#lot commentary

Pt 2 It gave me an idea, like, Neron is trying to get as many souls as he can right? So what if Neron somehow gets a hold of Len's soul while it was trapped in the timestream or something, and he was reaching out for anyone, anything, that would help him. So he makes a deal to get out. So yeah, extremely unlikely BUT WHAT AN INTERESTING SCRIPT THAT WOULD BE? WHAT IF WE COULD GET LEN BACK LIKE THIS???

Pt 3 please forgive my rambles XD

3 - You’re forgiven :D

1 - Yeah Neron is from the comics and James Jesse aka the Trickster tricks him??? I wish we could have a Trickster on Legends for this arc honestly...

haha okay good question.

Just in general, my comment about them being self-insert OCs was a little pithy, but it was mostly that their personalities often don’t match their comics’ counterparts, or they don’t exist in the comics at all, and sometimes they read a little bit… archetypical? Stereotypical to self-insert tropes? 

I actually think Arrow might be a worse culprit than Legends.

More or less a lot of people have made the offhand comment that the version of Oliver Queen that we see in DCTV is either Marc Guggenheim’s self-insert OC or else his batsona (Batman self-insert). Felicity didn’t exist in the comics, and barring the awkward and ableist attempt to give her Barbara Gordon’s storyline, hers follows what a lot of self-insert characters do too (for better or worse, it is a common self-insert plot to have a nerd girl who’s awkward but beautiful and cute in almost equal measures and the brooding hero falls for her but for a while can’t let himself be with her?)

And look - I’m definitely not shaming self-inserts or romance plots here. i’m pretty sure all characters are in some manner a projection of the writer (not to say they’re all meant to be the writer, just that people contain multitudes). I love overworn romance plots and even outside of those, the world’s most blatant self-inserts have made for some truly great characters (Luke Skywalker is literally named Luke… George Lucas wasn’t even hiding it). Most comics characters were someone else’s self-insert hero to begin with anyway.

But to Legends… it’s not so much that I can tell who is and isn’t a self-insert. It’s just that some of the characters are almost silly once you think about it.

You’ve got Sara, who also doesn’t exist in the comics, and is eternally badass and kind of can do no wrong and was a kick ass assassin and also is the only one who can do things like use the spear of destiny responsibly? You’ve got Ray, a character who’s personality hasn’t matched his comics-equivalent since day 1 (and who a friend of mine has this elaborate theory about how DCTV actually wanted to use a different character and wrote it as a different character but then DC Exec killed that so they kept the lines and personality they had written but just slapped a different name on top). But yeah he’s a billionaire and super-genius. There’s Ava, who’s literally supposed to be The Perfect Woman. There’s Nate Heywood, who is a… historian-superhero who was magically cured of a genetic disorder? 

(Okay it wasn’t magical, he got superpowers, but I’m still salty about how they handled this plot and the fact that him having haemophilia literally hasn’t been mentioned in multiple seasons even if he gets injured when he’s not in steel form. Anyway the dude literally figured out about time travel and the Legends just by studying history?)

I think those are among the most blatant culprits. I honestly don’t know what to do with the realization that they’re all white characters? None of the people of colour on show have had quite so over the top of backstories nor reads as some bizarrely idealized (and ultimately flat) character. Where are the super-genius billionaires who are people of colour?

Okay I’m getting derailed. Back on track.

Right?!

I think Mick knows intrinsically that he fares best when he experiences balance. That he runs not just hot, but too hot. And what he needs is someone with equal intensity but in the opposite direction. People without intensity get bowled over in his wake, he has no time for them. They have to be able to stand up to him and quell him, y’know?

The thing is, Len and Frost are both similar in that regard. Len is incredibly intense and fares best (overall) when he has people to match him, like both Mick (fire) and Barry (lightning) manage to do. Frost (Caitlin) has been matched best with Ronnie (nuclear/fire), so Mick (fire) would likely help accomplish for her something similar to what Ronnie did.

It’s neat though that what we see in his friendships outside of these temperature metaphors is a bit different? 

I have a separate post about the close friendships that he makes (and how they differ a bit by gender) but if you look at those friendships, there’s some softness to a lot of the people he matches with. They’re more in tune with emotions, with their own inner harmony. And I think that’s something that helps balance him out too, in a different way, something he seeks out intuitively?

(how many excuses will I find to use this hug gif in a reply? only time will tell!)

Anyway, I think what Mick needs from his friendships (someone to be softer around) is different from what he seeks out from his ‘partnerships’ (equal intensity but in an opposing way). 

2/2 On the Flash, Lisa was one to calm Mick down when he took things too far with Cisco. I just feel like Mick puts up less resistance with relationships with women then men. He has a thing for strong women. He’s attracted to them, he respects a certain type of women, usually strong-willed, take no BS or criminal type, or has something views as worthy. Ray & Nate try hard to break down his walls and connect and only sometimes get let in. What you think Mick’s relationships with men vs women?

I think he definitely does form easier relationships with women, and I think a lot of what you said hits the nail on the head. If we delve a bit into Mick’s background, that also makes sense. 

To start, with men, we know he has a very tense relationship with his father, who was abusive. If we think about the fact that he went to juvie and was probably around a lot of other authoritarian men, not to mention violent men his own age and older for most of his life after that… I can see why he doesn’t get close to men easily.

Is Dick even older than Mick is in this scene? Honestly though…

And stemming from that, I think it actually makes sense that he’s let pretty much only Len and Ray, and eventually a bit Nate, close over time. Len because Len was a childhood friend, smaller and younger than him when they met and in need of protection. Though Len grew up into someone formidable and dangerous and cold, he and Mick were always even, and Mick was always capable of taking him (i.e, of kicking his ass) though Len never truly gave him a reason to for most of their lives. There was a unique level of lifelong trust there.

Pictured above: my heart fucking shattering. Every time.

With Ray, it was more… Ray is not like most of the men that Mick has interacted with in his life. Ray is soft and emotive. He’s confident and capable and certainly doesn’t lack strength, but he’s unshy about having feelings and caring deeply and wanting to hug, wanting to befriend, wanting to be kind. His earnestness in all those ways is part of what allows him and Mick to get along in the way that they do. Where Ray eschews toxic masculinity and embraces healthier masculinity (and indeed, many aspects of femininity) is often where they actually mesh. 

Pictured above: Mick reconsidering every life choice he’s ever made.

(Eventually, Nate starts to fit into this pattern a bit as well, as we saw in Lot 3x07, though Mick doesn’t let him in emotionally in the same way).

But women. I love the way Mick relates to women. 

And we can do the same time of analysis here. It’s clear he loved his mother. The way he looks at her photo in 3x07 is very telling. He doesn’t regret killing his father, but nothing is said about his mother. And when we saw Mick’s younger self in season 1, he’s very clearly shaken by the fact that he burned down his house with his family inside, so we can surmise he has a lot of regret over her death. He also mentions the music she used to listen to in the Legends pilot, so I gather that he still thinks about her now.

Mick’s favorite thing: bar fights to the tune of Captain and Tennille.

I imagine she was a bold woman in a lot of ways, and that the emotional strength and fire in her is part of why he appreciates those qualities so much in other woman.

It is kind of hilarious to stack up Mick’s interactions with women too. I’m sure I’ve talked about it before, but all the times he makes a comment about being into a woman, it’s often after she’s done something aggressive or if she’s particularly powerful and confident in herself. 

There’s so many examples. From his “nice” when Lisa busts him and Len out of the prison transport, to seeing Kendra punching Rip in the Legends premiere, to him respecting the daylights out of Sara and loving watching her kick people’s asses in that bar. It even dates all the way back to his interaction with Caitlin in The Flash 1x10, really. The way she rebuffs his whole “the fire reveals what’s inside you” and she’s having none of it? I feel like that intrigued him a bit, the way it made him want to push and see how much mettle she really had.

He’s secretly nice, Caitlin. Honestly. Somewhere… deep, deep inside.

And then we see it time and again in Legends S2 and S3 as well, from commenting on the president being hot, from going from thinking Supergirl is ridiculous to being her new number one fan after seeing her kick some ass, and onward. Him calling Agent Sharpe of the Time Bureau hot is just… the cherry on top of that pie.

Number one fan. Or fanboy?

But the friendships he makes with women are different than all that too. There’s an attraction he has to power and grit, to be sure, but his friendship with Amaya goes so far beyond that, and his friendship with Lisa I imagine did as well. 

Hug number one for Amaya. It was a bold sneak-attack.

With Amaya, he was at odds with her because he saw her as a rule-follower and she saw him as a man without a code. And yeah, he might be a little into her after she knocks out half (all?) the people on the Waverider and threatens to kill him with that knife and stows away on board, but their friendship doesn’t really start until she sees beneath the surface with him. The way it clicks for her, that he’s in pain, that he’s struggling, and that he has so much fire and rage burning inside him, whipped up like an inferno he can’t control right then.

When she tells him that she sees him, gets him, and is there for him, a lot changes. He starts to trust her, and in turn she ends up trusting him. It’s not wholly dissimilar from his friendship with Ray, and how Ray and him got closer once Ray displayed insight into who Mick is and what’s going on beneath the surface, proving that he sees him as a unique individual and not just as a ‘dumb violent criminal’ more or less. 

Aka another episode where the whole fandom wanted to hug Mick.

And Amaya continues to believe in him and that’s just so important. He considers her a real friend and she’s never betrayed him even though he’s betrayed her (not that that Mick exists anymore, thanks Doomworld) and that’s honestly something special? 

So… I can see why he lets women in easier (he has a much better history with them in general) and in his experience and line of work, I can see why bold, powerful women who take no shit are women he respects and admires and indicates an attraction toward. Mick likes mettle, and he likes people who can hold their own.

I think for a friendship though, for a real one, regardless of gender what it really takes is someone proving that they understand him and his depths (Ray in the Russian prison, Amaya in the old west after seeing his semi-suicidal state of being). It also goes a long when when they’re willing to do things his way sometimes (Ray playing getaway driver, Amaya stealing that booze for him in 1920′s Chicago). 

Aka the moment Mick fell in love with this smol.

And yes, those friendships definitely look different across gender, Mick is much softer with women, hugging them, less abrupt and angry unless his back is up, but he does express vulnerability with men too sometimes, even if he’s not quite as “touchy-feely” (as I imagine he would put it :)).

Amaya vs. Ray hug score: 2 and 0. Poor Ray.

This is in response to this thread from about a week ago, I’m just slow at responding.

Anyhoo, I’ve never assumed that he gave it to her? I don’t think it was the same ring that she had in the following episode, and I don’t think Mick would go out of his way to give it to her (or necessarily give it up if she asked, which I don’t think she would have). Mick’s more observant than most people give him credit for so I’m sure he noticed that Len was holding a candle for Sara at the tail end of S1, but it’s not like Mick to be so sentimental as to pass on Len’s personal affects for the sake of doomed romance or anything. I just... can’t imagine that conversation.

“Here blondie, my bff just died for me, take one of the only mementos I have of him from our lifelong partnership because I know he had a crush on you.”

That is... a really good point, holy hell.

Aberration, cognitive intrusion, anachronism / doppelganger, hallucination... those are the main words we’ve seen him stumble over. I’m sure there are others but time travel and Leonard (aka, trauma) are the biggest and most obvious common denominators here.

This also explains why he didn’t have these issues before season 1. Like I fully assumed it had to do with trauma and/or brain damage (and maybe the alcoholism) but just... wow. This really drives it home.

I’ve decided it was Ray (Palmer’s) puppet. And that he has ones of the entire team.

Remember him being lost in whatever era of dinosaurs that was (jurassic? cretaceous?) and making little versions of his teammates out of rocks and such?

Now imagine that once he was back on the Waverider, he started to miss having those little rock buddies to talk to. It really helped him get out his thoughts and feelings and navigate his emotions about the team to have these little rock versions of them. Not to mention: comfort objects.

So anyway, after returning to that era and showing off those little rock folks he made, he realizes he wants something like them for his room, alright? So he ends up designing and creating puppet/muppet/doll versions of each of the crew members after that? Maybe he does it lovingly by hand or maybe he gives Gideon the designs and uses the fabrication room or maybe he takes his designs to a dollmaker in some era or another that they visit, but one way or another, in the space of about a week he goes from zero stuffed-puppet team members in his room to a full crew’s worth.

And I do mean full crew’s worth. There’s all the current (when he makes them, in S2) Legends so there’s Amaya and Nate alongside Martin and Jax and Mick and Sara and even himself, but then he’s also got ones for original Legends, including Rip (who’s not around or maybe just returning when he makes them), and Kendra and Leonard and even Carter. 

And then the Time Bureau comes along and takes the Waverider and no one has seen these puppets yet and they all see him leaving the ship with them but honestly, no one asks. They don’t want to know.

Okay that’s a lie, Nate totally asks (while everyone else is in the background shaking their heads). Nate’s response to Ray’s happy explanation is just an “uh huh” and a “you need to get out more, buddy.”

(Also he may have acquired a stuffed version of the Waverider because Gideon made a sly comment about like ‘so am I not part of the team, Mr. Palmer?’ and he felt bad, but also maybe she just slipped a puppet version of her human-like avatar out of the fabrication slot one day when he was walking by and he was like “huh? OH! Gideon!” and that was that).

But then, okay, they take the Waverider back from the Time Bureau, pack up their stuff for the trip, and everyone knows he has these weird dolls so he’s way beyond hiding them because sure it’s weird but it’s his team and he loves them all, okay? So he proudly displays them, and whenever anyone goes in his room to say something, they have to see them. 

And seriously, no one quite knows what the hell to make of them. Nate is like “yeah okay it’s kinda cute, I like this little version of me, he’s got cute hair” whereas Amaya uses the word “disturbing” at least once. Jax just stares at the doll-version of himself and shakes his head a little, and when he comments about it to Martin, Martin is like “Mr. Palmer has always been a bit of an… odd duck”. Sara picks hers up and shakes it. “Not enough knives.” Ray promptly gets a fabricated plush knife to go with it. 

Mick sees the dolls, notices that the doll version of him is holding hands with the doll version of Leonard, and grunts without making any verbal comment but doesn’t threaten to punch Ray so Ray takes it as a grunt of approval. And Ray has caught him at least once hanging out in his room rearranging the dolls (talking to the Leonard doll?), though he completely denies it and pretends he was there for something else each time. They remain holding hands each time Ray inspects them though.

And then, of course, Zari boards the ship! And she gets a doll :D And she thinks this is hilarious and no less strange than everything else about the Legends. And her doll, along with 1-2 others each time, has gone mysteriously missing once or twice and Ray has found them in different locations on the ship in a little tableau, like mock-fighting, or in front of the video game console “holding” the controllers, or playing cards. He’s honestly overjoyed that Zari has a sense of humor? And she’s just like “how did you not think of fabricating them new little outfits? Everyone on this ship loves dumb looking outfits” and then it’s just a thing. The dolls get to dress up.

(”No, Sara, I’m fine - I’m not regressing to childhood. This is just… team-building. See, Zari’s having fun?” “Jax is worried about both of you and frankly so am I.” “I got Gideon to fabricate your puppet an outfit with 5 new spots for weapons. “…. okay lemme see that.”)

I definitely think Mick’s been presented differently this season. But I would say that it’s not that he’s inherently more competent or smart, its that his teammates are acknowledging and noticing that more and putting him down less, and that changes how the viewer responds to him?

I think… realistically, Mick has often been incredibly belligerent with the team. I get the impression it was pretty bad for a while there. We see him twist Ray’s arm for poking him in the chest in S2, and no one wants to volunteer to go collect him for a mission. In fact he’s often sleeping during missions or flat out refuses to go and help. He insults the team pretty often honestly, and he’s at odds with Sarah (sometimes fairly, like saving Ray in the Camelot episode) and sometimes just because he’s angling for a fight.

So I think there was this huge tension between him and the team in S2, which contributed to them taking mean shots at his intellect and competence (some more than others) while in turn he was violent and uncooperative with them. And a lot of this comes from his grief, and their grief (losing Len, and also Rip?)? Which doesn’t excuse the straight-up ableism going on and how they insult his intellect instead of deal with the actual issues (his rage, his belligerence) but I think it informs what’s changed in S3.

In S3, the Mick that we know isn’t the one who betrayed the team and created Doomworld, it’s the one who chose the team. Who fought with them and aligned himself with them, fully and truly and authentically for… essentially for the first time since the Time Pirates in S1. He’d never had to face another similar choice since then, and until the end of S2, he never did fully choose them. And when he did, they noticed?

So now that he has chosen them? And that he volunteers to come back from his retirement/vacation in Aruba to help, and that the first thing he does when he sees an anachronism in 3x01 is to call up Sara? He’s treating the team like family and they’re responding to it in kind. Martin even invited Mick to stay at his home for the Westallen wedding??

So… Mick’s still making some speech issues. He can’t say anachronism or doppelganger. He still demonstrates the aphasia that the fandom has discussed. It’s less-so, I would agree, but that might also be because he’s less stressed and anxious around his team because they’re less likely to take digs at him for not knowing the words. And he’s still a little belligerent. And he definitely did rat out Zari and seems to take (private) glee in ratting out his teammates to each other (or their temporal-aberration children, y’know). 

But his dynamic with the team has definitely changed, and thus the lens with which we see Mick has changed. He’s also healthier, I think, and much further in his grief and coping process, though maybe not at the end yet (but is anyone truly ever at the end of mourning?). 

And I think it’s just a natural direction of writing. It might be partially in response to fan complaints but I think it’s also… you can’t keep up that type of friction between one member and the rest of a team, not permanently across seasons. Something’s gotta give? So they told the story they wanted to tell with it, and now they’re advancing the narrative? 

So now we get to see genuine, if still somewhat rocky, teamwork. A natural progression of people coming to understand and care about each other and communicate in their somewhat stilted ways.