carrying? if it’s supposed to be a PEIP special weapon, then why wasn’t it foreshadowed? or introduced at all? we didn’t know that McNamara was carrying a knife until he used it to immediately get away from a hoard of minions. this is something powerful enough to mention

and why was it about truth? what do we know about McNamara or PEIP that tell us that truth is one of their cornerstones? if truth is meant to imply that McNamara/PEIP know the truth about the universe, then the connection feels a bit loose. we have never known McNamara as an objectively truthful person. we’ve believed him up to this point because he hasn’t given us any reason to distrust him; however, this does not mean that McNamara represents truth to viewers. plenty of characters are truthful. if his knife of truth means that he is exposing reality, then why would it work against the creatures that he is exposing? is he saying that Wiggly’s minions aren’t real? if so, then what have we been shown to give us that information? is it more metaphorical, that PEIP is truth because they’re the “good guys” and Wiggly and co are “lies” because they’re the “bad guys”? but Wiggly and co aren’t selling America on a boldfaced lie. they’re using capitalism/greed, which isn’t the same thing as a lie. so if this was the intent, then the connection is still weak.

what I’m trying to say is: the knife of truth is an apparently very powerful weapon that was not foreshadowed at all. it felt as if its purpose was to get McNamara and the president out of a difficult situation and then quickly disappear.

the argument may be that McNamara is a knife-wielding man, and this will all become relevant in nerdy prudes must die or something. but that’s still not a Great view, because something can be foreshadowing to a future story without taking away from the present story. in this case, if they wanted McNamara to wield a knife of truth later, they may have had him vaguely mention that he had it on his person, not use it in a major point in the plot. because, now that he’s used it in a major way before, they have a shortcut for when they use it again. they can say “McNamara used his knife of truth to get away from the Wiggly minions, and look he used it again! it’s a narrative callback!” without ever having to explain What exactly this knife is. for a musical that’s over two hours long, the knife of truth felt like it was a way to quickly get out of a difficult scene and move it forward

viewers not knowing enough about the Hatchetfield universe is an ongoing problem in black friday, but this is the most egregious moment. Lex being able to pull a gun out of thin air also feels like it’s toeing the line into becoming more of a way to get out of being written into a corner than a big moment, although that one at least feels more earned because we know about McNamara and his gun (although what do we know about Lex’s supernatural abilities). mentions of Webby also get frustrating as they are increasingly left without any explanation. again, not everything has to be explained in one musical. in TGWDLM, McNamara said PEIP and I went “cool. I have no idea what that is right now, and I am fully onboard with whatever this character has to say.” but if the writers ask us to stretch our minds too thin, then the story becomes difficult to watch.

this is not to say that I didn’t enjoy aspects of black friday. I loved the cast and the choreography and the set and a lot of the characters and some of the songs. it just felt a bit difficult to follow, and a bit underwhelming, which was disappointing. I really, really, really wanted to like it, and I thought that I would like it once the pro shot was uploaded, but I unfortunately still found myself confused and uninterested in a plot that conceptually is really engaging

#black friday spoilers #I have other issues w BF #but I can't articulate them correctly #it's been a long day and I'm writing this to distract myself from waiting for n@ddpod okay ldkfjlkdf #but the knife of truth scene is genuinely just. Not Great #and again ! I love starkid !#just ! not black friday !#and not this scene !#idk if this makes sense #but my writing advice would be: big moments deserve to be solved w things that relate to the story #not single-use overpowered items #y'know #okay cool pls only @ me if you have something useful to add to the discussion #if you have a one sentence ''clapback'' pls keep walking #whatever you have to say that you think is clever is not worth it #starkid #black friday #mine #rambles

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peppersandcats · 4 years

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Flash stuff, comics and TV

So, I am finally up-to-date on The Flash in both comics and TV format, and I have some thoughts. The comics ones are mostly in the “oh come on are we expected to buy this, clearly you are aiming for that” vein, and the TV show ones are very mild and possible super-obvious, but since both deal with what both what is happening and what I think is going to happen, both might be spoilers so I’m putting them under a cut.

To be clear: please do not tell me anything about these assumptions that does not come from existing text. So for example:

“but in issue 76 we saw X” or “in episode 6 of this season Y happened, so we might get Z fallout” is totally fine. Yay analysis! Would love to hear from you!

“in the comics X happens, so that might mean Y for the TV show” is also cool.

“the comics writer said he’s aiming for X” or “a casting decision has been made so we know Y is still showing up/is not on the show anymore after this point” is really not fine please do not tell me that. I do not want to hear it. Thank you.

Also: discusses possible upcoming character death. I know some people would rather not see that, so mentioning it now.

With that in mind, here are my “I am okay with being wrong about this, but I bet this’ll happen” thoughts:

Comics

Oh, comics. Len has apparently turned into a vicious blowhard, Lisa is picking a fight with him, evil King Cold rules over Central, all is lost, no-one is paying me enough to pick up extra titles from DC to find out what all space and time being broken means, dour, dour, grim.

With that in mind, I have a possibly-more-cheerful read on current Snart events than the one initially presented. I’m going to keep in mind Len’s mention of the Rogues going with Lisa’s plan (issue 78 “Without my sister, the whole plan is on hold.”; issue 79 “This isn’t Lex’s plan. It’s not even my plan. It’s your plan.”), and assume that that was true.

This means that I think (hope) that what they’re going for is a long con. That the Snarts are running with a plan where Len plays bad guy to Central City, Lisa tries to convince Barry to use mega-uncontrollable Speed Force power against Luthor by pitching it as "save my brother he's gone bad", and the end goal is that the world-breaking nonsense and Luthor both get taken down while the Rogues get to keep all the shiny new tech in a world that isn’t weirdly broken by evil.

The big thing that kept throwing me about the narrative presented to Barry is why is Len keeping Barry alive?

Because, look. Right now everyone thinks the Flash is dead (seriously, those guards in the throne room were absolutely thinking “jeez, boss, we’ve heard how the Flash died in your arms three times already this week”), and yeah, that’s good to keep Central hopeless. And Len is coming across as mean as hell. But then why hasn’t he really killed Barry? He’s not angling for the “I will build my reputation with a grand execution!”, because then he wouldn’t be talking up how he’d already killed the Flash. He might be keeping Barry alive just to torment him, but then there’d be no benefit to lying about how he’d killed him. Dude’s stuck in Ice Heights, not even the Trickster* can make a dent in that, it’s not like someone is going to mount a successful rescue.

*Please insert usual where-the-hell-does-he-get-those-wonderful-toys rant here, I’m sure you’ve heard it from me by now.

And if Len was building part of his power on the “I will crush Central City’s spirit by letting them know I have taken down the Flash!” foundation, then Lisa’s “oh no, we can’t let people know you’re alive” seems a bit odd.

So if I take a step back, what I see isn’t “Lisa has a heart of gold and is begging for the Flash’s help.” It’s not even “Lisa is vamping Barry and feeding him a sob story about how her brother has gone bad.”

What I see is “the Snarts have a secret plan that involves no-one knowing that the Flash is still alive, so it doesn’t get back to Lex Luthor. Right now the genius supervillain has a massive blind spot about the existence of a terrifying Speed Force bomb, and Lisa is collecting pieces of Mirror Master’s tech. Those are totally the kind of things you could combine to break Luthor’s secret reality-busting stronghold, which would enable you to get rid of him but still keep your super-cool empowering tech.”

And if Len and Lisa are in cahoots on this, the bombast makes a lot more sense. “My sister has been in hiding ever since I took over Central City... and she reveals herself by stealing from me?" is a performance for the benefit of the two-high level mooks who were following Len and could probably hear him through the open doorway. Giant ice-wolves aren’t anything to do with Lisa being scared of dogs when she was a kid (which didn’t really come across in her reaction to them anyway), they’re just really cool and the speech is Len hamming it up for whoever in his citadel is spying for Luthor.

(I mean. It’s Luthor. You’re working with Lex Luthor, you gotta assume.)

So, yeah. I’m still hoping we’ve got the Snarts running a very sensible long con, which combines the best aspects of “we are crooks who want cool stuff” and “we’re not evil, evil is dumb.” Fingers crossed.

Okay, minor stuff, but I think I’ve finally decoded the symbols on the Monitor’s door!

I was assuming, pretty much, that these referenced the Justice League. The Flash in particular has been throwing in asides to the Justice League since its inception (everyone’s seen the mural at CCPD headquarters, right?), the last crossover involved a building that has people who don’t watch the show assuring me that it’s meant to evoke the Hall of Justice, one of the trailers mentioned seven heroes, here we have seven symbols, etc.

Left to right, I think these represent

Black Lightning - it’s not a logo, but the shape evokes the lightning streaks on the torso of his costume. This one was one I kept getting stuck on - I kept thinking “Trident! ...but it makes no sense for them to bring in Aquaman.” Then I went to catch up on Black Lightning a little and it clicked.

Canary - I honestly was thinking White Canary because I really want to see LOT involved, but Sara doesn’t wear a face mask. Therefore, probably need to go with Black Canary (who is a founding member in at least one version of continuity, lord knows which one, I have trouble keeping track)

Flash - that is, to me, obviously his cowl. Little bit coming down in the middle, little chin covering pointing up, wing-y bits on the ears, we’re good.

Martian Manhunter - this one I’m the least sure of, but given the options available, I think it has to be him. He’s totally a Justice League guy, and the hex with straps pointing up and down to the sides, echoes his costume torso.

Supergirl - again, I was staring at this for a while, completely lost, but now it looks to me like a really stylized ‘S’. If it was narrower on the bottom than on the top, it would look a lot like the family logo.

Batwoman - this is both a scarier-looking mask than the second image, and can be read as a figure spreading their wings to either side. (Huh, I suppose it might be Hawkgirl? But I’m betting on Batwoman. If I’m wrong, that’s okay! I have been wrong before)

Arrow. I mean, really, just Arrow. It’s an arrow-head. Arrow.

And I mean, I don’t necessarily think everyone’s going to survive through this. Oliver Queen in particular I think is going to die. Whether that means Roy or Mia steps up to try and become the Arrow, or whether they leave a seat empty at the table to honour Ollie’s sacrifice, I don’t know. But: Arrow in the JLA of the CW.

But.

Arrow is TV, but in a lot of ways it’s still comics. You know how it happens when people die in comics.

I think we might get to see Ollie as the Spectre.

It fits with the well-meaning darkness and the grim drive. It fits with the judgement of "you have failed this city". It fits with the green hood. The recent “hey, vigilantes working with the police” feel like it gives Ollie a sort of cop-if-you-look-at-him-sideways aura that makes him line up better with Jim Corrigan and Crispus Allen--hell, even Hal Jordan functionally comes across as a space-cop. Even Corrigan’s death thematically echoes Ollie’s first (presumed) death by drowning on the Queen’s Gambit.

I would like that. I have long loved the Spectre, and I would not be where I am as a DC TV fan--hell, as a DC fan--if Arrow hadn’t clicked with me.

I would like it if Oliver Queen, that grumpy control-freak secret-keeping self-righteous ass, could still be there on some level. He means a lot to me.

#commentary #the flash spoilers #dc tv #dc comics #crisis on infinite earths #my commentary #theories #leonard snart #lisa snart #the flash iss. 83 #the monitor #justice league #justice league dc tv #oliver queen #the spectre #arrow #here for a positive fandom experience

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