Joey Wilsons husband

1. Raven was bestowed powers of empathy and grew further from people as a result of it whereas Joey’s powers make him be closest to people (literally inside their body) and acquired insane levels of empathy as a result. Both of their powers are an expanded metaphor for two different kinds of empathy; Raven’s obviously carrying everyone’s burden and being infinitely emotionally giving, and Joey’s (less obviously) being looking into someone’s eyes and putting yourself in their position as you guide them.

2. Raven sucks the negative emotions away completely whereas Joey shares them. Raven thinks it’s the only way she can be useful in the world, by torturing herself, by being mentally present for everyone in the world’s needs and just giving and giving and giving and… for her empathy is a curse she is obliged to carry. It’s a double edged sword she knows damn well she’s stabbing inside her ribs deeper and deeper and she just hopes the other edge doesn’t hurt anyone. Which results in Trigon. Joey’s relationship with empathy is much more* (see point 4) healthy because he can get out of people’s head anytime he wants, when he’s done occupying the body, the powers and thoughts of a person leaves him although he remembers it. Outside of using his powers he chooses to be there for his friends because of his care for them and disposition to be in the listener’s position most of his life because of his disability in an abled world.

3. Raven stands out whereas Joey is invisible to people. Raven is constantly exposed. Her literal soul is visible for everyone to see, her sillhouette is big and covers most of the panel almost all the time. She constantly tries to draw herself in which always results in bigger and bigger outbursts. She destroys her sense of self with unending pain and becomes the image of pain itself which she (and the narrative) labels as evil and her whole struggle is refusing to face the pain, face her father. Joey’s invisibility manifests through his powers, how even if he’s able to see eye to eye with people, they cease to see him when he’s trying to reach out. I wonder why that happens. Couldn’t possibly come from growing up mute. Joey is full of traces he leaves on the world, like a park covered in drawings or the lives he saves or the hearts he touches but he is almost always excluded from conversations, from fight scenes, from galleries where his artworks are displayed, from the songs he plays the instruments to. This has pushed him to become Listener Supreme like i said in the previous point.

4. Being trapped in a historically feminine symbolism versus breaking masculine norms. Tying back to the previous point, Raven is symbolic as a force of good and care in the eyes of everyone and herself and this traps her in situations where she is tied to crosses and worshipped for healing, no one (herself included most of the time!) has ever regards for how she feels and when they do she pushes them away in fear of hurting them. I relate to her struggles SO MUCH as a woman (and an eldest daughter especially :D) and she is so inextricably trapped in this toxically gendered cage. And Joey? Oh he knows the toxicity of masculinity. He knows what it turned Slade and Grant into, he has seen and been left out of their sticky masculine poison and the relationship that emerged out of it. He has been pressured into it. He lives constantly on the edge of emasculation and the fear of stepping out of the masculine ideals even though everything he is and stands for goes against it. He loves loudly, he dresses loudly, he loves life and people so loudly that it comes across as very immasculine. At least that is his fear. And his ever sharing heart will never share this piece of himself. No one (except for Kole) is allowed to see what being a child in the utterly militaristic Wilson-Kane household does to a boy. Also. She is her father’s favorite daughter (DEROGATIVEEEEE) and he is his mother’s favorite son (affectionate <3)