#ON TOP of being physically disabled. genuinely if I tried to shoot someone with a gun I would likely to more damage to my own body

[sailorsleepymoon]

The government may be tracking me and putting me on a watchlist . But that simply makes it even more important to continue to say kill kill die die we need to kill elon musk !! I have to do it!!! It’s a public service even!!! I have to keep saying I want Donald trump DEADDDDDDDD because by golly by gosh im taking up data points and if that data is going to me, it’s not going to someone else who would have like even 0.01% better chance at carrying that out than me!! I want them to get assassinated soooooooo bad, but this is all I can contribute to tha cause……

[astrid-goes-for-a-spin]

I read your reply on a marvel post and I don't want this to sound rude or aggressive or anything, but what did you mean by 'disability erasure in “merging” the Hulk and Bruce.' I'm genuinely curious because I've never heard of anyone having that opinion.

Oh hello! So, one of the reasons I love-love-love Bruce Banner and the Hulk is because of the representation of trauma and mental illness. Bruce Banner is diagnosed with DID (disassociative identity disorder) in the comics, and it’s fair to say this is true to his portrayal in the movies as well. Bruce has had an incredibly difficult and traumatic life - child abuse, his father beating his mother to death, trying to blow up his high school/commit suicide in the comics, and even trying to shoot himself in the MCU. On top of all this preexisting trauma is the medical experiment that irradiated him.

The Hulk is a product of the post-WWII fear we lived in as a society. Nuclear power could be a good weird (like Spider-Man), or it could make you into a rampaging monster. As someone who studies the superhero genre and disability within it, I think it’s safe to say Bruce in the MCU has DID: the Hulk is the “protector” identity who takes over when Bruce’s life is in danger - or if he gets triggered and feels out of control (“don’t make me angry”). Because of comics science bullshit, the Hulk is a physically different person than Bruce Banner - not only is he 9ft tall, green, and so strong he can break the world, his face is shaped differently. His hair is cut/styled differently. Comic science bullshit gives us an opportunity to see the Hulk as he is: NOT Bruce Banner. Psychologically, the Hulk’s defining feature - his strength/indestructibility - comes from child!Bruce’s desire to protect himself and just be strong enough to protect his mother: the Hulk is the strongest there is.

We see a lot of this in the 2008 The Incredible Hulk, a movie that I love beyond words. Yes, Bruce’s situation is complicated by the fact that he’s hiding from Thunderbolt Ross, but he’s living a life very familiar to people struggling with mental illness. He’s isolated, but maintaining a routine; he’s learning to defend himself but also manage his physical response to his triggers; he’s meditating constantly and keeping a log of how many days he can go without losing control. His life is defined by trying to get rid of the Hulk - or, in disability terms, to “cure” himself of DID. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, especially if your alter is causing so much damage (especially to those you love, shoutout to the forgotten but much beloved Betty Ross). Unfortunately Bruce lives in the superhero genre, and General Ross wants to use the Hulk as a weapon, which ups the stakes.

That movie follows a man made homeless, naked, and begging by his mental illness across two continents. He wants to go back to the way life was before. He wants his lab, he wants Betty, he wants to stop hurting people. He’s plagued by guilt and flashbacks of events that happened to the Hulk. His metronome for meditating reminds him of the initial experiment gone wrong, and the associated fallout. He collapses in the shower because the showerhead spraying water looks like a cannon spraying bullets.

Because of Superhero Drama, Bruce eventually realizes that the Hulk is the only one who stands a chance against the Abomination, and comes to the conclusion that he will sacrifice himself to the Hulk - possibly losing himself forever - for the greater good. The Hulk takes out the Abomination and runs off; later we see Bruce in a very desolate cabin in the British Columbia. He’s exercising, he’s meditating, and he’s working on his mental health in that he’s gone so long fearing the Hulk, trying to kill the Hulk - who is basically a superpowered toddler desperate to protect the ones he loves - maybe that’s not the healthiest way to approach his DID, and he starts working on some strategies to switch to the Hulk without the triggers - thus working on eliminating the danger of the triggers at all.

Fast-forward to The Avengers. Bruce never names the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk, referring to him only as “it.” By now he’s using a more familiar moniker - “the other guy.” Bruce has not quite gotten over his suicidal intention (which was how the 2008 movie was intended to open, a failed suicide attempt), but he’s trying to make the best of his life by helping others. That’s what he’s always wanted to do. Natasha comes to recruit him, and he keeps his cool through Tony’s insistent attempts to catch him out, finally confiding the loss of control and horror and pain he feels when he’s not there anymore. (DID can feel like blackouts, like being possessed...the MCU seems to go with “blackout with some fuzzy memories in flashback form”). Tony asserts the Hulk saved his life - which would be his primary objective as the protector identity. Bruce scorns the idea, because he does not value his life.

I’ll point out there’s only one accidental Hulk-out here: Bruce and Nat fall two stories and Bruce gets banged up. His head is messed up, and while Nat had the good fortune/training to land fairly safely, Bruce catches the fall on his hands and knees. His wrists and knees are definitely cracked. He tries to hold the Hulk at bay, but with these injuries and a bonk on the head, the protector identity with healing factor is eager to fix Bruce’s tiny mortal body, and he feels threatened.

Fast-forward to “I’m always angry.” I’ve been trying to puzzle this line out for years. I can believe that Bruce Banner is always angry, deep inside. His life is profoundly unfair and agonizingly painful. One of Bruce’s greatest strengths is that he does everything he can to remain kind and empathetic and keep his alter from reigning that anger down on the world. Some fans have speculated that his body is always in a state of high blood pressure, etc; some fans have no idea. I think that after around 8 years of living like this, Bruce has it mostly under control due to his myriad lifestyle changes, but at this moment just allows himself to be just as angry as the circumstances deserve. His pulse skyrockets, and the Hulk punches the Leviathan out of the sky.

This is a complicated issue for him - Bruce’s fear has always been that the Hulk would be weaponized - but as it was with the Ambomination, it was a do-or-die situation. He wouldn’t die, but by god, everyone else would. His morals can take a backseat to saving lives.

Which brings us to his tortured state in Age of Ultron. Bruce loves being part of the team, much in the same way Natasha does. It’s the first real family he’s ever had. What he doesn’t love is Code Greens, which are sometimes necessary, but he’s taking precautions, because that’s what you have to do when you have an unpredictable mental illness: he’s designed Veronica to put him down. He’s worked out the lullaby with Natasha to tell the Hulk that it’s safe and Banner can come back. He has shock blankets and comfy clothes, he has nice headphones for his soothing opera music; he asks obsessively about how the Hulk is in battle; Natasha asks lightly, “When are you gonna start trusting me?” but instead of flirting back, Bruce replies darkly, “It’s not you I don't trust.” Even able to eliminate most of his triggers, even able to change into the Hulk at will, Bruce feels like he’s got a monster inside him - because he does. And even if things are better than they were, he feels like any wrong move he makes can cascade into innocent people - and people he cares about - being hurt. 

We don’t see his fear-vision in AoU; we don’t have to. He lives it. Bruce’s worst nightmare - the Hulk’s worst nightmare - is being out of control in a civilian population. The Hulk has no control over himself while under Wanda’s spell; much as the other Avengers are rendered catatonic, the Hulk is sent into hyperdrive, desperate to get away, get her out of his head. When the spell finally wears off, the Hulk is devastated to see the damage and the screams and the fleeing people and the dust - while he is a savage Hulk, his purpose is protector, and this goes against his nature. The Hulk loved to smash the Chitauri, but he also loved to protect the terrified officeworkers in the skyscrapers and save Tony’s life, something the Hulk felt only he could do, so he did. 

But Bruce still thinks of himself as a monster. Not the Bruce part - but the Hulk part. He’s not giving the Hulk enough credit, but how can he? He doesn't understand the way the Hulk works. He’s never been diagnosed, he’s never been to therapy, he’s never taken medication for DID. All he sees is traumatic flashbacks and disturbing security footage and the equally disturbing reaction of the world claiming that the Hulk in all his violence and savagery is a hero. He spends AoU desperate to run away. To start a new life somewhere (preferably with Natasha), and never have to be the Hulk again. 

Natasha’s on board. That’s the tragic part. It’s just that she can’t leave a mission unfinished, so she throws him in the hole and the Hulk comes out. However, the Hulk has a relationship with Natasha separate from Bruce’s - just as Bruce and Betty had a different relationship than the Hulk and Betty. When Natasha calls for the Hulk to come back to her, he reaches for her, not understanding she’s just a hologram - he’s expecting their pressure-point secret handshake. Accidentally, he cancels the call and loses contact with Earth for two years. 

Fast-forward to Thor: Ragnarok, which some people say is the best Hulk movie ever made. I think I sobbed through every single time Bruce or Hulk was onscreen, even in the comedic parts. 

So let’s break it down: the Hulk has made a life for himself, a life that he loves. He’s valued. He lives in a palace. He has everything he could ever want. People like him instead of fear him (”Earth hates Hulk”). He has no responsibilities, and no guilt. He’s the strongest there is, but there’s no one he needs to protect besides Banner - who’s safe by being not there. 

The recorded message from Natasha, however, pulls Bruce back out of the abyss of the Hulk. He’s been gone - like, suspended animation or coma-ish gone. He has no memories. He has had no consciousness. The first thing Bruce asks is if the Avengers saved Sokovia. Then, he asks about Nat - because the last time he saw her, he was breaking her out of a HYDRA base run by Ultrons. His worst fears have been realized yet again. The Hulk was weaponized - for a good cause, and by someone he trusted, but still - and he hasn’t been himself in two full years. Meanwhile, the Hulk has been running a gladiator ring and killing indiscriminately. In suppressing Banner, the Hulk has grown beyond who he was initially, but he’s still an angry toddler, and he still wants to protect people (notice he didn’t kill Thor in the arena, despite the fact that he could’ve easily given him a wound he couldn’t recover from). Bruce is sure that with how out of balance their dynamic has gotten in the past few years, if he changes into the Hulk ever again, he, Bruce Banner, will be lost forever. But he makes the sacrifice to save the Asgardians anyway, and the Hulk rises to the occasion and eagerly helps fight the Fenris wolf and probably would’ve gone head-to-head with Surtur forever. He’s even willing to fight Thanos.

OKAY SO THAT’S UP THROUGH THOR RAGNAROK. HERE IS WHERE I GET ANGRY AT THE REPRESENTATION. 

In Infinity War, when the Hulk crashes into the Sanctum Sanctorum, he shrinks back into Bruce immediately. With no explanation of why he can do so after the build-up in Ragnarok about Bruce being gone forever if he transforms one more time. And then Bruce comedically spends the rest of the movie trying to get him to come out and fight. The prevailing fan theory is that this is because the Hulk has never been scared before - he’s never been up against something he couldn’t win. But the Hulk has been scared: he loves, therefore he is scared. He’s scared when Betty is knocked unconscious while he’s trying to protect her from the crashing gunship, and he’s scared when the helicopter catches fire with her inside. He’s scared when Tony falls from the sky and his arc reactor is dark. He’s scared when he and Natasha are under fire on Sokovia. He’s scared about being alone when Thor leaves him on Sakaar. So the fact that the Hulk, whose psychological purpose is the protect Bruce Banner, does not take over to protect him during some of the most dangerous situations Bruce Banner has ever endured, is incredibly upsetting to me. If Bruce is triggered by his life being in physical danger, or by being terrified and angry and he actively wants to transform into the Hulk - why can’t he? 

A literal decade of nuanced and beautiful storytelling - on some dark and touchy subjects - is condensed into a few jokes. 

But that’s not even the worst part. 

When Bruce - and I have to assume that this is Bruce, unless we’re delving deeper in to the comics and we might call him Professor Hulk (a third alter) - shows up in IW, he nonchalantly informs the Avengers that he decided to combine “brains and brawn” and is now Bruce Banner...living in the Hulk’s body. The Hulk is expunged. Bruce Banner’s body is gone. The plot needed a strong guy who knew particle physics, and this was how to do it. But in doing so, they alienated the communities that felt represented by Bruce/Hulk - and even though I don’t have DID or personal experience with it beyond extensive research, they alienated me. 

Bruce has, over a course of many movies, taken many courses of action to try to mitigate the damages done by the Hulk, to try to eliminate the Hulk, to try to find a peace in himself substantial enough to control the Hulk. But he has, as mentioned above, never been diagnosed or treated for mental illness. While one viable course of treatment for DID is a therapy designed to “merge” a person’s identities, this is work that takes months if not years, an experienced and licensed professional, and a support system. Isolated Bruce Banner, whose friends have been snapped away, deciding “I’ll combine brains with brawn” wipes away all the work he’s already done. All the representation. Effortlessly, he overcomes every struggle he’s been faced with in the last fifteen-or-so years, with no mention of work or difficulty, much less it being shown onscreen. 

So... yeah. One of my big problems with Endgame was disability erasure. Bruce Banner has a disability. His mental illness, DID, his alter identity - the Hulk - disrupts his daily life and requires him to make changes and live differently than the people around him. This is excellently and thoughtfully portrayed in the films up until IW, and then completely trashed in Endgame. I say this because as of Endgame, Bruce Banner is no longer disabled. He no longer has DID, because he no longer has the Hulk as an alternate identity. It’s disability erasure because we didn’t see him work toward that “recovery.” 

TLDR: IW and Endgame use Bruce and Hulk as a joke and do not make any effort to portray the effects of DID or trauma on a person in the way the previous films have. 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk 

[ihavenoside]

Tagged by: @saviour-in-disguise   Tagging: @chloemodelrt600 @neverwither @parisian-eagle @stayhuman-genevieve @flawsinourcxde (corwin?) @fraegi @boundinmybones @forensiicanalysis @mikhailthefixer  @strictauthority  @hakamorraf @kyojin-daelko  @replicantdeviancy @becameinhumxne  and anyone else who’d like!

—    BASICS.

▸     IS  YOUR  MUSE  TALL  /  SHORT  /  AVERAGE? Connor’s heights unknown but the general headcanon is that he’s 6ft0. so tall.

▸      ARE  THEY  OKAY  WITH  THEIR  HEIGHT ? Yes, he’s never been bothered but it and feels to be average height compared to other’s he’s been around. Aka Hank and Markus are taller.

▸      WHAT’S    THEIR    HAIR    LIKE? Short, brown, a little longer on top so he’s hair to kind of hangs over like it does.

▸     DO    THEY    SPEND    A    LOT    OF    TIME    ON    THEIR    HAIR     /    GROOMING?

Connor doesn’t sleep so he doesn’t have many reasons for his hair to be messed up. If it does, a little water and running his hands through his hair should fix it without much issue. so no.

▸      DOES  YOUR  MUSE  CARE  ABOUT  THEIR  APPEARANCE  /  WHAT  OTHERS  THINK ? He cares about his appearance and how he sees himself but he’s also not worn much outside of his Cyberlife attire. He didn’t seem very comfortable in his Jericho outfit and will probably continue to gravitate towards more business causal clothing because it’s all he’s ever known. If people don’t like it, he’s not to bothered by it.

Despite keeping his LED because it’s part of who he is, he’ll ditch the Cyberlife jacket or at least disable the identifiers on it until be can get/find something better. The only thing he really cares about when it comes to how others see him if they still see him as the Deviant Hunter. Which he knows some will and some might never see him as anything but that.

—    PREFERENCES.

▸     INDOORS  OR  OUTDOORS? He’ll want to be outdoors mostly because I feel like he’s spent most of his time indoors. In Cyberlike, in the DPD, in a building. He’s not had much of a chance to adventure out and he’ll want too to see and discover new things. 

▸     RAIN  OR  SUNSHINE? He likes the rain, it beings a sense of calm over the city. It’s often peaceful and storms are an interesting thing to watch. If he’s stuck outside in it, he’s waterproof so the rain doesn’t bother him.

▸     FOREST  OR  BEACH?   Both, each would give a new opportunity and experience considering he’s not stepped outside of the city.

▸     PRECIOUS  METALS  OR  GEMS? I think he would like gems simply because they vary a lot in colors, shape, and value.

▸     FLOWERS  OR  PERFUMES? Flowers would visually be more interesting to look at.

▸     PERSONALITY  OR  APPEARANCE? Personality means more than appearance but it’s also a trick question. Your appearance and personality can both make you look like a bad person but it doesn’t mean that's who they truly are. It's understanding why they are perceived that way, is where their true colors shine and Connor’s an example of that.

▸     BEING  ALONE  OR  BEING  IN  A  CROWD? I feel like Connors used to being alone or happiest in the company of at least one other person. If he’s in a crowd, I think he’s like to hang back and observe the conversation or event.

▸     ORDER  OR  ANARCHY? Order over anarchy. He’s programmed for order but with order sometimes comes with unfairness, which sometimes needs to give way to anarchy so order can be restored.

▸     PAINFUL  TRUTHS  OR  WHITE  LIES?   Painful truths, whether people like it or not, facts are facts to him and doesn’t necessarily have a filter to know when he should tell a white lie unless he starts picking up on it.

▸     SCIENCE  OR  MAGIC? Both. There is a science to everything, in which he can understand but magic is the art of despection, which can be very useful. 

▸      PEACE  OR  CONFLICT?   Peace is ideal, he’d rather avoid conflict if possible. 

▸     NIGHT  OR  DAY? Night. Again, it brings a calm over the city. Plus the city looks more interesting all lit up.

▸     DUSK  OR  DAWN?

Dawn, the same reason, most people are still asleep and most things are quite still. Plus the morning hues are nice to see.

▸     WARMTH    OR    COLD ?

Warmth. While the cold won’t bother him... generally. If he becomes cold or for some reason he can’t regulate his core temperature, he’ll become highly stressed and possibly prone to panic. He has a fear of the cold thanks to his AI almost freezing to death in the Zen garden after Cyberlife resumed control over his programming. While this was more mental, physical would feel worse because the cold would cause an instability in his systems, which could cause him to shake as it’s working harder to fix the instability, which is another form of losing control over himself and would just mess with his head. Please don’t let the boy be cold.

▸     MANY  ACQUAINTANCES  OR  A  FEW  CLOSE  FRIENDS? I think he’d have many acquaintances and would want to befriend all of them but he also knows not everyone’s going to like him so he’d appreciate those that consider him a friend. It’s a little weird because he’d want to be Gavin's friend but Gavins not likely to ever like him but if he finds out someone else considered him a friend, he’ll admire that more.

▸     READING    OR    PLAYING    A    GAME? Playing a game, it's a good distraction and because there is so much variety in them, he’d enjoy it a lot as well as be quiet good at them.

—    QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸      WHAT    ARE    SOME    OF    YOUR    MUSE’S    BAD    HABITS?

He’s reckless but often in a way that he freaks people out but he knows exactly what he’s doing. Like be able to run out into traffic and not die lol. which often leaves him confused to why people are upset.

He doesn’t know how to ask for help when he needs it because when he needed it, no one came so he’d basically learned he needs to handle things on his own and not rely too heavily on anyone.

It’s in his nature to ask a lot of questions, even if those questions should seem obvious or possibly inappropriate. 

▸      HAS  YOUR  MUSE  LOST  ANYONE  CLOSE  TO  THEM?  HOW  HAS  IT  AFFECTED   THEM?

No, he hasn’t but Connor’s a new unit and hasn’t had much time to form strong bonds with anyone but he has lost people, even if they where strangers. That has still affected him on a deeper level the more he reflects on it. Emma, the little girl from the hostage mission bothers him the most. A human life was lost and he failed to prevent it. He also sympathizes with Rupert and the Traci's because of him, they’re also dead and they didn’t deserve that. He regrets having to kill 10 army men during the revolution, 10 more people who won’t return home to their families and feels guilty over it despite everything but also doesn’t know how to properly handle the grief he feels.

▸      WHAT  ARE  SOME  FOND  MEMORIES  YOUR  MUSE  HAS?

Again, he’s a new unit so the list is short and simple. One would be the day he got to meet and pet Sumo, tied with that would be the day the DPD the officer he saved in the hostage mission pulled him aside and genuinely thank him for saving his life. Tied with that, is the day he learned Cyberlife hadn’t removed him from the expense account and bought a half a mill car because it was made in the year Hank was born.

▸     IS  IT  EASY  FOR  YOUR  MUSE  TO  KILL?

It’s hard to say because he was built to hunt his kind and programmed to handle weapons. so I want to say yes and he hates it? He never wants to take a life but in the heat of the moment, it’s to easy for him to pull the trigger and go for the killing blow.

▸      WHAT’S  IT  LIKE  WHEN  YOUR  MUSE  BREAKS  DOWN?

Connor hasn’t felt geniune loss to the degree that he’d want to break down and cry. Unfortunately, he deals with his grief, fear, anger and stress in the same way he’s seen other deviants and humans do, which is to isolate themselves and hide. He also has the added notion of being this state of the art machine but is showing to be no better than the deviants he was programmed to track down. So he feels like he should be in much better control of his emotions and he’s not. 

This leaves him in a high stressed state while he tries to understand and sort through his emotions which will either end in him getting kicked into a sleep mode, become so physically/mental drained that he’s no longer able to focus on what had previously been bothering him, which is basically the state before he’s kicked into a sleep mode or finds a way to distract himself and evade the emotion altogether because he doesn’t know how else to handle them. His life basically dependent on how well he could portray being a machine so Cyberlife wouldn’t suspect him of deviating when he wasn’t even sure if he was deviating himself. It’s a habit he’s also not broken since becoming a deviant. So for the most part he can hide his stress well.

▸      IS  YOUR  MUSE  CAPABLE  OF  TRUSTING  SOMEONE  WITH  THEIR  LIFE?

Yes. it’s more or less based on people not killing him when they had the chance too. This would consist of Hank, not shooting him at the bridge, Markus sparing his life twice and North considering shes capable of letting him deviate too. (this also applies to threads in which someone saves his life) 

▸      WHAT’S  YOUR  MUSE  LIKE  WHEN  THEY’RE  IN  LOVE?

No idea. He’s far too focused on working through his other emotions. He has no idea what love is because no one has remotely shown him love let alone genuine kindness. Hank in his case has more or less tolerated him up until the end of the game when Connor was willing to give up his mission so that Hank could live. Aside from that, the only time someone has shown him kindness was the officer pulling him aside and thanking him for saving his life. Connor’s so taken back by this, that he smiles and slightly nods at the thanks because he doesn’t know how else to respond.