HEROFANATICS

even as an infant, isaac was an angel of a baby. he rarely cried, almost never fussed—his parents never felt like the other first timers. they were tired, sure, but they had the picture perfect experience. the langleys were happy. for a time, that was. however, in a place like gotham, happiness was a prized but limited experience for many. isaac thought that it was perhaps then a mercy his parents met a fate that didn’t come at the hands of another person. at the age of ten, the only home that isaac ever knew went up in flames from a candle warmer that he forgot to turn off.after the fire, isaac eventually found himself in the care of the ever socially conscious family his surname was born from. previously, his parents had told him next to nothing about his extended family—and he truly knew little about his family’s legacy. he quickly learned that the environment he had found himself in was shaped by elitism and emotional discipline that defined his father. grief in his new spaces wasn’t just freely expressed, and outbursts were not tolerated, which ultimately lead isaac to grow quiet, reserved, and compliant. in the exposure he gained from watching his family, he began noticing how people constructed themselves—the faux smiles, the forced laughter, and the thinly-veiled insults masked as compliments. this reinforced a growing belief that people were not stable identities, but a mess of manufactured emotional states, especially within the langely world where your perceived image often mattered more than reality.mid-adolescence came with a slew of its own challenges, often finding himself unsupported emotionally by his family and brushed off as more than nuisance—only to be slyly shown a false face of acceptance despite there being the ever looming truth that his parents had been exiled from the family years prior. it was around this time he found solace in photography club at gotham academy, having a natural eye for candids. isaac’s loved them, as it was the only window he had to what people really were.in late adolescence, isaac experienced a physical change that gave him an unnatural “gift”. at gotham academy, a massive sinkhole had erupted beneath one of their classrooms, sending both isaac and ten other students into the deep pit. however, isaac had manage to cling to the side of the caved in wall, preventing serious injuries like the other students. however, most wrote it off as pure luck. that he had simply managed to catch something. he did too, at least, for a time. that was until the second time, his secondary ability emerged, finding himself wrapped within red silk one morning with no other explanation.later when he graduated gotham state university, isaac had the misfortune of being the target of one of the jokers attacks. in the chaos, isaac nearly died in explosion but was narrowly saved by batman. he saw his face, the truest expression there ever was—rage. anger. passion. safety. the costume batman wore seemed to free him from the thinly veiled emotional coats the people in his life had been wearing for ages, and something he felt his whole life chasing for an opportunity to see. the moment grew deeply rooted within him, perhaps even deeper than the death of his parents. he knew in his heart of hearts that the world would only remember that the heroes had fought and saved the day, but no one would immortalize what they felt in those moments. their beauty, their ugliness, their rage, their power—this was his job to reveal what laid beneath those proud symbols on their chests.this later led him to working for the gotham gazette as a night shift news photographer, allowing him near unrestricted access to all of gotham to capture the objects of his obsessions freely, but even when not working—his real work is never done. tirelessly, isaac tracks his favorite heroes whereabouts. watching, waiting… even learning their sacred identities. his obsession does not merely end at his pictures, but learning everything about them. breaking into their homes is a, stealing their clothes, their belongings, are all boundaries he’s willing to cross if that means he can learn them better and preserve them for his memory, and to see what they’re like at their truest states. this raises the ultimate question, what lines isn’t he willing to cross?