#the worlds most fucked up butterfly hatching from a human cocoon

[comicsiswild]

Ghost Rider (2022) #15

[duncanor]

WAIT PLEASE CONTINUE TALKING ABOUT THE LEGATO BDSM AESTHETIC FROM THOSE TAGS IM SO DEEPLY INTERESTED (I care legato so much)

First off, I’m truly sorry for how long I took to answer ya. I often forget I even got an Ask-box ahah!

As to my opinion on why “The Leather/BDSM-like aesthetic is important to Legato’s character”...

I know my original post was a bit vague but it’s truly less about how “cool” he looks, and more about the symbolism of it. Legato outfit is outwardly menacing. It's a silent threat. Similar to those birds who evolve to have brighter colors to warn off predators.

And sure the metal skull looks sick, but it isn't as bone chilling (ah-ah). When he's first introduced, everything just Stop so you can take it in the Danger reeking from him. He’s bound by leather straps, got giant metal spikes coming out of his shoulder like some sort of fucked up pauldron, as well as bits of a real human skull directly sewn into the hard leather of his coat.

(Adding to that my UNPROVEN suspicions that the skull belongs to Legato’s abuser..)

And that’s just his outfit. He’s surrounded by similar things. His weapon is truly the less subtle example of this.

A mix of different truly lethal weapons in the form of an Iron-maiden/sex-toy/stress-Toy. The face of the weapon bound in leather with only one of her eyes being visible. (similar to how Legato usually only got one eye visible because of his hair).

It’s blatant and disturbing. It’s depraved Flesh and deadly Metal.

Then, he gets his spine broken by Knives. And where does that put him?

In a metal sarcophagus pretty similar to (once again) an Iron-maiden. He stays there for the most of the story. Bound to it, stuck, mangled. Yet he’s still as terrifying as ever if not more. Sometimes portrayed similarly to a butterfly cocoon, waiting to hatch and release something more powerful..

And finally, his resident-evil goons.

They aren’t really interesting nor are they developed as anything more than Legato’s barely human servants. They got no dialog, no personality, no free will.. Nothing but an imposing mass of flesh in hard leather binding them, blinding them. They look like they come straight from an Hellraiser movie.

Even Legato’s powers themselves are a manifestation of his trauma. They’re metal wire used to fully control bodies against the will of their owner. Making them slaves and most often than not leaving them as a mass of mangled flesh.

Even Legato’s name itself meaning “bound” in Italian. (Thanks to @jackalandhare for this information btw)

In conclusion,

Legato's whole aesthetic reeks of his trauma. It's suffocating, eerie, menacing and binding in seemingly debilitating ways at times, as well as kinda sexual in undertones. It’s Legato abuse and pain on display. And I think all of these details, this aesthetic is a big insight on Legato Bluesummers as a person and what he went and is going through.

HOWEVER, that is not to say Stampede approach will be uninteresting! The symbolism is still strong with Orange. They tend to channel it through a more solid World Building.

We know they planned to add lore on colored hair in link with sexual slavery. And the design of the metal skull as well as his arm, probably implies some sort of body modification more similar to the other Eye of Michael experiments.

I just think it’s a bit unlucky that the change in aesthetic made us lose this much symbolism wise..

[casassin]

I’m still in a Hartwin mood so...

AU in which Eggsy really struggles with his finances because, after being thrown in jail a few times, for stealing money from some rich blokes to get some food for his family and himself, no one wants to offer him a good job. That leaves him stuck with two shitty jobs where he practically earns way less than he’d like to and made him much more tired than he expected.

In the morning hours he works as a caretaker of a college for posh students, who are lucky enough to have the opportunity to study there and someday become something much bigger than him.  In the afternoon he spends his life selling greasy food to screaming kids and angry customers, whose only purpose is to knock the last bits of energy out of him.

This vicious cycle leaves him tired and depressed because he feels like his only purpose in the world is to wake up and earn some money, to be able to live a somewhat human life with a roof over his head. Wake, work, sleep repeat.

The only thing that keeps his mood up after a hard day of work is his shows that slowly grew on him after quite some time. He doesn’t have Pay-TV but he did find the right channels with shows interesting enough, to distract his tired mind from the real world. Even if it’s just for a few hours.

But even this little isle of hope in this sea of depression should soon be flooded, when some posh bloke moved into the house right next to his three room apartment.

He didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to notice that, whoever this dude was, he managed to have the same remote as him, so whenever Eggsy tried to calm himself down with his shows, this weird bloke would always end up fucking with Eggsy’s TV, switching to a channel that shows documentaries about bloody butterflies. He did try to change the channel back. He really did. He even considered showing up at this man’s door and screaming hell at him for fucking with him after an especially hard day at work. But in the end he just decided that it wasn’t worth it and went to sleep.

He did find some enjoyment in those butterfly shows, when he was too awake to sleep, yet to tired to continue this channel changing war.

They sure are some weird motherfuckers, turning from maggots (that’s what they were called right?) into beautiful creatures that everyone knows and love. A metamorphosis from something not really worth looking at, into something that you could admire. It was the stuff of hopes and dreams. Dreams that were not made for him.

He did find his peace with this man and his weirdass taste in late night entertainment. Well at least until he didn’t.

One day, in which it seemed like Satan himself has decided to crawl out of hell just to show him both middlefingers, he just snapped.

After a fight with some asshole named Charlie, his boss decided to fire him since he can’t risk having “someone like him” in his ‘’fine establishment’’.

Charlie recognized him as the caretaker of their college at his second job in the fast food restaurant and decided to make fun of him and ask him, if he wasn’t too tired from cleaning all this trash he left behind, only for  him. After that Eggsy might have dragged his face all over the counter, destroying several perfectly fine burgers, which resulted in him getting the sack.

To make the situation even better, it turned out that Charlie’s dad  was the headmaster of the college he worked at and having his son’s face dragged through numerous burgers, didn’t seem to be a requirement,  if you wanted to work for him.

He fell onto his trashy couch, jobless and pissed as fuck, ready to just drown his worries and fears of a possible life on the street (if he didn’t ask his mom for money, which he’d never do since she has to somehow make it on her own)  in some brainless entertainment and alcohol, until this flashy massacre of loud music, lots of guns and senseless  violence, turned to a calming recording of a  butterfly with black and yellow wings, hatching out of it’s cocoon to spread it’s wings and start a new life.

From then he just snaps, anger boiling inside him, as he grabs the next best thing to beat someone’s ass, being the black umbrella, still wet from today’s rain. He stomps barefoot and already in his pajamas (a blue jumper covered in tiny pugs, which was a gift from his mom, picked out by his little sis) to this man’s house and knocks, ready to scream at this fucking weirdo until his lungs give in.

At least that was the plan, until said weirdo opens the door and the sight of him knocks all of the wind out of Eggsy’s lungs, that he so hardly collected for his lecture of the century.

He’s older, sure… much older. But there is something about this gentle gaze, the corners of his lips pointing up ever so slightly into a small smile, that leaves him speechless and standing there like a complete idiot, wearing baby blue pug pajamas whilst nothing covers his feet, black umbrella still in his clenched fist and his head probably as red as a fire extinguisher from all the anger that rose inside him till that moment.

The man eyes him confused, polite demeanor not forgotten, as he stretches out his hand for him to shake. However, the way he presses his  mouth into a thin line, his eyebrows wandering a little bit upward, makes it clear that he’s trying his hardest not to laugh and embarrass this strange young fellow showing up at his doorstep.

His voice being a perfect match for his stunning looks, the man introduces himself while shaking Eggsy’s hand, telling him to come in if he’d like. Having literally nothing to lose now, Eggsy accepts his offer, after and awkward cough and equally awkward handshake, and steps into this big house full of  kitsch and random butterflies neatly hanging on the walls in glass cases.

Against his expectations this man didn’t offer him tea or anything like that, but instead made some martinis for them (the best he’s ever tasted,  that’s for sure) as he explained that he moved there to take over one of those high society class tailor shops, that sells suits that cost probably more than his monthly rent. Harry, as it turned out at their awkward introduction at the door, was the kind of guy he would’ve probably tried to rob, if he’d had the chance. All expensive suit, strong aftershave and posh accent. One of those blokes who would get insulted just by looking at someone like Eggsy.

Except he really isn’t and talking with him comes much more easier than with some people who might be in his “class”. He has a certain sharpness and dry humor, with a voice he could’ve listened to forever, if he was allowed to, that makes simple talk about the weather much more interesting than it should be.

And soon enough, his little problem is gone, his shows fast forgotten and exchanged with laughter and warm gazes in a room filled with butterflies, a martini in his hand. His worries and fears about his and his mum’s future erased, as Harry offers him a job in the most expensive tailor shop around, earning him enough money to buy him and his mom their own two houses. And yet, even when he did buy his mom and his sweet little sister a big house to live in, he decided to stay with the man he’d fastly fallen in love with, without even noticing it, who, at first was nothing but a disturbance in his life and then turned out to be the one he’d wake up next to, a happy smile plastered on his face, while he kisses him softly with a little pug softly snoring between them. The man who reads cute little stories to his sister, giving every character a different exaggerated voice, just as she likes it the most and the man who looked at him and didn’t see the maggot that he took himself for, but instead a larva, destined to become his most precious butterfly.

He’d laugh about the fact that he, just like Harry’s little butterflies, went through a metamorphosis and changed to a better version of himself, flying higher that he could’ve ever imagined. But in the end he’s just thankful for it and didn’t dare to question it and press his luck.

He found his happiness in a world that wanted to squash him before. And all of it just because of a fuckin’ remote. Looks like he owed Samsung a letter of gratitude.