#canon vs non-canon

[solarclaw]

if the source material never existed, there wouldn't be a fandom at all!

neither “that’s not canon” nor “fuck canon we made this all up” but a secret third thing (canon shouldn’t be taken as gospel but is useful as a reference point for building upon and recontextualizing characters and details. if you worship the source material as unchangeable then fandom in general probably isn’t for you. if you have complete disdain for the source material you would probably enjoy yourself more in a different fandom)

[moth-scrunk]

was feeling a little silly

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[sebaztianlovesgeek]

THE NON CANON PARTS OF THE BLACK BUTLER ANIME IN BOTH SEASON 1 AND 2 AND ALSO THE SPECIALS WERE WILD

(in no particular order)

Ciel hires a random naked dog man who can turn into a giant wolf to be his servant even though he literally does nothing around the manor and just hangs out with Finny all the time

Finny forms a crush on a character we later find out is an angel named Angela and after the dog village arc ends we never hear of his crush again

For the most part the curry arc is the same, but for some reason they decided to change the ending. In the manga Lau and Ranmao killed Nina and her husband, in the anime everyone becomes evil by eating curry, and Sebastian had to feed them all his curry buns to turn them all good again, WHAT??

Sebastian has sex with a Nun in some cult church

Angela took Vincent and Rachel's bodies and stitched them into a weird Frankenstein looking thing because apparently that would combine their souls in the afterlife so they could be together forever

Also the whole thing with Ciel being kidnapped by the cult is never explained despite Queen Victoria and Angela being responsible for the death of his parents, therefore you'd think they'd also be responsible for the whole cult thing? But they would have no reason to sell a 10 year old to be abused by a cult-

Ash (aka Angela because they're the same person) turns Queen Victoria into A FREAKING LOLI

Ciel is framed for drug trafficking

Sebastian is arrested and kept in a torture dungeon for like 3 days where he is BDSM whipped by Angela for some reason

Fred Abberline dies

Fred before he dies mentions he doesn't have any family yet he has a brother who shows up in season 2-

Lau and Ranmao die yet they also show up in season 2

Lizzy gets kidnapped by a doll man and is almost turned into a doll zombie (not a bizarre doll just a doll zombie)

Sebastian ditches Ciel in France for some reason

Ciel finds Undertaker on some random boat and then Undertaker tells him he's gonna freakin' die

London is on fucking fire

Who caused the fire? Pluto. And thats the only part of the story where he is relevant

The final fight between Sebastian and Ash/Angela is fucking awesome though

In season 2 Ciel is just in a suitcase and has amnesia

Alois pokes Hannah's eye out for spilling a drink or something

Ciel and Lizzy try to find a deer or something and everyone thinks they're gonna break up after just 1 argument

Lau even started a gambling thing where people put down their bets on whether or not Ciel and Lizzy were gonna break up

Some weird old lady set random people on fire because she didn't like her husband, for some reason the fire disintegrated the souls so Grell couldn't collect them which doesn't make sense

Some weird bullshit happens on a train with a Pharaoh, a murderer and Sebastian being cool like always

Alois has a dress up party at his house

Soma and Agni cry because Ciel has amnesia

Soma is dressed up as Sherlock Holmes even though black butler takes place before that came out

Lizzy dresses up as a Native American, lets just say she's lucky Twitter didn't exist in the Victorian Era

Kinda like the whole curry thing everyone turns evil except its from music from a magic instrument Hannah plays and not curry, and Sebastian stops it by playing his own music kind of like the final battle in Equestria Girls Rainbow Rocks

Alois crossdresses and turns Ciel bi curious

Sebastian and Claude have sexual tension in the lake

Ciel and Alois have a sword fight, Ciel is thrown off a balcony and Alois is stabbed

"PLEASE HELP ME CLAUDE, HELP ME I'M DYING 😭"

We soon find out about Alois' backstory and it's actually quite sad and hits a bit close to home for me, I won't go into detail but the poor kids been through a lot, Alois is genuinely an interesting and kind of well written character its a shame he was put in the non canon pile of shite

Claude then crushed Alois' skull and takes his soul and puts it in a ring

Kids are getting their eyeballs ripped out and apparently Alois is doing all of this, but for some reason Scotland yard THINKS CIEL IS ALOIS WHICH IS SO DUMB BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN WORKING WITH HIM EVER SINCE HE BECAME THE QUEENS CORGI GUARD DOG

He is taken to some doctor and is dumped into a pool of gatorade to fuse his and Alois' souls

Ciel's backstory is basically half of Alois' and half of Ciel's and thinks Sebastian killed his brother Luca

Ciel doesn't like Claude because Claude is a goober

Hannah does a weird thing with Ciel she like... Possesses him? And his eyeball appears in her mouth or something? I had no idea what was going on

Soon it is revealed Hannah was the one who ate Luca's soul and is now feeling like a mother figure for Alois because of it

Grell shows up again (yay) and she keeps trying to take sexy photos of Sebastian

Soon Claude and Sebastian end up at a maze thingy and they need to answer trivia questions to get to Alois/Ciel's soul

Soon they go to some demon island and they end up fighting using a demon sword while Ciel and Alois talk about shit in some void

Claude fucking dies (rip goober)

Alois' soul is finally set free and the poor kid gets to be with his little brother again

Hannah turns Ciel into a demon so Sebastian can no longer eat his soul so Sebastian just becomes Ciel's butler for all eternity and I lowkey feel bad for him, because yeah eating childrens souls is wrong but BRO WORKED SO HARD HE LITERALLY BANGED A NUN FOR THIS CHILD AND THIS IS THE THANKS HE GETS??

Ciel and Sebastian fake their death, the end of season 2 and a few years after that the ACTUAL CONTINUATION OF THE CANON PARTS come out

Ciel in wonderland is very silly

Sebastian as the rabbit is hot for some reason, does that make me a furry?

There is a lot of weird fan service, for example Ranmao keeps shoving her boobs and butt into Ciel's face... LADY THAT IS A 13 YEAR OLD YOU CANT DO THAT-

I'm glad it wasn't canon because I love Ranmao and she would never do that in canon

Madame Red as the queen of hearts is very cool

Weebalu already mentioned this but I wish J Michael Tatum (Sebastian's dub voice actor) did a Alice In Wonderland audiobook in the Sebastian voice

The one where Ciel puts on a play for hamlet was funny, the part where they're practicing is funny because its like an actual theatre club

Soma and Agni are the kids who are always eating, Ciel is the kid who just sucks at acting, Grell is the one who is great at acting but is very annoying and Sebastian is the theatre teacher who wants to commit kms because of all of these stupid kids

Ranmao is seaweed

Grell tries to commit incest during the play-

The special where its basically a 'behind the scenes' thing kind of like an actor AU

Sebastian is a fucking 2010's boy band looking lad

Grell is just amazing in this

In the final "trailer" Grell got pregnant, Queen Victoria built a giant robot, Claude tried to destroy the world with the fucking moon, Hannah... Uhhh lets not talk about what she did, a whole load of "I am your father" type plot twists took place and Alois was Ciel and Sebastian's great great great great great great grand-

The special where theres this character who's basically a self insert but she's a white girl so if you're not either of those its kind of hard getting into it (cries in gay guy)

The POV shots look like something out of Dora The Explorer

Soma wants to marry us for some reason, I wouldn't mind that he's cute

We also get kidnapped by Viscous Druitt for no reason and then Sebastian and Grell save us from a boat in the middle OF THE OCEAN

Finally Will The Reaper (I'm sure there are more specials but I'm lazy)

Grelliam galore

Probably one of the best specials because Grell and William are the main focus and they're just the absolute best

[wtfgaylittlezooid]

Another (eventual) locust

[plusultraetc]

ask game!! fake dating real feelings. sounds like some good quality fluff!!!

AH OKAY SO this one is a relatively new WIP and it's a little out of my wheelhouse ngl, but I Love Them and so I am writing it anyway lol. It's also incredibly canon divergent. Like, we've left canon in the rearview, we're borderline making stuff up at this point.

Early 20s erasermic, Aizawa ends up meeting eight year old Shinsou through a case, and in an effort to keep the Commission from squirreling him and his brainwashing quirk away somewhere, decides to foster a child. The problem is, Aizawa lives out of a suitcase in a barren apartment, which means:

Cue Aizawa and Mic committing like. Way too much to their pretend relationship while somehow remaining oblivious to each other's feelings. Aizawa's like "wow, Yamada is really good at pretending to be in love with me. And pretending to be in love with him is really easy. I will at no point consider this any more closely."

(Have some Aizawa hiding in the bathroom while the Commission's '''social worker''' visits Mic's apartment bc if there's one thing this fic is it's fun to write :D)

[fareehaandspaniards]

[nonuel]

mass effect fandom typically has no problem disregarding or rewriting portions of canon, but one thing i have almost never seen touched is the friendship between garrus and shepard. so here is a poll because i am genuinely curious. i tried to be as expansive as poll limitations allowed, but since we are already throwing out canon i recognize there are a lot of variances that haven't been included. because of that, i would particularly like it if people elaborated about their non-romantic relationship with garrus in the tags, comments, or reblogs - especially if you are someone who has voted for any of the non-friend options. thanks for your time!

this post is not meant to be garrus critical. garrus enjoyers are welcome to participate in the poll, i only ask that you are respectful toward other people who may not have him as their favorite, or who may just simply roleplay a shepard that does not have him as their (best) friend for whatever reason.

[dzozef-art]

art vs artist (because i finally posted 8 whole drawings on here !!)

[mothintheflames]

im not going to lie i think transition could’ve saved Michael Olé

[150genetic]

Been thinking of the mewtwos recently,,,,,,If godkiller and soma met, how would it go? Probably bad but nightmare blunt rotation popped into mind

if godkiller n soma met it would be an immediate fight cos , well they dont call him godkiller for nothing (godkillers absolutely going to get his shit rocked but somas def not leaving without some injury either)

anyway godkillers in the nightmare blunt rotation but somas in the dream one , hes a chill duder

[moth-scrunk]

God of Gifts, Greg

One of the Gods living about the mortals in the Minecraft Server. Among his followers he is viewed only as a simple stick, yet his true form and nature is unknown.

Perhaps he hides this for a reason he wishes to keep hidden…

[iron-bundle]

i will never understand the lack of book/michael fics out there like disco has given us so much for them esp because book doesnt even show up in the top 10 of disco characters on ao3 even tho he's helped a ton with michael's character development and is so interesting in his own right

how do book and michael as a ship only have 54 fics but owo/detmer has 200+????

i love ash and pike and i understand why they both have so many fics with michael but pike knew her for all of one season and whatever he heard through spock and ash and michael were so fucking unhealthy. book is so healthy for michael and so good for her and they have so much space where people could write fics for them but they gets jack and shit in comparison to other ships.

also they stay friends after they break up and its so clear they still have unresolved feelings and fanfic writers are so good at exploring that in the ways shows dont!!!

one of the het ships in star trek ever to me

[seizethecringeofproduction]

Wait so like

Hold on a second

Crisis Part 3 is claiming that JLD:AW created the multiverse, implying the multiverse didn't exist before the ending of that movie right?

But, the DCAMU had a crossover with both OG Teen Titans AND Teen Titans Go in the TT vs TTG movie.

And Titans had an episode that confirmed TTG is a canon universe of the DC multiverse.

So....did Crisis Part 3 LITERALLY just make both itself, the entire Tomorrowverse, and JLD:AW literally impossible because a prior movie dead ass DEBUNKS ALL OF THEM from fucking EXISTING?! Because how the FUCK could that crossover film happen if the multiverse didn't exist yet, huh DC? I'm weaponizing your own bullshit lore against you, bitch. I DEMAND AN ANSWER.

BRUH

FUCKIN BRUH MOMENT

Make this info VIRAL, it takes ALL these fuckin' movies and their horrible ass endings DOWN.

Also this is dead ass the only time I've ever been thankful for Teen Titans Go's existence. It literally negates the entire Crisis trilogy, the entire Tomorrowverse, and JLD:AW's entire storyline. Never thought I'd say Thank God for TTG.

Here is the receipt showing that this crossover did in fact happen and I'm not making it up. The fact this happened contradicts Crisis Part 3's claim that the multiverse wasn't created until after the ending of AW (aka Shitopolips Dump), meaning that entire movie as well as the entire Tomorrowverse + Crisis trilogy should be completely and entirely stricken from canon immediately and we should all refuse to acknowledge them as such.

[canadianlucifer]

While I was reading Blue Exorcist I didn't fully register just how dark the Illuminati arc was, but watching it animated... holy shit.

I could not imagine going through what Izumo has and is going through. And being in the place of any of the other students? Dealing with unkillable regenerating zombies speaking to me in broken up bits saying they want to go home? Having so much pressure to do things most adults wouldn't be able to do? AT 15 YEARS OLD??

I feel like this is the turning point for the series bc it goes from "heehoo funny with epic fights and some character bonding" to "everyone you love is going to die if you don't fight right now. This world is bleak and horrifying under the thin veil we have created and the fate of it rests on your shoulders, all of you."

[wtfgaylittlezooid]

Ohohoho I am planning something diabolical. green fans will hate me