Thread:Gilgameshkun/@comment-16581186-20151129161318/@comment-995426-20151130010143

Anyway, yeah... It may seem weird to some people, but some people do speak that way, and it's not weird to them. I've even heard love songs whose lyrics poetically call lovers "brother" and "sister" without implying any kind of incest. Their relation is not one of siblinghood, but of some sense of family, whether that family is created by marriage, or is a wider cultural family or human family.

But in Slash's case, I've long had the impression that he sees all allied mutants as one family that needs to look out for each other in a hostile world, and it would seem to mesh with the founding principles of the Mutanimals. It's notable that he only started using this speech pattern in "Newtralized!" It probably started with the Newtralizer, whom he started calling "brother" immediately, and this arrangement broke very quickly when it was clear how depraved the Newtralizer was. But then he started calling Raph "brother" immediately after they made up, and he called Leatherhead "brother" in a way that was both meaningful and casual. It's easy to see him regarding all his allies as his brothers and sisters in a common struggle, and it's really quite poetic.

Of course, I think I understand this better because of my own religious upbringing, where we were all encouraged to liken one another as brothers and sisters, and even a married couple are also "brother" and "sister" as fellow children of their creator. I do know this is also common in the African American community because of the historic influence of black churches, and a similar analogue exists in plenty of other cultures as well. It may not be quite as common in the American mainstream, but it is not rare.

Does this make sense?