#but until he does i'll insist it's stupid and reductive

[mamawasatesttube]

@batgirlfriends said: you are being SO brave. go to class and then write the essay later king <3

I DID IT I WENT TO CLASS!!! i have another one in half an hour but in the meantime.

do you ever think about how stupid it is that geoff johns was like "this is a clone! he's 50% from two parents." geoff do you know what the word clone means? geoff i am going to manifest in your walls. that's not cloning that's just a regular baby grown in a weirdass test tube. geoff this is not rocket science (or i guess the genetics equivalent thereof? geoff this is not crispr cas9) i am going to gnaw through your doors geoff

now, granted, since the earlier comics themselves are full of contradictions as to whether or not kon does or doesn't have kryptonian dna vs whether he's a regular human with a kryptonian-imitation metagene... there's several ways to interpret him, certainly. i, personally, live in the camp of "he's like, 99.7% kryptonian, with a bit of human dna thrown in there bc they had problems and issues for w/e reason with full kryptonian dna". to me, this is the best bridge between all the various kon origin canons - he originally thought that bit of human came from paul westfield, then later found out it was actually lex luthor, so there can still be some crisis there, but he's MOSTLY kryptonian, as (sometimes) stated in sb94. i'd go find citations but i'm on a time crunch here.

(i know there are also parts in sb94 and also iirc reign of the supermen that state he's Just A Guy w a kryptonian-esque metagene, but at least to me that's unsatisfying bc like... i KNOW comic logic is bonkers, but cmon. he's weak to kryptonite. he gets supercharged by solar energy. if he didn't process sunlight the same way a kryptonian does, kryptonite should have no effect on him. and if the argument is that a metagene mimics the kryptonian condition to THAT EXTENT, it just... feels like. really. occam's razor baby, it's easier to simply say He Is At Least In Part Kryptonian.)

SO. THAT ALL BEING SAID. a) geoff stop being like "lex is his father" again do you even understand what cloning MEANS. b) geoff aside, it's absolutely so bizarre that there's a whole chunk of comics that call lex kon's father in any way WITHOUT doing the same for clark. it's been said before and i'm sure it'll be said again, but... seriously that's just wack i don't even need to get into it bc. hello.

but the point is, this all leads into the "what is kon to clark" debate, right? bc if genetically, he's like clark's twin but a bit to the left, maybe that's more "little brother" ish, etc etc. but on the other hand, given that the comic narrative does keep trying to push a parental role on kon's human dna donor (once that donor is retconned into being lex), it's Strange not to let clark into that role as well. and people can go back and forth on this until we're all blue in the face but i think it comes down to just...

there is no one cut and dry nuclear family role that fits the two of them. there just isn't. to insist kon is just 100% clark's son and point at the post-retcon comics as evidence is reductive; to insist kon is just 100% clark's little brother and point to the pre-retcon comics as evidence is also reductive. kon is somewhere in between. he's neither. he's both. there is just no equivalent nuclear family role that fits him and clark to a T.

which i know i've said before and i'm SURE i'll say again but sue me, this just lives in my mind rent free. mostly kryptonian kon who is an undefined family member to clark and who is NOT family to lex (oh god i can write a whole other essay about this) is the hill i will die on.

(also, largely unrelated side note that has just been bugging me since i read tt03: that time kara's fighting titans of tomorrow kon and is like "you may be half kryptonian, but i'm the real thing!" or whatever that was. do you ever read something and go Wow! There Were Literally No Mixed People Involved In The Creation Of This 😬😬😬!!!! i have soooo many gripes w the tt03 interpretation of kon and his genetics but this is a HUGE ONE. any and all focus on his genes in this way automatically becomes allegorical for real life mixed ppl and its just. yikes, scoob! stop trying to do any sort of mixed kid narrative and meet me in the fucking pit geoff johns)

holding myself back from typing up a mini essay on kon and clark and paul westfield vs lex luthor. im waiting for my starbucks and im gonna be late to my chemistry class i can't do this right now but what if i did anyway--

[piduai]

do you think there’s some wiggle room for assuming that fina and olga were killed accidentally by a stray bullet or do we all agree unanimously that wilk killed them purposely in order not to get compromised?

who is this "all" you're talking about, not only i disagree with that theory i think it's incredibly stupid and one of the worst to float around. wilk did not kill fina and olga on purpose. stating otherwise is a disservice to both wilk and tsurumi as characters. it is reductive.

first of all it is logically unsound. why would wilk do that? he is not omnipotent; even in the event that he saw that it was fina behind the bushes (which he didn't) for him it would have been just seeing her in her own backyard. he didn't know of her agreement with hasegawa. why would he kill her then? i've seen people propositioning that he must have seen her holding the wanted posters and put two and two together because he's smart, but he hasn't. he saw the poster only after she has been shot:

and because he is indeed very intelligent, he did put two and two together; hasegawa is not the man he thought he was, he's wanted by the government too, he's MUCH more dangerous than he seems, and he is aware that the three of them are considered enemies of the state. on top of that one of the three just accidentally shot his wife and child. this is trouble. that's the reason he hastily dragged sofia out of there, because he didn't know what hasegawa is capable of. even in the unlikely event that he killed fina because, as you say, he didn't want to be compromised, why would he let hasegawa live, then? if that were the case, he would have killed him too. so this makes absolutely no sense.

second of all, this would unnecessarily paint wilk as an absolute monster. and for what? he is a difficult case i'll grant you that, but he is not a monster. wilk's cold and cruel logic was extended to circumstance, but even that considered, would he kill the woman who has been receiving him in her house for months while her husband was sharing his precious knowledge with them, and their infant child besides? he has been shown as being a person capable of feeling deep gratitude even before he had asirpa (he gifted inkarmat his own mother's kimono for being his guide and teacher around hokkaido). would he do that to the people who showed him so much kindness? i don't think so. wilk has assassinated the russian emperor because he was a political extremist. he killed his own dying comrade when they were being chased because it was absolutely necessary, sofia admitted that after a lot of hesitation she would have done the same. killing fina and her child wouldn't have been a necessary sacrifice even if he concluded that she knew about what he is; it would have been an act of evil. and wilk is not an evil figure in golden kamuy.

third of all, if he had done that, then he would have completely, unequivocally justified tsurumi's hatred and vendetta against him. if we look at it the way it is in canon - it was a tragic accident that happened in the midst of chaos, nobody at the site knew exactly who was the killer (until tsurumi retrieved the bullet), they all shared the blame in some way but ultimately it couldn't be pinned on someone alone - then tsurumi's attitude towards wilk is complex and multi-layered, but while he has a right to be resentful towards him and the trio as a whole, ultimately his grudge borders on petty because, again, it was an accident. if it were on purpose, then he would have been 100% justified in his actions towards them. who can blame someone for loathing the intentional(!) killer of his family and for wanting to get revenge? which would murder a good chunk of tsurumi's carefully crafted characterization at the core for no good reason.