you can't kill an idea

Authour: lesbiantogruta

Subfandom: Justice Society of America, Sandman

Media: Comics (specifically Post-Crisis)

Relationships: Gen (Lyta Hall-centric, Minor/Background Ships)

Year: 2023

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Death, Minor Unhappy Ending

Summary:

Inspired by The Refrigerator Monologues. This is my own take with the Dead Women of DC. They are the Harpies. The dead girls with tales left to tell. Will you listen?

Submitted by Conner

Submitter's comment:

According to writer Christopher Priest in a Usenet discussion, it's not just that Ray was homeschooled but that he has no formal education at all. His tutoring was not accredited. He has no school records. He can't even take the SAT. And he doesn't have a GED (which would give him the equivalent of a high school diploma). Hence the fact that he can't seem to get a job that isn't in fast food for minimum wage.

If The Ray 1994 had not been canceled, future issues would have featured a storyline in which Ray tries to get into college and has to deal with the realization that such education as he had did not set him up for any opportunities in life. He can't get into any college, and he can't get any job that will be adequate to support him (and, presumably, any other family members living with him).

The prestigious, high-paid ($85,000 apparently! which is more like $184,000 these days) job he had with Vandal Savage's company would ordinarily be helpful to his resume, but Ray leaves that job abruptly, on bad terms, and the ruthless and manipulative Savage of course isn't going to give him any kind of reference or acknowledgment that Ray ever worked for him in any significant way.

So what becomes of him from there? Does he start working toward a GED, as the only option available to him if he wants to move forward? Is he hoping for a career in programming as he originally planned, or would he look into other options (in light of how out-of-hand Death Masque, the product of his programming skills, became, he might not want to continue in that field)?

Like, yeah, cool, okay, Wally holds the secret to eternal life at all times and there's a bunch of ancient cults tryna get ahold of him to access that and he just does nothing with that information.

The Speed Force gives them the ability to affect people’s biological age. They’re not just the key to resurrection, they’re the key to eternal youth and vitality.

Or the multiple times Wally has straight up just reversed time. And his only reaction is 'i have no fucking clue how I did that' and then he moves on.

What they don't tell you about reading comics with Cable is that you start finding this stuff unironically really cute.

He has a history of getting short-tempered when upset (that's been present since his very first appearance), and lashing out at people (that's how the Atlanta incident happened), and making himself difficult (like during the "training exercise" conflict with the Titans). This wasn't who he was most of the time pre-Infinite Crisis, but it was a side of him that did emerge in times of heightened emotion and high stress.

When he's recruited to the JSA, it's been about a year since he's been through the most stressful experience of his already stressful existence. He's had to go through this seemingly without support, and he's having to live with the effects of this trauma constantly. Something that used to give him purpose in life has been the source of (as he perceives it) ruining his life. Connection with people has helped him a lot in the past, but he doesn't have anyone like that around now and believes himself alienated from humanity because of his face (not true, but he believes it is). He's had a whole year to marinate in all this.

So no wonder he's in a constant state of his stress reaction, trying to protect himself behind a wall of standoffishness, because that earnest kid he used to be got hurt and he doesn't want to live through that again. The old Grant is still in there. His old personality continues to shine through in certain interactions with people he's comfortable with, like Jesse and Tom and Sonia. And as soon as his face is restored, he's suddenly outgoing and upbeat. Of course this soon gets overshadowed by Situational Narcissism due to Gog's influence, and the belligerence returns quickly.