A Meme And Musings
From darksigma:
DemonQueen
~ will teach you to ~
Get out of Jail Free
'What will your business card say?' at QuizGalaxy.com
The rest of this post is just more of me musing aloud (or something like aloud, in any case) on various aspects of characterization for my potential Gargoyles fanfiction. This is mainly for my own benefit, so it's not like I expect anyone to read it. Not that you can't if you want to, of course...and if any of you guys actually remember enough about Gargoyles to be willing/able to put in your own two cents on some of my characterization thoughts, that'd be much appeciated.
Also please note that the fact I'm musing about all this crap is not a promise of anything. At all.
The way I see it, anything that can be used to put off studying for my Psych 100 final, y'know, is cool.
An interesting thing of note about Anthony Dracon is that, despite playing a very minor role throughout the entire series, we actually did get to know a little about his family: in one episode, we met his grandfather, Dominic Dracon, who was a gangster back in the day. This, the way I see it, pretty much confirms that Dracon comes from a crime family, more or less the mafia. Which means his father was born into it, his mother at least knew about if she wasn't directly involved herself, and Tony himself was probably raised for from day one.
Which kind of explains a lot about his character, I think. He was probably a pretty spoiled brat as a kid, and I'm gathering he was an only child. His parents probably yelled at him if he got caught cheating...not because he was cheating, but because he was dumb enough to get caught. They may or may not have been exactly cold to him, but I doubt they were all hugs and cuddles either. I don't see how he could have learned about the value of actually caring for other human beings, at least from his family. Thus, he grew up self-centered and not really seeing the value in emotional connections, with no concept of right and wrong, in favor of who gets away with it, and who doesn't.
This is probably just my neurosis, but the fact that Dracon has enough of a connection with his grandfather to know about the old man's days as a gangster while he's never said so much as a word about his mother or father makes me want to say that he was actually raised by his grandfather, at least for a good part of his life. So I'm thinking that his parents were killed off while he was a kid, when he was old enough to have spent enough time in care of his parents to have felt the effect of being raised by them, but when he was still young enough that, at least to his mind, he never really knew them. For this I want to go with the simple car crash story, although I'm debating falling back on an old cliche and saying that they were actually done in by a rival family/gang, who just made it look like an accident.
Jackal and Hyena are, to state the obvious, very attached to one another, in a way that's borderline unhealthy (or already is unhealthy, depending on how much you care to read between the lines). Sure, they're twins, but I'm thinking the only way it could have gotten this bad is if they grew up with no one to depend on but each other. For the purposes of my writing, I care to read into them a fairly dark past: a father who was an abusive drunk that slapped their mother around, and a mother that was too weak (physically, mentally, emotionally) to do much to resist him or protect her children. Their father never actually got around to laying a hand on the twins, but he terrified them and they saw him hurt their mother all the time, so I'm thinking that's plenty enough.
Also, the way Jackal and Hyena react to someone as filthy rich as Xanatos (she called him "arrogant" and he derisively called him "rich man") leads to me to believe they're not unaccustomed to hardship. I see them as growing up in the slums of New York, never really having much of chance at life even if their home life hadn't been screwed up to begin with. Being fast on your feet and quick in your wits and not afraid to do what you had to survive was what they knew from day one, not an emphasis on being good and staying in school.
The key thing about the twins, though, is that somehow their past screwed them up in slightly but significantly different ways. Hyena is a borderline sociopath with a hot temper who rushes into battle headlong, indifferent to the concequences as long as she gets to inflict some pain. Jackal is more devious and, in some ways, crueller, and while his sister seems almost careless of him at times, he's very protective and defensive of her. So what happened to make sure their personas got psychologically screwed in different ways?
Well, the first answer that comes to me is partially a matter of gender sterotype. At some point during their early chilhood, Jackal got the idea that as the male (and, technically, older) sibling, it was his job to protect Hyena. Hyena, on the other hand, never really bought into this. The result is that Jackal is more cautious, more careful, because he keeps an eye on the world around them and any potential threats: he's used to doing the thinking for both of them. He thinks he has to. Hyena is brasher because she's used to being careless; Jackal's been taking some of the heat for her her whole life, and she doesn't even realize it. It's not just that she doesn't care about the dangers, it's also that she isn't even aware some of them exist. Hyena resents her brother for being so over-bearing and protective of her, and Jackal in turn resents her for not appreciating all he does for her.
To take the differentation in their experiences to an extreme, I had an idea about what eventually happend to their parents that finally causes them to flee the nest. The idea is that, one night after both of the twins were asleep, their father came home drunker and madder than usual, and started beating up on his wife again. The noises woke the siblings up; Jackal told Hyena to stay in her room, and while she obeyed he snuck downstairs to see what was going on. His parents didn't know he was watching them from behind a door. Like usual, his father kept hitting and hitting his mother.
Only this time, he didn't stop. And Jackal watched the whole thing as his father beat his mother to death.*
What exactly Jackal told Hyena about what happened I haven't decided (the truth, but how much he tried to smooth over is where I'm fuzzy), but that's not really point: she didn't have to see it. He did.
I think if you asked one of the show's characters who was more twisted, Jackal or Hyena, they'd probably guess Hyena, but I actually think the opposite is true. They're both pretty messed up, sure, and she shows off her bloodlust a lot more, but I think Jackal has some deeper issues that trump hers. There's something seriously disturbed in his personality that occasionally rears its ugly head when the situation gets extreme enough: when he merged with Anubis in "Grief", the god's power overwhelmed him and caused him to try and "gift" the entire world with death. There's got to be some deep scars there that aren't immediately evident the way his sister's problems are.
Hyena wears all of her problems on the outside, showing them to the world. Jackal tries to bury at least some of his inside, where they grow darker and more twisted.
All accusations of sterotyping aside, there's just no way that at least I can see it that Dracon isn't Catholic. He's so obviously Italian, his family is at least a little bit old money, he's part of the mob...I'm thinking being raised Roman Catholic was at least a given.
Note, of course, that I never said he was a good Catholic, or even a practicing one. Obviously, he doesn't believe in a lot of the moralities the church teaches (duh), and he doesn't strike me as someone who prays a lot or even goes to church. The way I feel about it, I get the idea that he's probably Catholic the same way my dad's family is. They follow the holidays and most of the more general princibles (there's a cross in my parent's bedroom, they don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent, and my grandma, at least, thinks homosexuality is a sin), but they don't exactly think of Jesus on a day-to-day basis. They also get really adamant about being Catholic and suddenly uptight at the thought of being something else.
Dracon probably thinks of himself as Catholic, might even be proud of the fact, but he doesn't do much to act on it. He's more Catholic just because that's what he was raised and he never really thought about being anything else. Religious belief, clearly, is not a big issue in his day-to-day life.
And then there's Jackal. Considering where and how he grew up, if he had never met the gargoyles, Jackal would probably be an atheist. Living a life the way he did with a personality like his, there's not much room for faith in a divine power, particularly one that from his point of view has never come through.
Why do I say "If he had never met the gargoyles"? Well, it's sort of hard to deny the existance of any form of god when you've had the experience of temporarily merging with one. That being the case, Jackal's probably moved onto the next best thing; deism. In other words, the gods are out there, but they don't particularly give a damn except when it suits them. This actually fits pretty well with Jackal's cynical, self-relient attitude, at least as far as my thoughts go.
An interesting thing I'm debating doing is having the difference between Dracon and Jackal's beliefs brought up in a conversation. His lack of faith on all other areas aside, for some reason my mind seems to have decided that Dracon would be affornted by the whole "There's not just one right god, and as a whole they just don't care" concept: my fleeting impression of Dominic Dracon was that he was just traditional enough to bring his grandson up "right" on that idea.
This could potentially get even more interesting. since the gargoyles have developed a habit of running into personifications of old world polytheistic gods (Anubis, Coyote, Raven, and Odin, at least); imagine Dracon's reaction if faced with one of them in the flesh, so to speak.
I'm not sure whether it's just my odd love of the characters, the pairing itself, or even just kinky sex in general, but for some reason one of the the things that immediately comes to my mind when I think Jackal/Demona is "Damn, the sex must be hot".
Jackal, the way I see him, is just way too twisted not to be a sadomasochist (and the metal claws don't exactly do anything to argue with that either). And I'm figuring he pretty much has to like it rough. Also, I don't exactly think of him as a horndog, but I get the feeling that he's pretty much up for anything, anywhere, all the time. Another vibe that I get off of him is that when it comes to sex, he gets off more on his partner's arounsal than his own. I'm not saying he's a natural submissive; I'm saying that he has no problem if he has to play the submissive and his partner gets more of the good vibrations than he does, because seeing them in ectasy and knowing it was him that put them there is his own turn-on.
Demona, both because of her personality and her history, I'm thinking has to be dominant. I mean, she just has to; if it comes time to go to it and the other person wants to dominant her, this show ain't happening. Like my homegirl Lilith, Demona wants to be on top. Pretty much any position with her in control and getting the most pleasure out of it is what she likes the best. I'm also thinking that she probably has some sadistic tendencies of her own, possibly with some very (very) faint masochistic tendencies as well. And despite all her love of dominance, at the same time I think that (as long as it was the right partner), she might get turned on every once in awhile if the other person dominated her. As long as it wasn't too often.
And with all the anger, all the rage, all the guilt, all the pain she's built up over her very, very long lifetime, I'd think she wants it rough too. Sex is a release, however brief it may be, from her life and her scars and her lies, so while she's there she just wants to be gone, her mind and body lost to the heat of the moment with no room for anything else.
When I put the two of them together, I get something hot and heavy and passionate and rough.
Demona has someone who's willing to give her all he's got and as hard as he can, someone who's willing to let her be in control and push her buttons exactly the way she likes it and when she says to, but someone at the same time who isn't above throwing her to the ground and taking her the good old-fashioned way when they sense she's in the mood for it.
Jackal has someone who wants what he's got, who's willing to get taken away utterly and completely by the moment, who can take the pain and turn it into pleasure and then give it back just as good; someone he can get on his hands and knees and beg like a dog for and know that it's what they want the most.
It's much the way their relationship works too, because Demona's using him for all he's worth and satisfied for all she gets out of it, pleased as punch by his willingness for her. And Jackal's hopelessly devoted, happy to be used and dominated as long as it means he gets to stay by her side, as long as it means he gets to know that she's happy and it's because of him.
(And as far as mechanics go, well, I know some authors might interpret it differently, but in my mind gargoyles and humans are anatomically compatible as far as sex goes, althought they obviously can't produce offspring together. And as far as Jackal's specific "mechanics" go, the fact that he's a cyborg implies that at least some parts of him are still flesh, and...c'mon, he is a man, and I really doubt he'd willingingly give up that particular part of himself for his upgrade. I mean, seriously.)
When I think about these two together, I get this repeated mental image of Jackal on his back with Demona straddling him, her sinking her fangs into one of the exposed parts of his neck while he digs his metal claws into her back. And both of them obviously enjoying it very much.
...Wow. Where the hell is the "shut up" button on my brain this week??
*For the record, I had formulated this theory for what happened to Jackal and Hyena's parents long before LOST ever aired, so no, I'm not stealing Sawyer's backstory, at least not specifically.