I love how The Boy Wonder is characterizing Talia. Like, I have some disagreements (mainly in that I still don't like the idea that her relationship with Bruce was somewhat encouraged by Ra's because like...idk it just feels weird to me. I also don't like that Talia seems pretty chill with murder, since I still think she's most interesting as somebody who kills only when there is no other option) but overall I think it's a pretty good way of showing her as a complicated woman.
She knows her father is cruel and will do things that go too far, but she genuinely believes in his mission and will do whatever she thinks will serve it (another benefit of actually touching on the ecologist angle of the LoA). It's also notable that she only fully betrays Ra's when she knows that HE has compromised his own cause at the altar of ego. Her loyalty to the cause doesn't mean she'll let Ra's do whatever he wants, ESPECIALLY as it pertains to her son.
Her relationship with Damian is also complicated in a way that feels a lot more in-character and reasonable than usual. No matter what her intentions were with the action, she abandoned Damian to Bruce and that HURT HIM. It's given him issues where he constantly strives to not just be good but to be BETTER than the others so that he won't be left again. It can be the right decision for both Damian and herself AND ALSO cause them a lot of pain. She loves him dearly, he is her heart. But just like she puts herself through suffering for a goal she believes is righteous and just, she puts her son (her heart) through that same pain because she believes it is the right thing to do. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
It gets a bit too self-deprecating at the end for me (I honestly don't think Talia would consider herself unworthy to be proud of Damian), but it shows her with a level of self-awareness and an understanding of her errors. Issue 4 also shows a lot of my favorite traits of Talia's in full force: her perseverance and her confidence in her own moral judgements (if not in her interpersonal relationships).
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badboyhalo october 1st stream recap
okay okay quick recap for anyone who couldn't watch the stream/can't watch bad's vod (tw discussion of derealization, paranoia (being watched especially), hallucinations, bad having a BAD time, etc. if any of this stuff super bothers you then you may want to avoid badboyhalo's livestreams for the foreseeable future, he's a long-term storyteller)
Bad started off his stream with a black screen and white text.
"Welcome.
Dear cucurucho, why are you in my [the text went offscreen]
I just want to talk please come say
hello
I know your there cucurucho
come come
come out wherever you are
cucuruchoooooooo
CUCURUCHSOFIOOGI"
[note: keysmash not exact]
When Bad turned his screen on, he was in dapper's room, rocking back and forth. he was calling for cucurucho and talking about it living in his house. He kept jumping at nothing. He spoke to the pictures of the kids as if they were real, and asked "richarlyson" if forever was the one in his house.
he didn't want to leave dapper's room because it was his 'safe room,' but he eventually did. His base is now covered in GIANT signs that have red text and cucurucho's model that say "NO FEDERATION ALLOWED" and "YOUR BEING WATCHED" and one more i can't remember. he put up cameras everywhere and said "Look! I have cameras! Now I know when someone comes in... and when someone leaves." which isn't super important but it was an awesome line
he ended up going to spawn to look for cucurucho, and it was full of scaffolding. bad didn't take this well. It's unclear if the scaffolding was part of his hallucinations or not, but he fixated on it 'being' cucurucho. He suspected forever, cellbit, and foolish were also cucurucho. He questioned what was and wasn't real- including himself.
Bad started SEEING cucurucho in the distance, watching him, before it would disappear again. When it came back, sometimes it was renamed. "ENJOY THE ISLAND" and ":)" were some of the renamings, and I cannot remember them all. Bad started out by chasing cucurucho, shouting at it and asking if it were various items/mobs. He saw two of them at once at once point and was lead up into slime's hold house, through flippa's room (where there was a single block of scaffolding), and then out off of jaiden's balcony.
As the chase went on Bad started to become more frightened. Cucurucho was flying. he started to lose sense of where he was (shown by the admins teleporting him around) and hallucinated a nether portal he threatened to go through.
At some point Bad questioned if Dapper was cucurucho, too.
Eventually Bad retreated to the wall to cower in a 1x1 hole that went beneath the wall. cucurucho broke several blocks in front of him and appeared, revving its chainsaw. when it disappeared again there was a hole broken into the floor that lead to a cave and LONG tunnels beneath the wall. the visual was terrifying i promise.
cucurucho chased bad through the tunnels. he was screaming “please please stop I’ll be good I promise please go away.” At one point cucurucho appeared behind bad with the name "Bad?Boy?Halo?" and bad freaked out about potentially being cucurucho.
cucurcucho chased bad through a cave system until two cucuruchos cornered him to blow bubbles. their names were "do you?" and "YES". bad ran from them and found some scaffolding loose on the ground, (which had been built up to lead him out of the cave), said "this is it, this is you" and threw into lava.
Bad warped back home, insisting, "You can't come here, you can't come here." He was calmer in his house, but then was hit by the blindness effect and started yelling about the signs and "NO FEDERATION ALLOWED." he sang a little song about it
short story short: cucurucho appeared in his house. he saw it behind a glass wall. he was furious and terrified and growling "you can't be in here." he ran into dapper's room, where it appeared AGAIN with the name "WITHOUT M***" (last few letters were in the wall lmao). bad started sprinting around his house trying to find a safe place. cucurucho chased him with a chainsaw down the aquarium hallway.
Two cucuruchos kept popping up and disappearing, both with different names each time. Bad asked them "who let you in my house?" and went through a series of names such as: foolish, forever, tina, cellbit, baghera, antoine, fit- and finally settled on Ron.
Bad went to go see Ron. The hallway was dark, and Ron's room was unlit. When Bad opened the door, Cucurucho, with the nametag "RON" above its head, looked back at him. Bad said, "I knew it. It was Ron. He let you in." A second Cucurucho appeared with the nametag "ALWAYSHERE."
Bad was given blindness again, and he started to laugh as a chainsaw whirred. We heard bubbles blowing. Then the screen faded entirely to black, and Bad said, "Come here, Ron. Come out, come out, wherever you are..."
We heard rapid damage sounds, and then the sound of eating.
(the END of his stream had black and white text "SEE You NeXt tIme :)" as an example. The other messages were classic streamer "thanks for watching" and "make sure to follow" messages with similar fucked up cases, but this was supposed to be a fast recap lmao)
TLDR: Bad's paranoia has increased to the point of hallucinations. He's now frightened of Cucurucho, and suspects that everyone on the island is/could be helping Cucurucho get into his base. He associates cucurucho with scaffolding now. He is NOT sound of mind. He ate Ron Lemons.
If I missed anything important, feel free to add on!
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