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beescake · 9 months ago

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PLEASE PLEASE MEGADUMP THE ARASOL!!! PLEAAASEE MR BEESCAKE I AM ON MY KNEES BEGGING YOU

HFHGHD GLADLY aaa i’ve been adding notes to it here and there for months but just hesitant to post it bcs im 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂

also this is just my own takeaway of the events, it doesn’t necessarily comply to the Ultimate Truth of Canon-Alignment or represent the actual facts of what hussie intended! v sentimental smh but hopefully its still interesting to read

i love when characters inform each other by proximity, it's one of my fave things to see in media :') it feels even more significant when two characters deliberately choose to stick together, so that when one operates, you can tell the other is similarly aligned in associative solidarity.

sollux is a keystone of this trope — whoever he aligns with is a wordless statement, a nod of approval. this stood out to me bcs the main four humans were alr friends by default, but once you reach hivebent you realize the trolls can actively choose who they want to hang out with.

and as we all know, after assessing every troll's biases/loyalties, sollux is the only one who maintains his selective preference for innately Good 👍 people.

aradia is such a beautiful character honestly, she evokes such incredible feelings in me. she might not have been consistently written with care but the best parts of her character are truly stunning. i think it's easy to remember sollux as the self-sacrificing one bc he's so open about it (and his friends frequently react to his Moments) but when you compare him to aradia, it's always struck me

how much more. raw it is

to be so alone as an agent of time, having to orchestrate immeasurably harrowing events nobody understands or gives a fuck about

with your role painted in the story as one who must tend to the needs of the narrative, responsible to match every next note

because when you're given the capabilities, it becomes your duty to carry it out.

it becomes expected of you to keep experimenting and arranging the machinations to work for everyone, dusting off hundreds of necessary failures to keep going

and having to be so unwavering in your drive knowing miserably that there's no one who can help you but yourself.

or alternatively: to make things fun! so other people won't think twice about letting you go off on your own.

sure she's had some very good buds, notably thanks to Team Charge v Team Scourge antics.

and yet, at the end of the day, the one friend that kept choosing her time and time again was the friend with the highest standards.

i can see why people like to define arasol as moirails/matesprits but surprisingly i find the nondescript, unlabeled aspect of their relationship more straightforward to understand.

there's no shortage of people who would accommodate sollux. most of the surviving trolls are his oldest friends bcs he’d chosen them well. his transparency with his feelings had built him strong friendships that won’t falter or break, regardless of how much of a dick he can be. they’ve already seen and accepted him at his worst, and they still like him for who he is.

contrast that with aradia, who'd been so approachable, friendly and reliable in her exchanges it was super fun to talk to her. but the moment she became depressed, all her connections broke down.

her friends became hesitant to interact with her (until she became god tier, “happy” and amicable again) because her gloom and resignation didn’t serve them. she dealt with it alone.

there’s def something of note here abt the disparity between the way male & female characters are written+perceived in homestuck (esp parallel arasol with davejade) but i won’t go into that lmaoo

with this in mind i like to think of sollux as a gift to her, a loyal companion given to complement and commend her resolve. she's capable of doing so much alone but hussie took the time to build her and sollux's relationship as one of a unit; a set.

the ambiguity of their status does complicate things, but i do believe it makes sense with their characters. aradia's relationship with romance is a rocky one, the dubious stringalong equius had with her is a pointed reminder that her feelings of attraction are ultimately controlled by the author writing her.

unlike the other trolls who can openly address and own up to their crushes, aradia had romantic emotions forced upon her (especially when hussie implies 'she kissed equius back on her own volition'). and it seems like her character is so intrinsically neutral abt attraction that even when forced by the almighty powers above, she's unable to retain it wholly.

however, looking back to pre-game when she could actually "choose" her own feelings, she did have a crush on sollux.

their soft spots for each other were so obvious to the point where other people could see it.

taunting aside, when vriska comments on their unit as bf/gf it actually informs the audience that arasol's relationship is romantic in nature despite not aligning with the quadrant system.

even while dead, aradia could still describe her care for sollux, expressing that she would like to see him happy. if they had more time to explore their relationship on alternia, it's possible they could've settled in a quadrant once they grew older.

but going back to the lack of labels, their dynamic was affected once more when aradia became god tier.

to me, her ascension was both the perfect culmination and possible closure of her character. it's the light at the end of her journey toiling through countless of timelines where she had to actively assess and participate. that's why it's cool to see her being silly and having fun giving guidance, passively exploring and watching other people do their parts.

and yet the joy of her freedom makes it hard to explore further introspection. if we take her by her word, she'd already come to terms with the hurt she's been through and forgiven those involved.

i can't help feeling attuned to how impersonal and detached it can be, to devote and meld your identity so completely with your designated position as Maid of Time until you've become hard for your old friends (and even some readers!) to personally connect to.

idk post-canon but i assume there’s some degree of similarity to be bridged here with aradia's god tier and how the hs2 humans' Ultimate forms was described as a consolidation of all their possibilities. since aradia's classpect is inherently of service to Time, going god-tier may have elevated her beyond personhood with the "game construct" possessing her entirely. sollux doesn't realize the extent of it bcs he's still mortal, but a part of him may have subconsciously understood this.

i think there is a core aspect to aradia that was lost to the dehumanizing glory of god tier — a core aspect that may have contained an element of why sollux enjoyed talking to her in the first place.

to him, aradia hadn't just been a nice girl, she was a cool girl. despite not having much in common, he's still willing to chill next to her so she's not alone while she does what needs to get done.

back on alternia, they held a mutual and equal-level regard for each other that could've definitely settled into something permanent. but now, he's placed himself in a position where he can be kept around or left behind at will. the parameters of the relationship are largely in aradia's court, so any label she suggests to identify their relationship with he's likely to accept.

but that's why it's so difficult to label it. because god tier aradia may not necessarily Want quadrants or relationship labels. rather than the initial romantic attachment, their commitment to each other had evolved into one fundamentally of companionship.

no label? ok fine. no matter what, he still thinks she's a good soul worth latching on to. the best, actually. aradia > everyone else.

even if it gets stilted at times. there's an unexpected struggle to connect when sollux's go-to default for talking points is his feelings about things, and aradia may not want to talk about emotions all the time.

not to mention god tier aradia became an observer, especially of chaos. but sollux's avoidance of involvement comes partially from his innate pressure to get involved if something goes wrong. and he can't always tell when something goes wrong, because aradia doesn't mind if things go wrong anymore.

it's a non-negotiable preference that causes them to take the occasional time apart, a new boundary that wouldn't have existed before the game and aradia's god tier.

but just like how his friends tolerated his moods, sollux accepts aradia as she is. with no quadrants, their connection doesn't break down because there's no implicit romantic expectations to be disappointed by or resentful over.

sometimes when i see hs content that deliberately distances sollux from aradia, i assume this is the dissonance people might have felt. people might find it "easier" to be cynical about them bcs of this strange tension.

but idc lmao. grab that shit by the neck

lack of easy resolutions and cleanly tied ribbons is pretty standard of homestuck and imo it doesn't make arasol's dynamic any less incredible. with the right affection and consideration, there's still so much potential to develop the nuance of their relationship outside of the popular quadrant-based depictions.

hs has a lot of really great character compatibilities but the way aradia and sollux are in their own special orbit is why i can write this much about them in the first place. it's that frail innocence between first loves that makes it so sweet to me, two kids who grew up too fast playing guesswork without being clear where they're going.

ultimately i do think you're meant to feel a little tragedy for just how much they care for each other, even if they can't quite establish it in simple terms.

maybe they keep taking breaks to progress their own paths. maybe they remain as anchor partners while seeing other people. but even if you decide to separate them, they're still (awkwardly) texting each other updates all the while. and when they reunite it feels like coming home.

and well. more than anything, i like to believe that they do want to be exclusive.

they're just afraid. after all, they're still learning how to love, beyond the projections of the foursquare quadrant system they had inadvertently distanced themselves from since young.

they might not have everything figured out, but they'll get there eventually if you just hold them together and write them there.

optional post-canon segment:

one of the limitations of main hs is that (monogamous) relationships are often written as the go-to solution to wrap up character growth; it's an easy "patch" to imagine characters getting their happy ending because they have a partner, and those who don't end up with someone don't get that closure (most notably jade).

hs2 reaffirms this by suggesting that aradia's character cannot progress without letting sollux go, because happily settling in a relationship automatically locks your potential.

that pathetic panel of sollux staring emptily into the sky is still my fave hs2 spoiler ngl i find the impact of their parting so emotionally provoking precisely bcs they were written in original hs to be each other's forever, coming back together again and again

but now, they're subject to the decisions of the post-canon authors who might choose to deviate from that.

it's not new for them to part, but now there's an underlying worry that her dropping him off this time might be the last time. while i think the prospect of shattering their stability to make them grow separately sounds fun on paper, no amount of me desperately hoping for a good execution is gonna guarantee it

idk. i guess prediction-wise im expecting sollux in classic dramatic-hs2 fashion to tell dave to back off aradia LMAO. otherwise it's just gon be sollux and karkat pathetically watching aradia and dave from a distance swimming in their unresolved feelings for narratively-powerful time players smh obvs it sounds corny as hell but who knows its still plausible

srsly tho i hope they take the opportunity to develop arasol's relationship in a fresh direction that doesn't hurt me too badly...... and i hope they force sollux out of his comfort zone. i like watching him struggle :-)

#sorry if this isnt fully accurate heh its just my personal impressions/feelings #despite best efforts to simplify my annotations the wall of text still ended up massive #there's also a comparison i wanted to make abt characters who “broke up” from romantic expectations losing a lot of what they had before #dave(sprite)/jade‚ karkat/terezi‚ dirk/jake etc = which is why i think arasol was rescued by hussie on purpose. arasol endgame truth #ngl there mightve been more moments that shouldve been mentioned but i have no memories of... limited cloud storage #long post #ask #anon #homestuck #arasol #aradia megido #sollux captor #arapostings #2024 #vioart #not disqualifying acespec/qpr reading i think its also possible :]#if anything i dont understand fanon killing off aradia for their sollux ships haiyaaa why is this trope so damn popular #every time i open a slkt fic and aradia is dead i go outside and burn a tree. global warming could not come sooner #slkts who treat aradia like dvkts treat jade…. i punt u football style

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necrotic-nephilim · 3 months ago

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@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.

#necrotic festerings #batfamily #batfamily meta #dc comics #fandom meta #fan studies #fanon vs canon #i deleted paragraphs of this to try to make it shorter. it failed btw.#anyway i got into comics when i was like 12 with the dark knight returns #and if i hadn't been into this medium for a decade i don't think i would be able to get into it as an adult so i get it #bc i'm trying to get into marvel comics and fuck ME am i confused as fuck.#do marvel comics have like. an equivalent to crisis events?#is the ultimates like their version of the new-52? i do NOT know #it's so hard and daunting so trust me i get it #if you never wanna pick up a comic god i respect you you're so right this is fucking miserable #i want to live and let live in fandom but *god* i'm struggling here #i used to bend to the will of fanon fun fact #i wrote my share of tim and jason fics playing into fanon tropes. god i hate them *now* but they did fucking numbers.#and i used to care more about getting attention in fandom than being accurate #i've matured now. it's why i write on anonymous so much to remind myself this should be for me.#anyway i could do a character study on every batfam member as fanon vs canon #ESPECIALLY tim and jason. i know so much about them trust me.#jason todd fans annoyed me so much i once sat and read almost every fucking jason comic. i didn't even like him.#but i tell you what i know that man and he will never leave my top five characters on league of comics.#this is so long. is anyone going to read all of this.#if you do you're a fucking trooper i'm saluting you.#this isn't even all of my thoughts i had to condense myself.#bc i also have thoughts about how this means some characters no longer get to exist outside of the batfam #because they only exist as a member of the unit #ergo we have very little current content of helena bertinelli or onyx adams or duke thomas

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dephoraowo · 12 hours ago

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Lan Wangji and a List of his Fanon Tropes

For some reason, Lan Wangji is also misunderstood by the fandom. Luckily, he isn't that badly misunderstood as Wei Wuxian is 😅. Here is a list to help you understand Lan Wangji, one of the best characters in mdzs, better.

List of Fanon Tropes:

Lan Wangji only loves once. Side note: This can apply to all the Lans.

Lan Wangji is repressed / struggles to express himself.

Lan Wangji has a speech impediment.

Lan Wangji adopted A-Yuan as his son.

Lan Wangji mourned for Wei Wuxian / played Inquiry for 13 years. (+ this, this.)

Lan Wangji saved Wei Wuxian in Nightless City because he loved him.

Lan Wangji learned how to be righteous from Wei Wuxian. (+ this, this, this, this, this.)

Lan Wangji wore mourning robes after Wei Wuxian died.

Lan Wangji is Chief Cultivator.

Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian, even more than his own morals.

Lan Wangji confessed to Wei Wuxian after saving him at Nightless City.

Lan Wangji cares about his own reputation. (+ this.)

Lan Wangji expects Wei Wuxian to return his feelings.

Lan Wangji is a stickler for all the rules.

Lan Wangji took Wei Wuxian to the Burial Mounds after Nightless City.

Lan Wangji isn't that smart.

Lan Wangji’s family approved of Wei Wuxian.

None of these posts belong to me. Please support those who have written the posts. As usual, if there are any more fanon tropes about Lan Wangji, please do tell 😁.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #lan wangji #fanon tropes #i cant believe there are ppl saying lwj aint smart #theres a reason why lwj is able to keep up with wwx #i mean if we were to compare wwx to lwj #theyve got different types of smartness #wwx on top of being book smart #he is also street smart and innovative #wwx got the inventors type of genius #thats the only difference #but other than that lwj and wwx are equally smart #wwx avoided lwj so much after he lost his core because he knew lwj would figure it out sooner or later #cuz lwj is just that smart and observant #but i digress

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fulcrvm · 4 months ago

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I'd really really love a Retired!Dreamling fic where Dream doesn't immediately become immortal upon becoming human.

I want to see what would happen when Dream and Hob both suddenly realise that Dream can still get hurt in some way, and I want it to take a long time for Hob to convince (beg?) for Dream to actively decide to 'not die'. I think it would be a very painful thing for Hob (who is inherently selfish and greedy, and needs to realise that he can't just ask Dream to be immortal simply because Hob wants him to be) to now justify why he think Death is stupid to a Dream who now can't contact any Endless, and isn't protected by the universe or whatever. I think it'd be very difficult and chracter-revealing considering their last conversation during The Kindly Ones, and I want their love and domesticity to feel earned in the retired setting. And I really want to see Dream have a reason to live fully, without fear, and actively decide to become immortal with his hand in Hob's, no matter how long it takes.

#dreamling #Retired Dreamling is not only about domesticity and living through the little things but its also about recovery. to me at least #ive been wanting a fic like this for ages and i cant nail down the details enough to write it myself.#so im posting it in case anyone else wants to take the bait i mean prompt lmao #if someone does write this lmk pleaaseee love you bye #this is not a dig at anyone btw!!! retired dream is one of my favorite fanon tropes of all time and i wanted to play around with my own ide #rex speaks #rex writes #sorta

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kakooshi · 9 months ago

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I feel like enough time has passed...

#dbh #detroit become human #connor rk800 #gavin reed #convin #reed800 #my first hot take in years #i must be the only person on the planet who thinks this skdjhdksjhdsk #tbh i wish i could get into reed//900 cuz its shippers are so spoiled with content but I CANT #not even the fan films got me interested #i realized that reed800 and reed//900 have the same tropes but the difference is that the former actually has history #so its more fun to explore that in fanon imo #with how gavin treated connor its always interesting to see how fic writers would develop their relationship #esp if connor puts gavin in his place at the beginning

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clonehub · 4 months ago

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The Clones, Kamino, and Relationships

I've long speculated on what the clones' values would be as a people regarding every type of relationship they could possibly have with others around them -- antagonistic, romantic/sexual, professional, platonic, familial, etc.

Often times when making headcanons along these lines, people tend to project their own social upbringings onto the clones with or without realizing; they rely heavily on a reality that doesn't exist for the clones and then try to justify it with the same reality. Their analyses and theories and hcs end up flawed (and, for me, really annoying to read).

I'm sure you've all heard the fanon/headcanons that clones don't have the necessary and nebulously-defined "life experiences" that are required to mark them as adults. People think the clones lack a certain amount of knowledge about themselves and their bodies, and then others' bodies and how those work. They think the clones have no social awareness; I even saw someone say that clones wouldn't have had rivals, frenemies, or any negative interaction with other clones.

This long form and hopefully structured rant is going to lay out everything I think about how the clones were raised, why they're raised that way, and what that means when they interact with one another and with non clones.

Antagonistic Relationships

The clones argue. They fight. They disagree. We see this repeatedly in The Clone Wars and all throughout the Bad Batch. They disagree with superiors, both Jedi and non Jedi.

Disagreement within a group helps foster social bonds, can strengthen critical thinking/reasoning, and has a few other benefits I don't feel like listing out right now. Regardless, managing disagreements in a group requires conflict resolution skills.

The General Relationship Structure on Kamino

The clones must be taught to be loyal, to be amicable, and how to resolve conflicts within squads and bigger and bigger groupings of clones. The clones are going to war. They're trained soldiers. They have to be able to work on a team. Team work isn't just following orders and it isn't just being friends. That also means swallowing pride, setting aside ego, and even speaking up.

They can get jealous, they can be envious, they can have a whole host of complex feelings and emotions that they need to work through. The Drill sergeants would thus be instructed to be aware of and teach the clones who to work through this (whether they choose pats on the head or a fist is up to them).

I'm saying this to say that fandom often takes clones' "guns n battle" education a little (waaayy) too literally. They're not just given a gun at 2 and told to start firing. They need to be told that you can't turn that gun on your brother just because he said something annoying or you think he's dumb.

The Galaxy Outside Kamino

The clones learn about the galaxy outside Kamino. They get a heavily censored and propagandized history of the galaxy that plays up the Republic and absolutely villainizes anyone else, but they definitely do learn about the galaxy in general. They learn about other species, where those species are located, etc.

I say this to say that people like to act like the clones are so sheltered that they basically gawk at the mere existence of anyone who isn't a clone (so like....racist via ignorance?) which....I don't understand, really. The Kaminoans want to deliver a functioning and high quality product. They can't do that if they don't tell the clones that there's people out there that look different frmo you and speak a different language. A lot of clones are bound to interact with civilians; what sense is there in not prepping them for it?

These history lessons wouldn't even take too long to learn or anything like that. Some people like to headcanon that the clones' education schedule is so tight that they can't learn about "unnecessary" things (i.e. anything that isn't about guns n battle). But the clones are also fast learners. I think they can handle like two days of lessons about the galaxy's species.

Learning about the galaxy also requires --

Social Awareness

I've often seen headcanons that the clones, in one way or another, lack social awareness. "Non clones are basically an alien species! They're bound to ask loud, rude, ignorant, offensive questions! They're not shy, so they'd totally just strip in public if they need to!" (yes, I saw someone say this)

This comes from people infantilizing the clones and refusing to write or see them as the adults that they are. This is also severely shortsighted; again, being aware of the fact that the Kaminoans want a product that can do its job, who is helped by the clones blundering through greater society and destroying the genpop's trust in and comfort with them?

The clones get taught the basics of social politeness. They wouldn't manage the intricacies of cross-cultural interaction from two like high level senators, but that's not their job. They're polite, they're professional, they're aware of what is and isn't rude. They're self aware. They're adults.

Personal and Bodily Awareness

Sorry to the people who are weirdly misogynistic, but the clones also get comprehensive sex ed. It's inevitable that some clones are going to sleep with a non-clone. It's bound to happen! Rather than pretend it never does, the clones are told in detail about two things:

The human reproductive system.

Basic contraceptives and STI prevention.

part of maintaining the health and safety of any given population is making sure that they don't get sick. STIs are a way of getting sick. Part of maintaining the health and safety of a given population is managing unwanted or unexepcted pregnancies. Condoms prevent that. I think the medics have them and distribute them as-needed when they go on leave planetside.

So they get consent training (they'd have to, in order to learn how to interact with anyone ever in a normal and healthy way). The contours of consent would interact with their lifestyles in a contradictory way because they're also rather explicitly told they don't have the right to give/revoke consent over their own bodies, but they're at least told about other's bodies.

But here's the thing. The clones rarely. RARELY. Do end up having sex or a relationship because of two reasons:

They rarely interact with non-clones who are viable for sexual or romantic relationships (as in, most of the non-clones they're in contact with are COs and Jedi)

They themselves do not value sex and relationships to the extent that we do in our society.

for the first point: they're in battle a lot, and when they go on leave they face a society that does not like clones. There are anti-clone protests, 79s is one of the few bars that allows clones in, and when they're at battle they're notably not interacting with civilians for obvious reasons. The average jedi and non clone CO is not going to seek a sexual or romantic relationship with a clone.

This also presumes that clones don't sleep with other clones. I'm not giving ground on this. It's clear within canon that the clones view each other as true family. "Brothers" is not just "brother in arms", but quite literally a familial term for them. Fives' "same heart, same blood" speech in season 3 is evidence. Sister being called/naming herself Sister is another (her being transfem alone isn't enough; if they didn't view their familial relationships as fundamental to who they are, they would have given her a regular name, not Sister). They also refer to one another primarily as brothers, even when there's bad blood -- like Slick insisting that he did loves his brothers. Not comrades or friends or squad mates. Brothers. The entire 501st.

Frankly, the "they're bound to do it" view that many people seem to have is very bizarre to me. Who cares about proximity? What are their values as a people? What have they been taught? What do they believe? Why assume that any given clone would do that? Plenty of people spend a lifetime around their families without ever developing a desire to sleep with them. Who you grow up with can absolutely influence who you're attracted to, but not to this degree.

The assumption that clones MUST sleep with one another relies on a rather wide series of assumptions that just do the thing I complained about in the opener, which is rely on our own culture's values to write the clones. Which ties into point #2 up above:

The clones don't value sex or relationships as something they need to seek out. Yeah, they'd get horny. They're adults. It happens! Part of life. But what's socially considered an appropriate release of those feelings would be different from what we see in today's world. The drill sergeants wouldn't impress upon them the importance of having a partner, because how does that help them? How does it benefit the Republic, the civilians, the clones?

The clones are soldiers who were bred for war and are focused, first and foremost, on fighting and fulfilling their duty. Their most important social values are fighting, duty, and loyalty. Hierarchy, warfare, survival, etc. Can a clone seek out sex? Yeah! Is that even like, remotely common given the points I made above? No! Does the average clone chase civilians or even dream about relationships, sex, etc etc etc? Nope. They weren't taught to value it.

(This isn't to say that wanting these things makes a clone bad at their job, or that having sex means they're breaking a rule somewhere. They're not. it's just like how the majority of college students go for the most common majors because they're taught that those are valuable and desirable things to learn in school. You'll get one or two who have a concentration in something you've never heard of. They're not wrong for that, but they're definitely outliers)

So the average clone is a virgin that doesn't even think about it because it doesn't matter to them. They know about both male and female reproduction, and they know how to interact with civilians.

They're definitely sheltered. I highly doubt that any clone is given the skills necessary to manage like, romantic relationship problems, especially the really gritty ones. They're not told about their rights as beings, their ability to say no to most situations that involve a military CO. But they know about saying please and thank you, solving interpersonal conflicts, and about pads and tampons. They know about boundaries, appropriate behavior in public, and how to use a condom. They know about girlfriends and boyfriends and partners, they just don't generally care about them. They're rare -- not socially shunned, just rare. like the niche college concentrations.

A really good meta to read that I personally love is written by @canichangemyblogname and linked in his pinned. @saga-ordsmed also has a few interesting metas floating somewhere on her blog. theyre not about this topic in particular, but she's got interesting insights into the Republic.

I hope this was coherent enough. I wrote this mostly because I saw a contradictory post that pissed me off and I was yelling about it with friends in discord lol. Basically, the clones are adults, but don't presume that they have the same values that we do, or that the poeple in charge of their care and upbringing share our values either.

#ch posts #captain rex #star wars #fives #the clone wars #all the bros #clone troper #meta #commander wolffe #oooh the way this fandom treats clones gets on my nerves #a monumental inabilty to think outside the upbringing most of them have seen or experienced themselves #the presumption that the clones share our values but also dont know how to act in public and cant be trusted #the extensive and pervasive born sexy yesterday trope like AAAHHHHH use your BRAINS #this is like years ago when fanon was that the clones couldnt swim #fanon was bad enough to write jokey misogynistic fics about the clones esentially sexually harassing every woman around them #i still see fics about the clones not knowing how babies are made and its like if uou expect them to be having sex #bc these people always do #why would they. not know about that. who benefits from them not knowing. how does it make SENSE #tcw #swtcw #ugh.#kamino #clone headcanon #clone headcanons #ct7567 #star wars meta

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