#noon-shadows

[mamawasatesttube]

I don't know that much about superboy so forgive me if this is a silly question but what's the deal with Magdalene Visaggio?

not a silly question, dw!! if you haven't read many kon comics it probably doesn't look particularly noteworthy but OOF. OOF.

the tl;dr of it: despite being paid to write him once, she also hasn't read kon comics and it really, really, really shows. i'm talking geoff johns levels of flagrant disregard for the existing character - maybe even worse than geoff? which i say only because i know geoff did read sb94 even if he didn't act like it. but that's off topic; this isn't a geoff hatepost. this is a magdalene hate post.

under a cut for length, lets goooo!

so we start out with her canonizing supermartian. already off on the wrong foot - that's a ship out of yja the tv show which is a completely separate continuity from main comics and a completely different kon than main continuity kon. despite supposedly knowing that, she still shoves them into a relationship in main continuity, despite them never having actually interacted on page in main continuity.

she then goes on to characterize kon as angry and entitled and uncaring, and also in high school again. not only does she directly contradict all of his preboot existing characterization (which is important because kon-el never got reset during flashpoint - he was in another universe and thus dodged that bullet. current kon-el is canonically the same kon-el as pre-flashpoint/postcrisis kon-el.), but also she directly contradicts both young justice (2019) and superboy: man of tomorrow, which are in current continuity, leading one to really wonder if she has read a single comic kon appeared in at all. it's also worth noting that the asshole with anger issues characterization is, once again, much truer to the young justice animated tv show than any comic kon.

also worth noting is that the infamous red hair dye streak? well, uh...

yeah..............

on her twitter, she once said something about kon-el not being a good name because it's "still a name someone else gave him", called him "the jason todd of the superfamily", and insisted that the meaning of a trans narrative is "burning down your life and reevaluating your place within it":

kon-el is a name gifted to him to signify his acceptance into his family (superboy (1994) #59) and he was so overjoyed to receive it that he cried. overall, the superfam are very supportive and loving, and introducing strife just to make him run off and live with jinny hex instead of them just because she thinks one can't transition and retain previous relationships is... not it, lol.

her pitch also contained some outrageously egregious christianity bullshit, like villains named "saint", "shepherd", and "savior", as well as direct comparisons between clark and jesus christ. this is... sorry i really just have to say this is Fucking Cringe. i guess the more polite way to put it would be "incredible gauche" (considering the jewish origins of the superfam) but i just can't call it anything else. This Fucking Sucks Dude. i won't even get into the weirdness about genetic bullshit she leans into by introducing kon's "brother" who's also part luthor, part superman, but "luthor-dominant" (lol?) (do you know how genes work even a little bit).

she has quoted the one panel from reign of the supermen where kon says "don't ever call me superboy" a few times, claiming it's the first thing he ever said and no one listened. to me this essentially reads as her going "i've read one of his appearances and i would like to throw out the like 200 issues of character development he had since then in favor of making him my own self-insert to explore MY transition and religious trauma".

basically she doesn't seem to know how to write a story that's not about herself. as a trans person with a positive relationship with my given name (because as a first-gen kid of two diasporic immigrants, it provides an important tie to my family's cultures, to me) and with trans friends who involved their parents in picking new names and so on and so forth, i honestly find it very reductive and white to insist there's only one trans narrative and only one good way for trans characters to be named. i also find her putting her own christian religious trauma into a superfam story off-putting and . well. fucking cringe. i understand and respect that that is her story, but it sure ain't universal and i won't be able to respect her as a writer until it becomes clear she gets that.

[librarycards]

💕❤️📖 📖❤️💕 We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson, saltslow by Julia armfield, be kind my neighbor by yugo limbo, everyone on the moon is essential personnel by julian jarboe, stories of your life by Ted chiang

thank you! added 'be kind my neighbor' to my 2024 tbr omg.

recs:

The Girl Who Was Convinced Beyond All Reason That She Could Fly, Sybil Lamb

Where We Go When All We Were is Gone, Sequoia Nagamatsu

Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi

[clownputo]

I got no new art just headcanons 💀

[unsat-and-strange]

relistening to hnoc and goddamn ashes as mordred kills it every time

[randybutternubber]

More goo kid and worker drawings for the like… one other person who remembers them. If you wanna see my first post and drawings of them plus HCs (they’re better than these I swear), you can go through the goo kid tag on my blog. And also one shadow kid snuck in

@mjrdm

I guess I’ll sprinkle in a few more HCS

In the third picture I basically just drew my idea of why the goo kid looks like a burnt up hairball covered in tar. They were chased by a worker(s) into part of the factory that had large vats of that weird goo liquid. The worker ended up attacking them, tearing one of their overall straps, and with no other choice, they took the plunge and proceeded to get lost in the sauce. Quite literally.

The goo isnt something that they can just wash off, especially since they kept putting it back on as a way to blend in with the workers. It’s kind of a part of them now.

The goo ended up blinding them in one eye when they initially fell into the vat

I guess warning for more dark HCs, although I feel like they all align with the darker content in LN

The goo is made up of whatever the workers don’t use from the body of a child, oil, tar, melted plastic and other things that you probably don’t want to be smeared on your body. After a worker kills a kid, they essentially strip their body for parts like fabric, metal or plastic from buttons, teeth, etc. basically any sort of material they can use. Most fabrics and other materials that the workers can’t use are sent up in a dumbwaiter to the chained lady so that she can hopefully find a use for them. Most of the organic parts of the kid can’t be used, so they burn them in a furnace that’s very similar to the one in the maw. It likely has a hand in powering the factory as well. The ash is then processed with some other materials to create the goo. This goo plus some other bullshit or something is how workers are made.

Something something pink sauce McDonald’s

If you actually look at the factory/stone giant as a whole, a lot of it doesn’t actually make sense or should work logically. There are a lot of machines that just shit out their products into god knows where and a lot of them are just needlessly complicated

The reason why goo kid adjusted so well to life in the factory is that they were taken to the nowhere at a relatively young age. The incident with the vat happened shortly after they arrived. They basically grew up among the workers, and while they aren’t really friendly towards them, they aren’t outright aggressive unless they mess with the machines. They probably see them as a defective worker or something.

All workers have mouths, but not all of them have permanently exposed teeth

Workers are VERY fast and able to react quickly, especially to light, but they do still sometimes get limbs torn off by the machine. All workers are ambidextrous, as in they do not have a dominant hand and can use both with an equal amount of skill, so they usually just use their other hand, but since they sometimes use two tools at once, they might use their mouth to carry it or tie it to whatever is left of their arm. The goo can stick to it, but they will usually tear off part of their overalls (most commonly the leg parts/cuffs which is why a lot of workers have torn short overalls) until it grows back.

Goo kid got most of their food from the upper levels of the stone giant- just eating whatever was thrown down into the trash

Workers do eat- but not for sustenance. They use their stomachs as just a place to store stuff. it’s mainly because not all of them have tool belts or pockets, so they might swallow down some nuts (don’t) or bolts or other small objects so they can regurgitate them while working.

Most workers start out decked in the same or very similar clothing (overalls, tool belt, hammer, wrench, etc) but they like to steal from each other, plus it’s a factory setting, and it’s very common for them to get their clothes ripped. Workers do occasionally get new clothing, and while they are somewhat of a hive mind, they do vary in personality, especially when away from others. Some workers also differ visually. They can have all different lengths of hair, unless it’s ridiculously long and gets stuck, which usually isn’t a problem though as the goo mats their hair. Different overalls are usually because the person who makes them, (chained lady or the really weird doll with the sewing machine) sometimes use different materials or different styles

Workers are highly flammable, but do not react if set on fire unless the fire is damaging a machine. Unlike shadow kids who are very scared of fire, workers really just don’t care. It doesn’t hurt them like light does.

Workers are a bit larger than most LN children, it’s just that goo kid is small because he’s younger/just short which might give the appearance in the images of them being a lot bigger

Goo kid wears worker’s overalls but they’re sinched since they’re quite short

Workers can climb on all fours on sheer drops while facing downwards since their feet can twist the other way, similar to a few kinds of cats who can also do this

[ohposhers]

here in the woke garden naughty chao get put in the chao destroyer 9000

[soukeyed]

also . a small compilation of stuff from maybe september - now when i was still trying (and occasionally failing) to get a handle on these guys

[guess-i-do-art]

You know those chocolate covered coffee beans? I feel like those would be Shadow’s favorite desert type thing.

Except he only eats the like 80% dark chocolate cacao ones. Otherwise they’re too sweet for his taste.

[wheresmyfuckingchair]

Me stopping HNOC during “Justice” at exactly 1 minute and 15 seconds in:

Wow gee golly I love this album. It’s my favorite. I’m so glad they all live happily and no one goes flying into the sun! Such a cute and wholesome story of love and perseverance!

[calypsolemon]

something about the way Kitty can't help but end up trusting and loving others despite all the ways she has been hurt, and her own insistence that she does not trust others. The way that she so naturally falls into trusting Puss when he shows a modicum of honesty and genuine emotion to her.

I think Kitty is someone who has a lot of love in her heart, a fact she hates about herself because it leads to her getting burned quite often. She feels like she cannot ever truly practice what she preaches and just stay away from caring. Even, towards the end, she gives up her wish to Puss, not because she thinks he deserves it more, but because at that point, even wishing for someone to trust feels like a failure on the part of herself to just learn her damn lesson and stay away.

Which is why it is so important that she finally gets what she needs through Puss. That she witnesses him fighting for his life instead of running, fighting for his right to love her for the short time on this earth that he has left. She needed to hear this from somebody, that she is worth caring about. More than just a cute pet that looses its luster when it starts scratching the furniture, more than just a fleeting fancy abandoned the moment something goes wrong. She finally has someone tell her she is worth recieving the love and trust she so easily gives, in equal measure.

[hide-your-bugs-away]

The Animal-squad and I are seeing Peter Noone from Herman's Hermits tonight!! 😎🐾✨️

[mamawasatesttube]

Do you have thoughts on how kon would be as a big brother to Chris and Jon? I've read Chris and Jon's comics and I'm writing a thing with them but I want to have their big brother be part of their character/internal problem solving even if he doesn't (as of yet) appear. But I've only read yj and superboy is unfinished/on my tbr so I'm going to the Expert

(If you have any thoughts opinions on Kara's familial relationships you can include those as well)

OOH OOH YES DO I EVER!!!!!

every time i think about kon as a big brother i immediately think of sb94 annual #2, which opens on kon taking a kid flying for his birthday and joking about him being superboy jr., kind of like his little brother. then we move to cadmus, where it turns out the prototypical experiment #1 (whereas kon was #13) has awoken and escaped his containment pod. he fights kon briefly, believing himself to be/wanting to be the "real" superboy, but is injured and collapses in kon's arms afterwards. it turns out he's not stable outside the pod and is dying; despite kon's best efforts to get the cadmus doctors to save him, he only lasts another few minutes. i'm personally never ever getting over kon's face when it happens (right after they both find out their dna donor was paul westfield):

SO!! with that being established backstory: i think kon would be soooo excited to be a big brother. he'd talk a big game and want the kids to think he's cool, and of course, he's a mega dork (he'd try to get them both into wendy, and if they didn't like it, he'd be offended). but imo, he's also gonna be so protective of them right off the bat, in large part because of poor clone #1. he's got a lot of feelings about people he's gotta protect, and little siblings are sooo high on that list.

one thing is that i don't think kon really thinks of clark as his dad. of course, it depends on the point in the timeline where you're really introducing chris and jon (because like kon was dead by the point of last son introducing chris, and fitting jon into new earth is always a fun puzzle), but (to be clear this is to an extent my hc also) by the time he's living with the kents, kon no longer wants superman to be his dad. i do think he does at first ("i wish i had parents" in sb94 #85 paired with how reactive he is about shooting down superman being his dad in sb94 #94), but when he moves in with the kents that dies down pretty fast. but he'd way rather the kids call him their big brother than, like, their uncle. that's so uncool (haha see, 'cuz uncle sounds kind of like uncool--aw, whatever)!!! it makes him sound so OLD!!!! he's not an uncle!!!

so overall i think it's like. he's a fun-loving and protective figure. they probably think he's So cool for a while, then get a little older and go oh wait. that's a dorklord. i do think jon throws one hell of a tantrum the day he finds out he's never gonna get ttk even if he grows into all the other kryptonian powers, though.

(i also hc that chris can get some weird funky powers other than ttk, not ttk itself, bc its like... kon is THE ttk guy, and thats a metagene designed to emulate kryptonian powers, so it feels a little weird to take something that specific and give it to another character who doesn't have any of the narrative reasons to need it. someone who knows more abt editorial please do correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm pretty sure they only gave chris ttk because prior to infinite crisis, the nightwing in new krypton shown to be using ttk was supposed to be kon, and was changed last-minute into chris.)

so like, he'd be a figure they can count on, someone they regard as always in their corner if they yell for him. he'll take the heat if they get in trouble (he spoils them. lois however has a very uncanny ability to tell if kon's taking the blame for something they did). i think as they grow older they might be like ...why's kon our brother but he doesn't live with us? and doesn't call our parents mom and dad? because kon stays with the kents but just hangs out with them all the time, and he calls clark and lois "clark and lois", and understanding that their family isn't nuclear might be a learning curve for them.

as for kara, i'll try and keep it brief bc this is already long i'm so sorry sdkhj but i generally operate in the realm of postcrisis kara, aka linda lang. she's roughly the same age as kon and she's got a Lot of feelings re: new krypton and her own guilt and her duty to her family, as well as whether she as supergirl can really measure up to superman. i love her. i think she would Adore having baby cousins because they mean her family is growing, after all the people she's lost. that said i think it's very possible she's a little awkward with kids because she just doesn't have that much experience with them. but i think she'd teach them to draw, and she'd really earnestly try with both of them. she'd LOVE to teach them about krypton, too.

[roselyn-writing]

I wanna talk about Aliyaa's new pet/friend; So, She has A Black Norwegian forest cat, A Dark-turquoise griffin and now a dark horse! It isn’t a real horse of course, She made it from her dark magic, pure shadow / umbrakinesis, When it runs or walks its black essence breaks by the air and the winds and it gives a smokey effect which it gives a dead giveaway that is not a real being at all. I know that I tagged this Shadow Horse / Dark Horse as ‘Nox’ but I’m torn between ‘Nox’ and ‘Layl’ which means in Arabic: ‘The Night’ Nox means: Darkness.

Inspired by Pitch Black from rise of the Guardians and HighNoon Ashe skin from league of legends.

[thefreelanceangel]

[ssaanaaloves]

[randybutternubber]

I’ve noticed a distinct lack of love for the kid from the first ep of TSON who helped noone and the workers, so here’s some art with some HCS (Kid on the left, I’ll just call them goo kid, worker on the right)

Random goo kid HCS

Goo kid fell into a vat of some weird ass shit shadow goop in the factory

They use this to their advantage to basically blend in with the workers

Goo kid is around 6 to 7 years old and was relatively young when they were taken to the nowhere

Because of the factory having a lot of darker areas and the goop messsing with their eyes, they don’t have great vision and they’re nearly blind in one eye. They also have some hearing issues due to basically getting exposed to loud ass factory equipment constantly. Due to this, they’re very tactile and they often try to hold the hands or touch the faces of other children, but it’s often met with rejection due to often getting mistaken as a worker and usually not properly asking to do so. Their sense of smell is also pretty fried

Goo kid is mostly non-verbal and has a very limited vocabulary as a result of being taken so young and spending most of their time around the workers who don’t speak

The workers often try to give them tools like hammers and wrenches, thinking that they’re another worker

Even if a worker realizes they’re not one of them, they tend to not be very aggressive towards them because they’re very used to them being there. They’re mainly aggressive when goo kid is with another child or gets too close to the machinery

Goo kid’s clothes were taken from a worker. Most of them wear workers overalls, but it’s very common for the overalls to be heavily damaged as the shadow goop stuff isn’t that good when on fabric and they’re often torn by machinery

Because of lack of exposure to light, goo kid has pretty pale skin, which is also very sensitive to the sun, along either their eyes

Worker head canons

Workers act smarter when alone/in small groups and show a lot more individual personality as well. When they’re in groups, the hive mind kind of takes over and they become completely engrossed in keeping the factory running. This is why they tend to act quite dull/stupid when together, but the individual workers seemed to stalk/observe Noone and goo kid before striking

Like nomes, workers do hoard items, often in their pockets/pouches or tool belts if they have one, but they also like to hoard items in their own little nooks and crannies



They sometimes accidentally (or purposefully) steal each other’s tools while working, and yes, they will brawl over a wrench, but they often don’t notice/don’t know who took it

Workers can coalesce into far bigger shadow amalgamations, but it can only occur in very low light conditions, and only if the situation is bad

They have great eyesight in the dark and can see a ton of detail when up close, but otherwise, their vision is quite poor. Their hearing, on the other hand, is excellent, and like birds when they call, their ears have a sort of shadow muscle something something like that that closes when near loud machinery. This is another reason why goo kid doesnt talk besides being primarily non verbal and why they stop noone from speaking. Their hearing also helps with noticing if a machine needs fixing

Workers walk on their toes and their feet are rarely flat on the ground. This, coupled with their claws causes them to have a unique sounding footstep

Their toes/feet are very flexible, allowing them to scramble around and climb quite well

Their arms are proportionally longer since they often work with tools that are quite large for them

Workers can scramble around on all fours quite effectively

Some of them have exposed teeth

They often grab goo kid/lead him “back to the group” when they find them far away from where most of the workers are. It makes exploring difficult, but if goo kid gets stuck/lost, it can be very helpful

Goo kid is a bit scared of the workers, but because they tend to just think they’re another worker, they aren’t absolutely terrified

Singular workers are generally more playful and curious. They’re also more likely to notice something is different about goo kid. They poke them and sometimes try to apply some of the shadow goop to their face thinking that there’s something wrong with him