#i have actually been going insane about this concept ever since i read the comics

[faves-art-graveyard]

okay this suit is a lot better than the og design i had but i'm still not entirely happy with it. we'll workshop it

[mamawasatesttube]

I feel so shy not being able to hide in the anon asks but for the sake of desperation I'll ask anyway.

First of all I must say that I love the way you express yourself, because even though you are against some things, or at least you don't like them. You express it so well and so respectful that's addicting.

Anyway the questions were what you thought about Tim+Kon+Bernard, because I've seen a lot of people talking about it but I don't know if it makes much sense if you think of their relationship.

Also if you had some songs that reminded you of Kon I'd love the recs! Because I'm still a newbie in the whole DC comics, but I've been having a Kon brain rot for a while.

Sorry if I don't express myself correctly, English isn't my first language. If any of this makes you uncomfy please feel free of ignoring me and I hope you have plenty of good days!!💕💕 Be careful to not catch a cold

aww thank you that's very sweet of you to say!!! :D i do love to simply start talking and rambling all the time. one of my top skills. (and yeah i turned off anon asks a while ago because unfortunately talking about racism in fandom often gets you labelled a bitch with a terrible personality 😔✊ alas!)

as for tim/kon/bernard ... i really, really dislike that ship. it takes everything i already strongly dislike about tim/ber (tim drake: robin is the worst comic i've ever read, and i'm including jeph loeb's supergirl when i say this), and multiplies it by a factor of about 500.

my biggest problem with tim/ber is that megfitz wrote them with absolutely no actual chemistry. there is nothing in the text to tell me why they actually like each other. there is nothing in the text that tells me what the issues in their relationship are, or how they might grow together as people, or anything. which is absolutely insane because you'd think "bernard knows tim's secret identity, but has not told tim that he knows" would be a MAJOR point of conflict, but instead it's just completely glossed over to the point of the comic asking us to accept that the bats would ever allow a mob of random civilians on a mission with them. there's stretching suspension of disbelief, and then there's putting suspension of disbelief on the medieval torture rack and tearing it apart. like. come ON. (tdr is also like. teehee gentrification but its cute? which is insane to me in a different way. its just. its so bad. its such a bad comic.)

so adding kon to that mix kind of gives me hives because a) we have all of my issues with tdr being incredibly inconsistent, both internally and with all existing tim characterization ever, and b) it brings up all of my issues with how kon has been written since yj2019. which i could get into Yet Again but in the interests of being at least a little bit concise, it's also incredibly inconsistent and drives me bonkers. so the concept of this ship just makes me go "why the FUCK" because i just truly genuinely cannot fathom why kon and bernard would ever give a shit about each other. i can barely even fathom why tim and bernard give a shit about each other because megfitz did the comic script equivalent of picking up two barbie dolls and mashing them together and going LOOK THEYRE IN LOVE. they have no consistent characterization under her pen.

so adding kon into that just makes me want to tear my hair out a little bit because. like. to be entirely honest i don't know how some random dude from one of tim's many high schools who tim was friendly with, sure, but not particularly close with, can hold a candle to Whatever The Fuck Tim And Kon Have Going On. especially with how flat their relationship reads to me in tdr (what do they even like about each other??? why is bernard in fucking biophysics or whatever while wanting to be a chef??? why does tim not go "you know culinary school exists right??" when he finds out??? how am i supposed to believe that tim "duty" drake would ever leave people in a burning building just for his sad boyfriend??? that batman and co would ever let a bunch of civilians fight alongside them - or for that matter, that they'd need bernard to tell them tim's in trouble?? what the fuck alternate dimension are they from where any of this makes sense???). tim/ber just is such a nothing ship to me that adding kon to it is just like. EXTREME nothing. to me tim/ber/kon is basically a flag that says "i don't care about characterization" and it's just so very deeply NOT my thing at all whatsoever.

...which is why to ME tim's first boyfriend is ives, not bernard, and in this essay i will--

ahem. anyways!! re: kon songs, oh man i have a lot. i have a whole playlist even. with a linked document to explain every song choice. i also lately have been thinking about making a second playlist for all the songs that didn't make it onto the first one!! much to consider.

also don't worry your english is totally fine ♥ and it's very sweet of you to wish me well healthwise and also a little funny because actually i am just getting over a cold that had me sniffly and miserable most of last week. but i'm much better tonight so yippee!! thank you again :D

[puffyducks]

DCRC Week #16

Wiggity what's up my fellow book clubbers, today we're taking a look at the ethics of treating artificially made intelligent lifeforms as second class citizens and what the qualifying factors are to determine a being as truly "sentient" and deserving of basic social rights. And by that I mean we're reading PKNA #12: Second Draft which is a comic where nothing bad happens!

This post is LOOONG btw.

okay we're just gonna start off our comic as normal and-

WOAH who's this handsome young devil in his little fancy suit??? What's that? Head of Ducklair Industries?..... yeah sure that makes sense I think.

Everett Ducklair 🤢🤢🤢 get a job stay away from him. Also this is a really nice way of saying you had to stop him from being overtaken by insane homicidal tendencies and putting guns in all his inventions btw

Haha woah what was that. Did the fabric of reality just tear for a second there or did my ADHD meds just kick in. Probably just me.

MASTER Donald???..... I don't even think I can write out the jokes I wanna make here they're too inappropriate for this blog sorry. But also what the fuck.

Uno stop mothering maybe I WANT to get frostbite and lose all my fingers

Not to take a sudden side tangent here but is this supposed to be like, a good thing? Don't the other seasons exist for a reason? I always thought fall and winter were meant to be like a cleansing period, they bring balance to the two other hotter seasons. If it's eternally spring, do some plants just never die? Are animals ALWAYS in the breeding season? Today we're going to overanalyze this one concept in an essay where-

OH MY GOD IT'S ODIN wait nevermind hiii Odin hiiiii. what's lookin good cookin. I mean- shit. fuck. shit.

I'm kind of obsessed with the way Odin is drawn in this comic. His whole body is all wiggly like a bendy straw. His stances go crazy.

gayass

Guys ever since I made that post about Odin's outfits and noticed that he's barefoot here it's been haunting me. Like it might just be a coloring error in this panel but also... why'd he take his shoes off. Also sorry for immediately revealing that it's Odin but um uhh I totally don't know who the OTHER cloaked figure is.

girlll you're giving away the game SHUT YOUR MOUTH

TWO Lylas?!?!?!

I'm loving Donald's shock lmao bro is fucking flabberghasted

This picture is so fucking silly bro. Nooo you can't put Odin in jail, he has such a nice suit on :(

Donald getting offended on Uno's behalf, not knowing that Uno is literally sitting right behind him. SURELY he'll figure it out eventually right.

Omg guys it's Geena!!! Remember Geena? From Portrait of the Young Hero? Anyways she has a gun now

Way to go Donald, you showed her basic empathy for like 2 panels and it gave her an actual sense of self value and NOW she thinks she deserves rights 🙄 she's gonna Detroit Become Human up in this bitch

beaming you with my evil lasers. what if he just fucking fried her brains here I think it would've been funny

Oh that's. probably bad.

ohhhh noooo.....

OOOOHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ok so bad news, Geena fucking exploded and her droid rebellion is presumably over. The GOOD news though is that droids are destined to get their rights anyways, just in a less violent manor than in the timeline Geena had started. So... I guess that's a win?

Disappears in a cloud of beautiful sunset smoke... Goodbye Odin 👋

Donald. Please. DONALD.

Okay so there's a LOT to say about this comic (so much that I kept hitting the image limit and having to make edits to my post to make it more concise) but if I could summarize it into one word: damn. Like I'm just kinda sad now.

The whole concept of "do robots deserve to be treated like human beings" is a common argument to explore, we've seen it in all kinds of media before. The ethics that get touched on in this comic are nothing new, but I can't help but find this comic incredibly interesting to read in the year 2024. Maybe in 1997 the idea of robots integrating into our society seemed like a far-off concept, but in present day the ever-growing integration of AI technology really makes this chapter feel a little more close to home.

I mean, it's easy to be like "yeah, well of course the droids deserve to be treated like people." I mean, Lyla and Odin are droids, and we like Lyla and Odin! Odin is literally so lifelike that people don't even KNOW he's a droid. But I can't help but think about how this all ties back to the current ongoing debates surrounding the usage of AI, and specifically AI-made content. Obviously the AI we currently have is nowhere near the level of the characters in this series (chatGPT fucking WISHES it was Uno) but there's really interesting debates to be made here.

What qualifying factors determine whether or not a living being is deserving of the same rights we humans give to ourselves? Is it being biological? I mean, there are literally millions of types of animals on our planet, but we don't even treat them with the same level of respect we give to ourselves. So, is it intelligence? If we were to create a computer with the intelligence level of a living, breathing human person, would they be entitled to basic "human" rights? HELL IF I KNOW.

I love the way this comic handles exploring this topic. Geena isn't WRONG for wanting more, she's wrong in the way she went about it. Going as far as to literally alter the course of spacetime only further complicated things, for her AND for the other droids. Had Geena instead devoted her energy into droid advocacy in the modern day, things may have gone differently. This story isn't the end of droids getting rights, but it is unfortunately the end of Geena.

We ended on a happy note, but overall this story is a pretty melancholic one. Especially that whole "only machines can be rebuilt" like DAMN.

Anyways that's enough media analysis for today, time to take off my smart thinking hat and go back to being generally kinda stupid. I'm not gonna add anything about Angus Tales here at the end because I already hit the image limit lol. Umm shoutout to Angus Fangus for having like 110 parking tickets. Idiot.

[spacetrashpile]

so everything i know abt dc (very little) has come from my mutuals' posts (mostly yours) and i wanted to say congrats on your special guy's return!!! but also i had a few questions! kid eternity's previous iterations were all boys right? is this the debut of a new one or has she been around a while? at first i thought they may have made her trans but then i realized how unlikely that was for a long-standing character, even a minor one. what's her backstory? does her canon coincide with any previous versions? (i'm vaguely recalling a post of yours with 4 versions of this character over the years.)

i'm probably never gonna read any of the comics myself but i think she seems really cool and i really like hearing about comic character lore, so if you're up for an infodump i'd love to hear it :D

HI THANK YOU I'M ECSTATIC. YOU'VE ALSO ACTIVATED MY AUTISM TRAP CARD WITH THE TRANS THING. AND ALSO THE OTHER STUFF BUT THE TRANS THING SPECIFICALLY.

So you are correct, all the previous Kid Eternity incarnations have been guys! And yes, there have been a couple versions of him across the years (four or five, depending on who you ask/how we're drawing lines). This is the opener image I made for my "all Kid Eternity appearances" spreadsheet (still a WIP) that I made, and I feel like that helps give a quick reference for him. (It's not full opacity, but unfortunately I no longer have the original file and can't change that.)

So, this new Kid Eternity seems to be an entirely new iteration of the character. One, she's got a new costume (though it's riffing heavily on the 90s/early 2000s version of the character), and two, everyone is pretty sure she's a girl, which is insanely exciting for me specifically. This JSA issue, which came out today, is her first appearance ever, and that page I've posted like twice now is her only appearance in the actual issue, since it happens right at the end. As such, we have no idea what her deal is, or how she lines up with Kid's past appearances. However, that means it's time to speculate wildly!

A quick note about the trans thing- you're right that making any longstanding character trans would be kinda crazy for DC, even a character like Kid who's had less than 100 appearances under DC's ownership, but if it was going to happen to anyone, I could see it happening here. One, Kid is wildly minor. Like I said, less than 100 appearances while under DC's copyright, and when you add in the comics from when he was owned by Quality Comics, he still doesn't cross the 200 appearances line. So while making a character that's existed since the 1940s trans would be kinda crazy, if you're gonna pick any character to do it to, you may as well pick one that everyone forgot existed back in the 90s.

Furthermore, Kid is a character who's played a lot with concepts of gender and sexuality. You'll notice that the two pictures in the middle of the above image feature Kid with long hair (and in the costume closest to the kid we saw in the new JSA), for one, but the second image is a cover from Kid's third solo, which was published under the Vertigo imprint. Vertigo was an imprint that DC started back in the 90s that focused on publishing adult content that wasn't necessarily suitable for DC's primary audience. This means stuff like sex, nudity, drug use, etc. but it also means a lot of queer characters and story lines were published under this imprint. Just to name a few, John Constantine/Hellblazer, the Doom Patrol, and Sandman are pretty famously queer characters/groups, and they were some of Vertigo's big names back in the 90s.

Kid is never explicitly trans in his Vertigo run, and no actual trans characters ever appear to my memory, but they do play with his gender just a bit (particularly, in my opinion, in issue 9, "Hysteria Knows No Gender", but it's not much, just a fun possible read). The comic also deals very heavily with homophobia and hate crimes in some of the last few issues, and don't shy away from the idea of queerness at all. (Genuinely, issues 10-12 of this comic are harrowing reads. Issue 10 deals with violence against women while issues 11 and 12 deal with homophobia and my god are they heavy.)

Also a point that has less to do with Kid and more with the comic itself, but still something worth bringin up- this is happening in JSA (2024), and the JSA has made a couple longstanding and/or much more important characters (in the grand scheme of things) queer in the past! Notably, Todd Rice (obsidian) (first appearance 1983) was revealed to be gay in 2006 and Alan Scott (the first green lantern) (first appearance 1940) was revealed to be gay within like, the last 5 years. Still no trans retcons to my knowledge (though I'm not super up to date on the JSA, so if I may be missing some important stuff), but that's still pretty notable in my opinion.

ALL OF THIS IS TO SAY that while Kid has never been trans before, this Kid being trans genuinely doesn't feel out of the question to me. I'm not gonna get my hopes up or anything, but hey, wouldn't it be cool???

Anyways, the other questions you asked! Like I said, we ultimately know nothing about this version of Kid Eternity right now, except what she looks like, and that she's in Hell (par for the course for Kid, to be quite honest.) Judging from which comic she features in and what her costume looks like, however, I think I can solidly say that the backstory they'll be drawing on is the 90s era backstory, so I'll give a quick rundown of that!

Kid's initial backstory, from the 1940s, boils down to this: Kid was a child on a sailing ship that ran afoul of a Nazi sub during WW2. Kid and the rest of the crew, including his grandfather, died and went to a place called "Eternity" (legally distinct Heaven). Upon their arrival, however, it was found that Kid had arrived about 60 years before his time. In return for the mistake, he is sent back to earth with new powers and a spiritual guardian from Eternity, Mr. Keeper. These new powers allow him to shout the word "Eternity" and call on any historical, mythological, or fictional characters and summon their ghosts to help him solve problems. The fictional characters fall by the wayside after a certain point because of copy right concerns, I imagine, but I have to bring it up because it's always comical. Shout out to the time he summoned Jean Valjean to talk a thief out of stealing a loaf of bread and when that didn't work he summoned Javert and then Javert and Valjean beat each other up until he sent them back.

The 90s backstory, which is introduced by Grant Morrison in a horror mini series, builds on this backstory with a few retcons. Most notably, Kid never actually went to "Eternity" or any sort of heaven. Instead, he went to hell, where he was picked up by a staple of the DC magical mythos called the Lords of Chaos (which are exactly as bad as they sound), specifically by the one who paraded himself as Mr. Keeper. He was lied to about what happened to him when he died, about what was happening to him upon his arrival in Hell, and was strung along to do the Lords of Chaos' bidding for decades before he was able to free himself in a really complicated series of retcons and dumb writing choices across about 20 comics written and released over about two decades so we won't get into the weeds of that part.

The Lords of Chaos are opposed by a group called the Lords of Order (who could've guessed!) who are very important to the Justice Society, primarily to Dr. Fate, a key member, because Dr. Fate is a Lord of Order possessing/manifesting through a human person (and a helmet). Not only that, but this new Kid has appeared in JSA volume 2. The first JSA came out in 1999, and y'know who appears (and dies but that's less important) in the first issue of that comic: 90s Kid Eternity! It's a part of this whole plot regarding agents of the Lords of Chaos and Order, and since the current plot of this comic has a lot to do with Dr. Fate, I imagine that Kid is being pulled from that original JSA comic to be introduced as a potential foil to the current Dr. Fate (a young man who seems to be close in age to this version of Kid) and/or as another wrinkle in the Everything that's going on.

ALL OF THIS TO SAY! We really don't know much yet, but Kid Eternity is literally one of my nichest favorite characters of all time, and I am beyond ecstatic to see them running around again (fun fact, post New 52 reboot in 2011, Kid has had a whole thirteen appearances, and 6 of those appearances weren't even in the mainline universe. It was dire out here!)

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Dazzler 1 (March 1981)

Tom DeFalco/John Romita Jr, John Buscema, John Romita Sr

What should we put on the first page of our comic designed to appeal to a new female audience? Oh right, this!

Where do we even start with Dazzler? We could start, I guess, with linking you back to Dazzler's first appearance and my brief explanation of what her whole deal was. Or we could start with the panel above, which is what the comic does, or we could go back even further and start with the cover to this issue, the first of her solo series.

Wow, that's...different. Everything about Dazzler was meant to be different, from the heroine to the cover to the way the book was sold. This was the first direct-to-market title Marvel ever published, meaning you couldn't just pick it up off a shelf at a newsstand (as was then common), you had to order it for yourself or get it through a specialist comic shop. It was a gamble taken alongside their attempts to capture a new audience in a new way, and it worked: this issue sold hugely, moving about 400,000 copies, massively more than the average book at the time, and of course this is now the way most people get their comics. Dazzler was one of the first major parts of that shift (whether or not that shift was a good thing is an argument we do not have time for in this post).

Or we could start by talking about the tortuous design and conception of Alison "Dazzler" Blaire, who as you can see from the first page was thought up by some combination of seven different people and then drawn for this issue by three more, two of whom were father and son and all of whom were Italian-American men named John (but, for diversity, they got an Italian-American named Tom to write it).

Partly this is because some of the drawings in this issue had been sitting around for about four years, since the disco heyday when Dazzler had first been conceived: but in that intervening time the designs had been through every conceivable reinvention. What you see here is the product of numerous redraws that initially had Dazzler as a black woman closely modelled on Grace Jones (can you imagine how cool that would have been), then for a time she was based on Bo Derek and slated to be played in a live action move by her (and to have a "real" singing career voice by Derek), and then finally she became Alison Blaire.

This issue, indeed, explores just how Alison became Dazzler, but as you can tell I'm much more interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff, because it's so much stranger than this basically quite dull and frequently hilarious comic. The Dazzler project was massively important to Marvel, so important that it had far too many cooks and went hugely off the rails before it even started. This issue, for example, was meant to follow right after the Spider-Man issue we read last, but appeared almost a year later because everyone was still wrangling about it. In the Spider-Man story, for another example, Dazzler had eye-beam powers because they were still being considered for her then - but here they're gone, replaced by her music-derived powers of illusion, which are explained at length but still remain extremely confusing.

What I'm trying to say is that this comic is insane, and--- hey, look! The X-Men!

And Spider-Man!

And the Avengers!

And...a Thor villain?

Look: this is indisputably the most coked-out nightmare of a comic book I have ever read. It's exhausting. I've tried in this post to give some sense of what was going on behind the scenes but it's impossible. As for what's actually going on on the page, it's frenetic but empty, a million things being thrown at the wall. It's one of the worst imaginable jumping-on points for a new audience, which is somehow what Marvel wanted it to be. It's a mess.

It's also - and I know you know this already - a camp classic. With all of the above, how could it not be? It's giving icon. It's literally mother. It's serving cunt. It's brat. It's a 2024 comic trapped in 1981. It should never have been published, it's amazing that it ever made it out of the madhouse of meetings it was cooked up in, it sold like hot cakes, almost everyone who bought it hated it, almost everyone who worked on it disowned it, and now it's iconic and everyone loves Dazzler. I don't know how to explain it any better than that.

[thecoolerliauditore]

Just curious, when did you start shipping Pearl and Scott? Or at least when you realized you did ship them?

sorry if this is a more pretentious answer than you anticipated anon because this is actually something I had to think about for a bit. Because to answer when I started shipping them, I would first have to define what shipping is, and that was one of the biggest question marks over my head when I entered the fandom as well as when I started doing Scott/Pearl stuff.

I wouldn't say I really engaged in fandom prior to life series, the closest thing would be pokemon nuzlocke comics back in the day, so I might've had a somewhat weird impression of "shipping" because to me at the time being a this or that shipper just meant you were obsessed with the dynamic between two (or more) characters to me, that dynamic being romantic is the default expectation but typically it wasn't weird to see "I ship them as best friends" and stuff like that.

So MCYT was kind of a culture shock for me since so much of the fandom is "duo" content, yet "shipping" is treated as its own separate category. Which makes... enough sense I suppose when you factor in CCs and boundary discourse, but it now meant I had to pull apart my own scenarios and imagery in my head to dissect whether it's romantic-coded enough to classify as "ship art" vs "duo" art. Which I now, looking back, would maybe classify as a form of torture albeit very enlightening in terms of seeing how much that label of platonic vs romantic actually influences peoples read of the art. <-- I could go on about this point i.e. how platonic/romantic is just as much of an abstract concept as masculinity/femininity and how this relates to the joelshipping discourse but I'll cut myself off there.

So if we define "ship" as when I first became obsessed with their relationship and daydreaming about different little scenarios for them: Probably around the time I just finished their POVs of last life and immediately afterwards got spoiled on the ending of DL by seeing it out of context in animatics. I was so intrigued at why Scott would do that, and at the time I hadn't know Pearl won DL so I assumed he permakilled them both. It just seemed so harsh and I only got more invested after seeing snippets of Pearl in Bdubs' DL POV which was my first DL POV.

If we define "ship" as when I saw their relationship as being not entirely platonic: when Scott himself called her his "ex-girlfriend" and I was like. 🤨 this is when I started getting headaches over the concept of shipping because "exes" and "soulmates" and "girlfriend" are all very romantically coded terms, but I assumed people would not respond well to Scott/Pearl art being tagged as shipping.

At this time I didn't think Scott actually saw Pearl as anything past a friend, but that he was making things weirder than they had to be because the "soulmate" label was freaking him out (comphet king). Hence romantic tension, but no actual romantic attraction from either of them. (<-- this is still a pretty solid take I think btw maybe more solid than my current take)

Alot of the fanfics in my head at the time revolved around the narrative I saw of m/f best friends torn apart by outsiders forcing a romantic label ("soulmates") onto their relationship. There's was Alot of post-DL Scott apologizes AU stuff in my brain where they hug and promise to be best friends again regardless of what others think. I was so naive then.

This is also what started the. aughh wahhhh wah eughhhh auhhh ahhhhhh!!!!!! feelings when looking at fanart of them. you know the ones.

If we define "ship" as when I decided no actually Scott desires her carnally: SL was a heavy hitter with its Scott/Pearl moments and the insane fucking things that blue mf had to say about Pearl ("you guys are obsessed with Flower Husbands when it's really just been me and Pearl").

Also at the same time I was slipping ever so slightly closer to RPF lite and learnt about Scott's history of ship-baiting with female CCs. I will never unsee that one goddamn thumbnail he made where he photoshopped his face onto. I think Laurens(?) wedding photo to make it look like they got married. Very much the no hetero to Joel's no homo. So that part of me who was just the littlest bit of self-conscious that I would make CC Scott uncomfortable kind of imploded on the spot never to be seen again.

If we define "ship" as actively wanting them to get together and get married and have a happy future together: Never.

My current "ideal happy ending" for them is something clicks in Scott's brain and he has a breakdown and disappears. And the only time he and Pearl see eachother again is just in the street or something years later and they've both moved on with their lives (extra angst points if they both have their own new partners/families) and kind of just. make eye contact for a second and then walk off.

If I let the shippy brain parasitee take me, my "idealer happy ending" would be something clicking in Scott's brain and he has a breakdown To Pearl, apologizes and they have a big mutual crying session before tuckering themselves out and falling asleep together. From then on Scott kind of tries to keep his distance from Pearl, and Pearl eventually tells him she'd forgiven him a long time ago and they learn to be friends for real this time with maybe a little bit of added intimacy thrown in there.

I think this would be wild coming from both of them, especially Scott, and don't think they would do that. But it does make me happy imagining it.

Unfortunately their current situation is um. "whether you want it or not" and "pearl's memory is selective" which is um. hmmmm.

[franollie]

you said you were looking for asks so i thought i'd jump in with: 3 (or 5, whichever you'd prefer) favourite comics ever? if you're feeling fancy, two lists, one in terms of quality of the actual comic, and one in terms of character moments etc

Ok so i'll make a list of my top 10 and say why (i'm also not exclusively doing DC comics but they are the majority):

Batgirl (2000): do i even have to explain this one? the art and visual storytelling makes me ill, the way it explores cass's character through her relationship with established characters like bruce and babs, the way cass is so fucking unhinged, the mother-daughter comparisons with shiva&babs vs the father-daughter comparisons between cain&bruce AASSFHFKSDF. ILL.

The New Teen Titans: this one holds a lot of nostalgia for me because it was one of the first comics I read! They were the first team i really latched onto and by extension the first characters i really felt strongly about. Rereading it as an adult and seeing how it still holds up is soooo incredibly satisfying (dickkory was baby's first otp)

Spinning by Tillie Walden: technically cheating because this is a graphic novel but I'm counting it because it's included under the umbrella of sequential art. it's a autobiographical graphic novel about tillie walden's experience growing up a lesbian in the south (of the US) through their relationship with figure skating. i really relate to it and it's a massive inspiration for me and i think everyone should read it

Impulse (1995): ...i'm audhd...it hits a very special and specific place in my heart...but in all seriousness i love the shape language and the character dynamics. god the cast is soooo fun

Robin & Batman: i love introspection and this whole comic is just Dick Grayson introspection. The way it covers Dick's emotional state post his parents death and how Bruce didn't really know how to help Dick outside of guiding him in channeling his grief into being a vigilante makes me insane...also the alfred characterization in this...the implication that he thinks he made the wrong choice by enabling Bruce and wanting to rectify that by not enabling Dick...

Spider-Gwen (2015): The art and concept is what drew me into this comic. I've been a spiderman fan since I was a little kid and the idea of gwen stacy being the spider person...AND SHE WAS A DANCER.. i was hooked. I love gwen as a character on a meta level and in general; she's my girl

Convergence Batgirl: listen...the implications this comic has about steph and cass's relationship...the "what do my eye's say" scene...lovers. teeny tiny baby run but im still counting it as a comic

...Is it cheating to say Young Justice 98? Imma say Young Justice 98: it was a gateway to me finding a bunch of characters that are now my faves. It shines a spotlight on characters we don't see all that often (like Cissie, Cassie, Anita--girl i miss you) I think about this comic constantly

Tea Dragon Society: another graphic novel! this is a comfort read for me! it's cozy it's sapphic it's a low-stakes

Batman/Huntress Cry for Blood: again this feels like kind of cheating BUT its my list so this is what I'm going with. This was my introduction to Helena and omg the feelings i have about her because of this comic...she makes me bonkers...the things i'd do for this woman

Bonus: JLI (i have not ever finished this one but i've started it many times and i love it i just need to actually finish it)

[anxiouspotatorants]

It is time. It is finally time for the new Suicide Squad rant (and spoilers will be plentiful):

As someone who was into DC Comics and comics in the mid to late 2010s and had so much hype for the first Suicide Squad movie only to be let down, I was so nervous for this one. I knew it was going to be a roller coaster, but whether I would come out happy or disappointed was up in the air. Having just seen it I will say this: I have no idea if this was a good movie-movie. It was insane. The comedy. The violence. The high emotion. I’m still trying to take it all in. But one thing I do know is that this is an amazing Suicide Squad movie. Gunn and co took the best parts of the comic concept and went batshit with it and that is how this property should be handled (in my opinion). Screw edgelordisms, we need full on insanity free of aiming for shock-value or sexy brutality we want chaos baby.

Starting the whole movie as they did, with Savant as the POV for a mission (or part of the mission) that just goes to hell immediately and kills off so many before the title arrives is the perfect way to start this movie. Like the second I realized this was how they were doing it I was just smiling from ear to ear, this is the spirit of the property.

Part of me wishes we got more Amanda Waller, but what we had was impeccable. Then again, this is Viola Davis we’re talking about, and if she was born to play any character in a superhero story, it is Amanda Waller.

And points to her tech team, introducing them with the death bets was just a lovely way to show how regular this is and how awful everyone is in this movie.

I’m not going to pretend like Deadshot and Bloodsport didn’t have the exact same character- and plot premises… but I will say that Bloodsport felt better executed.

I love that they kept some of the past members and not just Harley. Rick Flag got to have a full personality and interactions with his team members and to be a true leader and it made me so happy for someone who initially did not give a single shit about his character. The Harley friendship? The Dubois friendship? The friendship with that guerilla leader? Amazing. The one American soldier in fictional media I genuinely like. You go Mr Flag.

The new members were… they were insane in the best way. Gone are the shitty stereotypes and present are some of the wackiest creations to ever grace the mainstream movie-sphere (aka the slightly less normal comic creations): A man who has to shoot out polka dots two times a day so as not to die from a space virus. A giant child murdering weasel. A guy who detaches his limbs and slaps people with said detached limbs. King Shark. The second person to command rats with a fancy gadget. They are all crazy and all weird and all more or less morally repulsive people and I love them.

The amount of times I did a double take over the soundtrack I swear. Jessie Reyez? The Pixies? It was so much fun to pick up on once I did.

Was the depiction of a vague Latin American country stereotypical? Yes. Was the secret American involvement predictable and felt mildly patronizing from a non-American, part Latina point of view? Yep. But damn it if I didn’t have a good time with those stereotypes and laugh my ass off at how well executed some were. I don’t know if it was meant as parody, but that one secretary has me thinking so — and if so I am pleased.

Speaking of Latino dictators Harley’s one day romance with one of the villains was something I never knew I needed. Like it was so perfect for Harley that when it happened I almost hit myself for not realizing that this kind of plot should be a normal thing for Harley. And the end of it? Perfect not only in this standalone movie, but also in conjunction with the first and with BoP.

The Taika Waititi cameo??? Oh my god??? I did not expect that and I love it?? Sir, What We Do in the Shadows is impeccable.

Rick Flag’s death actually surprised me. It shouldn’t as this is Suicide Squad, but I kind of expected him to be on Harley’s level of unkillable (because let’s face it, no one kills Harley). What I will say is that his death was good and his final words and actions made me love him all the more. I hope this spawns more Rick Flag content, or at least inspires me to look at what already exists, if he already is as this movie made him (it’s been ages since I read one of the Suicide Squad reboot comics okay).

Starro. How can a villain be so wacky and so terrifying at the same time? I did not expect a literal alien starfish to have more terrifying powers and a more tragic plot execution than Enchantress. But here we are. And that damn star just wanted to be floating in space, and instead it was stuck getting revenge by killing and puppeteering human corpses. Wow that thing was creepier the more you think about it.

I don’t know what I think about Polka Dot Man. I loved watching him on screen but also damn those mommy-issues were on a new level. Not just in his backstory but how he literally sees her in every person around him that was insane. Very funny but like also the kind that makes you laugh just because you’re uncomfortable and don’t know how else to releive the tension.

When Waller got knocked out by a staff member I immediately thought «oh my god Amanda Waller is going to kill half the staff for this», so I’m mildly surprised and disappointed that I didn’t get to see that happen. But also I should maybe expect something like this in a potential future Suicide Squad movie. We can’t have everything in a movie as packed as this.

Peacemaker was very horrible and worked really well. Don’t really have much to say about him, not because I didn’t enjoy him but because I already feel like the film itself has said it for me. But the planting and payoff for his death? Chef’s. Kiss.

Harley’s wardrobe was beautiful. Ratcatcher 2’s combat outfit felt like a steampunk plague dream. Bloodsport’s mask was supercool. Rick Flag’s t-shirt was amazing. But the best little outfit was the Mafalda-keychain and her red dress, hands down. Oh and King Shark’s fake moustache finger moment.

King Shark is shaped like a friend I don’t care how many people he ate alive on screen he looks so huggable. It feels like wanting to pet a bear. You know it will kill you but damn it look at those paws and those cute eyes!

I really need to give it to not just James Gunn but the entire production team for this movie. The aesthetic was perfect. The story was the right blend of whimsical and violent. The finished product was a literal rollercoaster and I mean that in a good way. If superhero movies have to be like amusement parks, I hope they’re more like this one and BoP.

I’ll finish on the note that while I think this movie was great and hopefully a step in the right direction for the DCU/DCEU (as in stop trying to play Marvel’s game and just do your own thing/ let your creative teams run wild and free), it is not the first step. Cathy Yan, Birds of Prey and the production team for it took a step first, and they deserve due credit and attention. If you loved this Suicide Squad movie and haven’t watched BoP yet, do so. Because they really are in the same ballpark while doing things in slightly different ways. And any good DCEU movie deserves more attention so the studios know that creativity and risks should be rewarded. I want more DC movies like this, not necessarily in genre but in creative risks. I want a Black Canary rock movie. I want Alfred in a reverse heist movie alone in the batcave against Gotham villains. I want Gotham Academy on screen play by play from the comics. I want a fully animated psychedelic-like Khalid Nassour as Dr. Fate movie. I want elevated horror movie Constantine. I want weird ass Lois Lane journalist movies with a heavy side of Superman. And I want DC movies I didn’t even know I wanted.

Support creativity in mainstream comic movies. Help me become a DC fan and happy about it again.

[thevindicativevordan]

Year in Review: 2022

Damn what a year. Not his best but definitely one that we will probably look back on as the defining year of the 2020s for the character. Held off on posting this until practically the last minute just to avoid any final surprises for Superman in a year that's been full of them.

Comics

On the comics side this was another great year. PKJ brought the Warworld Saga to an overall satisfying conclusion, wrapping up a storyline that brought the character to one of his lowest points ever at the start, and ended with Superman ascending triumphantly to new levels of power. While he fell short of his stated goal in differentiating Mongul from Darkseid, he did successfully create a Warworld brimming with future storytelling potential, and his Mongul is an entertaining foil for Superman regarding parental influence shaping their character. The post Warworld Saga issues have been solid, and I thought he, Williamson, and Taylor handled the restoration of the secret identity in Action Comics #1050 as best as they could have. Sad to see Federeci go but he gave us some all time great Superman covers and interiors regardless, and there's always a chance he and PKJ might reunite for a Superman BL book.

Mark Waid managed to actually live up to the hype surrounding his return to DC, with his World's Finest series being easily the best thing he's written since Daredevil. Convinced me to care about Magog outside of Kingdom Come for the first time ever, no mean feat. Champions had made me want to keep Waid far, far away from any teen characters ever again, but his writing for Dick, Kara, and the Teen Titans has been shockingly great, to the point calls for Waid to write a Titans book no longer strike me as utterly insane. Dan Mora of course is a key part of the book's success, his visuals being critical to selling the Neo-Silver Age atmosphere, and he managed to do the impossible: make Composite Superman cool. Many artists have tried to modernize that design, Mora finally succeeded by tossing everything out but the basic concept of a Superman/Batman merger. Starting from that simple idea he created a new design that captured everyone's interest.

Tom King stands out as someone who did excellent work with both Superman and Supergirl. His Dark Crisis Superman tie-in was a powerful exploration of Clark regaining the lost years with Jon. Burnham as always was the perfect fit for showing both characters wrestling with deep seeded emotional issues, and plenty of gore filled fisticuffs. Meanwhile he gave Kara her first standalone "classic", which has proved quite popular in trade sales judging both from King's own words and the Amazon sales list that I've seen. Bliquis Evely's art is for Supergirl what Frank Quietly is for Superman, scenes like the one where Supergirl takes red kryptonite to go fight space monsters are permanently seared into my brain due to sheer beauty and spectacle.

Elseworlds wise we had Venditti and Torres giving us the Superman III that never was with Superman '78. An entertaining execution of the standard "Brainiac shows up and tries to bottle Superman/Metropolis" plotline with a few twists that wrapped up this year, it had a few genuinely novel ideas that shaped my perception of Brainiac. Venditti also did a World of Krypton mini that retold the story of Krypton’s final days. Writing was mediocre but Oeming’s art is beautiful and was enough to keep me from dropping the book. Russel is doing a great job with a "Life Story" for Superman in Space Age, even if I wish he didn't give Batman as many pages as he does. Would buy an Absolute just for all that Allred art regardless, Allred is a vital component in my enjoyment of that series. Over at the Marvelous Competition, Gaiman and Buckingham are at last giving us the resolution to their Miracleman run. Unsurprisingly I am greatly enjoying it and very excited to read where it goes.

Sadly while Clark had a great year, and Kara didn't do bad herself, there were a number of crashes and burns too. Jon and Kon had a horrible year. Not since Byrne has a new Superman been given such a totally broken foundation, with Taylor doing his damndest to smother any potential Jon ever had. At this point I no longer care about Jon until they get him out of Taylor's clutches, which thankfully may be soon judging by his words in some recent interviews. Only bright spot for me regarding Jon was that, terrible as Dark Crisis was, Williamson wrote a really enjoyable and scrappy Jon there that reminded me of why I was interested in him being Superman in the first place. Kon meanwhile was in a garbage event tie-in that did zero of worth with him. 2022 ends as one of Conner's worst years ever easily.

Media

Outside of comics the simplest word to summarize Superman's treatment would be chaotic. Cavill makes his shocking return to the role for film, greeted by joyous fans!... who don't show up for Black Adam which bombs hard. Yet word is released that Man of Steel 2 is in the works, to much anticipation and speculation!... until Gunn and Safran get hired to run DC and promptly cancel MoS2, with Cavill acknowledging that his time wearing the cape has come to an end. Paired with this announcement is word that Gunn is writing the script for a new Superman reboot, and that Coates/Abrams project continues to be worked on as an Elseworld project. Other than Clark being already established as Superman, we know absolutely nothing about the proposed film, which didn't stop meltdowns across the Internet as the Cult finally realized that the Snyderverse was well and truly over. Momoa may be switching to Lobo for the DC cinematic universe, and if they're already talking to him about playing the role, it's a safe bet the first place he'll show up is the new Superman movie. The new DCU "Gunnverse" therefore is betting it's future on Gunn being the first one to succeed since Donner in adapting Superman, which means that the new head of DC is personally invested in ensuring Superman succeeds because it's his job on the line. At least he mentioned on Twitter that he loves Morrison's Superman, and he's been posting Andy Kubert art from Up in the Sky! which is very encouraging to say the least. Going from Snyder to Gunn might end up being the best upgrade Superman has gotten since Donner took over the first movie.

Another live action Superman got his second season this year and it was judged to be a step down from the first. Hoechlin, Tulloch, and Parks all did excellent with what they were given, and the actress playing Parasite tried her best with the flimsy characterization and lines she had to deliver. Jon's actor departed the show and was recast, whether that will cause a change in direction for the character is up in the air.

Animation was the best medium for the Supers outside of comics. Young Justice S4, while retreading old ground regarding Conner being reduced to a weapon, at least treated him better this year than the comics did. He got his happy ending with M'gann, and the show's take on the Zods was the best since Shannon. The season ending on a post credit tease for Kara becoming one of Darkseid's Furies, which is never getting followed up on unless that deal with Amazon bails the show out again, is hilarious. Fucking Weisman chooses to end the series on another big Darkseid tease despite knowing that it wasn't renewed for more seasons! If YJ is finished for good this time then I am at least satisfied with how Conner's story ended, and don't mind if that is the end. Jon and Krypto got entertaining animated movies too with Battle of the Super-Sons and League of Super-Pets, neither of which was anything special, but certainly worth a watch for anyone craving more Superman content. Whether either will see a sequel remains to be seen.

Video game wise we got the first WB cross-property brawler in Multiversus, with Superman in the starting line-up. Found the game fun enough, although it did nothing to diminish my craving for a proper Superman solo game. There were also multiple Superman Easter Eggs in Gotham Knights that referenced him directly or members of his family. Perhaps teases for future DC projects, perhaps not. Not sure I even want WB Montreal to attempt a Superman game after the Wattpad fanfic tier bullshit they submitted for Gotham Knights. Outright Games is also making a fun looking JL: Cosmic Chaos game that has the team dealing with Mxy.

Future

Next year is Superman's 85th and it looks like it will be a milestone anniversary indeed. First up we have PKJ's Action book switching to be more Superfamily focused starting in January, pitting them against a revamped Metallo. He's teased that after the Metallo arc is done, coming up the next arc will feature another revamp of a Superman fan favorite Rogue, a Multiversial Supermen team up is happening, Superman and Constantine may end up working together, and revealed he has ideas for Maxima, Toyman, Mxy, and Bizarro. Then in February Williamson is on a new Superman ongoing with art by Campbell and Dragotta, with a tone aiming to be reminiscent of the STAS cartoon. Finally we have Taylor launching a new Jon mini where he teams up with Val-Zod to stop Ultraman from killing variants of his dad across the Multiverse. Totally on board with PKJ, interested in Williamson, skipping Taylor entirely. Waid is continuing on World's Finest for now, and has teased there may be more spinoffs coming out of that series. I expect something involving Magog to come at some point in the future.

Waid and Yang are also overseeing Lazarus Planet which is an event that will shake up the status quo by giving characters new powers and changing the powersets of those who already have them (such as Jon getting the Electric Blue powerset). Hoping to see Waid and Yang use Clark, Jon, and Kenan in the event.

For upcoming Superman and Super adjacent characters comics that are for sure happening, first we have Steelworks by an unknown creative team (praying it's Pak writing) about John Henry Irons and Natasha working together to reshape Metropolis with their tech. Venditti is already writing a second season of Superman '78, no word on if Torres will return too. Porter's Superboy: Man of Tomorrow mini with Jahnoy Lindsay comes out next year. Premise is very similar to King's Supergirl series but this has been described as Superman meets DBZ which is definitely different tone wise from what King did. Christopher Priest is reuniting with his old Deathstroke team to make a Superman: Lost mini telling what happens when Superman is gone on a mission that's only a little while for everyone else, but centuries for him. Now's the perfect time to let Priest deconstruct Superman while the mainline books do more straightforward storytelling. While not officially announced, Waid and Hitch's Superman: Testament Black Label book is said to be coming out next year per Hitch himself.

More uncertainly there is Mark Millar saying he's having discussions regarding doing a Superman book for DC again, whether that's just typical Millar making a play for attention before announcing another Millarworld project remains to be seen. Geoff Johns may be working on a Legion book, his Flashpoint Beyond series teased a War of the Four Legions story that would doubtlessly result in the Retrobook ousting the Bendisboot from being the "canon" DC future. Would also no doubt restore Clark's childhood ties to the Legion and thus make Secret Origin canon in full. Scott Snyder talked about returning to DC in 2023 or 2024 for Metal 3 which he said before would be Superman focused, although given he described Death Metal as a "Wonder Woman" event he may not have the same definition on what constitutes that as the rest of us.

Live action wise, Gunn has said we will get more information about the coming slate, with Superman being one of the projects we'll learn more about no doubt, in Jan. S&L S3 promises a return to Metropolis, more journalism work for Lois, Intergang making moves, and a new Lex Luthor not played by Cryer complicating the status quo. John Henry Irons should remain a key character given Intergang killed his counterpart on the show's Earth, and is said to be involved going off of the solicit for S3. If the writers acknowledged the feedback on what worked and what didn't with S2 then I think the show can find it's footing again. If not I'll keep watching for as long as the Hoechlin/Tulloch/Parks trio keeps getting cool stuff to do.

Regarding animation we have two movies set in the "Tomorrowverse", Legion of Superheroes which stars Kara joining the titular team, and JL: Warworld which is our first movie following the Tomorrowverse incarnation of the JL. There's also a JL/RWBY movie which will have Superman in it, but having never watched any RWBY myself I plan on skipping it. Against all odds and in total defiance of what you would expect, WB chose to send the new Batman cartoon out to be shopped around and keep the new Superman cartoon for themselves as originally planned. A recent leak - which I won't share here - gave us some details on what the show has planned, and what I read has me eager as hell for MAWS to debut.

Despite all the craziness of the past year I feel incredibly upbeat going into 2023. The uncertainty surrounding Superman's film future has at last been put to rest, his new animated cartoon survived the purges, he's got a comic for everyone either out now or coming soon, the Superfamily and his Rogues are getting focus, and Multiversus broke the trend of all the video game Supermen being evil (although there's still Rocksteady's Suicide Squad game to contend with). Quite the turn around compared to where he was a decade ago, even if it doesn't give me everything I want.

[emmikay]

How Assorted Members of the Batfamily would react to watching CATS (a note- I am not at all up to date with comics. That being said, I know I’m leaving out several more recent characters, but I’m just sticking with the ones I have a better feel for. Also, if anyone’s personality has drastically shifted, I also wouldn’t know)

Dick Grayson- Dick’s from the circus- He has a blast watching the dancing, singing, acrobatics, costumes, and set and lighting design. More than most he understands the insane amount of work that goes into the show. While he might not connect deeply with plot or individual characters, Dick absolutely appreciates it as a spectacle musical, and has a really good time.

Jason Todd- Jason is established as liking literature, and the arts. He has seen CATS before, and is happy to see it again. He’s also read Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, and has thought about the differences in tone between the two. He’s more invested in character arcs than Dick, and also really enjoys himself.

Barbara Gordon- Barbara tries. She really, really does. She saw the 1998 video once, when she was little, and did not like. Now older, she wants to understand why people like the musical. She reads reviews, watches videos, and investigates fan sights in preparation. But when she goes to see the musical live, she still Does Not like it.

Cassandra Cain- Most of the family didn’t think Cass would have a good time at the musical, but it turns out the CATS is kind of the perfect show for her. In CATS, pretty much all character arcs, and personality are communicated nonverbally, and usually through dance, Cass just Gets It. She connects to the characters and is able to follow plot points far more quickly than anyone else in the family, and by the end of Act One, she’s been converted to a CATS fan. She wants to see it again as soon as possible.

Tim Drake- Tim is not having a good time. This is the first time he’s seen the show, and he didn’t do any background research like Barbara. He is bored and confused, and would prefer to be at home. He might not stay after Act One. If he does, it’s only because leaving would make Dick and Cass feel bad.

Stephanie Brown- Steph has fond memories of watching the 1998 video as a kid. She knows a lot of the lyrics and dance going in. Her enjoyment is partially nostalgic, though seeing the show again after several years reignites her love of the musical. She has a great time, and mouths along to most of the lyrics.

Damian Wayne- Damian has to dragged to the show. He hates the idea of the show, and thinks the entire concept sounds stupid. After the show, he asserts that he had a horrible time, and he will never forgive the family for putting him through that. Secretly, he actually loved the show, and might actually rival Cass as a CATS convert. However, he would rather die than actually admit it. Once home he downloads the 1998 video on YouTube, and watches it.

Alfred Pennyworth- Alfred knows the show well, and is delighted to be seeing it live. Since Alfred’s already been given every possible old career known to man, I’m arbitrarily deciding that Alfred was a member of the original London West End cast as a swing, and portrayed both Bustopher/ Gus, and Skimbleshanks. He thinks this cast did a wonderful job, and the show brings back a lot of fond memories.

Bruce Wayne- It’s not that Bruce likes it or hates it, he’s just very confused, and does not understand what is going on. He’s happy that most of the kids seem to be having a good time.

Selina Kyle- If you can look me in the eyes, and tell me that Selina Kyle isn’t the biggest fan of CATS to ever live on this green earth, I don’t think we can be friends.

[the-owl-tree]

thoughts on tnp?

tnp has so many interesting ideas and characters and does not take full advantage of them, i feel like in terms of au's it's the second most popular arc to play around with (and yes....i am guilty of a tnp au/rewrite as well lol)

the journey is a good idea, brambleclaw as a pov is a good continuation, the new territory is a good idea, and the growing moral ambiguity of starclan is, you guessed it, a good idea! But the arc flops on it. the journey is a two book long boring trip and cemented how little erin's liked to do with character dynamics to help ease along the trip (insane how the group don't have at least ONE scene around the campfire telling ghost stories). The group's split up is sad sure but I feel like most of that investment came on the part of the reader than any writing, tawnypelt barely exists to them despite being a tiger kit. The tribe, a concept i have always detested, doesn't serve a purpose besides being a shitty pit stop for Feathertail to die at.

Brambleclaw's ambitions are interesting but they don't stem from a desire to do good but more so a sense of entitlement and his entire dark forest training arc makes zero sense. This being on purpose wouldn't be bad, the Erin's don't give him any consequences in abusing his authority or even debating killing Firestar. No disillusionment with power, no one ever tells him he isn't actually good at being a leader, the grand consequence is just killing Hawkfrost (the same guy who's been comically evil. Seriously, Brambleclaw is the guy who sees Hawkfrost manipulate Stormfur's exile, why is he so surprised when his bro sucks).

Leafpool and Crowfeather's relationship had the potential to be interesting (crow dreaming about leaf, presumably because of starclan's meddling is ripe with potential) but falls flat because the two have no chemistry and just sort of. happen. Not to like stir the pot but like...Hawkfrost and Leafpool would've been 10x better lol they at least met while everyone was journeying and since he's Mothwing's brother, there's reason for them to talk more. Hawkfrost as a villain is...weak, he's hardly th

furthermore....why not let go of the thunderclan pov's, it's been mentioned before but MAN every journey cat should've gotten a book to themselves or at least a pov. The WindClan civil war would've been great with Crowfeather as our narrator instead of consistently having to read it through a thunderclan pov

uhh there's probably more but that's off the top of my head, tnp would've been better if the erin's knew how to write cats acting like friends and bonding

[ceramicdove]

[deep inhale] So these guys huh

Avataro Sentai Donbrothers (2022, currently ongoing), written by Toshiki Inoue (the man who put a gay sex scene in Rider Time: Kamen Rider Ryuki (2019)), is about a lot of things but basically there's this higher plane of existence called Ideon the stability of which heavily relies on human thoughts and feelings (despite the Nouto, its main inhabitants, being unable to understand said human feelings). When a human's desire goes out of control they become a monster called a Hitotsuki and that's bad for Ideon so they sent three people (read: Sonoi and his high school besties. Yeah they got high school there apparently) to the human world to do something about it (spoiler: they end up falling in love with humanity in their own ways and now the Council kinda has to execute them oops). Sonoi is their leader and while he genuinely values human life a lot he's also disgusted by human greed and desire and stuff. Enter Tarou Momoi.

Tarou, the main character, is a human (not really actually but that's not relevant right now) guy who's 1) better than everyone at everything, 2) physically unable to lie (like, it straight up temporarily kills him), and 3) wants nothing more than to help people. Sonoi tells him he wishes more people were like him. Also he tells him he is hope to him. Also they talk about how beautiful the moon is. Also Tarou suggests going to eat out sometime (they do manage it but much later and everyone else is forced to watch their date). And more. You get the idea. This is all until Sonoi finds out Tarou is actually the guy he's been fighting for the last several episodes, upon which he (distraught) goes "actually nvm you are despair to me" and manages to kill him (because since Tarou can't lie he just casually asked him about his weak point earlier).

However Sonoi feels insanely bad about taking advantage of him so he helps bring Tarou back (tooootally so they can have a fair and just rematch). And then they do have a fair and just rematch and Sonoi dies but then Tarou ends up helping bring him back and because it was done using some of Tarou's power Sonoi has red eyes now and acts kinda like him. This is what he has to say on the matter: "We're alike, you and I. Like the sea and the sky! The two of them face each other, but can never commingle! But, even so… they share the same blue!" (homosexuality?) And then they rematch and he kills Tarou and then Tarou comes back and then Sonoi's back to normal and now they just kinda fight each other for fun regularly they're like if Romeo and Juliet were two gay autistic men I think. Here is their character song (it plays at the end of the ep where Sonoi dies). What did they mean by this I wonder

Absolutely horribly written ask but I am not an expert on them so sorry I probably got something wrong and/or missed something. I asked my friend who I think IS an expert on them about what I should absolutely mention were I to ever explain them to someone with zero prior Donbros knowledge and they just said this

Other fun Sonoi facts: once he decides to help Tarou with his delivery job (don't ask) and Tarou goes "don't worry about how he's dressed" to a customer and Sonoi is like "I'll have you know I'm considered a fashion leader in my world :/" and yeah it just kinda goes like that. I hope you could understand my vision because I could not put it into words

KIARA. [CRAWLS TO YOU WHILE COVERED IN BLOOD] I MADE IT. I made it. I'm here now.

Thank you so much for sending this to me. Starting off so early with the phrase "the man who put a gay sex scene in Rider Time: Kamen Rider Ryuki" is truly genius. There really is nothing else that gets you hooked quite like that.

JUST BASED ON THE BAREBONES CONCEPT, THIS ACTUALLY VAGUELY REMINDS ME OF A WEB COMIC/WEB NOVEL I CAME UP WITH AND STARTED MAPPING OUT CIRCA AGE 13-14? Similar dichotomy surrounding feelings and humanity (or lack thereof). I envy my younger self's ability to be passionate about an original project like that, because these days my ability to create & design original characters is truly, completely dead. Back to the relevant things, though. I'm truly sad I didn't find this earlier, because I feel it could have rewired my brain around that age. But I truly feel like this is a wonderful concept to explore.

THE PART ABOUT "PHYSICALLY UNABLE TO LIE (LIKE IT STRAIGHT UP TEMPORARILY KILLS HIM)" WAS SO FUNNY I'M SORRY. NO CLUE WHY OR HOW THAT HAPPENS TO HIM (feel free to explain if you want to) BUT...YEOWCH! Damn he's fucked. I am kind of already fond of him, though...you were right in your assumption, I do feel this is a set of characters I'd be likely to latch onto. Especially given the entire...Problem they have surrounding the murderfighting hope/despair thing. That is awesome and so beautiful to me.

Kiara. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the absolute gem that is the phrase "they're like if Romeo and Juliet were two gay autistic men I think". This means the world to me. I would pin this to my heart if I could. The world needs more Romeo and Juliet that are two gay autistic people. It's really necessary to the ecosystem, and also to...me!

I'm also listening to their song right now. IT'S GOOD? It's genuinely quite good. I really enjoy the jazziness and atmosphere of it all. "As paths cross/A certain sensation's felt/A connection/that can't be quantified/Whether to join hands/or clash/Only the moon knows/the outcome" Ahemmm ummmmmhmmm [BATS MY EYELASHES MEEKLY BEFORE RUNNING AWAY AND TRIPPING LIKE AN ANIME GIRL/NEWBORN BABY DEER] I wonder what that certain sensation is...! Oh my! Oh my...!

Your friend's input is also deeply valuable to me because likening two characters to elementary schoolers with crushes on each other also trying to kill each other is another good way to set a mousetrap for me. Elementary school gay autistic romeo and juliet murder is truly top 5 pairings any piece of media has ever come up with.

TAROU HAVING A DELIVERY JOB WAS A SLAP IN THE FACE. But I think I can understand your vision. I think I can. I may never know the full truth, but I can keep my heart open and absorb the psychic energies of these two little freakazoids.

Thank you so, so, so much for sharing this piece of information with me. I don't think I ever would've found out about them otherwise. Perhaps some day soon I'll be thinking back on them and I'll go on a little deep dive journey to learn more. Who knows?

And of course, thank you Toshiki Inoue for everything you contributed to our society. After Kamen Rider fucking and gay autistic Romeo & Juliet, the universe will never be the same. I hope his mind continues to produce...whatever is going on up there. God bless!

[stxleslyds]

MY TOUGHTS ON THE END OF RED HOOD BY CHIP ZDARSKY.

Dishonour! Dishonour on you, dishonour on your cow! 

Well Jason Nation, it happened again, fanon wins over canon. The amount of bullshit that DC made Zdarsky write in this issue is insane, I have never seen this many fanfiction tropes shoved in a single issue in my life.

This book has been a constant insult to Jason’s character and his Red Hood “persona” since the very first issue but I never thought it would end this badly. It’s incredibly sad.

I will go ahead and say it, this tumblr and this post is not “Batfamily” friendly and it definitely isn’t fanon friendly when it comes to Jason Todd.

Fanon is destroying canon for Jason Todd. I am sorry but that’s how I see it, fanon doesn’t belong in canon, I would never get tired of saying that. But here is the thing, DC latches on to Jason’s fanon version because it fits their narrative of “the Batman is all that is right and all must follow his rules or they shall disappear”.

DC has been dying to make Jason bland and flavourless just like Batman. And now here it finally is.

Let’s be honest the story in this book, the new drug, Cheer, Tyler and his mom, none of that shaped this story, none of those things were the support beams for it. It was all about this never ending “daddy issues” thing that DC pretends is going on between Jason and Bruce.

It was all about those two fighting because they “think differently” so in the end they can push Jason towards the “no killing rule” being also the Red Hood’s modus operandi.

Its utter bullshit.

From the moment that Jason had to put a bat suit on I knew that this was going to be a mess. Luckily like I predicted they didn’t make a big deal out of him wearing it but the “Jason admires Batman” feeling was very present in the issue.

I will not talk about how easy it was for that one thug to land a punch on Jason while he was distracted and I will also not talk about Jason being a dumbass for not securing his dumb mask better when he knew the fight will involve gases. I will not talk about it.

Anyway, let’s talk about the Cheer Gas induced illusion, shall we?

In Jason’s illusion he finds Bruce at the manor looking at the picture of Joker’s death (?) and even though that is strange what Bruce says next is even weirder, he says this: “I did it. He was the last one, but I did it…Joker is dead. I am done.”

Now what the hell was that? This is Jason’s illusion, and by the looks of it in his illusion Bruce has killed every baddie in Gotham and left the Joker for last? Am I reading that right? Is this this a joke?

I understand that this is an illusion so the gas is making “real” things that Jason probably doesn’t know he wants, like wanting Bruce to go on a killing spree, which Jason never wanted because he said it himself, do you guys remember the iconic “I’m not talking about killing Cobblepot and Scarecrow or Clayface. Not Riddler or Dent…I’m talking about HIM. Just him.” Because I remember and it’s so important to Jason’s character, Jason never wanted Bruce to go on a killing spree, he wanted Bruce to kill the clown who had killed him when he was only fifteen. Is that so hard to remember DC?

And then it gets worse! Since WHEN has Jason wanted a perfect family life with the people that he has tried to kill, harm or looked down to? Why is “being with a bunch of people who NEVER get together for anything other than “help” the Bat in a fight against a fucking clown” the idea of happiness to Jason? Has this man ever interacted with any of these people in a positive way without the intrusion of a Batman/Robin event in the way? I will give you the answer, it’s no, the answer is no.

Jason Todd doesn’t care for your “Batfamily” bullshit DC, why would it matter to him? Because he was Robin? He was killed by the Joker when he was Robin, and he was killed because the man in charge of him didn’t pay enough attention! Jason Todd who was written as Dick Grayson’s number one hater for so long (and fandom loves that) is now having an illusion where he enjoys happy times with him along the others? Cass and Stephanie? What? Am I missing something, is this actually AO3, is this fanfiction?

I think Zdarsky got confused, this illusion is what would happen if Jason were dosed with fear gas. That must be it, I solved it everyone! Zdarsky just got confused by his own writing!

I wish.

Let’s go back to the sad reality, Jason has a moment in which he actually puts all his training in motion and shakes of the gas’s grasp on him. He does that but he is grabbed by so many people (who are this people?) and he is unarmed and I believe that’s the only reason why Cheer is still alive after saying that he has someone in Tyler’s mom’s hospital room ready to kill her if he doesn’t join him.

(If this were the real Jason, Cheer would have dropped dead instantly.)

But this is not the real Jason and this is not a *real* comic, it’s fanfiction! So just like that time in Batman #100 when Dick was fighting alone as Nightwing (for the first time since his “family” left him alone after losing his memories) the rest of the “family” shows up to fight Cheer and four random thugs.

Yep, its like the MCU had considered having Cap say “Avengers Assemble” when they were fighting a couple of robots instead of Thanos.

What a mess.

Also having Jason say, in real life (not illusion world), “You know what happiness is? It’s knowing that others have your back.” about this group of people is the perfect recipe for a big OOC moment for absolutely everyone. I cannot believe they have dragged Jason back to this awful concept and that they have sank him so low. It’s quite honestly, disgusting.

But the horrors don’t end there, we have a wonderful moment after Jason gives Batman the antidote, Jason stops Batman from punching the living shit out of Cheer. Because I am not stupid. There is no way in the world that you can convince me that Jason just stopped Batman from killing Cheer.

How incredibly delusional do you have to be to write Batman finally killing someone and that someone being Cheer, a guy that was introduced to comics two months ago?

Yes, later its said that between the gas and the antidote Bruce was a little too crazy and couldn’t help himself BUT I call bullshit once more, because Bruce has gone completely bat-shit-crazy on people before! I remember two recent instances in which that happened. Batman #57 in which Bruce beats the living shit out of KGBeast after he shot Dick. And the other one is Batman beating up Jason more brutally than he ever beat up Joker in RHatO #25.

DC cannot fuck with me. I might has bought this digital comic for 8 dollars but I am not buying that bullshit.

ALSO, there was no need for Zdarsky to do Jason as dirty as he did him when he made him say: “If you are going to come down from mount judgement to MY level for once… he’s not the guy to do it for.”

Zdarsky, why did you write a Red Hood story when you hate Red Hood? Couldn’t you have just told DC that you wanted to write a love letter to Batman? Once again, I am reading a Red Hood story for RED HOOD content not Batman content. Is it really that hard? I bet that if Zdarsky had asked DC to let him write a Batman story they would have said yes, there are like 20 Batman stories, they wouldn’t say no to one more!

Can you tell I am mad? And salty?

This post is so long and so full of anger, I am truly sorry for that but I have to write these feelings down or I would explode. And I am not even done, our suffering, Jason Nation, continues.

But first a little break from the pain, Tyler. Thank you after all the pain this book has given me Tyler is back and just like I predicted his mom is fine and he will stay with her, they both have been given a place and money to rebuild their life (not given by Jason nor Dick but I was close enough). The only happy ending that Tyler could have, he had and I am thankful for that, we even got a little adorable moment between the Red Hood and the Blue Hood.

I am weak for these little glimpses of a good Jason take in the middle of an incredibly awful/OOC story. And just to live in my own fantasy world I will headcanon that Jason promised himself to keep an eye out for Tyler and his mom. He would have wanted to know about their life and that they are still out of trouble.

Jason is a good man, don’t you forget that DC, I don’t care how much you twist it. Jason killing Tyler’s dad wasn’t a horrible act, it was fair game. That man was a horrible person, he drugged his child and made his wife (?) almost overdose. You never gave context as to why that man was working as a drug dealer but you told us those things so Jason should never feel like he did something wrong. As far as we know, Tyler and his mom are better off without him.

Having said that, lets go back to the pain of what is reading a Red Hood story.

“I’m giving up the guns.”

You know what, fine, as long as DC doesn’t pull another “I will stop being Red Hood for you Barbara” I will be fine. He can kill people with other things, he used to have the all-blades, he had normal swords and he had crowbars.

I will sacrifice Jason looking hot as hell when he pulls out his guns just to keep him as the Red Hood, all DC has to do is not give him that stupid… bat… symbol… oh no…. oh my god I can feel it… that thing, that horrible thing is making a comeback! NO!

Jason and Bruce’s talk is basic and it doesn’t do anything for anyone, in the end saying that Jason isn’t changing his ways for Bruce but that he is doing it for himself is more of the same. We know he is doing it for Bruce and we know DC is doing it because they cannot handle good, complex and interesting characters. We know that and sadly we have to live with it.

About Bruce’s illusion, well, Bruce has said that he wanted to kill the clown for a very long time and in the King run it was basically said that if Bruce were to be happy then the idea of Batman would die.

Listen, between me and you, sometimes I think that the Joker isn’t that big of a problem for Gotham as a whole, that clown has beef with the Bat and no one else. If Bruce has killed the Joker Jason would have been happy with Bruce all those years ago but killing the Joker wouldn’t make Gotham a safe place and any of his kids happier.

Bruce needs to care for his children, but he won’t do that, he has Dick for that. Taking care and raising Damian? No, thank you, I will not do that. Giving a shit about my son who lost all his memories and is alone? No thank you, I won’t do that and then I will lie about having watched him over. Tim? Oh, never heard of him, sorry.

The last page of this story is the one of Jason arriving home and finding a new suit that Bruce gave him with the bat symbol on it. That symbol that he had ripped off of Jason’s beat up body back in RHatO #25 (nope, I am not letting that one go).

Oh, and Bruce leaving that suit in Jason’s home gives me the same exact vibes as the time that Bruce was like “Long overdue. This is where you belong. As one of us. One of the family” in Nightwing #74 a second after Dick had regained his memories.

I don’t know why but they make him sound incredibly cold and like these people are just his pawns that he needs to rope back in every time they get away from him. It’s very disturbing.

Anyway, that’s all from me, I obviously LOVED this book, best Jason Todd/Red Hood characterisation ever! 11/10 would recommend to everyone including my enemies!

🙃

[tsutsumi-kaina]

Theory: AFO gave Tomura Decay (oh hey there’s room for a Part 3)

(Part1) (Part 2)

Something clicked while reading the new chapter, where we see TomurAFO bragging about being able to control Decay with a chilling level of accuracy now. And I thought, well hey, isn’t it just the wackiest thing that Tomura has been able to control decay ever since he received the AFO quirk? h-ha ha... ha..... ( :’) )

Anyway *feeds more evidence to the “AFO-gave-Tomura-Decay” garbage pile* 

 - - - - - -

Point 9: Tomura only develops something akin to “mastery” over Decay AFTER receiving the AFO quirk.

The overall tone of Tomura discovering he can finally control decay is almost comically casual-- especially considering how his inability to control Decay is something that has shaped his life, his trauma, and how he interacts with the world around him in some fairly massive ways. 

You would almost think Horikoshi was downplaying it in an attempt to distract us from asking... -why-  can he suddenly control it? 

Winding back the clock a bit, it’s heavily implied that Tomura has never actually been taught how to control Decay-- he’s only learned skills that allow him to bare-minimum live with it. It fits with AFO’s overall m.o. to keep Tomura feeling isolated and unable to properly interact with world around him-- all to keep up the illusion that Tomura is a slave to uncontrollable destructive impulses and only exists to indiscriminately destroy others. Because teaching Tomura control over Decay means teaching him to reign in those “impulses.” It means teaching him to learn how to distinguish between what he wants to destroy and what he wants to save/spare. It means teaching him how to be the master of his own “soul”/"individuality”-- all of which are things that AFO most certainly Does Not Want.  

Also, AFO basically admits to as much during Kamino:

pictured: the original Worst Jeanist bulli

It’s easy to interpret this as Tomura being too impatient to learn how to master quirks that require large amounts of training and technical skill, but I’m calling bullshit-- because when you know how to properly motivate Tomura, he will work tirelessly to achieve his goals. We see this firsthand when he fights against Machia for almost two months straight with barely any sleep or food. He has extraordinary levels of determination and is more than willing to apply himself/subject himself to insane levels of training, again, when you actually know how to motivate him. The problem lies with AFO, not Tomura-- I mean, giving Tomura any form of actual control over his life and the power that’s irreversibly shaped it? Perish the thought!/s

“Why should I teach him self-control when I can just let fifteen dismembered hands and a massive amount of trauma do all the work for me lol” --  AFO, during his absolutely-non-PTA-sanctioned teacher of the year acceptance speech, probably,

Anyway, back to the topic at hand! We could argue that the surgery gave Tomura the ability to control Decay, but I feel that argument quickly falls apart when we look at the PLW arc as a whole-- because while Tomura might have inherited AFO and all of it’s stolen quirks, we also see that he did not inherit any technical knowledge, experience, or skills necessary to use those quirks to their full potential. For example: Tomura is able to use Radio Waves to jolt the Nomu awake, but he is not able to use the same quirk to send them complex instructions or messages because he lacks the technical knowledge and skill to do so. There’s also no indication that Tomura had developed technical control over Decay before going under the knife, as his reaction indicates that the concept of being able to “choose” what to decay is something entirely new to him.

Basically, to use those video game analogies that Tomura loves so much: the surgery leveled up his stats, but it didn’t level up his skills-- there’s an entirely separate EXP pool for skills. 

So, who does have the knowledge, experience, and technical skills to use the AFO quirk’s loadout to its full potential?

This guuuuuuuuuuy! ver 2.0

We didn’t think twice about AFO having mastered radio waves to the extent that he has, because I think we all naturally assumed that radio waves was already in his arsenal prior to passing his quirk on-- obviously, he’s had loads of practice with it already, so he’s able to control it in ways that Tomura can’t.

Now let’s replace “radio waves” with “decay”:

yea.

AFO appears to be the primary speaker during this scene (mainly bc Tomura doesn’t explain himself this well or hype himself up this much lol), and as he speaks, we’re treated to a flashback of the first known instance of Decay being “controlled”-- which only lends to the impression that AFO was the one taking the reigns in order to spare the high-end nomu during the PLW arc. But as we’ve established, that level of control requires high levels of technical skill, practice, and knowledge on how to use a quirk to its full ability-- which you would only get from being in possession of said quirk, at some point.

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Captain America Annual 4 (November 1977)

Jack Kirby

Yo, remember this guy?

No, not Magneto - Jack fucking Kirby. A man you may recall from, like, the creation of the X-Men. I talked about him a lot back then. Between 1966, when we last saw him, and 1977, where we see him now, he'd been on something of a journey, leaving Marvel under slightly trickt circumstances, going to DC to write insane space opera, leaving DC under slightly tricky circumstances, and coming back to Marvel, now a huge but kind of unknowable star.

He came back to write and draw Captain America, not an obvious choice for him given that he was one of the few significant Marvel characters from before Kirby's day, and one who wasn't really in tune with the sci-fi stuff Kirby seemed to be mostly interested in. The overall results were uneven, and Kirby left again a couple of years later to work on his own stuff: he never returned to the major studios.

This, therefore, is a bit of an oddity: we're reading it because it's a Magneto story, by the co-creator of Magneto, but it's also a Captain America story that doesn't tie in to wider X-Men continuity at all (or even really into Captain America's ongoing story: it's a double-length standalone). It's a major work by a total genius but its appearance even at the time must have been weird: since his 60s heyday Kirby's art had only gotten...Kirbier, divering from the mainstream into ever more expressionist modes, full of weird angles, strange framing, bizarre proportions.

Also, he was writing his own stuff now, no longer working alongside Stan Lee to invent practically every major Marvel character but instead giving full vent to his own concepts. The result is fucking weird.

Are you seeing this? Mister One is a completely immobile teeeeny tiny mutant who some random dude is keeping in his watch. Also he's looked after by his giant pal, Mister Two.

This entire story is like a fever dream. The plot isn't the point, especially as it isn't relevant to our ongoing X-Men exploration (suffice to say that at the end Magneto escapes unharmed through a hidden hatch), but look at this stuff.

Go ahead and check recent posts to see what most comics looked like in 1977, and then look at this.

That's Peeper, a Magneto henchman who just got introduced on this very page. As with a lot of the art here, it looks for a moment like he might be silly, but he really fucking isn't. Why are Peeper and Magneto hanging out in a castle full of voodoo statues? Why not?

Kirby's art has reached a kind of naivete that's the product of incredible sophistication. Like you know when you drew comics as a kid and, even though they came out terrible on the page, in your head they looked incredible? They looked like this.

And then it ends (it turns out Mister One and Mister Two were actually the same being in two bodies, if you were wondering, which doesn't make any sense but so what). Absolutely fucking wild.

I'm fairly sure we won't see Kirby again at any point in this reading process, so that's our unexpected farewell to him. I was kind of hard on him in some of the 60s posts but this was almost like an out-of-body experience, so strange, so good, so unexpected. Goddamn.

[tartagilicious]

the dangerous fellows boys and an mc that takes care of their younger sibling during the apocalypse

long title but fun concept ! it’s been a while since I’ve played, but I hope everything is correct  — that said, this also contains spoilers 💃 requested by @sydisticsyd​ 

* just a reminder, I don’t normally take df requests! I’ve moved on from the game, and this was a special case where I wanted to do something nice. ty <3

Ethan: 

- There’s a long-running headcanon that he has younger siblings — most notably a sister if I’m remembering right, so in this case, so will you! 

- when he saves you from a zombie in that convenience store the first time he meets you, the last thing he expects is for you to push a smaller child into his arms as you run.

- he immediately recognises her as your sister by the similar features you share, but her assumed age throws him off. looking around 5, she behaves extremely well under pressure, though that he can at least wrap his head around more than the fact that you’ve been holding out all of this time. 

- his own instinct as an older brother makes him more defensive towards Scarlett and her absolute need to send you away. Scarlett doesn’t care much about Ethan’s opposition, obviously, but he does all he can.

- your shared affinity for family made it easy for you to bond from then on. you became a duo that worked well and stuck together, all while of course looking after your sister, who had begun to trust Ethan as if he really was her brother. 

Harry: 

- As an only child with problems at home, seeing such an obviously strong bond between you and your sibling warms his heart. even seeing you interact makes him incredibly happy

- He fights Scarlett 10x harder knowing that there are two lives on the line, and Scarlett, while mean, is not heartless — his point of views appeal to her. But, it’s arguably solely him that gets her on your side

- You grow close naturally after he stands up for you for fervently, and you really appreciate how gentle he is with your sister. in the middle of an apocalypse, you naturally have to be wary of any other survivors around her. 

- He willingly gives up parts of his own rations to make sure she’s full every meal, and keeps her entertained to the best of his ability. In a way, it’s his way of having the company he never got? plus, he totally loves kids and you can’t tell me otherwise lol

Eugene: 

- Probably hates kids tbh, but!! he’s not heartless. they rescued you both from being killed by zombies, and they’ll keep you safe. That’s basically a given, especially when there’s a kid at your side.

- The last thing Eugene wants is to see the poor girl more traumatised than she probably already is, after all.

- he’s not amazing with kids so he won’t exactly go out of his way to be nice, or spend time with them, but being close to you means it’s a sacrifice he has to make I guess?? I think he’d do it. I can imagine that your sister notices his reluctance though lolol

- regardless, they’d become quite close as time goes on ! in an environment like that, it would really help to limit rocky relationships. plus, you can’t tell me that the boy wouldn’t get a little bit attached to you both after a while-

- Eugene’s like a doting older brother when it comes to her, all while retaining his signature tsundere vibe with everyone but you. they have a handshake and she likes to ride on his shoulders !!

Zion: 

- before you come along, he basically hates everything and trusts no one 😭 but even the big brood cares about how a kid sees him. he’s a bit sympathetic to your younger brother (in this case) because while he himself may have not had a great childhood, he can barely imagine living through an apocalypse at such a formative age.

- the issue of you being cast aside once you’re rescued is pretty much non-existent, what with Zion’s views and Scarlett’s suck-up ways. No one can really argue once she’s put in her place by the only person she listens to, after all.

- he’d honestly try his hardest from the get-go to be there for your brother, of course with your support and all of that. I can imagine he’d be a little shy to ask this to you, someone who’s essentially a stranger, but you’d both come to appreciate it.

- Zion is actually surprisingly good with kids. he’d find ways to keep your brother entertained that are still apocalypse friendly, to the point where your brother would be almost glued to his side — though, it’s situational if that would bother you, really. 

- if your brother wanted to room with Zion, he would totally give up his blanket for the kid 😭💕 maybe even let him read some of the comics he stole from the library?

Lawrence:

- shit, can he kill with a child around? 🤔 much to think about. and would he have to eventually kill your brother too?? maybe he’s in over his head.

- no but I really do think that if you as a player had a younger sibling by your side over being alone,,, it would lessen the chances of Lawrence deciding to go absolutely insane. he has to respect the child, and also your inborn wish for your brother to stay alive lol

- Lawrence is kind of shaken by the development, but he would definitely try his best to get close to him while he can, though. of course, all while being kind and supportive and being loose on particular rules with him so he gets a good impression in

- but kids are perceptive when they want to be, so don’t tell me that your brother wouldn’t get bad vibes from Lawrence even after all that stuff 😐 he would know right after Judy disappears that Lawrence is up to some sneaky shit

- an extra candy bar and fake sweetness won’t pass him lol

- would Lawrence think about killing your brother if he were in fact that smart? no. it would be a liability, but the entire point if his killing spree in the first place is to keep you with him. there’s no way you’d ever want anything to do with him if he killed one of the only people you have left. and even if he did manage to pull that off, it’d arguably make you more miserable than when he kills all your friends