#thebirdrambles

[fallenfeatherz]

May I introduce to you… Fastsales

Trent X Buddy’s worker (I call him just. Buddy.) AND NOW I WILL EXPLAIN MY RAREPAIR. So you see, in “Can I Get Uhhh… Sequel”, Trent’s car is seen pulling up to the establishment. Then in “Routine Stop” Trent has Buddy’s food in his car. Coincidence? I think NOT!

That is my ramble. I’ve already recruited two people into this ship. Hope there’s more who hear me out.

[a-wild-things-rambles]

so you know the lazurus pit rage? the annoyingly pervasive head-cannon.

i have a shot in the dark at one of the reasons.

people think bucky barnes return as the winter solider and jasons return as the red hood are similar.

now arnt they? no they are not. on the surface and at the bare bones maybe, dead sidekick returns and is antagonistic. and the idenitity being revealed.

like thats it. bucky barnes was brainwashed by the soviets and then red skull, once he was removed of the brainwashing, he was a solid ally. jason todd was trained by a force classically “opposed“ to batman, but was not brainwashed or even manipulated.

and also key: bucky barnes did not pose an ideological opposition to steve, no in the way jason did, bucky “came back wrong” as in he was brainwashed into a perversion of who he was, and used as a tool of the people he fought.

jason came back wrong as in, his death solidified the idea of brutal justice/the broken nature of the justice system,

they are both tragedys, but bucky comes back. scared, changed, but he goes back to the belifes he once held.

the tragedy is that jason cannot go back both him and bruce are changed by his death. they cannot go back to versions of themself who can love each other. and that is the tragedy.

so making it so Jason is out of control and can be fixed with hugs?? goes against that. it robs it of the tragedy, and the integrity of the characters. one of them will have to bend, to change, but they cannot, the story cant stay intact, so one of them ends up, off, weird.

jasons return is about the tragedy of trauma, and how it can change people, change them so much they can no longer love each other, how they had to become different people to deal with the trauma. and those people are strangers, haunted by who they once were to each other.

and thats a story i find fascinating.

not to mention that jasons boundrys are often trampled “for his own good” by bruce and the family, to get him back. congrats thats the worst possible thing to do. its still an allegory for trauma, but now its about how you should roll over and accept what happened to you and go back to who you once were to please your family, how you should kill the person who survived, to become the person before. ive read plenty of jason joins the family again fics. but these days? they sound like horror storys.they sound like nightmares.

but the mcu is pretty pervasive, and the comic storys pretty famous. so its easy to conflate the two under “dead sidekick who came back wrong”

[a-wild-things-rambles]

you know what yall get my discord rant about the yassified constantine ya thing. [<-is edits->]

I'm just speechless[spoiler: i find my voice p quick] on the whole yasstantine ya thing and by speechless I mean disappointed to the bone and very close to cussing the house down. Also the story is so shite? like he has a mum and is part of a magical lineage but in a weird not John way? Like there's a good post about how two panels show the massive difference between the two. Also? How can u wright John Constantine without his mum dying as he was born? Like it affects sooo mutch. It's like rebooting Spiderman and not killing uncle Ben. It's the catalyst of all catalysts.

Also I'm not saying John ain't pretty when he's young, because he's decent looking in the first hellblazers, but he's scruffy there, also he's[yasstantine] a poser. Like John ain't a poser. Idk how to explain it but making John pretty and airbrushed and ticktoc alt is fundamentaly opposed to who the actual charecter is. Like they look at all the reasons ppl like him and changed them. John is a queer northern man who had dealt massively with childhood trauma and abuse as well as poverty, and stripping him of that is something I wish I could be surprised about DC doing but given how DC are already trying to downplay and flatten him

(don't get me started on the king shark thing or the flirting w batman. John may not have self respect but he does have a burning hatred for the rich and batman is not an exeption and the "oh John's such a slut he even fuked a shark" fuck off.) Ok speechless was a lie ^ pissed of queer and punk Londoner who has to many opinions on John Constantine and to many fights they want to pick with dc.

John is an inherently political charecter and that's where he is best. And you can't strip him of his context as a British punk queer man who lived through the aids crisis and Thatcher and the coalminers strikes and section 28. But DC want to strip him of his politics and so put him in America. No! John's story is important and speaks of things the government want to ignore. Issue 3 of hellblazers cover was taking the piss out of Thatcher. Hellblazer isent just a comic its a comic that calls out the bull going on in the world, and sits you down and forces you to empathize with people, and to show how bigots are pathetic. I read hellblazer and I can point to the things my parents have told me about, and more. Hellblazer is political, hellblazer is important and hellblazer tells me my history. Hellblazer is about people that I could know, and the horrors I have to face. Idk how to say it but hellbazer and John Constantine are so important to me in a world where most English language media is American. Where you learn all about America. And we have alot less media telling it how it is. England has a massive issue with putting old horrors under the rug.

And it's hard to explain to some people that didn't grow up with the horrors, or there parents didn't warn them if the horrors they lived thru, about the council estates, about section 28, about the privatisation of the verge, about all the British issues shoved under the bloody carpet. I read hellblazer and it tells me that these horrors do exist, the wounds that scar us still do exist, but people survive and people are good. [note- by horrors i mean the real life horrors, that are either played straight or allgorised]

Also from a story point of view, disregarding context, disregarding charecter, John's story is so fuking British. "The Americans want someone to succeed where they haven't, the English want someone to fail where they have," is a p good summary of the difference between the two countries media [i am heavily generalizing the common trends of american vs british media please dont @ me w outliers] We [brits] like watching someone else go through the shitter like us, to show that were not alone. We don't get happy ending. We know. We like morally complex arseholes who make bad choices. We don't want superman. We want our gritty hope that we may not be happy, but we can make choices that matter. We want to see people like us suffer and be absolved and be punished. We want the truth that is glossed over. We want to know that life sucks, and we take delight in watching other people go through the shit we do. Witch is why u need a British writer, not just because of knowledge of the context, but because the story is fundamentally different to American stories.

… ok I have alot more feellings and opinions on that than I thought

Tldr I hate it but it's inline w DC's attempts to de politicize John and in doing so showing they fundamentally don't understand the character and why people like him, and then ruin him in an attempt to make him "popular" when at the core of his character he is at his best when he isent popular with everyone [john is a character that should piss large groups of people off, and hellblazer is a comic that should make large amounts of people uncomfortable, but dc want to remove the discomfort, and defang the comic and character, selling out john. no the irony isent lost on me]

[a-wild-things-rambles]

some thoughts on the original authority run, queercoding and midpollo, tad disjointed

The authority is an action comic. Dialogue is sharp and bitchy, you have to look further than what their saying, Apollo and Midnighters sheer common proximity, if their not speaking their probably standing next to each other should speak for themselves.

Some people consider issue 8 of the authority to be the canonization of their relationship, Apollo's kiss on Midnighters cheek, after an argument over whether Apollo can recharge in time not to die, is where you finally cannot say "their just guy friends" it's a powerful few pages, and mirrors a common trope if relationships, the "don't do this you will die/ i'll manage love, have faith" Additionaly a few pages prior, Midnighter is cradling an unconscious Apollo, eyes closed, the most calm and at peace he gets.

If that isent enough, they embrace at the end of the issue, and jack promptly tells them to "get a room", they still hold hands while side hugging.

The subtext is heavy even before this, even in the 3 issues in stormwatch where they debut.

Modern readers, now cynical of queer baiting, may accuse the authority of such, but it's made clear that although they didn't get to kiss each other on the lips, they are a couple. This is reinforced by usage of common romance tropes, as said above, as well as sheer constant physical proximity. Midnighter and Apollos relationship in the authority is queer codeing, very heavy queer codeing.

Several charecters make jokes hinting at it, and they are pleasantly respectful, oh their not nice, but this is the authority.

Examples are: "get a room, you two" "who wants to be Bert and who wants to be ernie" "and where's the dynamic duo" "you see that? The Midnighter actually spoke to someone who wasent Apollo or you" "I don't know what you see in him. I really don't"

Not to mention their own dialogue, the epitome of bickering married couple "Shut up you wine like an old woman" "he never ceases to amaze me. Or irritate me"

[a-wild-things-rambles]

ok so im making this post of mine about losing home = losing innocence/trust in the home about Jason.

so jason lost his innocence and trust in home very young, but he refound it with bruce- he cant go back to cathrine and Willis before the violence and drugs, but he rebiult home with bruce- jason refound his innocence. but, he started quesioning bruce and batman, and then he ran off to find his mother

so jason lost home, and then found it, so he could have thought that he could rebuild again with his bio mother as the cracks were getting dangerously big in his current home(w bruce)

but jason dies, and when he returns- the home is a house, it has changed (everything has changed) bruce is no longer his dad, the house is no longer his home (literally, the house was damaged in the earthquake and partial rebuilt im p sure)

so everything is different, and he cant go home.

bruce wants jason to go back home, but by bruce wanting jason to go back to thinking of the manor as home, that means he wants for jason to regain the innocence, bruce is rejecting jasons loss of innocence, and rejecting who he became.

bruce thinks that jason can regain his innocence(like he did when first at the manor) but thats also why he lost jason, jason shoving down everything lead to garzonas and the loss of home, but i dont think bruce realizes that, so hes still pushing for something he thinks will work, but wont, and even if it did, would be doomed to end badly.

and jason is so hurt from the ending of trying to make another home, that he may not be able to again, jason may not want to make himself vulnerable again, because he thinks that any good things/ homes/ family end in tragedy(willis and cathrine, bruce, sheila)

so its all a tragedy, because there is no good end, and neither can become who the other wants them to be,

[a-wild-things-rambles]

I totally get what you're saying when you're talking about dc flattening constantines character, like as a queer northerner who found hellblazer at a time I was really getting into politics, it was really important to me to see British politics and issues being discussed that way. The whole thing with the hippies in Jamie Delanos run really reminded me of the stuff my parents used to do and I don't think I've found that anywhere else. And the whole thing with ravenscar still rings true to how the mental health services in Britain are at the moment. The whole magic system was pretty interesting too and took a lot of occult concepts you don't really see in pop culture and to see that all flattened into an Americanized "generic flirty wizard" in recent years has really been pissing me off for a good while now

exactly!! yea the hippie stuff also really resonated with me, and its why i love hellblazer, my parents were part of that community.

and thats why hellblazer is important to me- it covers english alternative history of the 20th century! john lives and interacts with all these people that dont get their storys told. hell when i read john constatine: hellblazer one of the thing that cemented it as having the true hellblazer spirit was bring up and talking about windrush. hellblazer is best when either confronting the current issues, or how old buried issues still affect us.

and ravenscar and the british mental health system... yet another example of the hellblazer covering important issues that unfortunately still ring true!

and im glad im not alone in getting pissed of at the americanisation- and you've really hit the nail on the head there.

[a-wild-things-rambles]

sense of alienation from your ‘home’ vs the fact you never had a house that counted as home

something about home being a place you can never go back to, but its not just a physical location.

home is, in my mind, the state of mind you were in as a child. the state of mind before you ran away, be that at 8 or 18, home ends when you first question it, and from then on, no matter how much you stay within those walls it is still not home.

home is a combination of sounds, places, people and sensations.

but innocence is the thing you need. without it, with the knowledge that the wall are rotting, and there are skeletons under the floorboards, you can never go back.

you lose home when you leave it, its why so many people lose it by going on a journey, escaping the home “when your in a burning house, you think the whole worlds on fire” you leave the home and realize the world is not on fire. and you can never return. it will only ever be a house now. the flames no longer comfort you. they just show how different you are.

if home was a physical place, it would be easy. nothing is ever easy for a child of the flames.

[a-wild-things-rambles]

brutalia......... hrgnn

thee divorcees..

the thing with them is they look back, but they cant go back

a song i love, the fools song, has the lyrics “so you set off on some old road, but your wearing your new shoes, and its not long before your feet start to ache”  and it applies to bruce and talia so much, you cant go back, and even if you try to, it will hurt. talia looks back, but knows that it will hurt to walk back (she cant lose the independence lex-corp gives her) and bruce tries to walk back but cant (he and talia have both changed to much)

something something you made each other into the people that can no longer love each other... the tragedy is that they both love each other for who they were, and cannot love each other for who they are now.

its that bittersweet love from your youth, that you will never quite stop loving, but it will never work now, for you are grown, but you still comfort/tourcher yourself with those memories. and their face still makes you remember.

its two people who love each other but in some ways the love is to strong for them to be together... the love is foundation to them in many ways, buts to fundamental, maybe they could try and make it work, but it would require the stripping away of everything after.....

hngrnnn i have to maany feeling about them for it to be coherent..