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whywhywhymoney · 14 days ago

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Heya fams! 👋 I’ll def answer your ask but probs on my dc side blog sometime.

Same question right back at you! Karl and Felicia Kyle HCS! You already did tell me a bit which was really good! You’re so creative.

Use this ask as a place to ramble about the Kyle fams if you’d like! Also ikrrr, I think Brian Kyle can have some nuance too. It’s super impressive you’ve made a 3 gen fam tree for em! Love that. I’m so intrigued!

I gave Brian a sis. Turned the Calabrese fams into Brian’s in-laws through said sis. So Sel can still have her cousins without having Rex Calabrese as her dad like dc retconned at a point!

Maybe you should make an obscure character masterlist for your fave characters in fandom? If ya wanna. Sounds hectic but then you can cross-reference it and people visiting your blog can read up bout the blorbos and find out about more underrated characters!

ooh see, that's where my imposter syndrome is gonna kick in hard because I definitely don't consider myself an authority on any character, I just like what I like and get really into it, and then when I find out it's obscure I'm like - whaaaa? But it's peak!?!?

I dunno if I could make a Masterlist, I think other's have covered that better than I could, but I appreciate the thought

I do feel you on Selina's cousins, even though I wasn't a fan of the new 52 retcons I think Valentine's run really redeemed it and it's definitely put in the work to be a nice alternative origin for Selina (I think the Falcone thing was just so boring and unimaginative, and doesn't serve Selina's story all that well, but that's me)

Ultimately though I hugely prefer Brian and Maria Kyle's Troubled Interracial Working Class background for Selina above everything else. I think it's just so rich, and works incredibly well when correlated with real life. There's one thing I do hold onto from the New 52 and it's Bruce's birth year (and Helena's by extension) being set in stone as 1973. And I've kinda used that to workshop everything else about the Kyle and Wayne families as I think it was a febrile moment in real history.

I've mentioned before on my blog but, the idea of Brian and Thomas both being Vietnam War vets is very compelling to me, and how it informs their actions. And for Brian too, as someone who I have as being born in the 50s, it's not at all unlikely for him to be a 2nd gen Irish immigrant - presumably with still strong ties to Ireland. I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to incorporate that as part of his backstory, and make him witness to some of those real life tragedies that happened in that timeframe. So even before he marries Maria/goes off to Vietnam, this guy has seen some real shit.

What I really wanted to work out - is why someone like Maria (a Cuban refugee) - would marry someone like Brian who in his few panels has shown to be casually racist. There had to be something there. And for me, I think I wanted Brian and Maria to be able to relate to each other on a deeper level through their homelands and the differing struggles happening in either one.

In my hc, Brian gets along pretty well with Maria's dad, as he can completely relate to the Irish struggle and picked up arms himself as a teen in Cuba (whether Brian actually did the same with the IRA is something I'm gonna keep as officially unconfirmed bc I think it's funnier in universe if everyone debates about it).

But yeah I've given both Maria and Brian big families (bc Catholics in the 40s/50s? Cmon). And both of them are the youngest child in their respective families. Brian has like 4-6 siblings imo and Maria has 2 much older sisters. I have Maria's family history solidly down, I like to think her mother (who has shown up in a couple of my fics as Selina's unnamed grandmother) was a Canary Islander (this contributes to the Kyle sisters ethnic ambiguity), while Maria's dad was from a well off family who saw the injustice around him and was fuelled to make it better. It got him into trouble and so his father sent him off to America in the 30s when he was 18/19. And he comes by his girlfriend's house the night he's supposed to leave and she decides to throw caution to the wind and go with him. Sometime after they settle in Gotham she gets a letter from her father telling her to never come back 🥲😔 poor baby.

But yeah a lot of this was me going through why there was a sizeable Cuban community in New Jersey (which is basically Gotham) pre-Revolution, and realising it mapped out ridiculously well for the political ideals that I wanted to have run through the Kyle family.

Going back to Brian though, as you asked about him, I wanted him to experience something that I and perhaps other 2nd gen immigrants have. Where the country we now live in and are citizens of may be 1st world countries, with all the bells and whistles that come with it, but it still isn't home. Brian's family has cut him off presumably since he married Maria, so I assume there were tensions there beforehand. Hc that his mother died when he was very young, maybe due to complications from childbirth, and it was something he had hanging over his head from a young age.

Brian's dad is definitely a hard ass, who's only redeeming quality is that he loves his daughters. But that hasn't extended to his granddaughters (that he has never met. If he ever did he'd love them too). There's friction between the both of them, and Brian is probably craving for some love and affection that he doesn't really get at home, and his older sisters are way too busy tryna get out of this madhouse to pay attention to him. So he acts out, gets in trouble, gets "disciplined" for it way beyond what's necessary.

The highlights of young Brian's life is visiting family in Ireland, specifically Derry which at this time is embroiled in the Troubles. Its dangerous, his family doesn't want him to even leave the front door, and he still has the time of his life just because of the love he's shown. This part is a little projection from myself - I was never badly behaved or anything - but to this day I feel a lot more love and at home when I'm in the motherland compared to when I'm at "home". I thought it was a phenomenon definitely worth writing about.

So already, as you can see, a lot of trauma is filling up inside this guy, way before he turns into the abusive husband we know. And I also just realised I haven't mentioned anything about Karl and Felicia 😭🥲

I have them as 5 years younger than Selina, and as twins of course. Also, as Selina, Maggie and Felicia all have names which aren't particularly Irish, I like to think Brian wanted to name Karl but his real name is Carlos. The nickname is the compromise between both (side note but as Selina is the first child I hc her as having an aggressively Irish middle name. Maggie’s name is long enough as is so she didn't get one. Selina's jealous of that).

I think Karl is theeeee youngest brother to ever youngest brother, he could give Damian Wayne a run for his money. I think while Felicia loves her job as flight attendant and being able to see the world in a way she could only dream of as a poor kid, Karl is very happy to hustle his way through life. Especially after the family is broken up, Karl ends up with his hard ass Irish grandpa, who is no less tough on him than he was on Brian.

In the story that I have plotted out, he's a constant runaway who CPS totally give up on. A subplot/theme that runs through it is the inherent racism in the system where the family is totally broken up, and the one person who would be their best caregiver (Maria's mother) is constantly sidelined as she's not white and doesn't speak English.

Karl's getting run ins with the police over every little thing and every time they find him, they dump him right back at his grandpa. If you've ever read Shazam, he's like a more street version of Billy Batson. He keeps tryna get in contact with Felicia, who was split up from him when they were 9 and has bounced through Foster families since. Eventually they'll all be reunited at some point. But the crux is just how hard you have to fight for family, whether blood or otherwise, and how every member of the Kyle family (including Holly!) Works or doesn't work towards that.

As for Felicia, when she was still with her parents, she was the perfect brat. And I mean in the sense she was angelic to her parents but could be a total demon to her siblings when she wanted to be. But cut her some slack, she was like 6! After they've been put into Foster care, the both of them do try to be reunited with *someone*, and go to the church where their grandmother often is to try to impress that upon her (kiddos she's trying 😩).

When nothing happens after that, Felicia gives up and starts just being a model angelic child again so they don't get kicked out of another Foster placement. Karl obviously doesn't want to accept that reality and keeps fighting. When they're 9, they get separated as Karl is sent to the only relative CPS deems appropriate, and Felicia STILL gets shifted around between Foster parents. She's very resentful of this fact, and resembles Selina in that respect.

In fact, I've made them foils of Selina and Maggie. Where Karl is openly chaotic about what he wants, which can resemble Selina, he's actually just doing it because of how much he cares. And while Felicia outwardly seems demure, calm and respectful, inside she's just as if not more anarchic than Selina and has a seething core of rage that's always so close to the surface. Only Karl can make her break her facades easily.

But yeah, as an occupation, I think Karl would do great as a stand up comedian or musician, or both! Channelling all that turmoil to something positive would be easy for someone as affable and charming as him.

#asks #Sorry for rambling so much omg #This took hours!#selina kyle #brian kyle #maggie kyle #maria kyle #Karl Kyle #Felicia Kyle

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