#; lex role ;

[mattzerella-sticks]

I'm too angry and in my feels to make a coherent response to Lex's "You can't control Superman" and "Earth is for the Earthlings" lines, but it is exactly this narrow view regarding the capability of Superman's powers that has these people becoming the very weapons/villains they see Superman as, because none of them can comprehend having so much power and using it for good.

If you could fly why use it to rescue a cat from a tree or help an old lady cross the street?

If you could shoot lasers out of your eyes why use it to repair a bridge when you can kill?

If you were invulnerable, why throw yourself in front of a car to save a child when you could cause harm without reproach?

Though they label Clark an 'alien', they see him as too human to be anything but genuine in his desire to help people, and that's why they fear him. Because they can't understand him.

[jesncin]

Does Lex being black and Superman being white(-passing) in your universe affect his hatred of Superman and/or how he expresses it?

It sure does! I'm gonna link back to my initial post about Black Lex Luthor since it sets the stage for the ideas I want to eventually dig into for this take.

(I chopped some panels from Lex Luthor: Man of Steel for the sake of how these pages display on this blog, this is not how it looks in the comic)

Something really interesting about Lex's character is how his ego copes with seeing power and how hypocritical (for lack of better word) he can be about it. In Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, he dehumanizes Superman because he views him as a threat, all in the name of supposedly giving agency back to (his standard of) humanity. He ironically creates an actual not-living-human robot-superhero as a rebuttal to Superman. When Clark Kent criticizes it, Luthor briefly fantasizes about buying the Daily planet and firing him, assuring himself that people like Kent are "insecure men, ignorantly seeking to tell people what to think", all while he himself acts out of insecurity. He builds a tower to represent the pinnacle of human achievement but destroys it and sabotages his own man-made superhero to make Superman look bad.

I think adding a racial element of marginalization revitalizes all of this in so many ways. We'd get to see the way hurt people lash out through power and corruption. Lex clawed his way to power through cruelty and hates seeing how Superman doesn't use malice to get to where he is in power. Maybe the cognitive dissonance in Luthor's mind justifies his feelings towards Superman by thinking that Superman represents this safe, palatable version of power. It's unearned because of course it is, he looks like a white man after all, and all the benefits and second chances that go with it. It's up to someone like Luthor to show people what it really looks like to earn power, it should be messy, there should be casualties. This is how the world works to him, and he knowingly upholds it to justify the cruelty that got him to where he is.

If he can change even just one person's mind about Superman, maybe all that self sabotage, including hurting others like him, would be worth it.

[shiresome]

I love the way you draw lex so bad. do u have any lex headcanons question mark….

THANK YOU THATS SO SWEET!! Yes I have one Lex headcanon: he is my best friend forever and ever

[pseudo-hero]

In the same spirit as the bottom of my "Comics!Clex Plot Connection?" post, here's another (sort of serious) Clex/SuperTie Translation:

Lex Luthor: "You and I could make a pretty lovin—I mean, great pair, I think. A wonderful not-couple. Don't you think? Pretty please say you do! We could save each other."

Superman: *Pretends to not have already made up his mind* "Listen Lex, I want to be able to hold you believe in you so badly...which is why I came here to ask you...if you would be...my partner in stopping crime?"

Lex Luthor: "...What...? Oh...! I thought you'd never ask! I mean—I knew you'd eventually come around to see things my way...my love."

[dengswei]

honestly monster next door is everything i've been begging for for big for YEARS like i don't think you'd understand the importance of this drama to me and probably to big too really like i'm just rambling right now because i can't put it into words probably but big deserves this and i hope this is just the beginning of his success & recognition because it's what he deserves after not being recognised for so long

[blorbofightclub]

BLORBO BATTLE #2

Grog Strongjaw from Critical Role (left) VS Lex Foster from Hatchetfield (right)

Vote for the character you think would win in a no-holds-barred fight. You must pick one or the other. Propaganda is allowed; being a dick is not. May the best blorbo win!

[juniperhillpatient]

Maybe what our toxic & unstable relationship needs is a third even more unstable person to involve 🤔

[isogenderskitty]

i also think it’s interesting that frank, in his own words, sees himself as a positive role model to lex when he… in a lot of ways is certainly not FJSJFJDJ but i think he does care in his own strange way. i think they should have a Little fun sometimes as a treat

[keep-earth-safe]

If we were in an a/b/o universe what do you think your secondary gender would be?

An Alpha. What else?

[roughentumble]

ok wait read a fic where it was like BvS where batman was very suspicious of superman and found out his secret identity, and thought he was like. basically "a god playing human" and that as soon as he snapped at some minor infraction, he'd burn down all of the daily planet, so batman went there as bruce wayne to agitate clark and "prove" that he was "too dangerous" to live amongst humans. and now im kind of obsessed with the concept because its really funny to me. bruce pre-loving clark stage, trying to "prove" he's too dangerous while clark continues to be incredibly mild-mannered because he's just that kind of guy.

[archivestarlyht]

sometimes i remember that other bg3 wizard players have complained that they feel like their character is “overshadowed” by how good gale is & his relationship with mystra and need to lay down

[freakywizard]

christian borle being cast as the sexyman tv head in h*zbin h*tel is my 9/11 of the year

[lanaluthorlang]

Now, I don’t necessarily think that Lexana are that out of character in season six. On the surface at least. With everything the two of them had been through, together and separately, you wouldn’t have to suspend your belief to accept that cracks would begin to show. Those trials could have strengthened their bond, or,they could have brought to the surface any anxieties that might have been lurking in their minds. 

For Lana, this is a new relationship. There’s bound to be doubts or fear that she’s rushing into things. Especially when you take into account everything that happened with Zod possessing Lex. She had to make a choice on the spot to follow him into the unknown. And she did. And once the dust settled she had time to sit and think about what she just got herself into. All her past relationships have either been built on lies, or staying with someone she had fallen out of love with for the sake of the other person’s feelings. 

Nothing new would have ever been easy for someone who’s used to being put on a pedestal until it’s time to discard her and move on. Clana might have had many ups and downs but at the same time, Clark represents a safe place for her to run to when her current situation starts to feel too real or she starts to have second thoughts. Lex might have been her confidant, but Clark had always been her constant, no matter how fragile that base might be.

And there is a version of Lex where his paranoia leads him to do all these awful things. Here is a man that has had every bad thing said about him proven to be true in the eyes of the people he cared for most, and as a result been rejected and abandoned. Who’d been lied to and deceived countless times over. There is a world were his fear of losing Lana, the one person he has left, leads him to going to extremes to keep her in his life. And with this being a sci-fi show, a fake pregnancy or a little cloning wouldn’t be out of the question. I think that’s what this season was going for, but the writing was so cold and detached that we couldn't connect with Lex’s reasoning. 

Also, obviously manipulating situations to keep your partner is wrong in any circumstance, but the point is that they could have given Lex a very human motivation and they didn’t. They wrote a mentally ill character and never followed through in a way that mattered. 

The biggest change in their dynamic this season is the absence of their communication. Y’know, the very foundation their relationship was built upon. I could buy Lex lying to Lana about his secret projects. I could buy Lana hiding her resurfacing feelings for Clark from Lex. I could even buy the clones and the fake pregnancy. But Lana wouldn’t have been afraid to push Lex until he told her the truth. She wouldn’t have been afraid to vent to him about her fears, her feelings, or her insecurities. Lex has had a habit from day one from hiding the truth until it blows up in his face (secret Clark room anyone?) but he wouldn’t have so coldly brushed aside those massive breaches of trust. 

You could make the argument that every single thing Lex did to and for Lana in the previous seasons was leading to him trapping her in this abusive marriage, but quite frankly, I don’t think the Smallville writers were smart enough to plan long term like that. I still respect that reading, but, as with a lot of things, our perception of these characters changes how we perceive their interactions with others and how we read their overall narrative. This entire breakdown is soaked in my bias, but it’s still how I see the show at the end of the day. 

Because I don’t see the Lex from the first half of the show as a scheming mastermind. You can have Lex be the big scary villain all you want, but you can’t go from one season where he’s clearly shown to have empathy and understanding to having him be a volatile gaslighter in the next with no signs leading to that point. As for Lana, I could buy this relationship being an act of rebellion on her part. After all, Clana was the dying star that this show revolved around for eight seasons. Still, it’s a disservice to her character to tie her to a ship we all know is sinking.  

Tldr: the foundations of the Lexana divide is in character for both of Lex and Lana’s traumas, but the execution of how they deal with it, and the framing of Lex as the shallow villain and Lana as the silent victim makes the entire storyline feel cheap and poorly written.

[phantastragoria]

do you have a favourite portrayal of a character in the gotg game!! who is it and why <3

Oh I think they're all great honestly!!! Part of why I love the game so much is that genuinely, the whole team + supporting characters are written with such obvious love of the source material and equal attention between them all. When I see comments of people saying who their favorite character was from the game and the answer always being different from each person I'm like!! That's how it SHOULD be!!! They're the Guardians of the Galaxy (plural) the focus shouldn't all fall on a singular character like most other GotG media usually ends up as 😭

The two (sorry I can't pick just one) whom I think benefit the most from the game though are Drax and Gamora because they're almost always sidelined both in-and-out of universe by most of the various writers (especially as of late) and in turn the viewers/readers. I've been told plenty of times that they're the most boring members of the "main" team, BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY! The amount of love the game versions get (by the few who've played it at least) proves that 🥺

I've never really liked 616 Drax shifting to being a complete clown during the 90s and such (and even less so when the MCU followed along 💀) So I appreciate the game taking a bit of his seriousness from the DnA run and just making him struggle with nuance and context clues in a less exaggerated way (autistic Drax I still believe in u) and I feel the focus put on him and how losing his original family + the aftermath deeply affected him hits pretty hard here because it's treated very seriously and shown in depth, especially with how his family (wife) gets actual focus. I cannot tell you anything about Yvette in comparison to Hovat, who actually seemed to have had a personality lol (AND she was on their village's council like omg imagine having more to you than just being The Housewife) Though I will say I flip and flop on my thoughts about Heather being disconnected from Drax's life in this universe... The TLDR is that I think his arc here specifically works stronger when he has to come to terms with losing his entire family and accepting the life he currently has with the Guardians. BUT!!! I very much appreciate that Heather is still confirmed to exist within this universe, even if that means her dad issues would have to be dealt with in a different context if we ever get to see her.

Also? Shoutout to the writers actually bringing up the intense paranoia that always kneecapped 616 Drax but having that be a turning point in his backstory here, with that conversation he has with Peter where he talks about how he was becoming so paranoid of everyone being a chitauri/Thanos conspirator to the point of literally turning into an obsessed maniac like Thanos, and realizing that he desperately needed to turn his life around, it's so ough.

Out of the already many great conversations throughout the game, I think the ones with him are the most poignant. My favorite scene in the whole game is Drax and Pete's little moment on Knowhere... makes me go wahhh

(l also love that out of everyone on the team, it's his headspace that we quite literally get to go into. You KNOW that if this was any other media it'd be going into Rocket or Groot's head and likely treated as a joke.)

And oh my god, Gamora...

I find it so extremely refreshing that her role in the plot doesn't revolve purely around the men in her life, and instead, it's nearly exclusively her connection with other women. Or in the most direct obstacle she has to deal with, being how she starts projecting to the millionth degree on Nikki's situation for reminding her of what happened to her and Nebula. I find that infinitely more fascinating as a reading of her character rather than just dating drama or her arc getting completely overtaken by a man's instead.

And especially in her friendship with Mantis, who, despite having all these futures she's constantly seeing and having to navigate, still makes time to do her best to help her 🥺 From saving her life and being the one who put her on the path to healing on Lamentis, to getting her to join the Guardians and still checking in on her when she's able 😭 Friendship between women can be so powerful... u love to see it (🏳️‍🌈)

I also find it nice that there's this emphasis on her recovering mentally, and the comparison between Thanos essentially teaching her to just Deal with the shit in her life through very simplistic meditation versus the priests of Pama actually teaching her something to help soothe the mind :^( and that she still has moments of relapsing essentially. I find that to be a realistic take on recovery because that's just part of the journey since healing is not linear... and I think it's very sweet that she finds comfort in collecting something ---girly--- like dolls. Love to see a person reclaim a part of their childhood that they weren't allowed to experience. And how she's allowed to make BAD JOKES?? Imagine a woman being written to have multiple dimensions, crazy and absolutely unthinkable, I know.

There's this extremely specific theme in relation to Gamora across media that's been rattling around in my brain since first playing the game. When near the end during the revisit to Knowhere, she's about to completely lose it when Peter tries talking -for- her on what she's so upset about before immediately shooting him down, and she explains what happened between her and Nebula and she starts crying. It really struck me right then that she's never given a moment to cry elsewhere (or in the 616's case, the quite literal inability to.) aside from her shedding a Single Manly Tear (Original Sin) or a single moment out of legit fear (MCU 💀) because she's a hashtag Strong Independant Woman who can't be vulnerable etc etc. But for her to cry in front of the people she's come to care about, It gives her a moment of true vulnerability that I don't think she's allowed ever in most other media.

That and all of the above hits hard and is what makes me genuinely believe that the writers cared about her in the narrative and tried to do right by her when every other bit of media really hasn't nor cared to the majority of the time since the 90s :'^/ Brings a tear to my eye that she's allowed to just... exist in the narrative on her own merits and not on what she can provide to someone else's story.

[deityofhearts]

people who maintain nice looking polished nails are so strong

[dengswei]

being a pod stan is so difficult in these trying times