11. How long have you been a fan of twenty one pilots?
Not long, actually.
I first heard of them back when Blurryface came out (stumbled across a review of the album in a Focus on the Family Clubhouse article XD), and two years ago I made a friend who listens to their music, but I myself didn't start listening through their discography (starting, of course, with Blurryface, since I'd been curious about it for ten years) until this April/May.
13. Which album's colour scheme do you like the most?
I'd probably have to say Scaled and Icy. The washed-out colours (pink, which is watered-down red, which is the colour of the Bishops and stands for death-- but I've rambled about that before and I won't get too far into it now-- and blue, which (if we go back to the Blurryface tweets) stands for defeat-- and yellow, which stands for Torchbearer and the sun (Son) and fire and warmth and life and hope. Even here, it's still present, still alive and well) are pretty unique compared to the usual darker palettes.
I also just . . . like the way those three colours look together. XD
14. Is there a song that you skip regularly?
I'm not much of a song-skipper-- even if I don't like a certain song, I prefer to "earn" the songs that I do love. XD
I do find myself skipping Intentions more often than not, though-- it sort of spoils the taste Tally leaves in my mouth.
Yooo when you said that Dick felt (subconsciously) that Jason had been treated better by Bruce than he had, so he gave Gar and Rachel preferential treatment over Jason to make up for him being the ‘favourite,’ when actually Jason feels the total opposite, he feels that Dick is the favourite and that no matter where he goes he’s second-class 😱😱😱 that makes so much sense…
It's wild, because they never actually talked to each other about their experiences with Bruce. They did, but they didn't.
That first episode with them together has so much juice omg.
Because it's clear that Jason idolizes Bruce so much - and by extension, idolizes Dick - and maybe Bruce did that 'older sibling' thing where he treated Dick like crap while he was taking care of Dick but now that Dick is out of the house and no longer under his care, he is spouting endless praise about Dick to Jason which makes Jason idolize Dick even further.
So when Jason comes to find Dick via the tracker (which, again, I don't think he had Bruce's approval to do so, I think he fully lied about that) - he has this picture of a very shiny perfect Dick built up in his mind - someone who got along with Bruce so well because Bruce praises him so much and only hand-picks the happiest, prettiest stories to tell. (And if Dick could be a fly on the wall and hear Bruce talking about Dick to Jason, going over certain stories/memories of things that happened between Dick and Bruce, Dick would probably recount those times a lot differently.)
So Dick tries his hardest to slash through this very happy shining idealistic imagery that Jason has of Bruce and Dick, and Jason probably just thinks that Dick is having a bad day, or that he's upset because of things that are happening in other areas of his life, etc. And ultimately the day ends with Jason pissed off at Dick because Jason is very confident that his life is fine - he is Robin, he kicks ass, he gets to work for Batman - his life is amazing. Dick is the insecure adult still wearing a child's costume and still stumbling to figure out his life.
Jason is confident that everything Dick has said about Bruce is wrong.
At this point, Jason has been working for Bruce for about a year. So he probably thinks that any mistreatment Bruce has done to him or any comparisons he has made to Dick (telling him that he's not as good as Dick's Robin was) - were because he was not good enough. When Jason was about to jump off the roof, he lists a long laundry list of issues he had - going back to childhood, going back to juvie. So Bruce would not have been the first adult figure in his life to tell him he's not good enough.
Actually (this is another realization I am just having as a type this) - if Jason had been training with Bruce for an entire year, hearing old war stories about Dick's Robin for an entire year, hearing Bruce compare him to an ideal (and probably fictional) version of Dick for an entire year - it's likely that Jason probably looked up Dick's tracker and sought him out in order to meet Dick so that he could ask him for advice/ask him for tips about being Robin and dealing with Bruce because he was sick of not being good enough. And he used the Melting Man case as an excuse to track Dick down and meet him - but he just wanted approval from Dick and eventually, praise from Bruce for learning from 'the best'.
But he didn't get what he was looking for.
Because Dick and Jason were both raised by a dysfunctional, emotionally closed off parent - but either of them ever spoke about it.
Something that really gets me is when Jason and Bruce are having that conversation in the alleyway, and Jason says "You never did this ('this' being - forcing him to retire from being Robin) to Dick. You just kept on giving him more, and more. What's so bad about me?"
One - Bruce never forced Dick to retire from being Robin, but he clearly regrets it
Two - Dick never retired from being Robin, but he had to escape to San Francisco and start up the Titans to feel relief from the emotional pressure that Bruce put on him
Three - Jason ends the statement with 'what's so bad about me?' - because he genuinely feels like he is The Bad sibling and Dick is The Good sibling, and he is constantly living in Dick's shadow, when Bruce fucked them both over in different ways, and Dick didn't start being a good person until he left Bruce's care and was able to correct the lack of emotional growth on his own (well into his 30s)
And yeah - it comes back to both of them thinking that the other got preferential treatment. Dick thinks that Jason was doted on and preferred as the second 'replacement' Robin, and so when Jason comes to stay at the Tower, he treats Jason tougher and dotes on Rachel and Gar (and like Gar said, it is partially because he murdered Gar under mind control and he is afraid to seem angry or seem like it was intentional - he is trying to 'apologize' for that, but it is also a subconscious or fully conscience grudge toward Jason).
It is wild to think about the fact that they never honestly talked about their experiences with Bruce with each other.
I literally always want to talk about Titans. Always
There is so much I could say about the costuming alone omg
One thing I absolutely fucking love about the show - specifically about S1 and S2 (and kind of into S3?) - is that each character really has their own distinct style. Each character is so, so well defined by their visual style and it helps add so much to their characterization just by looking at their clothing.
Even side characters like Hank and Dawn (and fuck, I love Hank and Dawn so much) - Dawn's clothing has so much feminine elegance.
I fucking love that Dawn is a character who absolutely reeks femininity without going down the route of styling her in the typical feminine way - and I am not at all bashing traditional femininity when I say this, I just fucking love how Dawn is an example of how femininity can be so obvious without having to use girly pinkness and bows and skirts. She is so clearly meant to be a hyper feminine girly character who loves her femininity, especially with the styling of the apartment that she shares with Hank, but her clothing really drives it home. Even before it's revealed that she was a feminine, light, ballet dancer, you can see it in what she wears - a flawless light blouse, clothes that are so perfectly tailored, light fabrics, everything so well fitted. Wearing heels that are of practical lengths but still making it a point to be flattering and elevated, wearing done-up hairstyles and having her hair brushed over one shoulder in a very princess way.
And I love how all of her clothing falls under the light grey/taupe/steel grey/steel blue palette of the Dove costume and they don't stray from that with her. The only time they do is when they are hinting at her wearing Hank's clothing - like when she wears the heavily oversized black and red letter jacket in 2x02 (that I think Hank was wearing in his college flashback? I think that jacket was literally his college football jacket if my memory serves me correctly)
Speaking of Hank - again, I love how he has his own colour pallet. They often stick to the brick reds, the warmer tones with him - they make his colours very warm and inviting even if his personality isn't always the most warm. But what I fucking love about his clothing is that right from his introduction - his clothing feels grounded. His clothing always feels very working class. He is almost always seen wearing jeans and some kind of flannel, the timerland 'worker' boots, a heavier practical jacket.
I fucking love how he and Dick contrast the two ends of men's low effort, 'casual' clothing. Dick is also seen wearing jeans throughout the show, but Dick's clothing is not at all working class or approachable - even if it's just small touches, like the expensive watch that he's almost always wearing, Dick's clothing is expensive. His jacket's are more tailored (and clearly made out of more expensive materials), he wears button up shirts that are made out of more expensive cotton - and rather than being casual flannels, he wears darker, more serious colours - his shoes are often more expensive and clearly not mean to be 'worked' in.
You can look at Dick and Hank and immediately recognise the wealth gap - the fact that Dick is comfortable with wealth, and Hank is comfortable with the working class and grew up in poverty.
Going back to the colour thing - something I LOOOOOOVE about S1 specifically is the fact that you can clearly see them borrowing each other's clothes. You can see the abrupt disruption in Rachel's black uniform because of the introduction of Dawn's soft grey sweater. Gar's lighter colours are broken up by the introduction of Dick's uniform-like militant grey. Toward the end of the season, Kory's colourful bright wardrobe is broken up by her borrowing Donna's effective purposeful black catsuit - and again, this goes back to my theory about Kory regain her memories but losing her identity, and how she leaned on Donna a lot during this time, and her wearing Donna's clothing immediately after entering this identity crisis to me feels like her using Donna as a safety net when she was in emotional turmoil.
Speaking of Dick's militant colours - in S1, DICK HAS AN OBSESSION WITH UNIFORMS. I was going to make a separate post about this but I accidentally deleted the draft lmao. He goes from wearing his detective uniform to wearing an outfit that is almost military-esque (the grey henley style shirt and the cargo pants) - an outfit that is clearly meant to be practical rather than express any personal style, but it inadvertently expresses a heap of emotions from him: he feels like he does not have an identity outside of who he was with Bruce.
When he talks about his time with Bruce to Kory, Gar, and Rachel - he calls it 'military training'. And it's clear that's what he thinks of it now - not a family, not a father figure - he thinks that he was being trained as a weapon, and now that his training is over, he doesn't know what to do with himself. So he puts on his uniform to go into work and be a detective, and when he's not doing that, he wears a uniform because he doesn't have a sense of self otherwise.
BUT in S2, when he feels more comfortable returning home to Bruce (after he's confronted his demons through the Trigon hallucinations), he is wearing a very nice outfit that is more representative of wealth. Likely something that Bruce would have dressed him in - and this is the kind of clothing we see him wearing for the rest of the show that seems a lot more indicative of his personal style through the rest of the show. As if he was previously afraid to gravitate toward this kind of style because he was afraid that he was becoming too much like Bruce, he was enjoying the wealth too much - that Bruce was never a true father to him because he 'paid' for Dick's affection (as we see in the flashback with the closet full of expensive clothing that is waiting for Dick when he arrives).
It's a very interesting thing to breakdown.
Anyway, that's all my brain has for now lmao. But I always loooooove talking about Titans and analysing it. Not just the costumes but any aspect of the whole show. This show is like - my house
(The Italians, the Chinese, and the Japanese might want to smack me for the atrocious things I make with noodles specifically, but that's another matter.)
27. Books or films?
Honestly, I have a lot of appreciation for both-- there are stories that you can tell with the one that you just can't tell with the other, and both take so much mastery and craftsmanship in ways that you wouldn't even anticipate from an outside perspective.
But then again, books are portable, highly varied in print and smell and experience of consumption and the imagination of the reader (even within different takes of the same book), and have been my first love since toddlerhood, so I suppose I'd have to go with them. XD
What’s your blog title from? It comes from The Last Battle in The Chronicles of Narnia, one of my all time favorite book series.
What movie have you watched most recently? What did you think of it? I rewatched The Shop Around the Corner a couple of days ago. It's a cute movie and the inspiration for You've Got Mail which I am watching at this very moment.
17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were? Hmm, I guess I'll say Attachments by Rainbow Rowell. I expected to like it, but I found myself surprisingly moved by the end of the story.
24. Did you DNF anything? Why? Yes. How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang. The story sounded interesting. It was about a couple of Chinese-American siblings in California during the Old West. "One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year" it claimed to be. But I didn't get far. The kids' abusive dad dies, and they travel around with his body putrefying in a chest, periodically dropping body parts. There was a lot of attention paid to genitalia. It was so gross and weird. I quit. All I can say is:
