Dan, redeemed but still with a chip on his shoulder, is on a mission.
Getting shoved into a teenage version of his body had been annoying. Growing up again had been a pain.
But.
He'd made it.
He's now an adult at the mature age of twenty, has the same terrifying stature his ghost half has, and has decided what he wants to do with the next few years of his life, at least.
He's going to confuse Batman.
See, when Dan had destroyed the world in his own timeline, there were two heroes that posed actual problems for him; Batman and John Constantine.
Of those two, Batman had been the worst.
He'd been the hardest to get rid of, stuck around the longest, and came up with a contingency that had damn near actually taken Dan out.
To be fair, Constantine had gotten way closer to deleting Dan's existence, but that had been more of a one and done fight, not a million annoying little things.
Batman had been a thorn in his side so much that even redeemed, Dan still has a grudge against him.
But.
He knows who Batman is.
More specifically, he knows who Batman's butler is, and that man is the picture definition of "overworked". Said butler also, sometimes, bemoans taking care of such a large Manor by himself on a forum just for Butlers.
A forum Dan has been frequenting, replying to those complaints and slowly endearing himself to Mr. Pennyworth. Exchanging tips. Getting advice on how to Butler. Talking about not really getting a chance to apprentice because people are "scared" of him.
(Okay so that one is true, Dan's got a plan and he wants to do it well, but there's literally no rich person that would hire him as an intern Butler. They all say he's too "intense" or whatever.)
When Oracle had traced back to Dan's computer, she'd only found normal usage and nothing suspicious. Because that was what that computer was used for, and only that.
When Mr. Pennyworth had finally asked if Dan would like to train under him as a replacement, Dan had taken a long while to stop laughing.
Dan, built like a competitive weight lifter and taller than Superman, shows up at the steps of Wayne Manor fully prepared to Fuck With Batman.
~~~~~~
Alfred's apprentice is freaking Bruce the hell out, and it's getting to the point where he's not afraid to acknowledge that.
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Hi! I love your art and blog, and all the character analysizes that you do. They always carry such insight into what a character is that it lowkey changes my perspective of them. Not to mention all the fun headcannons you add on haha.
I was wondering, have you done anything on Glory yet? She is one of my favorite protagonists, and I find her very interesting.
Asked by @daishitheprofessionalfool & @americanman18
There’s always some difficulty to adding new context to a character who had their own book. After all, we already got an in-depth look at their inner thoughts and motivations. I think I got away with it with Clay, because his book had to divert some of its focus into setting up the series and he turned into somewhat of a bit character after it was over. But Glory is rather well documented, I’m unsure how much I can add.
I’ll give it a shot, nevertheless.
Personal values
Glory grew up in an environment that constantly devalued her as a person. While all of the Dragonets of Destiny suffered under their abusive upbringing, the others could at least find SOME solace in the fact that their lives supposedly mattered. They had a destiny. Glory did not have that. She was the errant Rainwing, the error of Webs, that inconvenient creature that was there because the Talons kind of needed her, but didn’t really want her all the same.
In the absence of external validation, one of two things will happen to us: Either we find some value within ourselves that helps us weather the harshness of life, or we sink into despair. This is the core struggle of Glory’s existence: She was born with nothing, told she is and will always be nothing, and claws and fights for any scrap of meaning she can give her own life.
Of all her peers, she is the most driven. She has to be, because her merit, her competence, her ability to accomplish things is how she defines her self-worth. Where Clay is placid, Sunny is carefree, Starflight is meandering, and Tsunami is flighty, Glory has iron discipline. The guardians refuse to see her worth, so she works twice as hard as everyone else to prove to them she has it. And more importantly: To prove to herself that she has it.
This mindset, while mentally and personally taxing, makes Glory very efficient, to a somewhat ruthless degree even. If she sets her eyes on a task, she does not waver or get distracted and it will generally be done. It’s a quality the others often find inspiring, if somewhat hard to imitate due to the intensity with which Glory pursues it.
While under the mountain, she actually studies as much and has an amount of knowledge comparable to Starflight. In a trivia contest, these two would be neck and neck. The reason why Starflight is known as “the” scrollworm among the group, and Glory is not, is because Starflight has a genuine passion for learning. He puts the work in because it’s how he relaxes, he loves it, talks about it all the time. Glory puts the work in, but it does not relax her, rather, it makes her more tense and tires her out. Yet she still does it because she has to, because the alternative is admitting that her tormentors are right about her, and that she is good for nothing. To her, this is unacceptable.
Glory works hard because it gives her life purpose. It’s something she can be proud of when no one else is.
In one particular sense, this is tragic. Of all the places this behavior could have been inspired from, it most closely aligns to Kestrel, who is equally driven and goal-oriented. That means in trying to escape from the psychological pit she was in, Glory subconsciously took on traits from her greatest abuser. As a testament to her own strength though, where her guardian was self-defeating and miserable, Glory did not let herself be ruled by fate, managed to transform these traits and eventually channel them into a successful life.
Physical constitution
It doesn’t come up a lot in the books as a major obstacle, but logically, Glory would have grown up severely malnourished. Rainwings are photosynthetic and their bodies require sunlight for certain key functions. Being forced to grow up underground would mean Glory was deprived of vital nutrients and vitamins she needed, which is why she was chronically fatigued while in captivity.
To be honest, I don’t quite know how this didn’t make her end up like Chameleon, stuck with one color forever. Perhaps what little sunlight made it through that one hole in the ceiling was just barely enough to not permanently debilitate her.
In any case, I imagine these circumstances made her somewhat of a sickly child, rail thin and much more prone to illness than the others. Not that she would allow herself many opportunities for bed rest regardless, to avoid exasperated yells of “the Rainwing is sick again??”. You can kind of see how she ended up the most cynical of the group.
Fortunately, she managed to escape these unhealthy living conditions before any of those complications stuck for good. With regular exposure to sunlight from then on, she made a full recovery. This might also be part of why she becomes a bit kinder once she’s in the rainforest. It’s much less emotionally draining when you don’t have to fight your own body on the daily, on top of everything else.
Character flaws and growth
Despite her reliability and personal fortitude, Glory is not infallible. While her ability to stay laser-focussed on a task is in many ways admirable, it also gives her an affinity for working herself to exhaustion. She often forgets to tend to her own physical needs—like eating, drinking, or sleeping—and has to be reminded, or sometimes made, to take breaks to do these things. There is one example of this in her book, where someone tells her to take a nap because she’s been going without sleep for upwards of a day.
To her, being idle equates to being lazy, that dreaded label she is trying to avoid at all cost. Fatigue, sickness, injury? Mere obstacles that must be overcome. You can power through anything if you just grit your teeth enough. Getting this dragon to relax is a monumental undertaking. If you convinced her to take a vacation, you’d soon need one yourself after how difficult that would be.
I imagine this has lead to complications in the past, that Glory has collapsed before and someone like Clay had to find her and carry her to a watering hole so she could get rehydrated. Maybe this is why she has a closer bond with Clay than with the others; the confidant she can let her guard down in front of because he’s been with her when she was at her weakest. I also imagine this exacerbated her already negative relationship with the Guardians, Kestrel and Dune being angry that “the Rainwing is sleeping in the hallway again!”
Glory is also very distrustful and has a misanthropic (misdracopic?) streak. While she genuinely loves the others and treasures their friendship, she perceives herself as not as close to them as the rest are to each other (with maybe the exception of Clay). Due to the very specific flavor of abuse she received from the Guardians, she has developed a tendency to other herself. Glory does not consider herself a Dragonet of Destiny and perceives an immutable separation between her and the rest of her peers, though this perception is not mutual. This is exemplified in, when her friends learn of Kestrel’s plan to kill her and brainstorm ways to prevent it, she keeps insisting that this is not their problem, which just serves to confuse them.
I find it interesting in this context that Glory is the only one of the arc 1 protagonists who ends the arc physically separated from the others. It makes sense in context, but also serves as a bit of an extension of how she sees herself in the group.
It’s because of this perceived gap that Glory is haunted by a subconscious expectation—or perhaps even fear—that she will be abandoned if she stops being useful or becomes inconvenient. There is always a little voice in her head that parrots what the Guardians told her growing up—that she is worthless and undeserving of love. She usually pushes it back, but certain stimuli can bring her buried insecurities to the front, and as is common with long repressed feelings, it tends to make her lash out.
The most notable example of this happens just after the group escaped Scarlet and the Sky Palace. Clay approaches Peril and theorizes that she might be the missing Skywing from the prophecy, and that she would have a place in their group if she needs it. The statement is made with pure, altruistic intent. But Glory hears it and interprets it maliciously, that Clay intends to replace her. I imagine deeper down she knows this is nonsense and that Clay would never be this openly callous to her. But in the moment, it triggers her greatest fear and she reacts irrationally.
So in that state she concocts a weird, spiteful scheme with Tsunami to punish Clay for his “betrayal”, by making him think he caused Glory so much anguish that she ran away. It’s honestly kind of uncomfortable and possibly one of the grossest things she does to another person (who isn’t trying to kill them). Like, I understand all of it and it makes perfect sense for her to act like this in that moment. But perhaps the story makes a misstep here by never having Glory visibly apologize to Clay after the fact, even when the story sets up an opportunity for it later when she and Clay are alone.
For me it’s not an insurmountable problem because I can just imagine they talked about it on their way to the Mud Kingdom (I’ve thought about how that would go before. I might write it out some day). But I could understand if this moment of spite towards a benevolent presence in her life with no explicit reconciliation soured the character for some people. Maybe that’s why the graphic novel cut that scene entirely (you know, other than for brevity).
Glory, over the course of their journey, eventually does address and temper a lot of these personal shortcomings. In particular after she gets out of that suffocating cave and connects with her people she blossoms into a more empathetic and considerate person. Perhaps finding her calling, with all the responsibility and purpose she craved, allowed her to move on from constantly pushing herself to the brink and being stressed out.
Nightwings' folly
This is already well-documented, so I’m going to be brief here. Perhaps one of the most satisfying aspects of Glory’s role in the story is how her presence exposes the folly of the Nightwing Regime and causes Morrowseer’s entire plan to implode, all through his own fault.
Glory enters the Nightwings’ awareness as a spanner in the works, a quick fix that became necessary due to an intervention by Scarlet, and a completely unknown variable. Consequently, she and the way she is treated shine a light on Morrowseer’s ability to adapt on the fly. Namely, the complete and utter absence of any such ability.
There were definitely ways for Morrowseer to make this work. The simplest solution would have been to just deliver an updated prophecy to account for Scarlet’s meddling, though he was really leaning on that fake mysticism and “unseen hand of fate” schtick, so I get why he didn’t want to tip his hand like that.
Ignoring that, he could have simply claimed that Glory IS the Skywing of the prophecy, that actually she is half Skywing, and then told her to stay red whenever she’s in public. He could have then ordered Kestrel to pose as her mother, which would have been extra ironic since Kestrel DID have a child with a Rainwing.
If they had done literally anything other than antagonize Glory and treat her as some kind of mistake, it stands to reason that the Dragonets wouldn’t have rebelled and tried to escape. Without the threat to Glory’s life, the others might not have been able to convince Sunny to leave and they would have stayed put. Maybe Morrowseer could have even swayed them to his side, by coming in as a savior to validate Glory’s existence and deliver them all from their captors’ torment.
If Morrowseer had swallowed his pride and been kind to Glory, even just pretending to be so, their plan would have gone off perfectly, and Blister would have taken the throne.
But instead, he short-sightedly ordered her death, ensuring that the Dragonets would never be loyal to him, and that Glory would dedicate her efforts towards destroying their plan. They created their own undoing, and as a reward, Morrowseer dies by having a volcano literally erupt up his backside.
Truly a con for the ages.
What I would do differently
Earlier nitpicks aside, if there is one blemish on the character for me, it is in the moment where her competence is tested and she becomes Queen.
Here is a quick recap of that moment: Glory, fed up with the display of self-serving lethargy, has just challenged Magnificient for the Rainwing throne. The ruling structure has decayed into this strange amalgamation of volunteering commoners who all take the position for selfish reasons, and the previous Queen just let this happen because she got disillusioned with her people. Glory needs the position to be functional right now to rescue some kidnapped Rainwings, so she seeks to cut out the rot.
Magnificient however is a catty little shit and convinces her gaggle of equally inadequate commoners-turned-monarchs to rig the challenge and humiliate Glory. Glory tries to persevere through the rigged challenges but it doesn’t look good. When she is at her lowest point, Kinkajou accidentally gets injured and Glory’s quick thinking saves her from excruciating pain. This reveals to the tribe that Glory has secretly been the Rainwing Princess all along and is the true legitimate heir to the throne by right of birth. This realization makes the previous Queen forfeit her match and wins Glory the challenge.
This is certainly a nice and validating moment for Glory, I’m happy for her, but... to be quite frank, this is completely backwards. The reason why Glory is awesome and aspirational is because of her inner strength, her propensity for getting things done, and her refusal to give up even as everyone keeps shovelling manure into her face. She is amazing because she comes from nothing and nobody expects anything of her, and she—through sheer grit and determination—turns all of that around and makes herself not only into SOMETHING, but one of the most significant somethings there is.
To have her personal, most important victory hinge on a random fortunate blood link that she had no control over is antithetical to her story. It removes all of her agency and, instead of proving that circumstance of birth does not have to define who you are, doubles down on it by suggesting Glory was incapable of winning by her own merits and had to be bailed out by a secret royal heritage.
Like, am I to assume that, if Glory wasn’t coincidentally a secret Princess, she would have failed? That everything she accomplished through her own power was rendered meaningless? Why is so much importance placed on birthright (of royalty) being the savior, when previously birthright (of being worthless) has suffocated Glory’s entire life? Like, the concept of birthright is arguably the VILLAIN of her story, why is the villain resolving her conflict for her?
And conversely, if we assume Grandeur would have heard her out even without the secret lineage, then why is it necessary in the first place? All it does is muddy Glory’s character journey and defiance of birth circumstance being a thing that defines you. No, sorry Glory, birthright still does dictate who you are, it’s just that your birth happened to be better than previously thought.
This secret Princess twist is perhaps what I would consider as the one significant misstep in Glory’s character development. Which is why I usually rewrite this portion of the story for myself.
Here is how I picture this playing out: Just turn it all around, flip the statuses. Rainwings don’t keep track of their personal lineages, but the exception of this is and always has been the royal family. Queen Grandeur had five daughters and she knows who all of them are. However, they were all incompetent for one reason or another, so when the time came to pick a successor, she couldn’t. At a loss for what to do, she reluctantly allowed all of them to share the throne on a weird rotating schedule. Her hope was, while they were all individually inept, maybe together they could balance out each others’ shortcomings.
This went catastrophically wrong. The Rainwing government became a farce of self-serving, ineffectual bullcrap. The Rainwing tribe, once a proud hub of travelling merchants, fell into complete decline. Grandeur saw this decay, but couldn’t do anything about it because she had already abdicated and couldn’t retake the throne. Thus, powerless and seeing no alternative, she became jaded and disillusioned with everything.
Then comes Glory, an upstart commoner and outsider, and dares make a grab for power. Magnificient huffs and slinks off to her tired mother, laying this out, but twisting it in her own favor. She completely neglects to mention the kidnapped Rainwings and instead assassinates Glory’s character, describing her as jealous and lusting for the position. Grandeur, long having grown accustomed to displays of selfish behavior around her, believes this without scrutiny. The former Queen is too checked out to question it. She half-heartedly agrees to mess with this upstart to get her daughters off her back.
The challenges play out, but throughout Grandeur keeps catching glimpses of Glory’s actual character, which does not align with the twisted caricature she was presented with earlier. It all culminates in that scene where Kinkajou tearfully apologizes to Glory for messing up the venom challenge, and Glory treating her with compassion and understanding, mentioning the kidnapped Rainwings in the process. Grandeur has caught on by now and decides to just talk to Glory to figure out what her deal is. Glory tells her about all the Rainwings currently in captivity. Jambu and Mangrove tell her about how Glory tried to find Orchid. Kinkajou explains how Glory risked her own life and got herself captured to rescue her. And the other Dragonets tell her about being stolen from the tribe when she was an egg. Grandeur learns of all the things Glory has done for their tribe since she arrived, despite not even really being a part of it or knowing any of them.
Grandeur hears this and becomes absolutely livid at having been lied to. She starts tearing into Magnificient about playing around while their tribe is being preyed on and the callous dismissal of their people’s plight in captivity. She is furious that her daughter would be so selfish to actively delay the only person trying to help, and frustrated at herself for enabling it through inaction. The rage reawakens the fire within her, she is feeling a drive and passion for her tribe and position like she hasn’t in many years. So she throws the challenge and disowns Magnificient on the spot, then names Glory her successor by right of merit, lack of royal blood be damned.
This is only possible because of all the things Glory chose to do for these people, and the heart, craftiness, and competence she displayed while doing them. It’s the personal integrity she showed in those moments, not a blood link, that sways Grandeur to her side. It’s an earned victory, not facilitated by luck or circumstance of birth, but an unrelenting will to prove to the world and herself that she matters.
It is the very victory Glory has worked towards her entire life. She wasn’t born special, but she made herself special. The circumstance was overcome.
Conclusion
It may strike some as odd that I dedicated so much essay space to discussing Glory’s character flaws (in-story flaws, not flaws with her narrative purpose). A while ago I saw this sentiment around that Glory is “too perfect” and gets overly glorified (ha ha).
To a certain extent I understand that. Her abilities feel like superpowers sometimes, to the point where she outclasses several members of her group, and she ends her arc in the most powerful and influential position out of all the arc 1 protagonists.
But I disagree with the notion that she has no flaws, or is generically perfect (a Mary-Sue, as some may describe it). The story, at the brisk pace it is told, may not always be interested in exploring them fully, but Glory does have significant shortcomings that cause friction in her life, particularly with her personal relationships. That she ends up in such a prominent position of power is to be expected from a character whose primary trait is that she is an overachiever, in a story that isn’t a tragedy.
But I don't think that's enough to make her generic.
Admittedly, I don’t know how widespread this sentiment actually is. It’s possible it was just a stray opinion I happened to witness. Perhaps beliefs like this would be less common if the story was more willing to rub Glory’s nose in it when she messes up, like I’ve mentioned with that Clay scene. At least every once in a while.
But despite all that, I hope it is evident that she is a well-rounded, three-dimensional character—one of the deepest out of all the arc 1 protagonists even. I can follow her thought process and understand everything she does because of how strongly she is characterized. And I can look up to her because of how much adversity she faces and manages to confront head-on. The place she ends up in (not necessarily all the steps that get her there) has always made sense to me.
And so, because I can’t think of anything else to do, let me conclude this wordy essay with a toast:
May we hence all stride onward, like our Glory, to our glory.
In the All In One MV, I absolutely love how it takes Tsukasa spiralling and confronting himself to break the illusion of everything ending with a completely bright and positive outcome before he accepts help from other people- namely here, Rui. Rui tells him that he's not alone, and that Tsukasa can take his hand, but when Tsukasa looks like he will, he instantly goes against it and spirals, forgetting every good thing because he genuinely can't find the light beyond his growing helplessness.
"Even so, you aren't alone
Take my hand that I reached out to you
Even 'til now, no matter how many times,
I stood back up and came to this point
Juuuust kidding! The bugs eating away at my heart are
Growing, growing, 'til they were fully raised
I ended up on the wrong path with just one step
But I can't erase that; I bury myself in a pillow and flail around"
But, after he confronts his loneliness, when he looks at the bigger picture, how much despair and hope and pain and determination he's filled with-
"Go and embrace everything,
Even your hope, even your despair"
"With our wounded hearts
Bring all your surplus too
And go all in, I'm all in one!"
-Tsukasa looks up again, not with a bright light that tries to bury his pain this time, but with what reality is. It's dark, muted and uncertain. He's in despair, but he'll still reach up. He's only able to take the hand that Rui initially offered because Rui is still extending it, and he still stuck with him at his worst, despite being unable to reach him.
WxS is Tsukasa's safe place. Even if his friends aren't his salvation, Tsukasa can believe in WxS before he'll allow the privlege of believing in himself. Absolute props to the artists and storyboarders for this MV to deliver this visual storytelling. One that says so much of just how the writers plan on approaching Tsukasa from now on (assuming they don't mess it up...)
Also needless to say, this is just my interpretation, and there are many approaches to take these frames (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)
(btw this is about Ruikasa and Tsukasa specifically but Emu obviously plays a major role here too I'm sorry I'm not mentioning her despite her being in frame)
jax thoughts (repost of a twitter thread- may add more later)
Hey there, it seems as though your about to read a bunch of spoilers about the Amazing Digital circus Episode 9. being Badly animated fish with a werid nasally voice- i cant stop you from reading ahead- but i am imploreing you to just watch the episode Then reading the post. Or dont. you can swim past me. please dont. im going to follow you for a lil bit... isnt the water lovely? its not like- cold or warm, kinda nueatral but cool in the way that swimming makes thinks colder. its nice. dont piss in the water please. you werent? good. okay you can read now if you did watch the episode. im trusting you.
i think its fairly obvious that jax is meant to be a divisive figure in which you can enjoy her and hate her on a pretty easy to land spectrum- thus the tragedy. while everyone in the circus is on a path of acceptance, jax is on a dead set train of self destruction. they only made One move to better their own situation but theres that horrible ordeal known as being Known.
jax did not want to confront the self and for fucking sure didnt want anyone to help them know the self so she lashed out badly at ribbit and isolated her.mostly out of fear that she would spread her secret in some attempt to try and "help her" when she did not want it. a unfounded fear because every single time we see ribbit after- its her trying to go one on one with jax. this starts her own copeing mechanism for the circus.the circus itself is immaterial- its objectivly fake. all things within it are not real and are subject to change based on the whims of the users there within. thus why its such a mental health sink. its asking you to exert your own will constently and Say the things-that are fake and stupid are Real and importent.
you have to have a earnest, honest heart to heart with someone who looks like a Weridly drawn clown, a pile of ribbons with a mask, a cartoon rabbit- you have to choose to eat! pomni upon entering the circus Saw this absurdity and managed to find some grip of reality there within. she saw herself and the people there within as Actual People and responded to them in kind. She talked to people, she tried to settle her gripes with the circus with them. (i know the gif is of kinger and ragatha but i like this scene and i like ragatha and it shows what im talking about)
this is opposed to jax whom after ribbit, abandoned the idea that Anything is real.
that all is fake- thus all has no barreing on them. These are All fake and werid cartoon charecters trying to drag you into a faux saturday morning cartoon episode to teach you something.make you do a stupid lil "we learned that-" orko he-man bit. there is no point in makeing friends because they arent Real. they are Fake, Binary code that responds because its programed to. thus I am the only real thing here. but the mindset and the conclusion are anti-thetical. the fragility of belif that You alone are real in a place where Real is a subjective thought is a building on Sand and Mud. kinger telling them that they are Scans is a Death blow. Nothing is Real. You are not Real. the people around you are not real. the real you has abandoned you. they are doing Real things, they are dealing with Real consaquances- are they happy? are they doing Everything you wish you did? Who knows- its not You and thats horrifying because there is Nothing You can do to effect it because you arent real. that casual cruelty that she flexed on everyone under the assumption that she was the only thing real is turned inwards- the perfect critic of the self is the self. thus we achieve the ending of jax whom- if i am allowed to wax poetic- died the tragic death of Failing while surrounded by ladders that she couldn't recognize as Real.her constent cruel remarks are a Part of her tragedy, She did it to herself and you just wish she Didnt.
It’s always frustrating whenever the BAU tackles a case where either the victimology or UnSub has similarities to Prentiss’s background/upbringing but the writers rarely use it to give insights on Prentiss or have Prentiss’s background provide some insights into a case.
As an example, The Performer is an episode featuring Gavin Rossdale as a rockstar whose kayfabe was being a Vampire ala Lestat but fake.
The show could have dove a little into the goth community, a community Emily Prentiss used to be a part of. Did they do that? Unfortunately, no, they hung a lantern on it. The writers had Penelope tease Emily about how she used to dress Goth. Even though, Emily still dressed like one but corporate style.
In the episode, Pleasure is My Business. The UnSub grew up around wealth and privilege and then used sex work to lure her victims.
We discover in Lauren that Prentiss was in a similar enough situation re: Operation Valhalla.
Ala The Americans show, Prentiss used intimacy to get close to Ian Doyle.
Emily Prentiss became Lauren Reynolds because she matched Doyle’s type.
I know the writers had a vague idea of Prentiss’ past only that the writers had breadcrumbs pointing to a rich, mysterious past. They don’t have a crystal ball, but the privileged background could have been a jumping off point for a discussion, an insight to the UnSub’s thoughts.
In the season 16 episode, Orpheus Wrecks, the writers could have again used that case as a way to get more insight into Prentiss’ hidden personal life. As a Politician’s kid, and a somewhat savvy political operator herself, Prentiss would have been as familiar, if more, to the DC wonk space as Bailey was.
Prentiss would also be familiar with the Beltway Elite app even if she didn’t use it herself.
(As a former Spook, the idea of having an app like that in her phone would give Prentiss OpSec paranoia. She would not want her photo distributed everywhere. Being on Politico was enough of a headache for her tbh).
I know Prentiss’ whole thing is she wanted to distance herself from her mother’s political life but she would still have friends and would have known more people as she climbed up the ladder in the FBI.
Other shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Elementary, and Person of Interest almost always use a kernel of similarity/parallelism in their various cases of the week as a jumping-off point to tell a richer story about their characters.
Criminal Minds does but selectively.
This is what makes the show frustrating. You can always tell when the show could have threaded the Case/Monster of the Week and connected the case to one of the characters.
Morgan and JJ also needed more exploration. The only one the writers they consistently use this with is Reid.
To the writer’s credit they have vaguely gestured at Emily’s mysterious past— setting up Emily’s existential crisis about her morality in the face of what she’s done while she worked for CIA and JTF-12.
But then the show goes several episodes mentioning the problem, an arc villain, and it’s frustrating!
(I sometimes lowkey wish some Whedon trained writers joined Criminal Minds to establish a good character-to-case ratio. Like, Jane Espenson. Or someone from Person of Interest writers room joining the Evolution writers team. The idea of Denise Thé writing for the CM ladies makes me yearn because delicious character development + inventive messed up twists. Erica Messer does a good job showrunning— a different job altogether than just writing for the show. But also— I yearn! Think about a POI caliber writer in a CM writers room! It would be so good to have, IMO. Not that PoI was entirely perfect either, I have my frustrations too!)
——
Chris Mundy seemed interested in delving into the internal lives of the characters, especially Emily’s. Demonology was really important for our understanding of Emily Prentiss.
Her guilt, her low-key self-loathing— the way she runs from the people she loves because she thinks she’s not worth it. The way she can conform to be anyone to fit into a situation and not stand out.
Her casual regard for sex as a tool to help her get accepted. All things that were helpful for Prentiss when she became a spy.
As Michael Westen from Burn Notice said: “People with happy families don’t become spies. A bad childhood is the perfect background for covert ops.”
TLDR— It’s just frustrating because they’re always nearly at the cusp of a great character driven procedural but then almost always back off from giving us really good food.
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Ace & Clara, A Ramble About Companions & Mysteries
In a lot of ways, Ace McShane and Clara Oswald play very similar roles in the narrative: they are mysteries for the Doctor to poke and prod and uncover.
But there is a distinct difference in how the shows go about them. Namely: Seven feels like he's constantly trying to uncover the mystery, or to prepare for its unveiling, whereas Eleven only seems to make a few passing attempts.
To better define my point, I will be comparing the episodes covering Ace and Clara's respective times on the show, leading up to their mysteries' answers,
Ace's mystery begins in the episode Dragonfire (Season 24, Serial 4). The first part of Ace's mystery is quickly established: the question of how a girl from 20th Century Earth is on this alien world.
After that, we see the Doctor do what I refer to as "Cleaning House". Remembrance of the Daleks (25, 1) has the Doctor move a Time Lord superweapon back to Gallifrey, as well as destroying the homeworld of the Daleks. This was, by his own admission, the entire point that they had come to this time period in the first place.
The Happiness Patrol (25, 2) is a brief side trip to fight some fascists.
Silver Nemesis (25, 3), sees the Doctor uncover the identity of his enemy (via seeing and interacting with the chessboard in Lady Peinforte's house in 1638. We also see him once again remove a Time Lord superweapon from the board (the validium / Nemesis).
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (25, 4) sees the Doctor fight against some incredibly powerful entities (the Gods of Ragnarok).
Throughout this season, we see two things again and again: the Doctor removing something meaningful from the game board (the Hand of Omega, Nemesis, the Gods of Ragnarok), or just getting a look at Ace's character (her drive to do good in the face of oppression and evil, her fear of circuses, and so on).
Moving into Season 26, this same pattern repeats.
Battlefield (26, 1) has the Doctor following after a distress signal that was going "across the boundaries that divine one universe from another".
Ghost Light (26, 2) sees the Doctor performing an "initiative test", which appears to be to see if she can identify where they've landed. But more importantly, the Doctor takes her back to Gabriel Chase, a place that she told him she hates and fears. They also kill an Eternal, but I'm fairly sure that one wasn't actually on the Doctor's agenda.
And then comes the Curse of Fenric (26, 3), and the Doctor's got it all together. He knows who is pulling the strings after he saw the chessboard in Silver Nemesis, he understands Ace's character due to how much he's been testing her, he's removed allies and tools that Fenric may take advantage of. He has made himself ready.
Now, to compare to Clara.
We first get teased ab out Clara in Asylum of the Daleks (Series 6, Episode 1). There's not much here, beyond the fact that she exists and starts her "Run you clever boy, and remember" call that we'll be seeing again. The Doctor does not yet realise that there is a mystery.
The mystery truly starts in The Snowmen (Series 6, Christmas Special), where the Doctor meets another Clara. He only realises the mystery at the end, when she gives him her name, and he starts his hunt for her.
We then pick up the thread in The Bells of Saint John (6, 6), where the Doctor has... camped out in a random monastery and to paint portraits of Clara. As far as we know, he has made zero progress in discovering anything about her. When he finds her again, he doesn't learn anything meaningful about the mystery just yet, just that "a woman in a shop" gave her the Tardis' phone number (something that he seemingly never follows up on).
The Rings of Akhaten (6, 7) shows that the Doctor basically stalked Clara throughout her entire life in an effort to discover any irregularities about her.
Cold War (6, 8) is a complete accident on the Doctor's part.
Hide (6, 9) has the Doctor going to a powerful psychic in an attempt to further investigate Clara's "impossible-ness", although this doesn't produce any results.
Journey to the Centre of the Tardis (6, 10) technically didn't actually happen, but did show the Doctor point blank asking Clara about the mystery, and again getting no results.
The Crimson Horror (6, 11), has the Doctor interact with the Paternoster Gang, but this almost seems by accident.
Nightmare in Silver (6, 12) has the Doctor agreeing to take Clara and her young wards on a trip to a theme park, accidentally finding Cybermen along the way.
And then Name of the Doctor (6, 13), has the big reveal of Clara's mystery, and the Doctor... knew none of it.
When Seven gets to his "answer episode", it was with the feeling that he had already knew the answers, that he had set the board in preparation, that he was moving with complete knowledge and assurance of how things would play out.
When Eleven gets to his "answer episode", he feels like he's just as much in the dark as when he started. He's made no progress in his investigations, most of his episodes do not feel like they meaningfully play into his plans or preparations, and he's completely taken off guard by the entire affair.
And to be clear: Eleven is not Seven, I do not want them to be the same in all regards. But there is a clear narrative difference that I think is interesting.
The writers chose to make Seven proactive, successful in his investigations into the mystery, to be ready for the final fight.
The writers chose for Eleven to play more passively, to be unsuccessful in his few investigations into the mystery, and to be utterly unprepared for the final fight.
In summary: when you look back, it feels like the Doctor was constantly making moves concerning the mystery that was Ace, whereas he feels far more lax where Clara's mystery is concerned.
And I'm not sure if that is a problem for me, but it is an interesting thing to consider in my opinion.