#that's shown to be a good person in canon

[askshivanulegacy]

[ARCANE SPOILERS]

I'm waffling with whether I agree with this overall post. 😂

Headcanons are fine. They don't "damage" anything, not even when it's a stereotype. They don't erase anything. They're headcanons and cannot hurt anyone - not even if someone changes them in response to events in the show. After all, people change their orientations in real life. Yes, it might point toward a bias that it's probably good to examine. But it's entirely possible that original Jinx is aro and AU Jinx is not. Sexuality is not a necessary constant across universes or even a necessary marker of core character identity (which is not something we can measure so who the heck knows). We don't know that that interpretation isn't the correct canon. Also, maybe she's 100% straight the entire time! Or maybe she's lesbian and the other guy is trans and never said (like elsewhere in the show). No proof either way, Jinx is just so busy terrorizing people. 😂

As for Viktor: we have no actual proof he's NOT aro, either. Even up to the very end of the show, you can read this relationship as platonic. You can read it as romantic. You can read it as aro. You can read it as sexual. You can read it as asexual. The verdict is ENTIRELY in the viewer's hands. It's my decision as much as yours. There isn't enough canon evidence to confirm one way or the other. No, not even if it's "important" to be queer. If that relationship is platonic to someone, then it's platonic, and that's what's more important. If someone's viewing experience is so far in one direction that they didn't consider anything else, all it means is that, wow, they were super invested. Good for them! It doesn't "say a lot about someone." It says nothing.

There's supposedly a trans character in the show, but we're given no canon evidence for that. Most people will never know it. With no canon evidence, you get to have whatever interpretation you want and it's just as "real" and "important" and "powerful" as any other interpretation. That's the beauty of an ambiguous storyline, and also the frustration (depending on your personal point of view).

At the same time, definitely, people need to know when their interpretation is just a headcanon versus confirmed canon. Too many people act like headcanons are canon, or they act like an obvious interpretation is "weird" when really it's their own behavior that's weird. You can "deny" an interpretation in that you simply do not choose to view something that way, but you still have to acknowledge that other interpretations are possible. You also can't ignore the reality of canon.

Clearly these above posts are all for a very specific interpretation, which is super important to them. And that's fine. It's still just one headcanon, it's not a default, and importance is only in the eye of the beholder. Any other headcanon is just as valid and important.

And nothing is canon unless it's explicitly shown.

Or vice versa, everything is canon until proven otherwise. :)

Hot take and not to be a killjoy or the shipping police but people treating Viktor or Jinx's aroace headcanons as if they were canon is not the revolutionary take people think it is.

Headcanons are always all right but we have to acknowledge that they are somehow damaging when they apply to stereotypes. It might not be the case for everyone but most of the time people unconsciously assume that disability/mental illness=asexuality. These headcanons erase the freedom of attraction from people who are already seen as unable to have sexual/romantic experiences/desires, when it's completely untrue and harmful.

You can headcanon Viktor and Jinx as aroace, but I have seen people changing their minds once Viktor is no longer disabled (s2 with all of his other forms) and Jinx is no longer as mentally ill (alternate universe Powder). And it speaks wonders of how people see these characters.

"I never thought about Jinx being able to feel romantic/sexual attraction until s2!" To believe she's actually only capable of that when she's not "damaged" is incredibly disturbing. Especially since Jinx has always had a bit of a flirty personality too.

"I've always seen Viktor as asexual, I don't know why!" That's fine. You can headcanon him as ace. But I believe there is a reason behind it, most of the time, if for some inexplicable reason the "vibes" of the disabled character are making you think he's ace.

I say all of this being aroaspec myself, by the way. Headcanon all you want but going to people's posts commenting how "it's weird for you that they have romantic/sexual plots when they're clearly aroace" is not a win at all. It's a headcanon, after all, and it should be treated as such, and that's fine. But it also is damaging to spread stereotypes like these.

Of course the disabled character is asexual. Of course the mentally ill character is aromantic. It's not as revolutionary as you might think, tbh.

Fandom is not activism and it's all right to have any headcanons you want BUT some of them are filled with damaging stuff and perhaps we should look into ourselves more before treating these assumptions as something canon.

[wingedshadowfan]

⚠️arcane s2 act iii spoilers // criticism ⚠️

in caitlyn's post-war speech, she talks ambiguously of history and of ups and downs and of a story not yet over, but there's no promise for the future, no motivation to keep going, no bigger picture, no lesson learned. we're not shown much work being done either and i'm about to examine why it felt that way to me, leaving me a bit confused, somewhat unsatisfied, and deeply, profoundly sad

of course, jayce and viktor are dead. heimerdinger is gone, potentially also dead but unlike the latter two, we don't quite know what happened to him, he just kind of disappeared. i was left under the impression the were two ekkos - one for each universe, and our ekko's consciousness just changed bodies briefly due to the hexcore before heimerdinger managed to send him back to his own body in the right universe. but it seemed there was only one heimerdinger (body and soul) who'd traveled to the alternative universe as a package and lived there for a thousand years until our ekko came around in the alternative one's body, and instead of traveling back with him, heimerdinger's body and subsequently his consciousness ceased to exist. so... who's inventing things now? who's rebuilding piltover?

jinx and warwick (because there's no vander left there anymore, we made sure of that) are also presumably dead. we see how this is affecting ekko and vi, but not necessarily the undercity, for which jinx was a symbol of freedom, of unity - the perfect person who could've broken a cycle of violence, poverty and oppression. zaun doesn't get its sovereignty and seemingly loses its beacom of hope.

we see sevika as part of the council in piltover instead, but it's not like she's making merry with the other new counselors, in fact they throw her some nasty looks. and of course, i didn't expect it to be easy and it's admirable she's even there at all but unless i missed anyone, she's the only zaunite there out of 9 counselors (w/ zaun being 1/4 of piltover's population in canon afaik). i guess there's work to be done there but there was no indication of it even being able to go in a good direction, since she seems to have no backing from anyone now and again, we don't even know the extent to which the undercity managed to unify under her.

mel, a character always depicted in white and gold, an image of purity and mercy, defiant of her mother's brutality since childhood, now dons her red eyeshadow and sits on her throne on a ship for noxus. in an attempt to save her city, the city she was exhiled in to "learn" this brutality, to be hidden from the black rose from, and that's she's instead given her everything to care for (after barely getting the time to grapple with her own identity crisis and the predetermination of her fate) she's left no choice but to surrender her mother to the black rose, and watch her die in her arms. perhaps it is by virtue of noxian law she assumes her place and has to return to noxus. she leaves her beloved city in such a perilous and war-torn state, riddled with guilt and confusion. is she a wolf now? has she always been one?

ekko presumably grieves jinx by burning a piece of paper for her (my first thought was it was for heimerdinger, his "mentor" whose contributions and potential sacrifice made ekko coming back home possible, and with the time reversal device at that - but i interpreted it as being for jinx because it was in the place he kissed her alternate self in the alternative universe). what of ekko's future, of his commune? what happened to the tree getting corrupted? heimerdinger had plans to fix it with jayce's help or at least find the sickness' origin (the hexcore, yes, but we don't know if what happened to the tree got reversed), instead they found out the undercity was completely reliant on piltover's mercy for their water and air, and this knowledge seems to have died with them (bcuz i doubt ekko has the power to do anything about it).

caitlyn's looking at the kiramman house files, including city plans, potentially to rebuild things after the war but how? first of all, what are they gonna do with the hextech, the weapons, the gates, the magic in general? would they even want to try that again, and what implications would this have for piltover and zaun individually but for their precarious newly founded relationship? and secondly, she's a policewoman/detective turned anti-civil-war-commander turned just war commander, she's not an engineer or a scientist. all those ones? gone. all the people we know of who could rebuild the city in its previous progressive state are gone - jayce, viktor, heimerdinger, even jinx as a technological wildcar in vi's words. caitlyn seems to be telling the story or archiving files and plans for any future kirammans but she doesn't seem to have any work of her own to do anymore.

vi is the saddest case here, which says a lot. she's lost everything and is completely devoid of purpose. it's okay not to be okay, but what she says to caitlyn completely destroys me (and i'll do a separate, more detailed post but this shall do for now). she's depressed. easily. she's grieving jinx, humming a song her mother used to sing to them, the same one jinx was humming when we first saw her this season. when she says, "I'll always be dirt under your fingernails, cupcake." she isn't being cute, flirty, or romantic. she's being self-deprecating, indicating she deems her presence a nuisance to caitlyn, she deems herself unworthy and unwelcome in her house, but it's not like she's going anywhere. where else could she even go? caitlyn is all she has left. that's what she means when she says, "nothing's ever gonna clean me out", but perhaps even more so, she implies she's beyond repair, that she'll never be whole, never be truly okay again after this.

(the only person who got a "happy" ending, and the reason why this pisses me off is because he was truly vile and wicked and idc abt his motivations i will not be convinced otherwise, was fucking singed, who somehow got to have his immortalized robot daughter despite everything)

[year2000electronics]

about yer mario hottakes im rollin in with thoughts on the mario-luigi dynamic.

i've heard so many people go back and forth between them having this 100% perfect brotherly love VS. mario is evil and hates poor baby luigi but i think that maybe it's just they're both complex characters and mario deeply insecure

like that tennis scene where he grinds luigi's foot after luigi wins instead of him. when your whole livelihood revolves around being the kingdom's favorite boy it makes sense you might lash out at being upstaged even if that's fucked up as hell to do to anybody. and while luigi's allowed and expected to outwardly express his fears (at least from diary entries i've seen in the paper mario series and luigi's general "coward" persona), who the hell is listening to mario? he's probably seen how shit people treat luigi for being vulnerable anyway (we play as mario usually witnessing all this and like. bros are real yikes to luigi), so i'd imagine the bottled up bitterness at the world is hard to contain. resentment towards luigi for being emotionally open, resentment towards the denizens of the kingdom for treating his brother like crap when mario probably wouldn't be too different if it wasn't his job to be

i'd imagine the moments he cant contain his cool like that are deep regrets. sure, luigi would forgive him, but can he forgive himself? can mario contain himself long enough to not wig out, especially with everyone watching him 24/7?

idk if this is super off base, i don't go to this school. but imo put mario in therapy, you can't be strong for everyone all the time. you're just some guy

YEAHYEAH i think even if the middle section is YMMV i do agree with the general idea that "the bros' relationship is more complex than 'they love each other' or 'they hate each other'" . like ok. being the most BANAL of canon-compliant here to reel back my own insanity for a second. it is canon that mario gets a bit competitive with luigi/his friends! we see multiple art pieces/cutscenes depicting this

because they are siblings. and im gonna be so real here i latch onto any sort of flaw mario is ALLOWED to have due to his status as Mascot so you can pry "mario gets a bit too competitive" from my cold dead hands

he's also shown to be a bit impatient if he percieves something is taking too much time

(from super mario sunshine)

(from bowser's fury)

(from luigi's mansion 1)

so i definitely see his stubbornness and impulsivity clashing with luigi's careful methodical approach.

ALL THAT TO SAY. i think even if you're just playing by the rules, i think you don't have to JUST go for one extreme or the other. i agree. the rest is purely speculative fanon applying some depth to a character who functionally does not necessarily "need" it.

(but my personal playground space interp of mario and luigi absolutely has this sort of clashing dualism where both bros are really stressed out with the hand that life has given them and they're always thinking "my brother doesn't know how good he has it" but they love each other despite that, and that love makes them not want to talk about how they really feel, and that makes it WORSE, etc etc etc)

[oddballtumbles]

I see your point (this is well articulated, well done), and I can't speak for everyone, but in my specific case I prefer WFA because I can read the wiki summaries of the hard stuff and have some context then read the more fluffy stuff. It is also easier to access generally.

I also think you are not recognizing the dark elements that are within WFA. While yes it is comparably far lighter and less intense in a combat/etc. sense, it does deal with trauma. Like regularly shows the characters dealing with their traumas and the support they get from each other.

I like to think that the slice of life stuff that was imagined/hinted at/occasionally shown in the rest of the comics are being shown in WFA, and when you want the harder core stuff then you go back to whatever other comics. (insert both is good meme here)

I would also like to say that the idea of trying to get into any comics that are so long, so entangled, so complex, and so mixed in the level of quality is intimidating to terrifying. And that is not taking into account the difficulty to get applicable good advice for individual interests. Different runs appeal to different people so getting a recommendation from a stranger can be hard, and there can be a lot of pressure from a friend to like the same stuff they do. I'm not even getting into how toxic the fandoms can be.

(And yes that is not every fan, but that is a lot of them and as they scream louder than pretty much everyone else for some people it is safer and healthier to simply not engage.)

As someone who honestly has read varying levels of both and frankly prefers fanfiction and fan content because I prefer lol hilarity; both 'canon' and WFA are fine. It's all a matter of personal preference. My favourite batman movie is Batman & Robin (1997).

Okay I don't dislike Wayne Family Adventurers, in my head I put in the same category as gag manga. (My hero academia smash. Fullmetal alchemist 4 panels. ) It's purposely out of character and meant to cause some quick emotional reaction to the readers.

The issue I have with it.

Is that people have taken it as canon, or refused to read canon cos 'canon is so dark and angsty and sad and they hate seeing the batfam fight all the time'

The batfam are not screaming and arguing every single comic, they regularly team up. I don't know what lies you've been hearing.

But what grinds my gears.

Is they want the characters without their story. I really don't want to sound like gatekeeper but you're missing out on the core of these characters and what makes them who they are and why they are who they are.

Also there's been this lie that DC lore is changing all the time. It's not? There's shifts and retcons but it's not something you can't follow or ask for clarification.

Also the - I want the fluff and no angst- back to the spitting in the face of the characters. I hate to sound like a gatekeeper but you cannot enjoy the batfams joy if you don't see their suffering. Let me explain. In Batman and robin "11 Bruce gets Damian a 9 month old Great Dane. To help Damian open up and bond with his son. Damian is immediately displeased with this creature and later hits him when his snout gets too close to (I believe a chess board- its been awhile) the entire Nobody arc happens and Damian and Bruce start to really understand how much the other wants to try to impress the other and how they do not know how to speak to each other and are both navigating this new life of living together as father and son. When Damian passes out he tells his father the name of the puppy - "Titus" . When their wounds heal weeks later Damian and Bruce are playing fetch outside the Wayne manor with Damian's puppy. A circle has met and Damian and Bruce are becoming father and son.

In WFA Bruce just gets a puppy from a shelter and goes here you go son. And Damian's happy

Now do you understand the point I'm making.

The batfamily are a 80year long story full of angst suffering pain growth. Their souls ripped apart and stitched back together. And you don't have to read every single comic. But to turn around and say ew I just want to read this out of character, incorrect. Stereotyped fanon lies instead of the actual real soul of their comics. It's rather upsetting

WFA isn't bad but canon is absolutely beautiful and saying you prefer WFA to canon just fucking hurts

[kiwibirbkat]

I hate when people make canon love interests horrible people just so they can ship something else?? Like no, you can in fact still ship something and have them just be friends with their love interest? Or friendly ex's? Unless they're bad in canon, there's no point 😭

UNLESS YOU'RE XAVIER THORPE

I DESPISE XAVIER THORPE

FUCK YOU XAVIER 🖕🖕🖕

[sage-nebula]

Kristoph Gavin's black psyche-locks have remained unbroken for 17 slutty, slutty years.

[horsechestnut]

Reading Batgirl 2000 is making me want to write a Dark Batman fic.

[cherry-treelane]

everytime i feel bad and stressed about my life i remember that i might be in a troubling situation and having a bad time but im not season 4 fiona gallagher in the clink after leaving crack on the counter which my 3 year old baby brother happened to ingest resulting in a fatal near-death experience thats wracked me with never-ending guilt and forever altered my life

[dykedvonte]

Discussing the NCR (Fallouts NV's Military Industrial Complex)

Fallout regularly discusses the idea of the military, its faults, its strengths, and most importantly, the psycho-social aspects of it regarding those who are members. We have seen a direct critique of the military generalized through the Enclave's overt nationalism, the hoarding of resources and indoctrination through the Brotherhood of Steel, and an almost eerily modern critique of the whole military-industrial complex through the NCR in New Vegas. In these series of posts, I will be focusing primarily if not exclusively on the last one.

The NCR we see in the game is strictly the military side of things and the depiction of active occupation during a time of eminent war, conflicting factions, and resource scarcity. It is in this we are missing a major factor that negatively affects the view of the NCR in the game and out: Civilian life along with citizen opinion on the military. While we do get Mojave civilian opinion on the military (often neutral or negative) we do not get those who are New California Republic citizens, not those who actually discuss the military more so not understanding the importance of the occupation and the President's choices.

We do not see how life is regularly lived by the average citizen as we have not seen New California in New Vegas, though, we get words and glimpses that the people are relatively content in the growing country minus the fact many people are not happy with the choice of encroaching on the Mojave. This most similarly reflects it's real-world application that many civilian citizens reject acquisition and war due to the economic effects it has on the country and the general violence/loss associated.

In this, we come to an issue of losing a perspective that is unique to the NCR as a military representative. The Brotherhood is notably a place where its active members are intertwined with its efforts, the young are raised to be scribes, paladins, etc... To where even if one is not fighting for The Brotherhood, they are still intertwined, it's propaganda is the life. The Enclave is even more cut n' dry in that it is mostly made up of government representatives. It is a group even smaller than the former, even more selective and intertwined that their propaganda IS a form of Eugenics. The NCR is unique in that there is a clear distinction between what is the military force, the civilian population, and the choice if one wants to be a part of the former.

There is a distinct difference in the cultures of the factions you are born into and those you must enlist or join (forcibly for some). While this is a long-winded way to get into the actual discussion I want to facilitate throughout these posts I wanted an initial background post to understand the aspects I am and am not exploring and explaining along with a hub post to link everything I intend to discuss in the coming days and weeks, starting with:

Why Do People Join the NCR?

...which will be discussed and linked back here like everything else regarding to this topic.

Links: TBA

[eriathalia]

Devotion

[mcybree]

yknow I wasnt feeling like finishing my flower husbands essay (I feel less of a push to now that I dont technically Have To meticulously prove/justify my stance— people do just. agree with me now! which is insane) but I’m starting to think maybe it’s still needed actually

[calsvoid]

have a sebastian line of a scene i might never write because i never write in general

“I don’t think you’d like younger me very much.”

[marsbotz]

ninjago fandom when ppl stop mischaracterising wu as a one note shitty old guy and realise hes a complex character with just as much of his own trauma as everyone else in the show

[icedteaandoldlace]

K, so as much as the rest of season 1 and the entirety of season 2 would suck with Cisco being dead, now that this thought is in my head, I can't stop thinking about how wild that would be if they literally killed him off for just that period of time, with the intention of bringing him back via Flashpoint and keeping him on for the rest of the show, but making the audience think he was gone for good for a whole entire season. That would've been CRAZY, yo.

[kideternity]

Really really funny that Justimon is like now one of my all time favourite digimon everrrr but I had a really lukewarm initial reaction to them that had to slowly change and evolve to the love I have now and even then despite all that I still think all of Justimon's major media appearances/the writing for them specifically so far are is like Mid/Mediocre LMFAOOOOOO

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

The I feel like she sees me line being said to Eddie who is the person that truly sees Buck for all that he is. Are we supposed to take this line at face value which would indicate piss poor writing because they needed to rush to a horrible ending or do we take it as Buck being an unreliable narrator? What was the audience supposed to interpret from Buck saying that, were we truly supposed to believe him or we supposed to be pissed at Buck for saying this to the one person that truly sees Buck?

Good morning to me, I guess.

I'm assuming you haven't really seen people's reactions in the fandom on tumblr because I feel like I saw this said in quite a few posts going around, but you are absolutely not supposed to take this line at face value. I'm surprised that people think you should. 9-1-1 has from the beginning had a habit of turning friendships into romantic relationships (Bathena and Madney) and taking their time with these things rather than having an instalove situation. Even Karen and Hen, who meet when they're set up on a date together, don't instantly fall in love. I do not think they would set Eddie or Buck up for an endgame relationship with a woman by having them date that woman immediately, even if they didn't plan to make Buddie canon.

Buck is clearly struggling post-death. He's lost and once again looking for the answer from a romantic partner. He did a lot of growth in regards to his family relationships this season but not his romantic ones. Remember, his couch ended up destroyed and he asked his latest girlfriend to pick the new one out for him. Again. He's still not picking his own damn couch. After being unable to sleep on the one his mom gave him but passed out instantly on Eddie's where he ran to feel safe.

If people think this is all, somehow, an accident or the writers are doing this without knowing what they're doing, then I can't help you. Do you also think the symbolism I put into my fanfics are a total accident? Do you guys think I picked the name of the poem "Fuchsia Emerald Alizarin Rose" just because the colors are fun and they accidentally spell out F.E.A.R. or do you think maybe I did that absolutely 100% on purpose and was waiting for someone to realize?

Buck saying that to Eddie is 100% supposed to make the audience raise their eyebrows. Especially when we see Eddie's reaction. He's confused and he's hurt and he's annoyed. Eddie then spends his next few lines showing Buck (and us) that he sees Buck. Buck misses it, it goes right over his head, but the audience is shown that Buck is wrong and Eddie sees him.

I think there was a lot of internal stuff going on behind the scenes way high up the ladder that meant Buddie didn't happen this season. No, I don't mean that in a tinhatting way, I just mean that they knew Fox wouldn't renew them, they didn't know if they'd get picked up somewhere else, Fox hasn't promoted or cared about this show the way it has its other shows in a while, and I think it's pretty clear there was shuffling and changes going on with 6B. So I think things had to be put off. Similar to the pandemic, where I genuinely wonder what kind of season four we would've gotten if we'd had the full 18 episodes and hadn't had to work around Covid. I think that when we know there was a big shift going on behind the scenes, we need to have some grace and patience in how that will effect the story that's told on screen.

But I think that this default to "everything good we see on our screens is an accident and the writers are making shitty choices" is a horrible bad faith argument, and it's exhausting. Aren't you exhausted? I'm exhausted. Fandom shouldn't treat the writing and production team like their enemies any more than the writing and production team should treat the fans like their enemies in some kind of war they have to win (looking at you, GoT showrunners).

We are supposed to be annoyed that Buck is missing the point. We are supposed to see Buck's yearning to be a husband and a father, and how he's missing what's right in front of him. We are supposed to put two and two together and see that Eddie was hurt by Buck's words, that Eddie sees Buck, that Eddie is Buck's safe place, and that Eddie in that moment decided he might not have a chance with Buck and needs to move on, because previously we saw Eddie admit he wants romance again but he doesn't want to go out on dates, we saw his aunt say she met her husband through work, we saw him say 'we have time' and then we saw him immediately after Buck tells him about this new girl who "sees him" flee to visit his mother and then immediately actually try dating. On a meta level this is also because Eddie needs confidence in himself as a romantic partner and needs some more experience under his belt before he's ready to take the plunge with Buck, but in Eddie's mind, I think it's pretty clear he feels Buck will never want him back and he's trying to find the love he wants somewhere else, even if his heart is still Buck's.

So that's what I think. I think it's not explicitly spelled out for a few reasons, but frankly if one of them was a woman we wouldn't need it explicitly spelled out and personally I kinda like that it's not. Something that annoys me with M/F pairings is the constant "we all know you two like each other" talks from third parties that half the time aren't about the characters but are about the audience, to either tell the audience SEE THEY LIKE EACH OTHER THAT'S WHAT THIS IS ABOUT or to give the audience some fanservice while the characters aren't ready to get together. I don't need to be pandered to that way, thank you, so I'm a fan of the slightly more subtle approach that I, personally, see going on with Buddie.

If you or anyone else disagrees with me and feels it was just "piss poor writing" then that's entirely your right. I'd just appreciate it if people who feel that way would stop watching the show, and stop putting their complaints into the inboxes of people who clearly do enjoy the show.

TL;DR - You answered your own question, Buck is an unreliable narrator (and always has been) and we are supposed to be frustrated he said this to Eddie who has proven time and again (and does so in that very scene) that he sees Buck.