A lot of people think that Gregor will betray us and join Hermann (forced or not doesn't matter rn). Which is actually very likely to happen, but let me suggest you different theory:
Gregor won't side with anyone. What I mean is that when Hermann will try to make him join her, knowing that he can't really resist, he'll instead betray both her and Limbus, locking himself up somewhere
Why I think that might happen is because it's kinda what happened in the book. So, if we're following that idea he might as well not just lock himself up, but also he might try to get rid of himself
But, knowing project moon (six years in the fandom after all, they're almost like a relatives to me at this point) they can do literally everything that no one in a hundred years could predict
On the side note, i feel like I'm going full conspiracy theorist mode + the fucking fortune teller. Because quite a lot of things in Limbus I predicted while I was talking w my homies. I mean, I know it's just a coincidence and I just randomly pointed in the sky and somehow shot right, it's nonetheless funny to me idk
And that's what a lack of lore about your fav roach man does to a person lmao
been seeing all this talk abt gregor and i dont normally weigh in on tumblr discussions but id also like to add that after canto 11, in which we inevitably see what horrible things outis did during the smoke war and the significant hand that she had in it (which might entirely be relevant to gregor's experiences, considering her damn trojan horse is in the background of one of the c1 cgs) and then Still let her back on the bus, he would have even more reason to grow spiteful abt it . like . why the hell should he have to welcome her after That? after all she did, the number of people just like him that she killed, after shes spent this entire time on the bus belittiling him entirely knowingly - and unlike with some the other sinners, hers isn't in the territory of lighthearted teasing. she's actually putting him down.
heres how i can make everything about outis somehow
Hi Gabriel thank you Gabriel
No yeah you're absolutely right. Outis's Canto is absolutely gonna be Gregor's fucking 9/11, I'm sure of it. Starting from Hong Lu's Canto I'm expecting for us to have a lot of focus on how possible it is to actually forgive the actions of the Sinners, and if not forgive, then at least move past them.
Out of all of them, Gregor has no reason to ever think about forgiving Outis or even moving past her actions. Especially not when their arguments are a constant thing. If there was anything that could seal Gregor's "fate" so to speak, as in sealing his opinion on Limbus Company as a whole, it absolutely would be Outis being pardoned for her crimes, especially considering she barely if at all expresses any guilt for it. Outis doesn't care about the fact she's had to hurt unimaginable amounts of people. She cares about the fact that it might make her family hate her if they learned about it. Her actual family.
Having to face someone like that and pretend you're willing to forgive them might just be Gregor's breaking point.
wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that
i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.
additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.
Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.
this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.
i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.
i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start
mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4
and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5
i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?
this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.
ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu
he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all
even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does
all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?
Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please
i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal
heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)
and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team
which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.
speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!
splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.
now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.
something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius
even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke
and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.
Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay
of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.
personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.
so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?
really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.
c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.
outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.
hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.
rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.
heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.
sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.
our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?
hello again, pushpin 2.
gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?
now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.
what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.
and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.
starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.
which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.
gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her
sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.
and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal
and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech
so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?
a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.
to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.
i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.
this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.
every day i wake up and think about the fact that wade was special forces. and no there is not going to be any singular coherent point to this post this is just every thought and headcanon i have ever had about it
but like he will never not be a soldier in every single way. there are things he's learned that he's had to do like how to shoot and clean guns and how to survive torture and how to stake out a place and address medical emergencies, but there are also the other things like focus and discipline and communication, right. and this absolutely has an effect on many things that he does
in the case of an emergency, he can lock in and focus on the task he needs to do no matter what. wade as a person is very in touch with his emotions, but he can switch that off when necessary. we saw this when he was protecting vanessa in deadpool 2, and that was before vanessa was even physically injured—if he has to deal with a severe injury of a loved one, his special forces training would override any personal emotions he feels. and wade is intrinsically selfless, but his training has definitely helped hone that mindset: leaving no man behind, service before self. he was literally trained to put his life on the line for others and this is a theme we have seen in every single movie. doing the experiment for vanessa over actually caring about his own life, literally dying for russell, sacrificing himself so logan can live.
and even in daily life he is very attuned to his surroundings and body language. he knows how to carry himself, can change the tone of a conversation through the subtlest shift in body language. if he's angry or displeased, his tone could remain as lighthearted or nonchalant as before, but the air will shift ever so slightly to let you know that he's serious. and that is Scary. he can be so intimidating when he wants to be
also ! his identity as a soldier itself was protection for him. this is more symbolic than anything but Look at this:
this is by no means the special forces uniform or even a military uniform in general but this outfit choice was definitely meant to mimic it (vanessa is also wearing the same army green). it's literally armor for him in preparation for receiving bad news. like a soldier going to war
all this to say that he is an incredibly capable man and a soldier at his core and did not need protecting even before he became deadpool. not only that, but he is often the most qualified and skilled person around, which necessitates him doing the protecting most of the time. but just because he doesn't need protecting, it does not mean he doesn't need protecting on a mental and emotional-connection level. this is why logan is so good for him, because he's one of the only people in the world who understands this and can actually do something about it and will take a bullet or two for wade just because he can
There are versions of him who are "worse" in different ways. Some of them failed not just to save the X-men, but to save the world. Some let down everyone around them more harshly than he ever did. Some were objectively less "good" than him. So what separates him from the rest?
One of the biggest factors is regret.
Regret is one of the most crucial parts of Logan's character. It's the whole reason he's called the "Worst" Wolverine to begin with. It's the cause of his depression, the big hurdle he needs to overcome, a primary motivator for him.
But all variations of Wolverine experience regret, so what makes Worst Wolverine in particular so special? Why is he called the "Worst" Wolverine when there are other variants who have "failed" the X-men? When there are other versions who aren't good people? When almost all of them are burdened by remorse?
I think, firstly, it's important to clarify the depth of Logan's regret. He isn't just regretting the X-men's deaths. He isn't just regretting his inability to prevent it. He isn't just regretting the way he reacted to their deaths, how he rampaged and let his anger funnel into destruction.
He isn't just mourning what he lost, he's mourning what he could've had.
Because in his world, he never really had the X-men. They existed and he occasionally worked alongside them, and clearly got close enough for them to want him to join, but he never belonged to them. He never took them on their offer. He never became a part of their team. He never wore that suit. He never accepted them as his family.
Before they died, he was on rocky terms with them. They cared, and they knew he cared to some extent, but that was it. Logan cared enough to show up but not to stay. He was so terrified of commitment and letting people in that he hid away from his troubles with alcohol.
They died without ever knowing that he really cared. They never had the chance to learn the depths of his feelings or yearning to be part of their family even if it scared him. They died with the memory of him as a closed-off, reclusive, alcoholic bastard.
And Logan has to live with that. Live with the knowledge that that's the last impression he left, the image that flashed before their eyes as he died.
Logan has lost the X-men in several universes. In the main movie timeline, in which he was regarded as a hero, he still lost them. There still was "more" he could've done to save them. He could've stopped Scott from his self-destructive spiral or gone with him. He could've reached Jean before she was too far gone and beyond saving. He lives with the regret of knowing he could've done more for them, that if he'd just acted a little differently they might still be there.
But at least he had them. At least, while they were alive, he was honest about his feelings. Even Scott knew he cared, in a fucked-up way. Logan had joined the X-men and saved Scott in return and even tried to hold impromptu interventions after Jean's death. In hindsight, Logan could've done more, but in the moment he acted the best he could with the knowledge he was given.
But Worst Wolverine didn't even do that. He didn't fail them while he was doing the best he could over a blind spot. He failed them because he deliberately chose not to try. He chose not to get closer. He chose not to do more, knowing full well that they wanted him to be more involved. He chose a path of willful ignorance and denial and never had the chance to confront his feelings. Not until he was hit with them full force as he realized the magnitude of what he'd lost.
He never took the chance to get to know them. To become Scott's rival-friend or Jean's almost-lover. He never became a paternal figure to Rogue, never became a confidant to Storm. He can't look back on the "good times" because he didn't have any. He prevented them from happening.
He has no memories to comfort himself with. He has no past to cling to. He can't claim to have lost his family because it never existed. He has to confront the weight of his feelings and the fact that they never were realized all at once. He has to reconcile with how he never took the chance while they were alive, and now it's gone. He has to live with the knowledge that he could've had what he wanted, even for a little bit, if he wasn't such a pathetic fucking coward. That it would be better to at least have something other than the weight of the what-ifs and could-have-beens.
(He has to live with the fact that they never knew. They never knew he cared. He never told them. He could've at least given them a crumb of affection, any hint that he cared. They died thinking he'd move on without a second thought.)
One of Logan's "key" character traits is that he isn't afraid to take what he wants. That he's single-minded and purpose-driven. That he's open about his emotions and pursues his goals by throwing himself into them wholeheartedly.
Succeeding at this is what makes a "good" Wolverine. It isn't necessarily about morality or even power, it's about the ability to chase what he wants and obtain it.
This is what makes our Logan the "worst" Wolverine. He knew what he wanted but never pursued it. He gave up before he even started, distancing himself from the X-men so that they couldn't hurt him.
Wolverine is meant to represent a man who never gives up. Who pushes through pain and hardship with unsheathed claws and gnashing teeth. Who refuses to lose. He's meant to be the image of perseverance: someone who throws aside regard for his own well-being to protect those he cares about and achieve his goals. He's always been scared, terrified even, but he doesn't let that stop him. He rises up to that fear and spits in its face.
He was supposed to be a symbol of bravery. Of courage. Of being true to yourself and fighting for what you believe in even if it's hard. Of being gruff and sometimes mean but painfully honest and willing to do what's needed for the sake of his team and the world.
But "Worst" Wolverine isn't like that. He let his fear control him. He acted the opposite of what made Wolverine special. He isn't the worst because he's evil, or even because of the deaths he's caused. Some versions were more morally grey and mean and fucked up.
He's the worst because he didn't have the strength to keep going. Because he gave up too soon and it cost him a family he never really had. Because he didn't go down with a fight, he just laid down on the ground in a puddle of alcohol and let it swallow him whole.
He's the worst because he went against everything he stood for. He never pushed, never tried, never suffered for the sake of what he believed in. He just suffered without purpose. Sometimes on purpose. He had no reason for living, nothing to belong to, and nothing to strive for.
This is why he was considered the "Worst" Wolverine.
And this is why, at the climax of the movie, Wade called him the "Best" Wolverine.
Because Logan was no longer aimlessly floating without a purpose. He stopped running away from his problems and feelings. He looked Cassandra dead in the eye as she offered him the "easy way out" that he'd always taken before and refused it. He laughed as Wade captured her even if it took away his only chance to silence the voices in his head because he no longer wanted that.
He didn't want to keep living in the past, he wanted to finally fucking fight for something. For his future. (He wanted to finally fight not just because he had no other option. Not just needless violence. Not just because he didn't know anything else. But because he had a purpose. Something that he wanted and that he'd try to pursue.
He finally found a purpose. Something to believe in. Something he'd fight for. Live for. Die for. So when he finally was willing to sacrifice himself, even if he didn't, he achieved the crux of what "Wolverine" is meant to be. Someone willing to do and endure anything to protect what he cares about. Someone willing to do the impossible to reach his goal. Someone willing to die for his family.
Wade helped him become the "Best" Wolverine because he gave him what he'd always been looking for: a home.
I think something that should be added is just who he killed after the X-Men were killed
He directly states he didn't just kill the guilty parties he killed innocence as well. I think that's a major factor but makes him the worst because not only did he push away the people that cared about him. And that led to the issues but as a result the berserker rage killed innocence we don't know how many.
Who knows who they could have been men, women, children we don't know. But innocence died because he couldn't get over himself and it was his own character flaw that caused these deaths along with pure instinct which he could not be helped for. But he might have been able to learn that kind of control if he were to be a part of the X-Men. I think it's extremely nuanced and I think it has multiple reasons as to what he ends up getting the worst one.
That's definitely part of it, too. Not only did Logan let the X-men die, but he forever stained their reputation and legacy in the eyes of the public when he went on a rampage. More than that, he betrayed his own morals and killed people who didn't deserve it.
Wolverine has killed bad people before, of course. In other universes, he's even killed not-bad people out of necessity. On accident. But in this universe, it isn't an accident or out of necessity. He chose to betray his own principles and run away from his feelings by indulging in violence.
And this returns to the theme of regret: he regrets everything he did because he never did anything that he wanted to. He regrets everything so much but can never seem to break out of that cycle. Which is why he wants to be the one to sacrifice himself to the Time Ripper so that he can finally die for a worthy cause. So that he can. for the first time, do something he believes in. For the greater good. (For Wade.)
Oh and I want to add on a clarification that there's a reasoning the phrasing is "Worst" Wolverine and not "Evil" or "Villain" Wolverine. Because what makes a Wolverine the "Worst" isn't always their morality, but their mindset and action. A Wolverine being aggressive and sometimes an asshole is part of the package. Giving up on life to be docile and miserable isn't. He's not the worst of the Wolverines, but he's the Worst Wolverine.
Logan gets captured, some experiment shit, some Stryker type shit, unconscious and being pumped full of whatever chemicals keep him sedated and Logan learns from Laura later on that he didn’t make a single joke while they were breaking him out, didn’t speak if it wasn’t to communicate efficiently with her. Like the soldier everyone forgot he used to be. Wade slices a big bad in half on his way and doesn’t say a fucking word just walks past like he was swatting a fly.
Logan almost wouldn’t believe her if it wasn’t for the fact when he asks Wade about it, he just shrugs and says so deliberately casual it disconcerts Logan,
It's finally done!! I've been working on this for so long. I get easily flustered when I draw my favorite characters. I'm always afraid that the drawing isn't good enough or that I messed something up 😖
It's honestly embarrassing how much I love this man... and Bioshock in general. I have never finished the game all on my own. I was so scared to play that my sis played for me while i watched. I've since played it on my own multiple times, but I refuse to fight the final boss!
I'd love to draw more Bioshock fanart in the future. If there are any suggestions or requests, I'll gladly take them!! 🩵
"Do you miss the time when you used to do no harm?"
Old habits.
Merc behaviour is based on a nice little comment @up-in-flames-writing left on one of my comics :)
Rambling and more silly drawings below.
Loosely based on the Solemn Vow's public blurb:
Art lovers will cherish the bust of Hippocrates, commemorating a time when the Medic still thought doing no harm was a good idea.
I am absolutely convinced that Medic carries dextrose drops with him. German pharmacies throw these after you when you buy anything at all. I went to check if this one specific brand I know of had been around since the 60s and 70s and yes, it was.
Small acts of kindness I can see Medic doing is giving everyone one of these if they are tired. I'm talking about Engineer mostly.
Or they snack on them when solving practical problems together, like during the teleporter bread tumor incident.
I love how Worst Wolverine becomes insanely attached to Wade almost immediately.
Worstie meets this guy at a bar and his first instinct is to poke him on the head and chug till he passes out, which ultimately leads to him getting kidnapped.
Worstie then never leaves this guy’s side despite repeatedly calling the guy annoying and a liar. Like he really had every opportunity to just abandon him, but didn’t.
Worstie realizes that this guy is literally all he has and that it would actually hurt if anything happened to him.
This guy is the only person who has given a crap about Worstie in probably several years, and the thought of losing him makes Worstie “break down a big heavy door and scream his name” levels of angry.
Worstie’s so insanely attached that, in a Madonna-induced emotional flashback, Worstie’s memories seem to only go as far back as he’s known this dude. This guy really gave Worstie his first sense of purpose in the longest time, and he’s literally all that matters to him. This dude has become Worstie’s entire universe.
hi welcome back to leanne rewatches deadpool & wolverine and goes insane about every single detail in this movie. in this edition: how logan's clothes reflect the trajectory of his character
1. the suit—inside
so we start off with the scene in the bar where logan appears to be wearing what we're used to seeing him wear. flannels, leather jackets. his outfit and even the setting is not at all unfamiliar for him. but, as we later find out, he was wearing the suit underneath all those layers the whole time.
during his talk with laura, he reveals that he wears the suit to remember those he'd lost, and as a reminder of what he'd done. he's had the suit on permanently for god knows how long, hidden under his clothes. at this point he bears the suit like a cross, suffering in silence under the guise of normalcy, yet sacrificing what's left of his identity by reducing himself to what the suit represents; by taking all the jabs and nasty looks people throw at him that he thinks he's too deserving of to combat.
2. the suit—outside
after wade pulls him out, he has the suit on display for quite a while. on one hand, it shows the fight that's in him now as a contrast to his passivity in his own world. on the other hand, it's also a sort of vulnerability: what that suit stands for and by extension what he himself is is now laid bare to the world. out in the open for people to question. maybe that fight that's in him now stems precisely from this vulnerability.
this vulnerability is both good and bad for him: it causes him to lash out at the questions from wade that he's not ready to answer. it also leads him to open up to laura and finally speak about what happened—who knows if he's ever said any of it out loud before. fun! even with just the suit, we're already seeing some development.
and THIS is where it gets interesting.
3. the white shirt—his mind
the first time we truly see him without the suit is when cassandra nova looks into his mind. i've been going back and forth on whether this is logan's own manifestation of himself or if it's cassandra's, and i still don't know. i think the distinction does matter, but in the end what it conveys is the same.
firstly, another layer of vulnerability again. he's already on his knees for cassandra, submissive—now in his mind he's also stripped as bare as he can be (i think we all know white shirts can sometimes leave little to the imagination). cassandra looks at him and says "you're hiding ... from all the ones you let down." how interesting is that?? if we go all the way back to the first scene, he hides his suit under normal clothes. and he hides this version of him in his mind even further underneath all of that.
secondly and as an extension of that point, white symbolises purity. cleanliness. even a promise of new beginnings. let's tackle this from the two possible perspectives.
if this is logan's manifestation of himself, it would be so intriguing that this is how he appears. maybe it means that despite it all, there's some good in him. maybe it means that deep, deep down, past all the shame and the guilt and the grief, there's still a part of his mind where he can just be.
on the other hand, the white could also symbolise a second chance—like i said, a promise of new beginnings. i made a post about this scene here, but the basic point is that cassandra is offering him something that no one else may ever be able to offer him. a chance to fully be himself, to silence the voices. the white is such a stunning visual representation of what she is saying logan could be if he stays with her. which makes it even more poignant that he doesn't.
4. the time ripper
after this scene, he's in the suit again, necessarily. but then! BUT THEN!!!!! the time ripper!!! y'all need to understand the significance of this scene in all its nuances FR! here you can look at his abs again:
but the thing is we know by now what the suit represents. all his failures, all his guilt, his inability to let go of his past. it represents him. isn't it just so fitting that it's at this point where he saves the fucking world that the suit breaks away. it breaks away from him. he's free. this not the same as him just taking it off, because with it breaking into pieces he literally cannot wear it anymore. this is not just a hugh jackman body appreciation, this is logan finally moving on. this is him realising that he is not a failure, that he is not his failures, that he has something else to live for.
5. him
and oh my god, we finally make it to the extremely satisfying ending. after all of that, we finally come full circle. he's in his normal clothes again, the wife beater and the flannel, except this time without anything underneath. he's no longer defined by that one incident, defined by his mistakes and the people he let down. he is just him.
I recently read an article about a therapy group for depressed people who had all attempted suicide at some point. The breakthrough question for them was, “If your goal was to be just as miserable as possible, what would you do?” Most of them listed things like not getting enough sleep, or isolating themselves from everyone… the list goes on, but the point is, they listed things they already do. But now they saw those “coping mechanisms” for what they really were: things that were actively making their condition worse.
I read that article at 2:00 AM, asked myself, am I TRYING to be miserable tomorrow? And it was easier than usual to put my phone down and fall asleep. Even my intrusive “lying down” thoughts about meaninglessness and existential dread were easier to suppress when I framed them as things I’d think about to purposefully make myself feel as awful as possible.
there is a very real tendency of teenagers with anxiety disorders self diagnosing with considerably more stigmatized and impairing mental illnesses (e.g. schizophrenia, DID, personality disorders), but the best response to that isn't to get angry with them for "appropriating" lol. instead you show them coping resources for the problems they're actually having and deemphasize diagnostic categories in general. if an 18 year old is claiming to have alzheimer's, they're probably making an innocent mistake and are in genuine distress. be kind.
Also I think this trend comes, at least in part, from how brushed aside anxiety disorders can be. If your parents and teachers dismiss you with 'oh everyone feels anxious', then inevitably you're going to start thinking that there must be something else going on with you
”You must feel very scared right now; let’s talk about how to help you personally, tailored to your symptoms” will always be more helpful than “stop faking (X) for attention”. If theyre that desperate for attention or an explanation, something is wrong.
In my first college Psychology class, on the very first week, we did an overview to give us a rough look at all the various disorders outlined by the DSM.
While we were reading the diagnostic criteria, a lot of us - about two thirds of the class - started getting nervous. "Hey, uh, so this kinda sounds like what I'm going through right now" kinds of nervous. "Am I manic-depressive and don't know it?" "Wait, do I have agoraphobia." "I think I actually disassociate sometimes, is this normal?"
"It is normal, actually," the teacher explained. "Because you are young and just starting to dip your toes into the world and find where you fit into it."
Then she showed us interviews. Patients who agreed to be filmed for teaching purposes. Students could see firsthand what a person who was "quintessentially" diagnosed with anxiety/depression/bipolar/etc would look like face-to-face. She encouraged us to look at the details that stood out. How the manic-depressive person's hands shook as he talked. How the person who disassociated often answered the same question several times after it had been asked, not registering new ones. How the megalomanic guy did not just think about dumping his entire life savings to open his restaurant chain that would immediately crash and burn - he did it! A mere two days after the thought occurred to him!
Immediately after seeing these extremes, most of us were able to go "Oh okay, that's not me. I get it now."
Because the interviews were meant to give us a framework to maneuver in. We were young. Up until then, we only had ourselves and our family and small social circles to compare ourselves to. Yes, perhaps you are the most anxious person in your friend group - but in the grand scheme of things, your symptoms are actually pretty mild. Maybe you are depressed, a bit. Maybe you do have ups and downs that you should learn to control. But it is not yet a disorder.
"95% of the things in the DSM," she explained, "Are things our brains already do. Everyone gets sad - but it is not clinical depression unless it sticks for 6 weeks or more. Everyone has ups and downs - this is not Manic Depressive until the shifts are so dramatic, they start to uproot your life. Everyone--everyone! Hallucinates! It's just that most people do so while they're asleep!"
It's not a disorder until the issue happens too much, or too little, or at the wrong times.
But that leads to a problem; you don't know how bad (or average, or benign!) your own symptoms are until you've seen the far goalposts. You can only judge by what you've experienced.
So if someone has, let's say, memory problems. Genuine Memory Problems. They forget their homework. They forget events. They don't buy birthday presents for people they love, even when their self-proclaimed "soooo adhd, lol" friend remembers these things just fine - Something Is Wrong. It's impacting their life. And no one will listen, because, 'oh everyone forgets stuff sometimes' and 'if you just tried harder...' But they are trying hard! They still can't. And, gosh, if the adhd person remembers, and you don't, you must have something worse, right? Like something chronic? Like Alzheimer's?
--this is how things get blown out of proportion. Because someone is having issues in their life that no one else seems to be struggling with, symptoms that aren't being addressed.
"The DSM," my teacher explained, "Is not a checklist. It is a guideline. Your job as therapists, should you choose to go into that profession, is to narrow in on how egregious the symptoms are and how they are impacting the patient, to help them improve their quality of life. Not to slap on a label and shoo them off, but to give them tools to cope."
So if someone is expressing "I think I might have this problem"--they probably do, if not to that severe extent. You don't nod and accept their self diagnosis, but you don't brush it off, either.
Because you might've noticed that I've been saying "most of us." "Most of us in the class realized 'that's not me'." "Most of us were able to brush it off."
Because after the interviews, one of our classmates walked out mid-class and later dropped the course. She came to the teacher later and explained that one of the interviewees was just like her dad--and like herself. Like looking into a mirror onscreen.
She'd always known something was wrong - her life was a mess - but every time she explained, the people in her life told her it was normal. She got interested in Psychology to understand herself and the people around her. She suspected she had some sort of disorder. And wouldn't you know it? When her friends said "Everyone overspends sometimes", they meant Yeah, I impulse bought that $80 purse, and not, Yeah, I dropped $1000 in an afternoon and then felt like shit the day after. When strangers told her "Everyone has problems with breakups", they were envisioning eating tubs of ice cream alone--not smashing all their belongings in a rage and then crashing in bed for a week. But her father was undiagnosed. Her mother, too. Everyone in her family had extreme mood problems. That was her normal. She had no frame of reference; she just knew something was wrong.
The whole class felt that same concern when reading the DSM, the long list of relatable symptoms. But until we were given some examples and the tools to interrogate it - the space to ask questions - we didn't know whether those concerns held weight. For some of us, it was overblown. For some of us, it wasn't.
As far as I know, she didn't have the exact same issue as the interviewee that she saw, (there are a lot of mood disorders) but it provided a solid place to start. She dropped out and got therapy and was able to eventually obtain some stability in her life.
The Human condition is a spectrum. Maybe someone doesn't know exactly where they sit on that spectrum, and that's okay. We as humans kinda suck at relating our own experiences to others sometimes. You've gotta start somewhere, and often that means asking dumb questions or making incorrect comparisons or clumsily asking for help.
Because you are young and just starting to dip your toes into the world and find where you fit into it. It's normal to wonder.
