#and totally related to trauma when your family LITERALLY HUNTS MONSTERS

[acesammy]

huh. crazy how the secrets sam keeps arent about trauma right?

[angerissue]

Character Survey.

Real name: Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, Ph.D..

Single or taken: Single, and this probably isn't going to change anytime soon. He has a number of ingrained emotional issues, and ideological issues that pertain to his condition, that prevent him from seeking romantic relationships and even just becoming close to someone. One-night stands are possible, because they don’t involve emotional commitment from either party, but real relationships scare the hell out of him. The closer that someone gets to Bruce, the more he fears hurting them or being hurt himself.

Abilities or powers: He has an extremely high IQ, almost unprecedented intuition when it comes to the sciences and its numerous technologies, and a great ability to think outside the box and solve complicated, confounding problems. Also, he can turn big and green, which makes him capable of inhuman physical feats and gives him a ridiculous healing factor. This cannot be understated; he can literally recover from decapitation if the conditions are right. It's debatable whether these qualify as gifts or curses, because of the experiences they've created for Bruce in the past, but they're definitely abilities at the least.

Eye colour: Brown. Sometimes green if he’s in a mood.

Hair colour: Dark brown with some grey.

Family members: Rebecca Banner (mother / deceased), Brian Banner (father / incarcerated), Jennifer Walters (cousin / alive), Susan Drake (adoptive aunt / unknown), Elaine Banner (aunt / deceased).

Pets: In The Persistence, he owns a white knockout mouse named Eddie, who came from a selection of ailing lab mice that he experimented on with the Hulk's plasma. He doesn’t have pets in other verses, though he wouldn’t mind a cat, or a dog with a calm and mellow demeanour, as long as his living situation and overall routine is constant and undisturbed. Otherwise, it will never be a possibility. Back when General Ross' squad broke down his door in Brazil, he needed to abandon a mutt named Rick, and it hurt because he’d become very fond of him. He doesn't want to do this to another animal.

Hobbies or activities: He loves hiking and jogging (with trails in forested areas being his preferred location), cooking and baking, gardening, reading textbooks and science journalism, bait fishing, programming and experimenting, travelling, sightseeing, meditation, yoga, collecting and listening to vinyl records, and being a rebel by listening to police scanners and going after bad guys if he doesn't have much else to do. But even if it seems like he's not outwardly doing anything, he's probably still occupied — he tends to spend a profuse amount of time in his own head, ruminating and reflecting on future goals, whether it involves anticipating or dreading them. He also likes to contemplate new concepts and designs for technologies.

Animal that represents them: Definitely a pangolin, because you can’t look at a pangolin and the way it carries itself and not think of Banner from a purely visual perspective. Add on the fact that their bodies are covered in hardened scales for defense, and how they curl up into a ball whenever they're upset and threatened, and you have a metaphorical version of Bruce, who tends to shy away and retreat into himself whenever he's having a lower moment, and has a lot of deep-seated defensive mechanisms on display during social interactions. But seriously, these animals just want to walk around eating ants, minding their own business. They don’t have a bone to pick with anyone... Which is also similar to Bruce. And did I mention that pangolins are endangered, because they're frequently hunted and trapped by humans for their supposed “beneficial properties” in medicine (none of which are proven)? That's similar to how Banner has been followed all over the place by the U.S. military, just because they perceived his condition to be useful somehow.

Worst habits: Take your pick. Distancing himself from other people even when he could use the company, self-flagellation, humouring his guilt complex even when he's not responsible for certain negative outcomes, repressing or suppressing his emotions when he needs to express them (or the opposite, staying as the Hulk so he can stew in those strong emotions and therefore punish himself for whatever he “did wrong”), running away from connections that involve real commitment, especially romantic ones.

Role models: Steve Rogers for his patriotism and overall sense of morality, Neils Bohr for his defense of the Bohr atomic model (which had been a radical theory for the time) and subsequent successes, Ernest Rutherford for similar reasons, and his mother when he was younger, though he doesn’t remember much about her because he was only six when she died. Same goes for his aunt, Susan; while he spent more time around her than Rebecca in total, he was rather emotionally absent by this point because of all the trauma earlier in his childhood. In general, his role models tend to be people who remain strong in the face of adversity and judgement, and stick to their values for the benefit of others. All the above people qualify in that sense, for different reasons.

Sexual orientation: Heterosexual.

Thoughts on marriage and kids: Nope, and bigger nope. He would love to have a close connection with someone, however much he's actually repressed the desire for the time being, and some part of him does want to have a child — however, he always concludes that it wouldn't be worth it. Bruce believes marriage would be a shackle for anyone who's unfortunate enough to become his partner, and it would open them up to potential threats from people who could use them to get to him and his condition. And children are a no-go because Bruce doesn’t want them to have a father like him; he might be absent for a lot of their upbringing, and either unstable or otherwise unaccommodating in temperament if he’s upset. And he'll constantly be trying to hide his condition from them as well, because god forbid they find out their father is a monster, and they feel like a freak because of it. He's been in a position where he felt like an anomaly as a child, and he's not interested in subjecting his children to this. He also loathes the idea of bringing children into the world because he would not be able to ensure their safety — after all, he can’t even ensure his own. So to Bruce, he'd be setting them up for endangerment just because they’re related to him, similar to how his partner would become a target as well.

Style preferences: Safe and conservative, and not flamboyant by any means. He usually sticks to warmer and neutral palettes, and cuts/styles that are classic and unlikely to fall out of style; this includes his suits, jackets, pants, and shirts. We're talking chinos and slacks, poplin dress shirts, wool sport coats and blazers. Most occasions will see him wearing the dress shirt, slacks, and sport coat together. If he's feeling more adventurous, he'll pair a sport coat with a crewneck, or he could even go with a polo shirt and jeans, but the latter is rare. In general, Bruce's most interesting piece is a brown leather bomber jacket, which he usually wears in the warmer months; colder weather will bring out a peacoat (and he loves to pop the collar in lieu of using a scarf). As far as cost goes, Bruce is fairly well-off between the royalties from S.H.I.E.L.D. and other work he's done here and there, but even so, he doesn't purchase outrageously expensive clothing and tends to go for the mid-upper brands. He'll do made-to-measure, but not full bespoke. He finds any further spending to be superfluous.

Approach to friendships: Cautious and uncertain about them, and tends not to approach people first, because he would hate to overstep his boundaries / make someone uncomfortable. Rather accommodating to people he considers friends, but he's extremely quick to duck out if they can’t meet him eye-to-eye regarding touchy topics, like decisions that affect the well-being of many people. This is the reason he shunned his friendship with Tony after they debated about the Sokovia Accords. Being an introvert, he’s one of those people who doesn't like bothering his friends; even if they make it abundantly clear that he's welcome anytime, he'll hesitate, but he’s completely okay and even happy if those friends approach him instead. He doesn't always like when his personal space is invaded, or if someone touches him, but he'll start to make exceptions if he becomes more familiar with someone. He loves the people that he can consider friends, but he always views the friendships as something that could dissolve in a heartbeat. On some level, even unconscious, he's always expecting things to end.

Thoughts on pie: An acceptable desert. Bumbleberry, strawberry rhubarb, and pumpkin are his favourites. He prefers the homemade variety, and because of it, he tends to make his own, butter crust and all, avoiding store-bought unless it’s particularly memorable — or if someone buys a slice for him. He’s appreciative like that.

Favourite place to spend time: Somewhere he can guarantee that he's not being watched; these are most commonly his labs in the Northwind Observatory, quiet and secluded trails, or his chambers in the Crown City citadel on Sakaar. Not only do these locations ease his anxieties about being studied, inspected, or followed, but he feels less of a pressure to put on false pretenses and exhaust himself with social niceties, many of which may be fabricated. He doesn’t need much external stimulation, because he’s fine simply turning inward and thinking, without paying much attention to his surroundings, but he’ll certainly admit to spending a ton of time tinkering with pet projects if he’s in the labs. Obviously, Bruce prefers to be alone in most of these cases. But if he's with someone he cares about, whether a friend or a romantic partner, and can openly express himself around them, that's nice for him too.

Swim in the lake or ocean: Lakes, without question. He has some bad memories of being in the ocean, whether it’s about the time he was tossing and turning in glacial waters after his failed suicide attempt, or clawing his way out of a quinjet that crashed into the water while his alter started to take over. Bruce remembers all that, and it's not pleasant. The openness of oceans perturb him as well; lakes are usually far more intimate and amniotic because they’re often surrounded by forests, which allows him to feel safer and less exposed.

Their type: Someone who is, and is comfortable with showing, some semblance of dependence on him, which would placate his need to fill a provider role and not simply be a charity case; he's had enough of that between begging on the streets and asking Tony Stark for boarding. (This doesn't mean he's looking for someone who's a total pushover, cannot make their own decisions, or is emotionally needy, because those would make him run in the other direction, frankly.) Someone who can hold their own and stand up for their beliefs when necessary. Someone who can challenge him intellectually, though not necessarily in an academic sense; it really just depends on how much they can expand his own perspective by giving their own. Someone who really understands his needs and issues. And obviously, someone who isn't scared of his condition, because it's going to manifest a lot. It needs to; he doesn't really have a choice in the matter. Hulk is another story, but fortunately, he doesn't show up enough to really be an immediate concern, and Bruce and his partner can cross that bridge when they reach it. Physically, he's usually attracted to women who are slightly shorter than him; their hair can be anything from blonde to brown, and he prefers body types that are similar to his own; more on the slender side but not necessarily fragile.

Camping or indoors: He’d rather be indoors. He isn’t extremely fond of camping, if we’re using the most common definition of "pitching a tent, cooking with a fire made from sticks and tinder, and spending the night in the woods with the bears and the bugs". There are indeed occasions where he cannot stand to be indoors, whether because he’s feeling claustrophobic (a common symptom of abstaining a little too long from transformations), or he simply needs some time away from other people in the geographic sense, but in those cases, he’s more likely to go for a walk or hike, not set up an entire campsite and spend the rest of the night outdoors. For him, camping is meant for a survival-type situation rather than a recreational one. The closest thing to camping he'll do is living in a cabin with a wood stove and local water supply, which he’s done a few times over the years. He's even purchased a few cabins by the time his Persistence verse rolls around, so if one of the properties are compromised, he could always retreat to another one.

Tagged by: @mynameisanakin​! Tagging: @fallencomrade​ , @asgardianhammer​​ , @alongingwithin​ , and anyone else who wants to do this.

[mittensmorgul]

Okay, I’m back. Took an hour off before starting 2.02 because I could (yay, blu ray! I’m not chained to the TNT loop! or commercials!)

Time Has Come Today (has flashes of the Tick Tick... Tick promo from 12.12)

FREAKING CLOWNS.

I’m just copy/pasting the Azazel As Clowns chat I had with Lizbob earlier today, edited a little bit for coherency:

mittensmorgul: ack, they really did skip 2.02. I'm getting out the dvd so I can watch it. Everyone loves a clown...

elizabethrobertajones: yeah... huh. there doesn't seem to be much logic to that

elizabethrobertajones: is that the end of the loop or are they giong right to 2x03? that's a huge episode because it's all "you're a killer Dean" with Gordon doing the same thing Ketch did 10 years later, and being a hell of a lot more successful. Dean learned :P

mittensmorgul: they went right to 2.03, which I'll watch later, but I at least want to skim through 2.02, because there's a lot of Dean's guilt, Sam and Dean dealing with John's death, plus the introduction of Ellen, Jo, and Ash...

elizabethrobertajones: yeah. 2x02 does so much hard work >.> it's the ~real start of the season in the same way 9x02 sort of has to be because Sam wasn't present in the same way in the first episode :P

mittensmorgul:  child bringing an evil into a house, and the evil thing ends up destroying their entire family... sorta huge for Sam there too

elizabethrobertajones: but the child is totally innocent >.> nothing THEY do makes them evil. they're victims as much as the parents. even if they live

elizabethrobertajones: I'd joke about Azazel being a clown, but there's literally a yellow-eyed thing in the funhouse. like, no wonder Sam has this issue

mittensmorgul: and each time, the parent probably could've prevented it. One father even ENCOURAGED his kid to be friendly to the clowns... another parent dismissed the child's fascination with the clown too.

(we went on to talk about how there was a clown mobile over the baby’s crib in 1.21 when Sam ran in to kill the demon... there’s a LOT of connection between Azazel and clowns, which I’ll get back to in a bit)

The episode starts out with John burning, the same way s1 started with Mary burning. Meanwhile Dean’s trying to rebuild the Impala, beginning the connection between the State of Baby with the state of Dean’s soul.

(heh, the Bunker Brothers Circus... sort of describes Sam and Dean’s lives since they found the bunker...)

SAM: Don't patronize me, Dean, Dad is dead. The Colt is gone, and it seems pretty damn likely that the demon is behind all of this, and you're acting like nothing happened. DEAN: What do you want me to say? SAM: Say something, all right? Hell, say anything! Aren't you angry? Don't you want revenge? But all you do is sit out here all day long buried underneath this damn car.

And here we go, back to the story being some sort of revenge quest. Sam assumes that Dean would be all aboard the revenge train now, but Dean’s too busy rebuilding Baby. He’s focused on the things he CAN do rather than rushing out in a fit of fury and lashing out at the entire world.

DEAN:  Sounds good. You got any leads on where the demon is? Making heads or tails of any of Dad's research? Because I sure ain't. But you know, if we do finally find it - oh. No, wait, like you said. The Colt's gone. But I'm sure you've figured out another way to kill it. We've got nothing, Sam. Nothing, okay? So you know the only thing I can do? Is I can work on the car.

I’m not even gonna bother talking about Dean not hitting on Jo here, because with John dead he doesn’t feel the need to keep up that appearance anymore... I think this episode has been deconstructed into oblivion for the bi Dean subtext already, and I’m more interested in the family dynamics aspects that relate directly to s12 (not that bi Dean isn’t part of that too, but it’s just not the part that the narrative of s12 is hinging on, so back to yellow eyes and revenge and all that...)

Then we see this father, who is pointing out all the “scary” things in the funhouse to his son:

DAD: Check it out. Hey, look, Evan! Scary! EVAN: Yeah, dad. Scary. DAD: No, it's over here. Wow. You know, when I was your age this would have scared the pants off of me.

What is this dad pointing at? A rather demonic looking yellow-eyed monster thing:

Yeah, I’m sure we’re not supposed to conflate that with Azazel at all...

But the boy’s distracted by something else, and the father gives him some prophetically HORRIBLE advice:

EVAN: I... I saw a clown! DAD: Don't be afraid of clowns. They're nice, they're your friends. Okay? Come on.

Trust me, Evan. That clown is not your friend.

There’s so much here about intentional miscommunication, with the dude we eventually find out is the Rakshasa that’s killing people, willfully misinterprets Dean’s conversation, attempting to unbalance him. Sam just finds it amusing to watch Dean flounder. It’s a tactic the Rakshasa pulls on Dean throughout the episode.

(which is reminiscent of another post I made the other day on this same subject, of what it takes to deflect Dean’s internal lie detector, point to the way he was manipulated in 2.15, in 4.14, in 8.13, and how he seems FAR more in control in 12.14 and 12.15... not that he’s immune to it, but that he’s much more grounded and sure of himself, and less prone to letting himself be rattled and manipulated this way)

A little girl spotting the “invisible” clown pings Sam and Dean’s attention, and knowing the monster’s pattern, they follow the girl and her family home, saving them from becoming the monster’s next victims (and in turn risking their own safety... plus they have to give up their Soccer Mom Van and are left stranded essentially...)

In response to Cooper’s assertion that Sam and Dean should “live normal” and stay out of circus life (heh, too late, they’re already the Bunker Brothers): 

DEAN: That whole, uh, I don't want to go back to school thing. Were you just saying that to Cooper or were you, you know, saying it? Sam? SAM: I don't know. DEAN: You don't know? I thought that once the demon was dead and the fat lady sings that you were gonna take off, head back to Wussy State. SAM: I'm having second thoughts. DEAN: Really? SAM: Yeah. I think. Dad would have wanted me to stick with the job. DEAN: Since when do you give a damn what Dad wanted? You spent half your life doing exactly what he didn't want, Sam. SAM: Since he died, okay? Do you have a problem with that? DEAN: Naw, I don't have a problem at all. 

So Sam, at this point in his life, was choosing hunting as some sort of memorial to the dead. THIS is how his “revenge” mission manifests in s2. It’s just as destructive a choice as sacrificing his own life to kill the demon in s1 would’ve been for him. It’s the same mission with the same goals, just from a different point of view.

And here we have a MAJOR parallel to s12, in the two very different ways Sam and Dean deal with emotional trauma:

DEAN: You know what, back off, all right? Just because I'm not caring and sharing like you want me to. SAM: No, no, no, that's not what this is about, Dean. I don't care how you deal with this. But you have to deal with it, man. Listen, I'm your brother, all right? I just want to make sure you're okay. DEAN: Dude, I'm okay. I'm okay, okay? I swear, the next person who asks me if I'm okay, I'm gonna start throwing punches. These are your issues, quit dumping them on me! SAM: What are you talking about? DEAN: I just think it's really interesting, this sudden obedience you have to Dad. It's like, oh, what would Dad want me to do? Sam, you spent your entire life slugging it out with that man. I mean, hell, you, you picked a fight with him the last time you ever saw him. And now that he's dead, now you want to make it right? Well, I'm sorry Sam, but you can't, it's too little, too late. SAM: Why are you saying this to me? DEAN: Because I want you to be honest with yourself about this. I'm dealing with Dad's death! Are you?

Sam’s the one who needs to talk things out. Dean works through his problems internally. Sam projects his own needs onto Dean, Dean internalizes.

Just like in 12.05 when Sam was pushing Dean to talk about his issues with Mary, and they had their little moment about “sublimation.” Kinda Dean’s thing.

SAM: You were right. DEAN: About what? SAM: About me and Dad. I'm sorry that the last time I was with him I tried to pick a fight. I'm sorry that I spent most of my life angry at him. I mean, for all I know he died thinking that I hate him. So you're right. What I'm doing right now, it's too little. It's too late. I miss him, man. And I feel guilty as hell. And I'm not all right. Not at all. But neither are you. That much I know. I'll let you get back to work.

Thing is, Dean’s NEVER been “all right.” And more than even the loss of John is hurting him, he’s freaking ANGRY. Angry at what John saddled him with. He never asked for any of this crap, being his Brother’s Keeper, watching over Sam and trying to save him... or even worse making the decision that he must kill Sam instead...

That whole scene at the end of the episode of him taking it all out on the Impala, that up until Dean finishes rebuilding her has always been a symbol of John. Well, this was Dean reclaiming her for himself.

Yeah, he’s fucking pissed at John. At least now in s12, he might be pissed at Mary, but at least she’s alive to work things out with. It’s not too little, too late. At least not yet.