#new 52 is a great source for batfamily stories

[out-of-context-batfam]

Detective Comics (2016) #1027

[bigskydreaming]

@dargeon-lissa I saw your note on that post, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time or energy to dive down that particular rabbit hole this week, lol. I generally avoid getting into the ‘who stole what from whom’ arguments in the first place, just because I really do love all the Batkids when fandom isn’t getting in the way, and I firmly believe there’s no need to treat characteristics or even plots as though they can only belong to one character. 

So like, I happily butt in when someone says something like “YJ Dick’s hacking is stolen from Tim” because like, its not like its a knock against Tim to point out that “no, Dick’s been portrayed as an expert hacker since before Tim was created, they can both be great hackers, stop being dumb.”

And like I was saying just the other day where I think its stupid and juvenile to emphasize some idea that Dick never reads for pleasure or educates himself for the joy of learning, because some people seem to think that takes something away from Jason, if they’re also writing him with an emphasis on those characteristics.

That sort of thing. 

The rest of the time though, I think it really just comes down to intent, otherwise its just a moot point.

Like, I’m not a fan of Court of Owls fics that center around Tim and basically transplant him with all of Dick’s canon connections to it....but that’s because its like...what’s your point with that fic? If its just because you like the Court of Owls and Talon plotlines but you don’t like Dick, so you’re just cut and pasting one swapped out for the other, then you’ve lost me, not because you’ve ‘stolen’ from Dick, but because you’re not doing anything NEW with the material you’ve applied to a new, different character...while disregarding its source connections. 

*Shrugs* I don’t think that’s about being possessive of Dick’s storylines, its about being like....this is boring. If someone wrote a fic about Tim and the Court of Owls but doesn’t just use him in place of Dick, and still acknowledges their connection to Dick instead of trying to pretend like it or he doesn’t exist...in and of itself, I don’t have a problem with that, it just comes down to whether or not I like what they do with that. Much in the same way that I’d read fic about Dick going up against Ra’s in some specific plot, but if its set after a point in the comics where Tim’s stories started intertwining with Ra’s a lot, I would still want to see that acknowledged. 

Because I do think its disingenuous to pretend that Tim’s stories don’t use Ra’s a lot more regularly than Dick’s canon stories do, even though Dick has prior interactions and stories with Ra’s that go way back before Tim existed. But like....these things don’t need to come into conflict. I can imagine a story that’s Dick vs Ra’s and that doesn’t take away from the respect (or his creepy version of it) that Ra’s has shown Tim as well. He’s allowed to regard more than one of Bruce’s kids as a worthy adversary, and it makes sense that he would. It doesn’t threaten Dick’s central role in a story like that, or his competence, to allow for the fact that Ra’s has a preoccupation with Tim as well, even if that’s not his focus in this particular plot. 

And by the same token, if I were to write a story that springs out of the events of Robin: Year One, for instance, where Dick gets tangled up with Ra’s and Talia and the League because of Vengeance Academy or Boone, something like that.....and I don’t even mention Tim, because its years before Tim would have come into the picture....that’s not me stealing anything from Tim, because those prior connections existed, why shouldn’t anyone make use of them?

Oh fuck it. I clearly went down the rabbit hole anyway. Whatever, more under the cut. Why am I like this.

It goes both ways too. Yeah, sure, I think its dumb when Jason stans act like focusing on Dick’s death takes something away from the typical focus on Jason’s, like he’s less special now or this is Dick ‘stealing Jason’s thing.’ Its comic books. More characters have died and come back then haven’t. Few have their death and return be as central to their character as Jason’s is, like, the Death of Superman is an iconic story but even with that, Clark’s death and resurrection isn’t like....regarded as a fundamental part of his stories....but that doesn’t mean no one’s allowed to write stories that focus on the deaths and returns of other characters, for whatever reason. 

That’s not taking anything away from Jason’s stories, its not copying him, and neither is the way Dick was believed dead for a year like, a rip off of when Steph’s story went the same way prior to that. Characters believed to be dead being revealed as alive is an equally long-running comic book trope. It applies to far more than just the two of them, and no one has proprietary claim over it, its about what you DO with it.

Now, stories that focus on Dick’s death and how he was believed dead and revealed otherwise.....that involve the rest of the Batfamily and make a point not to mention any parallels with Jason or Steph’s stories, act like nothing similar ever happened with them....then I’d be equally wary of that story because I’d be like...why? What’s the point in pretending there are no parallels, acting like Dick is the only one this has ever happened to? He doesn’t need to be, in order for it to have impact, so enough with this Highlander “There can only be one” philosophy.

Like, Dick’s one of the most iconic DC characters and has been around for 80 years. He was going to die and be brought back at some point. Deal with it. It was always inevitable, just like its pretty inevitable that its going to happen to Tim for real at some point too. It just hasn’t yet.

All that said....there have been a number of stories over the years that have posited Dick being killed by the Joker and coming back as Renegade or Red Hood. Similarly, I have no interest in reading those, not because I’m opposed to a Renegade storyline or an exploration of a darker version of Dick, but because they’re usually just a blatant cut and paste job. *Shrugs* I’ve already read that story with Jason and UTRH. I liked that story, with Jason and UTRH. Why do I need to read the same story, just with Dick now instead of Jason? I’d rather read something brand new.

Then we get to ‘stealing characters.’ Like Jason stealing Kory and Roy, and Dick stealing Kon in YJ, etc. I have the same philosophy here as I do about characteristics....its weird and not cool to me to treat characters as having ‘claim’ to any other characters...but that doesn’t mean I always like when this happens either. But its not because they’re taking what belongs to another character, its about why, and what they do with it.

Like, when its a cheap grab of established characters being now associated with a different character to give them a supporting cast with minimal effort, as opposed to building them their own supporting cast with time and care and putting thought into it...THAT’S my problem with that. I don’t typically like Jason being besties with Kory and Roy, either in canon or in fanfics....but that’s not actually because they’re Dick’s friends and can’t be Jason’s too, its because I don’t like the stories that result from that, and I don’t think they make a case or put any effort into convincing me that this needs to be a trio....the way the comics have decades worth of stories establishing a connection between Dick and Roy and Kori and Dick, and with that being why they’re so associated with him. 

I don’t like Jason, Roy and Kory in canon because I just don’t like the New 52 versions of Roy and Kory period, lol. I hate what they’ve done with them, they feel watered down and tweaked in ways that add nothing to their characters, and their association with Jason irritates me not because it exists, but because of how rarely it allows their association with Dick to exist, and acts like mentioning him in their stories threatens the validity of them being with Jason. You wanna write them being Jason’s friends, DO THAT. But put some EFFORT into it. JUSTIFY it. And....don’t erase their connections to Jason’s brother because they’re not allowed to have connections with two brothers at the same time or whatever. Like, even without all their pre-Flashpoint history, New 52 Roy and Kory SHOULD show way more of a connection to Dick than their stories with Jason ever allow for, and that’s the bigger issue to me. Not that Jason ‘stole’ them, but that writers act like he can’t have stories with them without pretending their stories with Dick don’t exist. 

Even in New 52, like, the Rebirth version of Titans was crap, lol, but it still existed, and like....there’s hardly any acknowledgment of Dick and Roy being long time teammates even AFTER the Titans got their memories of each other back in Rebirth. Even if they’re not the best of friends in New 52 the way they were in Flashpoint, they still had way more history in even current canon than Jason’s comicbook writers or fic writers seem willing to allow mentions of. Similarly, we barely know anything about Dick and Kory’s relationship in the New 52....but we do know they HAD one, and fucking amnesia was involved there too, lol, but like. It exists. You want to write her mostly hanging out with Jason now, fine! But like....there’s no reason her past with Dick can’t still exist, and that it would never come up.

Instead, I read way too many fics about Jason, Kory and Roy where the latter two just fucking full on hate Dick, because the writer does. Or just act like he’s a total stranger to them and their loyalty is solidly with Jason and always has been and always will be. And that’s cheap and lazy writing to me, and makes no sense and wouldn’t appeal to me even if it wasn’t Dick that was being bashed and it was a different character in a similar context. 

So its not like they CAN’T be good friends with Jason, because they were such good friends with Dick first. Its just...factor that in, at least, you know? But admittedly, even were writers to do this more, it still wouldn’t be ideal IMO, with these particular characters....because I’m always gonna wonder WHY. Why them? Why these two in particular, when giving Jason more friends? Like, especially if you’re still incorporating large amounts of pre-reboot history into your characters, Jason and his dynamics with Dick and the Batfamily in particular.....its always going to be a little weird to me to have Jason of all people become besties with one of his big brother’s most iconic and longterm friends, and his big brother’s ex-fiancee and mother of his child in other timelines.

Like....its just a matter of....you couldn’t come up with anyone else? That’s why when I headcanon giving Jason more friends and teammates of his own - BECAUSE HE TOTALLY DESERVES THEM AND I WANT HIM TO HAVE THEM, I AGREE, LOL - like, I focus on characters who have no strong connections to Dick or Tim or anyone else in the Batfamily already. And its not because I don’t want to steal what ‘belongs’ to anyone else already, but because....Jason should get to build and have strong connections with characters on his own. I’d rather look through DC’s vast library of characters and find ones that I think FIT him best, have the most potential to play off his character and add to his storylines....then try and take a shortcut by seeing who’s been popular with his big brother but isn’t currently being used in big brother’s storylines, and thus can become besties with Jason without needing to put too much effort into writing that happening.

And that’s why I don’t have a ton of interest in writing Jason with Kory and Roy....because I still prefer their dynamics and history with Dick and don’t really feel they make a ton of sense to go live with his younger brother instead, so I’m happy to just have them friendly with Jason, maybe even the friends of Dick’s he’s closest too and they’ve occasionally teamed up on their own....but for Jason himself, I’d rather build him connections with Tomcat, Damage, Ray, Jade and Obsidian, Anima, maybe the aged up version of Chris Kent....characters he has a blank slate with, no prior strong associations with his older brother that innately make any connection Jason has with them at least somewhat complicated....people I feel he could play off of well and they could add a lot to each others’ characterizations and storylines, and I can easily and without conflict write them being fully in Jason’s corner in ANY kind of disagreement with even Dick or the other Titans....without there always being this weird edge where its like, are Kory and Roy on Jason’s side here just solely for his sake, or is it also because they’re pissed at Dick or the other Titans for their own reasons, or what’s going on here?

Now jump back to where I brought up how YJ Dick has been accused of stealing Kon from Tim. Like, this I think is fully dumb, and again, people can think its because I’m a Dick stan and think he should have everything lol, but its exactly what I’ve been saying all along. Its about what you do with the characters. And its about that none of them belong to any other character in the first place.

Like, can I just say I hate the whole ‘so and so needs their own super, their own speedster, their own archer’ mindset? They’re not collector’s items. They don’t go up in value once you have a complete set. If you’re trying to configure a team and make sure you have certain different archetypes and powersets because of what that allows for narratively? I’m all on board. But once you start going well Kon is Tim’s super and Jon is Damian’s....then I’m like. LOL. No. Kon is Tim’s FRIEND. Jon is Tim’s FRIEND. 

And also because...that’s all Connor actually is, in Young Justice? He’s Dick’s FRIEND. And teammate. He’s not “Dick’s super” because tbh, I don’t see how he’s any more closely associated with Dick in YJ than any of the other original core cast. He’s got the exact same degree of closeness and familiarity with Dick in YJ as he does with say, Artemis. Did Artemis steal Kon too? Or are they just all friends by virtue of the YJ showrunners deciding to make Connor one of their age group, because they wanted their team to have a character with connections to Superman and Lex, not because they wanted Dick to have his own Super.

*Shrugs* And if you don’t like moving Connor to a different age group and generation of heroes in and of itself, that’s a valid complaint! But it doesn’t need to be about Dick stealing something from Tim. I hate that Raven and Beast Boy were aged down in the New 52 and the more recent animated movies and are more in Damian’s age group than Dick’s.....but that’s because I love the classic 80′s Teen Titans lineup and miss Raven and Gar’s dynamics with ALL the older Titans characters. Not because Damian stole them from Dick. I also hate Vic on the Justice League because it was nominally supposed to be to boost his profile but I think its only resulted in a regression in his stories as while a Titan, he had a LOT more narrative focus and a lot more character connections than he’s ever been given since being made an original Leaguer in the New 52′s version of the Justice League. And I don’t hate the JL for stealing Vic from the Titans, I hate the DC editorial staff for making dumb, flimsy creative choices in the name of headlines and hashtags instead of solid character choices and strong narratives.

Like, I went off for a bit there, admittedly, but god. I just hate this whole ‘so and so stole this and that from so and so’ in fandom, because its so pointless, IMO. And people take it so faaaaaar.

LOL, you know how I talk a lot about shipping Dick/Kyle? I’ve had people accuse me of ‘stealing’ Kyle from Jason....because enough people ship Jason/Kyle on the basis of the one comic they were in together and had tension in, that he’s now apparently ‘Jason’s’ and the only reason anyone could possibly have for shipping him with Dick is because Jason’s not allowed to have nice things.

I can’t even express how dumb that sounds to someone who’s been shipping Dick and Kyle ever since there like, two interactions in the Obsidian Age JLA arc that came out years before Jason was even brought back in the comics, let alone starred in a comic with Kyle. Where absolutely, yeah, he had far more interactions with Kyle than Dick and Kyle have ever had! But like, there’s not a fucking quota for non canon ships, lmao. Its not like whoever has the most interactions with someone gets to call dibs. 

There’s a whole laundry list of reasons I ship Dick and Kyle together, based on their core characterizations and their storylines, and various parallels I’ve seen in both over the years. And any story I wrote with the two of them as a couple would absolutely reference Kyle’s previous history with Jason and Donna in Countdown, and have him have his own interactions and dynamics with the two of them, separate and distinct from what he had with Dick. And none of that has anything to do with wanting to ship him with Dick because he’s usually shipped with Jason and I’m jealous and want him with my fave instead, lol. I actually do ship Jason and Kyle as well at times, in other story ideas, and that actually has very little to do with their Countdown interactions as well. If anything, the reason I ship Kyle with both Jason and Dick in different scenarios is because I’ve always seen Dick and Jason as very similar in a lot of regards....and thus they both share a lot of the characterizations and story points that I parallel with Kyle’s, and are what makes me think he’s a viable love interest for either of them.

To wrap this up, I can FEEL the inevitability of someone out there saying “Big talk, but what about you insisting that Jason STOLE Robin from Dick?”

Like, I can just FEEL that on the tip of someone’s tongue, lmao.

And to that I would have to answer....uh....I’ve never ever ever even once said or suggested that Jason stole Robin. I’ve always maintained that the fault there was Bruce and Bruce’s alone, and its Bruce who has something to account for there. From an IN STORY perspective. Because of the CHARACTER reasons for Dick feeling protective and possessive of the mantle, not for any meta reason about it being his and his alone.

Because I do like all of the Robins. I’m glad all of them were Robin. My repeated insistence on stressing the importance of the name for Dick, and hating how little that’s acknowledged...is literally just that. I can like all of the Robins and still think that as the creator of the mantle, and having created it to honor the legacy of his first family, the Flying Graysons, NOT to be an extension of the Batman, I just happen to think that even with all of the Robins sharing in the legacy at this point and adding their own bits to the mantle and what it means and represents, Dick’s motivations for becoming Robin in the first place and the fact that he was not the one given the choice of turning it into a legacy is something that deserves to be upheld as the most important factor in narratives about passing on the mantle and conflict over the mantle.

Not because Dick’s the best Robin or the most important or anything that requires or suggests RANKING the Robins according to some completely arbitrary set of parameters....

but simply because Dick’s creation of the mantle and his reasons for doing it and what it meant to him from the start and to this day....are the most RELEVANT to stories about the passing on of the mantle or conflict about the mantle.

Because simply in terms of causation....without Dick’s motivations...the mantle they all fight over would not even exist. Voila. That makes them innately relevant to any discussion of the mantle in a way that say, Tim’s motivations for becoming Robin aren’t necessarily relevant to a conversation about the mantle between Dick and Jason, or Jason and Damian, or any other variation not involving Tim. Dick’s motivations are the only ones that always bear relevancy in anything pertaining to the Robin mantle, because he’s the singular commonality for it, no matter who holds it and how they got it....because he’s the one who created it.

That’s all. Its got nothing to do with best or favorite, its about....just wanting fandom to stop treating his feelings about Robin as the most irrelevant, when he’s the only single common denominator wherever Robin is concerned....and thus the most relevant. 

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of January 30th, 2019

Best of this Week: Justice League Annual #1 - Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Daniel Sampere, Juan Albarran and Adriano Lucas

Everything thus far has been leading up to this.

Ever since the Justice League stopped the Dark Multiverse Invasion and caused a crack in the Source Wall, they’ve had to contend with the machinations of Lex Luthor’s Legion of Doom wanting to break the wall completely to unleash doom while trying to assist the Green Lantern Corps in fixing it. With the help of a recently returned Starman, Hawkgirl finds her path and is prepared to sacrifice herself to finally close off the Source Wall alongside the monolithic Dark Titans from the four issue No Justice mini-series.

However… lurking in the shadows ready to pounce upon the heroes and unleash She behind the Source Wall are the Legion of Doom with their newest member: BRANIAC! In an amazingly drawn sequence by Daniel Sampere, the Lanterns, Starman and Hawkgirl fight Braniac and his legion of battleships. Sampere’s pencils combined with the amazing inks od Albarran and colors by Lucas, make for an astonishing sight of amazing shadows, vibrant colors from Braniac and Starman and the first brilliant piece of art of Perpetua, the being who was imprisoned behind the Source Wall.

This issue hits all of the marks to make for a great end of what is to be the first arc of Snyder’s run and sets up grave consequences as the entire Multiverse is now in danger of being swallowed up in the aftermath of the Source Wall collapsing. The scope of how far this reaches is awesome, from New Genesis to the House of Heroes, no one is safe from what’s to come.

---------------------------------------------------

I didn’t expect both parts of this story to be good, but they were.

Runner Up: Teen Titans Annual #1 - Adam Glass, Ryan Benjamin, Richard Friend, Hi-Fi, Jose Luis, and Joroi Tarragona

With everyone off on their own, Jason took to mentoring Damian as he believes that they’re the only two with sense in how to deal with these villains. Someone, however, is playing them against each other which leads Damian to attack Jason, thinking he’s a betrayer. The fight is brutal, not a normal fight between brothers, but full of anger and resentment when Robin brings out a macguffin box meant for Jason that even Jason says “not even Batman would stoop this low.” before getting angry and savagely beating Damian, imparting a threat of death for Damian an the Titans if they try to find him again.

The second story follows the rest of the team and while the plot isn’t super important, the character development is pretty good. Kid Flash, Wallace West, is taking more of an active role in training Crush, Roundhouse and Djinn. When Djinn gets mind controlled by the villain of the issue, he makes her reveal that she has feelings for Crush, but even more for Damian. Red Arrow and Djinn begin to trust each other more as Djinn allows Red Arrow to control her for a bit to break the villain’s control.

In the New 52, it was Jason and Tim that were the surprising good brothers in the Batfamily, but somewhere along the line, maybe when Jason was part of the crew to help bring Damian back to life, Jason and Damian became even better friends. Recently, however, the Batfamily has collapsed.

Tim’s gone off to do his own thing, leading him back to the Young Justice team, Dick has amnesia, Batgirl’s really been estranged from the family for a while now, Kate Kane and Jason have been excommunicated from the family and there’s this rift between Bruce and Damian that I don’t think has been explained yet.

Once we reach the end of the issue however, we see more of Djinn’s merciless side as the removes the villains mouth, leaving a blank spot so that he may never reveal her secrets and Crush looks on in anger, still thinking of wat she was told earlier as Djinn helps a wounded Robin.

[dornishsphinx]

T, U, and Y!

T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

Hmmm hard and fast headcanons that I’d die defending

From SOV, Conrad’s mother was a lady-in-waiting and close friend to Berkut’s mother who came with her to the capital when she married into the royal family. Lima was invited to the capital during the famine because the Rigelians were desperate. He saw her there and demanded she come with him in exchange for aid. (I may also be writing a fic on Conrad’s mother, watch this space ^_^)

Wrt Tellius, the United Bird Tribes eventually fall apart, the specific breaking point coming about due to arguments about over succession. The ravens end up putting forward Naesala and Leanne’s raven son and the hawk population are adamant that he not be considered (some going as far as to say that ravens in general shouldn’t be considered) due to lingering anger, the ravens getting angry in turn and moving to once again declare the independence of Kilvas (and taking a bit more territory with them this time since they’re in a stronger position.)

When it comes to Naesala and Leanne’s kids, the heron girl mostly takes after Naesala in personality, though the raven boy is more similar to Reyson than either of his parents (both also have traits from Leanne, but they’re less noticeable on first impression.) Both can sing galdr due to their mother but, especially for the raven boy, its effects are far weaker. (Maybe let’s say in gameplay terms that raven boy can buff and not actually refresh.) 

Their heron daughter on one occasion also accompanies Naesala on a diplomatic mission to Begnion, where she decides to learn beorc magic—with Sanaki’s blessing and occasional direct tutelage—as a way to bypass herons’ inability to fight the laguz way, even staying there for a while when he leaves for his next destination. This is a major scandal in the laguz world.

U: Three favourite characters from three different fandoms and why they’re your favourites.

Oh man, it took me a while to settle on who to talk about, but:

Jason Todd (DC Comics)

Jason is the reason I got into DC generally, so I was already biased, but Jason is interesting because he’s a counterpoint to the idea that Batman knows Gotham City better than anyone, as someone who actively grew up on its streets rather than in the safety of a mansion, and someone who came to a vastly different conclusion on what had to be done to make it safer without being painted (mostly) as a clear-cut villain. Also, he’s a literary nerd and it’s such a cute little detail which is never really brought up explicitly on page but is a recurring thing in the background. The antique book collection in UTRH, reading Pride and Prejudice while in jail, really liking school as Robin, and in other bits I can’t remember the context of. 

Where he gets fascinating is on a meta level though. We have the juxtaposition between what modern writers want Jason’s Robin to have been (I really love his run as Robin too, he’s such a cutie in comparison to what he becomes later) and how he actually was written, which kinda comes off as the characters themselves trying to convince themselves of something that isn’t true. And I’ve seen complaints about how people treat his death as being so much more important than others’ deaths when he’d hardly the only DC character to die, but it’s precisely because of real-world circumstances that it’s such a big deal–killed off by poll, left untouched for decades, his costume an ever-present ghost in the Batcave and for the Batfamily–it’s one of those things that can only happen in a big shared comicsverse medium.

I’ll never forgive the New 52 for being the reason we never saw, and can never see now, the Batfamily and Red Hood’s relationship develop.

He just became an ally again randomly in a way that screams editorial mandating “make them get along now, we don’t care how.” They just made everyone do a 180 without bothering to explain why or how and I hate it.

(Also, imo, grey morality Red Hood>outright villain Red Hood AND outright hero Red Hood.)

Laurent (Captive Prince)

Man, I know Captive Prince is controversial, but the story is just so good and even though it’s been a while since I read them, Laurent as a character has stuck with me. (I mean, I adore Damen too, but so many of the character concepts

I’ve come up with since reading the books have been Machiavellian princes shutting themselves off from their emotions, I’m pretty sure Laurent is the source.)

He’s had to adapt to survive the personal hell his uncle transformed the Veretian court into when he (and Damen) got the rest of their family killed—and, at the same time, anyone with the power or desire to protect Laurent from him—when he was just a little kid, and has just built up all the walls around himself. Seeing them slowly peel back and reveal the other sides to him he’s been forced to keep hidden for so long is one of the great things about the series. He’s such a well-realised character, and as you read along, you get to the point where you just need to see him succeed in taking Vere back from his uncle.

He always has the best comebacks too. Nearly everything he says when he’s not awkwardly trying to work his way around emotions he can’t properly express, usually when around Damen, is just pitch-perfect sarcasm even in dire circumstances.

Just a great character overall.

Franziska von Karma (Ace Attorney)

Last time I talked about a favourite Ace Attorney character it ended up being Ema, but I did say she only just beat out Franziska, so it’s her turn now. I’m so sad she’s not reappeared in any of the main games since the original trilogy, though at least we have Investigations. She still has to give Phoenix that card back!

But yes, I just love Franziska. She is very much part of the running theme of legacy families in Ace Attorney with her need to attain perfection and measure up to the Von Karma name, and her relationship with Edgeworth is sweet in a super competitive way. When she comes back later and spends the night trying to solve the puzzle locks to save Maya, you can also see that she has gone through a lot of development over the course of JFA and T&T.

(I maintain that 6-5 would have been vastly improved if she’d taken Edgeworth’s place, and am not entirely convinced it wasn’t originally written with her in mind. I mean, last time she appeared she was undergoing character development and trying to save Maya in a spirit medium-related setting, and this time had Maya being in a perilous situation in a spirit medium-related setting in a foreign country AND she has a history of working with Interpol. It would have actually made sense for her to show up as opposed to the Chief Prosecutor of a foreign country.)

(Also her design is amazing)

(Foolish fool)

Y: What are your second-hand fandoms (i.e. fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

Dragon Age is the big one I can think of. I played a little of Dragon Age Origins before Redcliffe became a never-ending zombie nightmare and I wasn’t able to progress, so I don’t count myself as having really played, but I pretty much know all the spoilers. And have even plotted out who I’m gonna romance when I finally do get around to it. Current plan: Alistair (while pouring one out for the F/F romance with Morrigan that could never be), Fenris and Josephine.

Also Marvel, kinda? I don’t really buy or keep up with Marvel comics anymore aside from going to see the movies. I’ll check it out, but usually it’s only on a whim. (If Agent of Asgard/JiM Loki ever get a run again, you can count on me jumping back in.)