ksitalo

[ksitalo]

This is the best headcannon about my boy but also very dark but cool

OK, I have two really strong, but really dark head cannons about Leo Valdez.

1) he’s got wrapped up in crimes really really in life

2) he’s anorexic.

First, I want to establish that anorexia isn’t necessarily the need to be as skinny as possible.

Can develop and form at age for multitude of reasons the most popular being: constant needed to lose weight, strong need of control, or self harm/punishment.

I feel like Leo is either need for control or the need for self punishment.

I have a lot of thoughts about this, but in order to do this correctly, I wanted to start with the very first appearance Leo has in the Percy Jackson universe.

His very first line is a response to Jason saying “I don’t belong here.”

Stating “you’re right! We’ve all been framed. I didn’t run away six times and Piper didn’t steel convertible.”

How is running away even comparable to stealing a car?

This makes me believe that Leo did something far worse than just run away either he did something and that’s why he ran away or he ran away to do something.

Or he ran away and did something.

But comparing running away a few times and stealing a car and then giving them the exact same consequence scenes unreasonable to me I think Leo probably did something a lot darker but because this is a kids book it’s not mentioned.

Shortly after being introduced to Leo in the form of this first statement, Jason’s in her monologue goes on to describe Leo as this mischievous, looking boy that the second he looked at him and looked in his eyes. He could tell that he couldn’t trust him with matches and sharp objects.

No one could see this as for shadowing for Leo’s godly parent, being the god of forge and fire.

But I see this as a sign that despite his physique Leo Valdez has this aura of danger.

“crash course for the amnesiac: we go to the wilderness school. Which means we’re bad kids. Your family, or the court, or whoever. Decided you were to much trouble so they sent you off to this lovely prison. Sorry, boarding school.”

The words in the statement from Leo Valdez in chapter 1, give us a valuable clues on the type of environment. Leo Piper and Jason are inside. 

As if the further emphasize the point that these kids have committed crimes, Jason’s inter monologue says that none of these kids look like a “hard criminals” and he wonders what they could have done to be “sentenced to school for delinquents.”

And again, these are actual lines from the book Leo Valdez canonically is classified legally as a delinquent.

And knowing Leo does not have any family it’s clear that Leo received this as a sentence from a courtroom.

As he himself stated, as we just saw you can be sent to this place not just by parents who think you need a strict or lifestyle, but by the court.

“ he had survived and tough neighborhoods, tough schools, touch foster homes, by using his wits, he was the class clown, the court jester. Because he learned early that if you crack jokes and pretend not to be scared you usually didn’t get beat up. Even the baddest, gangster kids will tolerate you. Keep you around for laughs.”

This quote from the novel also is a clear clue that Leo a dark skinned kid in the United States, grew up, hanging out with delinquents hanging out with kids that were in gangs he literally said gangsters.

Which means he probably got into school fight, street fights, and substance use.

Because that’s what teenagers do in those social groups.

Crimes canonically mentioned that Leo committed:

• truancy; this is when so, and skip school so much that it becomes legal issue.

Ask yourself in United States, with xenophobia and racism, if a Latino 11 to 14 year old boy, who doesn’t have parental supervision is skipping school. What do you think he’s doing?

It’s only mentioned that he committed truancy, which isn’t it hard crime but knowing reality, it’s very probable that Leo has experimented within this timeframe within running away and being arrested for truancy he also committed underage use of substances.

So let’s take a break from the crime dive. Because I’m pretty sure for the rest of Leo’s appearances in the universe it’s not hinted out or mentioned anymore. I think that’s all I have to say, but I might revisit this later.

This is the first inkling of anorexia:

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post anorexia can manifest at any point of someone’s life for a multitude of reasons.

It is usually during development either late childhood to any point in adolescence.

Although it can form adulthood, it’s more common for it to start in developmental stages.

Anorexia is a cycle and for whatever reason you start starving yourself this little bit and then you lose your appetite and your stomach shrinks and you feel less hunger so you eat less and then you struggle to eat a healthy amount.

You may be thinking there’s no way Leo is anorexic because he is self-conscious of how skinny he is.

True.

But I don’t think him himself because he wants to be skinny. I think he does it for one of two reasons and maybe it’s a mix of both maybe they’re both correct or maybe it’s just just one I don’t know.

1- control.

2- punishment.

In chapter 5, we have a chapter from the point of view of Leos for the very first time, and this is when we first learned about how Leo’s mom died he died tragically in the housefire that he started, and even as a 15 year-old, he blames himself, and he sees himself as the person responsible for his mother’s death.

His mother died when he was eight years old obvious this is going to have severe psychological trauma on him, I believe that Leo stopped eating.

Maybe at first he just didn’t wanna eat anything because he was in grief and he couldn’t eat, maybe it was because he didn’t eat his mom didn’t cook Mexican culture love cooking and he just lost the person. He loved the most in life and he couldn’t imagine eating.

But I think he stopped eating as a way to punish himself for killing his mother, and then it spiraled and snowball and got out of control to the point where he’s severely underweight as a fifteen year old.

As for control, we know that he didn’t have control over where he lived, or who took care of him or what school he went too.

His life was flipped upside down as it went into the foster system and he felt powerless. He felt like he had no control and one way of his for dealing with that was running away, but I also feel like he just wouldn’t eat because if maybe if he could control his weight and he can control what he eats then at least he had control over one thing in his life. He didn’t have control over anything else, but at least he had control over what he ate and then that’s snow bolt into the point he got underweight as a teenager.

It’s one of these reasons or a mix of both of these reasons.

I think Leo is somewhat muscular.

He’s always lift up heavy pieces of metal he uses hammers. He knows how to forage. This requires a lot of muscle mass in the arm and abdomen at least but I feel like the reason he gives the scrawny description is because he doesn’t eat enough.

Even at the end of the war with the Giants, eat enough and he was just like oh he doesn’t work out then he would have a lot more muscle mass and he would not be seen as scrawny as we seen with Percy was seen as little kid in the beginning and now he’s very physically muscular because of the war he went through, but that didn’t happen with Leo because I think he’s already muscular. He just never eats therefore he’s not healthy looking.

Chapter 30, Yet another example of Leo allowing himself to be put at the risk of death without hesitation.

Man for Jason to take Piper and fly away from Festus as the dragon Falls, Leo would stay on his dragon and try to fix it. Then he said he couldn’t fix it he would die.

The first time I read this I didn’t think much of it didn’t even remember this thing happened because it seems like just natural reaction to trying to save the ship sacrifice yourself, knowing how the giant war ends and he did kill himself. I think it’s a reasonable assumption that just does not have enough regards for personal safety and probably not taking care of himself.

During the lost hero indicated that part of the reason how Piper Leo invasion survive the quest was that whenever they were hungry, Leo would cook for them.

But did anyone other than me notice that hyper had to ask for Leo to cook every single single time because he never remembered he was never hungry and he would only eat if they were hungry if they told him they were hungry and asked him to cook.

I didn’t find the scene again because I was only reading chapters in Leo’s point of view, but I think it’s in Pipers and this for me the first time I read it was like the first indication that Leo doesn’t have a healthy relationship with food.

Mark of Athena.

The very first time Leo met Hazel first thing he noticed was that she paid a lot of attention to him. And he didn’t like it you can argue that this is because he was so used to not be center of attention, but we all know that Leo craves attention so that wouldn’t make sense. He says that the reason he feels uncomfortable is that she was staring at him through looking at his body, and it made him feel self-conscious.

House of Hades

“ you haven’t eaten in a few days.” Calypso told Leo. And Leo didn’t even notice.

Wikipedia Page.

I read the entire page. Yes. The whole thing.

I never do that.

But I wanted to see if there was any other extra evidence for my theory.

In the early life section there’s a paragraph about the day of the dead, where Leo’s aunt and his cousin who would bully him went to the cemetery. To clean their relatives graves and bring offerings.

I found this quote “Rosa would force him to stay for the picnic, as if eating with dead people would fix his appetite.”

So his family was aware he wasn’t eating.

“Leo woke up in an ambulance, and the paramedic was kind to him, saying that the warehouse had burned down and his mom hadn't made it out. Leo felt hollow, and realized he had lost control like his mom had warned him about.“

This supports my theory that Leo feels a lack of control in his life, which is why he’d result to controlling his food intake.

“He thought her death was his fault” this quote supports my second theory of what triggered his anorexia. Self punishment. In his very core. He believes he was responsible for the person he loved most in life being dead.

“The police wondered what kind of child would've started a fire. His neighbors in the apartment complex gossiped about him, saying they always knew something was wrong with him.” So already at 8 years old he called the attention of the cops and his community as dangerous. And once you’re labeled as dangerous, and dark skinned… there’s only a matter of time until you do and up being caught in the wrong groups.

Something we know from the books, at Leo’s mention of gangs and a school for delinquents… he did exactly that.

“He even had an abusive foster mom, Teresa.” Another common trigger for eating disordered behavior, abusive parental figures. Usually parental figures can say very nasty comments about the child’s body psychologically parents tend to reflect their insecurities and their life and their body onto the bodies of their children. This is very common with biological kids, but I assume it could be possible for a foster child as well.

Your abusive foster parent also means he probably had a strong distrust between him and the foster mom.

Meaning, if he was caught up in a gang while living with her, you would not tell her he could not confide in her.

Having an Abusive mother figure, hold onto the money issues he had from his mother dying. This strongly explains why he stayed in a relationship with fucking calypso!!!

That woman treated him like every second of the relationship and he was fine with it because she was an older woman, and he was treated like shit by women.

Side tangent that does not have to do with anorexia or his crime history.

Did anyone else notice how every single girl Leo’s tempo was much older than him in the entire books series?

• Hazel

• the ice goddess

• calypso

• Thalia

Two out of four of those were mean to him!! Yes mommy issues really bad mommy issues that turned into a mommy kink. He even calls Calypso Mamacita!!!

And he will stay in an abusive relationship as long as he has an older woman who he is as attractive and more dominant

Another paragraph I found was full of little nuggets I found:

“Maenads from Demigod Diaries, indicating that Leo is quite good-looking despite not finding himself attractive” so just further proof that Leo is a pretty boy but has dysmorphia and low self esteem. “Leo has been called 'cute in a scrawny way' by nymphs”

“a diminutive stature with a slim and relatively scrawny build.” Of course we all remember Leo is skinny, hell that’s what this whole theory is about. But I want to point out the word Relatively. Which reminds me of my assumption that since Leo works with heavy metal he has muscle definition but not enough body fat, making him skinny.

“Leo wears a pair of Georgina's overalls during her absence, so they are probably around the same size.”

Oh that probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to you— GEORGINA IS AN EIGHT YEAF OLD LITTLE GIRL AND HE IS A SIXTEEN YEAF OLD BOY!!!!

They should not be the same size!!!!

“He is said to be sensitive about his size and occasionally makes self-deprecating jokes about it.” Dysmorphia, I’ve been telling you guys over and over! He has dysmorphia.

“Superhuman Strength : Being a demigod, Leo is stronger than a regular mortal. However, Leo has many times labeled himself as weak because of his small stature, and is definitely the weakest male demigod of the Seven, indicating that Leo is pretty weak for a demigod. Leo also is extremely skinny and short and doesn't look very strong. However, Leo has been shown to be quite a bit stronger than he looks as he used two silver-tipped blacksmith hammers to smash full-grown monsters that got in his way”

So even though logic would suggest the opposite Leo always thinks of himself, of his body negatively.

There’s so many other examples but I’m tired.

[ksitalo]

OK, I have two really strong, but really dark head cannons about Leo Valdez.

1) he’s got wrapped up in crimes really really in life

2) he’s anorexic.

First, I want to establish that anorexia isn’t necessarily the need to be as skinny as possible.

Can develop and form at age for multitude of reasons the most popular being: constant needed to lose weight, strong need of control, or self harm/punishment.

I feel like Leo is either need for control or the need for self punishment.

I have a lot of thoughts about this, but in order to do this correctly, I wanted to start with the very first appearance Leo has in the Percy Jackson universe.

His very first line is a response to Jason saying “I don’t belong here.”

Stating “you’re right! We’ve all been framed. I didn’t run away six times and Piper didn’t steel convertible.”

How is running away even comparable to stealing a car?

This makes me believe that Leo did something far worse than just run away either he did something and that’s why he ran away or he ran away to do something.

Or he ran away and did something.

But comparing running away a few times and stealing a car and then giving them the exact same consequence scenes unreasonable to me I think Leo probably did something a lot darker but because this is a kids book it’s not mentioned.

Shortly after being introduced to Leo in the form of this first statement, Jason’s in her monologue goes on to describe Leo as this mischievous, looking boy that the second he looked at him and looked in his eyes. He could tell that he couldn’t trust him with matches and sharp objects.

No one could see this as for shadowing for Leo’s godly parent, being the god of forge and fire.

But I see this as a sign that despite his physique Leo Valdez has this aura of danger.

“crash course for the amnesiac: we go to the wilderness school. Which means we’re bad kids. Your family, or the court, or whoever. Decided you were to much trouble so they sent you off to this lovely prison. Sorry, boarding school.”

The words in the statement from Leo Valdez in chapter 1, give us a valuable clues on the type of environment. Leo Piper and Jason are inside. 

As if the further emphasize the point that these kids have committed crimes, Jason’s inter monologue says that none of these kids look like a “hard criminals” and he wonders what they could have done to be “sentenced to school for delinquents.”

And again, these are actual lines from the book Leo Valdez canonically is classified legally as a delinquent.

And knowing Leo does not have any family it’s clear that Leo received this as a sentence from a courtroom.

As he himself stated, as we just saw you can be sent to this place not just by parents who think you need a strict or lifestyle, but by the court.

“ he had survived and tough neighborhoods, tough schools, touch foster homes, by using his wits, he was the class clown, the court jester. Because he learned early that if you crack jokes and pretend not to be scared you usually didn’t get beat up. Even the baddest, gangster kids will tolerate you. Keep you around for laughs.”

This quote from the novel also is a clear clue that Leo a dark skinned kid in the United States, grew up, hanging out with delinquents hanging out with kids that were in gangs he literally said gangsters.

Which means he probably got into school fight, street fights, and substance use.

Because that’s what teenagers do in those social groups.

Crimes canonically mentioned that Leo committed:

• truancy; this is when so, and skip school so much that it becomes legal issue.

Ask yourself in United States, with xenophobia and racism, if a Latino 11 to 14 year old boy, who doesn’t have parental supervision is skipping school. What do you think he’s doing?

It’s only mentioned that he committed truancy, which isn’t it hard crime but knowing reality, it’s very probable that Leo has experimented within this timeframe within running away and being arrested for truancy he also committed underage use of substances.

So let’s take a break from the crime dive. Because I’m pretty sure for the rest of Leo’s appearances in the universe it’s not hinted out or mentioned anymore. I think that’s all I have to say, but I might revisit this later.

This is the first inkling of anorexia:

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post anorexia can manifest at any point of someone’s life for a multitude of reasons.

It is usually during development either late childhood to any point in adolescence.

Although it can form adulthood, it’s more common for it to start in developmental stages.

Anorexia is a cycle and for whatever reason you start starving yourself this little bit and then you lose your appetite and your stomach shrinks and you feel less hunger so you eat less and then you struggle to eat a healthy amount.

You may be thinking there’s no way Leo is anorexic because he is self-conscious of how skinny he is.

True.

But I don’t think him himself because he wants to be skinny. I think he does it for one of two reasons and maybe it’s a mix of both maybe they’re both correct or maybe it’s just just one I don’t know.

1- control.

2- punishment.

In chapter 5, we have a chapter from the point of view of Leos for the very first time, and this is when we first learned about how Leo’s mom died he died tragically in the housefire that he started, and even as a 15 year-old, he blames himself, and he sees himself as the person responsible for his mother’s death.

His mother died when he was eight years old obvious this is going to have severe psychological trauma on him, I believe that Leo stopped eating.

Maybe at first he just didn’t wanna eat anything because he was in grief and he couldn’t eat, maybe it was because he didn’t eat his mom didn’t cook Mexican culture love cooking and he just lost the person. He loved the most in life and he couldn’t imagine eating.

But I think he stopped eating as a way to punish himself for killing his mother, and then it spiraled and snowball and got out of control to the point where he’s severely underweight as a fifteen year old.

As for control, we know that he didn’t have control over where he lived, or who took care of him or what school he went too.

His life was flipped upside down as it went into the foster system and he felt powerless. He felt like he had no control and one way of his for dealing with that was running away, but I also feel like he just wouldn’t eat because if maybe if he could control his weight and he can control what he eats then at least he had control over one thing in his life. He didn’t have control over anything else, but at least he had control over what he ate and then that’s snow bolt into the point he got underweight as a teenager.

It’s one of these reasons or a mix of both of these reasons.

I think Leo is somewhat muscular.

He’s always lift up heavy pieces of metal he uses hammers. He knows how to forage. This requires a lot of muscle mass in the arm and abdomen at least but I feel like the reason he gives the scrawny description is because he doesn’t eat enough.

Even at the end of the war with the Giants, eat enough and he was just like oh he doesn’t work out then he would have a lot more muscle mass and he would not be seen as scrawny as we seen with Percy was seen as little kid in the beginning and now he’s very physically muscular because of the war he went through, but that didn’t happen with Leo because I think he’s already muscular. He just never eats therefore he’s not healthy looking.

Chapter 30, Yet another example of Leo allowing himself to be put at the risk of death without hesitation.

Man for Jason to take Piper and fly away from Festus as the dragon Falls, Leo would stay on his dragon and try to fix it. Then he said he couldn’t fix it he would die.

The first time I read this I didn’t think much of it didn’t even remember this thing happened because it seems like just natural reaction to trying to save the ship sacrifice yourself, knowing how the giant war ends and he did kill himself. I think it’s a reasonable assumption that just does not have enough regards for personal safety and probably not taking care of himself.

During the lost hero indicated that part of the reason how Piper Leo invasion survive the quest was that whenever they were hungry, Leo would cook for them.

But did anyone other than me notice that hyper had to ask for Leo to cook every single single time because he never remembered he was never hungry and he would only eat if they were hungry if they told him they were hungry and asked him to cook.

I didn’t find the scene again because I was only reading chapters in Leo’s point of view, but I think it’s in Pipers and this for me the first time I read it was like the first indication that Leo doesn’t have a healthy relationship with food.

Mark of Athena.

The very first time Leo met Hazel first thing he noticed was that she paid a lot of attention to him. And he didn’t like it you can argue that this is because he was so used to not be center of attention, but we all know that Leo craves attention so that wouldn’t make sense. He says that the reason he feels uncomfortable is that she was staring at him through looking at his body, and it made him feel self-conscious.

House of Hades

“ you haven’t eaten in a few days.” Calypso told Leo. And Leo didn’t even notice.

Wikipedia Page.

I read the entire page. Yes. The whole thing.

I never do that.

But I wanted to see if there was any other extra evidence for my theory.

In the early life section there’s a paragraph about the day of the dead, where Leo’s aunt and his cousin who would bully him went to the cemetery. To clean their relatives graves and bring offerings.

I found this quote “Rosa would force him to stay for the picnic, as if eating with dead people would fix his appetite.”

So his family was aware he wasn’t eating.

“Leo woke up in an ambulance, and the paramedic was kind to him, saying that the warehouse had burned down and his mom hadn't made it out. Leo felt hollow, and realized he had lost control like his mom had warned him about.“

This supports my theory that Leo feels a lack of control in his life, which is why he’d result to controlling his food intake.

“He thought her death was his fault” this quote supports my second theory of what triggered his anorexia. Self punishment. In his very core. He believes he was responsible for the person he loved most in life being dead.

“The police wondered what kind of child would've started a fire. His neighbors in the apartment complex gossiped about him, saying they always knew something was wrong with him.” So already at 8 years old he called the attention of the cops and his community as dangerous. And once you’re labeled as dangerous, and dark skinned… there’s only a matter of time until you do and up being caught in the wrong groups.

Something we know from the books, at Leo’s mention of gangs and a school for delinquents… he did exactly that.

“He even had an abusive foster mom, Teresa.” Another common trigger for eating disordered behavior, abusive parental figures. Usually parental figures can say very nasty comments about the child’s body psychologically parents tend to reflect their insecurities and their life and their body onto the bodies of their children. This is very common with biological kids, but I assume it could be possible for a foster child as well.

Your abusive foster parent also means he probably had a strong distrust between him and the foster mom.

Meaning, if he was caught up in a gang while living with her, you would not tell her he could not confide in her.

Having an Abusive mother figure, hold onto the money issues he had from his mother dying. This strongly explains why he stayed in a relationship with fucking calypso!!!

That woman treated him like every second of the relationship and he was fine with it because she was an older woman, and he was treated like shit by women.

Side tangent that does not have to do with anorexia or his crime history.

Did anyone else notice how every single girl Leo’s tempo was much older than him in the entire books series?

• Hazel

• the ice goddess

• calypso

• Thalia

Two out of four of those were mean to him!! Yes mommy issues really bad mommy issues that turned into a mommy kink. He even calls Calypso Mamacita!!!

And he will stay in an abusive relationship as long as he has an older woman who he is as attractive and more dominant

Another paragraph I found was full of little nuggets I found:

“Maenads from Demigod Diaries, indicating that Leo is quite good-looking despite not finding himself attractive” so just further proof that Leo is a pretty boy but has dysmorphia and low self esteem. “Leo has been called 'cute in a scrawny way' by nymphs”

“a diminutive stature with a slim and relatively scrawny build.” Of course we all remember Leo is skinny, hell that’s what this whole theory is about. But I want to point out the word Relatively. Which reminds me of my assumption that since Leo works with heavy metal he has muscle definition but not enough body fat, making him skinny.

“Leo wears a pair of Georgina's overalls during her absence, so they are probably around the same size.”

Oh that probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to you— GEORGINA IS AN EIGHT YEAF OLD LITTLE GIRL AND HE IS A SIXTEEN YEAF OLD BOY!!!!

They should not be the same size!!!!

“He is said to be sensitive about his size and occasionally makes self-deprecating jokes about it.” Dysmorphia, I’ve been telling you guys over and over! He has dysmorphia.

“Superhuman Strength : Being a demigod, Leo is stronger than a regular mortal. However, Leo has many times labeled himself as weak because of his small stature, and is definitely the weakest male demigod of the Seven, indicating that Leo is pretty weak for a demigod. Leo also is extremely skinny and short and doesn't look very strong. However, Leo has been shown to be quite a bit stronger than he looks as he used two silver-tipped blacksmith hammers to smash full-grown monsters that got in his way”

So even though logic would suggest the opposite Leo always thinks of himself, of his body negatively.

There’s so many other examples but I’m tired.

[ksitalo]

(Sorry for my bad english)

I was here just imagining a fic where leo has to go into a mission to stop prometheus from stealing the greek fire again, and then while in the mission he meets gods like aglaea(hephaestus wife) and pandora(his sister) and also reincounter old enemies like khione, throught all of that he slowly comes into terms with his own fire powers and learn other powers that he have.

Yeah my mind thought about all that just this morning (dont ask how or why)

[ksitalo]

If Rick wrote a book about Leo I will buy it right away bc I miss that kid so much and I need to know how he's doing, and like I don't want a character mentioning him, I NEED to read his pov and I need to know he's good.

I remember he said he was his favorite character so WHY AREN'T YOU WRITING ABOUT HIM MORE???

(I know this is not gonna happen, but I still miss Leo)

[ksitalo]

Does anyone now of a Valgrace fanfic on wattpad (which I don't really use anymore) called Jason Grace and The Olympians. If so who is it by? It is a Percy Jackson swap au with Jason as Percy and Leo as Annabeth. I've been looking for it for ages and can't find it.

[ksitalo]

UHHH LEO VALDEZ :D

GUYS I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

First post, idk what to say, I just... I do art 😎😎😎

[ksitalo]

Superman & Lois failed Jonathan Kent

Since day one, I have felt that giving Jonathan powers would be absolutely, 100% the wrong move for this show. The setup is that one twin has powers and the other doesn’t, and altering that would fundamentally and irrevocably change the entire family dynamic.

So when Season 4’s third episode saw Jonathan spontaneously develop all of his powers… yeah. I was skeptical. But I decided I would let them cook. I would see where the writers were taking this before coming down too hard.

Well, the season is done now. And I still don’t understand this decision. Giving Jonathan powers has utterly let down what was once an excellent character.

This got long. Spoilers for all of Season 4 under the cut.

I usually see two arguments for why Jon should get powers. The first is that it’s more “comics accurate.” And I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t work here. The DC TV shows have never prioritized comic accuracy, and this show follows suit. Morgan Edge is not Clark’s Kryptonian half-brother in the comics. John Henry does not have a daughter with another Earth’s Lois in the comics. Bizarro is not from a parallel dimension in the comics, nor does he become Doomsday. This show’s entire thing is taking the original ideas and putting a fresh spin on them, while remaining true to the core themes of Superman. Being internally consistent and interesting is much more important than remaining true to the comics.

The other common argument is that it’s just not fair that Jon doesn’t get powers. He’s the more level-headed of the twins, the more openly warm and compassionate, the one whose temperament better suits being a hero. And my response is – yes! All of those things are true. It’s deeply unfair. And that was what made it interesting. Seeing how he deals with the lot life handed him is where his character shines through best.

We see how this affects him throughout Season 1, how watching Jordan take over his place as the star of the football team hurts. We also see him put that aside more than once in order to be there for his brother. But constantly pushing his own feelings aside for the sake of others leads to Season 2 – he turns to X-K out of desperation to feel special again, which only makes him crash even harder than before. He realizes he messed up, he tries to do the right thing to protect Candice, but it only makes everything worse. He’s expelled, everyone is upset with him for ruining the football season and for lying about the X-K. The season leaves him in a pretty bad spot, trying to figure out what his place even is now that he doesn’t have football, he doesn’t have powers, he doesn’t have much of anything, really. Which is where Season 3 starts to look up for him. He volunteers at the fire department. He finds a sense of purpose and belonging there that he’s never had before. And best of all, it’s completely unrelated to his dad or his brother. It’s something that he does just for himself.

I am not saying that Seasons 2 and 3 were flawlessly written. I could complain about Season 2’s messy arcs for days, and Season 3 just doesn’t devote enough time to this. But the overall direction for Jon as a character is still consistent, and it’s more or less satisfying to watch.

Then Season 4 comes and negates all of this without any good reason.

Now not only does Jon get powers, he masters them all almost immediately. He takes over Jordan’s role as Superboy pretty much right away, with no real struggle to speak of. And I do get it, to some extent. Jon has always pushed his own feelings aside for the benefit of others, so the first time he really just lets loose and stops holding back how he feels is when his powers activate. It’s almost like he was subconsciously suppressing them, and letting go is what allows them to finally spark. But it’s still weird to me, because all of those big feelings that lead to his powers developing then just evaporate. He goes from being so overwhelmed that he’s screaming and crying and punching the walls… to being completely fine and calm. What happened to those emotions? Does being able to fly magically cure all ills?

The only real conflict Jon has with his new powers is in Episode 5, where he struggles to balance his new obligations as a hero with the rest of his life. This puts strain on his relationship with Candice, where he debates whether or not to tell her the truth. And this could be interesting, if we hadn’t already done this with Jordan in Season 2, with little variation. Jon should get his own arcs that work for him as a unique character, not just the speedrun versions of what Jordan already got.

That’s another issue, to be frank. Jonathan and Jordan used to feel like much more distinct characters. And they do definitely still have different personalities, but with them both having powers and both having similar struggles, it no longer feels worthwhile to even have two brothers. Jonathan has almost become Diet Jordan.

What makes all this so much worse is how good Jordan’s arc is in Season 4. After Season 3 had him using his powers for all the wrong reasons, seeking fame and attention instead of genuinely wanting to help others, Season 4 sees him humbled. He recognizes that he isn’t ready to be a hero, and willingly gives up his suit until he is. And it comes full circle in Episode 9, when he helps Vicky May through her panic attack in the diner. He’s stepped up to become a hero in a way he never could before, and it feels earned. We know what it took for him to reach that point, the struggles he went through and how he’s changed since the beginning of the show. It’s incredibly satisfying to trace his character back through all the seasons and see what brought him here.

Jonathan, on the other hand? There’s no full circle moment for him. Because he doesn’t have struggles anymore. Getting super powers completely fixed everything in his life, apparently. He gets cool moments to be a hero, sure, but they don’t feel earned in nearly the same way Jordan’s do. The only thing he had to overcome to reach that point was not having powers, which just happened randomly, not due to any character choices he made. His character in Season 4 is just so bland now that he doesn’t have internal conflicts to overcome.

Also, I think Clark revealing his secret identity would have been more interesting if there was still one son without powers. It would elevate Jonathan’s internal conflicts to an even grander scale, put him through new struggles that we could then see him overcome. He can prove to the entire world that he does not need powers to be special – he has only ever needed to be himself.

And what gets me most is that if the writers absolutely insisted on giving Jon powers, there are ways to do it that don’t completely undermine everything that came before. Here are just a few ideas, some of which can be combined:

A simple one – what if Jon doesn’t master all his powers right away? With Clark gone, then weakened, Jordan is forced to step up and help train his brother. This would tie nicely into Jordan’s arc for the season, and lead to some great bonding moments between the two.

What if Jon and Jordan are each better and worse at different abilities? This was lightly implied at points, but could have been leaned into way more. Maybe Jon is naturally a strong flier and relies more on his strength and speed, while Jordan has sharper senses and relies more on finding clever solutions. Seeing them learn to work together and complement each other’s styles would have been incredibly interesting. (Admittedly, this is more an issue with the season’s pacing as a whole, not just Jon’s arc.)

What if Jon realizes that having powers kinda sucks sometimes? What if he learns that having super hearing that never turns off is actually horrible? Or that heat vision is surprisingly hard to control? What if he reaches a point where he realizes he doesn’t really want powers, and has to learn to accept his new normal?

Jon’s previous arcs have been about feeling helpless and unspecial. What if having powers doesn’t actually fix that? He can fly now, but he still can’t stop Lex, or bring his dad back, or regain people’s trust that he lost all the way back in Season 2. He learns that powers weren’t the answer to these feelings he has, and still has to find his own path to feel at peace with himself.

These are just a few things I thought of, but I am not a staff of professional writers! I’m sure there are much better ways to handle this.

It is just so, so frustrating to me that one of my favorite characters went so downhill in this final season. I can sort of understand why people were so excited to see him have powers, but for me, it will always be the biggest misstep of the entire show.

[ksitalo]

Superman & Lois failed Jonathan Kent

Since day one, I have felt that giving Jonathan powers would be absolutely, 100% the wrong move for this show. The setup is that one twin has powers and the other doesn’t, and altering that would fundamentally and irrevocably change the entire family dynamic.

So when Season 4’s third episode saw Jonathan spontaneously develop all of his powers… yeah. I was skeptical. But I decided I would let them cook. I would see where the writers were taking this before coming down too hard.

Well, the season is done now. And I still don’t understand this decision. Giving Jonathan powers has utterly let down what was once an excellent character.

This got long. Spoilers for all of Season 4 under the cut.

I usually see two arguments for why Jon should get powers. The first is that it’s more “comics accurate.” And I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t work here. The DC TV shows have never prioritized comic accuracy, and this show follows suit. Morgan Edge is not Clark’s Kryptonian half-brother in the comics. John Henry does not have a daughter with another Earth’s Lois in the comics. Bizarro is not from a parallel dimension in the comics, nor does he become Doomsday. This show’s entire thing is taking the original ideas and putting a fresh spin on them, while remaining true to the core themes of Superman. Being internally consistent and interesting is much more important than remaining true to the comics.

The other common argument is that it’s just not fair that Jon doesn’t get powers. He’s the more level-headed of the twins, the more openly warm and compassionate, the one whose temperament better suits being a hero. And my response is – yes! All of those things are true. It’s deeply unfair. And that was what made it interesting. Seeing how he deals with the lot life handed him is where his character shines through best.

We see how this affects him throughout Season 1, how watching Jordan take over his place as the star of the football team hurts. We also see him put that aside more than once in order to be there for his brother. But constantly pushing his own feelings aside for the sake of others leads to Season 2 – he turns to X-K out of desperation to feel special again, which only makes him crash even harder than before. He realizes he messed up, he tries to do the right thing to protect Candice, but it only makes everything worse. He’s expelled, everyone is upset with him for ruining the football season and for lying about the X-K. The season leaves him in a pretty bad spot, trying to figure out what his place even is now that he doesn’t have football, he doesn’t have powers, he doesn’t have much of anything, really. Which is where Season 3 starts to look up for him. He volunteers at the fire department. He finds a sense of purpose and belonging there that he’s never had before. And best of all, it’s completely unrelated to his dad or his brother. It’s something that he does just for himself.

I am not saying that Seasons 2 and 3 were flawlessly written. I could complain about Season 2’s messy arcs for days, and Season 3 just doesn’t devote enough time to this. But the overall direction for Jon as a character is still consistent, and it’s more or less satisfying to watch.

Then Season 4 comes and negates all of this without any good reason.

Now not only does Jon get powers, he masters them all almost immediately. He takes over Jordan’s role as Superboy pretty much right away, with no real struggle to speak of. And I do get it, to some extent. Jon has always pushed his own feelings aside for the benefit of others, so the first time he really just lets loose and stops holding back how he feels is when his powers activate. It’s almost like he was subconsciously suppressing them, and letting go is what allows them to finally spark. But it’s still weird to me, because all of those big feelings that lead to his powers developing then just evaporate. He goes from being so overwhelmed that he’s screaming and crying and punching the walls… to being completely fine and calm. What happened to those emotions? Does being able to fly magically cure all ills?

The only real conflict Jon has with his new powers is in Episode 5, where he struggles to balance his new obligations as a hero with the rest of his life. This puts strain on his relationship with Candice, where he debates whether or not to tell her the truth. And this could be interesting, if we hadn’t already done this with Jordan in Season 2, with little variation. Jon should get his own arcs that work for him as a unique character, not just the speedrun versions of what Jordan already got.

That’s another issue, to be frank. Jonathan and Jordan used to feel like much more distinct characters. And they do definitely still have different personalities, but with them both having powers and both having similar struggles, it no longer feels worthwhile to even have two brothers. Jonathan has almost become Diet Jordan.

What makes all this so much worse is how good Jordan’s arc is in Season 4. After Season 3 had him using his powers for all the wrong reasons, seeking fame and attention instead of genuinely wanting to help others, Season 4 sees him humbled. He recognizes that he isn’t ready to be a hero, and willingly gives up his suit until he is. And it comes full circle in Episode 9, when he helps Vicky May through her panic attack in the diner. He’s stepped up to become a hero in a way he never could before, and it feels earned. We know what it took for him to reach that point, the struggles he went through and how he’s changed since the beginning of the show. It’s incredibly satisfying to trace his character back through all the seasons and see what brought him here.

Jonathan, on the other hand? There’s no full circle moment for him. Because he doesn’t have struggles anymore. Getting super powers completely fixed everything in his life, apparently. He gets cool moments to be a hero, sure, but they don’t feel earned in nearly the same way Jordan’s do. The only thing he had to overcome to reach that point was not having powers, which just happened randomly, not due to any character choices he made. His character in Season 4 is just so bland now that he doesn’t have internal conflicts to overcome.

Also, I think Clark revealing his secret identity would have been more interesting if there was still one son without powers. It would elevate Jonathan’s internal conflicts to an even grander scale, put him through new struggles that we could then see him overcome. He can prove to the entire world that he does not need powers to be special – he has only ever needed to be himself.

And what gets me most is that if the writers absolutely insisted on giving Jon powers, there are ways to do it that don’t completely undermine everything that came before. Here are just a few ideas, some of which can be combined:

A simple one – what if Jon doesn’t master all his powers right away? With Clark gone, then weakened, Jordan is forced to step up and help train his brother. This would tie nicely into Jordan’s arc for the season, and lead to some great bonding moments between the two.

What if Jon and Jordan are each better and worse at different abilities? This was lightly implied at points, but could have been leaned into way more. Maybe Jon is naturally a strong flier and relies more on his strength and speed, while Jordan has sharper senses and relies more on finding clever solutions. Seeing them learn to work together and complement each other’s styles would have been incredibly interesting. (Admittedly, this is more an issue with the season’s pacing as a whole, not just Jon’s arc.)

What if Jon realizes that having powers kinda sucks sometimes? What if he learns that having super hearing that never turns off is actually horrible? Or that heat vision is surprisingly hard to control? What if he reaches a point where he realizes he doesn’t really want powers, and has to learn to accept his new normal?

Jon’s previous arcs have been about feeling helpless and unspecial. What if having powers doesn’t actually fix that? He can fly now, but he still can’t stop Lex, or bring his dad back, or regain people’s trust that he lost all the way back in Season 2. He learns that powers weren’t the answer to these feelings he has, and still has to find his own path to feel at peace with himself.

These are just a few things I thought of, but I am not a staff of professional writers! I’m sure there are much better ways to handle this.

It is just so, so frustrating to me that one of my favorite characters went so downhill in this final season. I can sort of understand why people were so excited to see him have powers, but for me, it will always be the biggest misstep of the entire show.

[ksitalo]

[ksitalo]

[ksitalo]

theyre in love

[ksitalo]

(older) leo design for my lovely partner <33

[ksitalo]

pov: jason never dies / gets revived and valgrace lives happily ever after in new rome forever !!!!!!

[ksitalo]

canon vs my ver.. y’all just let me cook I will serve a FEAST.

[ksitalo]

New Rex design/model sheet! ✌

[ksitalo]

Eurymene <3

Nothing bad ever happens and he makes it home to his wife……..

[ksitalo]

ok now imagine jayce watching his frankenstein bf grow big and strong as he takes copious notes ✒️✒️✒️

which you may be seeing soon over here