#(I'm rogue fan)

[benevolenterrancy]

MotherHen-Shizun ends up feeding the peak

[sykloni]

Dannymay 2023

15. Full Hazmat AU & 23. Rogue Gallery

[letoscrawls]

rogue hyperfixation real

[hibiscera]

Realized I could finally post my piece for @gothamcenzine!!

I wanted to do a fake ad and of course wanted to draw Killer Moth, so I landed on a soda ad! It won't turn you into a weird bugperson he promises... 😊💖🦋

[fiona-lawton]

Every year Scarecrow crawls into my brain and takes over. So, have a little Jonathan Crane redesign/concept 🎃🍂🌾

[ihatebrainstorm]

What 1 night of playing the Arkham series again does to a person- I dunno maybe an AU idea? Probably not, just wanted to draw Riddler Brainstorm bc I kept thinking about BS whenever Riddler spoke ingame lol

[dredgesnails]

gem's ability to completely stop scar in his tracks when he's talking about star wars by just asking (seemingly) innocuous questions is incredible

[androidkisser]

thinking about how Gambit and Rogue can never even sleep close to one another because they might accidentally touch skin...

[hidfrey]

Rogue

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

Andor is like if they made a political drama that was so good that most of the time you didn't even remember it was set in space opera universe

[astromechs]

"rogue one fans are jealous of andor's success"

my brother in christ, rogue one made over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, what the fuck are you on about

[lovecanbesostrange]

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #178 (1983) writer: Chris Claremont penciler: John Romita, Jr. inkers: Bob Wiacek & Brett Breeding

X-Men Blue: Origins (2023) writer: Si Spurrier artists: Wilton Santos (w/ Oren Junior, inks) & Marcus To color artist: Ceci De La Cruz

One thing that is canon in the 616 is the fact that Mystique took Rogue in and raised her as her daughter. The details on this have been vague, we have had different versions of their first meeting and we do not talk about the exact age of characters for various reasons.

Over the years Rogue and Mystique clashed a lot of times. Often depending on how far Mystique was on the villain scale and what twisted goal she was currently after. UXM #177 had her train in Murderworld against X-bots to kill them all, including Rogue herself, just to see if she could do it to get her daughter back. Because she was convinced that Professor Xavier had brainwashed her. Murder as means to an end is part of her charm.

Yet the confrontation in #178 makes it clear that Rogue chose to seek out help from the X-Men. It is her choice. For her own good. Because Mystique could not help her with the lack of control of her powers. But this is very much a mother-daughter conversation. "Mother knows best", well until she doesn't.

The thing I love about that moment from 40+ years ago - one of the earliest close-ups of this family relationship - is that Rogue never denies Mystique that role. She is her mother. And she was there to fight away nightmares. Once upon a time Rogue felt safe and protected. And it's so nice to see how the one-shot from 2023 runs with that. To give us a nice beginning.

"When Ah was a kid -- 'fore Ah developed mah power -- Ah remember you holdin' me, protectin' me from the badness an' nightmares."

Those panels from the Origin story make me believe in all of that. And oh the heartbreak from the moment Rogue's power did manifest and Mystique would no longer hold her like that. Afraid of her own daughter. Exquisite angst that was brushed off too often.

Also shown: Raven draws a gun on Irene. She is ready to shoot anybody, including people she loves. That's established. She does in fact shoot Rogue in the back at one point: in true Mystique fashion though it comes with the "for her own good"-thinking. Because Mystique has a plan that in the end does actually help Rogue. That's the best twisted part of it all. It's very important that from Mystique's POV her love for Rogue as her daughter is never in question. While for Rogue there are some complications in the mix (because Mystique absolutely did use her specifically for her power and pushed her into a life of crime and hate, the usual). So much to unpack and with the different writers going for different angles - often a bit too much abuse and not enough "it's complicated". But I really like putting these two moments - decades and decades apart - together for a little feeling of continuity.

[triscribeaucollection]

Hole in the Wall, Part 1

Lyle never needed to wonder ‘how did it come to this’. He could point back to the exact date and time of day, when the door of his small bar swung open, and all conversation between the handful of patrons died a sudden death.

Kid Flash, either bold as brass or too dumb to notice, walked right inside with his bright yellow costume and little red boots. To make matters worse, he dragged along a second, even smaller kid - though at least the boy with a cape seemed to have the good sense to look rightly alarmed. Most of the guys inside wore regular clothes, but off in one corner, Heatwave and Mirror Master were decked out in full gear, weapons obvious on the table between them, both men just as obviously staring at the two pipsqueaks with baffled suspicion.

Didn’t matter to the Kid, though. He came straight up to the bar’s counter dragging his buddy, and put on exactly the sort of great big grin Lyle’s nieces used when they were trying real hard to politely ask if they could break a rule. “Hi! Can we use your phone real quick?”

Lyle blinked. So did half his patrons. “...the phone.”

“Mmhm!” Kid Flash nodded towards the old landline Lyle kept up on the wall. “Our comms kinda got fried and Flash isn’t around, so-”

“KF,” his little friend hissed, casting a quick glance at the nearest guys, who made no effort to disguise how they were glaring right back.

“What? Dude, it’s fine-”

Getting over his shock, Lyle thumped a hand down onto the bar to draw their attention. “Phone’s only for paying customers.” Saying that, he cast a glare of his own around the room, saw how it immediately made most of the patrons ease back down. 

Kid Flash winced, turning an apologetic expression on his friend. The smaller boy sighed and grumbled something under his breath, but nonetheless pulled a crisp twenty dollar bill from one of his belt’s little pouches. “Do you have any soda?”

Lyle grabbed them a couple of root beers.

“Thanks. Keep the change.”

And with that, the boys became patrons themselves, and thankfully everybody else inside the bar understood Lyle’s biggest, firmest, ‘broken under no circumstances’ rule: no picking fights with other customers. Now, if someone came in to cause a scene, they either ignored Lyle or he flat refused to serve them, which lit the green light for the rest of the room to ‘escort’ the troublemaker to the door. But once money and drinks changed hands, that was that, everybody enjoyed their beverages in peace Or Else.

In the back corner, Mirror Master and Heatwave scooted their weaponry out of sight, but otherwise went back to sipping and swapping complaints like nothing happened. And slowly, the rest of the bar followed suit.

Kid Flash chugged down his root beer in five seconds flat, before letting out a belch that wasn’t half bad for a middle schooler. “Okay! Can I please use the phone now?”

Lyle tipped one shoulder up in a shrug. He stayed put as the Kid came around the far end of the counter, one eye on the smaller boy still fiddling with his own bottle. “Don’t have bars like this where you’re from, huh?”

“Oh, sure. But I’d get shot full of holes in ten seconds if I tried walking into one,” boy replied flatly. “Or grabbed and tossed into a box until Batman showed up.”

That gave Lyle pause. “You’re the Bat’s kid?”

The child who couldn’t have been more than ten, maybe twelve years old at a stretch, lifted one hand to wiggle his fingers in a wave. “Yep. Robin, nice to meet you.”

What the actual hell.

Following that new train of thought got derailed, though, as Kid Flash’s phone call went through. “Hey, it’s me! Look, I know you guys thought me and D- uh, Robin- were just gonna go do some normal stuff, but we kinda interrupted a bank robbery-” Ah, that was the job Miggen was talking about the day before, “-and we’re fine! But there might have been an EMP emitter around that went off, and our comms kinda aren’t working, and since I can’t carry Rob back and he doesn’t want us to just take a bus in our costumes-”

By this point Robin had dropped his head onto the counter, both hands still gripping his bottle of root beer. Age him up a bit and swap the drink for a beer, Lyle thought he’d fit right in with the usual I’m surrounded by idiots patrons who came in to groan about friends and co-workers at the end of a long week.

“-no, we left the backpack with our regular clothes on the other side of the bridge,” Kid Flash went on. “Well, yeah, I could, but- look, Rob is from Gotham, if I left him alone for ten minutes there’s no telling what would be on fire when I came back.”

“Hey!”

Lyle almost snickered at the insulted expression on Robin’s face when he picked his head back up. A couple of other patrons also listening in did snicker, which just made the boy’s expression twist up even further.

“...where are we? Uh. So- do you, uh, remember that place Flash mentioned? The hole in the wall bar all the Rogues like to hang out at...?” Kid Flash abruptly pulled the phone away from his ear, wincing, and even from three steps away Lyle could hear a very loud voice on the other end.

“You are so dead,” Robin remarked.

“Shut up,” the Kid hissed back, before returning to his call. “I know, I know, but Rob bought us root beers and customers aren’t allowed to fight so it’s fine, we just- oh no. No, wait, you don’t need to-!” Lyle raised an eyebrow at the boy’s sudden panic. And understood it perfectly a moment later, when Kid Flash slumped in place and said in a very small voice, “Uh, hi Mom.”

Several more patrons in the bar snickered, or choked on their drinks, or otherwise looked like Christmas just came early. Robin’s head dropped back down onto the countertop.

“No. Yeah. Yes- I know that, but- yes, ma’am.” From what little of it Lyle could see, the Kid’s face appeared to be turning an even brighter shade of red than the color of his boots. “But I did do my homework!”

In the corner, Heatwave let out a startled bark of laughter, and Mirror Master went ahead and turned in his seat in order to watch the scene with a wide grin.

“That’s not due until next week!” Kid Flash continued to protest. “And it was on my desk, how did- you didn’t need to do that, I would have brought dishes down tonight!” The next pause dragged on, until the boy abruptly burst out, “Three WEEKS?!”

“I should’ve gone to bother Speedy instead,” Robin mumbled into the counter.

---

When I need a break from Inflicting Awful Things on my favorite boys in other fan fic stories, I of course turn around to instead Inflict Awful Things, Humor and Embarrassment Edition xD

[serpentinegraphite]

...re: your tags on the WFA Jason crowbar incident -- might one be directed to your referenced essay?

Since it's been a min, here's the DC meta post this ask is referencing.

I thought it was on my blog, but I haven't been able to find the essay in the weeks since this ask came in? It might have been a tag rant more than the proper essay I thought I had posted. Or I might have been thinking of a broader and more general essay on the current trauma in fanfic portrayal, which I have definitely posted on this blog somewhere and in several friends' inboxes.

The gist of the essay is that a) fandom as a whole has a tendency to treat panic attacks/flashbacks as the Only and Right Way to experience trauma, even though that's by far not universal and b) will apply this even to characters who have canon trauma and show specific trauma reactions!

With Jason Todd in WFA having a Crowbar Sound Flashback, it's a perfect microcosm of both! The problem, therefore, isn't necessarily WFA being Uniquely Terrible and Inaccurate; WFA just exclusively plays with a lot of softball, fandom-popular tropes, so it remains popular even and especially with people who aren't super familiar with the canon. And because WFA thrives on softball, popular tropes, of course it's going to pick up on the Best Way To Write Trauma.

The essence of the problem is actually the way trauma symptoms in fanfic are homogenized to the most palatable, most sympathetic reaction guaranteed to woobify even the most hardened crime lords and war criminals: a panic attack. But not ANY panic attack! Specifically the hyperventilating on the floor, curled up in a ball kind of panic attacks! (Characters who lash out in anger when they're scared? Characters who shout mean things? Not anymore! Now they're hyperventilating on the floor and they need tender care and possibly a hug.) The momentary full helplessness is integral to creating a miniature h/c journey for the characters (panic –> helplessness –> rescue –> bonding).

Panic attacks actually have a pretty wide range of symptoms! Sometimes they're focused more on derealization reactions or heart racing (loads of people irl end up in the ER thinking they're having a heart attack, when it's actually a panic attack).

This specific portrayal of trauma as panic attacks is, I think, most egregious with characters who would actually fucking die if they had this exact trauma response. E.g., Jason Todd, who infamously both commits crimes and fights them. If he has a panic attack at every scum bag who waves a crow bar at him, he's probably getting beaten to death with a crowbar again. If even one of his regular criminal contacts or enemies catches wind that he has a crowbar panic attack weakness, he's dead! And this could be played for drama in this kind of fanfic, but it never is. (Because drama isn't the point, quick and dirty h/c is.)

Distilling his trauma about dying into panic attacks dismisses his entire history and canon trauma response (rage and vengeance and trying a completely different tactic from Batman to better the city of Gotham when the Red Hood is being a good guy and not just being a crime lord for profit). Here is a solid discussion on how Jason reacts to his own death (I'm new here and this essay is already long lol, I'm not citing whole comics runs or anything myself), with a great addendum from Ragnarok-hound in the tags on the Doylist reasons for why the canon goes over Jason's death again and again anyway.

The problem further stems from everyone learning panic attack symptoms from a combination of personal experience (which for the AO3 crowd in the shippy tags does not as often include people with uh combat or crime experience) and actual mental health web resources, so any panic attack scene reads like it was written by someone between high school and college age checking off a list of psych textbook panic attack symptoms. So it makes sense why they would go with the thing that is easiest to write for them and stick with the approved symptoms they know will garner the most sympathy from the audience and, importantly, other characters in the scene. E.g., to return to bullying WFA's portrayal, having Bruce arrive to tell Jason everything will be okay and fix everything.

(I think ymmv more on Bruce portrayals, depending on Your Preferred Batman, whether that's the corresponding era of comics with Red Hood, the animated series, or some campy/classic live action Batman portrayal, but one thing that is pretty consistent in every Batman media is that he's not fucking great at feelings, so even with a generous reading, WFA simplifies a lot of fraught history between Jason and Bruce here. Further, I could write an entire second essay on how bystanders in fanfic always have the perfect response, to either use the right therapy speak and handle a panic attack perfectly or hug the person to help them calm down or what have you, but this is long enough as it is. To be brief, though: sometimes, especially in a situation like Jason and Bruce's, it's perfectly normal to see someone panicking and then also panic and fuck things up even worse! It's also common to feel frustrated or tired of seeing someone panic over the same thing! Like I know fanfic and WFA are wish fulfillment, but like. There's a lot of nuance and basic trauma understanding missing here.)

And that brings us to another point, which is that PTSD triggers don't necessarily manifest as anxiety disorders and textbook panic attacks. I mean, this feels obvious, but there are a lot of ways to experience PTSD! and that's the thing about Jason Todd! He has trauma, not an anxiety disorder! While panic attacks as the default and most common trauma reaction are very common in fanfic, it's not like even the top most common trauma trigger reaction? And it's weird that it's everywhere like this. Trigger responses have a wiiiiide range, e.g., nightmares, lashing out (the Netflix Jessica Jones show was especially good at this actually! Billy Hargrove on Stranger Things is a fucking perfect example too), dissociation (The Raven Cycle books do a great job with this, and then the fanfic forgets that it happened entirely), or simply activating one's fight or flight instinct (and we've seen with Jason, it's often a fight instinct!). There are probably also loads of Batman comics exemplifying each of these variations, but a) as stated I'm new here, I don't have comprehensive citations for every character (yet) and b) I really want to illustrate how fanfic specifically keeps sticking to one particular portrayal in a way that most canons don't.

Jason Todd can be easily written as having a Specific Traumatic Incident (dying hideously via crowbar) or having complex PTSD (little daily bullshit! you can do an entire deep dive on complex PTSD resulting from poverty, homelessness, and regular repeated exposure to violence as a child e.g. by being Robin, which is not even getting into the stuff you can gather from popular hc/later retcons about his mom's drug use or how his dad's working for Two Face and getting sent to prison might have affected him; another example it's a common hc that he's straight edge because of what drugs may or may not have done to his mom depending on the canon you're working with, but I don't see a lot of people writing him with the corresponding control issues that often pair with that). There are a lot of options is what I'm saying.

WFA choosing to double down on the sound of a crowbar scraping (when also like he's the one using a crowbar for actual mechanic things in this scene, he's probably used to a variety of metal scraping sounds, okay I'm nitpicking here again) over any of the more complex trauma under his belt is very lazy writing. They're distilling his entire history to one specific sound that causes a very targeted panic response, which I know. Is the format. That's how WFA works, it's not supposed to be deep, but this is again, a pattern I keep seeing again and again in fanfiction (to bully another fandom: Stranger Things fans insisting that Steve Harrington is afraid of his own swimming pool when the canon strongly contradicts that; he's swim team captain for 3 years running after this AND that's actually Nancy's trauma reaction, not Steve's).

Again, the problem isn't necessarily specifically with WFA or people who enjoy it or with h/c. But, yeah, the crowbar scraping sounds panic attack is a huge disservice to Jason's character, and it's like a ubiquitous pattern of writing trauma in recent years.

[elvhendis]

Thinking about how romancing Astarion as a druid is interesting because for one, it has the potential to be the most long lasting relationship Astarion could ever have with anyone due to a druid's long lifespan (and I need him to be happy for as long as possible ok 🥺🥺), but also in terms of roleplaying, since druids love all that is natural and are against all that is unnatural, which, as an undead, is technically what Astarion is; so there's potential for angst and conflict, where Tav may have to change their beliefs about the undead, and slowly learn that they can work together and ultimately even end up sleeping with him lol

[oh-meow-swirls]

people complaining about yo-kai watch supposedly being a pokemon rip-off is honestly so funny to me. inspiration is literally a good thing. that's like saying platformers are all ripoffs of mario or some shit like that and i'm sure everyone can agree how stupid that'd be-