torchbearing

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countdown may suck and i may not be able to rec it to people in good conscience but at the same time i may actively quote it to people and have read it like, three times

......... yeah i have strange tastes

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new teen titans vol 2 #47

when i said we should stop taking comic panels out of context i wasn’t talking about this one

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i have yet to write my halkyle manifesto but i fear adams has just made me so mad at his writing my gl hyperfixation has been kinda asleep

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i have too many thoughts about hal and commitment and that extends to his capacity of taking the role of someone's mentor or father figure proper

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@razielim the thing is that to me, in my head, hal is just averse to that title of being someone's dad because of the commitment it inspires, y'know? he sees martin jordan when he looks in the mirror and is just terrified of the idea of being a dad figure to anyone but helen, because helen needed him terribly and no one else could step up to the plate.

so being kyle's dad??? terrifying. he's leaving that to alan, thank you very much.

he's more of the cool uncle guy, y'know? see with wally and roy. looks after you and feels kinda paternal but doesn't have that weight of being your actual mentor or actual father figure. he's the uncle coded guy! the fun dude that looks after you! definitely cares for you but runs HARD from that dad thing because god forbid he fucks this up like his dad did.

i’m actually really curious about this, how do y’all interpret hal + kyle?

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to me it's funny alan acts fatherly to kyle AND hal at times but then we have him staring at the smudged writing on his hand like. yeah i have a son, jenny's brother... dodd........?

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i’m actually really curious about this, how do y’all interpret hal + kyle?

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Green Lantern #25 (DC, July 2025) variant cover by Carlos D'Anda

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"doesn't this charater under insane stress going through extremely traumatic events realize how inconvenient their irrational emotional reactions are to the people around them?" well, see, you're not gonna believe this, but the thing is,

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i haven't orm posted here yet

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genuinely unbelievable that kyle rayner spent literally a dozen issues going ‘hgnnghgg i'm gonna white lantern… i'm gonna white lantern everywhere…. hrghrgn im about to white lantern all over the place!’ and then he DID and was literally like ‘this is who i was MEANT to be, this is who i have ALWAYS BEEN, this is the END STATE OF MY BEING’ only for an immediate status quo reset. you've heard of gaybaiting get ready for. characterprogressionbaiting. goodstorytellingbaiting. interestingstatusquobaiting.

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Jason K. Powell from New Glasgow real as fuck for this

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It's so funny to me that DC sleepwalked into writing a fascinating story the cycle of abuse, the predatory nature of military-like structures, and the stifling nature of hegemonic masculinity with Hal Jordan and just pretended it never happened.

Like Hal's story is about how patriarchal authority figures punish 'boys' for failing to fit their standards of masculinity by hurting them or rejecting them. But if you play your cards right and model themselves after the patriarch then you can assume that role and access the power and freedom it brings. All you have to do is shut away any part of you that doesn't fit into the mould to be that man, and lie to yourself that this is who you have been all along.

Hal's story is about how well meaning young people can become tools to be used and discarded by authority. You are given the opportunity of power, of freedom, to help people so of course you take it. But remember what your father taught you, what failing to acquiesce to their rules means. So you make them unfalible Gods, and yourself their willing disciple, agreeing with them to the point that their oath becomes your own mantra. Sure they may break you, and dismiss you, and push you to ignore your gut feelings, but that doesn't matter. You're a hero and what you're doing is right. But that doesn't make it hurt any less when they push you past the limit you didn't believe you have, you have a taste of rebellion, and they cast you out as if you meant nothing to them.

Hal's story is one of being terrified of the cycle of abuse. You know your father was a cruel man. And yet you model yourself off him because what else could you do. He was a titan in your field, the sort of man people tell legends about. And more than that, despite everything, he was your father. you watched him die before you could even comprehend what abuse was, much process all that it meant. So you modelled yourself off of him, trying to take the good and leave the bad but unsure if that was ever possible. If your father was both a cruel man and a hero what does that make you? Is the monster there lying dormant as well? And how can you defeat it when you're scared of losing the things that made you a man.

Hal Jordan's story is one of growing past the masculinity forced upon you, of embracing your queer and feminine side as an act of radical healing. God has made you pay for your sins and in doing so gives you both boundless power and a role more harrowing then any you have had, with eons of history behind it. So you reject it. You make something new. Something kinder. Something that looks beyond the fire and brimstone and revenge and cruelty to find love and forgiveness and a brighter future. You search without yourself and find the feminine and the androgynous hidden without you and you begin to embrace them little by little.

You're not what your father wanted, nor the guardians, and maybe not even God (although maybe this is what they had planned all along?)

But there's a little girl in standing front of you with the fate of the universe resting on her shoulders. She calls you Auntie Hal. And with all the emotional walls you put up being brought down you can say you love her with an ease you never had before. And to her even now, the opposite of everything that your father and your society and your world said you should aspire to be, she thinks you are the most amazing person she has ever met.

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DC be like “if we don’t relate every character and event back to the batfam in some way we WILL go out of business”

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imagine an angel came to you with a divine mission and instead of saying "BE NOT AFRAID" it said "you'll have to do"