Oh, Artemis
Mar. 31st, 2012 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joyfulfeatherI feel the need to write down thoughts or at least what happened, because I am feeling anxious and hurty on Artemis' behalf.
She goes out on patrol with Green Arrow once a week. Yay! He's actually being a mentor to her and stuff! (You know, she should go talk to him about what happened in the episode but I know she won't. Sigh.)
After patrol, she goes home and her mother tells her how happy she is that Artemis is so well-suited for this life and seems to be enjoying it. She provides some backstory for people who haven't read the tie-in comics and adds the fact that she went by Huntress when she was a villainess, which blows my mind. And then she proceeds to destroy Artemis' confidence completely without meaning to, by telling her that rather than Bats and GA simply having been impressed by Artemis' skills, Artemis' mom "begged" them to give her a chance. That turns everything on its head for Artemis, who now thinks she was brought on as a charity case rather than because she'd earned it.
So then she goes to the cave and finds out that Roy, aka Red Arrow, has joined the team. Which means that she's now redundant, and RA was the one they wanted in the first place. To make matters even worse, she finds out that the mission that's up is tracking Sportsmaster -- Artemis' father. You can already tell this is going to go badly. GA adds insult to injury by suggesting that the "ex-sidekicks -- I mean ex-partners" take the mission, meaning RA, Aqualad, and Kid Flash (Wally). Artemis won't stand for being left out of it, not now and not this mission. GA, knowing full well who her father is, asks her if she's sure. She is.
Ostensibly, her main role on the mission is to pilot the bioship, since she's logged more hours piloting it than anyone but M'gann and Robin. During the flight, Wally tells her that she's a real archer (she'd made a comment about how RA being on the team meant "oh good, we now have a real archer") and that she's made a place for herself on the team. Basically, he's very sweet and reassuring. He actually spends the entire episode standing up for her to Roy and being sweet to her. Until the end, but I'll get to that.
They get there and once Artemis lays eyes on Sportsmaster, she can't stay in the ship like she's supposed to. She drops out, but gets surprised by Cheshire -- who happens to be her sister. Who is working with Sportsmaster, much to Artemis' shock and anger and apparently not by Cheshire's choice. (Neither of them likes their father overly much, but Chesh happens to be on the same side he is, so they wind up working together.) So there's fighting of Cheshire and Sportsmaster getting away and then Cheshire getting away. And the mission is to track both of them, but Artemis a) can't make the shot to the boat Sportsmaster is on, but RA has no problem with it, digging that wound a little deeper, and b) does put a tracker on Chesh but also puts one on a passing train, sending her teammates after that instead of after Cheshire. Lying to your teammates: not a way to keep friends.
So she goes after Chesh herself, but Roy has put a tracker on her, so he shows up with the team coming in not long after. Too little too late. The bad guys get away and the team doesn't get the intel they needed. Mission failure. And it's Artemis' fault, because if she hadn't gone off on her own and had brought the team along instead, they could have a) been stealthy, or b) taken the building in a smarter way.
The fallout from this, within the team: Roy thinks she's a traitor, Aqualad thinks she made a costly mistake, and Wally is disgusted that she thought she had to go on her own, calling her insecure (and possibly selfish, I can't remember). Meanwhile, Artemis adds to the potential future damage by not coming clean about why she screwed up and acted the way she did, i.e. telling them that Chesh and Sportsmaster are family. I'm not entirely sure if that would have helped or just made matters worse. But honesty would serve better than more lies or omissions. (Since she did feel like she needed to prove herself, but that's not all of why she went off on her own like she let them believe.)
And then she goes home, exhausted and hurting -- and Sportsmaster is waiting for her in her room. Yay for final textual confirmation that Sportsmaster is, in fact, her father. What a dad. He tells her that she can fight Jade and she can fight him, but she can't fight who she is. "It's time to switch sides," he says. "You'll never be one of them." And we're left with the sight of her trying not to cry. She's been dealing with all of this on her own, she's near the breaking point, and now the only person who's offering support -- twisted and dark though it may be -- is her damn supervillain father.
This is the third time in as many weeks that we've seen a member of the team get courted by someone from "The Light" (the bad guys, which is just wrong). I can't remember how last week's episode ended, but the one before, with M'Gann, ended the same way -- with us not sure how she responded to the bad guy's courting (for lack of a better word). She and Artemis are both backed into corners largely of their own making, the secrets they've kept from the team being used against them.
Assuming there really is a mole on the team, which seems likely, it's not Artemis, M'gann, or Superboy. The "inside source" has been around since early in the season, and these three have been courted or blackmailed in the last three weeks. I suspect it's actually Aqualad, without him knowing it -- that he's reporting back to his king and queen, with the prince there as well, and the prince is a bad guy (possibly confirmed in the latest issue of the companion comic).
TPTB have said that someone's going to die, and I suspect it'll be one of the girls, Artemis or M'gann. In some ways M'gann makes more sense to me, but I just don't know at this point. It could be Superboy, because then you can bring him back -- that happened in the original canon, so why not here? It could be Aqualad, but I doubt it at this point, especially if he's the mole.
We have three more episodes left this season. I suspect the team is going to be pretty much in tatters at the end, no matter what happens. I could be wrong. But man, this has been painful, and we're not to the end yet! *wibble*
I'm glad I'm bringing Artemis to The City from earlier in the season, though. I don't want to bring her in broken. And she is, right now. That poor girl...
She goes out on patrol with Green Arrow once a week. Yay! He's actually being a mentor to her and stuff! (You know, she should go talk to him about what happened in the episode but I know she won't. Sigh.)
After patrol, she goes home and her mother tells her how happy she is that Artemis is so well-suited for this life and seems to be enjoying it. She provides some backstory for people who haven't read the tie-in comics and adds the fact that she went by Huntress when she was a villainess, which blows my mind. And then she proceeds to destroy Artemis' confidence completely without meaning to, by telling her that rather than Bats and GA simply having been impressed by Artemis' skills, Artemis' mom "begged" them to give her a chance. That turns everything on its head for Artemis, who now thinks she was brought on as a charity case rather than because she'd earned it.
So then she goes to the cave and finds out that Roy, aka Red Arrow, has joined the team. Which means that she's now redundant, and RA was the one they wanted in the first place. To make matters even worse, she finds out that the mission that's up is tracking Sportsmaster -- Artemis' father. You can already tell this is going to go badly. GA adds insult to injury by suggesting that the "ex-sidekicks -- I mean ex-partners" take the mission, meaning RA, Aqualad, and Kid Flash (Wally). Artemis won't stand for being left out of it, not now and not this mission. GA, knowing full well who her father is, asks her if she's sure. She is.
Ostensibly, her main role on the mission is to pilot the bioship, since she's logged more hours piloting it than anyone but M'gann and Robin. During the flight, Wally tells her that she's a real archer (she'd made a comment about how RA being on the team meant "oh good, we now have a real archer") and that she's made a place for herself on the team. Basically, he's very sweet and reassuring. He actually spends the entire episode standing up for her to Roy and being sweet to her. Until the end, but I'll get to that.
They get there and once Artemis lays eyes on Sportsmaster, she can't stay in the ship like she's supposed to. She drops out, but gets surprised by Cheshire -- who happens to be her sister. Who is working with Sportsmaster, much to Artemis' shock and anger and apparently not by Cheshire's choice. (Neither of them likes their father overly much, but Chesh happens to be on the same side he is, so they wind up working together.) So there's fighting of Cheshire and Sportsmaster getting away and then Cheshire getting away. And the mission is to track both of them, but Artemis a) can't make the shot to the boat Sportsmaster is on, but RA has no problem with it, digging that wound a little deeper, and b) does put a tracker on Chesh but also puts one on a passing train, sending her teammates after that instead of after Cheshire. Lying to your teammates: not a way to keep friends.
So she goes after Chesh herself, but Roy has put a tracker on her, so he shows up with the team coming in not long after. Too little too late. The bad guys get away and the team doesn't get the intel they needed. Mission failure. And it's Artemis' fault, because if she hadn't gone off on her own and had brought the team along instead, they could have a) been stealthy, or b) taken the building in a smarter way.
The fallout from this, within the team: Roy thinks she's a traitor, Aqualad thinks she made a costly mistake, and Wally is disgusted that she thought she had to go on her own, calling her insecure (and possibly selfish, I can't remember). Meanwhile, Artemis adds to the potential future damage by not coming clean about why she screwed up and acted the way she did, i.e. telling them that Chesh and Sportsmaster are family. I'm not entirely sure if that would have helped or just made matters worse. But honesty would serve better than more lies or omissions. (Since she did feel like she needed to prove herself, but that's not all of why she went off on her own like she let them believe.)
And then she goes home, exhausted and hurting -- and Sportsmaster is waiting for her in her room. Yay for final textual confirmation that Sportsmaster is, in fact, her father. What a dad. He tells her that she can fight Jade and she can fight him, but she can't fight who she is. "It's time to switch sides," he says. "You'll never be one of them." And we're left with the sight of her trying not to cry. She's been dealing with all of this on her own, she's near the breaking point, and now the only person who's offering support -- twisted and dark though it may be -- is her damn supervillain father.
This is the third time in as many weeks that we've seen a member of the team get courted by someone from "The Light" (the bad guys, which is just wrong). I can't remember how last week's episode ended, but the one before, with M'Gann, ended the same way -- with us not sure how she responded to the bad guy's courting (for lack of a better word). She and Artemis are both backed into corners largely of their own making, the secrets they've kept from the team being used against them.
Assuming there really is a mole on the team, which seems likely, it's not Artemis, M'gann, or Superboy. The "inside source" has been around since early in the season, and these three have been courted or blackmailed in the last three weeks. I suspect it's actually Aqualad, without him knowing it -- that he's reporting back to his king and queen, with the prince there as well, and the prince is a bad guy (possibly confirmed in the latest issue of the companion comic).
TPTB have said that someone's going to die, and I suspect it'll be one of the girls, Artemis or M'gann. In some ways M'gann makes more sense to me, but I just don't know at this point. It could be Superboy, because then you can bring him back -- that happened in the original canon, so why not here? It could be Aqualad, but I doubt it at this point, especially if he's the mole.
We have three more episodes left this season. I suspect the team is going to be pretty much in tatters at the end, no matter what happens. I could be wrong. But man, this has been painful, and we're not to the end yet! *wibble*
I'm glad I'm bringing Artemis to The City from earlier in the season, though. I don't want to bring her in broken. And she is, right now. That poor girl...
