#query me

[j-unos]

HYB WHATS THE YUSUF SUPERMAN AGENDA??!

yusuf superman nicky lois lane!! layers on layers on layers! save the world on every front you can. and @lgbtmazight planted the notion in my head of this also being in the 70s so i’m picturing nicky via luca as primo and really going through something terrible

[j-unos]

this is not a coherent thought but re: the superman au something something clark originally being modeled after the jewish experience something something yusuf being muslim something something the minority experience etc.

i love this and think it’s the most natural and compelling parallel !!! here is how the last son of krypton is raised in tunis by a professor and a botanist. his father comes home from france and his expensive education because of the war but he stays and meets his wife encoding messages in dim rooms and they find that their grandmothers were born to the same mountains overlooking jendouba, then called souk el arba, and it feels like a string tugging them both, that they were meant to be here. doesn’t it feel like fate, when they find a child who needs them, fallen from the sky 

give me superman who comes of age with independence and a radical reshaping of the world, and his parents are his heroes but he takes to sleeping in their bed and trying to cover them because he understands that he can’t be hurt, and they can. this is his understanding of power, and what he chooses to do with it - what is the difference between terrorists like le main rouge throwing history off its course and not? an indestructible man, maybe. in the right place, at the right time

this is rambling all over but the vision is very much of yusuf who travels and travels more trying to understand the world and forces that move so often unseen, trying to decide how he can use his power, which is so vast it frightens him. he could hurt people. he could kill people. and in all his life yusuf has never wanted to hurt anyone. but he is deliberate, in where he chooses to go. he is barely a man, they think he is eighteen or so they count his birthdays, it is 1961 it is 1962 and what he hears from paris is all nightmares. he thinks again what a difference, one person could make. if he knew where he was needed

STILL rambling sorry the point is. his parents give shelter and food to rebels and writers and what does yusuf have to give? himself. the helpless people, al mustadafin, to yusuf this is the whole of the human race when compared to himself. he is the alm and the world is an open hand in need. so yes, yes, it is 1975 and he is in paris and he is everywhere and his parents are on a little farm in cheptainville under false names because they can’t go back to tunis after what happened when yusuf was nineteen, when saving lives was more important than concealing what he is (a gift, his mother says, you were always a gift). whenever he sees them there is a single mother using the spare room with her kids or broke students in the barn and it is home, it’s home

still still rambling anyway yes muslim superman 1970s interventionist history rights!! 

[j-unos]

ideal justice league casting, go

how do i remember so many things about actors until asked and then i’m (humming silence) i have basically repressed all memory of the justice league movie so we’ll go with the lineup that lives in my head rent free

superman — MARWAN KENZARI. i will not apologize for being on the nose we simply know this to be true!! the intersection of selfless strength and vulnerability, the face that could be watching a small blue world from a distance and exude compassion without a word

batman — luke evans. my ideal casting my silly rules, anyone who can nail gaston would give us the over the top brucie content we have been starved for and then, well he’s welsh, he can project grief and despair and doubt in bruce’s stony silences. yes i am thinking of the episode where he has to sing for circe and man can luke evans ever belt it

wonder woman — tonia sotiropoulou. i am a dumb lesbian and i never forget a bond girl (she’s in the beginning of skyfall). my wonder woman checklist is reasonably short! be greek, have glossy princess hair, and a resting expression of such composure and dignity that you could stop a person in their tracks at twenty paces 

the flash - chris pang! admittedly barry is always the flash to me, but wally as well - especially in this incarnation - you need the energy of a Good Dude, the flash who picks his rogues up from the bar and asks after their kids, who has impeccable comedic timing and well let’s be honest a body that won’t quit, that metabolism 

green lantern - trevante rhodes!! few things get me like big men who can just project unfathomable gentleness, which i think you need to offset the ring of power intensity. presence! warm humor! latter canon wants john to be a marine but i’m sticking with john the architect, thank you, he has a lake house and cable knit sweaters and glasses and is exasperated at this space alien intrusion. bruce is just grateful not to be dealing with hal jordan instead 

hawkgirl - jessica chastain. i am simple. i am a clown. i want her to lovingly bludgeon me to death with her strong jaw

martian manhunter - keith david is six foot two and an orator by way of julliard, i can’t even keep up with all his voice acting credits but he was goliath on gargoyles! and has made smaller appearances in tons of dc cartoons but the point is the rest of the world stops when he speaks 

BONUS

green arrow - matthias schoenaerts. how can i unsee this now. the real oliver queen (she says bitterly) there needs to be something wry and cantankerous and charming all at once he should seem like a grumpy old man even when he’s young. no comment on matthias being a tank none at all

aquaman - not so prominent in the cartoon but jason momoa is already perfect. wouldn’t change a thing he’s a delight please be in every movie ever

booster gold: chris pine. what more is there to say.

blue beetle: fawad khan is objectively a little too handsome but beetle is this mix of - mad professor energy and little boy excitement, booster & beetle are all about nonsense and joy! ted is way too smart to let himself be roped into these schemes and half-baked plans but he’s having the time of his life with his best friend. besides ted needs an “i would trust you with my life” vibe

[j-unos]

pretend i'm anon, what are the dream nile outfits carefully stored in booker's closet?

wonderful question mystery anon, as we know some of her most beloved and impractical clothes live at booker’s flat, things with sentimental value. it’s always a treat, isn’t it, to come to paris and compartmentalize a little while. no guns or drowning or the wet crunch of bone breaking. she goes dancing, sebastien cooks risotto and pieds paquets (don’t tell me what’s in this, nile warns, but there’s a dizzy fondness to it. knowing book will begin cooking the night before, read in the kitchen while his dish cooks seven hours)

but the clothes! all about escapism, delicate things, princess dresses. nile likes shoes she can run in or a sturdy pair of boots, never considered herself a “girly girl” when she was little. but she has forever now, to be many contradictory things  

(edit: why is my first paragraph now appearing in your ask? wish i knew ❤️)

[j-unos]

nile was too busy trying not to look at his guts sewing themselves back together in goussainville to notice anything about what kind of a tank this man is. and like SAME. but good grief

nile had much more pressing issues!! and booker was in rough shape on Many Levels but give those two time to really regard each other and i think they'll go up like a box of matches eventually. i am haunted by that post about booker watching nile in goussainville and experiencing that dizzy wonder, in the midst of all the guilt and misery - if andy had quynh and joe had nicky then maybe he wasn't meant to be alone, was that possible -- and eventually nile has the same thought, like a thunderclap. her hand flies up to her throat like the first time she died and booker turns from the stove at her inhale with a questioning look, that touch of concern.

and she says i'm fine - it's nothing. but you can't unthink that sort of thing!!

[j-unos]

*timidly approaches* Booker said he felt Nile die and was rubbing his throat raw in the train. c o n n e c t e d

all about the narrative!! connection and kinship where it is least expected (anyway here's wonderwall) meeting the person who could change your life when you're in the middle of burning it down! you meet a man and within a day he's betrayed you and the people who love him most so why do you feel like you can trust him, why do you keep reaching out

[j-unos]

i would like you to know that the tags "#david beckham house husband #we will return him to his himbo state as nature intended and he will flourish" killed me on the spot and now i am... intrigued (book of nile isn't even my thing, how did i get here????)

THANK YOU david beckham house husband was the beginning of the end for me as well !! i will always suss out a himbo in fandom but i didn’t recognize booker straight away, now i see he is just inception eames with depression. i think tog really gives us the luxury of the long view. just as nicky and joe found their soulmates in the worst imaginable circumstances, so nile and booker don’t - they don’t fit together right out of the box. the narrative leaves them room to grow and nourish each other, and this comes back to “love is a choice” as a theme. wanting to be better for someone, wanting to be part of their happiness. so it doesn’t feel like saddling nile with this mess of a man so much as a companion, a refuge from all the best and worst this immortal life will throw at her. 

as jester would say booker is just meant to be out here, sipping his Loving My Wife juice. nile suddenly - there’s no one else she can really confide in outside the team, or copley. she can’t share what she is, her fear, her doubts, her grief. and i think booker can offer the sort of support that is - not saying it will get better, because he can’t promise that, but just being with her when things are bad so she can find her own way

and lizard brain says. pretty people. she’s five nine and looks like a painting he’s six foot of rakish tank imagine the envious glances when they’re arm in arm, when they go dancing! 

[j-unos]

omg i have been secretly loving the concept of booker/nile for daaays and the fact that there are people who love it in the same form and way? GOLD!!!!!

book of nile!! wait until we have shirts

truly though, one of my favorite concepts introduced in tog is that of using the time given to be Better. the whole growth arc we glimpse for nicky alone! and i love the idea of having that narrative space, that patience, both for nile to grow into her own power and make meaningful choices about what force for change she wants to be in the world, and for booker to earn his redemption.

and in between, the banter they could have, the wry companionship and acceptance. maybe nile does challenge him to be better, but it's up to booker to answer it. maybe even nile, like a candle flame, sometimes wavers when faced with the enormity of the world and all the people beyond help, the missions that fail, the friends they lose. and she has somewhere to go and rest in the quiet where her doubts don't make her feel unworthy.

after all, as booker reminds her (first when they are friends) with that crooked fondness, who would he be to judge her?