At what point do the viewers start thinking Jess' videos are staged and what do the lanterns do about it
hello! excellent question
it's pretty early on, actually, as the audience becomes increasingly confused and suspicious of the fact that hal never knows what's going on.
this man is so horribly out of date with current affairs that he's genuinely shocked when jess tells him obama is no longer president and hasn't been in years. the theories come in from the viewers: confusion, brain damage, early onset dementia.
or maybe, just maybe, he's faking it.
part of the draw around hal is that he's very out of touch on internet things. this is thought to be because he's older but that's not quite it. hal just doesn't spend enough time on earth to ever bother to know what's going on and even though he's staying on earth a lot more these days, he's not the type to actively research the president.
there's other stuff too. it's entirely unbelievable that jess casually knows two green lanterns and everyone else there is a complete enigma and also really fucking weird. hal also seems a little too clueless at times while doing certain things and trends that are particularly connected to pop culture (he barely knows who taylor swift is, someone help him)
it gets to a point where jess is facing outright accusations of faking everything and things kinda do spiral. she doesn't tell hal (lord knows the pta meets do enough damage to this man's blood pressure already) but she does tell the others.
kyle suggests some kind of qna. jess vetoes that because hal probably wouldn't want to. jo says to maybe do some kind of challenge to distract? jess considers that but it's a fat maybe. simon kinda just grumbles that there's really nothing they can do because anything could be edited on the internet and they'd never have the trust of the masses. no one could ever get how weird hal is in person. jess's eyes light up.
the next dozen videos are all just to showcase how fucking odd this man is. he eats a spoonful of cinnamon with a straight face. hal even turns to jess and asks if she's got more (she doesn't give him any). he does the ice bucket challenge. hal barely flinches. the internet learns that hal jordan cannot do the worm but can toss jess and kyle into the air like a cheerleader effortlessly. his favourite movie is top gun and he doesn't know there's a sequel until jess tells him on camera (he then spends two minutes frantically googling before bolting out of the room to ask john if they have it on streaming). he can fly jets. he watched his dad burn to death (this garners a lot of alarm over the internet and gets zero follow up from jess). he dated a ceo. he has no clue what queer labels are but is 'auntie hal' just as much as he's 'uncle hal'. he's (allegedly) married to a man (no one knows to who and it's driving them nuts).
the point is, hal jordan is a wholeass enigma so who cares if he doesn't know who the damn president is?
the internet drop the entire thing pretty quickly. the lanterns become uber famous shortly afterwards and no one ever gets any answers ever. jess comes out on top as she always will.
There’s been a lot of discussion about the “fuck Batman” line in the Titans trailer so I thought I’d put in my two cents.
There was a lot of anger between Dick and Bruce when they split up, so it is valid that he would say “fuck Batman” if it were in that time period, however he is still in a robin costume which complicates things in whether he is still working with Bruce or not.
This Dick seems to be in his early twenties and part of the police force, all of which he did while Tim was robin, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to be in the robin costume, he should be Nightwing. If this is the time period they are based in the “fuck Batman” line isn’t valid as they’ve figured most of their issues out at this point (or at least what passes for it with those two).
TL;DR: For the line to be valid Dick shouldn’t be wearing the robin costume, he should be wearing discowing
what gets me about the green lantern corps is that—in addition to being a space fascist nightmare that deforms individuals into agents of its unflinching doctrine and sublimates goodwill into reverence for the law—it's also just really fucking stupid. before critiquing any minutiae aspect of its conduct you have to understand that the glc operates based on a very rudimentary hierarchy of brute force. for all of the guardian's posturing, the only thing justifying their authority as the in-universe law enforcement hegemon is their possession of the most powerful weapon in the universe. and every major appearance of the guardians since the bronze age has demonstrated how utterly out of touch they are. it's not wisdom or even competence keeping the corps in charge, it's the goddamn power ring. the green lantern code of conduct is literally only relevant because the consequence of disobedience is lack of access to the all-powerful weapon, and even then that all depends on the guardians ability to enforce it. the whole institution is fucked as soon as someone (parallax, sinestro, krona, literally anyone, etc) with more material power challenges it—and the guardians know it. which is why they're primarily preoccupied with micromanaging the lanterns' conduct and only personally appear to combat "evil" when it threatens the sanctity of the institution (read: their authority). the yellow weakness only exists as a safeguard against potential abuse!! but like breeds like. what the corps' indoctrination ironically creates is the perfect conditions for developing authoritarian ideology. thus the respective "falls" of its greatest agents are not aberrations but a product of its design—refer to this post by @dctrfate. any difference of intent becomes irrelevant when everybody’s a fucking cop. there is no reason for the green lantern corps to exist outside of its own self-justification.
The real tragedy of the whole “Batman contingency plans” thing escaping containment into the wider cultural zeitgeist is that it’s become completely divorced from the original context of, you know, the Tower of Babel story-line happening after a beloved member of the Justice League did in fact go mad, become all-powerful, and destroy all of reality.
Which is devastating because it loses so much when you take Hal Jordan out of it! In both adaptations and fan discussions!
Despite only being mentioned by name once in the story, Hal haunts the whole narrative in how unspoken he is. The whole theme of the story is the failure to communicate and how it destroys trust, and an essential part of that is how the whole League won't (and can't) talk about Hal.
When Kyle finally tries to bring him up, Wally shoots him down. He is the forbidden topic at the heart of the League's breakdown of trust!
When the contingency plans plot is removed from the context of Hal's fall from grace, isn't proceeded by a JLA founding member doing what was supposed to be unthinkable, Bruce's actions lose their emotional core. It becomes just "Batman is the coolest and smartest and also a huge untrusting asshole" instead of "Bruce was already on the knife-edge of crippling paranoia regarding his powerful allies, and then one of those same allies started slaughtering people and he couldn't do a thing to stop it, confirming all his worst fears and sending him right over the edge"
You take Bruce's feelings of very personal betrayal out of the equation. He's not operating on just hypotheticals, but fears that were heartrendingly justified!
Bruce claims the reason for his plans on some past mind-control incident, but Clark calls Bruce out on it being an excuse.
Maybe that's how it started, but there's a reason the fail-safes aren't against mind-control and possession. The fail-safes are ways to permanently stop your friends should they willingly or unwillingly become a threat.
And they both know it. They've argued about Hal several times before.
Bruce has a lot of unresolved feelings about Hal. He's still hurting.
The contingency plans are not some cold, clinical necessity. They are the product of pain.
I think all readings and tellings of the Tower of Babel should be followed by the JLA/Spectre story.
It provides the necessary emotional conclusion to the unspoken conflict! Because they finally have to talk about it! They heal the broken trust! Bruce admits how much Hal's betrayal hurt him and his faith in heroes, and gets past it! Instead of letting a former and potential future threat be eliminated as his fail-safes say he should, he invites the threat back, even if he can't guarantee it won't happen again, because he chooses to believe in his friend!
The contingency plans are a cool and interesting concept, but again, you can't just...take Hal out of it. You can't make it about some evil alternate versions, or about Clark. By doing that, you lose the most heartbreaking part of the story. Batman isn't in the right or the wrong, but he's not heartless. He's brokenhearted.
Cass is so fun as a character because she fulfils the 'gruff but with a heart of gold' trope in a way that normally is exclusively used for male characters. Cass can be abrasive, and asocial, and off-putting. She is better than everyone, knows it, and she is not afraid to say it loudly to your face. She tried to help Babs feel better after seeing her cry, and decided the best way was to simply throw Nightwing out of a window (it's okay, he was fine).
But Cass is also someone who loves deeply and cares so much. About everyone. She has strong moral convictions to never kill not because she's scared it would push her over the edge but because she values people's lives so much. Because she believes everyone can choose to be better, and they deserve the chance to make that choice.
She isn't sweet and friendly and someone who always manages to get on with people, but she also isn't a cold ruthless assassin. She is a tough, broken person who finds something to protect in everyone. Someone who can frankly be a jerk (and can be difficult for some people to get along with) but who would risk her life time and time again if it meant helping someone. Cass is a hero through and through.
Anyway, I just love Cass.
Why would Spanish betray me like this???
Barbara Gordon: Slytherin
Dick Grayson: Gryffidnor
Cassandra Cain: Gryffindor
Jason Todd: Ravenclaw
Stephanie Brown: Hufflepuff
Tim Drake: Slytherin
Damian Wayne: Hufflepuff
barry’s adventures in mapping the multiverse
Midnighter: *blows a kiss to the sun* For Apollo
Hey. Do you know what book that Scene was from where Hal and Clark were on bikes?
A lot of people have been asking me this question and I really, really suck but I don’t remember.
However! I am going to go back to the bookstore (Dymocks) again this weekend to try and find it so hopefully I will have an answer for you soon :)
Side blog dedicated to DC and all their characters.
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