#gideon ramble

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imagine john marston, who never knew his mother, who lost his father at a very young age, was nearly hanged before he hit puberty, got rescued by two outlaws and their adult son only to also become their son and form a brotherly bond so strong with arthur that it completely ruins his perception of john the moment he leaves newborn jack and abigail for an entire year, only for then to try and mend said relationships, succeed, then watch as his entire world as he knew it crumbles around him and the knife that dug deepest in his back was lodged in there by the man he tried and mold himself after for most of his adult life. imagine john marston who realizes too little and too late that the only person who was ever there unconditionally for him was abigail (through extension jack too), so he puts his life on the line for them on numerous occasions because life has been cruel to him since he was born and he’s aware of it, because he knows inherent goodness does not exist but he crawls and crawls and crawls out, with bloody hands and too many dead bodies clinging to him to try and preserve the innocence of his family. and imagine john marston, who rights his wrongs well into adulthood because he cannot fathom letting the people who killed his brother get away with it. and in his mind, it’s not revenge, it’s atonement. with dutch, the last memory of his old life dies, but with arthur dying, the life he starts living is a dying man’s last wish. and imagine john marston, who is cain, forever destined to leave abel behind, forever burdened with his death in one way or another, and in his eyes, you did wrong. imagine being arthur and john, a man and a boy, so connected, live out your last years together in a strained relationship of ‘i fear the life of an ordinary man might kill me so i run from its responsibilities’ john marston and ‘i loved so deeply and so painfully only to watch it all be taken away from me, yet still i give chase’ arthur morgan. it’s not envy, what arthur feels, nor is it anger. in the same way he says in the game “i was the prized pony once” it’s not said with scorn i think. it’s bittersweet.

if this means anything to anyone :,) one last thing arthur - abel, john - cain, hosea and dutch - adam and eve💔💔

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roy harper has been officially hit by the wfa beam💔💔 tell me why does he act like the titans are strangers to him (titans 2023) such an awful run for his character — as are, might i add, all the other comic runs he takes part in since what?? 2011, 2010? still jtodd’s fault

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creating imaginary arguments in my head of people slandering my favorite characters just so i have a reason to think about their feats and best traits hashtag insane

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‘oh jayroy doesn’t work’ ‘no, why do you want to limit roy to being only dick’s friend he can have other friends’ ‘dickroy shouldnt be a rarepair’ ‘its good that roy is part of the outlaws he should move on from the titans’ etc etc

how about you all keep my wife’s name out of your mouths and stop attaching him to ANY batfam characters. get out of your little bubble and start reading green arrow. atp i might just start hating on dick grayson too the way things are moving. this dickroy/jayroy discourse should be BLOWN out of the water by the superior ships mayhaps, which are jaderoy and roygarth. goodbye

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when the oliver queen antis kill me, bury me with this panel

(context — he writes a letter and leaves his most prized possessions in the whole wide world in case he dies again to roy. so yeah, keep telling yourselves he’s a bad dad👍🏼)

and yes, this comic is 20 yrs old, but guess WHAT!! HE DOES IT AGAIN IN GA2023. except more recently, he gives roy an entire ISLAND

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i don’t trust people who hate jazz. there, that’s my hot take of the YEAR.

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not to write a whole goddamn essay at 2 in the morning, but i genuinely believe that askeladd really got that whole ‘true warrior’ gimmick figured out wayyyy earlier than it’s explicitly stated in the show. there’s no other reason for him to keep thorfinn alive no matter how much you try to rationalize his choices. and yes, the show does make it look like thorfinn stuck with them through sheer will and hatred but… askeladd could always kill him. it would not be any extra effort for him to. murk thorfinn. sorry, sorry.

my point being, i think the first moment where askeladd is being shown to broach the dilemma that thorfinn is battling is when he tells atli to not pick up a sword ever again. that’s (my opinion) the first obvious point in the show, where the audience also has to process that statement with atli. because it cuts right back to thorfinn training. viciously so. guy fucks up a barrel with a kick and throws a look over his shoulder it’s a wonder askeladd’s face doesn’t melt right off.

and while the philosophy that ‘nobody has any enemies’ isn’t fully explored with thorfinn until season 2, it’s through askeladd that you see it applied in season 1. because truly, the freedom of choice COULD give askeladd the chance to NOT have enemies, but he actively seeks them out, better yet, creates his own enemies where previously he had none. on a more reduced scale, he explores themes of freedom and peace by showcasing what a lifetime of violence and rejection does to someone. he is repeating a cycle he has suffered through his whole life with the sole purpose of offering freedom to his mother’s homeland.

it’s where both thorfinn’s quest for freedom AND canute’s desire to know what love is tie into a single character’s plot. askeladd chooses violence and wages war in order to achieve freedom and peace for the sake of his mother, which he LOVES. it’s why it’s so misleading for thorfinn, who has known this man almost his entire life, to accept him talking in a similar way to his father about what all three have in common: the status of warrior.

askeladd drags thorfinn into his violence for more than a decade then forcefully pushes him out by DYING, but askeladd already knows (has known for a while) by that point what thors wanted to demonstrate in their duel when they met. it’s what he does for thorfinn basically; thrusts him in the same vulnerable position he was in when thors died. except this time, when askeladd is dying, thorfinn HAS to hate him. polar opposite experiences of helplessness, but thorfinn still wants for both of them to live. both thors and askeladd.

in season two, when thorfinn is scared of the fact that he doesn’t hate askeladd, it’s not because he should hate him still. it’s because he’s scared that askeladd’s death, just like his father’s, is in vain. except this time, he wasted 11 years of his life for an unfulfilling death. he doesn’t receive the realization of what a ‘true warrior’ is on a silver platter when askeladd dies. it’s just the apathy of not having a reason to live when previously he’s lived surrounded by men who lived for battle. he lives with the WRONG assumption that askeladd is cut from the same cloth as those guys when really, i genuinely believe that they both had an awakening when they met thors. it’s just that askeladd’s isn’t clearly showcased because of his status as an antagonist at that time

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roywally has been haunting me lately like a long lost lover, just imagining the amount of baggage and guilt they both carry for getting shoved into roles they couldn’t fulfill, remembering every single second of dying together and especially wally, who had to hold roy’s corpse in his arms and realize the fact that his life could not bring back his family so he has to face the futility of his actions physically, violently so. and it’s so telling that, in that moment, roy’s death was wally’s last straw.